¹ We have observed before how many senseless things have seemed to you to be salvation. Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself. You are not bound by them. Yet to understand that this is so, you must first realize salvation lies not there. While you would seek for it in things that have no meaning, you bind yourself to laws that make no sense. Thus do you seek to prove salvation is where it is not.

² Today we will be glad you cannot prove it. For if you could, you would forever seek where it is not and never find it. The idea for today tells you once again how simple is salvation. Look for it where it waits for you, and there it will be found. Look nowhere else, for it is nowhere else.

³ Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off death. You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.

⁴ It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the "laws" of medicine, of economics, and of health. Protect the body, and you will be saved.

⁵ These are not laws, but madness. The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy, that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your "laws" would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body.

⁶ There are no laws except the laws of God. This needs repeating over and over until you realize that it applies to everything that you have made in opposition to His Will. Your magic has no meaning. What it is meant to save does not exist. Only what it is meant to hide will save you.

⁷ The laws of God can never be replaced. We will devote today to rejoicing that this is so. It is no longer a truth which we would hide. We realize instead it is a truth which keeps us free forever. Magic imprisons, but the laws of God set free. The light has come because there are no laws but His.

⁸ We will begin the longer practice period today with a short review of the different kinds of "laws" we have believed we must obey. These would include, for example, the laws of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the body's protection in innumerable ways. Think further—you believe in the laws of friendship, of "good" relationships, and reciprocity.

⁹ Perhaps you even think that there are laws which set forth what is God's and what is yours. Many "religions" have been based on this. They would not save, but damn in Heaven's name. Yet they are no more strange than other "laws" you hold must be obeyed to make you safe.

¹⁰ There are no laws but God's. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today, and hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice that speaks the truth to you. You will be listening to One Who says there is no loss under the laws of God. Payment is neither given nor received. Exchange cannot be made, there are no substitutes, and nothing is replaced by something else. God's laws forever give and never take.

¹¹ Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the laws you thought upheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen further. He will tell you more. About the Love your Father has for you. About the endless joy He offers you. About His yearning for His only Son, created as His channel for creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell.

¹² Let us today open God's channels to Him and let His Will extend through us to Him. Thus is creation endlessly increased. His Voice will speak of this to us, as well as of the joys of Heaven which His laws keep limitless forever. We will repeat today's idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws but God's. Then we will tell ourselves, as a dedication with which the practice period concludes:

¹³ I am under no laws but God's.

¹⁴ We will repeat this dedication as often as possible today—at least four or five times an hour, as well as in response to any temptation to experience ourselves as subject to other laws throughout the day. It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved.

Course in Miracles

Original Edition

TEXT

Chapter 7

The Consistency

of the Kingdom



III. The Laws of Mind

par 10-18

¹⁰ To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother and yourself by sharing the Holy Spirit with him. This places you both within the Kingdom and restores its wholeness in your minds. This parallels creation because it unifies by increasing and integrates by extending. What you project you believe. This is an immutable law of the mind in this world as well as in the Kingdom. However, the content is different in this world because the thoughts it governs are very different from the thoughts in the Kingdom. Laws must be adapted to circumstances if they are to maintain order.

¹¹ The outstanding characteristic of the laws of mind as they operate in this world is that by obeying them—and I assure you that you must obey them—you can arrive at diametrically opposed results. This is because the laws have adapted to the circumstances of this world, in which diametrically opposed outcomes are believed in. The laws of mind govern thoughts, and you do respond to two conflicting voices. You have heard many arguments on behalf of "the freedoms," which would indeed have been freedom if man had not chosen to fight for them. That is why they perceive "the freedoms" as many instead of as one. Yet the argument that underlies the defense of freedom is perfectly valid. Because it is true, it should not be fought for, but it should be sided with.

¹² Those who are against freedom believe that its outcome will hurt them, which cannot be true. But those who are for freedom, even if they are misguided in how to defend it, are siding with the one thing in this world which is true. Whenever anyone can listen fairly to both sides of any issue, he will make the right decision. This is because he has the answer. Conflict can seem to be interpersonal, but it must be intrapersonal first.

¹³ The term "intrapersonal" is an ego term because "personal" implies "of one person" and not of others. "Interpersonal" has a similar error in that it refers to something that exists among different or separate people. When we spoke before of the extremely personal nature of revelation, we followed this statement immediately with a description of the inevitable outcomes of the revelation in terms of sharing. A person conceives of himself as separate largely because he perceives of himself as bounded by a body. Only if he perceives himself as a mind can [he overcome this]. Then he is free to use terms like "intramental" and "intermental" without seeing them as different or conflicting, because minds can be in perfect accord.

¹⁴ Outside the Kingdom, the law which prevails inside it is adapted to "what you project you believe." This is its teaching form, since outside the Kingdom teaching is mandatory because learning is essential. This form of the law clearly implies that you will learn what you are from what you have projected onto others and therefore believe they are. In the Kingdom there is no teaching or learning because there is no belief. There is only certainty. God and His Sons, in the surety of being, know that what you project you are. That form of the law is not adapted at all, being the law of creation. God Himself created the law by creating by it. And His Sons, who create like Him, follow it gladly, knowing that the increase of the Kingdom depends on it just as their own creation did.

¹⁵ Laws must be communicated if they are to be helpful. In effect, they must be translated for those who speak a different language. Nevertheless, a good translator, although he must alter the form of what he translates, never changes the meaning. In fact, his whole purpose is to change the form so that the original meaning is retained. The Holy Spirit is the translator of the laws of God to those who do not understand them. You could not do this yourselves because conflicted minds cannot be faithful to one meaning and will therefore change the meaning to preserve the form.

¹⁶ The Holy Spirit's purpose in translating is naturally exactly the opposite. He translates only to preserve the original meaning in all respects and in all languages. Therefore, He opposes differences in form as meaningful, emphasizing always that these differences do not matter. The meaning of His message is always the same, and only the meaning matters. God's law of Creation in perfect form does not involve the use of truth to convince His Sons of truth. The extension of truth, which is the law of the Kingdom, rests only on the knowledge of what truth is. This is your inheritance and requires no learning at all, but when you disinherited yourselves, you became learners.

¹⁷ No one questions the intimate connection of learning and memory. Learning is impossible without memory, since it cannot be consistent unless it is remembered. That is why the Holy Spirit is a lesson in remembering. We said before that He teaches remembering and forgetting, but the forgetting aspect is only to make the remembering consistent. You forget in order to remember better. You will not understand His translations while you listen to two ways of perceiving them. Therefore, you must forget or relinquish one to understand the other. This is the only way you can learn consistency so that you can finally be consistent.

¹⁸ What can the perfect consistency of the Kingdom mean to the confused? It is apparent that confusion interferes with meaning and therefore prevents the learner from appreciating it. There is no confusion in the Kingdom because there is only one meaning. This meaning comes from God and is God. Because it is also you, you share it and extend it as your Creator did. This needs no translation because it is perfectly understood, but it does need extension because it means extension. Communication is perfectly direct and perfectly united. It is totally without strain because nothing discordant ever enters. That is why it is the Kingdom of God. It belongs to Him and is therefore like Him. That is its reality, and nothing can assail it.

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