Heaven is the choice I must make.
1. In this world, Heaven is something that must be chosen, because here we believe there are alternatives from which to choose.
²We think that all things must have an opposite, and then we choose the one we want.
³If Heaven exists, then hell must exist as well, for contradiction is the way we fabricate what we perceive and believe to be real.
2. Creation has no opposite.
²Yet here, the opposite of what exists is also considered part of what is “real.” I
³This strange perception of truth is what makes choosing Heaven seem like giving up hell.
⁴In truth, it is not so.
⁵But what is true in the Creation of God cannot be made manifest here unless it is reflected in a form the world can understand.
⁶Truth cannot enter where it is feared.
⁷For this is the error of thinking truth can be brought to illusion.
⁸The very act of regarding what is opposite to Reality as real is an attack upon the truth.
⁹And that is why truth cannot come here.
3. Choosing is the obvious escape from all opposing thoughts. II
²To make a choice means that you invest your effort and your time in only one of two conflicting goals.
³If you do not choose, you waste your time, and your efforts go nowhere.
⁴Your investment is in vain.
⁵And time slips by without result.
⁶You feel you have gained nothing, for you have neither achieved nor learned anything.
4. You need to be reminded that although you believe you face a thousand choices, there is only one you need to make.
²And even that one only seems to be a choice. III
³Let not the host of doubts that a thousand decisions would induce confuse you.
⁴You are making but one.
⁵And once you make it, you will realize that it was not a choice at all.
⁶For only truth is true, and that is all there is to reality.
⁷There is nothing opposed to truth for you to choose instead.
⁸There is nothing that contradicts it.
5. Decisions are made based on what has been learned.
²But truth cannot be learned.
³Truth is simply recognized.
⁴And when you recognize it, you accept it.
⁵And in accepting it, you know it.
⁶Yet Knowledge lies beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework of this Course.
⁷Our teaching goals are attained through learning how to reach them, what they are, and what they offer you.
⁸Your decisions result from what you have learned, for they reflect what you have accepted as the truth of what you are, and thus of what your needs must be.
6. In this insane and twisted world, Heaven seems to be a choice you make instead of something that simply is.
²Of all the choices you have tried to make, this is the simplest, the most definitive, and the prototype that resolves them all.
³Even if you had made every other choice, this one would still remain to be made.
⁴But when you make it, all others are resolved with it, for they are but veils that hide it under different forms. IV
⁵This is the final choice, the one in which the truth is either accepted or denied.
7. And so today we begin to look upon this choice.
²Time was made for this, to be the aid in helping you to make this choice.V
³This is its holy purpose, now transformed from what you made it for.
⁴You made it as a means to prove that hell is real, that hope turns into despair, and that life itself must ultimately give way to death.
⁵You believed that death alone could resolve the conflict of opposing values, for ending opposition was to you the same as dying.
⁶And so you saw death as salvation, for you believed life was conflict.
⁷To you, to end the conflict was to end life as well.
8. These mad beliefs can lie entrenched so deeply in the mind’s unconscious that they grip it with such terror and anxiety that it cannot abandon the ideas it made to save itself.
²It now believes it must be saved from salvation, feel threatened to be safe, and be protected from the truth through magic.
³And to protect such thoughts, these decisions are made unconsciously, without awareness, reason, or doubt. VI
9. But Heaven is consciously chosen.
²It is a choice that cannot be made until alternatives are accurately perceived and clearly understood.
³All that is hidden in the shadows must be raised to understanding to be judged again, this time with the help of Heaven.
⁴And all the errors of judgment the mind made before can now be corrected, for the truth dismisses them as having no cause.
⁵They now have no effects.
⁶They cannot be concealed, for their lack of substance is now recognized.
10. To choose Heaven consciously is as sure as ending fear of hell, once its unconscious shield has been removed and brought into the light.
²Who could decide between what he clearly sees and what he does not even recognize?
³But who could fail to choose between alternatives when only one of them is seen as having any value at all, and the other is seen as wholly worthless—nothing but a source of illusions, guilt, and pain?
⁴Who would hesitate to make such a choice?
⁵Shall we now hesitate to choose today?
11. We choose Heaven as we wake, and devote five minutes to ensuring we have made the only sane decision.
²We recognize that we are making a conscious choice between what really exists and what only seems to be.
³And when we bring its seeming reality to what is real, its weakness and transparency become clear in the light of truth.
⁴Now it no longer frightens, for what seemed enormous, vengeful, and with merciless hate requires darkness to be feared.
⁵Now it is seen as nothing but a foolish error, trivial and meaningless.
12. Throughout the day, we reaffirm our choice each hour, with a brief moment of quiet dedicated to preserving sanity.
²And as we go to sleep tonight, we once again confirm the choice we made each hour, and devote the final five minutes of our day to remembering the decision we made upon awakening.
³And we end the day by acknowledging we have simply chosen what we truly want, saying:
⁴Heaven is the choice I must make.
⁵I choose Heaven now, and I will not change my mind,
⁶Because Heaven is the only thing I want.
I This refers to the profoundly important cognitive bias of granting reality to absences—something that has already been discussed at length, yet can never be emphasized enough, for it is the core mechanism of the perception of the imaginary. This is not a cognitive bias formally identified by academic psychology, for it is so absolutely universal that it may be said to be part of the very condition of being human. Everything human, everything “physical,” the entire universe itself, arises into “existence” in the alienated mind by giving entity to what is absent.
Perception can take place only through contrasts, through distinctions, through separation. In order to perceive anything, you must contrast it, distinguish it, and separate it from everything else. For something to “exist” in your perception, it must necessarily be surrounded by the “nonexistence” of itself. In the perceptual realm, the absence of something is what gives that something its meaning. You call “space” what does not exist—what is not—and yet, for you, it is an extraordinarily significant concept, because it is what enables you to perceive.
What is, is; and what is not, is not. But in this deceitful world, what is not also is. In this insane world, it is believed that what is missing—the negative—has an existence of its own, and thus it is treated and attacked as such. This is why, here, evil is fought against—though it is nothing but the absence of good—for it is regarded as a fearsome and threatening enemy, instead of supplying the good that is plainly lacking. This is what illusion is: an ontological perversion—a play of shadows and voids within the fullness of love.
When you go to the cinema, a play of light and shadow produced by the interposition of the film’s frames against the projector’s light gives form on the screen to stories that make you laugh and cry. On that screen you see nothing but light and shadow in rapid succession—yet you are moved. It is nothing but a play of light and darkness, and your mind does the rest.
Realize that what happens in the cinema is an allegory of what you believe you see in your imaginary world. Think of God as the projector, whose light is His Love; the screen as consciousness; and the film as the will to be separate from God. The frame projected in an instant you call the present; those that precede it, the past; and those that follow, the future. Thus you construct your world. That film is not true, yet you have paid a high price for the ticket.
At some point, the possibility that there could be something other than the Love of God crossed your mind, and you began to imagine a world of shadows. Shadows are only the absence of light—but there you are, hunched in the seat of a dark theater, watching fantasies and believing them to be true. Yet, if you became aware of what was happening, how could you possibly suffer?
Realize that it makes no difference whether you are in Heaven or believe yourself to be in the world: a lucid mind cannot suffer—ever, under any circumstance.
II This entire Lesson revolves around the choice between what exists and what does not exist, between what is real and what is illusory. Obviously, only what is real exists, and it is perfectly abstract, limitless, and eternal; but the mind’s will to choose the impossible leads it to perceive a world of illusions that will never satisfy it, because they are not in accord with its own nature, which is real and, therefore, perfectly abstract, limitless, and eternal as well.
This is why the world does not know the meaning of love and is perplexed by the notion of consciousness, which it cannot locate within its material, concrete universe.
Now the sense of self-identity confuses the subject who questions it, and expressions such as “Know thyself” become true riddles. Which is surprising—were it not still more surprising that such a crucial question should be asked and left unanswered.
III Can choosing what alone exists even be called a choice?
IV The world’s purpose is precisely to distract the mind from the truth. That is the only purpose illusions have: to deceive the subject who entertains them.
An illusion that fails to deceive its maker is a poor illusion—or else it faces a subject who has set his will not to be deceived. One must keep in mind that an illusion “works” only with the consent of the one who beholds it; the subject must want to be deceived for the illusion to be effective.
V This is one way of reinterpreting personal life and understanding it as a path toward awakening to the truth—the Atonement—instead of a dreary journey toward death.
VI The ego’s true fear—the fear of the separate personal identity—is the fear of its own annihilation. There is nothing the ego fears more than the Love of God; that is why it keeps the mind entertained by proposing magical solutions to nonexistent problems of its own invention. Thus it keeps the mind busy improving the world or glorifying and protecting the body.
All this happens automatically and unconsciously, because the mind takes for granted the “reality” paradigm it faces. It does not question it at all, for it cannot conceive that everything it is telling itself is not true. The hypnotic power of beliefs is absolute in the mind that does not question. And how could the mind question the reality of what it perceives if it regards perception itself as something unquestionable a priori?
The mind that cannot distinguish between being and seeming to be cannot be free. Realize that this Lesson deals, above all, with the exercise of will.