Teachings of Christ Mind

^17.1 Why would you ever have chosen to obscure the truth? As we have already shown, to have chosen to express the Self in physical form was a choice consistent with the laws of love. There was no need for the Self to be separate in order for this to be so, but there was a need for the Self to have an observable form and to exist in relationship with others with observable forms. This was simply so that expressions of love could be created and observed within the realm of physicality.

^17.2 The biblical story of Adam and Eve that has them eating from the tree of knowledge was an illustration of the effects of this observation and the judgment that sprang from it. The Self “fell” from unity through this judgment of what it observed as being other than itself, through this beginning of making distinctions between the Self and all other things in creation that existed with the Self. This is why the story of creation includes the naming of creatures. It was the beginning of perception and of the idea that what was observable was “other than” he who did the observing. Now your science is proving to you the relationship between the observer and the observed, the effect that one cannot help but have upon the other. Science still has a long way to go in determining, through its processes, what this says about the nature of humankind but it is closer every day to understanding the unity and interconnectedness of all things.

^17.3 As soon as spirit took on form, man began to exist in time because there became a need for a beginning and an ending to the chosen experience. Thus each self of form is born into time and each self of form dies out of time. Both birth and death have always existed as choices, as beginnings and endings to the finite experience of time. It is the nature of what is finite to begin and end. Birth and death are all you have seen as true new beginnings.

^17.4 As has been said before, time is a measurement of the “time” it takes for learning to occur. A new experience was chosen—the experience of existing within the realm of physicality. As such, it was as much a new beginning as the new beginning you are now called to. It required the learning of a new thought system, the thought system of the physical, a thought system that was not needed before there was physical form. The creation story of Adam and Eve, as well as many other creation stories, but tell of a “mistake” in the learning of a thought system of physicality, a mistake that became a building block for all that came after it.

^17.5 That mistake was seeing God as “other than” and separate from the Self. While it was important to the desired experience to learn the lessons of what was observable within the physical realm, to have begun to forget the unobservable began a process of unlearning or forgetting of the truth that has led, through the learning of untruth in the mechanism of time, to the world in which you now exist. It may seem ridiculous to say that the untrue can be learned, but this is exactly what has been learned during the time of your experience in physical form. Since your true Self could not learn the untrue, a new self, which we have called the ego-self, was made. Since the ego-self cannot learn the true, your true Self had to be appealed to for this learning to take place.

^17.6 The Holy Spirit was called upon to return this remembrance to minds and hearts. But again let me remind you that the Holy Spirit is not other than who you are but an aspect of who you are and Who God Is. Let me remind you also that names, such as Holy Spirit, are but word symbols that represent what is. So think now of whatever stories you know of the Holy Spirit, stories that symbolize what is. In these stories, the Holy Spirit is always called upon to return the true Self to the self of illusion. A Holy Spirit is called to return to your mind and heart.

^17.7 You were told in “A Treatise on the Art of Thought” that the time of the Holy Spirit has ended and the time of the second coming of Christ is here. The name of Christ was associated with my name, the name Jesus, because I lived as a man with a Holy Spirit in my mind and heart and as such represented the truth. Many others by many other names have represented the truth and in so doing dispelled illusion within themselves and those who followed their teachings and example. This has occurred within the time of the Holy Spirit.

^17.8 The Holy Spirit, unlike God the Creator, has known the existence of the illusion and the thought system of the ego-self and been able to communicate within that illusion. Without this means of communication with the ego-self the ability to learn the truth could not have returned to you. The “time” of the Holy Spirit has now ended because the time of illusion is now called to an end. What is finite has an end point and this is that end point for the time of illusion. The return of Christ, or your ability and willingness to live as your true Self, to live in the House of Truth rather than the house of illusion, is what will end the time of illusion. Just as the truth is the truth and illusion is illusion; just as these things are what they are without judgment; so is the beginning the beginning and the end the end. The beginning we speak of here is the same as the end we speak of here. The time of the Holy Spirit, or the time in which communication was needed between the illusion and the truth, must end in order for the truth to become the one reality.