When I think about how I used to practice forgiveness, it all seemed so mechanical. I didn't really understand what forgiveness was, even if some version of it was spelled out in various books. I didn't understand what part Holy Spirit played, or what to expect of Him. It seems to have taken a very long time to refine this.
At first, I understood forgiveness was about 'it hasn't really happened' and forgiving for what people have NOT done, and that this entailed some form of taking back projections and stopping scapegoating. I tried various people's techniques and so on for releasing what I'd taken back, and sometimes it seemed to work a bit, not often. Most of the struggle seemed to be remembering to even forgive at all, or how to do it.
Over time I adopted another method which I felt provided new insight into how this works, and that involved some fairly clear steps to take, including going into the feeling and finding out where it came from and seeing that I did it to myself and then trying to see out 'the truth' about me. And in some ways that seemed to be quite powerful. But it still was pretty much me doing this on my own.
If I would ask Holy Spirit to help me forgive, he would perhaps help me with insights or wording and so on. But still it seemed to all be about me changing my perception, finding the real cause, stopping believing things that weren't true, discerning what was true or false etc. And still Holy Spirit was sort of more of an advisor or guide.
More recently, however, I became willing to start to experiment with allowing Holy Spirit to come into me, Himself, and to do whatever he needed to do. It was kind of baby steps at first. Just exploring and learning to trust. I would invite Him into my 'body' and He would seem to move in me and do some energetic/emotional changes, if I was willing. Sometimes he would do this 'flush' thing where, once he has done some setup, excess emotions/fear/stress drain out of me. Or, he would lift this 'stuff' up from my feet all the way up to and out of my head.
While this was helpful to me I didn't know why other people weren't talking about this or doing this. I didn't know in what way it fit with ACIM, and yet I knew it was Holy Spirit doing this. He would say "surrender" or "relax" and I pretty much knew that right after that he was going to perform a healing of some kind. But like anything, in order to 'open up' to this stuff it requires willingness, trust, curiosity and the ability to listen, to ask questions and build a relationship.
More recently I gradually have received more clarity from various sources about forgiveness, what it is, what it does, and what other aspects of Holy Spirit's thought system I need to align with, such as taking responsibility, being unconditional, acceptance, etc. Michael Murray has a good handle on those 'tools' and the metaphysics behind it.
What came to me then was that instead of attempting this kind of mental-oriented process of forgiving through thought and perceptual adjustments, which is very head-oriented, I would begin to open up my heart to Holy Spirit and become willing to *receive* His healing. I think the turning point was when I realized that "He will correct all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him" really literally means that HE will do the correction, not just of my perception, but also of all the side effects, symptoms or consequences that came about as a result. And that includes things going on in my body, my emotions, and the world around me.
He began to literally 'cleanse' me of guilt and sin instead of me trying to wrap my head around them or see them from a different vantage point. I could talk myself into higher truth in an intellectual way, but here Holy Spirit was starting to stir in me and move through me and heal me. Preparing the way perhaps for working through me on behalf of others. This was something I desired and wanted to explore and open up to. Now when I forgive, I know that toward the end of it, and maybe even before I get done with 'my part', Holy Spirit is going to likely step in and do something. And I mean, DO something. Action.
As I explore this more, and open up to miracles, and make myself a channel of Holy Spirit's healing power, I am allowing my 'forgiveness' to be more a practice in, ultimately, receiving healing from God (mental/emotional/physical) rather than me trying to use my head to figure out how I'm innocent. It is more experiential. I want to *experience* God. I want to *experience* truth and not have it just be some mental exercise in discernment. And it's even more than that.
What about God? What about love? I feel a stirring that I want to spend the rest of my time simply focusing on .. how to be unconditionally loving, how to receive and extend God and His miracles, and how to just love love love love love. It's not mental. It's not intellectual. It's in the HEART. God is love. I want to be in the love with God. I want everything to be focused around and centered on love. And I want to be open to God being the one who heals my mind and emotions and body, and those of others too. I want to share in God's love and receive it, instead of thinking (with ego) I have to do all this work myself. Yes I need to still take some steps and have a willingness, but I realize more and more that 'waking up' isn't anywhere near as heart-felt a 'concept' as being reunited with God. Who wants to clinically wake up unless it's all about a grand reunion?
I want God to be in my practice of A Course in Miracles, and that has much less to do with the methodical mechanical forgiveness processes I used to think were 'the way to do it'. Maybe I needed them in order to realize they are unrefined or less effective than God's way. We are meant to open up to allow Holy Spirit to flow through us fully and openly, to direct us, to speak for us, to heal through us, and to be our mind. All this 'doing it on my own' stuff is very tiresome and unnecessary.
Thank you God for revealing the truth of your light and love experientially in my life and extending it all those I meet. As Jesus outlines in the beginning of the Text about miracles (in the unsanitized version):
"You should begin each day with the prayer 'Help me to perform whatever miracles you want of me today."" - Jesus.
"WHAT IS NOT LOVE IS MURDER" - ACIM
Here's how this works.
A mind which is fully awake and aware, recognizes that it actually shares a mind with everyone. It is at one with them. It sees its own identity within others, and knows that they are part of itself.
A mind of oneness therefore recognizes that whatever applies to others directly applies to itself. It is aware enough to see that, because it is "in" others, if it were to attack others, it would be attacking itself. And because this is very obvious to the awake mind, it recognizes that such actions would be completely self-defeating, and so does not attack.
When the mind can see clearly that it is one with others, it will treat others only with love, because to do anything else would hurt its own self.
However, when the mind enters into a belief in separation, what it's doing is it's introducing an illusion of denial inbetween itself and others. This denial makes it seem as if other people do not have "shared interests" with itself, other people are different somehow, other people are disconnected from itself, and therefore what applies to them does not apply to itself. It does not recognize or see itself in others so does not believe that what applies to them applies to itself.
On these terms, the mind is now partly unaware that it is one with other minds, does not see itself in others, and does not recognize that to hurt others would hurt itself. It now seems plausible that there is an `option`, a possibility, to do something unto others that is not done unto itself.
Another way to put this is that a separation is introduced in-between cause and effect. The mind now believes it is capable of causing effects in others which are not caused in itself. It does not see that attempting to hurt others hurts itself, so it think it can "get away with" or be excluded from those effects.
The idea of being able to do something to others which does not directly affect yourself, is the idea of "getting away with murder." It means you can now seem to attack another without experiencing the consequences. This is attempted murder. The entire ego thought system is based on this, and absolutely everything that happens in the ego thought system is murderous!
The problem of the mind then is that even though it believes it is not one with other minds, and that it can get away with attacking/causing without being affected, it's actually not true that it gets away with it. In one way or another, the mind IS still attacking itself, and it is hurting itself when it tries to hurt others. The ego will claim this is not true, and that you can escape from the consequences, but it is in denial. If the mind attacks another, it itself will be attacked BY itself.
This then becomes the ego trap of believing that you can get away with projecting your sin onto others without having to deal with the consequences. It sets up the entire foundation of how you will deal with your sin/separation, by trying to make someone else receive the consequences of it, supposedly making you innocent or rather, letting you "get away with" your murderous intentions by having someone else be blamed for them. In this way, the ego creates a state of "fake innocence"... where you seem innocent because someone ELSE has taken the blame for your attack.
Therefore to the ego, innocence is murderous. To the ego, it is possible for the innocent to sin, and for the innocent to insanely destroy others without destroying itself. Can you imagine how ridiculous and twisted it is to believe that someone can be free of responsibility even though they're standing there with the murder weapon having just attacked their brother, believing they are completely free of all consequences? Within the dream, this is insanity, given they did not and will not escape the consequences. The cost of attack is the loss of their own identity.
When we say "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", this does not really mean that other people are separate from you and you should just treat them well. This would mean that maybe, maybe not, they might treat you well in return. This is still a breakdown in cause and effect, leaving open the possibility that even if you treat others well, they may still attack you.
The real meaning of this is that, in the mind aware of its oneness, how it treats others IS how IT treats itself. Therefore it is in its own vested interest ("shared interest") to treat others as it DOES treat itself, because whatever it does to another it IS DOING to itself. This does not rely on others to decide whether or not to reciprocate, because if you treat others with love you WILL experience the effect of love. This is also the true meaning of "karma", not that separate causes will decide to attack you in retaliation, but that YOU attack yourself. All attack is self attack.
What is not love, is murder. Any belief in attack, any sin, any guilt, and anger, any argument, any belief that something applies to others and not you, any way you come between people, any sense of separation, any illusion of being innocent while secretly scapegoating your sin onto others, means you are being murderous. You are trying to "get away with" having sinned and to not suffer the consequences.
The fact is, you do not escape the consequences of sin. If you believe in it, it will destroy you. It's not possible for something to apply to someone else that you don't also believe applies to yourself. You never really get to be "right" and others wrong, because if you are right, you are wrong. You never get to "succeed" in the ego's terms, because that means you have failed. You never get to "win" the ego's game, because that means you have used separation and have lost.
The only way to end the murderousness is to return to love. That means removing the blocks to awareness which prevent you from being able to RECOGNIZE yourself in others, to be aware of your ONENESS with others, and to therefore KNOW that if you do even one tiny thing to hurt anyone, it's going to hurt you. That's a pretty big incentive to always remain loving, because to attack is to be attacked by yourself, and who in their right mind, a sane mind, would want to do that? There is no sense to it.
The fact that what is not love is murder should not be used by the ego right now to make you feel guilty, or to say, well, this means that I'm being murderous because I'm not awake yet, therefore I'm even more sinful. Don't let the ego use this information to accuse you even more than you already have. Simply recognize this is what's happening and continue with your forgiveness of yourself. Murder is not REAL, it is an illusion. There is no REAL attack or REAL separation. It is just a state of being mistaken and thinking that it's possible to accomplish murder and to get away with it, when in fact it's not possible, AND you cannot really hurt who you really are.
There is no murder in heaven. There is no murder in God's reality. Only love is real.
In my ongoing exploration and practice of performing healing miracles, I gradually chisel away at the reasons why it is or isn't working, and gradually refine the process. I guess it's like learning anything, like how to drive a car or how to sing.
At first you do all kinds of things that aren't necessary and produce mistakes and problems. Gradually you UN-learn various things you were doing that were interfering.
Lately I'm moving more towards trusting Holy Spirit Himself to teach me about it, rather than trying to the find answers in other people's teachings about it, especially as I'm gradually seeing more and more inconsistencies in what other people have said.
One of the key aspects of miracle healing is, apparently, an element of belief. I've heard people talk about how you must believe first in order to receive. It is said biblically that he who asks, believing that he will receive, will do so. And this is also reflected in the Course.
I'm discovering that BELIEVING that it is TRUE that healing will occur, or indeed, that it HAS occurred (per God), is a key part of this "procedure".
Previously, I would attempt to do a miracle and say various things and use my hands and so on, with some amount of conviction that it was "possible" for this to work. But at the same time, I still was looking and waiting to see IF it was working. This means focusing on the presence of signs of change, first, instead of focusing on belief first. It means I'm making the error real, instead of overlooking it.
So if the sickness or problem is the error, or the form of error, and if I'm looking AT it trying to undo it, I've kept it real and am believing the ego's illusion. Therefore I am not in a mode of forgiveness.
Here I'm finding there is a really interesting, almost double-interpretation of what the Course says about miracles and forgiveness. On the one hand there is forgiving illusions for the sake of your own sanity and so on, mind correction, BUT, also it's seeming more and true that this APPLIES not only within my little body mind but also "OUT THERE" in the greater mind.
That means, forgiveness can be applied externally from my separate self, just as much as internally. That means, there are illusions of sickness outside of my body, as much as there might be such things inside. When I see errors (sickness) in someone's body, if I think that illusion is real, I am basically failing to forgive. If I am to UNDO that illusion, it isn't going to simply mean that I change my perception about it within my mind and it gets fixed within ME, within the scope of my separate self, but that it is supposed to ALSO get fixed out there in the larger dream.
The illusion of sickness in the other person is supposed to get corrected and undone and disappear, just as it would if it were inside my own form. Therefore, as part of the miracle-working process, which applies WITHIN AND WITHOUT (which are both the same), I need to OVERLOOK the person's sickness by not focusing on it when I am attempting to heal them. This also means that, as Jesus says, the miracle is intended to heal BOTH of us and not just my private inner world.
If when I attempt a miracle with Holy Spirit, I am looking not with a mindset of believing in truth, but with a mindset of believing that the error is in the person's body is real, then I am not going to see a miracle. This was something I was getting wrong, because I felt that IF a miracle were to happen with the person's body, I would actually be SURPRISED. That's not a good sign. That indicates that I don't REALLY believe that it's going to happen, and therefore I don't REALLY believe in God or that it CAN happen, yet alone that it WILL and MUST.
So I've been asking myself this question, do I REALLY believe that this person's given sickness, whatever the target is, do I ACTUALLY believe that it really can and will be healed? And in this, I have to be really HONEST with myself. And honestly, some of the things that I've been trying to heal, I did not really believe could be healed. Even if I was trying fairly earnestly or making a fool of myself. Deep down, I wasn't really totally certain or convinced that it would work, I was relying more on wishful thinking and hope than on faith and knowing.
So what happened was, I found myself ready to do a "remote miracle", on my own with Holy Spirit, away from a person, and what came to me was that I should not try to heal the thing I thought I would tackle, because I'm not ready. I don't believe it enough. The illusion of that particular "error" being real is too strong at the moment, so I don't have enough belief that it can be healed. So I was directed by Holy Spirit to work on a different issue, which he specifically named. And I noticed that I FELT that I believed it WAS possible for this other issue to be healed. I'm not sure if its to do with the order of difficulty issue - hierarchy of illusions, that for some reason I have less baggage and blockage relating to that particular ailment, but it seemed more POSSIBLE for me to believe in its healing. So I did that.
And then Holy Spirit told me to "cancel". So I did a forgiveness process canceling the belief that anything about the sickness was true or real. Gradually Holy Spirit's energies flowed more and more intensely, and I found myself BELIEVING that it was happening. That the healing WAS being received, and that it WAS fully given. And I did not feel like I would be surprised if it worked. Instead, I felt that it was, as Holy Spirit then said, "done." He said it was "fully given."
Believing that the healing can and will be done is very important, because it's the same thing as you believing that the forgiven mind is true and that the person is innocent in this area. Just as much as if it applied to myself. It's not so much I think that the believing in it itself gives it any kind of power, BUT, that I am placing my faith and loyalty SOMEWHERE, so either I am believing in the truth of God's healing, OR I must be believing in the ego's lie of sickness. So which is it going to be? I need to ACTUALLY BELIEVE that God's truth is the truth and that, therefore, there MUST be healing.
I think I'm on to something.
When you resist something in life, when you can't accept the fact of what is, or what has seemingly happened, when you are fighting with it and don't want it and want it to be a different way, you WILL experience being unhappy.
Resistance itself, causes unhappiness.
As you resist, what is happening? You're putting up barriers, you're shutting down, you're trying to control, you're blocking out what is, you're fighting, you're wasting a lot of futile energy not being able to change any facts, you're draining yourself on impossible wishes, you're running up against reality, etc.. And all of these actions, are experienced AS feelings of unhappiness, feelings of anger, feelings of sadness and fear, feelings of exhaustion, feelings of threat and danger, feelings of intensity and tension.
Now, when you are resisting life, no matter what in particular, what you need to realize is that it is the resisting ITSELF that doesn't feel good. You will resist, thinking that you feel unhappy 'because of' the thing you are resisting. You'll think, you feel angry or outraged or upset 'because of' what you don't want to be happening. Whatever it is that you 'cannot accept', you will say that THAT is causing you to feel unhappy.
This is not true at all.
ALL of the feelings and experiences of unpleasantness, unhappiness, upset, anger etc... all of them are PART OF what it feels likes like to RESIST WHAT IS. And it doesn't matter what form your opponent takes, because ultimately 'what is' is God, and any form of resisting God shuts God out, and that does not feel good at all. If you shut God out, you will shut out love, light, happiness, joy, peace, harmony. So you can be pretty much guaranteed, if you resist what's happening, you MUST feel unhappy and upset.
So now, realize this. .... unhappy feelings are caused by RESIST-ING, not by what you are resisting against. Resistance in other words, is a form of skapegoating, in which you're trying to make out that 'they' - your enemy - are the cause of your problem. That they are causing all of the anger you feel, all of the unhappiness you feel, all of the tension and stress that you feel. It's all their fault. It's all the fault of 'what is' (ultimately blaming God). But this is not only spiritually irresponsible, it is also deluded. What you're resisting against or fighting against is NOT the cause of your upset. The cause of your upset is ONLY, the fact that YOU are choosing to resist it.
That's all. There is no other reason why you are unhappy other than that you are choosing to resist what is, and are then blaming or justifying 'why' you are resisting, onto the other person or situation. It's not their fault that you're resisting them. It's not their fault you are unhappy. It's not the 'now's fault that you are going off into the past and future on a tirade story of how you've been victimized.
Ultimately then, all of the experience of victimhood and suffering and upset and unhappiness is a DECISION YOU ARE MAKING, in order to justify and explain WHY you are choosing not to ACCEPT what is. Why you are not accepting God.
"You are never upset for the reason you think" - ACIM
"You are upset because you see something that is not really there" - ACIM
What you see that you think is there, is an enemy who has suddenly arisen out of 'what is', which you have labelled as wrong, having given it all the meaning it has, and now you are in a state of resisting, which you chose, and because of this choice, you are now experiencing suffering. AND THIS IS ALL YOUR OWN DOING TO YOURSELF.
"The secret to salvation is this, that you are but doing this all to yourself." - ACIM
SOOOOO..... what this means is... and here's the clincher....
*IF* you were to decide to stop resisting and fighting with what is, IF you were to choose to ACCEPT IT, instead of trying to move away from it, IF you were to choose to ALLOW IT, instead of trying to make it be something else, IF you were to choose to WELCOME IT, then guess what's going to happen to how you feel?
You're suddenly going to feel more peaceful, more happy, more calm, more joyous, more free, more empowered, more clear, more alive. All your feelings of suffering are going to just disappear. Just like that. All your upset, all your anger and outrage, all your depression, all your sickness, all your sadness, all of it is going to just disappear because you're choosing to welcome GOD. God is what is. Accepting what is is far closer to accepting God, and God is love, and accepting love HEALS YOU.
So.... realize this..... if you choose resistance, you will INVENT and manifest sickness and suffering, purely because you are resisting. And before you resisted, you did not have any of this. And as soon as you resisted, the suffering showed up. And now in your resistance you are suffering, but you're trying to blame the cause of it onto the thing you're resisting against. It's got nothing to do with that. Resist, you suffer. Don't resist, you be happy. That's all it boils down to. It's a black and white decision.
Either you accept what is and be happy and at peace.
Or you resist what is and experience suffering and unhappiness.
You cannot resist and be happy. You cannot fight and be at peace. You cannot blame and be at peace.
So really nothing is happening to you. The thing you resist is not causing your suffering. The people you don't like are not causing your suffering. The group you didn't want aren't causing your suffering. The suffering is YOUR WAY OF RESISTING THEM.
So you chose it. You're literally doing it to yourself. And the only way to NOT suffer, is to give up your position. You cannot maintain your position of resistance AND be at peace or happy. It is IMPOSSIBLE!
Choices:
a) resist what's happening and be unhappy and suffer and sick and die, you can never win and you will never get your way.
b) allow and accept what's happening and be completely happy and at peace and still not get your way, but at least you are happy.
So resistance is a smokescreen where you pretend to be justified in resisting. But resistance itself is what makes you suffer and is the sole CHOICE to cause yourself to suffer. You say, "I'd rather resist this and suffer and be upset". And then you project it. Your only other option is. ... accept the truth. Accept the facts. Surrender to what is. Allow it
Then you can be happy and at peace. And then what the fuck does it matter what's happening?
The really big problem we have isn't so much to do with the characteristics of the ego. The big problem that we've confused who we are with it. Our sense of 'self' has become caught up in it. Our identity has been redefined by it. We actually believe that IT is who we are.
This is where we run into all manner of problems, and again, not even touching on the ego's death wish or all of its lies and deceptions, just the mere FACT of you having 'attached your self' to the ego presents major issues.
So just to clarify, there is YOU, and then there are two thought systems. There is the entire ego and its thought system, and then there is Holy Spirit and His thought system. YOU are either identified with and absorbed in one or the other. You, as the 'decision maker', float back and forth between them, but spend most of your time in ego land.
So who 'you' are, is really actually a combination of TWO things, your 'self', and either God or the ego. When you are identified with the ego, you THINK that you are 'one identity', but in fact you are two identities. You+ego. It's either that, or you+God. In God you actually can become ONE, but with the ego, you are always still separate and split and confused about who you really are, because you can't be fully one with the ego.
The problem now is, that you will try to become more spiritual. Now this alone leads to hellish problems. You will be holding on tight to the ego, while at the same time, attempting to become spiritual or to move in the direction of spirit. This is a major issue because your sense of identity is still very tied to the ego, so any efforts you make you 'stop being ego', will be experienced by the 'you' that is identified with the ego, as 'you attacking yourself'. The part of you tied to it will resist the truth, will not want to wake up, will retaliate and attempt to protect itself from the truth that the other part of you is exposing yourself to, and you will terrorize yourself!
What this also leads to is another major issue. Attempting to become spiritual WITHOUT dis-identifying from the ego, will cause you to attempt to bring the ego along WITH you in that transformation. You will try to make IT be more spiritual, because you think it is who you are. You'll attempt to transform the ego self, to pull the ego self into a new kind of thought system that it completely rejects and is incompatible with. It will resist strongly and it will not be able to stay there. So while you stay identified with the ego, you will constantly be pulled back into the ego after any endeavor to reach the light of truth. You will open up a little bit to truth, then the ego will act like a bungie cord, pulling you back down to its 'level' of consciousness.
So basically you have a major identity crisis. Who you think you are is so attached to the ego and its thoughts, that whenever you try to wake up, you think that you're being attacked. And really you are. If you are going to hold onto the ego while simultaneously trying to become more truthful/honest, you are going to SUFFER. You will spiritualize the ego. You will experience constant ego 'rebounds', which really is the ego-attached you pulling YOURSELF back to the ego that you trust, as if it is yourself. 'You', who think you are the ego, do NOT want to wake up, because the ego doesn't, and cannot.
This is basically the issue of what you are experiencing on 'level 1', which is the ego's level. Your identification WITH everything happening on level 1 ie ego thought system, attaches you to it. If you want to get OUT of the ego's thought system, and get to level 2 (Holy Spirit), it is going to be IMPOSSIBLE for you to make any lasting progress unless you are willing to LET GO OF THE EGO. Transforming the ego will not work because it cannot be turned into holiness. Leaping high in the air trying to grab the fruits of truth will only gravitate you crashing back to the ground again. The ego can't come with you to heaven.
So to really make progress here, you are going to have to realize, at some point, you have to stop all of your efforts to make your ego-identified self be spiritual. You, who YOU REALLY are, is already capable of 'being spiritual' IF you will attach to the Holy Spirit. You only need to let go of the ego's 'hand' and hold the Holy Spirit's 'hand', and hey-presto, you will SHARE the thought system of spirituality. You will enter into it. You will experience it. And your sharing of it will identify you with it and make it yours - not exclusively yours but still yours.
In essence you 'need do nothing' in order to qualify for entry to the 'spiritual universe'. YOU, who you really are, cannot change, because YOU are immortal spirit. You, as immortal spirit, have gotten lost in thinking you and the ego are the same self. That is all. You only need to be willing to SURRENDER the ego, let go of the ego, dis-identify from the ego, drop the ego, stop believing you are the ego, and remember who you really are (in Holy Spirit's mind), and you're done. All you're doing is getting divorced from the ego and marrying Holy Spirit, and along with that your whole sense of 'self' will change, away from the confusion of 'I am a separate ego' to 'I am shared immortal holy spirit'.
So really, YOU do not change at all. You just leave and surrender a mind that you thought was you, realizing YOU continue on without it and that you are NOT it, and enter into (return to) a mind based on God's mind where you have a whole different identity to associate with. This has little to do with who or what you 'are', and more to do with 'who you are with'. When you are with the ego, you think you're it. When you're with God, you tune into your real identity as His Creation.
You are free to leave the ego at any time. Nothing is keeping you in it but your decision to stay. There is another option and the ego is not your Self.
"I could not atone for MYSELF ALONE. Listening to one Voice implies the decision to share It in order to hear It yourself. The Mind that was in me is still irresistibly drawn to EVERY MIND CREATED BY GOD, because God's Wholeness is the Wholeness of His Son. You cannot be hurt, and do not want to show YOUR BROTHER anything except your wholeness. Show him that he cannot hurt you and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself. This is the meaning of turning the other cheek."
"Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in His Being, He encompasses all things. NO MIND (implying there are many) holds anything but Him (therefore he created many minds)."
"Miracles make MINDS one in God. They depend on cooperation because the SONSHIP is the SUM OF ALL THAT GOD CREATED. Miracles therefore reflect the laws of eternity, not of time."
"God speaks for you in answering your question with these words: I walk with God in perfect holiness. I light the world, I light my mind and ALL THE MINDS WHICH GOD CREATED ONE WITH ME"
"ONE CHILD OF GOD (implying there are many) is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach ANOTHER (there are many!). One Teacher is in ALL YOUR MINDS, and He teaches the same lesson TO ALL. He always teaches you (one such mind) the inestimable worth of EVERY SON OF GOD, teaching it with infinite patience born of the infinite love for which he speaks."
"The Holy Spirit is the spirit of joy. He is the Call to return which God blessed THE MINDS OF HIS SEPARATED SONS. This is the vocation of the mind."
"Let us not wander into temptation, for the temptation of the Son of God is not Your Will. And let us receive only what You have given, and accept but this INTO THE MINDS WHICH YOU CREATED AND WHICH YOU LOVE. Amen."
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I don't know about you guys-n-gals but it sounds to me very clearly that there are MULTIPLE SONS and MULTIPLE MINDS. And that the presence of multiple minds is completely natural and normal because God CREATED THEM. Therefore EACH ONE has its "own mind". Each mind may well be "one" or in harmony with other minds, but there are still many minds, and each still has its own potential to choose whether to do God's will or not.
This is why some parts of the Course refer on ONE LEVEL to the ONE SON OF GOD, and on another level to the MANY INDIVIDUAL SONS (or souls).
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References to BROTHERS who are one with God:
"You are afraid of God because you fear your BROTHER. This BROTHER who stands beside you still seems to be a stranger."
"Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only BROTHER to the world. Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a BROTHER he would be to you. For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God."
"To know your BROTHER is to know God."
"Miracles unite you directly with your BROTHER."
"One moment of real recognition makes everyone your BROTHER."
"Any BROTHER with whom you have a limited relationship, you hate."
"Don't deny yourself the message of relief that every BROTHER offers you now."
"It is not up to you to change your BROTHER, but merely to accept him as he is."
"In your BROTHER is the light. See him as sinless, and there can be no fear in you."
"The miracle enables you to see your BROTHER without his past, and so perceive him as born again."
"Your BROTHER does not have to be aware of the Holy Spirit in himself or in you for the miracle to occur."
"What you acknowledge in your BROTHER you are acknowledging in yourself, and what you share you strengthen."
"The miracle acknowledges everyone as your BROTHER and mine. It is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God."
"Because the miracle worker has heard God's Voice, he strengthens It in a sick BROTHER by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does not share." (again confirmation that your brother can refuse healing even if you are healed)
"Where there is love, your BROTHER must give it to you because of what it is. But where there is a call for love, you must give it because of what you are." (similarly again, you give love to those who lack it)
"How willing are you to forgive your BROTHER? How much do you desire peace instead of endless strife and misery and pain? These questions are the same, in different form."
"Trials are but lessons you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one. In every difficulty Christ calls to you and gently says, My BROTHER, choose again."
"If you attack error in another, you will hurt yourself. You cannot know your BROTHER when you attack him. Attack is always made upon a stranger. You are making him a stranger by misperceiving him, and so you cannot know him. It is because you have made him a stranger that you are afraid of him. There are no strangers in God's creation."
"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your BROTHER did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is the will of God."
"Not one does Christ forget. Not one He fails to give you to remember, that your home may be complete and perfect as it was established. He has not forgotten you. But you will not remember Him until you look on all as He does. Who denies his BROTHER is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized, his home remembered and salvation come."
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It seems to me what the One Son of God, as Christ, is considered a BROTHER to the MANY SONS, who were also created (souls?) as extensions of him/god, ... and that at times the course refers to them on an equal footing because they are made of God-stuff equally, even though Christ appears to be a "larger" identity than the individual sons. But Christ+the individual sons make up "the sonship". So the sonship is not just the individual sons, it also includes the one son, and all are considered equal brothers in that sonship.
Here is something that many people will reject as totally bullshit. But if you will consider it carefully you may see that it makes sense.
Your mind is not just inside your body. Your mind is bigger than the universe. The world is inside of it! Therefore your psychological ERRORS have taken the form of PHYSICAL OBJECTS!!!
The physical world is in your mind as a THOUGHT FORM. A physicalization or condensing of the thought of SIN BEING REAL.
"This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."
Physical objects are literally ***SIN*** contained by your mind!!!
(e.g. "The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards." "To see a sinless body is impossible.")
Your mind, bigger than the universe, is dreaming of a WORLD, inside of your mind, which is hosted by your mind, and clouds your mind with IMAGINED OBSTRUCTIONS, which manifest as PHYSICAL FORMS, which are thought images WITHIN you.
You made the little body, within your mind, as part of the world that's in your mind, to look AT that world, to look at SIN, as if it's real and not see past it. The body can only see the form of error, and all physical forms represent the idea of sin being "apparently real." You actually perceive the world from the outside in.
You perceive "physical sins" with the body's eyes!!!
When you consider that the world and the body are WITHIN your mind, both of them are ILLUSORY PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVICES your mind is using to hide from reality. You've constructed a dream of deception, within your mind, in the shape of a world, to hide reality. "The world was made as an attack on God."
Your mind - a universe-sized CONTAINER, has invented a world, inside of itself, designed to block THE CONTAINER, from **SEEING THE CONTAINER**. And now the container is seemingly UNAWARE OF ITSELF, asleep and lost in its own IMAGINED WORLD. A dream world.
Physical sight through the body, looking at FORMS (physical objects), is your mind's attempt to NOT LOOK PAST SIN, given that physical objects are SINS within your larger mind.
The eyes fixate on sin and make it real. This is what they were MADE TO DO. If the world seems real, you have MADE SIN REAL and are looking at an ILLUSION, which seems outside your body, but the world and the body are SMALLER THAN YOU. If you believe what the body sees is reality, you are blind and insane. "Nothing so blinding as perception of form."
The body's vision is a device for NOT SEEING THE TRUTH, to blind the mind and keep it from looking PAST ALL PHYSICAL FORMS - which are MIND BLOCKAGES - to reality which lies beyond them.
"The world IS false perception." "The world IS perception." This means you, who are a universe-sized container, are visualizing WITHIN yourself, an entire planet, which is the FORM that "perceiving incorrectly" takes, as a visualization of an UNREAL WORLD, so that you are lost in your own INNER planet-sized dream. The physical world IS your universe-sized mind PERCEIVING!! "Perception is a separated state". You are projecting it!
"Blocks to awareness" include PHYSICAL MATTER. Spacetime itself IS A BELIEF, smaller than your mind, within your mind!
The body has been made as a device IN YOUR MIND to block your VISION. Your mind is HOST to an imaginary world, which it is looking AT, so that it does not look PAST it, to ITSELF.
Your mind, and your correction of perception, is not just taking place within the safe confines of your body-mind, as if trapped in a body and totally confined to "whats inside my body."
Realize instead that your mind is also OUT THERE. Physical matter is a BLOCK. It is an IMAGE in your mind. Not merely an image within your mind in a body. An image in your mind BIGGER THAN THE UNIVERSE. YOU are supposed to LITERALLY see past it in order to be aware of YOURSELF and to look upon CHRIST just as the Holy Spirit does.
When your mind - your universe-sized mind, changes its mind, and starts to use reason to SEE PAST the illusory world, it will stop believing in the dream it's having, and realize it is the dreamer. This will DISAPPEAR THE DREAM, which includes the literally disappearing of ALL PHYSICAL OBJECTS, which ARE ALWAYS FORMS OF ERROR AND SIN.
In the atonement therefore, you have the recognition that THERE IS NO WORLD, because "the world you made" was merely a fictional vision you were holding inside your mind temporarily, while you dreamed, and now the dreaming has ended. THERE IS NO WORLD to block your *awareness* of your SELF, and thus you return to looking ONLY UPON your Christ Self, which is formless and timeless, OUTSIDE OF SPACETIME, which has now ended.
YOU, are the Kingdom of Heaven.
Here is how Jesus puts it:
"SIN IS A BLOCK (to awareness), set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. 3 No one who LOOKS ON IT without the help of reason would try to pass it. 4 THE BODY'S EYES BEHOLD IT AS SOLID (yes, your fricking EYES are LOOKING AT SIN) granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. 5 Yet reason SEES THROUGH IT (sees through physical matter), because IT IS AN ERROR (all physical matter is an ERROR!). 6 The FORM (physical form) it takes cannot conceal its EMPTINESS (there IS NO PHYSICAL WORLD - IT IS EMPTINESS) from reason's eyes."
"Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception" ... "The body's eyes see ONLY form." .... "These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see." .... " See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and cannot go beyond.".... "Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. "
"There is nothing SO BLINDING as PERCEPTION OF FORM (physical matter). For SIGHT OF FORM means ***understanding has been obscured***. Only MISTAKES have different forms (physical objects are mistakes), and so they can deceive (physical objects deceive). You can change form (you can change objects), BECAUSE it is not true (because physical objects are NOT TRUE).
IT COULD NOT BE REALITY (physical matter IS NOT REALITY!), BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is not reality, IT MUST BE AN ILLUSION (physical FORMS ARE ILLUSIONS), and ****IS NOT THERE TO SEE**** - the physical world DOES NOT EXIST - there is no world.). And, if you see it, you MUST BE MISTAKEN, for you are seeing what CAN NOT BE REAL, AS IF IT WERE. What cannot see beyond what is not there, MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions as the truth. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth? "
There is no evil, only the seeming absence of the good.
There is no sin, only the seeming absence of love.
There is no death, only the seeming absence of life.
There is no darkness, only the seeming absence of light.
To take something and suggest that just because it is ABSENT, must mean it is the PRESENCE of something negative, is an error.
Evil does not ASSERT itself and maintain its own existence. It seeming presence ENTIRELY depends on the absence of the good.
Darkness cannot prevent light from shining it away when the light is present.
Death similarly cannot RESIST life. When life is supplied, the appearance of death MUST change to resurrection. Death is nothing more than the seeming absence of life, a lack of love, and when the love returns there cannot be death.
Sin is not a "positive sin". It isn’t an assertion of real attack. It is literally nothing OTHER than the seeming absence of love. A lack of love is not the same thing as an ASSERTION of sinfulness. You don’t have to FILL the lack of love with fire and brimstone, or REPLACE an absence with some other opposite material.
All things illusory ARE simply the appearance of the ABSENCE of something REAL. They are just lack. A lack of love is not a presence of hate. Hate is an illusion of being unloving. Someone who seems evil is just a little bit loving. They could be more loving, but judging that amount of love as the PRESENCE of evil is a failure to overlook illusions.
Every seeming symptom, effect, sign or symbol of the ego, every form of sickness and death, all darkness and attack and murderousness and sinfulness, is not ACTUALLY what it appears to be. It is only the LACK of something. There is a NEED, and the need is a CALL FOR the supply of that need, such as the call for love.
Attack is not attack. It is a request for the lack of safety to be supplied. It’s a request for a reminder of immortality. It’s a need to be reminded that reality cannot be threatened and no one can sin. It’s not the PRESENCE of evil.
Shadows on a wall do not have their own existence. They can only maintain so long as light SEEMS to be blocked. As soon as the blockage is remove and the light is supplied, it fills that area with light. The supposed darkness simply VANISHES. It has no staying power, no properties of its own, no will or power to remain, and it cannot resist the light. The notion that the darkness can HIDE the light or MAKE the light go away, is insanity and falling for the delusion of illusions.
Similarly sickness and death are ONLY the seeming absence of health and life. And when health and life are GIVEN through extension, when lack is supplied, these things MUST vanish. They do not have reality of their OWN and they have no power or will TO RESIST the healing. There cannot be anything keeping them in place because they DEPEND ENTIRELY on life, health, and love being temporarily lacking. When life is supplied, death MUST BE UNDONE.
Sickness isn’t sickness. It is merely a lack of health. That is not the same thing. The appearance of a lack of health can SEEM LIKE the PRESENCE of a sickness, a damage, an infection, a malfunction, a breakage, a disorder or disease. But these appearances are NOTHING OTHER THAN the seeming LACK or absence of life and love. They are no different to a shadow. And when light comes the shadow cannot stay, just as when the healing power of God’s LIFE is supplied, all forms of sickness and death MUST BE CURED.
A failure to heal, thus, must be because you simply have NOT GIVEN what is lacking. Because if it were given, sickness cannot stay and has no way to resist its undoing. It DEPENDS on life’s absence. Giving life supplies what was missing, and now there is wholeness, with no lack that sickness can be based on. Sickness is guilt, just as it is caused by sin, because sin is the belief in a lack of innocence and guilt is a belief in a lack of deserving love. Supply innocence and love and sickness cannot be there.
Nothing can resist this healing, except for possibly an assertion of free will, whereby someone WANTS to maintain the belief that darkness is real, sickness is its own thing, the body is autonomous and causal, evil exists, or that they are sinful and it cannot be undone. If the person does not show at least some willingness, love does not enter and miracles do not frighten. If someone does not consent, God’s help is held back. Not because it can’t be given but because there is unwillingness to receive it. Those who are sick have to have some faith and willingness, in order to receive help.
Besides this, the law is simple. Either there is the presence of immortality or its seeming absence. And when it seems to be absence, supplying it corrects the absence. And then all sights of mortality must go.
"My Atonement was for the canceling out of all sins (ie., lack of love)"
"The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love. It perceives it as a POSITIVE ACT OF ASSAULT. This is an interpretation which is necessary to its survival, because as soon as YOU regard it as a LACK, you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation. And you will also succeed. The ego regards this as doom, but YOU must learn to regard it as freedom."
"Remember, I said before that because "nature abhors a vacuum", it does NOT follow that the vacuum is filled with hell fire. The emptiness engendered by fear should be replaced by love, because love and its absence are in the same dimension, and correction cannot be undertaken except WITHIN a dimension. Otherwise, there has been a confusion of levels."
"The second step is inherent in the first, because light cannot tolerate darkness. Light dispels darkness automatically, by definition. EXPLANATORY INSTRUCTIONS: Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacy that darkness can hide."
"There is no darkness that the light of love will not dispel, unless it is concealed from love's beneficence. What is kept apart from love cannot share its healing power, because it has been separated off and kept in darkness."
"My purpose, then, is still to overcome the world. 9 I do not attack it, but my light must dispel it because of what it is. 10 Light does not attack darkness, but it does shine it away. 11 If my light goes with you everywhere, you shine it away with me."
In the oneness of God, there is no taking of sides. There is only one side, and everyone's on it. Because there is no split, there is no war.
This state of the "absence of conflict" is a state of peace. It is also very quiet, because there is no war, no shrieks of terror, no invasion and no destruction.
To attack is to not know, because it is an attack on knowledge which is an attribute of peace. To attack peace is to not know reality, and is insane. Those who attack are unaware of who or what they are attacking, and attack in the darkness of their own minds.
"God is very quiet, for there is no conflict in Him. Conflict is the root of all evil, for being blind, it does not see whom it attacks." The stillness of God is quiet and peaceful, because in reality there is only harmony and unity. In the "separation from God", the tiny mad idea introduced the idea that some parts of existence could have something that other parts lacked. This provided the starting point for conflict.
Only when there is more than one side, and the potential to side against something, do you have conflict of any kind. War is impossible without separation, specialness, selfishness and isolation. To exclude is to attack, and heaven is only a realm of inclusion.
As soon as we added the idea of exclusivity we entered into war. This is when the war on God began, and it has not yet ended. All of the history of space and time has been a state of war. Even the physical objects, shapes, sizes, distances and so on, are forms of conflict. They conflict because they are different and do not share. They take sides against each other and differ, therefore conflicting.
"It rests on differences; on uneven background and shifting foreground, on unequal heights and diverse sizes, on varying degrees of darkness and light, and thousands of contrasts in which each thing seen competes with every other in order to be recognized. A larger object overshadows a smaller one. A brighter thing draws the attention from another with less intensity of appeal. And a more threatening idea, or one conceived of as more desirable by the world's standards, completely upsets the mental balance. What the body's eyes behold is only conflict."
Even the slightest removal from God is a state of conflict, in which there is no peace, no quiet, no relief, and no stillness. Everyone is constantly on-guard, seeing themselves as deprived and in need of defenses. To be un-whole is to be lacking, and in need, leading to a sense of vulnerability. Without conflict you are invulnerable.
Within the conflicted world of spacetime, including the Earth, everything conflicts all the time. Sometimes there appears to be what we might call "compatibility", in which there is less conflict. There can seem to be lulls in the fighting, interspersed with escalations of tension. Sometimes these break out into what we call wars or arguments or fights but the truth is that the whole system is a constant state of war, until the world disappears.
There was indeed a "war on God" which began at the separation and is ongoing until the atonement is complete. It is not so much a war between good and evil, because the good retains awareness of peace. The good is conflict-free. Only the evil believes in conflict and conflicts with itself. And thus self-attack is its entire system of thinking.
"Do you not realize a war against yourself would BE a war on God? Is victory CONCEIVABLE? And, if it were, is this a victory that you would WANT? The death of God, if it were possible, would be YOUR death. Is this a VICTORY? The ego ALWAYS marches to defeat, BECAUSE it thinks that triumph over you is possible. And God thinks otherwise. This is no war. Only the mad belief the Will of God can be attacked and overthrown."
If it is peace that you seek, then it is the end of conflict that you seek. To end conflict there has to be oneness, a singular side which benefits everyone and excludes no-one. There has to be an unconditional love and a total sharing of everything. This is the only way to end the war. So long as anyone is left out or opposes or attacks or separates themselves off, there cannot be peace.
Some pursue an escalation of conflict and attack and isolation in an attempt to bring an end to the conflict. This is the idea that if you "get it over with" or take it to the extreme, you'll alleviate the horror of the battlefield and constant suffering. Thus suicide starts to become appealing and death suggests a way out of the war.
But death is not the end of conflict, it's simply another form of it. It's just another way of saying that life and death are opposed and attack is a remedy and annihilation is a solution to conflict. It's an insane idea to suggest that dying is better than finding peace, or that death can bring peace. Only God can bring peace. "Yet the retreat to death is NOT the end of conflict. Only God's ANSWER is its end."
God's answer is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the call for a ceasefire. The Holy Spirit is offering healing and reunion and appeals to everyone to join together. All of his solutions are for the benefit of all without exception. His miracles extend to untold numbers of receivers. And his answers are in favor of everyone without taking sides. He is the idea of a return to peace and a real solution to all conflict.
To the ego, the Holy Spirit is the destroyer of worlds, the bringer of the end of space and time, the destructor of bodies and the final blow from God. But in truth the Holy Spirit is the resurrector, the restorer, the healer, the teacher, the therapist, the comforter, the friend and the help that God has sent to bring an end to destruction and death. He is literally the end of death and the guarantee of eternal life. And in eternal life, there is no more war.
For a long time I have focused on "the secret of salvation". This is to do with realizing that you are the cause of everything you are experiencing. And therefore that you are responsible for all your own suffering. On the one hand it's humbling and on the other hand it's empowering, because if you can realize you're the one doing it you have the freedom to stop.
But l notice now that the secret of "how to be saved" applies in the case where you are not yet saved. It's helpful when you are in the suffering and need to get out of it. That's kind of the context of it, it's a tool you can use to recognize who is doing what to whom, so that you can stop doing it.
I have noticed also that with the secret of salvation, we are focusing a lot on taking responsibility. Which initially is seen as inciting guilt, and then moves into trying to be fully responsible for everything. But the further secret is, that if we try to take full responsibility ALONE, where "separate me" is fully responsible for everything, then we are still generating fearful outlooks, because depending on ourselves alone is a state of rejecting God.
So I've been locked into a stage for a while of trying to be fully responsible, but trying to take that responsibility in isolation, rather than GIVE that responsibility to the Holy Spirit. I feel that I personally am somewhat moving beyond this stage now and into more of the "I am saved" stage. By which I mean, I have recognized that it is my attempts to do anything "alone" that is the source of all suffering, because that's how I "be separate". And "I" can't be fully responsible without sharing that responsibility with God.
Whenever I try to be separate, I essentially am attacking myself, which makes errors, produces more ego fear, and induces suffering. This all comes about after I have judged and given meaning to things, using my own faculties for judging. Which means really, using my own past learning. This always leads to errors because it's lacking a lot of facts. And I keep being shown now just how wrong I can be when I don't know all the details.
So I'm now finding that if I admit to not knowing what anything means, and am willing to stop trying to judge anything I see, and instead seek out the Holy Spirit to join in his vision or interpretation, then this circumvents the whole process of going into error. Or rather, I guess I'm saying that if I seek the state of forgiveness sooner, then I don't go into judgement, and thus don't hurt myself. Which reminds me of this...
"Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven. "
This is what I am atuning to now. Trying to become closer to the Holy Spirit and more identified with my real self, so that I do not go INTO judgement or MAKE errors. Because as soon as you make errors, you'll start believing you've got a whole mess on your hands that you need to fix, problems to solve, fears to address and self-inflicted suffering to be undone. ALL of that can be avoided if you don't make the errors in the first place!
It's far more effective at preventing a movement INTO fear, when I try to remain OUT of the battlefield. Being willing to not be the one to judge, or decide, or plan, or figure out, or deduce meaning, I stay well out of the entire "fight" that we have with the world. If I don't do this and I go into solo-mode, ego pilot mode, then I start to "make a world" that's riddled with separations and conflicts and unresolved problems and threats and dangers.
I have been finding of late therefore that I actually feel... and this is a word Jesus just threw in my mind.... INSULATED.... against dangers. That is to say, I feel like there was an entire version of "the world" which I thought was out there, which has been scraped off the surface of my mind and isn't there anymore. An entire layer of experience and suffering and a sense of threat and engagement and littleness and fear. It's just gone. It's like I have stepped out of an entire world and it has disappeared. At least to a degree, and now I look upon what's left through much calmer and less aggravated perspectives.
I see now therefore what Jesus means about how false perception makes you see a world that looks like hell, and how as you move into more abstract states of mind you lift off of the world entire layers of vulnerability, fear, struggle and suffering. Its like a whole veil has been lifted to some degree, so much that I have been feeling like I'm in a different world. Like I literally just stepped out of one planet and am on another one where a lot of the strife doesn't exist.
And I am thankful for that, because there is a noticeable contrast between how much safer and calmer and happier I feel now without the tremendous burden of being some kind of "soldier on the battlefield" fending off the hounds of hell. I am simply not making as many errors, generating as much fear, producing as much control, making up as many problems, or developing as many meanings for things. And in fact as I look at objects now they appear to be new and fresh and interesting.
It's weird but Jesus basically says that we are to adopt a perspective in which everything is given ONE meaning, from a whole viewpoint where "wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles", where we look upon a forgiven world without trying to understand it, having given up all our past learning and become willing to be empty, to just surrender and let go of trying to know or do or control everything. I'm taking my hands off the steering wheel and the car is finding a a smoother path.
"The holy instant is the Holy Spirit's most useful learning device for teaching you love's meaning. For its purpose is to SUSPEND JUDGMENT ENTIRELY. Judgment ALWAYS rests on the past, for PAST experience is the basis on which you judge. Judgment becomes impossible without the past, for WITHOUT it you do NOT understand anything. You would make no ATTEMPT to judge, because it would be quite apparent to you that you do not know WHAT ANYTHING MEANS. You are afraid of this, because you believe that, WITHOUT THE EGO, all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that, without the ego, ALL WOULD BE LOVE."