Lesson 196

It can be but myself I crucify.

1. When this is firmly understood and kept in full awareness, you will not attempt to harm yourself, nor make your body slave to vengeance. ²You will not attack yourself, and you will realize that to attack another is but to attack yourself. ³You will be free of the insane belief that to attack a brother saves yourself. ⁴And you will understand his safety is your own, and in his healing you are healed.

2. Perhaps at first you will not understand how mercy, limitless and with all things held in its sure protection, can be found in the idea we practice for today. ²It may, in fact, appear to be a sign that punishment can never be escaped because the ego, under what it sees as threat, is quick to cite the truth to save its lies. ³Yet must it fail to understand the truth it uses thus. ⁴But you can learn to see these foolish applications, and deny the meaning they appear to have.

3. Thus do you also teach your mind that you are not an ego. ²For the ways in which the ego would distort the truth will not deceive you longer. ³You will not believe you are a body to be crucified. ⁴And you will see within today’s idea the light of resurrection, looking past all thoughts of crucifixion and of death, to thoughts of liberation and of life.

4. Today’s idea is one step we take in leading us from bondage to the state of perfect freedom. ²Let us take this step today, that we may quickly go the way salvation shows us, taking every step in its appointed sequence, as the mind relinquishes its burdens one by one. ³It is not time we need for this. ⁴It is but willingness. ⁵For what would seem to need a thousand years can easily be done in just one instant by the grace of God.

5. The dreary, hopeless thought that you can make attacks on others and escape yourself has nailed you to the cross. ²Perhaps it seemed to be salvation. ³Yet it merely stood for the belief the fear of God is real. ⁴And what is that but hell? ⁵Who could believe his Father is his deadly enemy, separate from him, and waiting to destroy his life and blot him from the universe, without the fear of hell upon his heart?

6. Such is the form of madness you believe, if you accept the fearful thought you can attack another and be free yourself. ²Until this form is changed, there is no hope. ³Until you see that this, at least, must be entirely impossible, how could there be escape? ⁴The fear of God is real to anyone who thinks this thought is true. ⁵And he will not perceive its foolishness, or even see that it is there, so that it would be possible to question it.

7. To question it at all, its form must first be changed at least as much as will permit fear of retaliation to abate, and the responsibility returned to some extent to you. ²From there you can at least consider if you want to go along this painful path. ³Until this shift has been accomplished, you can not perceive that it is but your thoughts that bring you fear, and your deliverance depends on you.

8. Our next steps will be easy, if you take this one today. ²From there we go ahead quite rapidly. ³For once you understand it is impossible that you be hurt except by your own thoughts, the fear of God must disappear. ⁴You cannot then believe that fear is caused without. ⁵And God, Whom you had thought to banish, can be welcomed back within the holy mind He never left.

9. Salvation’s song can certainly be heard in the idea we practice for today. ²If it can but be you you crucify, you did not hurt the world, and need not fear its vengeance and pursuit. ³Nor need you hide in terror from the deadly fear of God projection hides behind. ⁴The thing you dread the most is your salvation. ⁵You are strong, and it is strength you want. ⁶And you are free, and glad of freedom. ⁷You have sought to be both weak and bound, because you feared your strength and freedom. ⁸Yet salvation lies in them.

10. There is an instant in which terror seems to grip your mind so wholly that escape appears quite hopeless. ²When you realize, once and for all, that it is you you fear, the mind perceives itself as split. ³And this had been concealed while you believed attack could be directed outward, and returned from outside to within. ⁴It seemed to be an enemy outside you had to fear. ⁵And thus a god outside yourself became your mortal enemy; the source of fear.

11. Now, for an instant, is a murderer perceived within you, eager for your death, intent on plotting punishment for you until the time when it can kill at last. ²Yet in this instant is the time as well in which salvation comes. ³For fear of God has disappeared. ⁴And you can call on Him to save you from illusions by His Love, calling Him Father and yourself His Son. ⁵Pray that the instant may be soon,—today. ⁶Step back from fear, and make advance to love.

12. There is no Thought of God that does not go with you to help you reach that instant, and to go beyond it quickly, surely and forever. ²When the fear of God is gone, there are no obstacles that still remain between you and the holy peace of God. ³How kind and merciful is the idea we practice! ⁴Give it welcome, as you should, for it is your release. ⁵It is indeed but you your mind can try to crucify. ⁶Yet your redemption, too, will come from you.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-196/it-can-be-but-myself-i-crucify/en/s/604

Lesson 195

Love is the way I walk in gratitude.

1. Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn for those who look upon the world amiss. ²The most that they can do is see themselves as better off than others. ³And they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than they. ⁴How pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! ⁵For who has cause for thanks while others have less cause? ⁶And who could suffer less because he sees another suffer more? ⁷Your gratitude is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world.

2. It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering. ²But it is equally insane to fail in gratitude to One Who offers you the certain means whereby all pain is healed, and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness. ³Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which He directs, and follow in the way He sets before them, to escape a prison that they thought contained no door to the deliverance they now perceive.

3. Your brother is your “enemy” because you see in him the rival for your peace; a plunderer who takes his joy from you, and leaves you nothing but a black despair so bitter and relentless that there is no hope remaining. ²Now is vengeance all there is to wish for. ³Now can you but try to bring him down to lie in death with you, as useless as yourself; as little left within his grasping fingers as in yours.

4. You do not offer God your gratitude because your brother is more slave than you, nor could you sanely be enraged if he seems freer. ²Love makes no comparisons. ³And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love. ⁴We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom. ⁵It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound. ⁶For who can bargain in the name of love?

5. Therefore give thanks, but in sincerity. ²And let your gratitude make room for all who will escape with you; the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death. ³All these go with you. ⁴Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off from our awareness of the unity we share with them, as they must share with us.

6. We thank our Father for one thing alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him. ²And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which would reduce our wholeness, nor impair or change our function to complete the One Who is Himself completion. ³We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing, and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us.

7. Then let our brothers lean their tired heads against our shoulders as they rest a while. ²We offer thanks for them. ³For if we can direct them to the peace that we would find, the way is opening at last to us. ⁴An ancient door is swinging free again; a long forgotten Word re-echoes in our memory, and gathers clarity as we are willing once again to hear.

8. Walk, then, in gratitude the way of love. ²For hatred is forgotten when we lay comparisons aside. ³What more remains as obstacles to peace? ⁴The fear of God is now undone at last, and we forgive without comparing. ⁵Thus we cannot choose to overlook some things, and yet retain some other things still locked away as “sins.” ⁶When your forgiveness is complete you will have total gratitude, for you will see that everything has earned the right to love by being loving, even as your Self.

9. Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge. ²We have been given everything. ³If we refuse to recognize it, we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to a self-perception which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly, and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future. ⁴Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. ⁵God has cared for us, and calls us Son. ⁶Can there be more than this?

10. Our gratitude will pave the way to Him, and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of. ²Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is the other must be found. ³For gratitude is but an aspect of the Love which is the Source of all creation. ⁴God gives thanks to you, His Son, for being what you are; His Own completion and the Source of love, along with Him. ⁵Your gratitude to Him is one with His to you. ⁶For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-195/love-is-the-way-i-walk-in-gratitude/en/s/603

Lesson 194

I place the future in the Hands of God.

1. Today’s idea takes another step toward quick salvation, and a giant stride it is indeed! ²So great the distance is that it encompasses, it sets you down just short of Heaven, with the goal in sight and obstacles behind. ³Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to Heaven’s gate; the quiet place of peace, where you await with certainty the final step of God. ⁴How far are we progressing now from earth! ⁵How close are we approaching to our goal! ⁶How short the journey still to be pursued!

2. Accept today’s idea, and you have passed all anxiety, all pits of hell, all blackness of depression, thoughts of sin, and devastation brought about by guilt. ²Accept today’s idea, and you have released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains that locked the door to freedom on it. ³You are saved, and your salvation thus becomes the gift you give the world, because you have received.

3. In no one instant is depression felt, or pain experienced or loss perceived. ²In no one instant sorrow can be set upon a throne, and worshipped faithfully. ³In no one instant can one even die. ⁴And so each instant given unto God in passing, with the next one given Him already, is a time of your release from sadness, pain and even death itself.

4. God holds your future as He holds your past and present. ²They are one to Him, and so they should be one to you. ³Yet in this world, the temporal progression still seems real. ⁴And so you are not asked to understand the lack of sequence really found in time. ⁵You are but asked to let the future go, and place it in God’s Hands. ⁶And you will see by your experience that you have laid the past and present in His Hands as well, because the past will punish you no more, and future dread will now be meaningless.

5. Release the future. ²For the past is gone, and what is present, freed from its bequest of grief and misery, of pain and loss, becomes the instant in which time escapes the bondage of illusions where it runs its pitiless, inevitable course. ³Then is each instant which was slave to time transformed into a holy instant, when the light that was kept hidden in God’s Son is freed to bless the world. ⁴Now is he free, and all his glory shines upon a world made free with him, to share his holiness.

6. If you can see the lesson for today as the deliverance it really is, you will not hesitate to give as much consistent effort as you can, to make it be a part of you. ²As it becomes a thought that rules your mind, a habit in your problem-solving repertoire, a way of quick reaction to temptation, you extend your learning to the world. ³And as you learn to see salvation in all things, so will the world perceive that it is saved.

7. What worry can beset the one who gives his future to the loving Hands of God? ²What can he suffer? ³What can cause him pain, or bring experience of loss to him? ⁴What can he fear? ⁵And what can he regard except with love? ⁶For he who has escaped all fear of future pain has found his way to present peace, and certainty of care the world can never threaten. ⁷He is sure that his perception may be faulty, but will never lack correction. ⁸He is free to choose again when he has been deceived; to change his mind when he has made mistakes.

8. Place, then, your future in the Hands of God. ²For thus you call the memory of Him to come again, replacing all your thoughts of sin and evil with the truth of love. ³Think you the world could fail to gain thereby, and every living creature not respond with healed perception? ⁴Who entrusts himself to God has also placed the world within the Hands to which he has himself appealed for comfort and security. ⁵He lays aside the sick illusions of the world along with his, and offers peace to both.

9. Now are we saved indeed. ²For in God’s Hands we rest untroubled, sure that only good can come to us. ³If we forget, we will be gently reassured. ⁴If we accept an unforgiving thought, it will be soon replaced by love’s reflection. ⁵And if we are tempted to attack, we will appeal to Him Who guards our rest to make the choice for us that leaves temptation far behind. ⁶No longer is the world our enemy, for we have chosen that we be its friend.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-194/i-place-the-future-in-the-hands-of-god/en/s/602

Lesson 193

All things are lessons God would have me learn.

1. God does not know of learning. ²Yet His Will extends to what He does not understand, in that He wills the happiness His Son inherited of Him be undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope, eternally expanding in the joy of full creation, and eternally open and wholly limitless in Him. ³That is His Will. ⁴And thus His Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done.

2. God sees no contradictions. ²Yet His Son believes he sees them. ³Thus he has a need for One Who can correct his erring sight, and give him vision that will lead him back to where perception ceases. ⁴God does not perceive at all. ⁵Yet it is He Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it. ⁶It is He Who answers what His Son would contradict, and keeps his sinlessness forever safe.

3. These are the lessons God would have you learn. ²His Will reflects them all, and they reflect His loving kindness to the Son He loves. ³Each lesson has a central thought, the same in all of them. ⁴The form alone is changed, with different circumstances and events; with different characters and different themes, apparent but not real. ⁵They are the same in fundamental content. ⁶It is this:

⁷Forgive, and you will see this differently.

4. Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. ²Yet that is the content underneath the form. ³It is this sameness which makes learning sure, because the lesson is so simple that it cannot be rejected in the end. ⁴No one can hide forever from a truth so very obvious that it appears in countless forms, and yet is recognized as easily in all of them, if one but wants to see the simple lesson there.

5. Forgive, and you will see this differently.

²These are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all your pain, all suffering regardless of its form. ³These are the words with which temptation ends, and guilt, abandoned, is revered no more. ⁴These are the words which end the dream of sin, and rid the mind of fear. ⁵These are the words by which salvation comes to all the world.

6. Shall we not learn to say these words when we are tempted to believe that pain is real, and death becomes our choice instead of life? ²Shall we not learn to say these words when we have understood their power to release all minds from bondage? ³These are words which give you power over all events that seem to have been given power over you. ⁴You see them rightly when you hold these words in full awareness, and do not forget these words apply to everything you see or any brother looks upon amiss.

7. How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is failing to perceive the lesson he should learn? ²Does pain seem real in the perception? ³If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. ⁴And there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind that sees the pain through eyes the mind directs.

8. God would not have you suffer thus. ²He would help you forgive yourself. ³His Son does not remember who he is. ⁴And God would have him not forget His Love, and all the gifts His Love brings with it. ⁵Would you now renounce your own salvation? ⁶Would you fail to learn the simple lessons Heaven’s Teacher sets before you, that all pain may disappear and God may be remembered by His Son?

9. All things are lessons God would have you learn. ²He would not leave an unforgiving thought without correction, nor one thorn or nail to hurt His holy Son in any way. ³He would ensure his holy rest remain untroubled and serene, without a care, in an eternal home which cares for him. ⁴And He would have all tears be wiped away, with none remaining yet unshed, and none but waiting their appointed time to fall. ⁵For God has willed that laughter should replace each one, and that His Son be free again.

10. We will attempt today to overcome a thousand seeming obstacles to peace in just one day. ²Let mercy come to you more quickly. ³Do not try to hold it off another day, another minute or another instant. ⁴Time was made for this. ⁵Use it today for what its purpose is. ⁶Morning and night, devote what time you can to serve its proper aim, and do not let the time be less than meets your deepest need.

11. Give all you can, and give a little more. ²For now we would arise in haste and go unto our Father’s house. ³We have been gone too long, and we would linger here no more. ⁴And as we practice, let us think about all things we saved to settle by ourselves, and kept apart from healing. ⁵Let us give them all to Him Who knows the way to look upon them so that they will disappear. ⁶Truth is His message; truth His teaching is. ⁷His are the lessons God would have us learn.

12. Each hour, spend a little time today, and in the days to come, in practicing the lesson in forgiveness in the form established for the day. ²And try to give it application to the happenings the hour brought, so that the next one is free of the one before. ³The chains of time are easily unloosened in this way. ⁴Let no one hour cast its shadow on the one that follows, and when that one goes, let everything that happened in its course go with it. ⁵Thus will you remain unbound, in peace eternal in the world of time.

13. This is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him, and to salvation of the world. ²To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:

³I will forgive, and this will disappear.

⁴To every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering, repeat these selfsame words. ⁵And then you hold the key that opens Heaven’s gate, and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven. ⁶God will take this final step Himself. ⁷Do not deny the little steps He asks you take to Him.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-193/all-things-are-lessons-god-would-have-me-learn/en/s/601

Lesson 192

I have a function God would have me fill.

1. It is your Father’s holy Will that you complete Himself, and that your Self shall be His sacred Son, forever pure as He, of love created and in love preserved, extending love, creating in its name, forever one with God and with your Self. ²Yet what can such a function mean within a world of envy, hatred and attack?

2. Therefore, you have a function in the world in its own terms. ²For who can understand a language far beyond his simple grasp? ³Forgiveness represents your function here. ⁴It is not God’s creation, for it is the means by which untruth can be undone. ⁵And who would pardon Heaven? ⁶Yet on earth, you need the means to let illusions go. ⁷Creation merely waits for your return to be acknowledged, not to be complete.

3. Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. ²It has no meaning here. ³Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth. ⁴For being Heaven-born, it has no form at all. ⁵Yet God created One Who has the power to translate in form the wholly formless. ⁶What He makes are dreams, but of a kind so close to waking that the light of day already shines in them, and eyes already opening behold the joyful sights their offerings contain.

4. Forgiveness gently looks upon all things unknown in Heaven, sees them disappear, and leaves the world a clean and unmarked slate on which the Word of God can now replace the senseless symbols written there before. ²Forgiveness is the means by which the fear of death is overcome, because it holds no fierce attraction now and guilt is gone. ³Forgiveness lets the body be perceived as what it is; a simple teaching aid, to be laid by when learning is complete, but hardly changing him who learns at all.

5. The mind without the body cannot make mistakes. ²It cannot think that it will die, nor be the prey of merciless attack. ³Anger becomes impossible, and where is terror then? ⁴What fears could still assail those who have lost the source of all attack, the core of anguish and the seat of fear? ⁵Only forgiveness can relieve the mind of thinking that the body is its home. ⁶Only forgiveness can restore the peace that God intended for His holy Son. ⁷Only forgiveness can persuade the Son to look again upon his holiness.

6. With anger gone, you will indeed perceive that, for Christ’s vision and the gift of sight, no sacrifice was asked, and only pain was lifted from a sick and tortured mind. ²Is this unwelcome? ³Is it to be feared? ⁴Or is it to be hoped for, met with thanks and joyously accepted? ⁵We are one, and therefore give up nothing. ⁶But we have indeed been given everything by God.

7. Yet do we need forgiveness to perceive that this is so. ²Without its kindly light we grope in darkness, using reason but to justify our rage and our attack. ³Our understanding is so limited that what we think we understand is but confusion born of error. ⁴We are lost in mists of shifting dreams and fearful thoughts, our eyes shut tight against the light; our minds engaged in worshipping what is not there.

8. Who can be born again in Christ but him who has forgiven everyone he sees or thinks of or imagines? ²Who could be set free while he imprisons anyone? ³A jailer is not free, for he is bound together with his prisoner. ⁴He must be sure that he does not escape, and so he spends his time in keeping watch on him. ⁵The bars that limit him become the world in which his jailer lives, along with him. ⁶And it is on his freedom that the way to liberty depends for both of them.

9. Therefore, hold no one prisoner. ²Release instead of bind, for thus are you made free. ³The way is simple. ⁴Every time you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head. ⁵And it will fall or be averted as you choose to be condemned or free. ⁶Thus does each one who seems to tempt you to be angry represent your savior from the prison house of death. ⁷And so you owe him thanks instead of pain.

10. Be merciful today. ²The Son of God deserves your mercy. ³It is he who asks that you accept the way to freedom now. ⁴Deny him not. ⁵His Father’s Love for him belongs to you. ⁶Your function here on earth is only to forgive him, that you may accept him back as your Identity. ⁷He is as God created him. ⁸And you are what he is. ⁹Forgive him now his sins, and you will see that you are one with him.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-192/i-have-a-function-god-would-have-me-fill/en/s/600

Lesson 191

I am the holy Son of God Himself.

1. Here is your declaration of release from bondage of the world. ²And here as well is all the world released. ³You do not see what you have done by giving to the world the role of jailer to the Son of God. ⁴What could it be but vicious and afraid, fearful of shadows, punitive and wild, lacking all reason, blind, insane with hate?

2. What have you done that this should be your world? ²What have you done that this is what you see? ³Deny your own Identity, and this is what remains. ⁴You look on chaos and proclaim it is yourself. ⁵There is no sight that fails to witness this to you. ⁶There is no sound that does not speak of frailty within you and without; no breath you draw that does not seem to bring you nearer death; no hope you hold but will dissolve in tears.

3. Deny your own Identity, and you will not escape the madness which induced this weird, unnatural and ghostly thought that mocks creation and that laughs at God. ²Deny your own Identity, and you assail the universe alone, without a friend, a tiny particle of dust against the legions of your enemies. ³Deny your own Identity, and look on evil, sin and death, and watch despair snatch from your fingers every scrap of hope, leaving you nothing but the wish to die.

4. Yet what is it except a game you play in which Identity can be denied? ²You are as God created you. ³All else but this one thing is folly to believe. ⁴In this one thought is everyone set free. ⁵In this one truth are all illusions gone. ⁶In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything, the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality.

5. But let today’s idea find a place among your thoughts and you have risen far above the world, and all the worldly thoughts that hold it prisoner. ²And from this place of safety and escape you will return and set it free. ³For he who can accept his true Identity is truly saved. ⁴And his salvation is the gift he gives to everyone, in gratitude to Him Who pointed out the way to happiness that changed his whole perspective of the world.

6. One holy thought like this and you are free: You are the holy Son of God Himself. ²And with this holy thought you learn as well that you have freed the world. ³You have no need to use it cruelly, and then perceive this savage need in it. ⁴You set it free of your imprisonment. ⁵You will not see a devastating image of yourself walking the world in terror, with the world twisting in agony because your fears have laid the mark of death upon its heart.

7. Be glad today how very easily is hell undone. ²You need but tell yourself:

³I am the holy Son of God Himself. ⁴I cannot suffer, cannot be in pain; I cannot suffer loss, nor fail to do all that salvation asks.

⁵And in that thought is everything you look on wholly changed.

8. A miracle has lighted up all dark and ancient caverns, where the rites of death echoed since time began. ²For time has lost its hold upon the world. ³The Son of God has come in glory to redeem the lost, to save the helpless, and to give the world the gift of his forgiveness. ⁴Who could see the world as dark and sinful, when God’s Son has come again at last to set it free?

9. You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given unto you in earth and Heaven. ²There is nothing that you cannot do. ³You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. ⁴Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you.

10. Then let the Son of God awaken from his sleep, and opening his holy eyes, return again to bless the world he made. ²In error it began, but it will end in the reflection of his holiness. ³And he will sleep no more and dream of death. ⁴Then join with me today. ⁵Your glory is the light that saves the world. ⁶Do not withhold salvation longer. ⁷Look about the world, and see the suffering there. ⁸Is not your heart willing to bring your weary brothers rest?

11. They must await your own release. ²They stay in chains till you are free. ³They cannot see the mercy of the world until you find it in yourself. ⁴They suffer pain until you have denied its hold on you. ⁵They die till you accept your own eternal life. ⁶You are the holy Son of God Himself. ⁷Remember this, and all the world is free. ⁸Remember this, and earth and Heaven are one.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-191/i-am-the-holy-son-of-god-himself/en/s/599

Lesson 190

I choose the joy of God instead of pain.

1. Pain is a wrong perspective. ²When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. ³It is not a fact at all. ⁴There is no form it takes that will not disappear if seen aright. ⁵For pain proclaims God cruel. ⁶How could it be real in any form? ⁷It witnesses to God the Father’s hatred of His Son, the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane desire for revenge and death.

2. Can such projections be attested to? ²Can they be anything but wholly false? ³Pain is but witness to the Son’s mistakes in what he thinks he is. ⁴It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. ⁵It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love, which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love.

3. Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. ²It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and seen as traitor to Himself. ³If God is real, there is no pain. ⁴If pain is real, there is no God. ⁵For vengeance is not part of love. ⁶And fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. ⁷The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain.

4. Peace to such foolishness! ²The time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. ³There is no need to think of them as savage crimes, or secret sins with weighty consequence. ⁴Who but a madman could conceive of them as cause of anything? ⁵Their witness, pain, is mad as they, and no more to be feared than the insane illusions which it shields, and tries to demonstrate must still be true.

5. It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. ²Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. ³There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. ⁴No one but yourself affects you. ⁵There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. ⁶But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. ⁷As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. ⁸And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.

6. My holy brother, think of this awhile: The world you see does nothing. ²It has no effects at all. ³It merely represents your thoughts. ⁴And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want. ⁵Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable, forever and forever. ⁶And would you deny a little corner of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain; a sickly place where living things must come at last to die?

7. The world may seem to cause you pain. ²And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. ³As an effect, it cannot make effects. ⁴As an illusion, it is what you wish. ⁵Your idle wishes represent its pains. ⁶Your strange desires bring it evil dreams. ⁷Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live.

8. Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. ²Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free. ³In pain is God denied the Son He loves. ⁴In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. ⁵And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery.

9. Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven’s peace holds all things still at last. ²Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. ³Let no attack enter with you. ⁴Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness.

10. Here will you understand there is no pain. ²Here does the joy of God belong to you. ³This is the day when it is given you to realize the lesson that contains all of salvation’s power. ⁴It is this: Pain is illusion; joy, reality. ⁵Pain is but sleep; joy is awakening. ⁶Pain is deception; joy alone is truth.

11. And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made; we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven. ²Let our gratitude unto our Teacher fill our hearts, as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of Heaven for the darkness of the world.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-190/i-choose-the-joy-of-god-instead-of-pain/en/s/598

Lesson 189

I feel the Love of God within me now.

1. There is a light in you the world can not perceive. ²And with its eyes you will not see this light, for you are blinded by the world. ³Yet you have eyes to see it. ⁴It is there for you to look upon. ⁵It was not placed in you to be kept hidden from your sight. ⁶This light is a reflection of the thought we practice now. ⁷To feel the Love of God within you is to see the world anew, shining in innocence, alive with hope, and blessed with perfect charity and love.

2. Who could feel fear in such a world as this? ²It welcomes you, rejoices that you came, and sings your praises as it keeps you safe from every form of danger and of pain. ³It offers you a warm and gentle home in which to stay a while. ⁴It blesses you throughout the day, and watches through the night as silent guardian of your holy sleep. ⁵It sees salvation in you, and protects the light in you, in which it sees its own. ⁶It offers you its flowers and its snow, in thankfulness for your benevolence.

3. This is the world the Love of God reveals. ²It is so different from the world you see through darkened eyes of malice and of fear, that one belies the other. ³Only one can be perceived at all. ⁴The other one is wholly meaningless. ⁵A world in which forgiveness shines on everything, and peace offers its gentle light to everyone, is inconceivable to those who see a world of hatred rising from attack, poised to avenge, to murder and destroy.

4. Yet is the world of hatred equally unseen and inconceivable to those who feel God’s Love in them. ²Their world reflects the quietness and peace that shines in them; the gentleness and innocence they see surrounding them; the joy with which they look out from the endless wells of joy within. ³What they have felt in them they look upon, and see its sure reflection everywhere.

5. What would you see? ²The choice is given you. ³But learn and do not let your mind forget this law of seeing: You will look upon that which you feel within. ⁴If hatred finds a place within your heart, you will perceive a fearful world, held cruelly in death’s sharp-pointed, bony fingers. ⁵If you feel the Love of God within you, you will look out on a world of mercy and of love.

6. Today we pass illusions, as we seek to reach to what is true in us, and feel its all-embracing tenderness, its Love which knows us perfect as itself, its sight which is the gift its Love bestows on us. ²We learn the way today. ³It is as sure as Love itself, to which it carries us. ⁴For its simplicity avoids the snares the foolish convolutions of the world’s apparent reasoning but serve to hide.

7. Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. ²Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. ³Hold onto nothing. ⁴Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. ⁵Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

8. Is it not He Who knows the way to you? ²You need not know the way to Him. ³Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the Son and God the Father to be quietly removed forever. ⁴God will do His part in joyful and immediate response. ⁵Ask and receive. ⁶But do not make demands, nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you. ⁷The way to reach Him is merely to let Him be. ⁸For in that way is your reality proclaimed as well.

9. And so today we do not choose the way in which we go to Him. ²But we do choose to let Him come. ³And with this choice we rest. ⁴And in our quiet hearts and open minds, His Love will blaze its pathway of itself. ⁵What has not been denied is surely there, if it be true and can be surely reached. ⁶God knows His Son, and knows the way to him. ⁷He does not need His Son to show Him how to find His way. ⁸Through every opened door His Love shines outward from its home within, and lightens up the world in innocence.

10. Father, we do not know the way to You. ²But we have called, and You have answered us. ³We will not interfere. ⁴Salvation’s ways are not our own, for they belong to You. ⁵And it is unto You we look for them. ⁶Our hands are open to receive Your gifts. ⁷We have no thoughts we think apart from You, and cherish no beliefs of what we are, or Who created us. ⁸Yours is the way that we would find and follow. ⁹And we ask but that Your Will, which is our own as well, be done in us and in the world, that it become a part of Heaven now. ¹⁰Amen.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-189/i-feel-the-love-of-god-within-me-now/en/s/597

Lesson 188

The peace of God is shining in me now.

1. Why wait for Heaven? ²Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. ³The light is in them now. ⁴Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. ⁵Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. ⁶The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own. ⁷It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. ⁸It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home.

2. This light can not be lost. ²Why wait to find it in the future, or believe it has been lost already, or was never there? ³It can so easily be looked upon that arguments which prove it is not there become ridiculous. ⁴Who can deny the presence of what he beholds in him? ⁵It is not difficult to look within, for there all vision starts. ⁶There is no sight, be it of dreams or from a truer Source, that is not but the shadow of the seen through inward vision. ⁷There perception starts, and there it ends. ⁸It has no source but this.

3. The peace of God is shining in you now, and from your heart extends around the world. ²It pauses to caress each living thing, and leaves a blessing with it that remains forever and forever. ³What it gives must be eternal. ⁴It removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and valueless. ⁵It brings renewal to all tired hearts, and lights all vision as it passes by. ⁶All of its gifts are given everyone, and everyone unites in giving thanks to you who give, and you who have received.

4. The shining in your mind reminds the world of what it has forgotten, and the world restores the memory to you as well. ²From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned. ³To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks. ⁴And in His blessing does the light in you shine brighter, adding to the gifts you have to offer to the world.

5. The peace of God can never be contained. ²Who recognizes it within himself must give it. ³And the means for giving it are in his understanding. ⁴He forgives because he recognized the truth in him. ⁵The peace of God is shining in you now, and in all living things. ⁶In quietness is it acknowledged universally. ⁷For what your inward vision looks upon is your perception of the universe.

6. Sit quietly and close your eyes. ²The light within you is sufficient. ³It alone has power to give the gift of sight to you. ⁴Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within. ⁵They know the way. ⁶For honest thoughts, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside yourself, become the holy messengers of God Himself.

7. These thoughts you think with Him. ²They recognize their home. ³And they point surely to their Source, Where God the Father and the Son are one. ⁴God’s peace is shining on them, but they must remain with you as well, for they were born within your mind, as yours was born in God’s. ⁵They lead you back to peace, from where they came but to remind you how you must return.

8. They heed your Father’s Voice when you refuse to listen. ²And they urge you gently to accept His Word for what you are, instead of fantasies and shadows. ³They remind you that you are the co-creator of all things that live. ⁴For as the peace of God is shining in you, it must shine on them.

9. We practice coming nearer to the light in us today. ²We take our wandering thoughts, and gently bring them back to where they fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God. ³We will not let them stray. ⁴We let the light within our minds direct them to come home. ⁵We have betrayed them, ordering that they depart from us. ⁶But now we call them back, and wash them clean of strange desires and disordered wishes. ⁷We restore to them the holiness of their inheritance.

10. Thus are our minds restored with them, and we acknowledge that the peace of God still shines in us, and from us to all living things that share our life. ²We will forgive them all, absolving all the world from what we thought it did to us. ³For it is we who make the world as we would have it. ⁴Now we choose that it be innocent, devoid of sin and open to salvation. ⁵And we lay our saving blessing on it, as we say:

⁶The peace of God is shining in me now.

⁷Let all things shine upon me in that peace, and let me bless them with the light in me.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-188/the-peace-of-god-is-shining-in-me-now/en/s/596

Lesson 187

I bless the world because I bless myself.

1. No one can give unless he has. ²In fact, giving is proof of having. ³We have made this point before. ⁴What seems to make it hard to credit is not this. ⁵No one can doubt that you must first possess what you would give. ⁶It is the second phase on which the world and true perception differ. ⁷Having had and given, then the world asserts that you have lost what you possessed. ⁸The truth maintains that giving will increase what you possess.

2. How is this possible? ²For it is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body’s eyes will not perceive it yours. ³Yet we have learned that things but represent the thoughts that make them. ⁴And you do not lack for proof that when you give ideas away, you strengthen them in your own mind. ⁵Perhaps the form in which the thought seems to appear is changed in giving. ⁶Yet it must return to him who gives. ⁷Nor can the form it takes be less acceptable. ⁸It must be more.

3. Ideas must first belong to you, before you give them. ²If you are to save the world, you first accept salvation for yourself. ³But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon. ⁴Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. ⁵Now you can perceive that by your giving is your store increased.

4. Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away, and you are sure that you will never lose them. ²What you thought you did not have is thereby proven yours. ³Yet value not its form. ⁴For this will change and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe. ⁵No form endures. ⁶It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable.

5. Give gladly. ²You can only gain thereby. ³The thought remains, and grows in strength as it is reinforced by giving. ⁴Thoughts extend as they are shared, for they can not be lost. ⁵There is no giver and receiver in the sense the world conceives of them. ⁶There is a giver who retains; another who will give as well. ⁷And both must gain in this exchange, for each will have the thought in form most helpful to him. ⁸What he seems to lose is always something he will value less than what will surely be returned to him.

6. Never forget you give but to yourself. ²Who understands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice. ³Nor can he fail to recognize the many forms which sacrifice may take. ⁴He laughs as well at pain and loss, at sickness and at grief, at poverty, starvation and at death. ⁵He recognizes sacrifice remains the one idea that stands behind them all, and in his gentle laughter are they healed.

7. Illusion recognized must disappear. ²Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering. ³Your blessing lies on everyone who suffers, when you choose to see all suffering as what it is. ⁴The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. ⁵And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.

8. Never believe that you can sacrifice. ²There is no place for sacrifice in what has any value. ³If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen and correction must be made. ⁴Your blessing will correct it. ⁵Given first to you, it now is yours to give as well. ⁶No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of one who has forgiven and has blessed himself.

9. The lilies that your brother offers you are laid upon your altar, with the ones you offer him beside them. ²Who could fear to look upon such lovely holiness? ³The great illusion of the fear of God diminishes to nothingness before the purity that you will look on here. ⁴Be not afraid to look. ⁵The blessedness you will behold will take away all thought of form, and leave instead the perfect gift forever there, forever to increase, forever yours, forever given away.

10. Now are we one in thought, for fear has gone. ²And here, before the altar to one God, one Father, one Creator and one Thought, we stand together as one Son of God. ³Not separate from Him Who is our Source; not distant from one brother who is part of our one Self Whose innocence has joined us all as one, we stand in blessedness, and give as we receive. ⁴The Name of God is on our lips. ⁵And as we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Father’s Love.

11. Now are we blessed, and now we bless the world. ²What we have looked upon we would extend, for we would see it everywhere. ³We would behold it shining with the grace of God in everyone. ⁴We would not have it be withheld from anything we look upon. ⁵And to ensure this holy sight is ours, we offer it to everything we see. ⁶For where we see it, it will be returned to us in form of lilies we can lay upon our altar, making it a home for Innocence Itself, Who dwells in us and offers us His Holiness as ours.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-187/i-bless-the-world-because-i-bless-myself/en/s/595

Lesson 186

Salvation of the world depends on me.

1. Here is the statement that will one day take all arrogance away from every mind. ²Here is the thought of true humility, which holds no function as your own but that which has been given you. ³It offers your acceptance of a part assigned to you, without insisting on another role. ⁴It does not judge your proper role. ⁵It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. ⁶It unites all wills on earth in Heaven’s plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven’s peace.

2. Let us not fight our function. ²We did not establish it. ³It is not our idea. ⁴The means are given us by which it will be perfectly accomplished. ⁵All that we are asked to do is to accept our part in genuine humility, and not deny with self-deceiving arrogance that we are worthy. ⁶What is given us to do, we have the strength to do. ⁷Our minds are suited perfectly to take the part assigned to us by One Who knows us well.

3. Today’s idea may seem quite sobering, until you see its meaning. ²All it says is that your Father still remembers you, and offers you the perfect trust He holds in you who are His Son. ³It does not ask that you be different in any way from what you are. ⁴What could humility request but this? ⁵And what could arrogance deny but this? ⁶Today we will not shrink from our assignment on the specious grounds that modesty is outraged. ⁷It is pride that would deny the Call for God Himself.

4. All false humility we lay aside today, that we may listen to God’s Voice reveal to us what He would have us do. ²We do not doubt our adequacy for the function He will offer us. ³We will be certain only that He knows our strengths, our wisdom and our holiness. ⁴And if He deems us worthy, so we are. ⁵It is but arrogance that judges otherwise.

5. There is one way, and only one, to be released from the imprisonment your plan to prove the false is true has brought to you. ²Accept the plan you did not make instead. ³Judge not your value to it. ⁴If God’s Voice assures you that salvation needs your part, and that the whole depends on you, be sure that it is so. ⁵The arrogant must cling to words, afraid to go beyond them to experience which might affront their stance. ⁶Yet are the humble free to hear the Voice which tells them what they are, and what to do.

6. Arrogance makes an image of yourself that is not real. ²It is this image which quails and retreats in terror, as the Voice for God assures you that you have the strength, the wisdom and the holiness to go beyond all images. ³You are not weak, as is the image of yourself. ⁴You are not ignorant and helpless. ⁵Sin can not tarnish the truth in you, and misery can come not near the holy home of God.

7. All this the Voice for God relates to you. ²And as He speaks, the image trembles and seeks to attack the threat it does not know, sensing its basis crumble. ³Let it go. ⁴Salvation of the world depends on you, and not upon this little pile of dust. ⁵What can it tell the holy Son of God? ⁶Why need he be concerned with it at all?

8. And so we find our peace. ²We will accept the function God has given us, for all illusions rest upon the weird belief that we can make another for ourselves. ³Our self-made roles are shifting, and they seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of love and loving. ⁴We can laugh or weep, and greet the day with welcome or with tears. ⁵Our very being seems to change as we experience a thousand shifts in mood, and our emotions raise us high indeed, or dash us to the ground in hopelessness.

9. Is this the Son of God? ²Could He create such instability and call it Son? ³He Who is changeless shares His attributes with His creation. ⁴All the images His Son appears to make have no effect on what he is. ⁵They blow across his mind like wind-swept leaves that form a patterning an instant, break apart to group again, and scamper off. ⁶Or like mirages seen above a desert, rising from the dust.

10. These unsubstantial images will go, and leave your mind unclouded and serene, when you accept the function given you. ²The images you make give rise to but conflicting goals, impermanent and vague, uncertain and ambiguous. ³Who could be constant in his efforts, or direct his energies and concentrated drive toward goals like these? ⁴The functions which the world esteems are so uncertain that they change ten times an hour at their most secure. ⁵What hope of gain can rest on goals like this?

11. In lovely contrast, certain as the sun’s return each morning to dispel the night, your truly given function stands out clear and wholly unambiguous. ²There is no doubt of its validity. ³It comes from One Who knows no error, and His Voice is certain of Its messages. ⁴They will not change, nor be in conflict. ⁵All of them point to one goal, and one you can attain. ⁶Your plan may be impossible, but God’s can never fail because He is its Source.

12. Do as God’s Voice directs. ²And if It asks a thing of you which seems impossible, remember Who it is that asks, and who would make denial. ³Then consider this; which is more likely to be right? ⁴The Voice that speaks for the Creator of all things, Who knows all things exactly as they are, or a distorted image of yourself, confused, bewildered, inconsistent and unsure of everything? ⁵Let not its voice direct you. ⁶Hear instead a certain Voice, which tells you of a function given you by your Creator Who remembers you, and urges that you now remember Him.

13. His gentle Voice is calling from the known to the unknowing. ²He would comfort you, although He knows no sorrow. ³He would make a restitution, though He is complete; a gift to you, although He knows that you have everything already. ⁴He has Thoughts which answer every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not. ⁵For Love must give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in a world of form.

14. These are the forms which never can deceive, because they come from Formlessness Itself. ²Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form. ³Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. ⁴In this form you can fulfill your function even here, although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still. ⁵Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. ⁶Such is your function here.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-186/salvation-of-the-world-depends-on-me/en/s/594

Lesson 185

I want the peace of God.

1. To say these words is nothing. ²But to mean these words is everything. ³If you could but mean them for just an instant, there would be no further sorrow possible for you in any form; in any place or time. ⁴Heaven would be completely given back to full awareness, memory of God entirely restored, the resurrection of all creation fully recognized.

2. No one can mean these words and not be healed. ²He cannot play with dreams, nor think he is himself a dream. ³He cannot make a hell and think it real. ⁴He wants the peace of God, and it is given him. ⁵For that is all he wants, and that is all he will receive. ⁶Many have said these words. ⁷But few indeed have meant them. ⁸You have but to look upon the world you see around you to be sure how very few they are. ⁹The world would be completely changed, should any two agree these words express the only thing they want.

3. Two minds with one intent become so strong that what they will becomes the Will of God. ²For minds can only join in truth. ³In dreams, no two can share the same intent. ⁴To each, the hero of the dream is different; the outcome wanted not the same for both. ⁵Loser and gainer merely shift about in changing patterns, as the ratio of gain to loss and loss to gain takes on a different aspect or another form.

4. Yet compromise alone a dream can bring. ²Sometimes it takes the form of union, but only the form. ³The meaning must escape the dream, for compromising is the goal of dreaming. ⁴Minds cannot unite in dreams. ⁵They merely bargain. ⁶And what bargain can give them the peace of God? ⁷Illusions come to take His place. ⁸And what He means is lost to sleeping minds intent on compromise, each to his gain and to another’s loss.

5. To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams. ²For no one means these words who wants illusions, and who therefore seeks the means which bring illusions. ³He has looked on them, and found them wanting. ⁴Now he seeks to go beyond them, recognizing that another dream would offer nothing more than all the others. ⁵Dreams are one to him. ⁶And he has learned their only difference is one of form, for one will bring the same despair and misery as do the rest.

6. The mind which means that all it wants is peace must join with other minds, for that is how peace is obtained. ²And when the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is given, in a form each mind that seeks for it in honesty can understand. ³Whatever form the lesson takes is planned for him in such a way that he can not mistake it, if his asking is sincere. ⁴But if he asks without sincerity, there is no form in which the lesson will meet with acceptance and be truly learned.

7. Let us today devote our practicing to recognizing that we really mean the words we say. ²We want the peace of God. ³This is no idle wish. ⁴These words do not request another dream be given us. ⁵They do not ask for compromise, nor try to make another bargain in the hope that there may yet be one that can succeed where all the rest have failed. ⁶To mean these words acknowledges illusions are in vain, requesting the eternal in the place of shifting dreams which seem to change in what they offer, but are one in nothingness.

8. Today devote your practice periods to careful searching of your mind, to find the dreams you cherish still. ²What do you ask for in your heart? ³Forget the words you use in making your requests. ⁴Consider but what you believe will comfort you, and bring you happiness. ⁵But be you not dismayed by lingering illusions, for their form is not what matters now. ⁶Let not some dreams be more acceptable, reserving shame and secrecy for others. ⁷They are one. ⁸And being one, one question should be asked of all of them, “Is this what I would have, in place of Heaven and the peace of God?”

9. This is the choice you make. ²Be not deceived that it is otherwise. ³No compromise is possible in this. ⁴You choose God’s peace, or you have asked for dreams. ⁵And dreams will come as you requested them. ⁶Yet will God’s peace come just as certainly, and to remain with you forever. ⁷It will not be gone with every twist and turning of the road, to reappear, unrecognized, in forms which shift and change with every step you take.

10. You want the peace of God. ²And so do all who seem to seek for dreams. ³For them as well as for yourself, you ask but this when you make this request with deep sincerity. ⁴For thus you reach to what they really want, and join your own intent with what they seek above all things, perhaps unknown to them, but sure to you. ⁵You have been weak at times, uncertain in your purpose, and unsure of what you wanted, where to look for it, and where to turn for help in the attempt. ⁶Help has been given you. ⁷And would you not avail yourself of it by sharing it?

11. No one who truly seeks the peace of God can fail to find it. ²For he merely asks that he deceive himself no longer by denying to himself what is God’s Will. ³Who can remain unsatisfied who asks for what he has already? ⁴Who could be unanswered who requests an answer which is his to give? ⁵The peace of God is yours.

12. For you was peace created, given you by its Creator, and established as His Own eternal gift. ²How can you fail, when you but ask for what He wills for you? ³And how could your request be limited to you alone? ⁴No gift of God can be unshared. ⁵It is this attribute that sets the gifts of God apart from every dream that ever seemed to take the place of truth.

13. No one can lose and everyone must gain whenever any gift of God has been requested and received by anyone. ²God gives but to unite. ³To take away is meaningless to Him. ⁴And when it is as meaningless to you, you can be sure you share one Will with Him, and He with you. ⁵And you will also know you share one Will with all your brothers, whose intent is yours.

14. It is this one intent we seek today, uniting our desires with the need of every heart, the call of every mind, the hope that lies beyond despair, the love attack would hide, the brotherhood that hate has sought to sever, but which still remains as God created it. ²With Help like this beside us, can we fail today as we request the peace of God be given us?

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-185/i-want-the-peace-of-god/en/s/593

Lesson 184

The Name of God is my inheritance.

1. You live by symbols. ²You have made up names for everything you see. ³Each one becomes a separate entity, identified by its own name. ⁴By this you carve it out of unity. ⁵By this you designate its special attributes, and set it off from other things by emphasizing space surrounding it. ⁶This space you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all happenings in terms of place and time; all bodies which are greeted by a name.

2. This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world’s perception is achieved. ²You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. ³Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. ⁴By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will.

3. What are these names by which the world becomes a series of discrete events, of things ununified, of bodies kept apart and holding bits of mind as separate awarenesses? ²You gave these names to them, establishing perception as you wished to have perception be. ³The nameless things were given names, and thus reality was given them as well. ⁴For what is named is given meaning and will then be seen as meaningful; a cause of true effect, with consequence inherent in itself.

4. This is the way reality is made by partial vision, purposefully set against the given truth. ²Its enemy is wholeness. ³It conceives of little things and looks upon them. ⁴And a lack of space, a sense of unity or vision that sees differently, become the threats which it must overcome, conflict with and deny.

5. Yet does this other vision still remain a natural direction for the mind to channel its perception. ²It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names, and thousands more. ³Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which communication is achieved, and concepts can be meaningfully shared.

6. This is the sum of the inheritance the world bestows. ²And everyone who learns to think that it is so accepts the signs and symbols that assert the world is real. ³It is for this they stand. ⁴They leave no doubt that what is named is there. ⁵It can be seen, as is anticipated. ⁶What denies that it is true is but illusion, for it is the ultimate reality. ⁷To question it is madness; to accept its presence is the proof of sanity.

7. Such is the teaching of the world. ²It is a phase of learning everyone who comes must go through. ³But the sooner he perceives on what it rests, how questionable are its premises, how doubtful its results, the sooner does he question its effects. ⁴Learning that stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning. ⁵In its proper place, it serves but as a starting point from which another kind of learning can begin, a new perception can be gained, and all the arbitrary names the world bestows can be withdrawn as they are raised to doubt.

8. Think not you made the world. ²Illusions, yes! ³But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming. ⁴When you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. ⁵His true Identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is. ⁶His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own. ⁷And thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he accepts this separate name as his.

9. It would indeed be strange if you were asked to go beyond all symbols of the world, forgetting them forever; yet were asked to take a teaching function. ²You have need to use the symbols of the world a while. ³But be you not deceived by them as well. ⁴They do not stand for anything at all, and in your practicing it is this thought that will release you from them. ⁵They become but means by which you can communicate in ways the world can understand, but which you recognize is not the unity where true communication can be found.

10. Thus what you need are intervals each day in which the learning of the world becomes a transitory phase; a prison house from which you go into the sunlight and forget the darkness. ²Here you understand the Word, the Name which God has given you; the one Identity which all things share; the one acknowledgment of what is true. ³And then step back to darkness, not because you think it real, but only to proclaim its unreality in terms which still have meaning in the world that darkness rules.

11. Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the world of darkness. ²Yet accept them not as your reality. ³The Holy Spirit uses all of them, but He does not forget creation has one Name, one meaning, and a single Source which unifies all things within Itself. ⁴Use all the names the world bestows on them but for convenience, yet do not forget they share the Name of God along with you.

12. God has no name. ²And yet His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson does all learning end. ³All names are unified; all space is filled with truth’s reflection. ⁴Every gap is closed, and separation healed. ⁵The Name of God is the inheritance He gave to those who chose the teaching of the world to take the place of Heaven. ⁶In our practicing, our purpose is to let our minds accept what God has given as the answer to the pitiful inheritance you made as fitting tribute to the Son He loves.

13. No one can fail who seeks the meaning of the Name of God. ²Experience must come to supplement the Word. ³But first you must accept the Name for all reality, and realize the many names you gave its aspects have distorted what you see, but have not interfered with truth at all. ⁴One Name we bring into our practicing. ⁵One Name we use to unify our sight.

14. And though we use a different name for each awareness of an aspect of God’s Son, we understand that they have but one Name, which He has given them. ²It is this Name we use in practicing. ³And through Its use, all foolish separations disappear which kept us blind. ⁴And we are given strength to see beyond them. ⁵Now our sight is blessed with blessings we can give as we receive.

15. Father, our Name is Yours. ²In It we are united with all living things, and You Who are their one Creator. ³What we made and call by many different names is but a shadow we have tried to cast across Your Own reality. ⁴And we are glad and thankful we were wrong. ⁵All our mistakes we give to You, that we may be absolved from all effects our errors seemed to have. ⁶And we accept the truth You give, in place of every one of them. ⁷Your Name is our salvation and escape from what we made. ⁸Your Name unites us in the oneness which is our inheritance and peace. ⁹Amen.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-184/the-name-of-god-is-my-inheritance/en/s/592

Lesson 183

I call upon God’s Name and on my own.

1. God’s Name is holy, but no holier than yours. ²To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own. ³A father gives his son his name, and thus identifies the son with him. ⁴His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity. ⁵Your Father’s Name reminds you who you are, even within a world that does not know; even though you have not remembered it.

2. God’s Name can not be heard without response, nor said without an echo in the mind that calls you to remember. ²Say His Name, and you invite the angels to surround the ground on which you stand, and sing to you as they spread out their wings to keep you safe, and shelter you from every worldly thought that would intrude upon your holiness.

3. Repeat God’s Name, and all the world responds by laying down illusions. ²Every dream the world holds dear has suddenly gone by, and where it seemed to stand you find a star; a miracle of grace. ³The sick arise, healed of their sickly thoughts. ⁴The blind can see; the deaf can hear. ⁵The sorrowful cast off their mourning, and the tears of pain are dried as happy laughter comes to bless the world.

4. Repeat the Name of God, and little names have lost their meaning. ²No temptation but becomes a nameless and unwanted thing before God’s Name. ³Repeat His Name, and see how easily you will forget the names of all the gods you valued. ⁴They have lost the name of god you gave them. ⁵They become anonymous and valueless to you, although before you let the Name of God replace their little names, you stood before them worshipfully, naming them as gods.

5. Repeat the Name of God, and call upon your Self, Whose Name is His. ²Repeat His Name, and all the tiny, nameless things on earth slip into right perspective. ³Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the holy Son of God. ⁴And should you join a brother as you sit with him in silence, and repeat God’s Name along with him within your quiet mind, you have established there an altar which reaches to God Himself and to His Son.

6. Practice but this today; repeat God’s Name slowly again and still again. ²Become oblivious to every name but His. ³Hear nothing else. ⁴Let all your thoughts become anchored on this. ⁵No other word we use except at the beginning, when we say today’s idea but once. ⁶And then God’s Name becomes our only thought, our only word, the only thing that occupies our minds, the only wish we have, the only sound with any meaning, and the only Name of everything that we desire to see; of everything that we would call our own.

7. Thus do we give an invitation which can never be refused. ²And God will come, and answer it Himself. ³Think not He hears the little prayers of those who call on Him with names of idols cherished by the world. ⁴They cannot reach Him thus. ⁵He cannot hear requests that He be not Himself, or that His Son receive another name than His.

8. Repeat God’s Name, and you acknowledge Him as sole Creator of reality. ²And you acknowledge also that His Son is part of Him, creating in His Name. ³Sit silently, and let His Name become the all-encompassing idea that holds your mind completely. ⁴Let all thoughts be still except this one. ⁵And to all other thoughts respond with this, and see God’s Name replace the thousand little names you gave your thoughts, not realizing that there is one Name for all there is, and all that there will be.

9. Today you can achieve a state in which you will experience the gift of grace. ²You can escape all bondage of the world, and give the world the same release you found. ³You can remember what the world forgot, and offer it your own remembering. ⁴You can accept today the part you play in its salvation, and your own as well. ⁵And both can be accomplished perfectly.

10. Turn to the Name of God for your release, and it is given you. ²No prayer but this is necessary, for it holds them all within it. ³Words are insignificant, and all requests unneeded when God’s Son calls on his Father’s Name. ⁴His Father’s Thoughts become his own. ⁵He makes his claim to all his Father gave, is giving still, and will forever give. ⁶He calls on Him to let all things he thought he made be nameless now, and in their place the holy Name of God becomes his judgment of their worthlessness.

11. All little things are silent. ²Little sounds are soundless now. ³The little things of earth have disappeared. ⁴The universe consists of nothing but the Son of God, who calls upon his Father. ⁵And his Father’s Voice gives answer in his Father’s holy Name. ⁶In this eternal, still relationship, in which communication far transcends all words, and yet exceeds in depth and height whatever words could possibly convey, is peace eternal. ⁷In our Father’s Name, we would experience this peace today. ⁸And in His Name, it shall be given us.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-183/i-call-upon-gods-name-and-on-my-own/en/s/591

Lesson 182

I will be still an instant and go home.

1. This world you seem to live in is not home to you. ²And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. ³A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return, although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the voice reminds you of. ⁴Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown. ⁵Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here. ⁶Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind again.

2. No one but knows whereof we speak. ²Yet some try to put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their time, and keep their sadness from them. ³Others will deny that they are sad, and do not recognize their tears at all. ⁴Still others will maintain that what we speak of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream. ⁵Yet who, in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would deny he understands the words we speak?

3. We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for he is not at home. ²He goes uncertainly about in endless search, seeking in darkness what he cannot find; not recognizing what it is he seeks. ³A thousand homes he makes, yet none contents his restless mind. ⁴He does not understand he builds in vain. ⁵The home he seeks can not be made by him. ⁶There is no substitute for Heaven. ⁷All he ever made was hell.

4. Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would find again. ²The childhood of your body, and its place of shelter, are a memory now so distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that never happened. ³Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father’s house, and knows that He is alien here. ⁴This childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. ⁵Where this Child shall go is holy ground. ⁶It is His Holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one.

5. It is this Child in you your Father knows as His Own Son. ²It is this Child Who knows His Father. ³He desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to let Him rest a while. ⁴He does not ask for more than just a few instants of respite; just an interval in which He can return to breathe again the holy air that fills His Father’s house. ⁵You are His home as well. ⁶He will return. ⁷But give Him just a little time to be Himself, within the peace that is His home, resting in silence and in peace and love.

6. This Child needs your protection. ²He is far from home. ³He is so little that He seems so easily shut out, His tiny voice so readily obscured, His call for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and harsh and rasping noises of the world. ⁴Yet does He know that in you still abides His sure protection. ⁵You will fail Him not. ⁶He will go home, and you along with Him.

7. This Child is your defenselessness; your strength. ²He trusts in you. ³He came because He knew you would not fail. ⁴He whispers of His home unceasingly to you. ⁵For He would bring you back with Him, that He Himself might stay, and not return again where He does not belong, and where He lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts. ⁶His patience has no limits. ⁷He will wait until you hear His gentle Voice within you, calling you to let Him go in peace, along with you, to where He is at home and you with Him.

8. When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. ²So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. ³In that instant He will take you to His home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home.

9. Rest with Him frequently today. ²For He was willing to become a little Child that you might learn of Him how strong is he who comes without defenses, offering only love’s messages to those who think he is their enemy. ³He holds the might of Heaven in His hand and calls them friend, and gives His strength to them, that they may see He would be Friend to them. ⁴He asks that they protect Him, for His home is far away, and He will not return to it alone.

10. Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer would leave his home. ²For he must learn that what he would protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is protected by defenselessness. ³Go home with Him from time to time today. ⁴You are as much an alien here as He.

11. Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits nothing, and lay down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy without existence. ²Christ has called you friend and brother. ³He has even come to ask your help in letting Him go home today, completed and completely. ⁴He has come as does a little child, who must beseech his father for protection and for love. ⁵He rules the universe, and yet He asks unceasingly that you return with Him, and take illusions as your gods no more.

12. You have not lost your innocence. ²It is for this you yearn. ³This is your heart’s desire. ⁴This is the voice you hear, and this the call which cannot be denied. ⁵The holy Child remains with you. ⁶His home is yours. ⁷Today He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made. ⁸And now the way is open, and the journey has an end in sight at last. ⁹Be still an instant and go home with Him, and be at peace a while.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-182/i-will-be-still-an-instant-and-go-home/en/s/590

Lesson 181

I trust my brothers, who are one with me.

1. Trusting your brothers is essential to establishing and holding up your faith in your ability to transcend doubt and lack of sure conviction in yourself. ²When you attack a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by what you have perceived in him. ³You do not look beyond his errors. ⁴Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self that lies beyond your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours.

2. Perception has a focus. ²It is this that gives consistency to what you see. ³Change but this focus, and what you behold will change accordingly. ⁴Your vision now will shift, to give support to the intent which has replaced the one you held before. ⁵Remove your focus on your brother’s sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness. ⁶This faith receives its only sure support from what you see in others past their sins. ⁷For their mistakes, if focused on, are witnesses to sins in you. ⁸And you will not transcend their sight and see the sinlessness that lies beyond.

3. Therefore, in practicing today, we first let all such little focuses give way to our great need to let our sinlessness become apparent. ²We instruct our minds that it is this we seek, and only this, for just a little while. ³We do not care about our future goals. ⁴And what we saw an instant previous has no concern for us within this interval of time wherein we practice changing our intent. ⁵We seek for innocence and nothing else. ⁶We seek for it with no concern but now.

4. A major hazard to success has been involvement with your past and future goals. ²You have been quite preoccupied with how extremely different the goals this course is advocating are from those you held before. ³And you have also been dismayed by the depressing and restricting thought that, even if you should succeed, you will inevitably lose your way again.

5. How could this matter? ²For the past is gone; the future but imagined. ³These concerns are but defenses against present change of focus in perception. ⁴Nothing more. ⁵We lay these pointless limitations by a little while. ⁶We do not look to past beliefs, and what we will believe will not intrude upon us now. ⁷We enter in the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness within.

6. We recognize that we have lost this goal if anger blocks our way in any form. ²And if a brother’s sins occur to us, our narrowed focus will restrict our sight, and turn our eyes upon our own mistakes, which we will magnify and call our “sins.” ³So, for a little while, without regard to past or future, should such blocks arise we will transcend them with instructions to our minds to change their focus, as we say:

⁴It is not this that I would look upon.

⁵I trust my brothers, who are one with me.

7. And we will also use this thought to keep us safe throughout the day. ²We do not seek for long-range goals. ³As each obstruction seems to block the vision of our sinlessness, we seek but for surcease an instant from the misery the focus upon sin will bring, and uncorrected will remain.

8. Nor do we ask for fantasies. ²For what we seek to look upon is really there. ³And as our focus goes beyond mistakes, we will behold a wholly sinless world. ⁴When seeing this is all we want to see, when this is all we seek for in the name of true perception, are the eyes of Christ inevitably ours. ⁵And the Love He feels for us becomes our own as well. ⁶This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves.

9. The world which once proclaimed our sins becomes the proof that we are sinless. ²And our love for everyone we look upon attests to our remembrance of the holy Self which knows no sin, and never could conceive of anything without Its sinlessness. ³We seek for this remembrance as we turn our minds to practicing today. ⁴We look neither ahead nor backwards. ⁵We look straight into the present. ⁶And we give our trust to the experience we ask for now. ⁷Our sinlessness is but the Will of God. ⁸This instant is our willing one with His.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-181/i-trust-my-brothers-who-are-one-with-me/en/s/589

Lesson 180

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1. (169) By grace I live. ²By grace I am released.

³God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2. (170) There is no cruelty in God and none in me.

²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

https://acim.org/acim/review-v/lesson-180/en/s/587

Lesson 179

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1. (167) There is one life, and that I share with God.

²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2. (168) Your grace is given me. ²I claim it now.

³God is but Love, and therefore so am I. y

https://acim.org/acim/review-v/lesson-179/en/s/586

Lesson 178

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1. (165) Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.

²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2. (166) I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

https://acim.org/acim/review-v/lesson-178/en/s/585

Lesson 178

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1. (165) Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.

²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2. (166) I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

²God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

https://acim.org/acim/review-v/lesson-178/en/s/585