Introduction
1. For this review, we will use only one idea each day, and we will practice it as often as possible.I
²In addition to the time you dedicate in the morning and at night—no less than fifteen minutes—and the hourly reviews throughout the day, use the idea as often as you can between those reminders.II
³Each of these ideas, by itself, would be enough to bring salvation, if you truly learned it.
⁴Each one alone would suffice to free you and the world from every kind of bondage, and to invite the memory of God to return once more.
2. With this in mind, we begin our practice, reviewing carefully the thoughts with which the Holy Spirit has blessed us in the last twenty lessons.
²Each one contains the entire curriculum, if you understand it, practice it, accept it, and apply it to all that seems to happen to you throughout the day.III
³One alone is enough.
⁴But you would have to apply it absolutely consistently, without exceptions.
⁵That is why we must use them all, and allow them to blend as one, since each contributes to the whole of what we are learning.IV
3. These practice sessions, like our last review, are organized around a central theme, with which we begin and end each lesson.V
²And it is this:
³I am not a body.
⁴I am free.
⁵For I remain as God created me.
⁶The day begins and ends with this.VI
⁷And we repeat it every hour, and every time we remember that we have a function that transcends the world we see.
⁸Beyond this, and the repetition of the idea for the day, you are not asked to do anything special, except to let go, sincerely, of all that fills your mind and makes it deaf to reason, to sanity, and to simple truth.
4. For this review, we will try to go beyond words and beyond all specific forms of practice.VII
²For now we seek to move more quickly along a shorter path to serenity and the Peace of God.
³We simply close our eyes and forget everything we thought we knew and understood.VIII
⁴For in this way we truly let go of all we never knew and never understood.
5. There is only one exception to this unstructured approach.IX
²Do not allow any disturbing thought to go unanswered.
³If you become aware of one, deny its power over you, and quickly tell your mind with firmness that this is not what it wants.
⁴Then discard the thought you have denied, and swiftly replace it with the idea for the day.
6. When you feel tempted, be quick to declare that you are free to choose, saying:
²I do not want this thought.
³Instead, I choose…
⁴Then repeat the idea for the day, and let it take the place of what you were thinking.
⁵In addition to these specific applications of the daily idea, we will simply include a few thoughts to support your practice.
⁶Rather than reasoning things out, we give these quiet moments to the Teacher who instructs in silence, speaks of peace, and gives all meaning to our thoughts.
7. I offer this review to Him on your behalf.
²I leave you in His care, so He may teach you what to do, what to say, and what to think, whenever you turn to Him.X
³He will always be available to you whenever you call upon Him for help.
⁴Let us offer Him this review we now begin, and let us not forget to whom it has been entrusted as we practice, day by day, moving toward the goal He has set for us.
⁵We let Him teach us how to go, and we trust Him completely to make each practice period a loving gift of freedom to the world.
I This Review was dictated on September 1, 1970.
II This section modifies the practice method introduced in Lesson 153 by adding frequent repetitions of the idea—previous lessons suggested four or five times per hour—to the morning and evening practice, as well as to the hourly remembrance.
From this Review onward, therefore, we are to use the full structure of practice in which the Workbook has trained us: quiet time in the morning and at night, remembrance each hour, frequent repetitions of the idea throughout the hour, and application in response to temptation or any disturbance.
III Do not forget this: apply the day’s idea to everything that happens to you throughout the day. You will be surprised to discover how perfectly the idea of the day addresses the many problems you think you face.
IV Any of the ideas in thisCourse possesses absolute saving power, for they are but different perspectives of a single truth: you are the holy Son of God.
V Each of the last two Reviews has a central theme. The fifth Review’s theme is: God is but Love, and therefore so am I; the fourth Review’s is: My mind holds only what I think with God.
VI Repeat the idea of the day each time you become aware of who you are and of what you are doing here.
VII Notice the important shift being proposed in this process of mental training that began two hundred Lessons ago. In truth, you are preparing to transcend logical and rational thought and to enter a higher region of your mind that requires a much more intuitive approach. From now on, words will no longer be sufficient as learning tools for continuing on this path.
Your mind is beginning to expand, and discursive reasoning gradually falls behind. What can be described and expressed now becomes insufficient to nourish your mind in this new stage. You now need that which cannot even be spoken of, but which is perfectly understood because it is pure understanding. The boundary between the knower and the known grows indistinct. Now you begin to know. Now you are becoming knowledge itself.
That is why those moments of stillness, in which you do nothing specific and simply are, are so important. It is a state of mental alertness not focused on anything concrete; yet one enjoys mental silence and peace. The mind is not occupied with any idea, for it has set aside all its toys and simply delights in the pure awareness of being. It is not that your mind has become empty; rather, quite the opposite—it is now full, but only of itself. It is now clean and clear.
Notice that Jesus tells you we are going to try to move faster and take a shortcut. Learning begins to accelerate. Until now, you have set your mind’s vehicle in motion with the fuel of your own effort, but from this point on your mind is sustained by something you do not yet know. Moreover, you lift your hands from the wheel: your control is no longer needed. The vehicle begins to take flight—it was not a car, it was an aircraft. Now you begin to soar and rise into a subtler medium.
VIII These meditation instructions are similar to those described in Lesson 189, where we empty our mind of all thoughts, words, concepts, images, and beliefs, retaining in it nothing but a wordless receptivity to God. They are also similar to the meditation instructions given in the Introduction to Part II and in the Final Lessons. This means that, from this point on, we are asked to spend the rest of the year practicing meditation in silence.
IX This is the one exception to your relinquishment of control and surrender to God: do not allow your mind to wander from its holy purpose; do not let it be entertained by the trivial, the valueless, the harmful, and the false. Do not waste time on trivialities. Your heart will alert you that some unworthy thought has entered your holy mind because you will feel uneasy. In any case, by now you already know very well what that means.
X Therefore, instead of receiving formal instructions about what to do—beyond what we have just seen in the preceding paragraphs—we are to give our practice periods to the Holy Spirit and let Him guide us on how to carry them out, and on “what to do” afterward.
LESSON 201
I am not a body. I am free. For I remain as God created me.
1. W-181 “I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”
²Everyone is my brother.I
³I am blessed by the Oneness I share with the entire universe and with God, my Father, the Creator of the Wholeness that is my Self, forever One with me.
⁴I am not a body.
⁵I am free.
⁶For I remain as God created me.
I To trust in our brothers—especially in those we trust the least—is not naïveté nor a forced virtue, but a radical affirmation of inner freedom. It is not about forcing a feeling you do not yet have, but about humbly declaring: “I desire to trust.” That single, sincere willingness opens a space in the mind where the Holy Spirit can act.
To accept another as he is, without projecting upon him our doubts or condemnations, holds a quiet yet real power. Where once we saw threat, guilt, or distance, a different vision can now arise. Trust then becomes a subtle form of forgiveness—a silent declaration that we are choosing truth over judgment.
Practiced without pretense, this desire to trust becomes a path of revelation: we discover that our mind, in extending acceptance, is freed along with the other. “I am not a body, I am free,” and in that freedom, every brother is worthy of my trust, because—like me—he remains as God created him.
Everything is my equal.
Everything is as holy as I am.
Holiness is the only thing that exists, and it is in everything I behold.