Tuesday Text: Chapter 3: Sane Perception, Section 11: The Unshakable Foundation

          We must voluntarily get rid of the authority problem. This is critical for your sanity, you are insane on this point. This is a fact and not a judgement. It is as much of a fact as God is, is a fact. A fact is a starting point, if you did not realize that your creation is of God, all of your thinking is upside down. You did not create yourself and another SOG (Son of God) can not create your reality. 

          Thought systems begin with starting points. It begins with making or creating. Both are acts of will. Making is doing. Creating is active willing to create along the lines of your creator. Making and creating are the same because they have the same power at their foundations. They are different in what lays on that same foundation. Both are the fundamental basis of belief that you live your life by. It is a mistake to believe that a thought system (making) which is based on lies is weak. Nothing made by a child of God lacks power. You have to realize this, because otherwise you will not understand why you have so much trouble with this Course. You need this Course to escape the prison away from Heaven that you have made for yourself. We have depriciated the importance of thought. You can’t solve the authority problem by not validating the power of your mind. The power of your will can hurt you if you misuse it, because you know its strength and you also know that you can not weaken it, any more than you can weaken God. 

         
          The Devil is scary because he is thought of as very powerful and active. He is perceived as a force doing battle with God, for the possession of souls. He devices by lies and builds kingdoms of his own where everything is the opposite of God. Despite this, he attracts rather than repels us. Sons of God are perceived as willing to sell their souls in return for gifts they know are of no real worth. This makes no sense. This is a picture of a man who acts in a way that he knows is self destructive but he doesn’t want to fix the problem. So he sees the cause as beyond his control. 

           We have discussed the fall or the separation before. Understand that this is not symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought which is real in time but not eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer. See Genesis 2:16, the fruit of only one tree was forbidden in the symbolic garden. But God could not have forbidden it, or it could not have been eaten. God knows his kids, he would not have put them in a position where their own destruction was possible. The tree which was forbidden was correctly named the tree of knowledge. But God created knowledge and gave it freely to his creations. The symbolism here is open to many interpretations but any interpretation which perceives either God or His creations as if they were capable of destroying their own purpose is wrong. The authority problem, God is the author.  Eating the tree of knowledge is a symbol of taking into ourselves the ability of self creation. This is the only sense in which God and his Son are not cocreators. 

          The belief that they are cocreators is implied in the self concept, I can create myself is made acceptable by its weakness and explained by the tendency of the self to make an image of itself (make itself into something- reinvent self). The fear aspect is blamed on a Father Figure- nobody means the physical Father by this term. It refers to an image of a Father in relation to an image of the self. Fear of God is because of fear of a projected Father figure.

          Images are perceived not known. Knowledge can’t deceive but perception can (perception vs. knowledge). You can perceive yourself as self creating, but you can not do more than believe it. You can’t make it true. You are as God created you. When you can finally see this correctly you’ll be glad that you can’t make yourself over. Until then the belief that you can is the foundation of the ego’s thought system. You use all of your defenses to attack ideas which would bring it to light. You believe in what you’ve created. You still believe that you are an image of your own creation. You are split from your own spirit on this point and there is no resolution because you believe the one thing which is actually inconceivable. You did not and you can not create yourself. That is why you can not create and are afraid to make or produce. Eventually we all create along the lines of our creator and then we are happy. 

           You are a powerful Son of God capable of creating along the lines of your creator. Do not underestimate the power of your mind. The mind (yours) that made the belief in the separation very real and very fearful. This is the belief in the Devil. It is powerful, active, destructive and clearly in opposition to God, because it literally denies his Fatherhood, that He created you. Never underestimate the power of this denial. Look at your life and see what the Devil has made. What have you made by trying to create yourself? This will dissolve in light of the truth because the foundation is a lie. Your creation by God can’t be shaken because light is in it, that chip off the old block. Your starting point is truth, I am holy, sinless, innocent, and you return to the beginning, Heaven. Much has been perceived since then (the separation) but nothing else has happened. The separation is ultimately illusionary. Your spirit is in peace even though your mind is in conflict.

          You haven’t yet gone back far enough, that is why you are afraid. Of the uprooting. As you approach the beginning, you are afraid of the destruction of your thought system and it’s like the fear of death. There is no death, but there is belief in death. You have made it real by your belief. This allows yourself to become undone. You start to undo or unwrap the self that you have made. Read Matthew 7:16, John 15:5-9. The ego will wither away. Be glad. The light will shine from the true foundation and what you have made of your own thought systems will be corrected. You can’t make yourself. Be happy. It can’t be any other way. 

          If you are afraid of being saved you are willing to die. Life/death, light/dark, knowledge, perception: these things are irreconcilable. The oneness of knowledge is conflict free. Your kingdom is not of this world. Only in this world is an authority problem meaningful. The world is not left by death, but by truth. Truth can be known by everyone and Heaven awaits all in the end.