¹ This is the thought which follows from the one we practiced yesterday. You cannot stop with the idea the world is worthless, for unless you see that there is something else to hope for, you will only be depressed. Our emphasis is not on giving up the world but on exchanging it for what is far more satisfying, filled with joy, and capable of offering you peace. Think you this world can offer that to you?

² It might be worth a little time to think once more about the value of this world. Perhaps you will concede there is no loss in letting go all thought of value here. The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge, and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end.

³ Is it a loss to find a world instead where losing is impossible, where love endures forever, hate cannot exist, and vengeance has no meaning? Is it loss to find all things you really want and know they have no ending, and they will remain exactly as you want them throughout time?

⁴ Yet even they will be exchanged at last for what we cannot speak of, for you go from there to where words fail entirely, into a silence where the language is unspoken and yet surely understood. Communication, unambiguous and plain as day, remains unlimited for all eternity. And God Himself speaks to His Son as His Son speaks to Him. Their language has no words, for what they say cannot be symbolized. Their knowledge is direct and wholly shared and wholly one.

⁵ How far away from this are you who stay bound to this world. And yet how near are you when you exchange it for the world you want. Now is the last step certain; now you stand an instant's space away from timelessness. Here can you but look forward, never back to see again the world you do not want. Here is the world that comes to take its place as you unbind your mind from little things the world sets forth to keep you prisoner there. Value them not, and they will disappear. Esteem them, and they will seem real to you.

⁶ Such is the choice. What loss can be for you in choosing not to value nothingness? This world holds nothing that you really want, but what you choose instead you want indeed! Let it be given you today. It waits but for your choosing it to take the place of all the things you seek but do not want.

⁷ Practice your willingness to make this change ten minutes in the morning and at night and once more in between. Begin with this:

⁸ Beyond this world there is a world I want. I choose to see that world instead of this, for here is nothing that I really want.

⁹ Then close your eyes upon the world you see, and in the silent darkness watch the lights that are not of this world light one by one until where one begins, another ends, losing all meaning as they blend in one.

¹⁰ Today the lights of Heaven bend to you, to shine upon your eyelids as you rest beyond the world of darkness. Here is light your eyes cannot behold. And yet your mind can see it plainly and can understand. A day of grace is given you today, and we give thanks. This day we realize that what you feared to lose was only loss.

¹¹ Now do we understand there is no loss, for we have seen its opposite at last, and we are grateful that the choice is made. Remember your decision hourly, and take a moment to confirm your choice by laying by whatever thoughts you have, and dwelling briefly only upon this:

¹² The world I see has nothing that I want. Beyond this world there is a world I want.

Course in Miracles

Original Edition

TEXT

Chapter 11

God's Plan for Salvation



VI. The Sane Curriculum

Par 43-52

[READING PAUSED FOR WEEKEND]

⁴³ Only love is strong because it is undivided. The strong do not attack because they see no need to do so. Before the idea of attack can enter your mind, you must have perceived yourself as weak. Because you had attacked yourself and believed that the attack was effective, you behold yourself as weakened. No longer perceiving yourself and all your brothers as equal and regarding yourself as weaker, you attempt to "equalize" the situation you have made. You use attack to do so because you believe that attack was successful in weakening you.

⁴⁴ That is why the recognition of your own invulnerability is so important in the restoration of your sanity. For if you accept your invulnerability, you are recognizing that attack has no effect. Although you have attacked yourself, and very brutally, you will demonstrate that nothing happened. Therefore, by attacking you have not done anything. Once you realize this, there is no longer any sense in attack, for it manifestly does not work and cannot protect you. Yet the recognition of your invulnerability has more than negative value. If your attacks on yourself have failed to weaken you, you are still strong. You therefore have no need to "equalize" the situation to establish your strength.

⁴⁵ You will never realize the utter uselessness of attack except by recognizing that your attack on yourself had no effects. For others do react to attack if they perceive it, and if you are trying to attack them, you will be unable to avoid interpreting this as reinforcement. The only place where you can cancel out all reinforcement is in yourself. For you are always the first point of your attack, and if this has never been, it has no consequences.

⁴⁶ The Holy Spirit's love is your strength, for yours is divided and therefore not real. You could not trust your own love when you have attacked it. You cannot learn of perfect love with a split mind because a split mind has made itself a poor learner. You tried to make the separation eternal because you wanted to retain the characteristics of creation with your own content. Yet creation is not of you, and poor learners need special teaching. You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense.

⁴⁷ There are areas in your learning skills which are so impaired that you can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction provided by a Teacher Who can transcend your limited resources. He becomes your resource because, of yourself, you cannot learn. The learning situation in which you placed yourself is impossible, and in this situation you clearly require a special Teacher and a special curriculum. Poor learners are not good choices for teachers, either for themselves or for anyone else. You would hardly turn to them to establish the curriculum by which they can escape from their limitations. If they understood what is beyond them, they would not be handicapped.

⁴⁸ You do not know the meaning of love, and that is your handicap. Do not attempt to teach yourselves what you do not understand, and do not try to set up curriculum goals where yours have clearly failed. Your learning goal has been not to learn, and this cannot lead to successful learning. You cannot transfer what you have not learned, and the impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure. Would you ask those who have failed to learn what learning aids are for? They do not know. For if they could interpret the aids correctly, they would have learned from them.

⁴⁹ We have said that the ego's rule is, "Seek and do not find." Translated into curricular terms, this is the same as saying, " Try to learn but do not succeed." The result of this curriculum goal is obvious. Every legitimate teaching aid, every real instruction, and every sensible guide to learning will be misinterpreted. For they are all for learning facilitation, which this strange curriculum goal is against. If you are trying to learn how not to learn and are using the aim of teaching to defeat itself, what can you expect but confusion? The curriculum does not make sense.

⁵⁰ This kind of "learning" has so weakened your mind that you cannot love, for the curriculum you have chosen is against love and amounts to a course in how to attack yourself. A necessary minor, supplementing this major curriculum goal, is learning how not to overcome the split which made this goal believable. And you can not overcome it, for all your learning is on its behalf. Yet your will speaks against your learning, as your learning speaks against your will, and so you fight against learning and succeed, for that is your will. But you do not realize even yet that there is something you do will to learn, and that you can learn it because it is your will to do so.

⁵¹ You who have tried to learn what you do not will should take heart, for although the curriculum you set yourself is depressing indeed, it is merely ridiculous if you look at it. Is it possible that the way to achieve a goal is not to attain it? Resign now as your own teachers. This resignation will not lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourselves and of the learning outcomes which have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become excellent learners and teachers. But it is not so yet and will not be so until the whole learning situation as you have set it up is reversed.

⁵² Your learning potential, properly understood, is limitless because it will lead you to God. You can teach the way to Him and learn it if you follow the Teacher Who knows it and His curriculum for learning it. The curriculum is totally unambiguous because the goal is not divided, and the means and the end are in complete accord. You need offer only undivided attention. Everything else will be given you. For it is your will to learn aright, and nothing can oppose the will of God's Son. His learning is as unlimited as he is.

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