We're still on the first step in forgiveness
which is reversing the projection which basically
as we saw by those paragraphs at the end of Chapter 27
entails recognizing that whatever it is that is upsetting us
is not coming from anything external but rather is coming
from the decision that we made.
I want to reinforce that by looking at another section with you
in the next chapter, Chapter 28, Section II
"Reversing Effect and Cause."
The specific context here is a theme which actually
is elaborated on quite a bit in this part of the text
is the whole idea again of the dreamer and the dream.
The point of course is that the dreamer is the mind,
more specifically the decision making part of our mind
that has chosen to believe the ego and believe
its thought system of separation and specialness.
And that decision identifying with that thought system
is what gives rise to the world.
The world then is the dream. And at the end of Chapter 27
Jesus makes the distinction between the world's dream
and the secret dream. The world's dream is the world
as we know it, what we call history,
what we call current events, what we call
our own personal lives. That is the world as we know it.
The secret dream is the dream...that myth that I told you earlier...
that the ego made up of sin guilt and fear.
That's the dream that tells me that I have sinned against God
and I know I have done that because I exist
and my ego has told me that I can only exist at God's expense.
And so everything that has ever happened since then
we just accept as given. We accept the world as it is.
It would seem to be the facts of the world
and therefore we accept as a given and as truth
everything that happens to us.
So what this first step does is help us
recognize again that whatever it is we are thinking
has been done to us is something that we have done to ourselves.
We are responsible for the loss of peace.
We are the dreamer of the dream.
And so that is now the theme that is going to be picked up again
in this section. So we will begin with paragraph 4.
Nothing at all has happened but that you have put yourself
to sleep, and dreamed a dream
in which you were an alien to yourself,
and but a part of someone else's dream.
So I am now an alien to what is really going on.
The decision making part of myself that is the cause of
this and I am now the innocent victim or the effect
of someone else's dream. And this is how our "life" begins.
We are the effect of our parents' dream,
the genetic makeup, environmental influences, etc., etc., etc.
And so when he says "nothing at all has happened"
he is really saying nothing has ever happened.
There is no world.
All that has happened is that we fell asleep
or believed that we fell asleep
and now are dreaming a dream
in which we have no responsibility for anything.
That's the world's dream which conceals and protects
the secret dream which is that I am the one
who is responsible. I am the one
who has separated from God. I am the one
who selfishly proclaimed myself God at His expense.
Now here is this very, very important line
which I referred to earlier.
The miracle does not awaken you, but merely shows
you who the dreamer is. It teaches you
there is a choice of dreams while you are still asleep,
depending on the purpose of your dreaming.
Since this is A Course in Miracles we could also say that
that the purpose of this Course is not to awaken us.
It is simply to show us who the dreamer is.
That is what Jesus means when he says earlier,
Knowledge is not the goal of this course. Peace is.
The distinction he is making is that knowledge
is the equivalent of Heaven and God.
Peace is what comes when we forgive.
It's still an illusion but it's the final illusion.
The goal of this Course is not to return us to Heaven.
That will automatically happen once we undo all the interference.
So the focus is on undoing the interference.
And so that is what the miracle does.
It doesn't change anything.
It doesn't awaken us from the dream.
But it shows us...number one, this is a dream
and that we are the dreamer.
And the "I" that is the dreamer
is once again not this self that I identify with.
It's the decision making part of my mind
that has chosen the secret dream to be reality
and then chosen the world's dream
to be the protection for the secret dream.
Again the miracle teaches you there is a choice of dreams
while you are still asleep, depending on the purpose of your dreaming.
Do you wish for dreams of healing, or for dreams of death?
A dream is like a memory [the earlier section
talked about memory]. A dream is like a memory
in that it pictures what you wanted shown to you.
Very, very important. He's talking about the decision maker.
That's the purpose. Does my decision maker
want to choose the ego or the Holy Spirit?
Now the ego tells me if I choose the ego
I am choosing life...which is true...
it's the ego's life. But I do not realize that that's really death.
So again I need a teacher who tells me the difference
between life and death. Just as Jesus tells us earlier,
much earlier in the text, that the Holy Spirit teaches us
to tell the difference between joy and pain,
between imprisonment and freedom
because we do not know the difference.
What we think of joy is really pain and vice versa.
I should mention, I did mention it earlier, that when we chose
the ego and we basically forgot about the Holy Spirit
who then disappeared into our mind,
we also silenced that voice.
So the only voice that we have ever listened to since
has been the ego. There are only two voices in our mind.
Within the split mind there are only two voices.
By walling off the Holy Spirit and for all intents
and purposes burying Him, we no longer hear that voice.
So the only voice we listen to is the ego's voice.
And since it is the only voice then in effect
it's the same thing as saying it's God's voice
because it is the only voice that we know,
that's the voice of truth, which the ego tells us is truth.
And so this secret dream now becomes something that is real.
Once again when one reads the Bible from the perspective
of the Course one sees that the secret dream of sin, guilt, and fear
transposed itself into the story of Adam and Eve.
And the ego's plan of the Atonement which is to make the sin real,
make the error real and then atone for it through suffering and sacrifice
is what then became the Christian view of the Atonement.
That's the Christian plan of salvation.
So that this secret dream, this myth that we all have bought into
and we know we bought into it because we all believe we are here
is what then as been expressed throughout history,
the Bible being only one version but certainly
in our Western world the most important version.
Because not only is it an expression, it's now given
the aura of truth, revealed truth,
that it is the truth, God's Truth.
So we have to be taught that the choice for the ego
is the choice for death and the choice for the Holy Spirit
is the choice for healing. In dreams of murder and attack
are you the victim in a dying body slain.
But in forgiving dreams
is no one asked to be the victim and the sufferer.
These are the two dreams he is talking about.
The ego's victimizing dreams
and then the Holy Spirit's happy dreams of forgiveness.
So we want to be the victim in a dying body.
Again why do you think a crucified Jesus
became the whole symbol and centerpiece of a religion?
The ego thrives on sacrifice, one or the other,
one wins and the other loses. That's why the third chapter
of the text begins with the section, "Atonement without Sacrifice."
Because the Christian view—actually the Jewish view too—
is that there is Atonement with sacrifice.
That's what God wants.
And again as I was saying earlier that's the Jesus that we love.
That's the God that we love. That's the scripture
that we love that reinforces our own thought system
of specialness and sacrifice and death.
So in forgiving dreams when we ask the Holy Spirit for help
He helps us realize that there is no winner or loser.
Everybody here is a loser.
But we all become winners when we realize
that we are all asking for the same help.
We are losers in that we all share the same insane thought system.
But we are all winners because we still carry
within us this right minded spark.
This memory of who we really are which tells us all this is a dream.
And the way out of the dream is not to do anything
with the dream but to awaken from the dream.
That's another way of understanding why he keeps saying
you don't have to do a great deal.
All you need is a little willingness. You don't have to do anything.
You don't have to move mountains.
You don't have to change things.
You don't have to heal anybody.
Just look through my eyes instead of yours.
That's all you have to do.