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W28L

Lesson 28 "Above all else I want to see things differently."

W28L1

Today we are really giving specific application to the idea for yesterday. In these practice periods you will be making a series of definite commitments. The question of whether you will keep them in the future is not our concern here. If you are willing at least to make them now, you have started on the way to keeping them. And we are still at the beginning.

W28L2

You may wonder why it is important to say, for example, "Above all else I want to see this table differently." In itself it is not important at all. Yet what is by itself? And what does "in itself" mean? You see a lot of separate things about you, which really means you are not seeing at all. You either see or not. When you have seen one thing differently, you will see all things differently. The light you will see in any one of them is the same light you will see in them all.

W28L3

When you say "Above all else I want to see this table differently," you are making a commitment to withdraw your preconceived ideas about the table, and open your minds to what it is and what it is for. You are not defining it in past terms. You are asking what it is, rather than telling it what it is. You are not binding its meaning to your tiny experiences of tables, nor are you limiting its purpose to your little personal thoughts.

W28L4

You will not question what we have already defined. And the purpose of these exercises is to ask questions and receive the answers. In saying, "Above all else I want to see this table differently," you are committing yourself to seeing. It is not an exclusive commitment. It is a commitment which applies to the table just as much as to anything else, neither more nor less.

W28L5

You could, in fact, gain vision from just that table, if you could withdraw all your own ideas from it, and look upon it with a completely open mind. It has something to show you; something beautiful and clean and of infinite value, full of happiness and hope. Hidden under all your ideas about it is its real purpose, the purpose it shares with all the universe.

W28L6

In using the table as a subject for applying the idea for today you are therefore really asking to see the purpose of the universe. You will be making the same request of each subject which you use in the practice periods. And you are making a commitment to each of them to let their purpose be revealed to you, instead of placing your own judgment upon them.

W28L7

We will have six two minute practice periods today, in which the idea for the day is stated first, and then applied to whatever you see in looking about you. Not only should the subjects be chosen randomly, but each one should be accorded equal sincerity as today's idea is applied to it, in an attempt to acknowledge the equal value of them all in their contribution to your seeing.

W28L8

As usual, the applications should include the name of the subject which your eyes happen to 'light on, and you should rest your eyes on it while saying:

"Above all else, I want to see this ____ differently"

Each application should be made quite slowly and as thoughtfully as possible. There is no hurry.

T15F

Section 6 - The Holy Instant and Special Relationships

T15F1

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.

T15F2

The past is the EGO's chief learning device, for it is in the past that you learned to define your OWN needs, and acquired methods for meeting them ON YOUR OWN TERMS. We said before that, to limit love to PART of the Sonship, is to bring guilt into your relationships, and thus MAKE THEM UNREAL. If you seek to separate out certain ASPECTS of the totality, and look TO THEM to meet your imagined needs, you are attempting to USE SEPARATION TO SAVE YOU. How, then, could guilt NOT enter? For separation IS the source of guilt, and to APPEAL to it for salvation IS TO BELIEVE YOU ARE ALONE.

T15F3

To be alone IS to be guilty. For to experience yourself AS alone, is to deny the Oneness of the Father and His Son, and thus to ATTACK REALITY. You cannot love PARTS of reality, and understand what love MEANS. If you would love UNlike to God, Who KNOWS no special love, how CAN you understand it? To believe that SPECIAL relationships, with SPECIAL love, can offer you salvation, IS the belief that separation is salvation. For it is the COMPLETE EQUALITY of the Atonement, in which salvation lies. How can YOU decide that special aspects of the Sonship CAN GIVE YOU MORE THAN OTHERS? The past HAS taught you this. But the holy instant teaches you IT IS NOT SO.

T15F4

Because of guilt, ALL special relationships have some elements of fear in them. And this is why they shift and change so frequently. They are NOT based on changeless love alone. And love, where fear has entered, CANNOT be depended on, because it is NOT perfect. In His function as Interpreter of what you have made, the Holy Spirit USES special relationships, which YOU have chosen to support the ego, as a learning experience which points to truth. Under His teaching, EVERY relationship becomes a lesson in love.

T15F5

The Holy Spirit knows NO-ONE IS SPECIAL. But He also perceives that you have MADE special relationships, which He would purify, and NOT let YOU destroy. However UNholy the reason why you made them may be, He can TRANSLATE them into holiness, by removing AS MUCH FEAR AS YOU WILL LET HIM. You can place ANY relationship under His care, and be sure that it will NOT result in pain, if you offer Him your willingness TO HAVE IT SERVE NO NEED BUT HIS. All the guilt in it arises from YOUR use of it. All the love, from His. Do not, then, be AFRAID to let your IMAGINED need, which would DESTROY the relationship, go. Your ONLY need IS His.

T15F6

Any relationship which you would SUBSTITUTE FOR ANOTHER, has not been offered to the Holy Spirit, for His use. There IS no substitute for love. If you would attempt to substitute ONE aspect of love for ANOTHER, you have placed LESS value on one, and MORE on another. You have not only SEPARATED them, but have also JUDGED AGAINST BOTH. Yet you had judged against yourself FIRST, or you would never have imagined that you needed them AS THEY WERE NOT. Unless you had seen yourself as WITHOUT love, you COULD not have judged them to be LIKE you in lack.

T15F7

The ego's use of relationships is so fragmented, that it frequently goes even further; one PART of one aspect suits its purposes, while it prefers DIFFERENT parts of another. Thus does it ASSEMBLE reality to its own capricious liking, offering for YOUR seeking, a picture whose likeness DOES NOT EXIST. For there is nothing in Heaven OR earth that it resembles, and so, however much you seek for its reality, you CANNOT find it, because it is NOT real.

T15F8

Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and, although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here. In the holy instant, no-one is special, for your PERSONAL needs INTRUDE on no-one, to MAKE them different. Without the values from the past you WOULD see them all the same, and LIKE YOURSELF. Nor would you see ANY separation between yourself and them. In the holy instant, you see, in each relationship, what it WILL be, when you perceive ONLY the present.

T15F9

God knows you NOW. He remembers NOTHING, having ALWAYS known you exactly as He knows you now. The holy instant PARALLELS His knowing, by bringing ALL perception OUT of the past, thus removing the frame of reference you have built, by which to JUDGE your brothers. Once this is gone, the Holy Spirit substitutes His frame of reference FOR it. His frame of reference is simply God. The Holy Spirit's timelessness lies simply here. For in the holy instant, FREE of the past, you see that LOVE IS IN YOU, and you HAVE no need to look WITHOUT, and snatch it guiltily from where you THOUGHT it was.

T15F10

ALL your relationships are blessed in the holy instant, BECAUSE THE BLESSING IS NOT LIMITED. In the holy instant, the Sonship gains AS ONE. And, UNITED in your blessing, it BECOMES one TO YOU. The meaning of love is the meaning God GAVE to it. Give to it ANY meaning APART from His, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to understand it. Every brother God loves as He loves you; neither less nor more. HE NEEDS THEM ALL EQUALLY, and so do YOU. In time, you have been told to offer miracles as Christ directs, and let the Holy Spirit bring to you those who are seeking you. But in the holy instant, you unite DIRECTLY with God, and ALL your brothers join in Christ.

T15F11

Those who are joined in Christ are in no way separate. For Christ is the Self the Sonship shares, as God shares His Self with Christ. Think you that you can judge the Self of God? God has created It BEYOND judgment, out of HIS need to extend His love. With Love in you, you HAVE no need EXCEPT TO EXTEND IT. In the holy instant, there is no conflict of needs, for there is ONLY ONE. For the holy instant reaches to eternity, and to the Mind of God. And it is only there that love HAS meaning, and ONLY there CAN it be understood.

T15F12

It is impossible to use one relationship AT THE EXPENSE of another, and NOT suffer guilt. And it is equally impossible to condemn PART of a relationship and find peace WITHIN it. Under the Holy Spirit's teaching, ALL relationships are seen as TOTAL commitments, yet they do not conflict with one another in ANY way. Perfect faith in each one, for its ability to satisfy you COMPLETELY, arises only from perfect faith in YOURSELF. And this you cannot have, while guilt remains. And there WILL be guilt, as long as you accept the possibility, AND CHERISH IT, that you can make a brother WHAT HE IS NOT, because YOU would have him so.

T15F13

You have so little faith in yourself, because you are unwilling to accept the fact that perfect love is IN you. And so you seek WITHOUT for what you CANNOT find without. I offer you MY perfect faith in you, IN PLACE of all YOUR doubts. But forget not that my faith MUST be as perfect in ALL your brothers as it is in you, or it would be a limited gift to YOU. In the holy instant, we SHARE our faith in God's Son, because we recognize, together, that he is wholly worthy OF it, and, in our appreciation of his worth, we CANNOT doubt his holiness. And so we love him.

In the very big picture, this is what ACIM is getting at. This entire world does not exist. No bodies, no planet, no sun, no galaxies, no spacetime, no events, no happenings, no consequences. It is all nothing. Only the Kingdom of God - a world of spirit and light - really exists at all. Only that means anything and is of any value to you.

"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it"

"There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere?"

"The world you see does not exist BECAUSE the place where you perceive it is not real."

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end."

We made up this world when we tried to separate from God. We invented time and space. We made the galaxies and planets. We invented bodies to hide in. It's all a hallucinated wishful-thinking dream of denial and the belief in the opposite to eternal life - death.

"Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one."

"There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought." "What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you REALLY understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who SEEM to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are WHOLLY unreal?"

In order to accept this profound, extremely radical idea, we have to first acknowledge that we do NOT believe it. We are heavily invested in this world, we give it reality, we value it, we want it, we think it has things to offer us, we are attached to it, we fancy ourselves as being human bodies, we seek for bodily relationships, we want to collect stuff, we idolise and worship objects and bodies and places, and we just basically want to stay here as long as possible, all the while believing this is reality.

This is a problem.

In order for us to accept the atonement truth, that none of this has happened and this world doesn't exist, we're first going to have to go through a process of relinquishment. We're going to have to come to recognize, primarily, that this world is not actually a world - it is nothing. Bodies are not really bodies, they are nothing. Nothing is really happening here. Spacetime itself is an illusion. There is no space or time and nothing in it. All events are nowhere. All of the sickness and death is a lie and doesn't exist.

"It (mind) dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere."

This means we're going to have to become willing to not only recognize that the world is nothing and not worth having, we're going to have to stop trying to accumulate it. We're going to have to stop having psychological "ownership", possession and attachment to objects, people and places. We're going to have to recognize that the world holds nothing that we want, that it cannot give us anything, it cannot cause us to be happy, it cannot inherently mean anything to us, and it has no real value. And this also means letting go of all identification with (attachment to) the body, and re-identifying as a spirit being.

This is going to take an uprooting of everything that keeps you rooted in this world, all your commitments, all your investments, all your hopes and dreams and wishes, all your denials and anticipations, all your attempts to deny that this world is made of death. A big part of this involves recognising that death is woven into everything in this world, even in those things which seem like new or just born. That all the world's roads lead to death, all its laws are laws of punishment, and that it will always disappoint you. You have to come to realize that the world will not ever satisfy you, and that in itself can seem depressing.

"You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust, even as you made it."

"There IS no choice where every end is sure. Perhaps you would prefer to try them all, before you REALLY learn they are but one. The roads this world can offer seem to be quite large in number, but the time must come when everyone begins to see how like they are to one another. Men have died on seeing this, because they saw no way EXCEPT the pathways offered by the world. And, learning THEY led nowhere, lost their hope. And yet this was the time they COULD have learned their greatest lesson. All must reach this point, and go BEYOND it. It is true indeed there is no choice at all within the world. But this is NOT the lesson in itself. The lesson has a PURPOSE, and in THIS you come to understand what it is FOR."

Basically, we have to recognize that this world is fundamentally broken, spacetime is an attack on omnipresence and eternity, everything you try to do here will end in death and destruction eventually, there is no point and no meaning to this life, and then turn around and realize that there MUST be a better way, there MUST be another world, there MUST be a light and a way out of this nightmare. There MUST be a world that means something, there MUST be a truth and a light that you can depend on, and there MUST be a way to live forever. You're not going to find any of that in this world. Heaven is the reality that you heart really desires.

So then you're going to have to sort through all the ways in which you depend on, want, attach to, value, find important, give meaning to, want to keep, believe has power and will, believe can attack or heal you, basically anything to do with this world that might be a reason why you'd want to stay here and not go home to God. You're going to have to give up the whole world.

You're going to have to surrender and let go of absolutely everything and recognize you DO NOT WANT ANY OF IT. And thus you will let it all go and detach from it and become empty handed. And only by being empty handed, or rather, empty of your desire for spacetime and its bullshit offerings, will you be ready and willing to choose heaven.

So when Jesus says there is no world, which is literally true, that is the central theme of the course. The thing to "get". That there is not really a separation, there is not really a spacetime, or a planet earth, or a world of bodies and suffering and death. It's all a fiction.

In order for you to wean your mind off of it, you're going to have to go through a process of purification, of withdrawing power from the world, of recognising the world does nothing to you or for you, that it can no more please and save you than that it can offend and hurt you, of withdrawing all value and desire for the world and all wish to resist its impossible nature, recognizing that the world literally is nothing at all, and that giving up truly entails giving up a non-world.

Empty your hands of this world and reach for what God has given you in your creation in heaven. Accepting atonement is nothing more than accepting God's reality.

"Go on to meet them gladly, and learn how much awaits you, for the simple willingness to give up nothing, BECAUSE it is nothing. The new perspective you will gain, from crossing over, will be the understanding of WHERE HEAVEN IS. From HERE, it seems to be outside, and ACROSS the bridge. But, as you cross to JOIN it, IT will JOIN WITH YOU, and BECOME ONE with you. And you will think, in glad astonishment, that for all this, YOU GAVE UP NOTHING!"

"the sorry gifts of earth are joyously relinquished. In my hands is everything you want and need and hoped to find among the shabby toys of earth"

"It goes against all the thinking of the world, but so does Heaven." "The world will end when its thought system has been completely reversed. Until then, bits and pieces of its thinking will still seem sensible. The final lesson which brings the ending of the world cannot be grasped by those not yet prepared to leave the world and go beyond its tiny reach."

"YOU DO NOT WANT THE WORLD. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it YOU look upon with love. This GIVES it the only reality it will ever have. ITS value is NOT in itself, but yours IS in you."

"This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."

"What loss can be for you in choosing not to value nothingness? This world holds nothing that you really want, but what you choose instead you want indeed!"

"You were willing to accept even death to deny your Father. But He would not have it so, and so it is NOT so. You still could not will against Him, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. It is NOT a world of will, because it is governed by the desire to be unlike Him. And this desire IS NOT WILL. The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it."

"The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely. Life is now recognized as salvation, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell. Love is no longer feared but gladly welcomed. Idols have disappeared, and the remembrance of God shines unimpeded across the world. Christ's face is seen in every living thing, and nothing is held in darkness apart from the light of forgiveness. There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy of Heaven has come upon it."

'"And so, our Father, we return to You, remembering we never went away; remembering Your holy gifts to us. In gratitude and thankfulness we come, with empty hands and open hearts and minds, asking but what You give."

"Heaven Itself is reached by empty hands and open minds, which come with nothing to find everything and claim it as their own"

"Simply do this: Be still and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false or good or bad; of every thought it judges worthy and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God."

"Here He leans down to lift you back to Him, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and into timelessness; out of all fear and given back to Love."

T7G

Section 7 - From Vigilance to Peace

T7G1

You can think of the Sonship ONLY as one. This is part of the law of Creation, and therefore governs ALL thought. You can PERCEIVE the Sonship as fragmented, but it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to see something in part of it that you will not attribute to ALL of it. That is why attack is NEVER discrete. And why attack MUST be relinquished entirely. If it is NOT relinquished entirely, it is not relinquished at all. Fear and love are equally reciprocal. They make or create depending on whether the ego or the Holy Spirit begets or inspires them, but they WILL return to the mind of the thinker, and they WILL affect his total perception. That includes his perception of God, of His Creations, and of his own. He will not appreciate ANY of these if he regards them fearfully. He will appreciate ALL of them if he regards them with love.

T7G2

The mind that accepts attack CANNOT love. This is because it believes that it can DESTROY love, and therefore does not understand what love IS. If it does not understand what love IS, it CANNOT perceive itself as loving. This loses the awareness of being; induces feelings of unreality; and results in utter confusion. Your own thinking has done this, because of its power. But your own thinking can also save you FROM this, because its power is not of your making. Your ability to DIRECT your thinking as you will IS part of its power. If you do not believe you can do this, you have DENIED the power of your thought, and thus rendered it powerLESS in your belief.

T7G3

The ingeniousness of the ego to preserve itself is enormous, but it stems from the power of the mind WHICH THE EGO DENIES. This means that the ego attacks WHAT IS PRESERVING IT, and this MUST be a source of extreme anxiety. This is why it NEVER knows what it is doing. This is perfectly logical, though clearly insane. The ego draws upon the one source which is totally inimitable to its existence FOR its existence. Fearful of perceiving the POWER of this source, it is forced to DEPRECIATE it. This threatens its OWN existence, a state which it finds intolerable.

T7G4

Remaining logical but still insane, the ego resolves this completely insane dilemma in a completely insane way. It does not perceive ITS existence as threatened, by projecting the threat onto YOU, and perceiving your BEING as NONexistent. This ensures ITS continuance, if you side WITH it, by guaranteeing that you will NOT know your OWN safety. The ego CANNOT AFFORD TO KNOW ANYTHING. Knowledge is total, and the ego DOES NOT BELIEVE IN TOTALITY. This unbelief is its own origin, and while the ego does not love YOU, it IS faithful to its own antecedent, begetting as it was begotten.

T7G5

Mind ALWAYS REproduces as it was produced. Produced by fear, the ego REproduces fear. This IS its allegiance, and this allegiance makes it treacherous to love BECAUSE you are love. Love IS your power, which the ego MUST deny. It must also deny everything which this power gives TO you, BECAUSE it gives you everything. No-one who has everything WANTS the ego. Its own maker, then, DOES NOT WANT IT. Rejection is therefore the only decision which the ego could POSSIBLY encounter if the mind which made it knew ITSELF. And if it recognized ANY part of the Sonship, it WOULD know itself.

T7G6

The ego therefore opposes ALL appreciation, ALL recognition, ALL sane perception, and ALL knowledge. It perceives their threat as total because it senses the fact that all commitments which the mind makes ARE total. Forced therefore to detach itself from you who ARE mind, it is willing to attach itself to anything ELSE. But there IS nothing else. It does NOT follow, however, that the mind cannot make illusions. But it DOES follow that if it makes illusions it will BELIEVE in them, because THAT IS HOW IT MADE THEM.

T7G7

The Holy Spirit undoes illusions without attacking them merely because He cannot perceive them at all. They therefore do not exist for Him. He resolves the APPARENT conflict which they engender by perceiving CONFLICT as meaningless. We said before that the Holy Spirit perceives the conflict EXACTLY AS IT IS, and it IS meaningless. The Holy Spirit does not want you to UNDERSTAND conflict. He wants you to realize that BECAUSE conflict is meaningLESS it cannot BE understood. We have already said that understanding brings appreciation, and appreciation brings love. Nothing else CAN be understood because nothing else is real and therefore nothing else HAS meaning.

T7G8

If you will keep in mind what the Holy Spirit offers you, you cannot be vigilant for anything BUT God and His Kingdom. The ONLY reason why you find this difficult is because you think there IS something else. Belief does not require vigilance UNLESS it is conflicted. If it IS, there ARE conflicting components within it which have engendered a state of war, and vigilance has therefore BECOME essential. Vigilance has no place at all in peace. It is necessary ONLY AGAINST beliefs which are NOT true, and would never have been called upon by the Holy Spirit if you had not believed the untrue yourselves.

T7G9

But you CANNOT deny that when you BELIEVE something you HAVE made it true FOR YOU. When YOU believe what God DOES NOT KNOW, your thought seems to CONTRADICT His, and this makes it appear AS IF YOU ARE ATTACKING HIM. We have repeatedly emphasized that the ego DOES believe it can attack God, and tries to persuade you that YOU have done this. If the mind CANNOT attack, the ego proceeds perfectly logically to the position that YOU cannot be mind. By not seeing you as YOU are, it can see ITSELF as it WANTS to be. Aware of its weakness, the ego wants your allegiance, but NOT as you really are. The ego therefore wants to engage your mind in its OWN delusional system, because otherwise the light of YOUR understanding WILL dispel it.

T7G10

The ego wants no part of truth, because the truth is that IT is not true. If truth is total, the UNtrue CANNOT exist. Commitment to either MUST be total, because they cannot co-exist in your minds WITHOUT splitting them. If they cannot coexist in peace, and if you WANT peace, you MUST give up the IDEA of conflict ENTIRELY, and for ALL TIME. This requires vigilance ONLY as long as YOU DO NOT RECOGNIZE WHAT IS TRUE. While you believe that two totally contradictory thought systems SHARE truth, your need for vigilance is apparent. Your minds ARE dividing their allegiance between two kingdoms, and YOU are totally committed to neither.

T7G11

Your identification with the Kingdom is totally beyond question except by you WHEN YOU ARE THINKING INSANELY. What you are is NOT established by your perception, and is NOT influenced BY it at all. ALL perceived problems in identification at ANY level ARE NOT PROBLEMS OF FACT. But they ARE problems in UNDERSTANDING, because they MEAN that you perceive WHAT you can understand as UP TO YOU TO DECIDE. The ego believes THIS totally, being fully committed TO it. But it is NOT TRUE. The ego is therefore totally committed to UNtruth, perceiving in total contradiction to the Holy Spirit and to the knowledge of God.

T7G12

You can be perceived with meaning ONLY by the Holy Spirit, because your being IS the knowledge of God. ANY belief that you accept which is APART from this WILL obscure God's voice in you, and will therefore obscure God TO you. Unless you perceive His Creation truly, you CANNOT know the Creator, because God and His Creation ARE NOT SEPARATE. The Oneness of the Creator and the Creation IS your wholeness, your sanity, and your limitless power. This limitless power is God's gift to you, because it is WHAT YOU ARE. If you dissociate your mind FROM it, you are perceiving the most powerful force in the universe of thought AS IF it were weak, because you do NOT believe YOU are part of it.

T7G13

Perceived WITHOUT your part IN it, God's Creation IS perceived as weak, and those who SEE themselves as weakened DO attack. The attack MUST be blind, because there is nothing TO attack. Therefore, they make up images, perceive them as unworthy, and attack them for their unworthiness. That is all the world of the ego is. NOTHING. It has no meaning. It does not exist. Do not TRY to understand it, because if you do you are believing that it CAN be understood, and therefore is capable of being appreciated and loved. This WOULD justify it, but it CANNOT BE justified. YOU cannot make the meaningLESS meaningFUL. This can ONLY be an insane attempt.

T7G14

Allowing INsanity to enter your minds means that you have not judged sanity AS WHOLLY DESIRABLE. If you WANT something else, you WILL MAKE something else. But because it IS something else it WILL attack your thought system and divide your allegiance. You CANNOT create in this divided state, and you MUST be vigilant AGAINST this divided state because ONLY peace CAN BE extended. Your divided minds ARE blocking the extension of the Kingdom, and its extension IS your joy. If you do not extend the Kingdom, you are NOT thinking with your Creator and creating as He created.

T7G15

In this depressing state, the Holy Spirit reminds you gently that you are sad because you are not fulfilling your function as co-creators WITH God, and are therefore depriving YOURSELVES of joy. This is not God's will, but YOURS. If your will is out of accord with God's, YOU ARE WILLING WITHOUT MEANING. But because ONLY God's will is unchangeable, no REAL conflict of will is possible. This is the Holy Spirit's perfectly consistent teaching. Creation, not separation, IS your will BECAUSE it is God's. And nothing that opposes this means anything at all. Being a perfect Accomplishment, the Sonship can only accomplish perfectly, EXTENDING the joy in which it was created, and identifying itself with both its Creator and its creations, KNOWING they are One.

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