 We continue on today with Chapter 7 The Unbelievable Belief We have said that without projection there can be no anger, but it is also true that without extension there can be no love. These reflect a fundamental law of the mind, and therefore one that always operates. It is the law by which you create and were created. It is the law that unifies the kingdom and keeps it in the mind of God. To the ego, the law is perceived as a means of getting rid of something it does not want. To the Holy Spirit, it is the fundamental law of sharing by which you give what you value in order to keep it in your mind. To the Holy Spirit, it is the law of extension. To the ego, it is the law of deprivation. It therefore produces abundance or scarcity depending on how you choose to apply it. This choice is up to you, but it is not up to you to decide whether or not you will utilize the law. Every mind must project or extend because that is how it lives, and every mind is life. The ego's use of projection and anger can be finally undone. The ego always tries to preserve conflict. It is very ingenious in devising ways that seem to diminish conflict because it does not want you to find conflict so intolerable that you will insist on giving it up. The ego therefore tries to persuade you that it can free you of conflict, thus to give up the ego and free yourself. Using its own warped version of the laws of God, the ego utilizes the power of the mind only to defeat the mind's real purpose. It projects conflict from your mind to other minds in an attempt to persuade you that you have gotten rid of the problem. There are two major errors involved in this attempt. First, strictly speaking, conflict cannot be projected because it cannot be shared. Any attempt to keep part of it and get rid of another part does not really mean anything. Remember that a conflicted teacher is a poor teacher and a poor learner. His lessons are confused and their transfer value is limited by his confusion. The second error is the idea that you can get rid of something you do not want by giving it away. Giving it is how you keep it. The belief that by seeing it outside you have excluded it from within is a complete distortion of the power of extension. That is why those who project are vigilant for their own safety. They are afraid that their projections will return and hurt them. Believing they have blotted their projections from their own minds, they also believe their projections are trying to creep back in. Since the projections have not left their minds, they are forced to engage in constant activity in order to not recognize this. You cannot perpetuate an illusion about another without perpetuating it about yourself. There is no way out of this because it is impossible to fragment the mind. To fragment is to break into pieces and mind cannot attack or be attacked. The belief that it can and error the ego always makes underlies its whole use of projection. It does not understand what mind is and therefore does not understand what you are. Yet its existence is dependent on your mind because the ego is your belief. The ego is a confusion in identification. Never having a consistent model, it never developed consistently. It is the product of the misapplication of the laws of God by distorted minds that are misusing their power. Do not be afraid of the ego. It depends on your mind and as you made it by believing in it so you can dispel it by withdrawing belief from it. Do not project the responsibility for your belief in it onto anyone else or you will preserve the belief. When you are willing to accept sole responsibility for the ego's existence, you will have laid aside all anger and all attack because they come from an attempt to project responsibility for your own errors. But having accepted the errors as yours, do not keep them. Give them over quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely so that all their effects will vanish from your mind and from the sonship as a whole. The Holy Spirit will teach you to perceive beyond your belief because truth is beyond belief and his perception is true. The ego can be completely forgotten at any time because it is a totally incredible belief and no one can keep a belief he has judged to be unbelievable. The more you learn about the ego, the more you realize that it cannot be believed. The incredible cannot be understood because it is unbelievable. The meaninglessness of perception based on the unbelievable is apparent, but it may not be recognized as being beyond belief because it is made by belief. The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is unbelievable and will forever be unbelievable. You who made the ego by believing the unbelievable cannot make this judgment alone. By accepting the Atonement for yourself, you are deciding against the belief that you can be alone, thus dispelling the idea of separation and affirming your true identification with the whole Kingdom as literally part of you. This identification is as beyond doubt as it is beyond belief. Your wholeness has no limits because being is infinity. And from the workbook, Lesson 52, today's review covers these ideas. I am upset because I see what is not there. Reality is never frightening. It is impossible that it could upset me. Reality brings only perfect peace. When I am upset, it is always because I have replaced reality with illusions I made up. The illusions are upsetting because I have given them reality and thus regard reality as an illusion. Nothing in God's creation is affected in any way by this confusion of mine. I am always upset by nothing. I see only the past. As I look about, I condemn the world I look upon. I call this seeing. I hold the past against everyone and everything, making them my enemies. When I have forgiven myself and remembered who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see. There will be no past and therefore no enemies. And I will look with love on all that I failed to see before. My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. I see only my own thoughts and my mind is preoccupied with the past. What then can I see as it is? Let me remember that I look on the past to prevent the present from dawning on my mind. Let me understand that I am trying to use time against God. Let me learn to give the past away, realizing that in so doing I am giving up nothing. I see nothing as it is now. If I see nothing as it is now, it can truly be said that I see nothing. I can see only what is now. The choice is not whether to see the past or the present. The choice is merely whether to see or not. What I have chosen to see has cost me vision. Now I would choose again that I may see. My thoughts do not mean anything. I have no private thoughts, yet it is only private thoughts of which I am aware. What can these thoughts mean? They do not exist, and so they mean nothing. Yet my mind is part of creation and part of its creator. Would I not rather join the thinking of the universe than to obscure all that is really mine with my pitiful and meaningless private thoughts? Today we sink inward, watching the thoughts that cross the mind, remembering, see only my thoughts. The world I perceive is just my thoughts. The world I perceive is not outside of my thoughts. The world I perceive is these thoughts that cross awareness of the past and the future, and this is not seeing. I have to choose merely whether to see or not to see. That is the question. To see with the vision of Christ, to see in light or not to see. And I have spoken about no private thoughts and no people pleasing. Today I acknowledge I have no private thoughts as I watch these thoughts cross my mind, thoughts of the past, of the future, of the body, of the world, time and space, all of these cosmic thoughts. I remind myself, hmm, it is only these private thoughts of which I am aware, watching. Watching all thoughts that flow across the mirror of the mind, all thoughts of consciousness, these seeming private thoughts, and I remind myself, they do not exist. And so they mean nothing. God did not create these thoughts of past, of future, time, space, sink deep, these thoughts do not exist. And so they mean nothing. Yet I am, I am a perfect child of God. I am, as God created me. I am holy. I am spirit. Now ask yourself, would I not rather join the thinking of the universe than to obscure all that is really mine with my pitiful and meaningless private? What will I focus on today? What will I give my attention to? This dream of private thoughts, this dream of private or two reality, the kingdom of heaven, living Christ that I am. I practice today with this glorious review of Lessons 6-10. I am upset because I see what is not there. I see only the past. My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. I see nothing as it is now. My thoughts do not mean anything.