Ch. 12. I. 1 – 5. Jesus: “You have been told not to make error real, and the way to do this is very simple. If you want to believe in the reality of your brother’s error, you have to ‘make it real’ to you, simply because it is not true. But truth is real in its own right, and to believe in truth you do not have to do anything!
You must understand that you do not respond directly to anything you see or hear, but only to your interpretation of it. In circular fashion, then, your own interpretation thus becomes the justification for your response! That is why ‘analyzing’ the motives of others is hazardous to your own peace of mind. If you decide that someone is trying to attack you, or desert you, or enslave you, you respond as if he had actually done so, thus making ‘his error’ real to you! For that matter, to interpret error at all is to give it power, and having done this, you will inevitably overlook the truth.
Your analysis of anyone’s ego motivation is very complicated, very obscuring, and never without your own ego’s involvement. The whole process represents a clear-cut attempt to demonstrate your own ability to understand what you perceive. This is shown by the fact that you react to your interpretations as if they were all correct! You may then control your reactions behaviorally, but not on the level of emotion. Obviously, this is an attack on the integrity of your mind, splitting it, and pitting one level within it against another!
Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a brother’s plea for help? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give help to him, for this and only this is what he is asking for. Offer him anything else, and you are assuming the right to attack his reality with your judgment, interpreting it as you see fit. Perhaps the danger of this to your own mind is not yet fully apparent. But if you believe that an appeal for help is something else, you will react to the ‘something else,’ making the delusion into your ‘reality.’ Your response will therefore be inappropriate to reality as it is, though not to your delusional perception of it!
Except for your own imagined need to attack, there is nothing to prevent you from recognizing all calls for help as exactly that. It is only this mistake that makes you willing to engage in endless ‘battles with reality,’ in which you deny the reality of the need for healing, making that seem ‘unreal.’ You would not do this except for your un-willingness to accept reality as it is, an acceptance which you therefore withhold from yourself!
Yet this is what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize a brother’s appeal, for only by answering his appeal can you be helped. Deny him your help and you will not recognize God’s Answer to you. The Holy Spirit does not need your help in interpreting motivation, but you do need His.”