1. Whenever you deny a blessing to a brother you will feel deprived, because denial is as total as love. 2It is as impossible to deny part of the Sonship as it is to love it in part. 3Nor is it possible to love it totally at times. 4You cannot be totally committed sometimes. 5Denial has no power in itself, but you can give it the power of your mind, whose power is without limit. 6If you use it to deny reality, reality is gone for you. 7Reality cannot be partly appreciated. 8That is why denying any part of it means you have lost the awareness of all of it. 9Yet denial is a defense, and so it is as capable of being used positively as well as negatively. 10Used negatively it will be destructive, because it will be used for attack. 11But in the service of the Holy Spirit, it can help you recognize part of reality, and thus appreciate all of it. 12Mind is too powerful to be subject to exclusion. 13You will never be able to exclude yourself from your thoughts.
2. When a brother acts insanely, he is offering you an opportunity to bless him. 2His need is yours. 3You need the blessing you can offer him. 4There is no way for you to have it except by giving it. 5This is the law of God, and it has no exceptions. 6What you deny you lack, not because it is lacking, but because you have denied it in another and are therefore not aware of it in yourself. 7Every response you make is determined by what you think you are, and what you want to be is what you think you are. 8What you want to be, then, must determine every response you make.
3. You do not need God’s blessing because that you have forever, but you do need yours. 2The ego’s picture of you is deprived, unloving and vulnerable. 3You cannot love this. 4Yet you can very easily escape from this image by leaving it behind. 5You are not there and that is not you. 6Do not see this picture in anyone, or you have accepted it as you. 7All illusions about the Sonship are dispelled together as they were made together. 8Teach no one that he is what you would not want to be. 9Your brother is the mirror in which you see the image of yourself as long as perception lasts. 10And perception will last until the Sonship knows itself as whole. 11You made perception and it must last as long as you want it.
4. Illusions are investments. 2They will last as long as you value them. 3Values are relative, but they are powerful because they are mental judgments. 4The only way to dispel illusions is to withdraw all investment from them, and they will have no life for you because you will have put them out of your mind. 5While you include them in it, you are giving life to them. 6Except there is nothing there to receive your gift.
5. The gift of life is yours to give, because it was given you. 2You are unaware of your gift because you do not give it. 3You cannot make nothing live, since nothing cannot be enlivened. 4Therefore, you are not extending the gift you both have and are, and so you do not know your being. 5All confusion comes from not extending life, because that is not the Will of your Creator. 6You can do nothing apart from Him, and you do do nothing apart from Him. 7Keep His way to remember yourself, and teach His way lest you forget yourself. 8Give only honor to the Sons of the living God, and count yourself among them gladly.
6. Only honor is a fitting gift for those whom God Himself created worthy of honor, and whom He honors. 2Give them the appreciation God accords them always, because they are His beloved Sons in whom He is well pleased. 3You cannot be apart from them because you are not apart from Him. 4Rest in His Love and protect your rest by loving. 5But love everything He created, of which you are a part, or you cannot learn of His peace and accept His gift for yourself and as yourself. 6You cannot know your own perfection until you have honored all those who were created like you.
7. One child of God is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach another. 2One Teacher is in all minds and He teaches the same lesson to all. 3He always teaches you the inestimable worth of every Son of God, teaching it with infinite patience born of the infinite Love for which He speaks. 4Every attack is a call for His patience, since His patience can translate attack into blessing. 5Those who attack do not know they are blessed. 6They attack because they believe they are deprived. 7Give, therefore, of your abundance, and teach your brothers theirs. 8Do not share their illusions of scarcity, or you will perceive yourself as lacking.
8. Attack could never promote attack unless you perceived it as a means of depriving you of something you want. 2Yet you cannot lose anything unless you do not value it, and therefore do not want it. 3This makes you feel deprived of it, and by projecting your own rejection you then believe that others are taking it from you. 4You must be fearful if you believe that your brother is attacking you to tear the Kingdom of Heaven from you. 5This is the ultimate basis for all the ego’s projection.
9. Being the part of your mind that does not believe it is responsible for itself, and being without allegiance to God, the ego is incapable of trust. 2Projecting its insane belief that you have been treacherous to your Creator, it believes that your brothers, who are as incapable of this as you are, are out to take God from you. 3Whenever a brother attacks another, that is what he believes. 4Projection always sees your wishes in others. 5If you choose to separate yourself from God, that is what you will think others are doing to you.
10. You are the Will of God. 2Do not accept anything else as your will, or you are denying what you are. 3Deny this and you will attack, believing you have been attacked. 4But see the Love of God in you, and you will see it everywhere because it is everywhere. 5See His abundance in everyone, and you will know that you are in Him with them. 6They are part of you, as you are part of God. 7You are as lonely without understanding this as God Himself is lonely when His Sons do not know Him. 8The peace of God is understanding this. 9There is only one way out of the world’s thinking, just as there was only one way into it. 10Understand totally by understanding totality.
11. Perceive any part of the ego’s thought system as wholly insane, wholly delusional and wholly undesirable, and you have correctly evaluated all of it. 2This correction enables you to perceive any part of creation as wholly real, wholly perfect and wholly desirable. 3Wanting this only you will have this only, and giving this only you will be only this. 4The gifts you offer to the ego are always experienced as sacrifices, but the gifts you offer to the Kingdom are gifts to you. 5They will always be treasured by God because they belong to His beloved Sons, who belong to Him. 6All power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is His.