1. Perhaps some of our concepts will become clearer and more personally meaningful if the ego’s use of guilt is clarified. 2The ego has a purpose, just as the Holy Spirit has. 3The ego’s purpose is fear, because only the fearful can be egotistic. 4The ego’s logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects. 5But again, remember that both are in you.
2. In Heaven there is no guilt, because the Kingdom is attained through the Atonement, which releases you to create. 2The word “create” is appropriate here because, once what you have made is undone by the Holy Spirit, the blessed residue is restored and therefore continues in creation. 3What is truly blessed is incapable of giving rise to guilt, and must give rise to joy. 4This makes it invulnerable to the ego because its peace is unassailable. 5It is invulnerable to disruption because it is whole. 6Guilt is always disruptive. 7Anything that engenders fear is divisive because it obeys the law of division. 8If the ego is the symbol of the separation, it is also the symbol of guilt. 9Guilt is more than merely not of God. 10It is the symbol of attack on God. 11This is a totally meaningless concept except to the ego, but do not underestimate the power of the ego’s belief in it. 12This is the belief from which all guilt really stems.
3. The ego is the part of the mind that believes in division. 2How could part of God detach itself without believing it is attacking Him? 3We spoke before of the authority problem as based on the concept of usurping God’s power. 4The ego believes that this is what you did because it believes that it is you. 5If you identify with the ego, you must perceive yourself as guilty. 6Whenever you respond to your ego you will experience guilt, and you will fear punishment. 7The ego is quite literally a fearful thought. 8However ridiculous the idea of attacking God may be to the sane mind, never forget that the ego is not sane. 9It represents a delusional system, and speaks for it. 10Listening to the ego’s voice means that you believe it is possible to attack God, and that a part of Him has been torn away by you. 11Fear of retaliation from without follows, because the severity of the guilt is so acute that it must be projected.
4. Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you. 2It is your acceptance of it that makes it real. 3If you enthrone the ego in your mind, your allowing it to enter makes it your reality. 4This is because the mind is capable of creating reality or making illusions. 5I said before that you must learn to think with God. 6To think with Him is to think like Him. 7This engenders joy, not guilt, because it is natural. 8Guilt is a sure sign that your thinking is unnatural. 9Unnatural thinking will always be attended with guilt, because it is the belief in sin. 10The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love, but as a positive act of assault. 11This is necessary to the ego’s survival because, as soon as you regard sin as a lack, you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation. 12And you will succeed. 13The ego regards this as doom, but you must learn to regard it as freedom.
5. The guiltless mind cannot suffer. 2Being sane, the mind heals the body because it has been healed. 3The sane mind cannot conceive of illness because it cannot conceive of attacking anyone or anything. 4I said before that illness is a form of magic. 5It might be better to say that it is a form of magical solution. 6The ego believes that by punishing itself it will mitigate the punishment of God. 7Yet even in this it is arrogant. 8It attributes to God a punishing intent, and then takes this intent as its own prerogative. 9It tries to usurp all the functions of God as it perceives them, because it recognizes that only total allegiance can be trusted.
6. The ego cannot oppose the laws of God any more than you can, but it can interpret them according to what it wants, just as you can. 2That is why the question, “What do you want?” must be answered. 3You are answering it every minute and every second, and each moment of decision is a judgment that is anything but ineffectual. 4Its effects will follow automatically until the decision is changed. 5Remember, though, that the alternatives themselves are unalterable. 6The Holy Spirit, like the ego, is a decision. 7Together they constitute all the alternatives the mind can accept and obey. 8The Holy Spirit and the ego are the only choices open to you. 9God created one, and so you cannot eradicate it. 10You made the other, and so you can. 11Only what God creates is irreversible and unchangeable. 12What you made can always be changed because, when you do not think like God, you are not really thinking at all. 13Delusional ideas are not real thoughts, although you can believe in them. 14But you are wrong. 15The function of thought comes from God and is in God. 16As part of His Thought, you cannot think apart from Him.
7. Irrational thought is disordered thought. 2God Himself orders your thought because your thought was created by Him. 3Guilt feelings are always a sign that you do not know this. 4They also show that you believe you can think apart from God, and want to. 5Every disordered thought is attended by guilt at its inception, and maintained by guilt in its continuance. 6Guilt is inescapable by those who believe they order their own thoughts, and must therefore obey their dictates. 7This makes them feel responsible for their errors without recognizing that, by accepting this responsibility, they are reacting irresponsibly. 8If the sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself, and I assure you that it is, then the responsibility for what is atoned for cannot be yours. 9The dilemma cannot be resolved except by accepting the solution of undoing. 10You would be responsible for the effects of all your wrong thinking if it could not be undone. 11The purpose of the Atonement is to save the past in purified form only. 12If you accept the remedy for disordered thought, a remedy whose efficacy is beyond doubt, how can its symptoms remain?
8. The continuing decision to remain separated is the only possible reason for continuing guilt feelings. 2We have said this before, but did not emphasize the destructive results of the decision. 3Any decision of the mind will affect both behavior and experience. 4What you want you expect. 5This is not delusional. 6Your mind does make your future, and it will turn it back to full creation at any minute if it accepts the Atonement first. 7It will also return to full creation the instant it has done so. 8Having given up its disordered thought, the proper ordering of thought becomes quite apparent.