Category: Libro de Ejercicios

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.

---

^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.

---

^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.

---

^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.

It is impossible to see two worlds.

1. Perception is consistent.

²What you see reflects what you are thinking.

³What you think merely reflects what you have chosen to see.

⁴And what you want to see is determined by your values.

⁵For you will surely want to see what you value.

⁶And then you will believe that what you see is really there.

⁷No one can see what his mind does not value.

⁸And no one can fail to see what he believes he wants. ^I

2. But who can truly hate and love at once?

²Who can desire what he does not want to be real?

³And who can wish to see a world that frightens him?

⁴Fear necessarily blinds, for that is its weapon; you cannot see what you are afraid to see.

⁵Love and perception go hand in hand.

⁶But fear hides in darkness what is really there. ^II

3. What then can fear project upon the world?

²What can be seen in darkness that is real?

³Fear eclipses truth, and only what you imagine remains.

⁴But what can be real in blind imaginings born of panic?

⁵What is it, then, that you want, that this be shown to you?

⁶What do you wish to keep in such a dream?

4. Fear has forged everything you think you see.

²Every separation, every distinction, and the countless differences you believe make up the world do not exist.

³The enemy of love invented them.

⁴Yet love can have no enemy.

⁵And so they have no cause, no being, and no consequence.

⁶They can be valued, but they remain unreal.

⁷They can be sought, but they cannot be found.

⁸Today we will not seek for them, nor waste the day in search of what cannot be found.

5. It is impossible to see two worlds that have no overlap.

²If you pursue one, the other disappears.

³But the one you seek is always there.

⁴These two worlds are the only choices you can make, for there are no others.

⁵You choose between the real and the unreal, and nothing else.

6. Today we will try not to make a compromise between the two, for that is impossible.

²The world you see is proof that you have already made a choice as vast as is its opposite.

³Today we want to learn more than just the lesson that you cannot see two worlds at once.

⁴This lesson also teaches you that the world you have chosen is entirely consistent from your point of view.

⁵It is all of one piece, because it arises from a single emotion, and reflects its source in everything you see. ^III

7. Gratefully and gladly, six times today we dedicate five minutes to the thought that wipes away all compromise and transcends all doubt.

²We will not make thousands of meaningless distinctions, nor attempt to carry with us a scrap of unreality as we devote our mind to finding only what is real.

8. Begin your search for that other world by calling on a Strength far greater than your own, and know what it is you seek.

²You no longer want illusions.

³And you prepare for these five minutes by emptying your hands of all the trivial treasures of this world.

⁴And so, you wait for God to help you, saying:

⁵It is impossible to see two worlds.

⁶I accept the strength God offers me.

⁷I will not value what is valueless.

⁸And thus I will find my freedom and my salvation.

9. God will be there waiting for you.

²For you have called upon the great unfailing Power, and gratefully He will take this mighty step with you.^IV

³You will see His gratitude expressed in a new perception, clear and true.

⁴And you will not doubt what you behold.

⁵For though it is still perception, it is a kind your eyes have never seen before.

⁶And you will know that the Strength of God Himself has supported you in your choice.

10. Easily dismiss temptation today whenever it arises, simply by remembering the choices you are making.

²For you can see only the unreal or the real, the false or the true, and nothing else.

³Perception aligns with your choice, and thus you will see either Heaven or hell.

11. If you accept but a tiny part of hell as real, you have condemned your eyes and cursed your sight, and what you will behold will indeed be hell.

²But you can choose to free your mind and claim the Heaven of release instead of all the hell the world would show you.

³To every glimpse of hell, no matter what its form, respond with these words:

⁴It is impossible to see two worlds.

⁵I seek my freedom and my salvation,

⁶And this is not a part of what I want.

---

^I First you think, and then you see — not the other way around. Perception is the result of your will. And you inevitably direct your will toward attaining what you value. That is why it is essential to choose carefully what is valuable to you, for that is what will appear before you. This is how you “create” the world you believe you see.

The perceptual process unfolds like this:

IDEA OF VALUE
↓
CONCEPTION OF A FORM THAT MATERIALIZES IT
↓
PERCEPTION OF THE ILLUSION THAT REPRESENTS IT

First you ascribe value to something. Because you value it, you desire it. Because you desire it, you want to see it. And because you want to see it, you project it onto the screen of your consciousness. In other words: you see it. That is the power of your will in action.

This process occurs in your mind — both with the perception of illusions that represent what you value, and with those that represent the absence of value (what you fear). And unfortunately, this latter process happens far too often, for you have grown accustomed to perceiving an imaginary world built from absences of love — the dream that hypnotizes the mind that feels alone in the universe, enchanted by the notion of possessing an individual identity separate from everything.

And then you tell yourself that you have no will, that your mind is powerless — which is astonishing. How you deceive yourself!

You think of your will as nothing more than a wavering wish, at best a frail mental push that urges you to laboriously perform the tiresome tasks imposed by your desires. And you are unaware that it is, in fact, your will that has shaped the entire stage on which this sad drama is enacted.

Wake up and learn Who You Are! You are everything. You are the absolute author of your personal life. Everything you perceive is in you — but you are none of it.

You are only experiencing your own beliefs, for the mind that believes it is separate can experience nothing else. And of all those beliefs, the most absurd is the pitiful idea you have of yourself.

That “you” you think you are is nothing but this: a belief taking place in your mind — the mind of the Son of God.

Notice that what you do here, in this imagined mental space you call “the world,” is a reduced, illusory version of what you do in the Reality of Heaven, where you truly abide.

In Heaven, You Are.

To Be is to Love.

And to Love is to Give.

What you are, you give — you extend.

And that is to create.

And what you create are your Creations: the Reality your Being extends through Creation, just as Itself — you — was created by your Father.

^II The world you believe you see is the world of the ego — that sickness of the mind born of the strange idea that you are “something” different from everything else, different from God. And that “something” — the ego — is also subject to the laws of perception when it denies reality.

The ego fears love, for the reality of love dispels the unreality of the ego. Since it fears love, it does not want to see it. And since it does not want to see it, it hides it. That is why you cannot see the real world through the eyes of the ego, for the real world reflects the Love of God. But it takes only the removal of the ego from the equation of perception for the real world to appear before your eyes. And that is as simple as ceasing to give importance to the idea you have of yourself — your ego. When the mind ceases to take that personal identity into account, the ego vanishes.

The dream that your still-sleeping mind believes it perceives is no longer affected by the notion of absence, and what it sees reflects the love underlying every illusion. Your eyes, for a brief time, still retain the memory of the old symbols that once told stories of separation, but now they appear outlined upon a background of radiant love. And that vision, having no further purpose, finally dissolves into the glorious vastness of Existence.

^III The emotion that makes you see the world of the ego is fear, and the one that shows you the real world is love. It is impossible to see both worlds simultaneously, for emotions are unique and mutually exclusive. The mind can hold many ideas at once — even contradictory ones — but the heart offers you, in the present moment, only one emotion: the direct result of the relationships formed among the ideas in your mind.

The heart is the great simplifier, and its dictates are the conclusion of what the mind proposes. Do not look with the mind at what is in the mind, for you will get lost; look with the mind toward the heart, and there you will find the answer to what is occurring in your mind. The emotion of your heart is the sound generated by the interplay of ideas in your mind, and your Soul knows well how to interpret it.

^IV This Lesson is another of the “giant steps” in the Workbook. The other Lessons in which they are mentioned are: 66, 94, 127, 130, 135, and 194.

Beyond this world there is a world I want.

1. This is the thought that follows the one we practiced yesterday.

²You cannot hold to the idea that the world is worthless unless you also see that there is something else in which to place your hope, or you will only become depressed.

³We are not emphasizing the idea of giving up the world, but of exchanging it for something far more satisfying, filled with joy, and capable of offering you peace. ^I

⁴Do you really believe this world can give you that?

2. Perhaps it is worth reflecting once again on the value of this world.

²You may be willing to admit that you lose nothing by giving up all thoughts of value here.

³The world you see is surely merciless, unstable, and cruel; indifferent toward you, quick to take revenge, and relentless in its hatred.

⁴It gives, only to take away again, for it takes from you all the things you thought were precious for a time.

⁵You will not find lasting love in it, for none is here.

⁶This is the world of time, where all things come to an end.

3. How then can it be a loss to replace it with a world where loss is impossible, where love endures forever, where hatred cannot exist, and vengeance has no meaning?

²How can it be a loss to find all things that you really want, and know they have no end, and will remain exactly as you want them throughout time?

³Even so, these too will finally be exchanged for that of which we cannot speak, for from there you go where words no longer serve, and you enter the silence of a language not spoken, yet perfectly understood. ^II

4. Communication, clear and certain as the light of day, continues without limit and without pause for all eternity.

²And God Himself speaks to His Son, just as His Son speaks to Him.

³Their language has no words, for what They share cannot be symbolized.

⁴Their Knowledge is direct, completely shared, and wholly One.

5. How far from this are those who are still bound to this world!

²Yet how near you are when you exchange it for the world you truly want!

³Now the final step is certain.

⁴Now you are but an instant from timelessness.

⁵From here, you can only look ahead.

⁶For you will not look back to see a world you do not want.

⁷This is the other world that comes to take its place when you release your mind from the trifles the old one offers to trap you.

⁸Give them no value and they will disappear.

⁹But if you value them, they will seem real to you.

6. This is the choice you have before you.

²What can you lose by choosing not to value what is nothing?

³This world holds nothing that you truly want.

⁴But the one you choose in its place is the one you truly do.

⁵Let it be given you today.

⁶That world is merely waiting for your choice, to take the place of all the things you sought before, but never really wanted.

7. Practice your willingness to make this exchange for ten minutes in the morning, ten at night, and once again at midday.

²Begin with this:

³Beyond this world there is a world I want.

⁴I choose to see that world instead of this,

⁵For here there is nothing that I really want.

⁶Then close your eyes to the world you see, and in the quiet darkness of your mind, watch as lights begin to appear, one by one, that are not of this world, until there comes a moment when you can no longer tell where one ends and another begins, for they all merge into one. ^III

8. Today the stars of Heaven bend to you to cast their light upon your closed eyes, while you rest beyond the world of darkness.

²This is a light your eyes cannot perceive.

³But your mind can clearly see it and understand it.

⁴Today a day of grace is given you, and for this we give thanks to God. ^IV

9. Today you understand that the only loss there ever was, was your own fear of losing.

²But now you see that loss is impossible. ^V

³For at last we have seen its opposite, and we are thankful for the choice we made.

⁴Each hour remember the decision you have made, and take a moment to confirm your choice, laying aside all thought and focusing briefly only on this:

⁵The world I see holds nothing that I want.

⁶But beyond this world there is a world I want.

---

^I Today’s Lesson serves to reconcile your mind with yesterday’s idea and to give meaning and purpose to your renunciation of a world of forms. Now it is explained that it is not a matter of renouncing, but of exchanging what is worthless for what has true value—and, moreover, is exactly what you have been seeking. You are not being asked to make sacrifices—quite the opposite. You are being lovingly advised not to sacrifice your happiness in exchange for disappointment. You renounce only the illusion of value, not true worth.

^II These lines describe the three symbols through which salvation unfolds. The first is the illusory world of sin, guilt, and suffering, which, when reinterpreted correctly by a trained mind, becomes the real world—still an illusion, but one that reflects only the Love of God. And finally, there is Heaven, the symbol of Reality, where Love is no longer reflected in anything, for it is the very substance of all that Exists.

Notice that you do not exchange the illusory world for Heaven, but for the real world. Heaven is not the result of your efforts but something into which you are gently drawn once you reach the real world. Atonement is a process that takes place within the world of suffering, according to God’s Plan for salvation, which leads you to the real world—where awakening occurs.

In this Lesson, Jesus offers a fundamental alternative: where to focus the mind. He invites you to direct your attention toward a real world, beyond the world the senses perceive. Yet when He speaks of real concepts, the content can seem difficult to grasp from the usual, worldly perspective.

An important question arises from this reflection: why does the Mind of the Son of God pass through a human experience? According to A Course in Miracles, the world is a voluntary dream. So what purpose does existence in this dream serve?

To understand this, it is essential to grasp the difference between states of consciousness. The state of true Reality—where Christ abides—is a timeless state, outside of time and change. In that state there is no movement or transformation; everything is fullness and eternity. Therefore, there it is not possible to learn or change, since learning implies modification—an evolution of the mind.

The “mad idea” of separation, arising in the Mind of the Son, needs to be corrected. And for correction to be possible, a context must exist in which change can occur—that context is time. Time, though illusory, becomes the setting in which learning can take place, where the mind can shift its perception and heal.

Thus, time has a redemptive function. It is used by the Holy Spirit to facilitate Atonement. Without temporal experience, there would be no opportunity to correct the belief in separation, for outside of time there is no possibility of changing one’s mind.

That is why human experience makes sense within the plan of salvation. It is not a purposeless mistake, but a precious opportunity. Here, within time, one can unlearn separation, recognize true identity, and rediscover the meaning of love and being.

The world, therefore, should neither be idolized nor feared, but understood as a temporary means that serves the recovery of the remembrance of God. Beyond this world of change lies another—the real world—which truly deserves your heart’s desire and attention.

^III This is a visualization exercise that requires a clear mind combined with your willingness to see. You will see what you want to see. Here Jesus makes you a proposal: simply empty your mind and very gently invoke the vision of the lights He mentions. Do not strain. Just relax, and ask.

^IV The lights you see in this visualization are symbols of the love that is reflected in the things of the real world—and that love is the only real component of what you perceive there. Then you begin to become aware that those tiny lights merge into one, expressing the all-encompassing and total nature of Love—the only thing that exists. It is all an allegory of the Atonement.

^V Yesterday your heart tightened a little, for you thought you were going to lose something by having to renounce the things of the world. Now you realize that is impossible. You cannot lose anything of value, for the simple reason that you are the source of all value. And although you do not yet understand this well—since the idea you have of yourself is rather pitiful—you will soon begin to grasp it.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, outside you has value, because in truth there is nothing outside you. The very idea of value is something you tear out of yourself and project “outward” to see it as something external and then go searching for it there. It is a trick of illusion you play on yourself. You delude yourself by projecting your own worth onto a nonexistent “outer space,” as if that were possible. Then, deceived and enchanted—which are the same—you rush to seize it, only to find it slips through your fingers. There was nothing there—only a belief.

Now you are beginning to realize that, in truth, you cannot lose anything. Well… except perhaps your sanity—but even of that, you too will eventually grow weary.

Here there is nothing I want.

1. The world you see can offer you nothing that you need. ^I

²It holds nothing that you can use in any way.

³Nor anything at all that can bring you happiness. ^II

⁴Believe this idea and you will save yourself many years of suffering, countless disappointments, and hopes that turn into bitter ashes of despair.

⁵If you would leave this world behind and rise above its petty reach and meanness, you must understand that this is true.

2. Everything you value here is nothing but a chain that binds you to the world, and that is its only purpose.

²For everything serves the purpose you have given it, until you see in it another one.

³The only purpose in this world worthy of your mind is to let it pass, without wasting time in search of hope where there is none.

⁴Do not continue to deceive yourself.

⁵The world you see holds nothing that you want. ^III

3. Escape today from the chains with which you bind your mind when you believe salvation can be found here.

²For whatever you give value to, you make a part of you, as you perceive yourself.

³All the things you chase to reinforce the image you have of yourself limit you even more, obscure your true worth, and place another lock on the door that leads to true awareness of your Self.

4. Let nothing connected with the body delay your salvation.

²Nor let yourself be tempted by the belief that the world has something you desire.

³There is nothing here worth having.

⁴There is nothing here worth one instant of delay and pain, one moment of uncertainty and doubt.

⁵What is valueless offers nothing.

⁶Nothing truly valuable can be found in what has no value.

5. Our practice today is to give up every thought of value you have ever placed upon this world.

²We withdraw all functions we have assigned to its aspects, its features, and its dreams.

³We assign no purpose to the world in our mind, and we release it from everything we ever wanted it to be. ^IV

⁴And in this way, we break the chains that kept us bound to the world, and rise beyond its petty values and its miserable goals. ^V

6. Quiet your mind and be still for a moment, and see how you rise above the world as you release your mind from its chains.

²Let it seek by itself the higher planes where it finds its true home.

³Your mind will be grateful to be free for a little while.

⁴It knows where it belongs.

⁵You need only free its wings, and it will fly in confidence, in joy, and in trust, to join its holy purpose.

⁶Let it rest in its Creator, where it is restored to sanity, to freedom, and to love.

7. Give it ten minutes of rest today, three times.

²And when you open your eyes again, you will not value what you see in quite the same way as before.

³Your perspective on the world will shift a little every time you release your mind from its chains.

⁴It does not belong to the world.

⁵And you must be where it goes to rest, when you set it free from this world.

⁶Your Guide is infallible.

⁷Open your mind to Him.

⁸Be still and rest.

8. Guard your mind throughout the rest of the day as well. ^VI

²And whenever you think you see some value in an image or aspect of the world, refuse to lay that chain upon your mind, and say to yourself with quiet certainty:

³This will not tempt me to delay.

⁴Here there is nothing I want.

---

^I Today’s Lesson is one of the most beautiful, one of the bitterest, one of the most difficult, one of the most joyous, and perhaps the most liberating.

Prepare your mind, then, and render it every honor.

^II When you read these first three lines, it is essential that you understand that at the end of these sentences Jesus has not added “…truly,” because at this point He already assumes that you know what He is referring to.

The “you” to whom Jesus is speaking here is your true Self, the very One He knows and enjoys as His true identity—the Self that you are and with which you are already beginning to grow familiar.

You have probably begun to suspect that the “you” with which you have identified until now is nothing but a bundle of shifting fears and desires, orchestrated by the ego to prevent the dawning awareness of its own nonexistence.

That bouquet of cravings and fears certainly finds some of the proposals of this illusory world satisfactory. But, for God’s sake, realize that you are not that, and to think that the Son of God can be herded through darkness with a stick and a carrot is such a debased notion of your true identity that it is not even worth refuting.

The aim of this Course is to lift you out of so shameful a condition and lead you to the dignity that is yours by right.

^III Now read carefully what Jesus wants to tell you, because if you do not, this Lesson will frighten you and you will end up depressed. Obviously, that is not its purpose, so listen attentively. This Lesson seems very harsh to you because, even though you have intellectually accepted that the world is an illusion, you have not yet accepted what that entails.

The world does not exist! The world is an illusion! The world is nothing but the projection of your own expectations. You project your desires outside yourself and see them there, in the imaginary space of your consciousness. You think you enjoy for a while what you longed for when you believe you have attained it, and then, suddenly or little by little, it ceases to interest you—or you think it betrays you. Then the illusion turns into disillusionment, bitterness, or tedium.

Jesus begs you, entreats you, and counsels you to follow His example. The path He walked filled His mind with light and His heart with love to a degree that is impossible to describe or imagine. He knows and lives His Self in perfect fullness. He is One with His Soul. And, knowing that you are exactly the same as He is, and that you now find yourself as lost as He once was, He only wants to counsel you so that you may walk safely along the same path that led Him to remember our Father. Nothing more than that—but nothing less, either.

Jesus does not ask you to clothe yourself in sackcloth, put ashes on your forehead, and walk through the world with downcast eyes so as not to fall into temptation. Do not even let that cross your mind, because it is foolishness. Jesus does not ask that of you. Jesus knows you well, for there was a time when He was just like you. And this, together with the fact that He succeeded in transcending the very limitations you now believe you have, is what authorizes Him to be your teacher. Had it not been so, He could not guide you.

Do you think Jesus did not love His parents and His brothers? Do you think He was not happy with His friends? Do you think He did not eat, did not drink, did not laugh? Can you imagine Him indifferent and impassive before a beautiful dawn, the fragrance of a flower, or a caress? Of course not!

The only difference from the rest of humanity is that there came a time when He stopped deceiving Himself with forms and effects. From then on, He saw only the one Cause of all that is good: the infinite Love of God present in everything that exists and underlying all that seems to exist. And then His joy in this world did not diminish one iota; rather, it multiplied infinitely. That is what He wants you to learn. That difference in interpretation may go unnoticed by an inattentive eye, but it imposes the vision of one world—or of a very different one.

Jesus wants you to know, to love, and to do—but at the level of causes, not of effects, which are nothing. He wants what is best for you, because He knows better than anyone that He can only be happy by making you happy. And if there is anything you can be certain of, in this life and the next, it is that Jesus knows perfectly what Happiness—with a capital H—means.

Now, look closely at how today’s thought begins: “The world I see…”

Do you see? This is about the world “you” see, not about what is actually there. The world itself is not bad, nor does it intend to deceive you. The problem is the interpretation you make of it.

That is why in 2:2 it says: “For everything serves the purpose you have given it, until you see in it another purpose.”

The problem is that you are confusing form with content.

The problem is that you are completely lost when managing what you perceive. You are interpreting the world wrongly.

^IV By withdrawing your desires from worldly things, you stop demanding that the world give them to you, and now the world owes you nothing.

You free it from all your expectations, and thus, in offering the world release—and since giving and receiving are the same—you also receive release and free yourself from your own senseless desires.

The chains that imprisoned your holy mind have been loosed. Nothing holds you.

The heavy gravity that bound you to the earth no longer exerts any pull on you; now you are ethereal and free to ascend to infinitely higher heights.

^V This is not a Course on behavior but on the interpretation of perception. This Course does not tell you what you have to do; it is a Course on Truth. What you do with what you perceive will be the inevitable conclusion of how you interpret.

People behave as they do for a simple reason: they believe that everything they see exists, that the forms they contemplate are real, and that they themselves are vulnerable bodies, granted a little time to enjoy a few crumbs of happiness until their inevitable end arrives. Given this interpretation of what they believe they perceive, it is understandable that they behave thus.

But Jesus teaches you that this is not the truth; reality is otherwise. The personal mind, at first, must believe Jesus if it hopes to advance along the path to salvation, because the fragmented and sick mind can do nothing but believe. Its devotion, its trust, and its faith will sustain it in the beginning, until its accomplishments and experience confirm the new and glorious expectation. Yet one need not be overly credulous to understand that Jesus is right. The proofs that His arguments are true are not long in coming; some, in fact, are instantaneous. Nevertheless, deep training and purification are required to reach indisputable experience.

Do not seek comfort in the things of the world, for there is none, as you are now seeing the things of this world. It is enough that you be a little honest with yourself for your past experience to confirm it. The investment the world demands for the little it gives is not worth it, and its gifts scarcely last a breath. The astonishing thing in all this is that it is still able to deceive you. Realize that this would not be possible if you yourself were not an active collaborator in the construction of the illusion. You see what you want to see. You perceive what you send your eyes to seek, and you deceive yourself, consumed by the force of your legitimate longings, which you misinterpret.

If you think this is a very lopsided Lesson, that it has shrunk your heart, you are right. But wait for tomorrow’s Lesson, which restores the balance. Today, simply acknowledge the plain truth: this world contains nothing you truly want.

When Jesus points out that all the things you deem important will end up causing you suffering, He is inviting you to review your value system deeply. Why do you deem those things important? Because you have attributed to them a value outside yourself, displacing the sense of importance that naturally belongs to your being.

Personal importance is the ego’s food. It consists in giving value and importance to the image you have of yourself—an image that, though false, becomes the source of all your attributions of value. Thus you transfer the sense of importance from one illusion—the idea you have of yourself—to other illusions: people, objects, situations.

Value itself is not the problem. What happens is that it is misplaced. Real value resides neither in the image you have of yourself nor in the things of the world to which you attribute importance. The only true value is your being, which shares the same nature as God and is existence itself.

It is not a matter of renouncing the world or the things of the world, as though there were something wrong with them. It is a matter of ceasing to grant them importance. It is not a renunciation of the use of things, but of elevating them to the rank of essential to your well-being.

A simple example is the care of the body. You can care for your body the way you care for a car: changing the oil, checking the brakes, keeping it operational. Not because it is important in itself, but because it serves a function. The body is a vehicle for communication, just as a car is a means of transport. It is not a matter of idolizing it or despising it, but of using it with detachment.

The body has a function in God’s plan: to facilitate the communication of love among brothers. That function is important. The body as an object is not. And when you attend to it for its function and not for its illusory importance, the emotional burden associated with its care or deterioration disappears.

Likewise, it is also essential to care for your mind. Not only your body needs attention. The mind as we live it here—a personal, fragmented mind—is also an instrument. And it requires purification, not as a heavy task, but as an act of love. Caring for your mind means being attentive not to sustain toxic thought patterns, not to perpetuate inner dynamics of attack, guilt, or fear.

Society devotes enormous resources to the care of the body, but very little attention to the care of the mind. However, in the context of A Course in Miracles, caring for the mind—purifying it and keeping it at the service of truth—is infinitely more essential. For it is through a clear, clean, and detached mind that love can extend.

Remember: it is not about neglecting anything, but about placing each thing in its proper place. Ceasing to grant value where there is none, and recognizing true value in your being.

^VI Extremely important. Do not get distracted. Today—especially today—watch over and protect your holy mind with infinite care, attention, and tenderness. Your mind is extraordinarily sensitive and delicate. Everything affects it. Do not allow it to be poisoned with base desires or foolish passions. It cannot digest them, and it falls ill. Then it is indisposed and convalescent until it can regain strength and heal again. Do not allow it. A craving for the world’s forms does it great harm. Your mind was not created to feed on something so coarse. That is why you must watch it constantly, as you would an unconscious little animal you take out for a walk.

Today watch your holy mind with utmost care, and closely observe its true appetites. You will see it easily when you notice how it rejoices and rises in bliss when it is nourished by the beautiful flowers of love that grow everywhere—though they must be found. Notice also how it sniffs curiously and tends to pounce upon forms empty of all content, yet enticing, which will make it sick. Do not allow it. Care for it well. It is your vehicle to Heaven.

But do not misinterpret these words, for the mind in truth cannot fall ill. The only thing that “falls ill” is the idea you have of yourself—and that is precisely the instrument you are using for the redemption of that very idea.

One last observation. This is a Course in mind training, and you must understand that the very idea of “training” is tied to the notion of time. Training your mind is going to take some time—probably much more than you now think you need, although surely far less than it would take to discover truth by yourself through countless sufferings and disappointments. Therefore, arm yourself with patience and be gentle with yourself. Do not judge or condemn yourself. It is inevitable that you will still make many mistakes, that in some instances you will backslide, and that you will fall into old habits again.

For the love of God, let none of that stop you! Do not be discouraged or fall into despair. Handle your new mistakes “professionally,” and give them no importance, because in truth they have none. The only thing that matters is precisely that you not give them importance, for that is what true forgiveness is.

The egoic mind has a certain “elastic” nature, which makes it resist every change with reactions contrary to your new aims. Do not worry about it. Persevere, and finally, one day, without realizing it, you will notice that at last you have freed yourself from your old addictions. Your will and your prayer are invincible, for they are sustained by the Power and the Love of God.

With such Helps, failure is simply inconceivable. Your awakening is inevitable. Your faith and your efforts will shorten the process and spare you pain. So why delay?

There is no other love but the Love of God.

1. You may think it is possible that there are different kinds of love.

²You may believe there is one kind of love for this, and another for that; that some can be loved in one way and others in another.

³Love is one. ^I

⁴It has no separate parts and no degrees.

⁵It has no kinds and no levels.

⁶In love there are no divergences, and love makes no distinctions.

⁷It is identical to itself, and it is forever unchanging.

⁸It does not shift with a person or a circumstance.

⁹It is the Heart of God, and also the Heart of His Son. ^II

2. Those who believe that love can change do not understand what love means.

²They do not see that a changing love is impossible.

³That is why they think they can love at times and hate at others.

⁴And they also believe they can love some and deny love to others, without this affecting what love is.

⁵To believe this about love is not to understand it at all.

⁶If love could make such distinctions, it would have to judge between the righteous and the sinners, and perceive the Son of God as fragmented.

3. Love cannot judge.

²Because it is one, it sees all as one.

³Its meaning lies in Oneness. ^III

⁴And it escapes the mind that believes it can exist in parts or fragments.

⁵There is no love but the Love of God, and all love comes from Him.

⁶No principle governs where love is absent.

⁷Love is a law that has no opposite.

⁸Its very completeness is the power that makes all things one; it is the bond between the Father and the Son that makes Them forever the Same.

4. No course whose purpose is to teach you what you truly are could fail to emphasize that there is no difference between what you are and what love is.

²The meaning of love is your own meaning, and God Himself shares it with you.

³For what you are is what He is.

⁴There is no love but His, and what He is is all that truly exists.

⁵God has no limits, and therefore you are also unlimited.

5. None of the laws the world obeys can help you understand the meaning of love.

²What the world believes was made to hide the meaning of love, and to keep it in darkness and secrecy.

³There is not a single principle the world upholds that does not contradict the truth of what love is, and of what you are as well.

⁴Do not seek your Self in the world. ^IV

⁵Love is not found in darkness and in death.

⁶Yet it is perfectly evident to the eyes that see and the ears that hear His Voice.

6. Our practice today is to release your mind from all the laws you think you must obey, from all the limits you have imposed upon yourself, and from all the changes you believe are part of human destiny.

²Today we take the greatest step this Course requires to move toward the goal it sets.

³If today you gain the slightest glimpse of what love means, you will have made an immeasurable leap forward on the path to your release and saved yourself time beyond all measure in years.

⁴Let us then be glad to give a little time to God today, and understand there is no better way to use time than this.

7. Spend fifteen minutes twice today escaping from all the laws in which you now believe.

²Open your mind and rest.

³Anyone can escape from this world that seems to hold him prisoner if he ceases to value it.

⁴Value not its pitiful offerings nor its senseless gifts, and let the Gift of God replace them all.

8. Call upon your Father with the certainty that His Voice will answer you.

²He Himself has promised it.

³And He Himself will place a spark of truth in your mind each time you give up a false belief, a dark illusion about your own reality and about what love means.

⁴He will shine through all your idle thoughts today and help you understand the truth of love.

⁵He will dwell with you in loving tenderness as you allow His Voice to teach your clean and open mind the meaning of love.^V

⁶And He will bless that lesson with His Love.

9. Today, the legion of years spent waiting for salvation in the future disappears before the timelessness of what you are learning.

²Let us give thanks today that we have been released from a future that would have been like the past.

³Today we leave the past behind, never to recall it.

⁴And we lift our eyes to a present very different from the past, where shines a future unlike the past in every attribute.

10. The world that has just been born is still in its infancy.

²And we shall see it grow strong and whole, to pour its blessing upon all who come to learn to set aside a world they once believed was born of hate, to be the enemy of love.

³Now all of them are freed along with us.

⁴Now all of them are our brothers in the Love of God.

11. We will remember them throughout the day, for if we would know our Self, we cannot leave a part of us outside our love.

²At least three times an hour, think of someone who walks with you upon this journey, for he came to learn the same lesson you must learn.

³And when he comes to mind, give him this message from your Self:

⁴I bless you, brother, with the Love of God,

⁵Which I would share with you,

⁶For I would learn the joyous lesson

⁷That there is no love but the Love of God,

⁸Which is your own, as well as mine and everyone’s.

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^I It is probably impossible to speak of love without saying something inappropriate. Perhaps that is why this Course—which is, ultimately, a Course on love—does not usually address that idea directly. In fact, it is quite explicit in stating in its very Introduction: “This is not a course in the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught.” (T-In.2:1)

And if it says that love cannot be taught, it is because it also cannot be learned. Love can only be, for love is existence itself. To love is to exist, and to exist is to love.

This Course also says that loving is one of the three functions of the Soul: “The true functions of the Soul are knowing, loving, and creating” (T-3.IX.1:2), because the three aspects of the One Being are Knowledge, Love, and Will. And this does not mean that from a strictly ontological standpoint they are three, for the three are One and the Same, just as God and His Son are. To formulate it in that way simply means that we have chosen to contemplate Being from this triple perspective.

Notice how Jesus—like many other teachers of the nondual paradigm—approaches the true concept He seeks to explain by means of the negative, that is, by explaining what the concept is not. Look at all the negative statements contained in this Lesson—have you seen how many? This is because Jesus, as He Himself declares, is the teacher of the ego: “Belief certainly does apply to me because I am the teacher of the ego” (T-4.III.7:4), for the ego can only “believe,” and it is familiar only with the negative—with what is not.

That you cannot be taught—and cannot learn—the meaning of love should not trouble you in the least, because, although your personal mind cannot grasp that concept, you can live it, experience it, and be it. In fact, when you do not live it, do not experience it, and do not be it, you are not living, not experiencing, and not being anything at all. Love is all that exists. Love is the only reality.

The “life” of the ego—that imaginary experience of the mind—is a most curious and astonishing phenomenon: it conceives illusions of reality by deeming the notion of absence to be “important.” It is obvious that what is missing does not exist, yet the mind is perfectly capable of forgetting that little detail and focusing exclusively upon it.

How does it do so? Why? For what purpose? All of these are meaningless questions—asked and answered by a deluded mind that entertained the idea of being separate from God. But since the impossible is not possible, it never happened.

Perhaps the only thing that may have some relevance for the personal mind is becoming aware that the imaginary world it believes it lives in is “built” out of absences of love—absences of reality. And it may also be helpful for that mind, which has not yet decided to stop dreaming, that its dream becomes more benevolent when it is devoted to supplying the love it believes is lacking in a given situation.

Each time you respond with love to an attack—an absence of love—you illuminate and straighten that story of pain, that fearful dream.

Remember: the power of love is absolute. There is no darkness that love cannot dispel, no circumstance it cannot heal.

This Lesson ends with a blessing: “I bless you, brother…” —and I bless you because I love you; because I love myself. My will is to love you because I know you, and now I know myself. And that is my fullness.

^II In this Lesson, Jesus introduces a fundamental idea about love: love is one. It has no separate parts; there are no different kinds or levels of love. It does not change according to people or circumstances. Love is identical to itself and remains forever unalterable.

At first this may seem strange, for we are accustomed to speaking of different kinds of love—maternal love, romantic love, fraternal love. Yet all of this arises from an emotional view of love, not from the reality of what love truly is.

Love, as Jesus teaches it, is not an emotion. It is not an emotional response tied to memories or expectations. Emotions are effects, and love is cause. Love is an aspect of your being. It is what you are. It is the natural quality of the simple fact of existing.

You might understand it more easily if you look at it this way: to be and to love are inseparable. There are no different ways of being, just as there are no different forms of love. You are, and in that being, you dwell in love. Love is the living expression of your existence—the way the consciousness of being feels itself.

If you understand it thus, the statements of the Course read quite differently: it is not that there is a love for each thing, but that love is your essence—an essence without parts or differences, a perfect unity.

It is true that in this world we perceive love relationally, as an exchange or connection between beings. But that is simply an expression of the natural extension of being. Being, by its very nature, extends—and love is that extension.

Though here you still perceive separation and appear to dwell in a world of appearances, love remains what you truly are. Your being extends toward what you see as “others” because, in truth, all is one.

To help you recognize it more easily, you can remember that love is the state opposite to fear. In this world, where we tend to notice absences more than presences, it is often easier to recognize love through its absence: where there is fear—or hatred, which is the same—love is lacking.

Thus love, which is your true nature, could be described as an exultant state of infinite peace, completely opposed to any form of fear. It is not a fleeting emotion but a state of complete, constant, and eternal being.

^III The quality of oneness—love is the epitome of simplicity, one of the very aspects of existence itself.

^IV John 5:44 “How can you believe, when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”

^V John 14:16 “And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever.”

All that I give is given to myself.

1. Today’s idea is entirely alien to the ego and to the way the world thinks.

²This idea is key to reversing your thought system, which is precisely what this Course is designed to do.

³If you believed what today’s idea says, you would have no difficulty in forgiving completely, you would have absolute certainty about your goals, and you would clearly understand the direction in which you are going.

⁴You would also understand the means by which salvation comes to you, and you would make use of it without hesitation. ^I

2. Let us now consider what you believe, instead of what this idea teaches.

²You believe that others are separate from you, and that their behavior and their thoughts have nothing to do with what you think.

³You also believe that what they think does not affect your thoughts nor your behavior.

⁴Therefore, you believe that your attitudes have no effect on them, and that their calls for help have no connection with your own.

⁵You also believe they can sin without affecting your own self-image, and that you can judge their sins and remain without condemnation and at peace.

3. For this reason, when you “forgive” a sin, you believe you are gaining nothing directly.

²In such a case, you are simply being charitable toward someone who, in truth, does not deserve it.

³And so you are confirming that you are better and on a higher level than they are.

⁴They have not earned your merciful tolerance, for you are offering it to someone who clearly does not deserve it, since their sins have placed them far beneath true equality with you.

⁵You believe they have no right to expect your forgiveness.

⁶Your forgiveness is a gift you give them—but it gives nothing to you.

4. From this point of view, forgiveness appears to be a somewhat absurd and unfounded gesture.

²It is a capricious act—perhaps generous, but certainly undeserved.

³It is a gift that is sometimes given and sometimes withheld.

⁴And since it is undeserved, to withhold it seems entirely justified.

⁵Surely it would not be fair for you to suffer if you refuse to give it.

⁶For the sin you forgive is not your own; it was committed by someone completely apart from you.

⁷And while you are being generous in giving them what they do not deserve, the gift they receive is no more connected to you than is their sin.

5. If all this were true, then forgiveness would have no solid, dependable foundation to rest upon.

²It would be nothing more than a whim, a passing indulgence where you sometimes choose to grant an unearned reprieve.

³But you would still be justified in not letting the sinner escape the rightful payment for their guilt.

⁴Would the Lord of Heaven let the world’s salvation depend on this?

⁵Would it not be utterly unloving of Him to base your own salvation on a whim?

6. You do not understand what forgiveness is. ^II

²As you see it, forgiveness is merely restraint from overt attack—something that requires no true correction in your own mind.

³As you understand it, forgiveness cannot give you peace.

⁴It is not a means of release from what you see in another.

⁵It has no power to help you realize that you are truly joined to them.

⁶But that is not what God intended forgiveness to be for you.

7. When you deny the gift your Father asks of you, you cannot recognize His gifts, and so you believe He has not given them.

²But would He ask you for something unless it were for you?

³Would He be content with empty gestures, and see such meager offerings as worthy of His Son?

⁴Salvation is a far greater gift than that.

⁵True forgiveness—which is the means by which salvation comes—must heal the mind of the one who gives it, for giving is receiving.

⁶What is not received has not been given.

⁷But what is truly given is always received.

8. Today we will try to understand the truth that giver and receiver are the same.

²You cannot grasp this without help, because it is so far removed from your usual way of thinking that you cannot comprehend it.

³But do not be concerned—you have the Help you need.

⁴Place your trust in the Holy Spirit today, and ask Him to help you understand the truth.

⁵And if you catch even the faintest glimpse of the release this idea holds, this will be a day of glory for the world.

9. Give fifteen minutes twice today to trying to understand the idea for today.

²It is the thought that places forgiveness at the center of your priorities.

³It is the thought that will release your mind from every obstacle that blocks your understanding of forgiveness and help you recognize its great worth to you.

10. In mental silence, close your eyes to a world that does not understand forgiveness and retreat into the quiet place where thoughts are transformed and false beliefs are left behind.

²Repeat today’s idea and ask for help in understanding what it truly means.

³Be willing to let Him teach you.

⁴Be glad to hear the Voice of truth and healing, for you will understand what It says, and you will recognize that It speaks to you with your own words.

11. Remind yourself as often as you can today that you have a goal, a purpose that makes this day especially valuable to you and to all your brothers.

²Do not let your mind forget this goal for long, and say to yourself:

³All that I give is given to myself.

⁴The Help I need to understand that this is true is with me now.

⁵I will trust in Him completely.

⁶Then take a moment of stillness to open your mind to His correction and His Love.

⁷And you will believe what you hear from Him, for what He gives you will surely be received.

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^I Giving and receiving are the same, because what you see “out there” is also you. There is nothing outside you; you are everything.

If you could only understand and accept that what you know as your “personal existence” is nothing but a belief you hold in your mind, two things would happen. The first is that your mind would expand and become aware of its true magnitude; the second, that your thoughts concerning your personal life would cease to have any meaning for you. In fact, there would no longer be a “you” to conceive them.

Do you find it hard to understand that you believe you are you? Obviously not. That is evident, even to the personal mind. What you find hard to accept is that you are nothing more than that belief—that you are not a body with an existence independent of what your mind may think or believe.

You have not yet become fully aware of the incredible power of beliefs. And the term “incredible” is fitting here, for beliefs are nothing apart from themselves; they have the “power” to “create” an imaginary world all on their own. That is the “power” of the god of illusion.

It is true that you recognize there are beliefs that are not true, for you have seen that many times in yourself, realizing that countless things you once believed were not true. But it is usually easier for you to see that in others. People believe in so many foolish and absurd things, don’t they?

What you find difficult to accept—not to understand—is that ALL your beliefs are false, and that to believe is simply to deceive yourself for a while. Well, perhaps you are willing to admit that possibility. But what you find totally unacceptable is that the “you” you think you are is also a belief—and nothing but that: a belief.

But do not be disheartened, for that is only part of the story. The truth is that the mind that sustains that belief is real—and that is precisely what you truly are. Understand this, and understand it well: with this recognition you are losing nothing; you are gaining everything.

Although, to be fair, there is something you do lose: you lose the limits that you—the mind—have imposed upon yourself, your self-definitions. Remember that to define, from the Latin definire, means “to set limits.” You are no longer limited. You can now believe something else—or you can cease to believe and simply be all that exists, for those are the only two options there are.

Even if only for an instant, reflect on why you insist so much on being what you believe you are. It is obvious that if you believe it, it is because you want to believe it. Otherwise, why would you believe it? Could it be because you want to be limited, because you want to suffer?

Do you not see that believing has an enormous cost—that you must pay a price for every belief you hold? Do you want to pay it? … Why?

Perhaps what happens is that the belief the mind—you—holds in being that particular person you think you are still does not wish to renounce the limits it has imposed upon itself. Do not worry; there is time for that. In fact, there is all the time you wish to invent.

But perhaps you would like to open yourself to the possibility that, for those still attracted to the stories they tell themselves, there are beliefs more “benign” than the ones they now hold. Today’s idea is such a belief: a statement aligned with the truth:

“All that I give I give to myself.”

Practice that idea in your particular world, and you will see that it works.

By the way, try to give yourself only good things—unless you prefer to go on hurting yourself. Choose well, love, and trust. Your days of fear are numbered. You are moving toward the Heart of God, where His Love abides, which is all that exists and all that you are.

Smile: the sad dream is coming to its end.

Give yourself good things by giving them to others, and enjoy a little more of the dream of your personal life… but do not linger too long. All that you busy yourself with here is not even the shadow of the celebration that awaits you in Heaven—your Home—when you decide to return.

^II All this matter of forgiveness, in truth, is nothing but the particular application of today’s idea. You think you see sin outside yourself, but it is in you. You think you forgive it in another, but you are forgiving yourself. You think you are doing a poor sinner a favor—and you are right; you are doing yourself an enormous favor.

Only forgiveness can give you the peace you so deeply long for… and it will do so by your own hand.