No-one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for NOT
looking is the way they are PROTECTED. There is no need to shrink from
illusions, for they cannot be dangerous. We are ready to look more
closely at the ego’s thought system because, together, we have the lamp
that will dispel it, and since you realize you do not WANT it YOU must
be ready. Let us be very calm in doing this, for we are merely looking
honestly for truth. The “dynamics” of the ego will be our lesson for a
while, for we must look first at this to look beyond it since you HAVE
made it real. We will UNDO this error quietly together, and then look
beyond it to truth.

What is healing but the removal of all that STANDS IN THE WAY of
knowledge? And how else can one dispel illusions EXCEPT by looking at
them directly, WITHOUT protecting them? Be not afraid, therefore, for
what you will be looking at IS the source of fear, but you have surely
learned by now that FEAR is not real. We have accepted the fact already
that its EFFECTS can be dispelled merely by denying their reality. The
next step is obviously to recognize that what has no effects DOES NOT
EXIST. Laws do not operate in a vacuum, and what leads to nothing HAS
NOT HAPPENED. If reality is recognized by its Extension, what extends to
nothing cannot BE real.

Do not be afraid, then, to look upon fear, for it cannot BE seen.
Clarity undoes confusion by definition, and to look upon darkness
through light MUST dispel it. Let us begin this lesson in “ego dynamics”
by understanding that the term itself does not mean anything. In fact,
it contains exactly the contradiction in terms which MAKES it
meaningless. “Dynamics” implies the power to DO something, and the whole
separation FALLACY lies in the belief that the ego has the power to do
ANYTHING. The ego is fearful to you BECAUSE you believe this. Yet the
truth is very simple; ALL POWER IS OF GOD. What is NOT of Him has no
power to do ANYTHING.

When we look at the ego, then, we are not considering dynamics,
but delusions. We can surely regard a delusional system without fear,
for it cannot have any effects if its source is not true. Fear becomes
more obviously inappropriate if one recognizes the ego’s GOAL, which is
so clearly senseless that any effort exerted on its behalf is
NECESSARILY expended on nothing. The ego’s goal is quite explicitly ego
AUTONOMY. From the beginning, then, its PURPOSE is to be separate,
sufficient unto itself, and independent of any power EXCEPT its own. This
is WHY it is the symbol of separation.

Every idea has a purpose, and its purpose is always the natural
extension of what it IS. Everything that stems from the ego is the
natural outcome of its central belief, and the way to undo its RESULTS
is merely to recognize that their SOURCE is not natural, being out of
accord with your TRUE nature. We once said that to will contrary to God
is wishful thinking, and not real willing. His Will is One because the
extension of His Will cannot be unlike Itself. The real conflict you
experience, then, is between the ego’s idle wishes and the Will of
God,Which you share. Can this BE a real conflict?

Yours is the independence of creation, NOT of autonomy. Your whole
creative function lies in your complete DEPENDENCE on God, Whose
function He shares with YOU. By HIS willingness to share it, He became
as dependent on you as you are on HIM. Do not ascribe the ego’s
arrogance to Him Who wills not to be independent of YOU. He has INCLUDED
you in His Autonomy. Can YOU believe that autonomy is meaningful APART
from Him? The belief in EGO autonomy is costing you the knowledge of
your dependence on God IN WHICH YOUR FREEDOM LIES. The ego sees ALL
dependency as threatening, and has twisted even your longing for God
into a means of establishing ITSELF. But do not be deceived by ITS
interpretation of your conflict.

The ego ALWAYS attacks on behalf of separation. Believing it has the
power to do this it does nothing else, because its goal of autonomy IS
nothing else. The ego is totally confused about reality, but it does NOT
lose sight of its goal. It is much more vigilant than YOU are because it
is perfectly certain of its purpose. YOU are confused because you do NOT
know YOURS.

What you must learn to recognize is that the LAST thing the ego wishes
you to realize is that YOU ARE AFRAID OF IT. For if the
ego gives rise to fear it is DIMINISHING your independence and WEAKENING
your power. Yet its one claim to your allegiance is that it can GIVE
power to you. Without this belief you would not listen to it at all.
How, then, can its existence continue if you realize that, BY accepting
it, you ARE belittling yourself and DEPRIVING yourself of power?

The ego can and does allow you to regard yourself as supercilious,
unbelieving, “light-hearted”, distant, emotionally shallow, callous,
uninvolved, and even desperate, but NOT REALLY AFRAID. MINIMIZING fear,
but NOT its undoing, is the ego’s constant effort, and is indeed the
skill at which it is very ingenious. How can it preach separation
WITHOUT upholding it through fear, and would you listen to it if you
recognized this IS what it is doing?

YOUR recognition that whatever seems to separate you from God is ONLY
fear, regardless of the form it takes and quite apart from how the EGO
wants you to experience it, is therefore the basic ego threat. Its dream
of autonomy is shaken to its foundation by this awareness. For though
you may countenance a false idea of independence, you will NOT accept
the cost of fear IF YOU RECOGNIZE IT. Yet this IS the cost, and the ego
CANNOT minimize it. For if you overlook love you are overlooking
YOURSELF, and you MUST fear unreality BECAUSE you have denied yourself.
By believing that you have successfully ATTACKED truth, you are
believing that attack has POWER. Very simply, then, you have become
afraid of YOURSELF. And no-one wills to learn what he believes would
destroy him.

If the ego’s goal of autonomy could be accomplished God’s purpose could
be defeated, and this IS impossible. Only by learning what fear IS can
you finally learn to distinguish the possible from the impossible and
the false from the true. According to the ego’s teaching, ITS goal can
be accomplished, and God’s purpose can NOT. According to the Holy
Spirit’s teaching, ONLY God’s purpose is accomplishment, and it is
ALREADY accomplished. God is as dependent on you as you are on Him
because His autonomy ENCOMPASSES yours, and is therefore incomplete
WITHOUT it. You can only establish your autonomy by identifying WITH Him,
and fulfilling your function AS IT EXISTS IN TRUTH.

The ego believes that to accomplish ITS goal is happiness. But it is
given YOU to know that God’s function IS yours, and happiness cannot be
found apart from your JOINT will. Recognize only that the ego’s goal,
which you have pursued quite diligently, has merely brought you FEAR,
and it becomes difficult to maintain that fear IS happiness.

UPHELD by fear, this IS what the ego would have you believe. Yet God’s
Son is not insane, and CANNOT believe it. Let him but RECOGNIZE it, and
he will NOT accept it. For only the insane would choose fear IN PLACE of
love, and only the insane could believe that love can be gained by
attack. But the sane know that only attack could produce FEAR, from
which the Love of God completely protects them.

The ego analyzes; the Holy Spirit ACCEPTS. The appreciation of wholeness
comes ONLY through acceptance, for to analyze means to separate out. The
attempt to understand totality by breaking it up is clearly the
characteristically contradictory approach of the ego to everything.
Never forget that the ego believes that power, understanding and TRUTH
lie in separation, and to ESTABLISH this belief it MUST attack. Unaware
that the belief cannot BE established, and obsessed with the conviction
that separation IS salvation, the ego attacks everything it perceives by
breaking it up into small and disconnected parts, without meaningful
relationships, and thus without meaning. The ego will ALWAYS substitute
chaos for meaning, for if separation is salvation, harmony is threat.

The ego’s interpretation of the laws of perception are, and would HAVE
to be, the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit’s. The ego focuses on
ERROR, and overlooks TRUTH. It makes real EVERY mistake it perceives,
and with characteristically circular reasoning concludes that BECAUSE of
the mistake, consistent truth must be meaningless. The next step, then,
is obvious. If consistent truth is meaningless, INCONSISTENCY must be
true if truth has meaning. Holding error clearly in mind, and protecting
what it has made real, the ego proceeds to the next step in its thought
system; that error is real and TRUTH IS ERROR.

The ego makes no attempt to understand this, and it is clearly NOT
understandable, but the ego does make EVERY attempt to
DEMONSTRATE IT, and this it does constantly. Analyzing to attack
meaning, the ego DOES succeed in overlooking it, and is left with a
series of fragmented perceptions which it unifies on behalf of ITSELF.
This, then, becomes the universe it perceives. And it is this universe
which, in turn, becomes its demonstration of its own reality.

Do not underestimate the appeal of the ego’s demonstrations to those who
would listen. Selective perception chooses its witnesses carefully, and
its witnesses ARE consistent. The case for insanity IS strong to the
insane. For reasoning ends at its beginning, and no thought system
transcends its source. Yet reasoning without meaning CANNOT demonstrate
anything, and those who are convinced by it MUST be deluded. Can the ego
teach truly when it OVERLOOKS truth? Can it perceive what it has DENIED?
Its witnesses DO attest to its denial, but hardly to what it has denied!
The ego looks straight at the Father and does not see Him, for it has
denied His Son.

Would YOU remember the Father? Accept His Son and you WILL remember Him.
Nothing can demonstrate that His Son is unworthy, for nothing can prove
that a lie is true. What you see of His Son through the eyes of the ego
is a demonstration that His Son does not exist, yet where the Son is the
Father MUST be. Accept what God does NOT deny, and HE will demonstrate
its truth. The witnesses for God stand in His Light and behold what HE
created. Their silence is the sign that they have beheld God’s Son, and
in the Presence of Christ they need demonstrate nothing, for Christ
speaks to them of Himself and of His Father. They are silent because
Christ speaks to them, and it is His words that THEY speak.

Every brother you meet becomes a witness for Christ or for the ego,
depending on what you perceive in him. Everyone convinces you of what
you WANT to perceive, and of the reality of the kingdom you have chosen
for your vigilance. Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought
system you WANT to be true. Every brother has the power to release you
IF YOU WILL TO BE FREE. You cannot accept false witness of HIM unless
you have evoked false witnesses AGAINST him. If HE speaks not of Christ
to you, YOU spoke not of Christ to him. You hear but your OWN voice, and
if Christ speaks THROUGH you, YOU will hear Him.