Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 12: The Holy Spirit’s Course of Instruction

 

9. Invite, Expect, and Perceive

Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right Guidance, for learning is invisible, and so what has been learned can be recognized only by its results. Its generalization is demonstrated as you use it in more and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there are no levels or orders of magnitude of difficulty in miracles when you apply them by my direction – at one with Divine Essence – to all situations. For miracles apply to every situation without exception, and by applying them under superconscious control to all situations you will gain perception of the Real World.

In the holy perception of the Real World you will be made whole, and the Atonement will radiate from your acceptance of It for yourself to everyone the Holy Spirit brings you into contact with for your blessing. Spirit’s Blessing resides in every Child of the Divine, and in your blessing of your sisters and brothers is Its Blessing to you. Everyone in the world must fulfill their part in the awakening of the world for the world to recognize that it has been awakened.

Things that are invisible, such as learning and abilities, cannot be looked upon, but if you see their effects then you know that they are present. By perceiving what they do, you recognize their being. And by what they do you learn what they are. You cannot look upon your abilities, but you gain confidence in their existence as they enable you to act. And the results of your actions you can perceive.

The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can perceive the Results of Its Presence, and through these Results you will learn that It is there. What Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world, for miracles violate every law of “reality” as this world judges it. Miracles transcend every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, and of prediction and control, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond all of these. Through perceiving Spirit’s Results you will understand where Spirit must be, and finally know what It is.

While you cannot perceive the Holy Spirit, you can perceive Its Manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize It is there. Miracles are Spirit’s Witnesses, and speak for Its Presence. What you cannot perceive that is real becomes real to you only through the Witnesses that speak for It. For you can be aware of what you cannot perceive, and It can become compellingly real to you, as Its Presence becomes manifest through you.

Do Spirit’s Work, for you share in Its Function. As your Function in Heaven is knowing, loving and creation, so your function on Earth is forgiveness, healing and awakening, which are one. The Divine shares Its Function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares Its with you on Earth. As long as you believe you have conflicting functions, so long will you need correction. For this belief results in the disruption of Peace, presenting a goal in direct opposition to the Holy Spirit’s Purpose.

You perceive what you expect, and you expect what you invite. Invite, expect, and perceive as you truly will. Your perception is the result of your invitation, coming to you as you sent for it and expected it. Whose manifestations would you perceive? Of whose presence would you be convinced? For you will believe in what you manifest, and as you perceive in the mirror outside yourself so will you be aware of the source inside yourself. Two ways of perceiving the world are in your mind, and your perception will reflect the guidance you chose. I am the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and when you perceive me it will be because you have invited Spirit. For It will send you Its Witnesses to perceive if you will invite and expect Them.

Remember always that you perceive what you seek, for what you seek you will find. In truth even the ego finds what it seeks, and only that, but it can never find what it wants you to believe it is seeking. That is why its motto remains, “Seek but do not find.” It does not find Love for that is not what it is seeking, though it wants you to believe that it is. Since seeking and finding are the same, if you seek for two conflicting goals you will find them, but you will recognize neither. For you will think they are the same, having wanted both of them. The mind always strives for integration, and if it is split, and wants to keep the split, it will believe it has one goal by making conflicting goals appear as one goal inside itself, and projecting the split outside itself.

This Course said before that what you project is up to you, but it is not up to you whether to project, for projection, either as Extension or mis-projection, is a law of mind. In this world projection is perception, and you conceive inside yourself before you perceive outside yourself. As you conceive inside yourself you are choosing the guide for perceiving, and then you perceive outside yourself, where your find this guide’s witnesses. This is why you find what you seek. What you want in yourself you will make manifest by projection, and you will accept it from the world of illusions or from the Real World, because you put it there by wanting it.

What if you are sure that you do want peace, yet find yourself met with conflict that you are certain cannot be coming from yourself? Could this be merely misfortune, or an aspect of the world that can’t be avoided? How can you step out of this depressing pattern and experience the peace and happiness you long for?

Knowing the laws of mind can be most helpful here. The Divine’s Laws, even as they are reflected by the Holy Spirit in this world, are immutable. They can always be counted on. This spares you from endlessly seeking for solutions to your problems where they cannot be found. The Divine’s Laws form a Support for your seeking of solutions to your problems here that can always be counted on because they do not shift and change as your experience does. Knowing that Its Laws are the Truth, you can sort out the true from the false in your experience by asking Spirit what aligns with the Divine’s Laws and what doesn’t, and releasing to Spirit what doesn’t align. This is what is meant by bringing illusions to the Truth. When what remains is only what aligns with the Divine’s Laws, you will experience the Peace and Happiness that are the Divine’s Will for you.

When you perceive what you do not want, whether this is experienced as a slight disappointment or a betrayal or other “disaster,” then, according to the Law that nothing can come to you without your invitation, this must be because some part of you, even if beyond your conscious awareness, did invite it. It cannot be otherwise, and this fact saves you endless seeking for where the answer cannot be found. Maybe a part of you feels guilt and invites an “unpleasant” experience because it believes it deserves this. Or you may have invited a challenging experience because through engaging it the opportunity for forgiveness, healing and awakening will be offered to many. Certainly this opportunity is why you are here now in this world.

The essential decision when you realize your perception is not what you think you want is to ask Spirit for Its Interpretation of the experience so that you can learn to frame it in your mind differently than you have in the past. Ultimately this decision is really what the experience is for, because it reminds you of the power of your decision to project the experience you want.

When you want only Love, or the Divine’s Will, you will invite, expect and perceive nothing else. The contradictory nature of the witnesses you perceive outside yourself is merely the reflection of your conflicting invitations. You have looked upon your mind and accepted opposition there, having sought it there because your mind is split and is in opposition with itself. But do not then believe that the witnesses for opposition are true, for they attest only to your decision about reality, not to Reality Itself, returning to you the message you gave these witnesses whom you sent forth to confirm to you your belief in your powerlessness. Love is also recognized by Its Messengers. If you allow Love to become manifest through your right use of projection, Its Messengers will return to you, because you invited Them.

The power of decision is your one remaining freedom while you believe you are in this world. You can decide to perceive the world rightly by inviting, expecting, and perceiving the Real World. What you have made of the world is not its reality, for the reality you perceive is only what you gave it. You cannot really give anything except Love to anyone or anything, nor can you really receive anything else from them. If you think you have received anything else, it is because you perceived inside yourself and thought you saw the power to give forth something else from within yourself. It was only this decision that determined what you found, for it was the decision of what you sought.

You can only be afraid of me when you perceive inside yourself and become afraid of what you perceive—of what you believe is the overwhelming task of taking complete responsibility for your power of decision, and for the Power of your creative will. Yet it is not Reality you perceive when you become afraid, for the reality of your mind is lovely beyond conception. Coming only from the Divine, its Power and Grandeur can only bring you Peace when you truly perceive it. If you are afraid, it is because you perceived something else within, and something that is not there. Yet in this same place you can behold me and all your sisters and brothers, in the perfect Safety of the Mind that created us. For we are there in the Peace of the Creator, Who wills to extend Its Peace through you.

When you have accepted your Mission to project or extend Peace, you will find Peace. For by making It manifest you will perceive Its Witnesses. Because you have called upon Its holy Witnesses, They will come to you and surround you. I have heard your call and I have answered it, but you may be reluctant to see me or hear the answer that you sought. But that is only because you do not yet want only that, because you are afraid of what you believe it must ask of you. Yet the Divine asks only that you receive Its Gifts with Love. And as Spirit’s Witnesses become more real to you, you will learn that you do want only Peace. And you will behold me as you see inside yourself, and we will behold the Real World together as the Divine blessed it. Through the Vision of Divine Essence only the Real World exists on this side of the Gate of Heaven, and only this can be seen.

What you truly believe reality should be for you will be your perception and experience of the world. And therefore your perception and experience of the world must be what you truly believe reality should be for you. There is no escaping this. And all that you perceive witnesses to your decision. When you turn within and see me, it will be because you have decided to manifest Truth in your world. And as you manifest It, you will see It both within yourself and outside yourself, for you will see it outside yourself because you saw it first within. Everything you perceive outside yourself is an assessment of what you conceived within. If it is your judgment, it will be wrong, for judgment is not your Function. If it is the Evaluation of the Holy Spirit, it will be right, for Evaluation is Its Function.

You share Spirit’s Function only by evaluating as It does, through Its Guidance, reserving no judgment at all for yourself. For you will judge against yourself no matter what you judge, for your Self contains all that you judge. And Spirit will evaluate for you for the same reason. Remember, then, that whenever you perceive outside yourself and react unfavorably to what you perceive, you have judged yourself unworthy, and condemned yourself, even to death. The death penalty is the ego’s ultimate goal, for it fully believes that you have committed a crime, as deserving of death as the Divine knows you are deserving of Life.

Reflecting the ego’s madness – the madness of the part of the split mind that swore never to heal the separation – the death penalty never leaves its machinations, for that is what it always reserves for you in the end. Wanting to kill you as the final expression of its contempt for you, it lets you live but to await death. It will torment you while you live, but its hatred won’t be satisfied until death. For your destruction is the one end toward which it works, and the only one with which it will be satisfied.

The ego is not a traitor to the Divine, to Whom treachery is impossible. But it is a traitor to you who believe you have been treacherous to your Creator. That is why the undoing of guilt is an essential part of the Holy Spirit’s Teaching. For as long as you feel guilty, you are listening to the voice of the ego, which tells you that you have been treacherous to the Divine, and therefore deserve death. You will think that death comes from the Divine, and not from the ego, because by confusing yourself with the ego you will believe that you want death. And the Divine does not save you from what you want, but waits until you change your mind.

When you are tempted to yield to the desire for death, remember that I did not die. I overcame death so that my sisters and brothers would be able to choose not to die. You will realize that I did not die when you see within and behold me. Would I have overcome death for myself alone? And would eternal Life have been given me of the Creator unless It had also been given you? When you learn to make me manifest, you will never perceive death. For you will have seen the invulnerable in yourself, and you will see only the Eternal as you behold a world that cannot die.