The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There is no
dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream in which it acts
as if it were a person, to be seen and be believed. It takes the central
place in every dream, which tells the story of how it was made by other
bodies, born into the world outside the body, lives a little while, and
dies, to be united in the dust with other bodies dying like itself. In
the brief time allotted it to live, it seeks for other bodies as its
friends and enemies. Its safety is its main concern. Its comfort is its
guiding rule. It tries to look for pleasure, and avoid the things that
would be hurtful. Above all, it tries to teach itself its pains and joys
are different, and can be told apart.

The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in
many ways to prove it is autonomous and real. It puts things on itself
which it has bought with little metal discs or paper strips the world
proclaims as valuable and good. It works to get them, doing senseless
things, and tosses them away for senseless things it does not need, and
does not even want. It hires other bodies, that they may protect it, and
collect more senseless things that it can call its own. It looks about
for special bodies which can share its dream. Sometimes it dreams it is
a conqueror of bodies weaker than itself. But in some phases of the
dream, it is the slave of bodies that would hurt and torture it.

The body’s serial adventures, from the time of birth to dying is the
theme of every dream the world has ever had. The “hero” of this dream
will never change, nor will its purpose. Though the dream itself takes
many forms, and seems to show a great variety of places and events
wherein its “hero” finds itself, the dream has but one
purpose, taught in many ways. This single lesson does it try to teach
again, and still again, and yet once more; that it is CAUSE and NOT
effect. And YOU are its effect, and CANNOT be its cause.

Thus are you not the dreamer, but the DREAM. And so you wander idly in
and out of places and events which IT contrives. That this is all the
body does is true, for it IS but a figure in a dream. But who reacts to
figures in a dream unless he sees them as if they were real? The instant
that he sees them as they ARE, they have no more effects on him because
he understands he GAVE them their effects by causing them, and making
them seem real.

How willing are you to escape effects of all the dreams the world has
ever had? Is it your wish to let no dream appear to be the cause of what
it is you do? Then let us merely look upon the dream’s beginning, for
the part you see is but the second part, whose cause lies in the first.
No-one asleep and dreaming in the world remembers his attack upon
himself. No-one believes there really was a time when he knew nothing of
a body, and could never have conceived this world as real. He would have
seen at once that these ideas are one illusion, too ridiculous for
anything but to be laughed away. How serious they now appear to be! And
no-one can remember when they would have met with laughter and with
disbelief.

We CAN remember this, if we but look directly at their cause. And we
will see the grounds for laughter, not a cause for fear. Let us return
the dream he gave away unto the dreamer, who perceives the dream as
separate from himself, and done to him. Into eternity, where all is one,
there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to
laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and
possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh
them both away, and understand that time cannot intrude upon eternity.
It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which
MEANS there is no time.

A timelessness in which is time made real; a part of God which can
attack itself; a separate brother as an enemy; a mind within a body, all
are forms of circularity, whose ending starts at its beginning, ending
at its cause. The world you see depicts exactly what you thought you
did. Except that now you think that what you did is being done to you.
The guilt for what you thought is being placed
outside yourself, and on a guilty world which dreams your dreams and
thinks your thoughts instead of you. It brings its vengeance, not your
own. It keeps you narrowly confined within a body, which it punishes
because of all the sinful things the body does within its dream. You
have no power to make the body stop its evil deeds, because you did not
make it, and cannot control its actions or its purpose or its fate.

The world but demonstrates an ancient truth; you will believe that
others do to you EXACTLY what you think you did to them. But once
deluded into blaming them, you will not see the cause of what they do
because you WANT the guilt to rest on them. How childish is this
petulant device to keep your innocence by pushing guilt outside
yourself, but never letting go! It is not easy to perceive the jest when
all around you do your eyes behold its heavy consequences, but without
their trifling cause. Without the cause do its effects seem serious and
sad indeed. Yet they but follow. And it is their CAUSE which follows
nothing, and is but a jest.

In gentle laughter does the Holy Spirit perceive the cause, and looks
not to effects. How else could He correct your error, who have
overlooked the cause entirely? He bids you bring each terrible effect to
Him, that you may look together on its foolish cause, and laugh with Him
a while. YOU judge effects, but HE has judged their cause. And by His
judgement are effects removed. Perhaps you come in tears, but hear Him
say, “My brother, Holy Son of God, behold your idle dream, in which this
could occur,” and you will leave the holy instant with your laughter and
your brother’s joined with His.

The secret of salvation is but this:That YOU are doing this unto
yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this still is true.
Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the
truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you
feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in a
dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as
vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed
to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you
free from suffering, whatever form it takes.

The Holy Spirit will repeat this one inclusive lesson of deliverance
until it has been learned, regardless of the form of
suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him He will
make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer takes away
the CAUSE of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His
answer not at all, for He would teach you but the single cause of all of
them, no matter what their form. And you will understand that miracles
reflect the simple statement,

“I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.”

Bring, then, all forms of suffering to Him Who knows that every one is
like the rest. He sees no differences where none exist, and He will
teach you how each one is caused. None has a different cause from all
the rest, and all of them are easily undone by but a single lesson truly
learned. Salvation is a secret you have kept but from yourself. The
universe proclaims it so. Yet to its witnesses you pay no heed at all.
For they attest the thing you do not WANT to know. They seem to keep it
secret from you. Yet you need but learn you choose but NOT to listen, NOT
to see. How differently will you perceive the world when this is
recognized! When you forgive the world your guilt, YOU will be free of
it. Its innocence does NOT demand your guilt, nor does YOUR
guiltlessness rest on its sins.

This is the obvious; a secret kept from no-one but yourself. And it is
this that has maintained you separate from the world, and kept your
brother separate from you. Now need you but to learn that BOTH of you
are innocent or guilty. The one thing that is impossible is that you be
unlike each other; that they BOTH be true. This is the only secret yet
to learn. And it will be no secret you are healed.