1. Perhaps some of our concepts will become clearer and more personally meaningful if the ego’s use of guilt is clarified.
²The ego has a purpose, just as the Holy Spirit has.
³The ego’s purpose is fear, because only the fearful can be egotistic.
⁴The ego’s logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects.
⁵But again, remember that both are in you.
2. In Heaven there is no guilt, because the Kingdom is attained through the Atonement, which releases you to create.
²The word “create” is appropriate here because, once what you have made is undone by the Holy Spirit, the blessed residue is restored and therefore continues in creation.
³What is truly blessed is incapable of giving rise to guilt, and must give rise to joy.
⁴This makes it invulnerable to the ego because its peace is unassailable.
⁵It is invulnerable to disruption because it is whole.
⁶Guilt is always disruptive.
⁷Anything that engenders fear is divisive because it obeys the law of division.
⁸If the ego is the symbol of the separation, it is also the symbol of guilt.
⁹Guilt is more than merely not of God.
¹⁰It is the symbol of attack on God.
¹¹This is a totally meaningless concept except to the ego, but do not underestimate the power of the ego’s belief in it.
¹²This is the belief from which all guilt really stems.
3. The ego is the part of the mind that believes in division.
²How could part of God detach itself without believing it is attacking Him?
³We spoke before of the authority problem as based on the concept of usurping God’s power.
⁴The ego believes that this is what you did because it believes that it is you.
⁵If you identify with the ego, you must perceive yourself as guilty.
⁶Whenever you respond to your ego you will experience guilt, and you will fear punishment.
⁷The ego is quite literally a fearful thought.
⁸However ridiculous the idea of attacking God may be to the sane mind, never forget that the ego is not sane.
⁹It represents a delusional system, and speaks for it.
¹⁰Listening to the ego’s voice means that you believe it is possible to attack God, and that a part of Him has been torn away by you.
¹¹Fear of retaliation from without follows, because the severity of the guilt is so acute that it must be projected.
4. Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you.
²It is your acceptance of it that makes it real.
³If you enthrone the ego in your mind, your allowing it to enter makes it your reality.
⁴This is because the mind is capable of creating reality or making illusions.
⁵I said before that you must learn to think with God.
⁶To think with Him is to think like Him.
⁷This engenders joy, not guilt, because it is natural.
⁸Guilt is a sure sign that your thinking is unnatural.
n⁹Unnatural thinking will always be attended with guilt, because it is the belief in sin.
¹⁰The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love, but as a positive act of assault.
¹¹This is necessary to the ego’s survival because, as soon as you regard sin as a lack, you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation.
¹²And you will succeed.
¹³The ego regards this as doom, but you must learn to regard it as freedom.
5. The guiltless mind cannot suffer.
²Being sane, the mind heals the body because _it_ has been healed.
³The sane mind cannot conceive of illness because it cannot conceive of attacking anyone or anything.
⁴I said before that illness is a form of magic.
⁵It might be better to say that it is a form of magical solution.
⁶The ego believes that by punishing itself it will mitigate the punishment of God.
⁷Yet even in this it is arrogant.
⁸It attributes to God a punishing intent, and then takes this intent as its own prerogative.
⁹It tries to usurp all the functions of God as it perceives them, because it recognizes that only total allegiance can be trusted.
6. The ego cannot oppose the laws of God any more than you can, but it can interpret them according to what it wants, just as you can.
²That is why the question, “What do you want?” must be answered.
³You are answering it every minute and every second, and each moment of decision is a judgment that is anything but ineffectual.
⁴Its effects will follow automatically until the decision is changed.
⁵Remember, though, that the alternatives themselves are unalterable.
⁶The Holy Spirit, like the ego, is a decision.
⁷Together they constitute all the alternatives the mind can accept and obey.
⁸The Holy Spirit and the ego are the only choices open to you.
⁹God created one, and so you cannot eradicate it.
¹⁰You made the other, and so you can.
¹¹Only what God creates is irreversible and unchangeable.
¹²What you made can always be changed because, when you do not think like God, you are not really thinking at all.
¹³Delusional ideas are not real thoughts, although you can believe in them.
¹⁴But you are wrong.
¹⁵The function of thought comes from God and is in God.
¹⁶As part of His Thought, you cannot think apart from Him.
7. Irrational thought is disordered thought.
²God Himself orders your thought because your thought was created by Him.
³Guilt feelings are always a sign that you do not know this.
⁴They also show that you believe you can think apart from God, and want to.
⁵Every disordered thought is attended by guilt at its inception, and maintained by guilt in its continuance.
⁶Guilt is inescapable by those who believe they order their own thoughts, and must therefore obey their dictates.
⁷This makes them feel responsible for their errors without recognizing that, by accepting this responsibility, they are reacting irresponsibly.
⁸If the sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself, and I assure you that it is, then the responsibility for what is atoned for cannot be yours.
⁹The dilemma cannot be resolved except by accepting the solution of undoing.
¹⁰You would be responsible for the effects of all your wrong thinking if it could not be undone.
¹¹The purpose of the Atonement is to save the past in purified form only.
¹²If you accept the remedy for disordered thought, a remedy whose efficacy is beyond doubt, how can its symptoms remain?
8. The continuing decision to remain separated is the only possible reason for continuing guilt feelings.
²We have said this before, but did not emphasize the destructive results of the decision.
³Any decision of the mind will affect both behavior and experience.
⁴What you want you expect.
⁵This is not delusional.
⁶Your mind does make your future, and it will turn it back to full creation at any minute if it accepts the Atonement first.
⁷It will also return to full creation the instant it has done so.
⁸Having given up its disordered thought, the proper ordering of thought becomes quite apparent.