KEYS – T28f/33=TEXT pages 28&29 in 1st edition – page 33 in 2nd edition. W=Workbook. M=Teachers Manual. SOP=A Song of Prayer. PPP=Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice.
A miracle is a universal blessing from God
through me to all my brothers. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive.
T3/5
The miracle acknowledges everyone as your brother and mine. It is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God. T4/6
Revelation
unites you directly with God. Miracles unite you directly with your brother.
Neither emanates from consciousness, but both are experienced there. T4f/7
You are a
perfect creation, and should experience awe only in the presence of the Creator
of perfection. The miracle is therefore a sign of love among equals. Equals
should not be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality. It is
therefore an inappropriate reaction to me. An elder brother is entitled to
respect for his greater experience, and obedience for his greater wisdom. He is
also entitled to love because he is a brother, and to devotion if he is devoted.
It is only my devotion that entitles me to yours. There is nothing about me that
you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference
between us now is that I have nothing else. This leaves me in a state which is
only potential in you. T5/7
I bridge the
distance as an elder brother to you on the one hand, and as a Son of God on the
other. My devotion to my brothers has placed me in charge of the Sonship, which
I render complete because I share it. T5/8
When you offer a
miracle to any of my brothers, you do it to yourself and me. T6/8
The forgiven are
the means of the Atonement. Being filled with spirit, they forgive in return.
Those who are released must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the
plan of the Atonement. T7/9
The Golden Rule
is the rule for appropriate behavior. You cannot behave appropriately unless you
perceive correctly. Since you and your neighbor are equal members of one family,
as you perceive both so you will do to both. You should look out from the
perception of your own holiness to the holiness of others. T7f/10
The impersonal nature of miracles is because
the Atonement itself is one, uniting all creations with their Creator. As an
expression of what you truly are, the miracle places the mind in a state of
grace. The mind then naturally welcomes the Host within and the stranger
without. When you bring in the stranger, he becomes your brother. T8/10
Miracles are
selective only in the sense that they are directed towards those who can use
them for themselves. Since this makes it inevitable that they will extend them
to others, a strong chain of Atonement is welded. T8/10f
Yet all loss
comes only from your own misunderstanding. Loss of any kind is impossible. But
when you look upon a brother as a physical entity, his power and glory are
"lost" to you and so are yours. You have attacked him, but you must have
attacked yourself first. Do not see him this way for your own salvation, which
must bring him his. Do not allow him to belittle himself in your mind, but give
him freedom from his belief in littleness, and thus escape from yours. As part
of you, he is holy. As part of me, you are. To communicate with part of God
Himself is to reach beyond the Kingdom to its Creator, through His Voice Which
He has established as part of you. T141/15
The miracle
turns the defense of Atonement to your real protection, and as you become more
and more secure you assume your natural talent of protecting others, knowing
yourself as both a brother and a Son. T17/21
All your difficulties stem from the fact that
you do not recognize yourself, your brother or God. To recognize means to "know
again," implying that you knew before. T35/40
If you attack error in another, you will hurt
yourself. You cannot know your brother when you attack him. Attack is always
made upon a stranger. You are making him a stranger by misperceiving him, and so
you cannot know him. It is because you have made him a stranger that you are
afraid of him. Perceive him correctly so that you can know him. T37/41
Forgiveness is
the healing of the perception of separation. Correct perception of your brother
is necessary, because minds have chosen to see themselves as separate. T41/46
You have no idea
of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and
your brothers totally without judgment. When you recognize what you are and what
your brothers are, you will realize that judging them in any way is without
meaning. In fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely because
you are judging them. T42/47
As a loving
brother I am deeply concerned with your mind, and urge you to follow my example
as you look at yourself and at your brother, and see in both the glorious
creations of a glorious Father. T57/63
Your mind will elect to join with mine, and
together we are invincible. You and your brother will yet come together in my
name, and your sanity will be restored. T59/65
In learning to escape from illusions, your
debt to your brother is something you must never forget. It is the same debt
that you owe to me. Whenever you act egotistically towards another, you are
throwing away the graciousness of your indebtedness and the holy perception it
would produce. The term "holy" can be used here because, as you learn how much
you are indebted to the whole Sonship, which includes me, you come as close to
knowledge as perception can. The gap is then so small that knowledge can easily
flow across it and obliterate it forever. T61/67
I will go with
you to the Holy One, and through my perception He can bridge the little gap.
Your gratitude to your brother is the only gift I want. I will bring it to God
for you, knowing that to know your brother is to know God. If you
are grateful to your brother, you are grateful to God for what He created.
Through your gratitude you come to know your brother, and one moment of real
recognition makes everyone your brother because each of them is of your Father.
Love does not conquer all things, but it does set all things right. Because you
are the Kingdom of God I can lead you back to your own creations. You do not
recognize them now, but what has been dissociated is still there.
As you come closer to a brother you approach me, and as you withdraw from him I become distant to you. Salvation is a collaborative venture. It cannot be undertaken successfully by those who disengage themselves from the Sonship, because they are disengaging themselves from me. God will come to you only as you will give Him to your brothers. Learn first of them and you will be ready to hear God. That is because the function of Love is one. T62f/69
The way to
recognize your brother is by recognizing the Holy Spirit in him. T72/78
There are two diametrically opposed ways of
seeing your brother. They must both be in your mind, because you are the
perceiver. They must also be in his, because you are perceiving him. See him
through the Holy Spirit in his mind, and you will recognize Him in yours. What
you acknowledge in your brother you are acknowledging in yourself, and what you
share you strengthen. T72/78
The Holy Spirit atones in all of us by
undoing, and thus lifts the burden you have placed in your mind. By following
Him you are led back to God where you belong, and how can you find the way
except by taking your brother with you? T76/82
I will never leave you or forsake you, because
to forsake you would be to forsake myself and God Who created me. You forsake
yourself and God if you forsake any of your brothers. You must learn to see them
as they are, and understand they belong to God as you do. How could you treat
your brother better than by rendering unto God the things that are God's? T76/82
Your
resurrection is your reawakening. I am the model for rebirth, but rebirth itself
is merely the dawning on your mind of what is already in it. God placed it there
Himself, and so it is true forever. I believed in it, and therefore accepted it
as true for me. Help me to teach it to our brothers in the name of the Kingdom
of God, but first believe that it is true for you, or you will teach amiss. My
brothers slept during the so-called "agony in the garden," but I could not be
angry with them because I knew I could not be abandoned.
I am sorry when my brothers do not share my
decision to hear only one Voice, because it weakens them as teachers and as
learners. T86/93
Judas was my
brother and a Son of God, as much a part of the Sonship as myself. T87/95
The ego uses
projection only to destroy your perception of both yourself and your brothers.
The process begins by excluding something that exists in you but which you do
not want, and leads directly to excluding you from your brothers. T89/96
To heal is the only kind of thinking in this
world that resembles the Thought of God, and because of the elements they share,
can transfer easily to it. When a brother perceives himself as sick, he is
perceiving himself as not whole, and therefore in need. If you, too, see him
this way, you are seeing him as if he were absent from the Kingdom or separated
from it, thus making the Kingdom itself obscure to both of you. Sickness and
separation are not of God, but the Kingdom is. If you obscure the Kingdom, you
are perceiving what is not of God.
To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother and yourself by sharing the Holy Spirit with him. This places you both within the Kingdom, and restores its wholeness in your mind. This reflects creation, because it unifies by increasing and integrates by extending. T105f/114
You who are not
at war must look for brothers and recognize all whom you see as brothers,
because only equals are at peace. Because God's equal Sons have everything, they
cannot compete. Yet if they perceive any of their brothers as anything other
than their perfect equals, the idea of competition has entered their minds. Do
not underestimate your need to be vigilant against this idea,
because all your conflicts come from it. It is the belief that
conflicting interests are possible, and therefore you have accepted the
impossible as true. Is that different from saying you perceive yourself as
unreal? T108/116f
Your right mind
sees only brothers, because it sees only in its own light. T108/117
You cannot
forget the Father because I am with you, and I cannot forget Him. To forget me
is to forget yourself and Him Who created you. Our brothers are forgetful. That
is why they need your remembrance of me and of Him Who created me. Through this
remembrance, you can change their minds about themselves, as I can
change yours. T113/122
Come therefore
unto me, and learn of the truth in you. The mind we share is shared by all our
brothers, and as we see them truly they will be healed. Let your mind shine with
mine upon their minds, and by our gratitude to them make them aware of the light
in them. This light will shine back upon you and on the whole Sonship, because
this is your proper gift to God. T113f/122
Teach no one that he is what you would not
want to be. Your brother is the mirror in which you see the image of yourself as
long as perception lasts. And perception will last until the Sonship knows
itself as whole. T118/127
Being the part
of your mind that does not believe it is responsible for itself, and being
without allegiance to God, the ego is incapable of trust. Projecting its insane
belief that you have been treacherous to your Creator, it believes that your
brothers, who are as incapable of this as you are, are out to take God from you.
Whenever a brother attacks another, that is what he believes.
Projection always sees your wishes in others. If you choose to separate yourself
from God, that is what you will think others are doing to you. T119/129
Spirit knows that the awareness of all its
brothers is included in its own, as it is included in God. The power of the
whole Sonship and of its Creator is therefore spirit's own fullness, rendering
its creations equally whole and equal in perfection. T122/132
Be confident
that you have never lost your Identity and the extensions which maintain It in
wholeness and peace. Miracles are an expression of this confidence. They are
reflections of both your proper identification with your brothers, and of your
awareness that your identification is maintained by extension. The miracle is a
lesson in total perception. By including any part of totality in the lesson, you
have included the whole. T123/133
When a mind has
only light, it knows only light. Its own radiance shines all around it, and
extends out into the darkness of other minds, transforming them into majesty.
The Majesty of God is there, for you to recognize and appreciate and know.
Recognizing the Majesty of God as your brother is to accept your own
inheritance. God gives only equally. If you recognize His gift in anyone, you
have acknowledged what He has given you. T127/137
Out of your
natural environment you may well ask, "What is truth?" since truth
is the environment by which and for which you were created. You do not know
yourself, because you do not know your Creator. You do not know your creations
because you do not know your brothers, who created them with you. I have already
said that only the whole Sonship is worthy to be co-creator with God, because
only the whole Sonship can create like Him. Whenever you heal a brother by
recognizing his worth, you are acknowledging his power to create and yours. He
cannot have lost what you recognize, and you must have the glory you see in him.
He is a cocreator with God with you. Deny his creative power, and you are
denying yours and that of God Who created you. T127/137
The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the
teacher you choose, is "Know thyself." There is nothing else to seek. Everyone
is looking for himself and for the power and glory he thinks he has lost.
Whenever you are with anyone, you have another opportunity to find them. Your
power and glory are in him because they are yours. The ego tries to find them in
yourself alone, because it does not know where to look. The Holy Spirit teaches
you that if you look only at yourself you cannot find yourself, because that is
not what you are. Whenever you are with a brother, you are learning what you are
because you are teaching what you are. He will respond either with pain or with
joy, depending on which teacher you are following. He will be imprisoned or
released according to your decision, and so will you. Never forget your
responsibility to him, because it is your responsibility to yourself. Give him
his place in the Kingdom and you will have yours.
The Kingdom cannot
be found alone, and you who are the Kingdom cannot find yourself alone.
T132/142f
You can
encounter only part of yourself because you are part of God, Who
is everything. His power and glory are everywhere, and you cannot be excluded
from them. The ego teaches that your strength is in you alone. The Holy Spirit
teaches that all strength is in God and therefore in you. God
wills no one suffer. He does not will anyone to suffer for a wrong decision,
including you. That is why He has given you the means for undoing it. Through
His power and glory all your wrong decisions are undone completely, you and your
brother from every imprisoning thought any part of the Sonship holds. T133/143
We are the joint
will of the Sonship, whose wholeness is for all. We begin the journey back by
setting out together, and gather in our brothers as we continue together. Every
gain in our strength is offered for all, so they too can lay aside their
weakness and add their strength to us. T137/148
You do not perceive your brothers as the Holy
Spirit does, because you do not regard bodies solely as a means of joining minds
and uniting them with yours and mine. T140/151
Loss of any kind
is impossible. But when you look upon a brother as a physical entity, his power
and glory are "lost" to you and so are yours. You have attacked him, but you
must have attacked yourself first. Do not see him this way for your own
salvation, which must bring him his. Do not allow him to belittle himself in
your mind, but give him freedom from his belief in littleness, and thus escape
from yours. As part of you, he is holy. As part of me, you are. T141/152
The Holy Spirit
teaches you to use your body only to reach your brothers, so He can teach His
message through you. This will heal them and therefore heal you. T145f/157
The message your
brother gives you is up to you. What does he say to you? What would you have him
say? Your decision about him determines the message you receive. Remember that
the Holy Spirit is in him, and His Voice speaks to you through him. What can so
holy a brother tell you except truth? But are you listening to it? Your brother
may not know who he is, but there is a light in his mind that does know. This
light can shine into yours, giving truth to his words and making you able to
hear them. His words are the Holy Spirit's answer to you. Is your faith in him
strong enough to let you hear?
You can no more pray for yourself alone than you can find joy for yourself alone. Prayer is the restatement of inclusion, directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God. Salvation is of your brother. The Holy Spirit extends from your mind to his, and answers you. You cannot hear the Voice for God in yourself alone, because you are not alone. And His answer is only for what you are. You will not know the trust I have in you unless you extend it. You will not trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or believe that it is for you unless you hear it in others. It must be for your brother because it is for you. Would God have created a Voice for you alone? Could you hear His answer except as He answers all of God's Sons? Hear of your brother what you would have me hear of you, for you would not want me to be deceived. T153/164f
I love you for
the truth in you, as God does. Your deceptions may deceive you, but they cannot
deceive me. Knowing what you are, I cannot doubt you. I hear only the Holy
Spirit in you, Who speaks to me through you. If you would hear me, hear my
brothers in whom God's Voice speaks. The answer to all prayers lies in them. You
will be answered as you hear the answer in everyone. Do not listen to anything
else or you will not hear truly.
Believe in your brothers because I believe in you, and you will learn that my belief in you is justified. Believe in me by believing in them, for the sake of what God gave them. They will answer you if you learn to ask only truth of them. Do not ask for blessings without blessing them, for only in this way can you learn how blessed you are. By following this way you are seeking the truth in you. This is not going beyond yourself but toward yourself. Hear only God's Answer in His Sons, and you are answered. T153f/165
When a brother
behaves insanely, you can heal him only by perceiving the sanity in him. If you
perceive his errors and accept them, you are accepting yours. If you want to
give yours over to the Holy Spirit, you must do this with his. Unless this
becomes the one way in which you handle all errors, you cannot understand how
all errors are undone. How is this different from telling you that what you
teach you learn? Your brother is as right as you are, and if you think he is
wrong you are condemning yourself.
You cannot correct yourself. Is it possible, then, for you to correct another? Yet you can see him truly, because it is possible for you to see yourself truly. It is not up to you to change your brother, but merely to accept him as he is. His errors do not come from the truth that is in him, and only this truth is yours. His errors cannot change this, and can have no effect at all on the truth in you. To perceive errors in anyone, and to react to them as if they were real, is to make them real to you. You will not escape paying the price for this, not because you are being punished for it, but because you are following the wrong guide and will therefore lose your way. T155/167
The Holy Spirit
in you forgives all things in you and in your brother. His errors are forgiven
with yours. Atonement is no more separate than love. Atonement cannot be
separate because it comes from love. Any attempt you make to correct a brother
means that you believe correction by you is possible, and this can only be the
arrogance of the ego. Correction is of God, Who does not know of arrogance.
T156/167f
Atonement is for all, because it is the way to
undo the belief that anything is for you alone. To forgive is to overlook. Look,
then, beyond error and do not let your perception rest upon it, for you will
believe what your perception holds. Accept as true only what your brother is, if
you would know yourself. Perceive what he is not and you cannot know what you
are, because you see him falsely. Remember always that your Identity is shared,
and that Its sharing is Its reality. T156f/168
If your brothers
are part of you, will you accept them? Only they can teach you what you are, for
your learning is the result of what you taught them. What you call upon in them
you call upon in yourself. And as you call upon it in them it becomes real to
you. God has but one Son, knowing them all as one. Only God Himself is more than
they but they are not less than He is. Would you know what this means? If what
you do to my brother you do to me, and if you do everything for yourself because
we are part of you, everything we do belongs to you as well. Everyone God
created is part of you and shares His Glory with you. His Glory belongs to Him,
but it is equally yours. You cannot, then, be less glorious than He is. T162/174
You can know yourself only as God knows His Son, for knowledge is shared with God. When you awake in Him you will know your magnitude by accepting His limitlessness as yours. But meanwhile you will judge it as you judge your brother's, and will accept it as you accept his. T162/174
In your open mind are your creations, in perfect communication born of perfect understanding. Could you but accept one of them you would not want anything the world has to offer. Everything else would be totally meaningless. God's meaning is incomplete without you, and you are incomplete without your creations. Accept your brother in this world and accept nothing else, for in him you will find your creations because he created them with you. You will never know that you are cocreator with God until you learn that your brother is cocreator with you. T163/175
God wills you
perfect happiness now. Is it possible that this is not also your will? And is it
possible that this is not also the will of your brothers? Consider, then, that
in this joint will you are all united, and in this only. T163/175
What Comforter
can there be for the sick children of God except His power through you? Remember
that it does not matter where in the Sonship He is accepted. He is always
accepted for all, and when your mind receives Him the remembrance of Him awakens
throughout the Sonship. Heal your brothers simply by accepting God for them.
Your minds are not separate, and God has only one channel for healing because He
has but one Son. God's remaining communication link with all His children joins
them together, and them to Him. To be aware of this is to heal them because it
is the awareness that no one is separate, and so no one is sick. T171/184
Look calmly at
the logical conclusion of the ego's thought system and judge whether its
offering is really what you want, for this is what it offers you.
To obtain this you are willing to attack the Divinity of your brothers, and thus
lose sight of yours. And you are willing to keep it hidden, to protect an idol
you think will save you from the dangers for which it stands, but which do not
exist. T172/185
When a brother
is sick it is because he is not asking for peace, and therefore does not know he
has it. The acceptance of peace is the denial of illusion, and sickness is
an illusion. Yet every Son of God has the power to deny illusions anywhere in
the Kingdom, merely by denying them completely in himself. T172/185f
The miracle is
the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and calls on his
brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith, because it is the recognition
that his brother can do it. It is a call to the Holy Spirit in his mind, a call
that is strengthened by joining. Because the miracle worker has heard God's
Voice, he strengthens It in a sick brother by weakening his belief in sickness,
which he does not share. The power of one mind can shine into another, because
all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark. It is everywhere and it is
eternal. T175/188f
You may believe that you judge your brothers
by the messages they give you, but you have judged them by the message you give
to them. Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the
spark in them that would bring joy to you. It is the denial of the spark that
brings depression, for whenever you see your brothers without it, you are
denying God. T176/189
The Love of God
is in everything He created, for His Son is everywhere. Look with peace upon
your brothers, and God will come rushing into your heart in gratitude for your
gift to Him. T177/190f
My brother, you
are part of God and part of me. When you have at last looked at the ego's
foundation without shrinking you will also have looked upon ours. T179/194
You dwell in the
Mind of God with your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone.
T180/194
You cannot enter
God's Presence with the dark companions beside you, but you also cannot enter
alone. All your brothers must enter with you, for until you have
accepted them you cannot enter. T185f/200
If your brothers
are part of you and you blame them for your deprivation, you are blaming
yourself. And you cannot blame yourself without blaming them. That is why blame
must be undone, not seen elsewhere. T187/201f
Every brother
you meet becomes a witness for Christ or for the ego, depending on what you
perceive in him. Everyone convinces you of what you want to perceive, and of the
reality of the kingdom you have chosen for your vigilance. Everything you
perceive is a witness to the thought system you want to be true. Every brother
has the power to release you, if you choose to be free. You cannot accept false
witness of him unless you have evoked false witnesses against him. If he speaks
not of Christ to you, you spoke not of Christ to him. You hear but your own
voice, and if Christ speaks through you, you will hear Him. T190/204f
Do not, then, be
deceived in your brother, and see only his loving thoughts as his reality, for
by denying that his mind is split you will heal yours. Accept him as his Father
accepts him and heal him unto Christ, for Christ is his healing and yours.
T197/213
What problems
will not disappear in the presence of God's Answer? Ask, then, to learn of the
reality of your brother, because this is what you will perceive in him, and you
will see your beauty reflected in his.
Do not accept your brother's variable perception of himself for his split mind is yours, and you will not accept your healing without his. For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing is yours. To love yourself is to heal yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your goal. Brother, we heal together as we live together and love together. Be not deceived in God's Son, for he is one with himself and one with his Father. Love him who is beloved of his Father, and you will learn of the Father's Love for you. T198/213
Only
appreciation is an appropriate response to your brother. Gratitude is due him
for both his loving thoughts and his appeals for help, for both are capable of
bringing love into your awareness if you perceive them truly. T201/216
The sick must
heal themselves, for the truth is in them. Yet having obscured it, the light in
another mind must shine into theirs because that light is theirs. The light in
them shines as brightly regardless of the density of the fog that obscures it.
If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it has none. For it has
power only if the Son of God gives power to it. He must himself withdraw that
power, remembering that all power is of God. You can remember this for all the Sonship. Do not allow your brother not to remember, for his forgetfulness is
yours. But your remembering is his, for God cannot be remembered alone.
This is what you have forgotten. To perceive the healing of your brother
as the healing of yourself is thus the way to remember God. For you forgot your
brothers with Him, and God's Answer to your forgetting is but the way to
remember.
Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your brother what he believes he cannot offer himself. Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you make whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health is to recognize in hatred the call for love. And to give a brother what he really wants is to offer it unto yourself, for your Father wills you to know your brother as yourself. Answer his call for love, and yours is answered. Healing is the Love of Christ for His Father and for Himself. T203/218
In that place
which you have hidden, you will only to unite with the Father, in loving
remembrance of Him. You will find this place of truth as you see it in your
brothers, for though they may deceive themselves, like you they long for the
grandeur that is in them. T227/243f
The ego cannot
tolerate release from the past, and although the past is over, the ego tries to
preserve its image by responding as if it were present. It dictates your
reactions to those you meet in the present from a past reference point,
obscuring their present reality. In effect, if you follow the ego's dictates you
will react to your brother as though he were someone else, and this will surely
prevent you from recognizing him as he is. And you will receive messages from
him out of your own past because, by making it real in the present, you are
forbidding yourself to let it go. You thus deny yourself the message of release
that every brother offers you now. T229/246
To perceive
truly is to be aware of all reality through the awareness of your own. But for
this no illusions can rise to meet your sight, for reality leaves no room for
any error. This means that you perceive a brother only as you see him now.
His past has no reality in the present, so you cannot see it. Your past
reactions to him are also not there, and if it is to them that you react, you
see but an image of him that you made and cherish instead of him. In your
questioning of illusions, ask yourself if it is really sane to perceive what was
as now. If you remember the past as you look upon your brother, you will be
unable to perceive the reality that is now.
You consider it "natural" to use your past experience as the reference point from which to judge the present. Yet this is unnatural because it is delusional. When you have learned to look on everyone with no reference at all to the past, either his or yours as you perceived it, you will be able to learn from what you see now. For the past can cast no shadow to darken the present, unless you are afraid of light. And only if you are would you choose to bring darkness with you, and by holding it in your mind, see it as a dark cloud that shrouds your brothers and conceals their reality from your sight. T233/250f
The miracle
enables you to see your brother without his past, and so perceive him as born
again. His errors are all past, and by perceiving him without them you are
releasing him. And since his past is yours, you share in this release. T234/251
The present
offers you your brothers in the light that would unite you with them, and free
you from the past. T234f/252
Reach out to all
your brothers, and touch them with the touch of Christ. In timeless union with
them is your continuity, unbroken because it is wholly shared. T235/252
In sleep you are alone, and your awareness is
narrowed to yourself. And that is why the nightmares come. You dream of
isolation because your eyes are closed. You do not see your brothers, and in the
darkness you cannot look upon the light you gave to them. T236/253
We walk together
on the way to quietness that is the gift of God. Hold me dear, for what except
your brothers can you need? We will restore to you the peace of mind that we
must find together. The Holy Spirit will teach you to awaken unto us and to
yourself. This is the only real need to be fulfilled in time. Salvation from the
world lies only here. My peace I give you. Take it of me in glad exchange for
all the world has offered but to take away. And we will spread it like a veil of
light across the world's sad face, in which we hide our brothers from the world,
and it from them. T240/257
As miracles in
this world join you to your brothers, so do your creations establish your
fatherhood in Heaven. You are the witness to the Fatherhood of God, and He has
given you the power to create the witnesses to yours, which is as His. Deny a
brother here, and you deny the witnesses to your fatherhood in Heaven. T242/260
See no one,
then, as guilty, and you will affirm the truth of guiltlessness unto yourself.
In every condemnation that you offer the Son of God lies the conviction of your
own guilt. If you would have the Holy Spirit make you free of it, accept His
offer of Atonement for all your brothers. For so you learn that it is true for
you. T244/261f
Like you, the
Holy Spirit did not make truth. Like God, He knows it to be true. He brings the
light of truth into the darkness, and lets it shine on you. And as it shines
your brothers see it, and realizing that this light is not what you have made,
they see in you more than you see. T253/273
The key is only
the light that shines away the shapes and forms and fears of nothing. Accept
this key to freedom from the hands of Christ Who gives it to you, that you may
join Him in the holy task of bringing light. For, like your brothers, you do not
realize the light has come and freed you from the sleep of darkness. Behold your
brothers in their freedom, and learn of them how to be free of darkness. The
light in you will waken them, and they will not leave you asleep. T254/273f
When you accept a brother's guiltlessness you will see the Atonement in him. For by proclaiming it in him you make it yours, and you will see what you sought. You will not see the symbol of your brother's guiltlessness shining within him while you still believe it is not there. His guiltlessness is your Atonement. Grant it to him, and you will see the truth of what you have acknowledged. Yet truth is offered first to be received, even as God gave it first to His Son. T259/279
You and your
brother may choose to lead yourselves astray, but you can be brought together
only by the Guide appointed for you. T269/290
You will never
give this holy instant to the Holy Spirit on behalf of your release while you
are unwilling to give it to your brothers on behalf of theirs. For the instant
of holiness is shared, and cannot be yours alone. Remember, then, when you are
tempted to attack a brother, that his instant of release is yours. Miracles are
the instants of release you offer, and will receive. They attest to your
willingness to be released, and to offer time to the Holy Spirit
for His use of it.
How long is an instant? It is as short for your brother as it is for you. Practice giving this blessed instant of freedom to all who are enslaved by time, and thus make time their friend for them. T282/303f
You who have
spent days, hours and even years in chaining your brothers to your ego in an
attempt to support it and uphold its weakness, do not perceive the Source of
strength. In this holy instant you will unchain all your brothers,
and refuse to support either their weakness or your own.
You do not realize how much you have misused your brothers by seeing them as sources of ego support. As a result, they witness to the ego in your perception, and seem to provide reasons for not letting it go. Yet they are far stronger and much more compelling witnesses for the Holy Spirit. And they support His strength. It is, therefore, your choice whether they support the ego or the Holy Spirit in you. And you will recognize which you have chosen by their reactions. A Son of God who has been released through the Holy Spirit in a brother is always recognized. He cannot be denied. If you remain uncertain, it is only because you have not given complete release. And because of this, you have not given a single instant completely to the Holy Spirit. For when you have, you will be sure you have. You will be sure because the witness to Him will speak so clearly of Him that you will hear and understand. You will doubt until you hear one witness whom you have wholly released through the Holy Spirit. And then you will doubt no more. T284/305
Call forth in
everyone only the remembrance of God, and of the Heaven that is in him. For
where you would have your brother be, there will you think you are. Hear not his
appeal to hell and littleness, but only his call for Heaven and greatness.
Forget not that his call is yours, and answer him with me. T287/309
In the holy
instant the Sonship gains as one, and united in your blessing it becomes one to
you. The meaning of love is the meaning God gave to it. Give to it any meaning
apart from His, and it is impossible to understand it. God loves every brother
as He loves you; neither less nor more. He needs them all equally, and so do
you. In time, you have been told to offer miracles as I direct, and let the Holy
Spirit bring to you those who are seeking you. Yet in the holy instant you unite
directly with God, and all your brothers join in Christ. Those who are joined in
Christ are in no way separate. For Christ is the Self the Sonship shares, as God
shares His Self with Christ. T292/314
I offer you my
perfect faith in you, in place of all your doubts. But forget not that my faith
must be as perfect in all your brothers as it is in you, or it would be a
limited gift to you. T293/315
The holy instant
thus becomes a lesson in how to hold all of your brothers in your mind,
experiencing not loss but completion. T293/315
In the holy
instant God is remembered, and the language of communication with all your
brothers is remembered with Him. For communication is remembered together, as is
truth. There is no exclusion in the holy instant because the past is gone, and
with it goes the whole basis for exclusion. Without its source exclusion
vanishes. And this permits your Source, and That of all your brothers, to
replace it in your awareness. God and the power of God will take Their rightful
place in you, and you will experience the full communication of ideas with
ideas. Through your ability to do this you will learn what you must be, for you
will begin to understand what your Creator is, and what His creation is along
with Him. T294/318
As long as you
believe that to be with a body is companionship, you will be compelled to
attempt to keep your brother in his body, held there by guilt. T297/319
As the ego would
limit your perception of your brothers to the body, so would the Holy Spirit
release your vision and let you see the Great Rays shining from them, so
unlimited that they reach to God. It is this shift to vision that is
accomplished in the holy instant. T299/322
We who are one
cannot give separately. When you are willing to accept our relationship as real,
guilt will hold no attraction for you. For in our union you will accept all of
our brothers. The gift of union is the only gift that I was born to give. Give
it to me, that you may have it. The time of Christ is the time appointed for the
gift of freedom, offered to everyone. And by your acceptance of it, you offer it
to everyone. T302/324f
Guilt is the
condition of sacrifice, as peace is the condition for the awareness of your
relationship with God. Through guilt you exclude your Father and your brothers
from yourself. Through peace you invite them back, realizing that they are where
your invitation bids them be. T305/327f
Say, then, to
your brother: I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself. I know that
you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison myself.In the name of
my freedom,I choose your release, because I recognize that we will be released
together. T306/329
Heaven waits
silently, and your creations are holding out their hands to help you cross and
welcome them. For it is they you seek. You seek but for your own completion, and
it is they who render you complete. The special love relationship is but a
shabby substitute for what makes you whole in truth, not in illusion. Your
relationship with them is without guilt, and this enables you to look on all
your brothers with gratitude, because your creations were created in union with
them. Acceptance of your creations is the acceptance of the oneness of creation,
without which you could never be complete. No specialness can offer you what God
has given, and what you are joined with Him in giving. T315/339
All that must be
forgiven are the illusions you have held against your brothers. Their reality
has no past, and only illusions can be forgiven. God holds nothing against
anyone, for He is incapable of illusions of any kind. Release your brothers from
the slavery of their illusions by forgiving them for the illusions you perceive
in them. Thus will you learn that you have been forgiven, for it is you who
offered them illusions. In the holy instant this is done for you in time, to
bring you the true condition of Heaven. T325/349f
My holy brother, I would enter into all your relationships, and step between you and your fantasies. Let my relationship to you be real to you, and let me bring reality to your perception of your brothers. They were not created to enable you to hurt yourself through them. They were created to create with you. This is the truth that I would interpose between you and your goal of madness. T333/357
You have joined
with many in the holy instant, and they have joined with you. Think not your
choice will leave you comfortless, for God Himself
has blessed your holy relationship. Join in His blessing, and withhold not yours
upon it. For all it needs now is your blessing, that you may see that in it
rests salvation. Condemn salvation not, for it has come to you. And welcome it
together, for it has come to join you and your brother together in a
relationship in which all the Sonship is together blessed.
You undertook, together, to invite the Holy
Spirit into your relationship. He could not have entered otherwise. T339/364
In your
relationship with your brother, where He has taken charge of everything at your
request, He has set the course in ward to the truth you share. In the mad world
outside you nothing can be shared but only substituted, and sharing and
substituting have nothing in common in reality. Within yourself you love your
brother with a perfect love. Here is holy ground, in which no substitution can
enter, and where only the truth in your brother can abide. Here you are joined
in God, as much together as you are with Him. The original error has not entered
here, nor ever will. Here is the radiant truth, to which the Holy Spirit has
committed your relationship. Let Him bring it here, where you
would have it be. Give Him but a little faith in your brother, to help Him show
you that no substitute you made for Heaven can keep you from it.
In you there is no separation, and no substitute can keep you from your brother. Your reality was God's creation, and has no substitute. You are so firmly joined in truth that only God is there. And He would never accept something else instead of you. He loves you both, equally and as one. And as He loves you, so you are. You are not joined together in illusions, but in the Thought so holy and so perfect that illusions cannot remain to darken the holy place in which you stand together. God is with you, my brother. Let us join in Him in peace and gratitude, and accept His gift as our most holy and perfect reality, which we share in Him. T349/374
How lovely
and how holy is your relationship, with the truth shining upon it! Heaven
beholds it, and rejoices that you have let it come to you. And God Himself is
glad that your relationship is as it was created. The universe within you stands
with you, together with your brother. And Heaven looks with love on what is
joined in it, along with its Creator. T349/374f
Return with me to Heaven, walking together with your brother out of this world and through another, to the loveliness and joy the other holds within it. T349/375
The peace of God
is given you with the glowing purpose in which you join with your brother. The
holy light that brought you and him together must extend, as you accepted it.
T350/375
You who hold
your brother's hand also hold mine, for when you joined each other you were not
alone. T353/379
My need for you,
joined with me in the holy light of your relationship, is your need for
salvation. Would I not give you what you gave to me? For when you joined your
brother, you answered me. T354/379
You and your
brother are coming home together, after a long and meaningless journey that you
undertook apart, and that led no where. You have found your brother, and you
will light each other's way. And from this light will the Great Rays extend back
into darkness and forward unto God, to shine away the past and so make room for
His eternal Presence, in which everything is radiant in the light. T354/380
When you feel
the holiness of your relationship is threatened by anything, stop instantly and
offer the Holy Spirit your willingness, in spite of fear, to let Him exchange
this instant for the holy one that you would rather have. He will never fail in
this. But forget not that your relationship is one, and so it must be that
whatever threatens the peace of one is an equal threat to the other. The power
of joining its blessing lies in the fact that it is now impossible for you or
your brother to experience fear alone, or to attempt to deal with it alone.
Never believe that this is necessary, or even possible. Yet just as this is
impossible, so is it equally impossible that the holy instant come to either of
you without the other. And it will come to both at the request of either.
Whoever is saner at the time the threat is perceived should remember how deep is his indebtedness to the other and how much gratitude is due him, and be glad that he can pay his debt by bringing happiness to both. Let him remember this, and say: I desire this holy instant for myself, that I may share it with my brother, whom I love. It is not possible that I can have it without him, or he without me. Yet it is wholly possible for us to share it now. And so I choose this instant as the one to offer to the Holy Spirit, that His blessing may descend on us, and keep us both in peace. T358/384
You can stretch
out your hand and reach to Heaven. You whose hand is joined with your brother's
have begun to reach beyond the body, but not outside yourself, to reach your
shared Identity together. T360f/387
Your way will be
different, not in purpose but in means. A holy relationship is a means of saving
time. One instant spent toge ther with your brother restores the universe to
both of you. T363/389
Here is the
ultimate release which everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own
time. You do not need this time. Time has been saved for you because you and
your brother are together. This is the special means this course is using to
save you time. T363/389
Be sure of this;
love has entered your special relationship, and entered fully at your weak
request. You do not recognize that love has come, because you have not yet let
go of all the barriers you hold against your brother. And you and he will not be
able to give love welcome separately. You could no more know God alone than He
knows you without your brother. But together you could no more be unaware of
love than love could know you not, or fail to recognize itself in you. T366/393
Only a little
wall of dust still stands between you and your brother. Blow on it lightly and
with happy laughter, and it will fall away. And walk into the garden love has
prepared for both of you. T366/393
Do not overlook
our earlier statement that faithlessness leads straight to illusions. For
faithlessness is the perception of a brother as a body, and the body cannot be
used for purposes of union. If, then, you see your brother as a body, you have
established a condition in which uniting with him becomes impossible. Your
faithlessness to him has separated you from him, and kept you both apart from
being healed. Your faithlessness has thus opposed the Holy Spirit's purpose, and
brought illusions, centered on the body, to stand between you. T371f/398f
Your holy relationship, with its new purpose, offers you faith to give unto your brother. Your faithlessness has driven you and him apart, and so you do not recognize salvation in him. Yet faith unites you in the holiness you see, not through the body's eyes, but in the sight of Him Who joined you, and in Whom you are united. T373/401
The gratitude
you owe to Him He asks but that you receive for Him. And when you look with
gentle graciousness upon your brother, you are beholding Him. For
you are looking where He is, and not apart from Him. You cannot
see the Holy Spirit, but you can see your brothers truly. And the light in them
will show you all that you need to see. When the peace in you has been extended
to encompass everyone, the Holy Spirit's function here will be accomplished.
T379/407
You have no
purpose apart from your brother, nor apart from the one you asked the Holy
Spirit to share with you. T380/408
You want
communion, not the feast of fear. You want salvation, not the pain of guilt. And
you want your Father, not a little mound of clay, to be your home. In your holy
relationship is your Father's Son. He has not lost communion with Him, nor with
himself. When you agreed to join your brother, you acknowledged this is so. This
has no cost, but it has release from cost. T385/413
To you and your
brother, in whose special relationship the Holy Spirit entered, it is given to
release and be released from the dedication to death. T388/416
The end of sin,
which nestles quietly in the safety of your relationship, protected by your
union with your brother, and ready to grow into a mighty force for God is very
near. T390/418f
To look upon the
fear of God does need some preparation. Only the sane can look on stark insanity
and raving madness with pity and compassion, but not with fear. For only if they
share in it does it seem fearful, and you do share in it until you look upon
your brother with perfect faith and love and tenderness. Before complete
forgiveness you still stand unforgiving. You are afraid of God because
you fear your brother. Those you do not forgive you fear. And no one reaches
love with fear beside him.
This brother who stands beside you still seems to be a stranger. You do not know him, and your interpretation of him is very fearful. And you attack him still, to keep what seems to be yourself unharmed. Yet in his hands is your salvation. You see his madness, which you hate because you share it. And all the pity and forgiveness that would heal it gives way to fear. Brother, you need forgiveness of your brother, for you will share in madness or in Heaven together. And you and he will raise your eyes in faith together, or not at all.
Beside you is one who offers you the chalice of Atonement, for the Holy Spirit is in him. Would you hold his sins against him, or accept his gift to you? Is this giver of salvation your friend or enemy? Choose which he is, remembering that you will receive of him according to your choice. He has in him the power to forgive your sin, as you for him. Neither can give it to himself alone. And yet your savior stands beside each one. Let him be what he is, and seek not to make of love an enemy.
Behold your Friend, the Christ Who stands beside you. How holy and how beautiful He is! You thought He sinned because you cast the veil of sin upon Him to hide His loveliness. Yet still He holds forgiveness out to you, to share His holiness. This "enemy," this "stranger" still offers you salvation as His Friend. The "enemies" of Christ, the worshippers of sin, know not Whom they attack.
This is your brother, crucified by sin and waiting for release from pain. Would you not offer him forgiveness, when only he can offer it to you? For his redemption he will give you yours, as surely as God created every living thing and loves it. And he will give it truly, for it will be both offered and received. There is no grace of Heaven that you cannot offer to your bro ther, and receive from your most holy Friend. Let him withhold it not, for by receiving it you offer it to him. And he will receive of you what you received of him. Redemption has been given you to give your brother, and thus receive it. Whom you forgive is free, and what you give you share. Forgive the sins your brother thinks he has committed, and all the guilt you think you see in him.
Here is the holy place of resurrection, to which we come again; to which we will return until redemption is accomplished and received. Think who your brother is, before you would condemn him. And offer thanks to God that he is holy, and has been given the gift of holiness for you. Join him in gladness, and remove all trace of guilt from his disturbed and tortured mind. Help him to lift the heavy burden of sin you laid upon him and he accepted as his own, and toss it lightly and with happy laughter away from him. Press it not like thorns against his brow, nor nail him to it, unredeemed and hopeless.
Give faith to your brother, for faith and hope and mercy are yours to give. Into the hands that give, the gift is given. Look on your brother and see in him the gift of God you would receive. It is almost Easter, the time of resurrection. Let us give redemption to each other and share in it, that we may rise as one in resurrection, not separate in death. Behold the gift of freedom that I gave the Holy Spirit for you. And be you and your brother free together, as you offer to the Holy Spirit this same gift. And giving it, receive it of Him in return for what you gave. He leadeth you and me together, that we might meet here in this holy place, and make the same decision.
Free your brother here, as I freed you. Give him the selfsame gift, nor look upon him with condemnation of any kind. See him as guiltless as I look on you, and overlook the sins he thinks he sees within himself. Offer your brother freedom and complete release from sin, here in the garden of seeming agony and death. So will we prepare together the way unto the resurrection of God's Son, and let him rise again to glad remembrance of his Father, Who knows no sin, no death, but only life eternal.
Together we will disappear into the Presence beyond the veil, not to be lost but found; not to be seen but known. And knowing, nothing in the plan God has established for salvation will be left undone. This is the journey's purpose, without which is the journey meaningless. Here is the peace of God, given to you eternally by Him. Here is the rest and quiet that you seek, the reason for the journey from its beginning. Heaven is the gift you owe your brother, the debt of gratitude you offer to the Son of God in thanks for what he is, and what his Father created him to be. T393ff/422ff
If you see
glimpses of the face of Christ behind the veil, looking between the snow white
petals of the lilies you have received and given as your gift, you will behold
your brother's face and recognize it. I was a stranger and you took me in, not
knowing who I was. Yet for your gift of lilies you will know. In your
forgiveness of this stranger, alien to you and yet your ancient Friend, lies his
release and your redemption with him. T396/425f
Here is your
savior and your friend, released from crucifixion through your vision, and free
to lead you now where he would be. He will not leave you, nor forsake the savior
in his pain. And gladly will you and your brother walk the way of innocence
together, singing as you behold the open door of Heaven and recognize the home
that called to you. Give joyously to your brother the freedom and the strength
to lead you there. And come before his holy altar where the strength and freedom
wait, to offer and receive the bright awareness that leads you home. The lamp is
lit in you for your brother. And by the hands that gave it to him shall you be
led past fear to love. T399/428
Did you meet
your brother with joy to bless the Son of God, and give him thanks for all the
happiness that he held out to you? Did you recognize your brother as the eternal
gift of God to you? Did you see the holiness that shone in both you and your
brother, to bless the other? That is the purpose of your holy relation ship.
t401/431
Prisoners bound
with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated, weak and exhausted, and with
eyes so long cast down in darkness they remember not the light, do not leap up
in joy the instant they are made free. It takes a while for them to understand
what freedom is. You groped but feebly in the dust and found your brother's
hand, uncertain whether to let it go or to take hold on life so long forgotten.
Strengthen your hold and raise your eyes unto your strong companion, in whom the
meaning of your freedom lies. He seemed to be crucified beside you. And yet his
holiness remained untouched and perfect, and with him beside you, you shall this
day enter with him to Paradise, and know the peace of God.
Such is my will for you and your brother, and for each of you for one another and for himself. Here there is only holiness and joining without limit. For what is Heaven but union, direct and perfect, and without the veil of fear upon it? Here are we one, looking with perfect gentleness upon each other and on ourselves. Here all thoughts of any separation between us become impossible. You who were a prisoner in separation are now made free in Paradise. And here would I unite with you, my friends, my brothers and my Self.
Your gift unto your brother has given me the certainty our union will be soon. Share, then, this faith with me, and know that it is justified. There is no fear in perfect love because it knows no sin, and it must look on others as on itself. Looking with charity within, what can it fear without? The innocent see safety, and the pure in heart see God within His Son, and look unto the Son to lead them to the Father. And where else would they go but where they will to be? You and your brother now will lead the other to the Father as surely as God created His Son holy, and kept him so. In your brother is the light of God's eternal promise of your immortality. See him as sinless, and there can be no fear in you. T401f/431
Sin has no place
in Heaven, where its results are alien and can no more enter than can their
source. And therein lies your need to see your brother sinless. In him is
Heaven. See sin in him instead, and Heaven is lost to you. But see him as he is,
and what is yours shines from him to you. Your savior gives you only love, but
what you would receive of him is up to you. It lies in him to overlook all your
mistakes, and therein lies his own salvation. And so it is with yours. T403/432
The sinless give as they received. See, then,
the power of sinlessness within your brother, and share with him the power of
the release from sin you offered him. To each who walks this earth in seeming
solitude is a savior given, whose special function here is to release him, and
so to free himself. In the world of separation each is appointed separately,
though they are all the same. Yet those who know that they are all the same need
not salvation. And each one finds his savior when he is ready to look upon the
face of Christ, and see Him sinless. T403/433
The ark of peace
is entered two by two, yet the beginning of another world goes with them. Each
holy relationship must enter here, to learn its special function in the Holy
Spirit's plan, now that it shares His purpose. And as this purpose is fulfilled,
a new world rises in which sin can enter not, and where the Son of God can enter
without fear and where he rests a while, to forget imprisonment and to remember
freedom. How can he enter, to rest and to remember, without you? Except you be
there, he is not complete. And it is his completion that he remembers there.
This is the purpose given you. Think not that your forgiveness of your brother serves but you two alone. For the whole new world rests in the hands of every two who enter here to rest. And as they rest, the face of Christ shines on them and they remember the laws of God, forgetting all the rest and yearning only to have His laws perfectly fulfilled in them and all their brothers. Think you when this has been achieved that you will rest without them? You could no more leave one of them outside than I could leave you, and forget part of myself. T404/433
Peace to your
holy relationship, which has the power to hold the unity of the Son of God
together. You give to your brother for everyone, and in your gift is everyone
made glad. T405/434
It is impossible
to overestimate your brother's value. Only the ego does this, but all it means
is that it wants the other for itself, and therefore values him too little. What
is inestimable clearly cannot be evaluated. Do you recognize the fear that rises
from the meaningless attempt to judge what lies so far beyond your judgment you
cannot even see it? Judge not what is invisible to you or you will never see it,
but wait in patience for its coming. It will be given you to see your brother's
worth when all you want for him is peace. And what you want for him you will
receive.
How can you estimate the worth of him who offers peace to you? What would you want except his offering? His worth has been established by his Father, and you will recognize it as you receive his Father's gift through him. What is in him will shine so brightly in your grateful vision that you will merely love him and be glad. You will not think to judge him, for who would see the face of Christ and yet insist that judgment still has meaning? For this insistence is of those who do not see. Vision or judgment is your choice, but never both of these.
Your brother's body is as little use to you as it is to him. When it is used only as the Holy Spirit teaches, it has no function. For minds need not the body to communicate. The sight that sees the body has no use which serves the purpose of a holy relationship. And while you look upon your brother thus, the means and end have not been brought in line. Why should it take so many holy instants to let this be accomplished, when one would do? There is but one. The little breath of eternity that runs through time like golden light is all the same; nothing before it, nothing afterwards. T405/434f
The holy
relationship reflects the true relationship the Son of God has with his Father
in reality. The Holy Spirit rests within it in the certainty it will endure
forever. Its firm foundation is eternally upheld by truth, and love shines on it
with the gentle smile and tender blessing it offers to its own. Here the unholy
instant is exchanged in gladness for the holy one of safe return. Here is the
way to true relationships held gently open, through which you and your brother
walk together, leaving the body thankfully behind and resting in the Everlasting
Arms. Love's arms are open to receive you, and give you peace forever. T408f/438
It is
impossible to see your brother as sinless and yet to look upon him as a body.
T410/440
Who sees a
brother's body has laid a judgment on him, and sees him not. He does not really
see him as sinful; he does not see him at all. In the darkness of sin he is
invisible. He can but be imagined in the darkness, and it is here that the
illusions you hold about him are not held up to his reality. Here are illusions
and reality kept separated. Here are illusions never brought to truth, and
always hidden from it. And here, in darkness, is your brother's reality imagined
as a body, in unholy relationships with other bodies, serving the cause of sin
an instant before he dies.
There is indeed a difference between this vain imagining and vision. The difference lies not in them, but in their purpose. Both are but means, each one appropriate to the end for which it is employed. Neither can serve the purpose of the other, for each one is a choice of purpose, employed on its behalf. Either is meaningless without the end for which it was intended, nor is it valued as a separate thing apart from the intention. The means seem real because the goal is valued. And judgment has no value unless the goal is sin.
The body cannot be looked upon except through judgment. To see the body is the sign that you lack vision, and have denied the means the Holy Spirit offers you to serve His purpose. How can a holy relationship achieve its purpose through the means of sin? Judgment you taught yourself; vision is learned from Him Who would undo your teaching. His vision cannot see the body because it cannot look on sin. And thus it leads you to reality. Your holy brother, sight of whom is your release, is no illusion. Attempt to see him not in darkness, for your imaginings about him will seem real there. You closed your eyes to shut him out. Such was your purpose, and while this purpose seems to have a meaning, the means for its attainment will be evaluated as worth the seeing, and so you will not see.
Your question should not be, "How can I see my brother without the body?" Ask only, "Do I really wish to see him sinless?" And as you ask, forget not that his sinlessness is your escape from fear. Salvation is the Holy Spirit's goal. The means is vision. For what the seeing look upon is sinless. No one who loves can judge, and what he sees is free of condemnation. And what he sees he did not make, for it was given him to see, as was the vision that made his seeing possible. T410f/440f
Vision will come
to you at first in glimpses, but they will be enough to show you what is given
you who see your brother sinless. Truth is restored to you through your desire,
as it was lost to you through your desire for something else. Open the holy
place that you closed off by valuing the "something else," and what was never
lost will quietly return. It has been saved for you. Vision would not be
necessary had judgment not been made. Desire now its whole undoing, and it is
done for you.
Do you not want to know your own Identity? Would you not happily exchange your doubts for certainty? Would you not willingly be free of misery, and learn again of joy? Your holy relationship offers all this to you. As it was given you, so will be its effects. And as its holy purpose was not made by you, the means by which its happy end is yours is also not of you. Rejoice in what is yours but for the asking, and think not that you need make either means or end. All this is given you who would but see your brother sinless. All this is given, waiting on your desire but to receive it. Vision is freely given to those who ask to see.
Your brother's sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit's vision and to rejoice in along with Him. For peace will come to all who ask for it with real desire and sincerity of purpose, shared with the Holy Spirit and at one with Him on what salvation is. Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise before your vision and give you joy. And place no value on your brother's body, which holds him to illusions of what he is. It is his desire to see his sinlessness, as it is yours. And bless the Son of God in your relationship, nor see in him what you have made of him.
The Holy Spirit guarantees that what God willed and gave you shall be yours. This is your purpose now, and the vision that makes it yours is ready to be given. You have the vision that enables you to see the body not. And as you look upon your brother, you will see an altar to your Father, holy as Heaven, glowing with radiant purity and sparkling with the shining lilies you laid upon it. What can you value more than this? T411f/441f
The Son's creations are like his Father's. Yet in creating them the Son does not
delude himself that he is independent of his Source. His union with It is the
Source of his creating. Apart from this he has no power to create, and what he
makes is meaningless. It changes nothing in creation, depends entirely upon the
madness of its maker, and cannot serve to justify the madness. Your brother
thinks he made the world with you. Thus he denies creation. With you, he thinks
the world he made, made him. Thus he denies he made it.
Yet the truth is you and your brother were both created by a loving Father, Who created you together and as one. See what "proves" otherwise, and you deny your whole reality. But grant that everything that seems to stand between you and your brother, keeping you from each other and separate from your Father, you made in secret, and the instant of release has come to you. All its effects are gone, because its source has been uncovered. It is its seeming independence of its source that keeps you prisoner. This is the same mistake as thinking you are independent of the Source by Which you were created, and have never left. T420/450f
Those who would free their brothers from the body can have no fear. They have
renounced the means for sin by choosing to let all limitations be removed. As
they desire to look upon their brothers in holiness, the power of their belief
and faith sees far beyond the body, supporting vision, not obstructing it.
T422/453
Those who have joined their brothers have detached themselves from their belief
that their identity lies in the ego. A holy relationship is one in which you
join with what is part of you in truth. T424/454f
Look gently on your brother, and remember the ego's weakness is revealed in both
your sight. T425/456
Reason cannot
see sin but can see errors, and leads to their correction. It does not value
them, but their correction. Reason will also tell you that when you
think you sin, you call for help. Yet if you will not accept the help you call
for, you will not believe that it is yours to give. And so you will not give it,
thus maintaining the belief. For uncorrected error of any kind deceives you
about the power that is in you to make correction. If it can correct, and you
allow it not to do so, you deny it to yourself and to your brother. And if he
shares this same belief you both will think that you are damned. This you could
spare him and yourself. For reason would not make way for correction in you
alone.
Correction cannot be accepted or refused by you without your brother. Sin would maintain it can. Yet reason tells you that you cannot see your brother or yourself as sinful and still perceive the other innocent. Who looks upon himself as guilty and sees a sinless world? And who can see a sinful world and look upon himself apart from it? Sin would maintain you and your brother must be separate. But reason tells you that this must be wrong. If you and your brother are joined, how could it be that you have private thoughts? And how could thoughts that enter into what but seems like yours alone have no effect at all on what is yours? If minds are joined, this is impossible. T428/459
The body does
not separate you from your brother, and if you think it does you are insane. But
madness has a purpose, and believes it also has the means to make its purpose
real. To see the body as a barrier between what reason tells you must be joined
must be insane. Nor could you see it, if you heard the voice of reason. What can
there be that stands between what is continuous? And if there is nothing in
between, how can what enters part be kept away from other parts? Reason would
tell you this. But think what you must recognize, if it be so. T428f/460
If you choose sin instead of healing, you
would condemn the Son of God to what can never be corrected. You tell him, by
your choice, that he is damned; separate from you and from his Father forever,
without a hope of safe return. You teach him this, and you will learn of him
exactly what you taught. For you can teach him only that he is as you would have
him, and what you choose he be is but your choice for you. Yet think not this is
fearful. That you are joined to him is but a fact, not an interpretation. How
can a fact be fearful unless it disagrees with what you hold more dear than
truth? Reason will tell you that this fact is your release. T429/460
Neither your
brother nor yourself can be attacked alone. But neither can accept a miracle
instead without the other being blessed by it, and healed of pain. T429/460
That you and your brother are joined is your salvation; the gift of Heaven, not the gift of fear. T429/460
You are
your brother's savior. He is yours. Reason speaks happily indeed of this. This
gracious plan was given love by Love. And what Love plans is like Itself in
this: Being united, It would have you learn what you must be. And being one with
It, it must be given you to give what It has given, and gives still. Spend but
an instant in the glad acceptance of what is given you to give your brother, and
learn with him what has been given both of you. To give is no more blessed than
to receive. But neither is it less. T429f/461
Your Father is
as close to you as is your brother. T430/461
Who has need for
sin? Only the lonely and alone, who see their brothers different from
themselves. T435/467
Think what a
holy relationship can teach! Here is belief in differences undone. Here is the
faith in differences shifted to sameness. And here is sight of differences
transformed to vision. Reason now can lead you and your brother to the logical
conclusion of your union. It must extend, as you extended when you and he
joined. It must reach out beyond itself, as you reached out beyond the body, to
let you and your brother be joined. And now the sameness that you saw extends
and finally removes all sense of differences, so that the sameness that lies
beneath them all becomes apparent. Here is the golden circle where you recognize
the Son of God. For what is born into a holy relationship can never end.
T435f/467f
So in each holy
relationship is the ability to communicate instead of separate reborn. Yet a
holy relationship, so recently reborn itself from an unholy relationship, and
yet more ancient than the old illusion it has replaced, is like a baby now in
its rebirth. Still in this infant is your vision returned to you, and he will
speak the language you can understand. He is not nurtured by the "something
else" you thought was you. He was not given there, nor was received by anything
except yourself. For no two brothers can unite except through Christ, Whose
vision sees them one.
Think what is given you, my holy brother. This child will teach you what you do not understand, and make it plain. For his will be no alien tongue. He will need no interpreter to you, for it was you who taught him what he knows because you knew it. T437f/470
Christ comes to
what is like Himself; the same, not different. For He is always drawn unto
Himself. What is as like Him as a holy relationship? And what draws you and your
brother together draws Him to you. Here are His sweetness and His gentle
innocence protected from attack. And here can He return in confidence, for faith
in another is always faith in Him. You are indeed correct in looking on your
brother as His chosen home, for here you will with Him and with His Father.
T438/471
Forsake not now
your brother. For you who are the same will not decide alone nor differently.
Either you give each other life or death; either you are each other's savior or
his judge, offering him sanctuary or condemnation. T440/472f
All you need do
to dwell in quiet here with Christ is share His vision. Quickly and gladly is
His vision given anyone who is but willing to see his brother sinless. And no
one can remain beyond this willingness, if you would be released entirely from
all effects of sin. Would you have partial forgiveness for yourself? Can you
reach Heaven while a single sin still tempts you to remain in misery? Heaven is
the home of perfect purity, and God created it for you. Look on your holy
brother, sinless as your self, and let him lead you there. T441/474
Let not the form
of his mistakes keep you from him whose holiness is yours. Let not the vision of
his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from
you by what the body's eyes can see. Let your awareness of your brother not be
blocked by your perception of his sins and of his body. What is there in him
that you would attack except what you associate with his body, which you believe
can sin? Beyond his errors is his holiness and your salvation. You gave him not
his holiness, but tried to see your sins in him to save yourself. And yet, his
holiness is your forgiveness. Can you be saved by making sinful
the one whose holiness is your salvation? T443/476
Every mistake
you make, your brother will gently have corrected for you. For in his sight your
loveliness is his salvation, which he would protect from harm. And you will be
your brother's strong protector from everything that seems to rise between you
both. So shall you walk the world with me, whose message has not yet been given
everyone. For you are here to let it be received. God's offer still is open, yet
it waits acceptance. From you who have accepted it is it received. Into your
hand, joined with your brother's, is it safely given, for you who share it have
become its willing guardian and protector. T445/477f
This veil you
and your brother lift together opens the way to truth to more than you. Those
who would let illusions be lifted from their minds are this world's saviors,
walking the world with their Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and
freedom and release from suffering to everyone who needs a miracle to save him.
T445/478
In truth you and
your brother stand together, with nothing in between. God holds your hands, and
what can separate whom He has joined as one with Him? T446/479
If you but
recognized how little stands between you and your awareness of your union with
your brother! Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and
thickness, weight, solidity and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes
it looks like an enormous solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet within you
is a Force that no illusions can resist. This body only seems to be immovable;
this Force is irresistible in truth. T446/479
Neither you nor
your brother alone can serve at all. Only in your joint will does healing lie.
For here your healing is, and here will you accept Atonement. And in your
healing is the Son ship healed because your will and your
brother's are joined. T448/481
You will see
your value through your brother's eyes, and each one is released as he beholds
his savior in place of the attacker who he thought was there. T448/482
Only the
different can attack. So you conclude because you can attack, you
and your brother must be different. Yet does the Holy Spirit explain this
differently. Because you and your brother are not different, you
cannot attack. Either position is a logical conclusion. Either could be
maintained, but never both. The only question to be answered in order to decide
which must be true is whether you and your brother are different. From the
position of what you understand you seem to be, and therefore can attack. Of the
alternatives, this seems more natural and more in line with your experience. And
therefore it is necessary that you have other experiences, more in line with
truth, to teach you what is natural and true.
This is the function of your holy relationship. For what one thinks, the other will experience with him. What can this mean except your mind and your brother's are one? Look not with fear upon this happy fact, and think not that it lays a heavy burden on you. For when you have accepted it with gladness, you will realize that your relationship is a reflection of the union of the Creator and His Son. From loving minds there is no separation. And every thought in one brings gladness to the other because they are the same. Joy is unlimited, because each shining thought of love extends its being and creates more of itself. There is no difference anywhere in it, for every thought is like itself.
The light that joins you and your brother shines throughout the universe, and because it joins you and him, so it makes you and him one with your Creator. And in Him is all creation joined. Would you regret you cannot fear alone, when your relationship can also teach the power of love is there, which makes all fear impossible? Do not attempt to keep a little of the ego with this gift. For it was given you to be used, and not obscured. What teaches you that you cannot separate denies the ego. Let truth decide if you and your brother be different or the same, and teach you which is true. T450/483f
Specialness is
the great dictator of the wrong decisions. Here is the grand illusion of what
you are and what your brother is. And here is what must make the body dear and
worth preserving. Specialness must be defended. Illusions can attack it, and
they do. For what your brother must become to keep your specialness is
an illusion. He who is "worse" than you must be attacked, so that your
specialness can live on his defeat. For specialness is triumph, and its victory
is his defeat and shame. How can he live, with all your sins upon him? And who
must be his conqueror but you?
Would it be possible for you to hate your brother if you were like him? Could you attack him if you realized you journey with him, to a goal that is the same? Would you not help him reach it in every way you could, if his attainment of it were perceived as yours? You are his enemy in specialness; his friend in a shared purpose. Specialness can never share, for it depends on goals that you alone can reach. And he must never reach them, or your goal is jeopardized. Can love have meaning where the goal is triumph? And what decision can be made for this that will not hurt you?
Your brother is your friend because his Father created him like you. There is no difference. You have been given to your brother that love might be extended, not cut off from him. What you keep is lost to you. God gave you and your brother Himself, and to remember this is now the only purpose that you share. And so it is the only one you have. Could you attack your brother if you chose to see no specialness of any kind between you and him? Look fairly at whatever makes you give your brother only partial welcome, or would let you think that you are better off apart. Is it not always your belief your specialness is limited by your relationship? And is not this the "enemy" that makes you and your brother illusions to each other?
The fear of God and of your brother comes from each unrecognized belief in specialness. For you demand your brother bow to it against his will. And God Himself must honor it or suffer vengeance. Every twinge of malice, or stab of hate or wish to separate arises here. For here the purpose that you and your brother share becomes obscured from both of you. You would oppose this course because it teaches you you and your brother are alike. You have no purpose that is not the same, and none your Father does not share with you. For your relationship has been made clean of special goals. And would you now defeat the goal of holiness that Heaven gave it? What perspective can the special have that does not change with every seeming blow, each slight, or fancied judgment on itself?
Those who are special must defend illusions against the truth. For what is specialness but an attack upon the Will of God? You love your brother not while it is this you would defend against him. This is what he attacks, and you protect. Here is the ground of battle which you wage against him. Here must he be your enemy and not your friend. Never can there be peace among the different. He is your friend because you are the same. T465f/500ff
Here is your
savior from your specialness. He is in need of your acceptance of
himself as part of you, as you for his. You are alike to God as God is to
Himself. He is not special, for He would not keep one part of what He is unto
Himself, not given to His Son but kept for Him alone. And it is this you fear,
for if He is not special, then He willed His Son to be like Him, and your
brother is like you. Not special, but possessed of everything,
including you. Give him but what he has, remembering God gave Himself to you and
your brother in equal love, that both might share the universe with Him Who
chose that love could never be divided, and kept separate from what it is and
must forever be. T468f/504
The key you
threw away God gave your brother, whose holy hands would offer it to you when
you were ready to accept His plan for your salvation in the place of yours.
T469/505
Only this is certain in this shifting world that has no meaning in reality: When peace is not with you entirely, and when you suffer pain of any kind, you have beheld some sin within your brother, and have rejoiced at what you thought was there. Your specialness seemed safe because of it. And thus you saved what you appointed to be your savior, and crucified the one whom God has given you instead. So are you bound with him, for you are one. And so is specialness his "enemy," and yours as well. T473/508
Yet is He quiet,
for He knows that love is in you now, and safely held in you by that same hand
that holds your brother's in your own. Christ's hand holds all His brothers in
Himself. He gives them vision for their sightless eyes, and sings to them of
Heaven, that their ears may hear no more the sound of battle and of death. He
reaches through them, holding out His hand, that everyone may bless all living
things, and see their holiness. T474/510
He Who willed
not to be without His Son could never will that you be brotherless. And would He
give a brother unto you except he be as perfect as yourself, and just as like to
Him in holiness as you must be? T475/510
Before your brother's holiness the world is
still, and peace descends on it in gentleness and blessing so complete that not
one trace of conflict still remains to haunt you in the darkness of the night.
He is your savior from the dreams of fear. He is the healing of your sense of
sacrifice and fear that what you have will scatter with the wind and turn to
dust. In him is your assurance God is here, and with you now. While he is what
he is, you can be sure that God is knowable and will be known to you. For He
could never leave His Own creation. And the sign that this is so lies in your
brother, offered you that all your doubts about yourself may disappear before
his holiness. See in him God's creation. For in him his Father waits for your
acknowledgment that He created you as part of Him.
Without you there would be a lack in God, a Heaven incomplete, a son without a Father. There could be no universe and no reality. For what God wills is whole, and part of Him because His Will is one. Nothing alive that is not part of Him, and nothing is but is alive in Him. Your brother's holiness shows you that God is one with him and you; that what he has is yours because you are not separate from him nor from his Father.
Nothing is lost to you in all the universe. Nothing that God created has He failed to lay before you lovingly, as yours forever. And no Thought within His Mind is absent from your own. It is His Will you share His Love for you, and look upon yourself as lovingly as He conceived of you before the world began, and as He knows you still. God changes not His Mind about His Son with passing circumstance which has no meaning in eternity where He abides, and you with Him. Your brother is as He created him. And it is this that saves you from a world that He created not. T511f/511f
Your brother's
body shows not Christ to you. He is set forth within his holiness.
Choose, then, his body or his holiness as what you want to see, and which you
choose is yours to look upon. Yet will you choose in countless situations, and
through time that seems to have no end, until the truth be your decision. For
eternity is not regained by still one more denial of Christ in him. And where is
your salvation, if he is but a body? Where is your peace but in his holiness?
And where is God Himself but in that part of Him He set forever in your
brother's holiness, that you might see the truth about yourself, set forth at
last in terms you recognized and understood?
Your brother's holiness is sacrament and benediction unto you. His errors cannot withhold God's blessing from himself, nor you who see him truly. His mistakes can cause delay, which it is given you to take from him, that both may end a journey that has never begun, and needs no end. What never was is not a part of you. Yet you will think it is, until you realize that it is not a part of him who stands beside you. He is the mirror of yourself, wherein you see the judgment you have laid on both of you. The Christ in you beholds his holiness. Your specialness looks on his body and beholds him not.
See him as what he is, that your deliverance may not be long. A senseless wandering, without a purpose and without accomplishment of any kind, is all the other choice can offer you. Futility of function not fulfilled will haunt you while your brother lies asleep, till what has been assigned to you is done and he is risen from the past. He who condemned himself, and you as well, is given you to save from condemnation, along with you. And both shall see God's glory in His Son, whom you mistook as flesh, and bound to laws that have no power over him at all.
Would you not gladly realize these laws are not for you? Then see him not as prisoner to them. It cannot be what governs part of God holds not for all the rest. You place yourself under the laws you see as ruling him. Think, then, how great the Love of God for you must be, that He has given you a part of Him to save from pain and give you happiness. And never doubt but that your specialness will disappear before the Will of God, Who loves each part of Him with equal love and care. The Christ in you can see your brother truly. Would you decide against the holiness He sees? T476f/512f
The memory of
God shines not alone. What is within your brother still contains all of
creation, everything created and creating, born and unborn as yet, still in the
future or apparently gone by. What is in him is changeless, and your
changelessness is recognized in its acknowledgment. The holiness in you belongs
to him. And by your seeing it in him, returns to you. T479/515
The body needs no healing. But the mind that thinks it is a body is sick indeed! And it is here that Christ sets forth the remedy. His purpose folds the body in His light, and fills it with the holiness that shines from Him. And nothing that the body says or does but makes Him manifest. To those who know Him not it carries Him in gentleness and love, to heal their minds. Such is the mission that your brother has for you. And such it must be that your mission is for him. T482/518
How can you
manifest the Christ in you except to look on holiness and see Him there?
Perception tells you you are manifest in what you see. Behold the
body, and you will believe that you are there. And every body that you look upon
reminds you of yourself; your sinfulness, your evil and, above all, your death.
And would you not despise the one who tells you this, and seek his death
instead? The message and the messenger are one. And you must see your brother as
yourself. Framed in his body you will see your sinfulness, wherein you stand
condemned. Set in his holiness, the Christ in him proclaims Himself as you.
T483/519
Within the
darkness see the savior from the dark, and understand your brother
as his Father's Mind shows him to you. He will step forth from darkness as you
look on him, and you will see the dark no more. The darkness touched him not,
nor you who brought him forth for you to look upon. His sinlessness but pictures
yours. His gentleness becomes your strength, and both will gladly look within,
and see the holiness that must be there because of what you looked upon in him.
He is the frame in which your holiness is set, and what God gave him must be
given you. However much he overlooks the masterpiece in him and sees only a
frame of darkness, it is still your only function to behold in him what he sees
not. And in this seeing is the vision shared that looks on Christ instead of
seeing death. T486/522
God cherishes
creation as the perfect Father that He is. And so His joy is made complete when
any part of Him joins in His praise, to share His joy. This brother is His
perfect gift to you. And He is glad and thankful when you thank His perfect Son
for being what he is. T486/522
Nothing has
power over you except His Will and yours, which but extends His Will. It was for
this you were created, and your brother with you and at one with you.
You and your brother are the same as God Himself is One, and not divided in His Will. And you must have one purpose, since He gave the same to both of you. His Will is brought together as you join in will, that you be made complete by offering completion to your brother. See not in him the sinfulness he sees, but give him honor that you may esteem yourself and him. To you and your brother is given the power of salvation, that escape from darkness into light be yours to share; that you may see as one what never has been separate, nor apart from all God's Love as given equally. T486f/523
In your brother you see the picture of your own belief in what the Will of God must be for you. In your forgiveness will you understand His Love for you; through your attack believe He hates you, thinking Heaven must be hell. Look once again upon your brother, not without the understanding that he is the way to Heaven or to hell, as you perceive him. But forget not this; the role you give to him is given you, and you will walk the way you pointed out to him because it is your judgment on yourself. T492/529
The wish to see
calls down the grace of God upon your eyes, and brings the gift of light that
makes sight possible. Would you behold your brother? God is glad to have you
look on him. He does not will your savior be unrecognized by you. Nor does He
will that he remain without the function that He gave to him. Let him no more be
lonely, for the lonely ones are those who see no function in the world for them
to fill; no place where they are needed, and no aim which only they can
perfectly fulfill. T492f/529
Here, where the
laws of God do not prevail in perfect form, can he yet do one
perfect thing and make one perfect choice. And by this act of
special faithfulness to one perceived as other than himself, he learns the gift
was given to himself, and so they must be one. Forgiveness is the only function
meaningful in time. It is the means the Holy Spirit uses to translate
specialness from sin into salvation. Forgiveness is for all. But when it rests
on all it is complete, and every function of this world completed with it. Then
is time no more. Yet while in time, there is still much to do. And each must do
what is allotted him, for on his part does all the plan depend. He has
a special part in time for so he chose, and choosing it, he made it for
himself. His wish was not denied but changed in form, to let it serve his
brother and himself, and thus become a means to save instead of lose. T493/530
All that you
made can serve salvation easily and well. The Son of God can make no choice the
Holy Spirit cannot employ on his behalf, and not against himself. Only in
darkness does your specialness appear to be attack. In light, you see it as your
special function in the plan to save the Son of God from all attack, and let him
understand that he is safe, as he has always been, and will remain in time and
in eternity alike. This is the function given you for your brother. Take it
gently, then, from your brother's hand, and let salvation be perfectly fulfilled
in you. Do this one thing, that everything be given you. T493f/530
Unless you think
that all your brothers have an equal right to miracles with you, you will not
claim your right to them because you were unjust to one with equal rights. Seek
to deny and you will feel denied. Seek to deprive, and you have been deprived. A
miracle can never be received because another could receive it not. Only
forgiveness offers miracles. And pardon must be just to everyone. T502f/540
To see a brother
in another body, separate from yours, is the expression of a wish to see a
little part of him and sacrifice the rest. T504/542
Those who would
see the witnesses to truth instead of to illusion merely ask that they might see
a purpose in the world that gives it sense and makes it meaningful. Without your
special function has this world no meaning for you. Yet it can become a treasure
house as rich and limitless as Heaven itself. No instant passes here in which
your brother's holiness cannot be seen, to add a limitless supply to every
meager scrap and tiny crumb of happiness that you allot yourself. T505/543
Forgiveness
takes away what stands between your brother and yourself. It is the wish that
you be joined with him, and not apart. T516/555
Abide in peace,
where God would have you be. And be the means whereby your brother finds the
peace in which your wishes are fulfilled. Let us unite in bringing blessing to
the world of sin and death. For what can save each one of us can save us all.
There is no difference among the Sons of God. The unity that specialness denies
will save them all, for what is one can have no specialness. And everything
belongs to each of them. No wishes lie between a brother and his own. To get
from one is to deprive them all. And yet to bless but one gives blessing to them
all as one. Your ancient
Name belongs to everyone, as theirs to you. Call on your brother's name and God
will answer, for on Him you call. T518/558
Think but how holy you must be from whom the
Voice for God calls lovingly unto your brother, that you may awake in him the
Voice that answers to your call! And think how holy he must be when in him
sleeps your own salvation, with his freedom joined! However much you wish he be
condemned, God is in him. And never will you know He is in you as well while you
attack His chosen home, and battle with His host. Regard him gently. Look with
loving eyes on him who carries Christ within him, that you may behold his glory
and rejoice that Heaven is not separate from you. T521/560f
Forgiveness is not real unless it brings a
healing to your brother and yourself. You must attest his sins have no effect on
you to demonstrate they are not real. How else could he be guiltless? T528f/56
In a split mind,
identity must seem to be divided. Nor can anyone perceive a function unified
which has conflicting purposes and different ends. Correction, to a mind so
split, must be a way to punish sins you think are yours in someone else. And
thus does he become your victim, not your brother, different from you in that he
is more guilty, thus in need of your correction, as the one more innocent than
he. This splits his function off from yours, and gives you both a different
role. And so you cannot be perceived as one, and with a single function that
would mean a shared identity with but one end. T571 (SECOND EDITION ONLY)
Leave, then, the transfer of your learning to the One Who really understands its laws, and Who will guarantee that they remain unviolated and unlimited. Your part is merely to apply what He has taught you to yourself, and He will do the rest. And it is thus the power of your learning will be proved to you by all the many different witnesses it finds. Your brother first among them will be seen, but thousands stand behind him, and beyond each one of them there are a thousand more. Each one may seem to have a problem that is different from the rest. Yet they are solved together. And their common answer shows the questions could not have been separate.
Peace be to you to whom is healing offered. And you will learn that peace is given you when you accept the healing for yourself. Its total value need not be appraised by you to let you understand that you have benefited from it. What occurred within the instant that love entered in without attack will stay with you forever. Your healing will be one of its effects, as will your brother's. Everywhere you go, will you behold its multiplied effects. Yet all the witnesses that you behold will be far less than all there really are. Infinity cannot be understood by merely counting up its separate parts. God thanks you for your healing, for He knows it is a gift of love unto His Son, and therefore is it given unto Him. T537/579
The part you
play in salvaging the world from condemnation is your own escape. Forget not
that the witness to the world of evil cannot speak except for what has seen a
need for evil in the world. And this is where your guilt was first beheld. In
separation from your brother was the first attack upon yourself begun. And it is
this the world bears witness to. T540/582
Dream softly of
your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence. And from this dream
the Lord of Heaven will Himself awaken His beloved Son. Dream of your brother's
kindnesses instead of dwelling in your dreams on his mistakes. Select his
thoughtfulness to dream about instead of counting up the hurts he gave. Forgive
him his illusions, and give thanks to him for all the helpfulness he gave. And
do not brush aside his many gifts because he is not perfect in your dreams. He
represents his Father, Whom you see as offering both life and death to you.
Brother, He gives but life. Yet what you see as gifts your brother offers represent the gifts you dream your Father gives to you. Let all your brother's gifts be seen in light of charity and kindness offered you. And let no pain disturb your dream of deep appreciation for his gifts to you. T543/585
When you forgive
the world your guilt, you will be free of it. Its innocence does not demand your
guilt, nor does your guiltlessness rest on its sins. This is the obvious; a
secret kept from no one but yourself. And it is this that has maintained you
separate from the world, and kept your brother separate from you. Now need you
but to learn that both of you are innocent or guilty. The one thing that is
impossible is that you be unlike each other; that they both be true. This is the
only secret yet to learn. And it will be no secret you are healed. T546/588
No mind is sick until another mind agrees that they are sepa rate. And thus it is their joint decision to be sick. If you withhold agreement and accept the part you play in making sickness real, the other mind cannot project its guilt without your aid in letting it perceive itself as separate and apart from you. Thus is the body not perceived as sick by both your minds from separate points of view. Uniting with a brother's mind prevents the cause of sickness and perceived effects. Healing is the effect of minds that join, as sickness comes from minds that separate.
The miracle does nothing just because the minds are joined, and cannot separate. Yet in the dreaming has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as bodies, which are separated and which cannot join. Do not allow your brother to be sick, for if he is, have you abandoned him to his own dream by sharing it with him. He has not seen the cause of sickness where it is, and you have overlooked the gap between you, where the sickness has been bred. Thus are you joined in sickness, to preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherished, and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that leads to Him. Fight not His coming with illusions, for it is His coming that you want above all things that seem to glisten in the dream. T553f/596
Count, then, the
silver miracles and golden dreams of happiness as all the treasures you would
keep within the storehouse of the world. The door is open, not to thieves, but
to your starving brothers, who mistook for gold the shining of a pebble, and who
stored a heap of snow that shone like silver. They have nothing left behind the
open door. What is the world except a little gap perceived to tear eternity
apart, and break it into days and months and years? And what are you who live
within the world except a picture of the Son of God in broken pieces, each
concealed within a separate and uncertain bit of clay?
Be not afraid, my child, but let your world be gently lit by miracles. And where the little gap was seen to stand between you and your brother, join him there. And so sickness will now be seen without a cause. The dream of healing in forgiveness lies, and gently shows you that you never sinned. T554f/597
Accepting the Atonement for yourself means not
to give support to someone's dream of sickness and of death. It means that you
share not his wish to separate, and let him turn illusions on himself. Nor do
you wish that they be turned, instead, on you. Thus have they no effects. And
you are free of dreams of pain because you let him be. Unless you help him, you
will suffer pain with him because that is your wish. And you become a figure in
his dream of pain, as he in yours. So do you and your brother both become
illusions, and without identity. You could be anyone or anything, depending on
whose evil dream you share. You can be sure of just one thing; that you are
evil, for you share in dreams of fear. T555/598
Like you, your brother thinks he is a dream.
Share not in his illusion of himself, for your identity depends on his reality.
Think, rather, of him as a mind in which illusions still persist, but as a mind
which brother is to you. He is not brother made by what he dreams, nor is his
body, "hero" of the dream, your brother. It is his reality that is your brother,
as is yours to him. Your mind and his are joined in brotherhood. His body and
his dreams but seem to make a little gap, where yours have joined with his.
And yet, between your minds there is no gap. To join his dreams is thus to meet him not, because his dreams would separate from you. Therefore release him, merely by your claim on brotherhood, and not on dreams of fear. Let him acknowledge who he is, by not supporting his illusions by your faith, for if you do, you will have faith in yours. With faith in yours, he will not be released, and you are kept in bondage to his dreams. And dreams of fear will haunt the little gap, inhabited but by illusions which you have supported in your brother's mind.
Be certain, if you do your part, he will do his, for he will join you where you stand. Call not to him to meet you in the gap between you, or you must believe that it is your reality as well as his. You cannot do his part, but this you do when you become a passive figure in his dreams, instead of dreamer of your own. Identity in dreams is meaningless because the dreamer and the dream are one. Who shares a dream must be the dream he shares, because by sharing is a cause produced.
You share confusion and you are confused, for in the gap no stable self exists. What is the same seems different, because what is the same appears to be unlike. His dreams are yours because you let them be. But if you took your own away would he be free of them, and of his own as well. Your dreams are witnesses to his, and his attest the truth of yours. Yet if you see there is no truth in yours, his dreams will go, and he will understand what made the dream.
The Holy Spirit is in both your minds, and He is One because there is no gap that separates His Oneness from Itself. The gap between your bodies matters not, for what is joined in Him is always one. No one is sick if someone else accepts his union with him. His desire to be a sick and separated mind can not remain without a witness or a cause. And both are gone if someone wills to be united with him. He has dreams that he was separated from his brother who, by sharing not his dream, has left the space between them vacant. And the Father comes to join His Son the Holy Spirit joined.
The Holy Spirit's function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God and put the pieces into place again. This holy picture, healed entirely, does He hold out to every separate piece that thinks it is a picture in itself. To each He offers his Identity, Which the whole picture represents, instead of just a little, broken bit that he insisted was himself. And when he sees this picture he will recognize himself. If you share not your brother's evil dream, this is the picture that the miracle will place within the little gap, left clean of all the seeds of sickness and of sin. And here the Father will receive His Son, because His Son was gracious to himself.
I thank You, Father, knowing You will come to close each little gap that lies between the broken pieces of Your holy Son. Your holiness, complete and perfect, lies in every one of them. And they are joined because what is in one is in them all. How holy is the smallest grain of sand, when it is recognized as being part of the completed picture of God's Son! The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing. For the whole is in each one. And every aspect of the Son of God is just the same as every other part.
Join not your
brother's dreams but join with him, and where you join His Son the Father is.
T556f/598ff
The body
represents the gap between the little bit of mind you call your own and all the
rest of what is really yours. You hate it, yet you think it is your self, and
that, without it, would your self be lost. This is the secret vow that you have
made with every brother who would walk apart. T560/603
Sickness is
anger taken out upon the body, so that it will suffer pain. It is the obvious
effect of what was made in secret, in agreement with another's secret wish to be
apart from you, as you would be apart from him. Unless you both agree that is
your wish, it can have no effects. Whoever says, "There is no gap between my
mind and yours" has kept God's promise, not his tiny oath to be forever faithful
unto death. And by his healing is his brother healed. Let this be your
agreement with each one; that you be one with him and not apart. And he will
keep the promise that you make with him, because it is the one that he has made
to God, as God has made to him. T560/603
The beautiful
relationship you have with all your brothers is a part of you because it is a
part of God Himself. Are you not sick if you deny yourself your wholeness and
your health, the Source of help, the Call to healing and the Call to heal? Your
savior waits for healing, and the world waits with him. Nor are you apart from
it. For healing will be one or not at all, its oneness being where the healing
is. What could correct for separation but its opposite? There is no middle
ground in any aspect of salvation. You accept it wholly or accept it not. What
is unseparated must be joined. And what is joined cannot be separate. Either
there is a gap between you and your brother, or you are as one. There is no in
between, no other choice, and no allegiance to be split between the two.
T561/604
Your home is
built upon your brother's health, upon his happiness, his sinlessness, and
everything his Father promised him. No secret promise you have made instead has
shaken the Foundation of his home. T562/605
The fear of God! The greatest obstacle that peace must flow across has not yet gone. The rest are past, but this one still remains to block your path, and make the way to light seem dark and fearful, perilous and bleak. You had decided that your brother is your enemy. Sometimes a friend, perhaps, provided that your separate interests made your friendship possible a little while. But not without a gap perceived between you and him, lest he turn again into an enemy. Let him come close to you, and you jumped back; as you approached, did he but instantly withdraw. A cautious friendship, and limited in scope and carefully restricted in amount, became the treaty that you had made with him. Thus you and your brother but shared a qualified entente, in which a clause of separation was a point you both agreed to keep intact. And violating this was thought to be a breach of treaty not to be allowed.
The gap between you and your brother is not one of space be tween two separate bodies. And this but seems to be dividing off your separate minds. It is the symbol of a promise made to meet when you prefer, and separate till you and he elect to meet again. And then your bodies seem to get in touch, and thereby signify a meeting place to join. But always is it possible for you and him to go your separate ways. Conditional upon the "right" to separate will you and he agree to meet from time to time, and keep apart in intervals of separation, which do protect you from the "sacrifice" of love. The body saves you, for it gets away from total sacrifice and gives to you the time in which to build again your separate self, which you truly believe diminishes as you and your brother meet.
The body could not separate your mind from your brother's unless you wanted it to be a cause of separation and of distance seen between you and him. Thus do you endow it with a power that lies not within itself. And herein lies its power over you. For now you think that it determines when your brother and you meet, and limits your ability to make communion with your brother's mind. And now it tells you where to go and how to go there, what is feasible for you to undertake, and what you cannot do. It dictates what its health can tolerate, and what will tire it and make it sick. And its "inherent" weaknesses set up the limitations on what you would do, and keep your purpose limited and weak.
The body will accommodate to this, if you would have it so. It will allow but limited indulgences in "love," with intervals of hatred in between. And it will take command of when to "love," and when to shrink more safely into fear. It will be sick because you do not know what loving means. And so you must misuse each circumstance and everyone you meet, and see in them a purpose not your own.
It is not love that asks a sacrifice. But fear demands the sacrifice of love, for in love's presence fear cannot abide. For hate to be maintained, love must be feared; and only sometimes present, sometimes gone. Thus is love seen as treacherous, because it seems to come and go uncertainly, and offer no stability to you. You do not see how limited and weak is your allegiance, and how frequently you have demanded that love go away, and leave you quietly alone in "peace."
The body, innocent of goals, is your excuse for variable goals you hold, and force the body to maintain. You do not fear its weakness, but its lack of strength or weakness. Would you know that nothing stands between you and your brother? Would you know there is no gap behind which you can hide? There is a shock that comes to those who learn their savior is their enemy no more. There is a wariness that is aroused by learning that the body is not real. And there are overtones of seeming fear around the happy message, "God is Love.”
Yet all that happens when the gap is gone is
peace eternal. Nothing more than that, and nothing less. Without the fear of
God, what could induce you to abandon Him? What toys or trinkets in the gap
could serve to hold you back an instant from His Love? Would you allow the body
to say "no" to Heaven's calling, were you not afraid to find a loss of self in
finding God? Yet can your self be lost by being found? T563ff/606ff
Within the dream of bodies and of death is yet one theme of truth; no more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light created in the dark, where God still shines. You cannot wake yourself. Yet you can let yourself be wakened. You can overlook your brother's dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions he becomes your savior from your dreams. And as you see him shining in the space of light where God abides within the darkness, you will see that God Himself is where his body is. Before this light the body disappears, as heavy shadows must give way to light. The darkness cannot choose that it remain. The coming of the light means it is gone. In glory will you see your brother then, and understand what really fills the gap so long perceived as keeping you apart. There, in its place, God's witness has set forth the gentle way of kindness to God's Son. Whom you forgive is given power to forgive you your illusions. By your gift of freedom is it given unto you. T567f/611
Make way for love, which you did not create,
but which you can extend. On earth this means forgive your brother, that the
darkness may be lifted from your mind. When light has come to him through your
forgiveness, he will not forget his savior, leaving him unsaved. For it was in
your face he saw the light that he would keep beside him, as he walks through
darkness to the everlasting Light.
How holy are you, that the Son of God can be your savior in the midst of dreams of desolation and disaster. See how eagerly he comes, and steps aside from heavy shadows that have hidden him, and shines on you in gratitude and love. He is himself, but not himself alone. And as his Father lost not part of him in your creation, so the light in him is brighter still because you gave your light to him, to save him from the dark. And now the light in you must be as bright as shines in him. This is the spark that shines within the dream; that you can help him waken, and be sure his waking eyes will rest on you. And in his glad salvation you are saved. T568/611f
What is your
brother for? You do not know, because your function is obscure to you. Do not
ascribe a role to him that you imagine would bring happiness to you. And do not
try to hurt him when he fails to take the part that you assigned to him, in what
you dream your life was meant to be. He asks for help in every dream he has, and
you have help to give him if you see the function of the dream as He perceives
its function, Who can utilize all dreams as means to serve the function given
Him. Because He loves the dreamer, not the dream, each dream becomes an offering
of love. For at its center is His Love for you, which lights whatever form it
takes with love. T570/613
An idol is an image of your brother that you would value more than what he is. Idols are made that he may be replaced, no matter what their form. And it is this that never is perceived and recognized. T575/619
This world of idols is a veil across the face of Christ, because its purpose is to separate your brother from yourself. T576/620
The real world still is but a dream. Except the figures have been changed. They are not seen as idols which betray. It is a dream in which no one is used to substitute for something else, nor interposed between the thoughts the mind conceives and what it sees. No one is used for something he is not, for childish things have all been put away. And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into a dream where all is joy, because that is the purpose that it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms that enter in the dream are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love. T579/623
God turns to you to ask the world be saved, for by your own salvation is it healed. And no one walks upon the earth but must depend on your decision, that he learn death has no power over him, because he shares your freedom as he shares your will. It is your will to heal him, and because you have decided with him, he is healed. And now is God forgiven, for you chose to look upon your brother as a friend. T586/630
The gap between your brother and yourself was never there. And what the Son of God knew in creation he must know again. When brothers join in purpose in the world of fear, they stand already at the edge of the real world. Perhaps they still look back, and think they see an idol that they want. Yet has their path been surely set away from idols toward reality. For when they joined their hands it was Christ's hand they took, and they will look on Him Whose hand they hold. The face of Christ is looked upon before the Father is remembered. For He must be unremembered till His Son has reached be yond forgiveness to the Love of God. Yet is the Love of Christ accepted first. And then will come the knowledge They are one. T592/636f
Look on your brother with the willingness to see him as he is. T595/640
Do not interpret out of solitude, for what you see means no thing. It will shift in what it stands for, and you will believe the world is an uncertain place, in which you walk in danger and uncertainty. It is but your interpretations which are lacking in stability, for they are not in line with what you really are. This is a state so seemingly unsafe that fear must rise. Do not continue thus, my brother. We have one Interpreter. And through His use of symbols are we joined, so that they mean the same to all of us. Our common language lets us speak to all our brothers, and to understand with them forgiveness has been given to us all, and thus we can communicate again. T597/642
Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception, both. It is obscured by changing views of him that you perceive as his reality. The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health, his perfect freedom from all forms of lack, and safety from disaster of all kinds. The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form, because it can so easily be changed. This demonstrates that it was never real, and could not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has no effects that anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal because they change. T598/643
Because reality is changeless is a miracle already there to heal all things that change, and offer them to you to see in happy form, devoid of fear. It will be given you to look upon your brother thus. But not while you would have it otherwise in some respects. For this but means you would not have him healed and whole. The Christ in him is perfect. Is it this that you would look upon? Then let there be no dreams about him that you would prefer to seeing this. And you will see the Christ in him because you let Him come to you. And when He has appeared to you, you will be certain you are like Him, for He is the changeless in your brother and in you.
This will you look upon when you decide there is not one appearance you would hold in place of what your brother really is. Let no temptation to prefer a dream allow uncertainty to enter here. Be not made guilty and afraid when you are tempted by a dream of what he is. But do not give it power to replace the changeless in him in your sight of him. There is no false appearance but will fade, if you request a miracle instead. There is no pain from which he is not free, if you would have him be but what he is. T598f/643f
Let us review again what seems to stand between you and the truth of what you are. For there are steps in its relinquishment. The first is a decision that you make. But afterwards, the truth is given you. You would establish truth. And by your wish you set two choices to be made, each time you think you must decide on anything. Neither is true. Nor are they different. Yet must we see them both, before you can look past them to the one alternative that is a different choice. But not in dreams you made, that this might be obscured to you.
What you would choose between is not a choice and gives but the illusion it is free, for it will have one outcome either way. Thus is it really not a choice at all. The leader and the follower emerge as separate roles, each seeming to possess advantages you would not want to lose. So in their fusion there appears to be the hope of satisfaction and of peace. You see yourself divided into both these roles, forever split between the two. And every friend or enemy becomes a means to help you save yourself from this.
Perhaps you call it love. Perhaps you think that it is murder justified at last. You hate the one you gave the leader's role when you would have it, and you hate as well his not assuming it at times you want to let the follower in you arise, and give away the role of leadership. And this is what you made your brother for, and learned to think that this his purpose is. Unless he serves it, he has not fulfilled the function that was given him by you. And thus he merits death, because he has no purpose and no usefulness to you.
And what of him? What does he want of you? What could he want, but what you want of him? Herein is life as easily as death, for what you choose you choose as well for him. Two calls you make to him, as he to you. Between these two is choice, because from them there is a different outcome. If he be the leader or the follower to you it matters not, for you have chosen death. But if he calls for death or calls for life, for hate or for forgiveness and for help, is not the same in outcome. Hear the one, and you are separate from him and are lost. But hear the other, and you join with him and in your answer is salvation found. The voice you hear in him is but your own. What does he ask you for? And listen well! For he is asking what will come to you, because you see an image of yourself and hear your voice requesting what you want.
Before you answer, pause to think of this: The answer that I give my brother is what I am asking for. And what I learn of him is what I learn about myself.
Then let us wait an instant and be still, forgetting everything we thought we heard; remembering how much we do not know. This brother neither leads nor follows us, but walks beside us on the selfsame road. He is like us, as near or far away from what we want as we will let him be. We make no gains he does not make with us, and we fall back if he does not advance. Take not his hand in anger but in love, for in his progress do you count your own. And we go separately along the way unless you keep him safely by your side.
Because he is your equal in God's Love, you will be saved from all appearances and answer to the Christ Who calls to you. T603f/648ff
Forgive your brother all appearances, that are but ancient lessons you have taught yourself about the sinfulness in you. Hear but his call for mercy and release from all the fearful images he holds of what he is and of what you must be. He is afraid to walk with you, and thinks perhaps a bit behind, a bit ahead would be a safer place for him to be. Can you make progress if you think the same, advancing only when he would step back, and falling back when he would go ahead? For so do you forget the journey's goal, which is but to decide to walk with him, so neither leads nor follows. Thus it is a way you go together, not alone. And in this choice is learning's outcome changed, for Christ has been reborn to both of you.
An instant spent without your old ideas of who your great companion is and what he should be asking for, will be enough to let this happen. And you will perceive his purpose is the same as yours. He asks for what you want, and needs the same as you. It takes, perhaps, a different form in him, but it is not the form you answer to. He asks and you receive, for you have come with but one purpose; that you learn you love your brother with a brother's love. And as a brother, must his Father be the same as yours, as he is like yourself in truth.
Together is your joint inheritance remembered and accepted by you both. Alone it is denied to both of you. T605/650f
All choices in the world depend on this; you choose between your brother and yourself, and you will gain as much as he will lose, and what you lose is what is given him. How utterly opposed to truth is this, when all the lesson's purpose is to teach that what your brother loses you have lost, and what he gains is what is given you. T609/655
You cannot give yourself your innocence, for you are too confused about yourself. But should one brother dawn upon your sight as wholly worthy of forgiveness, then your concept of yourself is wholly changed. Your "evil" thoughts have been forgiven with his, because you let them all affect you not. No longer do you choose that you should be the sign of evil and of guilt in him. And as you give your trust to what is good in him, you give it to the good in you. T616/622
Behold your role within the universe! To every part of true creation has the Lord of Love and Life entrusted all salvation from the misery of hell. And to each one has He allowed the grace to be a savior to the holy ones especially entrusted to his care. And this he learns when first he looks upon one brother as he looks upon himself, and sees the mirror of himself in him. Thus is the concept of himself laid by, for nothing stands between his sight and what he looks upon, to judge what he beholds. And in this single vision does he see the face of Christ, and understands he looks on everyone as he beholds this one. For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight.
The veil across the face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, they all are different names for just one error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself that holds him off from you, and you away from him. The sword of judgment is the weapon that you give to the illusion of yourself, that it may fight to keep the space that holds your brother off unoccupied by love. Yet while you hold this sword, you must perceive the body as yourself, for you are bound to separation from the sight of him who holds the mirror to another view of what he is, and thus what you must be.
What is temptation but the wish to stay in hell and misery? And what could this give rise to but an image of yourself that can be miserable, and remain in hell and torment? Who has learned to see his brother not as this has saved himself, and thus is he a savior to the rest. To everyone has God entrusted all, because a partial savior would be one who is but partly saved. The holy ones whom God has given you to save are but everyone you meet or look upon, not knowing who they are; all those you saw an instant and forgot, and those you knew a long while since, and those you will yet meet; the unremembered and the not yet born. For God has given you His Son to save from every concept that he ever held. T617f/664
Yet while you wish to stay in hell, how could you be the savior of the Son of God? How would you know his holiness while you see him apart from yours? For holiness is seen through holy eyes that look upon the innocence within, and thus expect to see it everywhere. And so they call it forth in everyone they look upon, that he may be what they expect of him. This is the savior's vision; that he see his innocence in all he looks upon, and see his own salvation everywhere. He holds no concept of himself between his calm and open eyes and what he sees. He brings the light to what he looks upon, that he may see it as it really is.
Whatever form temptation seems to take, it always but reflects a wish to be a self that you are not. And from that wish a concept rises, teaching that you are the thing you wish to be. It will remain your concept of yourself until the wish that fathered it no longer is held dear. But while you cherish it, you will behold your brother in the likeness of the self whose image has the wish begot of you. For seeing can but represent a wish, because it has no power to create. Yet it can look with love or look with hate, depending only on the simple choice of whether you would join with what you see, or keep yourself apart and separate. T618/664f
Deny me not the little gift I ask, when in exchange I lay before your feet the peace of God, and power to bring this peace to everyone who wanders in the world uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear. For it is given you to join with him, and through the Christ in you unveil his eyes, and let him look upon the Christ in him.
My brothers in salvation, do not fail to hear my voice and listen to my words. I ask for nothing but your own release. There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven. To your tired eyes I bring a vision of a different world, so new and clean and fresh you will forget the pain and sorrow that you saw before. Yet this a vision is which you must share with everyone you see, for otherwise you will behold it not. To give this gift is how to make it yours. And God ordained, in loving kindness, that it be for you. T621/667f
I thank You, Father, for these holy ones who are my brothers as they are Your Sons. My faith in them is Yours. I am as sure that they will come to me as You are sure of what they are, and will forever be. They will accept the gift I offer them, because You gave it me on their behalf. And as I would but do Your holy Will, so will they choose. And I give thanks for them. Salvation's song will echo through the world with every choice they make. For we are one in purpose, and the end of hell is near.
In joyous welcome is my hand outstretched to every brother who would join with me in reaching past temptation, and who looks with fixed determination toward the light that shines beyond in perfect constancy. Give me my own, for they belong to You. And can You fail in what is but Your Will? I give You thanks for what my brothers are. And as each one elects to join with me, the song of thanks from earth to Heaven grows from tiny scattered threads of melody to one inclusive chorus from a world redeemed from hell, and giving thanks to You. T621f/668
Idle wishes and grievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world you see. 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. These figures become the middlemen the ego employs to traffic in grievances. They stand between your awareness and your brothers' reality. Beholding them, you do not know your brothers or your Self. W125/127
You are one Self, united and secure in light and joy and peace. 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. 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.
You are one Self, in perfect harmony with all there is, and all that there will be. You are one Self, the holy Son of God, united with your brothers in that Self; united with your Father in His Will. W166/168
Offer each practice period today gladly to Him. And He will speak to you, reminding you that you are spirit, one with Him and God, your brothers and your Self. W171/173
Begin today by thinking of those brothers who have been denied by you the peace and joy that are their right under the equal laws of God. Here you denied them to yourself. And here you must return to claim them as your own. W185f/188f
Prepare yourself for miracles today. Today allow your Father's ancient pledge to you and all your brothers to be kept. W187/190
Begin by asking Him Who goes with you upon this undertaking that He be in your awareness as you go with Him. You are not made of flesh and blood and bone, but were created by the selfsame Thought which gave the gift of life to Him as well. He is your Brother, and so like to you your Father knows that you are both the same. It is your Self you ask to go with you, and how could He be absent where you are? W190/193
One thought, completely unified, will serve to unify all thought. This is the same as saying one correction will suffice for all correction, or that to forgive one brother wholly is enough to bring salvation to all minds. W191/195
You rest within the peace of God today, and call upon your brothers from your rest to draw them to their rest, along with you. You 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. 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.
You rest within the peace of God today, quiet and unafraid. Each brother comes to take his rest, and offer it to you. We rest together here, for thus our rest is made complete, and what we give today we have received already. Time is not the guardian of what we give today. We give to those unborn and those passed by, to every Thought of God, and to the Mind in which these Thoughts were born and where they rest. And we remind them of their resting place each time we tell ourselves, "I rest in God." W194/198
Let me remember I am one with God, at one with all my brothers and my Self, in everlasting holiness and peace. W219/224
The world in infancy is newly born. And we will watch it grow in health and strength, to shed its blessing upon all who come to learn to cast aside the world they thought was made in hate to be love's enemy. Now are they all made free, along with us. Now are they all our brothers in God's Love.
We will remember them throughout the day, because we cannot leave a part of us outside our love if we would know our Self. At least three times an hour think of one who makes the journey with you, and who came to learn what you must learn. And as he comes to mind, give him this message from your Self: I bless you, brother, with the Love of God, which I would share with you. For I would learn the joyous lesson that there is no love but God's and yours and mine and everyone's. W226/231f
Begin the fifteen-minute periods in which we practice twice today with this: I who remain as God created me would loose the world from all I thought it was. For I am real because the world is not, and I would know my own reality. Then merely rest, alert but with no strain, and let your mind in quietness be changed so that the world is freed, along with you.
You need not realize that healing comes to many brothers far across the world, as well as to the ones you see nearby, as you send out these thoughts to bless the world. But you will sense your own release, although you may not fully understand as yet that you could never be released alone. W238/244
Today we practice true forgiveness, that the time of joining be no more delayed. For we would meet with our reality in freedom and in peace. Our practicing becomes the footsteps lighting up the way for all our brothers, who will follow us to the reality we share with them. w244/250
When I am healed I am not healed alone. And I would bless my brothers, for I would be healed with them, as they are healed with me. W256/263
We have a mission here. We did not come to reinforce the mad ness that we once believed in. Let us not forget the goal that we accepted. It is more than just our happiness alone we came to gain. What we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be, along with us. Fail not your brothers, or you fail yourself. Look lovingly on them, that they may know that they are part of you, and you of them. W261/268
We have not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when He created us like Him. We can remember it for everyone, for in creation are all minds as one. 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. W261/268
It is the function of God's ministers to help their brothers choose as they have done. God has elected all, but few have come to realize His Will is but their own. And while you fail to teach what you have learned, salvation waits and darkness holds the world in grim imprisonment. Nor will you learn that light has come to you, and your escape has been accomplished. For you will not see the light, until you offer it to all your brothers. As they take it from your hands, so will you recognize it as your own. W278/285
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. W280/287
Between these paths there is another road that leads away from loss of every kind, for sacrifice and deprivation both are quickly left behind. This is the way appointed for you now. You walk this path as others walk, nor do you seem to be distinct from them, although you are indeed. Thus can you serve them while you serve yourself, and set their footsteps on the way that God has opened up to you, and them through you.
Illusion still appears to cling to you, that you may reach them. Yet it has stepped back. And it is not illusion that they hear you speak of, nor illusion that you bring their eyes to look on and their minds to grasp. Nor can the truth, which walks ahead of you, speak to them through illusions, for the road leads past illusion now, while on the way you call to them, that they may follow you.
All roads will lead to this one in the end. For sacrifice and deprivation are paths that lead nowhere, choices for defeat, and aims that will remain impossible. All this steps back as truth comes forth in you, to lead your brothers from the ways of death, and set them on the way to happiness. Their suffering is but illusion. Yet they need a guide to lead them out of it, for they mistake illusion for the truth.
Such is salvation's call, and nothing more. It asks that you accept the truth, and let it go before you, lighting up the path of ransom from illusion. It is not a ransom with a price. There is no cost, but only gain. Illusion can but seem to hold in chains the holy Son of God. It is but from illusions he is saved. As they step back, he finds himself again.
Walk safely now, yet carefully, because this path is new to you. And you may find that you are tempted still to walk ahead of truth, and let illusions be your guide. Your holy brothers have been given you, to follow in your footsteps as you walk with certainty of purpose to the truth. It goes before you now, that they may see something with which they can identify; something they understand to lead the way. W284f/291f
You understand that you are healed when you give healing. You accept forgiveness as accomplished in yourself when you forgive. You recognize your brother as yourself, and thus do you perceive that you are whole. W293/300
Today we offer thanks that Christ has come to search the world for what belongs to Him. His vision sees no strangers, but beholds His Own and joyously unites with them. They see Him as a stranger, for they do not recognize themselves. Yet as they give Him welcome, they remember. And He leads them gently home again, where they belong.
Not one does Christ forget. Not one He fails to give you to remember, that your home may be complete and perfect as it was established. He has not forgotten you. But you will not remember Him until you look on all as He does. Who denies his brother is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized, his home remembered and salvation come. W296/303
One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth. Yet do these thoughts make clear the meaning of creation? Do these words bring perfect clarity with them to you? What can they seem to be but empty sounds; pretty, perhaps, correct in sentiment, yet fundamentally not understood nor understandable. W297/304
Father, we are like You. No cruelty abides in us, for there is none in You. Your peace is ours. And we bless the world with what we have received from You alone. We choose again, and make our choice for all our brothers, knowing they are one with us. We bring them Your salvation as we have received it now. And we give thanks for them who render us complete. In them we see Your glory, and in them we find our peace. Holy are we because Your holiness has set us free. And we give thanks. Amen. W320/328
My resurrection comes again each time I lead a brother safely to the place at which the journey ends and is forgot. I am renewed each time a brother learns there is a way from misery and pain. I am reborn each time a brother's mind turns to the light in him and looks for me. I have forgotten no one. Help me now to lead you back to where the journey was begun, to make another choice with me. W322/330
The Self from Which I call to you is but your own. To Him we go together. Take your brother's hand, for this is not a way we walk alone. In him I walk with you, and you with me. Our Father wills His Son be one with Him. What lives but must not then be one with you? W322/330
God's Name is holy, but no holier than yours. To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own. A father gives his son his name, and thus identifies the son with him. His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity. W334/342
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. W334/342
Think not you made the world. Illusions, yes! But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming. When you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. His true Identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is. His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own. And thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he accepts this separate name as his. W337/346
No one can lose and everyone must gain whenever any gift of God has been requested and received by anyone. God gives but to unite. To take away is meaningless to Him. And when it is as meaningless to you, you can be sure you share one Will with Him, and He with you. And you will also know you share one Will with all your brothers, whose intent is yours.
It is this one intent we seek today, uniting our 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. With Help like this beside us, can we fail today as we request the peace of God be given us? W341/350
We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound. For who can bargain in the name of love?
Therefore give thanks, but in sincerity. And let your gratitude make room for all who will escape with you; the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death. All these go with you. Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off from our awareness of the unity we share with them, as they must share with us.
We thank our Father for one thing alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him. And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which would reduce our wholeness, nor impair or change our function to complete the One Who is Himself completion. We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing, and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us.
Then let our brothers lean their tired heads against our shoulders as they rest a while. We offer thanks for them. For if we can direct them to the peace that we would find, the way is opening at last to us. 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. W362f/372f
No one but is my brother. I am blessed with oneness with the universe and God, my Father, one Creator of the whole that is my Self, forever one with me. W378/388
Sin is the symbol of attack. Behold it anywhere, and I will suffer. For forgiveness is the only means whereby Christ's vision comes to me. Let me accept what His sight shows me as the simple truth, and I am healed completely. Brother, come and let me look on you. Your loveliness reflects my own. Your sinlessness is mine. You stand forgiven, and I stand with you.
So would I look on everyone today. My brothers are Your Sons. Your Fatherhood created them, and gave them all to me as part of You, and my own Self as well. Today I honor You through them, and thus I hope this day to recognize my Self. W407/417
The body is the means by which God's Son returns to sanity. Though it was made to fence him into hell without escape, yet has the goal of Heaven been exchanged for the pursuit of hell. The Son of God extends his hand to reach his brother, and to help him walk along the road with him. Now is the body holy. Now it serves to heal the mind that it was made to kill. W415/425
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. Through this I am redeemed. 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. W423/433
LESSON 288
Let me forget my brother's past today.
This is the thought that leads the way to You, and brings me to my goal. I cannot come to You without my brother. And to know my Source, I first must recognize what You created one with me. My brother's is the hand that leads me on the way to You. His sins are in the past along with mine, and I am saved because the past is gone. Let me not cherish it within my heart, or I will lose the way to walk to You. My brother is my savior. Let me not attack the savior You have given me. But let me honor him who bears Your Name, and so remember that It is my own.
Forgive me, then, today. And you will know you have forgiven me if you behold your brother in the light of holiness. He cannot be less holy than can I, and you can not be holier than he. W431/441
Let us today behold each other in the sight of Christ. How beautiful we are! How holy and how loving! Brother, come and join with me today. We save the world when we have joined. For in our vision it becomes as holy as the light in us. W447/457
I thank You, Father, for the many gifts that come to me today and every day from every Son of God. My brothers are unlimited in all their gifts to me. Now may I offer them my thankfulness, that gratitude to them may lead me on to my Creator and His memory. W448/458
From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. 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. W454/464
Forgiveness is a choice. I never see my brother as he is, for that is far beyond perception. What I see in him is merely what I wish to see, because it stands for what I want to be the truth. It is to this alone that I respond, however much I seem to be impelled by outside happenings. I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see, and only this. My brother's sinlessness shows me that I would look upon my own. And I will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light.
What could restore Your memory to me, except to see my bro ther's sinlessness? His holiness reminds me that he was created one with me, and like myself. In him I find my Self, and in Your Son I find the memory of You as well. W460/470
We are the bringers of salvation. We accept our part as saviors of the world, which through our joint forgiveness is redeemed. And this, our gift, is therefore given us. We look on everyone as brother, and perceive all things as kindly and as good. We do not seek a function that is past the gate of Heaven. Knowledge will return when we have done our part. We are concerned only with giving welcome to the truth.
Ours are the eyes through which Christ's vision sees a world redeemed from every thought of sin. Ours are the ears that hear the Voice for God proclaim the world as sinless. Ours the minds that join together as we bless the world. And from the oneness that we have attained we call to all our brothers, asking them to share our peace and consummate our joy.
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. And thus our minds are changed about the aim for which we came, and which we seek to serve. We bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he suffered. Now is he redeemed. And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before him, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God. W469/479
Who is my brother but Your holy Son? And if I see him sinful I proclaim myself a sinner, not a Son of God; alone and friendless in a fearful world. Yet this perception is a choice I make, and can relinquish. I can also see my brother sinless, as Your holy Son. And with this choice I see my sinlessness, my everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and my way secure and clear. Choose, then, for me, my Father, through Your Voice. For He alone gives judgment in Your Name. W470/480
Your holy Son is pointed out to me, first in my brother; then in me. W473/483
It is our function to remember Him on earth, as it is given us to be His Own completion in reality. 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. And shall we not forgive our brother, who can offer this to us? He is the way, the truth and life that shows the way to us. In him resides salvation, offered us through our forgiveness, given unto him. W475/485
Without judgment are all men brothers, for who is there who stands apart? M11/12
Not once do the advanced teachers of God consider the forms of sickness in which their brother believes. To do this is to forget that all of them have the same purpose, and therefore are not really different. They seek for God's Voice in this brother who would so deceive himself as to believe God's Son can suffer. And they remind him that he did not make himself, and must remain as God created him. They recognize illusions can have no effect. The truth in their minds reaches out to the truth in the minds of their brothers, so that illusions are not reinforced. They are thus brought to truth; truth is not brought to them. So are they dispelled, not by the will of another, but by the union of the One Will with Itself. And this is the function of God's teachers; to see no will as separate from their own, nor theirs as separate from God's. M18/19
When a teacher of God fails to heal, it is because he has forgotten Who he is. Another's sickness thus becomes his own. In allowing this to happen, he has identified with another's ego, and has thus confused him with a body. In so doing, he has refused to accept the Atonement for himself, and can hardly offer it to his brother in Christ's Name. He will, in fact, be unable to recognize his brother at all, for his Father did not create bodies, and so he is seeing in his brother only the unreal. Mistakes do not correct mistakes, and distorted perception does not heal. Step back now, teacher of God. You have been wrong. Lead not the way, for you have lost it. Turn quickly to your Teacher, and let yourself be healed. M54/56
Jesus has led the way. Why would you not be grateful to him? He has asked for love, but only that he might give it to you. You do not love yourself. But in his eyes your loveliness is so complete and flawless that he sees in it an image of his Father. You become the symbol of his Father here on earth. To you he looks for hope, because in you he sees no limit and no stain to mar your beautiful perfection. In his eyes Christ's vision shines in perfect constancy. He has remained with you. Would you not learn the lesson of salvation through his learning? Why would you choose to start again, when he has made the journey for you?
No one on earth can grasp what Heaven is, or what its one Creator really means. Yet we have witnesses. It is to them that wisdom should appeal. There have been those whose learning far exceeds what we can learn. Nor would we teach the limitations we have laid on us. No one who has become a true and dedicated teacher of God forgets his brothers. Yet what he can offer them is limited by what he learns himself. Then turn to one who laid all limits by, and went beyond the farthest reach of learning. He will take you with him, for he did not go alone. And you were with him then, as you are now. M55f/59
Helpers are given you in many forms, although upon the altar they are one. Beyond each one there is a Thought of God, and this will never change. But they have names which differ for a time, for time needs symbols, being itself unreal. Their names are legion, but we will not go beyond the names the course itself employs. God does not help because He knows no need. But He creates all Helpers of His Son while he believes his fantasies are true. Thank God for them for they will lead you home.
The name of Jesus is the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God. So he became identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God. M83/87
You are His manifestation in this world. Your brother calls to you to be His Voice along with him. Alone he cannot be the Helper of God's Son for he alone is functionless. But joined with you he is the shining Savior of the world, Whose part in its redemption you have made complete. M86/90
Let us wait here in silence, and kneel down an instant in our gratitude to Him Who called to us and helped us hear His Call. And then let us arise and go in faith along the way to Him. Now we are sure we do not walk alone. For God is here, and with Him all our brothers. M87/91
A brother seeking aid can bring us gifts beyond the heights perceived in any dream. He offers us salvation, for he comes to us as Christ and Savior. What he asks is asked by God through him. And what we do for him becomes the gift we give to God. The sacred calling of God's holy Son for help in his perceived distress can be but answered by his Father. Yet He needs a voice through which to speak His holy Word; a hand to reach His Son and touch his heart. In such a process, who could not be healed? This holy interaction is the plan of God Himself, by which His Son is saved. For two have joined. And now God's promises are kept by Him. PPP11/13
The passing of guilt is the true aim of therapy and the obvious aim of forgiveness. In this their oneness can be clearly seen. Yet who could experience the end of guilt who feels responsible for his brother in the role of guide for him? Such a function presupposes a knowledge that no one here can have; a certainty of past, present and future, and of all the effects that may occur in them. Only from this omniscient point of view would such a role be possible. Yet no perception is omniscient, nor is the tiny self of one alone against the universe able to assume he has such wisdom except in madness. That many therapists are mad is obvious. No unhealed healer can be wholly sane. PPP14f/17
Think what the joining of two brothers really means. And then forget the world and all its little triumphs and its dreams of death. The same are one, and nothing now can be remembered of the world of guilt. The room becomes a temple, and the street a stream of stars that brushes lightly past all sickly dreams. Healing is done, for what is perfect needs no healing, and what remains to be forgiven where there is no sin?
Be thankful, therapist, that you can see such things as this, if you but understand your proper role. But if you fail in this, you have denied that God created you, and so you will not know you are His Son. Who is your brother now? What saint can come to take you home with him? You lost the way. And can you now expect to see in him an answer that you have refused to give? Heal and be healed. There is no other choice of pathways that can ever lead to peace. O let your patient in, for he has come to you from God. Is not his holiness enough to wake your memory of Him? PPP15f/18
It has well been said that to him who hath shall be given. Because he has, he can give. And because he gives, he shall be given. This is the law of God, and not of the world. So it is with God's healers. They give because they have heard His Word and understood it. All that they need will thus be given them. But they will lose this understanding unless they remember that all they have comes only from God. If they believe they need anything from a brother, they will recognize him as a brother no longer. PPP22/24
Praying for others, if rightly understood, becomes a means for lifting your projections of guilt from your brother, and enabling you to recognize it is not he who is hurting you. SOP5
A dream has veiled the face of Christ from you. Now can you look upon His sinlessness. High has the ladder risen. You have come almost to Heaven. There is little more to learn before the journey is complete. Now can you say to everyone who comes to join in prayer with you: I cannot go without you, for you are a part of me. And so he is in truth. Now can you pray only for what you truly share with him. For you have understood he never left, and you, who seemed alone, are one with him. The ladder ends with this, for learning is no longer needed. Now you stand before the gate of Heaven, and your brother stands beside you there. SOP8
How holy are the healed! For in their sight their brothers share their healing and their love. SOP18/20