IA´s Journal

[IA56]

The Dreamer of the Dream

Suffering is an emphasis upon all that the world has done toinjure you. Here is the world´s demented version of salvarion clearly shown.Like to a dream of punishment, in which the dreamer is unconscious of whatbrought on the attack against himself, he sees himself attacked unjustly and bysomething not himself. He is the victim of this ”something else,”a thingoutside himself, for which he has no reason to be held responsible. He must beinnocent because he knows not what he does, but what is done to him. Yet is hisown attack upon himself apparent still, for it is he who bears the suffering.And he cannot escape because its source is been outside himself. Now you arebeing shown you can escpe. All that is needed is you look upon the problem asit is, and not the way that you have set it up. How could there be another wayto solve a problem that is very simple, but has been obscured by heavy cloudsof complication, which were made to keep the problem unresolved? Without theclouds the problem will emerge in all its primitive simplicity. The choice willnot be difficult, because the problem is absurb when clearly seen. No one hasdifficulty making up his mind to let a simple problem be resolved it it is seenas hurting him, and also very easily removed. The ”reasoning” by which theworld is made, on which it rests, by which it is maintained, is simply this:”You are hte cause of what I do. Your presence justifies my wrath, and youexist and think apart from me. While you attack I must be innocent. And what Isuffer from is your attack.” No one who looks upon this ”reasoning” exactly asit is could fail to see it does not follow and it makes no sense. Yet it seemssensible, because it looks as if the world were hurting you. And so it seems asif there is no need to go beyond the obvious in terms of cause. There is indeeda need. The world´s escape from condemnation is a need which those within theworld are joined in sharing. Yet they do not recongnize their common need. For eachone thinks that if he does his part, the condemnation of the world will rest onhim. 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´s hand, if he would be avictim of attack hed id not choose. And thus he suffers from the wounds a knifehe does not hold has made upon himself. This is the purpose of the world hesees. And looked at thus, the world provides the means by which this purposeseems to be fulfilled. The means attest the purpose, but are not themselves acause. Nor will the cause be changed by seeing it apart from its effects. Thecause produces the effects, which then bear witness to the cause, and notthemselves. Look, then, beyond effects. It is not here the cause of suffering andsin must lie. Adn dwell not on the suffering ans sin, for they are butreflections of their cause. The part you play in salvaging the world fromcondemnation is your own escape. Forget not that the witness to the world ofevil cannot speak except for what has seen a need for evil in the world. Andthis is where your guilt was first beheld. In separation from your brother wasthe first attack upon yourself again. And it is this the world bears witnessto. Seek not another cause, nor look among the mighty legions of its witnessesfor its undoing. They support its claim on your allegiance. What conceals thetruth is not where you should look to find the truth. The witnesses to sin allstand within one little space. And it is here you find the cause of yourperspective on the world. Once you were unaware of what the cause of everythingthe world appeared to thrust upon you, univited and unasked, must really be. Ofone thing you were sure: of all the many causes you perceived as bringing painand suffering to you, your guilt was not among them. Nor did you in any wayrequest them for yourself. This is how all illusions came about. The one whomakes them does not see himself as making them, and their reality does notdepend on him. Whatever cause they have is something quite apart from him, andwhat he sees is separate from his mind. He cannot doubt his dream´s reality,because he does not see the part he plays in making them and making them seemreal. No one can waken from a dream the world is dreaming for him. He becomes apart of something else´s dream. He cannot choose to waken from a dream hed id notmake. Helpless he stands, a victim to a dream conceived and cherished by aseparate mind. Careless indeed of him this mind must be, as thoughtless of hispeace and happiness as is the weather or the time of day. It loves him not, butcasts him as it will in any role that satisfies its dream. So little is hisworth that he is but a dancing shadow, leaping up and down according to asenseless plot conceived within the idle dreaming of the world. This is the onlypicutere you can see; the one alternative that you can choose, the otherpossiblity of cause, if you be not the dreamer of your dreams. And this is whatyou choose if you deny the cause of suffering is in your mind. Be glad indeedit is, for thus are you the one decider of your destiny in time. The choice isyours to make between a sleeping death and dreams of evil or a happy wakeningand joy of life. What could you choose between but life or death, waking orsleeping, peace or war, your dreams or your reality? This is a risk of thinkingdeath is peace, because the world equates the body with the Self Which Godcreated. Yet a thing can never be its opposite. And death is opposite to peace,because it is the opposite of life. And life is peace. Awaken and forget allthoughts of death, and you will find you have the peace of God. Yet if the choiceis really given you, then you must see the cause of the things you choosebetween exactly as they are and where they are. What choice can be made betweentwo states, but one of which is clearly recognized? Who could be free to choosebetween effects, when only one is seen as up to him? And honest choice couldnever be perceived as one in which the choice as split between a tiny you andan enormous world, with different dreams about the trust in you. The gapbetween reality and dreams lies not between the dreaming of the world is but apart of your own dream you gave away, and saw as if it were its start andending, both. Yet was it started the part you see and do not doublt is real.How could you doubt it while you lie asleep, and dream in secret that its causeis real? A brother separated from yourself, an ancient enemy, a murdere whostalks you in the night and plots your death, yet plans that it be lingeringand slow; of this you dream. Yet underneath this dream is yet another, in whichyou become the murderer, the secret enemy, the scavenger and the destroyer ofyour brother and the world alike. Here is the cause of suffering, the spacebetween your little dreams 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 beundone. You are the dreamer of the world of dreams. No other cause it has, norever will. Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God´s Son, andmade him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made warupon himself. So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he could not waken toreality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless agentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed hiss calmer mind to welcome,not to fear, the Voice That calls with love to waken him. God willed he wakengently and with joy, and gave him means to waken without fear. Accept the dreamHe gave instead of yours. It is not difficult to change a dream when once thedreamer has been recongized. Rest in the Holy Spirit, and allow His gentledreams to take a place of those you dreamed in terror and in fear of death. Hebrings forgiving dreams, in which the choice is not who is the murderer and whoshall be the victim. In the dreams He brings there is no murder and there is nodeath. The dream of guilt is fading from your sight, although you eyes areclosed. A smile has come to lighten up your sleeping face. The sleep is peacfulnow, for these are happy dreams. Dream softly of your sinless brother, whounites with you in holy innocence. And from this dream the Lord of Heaven willHimself awaken His beloved Son. Dream of your brother´s kindnesses instead ofdwelling in your dreams on his mistakes. Select his thoughtfulness to dreamabout instead of counting up the hurts he gave. Forgive him his illusions, and givethanks to him for all the helpfulness to dream about instead of counting up thehurts he gave. Forgive him his illusions, and givet hanks to him for all thehelpfulness he gave. And do not brush aside his many gifts because he is notperfect in your dreams. He represents his Father, Whom you see as offering bothlife and death to you. Brother, He gives but life. Yet what you see as gifts toyou. Let all your brother´s gifts be seen in light of charity and kindnessoffered you. And let no pain disturb your dream of deep appreciation for hisgifts to you.

Love

[IA56]

The ”Hero” of the Dream

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 itacts if it were a person to be seen and be believed. It takes the central placein every dream, which tells the story of how it was made by other bodies, borninto the world outside the body, lives a little while and dies, to be united inthe dust with other bodies dying like itself. In the brief time allotted it tolive, it seeks for other bodies as its friends and enemies. Its safety is itsmain 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 itselfits pains and joys are different and can be told apart. The dreaming of theworld takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to prove it isautonomous and real. It puts things on itself that it has brought with littlemetal discs or paper strips the world proclaims as valuable and real. It worksto get them, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless thingsit does not need and does not even want. It hires other bodies, that they mayprotect it and collect more senseless things that it can call its own. It looksabout for special bodies that can share its dream. Sometimes it dreams it is acomqueror of bodies weaker than itself. But in some phases of the dream, it isthe slave of bodies that would hurt and torture it. The body´s serialadventures, from the time of birht to dying is the theme of eveyr dream theworld has ever had. The ”hero” of this dream will never change, nor will itspurpose. Though the dream itself takes many forms, and seems to show a greatvariety of places and events wherein its ”hero” finds itself, the dream has butone purpose, taught in many ways. This single lesson does it try to teachagain, and still again, and yet once more; that it is cause and not effect. Andyou are its effect, and cannot be its cause. Thus are you not the dreamer, butthe dream. And so you wander idly in and out of place and events that itcontrives. That this is all the body does is true, for it is but a figure in adream. But who reacts to figures in a dream unless he sees them as if they werereal? The instant that he sees them as they are they have no more effects onhim, because he understands he gave them their effects by causing them andmaking them seem real. How willing are you to escape effects of all the dreamsthe world has ever had? Is ti your wish to let no dream appear to be the causeof what it is you do? Then let us merely look upon the dream´s beginning forthe part you see is but the second part, whose cause lies in the first. No oneasleep and dreaming in the world remembers his attack upon himself. No onebelieves there really was a time when he knew nothing of a body, and couldnever have conceived this world as real. He would have seen at once that thereideas are one illusion, too ridiculous for anything but to be laughed away. Howserious they now appear to be! And no one can remember when they would have metwith laughter and with disbelief. We can remember this, if we but look directlyat their cause. And we will see the grounds for laughter, not a cause for fear.Let us return the dream he gave away unto dreamer, who perceives the dream asseparate from himself and done to him. Into eternity, where all is one, therecrept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In hisforgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of bothaccomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them both away, andunderstand that time cannot intrude upon eternity. It is a joke to think thattime can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is no time. Atimlessness in which is time made real; a part of God that can attack itself; aseparate brother as an enemy ; a mind within a body all are forms ofcircularity whose ending starts at its beginning, ending at its cause. Theworld you see depcits exactly what you thought you did. Except that now youthink that what you did is being done to you. The guilt for what you thought isbeing placed outside yourself, and on a guilty world that dreams your dreamsand 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 allthe sinful things the body does within its dream. You have no power to make thebody stop its evil deeds because you did not make it, and cannot control itsactions nor its purpose nor its fate. The world but demonstrates an ancienttruth; you will believe that others do to you exactly what you think you did tothem. But once deluded into blaming them you will not see the cause of whatthey do, because you want the guilt to rest on them. How childish is thetetulant device to keep your innocence by pushing guilt outside yourself, butnever letting go! It is not easy to perceive the jest when all around you doyour eyes behold its heavy consequences, but without their trifling cause.Without the cause do its effects seem serious and sad indeed. Yet they butfollow. And it is their cause that follows nothing and is but a jest. In gentlelaughter does the Holy Spirit perceive the cause, and looks not to effects. Howelse could He correct your error, who have overlooked the cause entirely? Hebids you bring each terrible effect to Him that you may look together on itsfoolish cause and laugh with Him a while. You judge effects, but He has judgedtheir cause. And by His judgment are effects removed. Perhaps you come intears. 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 yourlaughter and your brother´s joined with His. The secret of salvation is butthis: That you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of theattack, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain andsuffering you feel, this is still true. For you could not react at all tofigures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. This single lesson learnedwill set you free from suffering, whatever form it takes. The Holy Spirit willrepeat this one inclusive lesson of deliverance until it has been learned,regaredless ot the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt youbring to Him He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this oneanswer takes away the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The formaffects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the singel cause ofall of them, no matter what their form. And you will understand the miracle reflectthe simple statement, ”I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.”Bring, then, all forms of suffering to Him Who knows that every one is like therest. He sees no difference where none exist, and He will teach you how eachone is caused. None has a different cause from all the rest, and all of themare easily undone by but a single lesson truly learned. Salvation is a secretyou have kept but from yourself. The universe proclaims it so. Yet to itswitnesses you pay no heed at all. For they attest the thing you do not want toknow. They seem to keep it secret from you. Yet you need but learn you chosebut not to listen, not to see. How differently will you perceive the world whenthis is recongnized! When you forgive the world your guilt, you will be free otit. Its innocence does not demand your guilt, nor does your guiltlessness reston its sins. This is the obvious; a secret kept from no one but yourself. Andit is this that has maintained you separate from the world, and kept yourbrother separate form you. Now need you but to learn that both of you areinnocent or guilty. The one thing that is impossible is that you be unlike eachother; that they both be true. This is the only secret yet to learn. And itwill be no secret you are healed.

Love

[IA56]

THE UNDOING OF FEAR
The Present Memory

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 little 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. 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 preception, being its past tense. It is perception of the past as if it were occuring now, and still were there to see. Memory, like perception,is a skill made 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 tobe means for something else. It can be used to heal and not to hurt, if you so wish it be. 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, that 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 purpose for which they have been made. They are but skills without an application. They await their use. They have no dedication and no aim. The Holy Spirit can indeed make use of memory, for God Himself is there.Yet this is not a memory of past events, but only of a present state. 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 guite apart from time. He does not seek to use it asa means to keep the past, but rather as a way to let it go. Memory holds the message it receives, and does what it is given 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 gives youpictures of injustices and hurts that you were saving, this is what you askedits message he and that it is. Committed to its vaults, the history of all thebody´s past is hidden there. All of the strange associations made to keep the pastalive, the present dead, are stored witin it, waiting your command that they bebrought to you, and lived again. And thus do their effects appear to beincreased by time, which took away their cause. Yet time is but another phaseof what does nothing. It works hand in hand with all the other attributes withwhich you seek to keep concealed the truth about yourself. Time neither takesaway nor can restore. And yet you make strange use of it, as if the past hadcaused the present, which is but a consequence in which no change can be madepossible because its cause has gone. Yet change must have a cause that willendure, or else it will not last. No change can be made in the present if its causeis past. Only the past is held in memory as you make use of it, and so it is away to hold the past against the now. Remember nothing that you taughtyourself, for you were badly taught. And who would keep a senseless lesson inhis mind, when he can learn and can preserve a better one? When ancientmemories of hate appear, remember that their cause is gone. And so you cannotunderstand what they are for. Let not the cause that you would givet hem now bewhat it was that made them what they were, or seemed to be. Be glad that it isgone, for this is what you would be pardoned from. And see, instead, the neweffects of cause accepted now, with consequences here. They will surpise youwith their loveliness. The ancient new ideas they bring will be the happy consequensesof a cause so ancient that it far exeeds to span of memory which yourperception sees. This is the Cause of Holy Spirit has remembered for you, whenyou would forget. It is not past because He let it not be unremembered. It hasnever changed, because there never was a time in which Hed id not keep Itsafely in your mind. Its consequences will indeed seem new, because you thoughtthat 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 Son. What youremember never was. It came from causelessness which you confused with cause.It can deserve but laughter, when you learn you have remembered consequencesthat were causeless and could never be effects. The miracle reminds you of aCause forever present, perfectly untouched by time and interference. Neverchanged from what It is. And you are Its effects, and changeless and as perfectas Itself. Its memory does not lie in past, nor waits the future. It is notrevealed in miracles. They bu tremind you that It will no longer be denied. Youwho have sought to lay a judgment on your own Creator cannot understand it isnot He Who laid a judgment on His Son. You would deny Him His effects, yet havethey never been denied. There was no time in which His Son could be condemnedfor what was causeless and against His Will. What your remembering wouldwitness to is but the fear of God. He has not done the thing you fear. No morehave you. And so your innocence has not been lost. You need no healing to behealed. In quietness, see in the miracle a lesson in allowing Cause to have ItsOwn effects, and doing nothing that would interfere. The miracle comes quietlyinto the mind that stops an instant and is still. It reaches gently from thatquiet time, and from the mind it healed is quiet then, to other minds to shareits quietness. And they will join in doing nothing to prevent its radiantextension back into the Mind Which caused all minds to be. Born out of sharing,there can be no pause in time to cause the miracle delay in hastening to allunquiet minds, and bringing them an instant´s stillness, when the memory of Godreturns to them. Their own remembering is quiet now, and what has come to takeits place will not be wholly unremembered afterwards. He to Whom time is givenoffers thanks for every quiet instant given Him. For in that instant is God´smemory allowed to offer all its treasures to the Son of God, from whom theyhave been kept. How gladly does He offer them unto the one from whom He hasbeen given them! And His Creator shares His thanks, because He would not bedeprived of His effects. The instant´s silence that His Son accepts givenwelcome to eternity and Him, and lets Them enter where They would abide. For inthat instant does the Son of God do nothing that would make himself afraid. Howinstantly the memory of God arises in the mind that has no fear to keep thememory away! Its own remembering has gone. There is no past to keep its fearfulimage in the way of glad awakening to present peace. The ♥♥♥♥♥ets of eternityresound throughout the stillness, yet disturb it not. And what is nowremembered is not fear, but rather is the Cause that fear was made to renderunremembered and undone. The stillness speaks in gentle sounds of love the Sonof God remembers from before his own remembering came in between the presentand the past, to shut them out. Now is the Son of God at last aware of presentCause and Its bening effects. Now does he understand what he has made iscauseless, having 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 Causeis Its effects. There never was a cause beside it that could tenerate adifferent past or future. Its effects are changelessly eternal, beyond fear,and past the world of sin entirely. What has been lost, to see the causelessnot? And where is sacrifice, when memory of God has come to take the place ofloss? What better way to close the little gap between illusions and realitythan to allow the memory of God to flow across it, makein it a bridge aninstant will suffice to reach beyond? For God has closed it with Himself, Hismemory has not gone by, and left a stranded Son forever on a shore where he canglimpse another shore that he can never reach. His Father wills that he belifted up and gently carried over. He has built the bridge, and it is He Whowill transport His Son across it. Have no fear that He will fail in what Hewills. Nor that you be excluded from the Will that is for you.

Love

[IA56]

Reversing Effect and Cause

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. 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 of limitaiton. Thus is purity not 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. 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 isLove´s effect, and must be cause because of wht he is. The cause of healing isthe only Cause of everything. It has but one effect. And in the recognition,causelessness is given no effects and none is seen. A mind within a body and aworld 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 belike them. 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, awaken you, butmerely shows you who the dreamer is. It teaches you there is a choice of dreamswhile you are still asleep, depending on the purpose of your dreaming. Do youwish for dreams of healing, or for dreams of death? A dream is like a memory inthat it pictures what you wanted shown to you. An empty storehouse, with anopen door, holds all your shreds of memories and dreams. Yet if you are thedreamer, you perceive this much at least: That you have caused the dream, andcan 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 notlike. It is but an effect that you have caused, and you would not be cause ofthis effect. In dreams of murder and attack are you the victim in a dying bodyslain. But in forgiving dreams is no one asked to be the victim and thesufferer. These are the happy dreams the miracle exchanges for your own. Itdoes not ask you make another; only that you see you made the one you wouldexchange for this. This world is causeless, as is every dream, that anyone hasdreamed within the world. No plans are possible, and no design exists thatcould be found and understood. What else could be expected from a thing thathas 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, andit is this you cannot do. The dreamer of a dream is not awake, but does notknow he sleeps. He sees illusions of himself as sick or well, depressed ofhappy, but without a stable cause with guaranteed effects. The miracleestablishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is acrusial step in dealing with illusions. No one is afraid of them when heperceives he made them up. The fear was held in place because hed id not seethat he was author of the dream, and not a figure in the dream. He giveshimself the consequences that he dreams he gave his brother. And it is but thisthe dream has put together and has offended him, to show him that his wisheshave been done. Thus does he fear his own attack, but sees it as another´shands. As victim, he is suffering from its effects, but not their cause. Heauthored not his own attack, and he is innocent of what he caused. The miracledoes nothing but to show him that he has done nothing. What he fears is causewithout the consequences that would make it cause. And so it never was. Theseparation started with the dream the Father was deprived of His effects, and powerlessto keep them since He was no longer their Creator. In the dream, the dreamermade himself. But what he made was turned against him, taking on the role ofits creator, as the dream have hated him. His body is their slav which theyabuse because the motives he has given it have they adopted as their own. Andhate it for the vengeance it would offer them. It is their vengeance on thebody which appears to prove the dreamer could not be the maker of the dream.Effects and cause are first split off, and then reversed, so that effects becomesa cause; the cause, effect. This is the separation´s final step, with whichsalvation, which proceeds to go the other way, begins. This final step is aneffect of what has gone before, appearing as a cause. The miracle is the firststep in giving back to cause the function of causation, not effect. For theconfusion has produced the dream, and while it lasts will wakiening be feared.Nor will the call to wakening be heard, becasue it seems to be the call to fear.Like every lesson that the Holy Spirit requests you learn, the miracle isclear. It demonstrates what He would have you learn, and shows you its effectsare what you want. In His forgiving dreams are the effects of your undone, andhated enemies perceived as friends with merciful intent. Their enmity is seenas causeless now, because they did not make it. And you can accept the role ofmaker of their hate, because you see that it has no effects. Now are you freedfrom this much of the dream; the world is neutral, and the bodies that stillseem to move about as separate things need not be feared. And so they are notsick. The miracle returns the cause of fear to you who made it. But it alsoshows that, having no effects, it is not cause, because the function ofcausation 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, or what it made. Yet half thelesson will not teach the whole. The miracle is useless if you learn but thatthe body can be healed, for this is not the lesson it was sent to teach. Thelesson is the mind was sick that thought the body coud be sick; projecting outits guilt caused nothing, and had no effects. This world is full of miracles.They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sinand 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 gladeffects of taking back the consequence of sickness to its cause. The body isreleased because the mind acknowledges ”this is not done to me, but I am doingthis.” And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead. Beginninghere, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descentto separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder done, and allthe dreaming of the world undone.

Love

[IA56]

The Agreement to Join

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 dremed.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. If you withhold agreement ande 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 that 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. Do not allow your brother to be sick, for if he is, have you abandoned him to hiss own dream by sharing it with him. He has not seen tthe cause of sickness where it is, and you have overlooked the gap between you, where the sickness has been bred. Thus are you joined insickness, to preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherised, 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 itis His coming that you want above all things that seem to glister in the dream.The end of dreaming is the end of fear, and love has never in the world of dreams. The gap is little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every formof 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 al lthe 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 spearation,not the body, which is only its effect. Yet separation is but empty space,enclosing nothing, doing nothing, and as unsubstantial as the empty Place between the ripple s 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. 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? Where are the grounds for sickness when the minds have joined to close the little 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 seeds of sicknessand the shame of guilt He cannot bridge, for He can not 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.Count, then, the silver miracles and golden dreams of happiness as all thet reasures you would keep within the storehouse of the world. The door is open,not the thieves, but to your starving brothers, who mistook for gold the shining of a pebble, and who stored a heep 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?Be not afraid, but let your world be lit by 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 that you 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. 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 gapin which abudance falters and grows thin. Here can the lean years enter not, fortime 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.

Love

[IA56]

The Greater Joining

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 of 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 is yours. So do you both becomei llusions, and without identity. You could be anyone of anything, depending on whos evil dream you share. You can be sure of just one thing; that you are evil, for you share in dreams of fear. 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 part from them, but not apart from him who dreams them. Thus you separate the dreamer from the dream, and join in 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. 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 your shave 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. Therefore release him, merely by your claim on brotherhood, and not a dream of fear. Let him acknowledge whohe is, by not supporting his illusions by your faith, but 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 dream. 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 dreams, instead of dreamer of your own.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 dream are yours because you lett hem be. But if you took your own away would he be free of them, and o fhis own as well. Your dream are witnesses to his, and his attest the truth of yours. Your dream are witnessesto his, and his attest the truth of yours. Yet if you see there is no truth in yours, his dream will go, and he will understand what made the dream. 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 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. The Holy Spirit´s function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God and put the space 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 that he insisted was himself. And when he sees this picture he will recongnize himself. If you share not your brother´s evil dream, this is the picture that the miracle will Place within the gap, left clean of all the seeds of sickness oand of sin. And here the Father will receive His Son, because His Son was gracious to himself. 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 ofthe 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. Who seeks for substitutes when he perceives he has lost nothing? Who could want to have the ”benefits” of sickness when he has recieved the simple happiness of health?What God as 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 seeds of healing where the seeds of sickness were. And there will be no loss, but only gain.

Love

[IA56]

The Alternative to Dream of Fear

What is a sense of sickness but a sense of limitation? Of a splitting off and separating from? A gap perceived between your selfves 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 in. 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 shares His Will with you, that His creation might create. It is the sharing of the evil dream of hate and malice, bitterness and death, of sin and suffering and pain and loss, that makes them real. Unshared, they are perceived as meaningless. The fear is gone from them because you did not givet hem 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 that you accept, because the only one you have. You have the one that you accept, because it is the only one you wish to have. You share no evil dream 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.Remember if you share an evil dream, and thus release him. 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. 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 thatits 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 a little able to perceive as it can judge or understand or know. Its eyes are blind; its ears are deaf. It can not think, and so it cannot have effects. What is there God created to be sick? And what that He created not can be? Let not your eyes behold a dream; your ears bear witness to illusion. They were made to look upon a world that is not there; to hear the voices that can make no sound. Yet are there other sounds and other sights that 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. Let not the body´s ears and eyes perceive these countless fragments seen within the gap that you imagined,and lett them persuade their maker his imaginings are real. Creation proves reality becuse it shares the funcition all creation shares. It is not made of little bits of glass, a piece of wood, a thread or two, perhaps, all put togehter to attest its truth. Reality does not depend on this. There is no gap that 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 invisible. You who believe there is a little gap between you and your brother, do not see that it is here you are as prisoners in a World perceived to be existing here. The world you see does not exist, because theplace 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 recongnizing love.

Love

[IA56]

The Secret Vows

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 make itself to be what it is not. It does not seek to make of pain a joy and look for lasting pleasures in the dust. It does not tell you what its purpose is and cannot understand what it is for. It does not tell you what its purpose is and cannot understand what it is for. It does not victimize, because it has not will, no preferences and no doubts. It does not wonder what it is.And so it has no need to be compretitive. It can be victimized, but cannot feel itself as victim. It accepts no role, but does what it is told, without attack.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. The thing you hate and fear and loathe and want, the body does not know. You send it forth to seek for separation and to be a separate thing. 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 littleness. And you despite its acts, but not your own. It sees and acts for you. It hears your voice. And it is fail and little by your wish. It seems to punish you, and thus deserve your hatred for the limitations that it brings to you. Yet you have made of it a symbol for the limitations that you want your mind to have and see and keep. 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, wherever you perceive yourself attacked. No on can suffer if he does not see himself attacked, and losing by attack. Unstated and unheard in consiousness is every pledge to sickness. Yet it is a promise to another to be hurt by him, and to attack him in return. 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 that is your wish, it can have no effects. Whoever says, ”There is no gap between my mind and yours” had 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 that he has made to God, as God has made to him. 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 your 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.

Love

[IA56]

The Ark of Safety

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 to 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 inWhose Wholeness there can be no gap? The beautiful relationship you have with all your brothers is a part of you because it is a part of God Himself. Are you no sick, if you deny yourself your wholeness and your health, the Source of help, the Call to healing and the Call to heal? Your savior waits for healing,and the world waits with him. Nor are you apart from it. For healing will beone or not at all, its oneness being where the healing is. What could correct for separation but its opposite? There is no middle ground in any aspect of salvation. You accept is wholly or accept it not. What is unseparated must be joined. And what is joined cannot be separated. 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 alligance 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 this 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. With this as purpose is the body healed.It is not used to witness to the dream of separation and disease. Nor it is 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,becasue the choice cannot be made in terms of form. The choice of sicknessseems to be of form, yet it is one, as is its opposite. And you are sick or well, accordingly. 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.Yet its stability cannot be judged apart from its foundation. If it rests on straw,there is no need to bar the door and lock the window and make fast the bolts. The wind will topple it, and rain will come and carry it into oblivion. 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 weaknesslies, not in itself, but in the frailty of the little gap of nothingness where on it stands? What can be safe that 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 his shaken the Foundation of his home. The wind will blow upon it and the rain will be at 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 of holiness a little while, because it shares your Father´s Will with you.

Love

[IA56]

THE AWAKENING
The Closing of the Gap

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 the little 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. 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 het hinks that love is fearful; hat 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. 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, les the turn again into an enemy. A cautious frienship, 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 breach of treaty not to be allowd. 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 seves, which you believe diminish as yo meet. The body could not separate your minds unless you wanted it to be a cause of separationand 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. The body will accommondate to this, if you would have it so.It will allow but limited indulgences in ”love” with intervals of hatred inbetween. 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 thema purpose not your 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 presen, sometimes gone.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 love go away, and leave you quietly alone in ”peace”. The body, innocent of any goal, is your exuse 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 recongize that nothing stands between you? Would you know there is no gap behind which you can hide? There is a shock that comes to those who learn their savior 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´scalling, were you not afraid to find a loss of self in finding God? Yet can yourself be lost by being found?

Love

[IA56]

The Comming of the Guest

Why would you not perceive it as a 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 to difficult for you to follow? Is it not because you see it as the road to hell instead of looking on it as a simply 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. Yet though you do not see them, they are there. Their cause has been effected, and they must be present where 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. Be where its cause is must it be. Now it is 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. It has been hopless 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 wher ever 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. 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 walks 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. 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 Hm 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 Who 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 Precense must be there. For what you now can do could not be done without the love and grace His Presence holds. Such is the promise of the loving God. His Son have life and every living thing be part of him, and nothing else have life. What you have given ”life” is not alive, and symbolizes but your wish to be alive part 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 base does not change,although it seems to be in constant change. Yet what is that except the state confusion really means? Stability to those who are confused in meaningless, and shift and change become the law on which they redicate their lives. 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. Yet this but means the mind remains unchanged in its belief of what the purpose of the body is. 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. The body that is asked to be a god will be attacked, because it snothingness 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 and that failure to perceive that it is nothing. Yet its nothingness is your salvation, from which you would flee. As ”something” is the body asked to be God´s enemy, replacing what He is with littleness and limits 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 Sun of everything, then what is not in Him does not exist, and His completion is its nothingness. Your savior is not dead, nor does he dwell in what was built as a temple unto death. He lives in God, and it is this that makes him savior unto you, and only this. His body´s nothingness realeases yours from sickness and from death. For what is yours cannot be more or less that what is his.

Love

[IA56]

God´s Witnesses

Condemn your savior not because he thinks he is a body. For beyond his dreams is his reality. But he must learn he is a savior first, before he can remember what he is. And he must save who would be saved. On saving you depends his happiness. For who is savior but the one who gives salvation? Thus he lerns it must be his to give. Unless he gives he will not know he has, 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 would lose by giving what must be increased thereby? Think you the Father lost Himself when He created you? Was He made weak because He shared His Love? Was He made incomplete by his perfection? Or are you the proof that He is perfect and complete? Deny Him not His witness in the dream His Son prefers 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 leath is yet one theme of truth, no more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light created in the dark, where God still shines. You cannot Wake yourself. Yet you can let yourself be wakened. You can overlook your brother´s dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions he becomes your savior 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. 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 it is 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 maybe lifted from your mind. When light has come to him through your forgiveness, he will not forget his savior, leaving him unsaved. For it was in your face he saw the light that he would keep beside him, as he walks through darkness tothe everlasting Light. How holy are you, that the Son of God can be your savior in the midst of dream 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, so 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 on you. And in his glad salvation you are saved.

Love

[IA56]

Dream Roles

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 waken 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 goe swith only one of these. 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 offear, 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 tracherous 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. In simplest form, it can be said attack is are sponse 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 that 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” you attack is justified? The Dreams you think you like are those in which the functions yo have given have been filled; the needs which you ascribe to you are met. It does not matter if theybe 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 that you have assigned; some goal which an event, or body, or a thing should represent, and should achieve for you. If it succeeds you think you like the dream. If it should fail you think the dream is sad. But whether it succeeds or fails is not its core, but just the flimsy covering. How happy would your dreams become if you were not the one who gave the ”proper” role to every figure which 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 appear to change, but what they mean has changed because they cover something else. Perceptions are determined by their purpose, in that they seem to be what they are for. A shadow figure who attacks becomes a brother giving you a chance to help, if this becomes the function of the dream. And dreams of sadness thus are turned to joy. What is your brother for? You do not know, because your function is obscure to you. Do not ascribe a role to him that you imagine would bring happiness to you. And do not try to hurt him when he fails to take the part that 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 thedream, each dream becomes an offering of love. For at its center is His Love for you, which lights whatever form it takes with love.

Love

[IA56]

The Changeless Dwelling Place

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 areThey 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. 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 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. 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 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. 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.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 dream in which your hand are joined in innocence. These are not hands that grasp in dreams of pain. They hold no sword, for they have left their hold one very vain illusion of this world. And being empty they receive, instead, a brother´s hand in which completion lies. 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 bea 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. A dream is given you in which he is your savior, not your enemy in hate. A dream is given you 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. 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 attackand 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 dreming of a world outside yourself. And leading finally beyond all dreams, unto the peace of everlasting life.

Love

[IA56]

Forgiveness and the End of Time

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 isthe ”sacrifice” salvation asks, and gladly offers peace instead of this. Swear not to die, you 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. 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 men; Where time has se an end is not where the eternal is. God´s Soncan never change by what men made of him. He will be as he was and as he is,for time appointed not his destiny, nor set the hour of his birth and death.Forgiveness will not change him. Yet time waits upon forgivness that the things of time may disappear because they have no use. 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, 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 greatest gift God gave to all that you would make eternal, to ensure that only Heaven would not pass away. 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. This world will bind your feet and tie your hands and kill your body only if you think that it was made to crusify 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 till timelessness comes quietly to take the place of time.

Love

[IA56]

Seek Not Outside Yourself

Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each time and 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 path 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. But it is given you to know the truth, and not to seek for it ourside 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. And thus he wanders aimlessly about, in seach of something that he cannot find, believing that he is 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 rot understand the idol that he seeks is but his death. Its form appears to be outside himself. Yet does he seek tokill 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. Whenever you attempt to reach a goal in whichthe 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 and to have suffered loss.And by this giving up is life renounced. Seek not outside yourself. The serch implies you are not whole within and fear to look upon your devastation, but prefer to seek outside yourself for what you are. Idols must fall because they have no life, and what is lifeless is sign of death. You came to die, and what would you expect but to perceive the signs of death you seek? No sadness and no suffering proclaim 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. 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 idols takes His place. Look not to idols. Do not seek outside yourself. Let us forget the purpose of the world the past has given it. For otherwises, 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. You choose your dreams, for they are what you wish, perceived as if it had been given you.Your 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 picture it projects outside itself? Save time, my brother;learn what time is for. And speed the end of idols in a world made sad and sickby seeing idols there. Your holy mind is altear unto God, and where He is no idols can abide. 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 seekto 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.

Love

[IA56]

The Anti-Christ

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 that 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 that you would value more that he is. Idols are made that he may be replaced, no matter what their form. And it is this that never is perceived and recognized. Be it a body or a thing, a place, a situation or a circomstance, and object owned or wanted, or a right demamded or achieved, it is the same. 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 that 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 quiet calm that liberates you from the world, and lets you stand apart, in quiet and in peace. An idol is a false impression, or a false belief; some form of anti-Christ, that 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 it is still a thought,and cannot leave the mind that is its source. Nor is its form apart from the idea it represents. All forms of anti-Christ oppose the Christ. And fall Before His face lika a dark veil that seems to shut your 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 with the light itself. The 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 guail in fear. Christ´s enemy is nowhere. He can take no form in which he ever will be real. What is an idol? Nothing! It must be believed before it seems to come to life, and given power that it may befeared. 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 out 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.” This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power past omnipotece, 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 timelessto 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. 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 and left no room for anything to be except His Will. 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 that has many answers, each depending on the one of whom the question has been asked. 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. God has not many sons, but only one. Who can have more, and who begiven less? 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 that 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 becontent with being less.

Love

[IA56]

The Forgiving Dream

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 unot His Son. 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 of 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 is 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. Thus does an idol keep the dream alive and terrible, for who could 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, which are interposed between your judgment and the penalty it brings. 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 child, the light 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 to 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, nor recognize their wishes are their own. 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 the 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. 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 does not understand. 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, nor 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 that enter in the dream are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love. 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 that 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, butwith the holiness that never left the altar that 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? 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. Yourself-betrayal must result in fear, for 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. So do your childish terrors melt away, and dreams become a sign that you have made a new beginnig, 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.

Love

[IA56]

THE NEW BEGINNING
Rules for Decision

Decisions are continous. You do not always know when you are making them. But with a little practice with the ones you recognize, a set begins to form which sees you through the rest. It is not wise to let yourself becomes 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.
1 The outlook starts with this:
”Today I will make no decisionsby myself.”
This means that you are choosing not to be the judge of what to do. But it must also means 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 mind, and then decide to ask what you should do. And what you hear may not resolve the problem as you saw it first.This leads to fear, because it contradicts what you perceive and so you feel attacked. And therefore angry. There are rules by which this will not happen.But it does occur at first, while you are learning how to hear.
2 Throughout the day, at anytime you think of it and have a quiet moment for reflection, tell yourself again the kind of day you want; the feeling you would have, the things you want to happen to you, and the thing you would experience, and say,
”If I make no decisions by myself,
This is the day that will begiven me.”
These two procedures, praticed 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 to answer that will work. Be certain this has happened if you feel yourself unwilling to sit by and ask to have the answer given to you. This means you have decided by yourself, and can not see the question. Now you need a quick restorative before you ask again.
3 Remember once again the day you want, and recongnize that something has occured that is not part of it.Then realize that you have asked a question by yourself, and must have set ananswer in your terms. Then say:
”I have no question. I forgot what to decide.”
This cancels out the terms that 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 questins asks will gain momentum, until you believe the day you want is one in which you get your answer to your question.And you will not get it, for it would destroy the day by robbing you of what you really want. This can be very hard to realize, when once you have decided by yourself the rules that promise you a happy day. Yet this decision still canbe undone, by simple methods that you can accept.
4 If you are so unwilling to recieve you cannot even let your question go, you can begin to change your mind with this:
”At least I can decide I do notlike what I feel now.”
This much is obvious, and paves the way for the next easy step.
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 trust 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. Now you have reached the turning point, because it has occurred to you that you will again 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.
6 This tiny grain of wisdom will suffice to take you further. You are not coerced, but merely hope to get athing you want. And you can say in perfect honsety,
”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. Thus is the readiness for asking brought to your awareness, for you cannot be in conflict when you ask for what you want, and see that it is this for which you ask.
7 This final step is but acknowledgment of lack of opposition to be helped. It is a statement of an openmind, not certain yet, but willing to be shown:
”Perhaps there is another way to look at this.
What can I lose by asking?”
Thus you now can ask a question that makes sense, and so the answer will make sense as well. Nor will you fight against it, for you see that it is you who will be helped by it. It must be clear that it is easier to have a happy day if you prevent unhappiness from entering at all. But this takes practice in the rules that will protect you from the ravages of fear. When this has been achived, the sorry dream of judgment has forever been undone. But meanwhile, you have need for practicing the rules for its undoing. Let us, then, consider once again the very first of the decisions which are offered here. We said you can begin a happy day with the determination not to make decisions by yourself. This seems to be a real decision in itself. And yet, you cannot make decisions by yourself. The only question really is with what you choose to make them. That is really all. The first rule, then, is not coercion, but a simple statement of a simple fact. You will not make decisions by yourself whatever you decide. For they are made with idols or with God. And you ask help of anti-Christ or Christ, and which you choose will join with you and tell you what to do. Your day is not at random.It is set by what you choose to live it with, and how the friend whose counsel you have sought perceives your happiness. You always ask advice before you can decide 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. The second rule as well is but a fact. For you and your adviser must agree on what you want before it can occur. It is but this agreement that permits all things to happen. Nothing can be caused without some from of union, be it a dream of judgment of the Voice of God. Decisions cause results because they are not made in isolation. They are made by you and your adviser, for yourself and for the world as well. The day you want you offer to the world, for it will be what you have asked for, and will reinforce the rule of your adviser in the world. Whose kingdom is the world fo you today? What kind of day will you decide to have? It needs but two who would have happiness this day to promise it to all the world.It needs but two to understand that they cannot decide alone, to guarantee the joy they asked for will be wholly shared. For they have understood the basic law that 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 yourself. Your judgment has been lifted from the world by your decision for a happy day. And as you have received, so must you give.

Love

[IA56]

Freedom of Will

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 Divintiy 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 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”. How wonderful is it 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. Look once again upon 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 there. 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 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 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 that 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. This 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 besaved, for 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 hes hares your freedom as hes hares 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.

Love

[IA56]

Beyond All Idols

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 that 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. It is not form you seek. What form can be a substitute for God the Father´s Love? What form can take the place ofall 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. Yet this could never be your will, because what shares in all creation cannot be content with small ideas and little things. Behind the search for every idollies 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 achive completion in a form you like. This is the purpose of an idol; that you will not look beyond it, to the source of the 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. 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 that heve no meaning. And you will could not be satisfied with empty forms, made but to fill a gap that is not there. It is not this you want. Creation gives no separate person and no separate things the power to complete the Son of God. What idol can be called upon to give the Son of God what he already has? 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 garanted. Not in any form that would content you not, but in the whole completely lovely Thought God holds of you. 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 a in which His Thoughts were absent or could suffer change. Thoughts you think are in your mind, as you are the Mind Which thought of you. And so there are no separate parts in what exists within God´s Min d. It is forever one, eternally united and at peace. Thoughts seem to come and go. Yet all this means is that you are sometimes aware of them, and sometimes not. An unremembered thought is born again to 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.The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangable in an eternal sky. So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there. Yet still and white and lovely will it shine through all eternity. There was no time it was not there; no instant when its lights grew dimmer or less perfectever was. Who knows the Father knows this light, for He is the eternal sky that 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 embrace 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 that keeps this star invisible to earth.But those who seek for idols cannot know that star is there. 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 not 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. 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 realtiy. The mind of Heaven´s Son in Heaven is, for there the Mind of Father and of 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. And idol or the Though tGod 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.

Love

[IA56]

The Truth Behind Illusions

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 defensivness 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. 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 woolly bear begins to squek 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. 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. The gap that is not there is filled with toys in conuntless forms. And each one seems to break the rules you set for it. It never was the things you thought. It must appear to break you rules for safety, since the rules were wrong. But you are not endangered. You can laugh at popping heads and squeaking toys, as does the child who learns they are not threat to him. Yet while he likes to play with them, he still perceives them as obeying rules he made for his enjoyment. So there still are rules that they can seem to break and frighten him. Yet is heat the mercy of his toys? And can they represent a threat to him? Reality observes the laws of God, and not the rules you set. It is His laws that 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 child, so 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 the mall. See none in them and they will touch you not. 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 effect 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 desire. Give them not your worship, for they are not there. Yet this is equally forgotten in attack. God´s Son needs no defense against his dreams. His idols do not threaten him at all. His one mistake is the he thinks them real.What can the power of illusions do? Appearances can but decieve the mind that wants to be deceived. And you can make a simple choice that will forever Place you far beyond deception. 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. Salvation is a paradox indeed! What could it be except a happy dream? It asks you but that you 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. No more than this is asked. Be glad indeed salvation asks so little, not so much. It asks for nothing in reality. And ever 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 the nits unreality its 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?

Love

[IA56]

The Only Purpose

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, for the escape from guilt becomes its aim. The value of forgiveness is perceived and takes the place of idols, 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 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. The folly of persuing guilt as goal is fully reconginzed. And idols are not wanted there, for guilt is understood as the sole cause of pain in any form. No on is tempted by its vain appeal, for suffering and death have been perceived as things not wanted and not striven for. The possiblility 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. Not yet is Heaven quite remembered,for the purpose of forgivness still remians. 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 sureand constant he can barely stand 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. 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. 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´sOwn purpose; only His, and yet completely shared and perfectly fulfilled. 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 prupose, 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 Sonagain, 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 is creation he must know again. 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 seean idol that they want. Yet has their path been surely set away from idol stoward 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 lightand easy is the step across the narrow boundaries of the world of fear when you have recognizied Whose hand you hold! Within your hand is everyone you need to walk with perfect confidence away from fear forever, and to go straight on, and quickly reach to 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 youthe 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 you understanding,for you have enabled Him to rise from chains and go with you, together, to His Father´s house. And 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 heart. 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 honstly, and let not your expereinces here decived in retospekt. They were notf ree from bitter cost and joyless consequensce. 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 the cost of pain,
Nor was it ever paid by you alone.

Be merciful unto your brother,then. And do not choose and 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 loving 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.

Love

[IA56]

The Justification for Forgiveness

Anger is nerver 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 that 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 that has been made. And thus is pardon inappropriate, by being garanted where it is not due. 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 occured. 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 that rests on error, and thus calls for help. Forgiveness is the only sane response. It keeps your rights from being sacrificed. This understanding is the only change that lets the real world rise to take the place of dream 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. 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 ashis. Nor will you think that God intends for you a fearful judgment that your brother does not merit. For it is the truth that you can merit neither more norless than he. 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 that stands beyond forgiveness. There would be an error that is more than a mistake; a special form of error that remains unchangeable, eternal, and beyond correction or escape. There would be one mistake that had the power to undo creation, and to make a world that could replace it and destroy the Will of God. Only if this were possible could there be some appearances that could withstand the miracle,and not be healed by it. There is no surer proof idolatry is what you wish than a belief there are some forms of sickness and of joylessness forgiveness cannot heal. 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 apperances 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? It must be true the miracle can heal all forms of sickness, or it cannot heal. Its purpose cannto 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 that you cannot forgive. And so there cannot be appearances that have replaced the truth about God´s Son.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 consequences and its forms. 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 this glory will I see my own.”

Here is the joyful statement that there are no forms of evil that can overcome the Will of God; and 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 you savior? 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?

Love

[IA56]

The New Interpretation

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 ist 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 differently 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.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 theselabels change with other judgments, made on different aspects of expereince. 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?But you assigned a meaning in the light of goals that change, with every meaning shifting as they change. Only a constant purpose can endow events with stable meaning. But if must accord one meaning to them all. If they are given different meaning, it must be 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 but to show you wrote a fearful script, and are afraid accordingly. But not because the thing you fear has fearful meaning in itself.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 in 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 form judgment simply lies in this; all things have but one purpose, which you share with all the world. And nothing inthe world can be opposed to it, for it belongs to everything, as it belongs to you. 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 that makes perception shift and meaning change. In one united goal diest his become impossible, for your agreement makes interpretation stabilize and last. How can communicatin really be established while the symbols that 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 that you both can understand the sacrifice of meaning is undone. 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 scrips 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. Do not intepret 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 undertainty. It is but your interpretation which are lacking instability, for 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 brother. 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.

Love

[IA56]

Changeless Reality

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 attest salvation from appearances by showing they can change. Your brother has a changelessness in him behyond appearance and deception, both. It is obscured by changing views of him that 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 be 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 that anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal because the change. What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real? It does not seem to be the wish that no reality be so. Yet it is an assertion that some forms of idols have a powerful appeal that 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 a 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. 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 and 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 begiven 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. Because reality is changeless is a miracle already there to heal all things that change, and offer them to you to see in happy form, devoid offear. 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 that 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. 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 yo 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 painfrom which he is not free, if you would have him be 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, for his appearance is your own to you.

Love

[IA56]

THE FINAL VISION
The Simplicity of Salvation

How simple is salvation! All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never will be. The impossible has not occured, 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 excatly 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? There is a reason. But confuse it not with difficutly 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 that lead you gently from on to another, with no strain a tall. This cannot be confusing, yet you are confused. For some how you believe that what is totally confused is easier to learn and understand. What you have taught yourself 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. No one who understands what you have learned, how carefully you 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 worlds. The world was made by it, and even now depends on nothing else. The lessons you have taught yourself have been so overlearned and fixed they rise like heavy curtains to obscure the simple and 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. 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 acomplisment 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 and alien to himself, in exile from the home where God Himself established him. You who have taught yourself the Son of God is guilty, say not that you cannot learn the simple things salvation teaches you! Learning is an ability you made and gave yourself. 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 you ancient overlearning stand implaceble before that Voice of truth, and teach you that Its lessons are not true; too hard to lern, 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, beause they call from God and from your Self to you. Is this a little Voice, so small and still It cannot rise above the senseless noise of sounds 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? What outcome is inevitable, sure as God, and far beyond all doubt 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? The lessons to be learned are only two. Each has its outcomee 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. Yet this is not the only outcome with your learning can produce.However much you may have over learned your chosen task, the lesson that reflects the Love of God is stronger still. And you will learn God´s Son is innocent, and see another world. 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, nor left unanswered inthe self same tongue in which the call 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. 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 that 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 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. The fear of God results assurely from the lesson that His Son is guilty as God´s Love must be remembered when he 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. Yet you will recognize Him as you give Him anser in the language that He calls. He will appear when you have answered Him, and you will know in Him that God is Love. What is temptation but a wish to make the wrong decision on what you would learn, and have an outcome that 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 decieved if you believe you want disaster and disunity and pain. Hear not the call for this within yourself. But listen, rather, tothe 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 poof of what you learned. Its outcome is the world you look upon.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 you 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.

Love

[IA56]

Walking with Christ

An ancient lesson is not overcome by the opposing of the new and old. It is not vanquished that the truth be known, nor fought against to lose the truth´s appeal. There is no battle that 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 that you make. But afterwards, the truth is given you. 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. 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. You see your selfdivided 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 learnd 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. And what of him? What doe she want of you? What could he want, but what you want of him? Here in 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 andbe 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 self same road. He is like us, as near or far away from what he want as he willlet him be. We make no gains he does not make with us, and we fall back if he doesn not advance. Take not his hand in anger but in love, for in his progress do you count your own. And we go separately alon the way unless you keep him safely by your side. Because he is your equal in God´s Love, you will 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 aobut this Son of God who calls to you. Christ calls to all with equaltenderness, seeing no leaders and no followers, and hearing but one answer to them all. Because He hears on Voice, he cannot hear a different answer from the one He gave when God appointed Him His only Son. Be vary 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. Forgive your brother all appearances, that are but ancient lessons you have taught yourself about the sinfulness in you. Hear but his call formercy 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 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. An instant spet without your old ideas of who your great companion is and what he should be asking for, will be enought to let this happen. And you will perceive his purpose is the same as 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. 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 thus there is confusion, and a sense of endless doubting as you stagger back and forward in the darkness and alone. Yet these are 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.

Love

[IA56]

The Self-Accused

Only the self-accused condemn. As you prepare to make a choice that will result in different outcomes, thereis first one thing that must be overlearned. It must become a habit of 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. 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 notbelieve that you deserved attack, it never would occur to you to give attack toanyone 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? 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 minds 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 act sinstead of it. A jailer does not follow orders, but enforces orders on the prisoner. Yet is the body prisoner, and not the mind. The boyd thinks not houghts. It has no power to lern, to pardon, nor 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 the 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 mind can learn, and there is all change made. The mind that thinks it is a sin has but one purpose; that the body be the source of sin, to 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, nor survive the ravages of fear except in murder and in death. For here are you made sin, and sin cannot abide the joyous and 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 think they are. 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 whre you would not be. It does not guard your sleep, nor interfere with your awakening. Release your body from imprisonment, and you will se no one as prisoner to what you have escaped. You will not want to hold in guilt your chosen enemies, nor keepin 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.

Love

[IA56]

The Real Alternative

There is a tendency to think the world can offer consolation and escape from problems that 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 outcome 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 that concern you not. Yet 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. Real choce is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. All its roads but lead to disappontment, nothingness and death. There is no choice in its alternative.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 road 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. 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 when 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. 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 serch that all must undertake who still believe there is another answer to be found. Learn now, without despair,there is no hope of answer in the world. But do not judge the lesson that is but begun with this. Seek not another sign post in the world that 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. Who would be willing to be turned away from all the roadways of the world, unless he understood their real futility? It is 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. The serch 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 happinesss 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 leads to 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. There is a choice that you have power to make when you have seen the real alternaives. 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 isstill the same illusiojn and the same mistake. All choices in the world depend on this; you choose between your brother and yourself, and 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 all the lesson´s purpose is to teach that what your brother loses you have lost, and what he gains is what is given you. He has not left His Thoughts! But you forgot His Presence and remembered not His Love. No pathway in the world can lead to Him, nor any worldly goal be one with His. What road in all the world will lead within, when every road was made to separate thej ourney 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. 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.

Love

[IA56]

Self Concept versus Self

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, atone with its demans. 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. The concept of the self the world would teach is not the thing thatit 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 serches for companions and it looks, at times with pity, on the suffering, ands omething 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 thein justices the world accords to those who would be generous and good. 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 slef-defence, for is it not a well-known fact the world deals harsly with defenseless innocnece? 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. Beneath the face of innocence there is a lesson that the concept of the self was made to teach. It is a lesson nin a terrible displacement, and a fear so devastating that the face that 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 parthways of the world are safely kept, and those who walk on them will not escape. 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 loger does it matter what he does, for your accusing finger Points to him, unwawering 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. Concepts are learned. They are not natural. Apart from learning they do not exist. They are not given, so 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 consept but a thought to which its maker gives a meaning of his own? Concpets 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 shadown, 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. A concept of the self is meaningless, for no one here can see what it is for, and there fore cannot picture what it is. Yet is all learning that 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 this concept of the self must be undone, if any peace of minds 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. Thus are the Holy Spirit´s lesson plans arrange in easy steps, that though there besome 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 whatyou think, you surely learned by now that you behave as if it were. Does here act for you? And does he know exactly what would happen? Can he see your future and ordain, before it comes, 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. 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. Ifone were 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? 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 see, 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 doesnot seek to throw you into panic. So He merely asks if just a little question might be raised. There is an alternate about the thing that you must be. You might, for instance, be the thing you chose to have your brother be. This shifts the concept of the self from what is wholly passive, and at least makes way active choice, and some acknowledment that interaction must have entered in. There is some understanding that you chose for both of you, and what here presents 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 chose your brother be, alternatives were there to choose among, and someone must have first decided on the one to choose, and let the other go. Althoug 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 in the image of your own. While only he was trecherous before, now must you be condemned along with him. 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 consquence. So 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 theself appear to answer what it does not know. 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 percieve a self that 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 quilty 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. 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 your thankful that the learning of the world is loosening its grasp uponyour mind. And be you sure and happy in the cofidence 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. Yet 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. It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindred and unbound. Where concepts of the self have be laid by is truth revelead exactly as it is. When every concept has been raised to doubt and question, and been recongized as made on no assumpptions that 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 heart han 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 or on myself.”

Yet in this learning is salvation born. And What you are will tell you of Itself.

Love

[IA56]

Recognizing the Spirit

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 invision 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 you own reality, for you have chosen that you want it so. But choose the spirit, and all Heaven bends tot ouch 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. 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. Whocould have trust where so much change is seen, for who is worthy if he be butdust? Salvation is undoing of all this. For constancy arises in the sight ofthose whose eyes salvation has released from looking at the cost of keepingguilt, because they chose to let it go instead. Salvation does not ask that youbehold the spirit and perceive the body not. It merely asks that this should beyour choice. For you can see the body without help, but do not understand howto behold a world apart from it. It is your world salvation will undo, and letyou see another world your eyes could never find. Be not concerned how thiscould 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 theevil and the good, and must be passed, that both may disappear, so thatperception finds no hiding place. How isthis done? It is not done at all. What could there be within the universe thatGod created that must still be done? Only in arrogance could you conceive thatyou must make the way to Heaven plain. The means are given you by which to seethe world that will replace the one you made. Your will be done! In Heaven ason earth this is forever true. It matters not where you believe you are, norwhat you think the truth about yourself must really be. It makes no differencewhat you look upon, nor what you choose to feel or think or wish. For GodHimself has said, ”Your will be done.” And it is done to you accordingly. Youwho 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 youare. Undoing truth would be impossible. But concepts are not difficult tochange. One vision, clearly seen, that does not fit the picture as it was perceivedbefore will change the world for eyes that learn to see, because the concept ofthe self has changed.Are you invulnerable? Then the world is harmless in yoursight. Do you forgive? Then is the world forgiving, for you have forgiven it istrespasses, and so it looks on you with eyes that see as yours. 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 torest in for a while, where nothing need be feared, but only loved. Who isunwelcome to the kind in heart? And what could hurt the truly innocent? Yourwill be done, you holy child of God. It does not matter if you think you are inearth or Heaven. What your Father wills of you can never change. The truth inyou remains as radiant as a star, as pure as light, as innocent as love itself.And you are worthy that your will be done!

Love

[IA56]

The Savior´s Vision

Learning is change. Salvation does not seek to use a means as yet too alien to your thinking to be helpful, nor to make the kinds of change you could not recognize. Concepts are needed while perception lasts, and changing concepts is salvation´s task. For it must deal in contrasts not in truth, which has no opposite and cannot change. Inth is world´s concepts are the guilty ”bad”; the ”good” are innocent. And no one here but holds a concept of himself in which he counts the ”good” to pardon him the ”bad.” Nor does he trust the ”good” in anyone, believing that the ”bad”must lurk behind. This concept emhasizes trachery, 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 comein 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 wholy changed. Your ”evil” thoughts have been forgiven with his,because you lett hem all affect you not. No longer do you choose that you should be the sign of evil and of guilt in him. And as you give your trust to what is good in him, you give it to the good in you. In terms of concepts, itis 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 forcing upon the good in him, the body grows decreaingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just as shadow circling round the good. And this will be your concept of yourself, when you have reached the world beyond the sight you 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 inter changed 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. 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 frightened by your ”evil” thoughts because they do not cloud your view of him. And all this shift requires is that you will willing that this happy change occur. No more than this is asked. On its behalf, remember what the concept of yourself that 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 the brings the peace of God. The concept of yourself that 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 cansee yourself another way. Would you not rather look upon yourself as needed for salvation of the world, instead of as salvation´s enemy? The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight. All things you see are images, because you look on them as through a barrier that dims your sight and warps your vision, so that you behold nothing with clarity. The light is kept from everything you see. Atmost, you glimse 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. And that is given you is for release; the sight, the vision and the inner Guide all lead you out of hell with those you love beside you, and the universe with them. Behold your role within the universe! To every part of true creation has the Lord of Love and Life entrusted all salvation from the misery of hell. And to each one has He allowed the grace to be a savior to the holy ones especially entrusted to his care. And this he learns when first he looks upon one brother as he looks upon himself, and sees the mirror of himself in him. Thus is the concept of himself laid by, for nothing stands between his sight and what he looks upon, to judge what he beholds. And in this single vision does he see the face of Christ, and understands he looks on everyone as he beholds this one. For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight. The veil across the face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, they all are diffrent names for just one error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself that holds him off from you, and you away from him.The sword of judgment is the weapon that you give to the illusion of yourself, that it may fight to keep the space that holds your brother off unoccupied by love. Yet while you hold this sword, you must perceive the body as yourself,for you are bound to separation from the sight of him who holds the mirror to another view of what he is, and thus what you must be. What is temptation but the wish to stay in hell and misery? And what could this give rise to but animage of yourself that can be miserable, and remain in hell and torment? Who has learned to see his brother not as this has saved himself, and thus is he a savior to the rest. To everyone has God entrusted all, because a partial savior would be one who is but partly saved. The holy ones whom God has given each ofyou to save are everyone you meet or look upon, not knowing who they are; all those you saw an instant and forget, and those you knew a long while since, and those you will yet meet; the unremembered and the not yet born. For God has given you His Son to save from every concept that he ever held. Yet while you wish to stay in hell, how could you be the savior of the Son of God? For holiness is seen through holy eyes that look upon the innocence within, and this expect to see it everywhere. And so they call it forth in everyone theyl ook upon, that he may be what they expect of him. This is the savior´s vision; that he see his innocence in all he looks upon, and see his own salvation everywhere. He holds no concept of himself between his calm and open eyes and what he sees. He brings the light to what he looks upon, that he may see it as it really is. Whatever form temptation seems to take, it always but reflects a wish to be a self that you are not. And from that wish a concept rises, teaching 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. But while you cherish it, you will behold your brother in the likeness of the self whose image has the wish begot of you. For seeing can but represnt a wish, because it has no power to create. Yet it can look with love or look with hate, depending only onthe simple choice of what ever you would join with what you see, or keep yourself apart and separate. The savior´s vision is as innocent of what your brother is as it is free of any judgment made upon yourself. It sees no past in anyone at all. And thus it serves a wholly open mind, unclouded by old concepts, and prepare to look on only what the present holds. It cannot judge because it does not know. And recongnizing this, it merely asks, ”What is the meaning of what I behold?” Then is the answer given. And the door hel dopen for the face of Christ to shine upon the one who asks, in innocence, to see beyond the veil of old ideas and ancient concepts held so long and dear against the vision of the Christ in you. Be vigilant against temptation, then, remembering that it is but a wish, insane and meaningless, to make yourself a thing that you are not. And think as well upon the thing that you would be instgead. It isa thing of madness, pain and death; a thing of treachery and black despair, offailing 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 chooseagainst? Concider what temptation is, and see the real alternatives you choosebetween. There are but two. Be not deceived by what appears as many choices.There is hell of Heaven, and of these you choose but one. Let not the world´slight, given unto you, be hidden from the world. It needs the light, for it isdark indeed, and men despair because the savior´s vision is withheld and what theysee is death. Their savior stands, unknowing and unknown, beholding them witheyes unopened. And they cannot see until he looks on them with seeing eyes, andoffers them forgiveness with his own. Can you to whom God say´s, ”Release MySon!” be tempted not to listen, when you learn that it is you for whom He asksrelease? And what but this is what this course would teach? And what but thisis there for you to learn?

Love

[IA56]

Choose Once Again

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 eceed 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 saviors of the world,or would
remain in hell, and hold your brothers there.”

For He has come, and He is asking this. 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 isgiven 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 that 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 that what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, ”My brother, choose again.” He would not leave one souce of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would relese your mind 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 cannot prevail against what God Himself would have you be. 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 animage of yourself before. For what appears to hide the face of Christ is powerless before His majesty, and disappears before His holy sight. The savior of the world, who see like Him, are merely those who choose 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. Learn, then, the happy habit of response to alltemptation 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 stregth invited to prevail, replaceing 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. 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 sicknessand 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 again what you would have him be, remembering that every choice you make establishes you own identity as you will see it and believe it is. Deny me not the little gift I ask, when I 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 is salvation, do not fail to hear my voice and listen to my words. I ask for nothing but your won release. There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so incluslive 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. Yet 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 God´s gift can once again be reconginzed as ours! And thus will all the vestiges of hell, the secret sins and hidden hates be bone. And all the loveliness which they concealed appear like lawns of Heaven to our sight, to lift us high above the thorny roads we travelled on before the Christ appeared.Hear me, my brothers, hear and join with me. God has ordained I can not call invain, 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 the yare, 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. 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 towards 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 thank to You. 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 creationr ecognizes 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.

Love

[IA56]

INTRODUCTION

A theoretical foundation such as the text provides is necessary as a framework to make the exercises in this workbook meaningful. Yet it is doing the exercises that will make the goal of the course possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of this workbook to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth. The exercises are very simple. They do not require a great deal of time, and it does not matter where you do them. They need no preparation. The training period is one year. The exercises are numbered from 1 to 365. Do not undertake to do more than one set of exercises a day. The workbook is divided into two main sections, the first dealing with the undoing of the way you see now, and the second with the acquisition of thue perception. With the exception of the review periods, each day´s exercises are planned around one central idea, which is stated first. This is followed by a descrioption of the specific procedures by which the idea for the day is to be applied. The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world. The exercises are planned to help you generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is equally applicable to everyone and everything you see. Transfer of training in true perception does not proceed as does transfer of the training of the world. Ift rue perception has been achieved in connection with any person, situation or event, total transfer to everyone and everything is certain. On the other hand,one exeption held apart from true perception makes its accomplishments anywhere impossible. The only general rules to be observed throughout, then, are: First,that the excersies be practised with great sepcificity, as will be indicated.This will help you to generalize the ideas involved to every situation in which you find yourself, and to everyone and everything in it. Second, be sure that you do not decide for yourself that there are some people, situations or things to which the ideas aree inapplicable. This will interfere with transfer of training. The very nature of thrue perception is that it has no limits. It is the opposite of the way you see now. The overall aim of the exercises is to increase your ability to extend the ideas you will be practicing to include everything.This will require no effort on your part. The exercises themselves meet to conditions necessary for this kind of transfer. Some of the ideas the workbook presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling. This does not matter. You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do. You are not asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true. Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need only to accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 1

”Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) means anything.”

Now look slowly around you, and practice applying this idea very specifically to whatever you see:

”This table does not mean anything.”
”This chair does not mean anything.”
This hand does not mean anything.”
”This foot does not mean anything.”
”This pen does not mean anything.”

Then look farther away from your immedite area, and apply the idea to a wider range:

”That door does not mean anything.”
”That body does not mean anything.”
”That lamp does not mean anything.”
”That sign does not mean anything.”
”That shadow does not mean anything.”

Notice that these statements are not arranged in any order, and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied. That is the purpose of the exercise. The statement should merely by applied to anything you see. As you practice the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately. Do not attempt to apply it to everything you see, for these exercises should not become ritualistic. Only be sure that nothing you see is specifically excluded. One thing is like another as far as the application of the idea is concerned. Each of the first three lessons should not be done more htan twice a day each, preferable morning and evening. Nor should they be attempted for more than a minute or so, unless that entails a sense of hurry. A comfortable sense of leisure is essential.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 2

”I have given everything I seein this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) all the meaning that it has for me.”

The exercises with this idea aret he same as those for the first one. Begin with the things that are near you, and apply the idea to whatever your glance rests on. Then increase the range outward. Turn your head so that you include whatever is on either side. If possible, turn around and apply the idea to what was behind you. Remain as indiscriminate as possible in selecting subjects for its application, do not concentrate on anything in particular, an do not attempt to include Everything you see in a given area, or you will introduce strain. Merely glance easily and fairly quickly around you, trying to avoid selection by size, brightness, color, material, or relative importance to you. Take the subjects simply as yousee them. Try to apply the exercise with equal ease to a body or a button, orfly or a floor, and arm or an apple. The sole criterion for applying the idea to anything is merely that your eyes have lighted on it. Make no attempt to include anything particular, but be sure that nothing is specially excluded.

Love

[IA56]

Lesson 3

”I do not understand anything I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place).”

Apply this idea in the same way as the previous ones, without making distinctions of any kind. Whatever you see becomes a proper subject for applying the idea. Be sure that you do not question the suitablility of anything for application of this idea. These are not excersies in judgment. Anything is suitable if you see it. Some of the things you see may have emotionally-charged meaning for you. Try to lay such feelings aside, and merely use these things exactly as you would anything else. The point of the excersises is to help you clear your mind of all past associations, to see things exactly as they appear to you now, and to realize how little you really understand about them. It is therefore essential that you keep a perfectly open mind, unhampered by judgment, in selecting the things to which the idea for the day is to be applied. For this purpose one thing is like another; equally sutiable and therefore equally useful.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 4

”These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place).”

Unlike the preceding ones, these exercises do not begin with the idea for the day. In these practice periods,begin with nothing the thoughts that are crossing your mind for about a minut.Then apply the idea to them. If you are already aware of unhappy thoughts, usem them as subjects for the idea. Do not, however, selcet only the thoughts you think are ”bad”. You will find, if you train yourself to look at your thoughts,that they represent such a mixture that, in a sense, none of them can be called”good” or ”bad.” This is why they do not mean anything. In selecting the subjects for the application of today´s idea, the usual specificity is required. Do not be afraid to use ”good” thoughts as well as ”bad”. None of them represents your real thoughts, which are being covered up by them. The ”good”ones are but shadows of what lies beyond, and shadows make sight difficult. The”bad” ones are blocks to sight, and make seeing impossible. You do not want either. This is a major exercise, and will be repeted from time to time in somewhat different form. The aim here is to train you in the first steps toward the goal of separating the meaningless from the meaningful. It is a first attempt in the long-range purpose of learning to see the meaningless as outside you, and the meaningful within. It is also the beginning of training your mind to recognize what is the same and what is different. In using your thoughts for application of the idea for today, identify each thought by the cental figure or event it contains; for example:

”This thought about ……………….does not mean anything. It is like the things I see in this room, (on this street,and so on).”

You can also use the idea for a particular thought that you recognize as harmful. This practice is useful, but is not a substitute for the more random procedures to be followed for the excercises. Do not, however, examine your mind for more than a minut or so. You are too in experienced as yet to avoid a tendency to become pointlessly preoccupied. Further, since these exercises are the first of their kind, you may find the suspension of judgment in connection with thoughts particularly difficult. Do not repeat these exercises more than three or four times during the day. We will return to them later.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 5

”I am never upset for the reason I think.”

This idea, like the preceding one, can be used with any person, situation or event you think is causing your pain. Apply it specifically to whatever you believe is the cause of your upset,using the description of the feeling in whatever term seems accurat to you. The upset may seem to be fear, worry, depression, anxiety, anger, hatred, jealousy or any number of forms, all of which will be perceived as different. This is not true. However, until you learn that form does not matter, each form becomes a proper subject for the execises for the day. Applying the same idea to each of them separately is the first step in ultimately recognizing they are all thes ame. When using the idea for today for a specific perceived cause of an upset in any form, use both the name of the form in which you see the upset, and the cause which you ascribe to it. For example:

”I am not angry to……….for the reason I think.”
”I am not afraid of……….for the reason I think.”

But again, this should not be substituted for practice periods in which you first serch you mind for”sources” of upset in which you believe, and forms of upset which you think result. In these exercises, more than in the preceding ones, you may find it hard to be indiscriminate, and to avoid giving greater weight to some subjects than to others. It might help to preced the excercises with the statement:

”There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.”

Then examine your mind for whatever is distressing you, regardless of how much or how little you think it is doing so. You may also find yourself less willing to apply today´s idea tos ome perceived sources of upset than to others. If this occurs, think first of this:

”I cannot keep this form of upset and let the others go. For the purpose of these excercises, I will regard them all as the same.”

Then serch your mind for no morethan a minut or so, and try to identify a number of different forms of upset that are disturbing you, regardless of the relative importance you may give them. Apply the idea for today to each of them, using the name of both thes ource of the upset as you perceive it, and of the feeling as you experience it. Further example are:

”I am not worried about……….for the reason I think.”
”I am not depressed about……….for the reason I think.”

Three or four time during the day is enough.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 6

”I am upset because I see something that is not there.”

The exercises with this idea are very similar to the preceding ones. Again, it is necessary to name both the form of upset (anger, fear, worry, depression and so on) and the perceived source very specifically for any application of the idea. For example:

”I am angry at……….because I see something that is not there.”
”I am worried about……….because I see something that is not there.”

Today´s idea is useful for application to anything that seems to upset you, and can profitably be used throughout the day for that purpose. However, the three or four practice periods which are required should be preceded by a minute or so of mind serching, as before, and the application of the idea to each upsetting thought uncovered in the search. Again, if you resist applying the idea to some upsetting thoughts more than to others, remind yourself of the two cautions stated in the previous lesson:

”There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.”
And
”I cannot keep this form of upset and let the others go. For the purpose of the excercises, then, I will regard them all as the same.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 7

”I see only the past.”

This idea is particularly difficult to believe at first. Yet it is the rationale for all of the preceding ones. It is the reason why nothing that you see means anything. It is the reason why you have given everything you see all the meaning that it has for you. It is the reason why you do not understand anything you see. It is ther eason why your thoughts do not mean anything, and why they are like the things you see. It is the reason why you are never upset for the reason you think. It is the reason why you are upset because you see something that is not there.Old ideas about time are very difficult to change, because everything you believe is rooted in time, and depends on your not learning these new ideas about it. Yet that is precisely why you need new ideas about time. This first time idea is not really so strange as it may sound at first. Look at a cup, for example. Do you see a cup, or are you merely reviewing your past experiences of picking up a cup, being thirsty, drinking from a cup, feeling the rim of a cup against your lips, having breakfast and so on? Are not your aesthetic reactions to the cup, too, based on past experiences? How else would you know whether or not this kind of cup will break if you drop it? What do you know about this cup except what you learned in the past? You would have no idea what this cup is,except for your past learning. Do you, then, really see it? Look about you.This is equally true of whatever you look at. Acknowledge this by applying the idea for today indiscriminatedly to whatever catches your eye. For example:

”I see only the past in this pencil.”
”I see only the past in this shoe.”
”I see only the past in this hand.”
”I see only the past in that body.”
”I see only the past in that face.”

Do not linger over any one thing in particular, but remember to omit nothing specifically. Glance briefly at each subject, and then move on to the next. Three or four practice periods,each to last a minut or so, will be enough.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 8

”My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.”

This idea is, of course, the reason why you see only the past. No one really sees anything. He sees only his thoughts projected outward. The mind´s preoccupation with the past is the cause of the misconception about time from which you seeing suffers. Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. It there fore cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything. The one wholly true thought one can hold about the past is that it is not here. To think about it at all is therefore to think about illusions. Very few have realized what actually entailed in picturing the past or in anticipating the future. The mind is actually blank when i does this, because it is not really thinking about anything. The purpose of the exercises for today is to begin to train your mind to recognize when it is not really thinking at all. While thoughtless ideas preoccupy your mind, the truth is blocked. Recognizing that your mind has been merely blank, rather than believing that it is filled with real ideas, is the first step to opening the way to vision. The exercises for today should be done with eyes closed. This is because you actually cannot see anything, and it is easier to recognize that no matter how vividly you may picture a thought, you are not seeing anything. With as little investment as possible, serch your mind for the usual minute or so, merely noting the thoughts you find there. Name each one by the central figure or theme it contains and pass on to the next.Introduce the practice period by saying:

”I seem to be thinking about……….”
Then name each of your thoughts specifically, for example:
”I seem to be thinking about(name of a person), about (name of an object), about (name of an emotion).”

And so on, concluding at the end of the mind serching period with:
”But my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.”

This can be done four or five time during the day, unless you find it irritates you. If you find it trying,three or four times is sufficient. You might find it helpful, however, to include your irritation, or any emotion that the idea for today may induce, in the mind serching itself.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 9

”I see nothing as it is now.”

This idea obviously follows from the two preceding ones. But while you may be also to accept it intellectually. It is unlikely that it will mean anything to you as yet. However, understanding is not necessary at this point. In fact, the recognition that you do not understand is a prerequisite for undoing your false ideas. These exercises are concerned with practice, not with understanding. You do not need to practice what you already understand. It would indeed be circular to aim at understanding, and assume that you have it already. It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what it seems to picture is not there. This idea can be quite disturbing, and may meet with active resistance in any number of forms.Yet that does not preclude applying it. No more than that is required for these or any other exercises. Each small step will clear a little of the darkness away, and understanding will finally come to lighten every corner of the mind that has been cleared of the debris that darkens it. The exercises, for which three or four practice periods are sufficient, involve looking about you and applying the idea for the day to whatever you see, remembering the need for its indiscriminate application, and the essential rule of excluding nothing. For example:

”I do not see this typewriter as it is now.”
”I do not see this telephone as it is now.”
”I do not see this arm as it is now.”

Begin with things that are nearest you, and then extend the range outward:

”I do not see that coat rack as it is now.”
”I do not see this door as it is now.”
”I do not see this face as it is now.”

It is emphasized again that while complete inclusion should not be attempted, specific exclusion must be avoided. Be sure you are honest with yourself in making this distinction. You may be tempted to obscure it.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 10

”My thoughts do not mean anything.”

This idea applies to all the thoughts of which you are aware, or become aware in the practice periods. The reason the idea is applicable to all of them is that they are not your real thoughts. We have made this distinction before, and will do so again. You have no basis for comparision as yet. When you do, you will have no doubt that what you once believed were your thoughts did not mean anything. This is the second time we have used this kind of idea. The form is only slightly different. This time the idea is intoduced with ”My thoughts” instead of ”These thoughts,”and no link is made overly with the things around you. The emphasis is now on the lack of reality of what you think you think. This aspect of the correction process began with the idea that the thoughts of which you are aware are meaningless, outside rather than within; and then stressed their past rather than their present status. Now we are emphasizing that the presence of these ”thoughts” mean that you are not thinking. This is merely another way of repeating our earlier statement that your mind is really a blank. To recognize this is to recognize nothingness when you think you see it. As such, it is the prerequisite for vision. Close your eyes for these exercises, and introduce them by repeating the idea for today quite slowly to yourself. Then add:

”This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe.”

The exercises consist, as before, in serching your mind for all the thoughts that are available to you,without selection or judgment. Try to avoid classification of any kind. Infact, if you find it helpful to do so, you might imagine that you are watching an oddly assorted procession going by, which has little if any personal meaning to you. As each one crosses your mind, say:

”My thoughts about……….does not mean anything.”
”My thoughts about……….does not mean anything.”

Today´s though can obviously serve for any thought that distresses you at any time. In addition, five practice periods are recommended, each involving no more than a minut or so of mind serching. It is not recommended that this time period be extended, and it should be reduced to half minut or less if you experience dicomfort. Remember,however, to repeat the idea slowly before applying is specifically, and also to add:

”This idea will help me release me from all that I now believe.”

Love

[IA56]

Lesson 11

”My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.”

This is the first idea we have had that is related to a major phase of the correction process; the revesal of the thinking of the world. It seems as if the world determines what you perceive. Today´s idea introduces the concept that your thoughts determine the world you see. Be glad indeed to practice the idea in its initial form, for in this idea is your release made sure. The key to forgiveness lies in it. The practice periods for today´s idea are to be undertaken some what differently from the previous ones. Begin with your eyes closed, and repeat the idea slowly to yourself. Then open your eyes and look about, near and far, up and down, -anywhere. During the minut or so to be spent in using the idea merely repeat it to yourself, being sure to do so without haste, and with no sense of urgency or effort. To do these exercises for maximum benefit, the eyes should move from one thing to another fairly rapidly, since they should not linger on anything in particular. The words, however, should be used in an unhurried, even leisurely fashion. The introduction to this idea, in particular, should be practiced as casually as possible. It contains the foundation for the peace,relaxation and freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve. On concluding the exercises, close your eyes and repeat the idea once more slowly to yourself. Three practice periods today will probably be sufficient. However,if there is little or no uneasiness and an inclination to do more, as may as five may be undertaken. More than this is not recommended.

Love

[IA56]

Lesson 12

”I am upset because I see a meaningless world.”

The importance of this idea lies in the fact that it contain a correction for a major perceptual distortion. You think that what upsets you is a frightening world, or a sad world, or a violent world, or an insane world. All these attributes are given it by you. The World is meaningless in itself. These exercises are done with eyes open. Look around you, this time quite slowly. Try to pace yourself so that the slow shifting of your glance from one thing to another involves a fairly constant time interval. Do not allow the time of the shift to become makedly longer or shorter, but try, instead, to keep a measured, even tempo throughout. What you see does not matter. You teach yourself this as you give whatever your glance rests on equal attention and equal value. As look about you, say to yourself:

”I think I see a fearful world,a dangerous world, a hostile world, a sad world, a wicked world, a crazy world,”

and so on, using whatever descriptive terms happen to occur to you. If terms which seem positive rather than negative occur to you, include them. For example, you might think of ”a good world,”or ”a satisfying world.” If such terms occur to you, use them along with the rest. You may not yet understand why these ”nice” adjectives belong in these exercises but remember that a ”good world” implies a ”bad” one, and a ”satisfyting world” implies an ”unsatisfying” one. All terms which cross your mind are suitable subjects for today´s exercises. Their seeming quality does not matter.Be sure that you do not alter the time intervals between applying today´s idea to what you think is pleasant and what you think is unpleasant. For the purpose of these exercises, there is no diffrence between them. At the end of thepractice period, add:

”But I am upset because I see a meaningless world.”

What is meanigless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you,it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this you see in it.It is these that is meaningless in truth. Beneath your words is written the World of God. The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased,you will see His. That is the ultimate purpose of these exercises. Three or four time is enough, for practicing the idea for today. Nor should the practice periods exceed a minut. You may find even this too long. Terminate the exercises whenever you experience a sense of strain.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 13

”Ameaningless world engenders fear.”

Today´s idea is really Another form of the preceding one, except that it is more specific as to the emotion aroused. Actually, a meaningless world is impossible. Nothing without meaning exists. However, it does not follow that you will not think you perceivesomething that has no meaning. On the contrary, you will be particularly likelyto think you do perceive it. Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intenseanxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God andthe ego ”challenge” each other as to whose meaning is to be written in thefrantically to establish its own ideas there, fearful that the void mayotherwise be used to demonstrate its own ompotence and unreality. And on thisone it is correct. It is essential, therefore, that you learn to recognize themeaningless, and accept it without fear. If you are fearful, it is certain thatyou will endow the world with attributes that it does not possess, and crowd itwith images that do not exist. To the ego illusions are safety devices, as theymust also be to you who equate yourself with the ego. The exercises for today,which should be done about three or four times for not more than a minute or soat most each time, are to be practiced in a somewhat different way from thepreceding ones. With eyes closed, repeat today´s idea to yourself. Then openyou eyes, and look about you slowly, saying:

”I am looking at a meaninglessworld.”

Repeat this statement to yourselfas you look about. Then close your eyes, and conclude with:

”A meaningless world engendersfear because I think I am in completion with God.”

You may find it difficult toavoid resistance, in one form or another, to this concluding statement. Whateverform such resistance may take, remind yourelf that you are really afraid ofsuch a thought because of the ”vengeance” of the ”enemt.” Youn are not expectedto believe the statement at this point, and will probably dismis it aspreposterous. Note carefully, however, any signs of overt or covert fear whichit may arouse. This is our first attempt at stating an explicit cause andeffect relationship of a kind which you are very inexperienced in recognizing.Do not dwell on the concluding statement, and try not even to think of itexcept during the practice periods. That will suffice at present.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 14

”God did not create a meaningless world.”

The idea for today is, of course, the reason why a meaningless world is impossible. What God did not create does not exist. And everything that does exist exists as He created it.The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist. The exercises for today are to be practised with eyes closed throughout. The mind searching period should be short, a minut at most. Do not have more than three practice periods with today´s idea unless you find them comfortable. If you do, it will be because you really understand what they are for. The idea for today is another step in learning to let go the thoughts that you have written on the world, and see the Word of God in their place. The early steps in this exchange, which can truly be called salvation, can be quite difficult and even quite painful. Some of them will lead you directly into fear. You will not be left there. You will go far beyond it. Our direction is toward perfect safety and perfect peace. With eyes closed, think of all the horrors in the world that cross your mind. Name each one as it occurs to you,and then deny its reality. God did not create it, and so it is not real. Say,for example:

”God did not create that war,and so it is not real.”
”God did not create that airoplane crash, and so it is not real.”
”God did not create that disaster (specify), and so it is not real.”

Suitable subjects for the application of today´s idea also include anything you are afraid might happen to you, or to anyone about whom you are concerned. In each case, name the ”disaster”quite specifically. Do not use general terms. For example, do not say. ”God did not create illness, ”but,”God did not create cancer,”or heart attacks, or whatever may arouse fear in you. This is your personal repertory of horrors at which you are looking. These things are apart of the world you see. Some of them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell. It does not matter. What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His. Therefore, it has no meaning. In recognition of this fact, conclude the practice periods by repeating today´s idea:

”God did not create a meaningless world.”

The idea for today can, of course, be applied to anything that disturbs you during the day, aside from the practice periods. Be very specific in applying it. Say:

”God did not create a meaningless world. He idd not create (specify the situation which is disturbing you), and so it is not real.”

Love

[IA56]

Lesson 15

”My thoughts are images that I have made.”

It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your ”seeing”was made. This is the function you have given your body´s eyes. It is not seeing. It is image-making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions. This introductory idea to the process of image-making that you call seeing will not have much meaning for you. You will begin to understand it when you have seen little edges of light around the same familiar objects which you see now. That is the beginning of real vision. You can be certain that real vision will come quickly when this has occured. As we go along, you may have many ”light episodes.” They may take many different forms, some of them quite unexpected. Do not be afraid of them. They are signs that you are opening your eyes at last. They will not persist, because they merely symbolize true perception, and they are not related to knowledge. These exercises will not reveal knowledge to you. But they will prepare the way to it. In practicin the idea for today, repeat it first to yourself, and then apply it to whatever you see around you, using its name and letting your eyes rest on it as you say:

”This ……….is an imagen that I have made.”
”That ………is an imagen that I have made.”

It is not necessary to include a large number of specific subjects for the application of today´s idea. It is necessary, however, to continue to look at each subject while you repeat thei dea to yourself. The idea should be repeated quite slowly each time. Although you will obviously not be able to apply the idea to very many things during the minute or so of practice that is recomended, try to make the selection as random as possible. Less than a minut will do for the practice periods, if you begin to feel uneasy. Do not have more than three application periods for today´s idea unless you feel completely comfortable with it, and do not exceed four. However, the idea can be applied as needed throughout the day.

Love

[IA56]

Lesson 16

”I have no neutral thoughts.”

The idea for today is a beginning step in dispelling the belief that your thoughts have no effect.Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact. Thoughts are not big or little; powerful or weak. They are merely true or false. Those that are true create their own likeness. Those that are false make theirs. There is no more self-contradictory concept than that of ”idle thoughts.” What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle. Every thought you have contributes to truth or to illusion; either it extends that truth or it multiplies illusions. You can indeed multiply nothing, but you will not extend it by doing so. Besides your recognizing that thoughts are never idle, salvation requires that you also recognize that everythought you have brings either peace or war; either love or fear. A neutral result is impossible because a neutral thought is impossible. There is such a temptation to dismiss fear thoughts as unimportant, trivial and not Worth bothering about that it is essential you recognize them all as equally destructive, but equally unreal. We will practice this idea in many forms before you really understand it. In applying the idea for today, search your mind for a minut or so with eyes closed, and actively seek not to overlook any ”little” thought that may tend to elude the search. This is quite difficult until you get used to it. You will find that it is still hard for you not to make artificial distinctions. Every thought that occurs to you, regardless of the qualities that you assign to it, is a suitable subject for applying today´s idea. In the practice periods, first repeat the idea to yourself, and then a seach crosses your mind hold it in awareness while you tell yourself:

”This thought about……….is not a neutral thought.”
”This thought about……….is not a neutral thought.”

As usual, use today´s idea whenever you are aware of a particular thought that arouses uneasiness. The following form is suggested for this purpose:

”This thought about……….is not a neutral thought, because I have no neutral thoughts.”

Four or five practice periods are recommended, if you find them relatively effortless. If strain is experienced, three will be enough. The length of the exercise period should also be reduced if there is discomfort.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 17

”I see no neutral things.”

This idea is another step in the direction of identifying cause and effect as it really operates in the world.You see no neutral things because you have no neutral thoughts. It is Always the thought that comes first, despite the temptation to believe that it is the other way around. This is not the way the world thinks, but you must learn that it is the way you think. If it were not so, perception would have no cause, and would itself be the cause of reality. In view of its highly variable nature, this is hardly likely. In applying today´s idea, say to yourself, with Eyes open:

”I see no neutral things because I have no neutral thoughts.”

Then look around you, resting your glance on each thing you note long enough to say:

”I do not see a neutral……….because my thoughts about……….are not neutral.”

For example, you might say:

”I do not see a neutral wall, because my thoughts about walls are not neutral.”
”I do not see a neutral body, because my thoughts about bodies are not neutral.”

As usual it is essential to make no distinctions between what you believe to be animate or inanimate; pleasant or unpleasant. Regardless of what you may believe, you do not see anything that is really alive or really joyous. That is because you are unaware as yet of any thought that is really true, and therefore really happy. Three of four specific practice periods are recommended, and no less than three are required for maximum benefit, even if you experience resistance. However, if you do, the length of the practice period may be reduced to less than the minute or so that is otherwise recommended.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 18

”I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.”

The idea for today is Another step in learning that the thoughts which give rise to what you see are never neutral or unimportant. It also emphasizes the idea that minds are joined, which will be given increasing stress later on. Today´s idea does not refer to what you see as much as to how you see it. Therefore, the exercises for today emphasize this aspect of your perception. The three or four practice periods which are recommended should be done as follows: Look about you, selecting subjects for the application of the idea for today as randomly as possible, and keeping your eyes on each one long enough to say:

”I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see……….”

Conclude each practice period by repeting the more general statement.

”I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.”

A minut or so, or even less,will be sufficient for each practice period.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 19

”I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.”

The idea for today is obviously the reason why your seeing does not affect you alone. You will notice that at times the idea related to thinking precede those related to perceiving, while at other times the order is reversed. The reason is that the order does not matter. Thinking and its results are really simultaneous, for cause and effect are never separate. Today we are again emphasisinzing the fact that minds are joined. This is rarely a wholly welcome idea at first, since it seems to carry with it an enormous sense of responsibility, and may even be regarded as an ”invasion of privacy.” Yet it is a fact that there are no privat thoughts. Despite your initial resistance to this idea, you will yet understand that it must be true if salvation is possible at all. And salvation must be possible because it is the Will of God. The minute or so of mind searching which today´s exercises require is to be undertaken with eyes closed. The idea for today is to be repeated first, and then the mind should be carefully searched for the thoughts it contains at the time. As you consider each one, name it in terms of the central person or theme it contains, and holding it in your mind as you do so,say:

”I am not alone in experiencing the effects of this thought about……….”

The requirement of as much indiscriminateness as possible in selecting subjects for the practice periods should be quite familiar to you by now, and will no longer be repeated each day, although it will occasionally be included as a reminder. Do not forget,however, that reandom selection of subjects for all practice periods remains essential throughout. Lack of order in this connection will ultimately make the recognition of lack of order in miracles meaningful to you. Apart from the ”as needed” application of today´s idea, at least three practice periods are required, shortening the length of time involved, if necessary. Do not attempt more than four.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 20

”I am determined to see.”

We have been quite casual About our practice periods thus far. There has been virtually no attempt to direct the time for undertaking them, minimal effort has been required, and not even active cooperation and interest have been asked. This approach has been intentional, and very carefully planned. We have not last sight of the crucial importance of the reversal of your thinking. The salvation of the world depends on it. Yet you will not see if you regard yourself a being coerced, and if you give in to resentment and oppostion. This is our first attempt to introduce structure. Do not misconstrue it as an effort to exert force or pressure. You want salvation. You want to be happy. You want peace. You do not have them now,because your mind is totally undisciplined, and you cannot distinguise between joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, love and fear. You are now learning how to tell them apart. And great indeed will be your reward. Your decision to see is all that vision requires. What you want is yours. Do not mistake the little effort that is asked of you for an indication that our goal is of little worth.Can the salvation of the world be a trivial purpose? And can the world be saved if you are not? God has one Son, and he is the resurrection and the life. His will is done because all power is given him in Heaven and on earth. In your determination to see is vision given you. The exercises for today consist in reminding yourself throughout the day that you want to see. Today´s idea also tacitly implies the recognition that you do not see now. Therefore, as you repeat the present state for a better one, and one you really want. Repeat today´s idea slowly and positively at least twice an hour today, attempting to do so every half hour. Do not distress if you forget to do so, but make a real effort to remember. The extrea repetiotions should be applied to any situation,person or event that upsets you. You can see them differently, and you will.What you desire you will see. Such is the real law of cause and effect as it operates in the world.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 21

”I am determined to see things differently.”

The idea for today is obviously a continuation and extention of the preceding one. This time, however, specific mind searching periods are necessary, in addition to applying the idea to particular situation as they may arise. Five practice periods are urged,allowing a full minute for each. In the practice periods, begin by repeating the idea to yourself. Then close your eyes and search your mind carefully for situations past, present or anticipated that arouse anger in you. The anger may take the form of any reaction ranging from mild irritation to rage. The degree of the emotion you experience does not matter. You will become increasingly aware that a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury. Try, therefore, not to let the ”little” thoughts of anger escape you in the practice periods. Remember that you do not really recognize what arouses anger in you, and nothing that you believe in this connection means anything. You will probably be tempted to dwell more on some situations or persons than on others, on the fallacious grounds that they are more ”obvious.”This is not so. It is merely an example of the belief that some forms of attack are more justified than others. As you search your mind for all the forms in which attack thoughts present themselves, hold each one in mind while you tell yourself:

”I am determined to see……….(name of person) differently.”
”I am determined to see……….(Specify the situation) differently.”

Try to be as specific as possible. You may, for example, focus your anger on a paricular attribute of aparticular person, believing that the anger is limited to this aspect. If your perception is suffering from this form of distortion say:

”I am determined to see……….(specify the attribute) in ……….(name of person) differently.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 22

”What I see is a form of vengeance.”

Today´s idea accurately describes the way anyone who holds attack thoughts in his mind must see the world. Having projected his anger onto the world, he sees vengeance about to strike at him. His own attack is thus perceived as self defence. This becomes an increasingly vicious circle until he is willing to change how he sees.Otherwise, thoughts of attack and counter-attack will preoccypy him and people his entire world. What peace of mind is possible to him then? It is from this savage fantasy that you want to escape. It is not joyous news to hear that this is not real? It is not a happy discovery to find that you can escape? You made what you would destroy; everything that you hate and would attack and kill. All that you fear does not exist. Look at the world about you at least five times today, for at least a minut each time. As your eyes move slowly from one object to another, from one body to another, say to yourself:

”I see only the persihable.
I see nothing that will last.
What I see is not real.
What I see is a form of vengeance.”

At the end of each practice period, as yourself:

”Is this the world I really want to see?”

The answer is surely obvious.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 23

”I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.”

The idea for today contains the only way out of fear that will ever succeed. Nothing else will work; Everything else is meaningless. But this way cannot fail. Every thought will have makes up some segment of the world you see. It is with your thoughts, then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is to be changed. If the cause of the world you see is attack thoughts, you must learn that it is these thoughts which you do not want. There is no point in lamenting the world. There is no point in trying to change the world. It is incapable of change because it is merely an effect. But there is indeed a point in changeing your thoughts about the world. Here you are changing the cause. The effect will change automatically. The world you see is a vengeful world, and everything in it is asymbol of vengeance. Each of your perceptions of ”external reality” is a pictorial representation of your own attack thoughts. One can well ask if this can be called seeing. Is not fantasy a better word for such a process, and hallucination a more appropriate term for the result? You see the world that you have made, but you do not see yourself as the image-maker. You cannot besaved from the world, but you can escape from its cause. This is what salvation means, for where is the world you see when its cause is gone? Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. Loveliness can light your images, and so transform them that you will love them, even though they were made of hate. For you will not be making them alone. The idea for today introduces the thought that you are not trapped in the world you see, because its cause can be changed. This change requires, first, that the cause be identified and then let go, so that it can be replaced. The first two steps in this process require your cooperation. The final one does not. Your images have already been replaced. By taking the first two steps, you will see that this is so. Besides using it throughout the day as the need arises, five practice periods are required in applying today´s idea. As you look about you, repeat the idea slowly to yourself first, and then close your eyes and devote about a minute to searching your mind for as many attacks thoughts as occur to you. A seach one crosses your mind, say:

”I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts about……….”

Hold each attack thought in mind as you say this, and then dismiss that thought and go on to the next. In the practice periods, be sure to include both your thoughts of attacking and of being attacked. Their effects are exactly the same because they are exactly the same. You do not recognize this as yet, and you are asked at this time only to treat them as the same in today´s practice periods. We are still at the stage of identifying the cause of the world you see. When you finally learn that thoughts of attack and of being attacked are not different, you will be ready to let the cause go.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 24

”I do not perceive my own best interests.”

In no situation that arises do you realize the outcome that would make you happy. Therefore, you have no guide to appropriate action, and no way of judging the result. What you do is determined by your perception of the situation, and that perception is wrong.It is inevitable, then, that you will not serve your own best interests. Yet they are your only goal in any situation which is correctly perceived.Otherwise, you will not recognize what they are. If you realized that you do not perceive your own best interests, you could be taught what they are. But in the presence of your conviction that you do know what they are, you cannot learn. The idea for today is a step toward opening your mind so that learning can begin. The exercises for today require much more honesty than you are accustomed to using. A few subjects, honestly and carefully considered in each of the five practice periods which should be undertaken today, will be more helpful than a more cursory examination of a large number. Two minutes are suggested for each of the mind searching periods which the exercises involve.The practice periods should begin with repeating today´s idea, fullowed by searching the mind, with closed eyes, for unresolved situations about which you are currently concerned. The emphasis should be on uncovering the outcome you want. You will quickly realize that you have a number of goals in mind as part of the desired outcome, and also that these goals are on different levels and often conflict. In applying the idea for today, name each situation that occurs to you, and then enumerate carefully as many goals as possible that you would like to be met in its resolution. The form of each application should be roughly as follows:

”In the situation involving……….I would like……….to happen, and………to happen.”

and so on. Try to cover as many different kinds of outcomes as may honestly, occur to you, even if some of them do not appear to be directly related to the situation, or even to be inherent in it at all. If these exercises are done properly, you will quickly recognize that you are making a large number of demands of the situation which have nothing to do with it. You will also recognize that many of your goals are contradictory, that you have no unified outcome in mind, and that you must experience disappointment in connection with some of your goals, however the situation turns out. After covering the list of as many hoped-for-goals as possible for each unresolved situation that crosses your mind, say to yourself:

”I do not perceive my own best interests in this situation,”

and so on to the next one.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 25

”I do not know what anything is for.”

Purpose is meaning. Today´s idea explains why nothing you see means anything. You do not know what it is for.Therefore, it is meanigless to you. Everything is for your own best interests.That is what it is for; that is its purpose; that is what it means. It is in recognizing this that what you see is given meaning. You perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals. These goals have nothing to do with your own best intersts, because the ego is not you. This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for. As a result, you are bound to misuse it. When you believe this, you will try to withdraw the goals you have assigned to the world, instead of attempting to reinforce them. Another way of describing the goals you now perceive is to say that they are all concerned with ”personal” interests. Since you have no personal interests, your goals are really concerned with nothing. In cherishing them, therefore, you have no goals at all. And thus you do not know what anything is for. Before you can make any sense out of the exercises for today,one more thought is necessary. At the most superficial levels, you do recoginze purpose. Yet purpose cannot be understood at these levels. For example, you do understand that a telephone is for the purpose of talking to someone who is not physically in your immediate vicinity. What you do not understand is what you want to reach him for. And it is this that makes your contact with him meaningful or not. It is crusial to your learning to be willing to give up the goals you have established for everything. The recognition that they are meaningless, rather than ”good” or ”bad” is the only way to accomplish this. The idea for today is a step in this direction. Six practice periods, each of two minutes duration, are required. Each practice period should begin with a slow repetition of the idea for today, followed by looking about you and letting your glance rest on whatever happens to catch your eye, near or far, ”important”or ”unimportant,” ”human” or ”unhuman.” With your eyes resting on each subject you so select, say, for example:

”I do not know what this chair is for.”
”I do not know what this pencil is for.”
”I do not know what this hand is for.”

Say this quite slowly, without shifting your eyes from the subject until you have completed the statement about it. Then move on to the next subject, and apply today´s idea as before.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 26

”My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.”

It is surely obvious that if you can be attacked you are not invulnerable. You see attack as a real threat. That is because you believe that you can really attack. And what would have effects through you must also have effects on you. It is this law that will ultimately save you, but you are misusing it now. You must therefore learn how it can be used for your own best interests, rather than against them. Because your attack thoughts will be projected, you will fear attack. And if you fear attack, you must believe that you are not invulnerable. Attack thoughts therefore make you vulnerable in your own mind, which is where the attack thoughts are. Attack thoughts and invulnerablility cannot be accepted together. They contradict eachother. The idea for today introduces the thought that you always attack yourself first. If attack thoughts must entail the belief that you are vulnerable, their effect is to weaken you in your own eyes. Thus they have attacked your perception of yourself. And because you believe in them, you cannot longer believe in yourself. A false image of yourself has come to take the place of what you are. Practice with today´s idea will help you to understand that vulnerability or invulnerability is the result of your own thoughts.Nothing except your thoughts can attack you. Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable. And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so. Six practice periods are required in applying today´sidea. A full two minutes should be attempted for each of them, although the time may be reduced to a minut if discomfort is too great. Do not reduce it further.The practice period should begin with repeating the idea for today, then closing you eyes and reviewing the unresolved question whose outcomes are causing you concern. The concern may take the form of depression, worry, anger,a sense of imposition, fear, foreboding or preoccupation. Any problem as yet unsettled that tends to recur in your thoughts during the day is a sutiable subject. You will not be able to use very many for any one practice period,because a longer time than usual should be spent with each one. Today´s idea should be applied as follows:

First, name the situation:

”I am concerned about……….”

Then go over every possible outcome that has occured to you in that connection and which has caused you concern, referring to each one quite specifically, saying:

”I am afraid……..will happen.”

If you are doing the exercises properly,you should have some five or six distressing possibilities available for each situation you use, and quite possible more. It is much more helpful to cover a few situations thoroughly than to touch on a larger number. As the list of anticipated outcomes for each situation continues, you will probably find some of them, especially those that occur to you towards the end, less acceptable to you. Try, however, to treat them all alike to whatever extent you can. After you have named each outcome of which you are afraid, tell yourself:

”That thought is an attack upon myself.”

Conclude each practice period by repating today´s idea to yourself once more.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 27

”Above all else I want to see.”

Today`s idea expresses something stronger than mere determination. It gives vision priority among your desires.You may feel hesitant about using the idea, on the grounds that you are not sure you really mean it. This does not matter. The purpose of today´s exercises is to bring the time when the idea will be wholly true a little nearer. The remay be a great temptation to believe that some sort of sacrifice is being asked of you when you say you want to see above all else. If you become uneasy about the lack of reservation involved, add:

”Vision has no cost at anyone.”

If fear of loss still persists,add further:

”It can only bless.”

The idea for today needs many repetiotions for maximum benefit. It should be used at least every half hour,and more if possible. You might try for every 15 or 20 minutes. It is recommended that you set a definite time interval for using the idea when you Wake or shortly afterwards, and attempt to adhere to it throughout the day. It will not be difficult to do this, even if you are engaged in coversation, or otherwise occupied at the time. You can still repeat one short sentence to yourself without disturbing anything. The real question is, how often will you remember?How much do you want today´s idea be true? Answer one of these questions, and you have answered the other. You will probably miss several applications, and perhaps quite a number. Do not be disturbed by this, but do try to keep on your schedule from then on. If only once during the day you feel that you were perfectly sincere while you were repeating today´s idea, you can be sure that you have saved yourself many years of effort.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 28

”Above all else I want to see things differently.”

Today we are really giving specific application to the idea for yesterday. In these practice periods, you will be making a series of definite commitments. The question of whether you will keep them in the future is not our concern here. If you are willing at least to make then now, you have started on the way to keeping them. And we are still at the beginning. You may wonder why it is important to say, for example,”Above all else I want to see table differently.” In it self it is not important at all. Yet what is by itself? And what does ”in itself” mean? You see a lot of separate things about you, which really means you are not seeing at all. You either see or not. When you have seen one thing differently, you will see all things differently. The light you will see in any one of them is the same light you will see in them all. When you say, ”Above all else I want to see this table differently,” you are making a commitment to withdraw your preconceived ideas about the table, and open your mind to what it is, and what it is for. You are not defining it in past terms. You are asking what it is,rather than telling it what it is. You are not binding its meaning to your tiny experience of tables, nor are you limiting its purpose to your little personal thoughts. You will not question what you have already defined. And the purpose of these exercises is to ask questions and receive the answers. In saying. ”Above all else I want to see this table differently,” you are committing yourself to seeing. It is not an exclusive commitment. It is a commitment that applies to the table just as much as to anything else, neither more nor less. You could,in fact, gain vision from just that table, if you would withdraw all your own ideas from it, and look upon it with a completely open mind. It has something to show you; something beautiful and clean and of infinite value, full of happiness and hope. Hidden under all your ideas about it is its real purpose,the purpose it shares with all the universe. In using the table as a subject for applying the idea for today, you are therefore really asking to see the purpose of the universe. You will be making this same request of each subject that you use in the practice periods. And you are making a commitment to each of them to let its purpose be revealed to you, instead of placing your own judgment upon it. We will have six two-minute practice periods today, in which the idea for the day is stated first, and then applied to whatever you see about you. Not only should the subjects be chosen randomly, but each one should be accorded equal sincerity as today´s idea is applied to it, in an attempt to acknowledge the equal value of them all in their contribution to your seeing.As usual, the applications should include the name of the subject your eyes happen to light on, and you should rest your eyes on in while saying:

”Above all else I want to see the……….differently.”

Each application should be made quite slowly, and as thoughtfully as possible. There is no hurry.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 29

”God is in everything I see.”

The idea for today explains why you can see all purpose in everything. It explanis why nothing is separate, byitself or in itself. And it explains why nothing you see means anything. Infact, it explains every idea we have used thus far, and all subsequent ones as well. Today´s idea is the whole basis for vision. You will probably find this idea very difficult to grasp at this point. You may find it silly, irreverent,senseless, funny and even objectionable. Certaily God is not in a table, for example, as you see it. Yet we emphasized yesterday that a table shares the purpose of the universe. And what shares the purpose of the universe shares the purpose of its Creator. Try then, today, to begin to learn how to look on all things with love, appreciation and open-mindedness. You do not see them now.Would you know what is in them? Nothing is as it appears to you. Its holy purpose stands beyond your little range. When vision has shown you the holiness that lights up the world, you will understand today´s idea perfectly. And you will not understand how you could ever have found it difficult. Our six two-minute practice periods for today should follow a now familiar pattern: Begin with repeating the idea to yourself, and then apply it to randomly-chosen subjects about you, naming each one specifically. Try to avoid the tendency toward self-directed selection, which may be particularly tempting in connection with today´s idea because of its wholly alien nature. Remember that any order you impose is equally alien to reality. Your list of subjects should therefore be as free of self-selection as possible. For example, a suitable list might include:

”God is in this coat hanger.”
God is in this magazine.”
”God is in this finger.”
”God is in this lamp.”
”God is in that body.”
”God is in that door.”
”God is in that waste basket.”

In addition to the assigned practice periods, repeat the idea for today at least once an hour, looking slowly about you as you sayt the words unhurriedly to yourself. At least once or twice, you should experience a sense of restfulness as you do this.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 30

”God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.”

The idea for today is the springboard for vision. From this idea will the world open up before you, and you will look upon it and see in it what you have never seen before. Nor will what you saw before be even faintly visible to you. Today we are trying to usea new kind of ”projection.” We are not attempting to get rid of what we do not like by seeing it outside. Instead, we are trying to see in the world what is in our minds, and what we want to recognize is there. Thus, we are trying to join with what we see, rather than keeping it apart from us. That is the fundamental difference between vision and the way you see. Today´s idea should be applied as often as possible throughout the day. Whenever you have a momentor so, repeat it to youself slowly, looking about you, and trying to realize that the idea applies to everything you do see now, or could see now if it were within the range of your sight. Real vision is not limited to concepts such as ”near”and ”far.” To help you begin to get used to this idea, try to think of things beyond your present range as well as those you can actually see, as you apply today´s idea. Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body´s eyes at all. The mind is its only source. To aid in helping you to become more accustomed to this idea as well, devote several practice periods to applying today´s idea with your eyes closed, using whatever come to mind, and looking within rather than without. Today´s idea applies equally to both.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 31

”I am not the victim of the world I see.”

Today´s idea is the introduction to your declaratio of release. Again, the idea should be applied to both the world you see without and the world within. In applying the idea, we will use a form of practice which will be used more and more, with changes as indicated.Generally speaking, the form includes two aspects, one in which you apply the idea on a more sustained basis, and the other consisting of frequent applications of the idea of the idea throughout the day. Two longer periods of practice with the idea for today are needed, one in the morning and one at night. Three to five minutes for each of these are recommended. During the time, look about you slowly while repeating the idea two or three times, look about you slowly while repeating the idea two or three times. Then close your eyes, and apply the same idea to your inner world. You will escape from both together, for the inner is the cause of the outer. As you survey your inner world, merely let whatever thoughts cross your mind come into your awareness, each to be considered for a moment, and then replaced by the text. Try not to establish any kind of hierarchy among them. Watch them come and go as dispassionately as possible. Do not dwell on any one in particular, but try to let the strem move on evenly and calmly, without any special investment on your part. As you sit and quietly watch your thoughts, repeat today´s idea to yourself as often as you care to, but with no sens of hurry. In addition, repeat the idea for today as often as possible during the day. Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world. The idea for today is also a particularly useful one to use as a response to any form of temptation that may arise. It is a declaration that you will not yield to it, and put yourself in bondage.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 32

"I have invented the World I see."

Today we are continuing to develop the theme of cause and effect. You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up.You will see it or not see it, as you wish. While you want it you will see it; when you no longer want it, it will not be there for you to see. The idea for today, like the preceding ones, applied to your inner and outer worlds, which are actually the same. However, since you see them as different, the practice periods for today will again include two phases, one involving the world you see outside you, and the other the world you see in your mind. In today´s
exercises, try to introduce the thought that both are in your own imagination. Again we will begin the practice periods for the morning and evening by repeating the idea for today two or three times while looking around at the world you see as outside yourself. Then close your eyes and look around your inner world. Try to treat them both as equally as possible. Repeat the idea for today unhurriedly as often as you wish, as you watch the images your imagination presents to your awareness. For the two longer practice periods three to five minutes are recommended, with not less than three required. More than five can be utilized, if you find the exercise restful. To facilitate this, select a time when few distractions are anticipated, and when you yourself feel reasonably ready. These exercises are also to be continued during the day, as often as possible. The shorter applications consist of repeating the idea slowly, as you survey either your inner or outer world. It does not matter which you choose. The idea for today should also be applied immediately to any situation that may distress you. Apply the idea by telling yourself:

”I have invented this situation as I see it.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 33

”There is another way of looking at the world.”

Todays idea is an atetmpt to recognize that you can shift your perception of the world in both its outer and inner aspects. A full five minutes should be devoted to the morning and evening applications. In these practice periods, though unhurried applications aree ssential. Alternate between surveying your outer and inner perceptions, but without an aprupt sense of shifting. Merely glance casually around the world you perceive as outside yourself, then close your eyes and survey your inner
thoughts with equal casualness. Try to remain equally uninvolved in both, and to maintain this detachment as you repeat the idea throughout the day. The shorter exercise periods should be as frequent as possible. Specific applications of today´s idea should also be made immediately, when any situation arises which tempts you to become disturbed. For these applications, say:

”There is another way of looking at this.”

Remember to apply today´s idea the instant you are aware of distress. It may be necessary to take a minute or so to sit quietly and repeat the idea to yourself several times. Closing your eyes will probably help in this form of applications.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 34

”I could see peace instead of this.”

The idea for today begins to describe the conditions that prevail in the other way of seeing. Peace of mind is clearly an internal matter. It must begin with your own thoughts, and the nextend outward. It is from your peace of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises. Three longer practice periods are required for today´s exercises.One in the morning and one in the evening are advised, with an additional one to be undertaken at any time in between that seems most conductive to readiness. All applications should be done with your eyes closed. It is your inner world to which the applications of today´s idea should be made. Some five minutes of mind searching are required for each of the longer practice periods.Search you mind for fear thoughts, anxiety-provoking situations, ”offending”personalities or events, or anything else about which you are harboring unloving thoughts. Note them all casually, repeating the idea for today slowly as you watch them arise in your mind, and let each one go, to be replaced by the next. If you begin to experience difficulty in thinking of specific subjects, continue to repeat the idea to yourself in an unhurried manner,without applying it to anything in paricular. Be sure, however, not to make any specific exclusions. The shorter applications are to be frequent, and made whenever you feel your peace of mind is threatened in any way. The purpose is to protect yourself from temptation throughout the day. If a specific from to temptation arises in your awareness, the exercise should take this form:

”I could see peace in thissituation instead of what I now see in it.”

If the inroads on your peace of mind take the form of more generalized adverse emotions, such as depression,anxiety or worry, use the idea in its original form. If you find you need more than one application of today´s idea to help you change your mind in any specific context, try to take several minutes and devote them to repeating the idea until you feel some sense of relief. It will help you if you tell yourself specifically:

”I can replace my feelings of depression, anxiety or worry (for my thoughts about this situation, personalityor event) with peace.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 35

”My mind is part of God´s. I am very holy.”

Today´s idea does not describe the way you see yourself now. It does, however, describe what vision will show you. It is difficult for anyone who thinks he is in this world to believe this of himself. Yet the reason he thinks you are. That is because you surround yourself with the enviroment you want. And you want it to protect the image of yourself that you have made. The image is part of this enviroment. What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. This is not vision. Images cannot see. The idea for today presents a very different view of yourself. By establishing your. Source it establishes your Identitiy,and it describes you as you really be in truth. We will use a somewhat different kind of application for today´s idea because the emphasis for today is on the perceiver, rather than on what he perceives. For each of the three five-minute practice periods today, begin by repeating today´s idea to yourself, and then close your eyes and search your mind for the various kinds of descriptive terms in which you see yourself. Include all the ego-based attributes which you ascribe to yourself, positive or negative, desirable or undesirable, grandiose or debased. All of them are equally unreal, because you do not look upon yourself through the eyes of holiness. In the earlier part of the mind searching period, you will probably emphasize what you consider to be the more negative aspects of your perception of yourself. Toward the latter part of the exercise period, however, more self-inflating descriptive terms may well cross your mind. Try to recognize that the direction of your fantasies about yourself does not matter. Illusions have no direction in reality. They are merely not true. A suitable unselected list for applying the idea for today might be as follows:

”I see myself as imposed on.”
”I see myself as depressed.”
”I see myself as failing.”
”I see myself as and angered.”
”I see myself as helpless.”
”I see myself as victorious.”
”I see myself as losing out.”
”I see myself as charitable.”
”I see myself as virtuous.”

You should not think of these terms in an abstract way. They will occur to you as various situations,personalities and events in which you figure cross your mind. Pich up any specific situation that occurs to you, identify the descriotive term or terms you feel are applicable to your reactions to that situation, and use them in applying today´s idea. After you have named each one, add:

”But my mind is part of God´s. I am very holy.”

During the longer exercise periods, there will probably be intervals in which nothing specific occurs to you. Do not strain to think up specific things to fill the interval, but merely relax and repeat today´s idea slowly until something occurs to you. Although nothing that does occur should be omitted from the exercises, nothing should be”dug out” with effort. Neither force nor discrimination should be used. As often as possible during the day, pick up a specific attribute or attributes you are ascribing to yourself at the time and apply the idea for today to them, adding the idea in the form stated above to each of them. If nothing particular occurs to you, merely repeat the idea to yourself, with closed eyes.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 36

”My holiness envelops Everything I see.”

Today´s idea extends the idea for yesterday from the perceiver to the percieved. You are holy because your mind is part of God´s. And because you are holy, your sight must be holy as well. ”Sinless” means without sin. You cannot be without sin a little. You are sinless or not. If your mind is part of God´s you must be sinless, or part of His Mind would be sinful. Your sight is related to His holiness, not to your ego, and therefore not to your body. Four three-to-five minute practice periods are required for today. Try to distribute them fairly evenly, and make the shorter applications frequently, to protect your protection throughout the day.The longer practice periods should take this form:
First, close your eyes and repeat the idea for today several times, slowly. Then open eyes and look quite slowly about you, applying the idea specifically to whatever you note in your casual survey. Say, for example:

”My holiness envelops that rug.”
”My holiness envelops that wall.”
”My holiness envelops these fingers.”
”My holiness envelops that chair.”
”My holiness envelops that body.”
”My holiness envelops this pen.”

Several times during these practice periods, close your eyes and repeat the idea to yourself. Then open your eyes,and continue as before. For the shorter exercise periods, close your eyes and repeat the idea; look about you as you repeat it again; and conclude with one more repetition with your eyes closed. All applications should, of course, be made quite slowly, as effortlessly and unhurriedly as possible.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 37

”My holiness blesses the world.”

This idea contains the first glimmerings of your true function in the world, or why you are here. Your purpose is to see the world through your own holiness. Thus are you and the world blessed together. No one loses; nothing is taken away from anyone;everyone gains through your holy vision. It signifies the end of sacrifice because it offers everyone his full due. There is no other way in which the idea of sacrifice can be removed from the world´s thinking. Any other way of seeing will inevitably demand payment of someone or something. As a result, the perceiver will lose. Nor will he have any idea why he is losing. Yet is his wholeness restored to his awareness through your vision. Your holiness blesses him by asking nothing of him. Those who see them selves as whole make no demands.Your holiness is the salvation of the world. It lets you teach the world that it is one with you, not by preaching to it, not by telling it anything, but merely by your quiet recognition that in your holiness are all things blessed along with you. Today´s four longer exercise periods each to involve three to five minutes of practice, begin with the repetiotion of the idea for today,followed by a minute or so of looking about you as you apply the idea to whatever you see:

”My holiness blesses this chair.”
”My holiness blesses that window.”
”My holiness blesses this body.”

Then close your eyes and apply the idea to any person who occurs to you, using his name and saying:

My holiness blesses you, (name).”

You may continue the practice period with your eyes closed; you may open your eyes again, and apply the idea for today to your outer world if you so desire; you may alternate between applying the idea to what you see around you and to those who are in yourt houghts; or you may use any combination of these two phases of application that you prefer. The practice period should conclude with a repetition of the idea with your eyes closed, and another, following immediately, with your Eyes open. The shorter exercises consist of repeting the idea as often as you can.It is particularly helpful to apply it silently to anyone you meet, using his name as you do so. It is essential to use the idea if anyone seems to cause an adverse reaction in you. Offer him the blessing of your holiness immediately,that you may learn to keep it in your own awareness.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 38

”There is nothing my holiness cannot do.”

Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator. Through you holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through you holiness the powerof God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do. Your holiness, then, can remove all pain, can end all sorrow, and can solve all problems. It can do so in connection with yourself and with anyone else. It is equal in its power to help anyone because it is equal in its power to save anyone. If you are holy, so is everything God created. You are holy because all things He created are holy. And all things He created are holy because you are.In today´s exercises, we will apply the power of your holiness to all problems,difficulties or suffering in any form that you happen to think of, in yoursel for in someone else. We will make no distinctions because there are no distinctions. In the four longer practice periods, each preferably to last a full five minutes, repeat the idea for today, close you eyes, and then search your mind for any sense of loss or unhappiness of any kind as you see it. Try to make as little distianction as possible between a situation that is difficult for you, and one that is difficult for someone else. Identify the situation specifically, and also the name of the person concerned. Use this form in applying the idea for today:

”In the situation involving……….in which I see myself, there is nothing that my holiness cannot do.”
”In the situation involving……….in which……….sees himself, there is nothing my holiness cannot do.”

From time to time you may want to vary this procedure, and add some relevant thoughts of your own. You might like, for example, to include thoughts such as:

”There is nothing my holiness cannot do because the power of God lies in it.”

Introduce whatever variations appeal to you, but keep the exercise focused on the theme, ”There is nothing my holiness cannot do.” The purpose of today´s exercises is to begin to instill in you a sense that you have dominion over the things because of what you are. In the frequent shorter application, apply the idea in its original form unless as pecific problem concerning you or someone else arises, or comes to mind. In that event, use the more specific form in applying the idea to it.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 39

”My holiness is my salvation.”

If guilt is hell, what is its opposite? Like the text for which this workbook was written, the idea used for the exercises are very simple, very clear and totally unambiguous. We are not concerned with intellectual feats nor logical toys. We are dealing only in the very obvious, which has been overlooked in the clouds of complexity in which you think you think. If guilt is hell, what is its opposite? This is not difficult, surely. The hesitation you may feel in answering is not due to the ambiguity of the question. But do you believe that guilt is hell? If you did,you would see at once how direct and simple the test is, and you would not need a workbook at all. No one needs practice to gain what is already his. We have already said that your holiness is the salvation of the world. What about your own salvation? You cannot give what you do not have. A savior must be saved.How else can he teach salvation? Today´s exercises will apply to you,recognizing that your salvation is crucial to the salvation of the world. As you apply the exercises to your world, the whole world stands to benefit. Your holiness is the answer to every question that was ever asked, is being asked now, or will be asked in the future. Your holiness means the end of guilt, and therefore the end of hell. Your holiness is the salvation of the world, and your own. How could you to whom your holiness belongs be excluded from it? God does not know unholiness. Can it be He does not know His Son? A full five minutes are urged for the four longer practice periods for today, and longer and more frequent practice sessions are encouraged. If you want to exceed the minimum requirements, more rather than longer sessions are recommended,although both are suggested. Begin the practice periods as usual, by repeating today´s idea to yourself. Then, with closed eyes, search out your unloving thoughs in whatever form they appear; uneasiness, depression, anger, fear,worry, attack, insecurity and so on. Whatever form they take, they are unlovingand therefore fearful. And so it is from them that you need to be saved.Specific situations, events or personalities you associate with unloving thoughts of any kind are suitable subjects for today´s exercies. It is imperative for your salvation that you see them differently. And it is your blessing on them that will save you and give you vision. Slowly, withou tconscious selection and without undue emphasis on any one is particular, search your mind for every thought that stands between you and your salvation. Apply the idea for today to each of them in this way:

”My unloving thoughts about……….are keeping me in hell. My holiness is my salvation.”

You may find these practice periods easier if you intersperse them with several short periods during which you merely repeat today´s idea to yourself slowly a few times. You may also find it helpful to include a few short intervals in which you just relax and do not seem to be thinking of anything. Sustained concentration is very difficult at first. It will become much easier as your mind becomes more disciplined and less distractable. Meanwhile, you should feel free to introduce variety into the exercise periods in whatever form appeals to you. Do not, however, change the idea itself as you vary the method of applying it. However you elect to use it, the idea should be stated so that its meaning is the fact that your holiness is your salvation. End each practice period by repeating the idea in its original form once more, and adding:

”If guilt is hell, what is its opposite?”

In the shorter applications,which should be made some three or four times an hour and more if possible, you may ask yourself this question, repeat today´s idea, and perferably both. If temptations arise, a particularly helpful form of the idea is:

”My holiness is my salvation from this.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 40

”I am blessed as a Son of God.”

Today we will begin to assert some of the happy things to which you are entitled, being what you are. No long practice periods are required today, but very frequent short ones are necessary. Once every ten minutes would be highlly desirable, and you are urged to attempt this schedule and to adhere to it whenever possible. If you forget, try again. If there are long interruptions, try again. Whenever you remember, try again. You need not close your eyes for the exercise periods, although you will probably find it more helpful if you do. However, you may be in a number of situations during the day when closing your eyes would not be feasible. Do not miss a practice period because of this. You can practice quite well under any circumstances, if you really want to. Today´s exercises take little time and no effort. Repeat the idea for today, and then add several of the attributes you associate with being a son of God, applying them to yourself. One practice period might, for example, consist of the following:

”I am blessed as a Son of God. I am happy, peaceful, loving and contented.”

Another might take this form:

”I am blessed as a Son of God. I am calm, quiet, assured and confident.”

If only a brief period is available, merely telling yourself that you are blessed as a Son of God will do.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 41

”God goes with me wherever I go.”

Today´s idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment all the separated ones experience. Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering and intense fear of love. The separated ones have invented many ”cures” for what they belive to be ”the ills of the world.” But the one thing they do not do is to question the reality of the problem. Yet its effects cannot be cured because the problem is not real. The idea for today has the power to end all this foolishness forever. And foolishness it is, despite the serious and tragic forms it may take. Deep within you is everything that is perfect, ready to radiate through you and out into the world. It will cure all sorrow and pain and fear and loss because it will heal the mind that thought these things were real, and suffered out of its allegiance to them. You can never be deprived of your perfect holiness because its Source goes with you wherever you go. You can never suffer because the Source of all joy goes with you wherever you go. You can never be alone because the Source of all life goes with you wherever you go. Nothing can destroy your peace of mind because God goes with you wherever you go. We understand that you do not believe all this. How could you, when the truth is hidden deep within, under a heavy cloud of insane thoughts, dense and obscuring, yet representing all you see? Today we will make our first real attempt to get past this dark and heavy cloud, and to go through it to the light beyond. There will be only one long practice period today. In the morning, as soon as you get up if possible, sit quietly for some three to five minutes, with your eyes closed. At the beginning of the practice period, repeat today´s very slowly. Then make no effort to think of anything. Try, instead, to get a sense of turning inward, past all the idle thoughts of the world. Try to enter very deeplyt into your own mind, keeping it clear of any thoughts that might divert your attention. From time to time, you may repeat the idea if you find it helpful. But most of all, try to sink down and inward, away from the world and all the foolish thoughts of the world. You are trying to reach past all these things. You are trying to leave appearances and approach reality. It is quite possible to reach God. In fact it is very easy, because it is the most natural thing in the world. You might even say it is the only natural thing in the world. The way will open, if you believe that it is possible. This exercise can bring very startling results evven the first time it is attempted, and sooner or later it is always successful. We will go into more detail about this kind of practice as we go along. But it will never fail completely, and instant success is possible. Throughout the day use today´s idea often, repeating it very slowly, preferably with eyes closed. Think of what you are saying; what the words mean.Concentrate on the holiness that they imply about you; on the unfailing companionship that is yours; on the complete protection that surrounds you. You can indeed afford to laugh at fear thoughts, remembering that God goes with you wherever you go.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 42

”God is my Strength. Vision is His gift.”

The idea for today combines two very powerful thoughts, both of major importance. It also stes forth a cause and effect relationship that explains why you cannot fail in your efforts to achieve the goal of the course. You will see because it is the Will of God. It is His strength, not your own, that gives you power. And it is His gift, rather than your own, that offers vision to you. God is indeed your strength, and what He gives is truly given. This means that you can receive it any time andd anywhere, wherever you are, and in whatever circumstance you find yourself. Your passage through time and space is not at random. You cannot but be in the right place at the right time. Such is the strength of God. Such are His gifts. We will have two three-to-five minutes practice periods today, one as soon as possible after you wake, and another as close as possible to the time you go to sleep. It is better, however, to wait until you can sit quietly by yourself, at a time when you feel ready, than it is to be concerned with the time as such. Begin these practice periods by repeating the idea for today slowly, with your eyes open, looking about you. Then close your eyes and repeat the idea again, even slower then before. After this, try to think of nothing except thoughts that occur to you in relation to the idea for the day. You might think, for example:

”Vision must be possible, God gives truly.”
Or:
”God´s gifts to me must be mine, because He gave them to me.”

Any thought that is clearly related to the idea for today is suitable. You may, in fact, be astonished at the amount of course-related understanding some of your thoughts contain. Let them come without censoring unless you find your mind is merely wandering, and you have let obviously irrelevant thoughts intrude. You may also reach a point where no thoughts at all seem to come to mind. If such interference occur, open your eyes and repeat the thought once more while looking slowly about; close your eyes, repeat the idea once more, and then continue to look for related thoughts in your mind. Remember, however, that active searching for relevant thoughs is not appropriate for today´s exercises. Try merely to step back and let the thoughts come. If you find this difficult, it is better to spend the practice period alternating between slow repetitions of the idea with eyes open, then with eyes closed, than it is to strain to find suitable thoughts. There is no limit on the number of short practice periods that would be beneficial today. The idea for the day is a beginning step in bringing thoughs together, and teaching you that you are studying a unified thought system in which nothing is lacking that is needed, and nothing is included that is contradictory or irrelevant. The more often you repeat the idea during the day, the more often you will be reminding yourself that the goal of the course is important to you, and that you have not forgotten it.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 43

”God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him.”

Perception is not an attribute of God. His is the realm of knowledge. Yet He has created the Holy Spirit as the Mediator between perception and knowledge. Without this link with God,perception would have replaced knowledge forever in your mind. With this link with God, perception will become so changed and purified that it will lead to knowledge. That is its function as the Holy Spirit sees it. Therefore, that is its function in truth. In God you cannot see. Perception has no function in God, and does not exist. Yet in salvation, which is the undoing of what never was, perception has a mighty purpose. Made by the Son of God for an unholy purpose, it must become the means for the restoration of his holiness to his awareness. Perception has no meaning. Yet does the Holy Spirit give it an meaning very close to God´s. Healed perception becomes the means by which the Son of God forgives his brother, and thus forgives himself. You cannot see apart from God because you cannot be apart from God. Whatever you do you do in Him, because whatever you think, you think with His Mind. If vision is real,and it is real to the extent to which it shares the Holy Spirit´s purpose, then you cannot see apart from God. Three five-minute practice periods are required today, one as early and one as late as possible in the day. The third may be undertaken at the most convenient and suitable time that circumstances the readiness permit. At the beginninghttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png (http://www.astraldynamics.com.au/) of these practice periods, repeat the ideafor today to yourself with eyes open. Then glance around you for a short time,applying the idea specifically to what you see. Four or five subjects for this phase of the practice period are sufficient. You might say, for example:

”God is my Source. I cannot see this desk apart from Him.”
”God is my Source. I cannot see this picture apart from Him.”

Although this part of the exercise period should be relatively short, be sure that you select the subjects for this phase of practice indiscriminately, without self-directed inclusion or exclusion. For the second and longer phase, clolse your eyes,repeat today´s idea again, and then let whatever relevant thoughts occur to you add to the idea in your own personal way. Thoughts such as:

”I see through the eyes of forgiveness.”
”I see the world as blessed.”
”The world can show me myself.”
”I see my own thoughts, which are like God´s.”

Any thought related more or less directly to today´s idea is suitable. The thoughts need not bear any obvious relationship to the idea, but they should not be in opposition to it. If youfind your mind wandering; if you begin to be aware of thoughts which areclearly out of accord with today´s idea, or if you seem to be unable to think of anything, open your eyes, repeat the first phase of the exercise period, andthen attempt the second phase again. Do not allow any protraced period to occurin which you become preoccupied with irrelevant thoughts. Return to the firstphase of the exercises as often as necessary to prevent this. In applying today´s idea in the shorter practice periods, the formhttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png (http://www.astraldynamics.com.au/) may vary according to the circumstances and situations in which you find yourself during the day.When you are with someone else, for example, try to remember to tell him silently:

”God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him.”

This form is equally applicable to strangers as it is to those you think are closer to you. In fact, try not to make distinctions of this kind at all. Today´s idea should also be applied throughout the day to various situations and events that may occur,particularly to those which seem to distress you in any way. For this purpose,applyhttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png (http://www.astraldynamics.com.au/) the idea in this form:

”God is my Source. I cannot see this apart from Him.”

If no particular subject presents itself to your awareness at the time, merely repeat the idea in its original form. Try today not to allow any long periods of time to slip by without remembering today´s idea, and thus remembering your function.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 44

”God is the Light in which I see.”

Today we are continuing the idea for yesterday, adding another dimension to it. You cannot see in darkness, and you cannot make light. You can make darkness and then think you see in it, but light reflects life, and is therefore an aspect of creation. Creation and darkness cannot coexist, but light and life must go together, being but different aspects of creation. In order to see, you must recognize the light is within, not without. You do not see outside yourself, nor is the equipment for seeing outside you. An essential part of this equipment is the light that makes seeing possible. It is with you always, making vision possible in every circumstance. Today we are going to attempt to reach that light. For this purpose, we will use a form of exercise which has been suggested before, and which we will utilize increasingly. It is a particularly diffcult form for the undisciplined mind, and represents a major goal of mind training. It requires precisely what the untrained mind lacks. Yet this training must be accomplished if you are to see. Have at least three practice periods today, each lasting threee to five minutes. A longer time is highly recommended, but only if you find the time slipping by with little or no sense of strain. The form of practice we will use today is the most natural and easy one in the world for the trained mind, just as it seems to be the most unnatural and difficult for the untrained mind. Your mind is no longer wholly untrained. You are quite ready to learn the form of exercise we will use today, but you may find that you will encounter strong resitance. The reason is very simple. While you practice is this way, you leave behind everything that you now believe and all the thoughts that you have made up. Properly speaking, this is the release from hell. Yet perceived through the ego´s eyes, it is loss of identity and adescent into hell. If you can stand aside from the ego by ever so little, you will have no difficulty in recognizing that its opposition and its fears are meaningless. You might find it helpful to remind yourself, from time to time,that to reach light is to escape from darkness, whatever you may believe to the contrary. God is the Light in which you see. You are attempting to reach Him.Begin the practice period by repeating today´s idea with your eyes open, and close them slowly, repeating the idea several times more. Then try to sink into your mind, letting go every kind of interferece and intrusion by quietly sinking past them. Your mind cannot be stopped in this unless you choose to stop it. It is merely taking its natural course. Try to observe your passing thoughts without involvement, and slip quietly by them. While no particular approach is advocated for this form of exercise, what is needful is a sense of the importance of what you are doing; its in estimable value to you, and anawareness that you are attempting something very holy. Salvation is your happiest accomplishment. It is also the only one that has nany meaning, because it is the only one that has any real use to you at all. If resistance rises in any form, pause long enough to repeat today´s idea, keeping your eyes closed unless you are aware of fear. In that case, you will probably find it more reassuring to open your eyes briefly. Try, however, to return to the exercises with eyes closed as soon as possible. If you are doing the exercises correctly,you should experience some sense of relaxation, and even a feeling that you are approaching, if not actually entering into light. Try to think of light, formless and without limit, as you pass by the thoughts of this world. And do not forget that they cannot hold you to the world unless you givet hem the power to do so. Throughout the day repeat the idea often, with eyes open or closed as seems better to you at the time. But do not forget. Above all, be determined not to forget today.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 45

”God is the Mind with which I think.”

Today´s idea holds the key to what your real thoughts are. They are nothing that you think you think, just as nothing that you think you see is related to vision in any way. There is no relationship between what is real and what you think is real. Nothing that you think are real thoughts resemble your real thoughts in any respect. Nothing that you think you see bears any resemblance to what vision will show you. You think with the Mind of God. Therefore you share your thoughts with Him, as He shares His with you. They are the same thoughts, because they are thought by the same Mind. To share is to make alike, or to make one. Nor do the thoughts you think with the Mind of God leave your mind, because thoughts do not leave their source. Therefore, your thoughts are in the Mind of God, as you are. They are in your mind as well, where He is. As you are part of His Mind, so are your thoughts part of His Mind. When, then, are your real thoughts? Today we will attempt to reach them. We will have to look for them in your mind, because that is where they are. They must still be there, because they cannot havve left their source. What is thought by the Mind of God is eternal, being part of creation. Our three five-minute practice periods for today will take the same general form that we used in applying yesterday´s idea. We will attmept to leave the unreal and seek for the real. We will deny the world in favor of truth. We will not let the thoughts of the world hold us back. We will not let the beliefs of the world hold us back. We will not let the beliefs of the world tell us that what God would have us do is impossible. Instead, we will try to recognize that only what God would have us do is possible. We will also try to understand that only what God would have us do is what we want to do. And we will also try to remember that we cannot fail in doing what He would have us do. There is every reason to feel confident that we will succeed today. It is the Will of God. Begin to exercises for today by repeating the idea to yourself, closing your eyes as you do so. Then spend a fairly short period in thinking a few relevant thoughts of your own, keeping the idea in mind. After you have added some four to five thoughts of your own to the idea, repeat it again and tell your self gently:

”My real thoughts are in my mind. I would like to find them.”

Then try to go past all the unreal thoughts that cover the truth in your mind, and reach to eht eternal. Under all the senseless thoughts and mad idea with which you have cluttered up your mind are the thoughts that you thought with God in the beginning. They are there in your mind now, completely unchanged. They will always be in your mind, exactly as they always were. Everything you have thought since then will change, but the foundation on which it rests is wholly changeless. It is this foundation toward which the exercise for today are directed. Here is your mind joined with the Mind of God. Here are your thoughts one with His. For this kind of practice only one thing is necessary; approach it as you would an alter dedicated in Heaven to God the Father and to God the Son. For such is the place you are trying to reach. You will probably be unable as yet to realize how high you are trying to go. Yet even with the little understanding you have already gained, you should be able to remind yourself that this is no idle game, but an exercise in holiness and an attempt to reach the Kingdom of Heaven. In the shorter exercise periods for today, try to remember how improtant it is to you to understand the holiness of the mind that thinks with God. Take a minute or two, as you repeat the idea throughout the day, to appreciate your mind´s holiness. Stand aside, however briefly, from the thoughts that are unworthy of Him Whose host you are. Andd thank Him for the thoughts He is thinking with you.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 46

”God is the Love in which I forgive.”

God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them.As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself. Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevetheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemn and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced,returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear.Today´s exercises require at least three full five-minute practice periods, and as many shorter ones as possible. Begin the longer practice periods by repeating today´s idea to yourself, as usual. Close your eyes as you do so, and spend a minute or two in searching your mind for those whom you have not forgiven. It does not matter ”how much” you have not forgiven them. You have forgiven them entirely or not at all. If you are doing the exercises well you should have no difficulty in finding a number of people you have not forgiven.It is a safe rule that anyone you do not like is a suitable subject. Mention each one by name, and say:

”God is the Love in which I forgive you, (name).”

The purpose of the first phase of today´s practice periods is to put you in a position to forgive yourself.After you have applied the idea to all those who have come to mind, tell yourself:

”God is the Love in which I forgive myself.”

Then devote the remainder of the practice period to adding related ideas such as:

”God is the Love with which I love myself.”
”God is the Love in which I am blessed.”

The form of the application may vary considerably, but the central idea should not be lost sight of. You might say, for example:

”I cannot be guilty because I am a Son of God.”
”I have already been forgiven.”
”No fear is possible in a mind be loved of God.”
”There is no need to attack because love has forgiven me.”

The practice period should end,however, with a repetition of today´s idea as originally started. The shorter practice periods may consist either of a repetition of the idea for today in the original or in a related form, as you prefer. Be sure, however, to make more specific applications if they are needed. They will be needed at any time during the day when you become aware of any kind of negative reaction to anyone, present or not. In that event, tell him silently:

”God is the Love in which I forgive you.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 47

”God is the Strength in which I trust.”

If you are trusting in your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the gurantee that it will be accomplished? Of yourself yolu can do none of these things. To believe that you can is to put your trust where trust is unwarrented, and to justify fear, anxiety, depression, anger and sorrow. Who can put his faith in weakness and feel safe? Yet who can put his faith in strength and feel weak? God is your safety in every circujmstance. His Voice speaks for Him in all situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you exactly what to do to call upon His strength and His proctection. There are no exceptions because God has no execptions. And the Voice Which speaks for Him thinks as He does. Today we will try to reach past your own weakness to the Source of real strength. Four five-minute practice periods are necessary today, and longer and more frequent ones are urged. Close your eyes and begin, as usual, by repeating the idea for the day. Then spend a minute or two in searching for situations in your life which you have invested with fear, dismissing each one by telling yourself:

”God is the Strength in which I trust.”

Now try to slip past all concerns related to your own sense of inadequancy. It is obvious that any situation that causes you concern is associated with feelings of inadequancy, for otherwise you would believe that you could deal with the situation successfully. It is not by trusting yourself that you will gain confidence. But the strength of God in you is successful in all things. The recognition of your own frailty is a necessary step in the correction of your errors, but it is hardly a sufficient one in giving you the confidence which you need, and to which you are entiteled. You must also gain an awareness that confidence in your real strength is fully justified in every respect and in all circumstances. In the latter phase of the practice period, try to reach down into your mind to a place of real safety. You will recognize that you have reached it if you feel a sense of deep peace, however briefly. Let go all the trivial things that churn and bubble on the surface of your mind, and reach down and below them to the Kingdom of Heaven. There is a place in you where there is perfect peace. There is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you where the strength of God abides. During the day, repeat the idea often. Use it as your answer to andu disturbance. Remember that peace is your right, because you are giving your trust to the strength of God.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 48

”There is nothing to fear.”

The idea for today simply states a fact. It is not a fact to those who believe in illusions, but illusions are not facts. In truth there is nothing to fear. It is very easy to recognize this. But it is very difficult to recognize it for those who want illusions to be true. Today´s practice periods will be very short, very simple and very frequent. Merely repeat the idea as often as possible. You can use it with your eyes open at any time and in any situation. It is strongly recommended, however, that you take a minute or so whenever possible to close your eyes and repeat the idea slowly to yourself several times. It is particularly important that you use the idea immediately, should anything disturb your peace of mind. The presence of fear is a sure sign that you are trusting in your own strength. The awareness that there is nothing to fear shows that somewhere in your mind, though not necessarily in a place you recognize as yet, you have remembered God, and let His strength take the place of your weakness. The instant you are willing to do this there is indeed nothing to fear.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 49

”Gods Voice speaks to me all through the day.”

It is quite possible to listen to God´s Voice all through the day without interrupting your regular activities in any way. The part of your mind in which truth abides is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not. It is the other part of your mind that functions in the world and obeys the world´s laws. It is this part that is constantly distracted, disorganized and highly uncertain. The part that is listening to the Voice for God is calm, always at rest and wholly certain. It is really the only part there is. The other part is a wild illusion, frantic and distraught, but without reality of any kind. Try today not to listen to it. Try to identify with the part of your mind where stillness and peace reign forever. Try to hear God´s Voice call to you lovingly,reminding you that your Creator has not forgotten His Son. We will need at least four five-minute practice periods today, and more if possible. We wil ltry actually to hear God´s Voice reminding you of Him and of your Self. We will approach this happiest and holiest off thoughts with confidence, knowing that in doing so we are joining our will with the Will of God. He wants you to hear His Voice. He gave It to you to be heard. Listen in deep silence. Be vary and open your mind. Go past all the raucous shrieks and sick imaginings that cover your real thoughts and obscure your eternal link with God. Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sights and sounds of this insane world. You do not live here. We are trying to reach your real home. We are trying to reach the place where you are truly welcome. We are trying to reach God. Do not forget to repeat the idea for today whenever you can, closing your eyes on the world, and realizing that you are inviting God´s Voice to speak to you.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 50

”I am sustained by the Love of God.”

Here is the answer to every problem that will comfort you, today and tomorrow and throughout time. In this world, you believe you are sustained by everything but God. Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols; pills, money, ”protective”clothing, influence, prestige, being liked, knowing the ”right” people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness that you endow with magical powers. All these things are your replacement for the Love of God. All these things are cherished to ensure a body identification. They are songs of praise to the ego.Do not put you faith in the worthless. It will not sustain you. Only the Love of God will protect you in all circumstances. It will lift you out of every trial, and raise you high above all the perceived danger of this world into a climat of perfect peace and safety. It will transport you into a state of mind that nothing can threaten, nothing can disturb, and where nothing can intrude upon the eternal calm of the Son of God. Put not your faith in illusions. They will fail you. Put all your faith in the Love of God within you; eternal,changeless and forever unfailing. This is the answer to whatever confronts you today. Through the Love of God within you, you can resolve all seeming difficulties without effort and in sure confidence. Tell yourself this often today. It is a declaration of release from the belief in idols. It is your acknowledgment of the truth about yourself. For ten minutes, twice today,morning and evening, let the idea for today sink deep into your consiousness.Repeat it, think about it, let related thoughts come to help you recognize its truth, and allow peace to flow over you like a blanket of protection and surety. Let no idle and foolish thoughts enter to disturb the holy mind of the Son of God. Such is the Kingdom of Heaven. Such is the resting place where your Father has placed you forever.

Love

[IA56]

REVIEW 1

Beginning with today we will have a serie of rewiew periods. Each of them will cover live of the ideaal ready presented, starting with the first and ending with the fiftieth. There will be a few short comments after each of the ideas, which you should conside rin your rewiew. In the practice periods, the exercises should be done as follows: Begin the day by reading the five ideas, with the comments included.Thereafter, it is not necessary to follow any particular order in considering them, though each one should be practiced at least once. Devolte two minutes or more to each pracitce period, thinking about the idea and the related comment safter reading them over. Do this as often as possible during the day. If anyone of the five ideas appeals to you more than the others, concentrate on that one. At the end of the day, however, be sure to review all of them once more.It is not necessary to cover the comments that follow each idea either literally or thoroughly in the practice periods. Try, rather, to emhasize the central point, and think about it as part of your review of the idea to which it relates. After you have read the idea and the related comments, the exercises should be done with your eyes closed and when you are alone in aquiet place, if possible. This is emphasized for practice periods at your stage of learning. It will be necessary, however, that you learn to require no special settings in which to apply what you have learned. You will need your learning most in situations that appear to be upsetting, rather than in those that already seem to be calm and quiet. The purpose of your learning is to enable you to bring the quiet. The purpose of your learning is to enable you to bring the quiet with you, and to heal distress and turmoil. This is not done by avoiding them and seeking a haven of isolation for yourself. You will yet learn that peace is part of you, and requires only that you be there to embrace any situation in which you are. And finallly you will learn that there is no limit to where you are, so that your peace is everywhere, as you are. You will note that, for review puropose, some of the ideas are not given in quite their original form. Use them as they are given here. It is not necessary to return to the original statements, nor to apply the ideas as was suggested then. We are now, emhasizing the relationships among the first fifty of the ideas we have covered, and the cohesiveness of the thought system to which they are leading you.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 51

The review for today covers the following ideas:


1 ”Nothing I see means anything.”

The reason this is so is that I see nothing, and nothing has no meaning. It is necessary that I recognize this,that I may learn to see. What I think I see now is taking the place of vision.I must let it go by realizing it has no meaning, so that vision may take its place.

2”I have given what I see all the meaning it has for me.”
I have judged everything I lookupon, and it is this and only this I see. This is not vision. It is merely anillusion of reality, because my judgments have been made quite apart fromreality. I am willing to recognize the lack of validity in my judgments,because I want to see. My judgments have hurt me, and I do not want to seeaccording to them.

3”I do not understand anything Isee.”

How could I understand what Isee when I have judged it amiss? What I see is the projection of my own errorsof thought. I do not understand what I see because it is not understandable.There is no sense in trying to understand it. But there is every reason to letit go, and make room for what can be seen and understood and loved. I canexchange what I see now for this merely by being willing to do so. Is not this abetter choice than the one I made before?

4 ”These thoughts do not meananything.”

The thoughts fo which I am awaredo not mean anything because I am trying to think without God. What I call ”my”thoughts are not my real thoughts. My real thoughts are the thoughts I thinkwith God. I am not of aware of them because I have made my thoughts to taketheir place. I am willing to recognize that my thoughts do not mean anything,and to lett hem go. I choose to havet hem be replaced by what they wereintended to replace. My thoughts are meaningless, but all creation lies in thethoughs I think with God.

5 ”I am never upset fot thereason I think.”

I am never upset for the reasonI think because I am constantly trying to justify my thoughts. I am constantlytrying to make them true. I make all things my enemies, so that my anger isjustified and my attacks are warranted. I have not realized how much I havemisued everything I see by assigning this role to it. I have done this todefend a thought system that has hurt me, and that I no longer want. I amwilling to let it go.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 52

Today´s review covers theseideas:

6 ”I am upset because I see whatis not there.”

Reality is never frightening. Itis impossible that it could upset me. Reality brings only perfect peace. When Iam upset, it is always because I have replaced reality with illusions I madeup. The illusions are upsetting because I have given them reality, and thusregard reality as an illusion. Nothing in God´s creation is affected in any wayby this confusion of mine. I am always upset by nothing.

7 ”I see only the past.”

As I look about, I condemn theworld I look upon. I call this seeing. I hold the past against everyone andeverything, making them my enemies. When I have forgiven myself and rememberedwho I am. I will bless everyone and everything I see. There will be no past,and therefore no enemies. And I will look with love on all that I failed to seebefore.

8 ”My mind is preoccupied withpast thoughts.”

I see only my own thoughts , andmy mind is preoccupied with the past. What, then, can I see as it is? Let meremeber that I look on the past to prevent from dawning on my mind. Let meunderstand that I am trying to use time against God. Let me learn to give thepast away, realizing that in so doing I am giving up nothing.

9 ”I see nothing as it is now.”

If I see nothing as it is now,it can truly be said that I see nothing. I can see only what isnow. The choiceis not whether to see the past or the present; the choice is merely whather tosee or not. What I have chosen to see has cost me vision. Now I would chooseagain, that I may see.

10 ”My thoughts do not meananything.”

I have no private thoughts. Yetit is only private thoughts of which I am aware. What can these thoughts mean?They do not exist, and so they mean nothing. Yet my mind is part of creationand part of its Creator. Would I not rather join the thinking of the universethan to obscure all that is really mine with my pitiful and meangliess ”private”thoughts?

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 53

Today we will review the following:

11 ”My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.”

Since the thoughts of which I am aware do not mean anything, the world that pictures them can have no meaning.What is producing this world is insane, and so is what it produces. Reality is not insane, and I have real thoughts as well as insane ones. I can therefore see a real world, if I look to my real thoughs as my guide for seeing.

12 ”I am upset because I see a meaningless world.”

Insane thoughts are upsetting.They produce a world in which there is no order anywhere. Only chaos rules aworld that represents chatoic thinking, and chaos has no laws. I cannot live inpeace in such a world. I am greatful that this world is not real, and that Ineed not see it at all unless I choose to value it. And I do not choose tovalue what is totally insane and has no meaning.

13 ”A meaningless worldengenders fear.”

The totally insane engendersfear because it is completely undependable, and offers no grounds for trust.Nothing in madness is dependable. It holds out no safety and no hope. But sucha world is not real. I have given it the illusion of reality, and have sufferedfrom my belief in it. Now I choose to withdraw this belief, and place my trustin reality. In choosing this, I will escape all the effects of the world offear, because I am acknowledging that it does not exist.

14 ”God did not create ameaningless world.”

How can a meaningless worldexist if God did not create it? He is the Source of all meaning, and everythingthat is real is in His Mind. It is in my mind too, because He created it withme. Why should I continue to suffer from the effects of my own insane thoughts,when the perfection of creation is my home? Let me remember the power of mydecision, and recognize where I really abide.

15 ”My thoughts are images thatI have made.”

Whatever I see reflects mythoughts. It is my thoughts that tell me where I am and what I am. The factthat I see a world in which there is suffering and loss and death shows me thatI am seeing only the representation of my insane thoughts, and am not allowingmy real thoughts to cast their beneficent light on what I see. Yet God´s way issure. The images I have made cannot prevail against Him because it is not mywill that they do so. My will is His, and I will place no other gods beforeHim.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 54

These are the review idea for today:

16 ”I have no neutral thoughts.”

Neutral thoughts are impossible because all thoughts have power. They will either make a false world or lead me to real one. But thoughts cannot be without effects. As the world I see arises from my thinking errors, so will the real world rise before my eyes as I let my errors be corrected. My thoughts cannot be neither true nor false. They must beone or the other. What I see shows me which they are.

17 ”I see no neutral things.”

What I see witnesses to what Ithink. If i did not think I would not exist, because life is thought. Let me look on the world I see as the representation of my own state of mine. I know that my state of mind can change. And so I also know the world I see can changeas well.

18 ”I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.”

If I have no privat thoughts, I cannot see privat world. Even the mad idea of separation had to be share dbefore it could form the basis of the world I see. Yet that sharing was a sharing of nothing. I can also call upon my real thoughts, which share everything with everyone. As my thoughts of separation call to the separation thoughts of others, so my real thoughts awaken the real thoughts in them. And the world my real thoughts show me will dawn on their sight as well as mine.

19 ”I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.”

I am alone in nothing.Everything I think or say or do teaches all the universe. A Son of God cannot think or speak or act in vain. He cannot be alone in anything. It is therefore in my power to change every mind along with mine, for mine is the power of God.

20 ”I an determined to see.”

Recognizing the shared nature of my thoughts, I am determined to see. I would look upon the withnesses that show me the thinking of the world has been changed. I would behold the proof that what has been done though me has enabled love to replace fear, laughter to replace tears, and abudance to replace loss. I would look upon the real world,and let it teach me that my will and the Will of God are one.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 55

Today´s review includes thefollowing:

21 ”I am determined to seethings differently.”

What I see now are but signs ofdisease, disaster and death. This cannot be what God created for His belovedSon. The very fact that I see such things is proof that I do not understandGod. Therefore I also do not understand His Son. What I see tells me that I donot know who I am. I am determined to see the witnesses to the truth in me,rather than those which show me an illusion of myself.

22 ”What I see is a form ofvengeance.”

The world I see is hardly therepresentation of loving thoughts. It is a picture of attack on everything byeverything. It is anything but a reflection of Love of God and the love of Hisson. It is my own attack thoughts that give rise to this picture. My lovingthoughts will save me from this perception of world, and give me the peace Godintentded me to have.

23 ”I can escape from this worldby giving up attack thoughts.”

Herein lies salvation, andnowhere else. Without attack thoughts I could not see a world of attack. As forgivenessallows love to return to my awareness, I will see a world of peace and safetyand joy. And it is this I choose to see, in place of what I look on now.

24 ”I do not perceive my ownbest interests.”

How could I recognize my ownbest interests when I do not know who I am? What I think are my best interestswould merely bindme closer to the world of illusions. I am willing to followthe Guide God has given me to find out what my own best interests are,recognizing that I cannot perceive them by myself.

25 ”I do not know what anythingis for.”

To me, the purpose of everythingis to prove that my illusions about myself are real. It is for this purposethat I attempt to use everyone and everything. It is for this that I believethe world is for. Therefore I do not recognize its real purpose. The purpose Ihave given the world has led to frightening picture of it. Let me open my mindto the world´s real purpose by withdrawing the one I have given it, andlearning the truth about it.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 56

26 ”My attack thoughts areattacking my invulnerablility.”

How can I know who I am when Isee myself as under constant attack? Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem tothreaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of aworld I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are myinheritance. I have tried to give my inheritance away in exxchange for theworld I see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me. My own real thoughtswill teach me what it is.

27 ”Above all else I want tosee.”

Recognizing that what I seereflects what I think I am. I realize that vision is my greatest need. Theworld I see attests to the fearful nature of the self-image I have made. If Iwould remember who I am, it is essential that I let this image of myself go. Asit is replaced by truth, vision will surely be given me. And with this vision,I will look upon the world and on myself with charity and love.

28 ”Above all else I want to seedifferently.”

The world I see holds my fearfulself-image in place, and guarantees its continuance. While I see the world as Isee it now, truth cannot enter my awareness. I would let the door behind thisworld be opened for me, that I may look past it to the world that reflects theLove of God.

29 ”God is in everyting I see.”

Behind every image I have made,the truth remains unchanged. Behind every veil I have drawn across the face oflove, its light remains undimmed. Beyond all my insane wishes is my will,united with the Will of my Father. God is still everywhere and in everythingforever. And we who are part of Him will yet look past all appearances, andrecognize the truth beyond them all.

30 ”God is in everything I seebecause God is in my mind.”

In my own mind, behind all myinsane thoughts of separation and attack, is the knowledge that all is oneforever. I have not lost the knowledge of who I am because I have forgotten it.It has been kept for me in the Mind of God. Who has not left His Thoughts. AndI, who am among them, am one with them and one with Him.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 57

Today let us review these ideas:

31 ”I am not the victim of theworld I see.”

How can I be the victim of aworld that can be completely undone if I so choose? My chains are loosened. Ican drop them off merely by desiring to do so. The prison door is open. I canleave simply by walking out. Nothing holds me in this world. Only my wish tostay keeps me a prisoner. I would give up my insane wishes and walk into thesunlight at last.

32 ”I have invented the world Isee.”

I made up the prison in which Isee myself. All I need do is recognize this and I am free. I have deludedmyself into believing it is possible to imprison the Son of God. I was bitterlymistaken in the belief, which I no longer want. The Son of God must be foreverfree. He is as God created him , and not what I would make of him. He is whereGod would have him be, and not where I thought to hold him prisoner.

33 ”There is another way oflooking at the world.”

Since the purpose of the worldis not the one I ascribe to it, there must be another way of looking at it. Isee everything upside down, and my thoughts are the opposite of truth. I seethe world as a prison for God´s Son. I must be, then, that the world is reallya place where he can be set free. I would look upon the world as it is, and seeit as a place where the Son of God finds his freedom.

34 ”I could see peace instead ofthis.”

When I see the world as a placeof freedom, I realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules Imade up for it to obey. I will understand that peace, not war, abides in it.And I will perceive that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share thisplace with me.

35 ”My mind is part of God´s. Iam very holy.”

As I share the peace of theworld with my brothers, I begin to understand that this peace comes from deep withinmyself. The world I look upon has taken on the light of my forgiveness, andshines forgiveness back at me. In this light I begin to see what my illlusionsabout myself kept hidden. I begin to understand the holiness of all livingthings, including myself, and their oneness with me.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 58

The ideas are for review today:

36 ”My holiness envelopseverything I see.”

From my holiness does theperception of the real world come. Having forgiven, I no longer see myself asguilty. I can accept the innocence that is the truth about me. Seen throughunderstanding eyes, the holiness of the world is all I see, for I can pictureonly the thoughts I hold about myself.

37 ”My holiness blesses theworld.”

The perception of my holinessdoes not bless me alone. Everyone and everything I see in its light shares inthe joy it brings to me. There is nothing that is apart from this joy, becausethere is nothing that does not share my holiness. As I recogninze my holiness,so does the holiness of the world shine forth for everyone to see.

38 ”There is nothing my holinesscannot do.”

My holiness is unlimited in itspower to heal, because it is unlimited in its power to save. What is there tobe saved from enxept illusions? And what are all illusions except false ideasabout myself? My holiness undoes them all by asserting the truth about me. Inthe presence of my holiness, which I share with God Himself, all idols vanish.

39 ”My holiness is my salvation.”

Since my holiness saves me fromall guilt, recognizing my holiness is recognizing my salvation. It is alsorecognizing the salvation of the world. Once I have accepted my holiness,nothing can make me afraid. And because I am unafraid, everyone must share inmy understanding, which is the gift of God to me and to the world.

40 ”I am blessed as a Son of God.”

Herein lies my claim to all goodand only good. I am blessed as a Son of God. All good things are mine, becauseGod intended them for me. I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or painbecause of who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in allthings. His care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternallyblessed as His Son.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 59

The following ideas are for review today:

41 ”God goes with me wherever I go.”

How can I be alone when God always goes with me? How can I be doubtful and unsure of myself when perfect certainty abides in Him? How can I be disturbed by anything when He rests in me in absolute peace? How can I suffer when love and joy surrounds me through Him? Let me not cherish illusions about myself. I am perfect because God goes with me wherever I go.

42 ”God is my Strength. Vision is His gift.”

Let me not look to my own eyes to see today. Let me be willing to exchange my pitiful illusions of seeing for the vision that is given by God. Christ´s vision is His gift, and He has given it to me. Let me call upon this gift today, so that this day may help me to understand eternity.

43 ”God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him.”

I can see what God wants me to see. I cannot see anything else. Beyond His Will lie only illusions. It is these I choose when I think I can see apart from Him. It is these I choose when I try to see through the body´s eyes. Yet the vision of Christ has been given me to replace them. It is through this vision that I choose to see.

44 ”God is the Light in which I see.”

I cannot see in darkness. God is the only light. Therefore, if I am to see, it must be through Him. I have tried to define what seeing is, and I have been wrong. Now it is given me to understand that God is the Light in which I see. Let me welcome vision and the happy world it will show me.

45 ”God is the Mind with which I think.”

I have no thoughts I do not share with God. I have no thoughts apart from Him, because I have no mind apart from His. As part of His Mind, my thoughts are His and His Thoughts are mine.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 60

These ideas are for today´sreview:

46 ”God is the Love in which Iforgive.”

God does not forgive becasue Hehas never condemned. The blameless cannot blame, and those who have acceptedtheir innocence see nothing to forgive. Yet forgiveness is the means by which Iwill recognize my innocence. It is the reflection of God´s Love on earth. Itwill bring me near enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to meand raise me up to Him.

47 ”God is the Strength in whichI trust.”

It is not my own strengththrough which I forgive. It is through the strength of God in me, which I amremembering as I forgive. As I begin to see, I recognize His reflection onearth. I forgive all things because I feel the stirring of His strength in me.And I begin to remember the Love I chose to forget, but Which has not forgottenme.

48 ”There is nothing to fear.”

How safe the world will look tome when I can see it! It will not look anything like what I imagine I see now.Everyone and everything I see will lean toward me to bless me. I will recognizein everyone my dearest Friend. What could there be to fear in a world that Ihave forgiven, and that has forgiven me?

49 ”God´s Voice speaks to me allthrough the day.”

There is not a moment in whichGod´s Voice ceases to call on my forgiveness to save me. There is not a momentin which His Voice fails to direct my thoughts, guide my actions and lead myfeet. I am walking steadily on toward truth. There is nowhere else I can go, becauseGod´s Voice is the only voice and the only guide that has been given to HisSon.

50 ”I am sustained by the Loveof God.”

As I listen to God´s Voice, I amsustained by His Love. As I open my eyes, His Love lights up the world for meto see. As I forgive, His Love reminds me that his Son is sinless. And as ilook upon the world with the vision He has given me, I remember that I am HisSon.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 61

”I am the light of the world.”

Who is the light of the world except God´s Son? This, then, is merely a statement of the truth about yourself. It is the opposite of a statement of pride, of arrogance, or of self-deception. It does not describe the self concept you have made. It does not refer to any of the characteristics with which you have endowed your idols. It refers to you as you were created by God. It simply states the truth. To the ego, today´s idea is the epitome of self-glorification. But the ego does not understand humility, mistaking it for self-debasement. Humility consists of accepting your role insalvation and in taking no other. It is not humility to insist you cannot be light of the world if that is the function God assigned to you. It is only arrogance that would assert this functiuon cannot be for you, and arrogance is always of the ego. True humility requires that you accept today´s idea because it is God´s Voice Which tells you it is true. This is a beginning step in accepting your real function on earth. It is a giant stride toward taking your rightful place in salvation. It is a positive assertion of your right to be saved, and an acknowledgment of the power that is given you to save others. You will want to think about this idea as often as possible today. It is the perfect answer to all illusions, and therefore to all temptation. It brings all the images you have made about yourself to the truth, and helps you depart in peace, unburdened and certain of your purpose. As many practice periods as possible should be undertaken today, although each one need no exceed a minute or two. They should begin with telling yourself:

”I am the light of the world.
That is my only function.
That is why I am here.”

Then think about these statements for a short while, preferably with your eyes closed if the situations permits. Let a few related thoughts come to you, and repeat the idea to yourself if your mind wanders away from the central thought. Be sure both to begin and end the day with a practice period. Thus you will awaken with an acknowledgment of the truth about yourself, reinforce it throughout the day, and turn to sleep as you reaffirm your function and your only purpose here. These two practice periods may be longer than the rest, if you find them helpful and want to extend them. Today´s idea goes far beyond the ego´s petty views of what you are and what your purpose is. As a bringer of salvation, this is obviously necessary. This is the first of a number of giant steps we will take in the next few weeks. Try today to begin to build a firm foundation for these advances. You are the light of the world. God has built His plan for the salvation of His Son on you.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 62

”Forgiveness is my function asthe light of the world.”

It is your forgiveness that willbring the world of darkness to the light. It is your forgiveness that lets yourecognize the light in which you see. Forgiveness is the demonstration that youare the light of the world. Through your forgiveness does the truth aboutyourself return to your memory. Therefore, in your forgivness lies yoursalvation. Illusions about yourself and the world are one. That is why allforgiveness is a gift to yourself. Your goal is to find out who you are, havingdenied your Identity by attacking creation and its Creator. Now you arelearning how to remember the truth. For this attack must be replaced byforgiveness, so that thoughts of life may replace thoughts of death. Rememberthat in every attack you call upon your own weakness, while each time youforgive you call upon the trength of Christ in you. Do you not then begin tounderstand what forgiveness will do for you? It will remove all sense ofweakness, strain and fatigue from your mind. It will take away all fear andguilt and pain. It will restore the invulnerablility and power God gave His Sonto your awareness. Let us be glad to begin and end this day by practicingtoday´s idea, and to use it as freqently as possible throughout the day. Itwill help to make the day as happy for you as God wants you to be. And it willhelp those around you, as well as those who seem to be far away in space andtime, to share this happiness with you. As often as you can, closing your eyesif possible, say to yourself today:

”Forgiveness is my function asthe light of the world.
I would fulfill my function thatI may be happy.”

Then devote a minute or two toconsidering your function and the happiness and release it will bring you. Letrelated thoughts come freely, for your heart will recongize these words, and inyour mind is the awareness they are true. Should your attention wander, repeatthe idea and add:

”I would remember this because Iwant to be happy.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 63

”The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.”

How holy are you who have the power to bring peace to every mind! How blessed are you who can learn to recognize the means for letting this be done through you! What purpose could you have that would bring you greater happiness? You are indeed the light of the world with such a function. The Son of God looks to you for his redemption. It is yours to give him, for it belongs to you. Accept no trivial purpose or meaningless desire in its place, or you will forget your function and leave the Son of God in hell. This is no idle request that is being asked of you. You are being asked to accept salvation that it may be yours to give. Recognizing the importance of this function, we will be happy to remember it very often today. We will begin the day by acknowledging it, and close the day with the thought of it in our awareness. And throughout the day we will repeat this as often as we can:

”The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.
I am the means God has appointed for the salvation of the world.”

If you close your eyes, you will probably find it easier to let the related thoughts come to you in the minute or two that you should devote to considering this. Do not, however, wait for such an opportunity. No chance should be lost for reinforcing today´s idea. Remember that God´s Son looks to you for his salvation. And who but your Self must be His son?

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 64

”Let me not forget my function.”

Today´s idea is merely anotherway of saying ”Let me not wander into temptation.” The purpose of the world yousee is to obscure your function of forgivneness, and provide you with ajustification for forgetting it.It is the temptation to abandon God and His Sonby talking on a physical appearance. It is this the body´s eyes look upon.Nothing is body´s eye´s seem to see can be anything but a form of temptation,since this was the purpose of the body itself. Yet we have learned that theHoly Spirit has another use for all the illusions you have made, and thereforeHe sees another purpose in them. To the Holy Spirit, the world is a place whereyou learn to forgive yourself what you think of as your sins. In thisperception, the physical appearance of temptation becomes the spiritualrecognition of salvation. To review our last few lessons, your function here isto be the light of the world, a function given you by God. It is only thearrogance of the ego that leads you to question this, and only the fear of theego that induces you to regard yourself as unworthy of the task assigned to youby God Himself. The world´s salvation awaits your forgiveness, because throughit does the Son of God escape from all illusions, and thus from all temptation.The Son of God is you. Only by fulfilling the function given you by God willyou be happy. That is because your function is to be happy by using the meansby which happiness becomes inevitable. There is no other way. Therefore, everytime you choose whether or not to be happy. Let us remember this today. Let usremind ourselves of it in the morning and again at night, and all through the dayas well. Prepare yourself in advance for all the decisions you will make todayby remembering they are all really very simple. Each one will lead to happinessor unhappiness. Can such a simple decision really be difficult to make? Let notthe form of the decision deceive you. Complexity of form does not implycompexity of content. It is impossible that any decision on earth can have acontent different from just this one simple choice. That is the only choice theHoly Spirit sees. Therefore it is the only choice there is. Today, then, let uspractice with these thoughts:

”Let me not forget my function.
Let me not try to substitutemine for God´s .
Le me forgive and be happy.”

At least once devote ten orfifteen minutes today to reflecting on this with closed eyes. Related thoughtswill come to help you, if you remember the crucial importance of your functionto you and to the world. In the frequent applications of today´s ideathroughout the day, devote several minutes to reviewing these thoughts, andthen thinking about them and about nothing else. This wil be difficult, atfirst particularly, since you are not proficient in the mind discipline that itrequires. You may need to repeat ”Let me not forget my function” quite often tohelp you concentrate. Two forms of shorter practice periods are required. Attimes, do the exercises with your eyes closed, trying to concentrate on thethoughts you are using. At other times, keep your eyes open after reviewing thethoughts, and then look slowly and unselectively around you, telling yourself:

”This is the world it is myfunction to save.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 65

”My only function is the one Godgave me.”

The idea for today reaffirmsyour commitment to salvation. It also reminds you that you have no functionother than that. Both these thoughts are obviously necessary for a totalcommitment. Salvation cannot be the only purpose you hold while you stillcherish others. The full acceptance of salvation as your only functionnecessarily entails two phases; the recognition of salvation as your function,and the relingquishment of all the other goals you have invented for youself.This is the only way in which you can take your rightful place among thesaviors of the world. This is the only way in which you can say and mean, ”Myonly functiojn is the one God gave me.” This is the only way in which you canfind peace of mind. Today, and for anumber of days to follow, set aside ten to fifteen minutes for a more sustainedpractice period, in which you try to understand and accept what the idea forthe day really means. Today´s idea offers you escape from all your perceiveddifficulties. It places the key to the door of peace, which you have closedupon yourself, in your own hands. It gives you the answer to all the serchingyou have done since time began. Try, if possible, to undertake the dailyextended practice periods at approximately the same time each time. Try, also,to determine this time in advance, and then adhere to it as closely aspossible. The purpose of this is to arrange your day so that you have set apartthe time for God, as well as for all the trivial purposes and goals you willpursue. This is part of the long-range disciplinary training your mind needs,so that the Holy Spirit can use it consistently for the purpose He shares withyou. For the longer practice period, begin by reviewing the idea for the day.Then close your eyes, repeat the idea to yourself once again, and watch yourmind carefully to catch whatever thoughts cross it. At first, make no attemptto concentrate only on thoughts related to the idea for the day. Rather, try touncover each thought that arises to interfere with it. Note each one as it comesto you, with as little involvement or concern as possible, dismissing each oneby telling yourself:

”This thought reflects a goalthat is preventing me from accepting my only function.”

After a while, interferingthoughts will become harder to find. Try, however, to continue a minute or solonger, attempting to catch a few of the idle thoughts that escaped yourattention before, but do not strain or make undue effort in doing this. Thentell yourself:

”On this clean slate let my truefunction be written for me.”

You need not use these exactwords, but try to get the sense of being willing to have your illlusions ofpurpose be replaced by truth. Finally, repeat the idea for today once more, anddevote the rest of the practice period to trying to focus on its importance toyou, the relief its acceptance will bring you by resolving your conflicts onceand for all, and the extent to which you really want salvation in spite of yourown foolish ideas to the contrary. In the shorter practice periods, whichshould be undertaken at least once an hour, use this form in applying today´sidea:

”My only function is the one Godgave me. I want no other and I have no other.”

Sometimes close your eyes as youpractice this, and somethimes keep them open and look around you. It is whatyou see now that will be totally changed when you accept today´s ideacompletely.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 66

”My happiness and my function are one.”

You have surely noticed an emphasis throughout our recent lessons on the connection between fulfilling your function and achieving happiness. This is because you do not really see the connection. Yet there is more than just a connection between them: they are the same. Their forms are different, but their content is completely one. The ego does constant battle with the Holy Spirit on the fundamental question of what your function is. So does it do constant battle with the Holy Spirit about what your happiness is. It is not a two way battle. The ego attacks and the Holy Spirit does not respond. He knows what your function is. He knows that it is your happiness. Today we will try to go past this wholly meaningless battle and arrive at the truth about your function. We will not engage in senseless arguments about what it is. We will not become hopelessly involved in defining happiness and determining the means for achieving it. We will not indulge the ego by listening to its attacks on truth. We will merely be glad that we can find out what truth is. Our longer practice period today has as its purpose your acceptance of the fact that not only is there a very real connection between the function Godd gave you and your happiness, but that they are actually identical. God gives you only happiness. Therefore, the function He gave you must be happiness, even if it appears to be different. Today´s exercises are an attempt to go beyond these differences is appearance, and recognize a common content where it exists in truth. Begin the ten to fifteen minute practice period by reviewing these thoughts:

”God gives me only happiness.
He has given my function to me.
Therefore my function must be happiness.”

Try to see the logic in this sequence, even if you do not yet accept the conclusion. It is only if the first two thoughts are wrong that the conclusion could be false. Let us, then, think about the premises for a while, as we are practicing. The first premise is that God gives you only happiness. This could be false, of course, but in order to be false it is necessary to define God as something He is not. Love cannot give evil, and what is not happiness is evil. God cannot give what He does not have, and He cannot have what He is not. Unless God gives you only happiness, He must be evil. And it is this definition of Him you are believing if you do not accept the first premise. The second premise is that God has given you your finction. We have seen that there are only two parts of your mind. One is ruled by the ego, and is made up of illusions. The other is the home of the Holy Spirit, where truth abides. There are no other guides but these to choose between, and no other outcomes possible as a result of your choice but the fear that the ego always engenders, and the love that the Holy Spirit always offers to replace it. Thus, it must be that your function is established by God through His Voice, or is made by the ego which you have made to replace Him. Which is true? Unless God gave your function to you, it must be the gift of the ego. Does the ego really have gifts to give, being itself and illusion and offering only the illusion of gifts? Think about this during the longer practice period today. Think alsso about the many forms the illusion of your function has taken in your mind and the many ways in which you tried to find salvation under the ego´s guidance. Did you find it? Were you happy? Did they bring you peace? We need great honesty today. Remember the outcomes farily, and consider also whether it was ever reasonable to expect happiness from anything the ego ever proposed. Yet the ego is the only alternative to the Holy Spirit´s Voice. You will listen to madness or hear the truth. Try to make this choice as you think about the premises on which our conclusion rests. We can share in this conclusion, but in no other. For God Himself shares it with us. Today´s idea is another giant stride in the perception of the same as the same, and the different as different. On one side stand all illusions. All truth stands on the other. Let us try today to realize that only the truth is true. In the shorter practice periods, which would be most helpful today if undertaken twice an hour, this form of the application is suggested:

”My happiness and function are one.
Because God has given me both.”

It will not take more than a minute, and probably less, to repeat these words slowly and think about them a little while as you say them.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 67

”Love created me like itself.”

Today´s idea is a complete and accurat statement of what you are. This is why you are the light of the world. This is why God appointed you as the world´s savior. This is why the son of God looks to you for his salvation. He is saved by what you are. We will make every effort today to reach this truth about you, and to realize fully, if only for a moment, that it is the truth. In the longer practice period, we will think about your reality and its wholly unchanged and unchangeable nature. We will begin by repeating this truth about you, and then spend a few minutes adding some relevant thoughts, such as:

”Holiness created me holy.”
”Kindness created me kind.”
”Helpfulness created me helpful.”
”Perfection created me perfect.”

Any attribute which is in accord with God as He defines Himself is appropriate for use. We are trying today to undo your definition of God and replace it with His Own. We are also trying to emphasize that you are part of His definition of Himself. After you have gone over several such related thoughts, try to let all thoughts drop away for a brief preparatory interval, and then try to reach past all your images and preconceptions about yourself to the truth in you. If Love created you like Itself, this Self must be in you. And somewhere in your mind It is there for you to find. You may find it necessary to repeat the idea for today from time to time to replace distracting thoughts. You may also find that this is not sufficient, and that you need to continue adding other thoughts related to the truth about yourself. Yet perhaps you will succeed in going past that, and through the interval of thoughtlessness to the awareness of a blazing light in which you recongnize yourself as Love created you. Be confident that you will do much today to bring that awareness nearer, whether you feel you have succeeded or not. It will be particularly helpful today to practice the idea for the day as often as you can. You need to hear the truth about yourself as frequently as possible, because your mind is so preoccuopied with false self-images. Four or five times an hour, and perhaps even more, it would be most beneficial to remind yourself that Love created you like Itself. Hear the truth about yourself in this. Try to realize in the shorter practice periods that this is not your tiny, solitary voice that tells you this. This is the Voice of God, reminding you of your Father and of your Self. This is the Voice of truth, replacing everything that the ego tells you about yourself with the simple truth about the Son of God. You were created by Love like Itself.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 68

”Love holds no grievances.”

You who were created by Lovelike Itself can hold no grievances and know your Self. To hold a grievance isto forget who you are. To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body. Tohold a grievance is to let the ego rule your mind and to condemn the body todeath. Perhaps you do not yet fully realize just what holding grievances does toyour mind. It seems to split you off from your Source and make you unlike Him.It makes you believe that He is like what you think you have become, for no onecan conceive of his Creator as unlike himself. Shut off from your Self, Whichremains aware of Its likeness to Its Creator, your Self seems to sleep, whilethe part of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be awake.Can all this arise from holding grievances? Oh, yes! For he who holdsgrievances denies he was created by Love, and his Creator has become fearful tohim in his dream of hate. Who can dream of hatred and not fear God? It is assure that those who hold grievances will redefine God in their own image, as itis certain that God created them like Himself, and defined them as part of Him.It is as sure that those who hold grievances will suffer guilt, as it iscertain that those who forgive will find peace. It is as sure that those whohold grievances will forget who they are, as it is certain that those whoforgive will remember. Would you not be willing to relinguish your grievancesif you believed all this were so? Perhaps you do not think you can let yourgrievances go. That, however, is simply a matter of motivation. Today we willtry to find out how you would feel without them. If you succeed even by ever solittle, there will never be a problem in motivation ever again. Begin today´sextended practice period by searching your mind for those against whom you holdwhat you regard as major grievances. Some of these will be quite easy to find.Then think of the seemingly minor grievances you hold against those you likeand event hink you love. It will quickly become apparent that there is no oneagainst whom you do not cherish grievances of some sort. This has left you alonein all the universe in your perception of yourself. Determine now to see allthese people as friends. Say to them all, thinking of each one in turn as youdo so:

”I would see you as my friend.
That I may remember you are partof me
And come to know myself.”

Spend the remainder of thepractice period trying to think of yourself as completely at peace witheveryone and everything, safe in a world that protects you and loves you, andthat you love in return. Try to feel safety surrounding you, hovering over youand holding you up. Try to believe, however briefly, that nothing can harm youin any way. At the end of the practice period tell yourself:

”Love holds no grievaces.
When I let all my gievances go
I will know I am perfectly safe.”

The short practice periodsshould include a quick application of today´s idea in this form, whenever anythought of grievance arises against anyone, physically present or not:

”Love hold no grievances.
Let me not betray my Self.”

In addition , repeat the ideaseveral times an hour in this form:

”Love holds no grievances.
I would wake to my Self
By laying all my grievancesaside
And waking in Him.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 69

”My grievances hide the light of the world in me.”

No one can look upon what your grievances conceal. Because your grievances are hiding the light of the world in you, everyone stands in darkness, and you beside him. But as the veil of your grievances is lifted, you are released with him. Share your salvation now with him who stood beside you when you were in hell. He is your brother in the light of the world that saves your both. Today let us make another real attempt to reach the light in you. Before we undertake this in our more extended practice period, le tus devote severral minutes to thinking about what we are trying to do. We are trying to let the veil be lifted, and to see the tears of God´s Son disappear in the sunlight. Let us begin our longer practice period today with the full realization that this is so, and with real determination to reach what is dearer to us than all else. Salvation is our only need. There is no other purpose here, and no other function to fulfill. Learning salvation is our only goal. Let us end the ancient search today by finding the light in us, and holding it up for everyone who searches with us to look upon and rejoice. Very quietly now, with your eyes closed, try to let go of all the content generally occupies your consciousness. Think of yoru mind as a vast circle, surrounded by a layer of heavy, dark clouds. You can see only the clouds because you seem to be standing outside the circle and quite apart from it. From where you stand, you can see no reason to believe there is a brilliant light hidden by the clouds. The clouds seem to be the only reality. They seem to be all there is to see. Therefore, you do not attempt to go through them and past them, which is the only way in which you would be rally convincend of their lack of substance. We will make this attempt today. After you have thought about the impotance of what you are trying to do for yourself and the world, try to settle down in perfect stillness, remembering only now much you want to reach the light in you today, - now! Determine to go past the clouds. Reach out and touch them in your mind. Brush them aside with your hand, feel them resting on your cheeks and forhead and eyelids as you go through them. Go on ; clouds cannot stop you. If you are doing the exercises properly, you will begin to feel a sense of being lifted up and carried ahead. Your little effort and small determination call on the power of the universe to help you, and God Himself will raise you from darkness into light. You are in accord with His Will. You cannot fail because your will is His. Have confidence in your Father today, and be certain that He has heard you and answered you. You may not recongize His answer yet, but you can indeed be sure that it is given you and you will yet to hold this confidence in your mind. Try to keep the thought clearly in mind that what you undertake with God must succeed. Then let the power of God work in you and through you, that His Will and yours be done. In the shorter practice periods, which you will want to do as often as possible in view of the importance of today´s idea to you and light of the world form your awareness. Remind yourself also that you are not searching for it alone, and that you do know where to look for it. Say, then:

”My grievances hide the light of the world in me.
I cannot see what I have hidden.
Yet I want to let it be revealed to me.
For my salvation and the salvation of the world.”

Also, be sure to tell yourself:

”If I hold this grievance the light of the world will be hidden from me.”

If you are tempted to hold anything against anyone today.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 70

”My salvation comes from me.”

All temptation is nothing more than some form of the basic temptation not to believe the idea for today. Salvation seems to come from anywhere except from you. So, too, does the source of guilt. You see neither guilt nor salvation as guilt is solely an invention of your mind, you also realize that guilt and salvation must be in the same place. In understanding this you are saved. The seeming cost of accepting today´s idea is this: It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace. But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace or upset you in any way. Today´s idea places you in charge of the universe, where you belong because of what you are. This is not a role that can be partially accepted. And you must surely begin to see that accepting it is salvation. It may not, however, be clear to you why the recognition that guilt is in your own mind entails the realization that salvation is there as well. God would not have put the remedy for the sickness where it cannot help. That is the way your mind has worked, but hardly His. He wants you to be healed, so He has kept the Source of healing where the need for healing lies. You have tried to do just the opposite, making every attempt, however distorted and fantastic it might be, to separate healing from the sickness for which it was intended, and thus keep the sickness. Your purpose was to ensure that healing did not occur. God´s purpose was to ensure that it did. Today we practice realizing that God´s Will and ours are really the same in this. God wants us to be healed, and we do not really want to be sick, because it makes us unhappy. Therefore, in accepting the idea for today, we are really in agreement with God. He does not want us to be sick. Neither do we. He wants us to be healed. So do we. We are ready for two longer practice periods today, each of which should last some ten to fifteen minutes. We will, however, still let you decide when to undertake them. We will follow this practice for a number of lessons, and it would again be well to decide in advance when would be a good time to lay aside for each of them, and then adhering to your own decisions as closely as possible. Begin these practice periods by repeating the idea for today, adding a statement signifying your recognition that salvation comes from nothing outside of you. You might put it this way:

”My salvation comes from me.
It cannot come from anywhere else.”

Then devote a few minutes, with your eyes closed, to reviewing some of the eternal places where you have looked for salvation in the past;- in other people, in possessions, in various situations and events, and in self concepts that you sought to make real. Recognize that it is not there, and tell yourself:

”My salvation cannot come from any any of these things.
My salvation comes from me and only from me.”

Now we will try to reach the light in you, which is where your salvation is. You cannot find it in the clouds that surround the light, and it is in them you have been looking for it. It is not there. It is past the clouds and in the light beyond. Remember that you will have to go through the clouds before you canreach the light. But remember also that you have never found anything in the cloud patterns you imagined that endured, or that you wanted. Since all illusions of salvation have failed you, surely you do not want to remain in the clouds, looking vainly for idols there, when you could so easily walk on into the light of real salvation. Try to pass the clouds by whatever means appeals to you. If it helps you, think of me holding your hand and leading you. And I assure you this will be no idle fantasy. For the short and frequent practice periods today, remind yourself that your salvation comes from you, and nothing but your own thoughs can hamper your progress. You are free from all external interference. You are in charge of your salvation. You are in charge of the salvation of the world. Say, then:

”My salvation comes from me.
Nothing outside of me can hold me back.
Within me is the world´s salvation and my own.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 71

”Only God´s plan for salvationwill work.”

You may not realize that the egohas set up a plan for salvation in opposition to God´s. It is this plan inwhich you believe. Since it is the opposite of God´s you also believe that toaccept God´s plan in place of the ego´s is to be damned. This soundspreposterous, of course. Yet after we have considered just what the ego´s planis, perhaps you will realize that, however preposterous it may be, you dobelieve in it. The ego´s plan for salvation centers around holding grievances.It maintains that, if someone else spoke or acted differently, if some externalcircumstance or event were changed, you would be saved. Thus, the source of salvationis constantly perceived as outside yourself. Each grievance you hold is adeclaration, and an assertion in which you believe, that says, ”If this weredifferent, I would be saved.” The change of mind necessary for salvation isthus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself. The role assigned toyour own mind in this plan, then, is simply to determine what, other thanitself, must change if you are to be saved. According to this insane plan, anyperceived source of salvation is acceptable provided that it will not work.This ensures that the fruitless search will continue, for the illusion persiststhat, although this hope has always failed, there is still grounds for hope inother places and in other things. Another person will yet serve better; anothersituation will yet offer success. Such is the ego´s plan for your salvation.Surely you can see how it is in strict accord with the ego´s basic doctrine,”Seek but do not find.” For what could more surely guarantee that you will notfind salvation than to channelize all your efforts in searching for it where itis not? God´s plan for salvation works simply because, by following Hisdirection, you seek for salvation where it is. But if you are to succeed, asGod promises you will, you must be willing to seek there only. Otherwise, yourpurpose is divided and you will attempt to follow two plans for salvation thatare diametrically opposed in all ways. The result can only bring confusion,misery and a deep sense of failure and despair. How can you escape all this?Very simply. The idea for today is the answer. Only God´s plan for salvationwill work. There can be no real conflict about this, because there is nopossible alternative to God´s plan that will save you. His is the only planthat is certain in its outcome. His is the only plan that must succeed. Let us practicerecognizing this certainty today. And let us rejoice that there is an answer towhat seems to be a conflict with no resolution possible. All things are possibleto God. Salvation must be yours because of His plan, which cannot fail. Beginthe two longer practice periods for today by thinking about today´s idea, andrealizing that it contains two parts, each making equal contribution to thewhole. God´s plan for your salvation will work, and other plans will not. Donot allow yourself to become depressed or angry at the second part; it isinherent in the first. And in the first is your full release from all your owninsane attempts and mad proposals to free yourself. They have led to depressionand anger; but God´s plan will succeed. It will lead to release and joy.Remembering this, let us devote the remainder of the extended practice periodsto asking God to reveal His plan to us. Ask Him very specifically:

”What would You have med do?”
”Where would You have me go?”
”What would You have me say, andto whom?”

Give him full charge of the restof the practice period, and let Him tell you what needs to be done by you inHis plan for your salvation. He will answer in proportion to your willingnessto hear His Voice. Refuse not to hear. The very fact that you are doing theexercises proves that you have some willingness to listen. This is enough toestablish your claim to God´s answer. In the shorter practice periods, tellyourself often that God´s plan for salvation, and only His, will work. Be alertto all temptation to hold grievances today, and respond to ehtm with this formof today´s idea:

”Holding grievances is the oppositeof God´s plan for salvation. And only His plan will work.”

Try to remember today´s ideasome six or seven times and hour. There could be no better way to spend a halfminute or less than to remember the Source of your salvation, and to see Itwhere It is.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 72

”Holding grievances is an attackon God´s plan for salvation.”

While we have recognized thatthe ego´s plan for salvation is the opposite of God´s, we have not yetemphasized that it is an active attack on Hiss plan, and a deliberate attemptto destroy it. In the attack, God is assigned the attributes which are actuallyassociated with the ego, while the ego appears to take on the attributes ofGod. The ego´s fundamental wish is to repleace God. In fact, the ego is thephysical embodiment of that wish. For it is that wish that seems to surroundthe mind with a body, keeping it separate and alone, and unable to reach other mindsexcept through the body that was mad to imprison it. The limit on communicationcannot be the best means to expand communication. Yet the ego would have youbelieve that it is. Although the attempt to keep the limitations that a bodywould impose is obvious here, it is perhaps not so apparent why holdinggrievances is an attack on God´s plan for salvation. But let us consider thekinds of things you are apt to hold grievances for. Are they not alwaysassociated with something a body does? A person says something you do not like.He does something that displeases you. He ”betrays” his hostile thoughts in hisbehavior. You are not dealing here with what the person is. On the contrary,you are exclusively concerned with what he does is a body. You are doing morethan failing to help in freeing him from the body´s limitations. You areactively trying to hold him to it by confusing it with him, and judging them asone. Herein is God attacked, for if His Son is only a body, so must He be aswell. A creator wholly unlike his creation is inconceivable. If God is a body,what must His plan for salvation be? What could it be but death? In trying topresent Himself as the Author of life and not of death, He is aliar and adeceiver, full of false promises and offering illusions in place of truth. Thebody´s apparent reality makes this view of God quite convincing. In fact, ifthe body were real, it would be difficult indeed to escape this conclusion. Andevery grievance that you hold insists that the body is real. It overlooksentirely what your brother is. It reinforces your belief that he is a body, andcondemns him for it. And it asserts that his salvatiojn must be death,projecting this attack onto God, and holding Him responsible for it. To thiscarefully prepared arena, where angry animals seek for prey and mercy cannotenter, the ego comes to save you. God made you a body. Very well. Let us acceptthis and be glad. As a body, do not let yourself be deprived of what the bodyoffers. Take the little you can get. God gave you nothing. The body is youronly savior. It is the death of God and your salvation. This is the universalbelief of the world you see. Some hate the body, and try to hurt and humiliateit. Others love the body, and try to glorify and exalt it. But while the bodystands at the center of your concept of yourself, you are attacking God´s planfor salvation, and holding your grievances against Him and His creation, thatyou may not hear the Voice of truth and welcome It as Friend. Your consensavior takes His place instead. It is your friend; He is your enemy. We willtry today to stop these senseless attacks on salvation. We will try to welcomeit instead. Your upside-down perception has been ruinous to your peace of mind.You have seen yourself in a body and the truth outside you, locked away fromyour awareness by the body´s limitations. Now we are going to try to see thisdifferently. The light of truth is in us, where it was placed by God. It is thebody that is outside us, and is not our concern. To be without a body is to bein our natural state. To recognize the light of truth in us is to recognizeourselves as we are. To see our Self as separate from the body is to end theattack on God´s plan for salvation, and to accept it instead. And wherever Hisplan is accepted, it is accomplished already. Our goal in the longer practiceperiods today is to become aware the God´s plan for salvation has already beenaccomplished is us. We are therefore attacking what we do not recongize. Now weare going to try to lay judgment aside, and ask what God´s plan for us is:

”What is salvation, Father?
I do not know.
Tell me, that I may understand.”

Then we will wait in quiet forHis answer. We have attacked God´s plan for salvation without waiting to hearwhat it is. We have shouted our grievances so loudly that we have not listenedto His Voice. We have used our grievances to close our eyes and stop our ears.Now we would see and hear and learn. ”What is salvation, Father?” Ask and youwill be answered. Seek and you will find. We are no longer asking the ego whatsalvation is and where to find it. We are asking it of truth. Be certain, then,that the answer will be true because of Whom you ask. Whenever you feel yourconfidence wane and your hope of success flicker and go out, repeat yourquestion and your request, remembering that you are asking of the infiniteCreator of infinity, Who created you like Himself:

”What is salvation, Father?
I do not know.
Tell me, that I may understand.”

He will answer. Be determined tohear. One or perhaps two shorter practice periods an hour will be enough fortoday, since they will be somewhat longer than usual. These exercises shouldbegin with this:

”Holding grievances is an attackon God´s plan for salvation.
Let me accept it instead.
What is salvation, Father?”

Then wait a minute or so insilence, preferably with your eyes closed, and listen for His answer.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 73

”I will there be light.”

Today we are considering thewill you share with God. This is not the same as the ego´s idle wishes, out ofwhich darkness and nothingness airse. The will you share with God has all thepower of creation in it. The ego´s idle wishes are unshared, and therefore haveno power at all. Its wishes are not idle in the sense that they can make aworld of illusions in which your belief can be very strong. But they are idleindeed in terms of creation. They make nothing that is real. Idle wishes andgrievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world you see. The wishesof the ego gave ruse to it, and the ego´s need for grievvances, which arenecessary to maintain it, peoples it with figures that seem to attack you and callfor ”righteous” judgment. There figures become the middlemen the ego employs totraffic in grievances. They stand between your awareness and your brother´sreality. Beholding them, you do not know your brother or your Self. Your willis lost to you in this strange bartering, in which guilt is traded back andforth, and grievances increase with each exchange. Can such a world have beencreated by the will the Son of God shares with his Father? Did God createdisaster for His Son? Creation is the Will of Both together. Would God create aworld that kills Himself? Todaywe will try once more to reach the world that isin accordance with your will. The light is in it because it does not oppose theWill of God. It is not Heaven, but the light of Heaven shines on it. Darknesshas vanished. The ego´s idle wishes have been withdrawn. Yet the light thatshines upon this world reflects your will, and so it must be in you that wewill look for it. Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. Thesource of neither light nor darkness can be found without. Grievances darkenyour mind, and you look out on a darkened world. Forgiveness lifts thedarkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light. We haverepeatedly emphasized that the barrier of grievances is easily passed, andcannot stande between you and your salvation. The reason is very simple. Do youreally want to be in hell? Do you really want to weep and suffer and die?Forget the ego´s arguments which seek to prove all this is really Heaven. Youknow it is not so. You cannot want this for yourself. There is a point beyondwhich illusions cannot go. Suffering is not happiness, and it is happiness youreally want. Such is your will in truth. And so salvation is your will as well.You want to succeed in what we are trying to do today. We undertake it withyour blessing and your glad accord. We will succeed today if you remember thatyou want salvation for yourself. You want to accept God´s plan because youshare in it. You have no will that can really oppose it, and you do not want todo so. Salvation is for you. Above all else, you want the freedom to rememberwho you really are. Today it is the ego that stands powerless before your will.Your will is free, and nothing can prevail against it. Therefore, we undertakethe exercises for today in happy confidence, certain that we will find what itis your will to find, and remember what it is your will to remember. No idlewishes can detain us, nor deceive us with an illusion of strength. Today let yourwill be done, and end forever the insane belief that it is hell inplace ofHeaven that you choose. We will begin our longer practice periods with therecognition that God´s plan for salvation, and only His, is wholly in accordwith your will. It is not the purpose of an alien power, thrust upon youunwillingly. It is the one purpose here on which you and your Father are inperfect accord. You will succeed today, the time appointed for the release ofthe Son of God from hell and from all idle wishes. His will is now restored tohis awareness. He is willing this very day to look upon the light in him and besaved. After reminding yourself of this, and determining to keep your willclearly in mind, tell yourself with gentle firmness and quiet certainty:

”I will there be light.
Let me behold the light.
That reflects God´s Will andmine.”

Then let your will assertitself, joined with the power of God and united with your Self. Put the rest ofthe practice period under Their guidance. Join with Them as They lead the way.In the shorter practice periods, again make a declaration of what you reallywant. Say:

”I will there be light.
Darkness is not my will.”

This should be repeated severaltimes an hour. It is most important, however, to apply today´s idea in thisform immediately you are tempted to hold a grievance of any kind. This willhelp you let your grievances go, instead of cherishing them and hiding them indarkness.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 74

”There is no will but God´s.”

The idea for today can beregarded as the central thought toward which all our exercises are directed.God´s is the only Will. When you have recognized this, you have recognized thatyour will is His. The belief that conflict is possible has gone. Peace hasreplaced the strange idea that you are torn by conflicting goals. As anexpression of the Will of God, you have no goal but His. There is great peacein today´s idea, and the exercises for today are directed towards finding it.The idea itself is wholly true. Therefore it cannot give rise to illusions.Without illusions conflict is impossible. Let us try to recognize this today,and experience the peace this recognition brings. Begin the longer practiceperiods by repeating these thourhts several times, slowly and with firmdetermination to understand what they mean, and to hold them in mind:

”There is no will but God´s.
I cannot be in conflict.”

Then spend several minutes inadding some related thoughts, such as:

”I am at peace.”
”Nothing can disturb me. My willis God´s.”
”My will and God´s are one.”
”God wills peace for His Son.”

During this introductory phase,be sure to deal quickly with any conflict thoughts that my cross your mind.Tell yourself immediately:

”There is no will but God´s.
These conflicts thoughts aremeaningless.”

If there is one conflict areathat seems particularly difficult to resolve, single it out for specialconsideration. Think about it briefly but very specifically, identify the particularperson or persons and the situation or situations involved, and tell yourself:

”There is no will but God´s-
I share it with Him.
My conflicts about……….cannot bereal.”

After you have cleared your mindin this way, close your eyes and try to experience the peace to which yourreality entitles you. Sink into it and feel it closing around you. There may besome temptation to mistake these attempts for withdrawal, but the difference iseasily detected. If you are succeeding, you will feel a deep sense of joy andan increased altertness, rather than a feeling of drowsiness and enervation.Joy characterizing peace. By this experience will you recongize that you havereached it. If you feel yourself slipping off into withdrawal, quickly repeat theidea for today and try again. Do this as often as necessary. There is definitegain in refusing to allow retreat into withdrawal, even if you do notexperience the peace you seek. In the shorter periods, which should beundertaken at regular and predetermined intervals today, say to yourself:

”There is no will but God´s.
I seek His peace today.”

Then try to find what you areseeking. A minute or two every half an hour, with eyes closed if possible,would be well spend on this today.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 75

”The light has come.”

The light has come. You arehealed and you can heal. The light has come. You are saved and you can save. Youare at peace, and you bring peace with you wherever you go. Darkness andturmoil and death have disappeared. The light has come. Today we celebrate thehappy ending to your long dream of disaster. There are no dark dreams now. The lighthas come. Today the time of light begins for you and everyone. It is a new era,in which a new world is born. The old one has left no trace upon it in itspassing. Today we see a different world, because the light has come. Ourexercises for today will be happy ones, in which we offer thanks for thepassing of the old and the beginning of the new. No shadows from the pastremain to darken our sight and hide the world forgineness offers us. Today wewill accept the new world as what we want to see. We will be given what wedesire. We will to see the light; the light has come. Our longer practiceperiods will be devoted to looking at the world that our forgiveness shows us.This is what we want to see, and only this. Our single purpose makes our goalinevitable. Today the real world rises before us in gladness, to be seen at last.Sight is given us, now the light has come. We do not want to see the ego´sshadow on the world today. We see the light, and in it we see Heaven´sreflection lie across the world. Begin the longer practice periods by tellingyourself the glad tidings of your release:

”The light has come.
I have forgiven the world.”

Dwell not upon the past today.Keep a completely open mind, washed of all past ideas and clean of everyconcept you have made. You have forgiven the world today. You can look upon itnow as if you never saw it before. You do not know yet what it looks like. You merelywait to have it shown to you. While you wait, repeat several times, slowly andin complete patience:

”The light has come.
I have forgiven the world.”

Realize that your forgivenessentitles you to vision. Understand that the Holy Spirit never fails to give thegift of sight to the forgiving. Believe He will not fail you now. You haveforgiven the the world. He will be with you as you watch and wait. He will showyou what true vision sees. It is His Will, and you have joined with Him. Waitpatiently for Him, He will be there. The light has come. You have forgiven theworld. Tell Him you know you cannot fail because you trus in Him. And tellyourself you wait in certainty to look upon the world He promised you. Fromthis time forth you will see differently. Today the light has come. And youwill see the world that has been promised you since time began, and in which isthe end of time ensured. The shorter practice periods, too, will be joyfulreminders of your release. Remind yourself every quarter of an hour or so thattoday is a time for special celebration. Givet hanks for mercy and the Love ofGod. Rejoice in the power of forgiveness to heal your sight completely. Beconfident that on this day there is a new beginning. Without the darkness ofthe past upon your eyes, you cannot fail to see today. And what you see will beso welcome that you will gladly extend today forever. Say, then:

”The light has come.
I have forgiven the world.”

Should you be tempted, say toanyone who seems to pull you back into darkness:

”The light has come.
I have forgiven you.”

We dedicate this day to theserenity in which God would have you be. Keep it in your awareness of yourselfand see it everywhere today, as we celebrate the beginning of your vision andthe sight of the real world, which has come to replace the unforgiven world youthought was real.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 76

”I am under no laws but God´s.”

We have obsserved before howmany senseless things have seemed to you to be salvation. Each has imprisonedyou with laws as senseless as itself. You are not bound by them. Yet tounderstand that this is so, you must first realize salvation lies not there.While you would seek for it in things that have no meaning, you bind yourselfto laws that make no sense. Thus do you seek to prove salvation is where it isnot. Today we will be glad you cannot prove it. For if you could, you wouldforever seek salvation where it is not, and never find it. The idea for todaytells you once again how simple is salvation. Look for it where it waits foryou, and there it will be found. Look nowhere else, for it is nowhere else.Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all thestrange and twisted laws you have set up to save you. You really think that youwould starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metaldiscs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into yourveins through a sharpened needle will ward of disease and death. You reallythink you are alone unless another body is with you. It is insanity that thinksthese things. You call them laws, and put then under different names in a longcatalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you mustobey the ”laws” of medicine, of economics and of health. Protect the body, andyou will be saved. These are no laws, but madness. The body is endangered bythe mind that hurts itself. The body suffers just in order that the mind willfail to see it is the victim of itself. The body´s suffering is a mask the mindholds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its ownenemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your ”laws ”wouldsave the body. It is for this you think you are a body. There are no lawsexcept the laws of God. This needs repeating, over and over, until you realizeit applies to everything that you have made in opposition to God´s Will. Yourmagic has no meaning. What it is meant to save does not exist. Only what it ismeant to hide will save you. The laws of God can never be replaced. We willdevote today to reejoicing that this is so. It is no longer a truth that wewould hide. We realize instead it is a truth that keeps us free forever. Magicimprisons, but the laws of God make free. The light has come because there areno laws but His. We will begin the longer practice periods today with a shortreview of the different kinds of ”laws” we have believed we must obey. Thesewould include, for example, the ”laws” of nutrition, of immunization, ofmedication, and of the body´s protection in innumerabel ways. Think further;you believe in the ”laws” of friendship, of ”good” relationships andreciprocity. Perhaps you event hink that there are laws which set forth what isGod´s and what is yours. Many ”religions” have been based on this. They wouldnot save but damn in Heaven´s name. Yet they are no more strange than other ”laws”you hold must be obeyed to make you safe. . There are no laws but God´s.Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today, and hold your mind in silentreadiness to hear the Voice That speaks the truth to you. You will be listeningto One Who says there is no loss under the laws of God. Payment is neithergiven nor received. Exchange cannot be made; there are no substitutes; andnothing is replaced by something else. God´s laws forever give and never take.Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the ”laws” you thoughtupheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen futher. He will tell youmore. About the Love your Father has for you. About the endless joy He offersyou. About His yearning for His only Son, created as His channel for creation;denied to Him by his belief in hell. Let us today open God´s channels to Him,and let His Will extend through us to Him. Thus is creation endlesslyincreased. His Voice will spek of this to us, as well as of the joys of Heavenwhich His laws keep limitless forever. We will repeat today´s idea until wehave listened and understood there are no laws but God´s. Then we will tellourselves, as a dedication with which the practice period concludes:

”I am under no laws but God´s.”

We will repeat this dedicationas often as possible today; at least four or five times an hour, as well as inresponse to any temptation to experience ourselves as subject to other lawsthroughout the day. It is our statement of feedom from all danger and alltyranny. It is our acknowledment that God is our Father, and that His Son issaved.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 77

”I am entitled to miracles.”

You are entitled to miraclesbecause of what you are. You will receive miracles because of what God is. Andyou will offer mireacles because you are one with God. Again, how simple issalvation! It is merely a statement of your true Identity. It is this that wewill celelbrate today. Your claim to miracles does not lie in your illusionsabout yourself. It does not depend on any magical powers you have ascribed to yourself,nor on any of the rituals you have devised. It is inherent in the truth of whatyou are. It is implicit in what God your Father is. It was ensured in yourcreation, and guaranteed by the law of God. Today we will claim the miracleswhich are your right, since they belong to you. You have been promised fullrelease from the world you made. You have been assured that the Kingdom of Godis within you, and can never be lost. We ask no more that what belongs to us intruth. Today, however, we will also make sure that we will not contentourselves with less. Begin the longer practice period by telling yourself quiteconfidently that you are entitled to miracles. Closing your eyes, remindyourself that you are asking only for what is rightfully yours. Remind yourselfalso that miracles are never taken from one and given to another, and that inasking for your rights, you are upholding the rights of everyone. Miracles donot obey the laws of this world. They merely follow from the laws of God. Afterthis brief introductory phase, wait quietly for the assurance that your requestis granted. You have asked for the salvation of the world, and for your own. Youhave requested that you be given the means by which this is accomplished. You cannotfail to be assured in this. You are but asking that the Will of God be done. Indoing this, you do not really ask for anything. You state a fact that cannot bedenied. The Holy Spirit cannot but assure you that your request is granted. Thefact that you accepted must be so. There is no room for doubt and uncertaintytoday. We are asking a real question at last. The answer is a simple statementof a simple fact. You will receive the assurance that you seek. Our shorterpractice periods will be frequent, and will also be devoted to a reminder of asimple fact. Tell yourself often today:

”I am entitled to miracles.”

Ask for them whenever asituation arises in which they are called for. You will recognize thesesituations. And since you are not relying on yourself to find the miracle, youare fully entitled to receive it whenever you ask. Remember, too, not to besatisfied with less than the perfect answer. Be quick to tell yourself, shouldyou be tempted:

”I will not trade miracles forgrievances.
I want only what belongs to me.
God has established miracles asmy right.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 78

”Let miracles replace allgrievances.”

Perhaps it is not yet quiteclear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and amiracle. Each grievance stand lika a dark shield of hate before the miracle itwould conceal. And as you raise it up before you eyes, you will not see themiracle beyond. Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you beholdyour grievances instead. Today we go beyond the grievances, to look upon themiracle instead. We will reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stopbefore it sees. We will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down andgently lift our eyes in silence to behold the Son of God. He waits for youbehind your grievances, and as you lay them down he will appear in shininglight where each one stood before. For every grievvance is a block to sight,and as it lifts you see the Son of God where he has always been. Hes tands inlight, but you were in the dark. Each grievance made the darkness deeper, andyou could not see. Today we will attempt to see God´s Son. We will not letourselves be blind to him; we will not look upon our greivances. So is theseeing of the world reversed, as we look out toward truth, away from fear. Wewill select one person you have used as target for your grievances, and lay thegreivances aside and look at him. Someone, perhaps, you fear and even hate;someone you think you love who angered you; someone you call a friend, but whomyou see as difficult at times or hard to please, demanding,, irritating oruntrue to the ideal he should accept as his, according to the role you set forhim. You know the one to choose; his name has crossed your mind already. Hewill be the one of whom we ask God´s Son be shown to you. Through seeing himbehind the grievances that you have held against him, you will learn that whatlay hidden while you saw him not is there in everyone, and can be seen. He whowas enemy is more than friend when he is freed to take the holy role the HolySpirit has assigned to him. Let him be savior unto you today. Such is his rolein God your Father´s plan. Our longer practice periods today will see him inthis role. You will attempt to hold him in your mind, first as you now considerhim. You will review his faults, the difficulties you have had with him, thepain he caused you, his neglect, and all the little and the larger hurts hegave. You will regard his body with its flaws and better points as well, andyou will think of his mistakes and ever of his ”sins”. Then let us ask of HimWho knows this Son of God in his reality and truth, that we may look on him adifferent way, and see our savior shining in the light of true forgiveness,given unto us. We ask Him in the holy Name of God and of His Son, as holy asHimself:

”Let me behold my savior in thisone
You have appointed as the onefor me
To ask to lead me to the holylight
In which he stands, that I mayjoin with him.”

The body´s eyes ae closed, andas you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in himbeyond your grievances. What you have asked for cannot be denled. Your saviorhas been waiting long for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours.The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing no separation in God´s Son. Andwhat you see through Him will free you both. Be very quiet now, and look uponyour shining savior. No dark grievances obscure the sight of him. You haveallowed the Holy Spirit to express through him the role God gave Him that yourmight be saved. God thanks you for these quiet times today in which you laidyour images aside, and looked upon the miracles of love the Holy Spirit showedyou in their place. The world and Heaven join in thanking you, for not oneThought of God but must rejoice as you are saved, and all the world with you.We will remember this throughout the day, and take the role assigned to us aspart God´s salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we alloweach one we meet to save us, and refuse to hide his light behind ourgrievances. To everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of or remember fromthe past, allow the role of savior to be given, that you may share it with him.For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:

”Let miracles replace allgrievances.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 79

”Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.”

A problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really solved already you will still have the problem, because you will not recongize that it has been solved. This is the situation of the world. The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. Yet the solution is not recongize dbecause the problem is not recongized. Everyone in this world seems to have his own special problems. Yet they are all the same, and must be recongnized as one if the one solution that solves them all is to be accepted. Who can see that a problem has been solved if het hinks the problem is something else? Even if he is given the answer, he cannot see its relevance. That is the position in which you find yourself now. You have the answer, but you are still uncertain about what the problem is. A long series of different problems seems to confront you,and as one is settled the next one and the next arise. There seems to be no end to them. There is no time in which you feel completely free of problems and atpeace. The temptation to regard problems as many is the temptation to keep theproblem of separation unsolved. The world seems to present you with a vastnumber of problems, each requiring a different answer. This perception placesyou in a position in which your problem-solvning must be inadequate, andfailure is inevitable. No one could solve all the problems the world appears tohold. They seemto be on so many levels, in such varying forms and with suchvaried content, that they confront you with an impossible situation. Dismay anddepression are inevitable as you regard them. Some spring up unexpectedly, justas you think you have resolved the prevvious ones. Others remain unsolved undera cloud of denial, and rise to haunt you from time to time, only to be hiddenagain but still unsolved. All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not torecognize the problem, and therefore not to let it be resolved. If you couldrecognize that your only problem is separation, no matter what form it takes,you could accept the answer because you would see its relevance. Perceiving theunderlying constancy in all the problems that seem to confront you, you wouldunderstand that you have the means to solve them all. And you would use themeans, because you recognize the problem. In our longer practice periods todaywe will ask what the problem is, and what is the answer to it. We will notassume that we already know. We will try to free our minds of all the manydifferent kinds of problems we think we have. We will try to realize that wehave only one problem, which we have failed to recognize. We will ask what itis, and wait for the answer. We will be told. Then we will ask for the solutionto it. And we will be told. The exercises for today will be successful to theextent to which you do not insist on defining the problem. Perhaps you will notsucceed in letting all your preconceived notions go, but that is not necessary.All that is necessary is to entertain some doubt about the reality of yourversion of what your problem are. You are trying to recognize that you havebeen given the answer by recognizing the problem, so that the problem and theanswer can be brought together and you can be at peace. The shorter practiceperiods for today will not be set by time, but by need. You will see manyproblems today, each one calling for an answer. Our efforts will be directedtoward recognizing that there is only one problem and one answer. In thisrecognition are all problems resoved. In this recognitioon there is peace. Benot deceived by the form of problems today. Whenever any difficulty seems to rise,tell yourself quickly:

”Let me recognize this problemso it can be solved.”

Then try to suspend all judgmentabout what the problem is. If possible, close your eyes for a moment and askwhat it is. You will be heard and you will be answered.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 80

”Let me recognize my problem have been solved.”

If you are willing to recognize your problems, you will recognize that you have no problem. Your one central problem has been answered, and you have no other. Therefore, you must be at peace. Salvation thus depends on recognizing this one problem, and understanding that it has been solved. One problem, one solution. Salvation is accomplished. Freedom from conflict has been given you. Accept that fact, and you are ready to take your rightful place in God´s plan for salvation. Your only problem has been solved! Repeat this over and over to yourself today, with gratitude and conviction. You have recognized your only problem, opening the way for the Holy Spirit to give you God´s answer. You have laid deception aside, and see the light of truth. You have accepted salvation for yourself by bringing the problem to the answer. And you can recognize the answer, because the problem has been identified. You are entitled to peace today. A problem that has been resolved cannot trouble you. Only be certain you do not forget that all problems are the same. Their many forms will not deceive you while you remember this. One problem, one solution. Accept the peace this simple statement brings. In our longer practice periods today, we will claim the peace that must be ours when the problem and the answer have been brought together. The problem must be gone, because God´s answer cannot fail. Having recognized one, you have recognized the other. The solution is inherent in the problem. You are answered, and have accepted the answer. You are saved. Now let the peace that your acceptance brings be given you. Close your eyes, and receive your reward. Recognize that your problems have been solved. Recognize that you are out of conflict; free and at peace. Above all, remember that you have one problem, and that the problem has one solution. It is in this that the simplicity of salvation lies. It is because of this that it is guaranteed to work. Assure yourself often today that your problem have been solved. Repeat the idea with deep conviction, as frequently as possible. And be particularly sure to apply the idea for today to any specific problem that may arise. Say quickly:

”Let me recognize this problem has been solved.”

Let us be determined not to collect grievances today. Let us be determined to be free of problems that do not exist. The means is simple honesty. Do not deceive yourself about what the problem is, and you must recongize it has been solved.

Love

[IA56]

REVIEW II


We are now ready for another review. We will begin where our last review left off, and cover two ideas each day. The earlier part of each day will be developed to one of these ideas, and the latter part of the day to the other. We will have one longer exercise period, and frequent shorter ones in which we practice each of them. The longer practice periods will follow this general form: Take about fifteen minutes for each of them, and begin by thinking about the ideas for the day, and the comments that are included in the assignment. Devote some three or four minutes to reading them over slowly, several times if you wish, and then close your eyes and listen. Repeat the first phase of the exercise period if you find your mind wandering, but try to spend the major part of the time listening quietly but attentively. There is a message waiting for you. Be confident that you will receive it. Remember that it belongs to you, and that you want it. Do not allow your intent to waver in the face of distracting thoughts. Realize that, whatever form such thoughts may take, they have no meaning and no power. Replace them with your determination to succeed. Do not forget that your will has power over all fantasies and dreams. Trust it to see you through, and carry you beyond them all. Regard them practice periods as dedications to the way, the truth and the life. Refuse to be sidetracked into detours, illusions and thoughts of death. You are dedicated to salvation. Be determined each day not to leave your function unfulfilled. Reaffirm your determination in the shorter practice periods as well, using the original form of the idea for general applications, and more specific forms when needed. Some specific forms are included in the comments which follow the statement of the ideas. These, however, are merely suggestions. It is not the particular words you use the matter.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 81

Our ideas for review today are:

61)”I am the light of the world.”

How holy am I, who have been given the function of lighting up the world! Let me be still before my holiness. In its calm light let all my conflicts disappear. In its peace let me remember who I am. Some specific forms for applying this idea when special difficulties seem to arise might be:

”Let me not obscure the light of the world in me.”
”Let the light of the world shine through this appearance.”
”This shadow will vanish before the light.”

62)”Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.”

It is through accepting my function that I will see the light in me. And in this light will my function stand clear and perfectly unambiguous before my sight. My acceptance does not depend on my recognizing what my function is, for I do not yet understand forgiveness. Yet I will trust that, in the ligh, I will see it as it is. Specific forms for using this idea might include:

”Let this help me learn what forgiveness means.”
”Let me not separate my function from my will.”
”I will not use this for an alien purpose.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 82

We review these ideas today:

63)”The light of the worldbrings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.”

My forgiveness is the means bywhich the light of the world finds expression through me. My forgiveness is themeans by which I become aware of the light of the world in me. My forgivenessis the means by which the world is healed, together with myself. Let me, then,forgive the world, that it may be healed along with me. Suggestions forspecific forms for applying this idea are:

”Let peace extend from my mindto yours, (name).”
”I share the light of the worldwith you, (name).”
”Through my forgiveness I cansee this as it is.”

64)”Let me not forget myfunction.”

I would not forget my function,because I would remember my Self. I cannot fulfill my function if I forget it.And unless I fulfill my function, I will not experience the joy that Godintends for me. Suitable specific form of this idea include:

”Let me not use this to hide myfunction from me.”
”I would use this as anopportunity to fulfill my function.”
”This may threaten my ego, butcannot change my function in any way.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 83

Today let us review these ideas:

65)”My only function is the oneGod gave me.”

I have no function but the oneGod gaveme. This recognition releases me from all conflict, because it means Icannot have conflicting goals. With one purpose only, I am always certain whatto do, what to say and what to think. All doubt must disappear as I acknowledgethat my only function is the one God gave me. More specific applications ofthis idea might taket hese forms:

”My perception of this does notchange my function.”
”This does not give me afunction other than the one God gave me.”
”Let me not use this to justifya function God did not give me.”

66)”My happiness and my functionare one.”

All things that come from Godare one. They come from Oneness, and must be received as one. Fulfilling myfunction is my happiness because both come from the same Source. And I mustlearn to recognize what makes me happy, if I would find happiness. Some usefulforms for specific applications of this idea are:

”This cannot separate myhappiness from my function.”
”The oneness of my happiness andmy function remains wholly unaffected by this.”
”Nothing, including this, canjustify the illusion of happiness apart from my function.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 84

There are the ideas for today´s review:

67)”Love created me like itself.”

I am in the likeness of my Creator, I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss and I cannot die. I am not a body, I would recognize my reality today, I will worship no idols, nor raise my own self concept to replace my Self, I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like itself. You might find these sepcific forms helpful in applying the idea:

”Let me not see an illusion of myself in this.”
”As I look on this, let me remember my Creator.”
”My Creator did not create this as I see it.”

68 ”Love holds no grievances.”

Grievances are completely alien to love. Grievances attack love and keep its light obscure. If I hold grievances I am attacking love, and therefore attacking my Self. My Self thus becomes alien to me. I am determined not to attack my Self today, so that I can remember who I am. These specific forms for applying this idea would be helpful:

”This is no justification for denying my Self.”
”I will not use this to attack love.”
”Let this not tempt me to attack myself.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 85

Today´s review will cover these ideas:

69) ”My grievances hide the light of the world in me.”

My grievances show me what is not there, and hide from me what I would see. Recongizing this, what do I want my grievances for? They keep me in darkness and hide the light. Grievances and light cannot go together, but light and vision must be joined for me to see. To see, I must lay grievances aside. I want to see, and this will be the means by which I will succeed. Specific applications of this idea might be made in these forms:

”Let me not use this as a block to sight.”
”The light of the world will shine all this away.”
”I have no need for this, I want to see.”

70) ”My salvation comes from me.”

Today I will recognize where my salvation is. It is in me because its Source is there. It has not left its Source, and so it cannot have left my mind. I will not look for it outside myself. It is not found outside and then brought in. But from within me it will reach beyond, and everything I see will but reflect the light that shines in me and in itself. These forms of the idea are suitable for more specific applications:

”Let this not tempt me to look away from me for my salvation.”
”I will not let this interfere with my awareness of the Source of my salvation.”
”This has no power to remove salvation from me.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 86

These ideas are for review today:

71) ”Only God´s plan for salvation will work.”

It is senseless for me to search wildly for salvation. I have seen it in many people and in many things, but when I reached for it, it was not there. I was mistaken about where it is. I was mistaken about what it is. I will undertake no more idle seeking. Only God´s plan for salvation will work. And I will rejoice becase His plan can never fail. These are some suggested forms for applying this idea specifically:

”God´s plan for salvation will save me from my perception of this.”
”This is no exeption in God´s plan for my salvation.”
”Let me perceive this only in the light of God´s plan for salvation.”

72) ”Holding grievances is an attack on God´s plan for salvation.”

Holding grievances is an attempt to prove that God´s plan for salvation will not work. Yet only His plan will work. By holding grievances, I am therefore excluding my only hope of salvation from my awareness. I would no longer defeat my own best interests in this insane way. I would accept God´s plan for salvation, and be happy. Specific applications of this idea might be in these forms:

”I am choosing between misperception and salvation as I look on this.”
”If I see grounds for grievances in this, I will not see the grounds for my salvation.”
”This calls for salvation, not attack.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 87

Our review today will cover these ideas:

73) ”I will there be light.”

I will use the power of my will today. It is not my will to grope about in darkness, fearful of shadows and afraid of things unseen and unreal. Light shall be my guide today. I will follow it where it leads me, and I will look only on what it shows me. This day I will experience the peace of true perception. These forms of this idea would be helpful for specific applications:

”This cannot hide the light I will to see.”
”You stand with me in light, (name).”
”In the light this will look different.”

74) ”There is no will but God´s.”

I am safe today because there is no will but God´s. I can become afraid only when I believe there is another will. I try to attack only when I am afraid, and only when I try to attack can I believe that my eternal safety is threatened. Today I will recognize that all this has not occured. I am safe because there is no will but God´s. These are some useful forms of this idea for specific applications:

”Let me perceive this in accordance with the Will of God.”
”It is God´s Will you are His Son, (name), and mine as well.”
”This is part of God´s Will for me, however, I may see it.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 88
Today we will review these ideas:

75) ”The light has come.”

In choosing salvation rather than attack, I merely choose to recognize what is already there. Salvation is a decision made already. Attack and greivances are not there to choose. That is why I always choose between truth and illusion; between what is there and wha tis not. The light has come. I can but choose the light, for it has no alternative. It has replaced the darkness, and the darkness has gone. These would proveuseful forms for specific applications of this idea:

”This cannot show me darkness,for the light has come.”
”The light in you is all that I would see, (name).”
”I would see in this only what is there.”

76) ”I am under no laws but God´s.”

Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God´s. I am constantly tempted to make up other laws and givet hem power over me. I suffer only because of my belief in them. They have no real effect on me at all. I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God´s. And His are the laws of freedom. For specific forms in applying this idea, these would be useful:

”My perception of this shows me I believe in laws that do not exist.”
”I see only the laws of God at work in this.”
”Let me allow God´s law to work in this, and not my own.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 89

These are our review ideas for today:

77) ”I am entitled to miracles.”

I am entitled to miracles because I am under no laws but God´s. His laws release me from all grievances,and replace them with miracles. And I would accept the miracles in place of the grievances, which are but illusions that hide the miracles beyond. Now I would accept only what the laws of God entitle me to have, that I may use it on behalf of the function. He has given me. You might use these suggestions for specific applications of this idea:

”Behind this is a miracle to which I am entitled.”
”Let me not hold grievanceagainst you, (name), but offer you the miracle that belongs to you instead.”
”Seen truly, this offers meamiracle.”

78 ”Let miracle replace all grievances.”

By this idea do I unite my will with the Holy Spirit´s, and perceive them as one. By this idea do I accept my release from hell. By this idea do I express my willingness to have all my illusions by replaced with truth, according to God´s plan for my salvation. I would make no exceptions and no substitutes. I want all of Heaven and only Heaven, as God wills me to have. Useful specific forms for applying this idea would be:

”I would not hold this grievance apart from my salvation.”
”Let our grievances be replaced by miracles, (name).”
”Beyond this is the miracle by which all my grievances are replaced.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 90

For this review we will use these ideas:

79) ” Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.”

Let me realize today that the problem is always some form of grievance that I would cherish. Let me also understand that the solution is always a miracle with which I let the grievance be replaced. Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution. The problem is a grievance; the solution is a miracle. And I invite the solution to come to me through my forgiveness of the grievance, and my welcome of the miracle that takes its place. Specific applications of this idea might be in these forms:

”This presents a problem to me which I would have resolved.”
”The miracle behind this grievance will resolve it for me.”
”The answer to this problem is the miracle that it comceals.”

80) ”Let me recognize my problems have been solved.”

I seem to have problems only because I am misusing time. I believe that the problem comes first, and time must elapse before it can be worked out. I do not see the problem and the answer as simultaneous in their occurrence. That is because I do not yet realize that God has placed the answer together with the problem, so tht they cannot be separated by time. The Holy Spirit will teach me this, if I will let Him. And I will understand it is impossible that I could have a problem which has not been solved already. These forms of the idea will be useful for specific application:

”I need not wait for this to be resolved.”
”The answer to this problem is already given me, if I will accept it.”
”Time cannot separate this problem from its solution.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 91

”Miracles are seen in light.”

It is important to remember thatmiracles and vision necessarily go together. This needs repeating, and frequentrepeating. It is a central idea in your new thought system, and the perceptionthat it produces. The miracle is always there. Its presence is not caused byyour vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is onlyyour awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see them in the light;you will not see them in the dark. To you, then, light is crusial. While youremain in darkness, the miracle remains unseen. Thus you are convinced it isnot there. This follows from the premises from which the darkness comes. Denialof light leads to failure to perceive it. Failure to perceive light is toperceive darkness. The light is useless to you then, even though it is there.You cannot use it because its presence is unknown to you. And the seemingreality of the darkness makes the idea of light meaningless. To be told thatwhat you do not see is there sounds like insanity. It is very difficult tobecome convinced that it is insanity not to see what is there, and to see whatis not there instead. You do not doubt that the body´s eyes can see. You do notdoubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in the darkness,not the light. How can this be reversed? For you it is impossible, but you arenot alone in this. Your efforts, however little they may be, have strongsupport. Did you but realize how great this strength, you dobuts would vanish.Today we will devote ourselves to the attempt to let you feel this strength.When you have felt the strength in you, which makes all miracles within youreasy reach, you will not doubt. The miracles you sense of weakness hides willleap into awareness as you feel the strength in you. Three times today, setaside about then minutes for a quiet time in which you try to leave yourweakness behind. This is accomplished very simply, as you instruct yourselfthat you are not a body. Faith goes to what you want, and you instruct yourmind accordingly. Your will remains your teacher, and your will has all thestrength to do what it desires. You can escape the body if you choose. You canexperience the strength in you. Begin the longer practice periods with thisstatement of true cause and effect relationships:

”Miracles are seen in light.
The body´s eyes do not perceivethe light.
But I am not a body. What am I?”

The question will which thisstatement ends is needed for our exercises today. What you think you are is abelief to be undone. But what you really are must be revealed to you. Thebelief you are a body calls for correction, being a mistake. The truth of whatyou are calls on the strength in yhhou to bring to your awareness what themistake conceals. If you are not a body, what are you? You need to be aware ofwhat the Holy Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in your mind. You needto feel something to put your faith in, as you lift it from the body. You needa real experience of something else, something more solid and more sure; moreworthy of your faith, and really there. If you are not a body, what are you?Ask this in honesty, and then devote several minutes to allowing your mistakenthoughts about your attributes to be corrected, and their opposites to taketheir place. Say, for example:

”I am not weak, but strong.”
”I am not helpless, but allpowerful.”
I am not limited, but unlimited.”
I am not doubtful, but certain.”
”I am not an illusion, but areality.”
”I cannot see in darkness, butin light.”

In the second phase of theexercise period, try to experience these truths about yourself. Concentrateparticularly on the experience of strength. Remember that all sense of weaknessis associated with the belief you are a body, a belief that is mistaken anddeserves no faith. Try to remove your faith from it, if only for a moment. Youwill be accustomed to keeping faith with the more worthy in you as we go along.Relax for the rest of the practice period, confident that your efforts, howevermeager, are fully supported by the strength of God and all His Thoughts. It isfrom Them that your strength will come. It is through Their strong support thatyou will feel the strength in you. They are united with you in this practiceperiod, in which you share a purpose like Their own. Theirs is the light inwhich you will see miracles, because Their strength is yours. Their strengthbecomes your eyes, that you may see. Five or six times an hour, at reasonablyregular intervals, remind yourself that miracles are seen in light. Also, besure to meet temptation with today´s idea. This form would be helpful for thisspecial purpose:

”Miracles are seen in light.
Let me not close my eyes becauseof this.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 92

”Miracles are seen in light, andlight and strength are one.”

The idea for today in anextension of the previous one. You do not think of light in terms of strength,and darkness in terms of weakness. That is because your idea of what seeingmeans is tied up with the body and its eyes and brain. Thus you believe thatyou can change what you see but putting little bits of glass before your eyes.This is among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are abody, and the body´s eyes can see. You also believe the body´s brain can think.If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insaneidea. It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and givesit all its warmth; or that you held the match that lights the sun and gives itall its warmth; or that you held the world within your hand, securely bounduntil you let it go. Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body´seyes can see; the brain can think. It is God´s strength in you that is thelight in which you see, as it is His Mind with which you think. His strengthdenies your weakness. It is your weakness that sees through the body´s eyes,peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, theweak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, thesad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes thatcannot see and cannot bless. Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances.It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. It unites withlight, of which it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the light in which yourSelf appears. In darkness you perceive a self that is not there. Strength isthe truth about you; weakness is an idol falsely worshipped and adored thatstrength may be dispelled, and darkness rule where God appointed that thereshould be light. Strength comes from truth, and shines with light its Sourcehas given it; weakness reflects the darkness of its maker. It is sick and lookson sickness, which is like itself. Truth is a savior and can only will forhappiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone who asks,in limitless supply. It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack in all. And soit gives its light that all may see and benefit as one. Its strength is sharedis shared, that it may bring to all the miracle in which they will unite inpurpose and forgiveness and in love. Weakness, which looks in darkness, cannotsee a purpose in forgiveness and in love. It sees all others different fromitself, and nothing in the world that it would share. It judges and condemns,but does not love. In darkness it remains to hide itself, an dreams that it isstrong and conquering, a victor over limitations that but grow in darkness toenormous size. It fears and it attacks and hates itself, and darkness coverseverything it sees, leaving it dreams as fearful as itself. No miracles arehere, but only hate. It separates itself from what it sees, while light andstrength perceive themselves as one. The light of strength is not the light yousee. It does not change and flicker and go out. It does not shift from night today, and back till the morning comes again. The light of strength is constant,sure as love, forever glad to give itself away, because it cannot give but toitself. No one can ask in vain th share its sight, and none who enters itsabode can leave without a miracle before his eyes, and strength and lightabides in his heart. The strength in you will offer you the light, and guideyour seeing so you do not dwell on idle shadows that the body´s eyes providefor self-deception. Strength and light unite in you, and where they meet, yourSelf stands ready to embrace you as Its Own. Such is the meeting place we trytoday to find and rest in, for the peace of God is where your Self, His Son, iswaiting now to meet Itself again, and be as one. Let us give twenty minutestwice today to join this meeting. Let yourself be brought unto your Self. Itsstrength will be the light in which the gift of sight is given you. Leave,then, the dark a little while today, and we will practice seeing in the light,closing the body´s eyes and asking truth to show u show to find the meetingplace of slef and Self, where light and strength are one. Morning and eveningwe will practice thus. After the morning meeting, we will use the day inpreparation for the time at night when we will meet again in trust. Let us repeatas often as we can the idea for today, and recognize that we are beingintroduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where onlymiracles can be perceived.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 92

”Miracles are seen in light, andlight and strength are one.”

The idea for today in anextension of the previous one. You do not think of light in terms of strength,and darkness in terms of weakness. That is because your idea of what seeingmeans is tied up with the body and its eyes and brain. Thus you believe thatyou can change what you see but putting little bits of glass before your eyes.This is among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are abody, and the body´s eyes can see. You also believe the body´s brain can think.If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insaneidea. It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and givesit all its warmth; or that you held the match that lights the sun and gives itall its warmth; or that you held the world within your hand, securely bounduntil you let it go. Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body´seyes can see; the brain can think. It is God´s strength in you that is thelight in which you see, as it is His Mind with which you think. His strengthdenies your weakness. It is your weakness that sees through the body´s eyes,peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, theweak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, thesad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes thatcannot see and cannot bless. Strength overlooks these things by seeing pastappearances. It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. Itunites with light, of which it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the lightin which your Self appears. In darkness you perceive a self that is not there.Strength is the truth about you; weakness is an idol falsely worshipped andadored that strength may be dispelled, and darkness rule where God appointedthat there should be light. Strength comes from truth, and shines with lightits Source has given it; weakness reflects the darkness of its maker. It issick and looks on sickness, which is like itself. Truth is a savior and canonly will for happiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength toeveryone who asks, in limitless supply. It sees that lack in anyone would be alack in all. And so it gives its light that all may see and benefit as one. Itsstrength is shared is shared, that it may bring to all the miracle in whichthey will unite in purpose and forgiveness and in love. Weakness, which looksin darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness and in love. It sees allothers different from itself, and nothing in the world that it would share. Itjudges and condemns, but does not love. In darkness it remains to hide itself,an dreams that it is strong and conquering, a victor over limitations that butgrow in darkness to enormous size. It fears and it attacks and hates itself,and darkness covers everything it sees, leaving it dreams as fearful as itself.No miracles are here, but only hate. It separates itself from what it sees,while light and strength perceive themselves as one. The light of strength isnot the light you see. It does not change and flicker and go out. It does notshift from night to day, and back till the morning comes again. The light ofstrength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself away, becauseit cannot give but to itself. No one can ask in vain th share its sight, andnone who enters its abode can leave without a miracle before his eyes, andstrength and light abides in his heart. The strength in you will offer you thelight, and guide your seeing so you do not dwell on idle shadows that the body´seyes provide for self-deception. Strength and light unite in you, and wherethey meet, your Self stands ready to embrace you as Its Own. Such is themeeting place we try today to find and rest in, for the peace of God is whereyour Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet Itself again, and be as one. Let usgive twenty minutes twice today to join this meeting. Let yourself be broughtunto your Self. Its strength will be the light in which the gift of sight isgiven you. Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will practiceseeing in the light, closing the body´s eyes and asking truth to show u show tofind the meeting place of slef and Self, where light and strength are one.Morning and evening we will practice thus. After the morning meeting, we willuse the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again intrust. Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today, and recognize thatwe are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light whereonly miracles can be perceived.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 92

”Miracles are seen in light, andlight and strength are one.”

The idea for today in anextension of the previous one. You do not think of light in terms of strength,and darkness in terms of weakness. That is because your idea of what seeingmeans is tied up with the body and its eyes and brain. Thus you believe thatyou can change what you see but putting little bits of glass before your eyes.This is among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are abody, and the body´s eyes can see. You also believe the body´s brain can think.If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insaneidea. It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and givesit all its warmth; or that you held the match that lights the sun and gives itall its warmth; or that you held the world within your hand, securely bounduntil you let it go. Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body´seyes can see; the brain can think. It is God´s strength in you that is thelight in which you see, as it is His Mind with which you think. His strengthdenies your weakness. It is your weakness that sees through the body´s eyes,peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, theweak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, thesad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes thatcannot see and cannot bless. Strength overlooks these things by seeing pastappearances. It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. Itunites with light, of which it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the lightin which your Self appears. In darkness you perceive a self that is not there.Strength is the truth about you; weakness is an idol falsely worshipped andadored that strength may be dispelled, and darkness rule where God appointedthat there should be light. Strength comes from truth, and shines with lightits Source has given it; weakness reflects the darkness of its maker. It issick and looks on sickness, which is like itself. Truth is a savior and canonly will for happiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength toeveryone who asks, in limitless supply. It sees that lack in anyone would be alack in all. And so it gives its light that all may see and benefit as one. Itsstrength is shared is shared, that it may bring to all the miracle in whichthey will unite in purpose and forgiveness and in love. Weakness, which looksin darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness and in love. It sees allothers different from itself, and nothing in the world that it would share. Itjudges and condemns, but does not love. In darkness it remains to hide itself,an dreams that it is strong and conquering, a victor over limitations that butgrow in darkness to enormous size. It fears and it attacks and hates itself,and darkness covers everything it sees, leaving it dreams as fearful as itself.No miracles are here, but only hate. It separates itself from what it sees,while light and strength perceive themselves as one. The light of strength isnot the light you see. It does not change and flicker and go out. It does notshift from night to day, and back till the morning comes again. The light ofstrength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself away, becauseit cannot give but to itself. No one can ask in vain th share its sight, andnone who enters its abode can leave without a miracle before his eyes, andstrength and light abides in his heart. The strength in you will offer you thelight, and guide your seeing so you do not dwell on idle shadows that the body´seyes provide for self-deception. Strength and light unite in you, and wherethey meet, your Self stands ready to embrace you as Its Own. Such is themeeting place we try today to find and rest in, for the peace of God is whereyour Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet Itself again, and be as one. Let usgive twenty minutes twice today to join this meeting. Let yourself be broughtunto your Self. Its strength will be the light in which the gift of sight isgiven you. Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will practiceseeing in the light, closing the body´s eyes and asking truth to show u show tofind the meeting place of slef and Self, where light and strength are one.Morning and evening we will practice thus. After the morning meeting, we willuse the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again intrust. Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today, and recognize thatwe are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light whereonly miracles can be perceived.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 93

”Light and joy and peace abides in me.”

You think you are the home for evil, darkness and sin. You think if anyone could see the truth about you he would be repelled, recoiling from you as if from a poisonous snake. You think if what is true about you were revealed to you, you would be struck with horror so intense that you would rush to death by your own hand, living on after seeing this being impossible. There are beliefs so firmly fixed that it is difficult to help you see that they are based on nothing. That you have made mistakes is obvious. That you have sought salvation in strange ways, - have bean deceived, deciving and afraid of foolish fantasies and savage dreams; and have bowed down to idols made of dust, - all this is true by what you now believe. Today we question this, not from the point of view of what you think, but from a very different reference point, from which such idle thoughts are meaningless. These thoughts are not according to God´s Will. These weird beliefs He does not share with you. This is enough to prove that they are wrong, but you do not perceive that this is so. Why would you not be overjoyed to be assured that all the evil that you think you did was never done, that all your sins are nothing, that you are as pure and holy as you were created, and that light and joy and peace abide in you? Your image of yourself cannot withstand the Will of God. You think that this is death, but it is life. You think you are destroyed, bu you are saved. The self you made is not the Son of God. Therefore, this self does not exist at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing. It is neither bad nor good. It is unreal, and nothing more than that. It does not battle with the Son of God. It does not hurt him, nor attack his peace. It has not changed creation, nor reduced eternal sinlessness to sin, and love to hate. What power can this self you made possess, what it would contradict the Will of God? Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Over and over this must be repeated, until it is accepted. It is true. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Nothing can touch it, or change what God created as eternal. The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God, and light and joy and peace abide in you. Salvation requires the acceptance of but one thought; - you are as God created you, not what you made of yourself. Whatever evil you mnay think you did, you are as God created you. Whatever mistakes you made, the truth about you is unchanged. Creation is eternal and unalterable. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. You are and will forever be exactly as you were created. Light and joy and peace abide in you because God put them there. In our longer exercise periods today, which would be most profitable if done for the first five minutes of every waking hour, begin by stating the truth about your creation:

”Light and joy and peace abides in me.
My sinlessness is guaranteed by God.”

Then put away your foolish self-images, and spend the rest of the practice period in trying to experience what God has given you, in place of what you have decreed for yourself. You are what God created ore what you made. On Self is true; the other is not there. Try to experience the unity of your one Self. Try to appreciate Its holiness and the Love from Which It was created. Try not to interfere with the Self Which God created as you, by hiding Its majesty behind the tiny idols of evil and sinfulness you have made tp replace it. Let It come into Its Own. Here you are; This is you. And light and joy and peace abide in you because this is so. You may not be willing or even able to use the first five minutes of each hour for these exercises. Try, however, to do so when you can. At least remember to repeat these thoughts each hour:

”Light and joy and peace abide in me.
My sinlessness is guaranteed by God.”

Then try to devote at least a minute or so to closing you eyes and realizing that this is a statement of the truth about you. If a situation arises that seems to be disturbing, quickly dispel the illusion of fear by repeating these thoughts again. Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell him silently:

”Light and joy and peace abides in you.
Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.”

You can do much for the world´s salvation today. You can do much today to bring you closer to the part in salvation that God has assigned to you. And you can do much today to bring the conviction to your mind that the idea for the day is true indeed.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 94

”I am as God created me.”

Today we continue with the one idea which brings complete salvation; the one statement which makes all forms of temptation powerless; the one thought which renders the ego silent and entirely undone. You are as God created you. The sounds of this world are still, the sights of this world disappear, and all the thoughts that this would ever held are wiped away forever by this one idea. Here is salvation accomplished. Here is sanity restored. True light is strength, and strength is sinlessness. If you remain as God created you, you must be strong and light must be in you. He Who ensured your sinlessness must be the guarantee of strength and light as well. You are as God created you. Darkness cannot obscure the glory of God´s Son. You stand in light, strong in the sinlessness in which you were created, and in which you will remain throughout eternity. Today we will again devote the first five minutes of each waking hour to the attempt to feel the truth in you. Begin these times of searching with these words:

”I am as God created me.
I am His son eternally.”

Now try to reach the Son of God in you. This is the Self That never sinned, nor made an image to replace reality. This is the Self That never left Its home in God to walk the world uncertainly. This is the Self That knows no fear, nor could conceive of loss or suffering or death. Nothing is required of you to reach this goal except to lay all idols and self-images aside; go past the list of attributes, both good and bad, you have ascribed to yourself; and wait in silent expectancy for the truth. God has Himself promised that it will be revvealed to all who ask for it. You are asking now. You cannot fail because He cannot fail. If you do not meet the requirement of practicing for the first five minutes of every hour, at least remind yourself hourly:

”I am as God created me.
I am His Son eternally.”

Tell yourself frequently today that you are as God created you. And be sure to respond to anyone who seems to irritate you with these words:

”You are as God created you.
You are His Son eternally.”

Make every effort to do the hourly exercises today. Each one you do will be a giant stride toward your release, and a milestone in learning the thought system which this course sets forth.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 95


"Iam one Self, united with myCreator.”

Today´s idea accuratelydescribes you as God created you. You are one within yourself, and one withHim. Yours is the unity of all creation. Your perfectly unity makes change inyou impossible. You do not accept this, and you fail to realize it must be so,only because you believe that you have changed yourself already. You seeyourself as a ridiculous parody on God´s creation; weak, vicious, ugly andsinful, miserable and beset with pain. Such is your version of yourself; a selfdivided into many warring parts, separate from God, and tenuously held togetherby its erratic and capricious maker, to which you pray. It does not hear yourprayers, for it is deaf. It does not see the oneness in you, for it is blind.It does not understand you are the Son of God, for it is senseless andunderstanding nothing. We will attempt today to be aware only of what can hearand see, and what makes perfect sense. We will again direct our exercisestowards reaching your one Self, Which is united with Its Creator. In patienceand in hope we try again today. The use of the first five minutes of everywaking hour for practicing the idea for the day has special advantages at thestage of learning in which you are at present. It is difficult at this pointnot to allow your mind to wander, if it undertakes extended practice. You havesurely realized this by now. You have seen the extend of your lack of mentaldiscipline, and of your need for mind training. It is necessary that you beaware of this, for it is indeed a hindrance to your advance. Frequent butshorter practice periods have other advantage for you at this time. In additionto recognizing your difficulties with sustained attention, you must also havenoticed that, unless you are reminded of your purpose frequently, you tend toforget about it for long periods of time. You often fail to remember the shortapplications of the idea for the day, and you have not yet formed the habit ofusing the idea as an automatic response to temptation. Structure, then, isnecessary for you at this time, planned to include frequent reminders of yougoal and regular attempts to reach it. Regularity in terms of time is not theideal requirment for the most beneficial form of practice in salvation. It isadvantageous, however, for those whose motivation is inconsistent, and whoremain heavily defended against learning. We will, therefore, keep to the fiveminutes an hour practice periods for a while, and urge you to omit as few aspossible. Using the first five minutes of the hour will be paritcularlyhelpful, since it imposes firmer stucture. Do not, however, use your lapsesfrom this schedule as an excuse not to return to it again as soon as you can.There may well be a temptation to regard the day as lost becasue you havealready failed to do what is required. This should, however, merely berecognized as what it is; a refusal to let your mistake be corrected, and anunwillingness to try again. The Holy Sprit is not delayed in His teaching byyour mistakes. He can be held back only by your unwillingness to let them go. Letus therefore be determined, particularly for the next week or so, to be willingto forgive ourselves for our lapses in diligence, and our failures to followthe instructions for practicing the day´s idea. This tolerance for weaknesswill enable us to overlook it, rather than give it power to delay our learning.If we give it power to do this, we are regardingit as strength, and areconfusing strength with weakness. When you fail to comply with the requirementof this course, you have merely made a mistake. This calls for correction, andfor noting else. To allow a mistake to continue is to make additional mistakes,based on the first and reinforcing it. It is this process that must be laidaside, for ti is but another may in which you woulddefend illusions against thetruth. Let all these errors go by recognizing them for what they are. They areattempts to keep you unaware you are one Self, united with the Creator, at onewith every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace. This is thetruth, and nothing else is true. Today we will affirm this truth again, and tryto reach the place in you in which there is no doubt that only this is true.Begin the practice periods today with this assurance, offered to your mind withall the certainty that you can give:

”I am one Self, united with myCreator,
At one with every aspect ofcreation,
And limitless in power and inpeace.”

Then close your eyes and tellyourself again, slowly and thoughtfully, attempting to allow the meaning of thewords to sink into your mind, replacing false ideas:

”I am one Self.”

Repeat this several times, andthen attempt to feel the meaning that the words convey. You are one Self,united and secure in light and joy and peace. You are God´s Son, one Self, withone Creator and one goal; to bring awareness of this oneness to all minds, thattrue creation may extend the Allness and the Unity of God. You are one Self,complete and healed and whole, with power to lift the veil of darkness from theworld, and let the light in you come through to teach the world the truth abouryourself. You are one Self, in perfect harmony with all there is, and all thatthere will be. You are one Self, that holy Son of God, united with yourbrothers in that Self, the Son of God Himself, sinless as Its Creator, with Hisstrength within you and His Love forever yours. You are one Self, and it isgiven you to feel this Self within you, and to cast all your illusions out ofthe one Mind that is this Self, the holy truth in you. Do not forget today. Weneed your help; your little part in bringing happiness to all the world. AndHeaven looks to you in confidence that you will try today. Share, then, itssurely, for it is yours. Be vigilant. Do not forget today. Throughout the daydo not forget your goal. Repeat today´s idea as frequently as possible, andunderstand each time you do so, someone hears the voice of hope, the stirringof the truth within his mind, the gentle rustling of the wings of peace. Yourown acknowledgment you are one Self, united with your Father, is a call to allthe world to be at one with you. To everyone you meet today, be sure to givethe promise of today´s idea and tell him this:

”You are one Self with me,
United with our Creator in thisSelf.
I honor you because of what Iam,
And what He is, Who loves usboth as one.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 96

”Salvation comes from my oneSelf.”

Although you are one Self, youexperience yourself as two; as both good and evil, loving and hating, mind andbody. This sense of being split into opposites induces feelings of acute andconstant conflict, and leads to frantic attempts to reconcile the contradictoryaspects of this self-perception. You have sought many such solutions, and noneof them has worked. The opposites you see in you will never be compatible. But oneexists. The fact that truth and illusion cannot be reconciled, no matter howyou try, what means you use and where you see the problem, must be accepted ifyou would be saved. Until you have accepted this, you will attempt an endlesslist of goals you cannot reach; a senseless series of exxpenditures of time andeffort, hopefullness and duoubt, each one as futile as the one before, andfailing as the next one surely will. Problems that have no meaning cannot beresolved within the framework they are set. Two selves in conflict could not beresolved, and good and evil haveno meeting place. The self you made can neverbe your Self, nor can your Self be split in two, and still be what It is andmust forever be. A mind and body cannot both exist. Make no attempt toreconcile the two, for one denies the other can be real. If you are physical,your mind is gone from your self concept, for it has no place in which it couldbe really part of you. If you are spirit, then the body must be meaningless toyour reality. Spirit makes use of mind as means to find its Self-expression.And the mind which serves the spirit it as peace and filled with joy. Its powercomes from spirit, and it is fulfilling happily its function here. Yet mind canalso see itself divorced from spirit, and perceive itself within a body itdonfuses with itself. Without its function then it has no peace, and happinessis alien to its thoughts. Yet mind apart from spirit cannot think. It hasdenied its Source of strength, and sees itself as helpless, limited and weak.Dissociated from its function now, it thinks it is alone and separate, attackedby armies massed against itself and hiding in the body´s frail support. Nowmust it reconcile unlike with like, for this iw what it thinks that it is for.Waste no more time on this. Who can resolve the senseless conflicts which adream presents? What could the resolution mean in truth? What purpose could itserve? What is it for? Salvation cannot make illusions real, nor solve aproblem that does not exist. Perhaps you hope it can. Yet would you have God´splan for the release of His dear Son bring pain to him, and fail to set himfree? Your Self retains Its thoughts, and they remain within your mind and inthe Mind of God. The Holy Spirit holds salvation in your mind, and offers itthe way to peace. Salvation is a thought you share with God, because His Voiceaccepted it for you and answered in your name that it was done. Thus issalvation kept among the thoughts your Self holds dear and cherishes for you.We will attempt today to find this thought, whose presence in your mind isguaranteed by Him Who speaks to you from your one Self. Our hourly five minutepracticing will be a search for Him within your mind. Salvation comes from thisone Self through Him Who is the bridge between your mind and It. Wait patiently, and let Him speak to you about yourSelf, and what your mind can do, restored to It and free to serve Its Will.Begin with saying this:

”Salvation comes from my oneSelf.
Its thoughts are mine to use.”

Then seek Its thoughts, andclaim them as your own. These are your own real thoughts you have denied, andlet your mind go wandering in a world of dream, to find illusions in theirplace. Here are your thoughts, the only ones you have. Salvation is among them;find it there. If you succeed, the thoughts that come to you will tell you youare saved, and that your mind has found the function that it sought to lose. YourSelf will welcome it and give it peace. Restored in strength, it will againflow out from spirit to the spirit in all things created by the Spirit asItself. Your mind will bless all things. Confusion done, you are restored, foryou have found your Self. Your Self knows that you cannot fail today. Perhapsyour mind remains uncertain yet a little while. Be not dismayed by this. Thejoy your Self experiences It will save for you, and it will yet be yours infull awareness. Every time you spend five minutes of the hour seeking Him Whojoins your mind and Self, you offer Him another treasure to be kept for you.Each time today you tell your frantic mind salvation comes from your one Self,you lay another treasure in your growing store. And all if it is given everyonewho asks for it, and will accpet the gift. Think, then, how much is given untoyou to give this day, that it be given you!

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 97

”I am spirit.”

Today´s idea identifies you withour one Self. It accepts no split identity, nor tries to weave opposing factorsinto unity. It simply states the truth. Practice this truth today as often asyou can, for it will bring your mind from conflict to the quiet fields ofpeace. No chill of fear can enter, for your mind has been absolved frommadness, letting go illusions of a split identity. We state again the the truthabout your Self, the holy Son of God Who rests in you; Whose mind has beenrestored to sanity. You are the spirit lovingly endowed with all your Father´sLove and peace and joy. You are the spirit which completes Himself, and sharesHis function as Creator. He is with you always, as you are with Him. Today wetry to bring reality still closer to your mind. Each time your practice,awareness is brought a little nearer at least; sometimes a thousand years ormore are saved. The minutes which you give are multiplied over and over, forthe miracle makes use of time, but is not ruled by it. Salvation is a miracle,the first and last; the first that is the last, for it is one. You are thespirit in whose mind abides the miracle in which all time stands still; themiracle in which a minute spent in using these ideas becomes a time that has nolimit and that has no end. Give, then, these minutes willingly, and count onHim Who promised to lay timelessness beside them. He will offer all Hisstrength to every little effort that you make. Give Him the minutes which Heneeds today, to help you understand with Him you are the spirit that abides inHim, and that calls through His Voice to every living thing; offers His sightto everyone who asks; replaces error with the simple truth. The Holy Spirit wilbe glad to take five minutes of each hour from your hands, and carry themaround this aching world where pain and misery appear to rule. He will notoverlook one open mind that will accept the healing gifts they bring, and Hewill lay them everywhere He knows they will be welcome. And they will increasein healing power each time someone accepts them as his thoughts, and uses themto heal. Thus will each gift to Him be multiplied a thousand-fold and tens ofthousands more. And when it is returned to you, it will surpass in might thelittle gift you gave as much as does the radiance of the sun outshine the tinygleam a firefly makes an uncertain moment and goes out. The steady brillianceof this light remains and leads you out of darkness, nor will you be able toforget the way again. Begin these happy exercises with the words the HolySpirit speaks to you, and lett hem echo round the world through Him:

”Spirit am I, a holy Son of God,
Free of all limits, safe andhealed and whole,
Free to forgive, and free tosave the world.”

Expressed through you, the HolySpirit will accept this gift that you received of Him, increase its power andgive it back to you. Offer each practice period today gladly to Him. And He willspeak to you, reminding you that you are spirit, one with Him and God, yourbrothers and your Self. Listen for His assurance every time you speak the wordsHe offers you today, and let Him tell your mind that they are true. Use themagainst temptation, and escape its sorry consequences if you yield to thebelief that you are something else. The Holy Spirit gives you peace today.Receive His words, and offer them to Him.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 98

”I will accept my part in God´s plan for salvation.”

Today is a day of special dedication. We take a stand on but one side today. We side with truth and let illusions go. We will not vacillate between the two, but take a firm position with the One. We dedicate ourselves to truth today, and to salvation as God planned it be. We will not argue it is something else. We will not seek for it where it is not. In gladness we accept it as it is, and take the part assigned to us by God. How happy to be certain! All our doubts we lay aside today, and take our stand with certainty of purpose, and with thanks that dobut is gone and surety has come. We have a mighty purpose to fulfill, and have been given everything we need with which to reach the goal. Not one mistake stands in ourway. For we have been absolved from errors. All our sins are washed away by realizing they were but mistakes. The guiltless have no fear, for they are safe and recongize their safety. They do not appeal to magic, nor invent escapes from fancied threats without reality. They rest in quiet certainty that they will do what it is given them to do. They do not doubt their own ability because they know their function will be filled completely in the perfect time and place. They took the stand which we will take today, that we may share their certainty and thus increase it by accepting it ourselves. They wil be with us; all who took the stand we take today will gladly offer us all that they learned and every gain they made. Those still uncertain, too, will join with us, and, borrowing our certainty, will make it stronger still. While those as yet unborn will hear the call we heard, and answer it when they have come to make their choice again. We do not choose but for ourselves today. It is not worth five minutes of your time each hour to be able to accept the happiness that God has given you? It is not worth five mintues hourly to recognize your special function here? It is not five minutes but a small request to make in terms of gaining a reward so great it has no measure? You have made a thousand losing bargains at the least. Here is an offer guaranteeing you your full release from pain of every kind, and joy the world does not contain. You can exchange a little of your time for peace of mind and certainty of purpose, with the promise of complete success. And since time has no meaning, you are being asked for nothing in return for everything. Here is a bargain that you cannot lose. And what you gain is limitless indeed! Each hour today give Him your tiny gift of but five mintes. He will give the words you use in practicing today´sidea the deep conviction and the certainty you lack. His words will join with yours, and make each repetition of today´s idea a total dedication, made in faithas perfect and as sure as His in you. His confidence in you will bring the light to all the words you say, and you will go beyond their sound to what theyr eally mean. Today you practice with Him, as you say:

”I will accept my part in God´s plan for salvation.”

In each five minutes that you spend with Him, He will accept your words and givet hem back to you all bringht with faith and confidence so strong and steady they will light the world with hope and gladness. Do not lose one chance to be the glad reciever of His gifts,that you may givet hem to the world today. Give Him the words, and He will do the rest. He will enable you to understand your special function. He will open up the way to happiness, and peace and trust will be His gifts; His answer to your words. He will respond with all His faith and joy and certainty that what you say is true. And you will have conviction then of Him Who knows the function that you have on earth as well as Heaven. He will be with you each practice period you share with Him, exchanging every instant of the time you offer Him for timelessness and peace. Throughout the hour, let your time be spent in happy preparation for the next five minutes you will spend again with Him. Repeat today´s idea while you wait for the glad time to come to you again.Repeat it often, and do not forget each time you do so, you have let your mind be readied for the happy time to come. And when the hour goes and He is there once more to spend a little time with you, be thankful and lay down all earthly tasks, all little thoughts and limited ideas, and spend a happy times again with Him. Tell Him once more that you accept the part that He would have you take and help you fill, and He will make you sure you want this choice, which He has made with you and you with Him.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 99

”Salvation is my only function here.”

Salvation and forgiveness are the same. They both imply that something has gone wrong; something to be saved from, forgiven for; something amiss that needs corrective change; something apart or different from the Will of God. Thus do both terms imply a thing impossible but yet which has occured, resulting in a state of conflict seen between what is and what could never be. Truth an illusions both are equal now,for both have happened. Theim possible becomes the thing you need forgiveness for, salvation from. Salvation now becomes the borderland between the truth and the illusion. It reflects the truth because it is the means by which you can escape illusions. Yet it is not yet the truth because it undoes what was never done. How could there be a meeting place at all where earth and Heaven can be reconciled within a mind where both of them exists? The mind that sees illusions Thinks them real. They have existence in that they are thoughts. And yet they are not real, because the mind that thinks these thoughts is separate from God. What joins the separated mind and thoughts with Mind and Thought which are forever one? ’What plan could hold the truth inviolate, yet recognize the need illusions bring, and offer means by which they are undone without attack and with no touch of pain? What but a Thought of God could be this plan, by which the never done is overlooked, and sins forgotten which were never real? The Holy Spirit holds this plan of God exactly as it was received of Him within the Mind of God and in your own. It is apart from time in that its Source is timeless. Yet it operates in time, because of your belief that time is real.Unshaken does the Holy Spirit look on what you see; on sin and pain and death,on grief and separation and on loss. Yet does He know one thing must still be true; God is still Love, and this is not His Will. This is the Thought that brings illusions to the truth, and sees them as appearances behind which is the changeless and the sure. This is the Thought that saves and that forgives,because it lays no faith in what is not created by the only Source it knows.This is the Thought whose function is to save by giving you its function as your own. Salvation is your function, with the One to Whom the plan was given.Now are you entrusted with this plan, along with Him. He has one answer to appearences; regardless of their form, their size, their depth or any attribute they seem to have:

”Salvation is my only function here.
God still is Love, and this is not His Will.”

You who will yet work miracles,be sure you practice well the idea for today. Try to perceive the strength in what you say, for these are words in which your freedom lies. Your Father loves you. All the world of pain is not His Will. Forgive yourself the thought He wanted this for you. Then let the Thought with which He has replaced all your mistakes enter the darkened place of your mind that thought the thoughts that never were His Will. This part belongs to God, as does the rest. It does not think its solitary thoughts, and make them real by hiding them from Him.Let in the light, and you will look upon no obstacles to what He wills for you.Open your secrets to His kindly light, and see how bright this light still shines in you. Practice His Thought today, and let His light seek out and lighten up all darkened spots, and shine through them to joint hem to the rest.It is God´s Will your mind be one with His. It is God´s Will that He has but one Son. It is God´s Will that His one Son is you. Think of these things in practicing today, and start the lesson that we learn today with this instruction in the way of truth:

”Salvation is my only function here.
Salvation and forgiveness are the same.”

Then turn to Him Who shares your function here, and let Him teach you what you need to learn to lay all fear aside, and know your Self as love which has no opposite in you. Forgive all thoughts which would oppose the truth of your completion, unity and peace. You cannot lose the gift your Father gave. You do not want to be another self. You have no function that is not of God. Forgive yourself the one you think you made.Forgiveness and salvation are the same. Forgive what you have made and you are saved. There is a special message for today which has the power to remove all forms of doubt and fear forever from your mind. If you are tempted to Believe them true, remember that appeareances can not withstand the truth these mighty words contain:

”Salvation is my only functionhere.
God still is Love, and this is not His Will.”

Your only function tells you you are one. Remind yourself of this between the times you give five minutes to be shared with Him Who shares God´s plan with you. Remind yourself:

”Salvation is my only function here.”

Thus do you lay forgiveness on your mind and let all fear be gently laid aside, that love may find its rightful place in you and show you that you are the Son of God.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 100

”My part is essential to God´splan for salvation.”

Just as God´s Son completes his Father, so your part in it completes your Father´s plan. Salvation must reverse the mad belief in separate thoughts and separate bodies, which lead separate lives and go their separate ways. One function shared by separate minds unites them in one purpose, for each one of them is equally essential to them all.God´s Will for you is perfect happiness. Why should you choose to go against His Will? The part that He has saved for you to take in working out His plan is given you that you might be restored to what He wills. This part is asessential to His plan as to your happiness. Your joy must be complete to let His plan be understood by those to whom He sends you. They will see their function in your shining face, and hear God calling to them in your happy laugh. You are indeed essential to God´s plan. Without your joy, His joy is incomplete. Without your smile, the world cannto be saved. While you are sad, the light that God Himself appointed as the means to save the world is dim and lusterless, and no one laughs because all laughter can but echo yours. You are indeed essential to God´s plan. Just as your light increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your jou on earth calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in God´s plan. God´s messengers are joyous,and their joy heals sorrow and despair. They are the proof that God wills perfect happiness for all who will accept their Father´s gifts as theirs. We will not let ourselves be sad today. For if we do, we fail to take the part that is essential to God´s plan, as well as to our vision. Sadness is the sign that you would play another part, instead of what has been assigned to your by God. Thus do you fail to show the world how great the happiness He wills for you. And so you do not recognize that it is yours. Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here. If you are sad, your part is unfulfilled,and all the world is thus deprived of joy, along with you. God asks you to be happy,so the world can see how much He loves His Son, and wills no sorrow rises to abate his joy; no fear besets him to disturb his peace. You are God´s Messenger today. You bring His happiness to all you look upon; His peace to everyone who looks on you and sees His message in your happy face. We will prepare ourselves for this today, in our five minute practice periods, by feeling happiness arise in us according to our Father´s Will and ours. Begin the exercises with the thought today´s idea contains. Then realize your part is to be happy. Only this is asked of you or anyone who wants to take his place among God´s messengers.Think what this means. You have indeed been wrong in your belief that sacrifice is asked. You but receive according to God´s plan, and never lose or sacrifice or die. Now let us try to find that joy that proves to us and all the World God´s Will for us. It is your function that you find it here, and that you find it now. For this you came. Let this one be the day that you succeed! Look Deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you. He will be there. And you can reach Him now. What could you rather look upon in place of Him Who waits that you may look on Him? What little thought has power to hold you back? What foolish goal can keep you from success when He Who calls top you is God Himself? He will be there. You are essential to His plan. You are His messenger today. And you must find what He would have you give. Do not forget the idea for today between your hourly practice periods. It is your Self Who calls to you today. And it is Him you answer, every time you tell yourself you are essential to God´s plan for the salvation of the world.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 101

”God´s Will for me is perfect happiness.”

Today we will continue with the theme of happiness. This is a key idea in understanding what salvation means. You still believe it asks for suffering as penance for your ”sins”. This is not so.Yet you must think it so while you believe that sin is real, and that God´s Son can sin. If sin is real, then punishment is just and cannot be escaped.Salvation thus cannot be purchased but through suffering. If sin is real, then happiness must be illusion, for they cannot both be true. The sinful warrant only death and pain, and it is this key ask for. For they know it waits for them, and it will seek them out and find them somewhat, sometime, in some form that evens the account they owe to God. They would not escape Him in their fear. And yet He will pursue, and they can not escape. If sin is real,salvation must be pain. Pain is the cost of sin, and suffering can never be escaped, if sin is real. Salvation must be feared, for it will kill, but slowly, taking everything away before it grants the welcome boon of death to victims who are little more than bones before salvation is appeased. Its Wrath is boundless, merciless, but wholly just. Who would seek out such savage punishment? Who would not flee salvation, and attempt in every way he can to drown the Voice Which offers it to him? Why would he try to listen and accept Its offering? If sin is real, its offering is death, and meted out in cruel form to match the vicious wishes in which sin is born. If sin is real,salvation has become your bitter enemy, the curse of God upon you who have crucified His Son. You need the practice periods today. The exercises teach sin is not real, and all that you believe must come from sin will never happen, forit has no cause. Accept Atonement with an open mind, which cherishes no lingering belief that you have made a devil of God´s Son. There is no sin. We practice with this thought as often as we can today, because it is the basis for today´s idea. God´s Will for you is perfect happiness because there is nosin, and suffering is causeless. Joy is just, and pain is but the sign you have misunderstood yourself. Fear not the Will of God. But turn to it in confidence that it will set you free from the consequences sin has wrought in feverish imagination. Say:

”God´s Will for me is perfect happiness.
There is no sin, it has no consequence.”

So should you start your practice periods, and then attmept again to find the joy these thoughts will introduce into your mind. Givet hese five minutes gladly, to remove the Heavy load you lay upon yourself with the insane belief that sin is real. Today escape from madness. You are set on freedom ´s road and now today´s idea brings wings to speed you on, and hope to go still faster to the waiting goal of peace. There is no sin. Remember this today, and tell yourself as often as you can:

”God´s Will for me is perfect happiness.
This is the truth, because there is no sin.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 102

”I share God´s Will for happiness for me.”

You do not want to suffer. You may think it buys you something, and may still beleive a little that it buys you what you want. Yet this belief is surely shaken now, at least enough to let you question it, and to suspect it really makes no sense. It has not gone as yet, but lacks the roots that once secured it tightly to the dark and hidden secret places of your mind. Today we try to loose its weakened hold still futher, and to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause and with no power to accomplish anything. It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not exist. And everything you think it offers you is lackingin existence, like itself. You have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will of God. For several days we will continue to devote ourperiods of practicing to exercises planned to help you reach the happiness God´s Will has placed in you. Here is your home, and here your safety is. Here is your peace, and here there is no fea. Here is salvation. Here is rest atlast. Begin your practice periods today with this acceptance of God´s Will for you:

”I share God´s Will for happiness for me,
And I accept it as my function now.”

Then ask this function deep within your mind, for it is there, awaiting but your choice. You cannot fail to find it when you learn it is your choice, and that you share God´s Will. Be happy, for your only function here is happiness. You have no need to be less loving to God´s Son than He Whose Love created him as loving as Himself.Besides these hourly five minutes rests, pause frequently today, to tell yourself that you havenow accepted happiness as your one function. And be sure that you are joining with God´s Will in doing this.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 103

”God, being Love, is also happiness.”

Happiness is an attribute of love. It cannot be apart from it. Nor can it be experienced where love is not.Love has no limits, being everywhere. And therefore joy is everywhere as well.Yet can the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy. This strange belief would limit happiness by redefining love as limited, and introducing opposition in what has no limit and no opposite. Fear is associated then with love, and its results become the heritage of minds that think what they have made is real. These images, with no reality in truth, bear witness to the fear of God, forgetting being Love, He must be joy. This basic error we will try again to bring to truth today, and teach ourselves:

”God, being Love, is also happiness.
To fear Him is to be afraid of joy.”

Begin your periods of practicing today with this association, which corrects the false belief that God is fear.It also emphasizes happiness belongs to you, because of what He is. Allow this one correction to be placed within your mind each waking hour today. Then welcome all the happiness it brings as truth replaces fear, and joy becomes what you expect to take the place of pain. God being Love, it will be given you. Bolster this expectation frequently throughout the day, and quiet all your fears witht his assurance, kind and wholly true:

”God, being Love, is also happiness.
And it is happiness I seek today.
I cannot fail, because I seek the truth.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 104

”I seek but what belongs to me in truth.”

Today´s idea continues with the thought that joy and peace are not but idle dreams. They are your right,because of what you are. They come to you from God, Who cannot fail to give you what He wills. Yet must there be a place made ready to receive His gifts. They are not welcomed gladly by a mind that has instead recieved the gifts it made where His belong, as substitutes for them. Today we would remove all meaningless and self-made gifts which we have placed upon the holy altar whereGod´s gifts belong. His are the gifts that are our own in truth. His are the gifts that we inherited before time was, and that will still be ours when time has passed into eternity. His are the gifts that are within us now, for they are limitless. And we need not wait to have them. They belong to us today.Therefore, we choose to havet hem now, and know, in choosing them in place of what we made, we but unite our will with what God wills, and recognize the same as being one. Our longer practice periods today, the hourly five minutes given truth for your salvation, should begin with this:

”I seek but what belongs to me in truth.
And joy and peace are my inheritance.”

Then lay aside the conflicts of the world that offer gifts and other goals made of illusions, witnessed to by them, and sought for only in a world of dreams. All this we lay aside, and seek instead that which is truly ours, as we ask to recognize what God has given us.We clear a holy place within our minds before His altar, where His gifts of peace and joy are welcome, and to which we come to find what has been given us by Him. We come in confidence today, aware that what belongs to us in truth is what He gives. And we would wish for nothing else, for nothing else belongs to us in truth. So do we clear the way for Him today by simply recognizing that His Will is done already, and that joy and peace belong to us as His eternal gifts.We will not let ourselves lose sight of them between the times we come to seek for them where He has laid them. This reminder will we bring to mind as often as we can:

”I seek but what belongs to me in truth.
God´s gifts of joy and peace are all I want.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 105

”God´s peace and joy are mine.”

God´s peace and joy are yours.Today we will accept them, knowing they belong to us. And we wil try tounderstand these gifts increase as we receive them. They are not like to the gifts the world can give, in which the giver loses as he gives the gift; the taker is the richer by his loss. Such are not gifts, but bargains made with guilt. The truly given gift entails no loss. It is impossible that one can gain because another loses. This implies a limit and an insufficiency. No gift is given thus. Such ”gifts” are but a bid fo a more valuable return; a loan with interest to be paid in full; a temporary leading, means to be a pledge of debt to be repaid with more than was received by him who took the gift. This strange distortion of what giving means pervades all levels of the world you see. It strips all meaning from the gift you give, and leaves you nothing in the ones you take. A major learning goal this course has set is to reverse your view of giving, so you can receive. Accept God´s peace and joy, and you will learn a different way of looking at a gift. God´s gifts will never lessen when they are given away. They but increase thereby. As Heaven´s peace and joy intensify when you accept them as God´s gift to you, so does the joy of your Creator grow when you accept His joy and peace as yours. True giving is creation. It extends the limitless to the unlimited, eternity to timelessness, and love unto itself. It adds to all that is complete already, not in simple terms of adding more, forthat implies that it was less before. It adds by letting what cannot contain itself fulfill its aim of giving everything it has away, securing it forever for itself. Today accept God´s peace and joy as yours. Let Him complete Himself as He defines completion. You will understand that what completes. Him must complete His Son as well. He cannot give through loss. No more can you. Receive His gift of joy and peace today, and He will thank you for your gift to Him.Today our practice periods will start a little differently. Begin today by thinking of those brothers who have been denied by you the peace and joy that are their right under the equal laws of God. Here you denied them to yourself.And here you must return to claim them as your own. Think of your ”enemies” a little while, and tell each one, as he occurs to you:

”My brother, peace and joy I offer you.
That I may have God´s peace and joy as mine.”

Thus you prepare yourself to recognize God´s gifts to you, and let your mind be free of all that would prevent success today. Now are you ready to accept the gift of peace and joy that God has given you. Now you can say, ”God´s peace and joy are mine,” for you have given what you would receive. You must succeed today, if you prepare your mind as we suggest. For you have let all bars to peace and joy be lifted up, and what is yours can come to you at last. So tell yourself, ”God´s Peace and joy are mine,” and close your eyes a while, and let His Voice assure you that the words you speak are true. Spend your five minutes thus with Him each time you can today, but do not think that less is worthless when you cannot give Him more. At least remember hourly to say the words which call to Him to give you what He wills to give, and wills you to recieve . Determine not toi nterfer today with what He wills. And if a brother seems to tempt you to deny God´s gift to him, see it as but another chance to let yourself receive the gifts of God as yours. Then bless your brother thankfully, and say:

”My brother, peace and joy I offer you.
That I may have God´s peace and joy as mine.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 106

”Let me be still and listen to the truth.”

If you will lay aside the ego´s voice, however loudly it may seem to call, if you will not accept its petty gifts that give you nothing that you really want; if you will listen with an open mind, that has not told you what salvation is; then you will hear the mighty Voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages. Listen, and hear your Father speak to you through His appointed Voice, Which silences the thunder of the meaningless, and shows the way to peace to those who cannot see. Be still today and listen to the truth.Be not deceived by voices of the dead, which tell you they have found the source of life and offer it to you for your belief. Attend them not, but listen to the truth. Be not afraid to circumvent the voices of the world. Walk lightly past their meaningless persuasion. Hear them not. Be still today and listen to the truth. Go past all things which do not speak of Him Who holds your happiness within His hand, held out to you in welcome and in love. Hear only Him today,and do not wait to reach Him longer. Hear one Voice today. Today the promise of God´s Word is kept. Hear and be silent. He would speak to you. He comes with miracles a thousand times as happy and as wonderful as those you ever dreamed or wished for in your dreams. His miracles are true. They will not fade when dreaming ends. They end the dream instead; and last forever, for they come from God to His dear Son, whose other name is you. Prepare yourself for miracles today. Today allow your Father´s ancient pledge to you and all your brothers tobe kept. Hear Him today, and listen to the Word which lifts the veil that lies upon the earth, and wakes all those who sleep and cannot see. God calls to them through you. He needs your voice to speak to them, for who could reach God´s Son except his Father, calling through your Self? Hear Him today, and offer Him your voice to speak to all the multitude who wait to hear the Word that He will speak today. Be ready for salvation. It is here, and will today be given unto you. And you will learn your function from the One Who chose it in your Father´s Name for you. Listen today, and you will hear a Voice Which will resound throughout the world through you. The Bringer of all miracles has need that you recieve them first, and thus become the joyous giver of what you received. Thus does salvation start and thus it ends; when everything is yours and everything is given away, it will remain with you forever. And the lesson has been learned. Today we practice giving , not the way you understand it now, but as it is. Each hour´s exercises should begin with this request for your enlightement:

”I will be still and listen to the truth.
What does it mean to give and to recieve?:”

Ask and expect an answer. Your request is one whose answer has been waiting long to be received by you. It will begin the ministry for which you came, and which will free the world from thinking giving is a way to lose. And so the world becomes ready to understandand to receive. Be still and listen to the truth today. For each five minutes spent in listening, a thousand minds are opened to the truth and they will hea rthe holy Word you hear. And whn the hour is past, you will again release a thousand more who pause to ask that truth be given them, along with you. Today the holy Word of God is kept through your receiving it to give away, so you can teach the world what giving means by listening and learning it of Him. Do not forget today to reinforce your choice to hear and to recieve the Word by this reminder, given to yourself as often as is possible today:

”Let me be still and listen to the truth.
’I am the messenger of God today.
My voice is His, to give what I receive.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 107

”Truth will correct all errors in my mind.”

What can correct illusions but the truth? And what are errors but illusions that remain unrecongnized for what they are? Where truth has entered errors disappeared. They merely vanish,leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. They are gone because, without belief, they have no life. And so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains.Can you imagine what a state of mind without illusions is? How it would feel?Try to remember when there was a time, - perhaps a minute, maybe even less –when nothing came to interrupt your peace; when you were certain you were loved and safe. Then try to picture when it would be like to have that moment be extended to the end of time and to eternity. Then let the sense of quiet that you felt be multioplied a hundred times, and then be multioplied Another hundred more. And now you have a hint, not more than just the faintestintimation of the state your mind will rest in when the truth has come. Without illusions there could be no fear, no doubt and no attack. When truth has come all pain is over, for ther is no room for transitory thoughts and dead ideas to linger in your mind. Truth occupies your mind completely, liberating you from all beliefs in the ephemeral. They have no place because the truth has come,and they are nowhere. They can not be found, for truth is everywhere forever,now. When truth has come it does not stay a while, to disappear or change to something else. It does not shift and alter in its form, nor come and go and go and come again. It stays exactly as it always was, to be depended on in every need, and trusted with a perfect trust in all the seeming difficulties and the doubts that the appearances the world presents engender. They will merely blow away, when truth corrects the errors in your mind. When truth has come it harbors in it swings the gift of perfect constancy, and love which does not falter in the face of pain, but looks beyond it, stedily and sure. Here is the gift of healing, for the truth needs no defense, and therefore no attack is possible. Illusions can be brought to truth to be corrected. But the truth stands far beyond illusions, and can not be brought to them to turn them into truth. Truth does not come and go nor shift nor change, in this appearance no wand then in that, evading capture and escaping grasp. It does not hide. It standin open light, in obvious accessibility. It is impossible that anyone could seek it truly, and would not succeed. Today belongs to truth. Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. You were not meant to suffer and to die. Your Father wills these dreams to be gone. Let truth correct them all. We do not ask for what we do not have. We merely ask for what belongs to us, that we may recognize it as our own. Today we practice on the happy note of certainty that has been born of truth. The shaky and unsteady foot steps of illusions are notour approach today. We are as certain of success as we are sure we live and hope and breath and think. We do not doubt we walk with truth today, and Count on it to enter into all the exercises that we do this day. Begin by asking Him Who goes with you upon this undertaking that He be in your awareness as you go with Him. You are not made of flesh and blood and bone, but were created by theself-same Thought which gave the gift of life to Him as well. He is your Brother, and so like to you your Father knows that you are both the same. It is your Self you ask to go with you, and how could He be absent where you are?Truth will correct all errors in your mind which tell you you could be apart from Him. You speak to Him today, and make your pledge to let His function be fulfilled through you. To share His function is to share His joy. His confidence is with you, as you say:

”Truth will correct all errors in my mind.
And I will rest in Him Who is my Self.”

Then let Him lead you gently to the truth, which will envelop you and give you peace so deep and tranquil that you will return to the familiar would reluctantly. And yet you will be glad to look again upon this world. For you will bring with you the promise of the changes which the truth that goes with you will carry to the world. They will increase with every gift of five small minutes, and the errors that surround the world will be corrected as you lett hem be corrected in your mind. Do not forget your function for today. Each time you tell yourself with confidence, ”Truth will correct all errors in my mind,” you speak for all the world and Him Who would release the world, as He would set you free.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 108

”To give and to receive are one in truth.”

Vision depends upon today´s idea. The light is in it, for it reconciles all seeming opposites. And what is light except the resolution, born of peace, of all your conflicts and mistaken thoughts into one concept which is wholly true? Even that one will disappear,because for Thought behind it will appear instead to take its place. And now you are at peace forever, for the dream is over then. True light that makes true vision possible is not the light the body´s eyes behold. It is a state of mind that has become so unified that darkness cannot be perceived at all. And thus what is the same it seen as one, while what is not the same remains unnoticed, for it is not there. This is the light that shows no opposites, and vision, being healed, has power to heal. This is the light that brings your peace of mind to other minds, to share it and be glad that they are one with you and with themselves. This is the light that heals because it brings single perception, based upon one frame of reference, from which one meaning comes.Here are both giving and receiving seen as different aspects of one Those whose truth does not depend on which is seen as as first, nor which appears to be insecond place. Here it is understood that both occur together, that the Thought remain complete. And in this understanding is the base on which all oppositesare reconciled, because they are perceived from the same frame of reference which unifies this Thought. One thought, completely unified, will serve to unify all thought. This is the same as saying one correction will suffice for all correction, or that to forgive one brother wholly is enough to bring salvation to all minds. For these are but some special cases of one law which holds for every kind of learning, if it be directed by the One Who knows the truth.To learn that giving and receiving are that same has special usefulness, because it can be tried so easily and seen as true. And when this special case has proved it always works, in every cicurmstance where it is tried, the thought behind it can be generalized to other areas of doubt and double vision. And from there it will extend, and finally arrive at the one Thought which underlies them all. Today we practice with the special case of giving and receiving. We will use this simple lesson in the obvious becuse it has results we cannot miss. To give is to receive. Today we will attempt to offer peace to everyone, and see how quickly peace returns to us. Light is tranquility, and in the peace is vision given us, and we can see. So we begin the practice periods with the instruction for today, and say:

”To give and to receive are one in truth.
I will receive what I am giving now.”

Then close your eyes, and for five minutes think of what you would hold out to everyone, to have it yours.You might, for instance, say:

”To everyone I offer quietness.”
”To everyone I offer peace of mind.”
”To everyone I offer gentleness.”

Say each one slowly, and then pause a while, expecting to receive the gift you gave. And it will come to you in the amount in which you gave it. You will find you have exact return, for that is what you asked. It might be helpful, too, to think of one to whom to give your gifts. He represents the other, and through him you give to all. Our very simple lesson for today will teach you much. Effect and cause will be far better understood from this time on, and we wilol make much faster progress now. Think of the exercises for today as quick advances in your learning, made still faster and more sure each time you say, ”To give and to receive are one in truth.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 109

”I rest in God.”

We ask for rest today, and quietness unshaken by the world´s appearances. We ask for peace and stillness,in the midst of all the turmoil born of clashing dreams. We ask for safety and for happiness, although we seem to look on danger and on sorrow. And we have the thought that will answer our asking with what we request. ”I rest in God.”This thought will bring to you the rest and quiet, peace and stillness, and the safety and the happiness you seek. ”I rest in God.” This thought has power to wake the sleeping truth in you, whose vision see beyond appearsnces to tha tsame truth in everyone, and everything there is. Here is the end of suffering for all the world, and everyone who ever came and yet will come to linger for awhile. Here is the thought in which the Son of God is born again, to recognize himself. ”I rest in God.” Completely undismayed, this thought will carry you through storms and strife, past misery and pain, past loss and death, and onward to the certainty of God. There is no suffering it cannot heal. There is no problems that it cannot solve. And so appearance but will turn to truth before the eyes of you who rest in God. This is the day of peace. You rest in God, and while the world is torn by winds of hate you rest remains completely undisturbed. Yours is the rest of truth. Appearances cannot intrude on you. You call to all to join you in your rest, and they will hear and come to you because you rest in God. They will not hear another voice than yours because you gave your voice to God, and now you rest in Him and let Him speak throughyou. In Him you have no cares and no concerns, no burdens, no anxiety, no pain,no fear of future and no past regrets. In timelessness you rest, while time goes by without its touch upon you, for your rest can never change in any way at all. You rest today. And as you close your eyes, sink into stillness. Let these periods of rest and respite reassure your mind that all its frantic fantasies were but the dreams of fever that has passed away. Let it be stil land thankfully accept its healing. No more fearful dreams will come, now that you rest in God. Take time today to slip away from dreams and into peace. Each hour that you take you rest today, a tired mind is suddenly made glad, a bird with broken wings begin to sing, a stream long dry begin to flow again. The world is born again each time you rest, and hourly remember that you came to bring the peace of God into the world, that it might take its rest along with you. With each five minutes that you rest today, the world is nearer waking. And the time then when rest will be the only thing there is comes closer to all worn and tired minds, too weary now to go their way alone. And they will hear the bird begin to sing and see the stream begin to flow again, with hope reborn and energy restored to walk with lightened steps along the road that suddenly seems easy as they go. You rest within the peace of God today, and call upon your brothers from your rest to draw them to their rest, along with you. You willbe faithful to your trust today, forgetting no one, bringing everyone into the boundless circle of your peace, and holy sanctuary where you rest. Open the temple doors and let them come from from far across the world, and near as well; your distant brothers and your closest friends; bid them all enter here and rest with you. You rest within the peace of God today, quiet and unafraid.Each brother comes to take his rest, and offer it to you. We rest together here, for thus our rest is made complete, and what we give today we have received already. Time is not the guardian of what we give today. We give to those unborn and those passed by, to every Thought of God, and to the Mind in which these Thoughts were born and where they rest. And we remind them of their resting place each time we tell ourselves, ”I rest in God.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 110

”I am as God created me.”

We will repeat today´s idea from time to time. For this one thought would be enough to save you and the world, if you believed that it is true. Its truth would mean that you have made no changes in yourself that have reality, nor changed the universe so that what God created was replaced by fear and evil, misery and death. If you remain as God created you fear has no meaning, evil is not real, and misery and death do not exist. Today´s idea is there fore all you need to let complete correction heal your mind, and give you perfect vision that will heal all the mistakes that any mind has made at any time or place. It is enough to heal the past and make the future free. It is enough to let the present be accepted as it is. It is enough to let time be the means for all the world to learn escape from time,and every change that time appears to bring in passing by. If you remain as God created you, appearances cannot replace the truth, health cannot turn to sickness, nor can death be substitute for life, or fear for love. All this has not occured, if you remain as God created you. You need no thought but just this one, to let redemption come to light the world and free it from the past. In this one thought is all the past undone; the present saved to quietly extend into a timeless future. If you are as God created you, then there has been no separation of your mind from His, no split between your mind and others minds, and only unity within your own. The healing power of today´s idea is limitless. It is the birth place ofall miracles, the great restorer of the truth to the awareness of the world.Practice today´s idea with gratitude. This is the truth that comes to set you free. This is the truth that God has promised you. This is the Word in which all sorrow ends. For your five minute practice periods, begin with this quotation from the text:

”I am as God created me. His Son
Can suffer nothing. And I am His Son.”

Then, with this statement firmly in your mind, try to discover in your mind the Self Who is the holy Son of God Himself. Seek Him within you who is Christ in you, the Son of God and brother to the world; the Savior Who has been forever saved, with power to save who evertoughes Him, however lightly, asking for the Word that tells him he is brother unto Him. You are as God created you. Today honor your Self. Let graven images you made to be the Son of God instead of what he is be worshipped not today.Deep in your mind the holy Christ in you is waiting your acknowledgment as you. And you are lost and do not know yourself while He is unacknowledged and unknown. Seek Him today, and find Him. He will be your Savior from all idols you have made. For when you find Him, you will understand how worthless are your idols, and how false the images which you believed were you. Today we makea great advance to truth by letting idols go, and opening our hands and heart sand minds to God today. We will remember Him throughout the day with thank fulhearts and loving thoughts for all who meet with us today. For it is thus that we remember Him. And we will say, that we may be reminded of His Son, our holy Self, the Christ in each of us:

”I am as God created me.”

Let us declare this truth as often as we can. This is the Word of God that sets you free. This is the key that opens up the gate of Heaven, and that lets you enter in the peace of God and His eternity.

Love

[IA56]

REVIEW III

Our next review begins today. Wewill review two recent lessons every day for ten successive days of practicing.We will observe a special format for these practice periods. That you are urgedto follow just as closely as you can. We understand, of course, that it may beimpossible for you to undertake what is suggested here as optimal each day andevery hour of the day. Learning will not be hampered when you miss a practiceperiod because it is impossibble at the appointed time. Nor is it necessarythat you make excessive efforts to be sure that you catch up in terms ofnubers. Rituals are not our aim, and would defeat our goal. But learning willbe hampered when you skip a practice period because you are unwilling to devotethe time to it that you are asked to give. Do not deceive yourself in this.Unwillingness can be most carefully concealed behind a cloak of situations youcannot control. Learn to distinguish situations that are poorly suited to yourpracticing from those that you establish to uphold a camouflage for yourunwillingness. Those practice periods that you have lost because you did notwant to do them, for whatever reason, should be done as soon as you havechanged your mind about your goal. You are unwilling to cooperate in practicingsalvation only if it interferes with goals you hold more dear. When youwithdraw the value given them, allow your practice periods to be replacementsfor your litanies to them. They gave you nothing. But your practicing can offereverything to you. And so accept their offering and be at peace. The format youshould use for these reviews is this: Devote five minutes twice a day, orlonger if you would prefer it, to considering that are written down for eachday´s exercise. And then begin to think about them, while letting your mindrelate them to your needs, your seeming problems and all your concerns. Placethe ideas within your mind, and let it use them as it chooses. Give it faiththat it will use them wisely, begin helped in its decisions by the One Who gavethe thoughts to you. What can you trust but what is in your mind? Have faith,in these reviews, the means the Holy Spirit uses will not fail. The wisdom ofyour mind will come to your assistance. Give direction at the outset; then leanback in quiet faith, and let the mind employ the thoughts you gave as they weregiven you for it to use. You have been given them in perfect trust; in perfectconfidence that you would use them well; in perfect faith that you would seethis messages and use them for yourself. Offer them to your mind in that sametrust and confidence and faith. It will not fail. It is the Holy Spirit´schosen means for your salvation. Since it has His trust, His means must surelymerit yours as well. We emhazise the benefits to you if you devote the firstfive minutes of the day to your reviews, and also give the last five minutes ofyour waking day to them. If this cannot be done, at least try to divide them soyou undertake one in the morning, and the other in the hour just before you goto sleep. The exercises to be done throughout the day are equally important,and perhaps of even greater value. You have been inclined to practice only atappointed times, and then go on your way to other things, without applying whatyou learned to them. As a result, you have gained little reinforcement, andhave not given your learning a fair chance to prove how great are itspotiential gifts to you. Here is another chance to use it well. In thesereviews, we stress the need to let your learning not lie idly by between yourlonger practice periods. Attempt to give your daily two ideas a brief butserious review each hour. Use one on the hour, and the other one a half an hourlater. You need not give more than just a moment to each one. Repeat it, andallow your mind to rest a little time in silence and in peace. Then turn toother things, but try to keep the thought with you, and let it serve to helpyou keep your peace throughout the day as well. If you are shaken, think of itagain. These practice periods are planned to help you form the habit ofapplying what you learn each day to everything you do. Do not repeat thethrought and lay it down. Its usefullness is limitless to you. And it is meantto serve you in all ways, all times and places, and whenever you need help ofany kind. Try, then, to take it with you in the business of the day and make itholy, worthy of God´s Son, acceptable to God and to your Self. Each day´sreview assignments will conclude with a restament of the thought to use eachhour, and the one to be applied on each half hour as well. Forget them not.This second chance with each of these ideas will bring such large advances thatwe come from these reviews with learning gains so great we will continue onmore solid ground, with firmer footsteps and with stronger faith.

Do not forget how little youhave learned.
Do not forget how much you canlearn now.
Do not forget your Father´s needof you,
As you review these thoughts Hegave to you.

Love

[IA56]

Lesson 111

For morning and evening review:

91) ”Miracles are seen in light.”

”I cannot see in darkness. Let the light
Of holiness and truth light up my mind,
And let me see the innocence within.”

92) ”Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.”

”I see through strength, the gift of God to me,
My weakness is the dark His gift dispels
By givning me His strength to take its place.”

On the hour:
”Miracles are seen i light.”

On the half hour:
”Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 112

For morning and evening review:

93) ”Light and joy and Peace abide in me.”

”I am the home of light and joy and peace.
I welcome them into the home I share
With God, because I am a part of Him.”

94) ”I will remain forever as I was,
Created by the Changeless like Himself.
And I am one with Him, and He with me.”

On the hour:
”Light and joy and peace abide in me.”

On the half hour:
”I am as God created me.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 113

For morning and evening review:

95) ”I am one Self, united with my Creator.”

”Serenity and perfect peace are mine,
Because I am one Self,completely whole,
At one with all creation and with God.”

96) ”Salvation comes from my one Self.”

”From my one Self, Whose knowledge still remains
Within my mind, I see God´sperfect plan
For my salvation perfectly fulfilled.”

On the hour:
”I am one Self, united with my Creator.”

On the half hour:
”Salvation comes from my one Self.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 114

For morning and evening review:

97) ”I am sprit.”

”I am the Son of God. No body can
Contain my spirit, nor impose on me
A limitation God created not.”

98 ”I will accept my part in God´s plan for salvation.”

”What can my function be but to accept
The Word of God, Who has created me
For what i am and will forever be?”

On the hour:
”I am spirit.”

On the half hour:
”I will accept my part in God´splan for salvation.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 115

For morning and evening review:

99) ”Salvation is my only function here.”

”My function here is to forgive the world
For all the errors I have made. For this
Am I released from them with all the world.”

100) ”My part is esssential to God´s plan for salvation.”

”I am essential to the plan of God
For the salvation of the world.For He
Gave me His plan that I might save the world.”

On the hour:
”Salvation is my only function here.”

On the half hour:
”My part is essential to God´s plan for salvation.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 116

For morning and evening review:

101) ”God´s Will for me is perfect happiness.”

”God´s will is perfect happiness for me,
And I can suffer but from the belief
There is another will apart from His.”

102) ”I share God´s Will for happiness for me.”

”I share my Father´s Will for me, His Son,
What he has given me is all I want,
What he has given me is all there is.”

On the hour:
”God´s Will for me is perfect happiness.”

On the half hour:
”I share God´s Will for happiness for me.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 117

For morning and evening review:

103) ”God, being Love, is also happiness.”

”Let me remember love is happiness.
And nothing else brings joy. And so I choose
To entertain no substitute for love.”

104) ”I seek but what belong to me is truth.”

”Love is my heritage, and with it joy.
These are the gifts my Father gave to me.
I would accept all that is mine in truth.”

On the hour:
”God, being Love, is also happiness.”

On the half hour:
”I seek but what belongs to me is truth.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 118

For morning and evening review:

105) ”God´s peace and joy are mine.”

”Today I will accept God´s Peace and joy.
In glad exchange for all the substitites
That I have made for happiness and peace.”

106) ”Let me be still and listen to the truth.”

”Let my own feeble voice be still, and let
Me hear the mighty Voice forTruth Itself
Assure me that I am God´s perfect Son.”

On the hour:
”God´s peace and joy are mine.”

On the half hour:
”Let me be still and listen to the truth.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 119

For morning and evening review:

107) ”Truth will correct all errors in my mind.”

”I am mistaken when I think I can
Be hurt in any way, I am God´s Son.
When Self rests safely in the Mind of God.”

108 ”To give and to receive are one in truth.”

”I will forgive all things today, that I
May learn how to accept the truth in me,
And come to recognize my sinlessness.”

On the hour:
”Truth will correct all errors in my mind.”

On the half hour:
”To give and receive are one in truth.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 120

For morning and evening review:

109) ”I rest in God.”

”I rest in God today, and let Him work
In me and through me, while I rest in Him
In quiet and in perfect certainty.”

110) ” I am as God created me.”

”I am God´s Son. Today I lay aside
All sick illusions of myself, and let
My Father tell me Who I really am.”

On the hour:
”I rest in God.”

On the half hour:
”I am as God created me.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 121

”Forgiveness is the key to happiness.”

Here is the answer to your search for peace. Here is the key to meaning in a world that seems to make no sense. Here is the way to safety in apparent dangers that appear to threaten you at every turn, and bring uncertainty to all your hopes of ever finding quietness and peace. Here are all questions answered; here the end of all uncertainty ensured at last. The unforgiving mind is full of fear, and offers love no room to be itself; no place where it can spread it wings in peace and soar above the turmoil of the world. The unforgiving mind is sad, without the hope of respite and release from pain. It suffers and abides in misery, peeringa bout in darkness, seeing not, yet sertain of the danger lurking there. Theun forgivning mind is torn with doubt, confused about itself and all it sees; afraid and angry, weak in blustering, afraid to go ahead, afraid to stay,afraid of stillness; terrified of darkness, yet more terrified at the approach of light. What can the unforgiving mind perceive but its damnation? What can it behold except the proof that all its sins are real? The unbforgiving mind sees no mistakes, but only sins. It looks upon the world with sighless eyes, and shrieks as it beholds its own projections rising to attack its miserable parody of life. It wants to live, yet wishes it were dead. It wants forgiveness, yet it sees no hope. It wants escape, yet can conceive of none because it sees the sinful everywhere. The unforgiving mind is in despair, without the prospect of a future which can offer anything but more despair. Yet it regards its judgment of the world as irreversible, and does not see it has condemned itself to this despair. It thinks it cannot change, for what it sees bears witness that its judgment is correct. It does not ask, because it thinks it knows, It does not question, certain it is right. Forgiveness is acquired. It is not inherent in the mind, which cannot sin. As sin is an idea you taught yourself, forgiveness must be learned by you as well, but from a Teacher other than yourself, Who represents the other Self in you. Through Him you learn how to forgive the self you think you made, and let it disappear. Thus you return you mind as one toHim Who is your Self, and Who can never sin. Each unforgiving mind presents you with an opportunity to teach your own how to forgive itself. Each one awaits release from hell through you, and turns to you imploringly for Heaven here and now. It has no hope, but you become its hope. And as its hope, do you become your own. The unforgiving mind must learn through your forgiveness that it has been saved from hell. And as you teach salvation, you will learn. Yet all your teaching and your learning will be not of you, but of the Teacher Who has given you to show the way to you. Today we practice learning to forgive. If you are willing, you can learn today to take the key to happiness, and use it on your own behalf. We will devote ten minutes in the morning, and at night Another ten, to learning how to give forgiveness and receive forgiveness, too. Theun forgiving mind does not believe that giving and receiving are the same. Yet we will try to learn today that they are one through practicing forgiveness toward one whom you think of as an enemy, and one whom you consider as afriend. And as you learn to see them both as one, we will extend to lesson to yourself, and see that their escape included yours. Begin the longer practice periods by thinking of someone you do not like, who seems to irritate you, or to cause regret in you if you should meet him; one you actively despise, or merely try to overlook. It does not matter what the form you anger takes. You probably have chosen him already. He will do. Now close your eyes and see him in your mind, and look at him a while. Try to perceive some light in him somewhere; a little gleam which you had never noticed. Try to find some little spark of brightness shining through the ugly picture that you hold of him. Look at this changed perception for a while, and turn you mind to one ou call a friend. Try to transfer the light you learned to see around your former ”enemy” to him.Percive him now as more than friend to you, for in the light his holiness shows you your savior, saved and saving, healed and whole. Then let him offer you the light you see in him, and let your ”enemy” and friend unite in blessing you with what you gave. Now are you one with them, and they with you. Now have you been forgiven by yourself. Do not forget, throughout the day, the role forgiveness plays in bringing happiness to every unforgiving mind, with yours among them.Every hour tell yourself:

”Forgiveness is the key to happiness.
I will awaken from the Dream that I
Am mortal, fallible and full of sin,
And know I am perfect Son of God.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 122

”Forgiveness offer everything I want.”

What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offer it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty thatt ranscends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding confort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset? All this forgiveness offers you, and more. It sparkles on your eyes as you awake, and give you joy with which to meet the day. It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rests upon your eyelids so you see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. All this forgiveness offers you, and more. Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world. It lets your ecognize the Son of God, and clears your memory of all dead thoughts so that remembrance of your Father can arise across the threshold of your mind. What would you want forgiveness cannot give? What gifts but these are worthy to be sought? What fancied value, trivial effect or transient promise, never to be kept, can hold more hope than what forgiveness brings? Why would you seek an answer other than the answer that will answer everything? Here is the perfect answer, given to imperfect questions, meaningless requests, half-hearted willingness to hear, and less than halfway diligence and partial trust. Here isthe answer! Seek for it no more. You will not find another one instead. God´s plan for your salvation cannot change, nor can it fail. Be thankful it remains exactly as He planned it. Changelessly it stands before you lika an open book,with warmth and welcome calling from beyond the doorway, bidding you to enter in and make yourself at home, where you belong. Here is the answer! Would you stand outside while all of Heaven waits for you within? Forgive and be forgiven. As you give you will receive. There is no plan but this for the salvation of the Son of God. Let us today rejoice that this is so, for here we have an answer,clear and plain, beyond deceit in its simplicity. All the complexities the world has spun of fragile cobwebs disappear before the power and the majesty of this extremly simple statement of the truth. Here is the answer! Do not turn away in aimless wandering again. Accept salvation now. It is the gift of God,and not the world. The world can give no gifts of any value to a mind that has received what God has given as its own. God wills salvation be received today,and that the intricacies of your dreams no longer hide their nothingness from you. Open your eyes today and look upon a happy world of safety and of peace.Forgiveness is the means by which it comes to take the place of hell. In quietness it rises up to greet your open eyes, and fill your heart with Deep transquility as ancient truths, for ever newlyborn, arise in your awareness.What you will remember then can never be described. Yet your forgiveness offers it to you. Remembering the gifts forgiveness gives, we undertake our practicing today with hope and faith that this will be the day salvation will be ours.Earnestly and gladly will we seek for it today, aware we hold the key within our hands, accepting Heaven´s answer to the hell we made, but where we would remain no more. Morning and evening do we gladly give a quarter of an hour to the search in which the end of hell is guaranteed. Begin in hopefulness, for we have reached the turning point at which the road becomes far easier. And now the way is short that yet we travel. We are close indeed to the appointed ending of the dream. Sink into happiness as you begin these practice perioids,for they hold out the sure rewards of questions answere and what your acceptance of the answer brings. Today it will be given you to feel the Peace forgiveness offers, and the joy the lifting of the veil holds out to you.Before the light you will receive today the world will fade until it disappears, and you will see another world arise you have no words to picture. Now we walk directly into light, and we receive the gifts that have been held in store for us since time began, kept waiting for today. Forgiveness offers everything you want. Today all things you want are given you. Let not your gifts recede throughout the day, as you return again to meet a world of shifting change and bleak appearances. Retain your gifts in clear awareness as you see the changeless in the heart of change; the light of truth behind appeareances. Be tempted not to let your gifts slip by and drift into forgetfulness, but hold them firmly in your mind by your attempts to think of them at least a minute as each quarter of an hour passes by. Remind your self how precious are the gifts with this reminder, which has power to hold your gifts in your awareness through the day:

”Forgiveness offers everything I want.
Today I have accepted this as true.
Today I have received the gifts of God.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 123

”I thank my Father for His gifts to me.”

Today let us be thankful. We have come to gentler pathways and to smoother roads. There is no thought of turning back, and no implaceble resistance to the truth. A bit of wavering remains, some small objections and a little hesitance, but you can well be grateful for your gains, which are far greater than you realized. A day devoted now to gratitude will add the benfit of some insight into the real extent of all the gains which you have made; the gifts you have received. Be glad today,in loving thankfulness, your Father has not left you to yourself, nor let you wander in the dark alone. Be greatful He has saved you from the self you thought you made to take the place of Him and His creation. Give Him thanks today. Give thanks that He has not abondoned you, and that His Love forever will remain shining on you, forever without change. Give thanks as well that you are changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself. Be greatful you are saved. Be glad you have a function in salvation to fulfill. Be thankful that your value far transcends your meager gifts and petty judgments of the one whom God established as His Son. Today in gratitude we lift our hearts above despair, and raise our thankful eyes, no longer looking downward to the dust. We sing the song of thankfulness today, in honor of the Self That God has willed to be our true Identity in Him. Today we smile on everyone we see, and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to do what is appointed us to do. We do not go alone. And we givet hanks that is our solitude a Friend has come to speak the saving Word of God to us. And thanks to you for listening to Him. His Word is soundless if it be not heard. In thanking Him the thanks are yours as well.And unheard message will not save the world, however mighty be the Voice that speaks, however loving may the message be. Thanks be to you who heard, for you become the messager who brings His Voice with you, and lets It echo round and round the world. Receive the thanks of God today, as you give thanks to Him.For He would offer you the thanks you give, since He receives your gifts inloving gratitude, and gives them back a thousand and a hundred thousand more than they were given. He will bless your gifts by sharing them with you. And so they grow in power and in strength, until they fill the world with gladness and with gratitude. Receive His thanks and offer yours to Him for fifteen minutes twice today. And you will realize to Whom you offer thanks, and Whom He thanks as you are thanking Him. This holy half an hour given Him will be returned to you in terms of years for every second; power to save the world eons more quickly for your thanks to Him. Receive His thanks, and you will understand howl ovingly He hold you in His Mind, how deep and limitless His care for you, how perfect is His gratitude to you. Remember hourly to think of Him, and give Him thanks for everything He gave His Son, that he might rise above the world,remembering his Father and his Self.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 124

”Let me remember I am one with God.”

Today we will again give thanks for our Identity in God. Our home is safe, protection guaranteed in all we do, powerand strength available to us in all our undertakings. We can fail in nothing.Everything we touch takes on a shining light that blesses and that heals. At one with God and with the universe we go our way rejoicing, with the thought that God Himself goes evverywhere with us. How holy are our minds! And everything we see reflects the holiness within the mind at one with God and with itself. How easily do errors disappear, and death give place to everlasting life. Our shining footprints point the way to truth, for God is our Companion as we walk the world a little while. And those who come to follow us will recognize the way to truth, for God is our Companion as we walk the World a little while. And those who come to follow us will recognize the way because the light we carry stays behind, yet still remains with us as we walk on. What we receive is our eternal gift to those who follow after and to those who Went before or stayed with us a while. And God, Who loves us with the equl love in which we were created, smiles on us and offers us the happiness we gave. Today we will not doubt His Love for us, nor question His protection and His care. No meaningless anxieties can come between our faith and our awareness of His Presence. We are one with Him today in recognition and rememberance. We feel Him in our hearts. Our minds contain His Thoughts; our eyes behold His loveliness in all we look upon. Today we see only the loving and the lovable.We see it in appearances of pain, and pain gives way to peace. We see it in the frantic, in the sad and the distressed, the lonely and afraid, who are restored to the tranquility and peace of mind in which they were created. And we see it in the dying and the dead as well, restoring them to life. All this we see because we saw it first within ourselves. No miracle can ever be denied to those who know that they are one with God. No thought of theirs but has the power to heal all forms of suffering in anyone, in times gone by and times as yet to come, as easily as in the ones who walk beside them now. Their thoughts are timeless, and part from distance as apart from time. We join in this awareness as we say that we are one with God. For in these words we say as well that we are saved and healed; that we can save and heal accordingly. We have accepted and we now would give. For we would keep the gifts our Father gave.Today we would experience ourselves at one with Him, so that the world may share our recognition of reality. In our experience the world is freed. As we deny our separation from our Father, it is healed along with us. Peace be to you today. Secure your peace by practicing awareness you are one with our Creator,as He is with you. Sometime today, whenever it seems best, devote a half an hour to the thought that you are one with God. This is our first attempt at an extended period for which we give no rules nor special words to guide your meditation. We will trust God´s Voice to speak as He sees fit today, certain He will not fail. Abide with Him this half an hour. He will do the rest. Your benefit wil not be less if you believe that nothing happens. You may not be ready to accept the gain today. Yet sometime, somewhere, it will come to you,nor will you fail to recognize it when it dawns with certainty upon your mind.This half an hour will be framed in gold, with every minute like a dimond set around the mirror that this exercise will offer you. And you will see Christ´s face upon it, in reflection or your own. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will see your own transfiguration in the glass this holy half an hour will hold out to you, to look upon yourself. When you are ready you will find it there,within your mind and waiting to be found. You will remember then the thought to which you gave half an hour, thankfully aware no time was ever better spent. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will look into this glass, and understand the sinless light you see belongs to you; the loveliness you look on is your own.Count this half hour as your gift to God, in certainty that His return will bea sense of love you cannot understand, a joy too deep for you to comprehend, a sight too holy for the body´s eyes to see. And yet you can be sure someday,perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will understand and comprehend and see.Add further jewels to the golden frame that holds the mirror offered you today,by hourly repeating to yourself:

”Let me remeber I am one with God.
At one with all my brother and my Self.
In everlasting holiness and peace.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 125

”In quiet I receive God´s Word today.”

Let this day be a day of stillness and of quiet listening. Your Father wills you hear His Word today.And so He calls from deep within your mind where He abides. Hear Him today. No preace is prossible until His Word is heard around the world; until your mind,in quiet listening, accepts the message that the world must hear to usher in the quiet time of peace. This world will change through you. No other means can save it, for God´s plan is simply this: The Son of God is free to save himself,given the Word of God to be his Guide, forever in his mind and at his side to lead him surely to his Father´s house by his own will, forever free as God´s .He is not led by force, but only love. He is not judged, but only sanctified.In stillness we will hear God´s Voice today without intrusion of our pettyt houghts, without our personal desires, and without all judgment of His holy Word. We will not judge ourselves today, for what we are can not be judged. We stand apart from all the judgments which the world has laid upon the Son of God.It knows him not. Today we will not listen to the world, but wait in silencefor the Word of God. Hear, holy Son of God, your Father speak. His Voice would give to you His holy Word, to spread across the world the tidings of salvationand the holy time of peace. We gather at the throne of God today, the quiet place within the mind where He abides forever, in the holiness that He created and will never leave. He has not waited until you return you mind to Him to give His Word to you. He has not hid Himself from you, while you have wandered off a little while from Him. He does not cherish the illusions which you hold about yourself. He knows His Son, and wills that he remain as part of Him regardless of his dreams; regardless of his madness that his will is not his own. Today He speaks to you. His Voice awaits your silence, for His Word cannot be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled. Await His Word in quiet. There is peace within you to be called upon today, to help make ready your most holy mind to hear the Voice for its Creator speak. Three times today, at times most suitable for silence, give ten minutes set apart from listening to the world, and choose instead a gentle listening to the Word of God. He speaks from nearer than your heart to you. His Voice is closer than your hand. His Love is everything you are and that He is;the same as you, and you the same as He. It is your voice to which you listen as He speaks to you. It is your Word He speaks. It is a Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Father and of Son. In quiet listen to your Self today, and let Him tell you God has never left His Son, and you have never left your Self.Only be quiet. You will need no rule but this, to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body´s eyes. Only be still and listen. You will hear the Word in which the Will of God the Son joins in his Father´s Will, at one with it, with no illusions interposed between the wholly indivisible and true. As every hour passes by today, be still a moment and remind yourself you have a special purpose for this day; inquiet to receive the Word of God.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 126

”All that I give is given to myself.”

Today´s idea, completely Alien to the ego and the thinking of the world, is crusial to the thought reversal that this course will bring about. If you believed this statement, there would be no problem in complete forgiveness, certainly of goal, and sure direction.You would understand the means by which salvation comes to you, and would not hesitate to use it now. Let us consider what you do believe, in place of this idea. It seems to you that other people are apart from you, and able to behave in ways which have no bearing on your thoughts, nor their appeals for help are not in any way related to your own. You further think that they can sin without affecting your perseption of yourself, while you can judge their sin, and yet remain apart from condemnation and at peace. When you ”forgive” a sin, there is no gain to you directly. You give charity to one unworthy, merely to point out that you are better, on a higher plane than he whom you forgive. He has not earned your charitable tolerance, which you bestow on one unworthy of the gift,because his sin shave lowered him beneath a true equally with you. He has no claim on your forgivness. It holds out a gift to him, but hardly to yourself.Thus is forgiveness basically unsound; a charitable whim, benevolent yet undeserved, witholding it is just, nor it is fair that you should suffer when it is withheld. The sin that you forgive is not your own. Someome apart from you committed it. And if you then are gracious unto him by giving him what he does not deserve, the gift is no more yours than was his sin. If this be true,forgiveness has no grounds on which to rest dependably and sure. It is an eccentricity, in which you sometimes choose to give in dulgently an undeserve dreprive. Yet it remains your right to let the sinner not escape the justifiedr epayment for his sin. Think you the Lord of Heaven would allow the world´s salvation to depend on this? Would not His care for you be small indeed, if your salvation rested on a whim? You do not understand forgiveness. Ass you see it, it is but a check upon overt attack, without requiring correction in your mind. It cannot give you peace as you perceive it. It is not a means for your release from what you see in someone other than yourself. It has no power to restore your unity with him to your awareness. It is not what God intended it to be for you. Not having given Him the gift He asks of you, you cannot recognize His gifts, and think He has not given them to you. Yet would He askyou for a gift unless it was for you? Could He be satisfied with empty gestures, and evaluate such petty gifts as worthy of His Son? Salvation is a better gift than this. And true forgiveness, as the means by which it is attained, must heal the mind that gives, for giving is recieving. What remains as unreceived has not been given, but what has been given must have been received. Today we try to understand the truth that giver and reciever are the same. You will need help to make this meaning ful, because it is so alien to thethoughts to which you are accustomed. But the Help you need is there. Give Him your faith today, and ask Him that He share your practicing in truth today. And if you only catch a tiny glimpse of the relese that lies in the idea we practice for today, this is a day of glory for the world. Give fifteen minutes twice today to the attempt to understand today´s idea. It is the thought by which forgiveness takes its proper place in your priorities. It is the thought that will release your mind from every bar to what forgiveness means, and let you realize its worth to you. In silence, close your eyes upon the world that does not understand forgiveness, and seek sanctuary in the quiet place where thoughts are changed and false beliefs laid by. Repeat today´s idea, and ask for help in understanding what it really means. Be willing to be taught. Be glad to hear the Voice of truth and healing speak to you, and you will understand the worlds He speaks, and recognize He speaks your words to you. As often as you can, remind yourself you have a goal today; an aim which makes this day of special value to yourself and all your brothers. Do not let your mind forget this goal for long, but tell yourself:

”All that I give is given to myself.
The help I need to learn that this is true
Is with me now. And I will trust in Him.”

Then spend a quiet moment, opening your mind to his correction and His Love. And what you hear of Him you will beleive, for what He gives will be received by you.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 127

”There is no love but God´s.”

Perhaps you think that different kinds of love are possible. Perhaps you think there is a kind of love for this,a kind for that; a way of loving one, another way of loving still another. Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergencies and no distinctions. It is like itself, unchanged throughout. It never alters with a person or a circumstance. It is the Heart of God, and also of His Son. Love´s meaning is obscure to anyone who thinks that love canchange. He does not see that changing love must be impossible. And thus he thinks that he can love at times, and hate at other times. He also thinks that love can be bestowed on one, and yet remain itself although it is withheld from others. To believe these things of love is not to understand it. If it could make such distinctions, it would have to judge between the righteous and thes inner, and perceive the Son of God is separate parts. Love cannot judge. As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. Its meaning lies in oneness. And it must elude the mind that thinks of it as partial or in part. There is no love but God´s, and all of love love is His. There is no other principle that rules where love is not. Love is a law without an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds them both forever as the same. No course whose purpose is to teach you to remember what you really are could fail to emphasize that there can never be a difference in what you really are and what love is. Love´s meaning is your own,and shared by God Himself. For what you are is what He is. There is no love but His, and what He is, is everything there is. There is no limit placed upon Himself, and so are you unlimited as well. No law the world obeys can help you grasp love´s meaning. What the world believes was made to hide love´s meaning,and to keep it dark and secret. There is not one principle the world upholds but violates the truth of what love is, and what you are as well. Seek not within the world to find your Self. Love is not found in darkness and in death.Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear love´s Voice. Today we practice making free your mind of all the laws you think you must obey; of all the limits under which you live, and all the changes that you think are part of human destiny. Today we take the largest single step this course requests in your advance towards its established goal. If you achive the faintest glimmering of what love means today, you have advanced in distance without measure and in time beyond the count of years to your release. Let us together,then, be glad to give some time to God today, and understand there is no better use for time than this. For fifteen minutes twice today escape from every law in which you now believe. Open your mind and rest. The world that seems to hold you prisoner can be escaped by anyone who does not hold it dear. Withdraw all value you have placed upon its meager offerings and senseless gifts, and let the gift of God replace them all. Call to your Father, certain that His Voice will answer. He Himself has promised this. And He Himself will place a spark of truth within your mind wherever you give up a false belief, a dark illusion of your own reality and what love means. He will shine through your idle thoughts today, and help you understand the truth of love. In loving gentleness He will abide with you, as you allow His Voice to teach love´s meaning to your clear and open mind. And He will bless the lesson with His Love. Today the legion of the future years of waiting for salvation disappears before the timelessness of what you learn. Let us give thanks today that we are spared a future like the past. Today we leave the past behind us, nevermore to be remembered. And we raise our eyes upon a different present, where a future dawns unlike the past in every attribute. The world in infancy is newly born. And we will watch it grow in health and strength, to shed its blessing upon all who come to learn to cast aside the world they thought was made in hate to be love´s enemy. Now are they all made free, along with us. Now are they all our brothers in God´s Love.We will remember them throughout the day, because we cannot leave a part of us outside our love if we would know our Self. At least three times an hour Think of one who makes the journey with you, and who came to learn what you must learn. And as he comes to mind, give him this message from your Self:

”I bless you, brother, with the Love of God,
Which I would share with you.For I would learn
The joyous lesson that there is no love
But God´s and yours and mine and everyone´s.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 128

”The world I see holds nothing that I want.”

The world you see holds nothing that you need to offer you; nothing that you can use in any way, nor anything at all that serves to give you joy. Believe this thought, and you are saved from years of misery, from countless disappointments, and from hopes that turnt o bitter ashes of despair. No one but must accept this thought as true, if he would leave the world behind and soar beyond its petty scope and little ways.Each thing you value here is but a chain that binds you to the world, and it will serve no other end but this. For everything must serve the purpose you have given it, until you see a different purpose there. The only purpose worthy of your mind this world contains is that you pass it by, without delaying to perceive some hope where there is none. Be you deceived no more. The world you see holds nothing that you want. Escape today the chains you place upon your mind when you perceive salvation here. For what you value you make part of you as you perceive yourself. All things you seek to make your value greater in your sight limit you further, hide your worth from you, and add another bar across the door that leads to true awareness of your Self. Let nothing that relates to body thoughts delay your progress to salvation, nor permit temptation to believe the world holds anything you want to hold you back. Nothing is here to cherish. Nothing here is worth one instant of delay and pain; one moment of uncertainty and doubt. The worthless off nothing. Certainty of worth can not befound in worhtlessness. Today we practice letting go all thought of values we have given to the world. We leave it free of purposes we gave its apsects and its phases and its dreams. We hold it purposeless within our minds, and loosen it from all we wish it were. Thus do we lift the chains that bar the door to freedom from the world, and go beyond all little values and diminished goals.Peace and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world,when you release your mind from chains and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home. It will be grateful to be free a while. It knows where it belongs. But free it swings, and it will fly in sureness and in joy to join its holy purpose. Let it rest in its Creator, there to be restored to sanity, to freedom and to love. Give it ten minutes rest tree times today. And when your eyes are opened afterwards, you will not value anything you see as much as when you looked at it before. Your whole perspective on the world will shift by just a little, every time you let your mind escape its chains. The world is not where it belongs. And you belong where it would be, and where it goes to rest when you release it from the world. Your Guide is sure. Open your mind to Him. Be still and rest. Protect your mind throughout the day as well. And when you think you see some value in a aspect or an image of the world, refuse to lay this chain upon your mind, but tell yourself with quiet certainty:

”This will not tempt me to delay mytself.”
The world I see holds nothing that I want.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 129

”Beyond this world there is a world I want.”

This is the thought that follows from the one we practiced yesterday. You cannot stop with the idea the world is worthless, for unless you see that there is something else to hope for, you will only be depressed. Our emphasis is not on giving up the world, but on exchanging it for what is far more satisfying, filled with joy, and capable of offering you peace. Think you this world can offer that to you? It might be worth a little time to think once more about the value of this world. Perhaps you will concede there is no loss in letting go all thought of value here. The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here.This is the world of time, where all things end. Is it a loss to find a world instead where losing is impossible; where love endures forever, hate cannot exist and vengeance has no meaning? It is loss to find all things you really want, and know they have no ending and they will remain exactly as you want them throughout time? Yet even they will be exchanged at last for what we cannot speak of, for you go from there to where words fail entirely, into a silence where the language is unspoken and yet surely understood.Communication, unambigous and plain as day, remains unlimited for all eternity.And God Himself speaks to His Son, as His Son speaks to Him. Their knowledge is direct and wholly shared and wholly one. How far away from this are you who stay bound to this world. And yet how near are you, when you exchange it for the world you want. Now is the last step certain; now you stand an instant´s space away from timlessness. Here can you but look forward, never back to see again the world you do not want. Here is the world that comes to take its placed, as you unbind your mind from little things the world sets forth to keep you prisoner. Value them not, and they will disappear. Esteem them, and they will seem real to you. Such is the choice. What loss can be for you in choosing not to value nothingness? This world holds nothing that you really want, but what you choose instead you want indeed! Let it be given you today. It waits but for your choosing it, to take the place of all the things you seek but do not want. Practice your willingness to make this change ten minutes in the morning and at night, and once more in between. Begin with this:

”Beyond this world there is a world I want.
I choose to see that World instead of this.
For here is nothing that I really want.”

Then close your eyes upon the world you see, and in the silent darkness watch the lights that are not of this world light one by one, until where one begins another ends loses all meaningas they blend in one. Today the light of Heaven bend to you, to shine upon your eyelids as you rest beyond the world of darkness. Here is light your eyes cannot behold. And yet your mind can see it plainly, and can understand. A day of grace is given you today, and we give thanks. This day we realize that what you feared to lose was only loss. Now do we understand there is no loss. For we have seen its opposite at last, and we are grateful that the choice is made. Remember your decision hourly, and take a moment to confirm your choice by laying by whatever thoughts you have, and dwelling briefly only upon this:

”The world I see holds nothing that I want.
Beyond this world there is a world I want.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 130

”It is impossible to see two worlds.”

Perception is consistent. What you see reflects your thinking. And your thinking but reflects your choice of what you want to see. Your values are determiners of this, for what you value you must want to see, believing what you see is really there. No one can see a world his mind has not accorded value. And no one can fail to look upon what he believes he wants. Yet who can really hate and love at once? And who can choose to see a world of which he is afraid? Fear must make blind, for this its weapon is: that which you fear to see you cannot see. Love and perception thus go hand in hand, but fear obscures in darkness what is there. What, then, can fear project upon the world? What can be seen in darkness that is real? Truth ise clipsed by fear, and what remains is but imagined. Yet what can be real in blind imaginings of panic born? What would you want that this is shown to you?What would you wish to keep in such a dream? Fear has made everything you think you see. All separation, all distinctions, and the multitude of differences you believe make up the world. They are not there. Love´s enemy has made them up.Yet love can have no enemy, and so they have no cause, no being and no consequence. They can be valued, but remain unreal. They can be sought, but they can not be found. Today we will not seek for them, nor waste this day in seeking what can not be found. It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains.They are the range of choice beyond which your decision cannot go. They are the range of choice beyond which your decision cannot go. The real and the unreal are all there are to choose between, and nothing more than there. Today we will attempt no compromise where none is possible. The world you see is proof you have already made a choice as all-embracing as its opposite. What we would learn today is more than just the lesson that you cannot see two worlds. It also teaches that the one you see is quite consistent from the point of view from which you see it. It is all a piece because it stems from one emotion, and reflects its source in everything you see. Six times today, in thanks and gratitude, we gladly give five minutes to the thought that ends all compromise and doubt, and go beyond them all is one. What will not make a thousand meaningless distinctions, nor attmept to bring with us a little part of unreality, as we devote our minds to finding only what is real. Begin your searching for the other world by asking for a strength beyond your own, and recognizing what it is you seek. You do not want illusions. And you come to these five minutes emptying your hands of all the petty treasures of this world. You wait for God to help you, as you say:

”It is impossible to see two worlds.
Let me accept the strength God offers me
And see no value in this world,that I
May find my freedom and deliverance.”

God will be there. For you have called upon the great unfailing Power Which will take this giant step with youin gratitude. Nor will you fail to see His thanks expressed in tangible perception and in truth. You will not doubt what you will look upon, for thoughit is perception, it is not the kind of seeing that your eyes alone have ever seen before. And you will know God´s strength upheld you as you made thischoice. Dismiss temptation easily today whenever it arises, merely byremembering the limits of your choice. The unreal or the real, the false or true is what you see and only what you see. Perception is consistent with your choice, and hell or Heaven comes to you as one. Accept a little part of hell as real, and you have damned your eyes and cursed your sight, and what you wil lbehold is hell indeed. Yet the release of Heaven still remains within you rangeof choice, to take the place of everything that hell would show to you. All you need say to any part of hell, whatever form it takes, is simply this:

”It is impossible to see two worlds.
I seek my freedom and deliverance,
And this is not a part of what I want.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 131

”No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.”

Failure is all about you while you seek for goals that cannot be achieved. You look for permanence in the impermanent, for love where there is none, for safety in the midst of danger;immortality within the darkness of the dream of death. Who could succeed where contradiction is the setting of his searching, and the place to which he comes to find stability? Goals that are meaningless are not attained. There is no way to reach them, for the means by which you strive for them are meaningless as they are. Who can use such senseless means, and hope through them to gain in anything? Where can they lead? And what could they achive that offers any hope of being real? Pursuit nothingness, and while you seek for life you ask for death. You look for safety and security, while in your heart you pray for danger and protection for the little dream you made. Yet searching is inevitable here. For this you came, and you will surely do the thing you came for. But the world can not dictate the goal for which you search, unless you give it power to do so. Otherwise, you still are free to choose a goal that lies beyond the world and every worldly thought, and one that comes to you from an idea relinquished yet remembered, old yet new; an echo of a heritage forgot, yet holding everything you really want. Be glad that search yoou must.Be glad as well to learn you search for Heaven, and must find the goal you really want. Be glad that search you must. Be glad as well to learn you search for Heaven, and must find the goal you really want. No one can fail to want this goal and reach it in the end. God´s Son can not seek vainly, though he try to force delay, deceive himself and think that it is hell he seeks. When he is wrong,he finds correction. When he wanders off, he is led back to his appointed task.No one remains in hell, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect His perfect, timless and unchanging Love. You will find Heaven. Everything you seek but this will fall away. Yet not because it has been taken from you. It will go because you do not want it. You will reach the goal you really want as certainly as God created you in sinlessness. Why wait for Heaven? It is here today. Time is the great illusion it is part or in the future. Yet this cannot be, if it is where God wills His Son to be. How could you Will of God be in the past, or yet to happen? What He wills is now, without a past and wholly futurless. It is as far removed from time as is a tiny candle from a distantstar, or what you chose from what you reall y want. Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other´s sorry outcome which is Heaven´s opposite in every way. God does not suffer conflict. Nor is His creation split in two. How could it be His Son could be in hell, when God Himself established him in Heaven? Could he lose what the Eternal Will has given him to be his home forever? Let us not not try longer to impose an alien will upon God´s single purpose. He is here because He wills to be, and what He wills is persent now, beyond the reach of time. Today we will not choose a paradox in place of truth. How could the Son of God make time to take away the Will of God? He thus denies himself, and contradicts what has no opposite. Het hinks he made a hell opposing Heaven, and believes that he abides in what does not exist, while Heaven is the place he cannot find. Leave foolish thoughts like these behind today, and turn your mind to true ideas instead. No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth, and it is truth we seek to reach today. We will devote ten minutes to this goal three times a day, and we will ask to see the rising of the real world to replace the foolish images that we hold dear, with true ideas arising in the place of thoughts that have no meaning, no effect, and neither source nor substance in the truth. This we acknowledge as we start upon our practice periods. Begin with this:

”I ask to see a different world,and think
A different kind of thought from those I made.
The world I seek I did not make alone,
The thoughts I want to think are not my own.”

For several minutes watch your mind and see, although your eyes are closed, the senseless world you think is real. Review the thougths as well which are compatible with such a world, and which you think are ture. Then let them go, and sink below them to the holy place where they can enter not. There is a door beneath them in your mind,which you could not completely lock to hide what lies beyond. Seek for that door and find it. But before you try to open it, remind yourself no one can fail who seeks to reach the truth. And it is this request you make today.Nothing but this has any meaning now; no other goal is valued now nor sought,nothing before this door you really want, and only what lies past it do you seek. Put out your hand, and see how easily the door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. Angels light the way, so that all darkness vanishes,and you are standing in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all things you see. A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause Before you realize the world you see before you in the light reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite forget in wandering away in dreams. You cannot fail today. There walks with you the Spirit Heaven sent you, that you might approach this door some day, and through His aid slip effortlessly past it, to the light. Today that day has come. Today God keeps His ancient promise to His holy Son, as does His Son remember his to Him. This is a day of gladness, for wecome to the appointed time and place where you will find the goal of all your searching here, and all the seeking of the world, which end together as you pass behond the door. Remember often that today should be a time of special gladness, and refrain from dismal thoughts and meaningless laments. Salvation´stime has come. Today is set by Heaven itself to be a time of grace for you and for the world. If you forget this happy fact, remind yourself with this:

”Today I seek and find all that I want
My single purpose offers it to me.
No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 132

”I loose the world from all I thought it was.”

What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs? And what can save the world except your Self? Belief is powerful indeed. The thoughts you hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth. A mad man thinks the world he sees is real,and does not doubt it. Nor can he be swayed by questioning hist houghts´effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last. Yet is salvation easily achieved, for anyone is free to change his mind, and all his thoughts change with it. Now thes ource of thought has shifted, for to change your mind means you have changed the source of all ideas you think or ever thought or yet will think. You free the past from what you thought before. You free the future from all ancient thoughts of seeking what you do not want to find. The present now remains the only time. Here in the present is the world set free. For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world. You have enslaved the world with all your fears, your doubts and miseries, your pain and tears, and all your sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to your beliefs. Death strikes it every where becauseyou hold the bitter thoughts of death within your mind. The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillignly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source. This central theme is often stated in the text, and must be borne in mind if you would understand the lesson for today. It is not pride which tells you that you made the world you see, and that it changes as you change your mind. But it is pride that argues you have come into a world, quite separate from yourself, imprevious to what you think, and quite apart from what you change to think it is. There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is reeady to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again. But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize. Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world. And some will find it in the course, and in the exercises that we do today. Today´s idea is true because the world does not exist. And if it is indeed your own imagining, then you can loose it from all things you ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it there appearances. The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death. A lesson earlier repeated once must now be stressed again, for it contains the firm Foundation for today´s idea. You are as God created you. There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to your eternal state. How can a world of time and place exist, if you remain as God created you? What is the lesson for today except another way of saying that to know your Self is the salvation of the world? To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself. There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought. Yet if you are as God created, you cannot think apart from Him, nor make what does not share His timlessness and Love. Are there inherent in the world you see? Does it create like Him? Unless it does, it is not real,and cannot be at all. If you are real the world you see is false, for God´s creation is unlike the world in every way. And as it was His Thought by whichy ou were created, so it is your thoughts which made it and must set it free,that you may know the Thoughts you share with God. Release the world! Your real creations wait for this release to give you fatherhood, not of illusions, but as God in truth. God shares His Fatherhood with you who are His Son, for He makes no distinctions in what is Himself and what is still Himself. What He creates is not apart from Him, and nowhere does the Father end, the Son beginas something separate from Him. There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part ofGod Himself and thus destroy His Wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere? Deny illusions, but accept the truth. Deny you are a shadow briefly laid upon a dying world. Release your mind, and you will look upon a world released. Today our purpose is to free the world from all the idle thoughts we ever held about it, and about all living things we see uponit. They can not be there. No more can we. For we are in the home our Father set for us, along with them. And we who are as He created us would loose the world this day from every one of our illusions, that we may be free. Begin the fifteen minutes periods in which we practice twice today with this:

”I who remain as God created me
Would loose the world from all It hought it was.
For I am real because the World is not,
And I would know my own reality.”

Then merely rest, alert but with no strain, and let your mind in quietness be changed so that the world is freed, along with you. You need not realize that healing comes to many Brothers far across the world, as well as to the ones you see nearby, as you send out these thoughts to bless the world. But you will sense your own release,although you may not fully understand as yet that you could never be released alone. Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world, and say whenever you are tempted to deny the power of your simple change of mind:

”I loose the world from all I thought it was,
And choose my own reality instead.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 133

”I will not value what is valueless.”

Sometimes in teaching there is benefit, particularly after you have gone through what seems theoretical and far from what the student has already learned, to bring him back to practical concerns. This we will do today. We will not speak of lofty, world-encompassing ideas, but dwell instead on benefits to you. You do not ask too much of life,but far too little. When you let your mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by the world, you ask for sorrow, not for happiness. This course does not attempt to take from you the little that you have. It does not try to subsitute utopian ideas for satisfacctions which the world contains. There are no satisfactions in the world. Today we list the real criteria by which to test all things you think you want. Unless they meet these sound requirements, they are not worth desiring at all, for they can but replace what offfers more. The laws that govern choice you cannot make, no moret han you can make alternatives from which to choose. The choosing you can do; indeed, you must. But it is wise to learn the law you set in motion when you choose, and what alternatives you choose between. We have already stressed there are but two, however many there appear to be. The range is set, and thiswe cannot change. It would be most ungenerous to you to let alternatives be limitless, and thus delay your final choice until you had considered all ofthem in time; and not been brought so clearly to the place where there is butone choice that must be made. Another kindly and related law is that there isno compromise in what your choice must bring. It cannot give you just a little,for there is no in between. Each choice you make brings everything to you or nothing. Therefore, if you learn the test by which you can distinguish everything from nothing, you will make the better choice. First, if you choose a thing that will not last forever, what you chose is valueless. A temporary value is without all value. Time can never take away a value that is real. What fades and dies was never there, and makes no offering to him who choose it. He is deceived by nothing in a form he thinks he likes. Next, if you choose totake a thing away from someone else, you will have nothing left. This is because, when you deny his right to everything, you hav e denied your own. You therefore will not recognize the things you really have, denying they are there. Who seeks to take away has been deceived by the illusion loss can offer gain. Yet loss must offer loss, and nothing more. Your next consideration is the one on which the others rest. Why is the choice you make of value to you? What attracts your mind to it? What purpose does it serve? Here it is easiest of all to be deceived. For what the ego wants if fails to recognize. It does not eventell the truth as it perceives it, for it needs to keep the halo which it uses to protect its goals from tarnish and from rust, that you may see how ”innocent”it is. Yet is its camouflage a thin veneer, which could deceive but those whoare content to be decieved. Its goals are obvious to anyone who cares to lookf or them. Here is deception doubled, for the one who is deceived will not perceive that he has merely failed to gain. He will believe that he has served the ego´s hidden goals. Yet though he tries to keep its halo clear within his vision, still must he perceive its tarnished edges and its rusted core. His ineffectual mistakes appear as sins to him, because he looks upon the tarnis has his own; the rust a sign of deep unworhiness within himself. He who would still preserve the ego´s goals and serve them as his own makes no mistakes,according to the dictates of his guide. This gudance teaches it is error to believe that sins are but mistakes, for who would suffer for his sins if this were so? And so we come to the criterion for choice that is the hardest to believe, because its obviousness is overlaid with many levels of obscurity. If you feel any guilt about your choice, you have allowed the ego´s goals to come between the real alternatives. And thus you do not realize there are but two,and the alternative you think you chose seems fearful, and too dangerous to be the nothingness it actually is. All things are valuable or valueless, worthy or not of being sought at all, entirely desirable or not worth the slightest effort to obtain. Choosing is easy because of this. Complexity is nothing but a screen of smoke, which hides the very simple fact that no decision can be difficult. What is the gain to you in learning this? It is far more than merely letting you make choices easily and without pain. Heaven itself is reached with empty hands and open minds, which come with nothing to find everything and claim it as their own. We will attempt to reach this state today, withself-deception laid aside, and with an honest willingness to value but the truly valuable and the real. Our two extended practice periods of fifteen minutes each begin with this:

”I will not value what is valueless.
And only what has value do I seek.
For only what do I desire to find.”

And then receive what waits for everyone who reaches, unencumbered, to the gate of Heaven, which swings open as he comes. Should you begin to let yourself collect some needless burdens, or believe you see some difficult decisions facing you, be quick to answer with this simple thought:

”I will not value what is valueless.
For what is valuable belongs to me.”

Love

[Tigre]

Very nice! Where do you get all this content from?

[IA56]

Very nice! Where do you get all this content from?

Hi Tigre,
I write it from the book "A Course In Miracles".
If you read this journal from beginning, you will see, I first started to write about what is also my oppinion, and then I noticed that it is as i see it too, it is like I have written this book :-)
but it is not...The writer is Dr Helen Schucman.

Love
ia

[IA56]

LESSON 134

”Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.”

Let us review the meaning of ”forgive,” for it is apt to be distorted and to be perceived as something that entails an unfair sacrifice of reghteous wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth. In such a view, forgieness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course appear to rest salvation on a whim. This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected, when you can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. It must be limited to what is false. It is irrelevant to everything except illusions.Truth is God´s creation, and to pardon that is meanigless. All truth belongs to Him, reflects His laws and radiates His Love. Does this need pardon? How can you forgive the sinless and eternally benign? The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is that you still believe you must forgive the truth, and not illusions. You conceive of pardon as a vain attempt to look past what is there; to overlook the truth, in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an illusion true. This twisted viewpoint but reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains as yet upon your mind, as you regard yourself. Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as deception. For it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe forgiveness is a lie. Thus is forgiveness really but as in, like all the rest. It says the truth is false, and similes on the corrupt as if they were as blameless as the grass; as white as snow. It is delusional in what it thinks it can accomplish. It would see as right the plainly wrong;the loath some as the good. Pardon is no escape in such a view. It merely is a further sign that sin is unforgivable, at best to be concealed, denied or called another name, for pardon is a treachery to truth. Guilt cannot be forgiven. If you sin, your guilt is everlasting. Those who are forgiven from the view their sins are real are pitifully mocked and twice condemned; first by themselves for what they think they did, and once again by those who pardonthem. It is sin´s unreality that makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief of those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. It does not countenance illusions, but collect them lightly, with a little laugh,and gently lays them at the feet of truth. And there they disappear entirely.Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks straight through the thousand from sin which they may appear. It looks on lies, but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely say to them, ”My brother, what you think is not the truth.” The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth. It is because of this that it becomes the undeceiver in the face of lies; the great restorer of the simple truth, which has been blocked by dreams of guilt. Now are you free to follow in the way your true forgiveness opens up to you. For if one brother has received this gift of you, the door is open to yourself. There is a simple way to find the door to ture forgiveness, and percieve that it is open wide in welcome.When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is self-deception.Ask instead, ”Would I accuse myself of doing this?” Thus will you see alternatives for choice in terms that render choosing meaningful, and keep your mind as free of guilt and pain as God Himself intended it to be, and as it is in truth. It is but lies that would condemn. In truth is innocence the only thing there is. Forgiveness stands between illusions and the truth; between the world you see and that which lies beyond; between the hell of guilt and Heaven´s gate. Across this bridge, as powerful as Love which laid its blessing on it, are all dreams of evil and of hatred and attack brought silently to truth. They are not kept to swell and bluster, and to terrify the foolish dreamer who believes in them. He has been gently wakened from his dream by understanding what he thought he saw was never there. And now he cannot feel that all escape has been denied to him. He does not have to fight to save himself. He does not have to kill the dragon which he thought pursued him. Nor need he erect the heavy wills of stone and iron doors he thought would make him safe. He can remove the ponderous and useless armor made to chain his mind to fear and misery. His step is light, and as he lifts his foot to stride ahead a star is left behind, to point the way to those who follow him. Forgiveness must be practiced, for the world cannot perceive its meaning, nor provide a guide to teach you its beneficence. There is no thought in all the world that leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought that it reflects. Itis as alien to the world as is your own reality. And yet it joins your mind with the reality in you. Today we practice ture forgiveness, that the time of joining be no more delayed. For we would meet with our reality in freedom and in peace. Our practicing becomes the footsteps lighting up the way for all our brothers, who will follow us to the reality we share with them. That this maybe accomplished, let us give a quarter of an hour twice today, and spend it with the Guide Who understands the meaning of forgiveness, and was sent to us to teach it. Let us ask of Him:

”Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.”

Then, choose one brother as He will direct, and catalogue his ”sins,”as one by one they cross your mind. Be certain not to dwell on any one of them, but realize that you are using his ”offenses”but to save the world from all ideas of sin. Briefly consider all the evil things you thought of him, and each time ask yourself, ”Would I condemn myslef for doing this?” Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him.And now you are prepared for freedom. If you have been practicing thus far in willingness and honesty, you will begin to sense a lifting up, a lightening of weight across your chest, a deep and certain feeling of relief. The time remaining should be given to experiencing the escape from all the heavy chains you sought to lay upon your brother, but were laid upon your brother, but were laid upon yourself. Forgiveness should be practiced through the day, for there will still be many times when you forget its meaning and attack yourself. When this occurs, allow your mind to see through this illusion as you tell yourself:

”Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
Would I accuse myself of doing this?
I will not lay this chain upon myself.”

In everything you do remember this:

”No one is crucified alone, and yet
No one can enter Heaven by himself.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 135

”If I defend myself I am attacked.”

Who would defend himself unless he thought he were attacked, that the attack were real, and that his own defens could save himself? And here in lies the folly fo defense; it gives illusionsfull reality, and then attempts to handle them as real. It adds illusions to illusions, thus making correction doubly difficult. And it is this you do whenyou attempt to plan the future, activate the past, or organize the present as you wish. You operate from the belief you must protect from what is happening because it must contain what threatens you. A sense of threat is anacknowledgment of an inherent weakness; a belief that there is danger which has power to call on you to make appropriate defense. The world is based on thisin sane belief. And all its structures, all its thoughts and doubts, its penalties and heavy armaments, its legal definitions and its codes, its ethics and its leaders and its gods, all serve but to preserve its sense of threat.For no one walks the world in armature but must have terror striking at his heart. Defense is frightening. It stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense is made. You think it offers safety. Yet it speaks of fear made real and terror justified. It is not strange you do not pause to ask, as you elaborate your plans and make your armor thicker and your locks more tight, whatyou defend, and now, and against what? Let us consider first what you defend.It must be something that is very weak and easily assaulted. It must besomething made easy prey, unable to protect itself and needing your defense.What but the body has such frailty that constant care and watchful, deep concernare needful to protect its little life? What but the body falters and must failto serve the Son of God as worthy host? Yet it is not the body that can fear,nor be a thing of fear. It has no needs but those which you assign to it. Itneeds no complicated health structures of defense, no health-inducing medicine,no care and no concern at all. Defend its life, or give its gifts to make itbeautiful or walls to make it safe, and you but say your home is open to thethief of time, corruptible and crumbling, so unsafe it must be guarded withyour very life. Is not this picturefearful? Can you be at peace with such a concept of your home? Yet what endowedthe body with the right to serve you thus except your own belief? It is yourmind which gave the body all the functions that you see in it, and set itsvalue far beyond a little pile of dust and water. Who would make defense ofsomething that he recognized as this? The body is in need of no defense. Thiscannot be too often emphasized. It will be strong and healthy if the mind doesnot abuse it by assigning it to roles it cannot fill, to purposes beyond itsscope, and to exalted aims which it cannot accomplish. Such attempts,ridiculous yet deeply cherished, are the sources for the many mad attacks youmake upon it. For it seems to fail upon hopes, your needs, your values and yourdreams. The ”self” that needs protection is not real. The body, valueless andhardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart fromyou, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mindcan operate until its usefulness is over. Who would want to keep it when itsusefulness is done? Defend the body and you have attacked your mind. For youhave seen iun it the faults, and weaknesses, the limits and the lacks fromwhich you think the body must be saved. You will not see the mind as separatefrom bodily conditions. And you will impose upon the body all the pain thatcomes from the conception of the mind as limited and fragile, and apart fromother minds and separate from its Source. These are the thoughts in need ofhealing, and the body will respond with health when they have been correctedand replaced with truth. This is the body´s only real defense. Yet is thiswhere you look for its defense? You offer it protection of a kind from which itgains no benefit at all, but merely adds to your distress of mind. You do not heal,but merely take away the hope of healing, for you fail to see where hope mustlie if it be meaningful. A healed mind does not plan. It carries out the planthat it receives through listening to Wisdom that is not its own. It waitsuntil it has been taught what should be done, and then proceeds to do it. Itdoes not depend upon itself for anything except its adequacy to fulfill theplans assigned to it. It is secure in certainty that obstacles can not impedeits progress to accomplishment of any goal that serves the greater planestablished for the good of everyone. A healed mind si relieved of the beliefthat it must plan, although it cannot know the outcome which is best, the meansby which it is achieved, nor how recognize the problem that the plan is made tosolve. It must misuse the body in its plans until it recognizes this is so. Butwhen it has accepted this as true, then it is healed, and lets the body go.Enslavement of the body to the plans the unhealed mind sets up to save itselfmust make the body sick. It is not free to be the means of helping in a planwhich far exeeds its own protection, and which needs its service for a littlewhile. In this capasity is health assured. For everything the mind employs forthis will function flawlessly, and with the strength that has been given it andcannot fail. It is, perhaps, not easy to perceive that self-initiated plans arebut defenses, with the puprose all of them were made to realize. They are themeans by which a frightened mind would undertake its own protection, at thecost of truth. This is not difficult to realize in some forms which theseself-deceptions take, where the denial of reality is very obvious. Yet planningis not often recognized as a defense. The mind engaged in planning for itselfis occupied in setting up control of future happenings. It does not think thatit will be provided for, unless it makes its own provisions. Time becomes afuture emphasis, to be controlled by learning and experience obtained from pastevents and previous beliefs. It overlooks the present, for its rest on the ideathe past has taught enough to let the mind direct its future course. The mindthat plans is thus refusing to allow for change. What it has learned beforebecomes the basis for its future goals. Its past experience directs its choiceof what will happen. And it does not see that here and now is everything itneeds to gurarantee a future quite unlike the past, without a continuity of anyold ideas and sick beliefs. Anticipation plays no part at all, for presentconfidence directs the way. Defenses are the plans you undertake to makeagainst the truth. Their aim is to select what you approve, and disregard whatyou consider incompatible with your beliefs of your reality. Yet what remainsis meangless indeed. For it is your reality that is the ”threat” which yourdefenses would attack, obscure, and take apart and crucify. What would you notaccept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, presentand to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhapsyou have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But yourdefenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you evertook. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to eternal life. Yourpresent trust in Him is the defense that promises a future undisturbed, withouta trace of sorrow, and with joy that constantly increases, as this life becomesa holy instant, set in time, but heeding only immortality. Let no defenses butyour present trust direct the future, and this life becomes a meaninfulencounter with the truth that only your defenses would conceal. Withoutdefenses, you become a light which Heaven greatfully acknowledges to be itsown. And it will lead you on in ways appointed for your happiness according tothe ancient plan, begun when time was born. Your followers will join theirlight with yours, and it will beincreased until the world is lighted up withjoy. And gladly will our brothers lay aside their cumbersome defenses, whichavailed them nothing and could only terrify. We will anticipate that time todaywith present confidence, for this part of what was planned for us. We will besure that everything we need is given us for our accomplishment of this today.We make no plans for how it will be done, but realize that our defenselessnessis all that is required for the truth to dawn upon our minds with certainty.For fifteen minutes twice today we rest from sensless planning, and from everythought that blocks the truth from entering our minds. Today we will recieveinstead of plan, that we may give instead of organize. And we are given truly,as we say:

”If I defend myself I am attacked
But in defenselessness I will be strong,
And I will learn what my defenses hide.”

Nothing but that. If there areplans to make, you will be told of them. They may not be the plans you thoughtwere needed, nor indeed the answers to the problems which you thoughtconfronted you. But they are answers to another kind of question, which remainsunanswered yet in need of answering until the Answer comes to you at last. Allyour defenses have been aimed at not recieving what you will recieve today. Andin the light of joy of simple trust, you will but wonder why you ever thoughtthat you must be defended from release. Heaven asks nothing. It is hell thatmakes extravagant demands for sacrifice. You give up nothing in these timestoday when, undefended, you present yourself to your Creator as you really are.He has remembered you. Today we will remember Him. For this is Eastertime inyour salvation. And you rise again from what was seeming death and hoplessness.Now is the light of hope reborn in you, for now you come without defense, tolearn the part for you within the plan of God. What little plans or magicalbeliefs can still have value, when you have received your function from theVoice for God Himself? Try not to shape this day as you believe would benefityou most. For you can not conceive of all the happiness that comes to youwithout your planning. Learn today. And all the world will take this giantstride, and celebrate your Eastertime with you. Throughout the day, as foolishlittle things appear to raise defensivness in you and tempt you to engage inweaving plans, remind yourself this is a special day for learning, andacknowledge it with this:

”This is my Eastertime. And I would keep
It holy. I will not defend myself,
Because the Son of God needs no defense
Against the truth of this reality.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 136

”Sickness is a defence against the truth.”

No one can heal unless he understands what purpose sickness seems to serve. For then he understands as well its purpose has no meaning. Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all. When this is seen, healing is automatic. It dispels this meaningless illusion by the same approach that carries all of them to truth, and merely leaves them there to disappear. Sickness is not a accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception. And like the rest, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself. Defenses are not unitentional, nor are they made without awareness. They are secret, magic wands you wave when truth appears to threaten what you would believe. They seem to be unconscious but because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them. Inthe second, even less, in which the choice is made, you recognize exactly what you would attempt to do, and then proceed to think that it is done. Who but yourself evaluate a threat, decides escape is necessary, and sets up a seriesof defenses to reduce the threat that has been judged as real? All this cannot be done unconsciously. But afterwards, your plan requires that you must forget you made it, so it seems to be external to your own intent; a happening beyond your state of mind, an outcome with a real effecct on you, instead of one effectec by yourself. It is this quick forgetting of the part you play inmaking your ”reality” that makes defenses seem to be beyond your own control.But what you have forgot can be remembered, given willingness to reconsider the decision which is doubly shielded by oblivion. Your not remembering is but the sigh that this decision still remains in force, as far as your desires are concerned. Mistake not this for fact. Defenses must make facts unrecognizable.They aim at doing this, and it is this they do. Every defense takes fragments of the whole, assembles them without regard to all their true relationships,and thus constructs illusions of a whole that is not there. It is this process that imposes threat, and not whatever outcome may result. When parts are wrested from the whole and seen as separate and wholes within themselves, they become symbols standing for attack upon the whole; successful in effect, and never to be seen as whole again. And yet you have forgotten that they stand but for your own decision of what should be real, to take the place of what isreal. Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you, quiteunsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice youmake, a plan you lay, when for an instant truth arises in your own deludedmind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are yousick, that truth may go away and threaten your establishments no more. How doyou think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth? Because itproves the body is not separate from you, and so you must be separate from thetruth. You suffer pain because the body does, and in this pain are you made onewith it. Thus is your ”true” identity preserved, and the strange, hauntingthought that you might be something beyond this little pile of dust silence andstilled. For see, this dust can make you suffer, twist your limbs and stop yourheart, commanding you to die and cease to be. Thus is the body stronger thanthe truth, which asks you live, but cannot overcome your choice to die. And sothe body is more powerful than everlasting life, Heaven more frail than hell,and God´s design for the salvation of His Son opposed by a decision strongerthan His Will. His Son is dust, the Father incomplete, and chaos sits in triumphon His throne. Such is your planning for your own defense. And you believe thatHeaven quails before such mad attacks as these, with God made blind by yourillusions, truth turned into lies, and all the universe made slave to lawswhich your defenses would impose on it. Yet who believes illusions but the onewho made them up? Who else can see them and react to them as if they were thetruth? God knows not of your plans to change His Will. The univerese remainsunheeding of the laws by which you thought to govern it. And Heaven has notbowed to hell, nor life to death. You can but choose to think you die, orsuffer sickness or distort the truth in any way. What is created is apart fromall of this. Defenses are plans to defeat what cannot be attacked. What isunalterable cannot change. And what is wholly sinless cannot sin. Such is thesimple truth. It does not make appeal to might nor triumph. It does not commandobedience, nor seek to prove how pitiful and futile your attempt to plandefenses that would alter it. Truth merely wants to give you happiness, forsuch its purpose is. Perhaps it sighs a little when you throw away its gifts,and yet it knows, with perfect certainty, that what God will for you must bereceived. It is this fact that demonstrates that time is an illusion. For timelets you think what God has given you is not the truth right now, as it mustbe. The Thoughts of God are quite apart from time. For time is but anothermeanigless defense you made against the truth. Yet what He wills is here, andyou remain as He created you. Truth has a power far beyond defense, for noillusions can remain where truth has been allowed to enter. And it comes to anymind that would lay down its arms, and cease to play with folly. It is found atany time; today, if you will choose to practice giving welcome to the truth.This is our aim today. And we will give a quarter of an hour twice to ask thetruth to come to us and set us free. And truth will come, for it has never beenapart from us. It merely waits for just this invitation which we give today. Weintroduce it with a healing prayer, to help us rise above defensivness, and lettruth be as it has always been:

”Sickness is a defense against the truth.
I will accept the truth of what I am,
And let my mind be wholly healed today.”

Healing will flash across your open mind, as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings. There will be no dark, corners sickness can conceal, and keep defended from the light of truth. There will be no dim figures from yourdreams, nor their obscure and meaningless pursuits with double purposes insanely sought, remaining in your mind. It will be healed of all the sicklywishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey. Now is the body healed,because the source of sickness has been opened to relief. And you willrecognize you practiced well by this: The body should not feel at all. If youhave been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or feeling well, ofpain or pleasures. No response at all is in the mind to what the body does. Itsusefulness remains and nothing more. Perhaps you do not realize that thisremoves the limits you had placed upon the body by the purpose you gave to it.As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough toserve all truly useful purpose. The body´s health is fullu guaranteed, becauseit is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or anylaws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, forsickness has become impossible. Yet this protection need to be preserved bycareful watching. If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield tojudgment or make plans against uncertaintes to come, you have again misplacedyourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mindis sick. Give instant remedy, should this occur, by not allowing yourdefensivness to hurt you longer. Do not be confused about what must be healed,but tell yourself:

”I have forgotten what I really am,
For I mistook my body for myself.
Sickness is a defense against the truth.
But I am not a body. And my mind
Cannot attack. So I can not besick.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 137

”When I am healed I am not healed alone.”

Today´s idea remains the central thought on which salvation rests. For healing is the opposite of all the world´s ideas which dwell on sickness and on separation states. Sickness is are treat from others, and a shutting off of joining. It becomes a door that closes on a separate self, and keeps it isolated and alone. Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep on self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make the separation real, and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh, which it can not surmount. The world obeys the laws that sickness serves, but healing operates apart from them. It is impossible that anyone be healed alone. In sickness must he be apart and separate. But healing is his own decision to be one again, and to accept his Self with all Its parts intact and unassailed. In sickness does his Self appear to be dismenbered, and without the unity that gives It life. But healing is accomplished as he sees the body has no power to attack the unversal oneness of God´s Son. Sickness would prove that lies must be the truth. But healing demonstrates that truth is true. The separation sickness would impose has never happened. To be healed is merely to accept what always was the simple truth,and always will remain exactly as it has forever been. Yet eyes accustomed to illusions must be shown that what they look upon is false. So healing, never needed by the truth, must demonstrate that sickness is not real. Healing might thus be called a counter-dream, which cancels out the dream of sickness in the name of truth, but not in truth itself. Just a forgiveness overlooks all sins that never were accomplished, healing but removes illusions that have not occured. Just as the real world will arise to take the place of what has never been at all, healing but offers restitution for imagined states and false ideas which dreams embroider into picture of the truth. Yet think not healing is unworthy of your function here. For anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those who dream the world is real. The body seems to be more solid and mores table than the mind. Andlove becomes a dream, while fear remains the one reality that can be seen and justified and fully understood. Just as forgiveness shines away all sin and the real world will occupy the place of what you made, so healing must replace the fantasies of sickness which you hold before the simple truth. When sickness has been seen to disappear in split ofall the laws that hold it cannot but be real, the question have been answered.And the laws can be no longer cherished nor obeyed. Healing is freedom. For it demonstrates that dreams will not preval against the truth. Healing is shared.And by this attribute it proves that laws unlike the ones which hold that sickness is inevitable are more potent than their sickly opposites. Healing is strength. For by its gentle hand is weakness overcome, and minds that were walled off within a body free to join with other minds, to be forever strong.Healing, forgiveness, and the glad exchange of all the world of sorrow for a world where sadness cannot enter, are the means by which the Holy Sprit urgesy ou to follow Him. His gentle lessons teach how easily salvation can be yours;how little practice you need undertake to let His laws replace the ones you made to hold yourself a prisoner to death. His life becomes your own, as you extend the little help He asks in freeing you from everything that ever causedyou pain. And as you let yourself be healed, you see all those around you, orwho cross your mind, or whom you touch or those who seem to have no contactwith you, healed along with you. Perhaps you will not recognize them all, norrealize how great your offering to all the world, when you let healing come toyou. But you are never healed alone. And legions upon legions will receive thegift that you receive when you are healed. Those who are healed become theinstrument of healing. Nor does time elapse between the instant they arehealed, and all the grace of healing it is given them to give. What is opposedto God does not exist, and who accept it not within his mind becomes a havenwhere the weary can remain to rest. For here is truth bestowed, and here areall illusions brought to truth. Would you not offer shelter to God´s Will? Youbut invite your Self to be at home. And can this invitation be refused? Ask theinevitable to occur, and you will never fail. The other choice is but to askwhat cannot be to be, and this can not succeed. Today we ask that only truthwill occupy our minds; that thoughts of healing will this day go forth fromwhat is healed to what must yet be healed, aware that they will both occur asone. We will remember, as the hour strikes, our function is to let our minds behealed, that we may carry healing to the world, exhangeing curse for blessing,pain for joy, and separation for the peace of God. Is not a minute of an hourworth the giving to recieve a gift like this? It is not a little time a smallexpence to offer for the gift of everything? Yet must we be prepared for such agift. And so we will begin the day with this, and give ten minutes to thesethoughts with which we will conclude today at night as well:

”When I am healed I am not healed alone.
And I would share my healing with the world.
That sickness may be banished from the mind
Of God´s one Son, who is my only Self.”

Let healing be through you this very day. And as you rest in quiet, be prepared to give as you recieve, to holdbut what you give, and to receive the World of God to take the place of all the foolish thoughts that ever were imagined. Now we come together to make well allthat was sick, and offer blessing where there was attack. Nor will we let this function be forgot as every hour of the day slips by, remembering our purpose with this thought:

”When I am healed I am not healed alone.
And I would bless my brothers,for I would
Be healed with them, as they are healed with me.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 138

”Heaven is the decision I must make.”

In this world Heaven is a choice, because here we believe there are alternatives to choose between. We think that all things have an opposite, and what we want we choose. If Heaven exists there must be hell as well, for contradiction is the way we make what we preceive, and what we think is real. Creation knows no opposite. But here is opposition part of being ”real.” It is this strange perception of the truththat makes the choice of Heaven seem to be the same as the relinquishment of hell. It is not really thus. Yet what is true in God´s creation cannot enter here until it is reflected in some form the world can undertand. Truth cannot come where it could only be perceived with fear. For this would be the error truth can be brought to illusions. Opposition makes the truth unwelcome, and it cannot come. Choice is the obvious escape from what appears as opposites.Decision lets one of conflicting goals become the aim of effort and expenditure of time. Without decision, time is but a waste and effort dissipated. It is spent for nothing in return, and time goes by without results. There is nosense of gain, for nothing is accomplished; nothing learned. You need to be reminded that you think a thousand choices are confronting you, when there is really only one to make. And even this but seems to be a choice. Do not confuse yourself with all the doubts that myriad decisions would induce. You make but one. And when that one is made, you will perceive it was no choice at all. For truth is true, and nothing else is truel. There is no opposite to choose instead. There is no contradiction to the truth. Choosing depends on learning.And the truth cannot be learned, but only recongized. In recognition its acceptance lies, and as it is accepted it is known. But knowledge is beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework of this course. Ours are teaching goals, to be attained through learning how to reach them, what they are, and what they offer you. Decisions are the outcome of your learning, for they reston what you have accepted as the truth of what you are, and what your needs must be. In this insanely complicated world. Heaven appears to take the form of choice, rather than merely being what it is. Of all the choices you have tried to make this is the simplest, most defintive and prototype of all the rest, the one which settles all decisions. If you could decide the rest, this one remains unsolved. But when you solve this one, the others are resloved with it, for al ldecisions but conceal this one by taking different forms. Here is the final and the only choice in which is truth accepted or denied. So we begin today considering the choice that time was made to help us make. Such is its holy purpose, now transformed from the intent you gave it; that it be a means for demonstrating hell is real, hope changes to despair, and life itself must inthe end be overcome by death. In death alone are opposites resolved, for ending opposition is to die. And thus salvation must be seen as death, for life is seen as conflict. To resolve the conflict is to end your life as well. These mad beliefs can gain unconscious hold of great intensity, and grip the mind with terror and anxiety so strong that it will not relinquish its ideas about its own protection. It must be saved from salvation, threatened to be safe, andmagically armored against truth. And these decisions are made unaware, to keepthem safely undeisturbed; apart from question and from reason and from doubt.Heaven is chosen consciously. The choice cannot be made until alternatives areaccurately seen and understood. All that is veiled in shadows must be raised tounderstanding, to be judged again, this time with Heaven´s help. And allmistakes in judgment that the mind had made before are open to correction, asthe truth dismisses them as causless. Now are they without effects. They cannotbe concealed, because their nothingness is recongnized. The conscious choice ofHeaven is as sure as is the ending of the fear of hell, when it is raised fromits protective shield of unawarness, and is brought to light. Who can decidebetween the clearly seen and the unrecognized? Yet who can fail to make achoice between alternatives when only one is seen as valuable; the other as awholly worthless thing, a but imagined source of guilt and pain? Who hesitates to make a choice like this? And shall we hesitate to choose today? We make a choice for Heaven as we wake, and spend five minutes making sure that we have made the one decision that is sane. We recognize we make a conscious choice between what has existence and what has nothing but an appearance of the truth.Its pseudo-being, brought to what is real, is flimsy and transparent in the light.It holds no terror now, for what was made enormous, vengeful, pitiless with hate, demands obscurity for fear to be invested there. Now it is recognized asbut a foolish, trivial mistake. Before we close our eyes in sleep tonight, we reaffirm the choice that we have made each hour in between. And now we give the last five minutes of our waking day to the decision with which we awoke. As every hour passed, we have declared our choice again, in a brief quiet time devoted to maintaining sanity. And finally, we close the day with this,acknowledging we chose but what we want:

”Heaven is the decision I must make.
I make it now, and will not change my mind,
Because it is the only thing I want.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 139

”I will accept Atonement for myself.”

Here is the end of choice. For here we come to a decision to accept ourselves as God created us. And what is choice except uncertainty of what we are? There is no doubt that is not rooted here. There is no question but reflects this one. There is no conflict that does not entail the single, simple question, ”What am I? Yet who could ask this question except one who has refused to recognize himself? Only refusal to accept yourself could make the question seem to be sincere. The only thing that can be surely known by any living thing is what it is. From this one point of certaintly, it looks on other things as certain as itself. Uncertainty about what you must be is self-deception on a scale so vast, its magnitude can hardly be conceived. To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead. For what is life except to be yourself, and what but you can bealive instead? Who is the doubter? What is it he doubts? Whom does he question?Who can answer him? He merely states that he is not himself, and therefore,being something else, becomes a questioner of what that something is. Yet he could never be alive at all unless he knew the answer. If he asks as if he does not know, it merely shows he does not want to be the thing he is. He has accepted it because he lives; he judged against it and denied its worth, and has decided that he does not know the only certainty by which he lives. Thus he becomes uncertain of his life, for what it is he been denied by him. It is for this denial that you need Atonement. Your denial made no change in what you are. But you have split your mind into what knows and does not know the truth. You are yourself. There is no doubt of this. And yet you doubt it. But you do no task what part of you can really doubt yourself. It cannot really be a part of you that asks this question. For it asks of one who knows the answer. Were it part of you, then certainty would be impossible. Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt yourself, and be unsure of what you really are. This is the debth of madness. Yet it is the universal question of the world. What does this mean except the world is mad? Why share its madness in the sad belief that what is unversal here is true? Nothing the world Believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are. And they will come again until the time. Atonement is accepted, and they learn it is impossible to doubt yourself, and not to be aware of what you are. Only acceptance can be asked of you, for what you are is certain. It is set for ever in the holy Mind of God, and in your own. It is so far beyond all doubt and question that to ask what it must be is all the proof you need to show that you believe the contradiction that you know not what you cannot fail to know. Is this a question, or a statement which denies itself in statement? Let us not allow our holy minds to occupy themselves with senseless musings such as this.We have a mission here. We did not come to reinforce the madness that we only believed in. Let us not forget the goal to gain. What we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be, along with us. Fail not your brothers, or you fail yourself. Look lovingly on them, that they may know that they are part of you, and you of them. This does Atonement teach, and demonstrates the oneness of God´s Son is unassailed by his belief he knows not what he is. Today accept Atonement, not to change reality, but merely to accept the truth about yourself,and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God. It is but this that we are asked to do. It is but this that we will do today. Five minutes in the morning and at night we will devote to dedicate our minds to our assignment for today. We start with this review of what our mission is:

”I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me.”

We have not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when He created us like Him. And in our memory is there call how dear our brothers are to us in truth, how much a part of us in every mind, how faithful they have really been to us, and how our Father´s Love contains them all. In thanks for all creation, in the Name of its Creator and His Oneness with all aspects of creation, we repeat our dedication to our cause today each hour, as we lay aside all thoughts that would distract us from our holy aim. For several minutes let your mind be cleared of all the foolish cobwebs which the world woud weave around the holy Son of God. And learn the fragile nature of the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of yourself apartf rom your awareness, as you say:

”I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 140

”Only salvation can be said to cure.”

”Cure” is a word that cannot be applied to any rememdy the world accepts as beneficial. What the world preceives as therapeutic is but what will make the body ”better.” When it tries to heal the mind, it sees no separation from the body, where it thinks the mind exists. Its forms of healing thus must substitute illusion for illusion. One belief in sickness takes another form, and so the patient now perceives himself as well. He is not healed. He merely had a dream that he was sick, and in the dream he found a magic formula to make him well. Yet he has not awakened from the dream, and so his mind remains exactly as it was before. He has not seen the light that would awaken him and end the dream. What difference does the content of a dream make in reality? One either sleeps or wakens. There is nothing in between. The happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings are different from the dreaming of the world, where one can merely dream he is awake. The dreams forgiveness lets the mind perceive do not induce another from of sleep, so that the dreamer dreams another dream. His hapyy dreams are heralds of the dawn oftruth upon the mind. They lead from sleep to gentle waking, so that dreams are gone. And thus they cure for all eternity. Atonement heals with certainty, andcures all sickness. For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take. Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return. Peace be to you who have been cured in God, and not in idle dreams. For cure must come from holiness, and holiness cannot be found where sin is cherished. God abides in holy temples. He is barred where sin has entered. Yet there is no place where He is not. And therefore sin can have no home in which to hide from His beneficence. There is no place where holiness is not, and nowhere sin and sickness can abide. This is the thought that cures. It does not make distinctions among unrealities. Nor does it seek to heal what is not sick, unmindful where the need for healing is. This is no magic. It is merely an appeal to truth, which cannot fail to heal and heal forever. It is not a thought that judges an illusion by its size, its seeming gravity, or anything that is related to the form it takes. It merely focuses onwhat it is, and knows that no illusion can be real. Let us not try today to seek to cure what cannot suffer sickness. Healing must be sought but where it is, and then applied to what is sick, so that it can be cured. There is no remedy the world provides than can effect a change in anything. The mind that brings illusions to the truth is really changed. There is no change but this.For now can one illusion differ from another but in attributes that have no substance, no reality, no core, and nothing that is truly different? Today we seek to change our minds about the source of sickness, for we seek a cure for all illusions, not another shift among them. We will try today to find the source of healing, which is in our minds because our Father placed it there forus. It is not farther from us than ourselves. It is as near to us as our ownt houghts; so close it is impossible to lose. We need but seek it and it must befound. We will not be misled today by what appears to us as sick. We go beyond appearances today and reach the source of healing, from which nothing i sexempt. We will succeed to the extent to which we realize that there can neverbe a meaningful distinction made between what is untrue and equally untrue.Here there are no degrees, and no beliefs that what does not exist is truer in some forms than others. All of them are false, and can be cured because they are not true. So do we lay aside our amulets, our charms and medicines, our chants and bits of magic in whatever form they take. We will be still and listen for the Voice of healing. Which will cure all ills as one, restoring saneness to the Son of God. No voice but This can cure. Today we hear a single Voice Which speaks to us of truth, where all illusions end, and peace returns to the eternal, quiet home of God. We waken hearing Him, and let Him speak to usfive minutes as the day begins, and end the day by listening again five minutes more before we go to sleep. Our only presentation is to let our interfering thoughts be laid aside, not separately, but all of them as one. They are the same. We have no need to make them different, and thus delay the time when we can hear our Father speak to us. We hear Him now. We come to Him today. With nothing in our hands to which we cling, with lifted hearts and listening minds we pray:

”Only salvation can be said to cure.
Speak to us, Father, that we may be healed.”

And we will feel salvation cover us with soft protection, and with peace so deep that no illusion can disturb our minds, nor offer proof to us that it is real. This will we learn today. And we will sa your prayer for healing hourly, and take a minute as the hour strikes,to hear the answer to our prayer be given us as we attend in silence and inj oy. This is the day when healing comes to us. This is the day when separation ends, and we remember Who we really are.

Love

[IA56]

REVIEW IV

Now we review again, this time aware we are preparing for the secone part of learning how the truth can be applied. Today we will begin to concentrate on readiness for what will follow next. Such is our aim for this review, and for the lessons following. Thus, we review the recent lessons and their central thoughts in such a way as will facilitate the readiness that we would now achieve. There is a central theme that unifies each step in the review we undertake, which can be simply stated in these words:

”My mind holds only what I Think with God.”

That is a fact, and represents the truth of What you are and What your Father is. It is this thought by which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator with Himself. It is this thought that fully guarantees salvation to the Son. For in his mind no thoughts can dwell but those his Father shares. Lack of forgivenessblocks this thought from his awareness. Yet it is forever true. Let us beginour preparation with some understanding of the many forms in which the lack oftrue forgiveness may be carefully concealed. Because they are illusions, theyare not perceived to be but what they are; defences that protect yourunforgining thoughts from being seen and recognized. Their purpose is to show yousomething else, and hold correction off though self-deceptions made to take itsplace. And yet, your mind holds only what you think with God. Yourself-deceptions cannot take the place of truth. No more than can a child who throws a stick into the ocean change the coming and the going of the tides, the warming of the water by the sun, the silver of the moon on it by night. So do we start each practice period in this review with readying our minds to understand the lessons that we read, and see the meaning that they offer us.Begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of your mind to learn what each idea you will review that day can offer you in freedom and in peace. Open your mind, and clear it of all thoughts that would deceive, and let this thought alone engage it fully, and remove the rest:

”My mind hold only what I Think with God.”

Five minutes with this thought will be enough to set the day along the lines which God appointed, and to Place His Mind in charge of all the thoughts you will recive that day. They will not come from you alone, for they will all be shared with Him. And so each one will bring the message of His Love to you, returning messages of yours to Him. So will communion with the Lord of Hosts be yours, as He Himself has willed it be. And as His Own completion joins with Him, so will He join with you who are complete as you unite with Him, and He with you. After your preparation, merely reach each of the two ideas assigned to you to be reviewed that day. Then Close your eyes, and say them slowly to yourself. There is no hurry now, for you are using time for its intended purpose. Let each word shine, with the meaning God has given it, as it was given to you through His Voice. Let each idea which you review that day give you the gift that He has laid in it for you to have of Him. And we will use no format for our practicing but this:
Each hour of the day, bring to your mind the thought with which the day began, and spend a quiet moment with it. The repeat the two ideas you practice for the day unhurriedly, with time enough to see the gifts that they contain for you, and let them be received where they were meant to be. We add no other thoughts, but let these be the messages they are. We need no more than this to give us happiness and rest, and endless quiet, perfect certainty, and all our Father wills that we receive as the inheritance we have of Him. Each day of practicing, as we review, we closeas we began, repeating first the thought that made the day a special time of blessing and of happiness for us; and through our faitfulness restored the world from darkness to the light, from grief to joy, from pain to peace, from sin to holiness. God offers thanks to you who practice thus the keeping of His Word. And as you give your mind to the idea for the day again before you sleep,His gratitude surrounds you in the peace wherein He wills you be forever, and are learning now to claim again as your inheritance.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 141

”My mind holds only what I think with God.”

121) ”Forgiveness is the key to happiness.”

122) ”Forgiveness offers everything I want.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 142

”My mind holds only what I think with God.”

123) ”I thank my Father for His gifts to me.”

124) ”Let me remeber I am one with God.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 143

”My mind holds only what I think with God.”

125) ”In quiet I receive God´s Word today.”

126) ”All that I give is given to myself.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 144

”My mind holds only what I think with God.”

127) ”There is no love but God´s.”

128 ”The world I see holds nothing that I want.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 145

”My mind holds only what I think with God.”

129) ”Beyond this world there is a world I want.”

130) ”It is impossible to see two worlds.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 146

”My mind holds only what I think with God.”

131) ”No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.”

132) ”I loose the world from all I thought it was.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 147

”My mind holds only what I think with God.”

133) ”I will not value what is valueless.”

134) ”Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 148

”My mind holds only what I Think with God.”

135) ”If I defend myself I am attacked.”

136) ”Sickness is a defence against the truth.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 149

”My mind holds only what I think with God.”

137) ”When I am healed I am not healed alone.”

138 ” Heaven is the decision I must make.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 150

”My mind holds only what I think with God.”

139) ”I will accept Atonement for myself.”

140) ”Only salvation can be said to cure.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 151

”All things are echoes of the Voice for God.”

No one can judge on partial evidence. That is not judgment. It is merely an opinion based on ignorance and doubt. Its seeming certainly is but a cloak for the uncertainty it would conceal. It needs irrational defense because it is irrational. And its defense seems strong, convincing, and without a doubt because of all the doubting underneath. You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body´s eyes. Nor do you ask why you believe it, even though you learned a long while since your senses do deceive.That you believe them to the last detail which they report is even stranger,when you pause to recollect how frequently they have been faulty witnesses indedd! Why would you trust them so implicitly? Why but because of underlying doubt, which you would hide with show of certainty? How can you judge? Yourjudgment rests upon the witness that your senses offer you. Yet witness never falser was than this. But how else do you judge the world you see? You Place pathetic faith in what your eyes and ears report. You think your fingers touch reality, and close upon the truth. This is awareness that you understand, and think more real than what is witnessed to by the eternal Voice for God Himself.Can this be judgment? You have often been urged to refrain from judging, not because it is a right to be withheld from you. You cannot judge. You merely can believe the ego´s judgments, all of which are false. It guides your senses carefully, to prove how weak you are; how helpless and afraid, how apprehensive of just punishment, how black with sin, how wretched in your guilt. This thing it speaks of, and would yet defend, it tells you is yourself. And you Believe that this is so with stubborn certainty. Yet underneath remains the hidden doubt that what it shows you as reality with such conviction it does not believe. It is itself alone that it condemns. It is within itself it sees the guilt. It is its own despair it sees in you. Hear not its voice. The witnesses it sends to prove to you its evil is your own are false, and speak with certainty of what they do not know. Your faith in them is blind because you would not share the doubts their lord can not completely vanquish. You Believe to doubt his vassals is to doubt yourself. Yet you must learn to doubt their evidence will clear the way to recognize yourself, and let the Voice for God alone be Judge of what it worthy of your own belief. He will not tell you that your brother should be judged by what your eyes behold in him, nor what his body´s mouth says to your ears, nor what your fingers touch reports of him. He passes by such idle witnesses, which merely bear false witness to God´s Son. He recognize only what God loves, and in the holy light of what He sees do all the ego´s dreams of what you are vanish before the splendor He beholds. Let him be Judge of what you are, for He has certainty in which there is no doubt, because it rests on Certainty so great that doubt is meaningless before Its face.Christ cannot doubt Himself. The Voice for God can only honor Him, rejoicing in His perfect, everlasting sinlessness. Whom He has judged can only laugh at guilt, unwilling now to play with toys of sin; unheeding of the body´s witnesses before the rapture of Christ´s holy face. And thus He judges you. Accept His word for what you are, for He bears witness to your Beautiful creation, and the Mind Whose Thougth created your reality. What can the body mean to Him Who knows the glory of the Father and the Son? What whispers of the ego can He hear? What could convince Him that your sins are real? Let him be Judge as well of everything that seems to happen to you in this world. His lessons will enable you to bridge the gap between illusions and the truth. He will remove all faith that you have placed in pain, disaster, suffering and loss. He gives you vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle face of Christ in all of them. You will no longer doubt that only good can come to you who are beloved of God, for He will judge all happenings, and teach the single lesson that they all contain. He will select the elements in them which represent the truth, and disregard those aspects which reflects but idle dreams. And He will reinterpret all you see, and all occurrences, each circumstance, and every happening that seems to touch on you in any way from His one frame of reference, wholly unified and sure. And you will see the love beyond the hate, the contrancy in change, the pure in sin,and only Heaven´s blessing on the world. Such is your resurrection, for your life is not a part of anything you see. It stands beyond the body and the world, past every witness for unholiness, within the Holy, holy as Itself. In everyone and everything His Voice would speak to you of nothing but your Self and your Creator, Who is one with Him. So will you see the holy face of Christin everything, and hear in everything no sound except the echo of God´s Voice.We practice wordlessly today, except at the beginning of the time we spend with God. We introduce these times with but a single, slow repeating of the thought with which the day begins. And then we watch our thoughts, appealing silently to Him Who sees the elements of truth in them. Let Him evaluate each thought that comes to mind, remove the elements of dreams, and givet hem back again inclear ideas that do not contradict the Will of God. Giv Him your thoughts, and He will give them back as miracles which joyously proclaim the wholeness and the happiness God wills His Son, as proof of His eternal Love. And as each thought is thus transformed, it takes on healing power from the Mind Which saw the truth in it, and failed to be deceived by what was falsely added. All threads of fantasy are gone. And what remains is unified into a perfect Thought that offers its perfection everywhere. Spend fifteen minutes thus when you awake,and gladly give another fifteen minutes thus when you awake, and gladly give another fifteen more before you go to sleep. Your mininstry begins as all your thoughts are purified. So are you taught to teach the Son of God the holy lesson of his sanctity. No one can fail to listen, when you hear the Voice of God give honor to God´s Son. And everyone will share the thoughts with you which He has retranslated in your mind. Such is your Eastertide. And so you lay the gift of snow-white lilies on the world, replacing witnesses to sin and death. Through your transfiguration is the world redeemed, and joyfully released from guilt. Now we do lift our resurrected minds in gladness and in gratitude to Him Who has restored our sanity to us. And we will hourly remember Him Who is salvation and deliverance. As we give thanks, the world unites with us and happily accepts our holy thoughts, which Heaven has corrected and made pure. Now has our ministry begun at last, to carry round the world the joyous news that truth has no illusions, and the peace of God, through us, belongs to everyone.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 152

”The power of decision is my own.”

No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state of him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but tre presents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is. You may believe that this position is extreme, and too inclusive to be true. Yet can truth have exceptions? If you have the gift of everything, can loss be real? Can pain be part of peace, or grief of joy? Can fear and sickness enter in a mind where love and perfect holiness abide? Truth must be all-inclusive, for to do so is to contradict the truth entirely.Salvation is the recognition that the truth is true, and nothing else is true.This you have heard before, but may not yet accept both parts of it. Without the first, the second has no meaning. But without the second, is the first no longer true. Truth cannot have an opposite. This can not be too often said and thought about. For if what is not true is true as well as what is true, then part of truth is false. And truth has lost its meaning. Nothing but the truth is true, and what is false is false. This is the simplest of distractions, yet the most obscure. But not because it is a difficult distinction to perceive. It is concealed behind a vast array of choices that do not appear to be entirely your own. And thus the truth appears to have some aspects that belie consistency, but do not seem to be but contradictions introduced by you. As God created you, you must remain unchangeable, with transitory states by definition false. And that includes all shifts in feeling, alternations in conditions of the body and the mind; in all awareness and in all response. This is the all-inclusivness which sets the truth apart from falsehood, and the false kept separate from the truth, as what it is. Is it not strange that you believe to think you made the world you see is arrogance? God made it not. Of this you can be sure. What can He know of the ephemeral, the sinful and the guilty, the afraid, the suffering and the lonely, and the mind that lives within a body that must die? You but accuse Him of insanity, to think He made a world where such things seem to have reality. He is not mad. Yet only madness makes a world like this. To think that God made chaos, contradicts His Will, invented opposites to truth, and suffers death to triumph over life; all this is arrogance. Humility would see at once these things are not of Him. And can you see what God created not? To think you can is merely to believe you can perceive what God willed not to be. And what could be more arrogant than this? Let us today be truly humble, and accept what we have made as what it is. The Power of decision is our own. Decide but to accept your rightful place as co-creator of the universe, and all you think you made will disappear. What rises to awareness then will be all that there ever was, eternally as it is now. And it will take the place of self-deceptions made but to usurp the altar to the Father and the Son. Today we practice true humility, abandoning the false pretense by which the ego seeks to prove it arrogant. Only the ego can be arrogant. But truth is humble in acknowledging its mightiness, its changelessness and its eternal wholeness, all-encompassin, God´s perfect gift to His beloved Son. We lay aside the arrogance which says that we are sinners,guilty and afraid, ashamed of what we are; and lift our hearts in true humility instead to Him Who has created us immaculate, like to Himself in power and in love. The power of decision is our own. And we accept of Him that which we are,and humbly recognize the Son of God. To recoginze God´s Son implies as well that all self concepts have been laid aside, and recognized as false. Their arrogance has been perceived. And in humility the radiance of God´s Son, his gentleness, his perfect sinlessness, his Father´s Love, his right to Heaven and release from hell, are joyously accepted as our own. Now do we join in glad acknowledgment that lies are false, and only truth is true. We think of truth alone as we arise, and spend five minutes practicing its ways, encouraging our frightened minds with this:

”The power of decision is my own.
This day I will accept myself as what
My Father´s Will created me to be.”

Then will we wait n silence,giving up all self-deceptions, as we humbly ask our Self that He reveal Himself to us. And He Who never left will come again to our awareness, grateful to restore His home to God, as it was meant to be. In patience wait for Him throughout the day, and hourly invite Him with the words with which the day began, concluding it with this same invitation to your Self. God´s Voice willa nswer, for He speaks for you and for your Father. He will substitute the Peace of God for all your frantic thoughts, the truth of God for self-decpetions, and God´s Son for your illusions of yourself.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 153

”In my defenselessness my safety lies.”

You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the ”gifts” it merely lends to take away again; attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its ”gifts” of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks, and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus. The world gives rise but to defensivneness. For threat brings anger, anger makes attack seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense. Yet is defensivneness a doubt threat. For it attests to weakness,and sets up a system of defense that cannot work. Now are the weak still further undermined, for there is treachery without and still a greater treachery within. The mind is now confused, and knows not where to turn to find escape from its imaginings. It is as if a circle held it fast, wherein Another circle bound it and another one in that, until escape no longer can be hoped for nor obtained. Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circles of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again. There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of the imprisonment upon the mind. Defenses are the costliest of all the prices which the ego would exact. In them lies madness in a form so grim that hope of sanity seems but to be an idle dream, beyond the possible. The sense of threat the world encourages is so much deeper, and so far beyond the frenzy and intensity of which you can conceive, that you have no ideas of all the devestation it has wrought. You are its slave. You know not what you do, in fear of it. You do not understand how much you have been made to sacrifice, who feel its iron grip upon your heart. You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your defensiveness. For you behold the Son of God as but a victim to attack by fantasies, by dreams, and by illusions he has made; yet helpless in their presence, needful only of defense by still more fantasies, the dreams by which illusions of his safety comfort him. Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Perhaps you will recall the text maintains that choice is always made between Christ´s strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him.Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes strength so great attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play, when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants. Defensivness is weakness. It proclaims you have denied the Christ and come to fear His Father´s anger. What can save you now from your delusion of an agry god, whose fearful image you believe you see at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions could defend you now,when it is but illusions that you fight? We will not play such childish games today. For our true purpose is to save the world, and we would not exchange for foolishness the endless jo your function offers us. We would not let our happiness slip by because a fragment of a senseless dream happened to cross our minds,and we mistook the figures in it for the Son of God; its tiny instant for eternity. We look past dreams today, and recognize that we need no defense because we are created unassailabel, without all thought or wish or dream in which attack has any meaning. Now we cannot fear, for we have left all fearful thoughts behind. And in defenselessness we stand secure, serenly certain of oursafety now, sure of salvation; sure we will fullfill our chosen purpose, as our ministry extends its holy blessing through the world. Be stilla moment, and in silence think how holy is your purpose, how secure you rest, untouchable with in its light. God´s ministers have chosen that the truth be with them. Who is holier than they? Who coude be surer that his happiness is fully guaranteed?And who could be more mightily protected? What defense could possibly be needed by the ones who are among the chosen ones of God, by His election and their own as well? It is the function of God´s ministers to help their brothers choose as they have done. God has elected all, but few have come to realize His Will is but their own. And while you fail to teach what you have learned, salvation waits and darkness holds the world in grim imprisonment. Nor will you learn that light has come to you, and your escape has been accomplished. For you will not see the light, until you offer it to all your brothers. As they take it from your hands, so will you recognize it as your own. Salvation can be thought of as a game that happy children play. It was designed by One Who loves His Children, and Who would replace ther fearful toys with joyous games, which teach them that the game of fear is gone. His game instructs in happiness because there is no loser. Everyone who plays must win, and in his winning isthe gain to everyone ensured. The game of fear is gladly laid aside, when children come to see the benefits salvation brings. You who have played that you are lost to hope, abandoned by your Father, left alone in terror in a fearful world made mad by sin and guilt; be happy now. That game is over. Now a quiet time has come, in which we put away the toys of guilt, and lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of Heaven´s children and the Son of God. We pause but for a moment more, to play our final,happy game upon this earth. And then we go to take our rightful place where truth abides and games are meaningless. So is the story ended. Let this day bring the last chapter closer to the world, that everyone may learn the tale here ads of terrifying destiny, defeat of all his hopes, his pitiful defensse against a vengeance he can not escape, is but his own deluded fantasy. God´s ministers have come to waken him from the dark dreams this story has evoked in his confused, bewildered memory of this distorted tale. God´s Son can smile at last, on learning that it is not true. Today we practice in a form we will maintain for quite a while. We will begin each day by giving our attention to the daily thought as long as possible. Five minutes now becomes at least we give to preparation for a day in which salvation is the only goal we have. Ten would be better; fifteen better still. And as distraction ceases to arise to turnu s from our purpose, we will find that half an hour is too short a time to spend with God. Nor will we willingly give less at night, in gratitude and joy.Each hour adds to our incresing peace, as we remember to be faithful to the Will we share with God. At times, perhaps, a minute, even less, will be the most that we can offer as the hour strikes. Sometimes we will forget. At other times the business of the world will close on us, and we will be unable to withdraw a little while, and turn our thoughts to God. Yet when we can, we will observe our trust as ministers of God, in hourly remembrance of our mission and His Love. And we will quietly sit by and wait on Him and listen to His Voice,and learn what He would have us do the hour that is yet to come; while thanking Him for all the gifts He gave us in the one gone by. In time, with practice,you will never cease to think of Him, and hear His loving Voice guiding your footsteps into quiet ways, where you will walk in true defenselessness. For you will know what Heaven goes with you. Nor would you keep your mind away from Him a moment, even though your time is spent in offering salvation to the world.Think you He will not make this possible, for you who chose to carry out His plan for the salvation of the world and yours? Today our theme is our defenselessness. We clothe ourselves in it, as we prepare to meet the day. We rise up strong in Christ, and le tour weakness disappear, as we remember that His strength abides in us. We will remind ourselves that He remains beside us through the day, and never leaves our weakness unsupported by His strength. We call upon His strength each time we feel the threat of our defenses undermine our certainty of purpose. We will pause a moment, as He tells us, ”I am here.”Your practicing will now begin to take the earnestness of love, to help you keep your mind from wandering from its intent. Be not afraid nor timid. There can be no doubt that you will reach your final goal. The ministers of God can never fail, because the love and strength and peace that shines from them to all their brothers come from Him. These are His gifts to you. Defenselessness is all you need to give Him in return. You lay aside but what was never real, to look on Christ and see His sinlessness.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 154

”I am among the ministers of God.”

Let us today be neither arrogant nor falsely humble. We have gone beyond such foolishness. We cannot judge ourselves, nor need we do so. These are but attempts to hold decision off, and to delay commitment to our function.It is not our part to judge our worth, nor can we know what role is best for us; what we can do within a larger plan we cannot see in its entirety. Our part is cast in Heaven, not in hell. And what we think is weakness can be strength; what we believe to our strength is often arrogance. Whatever your appointed role may be, it was selected by the Voice for God, Whose function is to speak for you as well. Seeing your strengths exactly as they are, and equally aware of where they can be best applied, for what, to whom and when. He chooses and accepts your part for you. He does not work without your own concent. But He is not deceived in what you are, and listens only to His Voice in you. It is through His ablility to hear one Voice Which is His Own that you become aware at last there is one Voice in you. And that one Voice appoints your function, and relays it to you, giving you the strength to understand it, do what it entails, and to succeed in everything you do that is related to it. God has joined His Son in this, and thus His Son becomes His messenger of unity with Him. It is this joining, through the Voice of God, of Father and of Son, that sets apart salvation from the world. It ist his Voice Which speaks of laws the world does not obey; Which promises salvation from all sin, with guilt abolished in the mind that God created sinless. Now this mind becomes aware again of Who created it, and of His lasting union with itself. So is its Self the one reality in Which its will and that of God are joined. A messenger is not the one who writes the message he delivers. Nor does he question the right of him who does, nor ask why he has chosen those who will receive the message that he brings. It is enough that he accept it, give it to the ones for whom it is intended, and fulfill his role in its delivery. If he determines what the messages should be, or what their purposes is, or where they should be carried, he is failing to perform his proper part as bringer of the Word. There is one major difference in the role of Heaven´s messengers, which sets them off from those the world appoints. The messages that they deliver are intended first form them. And it is only as they can accept them for them selves that they become able to bring them further, and to givet hem everywhere that they were meant to be. Like earthly messengers,they did not write the messages they bear, but they become their first receivers in the truest sense, receiving to prepare them selves to give. An earthly messenger fulfills his role by giving all his messages away. The Messengers of God perform their part by their acceptance of His messages as for themselves, and show they understand the message by giving them away. They choose no roles that are not given them by His authority. And so they gain by every message that they give away. Would you receive the messages of God? For thus do you become His messengers. You are appointed now. And yet you wait to give the messages you have received. And so you do not know that they are yours, and do not recognize them. No one can receive and understand he has recived until he gives. For in the giving in his own acceptance of what he recived. You who are now the messengers of God, receive His messages. For that is part of your appointed role. God has not failed to offer what you need, nor has it been left unaccepted. Yet another part of your appointed task is yet to be accomplished. He Who has received for you the messages of God would have them be recived by you as well. For thus do you identify with Him and claim your own. It is this joining that we undertake to recognize today. We will not seek to keep our minds apart from Him Who speaks for us, for it is but our voice we hear as we attend Him. He alone can speak to us and for us, joining in one Voice the getting and the giving of God´s Word; the giving and receiving of His Will. We practice giving Him what He would have, that we may recognize His gifts to us. He needs our voice that He may speak through us. He needs our hands to hold His messages, and carry them to those whom He appoints. He needs our feet to bring us where He wills, that those who wait in misery may be at last delivered. And He needs our will united with His Own, that we may be the true receivers of the gifts He gives. Let us but learn this lesson for today:We will not recognize what we recive until we give it. You have heard this said a hundred ways, a hundred times, and yet belief is lacking still. But this issure; until belief is given it, you will receive a thousand miracles and then receive a thousand more, but will not know that God Himself has left no gift beyond what you already have; nor has denied the tiniest of blessings to His Son. What can this mean to you, until you have identified with him and with his own? Our lesson for today is stated thus:

”I am among the ministers of God,
And I am greatful that I have the means
By which to recognize that I am free.”

The world recedes as we light upour minds, and realize these holy words are true. They are the message sent to us today from our Creator. Now we demonstrate how they have changed our minds about ourselves, and what our function is. For as we prove that we accept no will we do not share, our many gifts from our Creator will spring to our sight and leap into our hands, and we will recongize what we receved.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 155

”I will step back and let Him lead the way.”

There is a way of living in the world that is not here, although it seems to be. You do not change appeareance,though you smile more frequently. Your forehead is serene; your eyes a quiet. And the ones who walk the world as you do recognize their own. Yet those who have not yet perceived the way will recognize you also, and believe that you are like them, as you were before. The world is an illusion. Those who choose to come to it are seeking for a place where they can be illusions, and avoid their own reality. Yet when they find their own reality is even here, then they step back and let it lead the way. What other choice is really theirs to make?To let illusions walk ahead of truth is madness. But to let illusion sink behind the truth and let the truth stand forth as what it is, is merely sanity.This is the simple choice we make today. The mad illusion will remain awhile in evidence, for those to look upon who chose to come, and have not yet rejoiced to find they were mistaken in their choice. They cannot learn directly from the truth, because they have denied that it is so. And so they need a Teacher Who perceives their madness, but Who still can look beyond illusion to the simple truth in them. If truth demanded they give up the world, it would appear to them as if it asked the sacrifice of something that is real. Many have chosen to renounce the world while still believing its reality. And they have suffered from a sense of loss, and have not been released accordingly. Others havec hosen nothing but the world, and they have suffered from a sense of loss still deeper, which they did not understand. Between these paths there is another road that leads away from loss of every kind, for sacrifice and deprivation both are quickly left behind. This is the way appointed for you now. You walk this path as others walk, nor do you seem to be distinct from them, although you are indeed. Thus can you serve them while you serve yourself, and set their footsteps on the way that God has opened up to you, and them through you.Illusion still appears to cling to you, that you may reach them. Yet it has stepped back. And it is not illusion that they hear you speak of, nor illusion that you bring their eyes to look on and their minds to grasp. Nor can the truth, which walks ahead of you, speak to them through illusions, for the road leads past illusion now, while on the way you call to them, that they may follow you. All roads will lead to this on in the end. For sacrifice and deprivation are paths that lead nowhere, choices for defeat, and aims that will remain impossible. All this steps back as truth comes forth in you, to leadyour brothers from the ways of death, and set them on the way to happiness.Their suffering is but illusion. Yet they need a guide to lead them out of it,for they mistake illusion for the truth. Such is salvation´s call, and nothing more. It asks that you accept the truth, and let it go before you, lighting up the path of ransom from illusion. It is not a ransom with a price. There is no cost, but only gain. Illusion can but seem to hold in chains the holy Son of God. It is but from illusions he is saved. As they step back, he finds him self again. Walk safely now, yet carefully, because this path is new to you. And you may find that you are tempted still to walk ahead of truth, and let illusions be your guide. Your holy brothers have been given you, to follow in your footsteps as you walk with certainty of purpose to the truth. It goes Before you now, that they may see something with which they can identify; something they understand to lead the way. Yet at the journey´s ending here will be no gap, no distance between truth and you. And all illusions walking in the way you travelled will be gone from you as well, with nothing left to keep the truth apart from God´s completion, holy as Himself. Step back in faith and let truth lead the way. You know not where you go. But One Who knows goes with you.Let Him lead you with the rest. When dreams are over, time has closed the door on all the things that pass and miracles are purposeless, the holy Son of God will make no journeys. There will be no wish to be illusion rather than the truth. And we step forth toward this, as we progress along the way that truth points out to us. This is our final journey, which we make for everyone. We must not lose our way. For as truth goes before us, so it goes before our brothers who will follow us. We walk to God. Pause and reflect on this. Could any way be holier, or make deserving of your effort, of your love and of your full intent? What way could give you more than everything, or offer less and still content the holy Son of God? We walk to God. The truth that walks before us now is one with Him, and leads us to where He has always been. What way but this could be a path that you would choose instead? Your feet are safely set upon the road that leads the world to God. Look not to ways that seem to lead you elsewhere. Dreams are not a worthly guide for you who are God´s Son. Forget not He has placed His hand in yours, and given you your brother in His Trust has made your pathway certain and your goal secure. You will not fail your Brothers nor your Self. And now He asks but that you think of Him a while each day, that He may speak to you and tell you of His Love, reminding you how great His Trust;how limitless His Love. In your name and His Own, which are the same, we practice gladly with this thought today:

”I will step back and let Him lead the way.
For I would walk alone the road to Him.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 156

”I walk with God in perfect holiness.”

Today´s idea but states the simple truth that makes the thought of sin impossible. It promises there is no cause for guilt, and being causeless it does not exist. It follows surely from the basic thought so often mentioned in the text; ideas leave not their source.If this be true, how can you be apart from God? How could you walk the world alone and separate from your Source? We are not inconsistent in the thoughtst hat we prsent in our curriculum. Truth must be true througout, if it be true.It cannot contradict itself, nor be in parts uncertain and in other sure. You cannot walk the world apart from God, because you could not be without Him. He is what your life is. Where you are He is. There is one life. That life you share with Him. Nothing can be apart from Him and live. Yet where He is, there must be holiness as well as life. No attribute of His remains unshared by everything that lives. What lives is holy as Himself, because what shares His life is part of Holiness, and could no more be sinful that the sun could choose to be of ice; the sea elect to be apart from water, or the grass to grow with roots suspended in the air. There is a light in you which cannot die; whose presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you. All things that live bring gift to you, and offer them in gratitude and gladness at your feet. The scent of flowers is their gift to you. The waves bow down before you,and the trees extend their arms to shield you from the heat, and lay their leaves before you on the ground that you may walk in softness, while the wind sinks to a whisper round you holy head. The light in you is what the universe longs to behold. All living things are still before you, for they recognize Who walks with you. The light you carry is their own. And thus they see see in you their holiness, saluting you as savior and as God. Accept their reverence, for it is due to Holiness Itself, Which walks with you, transforming in Its gentle Light all things unto Its likeness and Its purity. This is the way salvation works. As you step back, the light in you steps forward and encompasses the world. It heralds not the end of sin in punishment and death. In lightness and in laughter is sin gone, because its quaint absurdity is seen. It is a foolish thought, a silly dream, not frightening, ridiculous perhaps, but who would waste an instant in approach to God Himself for such a senseless whim? Yet you have wasted many, many years on just this foolish thought. The past is gone,with all its fantasies. They keep you bound no longer. The approach to God is near. And in the little interval of doubt that still remains, you may perhapsl ose sight of your Companion, and mistake Him for the senseless, ancient Dream that now is past. ”Who walks with me?” This question should be asked a thousand time a day, till certainty has ended doubting and established peace. Today let doubting cease. God speaks for you in answering your question with these words:

”I walk with God in perfect holiness.
I light the world, I light my mind and all
The minds which God created one with me.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 157

”Into His Presence would I enter now.”

This is a day of silence and of trust. It is a special time of promise in your calender of days. It is a time Heaven has set apart to shine upon, and cast a timeless light upon this day,when echoes of eternity are heard. This day is holy, for it ushers in a new experience; a different kind of feeling and awareness. You have spend long Days and nights in celebrating death. Today you learn to feel the joy of life. This is another crucial turning point in the curriculum. We add a new dimension now;a fresh experience that sheds a light on all that we have learned already, and prepares us for what we have yet to learn. It brings us to the door wherel earning ceases, and we catch a glimpse of what lies past the highes reaches it can possibly attain. It leaves us here an instant, and we go beyond it, sure of our direction and our only goal. Today it will be given you to feel a touch of Heaven, though you will return to paths of learning. Yet you have come far enough along the way to alter time sufficiently to rise above its laws, and walk into eternity a while. This you will learn to do increasingly, as every lesson,faithfully rehearsed, brings you more swiftly to this holy place and leaves you, for a moment, to your Self. He will direct your practincing today, for what you ask for now is what He wills. And having joined your will with His this day, what you are asking must be given you. Nothing is needed but today´s idea to light your mind, and let it rest in still anticipation and in quiet joy,wherein you quickly leave the world behind. From this day forth, your ministry takes on a genuine devotion, and a glow that travels from your fingertips to those you touch, and blesses those you look upon. A vision reaches everyone you meet,and everyone you think of, or who thinks of you. For your experience today will so transform your mind that it becomes the touchstone for the holy Thoughts of God. Your body will be sanctified today, its only purpose being now to bring the vision of what you experience this day to light the world. We cannot give experience like this directly. Yet it leaves a vision in our eyes which we can offer everyone, that he may come the sooner to the same experience in which the world is quietly forgot, and Heaven is remembered for a while. As this experience increases and all goals but this become of little worth, this world to which you will return becomes a little closer to the end of time; a Little more like Heaven in its ways; a little nearer its deliverance. And you who bring it light will come to see the light more sure; the vision more distinct. The time will come when you will not return in the same form in which you now appear, for you will have no need of it. Yet now it has a purpose, and will serve it well. Today we will embark upon a course you have not dreamed of. But the Holy One, the Giver of the happy dreams of life. Translator of perception into truth, the holy Guide to Heaven given you, has dreamed for you this journey which you make and start today, with the experience this day holds out to you to be your own. Into Christ´s Presence will we enter now, serenely unaware of everything except His shining face and perfect Love. The vision of His face will stay with you, but there will be an instant which transcends all vision, even this, the holiest. This you will never teach, for you attained it not through learning. Yet the vision speaks of your rememberance of what you knew that instant, and will surely know again.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 158

”Today I learn to give as I receive.”

What has been given you? The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because you were created out of Love. Nor have you left your Source,remaining as you were created. This was given you as knowledge which you cannot lose. It was given as well to every living thing, for by that knowledge only does it live. You have received all this. No one who walks the world but has received it. It is not this knowledge which you give, for that is what creation gave. All this cannot be learned. What, then, are you to learn to give today?Our lesson yesterday evoked a theme found early in the text. Experience cannot be shared directly, in the way that vision can. The revelation that the Father and the Son are one will come in time to every mind. Yet is that time determined by mind itself, not taught. The time is set already. It appears to be quite arbitrary. Yet there is no step along the road that anyone takes but by chance. It has already been taken by him, although he has not yet embarked on it. For time but seems to go in one direction. We but undertake a journey that is over. Yet it seems to have a future stil unknown to us. Time is a trick, a leight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic.Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. The script is written. When experience will come to end your doubting has been set. For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it,imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by. A teacher does not give experience, because he did not learn it. It revealed itself to him at its appointed time. But vision is his gift. This he can give directly,for Christ´s knowledge is not lost, because He has a vision He can give to anyone who asks. The Father´s Will and His are joined in knowledge. Yet there is a vision which the Holy Sprit sees because the mind of Christ beholds itt oo. Here is the joining of the world of doubt and shadows make with the intangible. Here is a quiet place within the world made holy by forgiveness and by love. Here are all contradictions reconciled, for here the journey ends. Experience – unlearned, untaught, unseen – is merely there. This is beyond our goal, for it transcends what needs to be accomplished. Our concern is with Christ´s vision. This we can attain. Christ´s vison has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees.This can be taught; and must be taught by all who would achieve it. It requires but the recognition that the world can not give anything that faintly can compare with this in value; nor set up a goal that does not merely disappear when this has been perceived. And this you give today: See no one as a body.Greet him as the Son of God he is, acknowledging that he is one with you inholiness. Thus are his sins forgiven him, for Christ has vision that has Power to overlook them all. In His forgiveness are they gone. Unseen by One they merely disappear, because a vision of the holiness that lies beyond them comes to take their place. It matters not what form they took, nor how enormous the appeared to be, nor who seemed to be hurt by them. They are no more. And all effects they seemed to have are gone with them, undone and never to be done.Thus do you learn to give as you recieve. And thus Christ´s vision looks on you as well. This lesson is not difficult to learn, if you remember in your brother you but see yourself. If he be lost in sin, so must you be; if you see light in him, your sin shave been forgiven by yourself. Eack brother whom you meet today provides another chance to let Christ´s vision shine on you, and offer you the peace of God. It matters not when revelation comes, for that is not of time.Yet time has still one gift to give, in which true knowledge is reflected in away so accurate its image shares its unseen holiness; its likeness shines with its immortal love. We practice seeing with the eyes of Christ today. And by the holy gifts we give, Christ´s vision looks upon ourselves as well.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 159

”I give the miracles I have received.”

No one can give what he has not received. To give a thing requires first you have it in your own possession.Here the laws of Heaven and the world agree. But here they also separate. The world believes that to possess a thing, it must be kept. Salvation teaches otherwise. To give is how to recognize you have recieved. It is the proof that what you have is yours. You understand that you are healed when you give healing. You accept forgiveness as accomplished in yourself when you forgive. You recognize your brother as yourself, and thus do you perceive that you are whole. There is no miracles you cannot give, for all are given you. Receivet hem now by opening the store house of your mind where they are laid, and giving them away. Christ´s vision is a miracle. It comes from far beyond itself, for it reflects Eternal Love and the rebirth of love which never dies, but has been kept obscure. Christ´s vision pictures Heaven, for it sees a world so like to Heaven that what God created perfect can be mirrored there. The darkened glass the world presents can show but twisted images in broken parts. The real world pictures Heaven´s innocence. Christ´s vision is the miracles in which all miracles are born. It is their source, remaining with each miracle you give,and yet remaining yours. It is the bond by which the giver and receiver areunited in extention here on earth, as they are one in Heaven. Christ beholds no sin in anyone. And in His sight the sinless are as one. Their holiness was given by His Father and Himself. Christ´s vision is the bridge between the worlds. And in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there; transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them. Holiness has been restored to vision, and the blind can see. This is the Holy Sprit´s single gift; the treasure house to which you can appeal with perfect certainty for all the things that can contribute to your happiness. All are laid here already. All can be received but for the asking. Here the door is never locked, and no one is denied his least requestor his most urgent need. There is no sickness not already healed, no lack unsatisfied, no need unmet within this golden treasure of Christ. Here does the world remember what was lost when it was made. For here it is repaired, made new again, but in a different light. What was to be the home of sin becomes the center of redemtion and the hearth of mercy, where the suffering are healed and welcome. No one will be turned away from this new home, where his salvation waits. No one is stranger to him. No one asks for anything of him exept the gift of his acceptance of his welcoming. Christ´s vision is the holy ground in which the lilies of forgiveness set their roots. This is their home. They can be brought from here back to the world, but they can never grow in its unnorishing and shallow soil. They need the light and warmth and kindly care Christ´s charity provides. They need the love with which He looks on them. And they become His messengers, who give as they received. Take from His storehouse, that its treasures may increase. His lilies do not leave their home when they are carried back into the world. Their roots remain. They do not leave their source, but carry its beneficence with them, and turn the world into a garden like the one they came from, and to which they go again with added fragrance. Now are they twice blessed. The messages they brought from Christ have been delivered, and returned to them. And they return them gladly unto Him. Behold the store of miracles set out for you to give. Are you not worth the gift, when God appointed it be given you? Judge not God´s Son, but follow in the way He has established. Christ has dreamed the dream of a forgiven world. It is His gift, wherby a sweet transition can be made from death to life; from hopelessness to hope. Let us an instant dream with Him. His dream awakens us to truth. His vision gives the means for a return to our unlost and everlasting sanctity in God.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 160

”I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.”

Fear is a stranger to the ways of love. Identify with fear, and you will be a stranger to yourself. And thus you are unknown to you. What is your Self remains an alien to the part of you which thinks that it is real, but different from yourself. Who could be sane in such a cricumstance? Who but a madman could believe he is what he is not, and judge against himself? There is a stranger in our mindst, who comes from an idea so foreign to the truth he speaks a different language, looks upon a world truth does not know, and understands what truth regards as senseless. Stranger yet, he does not recognize to whom he comes, and yet maintains his home belongs to him, while he is alien now who is at home. And yet, how easy it would be to say. ”This is my home. Here I belong, and will not leave because a madman says I must.” What reason is there for not saying this? What could the reason be except that you had asked this stranger in to take your place, and let you be a stranger to yourself? No one would let himself be dispossessed no needlessly,unless he thought there were another home more suited to his tastes. Who is the stranger? Is it fear or you that is unsuited to the home which God provides for His Son? Is fear His Own, created in His likeness? Is it fear that love completes, and is completed by? There is no home can shelter love and fear.They cannot coexist. If you are real, then fear must be illusion. And if fear is real, then you do not exist at all. How simply, then, the question is resolved. Who fears has but denied himself and said. ”I am the stranger here. And so I leave my home to one more like me than myself, and give him all I thought belonged to me.” Now is he exiled of necessity, not knowing who he is,uncertain of all things but this; that he is not himself, and that his home has been denied to him. What does he search for now? What can he find? A stranger to himself can find no home wherever he may look, for he has made return impossible. His way is lost, except a miracle will search him out and show him that he is no stranger now. The miracel will come. For in his home his Self remains. It asked no stranger in, and took no alien though to be Itself. And It will call Its Own unto Itself in recognition of what is Its Own. Who is the stranger? Is he not the one your Self calls not? You are unable now to recognize this stranger in your midst, for you have given him your rightful place. Yet is yours Self as certain of Its Own as God is of His Son. He cannot be confused about creation. He is sure of what belongs to Him. No stranger can be interposed between His knowledge and His Son´s reality. He does not know of strangers. He is certain of His Son. God´s certainty suffices. Who He know to be His Son belongs where He has set His Son forever. He has answered you who ask, ”Who is the stranger?” Hear His Voice assure you, quietly and sure, that you are not a stranger to your Father, nor is your Creator stranger made to you. Whom God has joined remain forever one, at home in Him, no stranger to Himself. Today we offer thanks that Christ has come to search to world for what belongs to Him. His vision sees no strangers, but belongs His Own and joyously unites with them. They see Him as a stranger, for they do not recognize themselves. Yet as they give Him welcome, they remember. And He leads them gently home again, where they belong. Not one does Christ forget. Not one He fails to give you to remember, that your home may be complete and perfect as it was established. He has not forgotten you. But you will not remember Him until you look onall as He does. Who denies his brother is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized,his home remembered and salvation come.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 161

”Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.”

Today we practice differently,and take a stand against our anger, that our fears may disappear and offer room to love. Here is salvation in the simple words in which we practice with today´s idea. Here is the answer to temptation which can never fail to welcome in the Christ where fear and anger had prevailed before. Here is Atonement made complete, the world passed safely by and Heaven now restored. Here is the answer of the Voice for God. Complete abstraction is the natural condition ofthe mind. But part of it is now unnatural. It does not look on everything as one. It sees instead but fragments of the whole, for only thus could it invent the partial world you see. The purpose of all seeing is to show you what you wish to see. All hearing but brings to your mind the sounds it wants to hear.Thus were specifics made. And now it is specifics we must use in practicing. We give them to the Holy Spirit, that He may employ them for a purpose which is different from the one we gave to them. Yet He can use but what we made, to teach us from a different clarity with them to you? What can they seem to be but empty sounds; pretty, perhaps, correct in sentiment, yet fundamentally not understood nor understandable. The mind that taught itself to Think specifically can no longer grasp abstraction in the sense that it is all-encompassing. We need to see a little, that we learn a lot. It seems to be the body that we feel limits our freedom, makes us suffer, and at last puts out our life. Yet bodies are but symbols for a concrete form of fear. Fear without symbols calls for no response, for symbols can stand for the meaningless. Love needs no symbols, being true. But fear attaches to specifics, being false.Bodies attack, but minds do not. This thought is surely reminiscent of our text, where it is often emphasized. This is the reason bodies easily become fear´s symbols. You have many times been urged to look beyond the body, for its sight presents the symbol of love´s ”enemy” Christ´s vision does not see. The body is the target for attack, for no one thinks he hates a mind. Yet what but mind directs the body to attack? What else could be the seat of fear exept what thinks of fear? Hate is specific. There must be a thing to be attacked. An enemy must be preceived in such a form he can be touched and seen and heard,and ultimately killed. When hatred rests upon a thing, it calls for death as surely as God´s Voice proclaims there is no death. Fear is insatiable,consuming everything its eyes behold, seeing itself in everything, complelled to turn upon itself and to destroy. Who sees a brother as a body sees him as fear´s symbol. And he will attack, because what he beholds is his own fearexternal to himself, poised to attack, and howling to unite with him again.Mistake not the intensity of rage projected fear must spawn. It shrieks in wrath, and claws the air in frantic hope it can reach to its maker and devour him. This do the body´s eyes behold in one whom Heaven cherishes, the angels love and God created perfect. This is his reality. And in Christ´s vision is his loveliness reflected in a form so holy and so beautiful that you could scarce refrain from kneeling at his feet. Yet you will take his hand instead,for you are like him in the sight that sees him thus. Attack on him is enemy to you, for you will not preceive that in his hands is your salvation. Ask him but for this, and he will give it to you. Ask him not to symbolize your fear. Would you request that love destroy itself? Or would you have it revealed to you and set you free? Today we practice in a form we have attempted earlier. Your readiness is closer now, and you will come today nearer Christ´s vision. If you are intent on reaching it, you will succeed today. And once you have succeeded,you will not be willing to accept the witnesses your body´s eyes call forth.What you will see will sing to you of ancient melodies you will remember. You are not forgot in Heaven. Would you not remember it? Select one brother, symbol of the rest, and ask salvation of him. See him first as clearly as you can, inthe same form to which you are accustomed. See his face, his hands and feet,his clothing. Watch him smile, and see familar gestures which he makes so frequently. Then think of this: What you are seeing now conceals from you the sight of one who can forgive you all your sins; whose sacred hands can take away that nails which pierce your own, and lift the crown of thorns which you have placed upon your bleeding head. Ask this of him, that he may set you free:

”Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.
I would behold you with the Eyes of Christ,
And see my perfect sinlessness in you.”

And he will answer Whom you called upon. For He will hear the Voice for God in you, and answer in your own.Behold him now, whom you have seen as merely flesh and bone, and recongnizethat Christ has come to you. Today´s idea is your safe escape from anger and from fear. Be sure you use it instantly, should you be tempted to attack a brother and perceive in him the symbol of your fear. And you will see him suddenly transformed from enemy to savior; from the devil into Christ.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 162

”I am as God created me.”

This single thought, held firmly in the mind, would save the world. From time to time we will repeat it, as we reach another stage in learning. It will mean far more to you as you advance. These words are sacred, for they are the words God gave in answer to the world you made. By them it disappears, and all things seen within its misty clouds and vaporous illusions vanish as these words are spoken. For they come from God.Here is the Word by which the Son became His Father´s happiness, His Love and His completion. Here creation is proclaimed, and honored as it is. There is no dream these words will not dispel; no thought of sin and no illusion which the dream contains that will not fade away before their might. They are the ♥♥♥♥♥etof awakening that sounds around the world. The dead awake in answer to itscall. And those who live and hear this sound will never look on death. Holy indeed is he who makes these words his own; arising with them in his mind,recalling them throughout the day, at night bringing them with him as he goes to sleep. His dreams are happy and his rest secure, his safety certain and his body healed, because he sleeps and wakens with the truth before him always. He will save the world, because he gives the world what he receives each time he practices the words of truth. Today we practice simply. For the words we use are mighty,and they need no thoughts beyond themselves to change the mind of him who usese them. So wholly is it changed that it is now the treasury in which God places all His gifts and all His Love, to be distributed to all the world,increased in giving; kept complete because its sharing is unlimited. And thus youl earn to think with God. Christ´s vision has restored your sight by salvaging your mind. We honor you today. Yours is the right to perfect holiness you now accept. With this acceptance is salvation brought to everyone, for who could cherish sin when holiness like this has blessed the world? Who could despair when perfect joy is yours, available to all as remedy for grief and misery, all sense of loss, and for complete escape from sin and guilt? And who would not be brother to you now; you, his redeemer and his savior. Who could fail to welcome you into his heart with loving invitation, eager to unite with one like him inholiness? You are as God created you. These words dispel the night, and darkness is no more. The light is come today to bless the world. For you have recognized the Son of God, and in that recognition is the world´s.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 163

”There is no death. The Son of God is free.”

Death is a thought that takes on many forms, often unrecognized. It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. All such thoutghts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as savior and as giver of release. Embodiment of fear, the host of sin, god of the guilty and the lord of all illusions and deceptions, does the thought of death seem mighty. For it seems to hold all living things within its withered hand; all hopes and wishes in its blighting grasp; all goals perceived but in its sighless eyes. The frail, the helpless and the sick bow down before its image,thinking it alone is real, inevitable, worhty of their trust. For it alone will surely come. All things but death are seen to be unsure, too quickly lost however hard to gain, uncertain in their outcome, apt to fail the hopes they once engendered, and to leave the taste of dust and ashes in their wake, in place of aspirations and of dreams. But death is counted on. For it will come with certain footsteps when the time has come for its arrival. It will never fail to take all life as hostage of itself. Would you bow down to idols such as this?Here is the strength and might of God Himself perceived within an idol made of dust. Here is the opposite of God proclaimed as lord of all creation, stronger than God´s Will for life, the endlessness of love and Heaven´s perfect,changeless constancy. Here is the Will of Father and of Son defeated finally,and laid to rest beneath the headstone death has placed upon the body of the holy Son of God. Unholy in defeat, he has become what death would have him be.His epitaph, which death itself has written, gives no name to him, for he as passed to dust. It says but this: ”Here lies a withned God is dead.” And this is writess again and still again, while all the while its worshippers agree,and kneeling down with foreheads to the ground, they whispers fearfully that it is so. It is impossible to worship death in any form, and still select a few you would not cherish and would yet avoid, while still believing in the rest.For death is total. Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die.No compromise is possible. For here again was see an obvious position, which we must accept if we be sane; what contradicts one thought entirely cannot be true, unless its opposite is proven false. This idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even the insane have difficulty in believing it. For it implies that God was once alive and somehow perished; killed, apparently, bythose who did not want Him to survive. Their stronger will could triumph over His, and so eternal life gave way to death. And with the Father died the Son aswell. Death´s worshippers may be afraid. And yet, can thoughts like these be fearful? If they saw that it is only this which they believe, they would be instantly released. And you will show them this today. There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their salvation and our own as well. God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. This the stand we take today. And it is given us to look past death, and see the life beyond.

”Our Father, bless our Eyes today. We are Your messengers, and we would look upon the glorious reflection of Your Love which shines in everything. We live and move in You alone. We are not spearate from Your eternal life. There is no death, for death is not Your Will. And we abide where You have placed us, in the life we share with You and with all living things, to be like You and part of You forever. We accept YourThoughts as ours, and our will is one with Yours eternally. Amen.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 164

”Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.”

What time but now can truth be recognized? The present is the only time there is. And so today, this instant,now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ. He looks past time, and sees eternity as represented there. He hears the sounds the senseless, busy world engenders, yet He hears them faintly. For beyond them all He hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice for God more clear, more meaningful, more near. The world fades easily away before His sight, Its sounds grow dim. A melody from far behond the world incresingly is more and more distinct; and ancient Call to Which He gives an ancient answer.You will recognize them both, for they are but your answer to your Father´s Call to you. Christ answers to you, echoing your Self, using your voice to give His glad consent; accepting your deliverance for you. How holy is your practicing today, as Christ gives you His sight and hears for you, and answers in your name the Call He hears! How quiet is the time you give to spend with Him, beyond the world. How easily are all your seeming sins forgot, and all your sorrows unremembered. On this day is grief laid by, for sights and sounds that come from nearer than the world are clear to you who will today accept the gift He gives. There is a silence into which the world can not inturde. Threre is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. There is a sense of holiness in you that thought of sin has never touched. All this today you will remember. Faithfulness in practicing today will bring rewards so great and so completely different from all things you sought before, that you will know that here your treasure is, and here you rest. This is the day when vain imaginings part like a curtain, to reveal what lies beyond them. Now is what is really there made visible, while all the shadows which appeared to hide it merely sink away. Now is the balance righted, and the scale of judgment left to Him Who judges true. And in His judgment will a world unfold in perfect innocence before your eyes. Now will you see it with the eyes of Christ. Now is its transformation clear to you.Brother, this day is sacred to the world. Your vision, given you from far beyond all things within the world, looks back ont hem in a new light. And what you see becomes the healing and salvation of the world. The valuable and valueless are both perceived and recognized for what they are. And what is worthy of your love receives your love, while nothing to be feared remains. We will not judge today. We will receive but what is given us from judgment made beyond the world. Our practicing today becomes our gift of thankfulness for our release from blindness and from misery. All that we see will but increase our joy, because its holiness reflects our own. We stand forgiven in the sight of Christ, with all the world forgiven in our own. We bless the world, as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, not our own. Open the curtain in your practicing by merely letting go all things you think you want.Your trifling treasures put away, and leave a clear and open space within your mind where Christ can come, and offer you the treasure of salvation. He has need of your most holy mind to save the world. Is not this purpose worthy to be yours? Is not Christ´s vision worthy to be sought above the world´s unsatisfying goals? Let not today slip by without the gifts it holds for you receiving your consent and your acceptance. We can change the world, if you acknowledge them. You may not see the value your acceptance gives the world. But this you surely want; you can exchange all suffering for joy this very day. Practice in earnest, and the gift is yours. Would God deceive you? Can His promise fail? Can you withhold so little, when His Hands holds out complete salvation to His Son?

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 165

”Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.”

What makes this world seem real except your own denial of the truth that lies beyond? What but your thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happpiness and the eternal life your Father wills for you? And what could hide what cannot be concealed except illusion? What could keep from you what you already have except your choice to see it not, denying it is there? The Thought of God created you. It left you not, nor have you ever been apart from it an instant. It belongs to you. By it you live. It is your Source of life, holding you own with it, and everything is one with you because it left you not. The Thought of God protects you, cares for you, makes soft your resting place and smooth your way, lighting your mind with happiness and love. Eternity and everlasting life shine in your mind,because the Thought of God has left you not, and still abides with you. Who would deny his safety and his peace, his joy, his healing and his peace of mind, his quiet rest, his calm awakening, if he but recognized where they abide? Would he not instantly prepare to go where they are found, abandoning all else as worthless in comparison with them? And having found them, would he not make sure they stay with him, and he remain with them? Deny not Heaven. It is yours today, but for the asking. Nor need you perceive how grea the gift,how changed your mind will be before it comes to you. Ask to receive, and it is given you. Conviction lies within it. Till you welcome it as yours, uncertainty remains. Yet God is fair. Sureness is not required to receive what only your appearance can bestow. Ask with desire. You need not be sure that you request the only thing you want. But when you have received, you will be sure you have the treasure you have always sought. What would you then exchange for it? What would induce you now to let it fade away from your estatic vision? For this sight proves that you have exchanged your blindness for the seeing eyes of Christ; your mind has come to lay aside denial, and accept the Thought of God as your inheritance. Now is all doubting past, the journey´s end made certain,and salvation given you. Now is Christ´s power in your mind, to heal as you were healed. For now you are among the saviors of the world. Your destiny lies there and nowhere else. Would God consent to let His Son remain forever starved by his denial of the nourishment he needs to live? Abudance dwells in him, and deprivation cannot cut him off from God´s sustaining Love and from his home.Practice today in hope. For hope indeed is justified. Your doubts are meaningless, for God is certain. And the Thought of Him is never absent.Sureness must abide within you who are host to Him. This course removes all doubts which you have interposed between Him and your certainty of Him. We count on God, and not upon ourselves, to give us certainty. And in His Name we practice as His Word directs we do. His sureness lies beyond our every doubt. His Love remains beyond our every fear. The Thought of Him is still beyond all dreams and in our minds, according to His Will.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 166

”I am entrusted with the gifts of God.”

All things are given you. God´strust in you is limitless. He knows His Son. He gives without exception,holding nothing back that can contribute to your happiness. And yet, unless your will is one with His, His gifts are not received. But what would make you think there is another will than His? Here is the paradox that underlies the making of the world. This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real.Yet those who think it real must still believe there is another will, and one that leads to opposite effects from those He wills. Impossible indeed; but every mind that looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid,trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone. But never in one God. The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such strange beliefs. He must believe that to accept God´s gifts, however evident they may become, however urgently he may be called to claim them as his own, is to be pressed to treachery against himself. He must deny their presence,contradict the truth, and suffer to preserve the world he made. Here is the only home he thinks he knows. Here is the only safety he believes that he canfind. Without the world he made is he an outcast; homless and afraid. He does not realize that it is here he is afraid indeed, and homeless, too; an outcast wandering so far from home, so long away, he does not realize he has forgotten where he came from, where he goes, and even who he really is. Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings. God´s gifts go with him, all unknown to him. He cannot lose them. Bu the will not look at what is given him. He wanders on, aware of the futility he sees about him everywher, preceiving how his little lot but dwindles, as he goes ahead to nowhere. Still he wanders on in misery and poverty, alone though god is with him, and a treasure his so great that everything the world contains is valueless before its magnitude. He seems a sorry figure; weary, worn, in threadbare clothing, and with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road he walks. No one but has identfied with him, fore veyone who comes here has pursued the path he follows, and has felt defeat and hopelessness as he is feeling them. Yet is he really tragic, when you see thathe is following the way he chose, and need but realize Who walks with him and open up his treasures to be free? This is your chosen self, the one you made as a replacement for reality. This is the self you savagely defend against all reason, every evidence, and all the withnesses with proof to show this is not you. You heed them not. You go on your appointed way, with eyes cast down lest you might catch a glimpse of truth, and be released from self-deception, and set free. You cower fearfully lest you should feel Christ´s touch upon your sholder, and perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your gifts.How could you then proclaim your poverty in exile? He would make you laugh at this perception of yourself. Where is self-pity then? And what becomes of all the tragedy you sought to make for him whom God intended only joy? Your ancient fear has come upon you now, and justice has caught up with you at last.Christ´s hand has touched your shoulder, and you feel that you are not alone.You event hink the miserable self you thought was you may not be your Identity.Perhaps God´s Word is truer than your own. Perhaps His gifts to you are real.Perhaps He has not wholly been outwitted by your plan to keep His Son in deep oblivion, and go the way you chose without your Self. God´s Will does not oppose. It merely is. It is not God you have imprisoned in your plan to lose your Self. He does not know about a plan so alien to His Will. There was a need He did not understand, to which He gave an Answer. That is all. And you who have this Answer given you have need no more of anything but This. Now do we live, for now we cannot die. The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend to be. One walks with you Who gently answers all your fears with this one merciful reply, ”It is not so.” He points to all the gifts you have each time the thought of poverty oppresses you, and speaks of His Companionship when you preceive yourself as lonely and afraid. Yet He reminds you still of one thing more you had fogotten. For His touch on you has made you like Himself. This gifts you have are not for you alone. What He has come to offer you, you now must learn to give. This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved you from the solitude you sought to make in which to hide from God. He has reminded you of all the gifts that God has given you. He speaks as well of what becomes your will when you accept these gifts, and recognize they are your own. The gifts are yours, entrusted to your care, to give to all who chose the lonely road you have escaped. They do not understand they but pursue their wishes. It is you who teach them now. For you have learned of Christ there is another way for them to walk. Teach them by showing them the happiness that comes to those who feel the touch of Christ, and recognize God´s gifts. Let sorrow not tempt you to be unfaithful to your trust.Your sighs will now betray the hopes of those who look to you for their release. Your tears are theirs. If you are sick, you but withhold their healing. What you fear but teaches them their fears are justified. Your hand becomes the giver of Christ´s touch; your change of mind becomes the proof that who accepts God´s gifts can never suffer anything. You are entrusted with the world´s release from pain. Betray it not. Become the living proof of what Christ´s touch can offer everyone. God has entrusted all His gifts to you. Be withness in your happiness to how transformed the mind becomes which chooses to accept His gifts, and feel the touch of Christ. Such is your mission now. For God entrusts the giving of His gifts to all who have received them. He has shared His joy with you. And now you go to share it with the world.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 167

”There is one life, and that I share with God.”

There are not different kinds of life, for life is like the truth. It does not have degrees. It is the one condition in which all the God created share. Like all His Thoughts, it has no opposite. There is no death because what God created shares His Life. There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist. There is no death because the Father and the Son are one. In this world, there appears to be a state that is life´s opposite. You call it death. Yet we have learned that the idea of death takes many forms. It is the one idea which underlies all feelings that are not supremely happy. It is the alarm to which you give response of any kind that is not perfect joy. All sorrow, loss, anxiety and suffering and pain, even a little sigh of weariness, a slight discomfort or the merest frown,acknowledge death. And thus deny you live. You think that death is of the body.Yet it is but an idea, irrelevant to what is seen as physical. A thought is in the mind. It can be then applied as mind directs it. But its origin as where it must be changed, if change occurs. Ideas leave not their source. The emphasis this course has placed on the idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about yourself. It is the reason you can heal. It is the cause of healing. It is why you cannot die. Its truth established you as one with God. Death is the thought that you are separate from your Creator. It is the belief conditions change, emotions alternate because of causes you cannot control, you did not make, and you can never change. It is the fixed belief ideas can leave their source, and take an qualities the source does not contain, becoming different from their own origin, apart from it in kind as well as distance, time and form. Death cannot come from life. Ideas remain united to their source. They can extend all that their source contains. In that, they can go far beyond themselves. But they can not give birth to what was never given them. As they are made, so will their makeing be. As they were born, so will they then give birth. And where they come from, there will they return. The mind can think it sleeps, but that is all. It cannot change what isi ts waking state. It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body. What is Alien to the mind does not exist, because it has no source. For mind creates all things that are, and cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state. It cannot make the physical. What seems to die is but the sign of mind asleep. The opposite of life can only be another form of life.As such, it can be reconciled with what created it, because it is not opposite in truth. Its form may change; it may appear to be what it is not. Yet mind is mind, awake or sleeping. It is not its opposite in anything created, nor in what it seems to make when it believes it sleeps. God created only mind awake.He does not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He gives not, nor make conditions which He does not share with them. The thought of death is not the oppoiste to thoughts of life. Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly, but yet within themselves, for they are everywhere. What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was. Let us today be children of the truth, and not deny your holy heritage. Our life is not as we imagined it. Who changes life because he shuts his eyes, or makes himself what he is not because he sleeps, and sees in dreams an opposite to what he is? We will not ask for death in any form today. Nor will we let imagined opposites to life abide even an instant where the Thought of life eternal has been set by God Himself. His holy home we strive to keep today as He established it, and wills it be forever and forever. He is Lord of what we think today. And in HisThoughts, which have no opposite, we understand there is one life, and that we share with Him, with all creation, with their thoughts as well, whom He created in a unity of life that cannot separate in death and leave the Source of life from where it came. We share one life because we have one Source, a Source from Which perfection comes to us, remaining always in the holy minds which He created perfect. As we were, so are we now and will forever be. A sleeping mind must waken, as it sees its own perfection mirroring the Lord of Life so perfectly it fades into what is reflected there. And now it is no more a mere reflection. It becomes the thing reflected, and the light which makes reflection possible. No vision now is needed. For the wakened mind is one that knows its Source, its Self, its Holiness.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 128

”Your grace is given me. I claim it now.”

God speaks to us. Shall we not speak to Him? He is not distant. He makes no attempt to hide from us. We try to hide from Him, and suffer from deception. He remains entirely accessible. He loves His Son. There is no certainty but this, yet this suffices. He will love His Son forever. When his mind remains asleep, He loves him still. And when his mind awakes, He loves him with a never-changing Love. If you but knew the meaning of His Love, hope and despair would be impossible. For hope would be forever satisfied; despair of any kind unthinkable. His grace His answer is to all despair, for in it lies remembrance of His Love. Would He not gladly give the means by which His Will is recognized? His grace is yours by your acknowledgment. And memory of Him awakens in the mind that asks the means of Him whereby its sleep is done. Today we ask of God the gift He has most carefully preserved within our hearts, waiting to be acknowledged. This theg ift by which God leans to us and lifts us up, taking salvation´s final step Himself. All steps but this we learn, instructed by His Voice. But finally He comes Himself, and takes us in His Arms and sweeps away the cobwebs of oursleep. His gift of grace is more than just an answer. It restores all memories the sleeping mind forgot; all certainty of what Love´s meaning is. God loves His Son. Request Him now to give the means by which this world will disappear,and vision first will come, with knowledge but an instant later. For in grace you see a light that covers all the world in love, and watch fear disappear from every face as hearts rise up and claim the light as theirs. What now remains that Heaven be delayed an instant longer? What is still undone when your forgiveness rests on everything? It is a new and holy day today, for we receive what has been given us. Our faith lies in the Giver, not our own acceptance. We acknowledge our mistakes, but He to Whom all error is unknown is yet the One Who answers our mistakes by giving us the means to lay them down,and rise to Him in gratitude and love. And He descends to meet us, as we come to Him. For what He has prepared for us He gives and we receive. Such is His Will, because He loves His Son. To Him we pray today, returning byt the word He gave to us through His Own Voice, His word, His Love:

”Your grace is given me. I claim it now.
Father, I come to You. And You will come
To me who ask. I am the Son You love.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 169

”By grace I live. By grace I am released.”

Grace is an aspect of the Love of God which is most like the state prevailing in the unity of truth. It is the world´s most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely. It is past learning, yet the goal of learning, for grace cannot come until the mind prepares itself for true acceptance. Grace becomes inevitable instantly in those who have prepared a table where it can be gently laid and willingly received;an altar clean and holy for the gift. Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear. By grace alone the hate and fear are gone, for grace presents a state so opposite to everything the world contains,that those whose minds are lighted by the gift of grace can not believe the world of fear is real. Grace is not learned. The final step must go beyond all learning. Grace is not the goal this course aspires to attain. Yet we prepare for grace in that an open mind can hear the Call to waken. It is not shut tight against God´s Voice. It has become aware that there are things it does not know, and thus is ready to accept a state completely different from experience with which it is familiarly at home. We have perhaps appeared to contradict our statement that the revelation of the Father and the Son as one has been already set. But we have also said the mind determines when that time will be, and has determined it. And yet we urge you to bear witness to the Word of God to hasten the experience of truth, and speed its advent into every mind that recognizes truth´s effects on you. Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in His Being, He encompasses all things. No mind holds anything but Him. We say ”God is,” and then we cease to speak, for in that knowledge words are meaningless. There are no lips to speak them, and no part of mind sufficiently distinct to feel that it is now aware of something not itself. It has united with its Source. And like its Source Itself, it merely is. We cannot speak nor write nor even think of this at all. It comes to every mind when total recognition that its will is God´s has been completely given and received completely. It returns the mind into the endless present, where the past and future cannot be conceived. It lies beyond salvation; past all thought of time, forgiveness and the holy face of Christ. The Son of God has merely disappeared into His Father, as His Father has in him. The world has never been at all. Eternity remains a constant state.This is beyond expereince we try to hasten. Yet forgiveness, taught and learned, brings with it the experiences which bear witness that the time the mind itself determined to abandon all but this is now at hand. We do not hasten it, in that what you will offer was concealed from Him Who teaches what forgivness means. All learning was already in His Mind, accomplished and complete. He recognized all that time holds, and gave it to all minds that each one might determine, from a point where time was ended, when it is released to revelation and eternity. We have repeated several times before that you but make a journey that is done. For oneness must be here. Whatever time the mindhas set for revelation is entirely irrelevant to what must be a constant state,forever as it always was; forever to remain as it is now. We merely take the past assigned long since, and fully recognized as perfectly fulfilled by Him Who wrote salvation´s script in His Creator´s Name, and in the Name of His Creators´s Son. There is no need to further clarify what no one in the world can understand. When revelation of your oneness comes, it will be known and fully understood. Now we have work to do, for those in time can speak of things beyond, and listen to words which explain what is to come is past already. Yet what meaning can the words convey to those who count the hours still, and rise and work and go and sleep by them? Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done. It does not matter. For your part is still what all the rest depends on. As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God. Forgivness is the central theme that runs throughout salvation, holding all its parts in meaninful relationships, the course it runs directed and its outcome sure. Andnow we ask for grace, the final gift salvation can bestow. Experience that grace provides will end in time, for grace foreshadows Heaven, yet does not replace the thought of time but for a little while. The interval suffices. It is here that miracles are laid; to be returned by you from holy instants you receive, through grace in your experience, to all who see the light that lingers in your face. What is the face of Christ but his who went a moment into timlessness, and brought a clear reflection of the unity he felt an instant back to bless the world? How could you finally attain to it forever, while apart of you remains outside, unknowing, unawakened, and in need of you as witness to the truth? Be graceful to return, as you were glad to go an instant,and accept the gift that grace provided you. You carry them back to yourself. And revelation stands not far behind. Its coming is ensured. We ask for grace,and for experience that comes from grace. We welcome the release it offers everyone. We do not ask for the unaskable. We do not look beyond what grace can give. For this can give in the grace that has been given us. Our learning goal today does not exceed this prayer. Yet in the world, what could be more than that we ask this day of Him Who gives the grace we ask, as it was given Him?

”By grace I live. By grace I am released.
By grace I give. By grace I will release.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 170

”There is no cruelty in God and none in me.”

No one attacks without intent to hurt. This can have no exception. When you think that you attack in self-defense, you mean that to be cruel is protection; you are safe because of cruelty. You mean that you believe to hurt another brings you freedom. And you mean that to attack is to exchange the state in which you are for something better, safer, more secure from dangerous invasion and from fear. How thoroughly insane is the idea that to defend from fear is to attack! For here is fear begot and fed with blood, to make it grow and swell and rage. And thus is fear protected, not escaped. Today we learn a lesson which can save you more delay and needless misery than you can possibly imagine. It is this:

You make what you defend against, and by
Your own defense against it, is it real
And in escapable. Lay down your arms,
And only then do you perceive it false.

It seems to be the enemy without that you attack. Yet your defense sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable. For love now has an ”enemy,”an opposite; and fear,the alien, now needs your defense against the threat of what you really are. If you consider carefully the means by which your fancied self-defense proceeds on its imagined way, you will perceive the premises on which the idea stands.First, it is obvious ideas must leave their source, for it is you who make attack, and must have first conceived of it. Yet you attack outside yourself,and separate your mind from him who is to be attacked, with perfect faith the split you make is real. Next, are the attributes of love bestowed upon its”enemy.” For fear becomes your safety and protector of your peace, to which you turn for solace and escape from doubts about your strength, and hope of rest in dreamless quiet. And as love is shorn of what belongs to it and it alone, love is endowed with attributes of fear. For love would ask you lay down all defenceas merely foolish. And your arms indeed would crumble into dust. For such they are. With love as enemy, must cruelty become a god. And gods demand that those who worship them obey their dictates, and refuse to question them. Harsh punishment is meted out relentlessly to those who ask if the demands are sensible or even sane. It is their enemies who are unreasonable and insane,while they are always merciful and just. Today we look upon this cruel god dispassionately. And we note that though his lips are smeared with blood, and fire seems to flame from him, he is but made of stone. He can do nothing. We need not defy his power. He has none. And those who see in him their safety have no guardian, no strength to call upon in danger, and no mighty warrior to fight for them. This moment can be terrible. But it can also be the time ofyour release from abject slavery. You make a choice, standing before this idol,seeing him exactly as he is. Will you restore to love what you have sought to wrest from it and lay before this mindless piece of stone? Or will you make another idol to replace it? For the god of cruelty take many forms. Another can be found. Yet do not think that fear is the escape from fear. Let us remember what the text has stressed about the obstacles to peace. The final one, the hardest to believe is nothing, and a seeming obstacle with the appearance of a solid block, impenetrable, fearful and beyond surmounting, is the fear of God Himself.Here is the basic premise which enthrones the thought of fear as god. For fear is loved by those who worship it, and love appears to be invested now with cruelty. Where does the totally insane belief in gods of vengeance come from?Love has not confused its attributes with those of fear. Yet must the worshippers of fear perceive their own confusion in fear´s ”enemy,”its cruelty as now a part of love. And what becomes more fearful than the Heart of Love Itself. The blood appears to be upon His Lips; the fire comes from Him. And He is terrible above all else, cruel beyond conception, striking down all who acknowledge Him to be their God. The choice you make today is certain. For you look for the last time upon this bit of carven stone you made, and call it god no longer. You have reached this place before, but you have chosen that this cruel god remain with you in still another form. And so the fear of God returned with you. This time you leave it there. And you return to a new world,unburdened by its weight; beheld not in its sightless eyes, but in the vision that your choice restored to you. Now do your eyes belong to Christ, and He looks through them. Now your voice belongs to God and echoes His. And now your heart remains at peace forever. You have chosen Him in place of idols, and your attributes, given by your Creator, are restored to you at last. The Call of God is heard and answered. Now has fear made way for love, as God Himself replaces cruelty.

”Father, we are like You. No cruelty abides in us, for there is none in You. Your peace is ours. And we bless the world with what we have received from You alone. We choose again, and make our choice for all our brothers, knowing they are one with us. We bring them Your salvation as we have received it now. And we give thanks for them who render us complete. In them we see Your glory, and in them we find our peace.Holy are we because Your holiness has set us free. And we give thanks. Amen.”

Love

[IA56]

REVIEW V

We now review again. This time we are ready to give more effort and more time to what we undertake. We recognize we are preparing for another phase of understanding. We would take this step completely, that we may go on again more certain, more sincere. With faith upheld more surely. Our footsteps have not been unwavering, and doubts have made us walk uncertainly and slowly on the road this course sets forth.But now we hasten on, for we approach a greater certainty, a firmer purpose anda surer goal.

”Steady our feet, our Father.Let our doubt be quiet and our holy minds be still, and speak to us. We have no words to give to You. We would but listen to Your Word, and make it ours. Lead our practicing as does a father lead a little child along a way he does not understand. Yet does he follow, sure that he is safe because his father leads the way for him. So do we bring our practicing to You. And if we stumble, You will raise us up. If we forget the way, we count upon. Your sure remembering.We wander off, but You will not forget to call us back. Quicken our foot steps now, that we may walk more certainly and quickly unto You. And we accept the Word You offer us to unify our practicing, as we review the thoughts that You have given us.”

This is the thought which should precede the thoughts that we review. Each one but clarifies some aspect of this thought, or helps it be more meaningful, more personal and true, and more descriptive of the holy Self we share and now prepare to know again:

”God is but Love, and there fore so am I.”

This Self alone knows love. This Self alone is perfectly consistent in Its thoughts; knows Its Creator,understands Itself, is perfect in Its knowledge and Its love, and never changes from Its constant state of union with Its Father and Itself. And it is This That waits to meet us at the journey´s ending. Every step we take brings us a little nearer. This review will shorten time immeasurabley, if we keep in mind that This remains our goal, and as we practice it is This to Which we are approaching. Let us raise our hearts from dust to life, as we remember This is promised us, and that this course was sent to open up the path of light to us,and teach us, step by step, how to return to the eternal Self we thought we lost. I take the journey with you. For I share your doubts and fears a little while, that you may come to me who recognize the road by which all fears and doubts are overcome. We walk toghether. I must understand uncertainty and pain,although I know they have no meaning. Yet a savior must remain with those he teaches, seeing what they see, but still retaining in his mind the way that led him out, and now we lead you out with him. God´s Son is crucified until you walk along the road with me. My resurrection come again each time I lead a brother safely to the place at which the journey ends is forgot. I am renewed each time a brother learns there is a way from misery and pain. I am reborn each time a brother´s mind turns to the light in him and looks for me. I have forgotten no one. Help me now to lead you back to where the journey was begun,to make another choice with me. Release me as you practice once again the thoughts I brought to you from Him Who sees your bitter need, and knows the answer God has given Him. Together we review these thoughts. Together we review these thoughts. Together we devote our time and effort to them. And together we will teach them to our brothers. God would not have Heaven incomplete. It waits for you, as I do. I am incomplete without your part in me. And as I am made whole we go together to our ancient home, prepared for us before time was and kept unchanged by time, immaculate and safe, as it will be at last when time is done. Let this review be then your gift to me. For this alone I need; that you will hear the words I speak, and give them to the world. You are my voice,my eyes, my feet, my hands through which I save the world. The Self from Which I call to you is but your own. To Him we go together. Take your brother´s hand,for this is not a way we walk alone. In him I walk with you, and you with me.Our Father wills His Son be one with Him. What lives but must not then be one with you? Let this review become a time in which we share a new experience for you, yet one as old as time and older still. Hallowed your name. Your glory undefiled forever. And your wholeness now complete, as God established it. You are His Son, completing His extension in your own. We practice but an ancient truth we knew before illusion seemed to claim the world. And we remind the world thatit is free of all illusions every time we say:

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

With this we start each day of our review. With this we start and end each period of practice time. And with this thought we sleep, to waken once again with these same words upon our lips,to greet another day. No thought that we review but we surrond with it, and use the thoguhts to hold it up before our minds, and keep it clear in our rememberance throughout the day. And thus, when we have finsished this review,we will have recognized the words we speak are true. Yet are the words but aids, and to be used, except at the beginning and the end of practice periods,but to recall the mind, as needed, to its purpose. We place faith in the experience that comes from practice, not the means we use. We wait for the experience, and recognize that it is only here conviction lies. We use the words, and try and try again to go beyond them to their meaning, which is far beyond their sound. The sound grows dim and disappears, as we approach the Source of meaning. It is Here that we find rest.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 171

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

151) ”All things are echoes of the Voice for God.”


”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

152) ”The power of decision is my own.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 172

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

153) ”In my defenselessness my safety lies.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

154) ”I am among the ministers of God.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 173

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

155) ”I will step back and let Him lead the way.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

156) ”I walk with God is perfect holiness.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 174

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

157) ”Into His Presence would I enter now.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

158 ”Today I learn to give as I receive.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 175

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

159) I give the miracles I have received.”

”God is but Love, so therefore so am I.”

160) ”I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.”

”God is but Love, therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 176

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

161) ”Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.”

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

162) ”I am as God created me.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 177

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

163) ”There is not death. The Son of God is free.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

164) ”Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 178

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

165) ”Let not my mind deny theThought of God.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

166) ”I am entrusted with the gifts of God.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 179

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

167) ”There is one life, and that I share with God.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

168 ”Your grace is given me. I claim it now.”

”God is but Love, therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 180

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

169) ”By grace I live. By grace I am released.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

170) ”There is no cruelty in God and none in me.”

”God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Love

[IA56]

INTRODUCTION

Lesson 181-200

Our next few lessons make a special point of firming up your willingness to make your weak commitment strong; your scattered goals blend into one intent. You are not asked for total dedication all the time as yet. But you are asked to practice now in order to attain the sense of peace such unified commitment will bestow, if only intermittently. It is experiencing this that makes it sure that you will give your total willingness to following the way the course sets forth. Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizones, and direct approaches tothe special blocks that keep your vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal. We are attempting now to lift these blocks, however briefly. Words alone can not convey the sense of liberation which their lifting brings. But the experience of freedom and peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself. Your motivation will be so intensified that words become of little consequence. You will be sure of what you want, and what is valueless. And so we start our journey beyond words by concentrating first on what impedes your progress still. Experience of what exists beyond defensiveness remains beyond achievement while it is denied. It may be there, but you cannot accept its presence. So we now attempt to go past all defenses for a little while each day. No more than that is asked, because no more than this is needed. It will be enough to guarantee the rest will come.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 181

”I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”

Trusting your brothers is essential to establishing and holding up your faith in your ability to transcend doubt and lack of sure conviction in yourself. When you attack a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by what you have perceived in him. You do not look beyond his errors. Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self That lies beyond your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours. Perception has a focus, and what you behold will change accordingly. Your vision now will shift, to give support to the intent which has replaced the one you held before. Remove your focus on your brother´s sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness. This faith receives its only sure support from what you see in others past their sins. For their mistakes, if focused on, are witnesses to sins in you. And you will not trancend their sight and see the sinlessness that lies beyond.Therefore, in practicing today, we first let all such little focuses give wayto our great need to let our sinlessness become apparent. We instruct our minds that it is this we seek, and only this, for just a little while. We do not care about our future goals. And what we saw an instant previous has no concern forus within this interval of time wherein we practice changing our intent. We seek for innocence and nothing else. We seek for it with no concern but now. A major hazard to success has been involvement with your past and future goals.You have been quite preoccupied with how extremely different the goals this course is advocating are from those you held before. And you have also been dismayed by the depressing and restricting thought that, even if you should succeed, you will inevitably lose your way again. How could this matter? For the past is gone; the future but imagined. These concerns are but defenses against present change of focus in preception. Nothing more. We lay these pointless limitations by a little while. We do not look to past beliefs, and what we will believe will not intrude upon us now. We enter in the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness within. We recognize that we have lost this goal if anger blocks our way in any form. And if a brother´s sins occur to us, our narrowed focus will restrict our sight, and turn our eyes upon our own mistakes, which we will magnify and call our ”sins.”So, for a little while, without regard to past or future, should such blocks arise we will transcend them with instructions to our minds to change their focus, as we say:

”It is not this that I would look upon.
I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”

And we also use this thought to keep us safe throughout the day. We do not seek for long-range goals. As each obstruction seems to block the vision of our sinlessness, we seek but for surcease an instant from the misery the focus upon sin will bring, and uncorrected will remain. Nor do we ask for fantasies. For what we seek to look upon is really there. And so our focus goes beyond mistakes, we will behold a wholly sinless world. When seeing this is all we want to see, when this is all we seek for in the name of true perception, are the eyes of Christ inevitably ours. And the Love He feels for us becomes our own as well. This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves. The world which once proclaimed our sins becomes the proof that we are sinless. And our love for everyone we look upon attests to our remembrance of the holy Self Which knows no sin, and never could conceive of anything without Its sinlessness. We seek for this remembrance as we turn our minds to practicing today. We look neither ahead nor backwards. We look straingt into the present. And we give our trust to the experience we ask for now. Our sinlessness is but the Will of God.This instant is our willing one with His.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 182

”I will be still an instant and go home.”

This world you seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return, although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown.Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here.Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind again. No one but knows whereof we speak. Yet some try put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their time, and keep their sadness from them. Others willdeny that they are sad, and do not recognize their tears at all. Still otherswill maintain that what we speak of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream. Yet who, in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would deny he undertands the words we speak? We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for he is not at home. He goes uncertainly aboutin endless search, seeking in darkness what he cannot find; not recognizing what it is he seeks. A thousand homes he makes, yet none contents his restless mind. He does not understand he builds in vain. The home he seeks can not be made by him. There is no substitute for Heaven. All he ever made was hell.Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would find again. The childhood of your body, and its place of shelter, are a memory now so distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that never happened. Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father´s house, and know that He is alien here. This childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. Where this Child shall go is holy ground. It is His holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one. It is this Child in your Father knows as His Own Son.It is this Child Who knows His Father. He desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to let Him rest a while. He does not ask for more than jus a few instant of respite; just an interval in which He can return to breathe again the holy air that fills His Father´s house. You are His home as well. He will return. But give Him just a little time to be Himself,within the peace that is His home, resting in silence and in peace and love.This Child needs your protection. He is far from home. He is so little that He seems so easily shut out. His tiny voice so readily obscured, His call for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and hars and rasping noises of the world. Yet does He know that in you still abides His sure protection. You will fail Him not. He will go home, and you along with Him. This Child is your defenselessness; your strength. He trusts in you. He came because He knew you would not fail. He whispers of His home unceasingly to you. For He would bring you back with Him, that He Himself might stay, and not return again where He does not belong, and where He lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts.His patience has no limits. He will wait until you hear His gentle voice within you, calling you to let Him go in peace, along with you, to where He is at home and you with Him. When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. In that instant He will take you to His home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home. Rest with Him frequently today. For He was willing to become a little Child that you might learn of Him how strong is he who comes without defenses, offering only love´s messages to those who think he is their enemy. He holds the might of Heaven in His hand and calls them friend, and gives His strength to them, that they may see He would be Friends to them. He asks that they protect Him, for His home is far away, an He will not return to it alone.Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer would leave his home. For he must learn that what he would protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is protected by defenselessness. Go home with Him from time to time today. You are as much an alien here as He. Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits nothing, and lay down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy without existence. Christ has called you friend and brother. He has even come to ask your help in letting Him go home today,completed and completely. He has come as does a little child, who must beseech his father for protection and for love. He rules the universe, and yet He asks unceasingly that you return with Him, and take illusions as your gods no more.You have not lost your innocence. It is for this you yearn. This is your heart´s desire. This is the voice you hear, and this the call which cannot be denied. The holy Child remains with you. His home is yours. Today He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made. And now the way is open, and the journey has an end in sight at last. Be still an instant and go home with Him, and be at peace a while.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 183

”I call upon God´s Name and on my own.”

God´s Name is holy, but not holier than yours. To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own. A father gives his son his name, and thus identifies the son with him. His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity. Your Father´s Name reminds you who you are, even within a world that does not know; even though you have not remembered it. God´s Name can not be heard without response, nor said without an echo in the mind that calls you to remember. Say His Name, and you invite the angels to surround the ground on which you stand, and sing to you as they spread out their wings to keep you safe, and shelter you from every worldly thought that would intrude upon your holiness. Repeat God´s Name, and all the world responds by laying down illusions. Every dream the world holds dear has suddelny gone by, and where it seemed to stand you find a star; a miracle of grace. The sick arise, healed of their sickly thoughts. The blind can see; the deaf can hear. The sorrowful cast off their mourning, and the tears of pain are dried as happy laughter comes to bless the world. Repeat the Name of God, a little names have lost their meaning. No temptation but becomes a nameless and unwanted thing before God´s Name. Repeat His Name, and see how easily you will forget the name of all the gods you valued. They have lost the name god you gave them. They become anonymous and valueless to you, although before you let the Name of God replace their little names, you stood before them worshipfully, naming them as gods.Repeat the Name of God, and call upon you Self, Whose Name is His. Repeat His Name,and all tiny, nameless things on earth slip into right perspective. Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the holy Son of God. And should you join a brother as you sit with him in silence, and repeat God´s Name along with him within your quiet mind, you have established there an altar which reaches to God Himself and to His Son. Practice but this today; repeat God´s Name slowly again and still again. Become oblivious to every name but His. Near nothing else. Let all your thoughts become anchored to This. No other world we use except at the beginning, when we say today´s idea but once. And then God´s Name becomes our only thought, our only word, the only thing that occupies our minds, the only wish we have, the only sound with any meaning, and the only Name of Everything that we desire to see; of everything that we would call our own. Thus do we give an invitation which can never be refused. And God will come, and answer it Himself. Think not He hears the little prayers of those who call on Him with names of idols cherished by the world. They cannot reach Him thus. He cannot hear request that He be not Himself, or that His Son receive another name than His. Repeat God´s Name, and you acknowledge Him as sole Creator of reality. And you acknowledge also that His Son is part of Him, creating in His Name. Sit silently, and let His Name become the all-encompassing idea that holds you mind completely. Let all thoughts be still except this one. And to all other thoughts respond with this, and see God´s Name replace the thousand Little names you gave your thoughts, not realizing that there is on Name for all there is, and all that there will be. Today you can achieve a state in which you will experience the gift of grace. You can escape all bondage of the world, and give the world the same realese you found. You can remember what the world forgot, and offer it your own remembering. You can accept today the part you paln inits salvation, and your own as well. And both can be accomplished perfectly.Turn to the Name of God for your release, and it is given you. No prayer but this is necessary, for it holds them all within it. Words are insignificant,and all request unneeded when God´s Son calls on his Father´s Name. His Father´s Thoughts becomes his own. He makes his claim to all his Father gave, is giving still, and will forever give. He calls on Him to let all things he thoughts he made be nameless now, and in their place the holy Name of God becomes his judgment of their worthlessness. All little things are silent. Little sounds are soundless now. The little things of earth have disappeared.The universe consists of nothing but the Son of God, who calls upon his Father.And his Father´s Voice gives answer in his Father´s holy Name. In this eternal, still relationship, in which communication far transcends all words, and yet exceeds in depth and height what ever words could possibly convey, is peace eternal. In our Father´s Name, we would experience this peace today. And in His Name, it shall be given us.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 184

”The Name of God is my inheritnace.”

You live by symbols. You have made up names for everything you see. Each one becomes a spearate entity, identified by its own name. By this you carve it out of unity. By this you designate its special attributes, and set it off from other things by emphasizing space surrounding it. This space you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all happenings is terms of place and time, all bodies which are greeted by a name. This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world´s perception is achieved. You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will. What are these names by which the world becomes a series of discrete events, of things ununified, of bodies kept apart from holding bits of mind as separate awareness? You gave these names to them, establishing perception as you wished to have perception be. The nameless things were given names, and thus reality was given them as well. For what is named is given meaning and will then be seen as meaningful; a cause of ture effect, with consequence inherent in itself. This is the way reality is made by partial vision, purposefully set against the given truth. Its enemy is wholeness. It conceives of little things and looks upon them. And a lack of space, a sense of unity or vision that sees differently, becomes the threats which it must overcome, conflict with and deny. Yet does this other vision still remain a natural direction for the mind to channel its perception. It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names,and thousands more. Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which communication is achieved, and concepts can be meaningfully shared. This is the sum of the inheritnace the world bestows. And everyone who learns to think that it is so accepts the signs and synbols that assert the world is real. It is for this they stand. They leave no doubt that what is named is there. It can be seen, as is anticipated. What denies that it is true is but illusion, for it is the ultimate reality. To question it is madness; to accept its presence is the proof of sanity. Such is the teaching o the world. It is a phase of learning everyone who comes must go through. But the sooner he perceives on what it rests, how questionable are its premises,how doubtful its results, the sooner does he question its effects. Learning that stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning. In its proper place, it serves but as a starting point from which another kind of learning can begin, a new perception can be gained, and all the arbitrary names the world bestows can be withdrawn as they are raised to doubt. Think not you made the world. Illusions, yes! But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming. When you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. His true Identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is.His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own. And thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he accepts this separate name as his. It would indeed be strange if you were asked to go beyond all symbols of the world, forgetting them forever; yet were asked to take a teaching function. You have need to use the symbols of the world a while. But be you not deceived by them as well. They do not stand for anything at all, and in your practicing itis this thought that will release you from them. They become but means by which you can communicate in ways the world can understand, but which you recognizeis not the unity where true communication can be found. Thus what you need are intervals each day in which the learning of the world becomes a transitory phase; a prison house from which you go into the sunlight and forget the darkness. Here you understand the Word, the Name Which God has given you; the one Identity Which all things share; the one acknowledgment of what is true. And then step back to darkness, not because you think it real, but only to proclaim its unreality in terms which still have meaning in the world that darkness rules. Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the world of darkness. Yet accept them not as your reality. The Holy Spirit uses all of them, but He does not forget creation has one Name, one Meaning, and a single Source Which unifies all things within Itself. Use all the names the world bestows on them but for conveniance, yet do not forget they share the Name of God along with you. God has no name. And yet His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson does all learning end. All names are unified; all space is filled with truth´s reflection. Every gap is closed, and separation healed. The Name of God is the inheritance He gave to those who chose the teaching of the world to take the place of Heaven. In our practicing, our purpose is to let our minds accept what God has given as the answer to the pitiful inheritance you made as fitting tribute to the Son He loves. No one can fail who seeks the meaning of the Name of God. Experience must come to supplement the Word. But first you must accept the Name for all reality, and realize the many names you gave its aspects have distorted what you see, but have not interfered with truth at all. One Name we bring into our practicing. One Name we use unify our sight. And though we use a different name for each awarness of an aspect of God´s Son, we understand that they have but one Name, Which He has given them. It is this Name we use in practicing. And through Its use, all foolish separations disappear which kept us blind. And we are given strength to see beyond them. Now our sight is blessed with blessings we can give as we receive.

”Father, our Name is Yours. In It we are united with all living things, and You Who are their one Creator.What we made and call by many different names is but a shadow we have tried to cast across Your Own Reality. And we are glad and thankful we were wrong. All our mistakes we give to You, that we may be absolved from all effects our errors seemed to have. And we accept the truth You give, in place of every one of them. Your Name is our salvation and escape from what we made. Your Name unites us in the oneness which is our inheritance and peace. Amen.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 185

”I want the peace of God.”

To say these words is nothing.But to mean these words is everything. If you could but mean them for just an instant, there would be no further sorrow possible for you in any form; in any place of time. Heaven would be completely given back to full awareness, memory of God entirely restored, the resurrection of all creation full recognized. No one can mean these words and not be healed. He cannot play with dreams, nor think he is himself a dream. He cannot make a hell and think it real. He wants the peace of God, and it is given him. For that is all he wants, and that is all he will receive. Many have said these words. But few indeed have meant them. You have but to look upon the world you see around you to be sure how very few they are. The world would be completely changed, should any two agree these words express the only thing they want. Two minds with one intent become so strong that what they will becomes the Will of God. For minds can only join in truth. In dreams, no two can share the same intent. To each, the hero of the dream is different; the outcome wanted not the same for both. Loser and gainer merely shift about in changing patterns, as the ration of gain to loss and loss to gain takes on a different aspect or another form. Yet compromise alone adream can bring. Sometimes it takes the form of union, but only the form. The meaning must escape the dream, for comromising is the goal of dreaming. Minds cannot unite in dreams. They merely bargain. And what bargain can give them the peace of God? Illusions come to take His place. And what He means is lost to sleeping minds intent on compromise, each to his gain and to another´s loss. To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams. For no one means these words who wants illusions, and who therefore seeks the means which bring illusions. He has looked on them, and found them wanting. Now he seeks to go beyond them, recongizing that another dream would offer nothing more than all the others. Dreams are one to him. And he has learned their only difference is one of form, for one will bring the same despair and misery as do the rest. The mind which means that all it wants is peace must join with other minds, for that is how peace is obtained. And when the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is given, in a form each mind that seeks for it in honesty can understand. Whatever form the lesson takes is planned for him in such a way that he can not mistake it, if his asking is sincere. But if he asks without sincerity, there is no form in which the lesson will meet with acceptance and be truly learned. Let us today devote our practicing to recongnizing that we really mean the words we say. We want the peace of God. This is no idle wish. These words do not request another dream be given us. They do not ask for compromise,nor try to make another bargain in the hope that there may yet be one that can succeed where all the rest have failed. To mean these words ackonowledges illusions are in vain, requesting the eternal in the place of shifting dreamswhich seem to change in what they offer, but are one in nothingness. Today devote your practice periods to carful searching of your mind, to find the dreams you cherish still. What do you ask for in your heart? Forget the words you use is making your requests. Consider but what you believe will comfort you, and bring you happiness. But be you not dismayed by lingering illusions,for their form is not what matters now. Let not some dreams be more acceptable,reserving shame and secrecy for others. They are one. And being one, one question should be asked of all of them, ”Is this what I would have, in place of Heaven and the peace of God?” This is the choice you make. Be not deceived that it is otherwise. No compromise is possible in this. You choose God´s peace, or you have asked for dreams. And dreams will come as you requested them. Yet will God´s peace come just as certainly, and to remain with you forever. It will not be gone with every twist and turning of the road, and reappear, unrecogized, informs which shift and change with every step you take. You want the peace of God.And so do all who seem to seek for dreams. For them as well as for yourself,you ask but this when you make this request with deep sincerity. For thus you reach to what they really want, and join your own intent with what they seek above all things, perhaps unknown to them, but sure to you. You have been weak at times, uncertain in your purpose, and unsure of what you wanted, where to look for it, and where to turn for help in the attempt. Help has been given you. And would you not avail yourself of it by sharing it? No one who truly seeks the peace of God can fain to find it. For he merely asks that he decieve himself no longer by denying to himself what is God´s Will. Who can remain unsatisfied who asks for what he as already? Who could be unanswered who requests an answer which is his to give? The peace of God is yours. For you was peace created, given you by its Creator, and established as His Own eternal gift. How can you fail, when you but ask for what He wills for you? And how could your request be limited to you alone? No gift of God can be unshared. It is this attribute that sets the gifts of God apart from every dream that Evers eemed to take the place of truth. No one can lose and everyone must gain whenever any gift of God has been requested and received by anyone. God gives but to unite. To take away is meaningless to Him. And when it is as meaningless to you, you can be sure you share one Will with Him, and He with you. And you will also know you share one Will with all your brothers, whose intent is yours. It is this one intent we seek today, uniting our desire with the need of every heart, the call of every mind, the hope that lies beyond despair, the love attack would hide, the brohterhood that hate has sought to sever, but which still remains as God created it. With Help like this beside us, can we fail today as we request the peace of God be given us?

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 186

”Salvation of the world depends on me.”

Here is the statement that will one day take all arrogance away from every mind. Here is the thought of true humility, which holds no function as your own but that which has been given you. It offers your acceptance of a part assigned to you, without insisting on another role. It does not not judge your proper role. It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth in Heaven´s plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven´s peace. Let us not fight our function. We did not establish it. It is not our idea. The means are given us but which it will be perfectly accomplished. All that we are asked to do is to accept our part in genuine humility, and not deny with self-deceiving arrogance that we are worthy. What is given us to do, we have the stength to do. Our minds are suited perfectly to take the part assigned to us by One Who knows us well. Today´s idea may seem quite sobering, until you see its meaning. All it says is that your Father still remembers you, and offers you the perfect trust. He holds in you who are His Son. It does not ask that you be different in any way from what you are. What could humility request but this? And what could arrogance deny but this? Today we will not shrink from our assignment on the specious grounds that modesty is outraged. It is pride that would deny the Call for God Himself. All false humility we lay aside today, that we may listen to God´s Voice reveal to us what He would have us do. We do not doubt our adequancy for the function He will offer us. We will be certain only that He knows our strength, our wisdom and our holiness. And if He deems us worthy, so we are. It is but arrogance that judges other-wise. There is one way, and only one, to be released from the imprisonment your plan to prove the false is true has brought to you. Accept the plan you did nto make instead. Judge not your value to it. If God´s Voice assures you that salvation needs your part, and that whole depends on you, be sure that it is so. The arrogant must cling towords, afraid to go beyond them to experience which might affront their stance.Yet are the humble free to hear the Voice Which tells them what they are, and what to do. Arrogance makes an image of yourself that is not real. It is this image which quails and retreats in terror, as the Voice of God assures yout hat you have the strength, the wisdom and the holiness to go beyond all images. You are not weak, as is the image of yourself. You are not ignorant and helpless. Sin can not tarnish the truth in you, and misery can come not near the holy home of God. All this the Voice for God relates to you. And as He speaks, the image trembles and seeks to attack the treat it does not know,sensing its basis crumble. Let it go. Salvation of the world depends on you,and not upon this little pile of dust. What can it tell the holy Son of God? Why need he be concerned with it at all? And so we find our peace. We will accept the function God has given us, for all illusions rest upon the wierd belief that we can make another for ourselves. Our self-made roles are shifting, and they seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of love and loving. We can laugh or weep, and greet the day with welcome or with tears. Our very being seems to change as we experience a thousand shifts in mood, and our emotions raise us high indeed, or dash us to the ground in hoplessness. Is this the Son of God? Could He create such instability and call it Son? He Who is changeless shares His attributes with His creation. All the images His Son appears to make have no effect on what he is. They blow across his mind like wind-swept leaves that form a patterning an instant, break apart to group again, and scamper off. Or like mirages seen above a desert, rising from the dust. These unsubstantial images will go, and leave your mind unclouded and serene, when you accept the function given you. The images you make give rise to but conflicting goals, impermanent and vague, uncertain and ambiguous. Who could be constant in his effeorts, or direct his energies and concentrated drive toward goals like these? The functions which the world esteems are so uncertain that they change ten times an hour at their most secure. What hope of gain can rest on goals like this? In lovely contrast, certain as the sun´s return each morning to dispel the night, your truly given function stands out clear and wholly unambiguous. There is no doubt of its validity. It comes from One Who knows no error, and His Voice is certain of Its messages. They will not change, nor be in conflict. All of them point to one goal, and one you can attain. Your plan may be impossible, but God´s can never fail because He is its Source. Do as God´s Voice directs. And if It asks a thing of you which seems impossible, remember Who it is That asks, and who would make denial. Then consider this; which is more likely to be right? The Voice That speaks for the Creator of all things. Who knows all things exactly as they are, or a distorted image of yourself, confused, bewildered, inconsistent and unsure of everything? Let not its voice direct you. Hear instead a certain Voice, Which tells you of a function given you by your Creator Who remembers you, and urges that you now remember Him. His gamle Voice is calling from the known to the unknowing. He would comfort you, although He knows no sorrow. He would make a restitution,though He is complete; a gift to you, although He knows that you have everything already. He has Thoughts which answer every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not. For Love must give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in a world of form. These are the forms which never can deceive, because they come from Formlessness Itself. Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. In this form you can fulfill your function even here, although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still. Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. Such is your function here.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 187

”I bless the world because I bless myself.”

No one can give unless he has.In fact, giving is proof of having We have made this point before. What seems to make it hard to credit is not this. No one can doubt that you must first possess what you would give. It is the second phase on which the world and true perception differ. Having had an given, then the world assert that you have lost what you possessed. The truth maintains that giving will increase what you possess. How is this possible? For it is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body´s eyes will not perceive it yours. Yet we have learned that things but represent the thoughts that make them. And you do not lack for proof that when you give ideas away, you strengthen them in your own mind. Perhaps the form in which the tought seems to appear is changed in giving. Yet it must return to him who gives. Nor can the form it takes be less acceptable. It must be more. Ideas must first belong to you, before you give them. If you are to save the world, your first must accept salvation for yourself. But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon. Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. Now you can perceive that by your giving is your store increased. Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away, and you are sure that you will never lose them. What you thought you did not have its hereby proven yours. Yet value not its form. For this will change and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe. No form endures. It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable. Give gladly. You can only gain thereby. The thought remains, and grows in strength as it is reinforced by giving. Thoughts extend as they are shared, for they can not be lost. There is no giver and receiver in the sense of the world conceives of them. There is a giver who retains; another who will give as well. And both must gain in this exchange, for each will have the thought in form most helpful to him. What he seems to lose is always something he will value less than what will surely be returned to him. Never forget you give but to yourself. Whounder stands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice. Nor can he fail to recognize the many forms which sacrifice may take. He laughs as well at pain and loss, at sickness and at grief, at poverty, starvation and at death.He recognizes sacrifice remains the one idea that stands behind them all, and in his gentle laughter are they healed. Illusions recgonized must disappear.Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering. Your blessing lies on everyone who suffers, when you choose to see all suffering as what it is. The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.Never believe that you can sacrifice. There is no place for sacrifice in what has any value. If the thouhgt of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once. Never believe that you can sacrifice. There is no Place for sacrifice in what has any value. If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen and correction must be made. Your blessing will correct it. Given first to you, it now is yours to give as well. No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of on who has forgiven and has blessed himself. The lilies that your brother offers you are laid upon your altar, with the ones you offer him beside them. Who could fear to look upon such lovely holiness? The great illusion of the fear of God diminishes to nothingness before the purity that you will look on here. Be not afraid to look. The blessedness you will behold will take away all thought of form, and leave instead the perfect gift forever there, forever to increase, forever yours, forever given away. Now are we one in thought, for fear has gone. And here, before the altar to one God, one Father, one Creator and on Thought, we stand together as one Son of God. Not separate from Him Who is our Source; not distant from one brother who is part of our one Self Whose innocence has joined us all as one, we stand in blessedness, and give as we receive. The name of God is on our lips. And as we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Father´s Love. Now are we blessed, and now we bless the world. What we have looked upon we would extend, for we would see it everywhere. We would behold it shining with the grace of God in everyone. We would not have it be withheld from anything we look upon. And to ensure this holy sight is ours, we offer it to everything we see. For where we see it, it will be returned to us in form of lilies we can lay upon our altar, making it a home for Innicence Itself, Who dwells in us and offers us His Holiness as ours.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 188

”The peace of God is shining in me now.”

Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now.Enlightenment is but a recognition, nor a change at all. Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own. It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home. This light can not be lost. Why wait to find it in the future,or believe it has been lost already, or was never there? It can so easily be looked upon that arguments which prove it is not there become ridiculous. Who can deny the presence of what he beholds in him? It is not difficult to look within, for there all vision starts. There is no sight, be it or dreams or from a truer Source, that is not but the shadow of the seen through inward vision.There preception starts, and there it ends. It has no source but this. The peace of God is shining in your now, and from your heart extends around the world. It pauses to caress each living thing, and leaves a blessing with it that remains forever and forever. What it gives must be eternal. It removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and valueless. It brings renewal to all tired hearts,and lights all vision as it passes by. All of its gifts are given everyone, and everyone unites in giving thanks to you who give, and yo who have received. The shining in your mind reminds the world of what it has forgotten, and the world restores the memory to you as well. From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned. To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks. And in His blessing does the light in you shine brighter,adding to the gifts you have to offer to the world. The peace of God can never be contained. Who recognizes it within himself must give it. And the means forgiving it are in his understanding. He forgives because he recognized the truth in him. The peace of God is shining in you new, and in all living things. In quietness is it acknowledged universally. For what you inward vision looks upon is your preception of the universe. Sit quietly and close your eyes. The light within you is sufficient. It alone has power to give the gift of sight to you.Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within. They know the way. For honest thoughts, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside yourself, become the holy messsengers of God Himself. These thoughts you think within Him. They recognize their home. And they point surely to their Source, Where God the Father and the Son are one. God´s peace is shining onthem, but they must remian with you as well, for they were born within your mind, as yours was born in God´s. They lead you back to peace, from where they came but to remind you how you must return. They heed your Father´s Voice when you refuse to listen. And they urge you gently to accept His Word for what you are, instead of fantasies and shadows. They remind you tht you are the co-creator of all things that live. For as the peace of God is shining in you,it must shine on them. We practice coming nearer to the light in us today. We take our wandering thoughts, and gently bring them back to where they fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God. We will not let them stray. We let the light within our minds direct them to come home. We have betrayed them,ordering that they depart from us. But now we call them back, and wash them clean of strange desires and disordered wishes. We restore to them the holiness of their inheritance. Thus are our minds restored with them, and we acknowledge that the peace of God still shines in us, and from us to all living things that share our life. We will forgive them all, absolving all the world from waht we thought it did to us. For it is we who make the world as we would have it. Now we choose that it be innocent, devoid of sin and open to salvation. And we lay our saving blessing on it, as we say:

”The peace of God is shining in me now.
Let all things shine upon me in that peace,
And let me bless them with the light in me.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 189

”I feel the Love of God with in me now.”

There is a light in you the world can not perceive. And with its eyes you will not see this light, for you are blinded by the world. Yet you have eyes to see it. It is there for you to look upon. It was not placed in you to be kept hidden from your sight. This light is a reflection of the thought we practice now. To feel the Love of God within you is to see the world anew, shining in innocence, alive with hope, and blessed with perfect charity and love. Who could feel fear in such a world as this? It welcomes you, rejoices that you came, and sings your praise as it keeps you safe from every form of danger and of pain. It offers you a warm and gentle home in which to stay a while. It blesses you throughout the day, and watches through the night as silent guardian of your holy sleep. It sees salvation in you, and protects the light in you, in which it sees it own. It offers you its flowers and its snow, in thank fulness for your benevolence. This is the world the Love of God reveals. It is so different from the world you see through darkened eyes of malice and of fear, that one belies the other. Only one can be perceivved at all. The other one is wholly meaningless. A world in which forgiveness shines on everything, and peace offers its gentle light to everyone, is inconceivable to those who see a world of hatred rising from attack, poised to avenge, to murder and destroy. Yet is the world of hatred equally unseen and inconceivable to those who feel God´s Love in them. Their world reflects the quietness and that shines in them; the gentleness and innocence they see surrounding them; the joy with which they look out from the endless wells of joy within. What they have felt in them they look upon, and see its sure reflection everywhere. What would you see? The choice is given you. But learn and do not let your mind forget this law of seeing: You will look upon that which you feel within. If hatred finds a place within your heart, you will perceive a fearful world, held cruelly in death´s sharp-pointed, body fingers. If you feel the Love of God within you, you will look out on a world of mercy and of love. Today we pass illusions, as we seek to reach to what is true in us, and feel its all-embracing tenderness, its Love which knows us perfect as itself, its sight which is the gift its Love bestows on us. We learn the way today. It is as sure as Love itself, to which it carries us. For its simlicity avoids the snares the foolish convolutions of the world´s apparent reasoning but serve to hide. Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, or every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing.Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God. Is it not He Who knows the way to you? You need not know the way to Him. Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the Son and God the Father to be quietly removed forever. God will do His part in joyful and immediate response. Ask and receive. But do not make demands, nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you. The way to reach Him is merely to let Him be. For in that way is your reality proclaimed as well. And so today we do not choose the way in which we go to Him. But we do choose to let Him come. And with this choice we rest.And in our quiet hearts and open minds, His Love will blaze its pathway of itself. What has not been denied is surely there, if it be true and can besurely reached. God knows His Son, and knows the way to him. He does not need His Son to show Him how to find His way. Through every opened door His Love shines outward from its home within, and lightens up the world in innocence.

”Father, we do not know the way to You. But we have called, and You have answered us. We will not interfere.Salvation´s ways are not our own, for they belong to You. And it is unto You we look for them. Our hands are open to receive Your gifts. We have not thoughts we think apart from You, and cherish no beliefs of what we are, or Who created us. Yours is the way that we would find and follow. And we ask but that Your Will, which is our own as well, be done in us and in the world, that it become a part of Heaven now. Amen.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 190

”I choose they joy of God instead of pain.”

Pain is a wrong perspective.When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes that will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclamis God cruel. How could it be real in any form? It witnesses to God the Father´s hatred of His Son, the sinfulness He sees in him,and His insane desire for revenge and death. Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false? Pain is but witness to the Son´s mistake in what he thinks he is.It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by Etenal Love, Which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love. Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and seen as traitor to Himself. If God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God. For vengeance is not part of love. And fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain. Peace to such foolishness! The time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. There is no need to think of them as savage crimes, or secret sins with weighty consequence. Who but a madman could conceive of them as cause of anything? Their witness, pain, is mad as they, and no more to be feared thant he insane illusions which it shields, and tries to demonstrate must still be true. It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness. My holy brother, think of this awhile: The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want. Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangealbe, forever and forever. And would youdeny a little corner of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain; as sickly place where living things must come at last to die? The world may seem to cause you pain. And yet the world, as causeless, has no Power to cause. As an effect, it cannot make effects. As an illusion, it is what you wish. Your idle wishes reprents its pains. Your strange desire bring it evil dreams. Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live. Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. Pain is the ransom you have gladly pain not to be free. In pain is God denied the Son He loves. In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way Before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery. Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven´s Peace holds all things still at last. Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear.Let no attack enter with you. Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with you seek to hide your holiness. Here will you understand there is no pain. Here does the joy of God belongs to you. This is the day when it is given you to realize the lesson that contains all of salvation´s power. It is this: Pain is illusion; joy, reality. Pain is but sleep; joy is awakening. Pain is deception; joy alone is truth. And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made; we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven. Let our gratitude unto our Teacher fill our hearts, as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of Heaven for the darkness of the world.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 191

”I am the holy Son of God Himself.”

Here is your declaration of release from bondage of the world. And here as well is all the world released.You do not see what you have done by giving to the world the role of jailer to the Son of God. What could it be but vicious and afraid, fearful of shadows,punitive and wild, lacking all reason, blind, insane with hate? What have you done that this should be your world? What have you done that this is what you see? Deny your own Identiy, and this is what remains. You look on chaos and proclaim it is yourself. There is no sight that frails to witness this to you.There is no sound that does not speak of frailty within you and without; no breath you draw that does not seem to bring your nearer death; no hope you hold but will dissolve in tears. Deny your own Identity, and you will not escape the madness which induced this weird, unnatural and ghostly thought that mocks creation and that laughs at God. Deny your own Identity, and you assail the universe alone, without a friend, a tiny particle of dust against the legions of your enemies. Deny your own Identity, and look on evil, sin and death, and watch despair snatch from your fingers every scrap of hope, leaving you nothing but the wish to die. Yet what is it exept a game you play in which identity can be denied? You are as God created you. All else but this one thing is folly to believe. In this one thought is everyone set free. In this one truth are all illusions gone. In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything. In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything, the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality.But let today´s idea find a place among your thoughts and you have risen far above the world, and all the worldly thoughts tht hold it prisoner. And from this place of safety and escape you will return and set it free. For he who can accept his true Identity is truly saved. And his salvation is the gift he gives to everyone, in gratitude to Him Who pointed out the way to happiness that changed his whole perspective of the world. One holy thought like this and you are free: You are the holy Son of God Himself. And with this holy thought you learn as well that you have freed the world. You have no need to use it cruelly, and then perceive this savage need in it. You set it free of your imprisonment. You will not see a devastating image of yourself walking the world in terror, with the world twisting in agony because your fears have laid the mark of death upon its heart. Be glad today how very easily is hell undone.You need but tell yourself:

”I am the holy Son of God Himself,
I cannot suffer, cannot be in pain;
I cannot suffer loss, nor fail to do
All that salvation asks.”

And in that thought is everything you look on wholly changed. A miracle has lighted up all dark and ancient caverns, where the rites of death echoed since time began. For times has lost its hold upon the world. The Son of God has come in glory to redeem the lost, to save the helpless, and to give the world the gift of this forgiveness. Who could see the world as dark and sinful, when God´s Son has come again at last to set it free? You who perceive yourself as weak and frail,with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born to die, to weep and suffer pain,hear this: All power is given unto you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet then you accordit mercy, will its mercy shine on you. Then let the Son of God awaken from his sleep, and opening his holy eyes, return again to bless the world he made. In error it began, but it will end in the reflection of his holiness. And he will sleep no more and dream of death. Then join with me today. Your glory is the light that saves the world. Do not withhold salvation longer. Look about the world, and see the suffering there. Is not your heart willing to bring your weary brothers rest? They must await your own release. They stay in chains till you are free. They cannot see the mercy of the world until you find it in yourself. They suffer pain until you have denied its hold on you. They die till you accept your own eternal life. You are the holy Son of God Himself. Remember this, and all the world is free. Remember this, and earth and Heaven are one.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 192

”I have a function God would have me fill.”

It is your Father´s holy Will that you complete Himself, and that your Self shall be His sacred Son, forever pure as He, of love created and in love preserved, extending love, creating in its Name, forever one with God and with your Self. Yet what can such a function mean within a world, of envy, hatred and attack? Therefore, you have a functionin the world in its own terms. For who can understand a language far beyond his simple grasp? Forgiveness reresents your function here. It is not God´s creation, for it is the means by which untruth can be undone. And who would pardon Heaven? Yet on earth, you need the means to let illusions go. Creation merely waits for your return to be acknowledged, not to be complete. Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgivenessis the closest it can come to earth. For being Heaven-born, it has no form at all. Yet God created One Who has the power to translate in form the wholly formless. What He makes are dreams, but of a kind so close to waking that the light of day already shines in them, and eyes already opening behold the joyful sights their offerings contain. Forgiveness gently looks upon all things unknown in Heaven, sees them disappear, and leaves the world a clean and unmarked slate on which the Word of God can now replace the senseless symbols written there before. Forgiveness is the means by which the fear of death is overcome,because it holds no fierce attraction now and guilt is gone. Forgiveness lets the body be perceived as what it is; a simple teaching aid, to be laid by whenl earning is complete, but hardly changing him who learns at all. The mind without the body cannot make mistakes. It cannot think that it will die, nor be the prey of merciless attack. Anger becomes impossible, and where is terror then? What fears could still assail those who have lost the source of all attack, the core of anguish and the seat of fear? Only forgiveness can restore the peace that God intended for His holy Son. Only forgiveness can persuade the Son to look again upon his holiness. With anger gone, you will indeed perceive that, for Christ´s vision and the gift of sight, no sacrifice was asked, and only pain was lifted from a sick and tortured mind. Is this unwelcome? Is it to be feared? Or is it to be hoped for, met with thanks and joyously accepted? We are one, and therefore give up nothing. But we have indeed been given everything by God. Yet do we need forgiveness to perceive that this is so.Without its kindly light we grope in darkness, using reason but to justify our rage and our attack. Our understanding is so limited that what we think we understands is but confusion born of error. We are lost in mists of shifting dreams and fearful thoughts, our eyes shut tight against the light; our minds engaged in worshipping what is not there. Who can be born again in Christ but him who has forgiven everyone he sees or thinks of or imagines? Who could be set free while he imprisons anyone? A jailer is not free, for he is bound together with his prisoner. He must be sure that he does not escape, and so he spends his time in keeping watch on him. The bars that limit him become the world in which his jailer lives, along with him. And it is on his freedom that the way to liberty depends for both of them. Therefore, hold no one prisoner.Release instead of bind, for thus are you made free. The way is simple. Everytime you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head. And it will fall or be averted as you choose to be condemned or free. Thus does each one who seems to tempt you to be angry represent you savior from the prison hour of death. And so you owe him thanks instead of pain. Be merciful today. The Son of God deserves your mercy. It is he who asks that you accept the way to freedom now. Deny him not. His Father´s Love for him belongs to you. Your function here on earth in only to forgive him, that you may accept him back as your Identity. He is as God created him. And you are what he is. Forgive him now his sins, and you will see that you are one with him.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 193

”All things are lessons God would have me learn.”

God does not know of learning.Yet His Will extends to what He does not understand, in that He wills the happiness. His Son inherited of Him be undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope, eternally expanding in the joy of full creation, and eternally open and wholly limitless in Him. That is His Will. And thus His Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done. God sees no contradictions. Yet His Son Believes he sees them. Thus he has a need for One Who can correct his erring sight, and give his vision that will lead him back to where perception ceases. God does not perceive at all. Yet it is He Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it. It is He Who answers what His Son would contradict, and keeps his sinlessness forever safe. There are the lessons God would have you learn. His Will reflects the mall, and they reflects His loving kindness to the Son He loves. Each lesson hasa central thought, the same in all of them. The form alone is changed, with different circumstances and events; with different characters and different themes, apparent but not real. They are the same in fundamental content. It is this:

”Forgive, and you will see this differently.”

Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form. It is this sameness which makes learning sure, because the lesson is so simple that it cannot be rejected in the end. No one can hide forever from a truth so very obvious that it appears in countless forms, and yet is recognizedas easily in all of them, if one but wants to see the simple lesson there.

”Forgive, and you will see this differently.”

There are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all your pain, all suffering regardless of its form. These are the words with which temptation ends, and guilt,abandoned, is reversed no more. These are the words which end the dream of sin, and rid the mind of fear. These are the words by which salvation comes to all the world. Shall we not learn to say these words when we are tempted to Believe that pain is real, and death becomes our choice instead of life? Shall we not learn to say these words when we have understood their power to release all minds from bondage? There are words which give you power over all events that seem to have been given power over you. You see them rightly when you hold these words in full awareness, and do not forget these words apply to everything you see or any brother looks upon amiss. How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is failing to perceive the lesson he should learn?Does pain seem real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind that sees the pain through eyes the mind directs. God would not have you suffer thus. He would help you forgive yourself. His Son does not remember who he is. And God would have him not to forget His Love, and all the gifts His Love brings with it.Would you now renounce your own salvation? Would you fail to learn the simple lessons Heaven´s Teacher sets before you, that all pain may disappear and God may be rememberd by His Son? All things are lessons God would have you learn.He would not leave an unforgiving thought without correction, nor one thorn or nail to hurt His holy Son in any way. He would ensure his holy rest remain untroubled and serene, without a care, in an eternal home which cares for him. And He would have all tears be wiped away, no remaining yet unshed, and none but waiting their appointed time to fall. For God has willed that laughter should replace each one, and that His Son be free again. We will attempt today to overcome a thousand seeming obstacles to peace in just one day. Let mercy come to you more quickly. Do not try to hold it off another day, another minute or another instant. Time was made for this. Use it today for what its purpose is.Morning and night, devote what time you can to serve its proper aim, and do not let the time be less than meets your deepest need. Give all you can, and give a little more. For now we would arise in haste and go unto our Fathers´s house.We have been gone too long, and we would linger here no more. And as we practice, let us think about all things we saved to settle by ourselves, and kept apart from healing. Let us give them all to Him Who knows the way to look upon them so that they will disappear. Truth is His message; truth His teaching is. His are the lessons God would have us learn. Each hour, spend a little time today, and in the days to come, in practicing the lesson in forgiveness in the form established for the day. And try to give it application to the happenings the hour brought, so that the next one is free of the one before. The chains of time are easily unloosened in this way. Let no one hour cast its shadow on the one that follows, and when that one goes, let everything that happens in its course go with it. Thus will you remain unbound, in peace eternal in the world of time. This is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look one verything that lets it be to you another step to Him, and to salvation of the world. To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:

”I will forgive, and this wil ldisappear.”

To every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering, repeat these self same words. And then you hold the key that opens Heaven´s gate, and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven. God will take this final step Himself. Do not deny the little steps He asks you to take to Him.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 194

”I place the future in the Hands of God.”

Today´s idea takes another step toward quick salvation, and a giant stride it is indeed! So great the distance is that it encompasses, it sets you down just short of Heaven, with the goal insight and obstacles behind. Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to Heaven´s gate; that quick place of peace, where you await with certainty the final step of God. How far are we progressing now from earth! How close are we approaching to our goal! How short the journey still to be pursued! Accept today´s idea, and you have passed all anxiety, all pits of hell, all blackness of depression, thoughts of sin, and devastation brought about by guilt. Accept today´s idea, and you have released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains that locked the door to freedom on it. You are saved, and your salvation thus becomes the gift you give the world, because you have received. In no one instant is depression felt, or pain experienced or loss perceived. In no one instant sorrow can be set upon a throne, and worshipped faithfully. In no one instant can one even die. And so each instant given unto God in passing, with the next one given Him already, is a time of your release from sadness, pain and even death itself. God holds your future as He holds your past and present. They are one to Him, and so they should be one to you.Yet in this world, the temporal progression still seems real. And so you are not asked to understand the lack of sequence really found in time. You are but asked to let the future go, and place it in God´s Hands. And you will see by your experience that you have laid the past and present in His Hands as well, because the past will punish you no more, and future dread will now be meaningless. Release the future. For the past is gone, and what is present, freed from its bequest of grief and misery, of pain and loss, becomes the instant in which time escapes the bondage of illusions where it runs its pitiless, inevitable course. Then is each instant which was slave to time transformed into a holy instant, when the light that was kept hidden in God´s Son is freed to bless the world. Now is he free, and all his glory shines upon a world made free with him, to share his holiness. If you can see the lesson for today as the deliverance it really is, you will not hesitate to give as much consistent effort as you can, to make it be a part of you. As it becomes athought that rules your mind, a habit in your problem-solving repertoire, a way of quick reaction to temptation, you extend your learning to the world. And as you learn to see salvation in all things, so will the world perceive that it is saved. What worry can best the one who gives his future to the loving Hands of God? What can he suffer? What can cause him pain, or bring expereince of loss to him? What can he fear? And what can he regard except with love? For he who has escaped all fear of future pain has found his way to present peace, and certainty of care the world can never threaten. He is sure that his perception may be faulty, but will never lack correction. He is free to choose again when he has been deceived; to change his mind when he has made mistakes. Place,then, your future in the Hands of God. For thus you call the memory of Him to come again, replacing all your thoughts of sin and evil with the truth of love.Think you the world could fail to gain thereby, and every living creature not respond with healed perception? Who entrusts himself to God has also placed the world within the Hands to which he has himself appealed for comfort and security.He lays aside the sick illusions of the world along with his, and offers Peace to both. Now are we saved indeed. For in God´s Hands we rest untroubled, sure that only good can come to us. If we forget, we will be gently reassured. If we accept an unforgiving thought, it will be soon replaced by love´s reflection.And if we are tempted to attack, we will appeal to Him Who guards our rest to take the choice for us that leaves temptation far behind. No longer is the world our enemy, for we have chosen that we be its Friend.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 195

”Love is the way I walk in gratitude.”

Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn for those who look upon the world amiss. The most that they can do is see themselves as better off than others. And they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than they. How pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! For who has cause for thanks while others have less cause? And who could suffer less because he sees another suffer more? Your gratitude is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world. It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering. But it is equally insane to fail in gratitude to One Who offers you the certain means where by all pain is healed, and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness. Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which He directs, and follow in the way He sets Before them, to escape a prision that they thought container no door to the deliverance they now perceive. Your brothers is your ”enemy” because you see in him the rival for your peace; a plunderer who takes his joy from you, and leaves you nothing but a black despair so bitter and relentless that there is no hope remaining. Now is vengeance all there is to wish for. Now can you but try to bring him down to lie in death with you, as useless as yourself; as little left within his grasping fingers as in yours. You do not offer God your gratitude because your brother is more slave than you, nor could you sanely been raged if he seems freer. Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love. We offer thanks to God our Father that in usall things will find their freedom. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound. For who can bargain in the name of love? Therefore give thanks, but in sincerity. And let your gratitude make room for all who will escape with you; the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn and seeming loss of real apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death. All these go with you. Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off from our awareness of the unity we share with them, as they must share with us. We thank our Father for one thing alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him. And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which would reduce our wholeness, nor impair or change our function to complete the One Whois Himself completion. We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing, and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us. Then let our brothers lean their tired heads against our shoulders as they rest awhile. We offer thanks for them. For if we can direct them to the place that we would find, the way is opening at last to us. An incident door is swinging free again; a long forgotten World re-echoes in our memory, and gathers clarity as we are willing once again to hear. Walk, then, in gratitude the way of love.For hatred is forgotten when we lay comparisons aside. What more remains as obstacles to peace? The fear of God is now undone at last, and we forgive without comparing. Thus we cannot choose to overlook some things, and yet retain some other things still locked away as ”sins.” When your forgiveness is complete you will have total gratitude, for you will see that everything has earned the right to love by being loving, even as your Self. Today we learn to think of gratitude in peace of anger, malice and revenge. We have been given everything. If we refuse to recognize it, we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to a self-perseption which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly, and pushed about without a thought or carefor us of for our future. Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. God has cared for us, and calls us Son. Can there be more than this? Our gratitude will pave the way to Him, and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of. Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is the other must be found. For gratitude is but an aspect of the Love which is the Source of all creation. God gives thanks to you, His Son, for being what you are; His Own completion and the Source of love, along with Him. Your gratitude to Him is one with His to you. For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 196

”It can be but myself I crusify.”

When this is firmly understood and kept in full awareness, you will not attempt to harm yourself, nor make your body slave to vengeance. You will not attack yourself, and you will realize that to attack another is but to attack yourself. You will be free of the insane belief that to attack a brother saves yourself. And you will understand his safety is your own, and in his healing you are healed. Perhaps a first you will not understand how mercy, limitless and with all things held in its sure protection, can be found in the idea we practice for today. It may, in fact,appear to be a sign that punishment can never be escaped because the ego, under what it sees as threat, is quick to cite the truth to save its lies. Yet must it fail foolish applications, and deny the meaning they appear to have. Thus do you also teach your mind that you are not an ego. For the ways in which the ego would distort the truth will not deceive you longer. You will not believe you are a body to be crucified. And you will see within today´s idea the light of resurrection, looking past all thoughts of crucifixion and of death, to thoughts of liberation and of life. Todays idea is one step we take in leading us from bondage to the state of perfect freedom. Let us take this step today,that we may quickly go the way salvation shows us, taking every step in its appointed sequence, as the mind relinquishes its burdens one by one. It is not time we need for this. It is but willingness. For what would seem to need a thousand years can easily be done in just one instant by the grace of God. The dreary, hopless thought that you can make attacks on others, and escape yourself has nailed you to the cross. Perhaps it seemed to be salvation. Yet it merely stood for the belief the fear of God is real. And what is that but hell?Who could believe his Father is his deadly enemy, separate from him, and waiting to destroy his life and blot him from the universe, without the fear of hell upon his heart? Such is the form of madness you believe, if you accept the fearful thought you can attack another and be free yourself. Until this form is changed, there is no hope. Until you see that this, at least, must be entirely impossible, how could there be escape? The fear of God is real to anyone who thinks this thought is true. And he will not perceive its foolishness, or even see that it is there, so that it would be possible to question it. To question it at all, its form must first be changed at least as much as will permit fear of retaltion to abate, and the responsibility returned to some extent to you.From there you can at least consider if you want to go along this painful path.Until this shift has been accomplished, you can not perceive that it is but your thoughts that bring your fear, and your deliverance depends on you. Our next steps will be easy, if you take this one today. From there we go ahead quite rapidly. For once you understand it is impossible that you be hurt except by your own thoughts, the fear of God must disappear. You cannot then believe that fear is caused without. And God, Whom you had thought to banish, can be welcomed back within the holy mind He never left. Salvation´s song can certaily be heard in the idea we practice for today. If it can but be you you crusify, you did not hurt the world, and need not fear its vengeance and pursuit. Nor need you hide in terror from the deadly fear of God projection hides behind. The thing you dread the most is your salvation. You are strong, and it is strength you want. And you are free, and glad of freedom. You have sought to be both weak and bound, because you feared your strength and freedom Yet salvation lies in them. There is an instant in which terror seems to grip you mind so wholly that escape appears quite hopeless. When you realize, once and for all, that it is you you fear, the mind perceives itself as split. And this had been concealed while you believe attack could be directed outward, and returned from outside to within. It seemed to be an enemy outside you had to fear. And thus a god outside yourself became your mortal enemy; the source of fear. Now, for an instant, is a murderer perceived within you, eager for your death, intent on plotting punishment for your until the time when it can kill at last. Yet in this instant is the time as well in which salvation comes. For fear of God has disappeared. And you can call on Him to save you from illusions by His Love,calling Him Father and yourself His Son. Pray that the instant may be soon, -today. Step back from fear, and make advance to love. There is no Thought of God that does not go with you to help you reach that instant, and to go beyond it quickly, surely and forever. When the fear of God is gone, there are no obstacles that still remain between you and the holy peace of God. How kind and merciful is the idea we practice! Give it welcome, as you should, for it is your release. It is indeed but you your mind can try to crusify. Yet your redemtion, too, will come from you.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 197

”It can be but my gratitude I earn.”

Here is the second step we take too free your mind from the belief in outside force pitted against your own.You make attempts at kindness and forgiveness. Yet you turn them to attack again, unless you find external gratitude and lavish thanks. Your gifts must be received with honor, lest they be with drawn. And so you think God´s gifts are loans at best; at worst, deceptions which would cheat you of defenses, to ensure that when He strikes He will not fail to kill. How easily are God and guilt confused by those who know not what their thoughts can do. Deny your strength, and weakness must become salvation to you. See yourself as bound, and bars become your home. Nor will you leave the prison house, or claim your strength, until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed, and found and fully recognized. The world must thank you when you offer it release from your illusions. Yet your thanks belong to you as well,for its release can only mirror yours. Your gratitude is all your gifts require, that they be a lasting offering of a thankful heart, released from hell forever. It is this you would undo by taking back your gifts, because they were not honored? It is you who honor and give them fitting thanks, for it is you who have received the gifts. It does not matter if another thinks your gifts unworthy. In his mind there is a part that joins with yours in thanking you. It does not matter if your gifts seem lost and in effectual. They are received where they are given. In your gratitude are they accepted universally, and thankfully acknowledged by the Heart of God Himself. And would you take them back, when He was gratefully accepted them? God blesses every gift you give to Him, and every gift is given Him, because it can be given only to yourself. And what belongs to God must be His Own. Yet you will never realize His gifts are sure, eternal, changeless, limitless, forever giving out,extending love and adding to your never-ending joy while you forgive but to attack again. Withdraw the gifts you give, and you will think that what is given you has been withdrawn. But learn to let forgiveness take away this sins you think you see outside yourself, and you can never think the gifts of God are lent but for a little while, before He snatches them away again in death. For death will have no meaning for you then. And with the end of this belief is fear forever over. Thank your Self for this, for He is grateful only unto God,and He gives thanks for you unto Himself. To everyone who lives will Christ yet come, for everyone must live and move in Him. His Being in His Father is secure, because Their Will is one. Their gratitude to all They have created has no end, for gratitude remains a part of love. Thanks be to you, the holy Son of God. For as you were created, you contain all things within your Self. And you are still as God created you. Nor can you dim the light of your perfection. In your heart the Heart of God is laid. He holds you dear, because you are Himself. All gratitude belongs to you, because of what you are. Give thanks as you recieive it. Be you free of all ingratitude to anyone who makes your Self complete. And from this Self is no one left outside. Give thanks for all the countless channels which extend this Self. All that you do is given unto Him.All that you think can only be His Thoughts, sharing with Him the holy Thoughts of God. Earn now the gratitude you have denied yourself when you forgot the function God has given you. But never think that He has ever ceased to offer thanks to you.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 198

”Only my condemnation injures me.”

Injury is impossible. And yet illusion makes illusion. If you can condemn, you can be injured. For you have believed that you can injure, and the right you have established for yourself can be now used against you, till you lay it down as valueless, unwanted and unreal. Then does illusion cease to have effects, and those it seemed to have will be undone. Then are you free, for freedom is your gift, and you can now receive the gift you gave. Condemn and you are made a prisoner. Forgive and you are freed. Such is the law that rules perception. It is not a law that knowledge understands, for freedom is a part of knowledge. To condemn is thus impossible in truth. What seems to be its influence and its effects have not occured at all. Yet must we deal with them a while as if they had. Illusion makes illusion. Except one. Forgiveness is illusion that is answer to the rest.Forgiveness sweeps all other dreams away, and though it is itself a dream, it breeds no others. All illusions save this one must multiply a thousand fold.But this is where illusions end. Forgiveness is the end of dreams, because it is a dream of waking. It is not itself the truth. Yet does it point to where the truth must be, and gives direction with the certainty of God Himself. It is a dream in which the Son of God awakens to his Self and to his Father, knowing They are one. Forgiveness is the only road that leads out of disaster, past all suffering, and finally away from death. How could there be another way, when this one is the plan of God Himself? And why would you oppose it, quarrel with it, seek to find a thousand ways in which it must be wrong; a thousand other possibilities? It is not wiser to be glad you hold the answer to your problems in your hand? It is not more intelligent to thank the One Who gives salvation,and accept His gift with gratitude? And is it not a kindness to yourself to hear His Voice and learn the simple lessons He would teach, instead of trying to dismiss His words, and substitute you own in place of His? His words will work. His words will save. His words contain all hope, all blessing and all joy that ever can be found upon this earth. His words are born in God, and come to you with Heaven´s love upon them. Those who hear His words have heard the song of Heaven. For these are the words in which all merge as one at last. And as this one will fade away, the Word of God will come to take its place, for it will be remembered than and loved. This world had many seeming separate haunts where mercy has no meaning, and attack appears as justified. Yet all are one; a Place where death is offered to God´s Son and to his Father. You may think They have accepted. But if you will look again upon the place where you beheld Their blood, you will perceive a miracle instead. How foolish to believe that They could die! How foolish to believe you can attack! How mad to think that you could be condemned, and that the holy Son of God can die! The stillness of your Self remains unmoved, untouched by thoughts like these, and unaware of any condemnation which could need forgiveness. Dreams of any kind are strange and alien to the truth. And what but truth could have a Thought which builds a bridge to it that brings illusions to the other side? Today we practice letting freedom come to make its home with you. The truth bestows these words upon your mind, that you may find the key to light and let the darkness end:

”Only my condemnation injures me.
Only my own forgiveness sets me free.”

Do not forget today that there can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an unforgiving thought. Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness cannot heal. Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God´s Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God you Father. Let today be celebrated both on earth and in your holy home as well. Be kind to both, as you forgive the trespasses you thought them guilty of, and see your innocence shining upon you from the face of Christ. Now is there silence all around the world. Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense. Now is there tranquil light across the face of death, made quiet in a dreamless sleep. And now the Word of God alone remains upon it. Only that can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind that God forever knows to be His only Son. There is no condemnation in him. He is perfect in his holiness. He needs no thoughts of mercy. Who could give him gifts when everything is his? And who would dream of offering forgiveness to the Son of Sinlessness Itself, so like to Him Whose Son he is, that to behold the Son is to perceive no more, and only know the Father? In this vision of the Son, so brief that not aninstant stands between this single sight and timelessness itself, you see thevision of yourself, and then you disappear forever into God. Today we come still nearer to the end of everything that yet would stand between this vision and our sight. And we are glad that we have come this far, and recognize that He Who brought us here will not forsake us now. For He would give to us the gift that God has given us through Him today. Now is the time for your deliverance.The time has come. The time has come today.

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 199

”I am not a body. I am free.”

Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found. The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, frimly tied to it and sheltered by its precence. If this were the truth, the mind were vulnerable indeed! The mind that serves the Holy Spirit is unlimited forever, in all ways, beyond the laws of time and space, unbound by any preconceptions, and with strength and power to do whatever it is asked. Attack thoughts cannot enter such a mind, because it has been given to the Source of love, and fear can never enter in a mind that has attached itself to love. It rests in God. And who can be afraid who lives in Innocence, and only loves? It is essential for your progress in this course that you accept today´s idea, and hold it very dear. Be no concerned that to the ego is it quite insane. The ego holds the body dear because it dwells in it, and lives united with the home that it has made. It is part of the illusion that has sheltered it from being found illusory itself.Here does it hide, and here it can be seen as what it is. Declare your innocence and you are free. The body disappears, because you have no need of it except the need the Holy Spirit sees. For this, the body will appear as useful form for what the mind must do. It thus becomes a vehicle which helps forgiveness be extended to the all- inclusieve goal that it must reach, according to God´s plan. Cherish today´s idea, and practice it today and everyday. Make it a part of every practice period you take. There is no thought that will not gain thereby in power to help the world, and none which will not gain in added gifts to you as well. We sound the call of freedom round the world with this idea. And would you be exempt from the acceptance of the gifts you give?The Holy Spirit is the home of minds that seek for freedom. In Him they have found what they have sought. The body´s purpose now is unambiguous. And it becomes perfect in the ability to serve an undivided goal. In conflict-free and unquivocal response to mind with but the thought of freedom as its goal, the body serves, and serves its prupose well. Without the power to enslave, it is a wrothy servant of the freedom which the mind within the Holy Sprit seeks. Be free today. And carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body. Be you free, so that the Holy Spirit can make use of your escape from bondage, to set free the many who perceive them selves as bound and helpless and afraid. Let love replace their fears through you. Accept salvation now, and give your mind to Him Who calls to you to make this gift to Him. For He would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full accomplishment in God. You are God´s Son. In immortality you you live forever. Would you not return your mind to this? Then practice well the thought the Holy Spirit gives you to today. Your brothers stand released with you in it; the world is blessed along with you, God´s Son wil weep no more, and Heaven offers thanks for the increase of joy your practice brings even to it. And God Himself extends His Love and happiness each time you say:

”I am not a body, I am free.
I hear the Voice That God has given me.
And it is only This my mind obeys.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 200

”There is no peace exept the peace of God.”

Seek you no further. You will not find peace except the peace of God. Accept this fact, and save yourself the agony of yet more bitter disappointments, bleak despair, and sense of icy holessness and doubt. Seek you no further. There is nothing else for you to find except the peace of God, unless you seek for misery and pain. This is the final point to which each one must come at last, to lay aside all hope offinding happiness where there is none; of being saved by what can only hurt; of making peace of chaos, joy of pain, and Heaven out of hell. Attempt no more to win through losing, nor to die to live. You cannot but be asking for defeat.Yet you can ask as easily for love, for happiness, and for eternal life in peace that has no ending. Ask for this, and you can only win. To ask for what you have already must succeed. To ask that what is false be true can only fail.Forgive yourself for vain imaginings, and seek no longer what you cannot find.For what could be more foolish than to seek and seek and seek again for hell,when you have but to look with open eyes to find that Heaven lies before you,through a door that opens easily to welcome you? Come home. You have not found your happiness in foreign places and in alien forms that have no meaning to you, through you sought to make them meaningful. This world is not where you belong. You are a stranger here. But it is given you to find the means whereby the world no longer seems to be a prison house or jail for anyone. Freedom is given you where you beheld but chains and iron doors. But you must change your mind about the purpose of the world, if you would find escape. You will be bound till all the world is seen by you as blessed, and everyone made free of your mistakes and honored as he is. You made him not; no more yourself. And as you free the one, the other is accepted as he is. What does forgiveness do? In truth it has no function, and does nothing. For it is unknown in Heaven. It is only hell where it is needed, and where it must serve a mighty function. Is not the escape of God´s beloved. Son from evil dreams that he imagines, yet believes are true, a worthy purpose? Who could hope for more, while the reappears to be a choice to make between success and failure; love and fear?There is no peace except the peace of God, because He has one Son who cannot make a world in opposition to God´s Will and to his own, which it the same as His. What could he hope to find in such a world? It cannot have reality,because it never was created. Is it here that he would seek for peace? Or must he see that, as he looks on it, the world can but deceive? Yet can he learn to look on it another way, and find the peace of God. Peace is the bridge that everyone will cross, to leave this world behind. But peace begins within the world perceived as different, and leading from this fresh perception to the gate of Heaven and the way beyond. Peace is the answer to conflicting goals, to senseless journeys, frantic, vain pursuits, and meaningless endeavors. Now the way is easy, sloping gently towards the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God. Let us not lose our way again today. We go to Heaven, and the path is straight. Only if we attempt to wander can there be dealy, and needless wasting time on thorny by ways. God alone is sure, and He will guide our footsteps. He will not desert His Son in need, nor let him stray forever from his home. The Father calls; the Son will hear. And that is all there is to what appears to be a world apart from God, where bodies have reality. Now is there silence. Seek no further. You have come to where the road is carpeted with leaves of false desires, fallen from the trees of hoplessness you sought before. Now are they underfoot. And you look up and on toward Heaven, with the body´s eyes but serving for an instant longer now. Peace is already recognized at last, and you can feel its soft embrace surround your heart and mind with comfort and with love. Today we seek no idols. Peace can not be found in them.The peace of God is ours, and only this will we accept and want. Peace be to us today. For we have found a simple, happy way to leave the world of ambiguity,and to replace our shifting goals and solitary dreams with single purpose and companionship. For peace is union, if it be of God. We seek no further. We are close to home, and draw still nearer every time we say:

”There is no peace except the peace of God,
And I am glad and thankful it is so.”

Love

[IA56]

REVIEW VI

For this review we take but one idea each day, and practice it as often as is possible. Besides the time you give morning and evening, which should not be less than fifteen minutes, andthe hourly remembrances you make throughout the day, use the idea as often as you can between them. Each of these ideas alone would be sufficient for salvation, if it were learned truly. Each would be enough to give release to you and to the world from every form of bondage, and invite the memory of God to come again. With this in mind we we start our practicing, in which we carefully review the thoughts the Holy Sprit has bestowed on us in our last twenty lessons. Each contains the whole curriculum if understood, practicied, accepted, and applied to all the seeming happenings throughout the day. One is enough. But from the one, there must be no exeptions made. And so we need to use them all and let them blend as one, as each contributes to the whole we learn. These practice sessions, like our last review, are centrered round a central theme with which we start and end each lesson. It is this:

”I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.”

The day begins and ends with this. And we repeat it every time the hour strikes, or we remember, in between,we have a function that transcends the world we see. Beyond this, and a repetiotion of the special thought we practice for the day, no form of exercise is urged, except a deep relinquishment of everything that clutters up the mind,and makes it deaf to reason, sanity and simple truth. We will attempt to get beyond all words and special forms of practicing for this review. For we attempt, this time, to reach a quickened pace along a shorter path to the serenity and peace of God. We merely close our eyes, and then forget all that we thought we knew and understood. For thus is freedom given us from all we did not know and failed to understand. There is but one exception to this lack structuring. Permit no idle thought to go unchallenged. If you notice one, deny its hold and hasten to assure your mind that this is not what it would have.Then gently let the thought which you denied be given up, in sure and Quick exchange for the idea we practice for the day. When you are tempted, hasten to proclaim your freedom from temptation, as you say:

”This thought I do not want, I choose instead __________.”

And then repeat the idea for the day, and let it take the place of what you thought. Beyond such special applications of each day´s idea, we will add but a few formal expressions or specific thoughts to aid in practicing. Instead, we give these times of quiet to the Teacher Who instructs in quiet, speaks of peace, and gives our thoughts whatever meaning they may have. To Him I offer this review for you. I place you in His charge, and let Him teach you what to do and say and think, each time you turn to Him. He will not fail to be available to you, each time you call to Him to help you. Let us offer Him the whole review we now begin, and let us also not forget to Whom it has been given, as we practice day by day, advancing toward the goal He set for us; allowing Him to teach us how to go, and trustingHim completely for the way each practice period can best become a loving gift of freedom to the world.

Love

[susan]

IA56,
Thank you so much for posting this this morning. It is very meaningful for me and has encouraged me to believe in a couple of things I experienced but decided not to record.
Will do .

[IA56]

Hi Dearest Susan,

I am so happy and in tears here, yesterday I wanted to encourage you but did not dare to do so, I was not sure you had understand me in right way.
Here you see how afraid we are to say as we feel, we fear to not be understood in right way, I Think we should stop thinking so much and just do as we feel, because we are guided in every step of our Life, but we stand and block Life so to speak...We have to step out of our way in Life :-)
So be curaugous and write more, I really do appreachiate all in you, you wonderful perfect being, pure love.

Love
ia





IA56,
Thank you so much for posting this this morning. It is very meaningful for me and has encouraged me to believe in a couple of things I experienced but decided not to record.
Will do .

[IA56]

LESSON 201

”I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.”

181) ”I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”

”No one but is my brother. I am blessed.
With oneness with the universe and God,
My Father, one Creator of the whole
That is my Self, forever one with me.”

”I am not my body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.”

Love

[IA56]

LESSON 202

”I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.”

182) ”I will be still an instant and go home.”

”Why would I choose to stay an instant more
Where I do not belong, when God Himself
Has given me His Voice to call me home?”

”I am not my body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.”

Love