Finally I know that what is in my world got there through my thoughts and that it is not caused by anything else. I am so comfortable with that belief that sometimes I forget that not everyone believes this. I get into trouble when casually discussing world events with an acquaintance and I mention the forgiveness lesson and the beauty of seeing the error so it can be undone. I look up to see a blank stare, or a wary look, or an eye roll. Too funny!
But accepting this is true, and changing the pattern of thinking that I have identified with is not the same thing. The latter requires determination and vigilance. It also requires trust that letting go of the ego is not the same thing as letting go of myself. I can go with the theory that I am not the ego, but when it comes down to the thought system itself, and to releasing my favorite illusions, I find myself less than fully willing to do so.
Me: Holy Spirit, can you help me with this?
Holy Spirit: My friend, you already are doing this. You notice thoughts that are out of alignment with the truth, and you become willing to be corrected. You think that this is hard or overwhelming when you think that the ego is really something. It is not. It is just a thought system, ideas based on the thought that there could be something different from what God created. It is simply a thought that arose in your mind. From that “what if” question came the answer, and as it was fully considered, the world and time unfolded within your mind.
Your hesitation at discarding this thought cluster comes from your having identified with it. This is the only error that needs to be undone. You are not the thought of separation and specialness. It is only one of many thoughts within your vast and holy mind. Through looking at these thoughts, watching them play out in your mind as if they were real, you give yourself the chance to see that they are thoughts you do not want to keep. You are able to see that the thought of separation leads to separate goals, to anger, to vengeance, to murder. You are able to feel the loneliness of believing you are separate and though you look for ways within this thought system to fill this perceived need, you find that there is no way to do so.
The identity you made through your innocent wondering is not who you are. It is merely playing in your creativity. If you paint a picture of fantastic beings, green skies and two moons, it may be captivating and capture your imagination, but if you change the painting or you decide against it and paint over it, there is no fear that you are lost. You created a story on canvas from your fertile imagination, but you did not become what you painted. This life you are creating is no different than the painting. If you decide to paint differently, or to tear the canvas up, the painter is not destroyed.
By deciding to back out of the illusion that your mind dreamed up, you are simply deciding to think something else. Do you see that it does not affect the thinker of the illusion to focus the mind on something else? Even within the illusion you change your mind all the time. Do you cease to exist because you decided not to believe something you used to believe? Your creation of life outside God is just thought, and you are not that thought, but the thinker of the thought. Allowing that thought to fall away is simple and harmless.
While the thought of separation is in your mind, there is also the thought of Truth. This is why you welcome Me, and recognize My words as true even though they are not part of the thought of separation that you have temporarily embraced. You may choose, for now, to give your attention to the world you made up, but the truth remains in your mind and is never lost to you. You know this even when you deny it. And now that you have begun to withdraw your projections, and to loosen the hold you have had on your dream, the truth is beginning to come into focus for you.
You have long played in your made up world and there is a reluctance to give up that thought in your mind. Remember when you have written something and realized it was not what you wanted, and yet you hesitated to delete it? This is much the same. You have made this up, you see that it is not what you want to do any longer, and yet, you created it and creators love their creations. But you are a powerful Son of the Father and have many creations (true creations) and will create many more. Just as you have deleted a story and then written a better one with no harm to yourself, you may release the hold you have on this world. Recognize your resistance for what it is, a reluctance to let go of what you no longer have use for. You are not letting go of what you are, only what you thought.