Introduction
W-in.1. A theoretical foundation such as
the text provides is necessary as a framework to make the exercises in this
workbook meaningful. 2 Yet it is doing the exercises that will make
the goal of the course possible. 3 An untrained mind can accomplish nothing.
4 It is
the purpose of this workbook to train your mind to think along the lines the
text sets forth.
W-in.2. The exercises are very simple.
2 They do
not require a great deal of time, and it does not matter where you do them.
3 They
need no preparation. 4 The training period is one year.
5 The
exercises are numbered from 1 to 365. 6 Do not undertake to
do more than one set of exercises a day.
W-in.3. 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 true perception.
2 With
the exception of the review periods, each day's exercises are planned around
one central idea, which is stated first. 3 This is followed by a
description of the specific procedures by which the idea for the day is to be
applied.
W-in.4. 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. 2 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.
W-in.5. Transfer of training in true
perception does not proceed as does transfer of the training of the world.
2 If true
perception has been achieved in connection with any person, situation or event,
total transfer to everyone and everything is certain.
3 On the
other hand, one exception held apart from true perception makes its
accomplishments anywhere impossible.
W-in.6. The only general rules to be
observed throughout, then, are: First, that the exercises be practiced with
great specificity, as will be indicated. 2 This will help you to
generalize the ideas involved to every situation in which you find yourself,
and to everyone and everything in it. 3 Second, be sure that
you do not decide for yourself that there are some people, situations or things
to which the ideas are inapplicable. 4 This will interfere
with transfer of training. 5 The very nature of true perception is that it
has no limits. 6 It is the opposite of the way you see now.
W-in.7. The overall aim of the
exercises is to increase your ability to extend the ideas you will be
practicing to include everything. 2 This will require no effort on your part.
3 The
exercises themselves meet the conditions necessary for this kind of transfer.
W-in.8. Some of the ideas the workbook
presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite
startling. 2 This does not matter.
3 You are
merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do.
4 You are
not asked to judge them at all. 5 You are asked only to use them.
6 It is
their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are
true.
W-in.9. Remember only this; you need
not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome
them. 2
Some of them you may actively resist. 3 None of this will
matter, or decrease their efficacy. 4 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.
5 Nothing
more than that is required.
Lesson 1. Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.
W-pI.1.1. Now look slowly around you, and
practice applying this idea very specifically to whatever you see:
2 This table
does not mean anything. 3 This chair does not mean anything.
4 This
hand does not mean anything. 5 This foot does not mean anything.
6 This
pen does not mean anything.
W-pI.1.2. Then look farther away from your
immediate area, and apply the idea to a wider range:
2 That
door does not mean anything. 3 That body does not mean anything.
4 That
lamp does not mean anything. 5 That sign does not mean anything.
6 That
shadow does not mean anything.
W-pI.1.3. 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. 2 That is the purpose of the exercise.
3 The
statement should merely be applied to anything you see.
4 As you
practice the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately.
5 Do not
attempt to apply it to everything you see, for these exercises should not
become ritualistic. 6 Only be sure that nothing you see is
specifically excluded. 7 One thing is like another as far as the
application of the idea is concerned.
W-pI.1.4. Each of the first three lessons
should not be done more than twice a day each, preferably morning and evening.
2 Nor
should they be attempted for more than a minute or so, unless that entails a
sense of hurry. 3 A comfortable sense of leisure is essential.
Lesson 2.
I have given everything I see in this room [on this street, from this
window, in this place] all the meaning that it has for me.
W-pI.2.1. The exercises with this idea are
the same as those for the first one. 2 Begin with the things
that are near you, and apply the idea to whatever your glance rests on.
3 Then
increase the range outward. 4 Turn your head so that you include whatever
is on either side. 5 If possible, turn around and apply the idea
to what was behind you. 6 Remain as indiscriminate as possible in
selecting subjects for its application, do not concentrate on anything in
particular, and do not attempt to include everything you see in a given area,
or you will introduce strain.
W-pI.2.2. Merely glance easily and fairly
quickly around you, trying to avoid selection by size, brightness, color,
material, or relative importance to you. 2 Take the subjects
simply as you see them. 3 Try to apply the exercise with equal ease to
a body or a button, a fly or a floor, an arm or an apple.
4 The
sole criterion for applying the idea to anything is merely that your eyes have
lighted on it. 5 Make no attempt to include anything
particular, but be sure that nothing is specifically excluded.
Lesson 3.
I do not understand anything I see in this room [on this street, from
this window, in this place].
W-pI.3.1. Apply this idea in the same way as
the previous ones, without making distinctions of any kind.
2
Whatever you see becomes a proper subject for applying the idea.
3 Be sure
that you do not question the suitability of anything for application of the
idea. 4
These are not exercises in judgment. 5 Anything is suitable
if you see it. 6 Some of the things you see may have
emotionally charged meaning for you. 7 Try to lay such
feelings aside, and merely use these things exactly as you would anything else.
W-pI.3.2. The point of the exercises 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. 2
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. 3 For this purpose one thing is like another;
equally suitable and therefore equally useful.
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].
W-pI.4.1. Unlike the preceding ones, these
exercises do not begin with the idea for the day. 2 In these practice
periods, begin with noting the thoughts that are crossing your mind for about a
minute. 3
Then apply the idea to them. 4 If you are already aware of unhappy thoughts,
use them as subjects for the idea. 5 Do not, however,
select only the thoughts you think are "bad." 6 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."
7 This is
why they do not mean anything.
W-pI.4.2. In selecting the subjects for the
application of today's idea, the usual specificity is required.
2 Do not
be afraid to use "good" thoughts as well as "bad."
3 None of
them represents your real thoughts, which are being covered up by them.
4 The
"good" ones are but shadows of what lies beyond, and shadows make
sight difficult. 5 The "bad" ones are blocks to sight,
and make seeing impossible. 6 You do not want either.
W-pI.4.3. This is a major exercise, and will
be repeated from time to time in somewhat different form.
2 The aim
here is to train you in the first steps toward the goal of separating the
meaningless from the meaningful. 3 It is a first attempt in the long-range
purpose of learning to see the meaningless as outside you, and the meaningful
within. 4
It is also the beginning of training your mind to recognize what is the same
and what is different.
W-pI.4.4. In using your thoughts for
application of the idea for today, identify each thought by the central figure
or event it contains; for example: 2 This thought
about___does not mean anything. 3 It is like the things I see in this room [on
this street, and so on].
W-pI.4.5. You can also use the idea for a
particular thought that you recognize as harmful. 2 This practice is useful,
but is not a substitute for the more random procedures to be followed for the
exercises. 3 Do not, however, examine your mind for more
than a minute or so. 4 You are too inexperienced as yet to avoid a
tendency to become pointlessly preoccupied.
W-pI.4.6. Further, since these exercises are
the first of their kind, you may find the suspension of judgment in connection
with thoughts particularly difficult. 2 Do not repeat these
exercises more than three or four times during the day.
3 We will
return to them later.
Lesson 5.
I am never upset for the reason I think.
W-pI.5.1. This idea, like the preceding one,
can be used with any person, situation or event you think is causing you pain.
2 Apply
it specifically to whatever you believe is the cause of your upset, using the
description of the feeling in whatever term seems accurate to you.
3 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.
4 This is
not true. 5 However, until you learn that form does not
matter, each form becomes a proper subject for the exercises for the day.
6
Applying the same idea to each of them separately is the first step in
ultimately recognizing they are all the same.
W-pI.5.2. 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.
2 For
example: 3 I am not angry at___for the reason I think.
4 I am
not afraid of___for the reason I think.
W-pI.5.3. But again, this should not be
substituted for practice periods in which you first search your mind for
"sources" of upset in which you believe, and forms of upset which you
think result.
W-pI.5.4. 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.
2 It
might help to precede the exercises with the statement:
3 There
are no small upsets. 4 They are all equally disturbing to my peace
of mind.
W-pI.5.5. Then examine your mind for
whatever is distressing you, regardless of how much or how little you think it
is doing so.
W-pI.5.6. You may also find yourself less
willing to apply today's idea to some perceived sources of upset than to others.
2 If this
occurs, think first of this: 3 I cannot keep this form of upset and let the
others go. 4 For the purposes of these exercises, then, I
will regard them all as the same.
W-pI.5.7. Then search your mind for no more
than a minute 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. 2
Apply the idea for today to each of them, using the name of both the source of
the upset as you perceive it, and of the feeling as you experience it.
3 Further
examples are: 4 I am not worried about___for the reason I
think. 5
I am not depressed about___for the reason I think. 6 Three or four times
during the day is enough.
Lesson 6.
I am upset because I see something that is not there.
W-pI.6.1. The exercises with this idea are
very similar to the preceding ones. 2 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.
3 For
example: 4 I am angry at___because I see something that
is not there. 5 I am worried about___because I see something
that is not there.
W-pI.6.2. 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. 2 However, the three or
four practice periods which are required should be preceded by a minute or so
of mind searching, as before, and the application of the idea to each upsetting
thought uncovered in the search.
W-pI.6.3. 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: 2 There are no small
upsets. 3
They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.
4 And:
5 I
cannot keep this form of upset and let the others go.
6 For the
purposes of these exercises, then, I will regard them all as the same.
Lesson 7.
I see only the past.
W-pI.7.1. This idea is particularly difficult
to believe at first. 2 Yet it is the rationale for all of the
preceding ones. 3 It is the reason why nothing that you see
means anything. 4 It is the reason why you have given
everything you see all the meaning that it has for you.
5 It is
the reason why you do not understand anything you see.
6 It is
the reason why your thoughts do not mean anything, and why they are like the
things you see. 7 It is the reason why you are never upset for
the reason you think. 8 It is the reason why you are upset because
you see something that is not there.
W-pI.7.2. 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.
2 Yet
that is precisely why you need new ideas about time.
3 This
first time idea is not really so strange as it may sound at first.
W-pI.7.3. Look at a cup, for example.
2 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? 3 Are not your aesthetic reactions to the cup,
too, based on past experiences? 4 How else would you know whether or not this
kind of cup will break if you drop it? 5 What do you know
about this cup except what you learned in the past?
6 You
would have no idea what this cup is, except for your past learning.
7 Do you,
then, really see it?
W-pI.7.4. Look about you.
2 This is
equally true of whatever you look at. 3 Acknowledge this by
applying the idea for today indiscriminately to whatever catches your eye.
4 For
example: 5 I see only the past in this pencil.
6 I see
only the past in this shoe. 7 I see only the past in this hand.
8 I see
only the past in that body. 9 I see only the past in that face.
W-pI.7.5. Do not linger over any one thing
in particular, but remember to omit nothing specifically.
2 Glance
briefly at each subject, and then move on to the next.
3 Three
or four practice periods, each to last a minute or so, will be enough.
Lesson 8.
My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.
W-pI.8.1. This idea is, of course, the
reason why you see only the past. 2 No one really sees anything.
3 He sees
only his thoughts projected outward. 4 The mind's preoccupation
with the past is the cause of the misconception about time from which your
seeing suffers. 5 Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is
the only time there is. 6 It therefore cannot understand time, and
cannot, in fact, understand anything.
W-pI.8.2. The one wholly true thought one
can hold about the past is that it is not here. 2 To think about it at
all is therefore to think about illusions. 3 Very few have
realized what is actually entailed in picturing the past or in anticipating the
future. 4
The mind is actually blank when it does this, because it is not really thinking
about anything.
W-pI.8.3. The purpose of the exercises for
today is to begin to train your mind to recognize when it is not really
thinking at all. 2 While thoughtless ideas preoccupy your mind,
the truth is blocked. 3 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.
W-pI.8.4. The exercises for today should be
done with eyes closed. 2 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. 3 With as little
investment as possible, search your mind for the usual minute or so, merely
noting the thoughts you find there. 4 Name each one by the
central figure or theme it contains, and pass on to the next.
5
Introduce the practice period by saying: 6 I seem to be thinking
about ___.
W-pI.8.5. Then name each of your thoughts
specifically, for example: 2 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-searching period with:
3 But my
mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.
W-pI.8.6. This can be done four or five
times during the day, unless you find it irritates you.
2 If you
find it trying, three or four times is sufficient. 3 You might find it
helpful, however, to include your irritation, or any emotion that the idea for
today may induce, in the mind searching itself.
Lesson 9.
I see nothing as it is now.
W-pI.9.1. This idea obviously follows from
the two preceding ones. 2 But while you may be able to accept it
intellectually, it is unlikely that it will mean anything to you as yet.
3
However, understanding is not necessary at this point.
4 In
fact, the recognition that you do not understand is a prerequisite for undoing
your false ideas. 5 These exercises are concerned with practice,
not with understanding. 6 You do not need to practice what you already
understand. 7 It would indeed be circular to aim at
understanding, and assume that you have it already.
W-pI.9.2. It is difficult for the untrained
mind to believe that what it seems to picture is not there.
2 This
idea can be quite disturbing, and may meet with active resistance in any number
of forms. 3 Yet that does not preclude applying it.
4 No more
than that is required for these or any other exercises.
5 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.
W-pI.9.3. These 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.
2 For
example: 3 I do not see this typewriter as it is now.
4 I do
not see this telephone as it is now. 5 I do not see this arm
as it is now.
W-pI.9.4. Begin with things that are nearest
you, and then extend the range outward: 2 I do not see that
coat rack as it is now. 3 I do not see that door as it is now.
4 I do
not see that face as it is now.
W-pI.9.5. It is emphasized again that while
complete inclusion should not be attempted, specific exclusion must be avoided.
2 Be sure
you are honest with yourself in making this distinction.
3 You may
be tempted to obscure it.
Lesson 10.
My thoughts do not mean anything.
W-pI.10.1. This idea applies to all the
thoughts of which you are aware, or become aware in the practice periods.
2 The
reason the idea is applicable to all of them is that they are not your real
thoughts. 3 We have made this distinction before, and
will do so again. 4 You have no basis for comparison as yet.
5 When
you do, you will have no doubt that what you once believed were your thoughts
did not mean anything.
W-pI.10.2. This is the second time we have used
this kind of idea. 2 The form is only slightly different.
3 This
time the idea is introduced with "My thoughts" instead of "These
thoughts," and no link is made overtly with the things around you.
4 The
emphasis is now on the lack of reality of what you think you think.
W-pI.10.3. 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. 2 Now we are emphasizing that the presence of
these "thoughts" means that you are not thinking.
3 This is
merely another way of repeating our earlier statement that your mind is really
a blank. 4 To recognize this is to recognize nothingness
when you think you see it. 5 As such, it is the prerequisite for vision.
W-pI.10.4. Close your eyes for these exercises,
and introduce them by repeating the idea for today quite slowly to yourself.
2 Then
add: 3
This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe.
4 The
exercises consist, as before, in searching your mind for all the thoughts that
are available to you, without selection or judgment.
5 Try to
avoid classification of any kind. 6 In fact, 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. 7 As each one crosses
your mind, say: 8 My thought about___does not mean anything.
9 My
thought about___does not mean anything.
W-pI.10.5. Today's thought can obviously serve
for any thought that distresses you at any time. 2 In addition, five
practice periods are recommended, each involving no more than a minute or so of
mind searching. 3 It is not recommended that this time period
be extended, and it should be reduced to half a minute or less if you
experience discomfort. 4 Remember, however, to repeat the idea slowly
before applying it specifically, and also to add: 5 This idea will help
to release me from all that I now believe.
Lesson 11.
My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.
W-pI.11.1. This is the first idea we have had
that is related to a major phase of the correction process; the reversal of the
thinking of the world. 2 It seems as if the world determines what you
perceive. 3 Today's idea introduces the concept that your
thoughts determine the world you see. 4 Be glad indeed to
practice the idea in its initial form, for in this idea is your release made
sure. 5
The key to forgiveness lies in it.
W-pI.11.2. The practice periods for today's
idea are to be undertaken somewhat differently from the previous ones.
2 Begin
with your eyes closed, and repeat the idea slowly to yourself.
3 Then
open your eyes and look about, near and far, up and down,--anywhere.
4 During
the minute 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.
W-pI.11.3. 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. 2 The words, however,
should be used in an unhurried, even leisurely fashion.
3 The
introduction to this idea, in particular, should be practiced as casually as
possible. 4 It contains the foundation for the peace,
relaxation and freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve.
5 On
concluding the exercises, close your eyes and repeat the idea once more slowly
to yourself.
W-pI.11.4. Three practice periods today will
probably be sufficient. 2 However, if there is little or no uneasiness
and an inclination to do more, as many as five may be undertaken.
3 More
than this is not recommended.
Lesson 12.
I am upset because I see a meaningless world.
W-pI.12.1. The importance of this idea lies in
the fact that it contains a correction for a major perceptual distortion.
2 You
think that what upsets you is a frightening world, or a sad world, or a violent
world, or an insane world. 3 All these attributes are given it by you.
4 The world
is meaningless in itself.
W-pI.12.2. These exercises are done with eyes
open. 2
Look around you, this time quite slowly. 3 Try to pace yourself
so that the slow shifting of your glance from one thing to another involves a
fairly constant time interval. 4 Do not allow the time of the shift to become
markedly longer or shorter, but try, instead, to keep a measured, even tempo
throughout. 5 What you see does not matter.
6 You
teach yourself this as you give whatever your glance rests on equal attention
and equal time. 7 This is a beginning step in learning to give
them all equal value.
W-pI.12.3. As you look about you, say to
yourself: 2 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. 3 If terms which seem
positive rather than negative occur to you, include them.
4 For
example, you might think of "a good world," or "a satisfying
world." 5 If such terms occur to you, use them along with the rest.
6 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 "satisfying world" implies an "unsatisfying" one.
7 All
terms which cross your mind are suitable subjects for today's exercises.
8 Their
seeming quality does not matter.
W-pI.12.4. 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. 2 For the purposes of these exercises, there is
no difference between them. 3 At the end of the practice period, add:
4 But I
am upset because I see a meaningless world.
W-pI.12.5. What is meaningless is neither good
nor bad. 2 Why, then, should a meaningless world upset
you? 3
If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon
it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. 4 But because it is
meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be.
5 It is
this you see in it. 6 It is this that is meaningless in truth.
7 Beneath
your words is written the Word of God. 8 The truth upsets you
now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His.
9 That is
the ultimate purpose of these exercises.
W-pI.12.6. Three or four times is enough for
practicing the idea for today. 2 Nor should the practice periods exceed a
minute. 3
You may find even this too long. 4 Terminate the exercises whenever you
experience a sense of strain.
Lesson 13.
A meaningless world engenders fear.
W-pI.13.1. Today's idea is really another form
of the preceding one, except that it is more specific as to the emotion aroused.
2
Actually, a meaningless world is impossible. 3 Nothing without
meaning exists. 4 However, it does not follow that you will not
think you perceive something that has no meaning. 5 On the contrary, you
will be particularly likely to think you do perceive it.
W-pI.13.2. Recognition of meaninglessness
arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. 2 It represents a
situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose
meaning is to be written in the empty space that meaninglessness provides.
3 The ego
rushes in frantically to establish its own ideas there, fearful that the void
may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own impotence and unreality.
4 And on
this alone it is correct.
W-pI.13.3. It is essential, therefore, that you
learn to recognize the meaningless, and accept it without fear.
2 If you
are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world with attributes that
it does not possess, and crowd it with images that do not exist.
3 To the
ego illusions are safety devices, as they must also be to you who equate
yourself with the ego.
W-pI.13.4. The exercises for today, which
should be done about three or four times for not more than a minute or so at
most each time, are to be practiced in a somewhat different way from the
preceding ones. 2 With eyes closed, repeat today's idea to
yourself. 3 Then open your eyes, and look about you
slowly, saying: 4 I am looking at a meaningless world.
5 Repeat
this statement to yourself as you look about. 6 Then close your eyes,
and conclude with: 7 A meaningless world engenders fear because I
think I am in competition with God.
W-pI.13.5. You may find it difficult to avoid
resistance, in one form or another, to this concluding statement.
2
Whatever form such resistance may take, remind yourself that you are really
afraid of such a thought because of the "vengeance" of the
"enemy." 3 You are not expected to believe the statement
at this point, and will probably dismiss it as preposterous.
4 Note
carefully, however, any signs of overt or covert fear which it may arouse.
W-pI.13.6. This is our first attempt at stating
an explicit cause and effect relationship of a kind which you are very
inexperienced in recognizing. 2 Do not dwell on the concluding statement, and
try not even to think of it except during the practice periods.
3 That
will suffice at present.
Lesson 14.
God did not create a meaningless world.
W-pI.14.1. The idea for today is, of course,
the reason why a meaningless world is impossible. 2 What God did not
create does not exist. 3 And everything that does exist exists as He
created it. 4 The world you see has nothing to do with
reality. 5 It is of your own making, and it does not
exist.
W-pI.14.2. The exercises for today are to be
practiced with eyes closed throughout. 2 The mind-searching
period should be short, a minute at most. 3 Do not have more than
three practice periods with today's idea unless you find them comfortable.
4 If you
do, it will be because you really understand what they are for.
W-pI.14.3. 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. 2 The early steps in this exchange, which can
truly be called salvation, can be quite difficult and even quite painful.
3 Some of
them will lead you directly into fear. 4 You will not be left
there. 5
You will go far beyond it. 6 Our direction is toward perfect safety and
perfect peace.
W-pI.14.4. With eyes closed, think of all the
horrors in the world that cross your mind. 2 Name each one as it
occurs to you, and then deny its reality. 3 God did not create
it, and so it is not real. 4 Say, for example:
5 God did
not create that war, and so it is not real. 6 God did not create
that airplane crash, and so it is not real. 7 God did not create
that disaster [specify], and so it is not real.
W-pI.14.5. 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. 2 In each case, name
the "disaster" quite specifically. 3 Do not use general
terms. 4
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.
W-pI.14.6. This is your personal repertory of
horrors at which you are looking. 2 These things are part of the world you see.
3 Some of
them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell.
4 It does
not matter. 5 What God did not create can only be in your
own mind apart from His. 6 Therefore, it has no meaning.
7 In
recognition of this fact, conclude the practice periods by repeating today's
idea: 8
God did not create a meaningless world.
W-pI.14.7. The idea for today can, of course,
be applied to anything that disturbs you during the day, aside from the
practice periods. 2 Be very specific in applying it.
3 Say:
4 God did
not create a meaningless world. 5 He did not create [specify the situation
which is disturbing you], and so it is not real.
Lesson 15.
My thoughts are images that I have made.
W-pI.15.1. It is because the thoughts you think
you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing.
2 You think
you think them, and so you think you see them. 3 This is how your
"seeing" was made. 4 This is the function you have given your
body's eyes. 5 It is not seeing.
6 It is
image making. 7 It takes the place of seeing, replacing
vision with illusions.
W-pI.15.2. This introductory idea to the
process of image making that you call seeing will not have much meaning for you.
2 You
will begin to understand it when you have seen little edges of light around the
same familiar objects which you see now. 3 That is the beginning
of real vision. 4 You can be certain that real vision will come
quickly when this has occurred.
W-pI.15.3. As we go along, you may have many
"light episodes." 2 They may take many different forms,
some of them quite unexpected. 3 Do not be afraid of them.
4 They
are signs that you are opening your eyes at last. 5 They will not
persist, because they merely symbolize true perception, and they are not
related to knowledge. 6 These exercises will not reveal knowledge to
you. 7
But they will prepare the way to it.
W-pI.15.4. In practicing 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:
2
This___is an image that I have made. 3 That___is an image
that I have made. 4 It is not necessary to include a large number
of specific subjects for the application of today's idea.
5 It is
necessary, however, to continue to look at each subject while you repeat the
idea to yourself. 6 The idea should be repeated quite slowly each
time.
W-pI.15.5. Although you will obviously not be
able to apply the idea to very many things during the minute or so of practice
that is recommended, try to make the selection as random as possible.
2 Less
than a minute will do for the practice periods, if you begin to feel uneasy.
3 Do not
have more than three application periods for today's idea unless you feel
completely comfortable with it, and do not exceed four.
4
However, the idea can be applied as needed throughout the day.
Lesson 16.
I have no neutral thoughts.
W-pI.16.W-pI.1. The idea for today is a beginning step in
dispelling the belief that your thoughts have no effect.
2
Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. 3 There is no exception
to this fact. 4 Thoughts are not big or little; powerful or
weak. 5
They are merely true or false. 6 Those that are true create their own likeness.
7 Those
that are false make theirs.
W-pI.16.2. There is no more self-contradictory
concept than that of "idle thoughts." 2 What gives rise to
the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle.
3 Every
thought you have contributes to truth or to illusion; either it extends the
truth or it multiplies illusions. 4 You can indeed multiply nothing, but you will
not extend it by doing so.
W-pI.16.3. Besides your recognizing that
thoughts are never idle, salvation requires that you also recognize that every
thought you have brings either peace or war; either love or fear.
2 A
neutral result is impossible because a neutral thought is impossible.
3 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. 4 We will practice this idea in many forms before
you really understand it.
W-pI.16.4. In applying the idea for today,
search your mind for a minute or so with eyes closed, and actively seek not to
overlook any "little" thought that may tend to elude the search.
2 This is
quite difficult until you get used to it. 3 You will find that it
is still hard for you not to make artificial distinctions.
4 Every
thought that occurs to you, regardless of the qualities that you assign to it,
is a suitable subject for applying today's idea.
W-pI.16.5. In the practice periods, first
repeat the idea to yourself, and then as each one crosses your mind hold it in
awareness while you tell yourself: 2 This thought
about___is not a neutral thought. 3 That thought about___is not a neutral thought.
4 As
usual, use today's idea whenever you are aware of a particular thought that
arouses uneasiness. 5 The following form is suggested for this
purpose: 6 This thought about___is not a neutral
thought, because I have no neutral thoughts.
W-pI.16.6. Four or five practice periods are
recommended, if you find them relatively effortless.
2 If
strain is experienced, three will be enough. 3 The length of the
exercise period should also be reduced if there is discomfort.
Lesson 17.
I see no neutral things.
W-pI.17.1. This idea is another step in the
direction of identifying cause and effect as it really operates in the world.
2 You see
no neutral things because you have no neutral thoughts.
3 It is
always the thought that comes first, despite the temptation to believe that it is
the other way around. 4 This is not the way the world thinks, but you
must learn that it is the way you think. 5 If it were not so,
perception would have no cause, and would itself be the cause of reality.
6 In view
of its highly variable nature, this is hardly likely.
W-pI.17.2. In applying today's idea, say to
yourself, with eyes open: 2 I see no neutral things because I have no
neutral thoughts. 3 Then look about you, resting your glance on
each thing you note long enough to say: 4 I do not see a neutral
___, because my thoughts about___are not neutral. 5 For example, you
might say: 6 I do not see a neutral wall, because my
thoughts about walls are not neutral. 7 I do not see a
neutral body, because my thoughts about bodies are not neutral.
W-pI.17.3. As usual, it is essential to make no
distinctions between what you believe to be animate or inanimate; pleasant or
unpleasant. 2 Regardless of what you may believe, you do
not see anything that is really alive or really joyous.
3 That is
because you are unaware as yet of any thought that is really true, and
therefore really happy.
W-pI.17.4. Three or four specific practice
periods are recommended, and no less than three are required for maximum
benefit, even if you experience resistance. 2 However, if you do,
the length of the practice period may be reduced to less than the minute or so
that is otherwise recommended.
Lesson 18.
I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.
W-pI.18.1. The idea for today is another step
in learning that the thoughts which give rise to what you see are never neutral
or unimportant. 2 It also emphasizes the idea that minds are
joined, which will be given increasing stress later on.
W-pI.18.2. Today's idea does not refer to what
you see as much as to how you see it. 2 Therefore, the
exercises for today emphasize this aspect of your perception.
3 The
three or four practice periods which are recommended should be done as follows:
W-pI.18.3. 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: 2 I am not alone in
experiencing the effects of how I see ___. 3 Conclude each
practice period by repeating the more general statement:
4 I am
not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.
5 A
minute or so, or even less, will be sufficient for each practice period.
Lesson 19.
I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.
W-pI.19.1. The idea for today is obviously the
reason why your seeing does not affect you alone. 2 You will notice that
at times the ideas related to thinking precede those related to perceiving,
while at other times the order is reversed. 3 The reason is that
the order does not matter. 4 Thinking and its results are really
simultaneous, for cause and effect are never separate.
W-pI.19.2. Today we are again emphasizing the
fact that minds are joined. 2 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."
3 Yet it
is a fact that there are no private thoughts. 4 Despite your initial
resistance to this idea, you will yet understand that it must be true if
salvation is possible at all. 5 And salvation must be possible because it is
the Will of God.
W-pI.19.3. The minute or so of mind searching
which today's exercises require is to be undertaken with eyes closed.
2 The
idea for today is to be repeated first, and then the mind should be carefully
searched for the thoughts it contains at that time.
3 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: 4 I am not alone in
experiencing the effects of this thought about ___.
W-pI.19.4. 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. 2 Do not forget,
however, that random selection of subjects for all practice periods remains
essential throughout. 3 Lack of order in this connection will
ultimately make the recognition of lack of order in miracles meaningful to you.
W-pI.19.5. 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.
2 Do not
attempt more than four.
Lesson 20.
I am determined to see.
W-pI.20.1. We have been quite casual about our
practice periods thus far. 2 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. 3 This approach has
been intentional, and very carefully planned. 4 We have not lost sight
of the crucial importance of the reversal of your thinking.
5 The
salvation of the world depends on it. 6 Yet you will not see
if you regard yourself as being coerced, and if you give in to resentment and
opposition.
W-pI.20.2. This is our first attempt to
introduce structure. 2 Do not misconstrue it as an effort to exert
force or pressure. 3 You want salvation.
4 You
want to be happy. 5 You want peace. 6 You do not have them
now, because your mind is totally undisciplined, and you cannot distinguish between
joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, love and fear. 7 You are now learning
how to tell them apart. 8 And great indeed will be your reward.
W-pI.20.3. Your decision to see is all that
vision requires. 2 What you want is yours.
3 Do not
mistake the little effort that is asked of you for an indication that our goal
is of little worth. 4 Can the salvation of the world be a trivial
purpose? 5 And can the world be saved if you are not?
6 God has
one Son, and he is the resurrection and the life. 7 His will is done
because all power is given him in Heaven and on earth.
8 In your
determination to see is vision given you.
W-pI.20.4. The exercises for today consist in
reminding yourself throughout the day that you want to see.
2 Today's
idea also tacitly implies the recognition that you do not see now.
3
Therefore, as you repeat the idea, you are stating that you are determined to
change your present state for a better one, and one you really want.
W-pI.20.5. Repeat today's idea slowly and
positively at least twice an hour today, attempting to do so every half hour.
2 Do not
be distressed if you forget to do so, but make a real effort to remember.
3 The
extra repetitions should be applied to any situation, person or event that
upsets you. 4 You can see them differently, and you will.
5 What
you desire you will see. 6 Such is the real law of cause and effect as
it operates in the world.
Lesson 21.
I am determined to see things differently.
W-pI.21.1. The idea for today is obviously a
continuation and extension of the preceding one. 2 This time, however,
specific mind-searching periods are necessary, in addition to applying the idea
to particular situations as they may arise. 3 Five practice periods
are urged, allowing a full minute for each.
W-pI.21.2. In the practice periods, begin by
repeating the idea to yourself. 2 Then close your eyes and search your mind
carefully for situations past, present or anticipated that arouse anger in you.
3 The
anger may take the form of any reaction ranging from mild irritation to rage.
4 The
degree of the emotion you experience does not matter.
5 You
will become increasingly aware that a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but
a veil drawn over intense fury.
W-pI.21.3. Try, therefore, not to let the
"little" thoughts of anger escape you in the practice periods.
2
Remember that you do not really recognize what arouses anger in you, and
nothing that you believe in this connection means anything.
3 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."
4 This is
not so. 5
It is merely an example of the belief that some forms of attack are more
justified than others.
W-pI.21.4. As you search your mind for all the
forms in which attack thoughts present themselves, hold each one in mind while
you tell yourself: 2 I am determined to see___[name of person]
differently. 3 I am determined to see___[specify the
situation] differently.
W-pI.21.5. Try to be as specific as possible.
2 You
may, for example, focus your anger on a particular attribute of a particular
person, believing that the anger is limited to this aspect.
3 If your
perception is suffering from this form of distortion, say:
4 I am
determined to see___[specify the attribute] in___[name of person] differently.
Lesson 22.
What I see is a form of vengeance.
W-pI.22.1. Today's idea accurately describes
the way anyone who holds attack thoughts in his mind must see the world.
2 Having
projected his anger onto the world, he sees vengeance about to strike at him.
3 His own
attack is thus perceived as self defense. 4 This becomes an
increasingly vicious circle until he is willing to change how he sees.
5
Otherwise, thoughts of attack and counter-attack will preoccupy him and people
his entire world. 6 What peace of mind is possible to him then?
W-pI.22.2. It is from this savage fantasy that
you want to escape. 2 Is it not joyous news to hear that it is not
real? 3
Is it not a happy discovery to find that you can escape?
4 You
made what you would destroy; everything that you hate and would attack and kill.
5 All
that you fear does not exist.
W-pI.22.3. Look at the world about you at least
five times today, for at least a minute each time. 2 As your eyes move
slowly from one object to another, from one body to another, say to yourself:
3 I see
only the perishable. 4 I see nothing that will last.
5 What I
see is not real. 6 What I see is a form of vengeance.
7 At the
end of each practice period, ask yourself: 8 Is this the world I
really want to see? 9 The answer is surely obvious.
Lesson 23.
I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.
W-pI.23.1. The idea for today contains the only
way out of fear that will ever succeed. 2 Nothing else will
work; everything else is meaningless. 3 But this way cannot
fail. 4
Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see.
5 It is
with your thoughts, then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is
to be changed.
W-pI.23.2. If the cause of the world you see is
attack thoughts, you must learn that it is these thoughts which you do not want.
2 There
is no point in lamenting the world. 3 There is no point in
trying to change the world. 4 It is incapable of change because it is
merely an effect. 5 But there is indeed a point in changing your
thoughts about the world. 6 Here you are changing the cause.
7 The
effect will change automatically.
W-pI.23.3. The world you see is a vengeful
world, and everything in it is a symbol of vengeance.
2 Each of
your perceptions of "external reality" is a pictorial representation
of your own attack thoughts. 3 One can well ask if this can be called seeing.
4 Is not
fantasy a better word for such a process, and hallucination a more appropriate
term for the result?
W-pI.23.4. You see the world that you have
made, but you do not see yourself as the image maker.
2 You
cannot be saved from the world, but you can escape from its cause.
3 This is
what salvation means, for where is the world you see when its cause is gone?
4 Vision
already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now.
5
Loveliness can light your images, and so transform them that you will love
them, even though they were made of hate. 6 For you will not be
making them alone.
W-pI.23.5. The idea for today introduces the
thought that you are not trapped in the world you see, because its cause can be
changed. 2 This change requires, first, that the cause
be identified and then let go, so that it can be replaced.
3 The
first two steps in this process require your cooperation.
4 The final
one does not. 5 Your images have already been replaced.
6 By
taking the first two steps, you will see that this is so.
W-pI.23.6. Besides using it throughout the day
as the need arises, five practice periods are required in applying today's idea.
2 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 attack
thoughts as occur to you. 3 As each one crosses your mind say:
4 I can
escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts about ___.
5 Hold
each attack thought in mind as you say this, and then dismiss that thought and
go on to the next.
W-pI.23.7. In the practice periods, be sure to
include both your thoughts of attacking and of being attacked.
2 Their
effects are exactly the same because they are exactly the same.
3 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. 4 We are still at the
stage of identifying the cause of the world you see.
5 When
you finally learn that thoughts of attack and of being attacked are not
different, you will be ready to let the cause go.
Lesson 24.
I do not perceive my own best interests.
W-pI.24.1. In no situation that arises do you realize
the outcome that would make you happy. 2 Therefore, you have
no guide to appropriate action, and no way of judging the result.
3 What
you do is determined by your perception of the situation, and that perception
is wrong. 4 It is inevitable, then, that you will not
serve your own best interests. 5 Yet they are your only goal in any situation
which is correctly perceived. 6 Otherwise, you will not recognize what they
are.
W-pI.24.2. If you realized that you do not
perceive your own best interests, you could be taught what they are.
2 But in
the presence of your conviction that you do know what they are, you cannot
learn. 3
The idea for today is a step toward opening your mind so that learning can
begin.
W-pI.24.3. The exercises for today require much
more honesty than you are accustomed to using. 2 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. 3 Two minutes are suggested for each of the
mind-searching periods which the exercises involve.
W-pI.24.4. The practice periods should begin
with repeating today's idea, followed by searching the mind, with closed eyes,
for unresolved situations about which you are currently concerned.
2 The
emphasis should be on uncovering the outcome you want.
3 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.
W-pI.24.5. 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.
2 The
form of each application should be roughly as follows:
3 In the
situation involving___, I would like___to happen, and___to happen, and so on.
4 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.
W-pI.24.6. 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.
2 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.
W-pI.24.7. After covering the list of as many
hoped-for goals as possible, for each unresolved situation that crosses your
mind say to yourself: 2 I do not perceive my own best interests in
this situation, and go on to the next one.
Lesson 25.
I do not know what anything is for.
W-pI.25.1. Purpose is meaning.
2 Today's
idea explains why nothing you see means anything. 3 You do not know what
it is for. 4 Therefore, it is meaningless to you.
5
Everything is for your own best interests. 6 That is what it is
for; that is its purpose; that is what it means. 7 It is in recognizing
this that your goals become unified. 8 It is in recognizing
this that what you see is given meaning.
W-pI.25.2. You perceive the world and
everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals.
2 These
goals have nothing to do with your own best interests, because the ego is not
you. 3
This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is
for. 4
As a result, you are bound to misuse it. 5 When you believe
this, you will try to withdraw the goals you have assigned to the world,
instead of attempting to reinforce them.
W-pI.25.3. Another way of describing the goals
you now perceive is to say that they are all concerned with
"personal" interests. 2 Since you have no personal interests, your
goals are really concerned with nothing. 3 In cherishing them,
therefore, you have no goals at all. 4 And thus you do not
know what anything is for.
W-pI.25.4. Before you can make any sense out of
the exercises for today, one more thought is necessary.
2 At the
most superficial levels, you do recognize purpose. 3 Yet purpose cannot be
understood at these levels. 4 For example, you do understand that a
telephone is for the purpose of talking to someone who is not physically in
your immediate vicinity. 5 What you do not understand is what you want
to reach him for. 6 And it is this that makes your contact with
him meaningful or not.
W-pI.25.5. It is crucial to your learning to be
willing to give up the goals you have established for everything.
2 The
recognition that they are meaningless, rather than "good" or "
bad," is the only way to accomplish this. 3 The idea for today is
a step in this direction.
W-pI.25.6. Six practice periods, each of
two-minutes duration, are required. 2 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 "nonhuman." 3 With your eyes
resting on each subject you so select, say, for example:
4 I do
not know what this chair is for. 5 I do not know what this pencil is for.
6 I do
not know what this hand is for. 7 Say this quite slowly, without shifting your
eyes from the subject until you have completed the statement about it.
8 Then
move on to the next subject, and apply today's idea as before.
Lesson 26.
My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.
W-pI.26.1. It is surely obvious that if you can
be attacked you are not invulnerable. 2 You see attack as a
real threat. 3 That is because you believe that you can
really attack. 4 And what would have effects through you must
also have effects on you. 5 It is this law that will ultimately save you,
but you are misusing it now. 6 You must therefore learn how it can be used
for your own best interests, rather than against them.
W-pI.26.2. Because your attack thoughts will be
projected, you will fear attack. 2 And if you fear attack, you must believe that
you are not invulnerable. 3 Attack thoughts therefore make you vulnerable
in your own mind, which is where the attack thoughts are.
4 Attack
thoughts and invulnerability cannot be accepted together.
5 They
contradict each other.
W-pI.26.3. The idea for today introduces the
thought that you always attack yourself first. 2 If attack thoughts
must entail the belief that you are vulnerable, their effect is to weaken you
in your own eyes. 3 Thus they have attacked your perception of
yourself. 4 And because you believe in them, you can no
longer believe in yourself. 5 A false image of yourself has come to take
the place of what you are.
W-pI.26.4. Practice with today's idea will help
you to understand that vulnerability or invulnerability is the result of your
own thoughts. 2 Nothing except your thoughts can attack you.
3 Nothing
except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable.
4 And
nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so.
W-pI.26.5. Six practice periods are required in
applying today's idea. 2 A full two minutes should be attempted for
each of them, although the time may be reduced to a minute if the discomfort is
too great. 3 Do not reduce it further.
W-pI.26.6. The practice period should begin
with repeating the idea for today, then closing your eyes and reviewing the
unresolved questions whose outcomes are causing you concern.
2 The
concern may take the form of depression, worry, anger, a sense of imposition,
fear, foreboding or preoccupation. 3 Any problem as yet
unsettled that tends to recur in your thoughts during the day is a suitable
subject. 4 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. 5
Today's idea should be applied as follows:
W-pI.26.7. First, name the situation:
2 I am
concerned about ___. 3 Then go over every possible outcome that has
occurred to you in that connection and which has caused you concern, referring
to each one quite specifically, saying: 4 I am afraid___will
happen.
W-pI.26.8. If you are doing the exercises
properly, you should have some five or six distressing possibilities available
for each situation you use, and quite possibly more.
2 It is
much more helpful to cover a few situations thoroughly than to touch on a
larger number. 3 As the list of anticipated outcomes for each
situation continues, you will probably find some of them, especially those that
occur to you toward the end, less acceptable to you.
4 Try,
however, to treat them all alike to whatever extent you can.
W-pI.26.9. After you have named each outcome of
which you are afraid, tell yourself: 2 That thought is an
attack upon myself. 3 Conclude each practice period by repeating
today's idea to yourself once more.
Lesson 27.
Above all else I want to see.
W-pI.27.1. Today's idea expresses something
stronger than mere determination. 2 It gives vision priority among your desires.
3 You may
feel hesitant about using the idea, on the grounds that you are not sure you
really mean it. 4 This does not matter.
5 The
purpose of today's exercises is to bring the time when the idea will be wholly
true a little nearer.
W-pI.27.2. There may 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. 2 If you become uneasy about the lack of
reservation involved, add: 3 Vision has no cost to anyone.
4 If fear
of loss still persists, add further: 5 It can only bless.
W-pI.27.3. The idea for today needs many
repetitions for maximum benefit. 2 It should be used at least every half hour,
and more if possible. 3 You might try for every fifteen or twenty
minutes. 4 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. 5 It will not be
difficult to do this, even if you are engaged in conversation, or otherwise
occupied at the time. 6 You can still repeat one short sentence to
yourself without disturbing anything.
W-pI.27.4. The real question is, how often will
you remember? 2 How much do you want today's idea to be true?
3 Answer
one of these questions, and you have answered the other.
4 You will
probably miss several applications, and perhaps quite a number.
5 Do not
be disturbed by this, but do try to keep on your schedule from then on.
6 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.
Lesson 28.
Above all else I want to see things differently.
W-pI.28.1. Today we are really giving specific
application to the idea for yesterday. 2 In these practice
periods, you will be making a series of definite commitments.
3 The
question of whether you will keep them in the future is not our concern here.
4 If you
are willing at least to make them now, you have started on the way to keeping
them. 5
And we are still at the beginning.
W-pI.28.2. You may wonder why it is important
to say, for example, "Above all else I want to see this table differently."
2 In
itself it is not important at all. 3 Yet what is by itself?
4 And
what does "in itself" mean? 5 You see a lot of
separate things about you, which really means you are not seeing at all.
6 You
either see or not. 7 When you have seen one thing differently, you
will see all things differently. 8 The light you will see in any one of them is
the same light you will see in them all.
W-pI.28.3. 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. 2 You are not defining it in past terms.
3 You are
asking what it is, rather than telling it what it is.
4 You are
not binding its meaning to your tiny experience of tables, nor are you limiting
its purpose to your little personal thoughts.
W-pI.28.4. You will not question what you have
already defined. 2 And the purpose of these exercises is to ask
questions and receive the answers. 3 In saying,
"Above all else I want to see this table differently," you are
committing yourself to seeing. 4 It is not an exclusive commitment.
5 It is a
commitment that applies to the table just as much as to anything else, neither
more nor less.
W-pI.28.5. 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. 2 It has something to
show you; something beautiful and clean and of infinite value, full of
happiness and hope. 3 Hidden under all your ideas about it is its
real purpose, the purpose it shares with all the universe.
W-pI.28.6. 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. 2 You will be making this same request of each
subject that you use in the practice periods. 3 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.
W-pI.28.7. 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. 2 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.
W-pI.28.8. As usual, the applications should
include the name of the subject your eyes happen to light on, and you should
rest your eyes on it while saying: 2 Above all else I want
to see this___differently. 3 Each application should be made quite slowly,
and as thoughtfully as possible. 4 There is no hurry.
Lesson 29.
God is in everything I see.
W-pI.29.1. The idea for today explains why you
can see all purpose in everything. 2 It explains why
nothing is separate, by itself or in itself. 3 And it explains why
nothing you see means anything. 4 In fact, it explains every idea we have used
thus far, and all subsequent ones as well. 5 Today's idea is the
whole basis for vision.
W-pI.29.2. You will probably find this idea
very difficult to grasp at this point. 2 You may find it
silly, irreverent, senseless, funny and even objectionable.
3
Certainly God is not in a table, for example, as you see it.
4 Yet we
emphasized yesterday that a table shares the purpose of the universe.
5 And
what shares the purpose of the universe shares the purpose of its Creator.
W-pI.29.3. Try then, today, to begin to learn
how to look on all things with love, appreciation and open-mindedness.
2 You do
not see them now. 3 Would you know what is in them?
4 Nothing
is as it appears to you. 5 Its holy purpose stands beyond your little
range. 6
When vision has shown you the holiness that lights up the world, you will
understand today's idea perfectly. 7 And you will not
understand how you could ever have found it difficult.
W-pI.29.4. 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. 2 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. 3 Remember that any
order you impose is equally alien to reality.
W-pI.29.5. Your list of subjects should
therefore be as free of self-selection as possible.
2 For
example, a suitable list might include: 3 God is in this coat
hanger. 4
God is in this magazine. 5 God is in this finger.
6 God is
in this lamp. 7 God is in that body.
8 God is
in that door. 9 God is in that waste basket.
10 In addition
to the assigned practice periods, repeat the idea for today at least once an
hour, looking slowly about you as you say the words unhurriedly to yourself.
11 At
least once or twice, you should experience a sense of restfulness as you do
this.
Lesson 30.
God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.
W-pI.30.1. The idea for today is the
springboard for vision. 2 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.
3 Nor will
what you saw before be even faintly visible to you.
W-pI.30.2. Today we are trying to use a new
kind of "projection." 2 We are not attempting to get rid of
what we do not like by seeing it outside. 3 Instead, we are
trying to see in the world what is in our minds, and what we want to recognize
is there. 4 Thus, we are trying to join with what we see,
rather than keeping it apart from us. 5 That is the
fundamental difference between vision and the way you see.
W-pI.30.3. Today's idea should be applied as often
as possible throughout the day. 2 Whenever you have a moment or so, repeat it
to yourself 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.
W-pI.30.4. Real vision is not limited to
concepts such as "near" and "far." 2 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.
W-pI.30.5. Real vision is not only unlimited by
space and distance, but it does not depend on the body's eyes at all.
2 The
mind is its only source. 3 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 subjects come to mind, and
looking within rather than without. 4 Today's idea applies
equally to both.
Lesson 31.
I am not the victim of the world I see.
W-pI.31.1. Today's idea is the introduction to your
declaration of release. 2 Again, the idea should be applied to both the
world you see without and the world you see within.
3 In
applying the idea, we will use a form of practice which will be used more and
more, with changes as indicated. 4 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 throughout the day.
W-pI.31.2. Two longer periods of practice with
the idea for today are needed, one in the morning and one at night.
2 Three
to five minutes for each of these are recommended. 3 During that time,
look about you slowly while repeating the idea two or three times.
4 Then
close your eyes, and apply the same idea to your inner world.
5 You
will escape from both together, for the inner is the cause of the outer.
W-pI.31.3. 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 next.
2 Try not
to establish any kind of hierarchy among them. 3 Watch them come and
go as dispassionately as possible. 4 Do not dwell on any
one in particular, but try to let the stream move on evenly and calmly, without
any special investment on your part. 5 As you sit and
quietly watch your thoughts, repeat today's idea to yourself as often as you
care to, but with no sense of hurry.
W-pI.31.4. In addition, repeat the idea for
today as often as possible during the day. 2 Remind yourself that
you are making a declaration of independence in the name of your own freedom.
3 And in
your freedom lies the freedom of the world.
W-pI.31.5. The idea for today is also a
particularly useful one to use as a response to any form of temptation that may
arise. 2
It is a declaration that you will not yield to it, and put yourself in bondage.
Lesson 32.
I have invented the world I see.
W-pI.32.1. Today we are continuing to develop
the theme of cause and effect. 2 You are not the victim of the world you see
because you invented it. 3 You can give it up as easily as you made it
up. 4
You will see it or not see it, as you wish. 5 While you want it you
will see it; when you no longer want it, it will not be there for you to see.
W-pI.32.2. The idea for today, like the
preceding ones, applies to your inner and outer worlds, which are actually the
same. 2
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. 3 In today's exercises,
try to introduce the thought that both are in your own imagination.
W-pI.32.3. 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.
2 Then
close your eyes and look around your inner world. 3 Try to treat them
both as equally as possible. 4 Repeat the idea for today unhurriedly as
often as you wish, as you watch the images your imagination presents to your
awareness.
W-pI.32.4. For the two longer practice periods
three to five minutes are recommended, with not less than three required.
2 More
than five can be utilized, if you find the exercise restful.
3 To
facilitate this, select a time when few distractions are anticipated, and when
you yourself feel reasonably ready.
W-pI.32.5. These exercises are also to be
continued during the day, as often as possible. 2 The shorter applications
consist of repeating the idea slowly, as you survey either your inner or outer
world. 3
It does not matter which you choose.
W-pI.32.6. The idea for today should also be
applied immediately to any situation that may distress you.
2 Apply
the idea by telling yourself: 3 I have invented this situation as I see it.
Lesson 33.
There is another way of looking at the world.
W-pI.33.1. Today's idea is an attempt to
recognize that you can shift your perception of the world in both its outer and
inner aspects. 2 A full five minutes should be devoted to the
morning and evening applications. 3 In these practice periods, the idea should be
repeated as often as you find comfortable, though unhurried applications are
essential. 4 Alternate between surveying your outer and
inner perceptions, but without an abrupt sense of shifting.
W-pI.33.2. Merely glance casually around the
world you perceive as outside yourself, then close your eyes and survey your
inner thoughts with equal casualness. 2 Try to remain equally
uninvolved in both, and to maintain this detachment as you repeat the idea
throughout the day.
W-pI.33.3. The shorter exercise periods should
be as frequent as possible. 2 Specific applications of today's idea should
also be made immediately, when any situation arises which tempts you to become
disturbed. 3 For these applications, say:
4 There
is another way of looking at this.
W-pI.33.4. Remember to apply today's idea the
instant you are aware of distress. 2 It may be necessary
to take a minute or so to sit quietly and repeat the idea to yourself several
times. 3
Closing your eyes will probably help in this form of application.
Lesson 34.
I could see peace instead of this.
W-pI.34.1. The idea for today begins to
describe the conditions that prevail in the other way of seeing.
2 Peace
of mind is clearly an internal matter. 3 It must begin with
your own thoughts, and then extend outward. 4 It is from your peace
of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises.
W-pI.34.2. Three longer practice periods are
required for today's exercises. 2 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 conducive to readiness. 3 All applications
should be done with your eyes closed. 4 It is your inner
world to which the applications of today's idea should be made.
W-pI.34.3. Some five minutes of mind searching
are required for each of the longer practice periods.
2 Search
your mind for fear thoughts, anxiety-provoking situations, " offending"
personalities or events, or anything else about which you are harboring
unloving thoughts. 3 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.
W-pI.34.4. 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 particular.
2 Be
sure, however, not to make any specific exclusions.
W-pI.34.5. The shorter applications are to be
frequent, and made whenever you feel your peace of mind is threatened in any
way. 2
The purpose is to protect yourself from temptation throughout the day.
3 If a
specific form of temptation arises in your awareness, the exercise should take
this form: 4 I could see peace in this situation instead
of what I now see in it.
W-pI.34.6. 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. 2 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. 3 It will help you if
you tell yourself specifically: 4 I can replace my feelings of depression,
anxiety or worry [or my thoughts about this situation, personality or event]
with peace.
Lesson 35.
My mind is part of God's. I am very holy.
W-pI.35.1. Today's idea does not describe the
way you see yourself now. 2 It does, however, describe what vision will
show you. 3 It is difficult for anyone who thinks he is
in this world to believe this of himself. 4 Yet the reason he
thinks he is in this world is because he does not believe it.
W-pI.35.2. You will believe that you are part
of where you think you are. 2 That is because you surround yourself with
the environment you want. 3 And you want it to protect the image of
yourself that you have made. 4 The image is part of this environment.
5 What
you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image.
6 This is
not vision. 7 Images cannot see.
W-pI.35.3. The idea for today presents a very
different view of yourself. 2 By establishing your Source it establishes
your Identity, and it describes you as you must really be in truth.
3 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.
W-pI.35.4. 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. 2 Include all the ego-based attributes which
you ascribe to yourself, positive or negative, desirable or undesirable,
grandiose or debased. 3 All of them are equally unreal, because you
do not look upon yourself through the eyes of holiness.
W-pI.35.5. 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. 2 Toward the latter
part of the exercise period, however, more self-inflating descriptive terms may
well cross your mind. 3 Try to recognize that the direction of your
fantasies about yourself does not matter. 4 Illusions have no
direction in reality. 5 They are merely not true.
W-pI.35.6. A suitable unselected list for
applying the idea for today might be as follows: 2 I see myself as
imposed on. 3 I see myself as depressed.
4 I see
myself as failing. 5 I see myself as endangered.
6 I see
myself as helpless. 7 I see myself as victorious.
8 I see
myself as losing out. 9 I see myself as charitable.
10 I see
myself as virtuous.
W-pI.35.7. You should not think of these terms
in an abstract way. 2 They will occur to you as various situations,
personalities and events in which you figure cross your mind.
3 Pick up
any specific situation that occurs to you, identify the descriptive term or
terms you feel are applicable to your reactions to that situation, and use them
in applying today's idea. 4 After you have named each one, add:
5 But my
mind is part of God's. 6 I am very holy.
W-pI.35.8. During the longer exercise periods,
there will probably be intervals in which nothing specific occurs to you.
2 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.
3
Although nothing that does occur should be omitted from the exercises, nothing
should be "dug out" with effort. 4 Neither force nor
discrimination should be used.
W-pI.35.9. 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. 2 If nothing particular occurs to you, merely
repeat the idea to yourself, with closed eyes.
Lesson 36.
My holiness envelops everything I see.
W-pI.36.1. Today's idea extends the idea for
yesterday from the perceiver to the perceived. 2 You are holy because
your mind is part of God's. 3 And because you are holy, your sight must be
holy as well. 4 "Sinless" means without sin.
5 You
cannot be without sin a little. 6 You are sinless or not.
7 If your
mind is part of God's you must be sinless, or a part of His Mind would be
sinful. 8
Your sight is related to His Holiness, not to your ego, and therefore not to
your body.
W-pI.36.2. Four three-to-five-minute practice
periods are required for today. 2 Try to distribute them fairly evenly, and
make the shorter applications frequently, to protect your protection throughout
the day. 3 The longer practice periods should take this
form:
W-pI.36.3. First, close your eyes and repeat
the idea for today several times, slowly. 2 Then open your eyes
and look quite slowly about you, applying the idea specifically to whatever you
note in your casual survey. 3 Say, for example:
4 My
holiness envelops that rug. 5 My holiness envelops that wall.
6 My
holiness envelops these fingers. 7 My holiness envelops that chair.
8 My
holiness envelops that body. 9 My holiness envelops this pen.
10
Several times during these practice periods, close your eyes and repeat the
idea to yourself. 11 Then open your eyes, and continue as before.
W-pI.36.4. 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.
2 All
applications should, of course, be made quite slowly, as effortlessly and
unhurriedly as possible.
Lesson 37.
My holiness blesses the world.
W-pI.37.1. This idea contains the first
glimmerings of your true function in the world, or why you are here.
2 Your
purpose is to see the world through your own holiness.
3 Thus
are you and the world blessed together. 4 No one loses; nothing
is taken away from anyone; everyone gains through your holy vision.
5 It
signifies the end of sacrifice because it offers everyone his full due.
6 And he is
entitled to everything because it is his birthright as a Son of God.
W-pI.37.2. There is no other way in which the
idea of sacrifice can be removed from the world's thinking.
2 Any
other way of seeing will inevitably demand payment of someone or something.
3 As a
result, the perceiver will lose. 4 Nor will he have any idea why he is losing.
5 Yet is
his wholeness restored to his awareness through your vision.
6 Your
holiness blesses him by asking nothing of him. 7 Those who see
themselves as whole make no demands.
W-pI.37.3. Your holiness is the salvation of
the world. 2 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.
W-pI.37.4. Today's four longer exercise
periods, each to involve three to five minutes of practice, begin with the
repetition of the idea for today, followed by a minute or so of looking about
you as you apply the idea to whatever you see: 2 My holiness blesses
this chair. 3 My holiness blesses that window.
4 My
holiness blesses this body. 5 Then close your eyes and apply the idea to
any person who occurs to you, using his name and saying:
6 My
holiness blesses you, [name].
W-pI.37.5. 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 your thoughts; or
you may use any combination of these two phases of application that you prefer.
2 The
practice period should conclude with a repetition of the idea with your eyes
closed, and another, following immediately, with your eyes open.
W-pI.37.6. The shorter exercises consist of
repeating the idea as often as you can. 2 It is particularly
helpful to apply it silently to anyone you meet, using his name as you do so.
3 It is
essential to use the idea if anyone seems to cause an adverse reaction in you.
4 Offer
him the blessing of your holiness immediately, that you may learn to keep it in
your own awareness.
Lesson 38.
There is nothing my holiness cannot do.
W-pI.38.1. Your holiness reverses all the laws
of the world. 2 It is beyond every restriction of time, space,
distance and limits of any kind. 3 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.
W-pI.38.2. Through your holiness the power of
God is made manifest. 2 Through your holiness the power of God is
made available. 3 And there is nothing the power of God cannot
do. 4
Your holiness, then, can remove all pain, can end all sorrow, and can solve all
problems. 5 It can do so in connection with yourself and
with anyone else. 6 It is equal in its power to help anyone
because it is equal in its power to save anyone.
W-pI.38.3. If you are holy, so is everything
God created. 2 You are holy because all things He created
are holy. 3 And all things He created are holy because
you are. 4 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 yourself or in someone else.
5 We will
make no distinctions because there are no distinctions.
W-pI.38.4. In the four longer practice periods,
each preferably to last a full five minutes, repeat the idea for today, close
your eyes, and then search your mind for any sense of loss or unhappiness of
any kind as you see it. 2 Try to make as little distinction as possible
between a situation that is difficult for you, and one that is difficult for
someone else. 3 Identify the situation specifically, and also
the name of the person concerned. 4 Use this form in applying the idea for today:
5 In the
situation involving ___ in which I see myself, there is nothing that my
holiness cannot do. 6 In the situation involving___in which___sees
himself, there is nothing my holiness cannot do.
W-pI.38.5. From time to time you may want to
vary this procedure, and add some relevant thoughts of your own.
2 You
might like, for example, to include thoughts such as:
3 There
is nothing my holiness cannot do because the power of God lies in it.
4
Introduce whatever variations appeal to you, but keep the exercises focused on
the theme, "There is nothing my holiness cannot do."
5 The
purpose of today's exercises is to begin to instill in you a sense that you
have dominion over all things because of what you are.
W-pI.38.6. In the frequent shorter applications,
apply the idea in its original form unless a specific problem concerning you or
someone else arises, or comes to mind. 2 In that event, use
the more specific form in applying the idea to it.
Lesson 39.
My holiness is my salvation.
W-pI.39.1. If guilt is hell, what is its
opposite? 2 Like the text for which this workbook was
written, the ideas used for the exercises are very simple, very clear and
totally unambiguous. 3 We are not concerned with intellectual feats
nor logical toys. 4 We are dealing only in the very obvious,
which has been overlooked in the clouds of complexity in which you think you
think.
W-pI.39.2. If guilt is hell, what is its
opposite? 2 This is not difficult, surely.
3 The hesitation
you may feel in answering is not due to the ambiguity of the question.
4 But do
you believe that guilt is hell? 5 If you did, you would see at once how direct
and simple the text is, and you would not need a workbook at all.
6 No one
needs practice to gain what is already his.
W-pI.39.3. We have already said that your
holiness is the salvation of the world. 2 What about your own
salvation? 3 You cannot give what you do not have.
4 A
savior must be saved. 5 How else can he teach salvation?
6 Today's
exercises will apply to you, recognizing that your salvation is crucial to the
salvation of the world. 7 As you apply the exercises to your world, the
whole world stands to benefit.
W-pI.39.4. Your holiness is the answer to every
question that was ever asked, is being asked now, or will be asked in the
future. 2
Your holiness means the end of guilt, and therefore the end of hell.
3 Your
holiness is the salvation of the world, and your own.
4 How
could you to whom your holiness belongs be excluded from it?
5 God
does not know unholiness. 6 Can it be He does not know His Son?
W-pI.39.5. A full five minutes are urged for
the four longer practice periods for today, and longer and more frequent
practice sessions are encouraged. 2 If you want to exceed the minimum
requirements, more rather than longer sessions are recommended, although both
are suggested.
W-pI.39.6. Begin the practice periods as usual,
by repeating today's idea to yourself. 2 Then, with closed
eyes, search out your unloving thoughts in whatever form they appear;
uneasiness, depression, anger, fear, worry, attack, insecurity and so on.
3
Whatever form they take, they are unloving and therefore fearful.
4 And so
it is from them that you need to be saved.
W-pI.39.7. Specific situations, events or personalities
you associate with unloving thoughts of any kind are suitable subjects for
today's exercises. 2 It is imperative for your salvation that you
see them differently. 3 And it is your blessing on them that will
save you and give you vision.
W-pI.39.8. Slowly, without conscious selection
and without undue emphasis on any one in particular, search your mind for every
thought that stands between you and your salvation.
2 Apply
the idea for today to each of them in this way: 3 My unloving thoughts
about___are keeping me in hell. 4 My holiness is my salvation.
W-pI.39.9. 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.
2 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. 3 Sustained
concentration is very difficult at first. 4 It will become much
easier as your mind becomes more disciplined and less distractible.
W-pI.39.10. Meanwhile, you should feel free to
introduce variety into the exercise periods in whatever form appeals to you.
2 Do not,
however, change the idea itself as you vary the method of applying it.
3 However
you elect to use it, the idea should be stated so that its meaning is the fact
that your holiness is your salvation. 4 End each practice
period by repeating the idea in its original form once more, and adding:
5 If
guilt is hell, what is its opposite?
W-pI.39.11. 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 preferably both.
2 If
temptations arise, a particularly helpful form of the idea is:
3 My
holiness is my salvation from this.
Lesson 40.
I am blessed as a Son of God.
W-pI.40.1. Today we will begin to assert some
of the happy things to which you are entitled, being what you are.
2 No long
practice periods are required today, but very frequent short ones are necessary.
3 Once
every ten minutes would be highly desirable, and you are urged to attempt this
schedule and to adhere to it whenever possible. 4 If you forget, try
again. 5
If there are long interruptions, try again. 6 Whenever you
remember, try again.
W-pI.40.2. You need not close your eyes for the
exercise periods, although you will probably find it more helpful if you do.
2
However, you may be in a number of situations during the day when closing your
eyes would not be feasible. 3 Do not miss a practice period because of this.
4 You can
practice quite well under any circumstances, if you really want to.
W-pI.40.3. Today's exercises take little time
and no effort. 2 Repeat the idea for today, and then add
several of the attributes you associate with being a Son of God, applying them
to yourself. 3 One practice period might, for example,
consist of the following: 4 I am blessed as a Son of God.
5 I am
happy, peaceful, loving and contented. 6 Another might take
this form: 7 I am blessed as a Son of God.
8 I am
calm, quiet, assured and confident. 9 If only a brief
period is available, merely telling yourself that you are blessed as a Son of
God will do.
Lesson 41.
God goes with me wherever I go.
W-pI.41.1. Today's idea will eventually
overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment all the separated
ones experience. 2 Depression is an inevitable consequence of
separation. 3 So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of
helplessness, misery, suffering and intense fear of loss.
W-pI.41.2. The separated ones have invented
many "cures" for what they believe to be " the ills of the
world." 2 But the one thing they do not do is to question the
reality of the problem. 3 Yet its effects cannot be cured because the
problem is not real. 4 The idea for today has the power to end all
this foolishness forever. 5 And foolishness it is, despite the serious
and tragic forms it may take.
W-pI.41.3. Deep within you is everything that
is perfect, ready to radiate through you and out into the world.
2 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.
W-pI.41.4. You can never be deprived of your
perfect holiness because its Source goes with you wherever you go.
2 You can
never suffer because the Source of all joy goes with you wherever you go.
3 You can
never be alone because the Source of all life goes with you wherever you go.
4 Nothing
can destroy your peace of mind because God goes with you wherever you go.
W-pI.41.5. We understand that you do not
believe all this. 2 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? 3 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.
W-pI.41.6. There will be only one long practice
period today. 2 In the morning, as soon as you get up if
possible, sit quietly for some three to five minutes, with your eyes closed.
3 At the
beginning of the practice period, repeat today's idea very slowly.
4 Then
make no effort to think of anything. 5 Try, instead, to get
a sense of turning inward, past all the idle thoughts of the world.
6 Try to
enter very deeply into your own mind, keeping it clear of any thoughts that
might divert your attention.
W-pI.41.7. From time to time, you may repeat
the idea if you find it helpful. 2 But most of all, try to sink down and inward,
away from the world and all the foolish thoughts of the world.
3 You are
trying to reach past all these things. 4 You are trying to
leave appearances and approach reality.
W-pI.41.8. It is quite possible to reach God.
2 In fact
it is very easy, because it is the most natural thing in the world.
3 You
might even say it is the only natural thing in the world.
4 The way
will open, if you believe that it is possible. 5 This exercise can
bring very startling results even the first time it is attempted, and sooner or
later it is always successful. 6 We will go into more detail about this kind
of practice as we go along. 7 But it will never fail completely, and
instant success is possible.
W-pI.41.9. Throughout the day use today's idea
often, repeating it very slowly, preferably with eyes closed.
2 Think of
what you are saying; what the words mean. 3 Concentrate on the
holiness that they imply about you; on the unfailing companionship that is
yours; on the complete protection that surrounds you.
W-pI.41.10. You can indeed afford to laugh at fear
thoughts, remembering that God goes with you wherever you go.
Lesson 42.
God is my strength. Vision is His gift.
W-pI.42.1. The idea for today combines two very
powerful thoughts, both of major importance. 2 It also sets forth a
cause and effect relationship that explains why you cannot fail in your efforts
to achieve the goal of the course. 3 You will see because
it is the Will of God. 4 It is His strength, not your own, that gives
you power. 5 And it is His gift, rather than your own,
that offers vision to you.
W-pI.42.2. God is indeed your strength, and
what He gives is truly given. 2 This means that you can receive it any time
and anywhere, wherever you are, and in whatever circumstance you find yourself.
3 Your
passage through time and space is not at random. 4 You cannot but be in
the right place at the right time. 5 Such is the strength
of God. 6
Such are His gifts.
W-pI.42.3. We will have two
three-to-five-minute practice periods today, one as soon as possible after you
wake, and another as close as possible to the time you go to sleep.
2 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.
W-pI.42.4. Begin these practice periods by
repeating the idea for today slowly, with your eyes open, looking about you.
2 Then
close your eyes and repeat the idea again, even slower than before.
3 After
this, try to think of nothing except thoughts that occur to you in relation to
the idea for the day. 4 You might think, for example:
5 Vision
must be possible. 6 God gives truly, or:
7 God's
gifts to me must be mine, because He gave them to me.
W-pI.42.5. Any thought that is clearly related
to the idea for today is suitable. 2 You may, in fact, be
astonished at the amount of course-related understanding some of your thoughts
contain. 3 Let them come without censoring unless you
find your mind is merely wandering, and you have let obviously irrelevant
thoughts intrude. 4 You may also reach a point where no thoughts
at all seem to come to mind. 5 If such interferences 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.
W-pI.42.6. Remember, however, that active
searching for relevant thoughts is not appropriate for today's exercises.
2 Try
merely to step back and let the thoughts come. 3 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.
W-pI.42.7. There is no limit on the number of
short practice periods that would be beneficial today.
2 The
idea for the day is a beginning step in bringing thoughts 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.
W-pI.42.8. 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.
Lesson 43.
God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him.
W-pI.43.1. Perception is not an attribute of
God. 2
His is the realm of knowledge. 3 Yet He has created the Holy Spirit as the
Mediator between perception and knowledge. 4 Without this link
with God, perception would have replaced knowledge forever in your mind.
5 With
this link with God, perception will become so changed and purified that it will
lead to knowledge. 6 That is its function as the Holy Spirit sees
it. 7
Therefore, that is its function in truth.
W-pI.43.2. In God you cannot see.
2
Perception has no function in God, and does not exist.
3 Yet in
salvation, which is the undoing of what never was, perception has a mighty
purpose. 4 Made by the Son of God for an unholy purpose,
it must become the means for the restoration of his holiness to his awareness.
5
Perception has no meaning. 6 Yet does the Holy Spirit give it a meaning
very close to God's. 7 Healed perception becomes the means by which
the Son of God forgives his brother, and thus forgives himself.
W-pI.43.3. You cannot see apart from God
because you cannot be apart from God. 2 Whatever you do you do
in Him, because whatever you think, you think with His Mind.
3 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.
W-pI.43.4. Three five-minute practice periods
are required today, one as early and one as late as possible in the day.
2 The
third may be undertaken at the most convenient and suitable time that
circumstances and readiness permit. 3 At the beginning of
these practice periods, repeat the idea for today to yourself with eyes open.
4 Then
glance around you for a short time, applying the idea specifically to what you
see. 5
Four or five subjects for this phase of the practice period are sufficient.
6 You
might say, for example: 7 God is my Source.
8 I
cannot see this desk apart from Him. 9 God is my Source.
10 I
cannot see that picture apart from Him.
W-pI.43.5. 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. 2 For the second and longer phase, close 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. 3 Thoughts such as:
4 I see
through the eyes of forgiveness.
5
I see the world as blessed.
6
The world can show me myself.
7
I see my own thoughts, which are like God's. 8 Any thought related
more or less directly to today's idea is suitable. 9 The thoughts need not
bear any obvious relationship to the idea, but they should not be in opposition
to it.
W-pI.43.6. If you find your mind wandering; if
you begin to be aware of thoughts which are clearly 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, and then attempt the second phase again.
2 Do not
allow any protracted period to occur in which you become preoccupied with
irrelevant thoughts. 3 Return to the first phase of the exercises as
often as necessary to prevent this.
W-pI.43.7. In applying today's idea in the
shorter practice periods, the form may vary according to the circumstances and
situations in which you find yourself during the day.
2 When you
are with someone else, for example, try to remember to tell him silently:
3 God is
my Source. 4 I cannot see you apart from Him.
5 This
form is equally applicable to strangers as it is to those you think are closer
to you. 6
In fact, try not to make distinctions of this kind at all.
W-pI.43.8. 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.
2 For
this purpose, apply the idea in this form: 3 God is my Source.
4 I
cannot see this apart from Him.
W-pI.43.9. If no particular subject presents
itself to your awareness at the time, merely repeat the idea in its original
form. 2
Try today not to allow any long periods of time to slip by without remembering
today's idea, and thus remembering your function.
Lesson 44.
God is the light in which I see.
W-pI.44.1. Today we are continuing the idea for
yesterday, adding another dimension to it. 2 You cannot see in
darkness, and you cannot make light. 3 You can make darkness
and then think you see in it, but light reflects life, and is therefore an
aspect of creation. 4 Creation and darkness cannot coexist, but
light and life must go together, being but different aspects of creation.
W-pI.44.2. In order to see, you must recognize
that light is within, not without. 2 You do not see
outside yourself, nor is the equipment for seeing outside you.
3 An
essential part of this equipment is the light that makes seeing possible.
4 It is
with you always, making vision possible in every circumstance.
W-pI.44.3. Today we are going to attempt to
reach that light. 2 For this purpose, we will use a form of
exercise which has been suggested before, and which we will utilize
increasingly. 3 It is a particularly difficult form for the
undisciplined mind, and represents a major goal of mind training.
4 It
requires precisely what the untrained mind lacks. 5 Yet this training
must be accomplished if you are to see.
W-pI.44.4. Have at least three practice periods
today, each lasting three to five minutes. 2 A longer time is
highly recommended, but only if you find the time slipping by with little or no
sense of strain. 3 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.
W-pI.44.5. Your mind is no longer wholly
untrained. 2 You are quite ready to learn the form of
exercise we will use today, but you may find that you will encounter strong
resistance. 3 The reason is very simple.
4 While
you practice in this way, you leave behind everything that you now believe, and
all the thoughts that you have made up. 5 Properly speaking,
this is the release from hell. 6 Yet perceived through the ego's eyes, it is
loss of identity and a descent into hell.
W-pI.44.6. 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. 2 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.
3 God is
the light in which you see. 4 You are attempting to reach Him.
W-pI.44.7. Begin the practice period by
repeating today's idea with your eyes open, and close them slowly, repeating
the idea several times more. 2 Then try to sink into your mind, letting go
every kind of interference and intrusion by quietly sinking past them.
3 Your
mind cannot be stopped in this unless you choose to stop it.
4 It is
merely taking its natural course. 5 Try to observe your passing thoughts without
involvement, and slip quietly by them.
W-pI.44.8. 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 inestimable value to you, and an
awareness that you are attempting something very holy.
2
Salvation is your happiest accomplishment. 3 It is also the only
one that has any meaning, because it is the only one that has any real use to
you at all.
W-pI.44.9. If resistance rises in any form,
pause long enough to repeat today's idea, keeping your eyes closed unless you
are aware of fear. 2 In that case, you will probably find it more
reassuring to open your eyes briefly. 3 Try, however, to return
to the exercises with eyes closed as soon as possible.
W-pI.44.10. 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.
2 Try to
think of light, formless and without limit, as you pass by the thoughts of this
world. 3
And do not forget that they cannot hold you to the world unless you give them
the power to do so.
W-pI.44.11. Throughout the day repeat the idea
often, with eyes open or closed as seems better to you at the time.
2 But do
not forget. 3 Above all, be determined not to forget today.
Lesson 45.
God is the Mind with which I think.
W-pI.45.1. Today's idea holds the key to what
your real thoughts are. 2 They are nothing that you think you think,
just as nothing that you think you see is related to vision in any way.
3 There
is no relationship between what is real and what you think is real.
4 Nothing
that you think are your real thoughts resemble your real thoughts in any
respect. 5 Nothing that you think you see bears any
resemblance to what vision will show you.
W-pI.45.2. You think with the Mind of God.
2
Therefore you share your thoughts with Him, as He shares His with you.
3 They
are the same thoughts, because they are thought by the same Mind.
4 To
share is to make alike, or to make one. 5 Nor do the thoughts
you think with the Mind of God leave your mind, because thoughts do not leave
their source. 6 Therefore, your thoughts are in the Mind of
God, as you are. 7 They are in your mind as well, where He is.
8 As you
are part of His Mind, so are your thoughts part of His Mind.
W-pI.45.3. Where, then, are your real thoughts?
2 Today
we will attempt to reach them. 3 We will have to look for them in your mind,
because that is where they are. 4 They must still be there, because they cannot
have left their source. 5 What is thought by the Mind of God is
eternal, being part of creation.
W-pI.45.4. Our three five-minute practice
periods for today will take the same general form that we used in applying
yesterday's idea. 2 We will attempt to leave the unreal and seek
for the real. 3 We will deny the world in favor of truth.
4 We will
not let the thoughts of the world hold us back. 5 We will not let the
beliefs of the world tell us that what God would have us do is impossible.
6
Instead, we will try to recognize that only what God would have us do is
possible.
W-pI.45.5. We will also try to understand that
only what God would have us do is what we want to do.
2 And we
will also try to remember that we cannot fail in doing what He would have us do.
3 There
is every reason to feel confident that we will succeed today.
4 It is
the Will of God.
W-pI.45.6. Begin the exercises for today by
repeating the idea to yourself, closing your eyes as you do so.
2 Then
spend a fairly short period in thinking a few relevant thoughts of your own,
keeping the idea in mind. 3 After you have added some four or five
thoughts of your own to the idea, repeat it again and tell yourself gently:
4 My real
thoughts are in my mind. 5 I would like to find them.
6 Then
try to go past all the unreal thoughts that cover the truth in your mind, and
reach to the eternal.
W-pI.45.7. Under all the senseless thoughts and
mad ideas with which you have cluttered up your mind are the thoughts that you
thought with God in the beginning. 2 They are there in
your mind now, completely unchanged. 3 They will always be
in your mind, exactly as they always were. 4 Everything you have
thought since then will change, but the Foundation on which it rests is wholly
changeless.
W-pI.45.8. It is this Foundation toward which
the exercises for today are directed. 2 Here is your mind
joined with the Mind of God. 3 Here are your thoughts one with His.
4 For
this kind of practice only one thing is necessary; approach it as you would an
altar dedicated in Heaven to God the Father and to God the Son.
5 For
such is the place you are trying to reach. 6 You will probably be
unable as yet to realize how high you are trying to go.
7 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.
W-pI.45.9. In the shorter exercise periods for
today, try to remember how important it is to you to understand the holiness of
the mind that thinks with God. 2 Take a minute or two, as you repeat the idea
throughout the day, to appreciate your mind's holiness.
3 Stand
aside, however briefly, from all thoughts that are unworthy of Him Whose host
you are. 4 And thank Him for the Thoughts He is thinking
with you.
Lesson 46.
God is the Love in which I forgive.
W-pI.46.1. God does not forgive because He has
never condemned. 2 And there must be condemnation before
forgiveness is necessary. 3 Forgiveness is the great need of this world,
but that is because it is a world of illusions. 4 Those who forgive are
thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness
are binding themselves to them. 5 As you condemn only yourself, so do you
forgive only yourself.
W-pI.46.2. Yet although God does not forgive,
His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. 2 Fear condemns and
love forgives. 3 Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has
produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God.
4 For
this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation.
5 It is
the means by which illusions disappear.
W-pI.46.3. Today's exercises require at least
three full five-minute practice periods, and as many shorter ones as possible.
2 Begin the
longer practice periods by repeating today's idea to yourself, as usual.
3 Close
your eyes as you do so, and spend a minute or two in searching your mind for
those whom you have not forgiven. 4 It does not matter "how much" you
have not forgiven them. 5 You have forgiven them entirely or not at
all.
W-pI.46.4. If you are doing the exercises well
you should have no difficulty in finding a number of people you have not
forgiven. 2 It is a safe rule that anyone you do not like
is a suitable subject. 3 Mention each one by name, and say:
4 God is
the Love in which I forgive you, [name].
W-pI.46.5. The purpose of the first phase of
today's practice periods is to put you in a position to forgive yourself.
2 After
you have applied the idea to all those who have come to mind, tell yourself:
3 God is
the Love in which I forgive myself. 4 Then devote the
remainder of the practice period to adding related ideas such as:
5 God is
the Love with which I love myself. 6 God is the Love in which I am blessed.
W-pI.46.6. The form of the application may vary
considerably, but the central idea should not be lost sight of.
2 You
might say, for example: 3 I cannot be guilty because I am a Son of God.
4 I have
already been forgiven. 5 No fear is possible in a mind beloved of God.
6 There
is no need to attack because love has forgiven me. 7 The practice period
should end, however, with a repetition of today's idea as originally stated.
W-pI.46.7. 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. 2 Be sure, however, to make more specific
applications if they are needed. 3 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. 4
In that event, tell him silently: 5 God is the Love in which I forgive you.
Lesson 47.
God is the strength in which I trust.
W-pI.47.1. If you are trusting in your own
strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious and fearful.
2 What can
you predict or control? 3 What is there in you that can be counted on?
4 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?
5 What is
there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the
guarantee that it will be accomplished?
W-pI.47.2. Of yourself you can do none of these
things. 2
To believe that you can is to put your trust where trust is unwarranted, and to
justify fear, anxiety, depression, anger and sorrow.
3 Who can
put his faith in weakness and feel safe? 4 Yet who can put his
faith in strength and feel weak?
W-pI.47.3. God is your safety in every
circumstance. 2 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 protection. 3 There are no
exceptions because God has no exceptions. 4 And the Voice which
speaks for Him thinks as He does.
W-pI.47.4. Today we will try to reach past your
own weakness to the Source of real strength. 2 Four five-minute
practice periods are necessary today, and longer and more frequent ones are
urged. 3
Close your eyes and begin, as usual, by repeating the idea for the day.
4 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:
5 God is
the strength in which I trust.
W-pI.47.5. Now try to slip past all concerns
related to your own sense of inadequacy. 2 It is obvious that
any situation that causes you concern is associated with feelings of
inadequacy, for otherwise you would believe that you could deal with the
situation successfully. 3 It is not by trusting yourself that you will
gain confidence. 4 But the strength of God in you is successful
in all things.
W-pI.47.6. 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 entitled. 2 You must also gain an awareness that
confidence in your real strength is fully justified in every respect and in all
circumstances.
W-pI.47.7. In the latter phase of the practice
period, try to reach down into your mind to a place of real safety.
2 You
will recognize that you have reached it if you feel a sense of deep peace,
however briefly. 3 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. 4 There is a place in you where there is
perfect peace. 5 There is a place in you where nothing is
impossible. 6 There is a place in you where the strength of
God abides.
W-pI.47.8. During the day, repeat the idea
often. 2
Use it as your answer to any disturbance. 3 Remember that peace is
your right, because you are giving your trust to the strength of God.
Lesson 48.
There is nothing to fear.
W-pI.48.1. The idea for today simply states a
fact. 2
It is not a fact to those who believe in illusions, but illusions are not facts.
3 In
truth there is nothing to fear. 4 It is very easy to recognize this.
5 But it
is very difficult to recognize it for those who want illusions to be true.
W-pI.48.2. Today's practice periods will be
very short, very simple and very frequent. 2 Merely repeat the idea
as often as possible. 3 You can use it with your eyes open at any
time and in any situation. 4 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. 5 It is particularly important that you use the
idea immediately, should anything disturb your peace of mind.
W-pI.48.3. The presence of fear is a sure sign
that you are trusting in your own strength. 2 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. 3 The instant you are
willing to do this there is indeed nothing to fear.
Lesson 49.
God's Voice speaks to me all through the day.
W-pI.49.1. It is quite possible to listen to
God's Voice all through the day without interrupting your regular activities in
any way. 2 The part of your mind in which truth abides
is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not.
3 It is
the other part of your mind that functions in the world and obeys the world's
laws. 4
It is this part that is constantly distracted, disorganized and highly
uncertain.
W-pI.49.2. The part that is listening to the
Voice for God is calm, always at rest and wholly certain.
2 It is
really the only part there is. 3 The other part is a wild illusion, frantic
and distraught, but without reality of any kind. 4 Try today not to
listen to it. 5 Try to identify with the part of your mind
where stillness and peace reign forever. 6 Try to hear God's
Voice call to you lovingly, reminding you that your Creator has not forgotten
His Son.
W-pI.49.3. We will need at least four
five-minute practice periods today, and more if possible.
2 We will
try actually to hear God's Voice reminding you of Him and of your Self.
3 We will
approach this happiest and holiest of thoughts with confidence, knowing that in
doing so we are joining our will with the Will of God.
4 He
wants you to hear His Voice. 5 He gave It to you to be heard.
W-pI.49.4. Listen in deep silence.
2 Be very
still and open your mind. 3 Go past all the raucous shrieks and sick
imaginings that cover your real thoughts and obscure your eternal link with God.
4 Sink
deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and
sights and sounds of this insane world. 5 You do not live here.
6 We are
trying to reach your real home. 7 We are trying to reach the place where you
are truly welcome. 8 We are trying to reach God.
W-pI.49.5. Do not forget to repeat today's idea
very frequently. 2 Do so with your eyes open when necessary, but
closed when possible. 3 And be sure to sit quietly and 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.
Lesson 50.
I am sustained by the Love of God.
W-pI.50.1. Here is the answer to every problem
that will confront you, today and tomorrow and throughout time.
2 In this
world, you believe you are sustained by everything but God.
3 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.
W-pI.50.2. All these things are your
replacements for the Love of God. 2 All these things are cherished to ensure a
body identification. 3 They are songs of praise to the ego.
4 Do not
put your faith in the worthless. 5 It will not sustain you.
W-pI.50.3. Only the Love of God will protect
you in all circumstances. 2 It will lift you out of every trial, and
raise you high above all the perceived dangers of this world into a climate of
perfect peace and safety. 3 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.
W-pI.50.4. Put not your faith in illusions.
2 They
will fail you. 3 Put all your faith in the Love of God within you;
eternal, changeless and forever unfailing. 4 This is the answer to
whatever confronts you today. 5 Through the Love of God within you, you can
resolve all seeming difficulties without effort and in sure confidence.
6 Tell
yourself this often today. 7 It is a declaration of release from the
belief in idols. 8 It is your acknowledgment of the truth about
yourself.
W-pI.50.5. For ten minutes, twice today,
morning and evening, let the idea for today sink deep into your consciousness.
2 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.
3 Let no
idle and foolish thoughts enter to disturb the holy mind of the Son of God.
4 Such is
the Kingdom of Heaven. 5 Such is the resting place where your Father
has placed you forever.
W-pI.rI.in.1. Beginning with today we will have a
series of review periods. 2 Each of them will cover five of the ideas already
presented, starting with the first and ending with the fiftieth.
3 There
will be a few short comments after each of the ideas, which you should consider
in your review. 4 In the practice periods, the exercises should
be done as follows:
W-pI.rI.in.2. Begin the day by reading the five
ideas, with the comments included. 2 Thereafter, it is not
necessary to follow any particular order in considering them, though each one
should be practiced at least once. 3 Devote two minutes or
more to each practice period, thinking about the idea and the related comments
after reading them over. 4 Do this as often as possible during the day.
5 If any
one of the five ideas appeals to you more than the others, concentrate on that
one. 6
At the end of the day, however, be sure to review all of them once more.
W-pI.rI.in.3. It is not necessary to cover the
comments that follow each idea either literally or thoroughly in the practice
periods. 2 Try, rather, to emphasize the central point,
and think about it as part of your review of the idea to which it relates.
3 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 a quiet place, if possible.
W-pI.rI.in.4. This is emphasized for practice periods
at your stage of learning. 2 It will be necessary, however, that you learn
to require no special settings in which to apply what you have learned.
3 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.
4 The
purpose of your learning is to enable you to bring the quiet with you, and to
heal distress and turmoil. 5 This is not done by avoiding them and seeking
a haven of isolation for yourself.
W-pI.rI.in.5. 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. 2 And finally you will learn that there is no
limit to where you are, so that your peace is everywhere, as you are.
W-pI.rI.in.6. You will note that, for review
purposes, some of the ideas are not given in quite their original form.
2 Use
them as they are given here. 3 It is not necessary to return to the original
statements, nor to apply the ideas as was suggested then.
4 We are
now emphasizing 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.
Lesson 51.
The review for today covers the following ideas:
W-pI.51.1. (1) Nothing I see means anything.
2 The
reason this is so is that I see nothing, and nothing has no meaning.
3 It is
necessary that I recognize this, that I may learn to see.
4 What I
think I see now is taking the place of vision. 5 I must let it go by
realizing it has no meaning, so that vision may take its place.
W-pI.51.2. (2) I have given what I see all the
meaning it has for me. 2 I have judged everything I look upon, and it
is this and only this I see. 3 This is not vision.
4 It is
merely an illusion of reality, because my judgments have been made quite apart
from reality. 5 I am willing to recognize the lack of
validity in my judgments, because I want to see. 6 My judgments have
hurt me, and I do not want to see according to them.
W-pI.51.3. (3) I do not understand anything I
see. 2
How could I understand what I see when I have judged it amiss?
3 What I
see is the projection of my own errors of thought. 4 I do not understand
what I see because it is not understandable. 5 There is no sense in
trying to understand it. 6 But there is every reason to let it go, and
make room for what can be seen and understood and loved.
7 I can
exchange what I see now for this merely by being willing to do so.
8 Is not
this a better choice than the one I made before?
W-pI.51.4. (4) These thoughts do not mean
anything. 2 The thoughts of which I am aware do not mean
anything because I am trying to think without God. 3 What I call
"my" thoughts are not my real thoughts. 4 My real thoughts are
the thoughts I think with God. 5 I am not aware of them because I have made my
thoughts to take their place. 6 I am willing to recognize that my thoughts do
not mean anything, and to let them go. 7 I choose to have them
be replaced by what they were intended to replace. 8 My thoughts are
meaningless, but all creation lies in the thoughts I think with God.
W-pI.51.5. (5) I am never upset for the reason
I think. 2 I am never upset for the reason I think
because I am constantly trying to justify my thoughts.
3 I am
constantly trying to make them true. 4 I make all things my
enemies, so that my anger is justified and my attacks are warranted.
5 I have
not realized how much I have misused everything I see by assigning this role to
it. 6
I have done this to defend a thought system that has hurt me, and that I no longer
want. 7
I am willing to let it go.
Lesson 52.
Today's review covers these ideas:
W-pI.52.1. (6) I am upset because I see what is
not there. 2 Reality is never frightening.
3 It is
impossible that it could upset me. 4 Reality brings only
perfect peace. 5 When I am upset, it is always because I have
replaced reality with illusions I made up. 6 The illusions are
upsetting because I have given them reality, and thus regard reality as an
illusion. 7 Nothing in God's creation is affected in any
way by this confusion of mine. 8 I am always upset by nothing.
W-pI.52.2. (7) I see only the past.
2 As I
look about, I condemn the world I look upon. 3 I call this seeing.
4 I hold
the past against everyone and everything, making them my enemies.
5 When I
have forgiven myself and remembered Who I am, I will bless everyone and
everything I see. 6 There will be no past, and therefore no
enemies. 7 And I will look with love on all that I
failed to see before.
W-pI.52.3. (8) My mind is preoccupied with past
thoughts. 2 I see only my own thoughts, and my mind is
preoccupied with the past. 3 What, then, can I see as it is?
4 Let me
remember that I look on the past to prevent the present from dawning on my mind.
5 Let me
understand that I am trying to use time against God.
6 Let me
learn to give the past away, realizing that in so doing I am giving up nothing.
W-pI.52.4. (9) I see nothing as it is now.
2 If I
see nothing as it is now, it can truly be said that I see nothing.
3 I can
see only what is now. 4 The choice is not whether to see the past or
the present; the choice is merely whether to see or not.
5 What I
have chosen to see has cost me vision. 6 Now I would choose
again, that I may see.
W-pI.52.5. (10) My thoughts do not mean
anything. 2 I have no private thoughts.
3 Yet it
is only private thoughts of which I am aware. 4 What can these
thoughts mean? 5 They do not exist, and so they mean nothing.
6 Yet my
mind is part of creation and part of its Creator. 7 Would I not rather
join the thinking of the universe than to obscure all that is really mine with
my pitiful and meaningless " private" thoughts?
Lesson 53.
Today we will review the following:
W-pI.53.1. (11) My meaningless thoughts are
showing me a meaningless world. 2 Since the thoughts of which I am aware do not
mean anything, the world that pictures them can have no meaning.
3 What is
producing this world is insane, and so is what it produces.
4 Reality
is not insane, and I have real thoughts as well as insane ones.
5 I can
therefore see a real world, if I look to my real thoughts as my guide for
seeing.
W-pI.53.2. (12) I am upset because I see a
meaningless world. 2 Insane thoughts are upsetting.
3 They
produce a world in which there is no order anywhere.
4 Only
chaos rules a world that represents chaotic thinking, and chaos has no laws.
5 I
cannot live in peace in such a world. 6 I am grateful that
this world is not real, and that I need not see it at all unless I choose to
value it. 7 And I do not choose to value what is totally
insane and has no meaning.
W-pI.53.3. (13) A meaningless world engenders
fear. 2
The totally insane engenders fear because it is completely undependable, and
offers no grounds for trust. 3 Nothing in madness is dependable.
4 It
holds out no safety and no hope. 5 But such a world is not real.
6 I have
given it the illusion of reality, and have suffered from my belief in it.
7 Now I
choose to withdraw this belief, and place my trust in reality.
8 In
choosing this, I will escape all the effects of the world of fear, because I am
acknowledging that it does not exist.
W-pI.53.4. (14) God did not create a
meaningless world. 2 How can a meaningless world exist if God did
not create it? 3 He is the Source of all meaning, and
everything that is real is in His Mind. 4 It is in my mind too,
because He created it with me. 5 Why should I continue to suffer from the
effects of my own insane thoughts, when the perfection of creation is my home?
6 Let me
remember the power of my decision, and recognize where I really abide.
W-pI.53.5. (15) My thoughts are images that I
have made. 2 Whatever I see reflects my thoughts.
3 It is
my thoughts that tell me where I am and what I am. 4 The fact that I see a
world in which there is suffering and loss and death shows me that I am seeing
only the representation of my insane thoughts, and am not allowing my real
thoughts to cast their beneficent light on what I see.
5 Yet
God's way is sure. 6 The images I have made cannot prevail against
Him because it is not my will that they do so. 7 My will is His, and I
will place no other gods before Him.
Lesson 54.
These are the review ideas for today:
W-pI.54.1. (16) I have no neutral thoughts.
2 Neutral
thoughts are impossible because all thoughts have power.
3 They
will either make a false world or lead me to the real one.
4 But
thoughts cannot be without effects. 5 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. 6 My thoughts cannot be neither true nor false.
7 They
must be one or the other. 8 What I see shows me which they are.
W-pI.54.2. (17) I see no neutral things.
2 What I
see witnesses to what I think. 3 If I did not think I would not exist, because
life is thought. 4 Let me look on the world I see as the
representation of my own state of mind. 5 I know that my state
of mind can change. 6 And so I also know the world I see can change
as well.
W-pI.54.3. (18) I am not alone in experiencing
the effects of my seeing. 2 If I have no private thoughts, I cannot see a
private world. 3 Even the mad idea of separation had to be
shared before it could form the basis of the world I see.
4 Yet
that sharing was a sharing of nothing. 5 I can also call upon
my real thoughts, which share everything with everyone.
6 As my thoughts
of separation call to the separation thoughts of others, so my real thoughts
awaken the real thoughts in them. 7 And the world my real thoughts show me will
dawn on their sight as well as mine.
W-pI.54.4. (19) I am not alone in experiencing
the effects of my thoughts. 2 I am alone in nothing.
3
Everything I think or say or do teaches all the universe.
4 A Son
of God cannot think or speak or act in vain. 5 He cannot be alone in
anything. 6 It is therefore in my power to change every
mind along with mine, for mine is the power of God.
W-pI.54.5. (20) I am determined to see.
2
Recognizing the shared nature of my thoughts, I am determined to see.
3 I would
look upon the witnesses that show me the thinking of the world has been changed.
4 I would
behold the proof that what has been done through me has enabled love to replace
fear, laughter to replace tears, and abundance to replace loss.
5 I would
look upon the real world, and let it teach me that my will and the Will of God
are one.
Lesson 55.
Today's review includes the following:
W-pI.55.1. (21) I am determined to see things
differently. 2 What I see now are but signs of disease,
disaster and death. 3 This cannot be what God created for His
beloved Son. 4 The very fact that I see such things is proof
that I do not understand God. 5 Therefore I also do not understand His Son.
6 What I
see tells me that I do not know who I am. 7 I am determined to
see the witnesses to the truth in me, rather than those which show me an
illusion of myself.
W-pI.55.2. (22) What I see is a form of
vengeance. 2 The world I see is hardly the representation
of loving thoughts. 3 It is a picture of attack on everything by
everything. 4 It is anything but a reflection of the Love
of God and the love of His Son. 5 It is my own attack thoughts that give rise
to this picture. 6 My loving thoughts will save me from this
perception of the world, and give me the peace God intended me to have.
W-pI.55.3. (23) I can escape from this world by
giving up attack thoughts. 2 Herein lies salvation, and nowhere else.
3 Without
attack thoughts I could not see a world of attack. 4 As forgiveness allows
love to return to my awareness, I will see a world of peace and safety and joy.
5 And it
is this I choose to see, in place of what I look on now.
W-pI.55.4. (24) I do not perceive my own best
interests. 2 How could I recognize my own best interests
when I do not know who I am? 3 What I think are my best interests would
merely bind me closer to the world of illusions. 4 I am willing to
follow the Guide God has given me to find out what my own best interests are,
recognizing that I cannot perceive them by myself.
W-pI.55.5. (25) I do not know what anything is
for. 2
To me, the purpose of everything is to prove that my illusions about myself are
real. 3
It is for this purpose that I attempt to use everyone and everything.
4 It is
for this that I believe the world is for. 5 Therefore I do not
recognize its real purpose. 6 The purpose I have given the world has led to
a frightening picture of it. 7 Let me open my mind to the world's real
purpose by withdrawing the one I have given it, and learning the truth about
it.
Lesson 56.
Our review for today covers the following:
W-pI.56.1. (26) My attack thoughts are
attacking my invulnerability. 2 How can I know who I am when I see myself as
under constant attack? 3 Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to
threaten me. 4 All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to
be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. 5 Yet perfect security
and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. 6 I have tried to give
my inheritance away in exchange for the world I see.
7 But God
has kept my inheritance safe for me. 8 My own real thoughts
will teach me what it is.
W-pI.56.2. (27) Above all else I want to see.
2
Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am, I realize that vision
is my greatest need. 3 The world I see attests to the fearful nature
of the self-image I have made. 4 If I would remember who I am, it is essential
that I let this image of myself go. 5 As it is replaced by
truth, vision will surely be given me. 6 And with this vision,
I will look upon the world and on myself with charity and love.
W-pI.56.3. (28) Above all else I want to see
differently. 2 The world I see holds my fearful self-image
in place, and guarantees its continuance. 3 While I see the world
as I see it now, truth cannot enter my awareness. 4 I would let the door
behind this world be opened for me, that I may look past it to the world that
reflects the Love of God.
W-pI.56.4. (29) God is in everything I see.
2 Behind
every image I have made, the truth remains unchanged.
3 Behind
every veil I have drawn across the face of love, its light remains undimmed.
4 Beyond
all my insane wishes is my will, united with the Will of my Father.
5 God is
still everywhere and in everything forever. 6 And we who are part
of Him will yet look past all appearances, and recognize the truth beyond them
all.
W-pI.56.5. (30) God is in everything I see
because God is in my mind. 2 In my own mind, behind all my insane thoughts
of separation and attack, is the knowledge that all is one forever.
3 I have
not lost the knowledge of Who I am because I have forgotten it.
4 It has
been kept for me in the Mind of God, Who has not left His Thoughts.
5 And I,
who am among them, am one with them and one with Him.
Lesson 57.
Today let us review these ideas:
W-pI.57.1. (31) I am not the victim of the
world I see. 2 How can I be the victim of a world that can
be completely undone if I so choose? 3 My chains are
loosened. 4 I can drop them off merely by desiring to do
so. 5
The prison door is open. 6 I can leave simply by walking out.
7 Nothing
holds me in this world. 8 Only my wish to stay keeps me a prisoner.
9 I would
give up my insane wishes and walk into the sunlight at last.
W-pI.57.2. (32) I have invented the world I see.
2 I made
up the prison in which I see myself. 3 All I need do is
recognize this and I am free. 4 I have deluded myself into believing it is
possible to imprison the Son of God. 5 I was bitterly
mistaken in this belief, which I no longer want. 6 The Son of God must
be forever free. 7 He is as God created him, and not what I
would make of him. 8 He is where God would have him be, and not
where I thought to hold him prisoner.
W-pI.57.3. (33) There is another way of looking
at the world. 2 Since the purpose of the world is not the one
I ascribed to it, there must be another way of looking at it.
3 I see
everything upside down, and my thoughts are the opposite of truth.
4 I see
the world as a prison for God's Son. 5 It must be, then,
that the world is really a place where he can be set free.
6 I would
look upon the world as it is, and see it as a place where the Son of God finds
his freedom.
W-pI.57.4. (34) I could see peace instead of
this. 2
When I see the world as a place of freedom, I realize that it reflects the laws
of God instead of the rules I made up for it to obey.
3 I will
understand that peace, not war, abides in it. 4 And I will perceive
that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share this place with me.
W-pI.57.5. (35) My mind is part of God's.
2 I am
very holy. 3 As I share the peace of the world with my
brothers, I begin to understand that this peace comes from deep within myself.
4 The
world I look upon has taken on the light of my forgiveness, and shines
forgiveness back at me. 5 In this light I begin to see what my
illusions about myself kept hidden. 6 I begin to understand
the holiness of all living things, including myself, and their oneness with me.
Lesson 58.
These ideas are for review today:
W-pI.58.1. (36) My holiness envelops everything
I see. 2
From my holiness does the perception of the real world come.
3 Having
forgiven, I no longer see myself as guilty. 4 I can accept the
innocence that is the truth about me. 5 Seen through understanding
eyes, the holiness of the world is all I see, for I can picture only the
thoughts I hold about myself.
W-pI.58.2. (37) My holiness blesses the world.
2 The
perception of my holiness does not bless me alone. 3 Everyone and everything
I see in its light shares in the joy it brings to me.
4 There
is nothing that is apart from this joy, because there is nothing that does not
share my holiness. 5 As I recognize my holiness, so does the
holiness of the world shine forth for everyone to see.
W-pI.58.3. (38) There is nothing my holiness
cannot do. 2 My holiness is unlimited in its power to
heal, because it is unlimited in its power to save.
3 What is
there to be saved from except illusions? 4 And what are all
illusions except false ideas about myself? 5 My holiness undoes
them all by asserting the truth about me. 6 In the presence of my
holiness, which I share with God Himself, all idols vanish.
W-pI.58.4. (39) My holiness is my salvation.
2 Since
my holiness saves me from all guilt, recognizing my holiness is recognizing my
salvation. 3 It is also recognizing the salvation of the
world. 4
Once I have accepted my holiness, nothing can make me afraid.
5 And
because I am unafraid, everyone must share in my understanding, which is the gift
of God to me and to the world.
W-pI.58.5. (40) I am blessed as a Son of God.
2 Herein
lies my claim to all good and only good. 3 I am blessed as a Son
of God. 4
All good things are mine, because God intended them for me.
5 I
cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of Who I am.
6 My
Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things.
7 His
care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. 8 I am eternally
blessed as His Son.
Lesson 59.
The following ideas are for review today:
W-pI.59.1. (41) God goes with me wherever I go.
2 How can
I be alone when God always goes with me? 3 How can I be doubtful
and unsure of myself when perfect certainty abides in Him?
4 How can
I be disturbed by anything when He rests in me in absolute peace?
5 How can
I suffer when love and joy surround me through Him?
6 Let me
not cherish illusions about myself. 7 I am perfect because
God goes with me wherever I go.
W-pI.59.2. (42) God is my strength.
2 Vision
is His gift. 3 Let me not look to my own eyes to see today.
4 Let me
be willing to exchange my pitiful illusion of seeing for the vision that is
given by God. 5 Christ's vision is His gift, and He has given
it to me. 6 Let me call upon this gift today, so that
this day may help me to understand eternity.
W-pI.59.3. (43) God is my Source.
2 I
cannot see apart from Him. 3 I can see what God wants me to see.
4 I
cannot see anything else. 5 Beyond His Will lie only illusions.
6 It is
these I choose when I think I can see apart from Him.
7 It is
these I choose when I try to see through the body's eyes.
8 Yet the
vision of Christ has been given me to replace them.
9 It is
through this vision that I choose to see.
W-pI.59.4. (44) God is the light in which I see.
2 I
cannot see in darkness. 3 God is the only light.
4
Therefore, if I am to see, it must be through Him. 5 I have tried to
define what seeing is, and I have been wrong. 6 Now it is given me to
understand that God is the light in which I see. 7 Let me welcome vision
and the happy world it will show me.
W-pI.59.5. (45) God is the Mind with which I
think. 2
I have no thoughts I do not share with God. 3 I have no thoughts
apart from Him, because I have no mind apart from His.
4 As part
of His Mind, my thoughts are His and His Thoughts are mine.
Lesson 60.
These ideas are for today's review:
W-pI.60.1. (46) God is the Love in which I
forgive. 2 God does not forgive because He has never
condemned. 3 The blameless cannot blame, and those who
have accepted their innocence see nothing to forgive.
4 Yet
forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence.
5 It is
the reflection of God's Love on earth. 6 It will bring me near
enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me up to
Him.
W-pI.60.2. (47) God is the strength in which I
trust. 2
It is not my own strength through which I forgive. 3 It is through the
strength of God in me, which I am remembering as I forgive.
4 As I
begin to see, I recognize His reflection on earth. 5 I forgive all things
because I feel the stirring of His strength in me. 6 And I begin to
remember the Love I chose to forget, but which has not forgotten me.
W-pI.60.3. (48) There is nothing to fear.
2 How
safe the world will look to me when I can see it! 3 It will not look
anything like what I imagine I see now. 4 Everyone and
everything I see will lean toward me to bless me. 5 I will recognize in
everyone my dearest Friend. 6 What could there be to fear in a world that I
have forgiven, and that has forgiven me?
W-pI.60.4. (49) God's Voice speaks to me all
through the day. 2 There is not a moment in which God's Voice
ceases to call on my forgiveness to save me. 3 There is not a moment
in which His Voice fails to direct my thoughts, guide my actions and lead my
feet. 4
I am walking steadily on toward truth. 5 There is nowhere else
I can go, because God's Voice is the only Voice and the only Guide that has
been given to His Son.
W-pI.60.5. (50) I am sustained by the Love of
God. 2
As I listen to God's Voice, I am sustained by His Love.
3 As I
open my eyes, His Love lights up the world for me to see.
4 As I
forgive, His Love reminds me that His Son is sinless.
5 And as
I look upon the world with the vision He has given me, I remember that I am His
Son.
Lesson 61.
I am the light of the world.
W-pI.61.1. Who is the light of the world except
God's Son? 2 This, then, is merely a statement of the
truth about yourself. 3 It is the opposite of a statement of pride,
of arrogance, or of self-deception. 4 It does not describe
the self-concept you have made. 5 It does not refer to any of the
characteristics with which you have endowed your idols.
6 It
refers to you as you were created by God. 7 It simply states the
truth.
W-pI.61.2. To the ego, today's idea is the
epitome of self-glorification. 2 But the ego does not understand humility,
mistaking it for self-debasement. 3 Humility consists of accepting your role in
salvation and in taking no other. 4 It is not humility to insist you cannot be
the light of the world if that is the function God assigned to you.
5 It is
only arrogance that would assert this function cannot be for you, and arrogance
is always of the ego.
W-pI.61.3. True humility requires that you
accept today's idea because it is God's Voice which tells you it is true.
2 This is
a beginning step in accepting your real function on earth.
3 It is a
giant stride toward taking your rightful place in salvation.
4 It is a
positive assertion of your right to be saved, and an acknowledgment of the
power that is given you to save others.
W-pI.61.4. You will want to think about this
idea as often as possible today. 2 It is the perfect answer to all illusions,
and therefore to all temptation. 3 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.
W-pI.61.5. As many practice periods as possible
should be undertaken today, although each one need not exceed a minute or two.
2 They
should begin with telling yourself: 3 I am the light of the
world. 4
That is my only function. 5 That is why I am here.
6 Then
think about these statements for a short while, preferably with your eyes
closed if the situation permits. 7 Let a few related thoughts come to you, and
repeat the idea to yourself if your mind wanders away from the central thought.
W-pI.61.6. Be sure both to begin and end the
day with a practice period. 2 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.
3 These
two practice periods may be longer than the rest, if you find them helpful and
want to extend them.
W-pI.61.7. Today's idea goes far beyond the
ego's petty views of what you are and what your purpose is.
2 As a
bringer of salvation, this is obviously necessary. 3 This is the first of
a number of giant steps we will take in the next few weeks.
4 Try
today to begin to build a firm foundation for these advances.
5 You are
the light of the world. 6 God has built His plan for the salvation of
His Son on you.
Lesson 62.
Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.
W-pI.62.1. It is your forgiveness that will
bring the world of darkness to the light. 2 It is your
forgiveness that lets you recognize the light in which you see.
3
Forgiveness is the demonstration that you are the light of the world.
4 Through
your forgiveness does the truth about yourself return to your memory.
5
Therefore, in your forgiveness lies your salvation.
W-pI.62.2. Illusions about yourself and the
world are one. 2 That is why all forgiveness is a gift to
yourself. 3 Your goal is to find out who you are, having
denied your Identity by attacking creation and its Creator.
4 Now you
are learning how to remember the truth. 5 For this attack must
be replaced by forgiveness, so that thoughts of life may replace thoughts of
death.
W-pI.62.3. Remember that in every attack you
call upon your own weakness, while each time you forgive you call upon the
strength of Christ in you. 2 Do you not then begin to understand what
forgiveness will do for you? 3 It will remove all sense of weakness, strain
and fatigue from your mind. 4 It will take away all fear and guilt and pain.
5 It will
restore the invulnerability and power God gave His Son to your awareness.
W-pI.62.4. Let us be glad to begin and end this
day by practicing today's idea, and to use it as frequently as possible
throughout the day. 2 It will help to make the day as happy for you
as God wants you to be. 3 And it will help those around you, as well as
those who seem to be far away in space and time, to share this happiness with
you.
W-pI.62.5. As often as you can, closing your
eyes if possible, say to yourself today: 2 Forgiveness is my
function as the light of the world. 3 I would fulfill my
function that I may be happy. 4 Then devote a minute or two to considering
your function and the happiness and release it will bring you.
5 Let
related thoughts come freely, for your heart will recognize these words, and in
your mind is the awareness they are true. 6 Should your attention
wander, repeat the idea and add: 7 I would remember this because I want to be
happy.
Lesson 63.
The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my
forgiveness.
W-pI.63.1. How holy are you who have the power
to bring peace to every mind! 2 How blessed are you who can learn to
recognize the means for letting this be done through you!
3 What
purpose could you have that would bring you greater happiness?
W-pI.63.2. You are indeed the light of the
world with such a function. 2 The Son of God looks to you for his
redemption. 3 It is yours to give him, for it belongs to
you. 4
Accept no trivial purpose or meaningless desire in its place, or you will
forget your function and leave the Son of God in hell.
5 This is
no idle request that is being asked of you. 6 You are being asked
to accept salvation that it may be yours to give.
W-pI.63.3. Recognizing the importance of this
function, we will be happy to remember it very often today.
2 We will
begin the day by acknowledging it, and close the day with the thought of it in
our awareness. 3 And throughout the day we will repeat this as
often as we can: 4 The light of the world brings peace to every
mind through my forgiveness. 5 I am the means God has appointed for the
salvation of the world.
W-pI.63.4. 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. 2 Do not, however, wait
for such an opportunity. 3 No chance should be lost for reinforcing today's
idea. 4
Remember that God's Son looks to you for his salvation.
5 And Who
but your Self must be His Son?
Lesson 64.
Let me not forget my function.
W-pI.64.1. Today's idea is merely another way
of saying "Let me not wander into temptation."
2 The purpose
of the world you see is to obscure your function of forgiveness, and provide
you with a justification for forgetting it. 3 It is the temptation
to abandon God and His Son by taking on a physical appearance.
4 It is
this the body's eyes look upon.
W-pI.64.2. Nothing the body's eyes seem to see
can be anything but a form of temptation, since this was the purpose of the
body itself. 2 Yet we have learned that the Holy Spirit has
another use for all the illusions you have made, and therefore He sees another
purpose in them. 3 To the Holy Spirit, the world is a place
where you learn to forgive yourself what you think of as your sins.
4 In this
perception, the physical appearance of temptation becomes the spiritual
recognition of salvation.
W-pI.64.3. To review our last few lessons, your
function here is to be the light of the world, a function given you by God.
2 It is
only the arrogance of the ego that leads you to question this, and only the
fear of the ego that induces you to regard yourself as unworthy of the task
assigned to you by God Himself. 3 The world's salvation awaits your
forgiveness, because through it does the Son of God escape from all illusions,
and thus from all temptation. 4 The Son of God is you.
W-pI.64.4. Only by fulfilling the function given
you by God will you be happy. 2 That is because your function is to be happy
by using the means by which happiness becomes inevitable.
3 There
is no other way. 4 Therefore, every time you choose whether or
not to fulfill your function, you are really choosing whether or not to be
happy.
W-pI.64.5. Let us remember this today.
2 Let us
remind ourselves of it in the morning and again at night, and all through the
day as well. 3 Prepare yourself in advance for all the
decisions you will make today by remembering they are all really very simple.
4 Each
one will lead to happiness or unhappiness. 5 Can such a simple
decision really be difficult to make? 6 Let not the form of
the decision deceive you. 7 Complexity of form does not imply complexity
of content. 8 It is impossible that any decision on earth
can have a content different from just this one simple choice.
9 That is
the only choice the Holy Spirit sees. 10 Therefore it is the
only choice there is.
W-pI.64.6. Today, then, let us practice with
these thoughts: 2 Let me not forget my function.
3 Let me
not try to substitute mine for God's. 4 Let me forgive and be
happy. 5
At least once devote ten or fifteen minutes today to reflecting on this with
closed eyes. 6 Related thoughts will come to help you, if you
remember the crucial importance of your function to you and to the world.
W-pI.64.7. In the frequent applications of
today's idea throughout the day, devote several minutes to reviewing these
thoughts, and then thinking about them and about nothing else.
2 This
will be difficult, at first particularly, since you are not proficient in the
mind discipline that it requires. 3 You may need to repeat "Let me not
forget my function" quite often to help you concentrate.
W-pI.64.8. Two forms of shorter practice periods
are required. 2 At times, do the exercises with your eyes
closed, trying to concentrate on the thoughts you are using.
3 At
other times, keep your eyes open after reviewing the thoughts, and then look
slowly and unselectively around you, telling yourself:
4 This is
the world it is my function to save.
Lesson 65.
My only function is the one God gave me.
W-pI.65.1. The idea for today reaffirms your
commitment to salvation. 2 It also reminds you that you have no function
other than that. 3 Both these thoughts are obviously necessary
for a total commitment. 4 Salvation cannot be the only purpose you hold
while you still cherish others. 5 The full acceptance of salvation as your only
function necessarily entails two phases; the recognition of salvation as your
function, and the relinquishment of all the other goals you have invented for
yourself.
W-pI.65.2. This is the only way in which you
can take your rightful place among the saviors of the world.
2 This is
the only way in which you can say and mean, "My only function is the one
God gave me." 3 This is the only way in which you can find
peace of mind.
W-pI.65.3. Today, and for a number of days to
follow, set aside ten to fifteen minutes for a more sustained practice period,
in which you try to understand and accept what the idea for the day really
means. 2
Today's idea offers you escape from all your perceived difficulties.
3 It
places the key to the door of peace, which you have closed upon yourself, in
your own hands. 4 It gives you the answer to all the searching
you have done since time began.
W-pI.65.4. Try, if possible, to undertake the
daily extended practice periods at approximately the same time each day.
2 Try,
also, to determine this time in advance, and then adhere to it as closely as
possible. 3 The purpose of this is to arrange your day so
that you have set apart the time for God, as well as for all the trivial
purposes and goals you will pursue. 4 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 with you.
W-pI.65.5. For the longer practice period,
begin by reviewing the idea for the day. 2 Then close your eyes,
repeat the idea to yourself once again, and watch your mind carefully to catch
whatever thoughts cross it. 3 At first, make no attempt to concentrate only
on thoughts related to the idea for the day. 4 Rather, try to
uncover each thought that arises to interfere with it.
5 Note
each one as it comes to you, with as little involvement or concern as possible,
dismissing each one by telling yourself: 6 This thought reflects
a goal that is preventing me from accepting my only function.
W-pI.65.6. After a while, interfering thoughts
will become harder to find. 2 Try, however, to continue a minute or so
longer, attempting to catch a few of the idle thoughts that escaped your
attention before, but do not strain or make undue effort in doing this.
3 Then
tell yourself: 4 On this clean slate let my true function be
written for me. 5 You need not use these exact words, but try
to get the sense of being willing to have your illusions of purpose be replaced
by truth.
W-pI.65.7. Finally, repeat the idea for today
once more, and devote the rest of the practice period to trying to focus on its
importance to you, the relief its acceptance will bring you by resolving your
conflicts once and for all, and the extent to which you really want salvation
in spite of your own foolish ideas to the contrary.
W-pI.65.8. In the shorter practice periods,
which should be undertaken at least once an hour, use this form in applying
today's idea: 2 My only function is the one God gave me.
3 I want
no other and I have no other. 4 Sometimes close your eyes as you practice
this, and sometimes keep them open and look about you.
5 It is
what you see now that will be totally changed when you accept today's idea
completely.
Lesson 66.
My happiness and my function are one.
W-pI.66.1. You have surely noticed an emphasis
throughout our recent lessons on the connection between fulfilling your
function and achieving happiness. 2 This is because you do not really see the
connection. 3 Yet there is more than just a connection
between them; they are the same. 4 Their forms are different, but their content
is completely one.
W-pI.66.2. The ego does constant battle with
the Holy Spirit on the fundamental question of what your function is.
2 So does
it do constant battle with the Holy Spirit about what your happiness is.
3 It is
not a two-way battle. 4 The ego attacks and the Holy Spirit does not
respond. 5 He knows what your function is.
6 He
knows that it is your happiness.
W-pI.66.3. Today we will try to go past this
wholly meaningless battle and arrive at the truth about your function.
2 We will
not engage in senseless arguments about what it is.
3 We will
not become hopelessly involved in defining happiness and determining the means
for achieving it. 4 We will not indulge the ego by listening to
its attacks on truth. 5 We will merely be glad that we can find out
what truth is.
W-pI.66.4. 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 God gave you and your happiness, but that they
are actually identical. 2 God gives you only happiness.
3
Therefore, the function He gave you must be happiness, even if it appears to be
different. 4 Today's exercises are an attempt to go beyond
these differences in appearance, and recognize a common content where it exists
in truth.
W-pI.66.5. Begin the ten-to-fifteen-minute
practice period by reviewing these thoughts: 2 God gives me only
happiness. 3 He has given my function to me.
4
Therefore my function must be happiness. 5 Try to see the logic
in this sequence, even if you do not yet accept the conclusion.
6 It is
only if the first two thoughts are wrong that the conclusion could be false.
7 Let us,
then, think about the premises for a while, as we are practicing.
W-pI.66.6. The first premise is that God gives
you only happiness. 2 This could be false, of course, but in order
to be false it is necessary to define God as something He is not.
3 Love
cannot give evil, and what is not happiness is evil.
4 God
cannot give what He does not have, and He cannot have what He is not.
5 Unless
God gives you only happiness, He must be evil. 6 And it is this
definition of Him you are believing if you do not accept the first premise.
W-pI.66.7. The second premise is that God has
given you your function. 2 We have seen that there are only two parts of
your mind. 3 One is ruled by the ego, and is made up of
illusions. 4 The other is the home of the Holy Spirit,
where truth abides. 5 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.
W-pI.66.8. 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. 2 Which is true? 3 Unless God gave your
function to you, it must be the gift of the ego. 4 Does the ego really
have gifts to give, being itself an illusion and offering only the illusion of
gifts?
W-pI.66.9. Think about this during the longer
practice period today. 2 Think also 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. 3 Did you find it?
4 Were
you happy? 5 Did they bring you peace?
6 We need
great honesty today. 7 Remember the outcomes fairly, and consider
also whether it was ever reasonable to expect happiness from anything the ego
ever proposed. 8 Yet the ego is the only alternative to the
Holy Spirit's Voice.
W-pI.66.10. You will listen to madness or hear the
truth. 2
Try to make this choice as you think about the premises on which our conclusion
rests. 3
We can share in this conclusion, but in no other. 4 For God Himself
shares it with us. 5 Today's idea is another giant stride in the
perception of the same as the same, and the different as different.
6 On one
side stand all illusions. 7 All truth stands on the other.
8 Let us
try today to realize that only the truth is true.
W-pI.66.11. In the shorter practice periods, which
would be most helpful today if undertaken twice an hour, this form of the
application is suggested: 2 My happiness and function are one, because
God has given me both. 3 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.
Lesson 67.
Love created me like itself.
W-pI.67.1. Today's idea is a complete and
accurate statement of what you are. 2 This is why you are
the light of the world. 3 This is why God appointed you as the world's
savior. 4
This is why the Son of God looks to you for his salvation.
5 He is
saved by what you are. 6 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.
W-pI.67.2. In the longer practice period, we
will think about your reality and its wholly unchanged and unchangeable nature.
2 We will
begin by repeating this truth about you, and then spend a few minutes adding
some relevant thoughts, such as: 3 Holiness created me holy.
4
Kindness created me kind. 5 Helpfulness created me helpful.
6
Perfection created me perfect. 7 Any attribute which is in accord with God as
He defines Himself is appropriate for use. 8 We are trying today
to undo your definition of God and replace it with His Own.
9 We are
also trying to emphasize that you are part of His definition of Himself.
W-pI.67.3. 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. 2 If love created you
like itself, this Self must be in you. 3 And somewhere in your
mind It is there for you to find.
W-pI.67.4. You may find it necessary to repeat
the idea for today from time to time to replace distracting thoughts.
2 You may
also find that this is not sufficient, and that you need to continue adding
other thoughts related to the truth about yourself.
3 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 recognize
yourself as love created you. 4 Be confident that you will do much today to
bring that awareness nearer, whether you feel you have succeeded or not.
W-pI.67.5. It will be particularly helpful
today to practice the idea for the day as often as you can.
2 You
need to hear the truth about yourself as frequently as possible, because your
mind is so preoccupied with false self-images. 3 Four or five times an
hour, and perhaps even more, it would be most beneficial to remind yourself
that love created you like itself. 4 Hear the truth about
yourself in this.
W-pI.67.6. Try to realize in the shorter
practice periods that this is not your tiny, solitary voice that tells you this.
2 This is
the Voice for God, reminding you of your Father and of your Self.
3 This is
the Voice of truth, replacing everything that the ego tells you about yourself
with the simple truth about the Son of God. 4 You were created by love
like itself.
Lesson 68.
Love holds no grievances.
W-pI.68.1. You who were created by love like
itself can hold no grievances and know your Self. 2 To hold a grievance
is to forget who you are. 3 To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a
body. 4
To hold a grievance is to let the ego rule your mind and to condemn the body to
death. 5
Perhaps you do not yet fully realize just what holding grievances does to your
mind. 6
It seems to split you off from your Source and make you unlike Him.
7 It
makes you believe that He is like what you think you have become, for no one
can conceive of his Creator as unlike himself.
W-pI.68.2. Shut off from your Self, which
remains aware of Its likeness to Its Creator, your Self seems to sleep, while
the part of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be awake.
2 Can all
this arise from holding grievances? 3 Oh, yes!
4 For he
who holds grievances denies he was created by love, and his Creator has become
fearful to him in his dream of hate. 5 Who can dream of
hatred and not fear God?
W-pI.68.3. It is as sure that those who hold
grievances will redefine God in their own image, as it is certain that God
created them like Himself, and defined them as part of Him.
2 It is
as sure that those who hold grievances will suffer guilt, as it is certain that
those who forgive will find peace. 3 It is as sure that
those who hold grievances will forget who they are, as it is certain that those
who forgive will remember.
W-pI.68.4. Would you not be willing to
relinquish your grievances if you believed all this were so?
2 Perhaps
you do not think you can let your grievances go. 3 That, however, is
simply a matter of motivation. 4 Today we will try to find out how you would
feel without them. 5 If you succeed even by ever so little, there
will never be a problem in motivation ever again.
W-pI.68.5. Begin today's extended practice
period by searching your mind for those against whom you hold what you regard
as major grievances. 2 Some of these will be quite easy to find.
3 Then think
of the seemingly minor grievances you hold against those you like and even
think you love. 4 It will quickly become apparent that there is
no one against whom you do not cherish grievances of some sort.
5 This
has left you alone in all the universe in your perception of yourself.
W-pI.68.6. Determine now to see all these
people as friends. 2 Say to them all, thinking of each one in turn
as you do so: 3 I would see you as my friend, that I may
remember you are part of me and come to know myself.
4 Spend the
remainder of the practice period trying to think of yourself as completely at
peace with everyone and everything, safe in a world that protects you and loves
you, and that you love in return. 5 Try to feel safety surrounding you, hovering
over you and holding you up. 6 Try to believe, however briefly, that nothing
can harm you in any way. 7 At the end of the practice period tell
yourself: 8 Love holds no grievances.
9 When I
let all my grievances go I will know I am perfectly safe.
W-pI.68.7. The short practice periods should
include a quick application of today's idea in this form, whenever any thought
of grievance arises against anyone, physically present or not:
2 Love
holds no grievances. 3 Let me not betray my Self.
4 In
addition, repeat the idea several times an hour in this form:
5 Love
holds no grievances. 6 I would wake to my Self by laying all my
grievances aside and wakening in Him.
Lesson 69.
My grievances hide the light of the world in me.
W-pI.69.1. No one can look upon what your
grievances conceal. 2 Because your grievances are hiding the light
of the world in you, everyone stands in darkness, and you beside him.
3 But as
the veil of your grievances is lifted, you are released with him.
4 Share
your salvation now with him who stood beside you when you were in hell.
5 He is
your brother in the light of the world that saves you both.
W-pI.69.2. Today let us make another real
attempt to reach the light in you. 2 Before we undertake
this in our more extended practice period, let us devote several minutes to
thinking about what we are trying to do. 3 We are literally
attempting to get in touch with the salvation of the world.
4 We are
trying to see past the veil of darkness that keeps it concealed.
5 We are
trying to let the veil be lifted, and to see the tears of God's Son disappear
in the sunlight.
W-pI.69.3. 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.
2
Salvation is our only need. 3 There is no other purpose here, and no other
function to fulfill. 4 Learning salvation is our only goal.
5 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.
W-pI.69.4. Very quietly now, with your eyes
closed, try to let go of all the content that generally occupies your
consciousness. 2 Think of your mind as a vast circle,
surrounded by a layer of heavy, dark clouds. 3 You can see only the
clouds because you seem to be standing outside the circle and quite apart from
it.
W-pI.69.5. From where you stand, you can see no
reason to believe there is a brilliant light hidden by the clouds.
2 The
clouds seem to be the only reality. 3 They seem to be all
there is to see. 4 Therefore, you do not attempt to go through
them and past them, which is the only way in which you would be really
convinced of their lack of substance. 5 We will make this
attempt today.
W-pI.69.6. After you have thought about the
importance of what you are trying to do for yourself and the world, try to
settle down in perfect stillness, remembering only how much you want to reach
the light in you today,--now! 2 Determine to go past the clouds.
3 Reach
out and touch them in your mind. 4 Brush them aside with your hand; feel them
resting on your cheeks and forehead and eyelids as you go through them.
5 Go on;
clouds cannot stop you.
W-pI.69.7. If you are doing the exercises
properly, you will begin to feel a sense of being lifted up and carried ahead.
2 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.
3 You are
in accord with His Will. 4 You cannot fail because your will is His.
W-pI.69.8. Have confidence in your Father
today, and be certain that He has heard you and answered you.
2 You may
not recognize His answer yet, but you can indeed be sure that it is given you
and you will yet receive it. 3 Try, as you attempt to go through the clouds
to the light, to hold this confidence in your mind.
4 Try to
remember that you are at last joining your will to God's.
5 Try to
keep the thought clearly in mind that what you undertake with God must succeed.
6 Then
let the power of God work in you and through you, that His Will and yours be
done.
W-pI.69.9. 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 your happiness, remind yourself that your grievances
are hiding the light of the world from your awareness.
2 Remind
yourself also that you are not searching for it alone, and that you do know
where to look for it. 3 Say, then: 4 My grievances hide
the light of the world in me. 5 I cannot see what I have hidden.
6 Yet I
want to let it be revealed to me, for my salvation and the salvation of the
world. 7
Also, be sure to tell yourself: 8 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.
Lesson 70.
My salvation comes from me.
W-pI.70.1. All temptation is nothing more than
some form of the basic temptation not to believe the idea for today.
2
Salvation seems to come from anywhere except from you.
3 So,
too, does the source of guilt. 4 You see neither guilt nor salvation as in
your own mind and nowhere else. 5 When you realize that all guilt is solely an
invention of your mind, you also realize that guilt and salvation must be in
the same place. 6 In understanding this you are saved.
W-pI.70.2. 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. 2 But it also means
that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace or upset you
in any way. 3 Today's idea places you in charge of the
universe, where you belong because of what you are.
4 This is
not a role that can be partially accepted. 5 And you must surely
begin to see that accepting it is salvation.
W-pI.70.3. 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. 2 God would not have put the remedy for the
sickness where it cannot help. 3 That is the way your mind has worked, but
hardly His. 4 He wants you to be healed, so He has kept the
Source of healing where the need for healing lies.
W-pI.70.4. 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. 2 Your purpose was to ensure that healing did
not occur. 3 God's purpose was to ensure that it did.
W-pI.70.5. Today we practice realizing that
God's Will and ours are really the same in this. 2 God wants us to be
healed, and we do not really want to be sick, because it makes us unhappy.
3
Therefore, in accepting the idea for today, we are really in agreement with God.
4 He does
not want us to be sick. 5 Neither do we. 6 He wants us to be
healed. 7
So do we.
W-pI.70.6. We are ready for two longer practice
periods today, each of which should last some ten to fifteen minutes.
2 We
will, however, still let you decide when to undertake them.
3 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.
W-pI.70.7. Begin these practice periods by
repeating the idea for today, adding a statement signifying your recognition
that salvation comes from nothing outside of you. 2 You might put it this
way: 3
My salvation comes from me. 4 It cannot come from anywhere else.
5 Then
devote a few minutes, with your eyes closed, to reviewing some of the external
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. 6 Recognize that it is not there, and tell
yourself: 7 My salvation cannot come from any of these things.
8 My
salvation comes from me and only from me.
W-pI.70.8. Now we will try again to reach the
light in you, which is where your salvation is. 2 You cannot find it in
the clouds that surround the light, and it is in them you have been looking for
it. 3
It is not there. 4 It is past the clouds and in the light beyond.
5
Remember that you will have to go through the clouds before you can reach the
light. 6
But remember also that you have never found anything in the cloud patterns you
imagined that endured, or that you wanted.
W-pI.70.9. 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. 2 Try to pass the clouds by whatever means
appeals to you. 3 If it helps you, think of me holding your
hand and leading you. 4 And I assure you this will be no idle
fantasy.
W-pI.70.10. For the short and frequent practice
periods today, remind yourself that your salvation comes from you, and nothing
but your own thoughts can hamper your progress. 2 You are free from all
external interference. 3 You are in charge of your salvation.
4 You are
in charge of the salvation of the world. 5 Say, then:
6 My
salvation comes from me. 7 Nothing outside of me can hold me back.
8 Within
me is the world's salvation and my own.
Lesson 71.
Only God's plan for salvation will work.
W-pI.71.1. You may not realize that the ego has
set up a plan for salvation in opposition to God's.
2 It is
this plan in which you believe. 3 Since it is the opposite of God's, you also
believe that to accept God's plan in place of the ego's is to be damned.
4 This
sounds preposterous, of course. 5 Yet after we have considered just what the
ego's plan is, perhaps you will realize that, however preposterous it may be,
you do believe in it.
W-pI.71.2. The ego's plan for salvation centers
around holding grievances. 2 It maintains that, if someone else spoke or
acted differently, if some external circumstance or event were changed, you
would be saved. 3 Thus, the source of salvation is constantly
perceived as outside yourself. 4 Each grievance you hold is a declaration, and
an assertion in which you believe, that says, "If this were different, I
would be saved." 5 The change of mind necessary for salvation is
thus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself.
W-pI.71.3. The role assigned to your own mind
in this plan, then, is simply to determine what, other than itself, must change
if you are to be saved. 2 According to this insane plan, any perceived
source of salvation is acceptable provided that it will not work.
3 This
ensures that the fruitless search will continue, for the illusion persists
that, although this hope has always failed, there is still grounds for hope in
other places and in other things. 4 Another person will yet serve better; another
situation will yet offer success.
W-pI.71.4. Such is the ego's plan for your
salvation. 2 Surely you can see how it is in strict accord
with the ego's basic doctrine, "Seek but do not find."
3 For
what could more surely guarantee that you will not find salvation than to
channelize all your efforts in searching for it where it is not?
W-pI.71.5. God's plan for salvation works
simply because, by following His direction, you seek for salvation where it is.
2 But if
you are to succeed, as God promises you will, you must be willing to seek there
only. 3
Otherwise, your purpose is divided and you will attempt to follow two plans for
salvation that are diametrically opposed in all ways.
4 The
result can only bring confusion, misery and a deep sense of failure and
despair.
W-pI.71.6. How can you escape all this?
2 Very
simply. 3
The idea for today is the answer. 4 Only God's plan for salvation will work.
5 There can
be no real conflict about this, because there is no possible alternative to
God's plan that will save you. 6 His is the only plan that is certain in its
outcome. 7 His is the only plan that must succeed.
W-pI.71.7. Let us practice recognizing this
certainty today. 2 And let us rejoice that there is an answer to
what seems to be a conflict with no resolution possible.
3 All
things are possible to God. 4 Salvation must be yours because of His plan,
which cannot fail.
W-pI.71.8. Begin the two longer practice
periods for today by thinking about today's idea, and realizing that it
contains two parts, each making equal contribution to the whole.
2 God's
plan for your salvation will work, and other plans will not.
3 Do not
allow yourself to become depressed or angry at the second part; it is inherent
in the first. 4 And in the first is your full release from
all your own insane attempts and mad proposals to free yourself.
5 They
have led to depression and anger; but God's plan will succeed.
6 It will
lead to release and joy.
W-pI.71.9. Remembering this, let us devote the
remainder of the extended practice periods to asking God to reveal His plan to
us. 2
Ask Him very specifically: 3 What would You have me do?
4 Where
would You have me go? 5 What would You have me say, and to whom?
6 Give
Him full charge of the rest of the practice period, and let Him tell you what
needs to be done by you in His plan for your salvation.
7 He will
answer in proportion to your willingness to hear His Voice.
8 Refuse
not to hear. 9 The very fact that you are doing the
exercises proves that you have some willingness to listen.
10 This
is enough to establish your claim to God's answer.
W-pI.71.10. In the shorter practice periods, tell
yourself often that God's plan for salvation, and only His, will work.
2 Be
alert to all temptation to hold grievances today, and respond to them with this
form of today's idea: 3 Holding grievances is the opposite of God's
plan for salvation. 4 And only His plan will work.
5 Try to
remember today's idea some six or seven times an hour.
6 There
could be no better way to spend a half minute or less than to remember the
Source of your salvation, and to see It where It is.
Lesson 72.
Holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation.
W-pI.72.1. While we have recognized that the
ego's plan for salvation is the opposite of God's, we have not yet emphasized
that it is an active attack on His plan, and a deliberate attempt to destroy it.
2 In the
attack, God is assigned the attributes which are actually associated with the
ego, while the ego appears to take on the attributes of God.
W-pI.72.2. The ego's fundamental wish is to
replace God. 2 In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment
of that wish. 3 For it is that wish that seems to surround
the mind with a body, keeping it separate and alone, and unable to reach other
minds except through the body that was made to imprison it.
4 The
limit on communication cannot be the best means to expand communication.
5 Yet the
ego would have you believe that it is.
W-pI.72.3. Although the attempt to keep the
limitations that a body would impose is obvious here, it is perhaps not so
apparent why holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation.
2 But let
us consider the kinds of things you are apt to hold grievances for.
3 Are
they not always associated with something a body does?
4 A
person says something you do not like. 5 He does something
that displeases you. 6 He "betrays" his hostile thoughts
in his behavior.
W-pI.72.4. You are not dealing here with what the
person is. 2 On the contrary, you are exclusively
concerned with what he does in a body. 3 You are doing more
than failing to help in freeing him from the body's limitations.
4 You are
actively trying to hold him to it by confusing it with him, and judging them as
one. 5
Herein is God attacked, for if His Son is only a body, so must He be as well.
6 A
creator wholly unlike his creation is inconceivable.
W-pI.72.5. If God is a body, what must His plan
for salvation be? 2 What could it be but death?
3 In trying
to present Himself as the Author of life and not of death, He is a liar and a
deceiver, full of false promises and offering illusions in place of truth.
4 The
body's apparent reality makes this view of God quite convincing.
5 In
fact, if the body were real, it would be difficult indeed to escape this
conclusion. 6 And every grievance that you hold insists
that the body is real. 7 It overlooks entirely what your brother is.
8 It
reinforces your belief that he is a body, and condemns him for it.
9 And it
asserts that his salvation must be death, projecting this attack onto God, and
holding Him responsible for it.
W-pI.72.6. To this carefully prepared arena,
where angry animals seek for prey and mercy cannot enter, the ego comes to save
you. 2
God made you a body. 3 Very well. 4 Let us accept this
and be glad. 5 As a body, do not let yourself be deprived of
what the body offers. 6 Take the little you can get.
7 God
gave you nothing. 8 The body is your only savior.
9 It is
the death of God and your salvation.
W-pI.72.7. This is the universal belief of the
world you see. 2 Some hate the body, and try to hurt and
humiliate it. 3 Others love the body, and try to glorify and
exalt it. 4 But while the body stands at the center of
your concept of yourself, you are attacking God's plan for salvation, and
holding your grievances against Him and His creation, that you may not hear the
Voice of truth and welcome It as Friend. 5 Your chosen savior
takes His place instead. 6 It is your friend; He is your enemy.
W-pI.72.8. We will try today to stop these
senseless attacks on salvation. 2 We will try to welcome it instead.
3 Your
upside-down perception has been ruinous to your peace of mind.
4 You
have seen yourself in a body and the truth outside you, locked away from your
awareness by the body's limitations. 5 Now we are going to
try to see this differently.
W-pI.72.9. The light of truth is in us, where
it was placed by God. 2 It is the body that is outside us, and is not
our concern. 3 To be without a body is to be in our natural
state. 4
To recognize the light of truth in us is to recognize ourselves as we are.
5 To see
our Self as separate from the body is to end the attack on God's plan for
salvation, and to accept it instead. 6 And wherever His plan
is accepted, it is accomplished already.
W-pI.72.10. Our goal in the longer practice
periods today is to become aware that God's plan for salvation has already been
accomplished in us. 2 To achieve this goal, we must replace attack
with acceptance. 3 As long as we attack it, we cannot understand
what God's plan for us is. 4 We are therefore attacking what we do not
recognize. 5 Now we are going to try to lay judgment
aside, and ask what God's plan for us is: 6 What is salvation,
Father? 7
I do not know. 8 Tell me, that I may understand.
9 Then we
will wait in quiet for His answer. 10 We have attacked
God's plan for salvation without waiting to hear what it is.
11 We
have shouted our grievances so loudly that we have not listened to His Voice.
12 We
have used our grievances to close our eyes and stop our ears.
W-pI.72.11. Now we would see and hear and learn.
2
"What is salvation, Father?" 3 Ask and you will be answered.
4 Seek
and you will find. 5 We are no longer asking the ego what
salvation is and where to find it. 6 We are asking it of
truth. 7
Be certain, then, that the answer will be true because of Whom you ask.
W-pI.72.12. Whenever you feel your confidence wane
and your hope of success flicker and go out, repeat your question and your
request, remembering that you are asking of the infinite Creator of infinity,
Who created you like Himself: 2 What is salvation, Father?
3 I do
not know. 4 Tell me, that I may understand.
5 He will
answer. 6
Be determined to hear.
W-pI.72.13. One or perhaps two shorter practice periods
an hour will be enough for today, since they will be somewhat longer than usual.
2 These
exercises should begin with this: 3 Holding grievances is an attack on God's plan
for salvation. 4 Let me accept it instead.
5 What is
salvation, Father? 6 Then wait a minute or so in silence,
preferably with your eyes closed, and listen for His answer.
Lesson 73.
I will there be light.
W-pI.73.1. Today we are considering the will
you share with God. 2 This is not the same as the ego's idle
wishes, out of which darkness and nothingness arise.
3 The
will you share with God has all the power of creation in it.
4 The
ego's idle wishes are unshared, and therefore have no power at all.
5 Its
wishes are not idle in the sense that they can make a world of illusions in which
your belief can be very strong. 6 But they are idle indeed in terms of creation.
7 They
make nothing that is real.
W-pI.73.2. Idle wishes and grievances are
partners or co-makers in picturing the world you see.
2 The
wishes of the ego gave rise to it, and the ego's need for grievances, which are
necessary to maintain it, peoples it with figures that seem to attack you and
call for "righteous" judgment. 3 These figures become
the middlemen the ego employs to traffic in grievances.
4 They
stand between your awareness and your brothers' reality.
5
Beholding them, you do not know your brothers or your Self.
W-pI.73.3. Your will is lost to you in this
strange bartering, in which guilt is traded back and forth, and grievances
increase with each exchange. 2 Can such a world have been created by the
Will the Son of God shares with his Father? 3 Did God create
disaster for His Son? 4 Creation is the Will of Both together.
5 Would
God create a world that kills Himself?
W-pI.73.4. Today we will try once more to reach
the world that is in accordance with your will. 2 The light is in it
because it does not oppose the Will of God. 3 It is not Heaven, but
the light of Heaven shines on it. 4 Darkness has vanished.
5 The
ego's idle wishes have been withdrawn. 6 Yet the light that
shines upon this world reflects your will, and so it must be in you that we
will look for it.
W-pI.73.5. Your picture of the world can only
mirror what is within. 2 The source of neither light nor darkness can
be found without. 3 Grievances darken your mind, and you look out
on a darkened world. 4 Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts
your will, and lets you look upon a world of light.
5 We have
repeatedly emphasized that the barrier of grievances is easily passed, and
cannot stand between you and your salvation. 6 The reason is very
simple. 7
Do you really want to be in hell? 8 Do you really want to weep and suffer and
die?
W-pI.73.6. Forget the ego's arguments which
seek to prove all this is really Heaven. 2 You know it is not so.
3 You
cannot want this for yourself. 4 There is a point beyond which illusions
cannot go. 5 Suffering is not happiness, and it is
happiness you really want. 6 Such is your will in truth.
7 And so
salvation is your will as well. 8 You want to succeed in what we are trying to
do today. 9 We undertake it with your blessing and your
glad accord.
W-pI.73.7. We will succeed today if you
remember that you want salvation for yourself. 2 You want to accept
God's plan because you share in it. 3 You have no will that
can really oppose it, and you do not want to do so.
4
Salvation is for you. 5 Above all else, you want the freedom to
remember Who you really are. 6 Today it is the ego that stands powerless
before your will. 7 Your will is free, and nothing can prevail
against it.
W-pI.73.8. Therefore, we undertake the
exercises for today in happy confidence, certain that we will find what it is
your will to find, and remember what it is your will to remember.
2 No idle
wishes can detain us, nor deceive us with an illusion of strength.
3 Today
let your will be done, and end forever the insane belief that it is hell in
place of Heaven that you choose.
W-pI.73.9. We will begin our longer practice
periods with the recognition that God's plan for salvation, and only His, is
wholly in accord with your will. 2 It is not the purpose of an alien power,
thrust upon you unwillingly. 3 It is the one purpose here on which you and
your Father are in perfect accord. 4 You will succeed
today, the time appointed for the release of the Son of God from hell and from
all idle wishes. 5 His will is now restored to his awareness.
6 He is
willing this very day to look upon the light in him and be saved.
W-pI.73.10. After reminding yourself of this, and determining
to keep your will clearly in mind, tell yourself with gentle firmness and quiet
certainty: 2 I will there be light.
3 Let me
behold the light that reflects God's Will and mine.
4 Then
let your will assert itself, joined with the power of God and united with your
Self. 5
Put the rest of the practice period under Their guidance.
6 Join
with Them as They lead the way.
W-pI.73.11. In the shorter practice periods, again
make a declaration of what you really want. 2 Say:
3 I will
there be light. 4 Darkness is not my will.
5 This
should be repeated several times an hour. 6 It is most important,
however, to apply today's idea in this form immediately you are tempted to hold
a grievance of any kind. 7 This will help you let your grievances go,
instead of cherishing them and hiding them in darkness.
Lesson 74.
There is no will but God's.
W-pI.74.1. The idea for today can be regarded
as the central thought toward which all our exercises are directed.
2 God's
is the only Will. 3 When you have recognized this, you have
recognized that your will is His. 4 The belief that conflict is possible has gone.
5 Peace
has replaced the strange idea that you are torn by conflicting goals.
6 As an
expression of the Will of God, you have no goal but His.
W-pI.74.2. There is great peace in today's
idea, and the exercises for today are directed towards finding it.
2 The
idea itself is wholly true. 3 Therefore it cannot give rise to illusions.
4 Without
illusions conflict is impossible. 5 Let us try to recognize this today, and
experience the peace this recognition brings.
W-pI.74.3. Begin the longer practice periods by
repeating these thoughts several times, slowly and with firm determination to
understand what they mean, and to hold them in mind:
2 There
is no will but God's. 3 I cannot be in conflict.
4 Then
spend several minutes in adding some related thoughts, such as:
5 I am at
peace. 6
Nothing can disturb me. 7 My will is God's.
8 My will
and God's are one. 9 God wills peace for His Son.
10 During
this introductory phase, be sure to deal quickly with any conflict thoughts
that may cross your mind. 11 Tell yourself immediately:
12 There
is no will but God's. 13 These conflict thoughts are meaningless.
W-pI.74.4. If there is one conflict area that
seems particularly difficult to resolve, single it out for special
consideration. 2 Think about it briefly but very specifically,
identify the particular person or persons and the situation or situations
involved, and tell yourself: 3 There is no will but God's.
4 I share
it with Him. 5 My conflicts about ___ cannot be real.
W-pI.74.5. After you have cleared your mind in
this way, close your eyes and try to experience the peace to which your reality
entitles you. 2 Sink into it and feel it closing around you.
3 There may
be some temptation to mistake these attempts for withdrawal, but the difference
is easily detected. 4 If you are succeeding, you will feel a deep
sense of joy and an increased alertness, rather than a feeling of drowsiness
and enervation.
W-pI.74.6. Joy characterizes peace.
2 By this
experience will you recognize that you have reached it.
3 If you
feel yourself slipping off into withdrawal, quickly repeat the idea for today
and try again. 4 Do this as often as necessary.
5 There
is definite gain in refusing to allow retreat into withdrawal, even if you do
not experience the peace you seek.
W-pI.74.7. In the shorter periods, which should
be undertaken at regular and predetermined intervals today, say to yourself:
2 There
is no will but God's. 3 I seek His peace today.
4 Then
try to find what you are seeking. 5 A minute or two every half an hour, with eyes
closed if possible, would be well spent on this today.
Lesson 75.
The light has come.
W-pI.75.1. The light has come.
2 You are
healed and you can heal. 3 The light has come.
4 You are
saved and you can save. 5 You are at peace, and you bring peace with
you wherever you go. 6 Darkness and turmoil and death have
disappeared. 7 The light has come.
W-pI.75.2. Today we celebrate the happy ending
to your long dream of disaster. 2 There are no dark dreams now.
3 The
light has come. 4 Today the time of light begins for you and
everyone. 5 It is a new era, in which a new world is born.
6 The old
one has left no trace upon it in its passing. 7 Today we see a
different world, because the light has come.
W-pI.75.3. Our exercises for today will be
happy ones, in which we offer thanks for the passing of the old and the
beginning of the new. 2 No shadows from the past remain to darken our
sight and hide the world forgiveness offers us. 3 Today we will accept
the new world as what we want to see. 4 We will be given what
we desire. 5 We will to see the light; the light has come.
W-pI.75.4. Our longer practice periods will be
devoted to looking at the world that our forgiveness shows us.
2 This is
what we want to see, and only this. 3 Our single purpose
makes our goal inevitable. 4 Today the real world rises before us in
gladness, to be seen at last. 5 Sight is given us, now that the light has
come.
W-pI.75.5. We do not want to see the ego's
shadow on the world today. 2 We see the light, and in it we see Heaven's
reflection lie across the world. 3 Begin the longer practice periods by telling
yourself the glad tidings of your release: 4 The light has come.
5 I have
forgiven the world.
W-pI.75.6. Dwell not upon the past today.
2 Keep a
completely open mind, washed of all past ideas and clean of every concept you
have made. 3 You have forgiven the world today.
4 You can
look upon it now as if you never saw it before. 5 You do not know yet
what it looks like. 6 You merely wait to have it shown to you.
7 While
you wait, repeat several times, slowly and in complete patience:
8 The
light has come. 9 I have forgiven the world.
W-pI.75.7. Realize that your forgiveness
entitles you to vision. 2 Understand that the Holy Spirit never fails
to give the gift of sight to the forgiving. 3 Believe He will not
fail you now. 4 You have forgiven the world.
5 He will
be with you as you watch and wait. 6 He will show you what
true vision sees. 7 It is His Will, and you have joined with Him.
8 Wait
patiently for Him. 9 He will be there.
10 The
light has come. 11 You have forgiven the world.
W-pI.75.8. Tell Him you know you cannot fail
because you trust in Him. 2 And tell yourself you wait in certainty to
look upon the world He promised you. 3 From this time forth
you will see differently. 4 Today the light has come.
5 And you
will see the world that has been promised you since time began, and in which is
the end of time ensured.
W-pI.75.9. The shorter practice periods, too,
will be joyful reminders of your release. 2 Remind yourself every
quarter of an hour or so that today is a time for special celebration.
3 Give
thanks for mercy and the Love of God. 4 Rejoice in the power
of forgiveness to heal your sight completely. 5 Be confident that on
this day there is a new beginning. 6 Without the darkness
of the past upon your eyes, you cannot fail to see today.
7 And
what you see will be so welcome that you will gladly extend today forever.
W-pI.75.10. Say, then:
2 The
light has come. 3 I have forgiven the world.
4 Should
you be tempted, say to anyone who seems to pull you back into darkness:
5 The
light has come. 6 I have forgiven you.
W-pI.75.11. We dedicate this day to the serenity
in which God would have you be. 2 Keep it in your awareness of yourself and see
it everywhere today, as we celebrate the beginning of your vision and the sight
of the real world, which has come to replace the unforgiven world you thought
was real.
Lesson 76.
I am under no laws but God's.
W-pI.76.1. We have observed before how many
senseless things have seemed to you to be salvation.
2 Each
has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself.
3 You are
not bound by them. 4 Yet to understand that this is so, you must
first realize salvation lies not there. 5 While you would seek
for it in things that have no meaning, you bind yourself to laws that make no
sense. 6
Thus do you seek to prove salvation is where it is not.
W-pI.76.2. Today we will be glad you cannot
prove it. 2 For if you could, you would forever seek
salvation where it is not, and never find it. 3 The idea for today
tells you once again how simple is salvation. 4 Look for it where it
waits for you, and there it will be found. 5 Look nowhere else,
for it is nowhere else.
W-pI.76.3. Think of the freedom in the
recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws you have
set up to save you. 2 You really think that you would starve unless
you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs.
3 You
really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through
a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death.
4 You
really think you are alone unless another body is with you.
W-pI.76.4. It is insanity that thinks these
things. 2
You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of
rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. 3 You think you must
obey the "laws" of medicine, of economics and of health.
4 Protect
the body, and you will be saved.
W-pI.76.5. These are not laws, but madness.
2 The
body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. 3 The body suffers just
in order that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself.
4 The
body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers.
5 It
would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to
die. 6
It is from this your "laws" would save the body.
7 It is
for this you think you are a body.
W-pI.76.6. There are no laws except the laws of
God. 2
This needs repeating, over and over, until you realize it applies to everything
that you have made in opposition to God's Will. 3 Your magic has no
meaning. 4 What it is meant to save does not exist.
5 Only
what it is meant to hide will save you.
W-pI.76.7. The laws of God can never be
replaced. 2 We will devote today to rejoicing that this
is so. 3
It is no longer a truth that we would hide. 4 We realize instead it
is a truth that keeps us free forever. 5 Magic imprisons, but
the laws of God make free. 6 The light has come because there are no laws
but His.
W-pI.76.8. We will begin the longer practice
periods today with a short review of the different kinds of "laws" we
have believed we must obey. 2 These would include, for example, the
"laws" of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the
body's protection in innumerable ways. 3 Think further; you
believe in the "laws" of friendship, of "good"
relationships and reciprocity. 4 Perhaps you even think that there are laws
which set forth what is God's and what is yours. 5 Many
"religions" have been based on this. 6 They would not save
but damn in Heaven's name. 7 Yet they are no more strange than other
"laws" you hold must be obeyed to make you safe.
W-pI.76.9. There are no laws but God's.
2 Dismiss
all foolish magical beliefs today, and hold your mind in silent readiness to
hear the Voice that speaks the truth to you. 3 You will be listening
to One Who says there is no loss under the laws of God.
4 Payment
is neither given nor received. 5 Exchange cannot be made; there are no
substitutes; and nothing is replaced by something else.
6 God's
laws forever give and never take.
W-pI.76.10. Hear Him Who tells you this, and
realize how foolish are the "laws" you thought upheld the world you
thought you saw. 2 Then listen further.
3 He will
tell you more. 4 About the Love your Father has for you.
5 About
the endless joy He offers you. 6 About His yearning for His only Son, created
as His channel for creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell.
W-pI.76.11. Let us today open God's channels to
Him, and let His Will extend through us to Him. 2 Thus is creation
endlessly increased. 3 His Voice will speak of this to us, as well
as of the joys of Heaven which His laws keep limitless forever.
4 We will
repeat today's idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws but
God's. 5
Then we will tell ourselves, as a dedication with which the practice period
concludes: 6 I am under no laws but God's.
W-pI.76.12. We will repeat this dedication as
often as possible today; at least four or five times an hour, as well as in
response to any temptation to experience ourselves as subject to other laws
throughout the day. 2 It is our statement of freedom from all
danger and all tyranny. 3 It is our acknowledgment that God is our
Father, and that His Son is saved.
Lesson 77.
I am entitled to miracles.
W-pI.77.1. You are entitled to miracles because
of what you are. 2 You will receive miracles because of what God
is. 3
And you will offer miracles because you are one with God.
4 Again,
how simple is salvation! 5 It is merely a statement of your true
Identity. 6 It is this that we will celebrate today.
W-pI.77.2. Your claim to miracles does not lie
in your illusions about yourself. 2 It does not depend on any magical powers you
have ascribed to yourself, nor on any of the rituals you have devised.
3 It is
inherent in the truth of what you are. 4 It is implicit in
what God your Father is. 5 It was ensured in your creation, and
guaranteed by the laws of God.
W-pI.77.3. Today we will claim the miracles
which are your right, since they belong to you. 2 You have been
promised full release from the world you made. 3 You have been assured
that the Kingdom of God is within you, and can never be lost.
4 We ask
no more than what belongs to us in truth. 5 Today, however, we
will also make sure that we will not content ourselves with less.
W-pI.77.4. Begin the longer practice periods by
telling yourself quite confidently that you are entitled to miracles.
2 Closing
your eyes, remind yourself that you are asking only for what is rightfully
yours. 3
Remind yourself also that miracles are never taken from one and given to
another, and that in asking for your rights, you are upholding the rights of
everyone. 4 Miracles do not obey the laws of this world.
5 They
merely follow from the laws of God.
W-pI.77.5. After this brief introductory phase,
wait quietly for the assurance that your request is granted.
2 You
have asked for the salvation of the world, and for your own.
3 You
have requested that you be given the means by which this is accomplished.
4 You
cannot fail to be assured in this. 5 You are but asking
that the Will of God be done.
W-pI.77.6. In doing this, you do not really ask
for anything. 2 You state a fact that cannot be denied.
3 The
Holy Spirit cannot but assure you that your request is granted.
4 The
fact that you accepted must be so. 5 There is no room for
doubt and uncertainty today. 6 We are asking a real question at last.
7 The
answer is a simple statement of a simple fact. 8 You will receive the
assurance that you seek.
W-pI.77.7. Our shorter practice periods will be
frequent, and will also be devoted to a reminder of a simple fact.
2 Tell
yourself often today: 3 I am entitled to miracles.
4 Ask for
them whenever a situation arises in which they are called for.
5 You
will recognize these situations. 6 And since you are not relying on yourself to
find the miracle, you are fully entitled to receive it whenever you ask.
W-pI.77.8. Remember, too, not to be satisfied
with less than the perfect answer. 2 Be quick to tell
yourself, should you be tempted: 3 I will not trade miracles for grievances.
4 I want
only what belongs to me. 5 God has established miracles as my right.
Lesson 78.
Let miracles replace all grievances.
W-pI.78.1. Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to
you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle.
2 Each
grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal.
3 And as
you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond.
4 Yet all
the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your grievances instead.
W-pI.78.2. Today we go beyond the grievances,
to look upon the miracle instead. 2 We will reverse the way you see by not
allowing sight to stop before it sees. 3 We will not wait
before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in silence
to behold the Son of God.
W-pI.78.3. He waits for you behind your
grievances, and as you lay them down he will appear in shining light where each
one stood before. 2 For every grievance is a block to sight, and
as it lifts you see the Son of God where he has always been.
3 He
stands in light, but you were in the dark. 4 Each grievance made
the darkness deeper, and you could not see.
W-pI.78.4. Today we will attempt to see God's
Son. 2
We will not let ourselves be blind to him; we will not look upon our grievances.
3 So is
the seeing of the world reversed, as we look out toward truth, away from fear.
4 We will
select one person you have used as target for your grievances, and lay the
grievances aside and look at him. 5 Someone, perhaps, you fear and even hate;
someone you think you love who angered you; someone you call a friend, but whom
you see as difficult at times or hard to please, demanding, irritating or
untrue to the ideal he should accept as his, according to the role you set for
him.
W-pI.78.5. You know the one to choose; his name
has crossed your mind already. 2 He will be the one of whom we ask God's Son
be shown to you. 3 Through seeing him behind the grievances that
you have held against him, you will learn that what lay hidden while you saw
him not is there in everyone, and can be seen. 4 He who was enemy is
more than friend when he is freed to take the holy role the Holy Spirit has
assigned to him. 5 Let him be savior unto you today.
6 Such is
his role in God your Father's plan.
W-pI.78.6. Our longer practice periods today
will see him in this role. 2 You will attempt to hold him in your mind,
first as you now consider him. 3 You will review his faults, the difficulties
you have had with him, the pain he caused you, his neglect, and all the little
and the larger hurts he gave. 4 You will regard his body with its flaws and
better points as well, and you will think of his mistakes and even of his
"sins."
W-pI.78.7. Then let us ask of Him Who knows
this Son of God in his reality and truth, that we may look on him a different
way, and see our savior shining in the light of true forgiveness, given unto us.
2 We ask
Him in the holy Name of God and of His Son, as holy as Himself:
3 Let me
behold my savior in this one You have appointed as the one for me to ask to
lead me to the holy light in which he stands, that I may join with him.
4 The
body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind
be shown the light in him beyond your grievances.
W-pI.78.8. What you have asked for cannot be
denied. 2
Your savior has been waiting long for this. 3 He would be free, and
make his freedom yours. 4 The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing
no separation in God's Son. 5 And what you see through Him will free you
both. 6
Be very quiet now, and look upon your shining savior.
7 No dark
grievances obscure the sight of him. 8 You have allowed the
Holy Spirit to express through him the role God gave Him that you might be
saved.
W-pI.78.9. God thanks you for these quiet times
today in which you laid your images aside, and looked upon the miracle of love
the Holy Spirit showed you in their place. 2 The world and Heaven
join in thanking you, for not one Thought of God but must rejoice as you are
saved, and all the world with you.
W-pI.78.10. We will remember this throughout the
day, and take the role assigned to us as part of God's salvation plan, and not
our own. 2 Temptation falls away when we allow each one
we meet to save us, and refuse to hide his light behind our grievances.
3 To
everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of or remember from the past,
allow the role of savior to be given, that you may share it with him.
4 For you
both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray: 5 Let miracles replace
all grievances.
Lesson 79.
Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.
W-pI.79.1. A problem cannot be solved if you do
not know what it is. 2 Even if it is really solved already you will
still have the problem, because you will not recognize that it has been solved.
3 This is
the situation of the world. 4 The problem of separation, which is really
the only problem, has already been solved. 5 Yet the solution is
not recognized because the problem is not recognized.
W-pI.79.2. Everyone in this world seems to have
his own special problems. 2 Yet they are all the same, and must be
recognized as one if the one solution that solves them all is to be accepted.
3 Who can
see that a problem has been solved if he thinks the problem is something else?
4 Even if
he is given the answer, he cannot see its relevance.
W-pI.79.3. That is the position in which you
find yourself now. 2 You have the answer, but you are still
uncertain about what the problem is. 3 A long series of
different problems seems to confront you, and as one is settled the next one
and the next arise. 4 There seems to be no end to them.
5 There
is no time in which you feel completely free of problems and at peace.
W-pI.79.4. The temptation to regard problems as
many is the temptation to keep the problem of separation unsolved.
2 The
world seems to present you with a vast number of problems, each requiring a
different answer. 3 This perception places you in a position in
which your problem solving must be inadequate, and failure is inevitable.
W-pI.79.5. No one could solve all the problems
the world appears to hold. 2 They seem to be on so many levels, in such
varying forms and with such varied content, that they confront you with an
impossible situation. 3 Dismay and depression are inevitable as you
regard them. 4 Some spring up unexpectedly, just as you
think you have resolved the previous ones. 5 Others remain
unsolved under a cloud of denial, and rise to haunt you from time to time, only
to be hidden again but still unsolved.
W-pI.79.6. All this complexity is but a
desperate attempt not to recognize the problem, and therefore not to let it be
resolved. 2 If you could recognize that your only problem
is separation, no matter what form it takes, you could accept the answer
because you would see its relevance. 3 Perceiving the
underlying constancy in all the problems that seem to confront you, you would
understand that you have the means to solve them all.
4 And you
would use the means, because you recognize the problem.
W-pI.79.7. In our longer practice periods today
we will ask what the problem is, and what is the answer to it.
2 We will
not assume that we already know. 3 We will try to free our minds of all the many
different kinds of problems we think we have. 4 We will try to
realize that we have only one problem, which we have failed to recognize.
5 We will
ask what it is, and wait for the answer. 6 We will be told.
7 Then we
will ask for the solution to it. 8 And we will be told.
W-pI.79.8. The exercises for today will be
successful to the extent to which you do not insist on defining the problem.
2 Perhaps
you will not succeed in letting all your preconceived notions go, but that is
not necessary. 3 All that is necessary is to entertain some
doubt about the reality of your version of what your problems are.
4 You are
trying to recognize that you have been given the answer by recognizing the
problem, so that the problem and the answer can be brought together and you can
be at peace.
W-pI.79.9. The shorter practice periods for
today will not be set by time, but by need. 2 You will see many
problems today, each one calling for an answer. 3 Our efforts will be
directed toward recognizing that there is only one problem and one answer.
4 In this
recognition are all problems resolved. 5 In this recognition
there is peace.
W-pI.79.10. Be not deceived by the form of
problems today. 2 Whenever any difficulty seems to rise, tell yourself
quickly: 3 Let me recognize this problem so it can be
solved. 4
Then try to suspend all judgment about what the problem is.
5 If
possible, close your eyes for a moment and ask what it is.
6 You
will be heard and you will be answered.
Lesson 80.
Let me recognize my problems have been solved.
W-pI.80.1. If you are willing to recognize your
problems, you will recognize that you have no problems.
2 Your
one central problem has been answered, and you have no other.
3
Therefore, you must be at peace. 4 Salvation thus depends on recognizing this
one problem, and understanding that it has been solved.
5 One
problem, one solution. 6 Salvation is accomplished.
7 Freedom
from conflict has been given you. 8 Accept that fact, and you are ready to take
your rightful place in God's plan for salvation.
W-pI.80.2. Your only problem has been solved!
2 Repeat
this over and over to yourself today, with gratitude and conviction.
3 You
have recognized your only problem, opening the way for the Holy Spirit to give
you God's answer. 4 You have laid deception aside, and seen the
light of truth. 5 You have accepted salvation for yourself by
bringing the problem to the answer. 6 And you can recognize
the answer, because the problem has been identified.
W-pI.80.3. You are entitled to peace today.
2 A
problem that has been resolved cannot trouble you. 3 Only be certain you
do not forget that all problems are the same. 4 Their many forms will
not deceive you while you remember this. 5 One problem, one
solution. 6 Accept the peace this simple statement
brings.
W-pI.80.4. 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. 2 The problem must be
gone, because God's answer cannot fail. 3 Having recognized
one, you have recognized the other. 4 The solution is
inherent in the problem. 5 You are answered, and have accepted the
answer. 6
You are saved.
W-pI.80.5. Now let the peace that your
acceptance brings be given you. 2 Close your eyes, and receive your reward.
3
Recognize that your problems have been solved. 4 Recognize that you
are out of conflict; free and at peace. 5 Above all, remember
that you have one problem, and that the problem has one solution.
6 It is
in this that the simplicity of salvation lies. 7 It is because of this
that it is guaranteed to work.
W-pI.80.6. Assure yourself often today that
your problems have been solved. 2 Repeat the idea with deep conviction, as
frequently as possible. 3 And be particularly sure to apply the idea for
today to any specific problem that may arise. 4 Say quickly:
5 Let me
recognize this problem has been solved.
W-pI.80.7. Let us be determined not to collect
grievances today. 2 Let us be determined to be free of problems
that do not exist. 3 The means is simple honesty.
4 Do not
deceive yourself about what the problem is, and you must recognize it has been
solved.
W-pI.rII.in.1. We are now ready for another review.
2 We will
begin where our last review left off, and cover two ideas each day.
3 The
earlier part of each day will be devoted to one of these ideas, and the latter
part of the day to the other. 4 We will have one longer exercise period, and
frequent shorter ones in which we practice each of them.
W-pI.rII.in.2. 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
assignments. 2 Devote some three or four minutes to reading
them over slowly, several times if you wish, and then close your eyes and
listen.
W-pI.rII.in.3. 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. 2 There is a message
waiting for you. 3 Be confident that you will receive it.
4
Remember that it belongs to you, and that you want it.
W-pI.rII.in.4. Do not allow your intent to waver in the
face of distracting thoughts. 2 Realize that, whatever form such thoughts may
take, they have no meaning and no power. 3 Replace them with
your determination to succeed. 4 Do not forget that your will has power over
all fantasies and dreams. 5 Trust it to see you through, and carry you
beyond them all.
W-pI.rII.in.5. Regard these practice periods as
dedications to the way, the truth and the life. 2 Refuse to be
sidetracked into detours, illusions and thoughts of death.
3 You are
dedicated to salvation. 4 Be determined each day not to leave your
function unfulfilled.
W-pI.rII.in.6. 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.
2 Some
specific forms are included in the comments which follow the statement of the
ideas. 3
These, however, are merely suggestions. 4 It is not the
particular words you use that matter.
Lesson 81.
Our ideas for review today are:
W-pI.81.1. (61) I am the light of the world.
2 How holy
am I, who have been given the function of lighting up the world!
3 Let me
be still before my holiness. 4 In its calm light let all my conflicts
disappear. 5 In its peace let me remember Who I am.
W-pI.81.2. Some specific forms for applying
this idea when special difficulties seem to arise might be:
2 Let me
not obscure the light of the world in me. 3 Let the light of the
world shine through this appearance. 4 This shadow will
vanish before the light.
W-pI.81.3. (62) Forgiveness is my function as
the light of the world. 2 It is through accepting my function that I
will see the light in me. 3 And in this light will my function stand
clear and perfectly unambiguous before my sight. 4 My acceptance does
not depend on my recognizing what my function is, for I do not yet understand
forgiveness. 5 Yet I will trust that, in the light, I will
see it as it is.
W-pI.81.4. Specific forms for using this idea
might include: 2 Let this help me learn what forgiveness means.
3 Let me
not separate my function from my will. 4 I will not use this
for an alien purpose.
Lesson 82.
We will review these ideas today:
W-pI.82.1. (63) The light of the world brings
peace to every mind through my forgiveness. 2 My forgiveness is the
means by which the light of the world finds expression through me.
3 My
forgiveness is the means by which I become aware of the light of the world in
me. 4
My forgiveness is the means by which the world is healed, together with myself.
5 Let me,
then, forgive the world, that it may be healed along with me.
W-pI.82.2. Suggestions for specific forms for
applying this idea are: 2 Let peace extend from my mind to yours,
[name]. 3
I share the light of the world with you, [name]. 4 Through my
forgiveness I can see this as it is.
W-pI.82.3. (64) Let me not forget my function.
2 I would
not forget my function, because I would remember my Self.
3 I
cannot fulfill my function if I forget it. 4 And unless I fulfill
my function, I will not experience the joy that God intends for me.
W-pI.82.4. Suitable specific forms of this idea
include: 2 Let me not use this to hide my function from
me. 3
I would use this as an opportunity to fulfill my function.
4 This
may threaten my ego, but cannot change my function in any way.
Lesson 83.
Today let us review these ideas:
W-pI.83.1. (65) My only function is the one God
gave me. 2 I have no function but the one God gave me.
3 This
recognition releases me from all conflict, because it means I cannot have
conflicting goals. 4 With one purpose only, I am always certain
what to do, what to say and what to think. 5 All doubt must
disappear as I acknowledge that my only function is the one God gave me.
W-pI.83.2. More specific applications of this
idea might take these forms: 2 My perception of this does not change my
function. 3 This does not give me a function other than
the one God gave me. 4 Let me not use this to justify a function God
did not give me.
W-pI.83.3. (66) My happiness and my function
are one. 2 All things that come from God are one.
3 They
come from Oneness, and must be received as one. 4 Fulfilling my
function is my happiness because both come from the same Source.
5 And I
must learn to recognize what makes me happy, if I would find happiness.
W-pI.83.4. Some useful forms for specific applications
of this idea are: 2 This cannot separate my happiness from my
function. 3 The oneness of my happiness and my function
remains wholly unaffected by this. 4 Nothing, including
this, can justify the illusion of happiness apart from my function.
Lesson 84.
These are the ideas for today's review:
W-pI.84.1. (67) Love created me like itself.
2 I am in
the likeness of my Creator. 3 I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss and
I cannot die. 4 I am not a body. 5 I would recognize my
reality today. 6 I will worship no idols, nor raise my own
self-concept to replace my Self. 7 I am in the likeness of my Creator.
8 Love
created me like itself.
W-pI.84.2. You might find these specific forms
helpful in applying the idea: 2 Let me not see an illusion of myself in this.
3 As I
look on this, let me remember my Creator. 4 My Creator did not
create this as I see it.
W-pI.84.3. (68) Love holds no grievances.
2
Grievances are completely alien to love. 3 Grievances attack
love and keep its light obscure. 4 If I hold grievances I am attacking love, and
therefore attacking my Self. 5 My Self thus becomes alien to me.
6 I am
determined not to attack my Self today, so that I can remember Who I am.
W-pI.84.4. These specific forms for applying
this idea would be helpful: 2 This is no justification for denying my Self.
3 I will
not use this to attack love. 4 Let this not tempt me to attack myself.
Lesson 85.
Today's review will cover these ideas:
W-pI.85.1. (69) My grievances hide the light of
the world in me. 2 My grievances show me what is not there, and
hide from me what I would see. 3 Recognizing this, what do I want my
grievances for? 4 They keep me in darkness and hide the light.
5
Grievances and light cannot go together, but light and vision must be joined
for me to see. 6 To see, I must lay grievances aside.
7 I want
to see, and this will be the means by which I will succeed.
W-pI.85.2. Specific applications for this idea
might be made in these forms: 2 Let me not use this as a block to sight.
3 The
light of the world will shine all this away. 4 I have no need for
this. 5
I want to see.
W-pI.85.3. (70) My salvation comes from me.
2 Today I
will recognize where my salvation is. 3 It is in me because
its Source is there. 4 It has not left its Source, and so it cannot
have left my mind. 5 I will not look for it outside myself.
6 It is
not found outside and then brought in. 7 But from within me it
will reach beyond, and everything I see will but reflect the light that shines
in me and in itself.
W-pI.85.4. These forms of the idea are suitable
for more specific applications: 2 Let this not tempt me to look away from me
for my salvation. 3 I will not let this interfere with my
awareness of the Source of my salvation. 4 This has no power to
remove salvation from me.
Lesson 86.
These ideas are for review today:
W-pI.86.1. (71) Only God's plan for salvation
will work. 2 It is senseless for me to search wildly about
for salvation. 3 I have seen it in many people and in many
things, but when I reached for it, it was not there.
4 I was
mistaken about where it is. 5 I was mistaken about what it is.
6 I will
undertake no more idle seeking. 7 Only God's plan for salvation will work.
8 And I
will rejoice because His plan can never fail.
W-pI.86.2. These are some suggested forms for
applying this idea specifically: 2 God's plan for salvation will save me from my
perception of this. 3 This is no exception in God's plan for my
salvation. 4 Let me perceive this only in the light of
God's plan for salvation.
W-pI.86.3. (72) Holding grievances is an attack
on God's plan for salvation. 2 Holding grievances is an attempt to prove
that God's plan for salvation will not work. 3 Yet only His plan
will work. 4 By holding grievances, I am therefore
excluding my only hope of salvation from my awareness.
5 I would
no longer defeat my own best interests in this insane way.
6 I would
accept God's plan for salvation, and be happy.
W-pI.86.4. Specific applications for this idea
might be in these forms: 2 I am choosing between misperception and
salvation as I look on this. 3 If I see grounds for grievances in this, I
will not see the grounds for my salvation. 4 This calls for
salvation, not attack.
Lesson 87.
Our review today will cover these ideas:
W-pI.87.1. (73) I will there be light.
2 I will
use the power of my will today. 3 It is not my will to grope about in darkness,
fearful of shadows and afraid of things unseen and unreal.
4 Light
shall be my guide today. 5 I will follow it where it leads me, and I
will look only on what it shows me. 6 This day I will
experience the peace of true perception.
W-pI.87.2. These forms of this idea would be
helpful for specific applications: 2 This cannot hide the
light I will to see. 3 You stand with me in light, [name].
4 In the
light this will look different.
W-pI.87.3. (74) There is no will but God's.
2 I am
safe today because there is no will but God's. 3 I can become afraid
only when I believe there is another will. 4 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. 5 Today I will recognize that all this has not
occurred. 6 I am safe because there is no will but God's.
W-pI.87.4. These are some useful forms of this
idea for specific applications: 2 Let me perceive this in accordance with the
Will of God. 3 It is God's Will you are His Son, [name], and
mine as well. 4 This is part of God's Will for me, however I
may see it.
Lesson 88. Today we will review these ideas:
W-pI.88.1. (75) The light has come.
2 In
choosing salvation rather than attack, I merely choose to recognize what is
already there. 3 Salvation is a decision made already.
4 Attack
and grievances are not there to choose. 5 That is why I always
choose between truth and illusion; between what is there and what is not.
6 The
light has come. 7 I can but choose the light, for it has no
alternative. 8 It has replaced the darkness, and the
darkness has gone.
W-pI.88.2. These would prove useful forms for
specific applications of this idea: 2 This cannot show me
darkness, for the light has come. 3 The light in you is all that I would see,
[name]. 4
I would see in this only what is there.
W-pI.88.3. (76) I am under no laws but God's.
2 Here is
the perfect statement of my freedom. 3 I am under no laws
but God's. 4 I am constantly tempted to make up other laws
and give them power over me. 5 I suffer only because of my belief in them.
6 They
have no real effect on me at all. 7 I am perfectly free of the effects of all
laws save God's. 8 And His are the laws of freedom.
W-pI.88.4. For specific forms in applying this
idea, these would be useful: 2 My perception of this shows me I believe in
laws that do not exist. 3 I see only the laws of God at work in this.
4 Let me
allow God's laws to work in this, and not my own.
Lesson 89.
These are our review ideas for today:
W-pI.89.1. (77) I am entitled to miracles.
2 I am
entitled to miracles because I am under no laws but God's.
3 His laws
release me from all grievances, and replace them with miracles.
4 And I
would accept the miracles in place of the grievances, which are but illusions
that hide the miracles beyond. 5 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.
W-pI.89.2. You might use these suggestions for
specific applications of this idea: 2 Behind this is a
miracle to which I am entitled. 3 Let me not hold a grievance against you,
[name], but offer you the miracle that belongs to you instead.
4 Seen
truly, this offers me a miracle.
W-pI.89.3. (78) Let miracles replace all
grievances. 2 By this idea do I unite my will with the Holy
Spirit's, and perceive them as one. 3 By this idea do I
accept my release from hell. 4 By this idea do I express my willingness to
have all my illusions be replaced with truth, according to God's plan for my
salvation. 5 I would make no exceptions and no substitutes.
6 I want
all of Heaven and only Heaven, as God wills me to have.
W-pI.89.4. Useful specific forms for applying
this idea would be: 2 I would not hold this grievance apart from my
salvation. 3 Let our grievances be replaced by miracles,
[name]. 4
Beyond this is the miracle by which all my grievances are replaced.
Lesson 90.
For this review we will use these ideas:
W-pI.90.1. (79) Let me recognize the problem so
it can be solved. 2 Let me realize today that the problem is
always some form of grievance that I would cherish.
3 Let me also
understand that the solution is always a miracle with which I let the grievance
be replaced. 4 Today I would remember the simplicity of
salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution.
5 The
problem is a grievance; the solution is a miracle. 6 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.
W-pI.90.2. Specific applications of this idea
might be in these forms: 2 This presents a problem to me which I would
have resolved. 3 The miracle behind this grievance will
resolve it for me. 4 The answer to this problem is the miracle
that it conceals.
W-pI.90.3. (80) Let me recognize my problems
have been solved. 2 I seem to have problems only because I am
misusing time. 3 I believe that the problem comes first, and
time must elapse before it can be worked out. 4 I do not see the
problem and the answer as simultaneous in their occurrence.
5 That is
because I do not yet realize that God has placed the answer together with the
problem, so that they cannot be separated by time. 6 The Holy Spirit will
teach me this, if I will let Him. 7 And I will understand it is impossible that I
could have a problem which has not been solved already.
W-pI.90.4. These forms of the idea will be
useful for specific applications: 2 I need not wait for this to be resolved.
3 The
answer to this problem is already given me, if I will accept it.
4 Time
cannot separate this problem from its solution.
Lesson 91. Miracles are seen in light.
W-pI.91.1. It is important to remember that
miracles and vision necessarily go together. 2 This needs repeating,
and frequent repeating. 3 It is a central idea in your new thought
system, and the perception that it produces. 4 The miracle is always
there. 5
Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of
your failure to see. 6 It is only your awareness of miracles that is
affected. 7 You will see them in the light; you will not
see them in the dark.
W-pI.91.2. To you, then, light is crucial.
2 While
you remain in darkness, the miracle remains unseen.
3 Thus
you are convinced it is not there. 4 This follows from the
premises from which the darkness comes. 5 Denial of light leads
to failure to perceive it. 6 Failure to perceive light is to perceive
darkness. 7 The light is useless to you then, even though
it is there. 8 You cannot use it because its presence is
unknown to you. 9 And the seeming reality of the darkness makes
the idea of light meaningless.
W-pI.91.3. To be told that what you do not see
is there sounds like insanity. 2 It is very difficult to become convinced that
it is insanity not to see what is there, and to see what is not there instead.
3 You do
not doubt that the body's eyes can see. 4 You do not doubt the
images they show you are reality. 5 Your faith lies in the darkness, not the
light. 6
How can this be reversed? 7 For you it is impossible, but you are not
alone in this.
W-pI.91.4. Your efforts, however little they
may be, have strong support. 2 Did you but realize how great this strength,
your doubts would vanish. 3 Today we will devote ourselves to the attempt
to let you feel this strength. 4 When you have felt the strength in you, which
makes all miracles within your easy reach, you will not doubt.
5 The
miracles your sense of weakness hides will leap into awareness as you feel the
strength in you.
W-pI.91.5. Three times today, set aside about
ten minutes for a quiet time in which you try to leave your weakness behind.
2 This is
accomplished very simply, as you instruct yourself that you are not a body.
3 Faith
goes to what you want, and you instruct your mind accordingly.
4 Your
will remains your teacher, and your will has all the strength to do what it
desires. 5 You can escape the body if you choose.
6 You can
experience the strength in you.
W-pI.91.6. Begin the longer practice periods
with this statement of true cause and effect relationships:
2
Miracles are seen in light. 3 The body's eyes do not perceive the light.
4 But I
am not a body. 5 What am I? 6 The question with
which this statement ends is needed for our exercises today.
7 What
you think you are is a belief to be undone. 8 But what you really
are must be revealed to you. 9 The belief you are a body calls for
correction, being a mistake. 10 The truth of what you are calls on the
strength in you to bring to your awareness what the mistake conceals.
W-pI.91.7. If you are not a body, what are you?
2 You
need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in
your mind. 3 You need to feel something to put your faith
in, as you lift it from the body. 4 You need a real experience of something else,
something more solid and more sure; more worthy of your faith, and really
there.
W-pI.91.8. If you are not a body, what are you?
2 Ask
this in honesty, and then devote several minutes to allowing your mistaken
thoughts about your attributes to be corrected, and their opposites to take
their place. 3 Say, for example:
4 I am
not weak, but strong. 5 I am not helpless, but all powerful.
6 I am
not limited, but unlimited. 7 I am not doubtful, but certain.
8 I am
not an illusion, but a reality. 9 I cannot see in darkness, but in light.
W-pI.91.9. In the second phase of the exercise
period, try to experience these truths about yourself.
2
Concentrate particularly on the experience of strength.
3
Remember that all sense of weakness is associated with the belief you are a
body, a belief that is mistaken and deserves no faith.
4 Try to
remove your faith from it, if only for a moment. 5 You will be
accustomed to keeping faith with the more worthy in you as we go along.
W-pI.91.10. Relax for the rest of the practice
period, confident that your efforts, however meager, are fully supported by the
strength of God and all His Thoughts. 2 It is from Them that
your strength will come. 3 It is through Their strong support that you
will feel the strength in you. 4 They are united with you in this practice
period, in which you share a purpose like Their Own.
5 Theirs
is the light in which you will see miracles, because Their strength is yours.
6 Their
strength becomes your eyes, that you may see.
W-pI.91.11. Five or six times an hour, at
reasonably regular intervals, remind yourself that miracles are seen in light.
2 Also,
be sure to meet temptation with today's idea. 3 This form would be
helpful for this special purpose: 4 Miracles are seen in light.
5 Let me
not close my eyes because of this.
Lesson 92. Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.
W-pI.92.1. The idea for today is an extension
of the previous one. 2 You do not think of light in terms of
strength, and darkness in terms of weakness. 3 That is because your
idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body and its eyes and brain.
4 Thus
you believe that you can change what you see by putting little bits of glass
before your eyes. 5 This is among the many magical beliefs that
come from the conviction you are a body, and the body's eyes can see.
W-pI.92.2. You also believe the body's brain
can think. 2 If you but understood the nature of thought,
you could but laugh at this insane idea. 3 It is as if you
thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or
that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go.
4 Yet
this is no more foolish than to believe the body's eyes can see; the brain can
think.
W-pI.92.3. It is God's strength in you that is
the light in which you see, as it is His Mind with which you think.
2 His
strength denies your weakness. 3 It is your weakness that sees through the
body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the
small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and
afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless.
4 These
are seen through eyes that cannot see and cannot bless.
W-pI.92.4. Strength overlooks these things by
seeing past appearances. 2 It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that
lies beyond them. 3 It unites with light, of which it is a part.
4 It sees
itself. 5
It brings the light in which your Self appears. 6 In darkness you
perceive a self that is not there. 7 Strength is the truth
about you; weakness is an idol falsely worshipped and adored that strength may
be dispelled, and darkness rule where God appointed that there should be light.
W-pI.92.5. Strength comes from truth, and
shines with light its Source has given it; weakness reflects the darkness of
its maker. 2 It is sick and looks on sickness, which is
like itself. 3 Truth is a savior and can only will for
happiness and peace for everyone. 4 It gives its strength to everyone who asks,
in limitless supply. 5 It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack
in all. 6
And so it gives its light that all may see and benefit as one.
7 Its
strength is shared, that it may bring to all the miracle in which they will
unite in purpose and forgiveness and in love.
W-pI.92.6. Weakness, which looks in darkness,
cannot see a purpose in forgiveness and in love. 2 It sees all others
different from itself, and nothing in the world that it would share.
3 It
judges and condemns, but does not love. 4 In darkness it
remains to hide itself, and dreams that it is strong and conquering, a victor
over limitations that but grow in darkness to enormous size.
W-pI.92.7. It fears and it attacks and hates
itself, and darkness covers everything it sees, leaving its dreams as fearful
as itself. 2 No miracles are here, but only hate.
3 It
separates itself from what it sees, while light and strength perceive
themselves as one. 4 The light of strength is not the light you
see. 5
It does not change and flicker and go out. 6 It does not shift
from night to day, and back to darkness till the morning comes again.
W-pI.92.8. The light of strength is constant,
sure as love, forever glad to give itself away, because it cannot give but to
itself. 2
No one can ask in vain to share its sight, and none who enters its abode can
leave without a miracle before his eyes, and strength and light abiding in his
heart.
W-pI.92.9. The strength in you will offer you
the light, and guide your seeing so you do not dwell on idle shadows that the
body's eyes provide for self-deception. 2 Strength and light
unite in you, and where they meet, your Self stands ready to embrace you as Its
Own. 3
Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest in, for the peace of
God is where your Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet Itself again, and be as
One.
W-pI.92.10. Let us give twenty minutes twice today
to join this meeting. 2 Let yourself be brought unto your Self.
3 Its
strength will be the light in which the gift of sight is given you.
4 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 us how to find the meeting
place of self and Self, where light and strength are one.
W-pI.92.11. Morning and evening we will practice
thus. 2
After the morning meeting, we will use the day in preparation for the time at
night when we will meet again in trust. 3 Let us repeat as
often as we can the idea for today, and recognize that we are being introduced
to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where only miracles can be
perceived.
Lesson 93. Light and joy and peace abide in me.
W-pI.93.1. You think you are the home of evil,
darkness and sin. 2 You think if anyone could see the truth about
you he would be repelled, recoiling from you as if from a poisonous snake.
3 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.
W-pI.93.2. These are beliefs so firmly fixed
that it is difficult to help you see that they are based on nothing.
2 That
you have made mistakes is obvious. 3 That you have sought
salvation in strange ways; have been deceived, deceiving 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.
W-pI.93.3. 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. 2 These thoughts are
not according to God's Will. 3 These weird beliefs He does not share with
you. 4
This is enough to prove that they are wrong, but you do not perceive that this
is so.
W-pI.93.4. 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? 2 Your image of
yourself cannot withstand the Will of God. 3 You think that this
is death, but it is life. 4 You think you are destroyed, but you are
saved.
W-pI.93.5. The self you made is not the Son of
God. 2
Therefore, this self does not exist at all. 3 And anything it seems
to do and think means nothing. 4 It is neither bad nor good.
5 It is
unreal, and nothing more than that. 6 It does not battle
with the Son of God. 7 It does not hurt him, nor attack his peace.
8 It has
not changed creation, nor reduced eternal sinlessness to sin, and love to hate.
9 What
power can this self you made possess, when it would contradict the Will of God?
W-pI.93.6. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by
God. 2
Over and over this must be repeated, until it is accepted.
3 It is
true. 4
Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. 5 Nothing can touch it,
or change what God created as eternal. 6 The self you made,
evil and full of sin, is meaningless. 7 Your sinlessness is
guaranteed by God, and light and joy and peace abide in you.
W-pI.93.7. Salvation requires the acceptance of
but one thought;--you are as God created you, not what you made of yourself.
2
Whatever evil you may think you did, you are as God created you.
3
Whatever mistakes you made, the truth about you is unchanged.
4
Creation is eternal and unalterable. 5 Your sinlessness is
guaranteed by God. 6 You are and will forever be exactly as you
were created. 7 Light and joy and peace abide in you because
God put them there.
W-pI.93.8. 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:
2 Light
and joy and peace abide in me. 3 My sinlessness is guaranteed by God.
4 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.
W-pI.93.9. You are what God created or what you
made. 2
One Self is true; the other is not there. 3 Try to experience the
unity of your one Self. 4 Try to appreciate Its Holiness and the love
from which It was created. 5 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 to replace It. 6 Let It come into Its
Own. 7
Here you are; This is You. 8 And light and joy and peace abide in you
because this is so.
W-pI.93.10. You may not be willing or even able to
use the first five minutes of each hour for these exercises.
2 Try,
however, to do so when you can. 3 At least remember to repeat these thoughts
each hour: 4 Light and joy and peace abide in me.
5 My
sinlessness is guaranteed by God. 6 Then try to devote at least a minute or so to
closing your eyes and realizing that this is a statement of the truth about
you.
W-pI.93.11. If a situation arises that seems to be
disturbing, quickly dispel the illusion of fear by repeating these thoughts
again. 2
Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell him silently:
3 Light
and joy and peace abide in you. 4 Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.
5 You can
do much for the world's salvation today. 6 You can do much today
to bring you closer to the part in salvation that God has assigned to you.
7 And you
can do much today to bring the conviction to your mind that the idea for the
day is true indeed.
Lesson 94. I am as God created me.
W-pI.94.1. 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. 2
You are as God created you. 3 The sounds of this world are still, the
sights of this world disappear, and all the thoughts that this world ever held
are wiped away forever by this one idea. 4 Here is salvation
accomplished. 5 Here is sanity restored.
W-pI.94.2. True light is strength, and strength
is sinlessness. 2 If you remain as God created you, you must be
strong and light must be in you. 3 He Who ensured your sinlessness must be the
guarantee of strength and light as well. 4 You are as God
created you. 5 Darkness cannot obscure the glory of God's
Son. 6
You stand in light, strong in the sinlessness in which you were created, and in
which you will remain throughout eternity.
W-pI.94.3. Today we will again devote the first
five minutes of each waking hour to the attempt to feel the truth in you.
2 Begin
these times of searching with these words: 3 I am as God created
me. 4
I am His Son eternally. 5 Now try to reach the Son of God in you.
6 This is
the Self that never sinned, nor made an image to replace reality.
7 This is
the Self that never left Its home in God to walk the world uncertainly.
8 This is
the Self that knows no fear, nor could conceive of loss or suffering or death.
W-pI.94.4. 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. 2 God has Himself promised that it will be revealed
to all who ask for it. 3 You are asking now.
4 You
cannot fail because He cannot fail.
W-pI.94.5. If you do not meet the requirement
of practicing for the first five minutes of every hour, at least remind
yourself hourly: 2 I am as God created me.
3 I am
His Son eternally. 4 Tell yourself frequently today that you are
as God created you. 5 And be sure to respond to anyone who seems to
irritate you with these words: 6 You are as God created you.
7 You are
His Son eternally. 8 Make every effort to do the hourly exercises
today. 9
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.
Lesson 95. I am one Self, united with my Creator.
W-pI.95.1. Today's idea accurately describes
you as God created you. 2 You are one within yourself, and one with Him.
3 Yours
is the unity of all creation. 4 Your perfect unity makes change in you
impossible. 5 You do not accept this, and you fail to
realize it must be so, only because you believe that you have changed yourself
already.
W-pI.95.2. You see yourself as a ridiculous
parody on God's creation; weak, vicious, ugly and sinful, miserable and beset
with pain. 2 Such is your version of yourself; a self
divided into many warring parts, separate from God, and tenuously held together
by its erratic and capricious maker, to which you pray.
3 It does
not hear your prayers, for it is deaf. 4 It does not see the
oneness in you, for it is blind. 5 It does not understand you are the Son of
God, for it is senseless and understands nothing.
W-pI.95.3. We will attempt today to be aware
only of what can hear and see, and what makes perfect sense.
2 We will
again direct our exercises towards reaching your one Self, which is united with
Its Creator. 3 In patience and in hope we try again today.
W-pI.95.4. The use of the first five minutes of
every waking hour for practicing the idea for the day has special advantages at
the stage of learning in which you are at present. 2 It is difficult at
this point not to allow your mind to wander, if it undertakes extended practice.
3 You
have surely realized this by now. 4 You have seen the extent of your lack of
mental discipline, and of your need for mind training.
5 It is
necessary that you be aware of this, for it is indeed a hindrance to your
advance.
W-pI.95.5. Frequent but shorter practice
periods have other advantages for you at this time.
2 In
addition to recognizing your difficulties with sustained attention, you must
also have noticed that, unless you are reminded of your purpose frequently, you
tend to forget about it for long periods of time. 3 You often fail to
remember the short applications of the idea for the day, and you have not yet
formed the habit of using the idea as an automatic response to temptation.
W-pI.95.6. Structure, then, is necessary for
you at this time, planned to include frequent reminders of your goal and
regular attempts to reach it. 2 Regularity in terms of time is not the ideal
requirement for the most beneficial form of practice in salvation.
3 It is
advantageous, however, for those whose motivation is inconsistent, and who
remain heavily defended against learning.
W-pI.95.7. We will, therefore, keep to the
five-minutes-an-hour practice periods for a while, and urge you to omit as few
as possible. 2 Using the first five minutes of the hour will
be particularly helpful, since it imposes firmer structure.
3 Do not,
however, use your lapses from this schedule as an excuse not to return to it
again as soon as you can. 4 There may well be a temptation to regard the
day as lost because you have already failed to do what is required.
5 This
should, however, merely be recognized as what it is; a refusal to let your
mistake be corrected, and an unwillingness to try again.
W-pI.95.8. The Holy Spirit is not delayed in
His teaching by your mistakes. 2 He can be held back only by your
unwillingness to let them go. 3 Let us therefore be determined, particularly
for the next week or so, to be willing to forgive ourselves for our lapses in
diligence, and our failures to follow the instructions for practicing the day's
idea. 4
This tolerance for weakness will enable us to overlook it, rather than give it
power to delay our learning. 5 If we give it power to do this, we are regarding
it as strength, and are confusing strength with weakness.
W-pI.95.9. When you fail to comply with the
requirements of this course, you have merely made a mistake.
2 This
calls for correction, and for nothing else. 3 To allow a mistake to
continue is to make additional mistakes, based on the first and reinforcing it.
4 It is
this process that must be laid aside, for it is but another way in which you
would defend illusions against the truth.
W-pI.95.10. Let all these errors go by recognizing
them for what they are. 2 They are attempts to keep you unaware you are
one Self, united with your Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and
limitless in power and in peace. 3 This is the truth, and nothing else is true.
4 Today
we will affirm this truth again, and try to reach the place in you in which
there is no doubt that only this is true.
W-pI.95.11. Begin the practice periods today with
this assurance, offered to your mind with all the certainty that you can give:
2 I am
one Self, united with my Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and
limitless in power and in peace. 3 Then close your eyes and tell yourself again,
slowly and thoughtfully, attempting to allow the meaning of the words to sink
into your mind, replacing false ideas: 4 I am one Self.
5 Repeat
this several times, and then attempt to feel the meaning that the words convey.
W-pI.95.12. You are one Self, united and secure in
light and joy and peace. 2 You are God's Son, one Self, with one Creator
and one goal; to bring awareness of this oneness to all minds, that true
creation may extend the allness and the unity of God.
3 You are
one Self, complete and healed and whole, with power to lift the veil of
darkness from the world, and let the light in you come through to teach the
world the truth about yourself.
W-pI.95.13. You are one Self, in perfect harmony
with all there is, and all that there will be. 2 You are one Self, the
holy Son of God, united with your brothers in that Self; united with your Father
in His Will. 3 Feel this one Self in you, and let It shine
away all your illusions and your doubts. 4 This is your Self,
the Son of God Himself, sinless as Its Creator, with His strength within you
and His Love forever yours. 5 You are one Self, and it is given you to feel
this Self within you, and to cast all your illusions out of the one Mind that
is this Self, the holy truth in you.
W-pI.95.14. Do not forget today.
2 We need
your help; your little part in bringing happiness to all the world.
3 And Heaven
looks to you in confidence that you will try today.
4 Share,
then, its surety, for it is yours. 5 Be vigilant.
6 Do not
forget today. 7 Throughout the day do not forget your goal.
8 Repeat
today's idea as frequently as possible, and understand each time you do so,
someone hears the voice of hope, the stirring of the truth within his mind, the
gentle rustling of the wings of peace.
W-pI.95.15. Your own acknowledgment you are one
Self, united with your Father, is a call to all the world to be at one with you.
2 To
everyone you meet today, be sure to give the promise of today's idea and tell
him this: 3 You are one Self with me, united with our
Creator in this Self. 4 I honor you because of What I am, and What He
is, Who loves us both as one.
Lesson 96. Salvation comes from my one Self.
W-pI.96.1. Although you are one Self, you
experience yourself as two; as both good and evil, loving and hating, mind and
body. 2
This sense of being split into opposites induces feelings of acute and constant
conflict, and leads to frantic attempts to reconcile the contradictory aspects
of this self-perception. 3 You have sought many such solutions, and none
of them has worked. 4 The opposites you see in you will never be
compatible. 5 But one exists.
W-pI.96.2. The fact that truth and illusion
cannot be reconciled, no matter how you try, what means you use and where you
see the problem, must be accepted if you would be saved.
2 Until
you have accepted this, you will attempt an endless list of goals you cannot
reach; a senseless series of expenditures of time and effort, hopefulness and
doubt, each one as futile as the one before, and failing as the next one surely
will.
W-pI.96.3. Problems that have no meaning cannot
be resolved within the framework they are set. 2 Two selves in
conflict could not be resolved, and good and evil have no meeting place.
3 The
self you made can never be your Self, nor can your Self be split in two, and
still be what It is and must forever be. 4 A mind and body
cannot both exist. 5 Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one
denies the other can be real. 6 If you are physical, your mind is gone from
your self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really part of you.
7 If you
are spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality.
W-pI.96.4. Spirit makes use of mind as means to
find its Self expression. 2 And the mind which serves the spirit is at
peace and filled with joy. 3 Its power comes from spirit, and it is
fulfilling happily its function here. 4 Yet mind can also see
itself divorced from spirit, and perceive itself within a body it confuses with
itself. 5
Without its function then it has no peace, and happiness is alien to its
thoughts.
W-pI.96.5. Yet mind apart from spirit cannot
think. 2
It has denied its Source of strength, and sees itself as helpless, limited and
weak. 3
Dissociated from its function now, it thinks it is alone and separate, attacked
by armies massed against itself and hiding in the body's frail support.
4 Now
must it reconcile unlike with like, for this is what it thinks that it is for.
W-pI.96.6. Waste no more time on this.
2 Who can
resolve the senseless conflicts which a dream presents?
3 What
could the resolution mean in truth? 4 What purpose could it
serve? 5
What is it for? 6 Salvation cannot make illusions real, nor
solve a problem that does not exist. 7 Perhaps you hope it
can. 8
Yet would you have God's plan for the release of His dear Son bring pain to
him, and fail to set him free?
W-pI.96.7. Your Self retains Its Thoughts, and
they remain within your mind and in the Mind of God.
2 The
Holy Spirit holds salvation in your mind, and offers it the way to peace.
3
Salvation is a thought you share with God, because His Voice accepted it for
you and answered in your name that it was done. 4 Thus is salvation
kept among the Thoughts your Self holds dear and cherishes for you.
W-pI.96.8. We will attempt today to find this
thought, whose presence in your mind is guaranteed by Him Who speaks to you
from your one Self. 2 Our hourly five-minute practicing will be a
search for Him within your mind. 3 Salvation comes from this one Self through
Him Who is the Bridge between your mind and It. 4 Wait patiently, and
let Him speak to you about your Self, and what your mind can do, restored to It
and free to serve Its Will.
W-pI.96.9. Begin with saying this:
2
Salvation comes from my one Self. 3 Its Thoughts are mine to use.
4 Then
seek Its Thoughts, and claim them as your own. 5 These are your own
real thoughts you have denied, and let your mind go wandering in a world of
dreams, to find illusions in their place. 6 Here are your
thoughts, the only ones you have. 7 Salvation is among them; find it there.
W-pI.96.10. If you succeed, the thoughts that come
to you will tell you you are saved, and that your mind has found the function
that it sought to lose. 2 Your Self will welcome it and give it peace.
3
Restored in strength, it will again flow out from spirit to the spirit in all
things created by the Spirit as Itself. 4 Your mind will bless
all things. 5 Confusion done, you are restored, for you
have found your Self.
W-pI.96.11. Your Self knows that you cannot fail
today. 2
Perhaps your mind remains uncertain yet a little while.
3 Be not
dismayed by this. 4 The joy your Self experiences It will save
for you, and it will yet be yours in full awareness.
5 Every
time you spend five minutes of the hour seeking Him Who joins your mind and
Self, you offer Him another treasure to be kept for you.
W-pI.96.12. Each time today you tell your frantic
mind salvation comes from your one Self, you lay another treasure in your
growing store. 2 And all of it is given everyone who asks for
it, and will accept the gift. 3 Think, then, how much is given unto you to
give this day, that it be given you!
W-pI.97.1. Today's idea identifies you with
your one Self. 2 It accepts no split identity, nor tries to
weave opposing factors into unity. 3 It simply states the
truth. 4
Practice this truth today as often as you can, for it will bring your mind from
conflict to the quiet fields of peace. 5 No chill of fear can
enter, for your mind has been absolved from madness, letting go illusions of a
split identity.
W-pI.97.2. We state again the truth about your
Self, the holy Son of God Who rests in you; whose mind has been restored to
sanity. 2
You are the spirit lovingly endowed with all your Father's Love and peace and
joy. 3
You are the spirit which completes Himself, and shares His function as Creator.
4 He is
with you always, as you are with Him.
W-pI.97.3. Today we try to bring reality still
closer to your mind. 2 Each time you practice, awareness is brought
a little nearer at least; sometimes a thousand years or more are saved.
3 The
minutes which you give are multiplied over and over, for the miracle makes use
of time, but is not ruled by it. 4 Salvation is a miracle, the first and last;
the first that is the last, for it is one.
W-pI.97.4. You are the spirit in whose mind
abides the miracle in which all time stands still; the miracle in which a
minute spent in using these ideas becomes a time that has no limit and that has
no end. 2
Give, then, these minutes willingly, and count on Him Who promised to lay
timelessness beside them. 3 He will offer all His strength to every
little effort that you make. 4 Give Him the minutes which He needs today, to
help you understand with Him you are the spirit that abides in Him, and that
calls through His Voice to every living thing; offers His sight to everyone who
asks; replaces error with the simple truth.
W-pI.97.5. The Holy Spirit will be glad to take
five minutes of each hour from your hands, and carry them around this aching
world where pain and misery appear to rule. 2 He will not overlook
one open mind that will accept the healing gifts they bring, and He will lay
them everywhere He knows they will be welcome. 3 And they will
increase in healing power each time someone accepts them as his thoughts, and
uses them to heal.
W-pI.97.6. Thus will each gift to Him be
multiplied a thousandfold and tens of thousands more.
2 And
when it is returned to you, it will surpass in might the little gift you gave
as much as does the radiance of the sun outshine the tiny gleam a firefly makes
an uncertain moment and goes out. 3 The steady brilliance of this light remains
and leads you out of darkness, nor will you be able to forget the way again.
W-pI.97.7. Begin these happy exercises with the
words the Holy Spirit speaks to you, and let them echo round the world through
Him: 2
Spirit am I, a holy Son of God, free of all limits, safe and healed and whole,
free to forgive, and free to save the world. 3 Expressed through
you, the Holy Spirit will accept this gift that you received of Him, increase
its power and give it back to you.
W-pI.97.8. Offer each practice period today
gladly to Him. 2 And He will speak to you, reminding you that
you are spirit, one with Him and God, your brothers and your Self.
3 Listen
for His assurance every time you speak the words He offers you today, and let
Him tell your mind that they are true. 4 Use them against
temptation, and escape its sorry consequences if you yield to the belief that
you are something else. 5 The Holy Spirit gives you peace today.
6 Receive
His words, and offer them to Him.
Lesson 98. I will accept my part in God's plan for salvation.
W-pI.98.1. Today is a day of special dedication.
2 We take
a stand on but one side today. 3 We side with truth and let illusions go.
4 We will
not vacillate between the two, but take a firm position with the One.
5 We
dedicate ourselves to truth today, and to salvation as God planned it be.
6 We will
not argue it is something else. 7 We will not seek for it where it is not.
8 In
gladness we accept it as it is, and take the part assigned to us by God.
W-pI.98.2. How happy to be certain!
2 All our
doubts we lay aside today, and take our stand with certainty of purpose, and
with thanks that doubt is gone and surety has come.
3 We have
a mighty purpose to fulfill, and have been given everything we need with which
to reach the goal. 4 Not one mistake stands in our way.
5 For we
have been absolved from errors. 6 All our sins are washed away by realizing
they were but mistakes.
W-pI.98.3. The guiltless have no fear, for they
are safe and recognize their safety. 2 They do not appeal to
magic, nor invent escapes from fancied threats without reality.
3 They
rest in quiet certainty that they will do what it is given them to do.
4 They do
not doubt their own ability because they know their function will be filled
completely in the perfect time and place. 5 They took the stand
which we will take today, that we may share their certainty and thus increase
it by accepting it ourselves.
W-pI.98.4. They will be with us; all who took
the stand we take today will gladly offer us all that they learned and every
gain they made. 2 Those still uncertain, too, will join with
us, and, borrowing our certainty, will make it stronger still.
3 While
those as yet unborn will hear the call we heard, and answer it when they have
come to make their choice again. 4 We do not choose but for ourselves today.
W-pI.98.5. Is it not worth five minutes of your
time each hour to be able to accept the happiness that God has given you?
2 Is it
not worth five minutes hourly to recognize your special function here?
3 Is not
five minutes but a small request to make in terms of gaining a reward so great
it has no measure? 4 You have made a thousand losing bargains at
the least.
W-pI.98.6. Here is an offer guaranteeing you
your full release from pain of every kind, and joy the world does not contain.
2 You can
exchange a little of your time for peace of mind and certainty of purpose, with
the promise of complete success. 3 And since time has no meaning, you are being
asked for nothing in return for everything. 4 Here is a bargain
that you cannot lose. 5 And what you gain is limitless indeed!
W-pI.98.7. Each hour today give Him your tiny
gift of but five minutes. 2 He will give the words you use in practicing
today's idea the deep conviction and the certainty you lack.
3 His
words will join with yours, and make each repetition of today's idea a total
dedication, made in faith as perfect and as sure as His in you.
4 His
confidence in you will bring the light to all the words you say, and you will
go beyond their sound to what they really mean. 5 Today you practice
with Him, as you say: 6 I will accept my part in God's plan for
salvation.
W-pI.98.8. In each five minutes that you spend
with Him, He will accept your words and give them back to you all bright with
faith and confidence so strong and steady they will light the world with hope
and gladness. 2 Do not lose one chance to be the glad
receiver of His gifts, that you may give them to the world today.
W-pI.98.9. Give Him the words, and He will do
the rest. 2 He will enable you to understand your special
function. 3 He will open up the way to happiness, and
peace and trust will be His gifts; His answer to your words.
4 He will
respond with all His faith and joy and certainty that what you say is true.
5 And you
will have conviction then of Him Who knows the function that you have on earth
as well as Heaven. 6 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.
W-pI.98.10. Throughout the hour, let your time be
spent in happy preparation for the next five minutes you will spend again with
Him. 2
Repeat today's idea while you wait for the glad time to come to you again.
3 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.
W-pI.98.11. 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 time again with
Him. 2
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.
Lesson 99. Salvation is my only function here.
W-pI.99.1. Salvation and forgiveness are the
same. 2
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. 3 Thus do both terms imply a thing impossible
but yet which has occurred, resulting in a state of conflict seen between what
is and what could never be.
W-pI.99.2. Truth and illusions both are equal
now, for both have happened. 2 The impossible becomes the thing you need forgiveness
for, salvation from. 3 Salvation now becomes the borderland between
the truth and the illusion. 4 It reflects the truth because it is the means
by which you can escape illusions. 5 Yet it is not yet the
truth because it undoes what was never done.
W-pI.99.3. How could there be a meeting place
at all where earth and Heaven can be reconciled within a mind where both of
them exist? 2 The mind that sees illusions thinks them real.
3 They
have existence in that they are thoughts. 4 And yet they are not
real, because the mind that thinks these thoughts is separate from God.
W-pI.99.4. What joins the separated mind and
thoughts with Mind and Thought which are forever One?
2 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?
3 What
but a Thought of God could be this plan, by which the never done is overlooked,
and sins forgotten which were never real?
W-pI.99.5. The Holy Spirit holds this plan of
God exactly as it was received of Him within the Mind of God and in your own.
2 It is
apart from time in that its Source is timeless. 3 Yet it operates in
time, because of your belief that time is real. 4 Unshaken does the
Holy Spirit look on what you see; on sin and pain and death, on grief and
separation and on loss. 5 Yet does He know one thing must still be
true; God is still Love, and this is not His Will.
W-pI.99.6. This is the Thought that brings
illusions to the truth, and sees them as appearances behind which is the
changeless and the sure. 2 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. 3
This is the Thought whose function is to save by giving you its function as
your own. 4 Salvation is your function, with the One to
Whom the plan was given. 5 Now are you entrusted with this plan, along
with Him. 6 He has one answer to appearances; regardless
of their form, their size, their depth or any attribute they seem to have:
7
Salvation is my only function here. 8 God still is Love,
and this is not His Will.
W-pI.99.7. You who will yet work miracles, be
sure you practice well the idea for today. 2 Try to perceive the
strength in what you say, for these are words in which your freedom lies.
3 Your
Father loves you. 4 All the world of pain is not His Will.
5 Forgive
yourself the thought He wanted this for you. 6 Then let the Thought
with which He has replaced all your mistakes enter the darkened places of your
mind that thought the thoughts that never were His Will.
W-pI.99.8. This part belongs to God, as does
the rest. 2 It does not think its solitary thoughts, and
make them real by hiding them from Him. 3 Let in the light, and
you will look upon no obstacle to what He wills for you.
4 Open
your secrets to His kindly light, and see how bright this light still shines in
you.
W-pI.99.9. Practice His Thought today, and let
His light seek out and lighten up all darkened spots, and shine through them to
join them to the rest. 2 It is God's Will your mind be one with His.
3 It is
God's Will that He has but one Son. 4 It is God's Will that
His one Son is you. 5 Think of these things in practicing today,
and start the lesson that we learn today with this instruction in the way of
truth: 6
Salvation is my only function here. 7 Salvation and
forgiveness are the same. 8 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.
W-pI.99.10. Forgive all thoughts which would
oppose the truth of your completion, unity and peace.
2 You
cannot lose the gifts your Father gave. 3 You do not want to be
another self. 4 You have no function that is not of God.
5 Forgive
yourself the one you think you made. 6 Forgiveness and
salvation are the same. 7 Forgive what you have made and you are saved.
W-pI.99.11. There is a special message for today
which has the power to remove all forms of doubt and fear forever from your
mind. 2
If you are tempted to believe them true, remember that appearances can not
withstand the truth these mighty words contain: 3 Salvation is my only
function here. 4 God still is Love, and this is not His Will.
W-pI.99.12. Your only function tells you you are
one. 2
Remind yourself of this between the times you give five minutes to be shared
with Him Who shares God's plan with you. 3 Remind yourself:
4
Salvation is my only function here. 5 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.
Lesson 100. My part is essential to God's plan for salvation.
W-pI.100.1. Just as God's Son completes his
Father, so your part in it completes your Father's plan.
2
Salvation must reverse the mad belief in separate thoughts and separate bodies,
which lead separate lives and go their separate ways.
3 One
function shared by separate minds unites them in one purpose, for each one of
them is equally essential to them all.
W-pI.100.2. God's Will for you is perfect
happiness. 2 Why should you choose to go against His Will?
3 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. 4 This part is as
essential to His plan as to your happiness. 5 Your joy must be
complete to let His plan be understood by those to whom He sends you.
6 They will
see their function in your shining face, and hear God calling to them in your
happy laugh.
W-pI.100.3. You are indeed essential to God's plan.
2 Without
your joy, His joy is incomplete. 3 Without your smile, the world cannot be saved.
4 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.
W-pI.100.4. You are indeed essential to God's plan.
2 Just as
your light increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth
calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in
God's plan. 3 God's messengers are joyous, and their joy
heals sorrow and despair. 4 They are the proof that God wills perfect
happiness for all who will accept their Father's gifts as theirs.
W-pI.100.5. We will not let ourselves be sad today.
2 For if
we do, we fail to take the part that is essential to God's plan, as well as to
our vision. 3 Sadness is the sign that you would play
another part, instead of what has been assigned to you by God.
4 Thus do
you fail to show the world how great the happiness He wills for you.
5 And so
you do not recognize that it is yours.
W-pI.100.6. Today we will attempt to understand
joy is our function here. 2 If you are sad, your part is unfulfilled, and
all the world is thus deprived of joy, along with you.
3 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.
4 You are
God's messenger today. 5 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.
W-pI.100.7. 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. 2 Begin the exercises
with the thought today's idea contains. 3 Then realize your
part is to be happy. 4 Only this is asked of you or anyone who wants
to take his place among God's messengers. 5 Think what this means.
6 You
have indeed been wrong in your belief that sacrifice is asked.
7 You but
receive according to God's plan, and never lose or sacrifice or die.
W-pI.100.8. Now let us try to find that joy that
proves to us and all the world God's Will for us. 2 It is your function
that you find it here, and that you find it now. 3 For this you came.
4 Let
this one be the day that you succeed! 5 Look deep within you,
undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend
to meet the Christ in you.
W-pI.100.9. He will be there.
2 And you
can reach Him now. 3 What could you rather look upon in place of
Him Who waits that you may look on Him? 4 What little thought
has power to hold you back? 5 What foolish goal can keep you from success
when He Who calls to you is God Himself?
W-pI.100.10. He will be there.
2 You are
essential to His plan. 3 You are His messenger today.
4 And you
must find what He would have you give. 5 Do not forget the
idea for today between your hourly practice periods.
6 It is
your Self Who calls to you today. 7 And it is Him you answer, every time you tell
yourself you are essential to God's plan for the salvation of the world.
Lesson 101. God's Will for me is perfect happiness.
W-pI.101.1. Today we will continue with the theme
of happiness. 2 This is a key idea in understanding what
salvation means. 3 You still believe it asks for suffering as
penance for your "sins." 4 This is not so.
5 Yet you
must think it so while you believe that sin is real, and that God's Son can
sin.
W-pI.101.2. If sin is real, then punishment is
just and cannot be escaped. 2 Salvation thus cannot be purchased but
through suffering. 3 If sin is real, then happiness must be
illusion, for they cannot both be true. 4 The sinful warrant
only death and pain, and it is this they ask for. 5 For they know it
waits for them, and it will seek them out and find them somewhere, sometime, in
some form that evens the account they owe to God. 6 They would escape Him
in their fear. 7 And yet He will pursue, and they can not
escape.
W-pI.101.3. If sin is real, salvation must be pain.
2 Pain is
the cost of sin, and suffering can never be escaped, if sin is real.
3 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. 4 Its wrath is boundless, merciless, but wholly
just.
W-pI.101.4. Who would seek out such savage
punishment? 2 Who would not flee salvation, and attempt in
every way he can to drown the Voice which offers it to him?
3 Why
would he try to listen and accept Its offering? 4 If sin is real, its
offering is death, and meted out in cruel form to match the vicious wishes in
which sin is born. 5 If sin is real, salvation has become your
bitter enemy, the curse of God upon you who have crucified His Son.
W-pI.101.5. You need the practice periods today.
2 The
exercises teach sin is not real, and all that you believe must come from sin
will never happen, for it has no cause. 3 Accept Atonement with
an open mind, which cherishes no lingering belief that you have made a devil of
God's Son. 4 There is no sin. 5 We practice with this
thought as often as we can today, because it is the basis for today's idea.
W-pI.101.6. God's Will for you is perfect
happiness because there is no sin, and suffering is causeless.
2 Joy is
just, and pain is but the sign you have misunderstood yourself.
3 Fear
not the Will of God. 4 But turn to it in confidence that it will set
you free from all the consequences sin has wrought in feverish imagination.
5 Say:
6 God's
Will for me is perfect happiness. 7 There is no sin; it has no consequence.
8 So should
you start your practice periods, and then attempt again to find the joy these
thoughts will introduce into your mind.
W-pI.101.7. Give these five minutes gladly, to
remove the heavy load you lay upon yourself with the insane belief that sin is
real. 2
Today escape from madness. 3 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. 4 There is no sin. 5 Remember this today,
and tell yourself as often as you can: 6 God's Will for me is
perfect happiness. 7 This is the truth, because there is no sin.
Lesson 102. I share God's Will for happiness for me.
W-pI.102.1. You do not want to suffer.
2 You may
think it buys you something, and may still believe a little that it buys you
what you want. 3 Yet this belief is surely shaken now, at
least enough to let you question it, and to suspect it really makes no sense.
4 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.
W-pI.102.2. Today we try to loose its weakened
hold still further, and to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause
and with no power to accomplish anything. 2 It cannot purchase
anything at all. 3 It offers nothing, and does not exist.
4 And
everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence, like itself.
5 You
have been slave to nothing. 6 Be you free today to join the happy Will of
God.
W-pI.102.3. For several days we will continue to
devote our periods of practicing to exercises planned to help you reach the
happiness God's Will has placed in you. 2 Here is your home,
and here your safety is. 3 Here is your peace, and here there is no fear.
4 Here is
salvation. 5 Here is rest at last.
W-pI.102.4. Begin your practice periods today with
this acceptance of God's Will for you: 2 I share God's Will
for happiness for me, and I accept it as my function now.
3 Then
seek this function deep within your mind, for it is there, awaiting but your
choice. 4
You cannot fail to find it when you learn it is your choice, and that you share
God's Will.
W-pI.102.5. Be happy, for your only function here
is happiness. 2 You have no need to be less loving to God's
Son than He Whose Love created him as loving as Himself.
3 Besides
these hourly five-minute rests, pause frequently today, to tell yourself that
you have now accepted happiness as your one function.
4 And be
sure that you are joining with God's Will in doing this.
Lesson 103. God, being Love, is also happiness.
W-pI.103.1. Happiness is an attribute of love.
2 It
cannot be apart from it. 3 Nor can it be experienced where love is not.
4 Love
has no limits, being everywhere. 5 And therefore joy is everywhere as well.
6 Yet can
the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can
enter, bringing pain instead of joy. 7 This strange belief
would limit happiness by redefining love as limited, and introducing opposition
in what has no limit and no opposite.
W-pI.103.2. Fear is associated then with love, and
its results become the heritage of minds that think what they have made is real.
2 These
images, with no reality in truth, bear witness to the fear of God, forgetting
being Love, He must be joy. 3 This basic error we will try again to bring
to truth today, and teach ourselves: 4 God, being Love, is
also happiness. 5 To fear Him is to be afraid of joy.
6 Begin
your periods of practicing today with this association, which corrects the
false belief that God is fear. 7 It also emphasizes happiness belongs to you,
because of what He is.
W-pI.103.3. Allow this one correction to be placed
within your mind each waking hour today. 2 Then welcome all the
happiness it brings as truth replaces fear, and joy becomes what you expect to
take the place of pain. 3 God, being Love, it will be given you.
4 Bolster
this expectation frequently throughout the day, and quiet all your fears with
this assurance, kind and wholly true: 5 God, being Love, is
also happiness. 6 And it is happiness I seek today.
7 I
cannot fail, because I seek the truth.
Lesson 104. I seek but what belongs to me in truth.
W-pI.104.1. Today's idea continues with the
thought that joy and peace are not but idle dreams.
2 They
are your right, because of what you are. 3 They come to you from
God, Who cannot fail to give you what He wills. 4 Yet must there be a
place made ready to receive His gifts. 5 They are not welcomed
gladly by a mind that has instead received the gifts it made where His belong,
as substitutes for them.
W-pI.104.2. Today we would remove all meaningless
and self-made gifts which we have placed upon the holy altar where God's gifts
belong. 2
His are the gifts that are our own in truth. 3 His are the gifts
that we inherited before time was, and that will still be ours when time has
passed into eternity. 4 His are the gifts that are within us now, for
they are timeless. 5 And we need not wait to have them.
6 They
belong to us today.
W-pI.104.3. Therefore, we choose to have them 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.
2 Our
longer practice periods today, the hourly five minutes given truth for your
salvation, should begin with this: 3 I seek but what belongs
to me in truth, And joy and peace are my inheritance.
4 Then
lay aside the conflicts of the world that offer other gifts and other goals
made of illusions, witnessed to by them, and sought for only in a world of
dreams.
W-pI.104.4. All this we lay aside, and seek
instead that which is truly ours, as we ask to recognize what God has given us.
2 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.
3 We come
in confidence today, aware that what belongs to us in truth is what He gives.
4 And we
would wish for nothing else, for nothing else belongs to us in truth.
W-pI.104.5. 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. 2 We will not let
ourselves lose sight of them between the times we come to seek for them where
He has laid them. 3 This reminder will we bring to mind as often
as we can: 4 I seek but what belongs to me in truth.
5 God's
gifts of joy and peace are all I want.
Lesson 105. God's peace and joy are mine.
W-pI.105.1. God's peace and joy are yours.
2 Today
we will accept them, knowing they belong to us. 3 And we will try to
understand these gifts increase as we receive them.
4 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.
5 Such
are not gifts, but bargains made with guilt. 6 The truly given gift
entails no loss. 7 It is impossible that one can gain because
another loses. 8 This implies a limit and an insufficiency.
W-pI.105.2. No gift is given thus.
2 Such
"gifts" are but a bid for a more valuable return; a loan with
interest to be paid in full; a temporary lending, meant to be a pledge of debt
to be repaid with more than was received by him who took the gift.
3 This
strange distortion of what giving means pervades all levels of the world you
see. 4
It strips all meaning from the gifts you give, and leaves you nothing in the
ones you take.
W-pI.105.3. A major learning goal this course has
set is to reverse your view of giving, so you can receive.
2 For
giving has become a source of fear, and so you would avoid the only means by
which you can receive. 3 Accept God's peace and joy, and you will
learn a different way of looking at a gift. 4 God's gifts will
never lessen when they are given away. 5 They but increase
thereby.
W-pI.105.4. 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. 2 True giving is
creation. 3 It extends the limitless to the unlimited,
eternity to timelessness, and love unto itself. 4 It adds to all that
is complete already, not in simple terms of adding more, for that implies that
it was less before. 5 It adds by letting what cannot contain itself
fulfill its aim of giving everything it has away, securing it forever for
itself.
W-pI.105.5. Today accept God's peace and joy as
yours. 2
Let Him complete Himself as He defines completion. 3 You will understand
that what completes Him must complete His Son as well.
4 He
cannot give through loss. 5 No more can you. 6 Receive His gift of
joy and peace today, and He will thank you for your gift to Him.
W-pI.105.6. Today our practice periods will start
a little differently. 2 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. 3 Here you denied them to yourself.
4 And
here you must return to claim them as your own.
W-pI.105.7. Think of your "enemies" a
little while, and tell each one, as he occurs to you:
2 My
brother, peace and joy I offer you, That I may have God's peace and joy as mine.
3 Thus
you prepare yourself to recognize God's gifts to you, and let your mind be free
of all that would prevent success today. 4 Now are you ready to
accept the gift of peace and joy that God has given you.
5 Now are
you ready to experience the joy and peace you have denied yourself.
6 Now you
can say, "God's peace and joy are mine," for you have given what you
would receive.
W-pI.105.8. You must succeed today, if you prepare
your mind as we suggest. 2 For you have let all bars to peace and joy be
lifted up, and what is yours can come to you at last.
3 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.
W-pI.105.9. 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. 2 At least remember hourly to say the words
which call to Him to give you what He wills to give, and wills you to receive.
3
Determine not to interfere today with what He wills.
4 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.
5 Then
bless your brother thankfully, and say: 6 My brother, peace and
joy I offer you, That I may have God's peace and joy as mine.
Lesson 106. Let me be still and listen to the truth.
W-pI.106.1. 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.
W-pI.106.2. 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.
2 Be
still today and listen to the truth. 3 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. 4 Attend them not, but listen to the truth.
W-pI.106.3. Be not afraid today to circumvent the
voices of the world. 2 Walk lightly past their meaningless
persuasion. 3 Hear them not. 4 Be still today and
listen to the truth. 5 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. 6
Hear only Him today, and do not wait to reach Him longer.
7 Hear
one Voice today.
W-pI.106.4. Today the promise of God's Word is
kept. 2
Hear and be silent. 3 He would speak to you.
4 He
comes with miracles a thousand times as happy and as wonderful as those you
ever dreamed or wished for in your dreams. 5 His miracles are true.
6 They
will not fade when dreaming ends. 7 They end the dream instead; and last forever,
for they come from God to His dear Son, whose other name is you.
8 Prepare
yourself for miracles today. 9 Today allow your Father's ancient pledge to
you and all your brothers to be kept.
W-pI.106.5. 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. 2 God calls to them through you.
3 He
needs your voice to speak to them, for who could reach God's Son except his
Father, calling through your Self? 4 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.
W-pI.106.6. Be ready for salvation.
2 It is
here, and will today be given unto you. 3 And you will learn your
function from the One Who chose it in your Father's Name for you.
4 Listen
today, and you will hear a Voice which will resound throughout the world
through you. 5 The bringer of all miracles has need that you
receive them first, and thus become the joyous giver of what you received.
W-pI.106.7. Thus does salvation start and thus it
ends; when everything is yours and everything is given away, it will remain
with you forever. 2 And the lesson has been learned.
3 Today
we practice giving, not the way you understand it now, but as it is.
4 Each
hour's exercises should begin with this request for your enlightenment:
5 I will
be still and listen to the truth. 6 What does it mean to give and to receive?
W-pI.106.8. Ask and expect an answer.
2 Your
request is one whose answer has been waiting long to be received by you.
3 It will
begin the ministry for which you came, and which will free the world from
thinking giving is a way to lose. 4 And so the world becomes ready to understand
and to receive.
W-pI.106.9. Be still and listen to the truth today.
2 For
each five minutes spent in listening, a thousand minds are opened to the truth
and they will hear the holy Word you hear. 3 And when the hour is
past, you will again release a thousand more who pause to ask that truth be
given them, along with you.
W-pI.106.10. 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. 2 Do not forget today
to reinforce your choice to hear and to receive the Word by this reminder,
given to yourself as often as is possible today: 3 Let me be still and
listen to the truth. 4 I am the messenger of God today, My voice is
His, to give what I receive.
Lesson 107. Truth will correct all errors in my mind.
W-pI.107.1. What can correct illusions but the
truth? 2
And what are errors but illusions that remain unrecognized for what they are?
3 Where
truth has entered errors disappear. 4 They merely vanish,
leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. 5 They are gone
because, without belief, they have no life. 6 And so they disappear
to nothingness, returning whence they came. 7 From dust to dust
they come and go, for only truth remains.
W-pI.107.2. Can you imagine what a state of mind
without illusions is? 2 How it would feel?
3 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. 4
Then try to picture what it would be like to have that moment be extended to
the end of time and to eternity. 5 Then let the sense of quiet that you felt be
multiplied a hundred times, and then be multiplied another hundred more.
W-pI.107.3. And now you have a hint, not more than
just the faintest intimation of the state your mind will rest in when the truth
has come. 2 Without illusions there could be no fear, no
doubt and no attack. 3 When truth has come all pain is over, for
there is no room for transitory thoughts and dead ideas to linger in your mind.
4 Truth
occupies your mind completely, liberating you from all beliefs in the ephemeral.
5 They
have no place because the truth has come, and they are nowhere.
6 They
can not be found, for truth is everywhere forever, now.
W-pI.107.4. When truth has come it does not stay a
while, to disappear or change to something else. 2 It does not shift and
alter in its form, nor come and go and go and come again.
3 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. 4 They will merely blow
away, when truth corrects the errors in your mind.
W-pI.107.5. When truth has come it harbors in its
wings the gift of perfect constancy, and love which does not falter in the face
of pain, but looks beyond it, steadily and sure. 2 Here is the gift of
healing, for the truth needs no defense, and therefore no attack is possible.
3
Illusions can be brought to truth to be corrected. 4 But the truth stands
far beyond illusions, and can not be brought to them to turn them into truth.
W-pI.107.6. Truth does not come and go nor shift
nor change, in this appearance now and then in that, evading capture and
escaping grasp. 2 It does not hide.
3 It
stands in open light, in obvious accessibility. 4 It is impossible that
anyone could seek it truly, and would not succeed. 5 Today belongs to
truth. 6
Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. 7 You were not meant to
suffer and to die. 8 Your Father wills these dreams be gone.
9 Let
truth correct them all.
W-pI.107.7. We do not ask for what we do not have.
2 We
merely ask for what belongs to us, that we may recognize it as our own.
3 Today
we practice on the happy note of certainty that has been born of truth.
4 The
shaky and unsteady footsteps of illusion are not our approach today.
5 We are
as certain of success as we are sure we live and hope and breathe and think.
6 We do
not doubt we walk with truth today, and count on it to enter into all the
exercises that we do this day.
W-pI.107.8. Begin by asking Him Who goes with you
upon this undertaking that He be in your awareness as you go with Him.
2 You are
not made of flesh and blood and bone, but were created by the selfsame Thought
which gave the gift of life to Him as well. 3 He is your Brother,
and so like to you your Father knows that You are Both the same.
4 It is
your Self you ask to go with you, and how could He be absent where you are?
W-pI.107.9. Truth will correct all errors in your
mind which tell you you could be apart from Him. 2 You speak to Him
today, and make your pledge to let His function be fulfilled through you.
3 To
share His function is to share His joy. 4 His confidence is
with you, as you say: 5 Truth will correct all errors in my mind, And
I will rest in Him Who is my Self. 6 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 world reluctantly.
W-pI.107.10. And yet you will be glad to look again upon
this world. 2 For you will bring with you the promise of
the changes which the truth that goes with you will carry to the world.
3 They
will increase with every gift you give of five small minutes, and the errors
that surround the world will be corrected as you let them be corrected in your
mind.
W-pI.107.11. Do not forget your function for today.
2 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.
Lesson 108. To give and to receive are one in truth.
W-pI.108.1. Vision depends upon today's idea.
2 The
light is in it, for it reconciles all seeming opposites.
3 And
what is light except the resolution, born of peace, of all your conflicts and
mistaken thoughts into one concept which is wholly true?
4 Even
that one will disappear, because the Thought behind it will appear instead to
take its place. 5 And now you are at peace forever, for the
dream is over then.
W-pI.108.2. True light that makes true vision
possible is not the light the body's eyes behold. 2 It is a state of mind
that has become so unified that darkness cannot be perceived at all.
3 And
thus what is the same is seen as one, while what is not the same remains unnoticed,
for it is not there.
W-pI.108.3. This is the light that shows no
opposites, and vision, being healed, has power to heal.
2 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.
3 This is
the light that heals because it brings single perception, based upon one frame
of reference, from which one meaning comes.
W-pI.108.4. Here are both giving and receiving
seen as different aspects of one Thought whose truth does not depend on which
is seen as first, nor which appears to be in second place.
2 Here it
is understood that both occur together, that the Thought remain complete.
3 And in
this understanding is the base on which all opposites are reconciled, because
they are perceived from the same frame of reference which unifies this Thought.
W-pI.108.5. One thought, completely unified, will
serve to unify all thought. 2 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. 3 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.
W-pI.108.6. To learn that giving and receiving are
the same has special usefulness, because it can be tried so easily and seen as
true. 2
And when this special case has proved it always works, in every circumstance
where it is tried, the thought behind it can be generalized to other areas of
doubt and double vision. 3 And from there it will extend, and finally
arrive at the one Thought which underlies them all.
W-pI.108.7. Today we practice with the special
case of giving and receiving. 2 We will use this simple lesson in the obvious
because it has results we cannot miss. 3 To give is to receive.
4 Today
we will attempt to offer peace to everyone, and see how quickly peace returns
to us. 5
Light is tranquility, and in that peace is vision given us, and we can see.
W-pI.108.8. So we begin the practice periods with
the instruction for today, and say: 2 To give and to
receive are one in truth. 3 I will receive what I am giving now.
4 Then
close your eyes, and for five minutes think of what you would hold out to
everyone, to have it yours. 5 You might, for instance, say:
6 To
everyone I offer quietness. 7 To everyone I offer peace of mind.
8 To
everyone I offer gentleness.
W-pI.108.9. Say each one slowly and then pause a
while, expecting to receive the gift you gave. 2 And it will come to
you in the amount in which you gave it. 3 You will find you
have exact return, for that is what you asked. 4 It might be helpful,
too, to think of one to whom to give your gifts. 5 He represents the
others, and through him you give to all.
W-pI.108.10. Our very simple lesson for today will
teach you much. 2 Effect and cause will be far better
understood from this time on, and we will make much faster progress now.
3 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."
W-pI.109.1. We ask for rest today, and quietness
unshaken by the world's appearances. 2 We ask for peace and
stillness, in the midst of all the turmoil born of clashing dreams.
3 We ask for
safety and for happiness, although we seem to look on danger and on sorrow.
4 And we
have the thought that will answer our asking with what we request.
W-pI.109.2. "I rest in God."
2 This
thought will bring to you the rest and quiet, peace and stillness, and the
safety and the happiness you seek. 3 "I rest in God."
4 This
thought has power to wake the sleeping truth in you, whose vision sees beyond
appearances to that same truth in everyone and everything there is.
5 Here is
the end of suffering for all the world, and everyone who ever came and yet will
come to linger for a while. 6 Here is the thought in which the Son of God
is born again, to recognize himself.
W-pI.109.3. "I rest in God."
2
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.
3 There
is no suffering it cannot heal. 4 There is no problem that it cannot solve.
5 And no
appearance but will turn to truth before the eyes of you who rest in God.
W-pI.109.4. This is the day of peace.
2 You
rest in God, and while the world is torn by winds of hate your rest remains
completely undisturbed. 3 Yours is the rest of truth.
4
Appearances cannot intrude on you. 5 You call to all to
join you in your rest, and they will hear and come to you because you rest in
God. 6
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 through you.
W-pI.109.5. In Him you have no cares and no
concerns, no burdens, no anxiety, no pain, no fear of future and no past
regrets. 2 In timelessness you rest, while time goes by
without its touch upon you, for your rest can never change in any way at all.
3 You
rest today. 4 And as you close your eyes, sink into stillness.
5 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.
6 Let it
be still and thankfully accept its healing. 7 No more fearful
dreams will come, now that you rest in God. 8 Take time today to
slip away from dreams and into peace.
W-pI.109.6. Each hour that you take your rest
today, a tired mind is suddenly made glad, a bird with broken wings begins to
sing, a stream long dry begins to flow again. 2 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.
W-pI.109.7. With each five minutes that you rest
today, the world is nearer waking. 2 And the time 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. 3 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.
W-pI.109.8. 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. 2 You will be faithful to your trust today,
forgetting no one, bringing everyone into the boundless circle of your peace,
the holy sanctuary where you rest. 3 Open the temple doors
and let them come 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.
W-pI.109.9. You rest within the peace of God
today, quiet and unafraid. 2 Each brother comes to take his rest, and
offer it to you. 3 We rest together here, for thus our rest is
made complete, and what we give today we have received already.
4 Time is
not the guardian of what we give today. 5 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. 6 And we remind them of
their resting place each time we tell ourselves, "I rest in God."
Lesson 110. I am as God created me.
W-pI.110.1. We will repeat today's idea from time
to time. 2 For this one thought would be enough to save
you and the world, if you believed that it is true.
3 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. 4 If you remain as God created you fear has no
meaning, evil is not real, and misery and death do not exist.
W-pI.110.2. Today's idea is therefore 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.
2 It is
enough to heal the past and make the future free. 3 It is enough to let
the present be accepted as it is. 4 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.
W-pI.110.3. 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. 2 All this has not
occurred, if you remain as God created you. 3 You need no thought
but just this one, to let redemption come to light the world and free it from
the past.
W-pI.110.4. In this one thought is all the past
undone; the present saved to quietly extend into a timeless future.
2 If you
are as God created you, then there has been no separation of your mind from His,
no split between your mind and other minds, and only unity within your own.
W-pI.110.5. The healing power of today's idea is
limitless. 2 It is the birthplace of all miracles, the
great restorer of the truth to the awareness of the world.
3 Practice
today's idea with gratitude. 4 This is the truth that comes to set you free.
5 This is
the truth that God has promised you. 6 This is the Word in
which all sorrow ends.
W-pI.110.6. For your five-minute practice periods,
begin with this quotation from the text: 2 I am as God created
me. 3
His Son can suffer nothing. 4 And I am His Son.
W-pI.110.7. Then, with this statement firmly in
your mind, try to discover in your mind the Self Who is the holy Son of God
Himself.
W-pI.110.8. 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 whoever touches Him, however lightly, asking for the
Word that tells him he is brother unto Him.
W-pI.110.9. You are as God created you.
2 Today
honor your Self. 3 Let graven images you made to be the Son of
God instead of what he is be worshipped not today. 4 Deep in your mind the
holy Christ in you is waiting your acknowledgment as you.
5 And you
are lost and do not know yourself while He is unacknowledged and unknown.
W-pI.110.10. Seek Him today, and find Him.
2 He will
be your Savior from all idols you have made. 3 For when you find
Him, you will understand how worthless are your idols, and how false the images
which you believed were you. 4 Today we make a great advance to truth by
letting idols go, and opening our hands and hearts and minds to God today.
W-pI.110.11. We will remember Him throughout the day
with thankful hearts and loving thoughts for all who meet with us today.
2 For it
is thus that we remember Him. 3 And we will say, that we may be reminded of
His Son, our holy Self, the Christ in each of us: 4 I am as God created
me. 5
Let us declare this truth as often as we can. 6 This is the Word of
God that sets you free. 7 This is the key that opens up the gate of
Heaven, and that lets you enter in the peace of God and His eternity.
W-pI.rIII.in.1. Our next review begins today.
2 We will
review two recent lessons every day for ten successive days of practicing.
3 We will
observe a special format for these practice periods, that you are urged to
follow just as closely as you can.
W-pI.rIII.in.2. We understand, of course, that it may be
impossible for you to undertake what is suggested here as optimal each day and
every hour of the day. 2 Learning will not be hampered when you miss a
practice period because it is impossible at the appointed time.
3 Nor is
it necessary that you make excessive efforts to be sure that you catch up in
terms of numbers. 4 Rituals are not our aim, and would defeat our
goal.
W-pI.rIII.in.3. But learning will be hampered when you
skip a practice period because you are unwilling to devote the time to it that
you are asked to give. 2 Do not deceive yourself in this.
3
Unwillingness can be most carefully concealed behind a cloak of situations you
cannot control. 4 Learn to distinguish situations that are
poorly suited to your practicing from those that you establish to uphold a
camouflage for your unwillingness.
W-pI.rIII.in.4. Those practice periods that you have lost
because you did not want to do them, for whatever reason, should be done as
soon as you have changed your mind about your goal.
2 You are
unwilling to cooperate in practicing salvation only if it interferes with goals
you hold more dear. 3 When you withdraw the value given them, allow
your practice periods to be replacements for your litanies to them.
4 They
gave you nothing. 5 But your practicing can offer everything to
you. 6
And so accept their offering and be at peace.
W-pI.rIII.in.5. The format you should use for these
reviews is this: Devote five minutes twice a day, or longer if you would prefer
it, to considering the thoughts that are assigned. 2 Read over the ideas
and comments that are written down for each day's exercise.
3 And
then begin to think about them, while letting your mind relate them to your
needs, your seeming problems and all your concerns.
W-pI.rIII.in.6. Place the ideas within your mind, and let
it use them as it chooses. 2 Give it faith that it will use them wisely,
being helped in its decisions by the One Who gave the thoughts to you.
3 What
can you trust but what is in your mind? 4 Have faith, in these
reviews, the means the Holy Spirit uses will not fail.
5 The
wisdom of your mind will come to your assistance. 6 Give direction at the
outset; then lean back in quiet faith, and let the mind employ the thoughts you
gave as they were given you for it to use.
W-pI.rIII.in.7. You have been given them in perfect trust;
in perfect confidence that you would use them well; in perfect faith that you
would see their messages and use them for yourself.
2 Offer
them to your mind in that same trust and confidence and faith.
3 It will
not fail. 4 It is the Holy Spirit's chosen means for your
salvation. 5 Since it has His trust, His means must surely
merit yours as well.
W-pI.rIII.in.8. We emphasize the benefits to you if you
devote the first five minutes of the day to your reviews, and also give the
last five minutes of your waking day to them. 2 If this cannot be
done, at least try to divide them so you undertake one in the morning, and the
other in the hour just before you go to sleep.
W-pI.rIII.in.9. The exercises to be done throughout the
day are equally important, and perhaps of even greater value.
2 You
have been inclined to practice only at appointed times, and then go on your way
to other things, without applying what you learned to them.
3 As a
result, you have gained little reinforcement, and have not given your learning
a fair chance to prove how great are its potential gifts to you.
4 Here is
another chance to use it well.
W-pI.rIII.in.10. In these reviews, we stress the need to let
your learning not lie idly by between your longer practice periods.
2 Attempt
to give your daily two ideas a brief but serious review each hour.
3 Use one
on the hour, and the other one a half an hour later.
4 You
need not give more than just a moment to each one. 5 Repeat it, and allow
your mind to rest a little time in silence and in peace.
6 Then
turn to other things, but try to keep the thought with you, and let it serve to
help you keep your peace throughout the day as well.
W-pI.rIII.in.11. If you are shaken, think of it again.
2 These
practice periods are planned to help you form the habit of applying what you
learn each day to everything you do. 3 Do not repeat the
thought and lay it down. 4 Its usefulness is limitless to you.
5 And it
is meant to serve you in all ways, all times and places, and whenever you need
help of any kind. 6 Try, then, to take it with you in the
business of the day and make it holy, worthy of God's Son, acceptable to God
and to your Self.
W-pI.rIII.in.12. Each day's review assignments will conclude
with a restatement of the thought to use each hour, and the one to be applied
on each half hour as well. 2 Forget them not. 3 This second chance
with each of these ideas will bring such large advances that we come from these
reviews with learning gains so great we will continue on more solid ground,
with firmer footsteps and with stronger faith.
W-pI.rIII.in.13. Do not forget how little you have learned.
2 Do not
forget how much you can learn now. 3 Do not forget your
Father's need of you, As you review these thoughts He gave to you.
Lesson 111. For morning and evening review:
W-pI.111.1. (91) Miracles are seen in light.
2 I
cannot see in darkness. 3 Let the light of holiness and truth light up
my mind, and let me see the innocence within.
W-pI.111.2. (92) Miracles are seen in light, and
light and strength are one. 2 I see through strength, the gift of God to me.
3 My
weakness is the dark His gift dispels, by giving me His strength to take its
place.
W-pI.111.3. On the hour:
2
Miracles are seen in light. 3 On the half hour:
4
Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.
Lesson 112. For morning and evening review:
W-pI.112.1. (93) Light and joy and peace abide in
me. 2
I am the home of light and joy and peace. 3 I welcome them into
the home I share with God, because I am a part of Him.
W-pI.112.2. (94) I am as God created me.
2 I will
remain forever as I was, created by the Changeless like Himself.
3 And I
am one with Him, and He with me.
W-pI.112.3. On the hour:
2 Light
and joy and peace abide in me. 3 On the half hour:
4 I am as
God created me.
Lesson 113. For morning and evening review:
W-pI.113.1. (95) I am one Self, united with my
Creator. 2 Serenity and perfect peace are mine, because
I am one Self, completely whole, at one with all creation and with God.
W-pI.113.2. (96) Salvation comes from my one Self.
2 From my
one Self, Whose knowledge still remains within my mind, I see God's perfect
plan for my salvation perfectly fulfilled.
W-pI.113.3. On the hour:
2 I am
one Self, united with my Creator. 3 On the half hour:
4
Salvation comes from my one Self.
Lesson 114. For morning and evening review:
W-pI.114.1. (97) I am spirit.
2 I am
the Son of God. 3 No body can contain my spirit, nor impose on
me a limitation God created not.
W-pI.114.2. (98) I will accept my part in God's
plan for salvation. 2 What can my function be but to accept the
Word of God, Who has created me for what I am and will forever be?
W-pI.114.3. On the hour:
2 I am
spirit. 3
On the half hour: 4 I will accept my part in God's plan for
salvation.
Lesson 115. For morning and evening review:
W-pI.115.1. (99) Salvation is my only function
here. 2
My function here is to forgive the world for all the errors I have made.
3 For
thus am I released from them with all the world.
W-pI.115.2. (100) My part is essential to God's
plan for salvation. 2 I am essential to the plan of God for the
salvation of the world. 3 For He gave me His plan that I might save the
world.
W-pI.115.3. On the hour:
2
Salvation is my only function here. 3 On the half hour:
4 My part
is essential to God's plan for salvation.
Lesson 116. For morning and evening review:
W-pI.116.1. (101) God's Will for me is perfect
happiness. 2 God's Will is perfect happiness for me.
3 And I
can suffer but from the belief there is another will apart from His.
W-pI.116.2. (102) I share God's Will for happiness
for me. 2
I share my Father's Will for me, His Son. 3 What He has given me
is all I want. 4 What He has given me is all there is.
W-pI.116.3. On the hour:
2 God's
Will for me is perfect happiness. 3 On the half hour:
4 I share
God's Will for happiness for me.
Lesson 117. For morning and evening review:
W-pI.117.1. (103) God, being Love, is also
happiness. 2 Let me remember love is happiness, and
nothing else brings joy. 3 And so I choose to entertain no substitutes
for love.
W-pI.117.2. (104) I seek but what belongs to me in
truth. 2
Love is my heritage, and with it joy. 3 These are the gifts
my Father gave to me. 4 I would accept all that is mine in truth.
W-pI.117.3. On the hour:
2 God,
being Love, is also happiness. 3 On the half hour:
4 I seek
but what belongs to me in truth.
Lesson 118. For morning and evening review:
W-pI.118.1. (105) God's peace and joy are mine.
2 Today I
will accept God's peace and joy, in glad exchange for all the substitutes that
I have made for happiness and peace.
W-pI.118.2. (106) Let me be still and listen to
the truth. 2 Let my own feeble voice be still, and let me
hear the mighty Voice for Truth Itself assure me that I am God's perfect Son.
W-pI.118.3. On the hour:
2 God's
peace and joy are mine. 3 On the half hour:
4 Let me
be still and listen to the truth.
Lesson 119. For morning and evening review:
W-pI.119.1. (107) Truth will correct all errors in
my mind. 2 I am mistaken when I think I can be hurt in
any way. 3 I am God's Son, whose Self rests safely in
the Mind of God.
W-pI.119.2. (108) To give and to receive are one
in truth. 2 I will forgive all things today, that I may
learn how to accept the truth in me, and come to recognize my sinlessness.
W-pI.119.3. On the hour:
2 Truth
will correct all errors in my mind. 3 On the half hour:
4 To give
and to receive are one in truth.
Lesson 120. For morning and evening review:
W-pI.120.1. (109) I rest in God.
2 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.
W-pI.120.2. (110) I am as God created me.
2 I am
God's Son. 3 Today I lay aside all sick illusions of
myself, and let my Father tell me Who I really am.
W-pI.120.3. On the hour:
2 I rest
in God. 3
On the half hour: 4 I am as God created me.
Lesson 121.
Forgiveness is the key to happiness.
W-pI.121.1. Here is the answer to your search for
peace. 2
Here is the key to meaning in a world that seems to make no sense.
3 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. 4
Here are all questions answered; here the end of all uncertainty ensured at
last.
W-pI.121.2. The unforgiving mind is full of fear,
and offers love no room to be itself; no place where it can spread its wings in
peace and soar above the turmoil of the world. 2 The unforgiving mind
is sad, without the hope of respite and release from pain.
3 It
suffers and abides in misery, peering about in darkness, seeing not, yet
certain of the danger lurking there.
W-pI.121.3. The unforgiving mind is torn with
doubt, confused about itself and all it sees; afraid and angry, weak and
blustering, afraid to go ahead, afraid to stay, afraid to waken or to go to sleep,
afraid of every sound, yet more afraid of stillness; terrified of darkness, yet
more terrified at the approach of light. 2 What can the
unforgiving mind perceive but its damnation? 3 What can it behold
except the proof that all its sins are real?
W-pI.121.4. The unforgiving mind sees no mistakes,
but only sins. 2 It looks upon the world with sightless eyes,
and shrieks as it beholds its own projections rising to attack its miserable
parody of life. 3 It wants to live, yet wishes it were dead.
4 It
wants forgiveness, yet it sees no hope. 5 It wants escape, yet
can conceive of none because it sees the sinful everywhere.
W-pI.121.5. The unforgiving mind is in despair,
without the prospect of a future which can offer anything but more despair.
2 Yet it
regards its judgment of the world as irreversible, and does not see it has
condemned itself to this despair. 3 It thinks it cannot change, for what it sees
bears witness that its judgment is correct. 4 It does not ask,
because it thinks it knows. 5 It does not question, certain it is right.
W-pI.121.6. Forgiveness is acquired.
2 It is
not inherent in the mind, which cannot sin. 3 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.
4 Through
Him you learn how to forgive the self you think you made, and let it disappear.
5 Thus
you return your mind as one to Him Who is your Self, and Who can never sin.
W-pI.121.7. Each unforgiving mind presents you
with an opportunity to teach your own how to forgive itself.
2 Each
one awaits release from hell through you, and turns to you imploringly for
Heaven here and now. 3 It has no hope, but you become its hope.
4 And as
its hope, do you become your own. 5 The unforgiving mind must learn through your
forgiveness that it has been saved from hell. 6 And as you teach
salvation, you will learn. 7 Yet all your teaching and your learning will
be not of you, but of the Teacher Who was given you to show the way to you.
W-pI.121.8. Today we practice learning to forgive.
2 If you
are willing, you can learn today to take the key to happiness, and use it on
your own behalf. 3 We will devote ten minutes in the morning,
and at night another ten, to learning how to give forgiveness and receive
forgiveness, too.
W-pI.121.9. The unforgiving mind does not believe
that giving and receiving are the same. 2 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 a friend.
3 And as
you learn to see them both as one, we will extend the lesson to yourself, and
see that their escape included yours.
W-pI.121.10. 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. 2 It does not matter what the form your anger
takes. 3
You probably have chosen him already. 4 He will do.
W-pI.121.11. Now close your eyes and see him in your
mind, and look at him a while. 2 Try to perceive some light in him somewhere;
a little gleam which you had never noticed. 3 Try to find some
little spark of brightness shining through the ugly picture that you hold of
him. 4
Look at this picture till you see a light somewhere within it, and then try to
let this light extend until it covers him, and makes the picture beautiful and
good.
W-pI.121.12. Look at this changed perception for a
while, and turn your mind to one you call a friend.
2 Try to
transfer the light you learned to see around your former "enemy " to
him. 3
Perceive him now as more than friend to you, for in that light his holiness
shows you your savior, saved and saving, healed and whole.
W-pI.121.13. 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. 2 Now are you one with them, and they with you.
3 Now
have you been forgiven by yourself. 4 Do not forget,
throughout the day, the role forgiveness plays in bringing happiness to every
unforgiving mind, with yours among them. 5 Every hour tell
yourself: 6 Forgiveness is the key to happiness.
7 I will
awaken from the dream that I am mortal, fallible and full of sin, and know I am
the perfect Son of God.
Lesson 122.
Forgiveness offers everything I want.
W-pI.122.1. What could you want forgiveness cannot
give? 2
Do you want peace? 3 Forgiveness offers it.
4 Do you
want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and
beauty that transcends the world? 5 Do you want care and safety, and the warmth
of sure protection always? 6 Do you want a quietness that cannot be
disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a
rest so perfect it can never be upset?
W-pI.122.2. All this forgiveness offers you, and
more. 2
It sparkles on your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the
day. 3
It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rests upon your eyelids so you
see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. 4 And when you wake
again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace.
5 All
this forgiveness offers you, and more.
W-pI.122.3. Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up
that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon
the world. 2 It lets you recognize 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. 3 What would you want
forgiveness cannot give? 4 What gifts but these are worthy to be sought?
5 What
fancied value, trivial effect or transient promise, never to be kept, can hold
more hope than what forgiveness brings?
W-pI.122.4. Why would you seek an answer other
than the answer that will answer everything? 2 Here is the perfect
answer, given to imperfect questions, meaningless requests, halfhearted
willingness to hear, and less than halfway diligence and partial trust.
3 Here is
the answer! 4 Seek for it no more.
5 You
will not find another one instead.
W-pI.122.5. God's plan for your salvation cannot
change, nor can it fail. 2 Be thankful it remains exactly as He planned
it. 3
Changelessly it stands before you like an open door, with warmth and welcome
calling from beyond the doorway, bidding you to enter in and make yourself at
home, where you belong.
W-pI.122.6. Here is the answer!
2 Would
you stand outside while all of Heaven waits for you within?
3 Forgive
and be forgiven. 4 As you give you will receive.
5 There
is no plan but this for the salvation of the Son of God.
6 Let us
today rejoice that this is so, for here we have an answer, clear and plain,
beyond deceit in its simplicity. 7 All the complexities the world has spun of
fragile cobwebs disappear before the power and the majesty of this extremely
simple statement of the truth.
W-pI.122.7. Here is the answer!
2 Do not
turn away in aimless wandering again. 3 Accept salvation now.
4 It is
the gift of God, and not the world. 5 The world can give no
gifts of any value to a mind that has received what God has given as its own.
6 God
wills salvation be received today, and that the intricacies of your dreams no
longer hide their nothingness from you.
W-pI.122.8. Open your eyes today and look upon a
happy world of safety and of peace. 2 Forgiveness is the
means by which it comes to take the place of hell. 3 In quietness it rises
up to greet your open eyes, and fill your heart with deep tranquility as
ancient truths, forever newly born, arise in your awareness.
4 What
you will remember then can never be described. 5 Yet your forgiveness
offers it to you.
W-pI.122.9. Remembering the gifts forgiveness
gives, we undertake our practicing today with hope and faith that this will be
the day salvation will be ours. 2 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.
W-pI.122.10. Morning and evening do we gladly give a
quarter of an hour to the search in which the end of hell is guaranteed.
2 Begin
in hopefulness, for we have reached the turning point at which the road becomes
far easier. 3 And now the way is short that yet we travel.
4 We are
close indeed to the appointed ending of the dream.
W-pI.122.11. Sink into happiness as you begin these
practice periods, for they hold out the sure rewards of questions answered and
what your acceptance of the answer brings. 2 Today it will be
given you to feel the peace forgiveness offers, and the joy the lifting of the
veil holds out to you.
W-pI.122.12. 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. 2 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.
W-pI.122.13. Forgiveness offers everything you want.
2 Today
all things you want are given you. 3 Let not your gifts
recede throughout the day, as you return again to meet a world of shifting
change and bleak appearances. 4 Retain your gifts in clear awareness as you
see the changeless in the heart of change; the light of truth behind
appearances.
W-pI.122.14. 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. 2
Remind yourself how precious are these gifts with this reminder, which has
power to hold your gifts in your awareness through the day:
3
Forgiveness offers everything I want. 4 Today I have accepted
this as true. 5 Today I have received the gifts of God.
Lesson 123. I thank my Father for His gifts to me.
W-pI.123.1. Today let us be thankful.
2 We have
come to gentler pathways and to smoother roads. 3 There is no thought
of turning back, and no implacable resistance to the truth.
4 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 realize.
W-pI.123.2. A day devoted now to gratitude will
add the benefit of some insight into the real extent of all the gains which you
have made; the gifts you have received. 2 Be glad today, in
loving thankfulness, your Father has not left you to yourself, nor let you
wander in the dark alone. 3 Be grateful He has saved you from the self
you thought you made to take the place of Him and His creation.
4 Give
Him thanks today.
W-pI.123.3. Give thanks that He has not abandoned
you, and that His Love forever will remain shining on you, forever without
change. 2
Give thanks as well that you are changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless
as Himself. 3 Be grateful you are saved.
4 Be glad
you have a function in salvation to fulfill. 5 Be thankful that your
value far transcends your meager gifts and petty judgments of the one whom God
established as His Son.
W-pI.123.4. Today in gratitude we lift our hearts
above despair, and raise our thankful eyes, no longer looking downward to the
dust. 2
We sing the song of thankfulness today, in honor of the Self that God has
willed to be our true Identity in Him. 3 Today we smile on
everyone we see, and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to do what is
appointed us to do.
W-pI.123.5. We do not go alone.
2 And we
give thanks that in our solitude a Friend has come to speak the saving Word of
God to us. 3 And thanks to you for listening to Him.
4 His
Word is soundless if it be not heard. 5 In thanking Him the
thanks are yours as well. 6 An unheard message will not save the world,
however mighty be the Voice that speaks, however loving may the message be.
W-pI.123.6. Thanks be to you who heard, for you
become the messenger who brings His Voice with you, and lets It echo round and
round the world. 2 Receive the thanks of God today, as you give
thanks to Him. 3 For He would offer you the thanks you give,
since He receives your gifts in loving gratitude, and gives them back a
thousand and a hundred thousand more than they were given.
4 He will
bless your gifts by sharing them with you. 5 And so they grow in
power and in strength, until they fill the world with gladness and with
gratitude.
W-pI.123.7. Receive His thanks and offer yours to
Him for fifteen minutes twice today. 2 And you will realize
to Whom you offer thanks, and Whom He thanks as you are thanking Him.
3 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.
W-pI.123.8. Receive His thanks, and you will
understand how lovingly He holds you in His Mind, how deep and limitless His
care for you, how perfect is His gratitude to you. 2 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.
Lesson
124. Let me
remember I am one with God.
W-pI.124.1. Today we will again give thanks for
our Identity in God. 2 Our home is safe, protection guaranteed in
all we do, power and strength available to us in all our undertakings.
3 We can
fail in nothing. 4 Everything we touch takes on a shining light
that blesses and that heals. 5 At one with God and with the universe we go
our way rejoicing, with the thought that God Himself goes everywhere with us.
W-pI.124.2. How holy are our minds!
2 And
everything we see reflects the holiness within the mind at one with God and
with itself. 3 How easily do errors disappear, and death
give place to everlasting life. 4 Our shining footprints point the way to
truth, for God is our Companion as we walk the world a little while.
5 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.
W-pI.124.3. What we receive is our eternal gift to
those who follow after, and to those who went before or stayed with us a while.
2 And
God, Who loves us with the equal love in which we were created, smiles on us
and offers us the happiness we gave.
W-pI.124.4. Today we will not doubt His Love for
us, nor question His protection and His care. 2 No meaningless anxieties
can come between our faith and our awareness of His Presence.
3 We are
one with Him today in recognition and remembrance. 4 We feel Him in our
hearts. 5
Our minds contain His Thoughts; our eyes behold His loveliness in all we look
upon. 6
Today we see only the loving and the lovable.
W-pI.124.5. We see it in appearances of pain, and
pain gives way to peace. 2 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. 3 And we see it in the
dying and the dead as well, restoring them to life.
4 All
this we see because we saw it first within ourselves.
W-pI.124.6. No miracle can ever be denied to those
who know that they are one with God. 2 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.
3 Their
thoughts are timeless, and apart from distance as apart from time.
W-pI.124.7. We join in this awareness as we say
that we are one with God. 2 For in these words we say as well that we are
saved and healed; that we can save and heal accordingly.
3 We have
accepted, and we now would give. 4 For we would keep the gifts our Father gave.
5 Today
we would experience ourselves at one with Him, so that the world may share our
recognition of reality. 6 In our experience the world is freed.
7 As we
deny our separation from our Father, it is healed along with us.
W-pI.124.8. Peace be to you today.
2 Secure
your peace by practicing awareness you are one with your Creator, as He is with
you. 3
Sometime today, whenever it seems best, devote a half an hour to the thought
that you are one with God. 4 This is our first attempt at an extended
period for which we give no rules nor special words to guide your meditation.
5 We will
trust God's Voice to speak as He sees fit today, certain He will not fail.
6 Abide
with Him this half an hour. 7 He will do the rest.
W-pI.124.9. Your benefit will not be less if you
believe that nothing happens. 2 You may not be ready to accept the gain today.
3 Yet
sometime, somewhere, it will come to you, nor will you fail to recognize it
when it dawns with certainty upon your mind. 4 This half an hour
will be framed in gold, with every minute like a diamond set around the mirror
that this exercise will offer you. 5 And you will see
Christ's face upon it, in reflection of your own.
W-pI.124.10. 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. 2 When you are ready
you will find it there, within your mind and waiting to be found.
3 You
will remember then the thought to which you gave this half an hour, thankfully
aware no time was ever better spent.
W-pI.124.11. 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. 2 Count this half hour
as your gift to God, in certainty that His return will be a 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. 3 And yet you can be sure someday, perhaps
today, perhaps tomorrow, you will understand and comprehend and see.
W-pI.124.12. Add further jewels to the golden frame
that holds the mirror offered you today, by hourly repeating to yourself:
2 Let me
remember I am one with God, at one with all my brothers and my Self, in
everlasting holiness and peace.
Lesson 125. In quiet I receive God's Word today.
W-pI.125.1. Let this day be a day of stillness and
of quiet listening. 2 Your Father wills you hear His Word today.
3 He
calls to you from deep within your mind where He abides.
4 Hear
Him today. 5 No peace is possible 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.
W-pI.125.2. This world will change through you.
2 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. 3 He is not led by force, but only love.
4 He is
not judged, but only sanctified.
W-pI.125.3. In stillness we will hear God's Voice
today without intrusion of our petty thoughts, without our personal desires,
and without all judgment of His holy Word. 2 We will not judge
ourselves today, for what we are can not be judged.
3 We
stand apart from all the judgments which the world has laid upon the Son of God.
4 It
knows him not. 5 Today we will not listen to the world, but
wait in silence for the Word of God.
W-pI.125.4. Hear, holy Son of God, your Father speak.
2 His
Voice would give to you His holy Word, to spread across the world the tidings
of salvation and the holy time of peace. 3 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.
W-pI.125.5. He has not waited until you return
your mind to Him to give His Word to you. 2 He has not hid
Himself from you, while you have wandered off a little while from Him.
3 He does
not cherish the illusions which you hold about yourself.
4 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.
W-pI.125.6. Today He speaks to you.
2 His
Voice awaits your silence, for His Word can not be heard until your mind is
quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled.
3 Await
His Word in quiet. 4 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.
W-pI.125.7. 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.
2 He
speaks from nearer than your heart to you. 3 His Voice is closer
than your hand. 4 His Love is everything you are and that He
is; the same as you, and you the same as He.
W-pI.125.8. It is your voice to which you listen
as He speaks to you. 2 It is your word He speaks.
3 It is
the 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.
4 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.
W-pI.125.9. Only be quiet.
2 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.
3 Only be
still and listen. 4 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.
5 As
every hour passes by today, be still a moment and remind yourself you have a
special purpose for this day; in quiet to receive the Word of God.
Lesson 126. All that I give is given to myself.
W-pI.126.1. Today's idea, completely alien to the
ego and the thinking of the world, is crucial to the thought reversal that this
course will bring about. 2 If you believed this statement, there would
be no problem in complete forgiveness, certainty of goal, and sure direction.
3 You
would understand the means by which salvation comes to you, and would not
hesitate to use it now.
W-pI.126.2. Let us consider what you do believe,
in place of this idea. 2 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 yours on theirs. 3 Therefore, your attitudes have no effect on
them, and their appeals for help are not in any way related to your own.
4 You
further think that they can sin without affecting your perception of yourself,
while you can judge their sin, and yet remain apart from condemnation and at
peace.
W-pI.126.3. When you "forgive" a sin,
there is no gain to you directly. 2 You give charity to one unworthy, merely to
point out that you are better, on a higher plane than he whom you forgive.
3 He has
not earned your charitable tolerance, which you bestow on one unworthy of the
gift, because his sins have lowered him beneath a true equality with you.
4 He has
no claim on your forgiveness. 5 It holds out a gift to him, but hardly to
yourself.
W-pI.126.4. Thus is forgiveness basically unsound;
a charitable whim, benevolent yet undeserved, a gift bestowed at times, at
other times withheld. 2 Unmerited, withholding it is just, nor is it fair
that you should suffer when it is withheld. 3 The sin that you
forgive is not your own. 4 Someone apart from you committed it.
5 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.
W-pI.126.5. If this be true, forgiveness has no
grounds on which to rest dependably and sure. 2 It is an
eccentricity, in which you sometimes choose to give indulgently an undeserved
reprieve. 3 Yet it remains your right to let the sinner
not escape the justified repayment for his sin. 4 Think you the Lord of
Heaven would allow the world's salvation to depend on this?
5 Would
not His care for you be small indeed, if your salvation rested on a whim?
W-pI.126.6. You do not understand forgiveness.
2 As you
see it, it is but a check upon overt attack, without requiring correction in
your mind. 3 It cannot give you peace as you perceive it.
4 It is
not a means for your release from what you see in someone other than yourself.
5 It has
no power to restore your unity with him to your awareness.
6 It is
not what God intended it to be for you.
W-pI.126.7. Not having given Him the gift He asks
of you, you cannot recognize His gifts, and think He has not given them to you.
2 Yet
would He ask you for a gift unless it was for you? 3 Could He be satisfied
with empty gestures, and evaluate such petty gifts as worthy of His Son?
4
Salvation is a better gift than this. 5 And true forgiveness,
as the means by which it is attained, must heal the mind that gives, for giving
is receiving. 6 What remains as unreceived has not been
given, but what has been given must have been received.
W-pI.126.8. Today we try to understand the truth
that giver and receiver are the same. 2 You will need help to
make this meaningful, because it is so alien to the thoughts to which you are
accustomed. 3 But the Help you need is there.
4 Give
Him your faith today, and ask Him that He share your practicing in truth today.
5 And if
you only catch a tiny glimpse of the release that lies in the idea we practice
for today, this is a day of glory for the world.
W-pI.126.9. Give fifteen minutes twice today to
the attempt to understand today's idea. 2 It is the thought by
which forgiveness takes its proper place in your priorities.
3 It is
the thought that will release your mind from every bar to what forgiveness
means, and let you realize its worth to you.
W-pI.126.10. 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.
2 Repeat
today's idea, and ask for help in understanding what it really means.
3 Be
willing to be taught. 4 Be glad to hear the Voice of truth and
healing speak to you, and you will understand the words He speaks, and
recognize He speaks your words to you.
W-pI.126.11. 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. 2 Do not let your mind forget this goal for
long, but tell yourself: 3 All that I give is given to myself.
4 The
Help I need to learn that this is true is with me now.
5 And I
will trust in Him. 6 Then spend a quiet moment, opening your mind
to His correction and His Love. 7 And what you hear of Him you will believe,
for what He gives will be received by you.
Lesson 127. There is no love but God's.
W-pI.127.1. Perhaps you think that different kinds
of love are possible. 2 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.
3 Love is
one. 4
It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergencies
and no distinctions. 5 It is like itself, unchanged throughout.
6 It
never alters with a person or a circumstance. 7 It is the Heart of
God, and also of His Son.
W-pI.127.2. Love's meaning is obscure to anyone
who thinks that love can change. 2 He does not see that changing love must be
impossible. 3 And thus he thinks that he can love at times,
and hate at other times. 4 He also thinks that love can be bestowed on
one, and yet remain itself although it is withheld from others.
5 To
believe these things of love is not to understand it.
6 If it
could make such distinctions, it would have to judge between the righteous and
the sinner, and perceive the Son of God in separate parts.
W-pI.127.3. Love cannot judge.
2 As it
is one itself, it looks on all as one. 3 Its meaning lies in
oneness. 4 And it must elude the mind that thinks of it
as partial or in part. 5 There is no love but God's, and all of love
is His. 6
There is no other principle that rules where love is not.
7 Love is
a law without an opposite. 8 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.
W-pI.127.4. 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.
2 Love's
meaning is your own, and shared by God Himself. 3 For what you are is what
He is. 4
There is no love but His, and what He is, is everything there is.
5 There
is no limit placed upon Himself, and so are you unlimited as well.
W-pI.127.5. No law the world obeys can help you
grasp love's meaning. 2 What the world believes was made to hide
love's meaning, and to keep it dark and secret. 3 There is not one
principle the world upholds but violates the truth of what love is, and what
you are as well.
W-pI.127.6. Seek not within the world to find your
Self. 2
Love is not found in darkness and in death. 3 Yet it is perfectly
apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear love's Voice.
4 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. 5 Today we take the largest single step this
course requests in your advance towards its established goal.
W-pI.127.7. If you achieve 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. 2 Let us together,
then, be glad to give some time to God today, and understand there is no better
use for time than this.
W-pI.127.8. For fifteen minutes twice today escape
from every law in which you now believe. 2 Open your mind and
rest. 3
The world that seems to hold you prisoner can be escaped by anyone who does not
hold it dear. 4 Withdraw all value you have placed upon its
meager offerings and senseless gifts, and let the gift of God replace them all.
W-pI.127.9. Call to your Father, certain that His
Voice will answer. 2 He Himself has promised this.
3 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.
4 He will
shine through your idle thoughts today, and help you understand the truth of
love. 5
In loving gentleness He will abide with you, as you allow His Voice to teach
love's meaning to your clean and open mind. 6 And He will bless the
lesson with His Love.
W-pI.127.10. Today the legion of the future years of
waiting for salvation disappears before the timelessness of what you learn.
2 Let us
give thanks today that we are spared a future like the past.
3 Today
we leave the past behind us, nevermore to be remembered.
4 And we
raise our eyes upon a different present, where a future dawns unlike the past
in every attribute.
W-pI.127.11. The world in infancy is newly born.
2 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.
3 Now are
they all made free, along with us. 4 Now are they all our
brothers in God's Love.
W-pI.127.12. We will remember them throughout the
day, because we cannot leave a part of us outside our love if we would know our
Self. 2
At least three times an hour think of one who makes the journey with you, and
who came to learn what you must learn. 3 And as he comes to
mind, give him this message from your Self: 4 I bless you, brother,
with the Love of God, which I would share with you.
5 For I
would learn the joyous lesson that there is no love but God's and yours and
mine and everyone's.
Lesson 128. The world I see holds nothing that I want.
W-pI.128.1. 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. 2 Believe this thought, and you are saved from
years of misery, from countless disappointments, and from hopes that turn to
bitter ashes of despair. 3 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.
W-pI.128.2. Each thing you value here is but a
chain that binds you to the world, and it will serve no other end but this.
2 For
everything must serve the purpose you have given it, until you see a different
purpose there. 3 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. 4 Be you deceived no more.
5 The
world you see holds nothing that you want.
W-pI.128.3. Escape today the chains you place upon
your mind when you perceive salvation here. 2 For what you value
you make part of you as you perceive yourself. 3 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.
W-pI.128.4. 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. 2 Nothing is here to
cherish. 3 Nothing here is worth one instant of delay
and pain; one moment of uncertainty and doubt. 4 The worthless offer
nothing. 5 Certainty of worth can not be found in
worthlessness.
W-pI.128.5. Today we practice letting go all
thought of values we have given to the world. 2 We leave it free of purposes
we gave its aspects and its phases and its dreams. 3 We hold it
purposeless within our minds, and loosen it from all we wish it were.
4 Thus do
we lift the chains that bar the door to freedom from the world, and go beyond
all little values and diminished goals.
W-pI.128.6. Pause 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.
2 It will
be grateful to be free a while. 3 It knows where it belongs.
4 But
free its wings, and it will fly in sureness and in joy to join its holy purpose.
5 Let it
rest in its Creator, there to be restored to sanity, to freedom and to love.
W-pI.128.7. Give it ten minutes rest three times
today. 2
And when your eyes are opened afterwards, you will not value anything you see
as much as when you looked at it before. 3 Your whole
perspective on the world will shift by just a little, every time you let your
mind escape its chains. 4 The world is not where it belongs.
5 And you
belong where it would be, and where it goes to rest when you release it from
the world. 6 Your Guide is sure.
7 Open
your mind to Him. 8 Be still and rest.
W-pI.128.8. Protect your mind throughout the day
as well. 2 And when you think you see some value in an
aspect or an image of the world, refuse to lay this chain upon your mind, but
tell yourself with quiet certainty: 3 This will not tempt
me to delay myself. 4 The world I see holds nothing that I want.
Lesson 129.
Beyond this world there is a world I want.
W-pI.129.1. This is the thought that follows from
the one we practiced yesterday. 2 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. 3 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. 4 Think you this world can offer that to you?
W-pI.129.2. It might be worth a little time to
think once more about the value of this world. 2 Perhaps you will
concede there is no loss in letting go all thought of value here.
3 The
world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick
to avenge and pitiless with hate. 4 It gives but to rescind, and takes away all
things that you have cherished for a while. 5 No lasting love is
found, for none is here. 6 This is the world of time, where all things
end.
W-pI.129.3. 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? 2 Is it 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? 3 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.
W-pI.129.4. Communication, unambiguous and plain
as day, remains unlimited for all eternity. 2 And God Himself
speaks to His Son, as His Son speaks to Him. 3 Their language has no
words, for what They say cannot be symbolized. 4 Their knowledge is
direct and wholly shared and wholly one. 5 How far away from
this are you who stay bound to this world. 6 And yet how near are
you, when you exchange it for the world you want.
W-pI.129.5. Now is the last step certain; now you
stand an instant's space away from timelessness. 2 Here can you but look
forward, never back to see again the world you do not want.
3 Here is
the world that comes to take its place, as you unbind your mind from little
things the world sets forth to keep you prisoner. 4 Value them not, and
they will disappear. 5 Esteem them, and they will seem real to you.
W-pI.129.6. Such is the choice.
2 What
loss can be for you in choosing not to value nothingness?
3 This
world holds nothing that you really want, but what you choose instead you want
indeed! 4
Let it be given you today. 5 It waits but for your choosing it, to take
the place of all the things you seek but do not want.
W-pI.129.7. Practice your willingness to make this
change ten minutes in the morning and at night, and once more in between.
2 Begin
with this: 3 Beyond this world there is a world I want.
4 I choose
to see that world instead of this, for here is nothing that I really want.
5 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 meaning as they blend in one.
W-pI.129.8. Today the lights of Heaven bend to
you, to shine upon your eyelids as you rest beyond the world of darkness.
2 Here is
light your eyes can not behold. 3 And yet your mind can see it plainly, and can
understand. 4 A day of grace is given you today, and we
give thanks. 5 This day we realize that what you feared to
lose was only loss.
W-pI.129.9. Now do we understand there is no loss.
2 For we
have seen its opposite at last, and we are grateful that the choice is made.
3
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:
4 The
world I see holds nothing that I want. 5 Beyond this world
there is a world I want.
Lesson 130. It is impossible to see two worlds.
W-pI.130.1. Perception is consistent.
2 What
you see reflects your thinking. 3 And your thinking but reflects your choice of
what you want to see. 4 Your values are determiners of this, for what
you value you must want to see, believing what you see is really there.
5 No one
can see a world his mind has not accorded value. 6 And no one can fail
to look upon what he believes he wants.
W-pI.130.2. Yet who can really hate and love at
once? 2
Who can desire what he does not want to have reality?
3 And who
can choose to see a world of which he is afraid? 4 Fear must make blind,
for this its weapon is: That which you fear to see you cannot see.
5 Love
and perception thus go hand in hand, but fear obscures in darkness what is there.
W-pI.130.3. What, then, can fear project upon the
world? 2
What can be seen in darkness that is real? 3 Truth is eclipsed by
fear, and what remains is but imagined. 4 Yet what can be real
in blind imaginings of panic born? 5 What would you want
that this is shown to you? 6 What would you wish to keep in such a dream?
W-pI.130.4. Fear has made everything you think you
see. 2
All separation, all distinctions, and the multitude of differences you believe
make up the world. 3 They are not there.
4 Love's
enemy has made them up. 5 Yet love can have no enemy, and so they have
no cause, no being and no consequence. 6 They can be valued,
but remain unreal. 7 They can be sought, but they can not be found.
8 Today we
will not seek for them, nor waste this day in seeking what can not be found.
W-pI.130.5. It is impossible to see two worlds
which have no overlap of any kind. 2 Seek for the one; the
other disappears. 3 But one remains. 4 They are the range of
choice beyond which your decision cannot go. 5 The real and the
unreal are all there are to choose between, and nothing more than these.
W-pI.130.6. Today we will attempt no compromise
where none is possible. 2 The world you see is proof you have already
made a choice as all-embracing as its opposite. 3 What we would learn
today is more than just the lesson that you cannot see two worlds.
4 It also
teaches that the one you see is quite consistent from the point of view from
which you see it. 5 It is all a piece because it stems from one
emotion, and reflects its source in everything you see.
W-pI.130.7. 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 as one. 2 We will not make a
thousand meaningless distinctions, nor attempt to bring with us a little part
of unreality, as we devote our minds to finding only what is real.
W-pI.130.8. Begin your searching for the other
world by asking for a strength beyond your own, and recognizing what it is you
seek. 2
You do not want illusions. 3 And you come to these five minutes emptying
your hands of all the petty treasures of this world.
4 You
wait for God to help you, as you say: 5 It is impossible to
see two worlds. 6 Let me accept the strength God offers me and
see no value in this world, that I may find my freedom and deliverance.
W-pI.130.9. God will be there.
2 For you
have called upon the great unfailing power which will take this giant step with
you in gratitude. 3 Nor will you fail to see His thanks expressed
in tangible perception and in truth. 4 You will not doubt
what you will look upon, for though it is perception, it is not the kind of
seeing that your eyes alone have ever seen before. 5 And you will know
God's strength upheld you as you made this choice.
W-pI.130.10. Dismiss temptation easily today whenever
it arises, merely by remembering the limits of your choice.
2 The
unreal or the real, the false or true is what you see and only what you see.
3
Perception is consistent with your choice, and hell or Heaven comes to you as
one.
W-pI.130.11. Accept a little part of hell as real,
and you have damned your eyes and cursed your sight, and what you will behold
is hell indeed. 2 Yet the release of Heaven still remains
within your range of choice, to take the place of everything that hell would
show to you. 3 All you need say to any part of hell,
whatever form it takes, is simply this: 4 It is impossible to
see two worlds. 5 I seek my freedom and deliverance, and this
is not a part of what I want.
Lesson 131. No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.
W-pI.131.1. Failure is all about you while you
seek for goals that cannot be achieved. 2 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.
3 Who
could succeed where contradiction is the setting of his searching, and the
place to which he comes to find stability?
W-pI.131.2. Goals that are meaningless are not
attained. 2 There is no way to reach them, for the means
by which you strive for them are meaningless as they are.
3 Who can
use such senseless means, and hope through them to gain in anything?
4 Where
can they lead? 5 And what could they achieve that offers any
hope of being real? 6 Pursuit of the imagined leads to death
because it is the search for nothingness, and while you seek for life you ask
for death. 7 You look for safety and security, while in
your heart you pray for danger and protection for the little dream you made.
W-pI.131.3. Yet searching is inevitable here.
2 For
this you came, and you will surely do the thing you came for.
3 But the
world can not dictate the goal for which you search, unless you give it power
to do so. 4 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.
W-pI.131.4. Be glad that search you must.
2 Be glad
as well to learn you search for Heaven, and must find the goal you really want.
3 No one
can fail to want this goal and reach it in the end.
4 God's
Son can not seek vainly, though he try to force delay, deceive himself and
think that it is hell he seeks. 5 When he is wrong, he finds correction.
6 When he
wanders off, he is led back to his appointed task.
W-pI.131.5. No one remains in hell, for no one can
abandon his Creator, nor affect His perfect, timeless and unchanging Love.
2 You
will find Heaven. 3 Everything you seek but this will fall away.
4 Yet not
because it has been taken from you. 5 It will go because
you do not want it. 6 You will reach the goal you really want as
certainly as God created you in sinlessness.
W-pI.131.6. Why wait for Heaven?
2 It is
here today. 3 Time is the great illusion it is past or in
the future. 4 Yet this cannot be, if it is where God wills
His Son to be. 5 How could the Will of God be in the past, or
yet to happen? 6 What He wills is now, without a past and
wholly futureless. 7 It is as far removed from time as is a tiny
candle from a distant star, or what you chose from what you really want.
W-pI.131.7. 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.
2 God
made no contradictions. 3 What denies its own existence and attacks
itself is not of Him. 4 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.
W-pI.131.8. God does not suffer conflict.
2 Nor is
His creation split in two. 3 How could it be His Son could be in hell,
when God Himself established him in Heaven? 4 Could he lose what
the Eternal Will has given him to be his home forever?
5 Let us
not try longer to impose an alien will upon God's single purpose.
6 He is
here because He wills to be, and what He wills is present now, beyond the reach
of time.
W-pI.131.9. Today we will not choose a paradox in
place of truth. 2 How could the Son of God make time to take
away the Will of God? 3 He thus denies himself, and contradicts what
has no opposite. 4 He thinks he made a hell opposing Heaven, and
believes that he abides in what does not exist, while Heaven is the place he
cannot find.
W-pI.131.10. Leave foolish thoughts like these behind
today, and turn your mind to true ideas instead. 2 No one can fail who
seeks to reach the truth, and it is truth we seek to reach today.
3 We will
devote ten minutes to this goal three times today, 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.
W-pI.131.11. This we acknowledge as we start upon our
practice periods. 2 Begin with this: 3 I ask to see a
different world, and think a different kind of thought from those I made.
4 The
world I seek I did not make alone, the thoughts I want to think are not my own.
5 For
several minutes watch your mind and see, although your eyes are closed, the
senseless world you think is real. 6 Review the thoughts
as well which are compatible with such a world, and which you think are true.
7 Then
let them go, and sink below them to the holy place where they can enter not.
8 There
is a door beneath them in your mind, which you could not completely lock to
hide what lies beyond.
W-pI.131.12. Seek for that door and find it.
2 But
before you try to open it, remind yourself no one can fail who seeks to reach
the truth. 3 And it is this request you make today.
4 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.
W-pI.131.13. Put out your hand, and see how easily
the door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it.
2 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.
3 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.
W-pI.131.14. You cannot fail today.
2 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.
3 Today
that day has come. 4 Today God keeps His ancient promise to His
holy Son, as does His Son remember his to Him. 5 This is a day of
gladness, for we come 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 beyond the door.
W-pI.131.15. Remember often that today should be a
time of special gladness, and refrain from dismal thoughts and meaningless
laments. 2 Salvation's time has come.
3 Today
is set by Heaven itself to be a time of grace for you and for the world.
4 If you
forget this happy fact, remind yourself with this: 5 Today I seek and find
all that I want. 6 My single purpose offers it to me.
7 No one
can fail who seeks to reach the truth.
Lesson 132. I loose the world from all I thought it was.
W-pI.132.1. What keeps the world in chains but
your beliefs? 2 And what can save the world except your Self?
3 Belief
is powerful indeed. 4 The thoughts you hold are mighty, and
illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth.
5 A
madman thinks the world he sees is real, and does not doubt it.
6 Nor can
he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. 7 It is but when their
source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last.
W-pI.132.2. Yet is salvation easily achieved, for
anyone is free to change his mind, and all his thoughts change with it.
2 Now the
source 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.
3 You
free the past from what you thought before. 4 You free the future
from all ancient thoughts of seeking what you do not want to find.
W-pI.132.3. The present now remains the only time.
2 Here in
the present is the world set free. 3 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. 4 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.
5 Death
strikes it everywhere because you hold the bitter thoughts of death within your
mind.
W-pI.132.4. The world is nothing in itself.
2 Your
mind must give it meaning. 3 And what you behold upon it are your wishes,
acted out so you can look on them and think them real.
4 Perhaps
you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made
already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning.
5 Yet in
truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came.
W-pI.132.5. There is no world apart from what you
wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. 2 Change but your mind
on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly.
3 Ideas
leave not their source. 4 This central theme is often stated in the
text, and must be borne in mind if you would understand the lesson for today.
5 It is
not pride which tells you that you made the world you see, and that it changes
as you change your mind.
W-pI.132.6. But it is pride that argues you have
come into a world quite separate from yourself, impervious to what you think,
and quite apart from what you chance to think it is.
2 There
is no world! 3 This is the central thought the course
attempts to teach. 4 Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each
one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth.
5 He will
return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return
again.
W-pI.132.7. But healing is the gift of those who
are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now.
2 Their
readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand
and recognize. 3 Some see it suddenly on point of death, and
rise to teach it. 4 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.
W-pI.132.8. And some will find it in this course,
and in the exercises that we do today. 2 Today's idea is true
because the world does not exist. 3 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 these appearances. 4 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.
W-pI.132.9. A lesson earlier repeated once must
now be stressed again, for it contains the firm foundation for today's idea.
2 You are
as God created you. 3 There is no place where you can suffer, and
no time that can bring change to your eternal state.
4 How can
a world of time and place exist, if you remain as God created you?
W-pI.132.10. What is the lesson for today except another
way of saying that to know your Self is the salvation of the world?
2 To free
the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself.
3 There
is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you
maintain the world within your mind in thought.
W-pI.132.11. Yet if you are as God created you, you
cannot think apart from Him, nor make what does not share His timelessness and
Love. 2
Are these inherent in the world you see? 3 Does it create like
Him? 4
Unless it does, it is not real, and cannot be at all.
5 If you
are real the world you see is false, for God's creation is unlike the world in
every way. 6 And as it was His Thought by which you 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.
W-pI.132.12. Release the world!
2 Your
real creations wait for this release to give you fatherhood, not of illusions,
but as God in truth. 3 God shares His Fatherhood with you who are
His Son, for He makes no distinctions in what is Himself and what is still
Himself. 4 What He creates is not apart from Him, and
nowhere does the Father end, the Son begin as something separate from Him.
W-pI.132.13. 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 of God Himself and thus destroy His Wholeness.
2 Can a
world which comes from this idea be real? 3 Can it be anywhere?
4 Deny
illusions, but accept the truth. 5 Deny you are a shadow briefly laid upon a
dying world. 6 Release your mind, and you will look upon a
world released.
W-pI.132.14. 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 upon it. 2 They can not be there.
3 No more
can we. 4
For we are in the home our Father set for us, along with them.
5 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.
W-pI.132.15. Begin the fifteen-minute periods in
which we practice twice today with this: 2 I who remain as God
created me would loose the world from all I thought it was.
3 For I
am real because the world is not, and I would know my own reality.
4 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.
W-pI.132.16. 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. 2 But you will sense
your own release, although you may not fully understand as yet that you could
never be released alone.
W-pI.132.17. 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: 2 I loose the world
from all I thought it was, and choose my own reality instead.
Lesson 133. I will not value what is valueless.
W-pI.133.1. 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.
2 This we
will do today. 3 We will not speak of lofty,
world-encompassing ideas, but dwell instead on benefits to you.
W-pI.133.2. You do not ask too much of life, but
far too little. 2 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. 3 This course does not attempt to take from you
the little that you have. 4 It does not try to substitute utopian ideas
for satisfactions which the world contains. 5 There are no
satisfactions in the world.
W-pI.133.3. Today we list the real criteria by
which to test all things you think you want. 2 Unless they meet
these sound requirements, they are not worth desiring at all, for they can but
replace what offers more. 3 The laws that govern choice you cannot make,
no more than you can make alternatives from which to choose.
4 The
choosing you can do; indeed, you must. 5 But it is wise to
learn the laws you set in motion when you choose, and what alternatives you
choose between.
W-pI.133.4. We have already stressed there are but
two, however many there appear to be. 2 The range is set, and
this we cannot change. 3 It would be most ungenerous to you to let
alternatives be limitless, and thus delay your final choice until you had
considered all of them in time; and not been brought so clearly to the place
where there is but one choice that must be made.
W-pI.133.5. Another kindly and related law is that
there is no compromise in what your choice must bring.
2 It
cannot give you just a little, for there is no in between.
3 Each
choice you make brings everything to you or nothing.
4
Therefore, if you learn the tests by which you can distinguish everything from
nothing, you will make the better choice.
W-pI.133.6. First, if you choose a thing that will
not last forever, what you chose is valueless. 2 A temporary value is
without all value. 3 Time can never take away a value that is real.
4 What
fades and dies was never there, and makes no offering to him who chooses it.
5 He is
deceived by nothing in a form he thinks he likes.
W-pI.133.7. Next, if you choose to take a thing
away from someone else, you will have nothing left.
2 This is
because, when you deny his right to everything, you have denied your own.
3 You
therefore will not recognize the things you really have, denying they are there.
4 Who
seeks to take away has been deceived by the illusion loss can offer gain.
5 Yet
loss must offer loss, and nothing more.
W-pI.133.8. Your next consideration is the one on
which the others rest. 2 Why is the choice you make of value to you?
3 What
attracts your mind to it? 4 What purpose does it serve?
5 Here it
is easiest of all to be deceived. 6 For what the ego wants it fails to recognize.
7 It does
not even tell 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.
W-pI.133.9. Yet is its camouflage a thin veneer,
which could deceive but those who are content to be deceived.
2 Its
goals are obvious to anyone who cares to look for them.
3 Here is
deception doubled, for the one who is deceived will not perceive that he has
merely failed to gain. 4 He will believe that he has served the ego's
hidden goals.
W-pI.133.10. Yet though he tries to keep its halo
clear within his vision, still must he perceive its tarnished edges and its
rusted core. 2 His ineffectual mistakes appear as sins to
him, because he looks upon the tarnish as his own; the rust a sign of deep
unworthiness within himself. 3 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. 4
This guidance teaches it is error to believe that sins are but mistakes, for
who would suffer for his sins if this were so?
W-pI.133.11. 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. 2 If you feel any guilt about your choice, you
have allowed the ego's goals to come between the real alternatives.
3 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.
W-pI.133.12. All things are valuable or valueless,
worthy or not of being sought at all, entirely desirable or not worth the
slightest effort to obtain. 2 Choosing is easy just because of this.
3
Complexity is nothing but a screen of smoke, which hides the very simple fact
that no decision can be difficult. 4 What is the gain to
you in learning this? 5 It is far more than merely letting you make
choices easily and without pain.
W-pI.133.13. Heaven itself is reached with empty
hands and open minds, which come with nothing to find everything and claim it
as their own. 2 We will attempt to reach this state today,
with self-deception laid aside, and with an honest willingness to value but the
truly valuable and the real. 3 Our two extended practice periods of fifteen
minutes each begin with this: 4 I will not value what is valueless, and only
what has value do I seek, for only that do I desire to find.
W-pI.133.14. And then receive what waits for everyone
who reaches, unencumbered, to the gate of Heaven, which swings open as he comes.
2 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: 3 I will not value what is valueless, for what
is valuable belongs to me.
Lesson 134. Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
W-pI.134.1. 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 righteous wrath, a gift
unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth.
2 In such
a view, forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course
appear to rest salvation on a whim.
W-pI.134.2. 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. 2 It must be limited to what is false.
3 It is
irrelevant to everything except illusions. 4 Truth is God's
creation, and to pardon that is meaningless. 5 All truth belongs to
Him, reflects His laws and radiates His Love. 6 Does this need pardon?
7 How can
you forgive the sinless and eternally benign?
W-pI.134.3. 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. 2 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. 3 This twisted
viewpoint but reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains as yet upon your
mind, as you regard yourself.
W-pI.134.4. Because you think your sins are real,
you look on pardon as deception. 2 For it is impossible to think of sin as true
and not believe forgiveness is a lie. 3 Thus is forgiveness
really but a sin, like all the rest. 4 It says the truth is
false, and smiles on the corrupt as if they were as blameless as the grass; as
white as snow. 5 It is delusional in what it thinks it can
accomplish. 6 It would see as right the plainly wrong; the
loathsome as the good.
W-pI.134.5. Pardon is no escape in such a view.
2 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.
3 Guilt
cannot be forgiven. 4 If you sin, your guilt is everlasting.
5 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 pardon them.
W-pI.134.6. It is sin's unreality that makes
forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief to those who offer it; a
quiet blessing where it is received. 2 It does not
countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh, and
gently lays them at the feet of truth. 3 And there they
disappear entirely.
W-pI.134.7. Forgiveness is the only thing that
stands for truth in the illusions of the world. 2 It sees their
nothingness, and looks straight through the thousand forms in which they may
appear. 3
It looks on lies, but it is not deceived. 4 It does not heed the
self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. 5 It looks on them with
quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not
the truth."
W-pI.134.8. The strength of pardon is its honesty,
which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth.
2 It is
because of this that it becomes the undeceiver in the face of lies; the great
restorer of the simple truth. 3 By its ability to overlook what is not there,
it opens up the way to truth, which has been blocked by dreams of guilt.
4 Now are
you free to follow in the way your true forgiveness opens up to you.
5 For if
one brother has received this gift of you, the door is open to yourself.
W-pI.134.9. There is a very simple way to find the
door to true forgiveness, and perceive it open wide in welcome.
2 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.
3 Ask
instead, "Would I accuse myself of doing this?"
W-pI.134.10. 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.
2 It is
but lies that would condemn. 3 In truth is innocence the only thing there is.
4
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.
W-pI.134.11. 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. 2 They are not kept to swell and bluster, and
to terrify the foolish dreamer who believes in them.
3 He has
been gently wakened from his dream by understanding what he thought he saw was
never there. 4 And now he cannot feel that all escape has
been denied to him.
W-pI.134.12. He does not have to fight to save
himself. 2 He does not have to kill the dragons which he
thought pursued him. 3 Nor need he erect the heavy walls of stone
and iron doors he thought would make him safe. 4 He can remove the
ponderous and useless armor made to chain his mind to fear and misery.
5 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.
W-pI.134.13. Forgiveness must be practiced, for the
world cannot perceive its meaning, nor provide a guide to teach you its
beneficence. 2 There is no thought in all the world that
leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought that it
reflects. 3 It is as alien to the world as is your own
reality. 4 And yet it joins your mind with the reality
in you.
W-pI.134.14. Today we practice true forgiveness, that
the time of joining be no more delayed. 2 For we would meet
with our reality in freedom and in peace. 3 Our practicing
becomes the footsteps lighting up the way for all our brothers, who will follow
us to the reality we share with them. 4 That this may be
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. 5 Let us ask of Him:
6 Let me
perceive forgiveness as it is.
W-pI.134.15. Then choose one brother as He will
direct, and catalogue his "sins," as one by one they cross your mind.
2 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.
3 Briefly
consider all the evil things you thought of him, and each time ask yourself,
"Would I condemn myself for doing this?"
W-pI.134.16. Let him be freed from all the thoughts
you had of sin in him. 2 And now you are prepared for freedom.
3 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. 4 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 yourself.
W-pI.134.17. Forgiveness should be practiced through
the day, for there will still be many times when you forget its meaning and
attack yourself. 2 When this occurs, allow your mind to see
through this illusion as you tell yourself: 3 Let me perceive
forgiveness as it is. 4 Would I accuse myself of doing this?
5 I will
not lay this chain upon myself. 6 In everything you do remember this:
7 No one
is crucified alone, and yet no one can enter Heaven by himself.
Lesson 135. If I defend myself I am attacked.
W-pI.135.1. Who would defend himself unless he
thought he were attacked, that the attack were real, and that his own defense
could save himself? 2 And herein lies the folly of defense; it
gives illusions full reality, and then attempts to handle them as real.
3 It adds
illusions to illusions, thus making correction doubly difficult.
4 And it
is this you do when you attempt to plan the future, activate the past, or
organize the present as you wish.
W-pI.135.2. You operate from the belief you must
protect yourself from what is happening because it must contain what threatens
you. 2
A sense of threat is an acknowledgment of an inherent weakness; a belief that
there is danger which has power to call on you to make appropriate defense.
3 The
world is based on this insane belief. 4 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. 5 For no one walks the
world in armature but must have terror striking at his heart.
W-pI.135.3. Defense is frightening.
2 It
stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense is made.
3 You
think it offers safety. 4 Yet it speaks of fear made real and terror
justified. 5 Is it not strange you do not pause to ask, as
you elaborate your plans and make your armor thicker and your locks more tight,
what you defend, and how, and against what?
W-pI.135.4. Let us consider first what you defend.
2 It must
be something that is very weak and easily assaulted.
3 It must
be something made easy prey, unable to protect itself and needing your defense.
4 What
but the body has such frailty that constant care and watchful, deep concern are
needful to protect its little life? 5 What but the body
falters and must fail to serve the Son of God as worthy host?
W-pI.135.5. Yet it is not the body that can fear,
nor be a thing of fear. 2 It has no needs but those which you assign to
it. 3
It needs no complicated structures of defense, no health-inducing medicine, no
care and no concern at all. 4 Defend its life, or give it gifts to make it
beautiful or walls to make it safe, and you but say your home is open to the
thief of time, corruptible and crumbling, so unsafe it must be guarded with
your very life.
W-pI.135.6. Is not this picture fearful?
2 Can you
be at peace with such a concept of your home? 3 Yet what endowed the
body with the right to serve you thus except your own belief?
4 It is
your mind which gave the body all the functions that you see in it, and set its
value far beyond a little pile of dust and water. 5 Who would make
defense of something that he recognized as this?
W-pI.135.7. The body is in need of no defense.
2 This
cannot be too often emphasized. 3 It will be strong and healthy if the mind
does not abuse it by assigning it to roles it cannot fill, to purposes beyond
its scope, and to exalted aims which it cannot accomplish.
4 Such
attempts, ridiculous yet deeply cherished, are the sources for the many mad
attacks you make upon it. 5 For it seems to fail your hopes, your needs,
your values and your dreams.
W-pI.135.8. The "self" that needs
protection is not real. 2 The body, valueless and hardly worth the least
defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a
healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its
usefulness is over. 3 Who would want to keep it when its usefulness
is done?
W-pI.135.9. Defend the body and you have attacked
your mind. 2 For you have seen in it the faults, the
weaknesses, the limits and the lacks from which you think the body must be
saved. 3
You will not see the mind as separate from bodily conditions.
4 And you
will impose upon the body all the pain that comes from the conception of the
mind as limited and fragile, and apart from other minds and separate from its
Source.
W-pI.135.10. These are the thoughts in need of
healing, and the body will respond with health when they have been corrected
and replaced with truth. 2 This is the body's only real defense.
3 Yet is
this where you look for its defense? 4 You offer it
protection of a kind from which it gains no benefit at all, but merely adds to
your distress of mind. 5 You do not heal, but merely take away the
hope of healing, for you fail to see where hope must lie if it be meaningful.
W-pI.135.11. A healed mind does not plan.
2 It
carries out the plans that it receives through listening to wisdom that is not
its own. 3 It waits until it has been taught what should
be done, and then proceeds to do it. 4 It does not depend
upon itself for anything except its adequacy to fulfill the plans assigned to
it. 5
It is secure in certainty that obstacles can not impede its progress to
accomplishment of any goal that serves the greater plan established for the
good of everyone.
W-pI.135.12. A healed mind is relieved of the belief
that it must plan, although it cannot know the outcome which is best, the means
by which it is achieved, nor how to recognize the problem that the plan is made
to solve. 2 It must misuse the body in its plans until it
recognizes this is so. 3 But when it has accepted this as true, then
is it healed, and lets the body go.
W-pI.135.13. Enslavement of the body to the plans the
unhealed mind sets up to save itself must make the body sick.
2 It is
not free to be the means of helping in a plan which far exceeds its own
protection, and which needs its service for a little while.
3 In this
capacity is health assured. 4 For everything the mind employs for this will
function flawlessly, and with the strength that has been given it and cannot
fail.
W-pI.135.14. It is, perhaps, not easy to perceive
that self-initiated plans are but defenses, with the purpose all of them were
made to realize. 2 They are the means by which a frightened mind
would undertake its own protection, at the cost of truth.
3 This is
not difficult to realize in some forms which these self-deceptions take, where
the denial of reality is very obvious. 4 Yet planning is not
often recognized as a defense.
W-pI.135.15. The mind engaged in planning for itself
is occupied in setting up control of future happenings.
2 It does
not think that it will be provided for, unless it makes its own provisions.
3 Time
becomes a future emphasis, to be controlled by learning and experience obtained
from past events and previous beliefs. 4 It overlooks the
present, for it rests on the idea the past has taught enough to let the mind
direct its future course.
W-pI.135.16. The mind that plans is thus refusing to
allow for change. 2 What it has learned before becomes the basis
for its future goals. 3 Its past experience directs its choice of
what will happen. 4 And it does not see that here and now is
everything it needs to guarantee a future quite unlike the past, without a
continuity of any old ideas and sick beliefs. 5 Anticipation plays no
part at all, for present confidence directs the way.
W-pI.135.17. Defenses are the plans you undertake to
make against the truth. 2 Their aim is to select what you approve, and
disregard what you consider incompatible with your beliefs of your reality.
3 Yet
what remains is meaningless indeed. 4 For it is your
reality that is the "threat" which your defenses would attack,
obscure, and take apart and crucify.
W-pI.135.18. What could you not accept, if you but
knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are
gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?
2 Perhaps
you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you.
3 But
your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you
ever took. 4 While you made plans for death, He led you
gently to eternal life.
W-pI.135.19. Your present trust in Him is the defense
that promises a future undisturbed, without a trace of sorrow, and with joy
that constantly increases, as this life becomes a holy instant, set in time,
but heeding only immortality. 2 Let no defenses but your present trust direct
the future, and this life becomes a meaningful encounter with the truth that
only your defenses would conceal.
W-pI.135.20. Without defenses, you become a light
which Heaven gratefully acknowledges to be its own.
2 And it
will lead you on in ways appointed for your happiness according to the ancient
plan, begun when time was born. 3 Your followers will join their light with
yours, and it will be increased until the world is lighted up with joy.
4 And
gladly will our brothers lay aside their cumbersome defenses, which availed
them nothing and could only terrify.
W-pI.135.21. We will anticipate that time today with
present confidence, for this is part of what was planned for us.
2 We will
be sure that everything we need is given us for our accomplishment of this
today. 3
We make no plans for how it will be done, but realize that our defenselessness
is all that is required for the truth to dawn upon our minds with certainty.
W-pI.135.22. For fifteen minutes twice today we rest
from senseless planning, and from every thought that blocks the truth from
entering our minds. 2 Today we will receive instead of plan, that
we may give instead of organize. 3 And we are given truly, as we say:
4 If I
defend myself I am attacked. 5 But in defenselessness I will be strong, and
I will learn what my defenses hide.
W-pI.135.23. Nothing but that.
2 If
there are plans to make, you will be told of them. 3 They may not be the
plans you thought were needed, nor indeed the answers to the problems which you
thought confronted you. 4 But they are answers to another kind of question,
which remains unanswered yet in need of answering until the Answer comes to you
at last.
W-pI.135.24. All your defenses have been aimed at not
receiving what you will receive today. 2 And in the light and
joy of simple trust, you will but wonder why you ever thought that you must be
defended from release. 3 Heaven asks nothing.
4 It is
hell that makes extravagant demands for sacrifice. 5 You give up nothing
in these times today when, undefended, you present yourself to your Creator as
you really are.
W-pI.135.25. He has remembered you.
2 Today
we will remember Him. 3 For this is Eastertime in your salvation.
4 And you
rise again from what was seeming death and hopelessness.
5 Now is
the light of hope reborn in you, for now you come without defense, to learn the
part for you within the plan of God. 6 What little plans or
magical beliefs can still have value, when you have received your function from
the Voice for God Himself?
W-pI.135.26. Try not to shape this day as you believe
would benefit you most. 2 For you can not conceive of all the happiness
that comes to you without your planning. 3 Learn today.
4 And all
the world will take this giant stride, and celebrate your Eastertime with you.
5
Throughout the day, as foolish little things appear to raise defensiveness in
you and tempt you to engage in weaving plans, remind yourself this is a special
day for learning, and acknowledge it with this: 6 This is my Eastertime.
7 And I
would keep it holy. 8 I will not defend myself, because the Son of
God needs no defense against the truth of his reality.
Lesson 136.
Sickness is a defense against the truth.
W-pI.136.1. No one can heal unless he understands
what purpose sickness seems to serve. 2 For then he
understands as well its purpose has no meaning. 3 Being causeless and
without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all.
4 When
this is seen, healing is automatic. 5 It dispels this
meaningless illusion by the same approach that carries all of them to truth,
and merely leaves them there to disappear.
W-pI.136.2. Sickness is not an accident.
2 Like
all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception.
3 And
like all 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. 4
The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole.
5 The
parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself.
W-pI.136.3. Defenses are not unintentional, nor
are they made without awareness. 2 They are secret, magic wands you wave when
truth appears to threaten what you would believe. 3 They seem to be
unconscious but because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them.
4 In that
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.
W-pI.136.4. Who but yourself evaluates a threat,
decides escape is necessary, and sets up a series of defenses to reduce the
threat that has been judged as real? 2 All this cannot be
done unconsciously. 3 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 effect on you,
instead of one effected by yourself.
W-pI.136.5. It is this quick forgetting of the
part you play in making your "reality" that makes defenses seem to be
beyond your own control. 2 But what you have forgot can be remembered,
given willingness to reconsider the decision which is doubly shielded by
oblivion. 3 Your not remembering is but the sign that
this decision still remains in force, as far as your desires are concerned.
4 Mistake
not this for fact. 5 Defenses must make facts unrecognizable.
6 They
aim at doing this, and it is this they do.
W-pI.136.6. 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. 2 It is this process
that imposes threat, and not whatever outcome may result.
3 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. 4 And yet you have
forgotten that they stand but for your own decision of what should be real, to
take the place of what is real.
W-pI.136.7. Sickness is a decision.
2 It is
not a thing that happens to you, quite unsought, which makes you weak and
brings you suffering. 3 It is a choice you make, a plan you lay, when
for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world
appears to totter and prepare to fall. 4 Now are you sick,
that truth may go away and threaten your establishments no more.
W-pI.136.8. How do you think that sickness can
succeed in shielding you from truth? 2 Because it proves the
body is not separate from you, and so you must be separate from the truth.
3 You
suffer pain because the body does, and in this pain are you made one with it.
4 Thus is
your "true" identity preserved, and the strange, haunting thought
that you might be something beyond this little pile of dust silenced and
stilled. 5 For see, this dust can make you suffer, twist
your limbs and stop your heart, commanding you to die and cease to be.
W-pI.136.9. Thus is the body stronger than the
truth, which asks you live, but cannot overcome your choice to die.
2 And so
the 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 stronger than
His Will. 3 His Son is dust, the Father incomplete, and
chaos sits in triumph on His throne.
W-pI.136.10. Such is your planning for your own
defense. 2 And you believe that Heaven quails before such
mad attacks as these, with God made blind by your illusions, truth turned into
lies, and all the universe made slave to laws which your defenses would impose
on it. 3
Yet who believes illusions but the one who made them up?
4 Who
else can see them and react to them as if they were the truth?
W-pI.136.11. God knows not of your plans to change
His Will. 2 The universe remains unheeding of the laws by
which you thought to govern it. 3 And Heaven has not bowed to hell, nor life to
death. 4
You can but choose to think you die, or suffer sickness or distort the truth in
any way. 5 What is created is apart from all of this.
6
Defenses are plans to defeat what cannot be attacked.
7 What is
unalterable cannot change. 8 And what is wholly sinless cannot sin.
W-pI.136.12. Such is the simple truth.
2 It does
not make appeal to might nor triumph. 3 It does not command
obedience, nor seek to prove how pitiful and futile your attempts to plan
defenses that would alter it. 4 Truth merely wants to give you happiness, for
such its purpose is. 5 Perhaps it sighs a little when you throw away
its gifts, and yet it knows, with perfect certainty, that what God wills for
you must be received.
W-pI.136.13. It is this fact that demonstrates that
time is an illusion. 2 For time lets you think what God has given
you is not the truth right now, as it must be. 3 The Thoughts of God
are quite apart from time. 4 For time is but another meaningless defense
you made against the truth. 5 Yet what He wills is here, and you remain as
He created you.
W-pI.136.14. Truth has a power far beyond defense,
for no illusions can remain where truth has been allowed to enter.
2 And it
comes to any mind that would lay down its arms, and cease to play with folly.
3 It is
found at any time; today, if you will choose to practice giving welcome to the
truth.
W-pI.136.15. This is our aim today.
2 And we
will give a quarter of an hour twice to ask the truth to come to us and set us
free. 3
And truth will come, for it has never been apart from us.
4 It
merely waits for just this invitation which we give today.
5 We
introduce it with a healing prayer, to help us rise above defensiveness, and
let truth be as it has always been: 6 Sickness is a defense
against the truth. 7 I will accept the truth of what I am, and let
my mind be wholly healed today.
W-pI.136.16. Healing will flash across your open
mind, as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings.
2 There
will be no dark corners sickness can conceal, and keep defended from the light
of truth. 3 There will be no dim figures from your
dreams, nor their obscure and meaningless pursuits with double purposes
insanely sought, remaining in your mind. 4 It will be healed of
all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey.
W-pI.136.17. Now is the body healed, because the
source of sickness has been opened to relief. 2 And you will
recognize you practiced well by this: The body should not feel at all.
3 If you
have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or feeling well, of
pain or pleasure. 4 No response at all is in the mind to what the
body does. 5 Its usefulness remains and nothing more.
W-pI.136.18. Perhaps you do not realize that this
removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it.
2 As
these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve
all truly useful purposes. 3 The body's health is fully guaranteed,
because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or
any laws you made it serve before. 4 You need do nothing
now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible.
W-pI.136.19. Yet this protection needs to be
preserved by careful watching. 2 If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts,
yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again
misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for
the mind is sick.
W-pI.136.20. Give instant remedy, should this occur,
by not allowing your defensiveness to hurt you longer.
2 Do not
be confused about what must be healed, but tell yourself:
3 I have
forgotten what I really am, for I mistook my body for myself.
4
Sickness is a defense against the truth. 5 But I am not a body.
6 And my
mind cannot attack. 7 So I can not be sick.
Lesson 137.
When I am healed I am not healed alone.
W-pI.137.1. Today's idea remains the central
thought on which salvation rests. 2 For healing is the opposite of all the
world's ideas which dwell on sickness and on separate states.
3 Sickness
is a retreat from others, and a shutting off of joining.
4 It
becomes a door that closes on a separate self, and keeps it isolated and alone.
W-pI.137.2. Sickness is isolation.
2 For it
seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do
not feel. 3 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.
W-pI.137.3. The world obeys the laws that sickness
serves, but healing operates apart from them. 2 It is impossible that
anyone be healed alone. 3 In sickness must he be apart and separate.
4 But
healing is his own decision to be one again, and to accept his Self with all
Its parts intact and unassailed. 5 In sickness does his Self appear to be
dismembered, and without the unity that gives It life.
6 But
healing is accomplished as he sees the body has no power to attack the
universal Oneness of God's Son.
W-pI.137.4. Sickness would prove that lies must be
the truth. 2 But healing demonstrates that truth is true.
3 The
separation sickness would impose has never really happened.
4 To be
healed is merely to accept what always was the simple truth, and always will
remain exactly as it has forever been. 5 Yet eyes accustomed
to illusions must be shown that what they look upon is false.
6 So
healing, never needed by the truth, must demonstrate that sickness is not real.
W-pI.137.5. 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. 2 Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins that
never were accomplished, healing but removes illusions that have not occurred.
3 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 pictures of the truth.
W-pI.137.6. Yet think not healing is unworthy of
your function here. 2 For anti-Christ becomes more powerful than
Christ to those who dream the world is real. 3 The body seems to be
more solid and more stable than the mind. 4 And love becomes a
dream, while fear remains the one reality that can be seen and justified and
fully understood.
W-pI.137.7. 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.
2 When
sickness has been seen to disappear in spite of all the laws that hold it
cannot but be real, then questions have been answered.
3 And the
laws can be no longer cherished nor obeyed.
W-pI.137.8. Healing is freedom.
2 For it
demonstrates that dreams will not prevail against the truth.
3 Healing
is shared. 4 And by this attribute it proves that laws
unlike the ones which hold that sickness is inevitable are more potent than
their sickly opposites. 5 Healing is strength.
6 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.
W-pI.137.9. 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 Spirit urges you to follow Him.
2 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. 3 His life becomes your own, as you extend the
little help He asks in freeing you from everything that ever caused you pain.
W-pI.137.10. And as you let yourself be healed, you
see all those around you, or who cross your mind, or whom you touch or those
who seem to have no contact with you, healed along with you.
2 Perhaps
you will not recognize them all, nor realize how great your offering to all the
world, when you let healing come to you. 3 But you are never
healed alone. 4 And legions upon legions will receive the
gift that you receive when you are healed.
W-pI.137.11. Those who are healed become the
instruments of healing. 2 Nor does time elapse between the instant they
are healed, and all the grace of healing it is given them to give.
3 What is
opposed to God does not exist, and who accepts it not within his mind becomes a
haven where the weary can remain to rest. 4 For here is truth
bestowed, and here are all illusions brought to truth.
W-pI.137.12. Would you not offer shelter to God's
Will? 2
You but invite your Self to be at home. 3 And can this
invitation be refused? 4 Ask the inevitable to occur, and you will
never fail. 5 The other choice is but to ask what cannot be
to be, and this can not succeed. 6 Today we ask that only truth will occupy our
minds; that thoughts of healing will this day go forth from what is healed to
what must yet be healed, aware that they will both occur as one.
W-pI.137.13. We will remember, as the hour strikes,
our function is to let our minds be healed, that we may carry healing to the
world, exchanging curse for blessing, pain for joy, and separation for the
peace of God. 2 Is not a minute of the hour worth the giving
to receive a gift like this? 3 Is not a little time a small expense to offer
for the gift of everything?
W-pI.137.14. Yet must we be prepared for such a gift.
2 And so
we will begin the day with this, and give ten minutes to these thoughts with
which we will conclude today at night as well: 3 When I am healed I am
not healed alone. 4 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.
W-pI.137.15. Let healing be through you this very day.
2 And as
you rest in quiet, be prepared to give as you receive, to hold but what you
give, and to receive the Word of God to take the place of all the foolish
thoughts that ever were imagined. 3 Now we come together to make well all that
was sick, and offer blessing where there was attack.
4 Nor
will we let this function be forgot as every hour of the day slips by,
remembering our purpose with this thought: 5 When I am healed I am
not healed alone. 6 And I would bless my brothers, for I would be
healed with them, as they are healed with me.
Lesson 138. Heaven is the decision I must make.
W-pI.138.1. In this world Heaven is a choice,
because here we believe there are alternatives to choose between.
2 We
think that all things have an opposite, and what we want we choose.
3 If
Heaven exists there must be hell as well, for contradiction is the way we make
what we perceive, and what we think is real.
W-pI.138.2. Creation knows no opposite.
2 But
here is opposition part of being "real." 3 It is this strange
perception of the truth that makes the choice of Heaven seem to be the same as
the relinquishment of hell. 4 It is not really thus.
5 Yet
what is true in God's creation cannot enter here until it is reflected in some
form the world can understand. 6 Truth cannot come where it could only be
perceived with fear. 7 For this would be the error truth can be
brought to illusions. 8 Opposition makes the truth unwelcome, and it
cannot come.
W-pI.138.3. Choice is the obvious escape from what
appears as opposites. 2 Decision lets one of conflicting goals become
the aim of effort and expenditure of time. 3 Without decision,
time is but a waste and effort dissipated. 4 It is spent for
nothing in return, and time goes by without results.
5 There
is no sense of gain, for nothing is accomplished; nothing learned.
W-pI.138.4. You need to be reminded that you think
a thousand choices are confronting you, when there is really only one to make.
2 And
even this but seems to be a choice. 3 Do not confuse
yourself with all the doubts that myriad decisions would induce.
4 You
make but one. 5 And when that one is made, you will perceive
it was no choice at all. 6 For truth is true, and nothing else is true.
7 There
is no opposite to choose instead. 8 There is no contradiction to the truth.
W-pI.138.5. Choosing depends on learning.
2 And the
truth cannot be learned, but only recognized. 3 In recognition its
acceptance lies, and as it is accepted it is known.
4 But
knowledge is beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework of this
course. 5
Ours are teaching goals, to be attained through learning how to reach them,
what they are, and what they offer you. 6 Decisions are the
outcome of your learning, for they rest on what you have accepted as the truth
of what you are, and what your needs must be.
W-pI.138.6. In this insanely complicated world,
Heaven appears to take the form of choice, rather than merely being what it is.
2 Of all
the choices you have tried to make this is the simplest, most definitive and
prototype of all the rest, the one which settles all decisions.
3 If you
could decide the rest, this one remains unsolved. 4 But when you solve
this one, the others are resolved with it, for all decisions but conceal this
one by taking different forms. 5 Here is the final and the only choice in
which is truth accepted or denied.
W-pI.138.7. So we begin today considering the
choice that time was made to help us make. 2 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 in
the end be overcome by death. 3 In death alone are opposites resolved, for
ending opposition is to die. 4 And thus salvation must be seen as death, for
life is seen as conflict. 5 To resolve the conflict is to end your life
as well.
W-pI.138.8. 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.
2 It must
be saved from salvation, threatened to be safe, and magically armored against
truth. 3
And these decisions are made unaware, to keep them safely undisturbed; apart
from question and from reason and from doubt.
W-pI.138.9. Heaven is chosen consciously.
2 The
choice cannot be made until alternatives are accurately seen and understood.
3 All
that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding, to be judged again,
this time with Heaven's help. 4 And all mistakes in judgment that the mind
had made before are open to correction, as the truth dismisses them as
causeless. 5 Now are they without effects.
6 They
cannot be concealed, because their nothingness is recognized.
W-pI.138.10. The conscious choice of Heaven is as
sure as is the ending of the fear of hell, when it is raised from its
protective shield of unawareness, and is brought to light.
2 Who can
decide between the clearly seen and the unrecognized?
3 Yet who
can fail to make a choice between alternatives when only one is seen as
valuable; the other as a wholly worthless thing, a but imagined source of guilt
and pain? 4 Who hesitates to make a choice like this?
5 And
shall we hesitate to choose today?
W-pI.138.11. We make the choice for Heaven as we wake,
and spend five minutes making sure that we have made the one decision that is
sane. 2
We recognize we make a conscious choice between what has existence and what has
nothing but an appearance of the truth. 3 Its pseudo-being,
brought to what is real, is flimsy and transparent in the light.
4 It
holds no terror now, for what was made enormous, vengeful, pitiless with hate,
demands obscurity for fear to be invested there. 5 Now it is recognized
as but a foolish, trivial mistake.
W-pI.138.12. Before we close our eyes in sleep
tonight, we reaffirm the choice that we have made each hour in between.
2 And now
we give the last five minutes of our waking day to the decision with which we
awoke. 3
As every hour passed, we have declared our choice again, in a brief quiet time
devoted to maintaining sanity. 4 And finally, we close the day with this,
acknowledging we chose but what we want: 5 Heaven is the
decision I must make. 6 I make it now, and will not change my mind,
because it is the only thing I want.
Lesson 139.
I will accept Atonement for myself.
W-pI.139.1. Here is the end of choice.
2 For
here we come to a decision to accept ourselves as God created us.
3 And
what is choice except uncertainty of what we are? 4 There is no doubt
that is not rooted here. 5 There is no question but reflects this one.
6 There
is no conflict that does not entail the single, simple question, "What am
I?"
W-pI.139.2. Yet who could ask this question except
one who has refused to recognize himself? 2 Only refusal to
accept yourself could make the question seem to be sincere.
3 The
only thing that can be surely known by any living thing is what it is.
4 From
this one point of certainty, it looks on other things as certain as itself.
W-pI.139.3. Uncertainty about what you must be is
self-deception on a scale so vast, its magnitude can hardly be conceived.
2 To be
alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead.
3 For
what is life except to be yourself, and what but you can be alive instead?
4 Who is
the doubter? 5 What is it he doubts?
6 Whom
does he question? 7 Who can answer him?
W-pI.139.4. He merely states that he is not
himself, and therefore, being something else, becomes a questioner of what that
something is. 2 Yet he could never be alive at all unless he
knew the answer. 3 If he asks as if he does not know, it merely
shows he does not want to be the thing he is. 4 He has accepted it
because he lives; has judged against it and denied its worth, and has decided
that he does not know the only certainty by which he lives.
W-pI.139.5. Thus he becomes uncertain of his life,
for what it is has been denied by him. 2 It is for this denial
that you need Atonement. 3 Your denial made no change in what you are.
4 But you
have split your mind into what knows and does not know the truth.
5 You are
yourself. 6 There is no doubt of this.
7 And yet
you doubt it. 8 But you do not ask what part of you can
really doubt yourself. 9 It cannot really be a part of you that asks
this question. 10 For it asks of one who knows the answer.
11 Were
it part of you, then certainty would be impossible.
W-pI.139.6. Atonement remedies the strange idea
that it is possible to doubt yourself, and be unsure of what you really are.
2 This is
the depth of madness. 3 Yet it is the universal question of the world.
4 What
does this mean except the world is mad? 5 Why share its madness
in the sad belief that what is universal here is true?
W-pI.139.7. Nothing the world believes is true.
2 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.
3 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.
W-pI.139.8. Only acceptance can be asked of you,
for what you are is certain. 2 It is set forever in the holy Mind of God,
and in your own. 3 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.
4 Is this
a question, or a statement which denies itself in statement?
5 Let us
not allow our holy minds to occupy themselves with senseless musings such as
this.
W-pI.139.9. We have a mission here.
2 We did not
come to reinforce the madness that we once believed in.
3 Let us
not forget the goal that we accepted. 4 It is more than just
our happiness alone we came to gain. 5 What we accept as
what we are proclaims what everyone must be, along with us.
6 Fail not
your brothers, or you fail yourself. 7 Look lovingly on
them, that they may know that they are part of you, and you of them.
W-pI.139.10. This does Atonement teach, and
demonstrates the Oneness of God's Son is unassailed by his belief he knows not
what he is. 2 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. 3 It is but this that
we are asked to do. 4 It is but this that we will do today.
W-pI.139.11. Five minutes in the morning and at night
we will devote to dedicate our minds to our assignment for today.
2 We
start with this review of what our mission is: 3 I will accept
Atonement for myself, For I remain as God created me.
4 We have
not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when He created us like Him.
5 We can
remember it for everyone, for in creation are all minds as one.
6 And in
our memory is the recall how dear our brothers are to us in truth, how much a
part of us is every mind, how faithful they have really been to us, and how our
Father's Love contains them all.
W-pI.139.12. 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. 2 For several minutes let your mind be cleared
of all the foolish cobwebs which the world would weave around the holy Son of
God. 3
And learn the fragile nature of the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of
yourself apart from your awareness, as you say: 4 I will accept
Atonement for myself, For I remain as God created me.
Lesson 140.
Only salvation can be said to cure.
W-pI.140.1. "Cure" is a word that cannot
be applied to any remedy the world accepts as beneficial.
2 What
the world perceives as therapeutic is but what will make the body "better."
3 When it
tries to heal the mind, it sees no separation from the body, where it thinks
the mind exists. 4 Its forms of healing thus must substitute
illusion for illusion. 5 One belief in sickness takes another form,
and so the patient now perceives himself as well.
W-pI.140.2. He is not healed.
2 He
merely had a dream that he was sick, and in the dream he found a magic formula
to make him well. 3 Yet he has not awakened from the dream, and
so his mind remains exactly as it was before. 4 He has not seen the
light that would awaken him and end the dream. 5 What difference does
the content of a dream make in reality? 6 One either sleeps or
wakens. 7
There is nothing in between.
W-pI.140.3. The happy dreams the Holy Spirit
brings are different from the dreaming of the world, where one can merely dream
he is awake. 2 The dreams forgiveness lets the mind perceive
do not induce another form of sleep, so that the dreamer dreams another dream.
3 His
happy dreams are heralds of the dawn of truth upon the mind.
4 They
lead from sleep to gentle waking, so that dreams are gone.
5 And
thus they cure for all eternity.
W-pI.140.4. Atonement heals with certainty, and
cures all sickness. 2 For the mind which understands that sickness
can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take.
3
Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt.
4
Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure.
5 It
takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible.
6 And
that is cure indeed. 7 For sickness now is gone, with nothing left
to which it can return.
W-pI.140.5. Peace be to you who have been cured in
God, and not in idle dreams. 2 For cure must come from holiness, and
holiness can not be found where sin is cherished. 3 God abides in holy
temples. 4 He is barred where sin has entered.
5 Yet
there is no place where He is not. 6 And therefore sin can
have no home in which to hide from His beneficence.
7 There
is no place where holiness is not, and nowhere sin and sickness can abide.
W-pI.140.6. This is the thought that cures.
2 It does
not make distinctions among unrealities. 3 Nor does it seek to
heal what is not sick, unmindful where the need for healing is.
4 This is
no magic. 5 It is merely an appeal to truth, which cannot
fail to heal and heal forever. 6 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. 7
It merely focuses on what it is, and knows that no illusion can be real.
W-pI.140.7. Let us not try today to seek to cure
what cannot suffer sickness. 2 Healing must be sought but where it is, and then
applied to what is sick, so that it can be cured. 3 There is no remedy
the world provides that can effect a change in anything.
4 The
mind that brings illusions to the truth is really changed.
5 There
is no change but this. 6 For how can one illusion differ from another
but in attributes that have no substance, no reality, no core, and nothing that
is truly different?
W-pI.140.8. 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. 2 We will try today to find the source of
healing, which is in our minds because our Father placed it there for us.
3 It is
not farther from us than ourselves. 4 It is as near to us
as our own thoughts; so close it is impossible to lose.
5 We need
but seek it and it must be found.
W-pI.140.9. We will not be misled today by what
appears to us as sick. 2 We go beyond appearances today and reach the
source of healing, from which nothing is exempt. 3 We will succeed to
the extent to which we realize that there can never be a meaningful distinction
made between what is untrue and equally untrue. 4 Here there are no
degrees, and no beliefs that what does not exist is truer in some forms than
others. 5
All of them are false, and can be cured because they are not true.
W-pI.140.10. So do we lay aside our amulets, our
charms and medicines, our chants and bits of magic in whatever form they take.
2 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. 3 No voice but this can
cure. 4
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.
W-pI.140.11. We waken hearing Him, and let Him speak
to us five minutes as the day begins, and end the day by listening again five
minutes more before we go to sleep. 2 Our only preparation
is to let our interfering thoughts be laid aside, not separately, but all of
them as one. 3 They are the same.
4 We have
no need to make them different, and thus delay the time when we can hear our
Father speak to us. 5 We hear Him now. 6 We come to Him today.
W-pI.140.12. With nothing in our hands to which we
cling, with lifted hearts and listening minds we pray:
2 Only
salvation can be said to cure. 3 Speak to us, Father, that we may be healed.
4 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.
5 This
will we learn today. 6 And we will say our 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 in joy. 7 This is the day when
healing comes to us. 8 This is the day when separation ends, and we
remember Who we really are.
W-pI.rIV.in.1. Now we review again, this time aware we
are preparing for the second part of learning how the truth can be applied.
2 Today
we will begin to concentrate on readiness for what will follow next.
3 Such is
our aim for this review, and for the lessons following.
4 Thus,
we review the recent lessons and their central thoughts in such a way as will
facilitate the readiness that we would now achieve.
W-pI.rIV.in.2. There is a central theme that unifies
each step in the review we undertake, which can be simply stated in these words:
2 My mind
holds only what I think with God. 3 That is a fact, and represents the truth of
What you are and What your Father is. 4 It is this thought by
which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator
with Himself. 5 It is this thought that fully guarantees
salvation to the Son. 6 For in his mind no thoughts can dwell but
those his Father shares. 7 Lack of forgiveness blocks this thought from his
awareness. 8 Yet it is forever true.
W-pI.rIV.in.3. Let us begin our preparation with some
understanding of the many forms in which the lack of true forgiveness may be
carefully concealed. 2 Because they are illusions, they are not
perceived to be but what they are; defenses that protect your unforgiving
thoughts from being seen and recognized. 3 Their purpose is to
show you something else, and hold correction off through self-deceptions made
to take its place.
W-pI.rIV.in.4. And yet, your mind holds only what you
think with God. 2 Your self-deceptions cannot take the place of
truth. 3
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. 4 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.
W-pI.rIV.in.5. 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. 2 Open your mind, and
clear it of all thoughts that would deceive, and let this thought alone engage
it fully, and remove the rest: 3 My mind holds only what I think with God.
4 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
receive that day.
W-pI.rIV.in.6. They will not come from you alone, for
they will all be shared with Him. 2 And so each one will bring the message of His
Love to you, returning messages of yours to Him. 3 So will communion
with the Lord of Hosts be yours, as He Himself has willed it be.
4 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.
W-pI.rIV.in.7. After your preparation, merely read each
of the two ideas assigned to you to be reviewed that day.
2 Then
close your eyes, and say them slowly to yourself. 3 There is no hurry now,
for you are using time for its intended purpose. 4 Let each word shine
with the meaning God has given it, as it was given to you through His Voice.
5 Let
each idea which you review that day give you the gift that He has laid in it
for you to have of Him. 6 And we will use no format for our practicing
but this:
W-pI.rIV.in.8. Each hour of the day, bring to your mind
the thought with which the day began, and spend a quiet moment with it.
2 Then
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.
W-pI.rIV.in.9. We add no other thoughts, but let these
be the messages they are. 2 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. 3 Each day of
practicing, as we review, we close as we began, repeating first the thought
that made the day a special time of blessing and of happiness for us; and
through our faithfulness restored the world from darkness to the light, from
grief to joy, from pain to peace, from sin to holiness.
W-pI.rIV.in.10. God offers thanks to you who practice thus
the keeping of His Word. 2 And as you give your mind to the ideas 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.
Lesson 141. My mind holds only what I think
with God
W-pI.141.1. (121) Forgiveness is the key to
happiness.
W-pI.141.2. (122) Forgiveness offers everything I
want.
Lesson 142. My mind holds only what I think with God.
W-pI.142.1. (123) I thank my Father for His gifts
to me.
W-pI.142.2. (124) Let me remember I am one with
God.
Lesson 143. My mind holds only what I think with God.
W-pI.143.1. (125) In quiet I receive God's Word
today.
W-pI.143.2. (126) All that I give is given to
myself.
Lesson 144. My mind holds only what I think with God.
W-pI.144.1. (127) There is no love but God's.
W-pI.144.2. (128) The world I see holds nothing
that I want.
Lesson 145. My mind holds only what I think with God.
W-pI.145.1. (129) Beyond this world there is a
world I want.
W-pI.145.2. (130) It is impossible to see two
worlds.
Lesson 146. My mind holds only what I think with God.
W-pI.146.1. (131) No one can fail who seeks to
reach the truth.
W-pI.146.2. (132) I loose the world from all I
thought it was.
Lesson 147. My mind holds only what I think with God.
W-pI.147.1. (133) I will not value what is
valueless.
W-pI.147.2. (134) Let me perceive forgiveness as
it is.
Lesson 148. My mind holds only what I think with God.
W-pI.148.1. (135) If I defend myself I am
attacked.
W-pI.148.2. (136) Sickness is a defense against
the truth.
Lesson 149. My mind holds only what I think with God.
W-pI.149.1. (137) When I am healed I am not healed
alone.
W-pI.149.2. (138) Heaven is the decision I must
make.
Lesson 150. My mind holds only what I think with God.
W-pI.150.1. (139) I will accept Atonement for
myself.
W-pI.150.2. (140) Only salvation can be said to
cure.
Lesson 151. All things are echoes of the Voice for God.
W-pI.151.1. No one can judge on partial evidence.
2 That is
not judgment. 3 It is merely an opinion based on ignorance
and doubt. 4 Its seeming certainty is but a cloak for the
uncertainty it would conceal. 5 It needs irrational defense because it is
irrational. 6 And its defense seems strong, convincing, and
without a doubt because of all the doubting underneath.
W-pI.151.2. You do not seem to doubt the world you
see. 2
You do not really question what is shown you through the body's eyes.
3 Nor do
you ask why you believe it, even though you learned a long while since your
senses do deceive. 4 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 indeed! 5 Why would you trust
them so implicitly? 6 Why but because of underlying doubt, which you
would hide with show of certainty?
W-pI.151.3. How can you judge?
2 Your
judgment rests upon the witness that your senses offer you.
3 Yet
witness never falser was than this. 4 But how else do you
judge the world you see? 5 You place pathetic faith in what your eyes
and ears report. 6 You think your fingers touch reality, and
close upon the truth. 7 This is awareness that you understand, and
think more real than what is witnessed to by the eternal Voice for God Himself.
W-pI.151.4. Can this be judgment?
2 You
have often been urged to refrain from judging, not because it is a right to be
withheld from you. 3 You cannot judge.
4 You
merely can believe the ego's judgments, all of which are false.
5 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.
W-pI.151.5. This thing it speaks of, and would yet
defend, it tells you is yourself. 2 And you believe that this is so with stubborn
certainty. 3 Yet underneath remains the hidden doubt that
what it shows you as reality with such conviction it does not believe.
4 It is
itself alone that it condemns. 5 It is within itself it sees the guilt.
6 It is
its own despair it sees in you.
W-pI.151.6. Hear not its voice.
2 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. 3 Your faith in them is
blind because you would not share the doubts their lord can not completely
vanquish. 4 You believe to doubt his vassals is to doubt
yourself.
W-pI.151.7. 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 is worthy of your own belief.
2 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. 3 He passes by such idle witnesses, which
merely bear false witness to God's Son. 4 He recognizes 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.
W-pI.151.8. 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. 2 Christ cannot doubt
Himself. 3 The Voice for God can only honor Him,
rejoicing in His perfect, everlasting sinlessness. 4 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.
W-pI.151.9. And thus He judges you.
2 Accept
His Word for what you are, for He bears witness to your beautiful creation, and
the Mind Whose Thought created your reality. 3 What can the body
mean to Him Who knows the glory of the Father and the Son?
4 What
whispers of the ego can He hear? 5 What could convince Him that your sins are
real? 6
Let Him be Judge as well of everything that seems to happen to you in this
world. 7
His lessons will enable you to bridge the gap between illusions and the truth.
W-pI.151.10. He will remove all faith that you have
placed in pain, disaster, suffering and loss. 2 He gives you vision
which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle face of
Christ in all of them. 3 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.
W-pI.151.11. He will select the elements in them which
represent the truth, and disregard those aspects which reflect but idle dreams.
2 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. 3 And you will see the
love beyond the hate, the constancy in change, the pure in sin, and only
Heaven's blessing on the world.
W-pI.151.12. Such is your resurrection, for your life
is not a part of anything you see. 2 It stands beyond the
body and the world, past every witness for unholiness, within the Holy, holy as
Itself. 3
In everyone and everything His Voice would speak to you of nothing but your
Self and your Creator, Who is One with Him. 4 So will you see the
holy face of Christ in everything, and hear in everything no sound except the
echo of God's Voice.
W-pI.151.13. We practice wordlessly today, except at
the beginning of the time we spend with God. 2 We introduce these
times with but a single, slow repeating of the thought with which the day
begins. 3
And then we watch our thoughts, appealing silently to Him Who sees the elements
of truth in them. 4 Let Him evaluate each thought that comes to
mind, remove the elements of dreams, and give them back again as clean ideas
that do not contradict the Will of God.
W-pI.151.14. Give 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. 2 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.
3 All the
threads of fantasy are gone. 4 And what remains is unified into a perfect
Thought that offers its perfection everywhere.
W-pI.151.15. Spend fifteen minutes thus when you
awake, and gladly give another fifteen more before you go to sleep.
2 Your
ministry begins as all your thoughts are purified. 3 So are you taught to
teach the Son of God the holy lesson of his sanctity.
4 No one
can fail to listen, when you hear the Voice for God give honor to God's Son.
5 And
everyone will share the thoughts with you which He has retranslated in your
mind.
W-pI.151.16. Such is your Eastertide.
2 And so
you lay the gift of snow-white lilies on the world, replacing witnesses to sin
and death. 3 Through your transfiguration is the world
redeemed, and joyfully released from guilt. 4 Now do we lift our
resurrected minds in gladness and in gratitude to Him Who has restored our
sanity to us.
W-pI.151.17. And we will hourly remember Him Who is
salvation and deliverance. 2 As we give thanks, the world unites with us
and happily accepts our holy thoughts, which Heaven has corrected and made pure.
3 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.
Lesson 152. The power of decision is my own.
W-pI.152.1. No one can suffer loss unless it be
his own decision. 2 No one suffers pain except his choice elects
this state for him. 3 No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick
unless these are the outcomes that he wants. 4 And no one dies
without his own consent. 5 Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and
nothing is omitted that you choose. 6 Here is your world,
complete in all details. 7 Here is its whole reality for you.
8 And it
is only here salvation is.
W-pI.152.2. You may believe that this position is
extreme, and too inclusive to be true. 2 Yet can truth have
exceptions? 3 If you have the gift of everything, can loss
be real? 4 Can pain be part of peace, or grief of joy?
5 Can
fear and sickness enter in a mind where love and perfect holiness abide?
6 Truth
must be all-inclusive, if it be the truth at all. 7 Accept no opposites
and no exceptions, for to do so is to contradict the truth entirely.
W-pI.152.3. Salvation is the recognition that the
truth is true, and nothing else is true. 2 This you have heard
before, but may not yet accept both parts of it. 3 Without the first, the
second has no meaning. 4 But without the second, is the first no
longer true. 5 Truth cannot have an opposite.
6 This
can not be too often said and thought about. 7 For if what is not
true is true as well as what is true, then part of truth is false.
8 And
truth has lost its meaning. 9 Nothing but the truth is true, and what is
false is false.
W-pI.152.4. This is the simplest of distinctions,
yet the most obscure. 2 But not because it is a difficult distinction
to perceive. 3 It is concealed behind a vast array of
choices that do not appear to be entirely your own.
4 And
thus the truth appears to have some aspects that belie consistency, but do not
seem to be but contradictions introduced by you.
W-pI.152.5. As God created you, you must remain
unchangeable, with transitory states by definition false.
2 And
that includes all shifts in feeling, alterations in conditions of the body and
the mind; in all awareness and in all response. 3 This is the
all-inclusiveness which sets the truth apart from falsehood, and the false kept
separate from the truth, as what it is.
W-pI.152.6. Is it not strange that you believe to
think you made the world you see is arrogance? 2 God made it not.
3 Of this
you can be sure. 4 What can He know of the ephemeral, the sinful
and the guilty, the afraid, the suffering and lonely, and the mind that lives
within a body that must die? 5 You but accuse Him of insanity, to think He
made a world where such things seem to have reality.
6 He is
not mad. 7 Yet only madness makes a world like this.
W-pI.152.7. To think that God made chaos,
contradicts His Will, invented opposites to truth, and suffers death to triumph
over life; all this is arrogance. 2 Humility would see at once these things are
not of Him. 3 And can you see what God created not?
4 To
think you can is merely to believe you can perceive what God willed not to be.
5 And
what could be more arrogant than this?
W-pI.152.8. Let us today be truly humble, and
accept what we have made as what it is. 2 The power of decision
is our own. 3 Decide but to accept your rightful place as
co-creator of the universe, and all you think you made will disappear.
4 What
rises to awareness then will be all that there ever was, eternally as it is now.
5 And it will
take the place of self-deceptions made but to usurp the altar to the Father and
the Son.
W-pI.152.9. Today we practice true humility,
abandoning the false pretense by which the ego seeks to prove it arrogant.
2 Only
the ego can be arrogant. 3 But truth is humble in acknowledging its
mightiness, its changelessness and its eternal wholeness, all-encompassing,
God's perfect gift to His beloved Son. 4 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.
W-pI.152.10. The power of decision is our own.
2 And we
accept of Him that which we are, and humbly recognize the Son of God.
3 To
recognize God's Son implies as well that all self-concepts have been laid
aside, and recognized as false. 4 Their arrogance has been perceived.
5 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.
W-pI.152.11. Now do we join in glad acknowledgment
that lies are false, and only truth is true. 2 We think of truth
alone as we arise, and spend five minutes practicing its ways, encouraging our
frightened minds with this: 3 The power of decision is my own.
4 This
day I will accept myself as what my Father's Will created me to be.
5 Then
will we wait in silence, giving up all self-deceptions, as we humbly ask our
Self that He reveal Himself to us. 6 And He Who never left
will come again to our awareness, grateful to restore His home to God, as it
was meant to be.
W-pI.152.12. 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. 2 God's Voice will
answer, for He speaks for you and for your Father. 3 He will substitute
the peace of God for all your frantic thoughts, the truth of God for
self-deceptions, and God's Son for your illusions of yourself.
Lesson 153.
In my defenselessness my safety lies.
W-pI.153.1. 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. 2 The world provides no safety.
3 It is
rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory
deceptions. 4 It attacks, and then attacks again.
5 No
peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus.
W-pI.153.2. The world gives rise but to
defensiveness. 2 For threat brings anger, anger makes attack
seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense.
3 Yet is
defensiveness a double threat. 4 For it attests to weakness, and sets up a
system of defense that cannot work. 5 Now are the weak
still further undermined, for there is treachery without and still a greater
treachery within. 6 The mind is now confused, and knows not where
to turn to find escape from its imaginings.
W-pI.153.3. 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. 2 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. 3 There seems to be no
break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of the imprisonment upon the mind.
W-pI.153.4. Defenses are the costliest of all the
prices which the ego would exact. 2 In them lies madness in a form so grim that
hope of sanity seems but to be an idle dream, beyond the possible.
3 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 idea of all
the devastation it has wrought.
W-pI.153.5. You are its slave.
2 You
know not what you do, in fear of it. 3 You do not understand
how much you have been made to sacrifice, who feel its iron grip upon your
heart. 4
You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your
defensiveness. 5 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, and dreams
by which illusions of his safety comfort him.
W-pI.153.6. Defenselessness is strength.
2 It
testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. 3 Perhaps you will
recall the text maintains that choice is always made between Christ's strength
and your own weakness, seen apart from Him. 4 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.
W-pI.153.7. Defensiveness is weakness.
2 It
proclaims you have denied the Christ and come to fear His Father's anger.
3 What
can save you now from your delusion of an angry god, whose fearful image you
believe you see at work in all the evils of the world?
4 What
but illusions could defend you now, when it is but illusions that you fight?
W-pI.153.8. We will not play such childish games
today. 2
For our true purpose is to save the world, and we would not exchange for
foolishness the endless joy our function offers us.
3 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.
W-pI.153.9. We look past dreams today, and
recognize that we need no defense because we are created unassailable, without
all thought or wish or dream in which attack has any meaning.
2 Now we
cannot fear, for we have left all fearful thoughts behind.
3 And in
defenselessness we stand secure, serenely certain of our safety now, sure of
salvation; sure we will fulfill our chosen purpose, as our ministry extends its
holy blessing through the world.
W-pI.153.10. Be still a moment, and in silence think
how holy is your purpose, how secure you rest, untouchable within its light.
2 God's
ministers have chosen that the truth be with them. 3 Who is holier than
they? 4
Who could be surer that his happiness is fully guaranteed?
5 And who
could be more mightily protected? 6 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?
W-pI.153.11. It is the function of God's ministers to
help their brothers choose as they have done. 2 God has elected all,
but few have come to realize His Will is but their own.
3 And
while you fail to teach what you have learned, salvation waits and darkness
holds the world in grim imprisonment. 4 Nor will you learn
that light has come to you, and your escape has been accomplished.
5 For you
will not see the light, until you offer it to all your brothers.
6 As they
take it from your hands, so will you recognize it as your own.
W-pI.153.12. Salvation can be thought of as a game
that happy children play. 2 It was designed by One Who loves His
children, and Who would replace their fearful toys with joyous games, which
teach them that the game of fear is gone. 3 His game instructs in
happiness because there is no loser. 4 Everyone who plays
must win, and in his winning is the gain to everyone ensured.
5 The
game of fear is gladly laid aside, when children come to see the benefits
salvation brings.
W-pI.153.13. 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. 2 That game is over.
3 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.
W-pI.153.14. We pause but for a moment more, to play
our final, happy game upon this earth. 2 And then we go to
take our rightful place where truth abides and games are meaningless.
3 So is
the story ended. 4 Let this day bring the last chapter closer to
the world, that everyone may learn the tale he reads of terrifying destiny,
defeat of all his hopes, his pitiful defense against a vengeance he can not
escape, is but his own deluded fantasy. 5 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. 6 God's Son can smile
at last, on learning that it is not true.
W-pI.153.15. Today we practice in a form we will
maintain for quite a while. 2 We will begin each day by giving our
attention to the daily thought as long as possible.
3 Five
minutes now becomes the least we give to preparation for a day in which
salvation is the only goal we have. 4 Ten would be better;
fifteen better still. 5 And as distraction ceases to arise to turn us
from our purpose, we will find that half an hour is too short a time to spend
with God. 6 Nor will we willingly give less at night, in
gratitude and joy.
W-pI.153.16. Each hour adds to our increasing peace,
as we remember to be faithful to the Will we share with God.
2 At
times, perhaps, a minute, even less, will be the most that we can offer as the
hour strikes. 3 Sometimes we will forget.
4 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.
W-pI.153.17. Yet when we can, we will observe our
trust as ministers of God, in hourly remembrance of our mission and His Love.
2 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.
W-pI.153.18. 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.
2 For you
will know that Heaven goes with you. 3 Nor would you keep
your mind away from Him a moment, even though your time is spent in offering
salvation to the world. 4 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?
W-pI.153.19. Today our theme is our defenselessness.
2 We
clothe ourselves in it, as we prepare to meet the day.
3 We rise
up strong in Christ, and let our weakness disappear, as we remember that His
strength abides in us. 4 We will remind ourselves that He remains
beside us through the day, and never leaves our weakness unsupported by His
strength. 5 We call upon His strength each time we feel
the threat of our defenses undermine our certainty of purpose.
6 We will
pause a moment, as He tells us, "I am here."
W-pI.153.20. Your practicing will now begin to take
the earnestness of love, to help you keep your mind from wandering from its
intent. 2
Be not afraid nor timid. 3 There can be no doubt that you will reach
your final goal. 4 The ministers of God can never fail, because
the love and strength and peace that shine from them to all their brothers come
from Him. 5 These are His gifts to you.
6
Defenselessness is all you need to give Him in return.
7 You lay
aside but what was never real, to look on Christ and see His sinlessness.
Lesson 154. I am among the ministers of God.
W-pI.154.1. Let us today be neither arrogant nor
falsely humble. 2 We have gone beyond such foolishness.
3 We
cannot judge ourselves, nor need we do so. 4 These are but attempts
to hold decision off, and to delay commitment to our function.
5 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.
6 Our
part is cast in Heaven, not in hell. 7 And what we think is
weakness can be strength; what we believe to be our strength is often
arrogance.
W-pI.154.2. Whatever your appointed role may be,
it was selected by the Voice for God, Whose function is to speak for you as
well. 2
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. 3 He does not work without your own consent.
4 But He
is not deceived in what you are, and listens only to His Voice in you.
W-pI.154.3. It is through His ability to hear one
Voice which is His Own that you become aware at last there is one Voice in you.
2 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. 3 God has joined His Son in this, and thus His
Son becomes His messenger of unity with Him.
W-pI.154.4. It is this joining, through the Voice
for God, of Father and of Son, that sets apart salvation from the world.
2 It is
this 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. 3 Now this mind becomes aware again of Who
created it, and of His lasting union with itself. 4 So is its Self the
one reality in which its will and that of God are joined.
W-pI.154.5. A messenger is not the one who writes
the message he delivers. 2 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.
3 It is
enough that he accept it, give it to the ones for whom it is intended, and
fulfill his role in its delivery. 4 If he determines what the messages should be,
or what their purpose is, or where they should be carried, he is failing to
perform his proper part as bringer of the Word.
W-pI.154.6. There is one major difference in the
role of Heaven's messengers, which sets them off from those the world appoints.
2 The
messages that they deliver are intended first for them.
3 And it
is only as they can accept them for themselves that they become able to bring
them further, and to give them everywhere that they were meant to be.
4 Like
earthly messengers, they did not write the messages they bear, but they become
their first receivers in the truest sense, receiving to prepare themselves to
give.
W-pI.154.7. An earthly messenger fulfills his role
by giving all his messages away. 2 The messengers of God perform their part by
their acceptance of His messages as for themselves, and show they understand
the messages by giving them away. 3 They choose no roles that are not given them
by His authority. 4 And so they gain by every message that they
give away.
W-pI.154.8. Would you receive the messages of God?
2 For
thus do you become His messenger. 3 You are appointed now.
4 And yet
you wait to give the messages you have received. 5 And so you do not
know that they are yours, and do not recognize them.
6 No one
can receive and understand he has received until he gives.
7 For in
the giving is his own acceptance of what he received.
W-pI.154.9. You who are now the messenger of God,
receive His messages. 2 For that is part of your appointed role.
3 God has
not failed to offer what you need, nor has it been left unaccepted.
4 Yet
another part of your appointed task is yet to be accomplished.
5 He Who
has received for you the messages of God would have them be received by you as
well. 6
For thus do you identify with Him and claim your own.
W-pI.154.10. It is this joining that we undertake to
recognize today. 2 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.
3 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.
W-pI.154.11. We practice giving Him what He would
have, that we may recognize His gifts to us. 2 He needs our voice
that He may speak through us. 3 He needs our hands to hold His messages, and
carry them to those whom He appoints. 4 He needs our feet to
bring us where He wills, that those who wait in misery may be at last delivered.
5 And He
needs our will united with His Own, that we may be the true receivers of the
gifts He gives.
W-pI.154.12. Let us but learn this lesson for today:
We will not recognize what we receive until we give it.
2 You
have heard this said a hundred ways, a hundred times, and yet belief is lacking
still. 3
But this is sure; 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. 4 What can this mean to you, until you have
identified with Him and with His Own?
W-pI.154.13. Our lesson for today is stated thus:
2 I am
among the ministers of God, and I am grateful that I have the means by which to
recognize that I am free.
W-pI.154.14. The world recedes as we light up our
minds, and realize these holy words are true. 2 They are the message
sent to us today from our Creator. 3 Now we demonstrate
how they have changed our minds about ourselves, and what our function is.
4 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 recognize what we
received.
Lesson
155. I will step back and
let Him lead the way.
W-pI.155.1. There is a way of living in the world
that is not here, although it seems to be. 2 You do not change
appearance, though you smile more frequently. 3 Your forehead is
serene; your eyes are quiet. 4 And the ones who walk the world as you do
recognize their own. 5 Yet those who have not yet perceived the way will
recognize you also, and believe that you are like them, as you were before.
W-pI.155.2. The world is an illusion.
2 Those
who choose to come to it are seeking for a place where they can be illusions,
and avoid their own reality. 3 Yet when they find their own reality is even
here, then they step back and let it lead the way. 4 What other choice is
really theirs to make? 5 To let illusions walk ahead of truth is
madness. 6 But to let illusion sink behind the truth and
let the truth stand forth as what it is, is merely sanity.
W-pI.155.3. This is the simple choice we make
today. 2
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. 3
They cannot learn directly from the truth, because they have denied that it is
so. 4
And so they need a Teacher Who perceives their madness, but Who still can look
beyond illusion to the simple truth in them.
W-pI.155.4. If truth demanded they give up the
world, it would appear to them as if it asked the sacrifice of something that
is real. 2 Many have chosen to renounce the world while
still believing its reality. 3 And they have suffered from a sense of loss,
and have not been released accordingly. 4 Others have chosen
nothing but the world, and they have suffered from a sense of loss still
deeper, which they did not understand.
W-pI.155.5. Between these paths there is another
road that leads away from loss of every kind, for sacrifice and deprivation both
are quickly left behind. 2 This is the way appointed for you now.
3 You
walk this path as others walk, nor do you seem to be distinct from them,
although you are indeed. 4 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.
W-pI.155.6. Illusion still appears to cling to
you, that you may reach them. 2 Yet it has stepped back.
3 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. 4 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.
W-pI.155.7. All roads will lead to this one in the
end. 2
For sacrifice and deprivation are paths that lead nowhere, choices for defeat,
and aims that will remain impossible. 3 All this steps back
as truth comes forth in you, to lead your brothers from the ways of death, and
set them on the way to happiness. 4 Their suffering is but illusion.
5 Yet
they need a guide to lead them out of it, for they mistake illusion for the
truth.
W-pI.155.8. Such is salvation's call, and nothing
more. 2
It asks that you accept the truth, and let it go before you, lighting up the
path of ransom from illusion. 3 It is not a ransom with a price.
4 There
is no cost, but only gain. 5 Illusion can but seem to hold in chains the
holy Son of God. 6 It is but from illusions he is saved.
7 As they
step back, he finds himself again.
W-pI.155.9. Walk safely now, yet carefully,
because this path is new to you. 2 And you may find that you are tempted still
to walk ahead of truth, and let illusions be your guide.
3 Your
holy brothers have been given you, to follow in your footsteps as you walk with
certainty of purpose to the truth. 4 It goes before you
now, that they may see something with which they can identify; something they
understand to lead the way.
W-pI.155.10. Yet at the journey's ending there will
be no gap, no distance between truth and you. 2 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.
3 Step
back in faith and let truth lead the way. 4 You know not where
you go. 5
But One Who knows goes with you. 6 Let Him lead you with the rest.
W-pI.155.11. 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. 2 There will be no wish to be illusion rather
than the truth. 3 And we step forth toward this, as we progress
along the way that truth points out to us. 4 This is our final
journey, which we make for everyone. 5 We must not lose our
way. 6
For as truth goes before us, so it goes before our brothers who will follow us.
W-pI.155.12. We walk to God.
2 Pause
and reflect on this. 3 Could any way be holier, or more deserving of
your effort, of your love and of your full intent? 4 What way could give
you more than everything, or offer less and still content the holy Son of God?
5 We walk
to God. 6
The truth that walks before us now is one with Him, and leads us to where He
has always been. 7 What way but this could be a path that you
would choose instead?
W-pI.155.13. Your feet are safely set upon the road
that leads the world to God. 2 Look not to ways that seem to lead you
elsewhere. 3 Dreams are not a worthy guide for you who are
God's Son. 4 Forget not He has placed His Hand in yours,
and given you your brothers in His trust that you are worthy of His trust in
you. 5
He cannot be deceived. 6 His trust has made your pathway certain and
your goal secure. 7 You will not fail your brothers nor your
Self.
W-pI.155.14. 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.
2 In your
Name and His Own, which are the same, we practice gladly with this thought
today: 3
I will step back and let Him lead the way, For I would walk along the road to
Him.
Lesson 156. I walk with God in perfect holiness.
W-pI.156.1. Today's idea but states the simple
truth that makes the thought of sin impossible. 2 It promises there is
no cause for guilt, and being causeless it does not exist.
3 It
follows surely from the basic thought so often mentioned in the text; ideas
leave not their source. 4 If this be true, how can you be apart from
God? 5
How could you walk the world alone and separate from your Source?
W-pI.156.2. We are not inconsistent in the
thoughts that we present in our curriculum. 2 Truth must be true
throughout, if it be true. 3 It cannot contradict itself, nor be in parts
uncertain and in others sure. 4 You cannot walk the world apart from God,
because you could not be without Him. 5 He is what your life
is. 6
Where you are He is. 7 There is one life.
8 That
life you share with Him. 9 Nothing can be apart from Him and live.
W-pI.156.3. Yet where He is, there must be
holiness as well as life. 2 No attribute of His remains unshared by
everything that lives. 3 What lives is holy as Himself, because what
shares His life is part of Holiness, and could no more be sinful than 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.
W-pI.156.4. There is a light in you which cannot
die; whose presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you.
2 All
things that live bring gifts to you, and offer them in gratitude and gladness
at your feet. 3 The scent of flowers is their gift to you.
4 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 your holy head.
W-pI.156.5. The light in you is what the universe
longs to behold. 2 All living things are still before you, for
they recognize Who walks with you. 3 The light you carry
is their own. 4 And thus they see in you their holiness,
saluting you as savior and as God. 5 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.
W-pI.156.6. This is the way salvation works.
2 As you
step back, the light in you steps forward and encompasses the world.
3 It
heralds not the end of sin in punishment and death.
4 In
lightness and in laughter is sin gone, because its quaint absurdity is seen.
5 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?
W-pI.156.7. Yet you have wasted many, many years
on just this foolish thought. 2 The past is gone, with all its fantasies.
3 They
keep you bound no longer. 4 The approach to God is near.
5 And in
the little interval of doubt that still remains, you may perhaps lose sight of
your Companion, and mistake Him for the senseless, ancient dream that now is
past.
W-pI.156.8. "Who walks with me?"
2 This
question should be asked a thousand times a day, till certainty has ended
doubting and established peace. 3 Today let doubting cease.
4 God
speaks for you in answering your question with these words:
5 I walk
with God in perfect holiness. 6 I light the world, I light my mind and all the
minds which God created one with me.
Lesson 157. Into His Presence would I enter now.
W-pI.157.1. This is a day of silence and of trust.
2 It is a
special time of promise in your calendar of days. 3 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. 4 This day is holy, for it ushers in a new
experience; a different kind of feeling and awareness.
5 You
have spent long days and nights in celebrating death.
6 Today
you learn to feel the joy of life.
W-pI.157.2. This is another crucial turning point
in the curriculum. 2 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. 3 It brings us to the door where learning
ceases, and we catch a glimpse of what lies past the highest reaches it can
possibly attain. 4 It leaves us here an instant, and we go
beyond it, sure of our direction and our only goal.
W-pI.157.3. Today it will be given you to feel a
touch of Heaven, though you will return to paths of learning.
2 Yet you
have come far enough along the way to alter time sufficiently to rise above its
laws, and walk into eternity a while. 3 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.
W-pI.157.4. He will direct your practicing today,
for what you ask for now is what He wills. 2 And having joined
your will with His this day, what you are asking must be given you.
3 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.
W-pI.157.5. 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. 2 A vision reaches
everyone you meet, and everyone you think of, or who thinks of you.
3 For
your experience today will so transform your mind that it becomes the
touchstone for the holy Thoughts of God.
W-pI.157.6. 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. 2 We cannot give experience like this directly.
3 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.
W-pI.157.7. As this experience increases and all
goals but this become of little worth, the 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. 2 And you who bring it
light will come to see the light more sure; the vision more distinct.
3 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. 4 Yet now it has a
purpose, and will serve it well.
W-pI.157.8. Today we will embark upon a course you
have not dreamed of. 2 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.
W-pI.157.9. Into Christ's Presence will we enter
now, serenely unaware of everything except His shining face and perfect Love.
2 The
vision of His face will stay with you, but there will be an instant which
transcends all vision, even this, the holiest. 3 This you will never
teach, for you attained it not through learning. 4 Yet the vision speaks
of your rememberance of what you knew that instant, and will surely know again.
Lesson 158. Today I learn to give as I receive.
W-pI.158.1. What has been given you?
2 The
knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly
unafraid, because you were created out of love. 3 Nor have you left
your Source, remaining as you were created. 4 This was given you as
knowledge which you cannot lose. 5 It was given as well to every living thing,
for by that knowledge only does it live.
W-pI.158.2. You have received all this.
2 No one
who walks the world but has received it. 3 It is not this knowledge
which you give, for that is what creation gave. 4 All this cannot be
learned. 5 What, then, are you to learn to give today?
6 Our
lesson yesterday evoked a theme found early in the text.
7
Experience cannot be shared directly, in the way that vision can.
8 The
revelation that the Father and the Son are one will come in time to every mind.
9 Yet is
that time determined by the mind itself, not taught.
W-pI.158.3. The time is set already.
2 It
appears to be quite arbitrary. 3 Yet there is no step along the road that
anyone takes but by chance. 4 It has already been taken by him, although he
has not yet embarked on it. 5 For time but seems to go in one direction.
6 We but
undertake a journey that is over. 7 Yet it seems to have a future still unknown
to us.
W-pI.158.4. Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a
vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic.
2 Yet
there is a plan behind appearances that does not change.
3 The
script is written. 4 When experience will come to end your
doubting has been set. 5 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.
W-pI.158.5. A teacher does not give experience,
because he did not learn it. 2 It revealed itself to him at its appointed
time. 3
But vision is his gift. 4 This he can give directly, for Christ's
knowledge is not lost, because He has a vision He can give to anyone who asks.
5 The
Father's Will and His are joined in knowledge. 6 Yet there is a vision
which the Holy Spirit sees because the Mind of Christ beholds it too.
W-pI.158.6. Here is the joining of the world of
doubt and shadows made with the intangible. 2 Here is a quiet place
within the world made holy by forgiveness and by love.
3 Here
are all contradictions reconciled, for here the journey ends.
4
Experience--unlearned, untaught, unseen--is merely there.
5 This is
beyond our goal, for it transcends what needs to be accomplished.
6 Our
concern is with Christ's vision. 7 This we can attain.
W-pI.158.7. Christ's vision has one law.
2 It does
not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created.
3 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. 4
It sees no separation. 5 And it looks on everyone, on every
circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of
the light it sees.
W-pI.158.8. This can be taught; and must be taught
by all who would achieve it. 2 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.
3 And
this you give today: See no one as a body. 4 Greet him as the Son
of God he is, acknowledging that he is one with you in holiness.
W-pI.158.9. Thus are his sins forgiven him, for
Christ has vision that has power to overlook them all.
2 In His
forgiveness are they gone. 3 Unseen by One they merely disappear, because
a vision of the holiness that lies beyond them comes to take their place.
4 It
matters not what form they took, nor how enormous they appeared to be, nor who
seemed to be hurt by them. 5 They are no more.
6 And all
effects they seemed to have are gone with them, undone and never to be done.
W-pI.158.10. Thus do you learn to give as you receive.
2 And
thus Christ's vision looks on you as well. 3 This lesson is not
difficult to learn, if you remember in your brother you but see yourself.
4 If he
be lost in sin, so must you be; if you see light in him, your sins have been
forgiven by yourself. 5 Each brother whom you meet today provides
another chance to let Christ's vision shine on you, and offer you the peace of
God.
W-pI.158.11. It matters not when revelation comes,
for that is not of time. 2 Yet time has still one gift to give, in which
true knowledge is reflected in a way so accurate its image shares its unseen
holiness; its likeness shines with its immortal love.
3 We
practice seeing with the eyes of Christ today. 4 And by the holy gifts
we give, Christ's vision looks upon ourselves as well.
Lesson 159.
I give the miracles I have received.
W-pI.159.1. No one can give what he has not
received. 2 To give a thing requires first you have it in
your own possession. 3 Here the laws of Heaven and the world agree.
4 But
here they also separate. 5 The world believes that to possess a thing,
it must be kept. 6 Salvation teaches otherwise.
7 To give
is how to recognize you have received. 8 It is the proof that
what you have is yours.
W-pI.159.2. You understand that you are healed
when you give healing. 2 You accept forgiveness as accomplished in
yourself when you forgive. 3 You recognize your brother as yourself, and
thus do you perceive that you are whole. 4 There is no miracle
you cannot give, for all are given you. 5 Receive them now by
opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid, and giving them away.
W-pI.159.3. Christ's vision is a miracle.
2 It
comes from far beyond itself, for it reflects eternal love and the rebirth of
love which never dies, but has been kept obscure. 3 Christ's vision
pictures Heaven, for it sees a world so like to Heaven that what God created
perfect can be mirrored there. 4 The darkened glass the world presents can
show but twisted images in broken parts. 5 The real world
pictures Heaven's innocence.
W-pI.159.4. Christ's vision is the miracle in
which all miracles are born. 2 It is their source, remaining with each
miracle you give, and yet remaining yours. 3 It is the bond by
which the giver and receiver are united in extension here on earth, as they are
one in Heaven. 4 Christ beholds no sin in anyone.
5 And in
His sight the sinless are as one. 6 Their holiness was given by His Father and
Himself.
W-pI.159.5. Christ's vision is the bridge between
the worlds. 2 And in its power can you safely trust to
carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness.
3 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. 4
Holiness has been restored to vision, and the blind can see.
W-pI.159.6. This is the Holy Spirit's single gift;
the treasure house to which you can appeal with perfect certainty for all the
things that can contribute to your happiness. 2 All are laid here
already. 3 All can be received but for the asking.
4 Here
the door is never locked, and no one is denied his least request or his most
urgent need. 5 There is no sickness not already healed, no
lack unsatisfied, no need unmet within this golden treasury of Christ.
W-pI.159.7. Here does the world remember what was
lost when it was made. 2 For here it is repaired, made new again, but
in a different light. 3 What was to be the home of sin becomes the
center of redemption and the hearth of mercy, where the suffering are healed
and welcome. 4 No one will be turned away from this new
home, where his salvation waits. 5 No one is stranger to him.
6 No one
asks for anything of him except the gift of his acceptance of his welcoming.
W-pI.159.8. Christ's vision is the holy ground in
which the lilies of forgiveness set their roots. 2 This is their home.
3 They
can be brought from here back to the world, but they can never grow in its
unnourishing and shallow soil. 4 They need the light and warmth and kindly
care Christ's charity provides. 5 They need the love with which He looks on
them. 6
And they become His messengers, who give as they received.
W-pI.159.9. Take from His storehouse, that its
treasures may increase. 2 His lilies do not leave their home when they
are carried back into the world. 3 Their roots remain.
4 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. 5 Now are they twice blessed.
6 The
messages they brought from Christ have been delivered, and returned to them.
7 And
they return them gladly unto Him.
W-pI.159.10. Behold the store of miracles set out for
you to give. 2 Are you not worth the gift, when God
appointed it be given you? 3 Judge not God's Son, but follow in the way He
has established. 4 Christ has dreamed the dream of a forgiven
world. 5
It is His gift, whereby a sweet transition can be made from death to life; from
hopelessness to hope. 6 Let us an instant dream with Him.
7 His
dream awakens us to truth. 8 His vision gives the means for a return to
our unlost and everlasting sanctity in God.
Lesson 160. I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.
W-pI.160.1. Fear is a stranger to the ways of love.
2
Identify with fear, and you will be a stranger to yourself.
3 And
thus you are unknown to you. 4 What is your Self remains an alien to the
part of you which thinks that it is real, but different from yourself.
5 Who
could be sane in such a circumstance? 6 Who but a madman
could believe he is what he is not, and judge against himself?
W-pI.160.2. There is a stranger in our midst, 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. 2 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. 3 And yet, how easy it would be to say,
"This is my home. 4 Here I belong, and will not leave because a
madman says I must."
W-pI.160.3. What reason is there for not saying
this? 2
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? 3 No one would let
himself be dispossessed so needlessly, unless he thought there were another
home more suited to his tastes.
W-pI.160.4. Who is the stranger?
2 Is it
fear or you who are unsuited to the home which God provided for His Son?
3 Is fear
His Own, created in His likeness? 4 Is it fear that love completes, and is
completed by? 5 There is no home can shelter love and fear.
6 They
cannot coexist. 7 If you are real, then fear must be illusion.
8 And if fear
is real, then you do not exist at all.
W-pI.160.5. How simply, then, the question is
resolved. 2 Who fears has but denied himself and said,
"I am the stranger here. 3 And so I leave my home to one more like me
than myself, and give him all I thought belonged to me."
4 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.
W-pI.160.6. What does he search for now?
2 What
can he find? 3 A stranger to himself can find no home
wherever he may look, for he has made return impossible.
4 His way
is lost, except a miracle will search him out and show him that he is no
stranger now. 5 The miracle will come.
6 For in
his home his Self remains. 7 It asked no stranger in, and took no alien
thought to be Itself. 8 And It will call Its Own unto Itself in
recognition of what is Its Own.
W-pI.160.7. Who is the stranger?
2 Is he
not the one your Self calls not? 3 You are unable now to recognize this stranger
in your midst, for you have given him your rightful place.
4 Yet is
your Self as certain of Its Own as God is of His Son.
5 He
cannot be confused about creation. 6 He is sure of what
belongs to Him. 7 No stranger can be interposed between His
knowledge and His Son's reality. 8 He does not know of strangers.
9 He is
certain of His Son.
W-pI.160.8. God's certainty suffices.
2 Who He
knows to be His Son belongs where He has set His Son forever.
3 He has
answered you who ask, "Who is the stranger?" 4 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. 5 Whom God has joined remain forever one, at
home in Him, no stranger to Himself.
W-pI.160.9. Today we offer thanks that Christ has
come to search the world for what belongs to Him. 2 His vision sees no
strangers, but beholds His Own and joyously unites with them.
3 They
see Him as a stranger, for they do not recognize themselves.
4 Yet as
they give Him welcome, they remember. 5 And He leads them
gently home again, where they belong.
W-pI.160.10. Not one does Christ forget.
2 Not one
He fails to give you to remember, that your home may be complete and perfect as
it was established. 3 He has not forgotten you.
4 But you
will not remember Him until you look on all as He does.
5 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.
Lesson 161. Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.
W-pI.161.1. Today we practice differently, and
take a stand against our anger, that our fears may disappear and offer room to
love. 2
Here is salvation in the simple words in which we practice with today's idea.
3 Here is
the answer to temptation which can never fail to welcome in the Christ where
fear and anger had prevailed before. 4 Here is Atonement
made complete, the world passed safely by and Heaven now restored.
5 Here is
the answer of the Voice for God.
W-pI.161.2. Complete abstraction is the natural
condition of the mind. 2 But part of it is now unnatural.
3 It does
not look on everything as one. 4 It sees instead but fragments of the whole,
for only thus could it invent the partial world you see.
5 The
purpose of all seeing is to show you what you wish to see.
6 All
hearing but brings to your mind the sounds it wants to hear.
W-pI.161.3. Thus were specifics made.
2 And now
it is specifics we must use in practicing. 3 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. 4 Yet He can use but what we made, to teach us
from a different point of view, so we can see a different use in everything.
W-pI.161.4. One brother is all brothers.
2 Every
mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. 3 Such is the truth.
4 Yet do
these thoughts make clear the meaning of creation? 5 Do these words bring
perfect clarity with them to you? 6 What can they seem to be but empty sounds;
pretty, perhaps, correct in sentiment, yet fundamentally not understood nor
understandable. 7 The mind that taught itself to think
specifically can no longer grasp abstraction in the sense that it is
all-encompassing. 8 We need to see a little, that we learn a lot.
W-pI.161.5. It seems to be the body that we feel
limits our freedom, makes us suffer, and at last puts out our life.
2 Yet
bodies are but symbols for a concrete form of fear.
3 Fear
without symbols calls for no response, for symbols can stand for the
meaningless. 4 Love needs no symbols, being true.
5 But
fear attaches to specifics, being false.
W-pI.161.6. Bodies attack, but minds do not.
2 This
thought is surely reminiscent of our text, where it is often emphasized.
3 This is
the reason bodies easily become fear's symbols. 4 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. 5 The body is the
target for attack, for no one thinks he hates a mind.
6 Yet
what but mind directs the body to attack? 7 What else could be
the seat of fear except what thinks of fear?
W-pI.161.7. Hate is specific.
2 There
must be a thing to be attacked. 3 An enemy must be perceived in such a form he
can be touched and seen and heard, and ultimately killed.
4 When
hatred rests upon a thing, it calls for death as surely as God's Voice
proclaims there is no death. 5 Fear is insatiable, consuming everything its
eyes behold, seeing itself in everything, compelled to turn upon itself and to
destroy.
W-pI.161.8. Who sees a brother as a body sees him
as fear's symbol. 2 And he will attack, because what he beholds
is his own fear external to himself, poised to attack, and howling to unite
with him again. 3 Mistake not the intensity of rage projected
fear must spawn. 4 It shrieks in wrath, and claws the air in
frantic hope it can reach to its maker and devour him.
W-pI.161.9. This do the body's eyes behold in one
whom Heaven cherishes, the angels love and God created perfect.
2 This is
his reality. 3 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. 4 Yet you will take his hand instead, for you
are like him in the sight that sees him thus. 5 Attack on him is
enemy to you, for you will not perceive that in his hands is your salvation.
6 Ask him
but for this, and he will give it to you. 7 Ask him not to
symbolize your fear. 8 Would you request that love destroy itself?
9 Or
would you have it be revealed to you and set you free?
W-pI.161.10. Today we practice in a form we have
attempted earlier. 2 Your readiness is closer now, and you will
come today nearer Christ's vision. 3 If you are intent on
reaching it, you will succeed today. 4 And once you have
succeeded, you will not be willing to accept the witnesses your body's eyes
call forth. 5 What you will see will sing to you of ancient
melodies you will remember. 6 You are not forgot in Heaven.
7 Would
you not remember it?
W-pI.161.11. Select one brother, symbol of the rest,
and ask salvation of him. 2 See him first as clearly as you can, in that
same form to which you are accustomed. 3 See his face, his
hands and feet, his clothing. 4 Watch him smile, and see familiar gestures
which he makes so frequently. 5 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 the nails which pierce your own, and lift the crown
of thorns which you have placed upon your bleeding head.
6 Ask
this of him, that he may set you free: 7 Give me your
blessing, holy Son of God. 8 I would behold you with the eyes of Christ,
and see my perfect sinlessness in you.
W-pI.161.12. And He will answer Whom you called upon.
2 For He
will hear the Voice for God in you, and answer in your own.
3 Behold
him now, whom you have seen as merely flesh and bone, and recognize that Christ
has come to you. 4 Today's idea is your safe escape from anger
and from fear. 5 Be sure you use it instantly, should you be
tempted to attack a brother and perceive in him the symbol of your fear.
6 And you
will see him suddenly transformed from enemy to savior; from the devil into
Christ.
Lesson 162. I am as God created me.
W-pI.162.1. This single thought, held firmly in
the mind, would save the world. 2 From time to time we will repeat it, as we
reach another stage in learning. 3 It will mean far more to you as you advance.
4 These
words are sacred, for they are the words God gave in answer to the world you
made. 5
By them it disappears, and all things seen within its misty clouds and vaporous
illusions vanish as these words are spoken. 6 For they come from
God.
W-pI.162.2. Here is the Word by which the Son
became his Father's happiness, His Love and His completion.
2 Here
creation is proclaimed, and honored as it is. 3 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.
4 They
are the trumpet of awakening that sounds around the world.
5 The
dead awake in answer to its call. 6 And those who live and hear this sound will
never look on death.
W-pI.162.3. 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.
2 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.
3 He will
save the world, because he gives the world what he receives each time he
practices the words of truth.
W-pI.162.4. Today we practice simply.
2 For the
words we use are mighty, and they need no thoughts beyond themselves to change
the mind of him who uses them. 3 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. 4 And thus you learn to think with God.
5
Christ's vision has restored your sight by salvaging your mind.
W-pI.162.5. We honor you today.
2 Yours
is the right to perfect holiness you now accept. 3 With this acceptance
is salvation brought to everyone, for who could cherish sin when holiness like
this has blessed the world? 4 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?
W-pI.162.6. And who would not be brother to you
now; you, his redeemer and his savior. 2 Who could fail to
welcome you into his heart with loving invitation, eager to unite with one like
him in holiness? 3 You are as God created you.
4 These
words dispel the night, and darkness is no more. 5 The light is come
today to bless the world. 6 For you have recognized the Son of God, and
in that recognition is the world's.
Lesson 163. There is no death. The Son of God is free.
W-pI.163.1. Death is a thought that takes on many
forms, often unrecognized. 2 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.
3 All
such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as savior and as
giver of release.
W-pI.163.2. 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. 2 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 sightless eyes. 3 The frail, the
helpless and the sick bow down before its image, thinking it alone is real,
inevitable, worthy of their trust. 4 For it alone will
surely come.
W-pI.163.3. 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.
2 But
death is counted on. 3 For it will come with certain footsteps when
the time has come for its arrival. 4 It will never fail to
take all life as hostage to itself.
W-pI.163.4. Would you bow down to idols such as
this? 2
Here is the strength and might of God Himself perceived within an idol made of
dust. 3
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. 4 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.
W-pI.163.5. Unholy in defeat, he has become what
death would have him be. 2 His epitaph, which death itself has written,
gives no name to him, for he has passed to dust. 3 It says but this:
"Here lies a witness God is dead." 4 And this it writes
again and still again, while all the while its worshippers agree, and kneeling
down with foreheads to the ground, they whisper fearfully that it is so.
W-pI.163.6. 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. 2 For death is total.
3 Either
all things die, or else they live and cannot die. 4 No compromise is
possible. 5 For here again we see an obvious position,
which we must accept if we be sane; what contradicts one thought entirely can
not be true, unless its opposite is proven false.
W-pI.163.7. The idea of the death of God is so
preposterous that even the insane have difficulty in believing it.
2 For it
implies that God was once alive and somehow perished; killed, apparently, by those
who did not want Him to survive. 3 Their stronger will could triumph over His,
and so eternal life gave way to death. 4 And with the Father
died the Son as well.
W-pI.163.8. Death's worshippers may be afraid.
2 And
yet, can thoughts like these be fearful? 3 If they saw that it
is only this which they believe, they would be instantly released.
4 And you
will show them this today. 5 There is no death, and we renounce it now in
every form, for their salvation and our own as well.
6 God
made not death. 7 Whatever form it takes must therefore be
illusion. 8 This the stand we take today.
9 And it
is given us to look past death, and see the life beyond.
W-pI.163.9. Our
Father, bless our eyes today.
2 We are Your messengers, and we would look
upon the glorious reflection of Your Love which shines in everything. 3 We live
and move in You alone.
4 We are not separate from Your eternal life. 5 There
is no death, for death is not Your Will. 6 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. 7 We accept Your
Thoughts as ours, and our will is one with Yours eternally. 8 Amen.
Lesson 164. Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.
W-pI.164.1. What time but now can truth be recognized?
2 The
present is the only time there is. 3 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. 4 He looks past time, and sees eternity as
represented there. 5 He hears the sounds the senseless, busy world
engenders, yet He hears them faintly. 6 For beyond them all
He hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice for God more clear, more meaningful,
more near.
W-pI.164.2. The world fades easily away before His
sight. 2
Its sounds grow dim. 3 A melody from far beyond the world
increasingly is more and more distinct; an ancient call to which He gives an
ancient answer. 4 You will recognize them both, for they are
but your answer to your Father's Call to you. 5 Christ answers for
you, echoing your Self, using your voice to give His glad consent; accepting
your deliverance for you.
W-pI.164.3. 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! 2 How quiet is the time you give to spend with
Him, beyond the world. 3 How easily are all your seeming sins forgot,
and all your sorrows unremembered. 4 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 gifts He gives.
W-pI.164.4. There is a silence into which the
world can not intrude. 2 There is an ancient peace you carry in your
heart and have not lost. 3 There is a sense of holiness in you the
thought of sin has never touched. 4 All this today you will remember.
5
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 your rest.
W-pI.164.5. This is the day when vain imaginings
part like a curtain, to reveal what lies beyond them.
2 Now is
what is really there made visible, while all the shadows which appeared to hide
it merely sink away. 3 Now is the balance righted, and the scale of
judgment left to Him Who judges true. 4 And in His judgment
will a world unfold in perfect innocence before your eyes.
5 Now
will you see it with the eyes of Christ. 6 Now is its
transformation clear to you.
W-pI.164.6. Brother, this day is sacred to the
world. 2
Your vision, given you from far beyond all things within the world, looks back
on them in a new light. 3 And what you see becomes the healing and
salvation of the world. 4 The valuable and valueless are both perceived
and recognized for what they are. 5 And what is worthy of your love receives your
love, while nothing to be feared remains.
W-pI.164.7. We will not judge today.
2 We will
receive but what is given us from judgment made beyond the world.
3 Our
practicing today becomes our gift of thankfulness for our release from
blindness and from misery. 4 All that we see will but increase our joy,
because its holiness reflects our own. 5 We stand forgiven in
the sight of Christ, with all the world forgiven in our own.
6 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.
W-pI.164.8. Open the curtain in your practicing by
merely letting go all things you think you want. 2 Your trifling
treasures put away, and leave a clean and open space within your mind where
Christ can come, and offer you the treasure of salvation.
3 He has
need of your most holy mind to save the world. 4 Is not this purpose
worthy to be yours? 5 Is not Christ's vision worthy to be sought
above the world's unsatisfying goals?
W-pI.164.9. Let
not today slip by without the gifts it holds for you receiving your consent and
your acceptance.
2 We can change the
world, if you acknowledge them. 3 You may not see the value your acceptance gives the world. 4 But this you surely want; you can exchange all suffering
for joy this very day. 5 Practice in earnest, and the gift is yours. 6 Would God deceive you? 7 Can His promise fail? 8 Can you withhold so little, when His Hand holds out
complete salvation to His Son?
Lesson 165. Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.
W-pI.165.1. What makes this world seem real except
your own denial of the truth that lies beyond? 2 What but your thoughts
of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the eternal life your
Father wills for you? 3 And what could hide what cannot be concealed
except illusion? 4 What could keep from you what you already
have except your choice to see it not, denying it is there?
W-pI.165.2. The Thought of God created you.
2 It left
you not, nor have you ever been apart from it an instant.
3 It
belongs to you. 4 By it you live. 5 It is your Source of
life, holding you one with it, and everything is one with you because it left
you not. 6 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. 7 Eternity and everlasting life shine in your
mind, because the Thought of God has left you not, and still abides with you.
W-pI.165.3. 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? 2 Would he not
instantly prepare to go where they are found, abandoning all else as worthless
in comparison with them? 3 And having found them, would he not make sure
they stay with him, and he remain with them?
W-pI.165.4. Deny not Heaven.
2 It is
yours today, but for the asking. 3 Nor need you perceive how great the gift, how
changed your mind will be before it comes to you. 4 Ask to receive, and
it is given you. 5 Conviction lies within it.
6 Till
you welcome it as yours, uncertainty remains. 7 Yet God is fair.
8
Sureness is not required to receive what only your acceptance can bestow.
W-pI.165.5. Ask with desire.
2 You
need not be sure that you request the only thing you want.
3 But
when you have received, you will be sure you have the treasure you have always
sought. 4
What would you then exchange for it? 5 What would induce you
now to let it fade away from your ecstatic vision? 6 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.
W-pI.165.6. Now is all doubting past, the
journey's end made certain, and salvation given you.
2 Now is
Christ's power in your mind, to heal as you were healed.
3 For now
you are among the saviors of the world. 4 Your destiny lies
there and nowhere else. 5 Would God consent to let His Son remain
forever starved by his denial of the nourishment he needs to live?
6
Abundance dwells in him, and deprivation cannot cut him off from God's
sustaining Love and from his home.
W-pI.165.7. Practice today in hope.
2 For
hope indeed is justified. 3 Your doubts are meaningless, for God is
certain. 4 And the Thought of Him is never absent.
5
Sureness must abide within you who are host to Him.
6 This course
removes all doubts which you have interposed between Him and your certainty of
Him.
W-pI.165.8. We count on God, and not upon
ourselves, to give us certainty. 2 And in His Name we practice as His Word
directs we do. 3 His sureness lies beyond our every doubt.
4 His
Love remains beyond our every fear. 5 The Thought of Him is
still beyond all dreams and in our minds, according to His Will.
Lesson 166. I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
W-pI.166.1. All things are given you.
2 God's
trust in you is limitless. 3 He knows His Son.
4 He
gives without exception, holding nothing back that can contribute to your
happiness. 5 And yet, unless your will is one with His,
His gifts are not received. 6 But what would make you think there is
another will than His?
W-pI.166.2. Here is the paradox that underlies the
making of the world. 2 This world is not the Will of God, and so it
is not real. 3 Yet those who think it real must still
believe there is another will, and one that leads to opposite effects from
those He wills. 4 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. 5 But never in one God.
W-pI.166.3. The gifts of God are not acceptable to
anyone who holds such strange beliefs. 2 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. 3 He must deny their presence, contradict the
truth, and suffer to preserve the world he made.
W-pI.166.4. Here is the only home he thinks he
knows. 2
Here is the only safety he believes that he can find.
3 Without
the world he made is he an outcast; homeless and afraid.
4 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.
W-pI.166.5. Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings,
God's gifts go with him, all unknown to him. 2 He cannot lose them.
3 But he
will not look at what is given him. 4 He wanders on, aware
of the futility he sees about him everywhere, perceiving how his little lot but
dwindles, as he goes ahead to nowhere. 5 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.
W-pI.166.6. He seems a sorry figure; weary, worn,
in threadbare clothing, and with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road
he walks. 2 No one but has identified with him, for
everyone who comes here has pursued the path he follows, and has felt defeat
and hopelessness as he is feeling them. 3 Yet is he really
tragic, when you see that he is following the way he chose, and need but
realize Who walks with him and open up his treasures to be free?
W-pI.166.7. This is your chosen self, the one you
made as a replacement for reality. 2 This is the self you
savagely defend against all reason, every evidence, and all the witnesses with
proof to show this is not you. 3 You heed them not.
4 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.
W-pI.166.8. You cower fearfully lest you should
feel Christ's touch upon your shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing
you to look upon your gifts. 2 How could you then proclaim your poverty in
exile? 3
He would make you laugh at this perception of yourself.
4 Where
is self-pity then? 5 And what becomes of all the tragedy you
sought to make for him whom God intended only joy?
W-pI.166.9. Your ancient fear has come upon you
now, and justice has caught up with you at last. 2 Christ's hand has
touched your shoulder, and you feel that you are not alone.
3 You
even think the miserable self you thought was you may not be your Identity.
4 Perhaps
God's Word is truer than your own. 5 Perhaps His gifts to
you are real. 6 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.
W-pI.166.10. God's Will does not oppose.
2 It
merely is. 3 It is not God you have imprisoned in your
plan to lose your Self. 4 He does not know about a plan so alien to His
Will. 5
There was a need He did not understand, to which He gave an Answer.
6 That is
all. 7
And you who have this Answer given you have need no more of anything but this.
W-pI.166.11. Now do we live, for now we cannot die.
2 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.
3 One
walks with you Who gently answers all your fears with this one merciful reply,
"It is not so." 4 He points to all the gifts you have each time
the thought of poverty oppresses you, and speaks of His Companionship when you
perceive yourself as lonely and afraid.
W-pI.166.12. Yet He reminds you still of one thing
more you had forgotten. 2 For His touch on you has made you like
Himself. 3 The gifts you have are not for you alone.
4 What He
has come to offer you, you now must learn to give. 5 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. 6 He has reminded you of all the gifts that God
has given you. 7 He speaks as well of what becomes your will
when you accept these gifts, and recognize they are your own.
W-pI.166.13. The gifts are yours, entrusted to your
care, to give to all who chose the lonely road you have escaped.
2 They do
not understand they but pursue their wishes. 3 It is you who teach
them now. 4 For you have learned of Christ there is
another way for them to walk. 5 Teach them by showing them the happiness that
comes to those who feel the touch of Christ, and recognize God's gifts.
6 Let
sorrow not tempt you to be unfaithful to your trust.
W-pI.166.14. Your sighs will now betray the hopes of
those who look to you for their release. 2 Your tears are theirs.
3 If you
are sick, you but withhold their healing. 4 What you fear but
teaches them their fears are justified. 5 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. 6 You are entrusted
with the world's release from pain.
W-pI.166.15. Betray it not.
2 Become
the living proof of what Christ's touch can offer everyone.
3 God has
entrusted all His gifts to you. 4 Be witness in your happiness to how
transformed the mind becomes which chooses to accept His gifts, and feel the
touch of Christ. 5 Such is your mission now.
6 For God
entrusts the giving of His gifts to all who have received them.
7 He has
shared His joy with you. 8 And now you go to share it with the world.
Lesson 167. There is one life, and that I share with God.
W-pI.167.1. There are not different kinds of life,
for life is like the truth. 2 It does not have degrees.
3 It is
the one condition in which all that God created share.
4 Like
all His Thoughts, it has no opposite. 5 There is no death
because what God created shares His life. 6 There is no death
because an opposite to God does not exist. 7 There is no death
because the Father and the Son are One.
W-pI.167.2. In this world, there appears to be a state
that is life's opposite. 2 You call it death.
3 Yet we
have learned that the idea of death takes many forms.
4 It is
the one idea which underlies all feelings that are not supremely happy.
5 It is
the alarm to which you give response of any kind that is not perfect joy.
6 All
sorrow, loss, anxiety and suffering and pain, even a little sigh of weariness,
a slight discomfort or the merest frown, acknowledge death.
7 And
thus deny you live.
W-pI.167.3. You think that death is of the body.
2 Yet it
is but an idea, irrelevant to what is seen as physical.
3 A
thought is in the mind. 4 It can be then applied as mind directs it.
5 But its
origin is where it must be changed, if change occurs.
6 Ideas
leave not their source. 7 The emphasis this course has placed on that
idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about
yourself. 8 It is the reason you can heal.
9 It is
the cause of healing. 10 It is why you cannot die.
11 Its
truth established you as one with God.
W-pI.167.4. Death is the thought that you are
separate from your Creator. 2 It is the belief conditions change, emotions
alternate because of causes you cannot control, you did not make, and you can
never change. 3 It is the fixed belief ideas can leave their
source, and take on qualities the source does not contain, becoming different
from their own origin, apart from it in kind as well as distance, time and
form.
W-pI.167.5. Death cannot come from life.
2 Ideas
remain united to their source. 3 They can extend all that their source
contains. 4 In that, they can go far beyond themselves.
5 But
they can not give birth to what was never given them.
6 As they
are made, so will their making be. 7 As they were born, so
will they then give birth. 8 And where they come from, there will they
return.
W-pI.167.6. The mind can think it sleeps, but that
is all. 2
It cannot change what is its waking state. 3 It cannot make a
body, nor abide within a body. 4 What is alien to the mind does not exist,
because it has no source. 5 For mind creates all things that are, and
cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state.
6 It
cannot make the physical. 7 What seems to die is but the sign of mind
asleep.
W-pI.167.7. The opposite of life can only be
another form of life. 2 As such, it can be reconciled with what
created it, because it is not opposite in truth. 3 Its form may change;
it may appear to be what it is not. 4 Yet mind is mind,
awake or sleeping. 5 It is not its opposite in anything created,
nor in what it seems to make when it believes it sleeps.
W-pI.167.8. God creates only mind awake.
2 He does
not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He gives not, nor make
conditions which He does not share with them. 3 The thought of death
is not the opposite to thoughts of life. 4 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.
W-pI.167.9. What seems to be the opposite of life
is merely sleeping. 2 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. 3 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. 4 When the mind awakes, it but continues as it
always was.
W-pI.167.10. Let us today be children of the truth,
and not deny our holy heritage. 2 Our life is not as we imagine it.
3 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?
4 We will
not ask for death in any form today. 5 Nor will we let
imagined opposites to life abide even an instant where the Thought of life
eternal has been set by God Himself.
W-pI.167.11. His holy home we strive to keep today as
He established it, and wills it be forever and forever.
2 He is
Lord of what we think today. 3 And in His Thoughts, 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.
W-pI.167.12. 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. 2 As we were, so are we
now and will forever be. 3 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. 4 And now it is no more a mere reflection.
5 It
becomes the thing reflected, and the light which makes reflection possible.
6 No vision
now is needed. 7 For the wakened mind is one that knows its
Source, its Self, its Holiness.
Lesson 168.
Your grace is given me. I claim it now.
W-pI.168.1. God speaks to us.
2 Shall
we not speak to Him? 3 He is not distant.
4 He
makes no attempt to hide from us. 5 We try to hide from Him, and suffer from
deception. 6 He remains entirely accessible.
7 He
loves His Son. 8 There is no certainty but this, yet this
suffices. 9 He will love His Son forever.
10 When
his mind remains asleep, He loves him still. 11 And when his mind
awakes, He loves him with a never-changing Love.
W-pI.168.2. If you but knew the meaning of His
Love, hope and despair would be impossible. 2 For hope would be
forever satisfied; despair of any kind unthinkable.
3 His
grace His answer is to all despair, for in it lies remembrance of His Love.
4 Would
He not gladly give the means by which His Will is recognized?
5 His
grace is yours by your acknowledgment. 6 And memory of Him
awakens in the mind that asks the means of Him whereby its sleep is done.
W-pI.168.3. Today we ask of God the gift He has
most carefully preserved within our hearts, waiting to be acknowledged.
2 This
the gift by which God leans to us and lifts us up, taking salvation's final
step Himself. 3 All steps but this we learn, instructed by
His Voice. 4 But finally He comes Himself, and takes us in
His Arms and sweeps away the cobwebs of our sleep. 5 His gift of grace is
more than just an answer. 6 It restores all memories the sleeping mind
forgot; all certainty of what Love's meaning is.
W-pI.168.4. God loves His Son.
2 Request
Him now to give the means by which this world will disappear, and vision first
will come, with knowledge but an instant later. 3 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.
4 What
now remains that Heaven be delayed an instant longer?
5 What is
still undone when your forgiveness rests on everything?
W-pI.168.5. It is a new and holy day today, for we
receive what has been given us. 2 Our faith lies in the Giver, not our own
acceptance. 3 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.
W-pI.168.6. And He descends to meet us, as we come
to Him. 2
For what He has prepared for us He gives and we receive.
3 Such is
His Will, because He loves His Son. 4 To Him we pray today,
returning but the word He gave to us through His Own Voice, His Word, His Love:
5 Your
grace is given me. 6 I claim it now. 7 Father, I come to You.
8 And You
will come to me who ask. 9 I am the Son You love.
Lesson 169. By grace I live. By grace I am released.
W-pI.169.1. Grace is an aspect of the Love of God
which is most like the state prevailing in the unity of truth.
2 It is
the world's most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely.
3 It is
past learning, yet the goal of learning, for grace cannot come until the mind
prepares itself for true acceptance. 4 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.
W-pI.169.2. Grace is acceptance of the Love of God
within a world of seeming hate and fear. 2 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.
W-pI.169.3. Grace is not learned.
2 The
final step must go beyond all learning. 3 Grace is not the goal
this course aspires to attain. 4 Yet we prepare for grace in that an open mind
can hear the Call to waken. 5 It is not shut tight against God's Voice.
6 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.
W-pI.169.4. We have perhaps appeared to contradict
our statement that the revelation of the Father and the Son as One has been
already set. 2 But we have also said the mind determines
when that time will be, and has determined it. 3 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.
W-pI.169.5. Oneness is simply the idea God is.
2 And in
His Being, He encompasses all things. 3 No mind holds
anything but Him. 4 We say "God is," and then we cease
to speak, for in that knowledge words are meaningless.
5 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. 6 It has united with
its Source. 7 And like its Source Itself, it merely is.
W-pI.169.6. We cannot speak nor write nor even
think of this at all. 2 It comes to every mind when total recognition
that its will is God's has been completely given and received completely.
3 It
returns the mind into the endless present, where the past and future cannot be
conceived. 4 It lies beyond salvation; past all thought of
time, forgiveness and the holy face of Christ. 5 The Son of God has
merely disappeared into his Father, as his Father has in him.
6 The
world has never been at all. 7 Eternity remains a constant state.
W-pI.169.7. This is beyond experience we try to
hasten. 2
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. 3 We do not hasten it, in that what you will
offer was concealed from Him Who teaches what forgiveness means.
W-pI.169.8. All learning was already in His Mind,
accomplished and complete. 2 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. 3 We have repeated
several times before that you but make a journey that is done.
W-pI.169.9. For oneness must be here.
2 Whatever
time the mind has 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.
3 We
merely take the part 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 Creator's Son.
W-pI.169.10. There is no need to further clarify what
no one in the world can understand. 2 When revelation of
your oneness comes, it will be known and fully understood.
3 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.
4 Yet
what meaning can the words convey to those who count the hours still, and rise
and work and go to sleep by them?
W-pI.169.11. Suffice it, then, that you have work to
do to play your part. 2 The ending must remain obscure to you until
your part is done. 3 It does not matter.
4 For
your part is still what all the rest depends on. 5 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.
W-pI.169.12. Forgiveness is the central theme that
runs throughout salvation, holding all its parts in meaningful relationships,
the course it runs directed and its outcome sure. 2 And now we ask for
grace, the final gift salvation can bestow. 3 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.
W-pI.169.13. The interval suffices.
2 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. 3 What is the face of Christ but his who went a
moment into timelessness, and brought a clear reflection of the unity he felt
an instant back to bless the world? 4 How could you finally
attain to it forever, while a part of you remains outside, unknowing,
unawakened, and in need of you as witness to the truth?
W-pI.169.14. Be grateful to return, as you were glad
to go an instant, and accept the gifts that grace provided you.
2 You
carry them back to yourself. 3 And revelation stands not far behind.
4 Its
coming is ensured. 5 We ask for grace, and for experience that comes
from grace. 6 We welcome the release it offers everyone.
7 We do
not ask for the unaskable. 8 We do not look beyond what grace can give.
9 For
this we can give in the grace that has been given us.
W-pI.169.15. Our learning goal today does not exceed
this prayer. 2 Yet in the world, what could be more than
what we ask this day of Him Who gives the grace we ask, as it was given Him?
3 By
grace I live. 4 By grace I am released.
5 By
grace I give. 6 By grace I will release.
Lesson 170. There is no cruelty in God and none in me.
W-pI.170.1. No one attacks without intent to hurt.
2 This
can have no exception. 3 When you think that you attack in
self-defense, you mean that to be cruel is protection; you are safe because of
cruelty. 4 You mean that you believe to hurt another
brings you freedom. 5 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.
W-pI.170.2. How thoroughly insane is the idea that
to defend from fear is to attack! 2 For here is fear begot and fed with blood, to
make it grow and swell and rage. 3 And thus is fear protected, not escaped.
4 Today
we learn a lesson which can save you more delay and needless misery than you
can possibly imagine. 5 It is this: 6 You make what you
defend against, and by your own defense against it is it real and inescapable.
7 Lay
down your arms, and only then do you perceive it false.
W-pI.170.3. It seems to be the enemy without that
you attack. 2 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. 3 For love now has an
"enemy," an opposite; and fear, the alien, now needs your defense
against the threat of what you really are.
W-pI.170.4. 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. 2 First, it is obvious
ideas must leave their source, for it is you who make attack, and must have
first conceived of it. 3 Yet you attack outside yourself, and separate
your mind from him who is to be attacked, with perfect faith the split you made
is real.
W-pI.170.5. Next, are the attributes of love
bestowed upon its "enemy." 2 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.
3 And as
love is shorn of what belongs to it and it alone, love is endowed with
attributes of fear. 4 For love would ask you lay down all defense
as merely foolish. 5 And your arms indeed would crumble into dust.
6 For
such they are.
W-pI.170.6. With love as enemy, must cruelty
become a god. 2 And gods demand that those who worship them
obey their dictates, and refuse to question them. 3 Harsh punishment is
meted out relentlessly to those who ask if the demands are sensible or even
sane. 4
It is their enemies who are unreasonable and insane, while they are always
merciful and just.
W-pI.170.7. Today we look upon this cruel god
dispassionately. 2 And we note that though his lips are smeared
with blood, and fire seems to flame from him, he is but made of stone.
3 He can
do nothing. 4 We need not defy his power.
5 He has
none. 6
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.
W-pI.170.8. This moment can be terrible.
2 But it
can also be the time of your release from abject slavery.
3 You
make a choice, standing before this idol, seeing him exactly as he is.
4 Will
you restore to love what you have sought to wrest from it and lay before this
mindless piece of stone? 5 Or will you make another idol to replace it?
6 For the
god of cruelty takes many forms. 7 Another can be found.
W-pI.170.9. Yet do not think that fear is the
escape from fear. 2 Let us remember what the text has stressed
about the obstacles to peace. 3 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.
4 Here is
the basic premise which enthrones the thought of fear as god.
5 For
fear is loved by those who worship it, and love appears to be invested now with
cruelty.
W-pI.170.10. Where does the totally insane belief in
gods of vengeance come from? 2 Love has not confused its attributes with
those of fear. 3 Yet must the worshippers of fear perceive
their own confusion in fear's "enemy"; its cruelty as now a part of
love. 4
And what becomes more fearful than the Heart of Love Itself?
5 The
blood appears to be upon His Lips; the fire comes from Him.
6 And He
is terrible above all else, cruel beyond conception, striking down all who
acknowledge Him to be their God.
W-pI.170.11. The choice you make today is certain.
2 For you
look for the last time upon this bit of carven stone you made, and call it god
no longer. 3 You have reached this place before, but you
have chosen that this cruel god remain with you in still another form.
4 And so
the fear of God returned with you. 5 This time you leave
it there. 6 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.
W-pI.170.12. Now do your eyes belong to Christ, and
He looks through them. 2 Now your voice belongs to God and echoes His.
3 And now
your heart remains at peace forever. 4 You have chosen Him
in place of idols, and your attributes, given by your Creator, are restored to
you at last. 5 The Call for God is heard and answered.
6 Now has
fear made way for love, as God Himself replaces cruelty.
W-pI.170.13. Father,
we are like You.
2 No cruelty abides in us, for there is none in
You. 3 Your peace is ours. 4 And we bless the
world with what we have received from You alone. 5 We choose again, and
make our choice for all our brothers, knowing they are one with us. 6 We
bring them Your salvation as we have received it now. 7 And we
give thanks for them who render us complete. 8 In them we see Your
glory, and in them we find our peace. 9 Holy are we because
Your Holiness has set us free.
10 And we give thanks. 11 Amen.
W-pI.rV.in.1. We now review again.
2 This
time we are ready to give more effort and more time to what we undertake.
3 We
recognize we are preparing for another phase of understanding.
4 We
would take this step completely, that we may go on again more certain, more
sincere, with faith upheld more surely. 5 Our footsteps have
not been unwavering, and doubts have made us walk uncertainly and slowly on the
road this course sets forth. 6 But now we hasten on, for we approach a
greater certainty, a firmer purpose and a surer goal.
W-pI.rV.in.2. Steady
our feet, our Father.
2 Let our doubts be quiet and our holy minds be
still, and speak to us.
3 We have no words to give to You. 4 We
would but listen to Your Word, and make it ours. 5 Lead our practicing
as does a father lead a little child along a way he does not understand. 6 Yet
does he follow, sure that he is safe because his father leads the way for him.
W-pI.rV.in.3. So
do we bring our practicing to You.
2 And if we stumble, You will raise us up. 3 If we
forget the way, we count upon Your sure remembering. 4 We
wander off, but You will not forget to call us back. 5 Quicken
our footsteps now, that we may walk more certainly and quickly unto You. 6 And we
accept the Word You offer us to unify our practicing, as we review the thoughts
that You have given us.
W-pI.rV.in.4. This is the thought which should precede
the thoughts that we review. 2 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:
3 God is
but Love, and therefore so am I. 4 This Self alone knows Love.
5 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.
W-pI.rV.in.5. And it is this that waits to meet us at
the journey's ending. 2 Every step we take brings us a little nearer.
3 This
review will shorten time immeasurably, if we keep in mind that this remains our
goal, and as we practice it is this to which we are approaching.
4 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.
W-pI.rV.in.6. I take the journey with you.
2 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.
3 We walk
together. 4 I must understand uncertainty and pain,
although I know they have no meaning. 5 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 will lead you out with him.
6 God's
Son is crucified until you walk along the road with me.
W-pI.rV.in.7. My resurrection comes again each time I
lead a brother safely to the place at which the journey ends and is forgot.
2 I am
renewed each time a brother learns there is a way from misery and pain.
3 I am
reborn each time a brother's mind turns to the light in him and looks for me.
4 I have
forgotten no one. 5 Help me now to lead you back to where the
journey was begun, to make another choice with me.
W-pI.rV.in.8. 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. 2 Together we review these thoughts.
3
Together we devote our time and effort to them. 4 And together we will
teach them to our brothers. 5 God would not have Heaven incomplete.
6 It
waits for you, as I do. 7 I am incomplete without your part in me.
8 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.
W-pI.rV.in.9. Let this review be then your gift to me.
2 For
this alone I need; that you will hear the words I speak, and give them to the
world. 3
You are my voice, my eyes, my feet, my hands through which I save the world.
4 The
Self from which I call to you is but your own. 5 To Him we go together.
6 Take
your brother's hand, for this is not a way we walk alone.
7 In him
I walk with you, and you with me. 8 Our Father wills His Son be one with Him.
9 What
lives but must not then be one with you?
W-pI.rV.in.10. Let this review become a time in which we
share a new experience for you, yet one as old as time and older still.
2
Hallowed your Name. 3 Your glory undefiled forever.
4 And
your wholeness now complete, as God established it.
5 You are
His Son, completing His extension in your own. 6 We practice but an
ancient truth we knew before illusion seemed to claim the world.
7 And we
remind the world that it is free of all illusions every time we say:
8 God is
but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.rV.in.11. With this we start each day of our review.
2 With
this we start and end each period of practice time.
3 And
with this thought we sleep, to waken once again with these same words upon our
lips, to greet another day. 4 No thought that we review but we surround
with it, and use the thoughts to hold it up before our minds, and keep it clear
in our rememberance throughout the day. 5 And thus, when we
have finished this review, we will have recognized the words we speak are true.
W-pI.rV.in.12. 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. 2 We place faith in the
experience that comes from practice, not the means we use.
3 We wait
for the experience, and recognize that it is only here conviction lies.
4 We use
the words, and try and try again to go beyond them to their meaning, which is
far beyond their sound. 5 The sound grows dim and disappears, as we
approach the Source of meaning. 6 It is Here that we find rest.
Lesson 171. God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.171.1. (151) All things are echoes of the
Voice for God. 2 God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.171.2. (152) The power of decision is my own.
2 God is
but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 172. God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.172.1. (153) In my defenselessness my safety
lies. 2
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.172.2. (154) I am among the ministers of God.
2 God is
but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 173. God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.173.1. (155) I will step back and let Him
lead the way. 2 God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.173.2. (156) I walk with God in perfect
holiness. 2 God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 174. God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.174.1. (157) Into His Presence would I enter
now. 2
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.174.2. (158) Today I learn to give as I
receive. 2 God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 175. God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.175.1. (159) I give the miracles I have
received. 2 God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.175.2. (160) I am at home.
2 Fear is
the stranger here. 3 God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 176. God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.176.1. (161) Give me your blessing, holy Son
of God. 2
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.176.2. (162) I am as God created me.
2 God is
but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 177. God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.177.1. (163) There is no death.
2 The Son
of God is free. 3 God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.177.2. (164) Now are we one with Him Who is
our Source. 2 God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 178.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.178.1. (165) Let not my mind deny the Thought
of God. 2
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.178.2. (166) I am entrusted with the gifts of
God. 2
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 179.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.179.1. (167) There is one life, and that I
share with God. 2 God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.179.2. (168) Your grace is given me.
2 I claim
it now. 3
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 180.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.180.1. (169) By grace I live.
2 By
grace I am released. 3 God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
W-pI.180.2. (170) There is no cruelty in God and
none in me. 2 God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Introduction to Lessons 181-200.
W-pI.in.181-200.1. 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. 2 You are not asked for
total dedication all the time as yet. 3 But you are asked to
practice now in order to attain the sense of peace such unified commitment will
bestow, if only intermittently. 4 It is experiencing this that makes it sure
that you will give your total willingness to following the way the course sets
forth.
W-pI.in.181-200.2. Our lessons now are geared specifically to
widening horizons, and direct approaches to the special blocks that keep your
vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal.
2 We are
attempting now to lift these blocks, however briefly.
3 Words
alone can not convey the sense of liberation which their lifting brings.
4 But the
experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control
of what you see speaks for itself. 5 Your motivation will
be so intensified that words become of little consequence.
6 You
will be sure of what you want, and what is valueless.
W-pI.in.181-200.3. And so we start our journey beyond words by
concentrating first on what impedes your progress still.
2
Experience of what exists beyond defensiveness remains beyond achievement while
it is denied. 3 It may be there, but you cannot accept its
presence. 4 So we now attempt to go past all defenses for
a little while each day. 5 No more than this is asked, because no more
than this is needed. 6 It will be enough to guarantee the rest will
come.
Lesson 181. I trust my brothers, who are one with me.
W-pI.181.1. 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. 2 When you attack a brother, you proclaim that
he is limited by what you have perceived in him. 3 You do not look
beyond his errors. 4 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.
W-pI.181.2. Perception has a focus.
2 It is
this that gives consistency to what you see. 3 Change but this
focus, and what you behold will change accordingly.
4 Your
vision now will shift, to give support to the intent which has replaced the one
you held before. 5 Remove your focus on your brother's sins, and
you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness.
6 This
faith receives its only sure support from what you see in others past their
sins. 7
For their mistakes, if focused on, are witnesses to sins in you.
8 And you
will not transcend their sight and see the sinlessness that lies beyond.
W-pI.181.3. Therefore, in practicing today, we first
let all such little focuses give way to our great need to let our sinlessness
become apparent. 2 We instruct our minds that it is this we
seek, and only this, for just a little while. 3 We do not care about
our future goals. 4 And what we saw an instant previous has no
concern for us within this interval of time wherein we practice changing our
intent. 5
We seek for innocence and nothing else. 6 We seek for it with
no concern but now.
W-pI.181.4. A major hazard to success has been
involvement with your past and future goals. 2 You have been quite
preoccupied with how extremely different the goals this course is advocating
are from those you held before. 3 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.
W-pI.181.5. How could this matter?
2 For the
past is gone; the future but imagined. 3 These concerns are
but defenses against present change of focus in perception.
4 Nothing
more. 5
We lay these pointless limitations by a little while.
6 We do
not look to past beliefs, and what we will believe will not intrude upon us now.
7 We
enter in the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness
within.
W-pI.181.6. We recognize that we have lost this
goal if anger blocks our way in any form. 2 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."
3 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: 4
It is not this that I would look upon. 5 I trust my brothers,
who are one with me.
W-pI.181.7. And we will also use this thought to
keep us safe throughout the day. 2 We do not seek for long-range goals.
3 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.
W-pI.181.8. Nor do we ask for fantasies.
2 For
what we seek to look upon is really there. 3 And as our focus goes
beyond mistakes, we will behold a wholly sinless world.
4 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.
5 And the
Love He feels for us becomes our own as well. 6 This will become the
only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves.
W-pI.181.9. The world which once proclaimed our
sins becomes the proof that we are sinless. 2 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.
3 We seek
for this remembrance as we turn our minds to practicing today.
4 We look
neither ahead nor backwards. 5 We look straight into the present.
6 And we
give our trust to the experience we ask for now. 7 Our sinlessness is
but the Will of God. 8 This instant is our willing one with His.
Lesson 182. I will be still an instant and go home.
W-pI.182.1. This world you seem to live in is not
home to you. 2 And somewhere in your mind you know that this
is true. 3 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. 4 Yet still you feel an
alien here, from somewhere all unknown. 5 Nothing so definite
that you could say with certainty you are an exile here.
6 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.
W-pI.182.2. No one but knows whereof we speak.
2 Yet
some try to put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their time, and
keep their sadness from them. 3 Others will deny that they are sad, and do
not recognize their tears at all. 4 Still others will maintain that what we speak
of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream.
5 Yet
who, in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would deny he
understands the words we speak?
W-pI.182.3. We speak today for everyone who walks
this world, for he is not at home. 2 He goes uncertainly
about in endless search, seeking in darkness what he cannot find; not
recognizing what it is he seeks. 3 A thousand homes he makes, yet none contents
his restless mind. 4 He does not understand he builds in vain.
5 The
home he seeks can not be made by him. 6 There is no
substitute for Heaven. 7 All he ever made was hell.
W-pI.182.4. Perhaps you think it is your childhood
home that you would find again. 2 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. 3 Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His
Father's house, and knows that He is alien here. 4 This childhood is
eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever.
5 Where
this Child shall go is holy ground. 6 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.
W-pI.182.5. It is this Child in you your Father
knows as His Own Son. 2 It is this Child Who knows His Father.
3 He
desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to let
Him rest a while. 4 He does not ask for more than just a few
instants of respite; just an interval in which He can return to breathe again
the holy air that fills His Father's house. 5 You are His home as
well. 6
He will return. 7 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.
W-pI.182.6. This Child needs your protection.
2 He is
far from home. 3 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 harsh and rasping noises of the world.
4 Yet
does He know that in you still abides His sure protection.
5 You
will fail Him not. 6 He will go home, and you along with Him.
W-pI.182.7. This Child is your defenselessness;
your strength. 2 He trusts in you.
3 He came
because He knew you would not fail. 4 He whispers of His
home unceasingly to you. 5 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. 6 His patience has no
limits. 7
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.
W-pI.182.8. 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. 2 So poignantly He
calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. 3 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.
W-pI.182.9. Rest with Him frequently today.
2 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. 3 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 Friend to them. 4 He asks that they protect Him, for His home
is far away, and He will not return to it alone.
W-pI.182.10. Christ is reborn as but a little Child
each time a wanderer would leave his home. 2 For he must learn
that what he would protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is
protected by defenselessness. 3 Go home with Him from time to time today.
4 You are
as much an alien here as He.
W-pI.182.11. 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. 2 Christ has called you friend and brother.
3 He has
even come to ask your help in letting Him go home today, completed and
completely. 4 He has come as does a little child, who must
beseech his father for protection and for love. 5 He rules the
universe, and yet He asks unceasingly that you return with Him, and take
illusions as your gods no more.
W-pI.182.12. You have not lost your innocence.
2 It is
for this you yearn. 3 This is your heart's desire.
4 This is
the voice you hear, and this the call which cannot be denied.
5 The
holy Child remains with you. 6 His home is yours.
7 Today
He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the
toys of battle you have made. 8 And now the way is open, and the journey has
an end in sight at last. 9 Be still an instant and go home with Him, and
be at peace a while.
Lesson 183.
I call upon God's Name and on my own.
W-pI.183.1. God's Name is holy, but no holier than
yours. 2
To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own.
3 A
father gives his son his name, and thus identifies the son with him.
4 His brothers
share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their
identity. 5 Your Father's Name reminds you who you are,
even within a world that does not know; even though you have not remembered it.
W-pI.183.2. God's Name can not be heard without
response, nor said without an echo in the mind that calls you to remember.
2 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.
W-pI.183.3. Repeat God's Name, and all the world
responds by laying down illusions. 2 Every dream the world
holds dear has suddenly gone by, and where it seemed to stand you find a star;
a miracle of grace. 3 The sick arise, healed of their sickly
thoughts. 4 The blind can see; the deaf can hear.
5 The
sorrowful cast off their mourning, and the tears of pain are dried as happy
laughter comes to bless the world.
W-pI.183.4. Repeat the Name of God, and little
names have lost their meaning. 2 No temptation but becomes a nameless and
unwanted thing before God's Name. 3 Repeat His Name, and see how easily you will
forget the names of all the gods you valued. 4 They have lost the
name of god you gave them. 5 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.
W-pI.183.5. Repeat the Name of God, and call upon
your Self, Whose Name is His. 2 Repeat His Name, and all the tiny, nameless
things on earth slip into right perspective. 3 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. 4 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.
W-pI.183.6. Practice but this today; repeat God's
Name slowly again and still again. 2 Become oblivious to
every name but His. 3 Hear nothing else.
4 Let all
your thoughts become anchored on this. 5 No other word we use
except at the beginning, when we say today's idea but once.
6 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.
W-pI.183.7. Thus do we give an invitation which can
never be refused. 2 And God will come, and answer it Himself.
3 Think
not He hears the little prayers of those who call on Him with names of idols
cherished by the world. 4 They cannot reach Him thus.
5 He
cannot hear requests that He be not Himself, or that His Son receive another
name than His.
W-pI.183.8. Repeat God's Name, and you acknowledge
Him as sole Creator of reality. 2 And you acknowledge also that His Son is part
of Him, creating in His Name. 3 Sit silently, and let His Name become the all-encompassing
idea that holds your mind completely. 4 Let all thoughts be
still except this one. 5 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 one Name for all there is, and all that there will
be.
W-pI.183.9. Today you can achieve a state in which
you will experience the gift of grace. 2 You can escape all
bondage of the world, and give the world the same release you found.
3 You can
remember what the world forgot, and offer it your own remembering.
4 You can
accept today the part you play in its salvation, and your own as well.
5 And
both can be accomplished perfectly.
W-pI.183.10. Turn to the Name of God for your
release, and it is given you. 2 No prayer but this is necessary, for it holds
them all within it. 3 Words are insignificant, and all requests
unneeded when God's Son calls on his Father's Name.
4 His
Father's Thoughts become his own. 5 He makes his claim to all his Father gave, is
giving still, and will forever give. 6 He calls on Him to
let all things he thought he made be nameless now, and in their place the holy
Name of God becomes his judgment of their worthlessness.
W-pI.183.11. All little things are silent.
2 Little
sounds are soundless now. 3 The little things of earth have disappeared.
4 The
universe consists of nothing but the Son of God, who calls upon his Father.
5 And his
Father's Voice gives answer in his Father's holy Name.
6 In this
eternal, still relationship, in which communication far transcends all words,
and yet exceeds in depth and height whatever words could possibly convey, is
peace eternal. 7 In our Father's Name, we would experience
this peace today. 8 And in His Name, it shall be given us.
Lesson 184.
The Name of God is my inheritance.
W-pI.184.1. You live by symbols.
2 You
have made up names for everything you see. 3 Each one becomes a
separate entity, identified by its own name. 4 By this you carve it
out of unity. 5 By this you designate its special attributes,
and set it off from other things by emphasizing space surrounding it.
6 This
space you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all
happenings in terms of place and time; all bodies which are greeted by a name.
W-pI.184.2. This space you see as setting off all
things from one another is the means by which the world's perception is
achieved. 2 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. 3 Thus do you think that you have given life in
separation. 4 By this split you think you are established
as a unity which functions with an independent will.
W-pI.184.3. What are these names by which the
world becomes a series of discrete events, of things ununified, of bodies kept
apart and holding bits of mind as separate awarenesses?
2 You
gave these names to them, establishing perception as you wished to have
perception be. 3 The nameless things were given names, and
thus reality was given them as well. 4 For what is named is
given meaning and will then be seen as meaningful; a cause of true effect, with
consequence inherent in itself.
W-pI.184.4. This is the way reality is made by
partial vision, purposefully set against the given truth.
2 Its
enemy is wholeness. 3 It conceives of little things and looks upon
them. 4
And a lack of space, a sense of unity or vision that sees differently, become
the threats which it must overcome, conflict with and deny.
W-pI.184.5. Yet does this other vision still
remain a natural direction for the mind to channel its perception.
2 It is
hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names, and thousands more.
3 Yet you
believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which
communication is achieved, and concepts can be meaningfully shared.
W-pI.184.6. This is the sum of the inheritance the
world bestows. 2 And everyone who learns to think that it is
so accepts the signs and symbols that assert the world is real.
3 It is
for this they stand. 4 They leave no doubt that what is named is
there. 5
It can be seen, as is anticipated. 6 What denies that it
is true is but illusion, for it is the ultimate reality.
7 To
question it is madness; to accept its presence is the proof of sanity.
W-pI.184.7. Such is the teaching of the world.
2 It is a
phase of learning everyone who comes must go through.
3 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.
4
Learning that stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning.
5 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.
W-pI.184.8. Think not you made the world.
2
Illusions, yes! 3 But what is true in earth and Heaven is
beyond your naming. 4 When you call upon a brother, it is to his
body that you make appeal. 5 His true Identity is hidden from you by what
you believe he really is. 6 His body makes response to what you call him,
for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own.
7 And
thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he
accepts this separate name as his.
W-pI.184.9. 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. 2 You have need to use
the symbols of the world a while. 3 But be you not deceived by them as well.
4 They do
not stand for anything at all, and in your practicing it is this thought that
will release you from them. 5 They become but means by which you can
communicate in ways the world can understand, but which you recognize is not
the unity where true communication can be found.
W-pI.184.10. 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.
2 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.
3 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.
W-pI.184.11. Use all the little names and symbols
which delineate the world of darkness. 2 Yet accept them not
as your reality. 3 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. 4 Use all the names the world bestows on them
but for convenience, yet do not forget they share the Name of God along with
you.
W-pI.184.12. God has no name.
2 And yet
His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson
does all learning end. 3 All names are unified; all space is filled
with truth's reflection. 4 Every gap is closed, and separation healed.
5 The
Name of God is the inheritance He gave to those who chose the teaching of the
world to take the place of Heaven. 6 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.
W-pI.184.13. No one can fail who seeks the meaning of
the Name of God. 2 Experience must come to supplement the Word.
3 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. 4 One Name we bring into our practicing.
5 One
Name we use to unify our sight.
W-pI.184.14. And though we use a different name for
each awareness of an aspect of God's Son, we understand that they have but one
Name, which He has given them. 2 It is this Name we use in practicing.
3 And
through Its use, all foolish separations disappear which kept us blind.
4 And we
are given strength to see beyond them. 5 Now our sight is
blessed with blessings we can give as we receive.
W-pI.184.15. Father, our Name is Yours.
2 In It
we are united with all living things, and You Who are their one Creator.
3 What we
made and call by many different names is but a shadow we have tried to cast
across Your Own reality. 4 And we are glad and thankful we were wrong.
5 All our
mistakes we give to You, that we may be absolved from all effects our errors
seemed to have. 6 And we accept the truth You give, in place of
every one of them. 7 Your Name is our salvation and escape from
what we made. 8 Your Name unites us in the oneness which is
our inheritance and peace. 9 Amen.
Lesson 185. I want the peace of God.
W-pI.185.1. To say these words is nothing.
2 But to
mean these words is everything. 3 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 or time. 4 Heaven would be completely given back to full
awareness, memory of God entirely restored, the resurrection of all creation
fully recognized.
W-pI.185.2. No one can mean these words and not be
healed. 2
He cannot play with dreams, nor think he is himself a dream.
3 He
cannot make a hell and think it real. 4 He wants the peace of
God, and it is given him. 5 For that is all he wants, and that is all he
will receive. 6 Many have said these words.
7 But few
indeed have meant them. 8 You have but to look upon the world you see
around you to be sure how very few they are. 9 The world would be
completely changed, should any two agree these words express the only thing
they want.
W-pI.185.3. Two minds with one intent become so
strong that what they will becomes the Will of God.
2 For
minds can only join in truth. 3 In dreams, no two can share the same intent.
4 To
each, the hero of the dream is different; the outcome wanted not the same for
both. 5
Loser and gainer merely shift about in changing patterns, as the ratio of gain
to loss and loss to gain takes on a different aspect or another form.
W-pI.185.4. Yet compromise alone a dream can bring.
2
Sometimes it takes the form of union, but only the form.
3 The
meaning must escape the dream, for compromising is the goal of dreaming.
4 Minds
cannot unite in dreams. 5 They merely bargain.
6 And
what bargain can give them the peace of God? 7 Illusions come to
take His place. 8 And what He means is lost to sleeping minds
intent on compromise, each to his gain and to another's loss.
W-pI.185.5. To mean you want the peace of God is
to renounce all dreams. 2 For no one means these words who wants
illusions, and who therefore seeks the means which bring illusions.
3 He has
looked on them, and found them wanting. 4 Now he seeks to go
beyond them, recognizing that another dream would offer nothing more than all
the others. 5 Dreams are one to him.
6 And he
has learned their only difference is one of form, for one will bring the same
despair and misery as do the rest.
W-pI.185.6. The mind which means that all it wants
is peace must join with other minds, for that is how peace is obtained.
2 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.
3
Whatever form the lesson takes is planned for him in such a way that he can not
mistake it, if his asking is sincere. 4 But if he asks
without sincerity, there is no form in which the lesson will meet with
acceptance and be truly learned.
W-pI.185.7. Let us today devote our practicing to
recognizing that we really mean the words we say. 2 We want the peace of
God. 3
This is no idle wish. 4 These words do not request another dream be
given us. 5 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. 6 To mean these words acknowledges illusions
are in vain, requesting the eternal in the place of shifting dreams which seem
to change in what they offer, but are one in nothingness.
W-pI.185.8. Today devote your practice periods to
careful searching of your mind, to find the dreams you cherish still.
2 What do
you ask for in your heart? 3 Forget the words you use in making your
requests. 4 Consider but what you believe will comfort
you, and bring you happiness. 5 But be you not dismayed by lingering
illusions, for their form is not what matters now. 6 Let not some dreams
be more acceptable, reserving shame and secrecy for others.
7 They
are one. 8 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?"
W-pI.185.9. This is the choice you make.
2 Be not
deceived that it is otherwise. 3 No compromise is possible in this.
4 You
choose God's peace, or you have asked for dreams. 5 And dreams will come
as you requested them. 6 Yet will God's peace come just as certainly,
and to remain with you forever. 7 It will not be gone with every twist and turning
of the road, to reappear, unrecognized, in forms which shift and change with
every step you take.
W-pI.185.10. You want the peace of God.
2 And so
do all who seem to seek for dreams. 3 For them as well as
for yourself, you ask but this when you make this request with deep sincerity.
4 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.
5 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.
6 Help
has been given you. 7 And would you not avail yourself of it by
sharing it?
W-pI.185.11. No one who truly seeks the peace of God
can fail to find it. 2 For he merely asks that he deceive himself no
longer by denying to himself what is God's Will. 3 Who can remain
unsatisfied who asks for what he has already? 4 Who could be
unanswered who requests an answer which is his to give?
5 The
peace of God is yours.
W-pI.185.12. For you was peace created, given you by
its Creator, and established as His Own eternal gift.
2 How can
you fail, when you but ask for what He wills for you?
3 And how
could your request be limited to you alone? 4 No gift of God can be
unshared. 5 It is this attribute that sets the gifts of
God apart from every dream that ever seemed to take the place of truth.
W-pI.185.13. No one can lose and everyone must gain
whenever any gift of God has been requested and received by anyone.
2 God
gives but to unite. 3 To take away is meaningless to Him.
4 And
when it is as meaningless to you, you can be sure you share one Will with Him,
and He with you. 5 And you will also know you share one Will
with all your brothers, whose intent is yours.
W-pI.185.14. It is this one intent we seek today,
uniting our desires with the need of every heart, the call of every mind, the
hope that lies beyond despair, the love attack would hide, the brotherhood that
hate has sought to sever, but which still remains as God created it.
2 With
Help like this beside us, can we fail today as we request the peace of God be
given us?
Lesson 186.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
W-pI.186.1. Here is the statement that will one
day take all arrogance away from every mind. 2 Here is the thought
of true humility, which holds no function as your own but that which has been
given you. 3 It offers your acceptance of a part assigned
to you, without insisting on another role. 4 It does not judge
your proper role. 5 It but acknowledges the Will of God is done
on earth as well as Heaven. 6 It unites all wills on earth in Heaven's plan
to save the world, restoring it to Heaven's peace.
W-pI.186.2. Let us not fight our function.
2 We did
not establish it. 3 It is not our idea.
4 The
means are given us by which it will be perfectly accomplished.
5 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. 6 What is given us to
do, we have the strength to do. 7 Our minds are suited perfectly to take the
part assigned to us by One Who knows us well.
W-pI.186.3. Today's idea may seem quite sobering,
until you see its meaning. 2 All it says is that your Father still
remembers you, and offers you the perfect trust He holds in you who are His Son.
3 It does
not ask that you be different in any way from what you are.
4 What
could humility request but this? 5 And what could arrogance deny but this?
6 Today
we will not shrink from our assignment on the specious grounds that modesty is
outraged. 7 It is pride that would deny the Call for God
Himself.
W-pI.186.4. All false humility we lay aside today,
that we may listen to God's Voice reveal to us what He would have us do.
2 We do
not doubt our adequacy for the function He will offer us.
3 We will
be certain only that He knows our strengths, our wisdom and our holiness.
4 And if
He deems us worthy, so we are. 5 It is but arrogance that judges otherwise.
W-pI.186.5. 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. 2
Accept the plan you did not make instead. 3 Judge not your value
to it. 4
If God's Voice assures you that salvation needs your part, and that the whole
depends on you, be sure that it is so. 5 The arrogant must
cling to words, afraid to go beyond them to experience which might affront
their stance. 6 Yet are the humble free to hear the Voice
which tells them what they are, and what to do.
W-pI.186.6. Arrogance makes an image of yourself
that is not real. 2 It is this image which quails and retreats in
terror, as the Voice for God assures you that you have the strength, the wisdom
and the holiness to go beyond all images. 3 You are not weak, as
is the image of yourself. 4 You are not ignorant and helpless.
5 Sin can
not tarnish the truth in you, and misery can come not near the holy home of
God.
W-pI.186.7. All this the Voice for God relates to
you. 2
And as He speaks, the image trembles and seeks to attack the threat it does not
know, sensing its basis crumble. 3 Let it go. 4 Salvation of the
world depends on you, and not upon this little pile of dust.
5 What
can it tell the holy Son of God? 6 Why need he be concerned with it at all?
W-pI.186.8. And so we find our peace.
2 We will
accept the function God has given us, for all illusions rest upon the weird
belief that we can make another for ourselves. 3 Our self-made roles
are shifting, and they seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of love
and loving. 4 We can laugh or weep, and greet the day with
welcome or with tears. 5 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 hopelessness.
W-pI.186.9. Is this the Son of God?
2 Could
He create such instability and call it Son? 3 He Who is changeless
shares His attributes with His creation. 4 All the images His
Son appears to make have no effect on what he is. 5 They blow across his
mind like wind-swept leaves that form a patterning an instant, break apart to
group again, and scamper off. 6 Or like mirages seen above a desert, rising
from the dust.
W-pI.186.10. These unsubstantial images will go, and
leave your mind unclouded and serene, when you accept the function given you.
2 The
images you make give rise to but conflicting goals, impermanent and vague,
uncertain and ambiguous. 3 Who could be constant in his efforts, or
direct his energies and concentrated drive toward goals like these?
4 The
functions which the world esteems are so uncertain that they change ten times
an hour at their most secure. 5 What hope of gain can rest on goals like
this?
W-pI.186.11. 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. 2 There is no doubt of its validity.
3 It
comes from One Who knows no error, and His Voice is certain of Its messages.
4 They
will not change, nor be in conflict. 5 All of them point to
one goal, and one you can attain. 6 Your plan may be impossible, but God's can
never fail because He is its Source.
W-pI.186.12. Do as God's Voice directs.
2 And if
It asks a thing of you which seems impossible, remember Who it is that asks,
and who would make denial. 3 Then consider this; which is more likely to
be right? 4 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?
5 Let not
its voice direct you. 6 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.
W-pI.186.13. His gentle Voice is calling from the
known to the unknowing. 2 He would comfort you, although He knows no
sorrow. 3
He would make a restitution, though He is complete; a gift to you, although He
knows that you have everything already. 4 He has Thoughts which
answer every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not.
5 For
Love must give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in
a world of form.
W-pI.186.14. These are the forms which never can
deceive, because they come from Formlessness Itself.
2
Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form.
3 Yet what
is needed here is given here as it is needed. 4 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.
5
Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive.
6 Such is
your function here.
Lesson 187.
I bless the world because I bless myself.
W-pI.187.1. No one can give unless he has.
2 In
fact, giving is proof of having. 3 We have made this point before.
4 What
seems to make it hard to credit is not this. 5 No one can doubt that
you must first possess what you would give. 6 It is the second
phase on which the world and true perception differ.
7 Having
had and given, then the world asserts that you have lost what you possessed.
8 The
truth maintains that giving will increase what you possess.
W-pI.187.2. How is this possible?
2 For it
is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body's eyes will not
perceive it yours. 3 Yet we have learned that things but represent
the thoughts that make them. 4 And you do not lack for proof that when you
give ideas away, you strengthen them in your own mind.
5 Perhaps
the form in which the thought seems to appear is changed in giving.
6 Yet it
must return to him who gives. 7 Nor can the form it takes be less acceptable.
8 It must
be more.
W-pI.187.3. Ideas must first belong to you, before
you give them. 2 If you are to save the world, you first
accept salvation for yourself. 3 But you will not believe that this is done
until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon.
4 Herein
is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. 5 Now you can perceive
that by your giving is your store increased.
W-pI.187.4. Protect all things you value by the
act of giving them away, and you are sure that you will never lose them.
2 What
you thought you did not have is thereby proven yours.
3 Yet
value not its form. 4 For this will change and grow unrecognizable
in time, however much you try to keep it safe. 5 No form endures.
6 It is
the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable.
W-pI.187.5. Give gladly.
2 You can
only gain thereby. 3 The thought remains, and grows in strength as
it is reinforced by giving. 4 Thoughts extend as they are shared, for they
can not be lost. 5 There is no giver and receiver in the sense
the world conceives of them. 6 There is a giver who retains; another who
will give as well. 7 And both must gain in this exchange, for each
will have the thought in form most helpful to him. 8 What he seems to lose
is always something he will value less than what will surely be returned to
him.
W-pI.187.6. Never forget you give but to yourself.
2 Who
understands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice.
3 Nor can
he fail to recognize the many forms which sacrifice may take.
4 He laughs
as well at pain and loss, at sickness and at grief, at poverty, starvation and
at death. 5 He recognizes sacrifice remains the one idea
that stands behind them all, and in his gentle laughter are they healed.
W-pI.187.7. Illusion recognized must disappear.
2 Accept
not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering.
3 Your
blessing lies on everyone who suffers, when you choose to see all suffering as
what it is. 4 The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all
the forms that suffering appears to take. 5 And sacrifice is an
idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.
W-pI.187.8. Never believe that you can sacrifice.
2 There
is no place for sacrifice in what has any value. 3 If the thought
occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen and correction must be
made. 4
Your blessing will correct it. 5 Given first to you, it now is yours to give
as well. 6 No form of sacrifice and suffering can long
endure before the face of one who has forgiven and has blessed himself.
W-pI.187.9. The lilies that your brother offers
you are laid upon your altar, with the ones you offer him beside them.
2 Who
could fear to look upon such lovely holiness? 3 The great illusion of
the fear of God diminishes to nothingness before the purity that you will look
on here. 4 Be not afraid to look.
5 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.
W-pI.187.10. Now are we one in thought, for fear has
gone. 2
And here, before the altar to one God, one Father, one Creator and one Thought,
we stand together as one Son of God. 3 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. 4 The Name of God is on our lips.
5 And as
we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our
Father's Love.
W-pI.187.11. Now are we blessed, and now we bless the
world. 2
What we have looked upon we would extend, for we would see it everywhere.
3 We
would behold it shining with the grace of God in everyone.
4 We
would not have it be withheld from anything we look upon.
5 And to
ensure this holy sight is ours, we offer it to everything we see.
6 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 Innocence Itself, Who dwells in us and offers
us His Holiness as ours.
Lesson 188. The peace of God is shining in me now.
W-pI.188.1. Why wait for Heaven?
2 Those
who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. 3 The light is in them
now. 4
Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all.
5 Light
is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well.
6 The
light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is
your own. 7 It is the only thing you bring with you from
Him Who is your Source. 8 It shines in you because it lights your home,
and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home.
W-pI.188.2. This light can not be lost.
2 Why
wait to find it in the future, or believe it has been lost already, or was
never there? 3 It can so easily be looked upon that
arguments which prove it is not there become ridiculous.
4 Who can
deny the presence of what he beholds in him? 5 It is not difficult
to look within, for there all vision starts. 6 There is no sight, be
it of dreams or from a truer Source, that is not but the shadow of the seen
through inward vision. 7 There perception starts, and there it ends.
8 It has
no source but this.
W-pI.188.3. The peace of God is shining in you
now, and from your heart extends around the world. 2 It pauses to caress
each living thing, and leaves a blessing with it that remains forever and forever.
3 What it
gives must be eternal. 4 It removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and
valueless. 5 It brings renewal to all tired hearts, and
lights all vision as it passes by. 6 All of its gifts are
given everyone, and everyone unites in giving thanks to you who give, and you
who have received.
W-pI.188.4. The shining in your mind reminds the
world of what it has forgotten, and the world restores the memory to you as
well. 2
From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned.
3 To you,
the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks.
4 And in
His blessing does the light in you shine brighter, adding to the gifts you have
to offer to the world.
W-pI.188.5. The peace of God can never be
contained. 2 Who recognizes it within himself must give it.
3 And the
means for giving it are in his understanding. 4 He forgives because
he recognized the truth in him. 5 The peace of God is shining in you now, and
in all living things. 6 In quietness is it acknowledged universally.
7 For what
your inward vision looks upon is your perception of the universe.
W-pI.188.6. Sit quietly and close your eyes.
2 The
light within you is sufficient. 3 It alone has power to give the gift of sight
to you. 4
Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within.
5 They
know the way. 6 For honest thoughts, untainted by the dream
of worldly things outside yourself, become the holy messengers of God Himself.
W-pI.188.7. These thoughts you think with Him.
2 They
recognize their home. 3 And they point surely to their Source, Where
God the Father and the Son are One. 4 God's peace is
shining on them, but they must remain with you as well, for they were born
within your mind, as yours was born in God's. 5 They lead you back to
peace, from where they came but to remind you how you must return.
W-pI.188.8. They heed your Father's Voice when you
refuse to listen. 2 And they urge you gently to accept His Word
for what you are, instead of fantasies and shadows.
3 They
remind you that you are the co-creator of all things that live.
4 For as
the peace of God is shining in you, it must shine on them.
W-pI.188.9. We practice coming nearer to the light
in us today. 2 We take our wandering thoughts, and gently
bring them back to where they fall in line with all the thoughts we share with
God. 3
We will not let them stray. 4 We let the light within our minds direct them
to come home. 5 We have betrayed them, ordering that they
depart from us. 6 But now we call them back, and wash them
clean of strange desires and disordered wishes. 7 We restore to them
the holiness of their inheritance.
W-pI.188.10. 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. 2 We will forgive them
all, absolving all the world from what we thought it did to us.
3 For it
is we who make the world as we would have it. 4 Now we choose that it
be innocent, devoid of sin and open to salvation. 5 And we lay our saving
blessing on it, as we say: 6 The peace of God is shining in me now.
7 Let all
things shine upon me in that peace, And let me bless them with the light in me.
Lesson 189. I feel the Love of God within me now.
W-pI.189.1. There is a light in you the world can
not perceive. 2 And with its eyes you will not see this
light, for you are blinded by the world. 3 Yet you have eyes to
see it. 4
It is there for you to look upon. 5 It was not placed in you to be kept hidden
from your sight. 6 This light is a reflection of the thought we
practice now. 7 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.
W-pI.189.2. Who could feel fear in such a world as
this? 2
It welcomes you, rejoices that you came, and sings your praises as it keeps you
safe from every form of danger and of pain. 3 It offers you a warm
and gentle home in which to stay a while. 4 It blesses you
throughout the day, and watches through the night as silent guardian of your
holy sleep. 5 It sees salvation in you, and protects the
light in you, in which it sees its own. 6 It offers you its
flowers and its snow, in thankfulness for your benevolence.
W-pI.189.3. This is the world the Love of God
reveals. 2 It is so different from the world you see
through darkened eyes of malice and of fear, that one belies the other.
3 Only
one can be perceived at all. 4 The other one is wholly meaningless.
5 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.
W-pI.189.4. Yet is the world of hatred equally
unseen and inconceivable to those who feel God's Love in them.
2 Their
world reflects the quietness and peace 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. 3 What they have felt in them they look upon,
and see its sure reflection everywhere.
W-pI.189.5. What would you see?
2 The
choice is given you. 3 But learn and do not let your mind forget
this law of seeing: You will look upon that which you feel within.
4 If
hatred finds a place within your heart, you will perceive a fearful world, held
cruelly in death's sharp-pointed, bony fingers. 5 If you feel the Love
of God within you, you will look out on a world of mercy and of love.
W-pI.189.6. 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. 2
We learn the way today. 3 It is as sure as Love itself, to which it
carries us. 4 For its simplicity avoids the snares the
foolish convolutions of the world's apparent reasoning but serve to hide.
W-pI.189.7. 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.
2 Empty
your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of
every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed.
3 Hold
onto nothing. 4 Do not bring with you one thought the past
has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything.
5 Forget
this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.
W-pI.189.8. Is it not He Who knows the way to you?
2 You
need not know the way to Him. 3 Your part is simply to allow all obstacles
that you have interposed between the Son and God the Father to be quietly
removed forever. 4 God will do His part in joyful and immediate
response. 5 Ask and receive. 6 But do not make
demands, nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you.
7 The way
to reach Him is merely to let Him be. 8 For in that way is
your reality proclaimed as well.
W-pI.189.9. And so today we do not choose the way
in which we go to Him. 2 But we do choose to let Him come.
3 And
with this choice we rest. 4 And in our quiet hearts and open minds, His Love
will blaze its pathway of itself. 5 What has not been denied is surely there, if
it be true and can be surely reached. 6 God knows His Son,
and knows the way to him. 7 He does not need His Son to show Him how to
find His way. 8 Through every opened door His Love shines
outward from its home within, and lightens up the world in innocence.
W-pI.189.10. Father,
we do not know the way to You.
2 But we have called, and You have answered us. 3 We will
not interfere.
4 Salvation's ways are not our own, for they
belong to You.
5 And it is unto You we look for them. 6 Our
hands are open to receive Your gifts. 7 We have no thoughts
we think apart from You, and cherish no beliefs of what we are, or Who created
us. 8 Yours is the way that we would find and follow. 9 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. 10 Amen.
Lesson 190.
I choose the joy of God instead of pain.
W-pI.190.1. Pain is a wrong perspective.
2 When it
is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception.
3 It is
not a fact at all. 4 There is no form it takes that will not
disappear if seen aright. 5 For pain proclaims God cruel.
6 How
could it be real in any form? 7 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.
W-pI.190.2. Can such projections be attested to?
2 Can
they be anything but wholly false? 3 Pain is but witness
to the Son's mistakes in what he thinks he is. 4 It is a dream of
fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what
is wholly unassailable. 5 It is a nightmare of abandonment by an
Eternal Love, which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love.
W-pI.190.3. Pain is a sign illusions reign in
place of truth. 2 It demonstrates God is denied, confused with
fear, perceived as mad, and seen as traitor to Himself.
3 If God
is real, there is no pain. 4 If pain is real, there is no God.
5 For
vengeance is not part of love. 6 And fear, denying love and using pain to
prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life.
7 The
body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has
slain.
W-pI.190.4. Peace to such foolishness!
2 The
time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. 3 There is no need to
think of them as savage crimes, or secret sins with weighty consequence.
4 Who but
a madman could conceive of them as cause of anything?
5 Their
witness, pain, is mad as they, and no more to be feared than the insane
illusions which it shields, and tries to demonstrate must still be true.
W-pI.190.5. It is your thoughts alone that cause
you pain. 2 Nothing external to your mind can hurt or
injure you in any way. 3 There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach
down and bring oppression. 4 No one but yourself affects you.
5 There
is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or
frail. 6
But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely
recognizing what you are. 7 As you perceive the harmlessness in them,
they will accept your holy will as theirs. 8 And what was seen as
fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.
W-pI.190.6. My holy brother, think of this awhile:
The world you see does nothing. 2 It has no effects at all.
3 It
merely represents your thoughts. 4 And it will change entirely as you elect to
change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want.
5 Your
Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable,
forever and forever. 6 And would you deny a little corner of your
mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain; a sickly place
where living things must come at last to die?
W-pI.190.7. The world may seem to cause you pain.
2 And yet
the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. 3 As an effect, it
cannot make effects. 4 As an illusion, it is what you wish.
5 Your
idle wishes represent its pains. 6 Your strange desires bring it evil dreams.
7 Your
thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it
live.
W-pI.190.8. Pain is the thought of evil taking
form, and working havoc in your holy mind. 2 Pain is the ransom
you have gladly paid not to be free. 3 In pain is God denied
the Son He loves. 4 In pain does fear appear to triumph over
love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. 5 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.
W-pI.190.9. Lay down your arms, and come without
defense into the quiet place where Heaven's peace holds all things still at
last. 2
Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. 3 Let no attack enter
with you. 4 Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you
hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you
seek to hide your holiness.
W-pI.190.10. Here will you understand there is no
pain. 2
Here does the joy of God belong to you. 3 This is the day when
it is given you to realize the lesson that contains all of salvation's power.
4 It is
this: Pain is illusion; joy, reality. 5 Pain is but sleep;
joy is awakening. 6 Pain is deception; joy alone is truth.
W-pI.190.11. 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. 2 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.
Lesson 191. I am the holy Son of God Himself.
W-pI.191.1. Here is your declaration of release
from bondage of the world. 2 And here as well is all the world released.
3 You do
not see what you have done by giving to the world the role of jailer to the Son
of God. 4
What could it be but vicious and afraid, fearful of shadows, punitive and wild,
lacking all reason, blind, insane with hate?
W-pI.191.2. What have you done that this should be
your world? 2 What have you done that this is what you see?
3 Deny
your own Identity, and this is what remains. 4 You look on chaos and
proclaim it is yourself. 5 There is no sight that fails to witness this
to you. 6
There is no sound that does not speak of frailty within you and without; no
breath you draw that does not seem to bring you nearer death; no hope you hold
but will dissolve in tears.
W-pI.191.3. 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. 2 Deny your own
Identity, and you assail the universe alone, without a friend, a tiny particle
of dust against the legions of your enemies. 3 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.
W-pI.191.4. Yet what is it except a game you play
in which Identity can be denied? 2 You are as God created you.
3 All
else but this one thing is folly to believe. 4 In this one thought
is everyone set free. 5 In this one truth are all illusions gone.
6 In this
one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything, the
central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality.
W-pI.191.5. But let today's idea find a place
among your thoughts and you have risen far above the world, and all the worldly
thoughts that hold it prisoner. 2 And from this place of safety and escape you
will return and set it free. 3 For he who can accept his true Identity is
truly saved. 4 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.
W-pI.191.6. One holy thought like this and you are
free: You are the holy Son of God Himself. 2 And with this holy
thought you learn as well that you have freed the world.
3 You
have no need to use it cruelly, and then perceive this savage need in it.
4 You set
it free of your imprisonment. 5 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.
W-pI.191.7. Be glad today how very easily is hell
undone. 2
You need but tell yourself: 3 I am the holy Son of God Himself.
4 I
cannot suffer, cannot be in pain; I cannot suffer loss, nor fail to do all that
salvation asks. 5 And in that thought is everything you look on
wholly changed.
W-pI.191.8. A miracle has lighted up all dark and ancient
caverns, where the rites of death echoed since time began.
2 For
time has lost its hold upon the world. 3 The Son of God has
come in glory to redeem the lost, to save the helpless, and to give the world
the gift of his forgiveness. 4 Who could see the world as dark and sinful,
when God's Son has come again at last to set it free?
W-pI.191.9. You who perceive yourself as weak and
frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and
suffer pain, hear this: All power is given unto you in earth and Heaven.
2 There
is nothing that you cannot do. 3 You play the game of death, of being
helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you.
4 Yet
when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you.
W-pI.191.10. Then let the Son of God awaken from his
sleep, and opening his holy eyes, return again to bless the world he made.
2 In
error it began, but it will end in the reflection of his holiness.
3 And he
will sleep no more and dream of death. 4 Then join with me
today. 5
Your glory is the light that saves the world. 6 Do not withhold
salvation longer. 7 Look about the world, and see the suffering
there. 8
Is not your heart willing to bring your weary brothers rest?
W-pI.191.11. They must await your own release.
2 They
stay in chains till you are free. 3 They cannot see the mercy of the world until
you find it in yourself. 4 They suffer pain until you have denied its
hold on you. 5 They die till you accept your own eternal
life. 6
You are the holy Son of God Himself. 7 Remember this, and
all the world is free. 8 Remember this, and earth and Heaven are one.
Lesson 192. I have a function God would have me fill.
W-pI.192.1. 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. 2 Yet what can such a
function mean within a world of envy, hatred and attack?
W-pI.192.2. Therefore, you have a function in the
world in its own terms. 2 For who can understand a language far beyond
his simple grasp? 3 Forgiveness represents your function here.
4 It is
not God's creation, for it is the means by which untruth can be undone.
5 And who
would pardon Heaven? 6 Yet on earth, you need the means to let
illusions go. 7 Creation merely waits for your return to be
acknowledged, not to be complete.
W-pI.192.3. Creation cannot even be conceived of
in the world. 2 It has no meaning here.
3
Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth. 4 For being
Heaven-born, it has no form at all. 5 Yet God created One
Who has the power to translate in form the wholly formless.
6 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.
W-pI.192.4. 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. 2 Forgiveness is the means by which the fear of
death is overcome, because it holds no fierce attraction now and guilt is gone.
3
Forgiveness lets the body be perceived as what it is; a simple teaching aid, to
be laid by when learning is complete, but hardly changing him who learns at
all.
W-pI.192.5. The mind without the body cannot make
mistakes. 2 It cannot think that it will die, nor be the
prey of merciless attack. 3 Anger becomes impossible, and where is terror
then? 4
What fears could still assail those who have lost the source of all attack, the
core of anguish and the seat of fear? 5 Only forgiveness can
relieve the mind of thinking that the body is its home.
6 Only
forgiveness can restore the peace that God intended for His holy Son.
7 Only
forgiveness can persuade the Son to look again upon his holiness.
W-pI.192.6. 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.
2 Is this
unwelcome? 3 Is it to be feared?
4 Or is
it to be hoped for, met with thanks and joyously accepted?
5 We are
one, and therefore give up nothing. 6 But we have indeed
been given everything by God.
W-pI.192.7. Yet do we need forgiveness to perceive
that this is so. 2 Without its kindly light we grope in
darkness, using reason but to justify our rage and our attack.
3 Our
understanding is so limited that what we think we understand is but confusion
born of error. 4 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.
W-pI.192.8. Who can be born again in Christ but
him who has forgiven everyone he sees or thinks of or imagines?
2 Who
could be set free while he imprisons anyone? 3 A jailer is not free,
for he is bound together with his prisoner. 4 He must be sure that
he does not escape, and so he spends his time in keeping watch on him.
5 The
bars that limit him become the world in which his jailer lives, along with him.
6 And it
is on his freedom that the way to liberty depends for both of them.
W-pI.192.9. Therefore, hold no one prisoner.
2 Release
instead of bind, for thus are you made free. 3 The way is simple.
4 Every
time you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head.
5 And it
will fall or be averted as you choose to be condemned or free.
6 Thus
does each one who seems to tempt you to be angry represent your savior from the
prison house of death. 7 And so you owe him thanks instead of pain.
W-pI.192.10. Be merciful today.
2 The Son
of God deserves your mercy. 3 It is he who asks that you accept the way to
freedom now. 4 Deny him not. 5 His Father's Love for
him belongs to you. 6 Your function here on earth is only to
forgive him, that you may accept him back as your Identity.
7 He is
as God created him. 8 And you are what he is.
9 Forgive
him now his sins, and you will see that you are one with him.
Lesson 193.
All things are lessons God would have me learn.
W-pI.193.1. God does not know of learning.
2 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. 3 That is His Will.
4 And
thus His Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done.
W-pI.193.2. God sees no contradictions.
2 Yet His
Son believes he sees them. 3 Thus he has a need for One Who can correct
his erring sight, and give him vision that will lead him back to where
perception ceases. 4 God does not perceive at all.
5 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. 6 It is He Who answers
what His Son would contradict, and keeps his sinlessness forever safe.
W-pI.193.3. These are the lessons God would have
you learn. 2 His Will reflects them all, and they reflect
His loving kindness to the Son He loves. 3 Each lesson has a
central thought, the same in all of them. 4 The form alone is
changed, with different circumstances and events; with different characters and
different themes, apparent but not real. 5 They are the same in
fundamental content. 6 It is this: 7 Forgive, and you will
see this differently.
W-pI.193.4. Certain it is that all distress does
not appear to be but unforgiveness. 2 Yet that is the
content underneath the form. 3 It is this sameness which makes learning sure,
because the lesson is so simple that it cannot be rejected in the end.
4 No one
can hide forever from a truth so very obvious that it appears in countless
forms, and yet is recognized as easily in all of them, if one but wants to see
the simple lesson there.
W-pI.193.5. Forgive,
and you will see this differently.
2 These
are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all your pain,
all suffering regardless of its form. 3 These are the words
with which temptation ends, and guilt, abandoned, is revered no more.
4 These
are the words which end the dream of sin, and rid the mind of fear.
5 These
are the words by which salvation comes to all the world.
W-pI.193.6. 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? 2 Shall we not learn to say these words when we
have understood their power to release all minds from bondage?
3 These
are words which give you power over all events that seem to have been given
power over you. 4 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.
W-pI.193.7. How can you tell when you are seeing
wrong, or someone else is failing to perceive the lesson he should learn?
2 Does
pain seem real in the perception? 3 If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned.
4 And
there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind that sees the pain through
eyes the mind directs.
W-pI.193.8. God would not have you suffer thus.
2 He
would help you forgive yourself. 3 His Son does not remember who he is.
4 And God
would have him not forget His Love, and all the gifts His Love brings with it.
5 Would
you now renounce your own salvation? 6 Would you fail to
learn the simple lessons Heaven's Teacher sets before you, that all pain may
disappear and God may be remembered by His Son?
W-pI.193.9. All things are lessons God would have
you learn. 2 He would not leave an unforgiving thought
without correction, nor one thorn or nail to hurt His holy Son in any way.
3 He
would ensure his holy rest remain untroubled and serene, without a care, in an
eternal home which cares for him. 4 And He would have all tears be wiped away,
with none remaining yet unshed, and none but waiting their appointed time to
fall. 5
For God has willed that laughter should replace each one, and that His Son be
free again.
W-pI.193.10. We will attempt today to overcome a
thousand seeming obstacles to peace in just one day.
2 Let
mercy come to you more quickly. 3 Do not try to hold it off another day,
another minute or another instant. 4 Time was made for
this. 5
Use it today for what its purpose is. 6 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.
W-pI.193.11. Give all you can, and give a little more.
2 For now
we would arise in haste and go unto our Father's house.
3 We have
been gone too long, and we would linger here no more.
4 And as we
practice, let us think about all things we saved to settle by ourselves, and
kept apart from healing. 5 Let us give them all to Him Who knows the way
to look upon them so that they will disappear. 6 Truth is His message;
truth His teaching is. 7 His are the lessons God would have us learn.
W-pI.193.12. 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. 2 And try to give it application to the
happenings the hour brought, so that the next one is free of the one before.
3 The
chains of time are easily unloosened in this way. 4 Let no one hour cast
its shadow on the one that follows, and when that one goes, let everything that
happened in its course go with it. 5 Thus will you remain
unbound, in peace eternal in the world of time.
W-pI.193.13. This is the lesson God would have you
learn: There is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step
to Him, and to salvation of the world. 2 To all that speaks of
terror, answer thus: 3 I will forgive, and this will disappear.
4 To
every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering, repeat these
selfsame words. 5 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. 6 God will take this final step Himself.
7 Do not
deny the little steps He asks you take to Him.
Lesson 194. I place the future in the Hands of God.
W-pI.194.1. Today's idea takes another step toward
quick salvation, and a giant stride it is indeed! 2 So great the distance
is that it encompasses, it sets you down just short of Heaven, with the goal in
sight and obstacles behind. 3 Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome
you to Heaven's gate; the quiet place of peace, where you await with certainty
the final step of God. 4 How far are we progressing now from earth!
5 How
close are we approaching to our goal! 6 How short the journey
still to be pursued!
W-pI.194.2. 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. 2 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. 3 You are saved, and
your salvation thus becomes the gift you give the world, because you have
received.
W-pI.194.3. In no one instant is depression felt,
or pain experienced or loss perceived. 2 In no one instant
sorrow can be set upon a throne, and worshipped faithfully.
3 In no
one instant can one even die. 4 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.
W-pI.194.4. God holds your future as He holds your
past and present. 2 They are one to Him, and so they should be
one to you. 3 Yet in this world, the temporal progression
still seems real. 4 And so you are not asked to understand the
lack of sequence really found in time. 5 You are but asked to
let the future go, and place it in God's Hands. 6 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.
W-pI.194.5. Release the future.
2 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.
3 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.
4 Now is
he free, and all his glory shines upon a world made free with him, to share his
holiness.
W-pI.194.6. 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. 2 As it becomes a
thought 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.
3 And as
you learn to see salvation in all things, so will the world perceive that it is
saved.
W-pI.194.7. What worry can beset the one who gives
his future to the loving Hands of God? 2 What can he suffer?
3 What
can cause him pain, or bring experience of loss to him?
4 What
can he fear? 5 And what can he regard except with love?
6 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. 7 He is sure that his
perception may be faulty, but will never lack correction.
8 He is
free to choose again when he has been deceived; to change his mind when he has
made mistakes.
W-pI.194.8. Place, then, your future in the Hands
of God. 2
For thus you call the memory of Him to come again, replacing all your thoughts
of sin and evil with the truth of love. 3 Think you the world
could fail to gain thereby, and every living creature not respond with healed
perception? 4 Who entrusts himself to God has also placed
the world within the Hands to which he has himself appealed for comfort and
security. 5 He lays aside the sick illusions of the world
along with his, and offers peace to both.
W-pI.194.9. Now are we saved indeed.
2 For in
God's Hands we rest untroubled, sure that only good can come to us.
3 If we
forget, we will be gently reassured. 4 If we accept an
unforgiving thought, it will be soon replaced by love's reflection.
5 And if we
are tempted to attack, we will appeal to Him Who guards our rest to make the
choice for us that leaves temptation far behind. 6 No longer is the
world our enemy, for we have chosen that we be its friend.
Lesson 195.
Love is the way I walk in gratitude.
W-pI.195.1. Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn
for those who look upon the world amiss. 2 The most that they
can do is see themselves as better off than others.
3 And
they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than they.
4 How
pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! 5 For who has cause for
thanks while others have less cause? 6 And who could suffer
less because he sees another suffer more? 7 Your gratitude is due
to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world.
W-pI.195.2. It is insane to offer thanks because
of suffering. 2 But it is equally insane to fail in gratitude
to One Who offers you the certain means whereby all pain is healed, and
suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness.
3 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 prison that they thought
contained no door to the deliverance they now perceive.
W-pI.195.3. Your brother 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. 2 Now is vengeance all there is to wish for.
3 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.
W-pI.195.4. You do not offer God your gratitude
because your brother is more slave than you, nor could you sanely be enraged if
he seems freer. 2 Love makes no comparisons.
3 And
gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love.
4 We
offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom.
5 It will
never be that some are loosed while others still are bound.
6 For who
can bargain in the name of love?
W-pI.195.5. Therefore give thanks, but in
sincerity. 2 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 a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who
walk the way of hatred and the path of death. 3 All these go with you.
4 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.
W-pI.195.6. We thank our Father for one thing
alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him.
2 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 Who is Himself completion.
3 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.
W-pI.195.7. Then let our brothers lean their tired
heads against our shoulders as they rest a while. 2 We offer thanks for
them. 3
For if we can direct them to the peace that we would find, the way is opening
at last to us. 4 An ancient door is swinging free again; a
long forgotten Word re-echoes in our memory, and gathers clarity as we are
willing once again to hear.
W-pI.195.8. Walk, then, in gratitude the way of
love. 2
For hatred is forgotten when we lay comparisons aside.
3 What
more remains as obstacles to peace? 4 The fear of God is
now undone at last, and we forgive without comparing.
5 Thus we
cannot choose to overlook some things, and yet retain some other things still
locked away as "sins." 6 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.
W-pI.195.9. Today we learn to think of gratitude
in place of anger, malice and revenge. 2 We have been given
everything. 3 If we refuse to recognize it, we are not
entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to a self-perception which regards us
in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly, and pushed
about without a thought or care for us or for our future.
4
Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions.
5 God has
cared for us, and calls us Son. 6 Can there be more than this?
W-pI.195.10. Our gratitude will pave the way to Him,
and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of.
2
Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is the other must be found.
3 For
gratitude is but an aspect of the Love which is the Source of all creation.
4 God
gives thanks to you, His Son, for being what you are; His Own completion and
the Source of love, along with Him. 5 Your gratitude to Him
is one with His to you. 6 For love can walk no road except the way of
gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God.
Lesson 196.
It can be but myself I crucify.
W-pI.196.1. When this is firmly understood and
kept in full awareness, you will not attempt to harm yourself, nor make your
body slave to vengeance. 2 You will not attack yourself, and you will
realize that to attack another is but to attack yourself.
3 You
will be free of the insane belief that to attack a brother saves yourself.
4 And you
will understand his safety is your own, and in his healing you are healed.
W-pI.196.2. Perhaps at 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.
2 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.
3 Yet
must it fail to understand the truth it uses thus. 4 But you can learn to
see these foolish applications, and deny the meaning they appear to have.
W-pI.196.3. Thus do you also teach your mind that
you are not an ego. 2 For the ways in which the ego would distort
the truth will not deceive you longer. 3 You will not believe
you are a body to be crucified. 4 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.
W-pI.196.4. Today's idea is one step we take in
leading us from bondage to the state of perfect freedom.
2 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. 3
It is not time we need for this. 4 It is but willingness.
5 For
what would seem to need a thousand years can easily be done in just one instant
by the grace of God.
W-pI.196.5. The dreary, hopeless thought that you
can make attacks on others and escape yourself has nailed you to the cross.
2 Perhaps
it seemed to be salvation. 3 Yet it merely stood for the belief the fear
of God is real. 4 And what is that but hell?
5 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?
W-pI.196.6. Such is the form of madness you
believe, if you accept the fearful thought you can attack another and be free
yourself. 2 Until this form is changed, there is no hope.
3 Until
you see that this, at least, must be entirely impossible, how could there be
escape? 4
The fear of God is real to anyone who thinks this thought is true.
5 And he
will not perceive its foolishness, or even see that it is there, so that it
would be possible to question it.
W-pI.196.7. To question it at all, its form must
first be changed at least as much as will permit fear of retaliation to abate,
and the responsibility returned to some extent to you.
2 From
there you can at least consider if you want to go along this painful path.
3 Until
this shift has been accomplished, you can not perceive that it is but your
thoughts that bring you fear, and your deliverance depends on you.
W-pI.196.8. Our next steps will be easy, if you
take this one today. 2 From there we go ahead quite rapidly.
3 For
once you understand it is impossible that you be hurt except by your own
thoughts, the fear of God must disappear. 4 You cannot then
believe that fear is caused without. 5 And God, Whom you had
thought to banish, can be welcomed back within the holy mind He never left.
W-pI.196.9. Salvation's song can certainly be
heard in the idea we practice for today. 2 If it can but be you
you crucify, you did not hurt the world, and need not fear its vengeance and
pursuit. 3 Nor need you hide in terror from the deadly
fear of God projection hides behind. 4 The thing you dread
the most is your salvation. 5 You are strong, and it is strength you want.
6 And you
are free, and glad of freedom. 7 You have sought to be both weak and bound,
because you feared your strength and freedom. 8 Yet salvation lies in
them.
W-pI.196.10. There is an instant in which terror
seems to grip your mind so wholly that escape appears quite hopeless.
2 When
you realize, once and for all, that it is you you fear, the mind perceives
itself as split. 3 And this had been concealed while you
believed attack could be directed outward, and returned from outside to within.
4 It
seemed to be an enemy outside you had to fear. 5 And thus a god
outside yourself became your mortal enemy; the source of fear.
W-pI.196.11. Now, for an instant, is a murderer
perceived within you, eager for your death, intent on plotting punishment for
you until the time when it can kill at last. 2 Yet in this instant
is the time as well in which salvation comes. 3 For fear of God has
disappeared. 4 And you can call on Him to save you from
illusions by His Love, calling Him Father and yourself His Son.
5 Pray
that the instant may be soon,--today. 6 Step back from fear,
and make advance to love.
W-pI.196.12. 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. 2 When the fear of God is gone, there are no
obstacles that still remain between you and the holy peace of God.
3 How
kind and merciful is the idea we practice! 4 Give it welcome, as
you should, for it is your release. 5 It is indeed but you
your mind can try to crucify. 6 Yet your redemption, too, will come from you.
Lesson 197.
It can be but my gratitude I earn.
W-pI.197.1. Here is the second step we take to
free your mind from the belief in outside force pitted against your own.
2 You
make attempts at kindness and forgiveness. 3 Yet you turn them to
attack again, unless you find external gratitude and lavish thanks.
4 Your gifts
must be received with honor, lest they be withdrawn.
5 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.
W-pI.197.2. How easily are God and guilt confused
by those who know not what their thoughts can do. 2 Deny your strength,
and weakness must become salvation to you. 3 See yourself as
bound, and bars become your home. 4 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.
W-pI.197.3. The world must thank you when you
offer it release from your illusions. 2 Yet your thanks
belong to you as well, for its release can only mirror yours.
3 Your
gratitude is all your gifts require, that they be a lasting offering of a
thankful heart, released from hell forever. 4 Is it this you would
undo by taking back your gifts, because they were not honored?
5 It is
you who honor them and give them fitting thanks, for it is you who have
received the gifts.
W-pI.197.4. It does not matter if another thinks
your gifts unworthy. 2 In his mind there is a part that joins with
yours in thanking you. 3 It does not matter if your gifts seem lost
and ineffectual. 4 They are received where they are given.
5 In your
gratitude are they accepted universally, and thankfully acknowledged by the
Heart of God Himself. 6 And would you take them back, when He has
gratefully accepted them?
W-pI.197.5. God blesses every gift you give to
Him, and every gift is given Him, because it can be given only to yourself.
2 And
what belongs to God must be His Own. 3 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.
W-pI.197.6. Withdraw the gifts you give, and you
will think that what is given you has been withdrawn.
2 But learn
to let forgiveness take away the 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. 3 For death will have
no meaning for you then.
W-pI.197.7. And with the end of this belief is
fear forever over. 2 Thank your Self for this, for He is grateful
only unto God, and He gives thanks for you unto Himself.
3 To
everyone who lives will Christ yet come, for everyone must live and move in Him.
4 His
Being in His Father is secure, because Their Will is One.
5 Their
gratitude to all They have created has no end, for gratitude remains a part of
love.
W-pI.197.8. Thanks be to you, the holy Son of God.
2 For as
you were created, you contain all things within your Self.
3 And you
are still as God created you. 4 Nor can you dim the light of your perfection.
5 In your
heart the Heart of God is laid. 6 He holds you dear, because you are Himself.
7 All
gratitude belongs to you, because of what you are.
W-pI.197.9. Give thanks as you receive it.
2 Be you
free of all ingratitude to anyone who makes your Self complete.
3 And
from this Self is no one left outside. 4 Give thanks for all
the countless channels which extend this Self. 5 All that you do is
given unto Him. 6 All that you think can only be His Thoughts,
sharing with Him the holy Thoughts of God. 7 Earn now the
gratitude you have denied yourself when you forgot the function God has given
you. 8
But never think that He has ever ceased to offer thanks to you.
Lesson 198. Only my condemnation injures me.
W-pI.198.1. Injury is impossible.
2 And yet
illusion makes illusion. 3 If you can condemn, you can be injured.
4 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. 5 Then does illusion cease to have effects, and
those it seemed to have will be undone. 6 Then are you free,
for freedom is your gift, and you can now receive the gift you gave.
W-pI.198.2. Condemn and you are made a prisoner.
2 Forgive
and you are freed. 3 Such is the law that rules perception.
4 It is
not a law that knowledge understands, for freedom is a part of knowledge.
5 To
condemn is thus impossible in truth. 6 What seems to be its
influence and its effects have not occurred at all.
7 Yet
must we deal with them a while as if they had. 8 Illusion makes
illusion. 9 Except one. 10 Forgiveness is
illusion that is answer to the rest.
W-pI.198.3. Forgiveness sweeps all other dreams
away, and though it is itself a dream, it breeds no others.
2 All
illusions save this one must multiply a thousandfold.
3 But
this is where illusions end. 4 Forgiveness is the end of dreams, because it
is a dream of waking. 5 It is not itself the truth.
6 Yet
does it point to where the truth must be, and gives direction with the
certainty of God Himself. 7 It is a dream in which the Son of God awakens
to his Self and to his Father, knowing They are One.
W-pI.198.4. Forgiveness is the only road that
leads out of disaster, past all suffering, and finally away from death.
2 How
could there be another way, when this one is the plan of God Himself?
3 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?
W-pI.198.5. Is it not wiser to be glad you hold
the answer to your problems in your hand? 2 Is it not more
intelligent to thank the One Who gives salvation, and accept His gift with
gratitude? 3 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 your own in place of His?
W-pI.198.6. His words will work.
2 His
words will save. 3 His words contain all hope, all blessing and
all joy that ever can be found upon this earth. 4 His words are born in
God, and come to you with Heaven's love upon them. 5 Those who hear His
words have heard the song of Heaven. 6 For these are the
words in which all merge as one at last. 7 And as this one will
fade away, the Word of God will come to take its place, for it will be
remembered then and loved.
W-pI.198.7. This world has many seeming separate
haunts where mercy has no meaning, and attack appears as justified.
2 Yet all
are one; a place where death is offered to God's Son and to his Father.
3 You may
think They have accepted. 4 But if you will look again upon the place
where you beheld Their blood, you will perceive a miracle instead.
5 How
foolish to believe that They could die! 6 How foolish to
believe you can attack! 7 How mad to think that you could be condemned,
and that the holy Son of God can die!
W-pI.198.8. The stillness of your Self remains
unmoved, untouched by thoughts like these, and unaware of any condemnation
which could need forgiveness. 2 Dreams of any kind are strange and alien to
the truth. 3 And what but truth could have a Thought which
builds a bridge to it that brings illusions to the other side?
W-pI.198.9. Today we practice letting freedom come
to make its home with you. 2 The truth bestows these words upon your mind,
that you may find the key to light and let the darkness end:
3 Only my
condemnation injures me. 4 Only my own forgiveness sets me free.
5 Do not
forget today that there can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an
unforgiving thought. 6 Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness
cannot heal.
W-pI.198.10. 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. 2 This is the gift the
Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father. 3 Let today be
celebrated both on earth and in your holy home as well.
4 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.
W-pI.198.11. Now is there silence all around the
world. 2
Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that
made no sense. 3 Now is there tranquil light across the face
of earth, made quiet in a dreamless sleep. 4 And now the Word of
God alone remains upon it. 5 Only that can be perceived an instant longer.
6 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.
W-pI.198.12. There is no condemnation in him.
2 He is
perfect in his holiness. 3 He needs no thoughts of mercy.
4 Who
could give him gifts when everything is his? 5 And who could 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? 6
In this vision of the Son, so brief that not an instant stands between this
single sight and timelessness itself, you see the vision of yourself, and then
you disappear forever into God.
W-pI.198.13. Today we come still nearer to the end of
everything that yet would stand between this vision and our sight.
2 And we
are glad that we have come this far, and recognize that He Who brought us here
will not forsake us now. 3 For He would give to us the gift that God has
given us through Him today. 4 Now is the time for your deliverance.
5 The
time has come. 6 The time has come today.
Lesson 199. I am not a body. am free.
W-pI.199.1. Freedom must be impossible as long as
you perceive a body as yourself. 2 The body is a limit.
3 Who
would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found.
4 The
mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, firmly tied
to it and sheltered by its presence. 5 If this were the
truth, the mind were vulnerable indeed!
W-pI.199.2. 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.
2 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.
3 It
rests in God. 4 And who can be afraid who lives in Innocence,
and only loves?
W-pI.199.3. It is essential for your progress in
this course that you accept today's idea, and hold it very dear.
2 Be not
concerned that to the ego it is quite insane. 3 The ego holds the
body dear because it dwells in it, and lives united with the home that it has
made. 4
It is a part of the illusion that has sheltered it from being found illusory itself.
W-pI.199.4. Here does it hide, and here it can be
seen as what it is. 2 Declare your innocence and you are free.
3 The
body disappears, because you have no need of it except the need the Holy Spirit
sees. 4
For this, the body will appear as useful form for what the mind must do.
5 It thus
becomes a vehicle which helps forgiveness be extended to the all-inclusive goal
that it must reach, according to God's plan.
W-pI.199.5. Cherish today's idea, and practice it
today and every day. 2 Make it a part of every practice period you
take. 3
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.
4 We
sound the call of freedom round the world with this idea.
5 And
would you be exempt from the acceptance of the gifts you give?
W-pI.199.6. The Holy Spirit is the home of minds
that seek for freedom. 2 In Him they have found what they have sought.
3 The
body's purpose now is unambiguous. 4 And it becomes
perfect in the ability to serve an undivided goal. 5 In conflict-free and
unequivocal response to mind with but the thought of freedom as its goal, the
body serves, and serves its purpose well. 6 Without the power to
enslave, it is a worthy servant of the freedom which the mind within the Holy
Spirit seeks.
W-pI.199.7. Be free today.
2 And
carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within
a body. 3
Be you free, so that the Holy Spirit can make use of your escape from bondage,
to set free the many who perceive themselves as bound and helpless and afraid.
4 Let
love replace their fears through you. 5 Accept salvation now,
and give your mind to Him Who calls to you to make this gift to Him.
6 For He
would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full
accomplishment in God.
W-pI.199.8. You are God's Son.
2 In
immortality you live forever. 3 Would you not return your mind to this?
4 Then
practice well the thought the Holy Spirit gives you for today.
5 Your
brothers stand released with you in it; the world is blessed along with you,
God's Son will weep no more, and Heaven offers thanks for the increase of joy
your practice brings even to it. 6 And God Himself extends His Love and
happiness each time you say: 7 I am not a body. 8 I am free.
9 I hear
the Voice that God has given me, and it is only this my mind obeys.
Lesson 200. There is no peace except the peace of God.
W-pI.200.1. Seek you no further.
2 You
will not find peace except the peace of God. 3 Accept this fact, and
save yourself the agony of yet more bitter disappointments, bleak despair, and
sense of icy hopelessness and doubt. 4 Seek you no further.
5 There
is nothing else for you to find except the peace of God, unless you seek for
misery and pain.
W-pI.200.2. This is the final point to which each
one must come at last, to lay aside all hope of finding 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. 2 Attempt no more to win through losing, nor to
die to live. 3 You cannot but be asking for defeat.
W-pI.200.3. Yet you can ask as easily for love,
for happiness, and for eternal life in peace that has no ending.
2 Ask for
this, and you can only win. 3 To ask for what you have already must succeed.
4 To ask
that what is false be true can only fail. 5 Forgive yourself for
vain imaginings, and seek no longer what you cannot find.
6 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?
W-pI.200.4. Come home.
2 You
have not found your happiness in foreign places and in alien forms that have no
meaning to you, though you sought to make them meaningful.
3 This
world is not where you belong. 4 You are a stranger here.
5 But it
is given you to find the means whereby the world no longer seems to be a prison
house or jail for anyone.
W-pI.200.5. Freedom is given you where you beheld
but chains and iron doors. 2 But you must change your mind about the
purpose of the world, if you would find escape. 3 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. 4 You made him not; no more yourself.
5 And as
you free the one, the other is accepted as he is.
W-pI.200.6. What does forgiveness do?
2 In
truth it has no function, and does nothing. 3 For it is unknown in
Heaven. 4
It is only hell where it is needed, and where it must serve a mighty function.
5 Is not
the escape of God's beloved Son from evil dreams that he imagines, yet believes
are true, a worthy purpose? 6 Who could hope for more, while there appears
to be a choice to make between success and failure; love and fear?
W-pI.200.7. 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 is the same as His. 2 What could he hope to
find in such a world? 3 It cannot have reality, because it never was
created. 4 Is it here that he would seek for peace?
5 Or must
he see that, as he looks on it, the world can but deceive?
6 Yet can
he learn to look on it another way, and find the peace of God.
W-pI.200.8. Peace is the bridge that everyone will
cross, to leave this world behind. 2 But peace begins
within the world perceived as different, and leading from this fresh perception
to the gate of Heaven and the way beyond. 3 Peace is the answer
to conflicting goals, to senseless journeys, frantic, vain pursuits, and
meaningless endeavors. 4 Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward
the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God.
W-pI.200.9. Let us not lose our way again today.
2 We go
to Heaven, and the path is straight. 3 Only if we attempt to
wander can there be delay, and needless wasted time on thorny byways.
4 God
alone is sure, and He will guide our footsteps. 5 He will not desert
His Son in need, nor let him stray forever from his home.
6 The
Father calls; the Son will hear. 7 And that is all there is to what appears to
be a world apart from God, where bodies have reality.
W-pI.200.10. Now is there silence.
2 Seek no
further. 3 You have come to where the road is carpeted
with leaves of false desires, fallen from the trees of hopelessness you sought
before. 4
Now are they underfoot. 5 And you look up and on toward Heaven, with
the body's eyes but serving for an instant longer now.
6 Peace
is already recognized at last, and you can feel its soft embrace surround your
heart and mind with comfort and with love.
W-pI.200.11. Today we seek no idols.
2 Peace
can not be found in them. 3 The peace of God is ours, and only this will
we accept and want. 4 Peace be to us today.
5 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.
6 For
peace is union, if it be of God. 7 We seek no further.
8 We are
close to home, and draw still nearer every time we say:
9 There is
no peace except the peace of God, And I am glad and thankful it is so.
W-pI.rVI.in.1. For this review we take but one idea each
day, and practice it as often as is possible. 2 Besides the time you
give morning and evening, which should not be less than fifteen minutes, and
the hourly remembrances you make throughout the day, use the idea as often as
you can between them. 3 Each of these ideas alone would be sufficient
for salvation, if it were learned truly. 4 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.
W-pI.rVI.in.2. With this in mind we start our
practicing, in which we carefully review the thoughts the Holy Spirit has
bestowed on us in our last twenty lessons. 2 Each contains the
whole curriculum if understood, practiced, accepted, and applied to all the
seeming happenings throughout the day. 3 One is enough.
4 But
from that one, there must be no exceptions made. 5 And so we need to use
them all and let them blend as one, as each contributes to the whole we learn.
W-pI.rVI.in.3. These practice sessions, like our last
review, are centered round a central theme with which we start and end each
lesson. 2
It is this: 3 I am not a body. 4 I am free.
5 For I
am still as God created me. 6 The day begins and ends with this.
7 And we
repeat it every time the hour strikes, or we remember, in between, we have a
function that transcends the world we see. 8 Beyond this, and a
repetition 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.
W-pI.rVI.in.4. We will attempt to get beyond all words
and special forms of practicing for this review. 2 For we attempt, this
time, to reach a quickened pace along a shorter path to the serenity and peace
of God. 3
We merely close our eyes, and then forget all that we thought we knew and
understood. 4 For thus is freedom given us from all we did
not know and failed to understand.
W-pI.rVI.in.5. There is but one exception to this lack
of structuring. 2 Permit no idle thought to go unchallenged.
3 If you
notice one, deny its hold and hasten to assure your mind that this is not what
it would have. 4 Then gently let the thought which you denied
be given up, in sure and quick exchange for the idea we practice for the day.
W-pI.rVI.in.6. When you are tempted, hasten to proclaim
your freedom from temptation, as you say: 2 This thought I do not
want. 3
I choose instead ___ 4 And then repeat the idea for the day, and let
it take the place of what you thought. 5 Beyond such special
applications of each day's idea, we will add but a few formal expressions or
specific thoughts to aid in practicing. 6 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.
W-pI.rVI.in.7. To Him I offer this review for you.
2 I place
you in His charge, and let Him teach you what to do and say and think, each
time you turn to Him. 3 He will not fail to be available to you, each
time you call to Him to help you. 4 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 trusting Him completely for the way each practice period can best
become a loving gift of freedom to the world.
Lesson 201. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.201.1. (181) I trust my brothers, who are one
with me. 2 No one but is my brother.
3 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. 4 I am not a body.
5 I am
free. 6
For I am still as God created me.
Lesson 202. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.202.1. (182) I will be still an instant and
go home. 2 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?
3 I am
not a body. 4 I am free. 5 For I am still as God
created me.
Lesson 203. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.203.1. (183) I call upon God's Name and on my
own. 2
The Name of God is my deliverance from every thought of evil and of sin,
because it is my own as well as His. 3 I am not a body.
4 I am
free. 5
For I am still as God created me.
Lesson 204. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.204.1. (184) The Name of God is my
inheritance. 2 God's Name reminds me that I am His Son, not
slave to time, unbound by laws which rule the world of sick illusions, free in
God, forever and forever one with Him. 3 I am not a body.
4 I am
free. 5
For I am still as God created me.
Lesson 205. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.205.1. (185) I want the peace of God.
2 The
peace of God is everything I want. 3 The peace of God is
my one goal; the aim of all my living here, the end I seek, my purpose and my
function and my life, while I abide where I am not at home.
4 I am
not a body. 5 I am free. 6 For I am still as God
created me.
Lesson 206. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.206.1. (186) Salvation of the world depends
on me. 2
I am entrusted with the gifts of God, because I am His Son.
3 And I
would give His gifts where He intended them to be. 4 I am not a body.
5 I am
free. 6
For I am still as God created me.
Lesson 207. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.207.1. (187) I bless the world because I
bless myself. 2 God's blessing shines upon me from within my
heart, where He abides. 3 I need but turn to Him, and every sorrow
melts away, as I accept His boundless Love for me. 4 I am not a body.
5 I am
free. 6
For I am still as God created me.
Lesson 208. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.208.1. (188) The peace of God is shining in
me now. 2
I will be still, and let the earth be still along with me.
3 And in
that stillness we will find the peace of God. 4 It is within my
heart, which witnesses to God Himself. 5 I am not a body.
6 I am
free. 7
For I am still as God created me.
Lesson 209. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.209.1. (189) I feel the Love of God within me
now. 2
The Love of God is what created me. 3 The Love of God is
everything I am. 4 The Love of God proclaimed me as His Son.
5 The
Love of God within me sets me free. 6 I am not a body.
7 I am
free. 8
For I am still as God created me.
Lesson 210. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.210.1. (190) I choose the joy of God instead
of pain. 2 Pain is my own idea.
3 It is
not a Thought of God, but one I thought apart from Him and from His Will.
4 His
Will is joy, and only joy for His beloved Son. 5 And that I choose,
instead of what I made. 6 I am not a body. 7 I am free.
8 For I am
still as God created me.
Lesson 211. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.211.1. (191) I am the holy Son of God Himself.
2 In
silence and in true humility I seek God's glory, to behold it in the Son whom
He created as my Self. 3 I am not a body. 4 I am free.
5 For I
am still as God created me.
Lesson 212. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.212.1. (192) I have a function God would have
me fill. 2 I seek the function that would set me free
from all the vain illusions of the world. 3 Only the function God
has given me can offer freedom. 4 Only this I seek, and only this will I accept
as mine. 5 I am not a body. 6 I am free.
7 For I
am still as God created me.
Lesson 213. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.213.1. (193) All things are lessons God would
have me learn. 2 A lesson is a miracle which God offers to me,
in place of thoughts I made that hurt me. 3 What I learn of Him
becomes the way I am set free. 4 And so I choose to learn His lessons and
forget my own. 5 I am not a body. 6 I am free.
7 For I
am still as God created me.
Lesson 214. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.214.1. (194) I place the future in the Hands
of God. 2
The past is gone; the future is not yet. 3 Now am I freed from
both. 4
For what God gives can only be for good. 5 And I accept but what
He gives as what belongs to me. 6 I am not a body. 7 I am free.
8 For I
am still as God created me.
Lesson 215. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.215.1. (195) Love is the way I walk in
gratitude. 2 The Holy Spirit is my only Guide.
3 He
walks with me in love. 4 And I give thanks to Him for showing me the
way to go. 5 I am not a body. 6 I am free.
7 For I
am still as God created me.
Lesson 216. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.216.1. (196) It can be but myself I crucify.
2 All
that I do I do unto myself. 3 If I attack, I suffer.
4 But if
I forgive, salvation will be given me. 5 I am not a body.
6 I am
free. 7
For I am still as God created me.
Lesson 217. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.217.1. (197) It can be but my gratitude I
earn. 2
Who should give thanks for my salvation but myself?
3 And how
but through salvation can I find the Self to Whom my thanks are due?
4 I am
not a body. 5 I am free. 6 For I am still as God
created me.
Lesson 218. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.218.1. (198) Only my condemnation injures me.
2 My
condemnation keeps my vision dark, and through my sightless eyes I cannot see
the vision of my glory. 3 Yet today I can behold this glory and be glad.
4 I am
not a body. 5 I am free. 6 For I am still as God
created me.
Lesson 219. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.219.1. (199) I am not a body.
2 I am
free. 3
I am God's Son. 4 Be still, my mind, and think a moment upon
this. 5
And then return to earth, without confusion as to what my Father loves forever
as His Son. 6 I am not a body. 7 I am free.
8 For I
am still as God created me.
Lesson 220. I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
W-pI.220.1. (200) There is no peace except the
peace of God. 2 Let me not wander from the way of peace, for
I am lost on other roads than this. 3 But let me follow Him
Who leads me home, and peace is certain as the Love of God.
4 I am
not a body. 5 I am free. 6 For I am still as God
created me.
W-pII.in.1. Words will mean little now.
2 We use
them but as guides on which we do not now depend. 3 For now we seek
direct experience of truth alone. 4 The lessons that remain are merely
introductions to the times in which we leave the world of pain, and go to enter
peace. 5
Now we begin to reach the goal this course has set, and find the end toward
which our practicing was always geared.
W-pII.in.2. Now we attempt to let the exercise
be merely a beginning. 2 For we wait in quiet expectation for our God
and Father. 3 He has promised He will take the final step
Himself. 4 And we are sure His promises are kept.
5 We have
come far along the road, and now we wait for Him. 6 We will continue
spending time with Him each morning and at night, as long as makes us happy.
7 We will
not consider time a matter of duration now. 8 We use as much as we
will need for the result that we desire. 9 Nor will we forget
our hourly remembrance in between, calling to God when we have need of Him as
we are tempted to forget our goal.
W-pII.in.3. We will continue with a central
thought for all the days to come, and we will use that thought to introduce our
times of rest, and calm our minds at need. 2 Yet we will not
content ourselves with simple practicing in the remaining holy instants which
conclude the year that we have given God. 3 We say some simple
words of welcome, and expect our Father to reveal Himself, as He has promised.
4 We have
called on Him, and He has promised that His Son will not remain unanswered when
he calls His Name.
W-pII.in.4. Now do we come to Him with but His
Word upon our minds and hearts, and wait for Him to take the step to us that He
has told us, through His Voice, He would not fail to take when we invited Him.
2 He has
not left His Son in all his madness, nor betrayed his trust in Him.
3 Has not
His faithfulness earned Him the invitation that He seeks to make us happy?
4 We will
offer it, and it will be accepted. 5 So our times with Him
will now be spent. 6 We say the words of invitation that His Voice
suggests, and then we wait for Him to come to us.
W-pII.in.5. Now is the time of prophecy
fulfilled. 2 Now are all ancient promises upheld and fully
kept. 3
No step remains for time to separate from its accomplishment.
4 For now
we cannot fail. 5 Sit silently and wait upon your Father.
6 He has
willed to come to you when you have recognized it is your will He do so.
7 And you
could have never come this far unless you saw, however dimly, that it is your
will.
W-pII.in.6. I am so close to you we cannot fail.
2 Father,
we give these holy times to You, in gratitude to Him Who taught us how to leave
the world of sorrow in exchange for its replacement, given us by You.
3 We look
not backward now. 4 We look ahead, and fix our eyes upon the
journey's end. 5 Accept these little gifts of thanks from us,
as through Christ's vision we behold a world beyond the one we made, and take
that world to be the full replacement of our own.
W-pII.in.7. And now we wait in silence, unafraid
and certain of Your coming. 2 We have sought to find our way by following
the Guide You sent to us. 3 We did not know the way, but You did not
forget us. 4 And we know that You will not forget us now.
5 We ask
but that Your ancient promises be kept which are Your Will to keep.
6 We will
with You in asking this. 7 The Father and the Son, Whose holy Will
created all that is, can fail in nothing. 8 In this certainty, we
undertake these last few steps to You, and rest in confidence upon Your Love,
which will not fail the Son who calls to You.
W-pII.in.8. And so we start upon the final part
of this one holy year, which we have spent together in the search for truth and
God, Who is its one Creator. 2 We have found the way He chose for us, and
made the choice to follow it as He would have us go.
3 His
Hand has held us up. 4 His Thoughts have lit the darkness of our
minds. 5
His Love has called to us unceasingly since time began.
W-pII.in.9. We had a wish that God would fail to
have the Son whom He created for Himself. 2 We wanted God to
change Himself, and be what we would make of Him. 3 And we believed that
our insane desires were the truth. 4 Now we are glad that
this is all undone, and we no longer think illusions true.
5 The
memory of God is shimmering across the wide horizons of our minds.
6 A moment
more, and it will rise again. 7 A moment more, and we who are God's Sons are
safely home, where He would have us be.
W-pII.in.10. Now is the need for practice almost
done. 2
For in this final section, we will come to understand that we need only call to
God, and all temptations disappear. 3 Instead of words, we
need but feel His Love. 4 Instead of prayers, we need but call His Name.
5 Instead
of judging, we need but be still and let all things be healed.
6 We will
accept the way God's plan will end, as we received the way it started.
7 Now it
is complete. 8 This year has brought us to eternity.
W-pII.in.11. One further use for words we still
retain. 2
From time to time, instructions on a theme of special relevance will
intersperse our daily lessons and the periods of wordless, deep experience
which should come afterwards. 3 These special thoughts should be reviewed
each day, each one of them to be continued till the next is given you.
4 They
should be slowly read and thought about a little while, preceding one of the
holy and blessed instants in the day. 5 We give the first of
these instructions now.
W-pII.1.1. Forgiveness recognizes what you
thought your brother did to you has not occurred. 2 It does not pardon
sins and make them real. 3 It sees there was no sin.
4 And in
that view are all your sins forgiven. 5 What is sin, except a
false idea about God's Son? 6 Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and
therefore lets it go. 7 What then is free to take its place is now
the Will of God.
W-pII.1.2. An unforgiving thought is one which
makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true.
2 The
mind is closed, and will not be released. 3 The thought protects projection,
tightening its chains, so that distortions are more veiled and more obscure;
less easily accessible to doubt, and further kept from reason.
4 What
can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its
wanted goal?
W-pII.1.3. An unforgiving thought does many
things. 2
In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as
interfering with its chosen path. 3 Distortion is its purpose, and the means by
which it would accomplish it as well. 4 It sets about its
furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would
appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.
W-pII.1.4. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is
still, and quietly does nothing. 2 It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to
twist it to appearances it likes. 3 It merely looks, and waits, and judges not.
4 He who
would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive.
5 But he
who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.
W-pII.1.5. Do nothing, then, and let
forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and
Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success.
2 He has
forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God.
3 Now must
you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He
sees, and whom He honors as the Son of God.
Lesson 221. Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still.
W-pII.221.1. Father,
I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give. 2 I come
in silence.
3 In the quiet of my heart, the deep recesses
of my mind, I wait and listen for Your Voice. 4 My Father, speak to
me today.
5 I come to hear Your Voice in silence and in
certainty and love, sure You will hear my call and answer me.
W-pII.221.2. Now do we wait in quiet.
2 God is
here, because we wait together. 3 I am sure that He will speak to you, and you
will hear. 4 Accept my confidence, for it is yours.
5 Our
minds are joined. 6 We wait with one intent; to hear our Father's
answer to our call, to let our thoughts be still and find His peace, to hear
Him speak to us of what we are, and to reveal Himself unto His Son.
Lesson 222.
God is with me. I live and move in Him.
W-pII.222.1. God is with me.
2 He is
my Source of life, the life within, the air I breathe, the food by which I am
sustained, the water which renews and cleanses me. 3 He is my home,
wherein I live and move; the Spirit which directs my actions, offers me Its
Thoughts, and guarantees my safety from all pain. 4 He covers me with
kindness and with care, and holds in love the Son He shines upon, who also
shines on Him. 5 How still is he who knows the truth of what
He speaks today!
W-pII.222.2. Father,
we have no words except Your Name upon our lips and in our minds, as we come
quietly into Your Presence now, and ask to rest with You in peace a while.
Lesson 223.
God is my life. I have no life but His.
W-pII.223.1. I was mistaken when I thought I lived
apart from God, a separate entity that moved in isolation, unattached, and
housed within a body. 2 Now I know my life is God's, I have no other
home, and I do not exist apart from Him. 3 He has no Thoughts
that are not part of me, and I have none but those which are of Him.
W-pII.223.2. Our
Father, let us see the face of Christ instead of our mistakes. 2 For we
who are Your holy Son are sinless.
3 We would look upon our sinlessness, for guilt
proclaims that we are not Your Son. 4 And we would not
forget You longer.
5 We are lonely here, and long for Heaven,
where we are at home.
6 Today we would return. 7 Our
Name is Yours, and we acknowledge that we are Your Son.
Lesson 224.
God is my Father, and He loves His Son.
W-pII.224.1. My true Identity is so secure, so lofty,
sinless, glorious and great, wholly beneficent and free from guilt, that Heaven
looks to It to give it light. 2 It lights the world as well.
3 It is
the gift my Father gave to me; the one as well I give the world.
4 There
is no gift but this that can be either given or received.
5 This is
reality, and only this. 6 This is illusion's end.
7 It is
the truth.
W-pII.224.2. My
Name, O Father, still is known to You. 2 I have forgotten It,
and do not know where I am going, who I am, or what it is I do. 3 Remind
me, Father, now, for I am weary of the world I see. 4 Reveal
what You would have me see instead.
Lesson 225. God is my Father, and His Son loves Him.
W-pII.225.1. Father,
I must return Your Love for me, for giving and receiving are the same, and You
have given all Your Love to me.
2 I must return it, for I want it mine in full
awareness, blazing in my mind and keeping it within its kindly light,
inviolate, beloved, with fear behind and only peace ahead. 3 How
still the way Your loving Son is led along to You!
W-pII.225.2. Brother, we find that stillness now.
2 The way
is open. 3 Now we follow it in peace together.
4 You
have reached your hand to me, and I will never leave you.
5 We are
one, and it is but this oneness that we seek, as we accomplish these few final
steps which end a journey that was not begun.
Lesson 226. My home awaits me. I will hasten there.
W-pII.226.1. If I so choose, I can depart this world
entirely. 2 It is not death which makes this possible,
but it is change of mind about the purpose of the world.
3 If I
believe it has a value as I see it now, so will it still remain for me.
4 But if
I see no value in the world as I behold it, nothing that I want to keep as mine
or search for as a goal, it will depart from me. 5 For I have not sought
for illusions to replace the truth.
W-pII.226.2. Father,
my home awaits my glad return.
2 Your Arms are open and I hear Your Voice. 3 What
need have I to linger in a place of vain desires and of shattered dreams, when
Heaven can so easily be mine?
Lesson 227. This is my holy instant of release.
W-pII.227.1. Father,
it is today that I am free, because my will is Yours. 2 I
thought to make another will.
3 Yet nothing that I thought apart from You
exists. 4 And I am free because I was mistaken, and did not affect
my own reality at all by my illusions. 5 Now I give them up,
and lay them down before the feet of truth, to be removed forever from my mind. 6 This is
my holy instant of release.
7 Father, I know my will is one with Yours.
W-pII.227.2. And so today we find our glad return to
Heaven, which we never really left. 2 The Son of God this
day lays down his dreams. 3 The Son of God this day comes home again,
released from sin and clad in holiness, with his right mind restored to him at
last.
Lesson 228. God has condemned me not. No more do I.
W-pII.228.1. My Father knows my holiness.
2 Shall I
deny His knowledge, and believe in what His knowledge makes impossible?
3 Shall I
accept as true what He proclaims as false? 4 Or shall I take His
Word for what I am, since He is my Creator, and the One Who knows the true
condition of His Son?
W-pII.228.2. Father,
I was mistaken in myself, because I failed to realize the Source from which I
came. 2 I have not left that Source to enter in a body and to die. 3 My holiness
remains a part of me, as I am part of You. 4 And my mistakes about
myself are dreams.
5 I let them go today. 6 And I
stand ready to receive Your Word alone for what I really am.
Lesson 229. Love, which created me, is what I am.
W-pII.229.1. I seek my own Identity, and find It in
these words: "Love, which created me, is what I am."
2 Now
need I seek no more. 3 Love has prevailed.
4 So
still It waited for my coming home, that I will turn away no longer from the
holy face of Christ. 5 And what I look upon attests the truth of the
Identity I sought to lose, but which my Father has kept safe for me.
W-pII.229.2. Father,
my thanks to You for what I am; for keeping my Identity untouched and sinless,
in the midst of all the thoughts of sin my foolish mind made up. 2 And
thanks to You for saving me from them. 3 Amen.
Lesson 230. Now will I seek and find the peace of God.
W-pII.230.1. In peace I was created.
2 And in
peace do I remain. 3 It is not given me to change my Self.
4 How merciful
is God my Father, that when He created me He gave me peace forever.
5 Now I
ask but to be what I am. 6 And can this be denied me, when it is forever
true?
W-pII.230.2. Father,
I seek the peace You gave as mine in my creation. 2 What was given then
must be here now, for my creation was apart from time, and still remains beyond
all change.
3 The peace in which Your Son was born into
Your Mind is shining there unchanged. 4 I am as You created
me. 5 I need but call on You to find the peace You gave. 6 It is
Your Will that gave it to Your Son.
W-pII.2.1. Salvation is a promise, made by
God, that you would find your way to Him at last. 2 It cannot but be kept.
3 It
guarantees that time will have an end, and all the thoughts that have been born
in time will end as well. 4 God's Word is given every mind which thinks
that it has separate thoughts, and will replace these thoughts of conflict with
the Thought of peace.
W-pII.2.2. The Thought of peace was given to
God's Son the instant that his mind had thought of war.
2 There
was no need for such a Thought before, for peace was given without opposite,
and merely was. 3 But when the mind is split there is a need of
healing. 4 So the Thought that has the power to heal the
split became a part of every fragment of the mind that still was one, but
failed to recognize its oneness. 5 Now it did not know itself, and thought its
own Identity was lost.
W-pII.2.3. Salvation is undoing in the sense
that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice.
2 Thus it
lets illusions go. 3 By not supporting them, it merely lets them
quietly go down to dust. 4 And what they hid is now revealed; an altar
to the holy Name of God whereon His Word is written, with the gifts of your
forgiveness laid before it, and the memory of God not far behind.
W-pII.2.4. Let us come daily to this holy
place, and spend a while together. 2 Here we share our
final dream. 3 It is a dream in which there is no sorrow,
for it holds a hint of all the glory given us by God.
4 The
grass is pushing through the soil, the trees are budding now, and birds have
come to live within their branches. 5 Earth is being born
again in new perspective. 6 Night has gone, and we have come together in
the light.
W-pII.2.5. From here we give salvation to the
world, for it is here salvation was received. 2 The song of our
rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is
almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered,
dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists
at all.
Lesson 231. Father, I will but to remember You.
W-pII.231.1. What
can I seek for, Father, but Your Love? 2 Perhaps I think I
seek for something else; a something I have called by many names. 3 Yet is
Your Love the only thing I seek, or ever sought. 4 For there is nothing
else that I could ever really want to find. 5 Let me remember You. 6 What
else could I desire but the truth about myself?
W-pII.231.2. This is your will, my brother.
2 And you
share this will with me, and with the One as well Who is our Father.
3 To
remember Him is Heaven. 4 This we seek. 5 And only this is what
it will be given us to find.
Lesson 232. Be in my mind, my Father, through the day.
W-pII.232.1. Be
in my mind, my Father, when I wake, and shine on me throughout the day today. 2 Let
every minute be a time in which I dwell with You. 3 And let me not forget
my hourly thanksgiving that You have remained with me, and always will be there
to hear my call to You and answer me. 4 As evening comes, let
all my thoughts be still of You and of Your Love. 5 And let me sleep sure
of my safety, certain of Your care, and happily aware I am Your Son.
W-pII.232.2. This is as every day should be.
2 Today,
practice the end of fear. 3 Have faith in Him Who is your Father.
4 Trust
all things to Him. 5 Let Him reveal all things to you, and be you
undismayed because you are His Son.
Lesson 233.
I give my life to God to guide today.
W-pII.233.1. Father,
I give You all my thoughts today.
2 I would have none of mine. 3 In
place of them, give me Your Own.
4 I give You all my acts as well, that I may do
Your Will instead of seeking goals which cannot be obtained, and wasting time
in vain imaginings.
5 Today I come to You. 6 I will
step back and merely follow You.
7 Be You the Guide, and I the follower who
questions not the wisdom of the Infinite, nor Love whose tenderness I cannot
comprehend, but which is yet Your perfect gift to me.
W-pII.233.2. Today we have one Guide to lead us on.
2 And as
we walk together, we will give this day to Him with no reserve at all.
3 This is
His day. 4 And so it is a day of countless gifts and
mercies unto us.
Lesson 234.
Father, today I am Your Son again.
W-pII.234.1. Today we will anticipate the time when
dreams of sin and guilt are gone, and we have reached the holy peace we never
left. 2
Merely a tiny instant has elapsed between eternity and timelessness.
3 So
brief the interval there was no lapse in continuity, nor break in thoughts
which are forever unified as one. 4 Nothing has ever happened to disturb the
peace of God the Father and the Son. 5 This we accept as
wholly true today.
W-pII.234.2. We
thank You, Father, that we cannot lose the memory of You and of Your Love. 2 We recognize
our safety, and give thanks for all the gifts You have bestowed on us, for all
the loving help we have received, for Your eternal patience, and the Word which
You have given us that we are saved.
Lesson 235.
God in His mercy wills that I be saved.
W-pII.235.1. I need but look upon all things that
seem to hurt me, and with perfect certainty assure myself, "God wills that
I be saved from this," and merely watch them disappear.
2 I need but
keep in mind my Father's Will for me is only happiness, to find that only
happiness has come to me. 3 And I need but remember that God's Love
surrounds His Son and keeps his sinlessness forever perfect, to be sure that I
am saved and safe forever in His Arms. 4 I am the Son He loves.
5 And I
am saved because God in His mercy wills it so.
W-pII.235.2. Father,
Your Holiness is mine.
2 Your Love created me, and made my sinlessness
forever part of You.
3 I have no guilt nor sin in me, for there is
none in You.
Lesson 236. I rule my mind, which I alone must rule.
W-pII.236.1. I have a kingdom I must rule.
2 At
times, it does not seem I am its king at all. 3 It seems to triumph
over me, and tell me what to think, and what to do and feel.
4 And yet
it has been given me to serve whatever purpose I perceive in it.
5 My mind
can only serve. 6 Today I give its service to the Holy Spirit
to employ as He sees fit. 7 I thus direct my mind, which I alone can rule.
8 And
thus I set it free to do the Will of God.
W-pII.236.2. Father,
my mind is open to Your Thoughts, and closed today to every thought but Yours. 2 I rule
my mind, and offer it to You.
3 Accept my gift, for it is Yours to me.
Lesson 237. Now would I be as God created me.
W-pII.237.1. Today I will accept the truth about
myself. 2
I will arise in glory, and allow the light in me to shine upon the world
throughout the day. 3 I bring the world the tidings of salvation
which I hear as God my Father speaks to me. 4 And I behold the
world that Christ would have me see, aware it ends the bitter dream of death;
aware it is my Father's Call to me.
W-pII.237.2. Christ
is my eyes today, and He the ears that listen to the Voice for God today. 2 Father,
I come to You through Him Who is Your Son, and my true Self as well. 3 Amen.
Lesson 238. On my decision all
salvation rests.
W-pII.238.1. Father,
Your trust in me has been so great, I must be worthy. 2 You
created me, and know me as I am.
3 And yet You placed Your Son's salvation in my
hands, and let it rest on my decision. 4 I must be beloved of
You indeed.
5 And I must be steadfast in holiness as well,
that You would give Your Son to me in certainty that he is safe Who still is
part of You, and yet is mine, because He is my Self.
W-pII.238.2. And so, again today, we pause to think
how much our Father loves us. 2 And how dear His Son, created by His Love,
remains to Him Whose Love is made complete in him.
Lesson 239. The glory of my Father is my own.
W-pII.239.1. Let not the truth about ourselves today
be hidden by a false humility. 2 Let us instead be thankful for the gifts our
Father gave us. 3 Can we see in those with whom He shares His
glory any trace of sin and guilt? 4 And can it be that we are not among them,
when He loves His Son forever and with perfect constancy, knowing he is as He
created him?
W-pII.239.2. We
thank You, Father, for the light that shines forever in us. 2 And we
honor it, because You share it with us. 3 We are one, united in
this light and one with You, at peace with all creation and ourselves.
Lesson 240. Fear is not justified in any form.
W-pII.240.1. Fear is deception.
2 It
attests that you have seen yourself as you could never be, and therefore look
upon a world which is impossible. 3 Not one thing in this world is true.
4 It does
not matter what the form in which it may appear. 5 It witnesses but to
your own illusions of yourself. 6 Let us not be deceived today.
7 We are
the Sons of God. 8 There is no fear in us, for we are each a
part of Love Itself.
W-pII.240.2. How
foolish are our fears!
2 Would You allow Your Son to suffer? 3 Give us
faith today to recognize Your Son, and set him free. 4 Let us
forgive him in Your Name, that we may understand his holiness, and feel the
love for him which is Your Own as well.
W-pII.3.1. The world is false perception.
2 It is
born of error, and it has not left its source. 3 It will remain no
longer than the thought that gave it birth is cherished.
4 When
the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the
world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all
the world must disappear and all its errors vanish.
5 Now its
source has gone, and its effects are gone as well.
W-pII.3.2. The world was made as an attack on
God. 2
It symbolizes fear. 3 And what is fear except love's absence?
4 Thus
the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son
could be apart from Him. 5 Here was perception born, for knowledge could
not cause such insane thoughts. 6 But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely.
7 Now
mistakes become quite possible, for certainty has gone.
W-pII.3.3. The mechanisms of illusion have
been born instead. 2 And now they go to find what has been given
them to seek. 3 Their aim is to fulfill the purpose which the
world was made to witness and make real. 4 They see in its
illusions but a solid base where truth exists, upheld apart from lies.
5 Yet
everything that they report is but illusion which is kept apart from truth.
W-pII.3.4. As sight was made to lead away from
truth, it can be redirected. 2 Sounds become the call for God, and all
perception can be given a new purpose by the One Whom God appointed Savior to
the world. 3 Follow His light, and see the world as He
beholds it. 4 Hear His Voice alone in all that speaks to
you. 5
And let Him give you peace and certainty, which you have thrown away, but
Heaven has preserved for you in Him.
W-pII.3.5. Let us not rest content until the
world has joined our changed perception. 2 Let us not be satisfied
until forgiveness has been made complete. 3 And let us not
attempt to change our function. 4 We must save the world.
5 For we
who made it must behold it through the eyes of Christ, that what was made to
die can be restored to everlasting life.
Lesson 241. This holy instant is salvation come.
W-pII.241.1. What joy there is today!
2 It is a
time of special celebration. 3 For today holds out the instant to the
darkened world where its release is set. 4 The day has come when
sorrows pass away and pain is gone. 5 The glory of
salvation dawns today upon a world set free. 6 This is the time of
hope for countless millions. 7 They will be united now, as you forgive them
all. 8
For I will be forgiven by you today.
W-pII.241.2. We
have forgiven one another now, and so we come at last to You again. 2 Father,
Your Son, who never left, returns to Heaven and his home. 3 How
glad are we to have our sanity restored to us, and to remember that we all are
one.
Lesson 242. This day is God's. It is my gift to Him.
W-pII.242.1. I will not lead my life alone today.
2 I do
not understand the world, and so to try to lead my life alone must be but
foolishness. 3 But there is One Who knows all that is best
for me. 4
And He is glad to make no choices for me but the ones that lead to God.
5 I give
this day to Him, for I would not delay my coming home, and it is He Who knows
the way to God.
W-pII.242.2. And
so we give today to You.
2 We come with wholly open minds. 3 We do
not ask for anything that we may think we want. 4 Give us what You
would have received by us.
5 You know all our desires and our wants. 6 And You
will give us everything we need in helping us to find the way to You.
Lesson 243. Today I will judge nothing that occurs.
W-pII.243.1. I will be honest with myself today.
2 I will
not think that I already know what must remain beyond my present grasp.
3 I will
not think I understand the whole from bits of my perception, which are all that
I can see. 4 Today I recognize that this is so.
5 And so
I am relieved of judgments that I cannot make. 6 Thus do I free myself
and what I look upon, to be in peace as God created us.
W-pII.243.2. Father,
today I leave creation free to be itself. 2 I honor all its
parts, in which I am included.
3 We are one because each part contains Your
memory, and truth must shine in all of us as one.
Lesson 244. I am in danger nowhere in the world.
W-pII.244.1. Your
Son is safe wherever he may be, for You are there with him. 2 He need
but call upon Your Name, and he will recollect his safety and Your Love, for
they are one.
3 How can he fear or doubt or fail to know he
cannot suffer, be endangered, or experience unhappiness, when he belongs to
You, beloved and loving, in the safety of Your Fatherly embrace?
W-pII.244.2. And there we are in truth.
2 No
storms can come into the hallowed haven of our home.
3 In God
we are secure. 4 For what can come to threaten God Himself, or
make afraid what will forever be a part of Him?
Lesson 245. Your peace is with me, Father. I am safe.
W-pII.245.1. Your
peace surrounds me, Father.
2 Where I go, Your peace goes there with me. 3 It
sheds its light on everyone I meet. 4 I bring it to the
desolate and lonely and afraid.
5 I give Your peace to those who suffer pain,
or grieve for loss, or think they are bereft of hope and happiness. 6 Send
them to me, my Father.
7 Let me bring Your peace with me. 8 For I
would save Your Son, as is Your Will, that I may come to recognize my Self.
W-pII.245.2. And so we go in peace.
2 To all
the world we give the message that we have received.
3 And
thus we come to hear the Voice for God, Who speaks to us as we relate His Word;
Whose Love we recognize because we share the Word that He has given unto us.
Lesson 246. To love my Father is to love His Son.
W-pII.246.1. Let me not think that I can find the
way to God, if I have hatred in my heart. 2 Let me not try to
hurt God's Son, and think that I can know his Father or my Self.
3 Let me
not fail to recognize myself, and still believe that my awareness can contain
my Father, or my mind conceive of all the love my Father has for me, and all
the love which I return to Him.
W-pII.246.2. I
will accept the way You choose for me to come to You, my Father. 2 For in
that will I succeed, because it is Your Will. 3 And I would recognize
that what You will is what I will as well, and only that. 4 And so
I choose to love Your Son.
5 Amen.
Lesson 247. Without forgiveness I will still be blind.
W-pII.247.1. Sin is the symbol of attack.
2 Behold
it anywhere, and I will suffer. 3 For forgiveness is the only means whereby
Christ's vision comes to me. 4 Let me accept what His sight shows me as the
simple truth, and I am healed completely. 5 Brother, come and let
me look on you. 6 Your loveliness reflects my own.
7 Your
sinlessness is mine. 8 You stand forgiven, and I stand with you.
W-pII.247.2. So
would I look on everyone today.
2 My brothers are Your Sons. 3 Your
Fatherhood created them, and gave them all to me as part of You, and my own
Self as well.
4 Today I honor You through them, and thus I
hope this day to recognize my Self.
Lesson 248.
Whatever suffers is not part of me.
W-pII.248.1. I have disowned the truth.
2 Now let
me be as faithful in disowning falsity. 3 Whatever suffers is
not part of me. 4 What grieves is not myself.
5 What is
in pain is but illusion in my mind. 6 What dies was never
living in reality, and did but mock the truth about myself.
7 Now I
disown self-concepts and deceits and lies about the holy Son of God.
8 Now am
I ready to accept him back as God created him, and as he is.
W-pII.248.2. Father,
my ancient love for You returns, and lets me love Your Son again as well. 2 Father,
I am as You created me.
3 Now is Your Love remembered, and my own. 4 Now do
I understand that they are one.
Lesson 249.
Forgiveness ends all suffering and loss.
W-pII.249.1. Forgiveness paints a picture of a world
where suffering is over, loss becomes impossible and anger makes no sense.
2 Attack
is gone, and madness has an end. 3 What suffering is now conceivable?
4 What
loss can be sustained? 5 The world becomes a place of joy, abundance,
charity and endless giving. 6 It is now so like to Heaven that it quickly
is transformed into the light that it reflects. 7 And so the journey
which the Son of God began has ended in the light from which he came.
W-pII.249.2. Father,
we would return our minds to You.
2 We have betrayed them, held them in a vise of
bitterness, and frightened them with thoughts of violence and death. 3 Now
would we rest again in You, as You created us.
Lesson 250.
Let me not see myself as limited.
W-pII.250.1. Let me behold the Son of God today, and
witness to his glory. 2 Let me not try to obscure the holy light in
him, and see his strength diminished and reduced to frailty; nor perceive the
lacks in him with which I would attack his sovereignty.
W-pII.250.2. He
is Your Son, my Father.
2 And today I would behold his gentleness
instead of my illusions.
3 He is what I am, and as I see him so I see
myself. 4 Today I would see truly, that this day I may at last
identify with him.
W-pII.4.1. Sin is insanity.
2 It is
the means by which the mind is driven mad, and seeks to let illusions take the
place of truth. 3 And being mad, it sees illusions where the
truth should be, and where it really is. 4 Sin gave the body
eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? 5 What need have they
of sights or sounds or touch? 6 What would they hear or reach to grasp?
7 What would
they sense at all? 8 To sense is not to know.
9 And
truth can be but filled with knowledge, and with nothing else.
W-pII.4.2. The body is the instrument the mind
made in its efforts to deceive itself. 2 Its purpose is to
strive. 3
Yet can the goal of striving change. 4 And now the body
serves a different aim for striving. 5 What it seeks for now
is chosen by the aim the mind has taken as replacement for the goal of
self-deception. 6 Truth can be its aim as well as lies.
7 The
senses then will seek instead for witnesses to what is true.
W-pII.4.3. Sin is the home of all illusions,
which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts that are untrue.
2 They
are the "proof" that what has no reality is real.
3 Sin
"proves" God's Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; eternal
life must die. 4 And God Himself has lost the Son He loves,
with but corruption to complete Himself, His Will forever overcome by death,
love slain by hate, and peace to be no more.
W-pII.4.4. A madman's dreams are frightening,
and sin appears indeed to terrify. 2 And yet what sin
perceives is but a childish game. 3 The Son of God may play he has become a body,
prey to evil and to guilt, with but a little life that ends in death.
4 But all
the while his Father shines on him, and loves him with an everlasting Love
which his pretenses cannot change at all.
W-pII.4.5. How long, O Son of God, will you
maintain the game of sin? 2 Shall we not put away these sharp-edged
children's toys? 3 How soon will you be ready to come home?
4 Perhaps
today? 5
There is no sin. 6 Creation is unchanged.
7 Would
you still hold return to Heaven back? 8 How long, O holy Son
of God, how long?
Lesson 251. I am in need of nothing but the truth.
W-pII.251.1. I sought for many things, and found
despair. 2 Now do I seek but one, for in that one is all
I need, and only what I need. 3 All that I sought before I needed not, and
did not even want. 4 My only need I did not recognize.
5 But now
I see that I need only truth. 6 In that all needs are satisfied, all cravings
end, all hopes are finally fulfilled and dreams are gone.
7 Now
have I everything that I could need. 8 Now have I everything
that I could want. 9 And now at last I find myself at peace.
W-pII.251.2. And
for that peace, our Father, we give thanks. 2 What we denied
ourselves You have restored, and only that is what we really want.
Lesson 252. The Son of God is my Identity.
W-pII.252.1. My Self is holy beyond all the thoughts
of holiness of which I now conceive. 2 Its shimmering and
perfect purity is far more brilliant than is any light that I have ever looked
upon. 3
Its love is limitless, with an intensity that holds all things within it, in
the calm of quiet certainty. 4 Its strength comes not from burning impulses
which move the world, but from the boundless Love of God Himself.
5 How far
beyond this world my Self must be, and yet how near to me and close to God!
W-pII.252.2. Father,
You know my true Identity.
2 Reveal It now to me who am Your Son, that I
may waken to the truth in You, and know that Heaven is restored to me.
Lesson 253. My Self is ruler of the universe.
W-pII.253.1. It is impossible that anything should
come to me unbidden by myself. 2 Even in this world, it is I who rule my
destiny. 3 What happens is what I desire.
4 What
does not occur is what I do not want to happen. 5 This must I accept.
6 For
thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my will, in Heaven
where my holy Self abides with them and Him Who has created me.
W-pII.253.2. You
are the Self Whom You created Son, creating like Yourself and One with You. 2 My
Self, which rules the universe, is but Your Will in perfect union with my own,
which can but offer glad assent to Yours, that it may be extended to Itself.
Lesson 254. Let every voice but God's be still in me.
W-pII.254.1. Father,
today I would but hear Your Voice.
2 In deepest silence I would come to You, to
hear Your Voice and to receive Your Word. 3 I have no prayer but
this: I come to You to ask You for the truth. 4 And truth is but Your
Will, which I would share with You today.
W-pII.254.2. Today we let no ego thoughts direct our
words or actions. 2 When such thoughts occur, we quietly step
back and look at them, and then we let them go. 3 We do not want what
they would bring with them. 4 And so we do not choose to keep them.
5 They
are silent now. 6 And in the stillness, hallowed by His Love,
God speaks to us and tells us of our will, as we have chosen to remember Him.
Lesson 255. This day I choose to spend in perfect peace.
W-pII.255.1. It does not seem to me that I can
choose to have but peace today. 2 And yet, my God assures me that His Son is
like Himself. 3 Let me this day have faith in Him Who says I
am God's Son. 4 And let the peace I choose be mine today bear
witness to the truth of what He says. 5 God's Son can have no
cares, and must remain forever in the peace of Heaven.
6 In His
Name, I give today to finding what my Father wills for me, accepting it as
mine, and giving it to all my Father's Sons, along with me.
W-pII.255.2. And
so, my Father, would I pass this day with You. 2 Your Son has not
forgotten You.
3 The peace You gave him still is in his mind,
and it is there I choose to spend today.
Lesson 256. God is the only goal I have today.
W-pII.256.1. The way to God is through forgiveness
here. 2
There is no other way. 3 If sin had not been cherished by the mind,
what need would there have been to find the way to where you are?
4 Who
would still be uncertain? 5 Who could be unsure of who he is?
6 And who
would yet remain asleep, in heavy clouds of doubt about the holiness of him
whom God created sinless? 7 Here we can but dream.
8 But we
can dream we have forgiven him in whom all sin remains impossible, and it is
this we choose to dream today. 9 God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by
which our minds return to Him at last.
W-pII.256.2. And
so, our Father, would we come to You in Your appointed way. 2 We have
no goal except to hear Your Voice, and find the way Your sacred Word has
pointed out to us.
Lesson 257. Let me remember what my purpose is.
W-pII.257.1. If I forget my goal I can be but
confused, unsure of what I am, and thus conflicted in my actions.
2 No one
can serve contradicting goals and serve them well. 3 Nor can he function
without deep distress and great depression. 4 Let us therefore be
determined to remember what we want today, that we may unify our thoughts and
actions meaningfully, and achieve only what God would have us do this day.
W-pII.257.2. Father,
forgiveness is Your chosen means for our salvation. 2 Let us
not forget today that we can have no will but Yours. 3 And
thus our purpose must be Yours as well, if we would reach the peace You will
for us.
Lesson 258. Let me remember that my goal is God.
W-pII.258.1. All that is needful is to train our
minds to overlook all little senseless aims, and to remember that our goal is
God. 2
His memory is hidden in our minds, obscured but by our pointless little goals
which offer nothing, and do not exist. 3 Shall we continue to
allow God's grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the
world are sought instead? 4 God is our only goal, our only Love.
5 We have
no aim but to remember Him.
W-pII.258.2. Our
goal is but to follow in the way that leads to You. 2 We have
no goal but this.
3 What could we want but to remember You? 4 What
could we seek but our Identity?
Lesson 259. Let me remember that there is no sin.
W-pII.259.1. Sin is the only thought that makes the
goal of God seem unattainable. 2 What else could blind us to the obvious, and
make the strange and the distorted seem more clear?
3 What
else but sin engenders our attacks? 4 What else but sin
could be the source of guilt, demanding punishment and suffering?
5 And
what but sin could be the source of fear, obscuring God's creation; giving love
the attributes of fear and of attack?
W-pII.259.2. Father,
I would not be insane today.
2 I would not be afraid of love, nor seek for
refuge in its opposite.
3 For love can have no opposite. 4 You are
the Source of everything there is.
5 And everything that is remains with You, and
You with it.
Lesson 260. Let me remember God created me.
W-pII.260.1. Father,
I did not make myself, although in my insanity I thought I did. 2 Yet, as
Your Thought, I have not left my Source, remaining part of Who created me. 3 Your
Son, my Father, calls on You today. 4 Let me remember You
created me.
5 Let me remember my Identity. 6 And let
my sinlessness arise again before Christ's vision, through which I would look
upon my brothers and myself today.
W-pII.260.2. Now is our Source remembered, and
Therein we find our true Identity at last. 2 Holy indeed are we,
because our Source can know no sin. 3 And we who are His
Sons are like each other, and alike to Him.
W-pII.5.1. The body is a fence the Son of God
imagines he has built, to separate parts of his Self from other parts.
2 It is
within this fence he thinks he lives, to die as it decays and crumbles.
3 For within
this fence he thinks that he is safe from love. 4 Identifying with his
safety, he regards himself as what his safety is. 5 How else could he be
certain he remains within the body, keeping love outside?
W-pII.5.2. The body will not stay.
2 Yet
this he sees as double safety. 3 For the Son of God's impermanence is
"proof" his fences work, and do the task his mind assigns to them.
4 For if
his oneness still remained untouched, who could attack and who could be
attacked? 5 Who could be victor?
6 Who
could be his prey? 7 Who could be victim?
8 Who the
murderer? 9 And if he did not die, what "proof"
is there that God's eternal Son can be destroyed?
W-pII.5.3. The body is a dream.
2 Like
other dreams it sometimes seems to picture happiness, but can quite suddenly
revert to fear, where every dream is born. 3 For only love creates
in truth, and truth can never fear. 4 Made to be fearful,
must the body serve the purpose given it. 5 But we can change the
purpose that the body will obey by changing what we think that it is for.
W-pII.5.4. The body is the means by which
God's Son returns to sanity. 2 Though it was made to fence him into hell
without escape, yet has the goal of Heaven been exchanged for the pursuit of
hell. 3
The Son of God extends his hand to reach his brother, and to help him walk
along the road with him. 4 Now is the body holy.
5 Now it
serves to heal the mind that it was made to kill.
W-pII.5.5. You will identify with what you
think will make you safe. 2 Whatever it may be, you will believe that it
is one with you. 3 Your safety lies in truth, and not in lies.
4 Love is
your safety. 5 Fear does not exist.
6
Identify with love, and you are safe. 7 Identify with love,
and you are home. 8 Identify with love, and find your Self.
Lesson 261. God is my refuge and security.
W-pII.261.1. I will identify with what I think is
refuge and security. 2 I will behold myself where I perceive my
strength, and think I live within the citadel where I am safe and cannot be
attacked. 3 Let me today seek not security in danger, nor
attempt to find my peace in murderous attack. 4 I live in God.
5 In Him
I find my refuge and my strength. 6 In Him is my Identity.
7 In Him
is everlasting peace. 8 And only there will I remember Who I really
am.
W-pII.261.2. Let
me not seek for idols.
2 I would come, my Father, home to You today. 3 I
choose to be as You created me, and find the Son whom You created as my Self.
Lesson 262. Let me perceive no differences today.
W-pII.262.1. Father,
You have one Son.
2 And it is he that I would look upon today. 3 He is
Your one creation.
4 Why should I perceive a thousand forms in
what remains as one?
5 Why should I give this one a thousand names,
when only one suffices?
6 For Your Son must bear Your Name, for You
created him.
7 Let me not see him as a stranger to his
Father, nor as stranger to myself.
8 For he is part of me and I of him, and we are
part of You Who are our Source, eternally united in Your Love; eternally the
holy Son of God.
W-pII.262.2. We who are one would recognize this day
the truth about ourselves. 2 We would come home, and rest in unity.
3 For
there is peace, and nowhere else can peace be sought and found.
Lesson
263. My holy
vision sees all things as pure.
W-pII.263.1. Father,
Your Mind created all that is, Your Spirit entered into it, Your Love gave life
to it. 2 And would I look upon what You created as if it could be
made sinful?
3 I would not perceive such dark and fearful
images. 4 A madman's dream is hardly fit to be my choice, instead
of all the loveliness with which You blessed creation; all its purity, its joy,
and its eternal, quiet home in You.
W-pII.263.2. And while we still remain outside the
gate of Heaven, let us look on all we see through holy vision and the eyes of
Christ. 2
Let all appearances seem pure to us, that we may pass them by in innocence, and
walk together to our Father's house as brothers and the holy Sons of God.
Lesson 264.
I am surrounded by the Love of God.
W-pII.264.1. Father,
You stand before me and behind, beside me, in the place I see myself, and
everywhere I go.
2 You are in all the things I look upon, the
sounds I hear, and every hand that reaches for my own. 3 In You
time disappears, and place becomes a meaningless belief. 4 For
what surrounds Your Son and keeps him safe is Love Itself. 5 There
is no Source but this, and nothing is that does not share Its Holiness; that
stands beyond Your one creation, or without the Love which holds all things
within Itself.
6 Father, Your Son is like Yourself. 7 We come
to You in Your Own Name today, to be at peace within Your everlasting Love.
W-pII.264.2. My brothers, join with me in this today.
2 This is
salvation's prayer. 3 Must we not join in what will save the world,
along with us?
Lesson 265.
Creation's gentleness is all I see.
W-pII.265.1. I have indeed misunderstood the world,
because I laid my sins on it and saw them looking back at me.
2 How
fierce they seemed! 3 And how deceived was I to think that what I
feared was in the world, instead of in my mind alone.
4 Today I
see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines.
5 There
is no fear in it. 6 Let no appearance of my sins obscure the
light of Heaven shining on the world. 7 What is reflected
there is in God's Mind. 8 The images I see reflect my thoughts.
9 Yet is
my mind at one with God's. 10 And so I can perceive creation's gentleness.
W-pII.265.2. In
quiet would I look upon the world, which but reflects Your Thoughts, and mine
as well. 2 Let me remember that they are the same, and I will see
creation's gentleness.
Lesson 266.
My holy Self abides in you, God's Son.
W-pII.266.1. Father,
You gave me all Your Sons, to be my saviors and my counselors in sight; the
bearers of Your holy Voice to me.
2 In them are You reflected, and in them does
Christ look back upon me from my Self. 3 Let not Your Son
forget Your holy Name.
4 Let not Your Son forget his holy Source. 5 Let not
Your Son forget his Name is Yours.
W-pII.266.2. This day we enter into Paradise, calling
upon God's Name and on our own, acknowledging our Self in each of us; united in
the holy Love of God. 2 How many saviors God has given us!
3 How can
we lose the way to Him, when He has filled the world with those who point to
Him, and given us the sight to look on them?
Lesson 267.
My heart is beating in the peace of God.
W-pII.267.1. Surrounding me is all the life that God
created in His Love. 2 It calls to me in every heartbeat and in
every breath; in every action and in every thought.
3 Peace
fills my heart, and floods my body with the purpose of forgiveness.
4 Now my
mind is healed, and all I need to save the world is given me.
5 Each
heartbeat brings me peace; each breath infuses me with strength.
6 I am a
messenger of God, directed by His Voice, sustained by Him in love, and held
forever quiet and at peace within His loving Arms. 7 Each heartbeat calls
His Name, and every one is answered by His Voice, assuring me I am at home in
Him.
W-pII.267.2. Let
me attend Your Answer, not my own.
2 Father, my heart is beating in the peace the
Heart of Love created.
3 It is there and only there that I can be at
home.
Lesson 268. Let all things be exactly as they are.
W-pII.268.1. Let
me not be Your critic, Lord, today, and judge against You. 2 Let me
not attempt to interfere with Your creation, and distort it into sickly forms. 3 Let me
be willing to withdraw my wishes from its unity, and thus to let it be as You
created it.
4 For thus will I be able, too, to recognize my
Self as You created me.
5 In love was I created, and in love will I
remain forever.
6 What can frighten me, when I let all things
be exactly as they are?
W-pII.268.2. Let not our sight be blasphemous today,
nor let our ears attend to lying tongues. 2 Only reality is free
of pain. 3 Only reality is free of loss.
4 Only
reality is wholly safe. 5 And it is only this we seek today.
Lesson 269.
My sight goes forth to look upon Christ's face.
W-pII.269.1. I
ask Your blessing on my sight today. 2 It is the means which
You have chosen to become the way to show me my mistakes, and look beyond them. 3 It is
given me to find a new perception through the Guide You gave to me, and through
His lessons to surpass perception and return to truth. 4 I ask
for the illusion which transcends all those I made. 5 Today I
choose to see a world forgiven, in which everyone shows me the face of Christ,
and teaches me that what I look upon belongs to me; that nothing is, except
Your holy Son.
W-pII.269.2. Today our sight is blessed indeed.
2 We
share one vision, as we look upon the face of Him Whose Self is ours.
3 We are
one because of Him Who is the Son of God; of Him Who is our own Identity.
Lesson 270. I will not use the body's eyes today.
W-pII.270.1. Father,
Christ's vision is Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the
body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. 2 How
glorious and gracious is this world! 3 Yet how much more
will I perceive in it than sight can give. 4 The world forgiven
signifies Your Son acknowledges his Father, lets his dreams be brought to
truth, and waits expectantly the one remaining instant more of time which ends
forever, as Your memory returns to him. 5 And now his will is
one with Yours.
6 His function now is but Your Own, and every
thought except Your Own is gone.
W-pII.270.2. The quiet of today will bless our
hearts, and through them peace will come to everyone.
2 Christ
is our eyes today. 3 And through His sight we offer healing to the
world through Him, the holy Son whom God created whole; the holy Son whom God
created One.
W-pII.6.1. Christ is God's Son as He created
Him. 2
He is the Self we share, uniting us with one another, and with God as well.
3 He is
the Thought which still abides within the Mind that is His Source.
4 He has
not left His holy home, nor lost the innocence in which He was created.
5 He
abides unchanged forever in the Mind of God.
W-pII.6.2. Christ is the link that keeps you
one with God, and guarantees that separation is no more than an illusion of
despair, for hope forever will abide in Him. 2 Your mind is part of
His, and His of yours. 3 He is the part in which God's Answer lies;
where all decisions are already made, and dreams are over.
4 He
remains untouched by anything the body's eyes perceive.
5 For
though in Him His Father placed the means for your salvation, yet does He
remain the Self Who, like His Father, knows no sin.
W-pII.6.3. Home of the Holy Spirit, and at
home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy
mind. 2
This is the only part of you that has reality in truth.
3 The
rest is dreams. 4 Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ,
to fade before His glory and reveal your holy Self, the Christ, to you at last.
W-pII.6.4. The Holy Spirit reaches from the
Christ in you to all your dreams, and bids them come to Him, to be translated
into truth. 2 He will exchange them for the final dream
which God appointed as the end of dreams. 3 For when forgiveness rests
upon the world and peace has come to every Son of God, what could there be to
keep things separate, for what remains to see except Christ's face?
W-pII.6.5. And how long will this holy face be
seen, when it is but the symbol that the time for learning now is over, and the
goal of the Atonement has been reached at last? 2 So therefore let us
seek to find Christ's face and look on nothing else.
3 As we
behold His glory, will we know we have no need of learning or perception or of
time, or anything except the holy Self, the Christ Whom God created as His Son.
Lesson 271. Christ's is the vision I will use today.
W-pII.271.1. Each day, each hour, every instant, I
am choosing what I want to look upon, the sounds I want to hear, the witnesses
to what I want to be the truth for me. 2 Today I choose to
look upon what Christ would have me see, to listen to God's Voice, and seek the
witnesses to what is true in God's creation. 3 In Christ's sight,
the world and God's creation meet, and as they come together all perception
disappears. 4 His kindly sight redeems the world from
death, for nothing that He looks on but must live, remembering the Father and
the Son; Creator and creation unified.
W-pII.271.2. Father,
Christ's vision is the way to You.
2 What He beholds invites Your memory to be
restored to me.
3 And this I choose, to be what I would look
upon today.
Lesson 272. How can illusions satisfy God's Son?
W-pII.272.1. Father,
the truth belongs to me.
2 My home is set in Heaven by Your Will and
mine. 3 Can dreams content me? 4 Can illusions bring
me happiness?
5 What but Your memory can satisfy Your Son? 6 I will
accept no less than You have given me. 7 I am surrounded by
Your Love, forever still, forever gentle and forever safe. 8 God's
Son must be as You created him.
W-pII.272.2. Today we pass illusions by.
2 And if
we hear temptation call to us to stay and linger in a dream, we turn aside and
ask ourselves if we, the Sons of God, could be content with dreams, when Heaven
can be chosen just as easily as hell, and love will happily replace all fear.
Lesson 273. The stillness of the peace of God is mine.
W-pII.273.1. Perhaps we are now ready for a day of
undisturbed tranquility. 2 If this is not yet feasible, we are content
and even more than satisfied to learn how such a day can be achieved.
3 If we
give way to a disturbance, let us learn how to dismiss it and return to peace.
4 We need
but tell our minds, with certainty, "The stillness of the peace of God is
mine," and nothing can intrude upon the peace that God Himself has given
to His Son.
W-pII.273.2. Father,
Your peace is mine.
2 What need have I to fear that anything can
rob me of what You would have me keep? 3 I cannot lose Your
gifts to me.
4 And so the peace You gave Your Son is with me
still, in quietness and in my own eternal love for You.
Lesson 274. Today belongs to love. Let me not fear.
W-pII.274.1. Father,
today I would let all things be as You created them, and give Your Son the
honor due his sinlessness; the love of brother to his brother and his Friend. 2 Through
this I am redeemed.
3 Through this as well the truth will enter
where illusions were, light will replace all darkness, and Your Son will know
he is as You created him.
W-pII.274.2. A special blessing comes to us today,
from Him Who is our Father. 2 Give this day to Him, and there will be no
fear today, because the day is given unto love.
Lesson 275. God's healing Voice protects all things today.
W-pII.275.1. Let us today attend the Voice for God,
which speaks an ancient lesson, no more true today than any other day.
2 Yet has
this day been chosen as the time when we will seek and hear and learn and
understand. 3 Join me in hearing.
4 For the
Voice for God tells us of things we cannot understand alone, nor learn apart.
5 It is
in this that all things are protected. 6 And in this the
healing of the Voice for God is found.
W-pII.275.2. Your
healing Voice protects all things today, and so I leave all things to You. 2 I need
be anxious over nothing.
3 For Your Voice will tell me what to do and
where to go; to whom to speak and what to say to him, what thoughts to think,
what words to give the world.
4 The safety that I bring is given me. 5 Father,
Your Voice protects all things through me.
Lesson 276. The Word of God is given me to speak.
W-pII.276.1. What is the Word of God?
2
"My Son is pure and holy as Myself." 3 And thus did God
become the Father of the Son He loves, for thus was he created.
4 This
the Word His Son did not create with Him, because in this His Son was born.
5 Let us
accept His Fatherhood, and all is given us. 6 Deny we were created
in His Love and we deny our Self, to be unsure of who we are, of Who our Father
is, and for what purpose we have come. 7 And yet, we need but
to acknowledge Him Who gave His Word to us in our creation, to remember Him and
so recall our Self.
W-pII.276.2. Father,
Your Word is mine.
2 And it is this that I would speak to all my
brothers, who are given me to cherish as my own, as I am loved and blessed and
saved by You.
Lesson 277. Let me not bind Your Son with laws I made.
W-pII.277.1. Your
Son is free, my Father.
2 Let me not imagine I have bound him with the
laws I made to rule the body.
3 He is not subject to any laws I made by which
I try to make the body more secure. 4 He is not changed by
what is changeable.
5 He is not slave to any laws of time. 6 He is
as You created him, because he knows no law except the law of love.
W-pII.277.2. Let us not worship idols, nor believe
in any law idolatry would make to hide the freedom of the Son of God.
2 He is
not bound except by his beliefs. 3 Yet what he is, is far beyond his faith in
slavery or freedom. 4 He is free because he is his Father's Son.
5 And he
cannot be bound unless God's truth can lie, and God can will that He deceive
Himself.
Lesson 278. If I am bound, my Father is not free.
W-pII.278.1. If I accept that I am prisoner within a
body, in a world in which all things that seem to live appear to die, then is
my Father prisoner with me. 2 And this do I believe, when I maintain the
laws the world obeys must I obey; the frailties and the sins which I perceive
are real, and cannot be escaped. 3 If I am bound in any way, I do not know my
Father nor my Self. 4 And I am lost to all reality.
5 For
truth is free, and what is bound is not a part of truth.
W-pII.278.2. Father,
I ask for nothing but the truth.
2 I have had many foolish thoughts about myself
and my creation, and have brought a dream of fear into my mind. 3 Today,
I would not dream.
4 I choose the way to You instead of madness
and instead of fear.
5 For truth is safe, and only love is sure.
Lesson 279. Creation's freedom promises my own.
W-pII.279.1. The end of dreams is promised me,
because God's Son is not abandoned by His Love. 2 Only in dreams is
there a time when he appears to be in prison, and awaits a future freedom, if
it be at all. 3 Yet in reality his dreams are gone, with
truth established in their place. 4 And now is freedom his already.
5 Should
I wait in chains which have been severed for release, when God is offering me
freedom now?
W-pII.279.2. I
will accept Your promises today, and give my faith to them. 2 My
Father loves the Son Whom He created as His Own. 3 Would You withhold
the gifts You gave to me?
Lesson 280. What limits can I lay upon God's Son?
W-pII.280.1. Whom God created limitless is free.
2 I can
invent imprisonment for him, but only in illusions, not in truth.
3 No
Thought of God has left its Father's Mind. 4 No Thought of God is
limited at all. 5 No Thought of God but is forever pure.
6 Can I
lay limits on the Son of God, whose Father willed that he be limitless, and
like Himself in freedom and in love?
W-pII.280.2. Today
let me give honor to Your Son, for thus alone I find the way to You. 2 Father,
I lay no limits on the Son You love and You created limitless. 3 The
honor that I give to him is Yours, and what is Yours belongs to me as well.
W-pII.7.1. The Holy Spirit mediates between
illusions and the truth. 2 Since He must bridge the gap between reality
and dreams, perception leads to knowledge through the grace that God has given
Him, to be His gift to everyone who turns to Him for truth.
3 Across
the bridge that He provides are dreams all carried to the truth, to be dispelled
before the light of knowledge. 4 There are sights and sounds forever laid
aside. 5
And where they were perceived before, forgiveness has made possible
perception's tranquil end.
W-pII.7.2. The goal the Holy Spirit's teaching
sets is just this end of dreams. 2 For sights and sounds must be translated from
the witnesses of fear to those of love. 3 And when this is
entirely accomplished, learning has achieved the only goal it has in truth.
4 For
learning, as the Holy Spirit guides it to the outcome He perceives for it,
becomes the means to go beyond itself, to be replaced by the eternal truth.
W-pII.7.3. If you but knew how much your
Father yearns to have you recognize your sinlessness, you would not let His
Voice appeal in vain, nor turn away from His replacement for the fearful images
and dreams you made. 2 The Holy Spirit understands the means you
made, by which you would attain what is forever unattainable.
3 And if
you offer them to Him, He will employ the means you made for exile to restore
your mind to where it truly is at home.
W-pII.7.4. From knowledge, where He has been
placed by God, the Holy Spirit calls to you, to let forgiveness rest upon your
dreams, and be restored to sanity and peace of mind.
2 Without
forgiveness will your dreams remain to terrify you.
3 And the
memory of all your Father's Love will not return to signify the end of dreams
has come.
W-pII.7.5. Accept your Father's gift.
2 It is a
Call from Love to Love, that It be but Itself. 3 The Holy Spirit is
His gift, by which the quietness of Heaven is restored to God's beloved Son.
4 Would
you refuse to take the function of completing God, when all He wills is that
you be complete?
Lesson 281. I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts.
W-pII.281.1. Father,
Your Son is perfect.
2 When I think that I am hurt in any way, it is
because I have forgotten who I am, and that I am as You created me. 3 Your
Thoughts can only bring me happiness. 4 If ever I am sad or
hurt or ill, I have forgotten what You think, and put my little meaningless ideas
in place of where Your Thoughts belong, and where they are. 5 I can
be hurt by nothing but my thoughts. 6 The Thoughts I think
with You can only bless.
7 The Thoughts I think with You alone are true.
W-pII.281.2. I will not hurt myself today.
2 For I
am far beyond all pain. 3 My Father placed me safe in Heaven, watching
over me. 4 And I would not attack the Son He loves, for
what He loves is also mine to love.
Lesson 282. I will not be afraid of love today.
W-pII.282.1. If I could realize but this today,
salvation would be reached for all the world. 2 This the decision not
to be insane, and to accept myself as God Himself, my Father and my Source,
created me. 3 This the determination not to be asleep in
dreams of death, while truth remains forever living in the joy of love.
4 And
this the choice to recognize the Self Whom God created as the Son He loves, and
Who remains my one Identity.
W-pII.282.2. Father,
Your Name is Love and so is mine.
2 Such is the truth. 3 And can
the truth be changed by merely giving it another name? 4 The
name of fear is simply a mistake.
5 Let me not be afraid of truth today.
Lesson 283. My true Identity abides in You.
W-pII.283.1. Father,
I made an image of myself, and it is this I call the Son of God. 2 Yet is
creation as it always was, for Your creation is unchangeable. 3 Let me
not worship idols.
4 I am he my Father loves. 5 My
holiness remains the light of Heaven and the Love of God. 6 Is not
what is beloved of You secure?
7 Is not the light of Heaven infinite? 8 Is not Your
Son my true Identity, when You created everything that is?
W-pII.283.2. Now are we One in shared Identity, with
God our Father as our only Source, and everything created part of us.
2 And so
we offer blessing to all things, uniting lovingly with all the world, which our
forgiveness has made one with us.
Lesson 284. I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.
W-pII.284.1. Loss is not loss when properly
perceived. 2 Pain is impossible.
3 There
is no grief with any cause at all. 4 And suffering of any kind
is nothing but a dream. 5 This is the truth, at first to be but said
and then repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with
many reservations. 6 Then to be considered seriously more and
more, and finally accepted as the truth. 7 I can elect to change
all thoughts that hurt. 8 And I would go beyond these words today, and
past all reservations, and arrive at full acceptance of the truth in them.
W-pII.284.2. Father,
what You have given cannot hurt, so grief and pain must be impossible. 2 Let me
not fail to trust in You today, accepting but the joyous as Your gifts;
accepting but the joyous as the truth.
Lesson 285. My holiness shines bright and clear today.
W-pII.285.1. Today I wake with joy, expecting but the
happy things of God to come to me. 2 I ask but them to
come, and realize my invitation will be answered by the thoughts to which it
has been sent by me. 3 And I will ask for only joyous things the
instant I accept my holiness. 4 For what would be the use of pain to me, what
purpose would my suffering fulfill, and how would grief and loss avail me if
insanity departs from me today, and I accept my holiness instead?
W-pII.285.2. Father,
my holiness is Yours.
2 Let me rejoice in it, and through forgiveness
be restored to sanity.
3 Your Son is still as You created him. 4 My
holiness is part of me, and also part of You. 5 And what can alter
Holiness Itself?
Lesson 286. The hush of Heaven holds my heart today.
W-pII.286.1. Father,
how still today!
2 How quietly do all things fall in place! 3 This is
the day that has been chosen as the time in which I come to understand the
lesson that there is no need that I do anything. 4 In You is every
choice already made.
5 In You has every conflict been resolved. 6 In You
is everything I hope to find already given me. 7 Your peace is mine. 8 My
heart is quiet, and my mind at rest. 9 Your Love is Heaven,
and Your Love is mine.
W-pII.286.2. The stillness of today will give us
hope that we have found the way, and travelled far along it to a wholly certain
goal. 2
Today we will not doubt the end which God Himself has promised us.
3 We
trust in Him, and in our Self, Who still is One with Him.
Lesson 287. You are my goal, my Father. Only You.
W-pII.287.1. Where would I go but Heaven?
2 What
could be a substitute for happiness? 3 What gift could I
prefer before the peace of God? 4 What treasure would I seek and find and keep
that can compare with my Identity? 5 And would I rather
live with fear than love?
W-pII.287.2. You
are my goal, my Father.
2 What but You could I desire to have? 3 What
way but that which leads to You could I desire to walk? 4 And
what except the memory of You could signify to me the end of dreams and futile
substitutions for the truth?
5 You are my only goal. 6 Your
Son would be as You created him.
7 What way but this could I expect to recognize
my Self, and be at one with my Identity?
Lesson 288. Let me forget my brother's past today.
W-pII.288.1. This
is the thought that leads the way to You, and brings me to my goal. 2 I
cannot come to You without my brother. 3 And to know my
Source, I first must recognize what You created one with me. 4 My
brother's is the hand that leads me on the way to You. 5 His
sins are in the past along with mine, and I am saved because the past is gone. 6 Let me
not cherish it within my heart, or I will lose the way to walk to You. 7 My
brother is my savior.
8 Let me not attack the savior You have given
me. 9 But let me honor him who bears Your Name, and so remember
that It is my own.
W-pII.288.2. Forgive me, then, today.
2 And you
will know you have forgiven me if you behold your brother in the light of
holiness. 3 He cannot be less holy than can I, and you
can not be holier than he.
Lesson 289. The past is over. It can touch me not.
W-pII.289.1. Unless the past is over in my mind, the
real world must escape my sight. 2 For I am really looking nowhere; seeing but
what is not there. 3 How can I then perceive the world forgiveness
offers? 4
This the past was made to hide, for this the world that can be looked on only
now. 5
It has no past. 6 For what can be forgiven but the past, and if
it is forgiven it is gone.
W-pII.289.2. Father,
let me not look upon a past that is not there. 2 For You have offered me
Your Own replacement, in a present world the past has left untouched and free
of sin. 3 Here is the end of guilt. 4 And here am I made
ready for Your final step.
5 Shall I demand that You wait longer for Your
Son to find the loveliness You planned to be the end of all his dreams and all
his pain?
Lesson 290. My present happiness is all I see.
W-pII.290.1. Unless I look upon what is not there,
my present happiness is all I see. 2 Eyes that begin to
open see at last. 3 And I would have Christ's vision come to me
this very day. 4 What I perceive without God's Own Correction
for the sight I made is frightening and painful to behold.
5 Yet I
would not allow my mind to be deceived by the belief the dream I made is real
an instant longer. 6 This the day I seek my present happiness, and
look on nothing else except the thing I seek.
W-pII.290.2. With
this resolve I come to You, and ask Your strength to hold me up today, while I
but seek to do Your Will.
2 You cannot fail to hear me, Father. 3 What I
ask have You already given me.
4 And I am sure that I will see my happiness
today.
W-pII.8.1. The real world is a symbol, like
the rest of what perception offers. 2 Yet it stands for
what is opposite to what you made. 3 Your world is seen through
eyes of fear, and brings the witnesses of terror to your mind.
4 The
real world cannot be perceived except through eyes forgiveness blesses, so they
see a world where terror is impossible, and witnesses to fear can not be found.
W-pII.8.2. The real world holds a counterpart
for each unhappy thought reflected in your world; a sure correction for the
sights of fear and sounds of battle which your world contains.
2 The
real world shows a world seen differently, through quiet eyes and with a mind
at peace. 3 Nothing but rest is there.
4 There
are no cries of pain and sorrow heard, for nothing there remains outside
forgiveness. 5 And the sights are gentle.
6 Only
happy sights and sounds can reach the mind that has forgiven itself.
W-pII.8.3. What need has such a mind for
thoughts of death, attack and murder? 2 What can it perceive
surrounding it but safety, love and joy? 3 What is there it
would choose to be condemned, and what is there that it would judge against?
4 The
world it sees arises from a mind at peace within itself.
5 No
danger lurks in anything it sees, for it is kind, and only kindness does it
look upon.
W-pII.8.4. The real world is the symbol that
the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God's Son no longer sleeps.
2 His
waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father's Love; the certain
promise that he is redeemed. 3 The real world signifies the end of time, for
its perception makes time purposeless.
W-pII.8.5. The Holy Spirit has no need of time
when it has served His purpose. 2 Now He waits but that one instant more for
God to take His final step, and time has disappeared, taking perception with it
as it goes, and leaving but the truth to be itself.
3 That
instant is our goal, for it contains the memory of God.
4 And as
we look upon a world forgiven, it is He Who calls to us and comes to take us
home, reminding us of our Identity which our forgiveness has restored to us.
Lesson 291. This is a day of stillness and of peace.
W-pII.291.1. Christ's vision looks through me today.
2 His sight
shows me all things forgiven and at peace, and offers this same vision to the
world. 3
And I accept this vision in its name, both for myself and for the world as well.
4 What
loveliness we look upon today! 5 What holiness we see surrounding us!
6 And it
is given us to recognize it is a holiness in which we share; it is the Holiness
of God Himself.
W-pII.291.2. This
day my mind is quiet, to receive the Thoughts You offer me. 2 And I
accept what comes from You, instead of from myself. 3 I do not
know the way to You.
4 But You are wholly certain. 5 Father,
guide Your Son along the quiet path that leads to You. 6 Let my
forgiveness be complete, and let the memory of You return to me.
Lesson 292. A happy outcome to all things is sure.
W-pII.292.1. God's promises make no exceptions.
2 And He
guarantees that only joy can be the final outcome found for everything.
3 Yet it
is up to us when this is reached; how long we let an alien will appear to be
opposing His. 4 And while we think this will is real, we will
not find the end He has appointed as the outcome of all problems we perceive,
all trials we see, and every situation that we meet.
5 Yet is
the ending certain. 6 For God's Will is done in earth and Heaven.
7 We will
seek and we will find according to His Will, which guarantees that our will is
done.
W-pII.292.2. We
thank You, Father, for Your guarantee of only happy outcomes in the end. 2 Help us
not interfere, and so delay the happy endings You have promised us for every
problem that we can perceive; for every trial we think we still must meet.
Lesson 293. All fear is past and only love is here.
W-pII.293.1. All fear is past, because its source is
gone, and all its thoughts gone with it. 2 Love remains the only
present state, whose Source is here forever and forever.
3 Can the
world seem bright and clear and safe and welcoming, with all my past mistakes
oppressing it, and showing me distorted forms of fear?
4 Yet in
the present love is obvious, and its effects apparent.
5 All the
world shines in reflection of its holy light, and I perceive a world forgiven
at last.
W-pII.293.2. Father,
let not Your holy world escape my sight today. 2 Nor let my ears be
deaf to all the hymns of gratitude the world is singing underneath the sounds
of fear. 3 There is a real world which the present holds safe from
all past mistakes.
4 And I would see only this world before my
eyes today.
Lesson 294. My body is a wholly neutral thing.
W-pII.294.1. I am a Son of God.
2 And can
I be another thing as well? 3 Did God create the mortal and corruptible?
4 What
use has God's beloved Son for what must die? 5 And yet a neutral
thing does not see death, for thoughts of fear are not invested there, nor is a
mockery of love bestowed upon it. 6 Its neutrality protects it while it has a use.
7 And
afterwards, without a purpose, it is laid aside. 8 It is not sick nor
old nor hurt. 9 It is but functionless, unneeded and cast off.
10 Let me
not see it more than this today; of service for a while and fit to serve, to
keep its usefulness while it can serve, and then to be replaced for greater
good.
W-pII.294.2. My
body, Father, cannot be Your Son.
2 And what is not created cannot be sinful nor
sinless; neither good nor bad.
3 Let me, then, use this dream to help Your
plan that we awaken from all dreams we made.
Lesson 295. The Holy Spirit looks through me today.
W-pII.295.1. Christ asks that He may use my eyes
today, and thus redeem the world. 2 He asks this gift that He may offer peace of
mind to me, and take away all terror and all pain. 3 And as they are
removed from me, the dreams that seemed to settle on the world are gone.
4
Redemption must be one. 5 As I am saved, the world is saved with me.
6 For all
of us must be redeemed together. 7 Fear appears in many different forms, but love
is one.
W-pII.295.2. My
Father, Christ has asked a gift of me, and one I give that it be given me. 2 Help me
to use the eyes of Christ today, and thus allow the Holy Spirit's Love to bless
all things which I may look upon, that His forgiving Love may rest on me.
Lesson 296. The Holy Spirit speaks through me today.
W-pII.296.1. The
Holy Spirit needs my voice today, that all the world may listen to Your Voice,
and hear Your Word through me.
2 I am resolved to let You speak through me,
for I would use no words but Yours, and have no thoughts which are apart from
Yours, for only Yours are true.
3 I would be savior to the world I made. 4 For
having damned it I would set it free, that I may find escape, and hear the Word
Your holy Voice will speak to me today.
W-pII.296.2. We teach today what we would learn, and
that alone. 2 And so our learning goal becomes an
unconflicted one, and possible of easy reach and quick accomplishment.
3 How
gladly does the Holy Spirit come to rescue us from hell, when we allow His
teaching to persuade the world, through us, to seek and find the easy path to
God.
Lesson 297. Forgiveness is the only gift I give.
W-pII.297.1. Forgiveness is the only gift I give,
because it is the only gift I want. 2 And everything I give
I give myself. 3 This is salvation's simple formula.
4 And I,
who would be saved, would make it mine, to be the way I live within a world
that needs salvation, and that will be saved as I accept Atonement for myself.
W-pII.297.2. Father,
how certain are Your ways; how sure their final outcome, and how faithfully is
every step in my salvation set already, and accomplished by Your grace. 2 Thanks
be to You for Your eternal gifts, and thanks to You for my Identity.
Lesson 298. I love You, Father, and I love Your Son.
W-pII.298.1. My gratitude permits my love to be
accepted without fear. 2 And thus am I restored to my reality at last.
3 All
that intruded on my holy sight forgiveness takes away.
4 And I
draw near the end of senseless journeys, mad careers and artificial values.
5 I
accept instead what God establishes as mine, sure that in that alone I will be
saved; sure that I go through fear to meet my Love.
W-pII.298.2. Father,
I come to You today, because I would not follow any way but Yours. 2 You are
beside me.
3 Certain is Your way. 4 And I
am grateful for Your holy gifts of certain sanctuary, and escape from
everything that would obscure my love for God my Father and His holy Son.
Lesson 299. Eternal holiness abides in me.
W-pII.299.1. My holiness is far beyond my own
ability to understand or know. 2 Yet God, my Father, Who created it,
acknowledges my holiness as His. 3 Our Will, together, understands it.
4 And Our
Will, together, knows that it is so.
W-pII.299.2. Father,
my holiness is not of me.
2 It is not mine to be destroyed by sin. 3 It is
not mine to suffer from attack.
4 Illusions can obscure it, but can not put out
its radiance, nor dim its light.
5 It stands forever perfect and untouched. 6 In it
are all things healed, for they remain as You created them. 7 And I
can know my holiness.
8 For Holiness Itself created me, and I can
know my Source because it is Your Will that You be known.
Lesson 300. Only an instant does this world endure.
W-pII.300.1. This is a thought which can be used to
say that death and sorrow are the certain lot of all who come here, for their
joys are gone before they are possessed, or even grasped.
2 Yet
this is also the idea that lets no false perception keep us in its hold, nor
represent more than a passing cloud upon a sky eternally serene.
3 And it
is this serenity we seek, unclouded, obvious and sure, today.
W-pII.300.2. We
seek Your holy world today.
2 For we, Your loving Sons, have lost our way a
while. 3 But we have listened to Your Voice, and learned exactly
what to do to be restored to Heaven and our true Identity. 4 And we
give thanks today the world endures but for an instant. 5 We
would go beyond that tiny instant to eternity.
W-pII.9.1. Christ's Second Coming, which is
sure as God, is merely the correction of mistakes, and the return of sanity.
2 It is a
part of the condition that restores the never lost, and re-establishes what is
forever and forever true. 3 It is the invitation to God's Word to take
illusion's place; the willingness to let forgiveness rest upon all things
without exception and without reserve.
W-pII.9.2. It is the all-inclusive nature of
Christ's Second Coming that permits it to embrace the world and hold you safe
within its gentle advent, which encompasses all living things with you.
2 There
is no end to the release the Second Coming brings, as God's creation must be
limitless. 3 Forgiveness lights the Second Coming's way,
because it shines on everything as one. 4 And thus is oneness
recognized at last.
W-pII.9.3. The Second Coming ends the lessons
that the Holy Spirit teaches, making way for the Last Judgment, in which
learning ends in one last summary that will extend beyond itself, and reaches
up to God. 2 The Second Coming is the time in which all
minds are given to the hands of Christ, to be returned to spirit in the name of
true creation and the Will of God.
W-pII.9.4. The Second Coming is the one event
in time which time itself can not affect. 2 For every one who
ever came to die, or yet will come or who is present now, is equally released
from what he made. 3 In this equality is Christ restored as one
Identity, in which the Sons of God acknowledge that they all are one.
4 And God
the Father smiles upon His Son, His one creation and His only joy.
W-pII.9.5. Pray that the Second Coming will be
soon, but do not rest with that. 2 It needs your eyes and ears and hands and
feet. 3
It needs your voice. 4 And most of all it needs your willingness.
5 Let us rejoice
that we can do God's Will, and join together in its holy light.
6 Behold,
the Son of God is one in us, and we can reach our Father's Love through Him.
Lesson 301. And God Himself shall wipe away all tears.
W-pII.301.1. Father,
unless I judge I cannot weep.
2 Nor can I suffer pain, or feel I am abandoned
or unneeded in the world.
3 This is my home because I judge it not, and
therefore is it only what You will. 4 Let me today behold
it uncondemned, through happy eyes forgiveness has released from all distortion. 5 Let me
see Your world instead of mine.
6 And all the tears I shed will be forgotten,
for their source is gone.
7 Father, I will not judge Your world today.
W-pII.301.2. God's world is happy.
2 Those
who look on it can only add their joy to it, and bless it as a cause of further
joy in them. 3 We wept because we did not understand.
4 But we
have learned the world we saw was false, and we will look upon God's world
today.
Lesson 302. Where darkness was I look upon the light.
W-pII.302.1. Father,
our eyes are opening at last.
2 Your holy world awaits us, as our sight is
finally restored and we can see.
3 We thought we suffered. 4 But we
had forgot the Son whom You created. 5 Now we see that
darkness is our own imagining, and light is there for us to look upon. 6
Christ's vision changes darkness into light, for fear must disappear when love
has come.
7 Let me forgive Your holy world today, that I
may look upon its holiness and understand it but reflects my own.
W-pII.302.2. Our Love awaits us as we go to Him, and
walks beside us showing us the way. 2 He fails in nothing.
3 He the
End we seek, and He the Means by which we go to Him.
Lesson 303.
The holy Christ is born in me today.
W-pII.303.1. Watch with me, angels, watch with me
today. 2
Let all God's holy Thoughts surround me, and be still with me while Heaven's
Son is born. 3 Let earthly sounds be quiet, and the sights
to which I am accustomed disappear. 4 Let Christ be
welcomed where He is at home. 5 And let Him hear the sounds He understands,
and see but sights that show His Father's Love. 6 Let Him no longer be
a stranger here, for He is born again in me today.
W-pII.303.2. Your
Son is welcome, Father.
2 He has come to save me from the evil self I
made. 3 He is the Self that You have given me. 4 He is
but what I really am in truth.
5 He is the Son You love above all things. 6 He is
my Self as You created me.
7 It is not Christ that can be crucified. 8 Safe in
Your Arms let me receive Your Son.
Lesson 304.
Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ.
W-pII.304.1. I can obscure my holy sight, if I
intrude my world upon it. 2 Nor can I behold the holy sights Christ looks
upon, unless it is His vision that I use. 3 Perception is a
mirror, not a fact. 4 And what I look on is my state of mind,
reflected outward. 5 I would bless the world by looking on it
through the eyes of Christ. 6 And I will look upon the certain signs that
all my sins have been forgiven me.
W-pII.304.2. You
lead me from the darkness to the light; from sin to holiness. 2 Let me
forgive, and thus receive salvation for the world. 3 It is
Your gift, my Father, given me to offer to Your holy Son, that he may find
again the memory of You, and of Your Son as You created him.
Lesson 305.
There is a peace that Christ bestows on us.
W-pII.305.1. Who uses but Christ's vision finds a
peace so deep and quiet, undisturbable and wholly changeless, that the world
contains no counterpart. 2 Comparisons are still before this peace.
3 And all
the world departs in silence as this peace envelops it, and gently carries it
to truth, no more to be the home of fear. 4 For love has come,
and healed the world by giving it Christ's peace.
W-pII.305.2. Father,
the peace of Christ is given us, because it is Your Will that we be saved. 2 Help us
today but to accept Your gift, and judge it not. 3 For it has come to us
to save us from our judgment on ourselves.
Lesson 306.
The gift of Christ is all I seek today.
W-pII.306.1. What but Christ's vision would I use today,
when it can offer me a day in which I see a world so like to Heaven that an
ancient memory returns to me? 2 Today I can forget the world I made.
3 Today I
can go past all fear, and be restored to love and holiness and peace.
4 Today I
am redeemed, and born anew into a world of mercy and of care; of loving
kindness and the peace of God.
W-pII.306.2. And
so, our Father, we return to You, remembering we never went away; remembering
Your holy gifts to us.
2 In gratitude and thankfulness we come, with
empty hands and open hearts and minds, asking but what You give. 3 We
cannot make an offering sufficient for Your Son. 4 But in Your Love the
gift of Christ is his.
Lesson 307.
Conflicting wishes cannot be my will.
W-pII.307.1. Father,
Your Will is mine, and only that.
2 There is no other will for me to have. 3 Let me
not try to make another will, for it is senseless and will cause me pain. 4 Your
Will alone can bring me happiness, and only Yours exists. 5 If I
would have what only You can give, I must accept Your Will for me, and enter
into peace where conflict is impossible, Your Son is one with You in being and
in will, and nothing contradicts the holy truth that I remain as You created
me.
W-pII.307.2. And with this prayer we enter silently
into a state where conflict cannot come, because we join our holy will with
God's, in recognition that they are the same.
Lesson 308.
This instant is the only time there is.
W-pII.308.1. I have conceived of time in such a way
that I defeat my aim. 2 If I elect to reach past time to
timelessness, I must change my perception of what time is for.
3 Time's
purpose cannot be to keep the past and future one. 4 The only interval in
which I can be saved from time is now. 5 For in this instant
has forgiveness come to set me free. 6 The birth of Christ
is now, without a past or future. 7 He has come to give His present blessing to
the world, restoring it to timelessness and love. 8 And love is
ever-present, here and now.
W-pII.308.2. Thanks
for this instant, Father.
2 It is now I am redeemed. 3 This
instant is the time You have appointed for Your Son's release, and for
salvation of the world in him.
Lesson 309. I will not fear to look within today.
W-pII.309.1. Within me is eternal innocence, because
it is God's Will that it be there forever and forever.
2 I, His
Son, whose will is limitless as is His Own, can will no change in this.
3 For to
deny my Father's Will is to deny my own. 4 To look within is but
to find my will as God created it, and as it is. 5 I fear to look within
because I think I made another will that is not true, and made it real.
6 Yet it
has no effects. 7 Within me is the Holiness of God.
8 Within
me is the memory of Him.
W-pII.309.2. The
step I take today, my Father, is my sure release from idle dreams of sin. 2 Your
altar stands serene and undefiled.
3 It is the holy altar to my Self, and there I
find my true Identity.
Lesson 310. In fearlessness and love I spend today.
W-pII.310.1. This
day, my Father, would I spend with You, as You have chosen all my days should
be. 2 And what I will experience is not of time at all. 3 The joy
that comes to me is not of days nor hours, for it comes from Heaven to Your Son. 4 This
day will be Your sweet reminder to remember You, Your gracious calling to Your
holy Son, the sign Your grace has come to me, and that it is Your Will I be set
free today.
W-pII.310.2. We spend this day together, you and I.
2 And all
the world joins with us in our song of thankfulness and joy to Him Who gave salvation
to us, and Who set us free. 3 We are restored to peace and holiness.
4 There
is no room in us for fear today, for we have welcomed love into our hearts.
W-pII.10.1. Christ's Second Coming gives the Son
of God this gift: to hear the Voice for God proclaim that what is false is
false, and what is true has never changed. 2 And this the judgment
is in which perception ends. 3 At first you see a world that has accepted
this as true, projected from a now corrected mind. 4 And with this holy
sight, perception gives a silent blessing and then disappears, its goal
accomplished and its mission done.
W-pII.10.2. The final judgment on the world
contains no condemnation. 2 For it sees the world as totally forgiven,
without sin and wholly purposeless. 3 Without a cause, and
now without a function in Christ's sight, it merely slips away to nothingness.
4 There
it was born, and there it ends as well. 5 And all the figures
in the dream in which the world began go with it. 6 Bodies now are
useless, and will therefore fade away, because the Son of God is limitless.
W-pII.10.3. You who believed that God's Last
Judgment would condemn the world to hell along with you, accept this holy
truth: God's Judgment is the gift of the Correction He bestowed on all your
errors, freeing you from them, and all effects they ever seemed to have.
2 To fear
God's saving grace is but to fear complete release from suffering, return to
peace, security and happiness, and union with your own Identity.
W-pII.10.4. God's Final Judgment is as merciful
as every step in His appointed plan to bless His Son, and call him to return to
the eternal peace He shares with him. 2 Be not afraid of love.
3 For it
alone can heal all sorrow, wipe away all tears, and gently waken from his dream
of pain the Son whom God acknowledges as His. 4 Be not afraid of this.
5
Salvation asks you give it welcome. 6 And the world awaits
your glad acceptance, which will set it free.
W-pII.10.5. This is God's Final Judgment:
"You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever
loved, as limitless as your Creator, and completely changeless and forever pure.
2
Therefore awaken and return to Me. 3 I am your Father and
you are My Son."
Lesson 311.
I judge all things as I would have them be.
W-pII.311.1. Judgment was made to be a weapon used
against the truth. 2 It separates what it is being used against,
and sets it off as if it were a thing apart. 3 And then it makes of
it what you would have it be. 4 It judges what it cannot understand, because
it cannot see totality and therefore judges falsely.
5 Let us
not use it today, but make a gift of it to Him Who has a different use for it.
6 He will
relieve us of the agony of all the judgments we have made against ourselves,
and re-establish peace of mind by giving us God's Judgment of His Son.
W-pII.311.2. Father,
we wait with open mind today, to hear Your Judgment of the Son You love. 2 We do
not know him, and we cannot judge.
3 And so we let Your Love decide what he whom
You created as Your Son must be.
Lesson 312.
I see all things as I would have them be.
W-pII.312.1. Perception follows judgment.
2 Having
judged, we therefore see what we would look upon. 3 For sight can merely
serve to offer us what we would have. 4 It is impossible to
overlook what we would see, and fail to see what we have chosen to behold.
5 How
surely, therefore, must the real world come to greet the holy sight of anyone
who takes the Holy Spirit's purpose as his goal for seeing.
6 And he
cannot fail to look upon what Christ would have him see, and share Christ's
Love for what he looks upon.
W-pII.312.2. I
have no purpose for today except to look upon a liberated world, set free from
all the judgments I have made.
2 Father, this is Your Will for me today, and
therefore it must be my goal as well.
Lesson 313.
Now let a new perception come to me.
W-pII.313.1. Father,
there is a vision which beholds all things as sinless, so that fear has gone,
and where it was is love invited in. 2 And love will come
wherever it is asked.
3 This vision is Your gift. 4 The
eyes of Christ look on a world forgiven. 5 In His sight are all
its sins forgiven, for He sees no sin in anything He looks upon. 6 Now let
His true perception come to me, that I may waken from the dream of sin and look
within upon my sinlessness, which You have kept completely undefiled upon the
altar to Your holy Son, the Self with which I would identify.
W-pII.313.2. Let us today behold each other in the
sight of Christ. 2 How beautiful we are!
3 How
holy and how loving! 4 Brother, come and join with me today.
5 We save
the world when we have joined. 6 For in our vision it becomes as holy as the
light in us.
Lesson 314.
I seek a future different from the past.
W-pII.314.1. From new perception of the world there
comes a future very different from the past. 2 The future now is
recognized as but extension of the present. 3 Past mistakes can
cast no shadows on it, so that fear has lost its idols and its images, and being
formless, it has no effects. 4 Death will not claim the future now, for life
is now its goal, and all the needed means are happily provided.
5 Who can
grieve or suffer when the present has been freed, extending its security and
peace into a quiet future filled with joy?
W-pII.314.2. Father,
we were mistaken in the past, and choose to use the present to be free. 2 Now do
we leave the future in Your Hands, leaving behind our past mistakes, and sure
that You will keep Your present promises, and guide the future in their holy
light.
Lesson 315. All gifts my brothers give belong to me.
W-pII.315.1. Each day a thousand treasures come to
me with every passing moment. 2 I am blessed with gifts throughout the day,
in value far beyond all things of which I can conceive.
3 A
brother smiles upon another, and my heart is gladdened.
4 Someone
speaks a word of gratitude or mercy, and my mind receives this gift and takes
it as its own. 5 And everyone who finds the way to God becomes
my savior, pointing out the way to me, and giving me his certainty that what he
learned is surely mine as well.
W-pII.315.2. I
thank You, Father, for the many gifts that come to me today and every day from
every Son of God.
2 My brothers are unlimited in all their gifts
to me. 3 Now may I offer them my thankfulness, that gratitude to
them may lead me on to my Creator and His memory.
Lesson 316.
All gifts I give my brothers are my own.
W-pII.316.1. As every gift my brothers give is mine,
so every gift I give belongs to me. 2 Each one allows a
past mistake to go, and leave no shadow on the holy mind my Father loves.
3 His
grace is given me in every gift a brother has received throughout all time, and
past all time as well. 4 My treasure house is full, and angels watch
its open doors that not one gift is lost, and only more are added.
5 Let me
come to where my treasures are, and enter in where I am truly welcome and at
home, among the gifts that God has given me.
W-pII.316.2. Father,
I would accept Your gifts today.
2 I do not recognize them. 3 Yet I
trust that You Who gave them will provide the means by which I can behold them,
see their worth, and cherish only them as what I want.
Lesson 317.
I follow in the way appointed me.
W-pII.317.1. I have a special place to fill; a role
for me alone. 2 Salvation waits until I take this part as
what I choose to do. 3 Until I make this choice, I am the slave of
time and human destiny. 4 But when I willingly and gladly go the way my
Father's plan appointed me to go, then will I recognize salvation is already
here, already given all my brothers and already mine as well.
W-pII.317.2. Father,
Your way is what I choose today.
2 Where it would lead me do I choose to go;
what it would have me do I choose to do. 3 Your way is certain,
and the end secure.
4 The memory of You awaits me there. 5 And all
my sorrows end in Your embrace, which You have promised to Your Son, who
thought mistakenly that he had wandered from the sure protection of Your loving
Arms.
Lesson 318.
In me salvation's means and end are one.
W-pII.318.1. In me, God's holy Son, are reconciled
all parts of Heaven's plan to save the world. 2 What could conflict,
when all the parts have but one purpose and one aim?
3 How
could there be a single part that stands alone, or one of more or less importance
than the rest? 4 I am the means by which God's Son is saved,
because salvation's purpose is to find the sinlessness that God has placed in
me. 5
I was created as the thing I seek. 6 I am the goal the
world is searching for. 7 I am God's Son, His one eternal Love.
8 I am
salvation's means and end as well.
W-pII.318.2. Let
me today, my Father, take the role You offer me in Your request that I accept
Atonement for myself.
2 For thus does what is thereby reconciled in
me become as surely reconciled to You.
Lesson
319. I came for the
salvation of the world.
W-pII.319.1. Here is a thought from which all
arrogance has been removed, and only truth remains.
2 For
arrogance opposes truth. 3 But when there is no arrogance the truth will
come immediately, and fill up the space the ego left unoccupied by lies.
4 Only
the ego can be limited, and therefore it must seek for aims which are curtailed
and limiting. 5 The ego thinks that what one gains, totality
must lose. 6 And yet it is the Will of God I learn that
what one gains is given unto all.
W-pII.319.2. Father,
Your Will is total.
2 And the goal which stems from it shares its
totality.
3 What aim but the salvation of the world could
You have given me?
4 And what but this could be the Will my Self
has shared with You?
Lesson 320. My Father gives all power unto me.
W-pII.320.1. The Son of God is limitless.
2 There
are no limits on his strength, his peace, his joy, nor any attributes his
Father gave in his creation. 3 What he wills with his Creator and Redeemer
must be done. 4 His holy will can never be denied, because
his Father shines upon his mind, and lays before it all the strength and love
in earth and Heaven. 5 I am he to whom all this is given.
6 I am he
in whom the power of my Father's Will abides.
W-pII.320.2. Your
Will can do all things in me, and then extend to all the world as well through
me. 2 There is no limit on Your Will. 3 And so
all power has been given to Your Son.
W-pII.11.1. Creation is the sum of all God's
Thoughts, in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit.
2 Only
love creates, and only like itself. 3 There was no time
when all that it created was not there. 4 Nor will there be a
time when anything that it created suffers any loss.
5 Forever
and forever are God's Thoughts exactly as they were and as they are, unchanged
through time and after time is done.
W-pII.11.2. God's Thoughts are given all the
power that their own Creator has. 2 For He would add to love by its extension.
3 Thus
His Son shares in creation, and must therefore share in power to create.
4 What
God has willed to be forever One will still be One when time is over; and will
not be changed throughout the course of time, remaining as it was before the thought
of time began.
W-pII.11.3. Creation is the opposite of all
illusions, for creation is the truth. 2 Creation is the holy
Son of God, for in creation is His Will complete in every aspect, making every
part container of the whole. 3 Its oneness is forever guaranteed inviolate;
forever held within His holy Will, beyond all possibility of harm, of
separation, imperfection and of any spot upon its sinlessness.
W-pII.11.4. We are creation; we the Sons of God.
2 We seem
to be discrete, and unaware of our eternal unity with Him.
3 Yet
back of all our doubts, past all our fears, there still is certainty.
4 For
love remains with all its Thoughts, its sureness being theirs.
5 God's
memory is in our holy minds, which know their oneness and their unity with their
Creator. 6 Let our function be only to let this memory
return, only to let God's Will be done on earth, only to be restored to sanity,
and to be but as God created us.
W-pII.11.5. Our Father calls to us.
2 We hear
His Voice, and we forgive creation in the Name of its Creator, Holiness Itself,
Whose Holiness His Own creation shares; Whose Holiness is still a part of us.
Lesson 321. Father, my freedom is in You alone.
W-pII.321.1. I
did not understand what made me free, nor what my freedom is, nor where to look
to find it.
2 Father, I have searched in vain until I heard
Your Voice directing me.
3 Now I would guide myself no more. 4 For I
have neither made nor understood the way to find my freedom. 5 But I
trust in You.
6 You Who endowed me with my freedom as Your
holy Son will not be lost to me.
7 Your Voice directs me, and the way to You is
opening and clear to me at last.
8 Father, my freedom is in You alone. 9 Father,
it is my will that I return.
W-pII.321.2. Today we answer for the world, which
will be freed along with us. 2 How glad are we to find our freedom through
the certain way our Father has established. 3 And how sure is all
the world's salvation, when we learn our freedom can be found in God alone.
Lesson 322. I can give up but what was never real.
W-pII.322.1. I sacrifice illusions; nothing more.
2 And as
illusions go I find the gifts illusions tried to hide, awaiting me in shining
welcome, and in readiness to give God's ancient messages to me.
3 His
memory abides in every gift that I receive of Him. 4 And every dream
serves only to conceal the Self which is God's only Son, the likeness of
Himself, the Holy One Who still abides in Him forever, as He still abides in
me.
W-pII.322.2. Father,
to You all sacrifice remains forever inconceivable. 2 And so
I cannot sacrifice except in dreams. 3 As You created me, I
can give up nothing You gave me.
4 What You did not give has no reality. 5 What
loss can I anticipate except the loss of fear, and the return of love into my
mind?
Lesson 323. I gladly make the "sacrifice" of fear.
W-pII.323.1. Here
is the only "sacrifice" You ask of Your beloved Son; You ask him to
give up all suffering, all sense of loss and sadness, all anxiety and doubt,
and freely let Your Love come streaming in to his awareness, healing him of
pain, and giving him Your Own eternal joy. 2 Such is the
"sacrifice" You ask of me, and one I gladly make; the only
"cost" of restoration of Your memory to me, for the salvation of the
world.
W-pII.323.2. And as we pay the debt we owe to truth,--a
debt that merely is the letting go of self-deceptions and of images we
worshipped falsely--truth returns to us in wholeness and in joy.
2 We are
deceived no longer. 3 Love has now returned to our awareness.
4 And we
are at peace again, for fear has gone and only love remains.
Lesson 324. I merely follow, for I would not lead.
W-pII.324.1. Father,
You are the One Who gave the plan for my salvation to me. 2 You
have set the way I am to go, the role to take, and every step in my appointed
path. 3 I cannot lose the way. 4 I can but choose to
wander off a while, and then return. 5 Your loving Voice
will always call me back, and guide my feet aright. 6 My
brothers all can follow in the way I lead them. 7 Yet I merely follow
in the way to You, as You direct me and would have me go.
W-pII.324.2. So let us follow One Who knows the way.
2 We need
not tarry, and we cannot stray except an instant from His loving Hand.
3 We walk
together, for we follow Him. 4 And it is He Who makes the ending sure, and
guarantees a safe returning home.
Lesson 325. All things I think I see reflect ideas.
W-pII.325.1. This is salvation's keynote: What I see
reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want.
2 From there,
the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and
therefore seeks to find. 3 These images are then projected outward,
looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one's own.
4 From
insane wishes comes an insane world. 5 From judgment comes a
world condemned. 6 And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world
comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God, to offer him a kindly home
where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk
ahead with him, and find the way to Heaven and to God.
W-pII.325.2. Our
Father, Your ideas reflect the truth, and mine apart from Yours but make up
dreams. 2 Let me behold what only Yours reflect, for Yours and
Yours alone establish truth.
Lesson 326. I am forever an Effect of God.
W-pII.326.1. Father,
I was created in Your Mind, a holy Thought that never left its home. 2 I am
forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are my Cause. 3 As You
created me I have remained.
4 Where You established me I still abide. 5 And all
Your attributes abide in me, because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his
Cause that Cause and Its Effect are indistinguishable. 6 Let me
know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. 7 And as
it is in Heaven, so on earth.
8 Your plan I follow here, and at the end I
know that You will gather Your effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love,
where earth will vanish, and all separate thoughts unite in glory as the Son of
God.
W-pII.326.2. Let us today behold earth disappear, at
first transformed, and then, forgiven, fade entirely into God's holy Will.
Lesson 327. I need but call and You will answer me.
W-pII.327.1. I am not asked to take salvation on the
basis of an unsupported faith. 2 For God has promised He will hear my call,
and answer me Himself. 3 Let me but learn from my experience that this
is true, and faith in Him must surely come to me. 4 This is the faith
that will endure, and take me farther and still farther on the road that leads
to Him. 5
For thus I will be sure that He has not abandoned me and loves me still,
awaiting but my call to give me all the help I need to come to Him.
W-pII.327.2. Father,
I thank You that Your promises will never fail in my experience, if I but test
them out.
2 Let me attempt therefore to try them, and to
judge them not.
3 Your Word is one with You. 4 You
give the means whereby conviction comes, and surety of Your abiding Love is
gained at last.
Lesson 328. I choose the second place to gain the first.
W-pII.328.1. What seems to be the second place is
first, for all things we perceive are upside down until we listen to the Voice
for God. 2 It seems that we will gain autonomy but by
our striving to be separate, and that our independence from the rest of God's
creation is the way in which salvation is obtained.
3 Yet all
we find is sickness, suffering and loss and death. 4 This is not what our
Father wills for us, nor is there any second to His Will.
5 To join
with His is but to find our own. 6 And since our will is His, it is to Him that
we must go to recognize our will.
W-pII.328.2. There
is no will but Yours.
2 And I am glad that nothing I imagine
contradicts what You would have me be. 3 It is Your Will that
I be wholly safe, eternally at peace. 4 And happily I share
that Will which You, my Father, gave as part of me.
Lesson 329. I have already chosen what You will.
W-pII.329.1. Father,
I thought I wandered from Your Will, defied it, broke its laws, and interposed
a second will more powerful than Yours. 2 Yet what I am in
truth is but Your Will, extended and extending. 3 This am I, and this
will never change.
4 As You are One, so am I one with You. 5 And
this I chose in my creation, where my will became forever one with Yours. 6 That
choice was made for all eternity.
7 It cannot change, and be in opposition to
itself. 8 Father, my will is Yours. 9 And I am safe,
untroubled and serene, in endless joy, because it is Your Will that it be so.
W-pII.329.2. Today we will accept our union with
each other and our Source. 2 We have no will apart from His, and all of us
are one because His Will is shared by all of us. 3 Through it we
recognize that we are one. 4 Through it we find our way at last to God.
Lesson 330. I will not hurt myself again today.
W-pII.330.1. Let us this day accept forgiveness as
our only function. 2 Why should we attack our minds, and give them
images of pain? 3 Why should we teach them they are powerless,
when God holds out His power and His Love, and bids them take what is already
theirs? 4
The mind that is made willing to accept God's gifts has been restored to
spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with
its own. 5 The Self which God created cannot sin, and
therefore cannot suffer. 6 Let us choose today that He be our Identity,
and thus escape forever from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us.
W-pII.330.2. Father,
Your Son can not be hurt.
2 And if we think we suffer, we but fail to
know our one Identity we share with You. 3 We would return to It
today, to be made free forever from all our mistakes, and to be saved from what
we thought we were.
W-pII.12.1. The ego is idolatry; the sign of
limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its
life in death. 2 It is the "will" that sees the Will
of God as enemy, and takes a form in which it is denied.
3 The ego
is the "proof" that strength is weak and love is fearful, life is
really death, and what opposes God alone is true.
W-pII.12.2. The ego is insane.
2 In fear
it stands beyond the Everywhere, apart from All, in separation from the
Infinite. 3 In its insanity it thinks it has become a
victor over God Himself. 4 And in its terrible autonomy it
"sees" the Will of God has been destroyed.
5 It
dreams of punishment, and trembles at the figures in its dreams; its enemies,
who seek to murder it before it can ensure its safety by attacking them.
W-pII.12.3. The Son of God is egoless.
2 What
can he know of madness and the death of God, when he abides in Him?
3 What
can he know of sorrow and of suffering, when he lives in eternal joy?
4 What
can he know of fear and punishment, of sin and guilt, of hatred and attack,
when all there is surrounding him is everlasting peace, forever conflict-free
and undisturbed, in deepest silence and tranquility?
W-pII.12.4. To know reality is not to see the ego
and its thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws and its beliefs, its dreams,
its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in it entails.
2 In
suffering, the price for faith in it is so immense that crucifixion of the Son
of God is offered daily at its darkened shrine, and blood must flow before the
altar where its sickly followers prepare to die.
W-pII.12.5. Yet will one lily of forgiveness
change the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life
Itself. 2
And peace will be restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His
Son, His dwelling place, His joy, His love, completely His, completely one with
Him.
Lesson 331. There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.
W-pII.331.1. How
foolish, Father, to believe Your Son could cause himself to suffer! 2 Could
he make a plan for his damnation, and be left without a certain way to his
release? 3 You love me, Father. 4 You could never leave
me desolate, to die within a world of pain and cruelty. 5 How
could I think that Love has left Itself? 6 There is no will
except the Will of Love.
7 Fear is a dream, and has no will that can
conflict with Yours.
8 Conflict is sleep, and peace awakening. 9 Death
is illusion; life, eternal truth.
10 There is no opposition to Your Will. 11 There
is no conflict, for my will is Yours.
W-pII.331.2. Forgiveness shows us that God's Will is
One, and that we share it. 2 Let us look upon the holy sights forgiveness
shows today, that we may find the peace of God. 3 Amen.
Lesson 332. Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.
W-pII.332.1. The ego makes illusions.
2 Truth
undoes its evil dreams by shining them away. 3 Truth never makes
attack. 4
It merely is. 5 And by its presence is the mind recalled from
fantasies, awaking to the real. 6 Forgiveness bids this presence enter in, and
take its rightful place within the mind. 7 Without forgiveness
is the mind in chains, believing in its own futility.
8 Yet
with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering
it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its
inheritance.
W-pII.332.2. We
would not bind the world again today. 2 Fear holds it
prisoner.
3 And yet Your Love has given us the means to
set it free.
4 Father, we would release it now. 5 For as
we offer freedom, it is given us.
6 And we would not remain as prisoners, while
You are holding freedom out to us.
Lesson 333. Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here.
W-pII.333.1. Conflict must be resolved.
2 It
cannot be evaded, set aside, denied, disguised, seen somewhere else, called by
another name, or hidden by deceit of any kind, if it would be escaped.
3 It must
be seen exactly as it is, where it is thought to be, in the reality which has
been given it, and with the purpose that the mind accorded it.
4 For
only then are its defenses lifted, and the truth can shine upon it as it
disappears.
W-pII.333.2. Father,
forgiveness is the light You chose to shine away all conflict and all doubt,
and light the way for our return to You. 2 No light but this can
end our evil dream.
3 No light but this can save the world. 4 For
this alone will never fail in anything, being Your gift to Your beloved Son.
Lesson 334. Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.
W-pII.334.1. I will not wait another day to find the
treasures that my Father offers me. 2 Illusions are all
vain, and dreams are gone even while they are woven out of thoughts that rest
on false perceptions. 3 Let me not accept such meager gifts again
today. 4
God's Voice is offering the peace of God to all who hear and choose to follow
Him. 5
This is my choice today. 6 And so I go to find the treasures God has
given me.
W-pII.334.2. I
seek but the eternal.
2 For Your Son can be content with nothing less
than this.
3 What, then, can be his solace but what You
are offering to his bewildered mind and frightened heart, to give him certainty
and bring him peace?
4 Today I would behold my brother sinless. 5 This
Your Will for me, for so will I behold my sinlessness.
Lesson 335. I choose to see my brother's sinlessness.
W-pII.335.1. Forgiveness is a choice.
2 I never
see my brother as he is, for that is far beyond perception.
3 What I
see in him is merely what I wish to see, because it stands for what I want to
be the truth. 4 It is to this alone that I respond, however
much I seem to be impelled by outside happenings. 5 I choose to see what
I would look upon, and this I see, and only this. 6 My brother's
sinlessness shows me that I would look upon my own.
7 And I
will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light.
W-pII.335.2. What
could restore Your memory to me, except to see my brother's sinlessness? 2 His
holiness reminds me that he was created one with me, and like myself. 3 In him
I find my Self, and in Your Son I find the memory of You as well.
Lesson 336. Forgiveness lets me know that minds are joined.
W-pII.336.1. Forgiveness is the means appointed for
perception's ending. 2 Knowledge is restored after perception first
is changed, and then gives way entirely to what remains forever past its
highest reach. 3 For sights and sounds, at best, can serve but
to recall the memory that lies beyond them all. 4 Forgiveness sweeps
away distortions, and opens the hidden altar to the truth.
5 Its
lilies shine into the mind, and call it to return and look within, to find what
it has vainly sought without. 6 For here, and only here, is peace of mind
restored, for this the dwelling place of God Himself.
W-pII.336.2. In
quiet may forgiveness wipe away my dreams of separation and of sin. 2 Then
let me, Father, look within, and find Your promise of my sinlessness is kept;
Your Word remains unchanged within my mind, Your Love is still abiding in my
heart.
Lesson 337. My sinlessness protects me from all harm.
W-pII.337.1. My sinlessness ensures me perfect
peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever from all thought of
loss; complete deliverance from suffering. 2 And only happiness
can be my state, for only happiness is given me. 3 What must I do to
know all this is mine? 4 I must accept Atonement for myself, and
nothing more. 5 God has already done all things that need be
done. 6
And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self, my
sinlessness, created for me, now already mine, to feel God's Love protecting me
from harm, to understand my Father loves His Son; to know I am the Son my
Father loves.
W-pII.337.2. You
Who created me in sinlessness are not mistaken about what I am. 2 I was
mistaken when I thought I sinned, but I accept Atonement for myself. 3 Father,
my dream is ended now.
4 Amen.
Lesson 338. I am affected only by my thoughts.
W-pII.338.1. It needs but this to let salvation come
to all the world. 2 For in this single thought is everyone
released at last from fear. 3 Now has he learned that no one frightens him,
and nothing can endanger him. 4 He has no enemies, and he is safe from all
external things. 5 His thoughts can frighten him, but since
these thoughts belong to him alone, he has the power to change them and
exchange each fear thought for a happy thought of love.
6 He
crucified himself. 7 Yet God has planned that His beloved Son will
be redeemed.
W-pII.338.2. Your
plan is sure, my Father,--only Yours. 2 All other plans will
fail. 3 And I will have thoughts that will frighten me, until I
learn that You have given me the only Thought that leads me to salvation. 4 Mine
alone will fail, and lead me nowhere. 5 But the Thought You
gave me promises to lead me home, because it holds Your promise to Your Son.
Lesson 339. I will receive whatever I request.
W-pII.339.1. No one desires pain.
2 But he
can think that pain is pleasure. 3 No one would avoid his happiness.
4 But he
can think that joy is painful, threatening and dangerous.
5
Everyone will receive what he requests. 6 But he can be
confused indeed about the things he wants; the state he would attain.
7 What
can he then request that he would want when he receives it?
8 He has
asked for what will frighten him, and bring him suffering.
9 Let us
resolve today to ask for what we really want, and only this, that we may spend
this day in fearlessness, without confusing pain with joy, or fear with love.
W-pII.339.2. Father,
this is Your day.
2 It is a day in which I would do nothing by
myself, but hear Your Voice in everything I do; requesting only what You offer
me, accepting only Thoughts You share with me.
Lesson 340. I can be free of suffering today.
W-pII.340.1. Father,
I thank You for today, and for the freedom I am certain it will bring. 2 This
day is holy, for today Your Son will be redeemed. 3 His suffering is done. 4 For he
will hear Your Voice directing him to find Christ's vision through forgiveness,
and be free forever from all suffering. 5 Thanks for today, my
Father. 6 I was born into this world but to achieve this day, and
what it holds in joy and freedom for Your holy Son and for the world he made,
which is released along with him today.
W-pII.340.2. Be glad today!
2 Be glad!
3 There
is no room for anything but joy and thanks today. 4 Our Father has
redeemed His Son this day. 5 Not one of us but will be saved today.
6 Not one
who will remain in fear, and none the Father will not gather to Himself, awake
in Heaven in the Heart of Love.
W-pII.13.1. A miracle is a correction.
2 It does
not create, nor really change at all. 3 It merely looks on
devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false.
4 It
undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the
function of forgiveness. 5 Thus it stays within time's limits.
6 Yet it
paves the way for the return of timelessness and love's awakening, for fear
must slip away under the gentle remedy it brings.
W-pII.13.2. A miracle contains the gift of grace,
for it is given and received as one. 2 And thus it
illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because it fails entirely
to understand its ways. 3 A miracle inverts perception which was upside
down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest.
4 Now is
perception open to the truth. 5 Now is forgiveness seen as justified.
W-pII.13.3. Forgiveness is the home of miracles.
2 The
eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love.
3
Perception stands corrected in His sight, and what was meant to curse has come
to bless. 4 Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world
the silent miracle of love. 5 And each is laid before the Word of God, upon
the universal altar to Creator and creation in the light of perfect purity and
endless joy.
W-pII.13.4. The miracle is taken first on faith,
because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what
it cannot see and does not understand. 2 Yet faith will bring its
witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there.
3 And
thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world
more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought was
there.
W-pII.13.5. Miracles fall like drops of healing
rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures
come to die. 2 Now they have water.
3 Now the
world is green. 4 And everywhere the signs of life spring up,
to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality.
Lesson 341. I can attack but my own sinlessness, And it is only that which keeps me safe.
W-pII.341.1. Father,
Your Son is holy.
2 I am he on whom You smile in love and
tenderness so dear and deep and still the universe smiles back on You, and
shares Your Holiness.
3 How pure, how safe, how holy, then, are we,
abiding in Your Smile, with all Your Love bestowed upon us, living one with
You, in brotherhood and Fatherhood complete; in sinlessness so perfect that the
Lord of Sinlessness conceives us as His Son, a universe of Thought completing
Him.
W-pII.341.2. Let us not, then, attack our
sinlessness, for it contains the Word of God to us.
2 And in
its kind reflection we are saved.
Lesson 342. I let forgiveness rest upon all things, For thus forgiveness will be given me.
W-pII.342.1. I
thank You, Father, for Your plan to save me from the hell I made. 2 It is
not real.
3 And You have given me the means to prove its
unreality to me.
4 The key is in my hand, and I have reached the
door beyond which lies the end of dreams. 5 I stand before the
gate of Heaven, wondering if I should enter in and be at home. 6 Let me
not wait again today.
7 Let me forgive all things, and let creation
be as You would have it be and as it is. 8 Let me remember that
I am Your Son, and opening the door at last, forget illusions in the blazing
light of truth, as memory of You returns to me.
W-pII.342.2. Brother, forgive me now.
2 I come
to you to take you home with me. 3 And as we go, the world goes with us on our
way to God.
Lesson 343. I am not asked to make a sacrifice To find the mercy and the peace of God.
W-pII.343.1. The
end of suffering can not be loss.
2 The gift of everything can be but gain. 3 You
only give.
4 You never take away. 5 And You
created me to be like You, so sacrifice becomes impossible for me as well as
You. 6 I, too, must give. 7 And so all things are
given unto me forever and forever.
8 As I was created I remain. 9 Your
Son can make no sacrifice, for he must be complete, having the function of
completing You.
10 I am complete because I am Your Son. 11 I
cannot lose, for I can only give, and everything is mine eternally.
W-pII.343.2. The mercy and the peace of God are free.
2
Salvation has no cost. 3 It is a gift that must be freely given and
received. 4 And it is this that we would learn today.
Lesson 344. Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me.
W-pII.344.1. This
is Your law, my Father, not my own. 2 I have not understood
what giving means, and thought to save what I desired for myself alone. 3 And as
I looked upon the treasure that I thought I had, I found an empty place where
nothing ever was or is or will be.
4 Who can share a dream? 5 And
what can an illusion offer me?
6 Yet he whom I forgive will give me gifts
beyond the worth of anything on earth. 7 Let my forgiven
brothers fill my store with Heaven's treasures, which alone are real. 8 Thus is
the law of love fulfilled.
9 And thus Your Son arises and returns to You.
W-pII.344.2. How near we are to one another, as we
go to God. 2 How near is He to us.
3 How
close the ending of the dream of sin, and the redemption of the Son of God.
Lesson 345. I offer only miracles today, For I would have them be returned to me.
W-pII.345.1. Father,
a miracle reflects Your gifts to me, Your Son. 2 And every one I give
returns to me, reminding me the law of love is universal. 3 Even
here, it takes a form which can be recognized and seen to work. 4 The
miracles I give are given back in just the form I need to help me with the
problems I perceive.
5 Father, in Heaven it is different, for there,
there are no needs.
6 But here on earth, the miracle is closer to
Your gifts than any other gift that I can give. 7 Then let me give this
gift alone today, which, born of true forgiveness, lights the way that I must
travel to remember You.
W-pII.345.2. Peace to all seeking hearts today.
2 The
light has come to offer miracles to bless the tired world.
3 It will
find rest today, for we will offer what we have received.
Lesson 346. Today the peace of God envelops me, And I forget all things except His Love.
W-pII.346.1. Father,
I wake today with miracles correcting my perception of all things. 2 And so
begins the day I share with You as I will share eternity, for time has stepped
aside today.
3 I do not seek the things of time, and so I
will not look upon them.
4 What I seek today transcends all laws of time
and things perceived in time.
5 I would forget all things except Your Love. 6 I would
abide in You, and know no laws except Your law of love. 7 And I
would find the peace which You created for Your Son, forgetting all the foolish
toys I made as I behold Your glory and my own.
W-pII.346.2. And when the evening comes today, we
will remember nothing but the peace of God. 2 For we will learn
today what peace is ours, when we forget all things except God's Love.
Lesson 347. Anger must come from judgment. Judgment is The weapon I would use against myself, To keep the miracle away from me.
W-pII.347.1. Father,
I want what goes against my will, and do not want what is my will to have. 2
Straighten my mind, my Father.
3 It is sick. 4 But You have offered
freedom, and I choose to claim Your gift today. 5 And so I give all
judgment to the One You gave to me to judge for me. 6 He sees
what I behold, and yet He knows the truth. 7 He looks on pain, and
yet He understands it is not real, and in His understanding it is healed. 8 He
gives the miracles my dreams would hide from my awareness. 9 Let Him
judge today.
10 I do not know my will, but He is sure it is
Your Own.
11 And He will speak for me, and call Your
miracles to come to me.
W-pII.347.2. Listen today.
2 Be very
still, and hear the gentle Voice for God assuring you that He has judged you as
the Son He loves.
Lesson 348. I have no cause for anger or for fear, For You surround me. And in every need That I perceive, Your grace suffices me.
W-pII.348.1. Father,
let me remember You are here, and I am not alone. 2 Surrounding me is
everlasting Love.
3 I have no cause for anything except the
perfect peace and joy I share with You. 4 What need have I for
anger or for fear?
5 Surrounding me is perfect safety. 6 Can I
be afraid, when Your eternal promise goes with me? 7
Surrounding me is perfect sinlessness. 8 What can I fear, when
You created me in holiness as perfect as Your Own?
W-pII.348.2. God's grace suffices us in everything
that He would have us do. 2 And only that we choose to be our will as
well as His.
Lesson 349. Today I let Christ's vision look upon All things for me and judge them not, but give Each one a miracle of love instead.
W-pII.349.1. So
would I liberate all things I see, and give to them the freedom that I seek. 2 For
thus do I obey the law of love, and give what I would find and make my own. 3 It will
be given me, because I have chosen it as the gift I want to give. 4 Father,
Your gifts are mine.
5 Each one that I accept gives me a miracle to
give. 6 And giving as I would receive, I learn Your healing miracles
belong to me.
W-pII.349.2. Our Father knows our needs.
2 He
gives us grace to meet them all. 3 And so we trust in Him to send us miracles to
bless the world, and heal our minds as we return to Him.
Lesson 350. Miracles mirror God's eternal Love. To offer them is to remember Him, And through His memory to save the world.
W-pII.350.1. What
we forgive becomes a part of us, as we perceive ourselves. 2 The Son
of God incorporates all things within himself as You created him. 3 Your
memory depends on his forgiveness.
4 What he is, is unaffected by his thoughts. 5 But
what he looks upon is their direct result. 6 Therefore, my Father,
I would turn to You.
7 Only Your memory will set me free. 8 And only
my forgiveness teaches me to let Your memory return to me, and give it to the
world in thankfulness.
W-pII.350.2. And as we gather miracles from Him, we
will indeed be grateful. 2 For as we remember Him, His Son will be
restored to us in the reality of Love.
W-pII.14.1. I
am God's Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His
Love. 2 In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal
life. 3 In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy
established without opposite.
4 I am the holy home of God Himself. 5 I am
the Heaven where His Love resides.
6 I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my
purity abides His Own.
W-pII.14.2. Our use for words is almost over now.
2 Yet in
the final days of this one year we gave to God together, you and I, we found a
single purpose that we shared. 3 And thus you joined with me, so what I am are
you as well. 4 The truth of what we are is not for words to
speak of nor describe. 5 Yet we can realize our function here, and
words can speak of this and teach it, too, if we exemplify the words in us.
W-pII.14.3. We are the bringers of salvation.
2 We
accept our part as saviors of the world, which through our joint forgiveness is
redeemed. 3 And this, our gift, is therefore given us.
4 We look
on everyone as brother, and perceive all things as kindly and as good.
5 We do
not seek a function that is past the gate of Heaven.
6
Knowledge will return when we have done our part. 7 We are concerned only
with giving welcome to the truth.
W-pII.14.4. Ours are the eyes through which
Christ's vision sees a world redeemed from every thought of sin.
2 Ours
are the ears that hear the Voice for God proclaim the world as sinless.
3 Ours
the minds that join together as we bless the world.
4 And
from the oneness that we have attained we call to all our brothers, asking them
to share our peace and consummate our joy.
W-pII.14.5. We are the holy messengers of God who
speak for Him, and carrying His Word to everyone whom He has sent to us, we
learn that it is written on our hearts. 2 And thus our minds
are changed about the aim for which we came, and which we seek to serve.
3 We
bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he suffered.
4 Now is
he redeemed. 5 And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before
him, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God.
Lesson 351. My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold.
W-pII.351.1. Who
is my brother but Your holy Son?
2 And if I see him sinful I proclaim myself a
sinner, not a Son of God; alone and friendless in a fearful world. 3 Yet
this perception is a choice I make, and can relinquish. 4 I can
also see my brother sinless, as Your holy Son. 5 And with this choice
I see my sinlessness, my everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and my way
secure and clear.
6 Choose, then, for me, my Father, through Your
Voice. 7 For He alone gives judgment in Your Name.
Lesson 352.
Judgment and love are opposites. From one Come all the sorrows of the
world. But from The other comes the peace of God Himself.
W-pII.352.1. Forgiveness
looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not. 2 Through this I come
to You. 3 Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. 4 Yet love,
reflected in forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your
peace again.
5 I am redeemed when I elect to follow in this
way. 6 You have not left me comfortless. 7 I have
within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to it. 8 Father,
I would hear Your Voice and find Your peace today. 9 For I
would love my own Identity, and find in It the memory of You.
Lesson 353. My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today Have but one purpose; to be given Christ To use to bless the world with miracles.
W-pII.353.1. Father,
I give all that is mine today to Christ, to use in any way that best will serve
the purpose that I share with Him.
2 Nothing is mine alone, for He and I have
joined in purpose.
3 Thus has learning come almost to its appointed
end. 4 A while I work with Him to serve His purpose. 5 Then I
lose myself in my Identity, and recognize that Christ is but my Self.
Lesson 354.
We stand together, Christ and I, in peace And
certainty of purpose. And in Him Is His Creator, as He is in me.
W-pII.354.1. My
oneness with the Christ establishes me as Your Son, beyond the reach of time,
and wholly free of every law but Yours. 2 I have no self except
the Christ in me.
3 I have no purpose but His Own. 4 And He
is like His Father.
5 Thus must I be one with You as well as Him. 6 For who
is Christ except Your Son as You created Him? 7 And what am I except
the Christ in me?
Lesson 355. There is no end to all the peace and joy, And all the miracles that I will give, When I accept God's Word. Why not today?
W-pII.355.1. Why
should I wait, my Father, for the joy You promised me? 2 For You
will keep Your Word You gave Your Son in exile. 3 I am sure my treasure
waits for me, and I need but reach out my hand to find it. 4 Even
now my fingers touch it.
5 It is very close. 6 I need
not wait an instant more to be at peace forever. 7 It is You I choose,
and my Identity along with You.
8 Your Son would be Himself, and know You as
his Father and Creator, and his Love.
Lesson 356. Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him.
W-pII.356.1. Father,
You promised You would never fail to answer any call Your Son might make to You. 2 It does
not matter where he is, what seems to be his problem, nor what he believes he
has become.
3 He is Your Son, and You will answer him. 4 The
miracle reflects Your Love, and thus it answers him. 5 Your
Name replaces every thought of sin, and who is sinless cannot suffer pain. 6 Your
Name gives answer to Your Son, because to call Your Name is but to call his
own.
Lesson 357. Truth answers every call we make to God, Responding first with miracles, and then Returning unto us to be itself.
W-pII.357.1. Forgiveness,
truth's reflection, tells me how to offer miracles, and thus escape the prison
house in which I think I live.
2 Your holy Son is pointed out to me, first in
my brother; then in me.
3 Your Voice instructs me patiently to hear
Your Word, and give as I receive.
4 And as I look upon Your Son today, I hear
Your Voice instructing me to find the way to You, as You appointed that the way
shall be:
5 "Behold his sinlessness, and be you
healed."
Lesson 358.
No call to God can be unheard nor left Unanswered. And of this I can be
sure; His answer is the one I really want.
W-pII.358.1. You
Who remember what I really am alone remember what I really want. 2 You
speak for God, and so You speak for me. 3 And what You give me
comes from God Himself.
4 Your Voice, my Father, then is mine as well,
and all I want is what You offer me, in just the form You choose that it be
mine. 5 Let me remember all I do not know, and let my voice be
still, remembering.
6 But let me not forget Your Love and care,
keeping Your promise to Your Son in my awareness always. 7 Let me
not forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all.
Lesson 359. God's answer is some form of peace. All pain Is healed; all misery replaced with joy. All prison doors are opened. And all sin Is understood as merely a mistake.
W-pII.359.1. Father,
today we will forgive Your world, and let creation be Your Own. 2 We have
misunderstood all things.
3 But we have not made sinners of the holy Sons
of God. 4 What You created sinless so abides forever and forever. 5 Such
are we. 6 And we rejoice to learn that we have made mistakes which
have no real effects on us.
7 Sin is impossible, and on this fact
forgiveness rests upon a certain base more solid than the shadow world we see. 8 Help us
forgive, for we would be redeemed.
9 Help us forgive, for we would be at peace.
Lesson 360. Peace be to me, the holy Son of God. Peace to my brother, who is one with me. Let all the world be blessed with peace through us.
W-pII.360.1. Father,
it is Your peace that I would give, receiving it of You. 2 I am
Your Son, forever just as You created me, for the Great Rays remain forever
still and undisturbed within me.
3 I would reach to them in silence and in
certainty, for nowhere else can certainty be found. 4 Peace
be to me, and peace to all the world. 5 In holiness were we
created, and in holiness do we remain. 6 Your Son is like to
You in perfect sinlessness.
7 And with this thought we gladly say
"Amen."
W.fl.in.1. Our final lessons will be left as
free of words as possible. 2 We use them but at the beginning of our
practicing, and only to remind us that we seek to go beyond them.
3 Let us
turn to Him Who leads the way and makes our footsteps sure.
4 To Him
we leave these lessons, as to Him we give our lives henceforth.
5 For we
would not return again to the belief in sin that made the world seem ugly and
unsafe, attacking and destroying, dangerous in all its ways, and treacherous
beyond the hope of trust and the escape from pain.
W.fl.in.2. His is the only way to find the
peace that God has given us. 2 It is His way that everyone must travel in
the end, because it is this ending God Himself appointed.
3 In the
dream of time it seems to be far off. 4 And yet, in truth, it
is already here; already serving us as gracious guidance in the way to go.
5 Let us
together follow in the way that truth points out to us.
6 And let
us be the leaders of our many brothers who are seeking for the way, but find it
not.
W.fl.in.3. And to this purpose let us
dedicate our minds, directing all our thoughts to serve the function of
salvation. 2 Unto us the aim is given to forgive the world.
3 It is
the goal that God has given us. 4 It is His ending to the dream we seek, and not
our own. 5 For all that we forgive we will not fail to
recognize as part of God Himself. 6 And thus His memory is given back, completely
and complete.
W.fl.in.4. It is our function to remember
Him on earth, as it is given us to be His Own completion in reality.
2 So let
us not forget our goal is shared, for it is that remembrance which contains the
memory of God, and points the way to Him and to the Heaven of His peace.
3 And
shall we not forgive our brother, who can offer this to us?
4 He is
the way, the truth and life that shows the way to us.
5 In him
resides salvation, offered us through our forgiveness, given unto him.
W.fl.in.5. We will not end this year without
the gift our Father promised to His holy Son. 2 We are forgiven now.
3 And we
are saved from all the wrath we thought belonged to God, and found it was a
dream. 4
We are restored to sanity, in which we understand that anger is insane, attack
is mad, and vengeance merely foolish fantasy. 5 We have been saved
from wrath because we learned we were mistaken. 6 Nothing more than
that. 7
And is a father angry at his son because he failed to understand the truth?
W.fl.in.6. We come in honesty to God and
say we did not understand, and ask Him to help us to learn His lessons, through
the Voice of His Own Teacher. 2 Would He hurt His Son?
3 Or
would He rush to answer him, and say, "This is My Son, and all I have is
his"? 4 Be certain He will answer thus, for these are
His Own words to you. 5 And more than that can no one ever have, for
in these words is all there is, and all that there will be throughout all time
and in eternity.
This holy instant
would I give to You.
Be You in charge. For
I would follow You, Certain that Your direction gives me peace.
W-pII.361-5.1. And if I need a word to help me, He will
give it to me. 2 If I need a thought, that will He also give.
3 And if
I need but stillness and a tranquil, open mind, these are the gifts I will
receive of Him. 4 He is in charge by my request.
5 And He
will hear and answer me, because He speaks for God my Father and His holy Son.
W.ep.1. This course is a beginning, not
an end. 2
Your Friend goes with you. 3 You are not alone.
4 No one
who calls on Him can call in vain. 5 Whatever troubles
you, be certain that He has the answer, and will gladly give it to you, if you
simply turn to Him and ask it of Him. 6 He will not withhold
all answers that you need for anything that seems to trouble you.
7 He
knows the way to solve all problems, and resolve all doubts.
8 His
certainty is yours. 9 You need but ask it of Him, and it will be
given you.
W.ep.2. You are as certain of arriving
home as is the pathway of the sun laid down before it rises, after it has set,
and in the half-lit hours in between. 2 Indeed, your pathway
is more certain still. 3 For it can not be possible to change the
course of those whom God has called to Him. 4 Therefore obey your
will, and follow Him Whom you accepted as your voice, to speak of what you
really want and really need. 5 His is the Voice for God and also yours.
6 And
thus He speaks of freedom and of truth.
W.ep.3. No more specific lessons are
assigned, for there is no more need of them. 2 Henceforth, hear but
the Voice for God and for your Self when you retire from the world, to seek
reality instead. 3 He will direct your efforts, telling you
exactly what to do, how to direct your mind, and when to come to Him in
silence, asking for His sure direction and His certain Word.
4 His is
the Word that God has given you. 5 His is the Word you chose to be your own.
W.ep.4. And now I place you in His
hands, to be His faithful follower, with Him as Guide through every difficulty
and all pain that you may think is real. 2 Nor will He give you
pleasures that will pass away, for He gives only the eternal and the good.
3 Let Him
prepare you further. 4 He has earned your trust by speaking daily to
you of your Father and your brother and your Self. 5 He will continue.
6 Now you
walk with Him, as certain as is He of where you go; as sure as He of how you should
proceed; as confident as He is of the goal, and of your safe arrival in the
end.
W.ep.5. The end is certain, and the
means as well. 2 To this we say "Amen."
3 You
will be told exactly what God wills for you each time there is a choice to make.
4 And He
will speak for God and for your Self, thus making sure that hell will claim you
not, and that each choice you make brings Heaven nearer to your reach.
5 And so
we walk with Him from this time on, and turn to Him for guidance and for peace
and sure direction. 6 Joy attends our way.
7 For we
go homeward to an open door which God has held unclosed to welcome us.
W.ep.6. We trust our ways to Him and
say "Amen." 2 In peace we will continue in His way, and
trust all things to Him. 3 In confidence we wait His answers, as we ask
His Will in everything we do. 4 He loves God's Son as we would love him.
5 And He
teaches us how to behold him through His eyes, and love him as He does.
6 You do
not walk alone. 7 God's angels hover near and all about.
8 His
Love surrounds you, and of this be sure; that I will never leave you
comfortless.
[1] This file was created from the Foundation for Inner Peace Second Edition of A Course in Miracles. The data conversion process is not flawless and there may be some transcription errors in this document. Should you find any, please report to Doug Thompson at dthomp74@hotmail.com.
Related material, along with the original Shorthand Notes, Urtext, and Hugh Lynn Cayce versions of A Course in Miracles can be found at http://www.miraclesinactionpress.com