Corresponding Text Section
Chapter 5: Understanding the Holy Spirit’s Purpose
6. Removing the Cause of Thought Disorder
Perhaps our recent learning 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 does. The ego’s purpose is fear, because only the fearful can be egotistic. The ego’s logic is as impeccable in its own way as that of the Holy Spirit, because the mind has all the means at its disposal to focus on Truth or illusion, Heaven or Earth, as it elects. But let us again remember that both are in you.
In the Realm of Heaven there is no guilt, because the Realm is attained through the Atonement, which creates It in you. The word “create” is appropriate here, because once what has been made by you is undone by the Holy Spirit, the blessed Remainder 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 the separation, it is also the symbol of guilt. Guilt is more than merely not of the Divine. It is the symbol of the attack on the Divine. Attacking the Divine 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. But how can Part of the Divine divide and detach Itself without believing It is attacking Its Source? Earlier we explored the authority problem as involving the concept of and belief in usurping the Creator’s Power. The ego believes that this is what you did, because it believes it is you. It follows, then, that if you identify with the ego, you must perceive yourself as guilty. Whenever you relate with or even react to your ego, you will experience guilt, and you will fear punishment.
The ego is quite literally a fearful thought. And however ridiculous the idea of attacking the Divine may be to the sane mind, always remember that the ego is not sane. It represents a delusional system, and it speaks for it. Listening to the ego’s voice means that unconsciously you believe it is possible to attack the Divine, however outlandish the idea may be. You believe that a Part of the Divine has been torn away by you. Although Freud was wrong about the nature of the basic conflict itself, he was very accurate in describing its effects. The classic picture of fear of retaliation from without then follows, because the severity of the guilt is so acute that it must be mis-projected outside of the self.
Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you. It is, however, only your acceptance that makes it real for you. It is perfectly possible not to accept what is in your mind, though this would be an extreme example of dissociation from your mind itself. If you enthrone the ego in your mind, the fact that you have allowed it to enter, and accepted it, makes it temporarily your reality. This is because the mind as the Divine created it is capable of creating its experience of reality. It was said before that you must learn to think with the Divine. To think with It is to think like It. This engenders Joy, not guilt, because it is natural. Guilt is a sure sign that your thinking has become unnatural. Distorted thinking will always be attended with guilt, because this thinking is the belief in flaw and sin.
The ego does not perceive the idea of flaw and sin as merely a lack of Love, and therefore simply a mistake. It perceives this idea as a positive act of assault, and therefore a crime deserving of guilt and punishment. This is an interpretation that is necessary to its survival, because as soon as you regard flaw and sin as merely a lack of Love, you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation by providing for the lack. 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, it results in a body free of affliction because it has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone. It was said before that illness is a form of enchantment magic, the mindless or harmful application of the same Power that, used mindfully, works miracles. It can be further clarified that illness is a form of enchantment solution. The ego believes that by punishing itself through making its host, the body, sick, it will mitigate the punishment it expects from the Divine for the crime it believes it has committed. Yet even in this it is arrogant. It attributes to the Divine a punishing intent, and then takes over this intent as its own prerogative. It tries to usurp the Functions of the Divine as it perceives them, because it senses that only total allegiance can be trusted.
The ego cannot oppose Divine Law any more than you can. But it can interpret It according to what it wants, just as you can. That is why the question, “What do you want?,” must be asked and answered in every situation. You are answering it every minute and every second, and each moment of decision is a judgment or assessment that is anything but ineffectual. The effects of your answer will follow automatically until you decide to ask the real question (“What is your true will?”) and receive the Answer. Again, any decision can be unmade as well as made. This is a redundant statement only because it has not yet been truly learned. But remember that the alternatives, or two possible outcomes, are unalterable.
The Holy Spirit, like the ego, is a decision. Together they constitute all the alternatives that your mind can accept and follow. The ego and the Holy Spirit are the only choices that are open to you. The Divine created one, and so you cannot eradicate it. You made the other, and so you can undo it. Only what the Divine creates is irreversible and unchangeable. What Its separated Children make can always be changed, because when they do not think like the Divine, they have not really thought at all.
Delusional ideas are not true Thoughts, but people can believe in them. But this belief will be wrong because it will be delusional. The Function of Thought comes from the Divine and is in the Divine. Being a Part of Its Thought, you cannot truly think apart from It. Irrational thought is a thought disorder. The Divine Itself creates Order in your true Thoughts, because your Thought was created by It. Guilt feelings are always a sign that you have forgotten this. They also show that you believe you can think apart from the Divine, and want to.
Every thought disorder is attended by guilt at its inception, and maintained by guilt in its continuance. Guilt is inescapable for those who believe that they order their own thought, and must therefore obey its orders. This makes them feel responsible for the errors or mistakes in their mind, instead of simply being willing to allow these to be corrected, without recognizing that by accepting this responsibility they are really reacting irresponsibly. If the sole responsibility of miracle workers is to accept the Atonement for themselves, and I assure you that it is, then the responsibility for what is atoned for cannot be yours. This contradiction 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 only what was true in the past and what is true now in your thoughts. If you accept the remedy for a thought-disorder – a remedy whose efficacy is beyond doubt – its symptoms cannot remain. You have reason to question the validity of cures that address only symptoms. But you must also believe that the symptoms cannot remain if the underlying cause is removed.
