1. It is hard to understand what “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” really means. 2This is because it is not understandable to the ego, which interprets it as if something outside is inside, and this does not mean anything. 3The word “within” is unnecessary. 4The Kingdom of Heaven is you. 5What else but you did the Creator create, and what else but you is His Kingdom? 6This is the whole message of the Atonement; a message which in its totality transcends the sum of its parts. 7You, too, have a Kingdom that your spirit created. 8It has not ceased to create because of the ego’s illusions. 9Your creations are no more fatherless than you are. 10Your ego and your spirit will never be co-creators, but your spirit and your Creator will always be. 11Be confident that your creations are as safe as you are.
12The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected, and the ego will not prevail against it. 13Amen.
2. This is written in the form of a prayer because it is useful in moments of temptation. 2It is a declaration of independence. 3You will find it very helpful if you understand it fully. 4The reason you need my help is because you have denied your own Guide and therefore need guidance. 5My role is to separate the true from the false, so truth can break through the barriers the ego has set up and can shine into your mind. 6Against our united strength the ego cannot prevail.
3. It is surely apparent by now why the ego regards spirit as its “enemy.” 2The ego arose from the separation, and its continued existence depends on your continuing belief in the separation. 3The ego must offer you some sort of reward for maintaining this belief. 4All it can offer is a sense of temporary existence, which begins with its own beginning and ends with its own ending. 5It tells you this life is your existence because it is its own. 6Against this sense of temporary existence spirit offers you the knowledge of permanence and unshakable being. 7No one who has experienced the revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again. 8How can its meager offering to you prevail against the glorious gift of God?
4. You who identify with your ego cannot believe God loves you. 2You do not love what you made, and what you made does not love you. 3Being made out of the denial of the Father, the ego has no allegiance to its maker. 4You cannot conceive of the real relationship that exists between God and His creations because of your hatred for the self you made. 5You project onto the ego the decision to separate, and this conflicts with the love you feel for the ego because you made it. 6No love in this world is without this ambivalence, and since no ego has experienced love without ambivalence the concept is beyond its understanding. 7Love will enter immediately into any mind that truly wants it, but it must want it truly. 8This means that it wants it without ambivalence, and this kind of wanting is wholly without the ego’s “drive to get.”
5. There is a kind of experience so different from anything the ego can offer that you will never want to cover or hide it again. 2It is necessary to repeat that your belief in darkness and hiding is why the light cannot enter. 3The Bible gives many references to the immeasurable gifts which are for you, but for which you must ask. 4This is not a condition as the ego sets conditions. 5It is the glorious condition of what you are.
6. No force except your own will is strong enough or worthy enough to guide you. 2In this you are as free as God, and must remain so forever. 3Let us ask the Father in my name to keep you mindful of His Love for you and yours for Him. 4He has never failed to answer this request, because it asks only for what He has already willed. 5Those who call truly are always answered. 6Thou shalt have no other gods before Him because there are none.
7. It has never really entered your mind to give up every idea you ever had that opposes knowledge. 2You retain thousands of little scraps of fear that prevent the Holy One from entering. 3Light cannot penetrate through the walls you make to block it, and it is forever unwilling to destroy what you have made. 4No one can see through a wall, but I can step around it. 5Watch your mind for the scraps of fear, or you will be unable to ask me to do so. 6I can help you only as our Father created us. 7I will love you and honor you and maintain complete respect for what you have made, but I will not uphold it unless it is true. 8I will never forsake you any more than God will, but I must wait as long as you choose to forsake yourself. 9Because I wait in love and not in impatience, you will surely ask me truly. 10I will come in response to a single unequivocal call.
8. Watch carefully and see what it is you are really asking for. 2Be very honest with yourself in this, for we must hide nothing from each other. 3If you will really try to do this, you have taken the first step toward preparing your mind for the Holy One to enter. 4We will prepare for this together, for once He has come, you will be ready to help me make other minds ready for Him. 5How long will you deny Him His Kingdom?
9. In your own mind, though denied by the ego, is the declaration of your release. 2God has given you everything. 3This one fact means the ego does not exist, and this makes it profoundly afraid. 4In the ego’s language, “to have” and “to be” are different, but they are identical to the Holy Spirit. 5The Holy Spirit knows that you both have everything and are everything. 6Any distinction in this respect is meaningful only when the idea of “getting,” which implies a lack, has already been accepted. 7That is why we make no distinction between having the Kingdom of God and being the Kingdom of God.
10. The calm being of God’s Kingdom, which in your sane mind is perfectly conscious, is ruthlessly banished from the part of the mind the ego rules. 2The ego is desperate because it opposes literally invincible odds, whether you are asleep or awake. 3Consider how much vigilance you have been willing to exert to protect your ego, and how little to protect your right mind. 4Who but the insane would undertake to believe what is not true, and then protect this belief at the cost of truth?