To make a choice that awakens implies that a choice was made that put us to sleep. How did that happen?
"God creates only mind awake. What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not... it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time, an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was." (W-167.8,9)
Key to understanding this quote and A Course in Miracles is to know our identity as a mind, not as a body in the world. We are a thought in the Mind of God, (as Jesus describes us), and as such we can never leave our source. "Ideas leave not their source."(T-26.VII.4:7) This is the principle of the Atonement; we cannot be different than what God created us to be, but we can put ourselves to sleep and dream that we are separate and different from God and each other. What put us to sleep is a decision to be a separated special self. "When the mind elects to be what it is not"(W-167.9:2), and "Separation is only the decision not to know yourself."(T-16.V.15:3)
We are mind, or awareness, which has the power to choose what it wants. "Mind is the mechanism of decision."(T-12.III.9:10) Only a mind can make a decision, so it is only mind that can change this decision! A Course in Miracles ends with this imperative, "choose again."(T-31.VIII.4:2)
We live in a dream of separation with the mind asleep and projecting dream images. Jesus tells us that there is nothing else but mind and that it encompasses everything. "It (mind) encompasses everything. It encompasses you entirely, you within it and it within you. There is nothing else, anywhere or ever." As the One sleeping Self that is projecting this separation wish, all of the images in our dream are ours.
This is why Jesus tells us that the only problem is this desire for separation, and thus the only solution is to undo that desire. "The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved."(W-79.1:4))
So nothing exists here in the dream except one sleeping mind of the One Son of God. And what put this mind to sleep was a desire, or a decision, to be what it is not.
I have explored this topic of desire (or will) in a book called Hidden Motivation, that I am publishing in the near future. This book discusses the connections in A Course of Miracles between desire, decision, belief, and what we perceive to be true for us, or perception. I have named the process of putting and keeping the mind asleep the "four premises": 1) We have a desire; 2) We choose what we desire; 3) We believe in what we want; and 4) What we believe in we make true for us. In the book are the quotes from the course that these premises come from.
Therefore the only thing that can change is what we want, and this changes what we choose, what we believe in, and what will be true for us. Because these 4 premises are interconnected, to change your mind means you are changing what you want, what you will choose, what you will believe in and what you make true for you.
In order to question our thoughts we have to be aware that these thoughts are the cause of suffering, and we must desire to be out of this suffering. We must be willing to change our mind, or make a new decision. I find this to be true when I examine my unhappiness, I find it is always connected to a belief in being a separated 'victim' self.
So what is the only decision that awakens? It is the decision to be what we are, what God created us to be. "Think not He wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him." (T-30.II.4:4)
When we understand that we are mind and that this mind was put to sleep by electing to be what it is not, we can see that to choose between the various dream figures in our mind is not a choice that has any meaning ... and certainly will not awaken us from our dream of a false identity.
A Course in Miracles, chapter 31, section 4, The Real Alternative, states clearly that there is no real significant choice in the world because all of the choices have the same outcome, death! To make a decision where it always has the same outcome is not to engage the real power of decision, "This course attempts to teach no more than the power of choice cannot lie in choosing different forms of what is still the same illusion and the same mistake." (T-31.IV.8:3)
If we want to wake up from the dream there is only one real alternative, only one decision to make, the decision to return to the mind that made the original decision to elect to be what it is not, and to decide to be what it is, the One Self in God. There is no world, and therefore no individual separate self that seems to be in this illusionary world.
The non-dual teachings, which have helped me so much, are clear that there is no separate self, and because there is no separate self there can not be a separate self that chooses. But there is a mind that made a choice to be separate. Thus it is this mind that can choose again. "The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself."(T-2.V.5:1)
A Course teaches that we are mind and that mind serves. Because of this the mind has to decide which voice or teacher it will serve. Will it serve the Voice of Truth, the Holy Spirit, that tells us we are One in God, that we were never born nor will we ever die as this eternal One Self? Or will mind serve the belief that we are a body in a world where we suffer and will die? When we clearly see the difference and the 'Real Alternative', it will be easy to 'choose again'. "Who with the love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to make?" T-23. IV.9:8
There is only this moment because time and space is itself is an illusion. So even though we appear to be in time, the real Self of mind, or awareness, is always here, now. While we are in the illusion of time there is only one choice to be made that will awaken us. To choose to be who God made us as eternal, perfect, and changeless at home in God, or we can remain asleep and dream that we are bodies separate from God, suffering and dying.
We do have the freedom of choice and Jesus tells us that it is our only remaining freedom here in the world. This choice is always between two thought systems or two voices. The only choice here is to return to what we are as mind, awareness, and in this mind choose the truth of our true Self. We return our awareness from being 'imprisoned' in the world to being free to be aware of One Self in God.
A choice is always made between two things, and the choice between them is made on our desire; what I want I accept, and what I do not want I reject or deny. So we must be clear about what we do not want, and let that go to allow and accept what we do want! To say "I want this", means as well that we are clear that " I do not want this".
In the dream that we originally choose presented us with a choice between two things, illusion or Truth and of these two choices there is only one that will awaken!
In each and every moment we are making the decision to either be awake, choosing our true Self, or to remain asleep. There is only the eternal Now, and each decision can take us back to the Now and a choice for Truth, what Jesus calls the Holy Instant. "Each day, and every minute in each day, and every instant that each minute holds, you but relive the single instant when the time of terror took the place of love." (T-26.V.13:1)
Thus each moment of our lives can become holy, the Holy Instant, when we engage the power of our mind to choose for God, to be as God created us. This is the only choice that awakens.
