Section VII. Creation and Communication
- It is clear that while the content of any particular ego-illusion does not matter, its correction is more helpful in a specific context. Ego-illusions are quite specific, although the mind is naturally abstract. Part of the mind becomes concrete, however, when it splits. The concrete part believes in the ego because the ego depends on the concrete. The ego is the part of the mind that believes your existence is defined by separation.
- Everything the ego perceives is a separate whole, without the relationships that imply being. The ego is thus against communication, except insofar as it is utilized to establish separateness rather than to abolish it. The communication system of the ego is based on its own thought system, as is everything else it dictates. Its communication is controlled by its need to protect itself, and it will disrupt communication when it experiences threat. This disruption is a reaction to a specific person or persons. The specificity of the ego’s thinking, then, results in spurious generalization which is really not abstract at all. It merely responds in certain specific ways to everything it perceives as related.
- In contrast, spirit reacts in the same way to everything it knows is true and does not respond at all to anything else. Nor does it make any attempt to establish what is true. It knows that what is true is everything that God created. It is in complete and direct communication with every aspect of creation because it is in complete and direct communication with its Creator. This communication is the Will of God. Creation and communication are synonymous. God created every mind by communicating His Mind to it, thus establishing it forever as a channel for the reception of his Mind and Will. Since only beings of a like order can truly communicate, His creations naturally communicate with Him and like Him. This communication is perfectly abstract, since its quality is universal in application and not subject to any judgment, any exception, or any alteration. God created you by this and for this. The mind can distort its function, but it cannot endow itself with functions it was not given. That is why the mind cannot totally lose the ability to communicate, even though it may refuse to utilize it on behalf of being.
- Existence as well as being rests on communication. Existence, however, is specific in how, what, and with whom communication is judged to be worth undertaking. Being is completely without these distinctions. It is a state in which the mind is in communication with everything that is real. To whatever extent you permit this state to be curtailed you are limiting your sense of your own reality, which becomes total only by recognizing all reality in the glorious context of its real relationship to you. This is your reality. Do not desecrate it or recoil from it. It is your real home, your real temple, and your real Self.
- God, Who encompasses all being, created beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy. Nothing real can be increased except by sharing. That is why God created you. Divine Abstraction takes joy in sharing. That is what creation means. “how,” “what,” and “to whom,” are irrelevant, because real creation gives everything, since it can create only like itself. Remember that in the Kingdom there is no difference between having and being like there is in existence. In the state of being the mind gives everything always.
- The Bible repeatedly states that you should praise God. This hardly means that you should tell Him how wonderful He is. He has no ego with which to accept such praise, and no perception with which to judge it. But unless you take your part in the creation, His joy is not complete because yours is incomplete. And this He does know. He knows it in His Own Being and its experience of His Son’s experience. The constant going out of His Love is blocked when His channels are closed, and He is lonely when the minds He created do not communicate fully with Him.
- God has kept His kingdom for you, but He cannot share His joy with you until you know it with your whole mind. Revelation is not enough, because it is only communication from God. God does not need revelation returned to him, which would clearly be impossible, but He does want it brought to others. This can not be done with the actual revelation; its content cannot be expressed, because it is intensely personal to the mind that receives it. It can, however, be returned by that mind to other minds, through the attitudes the knowledge from the revelation brings.
- God is praised whenever any mind learns to be wholly helpful. This is impossible without being wholly harmless, because the two beliefs must coexist. The truly helpful are invulnerable, because they are not protecting their egos and so nothing can hurt them. Their helpfulness is their praise of God, and He will return their praise of Him because they are like Him, and they can rejoice together. God goes out to them and through them, and there is great joy throughout the Kingdom. Every mind that is changed adds to this joy with its individual willingness to share in it. The truly helpful are God’s miracle workers, whom I direct until we are all united in the joy of the Kingdom. I will direct you to wherever you can be truly helpful, and to whoever can follow my guidance through you.[1]
In today’s text reading, Jesus explains to us that the mind of our True Self is abstract. It does not get caught up in particulars. It is the splintered part of our mind that believes in separation, that depends upon the concrete, that can not know anything because it only sees in fragmented, separated, isolated incidents.
Instead of seeing the whole, the ego sees each fragment as a whole in and of itself. The ego’s worst nightmare is truthful communication, which in the context of God is the only communication there is. The ego’s way of communicating is through control, through its need to protect itself from the truth, through thoughts based upon fear, survival, and spinning the illusion of its worth. Every time the ego experiences a threat, it shuts down communication. This shut-down of communication is in reaction to a specific person or group of people. We see it all the time in our personal life and in the larger context of society and world. As soon as love and harmony is established, the ego comes in to distort, deform, and defame all that would uphold truth. It becomes us-against-them. They are the bad guys; we are the good guys. I am right; she is wrong. Women are angels; men are brutes. Jesus calls these spurious generalizations which is ego’s way of responding to everything as it has related to specific people or groups.
This is something we must be aware of in any given situation – there are no right and wrong issues in the world – everything in the ego domain, in the concrete world, is wrong because it is not truth. The ego loves to entrap us with religious debates, political battles, family squabbles, and office disputes – because taking sides relegates us to ego-serfdom, shutting down communication from God to our Being.
Instead of relating to Creation as one united whole, ego perceives each separate piece as a whole. The ego is afraid of true communication because true communication puts all the pieces together again, tells the whole story, emphasizes our unity, and makes our different gifts a cause for sharing, celebrating, and appreciating. The ego “communicates” only in a way that protects itself. It shuts down the moment it feels the least bit threatened by a specific person or a group of people. Communicating to the ego is a form of an attack or a defense against the truth. It begins to make spurious, sweeping statements. People with a certain color of skin have all the beauty, the money, and the advantages of the world and they are keeping it away from us, who deserve it. People who drive Tesla’s are snobs. People who do not graduate from high school are losers. People with red hair have hot tempers. People from that particular country are more lustful. People who vote Democrat are of the devil. We can determine which part of the mind is thinking for us when we watch our thoughts and notice how we are responding to the people and the circumstances around us, making bogus assumptions that do not reflect love, but rather fear and an us-against-them mentality.
Our higher mind which is the home of the Holy Spirit, our true and holy Self is a true creator and a true communicator. Because it does not have to prove Itself or protect Itself, It only communicates the Will of God. Creation and communication are synonymous Jesus tells us. As God’s Creation we communicate with God and like God. True communication with God does not rest upon words, symbols, or language – it is abstract, it is unknowable to the ego. Communication with God is so far beyond the ego’s capability to understand, it cannot be judged, mistaken, overlooked, or distorted. Jesus tells us very clearly that God created you and He created me through communication and for communication, for companionship, for fellowship, joy, and sharing of Himself.
While we can certainly use communication in the wrong way, we can never lose our ability to communicate with God for we have a channel within us that goes straight to our Creator. No matter how long we refuse to use it on behalf of Being rather than mere existence, it is always there and will never depart from us. This is our eternal security, our eternal promise, our eternal hope. Never must we use communication against Creation by threatening, fighting, or sending people to hell for what we do against Creation is reflected back upon us until we change our tune.
In paragraph four Jesus makes a distinction between existing and being. Existence is related to the ego – existence uses communication for specific purposes. There is always a sense of who, what, and how much a separate part of creation is worth communicating with. If a relationship is deemed to have little value, we do not return their phone calls, we do not respond to their emails, we limit communication. Conversely, if a person is in a position to offer us a better job, a higher status, or just more of a good time, we will welcome communication and do our best to keep the lines open for their calls. We all do this to one extent or the other. In this separated state we cannot be everybody’s friend. We have to make tough choices about with whom we are going to spend our limited amount of free time. We can genuinely like somebody but realize we simply have too many obligations than to follow through with a friendship. This is part of being human, of being separate from the whole, of living with and in the ego realm.
However, our true Being, as Jesus refers to Spirit, has no distinctions or limitations in this arena. In Being, mind is in constant communication with everything that is real. Nobody gets their feelings hurt because there is nothing concrete in which to stop the flow of love, of truth, of communication. You can see into my heart and I can see into yours. We communicate a flow of love and goodwill to one another in the joy of oneness, unity, and completeness. As hard as this may be for us to imagine, to accept, to embrace as our reality, Jesus tells us that this is who and what we are – we are Being, we are connected, and we are communicating at all times with the whole of Creation. We are not to recoil from this idea, brothers, for this is who and what we really are. We are not to desecrate this by mocking it, by disbelieving it, by rebuking it. This is our one reality – we are in relationship with Everything real in the Spirit. This is the Kingdom of God which we have blocked from our awareness because we chose to be a kingdom unto ourselves.
God created us out of a divine sense of joy and wanting to share in it. That which is not love, peace, and joy cannot Be, it cannot last, it can only exist in a temporary time span and its only real purpose is as a teaching and learning device. In Being, there is simply no difference in having and being like there is in existence. In Being, I do not just have a mansion over the hilltop; I am the mansion over the hilltop. I do not just have a means of transportation; I am the means of transportation. I am spirit and what I have, I am. There is no reason to hoard anything or call it ours because, in Being, we have everything we could possibly want or need at all times. If this is difficult for you to fathom, meditate upon the idea and ask the Lord to give your mind a personal illustration of the difference between Being in Spirit, and existence in the flesh. Have fun with this concept and do not allow your ego to make you afraid of it. We are to see our human existence for what it is and stop denying ourselves the freedom and liberty of the spirit, which will never force itself upon our awareness, intercept our freedom to choose, or give us false perceptions of fear, poverty, and hatred toward ourselves, each other, and God.
Throughout the bible, we are commanded to praise God. In my love and appreciation for God, I have never found any good reason to keep telling God how wonderful He is. He does not have an ego. Who could love and respect a deity which always demanded worship and praise and throws temper tantrums without it? As much as egos adore being flattered and praised and made much over, it is only natural that the humans who were inspired to write about God would give Him egotistical characteristics. However, Jesus is asking us to open our minds and to address this with honesty and truth. We are to correct this mistake and not keep teaching the mistakes of the past, for when we do this, we just keep repeating history instead of moving closer to our goal.
God’s Will is our joy. His joy is complete when our joy is complete. I am always drawn back to the story of the Prodigal Son. The Father did not deny His Son the freedom to leave the Kingdom, but His joy was not complete until His Son returned. As long as the voice of the ego blocks His Love and devotion from our awareness, God longs for our return to full communication with Him. We can praise God all we want, but we honor God best by bringing our egos home to Him, laying them down, and letting them go in the light of His Love, His Joy, His Peace.
God’s Kingdom of joy cannot be known with the ego, only with the mind of Christ. We can receive revelations, visions, and messages from the Kingdom, but these are particular to each of us who receive them. The visitations and messages that God bestows upon me do not help you the way that they help me, but I can share the faith and the truth that they instill in my mind with you if you are ready to receive it. We get over our fear, our shyness, our reluctance to share the voice for God in our lives when we communicate our bumpy, imperfect processes, our revelations, our visions, and encourage others to walk in paths of courage and truth.
We teach God’s Kingdom when we can love ourselves and others, refuse to judge or get our feelings hurt whether others embrace what we have to share or deny it and cast out our names as evil. Being only recognizes truth; it has no time, interest, or faith in that which rests upon lies, deceit, and nothingness. Practice Being. This is not magic. It is a journey. It requires getting rid of the stuff that weighs us down and keeps us trudging in tradition rather than committing to devotional habits which gives us right minds, which welcomes Being, which frees us from the past, and leads us to communion with God.
We honor God, we praise God when our mind learns to be wholly helpful and wholly harmless – two beliefs which must walk hand-in-hand. We can only be truly helpful when our egos are not tagging along in our walks with God! We do not have to be spiritual know-it-alls. We have nothing to prove to anyone. People may not believe exactly the same way we do; they may not believe at all. Jesus assures us that belief is a function of the ego. It means nothing. All come to Christ in the end, and so we can relax in our efforts to shove our religious doctrines down the throats of others. We can simply be whom God has called us to be during our sojourn in time. When our minds are changed, we naturally and with no real effort on our own part change the minds of others. While we all make mistakes, go on rants against ideals and practices which have hurt us, choose sides, stick our noses where they do not belong, and get overly preachy, if we are to really honor God, we must let our hurts, rages, nosiness and gossiping, judgments and condemnation go. Our egos are like packrats intent on burdening our journey to God with unnecessarily heavy loads that not only hinder our journeys, but make stooges of us, which is not helpful to God or anyone!
God does not need us to defend Him, but He does call to us to share His Joy, reflect His Love, bring His Peace to every encounter. This is the reason for Creation; this is true communication; this is the reason for our Being.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Chapter 4 Illusions of the ego. VII Creation and communication. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
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