I release the world from all I thought it was.
1. What keeps you bound to the world but your own beliefs?
²And what can save the world but your Self?
³Beliefs are indeed powerful.
⁴Your thoughts hold power, and illusions produce effects as potent as those of truth. I
⁵The insane believe the world they see is real, and they do not question it.
⁶They cannot be persuaded by challenging the effects of what they think.
⁷Only when the source of those effects is questioned does the hope of freedom finally come to them. II
2. Yet salvation is easily attained, for anyone is free to change their mind, and when they do, all their thoughts change accordingly.
²Now, the source from which your thoughts arose has changed, for if you change your mind, it means you have changed the origin of all the ideas you think, have ever thought, or ever will think.
³This is how you release the past from what you thought it was.
⁴And this is how you release the future as well from all your former thoughts, which urged you to pursue what you truly did not want to find.
3. The only time that remains now is the present.
²And here, in the present, the world is set free.
³For when you let the past go and release the future from your old fears, you find the way to escape and offer it to the world.
⁴You have enslaved the world with all your fears, your doubts and sorrows, your pain and tears, and all your suffering has weighed it down and kept it prisoner to your beliefs.
⁵Death strikes everywhere because you hold in your mind the bitter thought of death.
4. The world itself is nothing.
²Your mind must give it meaning.
³And what you behold in it are your wishes acted out, so you may see them and believe they are real.
⁴You may think you did not make this world, but merely came into something already made, which waited not for your thoughts to give it meaning.
⁵But the truth is that you found exactly what you were looking for when you arrived.
⁶There is no world apart from what you wish, and in this lies your ultimate release.
⁷You need only change your mind about what you want to see, and all the world will change accordingly.
5. Ideas do not leave their source.
²This fundamental idea appears often in the Text, and you must keep it in mind if you are to understand today’s lesson. III
³It is not pride that tells you it was you who made the world you see now, and that this world changes as you change your mind.
⁴But it is pride that argues you came into a world completely separate from you, unaffected by what you think and wholly alien to anything you might think it is.
6. The world does not exist!
²This is the central thought this course seeks to teach.
³Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one will go as far as they are able to be led along the path of truth.
⁴They will return to it and go farther still, or they may retreat for a while, only to return again.
⁵Yet healing is the gift of those who are willing to learn that the world does not exist, and who can accept this lesson now.
⁶Their willingness will bring the lesson to them in some form they can understand and recognize.
7. Some see it suddenly as they are about to die, and they rise to teach it. IV
²Others find this understanding in an experience not of this world, which shows them the world does not exist, for what they behold must be the truth, though it clearly contradicts the world. V
³And some will find it in this course and in the exercises we do today.
8. Today’s idea is true because the world does not exist.
²And if the world is indeed a product of your own imagination, then you can release it from all you thought it was simply by changing all the thoughts that gave it its appearance.
³The sick are healed when you give up every thought of sickness, and the dead arise when you allow thoughts of life to replace all thoughts of death you ever held. VI
9. We must again emphasize a lesson already mentioned once, for it lays the solid foundation for today’s idea. VII
²You are as God created you.
³There is no place where you can suffer, no time that can alter your eternal state.
⁴How could a world of space and time exist if you remain as God created you?
10. What can today’s lesson be but another way of saying that to know your Self is the salvation of the world?
²To release the world from every kind of pain is nothing more than to change your mind about yourself.
³There is no world apart from your ideas, because ideas do not leave their source, and you hold the world within your mind by thinking it.
11. But if you are as God created you, you cannot think apart from Him, nor make anything that does not share His Timelessness and His Love.
²Do you believe those are the attributes of the world you see?
³Do you believe the world creates as He creates?
⁴For if it does not, it is not real, and it cannot exist at all.
⁵If you are real, then the world you see is false, for God’s Creation differs from the world in every way.
⁶And as you were created by His Thought, so must your thoughts have made the world, and so must they set it free, that you may know the Thoughts you share with God.
12. Release the world!
²Your true Creations await this release to grant you fatherhood—not of illusions, but of Truth, as God’s.
³God shares His Fatherhood with you, His Son, for He makes no distinction between what He is and what is still Himself.
⁴What God creates is not apart from Him, and there is no place where the Father ends and the Son begins as something separate from Him.
13. The world does not exist because it is a thought apart from God, made to separate the Father from the Son, and tear a part of God Himself away, destroying thus His Wholeness.
²Can a world arising from such a thought be real?
³Where could it be?
⁴Deny illusions, but accept the truth.
⁵Deny that you are a shadow briefly cast upon a dying world.
⁶Free your mind, and you will behold a world set free.
14. Today our purpose is to free the world from all the idle thoughts we ever held about it and about all living things we see within it.
²They cannot be there, and neither can we.
³For we are in the home our Father set for us, along with them.
⁴And we, who are as He created us, would free the world this day from every one of our illusions so we may be free.
15. Begin today’s two practice periods of fifteen minutes each with this:
²I, who remain as God created me,
would release the world from all I thought it was.
³For I am real because the world is not,
and I would know my own reality.
⁴Then rest simply, alert but without strain, and let your mind be changed in stillness so the world may be released along with you.
16. You need not realize that when you send these thoughts to bless the world, healing comes to many brothers across the world, as well as to those nearby.
²But you will feel your own release, though you may not yet fully understand that you could never be released alone.
17. Increase throughout the day the release you send to all the world through your ideas. And whenever you feel tempted to deny the power of this simple change of mind, say:
²I release the world from all I thought it was,
and choose my own reality instead.
I Today’s Lesson is crucial in the learning process of this Course, for it gathers together everything you have learned so far and uses it as the instrument that will allow you to free your mind, imprisoned by the beliefs of the past. Therefore, take it calmly and seriously, pause for a moment, and pay attention.
The function of will is to create. The Will of the Mind of God, of the Son of God, and of the Creations of the Son of God creates without ceasing throughout all eternity. It is one Mind, for it is one Existence. It is pure, infinite, unlimited, and timeless being—indistinguishable, full, perfectly abstract, absolute, and shared.
To believe, however, is to make something real exclusively for oneself. But in this case, you must keep in mind that now the notions of “making real,” “something,” and that “oneself” as the subject who believes are false; they are three illusions—they do not exist, they are not true. This is because they are notions that do not share the attributes of Existence as described before. A subject cannot exist apart from its creation, for both notions must necessarily exist within the same realm, since to create is to extend, and what has been extended must share the same attributes as its creator. This is the reason why ideas do not leave their source. Ideas are creations that exist in the same realm in which they originated: the mind.
In this Lesson, that “oneself” is the idea you have of yourself; the “something” is the world you believe you see; and “making real” is believing that the world is real. “You” believe that “the world” “is real.” These are the three illusions this Course intends to dispel.
The first illusion: you. You are not that tiny idea you have of yourself, according to which you interpret yourself as a fragile and vulnerable body destined to suffer and die. You are the Son of God who harbors a senseless belief derived from the idea of being separated from God. You, Son of God, do not harbor only that false idea in your holy mind; you hold a myriad of similar ideas derived from it, in the sense that, though they seem different, they are all equally false.
These illusions your mind harbors are effects; therefore, they cannot be the cause of anything. Yet, since you have granted them your own identity, you interpret them as active and autonomous subjects capable of making their own decisions. They are not. They do not exist. It is you, Son of God, all the time—or, rather, you in the present—because the notion of time, too, is something you invented to separate yourself even further from the spurious ideas you conceive. They are not true ideas; they are illusions. Were they real, they would be eternal, as you are.
The second illusion: the world. The world is an idea—false, indeed. This is something so obvious that its very simplicity confuses you. You have built a complex story composed of countless aspects, details, contrasts, and differences; then you have forgotten that you conceived all of it yourself, and now you think that story is true. To believe is nothing more than that. But notice the power you have given it over you by labeling that story as true. The grip that idea now has on you is absolute, though its scope lies solely within your own hallucinated mind.
You—the idea you have of yourself—are not in the world; you are in your mind. The things you believe you see are also there. The body, the senses you have given it to perceive, and the messages they bring to you are also ideas in your mind. The space in which you think they exist is nothing more than an opinion you hold about how separate those ideas are from the idea you have of yourself. And time is nothing but a trick you have devised to make it impossible for you to reach them unless they are in the present.
Do you see? Everything is in your mind. And this should fill you with immense joy, because it means you have absolute control over all of it—and it is something you can change and undo whenever you wish. But be careful how you interpret this, for if you think this is a task that belongs to that sick part of your mind that believes in separation—your ego—you will do nothing but continue dreaming. And if you leave control to it, it will frighten you, for that is its function.
The third illusion: the “reality” of the world. Now pause for a moment and consider what the word “real” means to you. No doubt it is a term that evokes in your mind materiality, concreteness, form, and above all, existence apart from your mind. To everything that has those characteristics, you give the name “real.” Well, get used to thinking that all those attributes belong precisely to illusions.
Everything is exactly the opposite of what you believed it to be. Although there are many solid ontological arguments that could explain this to you, there is one you will understand very well because it affects you deeply, and it is this: all those things you call real are exactly the opposite of what you are.
The awareness you have of yourself is not material, nor concrete, nor does it have form—and it is, of course, in your mind. So if the world is real, you are not; and vice versa. Here the trap your mind has set for itself has simply been to corrupt language and then forget that betrayal of truth. Realize that words are symbols invented to tell stories, fables, falsehoods.
Nothing you can articulate with words is strictly true, for words are precisely the language of illusion: at best, they can only point to truth. You have all power. You always have and always will, for God ordained it to be so when He created you. Therefore, you can falsely create for yourself, or you can drop the stories and begin to heal your holy mind and restore your own dignity before yourself—for before God, you never lost it. In truth, you do not even need to heal anything, for you were created perfect—failure-proof.
Where, then, does the problem lie? If you are perfect, why are you hallucinating? The key to that question lies in your will. Your will is always fulfilled, and, as you have already seen, you can use it either to create or to believe. How you use it depends on you. The attraction you now feel toward the idea of being separate, of being “yourself”—which is precisely what has caused all this mess—is the very same that captivated you since time immemorial and that you renew in the present every time you refer to yourself as “I” or ego.
Perhaps that surprises you, but, as it says in the Text: “Your present state is the best concrete example of how the mind could have made the ego. If it can occur that way in the present, why should it be surprising that it occurred that way in the past?” (T-4.III.3).
Be honest. The world—the dream—is as it is because you want it that way. Your mind is stressed, and that has caused it to split into two completely different and opposing parts. One of them is real, whole, and happy, and remains in perfect communion with all that exists; the other dreams of being “I.” This part of your mind, deluded with the idea of false autonomy, is the one taking this Course and saying it wants to heal—but that is not strictly true: you are still quite self-deceived.
You say you want to return to the Heart of God and to perfect Amorphousness, but half-heartedly. In truth, what you want is to eat a hamburger, win the lottery, or who knows what other madness. Acknowledge it, but do not be disheartened by it. Honesty will always serve you well in the long run, for in the present it tends to sting a little.
Rejoice that such a mental delusion is nearing its end. If it brings you comfort, that specific “I” reading these lines does not have much confusion left. You are already beginning to glimpse, though still very faintly, that there is an immense joy very near you, merely waiting for your sincere decision. So use time well, get moving, and forgive the world. That is the way home.
II These effects arise from erroneous conceptions, and questioning them is what is known as cognitive therapy: a set of psychotherapy modalities that seek to bring about changes in patients’ perceptions or thoughts about the circumstances of their lives. The central postulate of cognitive therapy is that people suffer because of how they interpret events, not because of the events themselves. The therapist seeks to help the patient make the attribution of meaning more flexible and find interpretations that are more functional and suitable for himself.
III T-5.VIII.6:1 “Ideas do not LEAVE the mind that thought them to have a separate existence.”
T-26.VII.7:1-3 “Ideas do not leave their source, and their effects only SEEM to be separated from them. Ideas belong to the realm of the mind. What is projected OUTWARD, and seems to be something EXTERNAL to the mind, is NOT outside at all, but is an effect of what is within, for it has NOT left its source.”
And many other references.
IV This may be a reference to near-death experiences, which first gained public attention in 1975 (five years after this material was dictated) through the book Life After Life by Raymond Moody. Near-death experiences share many characteristics with the scenario described earlier: they are life-changing events occurring at the threshold of death, in which the person sometimes sees that the world is an illusion, after which they recover—sometimes miraculously—and, filled with a profound sense of purpose, often teach others the truths they have learned through that experience.
V This refers to experiences of heightened consciousness in which a direct understanding of truth occurs. They are ineffable revelations in which the knower and the known are one and the same, and it cannot be said that there is a “subject” experiencing “something” different from itself. Such experiences may occur in moments of wakefulness or during sleep, when consciousness is not so strained by the notion of personhood. The physical world—including the notions of separation, time, space, or form—reveals itself as completely illusory in contrast to the absolute certainty that is experienced.
VI Isaiah 26:19 “Your dead shall live; together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.”
Isaiah 35:5–6 “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute shall sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.”
Matthew 10:1 “And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.”
Matthew 10:8 “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.”
Matthew 11:5 “The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”
There are numerous references in the Bible to healing and to the resurrection of the dead.
VII See Lessons 94 and 110.