The Doll House

See this child’s doll house?  All the inanimate static items?  They have no life.  They have no creative ability.  They are nothing.  Insignificant.  Only a total suspension of “reality”, an imagining, a dream can animate them and seemingly bring them to life in a child’s mind.  But only in make believe.  The child agrees to “make them real” and acts as if.

That is actually what happens in the illusion.  But the illusion is not even a 3D doll house.  It is more like a series of photographs flittering by like a movie.  The illusion is more like a flat lifeless picture of a doll house than an actual doll house.

In order to bring the illusion to life, to make it seem real, we have to contort and manipulate our thinking and expend enormous learning energy. We have to make up all sorts of beliefs in time, space, bodies, sickness, pain, emotions, senses, personality selves, likes and dislikes and a million other things to convince ourselves the illusion is real.

And we’ve been very successful. Who in their right mind would ever believe that there is absolutely no creative ability in matter? That everything that seems to happen, every sensation we seem to have, every emotion, every sickness is directed my the mind outside of time and space? That the mind is the only cause? That there is no cause and effect in this seeming world? That you are just a doll, a puppet of the mind “experiencing” exactly what it directs “you” to experience in this game of dolls?

But even more concerning is that not only do we have to engage in all sorts of mental machinations to make the illusion seem real, we also have to choose to dissociate reality. We have to obliterate our remembrance of our true Identity as spirit and mind. We have to obliterate our remembrance of our true home, Heaven. And finally we have to obliterate our remembrance of our Father, God.

We make the illusion seem real and and engage with it as if were. But it is an impossible fruitless task which results in hopelessness, anxiety, panic, despair and grief because no matter how hard we try, we cannot make ourselves into something other than we are. We are the Son of God, invulnerable and all powerful, one with our brothers and with God. Nothing can change that. Nothing can make the illusion real.

In order for us to reclaim our Identity we must learn that the illusion is not real.  We will learn this lesson because it is our God assigned curriculum and our will.  Only the time it takes is up to us.  We WILL stop playing this deadly child’s game of make believe. WE WILL REMEMBER GOD.

Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so.  Not because it has the power to hurt, but just because you have denied it is but an illusion, and made it real.  And it is real to you.  It is not nothing.  And through its perceived reality has entered all the world of sick illusions.  All belief in sin, in power of attack, in hurt and harm, in sacrifice and death, has come to you.  For no one can make one illusion real, and still escape the rest. (T26.VI.1)

What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real? (T30.VII.3:1)

How else can you find joy in a joyless place except by realizing that you are not there? (T6.II.6:1)

So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he could not waken to reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless a gentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed his calmer mind to welcome, not to fear, the Voice that calls with love to waken him; a gentler dream, in which his suffering was healed and where his brother was his friend. (T27.VII.13:4)

There is no life outside of Heaven.  Where God created life, there life must be.  In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. (T23.II.19:1)

The totally insane engenders fear because it is completely undependable, and offers no grounds for trust.  Nothing in madness is dependable.  It holds out no safety and no hope. But such a world is not real.  I have given it the illusion of reality, and have suffered from my belief in it.  Now I choose to withdraw this belief, and place my trust in reality. 8 In choosing this, I will escape all the effects of the world of fear, because I am acknowledging that it does not exist. (W53)

No one can look upon the fear of God unterrified, unless he has accepted the Atonement and learned illusions are not real. (T19.IV.D.9:1)

It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give. (M13.2:1)

Since only the mind can be sick, only the mind can be healed.  Only the mind is in need of healing.  This does not appear to be the case, for the manifestations of this world seem real indeed. Psychotherapy is necessary so that an individual can begin to question their reality.  Sometimes he is able to start to open his mind without formal help, but even then it is always some change in his perception of interpersonal relationships that enables him to do so.  Sometimes he needs a more structured, extended relationship with an “official” therapist.  Either way, the task is the same; the patient must be helped to change his mind about the “reality” of illusions. (P.Intro 1:2)

NOTE: In the Course the Holy Spirit is the only psychotherapist and psychotherapy means mental correction.

To me, the purpose of everything is to prove that my illusions about myself are real.  It is for this purpose that I attempt to use everyone and everything.  It is for this that I believe the world is for.  Therefore I do not recognize its real purpose. The purpose I have given the world has led to a frightening picture of it.  Let me open my mind to the world’s real purpose by withdrawing the one I have given it, and learning the truth about it. (W55.5)

Here is the paradox that underlies the making of the world.  This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real.  Yet those who think it real must still believe there is another will, and one that leads to opposite effects from those He wills.  Impossible indeed; but every mind that looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone.  But never in one God. (W166.2)

Freedom from illusions lies only in not believing them. (T8.VII.16:5)

The world you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. (T.13.VII.2:1)

Dismiss temptation easily today whenever it arises, merely by remembering the limits of your choice.  The unreal or the real, the false or true is what you see and only what you see. Perception is consistent with your choice, and hell or Heaven comes to you as one. (W130.10)

Here is the world that comes to take its place, as you unbind your mind from little things the world sets forth to keep you prisoner.  Value them not, and they will disappear.  Esteem them, and they will seem real to you. (W129.5:3)

Yet eyes accustomed to illusions must be shown that what they look upon is false.  So healing, never needed by the truth, must demonstrate that sickness is not real. (W137.4:5)

This is how all illusions came about.  The one who makes them does not see himself as making them, and their reality does not depend on him.  Whatever cause they have is something quite apart from him, and what he sees is separate from his mind.  He cannot doubt his dreams’ reality, because he does not see the part he plays in making them and making them seem real. (T27.VII.7:6)

But who reacts to figures in a dream unless he sees them as if they were real?  The instant that he sees them as they are they have no more effects on him, because he understands he gave them their effects by causing them and making them seem real. (T27.VIII.4:4)