 We continue today with Chapter 21, Reason versus Madness. Reason cannot see sin but can see errors and leads to their correction. It does not value them but their correction. Reason will also tell you that when you think you sin, you call for help. Yet if you will not accept the help you call for, you will not believe that it is yours to give. And so you will not give it, thus maintaining the belief. For uncorrected error of any kind deceives you about the power that is in you to make correction. If you can correct and you allow it not to do so, you deny it to yourself and to your brother. And if he shares this same belief, you both will think that you are damned. This you could spare him and yourself. For reason would not make way for correction in you alone. Correction cannot be accepted or refused by you without your brother. Sin would maintain it can. Yet reason tells you that you cannot see your brother or yourself as sinful and still perceive the other innocent. Who looks upon himself as guilty and sees a sinless world. And who can see a sinful world and look upon himself apart from it. Sin would maintain you must be separate. But reason tells you that this must be wrong. If you are joined, how could it be that you have private thoughts? And how could thoughts that enter into what but seemed like yours alone have no effect at all on what is yours? If minds are joined, this is impossible. No one can think but for himself as God thinks not without his son. Only were both in bodies could this be. Nor could one mind think only for itself unless the body were the mind. For only bodies can be separate and therefore unreal. The home of madness cannot be the home of reason. Yet it is easy to leave the home of madness if you see reason. You do not leave insanity by going somewhere else. You leave it simply by accepting the reason where madness was. Madness and reason see the same things. But it is certain that they look upon them differently. Madness is an attack on reason that drives it out of mind and takes its place. Reason does not attack but takes the place of madness quietly, replacing madness if it be the choice of the insane to listen to it. But the insane know not their will for they believe they see the body and let their madness tell them it is real. Reason would be incapable of this. And if you would defend the body against your reason, you will not understand the body or yourself. The body does not separate you from your brother. And if you think it does, you are insane. But madness has a purpose and believes it also has the means to make its purpose real. To see the body as a barrier between what reason tells you you must be joined must be insane. Or could you see it if you heard the voice of reason? What can there be that stands between what is continuous? And if there is nothing in between, how can what enters part be kept away from other parts? Reason would tell you this. But think what you must recognize if it be so. If you choose sin instead of healing, you would condemn the Son of God to what can never be corrected. You tell him by your choice that he is damned, separate from you and from his Father forever, without a hope of safe return. You teach him this and you will learn of him exactly what you taught. For you can teach him only that he is as you would have him be. And what you choose he be is but your choice for you. Yet think not this is fearful. That you are joined to him is but a fact, not an interpretation. How can a fact be fearful unless it disagrees with what you hold more dear than truth? Reason will tell you that this fact is your release. Neither your brother nor yourself can be attacked alone, but neither can accept a miracle instead without the other being blessed by it and healed of pain. Reason like love would reassure you and seeks not to frighten you. The power to heal the Son of God is given you because he must be one with you. You are responsible for how he sees himself. And reason tells you it is given you to change his whole mind, which is one with you, in just an instant. And any instant serves to bring complete correction of his errors and make him whole. The instant that you choose to let yourself be healed in that same instant is his whole salvation seen as complete with yours. Reason is given you to understand that this is so. For reason, kind as is the purpose for which it is the means, leads steadily away from madness toward the goal of truth. And here you will lay down the burden of denying truth. This is the burden that is terrible and not the truth. That you are joined is your salvation, the gift of heaven, not the gift of fear. Does heaven seem to be a burden to you? In madness, yes. And yet what madness sees must be dispelled by reason. Reason assures you heaven is what you want and all you want. Listen to him who speaks with reason and brings your reason into line with his. Be willing to let reason be the means by which he would direct you how to leave insanity behind. Hide not behind insanity in order to escape from reason. What madness would conceal the Holy Spirit still holds out for everyone to look upon with gladness. You are your brother's savior. He is yours. Reason speaks happily indeed of this. This gracious plan was given love by love. And what love plans is like itself in this. Being united it would have you learn what you must be. And being one with it it must be given you to give what it has given and give still. Spend but an instant in the glad acceptance of what is given you to give your brother and learn with him what has been given both of you. To give is no more blessed than to receive but neither is it less. The Son of God is always blessed as one and as his gratitude goes out to you who blessed him reason will tell you that it cannot be you stand apart from blessing. The gratitude he offers you reminds you of the thanks your father gives you for completing him and here alone does reason tell you that you can understand what you must be. Your father is as close to you as is your brother yet what is there that could be near you than is yourself. The power you have over the Son of God is not a threat to his reality yet but attest to it. Where could his freedom lie but in himself if he be free already and who could bind him but himself if he deny his freedom. God is not mocked no more his Son can be imprisoned saved by his own desire and it is by his own desire that he is freed such is his strength and not his weakness. He is at his own mercy and where he chooses to be merciful there is he free but where he chooses to condemn instead there is he held a prisoner waiting and chains his pardon on himself to set him free. And from the workbook now we begin review two lessons 151 to 170 introduction. We now review again this time we are ready to give more effort and more time to what we undertake. We recognize we are preparing for another phase of understanding. We would take this step completely that we may go on again more certain more sincere with faith upheld more surely our footsteps have not been unwavering and doubts have made us walk uncertainly and slowly on the road this course sets forth. But now we hasten on for we approach a greater certainty a firmer purpose and a sure goal steady our feet our father let our doubts be quiet and our holy minds be still and speak to us we have no words to give to you we would but listen to your word and make it ours. Lead our practicing is does a father lead a little child along a way he does not understand yet does he follow sure that he is safe because his father leads the way for him so do we bring our practicing to you and if we stumble you will raise us up if we forget the way we count upon your sure remembering we wander off but you will not forget to call us back quicken our footsteps now that we may walk more certainly and quickly unto you and we accept the word you offer us to unify our practicing as we review the thoughts that you have given us this is the thought which should proceed the thoughts that we review each one but clarifies some aspect of this thought or helps it be more meaningful more personal and true and more descriptive of the holy self we share and now prepare to know again God is but love and therefore so am I this self alone knows love this self alone is perfectly consistent in its thoughts knows its creator understands itself is perfect in its knowledge in its love and never changes from its constant state of union with its father and itself and it is this that waits to meet us at the journey's ending every step we take brings us a little nearer this review will shorten time immeasurably if we keep in mind that this remains our goal and as we practice it is this to which we are approaching let us raise our hearts from dust to life as we remember this is promised us and that this course was sent to open up the path of light to us and teach us step by step how to return to the eternal self we thought we lost I take the journey with you for I share your doubts and fears a little while that you may come to me who recognize the road by which all fears and doubts are overcome we walk together I must understand uncertainty and pain although I know they have no meaning yet a savior must remain with those he teaches seeing what they see but still retaining in his mind the way that let him out and now will leave you out with him God's son is crucified until you walk along the road with me my resurrection comes again each time I lead a brother safely to the place at which the journey ends and is forgot I am renewed each time a brother learns there is a way from misery and pain I am reborn each time a brother's mind turns to the light in him and looks for me I have forgotten no one help me now to lead you back to where the journey was begun to make another choice with me release me as you practice once again the thoughts I brought to you from him who sees your bitter need and knows the answer God has given him together we review these thoughts together we devote our time and effort to them and together we will teach them to our brothers God will not have heaven incomplete it waits for you as do I I am incomplete without your pardon me and as I am made whole we go together to our ancient home prepared for us before time was and kept unchanged by time immaculate and safe as it will be at last when time is done let this review be then your gift to me for this alone I need that you will hear the words I speak and give them to the world you are my voice my eyes, my feet, my hands through which I save the world the self from which I call to you is but your own to him we go together take your brother's hands for this is not a way we walk alone in him I walk with you and you with me our father wills his son be one with him what lives but must not then be one with you let this review become a time in which we share a new experience for you yet one as old as time and older still hallowed your name your glory undefiled forever and your wholeness now complete as God established it you are his son completing his extension in your own we practice but an instant an ancient truth we knew before illusions seem to claim the world and we remind the world that it is free of all illusions every time we say God is but love and therefore so am I with this we start each day of our review with this we start and end each period of practice time and with this thought we sleep to awaken once again with these same words upon our lips to greet another day with the thoughts that we review but we surround with it and use the thoughts to hold it up before our minds and keep it clear in our remembrance throughout the day and thus when we have finished this review we will have recognized the words we speak are true it are the words but aids and to be used except at the beginning and the end of practice periods but to recall the mind as needed to its purpose we place faith in the experience that comes from practice not the means we use we wait for the experience and recognize that it is only here conviction lies we use the words and try and try again to go beyond them to their meaning which is far beyond their sound the sound grows dim and disappears as we approach the source of meaning it is here that we find rest lesson 171 God is but love and therefore so am I all things are echoes of the voice for God God is but love and therefore so am I the power of decision is my own God is but love and therefore so am I Amen