OrEd-T-20.4-Sin as an Adjustment.1
16. The belief in sin is a shift in perception, or an adjustment. An adjustment is a change. It is a belief that what was so before is made different. Every adjustment is a distortion, and it calls on defenses to hold up the adjustment against reality. Knowledge requires no adjustment, and is lost if any shift or change is made. Any shift or change at once reduces knowledge to perception--a way of looking in which doubt has entered, and certainty is lost. Adjustments are necessary to this impaired condition because perceptions are not true. No one needs to adjust the truth, which calls on only what he is to understand.
17. All adjustments of are of the ego. The ego's believes that all relationships depend on adjustments to make them what it would have them be. Direct relationships, where there is no interference, are always seen as dangerous. The ego, the self-appointed mediator of all relationships, makes and interposes adjustments between those who would meet, keeping them separate and preventing their union. It is this deliberate interference which makes it difficult for me to recognize my holy relationship for what it is.
18. The holy are not afraid of truth, and do not interfere with it. For within the truth, they recognized their holiness, and rejoiced at what they saw. The holy looked on truth directly, not attempting to adjust themselves to it or it to them. Not deciding first where they would have truth be, they saw that truth was within them. Their looking asked a question, and what they SAW answered it. I make the world, and then I adjust to the world, and adjust the world to myself. There is no difference between myself and the world in my perception, as my perception made them both.
19. Now, this question needs an answer. Do I like what I have made? I thread my way through a world of constant dangers, alone, afraid of attack, and murder. I hope at most that death will wait a little longer before it overtakes me and I disappear. THIS IS WHAT I MADE UP! It is a picture of what I think I am, of how I see myself. All these are only the fearful thoughts of those who would adjust themselves to a world made fearful by their adjustments. A murderer is frightened, and those who kill fear death. And they look out in sorrow from what is sad within, and see the sadness out there.
20. The world I see is not there at all. It is only a judgment of myself! Yet MY JUDGMENT lays a sentence on it, justifies the sentence, and makes the world seem real. Such is the world I see, made by me as a judgment on myself. This sickly "picture of myself", the ego's cherished image, is carefully preserved by the ego and placed outside me in the world. And to this world I must adjust, as long as I believe this picture is outside and has me at its mercy. This world is merciless, and were it outside me, I should indeed be fearful. Yet it was I who made it merciless, and now if mercilessness seems to look back at me, it can be corrected. I long have wondered how the world would look through happy eyes, and what the world is really like.
21. No one in a holy relationship can remain unholy for long. The holy see a world that is one with them. The holy see a world that is beautiful, because they see their innocence in it. They did not make adjustments to fit their demands, and they did not tell the world what it was. They gently questioned the world and whispered, "What are you?" And the Holy Spirit, Who watches over all perception answered. "What am I?", is a question answered by the Holy Spirit, but not by the judgment of the world.
