A Course in Miracles: Based on the Original Handwritten Notes of Helen Schucman—Complete & Annotated Edition

by Helen Schucman

3The ego’s purpose is fear, because only the fearful can be egotistic.

Whenever you respond to your ego, you will experience guilt, and you will fear punishment.

4It is, however, only the acceptance which makes it real. 5It is perfectly possible not to accept what is in your mind. 6If you enthrone the ego in it, the fact that you have accepted it, or allowed it to enter, makes it your reality. 7This is because the mind as God created it is capable of creating reality.

The guiltless mind cannot suffer. 2Being sane, it heals the body because it has been healed. 3The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone. 4We said before that illness is a form of magic.75 5It might be better to say it is a form of magical solution. 6The ego believes that by punishing itself, it will mitigate the punishment of God. 7Yet even in this it is arrogant. 8It attributes to God a punishing intent, and then takes over this intent as its own prerogative. 9It tries to usurp all the functions of God as it perceives them, because it recognizes that only total allegiance can be trusted.

3That is why the question “What do you want?” must be answered. 4You are answering it every minute and every second, and each moment of decision is a judgment which is anything but ineffectual.

4The ego and the Holy Spirit are the only choices which are open to you. 5God created one, and so you cannot eradicate it. 6You made the other, so you can.

3The purpose of the Atonement is to save the past in purified form only.

You may be curious to know about your past. 2Knowledge is not won through curiosity, which is an ego attribute. 3Knowledge can be found only if it is sought to give it to someone else. 4This means that you are ready to appreciate its real value and have already accepted its worth for yourself. 5Even when you cannot go to God with someone, you can go for him and bring knowledge back to him.

2Are you interested in healing insanity or in studying its past?

I am quite willing to tell you about your past when it no longer is of any interest to your ego, and if it is of help to someone else. 2Otherwise, it would be much better to devote yourself to knowing God. 3I once told you that the Atonement will not be complete until all the children of God have come home.87 4We do not care about where they have been or what they have done. 5We would not want to evaluate their past any more than we want to evaluate them.

What you do not understand is that two voices speak for different interpretations of the same thing simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first.

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap”92 merely means that what you believe to be worth cultivating you will cultivate in yourself. 2Your judgment of what is worthy does make it worthy for you.

“Vengeance is mine saith the Lord”93 is easily explained if you remember that ideas increase only by being shared. 2This quotation therefore emphasizes the fact that vengeance cannot be shared. 3Give it therefore to the Holy Spirit, Who will undo it in you because it does not belong in your mind, which is a part of God.

Appeal everything you believe gladly to God’s Own Higher Court, because it speaks for Him, and therefore speaks truly. 2It will dismiss the case against you, however carefully you have built it. 3The case may be foolproof, but it is not God-proof. 4The Voice for God will not hear it at all, because He can only witness truly. 5His verdict will always be “Thine is the Kingdom,” because He was given you to remind you of what you are.100

Your patience with your brother is your patience with yourself. 2Is not a child of God worth patience? 3I have shown you infinite patience, because my will is that of our Father, from whom I learned of infinite patience. 4His Voice was in me as it is in you, speaking for patience toward the Sonship in the Name of its Creator. 5What you need to learn now is that only infinite patience can produce immediate effects. 6This is the way in which time is exchanged for eternity. 7Infinite patience calls upon infinite love, and by producing results now, renders time unnecessary.

3Do you really believe that you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can?

You need merely cast all your cares upon Him, because He careth for you.115 6You are His care because He loves you.

There have been many healers who did not heal themselves.

4Unless the healer heals himself, he does not believe that there is no order in miracles. 5He has not learned that every mind that God created is equally worthy of being healed because God created it whole.

5Let me also remind you that to whatever extent you separate yourself from others, you are separating yourself from me.

But let me first remind you of something I told you myself: Whenever you are not wholly joyous, it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to some brother that God created.

5If you allow yourself to feel guilty, you will reinforce the error, rather than allowing it to be undone for you.

Decisions cannot be difficult. 2This is obvious if you realize that you must already have made a decision not to be wholly joyous if that is what you feel. 3Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to recognize that you have actively decided wrongly, but can as actively decide otherwise.

5Your part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace.

2I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace.127 3I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise. 4I will to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace. 5I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him. 6I will to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me.

In the holy state, however, all of the will is pulling in the same direction, which means that, without a conflict of will, the whole will is free to express itself. This is a much more total freedom than the freedom to choose between competing options.

Matthew 5:39 (RSV): “But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Jesus’ interpretation here says that it’s not about adopting a martyr’s stance of submitting to violence without protest. Instead, “turning the other cheek” means showing your attacker the undamaged side of your face as a statement that you yourself are still whole. Both interpretations involve a defenseless response to violence, but one sends an accusation of guilt to the attacker, while the other sends an affirmation of innocence.

T-2.VIII.5:1: “The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept Atonement himself.” This paragraph is not saying that we are not responsible for causing our disordered thinking. It is saying we are not responsible for correcting it. Our job is not to turn our disordered thoughts into properly ordered thoughts, but merely to accept the Atonement, after which our thoughts will be ordered for us.

The “genetic fallacy” is a logical fallacy in which the validity of an idea is evaluated on the basis of who or where it came from.

Romans 12:19 (KJV): “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” In Jesus’ reinterpretation, we give vengeance to God not so that He can carry it out, but so that He can undo the very thought of it in us and remove it from our minds.

Here in the Course, anyone who witnesses to guilt in anyone created by God is bearing false witness against the Creator.

T-4.VI.3:1-2: “When your mood tells you that you have willed wrongly, and this is so whenever you are not joyous, then know this need not be. In every case you have thought wrongly about some brother that God created and are perceiving images your ego makes in a darkened glass.”

2Anger always involves projection of separation, which must ultimately be accepted as entirely one’s own responsibility. 3Anger cannot occur unless you believe that you have been attacked, the attack was unjust, and you are in no way responsible for it. 4Given these three wholly irrational premises, the equally irrational conclusion that a brother is worthy of attack rather than of love follows.

3You cannot be attacked, attack has no justification,1 and you are responsible for what you believe.2

Assault can ultimately be made only on the body. 2There is little doubt that one body can assault another and can even destroy it. 3But if destruction itself is impossible, then anything that is destructible cannot be real. 4Therefore, its destruction does not justify anger. 5To the extent to which you believe it does, you must be accepting false premises and teaching them to others.

The message which the crucifixion was intended to teach was that it is not necessary to perceive any form of assault as persecution, because you cannot be persecuted.12 2If you respond with anger, you must be equating yourself with the destructible, and are therefore regarding yourself insanely.

We have said before, “As you teach, so shall you learn.”14 2If you react as if you are persecuted, you are teaching persecution.

5Remember always that what you believe you will teach.

3Any church which does not inspire love has a hidden altar which is not serving the purpose for which God intended it. 4I must found His church on you,19 because you who accept me as a model are literally my disciple. 5Disciples are followers, but if the model they follow has chosen to save them pain in all respects, they are probably unwise not to follow him.

I elected, both for your sake and mine, to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, did not matter.

7You are not persecuted, nor was I.

3If the Apostles had not felt guilty, they never could have quoted me as saying, “I come not to bring peace, but a sword.”26 4This is clearly the exact opposite of everything I taught.27

4I do not call for martyrs but for teachers.

5No one is punished for sins, and the Sons of God are not sinners. 6Any concept of punishment involves the projection of blame, and reinforces the idea that blame is justified. 7The behavior that results is a lesson in blame, just as all behavior teaches the beliefs that motivate it.

4Any split in will must involve a rejection of part of it, and this is the belief in separation.

Exclusion and separation are synonymous. 2So are separation and dissociation. 3We have said before that the separation was and is dissociation.32 4Once it had occurred, projection became its main defense, or the device which keeps it going. 5The reason may not be as clear to you as you think. 6What you project you disown, and therefore do not believe is yours. 7You are therefore excluding yourself from it by the very statement you are making that you are different from someone else. 8Since you have also judged against what you project, you attack it because you have already attacked it by rejecting it. 9By doing this unconsciously, you try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself first out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe.

Projection will always hurt you. 2It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its only purpose is to keep the separation going. 3It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel different from your brothers and separated from them. 4The ego justifies this on the wholly spurious grounds that it makes you seem better than they are, thus obscuring your equality with them still further.

Projection and attack are inevitably related, because projection is always a means of justifying attack. 2Anger without projection is impossible. 3The ego uses projection only to distort your perception of both yourself and your brothers. 4It begins by excluding something you think exists in you which you do not want, and leads directly to your excluding yourself from your brother.

4The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving you as perfect. 5Knowing this perfection is shared, He recognizes it in others, thus strengthening it in both. 6Instead of anger, this arouses love for both because it establishes inclusion. 7Perceiving equality, He perceives equal needs. 8This invites Atonement automatically, because Atonement is the one need which is universal. 7 To perceive yourself in this way is the only way in which you can find happiness in this world. 2This is because it is the acknowledgement that you are not in this world, for the world is unhappy. 3How else can you find joy in a joyless place except by realizing that you are not there?

2You can no more pray for yourself alone than you can find joy for yourself alone. 3Prayer is a restatement of inclusion, directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God. 4God created you to create. 5You cannot extend His Kingdom until you know its wholeness.