T-3.V Beyond Perception
1. I have said that the abilities you possess are only shadows of your real strength, and that perception, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after the separation. ²No one has been sure of anything since. ³I have also made it clear that the resurrection was the means for the return to knowledge, which was accomplished by the union of my will with the Father’s. ⁴We can now establish a distinction that will clarify some of our subsequent statements.
2. Since the separation, the words “create” and “make” have become confused. ²When you make something, you do so out of a specific sense of lack or need. ³Anything made for a specific purpose has no true generalisability. ⁴When you make something to fill a perceived lack, you are tacitly implying that you believe in separation. ⁵The ego has invented many ingenious thought systems for this purpose. ⁶None of them is creative. ⁷Inventiveness is wasted effort even in its most ingenious form. ⁸The highly specific nature of invention is not worthy of the abstract creativity of God’s creations.
3. Knowing, as we have already observed, does not lead to doing. ²The confusion between your real creation and what you have made of yourself is so profound that it has become literaly impossible for you to know anything. ³Knowledge is always stable, and it is quite evident that you are not. ⁴Nevertheless, you are perfectly stable as God created you. ⁵In this sense, when your behavior is unstable, you are disagreeing with God’s idea of your creation. ⁶You can do this if you choose, but you would hardly want to do it if you were in your right mind.
4. The fundamental question you continually ask yourself cannot properly be directed to yourself at all. ²You keep asking what it is you are. ³This implies that the answer is not only one you know, but is also one that is up to you to supply. ⁴Yet you cannot perceive yourself correctly. ⁵You have no image to be perceived. ⁶The word “image” is always perception-related, and not a part of knowledge. ⁷Images are symbolic and stand for something else. ⁸The idea of “changing your image” recognizes the power of perception, but also implies that there is nothing stable to know.
5. Knowing is not open to interpretation. ²You may try to “interpret” meaning, but this is always open to error because it refers to the perception of meaning. ³Such incongruities are the result of attempts to regard yourself as separated and unseparated at the same time. ⁴It is impossible to make so fundamental a confusion without increasing your overall confusion still further. ⁵Your mind may have become very ingenious, but as always happens when method and content are separated, it is utilised in a futile attempt to escape from an inescapable impasse. ⁶Ingenuity is totally divorced from knowledge, because knowledge does not require ingenuity. ⁷Ingenious thinking is not the truth that shall set you free, but you are free of the need to engage in it when you are willing to let it go.
6. Prayer is a way of asking for something. ²It is the medium of miracles. ³But the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven have everything. ⁴Once forgiveness has been accepted, prayer in the usual sense becomes utterly meaningless. ⁵The prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that you may be able to recognize what you already have. ⁶In electing perception instead of knowledge, you placed yourself in a position where you could resemble your Father only by perceiving miraculously. ⁷You have lost the knowledge that you yourself are a miracle of God. ⁸Creation is your Source and your only real function.
7. The statement “God created man in his own image and likeness” needs reinterpretation. ²“Image” can be understood as “thought”, and “likeness” as “of a like quality”. ³God did create spirit in His Own Thought and of a quality like to His Own. ⁴There is nothing else. ⁵Perception, on the other hand, is impossible without a belief in “more” and “less”. ⁶At every level it involves selectivity. ⁷Perception is a continual process of accepting and rejecting, organising and reörganising, shifting and changing. ⁸Evaluation is an essential part of perception, because judgments are necessary in order to select.
8. What happens to perceptions if there are no judgments and nothing but perfect equality? ²Perception becomes impossible. ³Truth can only be known. ⁴All of it is equally true, and knowing any part of it is to know all of it. ⁵Only perception involves partial awareness. ⁶Knowledge transcends the laws governing perception, because partial knowledge is impossible. ⁷It is all one and has no separate parts. ⁸You who are really one with it need but know yourself and your knowledge is complete. ⁹To know God’s miracle is to know Him.
9. Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. ²Correct perception of your brother is necessary, because minds have chosen to see themselves as separate. ³Spirit knows God completely. ⁴That is its miraculous power. ⁵The fact that each one has this power completely is a condition entirely alien to the world’s thinking. ⁶The world believes that if anyone has everything, there is nothing left. ⁷But God’s miracles are as total as His Thoughts because they are His Thoughts.
10. As long as perception lasts prayer has a place. ²Since perception rests on lack, those who perceive have not totally accepted the Atonement and given themselves over to truth. ³Perception is based on a separated state, so that anyone who perceives at all needs healing. ⁴Communion, not prayer, is the natural state of those who know. ⁵God and His miracle are inseparable. ⁶How beautiful indeed are the Thoughts of God who live in His light! ⁷Your worth is beyond perception because it is beyond doubt. ⁸Do not perceive yourself in different lights. ⁹Know yourself in the One Light where the miracle that is you is perfectly clear.