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

by Helen Schucman

4In your mind you can accept the whole Sonship and bless it with the light your Father gave it. 5Then you will be worthy to dwell in the temple with Him, because it is your will not to be alone.

Only you can deprive yourself of anything. 2Do not oppose this realization, for it is truly the beginning of the dawn of light. 3Remember also that the denial of this simple fact takes many forms, and these you must learn to recognize and oppose steadfastly and without exception. 4This is a crucial step in the reawakening.

7If your brothers are part of you and you blame them for your deprivation, you are blaming yourself. 8And you cannot blame yourself without blaming them.

That is why blame must be undone, not reallocated. 2Lay it to yourself and you cannot know yourself, for only the ego blames at all. 3Self-blame is therefore ego-identification, and as strong an ego defense as blaming others.

4Never forget that the ego believes that power, understanding, and truth lie in separation. 5And to establish this belief it must attack. 6Unaware that the belief cannot be established, and obsessed with the conviction that separation is salvation, the ego attacks everything it perceives by breaking it up into small and disconnected parts, without meaningful relationships and thus without meaning. 7The ego will always substitute chaos for meaning, for if separation is salvation, harmony is threat.

The ego’s interpretation of the laws of perception is, and would have to be, the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit’s. 2The ego focuses on error and overlooks truth. 3It makes real every mistake it perceives, and with characteristically circular reasoning concludes that because of the mistake, consistent truth must be meaningless. 4The next step, then, is obvious: If consistent truth is meaningless, inconsistency must be true, if truth has meaning.

Every brother you meet becomes a witness for Christ or for the ego, depending on what you perceive in him. 2Everyone convinces you of what you want to perceive, and of the reality of the kingdom you have chosen for your vigilance. 3Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought system you want to be true. 4Every brother has the power to release you, if you will to be free. 5You cannot accept false witness of him unless you have evoked false witnesses against him.28 6If he speaks not of Christ to you, you spoke not of Christ to him.

3It is not until beliefs are fixed that perceptions stabilize. 4In effect, then, what you believe you do see.

6The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but by transcendence. 7For Christ does rise above the ego and all its works,30 and ascends to the Father and His Kingdom.

Would you join in the resurrection or the crucifixion? 2Would you condemn your brothers or free them? 3Would you transcend your prison and ascend to the Father?

Do not underestimate the power of the devotion of God’s Son, nor the power over him of the god he worships. 2For he places himself at the altar of his god, whether it be the god he made or the God Who created him. 3That is why his slavery is as complete as his freedom, for he will obey only the god he accepts.

You will not find peace until you have removed the nails from the hands of God’s Son and taken the last thorn from his forehead. 2The love of God surrounds His Son whom the god of the crucifixion condemns. 3Teach not that I died in vain. 4Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you. 5For the undoing of the crucifixion of God’s Son is the work of the redemption, in which everyone has a part of equal value.

5While you perceive the Son of God as crucified, you are asleep.

5Do not set limits on what you believe I can do through you, or you will not accept what I can do for you.

The real world can actually be perceived. 2All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing else. 3For if you perceive both good and evil, you are accepting both the false and the true and making no distinction between them. 4The ego sees some good, but never only good. 5That is why its perception is so variable. 6It does not reject goodness entirely, for this you could not accept, but it always adds something that is not real to the real, thus confusing illusion and reality. 7For perceptions cannot be partly true. 8If you believe in truth and illusion, you cannot tell which is true.

3Do not make the mistake of believing that you understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost to you. 4But the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning for you, and if you will let Him interpret it for you, He will restore what you have thrown away. 2 As long as you think you know its meaning, you will see no need to ask it of Him. 2Yet you do not know the meaning of anything you perceive. 3Not one thought you hold is wholly true. 4The recognition of this is your firm beginning.

6Do I want the problem or do I want the answer? 7Decide for the answer, and you will have it, for you will see it as it is, and it is yours already.

2You have believed that to ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit is to ask for deprivation.

In the real world there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division. 2Only loving thoughts are recognized, and because no one is without your help, the help of God goes with you everywhere. 3As you become willing to accept this help by asking for it, you will give it because you want it. 4Nothing will be beyond your healing power, because nothing will be denied your simple request. 5What problems will not disappear in the presence of God’s answer? 6Ask, then, to learn of the reality of your brother, because this is what you will to perceive in him, and you will see your beauty reflected in him.

3To love yourself is to heal yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and reach your own goal. 4Brother, we heal together as we live together and love together.

6Love him who is beloved of His Father, and you will learn of the Father’s love for you. 7Love him steadily, whatever he does, whatever he says, and he will see the miracle of God and you will learn of salvation. 8If this seems hard to do, remember it is what you want of me.

If you perceive offense in a brother, pluck the offense from your mind,45 for you are offended by Christ and are deceived in Him.

You, my child, are afraid of your brothers and of your Father and of yourself. 2But you are merely deceived in them. 3Ask what they are of the Teacher of reality, and hearing His answer, you too will laugh at your fears and replace them with peace. 4For fear lies not in reality, but in the minds of children who do not understand it. 5It is only their lack of understanding that frightens them, and when they learn to perceive truly, they are not afraid. 6And because of this, they will ask for truth again when they are frightened. 14 It is not the reality of your brothers or your Father or yourself which frightens you. 2You do not know what they are, and so you perceive them as ghosts and monsters and dragons. 3Ask of their reality from the One Who knows it, and He will tell you what they are.

1 Timothy 6:10 (KJV): “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”

Exodus 20:3 (KJV): “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Here, the other gods are the dark comforters: fear and grief. 16. Hating “part of your own soul” refers to hating a brother.

“Ego autonomy,” as used here, is where the ego is independent of the external world, able to govern itself, free of the influence of external circumstances, and, importantly, free of the authority of God’s will.

“The ego and all its works” is a reference to traditional Christian baptismal vows, which ask, “Dost thou renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow nor be led by them?” In the above passage, “the devil” has been replaced by “the ego,” which implies that the ego is devilish and that its works are the vanity of the world and covetous and carnal desires.

Usually, you are deceived in someone when you are taken in by appearances and see that person as somehow being better than she is. In this case, you are deceived in your brother when you are taken in by appearances and see him as worse than he really is. You see him in light of his unloving thoughts, and thus fail to see him as the Son of God that he is. 45. Matthew 5:29 (KJV): “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” Here, of course, you pluck out from your mind the offense you see in your brother.

4Understand that you do not respond to stimuli, but to stimuli as you interpret them. 5Your interpretation thus becomes the justification for the response. 6That is why analyzing the motives of others is hazardous to you. 7If you decide that someone is really trying to attack you or desert you or enslave you, you will respond as if he had actually done so, because you have made his error real to you. 8To interpret error is to give it power, and, having done this, you will overlook the truth.

There is but one interpretation of all motivation that makes any sense, and because it is the Holy Spirit’s judgment, it requires no effort at all on your part. 2Every loving thought is true. 3Everything else is an appeal for healing and help. 4That is what it is, regardless of the form it takes. 5Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a plea for help? 6No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to him, for this and only this is what he is asking for. 7Offer him anything else, and you are assuming the right to attack his reality by interpreting it as you see fit. 4 Perhaps the danger of this to your own mind is not yet fully apparent, but this by no means signifies that it is not perfectly clear. 2If you maintain that an appeal for help is something else, you will react to something else, and your response will be inappropriate to reality as it is, but not to your perception of it. 3This is poor reality testing by definition.3 4There is nothing to prevent you from recognizing all calls for help as exactly what they are except your own perceived need to attack. 5It is only this that makes you willing to engage in endless “battles” with reality, in which you deny the reality of the need for healing by making it unreal.

The analysis of the ego’s “real” motivation is the modern equivalent of the Inquisition,4 for in both, a brother’s errors are “uncovered,” and he is attacked for his own good. 2What can this be but projection?

Whenever you fail to recognize a call for help, you are refusing help. 2Yet would you maintain that you do not need it? 3Yet this is what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize a brother’s appeal, for only by answering his appeal can you be helped. 4Deny him your help and you will not perceive God’s answer to you.

2Only appreciation is an appropriate response to your brother. 3Gratitude is due him for both his loving thoughts and his appeals for help, for both are capable of bringing love into your awareness if you perceive them truly. 4And all your sense of strain comes from your attempts not to do just this.

Do not attempt to “help” a brother in your way, for you cannot help yourself. 2But hear his call for the help of God, and you will recognize your own need for the Father. 3Your interpretation of his need is your interpretation of yours. 4By giving help, you are asking for it, and if you perceive but this one need in yourself, you will be healed. 5For you will receive God’s answer as you want it to be, and if you want it in truth, it will be truly yours. 6Every appeal you answer in the name of Christ brings the remembrance of your Father closer to your awareness. 7For the sake of your need, then, hear every call for help as what it is, so God can answer you.

2Having taught you to accept only loving thoughts in others and to regard everything else as an appeal for help, He has taught you that fear is an appeal for help. 3This is what recognizing it really means. 4If you will not protect it, He will reinterpret it. 5That is the ultimate value to you in learning to perceive attack as a call for love.

5If you raise what fear conceals to clear-cut, unequivocal predominance, fear becomes meaningless. 6You have denied its power to conceal love, which was its only purpose. 7The mask which you have drawn across the face of love has disappeared.

3You will be made whole as you make whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health is to recognize in hatred the call for love. 4And to give a brother what he really wants is to offer it unto yourself, for your Father wills you to know your brother as yourself.9 5Answer his call for love, and yours is answered.

You have no idea of the intensity of your wish to get rid of your brother. 2This does not mean that you are not strongly impelled toward him, but it does mean that love is not your only emotion.

You do not realize how much you hate your brother. 2You will not get rid of this until you do realize it, for until then you will think you want to get rid of him and keep the hatred.

This will be a very difficult period for you, but it will not be so for long. 2You cannot remain in darkness, and this will be the way out. 3Look as calmly as you can upon your hatred, for if we are to deny the denial of truth,11 we must first recognize what we are denying. 4Remember that knowledge precedes denial,12 and that the separation was a descent from magnitude to littleness.13 5And so the way back is to retrace the way to magnitude.

Your hatred is not real, but it is real to you. 2It hides what you really want. 3Surely you are willing to look upon what you do not want without fear, even if it frightens you, if you can thereby get rid of it?

Look straight at every image that rises to delay you, for the goal is inevitable because it is eternal.

3The poor are merely those who have invested wrongly, and they are poor indeed!

6For poverty is lack, and there is but one lack, since there is but one need.

3Remember that those who attack are poor. 4Their poverty asks for gifts, not for further impoverishment.

The ego is certain that love is dangerous, and this is always its central teaching theme. 2It never puts it this way; on the contrary, everyone who believes that the ego is salvation is intensely engaged in the search for love. 3Yet the ego, though encouraging the search very actively, makes one proviso: Do not find it. 4Its dictates, then, can be summed up simply as “Seek and do not find.”29 5This is the one promise that it holds out to you, and the one promise it will keep. 6For the ego pursues its goal with fanatic insistence, and its reality testing, though severely impaired, is completely consistent.30 2 The search which the ego undertakes is therefore bound to be defeated. 2And since it also teaches that it is your identification, its guidance leads you to a journey which must end in perceived self-defeat. 3For the ego cannot love, and in its frantic search for love, it is seeking what it is afraid to find.

Only love is strong, because it is undivided. 2The strong do not attack, because they see no need to do so. 3Before the idea of attack can enter your mind, you must have perceived yourself as weak. 4Because you had attacked yourself, and believed that the attack was effective, you behold yourself as weakened. 5No longer perceiving yourself and all your brothers as equal, and regarding yourself as weaker, you attempt to equalize the situation you have made. 6You use attack to do so because you believe that attack was successful in weakening you.

2For the curriculum you have chosen is against love, and amounts to a course in how to attack yourself. 3A necessary minor, supplementing this major curricular goal, is in learning how not to overcome the split which made this goal believable. 4And you cannot overcome it, for all your learning is on its behalf. 11 Yet your will speaks against your learning, as your learning speaks against your will.37 2And so you fight against learning and succeed, for that is your will. 3But you do not realize, even yet, that there is something you do will to learn, and that you can learn it because it is your will to do so. 4You who have tried to learn what you do not will should take heart, for though the curriculum you set yourself is depressing indeed, it is merely ridiculous, if you will look at it. 5Is it possible that the way to achieve a goal is not to attain it? 12 Resign now as your own teacher. 2This resignation will not lead to depression. 3It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourself and of the learning outcomes that have resulted. 4Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become an excellent learner and teacher.

The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world and lose your own soul.

4You do not want the world. 5The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it you look upon with love. 6This gives it the only reality it will ever have. 7Its value is not in itself, but yours is in you.