Return to Love

by Marianne Williamson

“The ego is the choice for guilt; the Holy Spirit the choice for guiltlessness.” The ego always emphasizes what someone has done wrong. The Holy Spirit always emphasizes what they’ve done right. The Course likens the ego to a scavenger dog that seeks out every scrap of evidence for our brother’s guilt and lays it at its master’s feet. The Holy Spirit, similarly, sends out its own messengers to seek evidence of our brother’s innocence. The important thing is that we decide what we want to see before we see it. We receive what we request. “Projection makes perception.” We can find—and in fact, we will find—whatever it is we’re looking for in life. The Course says that we think we will understand a person enough to know whether or not they are lovable, but that unless we love them, we can never understand them. The spiritual path involves taking conscious responsibility for what we choose to perceive—our brother’s guilt or innocence. We see a brother’s innocence when it’s all we want to see. People are not perfect—that is, they do not yet express externally their internal perfection. Whether we choose to focus on the guilt in their personality, or the innocence in their soul, is up to us.