Let's turn to that tiny, mad idea passage. And that's our famous sentence.
Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea,
at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh.
In his forgetting, in his forgetting to laugh,
did the thought become a serious idea,
and possible of both accomplishment and real effects.
When we took the tiny, mad idea seriously, which means we believed it happened,
we believed the tiny, mad idea, the thought of being separate from God,
actually happened. And then we labeled it as sinful.
That's a very serious word.
We sinned against God, we selfishly and self-centeredly stole His love,
stole His ability to create, usurped His place on the throne of creation,
established ourselves as God and made up our own world,
and basically told God, your love is not enough; therefore, who needs it.
And I'll make a love which will satisfy me, because your love will not.
Because your love does not recognize me.
There's that important passage early in the text
which actually specifically addresses this, where Jesus says,
you asked God for special favor.
And the special favor was that He notice us as an individual.
And when He did not grant it, and He could not grant it,
because you're not an individual. I mean perfect love is perfect love.
You don't have differentiation in Heaven.
and the Son begins as something separate from Him."
In fact, in Heaven you don't have Father and Son,
you don't have God and Christ; you don't have Creator and created.
Because it's all perfectly one.
but there's no second. And obviously, there's no third. There's only God.
for us to talk about Creator and created, cause and effect, Father and Son.
But in truth, Father and Son are one.
-- in other words, God notice us, He just responded with love,
And then the passage goes on, "And then we made of Him an unloving Father."
We felt so guilty over the sin of telling God to get lost, a very serious idea,
we then became terrified that He would punish us.
He would have to punish me. Look what I did to Him.
Well, the fact of the matter is, I did nothing to Him,
There's no subject/object in Heaven. So nothing happened.
"Not one note in Heaven's song was missed."
But that's totally unacceptable to us who like to be us, like to be separate.
So we made up a world, we made up a dream, we made up a thought system,
we made up a "reality", quote, unquote, in which we sinned against God
and now God's going to punish us. That's taking it seriously.
So we accuse ourselves of sin against God,
are overwhelmed with this self-hatred, this guilt for what we have done,
not only what we have done but who we have become.
Our whole identity now as a separated Son, as a separated child of God,
that whole identity now is infused with guilt,
so much so it's impossible to separate guilt out from our identity,
Well, if I'm separate, I sinned and if I sinned, I'm guilty
and I deserve to be punished for it.
and investing it now in me, leaving God for dead,
I believe God's punishment will be similar
-- an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.
That's why in many religious services, if you attend a funeral,
He took him or her back, which is a euphemism.
It's a way to deny the real thought that God is at it again.
He just punishes, He just kills; that's all He does.
The loving God knows nothing about this. But in our dream,
which begins here when we take it seriously, this is the reality,
and this now becomes the truth. And this is a truth to which we all have to adjust.
which is why in the gospels, if you read them, nowhere does it say Jesus ever laughed.
took this world very seriously, because the biblical world is very serious.
It's a place of sin, so much so that God had to send His own Son into the world
to redeem it from sin that's very real, that's very serious; therefore, Jesus doesn't laugh.
Because nothing here is to be laughed at within that context.
In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea,
and possible of both accomplishment. . .
Namely, the separation happened and real effects -- there's a world.
So once again, the problem was not the tiny, mad idea.
The problem was the way we interpreted the tiny, mad idea by taking it seriously.
is applying it in our everyday life. The problem is not the ego attacks that we have.
The problem is not the ego attacks that everyone else has.
The problem is the way we look at them, giving them a power they don't have.
When anyone acts out and expresses his or her version of the tiny, mad idea,
That doesn't mean don't respond behaviorally, because you're a body,
but don't respond inside. Don't respond with anything other than love.
And if it does take away your love and your peace,
It's the power you gave that person to take away your love and peace.
No matter what is done to your body or the body of your loved ones,
The love and the peace you felt before someone acted up
And it's exactly what you'll feel at the end when the behavior is over.
Indeed, one could say, not only as I said before and the Course says,
that you take Jesus as your model for learning,
Because what was God's response to the tiny, mad idea? Nothing.
Because love is silent, because it gives no response except Itself.
Yes, Oday.
Because you don't think you were around billions of years ago.
That's right. It didn't have anything to do with me.
K: So it's a way of letting yourself off the hook. Q: That's exactly right. That's the problem.
But I think once you said that the tiny, mad idea,
- this moment, right here, right now -- is the tiny, mad idea.
Right now I'm experiencing myself as being a separate individual in the world,
that means I am telling God to get lost right now.
Q: That's terrifying. It brings it right to now.
It is. But if you could really look at that and not judge yourself for it,
and it has no effect on God.
It will help a lot.
You know, in light of that, Bill asked that question.
And the answer that Jesus gave, which actually is in the text now, is
he said, why would you wonder why something happened long, long ago
And it not only answered the question in one sense,
but it also really is the same thing you're talking about,
that we're all choosing the separation right now.
There's that passage in "The Little Hindrance" section that says,
every day and every hour and every minute that each hour holds,
you are choosing, or re-experiencing the time when terror took the place of love,
And that's what we do all the time. And since time is illusory
- linear time is not real -- then what happened long, long ago,
seemed to have happened long ago, is happening right now
because it's all the same thing. So while it seems to be a source of great fear,
because you say, yes, this is what I've done. I could actually see myself doing it now,
but it has no effect except on me. And then you could smile.
I see it, I see it; fight it off.