26.02.06
The "Laws" of Chaos - Part II (Sept 26, 1997)
Posted in Transcripts at 3:36 pm by miracles 
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Notes from a talk given by Linda and James Hale
Contents
The quotations from the Course are given in the second edition format. Although we have presented only the first few words of relevant quote we do consider them very important and request that you look them up.
We will begin our talk by summarizing some of the ground we covered in Part I where we discussed the first three of the five ‘laws’ of chaos.
The first law is that the truth is different for everyone. So in contrast to what the Holy Spirit’s first and last lesson would be: the truth is true (see "The Happy Learner" Chapter 14 of the Text), the ego is trying to teach that value can be found in the separate and discrete. The Son of God sought reality in a sense of self which could only be experienced apart from the totality of truth. That is the first lie, and from that erroneous self-concept, all errors emerge. Once having accepted this false law, the Son is trapped in a delusion of his own making:
"Have faith in nothing and you will find the "treasure" that you seek…" T-14.II.1:7-11
The effort to make the untrue true is an error, but no more than that. If brought to Truth, it can easily be seen for what it is and corrected. Something more was needed by the dynamic of illusion, or the ego, to keep its own drama going. That something is found in the belief in sin. The second law of chaos is that everyone must sin. Here is what the Course has to say about the significance of sin:
"Sin is not an error, for sin entails an arrogance which the idea of error lacks…" T-19.II.2.
The concept of sin fools the Son into believing that the tiny mad idea of separation and difference has actually been accomplished: unity has been destroyed and the Son is the sinner. Sin is irreversible, and God Himself cannot overcome it. With the belief in sin set in place , the now different aspects of the Sonship are now in constant conflict in order to establish who is more pure or of more value. But, even more than that, given that the Son has destroyed the wholeness of truth, he has a perpetual enemy–the Creator of that truth. This great enemy is most terrible in his wrath towards the Son, and therefore needs to be hidden from. The Son hides in the incredibly diverse and multifarious realm of the physical universe, always intent upon proving another part of the Sonship is "more" wrong, just in case God sees through the disguise and catches up with him. The universal plea is: "It wasn’t me. He did it!"
This is the third law of chaos–that God accepts the Son’s concept of himself as sinner. After all, he is all-knowing, and must know what the Son has done. In both the "Sin Versus Error" and "The Laws of Chaos" sections this is described as the arrogance of the ego. The Son has decided not only what he must be, a separate being who has sinned to gain that status, but also what the Father is, a being who agrees with the Son’s concept of himself, and hates him for it. Opposition has thus been set up as the key dynamic in all the Son’s relationships, both with his brothers and his Source.
"And Their relationship is one of opposition, just as the separate aspects of the Son meet only to conflict but not to join…" T-23.II.5:5-7
Fear is sensible and a necessary consequence of the belief in sin. Sin must engender guilt, guilt demands punishment, and anticipation of punishment gives rise to fear. Fear compels the Son to continue to lay blame outside himself whether it be on his brother or on his concept of God, which only engenders more guilt. The viscous circle which constitutes the ego’s chaotic world is now tightly bound.
With the third law of chaos, any hope of salvation has been effectively closed off. The Saviour has now become the "enemy" seeking vengeance against the guilty one. This is exactly where the egoic principle wants us; apparently eternally trapped within its own system, a system which finally leads to the seeming destruction of the Son.
"Think not the ego will enable you to find escape from what it wants." T-23.II.8:6
This is the purpose of the "laws", and their only meaning as far as the ego is concerned. As the Course makes clear, they have no meaning in and of themselves.
We have, in effect, seen the hidden drama of "creation" according to the ego made manifest in these, the first of its three "laws." From the original "tiny mad idea" down through the belief in sin and its uncompromising conclusion that we are at odds with our Father; we have followed the ego on a descent into a nightmare of oblivion. In accepting just one of these stepping stones we have accepted them all and automatically jumped to the end of the road. But where is this end of the road? It is our universe where we think we find ourselves. Our world of night and day, of give and take, of gain and loss. The separated off aspects of the Sonship have found themselves trapped within a closed system. A system that offers them nowhere to go. Once "here" the steps taken by the Son are forgotten. Instead of the Unity that "once" was, he finds the fragmentation that now is. A world based on laws just as insane as the ones they follow on from. "Laws" that seem to offer some hope. But what is there to be hoped for? Nothing, except piecemeal bits of momentary happiness and wholeness, wrested from a fragmented universe. There is nothing left to do but take and find value in the assembled bits of the taken. And so we come to the fourth law of chaos.
This law is reflective of the very first step of the descent into madness: God lost because the Son had taken a part of Creation for himself alone. Having is thus associated with getting and taking, of owning the prize, separately. The abundance of Creation has been replaced with scarcity and a belief that loss is really possible. There is now only limited supply, and we all must struggle to get a part of it. The one who gets is the victor, and in the very act of getting has established a belief in enmity. After all, the defeated may rise up at any time and take back the prize. There can be no giving between the enemies we believe must surround us.
How could any of us live with ourselves for very long if we saw the hatefulness of what we are doing? The "face of innocence" comes to the rescue. My original attack on the Creator, and all attacks which emanates from that original idea, is justified because He had something which is rightfully mine. Why should He be Creator all to Himself? Or why should you, my brother, have the lion’s share of Heaven’s booty? My attack is justified by the unscrupulous qualities of the enemy:
"All of the mechanisms of madness are seen emerging here…" T-23.II.10.
Getting to have is now enshrined within the ego’s thought system. Given that the Son has thrown away the awareness of Heaven, in which having and being are absolutely identical, what is there to seek? At this point the ego makes one final claim, a claim which underpins all our searching here and all the laws of chaos: a claim which fully sanctions our demand for the death of our brother and at the same time, our innocence in effecting it.
"But what is it you want that needs his death? Can you be sure your murderous attack is justified unless you know what it is for?" T-23.II.12:1-2
There is a substitute for love and others have it. That is the fifth and final law of chaos. What is this substitute and where can it be found? This substitute is very hard to find, and the reason it is, is that the enemy has hidden it in his body. All my relationships now have the purpose of seizing that special something which will finally give meaning to my life and make it complete.
"This is the magic that will cure all of your pain; the missing factor in your madness that makes it "sane."" T-23.II.12:5
That substitute is what the Course calls special relationships, in which I objectify my brother either as a special hate object, or as an object I must possess in special love. Either dynamic involves a process of seeing my brother as some sort of package, in which I single out the bits I want to focus on and exclude the rest. Even the bits I focus on have very little to do with my brother as he is, because what I am "seeing" represents fragments from my past. In the perceptual realm, each chooses to focus on what suits them and assembles those fragments to make a picture which supports unquestioned beliefs. In this place we seem to inhabit it can be truly said, "the truth is different for every one."
So this substitute is no less than the world the Son has made, a world which occasionally offers tantalising hopes of finding meaning and love, but which all to quickly crumbles into dust. After all, this is a place of bodies, and each body must die.
Yet this is the world the Son has made, and so he loves it much as a parent loves its child. He wants it to be the truth and so he continues to see it as if it were. In his awareness it has become a substitute for reality as God created it and so God must want it too. So not only must each part of the Sonship fight between themselves to establish meaning and value, the final enemy is God Himself, who seeks to reclaim everything for Himself.
"Never is your possession made complete. And never will your brother cease his attack …" T-23.II.13:1-3
It is as if the first three laws are being played out again and again. For only if there are differences is there a need for substitution, only if there is sin will I need to steal back what has been stolen from me and only if my Father has turned against me will He too seek out what I have taken and claim it for His own. Not only does this play of insanity give rise to the world of hate and hell I seem to find myself in, but also does it seem to feed the very dynamic of seeming existence here: an endless search for what was stolen, and endless escape from what is one’s deserved punishment. Not only can I not turn to my Father for help, I must hide from Him lest he steal back the very thing I have been searching for.
It is indeed as if everything has been turned upside down. It is indeed that madness seems to rule. The reversal is so complete, so consistent that what is mad appears sane and what is sane appears totally insane. Thus it seems that the function of insanity, to replace truth, has been accomplished. The laws of God have been reversed and the goal of the ego’s laws are obtained.
But why do we not "see" this? Why can we not see these laws, with their goal, for what they are? Jesus tells us:
"There is a strange device that makes it possible. Nor is it unfamiliar; we have seen how it appears to function many times before. In truth it does not function, yet in dreams, where only shadows play the major roles, it seems most powerful. No law of chaos could compel belief but for the emphasis on form and disregard of content. No one who thinks that one of these laws is true sees what it says. Some forms it takes seem to have meaning, and that is all." [Our emphasis] T-23.II.16:2-7
Here is where our belief in difference is enshrined in the very fabric of our world. Here is where our enlightened judgments and pronouncements of civilisation demonstrate our specialness and superiority with respect to our brothers. The ruse which allows entry to the ever powerful and compelling compromise, the "but" that we keep in reserve should the majesty of the form our arguments and perception take seem to wither just a bit. These "laws" by which we live, based on a lie and conceived in murder and mayhem seem to be glossed over by our "good" intent, our holy aspirations and measured love. We dress up our intentions, acting upon layer after layer of forgotten hate and fear in the blind belief that we are righteous. Yet we are asked:
"Can you paint rosy lips upon a skeleton, dress it in loveliness, pet it and pamper it, and make it live? And can you be content with an illusion that you are living?" T-23.II.18:8-9
There is Heaven or Hell, there is Life or there is death. To believe in any aspect of the chaotic world of the ego is to believe in it all. Our intoxication with the value of form over content blinds us to the equal absurdity of them all. We actually believe that some forms of the illusion are more valuable than others. We are lost in a senseless game of valuing the valueless in order to never see its emptiness.
As we look upon these senseless and insane laws we tell ourselves that we cannot possibly believe in them, but we are assured that we do. We hold each and every one of them dear to our very core, for they are us as we dream ourselves in our dream of exile. They are also a package, complete and totally self referring as we have shown. We are warned:
"Think not one step is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. The whole descent from Heaven lies in each one. And where your thinking starts, there must it end." T-23.II.21:5-7
It is enough to know their goal for that is the way we will finally see our way to release and remembrance of our true heritage as the Christ. We do not need to study the devious ways in which we have imbibed our lives with the insanity of it all. We have a friend who will always be there to help us. A friend who does not believe in this insanity and can thus see past it always and for all time.
"Brother, take not one step in the descent to hell. For having taken one, you will not recognize the rest for what they are. And they will follow. Attack in any form has placed your foot upon the twisted stairway that leads from Heaven. Yet any instant it is possible to have all this undone. How can you know whether you chose the stairs to Heaven or the way to hell? Quite easily. How do you feel? Is peace in your awareness? Are you certain which way you go? And are you sure the goal of Heaven can be reached? If not, you walk alone. Ask, then, your Friend to join with you, and give you certainty of where you go." T-23.II.22
Linda & James Hale
"Portions from A Course in Miracles Copyright © 1975, 1985, 1992 reprinted by permission of the Foundation for Inner Peace, Inc. The ideas represented herein are the personal interpretation of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the copyright holder.
mrskin Said:
September 29, 2006 at 3:28 am
This reality stuff is scary.