Where Do All These Differences Come From?

Illusions are always illusions of differences. How could it be otherwise? Where do all these differences come from? Certainly they seem to be in the world outside. Yet it is surely the mind that judges what the eyes behold. It is the mind that interprets the eyes’ messages and gives them “meaning.” And this meaning does not exist in the world outside at all.

What is seen as “reality” is simply what the mind prefers. Its hierarchy of values is projected outward, and it sends the body’s eyes to find it. The body’s eyes will never see except through differences. Yet it is not the messages they bring on which perception rests. Only the mind evaluates their messages, and so only the mind is responsible for seeing. It alone decides whether what is seen is real or illusory, desirable or undesirable, pleasurable or painful. It is in the sorting out and categorizing activities of the mind that errors in perception enter. And it is here correction must be made.

The mind classifies what the body’s eyes bring to it according to its preconceived values, judging where each sense datum fits best. What basis could be faultier than this? Unrecognized by itself, it has itself asked to be given what will fit into these categories. And having done so, it concludes that the categories must be true. On this the judgment of all differences rests, because it is on this that judgments of the world depend. teachers man.

Differences do not matter. Differences in form are not REAL differences at all. NONE OF THEM MATTERS… (It is) THAT they have in common,and nothing else …  Differences have no effect at all on the miracle, which can heal any of them with equal ease.

(The Holy Spirit) He OPPOSES differences in form as meaningful, and emphasizes always that THESE DIFFERENCES DO NOT MATTER. The meaning of His message is ALWAYS the same, and ONLY the meaning matters. He knows THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE, for He knows not of differences. Healing IS the way to undo the belief in differences, because it is the ONLY way of perceiving the Sonship WITHOUT this belief.

You will not remember change and shift in Heaven. You have need of contrast only here. Contrast and differences are necessary teaching aids, for by them you learn what to avoid, and what to seek. Everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations which made perception possible, will occur.

When you have LEARNED this, you will find the answer that makes the need for ANY differences disappear. Truth comes of its OWN will unto its own. When you have learned that you BELONG to truth, it will flow lightly over you, without a difference of ANY kind. For you will NEED no contrast to help you realize that THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT, and ONLY this. Order, being based, NOT on differences, but on equality.