T-7.6-From Vigilance to Peace-1
1. Although I can love the Sonship only as one, I can perceive the Sonship as fragmented. It is impossible, however, to see something in part of the Sonship that I will not attribute to all of the Sonship. That is why attack is never discrete, and why attack must be relinquished entirely. If attack is not relinquished entirely, it is not relinquished at all. Fear or love make or create, depending on whether the ego or the Holy Spirit begets or inspires them. But fear or love will return to the mind of the thinker, and will affect the thinker's total perception. That includes the thinker's concept of God, of God's creations, and of the thinker's own creations. The thinker will not appreciate any of Them, if he regards Them fearfully. He will appreciate all of Them if he regards Them with love.
2. The mind that accepts attack cannot love. That is because, the mind that accepts attack, believes it can destroy love, and therefore does not understand what love is. If the mind does not understand what love is, that mind cannot perceive itself as loving. This loses the awareness of being, induces feelings of unreality and results in utter confusion. My thinking has done this, because of the mind's power, but my thinking can also save me from this, because the mind's power is not of my making. My ability to direct my thinking as I choose, is part of the mind's power. If I do not believe I can do this, I have denied the power of my thought, and thus rendered my thought powerless in my belief.
3. The ingeniousness of the ego to preserve itself is enormous, but this ingeniousness stems from the very mind power the ego denies. This means that the ego attacks what is preserving it, resulting in its extreme anxiety. This is why the ego never recognizes what it is doing. It is perfectly logical, but clearly insane. It draws upon the one source that is totally inimical to its existence, for its existence. The ego is forced to depreciate the power of this source, being fearful to perceive the power. This threatens its own existence, a state intolerable to the ego. It resolves this insane dilemma in a logical, but still insane way. By projecting the threat onto me, and perceiving my being as nonexistent, the ego does not see its existence as threatened. If I side with it, the ego's continuance is ensured, by guaranteeing I will not know my own safety.
4. The ego cannot afford to know anything. Knowledge is total, and the ego does not believe in totality. This unbelief is the ego's origin. While the ego does not love me, it is faithful to its own antecedents, begetting as it was begotten. Mind always reproduces as it was produced. Produced by fear, the ego reproduces fear. Fear is the ego's allegiance, and this allegiance makes the ego treacherous to love, love being what I am. The ego must deny that love is my power. The ego must also deny everything this power gives, as this power gives me everything. No one who has everything wants the ego. If the mind that made the ego knew itself, rejection is the only decision the ego could possibly encounter. And the mind would know itself if it recognized any part of the Sonship. Then, the ego's own maker would not want it.
5. The ego opposes all appreciation and recognition, all sane perception, and all knowledge. The ego perceives their threat as total, because it senses that all commitments the mind makes are total. Forced to detach itself from me, the ego is willing to attach itself to anything else. But there is nothing else. However, the mind can make up illusions, and if it does will believe in the illusions, because it made the illusions by believing in them.
6. Because the Holy Spirit cannot perceive illusions at all, He undoes illusions without attacking them. Therefore, illusions do not exist for the Holy Spirit. He resolves the apparent conflict illusions engender by perceiving conflict as meaningless. The Holy Spirit perceives the conflict exactly as it is, and it is meaningless. The Holy Spirit does not want me to understand conflict. He wants me to realize that, because it is meaningless, conflict is not understandable. As Jesus said, understanding brings appreciation, and appreciation brings love. Only love can be understood, only love is real, and only love has meaning.
7. If I keep in mind what the Holy Spirit offers me, I can be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom. The reason I may find this hard to accept, is because I still think there is something else. Belief does not require vigilance unless it is conflicted. If belief is conflicted, there are conflicting components within the belief that have led to a state of war. Vigilance has therefore become essential. Vigilance has no place in peace. Vigilance is necessary against beliefs that are not true, and vigilance would never have been called upon by the Holy Spirit if I had not believed the untrue. When I believe something, I have made it true for me. When I believe what God does not know, my thought seems to contradict God's thought, and this makes it appear as if I am attacking God.
