A Course in Miracles

by Helen Schucman

No one remains in hell, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect His perfect, timeless and unchanging Love. You will find Heaven. Everything you seek but this will fall away. Yet not because it has been taken from you. It will go because you do not want it. You will reach the goal you really want as certainly as God created you in sinlessness.

Let us not try longer to impose an alien will upon God’s single purpose.

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth, and it is truth we seek to reach today.

The thoughts you hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth.

You have enslaved the world with all your fears, your doubts and miseries, your pain and tears; and all your sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to your beliefs.

The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning.

Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came.

Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly.

The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death.

Deny illusions, but accept the truth. Deny you are a shadow

briefly laid upon a dying world. Release your mind, and you will look upon a world released.

I who remain as God created me would loose the world from all I thought it was. For I am real because the world is not, and I would know my own reality.

Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world, and say whenever you are tempted to deny the power of your simple change of mind: I loose the world from all I thought it was, and choose my own reality instead.

The laws that govern choice you cannot make, no more than you can make alternatives from which to choose. The choosing you can do; indeed, you must. But it is wise to learn the laws you set in motion when you choose, and what alternatives you choose between.

there are but two,

Another kindly and related law is that there is no compromise in what your choice must bring.

First, if you choose a thing that will not last forever, what you chose is valueless.

Next, if you choose to take a thing away from someone else, you will have nothing left.

This is because, when you deny his right to everything, you have denied your own.

Your next consideration is the one on which the others rest. Why is the choice you make of value to you? What attracts your mind to it? What purpose does it serve? Here it is easiest of all to be deceived.

If you feel any guilt about your choice, you have allowed the ego’s goals to come between the real alternatives.

Complexity is nothing but a screen of smoke, which hides the very simple fact that no decision can be difficult.

I will not value what is valueless, and only what has value do I seek, for only that do I desire to find.

I will not value what is valueless, for what is valuable belongs to me.

When I am healed I am not healed alone.

Sickness is a retreat from others, and a shutting off of joining.

Death is a thought that takes on many forms, often unrecognized. It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you.

All things but death are seen to be unsure, too quickly lost however hard to gain, uncertain in their outcome, apt to fail the hopes they once engendered, and to leave the taste of dust and ashes in their wake, in place of aspirations and of dreams. But death is counted on.

LESSON 183. I call upon God’s Name and on my own.

Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing.

Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success.

Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still. Father, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give. I come in silence. In the quiet of my heart, the deep recesses of my mind, I wait and listen for Your Voice. My Father, speak to me today. I come to hear Your Voice in silence and in certainty and love, sure You will hear my call and answer me. Now do we wait in quiet. God is here, because we wait together. I am sure that He will speak to you, and you will hear. Accept my confidence, for it is yours. Our minds are joined. We wait with one intent; to hear our Father’s answer to our call, to let our thoughts be still and find His peace, to hear Him speak to us of what we are, and to reveal Himself unto His Son.

I am affected only by my thoughts.

I will receive whatever I request. No one desires pain. But he can think that pain is pleasure. No one would avoid his happiness. But he can think that joy is painful, threatening and dangerous. Everyone will receive what he requests.

But he can be confused indeed about the things he wants; the state he would attain. What can he then request that he would want when he receives it? He has asked for what will frighten him, and bring him suffering. Let us resolve today to ask for what we really want, and only this, that we may spend this day in fearlessness, without confusing pain with joy, or fear with love. Father, this is Your day. It is a day in which I would do nothing by myself, but hear Your Voice in everything I do; requesting only what You offer me, accepting only Thoughts You share with me.

I can be free of suffering today. Father, I thank You for today, and for the freedom I am certain it will bring. This day is holy, for today Your Son will be redeemed. His suffering is done. For he will hear Your Voice directing him to find Christ’s vision through forgiveness, and be free forever from all suffering. Thanks for today, my Father. I was born into this world but to achieve this day, and what it holds in joy and freedom for Your holy Son and for the world he made, which is released along with him today. Be glad today! Be glad! There is no room for anything but joy and thanks today. Our Father has redeemed His Son this day. Not one of us but will be saved today. Not one who will remain in fear, and none the Father will not gather to Himself, awake in Heaven in the Heart of Love.

LESSON 347. Anger must come from judgment. Judgment is The weapon I would use against myself, To keep the miracle away from me. Father, I want what goes against my will, and do not want what is my will to have. Straighten my mind, my Father. It is sick. But You have offered freedom, and I choose to claim Your gift today. And so I give all judgment to the One You gave to me to judge for me. He sees what I behold, and yet He knows the truth. He looks on pain, and yet He understands it is not real, and in His understanding it is healed. He gives the miracles my dreams would hide from my awareness. Let Him judge today. I do not know my will, but He is sure it is Your Own. And He will speak for me, and call Your miracles to come to me. Listen today. Be very still, and hear the gentle Voice for God assuring you that He has judged you as the Son He loves.

14. What Am I? I am God’s Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite.

The truth of what we are is not for words to speak of nor describe.

We are the bringers of salvation. We accept our part as saviors of the world, which through our joint forgiveness is redeemed. And this, our gift, is therefore given us. We look on everyone as brother, and perceive all things as kindly and as good.

Knowledge will return when we have done our part. We are concerned only with giving welcome to the truth.

we learn that it is written on our hearts. And thus our minds are changed about the aim for which we came, and which we seek to serve.

My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold.

Judgment and love are opposites.

I am sure my treasure waits for me, and I need but reach out my hand to find it. Even now my fingers touch it. It is very close. I need not wait an instant more to be at peace forever.

LESSON 356. Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him. Father, You promised You would never fail to answer any call Your Son might make to You. It does not matter where he is, what seems to be his problem, nor what he believes he has become. He is Your Son, and You will answer him. The miracle reflects Your Love, and thus it answers him. Your Name replaces every thought of sin, and who is sinless cannot suffer pain. Your Name gives answer to Your Son, because to call Your Name is but to call his own.

Forgiveness, truth’s reflection, tells me how to offer miracles, and thus escape the prison house in which I think I live.

“Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed.”

No call to God can be unheard nor left Unanswered. And of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want.