Important in this lesson is the recognition that the state of peace and happiness is not something that we need to achieve. Yearning for this peace is based on the belief that we don't have it in us. It denies the reality that the peace and joy that we seek were given us by a merciful God and given us forever. "What was given then must be here now, for my creation was apart from time, and still remains beyond all change." (W.230.2.2)
 
The Atonement Principle guarantees that we can't change the truth of who we are. "It is not given me to change my Self." (W.230.1.3) When we don't have peace, we are actually choosing against it. This is the case every time we choose the ego thought system, which is a choice to listen to our specialness and our attack thoughts rather than the Thought of God. If I am upset I am actually choosing to be separate from the love that I am. And if I stay upset, then I am stubbornly resisting surrendering my story. It seems insane to choose against our own peace, and it is. Our very identity in this world carries with it the insanity of the ego thought system. It is the belief that the innocent, unlimited Son of God that we are could make of itself a separated, lacking and limited self. Why do we continue to hold onto that? Because we have a fear of God's Will and have projected that fear onto God. Now we see Him as a punishing God Who will extract from us what we value.
 
What we value most is our individual will. We think we will have to sacrifice to this god that the ego has made. The final obstacle to peace is the fear of God. The mind is split and is in conflict between the reality of the truth of who we are, always and forever at peace as we were created and remain, and the part of the mind that the ego has taken over. In our minds are both the belief in separation (the ego) and the memory of Oneness (the Holy Spirit). "The ego's goal is as unified as the Holy Spirit's, and it is because of this that their goals can never be reconciled in any way or to any extent. The ego always seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit always seeks to unify and heal." (T.7.IV.5.1-3)(ACIM OE T.7.V.36)
 
So while we seek peace, we actually are afraid of it. This puts us in conflict with ourselves. Total peace means the end of our specialness, the end of our unique personality self, and the end of the body identification to which we are attached. This brings up fear, but we must remember that we are not being hurled into Reality. The Course is very practical. It offers us a process of undoing the thought system of the ego, which is what keeps us in hell. "The ego is the symbol of separation, just as the Holy Spirit is the symbol of peace." (T.5.III.9.4)(ACIM OE T.5.V.41) Daily we work to fulfill our needs, based on our idea of what will bring us peace and happiness, but now we are also pursuing real peace and trying to trust in the Love of God. We are actually straddling two separate and distinct thought systems, still following the laws of the world, seeking for our happiness in the world and blaming the world for our condition, while trying to trust in the teaching of Jesus and releasing our misperceptions about ourselves.
 
While we do both, we will be in conflict. The result is inconsistency in the way we experience our day. We say we want God as our only goal, that we want healing of our minds, yet we stubbornly hold onto our perspectives, arguing for our positions and demanding that our needs be met. We can't stubbornly hold onto our perspectives while still showing up fully in our own lives. The answer is to choose the Holy Spirit more and more consistently so that joy and peace can be more prevalent in our lives. This requires considerable vigilance. Clearly, once on this path, the choice to revert entirely to the egoic thinking is no longer possible. Once we have started on the path, it is like having swallowed the blue pill (The Matrix), having said 'yes' to the Call, and now it is impossible to make a total reversal. The 'blue pill' has taken hold in our experience.

When we have an experience of the holy instant, it is an experience of the peace that is in us. When we choose and value our ego goals, we bring this peace to an end. The peace is still in us, but we are blocking it. We are always choosing between the truth which brings peace and the falsity which maintains our suffering. As I look at my concerns, my feelings of being overwhelmed, my excitement of plans I have, the busyness of my life, I sometimes feel that life is conspiring against me and is actually robbing me of my peace, but that is just the ego's game. My mind has simply made a choice for the ego so that I am distracted by my thoughts and my conflicted goals. It is all a setup, but it is only set up that way by me. We continue to choose it because we think we know our own best interests, and we continue to choose it because we want to maintain the separate self.

Jesus is showing us that indeed we are not victims of external circumstances. He is showing us that all we have to do is learn to recognize the mind's choice by paying very close attention to our feelings and judgments in this dream. How do we do that? Well every time we feel loss of peace, whether in the form of anger, depression, irritation, anxiety, concern, distress of any kind, excitement, frustration etc. we bring our attention to the fact that we have made a decision for separation from the love that we are. By recognizing this, we can become more vigilant about the choices being made by the mind. It requires that we rest our story about what we tell ourselves is the cause of our angst, look at our thoughts and feelings, and finally turn them over to the Holy Spirit Who will do the rest.

It is only by this kind of attentiveness that we can undo our denial and let the Holy Spirit bring us to the truth. This is what salvation is all about. It is only to be saved from our mistaken thoughts. But, like the miracle, salvation does nothing because nothing needs to be done. We are already perfect. We just need to bring our mistaken perceptions to the truth. When we become aware of how painful it is to choose the ego, we get very motivated to choose differently. Without this awareness and recognition, we become very confused about things of this world that seem to be coming at us. We feel like helpless victims of the world, but this victimhood is a way of not taking responsibility for the fact that when we don't have peace. It is not because someone took it from us, but only because we have chosen to throw it away and blame our brother for having taken it. Why? Because we don't want to be responsible for our own condition. We would rather put the blame on conditions and circumstances that we believe are outside of our own minds.

When we identify with our ego and our specialness, we will always feel guilt, which is inevitably projected in some form of judgment against ourselves and others. This happens very quickly and because of the mind's speed in forgetting (denial), we don't even notice that this is the case. That is why it appears that it is all coming from outside of our own minds. That is why we need to pay attention to our thoughts and become aware of our judgments, because they show us our choice for separation from the truth which has never left us.

We may even judge ourselves when we are not at peace. We may feel like poor Course students who just aren't getting it. Yet both the conditions of peace and lack of peace are very valuable experiences for our learning. Through them we can see how peace feels and how our judgments cause us pain. It is through these contrasts that we are reminded of the choices that we are making. When we are not at peace, it is for no other reason than that we have chosen the ego. The world is just an outside picture of our inward condition. Thus it is a sign for us of the choice we have made in our minds and which voice we are listening to, the ego or the Holy Spirit. It is not helpful to judge ourselves, but it is helpful to look at our mistaken decisions. Everything can be used by the Holy Spirit. It all has value when used for healing purposes.

And now we conclude our section on "What is forgiveness?" " Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success." (W.PII.Q1.5.1) "Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honors as the Son of God." (W.PII.Q1.5.3) We have not changed ourselves as a result of our foolish thoughts of sin. We can only become unaware of who we are. I love the line in the Text Chapter 19.IV.A.3.7 (ACIM OE T.19.V.a.42) that says, " What you would still contain behind your little barrier and keep separate from your brother seems mightier than the universe, for it would hold back the universe and its Creator." That is precisely the power that we have. It is our decision to choose illusion or the truth.

Through our healed perception, we share His function in the world. We are His manifestation in the world, bringing peace to other minds, offering kindness and gentleness, and by doing so, we know that it is in us to give. It is, in fact, who we are in truth.