A Course in Miracles

Chapter 25 - The Remedy

The Appointed Task

The Christ in you inhabits not a body. Yet He is in you, and thus it must be that you are not within a body.What is within you cannot be outside, and it is certain that you cannot be apart from what is at the very center of your life. What gives you life cannot be housed in death. No more can you. Christ is within a frame of holiness whose only purpose is that He may be made manifest to those who know Him not, that He may call to them to come to Him, and see Him where they thought their bodies were. Then will their bodies melt away, that they may frame His holiness in them.

No one who carries Christ in him can fail to recognize Him everywhere; except in bodies. And as long as they believe they are in bodies, where they think they are, He cannot be. And so they carry Him unknowingly and do not make Him manifest. And thus they do not recognize Him where He is. The son of man is not the risen Christ. Yet does the Son of God abide exactly where he is, and walks with him within his holiness, as plain to see as is his specialness set forth within his body.

The body needs no healing. But the mind that thinks it is a body is sick indeed! And it is here (in the mind) that Christ sets forth the remedy. His purpose folds the body in His light, and fills it with the holiness that shines from Him, and nothing that the body says or does but makes Him manifest. To those who know Him not it carries Him in gentleness and love, to heal their minds. Such is the mission that your brother has for you. And such it must be that your mission is for him.

It cannot be that it is hard to do the task that Christ appointed you to do, since it is He Who does it. And in the doing of it, will you learn the body merely seems to be the means to do it. For the Mind is His. And so it must be yours. His holiness directs the body through the mind at one with Him. And you are manifest unto your holy brother, as he to you. Here is the meeting of the holy Christ unto Himself; nor any differences perceived to stand between the aspects of His holiness, which meet and join and raise Him to His Father, whole and pure and worthy of His everlasting Love.

How can you manifest the Christ in you except to look on holiness, and see Him there? Perception tells you, you are manifest in what you see. Behold the body, and you will believe that you are there. And every body that you look upon reminds you of yourself...

• your sinfulness,
• your evil, and, above all,
• your death.

And would you not despise the one who tells you this, and seek his death instead? The message and the messenger are one. And you must see your brother as yourself. Framed in his body you will see your sinfulness, wherein you stand condemned. Set in his holiness, the Christ in him proclaims himself as you.

Perception is a choice of what you want yourself to be; the world you want to live in, and the state in which you think your mind will be content and satisfied. It chooses where you think your safety lies, at your decision. It reveals yourself to you as you would have you be. And always is it faithful to your purpose, from which it never separates, nor gives the slightest witness unto anything the purpose in your mind upholdeth not. Perception is a part of what it is your purpose to behold, for means and end are never separate. And thus you learn what seems to have a life apart has none.

You are the means for God; not separate, nor with a life apart from His. His Life is manifest in you who are His Son. Each aspect of Himself is framed in holiness and perfect purity, in love celestial and so complete it wishes only that it may release all that it looks upon unto itself. Its radiance shines through each body that it looks upon, and brushes all its darkness into light merely by looking past it to the light. The veil is lifted through its gentleness, and nothing hides the face of Christ from its beholders. And both of you stand there, before Him now, to let Him draw aside the veil that seems to keep you separate and apart.

Since you believe that you are separate, Heaven presents itself to you as separate, too. Not that it is in truth, but that the link that has been given you to join the truth may reach to you through what you understand. Father and Son and Holy Spirit are as One, as all your brothers join as one in truth. Christ and His Father never have been separate, and Christ abides within your understanding, in the part of you that shares His Father’s Will. The Holy Spirit links the other part, the tiny mad desire to be separate, different and special, to the Christ, to make the oneness clear to what is really one. In this world, this is not understood, but can be taught.

The Holy Spirit serves Christ’s purpose in your mind, so that the aim of specialness can be corrected where the error lies. Because His purpose still is one with both the Father and the Son, He knows the Will of God and what you really will. But this is understood by mind perceived as one, aware that it is one, and so experienced. It is the Holy Spirit’s function to teach you how this oneness is experienced, what you must do that it can be experienced, and where you should go to do it.

All this takes note of time and place as if they were discrete, for while you think that part of you is separate, the concept of a oneness joined as one is meaningless. It is apparent that a mind so split could never be the teacher of a Oneness Which unites all things within Itself. And so What is within this mind, and does unite all things together, must be its Teacher. Yet must It use the language which this mind can understand in the condition in which it thinks it is. And It must use all learning to transfer illusions to the truth, taking all false ideas of what you are and leading you beyond them to the truth that is beyond them.

All this can very simply be reduced to this: What is the same can not be different. And what is one can not have separate parts.

A Course in Miracles

Chapter 25 - The Remedy

Savior From the Dark

Is it not evident that what the body’s eyes perceive fills you with fear?

Perhaps you think you find a hope of satisfaction there; perhaps you fancy to attain some peace and satisfaction in the world as you perceive it. Yet it must be evident the outcome does not change.

Despite your hopes and fancies, always does despair result, and there is no exception, nor will there ever be. The only value that the past can hold is that you learn it gave you no rewards which you would want to keep, for only thus will you be willing to relinquish it and have it gone forever.

Is it not strange that you should cherish still some hope of satisfaction from the world you see? In no respect, at any time or place, has anything but fear and guilt been your reward. How long is needed for you to realize the chance of change in this respect is hardly worth delaying change that might result in better outcome? For one thing is sure; the way you see, and long have seen, gives no support to base your future hopes, and no suggestions of success at all. To place your hopes where no hope lies must make you hopeless. Yet is this hopelessness your choice, while you would seek for hope where none is ever found.

Is it not also true that you have found some hope apart from this; some glimmering, inconstant, wavering, yet dimly seen, that hopefulness is warranted on grounds that are not in this world? And yet your hope that they may still be here prevents you still from giving up the hopeless and unrewarding task you set yourself. Can it make sense to hold the fixed belief that there is reason to uphold pursuit of what has always failed on grounds that it will suddenly succeed, and bring what it has never brought before?

Its past has failed. Be glad that it is gone within your mind, to darken what is there. Take not the form for content, for the form is but a means for content, and the frame is but a means to hold the picture up, so that it can be seen. A frame that hides the picture has no purpose. It cannot be a frame, if it is what you see. Without the picture is the frame without its meaning. Its purpose is to set the picture off, and not itself.

Who hangs an empty frame upon a wall, and stands before it, deep in reverence, as if a masterpiece were there to see? Yet if you see your brother as a body, it is but this you do. The masterpiece that God has set within this frame is all there is to see. The body holds it for a while, without obscuring it in any way, yet what God has created needs no frame, for what He has created He supports, and frames within Himself. His masterpiece He offers you to see. And would you rather see the frame instead of this? And see the picture not at all?

The Holy Spirit is the frame God set around the part of Him that you would see as separate. Yet its frame is joined to its Creator, one with Him and with His masterpiece. This is its purpose, and you do not make the frame into the picture when you choose to see it in its place. The frame that God has given it but serves His purpose, not yours apart from His. It is your separate purpose that obscures the picture and cherishes the frame instead of it. Yet God has set His masterpiece within a frame that will endure forever, when yours has crumbled into dust. But think you not the picture is destroyed in any way; what God creates is safe from all corruption, unchanged and perfect in eternity.

Accept God’s frame instead of yours, and you will see the masterpiece. Look at its loveliness, and understand the Mind that thought it, not in flesh and bones, but in a frame as lovely as Itself. Its holiness lights up the sinlessness the frame of darkness hides, and casts a veil of light across the picture’s face, which but reflects the light that shines from it to its Creator. Think not this face was ever darkened because you saw it in a frame of death. God kept it safe that you might look on it, and see the holiness that He has given it.

Within the darkness see the Savior from the dark, and understand your brother as his Father’s Mind shows him to you. He will step forth from darkness as you look on him, and you will see the dark no more. The darkness touched him not, nor you who brought him forth for you to look upon.

• His sinlessness but pictures yours.
• His gentleness becomes your strength.

And both will gladly look within, and see the holiness that must be there because of what you looked upon in him. He is the frame in which your holiness is set, and what God gave him must be given you. However much he overlooks the masterpiece in him, and sees only a frame of darkness, it is still your only function to behold in him what he sees not. And in this seeing is the vision shared that looks on Christ instead of seeing death.

How could the Lord of Heaven not be glad if you appreciate His masterpiece?

What could He do but offer thanks to you who love His Son as He does?

Would He not make known to you His Love, if you but share His praise of what He loves?

God cherishes creation as the perfect Father that He is, and so His joy is made complete when any part of Him joins in His praise, to share His joy. This brother is His perfect gift to you, and He is glad and thankful when you thank His perfect Son for being what he is. And all His thanks and gladness shine on you who would complete His joy, along with Him, and thus is yours completed.Not one ray of darkness can be seen by those who will to make their Father’s happiness complete, and theirs along with His. The gratitude of God Himself is freely offered to everyone who shares His purpose.

It is not His Will to be alone, and neither is it yours.

Forgive your brother, and you cannot separate yourself from him, nor from his Father. You need no forgiveness, for the wholly pure have never sinned. Give, then, what He has given you, that you may see His Son as one, and thank his Father as He thanks you. Nor believe that all His praise is given not to you. For what you give is His, and giving it, you learn to understand His gift to you. And give the Holy Spirit what He offers unto the Father and the Son alike. Nothing has power over you except His Will and yours, who but extend His Will. It was for this you were created, and your brother with you, and at one with you.

You are the same as God Himself is One, and not divided in His Will. And you must have one purpose, since He gave the same to both of you. His Will is brought together as you join in will, that you be made complete by offering completion to your brother. See not in him the sinfulness he sees, but give him honor that you may esteem yourself and him.

To each of you is given the power of salvation, that escape from darkness into light be yours to share; that you may see as one what never has been separate, nor apart, from all God’s Love as given equally.

A Course in Miracles

Chapter 25 - The Remedy

Fundamental Law of Perception

To the extent to which you value guilt, to that extent will you perceive a world in which attack is justified. To the extent to which you recognize that guilt is meaningless, to that extent will you perceive attack cannotbe justified.

This is in strict accord with vision’s fundamental law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you want it there.

Perception has no other law than this. The rest but stems from this, to hold it up and offer it support. This is perception’s form, adapted to this world, of God’s more basic law; that love creates itself, and nothing but itself.

God’s laws do not obtain directly to a world perception rules, for such a world could not have been created by the Mind to which perception has no meaning. Yet are His laws reflected everywhere. Not that the world where this reflection is, is real at all. Only because His Son believes it is, and from His Son’s belief He could not let Himself be separate entirely. He could not enter His Son’s insanity with him, but He could be sure His sanity went there with him, so he could not be lost forever in the madness of his wish.

Perception vs Knowledge

Perception rests on choosing; knowledge does not. Knowledge has but one law because it has but One Creator, but this world has two who made it, and they do not see it as the same. To each it has a different purpose, and to each it is a perfect means to serve the goal for which it is perceived. For (ego) specialness, it is the perfect frame to set it off; the perfect battleground to wage its wars, the perfect shelter for the illusions which it would make real. Not one but it upholds in its perception; not one but can be fully justified.

There is another Maker of the world; the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that anything could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the laws of God, not as the law itself upholds the universe as God created it, but in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has.

Corrected error is the error’s end.

And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error.There is another purpose in the world that error made, because it has another Maker Who can reconcile its goal with His Creator’s purpose.In His perception of the world, nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness.

Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete forgiveness.

Nothing remains an instant, to obscure the sinlessness that shines unchanged, beyond the pitiful attempts of specialness to put it out of mind, where it must be, and light the body up instead of it.

The lamps of Heaven are not for it to choose to see them where it will. If it elects to see them elsewhere from their home—as if they lit a place where they could never be, and you agree—then must the Maker of the world correct your error, lest you remain in darkness, where the lamps are not. Everyone here has entered darkness, yet no one has entered it alone. For he has come with Heaven’s Help within him, ready to lead him out of darkness into light at any time.

The time he chooses can be any time, for help is there, awaiting but his choice. And when he chooses to avail himself of what is given him, thenwill he see each situation that he thought before was means to justify his anger, turned to an event which justifies his love.

• He will hear plainly that the calls to war he heard before are really calls to peace.
• He will perceive that where he gave attack is but another altar where he can, with equal ease and far more happiness, bestow forgiveness.
• And he will reinterpret all temptation (to perceive himself unjustly treated) as just another chance to bring him joy.