1. To substitute is to accept instead. 2If you would but consider exactly what this entails, you would perceive at once how much at variance this is with the goal the Holy Spirit has given you, and would accomplish for you. 3To substitute is to choose between, renouncing one aspect of the Sonship in favor of the other. 4For this special purpose, one is judged more valuable and the other is replaced by him. 5The relationship in which the substitution occurred is thus fragmented, and its purpose split accordingly. 6To fragment is to exclude, and substitution is the strongest defense the ego has for separation.
2. The Holy Spirit never uses substitutes. 2Where the ego perceives one person as a replacement for another, the Holy Spirit sees them joined and indivisible. 3He does not judge between them, knowing they are one. 4Being united, they are one because they are the same. 5Substitution is clearly a process in which they are perceived as different. 6One would unite; the other separate. 7Nothing can come between what God has joined and what the Holy Spirit sees as one. 8But everything seems to come between the fragmented relationships the ego sponsors to destroy.
3. The one emotion in which substitution is impossible is love. 2Fear involves substitution by definition, for it is love’s replacement. 3Fear is both a fragmented and fragmenting emotion. 4It seems to take many forms, and each one seems to require a different form of acting out for satisfaction. 5While this appears to introduce quite variable behavior, a far more serious effect lies in the fragmented perception from which the behavior stems. 6No one is seen complete. 7The body is emphasized, with special emphasis on certain parts, and used as the standard for comparison of acceptance or rejection for acting out a special form of fear.
4. You who believe that God is fear made but one substitution. 2It has taken many forms, because it was the substitution of illusion for truth; of fragmentation for wholeness. 3It has become so splintered and subdivided and divided again, over and over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was one, and still is what it was. 4That one error, which brought truth to illusion, infinity to time, and life to death, was all you ever made. 5Your whole world rests upon it. 6Everything you see reflects it, and every special relationship that you have ever made is part of it.
5. You may be surprised to hear how very different is reality from what you see. 2You do not realize the magnitude of that one error. 3It was so vast and so completely incredible that from it a world of total unreality had to emerge. 4What else could come of it? 5Its fragmented aspects are fearful enough, as you begin to look at them. 6But nothing you have seen begins to show you the enormity of the original error, which seemed to cast you out of Heaven, to shatter knowledge into meaningless bits of disunited perceptions, and to force you to make further substitutions.
6. That was the first projection of error outward. 2The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected and drawn between you and the truth. 3For truth extends inward, where the idea of loss is meaningless and only increase is conceivable. 4Do you really think it strange that a world in which everything is backwards and upside down arose from this projection of error? 5It was inevitable. 6For truth brought to this could only remain within in quiet, and take no part in all the mad projection by which this world was made. 7Call it not sin but madness, for such it was and so it still remains. 8Invest it not with guilt, for guilt implies it was accomplished in reality. 9And above all, be not afraid of it.
7. When you seem to see some twisted form of the original error rising to frighten you, say only, “God is not fear, but Love,” and it will disappear. 2The truth will save you. 3It has not left you, to go out into the mad world and so depart from you. 4Inward is sanity; insanity is outside you. 5You but believe it is the other way; that truth is outside, and error and guilt within. 6Your little, senseless substitutions, touched with insanity and swirling lightly off on a mad course like feathers dancing insanely in the wind, have no substance. 7They fuse and merge and separate, in shifting and totally meaningless patterns that need not be judged at all. 8To judge them individually is pointless. 9Their tiny differences in form are no real differences at all. 10None of them matters. 11That they have in common and nothing else. 12Yet what else is necessary to make them all the same?
8. Let them all go, dancing in the wind, dipping and turning till they disappear from sight, far, far outside of you. 2And turn you to the stately calm within, where in holy stillness dwells the living God you never left, and Who never left you. 3The Holy Spirit takes you gently by the hand, and retraces with you your mad journey outside yourself, leading you gently back to the truth and safety within. 4He brings all your insane projections and the wild substitutions that you have placed outside you to the truth. 5Thus He reverses the course of insanity and restores you to reason.
9. In your relationship with your brother, where He has taken charge of everything at your request, He has set the course inward to the truth you share. 2In the mad world outside you nothing can be shared but only substituted, and sharing and substituting have nothing in common in reality. 3Within yourself you love your brother with a perfect love. 4Here is holy ground, in which no substitution can enter, and where only the truth in your brother can abide. 5Here you are joined in God, as much together as you are with Him. 6The original error has not entered here, nor ever will. 7Here is the radiant truth, to which the Holy Spirit has committed your relationship. 8Let Him bring it here, where you would have it be. 9Give Him but a little faith in your brother, to help Him show you that no substitute you made for Heaven can keep you from it.
10. In you there is no separation, and no substitute can keep you from your brother. 2Your reality was God’s creation, and has no substitute. 3You are so firmly joined in truth that only God is there. 4And He would never accept something else instead of you. 5He loves you both, equally and as one. 6And as He loves you, so you are. 7You are not joined together in illusions, but in the Thought so holy and so perfect that illusions cannot remain to darken the holy place in which you stand together. 8God is with you, my brother. 9Let us join in Him in peace and gratitude, and accept His gift as our most holy and perfect reality, which we share in Him.
11. Heaven is restored to all the Sonship through your relationship, for in it lies the Sonship, whole and beautiful, safe in your love. 2Heaven has entered quietly, for all illusions have been gently brought unto the truth in you, and love has shined upon you, blessing your relationship with truth. 3God and His whole creation have entered it together. 4How lovely and how holy is your relationship, with the truth shining upon it! 5Heaven beholds it, and rejoices that you have let it come to you. 6And God Himself is glad that your relationship is as it was created. 7The universe within you stands with you, together with your brother. 8And Heaven looks with love on what is joined in it, along with its Creator.
12. Whom God has called should hear no substitutes. 2Their call is but an echo of the original error that shattered Heaven. 3And what became of peace in those who heard? 4Return with me to Heaven, walking together with your brother out of this world and through another, to the loveliness and joy the other holds within it. 5Would you still further weaken and break apart what is already broken and hopeless? 6Is it here that you would look for happiness? 7Or would you not prefer to heal what has been broken, and join in making whole what has been ravaged by separation and disease?
13. You have been called, together with your brother, to the most holy function this world contains. 2It is the only one that has no limits, and reaches out to every broken fragment of the Sonship with healing and uniting comfort. 3This is offered you, in your holy relationship. 4Accept it here, and you will give as you have accepted. 5The peace of God is given you with the glowing purpose in which you join with your brother. 6The holy light that brought you and him together must extend, as you accepted it.