Sometimes I imagine myself being attacked. You'd think this would be a pretty dumb thing to do.

But if I'm perceiving myself as somehow in need, perhaps because I'm tired/underslept or stressed out, I start to imagine someone nearby coming along and interacting with me. And in that interaction I imagine that they are being needy and they put some kind of pressure on me or are demanding something of me, and I start to get cranky and retaliate defensively. Then I'm imagining how I'm having to defend myself and am feeling attacked and all this, and trying to justify myself, as if it's really happening.

When I then catch myself, which happens sooner than before, I realize that I'm actually having this fantasy entirely 'within' my own mind and it's got nothing to do with that person. Somehow I've split my mind and set up part of myself to be against another part of myself. This indicates to me that I'm believing I'm in need and perceiving myself to be lacking, so I need to get that corrected. I have to admit that I'm doing this to myself and stop it, and maybe I need to ask for Holy Spirit's help here, in addition to taking full responsibility for it.

Now, this is a more obvious example of me having this fantasy of self-attack when nobody is around and it's clearly not triggered by them other than through the suggestion that they even 'exist' nearby (which is enough). But this same mechanic basically plays out regardless of whether I'm provoked or not. Regardless of whether I'm alone or with someone. And when I'm with someone and I'm experiencing this, it seems more obvious to buy into the idea that they're causing it, and to them project blame onto them.

But at all times, this is all happening in my own mind. It's me attacking myself and trying to pass it off as someone else causing it. Silly me. I need to forgive myself and choose peace instead.

There is part of you which is already in heaven with God. It never left.

That means your spirit-self is already awake and one with God.

Jesus says that like you, He has everything that God gave Him. The only difference between Him and us, is that He has nothing else.

So there is a part of who we think we are, which is "foreign" and not *actually* who we are.

Our only job is to clear away the illusion of that "extra self", a second self, which pretends to be the only self, to reveal the True Self that you are already.

There is already a "second self" - your higher self, which exists already, in "addition" to your ego self. It seems like it does not exist at all, or that it is separate from "you". But you are it, and the "rest of you" that is ego is not.

You cannot make yourself become spirit, or therefore cannot "become" spiritual. You also can’t turn your ego into spirit. You can only stop trying to be something you are not. What is left after the fight against God is surrendered as not necessary, is who you always have been.

You are already immortal spirit. Your confused identity which thinks it is either partly or entirely something else, could in fact communicate with your spirit-self (or higher self) right now, here in the dream. I have even seen an apparition of someone’s "spirit" a couple of times.

Your awakened self already is awake and already exists. Holy Spirit loves to look upon the face of Christ. You as Christ can already communicate with "you as ego", in terms you might accept.

I’ve spoken with my own ‘higher self’ on occasion. I’ve also spoken with the higher self of other people on occasion. It’s interesting that they respond when I am thinking about or talking to some person who is ‘in a body’ and their already-awakened self steps in and says something.

Strange dynamic isn’t it, that the awakened self we are trying to "become" already exists. We are just waking up TO it, not building it from scratch for the first time.

This is also why God/Holy Spirit can communicate with you even while you are in the dream. You don’t have to "make" a Holy Spirit in order to do this.

You are already as God created you, and you are still as God created you. This real self is simply a bit covered up with some illusions which pretend that you are something else. You cannot remove or change what God created, you can only deny it.

This is also why you cannot make yourself die, in the biggest picture. What God has created, no man can put asunder. You cannot change God’s will, thank God.

Become who you already are.

There is part of you which is already in heaven with God. It never left.

That means your spirit-self is already awake and one with God.

Jesus says that like you, He has everything that God gave Him. The only difference between Him and us, is that He has nothing else.

So there is a part of who we think we are, which is "foreign" and not *actually* who we are.

Our only job is to clear away the illusion of that "extra self", a second self, which pretends to be the only self, to reveal the True Self that you are already.

There is already a "second self" - your higher self, which exists already, in "addition" to your ego self. It seems like it does not exist at all, or that it is separate from "you". But you are it, and the "rest of you" that is ego is not.

You cannot make yourself become spirit, or therefore cannot "become" spiritual. You also can’t turn your ego into spirit. You can only stop trying to be something you are not. What is left after the fight against God is surrendered as not necessary, is who you always have been.

You are already immortal spirit. Your confused identity which thinks it is either partly or entirely something else, could in fact communicate with your spirit-self (or higher self) right now, here in the dream. I have even seen an apparition of someone’s "spirit" a couple of times.

Your awakened self already is awake and already exists. Holy Spirit loves to look upon the face of Christ. You as Christ can already communicate with "you as ego", in terms you might accept.

I’ve spoken with my own ‘higher self’ on occasion. I’ve also spoken with the higher self of other people on occasion. It’s interesting that they respond when I am thinking about or talking to some person who is ‘in a body’ and their already-awakened self steps in and says something.

Strange dynamic isn’t it, that the awakened self we are trying to "become" already exists. We are just waking up TO it, not building it from scratch for the first time.

This is also why God/Holy Spirit can communicate with you even while you are in the dream. You don’t have to "make" a Holy Spirit in order to do this.

You are already as God created you, and you are still as God created you. This real self is simply a bit covered up with some illusions which pretend that you are something else. You cannot remove or change what God created, you can only deny it.

This is also why you cannot make yourself die, in the biggest picture. What God has created, no man can put asunder. You cannot change God’s will, thank God.

Become who you already are.

When I read in the course that anger is an attempt to make someone guilty, I didn't at first relate to it. I had to stop and look at what happens, what I'm doing, when I get angry toward someone.

And that didn't typically happen all that often, but when it did I noticed it was true, what I was basically doing was trying to reinforce "how guilty" someone was. I was trying to MAKE them be guilty.

In anger there's this attempt to amplify the "guiltiness" of someone. And it's not even really tied to what they appeared to do or the severity of it. We could just be going to town raging at them way beyond what anything calls for. Probably convinced that whatever "sin" they committed is the REASON WHY the anger is justified.

But then the second insight is that in order to make someone BECOME guilty, we actually have to put guilt ONTO them. A guilt that they do not have initially. Where does that guilt come from? We actually provide it ourselves, and hurl it towards them through projection.

So then we see that anger is really "what it feels like" when you are hurling guilt. The whole intensity of it, the enforcement of it, the sense of righteousness, the pushing and forcing, it's all designed to "hurl" and "transmit" guilt onto the person.

But then this also gives rise to a third insight, that if we are hurling guilt at people, and it's not their guilt, then we must be reaching inside of ourselves and finding some guilt there, in order to have something to hurl. So that means... drumroll... we're really the ones that we think are guilty.

In addition this means that the "reasons why" we claim we're being justified in anger are false - it's not because of what someone else did, we're angry because of what we believe WE did. We are accusing them of our own sin and guilt, so that we can try to make ourselves feel better and deflect attention away from the darkness within. This is why anger is never justified and you are never upset for the reason you think.

So if we're the guilty ones, it basically means we're angry at ourselves and have attacked ourselves first. And if we hadn't done this, if we hadn't manufactured a whole stockpile of guilt, we'd have nothing to hurl at other people. We wouldn't be able to FIND other people to be guilty of anything.

This then leads to the fourth insight, that if we were to undo all of our guilt within ourselves, we would never have to even lift a finger to try to find others innocent. We'd automatically be innocent within, and would look out from this innocence upon others and find them innocent also. We'd never be angry, never project blame, and would just be happy all the time.

"I am never upset for the reason I think." UrW5

"ALL anger is nothing more than an attempt to MAKE SOMEONE FEEL GUILTY, and this attempt is the ONLY basis which the ego accepts for special relationships. Guilt is the only need the ego has, and, as long as you identify WITH it, guilt will remain ATTRACTIVE to you." UrT15H10

"Anger is NEVER justified. Attack has NO foundation. It is here escape from fear begins, and will be made complete. Here is the real world given in exchange for dreams of terror. For it is on this forgiveness rests, AND IS BUT NATURAL." URT10G1

A miracle, is actually a THING. It's discreet thing. Like a ball of energy, if you will, expressing from you and causing something to happen.

"Miracles are a spark of life."

"Miracles are energizers".

"Miracle impulses".

"Miracles are thought creations."

There is actually a SOMETHING that arises out of the christ mind and expresses and transfers from the giver, TO the receiver.

A pulse of electricity.

A ball of fire.

A spark of presence.

The Holy Spirit.

Whatever you want to call it. A miracle begins with an impulse and then something happens. Something comes OUT of the mind, EXPRESSEs, and applies TO something.

It's NOT just a matter of your holiness sitting there "shining" and rubbing off side effects.

Jesus also refers to them as a POWER SURGE.

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains."

If that power surge were CONSTANT you wouldn't be able to switch the dam thing off. And we are told that "the number of them you can perform is unlimited", meaning you are not ALWAYS performing miracles, you DO IT and then you stop. And then you do it again. It's an ACTION. A DOING.

This is something IN ADDITION TO a STATE of right mindedness or miracle mindedness. The STATE of miracle mindedness is NOT the same thing as multiple unlimited miracles which are PERFORMED.

What many people describe as miraculous is MERELY the state of miracle mindedness. In that state, you are READY, WILLING, and ABLE to perform miracles. But this is entirely distinct from miracle WORKING or DOING.

"it is a state of miracle-READINESS."

"Readiness here means keep your perception right side up, (or valid), so you will ALWAYS be ready, willing, and able. These are the essentials for "listen, learn, and do." You must be:

READY to listen

WILLING to learn

and ABLE to do."

"The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression."

Many people completely IGNORE "miracle doing" in ACIM and focus entirely on "miracle mindedness", because they think they are supposed to change their STATE of mind and get TO a state of true perception/miracle mindedness and then they're done. This completely IGNORES EXPRESSION of miracles FROM the state of miracle mindedness.

There is an EXPRESSION FROM the state of miracle mindedness. An expression. Like when you DECIDE TO TALK. Something expresses, temporarily. Something is generated. A thought creation happens and GIVES LIFE to something. Something goes out, a spark, a power, a force.

It's not the same thing as the miracle mind sitting there just doing what it does all the time. It is a distinct, momentary, separate DOING, EXPRESSION, a decision to PERFORM, to DO something, for a specific person, at a specific time and place.

And this EXPRESSION emits a POWER SURGE which is a SPARK OF LIFE, which proceeds out of your mind into the mind of another and heals it, with the consequence being the body is also healed.

This is what miracle WORKING means. You DO something. Something happens out of the ordinary. It is NOT the same thing as being miracle minded or right minded or christ minded or any other kind of STATE of mind. It's an EXPRESSION of a POWER which has causal effects.

"Thus is the body healed by miracles."

"Members of my party are ACTIVE workers."

"Miracles are a form of healing. They supply a lack, and are performed by those who have more for those who have less."

"The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love."

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."

"Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love."

(an expression, is not a state).

"Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind"

They ARISE FROM, a STATE of miracle mindedness. They are EXPRESSIONS! Something comes OUT of the state of mind and causes something to happen!

The idea that you are totally equal to God, is what's called the Authority Problem. Actually it's also the idea of sin. Some who think their relationship with God is to be "one" with Him, and thus completely equal with Him, are not understanding that God came FIRST. Or that oneness does not actually mean "you are Him".

He is the creator of you, you are not the creator of Him. He created the Sonship and you were created to ADD TO the Sonship. But you cannot create God or cause God or add to God Himself. That makes you "below" Him in a sense, or as Jesus says in the course, "the Father is GREATER".

It is also appropriate to have AWE of God because He IS greater and above you, and not to have awe of your brothers who ARE your equals. God is GREATER because He is all encompassing, and you are within God, as a part of God, caused BY God, as one of His thoughts, and He therefore spans more than just your own soul.

The idea that being one with him means total equality completely ignores these dynamics and suggests you are as much the creator of God as he is of you. And that unfortunately is where the tiny mad idea began, where you as an effect of God attempted to be the cause of Him, and where the entire ego thought system started. His Kingdom also cannot increase at all if you are God's exact equal because you and God would be in a deadlocked power struggle.

You have to be a son, in order to set up the dynamic that "A Son of a Father must have a Son", establishing God's fatherhood and your sonhood. And being like the father you too become a father, thus co-creator with Him. But your co-creatorship does not allow you to co-create God Himself, and yet God Himself does create you.

And so you are not equal to God in all ways and functions, but you ARE like Him in terms of mirroring the ability to create, IN ADDITION TO what already has been created BY Him. The notion that you have equal creative function with God is to suggest you are capable of creating yourself, and that is what the ego believes is true.

You can add your creations to His Kingdom, but you cannot overthrow the Kingdom itself. Nor can you attack or destroy what HE already created, that being yourself, your brothers, the Holy Spirit, and the angels. All of this "state of the union" is somewhat more elaborate than simply to say that "it's all just oneness", and it certainly is not compatible with an idea of non-duality which implies "no sons at all."

God has a family, and you are part of it. God is a creator with many creations and those creations have many creations and all of them co-create together. This is what A Course in Miracles teaches, not that we're all going to just dissolve into nothing, with no self and no creative function. God has established you as a free-willed co-creator forever.

In fact, if you weren't a SON of God and not God's equal, you would have INHERITED NOTHING, and would never be a HOST to God Himself. God GAVE you everything He had in your creation, thus extending His Self to you, sharing His will and mind and power, and establishing you as SHARER of his being. Because God is your father, you have an inheritance which is waiting for you to reclaim it.

"The world, in its original connotation, included both the proper creation of man by God, AND the proper creation by man in his Right Mind. The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given."

"Think not He wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him. He would but keep your will forever and forever limitless."

"My mind holds only what I think with God. That is a fact, and represents the truth of What you are and What your Father is. It is this thought by which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator with Himself."

"Revelation is NOT reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO man (souls). This is because God and man are NOT equal. "

"This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER."

"The creative power of both God AND His Creations is limitless, but it is NOT in reciprocal relationship. You DO communicate fully WITH God, as He does with YOU. This is an ongoing process in which you SHARE, and BECAUSE you share it, you are inspired to create LIKE God. But in Creation you are NOT in a reciprocal relation TO God, because He created YOU, but you did NOT create Him. We have already stated that only in this respect your creative power differs from His."

"I have repeatedly emphasized that awe is not appropriate in connection with me (Jesus), BECAUSE of our inherent equality."

"The word "Awe" should be reserved only for revelations, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is NOT appropriately applied to miracles, because a state of true awe is worshipful. It implies that one of a lesser order stands before the Greater One. This is the case only when a Soul stands before his Creator. Souls are perfect creations, and should be struck with awe in the presence of the Creator of Perfection."

"Equals cannot be in awe of each other, because awe ALWAYS implies inequality. Awe is not properly experienced even to me (awe of Jesus). That is why in that short introductory vision, I knelt beside you, FACING the light."

"Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for your creation. They do not leave you, any more than you have left your Creator."

"He (God) does nothing last, because He created first and for always. It must be understood that the word "first" as applied to Him is not a time concept. He is first in the sense that He is the First in the Holy Trinity Itself. He is the Prime Creator, because He created His co-creators. Because He did, time applies neither to Him nor to what He created. The "last step" that God will take was therefore true in the beginning, is true now, and will be true forever. What is timeless is always there, because its being is eternally changeless."

Say you have some illusions. Something that isn't true. It could be a physical thing, or some belief or whatever.

If your mind is open, it is open to the possibility of being mistaken, the possibility of not knowing, the possibility that the thing could be true or false. The mind isn't locked into some position or defending some viewpoint or prior belief. It's open to considering possibilities.

This openness allows you to "see" all of what is there, without filtering anything out with some kind of bias. It lets you recognize what things are, without distortions and without preferences. It's just sort of a way of saying, "tell me what you are", "what is this really?". it requires honesty and a willingness to be mistaken.

Open mindedness can allow you to see a mistake, recognize it as a mistake, and recognize that it needs correcting. It is a light which is open to everything, so it can see all sides and all angles, all perspectives. Including being able to see from a perspective of wholeness, which holds things in its light and in its true perspective to reveal what things really are.

Open-mindedness could be said to be the same thing as forgiveness. It's a mind that is willing to accept the truth regardless of what the truth is, and is not deceived by appearances. It's open to questioning what it sees and considering that it may or may not be true or real. It's the same thing as true perception - openness to the whole truth.

Sin on the other hand is a state of close-mindedness, which we could call false perception. You could call it narrow-mindedness as well. The mind narrows down and instead of being open to the whole, to everything, it becomes very focused and specific. It shuts out the peripheral vision, so to speak, and focuses only on what things appear to be on the surface.

A closed mind is not open to considering that anything is mistaken, or to questioning the reality or truth of anything at all. It takes everything at face value. Illusions are taken to be reality, lies are considered truth. Whatever seems to happen is believed to be really happening.

A closed mind also narrows down and homes in on specific things, so will focus on "what someone did" to the exclusion of all else. Even if the person has merit or does good dees in addition to their mistakes, sin focuses only on the mistakes and shuts out the good deeds.

Thus a closed mind becomes a darkened mind, focusing only on what people are doing wrong - given that everything in form is basically a mistake it turns everything into a sin. It mistakes illusions for truth and believes that whatever appears to be happening is permanently irreversibly true.

Sin has no openness to correction, to healing, to another viewpoint. It is very rigid and stuck and fixated on nothingness. It will not budge or allow any change to its viewpoint, or any way by which anything can be questioned. It takes everything as gospel and without question at all, accepting illusions into the mind without any sense of real perspective.

A sinful false perception therefore, a closed mind, does not see that there is even a possibility of mistakenness, a possibility of unintentionally, or of a need for gentle correction. It sees only deliberate evil acts, which appear to be utterly unforgivable, and sees that there is no other way to look at anything. It does not allow any openness to consider its position being flawed, or to register any sense of sin itself being a mistaken view.

As such a closed mind is an unforgiving mind, a mind which will not allow forgiveness because it will not question whether or not what happens is really happening. Whether that it sees is really there to see, or the truth at all. It believes it knows everything already, has all of the truth already, cannot be told anything new, and will not listen to reason. It won't consider the possibility of any alternative viewpoint, because to sin there is only one factual truth - you sinned and you should die for it.

As we awaken, we are moving from the viewpoint of sin - or closed-mindedness, and are opening up the mind and expanding our viewpoint so that we are more inclusive, more open, considerate, willing to question, willing to be mistaken, and willing to recognize that other people's choices are mistakes and not sins. This requires broadening the focal point and expanding it out to see the whole picture. To reframe everything in the light of the whole.

In forgiveness, everything false is recognised as false, without judgement. And everything true is recognised as true without distortion. It recognizes that all illusions are just mistakes, and there is no sin, because there is nothing closed off from the light of truth. The whole is recognised, perception is open to wholeness, and the whole informs everything. To forgive, you must open your mind and question illusions and let go of trying to make everything into a sin. There is no sin.

"What is forgiveness, but a willingness that truth be true? What can remain unhealed and broken from a Unity Which holds all things within Itself? There is NO sin. And EVERY miracle is possible the INSTANT that the Son of God perceives his wishes and the Will of God are One." UrT26H9

"Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizons, and direct approaches to the special blocks which keep your vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal." UrW180 "Only by doing this is it possible to transcend the narrow boundaries the ego would impose upon the self." UrP3C8

"And if I need but stillness and a tranquil, open mind, these are the gifts I will receive of Him." UrW365

"It is therefore essential that you keep a perfectly open mind, unhampered by judgment, in selecting the things to which the idea for the day is to be applied." UrW3L2

"Accept atonement with an open mind which cherishes no lingering belief that you have made a devil of God's Son." UrW101

"Dwell not upon the past today. Keep a completely open mind, washed of all past ideas and clean of every concept you have made." UrW75L5

"An open mind is more honest than this." UrT12D3

"Healing will flash across your open mind as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings." UrW136L16

"The Savior's vision is as innocent of what your brother is as it is free of any judgment made upon yourself. It sees no past in anyone at all. And thus it serves a wholly open mind, unclouded by old concepts and prepared to look on ONLY what the present holds." UrT31G13

"It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is." UrT31E16

There is a divine order to your creation.

God is the primary source and creator. Without him nothing exists, not even you.

God created you. Just to be clear, that means everything that you are, everything that you have, everything you are capable of, came solely from God.

You did not receive any attributes from the environment, from food, from upbringing, from self-taught ideas. Nothing.

You have absolutely only what God decided that you have.

Your joy, your love, your life, your power, your creativity, your expression, your freedom, your peace, your unity, your sharing, your relationship, your being, was all given to you by God.

You did not put it there. You did not create it. You did not invent it. You have no ability to change it. You cannot control it. You cannot make it go away. It is rock-solid permanent and utterly beyond you.

Here is the second facet of this interesting scenario.

Since you only have what God wills that you have, and are only what he wills that you be, you have nothing else and can be nothing else.

And this means that you cannot obtain any other qualities, characteristics, abilities, skills, talents, natures, conditions, or anything else that did not come from God.

"When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while."

You essentially were created with a full plate. Fully complete. Lacking nothing. Completely perfect in all ways. So finished and so fully divine, that you were not created in a position of having to go out and hunt or find or assemble or build or do anything at all to become whole.

You therefore cannot add to yourself. Just as you cannot remove from yourself. What you are is a permanent light in heaven sustained by the thought of God forever. Fixed and absolute. Unchanging, unwavering, eternal.

This means that any belief you have that you have added to yourself, redefined yourself, invented yourself, have something not of God, have something you gave yourself, something you found on your own, something you are capable of that is "new", something you've changed about yourself, etc... these MUST all be illusions.

As you move into the separation idea, into ego, it is these "alterations", "adjustments", that you begin to believe in. It is accompanied by a sense of lack, or being incomplete from the outset. That somehow God did not give you *everything* already, and so there is something to add or find or collect or establish. Some progress to make.

And this will include the belief that you have something of your own, which God did NOT give you, which you think is yours and that you can have. You cannot truly have anything that God did not give you, however. So when you believe that you have something not of God, you have nothing. And when you reject what God has given you, you have nothing.

God gave you all of his love, mind, will, power, joy, peace, beauty, freedom, life, etc. When you believe that you have something that did not come from God, you are rejecting what He gave you, which is your natural inheritance. As host to God, you inherit all of God. If you throw it away, you have nothing. And there is nothing else.

So now if you think you have power, but it's not God's power, you are mistaken. You cannot have any power at all if you do not have God's power. Yet, if you accept what God has given you, you have all power. The power is yours, but it is not sourced by you. The power you have IS God himself, in you, since you host him.

"To say, "Of myself I can do nothing" is to gain all power. And yet it is but a seeming paradox. As God created you, you have all power."

What you are, is more like a host or medium or relay-station or conduit or channel or re-expresser of God. You literally have nothing OTHER than what God has given and put into you. It is yours, truly, because it is fully given to you. And yet, at the same time, it is not an exclusive property of yours, nor did you make it, nor can you remove it.

Ego is the idea that you are or have something not of God. Something exclusive, special, unique, isolated, which is not shared with God. And typically not shared with anyone else. It's a possessive, selfish attitude. An attempt to hoard a piece of heaven for yourself alone. And this makes you alone. It's what makes you a "separated one".

If you try to own, grasp, possess, grab or steal away something shared, in an attempt to put a label on it and say it is yours ONLY, you lose it. Attachment is loss. Possession is emptiness. Try to own a piece of God and you lose everything. But share in it, and it is fully yours and fully everyone's.

Jesus says:

"There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. ***I have nothing that does not come from God.*** The main difference between us as yet is that I have NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness, which is only a POTENTIAL in you."

The problem then is only that you think you have something OTHER than or in addition to what God gave. And this must entail the belief that you DO NOT have what God gave. And its the belief in lacking what God gave, which causes you to be compelled to replace it with something else. Which will never work. You can only have what God gave you and the rest must be let go.

"I am still as God created me" also means "I am not what I made of myself."

You who are host to God, inherit everything real from God. And this is whole and complete and perfect. All of Him is in you forever. What seems to be "your" anything, is simultaneously HIS. "God is my strength". Your strength, which truly is yours, IS GOD. God, in you, is the sense of strength that you feel. It's literally like it is YOUR strength, to use, but it is ALSO His.

It's a very interesting relationship. God causes you. You are his effect. God being cause forces you to be also a cause. Now you are a co-creator. Not just a creator but a collaborator, because you can only create WITH him, using HIS power, which is shared with you.

It's like God has fully given all of himself to you, in your creation, establishing you as completely "having" everything, as if were fully yours, and yet at the same time, all that you have, is STILL HIS, and is still shared with him. That is your oneness. You are united with Him. You are a team.

You have nothing of your own. Yet you have everything, because God gave it to you. It's kind of like if it were "on loan". You have the use of it, but it's not yours exclusively. It still belongs to God. You're kind of renting it, permanently. And so you enjoy the benefit of it forever, but it's still technically His.

Thus you have the power of God in you. You are strong. You are immortal. Because God is in you. Because you are His extension. And you are free, yet you are joined. You are nothing without Him, but can share everything with Him. Either you share or you have nothing. But never can you have it all just for yourself. Nor do you source anything without Him.

When I think of it, it makes me think of the angels. They operate in service to God. They go where they are directed. They do what he wills them to do, in agreement with Him. They fulfill a function. They are joyfully glad to be what they are. They have no desire to improve themselves, nor do they need to. They give thanks to God for what they are in celebration and worship. And everyone's happy.

While in Heaven, before the fall of man, everything that existed was of God. And it still is. Creation is the presence of something real. It exists. It has substance. It lives.

At this point, all things which DO NOT exist, simply did not exist at all. They were not anywhere. They had no substance, no reality, no life. They did not happen. They simply weren't anywhere. Nothingness was nothing. And nowhere was nowhere.

Non-existence simply does not exist. It is not somewhere you can go and exist. It is not a realm or a dimension. It has no presence or location. It is simply, logically, absolutely nowhere at all, is nothing, does nothing, and cannot be.

In the separation, the tiny mad idea suggested that in ADDITION to Heaven, the nothingness actually was SOMETHING. And that Heaven, God and His Son did not exist. It was a complete reversal of the truth.

This was a completely ridiculous idea and we should have laughed at its nonsense. Nothingness cannot possibly exist. It can't BE something. It has no presence. But we believed it could.

This was our mistake. It was a mistake because it is patently impossible and illogical and nonsense. Nothing cannot exist. Which is a similar thing as saying, only what CAN exist DOES. And that is only of God's creation. Anything other than God's creation simply isn't anywhere. There isn't anything else. But we believed there was.

By forming this belief in nothingness being SOMETHINGNESS, we basically were becoming confused. Confusing levels. Confusing the truth with what is false. Confusing possibility with impossibility. Confusing reality with unreality. We wanted to GIVE nothingness all the attributes of God's creation so that we could BELIEVE that it was in fact SOMETHING POSSIBLE, and something that has existence.

This of course was an insane notion and totally wishful thinking, because it still remains impossible. And even in believing that it IS possible this does not cause it to be possible. Nothing can never be something. Non existence cannot suddenly come into existing. Even the idea that non-existence could exist is to confuse existence and non-existence to the point or ludicrous nonsense.... how can non-existence STILL BE non-existent at the same time as claiming it exists? But this is what we insisted was true.

In attempting to MAKE non-existent things EXIST, we dreamed, imagined, wished for, wanted, and tried to MAKE HAPPEN, "a world" on the basis of non-existence. A world where everything opposite to God's creation is manifest. A world where life does not exist. Where love is blotted out by fear. Where death has come to replace life, and time to replace eternity. Where space opposes omnipresence and where evil substitutes for the good.

Even in doing this, in our imagination, essentially, we still were not ACTUALLY doing this, because it is patently impossible to make non-existent things have reality. But we still BELIEVED that we could, that we did, that we have, and that we continue to do so. And so we hallucinated a fictional world which IS NOT THERE, and CANNOT EXIST, as if it were existing.

And so here we are, on planet Earth, jewel of the solar system, a completely make-believe, false, unreal, non-existent world, which in our minds we BELIEVE IN, and want to exist, and try to make happen. Which nevertheless, at no time ACTUALLY exists, and is nothing but imagined - images in the mind, attempting to DREAM OF what it MIGHT be like IF non-existence could exist.

So we haven't even really made non-existence exist. Non-existence CANNOT be made to exist. But we have BELIEVED that it is possible, which is an insane and completely mistaken belief. And we persist stubbornly to DENY the facts, and AVOID the truth, and HIDE FROM reality, in an effort to keep the truth in the dark so that you won't ADMIT that a non-existent world isn't here. And meanwhile we dream of space and time and happenings and sickness and death as if they are possible.

"it (mind) merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere."

What ultimately happens when we reach atonement, which is the total willingness to admit to the truth and come to our senses, a return to SANITY, and a correct recognition of the facts, is that we come to RECOGNIZE that non-existent things DO NOT EXIST. What we thought existed, or what we thought happened, IS NOT THERE. This literally culminates in the awareness and accurate perception that THERE IS NO WORLD.

"Forgiveness recognizes that what you think your brother did has not OCCURRED."

Quite literally, the world, which is based on the idea of nothingness, IS NOTHING. It cannot be. It is not. It does not. It cannot. It doesn't. It hasn't. It isn't. It won't. The world is merely a fictional fairytale fantasy, trying to believe that impossible things are possible, and trying to PROVE it through fictional stories and images and deceptions, smoke and mirrors, illusions and lies. The world is nothing but confusion.

There quite literally is no world here. Only the Kingdom of God exists. The world is nothingness. The body is nothingness. And true perception recognizes that the world is nothing. This is why christ vision cannot SEE the world, because it MUST VANISH when recognized as NOT EXISTING. The body is not alive or dead. It is not even THERE.

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it. The last one had gone. It was laid in the tomb, but there was nothing left to bury. It did not disintegrate because the unreal cannot die. It merely became what it always was. And that is what "rolling the stone away" means. The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body’s nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."

"The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist."

"At no time does the body exist."

"There is no world."

"There is no world apart from what you wish."

"He does not realize that he MAKES this world, for there IS no world outside him."

"Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so."

"Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions."

"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again."

"But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now."

Recognizing there is no world, is like FORGETTING the world. Paying no attention to it. Becoming unable to SEE it. Erasing it from memory. Like it was nothing. Like it never happened. Like not one single thing occurred. And then ONLY the Kingdom of God is accepted as real, existing, present, possible, and happening. And upon accepting that ONLY the truth is true and nothing ELSE is true, you awaken to the recognition of the real truth in God.

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream."

"The world you see must be denied."

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came.

A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."

"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish."

"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

When we talk of duality, non-duality, pure-non-duality, we're talking concepts.

Duality means polar opposites (good/bad, right/wring, up/down etc)

Non-duality usually means both opposites are one thing. This also usually means the opposites still exist, ie the world is real, but it's all one thing. Close to a Buddhist teaching for example.

Pure-non-duality typically means the world doesn't exist at all, ie neither opposites exists. Instead, it's contrasted against "God". ie, only God exists.

While the Course DOES teach "there is no world", there is a problem with saying it's pure-non-duality.

If we're being really, really pure about it, if it's logically true that only God exists, it is impossible for God to create, impossible for God to have a son or to create heaven, its impossible for there to be a sonship, there could not even have been a dream of death, and if there were a dream of death God would now have to be the one dreaming it.

That also means, if there is only God, that God is dreaming of death, God is dying, God is stuck in a body, God is "learning" (ie lacking), God is not whole, and God is an illusion.

That's a pretty big problem.

That's what pure nonduality really indicates if you are being REALLY pure about it.

At times Jesus does say things in the course which could imply otherwise but you have to be careful to discern what level he's talking at. When he says, "God is, and then we cease to speak".... he's not saying, God is... and there is nothing else... he's saying WE as individual creations cease to speak and we become one with - sharing with - the allness of God, but still retaining our individual free will.

It's useful up to a point to say, there is no world, only God exists. But if that's the scope of your grasp of the logic, then you're falling short. It puts God in a box, all by himself. And in that box, there is no creation, there is no expression or extension, there is no son.

Pure-non-duality means God does not even have one son, yet alone many. That's a problem. Without a son God is the one dreaming and dying, which is ridiculous. Without a son, God is a sinner and a separator, which is ridiculous. Without a son, God has no effects, therefore he is not causal, therefore he is not permanent, therefore he does not exist. That's a completely logical conclusion that you should come to if you really purely believe in pure-non-duality. What started out seeming to say only God exists, MUST mean God does not exist at all.

In order for God to have in any way at all a "son" or a "creation", something which is technically not 100% equated with Himself, it has to be possible that what God is does not stay inside a nice theoretical box. For God to create, and for God to cause an effect, and produce even one son, there has to be what the course calls a "natural grand division."

A "world", as ACIM defines it, is a natural grand division, or a projection outward, from God. God is complete in and of himself, but when he extends Himself to create, He creates something which is - in a sense - "outside of His own completeness" - an "addition" to what exists. Reality is increased by creating/sharing. ie It's talking about heaven/creation. It is "divided" from God in a natural way, which is normal and healthy. It all hinges around cause-effect.

God is cause. God produces effects. Effects of God are creations, which are expressions/extensions. The course says, "nothing real can be increased except by sharing." God has to share, meaning, there is some room here, or some freedom. It also says, that God gave his sons (plural) free will, which was necessary in order to allow them to create freely. The aim was that naturally the sons would create more love and joy and the kingdom would expand. It's only when sons mis-create that they go into separation dreams.

Since God is causing the Son, and the Son is an effect, and the Son is not causing God, there is a "natural" division in terms of roles or functions between God and His Sonship. It is natural. "Separation", in course terms, is an un-natural division. Division between God and Sonship is natural. It does not mean the same thing as separation. It does not mean there are walls up between each son or between sons and God. It means there are many individual free-willed souls each sharing fully and freely and openly with each other and with God.

Getting off topic slightly. But you can see that in order to allow for God to be alive, to be creative, to express and extend, to share, what God is MUST be more than a self-contained box. There is nothing "outside" of Him as such but souls still have free will within the scope of God, and share God. You can't really technically call this "pure non duality", because there isn't a duality but there ARE MANY SONS, and many creations, and many thoughts of God, and the sonship has many parts. There are more than 250 statements in the course pertaining to God directly creating multiple sons.

A multiplicity of sons is hardly in keeping with the idea of pure non-duality. It's not the same thing. It's not a state of "there is only God". It's a state of "there is god and god's creations." It's not a singularity. It's not a concept or a theoretical box. It's alive. It's creative. It's expressive. It's more than ego logic can describe or understand.

This is why the course is really not pure-non-duality. In a general broad sense, yes, it is, up to the point where you really take a look at heaven and God and creation and the sonship, and find out that there are in fact many parts to it. It's not just one big "blob". And each soul IS endowed with free will. Will is free when it chooses to extend freedom and love. It becomes blocked when we will against God's will and therefore will against our own will. That's what victimhood is all about - attacking ourselves with our own will. It's also the secret to salvation.

If you want ACIM to be pure-non-duality, you're not looking closely enough at the facts. God and Son are not one single thing pretending to be two. God does not dream. God has not separated from Himself. We are the ones who are responsible for dreaming of impossibilities.

There is one other big problem with trying to fit the course into a pure-non-duality model. The fact that in pure-non-duality there are no individuals and no individual free will. In pure-non-duality there are no souls. There is no permanent "self" distinct in some way from others, or naturally divided. That means, the pure-non-dual teachers constantly tell you that you do not have a self, or that you are not an individual. It is BULL SHIT. God created many sons and gave all of them free individual will.

Quote: "In the creation, God projected His creative ability from Himself to the Souls He created, and He also imbued them with the same loving will to create. The Soul has not only been fully created but has also been created perfect." - ACIM

Quote: "The world (heaven), in the original connotation of the term, included both the proper creation of man (souls/sons) by God and the proper creation by man in his right mind (his own free-will creations). The latter (the son’s ability to create) required the endowment of man by God with FREE WILL because all loving creation is freely given (God gave us freedom). Nothing in these statements implies any sort of level involvement (no separation)or in fact anything except one continuous line of creation in which all aspects (each aspect being a son of God with free will) are of the same order." - ACIM

You DO have a soul. You ARE an "free individual". You may not have an EGO. Having a separating ego is not the same thing as being a free-willed soul. Ego means putting up walls and unnatural divisions between you and others. Absence of walls does not destroy your independent freedom, it simply allows you to share fully and freely with others. To be one with them, without losing your own soul.

The peddlers of pure-non-duality peddle "you do not exist" paradigm, which leads many course people to believe they are supposed to deny themselves. It in fact produces censorship of the soul and leads you to believe you are supposed to be getting rid of yourself. It actually results in a belief that the soul is supposed to DIE ie not exist. That to be in God, you cannot be a self in any way. That to be awake, you must not have any sense of existing individually.

Also if there are no souls and no individual freedoms, then you are literally responsible for the shitty choices that everyone else makes, they are literally you, and you are just as dead as the person who just died. It's ridiculous. It IS true that you share a oneness but you simultaneously have independence. This is possible in a holographic model of heaven in which the all is in every part, ie God is in every soul, and yet each soul is distinct and whole and complete in and of itself. This produces a state of simultaneous sharing with the whole AND independence. This is not in any way a pure-non-duality teaching.