The ego cannot separate What God created as One. No thought of disharmony can stand the Light of Truth. All things work together for good because there is a common perspective which sees all things (i.e., events, things, happenings, etc.) as illusory. In quietness are all concerns already answered and is every seeming problem already resolved.

There is nothing to fear in honesty inquiry. One must stop running and avoiding and projecting and justifying and rationalizing what one thinks one knows to be the case. Admit that you have been deceived and be open to question all that you think you know. How else can one allow for a complete change of mind about oneself, and accept one's Reality as the Self God created? Stop pretending that you are an autonomous, independent person who knows something of Divine Mind. The Mind and body have no meeting point, no point of reconciliation. You are not a person with a mind. You are wholly, purely, completely Mind. True independence is not the independence of autonomy but of complete dependence on God. Surrender all ideas of what you think you are to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to teach you to forgive and thus remember Divine Mind.

The ego states emphatically: "I no longer need a teacher!" A healed mind has no need to make such a statement. Did Jesus ever make such a statement? As long as you believe bodies, persons, and autonomous private minds have reality you will be attracted to or repulsed by "personal" teachers, for the ego made the world and all idols to distract you from looking within and following the Teacher Who remembers your innocence. The ego wants you to find scapegoats to bare the blame and idols to <raise> up and cling to that you may retain autonomy and independence as a person with a separate will, be it leader or follower. And all under the guise of "spirituality." Open to the Teacher within, and hear Him speak to you through a variety of symbols in which you believe. The world is nothing but a representation of private thoughts. The Holy Spirit uses what was made in hate to teach the meaning of true forgiveness. Meaning is within. Meaninglessness is outside.

The ego states: "You don't need to look at the ego, just love." Can one love a world of images, something which was made to take the place of God? The world was made by belief, not by God. Can one remember love, which has been veiled from awareness by belief, without questioning such belief? Jesus has said: "To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it will jeopardize your learning."
"No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected. There is no need to shrink from illusions, for they cannot be dangerous. We are ready to look more closely at the ego's thought system because together we have the lamp that will dispel it, and since you realize you do not want it, you must be ready." Don't be fooled into thinking you can forgive a world without raising to awareness the belief system that made it. The mind cannot release what it has denied from awareness, and all ego "shortcuts" to "love" are really nothing more than delays and/or distractions.

The ego insists: "Words are unnecessary. Stop using words and be silent." The insistence gives the ego away. True Silence is the state in which God is remembered. Revelation is beyond all words. This deep Silence is always available, though it is very fearful to a conflicted mind, to the ego. Chatter, thoughts of the past and future, are the ego's attempt to deny Silence from awareness. Words are but symbols of symbols, representations of thoughts. In the Course Jesus says: "Is the teacher of God, then, to avoid the use of words in his teaching? No, indeed! There are many who must be reached through words, being as yet unable to hear in silence. The teacher of God must, however, learn to use words in a new way. Gradually, he learns how to let his words be chosen for him by ceasing to decide for himself what he will say. This process is merely a special case of the lesson in the workbook that says, "I will step back and let Him lead the way." The teacher of God accepts the words which are offered him, and gives as he receives. He does not control the direction of his speaking. He listens and hears and speaks."

Workbook Lesson 296 is an example of this kind of use of words: "The Holy Spirit speaks through me today." "The Holy Spirit needs my voice today, that all the world may listen to Your Voice, and hear Your Words through me. I am resolved to let You speak through me, for I would use no words but Yours, and have no thoughts which are apart from Yours, for only Yours are true. I would be savior to the world I made. For having damned it I would set it free, that I may find escape, and hear the Word Your holy Voice will speak to me today. "

A mind in accord with the Holy Spirit is silent. Whether the body seems to be speaking or moving is irrelevant to such a miraculous silence. The purpose or motivation the mind chooses determines the state of mind one experiences. Silence is natural, but is obscured from awareness by the choice to align the mind with the ego. The issue is never to speak or not to speak, but instead to be clear in mind of one's purpose, for that is the decision to be made. The rest merely follows.

The ego demands its freedom: "I” will not be confined by another person, institution, teacher, group or set of rules. I am a free person." The ego tells the mind that it is possible for a person to be free from a world external to itself. The ego feels free when it's not being looked at. It does not bring to awareness the law "ideas leave not there source" and the realization that there is no world apart from one's mind. Persons can never be free, for the mind that believes it is a person has enslaved itself by deception. One cannot be mind and body, spirit and matter, eternal and temporary. The concept of person is an attempt to combine or reconcile what can never be combined or reconciled. Since there is no world apart from the mind, there are no "other" persons, institutions, or sets of rules" outside." Images can seem to act out the belief in control, but can do no more than symbolize the illusion of control, since God did not create control. Freedom from control cannot, therefore, come to a mind which believes it is a person in a world external to itself: but only to a mind which realizes it has dreamed the entire world and that the world is merely a world of ideas. The forgiven world is quickly forgotten and the Kingdom of Heaven, Life Eternal, is True Freedom.

Perhaps you have avoided someone, using the justification that they were trying to control you or institutionalize your spiritual journey. Perhaps you feel safer or even happier because they are away. Your mind is powerful, powerful enough to make a world, to make up bodies and construct institutions within time and space. Only a mind that believes itself to be a body, a person, in a world of other persons and institutions, groups, external to itself could perceive itself as capable of being controlled, institutionalized, or feel happier because a body is not around. One is responsible for choosing peace. Nothing can happen to oneself apart from what the mind desires, and if one wholly desires the peace of God and nothing else, that must be one's experience.

The ego always focuses on specifics and persons, past and future, for it has no awareness of the Holy Spirit's purpose in the present. When you notice that your mind is preoccupied with such senseless musings, choose again. The miracle will remind you that the false is false, and you will feel the ease of your position on High, above the battleground. There is no peace, no safety, and no security on the battleground of thoughts of persons and specifics. Be clear of what you really want, and you will not feel the need to pay attention to the world of images. The truth is the light within.

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