1. You have been told to bring the darkness to the light, and guilt to holiness. 2And you have also been told that error must be corrected at its source. 3Therefore, it is the tiny part of yourself, the little thought that seems split off and separate, the Holy Spirit needs. 4The rest is fully in God’s keeping, and needs no guide. 5Yet this wild and delusional thought needs help because, in its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and slavery. 6This is the little part you think you stole from Heaven. 7Give it back to Heaven. 8Heaven has not lost it, but you have lost sight of Heaven. 9Let the Holy Spirit remove it from the withered kingdom in which you set it off, surrounded by darkness, guarded by attack and reinforced by hate. 10Within its barricades is still a tiny segment of the Son of God, complete and holy, serene and unaware of what you think surrounds it.
2. Be you not separate, for the One Who does surround it has brought union to you, returning your little offering of darkness to the eternal light. 2How is this done? 3It is extremely simple, being based on what this little kingdom really is. 4The barren sands, the darkness and the lifelessness, are seen only through the body’s eyes. 5Its bleak sight is distorted, and the messages it transmits to you who made it to limit your awareness are little and limited, and so fragmented they are meaningless.
3. From the world of bodies, made by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind that made it. 2And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true. 3For you sent forth these messengers to bring this back to you. 4Everything these messages relay to you is quite external. 5There are no messages that speak of what lies underneath, for it is not the body that could speak of this. 6Its eyes perceive it not; its senses remain quite unaware of it; its tongue cannot relay its messages. 7Yet God can bring you there, if you are willing to follow the Holy Spirit through seeming terror, trusting Him not to abandon you and leave you there. 8For it is not His purpose to frighten you, but only yours. 9You are severely tempted to abandon Him at the outside ring of fear, but He would lead you safely through and far beyond.
4. The circle of fear lies just below the level the body sees, and seems to be the whole foundation on which the world is based. 2Here are all the illusions, all the twisted thoughts, all the insane attacks, the fury, the vengeance and betrayal that were made to keep the guilt in place, so that the world could rise from it and keep it hidden. 3Its shadow rises to the surface, enough to hold its most external manifestations in darkness, and to bring despair and loneliness to it and keep it joyless. 4Yet its intensity is veiled by its heavy coverings, and kept apart from what was made to keep it hidden. 5The body cannot see this, for the body arose from this for its protection, which depends on keeping it not seen. 6The body’s eyes will never look on it. 7Yet they will see what it dictates.
5. The body will remain guilt’s messenger, and will act as it directs as long as you believe that guilt is real. 2For the reality of guilt is the illusion that seems to make it heavy and opaque, impenetrable, and a real foundation for the ego’s thought system. 3Its thinness and transparency are not apparent until you see the light behind it. 4And then you see it as a fragile veil before the light.
6. This heavy-seeming barrier, this artificial floor that looks like rock, is like a bank of low dark clouds that seem to be a solid wall before the sun. 2Its impenetrable appearance is wholly an illusion. 3It gives way softly to the mountain tops that rise above it, and has no power at all to hold back anyone willing to climb above it and see the sun. 4It is not strong enough to stop a button’s fall, nor hold a feather. 5Nothing can rest upon it, for it is but an illusion of a foundation. 6Try but to touch it and it disappears; attempt to grasp it and your hands hold nothing.
7. Yet in this cloud bank it is easy to see a whole world rising. 2A solid mountain range, a lake, a city, all rise in your imagination, and from the clouds the messengers of your perception return to you, assuring you that it is there. 3Figures stand out and move about, actions seem real, and forms appear and shift from loveliness to the grotesque. 4And back and forth they go, as long as you would play the game of children’s make-believe. 5Yet however long you play it, and regardless of how much imagination you bring to it, you do not confuse it with the world below, nor seek to make it real.
8. So should it be with the dark clouds of guilt, no more impenetrable and no more substantial. 2You will not bruise yourself against them in traveling through. 3Let your Guide teach you their unsubstantial nature as He leads you past them, for beneath them is a world of light whereon they cast no shadows. 4Their shadows lie upon the world beyond them, still further from the light. 5Yet from them to the light their shadows cannot fall.
9. This world of light, this circle of brightness is the real world, where guilt meets with forgiveness. 2Here the world outside is seen anew, without the shadow of guilt upon it. 3Here are you forgiven, for here you have forgiven everyone. 4Here is the new perception, where everything is bright and shining with innocence, washed in the waters of forgiveness, and cleansed of every evil thought you laid upon it. 5Here there is no attack upon the Son of God, and you are welcome. 6Here is your innocence, waiting to clothe you and protect you, and make you ready for the final step in the journey inward. 7Here are the dark and heavy garments of guilt laid by, and gently replaced by purity and love.
10. Yet even forgiveness is not the end. 2Forgiveness does make lovely, but it does not create. 3It is the source of healing, but it is the messenger of love and not its Source. 4Here you are led, that God Himself can take the final step unhindered, for here does nothing interfere with love, letting it be itself. 5A step beyond this holy place of forgiveness, a step still further inward but the one you cannot take, transports you to something completely different. 6Here is the Source of light; nothing perceived, forgiven nor transformed. 7But merely known.
11. This course will lead to knowledge, but knowledge itself is still beyond the scope of our curriculum. 2Nor is there any need for us to try to speak of what must forever lie beyond words. 3We need remember only that whoever attains the real world, beyond which learning cannot go, will go beyond it, but in a different way. 4Where learning ends there God begins, for learning ends before Him Who is complete where He begins, and where there is no end. 5It is not for us to dwell on what cannot be attained. 6There is too much to learn. 7The readiness for knowledge still must be attained.
12. Love is not learned. 2Its meaning lies within itself. 3And learning ends when you have recognized all it is not. 4That is the interference; that is what needs to be undone. 5Love is not learned, because there never was a time in which you knew it not. 6Learning is useless in the Presence of your Creator, Whose acknowledgment of you and yours of Him so far transcend all learning that everything you learned is meaningless, replaced forever by the knowledge of love and its one meaning.
13. Your relationship with your brother has been uprooted from the world of shadows, and its unholy purpose has been safely brought through the barriers of guilt, washed with forgiveness, and set shining and firmly rooted in the world of light. 2From there it calls to you to follow the course it took, lifted high above the darkness and gently placed before the gates of Heaven. 3The holy instant in which you and your brother were united is but the messenger of love, sent from beyond forgiveness to remind you of all that lies beyond it. 4Yet it is through forgiveness that it will be remembered.
14. And when the memory of God has come to you in the holy place of forgiveness you will remember nothing else, and memory will be as useless as learning, for your only purpose will be creating. 2Yet this you cannot know until every perception has been cleansed and purified, and finally removed forever. 3Forgiveness removes only the untrue, lifting the shadows from the world and carrying it, safe and sure within its gentleness, to the bright world of new and clean perception. 4There is your purpose now. 5And it is there that peace awaits you.