VII. The Condition of Reality, P 3
3 The ego may see some good, but never only good. That is why its perceptions are so variable. It does not reject goodness entirely, for that you could not accept. But it always adds something that is not real to the real, thus confusing illusion and reality. For perceptions cannot be partly true. If you believe in truth and illusion, you cannot tell which is true. To establish your personal autonomy you tried to create unlike your Father, believing that what you made is capable of being unlike Him. Yet everything true is like Him. Perceiving only the real world will lead you to the real Heaven, because it will make you capable of understanding it.
Journal
As I read that the ego always adds something that is not real to the real, and thus creates confusion, I am reminded of the ego version of forgiveness. Let’s consider how the ego forgives. It makes the sin real and then tries to forgive it. For instance, when I was holding a grievance against my co-worker, I tried to forgive him. I tried over and over to forgive him and to forgive myself for judging him.
I would think about the words and the behavior that I found threatening. He was, in my mind, symbolic of the young replacing the old, which in this case happened to be me. He was also symbolic of the victimizer and the proof I was unfairly treated. There, I had defined the problem, labeled it properly and thus made my grievance real. Now all I had to do was forgive it. Well, good luck with that! I have only confused myself by trying to believe in innocence and guilt.
I cannot forgive what I really believe is true. I can only offer feeble attempts to explain away the guilt I believe in, make excuses for the behavior I hate, and thus make the reality of it stronger in my mind. This is the ego attempt at forgiveness. The desire to forgive is true and the belief that there is anything to forgive is not true, so I was at an impasse, and for a long time nothing happened other than I was frustrated at my failed attempts to experience true forgiveness.
Finally, I managed to chip away at the problem through my commitment to not give up. I kept asking for healing until my willingness was strong enough to mean that I wanted healing, and only healing. I lost interest in everything except forgiveness. This was the permission the Holy Spirit was waiting for, and He did His part in removing from my mind the belief that I needed someone to be guilty. In other words, he removed what was not real, my belief that my co-worker was truly guilty, and what was left was only the truth, which was forgiveness.
As I continue to allow my mind to be cleansed of all that is not true, I am left with only truth. I do this here in the illusion because it prepares me to accept Heaven. It makes a place in my mind that is free of illusion so that I will understand Heaven. If Heaven is within and I can’t find it, it must be that I don’t understand it. But that is changing as I continue to release what is not true and allow my mind to be healed.
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