1. The world you see is an illusion of a world. 2God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. 3Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. 4Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. 5But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.
2. The body’s eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. 2And so they do. 3For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. 4While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt.
3. Knowledge is not the remedy for false perception since, being another level, they can never meet. 2The one correction possible for false perception must be true perception. 3It will not endure. 4But for the time it lasts it comes to heal. 5For true perception is a remedy with many names. 6Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. 7They are the one beginning, with the end to lead to Oneness far beyond themselves. 8True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin, for sin does not exist. 9And it is this that true perception sees.
4. The world stands like a block before Christ’s face. 2But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. 3It is seen at last for only what it is. 4And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. 5Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came.
5. A world forgiven cannot last. 2It was the home of bodies. 3But forgiveness looks past bodies. 4This is its holiness; this is how it heals. 5The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. 6From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. 7And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? 8For place has gone as well, along with time. 9Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. 10Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. 11And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty.
6. This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. 2For there the altar to the Son is set, and there his Father is remembered. 3Here are all illusions brought to truth and laid upon the altar. 4What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. 5Where is hope while sin is seen as outside? 6What remedy can guilt expect? 7But seen within your mind, guilt and forgiveness for an instant lie together, side by side, upon one altar. 8There at last are sickness and its single remedy joined in one healing brightness. 9God has come to claim His Own. 10Forgiveness is complete.
7. And now God’s knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. 2Gone is perception, false and true alike. 3Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. 4And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. 5God knows it is His Own, as it is his. 6And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time’s final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. 7For where God’s memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever.
8. O my brothers, if you only knew the peace that will envelop you and hold you safe and pure and lovely in the Mind of God, you could but rush to meet Him where His altar is. 2Hallowed your Name and His, for they are joined here in this holy place. 3Here He leans down to lift you up to Him, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and to eternity; out of all fear and given back to love.