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5For you can never choose except between God and the ego. 6Thought systems are but true or false, and all their attributes come simply from what they are. 7Only the thoughts of God are true, and all that follows from them comes from what they are, and is as true as is the holy Source from Which they come.
5But the holy relationship shares God’s purpose, rather than aiming to make a substitute for it.
2Every special relationship which you have ever undertaken has, as its fundamental purpose, the aim of occupying your mind so completely that you will not hear the call of truth. 3In a sense, the special relationship was the ego’s answer to the creation of the Holy Spirit, Who was God’s Answer to the separation.
4But the special relationship still seems to you somehow to be different. 5Yet we have looked at it far more closely than at many other aspects of the ego’s thought system that you have been more willing to let go. 6While this one remains, you will not let the others go, for this one is not different. 7Retain this one, and you have retained the whole.
5What you value is the frame, for there you see no conflict. 6But the frame is only the wrapping for the gift of conflict. 7The frame is not the gift. 8Be not deceived by the most superficial aspects of this thought system, for these aspects enclose the whole, complete with every aspect. 9Death lies in this glittering gift. 10Let not your gaze dwell on the hypnotic gleaming of the frame. 11Look at the picture, and realize that death is offered you.
4The holy instant is a miniature of eternity.
6If you experience peace, it is because the truth has come to you.
5The goal establishes the fact that everyone involved in it will play his part in its accomplishment. 6This is inevitable. 7No one will fail in anything. 8This seems to ask for faith beyond you, and beyond what you can give.
There is no problem in any situation that faith will not solve.
Use not your faithlessness. 2Let it enter, and look upon it calmly, but do not use it.
9If you lack faith in anyone to fulfill, and perfectly, his part in any situation dedicated in advance to truth, your dedication is divided.
But think on this, and learn the cause of faithlessness: You think you hold against another what he has done to you, but what you really blame him for is what you did to him. 2It is not his past but yours you hold against him. 3And you lack faith in him because of what you were. 4Yet you are as innocent of what you were as he is.
3Before, the strain was there, but you attributed it to something else, believing that the “something else” produced it. 4This was never true. 5But what the “something else” produced was sorrow and depression, sickness and pain, darkness and dim imaginings of terror, cold fantasies of fear and fiery dreams of hell.
This AM it occurred to me that I had no right to waste anything—money, clothes, or my own life, because everything has to be used right. It all has a place in the Plan. And you must not throw gifts away.
Before her birth, she had agreed to enter this life in order to play her part in a global plan to restore humanity’s forward progress. And this agreement, after slumbering for decades, has at last stirred to life.
Embarrassment is only a form of fear, and actually a particularly dangerous form because it reflects egocentricity.)
Even though he stays firm with his agenda, he makes it abundantly clear that this has nothing to do with her doing what the authority says in order to be good, or in order not to be bad. This is only about her learning. Thus, no matter what she says, he does not get angry with her.
She must purify her mind of her hatred.
Then I asked for forgiveness for having thrown away all that money; but he said “it’s all right. You lived in scarcity then, but now you are forgiven, so you live in abundance. There is no longer any need to throw anything away, or to want for anything, either.”
When you believe you are lacking inside, of course you try to fill your lack with things from the outside.
She won’t need to throw money away to fill her inner lack and she won’t need to worry about outer lack—Jesus implies that her inner abundance will actually protect her against outer lack. So being forgiven leads to the realization of inner abundance, which leads to a right relationship with outer things.
She can give birth to A Course in Miracles.
“This should be met with great charity, rather than great fury.”
He implies that this is how his resurrection came about—through him letting go all of his hate: “That is why I demonstrated that death does not exist.”
If before speaking she had first tested the waters to see if Helen would agree with her, then she would have made Helen her authority. Instead, she openly expressed her convictions without knowing what Helen would think, because (it is implied) she felt prompted by God.
Jesus implies (in teaching included in Chapter 1) that by referring the question to the Real Authority, Mrs. Albert was witnessing for him rather than being ashamed of him.
It is noticeable that, having already decided what he wanted to do, it never occurred to him that it is possible that he might lose or dirty them himself, especially as he had not entrusted them to me. This is a form of arrogance that he would be much happier without.
You should know that all God’s children are fully worthy of complete courtesy. You should never join with one at the expense of another.
There are ways of treating others in which only consistent courtesy, even in very little things, is offered. It is a very healing habit to acquire.
In sum, he didn’t solve anything by acting on one side of his will while secretly retaining the other, for that hidden side continued to cry out for satisfaction, and consequently undermined things at every step of the way.
It is very hard to get out of the chain of miscreation which can arise out of even the simplest misthought.
Once again, the theme of courtesy in small matters comes through. Helen shouldn’t have been taking dictation from Jesus right in front of Louis, as she knows the whole thing makes him uncomfortable. Helen was aware on some level that this was an attack on him.
In particular, unloving thoughts and unguided decisions lead to hurtful actions.
The first component is policing the mind, in the form of mind watching and thought correction.
The third component is giving miracles. Again and again in this narrative we see that policing the mind and asking for guidance would have produced remarkably conscientious behavior, behavior that Jesus describes as kindly, healing, gracious, respectful, and courteous.
In Jesus’ vision of the day, then, Helen and Bill are meant to police the mind even in very little things, ask for guidance even in very little things, and behave lovingly even in very little things. As a result, the typical day in which unloving thoughts and unguided decisions lead to hurtful actions would be replaced by a new day, in which loving thoughts and guided decisions would lead to healing actions. And since the people blessed by those actions would presumably pass that blessing on to others, the end result would be to replace “the chain of miscreation” with “an interlocking chain”
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he could not believe that he was free from his past mistakes; he could not, in other words, accept the Atonement for himself.
I am repeating here a Biblical injunction of my own, already mentioned elsewhere, that if my followers eat any deadly thing it shall not hurt them.
Mark 16:18 (KJV): “If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.”
The result of genuine devotion is inspiration, a word which, properly understood is the opposite of fatigue.
I assure you I will be vigilant in identifying the right time, and as I told you very clearly next time we will do it together.
Bill, however, was irritated by this, because he saw her idea only in terms of its inconvenience for him. This reaction, Jesus says, “did not take alternate possibilities into account, which is one of his major problems.”
Thus, the alive and active will that Bill has put to sleep is at last beginning to rise from its chains. The result is inevitable: “his past adjustment is threatened.” He is not just depressed but also deeply unsettled, so much so that “he could not sleep.” In Bill’s journal—on September 15, the day before this guidance came—he actually mentions having trouble sleeping:
What Jesus wants her to face is that, however much she believes she has successfully corralled this beast, she has not and cannot. His opening line speaks of “not regarding this as a separate problem.” Rather, in this seemingly limited problem of how she treats Bill in certain instances lies the whole problem of personal rejection, which is at the heart of the separation. As he says in Chapter 6, “The separation is the notion of rejection” (T-6.II.2:1). While she hangs onto this beast, no matter how small it looks, she hangs onto separation itself. Therefore, even though Helen has apparently
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All of this is interwoven with themes from the foregoing section, which is about accepting the holy instant as the antidote to the special relationship. Thus, “Forgive us our illusions” refers specifically to “the illusions you have held against your brothers” (T-16.VII.10:2)—our fantasies of the roles they should play for us and our fantasies of vengeance when they do not.
