In terms of how you as an individual being "relate" or are related to other beings, there is more than one aspect to it.

1) You have a relationship directly with God who is your creator above you. God created you and established everything which is true of you. You are his holy and divine, immortal and innocent child. The causation that establishes these facts of you is his alone and there is nothing and no-one that can undermine it not even yourself.

2) You have a relationship sideways with your equal brothers/siblings in the sonship. This is also the same as the sonship, the christ and the one son, when you also include our creations. Your brother has no causality toward you whatsoever. They share with you equally and stand at your side but they cannot cause you to be what you are, or cause you not to be.

3) You have a relationship directly with your creations and the creations of your brothers. These are below you. You entirely cause your creations to be what they are, similar to how God causes you. They are your effects, created with your brothers. Similarly you also co-create your brother's children with them.

4) You have a relationship with yourself.

There are therefore established certain dynamics and roles which cannot be intruded upon or changed. For example, you cannot have awe of your brothers. They are your equals at the same level. They cannot induce awe in you and you cannot awe each other. No matter how one you are with your brother it isn't "enough" to establish awe.

The only way you can experience awe is by including God in the relationship. Once you are relating to God, vertically, to your own source, you can experience awe of him. And your brother can kneel at your side facing the same direction and experience awe of God as well. But neither of you can cause the awe in each other, or remove it.

What you are, how you are established, what you have, what is innate to you, your inheritance from God, everything you share with Him, is given to you by him. It is not given you by your brothers or even by yourself. You can be with God at any time simply by virtue of the fact that he has bound you to him forever. All you have to do is accept this individually and it is yours. You are free to come and go as you wish. Union with him is your birthright and is completely free. You can think of this as a vertical axis with you below God.

There is also a horizontal axis with your brothers in relationship to them as equals. They are next to you, not above you. They have no power over you. They cannot cause you to be what you are, or to have what you have, or determine whether or not you can go home. All they can do is be like you and remind you that you are like them and of a nature given by God.They can point you towards God, for example, but they cannot do what only God can do. They cannot establish your holiness or cause you to be loving against your will. The freedom of your will is vertically aligned with God and comes from/is shared with Him.

"Your will is as free as mine, and God Himself would not go against it."Their role in relation to you is the role God assigned to them. Their function is really co-creation with you, extending forward to your mutual creations. You are supposed to be "spiritual parents" together, sharing children with each other as a family. All the sons of God are co-parents of all the children, along with God. You align with each other and create together but you do not create each other.

This means that on the vertical axis, whether you are in heaven or not is a matter between you and God. It's your God-given right to go home at any time you choose. You do this by accepting atonement individually for yourself. Then you move on to sharing it and bringing it to others in the great crusade. Whether you go up or down is up to you.

You moving up or down the vertical axis can be aided by your horizontal relationships. The vertical relationship is primary and the horizontal relationships are secondary, in the divine order. Your brothers can form horizontal relationships with you, special relationships which turn into holy relationships. But they cannot exceed their function or position in creation. They have no say in where you are positioned in relation to God or whether you can access God.

A holy relationship can be used to remind you of what you are, to reflect to you what it's like to be true to yourself, to recognize you for your true nature, to point you in the direction of what God established about you, and to help you to heal/recover from the separation. It can be used to heal together, which is a reflection of your function of creating together in heaven.

Two beings can join to any degree of intimacy in horizontal sharing, which assists both of them to find themselves and God. But the relationship between each of them and God is their own personal experience, as reflected in revelations.

Revelation symbolizes the original form of communication or relationship between God and a given son. It isn't shared with the horizontal brothers. This is because the revelation is coming down the vertical axis along the channel between God and YOUR soul and includes only you and God and doesn't go past this point. It reflects and is similar to how God specifically created you, and is "prior to" secondary relationships with any brothers.

This is why your brothers are not a part of it. Nor can your brother cause you to have this relationship or force you to experience a revelation.It's also written in the course that miracles unite you with your brother, while revelation unites you with God. These are essentially the two relationship axis. Your brother can assist you in producing miracles which are a MEANS to end, but they cannot cause you to experience revelation which symbolizes "the end" itself. Therefore the "most" your brother can do is help you to unite with THEM, but they cannot induce or cause you to unite with God. That's God's business and is deeply personal at the inner altar of the soul.

Whether a person moves vertically toward God or not is up to them, and it may be prompted, guided, helped, and supported, by any number of other individual brothers. Or maybe even none of them at all. It doesn't matter because this fundamental freedom to come and go from heaven is a key that YOU hold, as per the secret of salvation, being fully empowered, and doesn't require any external conditions. It is you who left God and you who have the key to open heaven's gate.

It is however possible that in addition (because there are 2 axis) to moving vertically, you can also move horizontally. When you do this your brother becomes more included in your shared experience. You can join minds with none, one, two, or more individuals. Even with all of them. It perhaps depends on where you are vertically, as to how "far out" you can spread your unconditionality to your brothers. Unconditional love moves you toward God, while simultaneously moving you outward to include everyone equally. At least potentially.

We can say that, you can become unconditional vertically without necessarily having to include anyone horizontally, because your relationship to God is primary. But more likely, you'll have various holy relationships horizontally which are purer and more full as you go higher. Whether you go higher or not doesn't depend on these horizontal relationships, because they are a means, but these relationships are raised up and improved as you go higher. They can help you TO go higher as well, but they cannot give you what you already have, or deny it to you.

Eventually everyone individually goes vertical far enough either with or without horizontal support, to the point where they become inclusive of all horizontal components of the sonship as well. The brotherhood does not cause this all inclusiveness, because that would be like saying you are beneath your brother. But the higher you go the more you must expand to include everyone in your love.

If you return home to the Kingdom, then you reunite with God and with the sonship as a whole, as an individual soul. This is what Jesus did. He united with God's will in full and therefore also became fully inclusive of the whole sonship. This was his mission and is something he was able to do alone, not because he was in any way different to you but because it was equally God-given right. No son of God is treated differently and none of anything the others cannot have.

"My mission was simply to UNITE the Will of the Sonship WITH the Will of the Father by being aware of the Father's Will myself."

Jesus essentially entered into 'holy relationship' with every son of God, regardless of whether they were aware of it or not, because he became so vertical. He gave more than he was being given. And he became the savior of all those who were not joining with him. He thus became the first and as yet only true witness/link to God. He went higher than anyone else, even higher than his holy relationship partner Mary who was left behind.

"I am the only true witness for God."

As we each awaken and move up the ladder to atonement, we join ourselves with him in holy relationship. Just as we may (or not) join with other individuals on the road towards the atonement. We might enter into it two by two, if that is in the atonement plan, or we might go there solo. But even those going there solo are entering into horizontal holy relationship with Jesus. But it's worth mentioning that being holy is something established by God and can only EXTEND into your relationships with your brother. By you BEING holy, you can relate in a holy way with others.

You can go all the way vertically on your own, but it helps to have helpers support you along the way. And you can't go all the way vertically without acknowledging all your brothers in the sonship as one with you. They may not be aware of this, but you're uniting at the level of the soul, not the mind. So a blockage in their minds doesn't impact whether you can unite with their souls or not.

Either way, we all go home eventually, because we never really left.

All thoughts create form at some level. This is because thoughts (ego thoughts) are ideas about separation. Regardless of their specific content they are always separation ideas.

Separation ideas always therefore lead to "form" in some way.

What this means is, the idea of separation from God, having that tiny mad idea, AUTOMATICALLY means that form MUST come from it. Form must be the end result of an idea of separation. The thought ITSELF shows up as form - separate images appearing real, and eventually being so "firm" that they seem like solid matter.

Form results from thoughts of separation because separation requires us to make an illusion of how two things are different and disconnected, not sharing space or properties. These illusory appearances make it seem like separation is real and result in the illusion of "separate objects".

Any ego thought therefore emphasizes separation between illusions. As the division between thoughts intensifies, or becomes more "dense", it HAS to eventually lead to the illusory manifestation of what we would call "physical solid matter" - a physical universe - which is essentially just a very heavy/serious thought.

Or to put it simply, the mad idea of being separate from God HAD to create a physical universe. It is a completely logical progression and consequence of having such an idea. Form derives from separation.

If separation is perceived or believed to be real, some kind of universe of forms, to some degree, must seem to manifest.

Before the physical universe there were also prior "stages" if you will, subtler levels of this, which have produced additional levels in the dream. Other dimensions. These are all part of the same ego holographic dream and many of these levels feature form to varying degrees.

As Jesus says for example, nighttime and waking dreams differ only in their forms/content. Being in the physical world is nothing more than being inside the tiny mad idea of separation. It is just an idea, and is not really happening. This is why the physical universe is an illusion. It's an illusory thought of separation - a thought of impossibility.

When you can recognize the illusion correctly, you have completed forgiveness. This means being able to transcend and overlook the thought which has made the physical world. Seeing the truth of this, is seeing the "real world", ie the true nature of the worlds of form (which may pertain to physical level as well as higher levels/dimensions of form).

Overlooking illusions makes them disappear. Overlooking the thought of separation makes it, and everything which has come from it (is inside it), disappear. This is why the physical and other higher dimensional universes MUST eventually disappear, or rather be recognized as having been nothing more than a dream/illusion to begin with. Illusions recognized must disappear. The tiny mad idea, recognized as purely false, must end.

Only Heaven is reality, the home of Immortal Spirit. Only Heaven will be left when all of these illusory universes disappear. Only Heaven is the Home of God and the Son of God. Only Heaven, God's Creation, is the real truth - the real universe of oneness.

If all moments of time were expressed all at once before time existed, then it seems to make sense that "the future" has already been determined because it has already been expressed.

If the "script" of all moments in time was "written" ie put into place, all at once, then within linear time the future is essentially pre-written.

Also if you time travel, whenever you go into a moment in the past, you will find that you experience it as though it is the present - as if "now" is 1952. Similarly in the future, no matter what the date, it will seem that "now" it is that time.

This seems to suggest a sense of "fate" or destiny, whereby whatever will happen or is happening or has happened was all written at once, not on a moment-by-moment basis.

The Holy Spirit nevertheless is able to collapse dimensions or segments or time, based on your learning of lessons.

There are references to "all the dimensions of time" in the Course, suggesting that there are perhaps multiple timelines - all pre-written, and you might shift between them.

It is also said that when we separated and made the world, Holy Spirit came with us and had a hand in organizing it. "There are two makers of the world". So now all the stuff we made, that we pre-wrote, has been restructured in some way to lead to heaven.

This all seems to suggest that we're just strapped into some kind of rollercoaster ride with no choices, as though we are just the movie itself playing. If this were the case, there is absolutely no "choice" or freedom in this scenario.

Yet think of Jesus performing miracles, undoing and reversing sickness, overcoming death, becoming free of the script entirely, able to manipulate objects and defy all of the laws that were made by the ego. It would seem that he attained freedom and the flexibility to not be bound by the script. We would say now that He is completely free of it, able to do anything.

So, the script is only in play if you are in the ego and remaining unconscious? Based in the perception that stuff (script) happens to you against your will? How can there be any victimhood script when you are choosing not to be a victim, not to play along?

It's not as though you are forced to be a victim to the same degree and intensity right up till the moment of awakening. And let's remember that events are designed by the one who has your best interests, Holy Spirit.

It is also said there are two scripts. Since Holy Spirit had a hand in reorganizing and repurposing what we made, not just as a 'way of looking at it' but to actually rearrange time and the sequence of events, there was the ego's attempted purpose for what it made, and then there is Holy Spirit's use of it. A use which we need to learn to trust.

If all events here are lessons and we're not supposed to be hanging out in a make-believe world anyway, it seems to suggest we are to simply follow Holy Spirit's plan and trust Him and eventually this will lead to the gates of Heaven.

If we are simply "wearing" a lifetime, like a piece of clothing, for purposes of waking up, to use it as a choice to experience a certain set of events as a certain person, then it doesn't seem quite so restrictive.

Has everything been made already, or can you change anything at all? It would seem you can change things. Miracles, right? Miracles reverse what we made. Miracles undo the script.

For many, ACIM is about self help and doing the lessons and trying to get back to a simplified idea of God/reality. But the scenario of what is happening in this world, why we're here, and what we're returning to, is part of a big picture "story" that I don't really see talked about a whole lot. At least not in fully encompassing terms.

Basically we existed as eternal beings in heaven, God's sons, and he had also created the angels etc... and everything was groovy, and then this separation thing happened, there was "war in heaven", a split, and the descent into "hell" through the making of hierarchies of illusions, levels, dimensions, worlds etc... and we ended up with this physical universe.

And now God has created the Holy Spirit and is sending his angels to guide and support and educate us, to help us to come back home to our heavenly home. Which means... drumroll.. this entire world is like a DEVICE which heaven is using as a mechanism for bringing home all of the lost souls who attempted to war against God. And the whole purpose of this world is for the lessons and learning - the curriculum, which has been set up by God, by which we might learn the truth and return willingly to cooperation with God's will, freely.

When people for example have near-death experiences they go and encounter these situations, where they are having life reviews and meeting with God and talking to spiritual beings and all this stuff, and then being sent back and "its not your time" and so on... script to be fulfilled, lessons to learn etc.... and so you get this overall picture that this world is not just some random world that we're trying to wake up from, and we're not just trying to wake up to an nice sanitary idea of "reality" or "oneness" or "non-duality".

There's way more to this story. And there's an entire foundation for "the fall of man" and how we got into this mess, and realizing that this world IS the mess we made of reality, and how we now need to clean up the mess and go home. And that means that despite all the theories that various people have, despite all the religious beliefs, despite all the concepts of why we are here, the scientific models, bla bla bla, agnostics, atheists, whatever, basically underneath everything it's TRUE that we all descended from heaven, fell in the "tiny mad idea" which really was a huge monstrous idea, are now having go through a special curriculum for salvation, and eventually will be ready to return to God's Kingdom.

So all this sort of Christian-religious stuff about heaven, making hell, believing in sin, suffering, death, illusions, trying to be separate from God, authority problem trying to oppose his will, angels helping us, there being scripts and curriculums, life lessons that are orchestrated before birth, all this stuff, it's all actually quite correct. It's all part of this huge PLAN, the atonement plan. And all because of what went on in heaven, the fall of man, the descent into hell, and the subsequent need for the atonement to correct us and restore us to awareness of love's presence.

But I think we get really out of touch with this a lot in the course community, drifting off into these intellectual models of what the course is about, vague ideas of oneness/reality, somewhat clinical God-less models, and a whole bunch of skepticism about anything not "explicitly" mentioned in the course text. We get rather narrow and start to see things through a kind of "ACIM filter", through which we filter OUT stuff that doesn't seem like it's mentioned in course lingo etc. But if you look all this stuff is in there. It lines up quite significantly with what the bible says albeit that a lot of the bible stuff is somewhat distorted. But it has the basics down.

We are part of a giant classroom, in which the atonement plan/curriculum is playing out. And this is precisely the same atonement plan that is to do with our incarnations, our themes and scripts for our lives, our lessons that we agree to, the mighty companions and angels that help us, spirit guides, the astral plane and other dimensions, and the fact that no matter what anyone in the world believes they are ALL part of this same scenario. We're all in the boat of "wanted to be separate from God" and "made worlds to live in apart form God" and are all in various ways trying to find our way back because that's what God wants.

For some it's more accepted than others. For others they don't even think any of this is true, and fixate on various other explanations for why we exist. For many ACIM is just some nice little tiny behind-closed-doors self-study "course" with very little to do with this huge big story of how we got here.

But we can't change the facts. We're living the curriculum that God established to correct the separation. This world isn't just some scientific experiment. It's not some virtual reality. It's not just a random chaotic environment. It's a school - repurposed from the hell we made, designed to lead *everyone* of *every kind* of civilization back towards the reality of heaven, our true home. There's no way to avoid this fact. We can deny it and believe other things but this is the underlying "framework" that encapsulates this whole world.

God is using this world as a device to bring us back to God. The whole thing. It's one giant school for learning, to lead us back to awareness of love - back to God, back to the Kingdom that we fell from - where we are safe in God, dreaming of exile. This world is the exile. Going home to God is the goal for everyone, regardless of how much they accept it or are aware of it. This is why Jesus calls it "the universal curriculum". Everyone is part of the plan. There are no exceptions. Even people not "doing ACIM". Even the atheists and scientists. Everyone is part of this. "The great awakening".

Ok so, various people have expressed doubt that there are "levels" in ACIM or that this is in any way important or useful. So I thought I'd ramble on a bit about this from my point of view. I can see this being somewhat controversial.

The first thing is this.

Jesus wrote ACIM and he is not in a body, and throughout the Course we're taught we are not a body. That's even today's workbook lesson - I am not a body I am free. That doesn't mean, oh, you're still IN a body but it's not you. Also the course says at no time does the body exist. Ok. So.... WHERE do you exist? Where is there no physical matter? Not this universe.

Clearly this means there is some other seeming 'place', if you will, in which mind - spirit - is able to exist, which does not require a physical form and has nothing to do with the physical world, which, by the way, is not real.

So here we at the very least have 2 `levels`. The level of the physical world of form, and some other spiritual level. Sort of like a 'dimension' if you will. It's non-physical. It's where you end up when your body dies. And its the stopping off point between lifetimes.

Now, each 'level' has to be like a 'place' of sorts.. which the Course refers to as a 'universe'. And if you read the text carefully, when it mentions universe it uses that exact same word even though it's sometimes referring to the universe of form, and sometimes referring to the universe that God created. ie reference to at least some other non-physical level or experiential existence.

So if you don't believe there are levels, and you read the course talking about 'universe' in this way, and you don't discern exactly what that relates to given the context, then you're going to assume it's always talking about the physical universe. And then when it makes statements about 'universe' it's going to throw you into a whole bunch of confusing misunderstandings and ego interpretations. You'll attribute all kinds of 'truth' to the ego universe because you think the course is telling you this is the case.

The course is often quite subtle about this, and it also shifts around quite a lot between which 'level' of experience it's referring to, without necessarily giving you a nice obvious disclaimer that it's doing so.

Now, this other universe, the spiritual universe, also has to be broken down into sub-levels because there are parts of the course which speak of certain truths which cannot possibly apply to a separate place like that. For example whenever the Course speaks of 'heaven', and of 'souls', and of 'Gods Creation', and of 'knowing', and 'oneness' and all these interesting things, they often refer to the very highest 'level' of the metaphysics - heaven if you will.

But then at other times the course speaks of things like the sonship, alluding to you having multiple brothers, a brotherhood, not in terms of all brothers being ONE SON, but in terms of a multitude of sons. Also the urtext speaks of multiple souls. Now, in terms of the metaphysics, it does not make logical consistent sence to group together references to these 'sub-level' ways of looking at things with the highest-level way of looking at things. If you do that, then when the course refers to something like heaven or knowing or whatever, or the son of God, you will lump it all together under a general umbrella of 'heavenly spiritual stuff' and make the only distinction that this apparently is 'not the ego' level. This will result in all manner of confusions, misunderstandings of meaning, wrong implications, false conclusions and just a big mess. The metaphysics will break, the course will become inconsistent and you won't be able to understand it.

So now at the very least, there is a level of heaven, a level where the sonship exists as multiple sons, a level of christ where there is only one son, and a level of the physical universe where the ego plays out in duality. This is all quite clearly in the course text throughout and referred to in multiple ways and in multiple contexts. And if you read it and if you understand what it means, then when you read about christ you know that its referring to the unified one son and when its referring to sonship or brotherhood you know its referring to the level of multiple sons.

So there is a level of the metaphysics, which has its own 'universe' and its own 'state of mind', like a 'place' of experience if you will, for each of these aspects of the course. This is the structure of the dream that the ego made. Different levels of 'splits' in the one mind. And these are on a colossal scale. Astronomical. The ego dream comprises separation from God, resulting in a separate son 'level', and then a split into a sonship/brotherhood which is a whole other universe/level, and then there's the level just above the physical (level 2) where the holy spirit resides, and then the physical level. All of these levels are explicitly referred to in the course and if you really can grasp the logical and subtle implications of every thing Jesus says in each section, you can tell that these levels 'exist' in the metaphysical structure.

So now, if you don't believe in these levels, then as mentioned, you will draw all kinds of false conclusions. It results in all kinds of behaviors where you try to attain states of mind/being/experience which are extremely far beyond the 'level' of the dream that you find yourself on. You generally can only transition to the next highest level, one level at a time, you can't easily jump to the top - to heaven. Holy Spirit is on level '2', in a different 'dimension' if you will, which is where we all are being asked to get to as our main next step. When we try to move beyond that to things like awareness of the sonship, total equality, oneness, christ-mind, etc... we basically CANNOT do it and it leads us into all kinds of ego deceptions - a spiritualized ego.

The spiritualized ego is what happens when the ego, or shall we say the mindset, of a given 'level 'of the ego's total dream, attempts to transfer itself to a higher-order level of existence. It tries to KEEP its mindset (e.g. level 1 ego duality) but at the same time take itself to the next level where there is really a totally different mind (Holy Spirit's mind). But this is impossible, of course, but this doesn't stop it trying. And this creates a great amount of specialness and fake spirituality and fake progress and ego images and behavioral fuckups which call for sacrifice and illusions and all kinds of madness. It's not possible. We have to let the 'mindset' of level 1 - the ego - we have to let it GO, detach from it, so that who WE are can travel up to level 2 and proceed from there.

So anyway... if there's only one level, or even only 2 levels, you will develop a spiritual ego from it because it will lead you to so many false conclusions and so many attempts to greatly spiritualize lower-order levels of existence that cannot contain those truths. The lower mind cannot grasp and experience the higher states.

If you read the Course with these levels in mind, it is much more clear where and when Jesus is referring to certain specific levels of the dream - different dimensions, different universes, different mindsets and different aspects of the metaphysics. Also if you look at your own 'course attitude' based on these levels, you will see that you've been attempting to become an achiever of very high-level metaphysics but still while being a level-1 identity/mind. This produces bliss-ninny spiritualization of the ego, and it is rife in the course community. And in myself as well. I'm just starting to realize how far this has gone.

So anyway. The levels are just a way to map actual levels of experiential existence in the hierarchy of the total dream, which comprises several 'dimensions' of which the physical universe is only one, and therefore it's really just a clear and truthful acknowledgement of this fact, allowing you to navigate realistically and to understand what the heck the course really means when it says something. Very high-level truths are of NO USE TO YOU when you are on level 1. You cannot be christ when you are a level-1 ego. You have to become level 2, then 3, then 4, then 5. It is also a relief to let go of the pressure of trying to attain such impossibly high spiritual states which are out of reach of the level-1 mind. You can attain them but your ego cannot, and until you let go of 'level 1' thinking you cannot get to level 2 yet alone up to heaven.

ACIM leads off with this:

"This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite."

It is saying that we are REQUIRED to take this 'course', and that there is some kind of 'curriculum' that is not optional.

Many believe this means that we each have an individual curriculum, which we do (a script).

But what it is also points to, is that there is a set of metaphysics which describes a kind of pre-set or structured layout to existence, describing the mechanics of the dimensions of the dream, how things are 'set up', where the truth IS (God), what the truth is not (ego), and what steps are necessary in order to find true peace.

This layout, or 'plan', if you will, is not optional. It is not something you can interfere with. It is not something you get to determine. It is a set of 'rules' or 'law' by which everything is governed. There is a law of cause and effect. There is a law that what you do to others you do to yourself. etc... these are non negotiable.

The ego thinks it has the power and freedom to establish the rules, to determine where the truth is, what laws govern existence, that you have an 'option' of living without God, that you can just make everything up to be the way you want it, that you can find truth in what is false, that you can live without God (Life), etc... the ego has this fictional idea that it is 'above the law'.

The christians would say that the ego (as the devil), is the law-breaker which thinks it can 'sin' by breaking God's laws, i.e. defying the curriculum. But we're all doing this whether we're christians or not.

The curriculum is the metaphysics. The curriculum is God's plan. The curriculum is the 'how' and the 'requirements' and 'conditions' necessary in order to return to awareness of God. It's like, a set of laws that you have to accept and agree to, if you want to play-nice with the establishment.

As such the metaphysics determines the 'way to God', so all that's left really is the timing of your willingness to ACCEPT the path to atonement, by surrendering the ego idea of self-control and the illusion of choice.

I have made a pretty big mistake with ACIM, and maybe you are doing the same. Sorry this is a bit long and rambly, I'm still coming to terms with it....

I always believed that the goal in ACIM was awakening to the awareness of God's presence, which was some kind of a singular state of being. As I read and worked with the Course it at first seemed plausible that every reference to 'what truth is like', or the high-level metaphysics, all described a single absolute state of being/mind.

I felt confused by some of the interpretations of this that other people were expressing because it seemed there was a level of truth deeper or 'more true' than what most other people were understanding. So I felt I needed to go deeper into re-reading it and re-learning what it has to say. So I started reading the urtext. And I actually learned a lot, much of which made me question what the status quo understanding was on many topics. I polished and refined my grasp of what the truth really meant, all still within this idea of 'there is only one kind of awakening', like, either you are totally doing it perfectly or you're kidding yourself.

I even saw how some people who claim to be awake were still falling short of what I believed that should really entail. I always felt a certain faith in Jesus and his example, and never could see anyone matching up to that. Yet I felt that in the Course it does directly speak to the kind of total mastery that he demonstrated. This included the ability to heal all sickness, raise the dead, have total mastery over illusions, be capable of changing form, of appearing as any kind of a body, absolute invulnerability (literally), not dying simply because you choose not to etc. I had Jesus practically flying around the room.

The thing is, all of the metaphysics in ACIM seemed to point to this potential and it made total logical sense to me that we "should" be able to wield total power over all illusions. Just like Jesus. So I had in my mind this kind of very high-level 'goal', which was very lofty, which I thought we were meant to strive to achieve. That was my idea of what it means to be fully awake, and anything short of that was not it. I felt frustrated that some people were saying they were awake and yet were clearly not demonstrating Jesus's level of mastery, and so of course that led to judgement but also confusion. Why was the Course saying one thing and then other things were happening? Why were people not matching up to Jesus's level and how is it possible there (obviously) has been an awakening of some kind in some people and yet they still can't raise the dead? The Course clearly spoke of some extremely high-level truths and implications which nobody seemed to be getting.

Well. As it turns out, the Course actually encompasses several "levels" of metaphysics. I had no idea of this, so I was always lumping everything together as a kind of super-level and then trying to attain that. I had no idea about this until Michael Murray started to bring forward this information about "the levels", or rather, the timing of me stumbling upon his videos and being ready to listen. Basically, there is much more going on than it appears, and without this extra information you'll make the huge mistakes I've made.

In very brief summary... this physical universe is only one of several levels or dimensions of the dream of separation. These dimensions are all states of mind but they also, to our senses, appear to be 'places' which have entire universes of their own. The physical universe is the lowest level. Above this there is a "spiritual universe" which is also the level at which the Holy Spirit resides. You might've heard it referred to also as the astral plane or similar. These levels are btw somewhat referred to in Hinduism and some other religions and you might be more familiar with them if you are "new age". Anyway.. above "level 2" the Holy Spirit's mind, there is a level 3 where our "higher self" resides, and also this is where angels seem to exist, the akashic records, and also this is where "the sonship" is - as separate higher selves. Above this level there is a fourth level which is the level of Christ where the sonship is ONE. Jesus 'the higher self' was the first to transcend the previous level and unify as Christ. Then above this level is Heaven - God.

Ok so... here's what I did totally wrong and this is where my spiritualizing ego got totally screwed up, and this is also probably where you are doing the same. Clearly, because there are levels to the dream beyond the physical, there are effectively different levels of awakening. This also means there are different levels of 'capability' and mastery (someone at level 3 does not have mastery over level 3 because to do that you must be on level 4). Also because of these levels, there are certain "capabilities" that are only possible at certain levels and there are certain 'parts' of the Course that are directly related to certain levels, e.g. the 'real world 'is a very high level thing (and nothing to do with the physical world). This also reveals that the Course itself 'speaks' on many different levels, in other words, in relation to different dimensions of the dream and different universes where the experience is on a whole different level. Truths which apply on one level totally superceded stuff on the levels below, so as we ASSUME that all of this is just ONE BIG LEVEL, or 'the one goal', we get really messed up and confused about what's being asked of us.

Also because of these levels, typically in order to go "up" the levels you need to go in sequence. You can't just jump to the 5th level or just pop into heaven when you're still down at level 1. And pretty much most of us are on level 1, me included. So here's the huge mistake I made.

In assuming there were no levels, and lumping them all together, and in becoming aware of the Christ-level truths in the Course, I created for myself an extremely lofty Christ-level goal, comparable to Jesus. Because I can see the parts of the Course which DO speak of/from this level (all of the course comes from the Christ level but speaks OF or as-if from other levels also), this 'highest truth' level became my concept of "the only level" or "what awakening means".

So I was basically down here on level 1, with my big ego, and trying to BYPASS all the way up to the Christ level in one straight shot. I wanted to embody and encompass ALL of the characteristics of Christ, in a kind of all-or nothing grand-master-of-the-universe power-over-everything ultra-mastery i-can-fly-around-the-room-if-i-like-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it sort of ideal. Anything short of this was "not good enough". So now I had this hugely lofty "should" or how I am supposed to be, or what I'm supposed to get to, or what I need to realize etc. And this also included this HUGE burden of 'what I am responsible for'... as if I caused the entire universe and everything in it, all by my little ego level-1 self, which is NOT true.

Having this extremely lofty goal of "be Christ", bypassing all of the levels that are REQUIRED to go THROUGH in order to get there, put an ENORMOUS BURDEN on my shoulders. A huge weight of guilt at falling short and not even barely being able to accomplish it. And believe me I tried, really hard. I even attained some small ability to bring about healing through Holy Spirit, some of the time, in small amounts. And I KNEW that the parts of the Course that speak of the Christ-level were true. So this kept me dangling from a thread, chasing after this carrot of perfection and power, but falling way short. All this did was put PRESSURE on me (and my wife) to match up to this enormous responsibility which is far beyond what 'I' (level 1 me) am actually capable of. Yes my Christ self IS capable of such things, but that's way above where I'm at or can even GET TO or ACCESS from where I'm at.

The truth is that we are only really capable of going from level 1 to level 2. The first awakening. Some people bypass this and jump to level 3 but only in extreme rare circumstances. The rest of us can only, and are only really asked to, go from level 1 to level 2, which in Course terms meaning letting go of the persona and shadow and aligning with Holy Spirit's mind and letting go of the *physical* world level. This lets us be in the "spiritual universe", or to move up from there. But we can't just jump to the top, especially not WITH the ego. And that's what we're all trying to do - a huge spiritual bypass in which our ego gets to try to be Christ.

So this is a blow to the ego. Here's little me down in level 1 world believing that I'm oh-so-spiritual, advanced, getting ready to graduate, believing that I'm more spiritual than others, and finding out that I actually am probably on this level BECAUSE I am still on level 1. Hah. Not level 2 or 3 or 4 or 5... level 1. Sucks! lol ... BUT the freedom comes from this realization..... you don't need to try to be Christ. You don't need to even try to be the higher self or to jump up to that level. You ONLY need to get to level 2 - the Holy Spirit's mind. So this somewhat lets you off the hook.

It means that you can drop all of huge expectation that you're putting on yourself to be Christ-like. It means you can stop trying to raise the dead or expect yourself to be able to. I have to tell you, I recently got a 'sty' in my eye and it was sort of infected and stuff, unsightly and uncomfortable, and I really dug DEEP into possible causes and unforgivenesses in attempt to heal it, because I was really convinced I was SUPPOSED to be able to just 'make it go away' with my mind. I did some healing, yes, but the dam fucker did not change. It didn't just disappear. So this was a blow to the spiritual ego, which thought it had to be Jesus-like or that it could. And I had to accept I just cant do that. Fuck it.

But this is really a relief. It's a huge relief to realize that you do not have to "try" to be christ. You do not have to be responsible for stuff that is in "the script" - a script written by and powered by a mind far huger than yours is now. You don't have to try to be this dead-raising master. You don't have to turn water into wine or be some extraordinary guru. You're not capable of that until probably the 5th dimensional awakening. You don't have to blame yourself for all the shit that comes from the unconscious mind that you are not consciously choosing, as if it's all your fault. You don't have to own every single little thing that happens as if, just by it happening, it proves that you SUCK and that you're a total course failure. You don't have to keep beating yourself up for "not doing the course right" ie not matching up to the kind of capabilities that you pretty much CANNOT accomplish until you ARE at the Christ level, which is not going to happen until you've at least gone through 2 or 3 other levels of awakening.

So there's all this huge weight of guilt and expectation that we've all been putting on ourselves because we're all trying to live up to this extraordinary goal of being Christ when, in fact, from this level 1, we can only really be expected to get to level 2. It's true that there is no world and its just a dream and that the Christ mind can create planets... ok... but little me, little you... at level 1, no, there isn't going to be any planets getting made. So that's not something you can be responsible for. We have this hugely inflated spiritual ego (ok, speaking for myself, but I bet you do too) that's trying to claim the "power" of being Christ while still being very limited and incapable.

We have to stop putting level 3/4/5+ realities and responsibilities and powers onto our shoulders as level 1 ego folks and stop expecting ourselves to live up to this hugely lofty standard. WE have to accept that we are NOT at the level of Jesus and probably very few people are going to be. We have to accept that even the best of the best of the ACIM teachers aren't even at that level. Not even the enlightened gurus and yogis necessarily at that level. All we need to do is do our SIMPLE job of forgiveness and development of trust in Holy Spirit and come into his mind and accept his truth and his way of perceiving. The other levels and the potency and power of those other levels will follow on from there naturally as the 'next steps'. But we can't just bypass and jump to those steps. And we have to admit we've been doing this, our spiritualized egos are about to POP, and we can take a big sigh of relief that we're NOT supposed to expect such huge things of ourselves.

This should relieve us of all the guilt, all the sense of failure, all of the exasperation at not getting it, all of the fear and guilt and frustration that we have to accomplish Christ-level capabilities otherwise we're going to die, etc. We have to strip it all back. Let go of the highest goals. Focus on the NEXT step which is just getting to level 2 - Holy Spirit's level, and letting go of the idea that our LEVEL 1 EGO is EVER going to be capable of being at the Christ level, LET ALONE even level 2. And yet it's trying. It's been trying hard this whole time to live up to some kind of universe-creating mega goal. It loves to. Even though it's a total failure at it. So we can at least admit, we don't have to think of ourselves as total failures any more because we were never meant to be level-5 ego's to begin with.

All this comes from the clarity that the Course contains levels, that we're on level 1 trying to get to level 2, and that everything else is irrelevant. Yes at some point we will create planets but not today. First things first. One step at a time. We're getting ahead of ourselves and our expectation and fear of not being able to match up to the high-level truths is, thankfully, not even being asked of us right now.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

There are multiple levels/dimensions to the overall dream, of which the physical world is just one. The dream is not just the physical world. And awakening from the physical level is only one step in full awakening. For example:

Heaven

Christ consciousness (one son)

Higher Selves (realm of the sonship)

Spirits/souls (astral plane)

Physical (solid form)

Maybe I missed one or two.

Basically, the physical world IS NOT the only realm of the dream. There are higher levels of the dream also.

But also WITHIN the physical level, there are also levels. This is because there's a hierarchy of illusions. And also because there is time.

The levels within the physical realm are to do with where you are on your personal spiritual path/curriculum and what is the 'next' thing for you.

When you try to jump too far ahead of where you're at without genuinely completing the lessons needed, you 'bypass'. Typically this includes denial.

This also happens when a teacher, who is further along the path, comes along and exposes you to a light that is more inclusive than your current awareness.

They've appeared in your dream because you're ready to learn and they are ready to teach. But they might only show up for a short time, or a longer time, or a very long time depending on the relationship (see manual for teachers).

Sometimes you will be exposed to teachers who are way further along the path than you are. This will induce a lot of resistance, threat, unwillingness, guilt/inadequacy, and especially comparing yourself to them and finding yourself lacking.

So you need to be careful that you aren't trying to 'take on' too much before you are ready. So yes, this actually means, sometimes you will try to force yourself to be where a more advanced person is at, before you are ready, end up 'shoulding' yourself to bits, and this will only make you SUFFER.

So in this way, there are 'steps' or levels - sub-levels - within the level of the physical world. So when you try to skip a level/step and jump ahead too fast, you'll just get confused, frustrated and scared.

One step at a time. One foot in front of the next. If you try to skip ahead to future stepping stones, you'll slip and fall in the water.

As much as you are willing and ready to accept, given where you're at. And it's ok if you are slow. And it's okay if you do not get what the advanced teachers are expressing - they're not meant to be your teacher yet.

"Those who are to meet will meet". So let Holy Spirit decide what is the next right thing for you to learn and from whom. And you might also find that you begin to attract the right 'students' as well, who just appear out of nowhere because they're ready for what you're offering. You can help those who are a few steps behind you. But those who are far behind, maybe its okay to let them be taught by someone closer to where they are.

Gently does it.

Separation from God follows a perfectly logical sequence of consequences. The Holy Spirit's thought system is perfectly logically consistent, and so is the ego's. Everything which arises in the ego's thought system is a completely logical progression based on the dynamics of being separate from the truth.

It is possible to derive from the separation an entire metaphysical structure which puts into context everything which MUST happen and DID happen as a result of it. This includes the proper recognition of what the physical universe is, what the other dimensions/universes are, where it all fits into the picture, why bodies were made, and why there is death.

Regardless of whether you are an ACIM student or not, if you understand precise irrefutable logic, it is possible to see the true metaphysics behind the Course. What has happened in the ego split mind MUST happen in any split mind.

There is essentially nothing "special" about the ego's dream and nothing special or unusual about what has happened in it. There is nothing special about ACIM's metaphysics and there is nothing unusual or exceptional or out of place. There is only one way to separate from God, and there is only one outcome that results from it.

You do not need to go on a quote-fest, or nit-pick individual words, or dwell on whether Jesus said it in the course or not, in order to figure this out and be clear about it. In fact, if you can grasp the metaphysical background of existence then it will even clarify for you what Jesus meant in the Course when he said certain things, rather than having to rely on your own "best skills" at trying to grasp what it means.

There is nothing out of place in the ego's dream. Everything which has happened in it has been a completely logical progression of consequences and is perfectly consistent. There are no loopholes. There is nothing which just so happens to have happened for "some reason". What has happened is ONLY what had to happen and nothing else. The ego's dream is a closed system. It is entirely predictable.

There doesn't really need to be debate about what the Course does or doesn't say or who has authority to say it or what Jesus meant or what the quotes seem to suggest. Jesus wrote the Course FROM a mind which understands with perfect clarity a metaphysical context which ANYONE can access and understand and express from. If you don't grasp that metaphysical structure, then you will fall back to relying on "the words" of the Course or what was expressed based on that metaphysical structure. And then you will become lost, because you're once removed from it.

Without seeing the perfect metaphysics you will have to lapse into personal opinion. We shouldn't really be in the business of expressing personal opinion. We should be open to learning directly from the truth itself, or the source of truth/Holy Spirit etc, what the truth is. If we do not know what the truth is, we need to be able to admit this, and be open to learning. We should not be in a constant state of arguing and debating who is right. Either we're willing to accept the truth from the horse's mouth or we're just going to get into a big fight about whose version of it is the best. This is completely unnecessary once you can see the metaphysics behind everything.

If you're open-minded to the idea that heaven is a place you can go, which is not the Earth, the retelling of a profound near death experiences will be clarifying and validating for you.

After leaving the body, we travel to a kind of summer land, a beautiful "other side" dimension (which is not Earth), complete with beautiful landscapes and people etc ... likely what we might call the astral plane or "lower heaven". Then we move on to a direct encounter with God in his higher dimension of heaven.

For me this is roughly the "structure" that I believe "exists", ie Earth and spacetime are a much denser lower-order realm, above is the astral "spirit world" dimension where people typically hang out between lifetimes etc, and then beyond that is heaven proper where we are one with God.

A Course in Miracles does lend itself to these ideas because as it states in Song of Prayer:

"If there has been true healing, this can be the form in which death comes when it is time to rest a while from labor gladly done and gladly ended. Now we go in peace to freer air and gentler climate" This "gentler climate" is the astral spirit world - still a dream perhaps but a higher dream and more beautiful than this lower denser world we call Earth. I do SOMETIMES wonder if "the real world" spoken of in ACIM might be perhaps in some way a reference to that "summer land", another dimension beyond this one yet short of heaven.

One possible clue is when Jesus speaks of rivers which never waste away - which have been spoken of in various near-death experiences.

"when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision? And AFTER vision, who is there who COULD refuse what MUST come after?"

I guess we'll find out. For sure I am firm in the belief that this physical level of human bodies and bullshit is not and never could be God's Kingdom. Beyond this world there is at least another entire dimension, if not many. When you hear people speaking of actually experiencing it, we can no longer remain closed-minded or regard the spacetime of the "physical universe" to be real, or our true home in God. Ultimately, it is nothing.

"Salvation is no more than a reminder this world (Earth/Spacetime) is NOT your home"

"The (physical) body can be made a home like this BECAUSE it lacks foundation in the truth. And yet, BECAUSE it does, it can be seen as NOT your home, but merely as an aid to help you reach the home (when you leave it behind) where God abides (in heaven)."

When I am reminded of things like this, which sometimes are thought to be outside of "acim teachings", but nevertheless hinted at by them, I feel more in touch with my own inner truth. I recall that there are indeed other dimensions, life beyond the physical, and a heaven that is not of this world.

"Your Kingdom is not of this world (Earth/Spacetime) because it was given you from BEYOND this world (Heaven)."

"Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world (Earth/Spacetime) does not exist because what they behold (Heaven) must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world."