"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."
Do you notice how it says "SHINES FOREVER"? In order for THE REAL WORLD to SHINE FOREVER, it HAS to be **REALITY**. It cannot be some state prior to awakening. It cannot be a perception. It cannot be a dream. Jesus is explicit here. This whole passage is TALKING ABOUT HEAVEN. Heaven is the place where there are no buildings and streets and stores and no sun to bring day and night. Everything in Heaven SHINES *FOREVER*, and Jesus is directly NAMING that place, "the real world". He has CORRECTLY chosen the term "REAL" because IT DOES REFER TO REALITY. "The real world" is another name for THE KINGDOM OF GOD!
When Jesus speaks in ANOTHER CONTEXT, within the context of pre-awakening, where he refers to the real world, he is talking about a PERCEPTION OF the real world. "The real world still is but a dream" for example refers to how having a perceived IMAGE OF Heaven IS a dream. It is seen from within the dream, peering OUT of the dream, looking AT reality with perception. And that is an IMAGE. And that image is not real, which is why he calls it a dream. But that does NOT mean the real world ITSELF is a dream, only the perception of it. The "real world" is not some strange slice of near-reality in-between the dream world and heaven. It IS Heaven.
I found this to be quite eye-opening. Recognizing first that the world IS a meaningless world. But that meaninglessness should not have any connotations of negative, depressing, sad, lost, etc. It actually has NO meaning of any kind, good or bad. That's because earth is in fact NOTHING AT ALL, ie "there is no world." We then GIVE the world meaning by projecting meaning onto it.
"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly."
"What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be."
If you project the ego's meaning onto the world, which really is a depressing dark twisted kind of meaninglessness, it picks out aspects of the world and makes them seem like sin and attack. If you project God's meaning onto the world, it overlooks differences and sees a reflection of heaven in the world instead. You either WISH for hell or WISH for heaven, and what you wish for, you see, because you value it and believe in it and want it to be real. You project it ONTO the meaningless world to GIVE it whatever meaning you want it to have.
You use it like an EMPTY MIRROR, and can look at it through heavenly eyes (christ vision), where you've lifted AWAY the fales meanings you gave it, and project LOVE's meaningfulness onto it - your OWN face of christ. The world then can HOST A REFLECTION of heaven, seemingly harmless and safe and lovable. But this still is only because the world has no meaning of its OWN, and you are seeing reflected BACK to you the meaning you want to see, which is the meaning you PUT there. Seeing a reflection of heaven IN a mirror also doesn't change the fact Earth is still ONLY a meaningless world, in its own right. And being nothing, it will disappear.
"In the world you can become a spotless mirror, in which the holiness of your Creator shines forth from you, to all around you. You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself. Only the clear reflection OF Himself can BE perceived upon it."
The truth of the reality of God's Kingdom is the true nature of your soul. Every property, quality and characteristic of what you are, is given by God. God creates only like himself, and God is immortal.
The result is that you have inherited God's nature and are like God. You have every property and characteristic that God has. This includes immortality, eternal life, permanence, invulnerability, perfection, holiness, innocence, peace, joy, love, happiness, safety, certainty, knowing, power and unlimited existence.
Because this is true of who and what you are, if you are to return to enjoying these qualities, you simply need to open up to accepting that this is the truth of you. The truth of you is BEYOND the ego, beyond space and time, beyond the separation, and was established by God before there ever was a problem to solve.
Forgiveness then, is a REFLECTION of your natural condition in heaven, in which you are as true to your true nature as possible, while being in this dream world. It is a state of mind in which you are accepting what is really true, about you, about others, about God, and about the world. It is clarity, recognition, sanity and accuracy.
"Misperception is a BLOCK to knowledge, while ACCURATE perception is a stepping-stone TOWARDS it."
"The term "right-mindedness" is properly used as the correction for wrong-mindedness, and applies to the state of mind which induces accurate perception."
Accurate perception is also referred to as TRUE perception. And true perception is ALSO referred to as forgiveness, atonement, the miracle, right mindedness, miracle mindedness, salvation, forgiveness, sanity, recognition, the real world, the face of Christ and Christ vision. These are all the same thing - the same state of mind.
"Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. They are the one beginning, with the end to lead to oneness far beyond themselves."This one state of mind, of a corrected mind, which is still dreaming and perceiving but is ALIGNED with the truth within the Kingdom, REFLECTING your true nature as a reflection of heaven on earth, is the state of forgiveness. It simply means that you are being as close to how you are in heaven, just short of being there in person.
Forgiveness then, is really a symbol, because it is a means to an end and a tool for awakening. It really DERIVES its meaning from the reality of the Kingdom that it is BASED ON. It symbolizes or represents, mirrors or reflects, the truth of your reality. It is not an end or thing in itself, FORGIVENESS IS SYMBOLIC!
"Forgiveness is a symbol, too, but as the symbol of His Will alone it cannot be divided."
"Forgiving dreams remind you that you live in safety, and have NOT attacked yourself."
"Forgiving dreams are kind to everyone who figures in the dream. And so they bring the dreamer full release from dreams of fear."
"Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms which enter in the dreams are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love."
Since forgiveness, atonement, salvation, true perception etc is a SYMBOL, a REFLECTION or once-removed representation of the truth of God, you have to look to what it POINTS TO or represents in order to understand what its qualities must be. Because it derives its qualities FROM the knowledge that it is based on. The question is then, what does forgiveness SYMBOLIZE?"True perception is the BASIS for knowledge, but KNOWING is the affirmation of truth."
So if you look to heaven, look to the qualities of God, to how creation happens, to what souls are like, to the real truth and nature and composition of reality, you will find the BLUEPRINT that forgiving dreams are BASED ON. And this will tell you what forgiveness is and what its qualities should be.
Forgiveness, if based on REALITY, as a reflection of your true nature, should be a state of mind in which you are acknowledging and accepting how you are in heaven. This includes holy relationships which reflect the real relationships in heaven. And it includes the recognition of your immortality, invulnerability, perfection, sinlessness, the incapability of being sick or dying, the assertion of eternal life, and the presence of love.
To be forgiving, is to be heaven-like. It entails complete vigilance for the Kingdom, which means full faith and trust in what is actually true IN the Kingdom, in proper denial of the lies presented by illusions.
Forgiveness should bring with it:
Acknowledgement of your immortality and invulnerability
Love, peace, joy, happiness
Strength and power and the absence of suffering
The end of the victim role and any sense of being affected
Sanity, clarity, accurate perception and right mindedness
Miraculous power to break the laws of space and time
Assertion of life capable of raising the dead and healing the sick
Security, calm, peace-of-mind, certainty, trust and protection
A sense of permanence and the impossibility of death
Knowing that the world has no ability to change you in any way
The absence of pain, suffering, damage or malfunction in the body
Wholeness, innocence, integration, single-mindedness, unified-will
Extension and expression of God's nature
Being plugged into, directed by and healed by spirit
Thinking like God and aligned with God's will
Alignment with the Holy Spirit's thought system
Gratitude and joy that you are still as God created you
Recognition that nothing has ever gone wrong
The complete denial of attack or sin in all its forms
The list goes on. If there is a quality that is true in heaven, then forgiveness should be based on that quality also.
Your brother is innocent not merely because he is not the one who attacked you, but because in heaven you cannot BE attacked. Your suffering is self-made because only you can seem to attack yourself by your free will. And nothing happens without your consent, not even death. Everyone is innocent because you are immortal and cannot be attacked. Forgiveness derives all of its meaning from your heavenly nature.
Forgiveness is the REFLECTION OF HEAVEN. And being a reflection, it gets all of its meaning FROM heaven itself.
"In Heaven, reality is SHARED, and not reflected. By sharing its reflection HERE, its truth becomes the only perception which the Son of God accepts."
"You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it."
"We see the light, and in it we see Heaven's reflection lie across the world."
"Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It is the reflection of God's Love on earth. It will bring me near enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me to my home."
"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it, into another world. But the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here, BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT.
And what you call with love WILL come to you. Love always answers, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made, and do not want. The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make, is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."
"You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself. Only the clear reflection OF Himself can BE perceived upon it."
"The reflection of God NEEDS no interpretation. IT IS CLEAR. Clear but the mirror, and the message which shines forth from what the mirror holds out for everyone to see, NO-ONE will fail to understand. It is the message that the Holy Spirit is holding to the mirror that is in HIM."
"Could you but realize, for a single instant, the power of healing that the reflection of God, shining in YOU, can bring to all the world, you COULD not wait to make the mirror of your mind clean, to receive the image of the Holiness that heals the world.
The image of holiness that shines in YOUR mind is NOT obscure, and will NOT change. Its meaning, to those who look upon it, is not obscure, for everyone perceives it AS THE SAME. All bring their DIFFERENT problems to its healing light, but ALL their problems are met ONLY with healing there."
T-11.VII.1."The world as you perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is not as you see it. 2 God created only the eternal, and everything you see is perishable. 3 Therefore, there must be another world that you do not see."
"C-4.1. The world you see is an illusion of a world. 2 God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. 3 Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. 4 Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. 5 But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.
C-4.2. The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. 2 And so they do. 3 For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. 4 While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."
"T-8.VI.2. The world can add nothing to the power and the glory of God and His holy Sons, but it can blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. 2 You cannot behold the world and know God. 3 Only one is true. 4 I am come to tell you that the choice of which is true is not yours to make. 5 If it were, you would have destroyed yourself. 6 Yet God did not will the destruction of His creations, having created them for eternity."
M-20.5. "You see in death escape from what you made. 3 But this you do not see; that you made death, and it is but illusion of an end. 4 Death cannot be escape, because it is not life in which the problem lies. 5 Life has no opposite, for it is God. 6 Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life. 7 Forgive the world, and you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real."
W-pI.14.1. "God did not create a meaningless world. ... What God did not create does not exist. 3 And everything that does exist exists as He created it. 4 The world you see has nothing to do with reality. 5 It is of your own making, and it does not exist.
"T-25.III.2. God's laws do not obtain directly to a world perception rules, for such a world could not have been created by the Mind to which perception has no meaning. "
W-pI.132.9"You are as God created you. 3 There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to your eternal state. 4 How can a world of time and place exist, if you remain as God created you?"
T-7.XI.1."The world goes against your nature, being out of accord with God's laws. 6 The world perceives orders of difficulty in everything. 7 This is because the ego perceives nothing as wholly desirable."
"T-13.VII.1. Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself: "The real world is not like this. 2 It has no buildings and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. 3 There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. 4 It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. 5 There is no day that brightens and grows dim. 6 There is no loss. 7 Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."
T-13.VII.2. The world you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. 2 You cannot see both worlds, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. 3 The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other."
T-14.V.1."Leave the world of death behind, and return quietly to Heaven. 9 There is nothing of value here, and everything of value there."
"Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you, quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay, when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are you sick, that truth may go away and threaten your establishments no more."
"How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth? Because it proves the body is not separate from you, and so you must be separate from the truth. You suffer pain because the body does, and in this pain are you made one with it. Thus is your "true" identity preserved, and the strange, haunting thought that you might be something beyond this little pile of dust silenced and stilled. For see, this dust can make you suffer, twist your limbs and stop your heart, commanding you to die and cease to be."
"Thus is the body stronger than the truth, which asks you live, but cannot overcome your choice to die. And so the body is more powerful than everlasting life, Heaven more frail than hell, and God's design for the salvation of His Son opposed by a decision stronger than His Will. His Son is dust, the Father incomplete, and chaos sits in triumph on His throne."
"Such is your planning for your own defense. And you believe that Heaven quails before such mad attacks as these, with God made blind by your illusions, truth turned into lies, and all the universe made slave to laws which your defenses would impose on it. Yet who believes illusions but the one who made them up? Who else can see them and react to them as if they were the truth?"
...AND ITS REVERSAL...
"God knows not of your plans to change His Will. The universe remains unheeding of the laws by which you thought to govern it. And Heaven has not bowed to hell, nor life to death. You can but choose to think you die, or suffer sickness or distort the truth in any way. What is created is apart from all of this. Defenses are plans to defeat what cannot be attacked. What is unalterable cannot change. And what is wholly sinless cannot sin."
"Healing will flash across your open mind, as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings. There will be no dark corners sickness can conceal, and keep defended from the light of truth. There will be no dim figures from your dreams, nor their obscure and meaningless pursuits with double purposes insanely sought, remaining in your mind. It will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey."
"Now is the body healed, because the source of sickness has been opened to relief. And you will recognize you practiced well by this: The body should not feel at all. If you have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or feeling well, of pain or pleasure. No response at all is in the mind to what the body does. Its usefulness remains and nothing more."
"Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body's health is fully guaranteed, because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible."
ACIM
My note: Note that Jesus specifically refers here to healing the physical BODY, and to his intention that we PRACTICE this in order to then evaluate how well we did based on how meaningless the body is afterwards, as well as making the body invulnerable to and not dependent upon the world.
Perhaps rather than say everything in this world dies, which really only describes one aspect of it which seems to shut out the 'living' part of it ..... we should say instead, everything in this world changes. It's a place of change, in which everything is constantly transforming. Nothing stays the same. Everything is constantly in a state of turning into something else. Almost like it has a curse upon it which forces everything to stop being itself and transition into something different and strange.
The sperms and eggs turn into babies which turn into children and adults and old people and decayed corpses and compost and plants. It all just keeps changing. Change encompasses both birth and death and every illusion. Things becoming other things, transitioning between things, never stopping forever to be anything permanent. Always temporary, always shifting and modifying and losing itself. It's an entire system of things becoming unrecognisable, where truths turn to lies and everything becomes lost.
Seeds become plants which become flowers which become seeds which become dried up leaves which become soil which join again with seeds to become plants. It all just keeps changing all the time. It's not just that things die, because thing are also 'born', but all things here are encompassed by change. Nothing stable, nothing permanent, nothing trustable, nothing reliable, nothing consistent, nothing constantly true, nothing that is ever anything for very long.
All things that seem to be here now will not be here at some point, when time has converted them into who knows what like a systemic disfigurement and a constant distortion of reality. The world has always been this way and always will be until it disappears someday. Don't expect ANYTHING in this world to last forever. Illusions come and go, but what is of God is eternal and never changes and is not a world of change.
"The shifts and change are what the dream is made of."
"Sin shifts from pain to pleasure, and again to pain."
"Perception changes, MADE to take the place of changeless knowledge."
"Our very being seems to change as we experience a thousand shifts in mood, and our emotions raise us high indeed or dash us to the ground in hopelessness."
"The result is a weaving, changing pattern that never rests, and is never still. It shifts unceasingly across the mirror of your mind, and the reflections of Heaven last but a moment, and grow dim, as darkness blots them out. Where there was light, darkness removes it in an instant, and alternating patterns of light and darkness, darkness and light, sweep constantly across your minds. The little sanity that still remains is held together by a sense of order which YOU establish. The very fact that you can DO this, and bring ANY order into chaos, shows you that you are NOT an ego, and that MORE than an ego MUST be in you. For the ego IS chaos, and if it were all of you, no order at all would be possible."
"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur."
I've seen how when I want to make something go away, I make myself sick.
We attempt to psychologically reject and push something away when we find it threatening, dangerous or undesirable, all of which is a perceptual error. This however immediately implements some form of sickness. Sickness is INDUCED by the attempt to separate from your BROTHER!
"The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not in it. If the mind believes the body is its goal, it will distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it, will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot but foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else."
When we perceive a threat or danger, or someone is fear-mongering, or there is "bad news", or some obnoxious person is hanging around, or whatever... if we perceive it as having power to attack and we want it to stop, instead of making it stop or dis-believing in it, we put up defenses. We try to reject and separate ourselves from it. That's a bad move. It attacks our body. "If I defend myself I am attacked."
I gave myself a panic attack yesterday at a medical office when the staff started becoming serious about heart problems that aren't real. Try as I might I couldn't help but try to reject and resist, and thus induced sickness and almost fainted. Later during forgiveness I saw how I'd done that to myself, trying to make it go away, as the result of *perceiving* that there was a real threat or danger.
Previously also I recall a very talkative coworker kept hanging around at my desk trying to chat, and wouldn't go away. And then got into chatting with others nearby. And instead of standing up to tell them to leave I just tolerated and tried to be patient, but wanted them to go away. And this induced a sudden immediate headache. Trying to separate from your brother induces sickness.
I also once gave myself an ear infection in a matter of hours as a result of trying to make Holy Spirit go away, having perceived his lack of "boundaries" as a threat. I suffered for a few days before being able to re-approach him without fear and thus recognize what I'd done to myself, and upon recognizing I did not NEED the defense, all symptoms disappeared within a matter of hours.
Whenever we USE SEPARATION as a tool, which is an ego tool, to try to "deal with" perceived situations, our attempt to put up a defense and withdraw into ourselves cuts us off from life, blocks extension, fosters separation, produces sickness, and eventually death ("sickness is but a little death"). Our attempt to DENY GOD or our brothers (whom God is in) is the only cause of bodily death. This is why all death is suicide - we give our consent through our denial of God's will. IT IS NOT GOD's WILL THAT ANYONE DIE. A dream of death is not left THROUGh death, but through life - truth.
Sickness cannot happen at all when you do not have a belief in separation in any way. When your mind extends to your brothers mind sharing love, it undoes all sense of separation and your minds join. In this joining there is no split and no division and no attack, and nothing for sickness to latch onto. It therefore MUST heal, and as such death is surmounted. This is a miracle, it is resurrection.
"Healing will flash across your open mind as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings. There will be no dark corners sickness can conceal and keep defended from the light of truth. There will be no dim figures from your dreams, nor their obscure and meaningless pursuits with double purposes insanely sought, remaining in your mind. It will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey.
Now is the body healed because the source of sickness has been opened to relief."
Notice it says NOW IS THE *BODY* HEALED.
"You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible." This is literal. Sickness becomes impossible when your mind is whole and healed.
Atonement makes sickness IMPOSSIBLE. This DOES MEAN BODY SICKNESS as well as mental illness.
"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness. For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take. Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."
So sickness IS A FORM OF GUILT, and if there is no guilt, there can be no sickness or death. Period.
Here are statements demonstrating that you can SEE real stuff. Seeing God, seeing the Son of God, seeing Christ, seeing the Kingdom. Note that perception of reality is NOT the same as being IN reality. But some of these quote infer you can SEE WITHIN REALITY (not using perception).
"God is in everything I see because God is in my mind."
"The idea for today is the springboard for vision. From this idea will the world open up before you, and you will look upon it and see in it what you have never seen before. Nor will what you saw before be even faintly visible to you."
"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" is another way of saying the same thing. Only the innocent CAN see God."
"The innocence of God is the true state of the mind of His Son. In this state, man's mind DOES see God, and because he sees Him as he Is, he knows that the Atonement, NOT sacrifice, is the ONLY appropriate gift to His OWN altar, where nothing except perfection truly belongs."
"Today we will attempt to see God's Son. We will not let ourselves be blind to him ; we will not look upon our grievances."
"This is the way in which you MUST perceive God's Creations, bringing all of your perceptions into the one parallel line which the Holy Spirit sees."
"For who could see the Son of God as innocent and wish him dead? Christ stands before you, each time you look upon your brother."
"Nothing that you remember, that made your heart seem to sing with joy, has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. FOR YOU WILL SEE THE SON OF GOD. You will behold the beauty that the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and that He thanks the Father for. He was created to see this FOR you, until YOU learn to see it for yourself. And all His teaching leads to seeing it, and giving thanks with Him."
"This loveliness is NOT a fantasy. It is the real world, bright, and clean, and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here, for everything has BEEN forgiven, and there ARE no fantasies to hide the truth."
"For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing ALL illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past."
"For every grievance is a block to sight, and as it lifts, you see the Son of God where he has always been. He stands in light, but you were in the dark."
"You who believe that you can choose to see the Son of God as you would have him be, forget not that no concept of yourself will stand against the truth of what you are."
"To believe that you can perceive the real world is to believe that you can know yourself. You CAN know God, because it is His Will to BE known."
"The Soul always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God."
"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER. ... Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear."
"No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him. But while he still lays value on his own, he will DENY the vision of the other world, maintaining that he loves WHAT HE LOVES NOT, and following not the road that love points out."
"Your holy brother, sight of whom is your release, is no illusion."
"You would not do this, except for your UNWILLINGNESS to perceive reality, WHICH YOU WITHHOLD FROM YOURSELF."
"That was the first projection of error outward. The world (Earth) arose to hide it, and became the screen (mirror) on which it was projected (a second projection ONTO the mirror which produces perception - what is reflected back to you as feedback), and drawn between you and truth."
"We also have observed that man can create an empty shell (empty mirror), but cannot create nothing at all. This emptiness provides the screen (mirror) for the misuse of projection."
"If you could accept the world as meaningless (has no content of its own like a mirror) and let the truth be written upon it (reflected in it) for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless (having no image of its own), you are impelled to write upon it (reflect in it) what you would have it be. It is this you see in it (reflected in the mirror)."
"The reflection of God (in the mirror) NEEDS no interpretation. IT IS CLEAR. Clear but ***the mirror***, and the message which shines forth from what ***the mirror*** holds out for everyone to see, NO-ONE will fail to understand. It is the message that the Holy Spirit is holding to ***the mirror*** that is in HIM."
"In the world you, can become ***a spotless mirror***, in which the holiness of your Creator shines forth from you, to all around you. You can REFLECT HEAVEN here (in the mirror). But no reflections (in the mirror) of the images of other gods must dim ***the mirror*** that would hold God's reflection in it. ****Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego.**** (because it's a mirror) You need but leave ***the mirror*** (Earth) clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it (reflections seen in it). God will shine upon it (reflect in it) of Himself
. Only the clear reflection (in the mirror of earth) OF Himself can BE perceived upon (reflect in) it. Reflections are seen in light. In darkness, they are obscure, and their meaning seems to lie only in shifting interpretations, rather than in themselves."
"***Perception is a mirror***, not a fact." (what you percieve are reflections in the mirror of earth that you projected onto it to see. The mirror Earth ITSELF Is not part of perception, it's the mirror which allows projection/perception to happen.)
"The reflections that you accept into ***the mirror*** of your minds in time, but bring eternity nearer or farther."
"Your picture of the world (the image you see in the mirror) can only ***mirror what is within*** (projected onto it). The source (origin) of neither light nor darkness can be found without (because what's out there is just the earth mirror, and you have to give it meaning). Grievances darken your mind, and you look out on a darkened world (reflection of darkness in the mirror, or "dirt" seen "on" the mirror obscuring the reflection of God). Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light (reflected in the mirror)."
"The world is nothing in itself (because it has no meaning, because it's just an empty mirror). Your mind must give it meaning (project images onto the mirror). And what you behold upon it (in the mirror as the feedback of your perceptions) are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them (reflected back at you) and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world (the mirror), but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for (put onto the mirror because you wanted to see it) when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish (because the world is a mirror and what you see in it is just your wishes), and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see (in the mirror), and all the world (reflection seen in the world) must change accordingly."
"Like all things in the world its meaning is temporary (projected onto it), and will ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came (the earth was a projection of the idea of nothingness - the opposite to everything) when there is no more use for it."
"Would God have left the meaning of the world to YOUR interpretation? If He had, it HAS no meaning. For it cannot be that meaning (images shifting) changes constantly, and yet is true."
"It is essential, therefore, that you learn to recognize the meaningless (the projections of ego meaning, a different context), and accept it without fear. If you are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world (mirror) with attributes (meaning, images) which it does not possess, and crowd it (project onto it then perceive in it) with images that do not exist."
"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it (projected onto the mirror), nothing more than that."
"There is a silence covering the world (mirror) that was an ancient dream so long ago no one remembers now. Its time is done, and in the little space it seemed to have is nothingness. The dream has gone, and all its dreams of gifts have disappeared as well. The first dream has been seen and understood for merely an illusion of the fear on which the world was based. (the mirror earth was formed from the idea of the opposite of love which is fear)"
We made a meaningless world. Not a world that means bad things or good things, but which means nothing at all. A world devoid of meaning, being the opposite of God which is all meaning.
"the final judgment upon this world. It is the judgment of the truth upon illusion, of knowledge on perception; IT HAS NO MEANING AND DOES NOT EXIST. This is NOT your decision. It is but a simple statement of a simple fact."
"The world you see does not exist BECAUSE the place where you perceive it is not real. The gap is carefully concealed in fog, and misty pictures rise to cover it with vague, uncertain forms and changing shapes, forever unsubstantial and unsure. Yet in the gap is NOTHING."
The world became an empty mirror, having no identity or truth of its own, and able therefore only to reflect that which is projected upon it. We can project heaven onto it just as easily as hell, and it will reflect what we put there to see.
"Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality. And on this alone it is correct."
Notice how Jesus refers to the world or "gap" as essentially an empty VOID, onto which you project things to try to "fill it". You can see here that the ego attempted to ADD its meanings TO the world, once the world had been made. It tried to write pictures of hell and interpretations of cruelty onto it. It condemned the world and accused it of sin, and of proof of hell.
"That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth."
"The test of EVERYTHING on earth is simply this: "What is it FOR?" The answer makes it what it IS for you. It has NO meaning of itself, yet you can GIVE reality to it, according to the purpose which YOU serve."
"You think that what upsets you is a frightening world, or a sad world, or a violent world, or an insane world. All these attributes are given it by you. The world is meaningless in itself."
The world, therefore, arose to hide the original error or idea of separation in the mind, along with the guilt it produced, and since it was an idea of a lack of meaning, it projected a meaningless world. This meaningless world becomes an EMPTY SCREEN, onto which meaning could then be projected.
"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that."
Note that it also says that once the screen was made, as the world, as Earth etc, as form, the idea of separation was PROJECTED ONTO it. On top of it. This again is referring to what was mentioned in the prior quote about the ego rushing in to try to fill the empty meaningless space with its own meanings of attack and sin and guilt.
The idea of separation was projected ONTO a false world. Since the separation idea was an idea of opposition to reality and God, and was an attempt to distort the truth, and to swap what is true for what is false and vice versa, the projection of this idea ONTO the screen of the world produced a FALSE PERCEPTION of the world. This false perception is what you get when you interpret truth as lies and lies as truth. It is what turns the UNREALITY of the empty meaningless world into a seemingly real living hell. It is a faulty interpretation of what the world IS and what it means.
We are asked then to take these projected meanings away from the world, lift the IDEA of separation, sin and guilt and death, OFF of the world, which SAVES THE WORLD from your sinful use of it. From trying to make it be really sinful. We are asked then to lift all separation-oriented meanings (judgements, attacks) off of the world, so that it is recognized again as an EMPTY SPACE, a mirror, upon which temporarily the meaning of God himself is projected, and seen as reflection, as the real world.
"An empty space that is NOT seen as filled, an unused interval of time NOT seen as spent and fully occupied, become a silent invitation to the truth to enter, and to make Itself at home."
"Into this empty space, from which the GOAL of sin has been removed, is Heaven free to be remembered. Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death. The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death."
"The reflection of God NEEDS no interpretation. IT IS CLEAR. Clear but the mirror, and the message which shines forth from what the mirror holds out for everyone to see, NO-ONE will fail to understand."
"This loveliness is NOT a fantasy. It is the real world, bright, and clean and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun." "Could you but realize, for a single instant, the power of healing that the reflection of God, shining in YOU, can bring to all the world, you COULD not wait to make the mirror of your mind clean, to receive the image of the Holiness that heals the world."
"You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself. Only the clear reflection OF Himself can BE perceived upon it."
Notice here how it says that the world can REFLECT THE EGO. And there is also a contrasting of heaven vs hell. Meaning in essence that THE EGO IS HELL, NOT THE WORLD. The ego is that which produces false perception, believes in guilt, condemns, attacks, and turns everything into a nightmare. The ego is the insanity. It is the false perception. It is the twisting of the trust and the denial of God.
The WORLD was a projection outward of the idea of separation, an idea which gave rise to the ego WITHIN the idea, as a kind of spokesperson for the separation. And then the ego took ahold of the separated state (lower order reality etc, spacetime), and USED it for its purposes, producing a mindset that perceived the world AS hell, only because of its focus on death and destruction, and not because of what the world is. It is the ego (egotism) that makes an illusion of a meaningless world turn into a nightmare.
That same world which the ego has tried to make out to be hell, by projecting hellish ideas onto it, can also have God's meaning of love projected onto it, which renders it very differently and interprets its contents very differently. That's is the forgiven world or real world. The reflection of heaven, where God is seen in everything I see because God is in my mind. And here you become ready to go home to him.
"What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this you see in it. It is this that is meaningless in truth. Beneath your words is written the Word of God. The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His."