Introduction

Chapter 11 – 1 – Introduction
 
Either God or the ego is insane. If you will examine the evidence on both
sides fairly, you will realize this must be true. Neither God nor the ego
proposes a partial thought system. Each is internally consistent, but they are
diametrically opposed in all respects so that partial allegiance is impossible.
 
Remember, too, that their results are as different as their foundations, and
their fundamentally irreconcilable natures cannot be reconciled by
vacillations between them. Nothing alive is fatherless, for life is creation.
 
Therefore, your decision is always an answer to the question, “Who is my
father? “And you will be faithful to the father you choose.
 
Yet what would you say to someone who believed this question really
involves conflict? If you made the ego, how can the ego have made you?
 
The authority problem is still the only source of conflict, because the ego
was made out of the wish of God’s Son to father him. The ego, then, is
nothing more than a delusional system in which you made your own father.
 
Make no mistake about this. It sounds insane when it is stated with perfect
honesty, but the ego never looks on what it does with perfect honesty. Yet
that is its insane premise, which is carefully hidden in the dark cornerstone
of its thought system. And either the ego, which you made, is your father, or
its whole thought system will not stand.
 
You make by projection, but God creates by extension. The cornerstone of
God’s creation is you, for his thought system is light. Remember the rays
that are there unseen. The more you approach the center of his thought
system, the clearer the light becomes. The closer you come to the ego’s
thought system, the darker and more obscure becomes the way. Yet even
the little spark in your mind is enough to lighten it. Bring this light
fearlessly with you, and bravely hold it up to the foundation of the ego’s
thought system. Be willing to judge it with perfect honesty. Open the dark
cornerstone of terror on which it rests, and bring it out into the light. There
you will see that it rested on meaninglessness, and that everything of which
you have been afraid was based on nothing.
 
My brother, you are part of God and part of me. When you have at last
looked at the ego’s foundation without shrinking you will also have looked
upon ours. I come to you from our Father to offer you everything again. Do
not refuse it in order to keep a dark cornerstone hidden, for its protection
will not save you. I give you the lamp and I will go with you. You will not
take this journey alone. I will lead you to your true Father, Who hath need
of you, as I have. Will you not answer the call of love with joy?