The Two Evaluations

Chapter 9.7 – The Two Evaluations
 
The Two Evaluations
 
God’s Will is your salvation. Would he not have given you the means to
find it? If he wills you to have it, he must have made it possible and easy to
obtain it. Your brothers are everywhere. You do not have to seek far for
salvation. Every minute and every second gives you a chance to save
yourself. Do not lose these chances, not because they will not return, but
because delay of joy is needless. God wills you perfect happiness now. Is it
possible that this is not also your will? And is it possible that this is not also
the will of your brothers?
 
Consider, then, that in this joint will you are all united, and in this only.
There may be disagreement on anything else, but not on this. This, then, is
where peace abides. And you abide in peace when you so decide. Yet you
cannot abide in peace unless you accept the Atonement, because the
Atonement is the way to peace. The reason is very simple, and so obvious
that it is often overlooked. The ego is afraid of the obvious, since
obviousness is the essential characteristic of reality. Yet you cannot
overlook it unless you are not looking.
 
It is perfectly obvious that if the Holy Spirit looks with love on all he
perceives, he looks with love on you. His evaluation of you is based on his
knowledge of what you are, and so he evaluates you truly. And this
evaluation must be in your mind, because he is. The ego is also in your
mind, because you have accepted it there. Its evaluation of you, however, is
the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit’s, because the ego does not love you. It
is unaware of what you are, and wholly mistrustful of everything it
perceives because its perceptions are so shifting. The ego is therefore
capable of suspiciousness at best and viciousness at worst. That is its range.
 
It cannot exceed it because of its uncertainty. And it can never go beyond it
because it can never be certain.
 
You, then, have two conflicting evaluations of yourself in your mind, and
they cannot both be true. You do not yet realize how completely different
these evaluations are, because you do not understand how lofty the Holy
Spirit’s perception of you really is. He is not deceived by anything you do,
because he never forgets what you are. The ego is deceived by everything
you do, especially when you respond to the Holy Spirit, because at such
times its confusion increases. The ego is, therefore, particularly likely to
attack you when you react lovingly, because it has evaluated you as
unloving and you are going against its judgment. The ego will attack your
motives as soon as they become clearly out of accord with its perception of
you. This is when it will shift abruptly from suspiciousness to viciousness,
since its uncertainty is increased. Yet it is surely pointless to attack in
return. What can this mean except that you are agreeing with the ego’s
evaluation of what you are?
 
If you choose to see yourself as unloving you will not be happy. You are
condemning yourself and must therefore regard yourself as inadequate.
 
Would you look to the ego to help you escape from a sense of inadequacy it
has produced, and must maintain for its existence? Can you escape from its
evaluation of you by using its methods for keeping this picture intact?
 
You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from within it. Its range
precludes this. You can only go beyond it, look back from a point where
sanity exists and see the contrast. Only by this contrast can insanity be
judged as insane. With the grandeur of God in you, you have chosen to be
little and to lament your littleness. Within the system that dictated this
choice the lament is inevitable. Your littleness is taken for granted there and
you do not ask, “Who granted it? “The question is meaningless within the
ego’s thought system, because it would open the whole thought system to
question.
 
I have said that the ego does not know what a real question is. Lack of
knowledge of any kind is always associated with unwillingness to know,
and this produces a total lack of knowledge simply because knowledge is
total. Not to question your littleness therefore is to deny all knowledge, and
keep the ego’s whole thought system intact. You cannot retain part of a
thought system, because it can be questioned only at its foundation. And
this must be questioned from beyond it, because within it its foundation
does stand. The Holy Spirit judges against the reality of the ego’s thought
system merely because he knows its foundation is not true. Therefore,
nothing that arises from it means anything. He judges every belief you hold
in terms of where it comes from. If it comes from God, he knows it to be
true. If it does not, he knows that it is meaningless.
 
Whenever you question your value, say:
 
God himself is incomplete without me.
 
Remember this when the ego speaks, and you will not hear it. The truth
about you is so lofty that nothing unworthy of God is worthy of you.
 
Choose, then, what you want in these terms, and accept nothing that you
would not offer to God as wholly fitting for him. You do not want anything
else. Return your part to him, and he will give you all of himself in
exchange for the return of what belongs to him and renders him complete.