1. Only love is strong because it is undivided. ²The strong do not attack because they see no need to do so. ³Before the idea of attack can enter your mind, you must have perceived yourself as weak. ⁴Because you attacked yourself and believed that the attack was effective, you behold yourself as weakened. ⁵No longer perceiving yourself and your brothers as equal, and regarding yourself as weaker, you attempt to “equalize” the situation you made. ⁶You use attack to do so because you believe that attack was successful in weakening you.

2. That is why the recognition of your own invulnerability is so important to the restoration of your sanity. ²For if you accept your invulnerability, you are recognizing that attack has no effect. ³Although you have attacked yourself, you will be demonstrating that nothing really happened. ⁴Therefore, by attacking you have not done anything. ⁵Once you realize this you will no longer see any sense in attack, for it manifestly does not work and cannot protect you. ⁶Yet the recognition of your invulnerability has more than negative value. ⁷If your attacks on yourself have failed to weaken you, you are still strong. ⁸You therefore have no need to “equalize” the situation to establish your strength.

3. You will never realize the utter uselessness of attack except by recognizing that your attack on yourself has no effects. ²For 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. ³The only place you can cancel out all reinforcement is in yourself. ⁴For you are always the first point of your attack, and if this has never been, it has no consequences.

4. The Holy Spirit’s Love is your strength, for yours is divided and therefore not real. ²You cannot trust your own love when you attack it. ³You cannot learn of perfect love with a split mind, because a split mind has made itself a poor learner. ⁴You tried to make the separation eternal, because you wanted to retain the characteristics of creation, but with your own content. ⁵Yet creation is not of you, and poor learners do need special teaching.

5. You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense. ²There are areas in your learning skills that are so impaired that you can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, provided by a Teacher Who can transcend your limited resources. ³He becomes your Resource because of yourself you cannot learn. ⁴The learning situation in which you placed yourself is impossible, and in this situation you clearly require a special Teacher and a special curriculum. ⁵Poor learners are not good choices as teachers, either for themselves or for anyone else. ⁶You would hardly turn to them to establish the curriculum by which they can escape from their limitations. ⁷If they understood what is beyond them, they would not be handicapped.

6. You do not know the meaning of love, and that is your handicap. ²Do not attempt to teach yourself what you do not understand, and do not try to set up curriculum goals where yours have clearly failed. ³Your learning goal has been not to learn, and this cannot lead to successful learning. ⁴You cannot transfer what you have not learned, and the impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure. ⁵Would you ask those who have failed to learn what learning aids are for? ⁶They do not know. ⁷If they could interpret the aids correctly, they would have learned from them.

7. I have said that the ego’s rule is, “Seek and do not find.” ²Translated into curricular terms this means, “Try to learn but do not succeed.” ³The result of this curriculum goal is obvious. ⁴Every legitimate teaching aid, every real instruction, and every sensible guide to learning will be misinterpreted, since they are all for facilitating the learning this strange curriculum is against. ⁵If you are trying to learn how not to learn, and the aim of your teaching is to defeat itself, what can you expect but confusion? ⁶Such a curriculum does not make sense. ⁷This attempt at “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. ⁸A supplementary goal in this curriculum is learning how not to overcome the split that makes its primary aim believable. ⁹And you will not overcome the split in this curriculum, for all your learning will be on its behalf. ¹⁰Yet your mind speaks against your learning as your learning speaks against your mind, and so you fight against all learning and succeed, for that is what you want. ¹¹But perhaps you do not realize, even yet, that there is something you want to learn, and that you can learn it because it is your choice to do so.

8. You who have tried to learn what you do not want should take heart, for although the curriculum you set yourself is depressing indeed, it is merely ridiculous if you look at it. ²Is it possible that the way to achieve a goal is not to attain it? ³Resign now as your own teacher. ⁴This resignation will not lead to depression. ⁵It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourself, and of the learning outcomes that have resulted. ⁶Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become an excellent learner and an excellent teacher. ⁷But it is not so yet, and will not be so until the whole learning situation as you have set it up is reversed.

9. Your learning potential, properly understood, is limitless because it will lead you to God. ²You can teach the way to Him and learn it, if you follow the Teacher Who knows the way to Him and understands His curriculum for learning it. ³The curriculum is totally unambiguous, because the goal is not divided and the means and the end are in complete accord. ⁴You need offer only undivided attention. ⁵Everything else will be given you. ⁶For you really want to learn aright, and nothing can oppose the decision of God’s Son. ⁷His learning is as unlimited as he is.