T. 27. VII. 1 – 3. Jesus: “Suffering is but an emphasis on ‘all that the world has done to injure you.’ Here is the world’s demented version of the ego’s ‘salvation’ clearly shown!
Like to a ‘dream of punishment,’ in which the dreamer is unconscious of what brought attack against himself, the dreamer of the world sees himself attacked unjustly, and most certainly by something not himself! He dreams he is the victim of this ‘something else,’ a thing outside himself, for which by his dis-association, it appears that he, himself, cannot be held responsible. He ‘must surely be innocent’ merely because he remembers not what he does, and by projection, sees only what appears as being ‘done to him.’
Yet in all honesty, it is still his own attack upon himself from which he suffers. For it is he, the dreamer, who bears the suffering he dreams! And he cannot escape as long as its source is seen outside himself. Now are you being shown you can escape from suffering!
All that is needed to begin, is for you to look upon the problem as it is, and not to forget the way that you have set it up to keep it. How could another way be seen to solve a problem that is very simple, but has been obscured by heavy clouds of complication, which were only made to keep the problem unresolved? Without the clouds of complication. the problem will emerge in all its primitive simplicity. The choice will not be difficult, then, because the problem is absurd when clearly seen.
If the actual problem is seen as hurting him, and the dreamer is shown that it is also very easily removed by God’s Answer, surely no one has difficulty ‘choosing once again’ to let a simple problem be resolved for him.
The ‘reasoning’ by which the whole world is made, on which it rests, and by which it is maintained, is simply this: ‘You, separate from me, are the cause of what I do and what I feel. Your presence justifies my wrath, for you exist and think apart from me. While you attack, I am entirely innocent. And what I suffer from is naught but your attack.’
No one who looks upon this faulty reasoning exactly as it is, could fail to see it simply does not follow, and that it really makes no sense at all.”