T. 17. 1 – 5. Jesus: “The practical application of the Holy Spirit’s purpose is extremely simple, but it is unequivocal! In fact, in order to be simple it must be unequivocal. The simple is merely what is easily understood, and for this it is apparent that it must be clear.
In order to cover all possible situations you may encounter, setting the Holy Spirit’s goal of truth is general, as well as unequivocal! Now will He work with you to make it specific, for application is specific here in a world of specifics. There are certain very specific guidelines He provides to you for any situation, but remember that you do not yet realize their universal application. Therefore, it is essential at this point to use them in each situation separately, as each presents itself, until you can more safely look beyond each, with an understanding far broader than you now possess!
In any situation in which you are uncertain, the first thing to consider, very simply, is ‘What do I want to come of this? What is it for? The clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning, for it is this which will determine the outcome.
In the ego’s procedure, however, this is reversed! The situation ‘outside of you’ is perceived as the determiner of the outcome you experience, which can then be anything! The reason for this disorganized approach should be readily evident. The ego does not know what it wants to come of the situation. It is aware of what it does not want, but only that. It has no positive goal at all!
Without a positive, clear-cut goal, set at the outset, a situation just seems to happen to you, and makes no sense until it has already happened and you can look upon it in retrospect. Then you look back and try to piece together what it ‘must have meant.’ And you will be wrong! Not only is your judgment dependent upon ‘the past’ in your mind, as we discussed earlier, but you have had no idea what should happen. No goal was set which would bring the means in line with it. So now is left but a judgment as to whether or not the ego ‘likes it;’ and is it acceptable or does it call for vengeance?
The absence of a criterion for outcome, set in advance, makes understanding doubtful and evaluation impossible. The value of deciding in advance what you want to experience is simply that you will perceive the situation as a means to have it happen. You will therefore make every effort to simply look past what interferes with the accomplishment of your goal, and your mind will concentrate its focus on everything that helps you meet it. It should be immediately quite noticeable that this new approach has brought you closer to the Holy Spirit’s sorting out of truth and falsity. The true to you becomes what can be used to meet the goal of truth. The false becomes but useless from this point of view. The situation now has meaning, but only because the goal has made it meaningful.
The Holy Spirit’s goal of truth has further practical advantages. If the situation is used for truth and sanity, its outcome must be peace. And this is quite apart from what the worldly outcome is. If peace is the condition of truth and sanity, and cannot be without them, where peace is, they must be!
Truth comes of itself when you decide that it is all you want! If you experience peace, it is because the truth has come to you and you will see the outcome truly, for deception cannot prevail against you. You will recognize the outcome because you are at peace.
Here again you see the opposite of the ego’s way of looking, for the ego believes the external situation brings all the results you experience. The Holy Spirit knows that the situation is to you but as the goal determines it, and is experienced according to the goal.”