Any split in will MUST involve a rejection of part of it, and this IS
the belief in separation. The wholeness of God, which IS His peace,
cannot be appreciated EXCEPT by a whole mind, which recognizes the
wholeness of God’s creation, and BY this recognition, knows its Creator.
Exclusion and separation are synonymous, as are separation and
dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and IS
dissociation, and also that, once it had occurred, projection became its
main defense, or the device that KEEPS IT GOING. The reason, however,
may not be as clear as you think.

In the ego’s use of projection, to which we are obviously referring,
what you project you disown, and therefore DO NOT BELIEVE IS YOURS. You
are EXCLUDING yourself by the very statement you are making that you are
DIFFERENT from the one on whom you project. Since you have also judged
AGAINST what you project, you continue to attack it because you have
already attacked it BY projecting it. By doing this unconsciously, you
try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself FIRST out of
awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe.

Projection will ALWAYS hurt you. It re-inforces your belief in your own
split mind, and its ONLY purpose is TO KEEP THE SEPARATION GOING. It is
SOLELY a device of the ego to make you feel DIFFERENT from your
brothers, and separated from them. The ego justifies this on the wholly
spurious grounds that it makes you seem “better” than they are, thus
obscuring your equality with them still further. Projection and attack
are inevitably related because projection is ALWAYS a means of
justifying attack. Anger without projection is impossible.

The ego uses projection ONLY to distort your perception both of yourself
AND your brothers. The process begins by excluding something THAT exists
in you which you do not want, and leads
directly to excluding you from your brothers. We have learned, however,
that there is another use of projection. Every ability of the ego has a
better counterpart because its abilities are directed by the mind, which
has a better Voice. The Holy Spirit as well as the ego utilizes
projection, but since their goals are opposed, so is the result.

The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving YOU as perfect. KNOWING this
perfection is shared, He recognizes it in others, thus strengthening it
in both. Instead of anger this arouses love for both

BECAUSE IT ESTABLISHES INCLUSION. Perceiving equality, the Holy Spirit
perceives equal needs. This invites Atonement automatically because
Atonement IS the one need which, in this world, IS universal. To perceive
yourself this way is the ONLY way in which you can find happiness in the
world. That is because it is the acknowledgement that you are NOT in
this world, for the world IS unhappy.

How else can you find joy in a joyless place EXCEPT by realizing that
you are NOT there? You cannot be anywhere that God did not put you, and
God created you as part of Him. That is both WHERE you are and WHAT you
are. It is COMPLETELY unalterable. It is total inclusion. You cannot
change it now or ever. It is forever true. It is not a belief, but a
FACT. Anything that God created is as true as He is. Its truth lies only
in its perfect inclusion in Him Who alone IS perfect. To deny this in any
way is to deny yourself AND Him, since it is impossible to accept one
WITHOUT the other.

The perfect equality of the Holy Spirit’s perception is the counterpart
of the perfect equality of God’s knowing. The ego’s perception HAS no
counterpart in God, but the Holy Spirit remains the bridge between
perception and knowledge. By enabling you to use perception in a way
that PARALLELS knowledge, you will ultimately meet it and KNOW it. The
ego would prefer to believe that this meeting is impossible, yet it is
YOUR perception which the Holy Spirit guides. You might remember that
the human eye perceives parallel lines AS IF they meet in the distance,
which is the same as in the future, if time and space are one dimension.
Your perception WILL end where it began. EVERYTHING meets in God because
everything was created BY Him and IN Him.

God created His Sons by extending His thought and retaining
the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ALL His Thoughts are thus
perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they were
created neither partially nor in part. The Holy Spirit enables you TO
PERCEIVE THIS WHOLENESS NOW. You can no more pray for yourselves alone
than you can find joy for yourself alone. Prayer is the re-statement of
INCLUSION, directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God. God
created you to create. You cannot EXTEND His Kingdom until you know of
its wholeness.

Thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker, from which they extend
outward. This is as true of God’s Thinking as it is of yours. Because
your minds are split, you can also perceive as well as think. Yet
perception cannot escape from the basic laws of mind. You perceive FROM
your mind and extend your perceptions outward. Although perception of
any kind is unnecessary, YOU made it, and the Holy Spirit can therefore
use it well. He can INSPIRE perception and lead it toward God by making
it PARALLEL to God’s way of thinking, and thus guarantee their ultimate
meeting. This convergence SEEMS to be far in the future only because your
mind is not in perfect alignment with the idea, and therefore DOES NOT
WANT IT NOW.

The Holy Spirit USES time, but does NOT believe in it. Coming from God
He uses everything for good, but He does not BELIEVE in what is not
true. Since the Holy Spirit is IN your minds, your minds must also be
able to believe only what is true. The Holy Spirit can speak only for
this, because he speaks for God. He tells you to return your whole mind
to God because IT HAS NEVER LEFT HIM. If it has never left Him you need
only perceive it as it is to BE returned. The full awareness of the
Atonement, then, is the recognition THAT THE SEPARATION NEVER OCCURRED.
The ego cannot prevail against this because it is an explicit statement
that the EGO never occurred.

The ego CAN accept the idea that return is necessary because it can so
easily make the idea seem so difficult. Yet the Holy Spirit tells you
that even return is unnecessary because what never happened cannot
involve ANY problem. It does NOT follow, however, that YOU cannot make
the idea of return necessary AND difficult. It is surely clear, however,
that the perfect NEED nothing, and CANNOT experience perfection as a
difficult accomplishment because that is
what they ARE.

This is the way in which you MUST perceive God’s creations, bringing all
of your perceptions into the one parallel line which the Holy Spirit
sees. This line is the direct line of communication with God, and lets
your mind converge with HIS. There is no conflict anywhere in this
perception because it means that ALL perception is guided by the Holy
Spirit, Whose mind is fixed on God. ONLY the Holy Spirit can resolve
conflict because ONLY the Holy Spirit is conflict-free. He perceives
ONLY what is true in your mind, and extends outward ONLY to what is true
in other minds.

The difference between the ego’s use of projection and projection as the
Holy Spirit uses it is very simple. The ego projects to EXCLUDE, and
therefore to deceive. The Holy Spirit projects by RECOGNIZING HIMSELF in
every mind, and thus perceives them as ONE. Nothing conflicts in this
perception because what the Holy Spirit perceives IS the same. Wherever
He looks He sees Himself, and because He is united, He offers the whole
Kingdom always. This is the one message God gave TO Him, and for which
He must speak because that is what He IS. The peace of God lies in that
message, and so the peace of God lies in YOU.

The great peace of the Kingdom shines in your mind forever, but it must
shine OUTWARD to make YOU aware of it. The Holy Spirit was given you
with perfect impartiality, and only by perceiving Him impartially can
you perceive Him at all. The ego is legion, but the Holy Spirit is One.
No darkness abides anywhere in the Kingdom, but your part is only to
allow no darkness to abide in your OWN mind. This alignment with Light
is unlimited because it is in alignment with the Light of the world.
Each of us IS the Light of the world, and by joining our minds IN this
Light, we proclaim the Kingdom of God together and AS ONE.