Corresponding Text Section

Chapter 3: Oneness and Irreconcilability

9. The Two Thought Systems

Every system of thought must have a starting point. Starting points for systems of thought can be one of only two types: either a process of making or of creating, a difference that has been covered in this Course. Both are acts of will. Making involves doing, and creating involves true willing. Their resemblance is in their power as foundations. Their difference is in what rests upon them. Both are cornerstones for systems of belief by which people live.

It is a mistake to believe that a thought system that is based on what is false is weak. Everything made by a Child of the Divine is powerful. It is absolutely essential that you realize this because otherwise you will not understand why the thought system of this Course may seem difficult to master, and without mastering it you will be unable to release yourself from the inner hall of mirrors you have made for yourself through the thought system of the ego.

It is common to make the error of the psychotherapist described in some detail before, i.e., devaluing the Power of thought in order to render it less fearful, but this would be a particularly serious mistake to make at this point in the process of awakening. This is because you cannot resolve your own authority problem by depreciating the Power of your mind. The Power of the mind, i.e., of thought, can seem to hurt you if you misuse It, especially now because you know Its Strength. You also know that you cannot weaken It any more than you can weaken the Divine. Therefore the only sane alternative is to learn to use this Power wisely.

The concept or idea of the “devil” or “Satan” is frightening only because this mythological being, along with being conceived as malevolent, is thought of as being extremely powerful and extremely active. He or it is conceived as a force engaged in unceasing combat with the Divine, battling Spirit for possession of souls. Satan or the devil deceives by lies and builds kingdoms of its own in which everything is in direct opposition to the Divine. Inexplicably, this being attracts people rather than repelling them, and it is believed that people are willing to “sell” their souls to it in return for gifts they know are of no real worth at all. This makes absolutely no sense. The entire concept or picture is one in which human beings act in a way that they themselves realize is self-destructive, but which they do not will, or have no will, to correct, and therefore they perceive the cause of this strange idea or belief as beyond their control.

This Course has discussed the “fall of humanity” or the separation in some depth. Its meaning must be clearly understood, without symbols. The separation is not symbolic. It is a world, or a system of thought, that is completely real in time, though not in Eternity. As has been noted, all beliefs are real to the believer.

The fruit of only one tree was “forbidden” to the two human beings in the symbolic garden. But the Divine could not have forbidden it in Reality or it could not have been eaten. If the Divine knows Its Children, and I assure you It does, would It have put them in a position where their own destruction was possible? The “tree” that was forbidden was named the “tree of knowledge.” Yet the Divine created Knowledge and gave It freely to Its Creation. The symbolism here is open to many interpretations, but you may be sure that any interpretation that conceives either the Divine or Its Creation as if They were capable of destroying Their own Purpose is false or wrong.

“Eating of the tree of knowledge” is a symbolic expression for incorporating into the self the false belief in the ability for self-creation. The ability for self-creation is the only sense in which the Divine and Its Children are not Cocreators, that is, do not have the same creative abilities. The belief that they are or do is implicit in the malleable concept of the constructed “self” in place of the unchanging Reality of the holy Self, a concept that by its very weakness became acceptable to minds that had adopted the false belief in the ability for self-creation, and explained by a tendency of the temporal self to create an image of itself. The fear aspect that must always accompany such a profound misconception is usually ascribed to a “father figure,” a particularly interesting idea in view of the fact that nobody means a physical father by the term. It refers to an image of a mythological father in relation to the image of the self that has been constructed.

Once again, images are perceived but cannot be known. Perception can deceive but Knowledge can’t. A person can conceive and perceive themself as self-creating, but they cannot do more than believe it. They cannot make it true. This Course said before that when you finally conceive and perceive correctly, i.e., clearly, you will only be glad that you can’t make your illusions true. But until then, the belief that illusions and error can be made true is the central foundation stone in the alternative thought system to Truth, and all defenses other than the Atonement are used to attack ideas that would bring this fact to light.

You may still believe that you are an image of your own self-creation. If so, you will be split with your own spirit on this point, and there is no resolution for this dilemma except to give it up, because it is a belief in the one thing that is literally inconceivable in Truth. That is why no one who has adopted the alternative thought system can truly create, and at the same time are always afraid, because of the father fear fallacy described previously, when they make rather than create. The mind can make the belief in the separation very real and very fearful. And this belief is the true meaning of the “devil” or “Satan.” The belief itself is powerful, active, destructive, and clearly in opposition to the Divine because it literally denies Its Creatorship.

Never underestimate the power of this denial. Look at the world and observe clearly what belief in a power opposed to the Divine, encapsulated in the concept of the devil or Satan, has made. But also know that this making will surely dissolve in the Light of Truth because its foundation is false. Our creation by the Divine is the only foundation that cannot be shaken, because the Light is in it. Your original starting point, and now your new one, is Truth, and you must always return to this beginning like returning home. Much has been perceived since the alternative starting point of self-creation was adopted by minds, but nothing else has happened in that world. That is why your spirit is still in Peace even though your split mind may yet be in conflict. Whenever your mind and will are in conflict, it means you have not yet gone back far enough past this world to the true starting point. You may become fearful in this movement to your true starting point because as you approach the beginning you feel the fear of the destruction of your current thought system upon you, as if it were the fear of death.

There is in truth only Life and no death, but there is a belief in death. I once said that the tree that bears no fruit will be cut off and will wither away. Be glad! The Light will shine from the true Foundation of Life, and your own thought system will stand corrected. It cannot stand otherwise.

Those who fear awakening are desiring death. Life and death, Light and darkness, Knowledge and perception are irreconcilable. To believe that they can be reconciled is to believe that the Divine and Its Children cannot. Only the Oneness of Knowledge is without conflict. Our Home – the Realm of Heaven – is not of this world because It was given us from beyond this world. Only in this world of illusions does the idea of an authority problem appear meaningful. The world is not set free by death but by Truth, and Truth can and will be known by all those for whom the Realm was created, and for whom It waits.