“In My Opinion”: The Height Of Insanity

It’s never This or That

The favorite expression of the human condition is, “In my opinion”. You laugh, but you are basing your reality on your opinions. Listen to how it comes out, “In my opinion”. Now my reality is not going to be based on me, but on my opinion about myself? Now don’t let that escape you, because this is Lesson 139 (I Will Accept Atonement For Myself) and you don’t really understand that the human condition does this all the time. I can get you out of that. One of the first steps you take is to get out of that. But there isn’t any question that the human objective condition that says, “In my opinion” has literally subtracted itself from what it is and is using itself to verify its associated opinion about itself.

Does everybody agree with that? This is called the scientific approach. Do you see? It’s an association of objective formulation of mind. No good? Very obviously if I say to you, “In my opinion”, what I am saying is I am having an opinion about myself. Now I will base everything that I do, come on, you teach, the human mind teaches formulate associate opinions. It’s so fundamental that it keeps escaping you.

The whole reality of the world is based on a formulation that subtracts the mechanism of the thinking process. It does not involve itself with the power that it is using to formulate its own opinions.

Do you see that? That’s called thinking, that’s the process of thinking. Isn’t it? You literally become an opinion about yourself, or more insidiously and continuously somebody else’s opinion about you since you have presented that opinion about yourself to them, they then correspond to their opinion about themselves with your opinion about yours. Isn’t that so?

That’s what you do. So you share opinions about yourself. That’s the height of insanity. The reason Jesus says that’s the height of insanity is, obviously an opinion about yourself could not possibly have anything to do with what you are. You are going to be what you are no matter what your opinion is. Everything is going to be what it is no matter how it constructs itself in its relationship with its apparent reality.

I want this to be reasonable to you, because if you’ll look at it right, it will become reasonable. It will be reasonable to you that the human condition is nothing but an opinion about nothing, since it’s an opinion about an opinion. Once it has the original subtraction of itself from its own association it operates on the principle of objective reality and determines its cognition of itself by the continuing separation or judgment between its associate thoughts.

Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m teaching you not to do that. This is A Course In Miracles - to teach you not to associate with your opinion about yourself because it has nothing to do with what you are. Obviously, if you don’t associate with an opinion about yourself you will become nothing. Because your opinion about yourself is what you are.

“In my opinion...” Whose opinion? “Mine”. Who are you? “I don’t know.”

“In my opinion...” Whose opinion? “Mine”. Who are you? “I don’t know.” Notice that he’s already made the admission that he doesn’t know who he is. That’s the insane part about it. What he’s most fearful to look at is that he doesn’t know who he is, where he came from or what he’s doing. He knows that, He’s already admitted that, but in desperation he continues to formulate an opinion about what he is. And to any whole mind, to any awakening mind that makes no sense at all because a mind that’s coming into an awakening, initially feels the frustration of his discovery that everybody is only an opinion.

Now where you are in your own individual minds with that and this is an advanced teaching, and it’s very very simple because it’s very advanced. Where you are individually in your own association with an opinion about yourself, I have no idea. All I can tell you is that your opinion that you have about yourself is absolutely meaningless. It couldn’t possibly mean anything. Can you get that? Are you comfortable with this? I’m not concerned about what you call yourself. If you name yourself, you are a group of opinions about what you think you are. Isn’t that amazing! Is that so? What I want you to see is what the human condition is. What I do first, is offer you an examination of yourself. I have to do that so very initially you can look at what you’re doing with your own perceptual relationship. This is done in the early chapters of A Course In Miracles, I’m going to try to stay out of the Course for just a minute.

Obviously I was a human being, let me see if I can teach you this - I was a human being, because just as obviously I formulated myself with a name and had opinions about myself. But no matter where I looked for opinions about myself they didn’t satisfy me. It’s not that I wasn’t having opinions about myself. I tried the scientific approach of an opinion about myself.

The fundamental concept of all perceptual mind is that, it’s gotta be this or that. My favorite lyric, “gotta be this or that” and the song is over and you’re convinced that it’s gotta be this or that. So each moment you choose whether it’s this or that. That’s what perceptual thinking is. Perceptual thinking is this or that. The mind works that way. Never mind what it’s using to arrive at the continuing conclusions of this or that. There is no question that the human mind, perceptual mind, does that. This is very fundamental to this teaching. It is a mechanism of decision that authenticates an objective relationship. What it actually authenticates is space and time. “That” is space, “This” is time. That is what space is, this is what the time is between my own minds.

The scientific approach to solving the problem, an insolvable problem of objective reality, is very simply, it’s gotta be that or that. This is called the mind. What the scientific approach does is remove itself from the equation. Now it doesn’t seem as though it did that and there’s an element of itself that’s going to enter into it. But the goal of the reasoning mind is to remove entirely his own thinking process from it. And this is the so-called conflict between science and religion. Because obviously religion is going to have to evolve the association with itself. So religion is very offended by science not wanting to involve the mind in the association with itself.

So here we have the wonderful scientific approach. So all of the human conditions in their separation operating on a this or that principle, will come together in a convention of accord and study their mutual thats. This is called Academia. They literally do not involve themselves and purposefully, and if the scientists attempts to involve himself in the association of that and that, he is told “that’s not what we’re talking about”, we’re talking about that and that.

Finally objective reality becomes absurd that there’s no way that the so-called reasonable mind can remove itself from its equation. But its reality is based on its capacity to do it and it has the capacity to do it because it is the capacity to separate itself from itself. Obviously that’s not real, but it will appear very real to the consciousness and it can operate on a principle of never involving itself in the situation. Do you know people like that? It’s so reasonable they’ll write one hundred pages about the Course In Miracles and how reasonable it is in their own mind and never involves himself except to say, “In my opinion”. That’s his total involvement. His total involvement of the Course In Miracles is to say, “in my opinion about the Course” So he subtracted himself from it and is basing his reality on not getting involved with what he really is.

Did I do that simply enough for you? It’s kind of hard to do until you get into it. Once you get into what I’m trying to say it’ll be real obvious to you that this is literally what you call in your traditions, mind. Intellect, intellectual associations of form with a minimum use of self-identity based on the realization of self. It is quite literally that or that teaching. It operates much better in that because it doesn’t have in any way to involve itself with what it really is. The height of that is the total subtraction of yourself in the formulation of human relationships that operate only objectively. They are generally the most successful human relationships. They operate objectively in concern with the form and never enter into the participation of the self with the form. They literally close off their minds.

Here’s the way it works. The mind which is this or that must be this or that. In reality, it’s not this or that. It’s the power that it’s using to be this or that. It’s something entirely different. I’m doing the Course In Miracles but I’m doing it reasonably for you. So that you can see that the human condition is always a decision to be this or that. Now when you move into what is termed art or self-expression. A true artist will remove himself entirely from that or that and he will become this or this. He is convinced that somehow he is a reflection of his own associations. That he is determining his own reality based on a comparison of this or this.

Artful people who enter into what you call passionate or heart relationships will take a that and make it a this between that. We will share this ice cream soda. Not that ice cream soda. Who sees it? That is you and I examining the ice cream soda, “yes it’s made out of chocolate and it’s made out of... and in my opinion it doesn’t taste like an ice cream soda. We are sharing our opinion about the ice cream soda instead of what, sharing the ice cream soda. Is there value in sharing the ice cream soda? Jesus says there’s value in sharing the ice cream soda because somewhere within the association it begins to reverse temporal order.

All objective reality is already based on the object that has been projected from the associations mind. Isn’t this so? If you’ll accept the fundamental premise that that is so... certainly it’s sitting out there objectively. I don’t care whether you think you did it or somebody else did it, you’re basing your reality on that association. Perhaps some progress is made by the association of this and this or most certainly this and that. Instead of that and that. The problem with associating this, which is what you are; time, with that which is what space is; is you’ll discover that you can’t be that, but become more and more this. Becoming more and more this is fearful to you. You want the objectivity of your association in space-time. Because that, is literally what your space is and you depend on that to authenticate the this. The premise is not being opened at this time that you are anything but this or that or this or this, or that or that, or this or that or that or this. But it’s always what, a reflected association of a form contained within the mind in space-time.

Have I somehow got you to look that this is what the human condition is? Because this is what the human condition is. This is the condition in which you find yourself. The training that is involved in the miracle or the evolutionary process, to teach the perceptual mind to use the power of its own mind, involves a very simple inevitable statement. I’m going to give it to you because this is the basis of all mind training. It is never this or that. It is never this or that. This will make you very uncomfortable. The reason you are very uncomfortable with my whole mind, is I will always tell you it is never this or that. The reason I know it is never this or that, is I have determined by the experience of my whole association that it literally is not this or that.

Everyone must come to know that the world is not real. That is an experience that the Course In Miracles, that I can train you to undergo, if you are determined to allow me to inform you with the truth of the universe that it is not this or that. I’m telling you flat out that you are using the power of Divine Reality which is whole mind, which is what mind is, to determine whether it is this or that, and it’s not. It’s not this or that. Obviously your mind will continue to shake that out and have an opinion it must be this or that, this is why it’s called A Course In Miracles. It’s A Course In Miracles because the statement will be, no matter what the association is, it is a limiting factor in space-time.

Let’s go to the metamorphosis of the human condition. Let’s use this human condition association. This human condition association of perceptual mind, which is the middle brain, is operating on the premise of this or that continually within its own relationship. It could not not do it. This association allows some distraction, which is reality, to come into that association of itself but only sufficiently to verify a continuing alternative about what it is. I am teaching you and telling you emphatically that reality is not an alternative. Reality is not an opinion or a determination between the relationships of a perceptual mind. Obviously you believe that that is true or you would not be able to retain your own opinion about yourself, but remember that all perceptual minds do that because that’s what a human is. Love is letting go of fear. But remember that fear is what the conceptual association is not the manner in which it identifies itself but the simple necessity for it to identify itself at all.

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Thursday #1 - In My Opinion: The Height Of Insanity
From “The Mission - Sedona, Arizona, United States” Series

In My Opinion: The Height Of Insanity