The ego appears to have us trapped. It’s as though the body and the wrong mind are completely enmeshed in a sticky cobweb which keeps us preoccupied with the comings and goings of the body, its deeds, its hopes, its fears, its preferences and other trivialities. And, on top of that, we are oblivious of the fact that we are living in an unreal world—a world we have invented and which has not left its Source—the Mind of God. As we are told in Lesson 3: “I do not understand anything I see,” and in Lesson 32: “I have invented the world I see.”

Yet, Jesus has this advice for us in the Workbook: “To know reality is not to see the ego and its thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in it entails…” W467. It is difficult not to see all that, and it tends to be a gradual, step-by-step process of relinquishing our attachment to some of these things until we feel ready and able to withdraw even more from our many roles in this world.

If we are able to detach from the drama and the frantic activity of the world, and release ourselves from our beliefs, concepts, dreams and hopes, Jesus has these encouraging words: “Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the altar of illusions to the shrine of Life Itself. And peace will be restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His Son, His dwelling place, His joy, His love, completely His, completely one with Him.” W467