There are times that I feel that I am at the mercy of my ego raging against me. It is what is described in Chapter 23, " The War Against Yourself", where Jesus says that these are thoughts of our littleness that lead us into temptation, but this need not be. If we allow our littleness, or that of our brother, to lead us into the temptation to attack, we will " walk trembling in a fearful world," (T.23.IN.5.7)(ACIM OE T.23.I.5) and not realize that all this time Heaven's glory shines on us, though we remain unaware. The part of our minds that wants to choose peace and happiness is in conflict with the part that still wants to listen to the dictates of the ego, telling us that our anger is justified, that we have reason to be afraid, that we have been wronged, and that there is something still of value to pursue in the world. This conflict can become unbearable when we have one foot in each camp, the ego and the Spirit.
 

This lesson affirms that we are one Self. And if we are one Self, how can we be in conflict? How can there be repressed parts that show up in our dreams? How can there be parts we are ashamed of, dark places that we want no one to see or know about? None of this is true. It is only true because we have invested belief in the ego thought system. We truly believe we are something other than what God created. How is this possible when there is only one true power and that is love?

The truth is that we have not turned the beautiful eternal being that we are into a sinful self. Yes, we have just lost awareness of this Self to a greater or lesser extent. All we have done is just closed our eyes to the truth and are choosing instead to listen to the lies of the ego. The truth is that we are perfectly innocent. We can know this when we refuse to listen to the voice of the ego. " Walk you in glory, with your head held high, and fear no evil." (T.23.IN.3)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.3) " What can you value more than this? For here is your salvation and your freedom. And it must be complete if you would recognize it." (T.23.IN.6.6-8)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.6) In other words, we need to move to one side of this conflict by recognizing that anything that is not love is not true.
 

Our true nature is innocence, peace and pure joy. There are many temptations during the day of situations and people that we use to justify why we are upset. These situations need not be significant. It may be a look, a comment, a situation that we don't like and we willingly choose to throw our peace away and insist it was taken from us and therefore we were justified in feeling as we do. Today we recognize that our mind is cause and the world is effect. Since that is the case, anything we see outside of ourselves is a reflection of the choice that we have first made within. Today we dedicate ourselves to the truth of who we are, so that when the temptation arises to be pulled back into our littleness, we remember who we are.

Truth walks with us and nothing can hurt us. We are perfectly safe! As Jesus says, " Would you, for all these meaningless distractions, lay Heaven aside?" (T.23.IN.4.5)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.4) We lay Heaven aside for the most trivial reasons, don't we? Look at what we sacrifice when we get upset---our peace and our joy!  " Your destiny and purpose are far beyond them [the meaningless temptations of this world], in the clean place where littleness does not exist." (T.23.IN.4.6)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.4) That is what the discipline of this teaching applied today and everyday takes us to.
 

When we identify with the ego, we see attack and defense as our way out. When we choose our innocence, our one Self, our purpose for being here, then we see everything as a reflection of our minds and a part of our one Self. When upsets, judgment, unworthiness, blame arise today we turn it over to the Holy Spirit. We look at our judgments and self attacks with the Holy Spirit from above the battleground and see them for what they are. They are just reactions of the character in the dream and not the truth of the 'I am' being.

We are One. Anything that stands in the way of that oneness we can choose to release. We can see that it is just a thought and our job is to ask for help in letting it go. We remind ourselves that we are not our thoughts. It is all about our choice and our willingness to do so. We can then look through the eyes of Jesus as a symbol of the love within and see that we all share the same Self. " How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it!" (T.23.IN.6.5)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.6) There is nothing more important,  " For here is your salvation and your freedom."   (T.23.IN.6.5)(ACIM OE T.23.IN.6)
 

You may want to read more in Chapter 23, where Jesus goes on to talk about the laws that appear to rule the world we made, which are " The Laws of Chaos." (T.23.II)(ACIM OE T.23.III) These laws define separation, saying that we each have our own truth and it is different for everyone, that each one of us must sin and therefore deserves attack, that we have made a God and told Him what He must believe about Himself, but that we ultimately hate and fear that God we made, and finally that we have what we take from others so we can gain when another loses. These are laws that we live by when we choose to live in competition with others.

Jesus gives us a very simple way to assess what we have chosen, whether the wrong mind of the ego or the right mind of the Self that we are. He says that our feelings will inform us. Each time we are not experiencing peace and happiness, we have chosen the ego. Now we can make another choice. " Forgiveness cannot be withheld a little. Nor is it possible to attack for this and love for that and understand forgiveness." (T.23.III.4.5-6)(ACIM OE T.23.IV.44)
 

And for those of us who struggle to understand this course, which can seem difficult, this section reminds us that it is in fact easy because it makes no compromise. Truth is true and nothing else is true. The truth about us is that we are one Self and the knowledge of who we are is still in our minds. All that we need to do is bring the blocks to the light.

Today we are called to " begin to think about them [the review lessons] , while letting your mind relate them to your needs, your seeming problems and all your concerns." (W.RIII.IN.5.3) We are basically letting related thoughts come to address any need or problem or concern that we bring to this practice. Let the thoughts come up without your effort, but simply allow them to emerge. They are providing you guidance for your problems in light of this lesson. We already have the wisdom in our right minds. Do this practice with the faith that your mind will use the ideas wisely, " being helped in its decisions by the One Who gave the thoughts to you." (W.RIII.IN.6.2) " The means the Holy Spirit uses  [forgiveness] will not fail." (W.RIII.IN.6.4) The means provided us are to release all of the thoughts that block our peace by taking responsibility for them. It is never about forgiving anyone, only about bringing the thoughts we project onto others back into our own minds and forgiving ourselves for using others to block our own peace and joy.
 

Remind yourself frequently throughout the day on the hour for the first idea and on the half hour for the second idea, giving the idea a brief but serious review. Most important, because we forget all the time, the introduction ends by saying, " Do not forget how little you have learned. Do not forget how much you can learn now. Do not forget your Father's need of you, as you review these thoughts He gave to you." (W.RIII.IN.13.1-3) We listen to the ego thoughts and allow them to dominate our minds, forgetting the way to peace. We forget that we are not our ego thoughts and that they don't define us. To remain with the obsessive thoughts of the ego is choosing to remain in hell when Heaven is stretching its arms out to us. " Do not forget your Father's need of you, as you review these thoughts He gave to you."   (W.PI.R3.IN.13.3)

Love and blessings, Sarah

TEXT

1 Either God or the ego is insane. If you will examine the evidence on both sides fairly, you will realize that this must be true. Neither God nor the ego proposes a partial thought system. Each is internally consistent, but they are diametrically opposed in all respects so that partial allegiance is impossible. Remember, too, that their results are as different as their foundations, and their fundamentally irreconcilable natures cannot be reconciled by your vacillations. Nothing alive is fatherless, for life is creation. Therefore, your decision is always an answer to the question, "Who is my father?" And you will be faithful to the father you choose.

 

² Yet what would you say to someone who really believed this question involves conflict? If you made the ego, how can the ego have made you? The authority problem remains the only source of perceived conflict because the ego was made out of the wish of God's Son to father Him. The ego, then, is nothing more than a delusional system in which you made your own father. Make no mistake about this. It sounds insane when it is stated with perfect honesty, but the ego never looks upon what it does with perfect honesty. Yet that is its insane premise, which is carefully hidden in the dark cornerstone of its thought system. And either the ego, which you made, is your father, or its whole thought system will not stand.

 

II. Projection Versus Extension 

³ You have made by projection, but God has created by extension. The cornerstone of God's creation is you, for His thought system is light. Remember the rays that are there unseen. The more you approach the center of His thought system, the clearer the light becomes. The closer you come to [the foundation of] the ego's thought system, the darker and more obscure becomes the way. Yet even the little spark in your mind is enough to lighten it. Bring this light fearlessly with you and hold it up to the foundation of the ego's thought system bravely. Be willing to judge it with perfect honesty. Open the dark cornerstone of terror on which it rests and bring it out into the light. There you will see that it rests on meaninglessness and that everything of which you have been afraid was based on nothing.

 

⁴ My brother, you are part of God and part of me. When you have at last looked at the ego's foundation without shrinking, you will also have looked upon ours. I come to you from our Father to offer you everything again. Do not refuse it in order to keep a dark cornerstone hidden, for its protection will not save you. I give you the lamp and I will go with you. You will not take this journey alone. I will lead you to your true Father, Who hath need of you as I have. Will you not answer the call of love with joy?

 

⁵ You have learned your need of healing. Would you bring anything else to the Sonship, recognizing your need of healing for yourself? For in this lies the beginning of knowledge, the foundation on which God will help you build again the thought system which you share with Him. Not one stone you place upon it but will be blessed by Him, for you will be restoring the holy dwelling place of His Son, where He wills His Son to be and where he is. In whatever part of the mind of God's Son you restore this reality, you restore it to yourself. For you dwell in the Mind of God with your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone.

 

⁶ To be alone is to be separated from infinity, but how can this be if infinity has no end? No one can be beyond the limitless because what has no limits must be everywhere. There are no beginnings and no endings in God, Whose universe is Himself. Can you exclude yourself from the universe or from God, Who is the universe? I and my Father are one with you, for you are part of us. Do you really believe that part of God can be missing or lost to Him.

 

⁷ If you were not part of God, His Will would not be unified. Is this conceivable? Can part of His Mind contain nothing? If your place in His Mind cannot be filled by anyone except you, and your filling it was your creation, without you there would be an empty place in God's Mind. Extension cannot be blocked, and it has no voids. It continues forever, however much it is denied. Your denial of its reality arrests it in time but not in eternity. That is why your creations have not ceased to be extended and why so much is waiting for your return.

 

⁸ Waiting is possible only in time, but time has no meaning. You who made delay can leave time behind simply by recognizing that neither beginnings nor endings were created by the Eternal, Who placed no limits on His creation nor upon those who create like Him. You do not know this simply because you have tried to limit what He created, and so you believe that all creation is limited. How, then, could you know your creations, having denied infinity? The laws of the universe do not permit contradiction. What holds for God holds for you. If you believe you are absent from God, you will believe that He is absent from you.

 

⁹ Infinity is meaningless without you, and you are meaningless without God. There is no end to God and His Son, for we are the universe. God is not incomplete, and He is not childless. Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself. Do not deny Him His Son, for your unwillingness to accept His Fatherhood has denied you yours. See His creations as His Son, for yours were created in honor of Him. The universe of love does not stop because you do not see it, and your closed eyes have not lost the ability to see. Look upon the glory of His creation, and you will learn what God has kept for you.

 

¹⁰ God has given you a place in His Mind which is yours forever. Yet you could keep it only by giving it, as it was given you. Could you be alone there if it was given you because God did not will to be alone? God's Mind cannot be lessened. It can only be increased, and everything He creates has the function of creating. Love does not limit, and what it creates is not limited. To give without limit is God's Will for you because only this can bring you the joy which is His and which He wills to share with you. Your love is as boundless as His because it is His.

 

¹¹ Could any part of God be without His love and could any part of His love be contained? God is your heritage because His one gift is Himself. How can you give except like Him if you would know His gift to you? Give, then, without limit and without end to learn how much He has given you. Your ability to accept Him depends on your willingness to give as He gives. Your fatherhood and your Father are one. God willed to create, and your will is His. It follows, then, that you will to create since your will follows from His. And being an extension of His Will, yours must be the same.

 

¹² Yet what you will you do not know. This is not strange when you realize that to deny is to "not know." God's Will is that you are His Son. By denying this, you denied your own will and therefore do not know what it is. The reason you must ask what God's Will is in everything is merely because it is yours. You do not know what it is, but the Holy Spirit remembers it for you. Ask Him, therefore, what God's Will is for you, and He will tell you yours. It cannot be too often repeated that you do not know it. Whenever what the Holy Spirit tells you appears to be coercive, it is only because you do not recognize your own will.

 

¹³ The projection of the ego makes it appear as if God's Will is outside yourself and therefore not yours. In this interpretation, it is possible for God's Will and yours to conflict. God then may seem to demand of you what you do not want to give and thus deprive you of what you want. Would God, who wants only your will, be capable of this? Your will is His Life, which He has given to you. Even in time you cannot live apart from Him, for sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but it cannot die. Immortality is His Will for His Son and His Son's will for himself. God's Son cannot will death for himself because His Father is Life and His Son is like Him. Creation is your will because it is His.

 

¹⁴ You cannot be happy unless you do what you will truly, and you cannot change this because it is immutable. It is immutable by God's Will and yours, for otherwise His Will would not have been extended. You are afraid to know God's Will because you believe it is not yours. This belief is your whole sickness and your whole fear. Every symptom of sickness and fear arises here because this is the belief that makes you want not to know. Believing this, you hide in darkness, denying that the light is in you.

 

¹⁵ You are asked to trust the Holy Spirit only because He speaks for you. He is the Voice for God, but never forget that God did not will to be alone. He shares His Will with you; He does not thrust it upon you. Always remember that what He gives, He holds, so that nothing He gives can contradict Him. You who share His Life must share it to know it, for sharing is knowing. Blessed are you who learn that to hear the Will of your Father is to know your own. For it is your will to be like Him, Whose Will it is that it be so. God's Will is that His Son be one, and united with Him in His Oneness. That is why healing is the beginning of the recognition that your will is His.

 

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