 We continue today with Chapter 4, The Ego-Body Illusion. All things work together for good. There are no exceptions, except in the ego's judgment. The ego exerts maximal vigilance about what it permits into awareness, and this is not the way a balanced mind holds together. The ego is thrown further off balance because it keeps its primary motivation from your awareness, and raises control rather than sanity to predominance. The ego has every reason to do this according to the thought system which gave rise to it and which it serves. Sane judgment would inevitably judge against the ego and must be obliterated by the ego in the interest of its self-preservation. A major source of the ego's off balance state is this lack of discrimination between the body and the thoughts of God. Thoughts of God are unacceptable to the ego because they clearly point to the non-existence of the ego itself. The ego therefore either distorts them or refuses to accept them. It cannot, however, make them cease to be. It therefore tries to conceal not only quote unacceptable body impulses, but also the thoughts of God because both are threatening to it. Being concerned primarily with its own preservation in the face of threat, the ego perceives them as the same. By perceiving them as the same, the ego attempts to save itself from being swept away as it would surely be in the presence of knowledge. Any thought system that confuses God and the body must be insane. Yet this confusion is essential to the ego which judges only in terms of threat or non-threat to itself. In one sense, the ego's fear of God is at least logical since the idea of Him does dispel the ego. But fear of the body with which the ego identifies so closely makes no sense at all. The body is the ego's home by its own election. It is the only identification with which the ego feels safe since the body's vulnerability is its own best argument that you cannot be of God. This is the belief that the ego sponsors eagerly. Yet the ego hates the body because it cannot accept it as good enough to be its home. Here is where the mind becomes actually dazed. Being told by the ego that it is really part of the body and that the body is its protector, the mind is also told that the body cannot protect it. Therefore, the mind asks, where can I go for protection? To which the ego replies, turn to me. The mind, and not without cause, reminds the ego that it has itself insisted that it is identified with the body. So there is no point in turning to it for protection. The ego has no real answer to this because there is none. But it does have a typical solution. It obliterates the question from the mind's awareness. Once out of awareness the question can and does produce uneasiness. But it cannot be answered because it cannot be asked. This is the question that must be asked. Where can I go for protection? Seek and you shall find does not mean that you should seek blindly and desperately for something you would not recognize. Meaningful seeking is consciously undertaken, consciously organized, and consciously directed. The goal must be formulated clearly and kept in mind. Learning and wanting to learn are inseparable. You learn best when you believe what you are trying to learn is a value to you. However, not everything you may want to learn has lasting value. Indeed, many of the things you want to learn may be chosen because their value will not last. The ego thinks it is an advantage not to commit itself to anything that is eternal. Because the eternal must come from God. Eternalness is the one function the ego has tried to develop but has systematically failed to achieve. The ego compromises with the issue of the eternal just as it does with all issues touching on the real question in any way. By becoming involved with tangential issues it hopes to hide the real question and keep it out of mind. The ego's characteristic busyness with non-essentials is for precisely that purpose. Preoccupations with problems set up to be incapable of solution are favorite ego devices for impeding learning progress. In all these diversionary tactics, however, the one question that is never asked by those who pursue them is what for? This is the question that you must learn to ask in connection with everything. What is the purpose? Whatever it is, it will direct your efforts automatically. When you make a decision of purpose, then you have made a decision about your future effort, a decision that will remain in effect unless you change your mind. And from the workbook, lesson number 27, above all else I want to see. Today's idea expresses something stronger than mere determination. It gives vision priority among your desires. You may feel hesitant about using the idea on the grounds that you are not sure you really mean it. This does not matter. The purpose of today's exercises is to bring the time when the idea will be a wholly true idea a little nearer. There may be great temptation to believe that some sort of sacrifice is being asked of you when you say you want to see above all else. If you become uneasy about the lack of reservation involved, add, vision has no cost to anyone. If fear of loss still persists, add further. It can only bless. The idea for today needs many repetitions for maximum benefit. It should be used at least every half hour and more if possible. You might try for every 15 or 20 minutes. It is recommended that you set a definite time interval for using the idea when you wake or shortly afterwards and attempt to adhere to it throughout the day. It will not be difficult to do this even if you are engaged in conversation or otherwise occupied at the time. You can still repeat one short sentence to yourself without disturbing anything. The real question is how often will you remember? How much do you want today's idea to be true? Answer one of these questions and you have answered the other. You will probably miss several applications and perhaps quite a number. Do not be disturbed by this, but do try to keep on your schedule from then on. If only once during the day you feel that you are perfectly sincere while you are repeating today's idea, you can be sure that you have saved yourself many years of effort. So today we focus the mind on a single desire and this desire is vision. When I say focus, it means, as Jesus says, something stronger than mere determination. Today we are actually giving vision priority among all the seeming desires in the mind. And we lay aside the belief that there will be a sacrifice to this one desire for vision. Remembering vision has no cost to anyone. It can only bless. Indeed, it extends a blessing out to everything and everyone. We will not be concerned today by missed practice periods or seemingly forgetting to practice the idea for today. It's a great hopeful reminder from Jesus that if only once during the day you feel that you were perfectly sincere while you were practicing today's idea, you can be sure that you have saved yourself many years of effort. So this practice today is sacred. It's like a point of light rising up from all seeming desires and that very, very high point of light represents the vision of Christ, the top priority among desires. You can use whatever words that come to your mind. Jesus taught us in the Bible, let thine eye be single. Our lesson form for today right now is above all else I want to see, to keep in mind how important this is. Peace and understanding go together, are together in vision, the vision of Christ. So once again we focus our mind only on the idea for today, above all else I want to see.