A Course in Miracles

Chapter 11 - Guiltlessness & Invulnerability

• If you did not feel guilty you COULD not attack, for condemnation is the root of attack.
• It is the judgment of one mind by another as UNWORTHY of love and DESERVING of punishment.
• But herein lies the split. For the mind that judges perceives itself as SEPARATE from the mind being judged, believing that by punishing another IT will escape punishment.

All this is but the delusional attempt of the mind to deny itself (God) and ESCAPE THE PENALTY OF DENIAL. It is not an attempt to RELINQUISH denial, but to HOLD ON to it. For it is guilt that has obscured the Father to you, and it is guilt that has driven you insane.

The acceptance of guilt into the mind of God’s Son was the beginning of the separation, as the acceptance of the Atonement is its end.

The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death.

• Children are born into it through pain and in pain.
• Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death.
• Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its powers decline if their bodies are hurt.
• They seem to love, yet they desert and are deserted.
• They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all.
• And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground and seem to be no more.

Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.

If this WERE the real world God WOULD be cruel.

For no father could subject his children to this as the price of salvation and BE loving. LOVE DOES NOT KILL TO SAVE. If it did, attack WOULD be salvation, and this is the EGO’S interpretation, NOT God’s. Only the world of guilt could demand this, for only the guilty could CONCEIVE of it.

Adam’s “sin” could have touched none of you had you not believed that it was the FATHER Who drove him out of paradise. For in that belief the knowledge of the Father was lost, since only those who do NOT understand Him COULD believe it.

This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God’s Son. And until you realize that God’s Son cannot BE crucified, this is the world you will see. Yet you will not realize this until you accept the eternal fact that God’s Son is NOT GUILTY.

• He DESERVES only love because he has GIVEN only love.
• He cannot BE condemned because he has never condemned.
• The Atonement is the final lesson he need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, he has no NEED of salvation.

Long ago we said that the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good teachers, whose ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary by teaching their pupils all they know.

The Holy Spirit wills ONLY this, for sharing the Father’s Love for His Son, He wills to remove ALL guilt from his mind that he may remember his Father in peace. For peace and guilt are antithetical, and the Father can be remembered ONLY in peace. Love and guilt cannot coexist, and to accept one is to DENY the other.Guilt hides Christ from your sight, for it is the denial of the blamelessness of God’s Son.

In this strange world which you have made, the Son of God HAS sinned.

How could you SEE him, then? By making him invisible, the world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt which you accepted, and you hold it dear. For the blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego never was and can never be.

Without guilt the ego HAS no life, and God’s Son IS without guilt. As you look upon yourselves and judge what you do honestly, as you have been asked to do, you may be tempted to wonder how you CAN be guiltless. Yet consider this:

• You are not guiltless in time, but in ETERNITY.
• You HAVE “sinned” in the past, but there IS no past.

Always has NO direction. Time seems to go in one direction, but when you reach its end it will roll up like a long carpet which has spread along the past behind you and will disappear. As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty you will walk along this carpet, believing that it leads to death. And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless, for so it IS.

The journey which the Son of God has set himself is foolish indeed, but the journey on which his Father sets him is one of release and joy.

The Father is NOT cruel, and His Son CANNOT hurt himself.

The retaliation he fears and which he SEES will never touch him, for although he believes in it the Holy Spirit KNOWS it is not true.

The Holy Spirit stands at the END of time, where YOU must be because He is WITH you. He has ALWAYS undone everything unworthy of the Son of God, for such was His mission, given Him by God. And what God gives has ALWAYS been.

You will see me as you learn the Son of God is guiltless.

He has always sought his guiltlessness, and he has FOUND it. For everyone is seeking to escape from the prison he has made, and the way to find release is not denied him. Being IN him, he HAS found it. WHEN he finds it is only a matter of time, and time is but an illusion.

• For the Son of God is guiltless NOW, and the brightness of his purity shines untouched forever in God’s Mind. God’s Son will ALWAYS be as he was created.
• Deny YOUR world and judge him not, for his eternal guiltlessness is in the Mind of his Father, and protects him forever.

When you have accepted the Atonement for yourselves, you will realize that there IS no guilt in God’s Son. And ONLY as you look upon him as guiltless can you understand his oneness. For the idea of guilt brings a belief in condemnation of one by another, projecting separation in place of unity.

You can condemn only YOURSELF, and by so doing you cannot know that you ARE God’s Son.

You have denied the condition of his Being, which is his perfect blamelessness. Out of Love he was created, and in Love he abides. Goodness and mercy have always followed him, for he has always extended the Love of his Father.

As you perceive the holy companions who travel with you, you will realize that there IS no journey, but only an awakening.

The Son of God, who sleepeth not, has kept faith with his Father FOR you. There is no road to travel on, and no time to travel through. For God waits not for His Son in time, being forever unwilling to be without him. And so it has always been.

Let the holiness of God’s Son shine away the cloud of guilt that darkens your mind, and by accepting his purity as yours, learn of him that it IS yours.

You are invulnerable BECAUSE you are guiltless.

You can hold on to the past ONLY through guilt. For guilt establishes that you will be punished for what you have done, and thus depends on one-dimensional time, proceeding from past to future.

No one who believes this can understand what ALWAYS means. And therefore guilt MUST deprive you of the appreciation of eternity.

You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now.

Guilt, then, is a way of holding past and future in your minds to ensure the ego’s continuity. For if what has been WILL be punished, the ego’s continuity is guaranteed.Yet the guarantee of your continuity is God’s, not the ego’s. And immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is constant.

Accepting the Atonement teaches you what immortality IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless.

The future, in time, is always associated with expiation, and ONLY guilt could induce a sense of NEED for expiation. Accepting the guiltlessness of the Son of God as YOURS is therefore God’s way of reminding you of His Son, and what he is in truth.

For God has never condemned His Son, and being guiltless he IS eternal.

You cannot dispel guilt by making it real and THEN atoning for it. This is the ego’s plan, which it offers INSTEAD of dispelling it. The ego believes in atonement through ATTACK, being fully committed to the insane notion that attack IS salvation.

And you who cherish guilt must ALSO believe it, for how else but by identifying WITH the ego could you hold dear what you do not want?

The ego teaches you to attack yourself BECAUSE you are guilty, and this must INCREASE the guilt, for guilt is the RESULT of attack. In the ego’s teaching, then, there IS no escape from guilt. For attack makes guilt real, and if it is real there IS no way to overcome it. The Holy Spirit dispels it simply through the calm recognition that it has never been.

As He looks upon the guiltless Son of God, he KNOWS this is true. And being true for YOU you CANNOT attack yourself, for without guilt attack is impossible. You, then, ARE saved because God’s Son is guiltless. And being wholly pure, you ARE invulnerable.