1. Remember that the Holy Spirit is the Answer, not the question. 2The ego always speaks first. 3It is capricious and does not mean its maker well. 4It believes, and correctly, that its maker may withdraw his support from it at any moment. 5If it meant you well it would be glad, as the Holy Spirit will be glad when He has brought you home and you no longer need His guidance. 6The ego does not regard itself as part of you. 7Herein lies its primary error, the foundation of its whole thought system.
2. When God created you He made you part of Him. 2That is why attack within the Kingdom is impossible. 3You made the ego without love, and so it does not love you. 4You could not remain within the Kingdom without love, and since the Kingdom is love, you believe that you are without it. 5This enables the ego to regard itself as separate and outside its maker, thus speaking for the part of your mind that believes you are separate and outside the Mind of God. 6The ego, then, raised the first question that was ever asked, but one it can never answer. 7That question, “What are you?” was the beginning of doubt. 8The ego has never answered any questions since, although it has raised a great many. 9The most inventive activities of the ego have never done more than obscure the question, because you have the answer and the ego is afraid of you.
3. You cannot understand the conflict until you fully understand the basic fact that the ego cannot know anything. 2The Holy Spirit does not speak first, but He always answers. 3Everyone has called upon Him for help at one time or another and in one way or another, and has been answered. 4Since the Holy Spirit answers truly He answers for all time, which means that everyone has the answer now.
4. The ego cannot hear the Holy Spirit, but it does believe that part of the mind that made it is against it. 2It interprets this as a justification for attacking its maker. 3It believes that the best defense is attack, and wants you to believe it. 4Unless you do believe it you will not side with it, and the ego feels badly in need of allies, though not of brothers. 5Perceiving something alien to itself in your mind, the ego turns to the body as its ally, because the body is not part of you. 6This makes the body the ego’s friend. 7It is an alliance frankly based on separation. 8If you side with this alliance you will be afraid, because you are siding with an alliance of fear.
5. The ego uses the body to conspire against your mind, and because the ego realizes that its “enemy” can end them both merely by recognizing they are not part of you, they join in the attack together. 2This is perhaps the strangest perception of all, if you consider what it really involves. 3The ego, which is not real, attempts to persuade the mind, which is real, that the mind is the ego’s learning device; and further, that the body is more real than the mind is. 4No one in his right mind could possibly believe this, and no one in his right mind does believe it.
6. Hear, then, the one answer of the Holy Spirit to all the questions the ego raises: You are a child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom, which He created as part of Him. 2Nothing else exists and only this is real. 3You have chosen a sleep in which you have had bad dreams, but the sleep is not real and God calls you to awake. 4There will be nothing left of your dream when you hear Him, because you will awaken. 5Your dreams contain many of the ego’s symbols and they have confused you. 6Yet that was only because you were asleep and did not know. 7When you wake you will see the truth around you and in you, and you will no longer believe in dreams because they will have no reality for you. 8Yet the Kingdom and all that you have created there will have great reality for you, because they are beautiful and true.
7. In the Kingdom, where you are and what you are is perfectly certain. 2There is no doubt, because the first question was never asked. 3Having finally been wholly answered, it has never been. 4Being alone lives in the Kingdom, where everything lives in God without question. 5The time spent on questioning in the dream has given way to creation and to its eternity. 6You are as certain as God because you are as true as He is, but what was once certain in your mind has become only the ability for certainty.
8. The introduction of abilities into being was the beginning of uncertainty, because abilities are potentials, not accomplishments. 2Your abilities are useless in the presence of God’s accomplishments, and also of yours. 3Accomplishments are results that have been achieved. 4When they are perfect, abilities are meaningless. 5It is curious that the perfect must now be perfected. 6In fact, it is impossible. 7Remember, however, that when you put yourself in an impossible situation you believe that the impossible is possible.
9. Abilities must be developed before you can use them. 2This is not true of anything that God created, but it is the kindest solution possible for what you made. 3In an impossible situation, you can develop your abilities to the point where they can get you out of it. 4You have a Guide to how to develop them, but you have no commander except yourself. 5This leaves you in charge of the Kingdom, with both a Guide to find it and a means to keep it. 6You have a model to follow who will strengthen your command, and never detract from it in any way. 7You therefore retain the central place in your imagined enslavement, which in itself demonstrates that you are not enslaved.
10. You are in an impossible situation only because you think it is possible to be in one. 2You would be in an impossible situation if God showed you your perfection, and proved to you that you were wrong. 3This would demonstrate that the perfect are inadequate to bring themselves to the awareness of their perfection, and thus side with the belief that those who have everything need help and are therefore helpless. 4This is the kind of “reasoning” in which the ego engages. 5God, Who knows that His creations are perfect, does not affront them. 6This would be as impossible as the ego’s notion that it has affronted Him.
11. That is why the Holy Spirit never commands. 2To command is to assume inequality, which the Holy Spirit demonstrates does not exist. 3Fidelity to premises is a law of mind, and everything God created is faithful to His laws. 4Fidelity to other laws is also possible, however, not because the laws are true, but because you made them. 5What would be gained if God proved to you that you have thought insanely? 6Can God lose His Own certainty? 7I have frequently said that what you teach you are. 8Would you have God teach you that you have sinned? 9If He confronted the self you made with the truth He created for you, what could you be but afraid? 10You would doubt your right mind, which is the only place where you can find the sanity He gave you.
12. God does not teach. 2To teach is to imply a lack, which God knows is not there. 3God is not conflicted. 4Teaching aims at change, but God created only the changeless. 5The separation was not a loss of perfection, but a failure in communication. 6A harsh and strident form of communication arose as the ego’s voice. 7It could not shatter the peace of God, but it could shatter yours. 8God did not blot it out, because to eradicate it would be to attack it. 9Being questioned, He did not question. 10He merely gave the Answer. 11His Answer is your Teacher.