A Course in Miracles

by Helen Schucman

The defenseless therapist has the strength of God with him, but the defensive therapist has lost sight of the Source of his salvation.

One rule should always be observed: No one should be turned away because he cannot pay. No one is sent by accident to anyone.

Whoever comes has been sent.

You were lost in the darkness of the world until you asked for light. And then God sent His Son to give it to you.

Lay down your dreams, you holy Son of God, and rising up as God created you, dispense with idols and remember Him.

Ask, rather, to receive what is already given; to accept what is already there.

There are decisions to make here, and they must be made whether they be illusions or not.

The form of the answer, if given by God, will suit your need as you see it. This is merely an echo of the reply of His Voice. The real sound is always a song of thanksgiving and of Love.

And it is to Love you go in prayer. Prayer is an offering; a giving up of yourself to be at one with Love. There is nothing to ask because there is nothing left to want. That nothingness becomes the altar of God. It disappears in Him.

Praying to Christ in anyone is true prayer because it is a gift of thanks to His Father. To ask that Christ be but Himself is not an entreaty. It is a song of thanksgiving for what you are. Herein lies the power of prayer. It asks nothing and receives everything. This prayer can be shared because it receives for everyone. To pray with one who knows that this is true is to be answered.

Praying for others, if rightly understood, becomes a means for lifting your projections of guilt from your brother, and enabling you to recognize it is not he who is hurting you.

The poisonous thought that he is your enemy, your evil counterpart, your nemesis, must be relinquished before you can be saved from guilt. For this the means is prayer, of rising power and with ascending goals, until it reaches even up to God.

Guilt must be given up, and not concealed. Nor can this be done without some pain, and a glimpse of the merciful nature of this step may for some time be followed by a deep retreat into fear. For fear’s defenses are fearful in themselves, and when they are recognized they bring their fear with them.

His real escape from guilt can lie only in the recognition that the guilt has gone.

And how can this be recognized as lon...

it in another, and does not see it as his own? Fear of escape makes it difficult to welcome freedom, and to make a jail...

How, then, can he be released without an insane fear for yourself? You have made of him your salvation and your escape from guilt. Your investment in this escape is heavy, and your fear of letting it go is strong. S-1.III.5. Stand still an instant, now, and think what you have done. Do not forget that it is you who did it, and who can therefore let it go. Hold out your hand. This enemy has come to bless you. Take his blessing, and feel how your heart is lifted and your fear released. Do not hold on to it, nor...

It is not easy to realize that prayers for things, for status, for human love, for external “gifts” of any kind, are always made to set up jailers and to hide from guilt.

The goal of God is lost in the quest for lesser goals of any kind, and prayer becomes requests for enemies.

Even together you may ask for things, and thus set up but an illusion of a goal you share.

Even the joining, then, is not enough, if those who pray together do not ask, before all else, what is the Will of God. From this Cause only can the answer come in which are all specifics satisfied; all separate wishes unified in one. Prayer for specifics always asks to have the past repeated in some way.

The aim of prayer is to release the present from its chains of past illusions; to let it be a freely chosen remedy from every choice that stood for a mistake.

Illusions and humility have goals so far apart they cannot coexist, nor share a dwelling place where they

can meet.

Now prayer is lifted from the world of things, of bodies, and of gods of every kind, and you can rest in holiness at last.

Here will time end forever. At this gate eternity itself will join with you. Prayer has become what it was meant to be, for you have recognized the Christ in you.

Then learn that God has given you the means by which you can return to Him in peace. Do not see error.

Do not make it real.

Can you remember Him and hate what He created? You will hate his Father if you hate the Son He loves. For as you see the Son you see yourself, and as you see yourself is God to you.

It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your sins you see in him.

Only in someone else can you forgive yourself, for you have called him guilty of your sins, and in him must your innocence now be found.

This is the great deception of the world, and you the great deceiver of yourself. It always seems to be another who is evil, and in his sin you are the injured one. How could freedom be possible if this were so?

Forgiveness, truly given, is the way in which your only hope of freedom lies. Others will make mistakes and so will you, as long as this illusion of a world appears to be your home.

Christ has forgiven you, and in His sight the world becomes as holy as Himself. Who sees no evil in it sees like Him.

God calls on you to save His Son from death by offering Christ’s Love to him. This is your need, and God holds out this gift to you. As He would give, so must you give as well. And thus is prayer restored to formlessness, beyond all limits into timelessness, with nothing of the past to hold it back from reuniting with the ceaseless song that all creation sings unto its God.

Forgiveness-to-destroy must be unveiled in all its treachery, and then let go forever and forever. There can be no trace of it remaining, if the plan that God established for returning be achieved at last, and learning be complete.

In this group, first, there are the forms in which a “better” person deigns to stoop to save a “baser” one from what he truly is. Forgiveness here rests on an attitude of gracious lordliness so far from love that arrogance could never be dislodged. Who can forgive and yet despise? And who can tell another he is steeped in sin, and yet perceive him as the Son of God? Who makes a slave to teach what freedom is? There is no union here, but only grief. This is not really mercy. This is death.

All forms forgiveness takes that do not lead away from anger, condemnation and comparisons of every kind are death.

Would God deceive you? He but asks for trust and willingness to learn how to be free.

He gives His Teacher to whoever asks, and seeks to understand the Will of God. His readiness to give lies far beyond your understanding and your simple grasp. Yet He has willed you learn the way to Him, and in His willing there is certainty.

His Voice will teach you what forgiveness is, and how to give it as He wills it be. Do not, then, seek to understand what is beyond you yet, but let it be a way to draw you up to where the eyes of Christ become the sight you choose. Give up all else, for there is nothing else. When someone calls for help in any form, He is the One to answer for you. All that you need do is to step back and not to interfere. Forgiveness-for-Salvation is His task, and it is He Who will respond for you.

Let Him take charge of how you would forgive, and each occasion then will be to you another step to Heaven and to peace.

His is a justice He can understand, but you cannot as yet. Still will He give the means to you to learn of Him, and know at last that condemnation is not real and makes illusions in its evil name. And yet it matters not the form that dreams may seem to take. Illusions are untrue. God’s Will is truth, and you are one with Him in Will and purpose. Here all dreams are done.

Forgiveness’ witness and an aid to prayer, a giver of assurance of success in ultimate attainment of the goal, is healing.

The body’s cause is unforgiveness of the Son of God.

The body can be healed as an effect of true forgiveness. Only that can give rememberance of immortality, which is the gift of holiness and love.

Forgiveness must be given by a mind which understands that it must overlook all shadows on the holy face of Christ, among which sickness should be seen as one.

Yet help is given to him in the Voice his Father placed in him. The power to heal is now his Father’s gift, for through His Voice He still can reach His Son, reminding him the body may become his chosen home, but it will never be his home in truth.

False healing merely makes a poor exchange of one illusion for a

“nicer” one; a dream of sickness for a dream of health.