 We continue today with chapter 5. The Ego's Use of Guilt Perhaps some of our concepts will become clearer and more personally meaningful if the ego's use of guilt is clarified. The ego has a purpose, just as the Holy Spirit has. The ego's purpose is fear, because only the fearful can be egotistical. The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with heaven or earth as it elects. But again, remember that both are in you. In heaven there is no guilt, because the kingdom is attained through the atonement which releases you to create. The word create is appropriate here, because once what you have made is undone by the Holy Spirit, the blessed residue is restored and therefore continues in creation. What is truly blessed is incapable of giving rise to guilt and must give rise to joy. This makes it invulnerable to the ego, because its peace is unassailable. It is invulnerable to disruption, because it is whole. Guilt is always disruptive. Anything that engenders fear is divisive, because it obeys the law of division. If the ego is the symbol of its separation, it is also the symbol of guilt. Guilt is more than merely not of God. It is the symbol of attack on God. This is a totally meaningless concept except to the ego, but do not underestimate the power of the ego's belief in it. This is the belief from which all guilt really stems. The ego is the part of the mind that believes in division. How could part of God detach itself without believing it is attacking him? We spoke before of the authority problem as based on the concept of usurping God's power. The ego believes that this is what you did, because it believes that it is you. If you identify with the ego, you must perceive yourself as guilty. Whenever you respond to your ego, you will experience guilt, and you will fear punishment. The ego is quite literally a fearful thought. However ridiculous the idea of attacking God may be to the sane mind. Never forget that the ego is not sane. It represents a delusional system and speaks for it. Listening to the ego's voice means that you believe it is possible to attack God, and that a part of him has been torn away by you. Fear of retaliation from without follows, because the severity of the guilt is so acute that it must be projected. Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you. It is your acceptance of it that makes it real. If you enthrone the ego in your mind, you are allowing it to enter and makes it your reality. This is because the mind is capable of creating reality or making illusions. I said before that you must learn to think with God. To think with him is to think like him. This engenders joy, not guilt, because it is natural. Guilt is a sure sign that your thinking is unnatural. Unnatural thinking will always be attended with guilt, because it is the belief in sin. The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love, but as a positive act of assault. This is necessary to the ego's survival, because as soon as you regard sin as a lack, you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation, and you will succeed. The ego regards this as doom, but you must learn to regard it as freedom. The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, the mind heals the body, because it has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anyone or anything. I said before that illness is a form of magic. It might be better to say that it is a form of magical solution. The ego believes that by punishing itself, it will mitigate the punishment of God. Yet even in this, it is arrogant. It attributes to God a punishing intent, and then takes this intent as its own prerogative. It tries to usurp all the functions of God as it perceives them, because it recognizes that only total allegiance can be trusted. The ego cannot oppose the laws of God any more than you can, but it can interpret them according to what it wants, just as you can. That is why the question, what do you want, must be answered. You are answering it every minute and every second, and each moment of decision is a judgment that is anything but ineffectual. Its effects will follow automatically until the decision is changed. Remember, though, that the alternatives themselves are unalterable. The Holy Spirit, like the ego, is a decision. Together they constitute all the alternatives the mind can accept and obey. The Holy Spirit and the ego are the only choices open to you. God created one, and so you cannot eradicate it. You made the other, and so you can. Only what God creates is irreversible and unchangeable. What you made can always be changed, because when you do not think like God, you are not really thinking at all. Delusional ideas are not real thoughts, although you can believe in them, but you are wrong. The function of thought comes from God and is in God. As part of His thought, you cannot think apart from Him. Irrational thought is disordered thought. God Himself orders your thought because your thought was created by Him. Guilt feelings are always a sign that you do not know this. They also show that you believe you can think apart from God and want to. Every disordered thought is attended by guilt at its inception and maintained by guilt in its continuance. Guilt is inescapable by those who believe they order their own thoughts and must therefore obey their dictates. This makes them feel responsible for their errors without recognizing that by accepting this responsibility, they are reacting irresponsibly. If the sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself, and I assure you that it is, then the responsibility for what is atoned for cannot be yours. The dilemma cannot be resolved except by accepting the solution of undoing. You would be responsible for the effects of all your wrong thinking if it could not be undone. The purpose of the Atonement is to save the past in purified form only. If you accept the remedy for disordered thought, a remedy whose efficacy is beyond doubt, how can its symptoms remain? The continuing decision to remain separated is the only possible reason for continuing guilt feelings. We have said before, but did not emphasize the destructive results of the decision. Any decision of the mind will affect both behavior and experience. What you want, you expect. This is not delusional. Your mind does make your future, and it will turn it back to full creation at any minute if it accepts the Atonement first. It will also return to full creation the instant it has done so. Having given up its disordered thought, the proper ordering of thought becomes quite apparent. And from the workbook, Lesson 34, I could see peace instead of this. The idea for today begins to describe the conditions that prevail in the other way of seeing. Peace of mind is clearly an internal matter. It must begin with your own thoughts and then extend outward. It is from your peace of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises. Three longer practice periods are required for today's idea and exercises. One in the morning and one in the evening are advised. With an additional one to be undertaken at any time in between that seems most conducive to readiness. All applications should be done with your eyes closed. It is your inner world to which the applications of today's idea should be made. Some five minutes of mind searching are required for each of the longer practice periods. Search your mind for fear thoughts, anxiety, provoking situations, offending personalities or events, or anything else about which you are harboring unloving thoughts. Note them all casually repeating the idea for today slowly as you watch them arise in your mind and let each one go to be replaced by the next. If you begin to experience difficulty in thinking of specific subjects, continue to repeat the idea to yourself in an unhurried manner without applying it to anything in particular. Be sure, however, not to make any specific exclusions. The shorter applications are to be frequent and made whenever you feel your peace of mind is threatened in any way. The purpose is to protect yourself from temptation throughout the day. If a specific form of temptation arises in your awareness, the exercise should take this form. I could see peace in this situation instead of what I now see in it. If the inroads on your peace of mind take the form of more generalized adverse emotions, such as depression, anxiety, or worry, use the idea in its original form. If you find you need more than one application of today's idea to help you change your mind in any specific context, try to take several minutes and devote them to repeating the idea until you feel some sense of relief. It will help you if you tell yourself specifically, I can replace my feelings of depression, anxiety, or worry, or my thoughts about this situation, personality, or event with peace. I could see peace instead of this. So today we're focusing on the state of peace. And our corresponding reading that I just read from chapter 5, Healing in Holmus, was the ego's use of guilt. And we saw that guilt comes from trying to think against God or apart from God. We also saw that peace is a decision of mind and guilt or fear is also a decision of mind. And that there are no alternatives and no options. We also learned that guilt is always disruptive and that anything that engenders fear is divisive. So love and fear, peace and guilt have no meeting point. You cannot have part of one or part of the other. The acceptance of the atonement is the correction and it must be unequivocal. There can be no exceptions made to the atonement to experience this deep peace that passes the understanding of the world. To believe in the ego is to believe that you can actually attack God and attack and guilt go together, just this peace and forgiveness go together. And the entire world that seems to be external is a result of thoughts. So peace must begin from within with peaceful loving thoughts that are in alignment with God and then they radiate outward and extend. When I say outward, this is not a spatial consideration or time consideration. It's the radiation of love, the radiation of light, creation. And whatever is accepted into the mind has reality. Reality in the sense of what seems to be reality. If you accept the ego in your mind and you enthrone the ego in your mind then allowing it to enter makes it a reality. Not in truth, but it will seem that the world of the ego is real if the ego is believed in. And conversely, if forgiveness, if atonement is accepted, if the correction is accepted in the mind the mind reverts back to creation, pure love and light and the future is undone. As is the past. So peace and love and joy and harmony are very natural. Guilt, fear, shame, pain are very unnatural. And we were told in the text that if we perceive sin as a lack of love then it can be corrected by the giving of love. The ego perceives sin as an assault or an attack and this is what generates the guilt. So ultimately, as soon as the mind is capable of perceiving sin as a lack, a lack of love, calling for love then the love can pour through and by giving love and extending love, teaching love then the experience dawns that love is all that there is, there is nothing else. These are the thoughts we keep in mind today. There is an alternative to the fragmented world of distorted perception. We open our hearts and minds to this alternative as we practice the lesson of the day with deep sincerity. I could see peace instead of this.