A central theme in the Course that Kenneth often focuses on is the distinction between form and content. Form includes everything that we perceive and experience in the world of bodies. Content in contrast is the underlying meaning and purpose that our mind gives to what we seem to perceive with our senses. The ego's goal is always to keep our attention on the form and to ignore or be oblivious to the underlying content. And so we attempt to judge the form as good or bad based on whether we see it as meeting our needs and making us happy or causing us distress and pain. But this is a clever ego trap because, despite our beliefs, the Course tells us it is never the form that makes us unhappy or truly happy. The Course's goal is to help us learn to recognize that there are only two possible contents or purposes for everything in the world of form, and one—the ego's—will always lead, no matter what the seeming form, to guilt and pain and fear, and the other—the Holy Spirit's—will always lead to peace and joy, no matter what the form. The deeper our understanding of this practical distinction between form and content, the greater will be our motivation to master the Course's principles and put them into practice through forgiving ourselves for our focus on form to the exclusion of content. This month we are suggesting the following two titles to help students progress along the path to mastery, reflected in a growing shift from an outer to an inner focus.

For this deep dive into the Course's distinction between form and content, Kenneth has chosen to focus on two forms that are often major symbols of guilt for Course students: sex and money. These especially fraught areas of human activity and interaction provide very helpful vehicles for Kenneth's exploration of the confusion of form and content. From the Course's perspective, all forms in the world, including the body, sex, and money, are neutral, and their value and meaning depend only on the purpose we give them. The simplicity of the Course is that there can be only two purposes for everything in form: the ego's, to reinforce the guilt buried in the mind by reinforcing our identification with the body and the dream, and the Holy Spirit's, to uncover the guilt in the mind so that it can be healed and released, leading us closer to awakening from the dream. A shift in purpose is reflected in how we use sex and money, reflected in a shift from separate to shared interests.