I am as God created me.I
1. Today’s idea will be repeated from time to time.
²For this one thought would be enough to save you and the world, if you believed that it is true.
³Its truth means that you have made no real changes in yourself, nor changed the universe to replace what God created with fear and evil, misery and death.
⁴If you are still as God created you, fear has no meaning, evil is not real, and suffering and death do not exist.
2. Therefore, today’s idea is all you need to let complete correction heal your mind and give you perfect vision.
²It will heal all the errors any mind has ever made at any time or place. II
³It is enough to heal the past and free the future.
⁴It is all you need to accept the present as it is.
⁵It is enough to let time be the means for all the world to learn how to escape from time, and every change that time appears to bring.
3. If you are as God created you, appearances cannot replace the truth, health cannot turn to sickness, nor can death be substitute for life, or fear for love.
²None of this has happened, if you remain as God created you.
³You need no thought but this one to bring redemption to the world and free it from the past.
4. With this one thought is all the past undone, the present saved to quietly extend into a timeless future.
²If you are as God created you, there has been no separation of your mind from His, no split between your mind and other minds.
³And only unity has ever existed in your mind.
5. The healing power of today’s idea is limitless.
²It is the birthplace of all miracles, the great restorer of the truth to the awareness of the world. III
³Practice today’s idea in thankfulness.
⁴This is the truth that makes you free.
⁵This is the truth God promised you. IV
⁶This is the Word in which all sorrow ends.
6. Begin your five-minute practice periods with this quotation from the Text:
²I am as God created me.
³His Son can suffer nothing.
⁴And I am His Son. V
⁵Then, with this statement firmly in your mind, try to find the Self Who is the holy Son of God Himself.
⁶Seek Him within you—the Christ in you, God’s Son and Brother to the world;
⁷the Savior Who has been forever safe;
⁸the One with power to save whoever touches Him, however lightly, and asks for the Word that tells him he is his brother. VI
7. You are as God created you.
²Honor your Self today.
³And let not any images you made to be the Son of God instead of Him arise in your mind to hide what truly is there. VII
⁴Deep in your mind, the holy Christ in you is waiting your acknowledgment as your Self.
⁵And as long as you remain unaware of Him, you are lost and do not know yourself.
8. Seek Him today and find Him.
²He will be your Savior from all the idols you have made.
³For when you find Him, you will understand how worthless are your idols, and how false the images you believed about yourself.
⁴Today we make a great advance to truth by letting idols go and opening our hearts and minds and arms to God. VIII
9. With gratitude and joy we quietly remember Him today, and give His Word to all we see, that we may recognize our Self in everyone we meet.
²And thus we say with confidence and love:
³I am as God created me.
⁴Let us declare this truth as often as we can.
⁵This is the Word of God that sets you free. IX
⁶This is the key that opens Heaven’s gate and lets you enter into the Peace of God and His Eternity.
I This is the talismanic idea of this Course; the whole of its teaching revolves around it. It is important that you understand it well, or it will serve you little. But if you comprehend what this idea means and accept it as true, it will come to your aid whenever you feel tempted to believe that you are vulnerable or in any kind of danger. It is enough to declare this idea in moments of disturbance for your mind to be restored, for peace to return, and for you to rest in God.
But first, realize that right now you have not the slightest idea of what you truly are. Acknowledge this. You cannot conceive what you are, because you use your mind to imagine things, and you are not an image. You are pure Being—and Being cannot be imagined; it can only be being. The very fact that you have worries already reveals your total ignorance of your own identity. Be very careful when you think about yourself, for you must know that only the ego entertains such foolish notions.
Be completely unconcerned with any concept about yourself that passes through your mind. Rest assured that it has arisen only to deceive and confuse you. Do not follow it.
You are as God created you, for God creates perfectly and forever.
The Being that you are is perfect and can never change.
That Being exists beyond space and time, which are illusory concepts.
That Being is real.
But that is not the being you think you are. You believe you are something else precisely because you are using your mind in “believing” mode. And remember: everything you believe is false. You are nothing that you can “believe.” One can only believe in illusions—and you are no illusion.
It is true that you can believe you are as God created you, and it is also true that believing this will help you in your dark moments, for right now you are so confused that this is the only thing you think you have. But it is not true. You do not even need to believe it; you do not deserve to. You are the Son of God, and you deserve to know that you are His Son.
Forget your beliefs. Stop even believing that you are the Son of God—and pray. Pray from the heart, for indeed you have a great need to pray. You will not reach the knowledge of your true identity through your beliefs—not even through the loftiest or the most “true.” They will not serve you. God did not create you to believe; He created you to create. You are His beloved Son, Whom He loves in such a way that the faintest breath of His Love sweeps away all confusion. You will not reach your Father by your own means; prayer is the call for Him to come to your rescue.
Pray. Pray passionately. And when you say, “I am as God created me,” let it not be an opinion or a belief, but a declaration that arises from the depths of your heart—a prayer you raise to Heaven to claim the end of a dream of anguish you do not deserve.
Never forget today’s idea. Keep it always on your lips, in your mind, and in your heart. It is pure truth. It is salvation.
And when you see all your brothers as you now see yourself, you will be ready to recognize that you are in your Father’s Heart, where you have never ceased to be.
II John 8:32 “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
III Realize that, with the awareness of being the Son of God—and the fact of continuing to be so, no matter what appearances may tell you—your perception of the world must inevitably change. To perceive is to imagine what you wish to see, and one who knows he is his Father’s Son can only wish to see miracles—and he will see them.
IV Again, here is John 8:32. Today’s idea sums up the entire gospel of Jesus: you are the Son of God. And His crucifixion, in this time of Easter, is the testimony that this is true and that death does not exist.
V This is stated exactly the same in theText, in T-31.VIII.5:2–4.
VI Mark 5:27–29 “When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak, because she thought, ‘If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.’ Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”
VII Exodus 20:4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.”
VIII This is another of the Lessons that can be considered a “giant stride” in learning, for its statement is the same as that of Lesson 94, which is also one.
IX John 1:1–5 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”