Lesson 136, "Sickness is a defense against the truth", contains statements by Jesus which are hard to accept. They seem like extraordinary claims about what sickness is, how it is undone, and the impossibility of a healthy mind producing a sick body. It speaks of immortality, even at a bodily level.

In ACIM, sickness means a belief in separation from God. This applies to the level of the mind and it is in the mind that it is healed. However, the body is being projected by the mind and is "within" the mind, and reflects the mind’s condition. It is an out-picturing of the inward condition.

Every "form" of sickness which shows up in bodies is included in the scope of sickness applying to the mind.

Sickness projects a sick body. Bodies which have forms of sickness, suffering, damage, something broken or missing etc, are expressions of the belief in separation. These things can ONLY show up IF the mind maintains that belief.

Interesting stuff happens to bodies when the mind is healed. Sickness does not stick around on its own, nor is it sustained by the body or by the world. It is solely MAINTAINED by the mind, and so if it is showing up in the body, the mind IS maintaining it, thus believes in separation, thus is not healed. A broken/sick/dead body is PROOF that the mind has not been healed. When the mind IS healed, the body MUST therefore NOT PROVE that sickness is real, and therefore all signs and symptoms of sickness MUST disappear.

Let’s see what Jesus says which is so radical (my emphasis):

— "(Sickness) Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all. WHEN THIS IS SEEN, HEALING IS AUTOMATIC. It dispels this meaningless illusion by the same approach that carries all of them to truth, and merely leaves them there to disappear."

So right off the bat, Jesus teaches us that all forms and expressions of sickness (including cancer, stroke, heart problems, broken limbs etc, and death), MUST DISAPPEAR when the purpose of the sickness is recogized. Later Jesus tells us that we make sickness in order to DEFEND ourselves against the truth. But we only keep the sickness so long as it serves this purpose, and when the purpose or "need" for the defense is gone, the sickness MUST disappear.

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

Clearly then, sickness attacks and defends us against the truth. This includes all physical symtoms which is how the mind’s sickness shows up. If the mind is attacking the truth, it is also going to attack the body. The body will then become weak and sick. Since sickness is an attack on the truth, it is NOT POSSIBLE for there to be sickness if there is not attack, and it is NOT POSSIBLE to wake up to welcoming the truth without putting the sickness aside. Doing so must make it disappear, otherwise if it remains in any way, it continues to prove the mind is not healed.

Notice also how Jesus describes the mind as trying to twist, distort, make inept, and reduce to split-off parts. This act of the mind is HOW SICKNESS IS MADE. If the mind is TWISTING REALITY, it TWISTS THE BODY. If the mind is distorting reality, it distorts the body as well. Holy Spirit showed me this happening in a sudden vision not long ago, where the mind was literally "twisting" and distorting, like applying a psychic force, towards the body, making the body sick.

Our attempt to attack and change reality, attacks and changes our projected body image as well. We can’t hold a belief in attack in the mind AND keep a picture of a healthy body in the mind at the same time. The body WILL suffer if we attack reality, and if we DO NOT attack reality, the body MUST BE HEALED for the same reason - the mind cannot hold a picture of a sick body in the mind at the same time as believing in health/wholeness/truth.

Here is how ALL SICKNESS AND DEATH is implemented:

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

So yes, Jesus is literally saying, we can ONLY be sick if we DECIDE TO BE SICK. We can only be sick when we misperceive the truth and believe it is attacking us, and that we NEED A DEFENSE to keep us "safe" from it. We will then use separation as a device for trying to put distance, or a gap, between us and God. This puts a gap between us and LIFE. The result is that we cut ourselves off from LIFE. And that means, we just chose to be sick and to die.

Jesus also tells us here that sickness DOES NOT HAPPEN TO US against our will. This mean ALL sickness. And death. Neither sickness nor death can appear AT ALL unless YOU decide to make them appear. That’s quite some responsibility that you have! You MAKE sickness from guilt, as an attack, to make the truth go away, so that you can have an illusion of your EGO being safe. Since sickness does not happen against your will, neither does it HAVE any will of its own, and therefore CANNOT STAY if you will to accept God’s truth.

—"How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth? Because it proves the body is not separate from you, and so you must be separate from the truth. You suffer pain because the body does, and in this pain are you made one with it. Thus is your "true" identity preserved, and the strange, haunting thought that you might be something beyond this little pile of dust silenced and stilled. For see, this dust can make you suffer, twist your limbs and stop your heart, commanding you to die and cease to be."

Here Jesus is telling us that we attempt to BIND OURSELVES to the body in order to DEFEND ourselves against God/Life. By equating/identifying yourself with the body, you align yourself with the physical and attempt to SHUT OUT the mind. If you can identify yourself with the body, and if the body will then be sick and dead, this is HOW the ego attempts to kill the Son of God.

He also tells us that believing this distortion, which is also a belief in magic, and is also the authority problem, has the capability of bringing about DEATH. All death is a choice. Suicide. There is no accidental death. No-one dies without their own consent. He continues:

—"Thus is the body stronger than the truth, which asks you live, but cannot overcome your choice to die. And so the body is more powerful than everlasting life, Heaven more frail than hell, and God's design for the salvation of His Son opposed by a decision stronger than His Will"

"Your choice to die". Hmm. Yes. We CHOOSE it. Which means, it CANNOT HAPPEN if we do not choose it. Death is not caused by ANYTHING except your own mind. Sickness is not caused by ANYTHING except your own mind. Furthermore, sickness and death (which you made, and can abolish), does not continue when you decide NOT to be sick or die. When you decide NOT to be sick or die, SICKNESS AND DEATH CANNOT HAPPEN.

—"You can but choose to think you die, or suffer sickness or distort the truth in any way. What is created is apart from all of this. Defenses are plans to defeat what cannot be attacked. What is unalterable cannot change. And what is wholly sinless cannot sin."

So you can pretend to die, if you want. You can pretend to be sick, if you want. But sickness and death are both a dream, not real, and what you really are cannot die. God does NOT SUPPORT SICKNESS AND DEATH in any way. He does not create them, he does not view them in a special way, he does not include them, he does not believe in them. God is ONLY LIFE, not life and death.

Here’s a clincher:

—"Truth has a power far beyond defense, for no illusions can remain where truth has been allowed to enter. And it comes to any mind that would lay down its arms, and cease to play with folly"

Read this and read it again. Sickness (illusions) cannot remain where truth has been allowed to enter. This means, ALL SICKNESS AND DEATH cannot *REMAIN* if the mind chooses to accept the truth. Accepting the atonement, or any act of forgiveness or miracles, MUST undo sickness and death in some way. And that includes at the body level.

Read it again. Truth has a POWER stronger than defenses (sickness, death). When truth’s POWER has entered the mind, sickness and death CANNOT REMAIN. Neither in the mind, nor in the body. NOWHERE. Because truth knows that sickness and death DO NOT EXIST at any level. If you STOP ATTACKING YOURSELF with sickness and death, you will STOP BEING SICK AND DEAD.

—"Healing will flash across your open mind, as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings."

Peace an truth TAKES THE PLACE of the vain imaginings that were "sickness and death". All sickness is imagined, made by the MIND. Stop dreaming it and it will cease to be.

Does the undoing of sickness affect the body? ABSOLUTELY!

—"It (mind) will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey. Now is the body healed, because the source of sickness has been opened to relief."

NOW IS THE BODY HEALED. When the mind heals its belief in sickness, the body MUST HEAL. The SOURCE of the sickness has received relief, and therefore the sickness must "clear up". It must disappear in a MIRACLE.

Now let’s break out the big one.... the IMMORTALITY OF THE BODY:

—"Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body's health is FULLY GUARANTEED, because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible."

Wowza! The body‘s health is guaranteed, ie it is IMPOSSIBLE for the body to be sick or die. In a state of truth in the mind, SICKNESS IS IMPOSSIBLE. It cannot exist, it cannot stay, it MUST be healed, 100%! You cannot have a sick body and a healthy mind at the same time!!!! This is also supported when Jesus says elsewhere:

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for IT WILL BECOME to you. Use if for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will SEE IT as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies. Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes HOLY. Because it is holy it CANNOT BE SICK, NOR CAN IT DIE. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all."

So as Jesus has said here, the state of the body is ALWAYS a direct reflection or correlation to the state of the mind. If mind SEES it as sinful, it becomes SICK, and dies. This accounts for the sole cause of ALL SICKNESS in the entire world. And all death. BUT... IF you SEE IT AS HOLY, it becomes whole, it becomes INVULNERABLE TO ATTACK, it becomes INCAPABLE OF BEING SICK, and IT CANNOT DIE! Another word for that is, IMMORTALITY!

Let’s be clear here, before the controversy takes root, that Jesus also says that at some point this "invulnerable, deathless body", which doesn’t even need food or water (!), will likely at some point be laid aside. When it is not longer USEFUL it will disappear. But this does not mean it will be put down on the ground and made to rot. THAT IS DEATH! The holy body can only be "ended" by DISAPPEARING IT by the power of the mind. Nothing else can end it, and it CANNOT be ended by attack. Attack will merely KEEP it and create more sickness and reincarnation.

So yes, at some point the body can become incapable of being attacked in any way. Sustained by the power of God supernaturally. Eventually we will RECOGNIZE that we are not a body at all, and it has no usefulness, so our TRANSPARENT MIND will extend only transparency (total honesty). This will mean it STOPS PROJECTING A BODY. The body thus disappears into the nothingness from which it came. This is how the dream is left! It is the only exit. Leaving via DEATH is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF CHOOSING LIFE.

Jesus concludes with a reminder:

—"Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching. If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick."

Note here that Jesus says we make a body identity which, separately, attacks the body. This gives a different meaning to body identification.

If we believe we are separate from God we will see ourselves as being an illusion, which will show up as an IMAGE - a body. He warns us here to be careful of MAKING OURSELVES SICK, beause our mind literally does have this power over matter/form. Every miracle demonstrates that the mind must be more powerful than the body. Therefore the mind has power over ALL matter.

Hoepfully it is clear from this chapter alone, that we do not NEED to be sick, sickness CANNOT STAY unless we want to KEEP mental illness along with it, when we choose the TRUTH it is *GUARANTEED* that all sickness and death must be UNDONE COMPLETELY, and it is God’s will that we be perfectly happy and healthy even in a body.

No-one needs to suffer. No-one needs to die. The body cannot be sick unless you make it so, and doing so will keep you from God. But choose again, and sickness will vanish before your eyes. All sickness can be reversed. All death can be reversed. There is nothing your holiness cannot do.

I haven't been focusing on miracles for a while, but kind of accidentally lately I've been finding myself exposed to some statements about miracles. I seem to be seeing them in a different light. Which is funny because "seeing in the light" is a big part of it.

There is one thing ACIM says fairly clearly and it's that miracles are ONLY seen in light. It also says miracles and vision are completely connected to each other. At times it also suggests miracles are so high in terms of states of consciousness, as to be right up at the christ level. Such as that the eyes of christ deliver them to all they look upon.

It also tells us that miracles, seen in light, are all over the place. A miracle stands next to what seemed to be a false perception, and these miracles are even there when we don't see them. We can block awareness of the miracles but that doesn't mean they're not there. And that suggests they are "ways of seeing."

I also found in experience recently that in one instance where I was driving behind a car and was about to scapegoat and then chose not to, kind of "holding back" the projection of guilt, Jesus called it a miracle. So then that got me thinking, what is a miracle really? We're also told that miracles and grievances are opposites. Also that ego-projection and miracles are opposites. So that tells us a bit about the state of mind or the activities of mind.

We're also told that miracles don't "do" anything, although we're also told they UNDO the interference that the ego was DOING. They "correct" the mind and sort of straighten out perceptions. They're also described as the translation of denial into truth. Also that miracles merely remind the mind of who the dreamer is, ie putting your awareness back in touch with you being causal and not seeing yourself as a victim or as in a position to scapegoat.

Miracles appear to be tied into true perceptions, as though they are glimpses of an accurate perception of something. But we're also told that they are thought creations, that they can energize others, that they can supply a lack. And that they are expressions of love. In prayer love is received, and in miracles love is expressed.

The impression I'm getting is that the love is coming down from a higher level ie heaven, and we are the open door who has to extend them. This is a sort of cause-effect chain, where God gives us the miracles and then we transfer them to others. As in "Miracles are a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers."

If we are in a state of christ mind where we're fully open to the truth, then we are fully able to extend and pass on these miracles, these parcels of love. It's almost like they reflect the idea of creations, in which we are co-creating with God, extending God and paying forward what we've received. This is why you can only give the miracles you've received.

On the one hand it seems that a miracle is like a gift of love, a form of healing, which corrects the mind and lifts it up out of false perceptions into true perception. As stated in terms of miracles "entailing" a sudden shift into vertical perception. At the same time this gift of love has power and healing in it, as all love does, and so while it corrects your sight and you "see with the miracle" or through the miracle-sight, you also extend that love and power and it can cause things to happen.

Jesus also refers to them as examples of right thinking. Right thinking is sanity and true perception. Accuracy of thought and mind. These moments of clarity and non-attack and non-judgement and non-projection, recognize sinlessness ie as in forgiveness, and broadcast that wholeness of mind to the whole sonship. They are thus also expressions of holy relationship ie total unconditional relationship.

Since Jesus refers to them as thought-creations, and that thoughts can create higher or lower realities, these miracles are clearly a function of mind and thought, which includes power and love, as kind of acts of "higher dreaming". These miracles lift up the mind and heal it, as in "interceding for your holiness". And as a result you see correctly, and your correct seeing has corrective properties which can shine light into other minds and correct them.

Thinking of someone like Jesus in a state of christ-mind, or near to it, he was so sided with heaven's laws that he could constantly radiate and pass on that miraculousness at will. He could use the mind, in combination of thought and belief, and with the power of God behind it, to cause things to happen. And each of these were love-based expressions. Including raising the dead and healing the sick and moving mountains. The mind is just naturally miraculous and powerful when it's in its healed state.

So miracles are definitely tied to mind, and to seeing, and to light, and to forgiveness, and to giving and receiving, and to extension of God and love. They are acts, performances, expressions, doings, which emit out of the mind and are given and shared, as part of the natural outgoing of love and its unlimitedness. Someone miraculous has the light of God in their eyes and just sees everything with sparkling light and can effortlessly bestow blessings of supernatural transformation everywhere they go.

"The miracle is the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and who calls on his brothers to do likewise."

If a miracle can be as simple as a right-minded non-attacking non-scapegoating non-projecting opposite to a grievance, where you "look and wait and judge not", in which you are being closer in alignment to how the Holy Spirit sees, then we're asked to basically get our mind-seeing into the light where it can bestow miracles all the time. Seeing forgiveness given to everything. Meeting all things with heavenly blessing.

Or something like that.

At the very root of the ego thought system is something extremely simple, which is the foundation of the entire thought system. It's even more fundamental than the idea of sin.

In Heaven, God is the cause of you, and you are the effect of Him. But you attempted to REVERSE THIS. This is THE ONLY PROBLEM IN ALL OF EXISTENCE.

Your belief that you are the cause of God, and that he is the effect of you, is the ENTIRE PROBLEM. This is the authority problem. It is the basis of the idea of sin - which is the idea that you caused God and produced effects in him and therefore defined and changed him against His will.

Absolutely EVERY possible dynamic and situation you find yourself in in life, all your encounters with people, all forms of sickness and suffering, and every possible problem or upset you might experience, are ALL ENTIRELY BASED on the reversal of cause and effect. That is their FOUNDATION.

There is one problem.

And this one problem needs only ONE SOLUTION.

It is a single solution, a single lesson, which applies to EVERY situation no matter the form.

This one problem is ALL that you need to correct. Every forgiveness process, if it works at all, MUST accomplish the correction of CAUSE AND EFFECT. If it doesn't, it is not solving the problem. It doesn't matter what words you use or how you go about this, but ultimately you MUST get the levels back into their divine order. You MUST correct the level confusion and restore God to the rightful position of CAUSE, with you as HIS EFFECT.

Because God caused BOTH you and your brothers EQUALLY, you are BOTH caused by God. This means, a fundamental truth: you are NOT the cause of your brother, and your brother is NOT the cause of you.

Now, the entire ego thought system is based on the belief in cause-effect reversal, and that MEANS that you have a belief that YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF YOUR BROTHER, and that HE IS THE CAUSE OF YOU. This is an ILLUSION. It is the illusion of "horizontal causality". That means, it's the idea of two things on the SAME LEVEL, causing and affecting each other. IT IS NOT TRUE. AT ALL. EVER. ***You can't both be the cause of each other!***

The entire ego world was set up to try to prove and make seem true, the idea of HORIZONTAL CAUSALITY, whereby one thing causes another on the same level. This is built into physical matter. It's built into the laws of physics (chaos). It's built into all egoic encounters with people and problems. They all tempt you to believe that GOD IS NOT THE CAUSE. They are all attempts to shut God (mind) out of the picture and associate mind with FORMS and bodies. This is nothing short of believing that YOUR DREAM IS DREAMING YOU.

This perception, which is false perception, automatically puts you in a position of seeing yourself as a victim. A victim of people, a victim of the world, a victim of the environment, a victim of your body, etc. IF ITS TRUE that there is cause SEPARATE from you in this way, other than God, then you automatically MUST enter a state of threat and danger and fear and attack. This is the basis for justifying all anger. This has to be corrected.

So now it comes down to, "how do I apply the course"? Or, "how do I apply forgiveness"? Well, it boils down to the ONE PROBLEM. If you will just correct ALL FALSE CAUSALITY, which is the idea of horizontal causes and effects, if you will totally CANCEL and UNBELIEVE and WITHDRAW all of those perceptual beliefs in horizontal causes, it will put the cause back into your mind where it belongs.

See, at this level, you are the dreamer of the dream. You are the CAUSE OF THE WORLD. When you perceive or believe that anything IN the world is the CAUSE OF YOU, you have backwards perception and are a victim. The secret of salvation is that you are doing this to yourself. You use the world to attack yourself. If you are not aware that you are the CAUSE of it, that you are dreaming it, you will perceive and believe that the world is hurting you against your will.

So the ONLY FORM OF FORGIVENESS that works and that is needed, is to GET THE CAUSALITY RIGHT. To remember that you are the dreamer of the dream, not the other way around. That there is NO CAUSE in the world. That the world is the EFFECT of your dreaming mind. That means your brother in no way causes you whatsoever. And it also means you in no way cause your brother whatsoever. It also includes realizing your body does not cause you against your will. Your mind has power over the whole universe. "My self is ruler of the universe."

It's quite simple really. Just get the levels back into their proper order. This corrects all level confusion, magic, victimhood and even death. You are the cause of this dream. You have to OWN RESPONSIBILITY for being the cause of EVERYTHING you are experiencing and making happen. This is the only way out of hell. The ONLY WAY to escape victimhood and death by realizing that.... if you do not CHOOSE TO DIE, IT CANNOT HAPPEN. "No one dies without their own consent."

This is what "forgiving" is all about. Own the causality. This is a course in cause, not effect. YOU ARE 100% CAUSAL. You are 0% AFFECTED by what you've caused/made. You are the projector of the world. Projection makes perception. Once you own full responsibility for causing/dreaming, the world can do NOTHING to you against your will. This is how you overcome death and reach resurrection. And in that state you cannot be attacked, victimized, hurt, or suffer in any way. It is literally the end of all suffering because it is THE END OF THE WORLD.

(this will be a fairly long post, so please bare with me)

The ego thought system is based on separation. Separation resulted in space and time. In space, spatial relations are HOW the ego thinks. The physical universe IS its thought system.

This includes physical objects, which are separated out, where an object is EITHER HERE OR THERE, (but not in both places). This is a "natural" ego thought process. One thing seems to exist in one location only and not all locations. One thing is NOT something else, and all things are DIFFERENT, separate, and kept apart.

The entire physical universe is arranged according to this WAY that the ego thinks. It regards the entire thing as structured by SEPARATIONS. One object versus another. One location versus another. And then it draws comparisons, and has reasoning, and finds conclusions, based WITHIN the framework of separation.

So you, in your ego thought processes, then start to THINK this way. You think in terms of EITHER THIS OR THAT. And this seems to make SENSE to you because it maps directly to how the world is arranged. It then becomes "second nature" to think of anything in the world in SEPARATE terms.

For example, I parked my car in the first spot, not the second. I ordered the fries instead of the onion rings. My car is red, not blue. This is my body, not your body. Earth is not Mars. etc.

Our whole WAY of thinking runs according to these rules, based on SEPARATING things out, sectioning them off, isolating them, keeping them APART, emphasizing their differences, and locking them up in little prison boxes. And we think this is a natural way to think, to relate, to communicate, to reason.

Then we go about USING this way of thinking, to think about EVERYTHING. Not just to think about things which ARE based on a thought system of separation, but even to think about things which are completely BEYOND the ego thought system.

"It is the part that believes your existence means you are SEPARATE. Everything the ego perceives is a separate whole, without the relationships (sharing) that imply BEING."

This may not seem to present any problems when you use SEPARATION-BASED reasoning to discuss the things of space and time, but it COMPLETELY misses the mark when you think this way about heaven, God, creation, sonships, sons, souls, etc.

The Kingdom of God is a thought system, and God similarly has a WAY of thinking. His WAY of thinking is NOT based in the idea of separation. It is NOT based on the limitations of space or time or spatial relations. It does NOT separate things off, make them different, put them in SEPARATE BOXES, or keep them apart.

God's thought system/reality also does not demand that something HAS to be separate from something else. It does not require something to be EXCLUSIVE to one box and not another. Nor does it assert that everything that exists MUST be partitioned off into EITHER one state OR another. God simply does not THINK in terms of "either this or that".

God's mind, his creation, his way of THINKING, is actually based on a totally different kind of reasoning. This reasoning is INCLUSIVE, rather than exclusive. It also completely embraces the idea of SHARING. The ego's thought system completely blots out ALL suggestions of sharing, overlap, simultaneity, unity or oneness.

In God's system, it is NATURAL for there to be one thing, which SHARES all of itself with another. It is natural for one thing to GIVE all of itself and STILL RETAIN all of itself without loss. It is natural for TWO things to BE one thing. It is natural for one thing to be in ALL locations simultaneously. It is natural for one thing to be in one box, AND in another box, at the same time. It is natural for something to SPAN and TRANSCEND separations.

The Golden Rule, the law of God and of equality, simply states that what is true of one thing is true of another. Whatever is true of God is true of His Sons. Whatever is true or me is true of you. This is equality. God treats all his creations the same way. The Golden Rule reflects this, because it is a rule based on INCLUSION. We are both included in the same truth. The ego however is COMPLETELY AGAINST sharing and inclusion. And so is this world.

In reality, God THINKS in a holographic way. In a hologram, the whole is in every part, and every part is a whole in its own right, and every part shares the entirety of the whole with the whole. ACIM confirms that this is the way by which God thinks, and NOT through a process of separation:

"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part is perfectly natural, for it is the way God thinks, and what is natural to Him is natural to you."

This means for example that GOD IS WHOLE, being infinite. And God as a creator therefore extends and creates ANOTHER WHOLE. His Son, is a WHOLE SON. A full creation. As described here:

"The soul has not only been created perfect, it has been FULLY created. There is no lack in it."

"There can BE no disinherited parts of the Sonship, for God is whole, and all his extensions are like Him."

"EVERY mind that God created is equally worthy of being healed because GOD CREATED IT WHOLE."

However, for God to BE whole, and to CREATE wholly, and thus to create another WHOLE.... becomes TOTAL NONSENSE to the way that the EGO thinks. And if you think in the same separation-based way that the ego thinks, this FACT registers to you as total nonsense. You will reason, "how can it be possible that there are TWO wholes, that makes no sense!". It makes no sense to a thought system of separation, yes. But God's reality is NOT based on that kind of system. God is not limited by separation or spacetime.

In order to recognize AND accept, that God's mind and creation DO NOT follow the ego's rules, and that God does not THINK or create like the ego would, and God's Kingdom is NOT spatially separated out like the physical world is, you will have to become willing to think massively outside the box. You CANNOT use separation-based logical reasoning to evaluate the truths or falseties of reality.

Let's look at what happens when you try to shove God into a box-based thought system. God for example gives ALL of Himself when he creates. His Son inherits EVERYTHING. But... if you are thinking with the ego, you SHOULD conclude that by God giving all of Himself AWAY, there SHOULD be nothing left. Thus God should snuff out of existence and only His Son should remain. This is LOGICAL to the ego because the ego believes in SACRIFICE AND LOSS, which is inherent to a box-based world. But it is complete nonsense.

Similarly, you could suggest that if God gives EVERYTHING to ONE SON, there is NOTHING LEFT to give to another Son. This is how the ego would think in finite terms. However, God has ALL of Himself left to give again to ANOTHER son, and another, and another, without any reduction at all in Himself. And this is how the Kingdom INCREASES. And by giving ALL of himself away, reality is increased. As stated here:

"Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT."

"To have all, give all to all."

You can see that if you think in exclusive, separating terms, you WILL come to FALSE conclusions about what's happening in reality. You'll conclude that if I have everything, you have nothing. But in reality, as Jesus describes in ACIM, me having everything DOES NOT prevent you from having everything also. How is it possible that we BOTH simultaneously have everything? Because we SHARE IT. And this sharing does NOT mean compromise or that we each only get half.

Sharing is the way by which God's Kingdom INCREASES. Because if it weren't for the ability to share, there would be no logical way for God to ever create anything more than just God, because he is already unlimited and everywhere. As this states:

"Nothing real can be increased, except by sharing."

If SHARING, INCLUSION, BOTH/AND is the natural thought SYSTEM of Heaven's reality, and it follows that thought PROCESS when it reasons anything, then SELFISHNESS, EXCLUSION, EITHER/OR, SEPARATION is the natural thought system of spacetime. And they are TOTALLY opposite. They are opposite because "this not that" is a direct reflection of the separation idea of "ego not God" or "death not life" or "non-existence not existence." The ego thought system is the NEGATION of reality.

If God creates two sons, who are brothers, and both are whole beings who have and share everything, co-creating with God, and then we look at this fact WITH THE EGO, we will see false conclusions. For example we'll say that there can't BE two sons. Or that if there are two sons, that's "duality", because now the two sons are KEPT APART in separate boxes meaning duality.

But this is not how it works at all. The fact that there are two, WHO SHARE, violates the boundaries of those boxes. One son is IN the other son and vice versa because they share everything. So there are two sons, who are ALSO each other.

"One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds. Such is the truth."This also extends to the relationship you have with God. Those who think LIKE the ego, will reason that EITHER.... God is all there is, OR there is a separation. Or similarly, EITHER God and I are one thing, OR we are two things. Or that, if you get rid of all separations, you will end up with oneness.

There is a major flaw in that reasoning. The ego first establishes that you MUST think in a separating way, in which there is duality, and all things are kept apart. THEN it has you DESTROY all of the other parts except for one of them, by getting rid of the idea of separations between the parts. But it will not have you get rid of the ego thought process. Then it concludes falsely, that when you remove the separations, you end up with ONE THING. And this one thing is thought to mean "oneness", or to represent God.

This however is a false conclusion, because now "separate boxes" have been mapped onto God, and God has been shoved into a separate box, all by himself, and there is no creation and no sonship and NO SHARING. And the ego rejoices that it has imprisoned God this way, in the name of freedom.

When you look at what ACIM says, Jesus DOES NOT say that God is alone, or that he is separated off from creation, or that he has no creations. Instead it tells you in fact that God has a huge family and is simultaneously one with them. And that His oneness DOES NOT ERASE their manyness.

"Heaven is the sum of all God's thoughts, in number infinite."

"We are the Kingdom, WE, the Sons of God."

"The Kingdom of God includes all His Children and their creations."

This does not mean the Kingdom is duality or that it contains separate boxes. It means it contains overlapping shared beings who ALL have everything and ARE everything, seemingly as OPEN boxes who are not in any way confined, yet are still many things. HOW that's possible, is due to heaven's miraculous nature.

Ego thought processes do not allow this to be true. Nor does ego thinking allow it to be possible that when you are "one with God", you still have an individual self. EGOS then become AVERSE to any notion of individuality, which is self destructive, which the ego loves. You being one with God, DOES NOT ERASE your individuality.

"This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER. Actually, the original statement was "are of one KIND."

There ARE STILL "separate parts" in the statement, AND in some ways God is NOT totally like His sons, in terms of function or role. Meaning, YOU still exist as a distinct entity, AND God exists as a distinct entity. And what you SHARE between you, is your oneness with each other, AS TWO BEINGS. That is what ACIM teaches. And its definition of oneness is not "one thing being alone", it is EQUALITY. Being of THE SAME KIND. And an equality which is more than just two separate boxes next to each other - an equality where you SPAN the boxes.

Similarly, the ego will falsely conclude that if God and His Son are TWO things, this is duality. It is not, because we're again jumping the gun and projecting separate boxes onto heaven. Just because they are TWO, does NOT mean they do not share, and does NOT mean there is no unity. The Father and the Son are one, but there is still a Father and a Son. Just as WE will ALWAYS be brothers even in heaven.

In fact, the way by which God is everything, AND YET, His children are also FULLY created beings, who are also everything, is the course's definition of MIRACULOUSNESS. This miraculousness is completely alien to the ego thought system and all separation-based reasoning. The ego has NO CLUE, how it is possible, that God could have even created ANYTHING, yet alone multiple beings who somehow have been added-on to an already infinite reality. Nevertheless:

"MIRACULOUS CREATION was his own Source, and also his own real function.""Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human (ego) thinking"

"Miraculousness", is the nature of God's reality. UN-miraculousness is the nature of spacetime. Everything in God's MIND and reality is permanently miraculous. It is miraculous because it makes possible what the ego says is IMPOSSIBLE. Just as the ego is the idea of impossibility.

For one soul to be a whole being, that shares everything with another whole being, as brothers, and with God, without a loss of self or individuality, and without ceasing to be "separate", and without being CONFINED to separate boxes, is miraculous.

This miraculousness is also reflected in THE MIRACLE. And in true perception. And in learning to THINK LIKE GOD, which the course asks you to do. In order to think like God, you have to TRANSCEND the "separating off and putting in boxes" nature of the ego and its thoughts. And that includes thinking of souls as separate bodies.

This entails overlooking separations and seeing unity beyond it. It requires you to not be blinded by perception of form, because form is anchored in separation. Your whole perception has to become similar to heaven's reality, which breaks all the ego laws. And this is also why miracles break all the laws of space and time AND of ego reasoning.

Becoming able to THINK LIKE GOD, requires you to align with the truth of the Golden Rule, in holy relationship, where what is true of you is true of all others. Where differences are completely ignored. Where no-one is IMPRISONED in a box. And where your whole way of REASONING is LIKE God's.... that is, based on "paralogical reasoning" - or AND/BOTH reasoning, rather than either/or.

We could say, THE ENTIRE COURSE is geared towards developing this BOTH/AND kind of perception, thought and experience, for all students. We are supposed to stop thinking with the ego, OR LIKE the ego. And we are supposed to learn that we are undo no laws but God's, and HIS laws are NOT laws of separation, exclusion, spatial relations, or limitations.

In order to fully grasp ANYTHING that ACIM says about the pre-separation state, God, the Kingdom, oneness, sonship, sons, souls, creation, extension, holy spirit, etc..... any of that non-ego stuff, you CANNOT USE the ego-based reasoning method. If you do, you will fail. Guaranteed. And you will see truth that is false, and what is really true will appear false to you. That's how BACKWARDS the ego thought system is.

Any conclusions you come to about God or oneness etc, if it's rooted in "either this or that", IS WRONG. Guaranteed 100%. Only when you start to think in terms of BOTH.... me AND you.... WE.... only then do you start to approach the NATURAL way of thinking like God, which is a miraculous state of mind. And ONLY by thinking that way will you understand and grasp the metaphysical facts of God's nature.

Non-duality for example is complete bullshit. It is bullshit because it is the result of an EGO thought process. The ego reasons, well, I believe all things are separate, so if we attack all the parts and end up with one victor, this ONE THING that's leftover, which is practically nothing, but is a single thing, symbolizes God. Because to the ego "less separation" is equated with spirituality or simplicity. So it will then map this "one thing" idea of oneness onto God and claim God is one thing - that there is NOTHING ELSE other than God. That God is SEPARATED OFF. That is NOT what ACIM teaches at all!

God is not only a creator and a father, God has a HUGE family of whole beings, all of whom are co-creators with each other. You and your brother co-create your creations. You and God and your brother co-create together. Even the holy spirit is a co-creator. And we all have this HUGE family of created beings in heaven. This is utterly incompatible with both the traditional idea of "oneness" and the idea of "non-duality".

And ALL of those beings are of ONE KIND, and SHARE EVERYTHING, and yet ARE SIMULTANEOUSLY MANY. Because that is HOW GOD THINKS. A holographic thought system in which the whole has created many parts and each part shares the whole with the whole of the rest. That is what ACIM says! And in order to INCLUDE all of what ACIM says, WITHOUT EXCLUDING any material or any factual statements, you will ONLY be able to accept ALL of what it says if you think in a non-separating way.

As soon as you get the simple idea that heaven's reality is based on BOTH/AND, rather than either/or, it will all fit into place and become clear. Because everything real is based on a both/and system of reason and thought processes. Creation ITSELF is based on sharing between two. God SHARES HIMSELF, in order to create, and He does not will to be alone. The natural logical outcome of that is that WE, as many permanent brothers, in the sonship which God DIRECTLY created, are all "one" (equal/sharing) because we share everything.

If this does not make sense to you, it is because you are thinking with the ego. If it seems like nonsense, it is because the ego is projecting its separation ideals onto it. If you cannot follow it, either I explained it poorly or you can't get past your ego thinking. But either way, God's entire reality is NOT LIKE EARTH, and you have to learn to RADICALLY think WAAAAAAY outside the realm of boxes if you want to recognize its true nature. Heaven is not spacetime!

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

This is more than just another way to think or use the intellect. This ties into how you should PERCEIVE, how you experience the real world, how you tune into the miraculous state of mind, the nature of the miracle and the atonement, all holy relationships, living by the golden rule, holy spirit's thought system etc.. It's all based on heaven's nature which is NOT based on a world of separate boxes.

"The separation IS the notion of rejection. As long as you teach this, YOU still believe it. This is NOT as God thinks, and you must think as He thinks if you are to know Him again. Any split in will MUST involve a rejection of part of it, and this IS the belief in separation."

"Exclusion and separation are synonymous."

"Can you who see yourselves WITHIN a body, know yourself AS AN IDEA? Everything you recognize you identify by EXTERNALS, something OUTSIDE itself. You cannot even think of GOD without a body, or some form you think you recognize."

"To you the miracle cannot seem natural, because what you have done to hurt your mind has made it so unnatural that it does not remember what is natural to it. 2 And when you are told what is natural, you cannot understand it. 3 The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part is perfectly natural, for it is the way God thinks, and what is natural to Him is natural to you. 4 Wholly natural perception would show you instantly that order of difficulty in miracles is quite impossible, for it involves a contradiction of what miracles mean. 5 And if you could understand their meaning, their attributes could hardly cause you perplexity."

"God's miracles are as total as His Thought, because they ARE His thoughts. God shines in them all with perfect light. If they recognize this light anywhere, they know it universally. "

"For you cannot understand Wholeness unless YOU are whole, and no part of the Son can be excluded,"

"the whole Kingdom as literally PART OF YOU."

"For in your part lies ALL of it, without which is no part complete, nor is the whole"

"One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds. Such is the truth.""If they are deprived, their perception becomes distorted. When this occurs, the whole family of God, or the Sonship, is impaired in its relationships.""Though every aspect IS the whole, you cannot KNOW this, until you SEE that every aspect IS THE SAME, perceived in the SAME light, and THEREFORE one. "

Let's say that the entire contents of spacetime is sin. It is an idea of sin. Sin is a lack of love. The world was made as an attack on God, as a sin against him. Let's say that sin is the absence of truth, and so is a false world. Let's say that sin is also insanity, in which the true and the false are swapped and nothing means anything.

And let's say that all of spacetime is therefore a realm of sin, a realm in which everything is always attacked. Because sin is attack. And bodies were made to make attack seem possible. Bodies are the idea of sin, and this includes human and animal and vegetable and mineral and planetary bodies.

It is all sin, and it is sinning all the time. Every time it suggests something impossible has happened, which cannot happen in heaven, it is attempting to provide the proof of sin. Physical matter is "the granite block of sin" which the body's eyes look upon and cannot see past. Sin appears to be irreversible and unsealable, like a permanent crime, stepping ever closer to inevitable death. And death is the wages in sin, in a world where all roads lead to death.

Let's then simply say that the physical world is the idea of sin and of evil, of destruction and death. It is a dream of death and a fantasy of sin being possible. The world is false perception. Flesh and bones were made to sin with. Every atom can attack every other atom and sin against it. Destruction of any kind is sin. And if the mind takes all of this world to be true or real, it has believed in sin instead of innocence.

The function of forgiveness is to forgive the ENTIRE world of spacetime, including all of planet earth and every other planet. It has to be forgiven because it constantly sinning. Every part of it is constantly trying to murder. The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son.

Every part of it sins against the rest and holds sins up before your eyes to testify that sin is real. It is a world of sin. It must be forgiven because it has sinned, and it can be forgiven only because it has sinned. It has offended you and your function now is to recognize it as merely a mistake, an error in judgement, and to release it from your belief that sin is the truth.

The world can be seen in another light, which reframes the sin and regards it as a mistake. Which does not hold the world against itself, despite its continued efforts to induce death. You don't merely need to forgive a murderer, you need to forgive an entire planet of death. An entire solar system and galaxy of death. The world is an attempt to tempt you to believe that sin is reality. Your job is to forgive its sinful nature and let it go.

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master. And this unholy instant SEEMS to be life. An instant of despair, a tiny island of dry sand, bereft of water, and set uncertainly upon oblivion. Here does the Son of God stop briefly by, to offer his devotion to death's idols, and then pass on."

"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see BEYOND what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and NOT see past it. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see ONLY illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside FORM of nothing. To this distorted form of vision, the OUTSIDE of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."

"To see a SINLESS body is impossible. For holiness is POSITIVE, and the body is merely neutral. It is NOT sinful, but neither is it sinless."

"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."

"Forgiveness is this world's equivalent of Heaven's justice. It translates the world of sin into a simple world"

"Forgiveness turns the world of sin into a world of glory, wonderful to see."

"Except for God's teachers there would be no hope of salvation, for the world of sin would be forever real."

"Sin is belief attack can be projected OUTSIDE the mind where the belief arose. Here is the firm conviction that ideas CAN leave their source made real and meaningful. And FROM this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise."

"Let us unite in bringing blessing to the world of sin and death."

"ITS effects are changelessly eternal, BEYOND fear, and PAST the world of sin entirely."

"You brand it sinful, and you hate its acts, judging it evil." "The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought which gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear, and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."

"Sin would maintain you MUST be separate. But REASON tells you that this must be WRONG."

"My body, Father, cannot be Your Son. And what is not created cannot be sinful or sinless; neither good nor bad."

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for, it will become to you. Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak it suffers and it dies."

"All that is real proclaims his sinlessness. All that is false proclaims his sins as real."

"In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine, and everything you once thought sinful now will be re-interpreted as part of Heaven."

"What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. Where is hope while sin is seen as outside?" "Who could see the world as dark and sinful when God's Son has come again at last to set it free?"

"Who but the sinful need to be forgiven?"

Our main problem in separating from God is simply not recognizing what is true. "Enlightenment is but a recognition".

If we were to recognize accurately what is true, and what is false, without any distortion, we would attain enlightenment. This recognition is the pure sanity of our right mindedness.

A mind which is so correct in its recognition of truth, practically KNOWS it, which is how true perception paves the way for knowledge. Our problem then is that we DON'T recognize what is true, or how it is opposite to what is false. In the separation we simply swapped the true and the false. We gave all manner of true properties to that which is false, and all manner of false properties to that which is true. This produced immense confusion.

"You HAVE carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING."

In a state of confusion, you do NOT recognize reality or truth. You believe that things which are true are not true, and things which are false are true. You give reality to illusions, believe in lies, and mistake hell for heaven.

This reversal is so great that it leads to the belief that death is life, hell is heaven, suffering is healing, punishment is atonement, and God is evil.

Everyone naturally gravitates towards whatever they believe is true, and tries to avoid what they believe is false. In fact Jesus in the course says that you cannot SEE what you believe is false, and you can only see what you believe in a true.

"All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would judge reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight, because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized."

This presents a problem, because it means you end up choosing something which is NOT what it appear to be. You think it will save you, but it hurts you. This manifests particularly in using sickness as a defense against the truth.

We first fail to recognize that God's truth is true. We believe it is false and evil and wrong. We don't want it. Then we believe that its opposite will save and protect us. That we want whatever IS true, even though the things we think are true are false.

Then we choose false things, to move away from true things, but believing they're helping us. Sickness is an attempt to defend your life and perpetuate your truth, to save you from the attack of "what is false" - God - but what is false has been mis-identified.

So you end up choosing suffering, under the belief that it is helping you. You choose sickness in an attempt to save your life.

This happens only because you do not RECOGNIZE what is really true and what is false. You are confused, and so you make a poor decision. You then end up hurting yourself because you are confused.

"I must have decided wrongly because I am not at peace. I made the decision myself"

What the course then tells us is we have to sort out and correctly identify things which are true, and things which are false. To identify what is OF GOD, and what is not. What is real, and what is unreal. This includes sorting out what is really life, and what is death, and what is health and what is suffering.

"If you obscure the Kingdom, you are perceiving WHAT IS NOT OF GOD."

"Whatever is revealed to Him that is not of God, is gone."

"It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to effect you in any way."

"True denial is a very powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is NOT a concealment device, but a correction device. The "Right Mind" of the mentally healthy DEPENDS on it."

We actually don't recognize that suffering IS suffering. We don't realize we are feeling guilty and afraid. We can even be angry without actually recognizing it as anger. In denial, we'll even believe that our sickness is saving us, and so we want to keep it.

Our task is to become clear about what IS true and what IS false. To properly "categorize" stuff. To put the things of God into the "true and real" category, and the stuff of this world of ego and death into the "untrue and not real" category. The illusions of Earth belong in the not-real category.

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."

In true perception then, which is close to enlightenent, we are doing two things. We are correctly recognizing that illusions ARE illusions and death is NOT real and there is no real sin and Earth doesn't really exist. AND, we are recognizing heaven and the face of christ and the real world and reality, shining beyond the illusory world.

Once we actually can distinguish that suffering IS suffering, and attack IS attack, and death IS death, rather than confusing them for something else, we will recognize not to choose them. Anything we associate with what is false, we will choose away from. Whatever we associate with truth, we will gravitate towards.

In order to choose heaven and not hell, we have to first learn that hell IS hell, and not heaven. We have to stop confusing Earth for heaven, or mistaking an unreal world for a real one. We have to deprogram ourselves and become clear about what really is true and what isn't.

"the necessary distinction between the true and the false."

"But HIS function is to distinguish ONLY between the false and the true, REPLACING the false WITH the true."

"His Voice WILL teach you how to distinguish between pain and joy, and lead you out of the confusion YOU have made."

"Therefore, if you learn the tests by which you can distinguish everything from nothing, you will make the better choice."

"Only by learning what fear IS, can you finally learn to distinguish the possible from the impossible, and the false from the true."

"This is because of the miracle's inherent avoidance of within-error distinctions. Its SOLE concern is to distinguish between truth, on the one hand, and ALL kinds of error, on the other."

"The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."

Miracles, then, are states of mind in which the real truth is recognized as the ONLY truth, and nothing ELSE is believed to be true. All errors are correctly identified as false, untrue, unreal, and nothing. All reality is acknowledged and welcomes as ACTUALLY real and true and meaningful.

When all truth is "separated out" from what is false, you will cease to make confused mistaken choice, will stop choosing death and sickness and suffering, and will be ready to choose heaven.

The false world (Earth) is false and does not exist. The true world (Heaven) is true and is all that exists. Truth is everything, the false is nothing. Correctly recognizing God allows you to recognize who you are. In remembering your true nature, you are ready to identify with your soul, and as Christ.

"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the Laws of God."

God is the law. His nature is the law. His creation is an extension of the law. Anything created is within the law and under the law and governed by the law. It is impossible that anything God created can be unlawful or capable of breaking the law, otherwise it would break God. God's will cannot be opposed.

Part of God's law is that everything created is unlimited in its freedom. This includes even the freedom to try to use freedom to imprison oneself and others. This is an attempt to be "freely imprisoned", which is an obvious contradiction and circular logic. This is why it's not really possible.

But the mind is free to deny that it's impossible and to pretend that it can be accomplished, even if doing so is insane and makes no sense and still cannot be accomplished. We cannot actually create a body, or create planet Earth, or create space or time, but we can imagine what they might be like if it were possible. And that's all we've done.

So now we seem to live in an imaginary world which seems to be a world where all of the laws of God are violated. Where everything is opposite to God's nature. Where impossible things seem to happen all the time, such as sickness and death. Things which would be a total violation of God's nature if they were possible, but cannot be possible in reality.

Even if you attack and destroy someone or something in this dream, this imagined world, it isn't actually accomplishing anything. Nothing real can be threatened, nothing immortal can die, nothing of God can be hurt. What is being attacked? Nothing but an illusion, attacked by an illusion, with illusory effects which mean nothing at all.

God's law is that we are free forever. Even if we attempt to use that freedom to deny freedom. If we use our freedom to deny the freedom of others we attempt to imprison and destroy them, expressing the idea that they are not free to exist - a seemingly murderous thought.

We are allowed to have this thought, the freedom to be mistaken is entirely within the scope of God's law. It doesn't mean God intends that you be imprisoned or that you imprison others, and in truth you cannot actually imprison or destroy anyone. You can dream of imprisoning and destroying but it isn't actually happening.

So you are free to, in a dream world, do whatever you want, without limits, given that you are free to do whatever you want per God's law. And therefore even if you seem to be a murderous evil person you still are not breaking God's law. That might sound controversial, but the attack isn't real and it has no real effects on anything real. So you are free to imagine you can be evil, but you can't actually be evil.

In effect all you can be is either correct or mistaken. You can either accept reality or deny it. But you can never change the law, you can never break the law, and you can never actually commit a real sin. You can dream of sinning and dream of being guilty, but these are fictional guilts and make-believe sins. They're not even real sins. And believing they are real sins is part of being mistaken.

God still wills that we be free and happy and loving, but he doesn't demand it or stop us from trying to be otherwise. Thus there is no guilt and no sin, no actual attack, no violation and no real victims. There are dreams and nightmares of such things but they're not real. They're just mistakes, all rooted and founded on a lie that such things are even possible in reality. We're kidding ourselves when we think we hurt people, so there's no point in trying to.

Forgiveness isn't about you recognising that you did something and then trying to get over it. It's about recognising that you actually didn't do anything. And your brother didn't actually do anything. It's all a dream fantasy of doing things that can't really be done. A dream of mortality and murder which has no effect on anything real.

This doesn't justify doing such things, because a person who is in touch with unlimited freedom is also unconditionally loving. A person aligned with God's will only wills life and happiness. Ironically and paradoxically, granting everyone total freedom to do anything produces a state of mind in which there is only a desire to do good, as God sees it. In other words, being truly free to 'murder' actually produces a state of having no desire to do so. It's only when you deny freedom that you think you could gain something from attack.

So God's laws can't be broken, we are never breaking them, and we are never in a state of sinning. We never do anything that demands a real guilt, because there isn't even such a thing as real guilt. There's a mistakenness about being guilty which is founded on a lie, that sin is possible when it isn't. You couldn't cause yourself to be destroyed even if you tried because God wills that you live forever, along with everyone else.

So really we need to recognize we cannot break the law of God, and this is the only real law. But if you embrace the law it means having to give freedom and love to everyone, because freedom and love is the law. And anything else you try to do can be nothing but an illusion.

"The ego cannot OPPOSE the laws of God, any more than YOU can. But it can INTERPRET them according to what it wants, just as YOU can."

"The ego, using its own warped version of the laws of God, uses the power of the mind ONLY to defeat the mind's real purpose."

"It is the distorted product of the misapplication of the laws of God by distorted minds which are misusing their own power."

"This IS the law of God, and it HAS NO EXCEPTIONS"

"You do not think this mysterious, even though ALL the laws of what you awake to WERE violated while you slept."

Everything in the physical world is temporary. It comes, it lingers a while, and then it goes. This applies to absolutely everything. Bodies, worlds, animals, foods, cars, birds, insects, bicycles, trees, you name it. It seems to begin, it seems to remain as if promising to be there always, but then it leaves. Always, always, always it leaves.

However, the things of God are not temporary, they are permanent and eternal. They do not come and go, or last only a little while, or even a long while. They are forever. They have no beginning and no end. They are endless and immortal, incapable of fading away or decaying, of becoming sick or dissolving into death. Because what God has created cannot BE put asunder.

When you assign the properties of God's creations to the things of this world, you will have psychological sickness, because they will fail to be permanent. This includes valuing the things of this world as if they can be kept, being attached to the things of this world as if they are worth having, wanting the things of this world to never end, trying to keep bodies going for as long as possible, resisting change, not letting go of what inevitably must pass, and even attempting to stop death from happening.

Trying to make this world eternal is a mistake. Trying to give it reality and life, will and power, mind and value, is all a mistake. Every time you think of the things of this world as though they should last forever, believing they will not end, wishing they would always be there, or wanting them to never die, you are confusing immortality and mortality. Believing this world is your permanent home will tear you apart, because this world will tear apart.

Believing the things of the world must last forever, you will suffer psychologically. The things of this world WILL end, and the whole world will end, and everything you ever wanted to keep here will be destroyed. Even the things you spend a lifetime building. All the world's roads lead to death and destruction. It will leave, and it will take away, and all things physically will die. So when you're busy wanting them not to, you will be torn apart and experience loss and grief. The things you think you value will be destroyed, the bodies you think should live indefinitely will be mangled, and every treasure will be crushed.

You will suffer if you believe this world is anything BUT temporary, or anything but death. Trying to have it be permanent is to confuse it for heaven. It is not of God, it is not his kingdom, and it is not his will. Nor is it like him, having been made to be opposite to his kingdom in every way. All forms of attachment, resistance, ownership, specialness, valuing, believing real, trying to sustain, not wanting it to end, will make you suffer. Because it will end anyway and everything you thought you loved will be ripped away, leaving you empty and bereft, while you play with death.

The only way to alleviate this suffering is to cease the confusion of levels between heaven and earth. To stop trying to make this world last indefinitely. To stop trying to keep people in bodies. To stop valuing things that will die, and to stop resisting their going. You have to let the whole world go, because it is going to go whether you like it or not.

The only way to find salvation from a world that was dying before it was born, is to transcend the world and rise above it. To detach from it and recognize it as temporary and old and destined to die. The kingdom of God offers you everything that this world cannot give, and just as this world has disappointed you since time began, heaven has delighted you and will do so without end. Only the creations of God can satisfy you and bring lasting happiness.

Bodily relationships will come and go. You'll think they'll last forever and then they will end and you will be upset because you wanted it to last. All your collections and objects and toys will be destroyed. Everything you eat will turn to shit, if you manage to eat it before it rots. All places through all seasons will destroy everything they contain. Even entire solar systems and galaxies will be swallowed up and exploded apart.

Nothing in this world will last forever. The sooner this can be accepted and sink deeply within, such that you become willing to release it and let it all go, the sooner you will find happiness and peace.

"You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust, even as you made it."

"The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end."

"You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the "gifts" it merely lends to take away again, attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus."

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to GAIN that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes."

Reality, truth, power, will and causation always go together. Wherever you assign reality, you are also assigning all the other complementary properties.

God in his grace, is real and true and has unlimited will and power and causation. If God, as the premise or starting point of "what exists" is in general GOOD, then thankfully that implies that goodness is happening, is real, is true, etc.

Fear enters only when you believe that something OTHER THAN GOD has the properties of God. The opposite of God's creation is the world we made, which includes planet Earth. Earth is an illusion of a world, based on a premise of sin, attack, separation and death. All the "bad" stuff.

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

"The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son."

So if you assign truth and reality and power and will to the BAD stuff, you are literally setting yourself up for a nightmare. You're asserting, sin is real, death is true, the world is causing me, and physicality has power over my mind.

Under those terms, you HAVE to feel a sense of anxiety. Suddenly a separate world has a mind of its own. Suddenly physical maladies, problem and diseases torment you with their proof of suffering. Death and attack become real. And murder seems to be the law. If you escape it, you are lucky, because its inevitability is built into the entire premise of this reality.

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

"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."

So if the world is real for you, if you believe in sin, if you believe what your body tells you, if you believe your eyes, your senses, and beleive that "bad stuff is really happening", you cannot help but feel threatened. If the world is believed to cause you, you ARE at its effect, and MUST be defined by something evil against your will. And no-one can but justify being afraid under those conditions.

The ego would tell you that the way OUT of this fear reaction, is to either hide, or avoid, or pretend to be strong, or attack it, or be heroic, or go into denial, or any number of other ego strategies. None of these really work. They don't move the belief in the reason to be afraid.

In order to overcome the foundation for fear, you have to overcome the BELIEF that the world is God. That sin is real. That death is possible. That anything real can suffer, or that suffering has any truth to it. If you can maintain that outlook at all times, you cannot BELIEVE IN being affected, and cannot justify fear. There is NO BASIS for fear if the world of sin and attack is not even real. Then only love and forgiveness and invulnerability can be justified.

This is the challenge. If you are not on your game, if you are buying into fear, if you are believing in hell, if you think you are a body, or if you believe physical evidence is real, it does not take much to happen to initiate fear. Especially if what happen is ranked "high" in terms of sevirity or importance. It doesn't take much at all.

Someone falls over, someone hurts themselves, someone develops a diagnosis, a house is attacked, a piece of equipment breaks, the car stops working, money goes missing, a letter arrives in the mail, whatever it is, something physical proves something has gone wrong. And now, UNLESS you resist temptation to buy into it, you will be afraid. If it has power over you to cause you, proving you have no power to stop it, it HAS to instill fear in you.

"I am upset because I see something that is not there."

The key then is not being tempted by, falling for, being deceived by, buying into, believing in, the world. You might still see it for a while. The body might still be hurling images of hell at you. You might still see sick bodies and death and murder. BUT, if you do not BELIEVE in it, if you do not CONFUSE it for God's attributes, if you do not assign reality or truth to it, you cannot be deceived by it. And it can do nothing to upset you.

If the world HAS no power, HAS no will, HAS no mind, HAS no causation, HAS no authority or ability to define or change you, then you CANNOT BE afraid. There is no justification for fear if what is real is a loving God. If God is real, there can only be justificaiton for rejoicing.

"You would not be affected by a dream that you knew you were dreaming. Let them be a hateful and as vicious as they may. They can have no affect on you unless you fail to recognize it is your dream."

When something goes wrong, anything at all, you are tempted to believe evil has triumphed over God. When someone falls sick for any reason at all, you are tempted to believe that God's Son is a mortal body that can be attacked. When something is suffering and writhing in pain, you are tempted to believe that pain is God's reality. And when you see murder and death, you are tempted to believe you can destroy God and His creation. This CANNOT BE TRUE because God is immortal.

So now you're going to be in a situation where you HAVE to decide. Is it true that this world is real and something HAS really gone wrong, OR is it true that only heaven is real and NOTHING CAN go wrong? You have to choose a side. God or the ego. Good or evil. Eternal life or the illusion of death. Happiness or suffering. Health or sickness. Light or dark. Life or death.

Are you going to ACCEPT INTO YOUR MIND, the world's temptation of sin being true, or are you going to positively use denial to REJECT it and ignore it? The proper use of denial entails you DENYING THE WORLD YOU SEE, because "sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision." You MUST deny anything not of God any power to hurt you or anyone, otherwise you are AGREEING that it has power to hurt you and others, which causes YOU to hurt yourself.

Believe only that God's truth is true and nothing else is true, at all times, in all situations, and you will be invulnerable to the world. And then it cannot cause you at all, yet alone make you afraid.