X. The Confusion of Pain and Joy
1 The Kingdom is the result of premises, just as this world is. You may have carried the ego’s reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is total confusion about everything. If you really saw this result you could not want it. The only reason you could possibly want any part of it is because you do not see the whole of it. You are willing to look at the ego’s premises, but not at their logical outcome. Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the premises of God? Your creations are the logical outcome of His premises. His thinking has established them for you. They are exactly where they belong. They belong in your mind as part of your identification with His, but your state of mind and your recognition of what is in it depend on what you believe about your mind. Whatever these beliefs may be, they are the premises that will determine what you accept into your mind.
It has taken me a long time, but I am beginning to see exactly where the ego will lead us if we follow it to its logical conclusion, and it is not a pretty thing. I have been able to hold onto the ego so far because I have looked at it in only bits and pieces. I have tried to keep the parts I value while letting go of the parts that are clearly painful. I have tried to have some ego and some God. I have discovered that this won’t work. I am so confused that I cannot even tell what is valuable and what is not, what is pain and what is pleasure.
I was once married to a paranoid schizophrenic. His condition when full blown was an example of nearly total confusion. He could not tell what was real and what wasn’t. He couldn’t tell friend from foe, and so everyone was an enemy or potential enemy, even those he loved and who loved him. His fear was complete because there was no trust; he could not even trust himself.
After I discovered A Course in Miracles and thought about Charlie, I realized that this is what it is like to be very deeply identified with ego. Charlie was in and out of this state, but never completely free of it. Imagine, though, if the ego premise was carried to its logical conclusion and this was the state that everyone endured, and endured without respite. Imagine what a nightmare life would be.
If the ego’s premise taken to it’s logical conclusion is total confusion, where will God’s premise take us in Its logical conclusion? Would it be crystal clarity? Would it be absolute certainty and complete stability? If God created me through extending Himself, does that mean I am crystal clear, certain, stable? Does it mean I am unlimited and unchanging? If the premise is that I am created by and of God, and that God is good, doesn’t that mean that I am good?
Does it not also follow that I create as God creates? Ideas leave not their source and so I am in the Mind of God, therefore my creations are in my mind. Since I am in the Mind of God, confusion is an illusion because the Mind of God is crystal clear, and being in it, I am crystal clear. The confusion of ego cannot be there or the Mind would not be what It is.
The Mind is eternal and I am in the Mind so I am eternal. The body, which is mortal, must be an illusion. God is Life and so nothing that dies can be in God. I am in God, therefore I cannot die. God is Love and therefore I am Love. There is only God, so there is only Love. There is nothing to oppose because All is One. There is nothing but Love so there is perfect peace.
Because God is only Love, there is no guilt, pain, fear or suffering in the Mind, so these things cannot be real and cannot be in me either. If I think they are, I must be dreaming. To the extent I believe what must logically be true, I will accept only what is God in my mind. If I want something else, I will believe in something else, and that is what I will accept into my mind.
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