The following was taken from "A Course in Miracles", given to us from Jesus Christ by inner dictations to, and scribed by Helen Schucman, with the help of William Thetford .
The soul’s true functions are knowing, loving, and creating. The intrusion of the ability to perceive, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after the Separation. No one has been sure of anything since then.
Abilities are not functions of the Soul. The Soul’s functions are NOT relative. They are ABSOLUTE.
Abilities are beliefs which are BASED on the scarcity fallacy, since they do not mean anything apart from within-group comparisons. Nobody has none of an ability, and nobody has all of it.
Peace is a natural heritage of the Soul. Everyone is free to refuse to accept his inheritance, but he is NOT free to establish what his inheritance IS.
NOTHING can reach the Soul from the ego, and nothing FROM the Soul can strengthen the ego, or reduce the conflict within it. The ego IS a contradiction. Man’s self and God’s Self ARE in opposition. They are opposed in creation, in will, and in outcome. They are fundamentally irreconcilable because the Soul cannot perceive, and the ego cannot know. They are therefore NOT IN COMMUNICATION, and can never BE in communication.
The ego’s ceaseless attempts to gain the Soul’s acknowledgement and thus establish its own existence are utterly useless. The Soul in its knowledge is unaware of the ego. It does NOT attack the ego. It merely cannot conceive of it at all. While the ego is equally unaware of the Soul, it DOES perceive itself as rejected by something which is greater than itself. This is why self-esteem in ego terms MUST be a delusion.
The ego arose from the Separation, and its continued existence depends on your continuing belief in the Separation. Reducing the Soul impulses to the unconscious, the ego has to offer you some sort of reward for maintaining this belief. All it CAN offer is a sense of temporary existence, which begins with its own beginning and ends with its own ending. It tells you that this life is YOUR existence because it IS its own.
Against this sense of temporary existence, the Soul offers the knowledge of permanence and unshakeable BEING. No one who has experienced the revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again. How can its meager offering to you prevail against the glorious gift of God?
The Soul knows no difference between being and having. The higher mind thinks according to the laws which the Soul obeys, and therefore honors only the laws of God. To Him, getting is meaningless, and giving is all. Having everything, the Soul HOLDS everything by GIVING it, thus creating as the Father created.
Being MUST be extended. That is how it retains the knowledge of it SELF. The soul yearns to share ITS Being as ITS Creator did. Created BY sharing, its will is to create. It does NOT wish to CONTAIN God, but to EXTEND HIS BEING. The extension of God’s Being is the Soul’s only function. ITS fullness cannot be contained any more than can the fullness of its Creator. Fullness IS extension. The ego’s whole thought system BLOCKS extension, and therefore blocks YOUR ONLY FUNCTION. It therefore blocks your joy and THIS is why you perceive yourselves as unfulfilled.
But God does NOT know unfillment, and therefore you MUST create. YOU may not know your own creations, but this can no more interfere with their reality than your unawareness of your Soul can interfere with its being.
The Kingdom is forever extending, because it is in the Mind of God.
The part of the mind which you have separated from your Soul can reach beyond its distortions and RETURN to the Soul.
You CANNOT sell your Soul, but you CAN sell your AWARENESS of it. You cannot perceive the soul, but you will not KNOW it while you perceive anything ELSE as more valuable.
All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion which created magic rested on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter, which can control the mind.
This fallacy can work either way; i.e., it can be misbelieved either that the mind can miscreate IN the body, or that the body can miscreate in the mind.
If it can be made clear that the mind, which is the only level of creation, cannot create beyond itself, then neither confusion need occur. (It's All in the mind)
We have emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also been created perfect. There is no emptiness in him. The next point, too, has already been made, but bears repetition here. The Soul, because of its own likeness to its Creator, is creative. No Child of God is capable of losing this ability, because it is inherent in what he IS.
