Even at this stage of the text there are significant differences between the TV and the WV. The Chapter numbers and titles are different. The last section of chapter 11 in the TV was moved into this chapter in the WV. This editorial change seems to make sense as the section discusses guilt. In addition, there were editorial changes regarding the introduction. Because of these large changes I will include the entire section to be studied with references to both versions. I will also number the sections beginning with "A". I have further numbered the paragraphs in each section beginning with "1" to make reference easier.

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Chapter 12 - THE PROBLEM OF GUILT [TV]
[13-THE GUILTLESS WORLD [WV]]



A. Introduction


1. The ultimate purpose of projection, as the ego uses it, is ALWAYS to get rid of guilt. But, characteristically, it attempts to get rid of it FROM ITS VIEWPOINT ONLY. For much as the ego wants to RETAIN guilt, YOU find it intolerable. For guilt stands in the way of your remembering God, Whose pull is so strong that YOU cannot resist it. On this issue, then, the deepest split of all occurs, for if you are to RETAIN guilt, as the ego insists, YOU CANNOT BE YOU. Only by persuading you that IT is you, could the ego possibly induce you to PROJECT guilt, and thereby keep it in your mind.

2. But consider how strange a solution the ego’s arrangement is. You PROJECT guilt to get rid of it, but you actually merely conceal it. You DO experience guilt FEELINGS, but you have NO IDEA OF WHY. On the contrary, you associate them with a weird assortment of EGO ideals, which the ego claims you have failed. But you have no idea that you are failing the Son of God, by seeing HIM as guilty. Believing you are no longer YOU, you do not realize that you are failing YOURSELF.



B. Guiltlessness and Invulnerability

[formerly the last section of chapter 11 in the TV]

1. If you did not feel guilty, you could not attack. For condemnation is the root of attack. It is the judgment of one mind by another as UNWORTHY of love, and DESERVING of punishment. But herein lies the split. For the mind that judges, perceives itself as SEPARATE from the mind being judged, believing that by punishing ANOTHER, IT will escape punishment. All this is but the delusional attempt of the mind to deny itself, and ESCAPE THE PENALTY OF DENIAL. It is NOT an attempt to RELINQUISH denial, but to HOLD ON TO IT. For it is guilt that has obscured the Father to you, and it is guilt that has driven you insane. The acceptance of guilt into the mind of God’s Son was the beginning of the separation, as the acceptance of the Atonement is its end.

2. The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its powers decline if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.

3. If this were the real world, God WOULD be cruel. For no father could subject his children to this as the price of salvation, and be loving. LOVE DOES NOT KILL TO SAVE. For if it did, attack WOULD be salvation, and this is the ego’s interpretation, NOT God’s. Only the world of guilt could demand this, for only the guilty could CONCEIVE of it. Adam’s “sin” could have touched none of you, had you not believed that it was the FATHER Who drove him out of Paradise. For it is in THAT belief the knowledge of the Father was lost, for it is only those who do not understand Him that COULD believe it.

4. This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God’s Son. And until you realize that God’s Son CANNOT be crucified, this is the world you will see. But you will NOT realize this, until you accept the eternal fact that GOD’S SON IS NOT GUILTY. He DESERVES only love, because he has GIVEN only love. He cannot be condemned, because he has never condemned. The Atonement is the final lesson he need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, HE HAS NO NEED OF SALVATION.

5. Long ago we said that the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good teachers, whose ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary, by teaching their pupils all they know. The Holy Spirit wills ONLY this, for sharing the Father’s love for His Son, He wills to remove all guilt from his mind, that he may remember his Father in peace. For peace and guilt are antithetical, and the Father can BE remembered ONLY in peace. Love and guilt cannot coexist, and to accept one is to DENY the other.

6. Guilt hides Christ from your sight, for it is the denial of the blamelessness of God’s Son. In this strange world which you have made, the Son of God HAS sinned. How could you SEE him, then? By making HIM invisible, the world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt which you accepted, and you hold it dear. For the blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego never was, and can never be. Without guilt the ego HAS no life, and God’s Son IS without guilt.

7. As you look upon yourselves and judge what you do honestly, as you have been asked to do, you may be tempted to wonder how you can be guiltless. You are NOT guiltless in time, but IN ETERNITY. You HAVE “sinned” IN THE PAST, but there IS no past. [Time ?] Always has no direction. Time seems to go in one direction, but when you reach its end, it will roll up like a long carpet that has spread along the past behind you, and will disappear. As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty, you will walk along this carpet, believing that it leads to death. And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless, for so it is.

8. The journey which the Son of God has set HIMSELF is foolish indeed. But the journey on which his Father sets him is one of release and joy. The Father is not cruel, and His Son CANNOT hurt himself. The retaliation which he fears, AND WHICH HE SEES, will never touch him, for although he BELIEVES in it, the Holy Spirit KNOWS it is not true. He stands at the end of time, where YOU must be, because He is WITH you. He has ALWAYS undone everything unworthy of the Son of God, for such was His mission, given BY God. And what God gives HAS always been.

9. You will see me as you learn the Son of God is guiltless. He has always sought his guiltlessness, and he has FOUND it. For everyone is seeking to escape from the prison he has made, and the way to find release is not denied him. Being IN him, he has found it. WHEN he finds it is only a matter of time, and time is but an illusion. For the Son of God is guiltless NOW, and the brightness of his purity shines untouched forever in God’s Mind. God’s Son will ALWAYS be as he was created. Deny YOUR world, and judge him not. For his eternal guiltlessness is in the mind of his Father, and protects him forever.

10. When you have accepted the Atonement for yourselves, you will realize that THERE IS NO GUILT IN GOD’S SON. And ONLY as you look upon him as guiltless, can you understand his Oneness. For the IDEA of guilt brings a belief of condemnation of one by another, projecting separation in place of unity. You can condemn only yourself, and by doing so, you cannot know that you are God’s Son. For you have denied the condition of his Being, which is his perfect blamelessness. Out of Love he was created, and in Love he abides. Goodness and mercy have always followed him, for he has always extended the Love of his Father.

10. As you perceive the holy companions who travel with you, you will realize that there IS no journey, but only an awakening. The Son of God, who sleepeth not, has kept faith with his Father FOR you. There is no road to travel ON, and no time to travel THROUGH. For God waits not for His Son in time, being forever unwilling to be without him. And so it has always been. Let the holiness of God’s Son shine away the cloud of guilt that darkens your mind, and by accepting his purity AS yours, learn of him that it IS yours.

11. You are invulnerable BECAUSE you are guiltless. You can hold on to the past ONLY through guilt. For guilt establishes that you WILL BE punished for what you have done, and thus depends on one-dimensional time, proceeding from past to future. No-one who believes this, can understand what ALWAYS means. And therefore guilt MUST deprive you of the appreciation of eternity. You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now. Guilt, then, is a way of holding past and future in your minds, to ensure the ego’s continuity. For if what HAS BEEN WILL BE punished, it’s continuity WOULD be guaranteed.

12. But the guarantee of your continuity is God’s, not the ego’s. And immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is constant. Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless. The future IN TIME is ALWAYS associated with expiation, and ONLY guilt could induce a sense of NEED for expiation. Accepting the guiltlessness of the Son of God AS YOURS is therefore God’s way of reminding you of His Son, and what he is in truth. For God has never condemned His Son, and being guiltless, he IS eternal.

13. You cannot dispel guilt by making it real, and THEN atoning for it. For this is the ego’s plan, which it offers INSTEAD of dispelling it. The ego believes in ATONEMENT THROUGH ATTACK, being fully committed to the insane notion that attack IS salvation. And YOU who cherish guilt must ALSO believe it, for how else but by identifying WITH the ego, could you hold dear what you do not want?

14. The ego teaches you to attack yourself BECAUSE you are guilty, and this MUST INCREASE the guilt, for guilt is the RESULT of attack. In the ego’s teaching, then, there IS no escape from guilt. For attack MAKES GUILT REAL, and if it is real there IS no way to overcome it. The Holy Spirit dispels it simply through the calm recognition that it has never been. As He looks upon the guiltless Son of God, he KNOWS this is true. And being true for you, you CANNOT attack yourself, for WITHOUT guilt, attack is impossible. You, then, ARE saved BECAUSE God’s Son is guiltless. And being wholly pure, you ARE invulnerable.

In my previous study of the Text, I have not found it a casual read. Studying the Text to me is is a slow careful study where every sentence, every word, is filled with meaning. It is a difficult study for me as it teaches about areas that I have not really studied before and the teaching often contradicts what I usually think. Because of this I will break it down further to study a paragraph at a time.

For those that are new to the Course or who have not really studied it in detail I highly suggest reading "The Use of Terms" included on this site.

I turn my attention first to paragraph # 1 in the introduction. The first sentence immediately jumps out. The ego's ultimate purpose of projection is ALWAYS to get rid of guilt. Implied in the first sentence is that the Holy Spirit also has a use or purpose for projection. At this point, it is unknown what this purpose is or how it differs from the ego's use of projection.

The ego attempts to get rid of guilt by projection but only from its perspective.

[For those new to the course our mind is often described as split and fragmented. The ego, as I understand it, is a split part of our mind that is a thought system. Its purpose is to maintain the separation. The separation divides our worlds of perception, separates us from one another, hides our true identity as spirit, and separates us from God.]

The ego wants to retain guilt to serve its purpose. We, as spirit, find guilt intolerable.

Guilt stands in the way of us remembering God. On the other hand, the pull of God is so strong that we cannot resist it. This is described as the deepest split. The ego thought system insists that we retain guilt. If we do this then we cannot be who we really are. The ego aspect of our mind persuades us that we are the ego and this is how the ego induces us to protect guilt and keep it in our mind.


In summary, guilt is key to the ego thought system in maintaining the separation. This is the deepest split in our mind as the ego tries to use it to keep us from remembering our true identity and remembering God, while the pull of God is so strong that we cannot resist it. This must create tremendous conflict in our mind.

I think that it is important to recognize that Jesus is talking about the psychological mechanism of 'projection' which according to Freud is the attribution to another of various impulses and feelings that we do not want to acknowledge as in ourselves. Therefore, for example, if a client is in therapy and he feels guilty about impulses or desires he has to rape women, he will begin to suspect that his therapist is a rapist. He is projecting and doing this will not rid him of his guilty feelings. That will require fessing up to his impulses, going within and examining, in an honest fashion, the circumstances that gave rise to them. It is this kind of examination that the ego does not wish and this is why guilt is retained.

Jesus is saying that we simply find the constant projection that the ego motivates us to engage in intolerable because it does not get rid of the guilty feelings which not only makes life unsatisfying and miserable but also operates to keep our awareness of God from us, probably because of that avoidance of going within and examining what is there in a honest fashion. Should we go within in matters of guilt, we would find release and God and Self but this (we are told in this passage) the ego is always talking us out of doing and how does it do it? By making us think that its thoughts are our thoughts, its desires about guilt are our desires about guilt, and so forth. In other words, we so identify with what the ego wants, we honestly think that it is our personal wants.

A. Introduction - Paragraph 2

The ego's solution to guilt is a strange one. We try to project guilt to get rid of it but it merely conceals it so that we still experience guilt but do not know why. We associate the guilt with a failure to meet ego ideals. Since we and others are, in reality, the Son of God we are seeing the Son as guilty. Because the memory of our true identity as the Son of God has been obscured by the ego and replaced with an ego/body identification we do not realize that we are actually failing our true self.

I have been studying the difference between the TV and WV in this area. I have made a mistake in the way I began the material as it put it out of sequence.

Since we are at the beginning it is easy to change. Will re-post from the beginning tomorrow.

My apology for the error, neo

:meditate:

The ego convinces us to project guilt to rid ourself of it BUT all that does is make us unconscious of why we continue to feel guilty. Still listening to the ego, we believe that these guilt feelings are associated with failure to live up to "ego ideals." However, Jesus indicates that the real failure is not our inability to live up to ego ideals but our failure to understand that our insistence that the Son of God is guilty (e.g., our brother upon whom we have projected). This failure is one which maintains our lack of conscious awareness of who and what we really are.

I am kind of interested in the concept of "ego ideals." Freud spoke of "ego ideals" as perfectionistic notions, e.g., perfect people, perfect ways of being and behaving. However, it seems to me that "ego ideals" can also be used to refer to any and all standards or rules or goals that our ego thinks are important for us to live up to. I can't say that I am even close to understanding what this phrase means.

I think "ego ideals" is not clear to us yet. My thinking is that the various mechanisms that help the ego maintain the appearance of separation are ego ideals. I think if we proceed at this point the ego thought system will be made quite clear to us.

Well, I have been thinking about this and it occurred to me to look at the definition for the word "ideals." This term is defined as follows:

1. standard of perfection, beauty, or excellence
2 : one regarded as exemplifying an ideal and often taken as a model for imitation
3 : an ultimate object or aim of endeavor : GOAL

I am thinking that this indicates that "ego ideals" may be ego notions of what and/or who is perfect or beautiful or excellent or some goal that the ego thinks is the ultimate. Thus, you might have a young man who thinks he feels guilty because he doesn't have what it takes to make the most beautiful girl in the class attracted to him, when the real guilty he is feeling has to do with his failure to renounce projection in favor of looking inward at what is really making him feel guilty in life. Or, you might have a woman who wants to become Principal of a School but the job goes to somebody else. She feels lowly and awful and thinks that this is because she has not reached what she considers an ultimate goal or objective but the truth is that she is feeling guilty because she projects instead of reflects. Hey, those last four words rhyme like "if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit." :lol: Anyway, I now feel I have a better handle on what "ego ideals" are.

Yes, I think ego ideals are mechanisms that maintain illusion and separation and these would be ideas of sin, guilt, sickness, weakness, opposition, limitation, suffering, loss, death, all fear thoughts which make the world of false perception.

alex

Again, I think we will get into ego ideals. I suspect there are many including the attack cycle, the focus on the body, and the special relationship.

neo