The Passing of the Dream

THE SUBSTITUTE REALITY

To substitute is to accept instead. If you would but consider exactly what this entails, you would perceive at once how much at variance this is with the goal the Holy Spirit has given you and would accomplish for you. To substitute is to choose between, renouncing one in favor of the other. For this special purpose, one is judged more valuable and the other is replaced by him. The relationship in which the substitution occurred is thus fragmented and its purpose split accordingly. To fragment is to exclude, and substitution is the strongest defense the ego has for separation.

The Holy Spirit never uses substitutes. Where the ego perceives one person as a replacement for another, the Holy Spirit sees them joined and indivisible. He does not judge between them, knowing they are one. Being united, they are one because they are the same. Substitution is clearly a process in which they are perceived as different. One would unite; the other separate. Nothing can come between what God has joined and what the Holy Spirit sees as one. But everything seems to come between the fragmented relationships the ego sponsors to destroy.

The one emotion in which substitution is impossible is love. Fear involves substitution by definition, for it is love’s replacement. Fear is both a fragmented and a fragmenting emotion. It seems to take many forms, and each seems to requires a different form of acting out for satisfaction. While this appears to introduce quite variable behavior, a far more serious effect lies in the fragmented perception from which the behavior stems. No one is seen complete. The body is emphasized, with special emphasis on certain parts, and used as the standard for comparison for either acceptance or rejection of suitability for acting out a special form of fear.

You who believe that God is fear made but one substitution. It has taken many forms because it was the substitution of illusion for truth, of fragmentation for wholeness. It has become so splintered and subdivided and divided again, over and over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was one and still is what it was. That one error, which brought truth to illusion, infinity to time, and life to death, was all you ever made. Your whole world rests upon it. Everything you see reflects it, and every special relationship which you have ever made is part of it.

You have expressed surprise at hearing how very different is reality from what you see. You do not realize the magnitude of that one error. It was so vast and so completely incredible that from it a world of total unreality had to emerge. What else could come of it? Its fragmented aspects are fearful enough, as you begin to look at them. But nothing you have seen begins to show you the enormity of the original error, which seemed to cast you out of Heaven, to shatter knowledge into meaningless bits of disunited perceptions, and to force you to further substitutions.

That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it and became the screen on which it was projected and drawn between you and the truth. For truth extends inward, where the idea of loss is meaningless and only increase is conceivable. Do you really think it strange that a world in which everything is backwards and upside-down arose from this? [It was inevitable]. For truth brought to this could only remain within in quiet and take no part in all the mad projection by which this world was made. Call it not sin but madness, for such it was, and so it still remains. Invest it not with guilt, for guilt implies it was accomplished in reality. And above all, be not afraid of it. When you seem to see some twisted form of the original error rise to frighten you, say only, “God is not fear, but love,” and it will disappear.

The truth will save you. It has not left you to go out into the mad world and so depart from you. Inward is sanity, insanity is outside you. You but believe it is the other way; that truth is outside and error and guilt within. Your little senseless substitutions, touched with insanity and swirling lightly off on a mad course like feathers dancing insanely in the wind, have no substance. They fuse and merge and separate in shifting and totally meaningless patterns which need not be judged at all. To judge them individually is pointless. Their tiny differences in form are no real differences at all. None of them matters. That they have in common and nothing else. Yet what else is necessary to make them all the same?

Let them all go, dancing in the wind, dipping and turning till they disappear from sight, far, far outside you. And turn you to the stately calm within, where in holy stillness dwells the living God you never left and Who never left you. The Holy Spirit takes you gently by the hand and retraces with you your mad journey outside yourself, leading you gently back to the truth and safety within. He brings all your insane projections and your wild substitutions which you have placed outside you to the truth. Thus He reverses the course of insanity and restores you to reason.

- A Course in Miracles (Chapter 18, I. The Substitute Reality)

Am I Always Right?

The mind is constantly righteous as in, in the mode of self-righteousness. Every thought it takes on is always right, at least when wisdom is not available, or to be exact, when delusion is in default. No matter whether it is right or wrong from the perspective of comparison or judgment, the mind is constantly right.

Take for instance, the statement “why am I so stupid” – at that moment when this thought comes into existence, we believe entirely in it, else we wouldn’t have that thought in the first place. We rightfully believe we are stupid, from what we perceive of something done “wrong” – a judgment that can only arise when it is done, not during the doing itself. It is just an idea but yet that idea is right and true to us.

There is no one idea in our system that we see as wrongful even if we see it as wrong upon ourselves. For example, if I think “I shouldn’t have done that in the first place” – a wrongness we make upon ourselves – we see that as a rightful thought to have. We beat ourselves up simply because we think it is right to judge ourselves. Get what I mean? Whether it is right or wrong we are constantly making it right in our space. We seldom see both right and wrong as entirely wrong, as in wisdom seeing incorrectness in perception.

When wisdom is unavailable, ideas that pop-up are constantly righteous, until wisdom interrupts. Just awhile ago I was having a conversation with my beloved friend who mentioned that she felt guilty for a perception she was having over a thought and out of the sudden in that presiding moment, she realized it was just a thought and that freed her from her guilt. Without wisdom she would have felt terrible for what she was thinking as she entirely bought into what she was experiencing – it was real and true to her – and hence she was righteous about it and made herself guilty. But with wisdom kicking in, the guilt simply diminished – guilt detached from her instead of her trying to detach from it. To be more accurate, attachment to the thought arises simply because of wrong perception and detachment arises because of right perception. Both attachment and detachment are simply effects of ignorance and wisdom.

If we are not aware that the mind is constantly making every idea right, we will constantly see the world as wrong. For right and wrong have to come together as opposites that are inseparable. That’s how pride comes into existence, be it inferiority, superiority or equality. When you buy into my idea, we are both equal. When my idea is right in my perception as compared to yours, I am superior. And when my idea is wrong, which I entirely believe as right, I will feel inferior. That is how silly the mind game is. Only by seeing its meaninglessness, frivolous and trappings are we able to come into freedom from its bondage. Before that we will be playing the delusional game of being right all the time.

A Lover of Experience, I am

A Lover of Experience
I am
though it is not what I want to be
but given the moment
what choice do I have?

“I love you”
is my feeling of love
of thought directed to you
of idea I perceived you as love
these never left, me
except as my own experience.
Do I really love you
or simply loving my own experience?

“I hate you”
is my feeling of anger
of thought directed to you
of idea that I perceived you as wrong
these too, never left me
except as my own experience.
Do I have a choice
of not loving it?

I choose not to be angry
simply because I think anger is wrong
and not wish to be angry
but do I not see that I am simply
talking to myself
experiencing every meaning
of each moment
arising within
and again, do I have a choice
of not loving it?

Hate as I could
Judging as I am free to have
Jealousy creeps in me
Grief too I will encounter
And happiness,
love, joy and whatever.

Everything,
YES everything
is here for me
Can I choose not to experience?
and make anyone
responsible for it,
save for myself?

Insane, insane
is all I could say
for I am always
here,
ALWAYS
for me
not once have I left ME.

Can I not, not love my experience?
Do I have a choice?