¹ Just as God's Son completes his Father, so your part in it completes your Father's plan. Salvation must reverse the mad belief in separate thoughts and separate bodies which lead separate lives and go their separate ways. One function shared by separate minds unites them in one purpose, for each one is equally essential to them all.

² God's Will for you is perfect happiness. Why should you choose to go against His Will? The part that He has saved for you to take in working out His plan is given you that you might be restored to what He wills. This part is as essential to His plan as to your happiness. Your joy must be complete to let His plan be understood by those to whom He sends you. They will see their function in your shining face and hear God calling to them in your happy laugh.

³ You are indeed essential to God's plan. Without your joy, His joy is incomplete. Without your smile, the world cannot be saved. While you are sad, the light which God Himself appointed as the means to save the world is dim and lusterless. And no one laughs, because all laughter can but echo yours.

⁴ You are indeed essential to God's plan. Just as your light increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth calls to all minds to let their sorrows go and take their place beside you in God's plan. God's messengers are joyous, and their joy heals sorrow and despair. They are the proof that God wills perfect happiness for all who will accept their Father's gifts as theirs.

⁵ We will not let ourselves be sad today. For if we do, we fail to take the part that is essential to God's plan as well as to our vision. Sadness is the sign that you would play another part instead of what has been assigned to you by God. Thus do you fail to show the world how great the happiness He wills for you. And so you do not recognize that it is yours.

⁶ Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here. If you are sad, your part is unfulfilled and all the world is thus deprived of joy along with you. God asks that you be happy so the world can see how much He loves His Son and wills no sorrow rises to abate his joy; no fear besets him to disturb his peace.

⁷ You are God's messenger today. You bring His happiness to all you look upon, His peace to everyone who looks on you and sees His message in your happy face. We will prepare ourselves for this today in our five minute practice periods by feeling happiness arise in us according to our Father's Will and ours.

⁸ Begin the exercises with the thought today's idea contains. Then realize your part is to be happy. Only this is asked of you or anyone who wants to take his place among God's messengers. Think what this means. You have indeed been wrong in your belief that sacrifice is asked. You but receive according to God's plan and never lose or sacrifice or die.

⁹ Now let us try to find that joy which proves to us and all the world God's Will for us. It is your function that you find it here and that you find it now. For this you came. Let this one be the day that you succeed! Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you.

¹⁰ He will be there. And you can reach Him now. What could you rather look upon in place of Him Who waits that you may look on Him? What little thought has power to hold you back? What foolish goal can keep you from success when He Who calls to you is God Himself? He will be there. You are essential to His plan. You are His messenger today. And you must find what He would have you give.

¹¹ Do not forget the idea for today between your longer practice periods. It is your Self Who calls to you today. And it is Him you answer every time you tell yourself you are essential to God's plan for the salvation of the world.

Course in Miracles

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TEXT

Chapter 9

The Correction of Error



I. Introduction

Par 1-3

¹ The alertness of the ego to the errors which other egos make is not the kind of vigilance the Holy Spirit would have you maintain. Egos are critical in terms of the kind of "sense" they stand for. They understand this kind of sense because it is sensible to them. To the Holy Spirit, it makes no sense at all. To the ego, it is kind and right and good to point out errors and "correct" them. This makes perfect sense to the ego, which is totally unaware of what errors are and what correction is.

² Errors are of the ego, and correction of errors of any kind lies solely in the relinquishment of the ego. When you correct a brother, you are telling him that he is wrong. He may be making no sense at the time, and it is certain that if he is speaking from the ego, he will be making no sense. But your task is still to tell him he is right. You do not tell him this verbally if he is speaking foolishly because he needs correction at another level, since his error is at another level. He is still right because he is a Son of God. His ego is always wrong, no matter what it says or does.

³ If you point out the errors of your brother's ego, you must be seeing through yours, because the Holy Spirit does not perceive his errors. This must be true if there is no communication at all between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego makes no sense, and the Holy Spirit does not attempt to understand anything that arises from it. Since He does not understand it, He does not judge it, knowing that nothing it engenders means anything.

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Course in Miracles

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TEXT

Chapter 9

The Correction of Error



II. Sanity and Perception

Par 4-8

⁴ When you react at all to errors, you are not listening to the Holy Spirit. He has merely disregarded them, and if you attend to them, you are not hearing Him. If you do not hear Him, you are listening to your ego and making as little sense as the brother whose errors you perceive. This cannot be correction. Yet it is more than merely lack of correction for him. It is the giving up of correction in yourself.

⁵ When a brother behaves insanely, you can heal him only by perceiving the sanity in him. If you perceive his errors and accept them, you are accepting yours. If you want to give yours over to the Holy Spirit, you must do this with his. Unless this becomes the one way in which you handle all errors, you cannot understand how all errors are undone. How is this different from telling you that what you teach you learn? Your brother is as right as you are, and if you think he is wrong, you are condemning yourself.

⁶ You cannot correct yourself. Is it possible, then, for you to correct another? Yet you can see him truly because it is possible for you to see yourself truly. It is not up to you to change him but merely to accept him as he is. His errors do not come from the truth that is in him, and only this truth is yours. His errors cannot change this and can have no effect at all on the truth in you. To perceive errors in anyone and to react to them as if they were real is to make them real to you. You will not escape paying the price for this, not because you are being punished for it, but because you are following the wrong guide and will lose your way.

⁷ Your brother's errors are not of him any more than yours are of you. Accept his errors as real, and you have attacked yourself. If you would find your way and keep it, see only truth beside you, for you walk together. The Holy Spirit in you forgives all things in you and in your brother. His errors are forgiven with yours. Atonement is no more separate than love. Atonement cannot be separate because it comes from love. Any attempt you make to correct a brother means that you believe correction by you is possible, and this can only be the arrogance of the ego. Correction is of God, Who does not know of arrogance. The Holy Spirit forgives everything because God created everything.

⁸ Do not undertake His function, or you will forget yours. Accept only the function of healing in time because that is what time is for. God gave you the function to create in eternity. You do not need to learn this, but you do need to learn to want this, and for this all learning was made. This is the Holy Spirit's good use of an ability which you do not need, but which you have made. Give it to Him! You do not know how to use it. He will teach you how to see yourself without condemnation by learning how to look on everything without it. Condemnation will then not be real to you, and all your errors will be forgiven.

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