Library of Christ Mind Teachings
ACIM Original Edition
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1 Perception is consistent. 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.
2 Yet who can really hate and love at once? Who can desire
what he does not want to have reality? And who can choose to see a world
of which he is afraid? Fear must make blind, for this its weapon is—that
which you fear to see you cannot see. Love and perception thus go hand
in hand, but fear obscures in darkness what is there.
3 What, then, can fear project upon the world? What can be
seen in darkness that is real? Truth is eclipsed by fear, and what
remains is but imagined. Yet what can be real in blind imaginings of
panic born? What would you want that this is shown to you? What would
you wish to keep in such a dream?
4 Fear has made everything you think you see. All separation,
all distinctions, and the multitude of differences you believe make up
the world. They are not there. Love’s enemy has made them up. Yet love
can have no enemy, and so they have no cause, no being, and no
consequence. They can be valued but remain unreal. They can be sought,
but they cannot be found.
5 Today we will not seek for them nor waste this day in
seeking not what cannot be found. It is impossible to see two worlds
which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other
disappears. But one remains. They are the range of choice beyond which
your decision cannot go. The real and the unreal are all there is to
choose between, and nothing more than these.
6 Today we will attempt no compromise where none is possible.
The world you see is proof you have already made a choice as
all-embracing as its opposite. What we would learn today is more than
just the lesson that you cannot see two worlds. It also teaches that the
one you see is quite consistent from the point of view from which you
see it. It is all a piece because it stems from one emotion and reflects
its source in everything you see.
7 Six times today in thanks and gratitude we gladly give five
minutes to the thought which ends all compromise and doubt and go beyond
them all as one. We will not make a thousand meaningless distinctions,
nor attempt to bring with us a little part of unreality as we devote our
minds to finding only what is real.
8 Begin your searching for the other world by asking for a
strength beyond your own, and recognize what it is you seek. You do not
want illusions. And you come to these five minutes emptying your hands
of all the petty treasures of this world. You wait for God to help you
as you say:
9 It is impossible to see two worlds.
Let me accept the strength God offers me
And see no value in this world that I
May find my freedom and deliverance.
10 God will be there. For you have called upon the great
unfailing Power Who will take this giant step with you in gratitude. Nor
will you fail to see His thanks expressed in tangible perception and in
truth. You will not doubt what you will look upon. For though it is
perception, it is not the kind of seeing that your eyes alone have ever
seen before. And you will know God’s strength upheld as you made this
choice.
11 Dismiss temptation easily today whenever it arises merely
by remembering the limits on your choice. The unreal or the real, the
false or true is what you see, and only what you see. Perception is
consistent with your choice, and hell or Heaven comes to you as one.
12 Accept a little part of hell as real, and you have damned
your eyes and cursed your sight, and what you will behold is hell
indeed. Yet the release of Heaven still remains within your range of
choice to take the place of everything that hell would show to you. All
you need say to any part of hell, whatever form it takes, is simply
this:
13 It is impossible to see two worlds.
I seek my freedom and deliverance,
And this is not a part of what I want.