III. Beyond All Symbols

T-27.III.1. Power cannot oppose. ² For opposition would weaken it, and weakened power is a contradiction in ideas. ³ Weak strength is meaningless, and power used to weaken is employed to limit. ⁴ And therefore it must be limited and weak, because that is its purpose. ⁵ Power is unopposed, to be itself. ⁶ No weakness can intrude on it without changing it into something it is not. ⁷ To weaken is to limit, and impose an opposite that contradicts the concept that it attacks. ⁸ And by this does it join to the idea a something it is not, and make it unintelligible. ⁹ Who can understand a double concept, such as "weakened power" or "hateful love"?

T-27.III.2. You have decided that your brother is a symbol for a "hateful love," a "weakened power," and above all, a "living death." ² And so he has no meaning to you, for he stands for what is meaningless. ³ He represents a double thought, where half is cancelled out by the remaining half. ⁴ Yet even this is quickly contradicted by the half it cancelled out, and so they both are gone. ⁵ And now he stands for nothing. ⁶ Symbols which but represent ideas that cannot be must stand for empty space and nothingness. ⁷ Yet nothingness and empty space can not be interference. ⁸ What can interfere with the awareness of reality is the belief that there is something there.

T-27.III.3. The picture of your brother that you see means nothing. ² There is nothing to attack or to deny; to love or hate, or to endow with power or to see as weak. ³ The picture has been wholly cancelled out, because it symbolized a contradiction that cancelled out the thought it represents. ⁴ And thus the picture has no cause at all. ⁵ Who can perceive effect without a cause? ⁶ What can the causeless be but nothingness? ⁷ The picture of your brother that you see is wholly absent and has never been. ⁸ Let, then, the empty space it occupies be recognized as vacant, and the time devoted to its seeing be perceived as idly spent, a time unoccupied.

T-27.III.4. An empty space that is not seen as filled, an unused interval of time not seen as spent and fully occupied, become a silent invitation to the truth to enter, and to make itself at home. ² No preparation can be made that would enhance the invitation's real appeal. ³ For what you leave as vacant God will fill, and where He is there must the truth abide. ⁴ Unweakened power, with no opposite, is what creation is. ⁵ For this there are no symbols. ⁶ Nothing points beyond the truth, for what can stand for more than everything? ⁷ Yet true undoing must be kind. ⁸ And so the first replacement for your picture is another picture of another kind.

T-27.III.5. As nothingness cannot be pictured, so there is no symbol for totality. ² Reality is ultimately known without a form, unpictured and unseen. ³ Forgiveness is not yet a power known as wholly free of limits. ⁴ Yet it sets no limits you have chosen to impose. ⁵ Forgiveness is the means by which the truth is represented temporarily. ⁶ It lets the Holy Spirit make exchange of pictures possible, until the time when aids are meaningless and learning done. ⁷ No learning aid has use that can extend beyond the goal of learning. ⁸ When its aim has been accomplished it is functionless. ⁹ Yet in the learning interval it has a use that now you fear, but yet will love.

T-27.III.6. The picture of your brother given you to occupy the space so lately left unoccupied and vacant will not need defense of any kind. ² For you will give it overwhelming preference. ³ Nor delay an instant in deciding that it is the only one you want. ⁴ It does not stand for double concepts. ⁵ Though it is but half the picture and is incomplete, within itself it is the same. ⁶ The other half of what it represents remains unknown, but is not cancelled out. ⁷ And thus is God left free to take the final step Himself. ⁸ For this you need no pictures and no learning aids. ⁹ And what will ultimately take the place of every learning aid will merely be.

T-27.III.7. Forgiveness vanishes and symbols fade, and nothing that the eyes have ever seen or ears have heard remains to be perceived. ² A power wholly limitless has come, not to destroy, but to receive its own. ³ There is no choice of function anywhere. ⁴ The choice you fear to lose you never had. ⁵ Yet only this appears to interfere with power unlimited and single thoughts, complete and happy, without opposite. ⁶ You do not know the peace of power that opposes nothing. ⁷ Yet no other kind can be at all. ⁸ Give welcome to the power beyond forgiveness, and beyond the world of symbols and of limitations. ⁹ He would merely be, and so He merely is.