Responsibility and Choice

"Projection makes perception.  The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that.  But though it is no more than that, it is not less.  Therefore, to you it is important.  It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition.  As a man thinketh, so does he perceive.  Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world.  Perception is a result and not a cause." - A Course in Miracles, Chapter 21, Introduction, 1:1-8

"Miracles do not affect another mind. They always change your mind.  There is no other." - A Course in Miracles, Chapter 21, Section V:3:10-12

We seem to jog daily on a treadmill of false responsibility.  We are responsible for our homes, our jobs, our finances, our families, our pets, our understanding or lack of it.  We feel responsible for both our seeming successes and failures, and feel guilty about all of it because it's never enough.  We are constantly practicing hyper vigilance to protect what we think we want to keep, and to find ways to eliminate what we think we want to get rid of or eliminate from our lives and the world.  This is always a zero sum game.  No one ever wins in this world of constantly swinging perception and opinion.  False responsibility is a zero sum game.

What are we truly responsible for?  Our own mind and focus.  Not our thoughts, which are the beginning of projection.  But our awareness.  Thoughts arise from what we are holding in awareness.  Inspired thoughts arise from an awareness of Truth.  False thoughts (judgments and guilt) arise from an external focus on our own projection, so that it appears to be happening to us. " 

"Miracles are thoughts.  Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience.  One makes [projects] the physical, and the other creates [extends] the Spiritual [as we hold it in awareness!].  Miracles are examples of right-thinking, aligning your mind with Truth as God created It. The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section I, 12:1-3, 36:1 and 38:1 

In the passage called "Responsibility for Sight" in A Course in Miracles, we are given this beautiful explanation:

"I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience, 
and I decide upon the goal I would achieve.
And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, 
and receive as I have asked." 
-- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section II, 2:3-5

Once this is clearly recognized and owned, the power of choice is restored to the mind.  Only judgments and guilt about our own projections keep us from the bliss of every holy instant.  The choice is always between external focus (judgments and guilt about our own projections) and the recognition that there is nothing out there to judge or feel guilty about.  It was always and only my own projection that obscured the ever-present reality of Love.  God, Love is All.  That is the Truth that is revealed in the crystalline Awareness of the holy instant, whenever we take responsibility for the only choice there is to make. 

"There is nothing outside you.  That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is the realization that the Kingdom of Heaven is restored to you.  Heaven is not a place nor a condition.  It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within."  -- A Course in Miracles;Chapter 18, Section VI, 1:1-2 & 5-6