The simple transition which occurs as the result of A Course in Miracles, applying forgiveness correctly, is that you transition from blaming everyone else to becoming responsible.
Auto-pilot for the ego is that everything you experience is caused by everyone and everything else outside of you. When you think about that, it's a pretty strange way to live - only ever experiencing what life throws at you, reacting to it like a passive victim.
As you begin to see that the person you were blaming is not the CAUSE of your problem, that the cause is IN you, not outside of you, and that you are completely responsible for EVERYTHING you experience, you stop seeing others as justified targets for blame.
Now you begin to see that it is not really the person being blamed that has a problem. It's the person doing the blaming.
If a person is upset, it is NOT the person they are upset with that has the problem, its the person who is upset.
If someone seems to have been hurt by someone else, it is NOT that other person's fault, it is the responsibility of the person who was hurt. You cannot BE hurt without the consent of your mind. Your mind is powerful and CREATES the *response* of hurt in your body in cooperation with the attacker, otherwise your body could not possibly show effects.
All of the attention of blame and projection and scapegoating onto others, all finger pointing, all perception of being attacked, all perception that someone or something is causing you positively or negatively, and all ideas of being changed by, affected by, caused by or upset by, anything whatsoever outside of you, has to go out the window. There perceptions are false and they are incompatible with health, happiness and sanity.
Imagine realizing that absolutely nothing outside of you has ever affected you, absolutely nobody has ever done anything to you, absolutely nobody is to blame for anything, there is absolutely no-one worthy of being judged or reacted to, and that YOU are the sole responsible agent for what you are experiencing. And if this is true, then notice how freeing this is, how safe it feels, how deeply peaceful it makes you.
If the world is NOT attacking you, if other people are NOT hurting you, if there ARE no causes outside of you, and if you cannot ever be at the effect of anything in the world... you are SOOOOO safe, so protected, so calm and reassured, and so permanently transcendent of all suffering. Yes please!
Sometimes when I am upset and I am asking God to help, I am in a state of begging, and that's because I believe there is such a tremendous distance (separation) between where I am and where the solution seems to be.
As I "ask" God to "do things" (lol)... the suggestion to me by Holy Spirit is to, instead, THANK GOD. Well... in a state of upset and begging, the idea of thanking seems totally opposite of what I can muster or believe in, because when I am EXPERIENCING things happening that I DO NOT WANT, I am being the OPPOSITE OF GRATEFUL.
I seem to be having a pity party in my upset feelings and here it's being simply suggested that I lighten up and 'rejoice' in God by ACCEPTING that God IS helping or HAS/WILL help, by entering into the stream of thought which appreciates and THANKS Him for doing so.. like, it's a given, because then I am PARTICIPATING IN THE MIRACLE.
There's a world of difference between "God please help, things are so fucked", and "Thank you God, thank you for restoring ... to peace and love" or whatever.
The question is, can we love, can we be willing to rise up out of despair and actually JOIN GOD in love, and to then have a celebration party about how wonderful he already is and how much he is already going to solve this entire problem... THANK GOD.... can we jump to that from the middle of despair?
It's hard. But not impossible. Sometimes you have to have good old fit first of all and feel it all and get it out of your system to use up all that stupid ego energy. Then you might be more ready and able to reach up to the higher truth of God and align with it in gratitude.
It's a leap. And to go from 'I need help' to 'thank you for helping' also requires that I LET GO OF my ego misery pot. I mean, after all, if I'm asking for help, then I better dam well get prepared to RECEIVE THE HELP and stop just wallowing in the darkness, right? I'm asking for it, so I need to shift gears and actually open up to receiving and thanking.
Ego doesn't want to thank God for anything ;-) But this is the simple difference between ego prayers and Holy prayers. Ego prayers come from the dark and cry out in anguish and in belief at how everything sucks and there's nothing to be thankful for. Holy prayers align with Heaven and extend and express love in gratitude and happiness. Big difference. It's night and day, as well, in terms of the POWER that will come when you enter gratitude and COMMAND situations to heal instead of being a victim.
Thank you God for extending your love through me.
In ACIM, mistakenness is not the same thing as how the world generally thinks of it. If you go into the women's toilet instead of the men's, it could be a mistake. A mistaken action. If you pick up the wrong set of keys, it could be a mistake. If you leave your lunch box at the workplace, it could be a mistake. Something you intended that sort of went wrong somehow.
You could then try to turn these mistakes into sins and say that the person is guilty for going into the wrong bathroom, or a bad person for forgetting the proper keys, or stupid for leaving their lunch at work. But a "forgiving" reframing of this that says like "oh well they just made a mistake because they were supposed to go into the other toilet", isn't forgiveness. It just recognizes a horizontal worldly error within this system.
Forgiveness is higher than this. True mistakenness is a recognition on a vertical axis. It's a view from above, from a mindset of sanity and truth and light. It looks down and sees something impossible, something which cannot be true, and recognizes it as not true or real. Something false. Like a lie. And because it recognizes it as untrue, it is not attracted to it, and it doesn't turn it into something to be punished for. Instead it recognizes that the error just needs to be corrected. It was just a mistaken view, a mistaken belief, which can't be true, and the mind needs to be restored to the truth.
So if in the world, say, we take something that someone is believing or doing, based on a mistake. Let's say that they're having a sickness and coughing all over everyone. You could take this mistake and turn it into a sin. Sin does the opposite of see correctable errors, and sin doesn't recognize a mistake AS a mistake. Instead it thinks of it as a TRUTH, as something real and valid, and actual. The person really is coughing all over the other real people, how horrible. What a sinner.
To move to forgiveness then, we need to shift away from "it's a sin" to "it's a mistake". But not in worldly terms. Not in social preferences or rules about how to act around people or other made up stuff. True mistakenness would recognize that a) the person is not a body even if they think they are b) they are not really sick because they are immortal c) no-one is really suffering d) contagion is a lie e) nothing real can be threatened etc... that sort of thing. In effect that ... this whole show, this body person, this coughing, this spewing, is all FALSE. It isn't true, it isn't happening, it isn't POSSIBLE in God.
If we can see that this event isn't possible, is false, isn't true of the person, they are not really doing it, its having no effect, etc, then we can recognize that the person is in a sate of insanity and is just simply mistaken about how and what they are. They're showing a lie. They're trying to convince you sin is taking place. It isn't. We recognize there are just a bit insane, a bit mistaken, calling for love, in need of healing and correction. None of what they are doing is possible, none of it is true, none of it is happening but in a dream.
That's the kind of mistakenness that the Holy Spirt recognizes. He sees errors and does not mistaken them for sins. The ego on the other hand tries to take mistakenness and hold it against people, narrows down to focus on it, judges it, makes it out to be TRUE, believe it is HAPPENING, believes it is POSSIBLE, and is HAVING EFFECTS ... and that's all basically a definition of "sin". The idea of an attack which can have real consequences against real things.
"Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects." UrT27I6
It's kind of all about recognition. If you recognize what is possible and true in God, then you recognize when someone is MISTAKEN. Their mistakenness calls for correction not punishment. You recognize what they are presenting is NOT POSSIBLE, and can't be true, so is not actual or real. So you can't hold it against them.
If you FAIL to recognize that the person is just mistaken or "being false", you make another mistake, by mistaking a mistake for NOT a mistake..... you turn the mistake or falseness into a TRUTH, and now because it is true it seems REAL to you. Or like a fact. The person really is coughing all over everyone. The person really did go into the wrong bathroom. The person really did leave their lunch at work for the 5th time.
"The Holy Spirit CANNOT punish sin. Mistakes He recognizes, and would correct them all, as God entrusted Him to do. But SIN He knows not, nor can He RECOGNIZE mistakes that cannot be corrected. For a mistake that cannot be corrected is MEANINGLESS to Him. Mistakes are FOR correction. They call for NOTHING ELSE." UrT19D4
Largely such mistakes are easy to mistake for sins, rooted in physical stuff. All the things we do with the body, all the things in the world, are all IMPOSSIBLE. ... and they present temptations, and illusions that you can do things which CANNOT BE TRUE in God, such as being sick. If you take those illusions AS TRUTH, you believe they are real, and now the physical act is interpreted as a sin. You lock it in place as though it can't be reversed or forgiven. And now in unforgiveness you "accuse" the person of "really doing this", and justifying punishment. Who moved my cheese?!
So basically we have a mind full of illusions and insanity which is just a state of making a lot of mistakes and believing untrue stuff. That only calls for correction. But if you take that stuff and do not recognize it and do not realize it is untrue, you will MISTAKE IT for truth and now it becomes SIN. As though you're really doing it. That's the little shift the ego insanity makes. That little shift from "it's just an illusion" to "taking that illusion seriously because you're actually really doing it." Ego grabs ahold of mistakes and corrupts them into punishable acts of evil. As if you intended it on purpose.
We are just mistaken. And we are mistaken about being mistaken. And when we lift away the mistakenness about being mistaken, we'll recognize we are mistaken, and then stop being mistaken. And that is forgiving.
We're asked to demonstrate that nothing our brother does has the ability to affect us.
We're asked to show by example that our brother has no ability to hurt us or harm us or upset us or offend us.
If we demonstrate this, we are showing the truth to our brother who, if they are attempting to do something to cause us to be upset, must be mistaken about what the truth is. Truth cannot be attacked and attempting to do so is utterly wasted.
This demonstration shows them what the truth is, by demonstrating that the True Self is beyond the reach of all ego attacks and all ways that the ego targets individuals.
What cannot be affected by the world reveals that what our brother does has no effects. This proves to them that regardless of what they think they did, even if they did it seemingly intentionally, it has had no effects at all and so did not happen.
This is a demonstration that they did not really sin, or that whatever sin they seemed to do had no power to do anything to anyone. This literally requires complete invulnerability and demonstrates immortality.
If you can be sick or upset or offended or hurt by anyone or anything, you are demonstrating that you are less than immortal. "Sickness is an attempt to demonstrate that you can be hurt". - ACIM
If you cannot be hurt and are not hurt because you realize that you can only hurt yourself and you stop doing so, then nothing anyone attempts to do can hurt you. If their attempts to hurt you fails, or in other words, their attempts to sin do not produce any effects, this proves to them that sin can be undone and that nothing has happened.
This demonstration of innocence proves their innocence as well as your own. It teaches that forgiveness is called for and is present and is given, and that whatever they thought they did or whatever reason they seemed to have for doing it, it is completely irrelevant and nonsense and false and unreal.
This educates your brother that they are innocent in spite of what they think they did, which may be shocking to them but it will set them free. It will heal their mind and show them that what they believe about themselves cannot be true. They do not have the power to affect the Son of God. They do not have the power to destroy God's Creation. They have no authority over Christ and who they thought they were is not who they must be.
Be a living demonstration that this is your complete, whole truth, at all times, in order to be the salvation of the world. If you choose to go into upset and offense and reactions and fear and suffering, you are failing to fulfill this function and are in denial about who and what you really are. You are not being true to yourself. Only by being true to yourself can you be the truth to others.
You are not saving the world when you are offended by what other people do and feel hurt by it and react based on that, even if it is with good intentions or an attempt to help. You are not the salvation of the world if you keep attacking yourself and hurting yourself and then are accusing others of putting this hurt into you and are using that to justify retaliation or judgement. You are not anyone's savior if you are upset by anything anyone does or says or attempts to make happen.
These are all false attempts at salvation, designed to make it look like you care and want to save the world from suffering, but is really an attack. It is an attack on yourself and on the other person when you take their attempted attack seriously, fail to overlook it, and fail to demonstrate that it is meaningless. When you take it seriously and react to it and then try to fight with it to stop it, you are delusional and are fighting with your own self-attacking perceptions. This isn't helping anyone. It is the ego's version of salvation and is a complete lie.
You are the salvation of the world only when you demonstrate that the world IS saved from attack because attack is impossible. You are the salvation of the world only when you demonstrate that there has been no sin, can be no sin, sin has no effects, everyone is equally innocent, and God loves everyone just the same. You are only a savior when you are able to show that you are unharmed, unharmable, harmless and cannot be harming to others, because regardless of what transpires, it does not change you whatsoever.
You are immortal. You are the light of the world. You only function is salvation.
When we are playing the role of victim, of being at the effect of anything, we are out of touch with the power of decision. We think that stuff is happening against our will. Then we enter into a problem-solving mode, where we ask, "how am I going to deal with this?"
In the victimhood we feel trapped and disempowered, as if we have no choice. We seem forced to deal with whatever is happening, as though it is happening all on its own. We seem to be left with no option but to deal with it, and then we start trying to find ways to make it go away, or to mitigate it and find the least painful way out.
The thing we're then missing is that we actually chose whatever is happening, we are making it happen, and we can choose again. We have a power of decision and we are the rulers of the universe. We do not have things happen to us. We are immortal beings. We act deliberately and intentionally and everything that occurs is consciously chosen.
If we do not like what we are getting, we must have made a wrong decision because we are not at peace. We have to recognize we made that decision and we want to choose otherwise because we want to be happy. So this means owning our power and owning our choice and owning what we have already chosen, so that we can choose something else.
We then have to step into the position of decisiveness, which is fearlessness, in which we exclaim that we have the power to choose and we decide what WILL happen. Instead of dealing with cleaning up problems or trying to fix issues or trying to find ways to build defences against these horrible things that are threatening us, we simply elect to stop making such bullshit and we powerfully choose something else.
I must have chosen whatever is happening, because nothing can happen against my will or without my consent. If I do not like it or feel like it is looming over me or happening without my consent or as if it is random or chaotic or just came out of nowhere, them I am very mistaken and am not being responsible. Spiritual responsibility requires owning the power of God and using it to make a better choice.
Instead of playing with options or trying to mitigate problems, we instead decide what we do want, we completely ignore the problem, we don't bother getting into problem management or problem solving or defences, and instead we simply flip the entire mental conversation to a new path. I choose this, instead of that, and this will be my future, and this is what I want, and I elect that this happen as I have requested. And so it is.
We no longer are in the business of putting up with things, tolerating, making do, putting out fires, diminishing, avoiding, fixing things up, or trying to prevent a bigger disaster. We are now in the business of choosing what we want, and only this can happen, and nothing else can happen. We are not at the effect of the world or anything in it. We are choosers and creators and wielders of God's power.
"My Self is ruler of the universe. ... It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."
"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences."
"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."
Recently I find myself waiting for someone to decide for me what it is I will do. I even ask within to Jesus or Holy Spirit for them to decide for me. It is one thing to surrender and open up to guidance and to express from love, but part of the lesson I've been learning is that I need to learn how to make real decisions.
What has become apparent is that most of life is spent simply reacting to the world, dealing with stuff that crops up, managing day-to-day maintenance activities, working 9-5, just doing 'stuff' - stuff that everyone else wants or needs me to do. Stuff that the world itself wants me to do. Stuff that the ego is organizing to try to keep me from being responsible for my own life.
And this makes me realize just how much I have not really been decisive before and have not really known how to make a firm decision. To be causal, instead of reactionary. To really choose something, commit to it and follow through. To be so aligned with being responsible for my experience that I choose what my experience is going to be, or I choose what I am going to experience, instead of simply waiting for experiences to happen passively.
So when I go to Jesus and try to get Him to decide for me, and He remains quiet, or He nudges me, and I don't get it, it's because He's trying to get me to act from a place of certainty instead of fear. A place of knowing, instead of figuring out. A place of being tuned within, instead of tuned out. And then he says, "decide". And I'm like... yah.. I am just blowing out hot air going around in circles in what I'm calling decision making which is really just "not deciding" and spinning my wheels.
To make a 'real decision', which isn't a reaction, and which involves being true to myself, and not doing anything that I don't want to do (which produces fear).... it's a new thing.
When I am in a state of indecision, I am clueless about what to do. I don't have any sense of certainty or clarity. I think somehow it's possible to 'become clear' while in that state, or that the clarity is lurking somewhere in the midst of options and if I just figure out the right option, it will become clear. It doesn't apparently work this way. The clarity needs to come FIRST.
So the way forward is, get out of indecision. Recognize it for what it is, that it is not decision making, but decision avoidance. Get out of all of that behavior, and COME BACK to certainty, back to clarity, to confidence, to knowing, to within the heart, and THEN I rediscover an obviousness - a clear path, which I already know is the right way to move forward, which was simply sitting there the whole time with me not being aware of it. So then the decision is easy and certain. And when you make certain decisions in clarity and not in fear, then you will have commitment.
Quite often when I'm stressing about whether I'm doing the right thing or not, focusing on doing something I think I want to do but feeling guilty about it, Holy Spirit will give me a wide berth of permission. Instead of saying to stop doing it, He'll encourage me. Instead of reprimanding me, he'll suggest I even put aside things I'm "supposed" to be doing and do what it is I want to do.
There are also times when I'm doing something which seems very ego and 'against' waking up or being spiritual, and I might even be stubbornly refusing to listen to Holy Spirit's guidance. Not that he isn't speaking to me often, but that I am ignoring Him or choosing something on my own. Even then, Holy Spirit will say something like ... "its your life."
The sense of being 'allowed' that comes from this is immense. And usually just be experiencing no resistance like this, it will highlight for me and make clear whether I really want to do this or not. Holy Sprit is so non-forceful. Like, zero force. When I am expecting there to be force, or demands, or requirements, or permission, or whatever other form of guilt, He comes through with openness and acceptance.
It always catches me by surprise. I am never expecting His generous response. It's very loving. Instead of making me wrong for anything, even if I am doing something wrong, He makes me feel like it's okay, and then this creates a space in which to see clearly. Usually then when this attachment and resistance is gone, it becomes much more obvious where I really stand. And then I find myself being willing to either pursue what I was pursuing, or surrender it.
I become willing to do what He wanted me to do along, and then he turns around and says, "tomorrow". i.e. carry on doing whatever else.
It's always a blessing.
Denial can be used two ways.
1) Deny God's truth and replace it with lies.
2) Deny lies and replace it with God's truth.
One defends the ego and makes God unreal. The other defends God and makes the ego unreal.
Denial of God has progressed very far and is responsible for everything that happens in this world.
Denial of ego is the only way to resurrect and return to safety.
Sometimes, denial is combined with level confusion. When this happens, you use denial incorrectly in the name of thinking that it's making you more spiritual, but instead it's increasing separation.
Denial of the body for example could go one of two ways. You could deny that it is real, which is correct, if done as a recognition that it is unreal and not as an attack on it seeming to be real.
Or, you could be believing the body is real and attempt to PRETEND it is not there, by using denial to attack it to try to make it go away. This will separate you from it and produce sickness, instead of transcending it.
In other words, denial needs to be used honestly and with clarity. If you are "in denial" about how you are using denial, that can be a problem.
Proper use of denial will entail a clear RECOGNITION of what something IS, without avoiding it or pretending to make it into something it is NOT.
Clear perception of what the ego is, what the body is, what illusions are, is all that is needed in order to "deny the ego". MISTAKEN perception will lead to the improper use of denial, because it means you see the ego as real instead of an illusion, and will then use denial to fight with it to try to make it go away.
God and his Kingdom are a perfect hologram, in which the whole is in every part, and every part is the whole.
But then there was a separation. The separation was an event where we tried to deny the wholeness but keep the parts.
If another name for the wholeness is "non-duality" (or oneness), and another name for the parts is "duality", we tried to keep the duality and reject the non-duality. To "separate off" our selves from God, retaining only our separate selves without sharing anything.
This resulted in what we call seemingly spacetime - the dream of separation - which depicts "exclusive duality" as though it's ONLY duality with no oneness.
In spacetime we have perception. Perception can go to extremes of denial and acceptance of God. In false perception it rejects the oneness entirely, while in true perception it accepts it.
True perception shows you "the real world", which is another way of saying "the world as it is without the distortions of your insanity projected onto it".
This "real world"... has a quality of WHOLENESS. This wholeness is sort of like a dream version of oneness. It is also called the face of Christ. It's like the wholeness aspect of God's divine hologram but in dream form - as a "picture".
So as you reach the real-world level of perception, you're entering into a sort of holographic experience of spacetime. That is, you are accessing a sense of oneness and wholeness and unlimitedness, in which you expand to the size of the universe and seem to contain all of it within you.
In this view, you see that the whole is in every part. Every object's separateness no longer "means" or "tells you" that separation is true. Instead, you see the WHOLE reflected in every part. As though, all of the PICTURE of wholeness is present in every individual object.
This isn't merely the same as waking up and being more alert and seeing the same separate objects head-on with some kind of enhanced alertness. It's a mindset in which you have this greatly expanded wholeness, a sort of reflection of oneness, which is seen to TRANSCEND all boundaries and separations.
This transcendental experience shows you that the REFLECTION of God is in every part and speck of matter ("God is in everything I see"). All of God is pictured "in" every grain of sand. Not simply that God has squeezed himself into one grain, but that he is simultaneously in each and every individual grain, and not in any kind of compromising way either. ALL of him is in EVERY part.
Note however the main difference between the holographic experience of spacetime and heaven, is that heaven is an ACTUAL perfect hologram, whereas spacetime is an IMAGE OF a perfect hologram - a PICTURE. This is why it's also called the FACE of Christ and not Christ itself.
So in our waking up here in/from this world, we should expect to find that the seeming separate differences of objects matter less and mean less. Their forms don't tell us of a hierarchy. All differences become equal and irrelevant. We overlook them, which is forgiveness. And instead of focusing on letting the forms BLIND us to a oneness, we instead see a transcendental oneness pervading the forms and showing that the forms are a way of OBSCURING the hologram.
I have had an experience of God some years ago in which I came to this experience and saw very clearly this exact dynamic, in which the WHOLE was seen in every object, and each part contained ALL of God. And this revealed to me the way that when you focus on the separate objects and forms they OBSCURE the fact that God is all-in-all, and instead present a "broken picture" in which there is NO WHOLE IN ANY PART. And that's the difference between true perception and false perception.
I found a couple of segments in ACIM that speak to this sort of "holographic experience" of the world. Note here when it talks of a "picture" it is saying an image, not the ACTUAL thing but a PICTURE OF it - once removed from it.
"The Holy Spirit's Function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God, and put the pieces into place again. This holy picture, healed entirely, does He hold out to every separate piece that thinks it is a picture IN ITSELF. To each he offers his identity, which the WHOLE picture represents, instead of just a little, broken bit, which he insisted was himself. And when he sees THIS picture, he will RECOGNIZE himself. If you share not your brother's evil dreams, this IS the picture that the miracle will place within the little gap, left clean of all the seeds of sickness and of sin. And here the Father will receive His Son, because His Son was gracious to himself." URT28E7
"I thank you, Father, knowing you will come to close each little gap that lies between the broken pieces of Your holy Son. Your Holiness, complete and perfect, lies in every one of them. And they ARE joined, because what is in one IS in them all. How holy is the smallest grain of sand, when it is recognized as being part of the completed picture of God's Son. The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing. For the Whole is in each one. And every aspect of the Son of God is just the same as every other part. Join not your brother's dream, but join with HIM, and where you join His Son, the Father IS." UrT28E8
Separation seems to have disconnected our mind from Spirit. Jesus describes the separation process thus:
"7 First, the assumption is implicit that what God created can be changed by the mind of man.
8 Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect or wanting is accepted.
9 Third, the belief that man can distort the creations of God, including himself, is accepted.
10 Fourth, the idea that since man can create himself, the direction of his own creation is up to him is implied.
11 These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the separation. None of this existed before, nor does it actually exist now."
When this was occuring, basically we created a fictional lack in the mind, and then proceeded to fill it with our own separate voice.
Or in other words, began to express the idea that we created ourselves, that we author reality and truth, and we decide everything, that we can usurp God’s will, etc.
So then our mind has kind of gone rogue, it’s unplugged itself from God and is now making up realities (fantasies) left and right. It isn’t operating in service to Spirit so it generates its own content, the likes of which is UNLIKE God intended.
Rather than receiving all of its input, direction, and usefulness from a Spiritual source (soul), it instead runs amock inventing stuff on its own. It invents an artificial second identity, a world, bodies, events, fictional problems, you name it.
This all happens because it is unplugged from Spirit. It isn’t getting the proper input anymore so it just starts hallucinating. Outputting stuff it ITSELF thinks the input should be. It thinks it is the creator of itself.
What this means is that we have become unwilling to RECEIVE, and all that we want to do is CAUSE without accepting the effects of Spirit. We are basically trying to convert ourselves, from being an EFFECT of God/Spirit, to being the CAUSE of God and not at his effect.
When God created our soul, He shared His creative ability with us and gave us free will to enjoy creating in His/our perfection. This means we were able to RECEIVE FROM GOD, and EXTEND GOD, creating onward. So we were receiving and giving simultaneously. "Giving and receiving are one".
After separation, we stopped doing the RECEIVING part, and just kept on with the "creating part" which now became "mis-creating".
"All of his miscreations can literally disappear in "the twinkling of an eye" because they are merely visual misperceptions."
Since we stop receiving God’s will, God’s truth, God’s reality, God’s divine order and sanity, we go off making-up a bunch of shit out of nothing, for no good reason, with no solid foundation. We don’t get it from God. We dream, because instead of extending God’s truth, we just output with no correct input.
Being in ego then is a state of causing but not receiving. OR in other words, giving without receiving, which is SACRIFICE. This is also the same thing as "what is not love is murder" or "getting away with murder", in which the mind is trying to cause effects in others, without receiving the effects in itself. It is trying to express self, without receiving from God. It is trying to have an identity that has not been GIVEN BY God. It is trying to live without Him.
The key feature then of our awakening process, our endeavors to become closer to God again, entails OPENING UP TO RECEIVE again. Being WILLING to let INPUT come into you, to inform you and flow through you again, from A TRUE SOURCE or signal. To LISTEN to the Voice of God, instead of listening to our own voice. To EXPRESS God’s Will and miracles instead of our own magical bullshit.
This means putting your mind back in service to Spirit, becoming willing again to express God’s will instead of making up a will, being guided, directed, healed and empowered by God. And also it means being willing to ACCEPT, ALLOW, and RECEIVE God’s truth - in the atonement.
The ego’s game is all about trying to define a substitute self, in a substitute world, making stuff up all over the place without God. It wants to be the author of itself and make-up its own output. It think’s it’s prety special and important and capable, as if it does not need God’s input. It is like a screaching speaker system, broadcasting its own sounds instead of playing what the musical SOURCE is telling it to play.
Undoing the ego means surrendering this tyranny, this self-rule, this mode of functioning, this "thinking with the ego", where we "make" without God and don’t allow ourselves to RECEIVE INPUT.
We need to learn again to let God do for us everything we have been trying to do without Him. To let Spirit use our mind. To allow Spirit to work through us to extend miracles. To let God be the one to decide what the truth is. To accept His Will instead of inventing our own wishful thinking. To "channel" God again instead of making up our own signal.
It is all in the receiving. You cannot receive UNLESS YOU SURRENDER EGO CONTROL. Being in control of what your mind makes, in opposition to how Spirit wants it to be in ITS service, is a protest against God’s will and an attempt to steal the mind from God. It is supposed to be used for creating and extending love, not for making up your own fantasies.
God has provided the content. HE is downloading it to you. You simply need to be WILLING to receive it. We are not accustomed to receiving, as ego-oriented folk. It’s not what the ego wants to do. Billions of facebook accounts attest to the ego’s desire to broadcast ITSELF and not God. Mind is required to let there be help or input, or truth, that it has no ability or desire to define or interfere with.
Accepting the atonement is an act of TOTAL SURRENDER, giving back the mind to spirit, handing over decision making to spirit, dropping all fights against God’s will, admitting that God is the ONE SOURCE, ALLOWING GOD TO BE THE ONE WHO IS RIGHT, and letting Him do TO YOU and THROUGH YOU whatever he wants, happily, and gratefully, because he ONLY wants to love you. Which, fortunately, is absolutely in our best interests and can only bring us joy, not some kind of prison sentence.
God is waiting patiently for us to LET GO AND LET HIM. He wants to heal through us. He wants to love through us. We simply need to become willing to surrender our ego’s authority problem and LET HIM. To plug our mind back into HIS BROADCAST, His radio station, and to radiate it outward WITH Him.
Holy Spirit WILL UNDO ALL the consequences of your wrong decisions, IF YOU WILL LET HIM. You let Him by surrendering your ego and being open to TRUSTING Him and ALLOWING HIM to move IN YOU and through you. He can heal your sickness, your body, your mind, your life, your problems, IF YOU WILL LET HIM. He wants to help you and to heal you FOR YOU.
Holy Spirit is active. He is capable and willing to do anything FOR YOU. We are not supposed to be doing this course all on our own. We are not responsible for doing all of the healing or for fixing all of ourselves. We show willingness, by surrendering unwillingness, and then LET HIM DO IT FOR US.
"He asks but little. 8 It is He Who adds the greatness and the might. 9 He joins with you to make the holy instant far greater than you can understand. 10 It is your realization that you need do so little that enables Him to give so much."
He very actively WILL COME INTO YOU and will perform supernatural healing on you, and on others through you, without you lifting a finger, IF YOU WILL LET HIM. If you thought you had to do this whole entire course on your own and that the only advances would come from your own efforts, you are mistaken.
The Holy Spirit will start to operate FOR you and THROUGH YOU (speak through you, heal through you, direct you specifically, etc) as you start to surrender enough that you LET HIM, that you MAKE ROOM FOR GOD in your life.
As you start to RECEIVE AGAIN, being willing to accept atonement again, being willing to accept your innocence again, GOD WILL MOVE and will start to do stuff FOR YOU. It’s pretty awesome, when you let go of the reigns and take a leap of trust in Him. To let someone else "do stuff to you" for your benefit DOES require trust, which you CAN develop. Once you trust Holy Spirit to heal you FOR you, incredible things start to happen.
Invite Him in. Let Him work in you. RECEEIEEEEEEIIVE His Help. He wants to help you. You don’t have to do this all on your own.