44. Hallucinations
Judgment is but a toy, a whim, the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your imagination. But vision sets all things right, bringing them gently within the kindly sway of Heaven’s laws. What if you recognized this world is an hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seem to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are wholly unreal? Could you have faith in what you see, if you accepted this? And would you see it?
Hallucinations disappear when they are recognized for what they are. This is the healing and the remedy. Believe them not and they are gone. And all you need to do is recognize that you did this. Once you accept this simple fact and take unto yourself the power you gave them, you are released from them. One thing is sure; hallucinations serve a purpose, and when that purpose is no longer held they disappear. Therefore, the question never is whether you want them, but always, do you want the purpose that they serve? This world seems to hold out many purposes, each different and with different values. Yet they are all the same. Again there is no order; only a seeming hierarchy of values.
Only two purposes are possible. And one is sin, the other holiness. Nothing is in between, and which you choose determines what you see. For what you see is merely how you elect to meet your goal. Hallucinations serve to meet the goal of madness. They are the means by which the outside world, projected from within, adjusts to sin and seems to witness to its reality. It still is true that nothing is without. Yet upon nothing are all projections made. For it is the projection that gives the “nothing” all the meaning that it holds.
What has no meaning cannot be perceived. And meaning always looks within to find itself, and then looks out. All meaning that you give the world outside must thus reflect the sight you saw within; or better, if you saw at all or merely judged against. Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations that show you all the fearful outcomes of imagined sin into the calm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. They are His substitutes for all the terrifying sights and screaming sounds the ego’s purpose brought to your horrified awareness. They step away from sin, reminding you that it is not reality which frightens you, and that the errors which you made can be corrected.
When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear, life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision? And after vision, who is there who could refuse what must come after? Think but an instant just on this; you can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And never need you think that there is something else for you to see. (T20.VIII.7)
This sounds fantastic. This whole world is an hallucination. It is not real. We don’t have to feel guilty about anything. We don’t have to worry about anything. We don’t have to do anything. We don’t have to participate in this crazy world and its crazy stories. It sounds so simple and potentially peaceful. Why does it seem so difficult? Why do we get triggered by and reactive to the world when we have already agreed that it is not real? Why do we react to nothing?
It is an hallucination. I made it up. I don’t want anything to do with the purpose of sin. I want to see my brothers holy. I want to see myself holy. Now what? Now comes the process of learning to forgive, learning to not make it real. How do I do that? You listen to and take instruction from the Holy Spirit. He will guide you. He will give you your instructions. He will tell you exactly what to do, say and think. Ask Him everything.
This is a simple process but it is not easy. Everything you thought would bring you happiness has now been labeled an hallucination. Not only is it an hallucination, but it is an hallucination whose purpose is sin. Everything in the illusion and every person in the illusion is an hallucination whose purpose is sin. Now what do I do? We all have a natural impulse to commune or join. What am I supposed to commune with? In some ways I feel more alone. At least before I could pretend I wasn’t alone because there were other bodies around. Now I am an hallucination and they are an hallucination and I don’t have an experience of any other kind of joining.
I guess this is where faith comes in. I am not experiencing it right now but I trust that the Peace of God is available to me. I trust that if I continue listening to the Holy Spirit and do what He instructs, I will achieve remembrance. I trust that vision will be given me and that I will learn to think and see with the Holy Spirit. I trust that I will see myself and my brothers holy. I trust that I will transcend the ego if I do my job. In the meantime we can support each other and engage in holy relationships as a reflection of our oneness. We can use the illusion for the purpose of remembrance. We can practice not making it real. We can allow the Holy Spirit to use it and everything in it for His purpose and in this we are saved.