“The awakening of His Son BEGINS with his INVESTMENT IN THE REAL WORLD, and by this he will learn to re-invest in himself. For reality is one with the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit blesses the real world in Their Name.

When you have seen this real world, as you will surely do, you will remember Us. Yet you must learn the cost of sleeping, and refuse to pay it. Only then will you decide to awaken.” (T-12.VI.4:9–5:4)

If we are to awaken, first we must invest in the real world or the unseen world. The unseen world includes the unseen Holy Spirit. So, let me get this straight. You want me to put all my faith and belief in the “invisible”?

“To be told that what you do not see is there sounds like insanity. It is very difficult to become convinced that it is insanity not to see what is there, and to see what is not there instead. You do not doubt that the body’s eyes can see. You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light. How can this be reversed? For you it is impossible, but you are not alone in this.” (W-91.3:1-7)

There is a real world. It is there. God gave it to us in exchange for the world we made, the illusion. There is a Voice for God. It is there. God gave it to us in exchange for the voice we made, the ego. We cannot see the real world with our physical eyes. We cannot hear the Holy Spirit’s Voice above the incessant, booming din of the ego in our mind. Both our seeing of the illusory world and our hearing of the ego’s voice depends solely on our investment in them.

“The way to correct distortions is to withdraw your faith in them and invest it only in what is true.” (T-3.II.6:1)

“Illusions are investments. They will last as long as you value them. Values are relative, but they are powerful because they are mental judgments. The only way to dispel illusions is to withdraw all investment from them, and they will have no life for you because you will have put them out of your mind. While you include them in it, you are giving life to them. Except there is nothing there to receive your gift.” (T-7.VII.4:1-6)

Things we invest in with the ego…

“The ego has a profound investment in SICKNESS. If you are sick, how can you object to the ego’s firm belief that you are not invulnerable?” (T-8.VIII.3:2-3)

“This ultimately reawakens spiritual vision, simultaneously weakening the investment in PHYSICAL SIGHT.” (T-2.III.3:8)

“The Holy Spirit guides you into life eternal, but you must relinquish your investment in DEATH, or you will not see life though it is all around you.” (T-12.IV.7:6)

“The ego is trying to teach you how to gain THE WHOLE WORLD and lose your own soul. The Holy Spirit teaches that you cannot lose your soul and there is no gain in the world, for of itself it profits nothing. To invest without profit is surely to impoverish yourself, and the overhead is high. Not only is there no profit in the investment (in the whole world), but the cost to you is enormous. For this investment (in the whole world) costs you the world’s reality by denying yours, and gives you nothing in return. You cannot sell your soul, but you can sell your awareness of it. You cannot perceive your soul, but you will not know it while you perceive something else as more valuable.” (T-12.VI.1:1-7)

“It is this idea that underlies all of the ego’s heavy investment in THE BODY.” (T-19.IV-B.13:5-6)

“The ego is afraid of the spirit’s joy, because once you have experienced it you will withdraw all protection from the ego, and become totally without investment in FEAR. Your investment is great now because fear is a witness to the separation, and your ego rejoices when you witness to it.” (T-4.I.10:1-3)

Our primary investment is in the ego. Investment in, valuing of and addiction to the ego. If we attempt to switch our allegiance, even for a second, the ego rallies.

“The ego is immobilized in the presence of God’s grandeur, because His grandeur establishes your freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because you will GIVE UP ALL INVESTMENT IN IT. Grandeur is totally without illusions, and because it is real it is compellingly convincing. Yet the conviction of reality will not remain with you unless you do not allow the ego to attack it. (you maintain your faith and investment in it) The ego will make every effort to recover and mobilize its energies against your release. It will tell you that you are insane, and argue that grandeur cannot be a real part of you because of the littleness in which it believes. (if you go along with this, you are investing in the ego’s logic) Yet your grandeur is not delusional because you did not make it. (Holy Spirit’s reason. Will you invest?) You made grandiosity and are afraid of it because it is a form of attack, but your grandeur is of God, Who created it out of His Love.(more Holy Spirit reason to invest in!)” (T-9.VIII.4:1-8)

Simultaneously as we learn to invest in the real world, despite the ego’s tantrums, we must withdrawal our investment in the world. In order to accomplish this we must first displace the idea that it is a sacrifice to give up the things of the world.

“The first illusion, which must be displaced before another thought system can take hold, is that it is a sacrifice to give up the things of this world. What could this be but an illusion, since this world itself is nothing more than that?

It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give.” (M-13.1:6–2:1)

With this great learning we can…

“I once asked you to sell all you have and give to the poor and follow me. This is what I meant: IF YOU HAVE NO INVESTMENT IN ANYTHING IN THIS WORLD, you can teach the poor where their treasure is.(the world) The poor are merely those who have invested wrongly, and they are poor indeed! Because they are in need it is given you to help them, since you are among them. Consider how perfectly your lesson would be learned if you were unwilling to share their poverty. (their investment in the world) For poverty is lack, and there is but one lack since there is but one need.” (T-12.III.1:1-6)

“From this place, where God and His Son dwell in peace and where you are welcome, you will look out in peace and behold the world truly. Yet to find the place, YOU MUST RELINQUISH YOUR INVESTMENT IN THE WORLD AS YOU PROJECT IT, allowing the Holy Spirit to extend the real world to you from the altar of God.” (T-12.III.10:8-9)

Our investment in the illusory world is costing us our awareness of the Holy Spirit’s extension of the real world to us from the altar of God. This is the cost of sleeping. I will not pay it. Holy Spirit please show me all the places where I am still invested in the dream. I must see them to divest of them. I cannot divest of what I do not know is there. Please show me that I may be healed.

More on the real world…

Here is an interesting way to think about the real world. The real world is there but is not in our awareness. There is the real world in all of its glory before us. We cannot see it. It is covered up by a thin piece of plastic, a transparency, on which we, as the wrong mind, have written every possible illusory story, filled with every possible illusory idol, representing every possible variation of every separation, guilt and fear thought.

“What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this you see in it. It is this that is meaningless in truth. Beneath your words is written the Word of God. The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His. (W-12.5:1-8)

Don’t we do the same thing with the body? It is meaningless, insignificant. But we, as mind, write things all over it: sickness, health, pain, pleasure, starvation, gluttony, birth, death and on and on. What is underneath those words?

Forgiveness gently looks upon all things unknown in Heaven, sees them disappear, and leaves the world a clean and unmarked slate on which the Word of God can now replace the senseless symbols written there before. Forgiveness is the means by which the fear of death is overcome, because it holds no fierce attraction now and guilt is gone. Forgiveness lets the body be perceived as what it is; a simple teaching aid, to be laid by when learning is complete, but hardly changing him who learns at all. (W-192.4:1-3)

These writings on the world and the body happen always at a feverish pace in panic mode and are investments in the seen. On the level of form, we then have all sorts of judgments about the writings, as if we hadn’t written them, which makes them seem real. I withdraw my investment in the seen and place all my investment in the unseen. I may waver, be tempted back to the dark side, but I will accept the Holy Spirit’s correction and reinvest in truth.

 

As part of my investment in the unseen, I am placing my mind and everything I have made at the disposal of true Authority. This is the Holy Spirit’s body. This is the Holy Spirit’s personality self. This is the Holy Spirit’s world. Holy Spirit may you use them as an aid to help us reach the home where God abides. Tell me what to do, say and think. I will do it. And may a huge Holy Spirit alarm clock go off in my mind, when I doze off and slip into an investment in the illusion.

“When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer. Only your own volition seems to make deciding hard. The Holy Spirit will not delay in answering your every question what to do. He knows. And He will tell you, and then do it for you. You who are tired will find this is more restful than sleep. For you can bring your guilt into sleeping, but not into this.” (T-14.IV.6:1-8)