25 Any split in will
must involve a rejection of part of it, and this
is the belief in separation. The wholeness of God, which
is His peace, cannot be appreciated
except by a whole mind which recognizes the wholeness of God's creation and
by this recognition knows its Creator. Exclusion and separation are synonymous, as are separation and dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and
is dissociation and also that, once it had occurred, projection became its main defense or the device that
keeps it going. The reason, however, may not be as clear as you think.
26 In the ego's use of projection, to which we are obviously referring, what you project you disown and therefore
do not believe is yours. You are
excluding yourself by the very statement you are making that you are
different from the one on whom you project. Since you have also judged
against what you project, you continue to attack it because you have already attacked it
by projecting it. By doing this unconsciously, you try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself
first out of awareness and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe.
27 Projection will
always hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its
only purpose is
to keep the separation going. It is
solely a device of the ego to make you feel
different from your brothers and separated from them. The ego justifies this on the wholly spurious grounds that it makes you seem "better" than they are, thus obscuring your equality with them still further. Projection and attack are inevitably related because projection is
always a means of justifying attack. Anger without projection is impossible.
28 The ego uses projection
only to distort your perception both of yourself
and your brothers. The process begins by excluding something [you think] exists in you which you do not want and leads directly to excluding you from your brothers. We have learned, however, that there is another use of projection. Every ability of the ego has a better counterpart, because its abilities are directed by the mind which has a better Voice. The Holy Spirit as well as the ego utilizes projection, but since their goals are opposed, so is the result.
29 The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving
you as perfect.
Knowing this perfection is shared, He recognizes it in others, thus strengthening it in both. Instead of anger, this arouses love for both,
because it establishes inclusion. Perceiving equality, the Holy Spirit perceives equal needs. This invites Atonement automatically, because Atonement is the one need which in this world
is universal. To perceive yourself this way is the
only way in which you can find happiness in the world. That is because it is the acknowledgment that you are
not in this world, for the world
is unhappy.
30 How else can you find joy in a joyless place
except by realizing that you are
not there? You cannot be anywhere that God did not put you, and God created you as part of Him. That is both
where you are and
what you are. It is
completely unalterable. It is total inclusion. You cannot change it now or ever. It is forever true. It is not a belief but a
fact. Anything that God created is as true as He is. Its truth lies only in its perfect inclusion in Him, Who alone
is perfect. To deny this in any way is to deny yourself
and Him since it is impossible to accept one
without the other.
31 The perfect equality of the Holy Spirit's perception is the counterpart of the perfect equality of God's knowing. The ego's perception
has no counterpart in God, but the Holy Spirit remains the bridge between perception and knowledge. By enabling you to use perception in a way that
parallels knowledge, you will ultimately meet it and
know it. The ego would prefer to believe that this meeting is impossible, yet it is
your perception which the Holy Spirit guides. You might remember that the human eye perceives parallel lines
as
if they meet in the distance, which is the same as in the future if time and space are one dimension. Your perception
will end where it began.
Everything meets in God because everything was created
by Him and
in Him.
32 God created His Sons by extending His thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind.
All His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they were created neither partially nor in part. The Holy Spirit enables you
to perceive this wholeness now. You can no more pray for yourselves alone than you can find joy for yourself alone. Prayer is the restatement of
inclusion, directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God. God created you to create. You cannot
extend His Kingdom until you know of its wholeness.
33 Thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker from which they extend outward. This is as true of God's Thinking as it is of yours. Because your minds are split, you can also perceive as well as think. Yet perception cannot escape from the basic laws of mind. You perceive
from your mind and extend your perceptions outward. Although perception of any kind is unnecessary,
you made it, and the Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. He can
inspire perception and lead it toward God by making it
parallel to God's way of thinking and thus guarantee their ultimate meeting. This convergence
seems to be far in the future only because your mind is not in perfect alignment with the idea and therefore
does not want it now.
34 The Holy Spirit
uses time but does
not believe in it. Coming from God, He uses everything for good, but He does not
believe in what is not true. Since the Holy Spirit is
in your minds, your minds must also be able to believe only what is true. The Holy Spirit can speak only for this because he speaks for God. He tells you to return your whole mind to God because it has
never left Him. If it has never left Him, you need only perceive it as it is to
be returned. The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition
that the separation never occurred. The ego cannot prevail against this because it is an explicit statement that the
ego never occurred.
35 The ego
can accept the idea that return is necessary because it can so easily make the idea seem so difficult. Yet the Holy Spirit tells you that even return is unnecessary because what never happened cannot involve
any problem. It does
not follow, however, that
you cannot make the idea of return both necessary
and difficult. It is surely clear, however, that the perfect
need nothing and
cannot experience perfection as a difficult accomplishment, because that is what they
are.
36 This is the way in which you
must perceive God's creations, bringing all of your perceptions into the one parallel line which the Holy Spirit sees. This line is the direct line of communication with God and lets your mind converge with
His. There is no conflict anywhere in this perception because it means that
all perception is guided by the Holy Spirit, Whose mind is fixed on God.
Only the Holy Spirit can resolve conflict, because
only the Holy Spirit is conflict-free. He perceives
only what is true in your mind and extends outward
only to what is true in other minds.
37 The difference between the ego's use of projection and projection as the Holy Spirit uses it is very simple. The ego projects to
exclude and therefore to deceive. The Holy Spirit projects by
recognizing Himself in every mind and thus perceives them as
one. Nothing conflicts in this perception, because what the Holy Spirit perceives
is the same. Wherever He looks He sees Himself, and because He is united, He offers the whole Kingdom always. This is the one message God gave
to Him and for which He must speak because that is what He
is. The peace of God lies in that message, and so the peace of God lies in
you.
38 The great peace of the Kingdom shines in your mind forever, but it must shine
outward to make
you aware of it. The Holy Spirit was given you with perfect impartiality, and only by perceiving Him impartially can you perceive Him at all. The ego is legion, but the Holy Spirit is One. No darkness abides anywhere in the Kingdom, but your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your
own mind. This alignment with light is unlimited, because it is in alignment with the light of the world. Each of us
is the light of the world, and by joining our minds
in this light, we proclaim the Kingdom of God together and
as one.
