I used to attack myself pretty severely through the fear of being judged by others. I was painfully shy and perceived a need to withdraw in an effort to protect myself, but all this did was hurt myself deeply.

My shyness was a coping mechanism for protecting my sensitivity. I had failed to learn how to express myself fully, and it didn't help that I was an introvert. I had trouble learning social skills and asserting myself. Every social interaction was literally painful.

I did not realize what I was doing to myself. My perception was that other people were perceiving me in a certain way, which I was simply trying to get away from.

After a social encounter, particularly one with strangers or where I had to go into someone else's home or be surrounded by a crowd, I would feel deeply, deeply hurt. I would become strongly embarrassed in the midst of the situation, would tense up, become very quiet (paralyzed) and experience things as though everyone was judging me.

I would return home with a very very deep inner emotional pain, a feeling of "hurt", that was so strong I had no choice but to have a deep cry in order to deal with it. Every social encounter seemed like a total failure and something I did not want to be a part of, making me avoid them even more. It was deeper and stronger than any other emotional upset about any other situation in life. It felt absolutely horrible.

When strangers would even walk past I would immediately cringe and feel attacked. I suspected they were a threat, and saw them as enemies or someone I did not want to be around. They seemed to have power over me and I hid away and withdrew in an effort to avoid people.

I had no idea what was happening in my perception or what I was doing to myself. I only thought that other people were hurting me and causing me to feel like shit. It seemed to all be their fault, and they were the ones who we being judgmental.

But over time I have gradually, slowly learned, that this is not the case. It was difficult to come to realize this.

I saw that I was in fact judging everyone else. I saw them as judged in some way, although this seemed to be subtler and concealed behind my reaction to this perception. Seeing them as judgers automatically meant I was judged by them and therefore at their effect. The effects this produced in my own self was the deep hurt.

I had to realize that in order to see them as judgers, I had to believe they were the ones being judgmental, which was in fact my own belief. I was making them out to be judgers. And that meant, I was simultaneously judging my own self by seeing myself in the role of "judged" by them.

It never really had anything to do with other people judging me either. In fact, probably in 99% of cases they were not being judgmental at all. They were not even interested. They weren't saying anything about me or pointing a finger or anything. But I had this "mental illness" of strongly believing that I couldn't go anywhere without being under attack. And it wouldn't matter if someone pointed out that no-one really cared to judge me because they were too busy with their own selfish interests, I couldn't see it.

What I was really doing was seeing myself as judge-worthy, disassociating a part of my mind and projecting it onto others, seeing them as the judger rather than myself, and then creating the effects within myself that correspond to how I perceived others to be perceiving me. I literally was hurting myself. The hurt I did to myself was far worse than anything anyone else ever did, and it was all because of how I was mis-perceiving.

Underneath this fear of judgement there was a belief that I deserved to be judged, because I believed I had sinned and was guilty. I didn't see myself as worthy of love and therefore perceived that others agreed with me. My direct self-attack turned into indirect self-attack that appeared to be coming at me from other people, but was really coming at me from within a part of my mind that I did not recognize as myself.

I was being both the judger of myself, and the one who was judged. Or in other words, a victimizer and a victim. I played both roles but only saw myself as playing the victim role, and unfairly so. The mere act of perceiving oneself in a victim role automatically creates effects in yourself, typically emotional reactions which try to correspond to the causes that you see as outside of yourself. Because I saw others as judging me severely, I felt severely hurt. Truth is, both the perception that others were judging and the hurtful effects of the judgement were both put in place simultaneously by myself.

I needed to forgive myself. And this has taken a very long time and it's been a very gradual slow process. Over the years, a sense of being separate from others has diminished. A sense of being trapped in myself has diminished. A sense of frustration at not being able to fully express has diminished. A sense of it not being okay to simply be the way I am has diminished. In fact, recently there has been a growing, wonderful freedom, of finally not giving a fuck.

This funnily enough manifested in recent hairstyles. It suddenly became fun to play with looking ugly, rather than trying to look pleasing. And I don't mean this ugliness is another judgement, just that, I've found myself being really "ok" with looking whatever way I look without it meaning anything or causing a judgement.

This is so freeing. It now becomes more of a "playful" experience, where it doesn't matter one way or another, and where I'm growing stronger in my willingness to present myself in whatever way I like without caring (worrying) about what people will think of it.

You may have noticed over time that in my writing I now swear a lot more often. I used to be so repressed that I would never swear, and thought I was more special or holier than others by not doing so. It's now more of a pleasure to swear. To some this may seem like I'm turning 'evil' but that's not the case. I'm becoming more authentic and more myself, censoring myself less and recognizing that I am free.

Taking responsibility for everything I am experiencing shows me that I can only be upset if I hurt myself, no-one else is the cause of what I feel, and therefore I am set free of concern for massive people pleasing or not showing up fully as myself. I was trying to be everyone but myself, to be something I am not, and to disown myself. There is nothing but pain and suffering there when we do that.

There are some people out there especially those who are painfully shy, who appear on the surface to be sweet and nice but have a strong persona, a facade of everything being alright all the time when underneath there is a searing self hatred and repression and sense of unworthiness and of not being "allowed" to do anything. It's a state of self imprisonment. I still at times struggle with limiting myself and Holy Spirit having to remind me "you are allowed". I often thought I was imprisoned by someone else in life, but really it was my own doing.

Some of these people who are suffering from self-inflicted unworthiness and quiet suffering, turn to suicide as an escape. My own life became one of depression and despearation and a growing feeling that I was approaching some kind of "end". If I had not met my wife at about that time I probably wouldn't be here.

A sense of an "end" was a sense of intense separation, isolation and being cut off from everyone. I was ostracized "by society" for an earlier "accident", but really it was a way for me to do this to myself, to give me a good reason why I should suffer in silence and be unhappy. I have had to crawl out of my own self-inflicted hell-hole. Some people are not able to do this. There was a guy at my workplace who was similarly shy who no one would suspect was suffering painfully every day through false perceptions, and he shot himself.

I am thankful for the Holy Spirit and Jesus who have helped me immensely to come out of my nightmares and into a happier place. I still have work to do but everything keeps heading in the direction of heaven. A Course in Miracles has been a God-send in terms of correcting my perceptual distortions and helping me to undo the grossly self-inflicted false beliefs that torture and condemn from the inside out. I am so different to how I used to be now that I don't recognize myself in photos.

Freedom and relief from suffering comes from the recognition of what we are doing to ourselves. We are the ones who need to forgive ourselves and undo our own self attack. There is a way out of hell, because we are the only ones keeping us in hell. No-one is keeping us here but ourselves. Fear of judgement is secretly the fear of being judged by God, which is an attempt not to go Home by justifying self attack. But there is a better way. And that means, if we will become willing, we can go Home to God and be happy. Thank God for that!

God is a being of Spirit. God extends through Creation, producing the Sonship, and the Sonship in turn extends God's being as a co-creator. The Sonship is within God's being. The sonship's extension further creates more spirit beings, within each of the Sons's being, within God's being.

This creation of eternal life and extension of eternal life is spirit's ONLY function. All Spirit ever does is extend God's being. It never is involved with making worlds, planets, bodies, animals, forms, "life forms", sandwiches, or death. Spirit only creates spirit. It never creates objects or bodies.

"Being must be extended. That is how it retains the knowledge of itself. Spirit yearns to share its being as its Creator did. Created by sharing, its will is to create. It does not wish to contain God, but wills to extend His Being. ... The extension of God's Being is spirit's only function."

God creates only in the likeness of Himself according to His own nature, characteristics and laws. God is unlimited infinite being. God is omnipresent, meaning He is everywhere at once, and God has Eternal Life.

When God extends Himself in His Divine Application, He merely creates more like Himself. His Son is given spirit/being/soul, mind, eternal life, the ability to create, and omnipresence. Just like the Father. The Son has everything the Father has, lacks nothing, and is exactly identical in nature. This identically is what "Oneness" or "One With" means - being of like kind.

It is not possible for God to create something unlike Himself or unlike His nature. Nor is it possible for the Son to be unlike God's nature or to create something which is unlike God's nature. The son's creations are just as much like God as the Son is, following all the same characteristics of perfection and divinity and wholeness, and with just as much ability to extend creation.

Eternal life is eternal BECAUSE it is permanent and cannot be changed. Nothing real changes or wavers or fluctuates. Anything that changes is not real. "Reality is a constant state." Eternal life requires the total absence of anything that can change or be changed. Change itself is the idea of what exists no longer existing, and is the idea of death.

The idea of "spacetime" is exactly opposite to the nature of God's creation, and God could not, and did not, and cannot create it.

Space is in direct opposition to the nature of omnipresent creation. Omnipresence means everything that exists is everywhere at once. Space means whatever exists is NOT everywhere at once. Space goes on to assert that everything is not everywhere, nothing is fully anywhere, anything that is anywhere is not everywhere, nothing exists everywhere, and therefore everything does not exist anywhere. It is the ultimate statement that everything, God, does not exist anywhere. It is in total opposition and violation of God's will, God's laws, God's nature and God's creation.

Time is also in direct opposition to eternal life. In eternity everything is permanently the same, nothing changes, everything extends forever and there is no interruption or alteration to what is. In time, time suggests that nothing is EVER THE SAME, that all things are constantly changing, in a state of flux and uncertainty and fear, that what existed no longer exists, and what is to come will obliterate what is here now. Time is a direct attack on God's nature, Kingdom, laws and nature, just as space is. And together they form the foundation of the ego's manifestation of HELL - the exact OPPOSITE OF HEAVEN IN EVERY WAY.

Now, everything you see with the body's eyes, and the body itself, is directly and totally dependent on this system of space and time, which is totally and UTTERLY OPPOSED to God's nature and Kingdom. One part of the body is over here, but not over there. One part of the world is over here but not over there. This planet is not where the other planet is. My body is not occupying the same space as your body.

This is a system of the total ABSENCE OF SHARING of any kind. In God's Kingdom, everything is always shared everywhere by everyone simultaneously. With no ownership, no possession, no exclusivity, and no special rights. Within spacetime, there is no such thing as sharing. Space asserts that what is here, is not there, and so it is isolated, and in fact not whole, because wholeness means being everywhere and so nothing in space is whole. Time asserts that what just was, no longer is, and so it does not extend or share into the present or future, killing it off and turning it into history.

The planet Earth, is entirely dependent on space and time both for its apparent existence. In order to even be a three dimensional object made from particles which do not share space, and which are all spread out in different locations, and whereby England is not America and Australia is not the North Pole, nothing is everywhere and so everything is nowhere. It is an illusion of place and time, shift and change, destruction of reality, attack on God's Kingdom, and TOTAL DENIAL of the laws of God. This planet entirely goes against the nature of God and therefore is against YOUR nature. "The laws of this world go against your nature."

Without being separated out in "space", or changing over "time", there cannot be a three dimensional planet taking up space. Continents cannot be kept apart. Bodies cannot be maintained. Animals and plants cannot retain their shapes. Particles of matter cannot exist independent of each other. Drops of water cannot move as an ocean. And sunbeams have no capability of shining. All of this stuff is THE EGO THOUGHT SYSTEM, made as an ATTACK ON GOD. "The world was made as an attack on God". "The world was made as a place where God could enter not." "Earth, which is HEAVEN'S OPPOSITE IN EVERY WAY."

If you can grasp the nature of God's Kingdom, God's law, and God's ways, you MUST recognize that everything in and of spacetime is absolutely bullshit. It is TOTALLY NOTHING LIKE GOD'S NATURE, it is absolutely utterly OPPOSED TO LIFE, and is a PICTURE OF CRUCIFIXION. "The world is a picture of the crucifixion of the Son of God." It is crucifixion simply because it is the idea of what God's Son is NOT LIKE, it is the idea of how God's Son would look if he were SPLIT APART, it is the idea of God's Son being in a state of constant change and insanity, and it is the idea of God's Son PERISHING AND DYING. It is NOT a pretty picture of God's creation, it is NOT EVEN REMOTELY HOLY, IT IS NOT GOD'S WILL, and it IS ***NOTHING LIKE GOD***.

Thankfully, God's ACTUAL creation, heaven, is not like this world. This world, is "the world you made" and "the world you see" with the body's eyes, which see nothing but illusions. God's creation is entirely a LIVING WORLD OF LIGHT, not even remotely in the shape of any kind of object or form or planet or body, FREE OF SPATIAL SEPARATIONS, FREE OF TIME AND CHANGE. It is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to the world you see.

Anyone here who is claiming that God COULD, WOULD, SHOULD, or DID create this world, is not comprehending why that is an utterly ridiculous idea. That means you do not RECOGNIZE exactly HOW this world is attacking God, HOW and WHY spacetime is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to Heaven's nature, why the laws of this world are entirely EGO LAWS OF CHAOS, and why God is NOT LIKE THIS AT ALL. If you really think God is LIKE THIS WORLD, you really, really, really do not know what God is like. To accuse Him of creating it, labelling it as sacred or holy, or regarding it are real, is nothing short of blasphemous.

God can only create LIFE. And that life MUST EXTEND LIFE. And so if that which God creates does not in turn CREATE LIFE OUT OF NOWHERE, through a MIRACULOUS CREATIVE ACT, then it is not life. Look now at the world YOU made, Earth, this universe, in which NOTHING extends life through miraculous creation, NOTHING creates in its exact image and likeness, NOTHING lives forever, NOTHING is permanent, NOTHING is free from threat because what is UNREAL CAN be threatened, and NOTHING is even remotely God-like. To believe this world is God's creation is to believe ILLUSIONS ARE REAL, which is FALSE PERCEPTION. It is delusional. And failure to recognize this is INSANITY.

C-4.1. "The world you see is an illusion of a world. 2 God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. 3 Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. 4 Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. 5 But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.

C-4.2. The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. 2 And so they do. 3 For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. 4 While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

"C-4.4. The world stands like a block before Christ's face. 2 But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. 3 It is seen at last for only what it is. 4 And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. 5 Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

"A forgiven world cannot last."

Believing that evil is real, is a mistaken perception. It's actually a failure to recognize what the so-called evil is. Only in a total lack of recognition, does it appear to be "real evil" at all. Without forgiveness, it seems to take on a kind of authenticity, as if it's actually a viable opposite to God, or some kind of real threat to what is good. But if you see evil this way, it is because you yourself are unforgiving, which means you are the evil one.

It's interesting to realize that evil is nothing but a way of describing someone who is not in their right mind. No-one in their right mind would ever attack or be harmful or anything other than loving. Evil really is just a term for someone who has lost their right mindedness and is now "not in their right mind", ie is insane. This insanity is simply a state of being confused and mistaken about what is real and true. It's a state of false belief, false perception, false values, and made-up fantasies about reality.

So someone who is in that state isn't really evil. It's not like their minds are in a state of wholeness and health and balance but just happen to believe something negative. To hold the beliefs that they do, their minds cannot be whole, they have lost sight of reason, they are in the darkness, are experiencing self conflicting ideas, must be living in fear, and do not know what is real any more.

Such an "evil" person may indeed seem to "do evil deeds", ie to sin in the world, and indeed they may well be vicious and attacking and harmful to themselves and others. But this isn't because they are "really evil". It's only because they are mistaken, confused, lost, in denial, are blocking the love they are, are unaware God loves them, and are trying to hide in the darkness. They are not really evil at all, they are just opposed to God's reality, experiencing what must be temporary insanity.

No one in their right mind would ever choose to do what an evil person would think is reasonable, justified, valid, worthwhile, functional, truthful, and a form of salvation. Such insane people simply have lost sight of what is true and real and now believe that all kinds of illusory made-up things are more true and real. They are therefore simply making an error, and are in a state of being very mistaken.

We can't then really say that such people are evil. When viewed through the same evil distorted perception they will appear to be truly evil, but this is also an unforgiving perspective, not an enlightened one. When you look at the big picture and what obviously must be true of such people, it becomes clearer that they are not really sinners, and there is no real sin. This isn't too much of a stretch because it's simply a fact.

In truth, sin is not real and evil does not exist. So whatever these people are being or doing isn't real sin and they are not really evil. If we can't recognize that, WE must have some kind of illness of our own that is producing false perceptions and making sin and evil real to us. And now we are scapegoating the "evil ones" to try to get rid of our own sinful beliefs about ourselves. Now we're essentially just as nuts as they are, and have become hypocritical in our claim that they are the evil ones and not us.

Anyone who blames the evil ones is just as insane, and looking to take advantage of what they see as a "really evil person", to justify why it's okay to find fault in them. It seems to be "true" that the evil ones are the evil ones, and not me. And now I've gotten away with murder by pinning the blame for my own sinful outlook onto someone else, just because they appear to me to be the evil one. This reveals a lack of sanity on my own part. I'm hardly justified in pointing a finger when there's a log in my own eye. And why am I casting stones when my own mind supports sin being real?

What we have to learn is that there are no sinners and there are no evil persons. Not in God's reality. His Kingdom is purely good and whole and innocent and there is no evil anywhere. And here in the world, these people are not evil sinners either. They are ONLY mistaken people, in error, whose minds are temporarily insane, and who do not know what they are doing. This is why they are forgivable. You can hardly hold anything against them if truly they are so confused that they do not really know what they are actually doing. And being not in their right minds they certainly are out of touch with reality.

So these evil persons are simply insane persons who have lost their way, and who truly must be afraid and calling for love, and who need healing and forgiveness, not more condemnation. They do not need us to make their sins real. They do not need us to compound and imprison them by holding their own mistaken-ness against them. If we do that, we're just as nuts and unforgiving as they are. We are in false perception the instant that we condemn people for what they are not really doing.

"Forgiveness recognizes that what you think your brother did has not occurred."

Forgiveness does not pardon sins or make them real. It does not mistake what we call evil people for "real evil". It does not look at a "sinner" and blame them for actually sinning. It recognizes what they are doing is not sin or evil. What they are doing is merely hurting themselves through mistaken choices and confusion.

Those who seem evil merely have lost touch with what is really true and think that other things are true which are not. And so they choose the darkness by mistake, believing it is the light. Their navigation system is reporting false positives and steering them towards hell and death and sin under the belief that they are moving towards truth and life and heaven. They are deceived and are deceiving. They are in denial. They believe in something that is not what it is, and so worship false Gods and lies. This doesn't make them evil, it just makes them mistaken.

It is our job to recognize that every so-called evil person is not evil. And that every so-called sinner is not a sinner. Because that is actually the TRUTH. And if no-one is ACTUALLY evil, and no-one has ever REALLY sinned, and if these people are just in need of some correction and healing, then we can open up to being more compassionate towards them.

Just as Jesus would, we now can recognize that even the most "evil" people deserve love and forgiveness. He would ask us to love our "enemies". He would stand up for the well-being and innocence of all people even if the world would judge them as sinners. He would defend even a murderer against those who would accuse the murderer of being disgusting and despicable. Simply because he knows this is not the truth of the person, and they have not really done what they seem to be doing. Would you beat down someone who is mentally ill and who does not know any better?

Only blind people who cannot see would accuse blind people of making accurate choices based on vision. And if every case of so-called "evil" falls within the umbrella of "those who are insane", then there is no-one on the planet who is truly evil. And we must then learn that to accuse anyone of evil is really part of our own evil. In our harmlessness we would not condemn or point a finger or scapegoat or project blame or judge or try to justify attack or enact revenge. Those are all signs of someone who is, themselves, full of shit and in need of correction.

God loves all His children. Everyone is innocent. No-one is evil. There are no sinners. But there are a great many insane people who need psychological healing and help because of their confusion. And every one of them deserves to be loved.

If you can no longer describe people as "really evil", this not only lifts away all sense of threat and danger from such people, it also makes you harmless and sane and puts you back into your right mind. No-one in their right mind would believe that anyone is an evil sinner, because sin and evil and death do not really exist. To accuse is to be accused, and accusation is never truth.

Recognizing no one is really evil is all part of remembering the truth, that we are all completely innocent, there are no enemies, there is no "real evil" plotting to destroy you, evil is just a call for love, and it is your function to forgive them for what they are not really doing. Those who seem evil are innocent children of God. And every single one of them is welcomed Home by God with open arms and unconditional love. Love is justified because they are just experiencing a bad dream. And nothing in dreams is true.

Jesus loves "the devil".

"18. A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable value simultaneously."

This touches on the essence of A Course in Miracles and the Golden Rule. Jesus is literally telling us that YOU ARE ONE WITH OTHERS. This means you are literally IN THEM. And therefore the way that you treat them is the SAME as the way you treat yourself.

There is no exception to this. You treat BOTH yourself and others the same way at the same time. To recoil for another is to recoil from yourself. To not love another is to not love yourself. To hate another is to hate yourself. There is no escaping this because fundamentally, by the Law of God, you ARE them.

"One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds. Such is the truth."

So per the Golden Rule, that means that every person you encounter, you should love them, IF you want to be loved and if you love yourself. You should SEE YOUR SELF in them. Because both you AND them are Christ. And your love of them IS your love of yourself, directly. What you give to them you receive. What you transmit to them, you transmit to the part of you that is in them.

The "part of you" that is "in them" is the target of everything you give to them, so you have a VESTED INTEREST - a shared interest, in treating them well in order for YOU to be treated well. This is not a play on words or an option. This is how minds share and relate. This is how they were created. This is the dynamics of the laws of God which are always applying.

It is always the ego that suggests, the way you treat another is NOT the way you are treating yourself. Or that you can attack without being attacked. Or you can be murderous without experiencing the consequences. Or you can judge without being judged. Or you can hate without being hated. Or you can be right and they can be wrong and there is no equality between you.

These are all LIES because they fly in the face of the inescapable LAW. It can SEEM as if you can treat someone differently to how you treat yourself, but all of that MUST be an illusion. Because the only truth is that ALL of God's children are perfect EQUALS. Making them perfect brothers in the sonship. And this is permanent fact.

Any kind of inequality is an illusion. And that not only means that you and your brother are SEPARATELY EQUAL as individuals, like two identical twins standing next to each other. It in fact means that you SHARE EVERYTHING, which means you OVERLAP with each other, are ONE with each other, JOINED with each other, IN each other. You literally are in your brother's mind with him. Even if that means part of you seems to be "over there" in another person, from a separated point of view.

This is really the only thing to be learned. How to love yourself AND others equally. How to recognize that you are ONE with all people. To realize that, you cannot GET AWAY WITH anything. You cannot hurt without being hurt. You cannot attack without being attacked. Scapegoating and blame are delusional and denial. When you attack anyone you are hurting yourself, and you have to ask yourself, do you want to keep hurting yourself?

Anger and attack towards "others" drives a RIFT into your mind between the part of your mind which seems to be isolated to "inside your body" and the part of you which seems to be "inside other people's bodies". The more you attack what you THINK is a "separate them", the more you are SPLITTING OFF part of you which is in "you" (as a body identified self) and the part of you which is ONE WITH THEM. Which means you are directly attacking yourself and splitting your mind.

The split mind is divided by bodily boundaries, and as you focus on the ways in which you are NOT ONE, by emphasizing the solidity and reality and restriction of bodily obstacles, it simply SPLITS your mind and causes you to disassociate from yourself. And now you think you are literally two selves, with one part of you trapped in your body and the other part of you trapped in another person's body. You've now made an ego for both of you. And now you want to attack another to steal back from them the part of your SELF that you believe they have kept from you. As discussed in "the laws of chaos", everyone is looking for the self they think they lost.

So this seems to be a catch. The catch is, that if you choose to attack someone, you WILL be attacked, and you will suffer consequences, directly inflicted BY YOURSELF upon yourself. This is the secret of salvation, that you are doing it to yourself. And the only way to alleviate this suffering is to LOVE the other person. If you love them you will be loved. If you hate them you will be hated. By yourself. You cannot escape this "clause". It is the law of God. It is the Golden Rule. It is both a curse if ignored, and a clue to how to be happy if embraced.

The Golden Rule doesn't just mean that if you might treat someone as you would have them treat you, they MIGHT elect to treat you in a similar fashion. If there is any possibility that cause and effect breaks down and they MIGHT NOT treat you how you are treating them, then the law is breakable, and it is not a law, and it has devolved to the level of physical behaviors. The true nature of the Golden Rule is the oneness you always have with everyone in the mind, whereby you LITERALLY are DIRECTLY treating yourself the way you are treating them, because you are IN THEM.

"Do unto others because you ARE doing unto yourself." is what it should say.

If there is a person you hate, you will drive a separation between you. In this separation you will believe that person is completely separate from you, and you want to have as much distance and dis-association between you as possible. You do not want to be associated with them. You want to destroy them and have them not exist. And in this intensity of hatred and rage and attack and anger, you believe THEY ARE NOT YOU. And as such you can hurl as much blame and condemnation upon them as you can muster, and it seems to be 100% about their faults, and 0% about yours. This is a state of insanity.

This is a great way to split your mind, leading to states of personal suffering, unlove, a total lack of peace, and literal self destruction. Those who murder are trying to kill themselves. And those who attack are undermining their own integrity. And those who hate do not love themselves. Just as those who are sick have made themselves sick in an attempt to accuse OTHERS of sin as well as themselves.

"You but accuse your brothers of your own sin."

"Damaged bodies remain accusers."

The only solution, and the only option, and the only law which you HAVE to abide by, and cannot escape, is the law of God, that how you DO treat others IS how you are treating yourself, because YOU ARE ONE WITH THEM. And being literally part of that person, anything you hurl at them you are hurling at yourself. And you WILL experience the consequences. So really, your hands are tied and you do not have any loopholes or ways to get out of it.

Either you love BOTH you and your brother, or you hate both you and your brother. Either you love both you and your brother, or you attack both you and your brother. Either you attempt to make both you and your brother sick, or you HEAL both you and your brother. When you suffer you suffer along with him. The truth that applies to you applies to them equally and to the same degree. And not simply because they are your equal, but because THEY ARE YOU.

"Healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad."When this is recognized as true, when cause and effect are reunited so that anything you cause you also experience the effects of instantly, and when there is no way to attack without attacking yourself, you now have shared interests and the only option is to love. The only sane choice is to love. If you don't love you will hurt yourself and others. If you do love you will uplift and heal yourself and others. And "when I heal I am not healed alone."

It is by recognizing that you have a vested interest in loving others, because it allows you to be loved, that you will automatically steer clear of attack upon yourself. You will realize that you CANNOT attack another person WITHOUT suffering the consequences. And there is no way to hurt them without being hurt. So your only sane choice is to love unconditionally, so that you will be loved. Otherwise a failure to recognize your oneness leads to it seeming plausible, justifiable and warranted, that you can attack without consequence. And then you are on the slippery slope to hell.

The truth is, there is no real sin. Sin, the idea that you can attack something real, is literally impossible. Reality cannot BE attacked because it is permanent. Therefore sin is 100% impossible.

The question then is, what is this "sin" thing? It must be a fake sin, some kind of artificial sin. It can't be a real one. But in this world there for sure seem to be "sins" happening.

"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible." "To the ego the body is to attack with". "The body is the idea of sin made flesh" etc

Even when there seems to be a sin taking place, let's say someone is murdering another person, the truth is that this cannot be a real sin. Real sin doesn't exist. So what is it?

It has to be some kind of illusion of sin, like a fake sin. It has to be a kind of camouflage or disguise. Something which SEEMS to be one thing but is actually something else.

Sin, being untrue and false, has to be a lie. It cannot be a true something because sinlessness is true. Innocence is permanent, per the will of God that you be forever innocent. So whatever sin is, it must be a lie. It's some kind of pretend sin.

Recognizing this is forgiveness because it means you're not taking the appearance of sin at face value and believing it's really what it seems to be. It means you're seeing beyond its ILLUSION of sin, and are recognizing that it IS NOT really sin. It's something else.

The illusion of sin, is just kind of an assertion, a lie, a story being told, a portrayal of a seeming attack, which is impossible, upon something which is unreal, as if it were real. That it is even seeming to happen is a lie. That the events seem to be taking place is a lie. They aren't actually happening.

Sin is therefore an assertion of evil, or an attempt to "make possible" something that is not possible. It's an attempt to assert that something real can be destroyed. This was the whole purpose of the world we made.

"Not in truth, but in the world of shadows and illusions built on sin."

"Sickness would prove that lies must be the truth."

"It can indeed be said the ego made its world on sin."

This world, the world of sin, was made as a lie, to depict something untrue (that God's son is crucified), and that attacking God (or reality/truth) is possible.

"The world is a PICTURE OF the crucifixion of God's Son."

"The world was made as an attack on God."

But it's no more really an attack on God, than it is an actual crucifixion of God's son. It's an illusion of this. It's a NON attack, appearing as an attack. It's a NON-crucifixion, seeming to look like a crucifixion.

This is why sin is an ILLUSION. And this is why illusions are DECEPTIVE. And if you believe the appearance of the illusion without realizing HOW it is deceiving you, you are being TEMPTED by it and fall for that temptation. And then all you SEE is the surface appearance, like seeing a puzzle that you can't solve.

Falling for temptation is buying into sin as though it is real and possible. It is the belief in real sin and therefore real evil and death.

Even what APPEARS to be a physical murder, with the seeming "proof of sin" staring you in the face, CANNOT BE that. To take that at face vale is to fall for temptation. To just "buy it" based on how it appears, is delusional. Believing it is the temptation to believe in sin and thus be sinful yourself.

Nothing real can BE murdered. So how can the murdered thing even BE real in the first place, if it SEEMS to have been murdered? And how can there even seem to be a depiction of murder, when real murder (the destruction of reality) is IMPOSSIBLE?

Whatever the situation SEEMS to be, whatever it looks like, if you look only to its physical appearance, you are "blinded by perception of form". The form, the shape, the evidence, the colors, the smells, the proof, all tell your body senses a LIE, that actual real sin has taken place. And it seems undeniable, if you believe it.

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

"The body's eyes see ONLY form."

"ONLY the form of error attracts the ego. Meaning it does not recognize, and does not know if it is there or not."But a a dead body cannot be true. And a sick body cannot make any sense. And illusions of suffering cannot be real suffering.

"A sick body makes no sense."

Even suffering which you supposedly inflict upon yourself, cannot ACTUALLY be real suffering. In fact, even suffering is actually impossible. Nothing real can ever suffer.

"There is no pain in God, and therefore none in me."

"I am not a body I am free, for I am still as God created me."

"You are immortal and you cannot die."

So what does it mean if I SEEM to be suffering? It can only mean that I SEEM to be temporarily experiencing an ILLUSION of suffering, which seems LIKE suffering, or a PICTURE OF sickness, but IS NOT THAT. It can't really be that. It has to be something else, pretending to be suffering. Even unhappiness is fake unhappiness, covering up your happiness.

So what this tells you is that ALL illusions, incuding sickness, death, pain, unhappines, any kind of suffering at all, MUST NOT BE what they appear to be. And in fact that means there are TWO possible interpretations of the thing. Because you can either be DECEIVED BY an illusion or not.

"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see."

The false interpretation - "false perception" - looks at an illusion and falls for temptation to believe it is verbatim first-hand reality and therefore true. This is completely delusional and a total failure to be aware of the big picture. This is naive and irresponsible "spiritual blindness."

The true interpretation - "true perception" - looks at the same illusion and SEES THROUGH ("to forgive is to overlook") the LIE, does not fall for the temptation, sees DEEPER and BEYOND the surface appearance, and does not STOP its vision at the physical form.True perception or "accurate perception" is what we use in SANITY, to correctly evaluate "what this thing is". And a correct evaluation of anything that looks like a sin, is that IT IS NOT REALLY THAT. It CANNOT BE what it appears to be. It cannot be AT ALL.

A correct evaluation of any illusion is that you can see the "workings" of its DECEPTION, and you are not deceived by it. You can RECOGNIZE how and why it SEEMS to present a picture of sin and death and suffering, but is in fact simultaneously SOMETHING ELSE. This means recognizing that it is FALSE and UNREAL and UNTRUE.

What it IS, is NOT a reality, but a fiction. What it IS, is a lie. An audiovisual lie. Like an hallucination. A mistake in perception and understanding.

All illusions are two-faced because the ego is two-faced. It is never just what it appears to be on the surface. Murder is not "actual" murder, or "just murder". It is a deceitful lie about something happening which CANNOT possibly happen in reality, IS NOT happening now, and CANNOT BE what it appears to be.

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

A dead body CANNOT BE a real dead body. It can only be a LIE of a dead body, appearing like a dead body, AS IF dead bodies were possible, when they're not. Bodies don't even exist yet alone dead ones. All death is fake.

So sin, everything physical ("the granite block of sin"), is an ILLUSION which APPEARS to be something - an entire world, but is not REALLY that. The whole physical world, Earth, the sun, the stars and galaxies, it is all a deception. The world is a lie.

"The body is what you made in attempting to deceive yourself."

"There is no world."

"There is no sin."

It's all an attempt to dream up what "real sin" MIGHT be like, IF it were possible, and to try to make it SEEM not only possible but completely real. To make sin believable. But sin is unbelievable, and not believable, to one who sees through its bullshit.

This world is not really a world. This body is not really a body. Sin is not really sin and guilt is not really guilt. Sickness is not really sickness. Death is not really death. Nothing in this world is what it seems, because this world is an ILUSION of a world and NOT REALLY A WORLD.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not created it, for what He creates must be eternal as himself. And the time will come when everything you see will have an end."

In terms of the truth, these are our only two options: either accept it as it is, or deny it. Denying it is an attempt to reject what the truth is, and to replace it with something else.

Jesus says denial is an act of 'positive creation' not just an attempt to negate the truth. By denying, we substitute the truth for something else, and invent or make some other illusion to take its place, to try to prove that something else is true. We actively erect barricades and something else to fixate on and believe in.

In the Atonement, we accept the truth as it is, as God has established it, without any desire or need to change it.

The opposite of Atonement or resurrection, is death, in which there is an attempt to reject all truth (life) and prove that something opposite is true (death).

Denial produced the physical universe. Denial implements all forms of sickness. Denial is death. Denial is also fear. "All forms of sickness even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening." Or to put it another way, when you do not want to accept the truth, you invent fear to try to explain "why" you cannot accept it. The fear is fake, just as death is fake. Death does not END real life, it DENIES IT and paints a picture which PRETENDS the immortal son of God has been killed. ("You have made a bargain you cannot keep.")

Denial was the attempt to reject the fact that you cannot sin, by trying to replace it with an attempt to prove that sin can and has been accomplished. Even in that attempt, it is a state of denial. It hasn't changed the truth. Denial has no power to actually alter what the truth is. But, being denial, denial is "in denial" of this fact, and so attempts to change the truth anyway, believing that it is possible. Such is denial.

Denial also represents unwillingness. When we attempted to deny God's will, or to deny that we are as God created us, we moved into unwillingness. This was an attempt to suppress our own will. We became unwilling rather than willing, or imprisoned rather than free. Death is a state of unwillingness, as are punishment, suffering, fear, guilt and sin. This is why it takes "a little willingness" in order to move towards acceptance of the Atonement (truth) because denial has to be undone.

Blocks to awareness are denial. Since the truth cannot be changed (it's established by God's will permanently), denial cannot actually change the truth into something else. And the only way to "believe in" something else being true, is to block out awareness of the fact that the truth is true. While you are still aware that only the truth is true, you cannot bring yourself to believe or be convinced by an alternative. So you have to "block awareness".

Denial does this by putting up an illusory psychological barrier, comprised of a "will to reject", which makes the truth go unconscious. Conscious awareness is cut off from accessing the truth, hidden behind this wall of denial, and so now all that you are consciously aware of is "whats left" that hasn't yet been denied. The stuff that has been denied now forms the unconscious mind, hidden from awareness and kept in the dark. Consciously, since you are no longer aware that it is present, or still true, or an unchangeable fact, and you cannot "find it" when you search around with your awareness, it SEEMS not to exist.

Many false conclusions are made based on this unawareness - based on incomplete information. For example if you are not aware that you yourself chose to believe in sin, you made the sin unconscious by implementing denial and inventing fake guilt to cover it up, you will now be unable/unwilling to see that you are the one who made you guilty. Instead you will now search elsewhere for a "cause" of the upset, and inevitably blame it on someone else, because that seems to make sense given that you are not aware of the hidden key fact of what you did to yourself. This is why Jesus said "Forgive them father for they know not what they do" - as soon as you go into denial, you do NOT KNOW what you are doing, because you don't have all the facts in awareness.

The secret of salvation lies in your willingness to remove the block to awareness, so that you can become able to SEE the chain of causality coming from yourself, the choices you made, and thereby realize that none of your conditions are caused by anyone else. Your mind is the sole cause of your experience. But this block to awareness, in order to remove it, MUST entail the willingness to remove denial. The layer of denial which literally blocks awareness - blocks the ability to SEE, must be undone. And that will only be undone through honesty and willingness.

Denial takes on many forms, and indeed all forms. It includes the belief that you are already innocent even if you have unconscious hidden hates, secret sins, unhealed wounds and layers of self-repression that you don't want to admit to. This can produce a state of "fake innocence" in which you don't SEE that you are the cause of something and so become justified in blaming it on someone else - scapegoating, accusing your brother of your own sin. It also then justifies anger, and this is why anger is never justified - to become angry is ALWAYS based on denial and unawareness of the facts. If you knew the facts, the truth, you would have NO reason to conclude that you should be upset.

Denial also accounts for this world - Earth - this universe. Jesus says in reference to it, "a world that denies itself cannot exist." The world denies itself, because it is made OF denial of God's Kingdom. All denial is self denial, and so this world is made of denial. That is why it is a BLOCK to awareness. "Nothing so blinding as sight of form." This is also why, when denial is lifted, and we are willing to see the whole truth, this world must disappear because, being made from denial AS a block, it is merely an illusion preventing us from seeing, and once you see PAST it and become AWARE that you are the cause/dreamer of it, you will stop USING IT to make God's Kingdom unconscious.

Another expression or use of denial is in the ego's motto of "seek and do not find". By denying that you already are perfect, you don't SEE the perfection in yourself so you think it is not there, and so are now empty, and are in need, and this need compels you to search for a solution to the emptiness somewhere ELSE, outside of yourself. This sets you on a "spiritual path" - ultimately the journey without distance. Here you will pursue FAKE SPIRITAULITY, fake peace, produce a spiritualized ego, spiritualize the world, spiritualize the body, and seem to side with one half of duality (ultra positive or ultra negative).

This also produces the PERSONA, which is a fake identity or fake mask which forms this idea of who you think you are, which is made of the denial of yourself. Even your physical body is a fake image, designed to make people believe that they are seeing YOU when they see IT, when in fact it is made to HIDE YOU. The body and persona then become filled with fakery, lies, self deception and dishonesty, resulting in a veneer of "looking spiritual" or "acting spiritual", decorated with spiritual clothing and performing fake rituals, which are all really designed to maintain the denial and block you from being AUTHENTICALLY YOURSELF.

The facade of innocence hides unconscious guilt, and makes a person seem holier than they really are. The main problem is the person themselves is unwilling to admit to why they are overcompensating for a deep belief in unholiness, by pretending to be holy and trying to convince everyone that they themselves are convinced of it. This "spiritual seeker" has to be undone just as much as any other denial, because it takes you away from yourself. You do not need to seek. You need to *acknowledge* what is already TRUE about you, and be grateful that God's creation has not changed.

Denial also plays out in the unwillingness to accept what is happening in your life. I spent many many years in denial that I was unhappy, afraid, angry, and it wasn't until my mid-20's when I started to admit that the way I was feeling was even those things. I did not recognize the mountain of upset in me AS fear or AS anger, and didn't even know that I was afraid and angry. Such was the denial. Denial obscures, making reality seem twisted and not what it is, so that you do not *recognize* it, and so remain in a state where you think it IS something ELSE. This failure to recognize the truth is what keeps us in the dark. Yet "illusions recognized must disappear". They can only be recognized by not being in denial.

Denial also produces various kinds of blindness. The unwillingness to see the truth. Even though people may be walking around in bodies talking and performing activities, they can be in various states of awareness ie various states of denial, thus various states of unconsciousness. Just because someone is working in a job and playing on the internet and chatting to their friends, does not mean they are aware or awake. Denial indeed is sleep. It is a suppression of awareness.

Since denial is unwillingness, it also produces justification for fear whenever the truth comes along to challenge the denial. If you are in denial and you are believing that the truth is not the truth, you've made it out to be evil, and have replaced it with a lie that you believe is your salvation. When the truth comes along, you see it as an attacker, a threat, and thus USE denial once again as the ego's only tool to reject, shut out, or put distance between, you and that truth. You bury your head in the sand to avoid it and to pretend it is not there. This induces all forms of sickness, because sickness is a defense against the truth. So yes, sickness is denial of life, as is death.

The funny thing about denial is that instead of being able to actually change the truth at all, you instead hide from the truth and block your awareness of it, reasoning that if you are not AWARE of it, it must not BE there. This is clearly denial because you are simply hiding your vision. Pretending that something is not there, does not make it go away. But in the ego, we become convinced by this delusion and think "out of sight, out of mind"... that if we can't SEE something, or cannot be AWARE of it, then it must not exist.

This way, we've told ourselves that we actually UNDID God, reversed creation, cancelled Heaven, and erased our true self. By believing that our denial of truth CAN change the truth (that darkness can hide the light), it's very easy to make the tiny shift from "I'm in denial of it" to "It's actually gone." Therefore we have come to believe, in ego denial, that we ACTUALLY HAVE changed the truth because our awareness does not show it to us and it seems not to exist any more. This way we came to believe that sin is real and has had real consequences. We think that we actually HAVE hurt God, produced a new truth, got away with murder, and destroyed ourself and our inheritance.

This belief then leads to the distorted perception that we stopped being innocent, CHANGED into a different state, our innocence went away, and now all that we're left with is guilt. And in that view it seems as though we have become unworthy, have transformed from sinless to sinful, or from innocent to guilty. The blocked awareness viewed from inside denial, makes it SEEM as if this is true. And so in denial, we automatically come to believe that our denying is actually WORKING, and is CAUSAL, and has power OVER the truth to change it. And so we think we have sinned, are really a sinner, deserve to be guilty, should be punished for it, and are worthy only of death. Denial produces the death wish.

From this side of denial, not seeing that our denial HAS NOT changed reality, we're quite convinced that we actually are guilty sinners who don't deserve love or forgiveness. And so we think we are working on or in or with this guilty "ego self", which has not only replaced our real self, but is the ONLY self left. In denial, we are not aware that our real self - our innocent self - still as God created it - is STILL THERE, still fully alive, still perfect, and has not changed whatsoever. That real self is right here with you now. That real self is already in heaven and never left, nor did it change anything in reality.

And so now we're in this strange position where we think we are only this evil self who can never go back to being holy, while all along our true self is perfectly undefiled and holy forever, existing in parallel to this false idea of ourselves. Your "higher self" therefore exists right NOW, even if your sense of identity is all caught up in denial and confusion and ego. This is why "enlightenment is but a recognition and no a change at all". It merely entails the willingness to be AWARE of what is ALREADY TRUE. And to reach that awareness, ALL layers of denial MUST be removed from the mind so that you CAN be aware of it.

To admit to being in denial, or even to admit to wanting to stay in denial - wanting to keep your denial - is still an admittance. It reveals a willingness to allow the truth to enter. Even if you say, "I admit I do not want to wake up", that is better than an unwillingness to even admit that. To admit, is to permit access. It means you are willing to let truth be said or expressed about whatever the situation is. And this truth then sets you free. Even if just a little bit. Even if you are just admitting to being in denial and that you don't want to do anything about it, admits more truth than to not even want to admit to that.

This therefore takes some willingness, and it takes honesty. It requires a willingness to be mistaken, without implying punishment. It requires you to get honest with yourself, to stop being in resistance or avoidance, and to LOOK AT what it is that you don't want to see. And looking at it with the truth, is looking at it with the Holy Spirit. He represents the state of mind in which there is no denial. Your willingness to dig out and offer up secret sins, hidden hates, grievances, and also ways that you don't want to admit or accept something, allows Him to shine away those lies and release you.

Now, in ACIM circles there are various forms of denial and blindspots and each person is different. I've seen the most denial circling around topics to do with the body not existing, and to do with the world not existing. These are two of the major sticking points because the ego denial has

built a fortress to protect belief in these two things, and believing you "are" a body or that there "is" a world are the two most fundamental "givens" in this world. The body is the hero of the dream, and the world is the dream itself. To question belief in either of these seriously pushes the ego buttons and seems to "threaten your establishments."

There is a lot of denial around these topics and a lot of refusal to accept them. Accepting that there is no world is one of the hardest things to do, because denial makes the world seem true, real, valuable and desirable. Denial that the world is a cruel place, for example, leads many to believe God created it. And with that kind of a conclusion, who would want to question God's reality? Yet we are still in denial until we are sure to have removed all denial. And we will be in denial that we are in denial, because we don't SEE that there is something unconscious to us that we believe does not even exist.

There are also good and bad forms of denial, or uses of denial. If denial is used to reject the real truth, that's not a good thing. If denial is used to reject lies, that IS a good thing. Or rather, if denial is used to reject the belief that denial is true, using the mind to ADMIT that the denial is there, or that it is FALSE, that is a worthy form of denial.

There are unworthy forms of denial, which usually entail either a direct 1st-hand rejection of what is real, OR a 2nd-hand rejection of the illusions that have arisen due to the first level of denial. For example it is denial to produce a body. The body was made to deny God and shut out sharing with the Sonship. This denial needs to be undone. But additionally, on a second level, while you are making a body, if you KEEP making it through denial, but then pretend in some way that it does not exist and try to "separate from" it, THAT is also an unworthy form of denial. Up to a point, "the body is merely a fact of human existence." But at some point, human existence (bodies) is also denial of Spirit. These denials are at different levels.

Jesus also tells us in ACIM that "the separation HAS happened." Many people DENY this, mainly due to confusion about "nothing happened" as the atonement principle. This is level confusion. We did have the tiny mad idea, and we did share it, and it did produce imaginary worlds of illusion. Jesus even says, that to deny this fact is an unworthy form of denial. But to "accept" that it has happened should only be done in order to quickly realize that atonement is the only meaningful "correction" for the separation, and that it should be done as soon as possible.

It is also possible to have denials on top of denials on top of denials. For example when you are in fear, you are pretending that you have good reason to be afraid of something outside you. But the fact is, the fear is a decoy to deny guilt. Fear is protecting you from guilt and deflecting attention away from it as the "reason" why you are afraid. Fear makes guilt unconscious and blocks the guilt. The only reason you are afraid is because you think you are guilty and want to punish yourself. But without awareness of that, in fear you'll look for causes of the fear externally. To undo fear you must remove the denial behind it, become MORE AWARE of what you denied, reveal the guilt, and fix the guilt. So you can see there are multiple layers of distortion surrounding the guilt, and even guilt itself is denial.

The ego only has one tool. "Deny what is." The one antidote is the atonement - "accept what is". But to accept what is, you have to first remove the denial, so that your awareness of "what is" increases. So this doesn't mean just accepting the world "as it is", because how you are perceiving it is NOT the fullness that's present. You are NOT seeing it for what's really there, and are not recognizing it as an illusion. Blocks have to be removed in your mind, so that you can SEE. By seeing accurately and fully, you have true perception, which shows you the truth about this world, that it is not real and doesn't exist. Without removal of denial you will try to accept it, but won't be able to recognize it or accept its unreality.

The ego used denial to hide God, by making sin. The ego used denial to hide and keep sin, by making fake guilt. The ego hid the guilt behind fake fear using more denial. The fear produces self punishment but by denying that you are doing so. And eventually death is denial even of punishment. At every step the ego is denying, denying, denying. Denying who you are, stripping away layers of what remains, until eventually there is nothing left to deny. In death there is TOTAL denial of the truth, and no-one who goes through death is in their right mind.

It all boils down to this simple dynamic. Either you accept the truth - God's truth as God established it, or you deny it. You have no other choice. And because denial does not change the truth, denial MUST be a lie, where you are PRETENDING that the truth is not true. So either you are pretending to be something you are not, or you are being your real authentic self - as created by God. It's your choice, whether to accept or deny. But no-one gets to define what the truth IS. Only God can do that. And being in denial DOES NOT redefine the truth, even though those in denial believe that this is precisely what they're achieving. This is the authority problem, which is nothing but denial and an unwillingness to be honest.

The freedom we have is one of accepting or rejecting, not establishing, but anyone in denial with an ego will be in the business of trying to establish what the truth IS, acting as a gatekeeper to have to "approve" or "disapprove" before anything is permitted into awareness. Only when we are willing to give up our attempt to be God, to make the truth, will we be willing to simply open up to ACCEPT and RECEIVE it. Accepting the atonement is like throwing up your hands and admitting, only the truth is true, and only God's will is possible, and only God's way will work. Nothing else works. The ego is a lie and death is failure. Nothing else is true. I might as well accept it and go with it. And this takes TOTAL SURRENDER.

Thankfully, the truth is on our side, and loves us and has created everything for us. A perfect home, the inheritance of eternity, immortality, absolute peace and total joy. Not too shabby an option to accept, when you realize you stand to gain everything and give up nothing by letting go of denial.

"No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth."

"Heaven is a choice I must make."

"A dream of death is not left by death but by truth."

"The truth shall set you free."

The world can't really be held responsible for its nature. It was given its nature by those who made it. It was made for a purpose to serve them. And it functions exactly as they wanted it to.

Its makers wanted the world to be a place opposite to heaven in every possible way. Whatever was true of heaven, the world we made had to be unlike it in the most extreme ways possible.

Whereas heaven was light and strong and eternal and perfect, the world we made HAD to be dark and weak and temporary and imperfect. There was no real choice in this. Certainly the world itself had no choice in this, because it didn't make itself.

We wanted an opposite to God, an opposite to heaven, an opposite to eternal life. So we made an unreal dream of death and unhappiness. A dream of mortality and impermanence in which all things are infiltrated by death and destruction. A world opposite to creation where creation is impossible.

"Creation is impossible in this world."

The world cannot help this. It was made to be like this. Its nature is the only nature that is even possible as an opposite to heaven. It HAD to be this way in order to be different to the Kingdom.

It's not like the world can actually choose to be heaven, or have a nature that is exactly the same as heaven. Nor is it possible that the world is actually electing which nature to have. It cannot make this choice. It is something we made, and isn't the creator of itself.

This is also why the ego - something else we made, is forgivable. It is just as forgivable as the world because it did not make itself. It has the nature it has simply because it could have no other nature. A device spawned from an idea of separateness COULD ONLY lead a state of selfishness and isolation, exclusion and limitation.

The ego itself had no say in this. In fact it has no say in its own nature. In this sense it too is not responsible for being the way that it is. It was forced to be this way by its makers. And now it is true to its nature and follows the laws assigned to it.

The ego cannot really be accused of therefore doing bad things on purpose as though it could actually ever choose not to. It isn't a device for truth and salvation, nor is it a mind that can make a decision. It certainly isn't its own author, even though it has invented a story about a false God that it thinks made it.

The ego HAD to be the way it is because this is the natural outcome of an idea of separateness. Separateness never looks any other way or functions any other way. The world and the ego and the body simply CANNOT function any other way. They were given a function when they were made and they cannot deviate from it. The reason being that this function derives from a premise which has never been altered.

So in a sense we can't really hold the deeds of the ego, or of bodies, or people, or the world, against them. They are being faithful to their nature. They are just ticking over like a machine which was designed to function a certain way. They cannot do anything about it.

"The ego's voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect the EGO to say "I am not real."

The world cannot suddenly decide to be nice to you. The ego cannot suddenly tell you what the truth is. The body cannot suddenly be immortal. Objects cannot suddenly transcend spacetime. They are all locked into a system. It's a system-wide state of laws and rules by which they were made, they always abide, and they can never escape.

They cannot escape themselves, nor can they offer salvation from themselves. They are not going to change their minds. They are not going to take on a different nature. They are always going to keep running and operating on the same dysfunctional basis because that's the nature that was given to them, and they know nothing else. Nor are they capable of anything else, just as a tool or device can only do what it was designed to do.

So while the world and the ego and bodies attack and murder and destroy, in a sense they cannot help it. It's what they do. It's all that they do. They don't know how to do anything else, nor can they be taught to. Nor can they be kept while they are transformed into something better. They can only ever keep on being the way they were always going to be from the start.

Because they do not know what they do, they are forgivable. Because they did not create themselves, they are forgivable. Because they can only function in fault and failure because they were supposed to, they are forgivable. Because they can't help but break and disrupt and distort and skew and deceive and destroy, they must be forgivable. They aren't doing it "on purpose" out of optional spite, nor are they doing it on a basis of being free to do anything else.

The world can only destroy, and it can only deny, and it can only lose, and it can only fail. That is its nature. It can only disappoint and it can only fall short and it can only hurt. That is its nature. It can only be at war, it can only decay, and it can only die. That is its nature. It was born to die, and never to live except for death.

We cannot hold its nature against itself when it doesn't even have the slightest say in its nature or behavior. We cannot redeem the ego. We cannot redeem the world. The world cannot be saved in this sense because it cannot stop functioning the way it does even if "it wanted to". It is helpless. It is powerless. It has no causal choice. It can make no decisions. It is weak and vulnerable and fearful and nothing. So it can't really do anything of its own volition.

The world and the ego are nothing but puppets on a string being dangled by sons of God playing with sharp-edged toys. The world and the ego won't stop trying to kill you off either. Nor will they suddenly turn perfect or operate with holiness and happiness. The world is a pointless depressing hopeless place because all its roads lead to death. It doesn't know how to live, it only knows how to die. You can have pity for it in that sense. You can even have compassion for it.

"Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will you be ready to come home?"

The world will never be other than what it has to be in order to fulfill the function of separation. And the ego will never have a loving truthful nature. They are lost because they are loss. They are faulty because they were not made with love. They are broken because they were not given immortality. And they can only but disappear.

I forgive the world for being true to its maker. I forgive it for being incapable of real change. I forgive it for not knowing how to function better. I forgive it for being only capable of disappointment. I forgive it for attacking and destroying mindlessly and without consideration. I forgive its determined mercilessness, driven solely by its inherent function and its blindness to anything else. I forgive its evil which does not know what it does. And I forgive it for ever seeming to be needed, for a purpose of attack, from which it cannot deviate.

There is no spiritual ego. There is no sacred planet. They don't exist and never will. How can you hold a dream against ITSELF when YOU are the one who dreamed it into existence? It is what you want it to be, and it does what you wanted it to do. And until you stop dreaming it will continue to be a dream of death.

"It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as "the way of nature," not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the "natural" law of life."

"Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature's "law of life." God is insane, and fear alone is real."

"The world goes AGAINST your nature, because it is out of accord with God's laws. The world perceives orders of difficulty in EVERYTHING. This is because the ego perceives nothing as wholly desirable."

"The ego cannot make this choice because of the nature of its origin."

"For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. "

"You see the world which you have made, but you do not see yourself as the image-maker. You cannot be saved from the world, but you can escape from its cause."

"The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is unbelievable and will forever BE unbelievable."

"the world will never give a gift that is not made of fear"

"Everything the world can offer promises some joy that it will never give." "Your ego and your Soul will never be co-creators" "the body may become his chosen home, but it will never be his home in truth."

"The body's eyes will never see except through differences."

"These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see."

"The body's serial adventures, from the time of birth to dying is the theme of every dream the world has ever had. The "hero" of this dream will never change, nor will its purpose."

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there is a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place?"

"For the ILLUSION of love will NEVER satisfy you. But its REALITY, which awaits you on the other side, WILL give you everything." "It costs the world we see, for the world will never again appear to rule the mind."

"There IS no meaning in the form, AND THERE WILL NEVER BE."

I believe I have received. Thank you God.

2000 years ago Jesus said "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

Gratitude is an attitude of fully appreciating what is already present, or has been already given.

What you may not realize is, if it appears you do not have what you want, if you be pre-grateful for it ahead of time, believing that you have already received it as if receiving was "in the past", it comes to you!!

There is a law here. The law is, that where there is gratitude, the thing you are grateful for is being appreciated and therefore it must be present. Should you be grateful for the presence of something that the world seems to not contain, it will materialize. It has to, because gratitude extends and believes in what it is grateful for.

In other words, gratitude CREATES. God created through gratitude because gratitude appreciates what already is and God appreciates - is aware of and fully embraces - what He already is, which creates more of the same.

This seems like complete nonsense to the ego, how can gratitude create when the thing to be grateful for doesn’t seem to exist yet? The ego thought system is only grateful for what it "gets" in the future, not for what is HAS. It’s non existence is an illusion because all that God provided is ALREADY GIVEN, merely hidden temporarily. And so lacking it is NOT TRUE.

It operates similarly to the law of forgiveness. Forgiveness is fore-giveness, ie it gives love and truth ahead of time proactively SO THAT nothing goes wrong and therefore there is nothing to forgive. It brings about a state in which it’s own law is extended to ENSURE there is no problem.

Similarly, gratitude to God for what he HAS GIVEN, pro-actively CAUSES it to be present, acknlowdging that it must already be here, and therefore expressing and creating it so that it does not seem to be lacking. Gratitude undoes lack or the illusion of lack, just as forgiveness undoes the need to forgive by removing the illusion of unforgiveness or judgement. And remember that miracles supply a lack and that is why they heal, therefore gratitude is miraculous!

God’s power works in the opposite direction to the ego. The ego says, I presently lack and therefore need something and so I "desire"it and then tries to use its own will power to force it to happen, without God.

This morning I found myself doing this because I was "commanding" that something be healed, it was not working, the problem seemed real and not healed yet and I became quite intense and demanding about it. Then I became frustrated and angry. I had to admit that I was trying to force it myself and was using my own will. This wasn’t working. So in frustration I gave up, which was a good thing.

God works in the opposite direction. He does not focus on the lack of what you want, because absence is the idea that God is absent. He does not focus on the answer being in the future because that reinforces the idea that God is not here right now, and that He has been here already this whole time. He does not complain because complaint is the opposite of gratitude and complaint is a failure to appreciate what is present.

Complaint attacks what is here now, gratitude loves what is here now. However, this does NOT MEAN that you should love and be great full for what is currently showing up in form! Form is an illusion! Be grateful for the shit the ego gave you and you will keep it! You have to ignore form because God did not create it. You have to love and be grateful only for what God has given, what may seem invisible to you at first.

So to bring forth a miracle healing or manifestation from God, we must ACT LIKE God’s truth and in line with God’s nature. It’s no use attacking what is, or complaining, or trying to make it go away with intensity or will power, or to desire what you want as if you do not have it. Those are not forms of asking, or forms of receiving. They focus on lack and make it real.

The ego’s attempts to "get"are guaranteed to fail because they do everything other than be like God, everything other than receiving His will, and everything which actually pushes away what you are trying to bring about. As usual, the ego makes it appear like it is asking and desiring and wanting, when in fact it is doing the opposite. Seek and do not find. To desire something on the basis that God did not already supply it, and therefore it is not here now, and only exists in the separated state of the future, is a GUARANTEE that you will continue to lack and suffer!

If God’s nature is the truth and we are asking for God‘s help, then we first need to get rid of the idea of "needing help." Instead, let us acknowledge what is TRUE ALREADY. You have already received God’s healing. God already established your perfection when He created you, which you can think of as in the past. So the perfection, restoration, healing, what you want, is not in the future. It must be already present because God alreaday established it in the past, and so it’s is already here, now.

This seems somehow impossible to ego thinking. Is it even possible to get your mind to believe that it has already received what is already given by God, even if it *appears* that it isn’t showing up yet? Yes, it is possible! Is it possible to appreciate and be grateful for, what currently appears to not even exist yet? Yes!

That your perfection appears to not be showing up right now is an illusion. It is merely blocked. Any current appearance of you not being or having what God has already given, only means that your perfection IS here already but it is hididen. The notion that it is not here, showing up as illusions of "my healed self must be in the future", is an ego lie. Your healed self IS already here. Forms that are currently showing up can be blinding. They are not really there.

You must just bring about the recognition of, gratitude for, appreciation of and belief in the truth, that God has ALREADY GIVEN what you seem to lack, literally "in the past". Gratitude receives, by focusing on the acknowledgement of it being here now, of the healing having already occurred, and truly believing that this is so because it is in accord with God’s nature.

Eventually once you have let go of all of the egoic ways you are trying to bring about a result, you need to get purely into the mindset and belief that you HAVE received from God already, regardless of what is showing up, and regardless of whether it’s absence seems to continue to show up for a while. You have to ignore all ego signals, what form looks like, what conditions seem to persist, or any fearful doubting ego thoughts about it having not worked.

If you can get your mind into this seemingly "backwards" way of thinking, which boils down to "I believe I have already been given this, I have already received it, and I am grateful to God", or even more simply, "thank you", and hold onto that belief, God will answer. Believing it is important. It has to be true for you that you feel that you HAVE received it, even if it has not materialized in form yet, and you develop that conviction by thanking God.

If you are thanking God for having already supplied your lack, then it implies you HAVE, therefore it is true, and therefore you believe it. This helps you to see through any illusion that you lack or continue to be sick. It gives you a feeling of certainty and joy in spite of any illusory conditions, and you will stay true to that belief in spite of lingering forms or circumstances. And that’s means, you are now HAVING FAITH.

Faith is a state of genuine trust and knowing, not wishful thinking or hope. It is rooted firmly in the believing that God has already provided and therefore it is a DONE DEAL. It is belief that God’s way or truth is TRUE. This belief will ignore and pay no attention to what anyone says or any doubts or anything showing up in form. It bypasses illusions and all ego signals. It transcends what appears to be showing up, knowing that God’s HAS provided.

If you are completely certain that you have received, it will give you strong faith ie strong belief, which will make it impossible for you to be swayed by external illusions or claims to the contrary. It will also give you a sense that you know the days of your sickness are now limited because you believe God more than you believe the ego illusions.

This takes you beyond the ego’s nature. Now you are playing by God’s rules, according to His will for you that you be divinely happy and healthy. That you ARE that already, and merely need manifest it by focusing on it and believing in its presence. Jesus says to be vigilant only for the Kingdom of God. This is what it means. To believe only God’s nature and to align yourself with it and receive it as God already gave it. I am still as God created me says the same thing.

You are still as God created you, therefore the perfect Self that God created before time began is still here now, it has been fully given, it is true of you, it is present already, you are grateful for it, you believe in it and know it to be true, you trust it, you allow and accept it (atonement principle), and it is therefore your reality.

Believing this way, having this faith in a God, makes you supernatural.

Jesus says: "I am the teacher of the ego."

He also says "The ego is the idea of selfishness."

Now, consider this. Your mind is either in a state of sanity or a state of mental illness. When mentally ill, YOUR MIND is "being selfish". It believes in specialness. But when that SAME mind chooses not to be selfish, that mind returns to sanity. The selfishness itself is gone, and the mind remains.

So if the ego is the idea of selfishness, the ego is also the idea of or a label for "the illness" that seems to be occurring when YOU are mentally ill. It is perhaps far more accurate, then, to consider "the ego" to be more of an ATTITUDE, than a THING.

We should not think of the ego even as "the ego", because there is great temptation to label it as a "something" that "is not me" and to then seek to identify with Spirit in an effort to "dis-identify" from "the ego". There is some positive benefit to that "positive separation", but this implies the ego is a distinct something that exists separately from you. This results from putting the ego in a box and not realizing it is coming FROM your mind, and part of your mind is being thrown out in that same box.

The ego is not "separate from you", it has to live within your mind because ideas leave not their source. "The ego" is your bad attitude. It is better to think of it as "your egotism" than "an ego". Or similarly as Jesus says, it is YOU BEING SELFISH. And being not-selfish does not erase your self, nor does it require you to "separate from" the mind that was being selfish. The mind itself is not the problem, its attitude is the problem, and there is temptation to throw out the mind right along with the egotism.

Someone or something needs to learn. Someone or something is taking the course, learning the lessons, pursuing a curriculum. Who or what is learning? In a sense, the self - you, your mind, is the one learning. And this mind is learning "not to be egotistical". So its egotism is coming under scrutiny and it's having to learn to adopt a more loving attitude.

When the mind is believing things which are false, it is believing "in the ego", but moreso, is "believing in something false". This doesn't mean there is now an entirely separate ego "entity" that has come into existence. Or even really what we can label as a "false self".

Your self never becomes false, it is permanently in the sight of God, holy forever. What becomes false is your relationship with reality through the mind and YOUR attempt to block it. And that's more a matter of YOUR attitude and YOUR attempt to change reality into something else. It's still entirely within the realm of your will and your power of decision, as to whether and when you take the curriculum and learn your lessons.

It is YOU that is being educated, and while you are mistaken, you are "being an ego". ie you are ATTEMPTING to be ego. In pure purest most logical condition, "the ego" is really another word for "non existence". It's the logical opposite of existence, reality, truth, life and God. But such an idea literally does no exist, it is nothingness. You cannot go there, you cannot be it. So even in our egotism we HAVE NOT become "a non-existent self", or purely real death. It's literally impossible.

Our egotism is merely the ATTEMPT to, and failure to be, separate. It's our desire and belief and wishful thinking to be something we are not, but in such a way that can never succeed. You can't destroy yourself, and the only way to be purely ego would be to not exist. We attempt to get as close to that as possible, in death, but even that doesn't do it. We can't get outside the bubble of God's all encompassing love.

So what is an ego? It's not really anything. There are just some people who are confused. There are just some people whose minds have taught themselves things which aren't true, and whose minds need correction. And so those minds, although being egotistical and selfish, and seeming to therefore exhibit signs of "the ego", are really just minds in a state of denial and being mistaken. And mistaken minds can be corrected and healed.

So that means our egotism can be healed. Our mistakenness can be forgiven. We can be taught. Our "egoic selves", really a mind having an egocentric attitude, can be adjusted so that the egocentricity is "undone", the distortions of the mind untangled, and the mind restored to a state of accord and wholeness. This essentially means in a way that "our egotism can be converted to holiness".

"Ego", more as a label for "being egotistical", can be undone. And "our ego" is kind of "transformed" along the way BACK to the state of a holy mind that it was in previously. It can become untwisted and untangled. Corrected and healed. Not because the illness is changed into reality, not because the egotism ITSELF is maintained and becomes holy, but because the egotism or illness is just a label for the temporary states we APPEAR to get into when we're mistaken.

If I have mental illness, the illness could be called "ego". But when my mind is healed of the illness, it's not that "the illness" is still an illness but in a healed configuration. The illness is gone, the illusion of egoic stuff is gone, and the mind that "had" the illness is restored to sanity. As "the ego evolves" out of sin into innocence, the ego is simultaneously undone and transcended. IT doesn't become holy as such, we let it go. But "the ego" was always OUR mind's attitude, and our mind is what becomes transformed.

We could try to put all of the ego stuff into a box and label it "the ego" and then try to recognize that our self is really our soul and not the ego. This is sort of true. But this can be a form of bypass because the only thing maintaining the ego is the mind. There is some mind MIXED IN with the egotism.

The mind is "having" an ego, just as it has mental illness but is NOT the mental illness. Mind is not the ego but HAS egotism. When "separating" ourselves off from "the ego", we could risk trying to separate ourselves off from the mind that HAS the ego, causing a further split in the mind. And so this can be another form of disassociation, and another way that "the ego" tries to remove the ego.

This is also why we are responsible for all our choices, all our suffering, and all our mistakes. They are not real sins, but it IS us that is mistaken, not "the ego". Our mistakenness IS just another word for "the ego". Our false beliefs may seem to gather together to form "a sense of separate self" but this is of course an illusion. It can seem like you are letting go of "that self", but the mind that was producing "that self" is not let go. It is healed.

The world plays into this in the same way. The world is a symptom of the presence of mental illness in the mind. "The world is false perception". When the mind is healed, it no longer produces the world of separation. While producing the world, the mind thinks the world exists and it seems to be "a thing", with a label.

But the "healing of the world" or "saving the world" really means saving the mind that was producing the world, from its own selfish egocentricity, so that its dream is a happier dream. The world then appears to transform from hell to a reflection of heaven. Or as Jesus says, it is "translated". And the holy spirit is the "great reinterpreter" of it. A mind that is corrected and healed does not make hell and does not make ego errors, and in this view there "is no ego" because the egotism is gone.

So is Jesus teaching the ego? In a sense yes. He is teaching the mind that is trying to be an ego, that it is not really an ego but a holy mind. The ego, the mistakes, are not taught. They are corrected. Because true learning is correction and undoing, just as to atone is to undo. To truly atone or fix the ego problem, the ego must be undone, meaning the egotism must end, meaning the mind is freed from believing it is "an ego." Thus is "the ego" undone and the condition of the mind changed back to ego-free holiness.

Can the ego wake up? No, because it can't maintain what makes it ego at the same time as experiencing awakening. But the mind can wake up FROM the ego, or rather, FROM attempting to be egocentric. As "your egotism" or "the part of mind trying to be separate" learns not to be separate, the mind that was being ego DOES wake up, but it does not take the egotism with it. It wakes up BECAUSE "the ego" is left behind, ie by recognizing there is no ego within it. We do not "separate from" the ego. We erase it from ourselves so that there is nothing to separate from.

Ultimately there is no ego, and the Holy Spirit knows this. His is the mind that reminds us of our true condition of holiness. The recognition that we are sane and whole and true. And in that holiness there is no selfishness, specialness, or egoic attitude. Only an attitude of love and forgiveness. And a loving forgiving mind is ego-free.

"Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit, the effects of error are TOTALLY non-existent. By steadily and consistently cancelling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT."

In the past, my wife became disabled and was unable to fend for herself. She became dependent upon me. I had to take over responsibility for her life, her wellbeing, her decisions, her food and cleanliness, her health. I had to keep her alive.

Now, in that scenario there was a lot of pressure. Having developed dementia and brain damages she would sometimes act out, lashing out at people, hitting people, swearing at people. She didn't mean to, she couldn't control it.

Because I took on responsibility for her life, I felt it was up to me to keep her going, to manage her behaviour, to feed clothe wash and support her, to administer medications, to take her to dialysis treatments 3 times a week for years, to get through hospital visits, to defend her against inept doctors and nurses, and to generally try to stop her from dying.

All of this began to produce some ego-creep in me, in which I started to feel guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, and afraid. I felt afraid that if I didn't do the right thing she would die. If I didn't do the right thing, her health would decline. If I didn't do the right thing, there would be judgement and attack, possibly even legal action.

There was shame and embarrassment and guilt when she would act out. There was fear, that if she acted out towards the very same medical people that were providing "life support", she would get herself kicked out and would die. There was fear that she might not make it through the night, that her breathing was poor, that she might do something to make herself worse off. And feelings of guilt crept in that I wasn't doing it well enough.

You could say, as some would, that this was to be expected. Given all the pressure, all the responsibility, all the support and time and management and effort I had to give just to keep her going, to put out fires, to stop things from getting worse, anyone would feel upset and lost, afraid and guilty, ashamed and embarrassed.

But that's not what A Course in Miracles would say. It would say that there is a secret of salvation - that we are doing this all to ourselves. It would say that if I felt guilt or shame, I must've chosen to feel it. It would say that if I was afraid, I must've decided to buy into fear. It would say that if I was resisting death, that was a choice on my part. It would say if I was embarrassed about how she broke the rules today, that was something I was taking personally by myself.

So I had to look at this, because it was all part of me becoming a victim in this scenario, of seeing myself as constantly on the defensive, under attack, fighting against the institutions. I had started to blame myself, that it was my fault. The sense of responsibility was shifting into a sense of personal guilt, that if anything went wrong somehow it reflected on me. That if she acted out or made things worse for herself, it meant I was more ashamed somehow.

Obviously this is not something that was anything to do with me really, was not my fault or my doing. But of course when you have a lot of social and peer pressure and medical pressure and even legal pressure to say, you have to look after her right otherwise the punishment will come, that can be very tempting. I did buy into it to some degree, and I take take it on as a personal thing. And this resulted in my attacking myself.

So in order to apply the secret of salvation, I have to look at that and see, I was NOT being caused by other people, I was not responsible for what she did even if in physical terms I was, I was not guilty for anything that went wrong, I was not shameful for her lashing out at people, and I was not to be blamed for failures and losses and dramas and various other forms of things I couldn't control.

The secret says, that if you are upset, you are doing it to yourself. So that means, I made myself guilty. It means I shamed myself, it wasn't other people doing it. It means I made myself afraid by believing in the body and in death and in threats. It means I chose to be embarrassed, to feel incapable, to feel loss. I did that to myself.

You might also say, it's quite a tall order to expect someone going through such a difficult thing to have to rise up to a state of perfection. To not react at all, to have no investment, to not take things personally, to not feel threatened. Indeed it is quite a tall order. But it's the ego that really makes things feel like hell, it's the lack of responsibility and power that makes you see yourself as victimised and under attack. It's not our natural state to be positioned as a victim like that.

So I take my power back. The power that I gave to these people, the power that I gave to the situation, the power that I gave to her. I take back the power that I disowned by playing a role of caregiver and saviour and protector. I take back the power that said it was my fault, my job, my responsibility, my role and identity, to have to be responsible for another person's life and wellbeing. I take back my power to recognize I chose to see myself as under pressure and attack, threatened by death and its cohorts, and these things have NO power over me.

It is ONLY by taking back your power that you can be not a victim, can let go of the various victim roles like being guilty or ashamed, embarrassed or lost, afraid and powerless. For me it was a profound lesson which actually, overall, did increase my power and my awareness and my sense of responsibility. It wasn't a loss or a failure, it's just that the lesson was so strong that it also knocked me down a few pegs in some areas and became overwhelming.

I am not a victim of the world. I am not a victim of doctors and nurses. I am not a victim of the law. I a not a victim of official rules or requirements or paperwork or legal proceedings. I am not a victim of what another person needs or how they act or what they choose to do to others. I am not responsible for causing my wife's suffering or sickness or behaviours. I am not guilty, and I am not ashamed. I am the holy son of God, guiltless and sinless, pure and innocent.

We must think of ourselves as immortal beings, still as God crated us, still perfect and pure and holy and good. We cannot sin, and have never sinned. We are not guilty, and cannot become guilty. We have never been attacked by anyone or anything in the world. We cannot suffer unless we try to make ourselves suffer. I was not suffering because of the situation, or my wife, or the medical staffs, or family members, or anyone else. I cannot suffer unless I choose to do so, and I had chosen to do so. And now I choose again.

"The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."