1. When no perception stands between God and His creations, or between His children and their own, the knowledge of creation must continue forever. 2The reflections you accept into the mirror of your mind in time but bring eternity nearer or farther. 3But eternity itself is beyond all time. 4Reach out of time and touch it, with the help of its reflection in you. 5And you will turn from time to holiness, as surely as the reflection of holiness calls everyone to lay all guilt aside. 6Reflect the peace of Heaven here, and bring this world to Heaven. 7For the reflection of truth draws everyone to truth, and as they enter into it they leave all reflections behind.
2. In Heaven reality is shared and not reflected. 2By sharing its reflection here, its truth becomes the only perception the Son of God accepts. 3And thus, remembrance of his Father dawns on him, and he can no longer be satisfied with anything but his own reality. 4You on earth have no conception of limitlessness, for the world you seem to live in is a world of limits. 5In this world, it is not true that anything without order of difficulty can occur. 6The miracle, therefore, has a unique function, and is motivated by a unique Teacher Who brings the laws of another world to this one. 7The miracle is the one thing you can do that transcends order, being based not on differences but on equality.
3. Miracles are not in competition, and the number of them that you can do is limitless. 2They can be simultaneous and legion. 3This is not difficult to understand, once you conceive of them as possible at all. 4What is more difficult to grasp is the lack of order of difficulty that stamps the miracle as something that must come from elsewhere, not from here. 5From the world’s viewpoint, this is impossible.
4. Perhaps you have been aware of lack of competition among your thoughts, which even though they may conflict, can occur together and in great numbers. 2You may indeed be so used to this that it causes you little surprise. 3Yet you are also used to classifying some of your thoughts as more important, larger or better, wiser, or more productive and valuable than others. 4This is true of the thoughts that cross the mind of those who think they live apart. 5For some are reflections of Heaven, while others are motivated by the ego, which but seems to think.
5. The result is a weaving, changing pattern that never rests and is never still. 2It shifts unceasingly across the mirror of your mind, and the reflections of Heaven last but a moment and grow dim, as darkness blots them out. 3Where there was light, darkness removes it in an instant, and alternating patterns of light and darkness sweep constantly across your mind. 4The little sanity that still remains is held together by a sense of order that you establish. 5Yet the very fact that you can do this, and bring any order into chaos shows you that you are not an ego, and that more than an ego must be in you. 6For the ego is chaos, and if it were all of you, no order at all would be possible. 7Yet though the order you impose upon your mind limits the ego, it also limits you. 8To order is to judge, and to arrange by judgment. 9Therefore it is not your function, but the Holy Spirit’s.
6. It will seem difficult for you to learn that you have no basis at all for ordering your thoughts. 2This lesson the Holy Spirit teaches by giving you the shining examples of miracles to show you that your way of ordering is wrong, but that a better way is offered you. 3The miracle offers exactly the same response to every call for help. 4It does not judge the call. 5It merely recognizes what it is, and answers accordingly. 6It does not consider which call is louder or greater or more important. 7You may wonder how you who are still bound to judgment can be asked to do that which requires no judgment of your own. 8The answer is very simple. 9The power of God, and not of you, engenders miracles. 10The miracle itself is but the witness that you have the power of God in you. 11That is the reason why the miracle gives equal blessing to all who share in it, and that is also why everyone shares in it. 12The power of God is limitless. 13And being always maximal, it offers everything to every call from anyone. 14There is no order of difficulty here. 15A call for help is given help.
7. The only judgment involved is the Holy Spirit’s one division into two categories; one of love, and the other the call for love. 2You cannot safely make this division, for you are much too confused either to recognize love, or to believe that everything else is nothing but a call for love. 3You are too bound to form, and not to content. 4What you consider content is not content at all. 5It is merely form, and nothing else. 6For you do not respond to what a brother really offers you, but only to the particular perception of his offering by which the ego judges it.
8. The ego is incapable of understanding content, and is totally unconcerned with it. 2To the ego, if the form is acceptable the content must be. 3Otherwise it will attack the form. 4If you believe you understand something of the “dynamics” of the ego, let me assure you that you understand nothing of it. 5For of yourself you could not understand it. 6The study of the ego is not the study of the mind. 7In fact, the ego enjoys studying itself, and thoroughly approves the undertakings of students who would “analyze” it, thus approving its importance. 8Yet they but study form with meaningless content. 9For their teacher is senseless, though careful to conceal this fact behind impressive sounding words, but which lack any consistent sense when they are put together.
9. This is characteristic of the ego’s judgments. 2Separately, they seem to hold, but put them together and the system of thought that arises from joining them is incoherent and utterly chaotic. 3For form is not enough for meaning, and the underlying lack of content makes a cohesive system impossible. 4Separation therefore remains the ego’s chosen condition. 5For no one alone can judge the ego truly. 6Yet when two or more join together in searching for truth, the ego can no longer defend its lack of content. 7The fact of union tells them it is not true.
10. It is impossible to remember God in secret and alone. 2For remembering Him means you are not alone, and are willing to remember it. 3Take no thought for yourself, for no thought you hold is for yourself. 4If you would remember your Father, let the Holy Spirit order your thoughts and give only the answer with which He answers you. 5Everyone seeks for love as you do, but knows it not unless he joins with you in seeking it. 6If you undertake the search together, you bring with you a light so powerful that what you see is given meaning. 7The lonely journey fails because it has excluded what it would find.
11. As God communicates to the Holy Spirit in you, so does the Holy Spirit translate His communications through you, so you can understand them. 2God has no secret communications, for everything of Him is perfectly open and freely accessible to all, being for all. 3Nothing lives in secret, and what you would hide from the Holy Spirit is nothing. 4Every interpretation you would lay upon a brother is senseless. 5Let the Holy Spirit show him to you, and teach you both his love and his call for love. 6Neither his mind nor yours holds more than these two orders of thought.
12. The miracle is the recognition that this is true. 2Where there is love, your brother must give it to you because of what it is. 3But where there is a call for love, you must give it because of what you are. 4Earlier I said this course will teach you how to remember what you are, restoring to you your Identity. 5We have already learned that this Identity is shared. 6The miracle becomes the means of sharing It. 7By supplying your Identity wherever It is not recognized, you will recognize It. 8And God Himself, Who wills to be with His Son forever, will bless each recognition of His Son with all the Love He holds for him. 9Nor will the power of all His Love be absent from any miracle you offer to His Son. 10How, then, can there be any order of difficulty among them?