Created, Not Self-Made | ACIM Deep Dive | Chapter 2, Section XI, Paragraph 22 to Section XII, Paragraph 3 | October 8, 2025 - Hope Johnson's Wisdom Dialogues

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_04 (00:05):
Aloha, and welcome to a Course in Miracles Deep
Dive with Hope Johnson.
Today we'll be finishing offsection eleven from chapter two.
And we have one more paragraphleft there, and then we'll be

(00:28):
going on to the next section,section 12.
And that is the mastery of love.
So this is super exciting.
I'm so glad you're joining.
I love you.
Thank you for being here.
So let's start off with aprayer.

(00:51):
A moment to recognize the flowof energy that you're sensing.
And the breath just allowing itto be and go wherever it wants.
And being in gratitude for thistime together, this time to

(01:12):
discover what's true aboutourselves.
Time to discover more deeply.
And really, that's all that timeis for.
Being grateful for this time tobe together.
Thank you.
Thank you.

(01:32):
Jesus, we thank you for beingwith us to help us see beyond
these words to the truth that'salways true.
Thank you for showing us andthank you for being patient.
When we seemingly need to learnthe same lessons over and over

(01:55):
again.
Thank you for holding our handand showing us that the time for
learning anything is over.
Yay! Thank you.
Thank you for our brothers andsisters joining us.

(02:19):
Thank you for the love that weall have been created in.
We thank God for that.
We've all been created inperfect love.
Can't be separate.

(02:41):
And all these lessons, thank youfor all these lessons to show us
back to that.
Show us back to the truth thatwe are.
Thank you for all of yourpointings.
Thank you for all of your love.
Thank you for all of yourblessings.
Thank you to all of us.
Ah Amen.

(03:03):
Oh, I'm so psyched.
I'm so stoked about this.
Uh, next section.
The section that we're in rightnow, for one, is just super
deep.
It's been super deep.
We have one more paragraph left.
We're gonna go to that now.
Yay! Aloha, Glenn.
Thank you.
I love you.

(03:24):
Ah.
So we're at the end of.
See, what is this section calledagain?
The end of right defense andrelease from fear.
That's the name of this section11 from chapter two that we're

(03:44):
just finishing now.
So here's the text fromparagraph 22, sentence one on
page 101.
One of the chief ways in whichyou can correct your own magic
miracle confusion is to rememberthat you did not create
yourself.

(04:06):
Isn't that a fun sentence?
yourself.
There's a footnote here, too,footnote 153.
The reference to your own magicmiracle confusion implies that

(04:31):
we, like Freud, in the previousparagraphs, he was talking about
Freud.
It implies that we, like Freud,have confused miracles with
magic.
That quote, Freud could notdivorce miracles from magic.
That's from uh paragraph 20,possibly means that he saw

(04:52):
miracles as attempts to controlthe external world through
magical means such as prayer andritual.
So, what I remember about thatis that he was uh kind of
anti-religious, saying that itwas superstitious, and he looked
at miracles as attempts to becontrolling the world, uh, using

(05:16):
prayer and ritual to control theworld.
And this footnote is saying ourown confusion of miracles and
magic probably refers to seeingmiracles as psychic feats.
And it's referencing somethingfrom the text that says, without
conviction, they, meaningmiracles, deteriorate into magic

(05:40):
performed by our own separatewill rather than by God's will
through us.
So it's as if we know whatshould happen.
So then the footnote goes on tosay we solve this by remembering
that we did not createourselves.

(06:02):
This restores God's role as ourcause.
God's role as our cause, so thathis will once again works
through us.
So this whole section, Jesus hasbeen talking about Freud, and

(06:24):
now he's switching to talking touh, I guess talking to us
through Bill and Helen, right?
So he's saying that we want toand we need to clear up miracle,
magic confusion.

(06:46):
Clear up the confusion betweenmiracles and magic.
So he's saying, like Freud, wedo that.
One of the chief ways in whichyou can correct your own magic,
yourself.
So it says, without conviction,miracles deteriorate into magic.

(07:10):
That means when we try toperform them by our own will, we
reduce them to ego acts.
So they're so then we're notallowing them to flow from God's
will.
They're flowing from attachmentto what we think should happen
in the world.

(07:37):
So it's really simple.
It makes it really simple.
The sentence makes it so simplefor us.
Remember, we did not createourselves.
Here it is again.
yourself.
That makes that's making it sosimple for us.

(08:00):
When we remember we didn'tcreate ourselves, what we're
doing is we're re-establishingthat God is the cause and
miracles are God's naturalexpression that comes through
us.
That God is the cause.
So when we believe that we arethe author of ourselves, that's

(08:23):
where magic arises.
It's the illusion that we madeourselves and then we have to
fix ourselves.
What I've been seeing in myexperience, where I'm just
recognizing everything is a giftbecause there's no past.
So there's no cause in the worldto make any reason for what is
being perceived now.

(08:45):
It must just be a gift in thepresent moment.
So when we accept that God isour source, then God's will
flows through us justeffortlessly.

(09:08):
So what that looks like,accepting God as your source
just means you don't acceptanything as a in the illusion as
having any power over you.
If God is your source, thennothing the illusion tells you
could possibly be true.
Remembering this true cause letsus bypass the ego's magic.

(09:35):
Okay, so so magic could beanything, it could be uh some
kind of pill, some kind ofprocedure, some kind of ritual,
something that's meant to getyou what you think that you
want.
And there's not any problem withusing any kind of magic at all.
It's just that it's kept in thecategory of magic in your mind

(10:00):
and not as if it has any causeof its own, because there's no
cause outside of God.
So whenever we're tempted to seemiracles as something that we
do, practically speaking, wecould just go, I did not create

(10:23):
myself.
God is my cause, God is the truecause.
Remember that you did not createyourself.
So this prevents thatdeterioration into magic when we
just remember we did not createourselves.

(10:45):
It's a simple remembrance, andthat aligns our mind with true
miracle making.
Many times in a course inmiracles, the lesson or part of
the lesson is I am as Godcreated me.
That comes up over and overagain.

(11:07):
I cannot make myself.
His will works through me nowand always.
This is very, it feels like avery important sentence.
I'm going to read it one moretime.
One of the chief ways in whichyou can correct your own magical
miracle, magic miracle confusionis to remember that you did not

(11:32):
create yourself.
You must still be as God createdyou.
All right.
Unless anyone has any questions,you guys are looking good.
Okay.
Thank you.
Uh we're on to paragraph 22,sentence two.

(11:53):
You are apt to forget this whenyou become egocentric.
And this places you in aposition where belief in magic
is virtually inevitable.

(12:15):
Forgetting, you're gonna you'reapt to forget this.
So forgetting that you did notcreate yourself is what it means
to become egocentric, forgettingthat you did not create
yourself.
You can look at yourself inwonder, like, oh my goodness.

(12:35):
This is just uh this is justamazing.
And by yourself, I mean beyondthis image that you perceive.
The image that you perceive, itis not created.
It's make-believe.

(12:57):
And everything that you'reperceiving, the image that
you're perceiving, though, isbasically a gift in the moment.
All of the perception, not justthe self-image, but the entire
perception, the perception isreflecting the self-image.
It's all a gift in the moment.
There's no past to be the causeof it, it's just presented to

(13:21):
you, so that you can intersectwith it.
You can intersect with what isappearing, and in that way be
the channel for truth, be thechannel for light into the world
of form.
Yay! Thank you for joining.

(13:49):
So, in a mindset where you thinkyou created yourself, right,
that in that mindset, youautomatically feel vulnerable
and incomplete, and that's whyyou turn to magic, self-effort,

(14:10):
rituals, defenses, trying tocontrol things, trying to save
yourself, and that's onlybecause you thought you created
yourself.

(14:32):
It says you are apt to forgetthis when you become egocentric.
You forget that you did notcreate yourself.
In the last sentence, it said,remember that you did not create
yourself.

(14:55):
So belief in magic becomesinevitable.
That's what it says here.
Belief in magic is virtuallyinevitable.
Because if you think you authoryourself, you'll also think you
must preserve yourself.
Isn't that so fun?

(15:16):
Look at all the different waysof trying to preserve ourselves.
It's hilarious.
All right, so the ego isinherently unstable.
We know that.
You're apt to forget this whenyou become egocentric, and this
places you in a position wherebelief in magic is virtually

(15:39):
inevitable.
The ego always seeks magic tosustain the illusion.
And the Holy Spirit would endthe whole cycle just by
reminding you you are created byGod.
So you're already safe.
You don't really need anything.

(16:05):
I notice one of the tricks thatseems to be done in the world is
people believe that they needsome expensive medication to get
by, right?
And then there seems to not beenough resources for that
medication, and so then it seemslike there's uh something really
intense.

(16:26):
And you know, people just workthemselves into these beliefs.
There's no need to harbor thesebeliefs like you really need
that thing.
But, you know, while the peoplebelieve it, it seems so real.
While we believe we needsomething in the in the world,
that thing seems so real, likewe're suffering without it.

SPEAKER_01 (16:50):
Get consumed by it.

SPEAKER_04 (16:52):
Right.
It's a trick.
It's a trick.
So notice whenever you're caughtin self-preoccupation, I love
that.
I don't even have to get anyself-preoccupation anymore
because I have just seen throughit.
That's what I notice.
Like anytime there's a thoughtabout wondering what a person

(17:14):
thinks about me or anything likethat, it's just been well
practiced enough that I couldjust relax.
I could just totally relax,knowing that it doesn't matter,
knowing that it really doesn'tmatter.
There's no need to protect anego, there's no need to try and
fix myself.

(17:34):
Basically, I did not createmyself.
God is my source, and I'malready totally sustained.
Because I didn't create myself,that's why I don't need to fix
myself.
That makes no sense.
Even the imaginary self, it'seven just on an on a path of

(17:58):
evolution, you can say, totallyheld in perfection, totally
doing amazing.
So, next sentence, paragraphtwenty-two, sentence three.
We are in a Course in MiraclesComplete Annotated Edition, page

(18:22):
101.
Your instincts for creation weregiven you by your own creator
who was expressing the sameinstinct in his creation.
So your instincts for creationare the same as God's instincts

(18:45):
in which he created you.
So relating this back to thelast section, our deepest drive
isn't survival or destruction,as Freud taught it.
Our deepest drive is creation.

(19:08):
The creative instinct comesdirectly from God.
That's what this sentence istelling us.
Your instincts for creation weregiven you by your own creator
who was expressing the sameinstinct in his creation.
So he, in essence, is extendinghimself to us, and he is perfect

(19:34):
love.
So he extends himself throughus.
That's the deepest drive in themind.
It's to be creative as God iscreative.
This is what comes to usdirectly from God, it's our
given.

(19:58):
So creation isn't ego driven.
Those other things areego-driven, right?
Survival and destruction, thoseare ego driven.
That's not the base, that's notthe miracle impulse.
You go deeper than that, it'sjust the miracle impulse.

(20:19):
So anything ego-driven, that'swhy it can be overlooked.
It's not God given.

So ego has distorted instincts: sex, aggression, fear. (20:31):
undefined
The true instinct is totallycreation.
It's creative, it's mirroringGod, it's extending God's own

(20:53):
nature.
So every miscreation, everymiscreation, that's something
that denies truth.
Beneath each one, the realinstinct to create love is

(21:18):
always intact.
It's always beneath everymiscreation.
And you know, even the wordmiscreation, it's a miscreation
because it isn't a creation.
That means it doesn't exist.

(21:38):
It's a miscreation.
You know, even sexualattraction, Jesus was telling us
that it's a misdirected miracleimpulse.
That's all it is.
It's just like you don't youdon't really um have anything

(22:03):
else but a miracle impulse.
When you feel like extendingkindness and beauty and truth,
notice that's the creativeimpulse.
That's the creative impulsemoving through you.

(22:23):
Your true creative impulse is tocreate with God.
So it's like to be as God wouldbe with all of his sons, and
that includes yourself, the selfyou made.

(22:57):
Okay, so you guys got that.
Your true instinct is to createwith God.
That's the true instinct.
There's no other instinct.
Next sentence, sentence four.
Since the creative ability restssolely in the mind, everything

(23:18):
which you make or create isnecessarily instinctive.
Isn't that so fun?
So that the mind can't stopcreating, it's always extending
either true creation ormiscreation.
It's either extending truecreation or uh projecting

(23:41):
miscreation.
And it's projecting miscreation.
Of course, in miracles says themind is blank, nothing's
happening.
So both making and creating,making is with the ego, creating

(24:02):
is with love.
They're instinctive because theydraw on the same source.
It's the power of your mind,that's the source.

(24:24):
So the only difference is in thepurpose you give to it.
Do you give that power over tothe ego who misuses it and makes
miscreation?
Or do you remember this is adifference in purpose?

(24:47):
Everything which you make orcreate is necessarily
instinctive.
Mind is never neutral.
Every thought is doingsomething.

(25:07):
If you're just letting thoughtsplay and not believing and and
believing in them, then theybecome powerful.
When you withdraw the power fromthem by noticing them, you gotta

(25:29):
notice the thoughts.
Notice what thoughts are poppingup.
And let them be reinterpreted inlight of what's true.
When there's miscreation, that'sanything that hurts.

(25:50):
That's anything that's hurtful.
It's anything that feels lessthan gratitude.
Let that energy be redirected.
These are not who you are.
That's really important torecognize.
Thoughts that cross your mind,especially the unwanted ones.

(26:16):
Notice the unwanted ones.
They cross your mind.
You don't need to identify withthem.
They're not who you are.
I was telling a friend yesterdaywho was uh telling her family
that she wants to kill herselfor something like that,
something along those lines.
I'm like, that thought is notwho you are.
Do you want to keep it?
Do you want to keep on doingthat?

(26:39):
You can decide to notice it'sjust an ego thought that doesn't
mean anything about you.
And you just want to stay in thewill of God because that makes
you happy.

(27:01):
So you can just recognize whenyou perceive hatred or attack or
judgmental kind of kind ofthoughts, recognize this is my
creative instinct beingmisdirected.
It's just being misdirected,it's fed into a channel that is
attacking.
You don't want anything likethat.

(27:22):
So you could hand it over to theHoly Spirit.
Just ask the Holy Spirit,redirect this energy,
reinterpret this for me.
Let me see it with love.
So, in this way, even getting ahateful thought, that hateful
thought becomes a doorway toremembering love.

(27:42):
It's not some problem that we'retrying to get rid of.
It's like, oh, there it is.
That's what I need.
This is what helps me rememberlove.
This is what I want it for.
It's all I want it for.
That's what I love.

(28:03):
There's this definitely thissense of invulnerability when
we're experiencing ourselves asbeing able to perceive a hateful
thought arise in our own mind,let's say, and just recognize
that has no meaning.

(28:24):
Don't have to identify with itor anything like that.
That means any thought thatarises in my mind, I have
complete dominion over them.
I could just go, that's ameaningless thought, but I've
got to be aware of them.
See, there's this guilt aboutnot looking.
We've talked about this a lot,but it, you know, it bears

(28:47):
repeating.
There's this guilt around notlooking at what's coming up in
the mind for fear that it meanssomething about you.
It doesn't mean anything aboutyou.
This is their meaninglessthoughts, they're impersonal
thoughts.
So that last sentence, sentencefour from paragraph 22, since

(29:09):
the creative ability restssolely in the mind, everything
which you make or create isnecessarily instinctive.
So yay, thank you for joining.
Okay, next sentence, sentencefive, paragraph twenty-two.

(29:34):
This is the last sentence.
It also follows that whateveryou produce is real in your own
eyes, but not necessarily in thesight of God.
So because you're investingbelief into what you make,

(29:56):
miscreations seem real to you.
They seem real.
I was talking with a friendyesterday.
Uh, and you know, she wastelling me how no matter how
strong our mind is, biologyplays a role in how we age and
how we look and stuff like that.

(30:18):
And I'm like, yeah, what I'msaying is that biology is a
program that we made with ourbelief, with our belief system,
and belief systems can beundone.
That's what we're learning here,is to see uh how belief systems

(30:39):
can be undone.
So it also follows that whateveryou produce is real in your own
So in God's reality, only truecreation has any meaning.

(31:06):
Okay, illusions feel powerful,but only true creation has any
meaning because there's noeternal substance in illusions.
So this distinction is crucialhere.
Perception can make illusionsappear real, but knowledge,

(31:32):
which is God's vision, sees onlytruth.
Not necessarily in the sight ofGod.
You think whatever you produceis real because your belief
makes it real to you, it seemsreal to your own eyes, but not
necessarily in the sight of God.

(31:53):
If it doesn't match God'sreality, it's not real in God's
eyes.
So whenever there's amiscreation, it's borrowing
energy from creation.
That's how it could make it seemreal in your eyes, but it

(32:14):
doesn't actually alter yourreality.
So you could see why illusionswould feel heavy and convinced
convincing, but still not be thetruth.
No matter how heavy orconvincing or how much evidence

(32:35):
there is for illusions, itdoesn't change what the truth
is.
It never changed anything.
I know they look really real.
Seems like these bodies areaging everywhere.
I told my friend, no bodies areaging, it's not possible.
It's actually a misperception,and it's the refusal to see it

(32:56):
as a misperception that makes itpersist.
It's wanting to see it as areality and then try to change
the reality, the false reality.

SPEAKER_01 (33:07):
That makes us victim to it, right?
When we look at it that way, itwas going from one doctor to
another, yeah, victim all theway down the road.

SPEAKER_04 (33:15):
Yeah.
One way to describe that iswhack-a-mole.
You ever play that gamewhack-a-mole?
It's a it's a game in a in a uhin a in an arcade.
So these little moles pop up,and you have a hammer and you
hit them on the head as fast asyou can before they go back
down.
But it doesn't matter how manyof those little moles you hit,
they keep popping up, right?

(33:37):
So it's like we tend to do thatwith different things, trying to
change the reality that we madeinstead of recognizing that the
reality we made is reallynothing, it's foolishness to
God.

(33:59):
So even though they're heavy andconvincing in our sight, that
doesn't make them anything intruth.
That's what's to recognize here.
So let's say you feel guiltyafter acting unlovingly.
Let's say you get the perceptionthat you weren't loving enough,

(34:22):
right?
Remember, that may seem real toyou, but it is not real to God.
Do you see the relief in that?
I hope you do, because I found alot of relief in recognizing
that.
Even if it might seem real toyou, it's not real to God.

(34:42):
When you're recognizing thatwhatever you made up in fear has
no reality in God, you are backin God.
You're back in the basically theChrist vision.

(35:09):
Guilt just falls away when yourealize God does not recognize
your miscreations, God onlyrecognizes your eternal
innocence, and that's somethingyou can decide in the moment to
just see like that.

SPEAKER_01 (35:30):
I had that experience today where when I
finally realized it was guilt,it was a relief because I knew
it wasn't real in a way.

SPEAKER_04 (35:38):
Yes, yes.
Tom and Thomas had uh I wouldsay it was a miracle moment,
maybe even who knows, maybe evenmore like uh what do they call
those guys?
Revelation.
Yeah, he just had a thought andrecognized it was a guilty
thought, and it's like thatthought never even happened.
That thought's not even, he gaveit no meaning, and he felt the

(36:01):
relief.
Insight.
Insight, thank you.
Yeah, yay, hooray.
I love you.
Thank you for joining.
Ah, okay, where are we, guys?

(36:22):
We were um I'm reading that oneone more time.
Paragraph 22, sentence five,then we're moving on to the next
section.
It also follows that whateveryou produce is real in your own
Thank goodness for that.

(36:43):
All right, we're going into themastery of love, section 12.
So this section is following asection on psychic energy.
We did a lot of psychic energyin the last one where Jesus
showed how miracle impulses getmisdirected.

(37:05):
Okay, and Jesus showed us allthe different ways.
So now we're shifting focus fromcontrol and magic to the true
correction through love.
So we went over the basicconflict.
That's always between love andfear.
That's what we learned in thelast section.

(37:25):
Basic conflict is always betweenlove and fear, and healing comes
from choosing one of themcompletely.
Level confusion.
We went over that.
Level confusion causing conflictwhen they're mixed up, when the
miracle restores, when themiracle is the only thing that

(37:45):
can restore the right order.
And level confusion ispretending that things of the
world have just as much power asthe miracle.
They don't.
So mastery is about devotion tolove, and that's what we're
getting into now.
Uh, means we're consistent inextending love and not and and

(38:10):
not subduing fear.
So, this is where we get out ofneeding to do anything with
fear, we're just simplyextending love.
So there's gonna be an interimtalked about, and that's the

(38:31):
transition between love andfear, and that's where there
still seems to be conflict, butyou know that purification is
underway.
I know I went through an interimlike that.
It was very clear that that'swhat was going on.

(38:52):
Probably lasted a good 10 yearsfor me.
So the goal is seeing God as ourcause and ourselves as God's
effect.
That's how fear disappears.
Seeing God as our cause.

(39:12):
So let's get into it.
So, paragraph one, sentence one,we're in section twelve, chapter
two.

SPEAKER_03 (39:28):
Here's the text.

SPEAKER_04 (39:29):
We have already said that the basic conflict is one
between love and fear, and thatthe proper organization of the
psyche rests on a lack of levelconfusion.
Yes, we have said that.
The proper organization of thepsyche rests on a lack of level

(39:54):
confusion.
And there's a footnote here,footnote 154.
The basic conflict is onebetween love and fear.
That's from the text in theprevious section.
Also, from Miracle Principle 28,miracles are a means of

(40:15):
organizing different levels ofawareness.
And from the last section again,if the psyche contains fearful
levels from which it cannotescape without splitting, its
integration is permanentlythreatened.

(40:35):
Wow.
That's something we went over inthe last section.
A little bit back there,paragraph six.
So Jesus is re uh restating thecentral idea here, uh, the

(41:00):
Course of Miracles central ideathat the only real conflict is
between love and fear.
Every other apparent struggle,people, values, desires, it's
always a projection of thisinner split, a conflict between
love and fear.

(41:24):
So he talks about properorganization of the psyche, the
healing of the mind's levelsthrough miracle-minded
integration.
When love and fear just seem tooccupy different compartments of
the psyche, like one's on oneside and one's on the other

(41:45):
side, the mind gets fragmented.
It's prone to being split inthat case.
Level confusion again.
We want to bring this up again.
Jesus is bringing it up again.
He's saying uh something aboutlevel confusion here.

(42:07):
The proper organization of thepsyche rests on a lack of level
confusion.
So that's mixing again whatbelongs to the spirit, the level
of creation, with what belongsto the perception, the level of
form.
So this is what makespsychological conflict because

(42:29):
the mind tries to solvespiritual problems, and all
problems are that, they're thesame, with worldly means.
See, it wants to make magicinstead of miracles, tries to
fill a lack instead ofrecognizing that the lack is

(42:54):
only miscreation.
See the difference there, it'sall just something we projected.
We can take back, we can pullback our projections.
So the psyche is not meant tomanage love and fear.

(43:19):
It's not meant for that.
That's why it splits.
Love is of God, fear is God'sdenial.
It's the denial of God.
That's what it is.
Love is of God, fear is denialof God, it's denial that you're
as God created you.

(43:39):
The split is just an illusionthat you maintain when you
believe that they both coexist.
God and the denial of God,basically.
Yeah, God and denial of God.

(44:02):
The miracle basicallyreorganizes awareness, it
restores cause and effect totheir rightful order.
Mind is the cause, and the worldis the mind's effect.
God is the cause, and you areGod's effect.

(44:31):
Woo-hoo, two of them there.
So reorganizing, thisreorganizing, it's reorganizing
cause and effect that heals thislevel confusion.
So let's read this again.

(44:53):
We have already said that thebasic conflict is one between
love and fear, and that theproper organization of the
psyche rests on lack of levelconfusion.

(45:17):
So when fear is hidden, it's notbeing watched.
It's gonna demand expression,and that's either gonna come
through bodily symptoms.
Look, I just sneezed a coupletimes, that's pretty fun.

(45:44):
Or it or through projection,through making drama and stuff
like that.
So the miracle lets this energyjust be translated back to love.
So whenever any conflict arises,any inner conflict, that means

(46:07):
there's some guilt.
Thomas just recognized thethought as being a guilty
thought.
The issue is never about thesituation.
That can't be said enough,right?
Because it always seems to beabout the situation.
It's always about choosing loveor fear.

(46:28):
So whenever you feel uh torn ina situation or your mind is
chattery or anything, you canjust remember only love is real.
Fear is only a misperception.
This is really a relaxing.
This is like, you know, this isthis is like the end of
learning.
You don't need to learn to dothis, you don't need to learn
anything to do this.

(46:49):
It's like you just recognizeonly love is real.
If there's fear, that'smisperception.
I'm choosing the level of lovenow.
The level of love is uh whereyou actually are.

SPEAKER_05 (47:01):
I have this Zen Koan card that I have sitting out
that says, just sit here anddon't make up anything.

SPEAKER_04 (47:09):
Just sit here and don't make up anything.
I love it.
Yep, that's good.
Yeah, so clarity can definitelyreplace anxiety.
No one has to have anxiety.
Your psyche will feel wholeagain when you just say, I'm

(47:30):
choosing love, I'm not goingwith a with a level of fear,
it's way easier than it seems,actually.
It's maybe only the first time.
What you're laughing about that?
It's maybe only the first timeyou actually like do it with
ease.
You're like, oh, it's so easy.

(47:53):
All right.
Paragraph one, sentence two.
Here's the text.
The section on psychic energyshould be reread very carefully
because it is particularlylikely to be misinterpreted
until this section has beencompleted.

(48:14):
So the section on psychicenergy, that's the last section
that we did, section 11.
He's saying it should be rereadvery carefully.
Well, we went through it prettycarefully.
We've spent several weeks on it.
If you want, you can read itagain.
And there's a footnote here.

(48:36):
The section on psychic energy isthe previous section.
Okay, thank you for thatfootnote.
That's good.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
So Jesus is talking about acommon, common pitfall here.

(48:56):
So the ego quickly turns thispsychic energy.
When the ego hears psychicenergy, it quickly turns it into

(49:17):
a technique, something aboutwillpower, something to try to
control things.
So this section, the safeguardto that is really this section,
the mastery of love is the nameof the section.
And it's showing us thisorganizing context that the only

(49:38):
conflict is love and fear, andmiracles reorganize the levels
of awareness.
Without this frame of thissection, psychic energy gets
read as some kind of personalforce for the ego rather than a
miracle impulse.

(49:58):
So we're not trying to takecontrol of our psychic energy.
It's about letting the control,letting the psychic energy be
redirected.
So in the prior teaching, it wastalking about how miracle
impulses are blocked, and thenthe energy gets misdirected into

(50:21):
substitutes, those substitutesbeing libido, like sexual
attraction, aggression,aggression, and defenses.
And it's not saying to suppressthe energy, it's letting it this
is an invitation to let it berepurposed.
Let this be used for miracles.

(50:43):
Whatever it is that's arising,let it be used for miracles.
So when of course in miraclestalks about psychic energy, and
that that's what that's what thelast section was about, it's it

(51:06):
can be understood as attentionor willingness.
This is the mind's causal power,the psychic energy.

(51:33):
So we assign that psychic energypurpose.
We say whether it's uh it's onlyused for God or it could be used
for something else.
So the completion of thissection matters because love is

(51:57):
what prevents this splitting andlevel confusion.
That's why he's saying a lot ofthe times the last section on
psychic energy doesn't getunderstood until we complete
this section on the mastery oflove.

(52:17):
So practically, you might rereadthe prior section and pray to
let this be interpreted by love,seeking only the miracle's
purpose.
Psychic energy, you could saypsychic energy.
Um, you could choose to havethat offered to spirit.

(52:42):
Notice when you're tempted tomake it personal power, try to
use some kind of technique orcontrol it, just offer it.
And if you feel any activationaround sex or anger or some kind
of drive, don't suppress it.
Acknowledge it.
This is creative powermisdirected.

(53:07):
Ask the Holy Spirit to reassignthat energy, redirect that
energy to joining.
And that's what's done.
It's up to you.
So let the purpose of allpsychic energy be loving, let

(53:28):
love set the purpose.
Let's read that sentence again.

(53:52):
So hooray.
Let me know if you guys have anyquestions.
Okay.
So we got to paragraph one,sentence two, and there's only
two sentences in that paragraph,so we're on to paragraph two,

(54:14):
sentence one.
It has already been said thatyou cannot control fear because
you yourself made it.
Then there's a footnote fromMiracle Principle 48.
You can never control theeffects of fear, it's of fear

(54:34):
yourself, because you have madefear and believe in what you
make.
So this is the ego's one of theego's deepest delusions is that
we can control fear.
And you know, of course, inmiracles, and Jesus reminding us

(54:56):
that control is not the remedy.
Okay.
Uh that's all that's actuallyjust a symptom of the belief in
separation.
Trying to control it.

(55:16):
So when he's talking about youmake fear, that means you
believe in separation and thenproject guilt outward as danger,
loss, vulnerability.
So everything that you seem tobe afraid of, you made it.
You believe in separation andthen project all those things

(55:38):
outward.
Because we believe in what wemake.
Fear appears to be real anddemands management.
You could see that in theperception a lot, all the
different ways of managing fear.
One of them is insurance, lockson your doors, preventative

(56:04):
medicine, protective clothing.
But that's never gonna undo whatthe belief made.

(56:25):
Only undoing the belief itselfcan restore the truth to your
mind, your complete safety.
Only through forgiveness canthat really happen.
Otherwise, we're always tryingto manage some kind of safety

(56:45):
for ourselves.
Whenever you recognize that fearis only self-made, that means it
doesn't exist.
You're really recognizing itthat it doesn't exist because
you're recognizing that it'sself-made, you're letting the
Holy Spirit reinterpret it.

(57:09):
You know, it's not like it's anykind of problem.
It's not like an em an enemy.
It's not like fear is an enemy.
The Holy Spirit justreinterprets it, comes back to
truth.
So fear is not some externalforce outside of yourself.

(57:35):
It's like a shadow, it's aneffect of miscreation, believing
you authored yourself.
So control is the ego's answerto mastery.
Like instead of mastery, egowould substitute it with
control, controlling the fear.

(57:59):
But really, mastery comes fromrelinquishing the fear, not
manipulating it.
So the way for fear to becorrected is recognizing your

(58:22):
cause.
I did not make myself, I did notcreate myself.
This fearful body, this fearfulimage that you made, you did not
make yourself, that is anillusion.

(58:46):
You're as God created you, andyou can be as God created you,
even in your perceptual dreams.
So whenever fear comes up, likelet's say um this story's coming

(59:10):
up from a different time.
You put your car in with amechanic, and then all of a
sudden there's a fear.
Oh my god, the mechanic isactually gonna steal my car.
Let's say you look at somethinglike that more like an
opportunity, and noticing I madethis fear, I made this fearful

(59:35):
feeling right now by believingin separation, noticing you
don't want to keep it, you don'tneed to keep it, and then ask
the Holy Spirit to show youwhat's actually true here.
This is the practicalapplication of this sentence
here.

(59:57):
Let that impulse to controlsomething.
Something be your signal torelease.
See that?
That's how you really uh meetyour experience.
Notice you you cannot controlfear because it's not real.
Love is the power, love is whatyou are.

(01:00:19):
When you let that impulse tocontrol something, I'm telling
you, this works really well, youguys.
You let that be a signal for youto release and let your mind see
that that is a signal torelease.
It's not a signal to jump intoany kind of action.
It starts to train you.
And when you do it successfullyone time, you're gonna see that

(01:00:40):
you're not vulnerable to any ofthem.
Aloha, welcome.
I love you.
We are on page one oh two of thecomplete annotated edition.

(01:01:07):
Let's see, I believe we are onparagraph two, sentence two.
Let me check that.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:22):
Okay.

SPEAKER_04 (01:01:27):
Paragraph two sentence two.
All right, your belief in itrenders it out of your control
by definition.
Okay, so this it or fear.
Your belief in it renders it outof control by definition.

(01:01:56):
So this is really simply yourbelief in fear renders fear out
of control by definition.
So it's very succinctlyexplaining why fear can't be
controlled.
Belief gives it power.
To believe in fear is to investfear with the authority of your

(01:02:20):
mind.
The same power that made itappear real in the first place.
Perception is always an effectof belief.
So when you perceive fear, it'sbecause you believed in it.
You believe in it first beforeyou can perceive it.

(01:02:42):
Let's say you get a letter fromthe IRS and your fear strikes
your heart.
It's not because of the letterof from the IRS, it's because of
believing in fear.
If you were a newborn baby andyou got a letter from the IRS,
it would not make you afraid onebit.

(01:03:08):
You just drool on it.
Right.
This is not something to beafraid of.
So as long as you believe fearis real, you're gonna experience
effects like fear.

(01:03:28):
And you're gonna feel helplessbefore them.
So, you know, you could use thisas a simple rule of thumb.
If you feel helpless, it's onlybecause you've been believing in
fear.
You can be released from thatright now.
See, when you when you startlooking at things like that,
like this, and this is the way Ilook at them, and you start

(01:03:49):
looking at things like this,like, oh, there's a feeling of
fear.
Oh, I know what that means.
This is a moment of opportunity.
I don't even want to miss it.
This is great.
And you stop feeling helpless.
You know that the feeling ofhelplessness is actually helpful

(01:04:11):
because it's showing you thatthere's something that you can
release that's making you feelhelpless.
Access point.
He's saying it becomes an accesspoint.
I feel that.
So you can control illusions,but only by withdrawing belief

(01:04:34):
in them, not by trying torearrange them.
So this is about the path tomastery.
This whole section is called themastery of love.

(01:04:55):
It's not about suppression ormanagement of fear, it's just
disidentification.
It's seeing that fear has nosource outside of your mistaken
thought.
The sentence again, your beliefin it, fear, renders it, again,
fear, out of your control bydefinition.

(01:05:20):
Belief is creative.
Basically, to believe in anillusion is to misuse your
creative power.
It's a misuse to believe in it.
To the ego, your belief provesreality.

(01:05:41):
It's like that's oh yeah, youbelieve it that strongly, it
must be true.
So, but to the Holy Spirit,though, and what the Holy
Spirit's function is, is toteach that belief only makes
illusion seem real until it'swithdrawn, until the belief in

(01:06:04):
it is withdrawn.
So one law of mind is what youbelieve you make real to
yourself.
That's one law of the mind.
And this sentence isencapsulating that as well.
Your belief in fear renders fearout of your control by

(01:06:26):
definition.
Once the belief is healed andit's transferred over to love,
it's gone from an illusion tobeing seen in truth.
Then there's no fear becausethere's no cause for fear.
Fear is just a belief, and fearis the cause of all pain, too.

(01:06:53):
So, practically speaking, whenfear comes up, don't fight it,
don't analyze it.
It's just what am I believingright now that makes this fear
seem real?
Your belief is giving theillusion the only power it has,
and you can choose to withdrawbelief from it right now.

(01:07:20):
You can use the IRS letter as anexample, okay, for this
practical application.
You got the IRS letter in themail, and you get this sense of
fear.
What am I believing right nowthat makes fear seem real?
Check it out.
What are you believing?
Are they gonna do something toyou?
What are they gonna do to you?

(01:07:40):
Are they gonna like make you paymoney?
Are they gonna put you in jail?
I went for they're gonna put mein jail.
I'll just go to that.
They're gonna put me in jail.
That's a fear, right?
I went for that, and and andnotice okay, my belief is what's
giving this illusion the onlypower that it seems to have.
Like there's a fear of going tojail.
I see that.
I choose to withdraw my beliefin that right now, that that has

(01:08:06):
any power over me.
And then when I'm released fromit, I'm not uh I'm not opposed
to going to jail.
That's not the thing.
I'm not feeling opposed to goingto jail.
I'm just recognizing that theillusion of going to jail isn't
gonna affect me one bit if thatoccurs.

(01:08:28):
I'm not gonna have one.
Once you realize it's just fear,you know, you just can feel that
spaciousness.
So once you're released fromthat belief, the belief it's
it's in fear, there's just peacein your awareness, and you know,

(01:08:53):
and I had a brilliant auditbecause of that.

SPEAKER_05 (01:08:58):
I'm also hearing there's nothing wrong with
feeling the fear effect offeeling locked up and you know,
you want it in the belief.

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:11):
Yeah, you well, you she's saying she's hearing that
there's nothing wrong with thefear effect, and and I'm going,
yeah, you want it as a signal,it's not for being wallowed in,
it's a signal that there'ssomething to be released.

SPEAKER_05 (01:09:25):
So what I know that's it is you're saying that
we're already feeling the feareffect and we're stepping back
out, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:32):
Yeah, so uh, so you know, it's like pushy, you don't
want to push it away, of course.
Yeah, you want to use it likefor me, I'll get excited about
it.
I know it's I know what'shappening.
It's like it's like you know,it's like that cross where it's
like there's these layers ofillusion, and the awareness is

(01:09:55):
intersecting with these layersof illusions, and it's kind of
like just cutting throughillusions because the awareness
being stabilized in unitydoesn't get caught up in the
illusions as if they need to behit up against or ran away from,

(01:10:16):
it just goes right through them.
So I use it like that.
I'm like, yes, it's like in inthat case, it becomes like a
prayer.
Everything becomes like aprayer, every feeling.
It's like what you believe in,that's what you seem to see.

(01:10:36):
If you believe in love, you seelove.
If you believe in fear, you seeyou see fear.
You know, one example is one uhperson was telling me at this
church, I think it's calledChurch of the Holy Cross.
Is that what it is?
Something about the Holy Cross.
It's also a hike.
Well, there's a Jesus hanging,he's got his eyes open and he's
hanging on a tree.

(01:10:57):
You know, it's a crucifixionthing.
Yeah, he's got his eyes open,and uh, and someone said so he's
got his eyes open so you couldsee the shame just being
projected right out of thoseeyes.
And you know, I hear that, and Iwas like, wow, that's an
interesting point of view, youknow, and that's all about how

(01:11:18):
we would look at it.
How you know, would you look atit as the shame coming out of
his eyes, or is it kindness, oris it, you know, it's all it's
all just a self-reflection,right?
It's all just showing uswhatever it is that we want to
see.

(01:11:38):
Yeah.
Uh well, not really, I mean,it's all in a dream.
Okay, so the phrase mastery offear, uh, paragraph two,
sentence three.
For this reason, any attempt toresolve the basic conflict

(01:12:02):
conflict through the concept ofmastery of fear is meaningless.
So trying to master fear reallypresumes that the fear is real,
doesn't it?
And that somehow your separateself has an ability to dominate

(01:12:24):
it.
Like it's really there.
Fear is real.
We're gonna dominate this.
This is already making theeffort self-defeating.
Any attempt to resolve the basicconflict through the concept of
mastery of fear.
Remember, the basic conflict isbetween love and fear.

(01:12:48):
So he's saying try to resolvethat through mastery of fear is
meaningless.
So that's the ego's inversion ofthe mastery of love.
The ego teaches that power comesfrom controlling fear, and Jesus
is teaching that true mastery isin remembering love as the only

(01:13:12):
reality.
So mastering fear to Jesus ismeaningless, so it would also be
confirming the basic conflictrather than resolving the basic
conflict.

(01:13:34):
So Jesus is calling this pathmeaningless, not because the
goal of peace is invalid,because the goal is still peace.
Like even the ego is going, hey,let's master fear, we'll get
peace that way, right?
The goal is the same, but themethod is impossible.

(01:13:58):
Only love heals fear, it doesn'toverpower fear, it really
reveals that the fear neverexisted, it never had a true
cause.
It relieves it, it relieves it,yes.
Revealing that it never existedis quite the relief.

(01:14:30):
So this basic conflict, it'slike the split between imaginary
split between love and fear, andthe mind trying to identify with
both God and ego.
Who doesn't see that all thetime?
My ego, this, my ego that.
Well, my ego did this.
It's like fuck.

(01:14:50):
That is uh an ego avoidingresponsibility right there.
That's what that is.
It's an ego way of avoidingresponsibility.
So trying to master fear as theego self, like within the split,

(01:15:12):
that's what keeps the conflictalive, and only the ego would
want to master fear.
So the true resolution for fearis when the mind rises above all
of this and forgives it, doesn'tfight with it.

(01:15:36):
Basically, what the Holy Spiritwants you to see, and what the
Holy Spirit's purpose is, is foryou to see and accept that fear
is meaningless.
Fear is a meaningless thing, youdon't need to do anything with
it.
It's basically seeing that it'smeaningless, that's mastery.
That's what mastery is.

(01:15:56):
You've seen it fear ismeaningless.
That's the moment whereperception is restored to truth.
You're seeing fear ismeaningless, and this is what
Jesus is talking about in thissection is the mastery of love.

(01:16:18):
It's recognizing only love haspower, so there's nothing to
master.
That's the mastery of love.
Isn't that fun?
You're simply not making it asif fear has power.
Fear has reality.

(01:16:39):
Well, it does have power whenyou give it power.
Let's say that.
Because notice the the uh thebody shot when you feel the
fear.
I notice, like when I'm givingthat example of the high-s
letter, that's an example frommy life, apparently.
I don't know, maybe like 14years ago or something.
Uh I got the letter, and man, Ifelt the shot.

(01:17:00):
Like it's like a shot in thebody sense, right?
So don't try to suppress it orcontrol it or work through it or
anything.
It's not a problem.
You just acknowledge I rememberlove.
I choose to remember love.
As soon as I chose to rememberlove, everything was really fun
again.
I had a really fun audit.

(01:17:21):
Right.
So this shifts our mind, andthere's a subtle before we're
aware of this, trying to masterfear in our mind.
So now we're changing to oh, wecould just choose mastery
through love.
Right?
It's just a matter of knowingthat there is only love.
That's the mastery of it.

(01:17:43):
And allowing the Holy Spirit tore-reinterpret everything we
see, really, when we'rerecognizing that there is only
love, that is allowing the HolySpirit to reinterpret what we
see.
Think we see something else,it's wrong.

(01:18:05):
Nothing real can be threatened,and nothing unreal exists.
It's all leading back to thatawareness.
I love you guys.
Sentence four of paragraph two,page one oh two.
In fact, it asserts the power offear by the simple assumption

(01:18:31):
that it need be mastered at all.
Or control, uh-huh, right, yeah,or controlled.
Yeah, you can use that word too.
So the the ego's got this trick,this idea that fear must be
mastered, and this is presumingthat fear has power in the first

(01:18:54):
place.
So that makes fear seem to havepower to you.
Whenever we try to fight it,we're believing more strongly
that it's real.
Defending against anything isaccepting it as a threat.
If you accept fear as a threat,so both of these responses, to

(01:19:15):
fight it or to defend againstit, makes the fear stronger in
the mind by affirming that it istruly there.
Fear is actually not a forcethat you overcome.
It's not like that, it's anillusion that you overlook, it's

(01:19:37):
actually not there.
So, not assuming it needs anykind of mastery, so we don't
reinforce a belief that we'reseparate and we're struggling
against this fear thing that'soutside of us.
It's really just a shadow ofmiscreation, which never really
happened either.

(01:20:04):
Love needs no defense.
So any stance of defense issiding with fear.
Recognize that.
Fear can't be conquered, itdoesn't work like that.

(01:20:26):
It can be recognized that it wasnever real.
That's way different.
When you try to conquer it, youfirst make it real.
And then you set up anever-ending fight.

(01:20:48):
So whenever there's an impulseto fight, that's the red flag.
That's the opportunity.
Good versus evil, good versusevil, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 (01:21:00):
Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 (01:21:02):
Resistance, resistance is what makes fear
real to us.
And by the way, resistance isthe only thing that causes aging
and sickness and death.
Isn't that funny?
So fear actually has no power atall except what we give to it,

(01:21:24):
and we could just stay withthat, like questioning it for a
while if we wanted to.
What if fear has no power?
Just stay in that and watchingwhat happens in your mind.
It's all a matter of retrainingthe mind to be directed toward
truth rather than illusion,because all day long thoughts

(01:21:46):
are going on, they can beredirected toward truth instead
of chewing on illusions all daylong.
No wonder we're so busy, right?
And tired.
That's the other thing.
Busy and tired.

(01:22:07):
Great combo.
That is not what we were uhplanning on doing, but you know,
we believe so strongly in theseillusory thoughts that we ended
up getting really busy with themand making ourselves tired by
them.
Time to stop doing that.

(01:22:29):
All right, paragraph two,sentence five.
I'm always checking on you guysto see if you have any questions
or anything.
It looks like you're doing good.
So the essential resolutionrests entirely on the mastery of
love.
That's the sentence, shortlittle sentence.
The essential resolution restsentirely on the mastery of love.

(01:22:58):
And footnote one fifty-sevencomes with this.
This means mastering, as inbecoming highly proficient in
love, becoming a master of loverather than trying to master or
subdue fear.

SPEAKER_01 (01:23:21):
It's like allowing it instead of manipulating it,
allowing it instead ofmanipulating it.

SPEAKER_04 (01:23:27):
I like it.
Thank you.
So the only true mastery is oflove.
It's not an effortfuldiscipline, it's just acceptance
of what you are, it's acceptancethat there's only love.

(01:23:48):
Again, a mastery of love isaccepting that there's only
love, it's to become consistentin this recognition and
extending this recognition,choosing love as your only
teacher in every circumstance.
Why not?
That's what I say.

(01:24:08):
Why not?
I don't ever have to come off ofthat.
I don't have to ever have to getserious or anything.
Right?
Because it's it's like, why not?
Just let your only interpreter,what interprets all your
experiences, be love.
The ego seeks control.

(01:24:31):
Love totally releases control,knowing that there's divine
order, trusting in divine orderto flow through as it needs to.
There's no struggle in masteryof love.

(01:24:52):
There's no struggle because it'snot trying to eliminate fear,
it's just rendering fearmeaningless.
See that difference?
Love isn't struggling againstfear because it's not trying to
eliminate fear.
Love is just rendering fearmeaningless through remembering

(01:25:13):
what's true in everycircumstance.
So it's not this resistance tofear, it's like let fear arise.
Disempowering, totallydisempowering it.
That's right.
It's taking the power away fromit because it's taking belief
away from it.
I just have to remember what'strue.

(01:25:34):
That's easy.
That's really easy.
It's not easy for an ego, butwe're not egos.
Look at whatever puts up adefense about that, that's the
ego.
You don't have to listen tothat.
Mastery of love meaning, meansthat you're acknowledging and
you're aware of that only loveis possible, only love is true.

(01:25:55):
That's what it is.
Really simple.
A baby can do this.
Am I gonna get pregnant orsomething?
I keep on talking about babies.

SPEAKER_05 (01:26:08):
You're just birthing a whole new crowd.

SPEAKER_04 (01:26:10):
I seem to be seem to be past menopause, but who
knows?
Babies keep popping up.
So, in this context, mastery ismeaning consistency in

(01:26:30):
identifying as love.
That's what mastery is.
See that that's consistency,knowing yourself as love so
completely that fear doesn'thave anywhere to land.
That's what mastery is, right?
And you are basically beingcalled or invited to this

(01:26:54):
mastery right now, and you candecide right now for
consistency, right?
If you want to, if you don'twant to, you'll go, I'll wait on
that.
I love this battling thing, it'sso fun where I talk to myself

(01:27:15):
like shit and then believe it.
It's great.
So this shift to consistency ofidentification.
This is fun because I've had afriend recently tell me I'm in
I'm I'm inconsistent, and I'mlike, why?

(01:27:39):
You got a choice.
What is this?
I'm inconsistent.
There's only now.
You got a memory of beinginconsistent?
Are you taking responsibilitynow?
Because that's really an egotrying to not take
responsibility, and thenidentifying as the ego trying to
avoid responsibility.

(01:28:01):
The ego loves this idea.
Oh, I'm not consistent withseeing the truth, so therefore,
I'm an asshole.
Sorry about that.

SPEAKER_01 (01:28:21):
Keys closed.

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:23):
Right.

SPEAKER_04 (01:28:30):
Right.
Therefore, when I relate withpeople, I gotta manipulate them
because I don't see myselfclearly.
It's like fuck, right now, rightnow, you just decide consistency
is now.
So practically, you want topractice mastery of love by

(01:28:56):
bringing love into the momentswhere there seems to be fear
arising.
Say right now, I choose to be amaster of love.
This means I require no defense.
See that?
No defense.
Love simply is, and you justallow love to be in your mind

(01:29:20):
without any defense against it.
Keep expanding love in your minduntil only the peace remains.
You don't have to beinconsistent unless you want to.

(01:29:41):
Some people might think, gosh,hope you're so hard on us.
Just let us be inconsistent ifwe want.
Hey, it's fine with me.
You're also over here listeningto wisdom dialogues.
This is like a master class.
You came over here for this.
You want to see?
You can if you want.

(01:30:02):
You can be consistent.
You can master love if you want.
Mastery of love.
All right.
Paragraph three, sentence one.
This will be our finalparagraph.
In the interim, conflict isinevitable.

(01:30:23):
That is a six-word sentence.
In the interim, conflict isinevitable.
So the interim is referring to aperiod between recognizing truth
intellectually, like we'regoing, okay, we get it, and
fully embodying itexperientially.

(01:30:45):
That's the interim.

SPEAKER_01 (01:30:48):
Uncompromising.

SPEAKER_04 (01:30:50):
Uncompromising, yes.
Well, we're learning how to beuncompromising in the interim.
So this is the in-between statewhere both the ego and the Holy
Spirit seem to have a voice inyour mind still.
That's the interim.
So the mind still vacillatesbetween love and fear.

(01:31:12):
This is what people would callinconsistent, right?
Inner conflict is naturallyarising because of this, because
it's vacillating all the time.
So know that this isn't failure.
Okay, it's it's your stillall-powerful mind, knowing that
it's your choice.

(01:31:34):
It isn't failure, it's just thetension that comes with
awakening before you fully makethe choice to just recognize the
power and the consistency oflove.
Doesn't seem that hard, but sothere's only going to be

(01:31:58):
conflict as long as you'rebelieving in two opposing
forces.
Once your mind acceptscompletely that only love is
real, there's no more interim.
So Jesus is pointing out that,you know, if you're experiencing

(01:32:20):
this, it's a stage oftransition.
So to keep going, you know, it'sencouragement here.
The awareness of this conflict,actually, it's signaling
progress.
The conflict tends to get moreintense as you're closer to
choosing the truth.

(01:32:42):
But it's only because you'remore sensitive to it.
It's always been painful.
It's just that you were betterat blocking off the pain.
Yeah, the the signal comes upbecause you're conscious of the
split now.
So that that painful signalcomes up because you're

(01:33:06):
conscious of the split ratherthan unconsciously ruled by it.
It's actually a little bit morecomfortable from an ego point of
view to be ruled by the conflictthan to be aware of it.

(01:33:28):
Uh-huh.
Yes, interim seems like a timething.
We experience it like time.
We need to have time toexperience that conflict, Jesus
is talking about.
See, conflict exists only whenthere's two thought systems
given equal credence, credence,though.
See, time and conflict existwhen two thought systems are

(01:33:54):
given equal credence.
Love and fear, they're not evenclose to being on the same
level, they don't coexist.

SPEAKER_01 (01:34:05):
We have to choose, but if we don't choose, it's
confusion.

SPEAKER_04 (01:34:10):
Yeah, you'll you do choose, you always do choose.
He's saying we have to choose,we always do choose.
It's knowing that we're making achoice.
So between love and fear, theyjust alternate in your awareness
back and cho back and forthuntil you choose one of them
completely.
And you can't wholly choose fearbecause you are love, so you

(01:34:33):
can't completely choose fear,you can only completely choose
one, choose love, really.
So the interim is like a processof purification, it's where the
remnants of fear come up andthey get reinterpreted.
It's like you're going throughlayers on an onion, and these
remnants are like these layers,these veils.

(01:34:56):
And this is how they getpurified by you deciding that
they're going to bereinterpreted by the Holy
Spirit.
So this is something to justallow.
It's not something to fix.
Just allow it to unfold as itdoes.
So the conflict, the apparentconflict that you're perceiving

(01:35:18):
in this, it's actually usefuland helpful in undoing the prior
consciousness.
Again, in the interim, conflictis inevitable.
What is it in interim to?
The interim where you're uhdiscovering the mastery of love.

(01:35:43):
All right, paragraph three,sentence two.
The reason for this is strangelyillogical.
Wait, the reason for this is thestrangely illogical position in
which you have placed yourself.
Hmm, the strangely illogicalposition.

(01:36:04):
So Jesus is now explaining whyconflict is inevitable.
The last sentence was aboutconflict being inevitable in the
interim.
And now he's saying the reasonfor this, the reason for this
conflict is the strangelyillogical position in which you
have placed yourself.

(01:36:26):
So the mind has what he's sayingis the mind has accepted a
position that defies reason,it's illogical.
Like both being true is itillogical.
That's right.
Because the mind is believing itcan exist both as spirit, like
God created it, and as it madeitself, and as an ego.

(01:36:50):
This is the strangely illogicalposition he's talking about.
This is trying to serve twomasters, love and fear, truth
and illusion, spirit and ego.
And the thing is, thesepositions are mutually
exclusive.
So when the mind's trying tohold both of them, it's tension

(01:37:13):
and instability and basicallyinsanity.
The phrase in there, you haveplaced yourself.
He says, the reason for this isthe strangely illogical position
in which you have placedyourself.
So that's that's saying rightthere, this is not imposed on

(01:37:38):
us.
This is self-chosen, and sinceit was chosen, it can be
unchosen too.
That's the other problem.
Missing the point.
He's talking about gettingdiagnosed with anxiety and

(01:38:00):
believing it and taking thepills.
Yeah, and any of those momentswhere you're believing in that,
you can not believe in itanymore.
You could wake up and recognize,oh, I'm making this anxiety by
believing fearful thoughts, andthen I'm trying to help myself,
I'm trying to save myself fromanxiety using magic.

(01:38:24):
Right?
These pills instead of going,what fearful thought is causing
this anxiety?
That's always what's going on.
It's a fearful thought causinganything, pain, anxiety, fear.
It's just a fearful thought.
Guilt.

(01:38:45):
So the illogic, the illogicalpart is in trying to have these

things be on the same level: love and fear. (01:38:52):
undefined
You cannot be both the cause andthe effect, both the creator and
the created.
This is where you really claimthat created aspect.
You don't wanna you don't wannabe the creator of illusions.

(01:39:13):
You can't really, anyways, youonly make them up.
But when you believe that it'syours, and that's how the ego
thinks of it.
The ego thinks of it, this ismine, I made it up.
But then on the surface ofthings, on the surface,
consciousness, it changes tothis thing outside of me is
really hurting me, is reallythreatening me.

(01:39:35):
But underneath the secretthought of the ego is I made
this, I better not, I betterdefend it and not let it be seen
through.
So the ego's thought system issaying underneath it, I made
myself and therefore I can makemyself safe.
See, the Holy Spirit is saying,God created me, therefore I am

(01:40:00):
safe eternally.
See the difference there.
What's making me unsafe?
Let's say it's genetic, genetictendency towards such and such.
Make it up whatever you want,right?
What's making me unsafe?
That's all based on how I mademyself.

(01:40:21):
I made myself into a human thatgot this and these the biologies
and all this other stuff.
And when I look at I am as Godcreated me, that kind of stuff
is not true.
I am safe, I'm eternally safe.
So there's conflict betweenthese two identities: self-made

(01:40:47):
and God-made.
That is the essence of the humancondition, this conflict between
these identities.
And you notice how I'm callingit a human condition because
there's no humans really,there's only a human condition.
So your healing begins themoment you recognize that it's

(01:41:11):
absurd to believe that self-madeand God-made can both be true.
It's ridiculous.
Again, anytime there's confusionor mental tension, mental
tension, you must be trying tohold to opposing beliefs.
It's the beliefs that are inconflict.

(01:41:32):
Are you trying to be both whatGod created you and what you
made of yourself?
When you recognize this, you go,oh, only one of those is real.
I'm just going to remember thatI'm as God created me.
I'm just going to let thisdissolve this ridiculous
position, this illogicalposition in my mind, and I'm

(01:41:53):
going to return to peace now.
So the text again from paragraphthree, sentence two.
The reason for this is thestrangely illogical position in
which you have placed yourself.
And that's the reason for theinevitable conflict in the
interim between recognizing thisintellectually and actually

(01:42:17):
embodying this.
And what is this?
It's the recognition that you uhyou have mastery over love when
you claim it.
And basically claiming it issaying what?
Only love is real.
It's recognizing only love isreal.
There isn't anything else.
That's mastery over love, iswhat we said.

(01:42:40):
Uh, is that what it is that whatthis is thing is called?
I'm just gonna double check.
Uh mastery of love.
That's what it's called.
Mastery of love.
So there's a strangely illogicalposition.

(01:43:00):
And now we are on paragraphthree, sentence three.
I'm just gonna check to see ifall my peeps are doing good.
You're you guys are doing good.
Awesome, awesome.
I love you.
Paragraph three, sentence three.
This will be our last one.
Since we have frequentlyemphasized that correction must

(01:43:24):
be applied within the level thaterror occurred or error, error
occurs.
Let me start over.
be applied within the level thaterror occurs, it should be clear
that the miracle must beillogical because its purpose is

(01:43:49):
to correct the illogical andrestore order.
So the miracle must be illogicalbecause its purpose is to
correct illogical.
Hmm, okay.
Then we have a footnote forthis, footnote 158, going back
to miracle principle 42.
True correction cannot beundertaken except within a

(01:44:14):
dimension.
Otherwise, there has been aconfusion of levels.
Okay, and then there's uhmiracle principle 48 and some
other texts right here fromchapter two.
How is the miracle illogical?
Jesus will explain later, andthat's in chapter three, that it

(01:44:38):
is illogical because it is anout-of-pattern time interval.
In other words, it does notfollow logically from the
pattern established by the past,being meant to correct that
pattern.
The past pattern itself wasillogical in that it did not

(01:45:00):
follow from God's premises.
And its correction, the miracle,is also illogical in that it
does not follow from the pastpremises.
So the pattern itself doesn'tfollow God's premises, and then

(01:45:21):
the miracle doesn't follow thepast premises.
The pattern is basically apattern of the past, it's based
on past thoughts, past error.
So this sentence is linking forus the logic of the miracle to

(01:45:42):
the logic of correction.
Because the error, the illusion,occurs at the perceptual level.
Correction has to take placethere at the perceptual level.
But the source of the correctioncomes from beyond what's being
perceived, but it takes place atthe perceptual level.

(01:46:07):
So the miracle is calledillogical, not because it's
saying it lacks order, but itdoesn't conform to the ego's
logic, this pattern establishedby the past.
The ego logic always says,notice what it says, the past

(01:46:28):
determines the present.
For instance, recovering from aweekend.
That's saying that the past, theweekend, is determining how you
feel in your body right now.
That is not true.
That is just not true.
That is one way you can use amiracle.
Super simply, keep your eyes andmind open for that.

(01:46:51):
Where there's anything that saysyou're affected by the night
before or the weekend orsomething like that.
Just recognize in your own mind,oh my goodness, I'm projecting
this now.
There has been no last night.
It doesn't matter, even if youyour belly still still seems
full from what you ate, right?

(01:47:14):
So miracle logic says that thepresent corrects the past by
removing its effects, it removesall the past effects.
That's why it's not logical atall.
Because in the in the illusoryworld, it's all these causes
causing everything to be as itis, and all of a sudden the

(01:47:36):
miracle just erases all thoseeffects.

SPEAKER_01 (01:47:40):
Illogical to say it didn't happen.

SPEAKER_04 (01:47:42):
Right.
It seems very illogical.
Right.
So the miracle is out ofpattern, it's a sudden
suspension of this ego cause andeffect chain.
It allows the divine truth toreassert itself in your mind and
in the world.

(01:48:04):
It's amazing.
I love it.
I totally love it.
I see so many opportunities forit, and I take those
opportunities because it feelsgood.
Fuck, you just do it for thatreason.
So the ego's thought system istotally consistent.

(01:48:28):
It's just that it's based onfalse premises, it's based on
separation, guilt, fear.
That's why it seems sobelievable, though, because it's
consistent.
Right?
It just appears logical in anillusion.
But the miracle has this higherorder of logic, it's God's love.
It seems illogical from theworld's perspective, because

(01:48:51):
it's not conditioned onanything.
But what about this?
This doesn't matter, it's stillall love, it's still
make-believe.
So it's also talking about howcorrection has to occur within
the level where the error isbelieved.
Okay, but through a means that'stranscending the mind's own

(01:49:16):
error, too.
So this is why the miracle, whena miracle is performed, when you
perform a miracle, it feels youkind of feel supernatural.
It restores sanity.
You notice it restores sanity,it changes everything, but it
doesn't follow the world'sreasoning at all.

(01:49:38):
So in your own experience, whenyour life seems like something
needs to be fixed in it,remember that is an opportunity
to see that the miracle isn'tbound by that at all.
You don't have to solve anyproblem in your life with that

(01:49:59):
thinking that made the problem.
There is no problem in reality.
So the true prayer is asking foryour perception to get corrected
so that divine order could berestored in your own mind.

(01:50:23):
Let's read this sentence again.
It's a long one.
be applied within the level thaterror occurs, it should be clear
that the miracle must beillogical because its purpose is
to correct the illogical andrestore order.

(01:50:48):
So there's a there's illogicgoing on here where it's it's a
call for love, it's a call for amiracle, it's something
illogical, it's an error, it'sbased on the belief in
separation.
So the miracle is also illogicalbecause its purpose is to
correct something that'sillogical.

(01:51:11):
So it's going, uh, it's comingin and being totally not
following, not in following thatpattern.
And that's what the footnotekind of clarifies for us, in a
sense.
I mean, it could actually belooked at in other ways.
You could say it must beillogical because uh it's not

(01:51:32):
something that would be evennecessary in reality, right?
Both the uh both the need forcorrection is based on illogical
because it's based on erroneouspast thoughts, and then the
miracle is also illogicalbecause it wouldn't even be
necessary unless there wassomething illogical going on

(01:51:55):
being believed, and it's alsoillogical because it doesn't
follow the pattern.
The pattern would be uh, let'ssay, let's go back to the IRS
one.
That's fun one.
IRS letter, and you know, thecorrection was totally
illogical, it changedeverything, it made it so that

(01:52:18):
instead of it progressing,because it I could see the
pattern, instead of itprogressing, like uh the agent
shows up, I feel threatened, andthen I feel like I got a threat
chip in my shoulder, and then itgoes back and forth, and it's
like this uh terrible conflictedrelating going on, which is you

(01:52:38):
know, the IRS agent reflected tome that that's normally how it
goes on for her.
Yeah.
And she would be of a mindsetthat let me see how much I can
get these fuckers to pay.
You know, she shared this withme.
She's like, but I don't feelthat way with you.

(01:52:59):
And I was like, Oh, that's good.
She's like, also, you don't oweany money.
I'm like, oh, that's great.
Right?
So it's like it it changes itfrom what is expected.
It's like an ancient patternthat's been playing out and it's
expected to go along a certainway.
And the miracle just comes rightin there and it changes the

(01:53:21):
whole thing.
It's like that doesn't need tobe a source of conflict anymore.
Ever again.
Even the idea of anythingfinancial that just gets wiped
away.
It never needs to be a source ofconflict, knowing that you're
completely and always sustainedby the love of God, always

(01:53:42):
having the miracle, uh, thetruth that you're still as God
created you at your disposal allthe time.
Thomas and I have been playingwith uh this chapter in A Course
in Love.
I think it's day, it starts atday three, I believe, where it
starts talking about abundanceand then it starts talking about
access and you know, peopleknowing the importance of people

(01:54:06):
knowing how to access unity.
When you're accessing unity,everything that you intersect
with, which is all perception,all of that gets released.
All of your perception,everything perception perceptual
just gets released, and you'reconstantly collapsing time
because through your access tounity, you're intersecting with

(01:54:30):
you're intersecting with allyour experiences, and you're
just seeing right throughillusions.
And all of this that we'restudying today, going over a
course in miracles, it's reallygetting us to the same kind of
recognition.
We have access to this, we haveaccess to the truth, we have

(01:54:50):
access to uh creation,basically.
And creation is accessed byrecognizing every impulse, every
instinct, everything that weperceive being either love or a
call for love.
It's either creative or itdoesn't exist.
Miscreation simply doesn'texist.

(01:55:12):
So it's a matter of recognizingwhere miscreation is being
projected and also bringing itto the truth.
It really has no basis inreality because only one level
is true, and that's the level ofcreation.
In creation, there's no lack oflove.
That's why you're alwaysunaffected by lack of love.

(01:55:36):
Anything that seems to be lackof love didn't really happen.
It happened as a symbol only.
That's different.
It happened as a symbol.
To you, it happened.
Let's say that.
To you, it happened.
And if you would be willing totake it as a symbol, something
that you can use to undo guiltyself-consciousness and fear,

(01:55:58):
then that's what it'll be foryou.
It won't be some heavy realitythat now you have to deal with.
Yay.
Oh, it's fun to see you.
Thank you, Kalama, for reachingout.
I love you.
All right, you guys.
Well, that was a really fun ACIMdeep dive.
We went all the way through uh,what is this, a chapter?

(01:56:20):
No, this is not a chapter.
This is a paragraph.
Paragraph three.
We're on, we got to section, allthese words.
Section 12, the mastery of lovein a course in miracles.
Uh, we got through paragraphthree, and next week we start on
paragraph four.

(01:56:41):
I'm gonna be doing this untilthe end of October, and then I
believe I'll be taking two weeksoff and maybe doing two more
weeks, and then maybe I don'tknow, we'll see what happens.
I might take a longer time off,but join until the end of
October.
We have a few more weeks to go,maybe two or three.
I don't know.
And we'll start up at numberfour again.

(01:57:03):
I love you guys.
Thank you so much for joining.
For more information, go tohopejohnson.org.
Oh, hooray! Thank you, Glenn.
Thank you, everyone.
I love you so much.
You can also donate at hope athopejohnson.org.
You can get my book, you can getone-on-one, you can get my free

(01:57:23):
recordings.
Also uh link up to me onSubstack and other places.
There's a lot of action onthere.
Go to hopejohnson.org.
I've been working on that vodkafor a while, apparently.
All right, I love you guys.
Aloha.

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Created, Not Self-Made | ACIM Deep Dive | Chapter 2, Section XI, Paragraph 22 to Section XII, Paragraph 3 | October 8, 2025

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Created, Not Self-Made | ACIM Deep Dive | Chapter 2, Section XI, Paragraph 22 to Section XII, Paragraph 3 | October 8, 2025