1. When no perception stands between God and His creations, or between His children and their own, the knowledge of creation must continue forever. ²The reflections you accept into the mirror of your mind in time but bring eternity nearer or farther. ³But eternity itself is beyond all time. ⁴Reach out of time and touch it, with the help of its reflection in you. ⁵And you will turn from time to holiness, as surely as the reflection of holiness calls everyone to lay all guilt aside. ⁶Reflect the peace of Heaven here, and bring this world to Heaven. ⁷For the reflection of truth draws everyone to truth, and as they enter into it they leave all reflections behind.

2. In Heaven reality is shared and not reflected. ²By sharing its reflection here, its truth becomes the only perception the Son of God accepts. ³And thus, remembrance of his Father dawns on him, and he can no longer be satisfied with anything but his own reality. ⁴You on earth have no conception of limitlessness, for the world you seem to live in is a world of limits. ⁵In this world, it is not true that anything without order of difficulty can occur. ⁶The miracle, therefore, has a unique function, and is motivated by a unique Teacher Who brings the laws of another world to this one. ⁷The miracle is the one thing you can do that transcends order, being based not on differences but on equality.

3. Miracles are not in competition, and the number of them that you can do is limitless. ²They can be simultaneous and legion. ³This is not difficult to understand, once you conceive of them as possible at all. ⁴What is more difficult to grasp is the lack of order of difficulty that stamps the miracle as something that must come from elsewhere, not from here. ⁵From the world’s viewpoint, this is impossible.

4. Perhaps you have been aware of lack of competition among your thoughts, which even though they may conflict, can occur together and in great numbers. ²You may indeed be so used to this that it causes you little surprise. ³Yet you are also used to classifying some of your thoughts as more important, larger or better, wiser, or more productive and valuable than others. ⁴This is true of the thoughts that cross the mind of those who think they live apart. ⁵For some are reflections of Heaven, while others are motivated by the ego, which but seems to think.

5. The result is a weaving, changing pattern that never rests and is never still. ²It shifts unceasingly across the mirror of your mind, and the reflections of Heaven last but a moment and grow dim, as darkness blots them out. ³Where there was light, darkness removes it in an instant, and alternating patterns of light and darkness sweep constantly across your mind. ⁴The little sanity that still remains is held together by a sense of order that you establish. ⁵Yet the very fact that you can do this, and bring any order into chaos shows you that you are not an ego, and that more than an ego must be in you. ⁶For the ego is chaos, and if it were all of you, no order at all would be possible. ⁷Yet though the order you impose upon your mind limits the ego, it also limits you. ⁸To order is to judge, and to arrange by judgment. ⁹Therefore it is not your function, but the Holy Spirit’s.

6. It will seem difficult for you to learn that you have no basis at all for ordering your thoughts. ²This lesson the Holy Spirit teaches by giving you the shining examples of miracles to show you that your way of ordering is wrong, but that a better way is offered you. ³The miracle offers exactly the same response to every call for help. ⁴It does not judge the call. ⁵It merely recognizes what it is, and answers accordingly. ⁶It does not consider which call is louder or greater or more important. ⁷You may wonder how you who are still bound to judgment can be asked to do that which requires no judgment of your own. ⁸The answer is very simple. ⁹The power of God, and not of you, engenders miracles. ¹⁰The miracle itself is but the witness that you have the power of God in you. ¹¹That is the reason why the miracle gives equal blessing to all who share in it, and that is also why everyone shares in it. ¹²The power of God is limitless. ¹³And being always maximal, it offers everything to every call from anyone. ¹⁴There is no order of difficulty here. ¹⁵A call for help is given help.

7. The only judgment involved is the Holy Spirit’s one division into two categories; one of love, and the other the call for love. ²You cannot safely make this division, for you are much too confused either to recognize love, or to believe that everything else is nothing but a call for love. ³You are too bound to form, and not to content. ⁴What you consider content is not content at all. ⁵It is merely form, and nothing else. ⁶For you do not respond to what a brother really offers you, but only to the particular perception of his offering by which the ego judges it.

8. The ego is incapable of understanding content, and is totally unconcerned with it. ²To the ego, if the form is acceptable the content must be. ³Otherwise it will attack the form. ⁴If you believe you understand something of the “dynamics” of the ego, let me assure you that you understand nothing of it. ⁵For of yourself you could not understand it. ⁶The study of the ego is not the study of the mind. ⁷In fact, the ego enjoys studying itself, and thoroughly approves the undertakings of students who would “analyze” it, thus approving its importance. ⁸Yet they but study form with meaningless content. ⁹For their teacher is senseless, though careful to conceal this fact behind impressive sounding words, but which lack any consistent sense when they are put together.

9. This is characteristic of the ego’s judgments. ²Separately, they seem to hold, but put them together and the system of thought that arises from joining them is incoherent and utterly chaotic. ³For form is not enough for meaning, and the underlying lack of content makes a cohesive system impossible. ⁴Separation therefore remains the ego’s chosen condition. ⁵For no one alone can judge the ego truly. ⁶Yet when two or more join together in searching for truth, the ego can no longer defend its lack of content. ⁷The fact of union tells them it is not true.

10. It is impossible to remember God in secret and alone. ²For remembering Him means you are not alone, and are willing to remember it. ³Take no thought for yourself, for no thought you hold is for yourself. ⁴If you would remember your Father, let the Holy Spirit order your thoughts and give only the answer with which He answers you. ⁵Everyone seeks for love as you do, but knows it not unless he joins with you in seeking it. ⁶If you undertake the search together, you bring with you a light so powerful that what you see is given meaning. ⁷The lonely journey fails because it has excluded what it would find.

11. As God communicates to the Holy Spirit in you, so does the Holy Spirit translate His communications through you, so you can understand them. ²God has no secret communications, for everything of Him is perfectly open and freely accessible to all, being for all. ³Nothing lives in secret, and what you would hide from the Holy Spirit is nothing. ⁴Every interpretation you would lay upon a brother is senseless. ⁵Let the Holy Spirit show him to you, and teach you both his love and his call for love. ⁶Neither his mind nor yours holds more than these two orders of thought.

12. The miracle is the recognition that this is true. ²Where there is love, your brother must give it to you because of what it is. ³But where there is a call for love, you must give it because of what you are. ⁴Earlier I said this course will teach you how to remember what you are, restoring to you your Identity. ⁵We have already learned that this Identity is shared. ⁶The miracle becomes the means of sharing It. ⁷By supplying your Identity wherever It is not recognized, you will recognize It. ⁸And God Himself, Who wills to be with His Son forever, will bless each recognition of His Son with all the Love He holds for him. ⁹Nor will the power of all His Love be absent from any miracle you offer to His Son. ¹⁰How, then, can there be any order of difficulty among them?