Your shadow image of yourself addresses your shadow image of them.  And you tell their shadow image of themselves to honor the shadow image in you.  You see?  And you all train each other how to be these perfect shadow figures. [chuckles] You all teach each other how to be utterly artificial.  And then you wonder at the niggling uneasiness in you that in one way or another is trying to say, “There is another way to look at this.”

Give the past to Him Who can change your mind about it FOR you.

 . . . meaning the Holy Spirit. 

Now, to see the integrity of all of this, what would give the Holy Spirit the authority to change your mind about it for you?  And under what circumstance could you dare to trust into letting the Holy Spirit change your mind about it for you?

Well, it’s the fact that the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind.  It’s You, at the bottom line.  It’s that of You which you’re ignoring while you choose to play at being an ego.  It’s that simple.  So you can dare to let the Holy Spirit change your mind for you, because you’re letting your innate forever-integrity teach you how not to be insane anymore.  And there is no one better able to teach you your sanity than That of You which is sane.  That is what you would want to rely on.  That would be truly the only safe thing to rely upon, to lean into, to entrust yourself to.  Because you know that if you are entrusting yourself to That of You which is the absolute integrity of your Being, well, that’s the only thing you could dare to commit yourself to—entrusting yourself to. 

That is the wonder of the teaching of the Course.

Give the past to Him . . .

. . . why does it say give the past to Him?  Because your relating to the shadow figures of yourself and your fellowman and of Creation—is you relating to things that your Brother has done in the past and things that you have done in the past, things that seem to provide you and your life with meaning. 

I say that because what doesn’t provide meaning to you and your life is such a  simple thing as, “I Am. You Are.” 

“It’s gotta be more than that!”  But that’s the only thing available in the present moment . . . in the present moment . . . in the present moment.

Anything else has to be embellished by memory.  And that’s how you keep yourself from Waking up.  That’s how you keep yourself from experiencing your innocence and your perfection.  You drag the past into the present moment and heap it on your shoulders and bear yourself down with it, and bury yourself under it.  And you do the same thing with your fellowman.  And you do this because you think that it’s the only kind of conscious ordering that will constitute orderliness and save you from chaos, chaos that you think awaits you for only one reason, that reason being, that you said, “Father, I’d rather see it my way.  I’d rather not see it as it truly is.  I’d rather be crazy for awhile.  I’d rather function in my imagination for awhile, even though it’s a dangerous thing to do because I will not be connected with Reality in a way that allows me to fit in with It and feel Its support and feel my perfection within the perfection of everything that I’m allowing myself to fit in with.”  You see?

So you use the past to block the experience of your perfection in the present.

You have made the relationship unreal, and therefore unholy, by seeing it WHERE it is not and AS it is not. Give the past to Him Who can change your mind about it FOR you.

Dependably and without risking anything.

But first, be sure you fully realize what YOU have made the past to represent, and why.

In brief, the past is now your justification for entering into a continuing, unholy alliance with the ego AGAINST the present. For the present IS forgiveness. Therefore, the relationships which the unholy alliance dictates are not perceived nor felt as NOW.

It’s sort of like you’re working out the past together.  You get together and instead of playing cards, you work on the past.  And you’re working with selves that aren’t now.  You’re working with selves that the past created, so that the moment you’re in is the crowning pinnacle glory of the past which will be replaced in the next moment by the crowning pinnacle glory of the past . . . so that always it’s the “past you” relating to the “past other.”

Now, I’m not speaking too nebulously.  I’m speaking very clearly.  And the clarity of what I’m sharing is uncovering the nebulousness of the way you’ve been behaving and the way you’ve been experiencing things, and feeling that your experience was valid and intelligent.

So let’s continue:

Therefore, the relationships which the unholy alliance dictates are not perceived nor felt as NOW. Yet the frame of reference to which the present is referred for meaning . . .

. . . meaning the past . . .

. . . is an ILLUSION of the past, . .

. . . it gets even more nebulous, doesn’t it.  It’s not an actual past, it’s an illusion of the past.  So you’ve got illusions built on illusions.

Now it doesn’t hurt to see this because you have the answer.  We’ve been talking about the answer long enough so that what we’re talking about now cannot throw you for a loop or make you feel crazy.  Because although you are learning of the craziness of how you have been perceiving, you’re learning it after the fact—you’re learning it after the fact of my having shared with you that all you need to do is engage in the two-step and practice the holy instant. 

The answer . . . no matter how complicated and convoluted and crazy the things are that we’re talking about, they can be stepped out of, released, let go of by a simple practice of shutting up.  Shutting up what?  Well, thinking and the rehearsing of shadow figures—yours and that of others—and in the silence saying one thing, “Father, what is the truth here?”  And then remaining silent and listening for the infilling that will come because you are the holy Son or Daughter of God—it will come because of what you really Are.

[Yet] the frame of reference to which the present is referred for meaning is an ILLUSION of the past, in which those elements which fit the purpose of the unholy alliance are retained and all the rest let go.

In other words, the shadow figure that you have determined yourself to be, you have valued and retained it and you have let go of the truth—that you are the holy Son or Daughter of God. 

And what is thus let go is all the truth the past could ever offer to the present as witnesses for its reality, while what is kept but witnesses to the reality of dreams.

This is why selective remembering is essential, so that what is Real is retained and what is not, is let go of.  So that now, you could say, you are left with a past with areas of what is Real and holes where the unreal seem to be that you’ve let go of, that have been abandoned.  And the fact is, that with the, we’ll call them, islands of Reality, islands of what is true about you and what you have been and what is true about the love that has been expressed, given to you, the fact that that is the only thing confronting you [snaps fingers] causes the light bulb to go on, because there is nothing to distract you from the reappearing of what is Real and what was always Real in what are now holes where your shadow images used to be. 

And so [snaps fingers] you Awaken wholly, totally, instantly.  Your right Mind is returned to you.  And that’s the point.

Now:

It is still up to you to choose to be willing to join with truth or illusion. But remember that to choose ONE is to let the other GO. Which one you choose, . .

. . . and this may be a little confusing . . .

Which one you choose, you will endow with beauty and reality because the choice DEPENDS on which you value more.

Whichever one you value more, whether it is truth or illusion, you will embellish with everything that makes it attractive to you.  So even if you choose illusion, which is unreality and cannot actually be beautiful, you will beautify.   You will and you have.  And you’ve made it seem worth holding onto, never having brought yourself to the point where you would say, “Wait a minute!  Stop! . . Father, or any greater power that Is, If you exist, will you tell me whether I am seeing things truly or whether what I am seeing is illusory.”

The spark of beauty or the veil of ugliness, the real world or the world of guilt and fear, truth or illusion, freedom or slavery, – it is all the same.

There’s a fine distinction that’s being made here.  If you are in the orphanage and you are trying to make a choice between being a “good boy” or a “bad boy,” an intelligent person or a drag on the goings on of the orphanage, if you are choosing for expressing beauty or creating messes in the orphanage it’s all the same, whether you’re choosing for what seems to be good or choosing for what seems to be bad.  It’s all the same, because the choice is being made in the orphanage. 

Now, the next sentence says:

For you can never choose EXCEPT between God and the ego.

Well, what does that mean?  In this context it means, whether you’re choosing for the orphanage or leaving the orphanage.  It’s not for choosing to be better or worse in the orphanage.  That’s not a choice.  That’s the same-old, same-old, with new words draped around it.  And perhaps, some new created behaviors draped around it.  But it’s still all orphan behavior.  It’s all still going on in orphan-land.  So therefore, those aren’t actual choices, because there aren’t two things to choose between.

[For] you can never choose EXCEPT between God and the ego.

You can never choose except between being in the orphanage or abandoning the divorce you got from your Father.  That’s what it means.

Thought systems are but true or false, and all their attributes come simply from what they ARE. Only the Thoughts of God are true. And all that follows from Them comes from what They are, and is as true as is the holy Source from which They came.

Difficult to understand?  Well, only if you don’t know where they fit.  What it’s saying is, that when you’re choosing to think for yourself, reason for yourself, function independently, you’re lost.  But when you say, (after having shut up you’re thinking) “Father, what is the truth here?” and you inquire of your Source what is the truth about everything and about you, then as we’ve said before, you move into the arena where God’s laws prevail, where your sanity can return to you as one glorious “Ah-ha!” or illumination. 

Nothing else matters.  It’s very black and white.  Either you can continue to think for yourself and solve your problems as an orphan, or you can say, “Father, fill me with all Thou Art.  Fill me with the conscious experience of the Kingdom of Heaven that You are Being right now and forever.” 

Only the Thoughts of God are true.

Well, if only the thoughts of God are true, then ask God what His thoughts are and don’t waste your time thinking your own.  I’m not scolding you.  I’m just saying the utterly simple truth emphatically.

Now:

My holy brothers, I would enter into all your relationships, and step between you and your fantasies. Let MY relationship to you be real to you, . .

. . . don’t let me be a shadow figure . . . someone you read about, who walked the globe two thousand years ago, and did things that you can inspire yourselves with.  Let me in, as Paul is doing at this moment for himself.  Let me in to you for yourselves.  Because this is the way you get over the hump of abandoning the habit of authoritative mental gymnastics called, “thinking and reasoning.”

Let MY relationship to you be real to you, and let me bring reality to your perception of your brothers.

[repeats] . . . to your perception of your brothers.

Let me undo the shadow images about your Brothers that you have created in your mind and held them to and punished them for . . . and perhaps praised them as well when it suited you.

They were not created to enable you to hurt yourselves through them.

That isn’t what you were all created for—to use each other in that way.  You were created and you are Being . . . you find yourself Being . . . you find yourself at a loss for words, any words other than:  I Am. You Are.

They . . .

. . . everything that you would be in relationships with . . .

. . . were created to CREATE with you.

See, that’s where you fit in.  That’s where everything fits together.

This is the truth that I would interpose between you and your goal of madness.

Your goal of madness being, that you want to busy yourself creating shadow images and refurbishing your own . . . always yours, in your best interest, but not always your Brothers, in his best interest.  Mostly you work on your Brothers to refurbish yours.  But it’s understandable why you do that, when you’ve denied your Source, when you’ve said, “I have no Source except my own imagination,” you are at a loss, you’re in a void . . . you’re in a place where there is nothing to validate you.  And so you’re bound to engage only in activities which in one way or another do validate you. 

Now again, we’re talking in the orphanage, where you’re being a bad boy trying to become a good boy and saying, “It’s a good thing for me to want to become a good boy.  Hey everybody, do you see I’m working to become a good boy?  Do you see that?  Doesn’t it make you happy?  Isn’t that good?  Tell me I’m on the right track.”  You see? 

But that’s not any answer.  It keeps everything in fantasy.  The call is to step out of the orphanage.  The step is then to abandoning the claim to orphanhood, another way of saying to abandon the claim to independence.  That’s the simple bottom line fact of it.

Be not separate from me, . .

. . . this moment, the next moment, tomorrow, a week from now or don’t be separate from your Guide because we’re all the Christ, accept those who function as your Guides, like the Holy Spirit are Awake and perform the same function that the Holy Spirit does.

Be not separate from me, . .

I could say, be not separate from us . . .

. . . and let not the holy purpose of Atonement be lost to you in dreams of vengeance.

In other words, in the miserable state of affairs that call for justice constantly when you’re operating in the land of shadow figures.

Relationships in which such dreams are cherished have EXCLUDED me.

They have excluded the Holy Spirit.  They have excluded your own Guides.  They have excluded God.  They have excluded all the things that are Real and that can point out the things that are Real and help you abandon the things that are not, so that confusion vanishes in the clarity of the ever Presence and only Presence of what is Real of what is Love of what is truth, of what is God appearing.

Let me . . .

. . . let the Holy Spirit, let your Guide . . .

. . . enter in the Name of God, . .

. . . not in the name of your shadow figures.  But:

Let me enter in the Name of God, . .

. . . in the Name of what’s Real . . .

. . . and bring you peace that you may offer peace to me.

That’s a really simple way of describing the two-step and the affects of the practice of the two-step.  And it is my hope that as we have been covering all of this, you have begun to feel uncomfortable about continuing to function in the realm of shadow figures.  Because in one way or another, it has become clearer to you that doing so is a miserable state of being that is not your Birthright.  And that having an inkling of what your Birthright is, you are willing to more diligently than ever, abandon the use of shadow figures and lean into the Holy Spirit or your Guide or me, so that we might reflect back to you that which is true, and only that which is true in your experience—which for the present, we will call your past.  And we will do that so you will become free of the past and be able to be totally present in the now which is where your salvation is and which is where Reality is.

I love you all.  And I look forward to being with you next time.

.

A Course In Miracles (reference pages)
Chapter 17 – Section: SHADOWS OF THE PAST
¹ Sparkly Book – p.406, 3rd Full Par.  /  JCIM – p.170, Par. 6  /  CIMS – p. 342, Par. 23
First Edition  –  p. 332, 1^st Full Par., Line 6    /    Second Edition – p.356, Par.7, Sen.6

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