The rituals of the god of sickness [ego] are strange and very demanding. ²Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to him. ³Depression means that you have forsworn God. ⁴Many are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not understand what it means. ⁵They do not realize that to deny God is to deny their own Identity, and in this sense the wages of sin [separation] is death. ⁶The sense is very literal; denial of life perceives its opposite, as all forms of denial replace what is with what is not. ⁷No one can really [deny their Identity], but that you can think you can and believe you have is beyond dispute.
Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others and not yourself have done this to you. ²You must receive the message you give because it is the message you want. ³You may believe that you judge your brothers by the messages they give you, but you have judged them by the message you give to them. ⁴Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them that would bring joy to you. ⁵It is the denial of the spark that brings depression, for whenever you see your brothers without it, you are denying God. (A Course in Miracles, T-10.V.1–2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)
Our Identity is shared with God, because he gave us all of Himself. When we believe we are a body and perceive our brothers as bodies, we are denying our true Identity. Our perception of our brothers always reflects what we believe we are. If anything about a brother offends us or bothers us, we need to look at what we believe about ourself, for perception is always a projection. So in every moment our perceptions of our brothers give us clues about our mistaken beliefs that need to be healed.
What bothers us about our brother is not about him. It is a pointer to our own beliefs that we need to look at with the Holy Spirit. He will help us see our belief is mistaken. It is a belief in an illusion. Upon recognition of the illusion, we automatically disregard it. We free ourselves to see the Love that was hidden by the illusion. With this recognition, our perceptions are used by the Holy Spirit to heal our minds and awaken us to our true Identity in God.
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