The practical application of the Holy Spirit’s purpose is extremely
simple, but it IS unequivocal. In fact, in order to be simple it MUST be
unequivocal. The simple is merely what is easily understood, and for
this it is apparent that it must be clear. The setting of the Holy
Spirit’s goal is general. Now He will work with you to make it specific.
There are certain very specific guidelines He provides for any
situation, but remember that you do not yet realize their universal
application. Therefore, it is essential, at this point, to use them in
each situation separately, until you can more safely look BEYOND each
situation, in an understanding far broader than you now possess.
In any situation in which you are uncertain, the first thing to
consider, very simply, is, “What do I want to come of this? What is it
FOR?”The clarification of the goal belongs at the BEGINNING, for it is
this which will determine the outcome. In the ego’s procedure, this is
reversed. The SITUATION becomes the determiner of the outcome, which can
be anything. The reason for this disorganized approach is evident. The
ego does not know what it WANTS to come of it. It is aware of what it
does NOT want, but only that. It has no positive goal at all.
Without a clearcut, positive goal, set at the outset, the situation just
seems to happen, and makes no sense until it has ALREADY happened. THEN
you look back at it, and try to piece together what it must have meant.
And you will be WRONG. Not only is your judgement in the past, but you
have no idea what SHOULD happen. No goal was set with which to bring the
means in line. And now the only judgement left to make is whether or not
the ego likes it; is it acceptable, or does it call for vengeance? The
absence of a criterion for outcome, set IN ADVANCE, makes understanding
doubtful and evaluation impossible.
The value of deciding in advance what you WANT to happen is simply that
you will perceive the situation as a means to MAKE it happen. You will
therefore make every effort to overlook what interferes with the
accomplishment of your objective, and concentrate on everything which
helps you meet it. It is quite noticeable that this approach has brought
you closer to the Holy Spirit’s sorting out of truth and falsity. The
true becomes what can be used to meet the goal. The false becomes the
useless from this point
of view. The situation now has meaning, but only because the GOAL has
made it meaningful.
The goal of truth has further practical advantages. If the situation is
used for truth and sanity, its outcome MUST be peace. And this is quite
apart from what the outcome IS. If peace is the condition of truth and
sanity, and cannot be WITHOUT them, where peace is THEY must be. Truth
comes of itself. If you experience peace, it is because the truth has
come to you, and you will see the outcome truly, for deception cannot
prevail against you. And you will recognize the outcome BECAUSE you are
at peace. Here again, you see the opposite of the ego’s way of looking,
for the ego believes the SITUATION brings the experience. The Holy
Spirit knows that the situation is as the goal determines it, and is
experienced ACCORDING to the goal.
The goal of truth requires faith. Faith is implicit in the acceptance of
the Holy Spirit’s purpose, and this faith is all-inclusive. Where the
goal of truth is set, there faith MUST be. The Holy Spirit sees the
situation as a WHOLE. The goal establishes the fact that everyone
involved in it will play his part in its accomplishment. This is
inevitable. No-one will fail in anything. This seems to ask for faith
beyond you, and beyond what you can give. Yet this is so only from the
viewpoint of the ego, for the ego believes in “solving” conflict through
fragmentation, and does NOT perceive the situation as a whole.
Therefore, it seeks to split off segments of the situation and deal with
them SEPARATELY, for it has faith in separation, and not in wholeness.
Confronted with any aspect of the situation which seems to be difficult,
the ego will attempt to take this aspect elsewhere, and resolve it
there. And it will seem to be successful, except that this attempt
conflicts with unity, and MUST obscure the goal of truth. And peace will
not be experienced except in fantasy. Truth has not come, because faith
has been denied, being withheld from where it rightfully belonged. Thus
do you lose the understanding of the situation the goal of truth would
bring. For fantasy solutions bring but the illusion of experience, and
the illusion of peace is not the condition in which the truth can enter.
The substitutes for aspects of the situation are the witnesses to
your lack of faith. They demonstrate that you did not believe that the
situation and the PROBLEM were in the same place. The problem WAS the
lack of faith, and it is this you demonstrate when you remove it from
its source and place it elsewhere. As a result, you do not see the
PROBLEM. Had you not lacked the faith it could be solved, the problem
would be gone. And the situation would have been meaningful to you,
because the interference in the way of understanding would have been
removed. To remove the problem elsewhere is to KEEP it. For you remove
yourself FROM it, and make it unsolvable.