This is the truth and nothing else is true. This is a very simple course. ²Perhaps you do not feel you need a course which, in the end, teaches that only reality is true. ³But do you believe it? (ACIM, T-11.VIII.1:1-3)
Since we all experience the world, the answer is no! Therefore, we definitely need a Course outside of our delusional belief system, designed to help us evaluate what is true and what is illusion.— You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from within it. ²Its range precludes this. ³You can only go beyond it, look back from a point where sanity exists and see the contrast (ACIM, T-9.VII.6:1-3)
The Course has provided the Answer, the only Way out, the true Helper. It is the function of His Voice, His Holy Spirit, to mediate between the two worlds. He can do this because, while on the one hand He knows the truth, on the other He also recognizes our illusions, but without believing in them. It is the Holy Spirit’s goal to help us escape from the dream world by teaching us how to reverse our thinking and unlearn our mistakes. (ACIM, Preface.5:3-6)
What appears to be an alternate to truth must be illusion and to confuse illusion for truth is literally insane. Such confusion is tantamount to confusing nightmares for reality, seeing yourself as a figure or victim in your dream rather than realizing you are the dreamer. The mistaken belief that we are dealing with the truth is the root cause of every experience of conflict, controversy, confusion, pain, suffering, loss and death.——— The case for insanity is strong to the insane. (ACIM, T-11.V.16:3-4- )
No evidence can convince you of a truth you do not want. —It is only our fear of truth that stands in our way of seeing that this world has no real foundation, it is a house built on straws. It is an insane belief that, with your willingness, can and must be forgiven if any peace of mind is to be experienced. Dreams are established and maintained by belief, and when the belief is withdrawn they disappear.
As you look with open eyes upon your world, it must occur to you that you have withdrawn into insanity. ²You see what is not there, and you hear what makes no sound. ³Your manifestations of emotions are the opposite of what the emotions are.⁴You communicate with no one, and you are as isolated from reality as if you were alone in all the universe. ⁵In your madness you overlook reality completely, and you see only your own split mind everywhere you look. (ACIM, T-13.V.6:1-5)
Let us look at just a few examples that show our experiences are not based on truth:
Biological evolution by natural selection is a scientific theory that explains the evolution of all “living” things. It indicates that the goal of all living species is to survive long enough to reproduce and continue the species. Evolutionary Game Theory, the mathematics behind Darwin’s theory of evolution, has shown that any species that valued truth over fitness would go extinct. Think about what that must mean! In effect nature has “protected” the human species from the “dangers” of truth by assuring they would not survive. In addition, by limiting our thinking to perception based on interpretation, not the way things really are, “nature” has guaranteed that the truth would be hidden from our awareness . There is no alternate to truth! Think about it! What but illusion could be an alternate to truth; and to perceive illusions as the truth is insane.
Many scientists and philosophers defend this evolutionary view of truth, claiming that if we were preoccupied with truth/reality we could not function. If by function you merely mean survive long enough to reproduce and continue our belief in the ego thought system, not knowing the truth would make sense. If, however, what you mean by function is to be peacefully aware of who you are, then to know the truth is absolutely necessary. Any theory that sees truth as dangerous is insane and if you examine the ego thought system that is exactly what you will discover. If one is not experiencing truth, which is synonymous with reality, then, by definition, you are experiencing an illusion. And the you who identifies with the ego and believes illusion to be reality is insane. But you are not the ego.
Not only don’t we know the truth about the “world,” we do not know the truth about who we are! —- You keep asking what it is you are. ³This implies that the answer is not only one you know, but is also one that is up to you to supply. ⁴Yet you cannot perceive yourself correctly. ⁵You have no image to be perceived. ⁶The word “image” is always perception-related, and not a part of knowledge. ⁷Images are symbolic and stand for something else. ⁸The idea of “changing your image” recognizes the power of perception, but also implies that there is nothing stable to know. (ACIM, T-3.V.4:2-8)
What you are could never be imagined by a split mind, dissociated from its reality: I am one Self, united with my Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace. (ACIM, W-95.11:2.—— Only a unified mind could know what this means. For only a unified mind is capable of knowing the truth.
Everything is an idea! Our reality is an idea!— If you can accept the concept that the world is one of ideas, the whole belief in the false association the ego makes between giving and losing is gone. (ACIM, T-5.I.1:14) ——-Oneness cannot be divided, therefore, only the oneness of knowledge is free of conflict. In reality conflict is impossible because ideas cannot leave their source, be different from it and in opposition to it. —-You can enslave a body, but an idea is free, incapable of being kept in prison or limited in any way except by the mind that thought it (ACIM, T-19.I.16:4)
Further evidence of the flaws in our belief about the world is the fact that throughout our history no one has ever effectively solved major problems in the world. And no one ever will because, as I have stated in many essays, problems are not in the world, they are in the mind of the dreamer. In short, and in principle, “human beings” can never know the truth because they are merely dream figures playing out whatever fearful role we assign to them. Nothing in a dream-world remains when you are not rendering them in your dream. And when you wake up the dream is gone! —-Dreams show you that you have the power to make a world as you would have it be, and that because you want it you see it. ²And while you see it you do not doubt that it is real. ³Yet here is a world, clearly within your mind, that seems to be outside.
In religious based belief systems there are many contradictions. For instance, despite the assumptions that God is all knowing, all powerful and all loving, we accept the idea that this god created a world that is destructible, where living things struggle to survive and experience a great deal of pain, suffering, loss and ultimately ending in death. Some have tried to justify this by claiming god just wants to know himself or it is just a mystery. That may appear to be logical within the ego thought system, but it would be a real stretch of the imagination to apply perceptual ego logic to a Being that has infinite knowledge. And let’s not forget about the astounding oxymoron: “holy wars.”
Finally let’s look at the ego’s claim to fame: the idea of death, proof of the ego’s triumph over God, since death would end life. We need to look at this idea more closely.—- For death is total. ³Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. ⁴No compromise is possible. ⁵For here again we see an obvious position, which we must accept if we be sane; what contradicts one thought entirely can not be true, unless its opposite is proven false. (ACIM, W-163.6:2-5) —Death would contradict the thought of life entirely and can not be true, unless its opposite, life, is proven false!!!
Even those of us who accept the concept the world is illusion, not reality, do not fully comprehend the implications in our everyday experience. Illusions are subjective, they are in our mind. However, we respond to our illusions as if they were objective, outside of our mind. —-For instance: ²When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is self-deception. Ask instead, “Would I accuse myself of doing this?” (ACIM, W-134.9:3)
There are some who claim they just want to explore different experiences within the dream. Because all dreams share the same purpose they are the same in outcome. All your time is spent in dreaming. ¹³Your sleeping and your waking dreams have different forms, and that is all. ¹⁴Their content is the same. ¹⁵They are your protest against reality, and your fixed and insane idea that you can change it. (ACIM, T-18.II.5:12-15)—- Because of the ego’s purpose for the dream, all the roads you travel on within the dream must lead to pain, suffering, loss and death. As the Course says: On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. ¹³And on some the thorns are felt at once. ¹⁴The choice is not what will the ending be, but when it comes. (ACIM, T-31.IV.2:12-14) There is no choice where every end is sure. ²Perhaps you would prefer to try them all, before you really learn they are but one. ³The roads this world can offer seem to be quite large in number, but the time must come when everyone begins to see how like they are to one another. (ACIM, T-31.IV.3:1-3)
To respond to a perceptual world of illusions as if it were reality, must lead to guilt which leads to the projection of our fearful guilty thoughts onto illusory dream figures. That is the ego’s plan for getting rid of out guilt, knowing full well that by projecting guilt onto our dream figures, the guilt, now hidden, remains, but we don’t know why. And so everyday we attack others for our “sins.” Without understanding this you will not understand the Course’s use of forgiveness. —-It is sin’s unreality that makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. (ACIM, W-134.6:1)
Because projection makes perception, what we perceive in others is really what we believe about our self.— Learn this, and learn it well, for it is here delay of happiness is shortened by a span of time you cannot realize. ⁵You never hate your brother for his sins, but only for your own. ⁶Whatever form his sins appear to take, it but obscures the fact that you believe them to be yours, and therefore meriting a “just” attack (ACIM, T-31.III.1:4-6). Forgiveness asks you but that you forgive all things that no one ever did; to overlook what is not there, and not to look upon the unreal as reality (ACIM, T-30.IV.7:3)
Reality, by definition, is very simple! Complexity is of the ego and if your world seems complex you are perceiving a dream-world not reality. When you have been caught in the world of perception you are caught in a dream. You cannot escape without help, because everything your senses show merely witnesses to the reality of the dream (ACIM, Preface.5:1-2)—- The Course is very comprehensive in scope and if you are a student of the Course, there is no substitute for working with all three books: Text, Workbook and Teacher’s Manual. They not only show us what the world is, but of equal importance, they tell us what the ego’s purpose for the world is. The ego, itself an illusion, hides its purpose in a complex thought system governed by laws of chaos. Therefore, we need a course capable of bringing about complete thought reversal.
Remember, as you work with all three books: ⁴You are not asked to judge them at all. ⁵You are asked only to use them. ⁶It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true. (ACIM, W-in.8:4-6) ——When successfully completed you will experience the “Real World.” It is still illusion, but it is illusion perceived as illusion. It is corrected or true perception leading the dreamer toward, and not away from, the truth.—- A gentler dream, in which his suffering was healed and where his brother was his friend.⁵God willed he waken gently and with joy, and gave him means to waken without fear. (ACIM, T-27.VII.13:4-5) —-And so we walk with Him from this time on, and turn to Him for guidance and for peace and sure direction. ⁶Joy attends our way. ⁷For we go homeward to an open door which God has held unclosed to welcome us. (ACIM, W-ep.5:5-7)
Experiencing the “real world” is our present goal.—— This course will lead to knowledge, but knowledge itself is still beyond the scope of our curriculum. ²Nor is there any need for us to try to speak of what must forever lie beyond words. ³We need remember only that whoever attains the real world, beyond which learning cannot go, will go beyond it, but in a different way. ⁴Where learning ends there God begins, for learning ends before Him Who is complete where He begins, and where there is no end. ⁵It is not for us to dwell on what cannot be attained. ⁶There is too much to learn. ⁷The readiness for knowledge still must be attained (ACIM, T-18.IX.11:1-7)
See you in the real world, the happy dream, where every instant reflects the Love that “we” TRULY ARE!
I welcome your questions and comments: carylbrowne@gmail.com
In Peace and Love, Caryl
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