Ten

Either God or the ego is insane. If you will examine the evidence on both sides fairly, you will realize that this must be true. Neither God nor the ego proposes a partial thought system. Each is internally consistent, but they are diametrically opposed in all respects so that partial allegiance is impossible. Remember, too, that their results are as different as their foundations, and their fundamentally irreconcilable natures *cannot* be reconciled by your vacillations. Nothing alive is fatherless, for life is creation. Therefore, your decision is always an answer to the question, “Who is my father?” And you will be faithful to the father you choose. Yet what would you say to someone who really believed this question involves conflict? If *you* made the ego, how can the ego have made you? The authority problem remains the only source of perceived conflict, because the ego was made out of the wish of God's Son to father Him. The ego, then, is nothing more than a delusional system in which you made your own father. Make no mistake about this. It sounds insane when it is stated with perfect honesty, but the ego never looks upon what it does with perfect honesty. Yet that *is* its insane premise, which is carefully hidden in the dark cornerstone of its thought system. And either the ego, which you made, *is* your father, or its whole thought system will not stand.

You have made by projection, but God has created by extension. The cornerstone of God's creation is *you*, for His thought system is light. Remember the rays that are there unseen. The more you approach the center of His thought system, the clearer the light becomes. The closer you come to \[the foundation of\] the ego's thought system, the darker and more obscure becomes the way. Yet even the little spark in your mind is enough to lighten it. Bring this light fearlessly with you and hold it up to the foundation of the ego's thought system bravely. Be willing to judge it with perfect honesty. Open the dark cornerstone of terror on which it rests and bring it out into the light. There you will see that it rests on meaninglessness and that everything of which you have been afraid was based on nothing. My brother, you are part of God and part of me. When you have at last looked at the ego's foundation without shrinking, you will also have looked upon *ours*. I come to you from our Father to offer you everything again. Do not refuse it in order to keep a dark cornerstone hidden, for *its* protection will not save you. I *give* you the lamp and I will go *with* you. You will not take this journey alone. I will lead you to your true Father, Who hath need of you as I have. Will you not answer the call of love with joy? You have learned your need of healing. Would you bring anything *else* to the Sonship, recognizing your need of healing for yourself? For in this lies the beginning of knowledge, the foundation on which God will help you build again the thought system which you share with *Him*. Not one stone you place upon it but will be blessed by Him, for you will be restoring the holy dwelling place of His Son, where He wills His Son to be and where he *is*. In whatever part of the Mind of God's Son you restore this reality, you restore it to *yourself*. For you dwell in the Mind of God *with* your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone. To be alone is to be separated from infinity, but how can this be if infinity has no end? No one can be *beyond* the limitless because what has no limits must be everywhere. There are no beginnings and no endings in God, Whose universe is Himself. Can you exclude yourself from the universe or from God, Who *is* the universe? I and my Father are one with *you*, for you are part of *us*. Do you really believe that part of God can be missing or lost to Him? If you were not part of God, His Will would not be unified. Is this conceivable? Can part of His Mind contain nothing? If your place in His Mind cannot be filled by anyone *except* you, and your filling it *was* your creation, *without* you there would be an empty place in God's Mind. Extension cannot be blocked, and it *has* no voids. It continues forever, however much it is denied. Your denial of its reality arrests it in time but *not* in eternity. That is why your creations have not ceased to be extended and why so much is waiting for your return. Waiting is possible *only* in time, but time has no meaning. You who made delay can leave time behind simply by recognizing that neither beginnings nor endings were created by the Eternal, Who placed no limits on His creation nor upon those who create like Him. You do not know this simply because you have tried to limit what *He* created, and so you believe that *all* creation is limited. How, then, could you know your creations, having *denied* infinity? The laws of the universe do not permit contradiction. What holds for God holds for *you*. If you believe *you* are absent from God, you *will* believe that He is absent from *you*. Infinity is meaningless *without* you, and *you* are meaningless without God. There *is* no end to God and His Son, for we *are* the universe. God is not incomplete, and He is not childless. Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself. Do not deny Him His Son, for your unwillingness to accept His Fatherhood has denied you *yours*. See His creations as *His* Son, for yours were created in honor of Him. The universe of love does not stop because you do not see it, and your closed eyes have not lost the ability to see. Look upon the glory of His creation, and you will learn what God has *kept* for you. God has given you a place in His Mind which is yours forever. Yet you could keep it only by *giving* it, as it was given *you.* Could *you* be alone there if it was given you because God did not will to be alone? God's Mind cannot *be* lessened. It can *only* be increased, and everything He creates has the function of creating. Love does not limit, and what it creates is not limited. To give without limit is God's Will for you because only this can bring you the joy which is His and which He wills to *share* with you. Your love is as boundless as His because it *is* His. Could any part of God be *without* His Love and could any part of His Love be contained? God is your heritage because His one gift is Himself. How can you give except like Him if you would know His gift to *you*? Give, then, without limit and without end to learn how much *He* has given *you*. Your ability to *accept* Him depends on your willingness to give as He gives. Your fatherhood and your Father *are* one. God willed to create, and your will is His. It follows, then, that *you* will to create since your will follows from His. And being an extension of His Will, yours must be the same. Yet what you will you do not know. This is not strange when you realize that to deny is to “*not* know.” God's Will is that you are His Son. By denying this, you denied your *own* will and therefore do *not* know what it is. The reason you must ask what God's Will is in everything is merely because it *is* yours. You do not know what it is, but the Holy Spirit remembers it *for* you. Ask Him, therefore, what God's Will is for you, and He will tell you *yours.* It cannot be too often repeated that you do *not* know it. Whenever what the Holy Spirit tells you appears to be coercive, it is only because you do not *recognize* your own will. The projection of the ego makes it appear as if God's Will is *outside* yourself and therefore *not* yours. In this interpretation, it *is* possible for God's Will and yours to conflict. God then may *seem* to demand of you what you do not want to give and thus deprive you of what you want. Would God, who wants *only* your will, be capable of this? Your will is His Life, which He has given to you. Even in time you cannot live apart from Him, for sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but it *cannot* die. Immortality is His Will for His Son and His Son's will for *himself*. God's Son cannot will death for himself because His Father is Life and His Son is like Him. Creation is your will *because* it is His. You cannot be happy unless you do what you will truly, and you cannot change this because it is immutable. It is immutable by God's Will *and yours*, for otherwise His Will would not have been extended. You are afraid to know God's Will because you believe it is *not* yours. This belief is your whole sickness and your whole fear. Every symptom of sickness and fear arises here because this is the belief that makes you *want* not to know. Believing this, you hide in darkness, denying that the light is in you. You are asked to trust the Holy Spirit only because He speaks for *you*. He is the Voice for God, but never forget that God did not will to be alone. He *shares* His Will with you; He does not thrust it *upon* you. Always remember that what He gives, He holds, so that nothing He gives can contradict Him. You who share His Life must share it to know it, for sharing *is* knowing. Blessed are you who learn that to hear the Will of your Father is to know your *own.* For it is *your* will to be like Him, Whose Will it is that it be so. God's Will is that His Son be one, and united with Him in His Oneness. That is why healing is the beginning of the recognition that your will *is* His.

If sickness is separation, the will to heal and be healed is the first step toward *recognizing* what you truly want. Every attack is a step away from this, and every healing thought brings it closer. The Son of God *has* both Father and Son because he *is* both Father and Son. To unite having and being is only to unite your will with His, for He wills you Himself. And you will yourself to Him because, in your perfect understanding of Him, you *know* there is but one will. Yet when you attack any part of God and His Kingdom, your understanding is not perfect, and what you will is therefore lost to you. Healing thus becomes a lesson in *understanding*, and the more you practice it, the better teacher *and learner* you become. If you have denied truth, what better witnesses to its reality could you have than those who have been healed by it? But be sure to count yourself among them, for in your willingness to join them is *your* healing accomplished. Every miracle which you accomplish speaks to you of the Fatherhood of God. Every healing thought which you accept, either from your brother or in your own mind, teaches you that you are God's Son. In every hurtful thought you hold, wherever you perceive it, lies the denial of God's Fatherhood and your Sonship. And denial is as total as love. You cannot deny part of yourself because the remainder will seem to be unintegrated and therefore without meaning. And being without meaning to you, you will not understand it. To deny meaning *must* be to fail to understand. You can heal only yourself, for only God's Son *needs* healing. He needs it because he does not understand himself and therefore knows not what he does. Having forgotten his will, he does not know what he wants. Healing is a sign that he wants *to make whole*. And this willingness opens his *own* ears to the Voice of the Holy Spirit, Whose message *is* wholeness. He will enable you to go far beyond the healing *you* would undertake, for beside your small willingness to make whole, He will lay His own *complete* will and make *yours* whole. What can the Son of God *not* accomplish with the Fatherhood of God in him? And yet the invitation must come from you, for you have surely learned that whom you invite as your guest *will* abide with you. The Holy Spirit cannot speak to an unwelcoming host because He will *not be heard*. The Eternal Guest remains, but His Voice grows faint in alien company. He needs your protection, but only because your care is a sign that you *want* Him. Think like Him ever so slightly, and the little spark becomes a blazing light that fills your mind so that He becomes your *only* Guest. Whenever you ask the ego to enter, you lessen His welcome. He will remain, but *you* have allied yourself *against* Him. Whatever journey you choose to take, He will go with you, waiting. You can safely trust His patience, for He cannot leave a part of God. Yet you need far more than patience. You will never rest until you know your function *and* *fulfill it*, for only in this can your will and your Father's be wholly joined. To *have* Him is to be *like* Him, and He has given Himself to you. You who have God *must* be as God, for *His* function became *yours* with His gift. Invite this knowledge back into your minds, and let nothing that will obscure it enter. The Guest whom God sent you will teach you how to do this if you but recognize the little spark and are willing to *let it grow.* *Your* willingness need not be perfect, because His *is*. If you will merely offer Him a little place, He will lighten it so much that you will gladly extend it. And by *this* extending, you will begin to remember creation. Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God? You will accept only whom *you* invite. You are free to determine who shall be your guest and how long he shall remain with you. Yet this is not *real* freedom, for it still depends on how you see it. The Holy Spirit is *there*, although He cannot help you without your invitation, and the ego is nothing whether you invite it in or not. Real freedom depends on welcoming *reality*, and of your guests, only He is real. Know, then, who abides with you merely by recognizing what is there *already* and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you.

When you are weary, remember you have hurt yourself. Your Comforter will rest you, but *you* cannot. You do not know *how*, for if you did you could never have grown weary. Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer in *any* way, for that is not God's Will for His Son. Pain is not of Him, for He knows no attack and His peace surrounds you silently. God is very quiet, for there is no conflict in Him. Conflict is the root of all evil, for being blind, it does not see whom it attacks. Yet it *always* attacks the Son of God, and the Son of God is *you*. God's Son is indeed in need of comfort, for he knows not what he does, believing his will is not his own. The Kingdom is his, and yet he wanders homelessly. At home in God, he is lonely, and amid all his brothers, he is friendless. Would God *let* this be real if He did not will to be alone Himself? And if your will is His, it cannot be true of you *because* it is not true of Him. Oh, my children, if you knew what God wills for you, your joy would be complete! And what He wills *has* happened, for it was *always* true. When the light comes and you have said, “God's Will is mine,” you will see such beauty that you will *know* it is not of you. Out of your joy you will create beauty in His Name, for *your* joy could no more be contained than His. The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the Presence of God. I cannot tell you what this will be like, for your hearts are not ready. Yet I *can* tell you and remind you often that what God wills for Himself He wills for *you*, and what He wills for you *is* yours. The way is not hard, but it *is* very different. Yours is the way of pain, of which God knows nothing. *That* way is hard indeed and very lonely. Fear and grief are your guests, and they go with you and abide with you on the way. But the dark journey is not the way of God's Son. Walk in light, and do not see the dark companions, for they are not fit companions for the Son of God, who was created *of* light and *in* light. The Great Light always surrounds you and shines out *from* you. How can you see the dark companions in a light such as this? If you see *them*, it is only because you are *denying* the light. But deny *them* instead, for the light is here, and the way is clear. God hides nothing from His Son, even though His Son would hide himself. Yet the Son of God cannot hide his glory, for God wills him to be glorious and gave him the light that shines in him. You will never lose your way, for God leads you. When you wander, you but undertake a journey which is not real. The dark companions, the dark way, are all illusions. Turn toward the light, for the little spark in you is part of a light so great that it can sweep you out of all darkness forever. For your Father *is* your Creator, and you *are* like Him. The children of light cannot abide in darkness, for darkness is not in them. Do not be deceived by the dark comforters, and never let them enter the Mind of God's Son, for they have no place in His temple. When you are tempted to deny Him, remember that there *are* no other gods that you can place before Him, and accept His Will for you in peace. For you *cannot* accept it otherwise. Only God's Comforter *can* comfort you. In the quiet of His temple, He waits to give you the peace that is yours. *Give* His peace that you may enter the temple and find it waiting for you. But be holy in the Presence of God, or you will not know that you are there. For what is unlike God cannot enter His Mind because it was not His Thought and therefore does not belong to Him. And *your* minds must be as pure as His if you would know what belongs to *you.* Guard carefully His temple, for He Himself dwells there and abides in peace. You cannot enter God's Presence with the dark companions beside you, but you also cannot enter alone. *All* your brothers must enter *with* you, for until you have accepted them, *you* cannot enter. For you cannot understand Wholeness unless *you* are whole, and no part of the Son can be excluded if he would know the Wholeness of his Father. In your mind, you can accept the whole Sonship and bless it with the light your Father gave it. Then you will be worthy to dwell in the temple *with* Him because it is *your* will not to be alone. God blessed His Son forever. If you will bless him in time, you will *be* in eternity. Time cannot separate you from God if you use it on *behalf* of the eternal.

Never forget that the Sonship is your salvation, for the Sonship is your Soul. As God's creation, it is yours, and belonging to you, it is His. Your Soul does not need salvation, but your mind needs to learn what salvation *is*. You are not saved *from* anything, but you are saved *for* glory. Glory is your inheritance, given your Soul by its Creator that you might *extend* it. Yet if you hate part of your own Soul, *all* your understanding is lost because you are looking on what God created as *yourself* without love. And since what He created is part of Him, you are denying Him His place in His own altar. Could you try to make God homeless and know that *you* are at home? Can the Son deny the Father *without* believing that the Father has denied *him*? God's laws hold only for your protection, and they never hold in vain. What you experience when you deny your Father is still for your protection, for the power of your will cannot be lessened without the intervention of God *against* it, and any limitation on your power is not the Will of God. Therefore, look *only* to the power that God gave to save you, remembering that it is yours *because* it is His, and join with your brothers in His peace. The peace of your Soul lies in its limitlessness. Limit the peace you share, and your own Soul *must* be unknown to you. Every altar to God is part of your Soul because the light He created is one with Him. Would you cut off a brother from the light that is yours? You would not do so if you realized that you can only darken your *own* mind. As you bring *him* back, so will *your* mind return. That is the law of God for the protection of the wholeness of His Son. *Only you can deprive yourself of anything*. Do not oppose this realization, for it is truly the beginning of the dawn of light. Remember also that the denial of this simple fact takes many forms, and these you must learn to recognize and to oppose steadfastly and *without exception*. This is a crucial step in the reawakening. The beginning phases of this reversal are often quite painful for, as blame is withdrawn from without, there is a strong tendency to harbor it within. It is difficult at first to realize that this is *exactly* the same thing, for there *is* no distinction between within and without. If your brothers are part of you and you blame *them* for your deprivation, you *are* blaming yourself. And you cannot blame yourself *without* blaming them. That is why blame must be undone, *not* re-allocated. Lay it to yourself and you cannot *know* yourself, for *only* the ego blames at all. Self-blame is therefore ego identification and as strong an ego defense as blaming others. *You cannot enter God's Presence if you attack His Son*. When His Son lifts his voice in praise of his Creator, he *will* hear the Voice of his Father. Yet the Creator cannot be praised *without* His Son, for their glory is shared, and they are glorified together. Christ is at God's altar, waiting to welcome His Son. But come wholly without condemnation, for otherwise you will believe that the door is barred and you cannot enter. The door is *not* barred, and it is impossible for you to be unable to enter the place where God would have you be. But love yourself with the love of Christ, for so does your Father love you. You can *refuse* to enter, but you *cannot* bar the door which Christ holds open. Come unto me who holds it open *for* you, for while I live it cannot be shut, and I live forever. God is my life *and yours*, and nothing is denied by God to His Son. At God's altar Christ waits for the restoration of Himself in *you.* God knows His Son as wholly blameless as Himself, and He is approached through the appreciation of His Son. Christ waits for your acceptance of Him as *yourself* and of His wholeness as *yours*. For Christ is the Son of God who lives in his Creator and shines with His glory. Christ is the extension of the love and the loveliness of God, as perfect as his Creator and at peace with Him. Blessed is the Son of God, whose radiance is of his Father and whose glory he wills to share as his Father shares it with him. There is no condemnation in the Son, for there is no condemnation in the Father. Sharing the perfect love of the Father, the Son must share what belongs to Him, for otherwise he will not know the Father *or* the Son. Peace be unto you who rest in God and in whom the whole Sonship rests.

No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for *not* looking is the way they are *protected*. There is no need to shrink from illusions, for they cannot be dangerous. We are ready to look more closely at the ego's thought system because together we have the lamp that will dispel it, and since you realize you do not *want* it, *you* must be ready. Let us be very calm in doing this, for we are merely looking honestly for truth. The “dynamics” of the ego will be our lesson for a while, for we must look first at this to look beyond it since you *have* made it real. We will *undo* this error quietly together and then look beyond it to truth. What is healing but the removal of all that *stands in the way* of knowledge? And how else can one dispel illusions *except* by looking at them directly *without* protecting them? Be not afraid, therefore, for what you will be looking at *is* the source of fear, but you have surely learned by now that *fear* is not real. We have accepted the fact already that its *effects* can be dispelled merely by denying their reality. The next step is obviously to recognize that what has no effects *does not exist.* Laws do not operate in a vacuum, and what leads to nothing *has not happened*. If reality is recognized by its *extension*, what extends to nothing cannot *be* real. Do not be afraid, then, to look upon fear, for it cannot *be* seen. Clarity undoes confusion by definition, and to look upon darkness through light *must* dispel it. Let us begin this lesson in “ego dynamics” by understanding that the term itself does not mean anything. In fact, it contains exactly the contradiction in terms which *makes* it meaningless. “Dynamics” implies the power to *do* something, and the whole separation *fallacy* lies in the belief that the ego has the power to do *anything*. The ego is fearful to you *because* you believe this. Yet the truth is very simple: *All power is of God. What is **not** of Him has no power to do **anything.*** When we look at the ego, then, we are not considering dynamics but delusions. We can surely regard a delusional system without fear, for it cannot have any effects if its source is not true. Fear becomes more obviously inappropriate if one recognizes the ego's *goal*, which is so clearly senseless that any effort exerted on its behalf is *necessarily* expended on nothing. The ego's goal is quite explicitly ego *autonomy*. From the beginning, then, its *purpose* is to be separate, sufficient unto itself, and independent of any power *except* its own. This is *why* it is the symbol of separation. Every idea has a purpose, and its purpose is always the natural extension of what it *is*. Everything that stems from the ego is the natural outcome of its central belief, and the way to undo its *results* is merely to recognize that their *source* is not natural, being out of accord with your *true* nature. We once said that to will contrary to God is wishful thinking and not real willing. His Will is one because the extension of His Will cannot be unlike itself. The real conflict you experience, then, is between the ego's idle wishes and the Will of God, which you share. Can this *be* a real conflict? Yours is the independence of creation, *not* of autonomy. Your whole creative function lies in your complete *dependence* on God, Whose function He shares with *you*. By *His* Willingness to share it, He became as dependent on you as you are on *Him*. Do not ascribe the ego's arrogance to Him, Who wills not to be independent of *you.* He has *included* you in His Autonomy. Can *you* believe that autonomy is meaningful *apart* from Him? The belief in *ego* autonomy is costing you the knowledge of your dependence on God *in which your freedom lies*. The ego sees *all* dependency as threatening and has twisted even your longing for God into a means of establishing *itself*. But do not be deceived by *its* interpretation of your conflict. The ego *always* attacks on behalf of separation. Believing it has the power to do this, it does nothing else because its goal of autonomy *is* nothing else. The ego is totally confused about reality, but it does *not* lose sight of its goal. It is much more vigilant than *you* are because it is perfectly certain of its purpose. *You* are confused because you do *not* know *yours*. What you must learn to recognize is that the *last* thing the ego wishes you to realize is that *you are afraid of it.* For if the ego gives rise to fear, it is *diminishing* your independence and *weakening* your power. Yet its one claim to your allegiance is that it can *give* power to you. Without this belief, you would not listen to it at all. How, then, can its existence continue if you realize that, *by* accepting it, you *are* belittling yourself and *depriving* yourself of power? The ego can and does allow you to regard yourself as supercilious, unbelieving, “light-hearted,” distant, emotionally shallow, callous, uninvolved, and even desperate, but *not really afraid. Minimizing* fear but *not* its undoing is the ego's constant effort and is indeed the skill at which it is very ingenious. How can it preach separation *without* upholding it through fear, and would you listen to it if you recognized this *is* what it is doing? *Your* recognition that whatever seems to separate you from God is *only* fear, regardless of the form it takes and quite apart from how the *ego* wants you to experience it, is therefore the basic ego threat. Its dream of autonomy is shaken to its foundation by this awareness. For though you may countenance a false idea of independence, you will *not* accept the cost of fear *if you recognize it*. Yet this *is* the cost, and the ego *cannot* minimize it. For if you overlook love, you are overlooking *yourself*, and you *must* fear unreality *because* you have denied yourself. By believing that you have successfully *attacked* truth, you are believing that attack has *power.* Very simply, then, you have become afraid of *yourself*. And no one wills to learn what he believes would destroy him. If the ego's goal of autonomy could be accomplished, God's purpose could be defeated, and this *is* impossible. Only by learning what fear *is*, can you finally learn to distinguish the possible from the impossible and the false from the true. According to the ego's teaching, *its* goal can be accomplished, and God's purpose can *not*. According to the Holy Spirit's teaching, *only* God's purpose is accomplishment, and it is *already* accomplished. God is as dependent on you as you are on Him because His autonomy *encompasses* yours and is therefore incomplete *without* it. You can only establish your autonomy by identifying *with* Him and fulfilling your function *as it exists in truth*. The ego believes that to accomplish *its* goal is happiness. But it is given *you* to know that God's function *is* yours and happiness cannot be found apart from your *joint* will. Recognize only that the ego's goal, which you have pursued quite diligently, has \[only\] brought you *fear*, and it becomes difficult to maintain that fear *is* happiness. *Upheld* by fear, this *is* what the ego would have you believe. Yet God's Son is not insane and *cannot* believe it. Let him but *recognize* it, and he will *not* accept it. For only the insane would choose fear *in place* of love, and only the insane could believe that love can be gained by attack. But the sane know that only attack could produce *fear* from which the Love of God completely protects them. The ego analyzes; the Holy Spirit *accepts*. The appreciation of wholeness comes *only* through acceptance, for to analyze means to separate out. The attempt to understand totality by breaking it up is clearly the characteristically contradictory approach of the ego to everything. Never forget that the ego believes that power, understanding, and *truth* lie in separation, and to *establish* this belief it *must* attack. Unaware that the belief cannot *be* established and obsessed with the conviction that separation *is* salvation, the ego attacks everything it perceives by breaking it up into small and disconnected parts without meaningful relationships and thus without meaning. The ego will *always* substitute chaos for meaning, for if separation is salvation, harmony is threat. The ego's interpretation of the laws of perception are, and would *have* to be, the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit's. The ego focuses on *error* and overlooks *truth*. It makes real *every* mistake it perceives, and with characteristically circular reasoning concludes that, *because* of the mistake, consistent truth must be meaningless. The next step, then, is obvious. If consistent truth is meaningless, *inconsistency* must be true if truth has meaning. Holding error clearly in mind and protecting what it has made real, the ego proceeds to the next step in its thought system—that error is real, and *truth is error*. The ego makes no attempt to understand this, and it is clearly *not* understandable, but the ego does make *every* attempt to *demonstrate it*, and this it does constantly. Analyzing to attack meaning, the ego *does* succeed in overlooking it and is left with a series of fragmented perceptions which it unifies on behalf of *itself.* This, then, becomes the universe it perceives. And it is this universe which, in turn, becomes its demonstration of its own reality. Do not underestimate the appeal of the ego's demonstrations to those who would listen. Selective perception chooses its witnesses carefully, and its witnesses *are* consistent. The case for insanity *is* strong to the insane. For reasoning ends at its beginning, and no thought system transcends its source. Yet reasoning without meaning *cannot* demonstrate anything, and those who are convinced by it *must* be deluded. Can the ego teach truly when it *overlooks* truth? Can it perceive what it has *denied?* Its witnesses *do* attest to its denial but hardly to what it has denied! The ego looks straight at the Father and does not see Him, for it has denied His Son. Would *you* remember the Father? Accept His Son, and you *will* remember Him. Nothing can demonstrate that His Son is unworthy, for nothing can prove that a lie is true. What you see of His Son through the eyes of the ego is a demonstration that His Son does not exist, yet where the Son is, the Father *must* be. Accept what God does *not* deny, and *He* will demonstrate its truth. The witnesses for God stand in His light and behold what *He* created. Their silence is the sign that they have beheld God's Son, and in the Presence of Christ they need demonstrate nothing, for Christ speaks to them of Himself and of His Father. They are silent because Christ speaks to them, and it is His words that *they* speak. Every brother you meet becomes a witness for Christ or for the ego, depending on what you perceive in him. Everyone convinces you of what you *want* to perceive and of the reality of the kingdom you have chosen for your vigilance. Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought system you *want* to be true. Every brother has the power to release you *if you will to be free*. You cannot accept false witness of *him* unless you have evoked false witnesses *against* him. If *he* speaks not of Christ to you, *you* spoke not of Christ to him. You hear but your *own* voice, and if Christ speaks *through* you, *you* will hear Him.

It is impossible not to believe what you see, but it is equally impossible to see what you do *not* believe. Perceptions are built up on the basis of experience, and experience leads to beliefs. It is not until beliefs are fixed that perceptions stabilize. In effect, then, what you believe, you *do* see. That is what I meant when I said, “Blessed are ye who have not seen and still believe,” for those who believe in the resurrection *will* see it. The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack but by transcendence. For Christ *does* rise above the ego and all its works and ascends to the Father and *His* Kingdom. Would you join in the resurrection or the crucifixion? Would you condemn your brothers or free them? Would you transcend *your* prison and ascend to the Father? For these questions are all the same and are answered together. There has been much confusion about what perception means because the same word is used both for awareness and for the *interpretation* of awareness. Yet you cannot *be* aware without interpretation, and what you perceive *is* your interpretation. This course is perfectly clear. You do not see it clearly because you are interpreting *against* it and therefore do not *believe* it. And if belief determines perception, you do *not* perceive what it means and therefore do not *accept* it. Yet different experiences lead to different beliefs, \[and with them, different perceptions. For perceptions are learned with beliefs,\] and experience teaches. I am leading you to a new kind of experience, which you will become less and less willing to deny. Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with Him involves no strain at all. *His* perceptions are your *natural* awareness, and it is only distortions which *you* introduce that tire you. Let the Christ in you interpret *for* you, and do not try to limit what you see by narrow little beliefs which are unworthy of God's Son. For until Christ comes into His own, the Son of God *will* see himself as fatherless. I am *your* resurrection and *your* life. You live in me because you live in God. And everyone lives in *you*, as *you* live in everyone. Can you, then, perceive unworthiness in a brother and *not* perceive it in yourself? And can you perceive it in yourself and *not* perceive it in God? Believe in the resurrection because it has *been* accomplished, and it has been accomplished *in you*. This is as true now as it will ever be, for the resurrection is the Will of God, which knows no time and no exceptions. But make no exceptions yourself, or you will not perceive what has been accomplished *for* you. For we ascend unto the Father together, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, for such is the nature of God's Son as His Father created him. Do not underestimate the power of the devotion of God's Son nor the power of the god he worships over him. For he places *himself* at the altar of his god, whether it be the god he made or the God who created him. That is why his slavery is as complete as his freedom, for he will obey *only* the god he accepts. The god of the crucifixion demands that he crucify, and his worshipers obey. In his name they crucify *themselves*, believing that the power of the Son of God is born of sacrifice and pain. The God of the resurrection demands *nothing*, for He does not will to take away. He does not require obedience, for obedience implies submission. He would only have you learn your *own* will and follow it, not in the spirit of sacrifice and submission, but in the gladness of freedom. Resurrection must compel your allegiance gladly because it is the symbol of joy. Its whole compelling power lies in the fact that it represents what *you* want to be. The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but it *can* be offered you through the grace of God. And you can *accept* it by His grace, for God *is* gracious to His Son, accepting him without question as His own. Who, then, is *your* own? The Father has given you all that is His, and He Himself is yours *with* them. Guard them in their resurrection, for otherwise you will not awake in God, safely surrounded by what is yours forever. You will not find peace until you have removed the nails from the hands of God's Son and taken the last thorn from his forehead. The Love of God surrounds His Son, whom the god of the crucifixion condemns. Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather that I did *not* die by demonstrating that I live *in you*. For the *undoing* of the crucifixion of God's Son is the work of the redemption, in which everyone has a part of equal value. God does not judge His blameless Son. Having given *Himself* to him, how could it be otherwise? You have nailed *yourself* to a cross and placed a crown of thorns upon your *own* head. Yet you *cannot* crucify God's Son, for the Will of God cannot die. His Son *has been* redeemed from his own crucifixion, and you cannot assign to death whom God has given eternal life. The dream of crucifixion still lies heavy on your eyes, but what you see in dreams is not reality. While you perceive the Son of God as crucified, you are asleep. And as long as you believe that *you* can crucify him, you are only having nightmares. You who are beginning to wake are still aware of dreams and have not yet forgotten them. The forgetting of dreams and the awareness of Christ comes with the awakening of others to *share* your redemption. You will awaken to your *own* call, for the Call to awake is *within* you. If I live in you, you *are* awake. Yet you must see the works I do through you, or you will not perceive that I have done them *unto* you. Do not set limits on what you believe I can do through you, or you will not accept what I can do *for* you. For it is done *already*, and unless you give all that you have received, you will not know that your Redeemer liveth and that *you* have awakened *with* Him. Redemption is recognized *only* by sharing it. God's Son *is* saved. Bring only *this* awareness to the Sonship, and you will have a part in the redemption as valuable as mine. For your part must be *like* mine if you learn it of me. If you believe that *yours* is limited, *you* are limiting *mine*. There is no order of difficulty in miracles because all of God's Sons are of equal value, and their equality is their oneness. The whole power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His Will is either great or small. What does not exist has *no* size and *no* measure. To God *all* things are possible. And to Christ it is given to be *like* the Father.

The world as *you* perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is *not* as you see it. God created *only* the eternal, and everything you see is perishable. Therefore, there must be another world which you do *not* see. The Bible speaks of a *new* Heaven and a *new* earth, yet this cannot be literally true, for the eternal are not *re*\-created. To perceive *anew* is merely to perceive *again*, implying that before, or in the interval, you were not perceiving *at all*. What, then, is the world that awaits your perception when you *see* it? Every loving thought that the Son of God ever had is eternal. Those which his mind perceived in this world are the world's *only* reality. They are still perceptions because he still believes that he is separate. Yet they are eternal because they are loving. And being loving, they are like the Father and therefore cannot die. The real world can *actually be perceived*. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing *else.* For if you perceive both good *and* evil, you are accepting both the false *and* the true *and making no distinction between them.* The ego sees *some* good but never *only* good. That is why its perceptions are so variable. It does not reject goodness entirely, for that you could not accept, but it always adds something that is *not* real to the real, *thus confusing illusion and reality*. For perceptions cannot be partly true. If you believe in truth *and* illusion, you cannot tell *which* is true. To establish your *personal* autonomy, you tried to create unlike your Father, believing what you made to be capable of *being* unlike Him. Yet everything in what you have made that *is* true *is* like Him. Only this is the real world, and perceiving *only* this will lead you to the real Heaven because it will make you capable of *understanding* it. The perception of goodness is not knowledge, but the denial of the *opposite* of goodness enables you to perceive a condition in which opposites do not exist. And this *is* the condition of knowledge. *Without* this awareness, you have not met its conditions, and until you do you will not know that it is yours already. You have made many ideas which you have placed between yourselves and your Creator, and these beliefs are the world as you perceive it. Truth is not absent here, but it *is* obscure. You do not know the difference between what you have made and what God created, and so you do not know the difference between what you have made and what *you* have created. To believe that you can perceive the real world is to believe that you can know yourself. You can know God because it is His Will to *be* known. The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for you out of what you have made, and to perceive only this is salvation because it is the recognition that reality is *only* what is true. This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel that a course which, in the end, teaches nothing more than that only reality is true is necessary. *But do you believe it*? When you have perceived the real world, you will recognize that you did *not* believe it. Yet the swiftness with which your new and *only* real perception will be translated into knowledge will leave you only an instant to realize that this judgment is true. And then everything you made will be forgotten, the good and the bad, the false and the true. For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight. The end of the world is not its destruction, but its *translation* into Heaven. The re-interpretation of the world is the transfer of *all* perception to knowledge. The Bible tells you to become as little children. Little children recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they *ask* what it means. Do not make the mistake of believing that *you* understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost to you. Yet the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning *for* you, and if you will *let* Him interpret it for you, He will restore what you have thrown away. As long as you think *you* know its meaning, you will see no need to ask it of Him. You do not know the meaning of *anything* you perceive. *Not one thought you hold is wholly true*. The recognition of this is your firm beginning. You are not misguided; you have accepted no guide at all. Instruction in perception is your great need, for you understand nothing. Recognize this but do not *accept* it, for understanding is your inheritance. Perceptions are learned, and you are not without a Teacher. Yet your willingness to learn of Him depends on your willingness to question *everything* you have learned of yourself, for you who have learned amiss should not be your own teachers. No one can withhold truth except from himself. Yet God will not refuse the answer He *gave* you. Ask, then, for what is yours but which you did not make, and do not defend yourself *against* truth. *You* made the problem which God has answered. Ask yourselves, therefore, but one simple question— *Do I want the problem, or do I want the answer?*   Decide for the answer and you will have it, for you will see it as it is, and it is yours already. You complain that this course is not sufficiently specific for you to understand it and *use* it. Yet it has been *very* specific, and you have *not* done what it specifically advocates. This is not a course in the play of ideas, but in their *practical application*. Nothing could be more specific than to be told very clearly that if you ask you *will* receive. The Holy Spirit will answer *every* specific problem as long as you believe that problems *are* specific. His answer is both many and one, as long as you believe that the one *is* many. Realize that you are *afraid* of His specificity for fear of what you think it will *demand* of you. Yet only by asking will you learn that nothing that is of God demands *anything* of you. God *gives*; He does *not* take. You are refusing to ask because you believe that asking is *taking*, and you do *not* perceive it as sharing. The Holy Spirit will give you only what is yours and will take *nothing* in return. For what is yours *is* everything, and you share it with God. This *is* its reality. Would the Holy Spirit, Who wills only to *restore*, be capable of misinterpreting the question you must ask to learn His answer? You *have* heard the answer, but you have misunderstood the *question.* You have believed that to ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit is to ask for *deprivation*. Little Children of God, you do not understand your Father. You believe in a world that takes, because you believe that you can *get* by taking. And *by* that perception, you have lost sight of the real world. You are afraid of the world as *you* see it, but the real world is still yours for the asking. Do not deny it to yourself, for it can *only* free you. Nothing of God will enslave His Son, whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by His Being. Blessed are you who will ask the truth of God without fear, for only thus can you learn that His answer *is* the release from fear. Beautiful Child of God, you are asking only for what I promised you. Do you believe I would deceive you? The Kingdom of Heaven *is* within you. Believe that the truth is in me, for I *know* that it is in *you*. God's Sons have nothing which they do not share. Ask for truth of any Son of God, and you have asked it of me. No one of us but has the answer in him, to give to anyone who asks it of him. Ask anything of God's Son and His Father will answer you, for Christ is not deceived in His Father, and His Father is not deceived in Him. Do not, then, be deceived in your brother and see only his loving thoughts as his reality, for by denying that *his* mind is split, you will heal *yours*. Accept him as his Father accepts him and heal him unto Christ, for Christ is his healing *and* yours. Christ is the Son of God, who is in no way separate from His Father, whose *every* thought is as loving as the Thought of His Father by which He was created. Be not deceived in God's Son, for thereby you *must* be deceived in yourself. And being deceived in yourself, you *are* deceived in your Father in Whom no deceit is possible. In the real world there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division. Only loving thoughts are recognized, and because no one is *without* your help, the Help of God goes with *you* everywhere. As you become willing to *accept* this Help by *asking* for it, you will give it because you *want* it. Nothing will be beyond your healing power because nothing will be denied your simple request. What problems will not disappear in the presence of God's answer? Ask, then, to learn of the reality of your brother because this is what you *will* perceive in him, and you will see *your* beauty reflected in him. Do not accept your brother's variable perception of himself, for his split mind is yours, and you will not accept *your* healing without his. For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing *is* yours. To love yourself is to *heal* yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your *own* goal. Brother, we heal together as we live together and love together. Be not deceived in God's Son, for he is one with himself and one with his Father. Love him who is beloved of His Father, and you will learn of the Father's Love for *you.* If you perceive offense in a brother, pluck the offense from your mind, for you are offended by Christ and are deceived in Him. *Heal* in Christ and be not offended by Him, for there *is* no offense in Him. If what you perceive offends you, you are offended in *yourself* and are condemning God's Son, whom God condemneth not. Let the Holy Spirit remove *all* offense of God's Son against himself and perceive no one but through His guidance, for He would save you from *all* condemnation. Accept His healing power and use it for all He sends you, for He wills to heal the Son of God in whom He is not deceived. Children perceive terrifying ghosts and monsters and dragons, and they are terrified. Yet if they ask someone they trust for the *real* meaning of what they perceive and are willing to let their interpretations go in *favor* of reality, their fear goes with them. When a child is helped to translate his “ghost” into a curtain, his “monster” into a shadow, and his “dragon” into a dream, he is no longer afraid and laughs happily at his own fear. You, my children, are afraid of your brothers and of your Father and of *yourselves.* But you are merely *deceived* in them. Ask what they *are* of the Teacher of Reality, and hearing His answer, you too will laugh at your fears and replace them with peace. For fear lies not in reality, but in the minds of children who do not understand reality. It is only their *lack* of understanding which frightens them, and when they learn to perceive truly, they are not afraid. And because of this, they will ask for truth again when they are frightened. It is not the *reality* of your brothers or your Father or yourself which frightens you. You do not know what they *are*, and so you perceive them as ghosts and monsters and dragons. *Ask* of their reality from the One who knows it, and He will *tell* you what they are. For you do not understand them, and because you are deceived by what you see, you *need* reality to dispel your fears. Would you not exchange your fears for truth if the exchange is yours for the asking? For if God is not deceived in you, you can be deceived only in *yourself.* Yet you can learn the truth of yourself of the Holy Spirit, who will teach you that, as part of God, deceit in *you* is impossible. When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world in place of the false one you have made. And then your Father will lean down to you and take the last step for you by raising you unto Himself.