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Cruelty in the World and Our Part in Undoing It

Some thoughts about how I understand cruelty in the world, and my part in undoing it. This was in answer to a question about ISIS and soldiers beheading people.

Here is how I think of it. From where my mind is now, I seem to have thoughts and take actions and speak words. You seem to do these things, too, and what you seem to say or do has little to do with me. Those soldiers and that organization is the same. They do some pretty horrible things, and aside from how I react to hearing about it, what they do seems to have little to do with me. Even if I were there and affected by the actions of the soldiers, it would be the same. I would react to them, but their behavior would not be my behavior, their thoughts not my thoughts.

When my mind is clear I remember that separation is an illusion, and that there is actually only Mind rather than a lot of separate minds. So each seemingly separate person is just an aspect, a thought form within the one mind. It is hard to think that our mind can make thought forms like the soldiers you mentioned and that we have the kind of hate and rage that is projected through these thought forms, but we see the proof all the time. This hatred and rage are effects of the unconscious guilt in the mind.

The soldiers and others who are consumed by guilt are part of the same mind that we are. We heal the mind of guilt, of hatred and rage, when we look at these things in our mind and release them to the Holy Spirit. It makes no difference if the form guilt, hatred, and rage take in our mind seems milder and less destructive than it is in others, it is still the same guilt, the same hatred and rage, the same fear. And it belongs to us, all of it.

And we can heal it by forgiving it everywhere we see it, recognizing that seeing it in someone else does not mean it belongs to someone else and not to us. “Someone else” is just another out picturing of our shared mind, and so is us.

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Lesson 190

Lesson 190
I choose the joy of God instead of pain.

(The sections in parenthesis are my perspectives on the paragraphs)

Pain is a wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes that will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclaims God cruel. How could it be real in any form? It witnesses to God the Father’s hatred of His Son, the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane desire for revenge and death.

(Pain is not a fact, but merely a wrong perspective. This means that I am seeing something wrong and pain will disappear if I change my perspective. In fact, Jesus emphasizes this when he says that there is no form it takes that will not disappear if seen aright. The reason we can know that pain is not real is that for it to be real, God would have to be cruel.

I bet that many people who have had extreme pain or chronic pain have thought that God must think him guilty and is punishing his Son for his sins. I knew a woman who had many physical challenges and suffered a lot of pain for most of her life. She believed that this was her plight because of some sin, if not actual on her part, then because man is inherently sinful.

She tried to appease God by offering her pain as sacrifice to Him in hopes of a reward after death. If she is right, then God is indeed, cruel and awful. Is it more likely, she is seeing things from the wrong perspective? Could she have watched her pain disappear if she had been willing to see this differently? Jesus says that this is exactly what would have happened.)

Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false? Pain is but witness to the Son’s mistakes in what he thinks he is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love, which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love.

(Jesus is telling us that when we experience pain, and he is not making a difference between the forms and degrees pain can take, that it is part of our dream, not reality. We are having this fierce dream because we believe we are guilty for leaving God and He has abandoned us. Neither is possible. We, being the Sons of God are created unassailable and God is Eternal Love, and Love does not abandon what it creates.)

Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and seen as traitor to Himself. If God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God. For vengeance is not part of love. And fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain.

(We are using pain to prove that God is not God and we are not His Son. The apparent existence of pain proves that God is not Love because vengeance is not part of love. It also proves that we are not eternal because only in a body can we experience pain of any sort, and so if we are in pain we must be the body. We must be corruptible. Through the experience of pain we think that first we have slain God, making Him something He is not, then we kill His Son through the death of the body we have proclaimed his reality.)

Peace to such foolishness! The time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. There is no need to think of them as savage crimes, or secret sins with weighty consequence. Who but a madman could conceive of them as cause of anything? Their witness, pain, is mad as they, and no more to be feared than the insane illusions which it shields, and tries to demonstrate must still be true.

(The insane illusion which pain shields is the belief we have forever altered God and taken over as our own creator, making of ourselves something mortal and corruptible. And we are therefore guilty and deserving of pain and death. What does Jesus say to this premise? He tells us it is so ridiculous that we should be laughing at it, not taking it seriously.)

It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.

(This is the paragraph that gets right to the point. Up until now Jesus has been leading us to understand that we are doing this to ourselves. He has been showing us that we are only punishing ourselves because we mistakenly believe we have affected Reality with our little games of separation, and that we deserve to be punished.

Now he is telling us outright that the only cause of pain is our thoughts. Let me repeat that. “It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain.” Nothing outside of us can cause us pain. Not the cruel words of someone who is supposed to love us. Not the abandonment of the special love in our life. Not the loss of financial support. Not the death of a loved one. Not any illness or accident. It is only our thoughts that cause us pain. “No one but yourself affects you.”

If you are paying attention to this, it might seem like Jesus just pulled the rug out from under you when you think of it. Shoot, the very foundation on which you stand as a self-created body begins to dissolve right from under you. Pain, in which Jesus seems to include all forms of suffering even unto death, is a thought in our mind.

Germs didn’t make you sick, rather you made germs as an agent to bring about suffering in a way that allows you to feel like a helpless victim of a cruel and vengeful God. Pain is not the inevitable consequence of loss, but a state you choose for yourself because you believe you are a sinner and deserve to suffer.

There are no accidents to mangle your body. They are carefully arranged illusions to prove once again how unworthy and unloved you truly are, how abandoned by your God, and how real is the fragile and vulnerable little self you have made to replace the eternal Spirit that you were created to be.

But you and I are not any of this and we can extricate ourselves from the web of deceit that makes up our illusion of pain and death. These following sentences are our way out, our very salvation, and just as we made this insane illusion, we can choose to return to reality. Here is what Jesus tells us.

“There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.”

He has spent the lesson so far helping us to see our wrong perspective, the perspective that is pain. Now he is showing us the way out of this world of pain and suffering. He is showing us the right perspective. The wrong perspective, the perspective of believing we are sinners and are being punished by a vengeful God is what actually causes all pain.

Seeing ourselves for what we are, powerful and eternal beings of love and life, beloved children of Love Itself, will immediately undo the consequences of the wrong perspective. As our true Self we have the power to dominate all things. We recognize what we are and all things become harmless before us and they accept our holy will as theirs. Accepting who we are we see the innocence and holiness of all things. Those sentences have become a mantra I use when I become confused and choose pain for myself. They are a powerful proclamation of our identity.)

My holy brother, think of this awhile: The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want. Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable, forever and forever. And would you deny a little corner of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain; a sickly place where living things must come at last to die?

(The world you see does nothing. It does not make you sick. It does not take from you what you need. It does not abandon you. It does not hurt you. It does nothing! It merely represents your thoughts and will change entirely as you change your mind. Decide what you really want is God and the joy and love that is God,, and everything changes. Change your mind and change the world! And let’s not overlook the part where he tells us that we are using a little corner of our mind as a hospital for pain. Very expressive, Jesus. And thanks for the reminder that it is only a small part of our mind that sleeps.)

The world may seem to cause you pain. And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect, it cannot make effects. As an illusion, it is what you wish. Your idle wishes represent its pains. Your strange desires bring it evil dreams. Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live.

Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free. In pain is God denied the Son He loves. In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery.

(Again, Jesus is telling us, driving home the point, that pain is our way of keeping God at bay, triumphing over good, and basically making sure that our wishes to experience not-god do not get overturned by reality. As long as we suffer we can use it as proof that we are independent of God, and not in Him or part of Him, because in Him there is no suffering. And in pretending it is God who chooses suffering for us, we can protect our little game through fear of returning Home. In fact, without the fear of God, we would know His Love and would fall into Him in ecstasy. Game over.)

Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven’s peace holds all things still at last. Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. Let no attack enter with you. Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness.

Here will you understand there is no pain. Here does the joy of God belong to you. This is the day when it is given you to realize the lesson that contains all of salvation’s power. It is this: Pain is illusion; joy, reality. Pain is but sleep; joy is awakening. Pain is deception; joy alone is truth.

And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made; we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven. Let our gratitude unto our Teacher fill our hearts, as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of Heaven for the darkness of the world.

(The world of pain and suffering and death is a thought in our mind. Let go of the thought that you want to keep this in place, and the thought of God will rise up to take its place. Pain, suffering and death disappear as if they had never been, because they have never been, except in our minds. We chose them, we can banish them.

We can practice this as we can everything we are learning in the Course. I do it all the time. I notice pain in my body and I remind myself that pain is not real. If pain is real, God is not. I remind myself that this is just another thought in my mind and one easily released as I remember who I am. Can the Son of God be at the mercy of a false thought in a confused mind?

As I remember the truth of my being, I use the power that is mine to see it all differently. I see from a different perspective and fear no longer controls my mind. I see the body and the circumstances surrounding the pain as innocent choices, however misguided. I release them to the Holy Spirit in my mind where they are undone as they accept my holy will. I have done this many times.

I still accept pain sometimes and I know this is just ego thinking running my mind temporarily. I see myself do it, and sometimes I make a different choice right then. Other times, I stay in my confusion and if the pain is bad enough I resort to magical means for relief. But even then, I do it with laugh knowing that it is ridiculous. I also remind myself that even magic could not work if it were not my desire for it to do so. In this way I continue to undo the ego even as it drives me.)

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Study of Text, Chapter 10: IV. The Denial of God, P 4.7-8-15

V. The Denial of God, P 4
4 Sickness and death seemed to enter the mind of God’s Son against His Will. The “attack on God” made His Son think he was Fatherless, and out of his depression he made the god of depression. This was his alternative to joy, because he would not accept the fact that, although he was a creator, he had been created. Yet the Son is helpless without the Father, Who alone is his Help.

Journal
I seemed to attack God when I chose to experience something unlike Him. I read in A Course of Love that it might be easier to understand if I use the word Creation instead of God. So I think I attacked Creation when I chose to experience something unlike Creation. Yes, that makes sense. That is exactly what we did.
We wanted to see what it would be like to make something that could not possibly occur and so the separation idea unfolded for us. Jesus says that this is when we made a detour into guilt. This is where the problem began. In our guilt, which of course led to fear, we became depressed, and so (having abandoned Love) we made a god of depression.

Because we made ourselves Fatherless, we decided we were our own creator. Now we are alone and without help. We just keep digging ourselves in deeper and deeper as we try to correct what we have done, and try to do this alone. We need our Father’s help but we have denied our Father so we have no help. No wonder we are depressed.

I was a little confused by the idea that we made a god of depression, but I suppose that is what we did. When things go wrong and nothing we do can fix them, we turn to depression. We try to appease the depression with new fixes, and when that doesn’t work we turn to pharmaceuticals. If all else fails we sacrifice ourselves on the altar of depression through sickness and death, or even suicide.

The only way out of this is to accept that we are not our own creators and that we are ready to accept our Father, and to accept His help in undoing what we have done. On a practical day-to-day experience of this I see what I must do, and what I have been doing. I see the dark thoughts that have been the natural consequence of separation thinking and I turn to the Voice for God to receive correction.

It is a simple thing and requires only my desire for healing that is not of my own making. This would seem to be easy enough considering all the proof I have that I cannot do this on my own. Letting go of the fear of God, and letting go of the desire to succeed on my own are the only two things I need in order to be successful in this endeavor. As I let go of my desire to succeed on my own, and turn more and more often to the Guide Home that God placed in my mind, the peace and joy I experience will help me to see that God is Love and I have nothing to fear from Him.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: V. The Denial of God, P 3. 7-7-15

V. The Denial of God, P3
3 Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego’s religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to you. Unless you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly want them. Blasphemy, then, is self-destructive, not God-destructive. It means that you are willing not to know yourself in order to be sick. This is the offering your god demands because, having made him out of your insanity, he is an insane idea. He has many forms, but although he may seem to be many different things he is but one idea;-the denial of God.

Journal
Sometimes as I read what has actually occurred in the mind in order to experience separation, I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. When I deny God, which I do every time I indulge in ego thinking, the drama, the guilt and fear, the pain and suffering, I deny not only God, but also my Self. I deny what I am.

I have been looking at a lot of thoughts and beliefs that I have in the past hidden from myself. I see the belief that I am unfairly treated and I feel so sorry for myself that it makes me cry or it makes me so angry I lash out. Then I feel discouraged because it seems I will never get to the end of these beliefs. I forget that it is only one belief taking many forms. I am looking at the forms in order to make a decision as to whether or not I am ready to finally release the belief to the Holy Spirit.

When I remember what I am doing, I am able to detach somewhat from the emotional reaction, but when I forget the purpose of this work, I just feel helpless. The ego mind is very attracted to the drama of hopelessness, and will go there if I don’t stop the mind from doing so. I saw myself doing this yesterday, forgetting why I am looking at these thoughts and getting caught up in the beliefs and their effects.

One thing happened at work, and while it seemed a minor thing, it triggered a deeply rooted fear in my mind. I reacted to it, and then the ego mind dredged up more fears and it all just cascaded. There was enough detachment for me to realize that this was an ego reaction and so meaningless, but the emotion was really strong.

Last night when I went to bed I asked the Holy Spirit to teach me in my sleep and to heal my mind. When I do this, and especially when I listen to the Course in my sleep, my dreams reflect the Holy Spirit’s teaching in a very helpful and comforting way. I wake up from my sleep happy and encouraged.

This time, though, I had the strangest dreams. It was about people coming back from awakened states and saying that it isn’t all its cracked up to be. These people were angry and there was struggling and gun play involved, and when I woke up I was just confused. I didn’t understand how this was helpful, but I didn’t feel upset about the dream, so I knew it was symbolic.

I see now that this was the ego fighting against awakening. It was the ego version of waking up, finding it unsatisfying, and wanting to return to the world of high drama. I see that this is what is happening in my mind now, the reason I keep falling into the rabbit hole and seemingly losing my way.

I am doing the work that needs to be done to release myself from the dream, and the part of my mind that is attached to the dream is doing what it can to keep me engaged. This is very wearing but as I become more cognizant of what is happening, I am less affected. Just like yesterday, I would feel upset and weepy, then I would pull myself away from that emotion and remember that I have a purpose.

I would get angry and then remember that this is just the ego judgment of the situation and the ego belief in defense through attack, and I would pull myself away again and focus on my purpose. Not so long ago, it might have taken me days to disengage, and now it usually only takes minutes. The work is working.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: V. The Denial of God, P 2. 7-6-15

V. The Denial of God, P2
2 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. You must receive the message you give because it is the message you want. You 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. Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them that would bring joy to you. It is the denial of the spark that brings depression, for whenever you see your brothers without it, you are denying God.

Journal
When I read the words that say I deny God, it seems like that can’t be true. Yet, when I think about all I do, say and feel that is opposite to God, I realize it must be true. When I express guilt in any way, I deny God because there is no guilt in God. When my Internet went out on Saturday, I was frustrated because I had plans to work on my computer. There is no frustration in God so I was denying God in that moment. I was worshipping at the ego’s altar.

As Jesus says, when I deny God, I will inevitably project, and this is what I did. I projected onto the Internet people. I thought about how it seems every time it rains my Internet goes out. They have one job to do, to keep the Internet working and they can’t seem to do it. As I had these thoughts, I felt worse and worse. I felt heavy and dark.

A part of my mind was aware of this, noticing the guilt thoughts, the projection, the inevitable effect of projecting guilt. But I was caught up in my stories of guilt and had a hard time letting them go. When I talked to the Internet technician I felt like I was talking to the enemy, like it was his fault my life took a wrong turn. In so doing, I failed to see the spark in him that would have brought me joy. As Jesus says: “It is the denial of the spark that brings depression, for whenever you see your brothers without it, you are denying God.”

Then Sunday morning, I was reading this posting by Paul West and in which he reminds us that there is a beautiful and completely neutral world out there over which we have placed our guilty thoughts. I had to laugh because that is what I did. I made the Internet folks guilty for screwing up my day. The more I thought about it the more I realized I could have asked Holy Spirit what this was for. I could have listened to guidance about what to do next, and had a really good time.

When life sucks, all that means is the thoughts in our mind suck, that we are splattering guilt all over a perfectly neutral world. I had a good laugh about the whole thing Sunday morning and felt a lot of gratitude to ‪Suzanne Weaver, for sharing this, and ‪Paul West, for writing it. Finding this posting on Sunday morning was like Spirit was high-lighting the whole incident so I would really get it.

Once again, I remind myself that I am not the victim of my world, but the maker of it. Listening to the ego mind is always going to make a depressing world, just as allegiance to God will always show me the beautiful world that exists just behind my projections. My internet went out again on Sunday and I did other things.

When I eventually called in, the technician was helpful and I told him he was a genius. He laughed and we said goodbye. That happy ending was there all along, but to experience it, I had to desire the happy ending more than I desired the right to be unfairly treated.

Here is the part of Paul’s posting that was especially helpful to me when I read it.

“What this also reveals, as ACIM would confirm, is that just because the world currently looks a certain way, or the people seem to be in a certain mood, or I’m experiencing it in a certain mindset, or I have a certain feeling about it, this does NOT mean that these things are objectively real. If I am perceiving that other people are unloving, unkind, hateful, fear-inducing, etc. ... this shows me simply that there is content IN MY OWN MIND that I am seeing overlaid on my experience of ‘reality’, making it seem as though the world sucks.

The Course speaks of the forgiven world - a world that you see when YOU have forgiven yourself. It is a neutral world, with no false meaning given to it. It is a lovely world, a beautiful world, a world of such clarity. If we are NOT seeing that world, it is because we have blocks in our awareness. We have blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, and that is what ACIM aims to help remove.

So I should remember, that no matter how the world looks right now, or what content it seems to have, if I am not seeing a completely beautiful neutral world then what I’m seeing is MY OWN STUFF interfering with my perception. It’s not allowing me to experience reality clearly. It’s blocking my view and interfering with what I’m seeing ‘out there’. What I see out there is my own content reflected in a completely clear mirror, showing me my own ego. So if I think this world sucks and am seeing reasons for it sucking, it’s because I suck. Conversely, when I forgive myself for what I have not done and remember my innocence, I will ONLY be able to experience innocence and happiness all around me.”

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Study of Text, Chapter10: V. The Denial of God, P 1. 7-1-15

V. The Denial of God
1 The rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding. Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to him. Depression means that you have forsworn God. Many are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not understand what it means. They do not realize that to deny God is to deny their own Identity, and in this sense the wages of sin is death. The sense is very literal; denial of life perceives its opposite, as all forms of denial replace what is with what is not. No one can really do this, but that you think you can and believe you have is beyond dispute.

Journal
I went through a period of relinquishing fear and then another of relinquishing guilt. Both were very intense and while in the middle of doing this I would often forget that looking with Holy Spirit at guilt and fear was what I wanted. I would get caught up in these beliefs and think that I was guilt or that I was fear. I would think that I had forgotten everything I ever learned and that I had no way out.

Then I would remember the truth and it was like a drowning person surfacing and gasping for breath, and so thankful for air, then looking around and realizing I was drowning in a foot of water. I would have to laugh. Then I would be immersed in fear or guilt again and the process would start over. Eventually, I stopped believing in fear and guilt so much and the process was gentler and lasted for a shorter period. I won’t say that I never experience guilt or fear anymore, but I never completely believe in them, and now I extricate myself more quickly.

Lately, I have been looking at grief, sadness and depression. I thought I was through with depression, but evidently, the belief in depression is still rooted in my mind, and so it is coming up for me to look at and to release, just as I did guilt and fear. I didn’t realize what was happening at first. I would just get washed away in these feelings and wonder what was happening. But I have done this kind of work before, so I began to recognize it for what it is. This makes the process easier and less frightening.

Here is what I have learned through going through this. First, it is not a sign that the truth is not true. It is not a punishment or proof that I am not loved by God. It is not reason to be upset. It is actually a good thing that these beliefs are surfacing, to be looked at and released. I remind myself of this when I start to feel upset by them.

Looking at them with the Holy Spirit means feeling them, and noticing how much I believe them, so it is not pleasant, but it doesn’t have to be scary. So the second thing is that I welcome them, as much as I can do that. I don’t push these feelings away. I don’t deny them. I don’t project them. I don’t try to bury them. At least I do my best with this and when I notice I am in denial or I am projecting, I stop. These are ego strategies and they do not work.

Thirdly, as I become aware of the feelings and the beliefs that source the feelings, I release them to the Holy Spirit. I cannot undo this on my own. This is His function and so I give it to Him. The ego will try to take over and offer suggestions to get rid of the feelings. It will suggest medication, therapy, blame, and eventually will suggest self-annihilation, as its true desire for me is death. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, will offer true healing and so I reject the ego solutions, and release the problem to Him.

And finally, as I sit with these feelings, releasing them as best as I can, I notice how hard the ego mind tries to cling to them. The ego just loves all this drama, this focus on separation and misery. So I choose the opposite. I remind myself of the truth of my being. I direct my mind to look away from the darkness and toward the light. The more firmly I make this choice, the more quickly I experience relief, and the less intense the feelings when they surface.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: IV. The End of Sickness, P 8. 6-30-15

IV. The End of Sickness P 8
8 In many only the spark remains, for the Great Rays are obscured. Yet God has kept the spark alive so that the Rays can never be completely forgotten. If you but see the little spark you will learn of the greater light, for the Rays are there unseen. Perceiving the spark will heal, but knowing the light will create. Yet in the returning the little light must be acknowledged first, for the separation was a descent from magnitude to littleness. But the spark is still as pure as the Great Light, because it is the remaining call of creation. Put all your faith in it, and God Himself will answer you.

Journal
I think that most people, when they pick up A Course in Miracles, are aware of a small spark, and as we study and practice, the small spark begins to grow into a brighter light. Eventually, the light becomes a Great Light and then we move from healing to creating. Right now, while it is nice to know my ultimate goal, my concern is in keeping my eye on the spark. I want to see that spark brighten.

Jesus says the way we do this is to start with what we have and work from there. He says that separation was a descent from magnitude to littleness, so we start at littleness and work our way back to magnitude. I do this every day as I notice my thoughts and ask for healing when I see that I am descending into littleness again. I direct my mind to focus on what is true about me and what is true about my brother, rather than giving my attention to error.

Yesterday, I let my mind stray to the ego and when I did, the ego mind, the belief in separation, took over for awhile. This is the problem with giving my attention to the ego, it is easy to become entangled with it and then it is hard to find my way out again. Thank God for that spark of light that is the beacon that guides me back to reality. Then when others add their light to mine, there is more light, and everything becomes clear once again. The mind is healed and healing is our goal at this time.

The most encouraging thing is to realize that the spark, small though it might be, is just a pure as the Great Light. And that as I put my faith in that spark, God Himself answers me. Oh my goodness! This is motivation to keep my eye on the goal and not let my attention stray to the illusion. What in this story is as important as this?

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