While we talk of non-duality and whether ACIM is non-dualistic, many people also make mention of duality as if knowing what duality is. But duality is not what you think it is.

We very loosly and vaguely describe duality as there being "two or more things". That these things are "separate". This seems to be easy to put into words. But the language isn't accurate enough here. Are they TOTALLY separate things?

When you look at it closer, for example, we could say there are two cars, they are separate from each other in space, and therefore there are two separate objects. But if you look even closer you'll have to admit that they in fact do share something. They both exist in the same realm. They share spacetime.

Then, ask yourself, what would total complete separateness be like? Well, it would have to be the difference between existence and total non-existence. To make something TRULY separate from something else, it could not exist in the same realm. Just as existence and non-existence are TOTALLY separate and complete opposites, and they do NOT SHARE the same realm otherwise they would share something.

So what we have are actually two concepts. One is "absolute separation" and one is "relative separation". For something to be "totally" something, it has to be absolutely that. For an object to be totally separate, it has to be ABSOLUTELY separate. But to be absolutely separate, it cannot share ANYTHING at all with the other, not even existing in the same realm. If one car existed in "existence", another car would have to be in "non-existence" in order for them to be ABSOLUTELY separate. Totally and utterly cut off from each other at all levels.

Since the two cars actually share the same realm, they cannot be absolutely separate. In fact you can easily prove that by the fact you can SEE both of them simultaneously. They can sit next to each other, they can even touch each other. So they are not absolutely separate. You can even crash the two cars and insert some pieces of one car into the other. They are not absolutely separate from each other. You can even melt one of them down and make body parts for the other one. They are not totally kept aprt.

But the cars are relatively separate. There is a degree of seeming separation. The degree also can vary from "none" to "some" or even to what might seem "mostly", but they can never reach "absolutely separate." So they are not really absolutely in a state of "duality", ever. Duality is not, therefore, really a state of absolute separation. Duality really means RELATIVE SEPARATION. Which means, at best, PARTIAL separation. And if something is only partly separate, it is not really separate at all.

This also gives rise to the idea that if they are only RELATIVELY separate, they must be PARTLY connected. They must share something. They do at least share spacetime. And at most, they could share the same materials. But this idea of relative separation indicates both that they are neither TOTALLY joined, OR totally separate. They are partly joined, and partly separate, because all illusions are contradictory. This is also beause spacetime was made as an attempt to believe that BOTH sharing and separation exist in the same place.

Science has also been proving this. Recent quantum theories suggest that an object isn't really anything in its own right, it is only something in relation to something else. Like, objects depend on other objects for their identity. Or rather, what something is, as an illusory object, is inferred or is indirect or "shared with" or implied by something else. That some of its identity is in another thing, because they share a little. And since no object is totally separate, no object has an entire absolute identity of its own. Which makes all objects symbols and not ends in themselves.

This is reflected in ACIM in terms like "at no time does the body really exist" "it is either anticipated for remembered". And "the body is not an end in itself". And "the body is a symbol". Symbols, which are what dreams are made of, ("the body is a dream"), are something which does not get its identity or nature from itself, but rather inherits it from something else that it points to or represents. Just as the body can be a symbol of eternal life, or a symbol of death/picture of crucifixion. And just as "Earth can reflect (symbolize) heaven or hell." It has no inherent absolute properties of its own, which is why we sometimes refer to it as a neutral mirror.

Also courtesy of spacetime science, there is the principle of quantum entanglement. This tells us that it does seem possible here, in this illusory world of relative separation, that one thing can be in two places at once. "Spooky action at a distance" reveals that this world is SORT OF a hologram, or at least is a devolved hologram, where the parts do not contain ALL of the whole, but do contain some of it. And so you cannot easily recognize the wholeness by focusing on the form of the parts. And the wholeness in the parts is so limited that they all appear to be unlike each other and not a hologram at all.

The idea that one particle or photon etc can seem to have entangled, ie shared, influence in total transcendence of spatial distance, tells you that the objects here are not QUITE separate. They DO share something. They ARE all connected in some underlying way. It's just that their connectedness is SO distorted and extremely de-emphasized by the forms of difference, that it seems very un-obvious and hard to recognize. This is part of the temptation of illusions. Quantum entanglement does indicate that duality is not really absolute duality, it's only a state of "relative separation". And if you look deeply enough (e.g. at quantum levels) you start to see a holographic kind of sharing that transcends spatial separation.

People go on to talk about non-duality or the seeming total absolute lack of separateness. As if non-duality is diametrically opposite to duality. In technical terms, absolute non-existence is the diametric opposite of absolute existence. But duality isn't absolute non-existence. It's only relative. ACIM confirms this here:

"The opposite of (eternal) life can only be another form of life (not totally absolute no-life). As such, it can be reconciled with what created it, because it is not (absolutely) opposite in truth. Its form may change; it may appear to be what it is not. Yet mind is mind awake or sleeping. It is **not its opposite** in anything created, nor in what it ***seems to make*** when it believes it sleeps."

This would sound totally cryptic and confusing unless you recognized that duality is not really what people think of as duality. It isn't a state of absolute separation, it's only a state of the illusion of trying to be separate, or of partial/relative separation. It's just a BELIEF IN separation, in a state of the DENIAL that everything is shared. So it is still WITHIN the confines of mind which can NEVER be separate in truth. All it can do is deny (hide, obscure, disguise) unity. And without this disguise (which is death), it is nothing.

"Without the idea of death (denial of unity) there is no world."Which means that duality is still housed within the mind as a mis-creative use of mind, a lower-order reality, and a system of thought within that same mind. Duality is NOT "actually outside of God". Outside of God is total non-existence, and it doesn't exist at all, not even as an illusion. In this world, you are NOT in non-existence. You are still in existence, pretending not to be.

The "dualistic world" is simply a mis-created devolved level of thought within the one mind, which attempts to use mind against itself or freedom against freedom or will against will, to present an illusion of relative separation, symbolizing separation and opposition. It is still something the Son of God is "making" in his mind, dreaming of, inventing, but it is an attempt to reject the sane true nature of the mind. So it results in illusions of separateness, which are not really separateness.

I like to think of this world as a kind of "last truck stop" on the way to leaving God. We never really get outside of God's envelope. But the world is the "last dying breath", as it were, in the effort to absolutely leave God and go outside of God to be "separate from Him". And physical death is just how it appears as you try to "remove all life" from something so that it can be "empty of life" and devoid of God. Trying to leave God, produces death, as a symptom of "the rejection of existence."

If you could be absolutely separate from God you would leave God entirely and enter "non-existence". This is what death of the body symbolizes, the attempt to LEAVE and actually separate from existence. As if you can go to oblivion and finally be totally without God, in absolute separation. Of course, that is impossible because non-existence doesn't exist and God is everywhere.

We never really leave God or get outside of Him, or go beyond the mind, but we do invent illusions of - lies about - symbols of - the idea of not being IN him. Of being exiled from or outside of heaven.

And this world of "duality" that we made is not so much ACTUAL duality, as it is just a state of PARTIAL duality. Of attempted separation, that fails. And of impossibilities believed to be possible while still being impossible.

So duality does not really mean what people usually think it means. It's not just about "separate things" or "a count of two or more". These are based on very loose separations that aren't really total separations. My apple and my orange are not REALLY totally separate, nor are they really part of a duality. They just appear to be separate things based on form and appearances, which are deceptive. The apple and the orange are connected together by the fabric of spacetime.

String theory and the notion that something exists as a "quantum field" which coalesces into a "concentration" of energy showing up as a particle, is just another extension of this. It's just how everything is part of a giant pool of energy, as it were, in this world, in the background, which seems to become more focused as consciousness (mind) interacts with it, producing physical matter. Ultimately everything in the world dwells "unfocused" in the quantum field which is a more shared state. This is also why subatomic particles are not actual "absolute particles", they are "probabilities".

Duality's "partialness" and relativity is also why this is possible:"Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release."

The hidden beauty is in seeing the connectedness of things which would otherwise seem mostly separate. And thus the world, earth, can be seen as a forgiven world which symbolizes heaven, a reflection of heaven, "a sign (symbolic representation) of God's perfection" etc. The forgiven world is what you see when you look beyond the illusions of partial duality and see an underlying singular background... the one dream. The one illusion. The face of christ, seen through perception. Even in supposed separation we are not really outside of God.

"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***; NOT as the law itself upholds the universe as God created it, but in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has."

We ARE still within God. We ARE still within God's holographic thought system. And we ARE still always creating. And we ARE always still joined together. The physical world is just an attempt to make it SEEM as if that's not true, using the clay of creation to form appearances of the opposite of creation. But creation HAS no opposite, and even what we made or asserted in our mis-creating is still WITHIN our mind and USING its power. Even a sleeping mind is STILL a powerful mind. "The mind is always creating, it never sleeps". Even a dream of death still has a thread of connectivity running through it. This is also why death is not an end and is just pretend death.

When you redefine duality as "attempted partial separation" or "relative separation", it has to acknowledge that even duality is still INSIDE OF the dreaming mind of Sons of God. And that means you are still in heaven. "You are safe in heaven, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of waking to reality." This doesn't mean the dualistic world is TRUE REALITY, because its forms are an illusion of opposition to reality, but they are MADE OF mind-stuff.

"We also have observed that man can create an empty shell, but cannot create nothing at all. This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection."

Spacetime is the empty shell, an attempt to create nothing, which produces an actual creation of a seeming lack of content, produces form. And then we project illusions into this emptiness or "idea of lack and limitation" (mortality) as we dream. Because even in your dreaming, you are using your mind's power TO dream, TO make illusions, and TO deceive yourself.

Never do you go outside of mind. And never do you leave God or heaven. It's just that this world cannot BE heaven because it symbolizes its absence. Even as a reflection of heaven it only symbolizes heaven. Because it's a perceptual realm and "perception is a separated state." - a state of an illusion of being separate. Illusions of separation ARE NOT absolute separation.

Only God's Kingdom is true absolute permanent reality. Your dream world is temporary and relatively partially created. And what is not absolutely created is not FULLY created at all. And so it remains just a state of temporary instanity, hallucination, wishful thinking and fiction.

"***UNITING with a brother's mind prevents the CAUSE of sickness, and perceived effects***. ***Healing is the effect of minds that join***, as sickness comes from minds that separate. The miracle does nothing just because the minds ARE joined, and CANNOT separate. Yet, in the dreaming, has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as bodies, which ARE separated, and which cannot JOIN."

From the vantage point of someone who sees themselves as "separate", healing another person suggest you must give them something which they lack, which you have, which sets you apart, and only they will be changed by the giving. This is actually part of the unhealed healer's mindset. An unhealed healer is someone who is not having a shared identity, is body identified, sees themselves as separated off and different, and believes they have what others lack. The "giving" then is on the basis that what they give will not be received, and so it has limited helpfulness.

I'm seeing more now that in ACIM, true miracle working really entails a joining and sharing, in which the minds have to actually kind of merge together in oneness, there has to be an openness and trust, a sense of mutual identity and mutual benefit. The two minds both recognize their oneness and share the love. Love isn't something exclusive. Both of them have to be immersed in the love and share it, the minds have to be connected and the sense of self has to be inclusive.

Both the giver and the receiver must benefit because miracles have a "universal" quality to them. They are about wholeness, and wholeness means a shared oneness. To really heal another then is in part to heal oneself, and to recognize there is one shared mind, one shared self/identity in christ, and to see your neighbor as part of yourself. This "merging" with another to join minds and undo separation is quite different to the idea of sending "love messages" across the gap of spacetime. The sense of self as "separate" has to be put aside in order to heal.

"No mind is sick until another mind AGREES that they are separate. And thus, it is their JOINT decision to be sick."

"You HAVE done miracles, but it is QUITE apparent that you have NOT done them alone. ***You have succeeded whenever you have reached another mind, and JOINED with it.***"

"But, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that light IS theirs."

"The power to HEAL the Son of God is given you, BECAUSE he MUST be one with you. ***You ARE responsible for how he sees himself. But reason tells you it is GIVEN you to change his whole mind, which is one with YOU***, in just an instant. And ANY instant serves to bring COMPLETE correction of his errors, and make him whole. The instant that you choose to let YOURSELF be healed, in that same instant is his whole salvation seen as complete WITH yours."

Give someone a mind-hug.

When you believe that something outside of you is the cause of your problem or upset, your mind's perception will start to experience yourself as though part of your being has 'opened up' to the other person, has exposed itself to them, is connected to them and vulnerable to them.

It feels then as if that person is directly putting your upset feelings into you. It's as though you opened an energetic doorway and merged with the other person's ego, allowing them to enter your inner space, giving them permission and access to actually 'cause you' to change - i.e. to become an upset victim.

You may not realize you do this, each time you are upset about someone or something, but you do. You are so used to it that you think it is normal. Your experience internally, of how you feel, in relation to some attacking/wrongful person, is that your insides have opened outward like a 'wound', you feel exposed, you see the other person as 'doing stuff to you', and you literally will feel like they actually are 'accessing' you - that you're in the midst of an open-air battle.

The way you can realize this is to take back responsibility for everything you are experiencing. Own your feelings. Admit that you feel the way you feel because these are YOUR feelings that YOU have chosen to feel, for absolutely no particular reason. And you have to admit that the way you feel has NOTHING to do with the other person at all. This locating of your responsibility in and around your feelings, essentially causes you to have a perceptual shift.

You now will see yourself as NOT being caused by the other person, therefore you are not a victim, and therefore what you are feeling has NOT been caused by them. These are your own experiences. And in a way, this 'detachment' puts SPACE between you and the other person's ego or whatever the illusion is that you're faced with. This will in a way act as a protective barrier or wall, sealing you in, making you experience yourself as secure and Invulnerable, NOT exposed, and that the FEELING ITSELF that you're experiencing is not BASED ON what the other person is doing.

When your feeling is not based on some external cause, then there is no FOUNDATION for it. Without a foundation, it has no cause, and IT MUST DISAPPEAR. So... taking full responsibility for everything you feel and experience, paradoxically, FREES YOU from all upsetting and negative experiences, because there is no foundation for any kind of harm or negativity when you are BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF. When you are being the LOVE that you are, you are invulnerable. When you are not being the love that you are, you become susceptible and exposed and a victim that is sure to be hurt. You don't want that. It's much better to not be upset and vulnerable.

Perfect immortality and complete invulnerability and protection and un-assailability of the Kingdom are all your natural inheritance if you will claim ownership of it.

If you perceive that someone out there is your enemy, opposition, separate from you or wrong in some way, you absolutely MUST and WILL simultaneously see yourself as under attack and victimized by them.

It doesn't even matter if they actually are doing anything to you or not. Just the mere perception of them as your enemy is enough to force your mind to see ITSELF as THEIR enemy, and therefore a victim of whatever they are doing.

This happens instantaneously as soon as you are tempted to see someone else as being separate, different, worse, more guilty or more at fault than yourself.

So what this means is, by choosing to see someone as an enemy, you automatically make yourself an enemy.

Enemies experience threat and danger. Enemies fear attack. Enemies see themselves as victims. Enemies are driven to become victimizers to then try to defend themselves against that perceived attack.

But who is it that chose to see the other person as an enemy in the first place? You.

So not only did you set yourself to be the opponent of this person or group of people, by choosing to see them as your enemy, but you also set yourself up in a victim role.

Being in a victim role you MUST experience fear, anger, upset, and all manner of negative feelings and perceptions.

You might then think that these feelings are being 'caused by' the enemy. In a way they are, in that IF that person is an enemy and IF you believe they are, it would seem that you think they can and are doing something to you. But, the truth is, that it was YOUR choice to see them as your enemy that simultaneously set you up in a split-mind perception, where you are also their enemy, and therefore you are under attack.

This leads to the ultimate truth.... that you have in fact attacked yourself by attacking the other person. There is no escaping this. Either you are both innocent, or you are both enemies. Either you are both on the same side, or you are opposed to each other. It works both ways. And quite literally, everything you perceive them as capable of doing TO you, YOU are doing to yourself. It's you that is choosing to be in opposition to them, and to yourself, and it's you who has now perceived yourself in the role of victim in relation to the distorted figure you see in them.

So you can be upset about other people if you want to. But it is a *GUARANTEE* that you will victimize yourself. And that also means, if you choose not to see other people as enemies, you will set yourself AND them free.

Those who have no enemies have no fear, no anger, no hate, no danger, and no need to react. Ultimately because you are choosing to be a victim in EVERY victim situation, you are your ONLY victimizer. Once you realize this and stop victimizing yourself, recognizign the total futility of 'doing this to yourself', you will be set free. Free from your own tyrrany.

While ACIM does not always use every single word in the English language, it does nevertheless speak of various topics in various ways. The meaning of the words is deeper than the words.

Here are some statements about surrendering the ego, even though "surrender" as a word never appears.

"You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up."

"If you want peace, you must give up the idea of conflict entirely."

"Be willing to give up the goals you have established for everything."

"The Holy Spirit guides you into life eternal, but you must relinquish your investment in death, or you will not see life though it is all around you."

"The sick are healed as you let go of all thoughts of sickness, and the dead are raised when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death."

"You cannot really not let go what has already gone."

"I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts."

"It is crucial to your learning to be willing to give up the goals you have established for everything. The recognition that they are meaningless, rather than "good" or "bad," is the only way to accomplish this. "

"He can learn this only as he actually does give up the valueless."

"What you give up is merely the illusion of protecting illusions."

"I can give up but what was never real"

"If they cannot coexist in peace, and if you want peace, you must give up the idea of conflict entirely and for all time"

"Go on to meet them gladly, and learn how much awaits you for the simple willingness to give up nothing because it is nothing."

"And He Himself will place a spark of truth within your mind wherever you give up a false belief, a dark illusion of your own reality and what love means."

" I would give up my insane wishes and walk into the sunlight"

"But the experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself."

"Where all reality has been withdrawn from what was never true, can it be hard to give it up, and choose what must be true"

"Give up this frantic and insane attempt that cheats you of the joy of living with your God and Father, and of waking gladly to His Love and Holiness that join together as the truth in you, making you one with Him."

"A teacher of God gives up his own judgement."

"It has never really entered your mind to give up every idea you ever had that opposes knowledge."

"You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up."

"Guidance is evaluative, because it implies there is a right way and also a wrong way, one to be chosen and the other to be avoided. 3 By choosing one you give up the other"

Nothing in the world is doing anything to you whatsoever. Not even seeming physical attacks, physical sickness, or death.

All of it must be seen as having NO EFFECT on you as a son of God.

If it has no effect on you, then it cannot be a CAUSE. If it is not a cause, it cannot have SINNED against you. And therefore it must be harmless and forgiven.

Then the world is recognised as NOT DOING ANYTHING, it is recognised as merely a dream - an effect of dreaming, and not a cause of anything at all.

When the world is recognised as CAUSING NOTHING, changing nothing, doing nothing of any real value, all sense of blame and bitterness and hate and rejection are taken away from it.

It is then merely seen as harmless, powerless, guiltless, and not sinful. It is then just a kind of harmless dream, which no real consequences and no inherent properties of any kind. Just a projected image.

Physical death does nothing to anyone real. Nothing real can be threatened. Souls are utterly unaffected by death or by anything in this world.

Similarly the things of this world must be seen and recognised as NOT PEOPLE, the bodies are not who we are, not who anyone is. They are just shells in a strange shape which are formed to look as though they are people with faces. These are not real people.

Nothing real has ever died. No-one real has ever been attacked. Nothing real has ever been sick. No-one real has ever murdered anything. There is no sin anywhere. The world is a dream. The world and body do nothing to you or to anyone. The physical does not rule the mind. Mind is the sole cause.

"This is a course in CAUSE, and NOT effect." UrT21H8

"What is the single requisite for this shift in perception? It is simply this; the recognition that sickness is of the mind, and has nothing to do with the body. What does this recognition "cost"? It costs the world we see, for the world will never again appear to rule the mind. For with this recognition is responsibility placed where it belongs; not with the world, but on him who looks on the world and sees it as it is not. He looks on what he chooses to see. No more and no less. The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did. Nor does he do anything to the world, because he was mistaken about what it was. Herein is the release from guilt and sickness both, for they are one. Yet to accept this release, the insignificance of the body must be an acceptable idea." UrM6C3

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness." UrW190L5

Ok so you might be feeling like you're incapable, always making mistakes, are clumsy, can't communicate with people well, or problems just keep happening that you can't seem to solve. But it's not just you. It's a systemic problem of the world in general.

The world is just fundamentally difficult.

"You on earth have no conception of limitlessness, for the world you seem to live in IS a world of limits. In this world, it is NOT true that anything without order of difficulty can occur."

"Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped."

This also ties into the laws of chaos. Basically in the separation from God we invented all kinds of levels, degrees, amounts, variables, contrasts, divisions and differences.

This has set up an entire landscape of what we can only describe as a mismashed chaotic jumble of disjointed pieces and conflicting differences. Everything is in contrast, nothing gels, everything conflicts with everything else, the whole continuity is broken and every form seems to beg for a different response.

We automatically have made physical obstacles, difficult terrains, awkward weather, speech deficits, communication problems, incompatible personalities, loss of function, broken behaviors and dysfunctional relationships. Not to mention that pretty much everyone is insane.

This just automatically makes the whole world fundamentally a difficult place to be. Everything involves effort and struggle, adaptation and interpretation. You have to always have caution and be careful lest you perhaps hurt yourself. Who knows what crazy lune you might run into or what strange problem is going to erupt out of nowhere.

So don't take these things personally to mean something is wrong with you. It's not "just you" that has to struggle navigating this awkward environment. I used to beat myself up for being poor at communication until I realized the entire world is set up to break it. It's an imperfect world where nothing really works effortlessly or easily.

When we are not in heaven, or out of the body in spirit, we are in an environment that is fundamentally a strain. It is unnatural to us. In fact all things physical are totally opposite to our true nature. They are alien to us. It's like trying to live on an alien planet that you have no clue about, and no-one gave you the manual or prepared you for it.

So don't worry if life seems to just keep on sucking. It's just how the world is. We are tasked with recognizing this, then laughing at it and forgiving it. Because a world made by mistake can't help but be mistaken.

"Grace is the natural state of every Son of God. When he is NOT in a state of grace he IS out of his natural environment, and does NOT function well. Everything he does becomes a strain, because he was not created for the environment which he has made. He therefore CANNOT adapt to it, nor can he adapt IT to HIM. There is no point in trying. A Son of God is happy ONLY when he knows he is WITH God. That is the only environment in which he will not experience strain, because that is where he belongs. It is also the only environment that is worthy of him, because his own worth is beyond ANYTHING that he can make."

You think your life is your own life. It is not. Your life is belongs to God.

It is God's life, living through you. You are His extension, created by His Will, for His Purpose. Not that you are some kind of slave or unwilling servant - you are free, and you SHARE in life, but it's not really 'your life'.

The life that you are, comes from God, and is shared with God. It's His as much as yours.

That which flows through you or extends love through you, that's God's love, which you can share in, but you cannot possess it. It's not your love. It's not exclusive to you. You don't get to control it.

You could spend your whole 'life' in control and believing that you own this life, that you own yourself, that you own all rights to decide and to live as you please. That you 'have' rights. It's not your life to own. God owns you.

God shares His love with you, He provides you with everything you need in total abundance, He extends everything He has to you, as you, and you do not need anything else. You are completely sustained by the love of God. You are not sustained by yourself or the things in your life.

Without God you would not exist, not just in the sense that He gave birth and therefore you owe Him, but in the sense that you exist because He is permanently creating you. You are as God created you and nothing else. You cannot add to yourself or remove from yourself against His will, but in a fairytale.

The ego is the device which you have made to seem to take over ownership of life, to possess it, to control it, to direct it, to decide about it, to make it how you think it should be, to manipulate it, to build it and rearrange it, to judge it, to reject it, and to do with and to it whatever you seem to want. But it's not your life. Your ego has stolen it from God.

You belong to God. Your life belongs to God. You can share it fully, abundantly and freely, but you cannot make it your private property.

Where is there room in your life for God? Where are you allowing God to live in you? Where are you sharing in God's love? Where are you extending God's love and doing your Father's business? Where are you allowing and accepting the Authority that God has as your Creator? Where are you standing in the way of God trying to be a separate authority that stands against His and opposes His will?

If you are against God you are against love. And since God created you, being against God is being against yourself. So while you try to be a separate self with a separate will in a separate world having a separate life, you are actually against your life. And you then think your life is yours, but it isn't... this farce of a life you own actually means you have disowned your real life. You've disowned your life with God. You've passed off ownership as a substitute for being owned by God. You think you'd rather be the one who owns God, but you can't. Not even if you try. But you try.

God loves you, always has, always will. You are His to love forever.

When you are innocent, you can ONLY see innocence. When you are guilty, you can ONLY see guilt.

IF you think that you therefore can objectively, unbiased, clearly discern, "whether or not" your brother is innocent or guilty, you are severely mistaken.

You cannot put your own guilt on a shelf in order to see your brother's innocence, nor can you see his guilt when you are innocent.

You literally see the content of your own mind projected outward. If you are have guilt in your mind you WILL find your brother guilty and MUST judge him to be so. Yet when your mind is healed, suddenly you no longer see the guilt in your brother, it is not there, and never really was there. It was yours.

"You but accuse your brother of your own sins." This is also why when you are having an angry crappy day you think everyone else is unhappy also, only to find that when you cheer up, it suddenly seems like everyone else wasn't even unhappy.

So the ego has given us this kind of fictional claim that we actually can be "neutral" or an objective observer who can discern right from wrong, good from bad, and make valid educated judgement calls, based on what something is or is not or appears to be. But the truth is, such an "ability" is 100% impossible. You simply are incapable of this kind of "discernment" or judgement or selectivity.

You simply cannot sit on a fence and observe passively and say, yes, I see that this person is guilty and their guilt has nothing to do with me. That's a lie. If you see guilt, you are guilty.

It is the ego that says you can "get away with" one thing applying to your brother that does NOT apply to you. That is nothing less than getting away with murder. If you can cause something and escape the consequences, while your brother suffers the consequences for you, that is murderous. Everything about the ego is murderous. And it is also in denial because it's literally impossible to "really murder", just as much as it is literally impossible to "judge correctly".

Since it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to truly tell whether you brother is guilty or not, and you can ONLY see what you believe is TRUE OF BOTH OF YOU (this is the Golden rule), you really have to find a way to stop judging that "them and not me" are wrong. It makes you think that you are not included in the guilt or have escaped the guilt, but this is DENIAL and projection. You actually are still seeing yourself as guilty, but now indirectly through others.

That's what the whole ego is based on. "Me or them" "Them or me" but not both. In the thought system of Holiness, whatever applies to you applies to your brother equally because you are equals at all times. If they are guilty, so you are you. If they are innocent, so are you.

You are effectively BLIND to "whether or not" your brother is one thing or another. ALL that you can find to be TRUE of him is that he MUST be innocent, because the only way for you to BE IN THE TRUTH, is for YOU to be innocent (whole, loving), and this will make it IMPOSSIBLE for you to see guilt in your brother.

You and your brother are innocent. This is the only true judgement. And this is why the Holy Spirit ALWAYS finds both of you to be innocent forever.

How was the tiny mad idea possible? How was it possible for us to mis-create? Why did God give us the ability to try to sin? Did we lose our innocence in the separation? How is it that this world seems to exist?

When God created his children, He gave them the freedom to will and create. The mind is not capable of ever doing anything that God didn't give it the ability to do. It cannot add abilities to itself, it can only operate within the parameters of its design. This means you literally cannot go against God's will or do anything He did not make possible.

"God creates only mind awake. He does not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He gives not, nor make conditions which He does not share with them."

But what God did do, was give you freedom. The power of the mind to freely choose to will to co-create. And this freedom is fully given.

"The world, in its original connotation, included both the proper creation of man by God, AND the proper creation by man in his Right Mind. The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given. "

Within the context of being "completely free", it is technically possible for you to try to USE your freedom against itself. You HAVE to be free to do this, in order to truly have freedom. While you have free will, it HAS to be possible for you to potentially USE that free will to try NOT to will anything. If this weren't a part of the freedom of will, you would not have free will. It's not a productive USE of will, since it creates nothing, but it is still part of it.

The thing is, although you are free to TRY to deny freedom, something completely pointless happens when you do so. Since it remains true that God's will cannot be opposed, and you cannot remove your freedom from yourself, and you cannot make yourself unpowerful, and you cannot be changed in any way, the exercise of TRYING to use your will to NOT will, to be "unwilling" or to oppose God's will, HAS to be futile.

It's not that you aren't free to TRY to do this, it's just that there is really no point in doing it. It's not possible to cause anything real to happen this way, because it denies creation. So it's like saying, I want to use my free will against itself to cause nothing to happen. I want to will not to will. I want to not create anything. I want to deny myself.

There is a circular logic which enters into this. You are trying to use your free will to cause your free will to stop being free and to will nothing. But how can you still be WILLING that you will nothing? You have to still USE the will to will that you don't will anything. So the notion is really absurd. You have to keep using the will, while claiming that you're not using it. And so it has to entail denial and it has to NOT accomplish what you're trying to make it accomplish. And never can you will the WILL itself to cease to exist, because you'd have to USE will to do that.

It has to be a state of denial, because the fact remains you can't change your freedom or power. So trying to DO so can only mean you are going into a DENIAL of what is true of you, and are PRETENDING to do whatever you're doing. You can't actually make yourself un-free or destroy your power. You can, however, seemingly deceive yourself in believing that its possible. Precisely BECAUSE you are free to do so. God did make it possible for you to be free to try to not be free, but He did not make it possible for you to ACTUALLY affect your freedom.

"Your Father created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."

Another way to put it is, it is not possible to change God's will or to cause your own will to stop. It is literally impossible to separate from God or be where God is not. However, you are FREE to use your freedom to TRY to do so. You can INSIST that it is possible, and invest belief in it, and try to GIVE IT truth and make it real and convince yourself of it and deceive yourself, but you STILL cannot make it a reality or actually do it in reality.

As you try to do so, as you attempt to use your freedom to stop being free, as you try to will not to will anything, or as you try to will nothingness, or try to give reality and meaning to something impossible, you go into what we're calling the "tiny mad idea". The idea of separation and sin. Which just means you're insisting that something impossible is possible - that something false is true. That you CAN separate, you CAN sin, you have done so, and there is proof that the impossible is happening.

This can only be self deception and denial, because it's still impossible. But you are free to believe it if you want to. To believe it you have to DENY what is true, try to be out of touch with the facts, and pretend that the will has been denied. You are free to pretend that you have no freedom, which seems to place the mind in a state of "sleep" or dormancy, as though it is not creating or has no power, or is not alive. A sort of "stand-by mode", in which the mind believes that everything impossible is possible, and thus imagines that the opposite of God is happening through a kind of hallucinatory process of wishful thinking. ("There is no world apart from what you wish").

"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."

Now, going into this state, is NOT A SIN. NOR is it outside of the scope of what God made possible. You can never actually rewrite the laws of God. You can't give yourself something He did not give you. You cannot change yourself. You cannot destroy yourself or your freedom or your will. But it IS within your rights and within your power to deny or pretend that you can do these things.

Pretending that you are not immortal is the best you can do, because you cannot cause yourself to die. But you certainly can produce illusions, fabrications, that its happening, through the DESIRE to have it be possible. You can confuse your identity with these illusions. You can also believe that the suffering is real. But it remains unreal, and the truth is unchanged.

What this simply means is that by "mis-using" the mind to believe that impossibilities are possible and happening, you hallucinate a world of make-believe, which you try to invest in and convince yourself is true and real. You even try to give it immortality and life and will and a mind of its own. But you can't succeed. You can only fake it. But you are free to fake it.

Entering into this state of "denying that you are free", using your freedom of will to try to will not to have freedom of will, you are ONLY entering into a state of being MISTAKEN. If it is true that you HAVE freedom and will, you are mistaken when you believe that you don't. If it is true that you are immortal, you are mistaken when you believe death is possible. If it is true that sin is utterly impossible, you are mistaken when you believe sin is happening.

Being mistaken is still an "innocent" condition. Guilt does not have to enter into it at all. Someone can make an "innocent mistake", which is simply a failure to willingly admit that you're trying to do something which makes no sense. You can be mistaken in believing that willing against God's free will is possible. It's not possible. Nor can you really will against yourself. But you are free to believe it's possible, and to try to do it, and to try to convince yourself that you've done it. But you cannot do it, and so are mistaken when you believe this.

Believing that you can be separate from God, is a simple mistake. Since it's not possible, you can't do it. But you can try to convince yourself that it's possible. Doing that is pointless and futile because it can't BE possible. But you are free to try. You are free to resist the truth. Or to use your power to try to pretend to be powerless. You are innocent in this because all you're doing is using your God-given powers in a way that is a pointless exercise. A way which results in nothing really happening, as you "play small" and try to be little and powerless.

Provided that you recognize that mis-creation is just a state of being mistaken, and is not a sin, and is still well within the laws of God, and that at no time is God's will violated, even when you are mistaken, then you can also see that mis-creating is an innocent act. It's really not an act at all. And it does not change the truth about you. All it does is set up some illusion of deception and some confusion about what's really possible.

"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; NOT as the law itself upholds the universe as God created it, but in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has. Corrected error IS the error's end. And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error."

"Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release."

The Course also talks about how entering into this "detour into fear", which is just an attempt to make true what is not true, or to use will against itself, produced a "lower order mind" or a "system of thought" which seems to function opposite to how God originally indended it in higher reality. This lower (ego) mind is a mind of denial, deception, untruth and confusion. But it is not a sin. It's just a mis-configured and unwise mis-use of your God-given abilities.

"Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience. One makes the physical, and the other creates the spiritual."

The physical world of bodies is what is produced in the deceptive state of being mistaken about the truth. In the state of denial, the dream of death, the illusion of separation, the pretense at being powerless and imprisoned, it produces the "forms of error" which the body sees. Error is just a mistake.

"No one CAN be "taken over" unless he wills to be. However, if he places his mind under tyranny, rather than authority, he intrudes the submission/dominance onto free will himself. This produces the obvious contradiction inherent in any formulation that associates free will with imprisonment."

Attempting to assert that will can cause will not to will, produced an illusion of an "unwilling world." A world in opposition to God. But this is STILL within the confines of the Son of God's freedom. The angels also have this freedom.

"Error cannot really threaten truth, which can always withstand it. Only the error is actually vulnerable. You are free to establish your kingdom where you see fit..."

"The "Princes of this World" are princes only because they are really angels. But they are free to establish their kingdom where they see fit.""God does not coerce".

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception. "

God is not viewing your excursion into "trying to make impossible things possible", as being a sin. He doesn't see it as a real threat to what you are, either. Nor does he coerce you into stopping doing this against your will. For God to oppose your free will he would have to oppose his own. He does however "encourage" and guide and help his children to "come to their senses". Because it remains true that "trying not to will anything" is a rather pointless exercise which can't really result in anything creative. It's more like, taking a nap where you dream of destruction or "the opposite of creating". A dream of mortality and death as "the opposite of eternal life."

We mis-created the world, but only as a mistake. Not as a sin. When it is recognized as only a mistake, sin is lifted away from it and it is regarded as forgiven. Being an illusion of something impossible seeming to be possible, this is seen through and beyond, and this overlooking is forgiveness. It's a forgiveness which looks past bodies and the physical to the light of reality, not deceived by the illusion that false things are true. To the the light of sanity and reason. We simply made the world in error and it can be undone.

"You made the body in attempting to deceive yourself."

"Miracles reflect..." "I have done this thing and it is this I would undo."All we're doing here, is basically, innocently, trying to do something which isn't really possible. We're using our freedom to try to imprison ourselves. We're using our immortality to pretend to be mortal. We're using our holiness to pretend to be sinners. And we're using the power of the mind to pretend to be weak and powerless. We can't ACTUALLY be imprisoned, or mortal, or sinful, or powerless. And so we're using all these things against themselves, to PRETEND that we don't have these things. This BLOCKS and disguises them, using illusions to make it appear something is true which isn't.

Seen as nothing more than an error, a mistake, a futile attempt, a pointless exercise, the dream of death is not "against" God's will, which cannot be opposed, but is an ATTEMPT to believe that opposing God's will is possible or has merit. The mind is just stretching the truth. But using the mind in a "destructive" way, against its own nature, isn't constructive or creative and it also doesn't allow you to experience happiness.

"The thought of death is not the opposite to thoughts of life. Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly but yet within Themselves, for They are everywhere."

"By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others."

God DOES will that you maintain the sanity of the clear recognition that there is NO POINT trying to use your freedom against itself. That it is truly impossible to WILL nothing. Or to make yourself have no power. Believing you are powerless when you are powerful, or that you are imprisoned when you are free, is obviously a state of denial, and this denial of life can only produce illusions of suffering and pain and misery."We also have observed that man can create an empty shell, but cannot create nothing at all."

"Whenever projection (creation) in its inappropriate sense is utilized, it ALWAYS implies that some emptiness (or lack of everything) must exist, and that it is within man's ability to put his own ideas there INSTEAD of the truth."

When you try NOT to create, you enter into "making" illusions. You produce an "emptiness" or lack of love, which is the world of "sin", meaning just the illusion of love's absence, or the absence of light. It isn't the presence of darkness, or of sin, or of real death, it is the illusion of the absence of their opposite. Because even in illusions you can't get outside of God's laws. You can never violate the parameters of your functioning as given by God. And so the world remains ONLY a mistake, not a real sin.

God's own will follows the knowledge that it is pointless to use will against itself, even though its possible to TRY to do so. Because when you try to do so, nothing is willed, and so nothing happens. God knows this and he is sane. His will is that you know it also. When you refuse to know it or you deny it, insisting that you CAN will nothingness to be something, you become deceived and confused. And God does not will that you enter into such suffering. "God's will for me is perfect happiness". And you can only be happy when you will in accord with God's true will - purely constructively and using your freedom to create. Free from self destruction.

"God Himself gave you the perfect correction for everything you have made which is not in accord with His Holy Will."

"The miracle compares the creations of man with the higher level of creation, accepting what is in ACCORD as true, and rejecting the DISCORDANT as false."

In all this, you always remain innocent, you can be correct or mistaken, but you cannot change the laws of God or of your true nature. You can be asleep in a denial state of trying to pretend that impossibilities are possible, but you can't ACTUALLY cause an opposite to God to happen. You can dream of it, imagine it, try to give it reality, even convince yourself of it, but you can't make it true. So at some point you have to admit, it's a fruitless exercise, and just return to creating with God. Using will to willingly will your creations, as God intended.