1. Any split in mind must involve a rejection of part of it, and this is the belief in separation. 2The Wholeness of God, which is His peace, cannot be appreciated except by a whole mind that recognizes the Wholeness of God’s creation. 3By this recognition it knows its Creator. 4Exclusion and separation are synonymous, as are separation and dissociation. 5We have said before that the separation was and is dissociation, and that once it occurs projection becomes its main defense, or the device that keeps it going. 6The reason, however, may not be so obvious as you think.
2. What you project you disown, and therefore do not believe is yours. 2You are excluding yourself by the very judgment that you are different from the one on whom you project. 3Since you have also judged against what you project, you continue to attack it because you continue to keep it separated. 4By doing this unconsciously, you try to keep the fact that you attacked yourself out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe.
3. Yet projection will always hurt you. 2It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its only purpose is to keep the separation going. 3It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel different from your brothers and separated from them. 4The ego justifies this on the grounds that it makes you seem “better” than they are, thus obscuring your equality with them still further. 5Projection and attack are inevitably related, because projection is always a means of justifying attack. 6Anger without projection is impossible. 7The ego uses projection only to destroy your perception of both yourself and your brothers. 8The process begins by excluding something that exists in you but which you do not want, and leads directly to excluding you from your brothers.
4. We have learned, however, that there is an alternative to projection. 2Every ability of the ego has a better use, because its abilities are directed by the mind, which has a better Voice. 3The Holy Spirit extends and the ego projects. 4As their goals are opposed, so is the result.
5. The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving you as perfect. 2Knowing this perfection is shared He recognizes it in others, thus strengthening it in both. 3Instead of anger this arouses love for both, because it establishes inclusion. 4Perceiving equality, the Holy Spirit perceives equal needs. 5This invites Atonement automatically, because Atonement is the one need in this world that is universal. 6To perceive yourself this way is the only way in which you can find happiness in the world. 7That is because it is the acknowledgment that you are not in this world, for the world is unhappy.
6. How else can you find joy in a joyless place except by realizing that you are not there? 2You cannot be anywhere God did not put you, and God created you as part of Him. 3That is both where you are and what you are. 4It is completely unalterable. 5It is total inclusion. 6You cannot change it now or ever. 7It is forever true. 8It is not a belief, but a Fact. 9Anything that God created is as true as He is. 10Its truth lies only in its perfect inclusion in Him Who alone is perfect. 11To deny this is to deny yourself and Him, since it is impossible to accept one without the other.
7. The perfect equality of the Holy Spirit’s perception is the reflection of the perfect equality of God’s knowing. 2The ego’s perception has no counterpart in God, but the Holy Spirit remains the Bridge between perception and knowledge. 3By enabling you to use perception in a way that reflects knowledge, you will ultimately remember it. 4The ego would prefer to believe that this memory is impossible, yet it is your perception the Holy Spirit guides. 5Your perception will end where it began. 6Everything meets in God, because everything was created by Him and in Him.
8. God created His Sons by extending His Thought, and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. 2All His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other. 3The Holy Spirit enables you to perceive this wholeness now. 4God created you to create. 5You cannot extend His Kingdom until you know of its wholeness.
9. Thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker, from which they reach outward. 2This is as true of God’s Thinking as it is of yours. 3Because your mind is split, you can perceive as well as think. 4Yet perception cannot escape the basic laws of mind. 5You perceive from your mind and project your perceptions outward. 6Although perception of any kind is unreal, you made it and the Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. 7He can inspire perception and lead it toward God. 8This convergence seems to be far in the future only because your mind is not in perfect alignment with the idea, and therefore does not want it now.
10. The Holy Spirit uses time, but does not believe in it. 2Coming from God He uses everything for good, but He does not believe in what is not true. 3Since the Holy Spirit is in your mind, your mind can also believe only what is true. 4The Holy Spirit can speak only for this, because He speaks for God. 5He tells you to return your whole mind to God, because it has never left Him. 6If it has never left Him, you need only perceive it as it is to be returned. 7The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that the separation never occurred. 8The ego cannot prevail against this because it is an explicit statement that the ego never occurred.
11. The ego can accept the idea that return is necessary because it can so easily make the idea seem difficult. 2Yet the Holy Spirit tells you that even return is unnecessary, because what never happened cannot be difficult. 3However, you can make the idea of return both necessary and difficult. 4Yet it is surely clear that the perfect need nothing, and you cannot experience perfection as a difficult accomplishment, because that is what you are. 5This is the way in which you must perceive God’s creations, bringing all of your perceptions into the one line the Holy Spirit sees. 6This line is the direct line of communication with God, and lets your mind converge with His. 7There is no conflict anywhere in this perception, because it means that all perception is guided by the Holy Spirit, Whose Mind is fixed on God. 8Only the Holy Spirit can resolve conflict, because only the Holy Spirit is conflict-free. 9He perceives only what is true in your mind, and extends outward only to what is true in other minds.
12. The difference between the ego’s projection and the Holy Spirit’s extension is very simple. 2The ego projects to exclude, and therefore to deceive. 3The Holy Spirit extends by recognizing Himself in every mind, and thus perceives them as one. 4Nothing conflicts in this perception, because what the Holy Spirit perceives is all the same. 5Wherever He looks He sees Himself, and because He is united He offers the whole Kingdom always. 6This is the one message God gave to Him and for which He must speak, because that is what He is. 7The peace of God lies in that message, and so the peace of God lies in you. 8The great peace of the Kingdom shines in your mind forever, but it must shine outward to make you aware of it.
13. The Holy Spirit was given you with perfect impartiality, and only by recognizing Him impartially can you recognize Him at all. 2The ego is legion, but the Holy Spirit is one. 3No darkness abides anywhere in the Kingdom, but your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your own mind. 4This alignment with light is unlimited, because it is in alignment with the light of the world. 5Each of us is the light of the world, and by joining our minds in this light we proclaim the Kingdom of God together and as one.