Lesson 177
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
1. (163) There is no death. ²The Son of God is free.
³God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (164) Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 176
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
1. (161) Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (162) I am as God created me.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 175
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
1. (159) I give the miracles I have received.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (160) I am at home. ²Fear is the stranger here.
³God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 174
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
1. (157) Into His Presence would I enter now.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (158) Today I learn to give as I receive.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 173
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
1. (155) I will step back and let Him lead the way.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (156) I walk with God in perfect holiness.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 172
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
1. (153) In my defenselessness my safety lies.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (154) I am among the ministers of God.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 171
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
1. (151) All things are echoes of the Voice for God.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (152) The power of decision is my own.
²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 170
There is no cruelty in God and none in me.
1. No one attacks without intent to hurt. ²This can have no exception. ³When you think that you attack in self-defense, you mean that to be cruel is protection; you are safe because of cruelty. ⁴You mean that you believe to hurt another brings you freedom. ⁵And you mean that to attack is to exchange the state in which you are for something better, safer, more secure from dangerous invasion and from fear.
2. How thoroughly insane is the idea that to defend from fear is to attack! ²For here is fear begot and fed with blood, to make it grow and swell and rage. ³And thus is fear protected, not escaped. ⁴Today we learn a lesson which can save you more delay and needless misery than you can possibly imagine. ⁵It is this:
⁶You make what you defend against, and by your own defense against it is it real and inescapable. ⁷Lay down your arms, and only then do you perceive it false.
3. It seems to be the enemy without that you attack. ²Yet your defense sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable. ³For love now has an “enemy,” an opposite; and fear, the alien, now needs your defense against the threat of what you really are.
4. If you consider carefully the means by which your fancied self-defense proceeds on its imagined way, you will perceive the premises on which the idea stands. ²First, it is obvious ideas must leave their source, for it is you who make attack, and must have first conceived of it. ³Yet you attack outside yourself, and separate your mind from him who is to be attacked, with perfect faith the split you made is real.
5. Next, are the attributes of love bestowed upon its “enemy.” ²For fear becomes your safety and protector of your peace, to which you turn for solace and escape from doubts about your strength, and hope of rest in dreamless quiet. ³And as love is shorn of what belongs to it and it alone, love is endowed with attributes of fear. ⁴For love would ask you lay down all defense as merely foolish. ⁵And your arms indeed would crumble into dust. ⁶For such they are.
6. With love as enemy, must cruelty become a god. ²And gods demand that those who worship them obey their dictates, and refuse to question them. ³Harsh punishment is meted out relentlessly to those who ask if the demands are sensible or even sane. ⁴It is their enemies who are unreasonable and insane, while they are always merciful and just.
7. Today we look upon this cruel god dispassionately. ²And we note that though his lips are smeared with blood, and fire seems to flame from him, he is but made of stone. ³He can do nothing. ⁴We need not defy his power. ⁵He has none. ⁶And those who see in him their safety have no guardian, no strength to call upon in danger, and no mighty warrior to fight for them.
8. This moment can be terrible. ²But it can also be the time of your release from abject slavery. ³You make a choice, standing before this idol, seeing him exactly as he is. ⁴Will you restore to love what you have sought to wrest from it and lay before this mindless piece of stone? ⁵Or will you make another idol to replace it? ⁶For the god of cruelty takes many forms. ⁷Another can be found.
9. Yet do not think that fear is the escape from fear. ²Let us remember what the text has stressed about the obstacles to peace. ³The final one, the hardest to believe is nothing, and a seeming obstacle with the appearance of a solid block, impenetrable, fearful and beyond surmounting, is the fear of God Himself. ⁴Here is the basic premise which enthrones the thought of fear as god. ⁵For fear is loved by those who worship it, and love appears to be invested now with cruelty.
10. Where does the totally insane belief in gods of vengeance come from? ²Love has not confused its attributes with those of fear. ³Yet must the worshippers of fear perceive their own confusion in fear’s “enemy”; its cruelty as now a part of love. ⁴And what becomes more fearful than the Heart of Love Itself? ⁵The blood appears to be upon His Lips; the fire comes from Him. ⁶And He is terrible above all else, cruel beyond conception, striking down all who acknowledge Him to be their God.
11. The choice you make today is certain. ²For you look for the last time upon this bit of carven stone you made, and call it god no longer. ³You have reached this place before, but you have chosen that this cruel god remain with you in still another form. ⁴And so the fear of God returned with you. ⁵This time you leave it there. ⁶And you return to a new world, unburdened by its weight; beheld not in its sightless eyes, but in the vision that your choice restored to you.
12. Now do your eyes belong to Christ, and He looks through them. ²Now your voice belongs to God and echoes His. ³And now your heart remains at peace forever. ⁴You have chosen Him in place of idols, and your attributes, given by your Creator, are restored to you at last. ⁵The Call for God is heard and answered. ⁶Now has fear made way for love, as God Himself replaces cruelty.
13. Father, we are like You. ²No cruelty abides in us, for there is none in You. ³Your peace is ours. ⁴And we bless the world with what we have received from You alone. ⁵We choose again, and make our choice for all our brothers, knowing they are one with us. ⁶We bring them Your salvation as we have received it now. ⁷And we give thanks for them who render us complete. ⁸In them we see Your glory, and in them we find our peace. ⁹Holy are we because Your Holiness has set us free. ¹⁰And we give thanks. ¹¹Amen.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-170/there-is-no-cruelty-in-god-and-none-in-me/en/s/576
Lesson 169
By grace I live. By grace I am released.
1. Grace is an aspect of the Love of God which is most like the state prevailing in the unity of truth. ²It is the world’s most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely. ³It is past learning, yet the goal of learning, for grace cannot come until the mind prepares itself for true acceptance. ⁴Grace becomes inevitable instantly in those who have prepared a table where it can be gently laid and willingly received; an altar clean and holy for the gift.
2. Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear. ²By grace alone the hate and fear are gone, for grace presents a state so opposite to everything the world contains, that those whose minds are lighted by the gift of grace can not believe the world of fear is real.
3. Grace is not learned. ²The final step must go beyond all learning. ³Grace is not the goal this course aspires to attain. ⁴Yet we prepare for grace in that an open mind can hear the Call to waken. ⁵It is not shut tight against God’s Voice. ⁶It has become aware that there are things it does not know, and thus is ready to accept a state completely different from experience with which it is familiarly at home.
4. We have perhaps appeared to contradict our statement that the revelation of the Father and the Son as one has been already set. ²But we have also said the mind determines when that time will be, and has determined it. ³And yet we urge you to bear witness to the Word of God to hasten the experience of truth, and speed its advent into every mind that recognizes truth’s effects on you.
5. Oneness is simply the idea God is. ²And in His Being, He encompasses all things. ³No mind holds anything but Him. ⁴We say “God is,” and then we cease to speak, for in that knowledge words are meaningless. ⁵There are no lips to speak them, and no part of mind sufficiently distinct to feel that it is now aware of something not itself. ⁶It has united with its Source. ⁷And like its Source Itself, it merely is.
6. We cannot speak nor write nor even think of this at all. ²It comes to every mind when total recognition that its will is God’s has been completely given and received completely. ³It returns the mind into the endless present, where the past and future cannot be conceived. ⁴It lies beyond salvation; past all thought of time, forgiveness and the holy face of Christ. ⁵The Son of God has merely disappeared into his Father, as his Father has in him. ⁶The world has never been at all. ⁷Eternity remains a constant state.
7. This is beyond experience we try to hasten. ²Yet forgiveness, taught and learned, brings with it the experiences which bear witness that the time the mind itself determined to abandon all but this is now at hand. ³We do not hasten it, in that what you will offer was concealed from Him Who teaches what forgiveness means.
8. All learning was already in His Mind, accomplished and complete. ²He recognized all that time holds, and gave it to all minds that each one might determine, from a point where time was ended, when it is released to revelation and eternity. ³We have repeated several times before that you but make a journey that is done.
9. For oneness must be here. ²Whatever time the mind has set for revelation is entirely irrelevant to what must be a constant state, forever as it always was; forever to remain as it is now. ³We merely take the part assigned long since, and fully recognized as perfectly fulfilled by Him Who wrote salvation’s script in His Creator’s Name, and in the Name of His Creator’s Son.
10. There is no need to further clarify what no one in the world can understand. ²When revelation of your oneness comes, it will be known and fully understood. ³Now we have work to do, for those in time can speak of things beyond, and listen to words which explain what is to come is past already. ⁴Yet what meaning can the words convey to those who count the hours still, and rise and work and go to sleep by them?
11. Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. ²The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done. ³It does not matter. ⁴For your part is still what all the rest depends on. ⁵As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God.
12. Forgiveness is the central theme that runs throughout salvation, holding all its parts in meaningful relationships, the course it runs directed and its outcome sure. ²And now we ask for grace, the final gift salvation can bestow. ³Experience that grace provides will end in time, for grace foreshadows Heaven, yet does not replace the thought of time but for a little while.
13. The interval suffices. ²It is here that miracles are laid; to be returned by you from holy instants you receive, through grace in your experience, to all who see the light that lingers in your face. ³What is the face of Christ but his who went a moment into timelessness, and brought a clear reflection of the unity he felt an instant back to bless the world? ⁴How could you finally attain to it forever, while a part of you remains outside, unknowing, unawakened, and in need of you as witness to the truth?
14. Be grateful to return, as you were glad to go an instant, and accept the gifts that grace provided you. ²You carry them back to yourself. ³And revelation stands not far behind. ⁴Its coming is ensured. ⁵We ask for grace, and for experience that comes from grace. ⁶We welcome the release it offers everyone. ⁷We do not ask for the unaskable. ⁸We do not look beyond what grace can give. ⁹For this we can give in the grace that has been given us.
15. Our learning goal today does not exceed this prayer. ²Yet in the world, what could be more than what we ask this day of Him Who gives the grace we ask, as it was given Him?
³By grace I live. ⁴By grace I am released.
⁵By grace I give. ⁶By grace I will release.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-169/by-grace-i-live-by-grace-i-am-released/en/s/575
Lesson 168
Your grace is given me. I claim it now.
1. God speaks to us. ²Shall we not speak to Him? ³He is not distant. ⁴He makes no attempt to hide from us. ⁵We try to hide from Him, and suffer from deception. ⁶He remains entirely accessible. ⁷He loves His Son. ⁸There is no certainty but this, yet this suffices. ⁹He will love His Son forever. ¹⁰When his mind remains asleep, He loves him still. ¹¹And when his mind awakes, He loves him with a never-changing Love.
2. If you but knew the meaning of His Love, hope and despair would be impossible. ²For hope would be forever satisfied; despair of any kind unthinkable. ³His grace His answer is to all despair, for in it lies remembrance of His Love. ⁴Would He not gladly give the means by which His Will is recognized? ⁵His grace is yours by your acknowledgment. ⁶And memory of Him awakens in the mind that asks the means of Him whereby its sleep is done.
3. Today we ask of God the gift He has most carefully preserved within our hearts, waiting to be acknowledged. ²This the gift by which God leans to us and lifts us up, taking salvation’s final step Himself. ³All steps but this we learn, instructed by His Voice. ⁴But finally He comes Himself, and takes us in His Arms and sweeps away the cobwebs of our sleep. ⁵His gift of grace is more than just an answer. ⁶It restores all memories the sleeping mind forgot; all certainty of what Love’s meaning is.
4. God loves His Son. ²Request Him now to give the means by which this world will disappear, and vision first will come, with knowledge but an instant later. ³For in grace you see a light that covers all the world in love, and watch fear disappear from every face as hearts rise up and claim the light as theirs. ⁴What now remains that Heaven be delayed an instant longer? ⁵What is still undone when your forgiveness rests on everything?
5. It is a new and holy day today, for we receive what has been given us. ²Our faith lies in the Giver, not our own acceptance. ³We acknowledge our mistakes, but He to Whom all error is unknown is yet the One Who answers our mistakes by giving us the means to lay them down, and rise to Him in gratitude and love.
6. And He descends to meet us, as we come to Him. ²For what He has prepared for us He gives and we receive. ³Such is His Will, because He loves His Son. ⁴To Him we pray today, returning but the word He gave to us through His Own Voice, His Word, His Love:
⁵Your grace is given me. ⁶I claim it now. ⁷Father, I come to You. ⁸And You will come to me who ask. ⁹I am the Son You love.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-168/your-grace-is-given-me-i-claim-it-now/en/s/574
Lesson 167
There is one life, and that I share with God.
1. There are not different kinds of life, for life is like the truth. ²It does not have degrees. ³It is the one condition in which all that God created share. ⁴Like all His Thoughts, it has no opposite. ⁵There is no death because what God created shares His life. ⁶There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist. ⁷There is no death because the Father and the Son are one.
2. In this world, there appears to be a state that is life’s opposite. ²You call it death. ³Yet we have learned that the idea of death takes many forms. ⁴It is the one idea which underlies all feelings that are not supremely happy. ⁵It is the alarm to which you give response of any kind that is not perfect joy. ⁶All sorrow, loss, anxiety and suffering and pain, even a little sigh of weariness, a slight discomfort or the merest frown, acknowledge death. ⁷And thus deny you live.
3. You think that death is of the body. ²Yet it is but an idea, irrelevant to what is seen as physical. ³A thought is in the mind. ⁴It can be then applied as mind directs it. ⁵But its origin is where it must be changed, if change occurs. ⁶Ideas leave not their source. ⁷The emphasis this course has placed on that idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about yourself. ⁸It is the reason you can heal. ⁹It is the cause of healing. ¹⁰It is why you cannot die. ¹¹Its truth established you as one with God.
4. Death is the thought that you are separate from your Creator. ²It is the belief conditions change, emotions alternate because of causes you cannot control, you did not make, and you can never change. ³It is the fixed belief ideas can leave their source, and take on qualities the source does not contain, becoming different from their own origin, apart from it in kind as well as distance, time and form.
5. Death cannot come from life. ²Ideas remain united to their source. ³They can extend all that their source contains. ⁴In that, they can go far beyond themselves. ⁵But they can not give birth to what was never given them. ⁶As they are made, so will their making be. ⁷As they were born, so will they then give birth. ⁸And where they come from, there will they return.
6. The mind can think it sleeps, but that is all. ²It cannot change what is its waking state. ³It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body. ⁴What is alien to the mind does not exist, because it has no source. ⁵For mind creates all things that are, and cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state. ⁶It cannot make the physical. ⁷What seems to die is but the sign of mind asleep.
7. The opposite of life can only be another form of life. ²As such, it can be reconciled with what created it, because it is not opposite in truth. ³Its form may change; it may appear to be what it is not. ⁴Yet mind is mind, awake or sleeping. ⁵It is not its opposite in anything created, nor in what it seems to make when it believes it sleeps.
8. God creates only mind awake. ²He does not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He gives not, nor make conditions which He does not share with them. ³The thought of death is not the opposite to thoughts of life. ⁴Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly, but yet within themselves, for they are everywhere.
9. What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. ²When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. ³It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. ⁴When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was.
10. Let us today be children of the truth, and not deny our holy heritage. ²Our life is not as we imagine it. ³Who changes life because he shuts his eyes, or makes himself what he is not because he sleeps, and sees in dreams an opposite to what he is? ⁴We will not ask for death in any form today. ⁵Nor will we let imagined opposites to life abide even an instant where the Thought of life eternal has been set by God Himself.
11. His holy home we strive to keep today as He established it, and wills it be forever and forever. ²He is Lord of what we think today. ³And in His Thoughts, which have no opposite, we understand there is one life, and that we share with Him, with all creation, with their thoughts as well, whom He created in a unity of life that cannot separate in death and leave the Source of life from where it came.
12. We share one life because we have one Source, a Source from which perfection comes to us, remaining always in the holy minds which He created perfect. ²As we were, so are we now and will forever be. ³A sleeping mind must waken, as it sees its own perfection mirroring the Lord of life so perfectly it fades into what is reflected there. ⁴And now it is no more a mere reflection. ⁵It becomes the thing reflected, and the light which makes reflection possible. ⁶No vision now is needed. ⁷For the wakened mind is one that knows its Source, its Self, its Holiness.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-167/there-is-one-life-and-that-i-share-with-god/en/s/573
Lesson 166
I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
1. All things are given you. ²God’s trust in you is limitless. ³He knows His Son. ⁴He gives without exception, holding nothing back that can contribute to your happiness. ⁵And yet, unless your will is one with His, His gifts are not received. ⁶But what would make you think there is another will than His?
2. Here is the paradox that underlies the making of the world. ²This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real. ³Yet those who think it real must still believe there is another will, and one that leads to opposite effects from those He wills. ⁴Impossible indeed; but every mind that looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone. ⁵But never in one God.
3. The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such strange beliefs. ²He must believe that to accept God’s gifts, however evident they may become, however urgently he may be called to claim them as his own, is to be pressed to treachery against himself. ³He must deny their presence, contradict the truth, and suffer to preserve the world he made.
4. Here is the only home he thinks he knows. ²Here is the only safety he believes that he can find. ³Without the world he made is he an outcast; homeless and afraid. ⁴He does not realize that it is here he is afraid indeed, and homeless, too; an outcast wandering so far from home, so long away, he does not realize he has forgotten where he came from, where he goes, and even who he really is.
5. Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings, God’s gifts go with him, all unknown to him. ²He cannot lose them. ³But he will not look at what is given him. ⁴He wanders on, aware of the futility he sees about him everywhere, perceiving how his little lot but dwindles, as he goes ahead to nowhere. ⁵Still he wanders on in misery and poverty, alone though God is with him, and a treasure his so great that everything the world contains is valueless before its magnitude.
6. He seems a sorry figure; weary, worn, in threadbare clothing, and with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road he walks. ²No one but has identified with him, for everyone who comes here has pursued the path he follows, and has felt defeat and hopelessness as he is feeling them. ³Yet is he really tragic, when you see that he is following the way he chose, and need but realize Who walks with him and open up his treasures to be free?
7. This is your chosen self, the one you made as a replacement for reality. ²This is the self you savagely defend against all reason, every evidence, and all the witnesses with proof to show this is not you. ³You heed them not. ⁴You go on your appointed way, with eyes cast down lest you might catch a glimpse of truth, and be released from self-deception and set free.
8. You cower fearfully lest you should feel Christ’s touch upon your shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your gifts. ²How could you then proclaim your poverty in exile? ³He would make you laugh at this perception of yourself. ⁴Where is self-pity then? ⁵And what becomes of all the tragedy you sought to make for him whom God intended only joy?
9. Your ancient fear has come upon you now, and justice has caught up with you at last. ²Christ’s hand has touched your shoulder, and you feel that you are not alone. ³You even think the miserable self you thought was you may not be your Identity. ⁴Perhaps God’s Word is truer than your own. ⁵Perhaps His gifts to you are real. ⁶Perhaps He has not wholly been outwitted by your plan to keep His Son in deep oblivion, and go the way you chose without your Self.
10. God’s Will does not oppose. ²It merely is. ³It is not God you have imprisoned in your plan to lose your Self. ⁴He does not know about a plan so alien to His Will. ⁵There was a need He did not understand, to which He gave an Answer. ⁶That is all. ⁷And you who have this Answer given you have need no more of anything but this.
11. Now do we live, for now we cannot die. ²The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend to be. ³One walks with you Who gently answers all your fears with this one merciful reply, “It is not so.” ⁴He points to all the gifts you have each time the thought of poverty oppresses you, and speaks of His Companionship when you perceive yourself as lonely and afraid.
12. Yet He reminds you still of one thing more you had forgotten. ²For His touch on you has made you like Himself. ³The gifts you have are not for you alone. ⁴What He has come to offer you, you now must learn to give. ⁵This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved you from the solitude you sought to make in which to hide from God. ⁶He has reminded you of all the gifts that God has given you. ⁷He speaks as well of what becomes your will when you accept these gifts, and recognize they are your own.
13. The gifts are yours, entrusted to your care, to give to all who chose the lonely road you have escaped. ²They do not understand they but pursue their wishes. ³It is you who teach them now. ⁴For you have learned of Christ there is another way for them to walk. ⁵Teach them by showing them the happiness that comes to those who feel the touch of Christ, and recognize God’s gifts. ⁶Let sorrow not tempt you to be unfaithful to your trust.
14. Your sighs will now betray the hopes of those who look to you for their release. ²Your tears are theirs. ³If you are sick, you but withhold their healing. ⁴What you fear but teaches them their fears are justified. ⁵Your hand becomes the giver of Christ’s touch; your change of mind becomes the proof that who accepts God’s gifts can never suffer anything. ⁶You are entrusted with the world’s release from pain.
15. Betray it not. ²Become the living proof of what Christ’s touch can offer everyone. ³God has entrusted all His gifts to you. ⁴Be witness in your happiness to how transformed the mind becomes which chooses to accept His gifts, and feel the touch of Christ. ⁵Such is your mission now. ⁶For God entrusts the giving of His gifts to all who have received them. ⁷He has shared His joy with you. ⁸And now you go to share it with the world.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-166/i-am-entrusted-with-the-gifts-of-god/en/s/572
Lesson 165
Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.
1. What makes this world seem real except your own denial of the truth that lies beyond? ²What but your thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the eternal life your Father wills for you? ³And what could hide what cannot be concealed except illusion? ⁴What could keep from you what you already have except your choice to see it not, denying it is there?
2. The Thought of God created you. ²It left you not, nor have you ever been apart from it an instant. ³It belongs to you. ⁴By it you live. ⁵It is your Source of life, holding you one with it, and everything is one with you because it left you not. ⁶The Thought of God protects you, cares for you, makes soft your resting place and smooth your way, lighting your mind with happiness and love. ⁷Eternity and everlasting life shine in your mind, because the Thought of God has left you not, and still abides with you.
3. Who would deny his safety and his peace, his joy, his healing and his peace of mind, his quiet rest, his calm awakening, if he but recognized where they abide? ²Would he not instantly prepare to go where they are found, abandoning all else as worthless in comparison with them? ³And having found them, would he not make sure they stay with him, and he remain with them?
4. Deny not Heaven. ²It is yours today, but for the asking. ³Nor need you perceive how great the gift, how changed your mind will be before it comes to you. ⁴Ask to receive, and it is given you. ⁵Conviction lies within it. ⁶Till you welcome it as yours, uncertainty remains. ⁷Yet God is fair. ⁸Sureness is not required to receive what only your acceptance can bestow.
5. Ask with desire. ²You need not be sure that you request the only thing you want. ³But when you have received, you will be sure you have the treasure you have always sought. ⁴What would you then exchange for it? ⁵What would induce you now to let it fade away from your ecstatic vision? ⁶For this sight proves that you have exchanged your blindness for the seeing eyes of Christ; your mind has come to lay aside denial, and accept the Thought of God as your inheritance.
6. Now is all doubting past, the journey’s end made certain, and salvation given you. ²Now is Christ’s power in your mind, to heal as you were healed. ³For now you are among the saviors of the world. ⁴Your destiny lies there and nowhere else. ⁵Would God consent to let His Son remain forever starved by his denial of the nourishment he needs to live? ⁶Abundance dwells in him, and deprivation cannot cut him off from God’s sustaining Love and from his home.
7. Practice today in hope. ²For hope indeed is justified. ³Your doubts are meaningless, for God is certain. ⁴And the Thought of Him is never absent. ⁵Sureness must abide within you who are host to Him. ⁶This course removes all doubts which you have interposed between Him and your certainty of Him.
8. We count on God, and not upon ourselves, to give us certainty. ²And in His Name we practice as His Word directs we do. ³His sureness lies beyond our every doubt. ⁴His Love remains beyond our every fear. ⁵The Thought of Him is still beyond all dreams and in our minds, according to His Will.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-165/let-not-my-mind-deny-the-thought-of-god/en/s/571
Lesson 164
Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.
1. What time but now can truth be recognized? ²The present is the only time there is. ³And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ. ⁴He looks past time, and sees eternity as represented there. ⁵He hears the sounds the senseless, busy world engenders, yet He hears them faintly. ⁶For beyond them all He hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice for God more clear, more meaningful, more near.
2. The world fades easily away before His sight. ²Its sounds grow dim. ³A melody from far beyond the world increasingly is more and more distinct; an ancient call to which He gives an ancient answer. ⁴You will recognize them both, for they are but your answer to your Father’s Call to you. ⁵Christ answers for you, echoing your Self, using your voice to give His glad consent; accepting your deliverance for you.
3. How holy is your practicing today, as Christ gives you His sight and hears for you, and answers in your name the Call He hears! ²How quiet is the time you give to spend with Him, beyond the world. ³How easily are all your seeming sins forgot, and all your sorrows unremembered. ⁴On this day is grief laid by, for sights and sounds that come from nearer than the world are clear to you who will today accept the gifts He gives.
4. There is a silence into which the world can not intrude. ²There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. ³There is a sense of holiness in you the thought of sin has never touched. ⁴All this today you will remember. ⁵Faithfulness in practicing today will bring rewards so great and so completely different from all things you sought before, that you will know that here your treasure is, and here your rest.
5. This is the day when vain imaginings part like a curtain, to reveal what lies beyond them. ²Now is what is really there made visible, while all the shadows which appeared to hide it merely sink away. ³Now is the balance righted, and the scale of judgment left to Him Who judges true. ⁴And in His judgment will a world unfold in perfect innocence before your eyes. ⁵Now will you see it with the eyes of Christ. ⁶Now is its transformation clear to you.
6. Brother, this day is sacred to the world. ²Your vision, given you from far beyond all things within the world, looks back on them in a new light. ³And what you see becomes the healing and salvation of the world. ⁴The valuable and valueless are both perceived and recognized for what they are. ⁵And what is worthy of your love receives your love, while nothing to be feared remains.
7. We will not judge today. ²We will receive but what is given us from judgment made beyond the world. ³Our practicing today becomes our gift of thankfulness for our release from blindness and from misery. ⁴All that we see will but increase our joy, because its holiness reflects our own. ⁵We stand forgiven in the sight of Christ, with all the world forgiven in our own. ⁶We bless the world, as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, not our own.
8. Open the curtain in your practicing by merely letting go all things you think you want. ²Your trifling treasures put away, and leave a clean and open space within your mind where Christ can come, and offer you the treasure of salvation. ³He has need of your most holy mind to save the world. ⁴Is not this purpose worthy to be yours? ⁵Is not Christ’s vision worthy to be sought above the world’s unsatisfying goals?
9. Let not today slip by without the gifts it holds for you receiving your consent and your acceptance. ²We can change the world, if you acknowledge them. ³You may not see the value your acceptance gives the world. ⁴But this you surely want; you can exchange all suffering for joy this very day. ⁵Practice in earnest, and the gift is yours. ⁶Would God deceive you? ⁷Can His promise fail? ⁸Can you withhold so little, when His Hand holds out complete salvation to His Son?
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-164/now-are-we-one-with-him-who-is-our-source/en/s/570
Lesson 163
There is no death. The Son of God is free.
1. Death is a thought that takes on many forms, often unrecognized. ²It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. ³All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as savior and as giver of release.
2. Embodiment of fear, the host of sin, god of the guilty and the lord of all illusions and deceptions, does the thought of death seem mighty. ²For it seems to hold all living things within its withered hand; all hopes and wishes in its blighting grasp; all goals perceived but in its sightless eyes. ³The frail, the helpless and the sick bow down before its image, thinking it alone is real, inevitable, worthy of their trust. ⁴For it alone will surely come.
3. All things but death are seen to be unsure, too quickly lost however hard to gain, uncertain in their outcome, apt to fail the hopes they once engendered, and to leave the taste of dust and ashes in their wake, in place of aspirations and of dreams. ²But death is counted on. ³For it will come with certain footsteps when the time has come for its arrival. ⁴It will never fail to take all life as hostage to itself.
4. Would you bow down to idols such as this? ²Here is the strength and might of God Himself perceived within an idol made of dust. ³Here is the opposite of God proclaimed as lord of all creation, stronger than God’s Will for life, the endlessness of love and Heaven’s perfect, changeless constancy. ⁴Here is the Will of Father and of Son defeated finally, and laid to rest beneath the headstone death has placed upon the body of the holy Son of God.
5. Unholy in defeat, he has become what death would have him be. ²His epitaph, which death itself has written, gives no name to him, for he has passed to dust. ³It says but this: “Here lies a witness God is dead.” ⁴And this it writes again and still again, while all the while its worshippers agree, and kneeling down with foreheads to the ground, they whisper fearfully that it is so.
6. It is impossible to worship death in any form, and still select a few you would not cherish and would yet avoid, while still believing in the rest. ²For death is total. ³Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. ⁴No compromise is possible. ⁵For here again we see an obvious position, which we must accept if we be sane; what contradicts one thought entirely can not be true, unless its opposite is proven false.
7. The idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even the insane have difficulty in believing it. ²For it implies that God was once alive and somehow perished; killed, apparently, by those who did not want Him to survive. ³Their stronger will could triumph over His, and so eternal life gave way to death. ⁴And with the Father died the Son as well.
8. Death’s worshippers may be afraid. ²And yet, can thoughts like these be fearful? ³If they saw that it is only this which they believe, they would be instantly released. ⁴And you will show them this today. ⁵There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their salvation and our own as well. ⁶God made not death. ⁷Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. ⁸This the stand we take today. ⁹And it is given us to look past death, and see the life beyond.
9. Our Father, bless our eyes today. ²We are Your messengers, and we would look upon the glorious reflection of Your Love which shines in everything. ³We live and move in You alone. ⁴We are not separate from Your eternal life. ⁵There is no death, for death is not Your Will. ⁶And we abide where You have placed us, in the life we share with You and with all living things, to be like You and part of You forever. ⁷We accept Your Thoughts as ours, and our will is one with Yours eternally. ⁸Amen.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-163/there-is-no-death-the-son-of-god-is-free/en/s/569
Lesson 162
I am as God created me.
1. This single thought, held firmly in the mind, would save the world. ²From time to time we will repeat it, as we reach another stage in learning. ³It will mean far more to you as you advance. ⁴These words are sacred, for they are the words God gave in answer to the world you made. ⁵By them it disappears, and all things seen within its misty clouds and vaporous illusions vanish as these words are spoken. ⁶For they come from God.
2. Here is the Word by which the Son became his Father’s happiness, His Love and His completion. ²Here creation is proclaimed, and honored as it is. ³There is no dream these words will not dispel; no thought of sin and no illusion which the dream contains that will not fade away before their might. ⁴They are the trumpet of awakening that sounds around the world. ⁵The dead awake in answer to its call. ⁶And those who live and hear this sound will never look on death.
3. Holy indeed is he who makes these words his own; arising with them in his mind, recalling them throughout the day, at night bringing them with him as he goes to sleep. ²His dreams are happy and his rest secure, his safety certain and his body healed, because he sleeps and wakens with the truth before him always. ³He will save the world, because he gives the world what he receives each time he practices the words of truth.
4. Today we practice simply. ²For the words we use are mighty, and they need no thoughts beyond themselves to change the mind of him who uses them. ³So wholly is it changed that it is now the treasury in which God places all His gifts and all His Love, to be distributed to all the world, increased in giving; kept complete because its sharing is unlimited. ⁴And thus you learn to think with God. ⁵Christ’s vision has restored your sight by salvaging your mind.
5. We honor you today. ²Yours is the right to perfect holiness you now accept. ³With this acceptance is salvation brought to everyone, for who could cherish sin when holiness like this has blessed the world? ⁴Who could despair when perfect joy is yours, available to all as remedy for grief and misery, all sense of loss, and for complete escape from sin and guilt?
6. And who would not be brother to you now; you, his redeemer and his savior. ²Who could fail to welcome you into his heart with loving invitation, eager to unite with one like him in holiness? ³You are as God created you. ⁴These words dispel the night, and darkness is no more. ⁵The light is come today to bless the world. ⁶For you have recognized the Son of God, and in that recognition is the world’s.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-162/i-am-as-god-created-me/en/s/568
Lesson 161
Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.
1. Today we practice differently, and take a stand against our anger, that our fears may disappear and offer room to love. ²Here is salvation in the simple words in which we practice with today’s idea. ³Here is the answer to temptation which can never fail to welcome in the Christ where fear and anger had prevailed before. ⁴Here is Atonement made complete, the world passed safely by and Heaven now restored. ⁵Here is the answer of the Voice for God.
2. Complete abstraction is the natural condition of the mind. ²But part of it is now unnatural. ³It does not look on everything as one. ⁴It sees instead but fragments of the whole, for only thus could it invent the partial world you see. ⁵The purpose of all seeing is to show you what you wish to see. ⁶All hearing but brings to your mind the sounds it wants to hear.
3. Thus were specifics made. ²And now it is specifics we must use in practicing. ³We give them to the Holy Spirit, that He may employ them for a purpose which is different from the one we gave to them. ⁴Yet He can use but what we made, to teach us from a different point of view, so we can see a different use in everything.
4. One brother is all brothers. ²Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. ³Such is the truth. ⁴Yet do these thoughts make clear the meaning of creation? ⁵Do these words bring perfect clarity with them to you? ⁶What can they seem to be but empty sounds; pretty, perhaps, correct in sentiment, yet fundamentally not understood nor understandable. ⁷The mind that taught itself to think specifically can no longer grasp abstraction in the sense that it is all-encompassing. ⁸We need to see a little, that we learn a lot.
5. It seems to be the body that we feel limits our freedom, makes us suffer, and at last puts out our life. ²Yet bodies are but symbols for a concrete form of fear. ³Fear without symbols calls for no response, for symbols can stand for the meaningless. ⁴Love needs no symbols, being true. ⁵But fear attaches to specifics, being false.
6. Bodies attack, but minds do not. ²This thought is surely reminiscent of our text, where it is often emphasized. ³This is the reason bodies easily become fear’s symbols. ⁴You have many times been urged to look beyond the body, for its sight presents the symbol of love’s “enemy” Christ’s vision does not see. ⁵The body is the target for attack, for no one thinks he hates a mind. ⁶Yet what but mind directs the body to attack? ⁷What else could be the seat of fear except what thinks of fear?
7. Hate is specific. ²There must be a thing to be attacked. ³An enemy must be perceived in such a form he can be touched and seen and heard, and ultimately killed. ⁴When hatred rests upon a thing, it calls for death as surely as God’s Voice proclaims there is no death. ⁵Fear is insatiable, consuming everything its eyes behold, seeing itself in everything, compelled to turn upon itself and to destroy.
8. Who sees a brother as a body sees him as fear’s symbol. ²And he will attack, because what he beholds is his own fear external to himself, poised to attack, and howling to unite with him again. ³Mistake not the intensity of rage projected fear must spawn. ⁴It shrieks in wrath, and claws the air in frantic hope it can reach to its maker and devour him.
9. This do the body’s eyes behold in one whom Heaven cherishes, the angels love and God created perfect. ²This is his reality. ³And in Christ’s vision is his loveliness reflected in a form so holy and so beautiful that you could scarce refrain from kneeling at his feet. ⁴Yet you will take his hand instead, for you are like him in the sight that sees him thus. ⁵Attack on him is enemy to you, for you will not perceive that in his hands is your salvation. ⁶Ask him but for this, and he will give it to you. ⁷Ask him not to symbolize your fear. ⁸Would you request that love destroy itself? ⁹Or would you have it be revealed to you and set you free?
10. Today we practice in a form we have attempted earlier. ²Your readiness is closer now, and you will come today nearer Christ’s vision. ³If you are intent on reaching it, you will succeed today. ⁴And once you have succeeded, you will not be willing to accept the witnesses your body’s eyes call forth. ⁵What you will see will sing to you of ancient melodies you will remember. ⁶You are not forgot in Heaven. ⁷Would you not remember it?
11. Select one brother, symbol of the rest, and ask salvation of him. ²See him first as clearly as you can, in that same form to which you are accustomed. ³See his face, his hands and feet, his clothing. ⁴Watch him smile, and see familiar gestures which he makes so frequently. ⁵Then think of this: What you are seeing now conceals from you the sight of one who can forgive you all your sins; whose sacred hands can take away the nails which pierce your own, and lift the crown of thorns which you have placed upon your bleeding head. ⁶Ask this of him, that he may set you free:
⁷Give me your blessing, holy Son of God. ⁸I would behold you with the eyes of Christ, and see my perfect sinlessness in you.
12. And He will answer Whom you called upon. ²For He will hear the Voice for God in you, and answer in your own. ³Behold him now, whom you have seen as merely flesh and bone, and recognize that Christ has come to you. ⁴Today’s idea is your safe escape from anger and from fear. ⁵Be sure you use it instantly, should you be tempted to attack a brother and perceive in him the symbol of your fear. ⁶And you will see him suddenly transformed from enemy to savior; from the devil into Christ.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-161/give-me-your-blessing-holy-son-of-god/en/s/567
Lesson 160
I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.
1. Fear is a stranger to the ways of love. ²Identify with fear, and you will be a stranger to yourself. ³And thus you are unknown to you. ⁴What is your Self remains an alien to the part of you which thinks that it is real, but different from yourself. ⁵Who could be sane in such a circumstance? ⁶Who but a madman could believe he is what he is not, and judge against himself?
2. There is a stranger in our midst, who comes from an idea so foreign to the truth he speaks a different language, looks upon a world truth does not know, and understands what truth regards as senseless. ²Stranger yet, he does not recognize to whom he comes, and yet maintains his home belongs to him, while he is alien now who is at home. ³And yet, how easy it would be to say, “This is my home. ⁴Here I belong, and will not leave because a madman says I must.”
3. What reason is there for not saying this? ²What could the reason be except that you had asked this stranger in to take your place, and let you be a stranger to yourself? ³No one would let himself be dispossessed so needlessly, unless he thought there were another home more suited to his tastes.
4. Who is the stranger? ²Is it fear or you who are unsuited to the home which God provided for His Son? ³Is fear His Own, created in His likeness? ⁴Is it fear that love completes, and is completed by? ⁵There is no home can shelter love and fear. ⁶They cannot coexist. ⁷If you are real, then fear must be illusion. ⁸And if fear is real, then you do not exist at all.
5. How simply, then, the question is resolved. ²Who fears has but denied himself and said, “I am the stranger here. ³And so I leave my home to one more like me than myself, and give him all I thought belonged to me.” ⁴Now is he exiled of necessity, not knowing who he is, uncertain of all things but this; that he is not himself, and that his home has been denied to him.
6. What does he search for now? ²What can he find? ³A stranger to himself can find no home wherever he may look, for he has made return impossible. ⁴His way is lost, except a miracle will search him out and show him that he is no stranger now. ⁵The miracle will come. ⁶For in his home his Self remains. ⁷It asked no stranger in, and took no alien thought to be Itself. ⁸And It will call Its Own unto Itself in recognition of what is Its Own.
7. Who is the stranger? ²Is he not the one your Self calls not? ³You are unable now to recognize this stranger in your midst, for you have given him your rightful place. ⁴Yet is your Self as certain of Its Own as God is of His Son. ⁵He cannot be confused about creation. ⁶He is sure of what belongs to Him. ⁷No stranger can be interposed between His knowledge and His Son’s reality. ⁸He does not know of strangers. ⁹He is certain of His Son.
8. God’s certainty suffices. ²Whom He knows to be His Son belongs where He has set His Son forever. ³He has answered you who ask, “Who is the stranger?” ⁴Hear His Voice assure you, quietly and sure, that you are not a stranger to your Father, nor is your Creator stranger made to you. ⁵Whom God has joined remain forever one, at home in Him, no stranger to Himself.
9. Today we offer thanks that Christ has come to search the world for what belongs to Him. ²His vision sees no strangers, but beholds His Own and joyously unites with them. ³They see Him as a stranger, for they do not recognize themselves. ⁴Yet as they give Him welcome, they remember. ⁵And He leads them gently home again, where they belong.
10. Not one does Christ forget. ²Not one He fails to give you to remember, that your home may be complete and perfect as it was established. ³He has not forgotten you. ⁴But you will not remember Him until you look on all as He does. ⁵Who denies his brother is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized, his home remembered and salvation come.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-160/i-am-at-home-fear-is-the-stranger-here/en/s/566
Lesson 159
I give the miracles I have received.
1. No one can give what he has not received. ²To give a thing requires first you have it in your own possession. ³Here the laws of Heaven and the world agree. ⁴But here they also separate. ⁵The world believes that to possess a thing, it must be kept. ⁶Salvation teaches otherwise. ⁷To give is how to recognize you have received. ⁸It is the proof that what you have is yours.
2. You understand that you are healed when you give healing. ²You accept forgiveness as accomplished in yourself when you forgive. ³You recognize your brother as yourself, and thus do you perceive that you are whole. ⁴There is no miracle you cannot give, for all are given you. ⁵Receive them now by opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid, and giving them away.
3. Christ’s vision is a miracle. ²It comes from far beyond itself, for it reflects eternal love and the rebirth of love which never dies, but has been kept obscure. ³Christ’s vision pictures Heaven, for it sees a world so like to Heaven that what God created perfect can be mirrored there. ⁴The darkened glass the world presents can show but twisted images in broken parts. ⁵The real world pictures Heaven’s innocence.
4. Christ’s vision is the miracle in which all miracles are born. ²It is their source, remaining with each miracle you give, and yet remaining yours. ³It is the bond by which the giver and receiver are united in extension here on earth, as they are one in Heaven. ⁴Christ beholds no sin in anyone. ⁵And in His sight the sinless are as one. ⁶Their holiness was given by His Father and Himself.
5. Christ’s vision is the bridge between the worlds. ²And in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. ³Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there; transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them. ⁴Holiness has been restored to vision, and the blind can see.
6. This is the Holy Spirit’s single gift; the treasure house to which you can appeal with perfect certainty for all the things that can contribute to your happiness. ²All are laid here already. ³All can be received but for the asking. ⁴Here the door is never locked, and no one is denied his least request or his most urgent need. ⁵There is no sickness not already healed, no lack unsatisfied, no need unmet within this golden treasury of Christ.
7. Here does the world remember what was lost when it was made. ²For here it is repaired, made new again, but in a different light. ³What was to be the home of sin becomes the center of redemption and the hearth of mercy, where the suffering are healed and welcome. ⁴No one will be turned away from this new home, where his salvation waits. ⁵No one is stranger to him. ⁶No one asks for anything of him except the gift of his acceptance of his welcoming.
8. Christ’s vision is the holy ground in which the lilies of forgiveness set their roots. ²This is their home. ³They can be brought from here back to the world, but they can never grow in its unnourishing and shallow soil. ⁴They need the light and warmth and kindly care Christ’s charity provides. ⁵They need the love with which He looks on them. ⁶And they become His messengers, who give as they received.
9. Take from His storehouse, that its treasures may increase. ²His lilies do not leave their home when they are carried back into the world. ³Their roots remain. ⁴They do not leave their source, but carry its beneficence with them, and turn the world into a garden like the one they came from, and to which they go again with added fragrance. ⁵Now are they twice blessed. ⁶The messages they brought from Christ have been delivered, and returned to them. ⁷And they return them gladly unto Him.
10. Behold the store of miracles set out for you to give. ²Are you not worth the gift, when God appointed it be given you? ³Judge not God’s Son, but follow in the way He has established. ⁴Christ has dreamed the dream of a forgiven world. ⁵It is His gift, whereby a sweet transition can be made from death to life; from hopelessness to hope. ⁶Let us an instant dream with Him. ⁷His dream awakens us to truth. ⁸His vision gives the means for a return to our unlost and everlasting sanctity in God.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-159/i-give-the-miracles-i-have-received/en/s/565
Lesson 158
Today I learn to give as I receive.
1. What has been given you? ²The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because you were created out of love. ³Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created. ⁴This was given you as knowledge which you cannot lose. ⁵It was given as well to every living thing, for by that knowledge only does it live.
2. You have received all this. ²No one who walks the world but has received it. ³It is not this knowledge which you give, for that is what creation gave. ⁴All this cannot be learned. ⁵What, then, are you to learn to give today? ⁶Our lesson yesterday evoked a theme found early in the text. ⁷Experience cannot be shared directly, in the way that vision can. ⁸The revelation that the Father and the Son are one will come in time to every mind. ⁹Yet is that time determined by the mind itself, not taught.
3. The time is set already. ²It appears to be quite arbitrary. ³Yet there is no step along the road that anyone takes but by chance. ⁴It has already been taken by him, although he has not yet embarked on it. ⁵For time but seems to go in one direction. ⁶We but undertake a journey that is over. ⁷Yet it seems to have a future still unknown to us.
4. Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. ²Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. ³The script is written. ⁴When experience will come to end your doubting has been set. ⁵For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by.
5. A teacher does not give experience, because he did not learn it. ²It revealed itself to him at its appointed time. ³But vision is his gift. ⁴This he can give directly, for Christ’s knowledge is not lost, because He has a vision He can give to anyone who asks. ⁵The Father’s Will and His are joined in knowledge. ⁶Yet there is a vision which the Holy Spirit sees because the Mind of Christ beholds it too.
6. Here is the joining of the world of doubt and shadows made with the intangible. ²Here is a quiet place within the world made holy by forgiveness and by love. ³Here are all contradictions reconciled, for here the journey ends. ⁴Experience—unlearned, untaught, unseen—is merely there. ⁵This is beyond our goal, for it transcends what needs to be accomplished. ⁶Our concern is with Christ’s vision. ⁷This we can attain.
7. Christ’s vision has one law. ²It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. ³It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. ⁴It sees no separation. ⁵And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees.
8. This can be taught; and must be taught by all who would achieve it. ²It requires but the recognition that the world can not give anything that faintly can compare with this in value; nor set up a goal that does not merely disappear when this has been perceived. ³And this you give today: See no one as a body. ⁴Greet him as the Son of God he is, acknowledging that he is one with you in holiness.
9. Thus are his sins forgiven him, for Christ has vision that has power to overlook them all. ²In His forgiveness are they gone. ³Unseen by One they merely disappear, because a vision of the holiness that lies beyond them comes to take their place. ⁴It matters not what form they took, nor how enormous they appeared to be, nor who seemed to be hurt by them. ⁵They are no more. ⁶And all effects they seemed to have are gone with them, undone and never to be done.
10. Thus do you learn to give as you receive. ²And thus Christ’s vision looks on you as well. ³This lesson is not difficult to learn, if you remember in your brother you but see yourself. ⁴If he be lost in sin, so must you be; if you see light in him, your sins have been forgiven by yourself. ⁵Each brother whom you meet today provides another chance to let Christ’s vision shine on you, and offer you the peace of God.
11. It matters not when revelation comes, for that is not of time. ²Yet time has still one gift to give, in which true knowledge is reflected in a way so accurate its image shares its unseen holiness; its likeness shines with its immortal love. ³We practice seeing with the eyes of Christ today. ⁴And by the holy gifts we give, Christ’s vision looks upon ourselves as well.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-158/today-i-learn-to-give-as-i-receive/en/s/564