Various things seem to happen in the world. Sometimes seemingly happy things, sometimes tragic. Sometimes things seem to be going well, sometimes they fuck up. There are dramas. There's emotion. People seem to be well, others seem to be dying. There is a whole lot of "material" to react to, respond to, deal with, manage, etc.

It all seems plausible and true. It seems to have reality. It seems like it's something to be taken seriously. We seem to have to care about certain outcomes. It seems like there's real problems and real solutions. But this is all within the context of "the world is real".

IF the world is real, it makes sense that we should be taking things seriously. We should be caring, paying attention, reacting, dealing with issues, trying to control things, etc. This all seems "valid". It seems justified. It even seems to make sense. If someone is struggling with something it seems like there are certain courses of action. If there is a problem that seems serious, it seems you should be quite upset about it.

But here is the thing. This is all based on the assumption that the world is real. And that's a big assumption. It's a framework or a basis. A logical premise. It's a starting point on which to derive all these conclusions, evaluations, judgements, strategies etc. But what if the world isn't real?

What if the the world is in fact just a dream? You see, if the world is a dream, this changes the ENTIRE context of everything that seems to be happening. If it's a dream, nothing is really happening here. If it's a dream, even if it seems like some person just died, they didn't really die. If it's a dream, sickness is also an illusion and is completely fake. If it's a dream, everything that occurs is just some made up fantasy.

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

In a dream world, it's as though there are just scenarios, situations, scenes, fictions and stories, which come and go fairly randomly. They don't actually have any particular rhyme or reason or meaning. Over here is the scene of a person at work. Over there is the scene of a person battling with disease. Over here is another person waking up in the morning. Over there is another person tying their shoes on a subway train. Just strange little vignettes of activity, drama and story.

If it's a dream, none of these things are really happening. The dream reframes the entire and every episode as not being what it seems to be. Are we to keep taking it seriously when something shows up that seems serious? Or should we laugh at yet another strange episode of dreaming in which we seem to be experiencing strange events and people?

Yes, if its real, then we probably should react to it. But if it is ONLY a dream, this lifts away ALL of the reasons and rationale for taking it seriously, believing it means anything, reacting to it as if it's posing real threats, buying into its illusions. And don't think the illusions aren't extraordinarily creative and well made. They are designed to deceive and tempt you and distract you and disarm you. But even a scenario of a person standing there trying to destroy you, it laughable in the context that it's ONLY a scene within a dream and you are not the body nor can you be attacked.

If you could observe the world, from outside of it, from outside the dream, it would be a radical change in perspective. What you once thought was being really threatened is now recognized as nothing but some illusion pretending to threaten an illusion. Nothing REAL can be threatened. You'd know that the whole world is one big fake fairytale. There aren't really any bodies, there's no real sickness, no real death, on real war, no tears or upsets or problems. It's all made up.

And changing your frame of reference, your point of perspective on this world, is how you forgive and develop true perception. Learning to see from a vantage point of the truth about the world, that it IS a dream, rather than the perspective that it's really happening and worth being alarmed about. False perception shows you the world as if it's NOT a dream, but a terribly real-seeming nightmare with tragic events and threat and danger. In such a world there is no safety, if you have identified with the dream figure.

This is why it's very vital to dis-identify from the body. Not just because bodies are distracting and act as anchors to bring down the Son of God, but because they are INSIDE the dream. They are part of it. They are just characters and costumes. So you, who are dreaming the world from OUTSIDE of the world, if you start to believe you are one of the characters in the dream, a body, you're going to lose sight of yourself, lose track of the truth, and believe that the world is happening to YOU because YOU are now believing you're a body. "What you are cannot be seen nor pictured".

Becoming spirit identified merely means the same thing as recognizing this is just a dream. It means remembering who and what you are, which is, that you are the dreamer of the dream, NOT the contents of the dream. You are not the body or the house or the family or the children or the job or the role-play. You are outside the dream bubble. Outside of spacetime, in heaven. In the awake world, the reality of the Kingdom. Attaching your "self" to "world stuff" just makes you believe you're under attack from a dangerous world where everything is chaotic and destructive.

Jesus's approach to the world is to learn to recognize that it IS only a dream. And being a dream, it should not be taken seriously. It should not be afforded any kind of reality or truth. Any kind of "it's really occurring". Any kind of artificial meaning or implication. In fact, he tells us that this is the secret of salvation. If we would recognize it's JUST a dream, we should be laughing at every part of it, realizing that it's complete fiction. Like some movie on a screen.

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

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.""

Through struggles with being shy and sensitive and antisocial and so on, I gradually have realized that there is something fundamentally "estranging" about people's bodies.

When I go out and I see people's physical bodies, there is a fundamental disconnect. There's my body over here and this big gap between and their body over there - it is just experienced when taken at face value as a separation - a gaping divide between individuals, making us seem remote and distant and unlike each other.

Just the mere fact that their body has "differences" or seems like a wall of solid flesh, all by itself, IS a "form" of MAKING it seem as though the person is different to me and therefore IS NOT ME, and therefore there is some kind of separation or rift between us.

People in bodies seem confined and isolated and cut off from each other. It's as if we are supposed to be joined and sharing in the same place together, but instead, there is a huge distance physically between us, yet alone the fact that they are imprisoned in a physical form which they wear like a suit of isolation, which keeps them in and keeps me out.

I always thought there was something majorly wrong with me that I could not relate or connect with people. That communication was fundamentally difficult. That I feared strangers and was put off by appearances. I thought that I just wasn't good at it or there was something I just wasn't cut out to do.

But now I see that in fact, bodies are part of the ego's DEVICE to try to ENFORCE separation, by identifying brothers as strangers, with significant illusions of differences in appearance, in order to portray us as UNRELATED and isolated from each other. It's written into the physical form ITSELF. This was the purpose of the body.

So now I can cut myself a bit of slack, that my difficulty connecting with people isn't just about me as such. The physicality of bodies is a severe limit imposed on communication by the belief in separation.

Brothers/souls are supposed to commune with each other fully and share space and overlap each other in unity. Bodies were made to isolate and to stop us from connecting with each other.

The challenge as I see it now isn't so much learning how to relate to bodies better, but how to see PAST bodies to the person WITHIN, to the soul, the christ, the real person hidden underneath the illusion of form, to connect with their MIND, and to share love with them that BYPASSES the physical in order to bring about healing and the UNDOING of bodies.

It entails learning that people are not bodies. Bodies are fundamentally AGAINST communication unless used PURELY for communication mind-to-mind (temporarily), and therefore I need to learn to interact with brothers/souls with love and really thoroughly learn to look PAST (forgive) all illusory appearances of body forms. To relate soul-to-soul and heart-to-heart and mind-to-mind, not form-to-form.

Bodies are illusions. They are not people. They are also not sick on their own. They are not the thing that needs healing as such. The body does seem sick but it's a *secondary* sickness - the "original" sickness (in mind) is hidden behind appearances. I had been targeting healing at body parts only for Jesus to remind me that the person is not a body... making me realize I was aiming the healing at entirely the wrong target, lol. People are not bodies. "I am not a body, I am free". Tough lesson. Long lesson. But I'm getting there.

What appears to be strangers, are in fact brothers in disguise.

Choosing not to control anything, to me, feels just like a surrender.

I used to say several times, "I surrender". Particularly saying them in quick-succession so that my ego doesn't jump in with its distractions and objections.

But now I find, if I just intend not to control anything at all, and just to be 'aware of any attempts to control, this works just as well and even perhaps runs deeper.

With surrendering, I can surrender the surface layers of what my ego has been doing to try to control situations, and relax back into openness and willingness to admit the truth. But maybe this isn't a 'total surrender'.

By focusing on 'not controlling anything', this instead strikes right to the core of the ego, which is entirely founded on an attempt to control reality and God. If I am not controlling anything at all, then I am not going outside of myself, I am not engaging in non-acceptance, I am not caught up in ego dramas, and I'm not even creating the thoughts that come as the ways in which I think reality should be different.

Give it a try. I'm enjoying experimenting with this. Just let go of controlling anything whatsoever. Don't even try to control thoughts or to control your mind or ego. Just stop controlling.

I am going out on a limb a bit to say, that Holy Spirit is a powerful healer and is the medium of miracles. He is quite capable of healing all forms of sickness on all levels including the physical. He shares the power of God. There is nothing that your holiness cannot do, and there is nothing that His holiness cannot do.

Holy Spirit doesn't just sit there on some throne winking at you while you watch thoughts go past or while you gently hand over little bits and pieces of ego. He isn't idle. He isn't there to just be some administrator or to sit and watch while you do all the work. And he's definitely not some intellect-friendly 'metaphor'.

Holy Spirit is an active agent of God who is perfectly capable of performing literal miracles, miracles which anyone on this planet would agree is a miracle. Miracles that include extraordinary healing of body parts, the growing of new limbs and organs, the removal of toxins and metal plates and artificial attachments, the correcting of unbalanced body proportions, weight loss, removal of scars, giving you hearing that you never had since birth, providing you with an entirely new set of internal organs... I mean.. there is NOTHING Holy Spirit cannot do.

Ok, this is a bit radical. This is not your ordinary A course in wimpy miracles. This is not "Oh a miracle is just a change in perception" or "a miracle is looking at things in a different way". Fuck that.

This is a course in MIRACLES, folks. It really is what it says on the can - learning how to perform real, powerful miracles. Not some watered-down nice safe little mind-training exercise program to listen to on your headphones. We are talking about the Holy Spirit wielding the POWER OF GOD to perform absolutely any correction to ANY consequences whatsoever that may have stemmed from your belief in separation, sin, guilt or fear.

The ONLY thing that is 'stopping Him' for enacting this power is YOU. Your willingness.

"Holy Spirit will correct all of the consequences of your wrong decision if you will let Him." - ACIM

ALL of the consequences. Not just little mental thoughts and psychological faux-pas.

Ok.. sounding a bit evangelical or something?

Well... the ACIM community is rather sparse and doesn't have a whole lot of leadership and doesn't also have a whole lot of experience in the 'supernatural' aspects of the Course. Most people want to sweep it under the carpet. I have suspected things about it for a long time but felt awkward saying so because it seemed like I was just sticking my neck out and nobody else seemed to agree.

Well. You go watch some videos somewhere of these supernatural churches etc where certain branches of Christians have, over the centuries, come to learn not only how to access Holy Spirit's power but how to wield it in such ways as to perform literally 'real miracles'. Their theology might be riddled with errors but they are STRONG in their application of Holy Spirit to really heal serious problems.

People getting out of wheelchairs. People being cured of cancer. People having completely new organs grown in place of diseased ones. The complete removal of blindness and deafness. Sure some of it is faked, but in many cases it is very genuine. These are the kinds of things that the disciples of Jesus did when they went about their Father's business. These are the kinds of things Jesus Himself performed, WITH Holy Spirit, to raise the dead and change water to wine and feed the 5 thousand and cure the blind and all the rest of it. THE SAME HOLY SPIRIT IS IN YOU, waiting for you to to LET HIM TEACH YOU TO HEAL. He's not some intellectual substitute version of Holy Spirit. He is the power of God!

"I will heal as I let Him teach me to Heal" -- doesn't just mean, oh, I'll sort of have some nice comfortable tidying up of my insides. It means, Holy Spirit can HEAL ANYTHING and He will teach you how to do so with Him, "AS I LET HIM". There is no limit to what you are capable of.

How will you overlook your brothers sins and your own and demonstrate that His attack has had no effect on you, literally, physically, if you do not have the power of Holy Spirit to reverse all physical ailments and cure all diseases and evidence of attack? Are you going to do that on your own with your little ego self? Nope. But with Holy Spirit, you can become absolutely invulnerable.

Yah I know.... sounds far fetched. Sounds "out there". Too radical. This is what A Course in Miracles wants for us. Do you think Jesus only gave us a nice watered down Course that doesn't have the real 'meaty' stuff in it? No. Jesus wants us to do what He has done and more. And that means, pretty big fricking powerful miracles. You are a miracle worker, not a receptionist.

There is a pivotal moment when you let go of the ego's hand and decide to take the hand of Christ.

This can and will happen in many scenarios and many times over. And it's going to happen in your "real life" in relation to people and your beliefs about people.

Cate Grieves gave a good example of this recently in relation to her daughter where she would clash with the "ego" in her daughter, or rather, her own inner fight with her own ego projected there, but after having enough, one day she finally decided to recognize the Christ in her and to relate only to that identity, not to the ego. And everything shifted. That's an example of letting go of the ego's hand and taking the hand of Christ.

Similarly I had spent many many years believing in sickness, thinking it was real, irreversible, truth. Each time I saw it I had reactions and grief. I believed it was real. It was actually horrifying to see disability and very upsetting because I believed it was real, and how tragic it was what had been lost as a result of it. All that suffering was ego bullshit.

I had gone through many many periods of trying to heal it, fix it, rescue the person, trying to learn about what caused it, diagnosing it, figuring out why it happened etc. All of these ways that I was actually continually using the ego to try to find some kind of truth outside of me. Always it would lead me to dead ends and failing to find anything that made sense. It was infuriating. I tried and tried and tried to explain why and how the sickness happened and all that did was justify and keep it.

And this was all because I believed my own ego, my own intellect's ability to diagnose truthfully (which is impossible), and that if I would seek externally for truth I would actually be able to find it, if I looked hard enough. But this was all classic seek-and-do-not-find tactics. It was all based on me believing that the problem was real.

One day, I was getting to where I had really had enough, like, fucking hell I cannot put up with this bullshit any more. And I was starting to recognize with Jesus' help the ways that I kept trying to solve this "real problem", and He was just always trying to get me to surrender and stop doing that. When I was in 'fix it' mode my mind was just lost like in a tunnel vision of thinking that I was going to find the answer, not realizing and not having the awareness that this was fundamentally impossible. The entire basis for my searching was flawed and based in the ego, so I was trapped and failing before I even started.

Somehow enough of these events of futility and failure and gradual tiny steps in becoming aware of this, led to a moment where it started to dawn on me. I started to finally get it. This had all been based on the idea that sickness was REAL. And that also fed into an awareness that was growing in me that there just was no truth out there whatsoever. I had been looking in the wrong place - in the ego - for a truth that doesn't exist there. And that maybe this whole world had no truth in it at all.

Up until that point I'd been believing that the world was real and sickness was real and sin was real. Even if some part of me understood otherwise. And my belief that there is somehow a truth in this world just met with a total loss in finding it. That was GOOD, because it revealed to me that this ego pursuit was totally a distraction, and a pointless one at that. There IS no truth in the world. The truth is NOT out there. This really started a MAJOR shift in my awareness that has been leading to just a tremendous flood of insight and awakening lately.

But the main thing is, I had to question whether sickness was real. And that meant even going against everyone else who said sickness was real. Going against the doctors and the neighbors and the family members and even those closest to me who all believed in real sickness. I had to find enough certainty and be pissed off enough and fed up enough to finally say FUCK THAT. There is no truth there. So I decided, or at least found enough of a sense of conviction, like a ray of light peeking through the window for the first time, to open up to the idea that sickness is not reality, because this world is not reality.

This was a major turn of events because this has now laid a foundation for really huge strides forward, a foundation for hope, a foundation for miracles, and a foundation for healing. That would not have been possible had I remained in the ego belief that sickness is truth. So in this same way, I became able to let go of the ego's hand and take the hand of Christ. And because it took such tremendous frustration and desperation to exhaust the ego's bullshit and to really reveal to myself that this fundamentally major world-wide claim about real sickness was total f'ing bullshit.

So now something is different for me. It's a turning point, suddenly instead of looking at, believing in, and reacting to "real sickness", I am learning how it is an illusion, I am starting to actually overlook it, which means I am finally actually forgiving it. My mind and awareness are shifting and I'm seeing sickness in a whole different way. I'm no longer allowing the ego interpretation of it to be the limit of my belief or awareness, and instead am opening up to the Christ perspective that sickness is not the truth. It's not real, and because it is not real, it can be undone.

These shifts happen in big ways and small ways. Each time you come to question or doubt the ego and see that it's been leading you on a wild goosechase, and its claims are not the truth, you gradually let go of its hand and shift allegiance to Christ. You go from perceiving FORM as though it's real, and looking beyond it. You go from seeing people as real bodies, to no longer regarding them as "just that". Your vision no longer stops at sight of form and it starts to see a truth that transcends it. The person is not their body. The person is not their ego.

This basically means you are gradually de-coupling yourself from form, and are actually letting go of your own body at the same time. Everything in front of your eyes is an attempt to get you to see it as real, and to fail to overlook/forgive, leading to judgement. We need to learn to not believe it! It's not real. It's not truth. Form is just an effect of an idea, not a solid reality. Nor is it fixed, and nor is it identity.

Form is not the truth about a person. Their body is not the truth about them. Their personality/persona/shadow is not the truth about them. They actually are more than that. Even when they are filled with hate and rage, that's still not true about them. Their real self, holy and innocent, is still in there somewhere, just temporarily covered up. It doesn't go away! This justifies unconditional love at all times.

"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 that 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.

The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except love's absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him."

...This section of the Course is interesting. It clearly says that "the world IS false perception", having not left the mind. In other words, the world is inside the mind, is made of mind-stuff/images/illusions, and is not physically real or objectively real. But notice it says the world *IS* false perception, not just that you are misperceiving a world.

Notice also it doesn't say the world is 'out there' and you PERCEIVE IT falsely. The world ITSELF IS perception. Your perceiving hallucinates a world, because "projection makes perception". Projection making perception does NOT mean that you are just projecting ONTO the world and perceiving things that are not there, it means that you are projecting THE WORLD ITSELF and are then perceiving it. Your interpretations of what you then PERCEIVE is just another LAYER of projection on top of the projected world. You are projecting the world in your mind and THEN you perceive it with the body.

This is an important distinction because so many Course folks are thinking that you just need to fix your perception OF something that exists kind of on its own, and that if you can get the right perception of it then you'll be in reality. That's not how it works. The world seeming to exist AT ALL is because of perception, which is false.

When the thought of separation (which hallucinated the world) is seen in another light (ie right-minded perception), you may see the forgiven world (which is lovely), BUT only as a stepping stone to LEAD TO the truth, "where all the world must disappear".

"WHERE ALL THE WORLD MUST DISAPPEAR". Because it's not real to begin with. It's just a great big IDEA of separation in the mind.

"Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well". Its source is the idea of separation, and the effect of that idea was the hallucination of a world existing. Not just a hallucination ABOUT a pre-existing world or on TOP of a world, but THE world itself.

I think one of the main reasons a lot of people think they just need to "change their mind about the world" is because that IS a stepping stone toward the truth - but is not the final goal. It's just a way to get to where you stop protecting the illusion and are ready to dissolve the underlying thought of separation/attack-on-God which caused it to appear. And since the Course does speak to taking those steps toward undoing distorted perception, people get caught up thinking that's all they need to do, and that after that the 'real world' will be kept - the physical world. That's not what it means. There are steps after that where the world disappears because it as only ever an illusion in the mind.

I think also this has a lot to do with how people perceive themselves as a separate body. That's what we come to the course with. I'm separate from 'the world out there'. I have a mind 'in here' in my body which is separate from the world 'out there' so this is the only part of reality that I have control over. I can change 'my mind' in here to see what's 'out there' differently. But that's NOT the point.

The point is, the very IDEA that your mind is separate from the world is what has to be undone - the whole idea of 'I have a separate mind' that is separate from the world. Because if you don't see that, you'll just want to keep the world and stay in a body and remain a separate ego identity having its own perception. And the truth is, you can't HAVE correct perception if you are still separate because as the mind is HEALED it is healed by union and undoing separation and joining and sharing, which means you have to realize that the world is IN your mind and it/your body are just mind-stuff. And as mind-stuff, they are just illusions, not reality. So the whole world ITSELF is not real. This is a very fundamental Course concept.

Again "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 that gave it birth is cherished." - Jesus

Once we stop cherishing the thought (separation) which gave 'birth' to ERROR, which is the world (the form of error), it will REMAIN NO LONGER and will disappear. Forgiveness is meant to OVERLOOK error, ie overlook the world, to get to where perception is purified so that it can see the world for 'what it is', and what it is is an illusion. Forgiveness must look PAST the illusion otherwise it is not forgiveness. It overlooks the world and recognizes it is NOT really there, because it's just a figment of the imagination. In all its physical-ness and energy-ness and all of its 'life forms' and everything - it's all unreal. It is not reality at all. This is why the idea of "there is no world" is so threatening to ALL Course students (me too) - it implies the total non-existence of the ego self that they think they are.

So what's left, if there is no world and the world disappears?

God's Creation! God's Creation was hidden BY the world, and that was the world's only purpose. Once removed, we will be AWARE of God's Creation again - not conscious of it, not perceiving it, but AWARE of being it.

The world is just a giant mind-game.

Every time you believe you are attacking someone else and not yourself, you are attacking yourself indirectly.

Your attack is always self-attack. Your attack is never an attack on someone else at all.

If they were Christ, they would exhibit no symptoms to prove or demonstrate that your attempted attack did anything to them.

And this would show you, that even as you believe you are attacking Christ, it is having no effect, so the only one receiving effects is YOU.

You are really just attacking yourself. All of the rest of your denial of this fact is your attempt to pretend that you don't hate yourself.

Your only problem is your self separation, your self attack, what you are doing to yourself, and is the only problem that needs correcting.

Fix your belief that you are really sinful and guilty and all of your other problems will disappear. This belief is an attack on yourself, by yourself, and all the ways it gets repressed and projected doesn't undo that fact.

Projection and scapegoating is just denial. You're denying that YOU believe that YOU are sinful. And nobody else is going to be able to undo that for you if you are not willing to look at that fact.

You need a little willingness to look WITH Holy Spirit, upon this sin, to recognize that IN LIGHT, it does not really exist, it is NOT true about you, and it is not REAL. There is no real sin. What if you looked within and saw there was no real sin? You would recognize your innocence and accept the atonement.

Your entire war with the world is not the problem at all. That's just a projection of your war with yourself. It all boils down to this. YOU need forgiveness to undo YOUR belief that YOU are a sinner.

Undo that and it will undo the world.

There are aspects of the Truth that are just so mind-blowing in how they completely fly in the face of conventional truth. It's like, what they claim is so opposite to what we've been raised to believe, that it just seems so radical and almost difficult to grasp ahold of. A massive weight of contrary opinion seems to scream from all the mouths of the world that it can't be true. Yet it is, and it peeks out from behind the clouds of confusion with a boldness and rightness that just begs for someone to grab ahold of it, side with it and represent it.

The truth is...

The ego does not exist at all.

The physical world does not exist at all.

Nothing has really happened here, it's an illusion of things happening.

There is no such thing as real sin.

There is no such thing as real sickness or death.

Nobody has ever really died because bodies are not real.

You are permanently innocent in God's eyes.

God does not even believe in sin whatsoever.

The entirety of the history of the universe is a made-up story with absolutely no truth to it.

There is no truth in the world whatsoever because it is not real.

You are not a body because the body does not exist at all.

You are immortal and permanently real.

So many voices chime in to claim things which are contrary to this, to sing a song of dire endings and false beginnings. So many are joined in the chorus of death's dirge, exalting the body and worshipping the death of God and His Son. Believing in sickness, perpetuating suffering, making sin real and judging it. And mental illness in everyone who believes in the ego. What a crazy world, if it were real!

Lift yourself up to the light of truth and claim it no matter what the world says and no matter what anyone else believes. Your allegiance must be wholly unto God with no other authority can take His place.

It's very helpful for me to keep in mind the key fact, that every time I am upset about other people I am using them to get rid of my own sin.

Each time I become angry or upset or annoyed, or see myself as being attacked by someone, or they are just "wrong", it can SEEM as though I do not want them to be this way. BUT I DO!

I absolutely want them to attack me, hurt me, offend me, annoy me, be opposed to me, be wrong to me, etc.

Each time I SEE them as falling into this category, I will believe I am JUSTIFIED in being angry and upset about them. And my justification will tell me I SHOULD be upset.

But it's a lie. I'm lying to myself and them. I want them to hurt me so that I have a way to justify projecting my own sin and guilt onto them.

It's not that they are wrong, or sinful, or guilty, it's that I believe *I* am. I want to SEE them as the one who is sinful, at any opportunity, so that I can get rid of my shit.

Each time I find myself going into this justified reaction, if I can be honest and remember that I actually WANT them to be this way so that I can use them to scapegoat, it stops me in my tracks.

Seeing that my reaction is NOT justified, because the purpose and reason for my reaction is an dishonest attack on my part, it deflates the reaction and makes it easy to not pursue further.

The angry reaction just stops when the truth is introduced, because anger is a false reaction to a lie. Just this one simple little truth is leading me to give up every case of finding others guilty. Anger and blame was a TOOL I was using for a secret purpose.

It literally takes a step in the undoing of the ego, and marks the beginning of the end of all anger forever.

The mind of Holy Spirit is bi-directional, in that it both gives and receives equally. It isn't just a mind that gives, or just a mind that receives.

In the ego's mind, giving and receiving are separate, creating the illusion that cause and effect are separate - that you can give without receiving (attack), or receive (get) without giving.

In Holy Spirit's mind, what applies within applies without. What applies to you applies to others, and vice versa. It is a mind of complete equality.

Holy Spirit's mind is also a miraculous mind, in that because of the complete absence of separation between cause and effect, or inner and outer, or self and other, all illusions of separation are undone within its perception.

As we go `up` to the Holy Spirit's mind from our ego mind, we can be tempted to believe in ego terms that our journey is one-directional. We might say that we take our illusions to the truth. But it is also equally correct to say that the truth shines light upon our illusions.

We might also think one-directionally that we go and accept the Atonement for ourselves, but Atonement means at-one-ment which means it applies to us equally along with everyone else.

We could also come to think that a movement "towards" the Holy Spirit is a miracle, like a shift in perception from 'less' to 'more', or bringing illusions to truth. But what we're actually doing is leaving behind a thought-system of one-directionalness and separation, and moving into a thought-system of oneness and equality. It's apples and oranges.

We could therefore think (with ego-separation logic) that moving towards Holy Spirit is a miracle, but a miracle, being from the Holy Spirit's mind, must be bi-directional. It must be an act of both giving and receiving. It applies to you AND it applies to your brother. It heals the separation between you by recognizing that your brother IS your brother and not a stranger, and blesses both of your minds with healing.

The ego always thinks with one-directionality because it wants to keep giving and receiving separate, it wants to keep cause and effect separate, and it wants to ensure that every interpretation of what the Course means or what the Truth is like falls into its way of thinking about things as separate.

Miracles are unifying and are expressions of unity (love). This means not just that they lift you and your brother into Heaven or revelation, but that they also "bring" or "extend" Heaven into the Earth, shining it away. This is why, I believe, miracles subsequently are gifts you can give to others, and are not just something you claim for or use for yourself.