Chapter 4: The Root of All Evil

III. Love without Conflict

¹ You have never understood what “the Kingdom of Heaven is within you” means. The reason you have not understood it is because it is not understandable to the ego, which interprets it as if
something outside is inside, and this does not mean anything.

The word “within” is unnecessary. The Kingdom of Heaven is you. What else but you did the Creator create, and what else but you is His Kingdom? This is the whole message of the Atonement, a message, which, in its totality, transcends the sum of its parts. Christmas is not a time; it is a state of mind. The Christ Mind wills from the Soul, not from the ego, and the Christ Mind is yours.

² You, too, have a kingdom which your Soul created. It has not ceased to create because your ego has set you on the road of perception. Your Soulʹs creations are no more fatherless than you are. Your ego and your Soul will never be co‐creators, but your Soul and your Creator will always be. Be confident that your creations are as safe as you are.

          The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected, and the ego will not prevail against it, ‐ Amen.

That was written in that form because it is a good thing to use as a kind of a prayer in moments of temptation. It is a Declaration of Independence. You will find it very helpful if you understand it
fully.

³ In its characteristically upside‐down way, the ego has taken the impulses from the super‐conscious and perceives them as if they arise in the unconscious. The ego judges what is to be accepted, and the impulses from the super‐conscious are unacceptable to it because they clearly point to the nonexistence of the ego itself. The ego therefore experiences threat, and not only censors but also reinterprets the data. However, as Freud correctly pointed out, what you have repressed can retain a very active life beyond your awareness.

⁴ Repression thus operates to conceal not only the baser impulses but also the most lofty ones from awareness because both are threatening to the ego and, being concerned primarily with its own preservation in the face of threat, the ego perceives them as the same. The threat‐value of the lofty is actually much greater to the ego because the pull of God Himself can hardly be equated with the pull of human appetites. By perceiving them as the same, the ego attempts to save itself from being swept away, as it would surely be in the presence of knowledge. 

⁵ The upper level of the unconscious thus contains the Call of God as well as the call of the body. That is why the basic conflict between Love and fear is unconscious; the ego cannot tolerate either, and represses both by resorting to inhibition. Society depends on inhibiting the latter, but salvation depends on disinhibiting the former.

The reason you need my help is because you have repressed your own Guide, and therefore need guidance. My role is to separate the true from the false in your unconscious, so it can break through the barriers the ego has set up, and shine into your minds. Against our united strength the ego cannot prevail.

⁶ It should be apparent to you by now why the ego regards the Soul as its “enemy.” The ego arose from the separation, and its continued existence depends on your continuing belief in the separation.

Having reduced the Soul impulses to the unconscious, the ego has to offer you some sort of reward for maintaining this belief. All it can offer is a sense of temporary existence, which begins with its own beginning and ends with its own ending. It tells you this life is your existence because it is its own.

Against this sense of temporary existence the Soul offers you the knowledge of permanence and unshakable being. No one who has experienced the revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again. How can its meager offering to you prevail against the glorious gift of God?

⁷ You who identify with your egos cannot believe that God loves you. You do not love what you have made, and what you made does not love you.

Being made out of the denial of the Father, the ego has no allegiance to its own maker. You cannot conceive of the real relationship which exists between God and His Souls because of the hatred you have for the self you have made. You project onto your own idea of yourself the will to separate, which conflicts with the love you feel for what you made because you made it. No human love is without this ambivalence, and since no ego has experienced love without ambivalence, the concept is beyond its understanding.

⁸ Love will enter immediately into any mind which truly wants it, but it must want it truly. This means that it wants it without ambivalence, and this kind of wanting is wholly without the egoʹs “drive to get.”

There is a kind of experience which is so different from anything the ego can offer that you will never recover. The word “recover” is used quite literally here, ‐ you will never be able to cover or hide again. It is necessary to repeat here that your belief in darkness and in hiding is why the Light cannot enter. The Bible gives many references to the immeasurable gifts which are for you, but for which you must ask. This is not a condition as the ego sets conditions. It is the glorious condition of what you are.

⁹ No force except your own will is strong enough or worthy enough to guide you. In this you are as free as God, and must remain so forever. You can never be bound except in honor, and that is always voluntary. Let us ask the Father in my name to keep you mindful of His Love for you and yours for Him. He has never failed to answer this request because it asks only for what He has already willed. Those who call truly are always answered. Thou shalt have no other gods before Him because there are none.

¹⁰ It has never really entered your mind to give up every idea you ever had that opposes knowledge. You retain thousands of little scraps of meanness which prevent the Holy One from entering. Light cannot penetrate through the walls you make to block it, and it is forever unwilling to destroy what you have made. No one can see through a wall, but I can step around it. Watch your minds for the scraps of meanness, or you will be unable to ask me to do so. I can help you only as our Father created us. I will love you and honor you and maintain complete respect for what you have made, but I will neither honor it nor love it unless it is true.

¹¹ I will never forsake you, any more than God will, but I must wait as long as you choose to forsake yourself. Because I wait in love and not in impatience you will surely ask me truly. I will come in response to a single unequivocal call. Watch carefully and see what it is you are really asking for. Be very honest with yourself about this, for we must hide nothing from each other. If you will really try to do this, you have taken the first step toward preparing your mind for the Holy One to enter. We will prepare for this together, for once He has come you will be ready to help me make other minds ready for Him. How long will you deny Him His Kingdom?

¹² In your own unconscious, deeply repressed by the ego, is the declaration of your release. God has given you everything. This is the one fact that means the ego does not exist, and which therefore makes it profoundly afraid. In the egoʹs language, remember, “to have” and “to be” are different, but they are identical to the Soul. The Soul knows that you both have everything and are everything. Any distinction in this respect is meaningful only when the idea of “getting,” which implies a lack, has already been accepted. That is why we made no distinction before between having the Kingdom of God and being the Kingdom of God.

¹³ The calm being of Godʹs Kingdom, which in your sane mind is perfectly conscious, is ruthlessly banished from the part of the mind which the ego rules. The ego is desperate because it opposes literally invincible odds, whether you are asleep or awake. 

Consider how much vigilance you have been willing to exert to protect your ego, and how little you have been willing to expend to protect your higher mind. Who but the insane would undertake to believe what is not true, and then protect this belief at the cost of truth?

<< Previous Lesson                                                                                                                                     Next Lesson >>