A lie is when something false is presented as if it's true. The false thing is still false, but it is disguised as truth. This false thing is deceptive because it isn't what it seems to be. It seems true on the surface, but it isn't.

If someone presents something false as if it's true, that person is being deceptive. They are hiding what the truth really is, behind a pretend truth, which substitutes for it.

What then seems to be true is actually false, but while you don't recognize it AS false, you are fixated on it. The way that a false thing seems to be true, is what we call an illusion. It appears like truth but isn't. Perhaps its shape, its form, its color, its movement, all are a facade covering up the lie.

To fall for this presentation of something false "as if its true" is to be deceived. The presentation of this illusion is a temptation. It tempts you to believe that something false is true when it isn't. It is lying to you. If you fall for the trick you will buy into it and be convinced. But you can only fall for it by not knowing or recognizing what the truth really is.

The real truth, God's truth, is like a light which frames everything in its proper perspective. In light of what you are aware of as true, it is impossible to be convinced that something false is true. The real truth is obvious, and provided you remain aware of it, you cannot but laugh at the ridiculous efforts of illusions to pretend to be the truth. They are obviously false when you are sane.

As you lose sight of the truth, blocked in your awareness, confused about whether the truth really is true or not, you will enter into a doubting of the truth, and doubt is fear. Being uncertain what the truth is is automatically a state of fear. And so fear (and death) are the nature of all illusions.

To question the truth is the authority problem, an attempt to assert that the truth (God) isn't what it is, and is something else. It's an accusation that the truth is an illusion, that it is deceptive, that it can't be trusted, and is false.

In other words, the deceptive nature of illusions - false things pretending to be truth - is projected onto the truth to try to make out that the truth is deceptive and is "not really true." While claiming that God's truth is lying to you, the ego simultaneously lies to you with untruths masquerading as truth.

Simultaneously, that which is false begins to seem plausible, believable, realistic, convincing, possible, tempting, and seemingly true. You couldn't possibly experience it this way if you were recognizing what the truth really is. "You aren't seriously buying into that lie, are you?"

But because you don't, or have lost sight of it, or it's unclear, false things seem to "make sense", take on an air of reality, and are assumed to be unchallengeable.

The world is a lie. It is false. It was made to oppose the nature of the Kingdom of God. Since the Kingdom is the real truth, the artificial world must take on all the characteristics of something false.

That means the world must be an illusion, it must be deceptive, it must be a lie, it must be made to tempt you to believe it's real, it must seem like reality, it must seem believable based on surface appearances (forms), it seems to true, and it must also seem to block reality.

Lies also have a lot to do with honesty. Someone who is honest does not lie, is not deceived or deceptive, does not tempt sin and does not believe in illusions. An honest person recognizes what is really true AND what is really false. They go hand in hand. Only the truth is true, and everything false is false.

Someone who is honest does not deceive, just as someone who is dishonest does seek to deceive. The ego, as we call it, is a label for an attempt to deceive or be deceived. It is a symbol for "a liar", someone who is putting forth a state of something false, made of illusions, pretending they are the truth. It claims that false things are true and true things are false. It lies to you.

The ego's lies have taken on the form of a physical planet, human bodies, birds in the sky, forests and mountains, lakes and rivers and fish, weather, solar systems, galaxies and the like. These are all false. They are all illusions. They are lies. They are not what they appear to be. They are not the Kingdom of God and they are not real, but they tempt you to believe they are.

Death is a lie. Sickness is a lie. Suffering is a lie. Unhappiness is a lie. Guilt is a lie. Sin is a lie. Fear is a lie. Bodies are lies. Planets are lies. The sun is a lie. Physics is a lie. Cancer and heart disease and strokes and trauma and abuse and pain are lies. Aging is a lie. Time is a lie. Facebook is a lie. Your clothes are lies. This whole universe is a lie. Separation from God is a lie.

It's a lie because it is literally a vast illusory realm of utter nonsense, manufacturer by a "lying" dishonest mind, projected based on the lie of separation, taking on myriad forms of lies, all trying to tempt you to believe the lie. The whole world was made to tempt you to think you are a body, that others are bodies, and that the world is real. It's a big stinking lie.

"Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach."

The only way not to be tempted by the world, is to not believe in it. And the only way not to believe is to not attribute truth to it. Which means recognizing that it is purely false. To see the falseness that it is made of, recognizing it AS false, and not for an instant giving it the slightest credit as anything true or real.

You might seem to be surrounded and bombarded by a lying world day in and day out but you must not be deceived by it if you want to be aware of the truth. The truth is of God and it is completely opposite to everything this world presents to your senses.

This world is as if someone told the biggest lie that could ever possibly be told, so big, so vast, so far reaching, that it produced an entire universe-sized lie. The world holds nothing that you want. It's not your home. It's not even really existing. The whole idea of "there is no world" is telling you that the world is fiction, a dream, imagined, made up.

All lies are made up. They are like stories. We invent them. We make them out of nowhere, weave them into what seem like feasible meaningful sequences, but they are total nonsense. Like fairtytales. They're not even based on the truth. Just outright total lies. Lies of things happening and people doing things that are impossible. Things that in reality could NEVER be true.

It could NEVER be true that God's son suffers, is sick, dies, reincarnates as a horse, shits on his former grave, and is then blown up by a rocket. It could NEVER be true that anything real be threatenable or damaged or that you could ever sin against it. It could NEVER be true that you can die or really suffer in any way. And it could NEVER be true that THE LIE ITSELF can ever take the place of or have power over the real truth.

It's a world of lies, based on a lie, made of lies, telling lies all the time. The body lies all the time. There is nothing to see or hear or touch or taste or smell. There isn't even a world here. Nothing has even happened.

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

To be aware of the real truth is to be clear about what really is true, and what is false. It merely is a recognition of the truth. To accept atonement is to accept that ONLY God's truth is true, and there are no lies mixed in with it. It is not mistaken for something it is not.

It is fully embraced as ONLY God intended it, unchanged and unaltered, free of all deceit and denial. It's a state where the truth is recognized as true and false things are recognized as false. To be clear about this is enlightenment.

"Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all."

You not only have to be extremely honest you have to be ABSOLUTELY perfectly honest. Perfect honesty means fully willing to admit (allow access to) that the truth is true. It means completely accepting and supporting that truth without taking a side against it.

"The peace of mind which the advanced teachers of God experience is largely due to their perfect honesty. It is only the wish to deceive that makes for war. No one at one with himself can even conceive of conflict. Conflict is the inevitable result of self-deception, and self-deception is dishonesty."

"Honesty does not apply only to what you say. The term actually means consistency. There is nothing you say that contradicts what you think or do; no thought opposes any other thought; no act belies your word; and no word lacks agreement with another. Such are the truly honest. At no level are they in conflict with themselves. Therefore it is impossible for them to be in conflict with anyone or anything."

It means honestly presenting and representing that truth without a shred of deception, denial, avoidance, pretense, manipulation, change or distortion. God's teachers are completely honest with themselves and with everything.

Any degree of denial, any block or unwillingness to be aware of the truth, any lack of recognition of what the truth really is (via the real world then heaven), any avoidance of God, any fear, any belief in the world, any movement away from what is, is going into the lie. The state of not truth. Either you want the truth or you want the lie. Either you speak the truth or you speak the lies.

The world simply is false. It is nothing. It is not reality. It is not God's creation. It has nothing to offer. It isn't doing anything. It has no power or meaning. It produces no real consequences. Everything it depicts is false. It has no life. It has no sharing. It has no truth. The truth is not out there in the world. There is no world for the truth to be out there in.

"Earth, Heaven's opposite in every way."

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception."

"The Son of God CAN be mistaken; he CAN deceive himself"

"The mind can not attack, but it CAN deceive itself."

"The body is the instrument the mind made in its striving to deceive itself."

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.

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. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt.

Knowledge is not the remedy for false perception since, being another level, they can never meet. The one correction possible for false perception must be true perception. It will not endure. But for the time it lasts it comes to heal. For true perception is a remedy with many names. Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. They are the one beginning, with the end to lead to oneness far beyond themselves. True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin, for sin does not exist. And it is this that true perception sees.

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

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

Did you know you're living inside a giant hologram?

(this may take a bit to explain, so bear with me)...

Actually, that's only the half of it. There's a reason why you are inside a hologram, and there's a motive for making it that the ego wants to keep a secret.

The purpose of the physical universe, as a hologram (a holographic dream), is to profoundly obscure awareness of God. The ego has used it to create a way of experiencing which seems to be completely devoid of God. The physical universe was made to literally shut God out and to make it look like He does not exist. And it's done a pretty good job, because we all believe it. And you don't even realize you believe it.

As Jesus says in ACIM: "Nothing so blinding as perception of form".

So, how does this work and how does it obscure God, and why is form (physical matter) blinding? And what's this got to do with holograms?

Ok so bear with me as I try to explain, this is VERY hard to explain because it defies a lot of ego logic, so let me know if I lose you.

First we define what God is like.

God is oneness. God is omnipresent, meaning He exists everywhere. And God is whole and completely equal everywhere. What this means is, if you could think of God as occupying 'space', no matter where you are in that space, God is *exactly* the same there as He is in any other part of it. Over here He is God, over there He is God. No matter where you are in God, it's exactly the same as everywhere else.

It's kind of like if you were to take a road trip inside God you'd be driving for a while and then remark to yourself, you know what, this place looks exactly the same as the place we just came from. Exactly. Then you drive some more and it still looks exactly the same. It's almost like you aren't going anywhere. Ok so God is the same everywhere.

Now there's another part to this. This may be hard to imagine, but ALL of God is in all *parts* of God. (NB: The ego will say this is IMPOSSIBLE!) As you think of God as occupying space, and you're driving in that car to different parts of God, and its all the same, you might still be tempted to believe each 'part' or 'location' in God is actually a DIFFERENT part, but just 'looks' the same. Like, as if the whole landscape is a giant set in a movie and its all painted in white paint. You're accustomed to thinking that the stuff 'over there' is not the same as the stuff 'over here', in some way. Its sort of similar with God.

ALL of the properties of God are everywhere. ALL of the awareness of God is everywhere. ALL of the attention of God is everywhere. So then when you ask yourself, what parts of God are 'here', in this location, the answer is, ALL of Him. And when you then ask yourself, well what parts are over there in that other part, the answer is also - ALL of Him. And what about those parts you were driving through 50 hours ago... ALL of Him was there.

To the ego this would have to mean, well, if all of God is here, then there's no other parts left to be elsewhere, so elsewhere there is no God. But in God's reality, in God's 'universe', somehow God is capable of being fully present in every single part of it at the same time. In this sense its almost as if God is PERSONAL, personal and local to every single part of existence, and yet, simultaneously personal to ALL parts at the same time. (Revelations speak of this intensely personal quality.)

You could kind of think of God as though there are trillions of copies of Himself, which the ego mind might be able to grasp. Except that in God there are no separations. Absolutely all of God's being, all of God's mind, all of God's identity, all of God's wholeness, is SHARED by all parts of existence. And when you try to think of this in terms of what you are USED TO, in the physical world, you can only relate to like a large stretch of land that you call 'The United States', within which there are many different distinct places. But if this land were God, everywhere would be the same and there would only be ONE of anything. Hard to get your mind around!

Now, this is where the ego comes up with a device to shut God out.

As we know, the ego's only tool is "separation". What the ego does, is it tries to take the omnipresent oneness of God and start to make it `look like` God maybe ISN'T the same everywhere, or ISN'T fully present everywhere. The only way it can obscure God, i.e. make it seem like God has gone away, or that God does not exist at all, is to go against the nature of God. So if the nature of God is, all of Him is the same everywhere, the ego's attack will entail the idea that only PART of Him is PARTIALLY present in each location. And this implies that God is riddled with contradictory differences. (The ego is contradictory, God isn't).

So now it's kind of like, you're driving in that car through God and you notice that, some of these hills are starting to take on a different shade of color. There's some slight differences in how things look over here than how they looked back there. At first, the separation isn't strong or well defined. In fact it starts out very subtly with just a 'hint' of differences. Then as you keep driving the intensity of the separation increases, and it really starts to stand out that different parts of God are different in quite noticeable ways.

What's happening at the same time is that the ego is now suggesting, by manipulating your perception, that maybe God is not fully present here. Maybe God has some parts of Himself which are sort of 'tied up' elsewhere, or occupied or busy with something else, so he can only be partially present. And also the ego is suggesting God isn't the same everywhere. The way God is over here is not quite the same as over there, and the over-there parts are somehow distracted from being fully present here.

This is how the holographic dream is born. A hologram is the concept that "the all is in every part" - which is pretty close to the way I described God being if God were a 'space'. i.e. All of God is fully in every part of existence. If you want a primer on holograms or whatever maybe check out The Holographic Universe which is quite an interesting book.

Anyway. Basically, at the early stages of the hologram forming, a lot is still shared and things are still almost-one. But the 'density', if you will, of the hologram, increases by continued ego belief in separation. The ego starts noticing and emphasizing the ways in which different parts of existence seem not to be the same. And as this grows stronger, it starts to seem more and more as though only a small part of God is still present here, because all the `other parts of God` are apparently quite different and have become quite finite and specific, and they're all localized to other parts of existence. So what exists over there maybe does not or cannot exist over here.

As this progresses, in the mind, the hologram 'solidifies' more and more. Or another way to describe it is that, formless reality in which everything is the same everywhere starts to 'descend' into localized properties, differences, separations, divisions, fragmented identities. The more separate and clearly defined these differences become, the more the awareness of God's omnipresence, God's total attention, God's total awareness, and God's equal presence everywhere, APPEARS to be shut out of awareness. If it seems true to you that differences are real, and that you start to look AT those differences and breathe reality into them, then you will become fixated on the ways in which God is NOT THE SAME ANYWHERE.

Not only is God not the same anywhere, but this also has a dire conclusion. If you really strongly believe in the reality of differences, you must start to fixate only on the appearance of what's left. All of the different 'forms' of difference. And those forms of difference is what we call PHYSICAL MATTER. The solidification of wholeness into locality, the contraction and density of 'energy' if you will, is what happens in the 'lower levels' of the hologram. The further into separation and differences you go the more 'solid' everything starts to look, and the less there is any evidence or awareness that God is present, even AT ALL. At a certain point you would be forgiven for even believing that God does not exist AT ALL because ALL you can see are the intense, real-seeming differences of physical matter. The physical universe 'stops' God from being able to be in all places at once, or in all places equally, or in all places fully, replaced with the idea that everything is separate from everything else.

So while holograms start out subtle, or what scientists call 'diffused', the lower levels of the holographic 'dream' are much more divided and separated out and form 'images'. When you see the little images on your credit card which look 3d when you see them from different angles - those are a form of holograms. You see an image, and yet when you look from another angle, you see another image. Its as if ALL of the images are somehow 'in' the one location, SHARED. But on the level of physical matter, you can only ever see ONE of the versions of the image at a time. You can't see the 'all'. You can't see all of the angles of the little dove or whatever it is in the hologram, because it is obscured by the rules of the physical universe.

So when the Course is saying, nothing so blinding as perception of form, what it's saying is, physical matter is a very dense level of a holographic interpretation of God, which has the effect of completely obscuring any trace of oneness or all-ness, so that you fixate on only one version of one image, in which it seems like NOTHING is shared and therefore there is no God. 'Sharing' is the same as 'Oneness' so if there is no sharing (co-existing in the same space) then God doesn't exist.

In the physical world, an object does not seem to have anything shared with another object. There is no sense of there being any unity between them. There is nothing 'the same' that is exactly the same in both. This defies the property of God that all of him is everywhere. And then because the stuff that is `in` one object is NOT the stuff that is `in` another object, defies the property of God that all of his same properties are in all objects at the same time. So if you look at that matter and you BELIEVE the illusion that it is trying to SHOW you, its statement of 'what is', you will be blinded from seeing God.

Physical matter LITERALLY was made by the ego to make the properties of God totally obscured and distracted away from. If you believe physical matter does not share anything, you do not have awareness of God. It blinds you. If you do not believe that physical matter contains all of something which is also fully present in other parts of matter, you are blinded to God. Matter, in all its forms, is a giant blanket of the 'undoing' of God's reality, God's omnipresence. It is a physicalization of the idea of separation, but even moreso, the idea that God's law-defying everywhereness is NOT what existence is like, and therefore God does not exist.

It is designed SPECIFICALLY to shut out the awareness of God's presence so that, IF your mind is aligned with it and IF your mind functions according to the 'laws of matter' then you WILL NOT SEE GOD. If you SEE MATTER, you do not see God. Not fully. If you do not see PAST matter, you do not see God. If you fixate ON or look AT matter, you will not see God. Your mind needs to become able to OVERLOOK (forgive) the ILLUSIONS that are presented to you BY MATTER ITSELF.

This isn't just a matter of fixing your mind and staying in the world and not seeing God. Your mind needs to go back `up` the hologram to the point of Oneness, eventually, so that your awareness is able to discern that a) God is fully present, b) All of God is here, c) All of God is everywhere, and d) All of God is the same everywhere. If you believe that MATTER IS REAL or MATTER IS TRUE, then you cannot be aware of God. If the form of matter dictates how your mind perceives or you believe in its ILLUSION, you cannot see God. Matter is BLINDING. That is its function. And it will never have another function until it is undone.

What the ego in your mind does, is it looks at matter and uses it as a 'model' for what is true about your mind and what is true in your perception. Its illusion infuses into your mind and you take it at its word and consider it 'reality'. You buy into its illusion, its way of obscuring God, and its statements of the ways in which God is not here, God is not everywhere, God is not ALL in ALL. That is matter's message. That is the 'state of existence' of the physical universe, designed solely to shut God out - IF you believe it is real.

This also leads to another way to say, the physical universe is just a holographic dream, and it is just an illusion designed to obscure God, and NEVER will it be Heaven (because heaven is formless), and THE WORLD IS NOT REAL. Matter is not real. Separate forms are not real. Bodies are not real. Planets are not real. Physical matter is AN ILLUSION AND NOTHING ELSE. It is the illusion that God is dead and can never be real.

These are all ways of expressing the idea that God is not God, and that can never be true. And this is why eventually the physical universe WILL DISAPPEAR.

I have no idea if I explained this well or conveyed what I wanted to. I had a profound experience a few years ago which SHOWED me an EXPERIENCE of this - I experienced what it was like to go up the hologram in my mind, back toward Oneness, and how this allowed me to be AWARE of God's presence - all of His presence in every part of the dream, and how this totally defied what 'form' was trying to telling me was the truth of existence. So I speak from experience, but these things really defy the ego's logic so it's very hard to put into words. Let me know if I need to clarify something.

All is not as it seems in this world. The physical world ITSELF IS the 'form' of the egos attack on God, and IS its defense. You think you only have defenses in your mind inside your body. But the physical universe as a whole is a giant defense mechanism - IN the larger mind of the Son of God. You're literally looking at the MIND of the Son of God attempting to shut God out. That's what this world is.

"Creation is the sum of all God's Thoughts, in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit. Only Love creates, and only like Itself. There was no time when all that It created was not there. Nor will there be a time when anything that It created suffers any pain. Forever and forever are God's Thoughts exactly as They were and as They are, unchanged through time and after time is done." W320W111 urtext.

Many people have an idea in their head, before they even come to ACIM, that reality must be some kind of "oneness". It's based on their idea of God as "one great big giant thing". But A Course in Miracles has a very different definition of God and reality, so this idea of oneness has to be thrown in the trash if you want to do ACIM.

ACIM's model is that God is a creator. God is a cause. God creates many things. God has children. God has created an entire sonship comprising many sons. God's children are also creators who cause the creation of living beings. And God has also created a permanent Holy Spirit, and angels.

Without the idea of God as a creator of many things, there is no notion of God having ANY sons. There is no way to explain the authority problem or its undoing. God is now the one who separates and has to atone. There is no way for mind to be in the service of spirit. There is no way for you to be as God created you. There is no way for you to have permanent brothers to share with so that you're not alone forever. And without God as cause, you cannot have an inheritance.

ACIM's model is very very fundamental on this. God HAS to be thought of as your creator, the source, out of whom not only you but also others are created. God has to be acknowledged as your father otherwise you cannot share his power or give his gifts. God has to be seen as the cause of you and of everyone else, otherwise you are at the effect of your brothers. God has to be fundamentally acknowledged as having created A FAMILY.

This flies in the face of the idea that reality is just one thing, or its one giant expanse of energy, or there is only God being alone, or God doesn't cause anything, or that there is a kind of oneness that is all just a great big "one" without anything in it or any parts or anything to share with.

If you like, A Course in Miracles is a kind of "creationist" teaching, not that God created the Earth and bodies but God IS a creator of something. And that makes it impossible that reality just be one big blob or some void or some kind of giant emptiness or expanse of singularity. This fundamental idea of reality being "a oneness with nothing in it" IS NOT what ACIM teaches.

If someone wants a path that teaches that God is just sitting there on his own and that you are him in his entirety, then you really are barking up the wrong tree by taking this course. ACIM is not for you if you want to believe that God has no family. Or that YOU in turn are not a co-creator with your own creations. Your mind HAS TO EXTEND in order to live and to be healthy, just as God's does, which automatically implies that creation is the only true nature of anything real. Without it God is dead.

ACIM is a teaching on cause and effect, with God as cause of his effects, who inherit everything from him, and in turn become causes with effects. Reality has to be accepted as a very large "place" within which God hosts a great many things he has created. And which is forever increasing. An entire Kingdom of souls and beings and life. A Kingdom of unlimited thoughts and power and creation.

If that's not what you "like" or you think reality is not like that, then you probably should chose a different path which frames God as an inert blob. Trying to force ACIM to BE that path is just mangling its teaching, creating denial in your mind, splitting you away from the truth and producing a fairytale about not existing with no brothers to relate to. It's a shame that some people consistently assert that they have no self and there is no one else. If that were true, God has no creative power whatsoever.

God has a mind. God has awareness. God has many thoughts. God has creations. God has a Kingdom. God has power. God has a will. God has love. God feels. God knows. God be's. Gid us an author. God causes. God shares himself. God communicates. God has relationships. God is far more than just some expanse of existence.

"This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel that a course which, in the end, teaches nothing more than that only reality is true is necessary. But do you believe it?"

Before the separation from God and the fall of man, quite simply you were only as God created you, happily co-creating with God in joy and love in Heaven. That is reality. You live there forever.

But then you went into denial and believed in things which were not possible, as if they were. You denied God's will and shut out your freedom. This put your mind into a kind of sleep state. Within this state, you have dreamed of a planet, walking around its surface in a pretend body, wondering who you are and where you came from.

All that needs to happen is for you to wake up to Heaven's reality again. To simply stop sleeping, stop dreaming, come to your senses, return to sanity, and merely recognize what is actually true. God's truth is the only truth.

All you have to do is accept that the dream has not happened at all, and nothing in it means anything nor has any consequences. Who you are, in Heaven, outside of your dream world, has not changed or been affected. You still remain as God created you.

The instant that you wake up to reality, the entire dream and all its contents will be forgotten, as if they never happened. No matter how radical that seems or what it entails, the entire undoing of the universe, it will be like nothing even happened. You'll just carry on co-creating with God.

Jesus encapsulates this simple overview in this eloquent way:

"When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

So there is a really simple fact. Reality, The Kingdom, is totally real and totally safe and totally permanent. Everyone in it is happy and alive forever. Those who are seemingly sleeping find themselves in a giant dream world that they think is really happening, but is not. Not even slightly.

So what is spiritual awakening? It's merely coming to remember and recognize that only God's reality is real and there is no other reality. There is no dream. There is no sin. There is no death or sickness. There are no illusions. There is only the Kingdom. Everything is fine as it always was. You have just been having hallucinations for a while in a long drawn out dream state, so long you mistook it for permanence.

It's like, there's a giant party happening in Heaven right now A huge creative celebration. You're down here in hell pretending to be suffering and unhappy. None of this stuff even exists. There is no world. There's only the Kingdom.

It's like, there's a street party outside your window, but you're stuck indoors occasionally catching glimpses of what's going on. You long to be able to join them. Someday you fling open the door and realize there never was a wall or a house or a reason not to celebrate. You merely enter the flow of the procession of creation.

It's like, you're in your bedroom and you fall asleep and start having an elaborate dream, featuring a heroic body and all kinds of happenings. You mistake the dream for the only reality. Then you wake up, and the entire dream disappears and you suddenly remember you are in your bedroom where you really live. Nothing carries over from the dream state.

So it's kind of funny because, Heaven is totally okay right now. God is absolutely happy. All the souls and angels are having a great time. They're totally finding this whole dream world hilariously silly, laughing at how everyone down here is taking it all so seriously. Knowing from their perspective that the Heaven they are in is real, and the world we seem to be in is totally fictional. A strange realm of fantasies and imaginings.

"Heaven remains your one alternative to the strange world you made."

Everything is fine. Everything real is still as God intended. Nothing has ever gone wrong. Nothing real's been hurt. You haven't sinned. No-one ever died. We're just having a bad dream and someday we'll wake up and laugh that we ever thought God's Kingdom could be attacked or changed in any way.

"To the ego, the goal is death, which IS its end. But to the Holy Spirit, the goal is life, which HAS no end."

If you imagine that heaven is level 1, above, and earth is level 2, below, then imagine there are some giant arrows pointing in a certain direction. ..... the ego points down towards death, and the holy spirit points up towards heaven and eternal life.

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives."

All the world's roads lead to death sooner or later. The ego wants you dead. The world was made as an idea of destruction. Everything in it is designed to die. Its "natural" direction, so to speak, is exactly opposite to heaven and everything here points eventually toward death.

This is because the whole system is set up with a GOAL of death, so everything leads to it. It has a giant arrow pointing DOWN into the grave, while the Holy Spirit has a giant arrow pointing UP toward heaven via resurrection.

"The Holy Spirit uses logic as easily, and as well, as does the ego, except that HIS conclusions are NOT insane. They take a direction EXACTLY opposite, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death."

All the roads, ways, systems, paths, methods, outcomes, likelihoods, consequences, symptoms, effects, conclusions and results of the world all head toward death. The ego in its fear always induces a sense of dread that things are going to get WORSE and end up in death. This is its natural compulsion towards death and its totally unwavering focus on making everything be dead.

"This IS the "natural" condition of the separation. And those who learn that it is NOT natural at all, seem to be the UNnatural ones. For this world IS the opposite of Heaven, having been made to BE its opposite. And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true."

There is another world, which we're calling the Kingdom of God or Heaven, God's creation, which is totally opposite to this world. There, everything always is looking up and points toward life. It is a system of true "life support" and of eternal permanence. It is a system of health and wholeness and happiness and living. It is a living world of light. The Holy Spirit points us TOWARD that world just as much as the ego tries to emphasize that the ground is our final destination.

"While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

While we're in this world of death, which is a dream of death, and "without the idea of death there is no world", we must learn to trust in ANOTHER world, to look UP toward God and move in the direction of resurrection. At first this will seem very unnatural and difficult because you're so conditioned to believe that all the arrows always MUST point downward into the dirt.

What you have to learn is that all of the arrows of the world can be REVERSED through miracles, through expressions of the Holy Spirit and his teaching. By listening to him and learning of him and becoming a healer with him, you now are acting AGAINST the world and running contrary to the grain. That means the world is going to regard you as unnatural, alien, a reject, crazy, out of touch, ignorant, in denial, and lost - precisely because that's what the death-worshippers are themselves like. Death is the single biggest religion of this planet.

Our challenge then is to turn this situation around. To reverse the arrows, and bring about change in the opposite direction, which is an undoing/atonement and also a resurrecting. It restores life where there was death, it asserts life to blot out death, and it has power OVER death to implement life and resurrect. Miracles undo death, reverse sickness, cancel drastic consequences, erase pain, remove all proof of sin and attack, and re-establish the will and reign of God.

God supports only life and never death, and so must we. To be only in support of LIFE, we have to learn that we are undo no laws but God's, and the laws of the world must be broken. The impossible, in the world's terms, must be performed, in order to prove that it is death that is impossible. The Holy Spirit is here to empower us to do this because he has been sent from another world with the Power of God in him, to heal and to save and to resurrect and lead us home into the light.

"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt. The ancient Calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto his own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to SHOW him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream."

You think death is real, but you quickly forget that everything that ever 'died' is just part of a big DREAM you're having while you're asleep. This world is part of this dream and everything that happens in it is part of a dream.

All wars, all bodies, all old age, all sickness and disease, it's all just part of a giant dream. It's all happening inside a big bubble of unreality where nothing real happens at all.

There is a dream of death, there is imagined death, but there isn't any real death beyond it. Nothing permanent happens here. Nothing has any real effect on anything real. How can a dream affect reality? When bodies in this world 'die', that's still just a fictional event happening inside a giant dream. An imagined death is no death at all. That is why 'death' is reversible within the dream, because it's totally made-up and unreal, and resurrecting inside the dream is also unreal.

Outside of the dream, none of this happens. Outside the dream, you're still completely safe with God, just dreaming of exile and pretending that death is real. The you that is having the dream is completely unaffected by anything that happens inside the dream. You think you are affected as a 'figure' in the dream, while you're dreaming it, but this is just a nightmare that isn't real. The you that is outside the dream is immortal and is not inside the dream at all.

You are just asleep. As the course has said "...sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die." You as immortal spirit can have some sleep and dream about being in a world where people die and bodies suffer, but the entire thing is just a fantasy dream. It isn't real at all. It isn't really happening. And it has absolutely NO EFFECT on God or who you really are, outside the dream. All of the fallout and 'effects' of conflict in the dream, STAY in the dream. None of it touches or affects God or your Real Self whatsoever. God is absolutely unchanged by you being asleep and having a dream of something that isn't happening.

This is why you are immortal. What does it matter how many times fictional bodies die or live or suffer or have health or whatever. None of it is who you are really, none of it has any effect on your REALITY whatsoever, and none of it carries over when you fully awaken from sleeping. Where do dreams go when you awaken? They are recognized as having been just an unreal dream, they no longer exist, and nothing has happened. They didn't 'leak out' into reality and they don't have any side effects. They simply disappear.

You can play around with stuff inside the dream and you can become confused about what is appearing to happen, and you can think it is reality since you're out of touch with reality. You can think that serious stuff happens and that real people really die in horrible ways. You can think that making the body not die is important, and you can think that performing miracles is important. You can value healing over suffering. And you can value death over life. None of it is important at all, it's all an illusion. Everything inside the dream is not reality and anything happening in a DREAM has absolutely no real effects!

This is because the dream itself is just an effect. The dream is not a cause. You are the dreamer, dreaming it, and you are the only cause of it. The dream wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for you dreaming. It ALL comes from you. Every last bit of it. And that means there is NO part of it that comes from anywhere else, and there is NO part of it that has any power to 'cause' other dream-stuff to happen. If you didn't write it into the 'script' of the dream, it cannot happen in the dream! EVERY part of it is your dream and is the EFFECT of you dreaming. As an effect, everything that goes on in the dream is NOT a cause, and HAS NO EFFECT, and therefore CANNOT AFFECT YOUR REAL SELF.

One day you're going to stop dreaming and wake up to reality. And you're simply going to become aware of what REALLY exists, which is you as immortal spirit, being with an immortal God of love, forever. And you will know immediately, that there never has been any death, no wars, no sickness, no struggles or suffering, no problems, nothing. It was all just a really horrendous nightmare dream. And THANK GOD it was just a dream! All that's left is you hanging out with God in eternity, with eternal life, completely unchanged from the condition He created you in, absolutely safe from dreams of death, absolutely unaffected and unchanged. You will know - nothing that seemed to happen in the dream has happened at all. There are no real ghosts, there is no real war, there is no real suffering or sickness, there is no death, and there is no world! The whole world, wasn't real.

All that is left is God's Creation, which is all that really exists. What God Created lives and exists, and what He did not create does not exist.

Nothing real can be threatened. (Reality is unaffected by your dream)

Nothing unreal exists. (Dreams are DREAMS, they don't EXIST!)

Herein lies the peace of God. (God KNOWS there is only immortal reality, and that you are a part of it forever)

You're dreaming. You're dreaming of being inside a dream as a little body-identified self that is also a dream. This isn't reality. Nothing that happens here has any real consequences. It is all perfectly contained and not even really happening. The Kingdom of Heaven is perfectly protected from all illusions, and nothing can prevail against it.

You are safe with God and you always will be. This is why there is no need to be afraid - because there literally is nothing REAL to be afraid of. Everything you are afraid of DOES NOT EXIST and is just a dream/illusion. You need not be afraid because there is ONLY LOVE, and God has ensured your absolute safety in reality forever.

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".

I am told frequently, "let go". And I frequently have no idea what this means.

But I seem to be learning that it means I am more 'involved' in things that I should be. I am engaged with the ego, with the story, with the drama. I've gotten into it and now I am trying to control it.

I need to let go of it, step back, stop interfering, stop being caught up in it. That means being willing to drop it and to stop trying to prevent things from happening, or to force things to happen a certain way.

I feel this in my body and in my mind/emotions. It's as though, when I am not letting go, my mind has projected out like a giant 'sucker' and its latched onto someone or a story, energetically, and now it's fixated on it like I'm connected to it. And whatever happens to it is happening to me. This is because my mind has become involved and caught up in it.

So letting go then means, withdrawing my mind-sucker and just coming back to myself, coming back to just being me, just little me, simple me, detached, just being myself and not carrying burdens or trying to fix people or trying to prevent things from happening.

It's like emptying myself and dropping baggage and not being the one to carry all the weight of the world. It's freeing. I just get to like, sit on the sidelines, and observe, and not get involved. I can just be calm, then, just letting the world do its thing and not worrying about it. Being passerby

It is a scene in the mind. It is an imagined scene. A dream.

It is inside of a mind. It is made of thought. It presents images but these images are only there because of imagination.

Physical matter is not fixed and is not separate from the mind that dreams it into being. Bodies, made of this matter, are similarly just images in the mind - the mind that is dreaming the world.

You could liken it, symbolically, to as if we are living inside someone's brain. Inside someone's imagination. The universe is a giant idea. A thought. Even physical matter itself is not really physical or fixed matter, it is just an imagined idea.

It is all mind. And it is all within the mind. There is no such thing as outside the mind, and ideas leave not their source.

Objects, bodies, people, cars, houses, planets, they are all just ideas in the mind. They are being held in suspension and made to seem as though they have their own personal history and a "state" of their own, but this is entirely an illusion.

All forms are being regenerated and reprojected by the mind, within the mind, every quantum of time. Each object is completely forgotten and regenerated.

The only reason that objects appears to maintain their "state" or have a "history" over time, is because the mind that is dreaming them maintains a certain belief over time, and therefore keeps re-generating an almost identical image of form.

You think objects such as your body have a history, but they do not. They are being recreated now by the mind. What they appeared to be a year ago only seems to correlate to how they appear now because the mind that is making them keeps making them in the same way, based on the same beliefs.

Your body does not have a will of its own, or a story of its own, or a history of its own, or a state of its own. It is nothing but an image coming out of a projector. The projector is running a movie and keeps projecting a similar-looking object with similar properties, to create an illusion of consistency over time. Your body now has nothing in common with your body a moment ago, at the bodily level.

This is all happening in the mind. Inside a giant mind. This entire planet and everything happening on it is just a bunch of images in a mind. Imagination. A dream of the Son of God.

When this mind changes its mind, you can bet that the dream it is imagining is going to change as well. When this mind chooses forgiveness, you can bet that the images in the mind are going to out-picture a forgiven state of being as well.

This is why miracles - as expressions of love which CURE - and as expressions of love which DEMONSTRATE that the body has not been harmed, to symbolize the fact that the mind is unharmed, MUST be expressed on the level of "form".

This world is not just some place. It is not just a physical location. It is a place in the MIND. All of the objects in it are THOUGHTS. All of the forms and all of the so-called matter is nothing but a fluidic, liquid state of mind which can change at any moment.

It is not fixed, it is not permanent, and all of its illusions of continuity are just that - an illusion, maintained by a mind which keeps on projecting the same or similar images. That does not mean the mind cannot project different images if it wants to.

Miracles then, as demonstrations that you are healed, will manifest as the so-called "body" being healed, which means that the MIND is healed. And since the body is IN the mind, the undoing of the ILLUSION of a body will make the body change. It has to.

The body is not separate from mind or outside of mind. It is made OF mind. And if the mind chooses to stop dreaming a particular part of the dream, or to dream something different, that dream - physicality - will change.

You are living in a thought-world. It is a thought-form in the mind of the Son of God. Where else could you be but in the mind that you exist in, shared with God? There is nowhere else. There is no separate place to go.

Therefore, miracles, in A Course in Miracles, must be expressed as changes to FORM - which really are changes of MIND - whereby the "personal mind" that hides in the body and the body itself as an extension of that mind, must show up in the same way.

This is why Jesus, when he ascended, saw that his body - an image of a body - was just an illusion, and that it had no real meaning, it disappeared. It disappeared WITHIN the larger mind. The mind that is dreaming the dream. He erased part of the dream, because it was nothing more than illusory images - imagination. Clearly, if a dreaming mind decides to stop dreaming, whatever it was dreaming will cease to exist. And as such the "physical body" will disappear, IN the mind, because it was always in the mind all along.

Realize this. The physical universe is made of MIND! It is made of thoughts and thinking. It is constructed by consciousness. It is entirely within the bounds of the imagination. All of the forms and objects are just images in the mind. That is why when you change your mind, when you forgive, FORM WILL CHANGE. Because mind will change.

World events, tragedies, disasters, wars, attacks, celebrations, weddings, carnivals, shows, sporting events, whatever... all of it is happening in the mind. Its all a MIND-show. Mind events. Mind choosing to create dreams. Absolutely anything is possible. The mind could even create a fantastically perfect-looking world filled with abundance and incredible creatures, if it chooses to.

And people are collectively, worldwide, constantly choosing and creating futures which comprise of all kinds of stuff happening, because they chose to believe in it. We are changing "reality" because we are changing the dream as we go along.

And this is also why certain parties attempt to manipulate global consciousness to bring about a mental manifestation of certain outcomes. (Conspiracy theory alert! lol) - they know that mind creates this world and that mind can be coerced to create preferably futures. It's all part of manipulating the dreamer.

To believe that form will not change is purely the belief that mind is limited to the body and that the body is not inside or made of the mind. And that is a very common misperception, because that's precisely what the ILLUSION shows, if you believe it.

Your car is in your mind. Your house is in your mind. Your body is in your mind. Your job is in your mind. Your family is in your mind. Your entire life is in your mind. Even the physical stuff. It's all mental. Thus, changes of MIND, changes FORM, and that is why supernatural miracles happen.

They are demonstrations of truth, that the mind that is BEHIND the form has chosen something different, defying all of the illusory laws that the IMAGES in the mind appear to follow.

And this is also why the Course's REAL definition of "miracles" is that they are SUPERNATURAL. They defy the natural laws implied by illusions and come from a mind which is dreaming the world, easily capable of changing them and producing "healed" images of bodies.

Ultimately, a completely healed mind will acknowledge that the body does not really exist at all, and that it was just a dream coming from the mind. The mind was just projecting it and making it up. And it showed up in the "world" because the world is in the mind. And then, it will cease to dream the body, and the body will disappear.

A disappeared body is the ultimate body in perfect health, because perfect divine health means freedom from illusions and forms. Thus the perfect body is disappeared into perfection and by perfection, as the ultimate HEALING of the mind that dreamed it.

The body was made to come between the mind and God, and to make it seem like the Son of God was not Himself. It must go. And its ultimate healing is its removal. Its total undoing. This is the final demonstration that you are not a body. And if you want, you could re-manifest one later to demonstrate this, just like Jesus did after the cruxifixction.

The world is just a dream in your mind. Anything goes.

Some people say the course is about changing your mind, as though changing the body is a separate thing or not what you are supposed to do.

This is the belief that mind and body are separate.

So if you then have to choose one version of MIRACLES vs another, you'll either decide miracles are supernatural and physically transformative, or that they are only changes in mind.

The important thing is, this idea that mind and body are separate, is a mistake.

Body is not separate from mind. Body is an illusion that the mind is dreaming, WITHIN ITSELF, and is made of mind-stuff. It is idea and thought. That's all. Just an image in the imagination.

So this is where the two camps JOIN, because now if the body is an aspect of what the mind is thinking, perceiving, doing, then as the mind changes that means the body MUST change.

The two camps of "separate mind" and "separate body" are now joined by this one piece of information - that the body and mind are NOT two things. There is ONLY mind, and it encompasses the body and the world and the universe.

That now means that not only is it true that the Course is about changing your mind/perception, it ALSO means that the Course is about changing the world through supernatural means. ie, mind over matter, or the power of the mind, to demonstrate and reflect the mind's state.

So we are not living in a physical world as such, we're living inside a giant MIND. And all the objects you see are IMAGES in the mind - just ideas, imagination. And nothing else. There is no such thing as physical matter or a "separate body".

And so as the mind changes, so too do the images in the mind change, thus the world changes. This is why the supernatural aspect of miracles is actually perfectly in harmony with the Course's ideas of changes in perception.

As you look at someone's body you are looking at content within their MIND.

"The world IS perception"

This also leads us to realize that when the course talks about "the world you see" in relation to perception, we most likely have grossly misunderstood its meaning, given that we interpreted it to mean the perceptual content of our inner mind, rather than recognizing that it was describing the world AS part of our perception. This has led to all manner of misunderstandings about what the course means by correction of perception.