We all learned in high school this principle of classical physics that nature abhors a
vacuum. Well, it's not only nature that abhors a vacuum, it's the ego that abhors a vacuum
and that will be the subject of our talk this morning. The whole point of the Course, as
I've said in many other places, is that we're asked to deny the denial of truth. We're asked
to look at the ego thought system which is the denial of truth and deny not only its
importance to us but deny that it has any power or meaning. And when we do, that's when
the ego disappears. The whole purpose of the ego's thought system is to create a monster
of a distraction. The whole purpose of the ego is to tell us that it's the reality. And
by believing in the ego as its reality, since the ego was always based on the idea of one
or the other, that when we choose the ego we are saying the Holy Spirit and His thought
system of Atonement and forgiveness no longer exist. And for all intents and purposes, when
we make the ego thought system our identity and our reality, the Holy Spirit virtually
no longer exists. His memory and His presence is buried in our minds and the ego has taken
its place. There's that beautiful, beautiful section in the text called "Where Sin Has
Left" and where sin has left arises love. Where sin has left arises the perception of
the real world. Where sin has left arises truth. That's the vacuum that the ego abhors.
When we let go of the ego, there's a vacuum that is established in our minds and that
vacuum is the welcoming of Love's presence. We are told near the end of the workbook that
we are asked, our only concern is to give welcome to the truth and giving welcome to
the truth is bidding the ego its unwelcome, saying to the ego you are no longer a guest
in my home. You are no longer someone whose opinion I value. You are no longer someone
whose identity I now want to share. You are no longer the teacher whose counsel I want
to follow. And by discharging the ego, by denying the denial of truth and saying your
lies are no longer what I believe in, that's what gives welcome to the truth. And we're
also told in the Course that love waits on welcome, not on time. And so what it means
to give welcome to the truth, what it means to establish the place where sin has left
is to be looking at the ego and saying this is not what I want to fill my mind up with
anymore. I want to create a vacuum and the positive sense of the word is that I want
to banish the ego from my kingdom by very gently and softly saying, once again, I no
longer believe in you. And when we do that, then sin has left and when we no longer choose
the wrong mind to identify with what remains is the right mind. This is the right-minded
version of one or the other, the wrong-minded version being I choose the ego and the Holy
Spirit is sacrificed. I choose the ego and God and His Heaven are sacrificed. But the
right-minded use of this principle is that when I choose the Holy Spirit as my teacher,
then the ego is not sacrificed, it just ceases, as the Course says, it ceases to seem to be.
It just disappears back into its own nothingness. So we all want to live with the idea that
my goal is to establish a place in my mind where sin has left. What the ego has done
is establish a place in my mind where love has left and it established itself as the
teacher of love which, of course, is special love. But this is the distraction, this is
the filler, this is what clutters up our minds so that we can't think clearly and we can't
remember the Love of God. So what Jesus is asking us to do in the Course is establish
a place in our mind not where love has left, which means we've chosen against it, but to
establish a place where sin has left, meaning we have chosen against it. And in that vacuum
where sin has left arises the love and the beauty and the glory of what it means to be,
number one, in our right minds and ultimately in the real world. And from the real world
in which the Course tells us we remain but an instant, God reaches down and lifts us
back unto Himself. At that point, everything is gone: the wrong mind, the right mind which
was the correction, the decision maker that no longer has anything to choose between,
and all that remains is the Love of God which is the love of our true Self.