The Curse of Perception

M: Why does this hurt so much?

C: If you add what does not belong you will suffer from what you insist is “real” but can never be TRUE. Discard what does NOT belong and free yourself from what you impose upon the experience of “you.” Make no mistake, the “world” is nothing more than the experience of your “self” from which you push away ALL that you have determined as NOT “you.”

Such attempts to control a delusional reality from within the delusion are destined to fail, because it only reinforces the power to be controlled by that which you determine as separate from you. There is nothing apart from your mind. Nothing leaves your mind and you are “there” as is everything you perceive as divided from you.

All fear merely attests to the fear of your own thought.

M: What doesn’t belong?

C: Everything you demand as “real” only blocks TRUTH by keeping the experience of your “self” in scattered pieces rather than WHOLE. Forcing “reality” to conform to your expectations creates defenses against the TRUTH of the whole by attacking the parts that you deem as separate from that wholeness.

What you determine as NEEDED can only defend against TRUTH, because TRUTH simply does not conform to the chaos of your separate and divided thoughts. Nothing you THINK reflects wholeness, but merely perpetuates the weakness inherent to the parts that you have expelled. You will expect attack from that which you banish and your thoughts currently reflect that constant preparation. Yet, what is a part of you cannot attack when it experiences the wholeness that only YOU can provide.

What belongs will be apparent by the fact that YOU have no need of it. This makes it free and clear of your conditions and you will experience the WHOLENESS inherent to that absence.

You will ONLY be increased by what comes to you without condition. 

Conditions are nothing more than your preparation for defense against that which you have expelled. You have expelled everything and that exclusion is evident by the very act of SEEING.

Your needs are the conditions from which awareness of “reality” is sculpted into chaotic pieces having NO purpose whatsoever. This does NOT reflect TRUTH, but results in “perception.” Yet, you fail to realize that the very act of perception slices up the whole into separate disparate parts. Therefore, you must understand that you can never experience wholeness through perception. Yet, you can give wholeness TO perception and be renewed by that unified experience.

M: So I should just give up all my needs?

C: You will ALWAYS suffer from what you evaluate and "perceive" as LOSS. In a world through which you must defend against the parts, there is NO capacity to perceive the TRUTH that is right before your “eyes.”

There can be no loss in TRUTH, because it takes nothing away and ONLY increases. Only perception looks for and sees loss.

But you fear you will be deprived and so you fear what TRUTH will give you. Through perception you demonstrate your fear of having everything and losing nothing. Hence, perception has cursed you with the need to judge between parts by what the parts contain. This weakens you because there is nothing in the parts but what perception provides by “seeing” it.


Yet, still, you do not believe “perception” a curse, but idolize it as a means of “survival.” You will “die,” but only because you “perceive” death and perception makes it true.
 
M: So I just have to recognize that I have NO needs? Again, another impossible task!

C: Indeed, for one who perceives NEED, the task appears insurmountable. Deprivation makes TRUTH seem unavailable, lost and in need of discovery. Why else would you have called on me if not to aid you in correcting this error?

M: So what about this particular situation?

C: What I teach applies to all situations. Your belief in “particular” situations is why you have yet to understand TRUTH.

There are no situations or events separate from TRUTH. There is only what you choose to experience either through TRUTH or through perception. If you encase TRUTH in the concepts you “perceive,” you will be controlled by an “outside” world.

However, you are free to change your thinking at any time and this “particular situation” can be of incalculable value toward that goal. But you must take direction from one who knows that value.

You have been here before many times over. Yet, of your “self,” you can only repeat the past, because your perception is a product of that past and you will only see what it teaches you.

M: So what do you want me to do?

C: Nothing

M: What do you mean “nothing”? I have to do something or things could go wrong.

C: Are you not yet weary of all your efforts? Have you not yet realized you have no basis for perceiving right or wrong? Are you not ready to let down your defenses in the realization that they have not served you?

Perception is a defense against TRUTH and your reliance on it fails to increase you. When you are ready you will give me ALL your experiences and I will show you how to see it ALL in TRUTH. I will show you that right and wrong are not part of TRUTH and you will be overjoyed with the understanding that you need not rely on perception as the means of making CHOICES. You will experience freedom beyond your wildest imaginings in the realization that you need do nothing at all.

Your mind languishes in a hell of your CHOOSING. What more could freedom be than an END to this?

In this "situation," do not decide you know what is best. Make no choices based on perception without first asking me what it means. Do not be afraid and have faith that you will learn and what you learn will naturally increase you as only the TRUTH can. You are already suffering because your egocentric perceptions mislead you into making choices that decrease you, causing you to experience weakness and loss. This wastes time and is completely unnecessary.

M: You want me to deny reality.

C: I ask that you deny the reality you have made, because it was made to be perceived apart from TRUTH.

God created TRUTH because God is TRUTH and so MUST you be. Nothing you “perceive” can change that FACT simply because what is separate from God cannot exist in TRUTH. You are NOT separate from God but your incessant need to “perceive” your world denies this FACT from you.

I teach only the TRUTH as it was placed within me and nothing else. I am the TRUTH and I AM in you as you are in me. You cannot “perceive” me, nor do I perceive you. We are joined as ONE through the mind that gave us life and that life cannot be experienced through perception.

Yet, the experience of that LIFE can completely alter perception and what you “see” will astound you, but only until the moment TRUTH dawns on you and perception ceases its hold as all remnants of the past evaporate like fallen raindrops in the hot midday sun.

This freedom awaits you my brother as it awaits ALL that you “perceive.” Perception can only whither and die under the magnificence of TRUTH.

No longer will you be troubled by choices that fail to summon TRUTH before your eyes. This is your inheritance and delay no longer in accepting what is yours, as it was given you upon your Creation. This dream is not your home. But it can serve to show you the way when it no longer serves any other purpose BUT that alone.

Truth is Known by Increase

M: Why does this hurt so much?

C: If you add what does not belong, you will suffer from what you insist be “real” but can never be TRUE. Discard what does NOT belong and be free from what you impose upon yourself.

What you superimpose upon experience diminishes you. 

Your attempts to control a delusional reality by manipulating your delusions must fail, because it only reinforces the power of what is not TRUE to control you.

M: What doesn’t belong?

C: Everything manipulated as “real" can only block TRUTH. Forcing “reality” to conform to your expectations demands you defend against TRUTH. What you determine as NEEDED defends against what is TRUE, because TRUTH does not conform to what you THINK and every experience is a product of your thought. Nothing is free of your mind and that is a law of God which you can NOT alter. You can deny it and this is the chief defining property of ALL your suffering.

M: So nothing I see, hear, touch or even think for that matter, is real?

C: It is ALL very “real” for you. Yet, it holds no TRUTH because it does NOT increase you.

TRUTH is known by increase. It cannot decrease, lose or take away. It cannot fade or change. It does not reduce, limit or obstruct. It does NOT suffer from deprivation because it is deprived of nothing. It is constant and has absolutely NO conditions because it is absolutely FREE. 

What belongs will be apparent by the fact that it is free of your conditions. Your conditions result from your belief in deprivation. You can ONLY be increased by what comes to you FREE, without condition. Your conditions are filters that channel awareness to what must be defended as separate from the WHOLE. Only what is separate do you refer to as “real.” Therefore, you know nothing as TRUE.

You believe constant increase is impossible and that everything must eventually decrease and die. Your needs arise from deprivation and are the conditions from which the “real” is constructed. The details are intensely imaginative and “real” for you, but completely delusional. “Real” is a delusional concept of your invention. TRUTH does NOT know of it, because TRUTH has an opposite.

M: So I should just give up all my needs?

C: You will ALWAYS suffer from what you evaluate as LOSS. In a world through which you experience deprivation, you have LOST the capacity to see the TRUTH that appears directly before your eyes.

There can be no loss in TRUTH, because it takes nothing away and ONLY increases. But you fear it will deprive you of your egocentric "reality" and so you fear what TRUTH will give because it will give you everything and you will lose nothing. That which is defined through deprivation will cease to exist when it has everything. Yet, if TRUTH increases everything then deprivation cannot possibly exist NOW, as that would be a lie. The logic of TRUTH is quite elementary, but is well hidden within the complexity of your egocentric concepts.

M: So I just have to recognize that I have NO needs? Again, another impossible task!

C: Indeed, for one who believes in deprivation, the task appears insurmountable. Deprivation makes TRUTH seem unavailable, lost and in need of discovery. Why else would you have called on me if not to aid you in correcting this error?

M: So what about this particular situation?

C: Your belief in “particular” situations is why you have yet to understand that TRUTH encompasses all experience. There are no situations or events. No episodes or moments. No days or months or years. There are no specific or particular experiences. There is, and can only ever be, one TRUTH, applicable in all cases.

If you lock away your experiences behind limiting concepts, you must only be imprisoned within the finite, conditional thoughts of your own mind. This is your “reality” and it is only your thinking that is deprived.

However, you are free to change your MIND at any time and this “particular situation” can be of incalculable value toward that goal if you so choose. But you must take direction from one who knows what that value is. You do recognize you have been here before and, of your “self,” you have NO recourse other than to repeat the past, because past thoughts have NO basis for existence in TRUTH.

M: So what do you want me to do?

C: Nothing.

M: What do you mean “nothing”? I have to do something.

C: Are you not yet weary of all your frantic efforts? What thought, concept or belief from the past will save you this time? Have you not yet realized you have no basis for determining right or wrong? Are you not yet ready to let down your defenses in the realization that they have not served you and, in fact, only perpetuate suffering? Does your “world” not demonstrate this to you?

When you are ready you will give me ALL your experiences and I will show you how to see it ALL as ONE. I will show you that right and wrong are not part of TRUTH and you will be overjoyed with the understanding that you need not CHOOSE any longer. You will experience freedom beyond your wildest imaginings in the realization that you need do nothing at all. Your mind languishes in a hell of your CHOOSING. What more could freedom be than an END to making the choice TO suffer?

In this situation, do not decide you know what is best. Make no choices without my counsel. Do not be afraid and have faith that you will learn and what you learn will naturally increase you, as only TRUTH can. learning that does not provide constant increase is ignorance. Is it clear to you now that, in all your years, you have learned nothing at all?

You have no means of accurate assessment. You are always wrong when you believe you are right and right when you are wrong. There can be NO difference in a dream of “reality” except what you decide and you do not have the means of deciding anything correctly because you have assessed it ALL as “real.” It is this evaluation that divides your world and tears it into opposing pieces and through these scattered pieces you define a “self” as part of the whole, thereby, denying that you tore it apart so as NOT to know the whole.

You are here to learn what YOU are and have called on me to teach you. Take rest in me and I will take up your burden and we will tread lightly together. Walk this dream with lightened steps and an ease to your gait, because you walk with one who knows the way out.

Interpreting Salvation

C: You interpret a need to suffer again?

M: I can’t help it. Things are not working out well.

C: How do you know that?

M: It’s what I experience.

C: Egocentric exclusivity demands ALL experience demonstrate a separation from your world. Inclusive oneness does not simply incorporate “other people,” but ALL that the mind perceives itself apart from.

Your salvation is based entirely upon interpretation, because you have the POWER to interpret yourself SAVED from the suffering of exclusivity into an inclusive whole and from that interpretation you ARE saved. God waits for you to make this decision and it is certain that YOU will.

M: So I just need to interpret myself saved and I’m saved?

C: Nothing more is needed. You interpret yourself in hell and, hence, this is your experience. If everything your mind shows you is THOUGHT, and I assure you it is ONLY that, then “hell” is simply an interpretation that you are separate from your own THINKING. You have invented THOUGHTS that you interpret as beyond your control. But how can this be if it is ALL your invention?

M: I still don’t see how this helps me.

C: Recognize that nothing in your world is what you have interpreted it to be and discard your interpretations as meaningless. You have learned nothing from them, except to unravel ever more absurd meanings from erroneous perceptions based on false interpretations. All previous interpretations are completely useless to you NOW.

The original interpretation that you are separate from God and, hence, from everyone in your “world,” made all subsequent decisions patently meaningless. You must correct the original interpretation before you will interpret your world correctly.

The dream unfolds as nothing more than an interpretation on you. The “world” conforms to what you interpret your “self” to be and not what the world determines you ARE. You interpret the world as oppositional to you when, in fact, you only oppose your “self.” You hate what you are, but seek a way to “love” yourself and this “loving hatred” is reflected back to you. Everywhere you look you perceive a world of other minds hating what the mind seems to show them, but desperately seeking for a way to love what they fear. This is how you interpret your “self” and, thus, it stands to reason that you would SEE your world this same way.

There can be NO peace to a confused mind split between interpretations of love and fear. Eventually, you must choose only one, because there is only one. This is what you have called on me to show you. Do NOT deny the purpose you give me.

M: If I made the world, why is it not the way I want?

C: The disorder and chaos of your world simply reflects the meaningless disorder of your mind. Yet, you continue to claim that it is “out there.” You refuse to accept your role and what is “out there” only reflects that refusal. You adjust your inner state to what you behold “outside” and inevitably suffer internally from what you make externally “real.”

You have sought out many situations as a means of finding “happiness.” Each situation brings you NO closer to what you seek, because you will not FIND it in a “world” that you have made as a means to HIDE it. Why insist on seeking what you have arranged can NEVER be found?

These situations must be interpreted in a way for PEACE to return. There is nothing that need be sacrificed for this to be LEARNED in every moment. If you could experience the Joy of God inherent to TRUTH, you would know this without doubt and peace would be experienced in every moment.

M: But you want me to surrender everything I believe in.

C: What GIFTS have your beliefs bestowed upon you? Have they alleviated your fear or ended your suffering? Have they given you infinite joy and peace? Have they provided you with a love conditioned on nothing, but love itself? Do your thoughts dissolve all conflict or merely further reinforce opposing conditions? Have you ever experienced JOY from what you believe and is that JOY transferable to your "world”?

If not, then why would you wish to keep “believing”? What purpose do your beliefs serve except to perpetuate what came before and why would you wish more of the same?

It is inherent to your God given free-will to believe whatever you should choose and how you respond to your world immediately demonstrates what you have chosen. I merely teach that there is another choice available, because this is what you ask of me.

Do not determine your role in any situation. Make no decisions on what you wish to happen or on what outcome you feel is best. Make no judgments on what you want and await what will be shown to you because YOU have asked for it. Understand that if you feel deprived or discouraged in any moment, then you have decided in error and ask for correction.

Your feelings can be used to measure your distance from TRUTH. When you allow TRUTH to guide you, you will feel measurably INCREASED beyond anything you have ever experienced. Nothing from the PAST can insure this increase. Hence, believe that you DO NOT KNOW and believe nothing else, because no other belief has the power to save you from the hell you have made by what you believe.

Dreams Do Not Leave The Mind Of The Dreamer

M: Actually, what I’ve noticed recently is that, since these conversations, I’ve been experiencing more stress in my life than before. I sometimes think trying to learn what you teach is causing me more problems because I’m trying to attain what is totally unattainable.

C: Your need to experience “problems” has not changed, because you identify with deprivation and every problem symbolizes an absence of what you insist will “save” you.

However, your desperation for freedom from your problems is obviously intensifying as you begin to learn that FREEDOM has always been available to the MIND, but never the body. There will come a time when you will think with me always, in the realization that the ‘self’ you rely on to make use of a body cannot free your MIND. Yet, you continue to believe it is a sacrifice to free your MIND of what the self makes “real.” You believe “happiness” is out there and must be found. Hence, you stand before the bridge, but fear crossing.

M: I feel I should be farther along than I am.

C: The idea that you are NOT yet “there,” is the one idea currently inhibiting progress. You are THERE and only one last step must be taken before you see what you have come to see. You may take that step now or wait a thousand more years, but it is certain you WILL cross.

You still seek for evidence of change to “appear” in your world. The world will always witness to your state of mind. NOTHING changes without your WISH, but you wish only for what you know and you know NOTHING.

Do not rely on “perception” to teach you that you know NOTHING, because perception will teach you that NOTHING is "something" and you will learn from the PAST. There is NO progress in going backward. I offer you a future absent all past and in that, you will experience a present never before known.

You have begun to use your “problems” to negate what I teach and deny TRUTH. You claim that since your problems have increased, I must be a fraud.

This idea only serves to support your weak imagination, which the dream can only reflect back to you, in contradiction to my teaching that your strength is beyond the weakness you now imagine real.

Weakness always distrusts what it sees and sees only what must be distrusted as means of reinforcing its weakness, which it claims as "strength." You are beginning to trust in ME and this can only increase your trust in THEM, because to FULLY trust in me, you must FULLY trust in THEM. This closes the gap that you imagine separates you from your world.

M: So I have to rely on others to awaken from my dream?

C: The dream of “you” is yours and there are NO “others.” God did NOT create divided minds to occupy separated and estranged bodies as means to oppose one another. It is your dream and therefore, what happens is always a product of your request.

When you no longer demand the past define the present, you will understand all your experiences as ONE and that ONE experience will naturally awaken YOU from your dream.

THEY can teach you that you are only dreaming, because it is what you will teach THEM. Every moment you push them away, every time you curse what the dream shows you, you keep them and yourself in HELL.

M: How do I teach anybody anything when I don’t know anything?

C: There is a part of you that can teach a different purpose for what you imagine as “real.” It is from “there” I came and it is to there we BOTH will return.

That part has never left God and is inextricably bound to TRUTH. That part is completely whole and is NOT aware of separate THOUGHTS opposing one another. It can only teach what it knows and it will teach you to see the wholeness of your dream, since the only means of awakening from a dream, is to see it ALL as you have made it.

A dream does NOT leave the mind of the dreamer.

Teach THEM that they are also dreaming and you will learn that from THEM. However, determine that they are right or wrong in any way and they will teach you to oppose them.

Think of everything you want and teach the opposite. This will aid you in corresponding with the part of you that is unaware of egocentricity and is, therefore, NOT dreaming of opposites.

M: The only part of me I know of is living and interacting in the world.

C: You look to your world to teach you what you ARE and you will learn what “you” have taught it. There is more to YOU than your world can ever show you, but you must show that to your world. Let go of everything you THINK you are and you will discover what you are in TRUTH. Do not be afraid that you will falter or fail because you do not follow the rules of the dream. Realize that you are ruler of the dream and the rules will dissolve before your eyes.

M: Why would I dream certain experiences and not others? Why is my dream specifically as it is? Why are certain people a part of my dream?

C: You wish to learn that there is nothing to fear in a dream made of fear. You are its maker and you have asked me to teach you this, because you know it MUST be true.

This radically alters the dream into a cause for rejoicing, because a mind completely free of fear cannot but rejoice because it is FREE. Make no purpose for THEM other than this and you will learn from THEM what you teach. Free THEM of your concepts and THEY will free YOU from the prison of your own. This is THEIR only purpose, because it is YOUR only purpose. What other purpose could you set for THEM but this? What other purpose could your world serve but to free it and yourself?

Nevertheless, you have specified many purposes for parts of your dream and this has only kept you from awaking. Separate thoughts can only conflict and oppose one another and your world reflects those opposing ideas.

Your experience of a “world” would be completely different if ALL ideas were equal. All ideas IN a dream are equal because they are ALL NOTHING. The “happy” times and the “sad,” the moments you have cursed in rage and those moments in which you THOUGHT you had finally found joy. Not one of them was real. Invest the dream with any special moments in time and you will NOT awaken from a dream world constructed entirely FROM the delusion of time.

This is NOT where you belong and you have never really felt as though you belonged here and that feeling intensifies. You are beginning to see the absurdity of your chaos. But you must take my hand else you will dream of your destruction and accept it as “real.”

You cannot die, but you can dream of death and, because of the absolute incredible power of your mind, you will believe it.