I Choose the Joy of God Instead of Pain.
1. Pain is a mistaken perspective.
²To experience any of its forms is to be deceiving yourself.
³Pain is not a fact at all.
⁴Every kind of pain disappears when seen correctly.I
⁵For pain proclaims that God is cruel.
⁶How, then, could it be real in any form?
⁷Pain testifies to the Father’s hatred for His Son, to the sin He sees in him, and to His insane desire for vengeance and for death.
2. Do you believe such projections can be trusted?
²Can they be anything but entirely false?
³Pain is merely the witness to the Son’s mistakes about what he believes himself to be.
⁴It is a dream of fierce reprisal for a crime he could not possibly have committed, for an attack upon what is utterly unassailable.
⁵It is the nightmare of feeling abandoned by Eternal Love, Which could never abandon the Son It created by extending Its Love.
3. Pain is a sign that illusions rule in place of truth.
²It proves that God has been denied, confused with fear, believed to be insane, and thought to have betrayed Himself.
³If God is real, then pain does not exist.
⁴But if pain is real, then God does not exist.
⁵For vengeance is not part of Love.
⁶And fear, denying Love and using pain as proof that God is dead, succeeds in proving that death has triumphed over life.
⁷Then the Son of God must be a body, corruptible in death, and as mortal as the Father he has slain.
4. Let peace put an end to such madness.
²It is time to laugh at such insane ideas.
³There is no need to see them as heinous crimes or secret sins with dire consequences.
⁴Who but a madman would believe they could have consequences?
⁵Their witness—pain—is as insane as they are.
⁶You need not fear it, just as you need not fear the foolish illusions it protects and seeks to make appear as true.
5. Only your thoughts can bring you pain.
²Nothing external to your mind can harm or injure you in any way.
³There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach you and oppress you.
⁴No one but yourself affects you.
⁵There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill, to sadden you, or to weaken you.
⁶You hold the power to master all things you see, simply by recognizing what you are.
⁷When you perceive that they are harmless, they will gladly obey your holy will.
⁸And what once seemed fearful becomes a source of innocence and holiness.
6. My holy brother, consider this for a moment:
²The world you see does nothing.
³It has no effect at all.
⁴It merely reflects your thoughts.
⁵And it will change entirely as you change your mind, and choose the Joy of God as what you really want.
⁶Your Self shines in this holy joy, forever unchanged and unchangeable.
⁷Would you deny one little corner of your mind its rightful inheritance? II
⁸Will you keep it as a hospital for pain, a sickly place where living things must finally come to die?
7. It may seem the world causes you pain.
²But it has no cause, and so it has no power to cause anything.
³Being an effect, it cannot produce effects.
⁴Being an illusion, it is only what you want it to be.
⁵The pains of the world are the representations of your futile wishes.
⁶Your strange desires give rise to its dreams of evil.
⁷Your thoughts of death enshroud the world in fear.
⁸But your gentle forgiveness brings it life.
8. Pain is the thought of evil made manifest, and it wreaks havoc on your holy mind.
²Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid to not be free.
³In pain, the Son of God is denied by God Himself.
⁴In pain, fear seems to triumph over love, and time replaces eternity and Heaven.
⁵And the world becomes a bitter, cruel domain where sorrow rules, and little joys quickly yield to the assault of pain, which turns all joy to suffering.
9. Lay down your arms and come without defense to the quiet place where Heaven’s peace enfolds all things in stillness.
²Let go of every thought of threat and fear.
³Allow no attack to come with you.
⁴Release the cruel blade of judgment you hold against your throat, and set aside the harsh condemnations with which you would obscure your holiness.III
10. Thus will you understand that pain is not real.
²Thus will the Joy of God be yours.
³Today you are given the lesson that holds all the power of salvation.
⁴And it is this:
⁵Pain is illusion; joy alone is real.
⁶Pain is but sleep; joy is awakening.
⁷Pain is deception; joy is truth.
11. And so once more we make the only choice that ever can be made: we choose between illusions and the truth, between pain and joy, between hell and Heaven.
²Let gratitude to our Teacher fill our hearts, for we are free to choose the joy instead of pain, holiness instead of sin, the Peace of God instead of conflict, and Heaven’s light in place of the world’s darkness.
I This is one of the most radical and misunderstood lessons in theCourse. It asserts, without hesitation, that pain is not real—that it has no external cause. That it is only possible as the effect of a belief: the belief that we are bodies, vulnerable, and separate from God. At the same time, it warns that accepting this is not easy, for we have identified so deeply with the body that any questioning of its reality seems senseless or even cruel. Yet unless we take this step, we remain trapped in illusion.
Jesus does not deny that you experience pain. What he denies is its ultimate reality. He teaches that all pain is a decision, even if that decision is made within unconscious layers of the mind. Emotional suffering and physical pain, he says, reflect the same cause: a mistaken identity. It is the belief that you are a body that generates the vulnerability you then experience as pain—not the other way around.
The good news is that you can choose differently. You can begin by accepting that suffering is a belief, not a condemnation. That you are not bound to sustain that limited identity. And from there, with humility, you can begin to release, little by little, the ideas that uphold it—not from guilt, but from a commitment to truth. For to blame yourself for feeling pain is only another way of attacking your mind. You are not asked for perfection; you are asked for honesty. You are asked to say, “I want another way,” and to practice that desire with patience, kindness, and perseverance.
Joy does not await you at the end of a painful road. It is here now, available, if you decide to release the conditions you have imposed. If you decide that you no longer wish to pay the price of not being free. For that is what pain is: the toll you pay for continuing to believe you are separate. Today you are offered another option: the joy of God—not as a future promise, but as a present choice.
After reading these lines, you may think you are doing this Course wrong, or that what is stated here is not true. Not so. What you have just read is literally true, and it is not that you are failing in your practice of the Course; it is simply that this is something not yet within your reach. You are walking the Course, but you have not yet completed it. If you had fully assimilated these teachings, you would never experience pain. But there is still learning ahead.
Yet you probably already recognize that you have begun to stop suffering from causes that once deeply disturbed you, and it is also quite possible that, though you still feel physical pain, it no longer brings you suffering.
Your mind places emotional suffering or mental pain in a realm different from physical pain and finds it more manageable—only because you have not yet accepted that both arise from the same cause. When you fully understand that both mental and physical pain occur in the same place and follow the same law, you will understand what pain is and cease to grant it reality, recognizing its irrationality.
This is so because you are beginning to understand the nature of your mind and to identify with it, even if you have not yet fully accepted that the body is merely a mental idea and possesses no “physical” existence. Remember: matter is an illusion—a belief in something separate from mind, concrete, measurable, and changeable. That is precisely what “illusion” means. The reason you still experience physical pain is that you have not yet wholly accepted that the body is not physical, but an idea, and that the pain is also an idea. To feel pain is to think you feel pain.
This Course contains many radical and absolute statements that may be difficult for you to accept in your current state of mind. Today’s Lesson is a clear example, but it is necessary to place you, from the outset, at the end point of learning so that you may know where all this leads.
At times, you may feel discouraged by how far you seem from the lofty ideals this Course proposes. Do not fall into that trap! Discouragement belongs only to the ego! And you are not your ego, though you still identify with its ideas much of the time, for you still listen to its voice. This Course is a gospel, filled with good news, and its purpose is not to discourage you, but quite the opposite. Yet you must understand that you are at the beginning of a process of mental transformation as long as you allow it to be. That is your only freedom, because the outcome is assured: you will end by learning; your mind will heal and become miraculous. Do not doubt it. Every mind will heal, and this Course accelerates that process in extraordinary ways.
Be neither impatient nor harsh with yourself. The ego despises its own creations, and time is one of them; that is why it detests and resists everything impatiently. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, lovingly uses the elements of this world for His sacred purpose of salvation. Honor, then, the time you need to learn the truth, for this is a joyful learning.
Have no doubt that the day will come when you will completely transcend the idea of pain, for it is but an idea you are still reluctant to release. Do not doubt it: it will happen. In the meantime, comfort your heart with the small achievements you attain; no more is ever asked of you than what you can give. Each time you face a difficulty, a pain, an illness, or an attack with courage, trust, and determination, Heaven celebrates your progress, and the angels applaud your strength.
Be patient, but also firm and resolute in your purpose. Never yield to weakness or self-pity. Whatever happens, wherever you are, remember that you are the holy Son of God and the Love of your Father. Always honor that dignity, and know with certainty that, whatever happens, you have the right to be happy and to claim your happiness now. Do not postpone it for the future, for the future does not exist.
No difficulty will ever appear before you that you cannot overcome. Everything that happens in your life consists of lessons precisely designed by God for your learning. The life before you is your perfect classroom. Life is perfect and consists of moments to celebrate and moments to learn—but always, everything unfolds exactly for your highest good. When you interpret it thus, you will have completed this Course with honors and be ready to bid the world farewell in overflowing gratitude. You are very fortunate—remember that always.
II That small corner of your mind represents the world, which is nothing but the idea the mind holds about what it believes to be its home.
III Isaiah 66:16 “For by fire will the Lord execute judgment, and by His sword, on all flesh; and the slain of the Lord shall be many.”
Deuteronomy 32:41 “If I [God] sharpen My flashing sword, and My hand takes hold on judgment, I will take vengeance on My adversaries and will repay those who hate Me.”
In these biblical verses, the sword of God represents the means by which He executes His judgment. In the preceding passage, then, when we wield “the sword of judgment,” we assume the role of God: we discharge our supposed righteous anger upon those we consider enemies. Yet this anger is neither righteous nor powerful; it is self-destructive. When we try to use the sword of judgment against others, we are in fact pressing it against our own throat. To hold a sword to someone’s throat is to threaten them with death and deprive them entirely of power. That is precisely what our “righteous” judgment inflicts upon us.