Description
The unquestioned equation of 2 + 2 = 4 is used to symbolise the ego’s plan to bind us to its laws. Wapnick says: “When the hopelessness and sterility of the world’s laws dawns on us, we begin to realise that 2 + 2 = 5, which symbolises our turning within for answers, accepting that, instead, we are ‘under no laws but God’s,’ as Lesson 76 says (W 134-5).
While we are: “under no laws but God’s”, we can add the laws of mathematics to those we believe we need to follow in the world. 2 + 2 = 4 is a metaphor for saying we operate in the world as if its laws are valid and real, following the ego’s logic without considering the insanity of its basic premise, that we are separate. If we follow the ego’s conventions without questioning their foundation, we are insane.
This is not about flaunting the ego’s conventions, but about an attitude, how we are thinking about the forms of the world.
If our primary goal is to figure out how to operate more comfortably as bodies in the world, then it makes sense to continue to embrace the equivalent of 2 + 2 = 4. Now,
2 + 2 = 5 is a startling assertion, because it says if we hope to wake up, we have to begin to question the reality of everything we take for granted.
Wapnick continues: “This culminates in the undoing of the fundamental mistake of believing the 2 + 2 = 4 outer world of differences, symbolising the reality of the separation. Gently, we are lead by Jesus to the 2 + 2 = 5 inner world of sameness, the home of forgiveness, reflecting the universe of love and oneness, our true home of 1 + 1 = 1.