Publisher's Synopsis
In this TEACHING MANUAL FOR MORE ADVANCED STUDENTS OF A COURSE IN MIRACLES is taught an important lesson of life that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE TWO WORLDS. What you see reflects your thinking. And your thinking but reflects your choice of what you want to see. Your values are determiners of this, for what you value, you must want to see, believing what you see is really there. No one can see a world his mind has not accorded value. And no one can fail to look upon what he believes he wants. Sit quietly and look upon the world you see and tell yourself that the real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere; and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made has had but the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old, and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it. This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that; and so although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in this world the road that leads away from it into another world. Yet the real world has the power to touch you even here because you love it. And what you call with love will come to you. Love always answers, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it from every part of this strange world you made, but do not want. All that you need to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did not make is willingness to learn the one you made is false. You are sustained by the love of God. Here is the answer to every problem that will confront you today, and tomorrow, and throughout time. In this world, you believe you are sustained by everything but God. Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols, like pills, money, protective clothing, influence, prestige, being liked, knowing the right people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness that you endow with magical powers. All these things are your replacements for the Love of God. All these things are cherished to ensure a body identification. They are songs of praise to the ego. Do not put your faith in the worthless. It will not sustain you. Only the Love of God will protect you in all circumstances. It will lift you out of every trial, and raise you high above all the perceived dangers of this world into a climate of perfect peace and safety. It will transport you into a state of mind that nothing can threaten, nothing can disturb, and where nothing can intrude upon the eternal calm of the child of God. Put not your faith in illusions. They will fail you. Put all your faith in the Love of God within you, which is eternal, changeless, and forever unfailing. This is the answer to whatever confronts you today. Through the Love of God within you, you can resolve all seeming difficulties without effort and in sure confidence. Tell yourself this often today. It is a declaration of release from the belief in the world's idols. It is your acknowledgment of the truth about yourself. All that is needful is to train your mind to overlook all little senseless aims and to remember that your goal is God. His memory is hidden in your mind, obscured but by your pointless little goals which offer nothing and do not exist. Shall you continue to allow God's grace to shine in unawareness while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought, instead? God is your only goal, your only Love. You have no aim but to remember Him.
