How does one overcome illusions? Surely not by force or anger. Nor by OPPOSING them in ANY way. Merely by letting reason tell you that they CONTRADICT reality. They GO AGAINST what must be true. The opposition comes from THEM, and NOT reality. Reality opposes nothing. What merely is, NEEDS no defense, and offers none. Only illusions need defense, BECAUSE OF WEAKNESS. And how CAN it be difficult to walk the way of truth, when only WEAKNESS interferes? YOU are the strong ones in this seeming conflict. And you need NO defense. Everything that needs defense YOU DO NOT WANT. For anything that needs defense will WEAKEN you.
Consider what the ego wants defenses FOR. ALWAYS to justify what GOES AGAINST the truth, flies in the face of reason, AND MAKES NO SENSE. Can this BE justified? What can this be, except an invitation to insanity, to save you FROM the truth? And what would you be SAVED from, but what you FEAR? Belief in sin needs GREAT defense, and at ENORMOUS cost. All that the Holy Spirit offers must be DEFENDED AGAINST, and SACRIFICED. For sin is carved into a block out of YOUR peace, and laid BETWEEN you and its return. Yet how can peace BE so fragmented? It is STILL whole, and NOTHING has been TAKEN FROM it.
See how the means and the material of evil dreams are nothing! In truth, you stand together, with NOTHING in between. God holds your hands, and what can separate whom He has joined as one with Him? It is your Father Whom you would defend against. Yet it remains impossible to keep Love out. God rests with you in quiet, undefended and wholly undefending. For in this quiet state alone is strength and power. Here can NO weakness enter, for here is no attack, and therefore no illusions. Love rests in CERTAINTY. Only UNcertainty can BE defensive. And ALL uncertainty is doubt about YOURSELF.
How weak is fear; how little and how meaningless! How insignificant before the quiet strength of those whom Love has joined! This is your "enemy;" a frightened mouse which would attack the universe. How likely is it that it will SUCCEED? Can it be difficult to disregard its feeble squeaks that tell of its omnipotence, and would drown out the hymn of praise to its Creator that every heart throughout the universe forever sings as one? Which IS the stronger? Is it this tiny mouse, or everything that God created? You are NOT joined together by this mouse, but by the Will of God. And can a mouse BETRAY whom God has joined?
If you but RECOGNIZED how little stands between you and your AWARENESS of your union! Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within YOU, there is a force which NO illusions can resist. This body only SEEMS to be immovable. This force IS irresistible in truth. What, then, MUST happen when they come together? Can the illusion of immovability be long defended for what is quietly PAST THROUGH, and GONE BEYOND?
Forget not, when you feel the need arise to be defensive about ANYTHING, you have identified YOUR SELF with an illusion. And therefore feel that you are weak, BECAUSE YOU ARE ALONE. This is the cost of ALL illusions. Not one but rests on the belief that you are separate. Not one that does not SEEM to stand, heavy and solid and unmovable, between you and your brother. And not one that truth can NOT pass over lightly, and so easily that you MUST be convinced, in spite of what you THOUGHT it was, that it was nothing. If you forgive each other, this MUST happen. For it IS your unwillingness to overlook what seems to stand between you that makes it look impenetrable, and DEFENDS the illusion of its immovability.
Do you not see that all your misery comes from the strange belief that you are powerless? BEING HELPLESS IS THE COST OF SIN. Helplessness is sin's CONDITION; the ONE requirement that it demands, to be believed. Only the helpless COULD believe in it. Enormity has no appeal, save to the little. And only those who FIRST believe that they are little, could SEE attraction there. Treachery to the Son of God is the defense of those who do NOT identify with him. And you are FOR him or AGAINST him; either you love him or attack him; protect his unity, or see him shattered and slain by your attack.
No-one believes the Son of God is powerless. And those who see themselves as helpless MUST believe that they are NOT the Son of God. What can they BE, except his enemy? And what can they do but ENVY him his power, and BY their envy, make themselves AFRAID of it? These are the dark ones, silent and afraid, alone and not communicating, fearful the power of the Son of God will strike them dead, and raising up their helplessness AGAINST him. They join the army of the powerless, to wage their war of vengeance, bitterness, and spite on him, to make him one with THEM.
Because they do not know that they are one with HIM, they know not WHOM they hate. They are indeed a sorry army, each one as likely to attack his brother or turn upon himself, as to remember they THOUGHT they had a common cause. Frantic and loud and strong the dark ones SEEM to be. Yet they know not their enemy, EXCEPT THEY HATE HIM. In hatred they HAVE come together, but have NOT joined EACH OTHER. For, had they done so, hatred would be impossible. The army of the powerless MUST be disbanded in the presence of STRENGTH.
Those who are strong are NEVER treacherous, because they have no need to DREAM of power, and to act out their dream. How would an army ACT in dreams? Any way at all. They could be seen attacking ANYONE, with ANYTHING. Dreams have no REASON in them. A flower turns into a poisoned spear, a child becomes a giant, and a mouse roars like a lion. And LOVE IS TURNED TO HATE as easily. This is no army, but a madhouse. What SEEMS to be a planned attack is bedlam. The army of the powerless is weak indeed. It has no weapons, and it has no enemy.
Yes, it can overrun the world, and SEEK an enemy. But it can never FIND what is not there. Yes, it can DREAM it found an enemy, but this will shift even as it attacks, so that it runs at once to find another, and never comes to rest in victory. And, as it runs, it turns against itself, thinking it caught a glimpse of the great enemy that always eludes its murderous attack by turning into someone else. How treacherous does this enemy appear, who changes so, it is impossible even to RECOGNIZE him! Yet hate MUST have a target. There can BE no faith in sin without an enemy.
Who that believes in sin would DARE believe he has NO enemy? COULD he admit that no-one MADE him powerless? Reason would surely bid him seek no longer what is NOT THERE to find. Yet first he must be WILLING to perceive a world where it is NOT. It is NOT necessary that he understand HOW he can see it. Nor should he try. For, if he focuses on what he CANNOT understand, he will but EMPHASIZE his helplessness, and let sin tell him his enemy must be HIMSELF. But let him only ask himself these questions, which he MUST decide to have it done FOR him:
"Do I DESIRE a world I rule, instead of one where I AM ruled?
Do I DESIRE a world where I am powerful, instead of helpless?
Do I DESIRE a world in which I have NO enemies, and CANNOT sin?
And do I WANT to see what I denied, BECAUSE it is the truth?"
You have ALREADY answered the first three questions, but not yet the last. For this one still seems fearful, and UNLIKE the others. Yet reason would assure you they are all the SAME. We said this year would emphasize the sameness of things that ARE the same. This final question which is indeed the last you need decide, still seems to hold a threat the rest have lost for you. And this imagined difference attests to your belief that TRUTH may be the enemy you yet may find. Here, then, would seem to be the last remaining hope of finding sin, and NOT accepting power.
Forget not that the choice of truth or sin, power or helplessness, IS the choice of whether to attack or HEAL. For healing comes of POWER, and ATTACK of helplessness. Whom you attack, you CANNOT want to heal. And whom you would have healed, MUST be the one you chose to be PROTECTED from attack. And what IS this decision, but the choice whether to see him through the body's eyes, or let him be REVEALED to you through vision? HOW this decision leads to its effects is NOT your problem. But what you WANT to see, MUST be your choice. This is a course in CAUSE, and NOT effect.
Consider carefully your answer to the last question you have left unanswered still. And let your reason tell you that it MUST be answered, and IS answered in the other three. And then it WILL be clear to you that, as you look on the EFFECTS of sin, in ANY form, all you need do is simply ask yourself, "Is this what I WOULD see?" Do I WANT this?" This is your one decision; this the CONDITION for what occurs. It IS irrelevant to HOW it happens, but NOT to WHY. You HAVE control of this. And if you CHOOSE to see a world WITHOUT an enemy, in which you are NOT helpless, the MEANS to see it WILL be given you.
Why is the final question so important? Reason will tell you why. It IS the same as are the other three, EXCEPT IN TIME. The others are decisions which can be made, and then UNmade, and made again. But truth is CONSTANT, and implies a state where vacillations are impossible. You can desire a world you rule, which rules you not, and CHANGE your mind. You can desire to exchange your helplessness for power, and LOSE this same desire as a little glint of sin attracts you. And you can want to see a sinless world, and let an "enemy" tempt you to use the body's eyes, and CHANGE what you desire.
In CONTENT all the questions ARE the same. For each one asks if you are willing to exchange the world of sin for what the Holy Spirit sees. For it IS this the world of sin denies. And therefore those who look on sin ARE seeing the DENIAL of the real world. Yet the last question adds the WISH FOR CONSTANCY in your desire to see the real world, so the desire becomes the ONLY one you have. By answering the final question "yes," you add SINCERITY to the decisions you have ALREADY made to all the rest. For only then have you RENOUNCED the option to change your mind AGAIN. When it is THIS you do NOT want, the rest are really answered.
Why do you think you are unsure the others HAVE been answered? COULD it be necessary they be ASKED so often, if they HAD? Until the last decision has been made, the answer IS both yes and no. For you HAVE answered "yes," without perceiving that yes MUST mean NOT NO. No-one decides AGAINST his happiness. But he MAY do so, if he does not know he DOES it. And, if he sees his happiness as ever-changing, now this, now that, and now an elusive shadow attached to nothing, he DOES decide against it.
Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing forms that shift with time and place, is an illusion that has no meaning. Happiness MUST be constant, because it is ATTAINED by GIVING UP the wish for the INconstant. Joy cannot BE perceived, EXCEPT through constant vision. And constant vision can be given only those who WISH for constancy. The power of the Son of God's desire remains the proof that he is wrong who sees himself as helpless. Desire what you will, and you shall look on it, and think it real. No thought but has the power to release or kill. And none can leave the thinker's mind, or leave him unaffected.