These review Lessons really help us look at what we are experiencing in our day and which thought system we are choosing---that of the ego or that of the Holy Spirit. Everything that we see in the world is coming from our minds. Our experience at this moment tells us who we are listening to, the ego or the Holy Spirit. What are we allowing in? We really need to get that there is nothing outside of our minds. The themes that run through these review Lessons are mostly about the peace that abides deep within us and the freedom we have to leave our self-imposed prison. In the introduction to the reviews, Jesus tells us that they are important in helping us to see these Lessons as a unified, cohesive thought system.

We see a lot in this review about the prison that we find ourselves in, even though it is of our own imagining. How can anything imprison who we really are as the Son of God? We are only in a prison of our own thoughts. The truth is that we are free right now. The door is open and "I can leave simply by walking out." (W.57.1.6) As long as we don't believe that and hold onto our "insane wishes," (W.57.1.9) we will stay in the prison. The prison is one we have made up ourselves and yet the Lesson reminds us, "Nothing holds me in this world." (W.57.1.7) Yet in spite of this fact, we feel trapped! We have resentment about our perceived incarceration because we see others as responsible for our condition, yet Jesus says that the prison door is open and we can walk into the sunlight any time we choose.
   

I notice how much I feel the victim of the demands of my day at times, yet I wonder who but I set it all up? It is an ironic image. "Should I wait in chains which have been severed for release, when God is offering me freedom now?" (W.279.1.5) "Prisoners bound with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated, weak and exhausted, and with eyes so long cast down in darkness they remember not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free. It takes a while for them to understand what freedom is. You groped but feebly in the dust and found your brother's hand, uncertain whether to let it go or to take hold on life so long forgotten. Strengthen your hold and raise your eyes unto your strong companion, in whom the meaning of your freedom lies. He seemed to be crucified beside you. And yet his holiness remained untouched and perfect, and with him beside you, you shall this day enter with him to Paradise, and know the peace of God." (T.20.III.9.1-6)(ACIM OE T.20.IV.25) This is what heaven is. It is union. It is joining with your brother. It is recognizing that our interests are exactly the same, and when we do, the separation is healed. It heals the imprisonment we experience in our aloneness and sense of separateness from each other and from God.
 

When I am experiencing difficulty with someone, I am identifying him/her as the problem and the cause of my lack of peace, but I can choose to change my mind. I can choose to see that it is my guilt I am projecting onto my brother. I can choose to see his innocence. I can offer my brother peace and forgiveness instead of judgment, if I am willing to take responsibility for my own thoughts as the cause of everything I see. That is the only way I will know my own innocence. As I release you to the Holy Spirit in peace, I release myself as well. The question we need to ask ourselves is do we really want to. The ego screams, "No." He must pay. My anger is justified. Look at what he has done, but what happens is that we only put ourselves in the prison with him. It may not be an easy choice to take his hand instead of crucifying him when our anger seems so justified, but it is the only choice we must make if we want peace. It is the choice of which teacher we follow, the ego or the Holy Spirit, which is truly the only freedom we have in the world.

The world only has one purpose. It is indeed "really a place where he [we] can be set free," (W.57.3.5) As Eckhart Tolle asks in his book, A New Earth, "Can they defy the gravitational pull of materialism and materiality and rise above identification with form that keeps the ego in place and condemns them to imprisonment within their own personality?" This is the transformation that takes us out of our prison of a world of form and takes us into the sunlight where everything shines with God's meaning. "My mind is part of God's. I am very holy." (W.57.5.1-2) Yes, we can procrastinate and we do resist, but the way out will eventually be chosen by us all. That is why we came. We came to find our liberation. That is what the new earth is all about.

We have invented the world we see as a result of what is in our minds. If we are not happy and not at peace, we are the only ones that can change it. Do I want to know my own holiness, then I have to see it in you. Yet the ego says, "Look at yourself. You are a victim! You have been hurt! Look what this person has done to you!!" Yet we can choose not to listen. We can choose to see an opportunity for healing in anything that shows up. Otherwise we get into a cycle of attack and retaliation and instead of releasing our hidden guilt we enhance it and stay in the prison. We chain ourselves to those we hate. Are you at peace today? If not, you are listening to the ego as your guide, and this is truly a moment by moment decision as to whether we choose the prison or our release. Whenever you are not at peace today, look at your thoughts and admit that you are choosing to hold grievances and attack thoughts. Remember that you do have a choice and can let them go. Is it easy to do? Not necessarily. The ego is tenacious, but we have a bigger power than the ego. The ego is nothing when we withdraw our belief from it. And when we do, we see the laws of God instead of our own rules that we made up for how the world is supposed to treat us and the demands we make of everyone.

Despite appearances of war and conflict, peace always shines behind every attack. It abides in all hearts. Help me to see this peace behind every attack. Help me to focus not on what my eyes see, but to look beyond the form to the Reality that shines in everyone. Yes, the forms will still be clashing. There will still be war. There is still conflict. Yet with forgiveness we see witnesses to the light that is unexpressed behind the clashing forms, and that will affirm for us that with vision we can see the holiness and innocence that is not seen with the body's eyes.

It is only our forgiveness that reveals this holiness. When the blocks are gone and peace, forgiveness and love shine through us, we see a world of peace, forgiveness and love shining back at us. Why would we not want that? What do grievances offer that we would want more than that? Until we choose the means to a different world, the real world, we won't be aware of this light that is in us. It is in shining the peace that is in me that I begin to understand it truly is coming from deep within me and reflected back to me in gratitude. Many illusions that I hold in the form of my self-concepts, my beliefs, my rules, my expectation, my anger, depression, worries and concerns, which I have kept hidden from my awareness, can be seen clearly when willingness, honesty and courage is brought to bear. I can look at my ego thoughts without fear or recrimination in the understanding that this is not me. I truly am holy, divine, pure and innocent. That is the only truth.

Today, I ask myself, "How can I be the victim of a world that can be completely undone, if it is something that I choose to do?" If it truly is a world I made, the world is not the problem, only the fact that I am not willing to consider that I made it is the problem. Am I willing to admit that I have been wrong about everything, thinking that I am a victim of everything and everyone including of my own body? We made up everything that we think impinges on us. Now we need to have the humility to say we have been wrong. Our stubborn insistence that we are right is the problem. The way out is to admit we are wrong and to release our grievances by joining with Jesus in letting him shine away the darkness that we are holding in our minds. Unloving thoughts remain only by our decision not to look at them, in which case they are projected out.

⁵⁹ Perhaps some of our concepts will become clearer and more personally meaningful if the ego's use of guilt is clarified. The ego has a purpose, just as the Holy Spirit has. The ego's purpose is fear because only the fearful can be egotistic. The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit because your mind has all the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects. But again, let us remember that both are in you. In Heaven there is no guilt because the Kingdom is attained through the Atonement, which releases you to create. The word "create" is appropriate here because, once what you have made is undone by the Holy Spirit, the blessed residue is restored and therefore continues in creation.

 

⁶⁰ What is truly blessed is incapable of giving rise to guilt and must give rise to joy. This makes it invulnerable to the ego because its peace is unassailable. It is invulnerable to disruption because it is whole. Guilt is always disruptive. Anything that engenders fear is divisive because it obeys the law of division. If the ego is the symbol of the separation, it is also the symbol of guilt. Guilt is more than merely not of God. It is the symbol of the attack on God. This is a totally meaningless concept except to the ego, but do not underestimate the power of the ego's belief in it. This is the belief from which all guilt really stems.

 

⁶¹ The ego is the part of the mind which believes in division. How can part of God detach itself without believing it is attacking Him? We spoke before of the authority problem as involving the concept of usurping God's power. The ego believes that this is what you did because it believes it is you. It follows, then, that if you identify with the ego, you must perceive yourself as guilty. Whenever you respond to your ego, you will experience guilt and you will fear punishment. The ego is quite literally a fearful thought.

 

⁶² However ridiculous the idea of attacking God may be to the sane mind, never forget that the ego is not sane. It represents a delusional system, and it speaks for it. Listening to the ego's voice means that you believe it is possible to attack God. You believe that a part of Him has been torn away by you. The classic picture of fear of retaliation from without then follows because the severity of the guilt is so acute that it must be projected. Although Freud was wrong about the basic conflict itself, he was very accurate in describing its effects.

 

⁶³ Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you. It is, however, only your acceptance of it that makes it real. If you enthrone the ego in it, the fact that you have accepted it or allowed it to enter makes it your reality. This is because the mind, as God created it, is capable of creating reality. We said before that you must learn to think with God. To think with Him is to think like Him. This engenders joy, not guilt, because it is natural. Guilt is a sure sign that your thinking is unnatural. Perverted thinking will always be attended with guilt because it is the belief in sin.

 

⁶⁴ The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love. It perceives sin as a positive act of assault. This is an interpretation which is necessary to the ego's survival because as soon as you regard sin as a lack you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation. And you will succeed. The ego regards this as doom, but you must learn to regard it as freedom. The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because it has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness because it cannot conceive of attacking anyone or anything.

 

⁶⁵ We said before that illness is a form of magic. It might be better to say that it is a form of magical solution. The ego believes that by punishing itself it will mitigate the punishment of God. Yet even in this it is arrogant. It attributes to God a punishing intent, and then takes over this intent as its own prerogative. It tries to usurp all the functions of God as it perceives them because it recognizes that only total allegiance can be trusted.

 

⁶⁶ The ego cannot oppose the laws of God any more than you can, but it can interpret them according to what it wants, just as you can. That is why the question, "What do you want?" must be answered. You are answering it every minute and every second, and each moment of decision is a judgment which is anything but ineffectual. Its effects will follow automatically until the decision is changed. This is repeated here because you have not learned it. But again, your decision can be unmade as well as made. Remember, though, that the alternatives are unalterable.

 

⁶⁷ The Holy Spirit, like the ego, is a decision. Together they constitute all the alternatives which the mind can accept and obey. The ego and the Holy Spirit are the only choices open to you. God created one, and so you cannot eradicate it. You made the other, and so you can. Only what God creates is irreversible and unchangeable. What you have made can always be changed because when you do not think like God you are not really thinking at all. Delusional ideas are not real thoughts, although you can believe in them. But you are wrong. The function of thought comes from God and is in God. As part of His Thought, you cannot think apart from Him.

 

⁶⁸ Irrational thought is a thought disorder. God Himself orders your thought because your thought was created by Him. Guilt feelings are always a sign that you do not know this. They also show that you believe you can think apart from God and want to. Every thought disorder is attended by guilt at its inception and maintained by guilt in its continuance. Guilt is inescapable for those who believe they order their own thought and must therefore obey its orders. This makes them feel responsible for their mind errors, without recognizing that by accepting this responsibility they are really reacting irresponsibly. If the sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself, and I assure you that it is, then the responsibility for what is atoned for cannot be yours.

 

⁶⁹ The dilemma cannot be resolved except by accepting the solution of undoing. You would be responsible for the effects of all your wrong thinking if it could not be undone. The purpose of the Atonement is to save the past in purified form only. If you accept the remedy for a thought disorder, and a remedy whose efficacy is beyond doubt, how can its symptoms remain? You have reason to question the validity of symptom cure, but no one believes that the symptoms can remain if the underlying cause is removed.