 Today we continue on with Chapter 3, Perception versus Knowledge. We have been emphasizing perception and have said very little about knowledge as yet. This is because perception must be straightened out before you can know anything. To know is to be certain, and certainty is strength. Perception is temporary. As an attribute of the belief in space and time, it is subject either to fear or love. Misperceptions produce fear, and true perceptions foster love. But neither bring certainty, because all perception varies. That is why it is not knowledge. True perception is the basis for knowledge. But knowing is the affirmation of truth and beyond all perceptions. All your difficulties stem from the fact that you do not recognize yourself, your brother, or God. To recognize means to know again, implying that you knew before. You can see in many ways, because perception involves interpretation. And this means that it is not whole or consistent. The miracle, being a way of perceiving, is not knowledge. It is the right answer to a question, but you do not question when you know. Questioning illusions is the first step in undoing them. The miracle, or the right answer, corrects them. Since perceptions change, their dependence on time is obvious. How you perceive at any given time determines what you do, and actions must occur in time. Knowledge is timeless, because certainty is not questionable. You know when you have ceased to ask questions. The questioning mind perceives itself in time and therefore looks for future answers. The closed mind believes the future and the present will be the same. This establishes a seemingly stable state that is usually an attempt to counteract an underlying fear that the future will be worse than the present. This fear inhibits the tendency to question at all. Vision is the natural perception of spiritual sight, but it is still a correction rather than a fact. Spiritual sight is symbolic and therefore not a device for knowing. It is, however, a means of right perception, which brings it into the proper domain of the miracle. A, quote, vision of God would be a miracle rather than a revelation. The fact that perception is involved at all removes the experience from the realm of knowledge. That is why visions, however holy, do not last. The Bible tells you to know thyself or to be certain. Certainty is always of God. When youth loves someone, you perceive him as he is, and this makes it possible for you to know him. Until you first perceive him as he is, you cannot know him. While you ask questions about him, you are clearly implying that you do not know God. Certainty does not require action. When you say you are acting on the basis of knowledge, you are really confusing knowledge with perception. Knowledge provides the strength for creative thinking, but not for right doing. Perception, miracles, and doing are closely related. Knowledge is a result of revelation and it uses only thought. Even in its most spiritualized form, perception involves the body. Knowledge comes from the altar within and is timeless because it is certain. To perceive the truth is not the same as to know it. Right perception is necessary before God can communicate directly to his altars, which he established in his sons. There he can communicate his certainty and his knowledge will bring peace without question. God is not a stranger to his sons and his sons are not strangers to each other. Knowledge preceded both perception and time and will ultimately replace them. That is the real meaning of alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. And before Abraham was, I am. Perception can and must be stabilized, but knowledge is stable. Fear God and keep his commandments becomes know God and accept his certainty. If you attack error in another, you will hurt yourself. You cannot know your brother when you attack him. Attack is always made upon a stranger. You are making him a stranger by misperceiving him and so you cannot know him. It is because you have made him a stranger that you are afraid of him. Perceive him correctly so that you can know him. There are no strangers in God's creation to create as he created you can create only what you know and therefore accept as yours. God knows his children with perfect certainty. He created them by knowing them. He recognizes them perfectly. When they do not recognize each other, they do not recognize him. And from the workbook, lesson number 18, I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. The idea for today is another step in learning that the thoughts which give rise to what you see are never neutral or unimportant. It also emphasizes the idea that minds are joined, which will be given increasing stress later on. Today's idea does not refer to what you see as much as to how you see it. Therefore, the exercises for today emphasize this aspect of your perception. The three or four practice periods which are recommended should be done as follows. Look about you, selecting subjects for the application of the idea for today as randomly as possible, and keeping your eyes on each one long enough to say, I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see. Conclude each practice period by repeating the more general statement. I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. A minute or so or even less will be sufficient for each practice period. So if we really summarize and simplify this beautiful lesson today, what we're being taught is I'm not alone in how I see this world that all minds are joined and that the entire perception of the entire cosmos is being generated from the thoughts I think I think. These thoughts are what I think I see. This is how it seems to be happening. When I seem to see a brother or a sister, I'm not seeing an image outside of my mind. I'm simply beholding the thoughts that are crossing consciousness and all the judgments of attraction and repulsion, good and bad, right and wrong. How is this happening is holding onto these thoughts and then perceiving them as if they are something else coming from somewhere else, some other person, some other environment perceived to be outside the body. And yet the body is part of the perception. Everything that I think I think about what seems to be my own body is part of this perception. The world is not outside the body. The body, the environment are all thoughts that I am beholding by holding onto them. This is how the entire cosmos is generated. There is no world apart from what you wish. There is no world apart from what you think. This wishing and thinking is in consciousness, is in mind. So therefore this is a world of ideas. There is no physical world. Everything is an idea. Everything is mental. This is how the world appears. And I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. Everything is unified. Everything is mind. Everything is these thoughts. This is such an important admission. So today, every time you are tempted to think or believe that you are a person reacting and responding to external stimuli, external people, external actions and reactions, come back, come back to the mind, watch your thoughts and remember how you were seeing. How you are perceiving. It's all mind. It has always been mind. It will never be anything but mind. And there is just one mind. And you will see how this eliminates this crazy idea of victimization. Because there is no one to be victim. And nothing to be the victimizer. If everything is mind, there is no projection. Mind reaches to itself. It does not go out. Think of that today. It does not go out. There is nothing beyond mind. And that is why I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.