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If I find anyone to be "wrong" in ANY WAY, for ANY reason, I am scapegoating.

It doesn't even matter what the reasons are. Even if the reasons are valid.

If someone is making a wrong decision... if I identify they are wrong to make that decision, I am scapegoating.

If someone is behaving a certain way, and I identify it as a wrong behavior in any way, I am scapegoating.

If someone is being egotistical or selfish or arrogant or whatever, and if I identify that they are wrong to be this way, that THEY are clearly "the one who is wrong", I am scapegoating.

It's a very subtle trap to fall into. ACIM refers to it as the "obstacles to peace" which your BROTHER puts in front of you. ie, HIS assertions of error, HIS mistakes, HIS sins, HIS lacks, HIS false beliefs acting out. .... presented to you, as temptations.

If you agree with this wrongfulness, if you identify it as wrong, or they are guilty of anything, YOU must be getting a benefit from it.This is tough to admit to because it pretty much encompasses EVERYTHING PEOPLE DO without exception.

If they are wrong for ANY of it.... you are scapegoating.It doesn't matter what it is. There are no exceptions or special categories. If you are finding them to be wrong, mistaken, guilty, sinful, incorrect, you ARE in a scapegoating mode. You ARE projecting your own sin and guilt.

Which means that, every single time you think someone is doing something wrong, even "if they are" ... even if "its obvious" that it's ENTIRELY their fault, and ESPECIALLY then, you MUST be involved in a scapegoating mechanism.

Since "you but accuse your brother of your own sins", what that means is that WHATEVER you accuse your brother of, and EVERY TIME that you accuse him, YOU ARE scapegoating. Without exception.

It doesn't matter the severity of their acts, it doesn't matter how mistaken they are, how many times they do it, whether it's important or not. If you find it to be wrong, you are scapegoating and are trying to get rid of some of your own guilt.

And every single time that you scapegoat, you are attempting to get rid of guilt that is in YOUR mind that YOU put there. You are USING the person's "temptation" of "doing something wrong" as an OPPORTUNITY, to compound THEIR mistake, by adding yours TO it, to DISGUISE your mistake and mix it in with theirs, so that it is lost in their mistake and associated with them.

It's like saying, well, this person was already sinning, so I thought I'd just throw some of my sin onto the pile with them so that no-one would notice there was some of my sin mixed in there. Then I can get away with it and be the innocent one. Then they get to be the fall guy.

Every .... single.... time..... Every.... single.... person..... Every..... single.... judgement....... is scapegoating.

Finding ANYONE to be wrong, guilty, sinful, or even in error, means you are trying to project your own guilt and sin. Even if the other person seems to be VERY sinful. Even if they are evil. You still are using them.

Because the only truth is that you and your brother are totally innocent at all times. So anything else is a mistake.

You may find it hard to accept the truth, because you do not believe it about yourself. You look within yourself to see if it applies there and find yourself wanting. Your self doubts and your limitations work against your attempts to believe it.

What I'm finding is it can be more effective to borrow some clout from God. The train of thought goes along the lines of, "Is this true of God?". I ask myself if God can have this thing, this false thing, this problem, this suffering, this sickness, whatever it is.

For some reason I seem to be much more convinced that God is perfect and immortal and incapable of any kind of suffering than I am. So I use that fact. I contrast it against his nature and ask myself if I can believe that God has this. And usually I cannot, usually it seems ridiculous to even suggest it, and this helps me to be unconvinced of it also.

The underlying process here is simply "being one with God" more and more. Sharing everything with God. If something is true of God it is true of me. If it is not true of God then it is not true of me either. I am part of God. If I have something, God has to have it also. If God has something, I have to have it also. No exceptions, because we are one.

So if you are finding it a struggle to convince yourself that certain things are not true of you, that you don't have sufferings or illnesses or fears or guilts or whatever, instead of "doing it all by yourself" or in relation to yourself, do it in relation to God. Include God in the equation and question. You may find it a lot more effective and easier to let things go when you can see the impossibility of God having anything wrong with him.

You might also consider that this kind of practice is not merely one of many tools, but is in fact the end goal. We are supposed to be increasing our oneness with God. We are supposed to be seeing ourselves as sharing everything with him, and being like him in every way, having been created in his perfect likeness. To be one with God and like God is to remember your own true nature! This is the goal of the course, reunion with God and Self.

"But to heal is still to make whole. Therefore to heal is to UNITE with those who are LIKE you, because perceiving this likeness IS to recognize the Father."

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today."

"And every dream serves only to conceal the Self Which is God's only Son, the likeness of Himself, the Holy One Who still abides in Him forever, as He still abides in me."

"Shut off from your Self, Who remains aware of His likeness to His Creator, your Self seems to sleep, while the part of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be awake."

"Here is your answer to the world, and God's as well. For here it is you join with Him, His likeness being yours in this alone."

"God created man in his own image and likeness" is correct in meaning, but the words are open to considerable misinterpretation. This is avoided, however, if "image" is understood to mean "thought," and "likeness" is taken as "of a like quality." God DID create the Son in His own Thought, and of a quality like to His own. There IS nothing else."

"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."

"YOU are a miracle. God creates only "that which, or one who, is of surpassing excellence or merit." Man is capable of this kind of creation, too, being in the image and likeness of his own Creator. Anything else is only his own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the Creations of Light are real."

When you blame another person or think that something outside of you has 'caused you' to change in some unwanted way, you THINK that you are being powerful by finding them guilty.

Jesus says in ACIM that anger is an attempt to make someone guilty.

Every time you are angry at someone you are trying to claim and prove that they are wrong.

You think that this makes you more powerful, because you feel JUSTIFIED, and you see yourself as having been unfairly treated.

You did not see what you did to yourself, so you think they did it to you. SOMEONE must be responsible! When you don't see that it was you, you start looking for another cause to pin it on. SOMEONE must be guilty.

It seems to feel empowering and justifying to find out who did this to you. It seems to make you more right and more innocent and more righteous, to point out how someone else was wrong - that it wasn't you.

You couple innocence with attack and justify it by explaining what it was someone ELSE caused.

But when you do this, although it seems like an experience of power and intensity, it is in fact a state of weakness. It is a state of disempowerment. Your attempt to find another person wrong means that you are finding them guilty and weak. But since they are YOU, you are indirectly finding this about yourself.

So as you project your blame, you will also feel guilty, because what you are accusing someone of, your mind (which is one with theirs) knows that you're talking about YOU as well. What applies to them applies to you even if you are in denial of that.

So having this angry reaction doesn't make you powerful, but it makes the ego seem powerful, and you will feel extra justified and innocent when you are like this. You will think this lets you off the hook. It's a way to conveniently shift attention away from YOUR guilt, to point out the guilt of others, so that people won't notice what YOU have been doing. It's a cover-up.

Thinking you have this angry power makes you disempowered, because you're giving away your certainty, peace, and are replacing your REAL innocence with a fake innocence. You're trading the strength and integrity of responsibility, for the weakness and loss induced by believing you are NOT responsible - that it's someone else who is.

If you are not responsible, you are not yourself. If you are not responsible, you are a victim. If you are not responsible, you are vulnerable to attack. If you are not responsible, you will go into unconscious insanity.

This is why as ACIM says, "anger is never justified". It literally is always a lie and always mistaken. You simply did not see what you did to yourself, what you chose, what you asked for, and what you created. If you are blind to your OWN responsibility, you will find everyone else to be responsible instead, because it's just you trying to make sense of WHY something happened.

When stuff goes wrong, it is not anyone's fault. Responsibility isn't fault. Responsibility is faultless.

A major way the ego tempts us to seek outside of ourselves and to not find what we are seeking, is to suggest that the truth really is out there somewhere. The belief that you can actually find it outside of yourself, is simultaneously the belief that it does not exist inside of you.

Establishing that the truth is not IN you already, fully and completely, or that you do not have it, is the entire foundation of the ego‘s thought system. Once this is believed, you will cease looking within for it, and start on a quest, which you might even call a "spiritual journey", attempting to "seek" for the truth.

This seeking can show up as very earnest and well-intentioned and an attempt to find the ultimate spiritual answer. BUT, because you are fundamentally looking in the wrong place, you are guaranteed never to find it.

The ego is very sneaky about this. It will tempt you to believe that reality, and truth, are outside of yourself. This means the entire world is real. It also means the world contains the truth. And this then justifies your seeking IN the world to try to find it. The ego has promised you can succeed at this, but it is utterly impossible. The truth is already inside you, where you are not looking, and where the ego will NEVER have you look.

Looking outside yourself CAN also include finding the truth within a book such as A Course in Miracles. Especially if the FORM of the book seems to be more of a truth than other forms. If the words seem to show symbols which don’t even look like symbols, but look like concrete pieces of the truth itself, which is the ego’s way of turning illusions into reality, you can become quite fixated on picking apart the tiniest nuances of what specific words say, become extremely specific, and pull apart even the tiniest of statements, which completely loses all sense of context and increases your insanity. The truth is NOT THERE!

You will go deeply into the Course words and the form of the words. You will not recognize them as mere symbols twice removed from the truth, and will not acknowledge the Course’s holographic nature. You will instead attempt to turn the Course into a linear, finite, concrete piece of "evidence", an attempt to PROVE that the truth is outside of you.

The result of this is an OBSESSION in trying to find the truth. You will feel compelled by the lack of truth in you. And yet, here‘s the problem. The more you seek for it, the more you dwell on what the Coure says, the more you become obsessed with the exact specific words of a given version, the more you dissect it and analyze it and try to figure out what it means based on its form, the more it will slip through your fingers! And the more you do this, the more desperate you will become, because you continue to fail to truly FIND what it is the ego promised you would find there.

The form of the Course IS NOT THE TRUTH. The truth is an inner experience of direct reality with God. It is not intellectual. It has nothing to do with study. It absolutely has nothing whatsoever to do with quote fests or throwing quotes at people to correct them. It definitely has nothing to do with pitting different FORMS of the course against each other. It’s completely nothing whatsoever to do with what exact words were said, who can find the best citations, or who can use the Course as a weapon.

THE TRUTH IS NOT OUTSIDE OF YOU.

There is nothing so blinding as sight of FORM!

The Course is ONLY there to help point you AWAY from the form of the Course and towards an experience of God, which is already in you, just covered up. The more you obsess over the Course’s words the more you are going to get lost in the intellect. And the more you do that, the more you will believe you are "finding" the truth, and are delusional.

The words are just symbols, *representing* a truth that is quite removed from those symbols. When we fight about which exact words are used where, or what they mean, or what they "say", we’re completely forgetting they are symbols and are trying to break the Course out into some kind of direct truth in its own right. This was never how it was intended. This is an ego trap.

Blocks to awareness of the fact that you are ALREADY WITH GOD need to be removed. That’s all. Period. This is nothing more than the undoing of denial and stopping searching outside yourslf, even within the course, for something which is not there. The Course if understood is telling you to do this. You are supposed to leave the Course behind at some point and go within to God with empty hands! You can’t do this, and you cannot experience the truth, while trying to make yourself RIGHT about what exactly the FORM says or seems to prove. There is NO PROOF in the Course. It’s an illusion.

Go within.

One of the ways the ego deceives you is to make it seem like you are not yourself. It wants to suggest that something has changed about you, since God created you whole, and that you are now missing something.

The only way it can make it seem like you are missing something is to HIDE it or conceal it. It's not actually capable of getting rid of your real self, because God made you PERMANENT. There is no real way the ego can stop you from existing or take away your reality.

The ONLY trick the ego has is to pretend that there is something about you that is missing, by trying to BLOCK YOUR AWARENESS from being aware that it exists. It does this by applying distortions to your perception which seem to make it hard to SEE what is really right in front of you and obvious.

These blocks to the AWARENESS of God's presence are the only problem. They need to be removed, in order for you to become AWARE again that you DO still have everything that God gave you, you ARE still immortal, you HAVE NOT been changed and NOTHING is missing.

So what the ego does, is it covers you up a little bit, maybe with a lie or a deception or some darkness or a temptation or some other mechanism of illusion. It makes an illusion that makes it seem like something's gone wrong, something's happening, there's been a loss, or an emptiness, or a hole has been made in the Son of God, or something's been taken away, or whatever.

So this ego PRANKSTER tries to TRICK you into believing that it's actually TRUE that something about you is missing. It tries to get you to believe that it's true you've lost your love, or your power, or your strength, or your sanity, or your connection to God, or your peace, or your identity, or whatever. As soon as you believe it's lie and fall for its trick, you are now in a state of confusion.

Confused, and convinced that you actually HAVE lost some part of yourself, and that this part of yourself IS NOT where it should be - ie within you - where God placed it - what do you do now? Perceiving a lack, you feel a need, and that need automatically asks to be fulfilled because it's a magnetic belief in 'not having' which draws itself in the direction of 'getting' - ie re-acquiring.

So now you go off, distracted, looking everywhere you can possibly look, EXCEPT for where this missing thing IS, which is in you, because its' not really missing AT ALL it's just being covered up, and what results will you encounter? You'll look high and low and everywhere in-between, everywhere EXCEPT underneath the blanket that hides it. And it won't be there. And you will not find it, because it's not anywhere that you're looking.

This is how the ego has you "seek and do not find".

It's also how the ego has you "seek for salvation" (a solution to the problem of something having gone wrong), outside of yourself, in places where you will never find it, even though you have this big HOPE of finding it there. The ego would want you to keep DOING stuff to trying to REPLACE what you think you lost, even though it's not reall lost. And all this doing will entail 'trying' really hard to accomplish what you ultimately cannot accomplish. And the more effort you put into 'finding' what you think you do not have, the less it will work and the more frustrated you'll be.

So all you need really to do is to LOOK AT the ego's smokescreen, QUESTION the ego's bullshit deception that says you are lacking something, figure out that what it says you're lacking is just HIDDEN, look at what is hiding it and how it is functioning, STOP DOING IT - ie UN-DO the action of hiding it, and lo and behold.. abracadabra.... IT IS REVEALED TO YOU!

Eureka! You found it. It is already in you. It always was. It was never lost. It wasn't removed. It wasn't really damaged. Nothing really happened to it. This LOVE that you are, is still perfectly intact, perfectly whole, perfectly at peace, perfectly happy, perfectly powerful and immortal and innocent. It has never changed. And so as you remove this BLOCK to awareness, instead of trying to REPLACE what the block says is missing, you simply uncover the truth of what is, what always was and what always will be.

There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing lacking in you. There is nothing missing from you. You have not been hurt. You have not been damaged. You have not sinned. You are not guilty. AAAAAAALL this other stuff that says otherwise is just a COVER for your immaculate divine innocence and invulnerability. And all your worries about all this other bullshit is all because you think it's telling you the truth. None of it is true. The only truth is that you are STILL as God created you, even if you've been hiding it underneath layer upon layer of illusions.

It's going to be a wonderful day when you finally realize that you are still as God created you and nothing has happened.

The ego makes a problem seem real, gets intense about it, magnifies it, and then tries to do something about it.

The ego can put on a mask of being a 'problem solver' or 'fixer' or 'doer' or 'seeker', claiming that it is innocently trying to solve the problem.

But the ego has made the problem in the first place. And for it to then turn around and claim to be working on solving it, is a complete farce.

The ego cannot, and does not really want to, solve the problems it has created. But it loves to SEEM like it is doing so.

It loves to think it not only has the purpose and innocent function of being the fixer and solver and savior in the situation, but that it actually is capable of finding the perfect answer, which is always elusive.

As the ego works on its solution to a problem, it really compounds the problem. So this is the ego's version of healing. The ego seeks to heal the problems it has made real.

It wants them to go away, while secretly sustaining and reinforcing them. And therefore the ego's form of healing is in fact an ATTACK, which damages and makes the problem worse.

The ego's mantra is that salvation can be achieved through attack.

Responding to an illusory problem that doesn't even really exist and can't be happening in God's Kingdom, means you are deceived and deluded.

True Forgiveness is needed.

In the beginning of the ACIM Workbook, we're instructed to look around the room and tell ourselves, indiscriminately, that this thing we're looking at doesn't mean anything. And we're asked not to be selective in what we apply it to, applying it to everything equally. This EQUALIZING is what's important.

I'm finding that this basic idea is core to the process of mind training in order to awaken from this world. Basically, our minds have become very used to fragmenting everything into separate boxes, with separate labels.

We become blinded by perception of form, and we take the form of something to determine its meaning. Yet we've given it all the meaning it has. Differences and shifts and changes all seem to stand out as separate and exclusive. One thing is not another etc. And before you know it we have 1000 different responses to 1000 different things and never are we simple unconditional.

But the mind is not supposed to be in this kind of viewpoint, with a massive complicated hierarchy of illusions, with multiple different reactions and responses, treating one thing differently to another, adapting and changing based on circumstances etc. These are all unnatural for the mind which must be unconditionally constant in order to be healthy.

As we peruse the room and identify that one different seeming object is really to be treated no differently than another, we're beginning the process of collapsing the hierarchy of illusions, undoing the belief in separation, dispelling the illusion that one thing is NOT the same as another, and are gradually reprogramming the mind to be less conditional.

For me a huge way this has recently come to light is in the idea of the death of a body. On the physical level the ego world says that a body has been utterly destroyed and irreversibly erased from existence. But on the spiritual level the person still persists in eternal life. And they can't both be true.

Given that God would never allow one of his immortal creations to ever be destroyed, and there is no power greater than God's to overthrow his will, death is an absolute lie. The body's demise means absolutely nothing. It does not mean a person is dead, it does not mean God's son is destroyed, and it does not imply anything. Death is ultimately meaningless.

"The death of an illusion means nothing."

So then if you look at this closely and see that death cannot have a meaning, it causes nothing and has no effect, it is completely meaningless. And this then means that it doesn't MEAN anything DIFFERENT to a living body. And both of those bodies do not really mean anything.

"Nothing I see means anything."

It's in this erasing of the MEANING of separation, whereby you isolate something and give it a different unique meaning compared to something else, that the mind begins to split and fragment. Believing in separation plays out as believing the seeming messages we get from separate different objects.

It's as though the whole of physical unreality is screaming constantly to tell you that this one thing IS NOT another thing, this thing is NOT the same, this thing has unique properties, this one's red and that one's green, this one's bigger, that one's smaller etc. All constantly tempting you to believe that EVERYTHING is separate. And this couldn't be more OPPOSITE to how the mind is supposed to function.

When we see objects meaning something unique we are deceived by illusion, blinded by form, deceived by temptation, lost in a dream, and find our mind to be imprisoned. When we EQUALIZE forms and give them the SAME meaning, recognizing they have NO meaning of their own, that's when mind is entering a state of unconditionality, which means love.

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."

So then we look at a body that seems dead and we do not assign it any meaning. And we look at bodies which seem alive and we do not assign them any meaning. And we recognize that both types of bodies are not really different in their meaning, or in what they are. They are both illusions, both unreal, both in ONE category.

Consider then that the mind in this state is a very cohesive whole unified mind. It's not a mind that goes putting labels on everything, putting things in separate boxes, emphasizing differences, or thinking of the things of the physical world as unique.

It's a mind that has ONE state, one feeling, one undivided will, one power, one wholeness, one unconditional action. It treats everyone and everything with the same singular completely still peaceful loving relationship. It responds to everything in the same way, and sees no "orders of difficulty".

Such a mind is not deceived by forms. Such a mind does not really pay any special attention to things which seem different, more important, less important, more serious, less serious. It has learned to see that both living and dead bodies are the same one illusion, the same one lie.

On a way then, the waking mind is finding a way to be whole and unmoved by the world, always constant and honest, always peaceful and loving. It doesn't buy into any temptations, it doesn't fall for the appearance of something seeming easier or harder, bigger or heavier. It finds a way to transcend all differences. And it really is about psychological transcendence. Completely disregarding the appearance of any differences of form whatsoever.

Such a mind isn't finding a way to see that the forms are ONE, or that God is the forms. It isn't finding oneness in them as such. It's transcending them toward the oneness that is behind and beyond them, a oneness that the forms don't even touch or influence in any way.

Because mind becomes whole and unified and loving and disregards differences, it sees in a sense a "reflection of heaven" - a unified transcendental perception - looking upon the physical separate objects still but NOT believing them, NOT falling for their forms, NOT blinded, NOT regarding them as truly different or true at all. But seeing them with a unified mind can't help but see unity IN PLACE of the differences, reflected there.

Cars are still separately driving down separate roads. Bodies are still separately walking down separate streets. Dogs are still barking at separate cats. But the healed mind is not deceived by how any of these things look. The healed mind becomes transcendental of all separate forms, all separate labels, all separate distinctions and differences.

So really in the start of the Workbook we're basically in at the deep end, starting off running, because we're already practicing this simple idea - getting the mind to wean off interacting with the world from a complicated chaotic jumble of vantage points, and shifting toward a singular vantage point which pays no attention to form whatsoever.

Its an odd idea really. Adopting a state of mind which is centered on a singular oneness, and unchanging wholeness, an unconditional love, rather than being 1000 separate things to 1000 separate people. Just being you, knowing thyself, unmoved and unchanged and unaffected. Simple and unified. Ignoring all separations and divisons. Having no belief in the false illusion of the material world at all. A wholeness of mind from another world.

"And what more transcendent aim can there be than to recall the Way, the Truth and the Life, and to remember God?"

"Reality is changeless. It is this that MAKES it real, and KEEPS it separate from all appearances. It MUST transcend all form to be itself. It CANNOT change."

"The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but by transcendence. For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom."

"Would you transcend YOUR prison and ascend to the Father?"

"Communion comes with peace, and peace MUST transcend the body."

"Then lay aside the body and quietly TRANSCEND it, rising to welcome what you REALLY want. And from His holy temple look you not back on what you have awakened FROM. For no illusions CAN attract the minds that have TRANSCENDED them, and left them far behind."

The answer is love, which is God.

The act of putting distance between myself and love has introduced unlove into my mind. My mind is now uncertain, doesn't know what the truth is, is confused and afraid. This is what questions are made of.

You will then seek to try to find answers to these questions, thinking they are anywhere other than in God. You don't think to reverse the question and go back to where the question sprung from. Instead you try to keep the question and answer it.

You will fail, because the answer is always love. Love is the answer to all questions because love renders the question unnecessary.

If you have questions it is because you are separate from God. Returning to God in some way, however small, will shine a light which will help to dissolve the NEED for finding an answer, and the question will disappear.

Especially if you are willing to really commune with God, and if you went to God with a whole bunch of questions in your mind, you may notice that they all totally just disappear. They don't necessary get the answers that you thought they must provide, and you didn't necessarily get pieces of information that satisfy the questions.... the questions just vanished.

It seems it would not be a bad idea if you are doubtful, afraid, uncertain or questioning, to just go join with God for a while. Soak up some love. Watch the questions dissolve, and you'll be better off.

It was really love that you wanted to find. Love was always the answer to your seeking.

Know this. It is not possible to objectively and neutrally try to determine what the truth is, using the ego, without avoiding the truth.

There is no 'innocently seeking for the answer'. There is no mode that you can be in where you are not in some way contributing to the situation.

So either you are seeking the ego's truth, which makes the problem worse, or you are accepting God's truth, which undoes the problem. There is no other choice.

There is no time where you can just be neutrally looking at the situation and working on finding an answer, as though that 'activity' isn't actually a part of the problem, or that it is having no effect on the situation. You are choosing for or against God all the time.

This is why in quantum physics the heisenberg principle shows that if you observe something you change it. The ego mind is not capable of neutrality, it is only capable of PROJECTING and then 'perceiving' what it projected (projection makes perception).

There are no neutral thoughts. And that means, there are no neutral BELIEFS. Beliefs are thoughts or collections of thoughts. Attitudes.

Either you believe in the ego's truth, which is a lie, or you believe in God's truth.

Knowing you cannot 'deal' with the problem without making it worse, which truth do you choose? Do you keep trying to solve a problem, by adding to it, or do you step back and detach and surrender?

If someone told you that you couldn't go into the water to save a drowning animal without disturbing the water such that it would seal the animal's fate, what would you do?

Every attempt you make to solve ego problems adds to them.

There has to be a better way.

It's possible to rationalize and justify ANY viewpoint you want to take. If you look, you will find all kinds of reasons in support of your opinion. The thing is, you won't think it's your opinion because you'll justify how your opinion is 'reality' by saying, look, look at the truth, look at the evidence I found.

But what you don't realize is, you can flip-flop your opinion and change your mind about what you're trying to prove is true, and then you'll start to see all kinds of evidence supporting THAT viewpoint as well. And again you'll probably tell yourself, well, look over there, that proves that this viewpoint is true.

And again you've fallen for the same ILLUSION.

The world does not have a meaning of its own. There is no truth in the world. It does not contain facts or proof. It is not objectively real. But we keep looking to it to TELL US what the truth is. And each time we find some evidence we fall into this blindness about how this proves what is real or true. And if that evidence supports our case, which it usually does because beliefs create evidence, we'll keep believing that the world contains some truth.

The trick is to realize we are always CHOOSING the meaning that everything has, we are always GIVING meaning to stuff in the world, we are SELECTING the evidence that we resonate with to support whatever our belief is, and we are always being SUBJECTIVE.

What if I told you there IS NO TRUTH in the world? At all? And that every time you are 'sure' that something is proven in the world, it's actually still just you making it up as you go along, projecting belief into the neutral world and giving it meaning? And each time you say, see, this proves it, these are all the external reasons 'why', regardless of whether it's for or against, you fall into the same ego trap of not realizing it's a blank canvas.

You literally hallucinate the meaning you want to see in the world to justify the viewpoint you are CHOOSING to see SO THAT you will see evidence to prove its truth and to have faith in it. And then you switch to some other belief and do the same. And each time you think, see, I'm seeing the factual real world. You're not. You're only ever seeing your MIND CONTENT. Your fiction. You make up the story as you go along and the world never proves anything on your behalf. You RATIONALIZE why various things you pick out support your case and point to them as proof to support your view, not realizing you view is entirely your choice.

Ever had one of those times where you get all excited about something and you find all these reasons why it's the best thing you can do and why, when you do it, things are going to be better, and all this, and you find all these explanations to support it. Then some time passes and... this delusion starts to occur to you as maybe being flawed, and you start shifting to the opposite viewpoint... maybe this is not the thing you should do, bla bla bla, and then you start to justify why it is NOT the thing you should do, finding evidence to support that as well. But it was never that the world proved in favor or against either viewpoint - you're making it all up as you go along!!

So each time you look OUTSIDE YOURSELF for answers, for truth, for proof, for evidence, to determine some kind of inherent meaning or inherent objective factual truth, you are kidding yourself.

Your mind is NOT able to separately 'observe' what it perceives without interfering with what it perceives, because what you perceive is IN THE MIND that is perceiving it. Even quantum physics points to this. You can't look at something and say, I'm looking at this objectively and I'm only seeing what 'is really there', and then use that to explain why you should or shouldn't do something, or why something is right or wrong or good or bad or whatever. Each time you observe you MAKE ILLUSIONS and hallucinate. In that hallucination you dream-up rationalizations and justifications, and as you project what you WANT to see, you see it - projection makes perception.

So don't be fooled thinking you have a faculty for neutrally observing the world or neutrally finding evidence outside you that is there all on its own with no involvement from you. That's a victim viewpoint. YOU PUT IT THERE. And you will dream up whatever you want to in support of whatever you happen to be deciding is what you will dream is true today. There are no neutral thoughts - there are no neutral perceptions.

Ok, so today I will dream that it's a great idea to move to live in Hawaii, and I'll screen out everything that tells me its not a good idea and focus in on what tells me its a good idea, and that'll make it seem like its a really good thing to do. And then by convincing myself that its a good thing to do, I'll then say, well, I didn't have anything to do with deciding this - look at the objective evidence, it's clearly what I should do because of this and that and the other.

And then you'll be like, ok I will move to Hawaii because the external evidence shows me its the best thing. ie the situation or the world outside me is 'telling me I should' go there (which is a victim standpoint and disowning of power and responsibility). And then you move and its crap and you don't like it or its too expensive and you want to go home because you're living a DELUSION.

You're not being authentic and honest with yourself about the HUGE part you play in what you are perceiving and choosing, and how you are PRETENDING that you are not choosing so that you can blame it on external circumstances and BE A VICTIM. So long as we keep looking outside of ourselves to the world to 'ask it to tell us' what is out there, we're going to be victims.

So where will you turn for truth and facts? Truth and facts are of God, learned through Holy Spirit. He is the only one who can be 'objective' and not contribute hallucinations to your decision making.

A Course in Miracles - Urtext material - reproduced with permission from the Foundation for Inner Peace (acim.org), and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles (facim.org).
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