Surround search terms with " " double quotes for exact matches e,g, "drops of healing rain"

There is a huge difference between CREATING, and MAKING. "The world you MADE" is NOT a world that's been CREATED.

Creation is the perfect extension of the whole of God. God creates perfect children who are perfect mirror image reflections of Himself. They are given ALL of God. They are equipped to create fully and wholly, just like God, with no lack or limitation. The creations of these creators are also just as equipped to create perfection and wholeness.

At every step of the extension, there is no loss of abilities, no differences, no partial inheritance, no lack, no interruption to creative power, and no interference with sharing absolutely everything of God. Every created being shares the entire whole of creation and is fully unlimited in every way. The creation is a continuous line which extends forever as a whole, which creates wholes, who in turn create wholes, on and on and on. Each created being has ALL THE ABILITIES of its parent, and what is true of the father is true of the son.

Now, **MAKING** is not like this at all.

Making is based on a belief that there is lack, limitation, restriction, a lack of inheritance, a lack of perfection, differences, something missing, and is actually the idea of death. To make, rather than create, is an attempt to put the brakes on extension and bring creation to a halt. It is the attempt to bring about an END to creation, so that that which is made is NOT ABLE to create, CANNOT replicate itself in its own likeness, and completely fails to extend.

The collapsing down of creative power, the distorting and interruption of perfect extension, the mangling of God's will, the twisting of reality, and the dreaming of creating something UNLIKE God, has produced THIS WORLD, which is the idea of sin and death, and is TOTALLY UNLIKE THE FATHER.

It is through MAKING, which is actually an attempt to NOT CREATE ANYTHING, and is also an attempt to deny creation and bring creation to a STOP, that we "made this world." Planet Earth, and the rest of this universe, is "the world you made" per ACIM terms.

When you look at this world you can see WHY this is true. Nothing in this world can extend. Nothing in this world can create a perfect mirror image reflection of itself. What is true of any parent here is NOT perfectly true of its children. Forms and bodies and physical objects are NOT able to extend themselves indefinitely, nor can they create more of their own self in their own likeness.

This is because the world is fundamentally the picture of the crucifixion of God's son, it was MADE as an attack on God/Creation, it was made so that God could enter not, AND it runs completely CONTRARY to your nature. It is the nature of your soul to extend God's being forever. It is this world's nature to PUT A STOP to that. This happens at the level of PHYSICAL MATTER, not perception. Matter is fundamentally made of the thought of the idea of an end to life, the thought of separation.

Through making, we invented "an end to creation" and "an end to life". Making, is death. It produces a condensing of expression, a collapsing of unlimitedness, an imposing of limits, the manifestation of FORMS of error, the production of pictures of sin, and the solidification of the idea of grinding to a halt. This forms PHYSICAL MATTER, which is extremely resistant and dense. Jesus says we made this world from UNWILLINGNESS, which is why it is very hard to change it.

Truly then, this whole universe is what it looks like when you try to stop the extension of God's creation, resist life, deny immortality, reject God's will, oppose the nature of Heaven, and try to bring about DEATH. It literally ENDS in death, and it is literally MADE OF the idea of death, because in this world ALL PHYSICAL FORMS CANNOT CREATE OR EXTEND.

You take a computer and you design a car. The computer operates the machinery and robots and the people play their part to build the car. But, now because the car has been defined as specific forms, with limitations imposed on it, it has now lost the ability that the engineers have. The car, cannot create, other cars.

Even the human body and the bodies of other "death forms" are not capable of creating a perfect reflection of themselves. Human children may inherit traits from one parent and not another, or even from prior generations. None of them are alike and none of them represent the truth of the parent. All forms are different and lacking and every body is incomplete, keeping the rest of existence outside of itself and isolated.

This world, quite literally, down to the particles and energy (really thought) that it seems to be made of, is MADE OF the IDEA - the thought - of "what is it like if life comes to an end" or "what is it like if unlimited extension is limited and stops".... and this is the idea of **death** - the END of eternal life. "Without the idea of death, there is no world." There literally CANNOT BE a planet Earth without the idea of death, which means, without the assertion that EXTENSION MUST STOP, CREATION MUST END, and therefore that LIFE IS ENDED.

Life, REAL LIFE, is of Heaven. "Only the creations of light are real." "There is NO LIFE outside of Heaven." Earth, which is "outside" of Heaven, HAS NO LIFE. It is a picture of death. Real life extends forever, has immortality, lives without sickness or suffering, is fully and wholly creative, ONLY CREATES WHOLENESS, and extends life itself forever. This ONLY happens in Heaven.

Fake life, which is really various degrees of the idea of death, even if the body is "holy" or "a picture of immortality", is STILL A DREAM OF DEATH, and still a separated state, and still NOT perfect unlimited extension of God's being. This world, this planet, your body, my body, are all illusions of life MIXED WITH the idea of death, and so are all limited.

All "semi life, semi death forms" here, WILL PERISH, because they were MADE in the idea of EXCLUDING GOD, which means they are made WITHOUT LIFE, and they are literally made NOT TO LIVE FOREVER. They are LITERALLY an expression of an attempt to MAKE LIFE END. All dreams, are dreams of death. Therefore all things MADE automatically have an END. "The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came". The world WILL END. The dream WILL END. It has to because it has ENDING built into it. It is made FROM the idea of the END of existence.

Jesus says "A world which attacks itself and denies its own existence cannot exist." This is earth. Earth is a DENIAL OF EXISTENCE. It's an attempt to reject Heaven, an attempt to OPPOSE Heaven in every way, and an attempt to assert "there is no heaven." This world was MADE BY YOU from the notion that God's world, God's creation, DOES NOT EXIST, and is the attempt to prove it, by picturing the idea of "world does not exist". This world, is a picture of NOT EXISTING. It is denial of life and denial of self. And that is death. And it is non-existence. WHICH IS WHY IT DOES NOT EXIST.

Similarly, ONLY CREATION IS REALITY. Anything which extends forever perfectly has eternal life and is REAL. Anything which is MADE, which is NOT CREATED, and which is the illusion of a resistance to reality, IS UNREAL, and DEOS NOT EXIST. Therefore, because this world is the world you ***MADE***, NOT the world you "created", IT HAS NOT BEEN CREATED. It has not been created by God because God only creates eternal life and perfect extension. This world IS NOT EXTENSION AT ALL. It is NOT CREATION. It is MAKING. And making is the fiction of opposing God's will. THIS WORLD IS NOT GOD'S WILL. IT HAS NOT BEEN CREATED. IT DOES NOT EXIST. THERE IS NO WORLD!!!

Jesus asks of us to completely forget A Course in Miracles, forget the entire world, forget the body, and come to God with empty hands.

In this, Jesus isn't asking us to stay in our body, thinking we are a body, studying ACIM fervently and going about our special little lives on planet Earth.

He is asking us to become fully aware that we are NOT a body whatsoever, that we do not need one to exist, that the world the body inhabits is just as much an illusion as the body itself, and that we are FREE of this crap.

Jesus has demonstrated that the body is not real. He has demonstrated that it can be disappeared along with all sickness and all death. This is what he's asking us to do as well. Not just to sort of hangout in an in-between state of being more special or staying in the body and seeing the world sparkle.

There is no world. It is an illusion. It must disappear when recognized correctly for what it is. And so must your body.

The body is the hero of the dream. It is designed as a device to LIMIT and SEPARATE mind from itself. It is meant to obscure the omnipresence of God and make it seem like everything is unlike everything else (ie there is no God).

As you stay in the body, believing it is real, and not fully transcending it, you are continuing the belief that God does not really exist.

The world is not left by death but by truth. And truth means the awareness that the body and its world are just a DREAM, not reality.

God has a "place" for us, an experience of total oneness, "heaven" if you will, which is the only true reality. And bodies have nothing to do with it.

Here is today's bombshell of truth.

The entire physical universe is a game, designed by the ego, which is impossible to win. Anyone who plays the game will die. Period.

The game has only one rule. If you believe in the game and try to play it, you will die. There is no way to play it and win.

If you think that you can play the game in some kind of special way, using some kind of special abilities or skills or knowledge or workarounds or talents or aptitude or cleverness or creativity or whatever, you will become delusional, and you will die.

If you think you can play the game in a certain way by taking sides with certain apparent powers, by teaming up with those who seem to be winning, by avoiding certain obstacles or traps, by being at war with enemies and getting rid of them, by being very very careful not to have anything bad happen to you, or any other strategy whatsoever, ALL of those strategies WILL NOT WORK, and you will die.

If you think you can outsmart the game and section off a small part of the environment to protect and defend you, or that having certain behaviors will ensure your safety, or that wearing certain clothes or embarking on certain activities will change your chances, you are delusional, and you will die.

The instruction manual for the ego's game of "life and death", which has a subheading "actually, its just death", reads: "all players will die." That's it. At least it doesn't take 5 hours to learn like some games.

The ego's primary game is a game of separation. It is a game of emphasizing differences. It is a game of attempting to separate out one thing from another in as intense and believable a way as possible. It does not care whatsoever what the qualities of each part are, so long as they seem separate.

The game's primary function is temptation. It is designed to tempt you to believe that the appearance of difference or separation between things is real. If you fall for it, you fall for the trap, and you will die. If you look at two parts of the environment and you find yourself siding with or against either of them, not recognizing that they are BOTH PART OF THE SAME GAME, you will fail, and you will die. The instant you feel sorry for some part, or are against another part, or put one part on a pedestal, or buy into any kind of SPECIALNESS, you will die.

The devious, diabolical fact of the game is, anyone who falls for the illusion of difference and separation WILL SUFFER AND DIE, because they have been tricked into making themselves LESS THAN WHOLE, and therefore have diminished who and what they are, and this is DEATH.

So within the ego's game, it does not matter AT ALL, in any state of war and conflict, who wins or loses, who is right or wrong, good or bad, innocent or guilty, or any of it. If you buy into the belief that the good/innocent/righteous people are correct and the bad/wrong/guilty people are not, YOU FELL FOR IT HOOK LINE AND SINKER AND YOU WILL DIE.

The ego itself is the puppet master which disguises itself in the costume and form of every single thing which shows up in the game. It is secretly the identity behind every individual, every form, every event which happens, and every illusion of difference. It will play both sides against each other, playing itself against itself. It will take the role of savior and fixer and helper and carer and lover JUST SO THAT it can be victimized by someone else, SO THAT you will buy into the illusion that the other person was the sinner and not this one. AND THEN YOU WILL DIE, because you failed the test.

Illusions of better/worse, right/wrong, good/bad, more spiritual/less spiritual, more ego/less ego, are TRAPS. Illusions of people who seem innocent but who are still vulnerable, are traps. Illusions of people suffering and being sick against their will are traps. Illusions of bad things happening are traps. Illusions of unwanted terrible weather events are traps. Illusions of acts of nature, God's wrath, war, disagreement of all kinds, marital tension, sexual tension, hate, violence, condemnation, judgementalism, taking sides in a sports match, liking someone more than another, loving someone more than another, IS A TRAP, AND YOU WILL DIE.

This entire world, everything you see in the world, all people, all objects, all places, all events, all circumstances, all situations, all stories, are all DOOMED to condemn you to death IF you buy into them whatsoever.

No-one wins here. No-one actually pulls off a win, which would be a win against God. No-one achieves the FICTION of getting away with murder, being able to do something to someone else without receiving the effects, being able to have someone else make you die against your will, or suffering without choosing it. There are no winners in any argument or war. To believe in the war itself IS LOSS. To believe in enemies at all MAKES YOU WEAK. To side with the little victims MAKES YOU SUFFER. You cannot escape the game this way. You cannot just shift yourself into one safe-seeming corner of life where you cower and hope that all the bad shit doesn't come your way.

There is only one way to escape the game, one way to overcome its rules, and only one way to play it correctly to your advantage. The ONLY advantage is NOT TO PLAY IT AT ALL. This is what you have to learn. You have to see all illusions for what they are, tools for separation. This includes all "life forms" (death forms) in this world. They are all forms of separation, forms of error, forms of sin. They are not holy. That they appear at all, and that you believe you really see them, is your choice to die.

This entire world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. There is NO PART OF IT which is not an attempt to kill you. Every trap will present itself and you will fall for all of them until you learn to overlook them all and attain Atonement/forgiveness. The world is not escaped by death, or by winning, or by making your best effort to avoid death, or by trying to bend the rules, or by thinking you're so great that you can go outside the lines and succeed on your own terms. YOU WILL FAIL, GUARANTEED, and you will die. The world - the entire ego's game - is only escaped by TRUTH.

Only truth will set you free. Only truth will show you the ego's game in plain sight, with all its diabolical devious designs and all of its traps and purposes and attempts to tempt you into it. Only the truth will allow you to see in the true light, the true nature of the temptation. Only the truth will keep you protected and safe. Only the truth will guide you out of the dream of death. Only the truth will allow you to live forever.

"The body appears to be largely self-motivated and independent, yet it actually responds only to the intentions of the mind. If the mind wants to use it for attack in any form, it becomes prey to sickness, AGE AND DECAY. If the mind accepts the Holy Spirit's purpose for it instead, it becomes a useful way of communicating with others, invulnerable as long as it is needed, and to be gently laid by when its use is over. Of itself it is neutral, as is everything in the world of perception. Whether it is used for the goals of the ego or the Holy Spirit depends entirely on what the mind wants."

"How can I know who I am when I see myself as under constant attack? 3 Pain, illness, loss, AGE and death seem to threaten me."

"The mind that thinks it is a sin has but one purpose; that the body be the source of sin, to keep it in the prison house it chose and guards and holds itself at bay, a sleeping prisoner to the snarling dogs of hate and evil, sickness and attack; of pain and AGE, of grief and suffering."

" Is it not madness to think of life as being born, AGING, losing vitality, and dying in the end?"

"The body's health is fully guaranteed, because it is NOT LIMITED BY TIME, by weather or FATIGUE, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. 4 You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible."

"And yet a neutral thing does not see death, for thoughts of fear are not invested there, nor is a mockery of love bestowed upon it. 6 Its neutrality protects it while it has a use. 7 And afterwards, without a purpose, it is laid aside. 8 It is not sick NOR OLD nor hurt. 9 It is but functionless, unneeded and cast off."

"A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at ALL levels. Illness, which is really "not Right Mindedness", is the result of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the misbelief that what is amiss in one level can adversely affect another."

"All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion which created magic rested on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter, which can control the mind."

"It was the first level of the error to believe that the body created its own illness. Thereafter, it is a second mis-step to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents."

"The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not in it. If the mind believes the body is its goal, it will distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it, will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot but foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else. ... To use a medium of communication as a medium of attack is an obvious confusion in purpose. To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate. How can you do both simultaneously WITH THE SAME THING, and NOT suffer?"

"The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND'S FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND'S JOY."

"LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect. What you would prove to him you will believe."

"All sickness comes from a confusion of the levels."

"Sickness is but another form of guilt."

"Do not allow yourselves to suffer from the results of what is not true. Free your minds from the belief that this is possible. In its complete impossibility, and your full awareness of its complete impossibility, lies your only hope for release."

"Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception. And like all the rest, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself."

"Sickness is a defense against the truth."

"Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are you sick that truth may go away, and threaten your establishments no more."

"The body cannot heal, because it cannot MAKE ITSELF SICK. It NEEDS no healing. Its health or sickness depends ENTIRELY on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose that the mind would use it FOR."

"The ego SEPARATES through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches THROUGH it to others. You do not perceive your brothers as the Holy Spirit does because you do not interpret their bodies AND YOURS solely as a means of JOINING THEIR MINDS and uniting them with yours and mine. This interpretation of the body will change your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has NONE. If you use it for attack it is harmful to you. But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of those who believe they ARE bodies and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of you. If you use the body for this, and ONLY for this, you CANNOT use it for attack. In the service of uniting, it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion IS. "

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you.Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies.Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body's condition."

"The IDEA of separation PRODUCED the body, and remains connected TO it, MAKING it sick because of its identification WITH it. ... "You THINK you are PROTECTING the body by HIDING this connection. For this concealment SEEMS to keep your identification safe from the "attack" of truth. If you but understood how much this strange concealment has hurt your mind, and how confused your own identification has become to you, BECAUSE of it! You do not see how great the devastation wrought by your faithlessness. For faithlessness is an attack, which SEEMS to be justified by its RESULTS. For, by withholding faith, you see only what IS unworthy of it, and cannot look BEYOND the barrier to what is joined with you."

"Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another Name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him."

"Thus are you JOINED in sickness, to preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherished, and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that leads to Him."

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved. "

"Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make the separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount."

"Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health, is to recognize in hatred the call for love."

"What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive yourself defenseless and in hell. Yield not to this, and you will see all pain in every form wherever it occurs but disappear as mists before the sun."

"Only the wholly insane could look on death and suffering, sickness and despair, and see it thus. What guilt has wrought is ugly, fearful, and very dangerous. See no illusion of truth and beauty there."

"Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death, to their believers. The form in which they are accepted is irrelevant. No form of misery, in reason's eyes, can be confused with joy."

"Any form of mental illness can truthfully be described as an expression of viciousness. We said before that those who are afraid are apt to be vicious. If we were willing to forgive other people's misperceptions of us, they could not possibly affect us at all."

"Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. I have tried to give my inheritance away in exchange for the world I see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me."

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone."

"For example, do not say, 'God did not create illness', but, 'God did not create cancer,' or heart attacks, or whatever may arouse fear in you. ... This is your personal repertory of horrors at which you are looking.These things are part of the world you see. Some of them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell. It does not matter.What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His. Therefore, it has no meaning."

"The gap IS little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every form of ill, because it is a WISH to keep apart, and NOT to join. And thus it seems to give a CAUSE to sickness which is NOT its cause. The PURPOSE of the gap is all the cause that sickness has. For it was made to keep you separated in a body which you see as if it were the CAUSE of pain. The cause of pain is separation, NOT the body, which is only its EFFECT."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."

"Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free. In pain is God denied the Son He loves. In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery."

"Pain demonstrates the body must be real. It is a loud, obscuring voice, whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness. Pain compels attention, drawing it away from Him, and focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means TO MAKE THE BODY REAL. What shares a common purpose IS the same. This is the law of purpose, which unites all those who share in it within itself. Pleasure and pain are EQUALLY unreal, because their purpose CANNOT be achieved. Thus are they means for nothing, for they have a goal without a meaning. And they share the lack of meaning that their PURPOSE has. "

"Sin shifts from pain to pleasure, and again to pain. For EITHER witness is the same, and carries but one message, "You are here, WITHIN this body, and you CAN be hurt. You can have pleasure, too, but ONLY at the cost of pain."

"Pain is a wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes which will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclaims God cruel. How could it be real in any form? It witnesses to God the Father's hatred of His Son; the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane desire for revenge and death. Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false?"

"Pain is but witness to the Son's mistakes in what he thinks he is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love Which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love."

"If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. But to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father IS the acknowledgment of yourself as you ARE. Your Father created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."

"Of one thing you were sure; of all the many causes you perceived as bringing pain and suffering to you, your guilt was NOT among them. Nor did you, in ANY way, REQUEST them for yourself. This is how ALL illusions come about. The one who makes them does NOT see himself as making them, and their reality does NOT depend on him. Whatever cause they have is something quite APART from him, and what he sees is SEPARATE from his mind. "

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes. "

"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you. "

"Delay will hurt you now MORE THAN BEFORE, ONLY because you realize it IS delay, and that escape from pain IS REALLY POSSIBLE. Find hope and comfort, rather than despair, in this. You could no longer find even the ILLUSION of love in ANY special relationship here."

"This makes it an end and not a means in your interpretation, and this ALWAYS means YOU STILL FIND SIN ATTRACTIVE. No-one accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his goal. You have thus not met your one responsibility. Atonement is not welcomed by those who PREFER pain and destruction."

"You are accustomed to the notion that the mind can see the source of pain where it is not. The doubtful service of displacement is to hide the REAL source of your guilt, and KEEP from your awareness the full perception THAT IT IS INSANE."

"This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies: "I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."

"I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son."

"Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness. Yet, in these dark and heavy garments, are those who seek illusions covered, and hidden from the joy of truth. Truth is the opposite of illusions, because it offers joy."

"No risk is possible throughout the day except to put your trust in magic, for it is only this that leads to pain. There is no will but God's."

"And to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause, and with no power to accomplish anything. It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not exist. And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence like itself. You have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will of God."

"To the ego, the body IS TO ATTACK WITH Equating YOU with the body, it teaches that YOU are to attack with, because THIS IS WHAT IT BELIEVES. The body, then, is not the source of its own health. Its condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function. "

"These are not laws, but madness. The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your 'laws' would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body."

"Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to YOU. UNLESS you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly WANT them."

Forgiveness can only forgive something which is an illusion. You cannot forgive reality. Forgiveness is the same thing as atonement. To atone is to undo, just as to forgive is to undo. If you forgive a world, that world is being undone by you. Once forgiven, that world must disappear, because illusions recognized must disappear.

"Nothing in boundless love could NEED forgiveness"

"Only illusions can BE forgiven, and then they disappear"

However, even forgiveness itself is an illusion and a dream. Forgiveness is not the total ABSENCE of illusions, therefore. It's a state in which illusions OTHER than forgiveness are recognized as false and disappear, leaving the ILLUSION of forgiveness behind.

"Forgiveness is illusion that is answer to the rest. Forgiveness sweeps all other dreams away, and though it is itself a dream, it breeds no others."This might seem paradoxical, because it is an illusion but it's a "happy fiction" which doesn't tempt you to buy into more illusions. It's the least amount of illusion possible while still being illusion.

Whatever you forgive, therefore, must disappear if it is a "lower" illusion, and it is replaced with the higher illusion. The higher illusion is the real world. "The real world still is but a dream." Illusions and dreams are synonymous and anything in the realm of perception is an illusory dream.Your task is to forgive the world you made. The world you made must be seen with forgiveness.

"And WHAT you see is only what YOU HAVE MADE, with the blessing of your forgiveness on it"

But what does this tell you? Especially given that forgiveness overlooks bodies, and whatever you forgive MUST DISAPPEAR? It tells you that if you forgive the world, IT MUST DISAPPEAR. Any world that you are forgiving towards, MUST be an illusion. But why would it disappear? Because it isn't real.

Nothing real can be made to disappear. It is permanent. It is creation. You can't undo reality. You can't forgive reality. You can ONLY forgive something that IS an illusion.

So if you are to forgive the world, in any way, this MUST MEAN that the world IS fundamentally and inherently an illusion. You cannot forgive it UNLESS it is an illusion. And it has to be INHERENTLY an illusion regardless of your illusory thoughts about it. You have illusory thoughts ABOUT an illusion, and BOTH your illusory thoughts AND the illusion of a world ITSELF must be undone.

"to overlook what is not there; and not to look upon the unreal as reality."It's not merely a matter of you having illusions or dreams ABOUT the world. Yes those illusions and dreams need to be UNDONE in your mind. That is part of the forgiveness. And what you undo must disappear. But what is LEFT?

If you were being unforgiving toward the world when you had illusions in your mind, and now the illusions are gone, you are being FORGIVING towards the world. But you cannot be forgiving towards the world unless IT IS AN ILLUSION. So forgiveness isn't JUST about your attitude ABOUT the world. It's to do with undoing THE WORLD ITSELF.

The world you made IN ERROR AND OF ERROR, must be undone. This is what atonement does, it undoes the world. Earth disappears, the stars disappear in light, etc.

"To forgive is to OVERLOOK. Look, then, BEYOND error, and do not let your perception rest UPON it"

"The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness."

"For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing ALL illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past."

The world you made is an illusion of a world. It has no inherent reality or permanence. EARTH IS AN ILLUSION, which you MADE in attempting to oppose reality. It doesn't matter whether you are here to look at it or not. By itself, it is an illusion. "Earth, Heaven's opposite in every way." It's not just your illusions ABOUT the world that are illusions, it's the world ITSELF, made to oppose heaven.

And if you do NOT forgive it, the world you see will be a world of sin and death. To be unforgiving is to be in false perception. In false perception you believe that something WHICH IS an illusion, is a reality. It's a state of confusion and being very mistaken and insane. It's a lack of RECOGNITION. An illusion is believed to be reality.

"the sight of the real world which has come to replace the unforgiven world you thought was real."

"This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. And until you realize that God's Son cannot be crucified, this is the world you will see."So the world we made, which is hell, is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son. And it must be an illusion because God's son CANNOT BE crucified, so it cannot be real. If you are to FORGIVE that world you made as hell, you have to UNDO IT. Which entails a recognition that IT IS an illusion and NOT a reality.

The world you made is REPLACED BY the real world. "the real world which has come to replace the unforgiven world". So by forgiving the world you are REPLACING IT with the real world. But even the real world is an illusion. So at no time are you really dealing with REALITY here. You're dealing with illusions. Forgiveness and perception are all about illusions. Even true perception is an illusion, because true perception IS forgiveness.

"For true perception is a remedy with many names. Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one."

"To perceive the truth is not the same as knowing it."

If you perceive truly, the world you see will be the real world - the forgiven world. But what you see in forgiveness - a forgiven world - MUST DISAPPEAR. So even true perception cannot be showing you that "Earth is real". IF YOU FORGIVE THE EARTH, IT MUST BE AN ILLUSION.

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies." (bodies are part of earth)

"Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not."

You cannot even SEE the "world of death" (bodies, earth etc) if you are in total forgiveness. Forgiveness transforms perception and make it APPEAR that the ILLUSORY world you made, IS AN ILLUSION, but is simultaneously a forgiven illusion. It's SEEN THROUGH because you are not deceived by it. Christ vision looks to a light BEYOND it.

So ultimately you can forgive the world, but you cannot forgive it WITHOUT undoing it. You cannot KEEP it. A forgiven world is a world that's disappearing from sight. If you forgive Earth, you ARE saying that it is UNREAL. If you DON'T forgive it, you are saying it is REAL. You cannot have it be real at the same time as claiming to be forgiving it! And to forgive it is to RECOGNIZE that it is an illusion.

Forgiveness is a state where you recognize that illusions are illusions. It isn't a state where you suddenly are seeing Earth as though it is God's created reality. Yes your illusions ABOUT it are lifted away because you are not DECEIVED BY IT anymore. But that doesn't mean that it isn't a world of temptation. Your way of looking at it has transformed it into the forgiven world, but it ONLY LOOKS LOVELY because IT IS DISAPPEARING and becoming transparent in front of the light. The veil is lifting and the more "innocent" it seems to become the more it vanishes.

"Forgiveness turns the world of sin into a world of glory, wonderful to see. Each flower shines in light, and every bird sings of the joy of Heaven."This is lovely to see. BUT, it is not reality. It is an image which was originally made as an image of DEATH, reinterpreted as a reflection of LIFE, but nevertheless JUST AN IMAGE. It's a REFLECTION of heaven, and reflections are illusions. It is still an illusory world. It is still not reality. And by forgiving it to such an extent, your light is literally SHINING IT AWAY. "Eternity will shine away the world."

You cannot love the world and keep the world. Love is reality, the world is illusion. To love an illusion is to shine it away because illusions are always the absence of love (sin). You can't keep something which ONLY shows up when love is lacking, while simultaneosly supplying the love. Loving perception is forgiving perception, which SHINES AWAY what is not really there. Earth is not really there because it opposes reality.

Again, bottom line. Any world that you are in forgiveness of MUST disappear because it MUST be an illusion. You cannot forgive something real. And that is why you LEAVE the forgiven world and the real world behind and move on to reality which is heaven - God's real Kingdom. It is NOT OF THIS WORLD."From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home."

It is a mistake to think that the world you are forgiving is ONLY an internal world inside your mind that is your INTERPRETATION of a real existing world. As though earth really exists as a creation of God and your job is just to get rid of the blocks in your perception so that you can SEE IT correctly. This is in violation of the laws of forgiveness.

If illusions are ONLY that which is inside your mind ABOUT planet Earth, and if earth is TOTAL reality, then you CANNOT forgive the earth.And earth cannot be the forgiven world or the real world. And if Earth is reality, it has to BE LIKE GOD AS GOD. And that now means that God is a bazillion different conflicting things, including death. If "Earth, heaven's opposite in every way". .... heaven cannot BE earth. It is OPPOSITE to it. And because it is opposite, it is opposite to REALITY, and is an illusory world to be undone.

All our lives we've given the world meaning.

"I've given the world all the meaning that it has for me."

The world in and of ITSELF has NO meaning whatseover.

"The world is meaningless in itself."

"Because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this you see in it. It is this that is meaningless in truth."

You thought the world was SOMETHING, and that therefore it MEANT something. That it had value, purpose, places to go things to see, people to meet, important stuff that had to be done, cities to build, achievements to attain, items to posses, idols to worship, civilizations to conquer.

But this is all fake. The world itself does not mean anything because it is actually nothing. It is an illusion of a world. It is an idea of nothing pretending to be something. An impossibility, pretending to be possible.

Nothing in the world makes any sense because the world is not made of sanity. It is a rebellion against sanity and against existence. Rebelling against existence means it does not exist and is an attempt not to exist.

By trying to go from being everything in God, to being nothing on your own, you are attempting to die. But even your death is nothing and meaningless. Death doesn't mean anything whatsoever because it isn't real and has no existence. It is nothing.

"There is no death, the Son of God is free."

This entire cosmos, all of the universe, every expansive galaxy, all the stars and the sun and moon and the earth, is all absolutely nothing whatseover.

And instead of recognizing this FACT, perhaps the ONLY FACT in the whole world, we instead have set about BELIEVING that the world is something, that it exists, has importance, has merit, is created, is alive, is doing something for a reason, can be lived in, is your home, and somewhere to spend your existence.

But all of this is nothing but a fantasy in a dream. We are walking around in dream bodies inside a dream world pretending to be dead.

"The body is a dream." "All your time is spent in dreaming." It can seem extremely difficult to entertain the idea that the world is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER. That it isn't even really there, and as such is some kind of psychological massive hallucination which WILL disappear when you wake up to sanity.

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you REALLY understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who SEEM to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are WHOLLY unreal? Could you have FAITH in what you see, if you ACCEPTED this? AND WOULD YOU SEE IT? Hallucinations disappear when they are RECOGNIZED for what they are. This IS the healing and the remedy."

"It takes great learning to both recognize and accept that the world has nothing to offer." "The world holds nothing that I want."

It can't GIVE you anything because it IS nothing. This is why giving up the world and returning to God is to give up NOTHING WHATSOEVER, and to GAIN EVERYTHING.

Because in truth you have hidden yourself from everything and have tried to accomplish nothing. And you have been successful in that, because you HAVE DONE NOTHING AT ALL. This is why "there is no sin." You can't do what isn't possible in God.

"It is the world you see that is impossible."

The world is not there. Space and time are fake. Bodies don't exist. There is no human race. There is only the Kingdom of God and the Trinity, the souls he created, the angels and our creations, and the Holy Spirit, hanging out with God in an endless choir of celebration and thanks as we extend real creation and real existence.

"There is no world. This is the CENTRAL LESSON the course would attempt to teach."

I think I made a major mistake when starting out with the course. It was fuelled by a rather "negative" view of the world, which was part mine, and part that of certain teachers I listened to. In that view, I thought that references to a meaningless world, were references to a the world being inherently bleak and dark and depressing. I also combined various aspects of ego and false perception with the world, binding them together, and then sought to get rid of the whole thing.

This was based largely on teachings by well-meaning people that the world has no redeeming qualities, that it is inherently somewhat negative and pointless, and that the only thing to do is leave it behind. While there is some basis for this, in that the world is nothing, it kind of skipped over the forgiven world/real world and didn't put enough attention on how to reinterpret or repurpose it. And it definitely didn't make much mention of doing anything to improve or heal or save it.

This was an incorrect framing of the world, because I realize now that the world itself has NO meaning, not a negative meaning. Its meaningless is simply a lack of ANY meaning, positive OR negative, and is not inherently anything. And my egoic association of the world with my ego's negativity didn't allow me to "separate out" the world from my projections onto it.

But the course isn't asking us to condemn the world and run away from it. It's asking us to realize the world is nothing at all, but that we've projected false meanings onto it. And when these false meanings are lifted off from it, the world resumes being meaningless. Not negative, or positive. And then we are free to project positive meaning onto it, in which we now see the reflection of God.

This obviously makes far more sense, interpreting the world as a neutral mirror with no meaning of its own. It also changes my focus, from one where I just wanted to escape from "the negative world" and throw it in the trash, to where I can now look at the very same world - its guts, recognizing it as nothing, but project love onto it. That's a profoundly different relationship to it, properly regarding it as nothing but a mirror with no meaning of its own, rather than as bound to ideas of hell.

It changes quite a lot of my perspectives about the course and what it's saying. It also relieves pressure and resistance and negative connotations to things which didn't seem to fit. I can accept then that I can see this world through forgiving eyes because of itself it is nothing. And it also makes it easier to accept that it can be used differently, and can reflect heaven. Obviously keeping it around long enough to allow it to do that can't entail attacking it with misinterpretations of the course.

Eventually when seen as the nothingness it is, with the reflection of God seen upon it, its re-purposing is complete and it is no longer needed as a device to bring us home. We can now wave farewell to the forgiven world and thank it for its temporary usefulness, as we watch it disappear and give way to the gates of heaven.

The key part I think is that a lot of people have completely missed the somewhat subtle teaching in the course that the world ITSELF has no meaning. That it was a projection out, from an idea of nothingness, BEFORE we projected onto it. The whole "projection makes perception" thing came later.

And the world doesn't have to be objectively real or a creation of God for it to act like a neutral mirror and still be a world of illusions. This two-layered projection is completely missed by a lot of people. And some interpret the world as having to be God's creation in order for the "project onto" part to make sense. Which is yet another mistake. So many of us are so confused about this whole thing. But I'm glad now it's becoming ever clearer.

One thing I never could make sense of in the Course was when Jesus referred to minds being joined or how it wasn't possible to be sick if minds were joined.

My ego could not understand this. It made no sense in terms of people being normal separate minds in separate bodies. I could only think in terms of doing something to something separate. How does anyone join with the mind of someone else in the first place? And why would that bring about the impossibility of sickness?

What I see now is that individuals in separate bodies are just fragments of a larger Self - the Christ Self, the One Son, and that identity has a single mind. There are not multiple Christs.

Mind, in its natural condition, is a single mind shared everywhere. It is the mind of the Whole Self. When pieces of mind seem to split off and be separate, that's because there is an illusion of separation happening. This separation is the root of all sickness.

Separation is two-sided, in that when the mind is divided, there is a piece of mind over here and piece of mind over there and they are kept apart by some kind of illusion of not being joined. That belief in separation produces sickness because it's a belief in limitation and lack. The separation blocks awareness, and blocks to awareness are denials which deny Life and thus produce death.

So when separation is present, and there are "two selves", that's a state of sickness. The mind is sick. It has multiple personality disorder. I'm talking about the one mind here, not an individual's mind. An individual's mind also is sick and divided within itself - each personality of the multiple personality disorder of the one mind, has within it further multiple personalities, lol

Ok so, to maintain the separation between selves, and thus to mantain sickness, both of those parts of the multiple personality must continue to exist. Without them being different from each other they would be one. If one of those two parts of mind decides to transcend what seems like the illusory limits placed upon itself, and redefines itself as the WHOLE, not a part of the whole, then it comes to experience Oneness with the other part of the mind, recognizing it as literally itself. Then there is only one mind. The two parts of mind are joined as One.

If the other part of the mind was trying to be an individual, it no longer can maintain that state of sickness because the first part of the mind has decided not to believe in it. So it doesn't have support for its belief and no matter how much it tries, it can't establish separation. If part of mind has woken up to the One Self (Christ), the other part has no way to remain in separation either. They must both wake up together to a single identity.

When Jesus woke up, He must have woken up to the reality that we are all One. And thus His awakening must have been the awakening of everyone. I don't know if this means that our minds MUST be healed, but certainly that it is POSSIBLE to be healed. If we were to decide to be one with Jesus, we would be healed instantly.

In the thought system of Holy Spirit, we are all one shared mind, and one identity. Holy Spirit looks upon CHRIST. Nowhere does it say he looks upon multiple real individuals.

When minds thus join, there is a healing of the separation between them. The separation defines their separate identity, so this must mean the undoing of a false sense of isolation and opening up to realizing that you are much more than you thought you were. An increase in awareness. Awakening. We awaken TO the Christ mind, the one mind, that we all share as the One Son of God. We're all the same Self. And this is how miraculous healing is possible.

Let's have a closer look at what the course says about the world and whether it is God's creation. This is going to be a long post so bear with me or pick and choose which quotes you want to look at. I put a comment after each one.

To me, the way that all of these statements sound paints a clear picture that the "physical world" i.e. the physical universe - planet Earth, is NOT God's creation whatsoever in any way shape or form.

It also says to me and that every time Jesus refers to the world as something we do not want, he is not referring to some "misperception of it" that we don't want - some imagined version of the world, which he talks about in other passages - but rather, literally "the world" - planet Earth. It is an illusion not created by God, and it does not exist, and it is not our home.

Confusion comes in because at times, Jesus IS speaking about our false perceptions and the need for the correction of perception. But at other times, he is speaking at a higher "level" either at the level of someone with true perception, or even higher at a level of the One Son of God who made this universe. Not having a clear distinguish about WHICH level he is talking at in any given quote leads many people to a lot of confusing and false conclusions. Let's take a look at some quotes....

"You do not want the world." (who would want a world God didn't create?)

"The world provides no safety." (because it is an attack on God)

"This world was over long ago." (because it never happened)

"Nothing the world believes is true." (because the world itself is fundamentally a lie)

"Love was never in the world of dreams." (because God cannot be in the world or of the world nor can He create the world. The world of dreams is not your dreamy interpretation of planet Earth, it IS planet Earth, a dream which you are inside of right now, sleeping - look around you! "Your sleeping and your waking dreams have different forms, and that is all." - tells us that when we wake up in the morning to eat breakfast, WE ARE INSIDE A DREAM, not a world that God created.)

"There are no satisfactions in the world." (because the world was made by us as a substitute for God's universe)

"It is the world you see that is impossible." (because the world we see - literally planet earth, not your interpretation of planet earth - is impossible. It cannot exist because God did not create it.)

"Miracles do not obey the laws of this world." (because this world is entirely an EFFECT and it has no power to do anything)

"The world is not left by death but by truth." (because the world ITSELF is death, and truth is its undoing)

"Without the idea of death there is no world." (see .. the world is MADE OF DEATH and it will not ever be made of Life or given life or resurrected or turned into something living or God-created).

"All the "pleasures" of the world are nothing." (because they are illusions, and substitutes for God's love. This means the world can NEVER be a satisfying replacement for God's Creation).

"Perception selects, and makes the world you see." (Many many people think this means, that you have misperception OF the world, peeking out from a separate body, looking incorrectly at planet earth which somehow objectively came to exist "on its own" or created by God. What this really means is, YOUR perception, as the One Son of God, MADE THE ENTIRE WORLD, and the world *itself* IS a state of mind containing images. Trees, houses, people, it's all part of perception. Not perception OF trees and houses and people, but literally the things themselves. Those objects, your body, planet earth, are misperceptions.)

"The world you see is but a judgment on yourself." (because you are the One Son of God and the ENTIRE WORLD is a judgement against you. It's an attempt to deny who you are, to turn you into a form which dies, to picture what it would be like to be dead, and to completely obscure the light of Christ. The world itself IS judgement. Judgements OF or ABOUT the world are an entirely additional LAYER of bullshit that you added as a separate human, and is a SECOND LAYER of sleeping you added on top of dreaming the world.)

"The world you see has nothing to do with reality." (Again, this is one which many people think means, the world your little separate body-located self sees... thus your private perception. No. It's the world your eyes see. You see trees. You can call the trees good trees or bad trees, hated trees or loved trees, you still see trees. The trees you SEE - trees AT ALL - are nothing to do with reality. God did not create trees.)

"If this were the real world, God would be cruel." (This SHOULD be an obvious one. Given all the suffering and terror and death in the world, which is inherent to the world's nature, should NOT be possible if God created it. And claiming that it's really love or life if viewed correctly, is a complete distortion, again based in one person's body-identified personal opinion about the world. God does not create worlds where there are forms or bodies or things which die, NOR does he create worlds where even if those things are all part of one lovely "whole", they are possible either. God only creates HEAVEN, which is formless and has absolutely nothing to do with planet Earth in any way.)

"The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness." (Yes, planet Earth, is a bleak little world, and it will vanish into nothingness, because God did not create it. This does not mean your personal misperception of the world will vanish (though it will also) - the world ITSELF will vanish, because it is a lie).

"The world was made that problems could not be escaped." (the purpose for this self-made world was to create problems that are inescapable, such as sickness and death. These problems however have no power over miracles which can undo them all BECAUSE God did not create a world of problems.)

"This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son." (I like this one because it says it like it is. The entire world, the entire physical universe, is a "picture" in the MIND of the Son of God, who is absolutely vast and unlimited, who is dreaming this ENTIRE physical universe and everything in it, and it was designed by him as the crucifixion of himself. Its depiction of things which have beginnings and ends, stars which are born and die, flowers which wilt, people who die of disease, planets that die, etc... is a picture of CRUCIFIXION not a picture of "God is very loving." While you can come to perceive it in a more forgiving way, that does not make or prove it is God's creation either, because if you recognize it for the illusion/lie it is, it MUST disappear.)

"The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all." (This is because the world is an effect of dreaming. What appears in it as "causes" are illusions of causes put in place by the dreamer. The world has no consequences. Anything God creates MUST have the power to CAUSE, and since the world cannot cause anything, it cannot be a creation of God.)

"The unreal world is a thing of despair, for it can never be." (There can only be joy and love and peace in what CAN be, i.e. God's creation, heaven, the kingdom, but outside of that there is no life and nothing can be joyful or loving or peaceful. The world is inherently a depiction of what peace is NOT like. Separation in all its forms is played out here, and every single particle of matter is at war with all the rest.)

"Salvation is no more than a reminder this world is not your home." (This world is not your home... literally, planet Earth is not your home. This entire physical universe is not your home. But some people interpret this to mean, well, this imaginary interpretation of the world is not my home - the world I'm putting on top of the world is not my home. Bullshit. "The world" is simply planet earth. Planet earth is not your home. Surely you FEEL this? Surely you recognize that you feel like an alien here, and that the more you wake up the more you recognize that you do not belong in this illusory place? I know I do.)

"There is a place in you where this whole world has been forgotten."(Thank God, because this world is not something God would ever create. God is suddenly the author of duality and sickness and death? God sees sickness and death as lovely and precious? I think not.).

"The world has never been at all. Eternity remains a constant state." (Planet Earth has never existed at all. This is hard to accept I know. There is no world. This is the one core teaching in ACIM which many people refuse to entertain. This is because we believe the world is REAL and cannot conceive of how it would not be. Especially if you come to the course with a background in beliefs which say God made the world in some way, that's hard to put down. This isn't referring to a privately perceived interpretation of the world. Again, it's just simply... this world, planet earth, has never existed. We can deny and fight this all we want.)

"In the world of scarcity, love has no meaning and peace is impossible." (Would you say planet earth is a world of scarcity? I sure would. That's not a judgement or an inability to see its pure loveliness. Yes there's a forgiven world, which is the recognition that this world is an illusion and is nothing, but I think most would agree this is a world of lack and rarity. Just look at how empty outer space is and how distant civilizations or inhabitable planets are. Extreme scarcity.)

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt." (So here again you could say, well, this means my perception is nuts and I'm not seeing the world correctly. Ok. That's one LAYER of the problem. Once you undo that false perception you're going to find out, that the world is STILL a delusional system. Inherently, the mountains, trees, planets, forests, oceans, it's all a state of DELUSION, and that's not going to change when you get over your personal misinterpretations of it. See, the problem is, we think that when we overcome "my" personal misperceptions, that's going to be the end of the story. It's not. You have to not only get over your personal interpretations (which is ONE level of awakening), AND then go beyond the definition of "my self" to incorporate ALL SELVES into one single Son of God - as Christ. And in that view, there is an entirely second level of awakening which leads to God, and the acceptance that the One Son of God MADE this world out of insanity and guilt. Guilt, denied, became unconscious, and projected out as the physical universe, in which we are now hiding from it by pretending to be innocent. Hmmm)

"The Holy Spirit sees the world as a teaching device for bringing you home." (because the world ITSELF is not your home. It's just a way Holy Spirit can USE it to help you to ESCAPE from it through truth - because it doesn't exist)

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it." (Plain and simple. Normal language. The world you see, with your eyes, regardless of your mental interpretations or labelling or judgements, is an illusion of a world. God did NOT create it. Many people want this mean, my personal interpretation of the world is not the world God created, and once I am free of my personal interpretation, God is going to reveal that this world - planet Earth - is his lovely creation. Good luck with that. Planet Earth does not exist. It is an illusion. The course even tells us the "real world" is an illusion and will disappear.)

"There is no world! This is the central thought the Course attempts to teach." (AHA!.. .. If you can GET this one and accept it, you've made a huge leap away from the ILLUSION that this world dis real, or that God could have created it whatsoever, to the awareness that this world can NEVER be real because to believe that requires a belief in sin and death. There is no world. Yes, planet Earth. There is no planet earth, neither as a separate planet nor as part of some seamless "soup" of God-stuff. Pretty threatening to the ego which is why it fights it tooth and nail.)

"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never be undone." (Miracles can UNDO the world itself, and everything the world says cannot be undone (itself), BECAUSE the world CAN be undone, proving that it is NOT REAL. What is real cannot be undone. If miracles can undo the world, they can bring about RESURRECTION - the undoing of death in ALL its forms, including physical and mental death. Eventually the entire physical universes is going to be UNDONE, because it does not exist. Only God's kingdom will remain.)

"This is an insane world, and do not underestimate the extent of its insanity." (Obviously, but this actually does not just mean that the people in the world are nuts (and most are, me included), it means the world ITSELF, the very fabric of spacetime, is insanity. It is impossible to be separate from God and this universe attempts to prove otherwise.)

"On confusion has this world been based, and there is nothing else it rests upon." (here, we're told the world RESTS UPON confusion. The world itself. Now, if this means your perception, sure, that'd seem to make sense. You can be confused, and become unconfused. Sure, makes sense. But this statement isn't speaking about you or your personal world. In fact, most of the course is not speaking to or about anyone's EGO SELF, and yet 90%+ of ACIM students THINK that the Course is talking about THEIR PERSONAL EGO, which leads to a ton of confusion. The world ITSELF is based on confusion because it's an expression of a belief that separation from God is possible, which is a confused state of mind.)

"It is not will for life but wish for death that is the motivation for this world." (And this never changes. The world is BASED ON death, made of death, and is ALWAYS DEAD. There is no life here. There is no life outside of heaven. All forms of "life" in the world, all bodies, animals, plants etc, the sun and stars, it is all part of a DREAM OF DEATH, and not one part of it has eternal life. Death was the motivation that MADE THIS WORLD. This world was MADE BY A DEATH WISH, not by God. That's quite extremely opposite to the folk who believe God created this world somehow).

"The world is only in the mind of its maker. Do not believe it is outside of yourself." (When this says "yourself" note that it does not just mean "you in a body and not other people." Most people take it that way because they have an ego. Statements about you making the world or the world being in your mind, is not about it being in your SEPARATE MIND. It's about it being in THE ONE MIND of the son of God. The ONE son of God is the maker of this entire world. It is not outside of THAT SELF. You are busy focusing on how to get your LITTLE SELF to a state of awakening of maximal naturalness, but there is more beyond that - realizing that you are the entire sonship and more. You are Christ, not just one Son.)

"What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?" (Who wants the crappy world anyway? It's full of shit.)

"You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up." (You can believe you are victimized when you believe the world itself is a CAUSE and you are its EFFECT. But when this is reversed (this is a course in cause not effect), YOU become the cause and the world is recognized as an EFFECT. It has no power over you because it is an EFFECT of YOUR dreaming it (as the One Son). This is how you are not a victim of it. Otherwise, the world can still kill you against your will. No-one dies without their own consent.)

"Holy are you, eternal, free and whole, at peace forever in the Heart of God. Where is the world, and where is sorrow now?" (Apparently Jesus is clear that the world is not a place of peace or freedom or holiness. So God cannot have created it.)

"What is seen in dreams seems to be very real. Yet the Bible says that a deep sleep fell upon Adam, and nowhere is there reference to his waking up. The world has not yet experienced any comprehensive reawakening or rebirth." (Yes dreams seem very real. What if i told you right now that you are actually INSIDE A HUGE DREAM? Right now... this room you are in or whatever, the people you are near, it's part of a DREAM. This is not what God created because it is a DREAM, not a reality. God does not dream or make worlds of dreams, or dreams of death. God did not create a dream world. You're dreaming, and you need to wake up FROM this dream, not TO it.)

"Forgive the world, and you will understand that every thing that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real." (Objects in this world have ends and beginnings. Every particle begins and ends. Every flower is sown and grows and blooms and dies. Beginnings and endings. It's not just a matter of not seeing them correctly or not realizing that "God is making them grow" or some BS, it's simply that, ALL FORMS ARE FORMS OF DEATH, and they all end, and that is why they are NOT eternal, and God did not create them.

"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." (Exactly, and elsewhere Jesus tells us that love (God) did not make the body. God does not create forms, or planets, or a physical universe).

"The tiny instant you would keep and make eternal, passed away in Heaven too soon for anything to notice it had come. What disappeared too quickly to affect the simple knowledge of the Son of God can hardly still be there, for you to choose to be your teacher." (The entire world and all things in it were MADE by us to be NOT ETERNAL, which is WHY it passed away, because it could not last. Nothing God creates can die or end or transform or change, no matter what words you use to try to make out that it wouldn't be seen "as change" when you're awake.)

"Everything in this world is little because it is a world made out of littleness." (I like this quote also because it locks in the form of the world as being evidence of a mistake. Everything in the world, bodies, objects, even the planet, are "little". All little particles and atoms. All little tiny little creatures walking around thinking they are big. Go up in an airplane and you'll see how little it all is. Every FORM in this world is little, as an idea of not being unlimited or infinite, because it's an idea of contraction AWAY from God. This is not God's creation or God's will, and God would not maintain this for an instant.)

"There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see and all the world must change accordingly. (mind over matter)" (Again this is another one which people can and do use to try to prove that references to the world are all about "your personal misperception", and that you need to fix how you see in order to see it properly, and that afterwards, you'll keep the world and stay in it because it's real. No. Your WISHES have MADE A PLANET. The wishes of the one son of God, has made an entire physical universe. These are wishes to die. Wishes to be crucified. Wishes to sin. Wishes against God's will. God did not make this. What you want to see, changes, IN FORM, as mind-over-matter, because your mind is THAT POWERFUL. It doesn't just mean you change your perception OF stuff, when your perception properly changes, the world ITSELF must change form, and so must the body.)

"The world that you see is what you have put there to see; nothing more and nothing less and so it is important to you. The world that you perceive is the witness to your state of mind, the outward picture of your inward condition." (You put it there (forms, bodies, trees, buildings) because you WANT TO. Do you think you don't have that much power? The mind is very powerful. The world must match the outward picture of the inward condition of the mind of the ONE SON. The One Son is attempting to destroy himself BY fragmenting himself into many many individuals and forms scattered across many worlds. What shows up as objects and bodies is what the Son of God wants to see there. It IS his perception. The course says literally "the world IS PERCEPTION", which does not mean that your little human "perception" contains the illusory world, it means the ENTIRE WORLD OF EARTH is inside the perception of a vast mind - it is that mind's IMAGINATION. Meaning, physical objects, are actually a part of SEEING, the mechanism of trying to VISUALIZE STUFF, which brings it into appearance as fake images i.e. objects and forms and bodies. When the mind is free of all this, the physical world - yes - planet earth in all its ways - MUST DISSAPPEAR.)

"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer. The world can add nothing to the power and the glory of God and His holy Sons, but it can blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true." (I would rather have what the Kingdom of God offers than what this world offers. This world is not my home. It does not contain the truth. It is not real. And God did not create it. It HAS blinded the sons to the father, which was its purpose. You cannot behold (see in any way) the world (physical planet earth) and behold the kingdom. Only one of them is true and real. Planet earth does not exist, was not created by god, is an illusion, and if you're still SEEING IT in any way, with any mind whatsoever, you are not in the Kingdom. To suggest you can BE in God, in his kingdom, while the world continues to appear or move or change or have form, you are in denial.)

"O my brothers, if you only knew the peace that will envelop you and hold you safe and pure and lovely in the Mind of God, you could but rush to meet Him where His altar is. Hallowed your Name and His, for they are joined here in this holy place. Here He leans down to lift you up to Him, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and to eternity; out of all fear and given back to love." (Looking forward to this! Finally a relief from this world of nightmares and death and suffering. THERE IS ANOTHER WORLD BEYOND THIS which God did create - his kingdom, heaven, filled with joy and life and peace and celebration. It is HOME. It is where you really want to be. Do not let the world, planet earth, bodies, objects, forms, people, places, idols, or anything else, KEEP YOU FROM going there and accepting it as your true home where your true nature is free at last. The world offers nothing in comparison. Pleasure is not love. Specialness is not love. Forms are not love. Sunsets and kittens are not love. "Never was love in the world."

There is no world. The people who do not believe this will continue to not believe this, and will object to this post and everything it says. They are free to do so, but they are not free of the confusion that is going to accompany those beliefs, or the fear that will be induced upon being confronted with this truth. I would hope people will change their mind and see what the course is really telling us. Then we have real hope.

A Course in Miracles - Urtext material - reproduced with permission from the Foundation for Inner Peace (acim.org), and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles (facim.org).
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