Chapter Nine

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The Way Back

All that must be done to return to Heaven is to reverse the original error when Love was replaced by fear, Oneness by separation, and Eternity eclipsed by time. The reversal begins with the recognition of the original error and the desire to let it be corrected. Struggle and effort are not needed, although they may be a part of the process in the early stages. It is not necessary for you to correct the original error, indeed you cannot. The Holy Spirit has the function of undoing the falsity in your mind, with your willingness and cooperation. He alone has the vision, the understanding, and the power to do so. Although He does it for you, He can do nothing without you fulfilling your part.

Your part is simple and straightforward and never changes. You are asked and required to learn the difference between Truth and illusion, Love and fear; and to apply this understanding consistently to your own thoughts, feelings, and actions, choosing Truth over falsity, thus withdrawing the investment in illusion. This is an active process that goes on constantly as mind is ceaselessly active. The Holy Spirit will help you in this, giving you His willingness to strengthen yours. What is required is an undoing, not a doing, as the false thought system of separation is steadily and skillfully undone, until all falsity in the mind is healed leaving only the willingness for Truth.

When the mind has been made ready to welcome Love, the great reversal returns your mind to sanity, and Heaven is restored. Then nothing remains to be done but to thank your Father. Until then however, the work must go on ceaselessly from morning to night. The Holy Spirit stands ever ready to assist you in all ways; it is in letting yourself be guided in all things, in making no decisions by yourself, that your mind and perception are corrected, and you are set free to return to the Kingdom. Thus your one responsibility is to accept the Atonement, the undoing, for yourself. In meeting this one condition is everything included and salvation made certain.

The Awareness of Fear

Fear is ever present in this world; it casts its dark shadow across every moment of your life, the good times and the bad. Its baleful influence assures that no good times last, no lasting happiness and contentment can be found. Fear remains your invisible companion, your uninvited guest, for it is the core of the ego and makes up the very foundation of the thought system of separation. Fear goes hand in hand with guilt; where one is found, there will the other be also.

Despite its great influence and constant presence, fear often goes unrecognized, for it seems to take many forms. It drives behavior although it is often masked by the superficial motivation. The human mind must dissociate itself from the fear and guilt pervading it, in order to function and to have even the few happy moments it seems to find. To be fully aware of the fear that darkens your mind would be too painful to bear.

Yet must you become aware of fear, its movements and all the forms it may take, if you are to heal your mind and return it to Wholeness. Fear and guilt are the great obstacles to Truth and Love. What is in your mind must be brought to awareness, that you may choose again and let it go. The Holy Spirit cannot remove it unless you choose along with Him. You cannot choose Truth over falsity unless what is chosen against is brought to awareness. That of which you are unaware, remains in effect until you choose differently, for it acts to distort your mind and limit your freedom. Spiritual purification is the uncovering of all fear and guilt; all the dark corners of your mind must be brought to Light that the darkness may be dispelled. All that is not Love must be healed to prepare the way for Love’s return.

Fear takes many forms that are unrecognized. Anger, rage, hate, sadness, depression, anxiety, grief, all are simply fear in another form. All emotions not a part of Love, are part of fear, for Love and fear are the only emotions and but one of them is real. This consistent possibility, always a choice between two alternatives, no matter how it appears, makes choosing simple. Whatever presents itself to you, whatever the circumstances, there are still only two possible choices. You always choose between Truth and illusion, between Love and fear, and in the decision for Truth is illusion corrected and your mind set free.

Whatever the outcome of your choices, you are responsible. To choose, to decide, is to take responsibility; and this is true whether choice be made carelessly or without conscious awareness. Your responsibility for what happens to you is total, and this will never change. To refuse to recognize this fact, to project blame onto the world, is to perpetuate bondage. By taking total responsibility does salvation become possible.

Fear is the domain of the ego whose core is fear. The ego believes in fear as reality; its thought system and behavior are based on and arise from fear, as fear. Fear is the expression of the ego in action; and through fear it attempts to protect its chosen home, the body. Only hate could perceive a world as the ego does, for the ego sees cause for fear everywhere, and what is feared is also hated. Hate has thus arisen from fear, as a form of fear. Unless you identify with the ego, you cannot hate. To identify with the ego is to identify with the body; to be a body is to perceive yourself under constant threat. Under such circumstances, it is impossible that the mind be not dominated by fear, and hate cannot be far behind.

The Secret of Salvation

The Holy Spirit responds to this perception of fear by gently teaching you it is not true. Surely if you are a body, does the ego’s view of the world and its responses make perfect sense. Be glad that all illusion is still illusion, no matter how threatening the form it takes. In this fact is your salvation.

Illusions need not be resisted, struggled with, or defended against. They pose no threat at all for they do not exist. This fact must be clearly recognized and accepted if you are to be free of their effects, which you have given them through the power of your belief. The Holy Spirit will teach you step by step how to recognize illusion and how to respond to it. He will show you, if you let Him, that you are in no danger and under no threat that does not emanate from your own mind.

The secret of salvation lies in this recognition: It is all a dream, my dream, and I am doing it to myself. No matter what happens is this still true. From the clear understanding and acceptance of this fact, salvation arises and sets you free. Under all the conditions and circumstances of your life, in everything you experience, remember this and you will know how to respond; and the world will bind and threaten you no more.

The Holy Spirit will guide you through the maze that is this world and the belief in it. His lessons will gently undo your false beliefs and the resultant fear, leaving you in a state of gratitude and peace. You must want to learn what He teaches however, and you must be willing to give up all your past beliefs and everything you think you know.

The process of Atonement must undo the belief system of separation and all that it entails. Unless this is done, you remain a prisoner to the past, to all the habitual tendencies that dominate your thinking. If you would remain as God created you, if you would experience yourself as That, you must relinquish the self you have made to take the place of what God created as you. One or the other must prevail in your experience of yourself, but never both. The purpose of the Atonement and the Holy Spirit, Who is the Mind of the Atonement, is to undo or correct the mind of separation in every way, leaving a clean and sparkling place to which the Truth can return.

Your single responsibility is to accept this process of undoing, of correcting your mind, and to cooperate fully with the Holy Spirit until your mind is purified of all falsity. You need not worry about how this will be done, for He alone knows the way. You do not have the understanding or the vision to find your way out of the imprisonment that is the ego mind. To attempt to add your ideas to what the Holy Spirit teaches you, or to try and do it on your own, is to obstruct and delay the process. Trying to do it your way is actually a veiled attempt to maintain control, to maintain egoic identification, and is thus an expression of resistance. Resistance arises from fear; it is always associated with the ego and never helpful.

Surrender is essential and is accomplished most simply by making no decisions by yourself, by turning over decision making to the One Who knows what is best in every situation and circumstance, the Holy Spirit. You will learn, as you turn the power of decision over to Him more and more, that your faith is richly rewarded by the results you will achieve.

A state of mind that is happy, peaceful, and joyful will become your natural and constant condition; all apparent problems will be solved and nothing that you need will be lacking. All apparent obstacles that seem to block your way will be removed, and all tasks assigned to you will be successfully completed, if you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you in all things.

Awareness and the Self

Awareness is what you are. Mind is what you are, what you have been, and what you will always be. This fact is not open to doubt or question, and yet you doubt and question. You believe you are a body rather than mind, and think your mind is somehow a part of your body. Nothing could be further from the truth, for the body is a temporary learning device, nothing more. This is how the Holy Spirit sees it, so this is the only meaning, the only purpose, the only usefulness the body has.

To the ego, the body is its chosen home; its purpose is to prove separation real, death a fact, and enable illusion to take the place of Reality. The body is used to make attack real, to limit and imprison the mind, and to subject the mind to pain, sickness, and suffering of all kinds. If you identify with the ego, this will be the “reality” you experience, not because it is true but because you have chosen it.

The body is wholly neutral in itself. It does only what you have assigned it to do. If you give the body the purpose to limit and imprison your mind, it will do so, but only because that is your wish. If the body be your chosen home, fear will rule your life, and sickness, pain, and suffering will accompany you all your days. The ego does not want you to realize these facts. It hides them from you, holding out the promise of pleasure, of stimulation of all kinds, and offering a wide variety of goals you can attain, all of which have the purpose of keeping you busy and distracted so you do not realize the condition you are in.

Is this what you want? You have come far enough by now to begin to see the actual circumstances of your life as a body, as an egoic identity, and you are becoming aware that it is your choice. If what you experience is your choice, and you do not like it, you can choose again. And choose again you must, if you would know your Reality and be free of suffering and limitation.

By now you know there is an alternative, or you are at least aware of the possibility, and it is the opposite in every way from what you presently experience. You can exchange Truth for illusion, Love for fear, joy for pain, happiness for sadness and sorrow. You can be free of self-imposed limitations and know your Self as the Christ, the One Creation of God, the Oneness of All that lives. There is but one requirement for all this: You must sincerely want to know your Self again, and be willing to devote yourself to the Atonement process, that your mind be freed of all illusion and self hate, becoming a pure and empty vessel into which Truth can return.

The Self is Mind, Spirit or Being, and Light. It is formless and all inclusive. There is one Self for All that lives, and in It are all joined as One. You have always been the Self, always will be the Self, and even now are nothing other than the One Self, the Christ, God’s One Creation. Your willful ignorance of this fact does not affect the Self at all, but it does drive It from your awareness. In your awareness, empty of the knowledge of what it is, an image of yourself has been constructed to take the place of Truth.

The loss of the awareness of your Self and your Creator is a wound so deep that nothing in this world could ever heal or assuage the profound sense of sadness, of inconsolable grief, that fills your heart. Yet this feeling too has been erased from awareness, though it has not left your mind. All the pursuits of this world, the frantic activities and pleasures, are but the attempt to fill or cover over the deep sense of emptiness that lies at the root of your mind.

You long for your Father and your Self so deeply, that nothing can ever satisfy you but Their return to your awareness. The Holy Spirit holds this link, this memory, for you until your mind is made ready, then He returns it to your awareness. On that day you will rejoice, and Heaven and all Creation will join you in celebrating the return of God’s Holy Son.