The Only Answer

Chapter 6.5
The Only Answer
 
Remember that the Holy Spirit is the Answer, not the question. The ego
always speaks first. It is capricious and does not mean its maker well. It
believes, and correctly, that its maker may withdraw his support from it at
any moment. If it meant you well it would be glad, as the Holy Spirit will
be glad when He has brought you home and you no longer need His
guidance.
 
The ego does not regard itself as part of you. Herein lies its
primary error, the foundation of its whole thought system.
 
When God created you He made you part of Him. That is why attack within
the Kingdom is impossible. You made the ego without love, and so it does
not love you. You could not remain within the Kingdom without love, and
since the Kingdom is love, you believe that you are without it. This enables
the ego to regard itself as separate and outside its maker, thus speaking for
the part of your mind that believes you are separate and outside the Mind of
God.
 
The ego, then, raised the first question that was ever asked, but one it
can never answer. That question, “What are you? ” was the beginning of
doubt. The ego has never answered any questions since, although it has
raised a great many. The most inventive activities of the ego have never
done more than obscure the question, because you have the answer and the
ego is afraid of you.
 
You cannot understand the conflict until you fully understand the basic fact
that the ego cannot know anything. The Holy Spirit does not speak first, but
He always answers. Everyone has called upon Him for help at one time or
another and in one way or another, and has been answered. Since the Holy
Spirit answers truly He answers for all time, which means that everyone has
the answer now.
 
The ego cannot hear the Holy Spirit, but it does believe that part of the mind
that made it is against it. It interprets this as a justification for attacking its
maker. It believes that the best defense is attack, and wants you to believe
it. Unless you do believe it you will not side with it, and the ego feels badly
in need of allies, though not of brothers. Perceiving something alien to itself
in your mind, the ego turns to the body as its ally, because the body is not
part of you. This makes the body the ego’s friend. It is an alliance frankly
based on separation.
 
If you side with this alliance you will be afraid,
because you are siding with an alliance of fear.
 
The ego uses the body to conspire against your mind, and because the ego
realizes that its “enemy” can end them both merely by recognizing they are
not part of you, they join in the attack together. This is perhaps the strangest
perception of all, if you consider what it really involves. The ego, which is
not real, attempts to persuade the mind, which is real, that the mind is the
ego’s learning device; and further, that the body is more real than the mind
is. No one in his right mind could possibly believe this, and no one in his
right mind does believe it.
 
Hear, then, the one answer of the Holy Spirit to all the questions the ego
raises: You are a child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom, which He
created as part of Him. Nothing else exists and only this is real. You have
chosen a sleep in which you have had bad dreams, but the sleep is not real
and God calls you to awake. There will be nothing left of your dream when
you hear Him, because you will awaken. Your dreams contain many of the
ego’s symbols and they have confused you.
 
Yet that was only because you were asleep and did not know. When you wake you will see the truth around you, and you will no longer believe in dreams because they will have no reality for you. Yet the Kingdom and all that you have created there will have great reality for you, because they are beautiful and true.
 
In the Kingdom, where you are and what you are is perfectly certain. There
is no doubt, because the first question was never asked. Having finally been
wholly answered, it has never been. Being alone lives in the Kingdom,
where everything lives in God without question. The time spent on
questioning in the dream has given way to creation and to its eternity. You
are as certain as God because you are as true as He is, but what was once
certain in your mind has become only the ability for certainty.
 
The introduction of abilities into being was the beginning of uncertainty,
because abilities are potentials, not accomplishments. Your abilities are
useless in the presence of God’s accomplishments, and also of yours.
Accomplishments are results that have been achieved. When they are
perfect, abilities are meaningless. It is curious that the perfect must now be
perfected. In fact, it is impossible. Remember, however, that when you put
yourself in an impossible situation you believe that the impossible is
possible.
 
Abilities must be developed before you can use them. This is not true of
anything that God created, but it is the kindest solution possible for what
you made. In an impossible situation, you can develop your abilities to the
point where they can get you out of it. You have a Guide to how to develop
them, but you have no commander except yourself.
 
This leaves you in charge of the Kingdom, with both a Guide to find it and a means to keep it. You have a model to follow who will strengthen your command, and never detract from it in any way. You therefore retain the central place in your
imagined enslavement, which in itself demonstrates that you are not
enslaved.
 
You are in an impossible situation only because you think it is possible to
be in one. You would be in an impossible situation if God showed you your
perfection, and proved to you that you were wrong. This would demonstrate
that the perfect are inadequate to bring themselves to the awareness of their
perfection, and thus side with the belief that those who have everything
need help and are therefore helpless.
 
This is the kind of “reasoning” in which the ego engages. God, Who knows that His creations are perfect, does not affront them. This would be as impossible as the ego’s notion that it has affronted Him.
 
That is why the Holy Spirit never commands. To command is to assume
inequality, which the Holy Spirit demonstrates does not exist. Fidelity to
premises is a law of mind, and everything God created is faithful to His
laws. Fidelity to other laws is also possible, however, not because the laws
are true, but because you made them.
 
What would be gained if God proved to you that you have thought insanely? Can God lose His Own certainty? I have frequently said that what you teach you are. Would you have God teach you that you have sinned? If He confronted the self you made with the truth He created for you, what could you be but afraid? You would doubt your right mind, which is the only place where you can find the sanity He gave you. God does not teach. To teach is to imply a lack, which God knows is not there. God is not conflicted. Teaching aims at change, but God created only
the changeless. The separation was not a loss of perfection, but a failure in
communication.
 
A harsh and strident form of communication arose as the
ego’s voice. It could not shatter the peace of God, but it could shatter yours.
God did not blot it out, because to eradicate it would be to attack it. Being
questioned, He did not question. He merely gave the Answer. His Answer is
your Teacher.