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

by Helen Schucman

Remember, then, that whenever you look without and react unfavorably to what you see, you have judged yourself unworthy and have condemned yourself to death. 2The death penalty is the ego’s ultimate goal, for it fully believes that you are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows you are deserving of life. 3The death penalty never leaves the ego’s mind, for that is what it always reserves for you in the end. 4Wanting to kill you as the final expression of its feeling for you, it lets you live but to await death. 5It will torment you while you live, but its hatred is not satisfied until you die. 6For your destruction is the one end toward which it works, and the only one with which it will be satisfied. 16 The ego is not a traitor to God, to Whom treachery is impossible. 2But it is a traitor to you who believe you have been treacherous to your Father. 3That is why the undoing of guilt is an essential part of the Holy Spirit’s teaching.

4You who cannot even control yourself should hardly aspire to control the universe.

“How, then, can uncovering [ego beliefs] make them real?”) The idea, then, is that in psychoanalysis, a person’s “real” motives (actually, his ego’s motives) are uncovered, and then he is judged and criticized in the hopes that this will drive out those dark motives. This, says Jesus, is essentially the same as the Inquisition, whose purpose was to uncover the error of heretics and then, often through torture, impel them to confess their sin and do penance, so that their souls could be saved.

“The poor” are those who have an “investment in anything in this world.” This would obviously include virtually everyone, regardless of their financial status.

If this were the real world, God would be cruel, for no father could subject his children to this as the price of salvation and be loving. 2Love does not kill to save. 3For if it did, attack would be salvation, and this is the ego’s interpretation, not God’s.

3For guilt establishes that you will be punished for what you have done, and thus depends on one-dimensional time, proceeding from past to future. 4No one who believes this can understand what “always” means, and therefore guilt must deprive you of the appreciation of eternity.

But consider how strange a solution the ego’s arrangement is. 2You project guilt to get rid of it, but you actually merely conceal it. 3You do experience guilt feelings, but you have no idea of why. 4On the contrary, you associate them with a weird assortment of ego ideals which the ego claims you have failed.

5But let it perceive guiltlessness anywhere, and it will try to destroy it, because it is afraid.

In the calm light of truth, let us recognize that you believe you have crucified God’s Son. 2You have not admitted this “terrible” secret, because you still wish to crucify him if you could find him. 3But the wish has hidden him from you because it is very fearful, and you are afraid to find him. 4You have handled this wish to kill yourself by not knowing who you are, and identifying with something else. 5You have projected guilt blindly and indiscriminately, but you have not uncovered its source. 6For the ego does want to kill you, and if you identify with it, you must believe its goal is yours. 6 We once said that the crucifixion is the symbol of the ego.11 2When it was confronted with the real guiltlessness of God’s Son, it did attempt to kill him, and the reason it gave was that guiltlessness is blasphemous to God.12 3To the ego, the ego is God, and guiltlessness must be interpreted as the final guilt which fully justifies murder. 4You will not yet understand that all your fear of this course stems ultimately from this interpretation, but if you will consider your reactions to it, you will become increasingly convinced that this is so.13

We have said that no one will countenance fear if he recognizes it.17 2But in your disordered state, you are not afraid of fear. 3You do not like it, but it is not your desire to attack that really frightens you. 4You are not seriously disturbed by your hostility. 5You keep it hidden because you are more afraid of what it covers. 6You could look even upon the ego’s darkest cornerstone without fear if you did not believe that, without the ego, you would find within yourself something you fear even more. 7You are not afraid of crucifixion. 8Your real terror is of redemption. 3 Under the ego’s dark foundation is the memory of God, and it is of this that you are really afraid. 2For this memory would instantly restore you to your proper place, and it is this place that you have sought to leave. 3Your fear of attack is nothing compared to your fear of love.

2In honesty, is it not harder for you to say “I love” than “I hate”?

3Do not hide suffering from His sight, but bring it gladly to Him. 4Lay before His eternal sanity all your hurt, and let Him heal you. 5Do not leave any spot of pain hidden from His light, and search your mind carefully for any thoughts which you may fear to uncover. 6For He will heal every little thought that you have kept to hurt you, and cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the magnitude of God.

3But exempt no one from your love, or you will be hiding a dark place in your mind where the Holy Spirit is not welcome. 4And you will exempt yourself from His healing power, for by not offering total love, you will not be healed completely. 5And healing must be as complete as fear, for love cannot enter where there is one spot of fear to mar its welcome.

2God did not do this to you. 3Could He set you apart, knowing that your peace lies in His oneness? 4He denied you only your request for pain, for suffering is not of His creation.

And now the reason why you are afraid of this course should be apparent.22 2For this is a course on love, because it is about you. 3You have been told that your function in this world is healing, as your function in Heaven is creating.

2The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful. 3You will remember that we said its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity by making the future like the past, and thus avoiding the present.25 4By the notion of paying for the past in the future, the past becomes the determiner of the future, making them continuous without an intervening present. 5For the ego uses the present only as a brief transition to the future, in which it brings the past to the future by interpreting the present in past terms.

Now has no meaning to the ego.

3For the ego cannot tolerate release from the past, and though it is no more, it tries to preserve its image by responding as if it were present.26 4Thus, it dictates reactions to those you meet now from a past reference point, obscuring their present reality. 5In effect, if you follow its dictates, you will react to your brothers as though they were someone else, and this will surely prevent you from perceiving them as they are. 6And you will receive messages from them out of your own past because, by making it real in the present, you are forbidding yourself to let it go. 7You thus deny yourself the message of release that every brother offers you now.

Will you recognize a holy encounter if you are merely perceiving it as a meeting with your own past? 2For you are meeting no one, and the sharing of salvation, which makes the encounter holy, is excluded from your sight. 3The Holy Spirit teaches that you always meet yourself, and the encounter is holy because you are.

3For healing cannot be accomplished in the past, and must be accomplished in the present to release the future. 4This interpretation ties the future to the present, and extends the present rather than the past.

7They make up a private world which cannot be shared, for they are meaningful only to their maker, and so they have no meaning at all.

Each one peoples his world with figures from his individual past, and it is because of this that private worlds do differ. 2But the figures that he sees were never real, for they are made up only of his reactions to his brothers, and do not include their reactions to him. 3Therefore he does not see that he has made them, and that they are not whole. 4For these figures have no witnesses, being perceived in one separate mind only.

3Thus do they communicate with those who are not there, and it is they who answer. 4And no one hears their answer save him who called upon them, and he alone believes they answered him. 5Projection makes perception, and you cannot see beyond it. 6Again and again have men attacked each other because they saw in the other a shadow figure in their private world.

5And so they separate into their private worlds, where everything is disordered and where what is within appears to be without. 6Yet what is within they do not see, for the reality of their brothers they cannot see.

As you look with open eyes upon your world, it must occur to you that you have withdrawn into insanity. 2For you see what is not there and hear what is soundless. 3Your behavioral manifestations of emotions are the opposite of what the emotions are.29 4You communicate with no one, and you are as isolated from reality as if you were alone in all the universe. 5In your madness, you overlook reality completely, and you see only your split mind everywhere you look. 6God calls you and you do not hear, for you are preoccupied with your own voice. 7And the vision of Christ is not in your sight, for you look upon yourself alone.

4But He would release you from it and set you free. 5His sane answer tells you that what you have offered yourself is not true, but His offering to you has never changed. 6You who know not what you do can learn what insanity is, and look beyond it.30 7It is given you to learn how to deny insanity, and come forth from your private world in peace.31

2For you will love them, and by drawing nigh unto them, you will draw them to yourself, perceiving them as witnesses to your reality, which you share with God. 3For I am with them as I am with you, and we will draw them from their private worlds, for as we are united, so would we unite with them.

3This means that you perceive a brother only as you see him now. 4His past has no reality in the present, and you cannot see it. 5Your past reactions to him are also not there, and if it is to these that you react now, you see but an image of him that you made and cherish instead of him.

5To be born again33 is to let the past go and look without condemnation upon the present. 6For the cloud which obscures God’s Son to you is the past, and if you would have it past and gone, you must not see it now.

2Past, present, and future are not continuous unless you force continuity on them.

2His errors are all past, and by perceiving him without them, you are releasing him. 3And since his past is yours, you share in this release. 4Let no dark cloud out of your past obscure him from you, for truth lies only in the present, and you will find it if you seek it there. 5You have looked for it where it is not, and therefore have not found it. 6Learn, then, to seek it where it is, and it will dawn on eyes that see. 7Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to attack the present, you will not see the freedom that the present holds. 8Judgment and condemnation are behind you, and unless you bring them with you, you will see that you are free of them.

Child of light, you know not that the light is in you. 2Yet you will find it through its witnesses, for having given light to them, they will return it. 3Everyone you see in light brings your light closer to your own awareness. 4Love always leads to love. 5The sick, who ask for love, are grateful for it, and in their joy they shine with holy thanks.

4In sleep you are alone, and your awareness is narrowed to yourself. 5And that is why the nightmares come. 6You dream of isolation because your eyes are closed.

Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself: 2The real world is not like this. 3It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. 4There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. 5It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it.38 6There is no day that brightens and grows dim. 7There is no loss. 8Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever. 9This world you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision.

You will first dream of peace, and then awaken to it. 2Your first exchange of what you made for what you want is the exchange of nightmares for the happy dreams of love.

5Yet the dreams of love lead unto knowledge. 6In them you see nothing fearful, and because of this, they are the welcome that you offer knowledge.

VIII. Leaving Your Needs to Him

8The ego wants to have things for salvation, for possession is its law. 9Possession for its own sake is the ego’s fundamental creed, a basic cornerstone in the churches that it builds unto itself.45 10And at its altar, it demands you lay all of the things it bids you get, leaving you no joy in them.

Everything that the ego tells you that you need will hurt you. 2For although it urges you again and again to get, it leaves you nothing, for what you get it will demand of you. 3And even from the very hands that grasped it, it will be wrenched and hurled into the dust, for where the ego sees salvation it sees separation, and so you lose whatever you have gotten in its name. 4Therefore, ask not of yourselves what you need,46 for you know not, and your advice unto yourself will hurt you. 5For what you think you need will merely serve to tighten up your world against the light, and render you unwilling to question the value that this world can really hold for you.

Only the Holy Spirit knows what you need, for He will give you all things that do not block the way to light. 2And what else could you need? 3In time, He gives you all the things that you need have, and will renew them as long as you have need of them.

Leave, then, your needs to Him. 2He will supply them with no emphasis at all upon them.47 3What comes to you of Him comes safely, for He will ensure it never can become a dark spot hidden in your mind and kept to hurt you. 4Under His guidance, you will travel light and journey lightly, for His sight is ever on the journey’s end, which is His goal.

Whenever you are tempted to undertake a foolish journey that would lead away from light, remember what you really want, and say: 2The Holy Spirit leads me unto Christ,48 and where else would I go? 3What need have I but to awake in Him? 4Then follow Him in joy, with faith that He will lead you safely through all the dangers to your peace of mind that this world sets before you.

All therapy is release from the past, and this is why the Holy Spirit is the only therapist.

3The ego rewards fidelity to it with pain, for faith in it is pain, and faith can be rewarded only in terms of the belief in which the faith is placed.

5For sin and condemnation are the same, and the belief in one is faith in the other, calling for punishment instead of love. 6Nothing can justify insanity, and to call for punishment upon yourself must be insane.

7Guilt is always in your own mind, which has condemned itself.

8The ego tells you all is black with guilt within you, and bids you not to look. 9Instead, it bids you look upon your brothers, and see the guilt in them.

Determine, then, to be not as you were. 2Use no relationship to hold you to the past, but with each one each day be born again. 3A minute, even less, will be enough to free you from the past and give your mind in peace over to the Atonement.

6The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, not to establish them as real and then forgive them.

3The Son of God believes that he is lost in guilt, alone in a dark world where pain is pressing everywhere upon him from without.