¹ The idea for today reaffirms your commitment to salvation. It also reminds you that you have no function other than this. Both of these thoughts are obviously necessary for a total commitment. Salvation cannot be the only purpose you hold while you still cherish others. The full acceptance of salvation as your only function necessarily entails two phases; the recognition of salvation as your function, and the relinquishment of all the other goals you have invented for yourself. This is the only way in which you can take your rightful place among the saviors of the world. This is the only way in which you can say and mean, "My only function is the one God gave me." This is the only way in which you can find peace of mind.

² Today and for a number of days to follow, set aside ten to 15 minutes for a more sustained practice period in which you try to understand and accept what today's idea really means. It offers you escape from all your perceived difficulties. It places the key to the door of peace, which you have closed upon yourself, in your own hands. It gives you the answer to all the searching you have done since time began.

³ Try, if possible, to undertake the daily extended practice periods at approximately the same time each day. Try, also, to determine this time today in advance and then adhere to it as closely as possible.

⁴ The purpose of this is to arrange your day so that you have set apart the time for God, as well as for all the trivial purposes and goals you will pursue. This is part of the long range disciplinary training which your mind needs, so that the Holy Spirit can use it consistently for the purpose He shares with you.

⁵ For this longer practice period, begin by reviewing the idea for today. Then close your eyes, repeat the idea to yourself once again, and watch your mind carefully to catch whatever thoughts cross it.

⁶ At first, make no attempt to concentrate only on thoughts related to the idea for today. Rather, try to uncover each thought that arises to interfere with it. Note each one as it comes to you with as little involvement or concern as possible, dismissing each one by telling yourself:

⁷ This thought reflects a goal that is preventing me from accepting my only function.

⁸ After a while, interfering thoughts will become harder to find. Try, however, to continue a minute or so longer, attempting to catch a few of the idle thoughts which escaped your attention before, but do not strain or make undue effort in doing this. Then tell yourself:

⁹ On this clean slate, let my true function be written for me.

¹⁰ You need not use these exact words, but try to get a sense of being willing to have your illusions of purpose be replaced by truth.

¹¹ Finally, repeat the idea for today once more and devote the rest of the practice period to trying to focus on its importance to you, the relief its acceptance will bring you by resolving your conflicts once and for all, and the extent to which you really want salvation in spite of your own foolish ideas to the contrary.

¹² In the shorter practice periods, which should be undertaken at least once an hour, use this form in applying today's idea:

¹³ My only function is the one God gave me. I want no other and I have no other.

¹⁴ Sometimes close your eyes as you practice, and sometimes keep them open and look about you. It is what you see now that will be totally changed when you accept today's idea completely.

Course in Miracles

Original Edition

TEXT

Chapter 6

Attack and Fear



III. The Uses of Projection

par 25-38

²⁵ Any split in will must involve a rejection of part of it, and this is the belief in separation. The wholeness of God, which is His peace, cannot be appreciated except by a whole mind which recognizes the wholeness of God's creation and by this recognition knows its Creator. Exclusion and separation are synonymous, as are separation and dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and is dissociation and also that, once it had occurred, projection became its main defense or the device that keeps it going. The reason, however, may not be as clear as you think.

²⁶ In the ego's use of projection, to which we are obviously referring, what you project you disown and therefore do not believe is yours. You are excluding yourself by the very statement you are making that you are different from the one on whom you project. Since you have also judged against what you project, you continue to attack it because you have already attacked it by projecting it. By doing this unconsciously, you try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself first out of awareness and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe.

²⁷ Projection will always hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its only purpose is to keep the separation going. It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel different from your brothers and separated from them. The ego justifies this on the wholly spurious grounds that it makes you seem "better" than they are, thus obscuring your equality with them still further. Projection and attack are inevitably related because projection is always a means of justifying attack. Anger without projection is impossible.

²⁸ The ego uses projection only to distort your perception both of yourself and your brothers. The process begins by excluding something [you think] exists in you which you do not want and leads directly to excluding you from your brothers. We have learned, however, that there is another use of projection. Every ability of the ego has a better counterpart, because its abilities are directed by the mind which has a better Voice. The Holy Spirit as well as the ego utilizes projection, but since their goals are opposed, so is the result.

²⁹ The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving you as perfect. Knowing this perfection is shared, He recognizes it in others, thus strengthening it in both. Instead of anger, this arouses love for both, because it establishes inclusion. Perceiving equality, the Holy Spirit perceives equal needs. This invites Atonement automatically, because Atonement is the one need which in this world is universal. To perceive yourself this way is the only way in which you can find happiness in the world. That is because it is the acknowledgment that you are not in this world, for the world is unhappy.

³⁰ How else can you find joy in a joyless place except by realizing that you are not there? You cannot be anywhere that God did not put you, and God created you as part of Him. That is both where you are and what you are. It is completely unalterable. It is total inclusion. You cannot change it now or ever. It is forever true. It is not a belief but a fact. Anything that God created is as true as He is. Its truth lies only in its perfect inclusion in Him, Who alone is perfect. To deny this in any way is to deny yourself and Him since it is impossible to accept one without the other.

³¹ The perfect equality of the Holy Spirit's perception is the counterpart of the perfect equality of God's knowing. The ego's perception has no counterpart in God, but the Holy Spirit remains the bridge between perception and knowledge. By enabling you to use perception in a way that parallels knowledge, you will ultimately meet it and know it. The ego would prefer to believe that this meeting is impossible, yet it is your perception which the Holy Spirit guides. You might remember that the human eye perceives parallel lines as if they meet in the distance, which is the same as in the future if time and space are one dimension. Your perception will end where it began. Everything meets in God because everything was created by Him and in Him.

³² God created His Sons by extending His thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. All His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they were created neither partially nor in part. The Holy Spirit enables you to perceive this wholeness now. You can no more pray for yourselves alone than you can find joy for yourself alone. Prayer is the restatement of inclusion, directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God. God created you to create. You cannot extend His Kingdom until you know of its wholeness.

³³ Thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker from which they extend outward. This is as true of God's Thinking as it is of yours. Because your minds are split, you can also perceive as well as think. Yet perception cannot escape from the basic laws of mind. You perceive from your mind and extend your perceptions outward. Although perception of any kind is unnecessary, you made it, and the Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. He can inspire perception and lead it toward God by making it parallel to God's way of thinking and thus guarantee their ultimate meeting. This convergence seems to be far in the future only because your mind is not in perfect alignment with the idea and therefore does not want it now.

³⁴ The Holy Spirit uses time but does not believe in it. Coming from God, He uses everything for good, but He does not believe in what is not true. Since the Holy Spirit is in your minds, your minds must also be able to believe only what is true. The Holy Spirit can speak only for this because he speaks for God. He tells you to return your whole mind to God because it has never left Him. If it has never left Him, you need only perceive it as it is to be returned. The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that the separation never occurred. The ego cannot prevail against this because it is an explicit statement that the ego never occurred.

³⁵ The ego can accept the idea that return is necessary because it can so easily make the idea seem so difficult. Yet the Holy Spirit tells you that even return is unnecessary because what never happened cannot involve any problem. It does not follow, however, that you cannot make the idea of return both necessary and difficult. It is surely clear, however, that the perfect need nothing and cannot experience perfection as a difficult accomplishment, because that is what they are.

³⁶ This is the way in which you must perceive God's creations, bringing all of your perceptions into the one parallel line which the Holy Spirit sees. This line is the direct line of communication with God and lets your mind converge with His. There is no conflict anywhere in this perception because it means that all perception is guided by the Holy Spirit, Whose mind is fixed on God. Only the Holy Spirit can resolve conflict, because only the Holy Spirit is conflict-free. He perceives only what is true in your mind and extends outward only to what is true in other minds.

³⁷ The difference between the ego's use of projection and projection as the Holy Spirit uses it is very simple. The ego projects to exclude and therefore to deceive. The Holy Spirit projects by recognizing Himself in every mind and thus perceives them as one. Nothing conflicts in this perception, because what the Holy Spirit perceives is the same. Wherever He looks He sees Himself, and because He is united, He offers the whole Kingdom always. This is the one message God gave to Him and for which He must speak because that is what He is. The peace of God lies in that message, and so the peace of God lies in you.

³⁸ The great peace of the Kingdom shines in your mind forever, but it must shine outward to make you aware of it. The Holy Spirit was given you with perfect impartiality, and only by perceiving Him impartially can you perceive Him at all. The ego is legion, but the Holy Spirit is One. No darkness abides anywhere in the Kingdom, but your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your own mind. This alignment with light is unlimited, because it is in alignment with the light of the world. Each of us is the light of the world, and by joining our minds in this light, we proclaim the Kingdom of God together and as one.

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