NOTE: Please make sure to listen first (or read) Part One of this excerpt here
Projection makes perception. Every single appearance of separation that we believe in – as pain, disease, conflict, guilt, unworthiness, lack and death – comes directly from our desire for it. We want it. We could not see any of it except for our desire for “reality” to mirror back to us what the ego is hungry to retrieve. Through the ego, we put the illusion there by secretly wanting it there. What we fear and refuse to forgive, we do attract. We always find exactly what we seek. And while it remains denied and unforgiven within, we will mistakenly believe that the body and world are being done to us and not by us.
All adversity together with all pleasure-seeking apart from God, are one and the same because they serve an identical purpose. And that is to establish that we are the illusory body and not the indestructible Child of God. That way instead of forgiving our projections, we project our guilt and fear so as we can amass it. We always find what we seek. When we think that we are projecting what we do not want (betrayal, illness, pain, conflict, loss, etc), it is still because the ego wants it.
“I said before that what you project or extend is up to you, but you must do one or the other, for that is a law of mind, and you must look in before you look out. As you look in, you choose the guide for seeing. And then you look out and behold his witnesses. This is why you find what you seek. What you want in yourself you will make manifest, and you will accept it from the world because you put it there by wanting it. When you think you are projecting what you do not want, it is still because you [do] want it. This leads directly to dissociation, for it represents the acceptance of two goals, each perceived in a different place; separated from each other because you made them different. The mind then sees a divided world outside itself, but not within. This gives it an illusion of integrity, and enables it to believe that it is pursuing one goal. Yet as long as you perceive the world as split, you are not healed. For to be healed is to pursue one goal, because you have accepted only one and want but one.” T-12.VII.7.
Unmasking the Ego’s Operating System
We see and then react to the effects of fear (pain, illness, conflict, etc) only because we desire them. Without this unconscious desire, we would see clear past all appearances of pain and join exclusively with God’s Truth, the miracle, behind it. In order to be able to believe in and then see any adversity here in the dream, we must first:
- Have faith in it – sin, guilt and fear
- Desire it – by wanting to keep the guilt that always hides beneath fear
- Value it – by projecting guilt and blame we hoard it for our self, wanting to see it in others, the body and the world instead of in our mind where we can forgive it
- Defend it – by not forgiving our self for its painful projections
“When you are afraid of anything, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you. Remember that where your heart is, there is your treasure also. You believe in what you value. If you are afraid, you are valuing wrongly.” T-2.II.1:1-7
“Do not seek vision through your eyes, for you made your way of seeing that you might see in darkness, and in this you are deceived. Beyond this darkness, and yet still within you, is the vision of Christ, Who looks on all in light. Your “vision” comes from fear, as His from love. And He sees for you, as your witness to the real world. He is the Holy Spirit’s manifestation, looking always on the real world, and calling forth its witnesses and drawing them to you.” T-13.V.9:1-5
Neutralizing the Ego’s Hardwire for Pain
We always look inward first to what we secretly desire before we can possibly experience it as projected manifestations in the body, onto others or the world. When we react to conflict or pain it’s because the false-self wants to keep the guilt so it can prove it is separate from God and our brothers. Thankfully, through forgiveness and the Holy Instant we can completely reverse this. The following four steps represent the reversal of our unconscious desire for pain. When we decide with Holy Spirit to want to see only the Love that is in us and all around us, this is what we do:
- Have faith in it – sinlessness, guiltlessness and Love
- Desire it – by wanting to keep our incorruptible innocence which always shines behind all appearances of conflict and pain. The only way we can keep this innocence (immunity to attack) is to give it away to others; to see it in others
- Value it – by forgiving all appearances of conflict and pain. By being grateful for our forgiveness opportunities
- Defend it – by declaring that only Love and innocence are real regardless of the ego’s appearances to the contrary
“My holiness (innocence) envelops everything I see. From my holiness (innocence) does the perception of the real world come. Having forgiven, I no longer see myself as guilty. I can accept the innocence that is the truth about me. Seen through understanding eyes, the holiness of the world is all I see, for I can picture only the thoughts I hold about myself.” W-58.1.(36)
Neutralizing the ego’s hardwire to seek out pain demands that we heal the split-mind by pursuing just one goal for every encounter we have. Through applying forgiveness to each and every trigger, we consistently undo the ego’s lust for separation. In our wholehearted devotion to this we lift the ego’s veil of terror to reveal incontestable evidence of our fathomless innocence and the Love that dwells within it.
Sickness, pain, conflict, scarcity, war, loss and physical death make up the illusory “gap” of separation. They are not real. They arise from the split mind’s faith and desire for them to prove we are separate from God and our brothers. Our desire to be separate bodies with private minds was to prove that fear and its consequences have overthrown God’s Love.
The morning that I began to write this particular essay, I heard what appeared to be a kind of prayer. I would say it’s more like a helpful reminder especially when we’re tempted to fall into fear when tempted by pain or sickness in another or our self:
“Your pain is my wish to see sin and the proof of punishment that sin demands. If I believe that you or I are suffering, I am seeing both of us as separate bodies and not as the invulnerable Holy Self. This self-chosen perception is the ego’s desire for guilt and punishment. To the degree I am unwilling to forgive my false perceptions; you stand condemned along with me. In my desire to see and accept only our mutual sinlessness instead of bodies, you are healed along with me.”
The Holy Relationship is the mutual agreement to join in one truly common purpose where two or more people recognize that their genuine needs are not separate. They see each others needs as their own. When two people commit to grow together in trust, they agree to adopt these last four steps into all their relating.
Astounding healing takes place when two or more join to align and relate through these four steps using The Seven Key Principles of Holy Relationship, here: https://nouksanchez.com/nouks-blog/the-seven-powerful-keys-to-holy-relationships/
The reason for this high level of healing is because two people have agreed to look upon the separation’s idols in the ego’s “gap” and to renounce their reality together. They both agree to de-witness or un-see separation by accepting the Atonement for themselves. This is how they collapse the gap of suffering. Note: Refer to The Gap Diagram on page?
“For no one alone can judge the ego truly. Yet when two or more join together in searching for truth, the ego can no longer defend its lack of content. The fact of union tells them it is not true.” T-14.X.9:5-7
The Past and Fear are Not Here Now
Did you know that both fear and the past are both illusions? Do you recognize that the false-self – the body concept – is the singular source of fear and of the past?
The false-self concept is the past. The past and the false-self concept are one. The illusory “past” is used exclusively by the ego to elicit fear. It believes you sinned so it wants you to carry that past fear with its anticipation of future punishment, and superimpose it over every new unfolding moment. This is why we never see people as they really are now. We see them through the ego’s darkened past.
If we stopped mentally dragging our past with us to mask and escape our Holiness, our universal innocence in the present moment, we could never experience fear. All fear is past. When we are fearful we are not here now where the miracle always awaits our welcome. Fear cannot survive in the Holy Instant.
Nothing in the past is now. All fear is past because its source as the illusion of sin, is gone. It was gone in the instant we dreamed it up. But to accept and receive this miracle, we must be willing to show-up here and now without the defense of fear.
Only You as the Holy Self who looks upon your Self, your brothers, sisters, and the world in the glorious light of innocence and peace, is here now, eternally. Nothing else exists. The miracle is an ever-present gift available to us when we catch our mind in fear or the past.
“All fear is past and only love is here. All fear is past, because its source is gone, and all its thoughts gone with it. Love remains the only present state, whose Source is here forever and forever. Can the world seem bright and clear and safe and welcoming, with all my past mistakes oppressing it, and showing me distorted forms of fear? Yet in the present love is obvious, and its effects apparent. All the world shines in reflection of its holy light, and I perceive a world forgiven at last.” W-293.1.
When we fear in any situation it’s always because we are looking through a darkened veil of the ego’s past which it casts over the future to obliterate the brilliant joy of the ever-present Holy Instant. The ego’s past is used only to block present peace so it can perpetuate guilt and fear into the future. When we enter the Holy Instant the ego’s past is neutralized in awareness. Because its past is rendered powerless to be projected into the future – time and suffering collapse. This is the power of the Holy Instant.
The reason we don’t see the awe-inspiring beauty and innocence of the immediate Real World is because in choosing to trust the ego, the past and the body’s five senses, we want suffering. Fear then is our friend. It’s so familiar! And forgiveness as Love, is an outright threat. We hate that terrible sense of self-loathing; and the continuing confusion of self-doubt. But we still want to keep judging our self, others and the world independently from Holy Spirit. To lose our privilege to judge and condemn would mean to renounce our independent “self” along with its will to suffer.
“All seeing starts with the perceiver, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false (Real World) he does not see. You who would judge reality cannot see it, for whenever judgment enters reality has slipped away.” T-13.VII.5:3-5
If you seem to be contending with disease, scarcity, relationship conflict or death then it would be enormously helpful to find where you still store grievances from the past, and to forgive them wholeheartedly. Is there anyone past or present who offered you this massive “gift,” disguised as a chance to forgive, whom you do not have gratitude for in this now moment? If so, then this is a sign that you still want the past and fear, together with the certain guilt (pain) they bring.
“The Holy Spirit would undo all of this [now.] Fear is not of the present, but only of the past and future, which do not exist. There is no fear in the present when each instant stands clear and separated from the past, without its shadow reaching out into the future. Each instant is a clean, untarnished birth, in which the Son of God emerges from the past into the present. And the present extends forever. It is so beautiful and so clean and free of guilt that nothing but happiness is there. No darkness is remembered, and immortality and joy are now.” … “Take this very instant, now, and think of it as all there is of time. Nothing can reach you here out of the past, and it is here that you are completely absolved, completely free and wholly without condemnation. From this holy instant wherein holiness was born again you will go forth in time without fear, and with no sense of change with time.” T-15.I.8:1-7,8:5-7
Audio version
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When we hit the wall. Which I have done…it’s absolutely terrifying. I have been like this since December last year and I am frantically searching for the answers. How long does it take to get out of. My entire health system is falling down. Death is seen now as a blessing. I honestly feel like I have gone insane. Anything you can suggest. I am literally stonewalling in every sense of the word. I am watching right now your YouTube L 79 and L 80. Thank you always and forever. Much love and light to you into eternity.