Very simply, the purpose of psychotherapy is to remove the blocks to truth. Its aim is to aid the patient in abandoning his fixed delusional system, and to begin to reconsider the spurious cause and effect relationships on which it rests. No-one in this world escapes fear, but everyone can reconsider its causes and learn to evaluate them correctly. God has given everyone a Teacher Whose wisdom and help far exceed whatever contributions an earthly therapist can provide. Yet there are times and situations in which the patient-therapist relationship becomes the means through which He offers His greater gifts to both.
What better purpose could any relationship have than to invite the Holy Spirit to enter into it and give it His Own great gift of rejoicing? What higher goal could there be for anyone than to learn to call upon God and hear His Answer? And what more transcendent aim can there be than to recall the Way, the Truth and the Life, and to remember God? To help in this is the proper purpose of psychotherapy. Could anything be holier? For psychotherapy, correctly understood, teaches forgiveness and helps the patient to recognize and accept it. And in his healing is the therapist forgiven with him.
Everyone who needs help, regardless of the form of his distress, is attacking himself, and his peace of mind is suffering in consequence. These tendencies are often described as "self-destructive," and the patient often regards them in that way himself. What he does not realize and needs to learn is that this "self," which can attack and be attacked as well, is a concept he made up. Further, he cherishes it, defends it, and is sometimes even willing to "sacrifice" his "life" on its behalf. For he regards it as himself. This self he sees as being acted on, reacting to external forces as they demand, and helpless in the power of the world.
Psychotherapy, then, must restore to his awareness the ability to make his own decisions. He must become willing to reverse his thinking, and to understand that what he thought projected its effects on him were made by his projections on the world. The world he sees does therefore not exist. Until this is at least in part accepted, the patient cannot see himself as really capable of making decisions. And he will fight against his freedom because he thinks that it is slavery.
The patient need not think of truth as God in order to make progress in salvation. But he must begin to separate truth from illusion, recognizing that they are not the same, and becoming increasingly willing to see illusions as illusions and to accept the truth as true. His Teacher will take him on from there, as far as he is ready to go. Psychotherapy can only save him time. The Holy Spirit uses time as He thinks best, and He is never wrong. Psychotherapy under His direction is one of the means He uses to save time, and to prepare additional teachers for His work. There is no end to the help that He begins and He directs. By whatever routes He chooses, all psychotherapy leads to God in the end. But that is up to Him. We are all His psychotherapists, for He would have us all be healed in Him.
If you are trusting your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious, and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?
Of yourself you can do none of these things. To believe that you can is to put your trust where trust is unwarranted, and to justify fear, anxiety, depression, anger, and sorrow. Who can put his faith in weakness and feel safe? Yet who can put his faith in strength and feel weak?
God is your safety in every circumstance. His Voice speaks for Him in all situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you exactly what to do to call upon His strength and His protection. There are no exceptions because God has no exceptions. And the Voice Which speaks for Him thinks as He does.
Today we will try to reach past your own weakness to the Source of real strength. Four five-minute practice periods are necessary today, and longer and more frequent ones are urged. Close your eyes and begin as usual by repeating today's idea. Then spend a minute or two in searching for situations in your life which you have invested with fear, dismissing each one by telling yourself,
"God is the Strength in which I trust."
Now try to slip past all concerns related to your own sense of inadequacy. It is obvious that any situation which causes you concern is associated with feelings of inadequacy, since otherwise you would believe that you could deal with the situation successfully. It is not by trusting yourself that you will gain confidence. But the strength of God in you is successful in all things.
The recognition of your own frailty is a necessary step in the correction of your errors. But it is hardly a sufficient one in giving you the confidence which you need and to which you are entitled. You must also gain an awareness that your confidence in your real strength is fully justified in every respect and in all circumstances.
In the latter phase of the practice period, try to reach down into your mind to a place of real safety. You will recognize that you have reached it if you feel a deep peace, however briefly. Let go all the trivial things that churn and bubble on the surface of your mind, and reach down and below them to the Kingdom of Heaven. There is a place in you where there is perfect peace. There is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you where the strength of God abides.
Repeat the idea for today often. Use it as your answer to any disturbance. Remember that peace is your right because you are giving your trust to the strength of God. W(85)
Suffering is an emphasis upon all that the world has done to injure YOU. Here is the world's demented version of salvation clearly shown. Like to a dream of punishment, in which the dreamer is unconscious of what brought on the attack against himself, he sees himself attacked unjustly, and by something NOT himself. HE is the victim of this "something else," a thing OUTSIDE himself for which he has no reason to be held responsible. He must be innocent BECAUSE he knows not what HE does, but what is done TO him. Yet is his own attack upon himself apparent still, for it is he who bears the suffering. And he can NOT escape BECAUSE its source is seen outside himself.
Now you are being shown you CAN escape. All that is needed is you look upon the problem as it IS, and NOT the way that you have set it up. How COULD there be another way to solve a problem which is VERY simple, but has been obscured by heavy clouds of complication, which were MADE to keep the problem unresolved? WITHOUT the clouds, the problem will emerge in all its primitive simplicity. The choice will NOT be difficult, because the problem is absurd when clearly seen. No-one has difficulty making up his mind to let a simple problem be resolved, if it is SEEN as hurting him, and also very easily removed.
The "reasoning" by which the world is made, on which it rests, by which it is maintained, is simply this: "YOU are the cause of what I do. Your presence JUSTIFIES my wrath, and you exist and think APART from me. While YOU attack, I MUST be innocent. And what I suffer from IS your attack." No-one who looks upon this "reasoning" EXACTLY as it is could fail to see it does NOT follow, and it makes NO sense. Yet it SEEMS sensible, because it LOOKS as if the world WERE hurting you. And so it seems as if there is no NEED to go beyond the obvious in terms of cause.
There is INDEED a need. The world's ESCAPE from condemnation is a need which those WITHIN the world are joined in sharing. Yet they do not recognize their common need. For each one thinks that, if he does his part, the condemnation of the world will rest on him. And it is this that he perceives to BE his part in its deliverance. Vengeance must have a focus. Otherwise, is the avenger's knife in his own hand, and pointed to himself. And he MUST see it in ANOTHER hand, if he would be a victim of attack he did NOT choose. And thus he suffers from the wounds a knife he does NOT hold has made upon himself.
This is the PURPOSE of the world he sees. And, LOOKED AT thus, the world provides the means by which this purpose SEEMS to be fulfilled. The means ATTEST the purpose, but are NOT themselves a cause. Nor will the CAUSE be changed by seeing it APART from its effects. The cause PRODUCES the effects, which then bear witness to the CAUSE, and NOT themselves. Look, then, BEYOND effects. It is NOT here the CAUSE of suffering and sin must lie. And dwell not on the suffering and sin, for they are but REFLECTIONS of their cause. The part you play in SALVAGING the world from condemnation IS your own escape.
Forget not that the witness to the world of evil cannot speak EXCEPT for what has seen a NEED for evil in the world. And this is where YOUR guilt was first beheld. In separation from your brother was the first attack upon yourself begun. And it is THIS the world bears witness to. Seek not another cause, nor look among the mighty legions of its witnesses for its undoing. They SUPPORT its claim on your allegiance. What CONCEALS the truth is not where you should look to FIND the truth. The witnesses to sin all stand within ONE little space. And it is HERE you find the CAUSE of your perspective on the world.
Once you were unaware of what the cause of everything the world appeared to thrust upon you, uninvited and unasked, must REALLY be. Of one thing you were sure; of all the many causes you perceived as bringing pain and suffering to you, your guilt was NOT among them. Nor did you, in ANY way, REQUEST them for yourself. This is how ALL illusions come about. The one who makes them does NOT see himself as making them, and their reality does NOT depend on him. Whatever cause they have is something quite APART from him, and what he sees is SEPARATE from his mind.
He CANNOT doubt his dreams' reality BECAUSE he does not see the part he plays in MAKING them, and MAKING them seem real. No-one can waken from a dream the world is dreaming FOR him. He becomes a part of someone ELSE's dream. He CANNOT choose to waken from a dream he did not make. Helpless he stands, a victim to a dream conceived and cherished by a SEPARATE mind. Careless indeed of him this mind must be, as thoughtless of his peace and happiness as is the weather, or the time of day. It loves him not, but casts him as it will, in any role that satisfies its dream.
So little is his worth that he is but a dancing shadow, leaping up and down, according to a senseless plot conceived within the idle dreaming of the world. This is the ONLY picture you can see, the ONE alternative that you can choose, the OTHER possibility of cause, if you be NOT the dreamer of your dreams. And this IS what you choose, if you deny the cause of suffering is in YOUR mind. Be glad indeed it is, for thus are YOU the ONE decider of your destiny in time. The choice IS yours to make between a sleeping death and dreams of evil, or a happy wakening and joy of life.
What COULD you choose between, but life or death, waking or sleeping, war or peace, your dream or your reality? But if the choice is REALLY given you, then you must see the causes of the things you choose BETWEEN exactly AS they are and WHERE they are. What choices can be made between two states, but ONE of which is clearly recognized? Who could be free to choose BETWEEN effects, when only ONE is seen as up to you? An honest choice could NEVER be perceived as one in which the choice is split between a tiny you and an enormous world, with DIFFERENT dreams about the truth in you.
The gap between reality and dreams lies not between the dreaming of the world and what you dream in secret. THEY are one. The dreaming of the world is but a part of your own dream you gave away, and saw as if it were its start and ending, both. Yet was it started by your SECRET dream, which you do NOT perceive, although it CAUSED the part you see and do not doubt is real. How COULD you doubt it, while you lie asleep, and dream in secret that its CAUSE is real? A brother SEPARATED from yourself, an ancient enemy, a murderer who stalks you in the night and plots your death, yet plans that it be lingering and slow, -
Of this you dream. And, UNDERNEATH this dream, is yet another, in which YOU become the murderer, the secret enemy, the scavenger and the destroyer of the brother and the world you fear alike. Here is the CAUSE of suffering, the space BETWEEN your dreams and your reality. The little gap you do not even see, the birthplace of illusions and of fear, the time of terror and of ancient hate, the instant of disaster; -- all are here. Here is the CAUSE of unreality. And it is here that it will be undone. YOU are the dreamer of the world of dreams. No OTHER cause it has, nor ever will.
Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God's Son, and made him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made war upon himself. So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he could not waken to reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless a gentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed his calmer mind to welcome, NOT to fear, the Voice that called with love to waken him. A gentler dream, in which his suffering was healed, and where his brother was his friend. God willed he waken gently, and with joy. And GAVE him means to waken WITHOUT fear. Accept the dream He gave, INSTEAD of yours. It is NOT difficult to shift a dream, when once the dreamer has been recognized.
Rest in the Holy Spirit, and allow His gentle dreams to take the place of those you dreamed in terror, and in fear of death. He brings FORGIVING dreams, in which the choice is NOT who is the murderer, and who shall be the victim. In the dreams HE brings, there IS no murder, and there IS no death. The dream of guilt is fading from your sight, although your eyes are closed. A smile has come to lighten up your sleeping face. The sleep is peaceful now, for these are happy dreams. Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence. And, from THIS dream, the Lord of Heaven will Himself awaken His beloved Son.
Dream of your brother's kindnesses INSTEAD of dwelling in your dreams on his mistakes. Select his thoughtfulness to dream about, INSTEAD of counting up the hurts he gave. Forgive him his illusions, and give thanks to him for all the helpfulness he gave. And do not brush aside his many gifts, because he is not perfect in your dreams. He represents his Father, Whom you see as offering both life AND death to you. Brother, He gives BUT life, and what you see as gifts your brother offers REPRESENT the gifts you dream your Father gives to you. Let all your brother's gifts be seen in light of charity and kindness offered you. And let no pain disturb your dream of deep appreciation for his gifts to you.
Only the self-accused condemn. As you prepare to make a choice that will result in DIFFERENT outcomes, there is first one thing that must be overlearned. It must become a habit of response so typical of everything you do, that it becomes your FIRST response to all temptation, and to every situation that occurs. Learn this, and learn it well, for it is here delay of happiness is shortened by a span of time you cannot realize. You NEVER hate your brother for HIS "sins", but ONLY for your own. Whatever form his sins appear to take, the form obscures the fact that you believe it to be yours, and THEREFORE meriting a just attack.
Why should his sins BE sins, if you did not believe they could not be forgiven in you? Why are they real in him, if you did not believe that they are YOUR reality? And why do you attack them anywhere except you hate yourself? Are YOU a sin? You answer "yes" WHENEVER you attack, for BY attack do you assert that you are guilty, and must give as you deserve. And what CAN you deserve but what you ARE? If you did not believe that you DESERVED attack, it never would occur to you to GIVE attack to anyone at all. Why should you? What would be the gain to you? What could the outcome be that you would WANT? And how COULD murder bring you benefit?
Sins are in bodies. They are not perceived in minds. They are not seen as purposes, but ACTIONS. Bodies act, and minds do not. And therefore must the body be at fault for what it does. It is not seen to be a passive thing, obeying your commands, and doing nothing of itself at all. If you are sin you ARE a body, for the mind acts not. And purpose must be in the body, NOT the mind. The body must act on its own, and motivate itself. If you are sin, you lock the mind WITHIN the body, and you give its purpose to its prison house, which acts INSTEAD of it. A jailer does not follow orders, but ENFORCES orders on the prisoner.
Yet is the BODY prisoner, and NOT the mind. The body thinks no thoughts. It has no power to learn, to pardon, or enslave. It gives no orders that the mind need serve, nor sets conditions that it must obey. It holds in prison but the willing mind that would abide in it. It sickens at the bidding of the mind that would become its prisoner. And it grows old and dies, because that mind is sick within ITSELF. Learning is all that causes change. And so the body, where no learning CAN occur, could never change unless the mind PREFERRED the body change in its appearances, to suit the purpose given by the mind. For it CAN learn, and there is ALL change made.
The mind that thinks it is a sin has but ONE purpose; that the body be the source of sin, and KEEP it in the prison house it chose, and guards, and holds itself at bay, a sleeping prisoner to the snarling dogs of hate and evil, sickness and attack; of pain and age, of grief and suffering. Here are the thoughts of sacrifice preserved, for here guilt rules, and orders that the world be like itself; a place where nothing can find mercy, or survive the ravages of fear except in murder and in death. For here are you made sin, and sin can not abide the joyous nor accept the free, for they are enemies which sin must kill. In death is sin preserved, and those who think that they are sin MUST die for what they are.
Let us be glad that you WILL see what you believe, and that it HAS been given you to CHANGE what you believe. The body will but follow. It can NEVER lead you where you would not be. IT does not guard your sleep, nor interfere with your awakening. Release your body from imprisonment, and you will see no-one as prisoner to what you have escaped. You will not WANT to hold in guilt your chosen enemies, nor keep in chains to the illusion of a changing love the ones you think are friends. The innocent release in gratitude for THEIR release. And what they see upholds their freedom FROM imprisonment and death. Open your mind to change, and there will be no ancient penalty exacted from your brother or yourself. For God has said there IS no sacrifice that can be asked; there IS no sacrifice that can be made.
There are not different kinds of life, for life is like the truth. It does not have degrees. It is the one condition in which all that God created share. Like all His Thoughts, it has no opposite. There is no death because what God created shares His Life. There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist. There is no death because the Father and the Son are One.
In this world there appears to be a state that is life's opposite. You call it death. Yet we have learned that the idea of death takes many forms. It is the one idea which underlies all feelings that are not supremely happy. It is the alarm to which you give response of any kind that is not perfect joy. All sorrow, loss, anxiety and suffering and pain, even a little sigh of weariness, a slight discomfort or the merest frown, acknowledge death. And thus deny you live.
You think that death is of the body. Yet it is but an idea, irrelevant to what is seen as physical. A thought is in the mind. It can be then applied as mind directs it. But its origin is where it must be changed, if change occurs. Ideas leave not their source. The emphasis this course has placed on that idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about yourself. It is the reason you can heal. It is the cause of healing. It is why you cannot die. Its truth established you as one with God.
Death is the thought that you are separate from your Creator. It is the belief conditions change, emotions alternate because of causes you cannot control, you did not make, and you can never change. It is the fixed belief ideas can leave their source, and take on qualities the source does not contain, becoming different from their own origin, apart from it in kind as well as distance, time, and form.
Death cannot come from life. Ideas remain united to their source. They can extend all that their source contains. In that they can go far beyond themselves. But they can not give birth to what was never given them. As they are made, so will their making be. As they were born, so will they then give birth. And where they come from, there will they return.
The mind can think it sleeps, but that is all. It cannot change what is its waking state. It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body. What is alien to the mind does not exist, because it has no source. For mind creates all things that are, and cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state. It cannot make the physical. What seems to die is but the sign of mind asleep.
The opposite of life can only be another form of life. As such, it can be reconciled with what created it, because it is not opposite in truth. Its form may change; it may appear to be what it is not. Yet mind is mind awake or sleeping. It is not its opposite in anything created, nor in what it seems to make when it believes it sleeps.
God creates only mind awake. He does not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He gives not, nor make conditions which He does not share with them. The thought of death is not the opposite to thoughts of life. Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly but yet within Themselves, for They are everywhere.
What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was.
Let us today be children of the truth, and not deny our holy heritage. Our life is not as we imagine it. Who changes life because he shuts his eyes, or makes himself what he is not because he sleeps and sees in dreams an opposite to what he is? We will not ask for death in any form today. Nor will we let imagined opposites to life abide even an instant where the Thought of Life Eternal has been set by God Himself.
His holy home we strive to keep today as He established it, and wills it be forever and forever. He is Lord of what we think today. And in His Thoughts, Which have no opposite, we understand there is one life, and that we share with Him; with all creation, with their thoughts as well, whom He created in a Unity of life which cannot separate in death and leave the Source of Life from where It came.
We share our life because we have one Source, a Source from Which perfection comes to us, remaining always in the holy minds which He created perfect. As we were, so are we now and will forever be. A sleeping mind must waken as it sees its own perfection mirroring the Lord of Life so perfectly it fades into what is reflected there. And now it is no more a mere reflection. It becomes the thing reflected, and the light which makes reflection possible. No vision now is needed. For the wakened mind is one that knows its Source, its Self, its Holiness.
We have repeated how little is asked of you to learn this course. It is the same small willingness you need to have your whole relationship transformed to joy. The LITTLE gift you offer to the Holy Spirit, for which He gives you EVERYTHING. The very little, on which salvation rests. The tiny change of mind by which the crucifixion is changed to Resurrection. And, being true, it is so simple that it cannot fail to be COMPLETELY understood. Rejected, yes, but NOT ambiguous. And, if you choose AGAINST it now, it will NOT be because it is obscure, but rather that this LITTLE cost seemed, in YOUR judgment, to be TOO MUCH to pay for peace.
This is the ONLY thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the COMPLETE escape from sin, ALL to be given you. Say ONLY this, but MEAN it with NO reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:
"I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."
Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done TO you. Acknowledge but that YOU have been mistaken, and ALL effects of your mistakes will disappear.
It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events OUTSIDE him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were NOT his choice. His power of decision is the DETERMINER of every situation in which he seems to FIND himself by chance or accident. No accident or chance is POSSIBLE within the universe as God created it, OUTSIDE of which is nothing. Suffer, and YOU decided sin was your goal. Be happy, and you GAVE the power of decision to Him Who MUST decide for God for you. This is the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit, and even this He gave to you to give yourself. For, BY this gift, is given you the power to release your Savior, that HE may give salvation unto YOU.
Begrudge not, then, this little offering. WITHHOLD it, and you keep the world as now you see it. GIVE IT AWAY, and everything YOU see goes with it. Never was so much given for so little. In the holy instant is this exchange effected and MAINTAINED. Here is the world you do NOT want, brought to the one you DO. And here the one you do is GIVEN you, BECAUSE you want it. But, for this, the POWER of your wanting must first be RECOGNIZED. You must accept its STRENGTH, and NOT its weakness. You must perceive that what is strong enough to MAKE a world, can let it go. And CAN accept correction, if it is willing to see that it was wrong.
The world you see is but the idle witness that you were RIGHT. This witness is insane. You trained it in its testimony, and, as it gave it BACK to you, you listened and convinced yourself that what it saw was true. YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF. See only this, and you will also see how circular the reasoning on which your "seeing" rests. This was NOT given you. This was your GIFT to you AND TO YOUR BROTHER. Be willing, then, to have it taken FROM him, and be replaced with truth. And, as you look upon the change in HIM, it will be given you to see it in YOURSELF.
Perhaps you do not see the need for you to give this little offering. Look closer, then, at what it IS. And, very simply, see in it the whole exchange of separation for salvation. All that the ego is, is an idea that it is possible that things should HAPPEN to the Son of God, WITHOUT his will. And thus, without the Will of his Creator, Whose Will cannot BE separated from his own. This is the Son of God's REPLACEMENT for his will, a mad revolt against what must forever be. This is the statement that he HAS the power to make God powerLESS. And so to take it from HIMSELF, and leave himself WITHOUT what God has willed FOR him.
This is the mad idea you have enshrined upon your altars, AND WHICH YOU WORSHIP. And anything that threatens this, seems to ATTACK your faith. For here it is invested. Think not that you are faithless, for your belief and trust in THIS is strong indeed. The Holy Spirit can GIVE you faith in holiness, and vision to see it, easily enough. But you have not left open and unoccupied the altar where the gift belongs. Where THEY should be, YOU have set up your idols to something ELSE. This OTHER will, which seems to TELL you what must happen, you GAVE reality. And what would SHOW you otherwise must therefore seem unreal.
All that is asked of you is to MAKE ROOM for truth. You are NOT asked to make or do what lies BEYOND your understanding. All you are asked to do is LET IT IN. Only to stop your INTERFERENCE with what will happen OF ITSELF. Simply to recognize again the presence of what you THOUGHT you gave away. Be willing, for an instant, to leave your altars free of what YOU placed upon them and what is REALLY there you CANNOT fail to see. The holy instant is NOT an instant of creation, but of RECOGNITION. For recognition comes of vision and SUSPENDED judgment. Then only is it possible to look within and see what MUST be there, plainly in sight, and wholly INDEPENDENT of inference and judgment.
Undoing is not YOUR task, but it IS up to you to welcome it or not. Faith and desire go hand in hand. For everyone believes in what he wants. We have already said that wishful thinking is how the ego deals with what it wants, to make it so. There is no better demonstration of the power of wanting, and therefore of FAITH, to make its goals seem real and possible. Faith in the UNreal leads to ADJUSTMENTS of reality, to make it fit the goal of madness. The goal of sin induces the perception of a fearful world, to JUSTIFY its purpose. What you desire, you WILL see. And if its reality is false, you will UPHOLD it by NOT realizing all the adjustments YOU have introduced, to MAKE it so.
When vision is DENIED, confusion of cause and effect becomes inevitable. The PURPOSE now becomes to KEEP OBSCURE the cause of the effect, and make effect appear to BE a cause. This seeming independence of effect enables it to be regarded as STANDING BY ITSELF, and capable of serving as a CAUSE of the events and feelings its maker thinks IT causes. Long ago, we spoke of your desire to create your own Creator, and be father and not Son to Him. This is the same desire. The Son is the effect, whose Cause he would deny. And so he seems to BE the cause, producing real EFFECTS.
Nothing can have effects WITHOUT a cause, and to confuse the two is merely to fail to understand them both. It is as needful that you recognize you MADE the world you see, as that you recognize that you did NOT create yourself. THEY ARE THE SAME MISTAKE. Nothing created NOT by your Creator, has ANY influence over you. And if you think what YOU have made can TELL you what you see and feel, and place your faith in its ability to do so, you ARE denying your Creator, and BELIEVING that you made yourself. For, if you think the world you made has power to make you what IT wills, you ARE confusing Son and Father; effect and Source.
The Son's creations ARE like his Father's. But, in creating THEM, the Son does not delude himself that he is INDEPENDENT of his Source. His union with It is the SOURCE of his creating. APART from this, he HAS no power to create, and what he makes is meaningless. It changes NOTHING in creation, depends ENTIRELY upon the madness of its maker, and can NOT serve to justify the madness. Your brother thinks he made the world with you. Thus he denies creation. With you, he thinks the world he made, made HIM. Thus he denies he MADE it.
Yet the truth is you were both created by a loving Father, Who created you together and as one. SEE what "proves" otherwise, and you DENY your whole reality. But grant that EVERYTHING that seems to stand BETWEEN you, keeping you from each other and separate from your Father, YOU MADE IN SECRET, and the instant of release has come to you. ALL its effects are gone, because its source has been uncovered. It is its seeming INDEPENDENCE of its source that kept you prisoner. This IS the same delusion that YOU are independent of the Source by which YOU were created, and have never left.