Chapter Nine: The Correction of Error
VIII. The Inclusiveness of Creation
59 Nothing beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving because nothing is beyond you. Time and eternity are both in your mind and will conflict until you perceive time solely as a means to regain eternity. You cannot do this as long as you believe that anything which happens to you is caused by factors outside yourself. You must learn that time is solely at your disposal, and that nothing in the world can take this responsibility from you. You can violate God's laws in your imagination, but you cannot escape from them. They were established for your protection and are as inviolate as your safety.
60 God created nothing beside you, and nothing beside you exists, for you are part of Him. What except Him can exist? Nothing beyond Him can happen because nothing except Him is real. Your creations add to Him as you do, but nothing is added that is different because everything has always been. What can upset you except the ephemeral, and how can the ephemeral be real if you are God's only creation, and He created you eternal? Your holy will establishes everything that happens to you. Every response you make to everything you perceive is up to you because your will determines your perception of it.
61 God does not change His Mind about you, for He is not uncertain of Himself. And what He knows can be known because He does not know only for Himself. He created you for Himself, but He gave you the power to create for your self so you could be like Him. That is why your will is holy. Can anything exceed the love of God? Can anything, then, exceed your will? Nothing can reach you from beyond it because, being in God, you encompass everything. Believe this, and you will realize how much is up to you. When anything threatens your peace of mind, ask yourself,
63 Then accept His decision, for it is indeed changeless, and refuse to change your mind about yourself. God will never decide against you, or He would be deciding against Himself.
64 The reason you do not know your creations is simply that you would decide against them as long as your minds are split, and to attack what you have created is impossible. But remember that it is as impossible for God. The law of creation is that you love your creations as yourself because they are part of you. Everything that was created is therefore perfectly safe because the laws of God protect it by His Love. Any part of your mind that does not know this has banished itself from knowledge because it has not met its conditions.
65 Who could have done this but you? Recognize this gladly, for in this recognition lies the realization that your banishment is not of God and therefore does not exist. You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality. Is it your will to do so? You know from your own experience that what you see in dreams you think is real as long as you are asleep. Yet the instant you waken, you know that everything that seemed to happen did not happen at all. You do not think this mysterious, even though all the laws of what you awakened to were violated while you slept. Is it not possible that you merely shifted from one dream to another, without really wakening?
66 Would you bother to reconcile what happened in conflicting dreams, or would you dismiss both together if you discovered that reality is in accord with neither? You do not remember being awake. When you hear the Holy Spirit, you merely feel better because loving seems possible to you, but you do not remember yet that it once was so. And it is in this remembering that you will know it can be so again. What is possible has not yet been accomplished. Yet what has once been is so now if it is eternal. When you remember, you will know what you remember is eternal and therefore is now.
67 You will remember everything the instant you desire it wholly, for if to desire wholly is to create, you will have willed away the separation, returning your mind simultaneously to your Creator and your creations. Knowing them, you will have no wish to sleep but only the will to waken and be glad. Dreams will be impossible because you will want only truth, and being at last your will, it will be yours.