Ch. 13. II. 1 – 4. Jesus: “The ultimate purpose of projection, or seeing ‘outside’ what you do not want to look upon within, is always to get rid of guilt. Yet, characteristically, this attempt by the ego to get rid of guilt merely keeps it from your view, for as much as the ego wants you to retain it, you find guilt intolerable!
The guilt in your mind stands squarely in the way of your remembering God, Whose pull is so strong that you cannot resist it. On this issue, then, the deepest split of all occurs, for if you are to retain guilt as the ego insists you do, you cannot be you!
Only by persuading you that it, the ego, is you, could the ego possibly induce you to project the guilt, and thereby keep it in your mind, though hidden from your view. Yet consider how strange a solution the ego’s arrangement is! You project the guilt to get rid of it, but you are actually merely concealing it. You still do experience the guilt, but you have no idea why. On the contrary, you associate it with a weird assortment of ‘ego ideals,’ which the ego claims you have failed to fulfill. Yet you have no idea that, basically, you are failing the Son of God by seeing him as guilty! Believing you are no longer you, you do not realize that you are but failing yourself!
This darkest of the ego’s hidden cornerstones keeps your belief in guilt denied from your awareness and thereby protected from the light of truth. For in that dark and secret place is the belief that you have betrayed God’s Son by condemning him to death! You do not even suspect this murderous but insane idea lies hidden there, for the ego’s destructive urge is so intense that nothing short of the crucifixion of God’s Son can ultimately satisfy it. It does not know who the Son of God is because it is blind. Yet let it perceive guiltlessness anywhere, and the ego will try to find an excuse to destroy it, because it is afraid!
Much of the ego’s strange behavior is directly attributable to what is included in its definition of guilt. To the ego, it would appear that the guiltless are ‘guilty’ and deserving of attack, but only because it sees guiltlessness as a threat to it! Those who do not attack are then its ‘enemies.’ because, by not valuing its interpretation of salvation, they are in an excellent position to simply let the ego go.
They have approached the darkest and deepest cornerstone in the ego’s foundation and looked upon it honestly. And while the ego can withstand your raising all else to question, it guards this one secret with its life, for its very existence depends on keeping this secret. So it is this secret that we must now look upon, for the ego cannot ‘protect you’ against truth, and in truth’s presence the ego is dispelled!”