4. What Is Sin?

LESSON 251.

I am in need of nothing but the truth.

W-pII.251.1. I sought for many things, and found despair. 2 Now do I seek but one, for in that one is all I need, and only what I need. 3 All that I sought before I needed not, and did not even want. 4 My only need I did not recognize. 5 But now I see that I need only truth. 6 In that all needs are satisfied, all cravings end, all hopes are finally fulfilled and dreams are gone. 7 Now have I everything that I could need. 8 Now have I everything that I could want. 9 And now at last I find myself at peace.

LESSON 252.

The Son of God is my Identity.

W-pII.252.1. My Self is holy beyond all the thoughts of holiness of which I now conceive. 2 Its shimmering and perfect purity is far more brilliant than is any light that I have ever looked upon. 3 Its love is limitless, with an intensity that holds all things within it, in the calm of quiet certainty. 4 Its strength comes not from burning impulses which move the world, but from the boundless Love of God Himself. 5 How far beyond this world my Self must be, and yet how near to me and close to God!

W-pII.252.2. Father, You know my true Identity. 2 Reveal It now to me who am Your Son, that I may waken to the truth in You, and know that Heaven is restored to me.

LESSON 253.

My Self is ruler of the universe.

W-pII.253.1. It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. 2 Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. 3 What happens is what I desire. 4 What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. 5 This must I accept. 6 For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them and Him Who has created me.

W-pII.253.2. You are the Self Whom You created Son, creating like Yourself and One with You. 2 My Self, which rules the universe, is but Your Will in perfect union with my own, which can but offer glad assent to Yours, that it may be extended to Itself.

LESSON 254.

Let every voice but God's be still in me.

W-pII.254.1. Father, today I would but hear Your Voice. 2 In deepest silence I would come to You, to hear Your Voice and to receive Your Word. 3 I have no prayer but this: I come to You to ask You for the truth. 4 And truth is but Your Will, which I would share with You today .

W-pII.254.2. Today we let no ego thoughts direct our words or actions. 2 When such thoughts occur, we quietly step back and look at them, and then we let them go. 3 We do not want what they would bring with them. 4 And so we do not choose to keep them. 5 They are silent now. 6 And in the stillness, hallowed by His Love, God speaks to us and tells us of our will, as we have chosen to remember Him.

LESSON 255.

This day I choose to spend in perfect peace.

W-pII.255.1. It does not seem to me that I can choose to have but peace today. 2 And yet, my God assures me that His Son is like Himself. 3 Let me this day have faith in Him Who says I am God's Son. 4 And let the peace I choose be mine today bear witness to the truth of what He says. 5 God's Son can have no cares, and must remain forever in the peace of Heaven. 6 In His Name, I give today to finding what my Father wills for me, accepting it as mine, and giving it to all my Father's Sons, along with me.

W-pII.255.2. And so, my Father, would I pass this day with You. 2 Your Son has not forgotten You. 3 The peace You gave him still is in his mind, and it is there I choose to spend today.

LESSON 256.

God is the only goal I have today.

W-pII.256.1. The way to God is through forgiveness here. 2 There is no other way. 3 If sin had not been cherished by the mind, what need would there have been to find the way to where you are? 4 Who would still be uncertain? 5 Who could be unsure of who he is? 6 And who would yet remain asleep, in heavy clouds of doubt about the holiness of him whom God created sinless? 7 Here we can but dream. 8 But we can dream we have forgiven him in whom all sin remains impossible, and it is this we choose to dream today. 9 God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by which our minds return to Him at last.

W-pII.256.2. And so, our Father, would we come to You in Your appointed way. 2 We have no goal except to hear Your Voice, and find the way Your sacred Word has pointed out to us.

LESSON 257.

Let me remember what my purpose is.

W-pII.257.1. If I forget my goal I can be but confused, unsure of what I am, and thus conflicted in my actions. 2 No one can serve contradicting goals and serve them well. 3 Nor can he function without deep distress and great depression. 4 Let us therefore be determined to remember what we want today, that we may unify our thoughts and actions meaningfully, and achieve only what God would have us do this day.

W-pII.257.2. Father, forgiveness is Your chosen means for our salvation. 2 Let us not forget today that we can have no will but Yours. 3 And thus our purpose must be Yours as well, if we would reach the peace You will for us.

LESSON 258.

Let me remember that my goal is God.

W-pII.258.1. All that is needful is to train our minds to overlook all little senseless aims, and to remember that our goal is God. 2 His memory is hidden in our minds, obscured but by our pointless little goals which offer nothing, and do not exist. 3 Shall we continue to allow God's grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead? 4 God is our only goal, our only Love. 5 We have no aim but to remember Him.

W-pII.258.2. Our goal is but to follow in the way that leads to You. 2 We have no goal but this. 3 What could we want but to remember You? 4 What could we seek but our Identity?

LESSON 259.

Let me remember that there is no sin.

W-pII.259.1. Sin is the only thought that makes the goal of God seem unattainable. 2 What else could blind us to the obvious, and make the strange and the distorted seem more clear? 3 What else but sin engenders our attacks? 4 What else but sin could be the source of guilt, demanding punishment and suffering? 5 And what but sin could be the source of fear, obscuring God's creation; giving love the attributes of fear and of attack?

W-pII.259.2. Father, I would not be insane today. 2 I would not be afraid of love, nor seek for refuge in its opposite. 3 For love can have no opposite. 4 You are the Source of everything there is. 5 And everything that is remains with You, and You with it.

LESSON 260.

Let me remember God created me.

W-pII.260.1. Father, I did not make myself, although in my insanity I thought I did. 2 Yet, as Your Thought, I have not left my Source, remaining part of Who created me. 3 Your Son, my Father, calls on You today. 4 Let me remember You created me. 5 Let me remember my Identity. 6 And let my sinlessness arise again before Christ's vision, through which I would look upon my brothers and myself today.

W-pII.260.2. Now is our Source remembered, and Therein we find our true Identity at last. 2 Holy indeed are we, because our Source can know no sin. 3 And we who are His Sons are like each other, and alike to Him.

5. What Is the Body?

LESSON 261.

God is my refuge and security.

W-pII.261.1. I will identify with what I think is refuge and security. 2 I will behold myself where I perceive my strength, and think I live within the citadel where I am safe and cannot be attacked. 3 Let me today seek not security in danger, nor attempt to find my peace in murderous attack. 4 I live in God. 5 In Him I find my refuge and my strength. 6 In Him is my Identity. 7 In Him is everlasting peace. 8 And only there will I remember Who I really am.

W-pII.261.2. Let me not seek for idols. 2 I would come, my Father, home to You today. 3 I choose to be as You created me, and find the Son whom You created as my Self.

LESSON 262.

Let me perceive no differences today.

W-pII.262.1. Father, You have one Son. 2 And it is he that I would look upon today. 3 He is Your one creation. 4 Why should I perceive a thousand forms in what remains as one? 5 Why should I give this one a thousand names, when only one suffices? 6 For Your Son must bear Your Name, for You created him. 7 Let me not see him as a stranger to his Father, nor as stranger to myself. 8 For he is part of me and I of him, and we are part of You Who are our Source, eternally united in Your Love; eternally the holy Son of God.

W-pII.262.2. We who are one would recognize this day the truth about ourselves. 2 We would come home, and rest in unity. 3 For there is peace, and nowhere else can peace be sought and found.

LESSON 263.

My holy vision sees all things as pure.

W-pII.263.1. Father, Your Mind created all that is, Your Spirit entered into it, Your Love gave life to it. 2 And would I look upon what You created as if it could be made sinful? 3 I would not perceive such dark and fearful images. 4 A madman's dream is hardly fit to be my choice, instead of all the loveliness with which You blessed creation; all its purity, its joy, and its eternal, quiet home in You .

W-pII.263.2. And while we still remain outside the gate of Heaven, let us look on all we see through holy vision and the eyes of Christ. 2 Let all appearances seem pure to us, that we may pass them by in innocence, and walk together to our Father's house as brothers and the holy Sons of God.

LESSON 264.

I am surrounded by the Love of God.

W-pII.264.1. Father, You stand before me and behind, beside me, in the place I see myself, and everywhere I go. 2 You are in all the things I look upon, the sounds I hear, and every hand that reaches for my own. 3 In You time disappears, and place becomes a meaningless belief. 4 For what surrounds Your Son and keeps him safe is Love Itself. 5 There is no Source but this, and nothing is that does not share Its Holiness; that stands beyond Your one creation, or without the Love which holds all things within Itself. 6 Father, Your Son is like Yourself. 7 We come to You in Your Own Name today, to be at peace within Your everlasting Love.

W-pII.264.2. My brothers, join with me in this today. 2 This is salvation's prayer. 3 Must we not join in what will save the world, along with us?

LESSON 265.

Creation's gentleness is all I see.

W-pII.265.1. I have indeed misunderstood the world, because I laid my sins on it and saw them looking back at me. 2 How fierce they seemed! 3 And how deceived was I to think that what I feared was in the world, instead of in my mind alone. 4 Today I see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines. 5 There is no fear in it. 6 Let no appearance of my sins obscure the light of Heaven shining on the world. 7 What is reflected there is in God's Mind. 8 The images I see reflect my thoughts. 9 Yet is my mind at one with God's. 10 And so I can perceive creation's gentleness.

W-pII.265.2. In quiet would I look upon the world, which but reflects Your Thoughts, and mine as well. 2 Let me remember that they are the same, and I will see creation's gentleness.

LESSON 266.

My holy Self abides in you, God's Son.

W-pII.266.1. Father, You gave me all Your Sons, to be my saviors and my counselors in sight; the bearers of Your holy Voice to me. 2 In them are You reflected, and in them does Christ look back upon me from my Self. 3 Let not Your Son forget Your holy Name. 4 Let not Your Son forget his holy Source. 5 Let not Your Son forget his Name is Yours .

W-pII.266.2. This day we enter into Paradise, calling upon God's Name and on our own, acknowledging our Self in each of us; united in the holy Love of God. 2 How many saviors God has given us! 3 How can we lose the way to Him, when He has filled the world with those who point to Him, and given us the sight to look on them?

LESSON 267.

My heart is beating in the peace of God.

W-pII.267.1. Surrounding me is all the life that God created in His Love. 2 It calls to me in every heartbeat and in every breath; in every action and in every thought. 3 Peace fills my heart, and floods my body with the purpose of forgiveness. 4 Now my mind is healed, and all I need to save the world is given me. 5 Each heartbeat brings me peace; each breath infuses me with strength. 6 I am a messenger of God, directed by His Voice, sustained by Him in love, and held forever quiet and at peace within His loving Arms. 7 Each heartbeat calls His Name, and every one is answered by His Voice, assuring me I am at home in Him.

W-pII.267.2. Let me attend Your Answer, not my own. 2 Father, my heart is beating in the peace the Heart of Love created. 3 It is there and only there that I can be at home .

LESSON 268.

Let all things be exactly as they are.

W-pII.268.1. Let me not be Your critic, Lord, today, and judge against You. 2 Let me not attempt to interfere with Your creation, and distort it into sickly forms. 3 Let me be willing to withdraw my wishes from its unity, and thus to let it be as You created it. 4 For thus will I be able, too, to recognize my Self as You created me. 5 In love was I created, and in love will I remain forever. 6 What can frighten me, when I let all things be exactly as they are?

W-pII.268.2. Let not our sight be blasphemous today, nor let our ears attend to lying tongues. 2 Only reality is free of pain. 3 Only reality is free of loss. 4 Only reality is wholly safe. 5 And it is only this we seek today.

LESSON 269.

My sight goes forth to look upon Christ's face.

W-pII.269.1. I ask Your blessing on my sight today. 2 It is the means which You have chosen to become the way to show me my mistakes, and look beyond them. 3 It is given me to find a new perception through the Guide You gave to me, and through His lessons to surpass perception and return to truth. 4 I ask for the illusion which transcends all those I made. 5 Today I choose to see a world forgiven, in which everyone shows me the face of Christ, and teaches me that what I look upon belongs to me; that nothing is, except Your holy Son .

W-pII.269.2. Today our sight is blessed indeed. 2 We share one vision, as we look upon the face of Him Whose Self is ours. 3 We are one because of Him Who is the Son of God; of Him Who is our own Identity.

LESSON 270.

I will not use the body's eyes today.

W-pII.270.1. Father, Christ's vision is Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. 2 How glorious and gracious is this world! 3 Yet how much more will I perceive in it than sight can give. 4 The world forgiven signifies Your Son acknowledges his Father, lets his dreams be brought to truth, and waits expectantly the one remaining instant more of time which ends forever, as Your memory returns to him. 5 And now his will is one with Yours. 6 His function now is but Your Own, and every thought except Your Own is gone .

W-pII.270.2. The quiet of today will bless our hearts, and through them peace will come to everyone. 2 Christ is our eyes today. 3 And through His sight we offer healing to the world through Him, the holy Son whom God created whole; the holy Son whom God created One.

6. What Is the Christ?

LESSON 271.

Christ's is the vision I will use today.

W-pII.271.1. Each day, each hour, every instant, I am choosing what I want to look upon, the sounds I want to hear, the witnesses to what I want to be the truth for me. 2 Today I choose to look upon what Christ would have me see, to listen to God's Voice, and seek the witnesses to what is true in God's creation. 3 In Christ's sight, the world and God's creation meet, and as they come together all perception disappears. 4 His kindly sight redeems the world from death, for nothing that He looks on but must live, remembering the Father and the Son; Creator and creation unified.

W-pII.271.2. Father, Christ's vision is the way to You. 2 What He beholds invites Your memory to be restored to me. 3 And this I choose, to be what I would look upon today.

LESSON 272.

How can illusions satisfy God's Son?

W-pII.272.1. Father, the truth belongs to me. 2 My home is set in Heaven by Your Will and mine. 3 Can dreams content me? 4 Can illusions bring me happiness? 5 What but Your memory can satisfy Your Son? 6 I will accept no less than You have given me. 7 I am surrounded by Your Love, forever still, forever gentle and forever safe. 8 God's Son must be as You created him.

W-pII.272.2. Today we pass illusions by. 2 And if we hear temptation call to us to stay and linger in a dream, we turn aside and ask ourselves if we, the Sons of God, could be content with dreams, when Heaven can be chosen just as easily as hell, and love will happily replace all fear.

LESSON 273.

The stillness of the peace of God is mine.

W-pII.273.1. Perhaps we are now ready for a day of undisturbed tranquility. 2 If this is not yet feasible, we are content and even more than satisfied to learn how such a day can be achieved. 3 If we give way to a disturbance, let us learn how to dismiss it and return to peace. 4 We need but tell our minds, with certainty, "The stillness of the peace of God is mine," and nothing can intrude upon the peace that God Himself has given to His Son.

W-pII.273.2. Father, Your peace is mine. 2 What need have I to fear that anything can rob me of what You would have me keep? 3 I cannot lose Your gifts to me. 4 And so the peace You gave Your Son is with me still, in quietness and in my own eternal love for You.

LESSON 274.

Today belongs to love. Let me not fear.

W-pII.274.1. Father, today I would let all things be as You created them, and give Your Son the honor due his sinlessness; the love of brother to his brother and his Friend. 2 Through this I am redeemed. 3 Through this as well the truth will enter where illusions were, light will replace all darkness, and Your Son will know he is as You created him.

W-pII.274.2. A special blessing comes to us today, from Him Who is our Father. 2 Give this day to Him, and there will be no fear today, because the day is given unto love.

LESSON 275.

God's healing Voice protects all things today.

W-pII.275.1. Let us today attend the Voice for God, which speaks an ancient lesson, no more true today than any other day. 2 Yet has this day been chosen as the time when we will seek and hear and learn and understand. 3 Join me in hearing. 4 For the Voice for God tells us of things we cannot understand alone, nor learn apart. 5 It is in this that all things are protected. 6 And in this the healing of the Voice for God is found.

W-pII.275.2. Your healing Voice protects all things today, and so I leave all things to You. 2 I need be anxious over nothing. 3 For Your Voice will tell me what to do and where to go; to whom to speak and what to say to him, what thoughts to think, what words to give the world. 4 The safety that I bring is given me. 5 Father, Your Voice protects all things through me.

LESSON 276.

The Word of God is given me to speak.

W-pII.276.1. What is the Word of God? 2 "My Son is pure and holy as Myself." 3 And thus did God become the Father of the Son He loves, for thus was he created. 4 This the Word His Son did not create with Him, because in this His Son was born. 5 Let us accept His Fatherhood, and all is given us. 6 Deny we were created in His Love and we deny our Self, to be unsure of who we are, of Who our Father is, and for what purpose we have come. 7 And yet, we need but to acknowledge Him Who gave His Word to us in our creation, to remember Him and so recall our Self.

W-pII.276.2. Father, Your Word is mine. 2 And it is this that I would speak to all my brothers, who are given me to cherish as my own, as I am loved and blessed and saved by You.

LESSON 277.

Let me not bind Your Son with laws I made.

W-pII.277.1. Your Son is free, my Father. 2 Let me not imagine I have bound him with the laws I made to rule the body. 3 He is not subject to any laws I made by which I try to make the body more secure. 4 He is not changed by what is changeable. 5 He is not slave to any laws of time. 6 He is as You created him, because he knows no law except the law of love.

W-pII.277.2. Let us not worship idols, nor believe in any law idolatry would make to hide the freedom of the Son of God. 2 He is not bound except by his beliefs. 3 Yet what he is, is far beyond his faith in slavery or freedom. 4 He is free because he is his Father's Son. 5 And he cannot be bound unless God's truth can lie, and God can will that He deceive Himself.

LESSON 278.

If I am bound, my Father is not free.

W-pII.278.1. If I accept that I am prisoner within a body, in a world in which all things that seem to live appear to die, then is my Father prisoner with me. 2 And this do I believe, when I maintain the laws the world obeys must I obey; the frailties and the sins which I perceive are real, and cannot be escaped. 3 If I am bound in any way, I do not know my Father nor my Self. 4 And I am lost to all reality. 5 For truth is free, and what is bound is not a part of truth.

W-pII.278.2. Father, I ask for nothing but the truth. 2 I have had many foolish thoughts about myself and my creation, and have brought a dream of fear into my mind. 3 Today, I would not dream. 4 I choose the way to You instead of madness and instead of fear. 5 For truth is safe, and only love is sure.

LESSON 279.

Creation's freedom promises my own.

W-pII.279.1. The end of dreams is promised me, because God's Son is not abandoned by His Love. 2 Only in dreams is there a time when he appears to be in prison, and awaits a future freedom, if it be at all. 3 Yet in reality his dreams are gone, with truth established in their place. 4 And now is freedom his already. 5 Should I wait in chains which have been severed for release, when God is offering me freedom now?

W-pII.279.2. I will accept Your promises today, and give my faith to them. 2 My Father loves the Son Whom He created as His Own. 3 Would You withhold the gifts You gave to me?

LESSON 280.

What limits can I lay upon God's Son?

W-pII.280.1. Whom God created limitless is free. 2 I can invent imprisonment for him, but only in illusions, not in truth. 3 No Thought of God has left its Father's Mind. 4 No Thought of God is limited at all. 5 No Thought of God but is forever pure. 6 Can I lay limits on the Son of God, whose Father willed that he be limitless, and like Himself in freedom and in love?

W-pII.280.2. Today let me give honor to Your Son, for thus alone I find the way to You. 2 Father, I lay no limits on the Son You love and You created limitless. 3 The honor that I give to him is Yours, and what is Yours belongs to me as well.

7. What Is the Holy Spirit?

LESSON 281.

I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts.

W-pII.281.1. Father, Your Son is perfect. 2 When I think that I am hurt in any way, it is because I have forgotten who I am, and that I am as You created me. 3 Your Thoughts can only bring me happiness. 4 If ever I am sad or hurt or ill, I have forgotten what You think, and put my little meaningless ideas in place of where Your Thoughts belong, and where they are. 5 I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts. 6 The Thoughts I think with You can only bless. 7 The Thoughts I think with You alone are true .

W-pII.281.2. I will not hurt myself today. 2 For I am far beyond all pain. 3 My Father placed me safe in Heaven, watching over me. 4 And I would not attack the Son He loves, for what He loves is also mine to love.

LESSON 282.

I will not be afraid of love today.

W-pII.282.1. If I could realize but this today, salvation would be reached for all the world. 2 This the decision not to be insane, and to accept myself as God Himself, my Father and my Source, created me. 3 This the determination not to be asleep in dreams of death, while truth remains forever living in the joy of love. 4 And this the choice to recognize the Self Whom God created as the Son He loves, and Who remains my one Identity.

W-pII.282.2. Father, Your Name is Love and so is mine. 2 Such is the truth. 3 And can the truth be changed by merely giving it another name? 4 The name of fear is simply a mistake. 5 Let me not be afraid of truth today .

LESSON 283.

My true Identity abides in You.

W-pII.283.1. Father, I made an image of myself, and it is this I call the Son of God. 2 Yet is creation as it always was, for Your creation is unchangeable. 3 Let me not worship idols. 4 I am he my Father loves. 5 My holiness remains the light of Heaven and the Love of God. 6 Is not what is beloved of You secure? 7 Is not the light of Heaven infinite? 8 Is not Your Son my true Identity, when You created everything that is?

W-pII.283.2. Now are we One in shared Identity, with God our Father as our only Source, and everything created part of us. 2 And so we offer blessing to all things, uniting lovingly with all the world, which our forgiveness has made one with us.

LESSON 284.

I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.

W-pII.284.1. Loss is not loss when properly perceived. 2 Pain is impossible. 3 There is no grief with any cause at all. 4 And suffering of any kind is nothing but a dream. 5 This is the truth, at first to be but said and then repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with many reservations. 6 Then to be considered seriously more and more, and finally accepted as the truth. 7 I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt. 8 And I would go beyond these words today, and past all reservations, and arrive at full acceptance of the truth in them.

W-pII.284.2. Father, what You have given cannot hurt, so grief and pain must be impossible. 2 Let me not fail to trust in You today, accepting but the joyous as Your gifts; accepting but the joyous as the truth.

LESSON 285.

My holiness shines bright and clear today.

W-pII.285.1. Today I wake with joy, expecting but the happy things of God to come to me. 2 I ask but them to come, and realize my invitation will be answered by the thoughts to which it has been sent by me. 3 And I will ask for only joyous things the instant I accept my holiness. 4 For what would be the use of pain to me, what purpose would my suffering fulfill, and how would grief and loss avail me if insanity departs from me today, and I accept my holiness instead?

W-pII.285.2. Father, my holiness is Yours. 2 Let me rejoice in it, and through forgiveness be restored to sanity. 3 Your Son is still as You created him. 4 My holiness is part of me, and also part of You. 5 And what can alter Holiness Itself?

LESSON 286.

The hush of Heaven holds my heart today.

W-pII.286.1. Father, how still today! 2 How quietly do all things fall in place! 3 This is the day that has been chosen as the time in which I come to understand the lesson that there is no need that I do anything. 4 In You is every choice already made. 5 In You has every conflict been resolved. 6 In You is everything I hope to find already given me. 7 Your peace is mine. 8 My heart is quiet, and my mind at rest. 9 Your Love is Heaven, and Your Love is mine.

W-pII.286.2. The stillness of today will give us hope that we have found the way, and travelled far along it to a wholly certain goal. 2 Today we will not doubt the end which God Himself has promised us. 3 We trust in Him, and in our Self, Who still is One with Him.

LESSON 287.

You are my goal, my Father. Only You.

W-pII.287.1. Where would I go but Heaven? 2 What could be a substitute for happiness? 3 What gift could I prefer before the peace of God? 4 What treasure would I seek and find and keep that can compare with my Identity? 5 And would I rather live with fear than love?

W-pII.287.2. You are my goal, my Father. 2 What but You could I desire to have? 3 What way but that which leads to You could I desire to walk? 4 And what except the memory of You could signify to me the end of dreams and futile substitutions for the truth? 5 You are my only goal. 6 Your Son would be as You created him. 7 What way but this could I expect to recognize my Self, and be at one with my Identity?

LESSON 288.

Let me forget my brother's past today.

W-pII.288.1. This is the thought that leads the way to You, and brings me to my goal. 2 I cannot come to You without my brother. 3 And to know my Source, I first must recognize what You created one with me. 4 My brother's is the hand that leads me on the way to You. 5 His sins are in the past along with mine, and I am saved because the past is gone. 6 Let me not cherish it within my heart, or I will lose the way to walk to You. 7 My brother is my savior. 8 Let me not attack the savior You have given me. 9 But let me honor him who bears Your Name, and so remember that It is my own .

W-pII.288.2. Forgive me, then, today. 2 And you will know you have forgiven me if you behold your brother in the light of holiness. 3 He cannot be less holy than can I, and you can not be holier than he.

LESSON 289.

The past is over. It can touch me not.

W-pII.289.1. Unless the past is over in my mind, the real world must escape my sight. 2 For I am really looking nowhere; seeing but what is not there. 3 How can I then perceive the world forgiveness offers? 4 This the past was made to hide, for this the world that can be looked on only now. 5 It has no past. 6 For what can be forgiven but the past, and if it is forgiven it is gone.

W-pII.289.2. Father, let me not look upon a past that is not there. 2 For You have offered me Your Own replacement, in a present world the past has left untouched and free of sin. 3 Here is the end of guilt. 4 And here am I made ready for Your final step. 5 Shall I demand that You wait longer for Your Son to find the loveliness You planned to be the end of all his dreams and all his pain?

LESSON 290.

My present happiness is all I see.

W-pII.290.1. Unless I look upon what is not there, my present happiness is all I see. 2 Eyes that begin to open see at last. 3 And I would have Christ's vision come to me this very day. 4 What I perceive without God's Own Correction for the sight I made is frightening and painful to behold. 5 Yet I would not allow my mind to be deceived by the belief the dream I made is real an instant longer. 6 This the day I seek my present happiness, and look on nothing else except the thing I seek.

W-pII.290.2. With this resolve I come to You, and ask Your strength to hold me up today, while I but seek to do Your Will. 2 You cannot fail to hear me, Father. 3 What I ask have You already given me. 4 And I am sure that I will see my happiness today.

8. What Is the Real World?

LESSON 291.

This is a day of stillness and of peace.

W-pII.291.1. Christ's vision looks through me today. 2 His sight shows me all things forgiven and at peace, and offers this same vision to the world. 3 And I accept this vision in its name, both for myself and for the world as well. 4 What loveliness we look upon today! 5 What holiness we see surrounding us! 6 And it is given us to recognize it is a holiness in which we share; it is the Holiness of God Himself.

W-pII.291.2. This day my mind is quiet, to receive the Thoughts You offer me. 2 And I accept what comes from You, instead of from myself. 3 I do not know the way to You. 4 But You are wholly certain. 5 Father, guide Your Son along the quiet path that leads to You. 6 Let my forgiveness be complete, and let the memory of You return to me.

LESSON 292.

A happy outcome to all things is sure.

W-pII.292.1. God's promises make no exceptions. 2 And He guarantees that only joy can be the final outcome found for everything. 3 Yet it is up to us when this is reached; how long we let an alien will appear to be opposing His. 4 And while we think this will is real, we will not find the end He has appointed as the outcome of all problems we perceive, all trials we see, and every situation that we meet. 5 Yet is the ending certain. 6 For God's Will is done in earth and Heaven. 7 We will seek and we will find according to His Will, which guarantees that our will is done.

W-pII.292.2. We thank You, Father, for Your guarantee of only happy outcomes in the end. 2 Help us not interfere, and so delay the happy endings You have promised us for every problem that we can perceive; for every trial we think we still must meet .

LESSON 293.

All fear is past and only love is here.

W-pII.293.1. All fear is past, because its source is gone, and all its thoughts gone with it. 2 Love remains the only present state, whose Source is here forever and forever. 3 Can the world seem bright and clear and safe and welcoming, with all my past mistakes oppressing it, and showing me distorted forms of fear? 4 Yet in the present love is obvious, and its effects apparent. 5 All the world shines in reflection of its holy light, and I perceive a world forgiven at last.

W-pII.293.2. Father, let not Your holy world escape my sight today. 2 Nor let my ears be deaf to all the hymns of gratitude the world is singing underneath the sounds of fear. 3 There is a real world which the present holds safe from all past mistakes. 4 And I would see only this world before my eyes today.

LESSON 294.

My body is a wholly neutral thing.

W-pII.294.1. I am a Son of God. 2 And can I be another thing as well? 3 Did God create the mortal and corruptible? 4 What use has God's beloved Son for what must die? 5 And yet a neutral thing does not see death, for thoughts of fear are not invested there, nor is a mockery of love bestowed upon it. 6 Its neutrality protects it while it has a use. 7 And afterwards, without a purpose, it is laid aside. 8 It is not sick nor old nor hurt. 9 It is but functionless, unneeded and cast off. 10 Let me not see it more than this today; of service for a while and fit to serve, to keep its usefulness while it can serve, and then to be replaced for greater good.

W-pII.294.2. My body, Father, cannot be Your Son. 2 And what is not created cannot be sinful nor sinless; neither good nor bad. 3 Let me, then, use this dream to help Your plan that we awaken from all dreams we made.

LESSON 295.

The Holy Spirit looks through me today.

W-pII.295.1. Christ asks that He may use my eyes today, and thus redeem the world. 2 He asks this gift that He may offer peace of mind to me, and take away all terror and all pain. 3 And as they are removed from me, the dreams that seemed to settle on the world are gone. 4 Redemption must be one. 5 As I am saved, the world is saved with me. 6 For all of us must be redeemed together. 7 Fear appears in many different forms, but love is one.

W-pII.295.2. My Father, Christ has asked a gift of me, and one I give that it be given me. 2 Help me to use the eyes of Christ today, and thus allow the Holy Spirit's Love to bless all things which I may look upon, that His forgiving Love may rest on me.

LESSON 296.

The Holy Spirit speaks through me today.

W-pII.296.1. The Holy Spirit needs my voice today, that all the world may listen to Your Voice, and hear Your Word through me. 2 I am resolved to let You speak through me, for I would use no words but Yours, and have no thoughts which are apart from Yours, for only Yours are true. 3 I would be savior to the world I made. 4 For having damned it I would set it free, that I may find escape, and hear the Word Your holy Voice will speak to me today.

W-pII.296.2. We teach today what we would learn, and that alone. 2 And so our learning goal becomes an unconflicted one, and possible of easy reach and quick accomplishment. 3 How gladly does the Holy Spirit come to rescue us from hell, when we allow His teaching to persuade the world, through us, to seek and find the easy path to God.

LESSON 297.

Forgiveness is the only gift I give.

W-pII.297.1. Forgiveness is the only gift I give, because it is the only gift I want. 2 And everything I give I give myself. 3 This is salvation's simple formula. 4 And I, who would be saved, would make it mine, to be the way I live within a world that needs salvation, and that will be saved as I accept Atonement for myself.

W-pII.297.2. Father, how certain are Your ways; how sure their final outcome, and how faithfully is every step in my salvation set already, and accomplished by Your grace. 2 Thanks be to You for Your eternal gifts, and thanks to You for my Identity.

LESSON 298.

I love You, Father, and I love Your Son.

W-pII.298.1. My gratitude permits my love to be accepted without fear. 2 And thus am I restored to my reality at last. 3 All that intruded on my holy sight forgiveness takes away. 4 And I draw near the end of senseless journeys, mad careers and artificial values. 5 I accept instead what God establishes as mine, sure that in that alone I will be saved; sure that I go through fear to meet my Love.

W-pII.298.2. Father, I come to You today, because I would not follow any way but Yours. 2 You are beside me. 3 Certain is Your way. 4 And I am grateful for Your holy gifts of certain sanctuary, and escape from everything that would obscure my love for God my Father and His holy Son .

LESSON 299.

Eternal holiness abides in me.

W-pII.299.1. My holiness is far beyond my own ability to understand or know. 2 Yet God, my Father, Who created it, acknowledges my holiness as His. 3 Our Will, together, understands it. 4 And Our Will, together, knows that it is so.

W-pII.299.2. Father, my holiness is not of me. 2 It is not mine to be destroyed by sin. 3 It is not mine to suffer from attack. 4 Illusions can obscure it, but can not put out its radiance, nor dim its light. 5 It stands forever perfect and untouched. 6 In it are all things healed, for they remain as You created them. 7 And I can know my holiness. 8 For Holiness Itself created me, and I can know my Source because it is Your Will that You be known.