The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught.
It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.
The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
Text-Intro. 1:6-8 & 2:1-4.
Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love.
The real miracle is the love that inspires them.
In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.
Text-1. I.1:1-3.
In you is all of Heaven.
Every leaf that falls is given life in you.
Each bird that ever sang will sing again in you.
And every flower that ever bloomed has saved its perfume and its loveliness for you.
Text-25. IV. 5:1-4.
You are the work of God, and His work is wholly lovable and wholly loving.
This is how a man must think of himself in his heart, because this is what he is.
Text-1. III. 2:3-4.
Whenever you are not wholly joyous, it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to one of God’s creations.
Text-5. VII. 5:1.
My holy brother, think of this awhile: The world you see does nothing.
It has no effects at all.
It merely represents your thoughts.
And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want.
Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable, forever and forever.
Workbook-p I. Lesson 190. 6:1-5.
Dwell not upon the past today.
Keep a completely open mind, washed of all past ideas and clean of every concept you have made.
You have forgiven the world today. You can look upon it now as if you never saw it before.
You do not know yet what it looks like.
You merely wait to have it shown to you.
While you wait, repeat several times, slowly and in complete patience:
The light has come. I have forgiven the world.
Workbook-p I. Lesson 75. 6:1-9.
Salvation requires the acceptance of but one thought;—you are as God created you, not what you made of yourself.
Whatever evil you may think you did, you are as God created you.
Whatever mistakes you made, the truth about you is unchanged.
Creation is eternal and unalterable. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. You are and will forever be exactly as you were created.
Light and joy and peace abide in you because God put them there.
Workbook-p I. Lesson 93. 7:1-7.
It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain.
Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way.
There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression.
No one but yourself affects you.
There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail.
But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are.
Workbook-p I. Lesson 190. 5:1-6.
I have said you have but two emotions, love and fear.
One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered by the eternal to the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it increases as it is given.
The other has many forms, for the content of individual illusions differs greatly. Yet they have one thing in common; they are all insane.
Text-13. V. 1:1-9.
Perception can make whatever picture the mind desires to see.
Remember this.
In this lies either Heaven or hell, as you elect.
Manual for Teachers. 19. 5:2-4.
Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit.
Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way.
Text-2. III. 3:5-8.
The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true.
This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions.
No one is afraid of them when he perceives he made them up.
The fear was held in place because he did not see that he was author of the dream, and not a figure in the dream.
Text-28. II. 7:1-4.
Forgive us our illusions, Father, and help us to accept our true relationship with You, in which there are no illusions, and where none can ever enter.
Our holiness is Yours. What can there be in us that needs forgiveness when Yours is perfect?
The sleep of forgetfulness is only the unwillingness to remember Your forgiveness and Your Love.
Let us not wander into temptation, for the temptation of the Son of God is not Your Will.
And let us receive only what You have given, and accept but this into the minds which You created and which You love. Amen.
Text-16. VII. 12:1-7.
What would you see? The choice is given you.
But learn and do not let your mind forget this law of seeing:
You will look upon that which you feel within.
If hatred finds a place within your heart, you will perceive a fearful world, held cruelly in death’s sharp-pointed, bony fingers.
If you feel the Love of God within you, you will look out on a world of mercy and of love.
Workbook-pI. Lesson 189. 5:1-5.
When the ego was made, God placed in the mind the Call to joy.
This Call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at Its sound.
That is why you must choose to hear one of two voices within you.
One you made yourself, and that one is not of God.
But the other is given you by God, Who asks you only to listen to it.
Text-5. II. 3:2-6.
What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?
Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you.
But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took.
While you made plans for death, He led you gently to eternal life.
Workbook-p I. Lesson 135. 18:1-4.
When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter.
As you see him you will see yourself.
As you treat him you will treat yourself.
As you think of him you will think of yourself.
Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself.
Text-8. III. 4:1-5.
The world but demonstrates an ancient truth; you will believe that others do to you exactly what you think you did to them.
But once deluded into blaming them you will not see the cause of what they do, because you want the guilt to rest on them.
How childish is the petulant device to keep your innocence by pushing guilt outside yourself, but never letting go!
Text-27. VIII. 8:1-3.
The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is “Know thyself.”
There is nothing else to seek.
Text-8. III. 5:1.
Seek not outside yourself.
For all your pain comes simply from a futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there?
Do you prefer that you be right or happy? Be you glad that you are told where happiness abides, and seek no longer elsewhere. You will fail.
But it is given you to know the truth, and not to seek for it outside yourself.
Text-29. VII. 1:6-10.
You will identify with what you think will make you safe.
Whatever it may be, you will believe that it is one with you.
Your safety lies in truth, and not in lies. Love is your safety. Fear does not exist.
Identify with love, and you are safe.
Identify with love, and you are home.
Identify with love, and find your Self.
Workbook-p II. Lesson 260. 5. 5:1-8.
Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself.
Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed.
Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything.
Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.
Workbook-p I. Lesson 189. 7:1-5.
Try then, today, to begin to learn how to look on all things with love, appreciation and open-mindedness.
Workbook-p I. Lesson 29. 3:1.
When your peace is threatened or disturbed in any way, say to yourself:
I do not know what anything, including this, means. And so I do not know how to respond to it. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now.
By this refusal to attempt to teach yourself what you do not know, the Guide Whom God has given you will speak to you.
He will take His rightful place in your awareness the instant you abandon it, and offer it to Him.
Text-14. XI. 6:6-9.
What could you want forgiveness cannot give?
Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it.
Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world?
Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always?
Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?
All this forgiveness offers you, and more.
Workbook-p I. Lesson 122. 1:1-6 to 2:1.
Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am, I realize that vision is my greatest need.
The world I see attests to the fearful nature of the self-image I have made.
If I would remember who I am, it is essential that I let this image of myself go.
As it is replaced by truth, vision will surely be given me.
And with this vision, I will look upon the world and on myself with charity and love.
Workbook-p I. Lesson 56. 2:1-7.
Seek you no further.
You will not find peace except the peace of God.
Accept this fact, and save yourself the agony of yet more bitter disappointments, bleak despair, and sense of icy hopelessness and doubt.
Seek you no further.
There is nothing else for you to find except the peace of God, unless you seek for misery and pain.
Workbook-p I. Lesson 200. 1:1-5.
The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever.
It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed.
Text-8. VI. 9:6-7.
Your being is the knowledge of God.
Text-7. VI. 10:1.
You have so little faith in yourself because you are unwilling to accept the fact that perfect love is in you.
And so you seek without for what you cannot find without.
I offer you my perfect faith in you, in place of all your doubts.
But forget not that my faith must be as perfect in all your brothers as it is in you, or it would be a limited gift to you.
Text-15. VI. 2:1-4.