VII. Looking Within, P 9
9 The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. You can decide to see it right. What you made of it is not its reality, for its reality is only what you give it. You cannot really give anything but love to anyone or anything, nor can you really receive anything but love from them. If you think you have received anything else, it is because you have looked within and thought you saw the power to give something else within yourself. It was only this decision that determined what you found, for it was the decision for what you sought.
Journal
Jesus is telling me that there is only love in me and so that is all I can give. Then why is it that sometimes what I give is not love? It can only be that I looked within and saw something else, and since nothing else is there, I made a decision, a deliberate decision to see what was not there. I decided I wanted to see something else and then looked within and found that.
When I was married, I used to often see my husband as guilty. I would say things to him or react to him as if he were guilty. If I am only love and have only love to give, where did the guilt come from? I chose guilt. I chose to feel guilty and I chose to find others guilty. The decision came first, then I looked within and found it.
How funny that I used to think that I found him guilty because of his actions, that is, because he really was guilty. I could list all my justifications for his guilt and would defend my belief he was guilty to anyone who would listen. How funny that I found guilt everywhere I looked and never considered that the guilt was coming from my own mind, and that it wasn’t even true there. It was being generated by a false idea that I chose to believe.
Here is what happens. I find myself in a situation and I ask for advice about how to see it. There are only two advisors in my mind, the Holy Spirit and ego. An example of this would be when I found my husband guilty. The ego told me that I am being attacked and must defend myself, and he is the one guilty of putting me in this position. The ego has now defined the problem and warned me that I need to take action in my own defense. With the situation thus defined, the ego’s solution seems sensible.
If I stop and choose the Holy Spirit as my advisor, He will show me the innocence in the situation. He will show me the one problem, which is that we think we are separated from Love. He will show me that this problem has already been solved. He will show me that as a creation of love, there is only love in me and only love in this man in spite of the apparent circumstances. There is nothing to give now except love.
When I was married to him I became so confused that I really believed in his guilt. It seemed perfectly natural, if really unpleasant, to live like that. I thought he was the problem and the solution was to get rid of him. All along, the problem, being in my own mind, followed me everywhere I went, so divorce solved nothing. I look back on that time and wonder how I could stand to live like that. I am not completely free of my confusion, but every day I let more of it go by deciding for God rather than ego as my advisor.
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