XI. The Test of Truth, P 5
5 You have one test, as sure as God, by which to recognize if what you learned is true. If you are wholly free of fear of any kind, and if all those who meet or even think of you share in your perfect peace, then you can be sure that you have learned God’s lesson, and not your own. Unless all this is true, there are dark lessons in your mind that hurt and hinder you, and everyone around you. The absence of perfect peace means but one thing: You think you do not will for God’s Son what his Father wills for him. Every dark lesson teaches this, in one form or another. And each bright lesson with which the Holy Spirit will replace the dark ones you do not accept, teaches you that you will with the Father and His Son.
Journal
The way I understand what Jesus is telling us here is that if I do not have perfect peace, I have chosen a will that is not my own and not God’s. That only leaves one option. I have chosen to align myself with the ego mind and to use the separate will as if it is mine. There is no way I can ever be comfortable with this choice. Even if I bury my anxiety under layers of denial, it is still there and I project it as disturbing stories in my life.
So when my child is angry with me or my friend is in trouble, when I don’t have enough money or I am sick, these are all projections of the anxiety and guilt I feel because I have denied my Self and I have denied God. That is what the world is for. It is a place where we pretend to have a will that is not our own and experience guilt for that choice.
It is a world that offers us the punishment we think we deserve for our betrayal. “The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt.” T 13: Intro. This is a world of pain, punishment, and death. This is what it will continue to represent until we change our mind about who we want for a teacher, and which lessons are meaningful until we accept our true will, which is God’s Will.
How do I know if I have learned the lesson the Holy Spirit offers me? I will have no fear. Jesus says in another place in the Course, “Before you choose to do anything, ask me if your choice is in accord with mine. If you are sure that it is, there will be no fear.” T 2: VI. My choice will be in accord with his if my will is in accord with God’s Will.
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