Perception selects, and makes the world you see. It literally picks it out, as mind directs. The laws of size and shape and brightness would hold, perhaps, if other things were equal. They are NOT equal. For what you look for you are far more likely to discover, REGARDLESS of its color, shape, or size, than what you would prefer to overlook. The still small Voice for God,
Continue reading →The Holy Spirit will NEVER teach you that you are sinful. Errors He will correct, but this makes no-one fearful. You are indeed afraid to look within, and see the sin you think is there. This you would not be fearful to admit. Fear in association with sin the ego deems quite appropriate, and smiles approvingly. It has no fear to let you feel ashamed. It doubts not your belief and faith in sin.
Continue reading →All special relationships have sin as their goal. For they are bargains with reality, toward which the seeming union is adjusted. Forget not this; to bargain is to set a limit, and any brother with whom you have a limited relationship YOU HATE. You may attempt to keep the bargain in the name of fairness, sometimes demanding payment of your self, perhaps more often of the other.
Continue reading →We have repeated how little is asked of you to learn this course. It is the same small willingness you need to have your whole relationship transformed to joy. The little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit for which He gives you everything. The very little, on which salvation rests. The tiny change of mind by which the crucifixion is changed to Resurrection. And, being true, it is so simple that it cannot fail
Continue reading →Never forget the world the sightless “see” must be imagined. And what it really looks like is unknown to them. They must infer what could be seen, from evidence forever indirect, and reconstruct their inferences as they stumble and fall because of what they did not recognize, or walk unharmed through open doorways that they thought were closed. And so it is with you. You do not see.
Continue reading →Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that. But, though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you, it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but will to change your mind ABOUT the world.
Continue reading →Do you not WANT to know your own identity? Would you not happily exchange your doubts for certainty? Would you not willingly be free of misery, and learn again of joy? Your holy relationship offers all this to you. As it was given you, so will be its effects. And as its holy purpose was not made by you, the means by which its happy end is yours is also not of you. Rejoice in what is yours but for the asking.
Continue reading →We have said much about discrepancies of means and end, and how these must be brought in line before your holy relationship can bring you only joy. But we have also said the means to meet the Holy Spirit’s goal will come from the same Source as does His purpose. Being so simple and direct, this course has nothing in it that is not consistent. The seeming inconsistencies,
Continue reading →The meaning of the Son of God lies solely in his relationship with his Creator. If it were elsewhere, it would rest upon contingency, but there IS nothing else. And this is wholly loving and forever. Yet has the Son of God invented an unholy relationship between him and his Father. His real relationship is one of perfect union, and unbroken continuity. The one he made is partial, self-centered,
Continue reading →In this world, God’s Son comes closest to himself in a holy relationship. There he begins to find the certainty his Father has in him. And there he finds his function of restoring his Father’s laws to what was held outside them, and finding what was lost. Only in time can anything be lost, but never lost forever. So do the parts of God’s Son gradually join in time, and with each joining is the end of time
Continue reading →Nothing can hurt you, unless you give it the power to do so. For you give power as the laws of this world interpret giving; as you give, you LOSE. It is not up to you to give power at all. Power is of God, GIVEN by Him, and re-awakened by the Holy Spirit, Who knows that, as you give you GAIN. He gives no power to sin, and therefore it HAS none. Nor to its results, as this world sees them;
Continue reading →The belief in sin is an ADJUSTMENT. And an adjustment is a CHANGE, a shift in perception, or a belief that what was so before has been made different. Every adjustment is therefore a distortion, and calls upon defenses to uphold it against reality. Knowledge requires NO adjustment, and, in fact, is lost if any shift or change is undertaken. For this reduces it at once to mere perception;
Continue reading →Look upon all the trinkets made to hang upon the body or cover it, or for its use. See all the useless things made for its eyes to see. Think on the many offerings made for its pleasure, and remember all these were made to make seem lovely what you hate. Would you employ this hated thing to draw your brother to you, and to attract his body’s eyes?
Continue reading →We CANNOT be united in crucifixion and in death. Nor can the resurrection be complete ’til your forgiveness rests on Christ, along with mine. A week is short, and yet this holy week is the symbol of the whole journey that the Son of God has undertaken. He started with the sign of victory, the promise of the resurrection, already given him.
Continue reading →This is Palm Sunday, the celebration of victory, and the acceptance of the truth. Let us not spend this holy week brooding on the crucifixion of God’s Son, but happily in the celebration of his release. For Easter is the sign of peace, not pain. A slain Christ has no meaning. But a RISEN Christ becomes the symbol of the Son of God’s forgiveness upon himself;
Continue reading →What would you see, WITHOUT the fear of death? What would you feel and think, if death held NO attraction for you? Very simply, YOU WOULD REMEMBER YOUR FATHER. The Creator of life, the Source of everything that lives, the Father of the Universe, and of the Universe of universes, and of everything that lies even BEYOND them,
Continue reading →To you, into whose special relationship the Holy Spirit entered, it IS given to release and be released from the dedication to death. For it was offered you, and you ACCEPTED. But you must learn still more about this strange devotion, for it contains the third of the obstacles that peace must flow across. No-one can die unless he chooses death.
Continue reading →Communion is another kind of completion, which goes beyond guilt BECAUSE it goes beyond the body. Communion comes with peace, and peace MUST transcend the body. We said that peace must first surmount the obstacle of your desire to get rid of it. Where the attraction of guilt holds sway, peace is NOT WANTED. The second obstacle
Continue reading →The first obstacle that peace must flow across is YOUR desire to get RID of it. For it cannot extend, UNLESS you keep it. YOU are the center from which it radiates outward, to call the others IN. You are its home; its tranquil dwelling-place, from which it gently reaches out, but NEVER leaving YOU. If YOU would make it homeless,
Continue reading →The attraction of guilt is found in sin, NOT error. Sin will be repeated, BECAUSE of this attraction. Fear can become so acute that the sin is denied the acting out, but, while the guilt REMAINS attractive, the mind will suffer, and not let go the IDEA of the sin. For guilt still calls to it, and the mind hears it and yearns for it, making it a willing captive to its sick appeal.
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