A COURSE IN MIRACLES

T-6.III The Relinquishment of Attack

1. As we have already emphasized, every idea begins in the mind of the thinker. ²Therefore, what extends from the mind is still in it, and from what it extends it knows itself. ³The word “knows” is correct here, because the Holy Spirit still holds knowledge safe in your mind through His impartial perception. ⁴By attacking nothing, He presents no barrier to the communication of God. ⁵Therefore, being is never threatened. ⁶Your Godlike mind can never be defiled. ⁷The ego never was and never will be part of it, but through the ego you can hear and teach and learn what is not true. ⁸You have taught yourself to believe that you are not what you are. ⁹You cannot teach what you have not learned, and what you teach you strengthen in yourself because you are sharing it. ¹⁰Every lesson you teach you are learning.

2. That is why you must teach only one lesson. ²If you are to be conflict-free yourself, you must learn only from the Holy Spirit and teach only by Him. ³You are only love, but when you deny this, you make what you are something you must learn to remember. ⁴I said before that the message of the crucifixion was, “Teach only love, for that is what you are.” ⁵This is the one lesson that is perfectly unified, because it is the only lesson that is one. ⁶Only by teaching it can you learn it. ⁷“As you teach so will you learn.” ⁸If that is true, and it is true indeed, do not forget that what you teach is teaching you. ⁹And what you project or extend you believe.

3. The only safety lies in extending the Holy Spirit, because as you see His gentleness in others your own mind perceives itself as totally harmless. ²Once it can accept this fully, it sees no need to protect itself. ³The protection of God then dawns upon it, assuring it that it is perfectly safe forever. ⁴The perfectly safe are wholly benign. ⁵They bless because they know that they are blessed. ⁶Without anxiety the mind is wholly kind, and because it extends beneficence it is beneficent. ⁷Safety is the complete relinquishment of attack. ⁸No compromise is possible in this. ⁹Teach attack in any form and you have learned it, and it will hurt you. ¹⁰Yet this learning is not immortal, and you can unlearn it by not teaching it.

4. Since you cannot not teach, your salvation lies in teaching the exact opposite of everything the ego believes. ²This is how you will learn the truth that will set you free, and will keep you free as others learn it of you. ³The only way to have peace is to teach peace. ⁴By teaching peace you must learn it yourself, because you cannot teach what you still dissociate. ⁵Only thus can you win back the knowledge that you threw away. ⁶An idea that you share you must have. ⁷It awakens in your mind through the conviction of teaching it. ⁸Everything you teach you are learning. ⁹Teach only love, and learn that love is yours and you are love.