Our goal in mind training is to get to the point where we see no difference between a hungry person and a person at a banquet in the dream. Our goal is to get home to God. Only the Holy Spirit knows how to use the illusion to help us do that. We have no idea what is truly helpful in any situation. Only the Holy Spirit does because He knows what is best in all situations, for all involved, to achieve our goal of learning that this is all not real.

To take any action in the illusion, without the Holy Spirit’s instruction, is to make the illusion real. We believe the illusion is real first, and then we take action. If it weren’t real, why would we have anything to do with it? If someone asked us to feed their pink elephants everyday while they were on vacation, would we? I guess if we believed they were real we would. While we are still experiencing the illusion as real, until we can learn not to have faith and belief in it, we can move in the direction of learning it isn’t by asking the Holy Spirit to guide us. Our only other choice is to take direction from our personality self and the ego.

The action we as a personality self thinks is most helpful is not always what the Holy Spirit would have us do. But it might be. Random example. We see someone who appears to be hungry. Ask the Holy Spirit what we should do to support this person who thinks they are a body, thinks they are the avatar in the game and thinks the avatar is hungry. Maybe the Holy Spirit tells us to get them a bag of groceries. But it might not be for the reason we think. It might be because the first thing that needs to happen to alleviate this person’s panic, is food. They cannot hear in fear. Then maybe we move on to telling them that God loves them. And then maybe we move on to telling them about our relationship with Jesus or the Holy Spirit and how that has supported us in not feeling alone. And then maybe we top it all off with giving them a copy of The Disappearance of the Universe.

But if the Holy Spirit is to direct us to do any of these things, we have to not interfere. That means we have to keep our personality self’s interpretation of what is going on, and what it thinks would be helpful, out of it. Usually the personality self sees, in another person, some plight they seemed to experience as a child. They wanted someone to save them. So by “saving” the person from hunger, someone might be just trying to save their child self. The Holy Spirit might even coach us to stay out of the situation because our personality self has a savior complex, and that wouldn’t support anyone in the situation. I am here only to truly helpful. Let the Holy Spirit decide what that looks like. Groceries, nothing or something else. Be open. He has a different goal than the ego and the personality self. Getting us home to God.

The ego commands, “There is a poor, weak and suffering starving person. You need to help them by getting them some food. You are much more capable than they are. At least that isn’t you.” In order for us to take action off this command, we have to agree that the world is real, the problem is starvation, the solution is in form, that we are poor and weak and vulnerable also, that neither we nor that other person is the Son of God and more lies.

The Holy Spirit might direct, “There is a brother who has forgotten who he is. Get him some perceived food to support him with his perceived panic and then share your story of how you found the Holy Spirit.” What do we have to believe to take action on this directive? That is our brother who may be temporarily insane. That he is the Son of God and so are we. That his salvation is our salvation and rests in his remembering who he is, as we remember who we are. That the answer is the Holy Spirit and more. The difference is who is “doing” and for what purpose. In the first case the sleeping us is “doing” as the ego directs, so we can keep dreaming of separation and specialness. In the second case, the awakening us is “doing” as the Holy Spirit directs, for the purpose of continuing to climb the ladder of awareness home to God.

Do not use empathy to make the past real, and so perpetuate it. Step gently aside, and let healing be done for you. Keep but one thought in mind and do not lose sight of it, however tempted you may be to judge any situation, and to determine your response by judging it. Focus your mind only on this:

I am not alone, and I would not intrude the past upon my Guest.
I have invited Him, and He is here.
I need do nothing except not to interfere.

True empathy is of Him Who knows what it is. You will learn His interpretation of it if you let Him use your capacity for strength, and not for weakness. He will not desert you, but be sure that you desert not Him. Humility is strength in this sense only; that to recognize and accept the fact that you do not know is to recognize and accept the fact that He does know. You are not sure that He will do His part, because you have never yet done yours completely. You cannot know how to respond to what you do not understand. Be tempted not in this, and yield not to the ego’s triumphant use of empathy for its glory. (T-16.I.3:6–4:7)

The Holy Spirit’s purpose for everything is to use it for salvation, the undoing of all this. We cannot be used by Him, if we do not see salvation as our only purpose also. As long as we value, have opinions about, have goals in, have preferences about, have reactions to the illusion, we are limiting the Holy Spirit’s ability to use what we have made, the world, the body and the personality self for the Great Awakening.

In order to value, have opinions about (activate the past), have goals in (plan the future), have preferences about (organize the present), have reactions to (activate the past) anything, we first must choose to believe it is real. These things we engage with in relation to the illusion, are defenses against the truth. They keep us looking out at the illusion and interacting with it, Instead of going in and questioning its very existence, its “reality.” The separation is not our problem. Our problem is that we choose to believe it was real. And then we valued it.

And herein lies the folly of defense; it gives illusions full reality, and then attempts to handle them as real. It adds illusions to illusions, thus making correction doubly difficult. And it is this you do when you attempt to plan the future, activate the past, or organize the present as you wish. (W-135.1:2-4)

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)

We must learn how not to make the illusion real. We must learn how to dispel illusions, cause them to vanish by getting they are not real.

The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, not to establish them as real and then forgive them. (T-13.X.6:6)

And how else can one dispel illusions except by looking at them directly, without protecting them? (T-11.V.2:2)

And then there is this.

You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred and realize its full extent. You may also think that it would be easy enough for the Holy Spirit to show it to you, and to dispel it without the need for you to raise it to awareness yourself. Yet there is one more obstacle you have interposed between yourself and the Atonement. We have said that no one will countenance fear if he recognizes it. Yet in your disordered state of mind you are not afraid of fear. You do not like it, but it is not your desire to attack that really frightens you. You are not seriously disturbed by your hostility. You keep it hidden because you are more afraid of what it covers. You could look even upon the ego’s darkest cornerstone without fear if you did not believe that, without the ego, you would find within yourself something you fear even more. You are not really afraid of crucifixion. Your real terror is of redemption.

Under the ego’s dark foundation is the memory of God, and it is of this that you are really afraid. For this memory would instantly restore you to your proper place, and it is this place that you have sought to leave. (T-13.III.1:1–2:2)

The forgiveness process is not as basic as we thought. More on that later.