Lesson 138. Heaven is the decision I must make.
(1) In this world Heaven is a choice, because here we believe there are
alternatives to choose between. We think that all things have an opposite, and
what we want we choose. If Heaven exists there must be hell as well, for
contradiction is the way we make what we perceive, and what we think is real.
(2) Creation knows no opposite. But here is opposition part of being "real." It
is this strange perception of the truth that makes the choice of Heaven seem to
be the same as the relinquishment of hell. It is not really thus. Yet what is
true in God's creation cannot enter here until it is reflected in some form the
world can understand. Truth cannot come where it could only be perceived with
fear. For this would be the error truth can be brought to illusions. Opposition
makes the truth unwelcome, and it cannot come.
(3) Choice is the obvious escape from what appears as opposites. Decision lets
one of conflicting goals become the aim of effort and expenditure of time.
Without decision, time is but a waste and effort dissipated. It is spent for
nothing in return, and time goes by without results. There is no sense of gain,
for nothing is accomplished; nothing learned.
(4) You need to be reminded that you think a thousand choices are confronting
you, when there is really only one to make. And even this but seems to be a
choice. Do not confuse yourself with all the doubts that myriad decisions would
induce. You make but one. And when that one is made, you will perceive it was no
choice at all. For truth is true, and nothing else is true. There is no opposite
to choose instead. There is no contradiction to the truth.
(5) Choosing depends on learning. And the truth cannot be learned, but only
recognized. In recognition its acceptance lies, and as it is accepted it is
known. But knowledge is beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework
of this course. Ours are teaching goals, to be attained through learning how to
reach them, what they are, and what they offer you. Decisions are the outcome of
your learning, for they rest on what you have accepted as the truth of what you
are, and what your needs must be.
(6) In this insanely complicated world, Heaven appears to take the form of
choice, rather than merely being what it is. Of all the choices you have tried
to make this is the simplest, most definitive and prototype of all the rest, the
one which settles all decisions. If you could decide the rest, this one remains
unsolved. But when you solve this one, the others are resolved with it, for all
decisions but conceal this one by taking different forms. Here is the final and
the only choice in which is truth accepted or denied.
(7) So we begin today considering the choice that time was made to help us make.
Such is its holy purpose, now transformed from the intent you gave it; that it
be a means for demonstrating hell is real, hope changes to despair, and life
itself must in the end be overcome by death. In death alone are opposites
resolved, for ending opposition is to die. And thus salvation must be seen as
death, for life is seen as conflict. To resolve the conflict is to end your life
as well.
(8) These mad beliefs can gain unconscious hold of great intensity, and grip the
mind with terror and anxiety so strong that it will not relinquish its ideas
about its own protection. It must be saved from salvation, threatened to be
safe, and magically armored against truth. And these decisions are made unaware,
to keep them safely undisturbed; apart from question and from reason and from
doubt.
(9) Heaven is chosen consciously. The choice cannot be made until alternatives
are accurately seen and understood. All that is veiled in shadows must be raised
to understanding, to be judged again, this time with Heaven's help. And all
mistakes in judgment that the mind had made before are open to correction, as
the truth dismisses them as causeless. Now are they without effects. They cannot
be concealed, because their nothingness is recognized.
(10) The conscious choice of Heaven is as sure as is the ending of the fear of
hell, when it is raised from its protective shield of unawareness, and is
brought to light. Who can decide between the clearly seen and the unrecognized?
Yet who can fail to make a choice between alternatives when only one is seen as
valuable; the other as a wholly worthless thing, a but imagined source of guilt
and pain? Who hesitates to make a choice like this? And shall we hesitate to
choose today?
(11) We make the choice for Heaven as we wake, and spend five minutes making
sure that we have made the one decision that is sane. We recognize we make a
conscious choice between what has existence and what has nothing but an
appearance of the truth. Its pseudo-being, brought to what is real, is flimsy
and transparent in the light. It holds no terror now, for what was made
enormous, vengeful, pitiless with hate, demands obscurity for fear to be
invested there. Now it is recognized as but a foolish, trivial mistake."
(12) Before we close our eyes in sleep tonight, we reaffirm the choice that we
have made each hour in between. And now we give the last five minutes of our
waking day to the decision with which we awoke. As every hour passed, we have
declared our choice again, in a brief quiet time devoted to maintaining sanity.
And finally, we close the day with this, acknowledging we chose but what we
want:
Heaven is the decision I must make.
I make it now, and will not change my mind,
because it is the only thing I want.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
Below, is from Kenneth Wapnick's commentaries on this lesson, from his book set
called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can be
purchased at the following site:??M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
Lesson 138. "Heaven is the decision I must make."
*We come to another important lesson, its major theme being the power of our
mind to choose. Making a decision is meaningless unless we know what we are
deciding between. Thus, to decide for Heaven we must first be aware of the ego's
hell we are choosing against. This awareness of the split mind undoes the ego's
strategy of mindlessness, a quick review of which will introduce the lesson that
focuses specifically on this plan.
Once the decision-making power of the Son's mind has chosen the thought system
of individuality and specialness, the ego's concern is that the Son might change
his mind. It sets upon a brilliant strategy to make the Son of God mindless, by
fabricating a tale of sin, guilt, and fear: separation means sin, because I
attacked God so I could live; I feel guilty over what I have done; and am
horrified of the monster that lurks now in my mind, poised to attack me in
vengeance for my sin. Ontologically, I think of this "monster" as the supreme
Authority, Whose position as Creator I usurped. Now I must escape this Monster
in my mind, hell-bent on destroying me from what I did to Him. I have no
recourse but to flee my mind and project myself into a world and body, making a
physical universe of specifics in which I now see the sin and guilt I do not
want to recognize in myself.
The result of this plan is that the decision-making part of my mind seems
forever buried, hidden by sin, guilt, and fear that are in turn hidden by my
bodily experiences in the physical world. In order for me to make the decision
for Heaven -- deciding for the Holy Spirit -- I must first recognize my original
choice for the ego. Thus, the specific role of our new Teacher is to help us
identify the ego's secret plan, so we may learn that what we perceive outside
reflects what we first made real within. Only then does our choosing become
meaningful. The Holy Spirit's "plan" of unveiling the ego's strategy thus
underlies this lesson.*
(1:1) "In this world Heaven is a choice, because here we believe there are
alternatives to choose between."
*We learn in this lesson that Heaven is not really a choice. Since Heaven is
perfect Oneness, there is, in truth, nothing to choose between. In our dualistic
world, however, choosing is necessary, and it is essential we understand these
two choices: the ego's thought system of hatred and death, and the Holy Spirit's
of forgiveness and healing, the reflection of Heaven's Oneness.*
(1:2-3) "We think that all things have an opposite, and what we want we choose.
If Heaven exists there must be hell as well, for contradiction is the way we
make what we perceive, and what we think is real."
*This is a classic statement of a dualistic thought system, such as we find in
the Western biblical religions: God and the devil, Heaven and the world, spirit
and the body, good and evil, forgiveness and sin. There would be no Judaism,
Christianity, or Islam if there were no duality. If Heaven exists, so to must
hell. In the East this is commonly expressed by the yin-yang principle, in which
everything is conceived in terms of its opposite. This, however, is not the
metaphysical of A Course in Miracles, which is non-dualistic, and thus teaches
that perfect Oneness is all there is. Reality is not found, contrary to what
Jung said, by reconciling opposites -- for example, God does not have a shadowy,
dark side. There is only truth, light, love -- the definition of God. No Course
student forgets this line from the Introduction:
"The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no
opposite." (T-in.1:8).
Since our self is born out of fear of love, and sustained by fear as well, this
self becomes a creature of opposites, inevitably giving rise to a world of
opposites that contradicts reality and witnesses to its seeming non-existence.*
(2:1-4) "Creation knows no opposite. But here is opposition part of being
"real." It is this strange perception of the truth that makes the choice of
Heaven seem to be the same as the relinquishment of hell. It is not really
thus."
*Within our world of duality, choosing Heaven appears to be a real choice,
because, again, we perceive in terms of opposites. Perception in the context of
figure and ground: a figure -- what is focused on -- perceived in relationship
to a background -- what is judged as unimportant. In order to perceive,
therefore, one must have a figure and a background. We saw this description of
the perceptual world in the manual for teachers (M-8.1) Thus Jesus tells us that
the Holy Spirit teaches through opposites:
"The ego made the world as it perceives it, but the Holy Spirit, the
re-interpreter of what the ego made, sees the world as a teaching device for
bringing you home. The Holy Spirit must perceive time, and reinterpret it into
the timeless. He must work through opposites, because He must work with and for
a mind that is in opposition." (T.5.III.11.1-3)
When we conceive of Heaven, it, too, is seen in terms of opposites, another way
of stating the important line to which I frequently refer:
"You cannot even think of God without a body, or in some form you think you
recognize." (T.18.VIII.1.7)
We believe bodies are reality, and by this belief we deny A Course in Miracles'
non-dualism: "Creation knows no opposite." We thus need to learn that God does
not know about us because He cannot know about us, whose individual existence is
the opposite to Heaven's <being.>*
(2:5) "Yet what is true in God's creation cannot enter here until it is
reflected in some form the world can understand."
*This important principle underlies the pedagogy of the Course. Jesus does not
teach the truth directly, but indirectly through reinterpreting illusion by
contrasting it with truth:
"Indirect proof of truth is needed in a world made of denial and without
direction." (T-14.1.2.1).
Thus Jesus says in the clarification of terms that A Course in Miracles comes
within an ego framework -- duality and contrasts:
"This course remains within the ego framework, where it is needed. It is
not concerned with what is beyond all error because it is planned only to set
the direction towards it. Therefore it uses words, which are symbolic, and
cannot express what lies beyond symbols." (C-in.3:1-3).
We are told repeatedly in the Course how the Holy Spirit teaches through
contrast:
"You who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that you are
miserable and not happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast, for
you believe that misery is happiness." (T-14.II.1:2-3).
Jesus teaches us, as would any learning theorist, to contrast the pains of the
ego with the pleasure that comes when we choose the Holy Spirit. He is
conditioning us to associate peace and joy with forgiveness, and anguish and
pain with judgment. He teaches through contrast because that is the only way we
can learn about Heaven. Its Oneness and Love cannot be taught or experienced
here, and no one in a body has a clue as to what They are. Yet Their reflection
can be taught. As we have seen, Jesus presents this apologia for his
methodology:
"How can you teach someone the value of something he has deliberately
thrown away? He must have thrown it away because he did not value it. You can
only show him how miserable he is without it, and slowly bring it nearer so he
can learn how his misery lessens as he approaches it. This teaches him to
associate his misery with its absence, and the opposite of misery with its
presence. It gradually becomes desirable as he changes his mind about its worth.
I am teaching you to associate misery with the ego and joy with the spirit. You
have taught yourself the opposite. You are still free to choose, but can you
really want the rewards of the ego in the presence of the rewards of God?"
(T-4.VI.5)
Jesus here underscores this method of teaching non-duality within a dualistic
framework, where students often become confused and thrown off track. They do
not understand that most of the time Jesus speaks metaphorically or
symbolically. Whenever he speaks of duality or contrast, he is using metaphor.
What he says <reflects> truth, but does not express it. The clearest statement
in A Course in Miracles of non-dualistic truth comes later in the workbook:
"We say "God is", and then we cease to speak, for in that knowledge words
are meaningless." (W-pI.169.5:4).
You do not say God is <something>. You do not say God is <anything. God is>.
Period -- a perfect non-dualistic statement. However, we would not have A Course
in Miracles, and certainly would not have a relevant spirituality if that were
all the Course said. Once again, please do not confuse symbol with source, as
Jesus reminds us in Chapter 19, a reminder that cannot be given often enough:
"Remember, then, that neither sign nor symbol should be confused with
source, for they must stand for something other than themselves. Their meaning
cannot lie in them, but must be sought in what they represent."
(T-19.IV-C.11;2-3).
The symbol is the reflection, and the reflection is the means that will take us
back to the End -- our ultimate goal of God's Love.*
(2:6) "Truth cannot come where it could only be perceived with fear."
*The ego tells us that in the presence of truth -- God's Oneness -- our
individual and special selves must disappear. Thus we fear this truth, and
continually build barricades of specialness to keep it out. Helen's poem, "The
Second Chance," describes the role of hate in protecting her from the truth of
her Lord's love:
"With hatred as a friend, I did not fear
To lose it for a god I held more dear.
For now I seemed secure, by hate held fast,
And feeling I was safe from love at last."
(The Gifts of God, p. 45)*
(2:7-8) "For this would be the error truth can be brought to illusions.
Opposition makes the truth unwelcome, and it cannot come."
*To say that truth is possible here in this world is to make the mistake of
bringing truth to illusion, of believing that God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus
are operative here. Their Love is <reflected> in this world, but They are not
<in> this world. It is not so much that They do not to things here, They
<cannot> do things here. Rather, it is the separated, dualistic mind that
translates Their non-specific love, in our right minds, into a specific means of
expression we can accept on a bodily level. That is why people have the
experience of Jesus talking to them, guiding them, or the Holy Spirit making
things happen for them. In point of fact, truth does not happen in the world, as
this paragraph makes it clear when you read it carefully. Again, we experience a
reflection in our minds of the truth of God's non-specific Love, but we must be
vigilant not to confuse the reflection with the truth, which is what occurs when
religions and spiritualities build a theology based on the reflection: the
elevation of <form> over <content>. The reader may recall this passage from the
text that discusses this in context of the special relationship, and exposes the
specialness inherent in formal religions:
"Whenever any form of special relationship tempts you to seek for love in
ritual, remember love is content, and not form of any kind. The special
relationship is a ritual of form, aimed at raising the form to take the place of
God at the expense of content. There is no meaning in the form, and there will
never be. The special relationship must be recognized for what it is; a
senseless ritual in which strength is extracted from the death of God, and
invested in His killer as the sign that form has triumphed over content, and
love has lost its meaning." (T-16.V.12:1-4).*
(3:1) "Choice is the obvious escape from what appears as opposites."
*If our choice is between the ego and the Holy Spirit -- the wrong and right
minds -- then choosing one resolves the conflict and lets the other go. Since we
cannot hold on to two mutually exclusive thought systems and expect to find
peace, by choosing peace over conflict, truth over illusion, we gently make our
escape to the reality beyond all opposites. Recall this important passage from
the text:
"The way out of conflict between two opposing thought systems is clearly to
choose one and relinquish the other. If you identify with your thought system,
and you cannot escape this, and if you accept two thought systems which are in
complete disagreement, peace of mind is impossible. If you teach both, which you
will surely do as long as you accept both, you are teaching conflict and
learning it. Yet you do want peace, or you would not have called upon the Voice
for peace to help you." (T.6.V.B.5.1-4).*
(3:2-3) "Decision lets one of conflicting goals become the aim of effort and
expenditure of time. Without decision, time is but a waste and effort
dissipated."
*In other words, our time and effort will be futile if they are not geared
towards helping us make this single decision for Heaven. There is indeed a
mighty purpose for being here: to learn the lessons of our classroom -- with
Jesus as our teacher -- that there is another way of looking at the world,
reflecting for us another way of looking within our minds. This will open the
door for us to make the right choice. Anything short of that goal is a waste of
time. Thus, attempting to fix things in the world is pointless if it does not
lead to changing our minds. Choosing the Holy Spirit remains the only meaningful
decision we can make.*
(3:4-5) "It is spent for nothing in return, and time goes by without results.
There is no sense of gain, for nothing is accomplished; nothing learned."
*When we take an objective look at history -- what we call civilization -- it is
obvious there has not been much progress. Technologically we have accomplished a
great deal; but in terms of ending my suffering and bringing peace to the
world's citizens, we have not progressed past cavemen batting each other over
the heads. Nothing has changed: homo sapiens' purpose has always been oriented
towards remaining here, getting as much as possible from others, and not
awakening from the world's dream. Yet such awakening is our only meaningful
purpose.
When you can identify with the purpose of changing your mind and teacher, your
life from birth to death, from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep,
will have great meaning. You will close your eyes at night with a sense of
fulfillment, not necessarily because you learned all there is to learn, but
because you understood your life in the world as a classroom -- neither prison
nor paradise. You rest easily with the thought that even if you had not learned
all your lessons, tomorrow is yet another day, taught by a teacher who is
infinitely patient. Thus you awake each morning with joy and return joyfully to
bed at night, regardless of the day's perceived successes or failures, for you
have identified with the only purpose that makes life meaningful. At the end of
the manual, Jesus describes the course of this right-minded day:
"If you have made it a habit to ask for help when and where you can, you can
be confident that wisdom will be given you when you need it. Prepare for this
each morning, remember God when you can throughout the day, ask the Holy
Spirit's help when it is feasible to do so, and thank Him for His guidance at
night. And your confidence will be well founded indeed." (M-29.5:8-10)*
(4:1) "You need to be reminded that you think a thousand choices are confronting
you, when there is really only one to make."
*The important section near the end of the text, "The Real Alternative," expands
on this idea (T-31.IV). We think there are thousands and thousands of choices
yet to be made. In truth, however, there is only one: choosing to realize we
made a mistake by having chosen the ego, a mistake we undo by choosing Jesus as
our teacher.*
(4:2) "And even this but seems to be a choice."
*This is because in Heaven, the only truth, there is no choice. Again, choice is
an illusion, but right-minded choice is the final illusion, because when we once
and for all choose the Holy Spirit instead of the ego, we will have corrected
the one Son's original mistake. As that mistake is undone, the world, and the
thought system that made the world, disappear.*
(4:3) "Do not confuse yourself with all the doubts that myriad decisions would
induce."
*Do not be confused by the world's multiplicity, Jesus tells us. It was made to
confuse us and rivet our attention here -- the end of the product of the ego's
plan of our identifying with the state of mindlessness. Thus we think there are
physical, psychological, and other forms of problems that demand solutions. Yet
this is all made up; a smoke screen to confuse us about the real problem in the
mind. "Complexity is of the ego," the text reminds us (T-15.IV.6:2), for it
represents the ego's the ego's ingenious attempt to hide the Thought of Oneness
in our minds by concealing the simplicity of decision that would negate the ego
entirely:
"Complexity is not of God. How could it be, when all He knows is one? He
knows of one creation, one reality, one truth and but one Son. Nothing conflicts
with oneness. How, then, could there be complexity in Him? What is there to
decide? For it is conflict that makes choice possible. The truth is simple; it
is one, without an opposite. And how could strife enter in its simple presence,
and bring complexity where oneness is? The truth makes no decisions, for there
is nothing to decide between. And only if there were could choosing be a
necessary step in the advance toward oneness. What is everything leaves room for
nothing else." (T-26.III.1:1-12).*
(4:4-5) "You make but one. And when that one is made, you will perceive it was
no choice at all."
*When we finally make the choice for God, the ego disappears, which means there
was really no choice at all. By undoing the original mistake, we undid the
thought <and> world of separation together. Indeed -- there was no guilt or
Atonement, and no decision-making mind to choose between them. There was, and is
only the truth of God.*
(4:6-8) "For truth is true, and nothing else is true. There is no opposite to
choose instead. There is no contradiction to the truth."
*The instant we choose to accept the Holy Spirit's Atonement for ourselves --
the attainment of the real world -- all decisions, conflict, and opposition end.
With the world of opposites gone, all that remains is the memory of God. As the
Course teaches, at that point God reaches down and lifts us back unto Himself.
This passage on resurrection expresses the end of the dream of opposites:
"It is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the world's
purpose; the acceptance of the Atonement for oneself. It is the end of dreams of
misery, and the glad awareness of the Holy Spirit's final dream ... It is the
relinquishment of all other purposes, all other interests, all other wishes and
all other concerns. It is the single desire of the Son for the Father."
(M-28.1:3-4,8-10).*
(5:1-2) "Choosing depends on learning. And the truth cannot be learned, but only
recognized."
*This is a course in learning, which is why Jesus presents his message within a
curricular framework. What we learn is not the truth, but how to undo the
interferences to our remembering the truth. Recall these all-important lines:
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the
barriers within yourself that you have built against it. It is not necessary to
seek for what is true, but it is necessary to seek for what is false."
(T.16.IV.6.1-2).
By learning the Holy Spirit's forgiveness within the complexity of our insane
world -- the conditions for learning -- we unlearn what the ego taught and thus
recognize His simple truth:
"If you are blessed and do not know it, you need to learn it must be so.The
knowledge is not taught, but its conditions must be acquired for it is they that
have been thrown away. ... The Holy Spirit, therefore, must begin His teaching
by showing you what you can never learn. His message is not indirect, but He
must introduce the simple truth into a thought system which has become so
twisted and so complex you cannot see that it means nothing. If you would be a
happy learner, you must give everything you have learned to the Holy Spirit, to
be unlearned for you." (T.14.I.1.1-2;5;1-2) (T.14.II.6.1).
Thus we bring the illusions of our learning to the truth, and such unlearning
leads us happily home.*
(5:3) "In recognition its acceptance lies, and as it is accepted it is known."
*The way we recognize, accept, and know that truth is ours is to undo the
obstacles to it. If truth is love, then separation, hate, suffering, and death
are the interferences, and forgiveness is the means by which they are let go. As
one by one the darkness of these illusory thoughts is brought to the light of
Jesus' truth, the thoughts disappear in the resplendent brilliance of his love.
What remains is the truth. The process begins by recognizing its reflection,
beginning to <accept> it more and more as the truth, and finally to <know> we
are that truth. Adumbrating a later lesson, we read a description of this same
process:
"This is the truth [ suffering is a dream ], at first to be but said and then
repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with many
reservations. Then to be considered seriously more and more, and finally
accepted as the truth." (W-pII.284.1:5-6)*
(5:4) "But knowledge is beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework
of this course."
*Jesus tells us:
"Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. Peace is."
(T-8.1.1:5-6).
Peace can be described as the total forgiveness of our belief in sin and guilt.
Yet how can we <know>, when we still <perceive>? Thus our perceptions first have
to be cleansed, leading to <true perception>, which opens the way to
<knowledge>:
"Knowledge is not the remedy for false perception since, being another
level, they can never meet. The one correction possible for false perception
must be true perception. It will not endure. But for the time it lasts it comes
to heal ... True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin,
for sin does not exist. And it is this that true perception sees."
(C-4.3:1-4,8-9; italics omitted).*
(5:5) "Ours are teaching goals, to be attained through learning how to reach
them, what they are, and what they offer you."
*Jesus is demarcating for us the purpose and limits of his course. It is not
meant to take us to Heaven, but to get us to its gate -- the real world. In
other words, his teaching goal is to have us undo the interferences that
constitute our mad journey outside of Heaven, that we may enter the real world,
thus completing A Course in Miracles' work.*
(5:6) "Decisions are the outcome of your learning, for they rest on what you
have accepted as the truth of what you are, and what your needs must be."
*If I accept the ego as my teacher, my truth is that I am limited, sinful,
guilty, and sick -- a body that must die. Every decision I make will flow from
the original mistaken choice. If, however, I choose Jesus, I begin the process
of undoing the thoughts belonging to my false self. At that point my decision
will flow from his love and lead me to the truth.*
(6) "In this insanely complicated world, Heaven appears to take the form of
choice, rather than merely being what it is. Of all the choices you have tried
to make this is the simplest, most definitive and prototype of all the rest, the
one which settles all decisions. If you could decide the rest, this one remains
unsolved. But when you solve this one, the others are resolved with it, for all
decisions but conceal this one by taking different forms. Here is the final and
the only choice in which is truth accepted or denied."
*The world of Heaven is simple; there is only Oneness. The world of the Holy
Spirit is simple; there is only forgiveness to undo our problems. When we deny
His teaching, however, we inevitably believe in the ego's complexity, giving
rise to this very complicated world. Yet until we are ready to undo our
investment in individuality -- which makes us complicated indeed -- we still
have choices to make. As we grow in learning, we generalize more and more until
we reach the point of recognizing that everything we need help with is the same
problem: illness, job uncertainty, difficulty in relationships, or lack of money
-- all result from the mind's mistaken choice for the ego. Our range of choices
shrinks until we truly know there is one. When we accept that our problems come
from the belief we are better off without the Holy Spirit, all concerns
disappear for we have made the correct choice. We still have behavioral choices
to make here, but they will no longer be attended by anxiety. We choose A, B, or
C, but without the conflict that inevitably follows acting on our own. The
problem, thus, is not what we think, but that we think we know best. When we
exclude the Holy Spirit, our problems become legion and will never be resolved;
when we choose Him, they gently evanesce:
"Before you make any decisions for yourself, remember that you have decided
against your function in Heaven, and then consider carefully whether you want to
make decisions here.Your function here is only to decide against deciding what
you want, in recognition that you do not know. How, then, can you decide what
you should do? Leave all decisions to the One Who speaks for God, and for your
function as He knows it. So will He teach you to remove the awful burden you
have laid upon yourself by loving not the Son of God, and trying to teach him
guilt instead of love.... When you have learned how to decide with God, all
decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort, and you
will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer."
(T.14.IV.5.1-5;6:1-2)*
(7) "So we begin today considering the choice that time was made to help us
make. Such is its holy purpose, now transformed from the intent you gave it;
that it be a means for demonstrating hell is real, hope changes to despair, and
life itself must in the end be overcome by death. In death alone are opposites
resolved, for ending opposition is to die. And thus salvation must be seen as
death, for life is seen as conflict. To resolve the conflict is to end your life
as well."
*The ego made up time, as it did space, to show us hell is real and Heaven is a
lie, there is no hope here, and death is the only reality. Recall that time and
space are the shadowy fragments of sin, guilt, fear, and separation that we have
made real in our minds. Once that wrong choice was made, Heaven's truth could be
reflected in this illusion only by giving the world a different purpose. I awake
each morning in a body and world that were made by the ego, filled with thoughts
of concern, judgment, and pain, also made by the ego. However, if I ask Jesus
for help, the very things I made to hurt me and others will be transformed in
purpose into a classroom in which I learn all this is a dream. Time was made by
the ego to hurt; it can used by the Holy Spirit as an instrument of healing
through the holy instant:
"There is no escape from fear in the ego's use of time. For time, according
to its teaching, is nothing but a teaching device for compounding guilt until it
becomes all-encompassing, demanding vengeance forever."
"The Holy Spirit would undo all of this now. Fear is not of the present,
but only of the past and future, which do not exist. There is no fear in the
present when each instant stands clear and separated from the past, without its
shadow reaching out into the future. Each instant is a clean, untarnished birth,
in which the Son of God emerges from the past into the present. And the present
extends forever. It is so beautiful and so clean and free of guilt that nothing
but happiness is there ... "
"Time is your friend, if you leave it to the Holy Spirit to use ... Give
the eternal instant, that eternity may be remembered for you, in that shining
instant of perfect release. Offer the miracle of the holy instant through the
Holy Spirit, and leave His giving it to you to
Him."(T-15.1.7:6-7;8:1-6;15:1,10-11).
Within the ego thought system, to be in a conflicted, dualistic state is to be
saved, and true salvation -- choosing the Atonement principle -- is damnation
and the ego's dissolution. To the ego, then, salvation from conflict is death,
for life as an individual means of conflict. Remember, the ego's origin was its
conflict with God: God or the ego, oneness or individuality. Since they cannot
coexist, and I believe I exist, the ego's life means the destruction of our
Creator and Source -- the principle of <one or the other>. My specific life,
then, is built upon this thought: If I exist, someone has to pay for it, and I
must be forever on my guard lest the person I betrayed, stole from, and killed
will return and do the same thing to me, which within the ego's dream is
inevitable. Everyone we perceive has thus literally been made in our own image
and likeness: betrayer, thief, and killer:
" ... those who project are vigilant for their own safety. They are afraid
that their projections will return and hurt them. Believing they have blotted
their projections from their own minds, they also believe their projections are
trying to creep back in." (T-7.VIII.3:9-11).
People have always been afraid of true salvation, which is why the world has
been afraid of Jesus and his message of love. Spiritual seekers are still afraid
of that message, now expressed in A Course in Miracles. We believe we attacked
God and His Love, and thus believe He will attack us in kind. Yet is this fear a
defense against the underlying terror that God's Love will end our specialness
and individuality:
"Under the ego's dark foundation is the memory of God, and it is of this
that you are really afraid. For this memory would instantly restore you to your
proper place, and it is this place that you have sought to leave. Your fear of
attack is nothing compared to your fear of love ... You realize that, by
removing the dark cloud that obscures it, your love for your Father would impel
you to answer His call and leap into Heaven. You believe that attack is
salvation because it would prevent you from this. For still deeper than the
ego's foundation, and much stronger than it will ever be, is your intense and
burning love of God, and His for you. This is what you really want to hide."
(T-13.III.2:1-3,6-9).
Our individual self therefore continually decides against love, and against the
means -- forgiveness -- by which we remember it. Only by recognizing the cost to
us of such a decision will we be convinced, in the words of King Lear, "That way
madness lies" (III,iii); only then can we begin to consider the choice that
"time was made to help us make." *
(8:1) "These mad beliefs can gain unconscious hold of great intensity, and grip
the mind with terror and anxiety so strong that it will not relinquish its ideas
about its own protection."
*What are the mind's "ideas about its own protection?" If the thought of
individuality constitutes the ego's thought system and its very existence,
anything that protects it must be sacred: attack, judgment, sickness, pain,
pleasure -- specialness in all its forms.*
(8:2) "It must be saved from salvation, threatened to be safe, and magically
armored against truth."
*Salvation means the end of the ego thought system of separation, and the mind
identifying with it must therefore be saved from salvation. My individual self
is safe as long as I experience fear where everything around me is conceived as
a threat, for that maintains the ego's laws of conflict : opposites, attack, and
ultimately death -- the ego's allies, and mine as long as I identify with this
special self. Such identification is what is vicious and totally insane, as we
see in the following passage on specialness:
"Specialness is a lack of trust in anyone except yourself. Faith is
invested in yourself alone. Everything else becomes your enemy; feared and
attacked, deadly and dangerous, hated and worthy only of destruction. Whatever
gentleness it offers is but deception, but its hate is real. In danger of
destruction it must kill, and you are drawn to it to kill it first. And such is
guilt's attraction. Here is death enthroned as savior; crucifixion is now
redemption, and salvation can only mean destruction of the world, except
yourself." (T-24.IV.1).
We do not escape destruction either, for specialness is vicious and insane:
"The death penalty is the ego's ultimate goal, for it fully believes that
you are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows you are deserving of
life. The death penalty never leaves the ego's mind, for that is what it always
reserves for you in the end. Wanting to kill you as the final expression of its
feeling for you, it lets you live but to await death. It will torment you while
you live, but its hatred is not satisfied until you die. For your destruction is
the one end toward which it works, and the only end with which it will be
satisfied." (T-12.VII.13:2-6).*
(8:3) "And these decisions are made unaware, to keep them safely undisturbed;
apart from question and from reason and from doubt."
*This was articulated in Lesson 136. The ego's plan calls fro me to forget there
even is a plan, telling me my individuality is protected by a thought system of
sin, guilt, and fear, the end product of which is the punishment I believe is
justifiably forthcoming. Guilt is the centerpiece here, because guilt reminds me
of my sin, and then demands I be punished for it. This demand and expectation
sets up a monstrous thought system in my mind informing me that if I remain
there I will certainly be destroyed; <obliteration> being the ego's choice of
word. Needless to say, it never tells me this is delusional; instead:
"Loudly the ego tells you not to look inward, for if you do your eyes will
light on sin, and God will strike you blind. This you believe, and so you do not
look." (T-21.IV.2:3-4).
Thus the reason I never know sin is made up is that I do not even know it is
there. As quickly as I chose to make separation real, along with the ego thought
system, just as quickly did I choose to forget <I> am the one who made it so. I
repress, project, and now see sin and guilt all around me. My fear is justified
because of everyone else's sin, and I walk the earth in terror, needing
defensive armament to protect my vulnerability, but never realizing why, for I
believe it is the world and its inhabitants who will hurt me. Yet the real
reason I am so frightened is the thought system I made up. Totally unaware of
this fact, this thought system governs my thoughts, feelings, and actions.
The central purpose of A Course in Miracles, therefore, is for Jesus to strip
away the veil that "protect us" from the monster in our minds that does not
exist. The Course helps us understand the ego's strategy, so we can daily see
the connection between our concerns, judgments, and specialness, and its
carefully contrived strategy to confuse us. The ego never wants us to remember
the mind's power that chose against the Love of God, but can choose again. The
instant we would remember our choice for the ego, we would stop making it
because it is so insane and hateful towards ourselves and others. If we do not
know the world is our projection, however, there is no way we can change our
minds about it. This cannot be emphasized enough, and we see this thought
expressed again in paragraph 9.*
(9:1-3) "Heaven is chosen consciously. The choice cannot be made until
alternatives are accurately seen and understood. All that is veiled in shadows
must be raised to understanding, to be judged again, this time with Heaven's
help."
*You could not ask for a clearer statement of what this course is about, which
helps you see why Jesus painstakingly describes the insane murderousness of the
ego thought system. He must do this because we do not know it is there. We may
believe there are expressions of viciousness in the world, but as long as we see
through blissninny veils, we will think everything is wonderful, or potentially
so. We do not realize that as long as we believe there is a world out there,
there <is> nothing wonderful because it is illusory. Again, we cannot recognize
its illusory nature until we realize we have a mind that chose to make it so,
the realization of which comes when we choose a teacher that shows us the
world's ugliness is a shadow of the mind's ugliness. Moreover, this inner world
is illusory, a defense whose purpose operates in the specific contexts of our
lives, making everyone's lessons the same in <content>, even if their <forms>
differ from each other, which is why Jesus says our "curriculum is highly
individualized" (M-29.2:6) All forgiveness is therefore the same, albeit
expressed in very specific forms, with reflect the differences that fulfill the
ego's purpose of making difference be reality.
Throughout your day, therefore, you need pay careful attention to all things --
whether mundane, calling for a mild twinge of annoyance because you did not like
what someone did or said, or a serious circumstance leading to a raging fury.
The forms do not matter, for they all serve the ego's unholy purpose of
confusing you about the nature and source of the problem. Without understanding
that problems are in the mind, the proper choice is impossible. This is the
meaning of raising the dark shadows to the light of understanding, as we also
see in the following passage from the text:
"Little child ... your "guilty secret" is nothing, and if you will but bring
it to the light, the Light will dispel it. And then no dark cloud will remain
between you and the remembrance of your Father, for you will remember His
guiltless Son, who did not die because he is immortal." (T.13.II.9.1-3) *
(9:4-6) "And all mistakes in judgment that the mind had made before are open to
correction, as the truth dismisses them as causeless. Now are they without
effects. They cannot be concealed, because their nothingness is recognized."
*When the veil is gone and the darkness of guilt has been brought to the light
of truth, you look in your mind and realize nothing is there. Looking then on
the world, you take nothing seriously, in the sense of giving it power to bring
you pleasure or pain. You respect the pain of people's lives -- their lessons
and classrooms -- but you realize they are classrooms in learning that an
illusion never stops being an illusion. This means, on a practical level, that
the peace of Jesus' love is never affected by anything going on around you, for
you know it has nothing to do with you. This approach thus meets your selfish
need of being at peace while living in the world, for you cannot be at peace as
long as you believe you are here. However, with your new Teacher you learn that
being in this world is a shadow of the mind's guilt, and because it is your
mind's decision, you can correct it.*
(10:1) "The conscious choice of Heaven is as sure as is the ending of the fear
of hell, when it is raised from its protective shield of unawareness, and is
brought to light."
*We see Jesus continually repeating the same thought: We must bring what we
buried in our minds into awareness. This parallels Freud's famous statement that
the purpose of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious. The purpose
of A Course in Miracles is to make conscious of the ego's thought system -- the
decision for hell -- so we are aware of this decision. Without such awareness,
we cannot change our minds about it. The Holy Spirit's purpose for the world,
once again, is for it to be the classroom in which our new teacher, Jesus,
instructs us to see how what we experience outside is a direct effect of the
mind's decision. As we increasingly learn the lesson, our focus of attention
shifts from perceived external problems -- our specialness needs -- to realizing
these but reflect the ego's need to preserve its separation by keeping us
unaware of the power of our minds to chose it.*
(10:2) "Who can decide between the clearly seen and the unrecognized?"
*We cannot make a meaningful choice if the choice is between A and B, and all we
see is A. We must realize what we choose between, as these two questions
explain:
"What choices can be made between two states, but one of which is clearly
recognized? Who could be free to choose between effects, when only one is seen
as up to him?" (T-27.VII.11:1-2).*
(10:3-5) "Yet who can fail to make a choice between alternatives when only one
is seen as valuable; the other as a wholly worthless thing, a but imagined
source of guilt and pain? Who hesitates to make a choice like this? And shall we
hesitate to choose today?"
*Recall this frequently quoted line that closes Chapter 23.
"Who with the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles
or murder hard to make?" (T-23.IV.9:8).
When you ask help from Jesus -- the Love of God upholding you -- you see the
choice clearly: the miracle of choosing his love over the ego's thought system
of murder. The choice is not difficult, once you have clearly seen the two
choices, for only then can you meaningfully say one is valuable and the other
valueless. This means, once again, that you pay careful attention to your daily
life, asking Jesus' help to bring to him what you have made real, allowing you
to see it as reflecting the sin and guilt you first made real within your mind.
This process takes tremendous diligence and persistence, because it is so easy
to let your emotions and thought be affected by what appears to be outside you,
including your body -- the <you> being the decision maker in your mind. This is
the focus of our vigilance, for it leads to our making a meaningful choice --
miracles or murder, truth or illusion:
"It is still up to you to choose to join with truth or with illusion. But
remember that to choose one is to let the other go. Which one you choose you
will endow with beauty and reality, because the choice depends on which you
value more. The spark of beauty or the veil of ugliness, the real world or the
world of guilt and fear, truth or illusion, freedom or slavery -it is all the
same. For you can never choose except between God and the ego. Thought systems
are but true or false, and all their attributes come simply from what they are."
(T-17.III.9:1-6).*
(11:1) "We make the choice for Heaven as we wake, and spend five minutes making
sure that we have made the one decision that is sane."
*You do not make the choice for Heaven as you wake by opening your eyes and
saying: "I love you Jesus, be with me all day." There is nothing wrong in doing
that if you are a child, but you will not grow into spiritual adulthood that
way, and Jesus' goal for his younger siblings is that they outgrow their need
for him:
"Every good teacher hopes to give his students so much of his own learning
that they will one day no longer need him. This is the one true goal of the
teacher. ... I will teach with you and live with you if you will think with me,
but my goal will always be to absolve you finally from the need for a teacher."
(T.4.I.5.1-2;6:3).
A meaningful choice for Heaven as you wake is to ask Jesus' help to remember, as
often as you can, that the world is a classroom and you want him, as your
teacher, to show you that your response to what is outside comes from a decision
you made inside. This makes you a happy learner, whether or not you think you
learn the lessons, for if you keep in mind this a classroom, you will learn.
Otherwise you might as well just stay in bed. Whether or not the lessons of your
relationships are painful, you will be glad, because of the goal you accepted
for them. Thus, our one sane decision, reflecting our decision for Heaven, lies
in choosing the teacher who will lead us there. Any other decision makes no
sense and is insane.*
(11:2) "We recognize we make a conscious choice between what has existence and
what has nothing but an appearance of the truth."
*Here Jesus uses <existence> as a synonym for <being>. In the text he makes a
clear distinction between the two; the former relating to the ego, the latter
denoting truth and spirit (T-4.VII.4-5), but the meter of this sentence called
for a three-syllable word. The point is that we make a conscious choice about
the reflection of true existence (or being) -- choosing the teacher who will
lead us to our reality as Christ. We thus choose Jesus, who undoes our illusory
self of specialness.*
(11:3-4) "Its pseudo-being, brought to what is real, is flimsy and transparent
in the light. It holds no terror now, for what was made enormous, vengeful,
pitiless with hate, demands obscurity for fear to be invested there."
*In order for me to be upset or anxious about anything in this world, I must
forget the source of my pain -- the meaning here of <obscurity>. What
establishes the monstrosity of the ego thought system, gargantuan in scope and
filled with power to bring pleasure or pain, is my unawareness that it is held
in place by the flimsiest of threads: my choosing to believe in illusion. The
following passage, contrasting the ego's fear with the power of the forgiven
relationship, cleverly illustrates the above statement with a grateful nod to
Peter Seller's "The Mouse That Roared.":
"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 that 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 and your brother are not
joined together by this mouse, but by the Will of God. And can a mouse betray
whom God has joined?" (T-22.V.4).
To know the "mouse's" weakness, we need first to see its pseudo-being for what
it is. The light of our teacher's love enables us to see the light shining
beyond the flimsy veils of fear.*
(11:5) "Now it is recognized as but a foolish, trivial mistake."
*This recognition occurs when you let your new teacher instruct you in
understanding that your perceptions are simply shadows of "a foolish, trivial
mistake." This cannot be done when you have an investment in preserving your
identity as you have established it. You need to see the unhappiness such
investment has brought you. Recall that Jesus is a learning theorist, teaching
us to condition ourselves to associate pain with the ego, and joy with him. Thus
we need to be aware that preserving our specialness will not make us happy, but
choosing his love will.*
(12:1) "Before we close our eyes in sleep tonight, we reaffirm the choice that
we have made each hour in between."
*Jesus is asking us to practice more than once in the morning and again at
night. We need to remind ourselves as often as we can throughout the day of our
new teacher, who will help us decide for God.*
(12:2-6) "And now we give the last five minutes of our waking day to the
decision with which we awoke. As every hour passed, we have declared our choice
again, in a brief quiet time devoted to maintaining sanity. And finally, we
close the day with this, acknowledging we chose but what we want:
Heaven is the decision I must make.
I make it now, and will not change my mind,
because it is the only thing I want."
*If you are sincere about wanting Heaven, you must be equally sincere about
choosing the means that will take you there -- the forgiveness lessons our daily
lives afford us when we choose the Holy Spirit. If you are serious about A
Course in Miracles and this lesson's theme of choosing Heaven, you must be
serious about taking the road that will lead you there. Thus you will strive to
remind yourself of your purpose upon awakening, throughout the day, and again
before you close your eyes at night: seeing your life as a classroom with a
Teacher Who will instruct you as to its proper meaning, reflecting back to you a
decision the mind made for the ego, a decision you now joyfully correct. Your
decision for Heaven becomes the means for giving you the only joy you want --
awakening from the ego's dream and returning home.*
