By Gonny 
Is it 1099 D.C….or is it 2026 D.C. ?????
We carry little pieces of glass and metal in our pockets that allow us to speak face to face with someone on the other side of the planet. We have mapped the human genome, built machines that can learn, and sent spacecraft into the silent darkness of deep space.
And yet……..
Turn on the news for five minutes and you may wonder whether humanity has accidentally left one foot in the Middle Ages. We still see people using God, ideology, history or nationalism to justify violence. We still see land being treated as holy enough to kill for, but not holy enough to protect. We still see women and girls pushed into silence, forced into lives they did not choose, or erased from public life as if half of humanity were an administrative inconvenience.
And of course, the so-called “civilized” world often responds with its own very advanced method of enlightenment: bombs, sanctions, threats, and serious-looking men at serious-looking tables explaining why more violence is unfortunately necessary for peace.
You almost have to laugh, otherwise you might throw your smartphone into the soup.
How can a species smart enough to build artificial intelligence still be emotionally stuck in crusader mode?
From the perspective of A Course in Miracles, this is not merely a political or historical problem. It is a psychological one. The world looks extreme because the ego needs it to be extreme. It needs drama. It needs enemies. It needs outrage. It needs us staring at the screen, saying: “Can you believe this?” Preferably every ten minutes.
Because as long as our attention is fully captured by the madness outside us, we forget to look at the place where the whole experience is being interpreted: the mind.
Imagine having a dream in which you are quietly sitting in a waiting room, reading an old magazine from 1998. Nothing happens. The clock ticks. Someone coughs. You turn a page. After a while, something in you may begin to notice, “Wait a minute……this is a dream.”
But if you dream you are running through a burning building while a monster chases you with excellent dramatic timing, you do not stop to question the metaphysics of the situation. Your heart pounds. Your body reacts. The fear feels real. And because the fear feels real, the dream seems real too.
That is how the ego keeps the dream of separation convincing.
It does not whisper gently, “Please continue believing in separation.” No, it turns up the volume. It shows us war, cruelty, fanaticism, injustice, humiliation, suffering and conflict. Then it says, “Look! This must be real. How could something this intense not be real?”
And we believe it, not because we are stupid, but because we are emotionally hooked.
The madness is not a glitch in the system. It is the ego’s ultimate distraction technique.
This does not mean we become cold or indifferent. It does not mean we look at suffering and say, “Oh well, it is only a dream,” while stepping over someone who needs help. That would not be awakening. That would just be spiritual laziness wearing a white linen outfit.
Love does not turn away from suffering. But Love does not join the hatred either.
That is the essential difference.
We can help without hatred. We can speak clearly without losing our peace. We can protect the vulnerable without making enemies in our mind. We can look at the modern crusaders, the ancient fears dressed in modern uniforms, the religious and political theatre, and still remember: this is what fear does when it believes it is alone.
The ego always says, “Fight harder.”
Love says, “Wake up.”
And waking up does not mean escaping the world in denial. It means seeing the world differently. It means recognizing that every image of attack is also a call for healing. Every violent ideology is fear trying to look powerful. Every crusade, ancient or modern, is the same old tiny thought of separation putting on armour and shouting very loudly.
We do not heal a nightmare by entering the dream and punching all the monsters. We heal it by remembering we are dreaming, by refusing to become another monster, and by allowing a different light to enter the scene.
Perhaps that is the real challenge of our time.
Not whether humanity can become more technologically advanced. Clearly, we can. We can build robots, satellites and clever little apps that remind us to drink water while we are busy forgetting who we are.
The real question is whether we are willing to become inwardly sane.
Can we use the smartphone without worshipping the screen?
Can we look at the crusader without becoming one ourselves?
Can we see the madness of the world and still choose peace?
Because maybe the problem is not that humanity has failed to modernize.
Maybe the problem is that the ego has modernized beautifully.
It now has Wi-Fi, drones, algorithms and excellent branding.
But beneath the shiny technology, the old fear is still telling the same ancient story: “You are separate. You are threatened. You must defend yourself. Someone else is to blame.”
And A Course in Miracles quietly invites us to question that story.
Not with anger.
Not with superiority.
Not by becoming spiritually impressive, which is just the ego wearing a slightly more expensive robe.
But with honesty.
What if the world is not asking us to hate it, fix it by force, or collapse under its weight?
What if the world is asking us to wake up from the belief that fear is real, attack is justified, and peace must wait until everyone else behaves properly?
That would be a long wait, by the way. Possibly longer than a customer-service queue with medieval background music.
Peace begins where the dream is being chosen.
In the mind.
And from there, even in a world of smartphones and crusaders, another answer becomes possible.
With love and light,
G.