What are we even supposed to be doing?!

Most of us approach a spiritual path as something that we have to DO. But I'm questioning what exactly it is that we have to DO. And in fact, DOING is the OPPOSITE of what we're supposed to be doing.

For example, God has already accomplished the absolutely perfect act of creating us to BE perfect FOREVER. We have been given an absolutely perfect holy loving joyful innocent self which has eternal life and is immortal. There is nothing wrong with it and there never will be.

So in that light, what is there to DO? The course tells us that when we reach the END of our path and awaken to the truth, we will gladly realize "I need do nothing", because it's a recognition that everything true is still true, everything false is false, and you are still exactly as God created you. So there's nothing to do.

If in truth there is nothing to do, and heaven is still perfect and undefiled, then what exactly is HEALING, or correction, or waking up, or all this learning stuff? Because ultimately the actual purpose of learning is to learn that there is nothing to learn. The purpose of choice is to choose against choosing on your own and to eventually realize there is nothing to choose between. So what are we supposed to be DOING?

The truth is .. .I think... that it's all really about UNDOING. The course for example says that the miracle doesn't "do anything", it just UNDOES. That is still a change and an act, but it sort of takes away distortions and removes blocks and cancels out ego stuff. That's not a sort of "addition" of something, it's a removal. And atonement meant to UNDO. It's more like a path that SUBTRACTS, takes away, cancels out and STOPS doing. You come to God with EMPTY HANDS, not hands full of ego achievements.

So how do you "do the course" or "do awakening" if the process is really supposed to be centred around NOT doing? Perhaps the focus is on learning NOT to do the things you are already doing with ego. More of a "melting within" as the course says.

It certainly is NOT a process of building, assembling, erecting, putting together, creating, establishing, accumulating, or any other form of "I need to be the one who makes things perfect". God has already created that which is perfect. So it's certainly not our job to be trying to "perfect something". And really this makes it more clear that the spiritual path isn't a sort of "growth" towards something that doesn't exist yet, it's a RETURN to something that God ALREADY GAVE.

Along those lines, we can spend an awful lot of time hammering home course quotes and concepts and ideas trying to sort of ... induce some kind of higher state, to steer ourselves toward God. But the course also says quite simply that fear is the only problem, and the only solution to fear is love. Love is literally WHAT YOU ARE as created by God, as a self which is completely centred in and identified as that love, within God.

So what it's really saying is, just as light shines away darkness, it's really the light of God, or the love of God, coming from your true self, that CAUSES all your darkness to be shone away. As it says, "salvation comes from my one self." So the truth is that your one self has the POWER OF LOVE in it. But the question is, what is it that we are trying to heal? It seems to be more about gaining ACCESS to the love/light/self that has power in it, to let IT shine away our problem - but the catch 22 seems to be that we need that love in order to get TO that love, which is why we need help and willingness.

The self that you really are does not need any healing. It has nothing wrong with it. There is nothing to be done to it to fix it. It has no needs or lacks or faults. And it is in fact the LOVE - which is God - that is present IN AND AS what you are, that is the established "proper functioning" of yourself. It is God himself who guarantees your proper functioning, as in "my sinlessness is guaranteed by God." And God is the mind with which you think, the strength in which you trust, his will is your will etc.

So if you think about it, the love that you have in your real self, your christ soul self, IS THE REMEDY, because it is that love that heals and shines away sickness and undoes death and ego. It its the love that is ALREADY in you, that melts away the mental distortions of denial and deception.

So it's a very strange scenario where your already-perfected self is the very thing which is come to save "you" and heal you from the BELIEF that there is something wrong with you. This of course seems completely backwards. You believe you are a defective limited self that needs a lot of help and lacks a lot and is sinful and guilty and afraid.

And yet this self is NOT what you really are, and what you really are - Christ - will actually PROVIDE the LOVE that melts and heals your mind from this faulty view of yourself. So you in effect - as a perfect soul - will save you - the idea of your false self - from believing that you are not christ.

You can think ok, if I do this lesson and recite this text and say these affirmations and "do" this forgiveness, then it will get my mind into a state where I am more loving. As if to say, that all these things will CAUSE the love to show up, or will MAKE healing happen in your mind, or FIX your problems, or RESTORE your sanity.

But mind is something you have absolutely no comprehension of. It's more like a presence of living light. You have no clue how to fix it or correct it. And you'll find that it's not any of these "techniques" that CAUSE the presence of love or to get the mind to be more awake. How do you even manufacture "wakefulness"? How can you put love in place? You can't. And you don't.

So you can become actually very stuck in this cycle of trying to fix what is not broken, trying to apply all kinds of methods to somehow "put in place" what you think is missing, as if it's your job to make yourself have the perfect nature that you're supposed to have. But that's not your job, and you are completely unequipped to do it.

GOD HIMSELF has established your nature, has created you from love with love, and this love is beyond description and concepts. It is actually the LOVE ITSELF that CAUSES the miraculous healing of your mind and that of others. It is not that you need to do something to MAKE the love show up, it's that the LOVE needs to do something in order to make the UNLOVE go away. And your ego self is an identification with being the unlove - ie a lack of love, which is also called sin and fear and death. Lack of love can only be healed by LOVE BECOMING PRESENT, as light REPLACES darkness.

It is the LOVE OF GOD that shines away the darkness. This is its POWER. Remember that "healing is but another name for God." And "miracles are a universal blessing from God." God GIVES YOU the healing and remedy that you need. God operates ON YOU to heal your mind. God SENDS YOU the love that shines away all sorrows. God PUTS IN PLACE the proper perfect nature and condition that your mind needs to be in - IF you will let him.

This is why the course then says that the Holy Spirit - NOT YOU - THE HOLY SPIRIT - WILL UNDO, ALL the consequences of your wrong decisions - IF you will let him. If you will let HIM, NOT YOU. And this is to do with the question of, what's your proper function? What are you supposed to be DOING here, how are you supposed to be functioning, what is your ROLE? Your roel is NOT "I am going to separately individually and on my own fix my entire self and make it holy and spiritual."

The truth is that a "thought of God" has entered the darkness of our minds to BRING LIGHT INTO our minds, to shine away the darkness. That is a miraculous blessing from God. That's the Holy Spirit's function of HEALING. HIS function is to heal our minds WITH the eyes of christ and the love of God. With the very love that is in and comes through your real self.

So then what are we supposed to be DOING? Well, it then cannot mean that it is our function or job to DO anything really, except that, we're supposed to be WILLING to LET OURSELVES be forgiven, to let ourselves be healed, to RECEIVE HELP, and to let God do the work for us. The course even says that we do not even do the miracles and we have no clue what miracles even are really, other than vague descriptions of them. We have no idea how to ESTABLISH perfect love in ourselves.

So really the "spiritual path" is quite paradoxical. It's about using the body to make the body unnecessary. It's about using learning to learn that there is nothing to learn. It's about using change to learn that you are changeless and have never changed. It's about surrendering separateness. It's about letting God come back into your awareness and be in your mind and share himself with you - to let him GIVE LOVE TO YOU, to shine away your darkness FOR YOU.

So I think overall we're really supposed to be acting more like ... having willingness and humility and surrender to stop trying to wake ourselves up on our own, and instead open up to letting God perform spiritual surgery on us. We HAVE to get God's LOVE into our awareness.

As the course says, "identify with love and find yourself". Love itself is what you are, and in the presence of that love there is no fear or guilt or death. Nor because we hold these things at bay with the amazing power of our concepts, but because the LOVE SHINES IT AWAY FOR US. The atonement is the idea of God's love, shining away and undoing all ego and death.

All we've really done is we've gone into denial, and the solution to that is to do the opposite - which is acceptance. But acceptance isn't a DOING, it's a laying down of all the DENIALS and blocks and barriers and resistance and fear that try to PREVENT the love from doing what LOVE does. It's all an attempt to STOP GOD'S WILL. So the solution can't be that we keep doing our own separate will and expect it to work - we've God to let GOD'S WILL do its thing.

And that ultimately means coming to recognize that God's will is already DONE, because God is not indecisive or in two minds or uncertain. He already has GIVEN us EVERYTHING, and the only part missing is that we keep pushing it away, we have become ungrateful, and we do not want it. So it's a matter more of stopping the resistance - the resistance is a doing that needs to stop. And all the things we've taught ourselves have to be let go. And all the barriers we've built AGAINST receiving everything from God have to be dismantled.

Really then what we're supposed to do is LET GO AND LET GOD, receive God's love and support, let the Holy Spirit operate on us and HEAL US FOR US, let ourselves recognize that we have already BEEN forgiven, and gently let go of all the things that say otherwise. That's not so much a doing in terms of a putting in place, but more of a sort of PURIFICATION, a sort of clearing out, an emptying of self-made bullshit, a letting things come and go without attachment, a relinquishment, a purging catharsis, a kind of release from everything we made.

The very thing we need - the power of God as the love of God - is the very thing we have denied. And yet it is still there waiting to help us through Christ. As the course says, "ONLY Christ forgives." WE ARE NOT being forgiving at the level of having an ego, forgiveness is not complete until we are IN CHRIST BEING CHRIST looking out through Christ vision. Because forgiveness is a result of maximal love. The love has to be there FIRST in order to result in true perception.

From our ego perspective it's more like opening up to becoming a "medium for God", or a channel through which God can resume his expression and extension. "The extension of God's Being is the Soul's only function." We are learning to resume our function of LETTING GOD, doing his will, not blocking him, and thus receiving and extending the love he is already giving, which will heal our minds and undo ego. GOD'S LOVE WILL DO what needs to be done. There is NOTHING ELSE to do.

Accept, receive, allow, admit, open, extend, give, share, include, be grateful, recognize, acknowledge, be.

LOVE TRANSMITS, YOU RECEIVE AND EXTEND. THAT IS ALL!

"I must accept Atonement for myself, and nothing more. ***God has already done all things that need be done. And I must learn I need do nothing of myself***, for I need but accept my Self, my sinlessness, created for me, now already mine, to feel God's Love protecting me from harm, to understand my Father loves His Son; to know I am the Son my Father loves."

"***God has ALREADY given him*** all that he REALLY wants."

"With God's Word in their minds they come in benediction, not to heal the sick but to remind them of the remedy ***God has already given them***. It is not their hands that heal. It is not their voice that speaks the Word of God. They merely give what has been given them. Very gently they call to their brothers to turn away from death."

"I do NOT feel guilty, because ***the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM***.

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

"Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function. Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to ***LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven***."

"When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation, and fight against giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation, or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it ALWAYS comes with just ONE happy realization, -- "***I need do nothing.***" Here is the ultimate release that everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time. "

"THE MIRACLE DOES NOTHING. ***All it does is to UNdo. And thus it cancels out the interference*** to what HAS BEEN done. It does not add, but merely takes away."

"***The extension of God's Being is the Soul's only function***. ITS fullness cannot be contained any more than can the fullness of its Creator. Fullness IS extension. The ego's whole thought system BLOCKS extension, and therefore blocks YOUR ONLY FUNCTION. It therefore blocks your joy and THIS is why you perceive yourselves as unfulfilled. Unless you create, you ARE unfulfilled. But God does NOT know unfulfillment, and therefore you MUST create."