A Course in Miracles

by Helen Schucman

but the whole Atonement stands at time’s end. At that point the bridge of return has been built.

The Atonement can only be accepted within you by releasing the inner light.

For perfect effectiveness the Atonement belongs at the center of the inner altar, where it undoes the separation and restores the wholeness of the mind.

The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is only a matter of time.

An imprisoned will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly established, it becomes a turning point. This ultimately reawakens spiritual vision, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight.

Spiritual vision literally cannot see error, and merely looks for Atonement.

They must learn to look upon the world as a means of healing the separation.

All material means that you accept as remedies for bodily ills are restatements of magic principles.

None of these errors is meaningful, because the miscreations of the mind do not really exist. This recognition is a far better protective device than any form of level confusion, because it introduces correction at the level of the error. It is essential to remember that only the mind can create, and that correction belongs at the thought level.

The body does not exist except as a learning device for the mind. This learning device is not subject to errors of its own, because it cannot create. It is obvious, then, that inducing the mind to give up its miscreations is the only application of creative ability that is truly meaningful.

As long as your sense of vulnerability persists, you should not attempt to perform miracles.

The right-minded neither exalt nor depreciate the mind of the miracle worker or the miracle receiver. However, as a correction, the miracle need not await the right-mindedness of the receiver. In fact, its purpose is to restore him to his right mind. It is essential, however, that the miracle worker be in his right mind, however briefly, or he will be unable to re-establish right-mindedness in someone else.

You are perfectly safe as long as you are completely unconcerned about your readiness, but maintain a consistent trust in mine.

down. All forms of not-right-mindedness are the result of refusal to accept the Atonement for yourself. If you do accept it, you are in a position to recognize that those who need healing are simply those who have not realized that right-mindedness is healing.

The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. This means you recognize that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors are healed by the Atonement.

Once you accept this, your mind can only heal.

Only the mind is capable of illumination. Spirit is already illuminated and the body in itself is too dense.

Corrective learning always begins with the awakening of spirit, and the turning away from the belief in physical sight.

Everything that results from spiritual awareness is merely channelized toward correction.

What the physical eye sees is not corrective, nor can error be corrected by any device that can be seen physically.

It must be understood, however, that whenever you offer a miracle to another, you are shortening the suffering of both of you.

Forgiveness is an empty gesture unless it entails correction.

The statement “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” in no way evaluates what they do. It is an appeal to God to heal their minds. There is no reference to the outcome of the error. That does not matter.

I am here only to be truly helpful. I am here to represent Him Who sent me. I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me. I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me. I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.

Whenever you are afraid, it is a sure sign that you have allowed your mind to miscreate and have not allowed me to guide it.

When you are fearful, you have chosen wrongly.

You are much too tolerant of mind wandering, and are passively condoning your mind’s miscreations.

Fear is always a sign of strain, arising whenever what you want conflicts with what you do.

The strength to do comes from your undivided decision.

Know first that this is fear. Fear arises from lack of love. The only remedy for lack of love is perfect love. Perfect love is the Atonement.

because that light is theirs.

only in the mind of its maker, along with his real salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing where it is will you gain control over it. For you do have control over your mind, since the mind is the mechanism of decision.

However holy his perception may become, no world outside himself holds his inheritance. Within himself he has no needs, for light needs nothing but to shine in peace, and from itself to let the rays extend in quiet to infinity.

You dwell not here, but in eternity. You travel but in dreams, while safe at home. Give thanks to every part of you that you have taught how to remember you. Thus does the Son of God give thanks unto his Father for his purity.

Offer Christ’s gift to everyone and everywhere, for miracles, offered the Son of God through the Holy Spirit, attune you to reality. The Holy Spirit knows your part in the redemption, and who are seeking you and where to find them.

The world can give you only what you gave it, for being nothing but your own projection, it has no meaning apart from what you found in it and placed your faith in.

When you have learned that you belong to truth, it will flow lightly over you without a difference of any kind. For you will need no contrast to help you realize that this is what you want, and only this.

He must introduce the simple truth into a thought system which has become so twisted and so complex you cannot see that it means nothing. He merely looks at its foundation and dismisses it.

For truth is true. What else could ever be, or ever was? This simple lesson holds the key to the dark door that you believe is locked forever.

T-14.III.16. Say to the Holy Spirit only, “Decide for me,” and it is done. For His decisions are reflections of what God knows about you, and in this light, error of any kind becomes impossible. Why would you struggle so frantically to anticipate all you cannot know, when all knowledge lies behind every decision the Holy Spirit makes for you? Learn of His wisdom and His Love, and teach His answer to everyone who struggles in the dark. For you decide for them and for yourself.

T-14.III.19. Whenever you are in doubt what you should do, think of His Presence in you, and tell yourself this, and only this: He leadeth me and knows the way, which I know not. Yet He will never keep from me what He would have me learn. And so I trust Him to communicate to me all that He knows for me.

Ask not to be forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Ask, rather, to learn how to forgive, and to restore what always was to your unforgiving mind. Atonement becomes real and visible to those who use it. On earth this is your only function, and you must learn that it is all you want to learn. You will feel guilty till you learn this.

Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place made out of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deceit undone.

T-14.IV.7. Unless you are guiltless you cannot know God, Whose Will is that you know Him.

And only the Holy Spirit can answer God for you, for only He knows what God is. Everything else that you have placed within your mind cannot exist, for what is not in communication with the Mind of God has never been. Communication with God is life. Nothing without it is at all.

T-14.V.1. The only part of your mind that has reality is the part that links you still with God. Would you have all of it transformed into a radiant message of God’s Love, to share with all the lonely ones who have denied Him? God makes this possible.

Your only calling here is to devote yourself, with active willingness, to the denial of guilt in all its forms.

Be willing, then, to give all you have held outside the truth to Him Who knows the truth, and in Whom all is brought to truth. Salvation from separation would be complete, or will not be

T-17.II.5. The real world is attained simply by the complete forgiveness of the old, the world you see without forgiveness.

T-17.II.7. From the forgiven world the Son of God is lifted easily into his home.