Author: gongarola@gmail.com

Salvation is the only cure.

1. No remedy the world considers helpful can truly be called a cure.

²The world’s therapeutic remedies merely “improve” the body.

³When they attempt to heal the mind, they treat it as though it were part of the body, and located within it.

⁴Their methods of healing only exchange one illusion for another.

⁵The belief in sickness now takes a different form, and the patient sees himself in this new way. ^I

2. But he has not been healed.

²He merely dreamed he was sick, and in the dream, he found a magic formula for a cure.

³Yet he has not awakened from the dream, and so his mind remains exactly as it was before.

⁴He has not seen the light that would awaken him and end the dream.

⁵What does the content of a dream truly matter? ^II

⁶For one is either asleep or awake.

⁷There is no in-between.

3. The happy dreams the Holy Spirit offers are different from the dreams of the world, where all one can do is dream of being awake.

²The dreams forgiveness brings to the mind do not reinforce the sleep, and so the dreamer can dream a different dream.

³Now his happy dreams are messengers announcing the dawn of truth in his mind.

⁴They lead from sleep to gentle waking, until all dreams vanish.

⁵And in this way, these dreams do heal for all eternity.

4. Atonement heals with certainty and cures all sickness.

²For the mind that understands sickness can only be a dream is not deceived by any form the dream may take.

³Where there is no guilt, there can be no sickness, for sickness is but another form of guilt.

⁴Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not healing.

⁵Atonement undoes the guilt that made sickness possible.

⁶And that is true healing.

⁷For now sickness has disappeared, and there is nothing left for it to return to. ^III

5. Peace be with you, who have been healed in God and not in idle dreams.^IV

²For healing comes from Holiness, and Holiness cannot be found where sin is valued.

³God dwells in holy temples.

⁴He is forbidden entry where sin has entered.

⁵Yet there is no place where He is not.

⁶Therefore, sin can have no home where it hides from His Lovingkindness.

6. There is no place where Holiness is absent, nor any where sin and sickness can abide.

²This is the thought that heals.

³It makes no distinctions between one unreality and another.

⁴Nor does it attempt to heal what is not sick, for it knows where healing is truly needed.

⁵This is not magic.

⁶It is simply an appeal to truth, which cannot but heal, and heal forever.

⁷It is not a thought that judges an illusion by its size, its seeming gravity, or by anything that pertains to how it appears.

⁸It focuses only on what is real, and in truth, it knows no illusion can be real.

7. Let us not attempt to heal today what cannot be sick.

²Surely healing must be sought, but only for what can be sick—and then it must be applied, that it may be healed. ^V

³None of the remedies the world provides can change anything at all. ^VI

⁴What truly changes is the mind that brings illusions to the truth.

⁵There is no other change but this.

⁶For how is one illusion different from another, except by attributes that lack all substance, reality, essence, or anything truly distinct?

8. Today we seek to change our thoughts about the source of sickness, for we seek a cure for every illusion, not the exchange of one illusion for another.

²Today we will attempt to find the Source of healing, which lies within our mind, because our Father placed it there for us.

³As close to us as we are to ourselves.

⁴As near as our own thoughts, as immediate as breath itself—impossible not to see. ^VII

⁵We need only seek it, and we will find it.

9. Today we will not be deceived by what seems to be sick.

²We go beyond appearances to reach the Source of healing, which affects all things.

³We will succeed to the extent that we realize there is no meaningful difference between what is false and what is equally false.

⁴There are no degrees here, and we will not believe that what does not exist can be more real in some forms than in others.

⁵All are false, and all can be healed, because none are true.

10. So we lay aside our talismans, our charms and medicines, our spells and tricks of magic—whatever form they take. ^VIII

²Today we enter deep stillness, and listen to the Voice of healing, which will cure all ills as one, restoring sanity to the Son of God.

³No voice but This can truly heal.

⁴Today we listen to one Voice alone, Which speaks of truth where all illusions end, and peace returns to God’s eternal, quiet home.

11. We awaken by hearing that Voice, and we let It speak to us for five minutes.

²And we close the day by listening once again for five minutes before we go to sleep.

³We prepare by letting go of every interfering thought—not one by one, but all at once.

⁴For they are all the same.

⁵There is no need to distinguish them, and so delay the moment when we can hear our Father speak to us.

⁶We hear Him now.

⁷Today we go to Him.

12. Holding nothing in our hands, with hearts uplifted and minds attentive, we pray:

²Salvation is the only cure.

³Speak to us, Father, that we may be healed.

⁴And we shall feel salvation cover us in gentle protection and in peace so deep that no illusion can disturb our mind or prove to us it is real.

⁵This is what we will learn today.

⁶We will repeat our healing prayer each hour, and give one minute to hearing the response that is given us in answer to our prayer, waiting in happy silence.

⁷Today is the day when healing comes to us.

⁸This is the day when separation ends, and we remember who we truly are.

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^I The world is an illusion, and every experience you have of it arises from what the mind believes, for illusions are nothing but beliefs.

Thus, the world believes in illness, believes in health, and also believes that a certain product or intervention can cause the body—also a belief—to heal (which is another belief), or not to heal (also a belief).

The world is built upon beliefs, for everything that exists within time and space—also beliefs—is illusory. The world “exists” in the mind that believes in it, for that is how the mind conceives and perceives it.

To believe is the power to create the impossible: what neither exists nor can exist, because it is different from its maker.

^II This is precisely the foundation of forgiveness, the true reason why you must forgive the world: because it is a dream, and dreams are but dreams. So let them pass; no matter what form they take, they are not reality and therefore irrelevant. This is also the reason why the second principle of miracles says that they are not important.

^III Notice that, although this Course constantly uses the verb to heal, it employs to cure only on very few occasions—and almost all of them in this Lesson. This is because this is a Course about causes, not about effects, which are irrelevant. The term to cure refers to symptoms—that is, the manifestation in the body (an idea in the mind) of the opinion the mind holds about itself. And that is always false—an illusion.

Curiously, the Spanish edition of the FIP reverses these terms. The word sanar (to heal) comes from the Latin sanare (to restore health), and this from sanus (sound, sane, not insane). The word curar (to cure), however, comes from the Latin curare, meaning to care for, to attend to; it has a more physical character. Thus, when you “cure” (care for, attend to) a wound, it “heals.”

^IV John 20:19 “Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’”

John 20:21 “So Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.’”

John 20:26 “And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, ‘Peace be with you.

^V What cannot be sick is the body, for the simple reason that the body does not exist. The body is an illusion dreamt by the mind, which is real; therefore, the mind is the only thing that can be healed.

Today’s Lesson is unequivocal regarding what true healing is. Healing has nothing at all to do with curing the body, because this Course is about truth, not about improving illusions—even though that is what most of its students initially seek when they first approach it.

At this point, having accepted to some degree that the world is an illusion and that the idea of being a person is a consideration of the mind stressed by the idea of separation, it is understandable that the body is only a symbol the mind uses to articulate its dream of independence from God.

The body, in itself, is nothing. It is but a fabrication of a mind terrified by a truly frightening idea: the idea of being alone—separate from everything and confined within a fragile, temporary container. If you identify yourself with that idea, you cannot help but feel threatened and endangered. The story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is precisely the teaching that this is not true—that death is but an unfounded fear and that the body has no importance whatsoever.

This Course is about the healing of the mind. The curing of the body and the miracles that may occur as a consequence of that healing are but symbols within the dream, signifying that the mind is awakening to its true identity. That is why the second principle of miracles says that miracles are not important; illusions never can be. The purpose of this Course is not to perform miracles—though you will see them everywhere around you—but to heal the confused mind. Miracles are the effect of that healing, of that new way of understanding your reality and that of your brothers.

Notice how the Course uses the word healing when referring to what is real, and curing when referring to what is illusory. The body is an effect whose cause is the mind. A sick mind, harboring feelings of guilt and unworthiness, will conceive a sick and distorted body, for it projects in its dream something that reflects the idea it holds of itself.

A mind that is healing and awakening will see itself in a healthy, functional body, wholly dedicated to the healing of a world as illusory as the body in which it perceives itself.

A perfectly healthy mind is perfectly awake and does not dream at all. It conceives no forms nor relates to them in spatiotemporal terms; a healed mind creates in eternity.

^VI Because the remedies of the world are illusions—effects—just like the symptoms they intend to cure, which are also effects, manifestations of the mind’s idea of itself. And effects do not relate to other effects, for they can do nothing of themselves.

Effects merely bear witness to what the mind thinks, and they have no power in themselves to accomplish anything. All power belongs to the mind.

^VII Deuteronomy 30:11–14 “For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.”

^VIII Jesus knows perfectly well that as long as you are identified with the idea of being a person, you are prone to fear. In fact, that tendency has made you addicted to frightening yourself, and you will find it difficult to let pass any opportunity to instill fear and guilt within yourself. You will even use this Course to do so. Try to restrain yourself a little, and do not punish yourself for failing to meet the lofty goals this Course proposes.

If your body falls ill, look within your mind—without obsession and with detachment—for possible unforgiveness your mind may have been harboring. It is a good opportunity to review your life and heal guilt, sin, and old grievances. Let them go. Do not hold them against anyone. Let them pass, and ask with all your heart for Jesus and the Holy Spirit to remove them from your mind forever. They cannot remain there without your active participation. Be very honest about this.

Pray, forgive, and trust. If you do this rightly, you will not heal—you are already healed—and the symptoms will disappear. Yet if doubt and fear still linger in your mind—even in their mildest form—do not worry, and resort to whatever curative (magical) means seem reasonable and appropriate to you. But above all, do not stress or feel guilty.

Be sure of two things: you are not yet ready for miraculous healing, but you are walking in the right direction. Relax and persevere. Jesus needs miracle workers like you—those who can face any difficulty and are not stopped even by their own weaknesses.

I will accept the Atonement for myself.

1. With this, all decisions come to an end.

²For in doing so, we choose to accept ourselves exactly as God created us.

³And what is choosing, if not entertaining uncertainty about what we are?

⁴All doubt rests on this.

⁵There is no doubt that does not reflect uncertainty about one’s own identity.

⁶There is no conflict that does not contain the single, simple question: “What am I?”

2. Yet who could ask this question except one who has refused to recognize himself?

²Only the refusal to accept oneself could make the question seem sincere.

³The only thing any living being can know with certainty is what he is.

⁴From this single certainty, he perceives other things as being just as certain as himself.

3. Uncertainty about what you are is such an enormous self-deception that its magnitude is almost beyond conception.

²To be alive and not know yourself is to believe that you are actually dead.

³For what is Life but to be yourself?

⁴And what else but you could possibly be alive in your place?

⁵Who is the one who doubts?

⁶What is he doubting?

⁷Whom is he asking?

⁸And who could possibly answer?

4. This uncertainty merely states that he is not himself; and so, believing he is something else, he becomes the one who asks what that something is. ^I

²Yet he could not be alive if he did not know the answer.

³If he asks as though he did not know, he is merely demonstrating that he does not wish to be what he is.

⁴Yet he must have accepted what he is, because he is alive.

⁵But he has condemned it, denied its worth, and chosen to believe he does not know the one certainty by which he lives.

5. That is why he doubts his life, for he has denied what his life is.

²This denial is why you need the Atonement.

³Your denial has not changed what you are in the least.

⁴But you have split your mind in two: one part that knows the truth, and one that does not.

⁵You are yourself.

⁶And that is beyond all doubt.

⁷Yet you do doubt it.

⁸But you do not ask which part of you could truly doubt yourself.

⁹That part which is questioning cannot really be part of you.

¹⁰For it is questioning the one who does know the answer.

¹¹If it were truly part of you, it would not doubt. ^II

6. The Atonement corrects the strange idea that it is possible to doubt yourself and not be certain of what you truly are.

²This is the height of madness.

³Yet it is the universal question of this world.

⁴And what could this possibly mean except that the world is insane?

⁵Why share in its madness by believing that what is so widespread here must be true?

⁶Nothing the world believes is true.

⁷The world is a place whose purpose is to be the home where those who claim not to know themselves can come to question what they are.

⁸And they will keep coming until the Atonement is accepted, and they learn that it is impossible to doubt themselves and not be aware of what they are.

7. You can only be asked to accept this, for what you are is beyond all question.

²It is forever established in the holy Mind of God and in your own.

³It lies so far beyond all doubt and questioning that to ask what you are is the only proof you need to recognize you believe in a contradiction: that you do not know what it is impossible not to know.

⁴Is this truly a question, or rather a statement that denies itself by being asked?

8. Let us not allow our holy minds to dwell on such absurd reflections.

²We have a mission to fulfill in this world.

³We did not come to reinforce the madness in which we once believed.

⁴Let us not forget the goal we have accepted.

⁵We came to reach far more than our own happiness.

⁶What we accept as being proclaims what everyone else cannot help but be along with us.

⁷Do not fail your brothers, or you will be failing yourself.

⁸Behold them with Love, so they may know they are part of you, and you of them.

9. This is what the Atonement teaches, and it proves that the oneness of the Son of God is untouched by his belief that he does not know what he is.

²Accept the Atonement today—not to change reality, but simply to accept the truth about yourself—and then go forth rejoicing in the infinite Love of God.

³This is what we are asked to do.

⁴And this is all we will do today.

10. Today we will devote five minutes in the morning and five minutes at night to this task.

²We begin by reviewing our mission with these words:

³I will accept the Atonement for myself.

⁴For I remain as God created me.

11. We have not lost the Knowledge God gave us when He created us like Himself.

²We can remember it for everyone, for in Creation all minds are one.

³And we retain in our memory the remembrance of how deeply we truly loved our brothers; of how all minds are part of us; of how faithful they truly have been to us; and of how the Love of our Father embraces us all.

12. Grateful for all of Creation, and in the Name of its Creator and His Oneness with every aspect of Creation, we reaffirm today our dedication to our cause each hour, letting go of every thought that would distract us from our holy purpose.

²Clear your mind for a moment of all the foolish cobwebs the world has spun around the holy Son of God, and see how fragile are the chains that seem to keep the knowledge of yourself beyond your awareness, as you say:

³I will accept the Atonement for myself.

⁴For I remain as God created me.

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^I Were it not for the apparently tragic consequences of this split in the mind, you would have to admit that, though the situation has dramatic overtones, it also has its comic side: a subject wanders through an imaginary world—product of a myriad of beliefs he blindly upholds without question—yet harbors enormous uncertainty about himself, which, ironically, is the only thing of which he should be certain.

^II Perhaps, when you read this paragraph explaining that your mind is divided into two parts, it occurs to you to think that human beings have their minds divided into two parts. That is not so. The concept of “human being” is an idea that appears precisely in one of those two parts into which your mind, Son of God, seems to be divided. You have only one mind, which you share with all the Sonship, and that mind is whole and not divided at all, for God created it perfect. That division is not real, but purely imaginary. Were it real, the mind would be split for all eternity, for that would be its condition.

The human being—the concept of person or individual identity—is that virtual part of the mind that questions its own identity. You, as a person, as a human being, therefore do not have a mind divided into two parts. No. When you identify with your body and believe yourself to be in the world living a temporal life, you are experiencing yourself as the effect of that imaginary part of the mind that entertains the idea of separation.

What you understand as a “person” is a concept conceived by your hallucinated mind; it is the expression of the sick part of the mind’s vocation to be separate. Persons, from a strictly ontological standpoint, are effects, not subjects; they are not the cause of anything. That is why “persons” cannot be guilty: they have no entity and do not exist in reality.

If you have some understanding of computer science, you will grasp the following allegory, which is quite accurate. You can interpret the mind of the Son of God as the hard drive of a computer. Just as that hard drive is physically real, the mind of the Son of God is absolutely real. Now, perhaps you know that you can partition your hard drive to generate a virtual drive. It is still the same hard drive—nothing has changed—but you have given it instructions to interpret itself as if it were two. Now your computer apparently has two hard drives, the sum of which equals the total capacity of the physical drive. You can use one of those partitions for one purpose—for example, for applications and work documents—and the other for games.

The mind of the Son of God functions similarly: one part creates in eternity, and the other believes in the idea of separation and conceives imaginary worlds. The purpose of this Course is the integration of the mind and the end of that virtual partition; and the strategy it proposes to achieve this is to convince the imaginary part to stop engaging in unsatisfying pursuits and return to the fullness of which it is part.

For that integration to take place, the will must be involved. But since the will is always involved—being one of the three aspects of Being—it must now change: from desiring separation to choosing Heaven.

This Lesson, as indeed all the Lessons of this Course to some degree, appeals to your will so that you may be firmly willing to cease questioning your identity and to accept your condition as the Son of God. That is healing, and that is the Atonement. That is why you need to repeat to yourself that you accept the Atonement for yourself.

Heaven is the choice I must make.

1. In this world, Heaven is something that must be chosen, because here we believe there are alternatives from which to choose.

²We think that all things must have an opposite, and then we choose the one we want.

³If Heaven exists, then hell must exist as well, for contradiction is the way we fabricate what we perceive and believe to be real.

2. Creation has no opposite.

²Yet here, the opposite of what exists is also considered part of what is “real.” ^I

³This strange perception of truth is what makes choosing Heaven seem like giving up hell.

⁴In truth, it is not so.

⁵But what is true in the Creation of God cannot be made manifest here unless it is reflected in a form the world can understand.

⁶Truth cannot enter where it is feared.

⁷For this is the error of thinking truth can be brought to illusion.

⁸The very act of regarding what is opposite to Reality as real is an attack upon the truth.

⁹And that is why truth cannot come here.

3. Choosing is the obvious escape from all opposing thoughts. ^II

²To make a choice means that you invest your effort and your time in only one of two conflicting goals.

³If you do not choose, you waste your time, and your efforts go nowhere.

⁴Your investment is in vain.

⁵And time slips by without result.

⁶You feel you have gained nothing, for you have neither achieved nor learned anything.

4. You need to be reminded that although you believe you face a thousand choices, there is only one you need to make.

²And even that one only seems to be a choice. ^III

³Let not the host of doubts that a thousand decisions would induce confuse you.

⁴You are making but one.

⁵And once you make it, you will realize that it was not a choice at all.

⁶For only truth is true, and that is all there is to reality.

⁷There is nothing opposed to truth for you to choose instead.

⁸There is nothing that contradicts it.

5. Decisions are made based on what has been learned.

²But truth cannot be learned.

³Truth is simply recognized.

⁴And when you recognize it, you accept it.

⁵And in accepting it, you know it.

⁶Yet Knowledge lies beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework of this Course.

⁷Our teaching goals are attained through learning how to reach them, what they are, and what they offer you.

⁸Your decisions result from what you have learned, for they reflect what you have accepted as the truth of what you are, and thus of what your needs must be.

6. In this insane and twisted world, Heaven seems to be a choice you make instead of something that simply is.

²Of all the choices you have tried to make, this is the simplest, the most definitive, and the prototype that resolves them all.

³Even if you had made every other choice, this one would still remain to be made.

⁴But when you make it, all others are resolved with it, for they are but veils that hide it under different forms. ^IV

⁵This is the final choice, the one in which the truth is either accepted or denied.

7. And so today we begin to look upon this choice.

²Time was made for this, to be the aid in helping you to make this choice.^V

³This is its holy purpose, now transformed from what you made it for.

⁴You made it as a means to prove that hell is real, that hope turns into despair, and that life itself must ultimately give way to death.

⁵You believed that death alone could resolve the conflict of opposing values, for ending opposition was to you the same as dying.

⁶And so you saw death as salvation, for you believed life was conflict.

⁷To you, to end the conflict was to end life as well.

8. These mad beliefs can lie entrenched so deeply in the mind’s unconscious that they grip it with such terror and anxiety that it cannot abandon the ideas it made to save itself.

²It now believes it must be saved from salvation, feel threatened to be safe, and be protected from the truth through magic.

³And to protect such thoughts, these decisions are made unconsciously, without awareness, reason, or doubt. ^VI

9. But Heaven is consciously chosen.

²It is a choice that cannot be made until alternatives are accurately perceived and clearly understood.

³All that is hidden in the shadows must be raised to understanding to be judged again, this time with the help of Heaven.

⁴And all the errors of judgment the mind made before can now be corrected, for the truth dismisses them as having no cause.

⁵They now have no effects.

⁶They cannot be concealed, for their lack of substance is now recognized.

10. To choose Heaven consciously is as sure as ending fear of hell, once its unconscious shield has been removed and brought into the light.

²Who could decide between what he clearly sees and what he does not even recognize?

³But who could fail to choose between alternatives when only one of them is seen as having any value at all, and the other is seen as wholly worthless—nothing but a source of illusions, guilt, and pain?

⁴Who would hesitate to make such a choice?

⁵Shall we now hesitate to choose today?

11. We choose Heaven as we wake, and devote five minutes to ensuring we have made the only sane decision.

²We recognize that we are making a conscious choice between what really exists and what only seems to be.

³And when we bring its seeming reality to what is real, its weakness and transparency become clear in the light of truth.

⁴Now it no longer frightens, for what seemed enormous, vengeful, and with merciless hate requires darkness to be feared.

⁵Now it is seen as nothing but a foolish error, trivial and meaningless.

12. Throughout the day, we reaffirm our choice each hour, with a brief moment of quiet dedicated to preserving sanity.

²And as we go to sleep tonight, we once again confirm the choice we made each hour, and devote the final five minutes of our day to remembering the decision we made upon awakening.

³And we end the day by acknowledging we have simply chosen what we truly want, saying:

⁴Heaven is the choice I must make.

⁵I choose Heaven now, and I will not change my mind,

⁶Because Heaven is the only thing I want.

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^I This refers to the profoundly important cognitive bias of granting reality to absences—something that has already been discussed at length, yet can never be emphasized enough, for it is the core mechanism of the perception of the imaginary. This is not a cognitive bias formally identified by academic psychology, for it is so absolutely universal that it may be said to be part of the very condition of being human. Everything human, everything “physical,” the entire universe itself, arises into “existence” in the alienated mind by giving entity to what is absent.

Perception can take place only through contrasts, through distinctions, through separation. In order to perceive anything, you must contrast it, distinguish it, and separate it from everything else. For something to “exist” in your perception, it must necessarily be surrounded by the “nonexistence” of itself. In the perceptual realm, the absence of something is what gives that something its meaning. You call “space” what does not exist—what is not—and yet, for you, it is an extraordinarily significant concept, because it is what enables you to perceive.

What is, is; and what is not, is not. But in this deceitful world, what is not also is. In this insane world, it is believed that what is missing—the negative—has an existence of its own, and thus it is treated and attacked as such. This is why, here, evil is fought against—though it is nothing but the absence of good—for it is regarded as a fearsome and threatening enemy, instead of supplying the good that is plainly lacking. This is what illusion is: an ontological perversion—a play of shadows and voids within the fullness of love.

When you go to the cinema, a play of light and shadow produced by the interposition of the film’s frames against the projector’s light gives form on the screen to stories that make you laugh and cry. On that screen you see nothing but light and shadow in rapid succession—yet you are moved. It is nothing but a play of light and darkness, and your mind does the rest.

Realize that what happens in the cinema is an allegory of what you believe you see in your imaginary world. Think of God as the projector, whose light is His Love; the screen as consciousness; and the film as the will to be separate from God. The frame projected in an instant you call the present; those that precede it, the past; and those that follow, the future. Thus you construct your world. That film is not true, yet you have paid a high price for the ticket.

At some point, the possibility that there could be something other than the Love of God crossed your mind, and you began to imagine a world of shadows. Shadows are only the absence of light—but there you are, hunched in the seat of a dark theater, watching fantasies and believing them to be true. Yet, if you became aware of what was happening, how could you possibly suffer?

Realize that it makes no difference whether you are in Heaven or believe yourself to be in the world: a lucid mind cannot suffer—ever, under any circumstance.

^II This entire Lesson revolves around the choice between what exists and what does not exist, between what is real and what is illusory. Obviously, only what is real exists, and it is perfectly abstract, limitless, and eternal; but the mind’s will to choose the impossible leads it to perceive a world of illusions that will never satisfy it, because they are not in accord with its own nature, which is real and, therefore, perfectly abstract, limitless, and eternal as well.

This is why the world does not know the meaning of love and is perplexed by the notion of consciousness, which it cannot locate within its material, concrete universe.

Now the sense of self-identity confuses the subject who questions it, and expressions such as “Know thyself” become true riddles. Which is surprising—were it not still more surprising that such a crucial question should be asked and left unanswered.

^III Can choosing what alone exists even be called a choice?

^IV The world’s purpose is precisely to distract the mind from the truth. That is the only purpose illusions have: to deceive the subject who entertains them.

An illusion that fails to deceive its maker is a poor illusion—or else it faces a subject who has set his will not to be deceived. One must keep in mind that an illusion “works” only with the consent of the one who beholds it; the subject must want to be deceived for the illusion to be effective.

^V This is one way of reinterpreting personal life and understanding it as a path toward awakening to the truth—the Atonement—instead of a dreary journey toward death.

^VI The ego’s true fear—the fear of the separate personal identity—is the fear of its own annihilation. There is nothing the ego fears more than the Love of God; that is why it keeps the mind entertained by proposing magical solutions to nonexistent problems of its own invention. Thus it keeps the mind busy improving the world or glorifying and protecting the body.

All this happens automatically and unconsciously, because the mind takes for granted the “reality” paradigm it faces. It does not question it at all, for it cannot conceive that everything it is telling itself is not true. The hypnotic power of beliefs is absolute in the mind that does not question. And how could the mind question the reality of what it perceives if it regards perception itself as something unquestionable a priori?

The mind that cannot distinguish between being and seeming to be cannot be free. Realize that this Lesson deals, above all, with the exercise of will.

When I am healed, I am not healed alone.

1. The idea for today remains the central thought upon which salvation rests.

²For healing is the opposite of all the world’s ideas, which are centered on sickness and states of separation.

³To be sick is to turn away from others and refuse to join with them.

⁴Sickness is a door that locks away a separate being, keeping him isolated and alone.

2. Sickness is isolation. ^I

²For it seems to keep one separate from the rest, so that he suffers what no one else can feel.

³Sickness gives the body the ultimate power to make separation real, and to keep the mind confined in solitude, divided and held in fragments by a solid wall of sickened flesh from which there is no escape.

⁴The world abides by the laws that sickness serves, but healing works beyond them.

3. It is impossible for anyone to heal alone. ^II

²In sickness, one can only be apart and separate.

³Healing, however, results from his own decision to be made one again, and to accept his Self with all its parts intact and unassailable.

⁴In sickness, his Self seems torn apart and lacking the unity that gives it life.

⁵But healing comes through the understanding that the body holds no power to attack the universal Oneness of the Son of God.

⁶Sickness seeks to prove that lies must be the truth.

⁷But healing proves that truth is true.

4. The separation that sickness tries to impose has never truly happened.

²Healing is nothing but the acceptance of what has always been the simple truth, and what will remain exactly as it always was.

³But to eyes accustomed to illusions, it must be shown that what they see is false.

⁴This is why healing—though never needed by the truth—must show that sickness is not real.

5. Healing, then, might be seen as a “counter-dream,” something that undoes the dream of sickness in the name of truth, though not truth itself.^III

²Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins that never were committed, healing merely removes illusions that never happened.

³And just as the real world will arise to take the place of what never was, healing repairs imagined states and false ideas that dreams have made appear as images of the truth.

6. Yet do not think that healing is unworthy of your function here.

²For the anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those who dream the world is real. ^IV

³The body appears more solid and more stable than the mind.

⁴And Love becomes a dream, while fear remains the only reality that can be seen, justified, and fully understood.

7. Just as forgiveness makes all sin disappear, and the real world will replace what you have made, healing must take the place of sickly fantasies that you oppose to the simple truth.

²When sickness is seen to vanish despite all laws that claim it must be real, then all questions have been answered.

³And such laws can no longer be respected or obeyed.

8. Healing is freedom.

²For it shows that dreams cannot prevail against the truth.

³Healing is shared.

⁴And this quality proves that its laws are stronger than their sickly opposites, which claim that sickness must be inevitable.

⁵Healing is strength.

⁶For through its gentle hand, weakness is overcome.

⁷And minds once walled within a body are set free to join with other minds, and to be strong forever.

9. Healing, forgiveness, and the joyful exchange of the world of pain for one where sorrow has no place are the means the Holy Spirit gives you to follow Him.

²His gentle lessons teach how easily salvation can be attained, and how little you need do to let His laws replace the ones you made to keep you prisoner to death.

³Your life becomes the one He offers you when you give the little help He asks, that you may free yourself from all that ever caused you pain. [v]

10. And when you let yourself be healed, you see that all those around you are healed with you—those you think of, those beside you, and even those who seem to have no contact with you.

²You may not recognize them all, nor realize how great the gift you give the world when you allow healing to come to you.

³For you will never heal alone.

⁴When you are healed, a countless number of your brothers receive the gift you have received.

11. Those who are healed become healing instruments.

²And in the very instant they are healed, all the Grace of healing is bestowed upon them to be given.

³What stands against God does not exist, and the one who does not welcome illusions into his mind becomes a refuge where his weary brothers may find rest.

⁴For there is where the truth is given, and where all illusions are brought to it. ^VI

12. Would you not offer refuge to the Will of God?

²For in so doing, you invite your Self to dwell in Its home.

³Could such an invitation ever be refused?

⁴Ask for what is inevitable, and you will never fail.

⁵The other choice is but to ask for what cannot be, and this can never succeed.

⁶Today we ask that only truth inhabit our minds; that on this day, thoughts of healing move from what is already healed to what must still be healed, knowing both will occur at once.

13. When the hour strikes, we will remember that our function is to allow our minds to be healed, so we may bring healing to the world, and thus exchange curse for blessing, pain for joy, and separation for the Peace of God.

²Is it not worth one minute of each hour in exchange for such a gift?

³Is that not a tiny investment for a gift that gives everything?

14. Yet for such a gift we must prepare.

²Therefore, we will devote ten minutes at the start of the day, and another ten at night, to these thoughts:

³When I am healed, I am not healed alone.

⁴And I would share my healing with the world,

⁵That sickness may be banished from the mind of God’s One Son,

⁶Who is my only Self.

15. Let healing come through you today.

²And as you rest in quiet, prepare to give what you receive.

³Be ready to retain only what you give.

⁴And be prepared to receive the Word of God, to take the place of all the senseless thoughts you ever held.

⁵Now we join in healing all that was sick, and bringing blessings where there once was attack.

16. We will not let ourselves forget this function through the day, remembering our purpose with this thought:

²When I am healed, I am not healed alone.

³And I will bless my brothers,

⁴For I would heal with them,

⁵As they will heal with me.

---

^I Few ideas are as hard to accept as this: illness is voluntary. And yet, this Lesson cannot be learned without assuming it. Whereas other teachings of the Course—regarding relationships, attitudes, or perceptions—seem more accessible or at least symbolic, when the Course states that the healing of the body is also a matter of decision, many begin to grow suspicious.

But here we are not asked to believe just like that. We are invited to observe, with radical honesty, the mental mechanism by which we choose to make ourselves sick and then forget it. That is the key: we make the decision quickly—out of fear, guilt, or a desire for specialness—and then we hide it. Thus illness becomes an alibi of the ego to reinforce separation: “my pain sets me apart,” “my case is different,” “no one can understand what I’m going through.” And in that self-image, the ego is strengthened.

Healing, in this context, does not consist in doing anything physical, nor even in achieving a clinical outcome. Healing is ceasing to lend yourself to the ego’s game. For this reason, the first step proposed to us is very concrete: to minimize the body and its symptoms. Do not dramatize. Do not talk about it. Do not make it identity. Not even with yourself. Illness has power only if we give it a purpose. If we take that purpose away, it loses strength.

This teaching is not aimed at perfect mystics, but at sincere students who, although they still doubt, are willing to stop deceiving themselves. And that is already a big step. Physical cure is not promised to us, but something more important is: to expose the ego’s trick, to stop using the body as an excuse not to love, and to approach that other, more real and deeper healing, which is peace.

To heal is to stop justifying separation and to choose, at last, peace.

^II No one heals alone, because no one is alone except in dreams. Healing is, precisely, the recognition that you are not separate.

Careful: do not confuse healing with ceasing to have symptoms of illness; you can lose the symptoms and still be sick. Symptoms are the way you articulate the dialogue you maintain with yourself regarding your body; they are the manifestation of the things you tell yourself.

There is only one mind that dreams it is fragmented into a myriad of separate forms. The mind attacks itself by sickening the bodies it conceives and, in the same way, heals them when it regains sanity and returns to love—its true identity—by forgiving its illusions.

That mind is you. That is what you are. And both in the dream and in reality you have all the power God granted you in your creation. And thus you will believe or create, according to what your holy mind conceives.

^III This illusory character of healing—as the repair of something that in reality never occurred—places it on a par with miracles, as seen in Miracle Principle 8 (T-1.P.8): “Miracles are a form of healing.”

It is crucial that you understand that miracles are not meant to “improve” anything that is “wrong” in the world, just as healing is not meant to heal the body. The world does not exist, and neither does the body! What sense can there be in healing an illusion? Healing, if it is true, occurs in the mind, which is the only thing that exists and, consequently, the only thing that can be healed. The wonders that miracles can accomplish in the world—or the healing of the body—are the results beheld in its dream by a mind that has been healed but has not yet awakened.

Therefore, it is essential that you understand that the mind should never seek healing or miracles with the purpose of healing the body or improving something in the world. That is not the purpose of miracles or of healing at all; for if it were, the mind would still be dreaming, believing its dream is real, and it would not truly have been healed. Miracles and healing are effects whose cause is the recognition of the simple truth: you remain as God created you.

Child of God, do not be afraid! Do not let the world’s dream frighten you. The world has no power over you, nor does it contain anything that could interest you in the least. The world is nothing! You, however, are real; you are the beloved Son of your Father. Become perfectly aware that you have every right to claim your divine heritage at any moment—right now, if you so wish—but also realize that it must be the only thing you want: the Love of God, and nothing else.

You may recall these words of Jesus in the Text: “There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The main difference between us, for now, is that I have NOTHING ELSE. That leaves me in a state of true holiness, which in you is only a POTENTIAL.” (T-1.P.84.3).

Seek clarity of understanding, seek comprehension, seek the Light and Love of God—nothing else. If you set your mind to it, your world will improve, your body will heal—but that is of no importance whatsoever. If you make it important, you will have erred again. Your body is not important; the world is not important: they are only the representation of your fears and apparent lacks.

As long as you believe you are in time, look at them askance—just enough to meet your worldly obligations; nothing more. Devote yourself solely and exclusively to being happy. Remember that you will be guided as to what is most fitting regarding “what is not important.” That is the Holy Spirit’s task in the world. Surprising as it may seem, He concerns Himself only with what has no importance; He takes care of the minutiae so that you may be carefree—even in this world—and devote yourself to what does matter: your function, which is to enjoy the happiness that is yours as the Son of God and to extend it to others.

That is why God placed His Guide to serve His Holy Son in his derangement.

^IV 1 John 2:18 “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.”

1 John 2:22 “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.”

^V Notice how important what is said here is. Reflect on it. Realize that it is crucial for you to learn to develop communication between the lower part of your mind—in which you are normally installed all the time—and the higher part, where the Voice for God resides. To this end, you will have to learn to ask from mental silence and to develop a trusting listening.

^VI That place is the mind that does not accept illusions.

Sickness is a defense against the truth.

1. No one can heal unless he understands what purpose sickness really serves.

²For then he understands as well that it has no meaningful purpose.

³Lacking cause and holding no real goal, sickness is impossible.

⁴Once this is seen, healing is automatic.

⁵This recognition dissolves the meaningless illusion by the same approach that brings all illusions to the truth, and simply lays them down to disappear.

2. Sickness is not an accident.

²Like all defenses, it is a mad device for self-deception. ^I

³And like all of them, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it useless, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of disconnected fragments.

⁴The aim of all defenses is to split the truth.

⁵Each fragment is seen as if it were the whole within itself.

3. Defenses are never made unconsciously, nor are they unintended. ^II

²They are secret, magic wands you wave when truth appears to threaten what you would believe. ^III

³They seem to be unconscious simply because of how quickly you decide to use them.

⁴In that instant, even less than a second, you are fully aware of what you are trying to do, and then you simply forget.

4. Who but you evaluates a threat, decides escape is necessary, and sets up a series of defenses to meet the threat you judge as real?

²All this cannot be done unconsciously.

³But afterward, your plan requires that you forget you made it, so it seems to be outside your own intent—a happening beyond your state of mind, an outcome with a real effect on you, instead of something you yourself caused.

5. The speed with which you choose to forget the role you play in shaping your “reality” is what makes defenses seem beyond your own control.

²But you can remember what you have forgotten if you are willing to reconsider the decision which is doubly shielded by oblivion.

³The fact you do not remember is merely the sign that this decision still remains in force, because you still desire its effects.

⁴Do not confuse this with fact.

⁵Your own defenses have obscured the truth.

⁶That is their purpose, and they accomplish it well. ^IV

6. Every defense takes fragments from the whole, assembles them without regard for how they are truly related, and thus constructs the illusion of a wholeness that does not exist.

²This process is what produces the sense of threat, not any consequence that might result.

³When you tear parts away from a perfectly unified whole and see them as separate things with meaning in themselves, they become symbols representing an attack on what is complete—and believing you have succeeded, you can no longer see the whole as one.

⁴And yet you have forgotten that these fragments represent nothing but your own decision about what should be real in order to replace what truly is. ^V

7. Sickness is a decision.

²It is not something that happens to you unwillingly, weakening you and causing you to suffer.

³It is a choice you make yourself—a plan you devise when, for an instant, the truth arises in your deluded mind, and your entire world seems to tremble and threaten to collapse.

⁴And so you become sick, that the truth may leave and no longer threaten your beliefs.

⁵What leads you to believe that sickness can succeed in protecting you from the truth?

⁶Simply this: sickness proves that the body is not separate from you, and that means you must be separate from the truth. ^VI

8. You suffer pain because the body feels it, and in that pain you become one with it.

²In this way your “true” identity is preserved, and the strange and troubling thought that you might be more than that little pile of dust is silenced and suppressed.

³For behold, that handful of dust can make you suffer, twist your limbs, stop your heart, and command you to die and cease to be.

⁴Thus, the body is stronger than the truth, which asks you to live but cannot override your decision to die.

⁵And this proves that the body is more powerful than Eternal Life, that Heaven is more fragile than hell, and that God’s plan for the salvation of His Son is opposed by a will stronger than His.

⁶The Son is nothing but dust, the Father is incomplete, and chaos sits triumphant upon the throne of God.

9. This is the plan you have made to defend yourself against the truth.

²And you believe that Heaven cowers before such insane attacks as these—attacks that blind God with your illusions, turn truth into lies, and enslave the entire universe to the laws your defenses seek to lay upon it.

³But who believes in illusions except the one who made them?

⁴Who but he could see them and respond to them as if they were true?

10. God knows nothing of your plans to alter His Will.

²The universe remains untouched by the laws you thought you placed upon it.

³And Heaven has not bowed to hell, nor has Life succumbed to death.

⁴You can only choose to believe that you die, think you suffer illness, or imagine that you have somehow succeeded in distorting the truth.

⁵What was created remains beyond all this.

⁶Defenses are plans to overcome what cannot be attacked.

⁷The unchangeable cannot change.

⁸And what is absolutely sinless cannot sin. ^VII

11. This is the simple truth.

²It does not seek to impose itself or triumph over anything.

³It does not demand obedience, nor does it try to prove how feeble and useless are your efforts to construct defenses meant to change it.

⁴Truth only seeks to make you happy, for that is its purpose.

⁵It may sigh gently when you reject Its gifts, but It knows with perfect certainty that what God wills for you must be received.

12. This fact is what proves time to be an illusion.

²For it is time that lets you think what God has given you is not true right now, exactly as it must be.

³God’s Thoughts are completely independent of time.

⁴For time is just another senseless defense you have built against the truth.

⁵Yet what God wills is what exists here and now, and you remain exactly as He created you.

⁶The power of truth lies far beyond your defenses, for no illusion can remain where truth has been allowed to enter.

⁷And truth comes to every mind that lays down its arms and ceases to play with madness.

⁸You can find it at any moment—today, if you choose to welcome it.

13. This is our goal for today.

²We will devote two fifteen-minute periods to asking truth to come and set us free. ^VIII

³And truth will come, for it has never left us.

⁴It merely waits for the invitation we extend to it today.

⁵We offer it as a prayer of healing, that it may help us rise above our defensive posture and allow the truth to be as it has always been:

⁶Sickness is a defense against the truth.

⁷I will accept the truth of what I am today.

⁸And let my mind be wholly healed.

14. Healing will shine through your receptive mind, and peace and truth will replace conflict and vain imaginings.

²There will no longer be dark corners where sickness can conceal itself and defend against the light of truth.

³Nor will the shadowy figures from your dreams remain in your mind—those distorted and senseless pursuits with hidden purposes, born of madness.

⁴And so your mind will be healed of every sick desire you had commanded the body to obey.

15. By relieving the source of sickness, the body is healed. ^IX

²And you will know you have practiced well because the body will feel nothing at all.

³If you have succeeded, there will be no sense of sickness or of wellness, no pain and no pleasure.

⁴Now the mind no longer responds at all to what the body does.

⁵Only its usefulness remains, and nothing more.

16. You may not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by assigning it the purposes you made up.

²Once those are laid aside, the body’s strength will always be enough to serve the goals that are truly useful.

³The body’s health is now fully guaranteed, for it is no longer governed by time, by weather, by fatigue, by food or drink, nor by any law you used to place upon it.

⁴You need do nothing now to make the body well, for sickness has become impossible.

17. Yet this protection must be preserved through careful watchfulness.

²If you allow your mind to entertain thoughts of attack, to judge, or to make plans to protect itself against the future, you have once again mistaken yourself, and formed a bodily identity that will attack the body—for the mind has become ill.

³In such a case, remedy it at once, and do not allow your defensive posture to go on harming you.

⁴Be not confused about what must be healed, and say to yourself: ^X

⁵I have forgotten what I really am,

⁶for I mistook my body for myself.

⁷Sickness is a defense against the truth.

⁸But I am not a body.

⁹And my mind cannot attack.

¹⁰So I cannot be sick.

---

^I This Lesson can only be understood in the context that to perceive is to dream, and that what you perceive is what you are dreaming. The dream is the result of the will to be separate and apart from what is Real. As a result of that strange vocation, you place your will in making the impossible real, and what you achieve is a notion of reality exclusive to yourself. This is how you become a subject separate from all that you perceive; this is how the Mind of the Son of God dreams an imaginary universe.

If your eyes see something your hands can touch, if your ears perceive sounds, and if you feel yourself within a body, you can be absolutely certain that you are dreaming, that what you behold is not real, and that your mind is deceiving itself because, in truth, it understands nothing of what it is imagining. That is not reality; that is nothing. It is the sad condition of a mind that has exchanged the glorious state of Existence for limitation, ignorance, and forgetfulness.

This may remind you a little of Chico Marx disguised as Groucho in the film Duck Soup, saying: “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” But look deep into your heart, and you will understand that this is the truth.

It is important that you recognize where the difficulty lies in believing that what you perceive is not real. Your perception is a mental construct shaped by a belief: you believe in what you perceive precisely because you have perceived it through a belief that is entirely chosen and accepted. If you are now told that what you perceive is not real, you are, in fact, being asked to believe something that contradicts your beliefs. In other words, a conflict of beliefs appears. In reality, these are opposing concepts your mind treats on the same level, and they contradict each other; they cannot coexist. You have no other way out of the conflict than to choose one of those beliefs and abandon the other.

This is what this Course is proposing to you at all times: that you replace one set of beliefs with another. This is a change you cannot make lightly or partially. You must do it with full awareness, absolutely and with all its consequences. Therefore, you would do well to think about it carefully, to weigh the arguments for and against, and to begin putting it systematically into practice in all aspects of your life; only experience will bring you certainty. Now observe impartially the effects that this change of paradigm has in your personal life, and conclude with honesty whether they truly benefit you. If it is evident that it is an improvement, deepen and intensify its application; if not, ask yourself whether you have interpreted this teaching correctly, or simply abandon the attempt.

To exist, to Be, Reality—it is all exactly the opposite of what you perceive, and it is something you know very well, for you vaguely remember it and constantly seek it in everything you undertake—you, separated mind.

Reality is not experienced nor perceived: Reality is what you are. Reality is what you know and what you love. Reality is perfectly abstract, absolute, whole, and total. It has no separate parts, for it is One. It harbors no conflict, nor is it open to doubt or uncertainty, for it has no opposite. There is nothing that is not It—that is, you. Peace, Love, the infinite Light of Knowledge, and the absolute Power of Its Will are Its eternal condition.

Anything that is not that is not real and does not exist. Therefore, it can only be an illusion—something you imagine, just like the idea you have of yourself, which is nothing but the vocation to be separate, to be an ego.

Illness is one of the many resources of the dream to make the experience of separation seem realistic. To separate is to attack the integrity of reality; thus, illness serves to separate the subject into his particular suffering and exclusive condition. No one suffers illness as he does, nor experiences his pain, which is his own and unique.

The notion of sin is a similar resource to foster separation. Illness is physical and affects the body; sin is more abstract, for it is moral and refers to behavior. Yet, at bottom, they are the same, for they have the same purpose: they are forms of attack that serve to separate and to consolidate the dream—defenses against truth.

^II Both the notion of sin and that of illness are voluntary decisions of the mind. The mind’s responsibility in establishing guilt is evident; that of illness is less so, but that is simply because the mind decides to hide that decision from itself in order not to assume responsibility for its own suffering—which is, clearly, a completely absurd act.

Yet, if you look closely, the mind does something very similar with sin: it always refers guilt to a “moral” instance higher than itself, and considers itself merely the innocent spectator and victim of that intolerable transgression of a “law” it has itself written.

The mind also suffers when it condemns sin, but it will never admit that it has been a gratuitous pain it has also granted itself. It will always seek to justify guilt through something “objectively” evil.

^III Realize that illness and sin are the most “dynamic” and effective defenses for keeping the world’s thought system in place.

^IV You do not perceive facts, but interpretations. Read again these last three paragraphs very slowly and carefully; they are crucial. They explain to you with absolute clarity the mechanism by which you deceive yourself—how you “hallucinate.” If you wish to know the truth, it is essential that you discover how you are deceiving yourself now.

^V This is how stories are constructed: you fragment the perfect unity of all that is, you assign exclusive functions and attributes to each of the resulting parts, and you relate them to one another in a deranged way, introducing absurd bipolar notions to contrast what does not exist—attack and alliances, sin and forgiveness, love and hate, success and failure, illness and health. Yet all these are but stories dreamed by your hallucinated mind.

^VI Illness is one of the most effective resources for preserving individual identity. Do you not want to be you? Do you not want to be special, unique, and exclusive, capable of making your own decisions and controlling what you call your life? How do you think you will achieve that with a mind whose very nature contradicts that idea? Now you know how you do it: by attacking—and attacking yourself, which are equivalent terms. But, obviously, that has a price: you will dream of the results of your attack on the world, your brothers, and yourself—you will dream of death.

It is certain that what is said here is very difficult for you to assimilate, and even more so to accept. You need not force yourself to believe it. Simply be respectful toward this definition of illness and consider it carefully. Then think about it often, and keep it in mind whenever you see someone ill or fall ill yourself. Reflect, then, whether it is possible that this perspective on illness explains the situation. You will probably realize that it fits perfectly, and you will probably also need many such confirmations before you are able to integrate it into your new thought system.

But remember: never force yourself to believe what this Course tells you; that is not the way. This is a Course about truth, and you will reach it—or rather, it will reach you—gladly and by your own will.

^VII Rejoice that the world you believe you live in is nothing but a dream, as was said at the beginning. That is the context in which you must interpret this Lesson. None of it is true, nor has it ever been. The only thing that apparently remains, at least for now, is your will to be yourself.

Well then, until you finally abandon that inconvenient idea, better dream of what is kind and beneficent. Dream that you forgive the world and your brothers; dream that you forgive yourself and love yourself even in this particular form. Dream that, on your way to awakening, you are accompanied by a love reflected in everything, because you have placed it there through the power of your will.

And when that light you project upon the world becomes so intense that it nearly blinds you, you will realize that it comes from beyond the gates of Heaven, which have always stood open for you.

^VIII John 8:32 “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

^IX By relieving the mind of the absurd belief that truth is to be feared.

^X Never forget: the only thing that must be healed is the mind. The mind is the only thing that can be sick, for the mind is the only thing that exists.

If I defend myself, I am attacked.

1. Who would defend himself unless he believed he were being attacked, that attack is real, and that by defending himself he can be saved? ^I

²And this is precisely where the senselessness of defense lies, for it gives full reality to illusions and then attempts to handle them as if they were true.

³This only adds illusion to illusion, making correction doubly difficult.

⁴And this is what you do when you try to make plans for the future, reactivate the past, or organize the present according to your wishes.

2. You operate under the belief that you must protect yourself from what is happening, because it contains something that threatens you. ^II

²To feel threatened is to admit an inherent weakness in yourself—to believe there is a danger with the power to require your appropriate defense.

³The world is built upon this insane belief.

⁴And all its structures, all its thoughts and doubts, its punishments and mighty armaments, its legal definitions and its codes, its ethics, its leaders and its gods—all of it exists to uphold this sense of threat.

⁵For no one would walk the world with heavy armor unless his heart were gripped by terror.

3. Defenses are frightening.

²They arise from fear, and every new defense only adds to it.

³You think they offer safety.

⁴Yet they proclaim that fear is real, and that terror is justified.

⁵Does it not seem strange to you that when you make your plans, reinforce your armor, and secure your locks, you never stop to ask what it is you are defending, how you defend it, and against what?

4. Let us first consider what it is you are defending.

²It must be something very weak and vulnerable.

³It must be easy prey, something unable to protect itself, and thus in need of your defense.

⁴What else but the body is so fragile that it requires constant care and watchful concern to protect its little life?

⁵What else but the body fails and is unworthy to be the holy home of God’s Son?

5. And yet the body in itself cannot be afraid, nor is it something to be feared.

²It has no needs but those you assign to it.

³It requires no elaborate structures of defense, no healing medicines, no care, no concern at all.

⁴If you defend its life, adorn it with gifts, or build walls to protect it, you merely proclaim that your home is vulnerable to the thief of time, corruptible, decaying, and so insecure that you must guard it with your very life.

6. Is this not a frightening picture?

²How can you be at peace with such a concept of your home?

³Yet what but your own belief has given the body the right to serve you in this way?

⁴It was your mind that gave the body all the functions you see in it, and that placed its value far above the little heap of dust and water that it is. ^III

⁵Who would defend something he recognized as merely that?

7. The body needs no defense.

²This cannot be too strongly emphasized.

³The body will remain strong and healthy if the mind does not abuse it by assigning it roles it cannot fulfill, purposes beyond its scope, and grandiose goals it cannot accomplish.

⁴Such attempts—foolish, yet deeply cherished—are the source of the many insane attacks you make upon it.

⁵For you see the body as frustrating your hopes, your needs, your values, and your dreams.

8. That “self” which needs protection is not real.

²The body—this worthless thing that is not worth defending at all—needs only to be perceived as separate from you to become a healthy, useful instrument through which the mind can operate until it is no longer needed.

³Who would want to keep it once it has no use?

9. Defend the body, and you have attacked your mind.

²For you have seen in it the faults, the weaknesses, the limits, and the lacks from which you think the body must be saved.

³You will not see the mind as separate from bodily conditions.

⁴And you will impose upon the body all the pain that comes from your belief that the mind is limited, fragile, apart from other minds, and separate from its Source.

10. These are the thoughts that need healing, and once they have been corrected and replaced with truth, the body will respond with health.

²This is the only real way to defend the body.

³But is this the way you try to defend it?

⁴The protection you offer it is of no benefit at all; it only increases your mental distress.

⁵This is not healing, but the denial of healing, for it places your hope where hope does not belong.

11. A healed mind does not plan.

²It carries out the plans it hears, through listening to the Wisdom that is not its own.

³It waits until it is taught what should be done, and then proceeds to do it.

⁴It does not depend upon itself for anything except its adequacy to fulfill the plans assigned to it.

⁵It is secure in certainty that obstacles cannot impede its progress toward the goal that serves the greater plan established for the good of everyone.

12. A healed mind has relinquished the belief that it must plan, though it cannot know the outcome, nor the means by which the goal is best achieved, nor even how to recognize the problem that the plan is made to solve.

²Until it does this, it will misuse the body in its plans.

³But when it has accepted this as true, then it will heal, and let the body go.

13. Enslaving the body to the plans the unhealed mind sets up to save itself must make the body sick.

²It is not free to serve the plan for which it was created, one that far exceeds its own protection and requires its service for a little while.

³In this capacity, health is assured.

⁴For everything the mind employs for this will function flawlessly, and with the strength that has been given it, it cannot fail.

14. It is perhaps not easy to perceive that self-initiated plans are defenses, and all of them have but this one intent:

²They are the means by which a frightened mind would undertake its own protection at the cost of truth.

³It is not difficult to recognize in some forms that this is so, where the denial of reality is very obvious.

⁴Yet planning is not often recognized as a defense.

15. The mind engaged in planning is unwilling to allow for change.

²It does not believe that God will give it everything it needs unless it makes its own provisions.

³It emphasizes the future, based on past experience and learning, and it believes it must control future events.

⁴This leads it to overlook the present, for it bases its faith on what the past has taught, in order to control what is to come.

16. The mind that plans is thus denying the opportunity to change.

²It relies on what it has learned to set the goals for future outcomes.

³Its past experience dictates its choices for what will happen.

⁴And it fails to see that here and now is everything it needs to guarantee a future quite unlike the past, one free of the continuity of old ideas and sick beliefs.

⁵No longer does it anticipate, for present trust directs the way.

17. Defenses are the plans you undertake against the truth.

²Their aim is to select what you approve, and disregard what you consider incompatible with your imagined self.

³Yet what remains is meaningless indeed.

⁴For it is your own reality that your defenses are designed to attack, conceal, dissect, and crucify.

18. Yet what would you not accept if you knew that everything that happens, all events past, present, and to come, are gently planned by One whose only purpose is your good?

²Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain.

³But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took.

⁴While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life.

19. Your present trust in Him is the defense that promises a quiet future, a future untouched by any trace of sorrow, and filled with ever-increasing joy, as this life becomes a holy moment set in time, yet heeding only immortality.

²Let no defenses direct the future.

³Place it in the hands of your present trust, and this life will become a meaningful encounter with the truth, which was all your defenses were meant to hide.

20. Without defenses, you become a light that Heaven gratefully acknowledges as its own.

²That light will lead you through the paths prepared for your happiness, according to the ancient plan begun when time was born.

³Your followers will join their light to yours, and it will grow until the world is lit with joy.

⁴And gladly will our brothers lay aside their cumbersome defenses, which only kept them terrified.

21. Today we will anticipate that moment with present trust, for it is part of what was planned for us. ^IV

²We rest in the certainty that everything we need is given us to accomplish this today.

³We make no plans for how it will occur, but realize that in our defenselessness, the truth will dawn upon our minds with certainty.

22. For fifteen minutes, twice today, we rest from senseless planning and from every thought that blocks the truth from entering our minds.

²Instead of planning, we will receive, that we may give; instead of organizing, we will be guided.

³And we are given as we say:

⁴If I defend myself, I am attacked.

⁵But in defenselessness I will be strong,

⁶and I will learn what my defenses hide.

23. That is all.

²If there are plans to be made, you will be told of them.

³They may not be the plans you thought you needed, nor the answers to the problems you believed you faced.

⁴They are answers to a different kind of question—one that remains unanswered but needs to be resolved until the Answer finally comes.

24. All your defenses have been aimed at not receiving what you are given now.

²And in the light and joy of the simple truth, you will wonder how you ever thought you had to defend yourself against your own release.

³Heaven asks nothing.

⁴It is hell that demands outrageous sacrifice.

⁵Today you give up nothing when you come defenseless to your Creator, just as you really are.

25. He remembers you.

²And today we will remember Him.

³For this is the Eastertime of your salvation. ^V

⁴It is the time when you arise from what seemed like death and hopelessness.

⁵Now light is born again in you, for now you come without defenses to learn your part in God’s plan.

⁶What trivial plans or magical beliefs can still hold value once you have received your function from the Voice for God Himself?

26. Do not try to shape this day as you believe would benefit you most.

²For you cannot conceive of the happiness that comes to you without your planning.

³Learn today.

⁴And the world will take this giant step and celebrate your Eastertime with you. ^VI

27. When petty things appear to raise defensiveness in you, and tempt you to make plans, remember this:

²Today is Eastertime. I would keep it holy.

³I will not defend myself,

⁴because the Son of God has no need to be defended against the truth of his Reality.

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^I The very length of this Lesson—the longest in the Workbook—is itself a sign of its importance. You will see that, apparently, it speaks about the defenses you design to protect yourself from the dangers of the world and the body, and, above all, about the “plans” you make. In a sense, it is true that it deals with those subjects, and it does so brilliantly and aptly; yet, in reality, it speaks of exactly the same thing as the preceding Lesson: how you react to the apparent demands of the illusory world. And it proposes exactly the same thing to you: that you do not get involved, that you forgive them, and that you place yourself in the hands of the Holy Spirit.

For this reason, this Lesson—like this entire Course—is also about forgiveness. See it that way, and you will understand it perfectly.

^II When you wake in the morning, you open your eyes and behold a world in which your brother offends you, and you blame and condemn him. You consider the world to be a dangerous place and build all kinds of defenses to protect yourself from it. You look at yourself and see a body that you strive to enhance and care for, because it is the image you have of yourself and you think it is fragile. And finally, you place yourself in a condition of existence within an irrevocably linear time, making plans to organize your future lest something occur that might cause you to suffer.

Your guilty brother, the dangerous world, your vulnerable body, and the uncertain future exist only in your mind, and they have no more reality than what you confer upon them.

You are dreaming, and your dream is populated by uncertainty and threat. It is a bad dream from which it would be wise to awaken.

But how will you achieve that?

Try to see it this way:

Imagine yourself outside your body, watching yourself asleep in bed. That you who sleeps is dreaming, and in his dream he, too, sees an imaginary world full of threats that terrify him. Now think that this you who dreams cannot awaken, because he knows no other condition—he has forgotten that he was once awake—and besides, the light terrifies him because it would dispel the only thing he now knows. What would you advise him?

Consider that he can only faintly hear you in the distance, and he is incapable of interpreting anything that is not expressed in the same terms in which his own dream is structured. You can only speak to him using the symbols he knows.

Do you see that if he reacts with fear to what he is beholding, his dream will become even deeper, more “real” to him? Would you not tell him to relax a little, not to take it seriously, and that all that which he believes he faces is not real? Would you not advise him to forgive and let pass what he believes he sees? Can you think of better advice?

Now imagine that your sleeping self has managed to hear you and has obeyed. What do you think would happen to his dream? He is still dreaming; he has not awakened. But his expression has certainly changed. You cannot see what he is dreaming now, yet from his face you infer that his dream must be better, for you see him calmer.

Keep speaking to him. Now you can shift somewhat from that emergency discourse you used to draw him out of terror and begin to teach him how to shape a happier dream. You cannot lead him directly from fear to love; first you must teach him to forgive his fantasies, or he will remain trapped in them due to the power fear has to bestow reality upon illusions. Now you can begin to explain to him the power his mind also has to create worlds, and you will also teach him to distinguish pleasure from pain, fear from love, and peace from distress.

Now he is ready to reconcile himself with the idea that everything he gives, he is giving to himself, for in his dream there is nothing but himself. You will explain to him, in simple terms, that giving and receiving—or teaching and learning—are the same, and if he listens and puts it into practice in his fantasies, he will see that it is true. For you, who are outside watching him sleep, the matter is more than evident, since you know that everything he experiences is occurring within his sleeping mind, even though to him that is not yet so clear.

When you see that he has been calm for a while and has acquired some skill in handling his illusions, you will go a little further and begin to teach him to manage the dream itself. You know that he could make any change he wished, for it costs the same to dream one thing as another. Yet you also understand that his dream is still structured around values, categories, merits, importance, and difficulty. That is the world in which he believes he lives: a world full of different things—some desirable and others fearful—but to him all are very real and distinct from each other. To you, however, they are all the same; they are only fantasies.

Now that you see him calm and fairly centered, you will teach him to make changes in his dream that will seem to him surprising and wonderful. He will call them miracles. You will simply smile. You have done a good job with him. He is now ready for you to awaken him.

^III Genesis 2:6–7 “But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

^IV Realize that you are not taking this Course by chance; it is part of the plan designed for your salvation and for the world’s with you. You are now beginning to be centered, and your eyes are starting to open little by little. Do not lose focus, and put all your will into strengthening your present trust; the rest will be given to you as you go. Open your eyes and ears, and let yourself be guided. You are in good hands—the best.

^V Easter is the central feast of Christianity, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus. It marks the end of Holy Week, which recalls His passion and death.

^VI Do not be surprised that this is yet another of those Lessons that constitute a “giant step” in your learning.

I want to perceive forgiveness as it is.

1. Let us review today what it means to “forgive,” for it is a concept prone to distortion, often seen as involving the unjustified sacrifice of legitimate indignation, an unearned and undeserved gift, and a total denial of the truth. ^I

²From this perspective, forgiveness must appear to be nothing more than extravagant foolishness, and it makes it seem as though this Course bases salvation on whimsy.

2. This distorted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected when you can accept the fact that you are not being asked to forgive what is true.

²Forgiveness is limited solely to what is false.

³Forgiveness applies only to illusions.

⁴Truth is the Creation of God, and forgiving that makes no sense.

⁵All that is true belongs to Him, reflects His Laws, and radiates His Love.

⁶How could this require forgiveness?

⁷How can you forgive what is sinless and eternally kind?

3. Your greatest difficulty in truly forgiving is still the belief that you must forgive what is true, and not illusions. ^II

²You see forgiveness as a futile effort to ignore what is really there, to overlook the truth in a misguided attempt to deceive yourself by affirming an illusion.

³This mistaken perspective merely reflects how firmly the idea of sin still grips your mind, as you see yourself.

4. Since you believe your sins are real, you see forgiveness as deception.

²For it is impossible to believe that sin is real and not believe forgiveness is a lie.

³Thus, forgiveness becomes just another sin like all the rest.

⁴It declares truth to be false, and smiles upon the corrupt as if they were as guiltless as grass, as white as snow. ^III

⁵Forgiveness fools itself about what it thinks it can achieve.

⁶It wants to see what is clearly wrong as right, and the despicable as good.

5. From this perspective, forgiveness does not set free.

²It is merely another sign that sin is unforgivable—something that, at best, must be concealed, denied, or called by another name, for forgiveness is seen as betrayal of the truth.

³Guilt cannot be forgiven.

⁴If you sin, your guilt is everlasting.

⁵Those you forgive suffer twice the mockery and the condemnation if you believe their sins are real.

⁶First, their own, for what they believe they have done.

⁷And then yours.

6. It is the unreal nature of sin that makes forgiveness a natural and entirely sane response.

²A deep relief for those who offer it, and a quiet blessing for those who receive it. ^IV

³True forgiveness does not support illusions; it gently lays them down, with a light smile, at the feet of truth. ^V

⁴And there they disappear completely.

7. Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world.

²It sees their insubstantial nature, and looks past all the thousands of forms they may appear in.

³It sees the lies, but is not deceived by them.

⁴It pays no attention to the screams with which sinners, mad with guilt, accuse themselves.

⁵It looks upon them with calm eyes and simply says:

⁶My brother, what you think is not the truth.

8. The strength of forgiveness lies in its honesty, which, being incorruptible, sees illusions as illusions and not as truth.

²Because of this, when it faces lies it becomes the great disillusioner, the mighty restorer of simple truth.

³Through its ability to overlook what does not exist, forgiveness opens up the way to truth, which was blocked by dreams of guilt.

⁴Now you are free to walk the path true forgiveness opens.

⁵For if a brother has received this gift from you, the door is open to yourself.

9. There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness and to see that it stands wide open in welcome.

²Whenever you feel tempted to accuse someone of any kind of sin, do not allow your mind to dwell on what they did, for that is self-deception.

³Instead, ask:

⁴Would I accuse myself of doing this?^VI

10. In this way, you will see the alternatives in terms that make sense, and you will keep your mind as free from guilt and pain as God Himself intended it to be, and as it truly is.

²Only lies condemn.

³Innocence is the only thing that truly exists.

⁴Forgiveness stands between illusions and the truth, between the world you see and what lies beyond, between the hell of guilt and the gates of Heaven.

11. Across this bridge, as powerful as the Love that blessed it, all dreams of evil, hatred, and attack are quietly brought before the truth.

²They are not kept to swell and roar and terrify the helpless dreamer who believes in them.

³He has been gently awakened from his dream by recognizing that what he thought he saw never truly existed.

⁴And now he can no longer believe escape is denied to him.

12. He no longer has to struggle to be saved.

²He does not need to slay the dragons he imagined pursued him.

³He does not need to build strong walls of stone or iron gates he thought would keep him safe.

⁴He can now lay down the heavy, useless armor made to chain his mind to fear and misery.

⁵Now his step is light, and each time he lifts his foot to go ahead, a star is left behind to guide the ones who follow.

13. You must practice true forgiveness, for the world cannot grasp its meaning, nor will it offer you any guidance to help you understand its blessings.

²There is not a single thought in all the world that leads you to comprehend the laws forgiveness follows or the Thought it mirrors.

³Forgiveness is as foreign to this world as is your own reality.

⁴But it is what links your mind to the reality that lives in you.

14. Today we practice true forgiveness so that the moment of union may no longer be delayed.

²For we wish to meet our Reality in freedom and in peace.

³Our practice becomes the footsteps that illuminate the path for all our brothers, who will follow us to the Reality we share with them.

⁴To make this so, let us spend fifteen minutes twice today with the Guide Who understands the meaning of forgiveness and Who was sent to teach it to us.

⁵Let us then ask Him:

⁶I want to perceive forgiveness as it is.

15. Then choose a brother as He directs, and list his “sins” one by one as they cross your mind.

²Be sure not to dwell on any of them in particular.

³Realize you are using his “offenses” to save the world from all belief in sin.

⁴Briefly consider each of the negative things you have thought about him, and ask yourself each time:

⁵Would I condemn myself for doing this?

16. Release him from all the thoughts of sin you held about him.

²And now you are prepared for freedom.

³If you have practiced with willingness and sincere intent, you will begin to feel a sense of lifting, a lightening of the chest, a deep and unmistakable sense of relief.

⁴Use the rest of the time to feel yourself being freed from all the heavy chains you tried to lay upon your brother, but which were binding only you.

17. You must practice forgiveness throughout the day, for there will still be many times when you forget its meaning and attack yourself.

²When that happens, let your mind see beyond that illusion, while saying to yourself:

³I want to perceive forgiveness as it is.

⁴Would I accuse myself of doing this?

⁵I will not chain myself to this.

⁶And in everything you do, remember this:

⁷No one is crucified alone.

⁸And no one enters Heaven by himself.

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^I This is an especially magnificent Lesson among the magnificent Lessons of this Workbook. It is very clear, simple, and it precisely describes the most powerful resource you have at your disposal to free your mind from the insidiousness of the world’s thought. Read it very slowly, with great attention, and, after each line, ask yourself whether what you have just read is true. Take all the time you need to study this Lesson in depth—it will be time very well spent.

^II The world is a story.

Stories are narratives that describe concepts related to each other in a coherent way. We could say that the story is the form, the container for the content that one intends to explain. When someone believes in something, it is because he thinks that the content of a given story is real—that it exists on its own, independently of the story told about it. To believe or not believe a certain story is a decision of the mind made through the will.

From the standpoint of the world’s science, to perceive is to imagine—that is, to construct images, sounds, and sensations in the brain from electrochemical impulses coming from certain bodily organs called “senses.” This is something science today is quite clear about, although it still does not understand it, for there is no consensual description to believe in regarding how the pure cognitive process of becoming aware of that sensory information works to turn it into a coherent whole—a story. In any case, no scientist doubts that the perceptual and cognitive process is the brain’s interpretation of physical signals coming from the external world.

According to the “cognitive sciences,” the brain is a biochemical machine capable of translating “reality” into consciousness and knowledge. What science still does not understand is the concept of “subject” or “self-awareness”—which, moreover, is quite surprising and somewhat disturbing, since that is precisely what the scientist himself identifies with, he who studies and develops cognitive science. The scientist believes that the story he tells himself, although perhaps incomplete, is true—that is, that the contents of that story have an existence independent of himself. You, though you may not be able to articulate a story as detailed and precise as his, also believe that: the world is real, you live in it, and you are something separate and apart from everything you perceive.

It is evident that this story has many dark spots, but it is also clear that you believe it wholeheartedly and organize your life according to that belief. By now, you are probably able to admit that the description of the world you believe you live in is a story. The question is: is it a true story?

Before answering this question, take a close look at how your mind works.
When you deeply question any story you tell yourself—especially one you still want to believe in—what you usually do is overlook, forget, or set aside any uncomfortable issue that might endanger its truthfulness, and you move on without further ado. That allows you to remain functional and operative within your belief system, but that voluntary forgetting creates in you an underlying and permanent unease, because in truth you are unable to face your lack of honesty. That is why you do not fully trust yourself; deep down you know that, when fear presses upon you, you are prone to lie, deceive, and deceive yourself. Only partial forgetfulness of your “sins” provides you some relief and allows you to carry on as if nothing had happened.

The world you believe you live in is a purely formal story: it has no real content. Its content is also form; its content is not real. You have confused form with content; you believe that the content is the form the story describes, and now you think the content is real—but it is not. Perception is not cognitive, because through perception nothing is “known”: things are merely imagined and believed in. To grant reality to the content of perception is a whim of the ego. Forgiveness, however, is no whim: it is what a sane mind does when confronted with something empty of content. To forgive is the healthiest and most rational thing the mind can do in a world of illusions.

^III Isaiah 1:18 “‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’”

^IV Realize that when you condemn something, someone, or yourself, you are telling yourself a story of guilt that you believe to be true. But is it true? You certainly insist that it is, and that you are right, and to that end you set your mind to elaborate a series of arguments to justify your indignation. And though you may not be very aware of it, that requires support from a complex and absolutely artificial moral construction to which you subject your thinking.

Wanting to be right is nothing but stubbornly insisting that the story you tell yourself is true. That is the epitome of arrogance, an expression of utter lack of honesty, the most flagrant proof that you are using your mind in a profoundly irrational way, and that you not only do not know—you do not even know that you do not know.

It is very important that you become fully aware that forgiveness feels good to you. You must forgive not only because what you see before you is not real; you forgive because every time you do, your heart rejoices and confirms that your mind has made the right decision. You do not need to involve yourself in complex ontological reasoning to determine the nature of what is real. Your heart will show you in a very simple way.

T-29.VII.1:9 “Would you rather be right or happy?”

^V Understand that forgive comes from the Latin per donare. Donare means “to give,” and the prefix per indicates that the giving is done completely and in a permanent, final, and total way. You forgive and give the world you see because it is unreal and not for you; it does not belong to your holy mind, which is real. The proof that this is so is in your heart, which clearly tells you that your mind becomes indigestible when it holds onto the things of the world, because they do not sit well with it. Therefore, forgive the world—truly forgive it; give all your interpretations to the Holy Spirit so that He may purify them and return them to you with precise instructions on how to manage them.

^VI You are not yet fully aware that you only relate to the contents of your own mind; you only relate to yourself. Yet you can test this statement and see whether it is true. Do so, and you will understand that it is. Do you not realize that when you condemn, accuse, and attack someone, it hurts you? How could that be possible unless what you are attacking is your very own self?

When you see someone doing something wrong from your point of view, do the following:

First, think that that person is you.

Second, if something is being done wrong, it is either out of ignorance or out of fear—and most often due to both. Ignorance is lack of light, and fear is lack of love. From this it follows, with perfect clarity, that what you must do there is provide the light and love that are missing—nothing more and nothing less.

Now ask for help in managing that provision of light and love that is required, do as you are guided, and do not forget that everything you do, you are doing to yourself. So you had better do it well.

I will not value what is valueless.

1. In the process of teaching, it is sometimes helpful to return to practical matters, especially after addressing subjects that seem too theoretical and far removed from what the student has already learned.

²That is what we shall do today.

³We shall not speak of lofty ideas with global implications, but focus instead on the benefits this teaching holds for you.

2. You do not ask too much of life. On the contrary, you ask far too little.

²When you allow your mind to dwell on matters of the body, on things you can buy, or on how others see you, you are inviting suffering—not happiness.

³This course does not aim to take from you what little you have.

⁴Nor does it seek to replace the satisfactions the world offers with utopian ideals.

⁵There is no satisfaction to be found in the world. ^I

3. Today we list the true criteria by which all things you think you want must be tested.

²Unless they meet these sound requirements, they are not worth desiring at all, for they would only serve to replace something that offers you far more.

³The laws that govern this choice do not come from you, nor do you set the alternatives from which you choose.

⁴But you can choose—and in fact, you must.

⁵However, it is wise to understand the laws you set in motion when you choose, and what the options are.

4. We have already emphasized that there are only two, although many may appear to exist. ^II

²The range is fixed, and this cannot be changed.

³It would not be merciful to you if there were limitless alternatives, for that would delay your choosing until you had considered them all.

⁴This is not the case; you stand now at a point where only one decision must be made.

5. Another equally kind law is that there can be no compromise in what your choice will bring.

²What you choose cannot give you only a little, for there are no in-betweens in this.

³Every choice you make brings you everything or nothing.

⁴Therefore, if you learn the criteria that distinguish all from nothing, you will choose well.

6. First:

²If you choose something that will not last forever, what you have chosen has no value.

³A fleeting value is not worth anything.

⁴Time can never take away what is truly valuable.

⁵What decays and dies never truly existed, and offers nothing to the one who chooses it.

⁶They are deceived by something that is nothing, simply because they see it in a form they believe they like.

7. Second:

²If you choose to take something from another, you will have nothing.

³This is because when you deny someone their right to everything, you also deny it to yourself.

⁴Therefore, you will not recognize what you truly have, and you will deny that it exists.

⁵He who takes from another deceives himself into believing he can gain at another’s loss.

⁶But loss can only bring loss, and nothing more.

8. The next criterion is the one on which the others rest.

²Why does what you choose have value to you?

³What is it that draws your mind to it?

⁴What is it for?

⁵Here is where self-deception is easiest, for the ego does not recognize what it wants.

⁶Nor does it tell the truth, even as it sees it.

⁷For it needs to preserve a certain appearance of dignity to shield the filthy and grimy goals it truly pursues, so you can see how “innocent” it is.

9. Yet its camouflage is a thin veneer that can only deceive those who prefer to be deceived.

²Its goals are quite obvious to anyone who takes the time to look at them.

³Here, the deception is twofold, for the one who is deceived will not realize he has gained nothing.

⁴He will also believe he has served the ego’s hidden goals.

10. And though he may try to keep his focus on that protective sheen, he cannot help but notice its sordid edges and unclean core.

²His own mistakes, which had no real effects, now seem like sins to him, for he believes that filth is his own, and sees in impurity the unmistakable sign of deep unworthiness within.

³He who serves the ego’s goals and adopts them as his own is not mistaken, according to the ego’s dictates.

⁴For the ego teaches that the true mistake is believing sins are merely errors—for who would suffer for their sins if that were so?

11. And now we come to the most difficult criterion for choosing to believe, though it is perfectly clear.

²If you feel even the slightest trace of guilt about what you have chosen, it is because you have allowed the ego’s goals to cloud the true alternatives, and thus you do not realize there are only two.

³And now the choice you think you made appears fearful and too dangerous to be the nothing that it truly is. ^III

12. All things are either valuable or valueless; worthy of pursuit or not worth any effort at all; completely desirable or not worth the smallest wish to have them.

²Choosing is easy just because of this.

³Complexity is nothing but a smoke screen that hides the very simple fact that no decision can truly be difficult.

⁴And what do you gain by learning this?

⁵You gain far more than just the ability to choose with ease and without pain.

13. Heaven itself is reached with empty hands and open minds, which come with nothing to find everything and claim it as their own. ^IV

²Today we will try to reach that state by not deceiving ourselves, and by being fully willing to give value only to what is truly valuable and real.

14. Our two fifteen-minute practice periods will begin with this:

²I will not value what is valueless.

³And I will seek only what is truly valuable,

⁴for that is all I really want to find.

⁵And then you will receive what awaits everyone who comes without burdens to the gates of Heaven, which open wide at their approach. ^V

15. If you find yourself burdening your mind with needless weight, or think you face a difficult decision, respond immediately with this simple thought:

²I will not value what is valueless,

³for only what is valuable belongs to me.

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^I For what is said here to make sense to you, it is essential that you understand what “satisfaction” means and what it entails. It is a word that comes from Latin, composed of satis (enough) and the verb facere (to do). You feel satisfied when you consider that you have what you need according to how you conceive of yourself. That is why, if you identify with the idea of the body, you will interpret satisfaction as pleasure; if you see yourself as an individual belonging to a social group, you will see it as recognition; and if you believe yourself to be a wretched sinner, you will seek it in the redemption of your faults. What is important for you to understand is that it is a concept that derives directly from the idea you have of yourself—from your ego. It is always the ego that experiences itself as satisfied or lacking.

The truth, however, is that you are not an ego: you are the Son of God, and in that sense you, Son of God, will never find anything in this world that satisfies you. This is a Course about truth, and if you interpret it on the basis provided by your beliefs, you will not be able to understand it. That is why it is essential that you be willing, at least, to question everything you now believe, because otherwise this Course will not make much sense to you. Never forget that everything you might believe about yourself is false.

Another matter that also has you very confused is your tendency to equate pleasure, or any other type of satisfaction, with happiness. Careful! Do not do it! These are concepts that have nothing to do with each other. One could say that satisfaction is the substitute the ego proposes to you for happiness—which, obviously, it cannot provide you, since the ego is precisely the absence of happiness. The ego is an absence of reality, because happiness and reality are indeed equivalent terms.

Satisfaction is the “happiness” of illusions, and therefore it shares their attributes: it is fleeting and changeable, and extremely prone to quickly turning into its opposite. The ego also has a party going on in this world, in imitation of Heaven, but, as might be expected, it is very different from the one you celebrate with your Father and with your Creations. To begin with, here you have to pay to take part in the feast; the victuals barely remain on the table for an instant, for they quickly disappear, since greedy hands snatch them away if you do not hurry, and they are indigestible besides. That is what this world offers you. Do not continue deceiving yourself by thinking you will find anything else here. Stop seeking satisfaction in the things of the world; for although you will find it on some occasions, it will never be anything even remotely related to the happiness you deserve.

^II W-130.5 “It is impossible to see two worlds that have nothing in common. If you pursue one of them, the other disappears. Yet the one you seek is always there. These two worlds are all you can choose between, for there are no others. You can choose only between the real and the unreal, and only that.”

^III The laws of choosing and the criteria for evaluation that this Lesson presents are as follows:

LAWS OF CHOOSING:

• You choose only between the real and the illusory.

• You choose only between what is everything and what is nothing.

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION:

• What is not eternal is worthless.

• To take is to lose.

• Only what is consistent with your true identity has value.

• When something arouses guilt, it is because it is not in accord with your true identity.

If you look closely, you will see that both the laws and the criteria are based on the concordance between what you are going to choose and what you truly are. If you choose something to make it yours, you had better ensure that what you choose is in accord with your true identity, because if it is not, you will be mistaken, and you will soon realize that you have made a bad choice, since what you have chosen is different from you and does not belong to you.

• You must not go after what is illusory, because you are real.

• The temporal should not interest you, for you are eternal and it will end up disappointing you.

• Anything whose magnitude can be measured will not satisfy you, because you are absolute and whole, and you will never settle for less than that.

• If your choice implies taking something from someone, you will end up losing it. Everything you do, you do to yourself, because you are everything.

• You always desire what you believe yourself to be. Choose well, for your opinion of yourself is at stake.

• If you feel guilty about your choice, it is because, deep down, you know that you have betrayed yourself.

^IV If the world is a dream, and what you want is to awaken, do not fix your attention on the dream, for that way you will never achieve it. Forgiveness, which is what this Course constantly proposes to you, is nothing more than that: not entertaining yourself with the things of this world and letting them pass, because they are not real, they are not like you, and the only thing you will achieve, if you do, is to prolong an illusion that, at best, prevents you from enjoying your immeasurable condition, and at worst, makes you suffer.

Do not waste time on what has no value. By now, you ought to begin to consider yourself an expert in disappointment and disillusionment. The world is absolutely incapable of providing you anything you truly want. If you think it does, it is because all the value you saw in it you placed there yourself.

The world is a very simple illusion. You have been told repeatedly how it works. You are the source and origin of all value, but you have decided to ignore this and seek what is valuable outside yourself. Then you project your own value onto something external and feel drawn to it, and you call that desire. But when you go after it, it slips through your fingers, because, obviously, it was not there. It has always been in you, and so it will be forever. Stop seeking and go within, where the Kingdom of God certainly is. But first, remember: stop seeking here, because all you are doing is buying time at a high price. Be glad that it is so. That is what it means that Heaven is reached with empty hands and an open mind.

The disillusionment the world provokes in the confused minds of men is not a matter unique and exclusive to this Course; it is the intrinsic character of the human condition, experienced and expressed with greater or lesser success in all its stories and narratives. It is the description of the impossibility of attaining happiness through the concrete, the illusory. It is the marrow of all the films, novels, and songs that move you so deeply. It is the same old story. If you want a fairly precise description of that feeling of helplessness, just take a look at a cry of dismay that already has a few thousand years behind it. Read Ecclesiastes, probably the most bitter book in the Bible—and one of the most enlightening. You will find it very familiar.

^V Genesis 28:17 “He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the House of God, and this is the gate of Heaven.’”

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.

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^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.

No one who asks to reach the truth can fail.

1. If you pursue unattainable goals, you will continue to meet with failure.

²You are seeking permanence in the impermanent, love where it cannot be found, safety in the midst of danger, and immortality in the grim dream of death.

³Who could succeed when the setting of his search and the place he turns to for stability contradict the very thing he seeks?

2. Goals that have no meaning cannot be achieved.

²There is no way to reach them, for the means used in their pursuit are equally meaningless.

³Who could expect to succeed using such senseless means?

⁴Where could they lead you?

⁵And what could they attain that holds any hope of being real?

⁶To go after the imaginary leads only to death, for it is the search for what is nothing.

⁷And even when you think you seek life, what you are truly asking for is death.

⁸You wish to feel safe and secure, while in your heart you pray both for danger and for protection within the petty dream you wove yourself.

3. Yet here, to search is inevitable.

²You came for that, and surely you will do what you came to do.

³But the world cannot dictate the goal you are to seek, unless you give it that power.

⁴For if you do not give it, you remain free to choose a goal beyond this world and every worldly thought.

⁵It is a goal born of an idea you once abandoned but still remember—ancient and yet new.

⁶It is the echo of something you inherited and then forgot, yet it contains everything you truly long for.

4. Rejoice that you must seek.

²Rejoice as well that what you seek is Heaven.

³And that the goal you truly want is surely yours to reach.

⁴Heaven is a goal no one can fail to want.

⁵And no one can fail to reach it in the end.

⁶The Son of God cannot seek in vain.

⁷He may delay himself.

⁸He may deceive himself.

⁹And he may even believe that what he seeks is hell.

¹⁰But when he errs, he will find correction.

¹¹And when he strays, he is gently led back to the task assigned to him.

5. No one remains in hell.

²For no one can forsake his Creator, nor alter His perfect, timeless, and unchanging Love in any way.

³You will find Heaven.

⁴And everything you seek except that will fall away.

⁵Not because it is taken from you,

⁶But because you will cease to want it.

⁷You will reach the goal you truly long for.

⁸And this is as certain as that God created you sinless. ^I

6. Why then wait for Heaven?

²Heaven is here, right now.

³Time is the grand illusion that Heaven is either in the past or yet to come.

⁴But that is impossible, if God has placed it where His Son is.

⁵How could it be that the Will of God is in the past, or still to be fulfilled?

⁶What God wills is here now, with no past and no future at all.

⁷It is as far removed from time as a tiny candle is from a distant star, or as what you have chosen is from what you truly desire.

7. Heaven remains your only choice, your only alternative to this strange world you made, with all its ways and forms, its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys.

²God made no contradictions.

³What denies itself and attacks itself cannot come from Him.

⁴God did not create two minds—one whose happy effect is Heaven, and the other, whose sad result is earth, the opposite of Heaven in every way.

8. God is not in conflict.

²Nor is His Creation split in two.

³How then could His Son be in hell when God Himself has placed him in Heaven?

⁴How could he lose what the Eternal Will gave him to be his eternal home?

⁵Let us no longer try to impose a will upon God’s only purpose.

⁶The Son of God is in Heaven because his Father wills it so, and what God wills is here now, beyond the reach of time.

9. Today we will not choose a paradox instead of truth.

²How could the Son of God make time take from him the Will of God?

³In doing so, the Son denies himself, and contradicts what has no opposite.

⁴He thinks he has made a hell opposed to Heaven, and believes he dwells in a place that does not exist.

⁵And so Heaven has become the place he cannot find.

10. Lay down those senseless thoughts today, and instead direct your mind toward truthful ideas.

²No one who asks to find the truth can fail, and that is what we ask today.

³We will devote ten minutes, three times today, to this goal, and ask to see before us the real world—

⁴A new world that replaces the absurd images we once held dear with thoughts of truth.

⁵And these arise in our restored vision to take the place of thoughts that held no meaning, no effects, no true origin, and no substance.

11. This is what we acknowledge at the beginning of our practice,

²Which starts with this:

³I ask to see a different world,

⁴And think a different kind of thought than those I made.

⁵The world I seek I did not make alone,

⁶And the thoughts I want to think are not my own.

12. For several minutes, observe your mind and look upon the senseless world you think is real, though your eyes are closed.

²Also examine those thoughts that seem to go with it—thoughts you believe are true.

³Then let them go, and sink below them to the holy place within your mind where those thoughts cannot enter.

⁴Beneath them lies a door in your mind you could not entirely close, though you tried to hide what lies beyond.

13. Seek out that door and find it.

²But before you try to open it, remember that no one who asks to find the truth can fail, and that is what you ask today.

³Nothing else now has any meaning for you.

⁴You assign no value to any other goal, and you do not even seek them.

⁵There is nothing left on this side of the door that you truly want.

⁶Now you seek only what lies beyond.

14. Reach out your hand and see how easily the door swings open with your intent to go beyond.

²There, angels light the way, dispelling every trace of darkness, and you stand in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all you see.

³Perhaps a moment of surprise will make you pause before you realize that the world you see in the light reflects a truth you already knew—one you never fully forgot, even as you wandered in dreams. ^II

15. You cannot fail today. ^III

²At your side walks the Spirit Heaven sent you, that one day you might approach this door and, with His help, pass through it easily into the light.

³That day has come today.

⁴Today God keeps His ancient promise to His holy Son, and His Son remembers the promise he made to Him.

⁵This is a day of joy, for we have come to the appointed time and place, where you will find the goal of all your seeking here, and all your striving in the world.

⁶For when you pass beyond the door, all searching ends.

16. Remember often today that this is a time of special gladness, and do not entertain discouraging thoughts or pointless sorrow.

²The hour of salvation has come.

³Today is the day Heaven has appointed to be a time of grace for you and for the world.

⁴If you forget this happy fact, bring it back to your awareness, saying:

⁵Today I seek and find all that I want.

⁶My one purpose offers it to me.

⁷No one who asks to find the truth can fail.

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^I Perhaps it must be said once more: you are not you. The “you” you imagine yourself to be is a contraction of your mind, Son of God. The idea of separation that once briefly crossed your holy mind seemed to fragment it as it passed, into countless figures to which you gave your own identity. Each of them believes itself to be its own limitation, and in a sense that quality of reality they inherited from you is true, though not in its limited expression. You are real; your limitations are not. And now you wander confusedly, trying to recover your infinite reality.

Each of those contractions of your strained mind is seeking you, your Self. Poor thing, it tries to find what it so sorely misses in the rest of the figments your mind has conceived. But that, obviously, is not the way; it is illusion seeking truth within illusion. Again: you are not a person; you are the Son of God dreaming that he is a person, many persons, many things, many illusions.

Relax. What do you want to do—search or find? It is true that the search is attractive and calls to you strongly, for your longing to awaken is sincere and justified. But realize that the search itself is the great illusion that sustains all the rest. You have no need to search for anything because you have lost nothing, except in fantasies. Become aware that the search is a need you have imposed upon yourself in order not to awaken to your reality, in order not to stop searching.

It may surprise you to hear that if you wish to find God, you must stop looking for Him. It may sound like wordplay to hear that if you wish to find something, you must find it, not search for it. The reason lies in the very nature of your will.

Your will, Son of God, is always fulfilled, and it is always fulfilled in the present—the only real time—because your will is real. When you place your will on seeking, you seek; when you place it on finding, you find. Your will is always fulfilled because it is the Will of God: the Same.

When you place your will on loving, you love and are happy. When you place your will on hating or fearing, you suffer. When you set your will upon something, not even God changes it; He cannot. God cannot alter your will, for it is His Own. Thus you will create whatever accords with your shared will, make it real, and name it “Creation of the Son of God.” And what you have created in perfect union with the rest of Creation will inherit your common heritage of infinitude. However, if you set your will on making something impossible real—because you want it to be deprived of the very qualities you enjoy as the Son of God, that is, to be separate, concrete, limited, and exclusive—you will also succeed, but that will be separate, concrete, limited, and exclusive for you. Therefore, it will not be real, though to you it will seem so. That is why the world you behold appears so real to you, and no one will convince you otherwise… until you change your will.

Perhaps you have also wondered why Jesus, God, or the Holy Spirit have not already saved you from this sad situation you believe yourself to be in. Now you know: no one can oppose you; you are the Son of God. They know that what you think is not true, but you believe otherwise—and that is the power of your will applied to your beliefs. You believed yourself to be in this condition by believing in the impossible—believing that you separated from God, your Father, to have an existence separate, autonomous, and independent. You granted it to yourself by your own will, and now you proudly drag and include your “I” in every sentence you utter: “because I think…,” “because I believe that…,” “because I this,” or “because I that.” But do you see? You never let go of that tiresome “I.” You still do not want to; therefore, you still continue “being” that little self.

^II You are very fortunate, and that must be because you deserve it. Today you have another spectacular visualization exercise. Do it with devotion, reverence, and with absolute confidence that your efforts will be rewarded one way or another, for no one who sincerely seeks the truth with all his heart can fail.

^III This Lesson conveys a message of profound hope: no one who truly seeks the truth can fail to find it. But the teaching goes even further: in reality, the truth has already been attained.

According to A Course in Miracles, a mad idea—the separation from God—crossed the mind of the Son of God, but it was answered and corrected in the very same instant by the Holy Spirit. This response occurred outside of time, in eternity. Yet within that corrected instant arose the entire illusion of cosmological time: the whole history of the universe and of humanity.

You are now moving through that temporal illusion, experiencing a script that is already completely written. Though from your perspective salvation seems to lie in an uncertain future, in reality atonement is an accomplished fact. The separation never truly occurred, and your awakening is assured.

You can picture this situation as if it were a novel already written that you found open on a park bench. The entire plot—with its characters, conflicts, and resolution—is already there. You are inside that story, but its happy ending is inevitable.

Time, though illusory, serves a purpose within the plan of salvation. And most important of all: it is not necessary to wait. At any instant you can choose to step out of the dream.

This teaching is also reflected in the teaching of Lester Levenson, a contemporary engineer and spiritual master who, after attaining a state of lasting inner peace, taught that at any moment it is possible to be freed from suffering. Levenson described the soul’s journey through different states of consciousness—physical, astral, and causal—and pointed out that the physical body, though the densest and most painful, is also the one that offers the greatest motivation to awaken.

In his view, much aligned with A Course in Miracles, at any point along the way you can “leap upward” toward freedom. You are not condemned to follow a long linear process: you can choose the miracle now.

Thus, the essential message of this Lesson is clear: do not be afraid, for your awakening is certain. Salvation is guaranteed, and time is only a stage you can leave behind at any moment through your sincere decision to return to the truth.