We once said that without projection there can be no anger, but it is
also true that without projection there can be no love. Projection is a
fundamental law of the mind, and therefore one which ALWAYS operates. It
is the law by which you create and were created. It is the law which
unifies the Kingdom, and keeps it in the Mind of God. To the ego, the law
is perceived as a way of getting RID of something it does NOT want. To
the Holy Spirit, it is the fundamental law of sharing by which you GIVE
what you value in order to keep it in your OWN mind.
Projection, to the Holy Spirit, is the law of extension. To the ego, it
is the law of deprivation. It therefore produces abundance or scarcity,
depending on how you choose to apply it. This choice IS up to you, but it
is NOT up to you to decide whether or not you will UTILIZE projection.
Every mind MUST project because that is how it lives, and every mind IS
life. The ego’s use of projection must be fully understood before its
inevitable association between projection and anger can be finally
undone.
The ego ALWAYS tries to preserve conflict. It is very ingenious in
devising ways which SEEM to diminish conflict because it does NOT want
you to find conflict so intolerable that you will INSIST on giving it
up. Therefore, the ego tries to persuade you that IT can free you of
conflict, lest you give the EGO up and free YOURSELF.
The ego, using its own warped version of the laws of God, utilizes the
power of the mind ONLY to defeat the mind’s real purpose. It projects
conflict FROM your mind to OTHER minds, in an attempt to persuade you
that you have gotten RID of it. This has several fallacies which may not
be so apparent.
Strictly speaking, conflict cannot BE projected precisely BECAUSE it
cannot be fully shared. Any attempt to keep PART of it and get rid of
another part does not really mean ANYTHING. Remember that a conflicted
teacher is a poor teacher AND A POOR LEARNER. His lessons are confused,
and their transfer value is severely limited BY his confusion. A second
fallacy is the idea that you can get RID of something you do not want by
giving it away. GIVING it is how you KEEP it. The belief that by giving
it OUT you have excluded it from WITHIN is a complete distortion of the
power of extension.
That is why those who project from the ego are vigilant for their OWN
safety. They ARE afraid that their projections will return and hurt
them. They DO believe they have blotted their projections from their OWN
minds, but they also believe their projections are trying to creep back
INTO them. That is because the projections have NOT left their minds,
and this, in turn, forces them to engage in compulsive activity in order
NOT to recognize this. You CANNOT perpetuate an illusion about another
WITHOUT perpetuating it about yourself. There is no way out of this
because it is IMPOSSIBLE to fragment the mind.
To fragment is to break into pieces, and mind CANNOT attack or BE
attacked. The belief that it CAN, a fallacy which the ego ALWAYS makes,
underlies its whole use of projection. It does not understand what mind
IS, and therefore does not understand what YOU are. Yet its existence is
dependent on your mind because the ego IS your belief. The ego is
therefore a confusion in identification which never had a consistent
model, and never developed consistently. It is the distorted product of
the misapplication of the laws of God, by distorted minds which are
misusing their own power.
DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THE EGO. It DOES depend on your mind, and as you
made it by believing in it, so you can dispel it by withdrawing belief
FROM it. DO not project the responsibility for
your belief in it onto anyone ELSE, or you will PRESERVE the belief. When
you are willing to accept sole responsibility for the ego’s existence
YOURSELF you will have laid aside all anger and all attack, because they
COME from an attempt to project responsibility for your OWN errors. But
having ACCEPTED the errors as yours, DO NOT KEEP THEM. Give them over
quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely, so that ALL their
effects will vanish from your minds, and from the Sonship AS A WHOLE.
The Holy Spirit will teach you to perceive BEYOND belief because truth
is beyond belief, and His perception IS true. The ego can be completely
forgotten at ANY time because it was always a belief that is totally
incredible. No-one can KEEP a belief he has judged to be unbelievable.
The more you learn about the ego, the more you realize that it cannot BE
believed. The incredible cannot be understood because it IS unbelievable.
The utter meaninglessness of all perception that comes from the
unbelievable must be apparent, but it is not RECOGNIZED as beyond belief
because it was made BY belief.
The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is
unbelievable and will forever BE unbelievable. You who made the ego by
believing the unbelievable cannot make this judgement alone. By
accepting the Atonement for YOURSELF, you are deciding against the
belief that you can BE alone, thus dispelling the idea of separation,
and affirming your true identification with the whole Kingdom as
literally PART of you. This identification is as beyond doubt as it is
beyond belief. Your wholeness has no limits because being is in
infinity.