Teachings of Christ Mind

^14.1 The death of the ego thought system has made way for the birth of the thought system of the truth. The thought system of the ego was based on fear. In this time of translation from one thought system to the other, the most subtle and yet significant change is the change from the foundation of fear, the basis of the ego thought system, to a foundation of love, the basis of the thought system of truth. While the foundation of fear, like the ego, will have left you now, a pattern of behaving fearfully may still remain and as such be a deterrent to new ideas and to action. As long as these patterns of fear remain as deterrents to action, you will not experience the freedom of living from the new thought system. The new thought system will still exist within your mind and heart, as nothing can now take this memory from you, but to experience the new thought system as thought alone will not bring about the changes you would so desire to have come about within your physical experience. You may live a more peaceful and meaningful life, but you will not become the savior I ask you to be, or the architects of the new world of heaven on earth that I call you to create.

^14.2 Let me attempt to make the difference between having a new thought system and living by a new thought system more clear. Because you now are translating the thought system of the ego into the thought system of the truth, you will begin to believe in such things as benevolence and abundance. What this means is that you will slowly translate all ideas of scarcity into ideas of abundance, all ideas of blame into ideas of benevolence. Thus you might, after this period of translation, rather than cursing your station in life and feeling badly that you do not enjoy the health, wealth or stature of some others, accept your current status and begin to feel more peace and joy within it. If you are not well, you may cope more easily with your discomfort. If you are not financially secure, you may congratulate yourself on desiring less and be more content living a simple life. If you have felt a lack of respect you may feel that what others think of you matters not and enjoy a heightened self-concept. While these would all be worthy aims they are not the goal toward which we work. These would be the consequences of new beliefs that are held but not lived. Soon these fragile states would be sure to feel threatened by some situation or person and judgment would return to label what is happening as “bad.” A “god” outside of the self would soon be called upon to intercede. Blame would be placed. A return to equanimity would soon prevail, for those dwelling in the House of Truth would not long abide with such illusions, but the pattern of the old would not be broken. Suffering and strife would still seem to be possible. You would merely look back after the interlude had passed and see the truth, realizing that a lesson had been learned and becoming aware that for a while you but flirted with illusion. This flirting with illusion is like unto the temptations of the human experience and would not occur were the temptations gone from you.

^14.3 It should be becoming clear to you by now that, although you dwell in the House of the Truth, you are capable of bringing with you old patterns of behavior. Once the translation of the new thought system for the old is complete, this will no longer happen. But the translation cannot be completed if you refuse to live by what you know—if you refuse to live as who you are.

^14.4 You are quite capable of seeing the truth and still acting as if you see it not. This has been done for generation upon generation and may still happen if you do not heed these instructions.

^14.5 I am, however, the bringer of Good News. Now I will repeat to you a piece of good news you may have forgotten: You would not be other than who you are. This is a key idea that will help you immeasurably in leaving behind patterns of behavior based on the old thought system of fear. Despite the foundation of fear upon which your old thought system was based, you still would not be other than who you are. What this means to the learning stage you are at now is that you but think you are discontent with much of your life. As you begin to dwell in the House of Truth and see with the eyes of love, you will see far less about the life you lead that you would change than you would imagine. You fear where all your new ideas might take you, and for some great changes may surely await, but those who will be visited by great change are but those who desire it. Yet even those who desire great change will find these great changes will not cause them to be other than who they are. There is nothing wrong with who you are!

^14.6 As you see newly with the eyes of love, you will be much more likely to see love everywhere within the life you currently live than to see the need to change your life completely in order to find love. You who are worried about the risks you may be required to take, worry not! The changes that come to you will be chosen changes. You will lose nothing you would keep.

^14.7 This is precisely why you must choose not to keep the life of discomfort caused by perceived illness, the life of scarcity caused by perceived lack, the lack of stature caused by perceived disrespect. It is only by your choice that you will keep these things and only by your choice that these things will leave you.

^14.8 It is only your old uncertainty that will make you fear the matters of choice that lie before you. But this choice is not the choice of continuous decision making but simply the choice to live by the truth of the new thought system. If you but let go the old, and with it the patterns of behavior caused by fear, the new will reveal to you all that you would keep and all that you would leave behind. What you would keep is of love. What you would leave behind is of illusion.

^14.9 You will clearly see all of the choices that throughout your life have been made in love and made of you a person you would not be other than. You will also clearly see all of the choices that throughout your life were caused by fear and how little consequence they had in truth. These fearful choices took nothing from you or from others.

^14.10 If there are things that you, at this point, still hold to yourself and call unforgivable, now is the time to let them go. If you have read the paragraph above and feel it is fine for some others not to regret their choices but not for you, I ask you to trust in my assurance that this is not so. You must choose to leave this blaming of yourself behind, no matter what it is you feel you have need to blame yourself for. You would not be here if you had not already felt regret and sorrow for the hurts you have caused others. Whatever actions you have not previously brought to love to be seen in a new light, are now revealed in the light of truth.

^14.11 We have spoken already of historical causes for vengeance and blame. The suffering that has been chosen has been mighty. The choice now is not a choice to explore the why behind it or to look for remedies for the past. The choice now is whether you want suffering to continue or want to abolish it for all time. If you are holding onto regrets you are holding on to blame. If you are holding onto blame you are holding onto bitterness. If these regrets and blame have to do with yourself you may not feel as if you have the right to let them go. If you do not feel as if you have the right to let them go, you are choosing to remain embittered and choosing to be punished for your “sins.” While this is what you continue to choose, this is what will continue to be evidenced in your world. This is the only act you can choose worthy of being called selfishness. Be self “less” rather than selfish now and allow the self that you would blame to pass away into the illusion from which it came. Remember that bitterness, like the ego, has existed in all. If your brother or sister would not give up bitterness in order to usher in a world of peace, would you not think this a selfish act?

^14.12 Atonement, or correction, is not of you but of God. You might think of this in terms of nature and look upon nature’s ability to correct itself. You are a part of nature. Your body can correct or heal itself, and so can your mind and heart—if they are allowed to do so. A time-bound consciousness that hangs onto the past as if it were the truth, allows not correction to take place. The past is no more and neither the present nor the future can be built upon it. This is why we have spent so much time unlearning and why we continue with lessons of forgetting.

^14.13 Resurrection or rebirth must be total to be at all. Can you see why you cannot hang onto the past? The new cannot have historical precedents. This is why you have been assured that what you are called to is a life so new that you cannot even imagine it. Imagine not the past and make for yourself no cause to prolong it. The past is but a starting point for the future. Just as we talked of the consequences of blame and how you are unaware of all that proceeds from the idea of blame, so too is it with the past. Like a story yet to be written, that which follows the first page will be based upon the first page.

^14.14 We are writing a new first page, a new Genesis. It begins now. It begins with the rebirth of a Self of love. It begins with the birth of Christ in you and in your willingness to live in the world as the Christ-Self.