A Course in Miracles
A Course in Miracles
A Course in Miracles
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1. Our home is reality, Heaven, the Kingdom of God, a spiritual realm of pure
oneness and boundless joy which can never be threatened.
Since nothing real can be threatened, then the world is not real.
Reality is formless, spaceless, timeless oneness, beyond all limitation, opposition and
distinctions
Extension is the dynamic of reality, in which reality timelessly extends itself and
eternally increases.
Reality is home, the longing of our hearts, the object of all our desires.
2. We tried to attack reality, to separate from it, thus making a separate identity—
the ego—and the world of space and time.
We tried to separate, motivated by a desire to elevate ourselves above our brothers and
above God.
The ego is the belief behind the separation; it is our core self-concept which says we are
separate, autonomous beings.
The ego has one need: to stay in business, to confirm itself, to reinforce its reality, to
protect itself from God’s Love.
We made this world of separate places and different moments to confirm the ego by
“proving” that separation is an objective reality.
3. But the separation occurred only in our minds; in reality it never happened.
The separation had no effect, for nothing can change the Will of God.
We did not actually separate; we merely withdrew our awareness from reality into a
private mental state.
The world is not an objective reality; it is only a dream, a projection of our belief in
separateness.
We are not who we think we are; we are the Sons of God with amnesia.
We are not here in this world or in these bodies. We are in Heaven dreaming that we are
here.
The instant the separation seemed to occur, God created the Holy Spirit, Who awakened
us that same instant. We are now only reviewing a journey that is over.
4. Yet we believed we had really done it. We thought we had sinned and had
thereby thrown our happiness away forever.
We thought that we had separated ourselves from all that we loved and consequently
experienced a state of lack.
We thought that we had sinned against God, that we had launched a real attack which
caused real destruction.
The result of sin was a massive sense of guilt, which we denied and so pushed into the
unconscious.
Guilt says that we deserve punishment. This belief is the source of all of our suffering.
We project our belief that we deserve punishment onto God and so perceive a punitive,
fearful God.
Guilt, then, gives rise to fear, which really is the expectation of punishment. Fear is the
dominant emotion of this world.
5. We then projected the cause of our suffering onto the world, producing the
illusion that it had sinned against us and had robbed us of our happiness.
Projection is the dynamic whereby causation is thrown outward: what our mind has
caused now seems thrust upon us from without.
Projection is motivated by the desire to get rid of our guilt, but its deeper motivation is
the desire to make us powerless to change our beliefs.
Projection produces a world that seems to have enormous power over us.
Through projection, our self-imposed pain appears to come from an attacking world.
Our conscious self-image is “the face of innocence,” that of a good self trying to make its
way through an unjust world.
We attempt to fill our needs with external things, situations, and events, based on the
belief that we are inherently lacking.
In our search for happiness, the body is both a means and an end.
The crowning gift we seek, which incorporates all of the other gifts, is special love.
All of our seeking attempts to get something from the world, for which we generally
must pay something back.
7. Our search for happiness is actually an expression of resentment and a quest for
vengeance on the past.
Underneath our conscious face of innocence is the victim level, a place in us where we
are enraged over what we think the world has done to us.
In this place we believe that past injustices have given us the right to resentment,
restitution, and revenge.
In our giving and in our suffering we constantly send the message, “I suffered because of
you. Therefore, you owe me.”
We seek vengeance through subtle attempts to re-enact the past and reverse past
“injustices” against us.
8. Our “solution” is an attack and so, like the original problem, is an attack on
ourselves.
Beneath the victim level is the ego proper, which is pure, unprovoked attack.
The victim level is an excuse to attack, produced by projecting our own attack outward.
The ego promises that attack will get us safety and happiness. This simply tricks us into
accumulating guilt, to which it is attracted.
The ego promises that getting will fulfill us and defending will protect us. This tricks us
into accumulating lack and vulnerability.
The ego promises us joy through bodily pleasure. This tricks us into making separation
real.
The special relationship is the biggest false promise of all, the one that motivates us to
pursue all of the ego’s false promises.
Through our normal daily activities the ego is carrying out its ancient attack on God.
All that the ego does is really designed to attack us, kill us and send us to hell.
9. We have lost touch with reality and so need the Holy Spirit’s help to be restored
to sanity.
God created the Holy Spirit to bridge the gap in communication between Him and His
children.
The Holy Spirit’s function is to heal our minds by leading us into a thought system that
reflects reality. This is how He guides us home.
The Holy Spirit bridges the distance between reality and illusion. By seeing our illusions
in light of reality, He places them in true perspective.
All that we made for ego He takes and uses for our awakening.
10. The Holy Spirit’s message is that we never sinned, never changed ourselves. We
need only change our minds.
The guilt and pain produced by the ego is stored in an unconscious level of mind which
also contains our call for God’s Love and help.
The Holy Spirit’s answer to our guilt is that we did not do it, that we are still as God
created us, because the separation never occurred.
The journey home is an illusion. We need not purify ourselves or make sacrifices.
Instead, we can wake up at any time we choose.
The holy instant is a moment when this is realized, applied, a moment of doing nothing.
The miracle is a free deliverance from the imprisonment of the human condition. It is
our right, because we never sinned.
11. Changing our minds means allowing the Holy Spirit to heal our perception.
Step one: Identify the cause of your pain as your own perception, and bring this illusion
to the light of truth.
Step two: Let go of your perception; have a little willingness for the Holy Spirit to
remove it and replace it with truth.
Step three: The Holy Spirit will replace your perception with His; He will give your mind
a miracle.
12. We heal our perception by forgiving the world for what it did not do.
Forgiveness is the Course’s unique and original message, yet is also the heart of the Holy
Spirit’s message to humanity.
Conventional forgiveness, in which we forgive another for his sin against us, is not real
forgiveness.
Real forgiveness is a shift in perception, in which we let go of the perception that a sin
occurred.
The Course’s thought system is one big rationale for the idea that sin is unreal and that
forgiveness is justified.
13. Extending forgiveness to others reveals to us that we too are forgiven. This
becomes our one function.
Forgiveness releases us from our fixation on our separate self and allows our love to
flow out to the world.
We first allow forgiving perception into our minds and then extend this perception to
others.
Extending forgiveness to others heals them in mind and body. This is the main sense of
the word “miracle.”
Extension will become our only function. The Holy Spirit will give us a special form of
this called our special function.
14. Forgiveness also undoes the blocks that separate us from others, allowing us to
experience the fact that we are one.
Forgiveness wipes away that which maintains our sense of separateness from others.
The holy relationship is a gradual reversal of the special relationship, in which two
people slowly realize their sameness.
When two or more people join in a truly common goal, holiness enters the relationship
at a deep level and makes it a holy relationship.
The relationship will go on a journey, as the holiness that entered it slowly rises and
transforms the relationship.
As the relationship’s holiness rises to the surface, it will then reach out beyond the two
people. They will be given a joint special function.
The journey to God is not a lonely journey. Through joining with others we discover our
own wholeness and clear the way for uniting with God.
15. With forgiveness as our practice, we journey toward the goal of true perception.
True perception is a different mode of perception which looks past bodies to the light of
Christ in everyone and everything.
True perception looks on the real world, which is composed of the holiness in all minds
and the loving thoughts in those minds.
Looking with true perception on the real world is the happiest experience we can have
here. It is the goal of the spiritual journey.
The spiritual journey is the gradual making of a single choice, which slowly restores us
to our right mind.
16. When we and the entire world have attained true perception, God Himself will
take the final step and lift us home.
The Second Coming of Christ is when the world collectively awakens to the Christ, the
Self we share.
The Last Judgment is a process by which we judge all past thoughts and retain only the
pure.
When we are perfectly healed we are ready for God to take the final step. In that step we
remember God and our true Identity.