 We continue today with Chapter 14, Teaching for Truth, Introduction. Yes, you are blessed indeed, yet in this world you do not know it. But you have the means for learning it and seeing it quite clearly. The Holy Spirit uses logic as easily and as well as does the ego, except that His conclusions are not insane. They take a direction exactly opposite, pointing as clearly to heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. We have followed much of the ego's logic and have seen its logical conclusions. And having seen them, we have realized that they cannot be seen except in illusions, for there alone their seeming clearness seems to be clearly seen. Let us now turn away from them and follow the simple logic by which the Holy Spirit teaches the simple conclusions that speak for truth and only truth. The conditions of learning. If you are blessed and do not know it, you need to learn it must be so. The knowledge is not taught, but its conditions must be acquired for it is they that have been thrown away. You can learn to bless and cannot give what you have not. If then you offer blessing, it must have come first to yourself and you must also have accepted it as yours. For how else could you give it away? That is why miracles offer you the testimony that you are blessed. If what you offer is complete forgiveness, you must have let guilt go, accepting the atonement for yourself and learning you are guiltless. How could you learn what has been done for you, unknown to you, unless you do what you would have to do if it had been done for you? Indirect proof of truth is needed in a world made of denial and without direction. You will perceive the need for this if you realize that to deny is the decision not to know. The logic of the world must therefore lead to nothing, for its goal is nothing. If you decide to have and give and be nothing, except a dream, you must direct your thoughts unto oblivion. And if you have and give and are everything, and all this has been denied, your thought system is closed off and wholly separated from the truth. This is an insane world and do not underestimate the extent of its insanity. There is no area of your perception that it has not touched and your dream is sacred to you. That is why God placed the Holy Spirit in you, where you place the dream. Seeing is always outward. Where your thoughts wholly of you, the thought system you made would be forever dark. The thoughts the mind of God's son projects or extends have all the power that he gives to them. The thoughts he shares with God are beyond his belief, but those he made are his beliefs. And it is these, and not the truth, that he has chosen to defend and love. They will not be taken from him, but they can be given up by him for the source of their undoing is in him. There is nothing in the world to teach him that the logic of the world is totally insane and leads to nothing. Yet in him who made this insane logic there is one who knows it leads to nothing, for he knows everything. Any direction that would lead you where the Holy Spirit leads you not goes nowhere. Anything you deny that he knows to be true you have denied yourself and he must therefore teach you not to deny it. Undoing is indirect as doing is. You were created only to create, neither to see nor do. These are but indirect expressions of the will to live which has been blocked by the capricious and unholy whim of death and murder that your father does not share with you. You have set yourself the task of sharing what cannot be shared and while you think it possible to learn to do this you will not believe all that is possible to learn to do. The Holy Spirit therefore must begin his teaching by showing you what you can never learn. His message is not indirect but he must introduce the simple truth into a thought system which has become so twisted and so complex you cannot see that it means nothing. He merely looks at its foundation and dismisses it but you who cannot undo what you have made cannot see through it. It deceives you because you chose to deceive yourself. Those who choose to be deceived will merely attack direct approaches because they seem to encroach upon deception and strike at it. From the workbook, lesson 105 God's peace and joy are mine. God's peace and joy are yours. Today we will accept them knowing they belong to us and we will try to understand these gifts increase as we receive them. They are not like to the gifts the world can give in which the giver loses as he gives the gift. The taker is richer by his loss. Such are not gifts but bargains made with guilt. The truly given gift entails no loss. It is impossible that one can gain because another loses. This implies a limit and an insufficiency. No gift is given thus. Such, quote, gifts are but a bid for a more valuable return alone with interest to be paid in full. A temporary lending meant to be a pledge of debt to be repaid with more than was received by him who took the gift. This strange distortion of what giving means pervades all levels of the world you see. It strips all meaning from the gifts you give and leaves you nothing in the ones you take. A major learning goal this course has set is to reverse your view of giving so you can receive. For giving has become a source of fear and so you would avoid the only means by which you can receive. Accept God's peace and joy and you will learn a different way of looking at a gift. God's gifts will never lessen when they are given away. They but increase thereby. As heavens peace and joy intensify when you accept them as God's gift to you, so does the joy of your Creator grow when you accept His joy and peace as yours. True giving is creation. It extends the limitless to the unlimited, eternity to timelessness and love unto itself. It adds to all that is complete already, not in simple terms of adding more, for that implies that it was less before. It adds by letting what cannot contain itself fulfill its aim of giving everything it has away, securing it forever for itself. Today accept God's peace and joy as yours. Let Him complete Himself as He defines completion. You will understand that what completes Him must complete His Son as well. He cannot give through loss, no more can you. Receive His gift of joy and peace today and He will thank you for your gift to Him. Today our practice periods will start a little differently. Begin today by thinking of those brothers who have been denied by you the peace and joy that are their right under the equal laws of God. Here you denied them to yourself and here you must return to claim them as your own. Think of your, quote, enemies a little while and tell each one as He occurs to you, My brother, peace and joy I offer you that I may have God's peace and joy as mine. Thus you prepare yourself to recognize God's gift to all, to you to let your mind be free of all that would prevent success today. Now are you ready to accept the gift of peace and joy that God has given you. Now you can say God's peace and joy are mine for you have given what you would receive. You must succeed today if you prepare your mind as we suggest for you have let all bars to peace and joy be lifted up and what is yours can come to you at last. So tell yourself God's peace and joy are mine and close your eyes a while and let His voice assure you that the words you speak are true. Spend your five minutes thus with Him each time you can today but do not think that less is worthless when you cannot give Him more. At least remember hourly to say the words which call to Him to give you what He wills to give and wills you to receive. Determine not to interfere today with what He wills and if a brother seems to tempt you to deny God's gift to him see it as but another chance to let yourself receive the gifts of God as yours. Then bless your brother thankfully and say my brother peace and joy I offer you that I may have God's peace and joy as mine. We begin this beautiful chapter of teaching for truth opening our hearts to the condition of learning today we would meet the conditions of what we would perceive we will meet the conditions of what we will be and we are today we accept the gifts we offer miracles and receive the testimony that we are blessed the spirit will reach us indirectly indirect proof of truth is needed in a world made of denial and without direction today the logic of the world will be given us guided by the Holy Spirit today we will not reinforce the dream but become aware clearly that we are dreaming and simply see the false is false the presence of love is sacred to our heart the dream is no longer sacred no longer pursued or desired today we watch the world as we watch our thoughts we allow God to lift us beyond all false thoughts and beliefs rising high into the spirit the Holy Spirit's perspective on the world of complete stillness and wholeness and non-judgment today we would no longer look through the ego's filter for we would be blessed with the presence of the Holy Spirit today we follow the thought of the day and rejoice in happiness God's peace and joy are mine today we will accept them knowing they belong to us today we will give and receive as we have given today all old past ideas of giving are reversed we will not seek to get we will not seek to bargain today we loose our mind from all thoughts of reciprocity giving to get today we see that all that I give is given to myself we bless everyone we think of as they cross our mind my brother peace and joy I offer you that I may have God's peace and joy as mine today we will succeed in experiencing the joy of the real world in that happy dream my brother peace and joy I offer you that I may have God's peace and joy as mine we are delighted in this lightness and this happiness and joy now we see our inheritance and our gifts increase as we give them and receive them God's peace and joy are mine Amen