Library of Christ Mind Teachings
ACIM Original Edition
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4 It cannot be that it is hard to do the task that Christ appointed you
to do, since it is He Who does it. And in the doing of it will you learn
the body merely seems to be the means to do it. For the mind is His. And
so it must be yours. His holiness directs the body through the mind at
one with Him. And you are manifest unto your holy brother, as he to you.
Here is the meeting of the holy Christ unto Himself; nor are any
differences perceived to stand between the aspects of His holiness,
which meet and join and raise Him to His Father, whole and pure and
worthy of His everlasting Love.
5 How can you manifest the Christ in you except you look on holiness and
see Him there? Perception tells you, you are manifest in what you see.
Behold the body, and you will believe that you are there. And every body
that you look upon reminds you of yourself—your sinfulness, your evil,
and above all, your death. And would you not despise the one who tells
you this and seek his death instead? The message and the messenger are
one. And you must see your brother as yourself. Framed in his body,
you will see your sinfulness wherein you stand condemned. Set in his
holiness, the Christ in him proclaims himself as you.
6 Perception is a choice of what you want yourself to be—the world you
want to live in and the state in which you think your mind will be
content and satisfied. It chooses where you think your safety lies, at
your decision. It reveals yourself to you as you would have you be. And
always is it faithful to your purpose from which it never separates nor
gives the slightest witness unto anything the purpose in your mind
upholdeth not. Perception is a part of what it is your purpose to
behold, for means and end are never separate. And thus you learn what
seems to have a life apart has none.
7 You are the means for God—not separate nor with a life apart from
His. His Life is manifest in you who are His Son. Each aspect of Himself
is framed in holiness and perfect purity, in love celestial and so
complete it wishes only that it may release all that it looks upon unto
itself. Its radiance shines through each body that it looks upon and
brushes all its darkness into light merely by looking past it to the
light. The veil is lifted through its gentleness, and nothing hides the
face of Christ from its beholders. And both of you stand there, before
Him now, to let Him draw aside the veil that seems to keep you separate
and apart.
8 Since you believe that you are separate, Heaven presents itself to
you as separate too. Not that it is in truth, but that the link that has
been given you to join the truth may reach to you through what you
understand. Father and Son and Holy Spirit are as One, as all your
brothers join as one in truth. Christ and His Father never have been
separate, and Christ abides within your understanding in the part of you
that shares His Father’s Will. The Holy Spirit links the other part, the
tiny mad desire to be separate, different, and special, to the Christ,
to make the oneness clear to what is really one. In this world, this
is not understood but can be taught.
9 The Holy Spirit serves Christ’s purpose in your mind, so that the aim
of specialness can be corrected where the error lies. Because His
purpose still is one with both the Father and the Son, He knows the Will
of God and what you really will. But this is understood by mind
perceived as one, aware that it is one and so experienced. It is the
Holy Spirit’s function to teach you how this oneness is experienced,
what you must do that it can be experienced, and where you should go
to do it.
10 All this takes note of time and place as if they were discrete, for
while you think that part of you is separate, the concept of a oneness
joined as one is meaningless. It is apparent that a mind so split could
never be the teacher of a Oneness which unites all things within itself.
And so What is within this mind and does unite all things together
must be its Teacher. Yet must It use the language which this mind can
understand in the condition in which it thinks it is. And It must use
all learning to transfer illusions to the truth, taking all false ideas
of what you are and leading you beyond them to the truth that is
beyond them. All this can very simply be reduced to this:
11 What is the same can not be different,
And what is one can not have separate parts.