I used to have the view, like most people, that the death of the body means death, and when the body is moving around, it means life. That death is something we all want to avoid, and we want to keep bodies alive.

And then I read ACIM and I thought, okay, death is an illusion, so things aren't supposed to die, meaning that the body supposed to be kept in a state of life. I read support for the idea that a sick body represents attack, and death is failure and an attempt to be unconscious. So it makes sense to say that we should "swear not to die" and try to make the body symbolize eternal life.

But while there is some truth to this and support for it in the course, there can also be mixed in a kind of spiritualization of bodies. We might start to think that a repurposed "holy body" is full of life and totally natural. But this can also disguise an underlying desire to have the body "always be alive" and to still avoid states of death. As if bodily death is still death, and being good at avoiding it is more spiritual.

But there is a deeper teaching in the course. Things which pass for life in this world are not really life, either. And we have arbitrarily decided that certain forms or states mean death. We've decided that a dead body means death, and that moving bodies mean life. But these are really separation-based judgements, designed to take one single illusory world and split it into acceptable and unacceptable parts.

In fact, it must be an illusion that a healthy vital youthful "living" body, is in any way really different to a decrepit diseased broken dying body. Their forms present illusions that they are not the same, as a deception. Their forms are disguises designed to tempt you to believe they are not the same one thing. A decoy, so that you won't realize they are both really the same dream. "The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who ARE life."

Jesus teaches in the course that bodies do not really live, OR die. That they are not really even remotely similar to life in heaven. Real life is immortal eternal life. A vitality and livingness of the mind, almost like an excited energy, which can spontaneously spawn new life by will alone. And any such life is permanent and lives forever in an immaculate and formless state.

So-called "life" on Earth is not like this. Bodies are inherently etremely limited and limiting. They anchor us into tiny little locations in space and time, inhibit our abilities, and make it difficult to create anything. They appear to be born and to grow and change, all of which cannot happen in reality, where life is a constant state. And then they seem to grow old and wither and die and decompose, something which is utterly unnatural with regard to life in heaven.

What Jesus really says is that so-called "life" in this world is not really life. Nor is it really death, but a dream of death. It is in fact nothing. It is nothingness, an illusion of the ABSENCE of existence (heaven), the opposite of reality. It is an unreality and a lack of either real life OR real death. Real death is impossible because it does not exist at all. So at most this world represents only illusions of living and dying, and neither of them are true.

"There IS no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In ANY state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it SEEMS like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is NOT life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is NOT in Heaven is not ANYWHERE. Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusions stands; senseless, impossible, and beyond ALL reason, and yet perceived as an eternal BARRIER to Heaven. Illusions ARE but forms. Their content is NEVER true."

"Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life."

So in this world, "life" is an illusion of life, which is not really life. And death is an illusion of death, not really death. Because this world itself isn't really a "something", or an anything. It's actually a nothing, pretending to be a something. And in fact Jesus calls the whole thing a "dream of death" with varying degrees of death symbolized in different forms. "Without the idea of death there is no world." Even "life forms" are "forms of death".

As a Teacher of God our task is to recognize that there is NO DIFFERENCE between "living bodies" and "dead bodies", in the big picture. In truth they are just images of bodies, forms, whose appearance is temporary and symbolic at most, and which cannot really be alive or dead. Walking bodies are not really living bodies. Bodies in a morgue are not really dead bodies. In truth, they are EXACTLY the same ONE illusion, pretending to be many illusions. There is no life OR death in a world of fiction.

"They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful."

"But this you do not see; that you made death, and it is but illusion of an end. Death cannot be escape, because it is not life in which the problem lies."

"God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion."

"Even in time you cannot live apart from Him, for sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die."

At first it might seem as if this means there's not much point "healing" bodies. Or trying to preserve their health. Or raising the physically dead. Or restoring broken limbs. Or any other act which might seem like it is siding with "the illusion of life" versus the illusion of death. Why try to steer bodies towards what we think of as "a living state" rather than a dead state? If all their conditions are the same one illusion, what is the point in avoiding sickness or death in any form?

The clear teaching in ACIM is that, nevertheless, even though a "healthy living" body is just as unreal as a dead one, bodies ARE symbols. And they are communicators. And their form "means" something to those who look upon it. And so the body's form can communicate something. It can communicate for example that there has been attack, or that sin has happened. But it can also communicate that attack has not happened, and therefore symbolize eternal life.

"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."

It is in fact by recognizing that bodies don't live or die, that the body is no longer "attacked" by thoughts and laws you make up to try to preserve them. When you stop trying to believe that a body is alive, or can cause sickness, or be healed, the mind in fact "heals" it, or corrects the image, removing symbolic appearances of attack and death. And now the body seems to resurrect towards "looking like life", because the mind cannot conceive of illness and ceases to project ideas of death onto it.

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

A healed healthy body, even if an illusion of health, CAN symbolize eternal life in the world, CAN teach "with a power greater than a thousand tongues" that its harmlessness proves your brother's innocence, and CAN teach innocence. This is a repurposing of the FORM of the body, for a higher purpose, to USE form to symbolize actual eternal life, as best it can, rather than symbolizing the idea of attack and death. It is to this end that we aim to "heal" the body and make it be "more alive". A such, physical health comes from a healthy mind.

"Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."

Should you change the world?

There are many parts of ACIM which SEEM to suggest you should not. Such as:

"Seek not to change the world, but seek to change your mind about the world."

Also Jesus tells us we need to correct the real cause of suffering in our mind, in our perception, in order to truly heal it.

Some say that this might possibly lead to a "side effect" of the body being healed, or it might not. Which is wishy-washy bullshit.

Let's break it down.

If you believe this world is reality, and as a world it sucks big time, and you hate it, and its insane, and you think it's "really insane" as in, it actually IS, then YOU have a problem in your mind because you're not seeing correctly. The world is an ILLUSION!

If the world is real to you, then you've mistaken illusions for the truth. You've given reality to illusions. And now when you see an illusion of a "bad world", you're going to react to it with despair, depression and hopelessness, only because you think it is REAL and not because of its form.

If you then seek to change the world to "look better" AS a real world, which is what happens when most people try to change the world, you're actually going to KEEP the belief you have that this world is reality. You will move the furniture around, maybe to some configuration you prefer temporarily, with tradeoffs, but it's not necessarily going to give you real lasting happiness. It will give you a temporary illusion of happiness which is dependent on the world, and it will change on you.

There is a different way to change the world. Perhaps we should say, to TRANSLATE or TRANSFORM the world.

When you withdraw your belief that this illusory world is reality, and you stop taking it seriously, and stop reacting to errors, sins and sickness as though they're real, you will be much happier. You will know there is not REALLY any reason to be upset, that the world is not REALLY bad, and it's not REALLY anything. This will alleviate all possible reasons for upset.

From that vantage point you will see the "forgiven world", which you will be OVERLOOKING, to Christ's face which is beyond form.

You will also be miraculous, and with the power of God, you WILL have access to be able to "change the world" in any way that is appropriate. Albeit that perhaps it would need to be a) inspired by love, b) in alignment with Jesus's plan of atonement/awakening, and c) for the good of all.

Just as Jesus performs intercessions/interventions by way of MIRACLES, so can you, and you may well bring about "changes" in the world as a result. You may well seem to make the world a happier place, not because its FORM is better, but because there is healing taking place. People are waking up to the truth, miracles are educating about God's reality, and belief is shifting away from illusions. That's a helpful way to change the world.

Thus it's not then so much about to staying IN the world and fixing it up and making it all pretty and real, but more to do with you converting it to an illusory yet more tolerable "happy dream", which smooths the way to awakening and eases suffering and gently helps you and others to return to God. This "use of the world" for awakening is a better purpose than to try to "use the world" to produce a "real world" that is considered better than the old one.

There's nothing wrong with you changing the illusion. Jesus did it many times. Every miracle does it. Miracles rearrange space and time. Jesus tells us its a device for the manipulation of time (and space)! Why not ease the nightmare and lift some burdens lovingly so that people can see EXAMPLES and DEMONSTRATIONS of right-minded thinking, the truth of God's kingdom, the POTENTIAL of awakening, and the FREEDOM that is everyone's right!

The purpose then isn't to change the world for the world's sake, but to change the world to help people wake up from the world and return to reality.

In the ego's world, having expectations seems to produce stress and upset. We seem to be tasked with dropping all expectations, so that whatever happens, we will be okay with it. It is good not to have attachments to outcomes, or to be trying to control things, or to expect or hope that something is going to turn out a certain way only to have that expectation dashed against the rocks.

But here's what's really going on.

If you have an expectation, with the ego, it is typically a half-arsed wishful thinking, which has no power, and doesn't actually CAUSE anything to occur. Yet the ego believes that its expectations are lining up with how things will be. Then, because of this lack of POWER, when events do not follow the expectation there is anger and frustration and suffering. And so then it seems to be better not to use expectation at all since it always seems to lead to upset. We need to let go of the ego's form of expectation, but we shouldn't throw expectation out of the window altogether because Holy Spirit has his own use of it.

The fact is that you can either be expecting WITH the ego, or you can be expecting WITH Holy Spirit.

Expecting with the ego is what most people are familiar with as expectations. In other words, the ego perception doesn't believe it has any power over anything, since it wants to be a victim, and so makes INSANE expectations which really are a resistance to what is happening. Resistance is the ego's form of magical power, which it thinks it can wield in order to 'make' the world be the way it wants it to be. This is of course denial-based, and a deception, and basically leads to great suffering because it's out of touch with reality. When the ego expects something, it is choosing a wholly SEPARATE version of events than those that will possibly happen, as a form of rebellion, and its degree of belief in things turning out that way is really actually very weak. Resistance is weakness. And so usually it is thwarted and then you end up miserable and angry that things didn't turn out. So yes, it's good not to have ego expectations or ego attachment to outcomes.

HOWEVER ....

Expecting with the Holy Spirit is not like this. Holy Spirit doesn't use resistance, he uses EXTENSION, which is a creative power. Expecting with the Holy Spirit means that you are extending the POWER OF GOD, demanding and requiring that illusions fall into place. Expecting with the Holy Spirit has real authoritative power. Power to heal, power to manifest, power to change the world. Expectation through Holy Spirit means you are lining up with GOD's will, rather than the ego's fictional will, and what God will's MUST occur. It is not a matter of a request that things change, or a desire that things be different. It FORCES them to be different.

God has a constant expectation that there is perfect peace and permanent divine health. If God were to stop 'expecting' this to be true, he would enter into delusions. He is so certain that there will always be immortality, and that no illusion can assail his Kingdom, that he has every right to have ABSOLUTE EXPECTATION. Absolute knowing. Not just like, referring to something and asking it if it might be the way He wants it to be, but CREATION, actually PUTTING INTO EFFECT God's will. Making it so. Creating by His will to produce what he wants to be. There is no room for 'events' turning out any other way in this. There is no room for a conflict between expectation and what is. God's expectation overrides all illusions.

So it is perfectly okay, and encouraged, to expect with God. To expect in alignment with Holy Spirit. To expect that miracles will occur. To expect that there will be an end to death. To expect that a person can live forever. To expect immortality. And that faith isn't misplaced. It's not a delusion. It is law.

Being separated in bodies, we have become accustomed to seeing ourselves as CONFINED. As though completely fenced in.

But this is utterly UNLIKE the way we really are.

It is far more accurate to say, you are everywhere, and in all people, and share everything with everyone. You overlap them, merge with them, join with them, part of you is in them and they in you. This is your natural state.

Bodies were made to isolate you and confine you and separate you off from the parts of you which are IN your brothers, to make it seem as though you have been disallowed to connect, join, communicate, or love each other.

The body is the idea of sin or separation. "The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards".

When studying ACIM then, from Jesus's perpsective, your true nature is that you are not confined to your body, you are unlimited, you are everywhere and in everyone, you share everything and literally are inside of other people.

In that context, you can better understand why he says so many things about the Golden Rule applying, about what you do to your brother being done to you, how you cannot attack without attacking yourself, how recognizing your brother's truth recognizes your own etc.

All healing therefore is actually the undoing of CONFINEMENT and ISOLATION, restoring the CONNECTION and COMMUNICATION with your brother, lifting away the separations that have been put in place BY BODIES to split you off from others, and restoring the wholeness and unity that is natural to you.

Health IS oneness with your brother. Healing IS the repair of the RELATIONSHIP between both of you. Separation and blocks to awareness do not just apply to YOU, they apply BETWEEN you and your brother. Your sickness is an attack on BOTH of you.

Just because you have BECOME ISOLATED by the separation idea, you think that in your confinement, anything the course is saying applies to your CONFINED SELF. As though it speaks only of your isolated "self' that is inside your body. IT DOES NOT. It is recognizing that you share fully with all brothers and that in your NATURAL condition you are everywhere and one with all people, actually literally IN THEM. And therefore, the idea of separation is not just something "inside" your mind, it is what MAKES YOU ISOLATED from others.

Holy relationships are therefore completely natural. They do not just mean two *separate* people being holy toward each other. They actually mean two individuals who have FULLY JOINED AND MERGED MINDS and are essentially sharing the same space! You are in your brother and your brother is in you. "One mind contains all minds. One brother is all brothers." You overlap with your brother and join with and share with them like a FUSION of individuals.

It's far more effective then to realize that every form of separation, every block to awareness, every form of sickness, every way you isolate or are in denial, is not simply something you "do to yourself', it is something you do TO BOTH OF YOU, IN-BETWEEN the two of you. Your bodies were made to imprison you AWAY from each other, and being set free from that imprisonment doesn't mean you remain NON-SHARING, it means you return TO OVERLAPPING WITH EACH OTHER, beyond the bodies.

The body when used as a communication device is therefore completely overlooked, it's form or attempted isolation is turned into a holy temple, and the light in your mind shines PAST it directly PAST the body of your brother and extends INTO their mind. Communication is direct mind-to-mind or soul-to-soul sharing. This produces the ERASING of separation and therefore the reversal of all sickness and death.

This is why Jesus says "no-one returns to God alone". You return to TOGETHERNESS. Unity. Sharing. Oneness. Mutual holiness. Joined minds. Shared interests. Overlapping experience. Equality. Blending into your brother as though they are yourself. Sharing space with all brothers. Collapsing separation and collapsing spacetime.

This is a simple idea. Since the world is neutral, and since you are having a subjective view of it, your mind is able to see it in different ways. And this means that there is always more than one way to look at something.

Sin is the idea or state of mind in which you see an illusion and combine it with reality, resulting in the perception that it cannot change. That perception is fixed. But this suggests there is only one way to look at something. And here it's meaning seems locked into the form it takes.

In truth there is another way to look at everything, because the Holy Spirit and Christ has given an alternative dream. There is always a "bright side to life" which is different to the "dark side of life." There is always another way to see it, other than how the negative ego sees it.

No matter what it is, how severe it seems, what form it takes, there are always at least two interpretations of it. One of them coming from ego makes the things seem dark and stressful and dangerous and unpleasant. The other provided by Christ Vision through Holy Spirit sees the same thing in a very different light.

The higher way to see, Christ Vision, is what the workbook lessons are geared towards developing. The whole process of forgiveness is of shifting from one thought system to another, or simply making a choice between seeing heaven or hell reflected in what you see.

For everything you see that you do not like, there is a miracle of sight which can look on this exact same thing and see it as beneficial and harmless. For everything which seems to be locked into meaning based on its form, there is another view which frees meaning from its form and uses it for a higher purpose.

So in all things, you can simply say to yourself, that you want another way to look at this. There MUST BE a higher way to look at everything. And when that way of looking is what you do consistently and what you choose to move into regularly, you'll develop Christ Vision.

Since Christ Vision is a gift of Christ that you share with him, your alignment with the Holy Spirit to see how HE sees grants you a viewpoint which is much more charitable and benevolent, which then sees this benevolence reflected back to you.

"What the world is, is but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose this."

"There is another way of looking at the world."

"There is another way of looking at this."

"Since the purpose of the world is not the one I ascribed to it, there must be another way of looking at it. I see everything upside-down, and my thoughts are the opposite of truth. I see the world as a prison for God's Son. It must be, then, that the world is really a place where he can be set free. I would look upon the world as it is, and see it as a place where the Son of God finds his freedom."

"The Holy Spirit is one way of choosing. This way is in you BECAUSE there is also another way."

"I came to your minds because you had grown vaguely aware of the fact that there is another way, or another voice. Having given this invitation to the Holy Spirit, I could come to provide the model for HOW TO THINK."

"I WANT another way to look at this."

"Perhaps there IS another way to look at this. What can I LOSE by asking?"

"Yet can he learn to look on it another way, and find the peace of God."

"For you have learned of Christ there is another way for them to walk."

"Who would be willing to be turned AWAY from all the roadways of the world, UNLESS he understood their real futility? Is it not needful that he should BEGIN with this to seek another way instead?" "Belief that there IS another way is the loftiest idea of which ego-thinking is capable. This is because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego is NOT the self."

"Yet reason looks on this in another way."

"How COULD there be another way to solve a problem which is VERY simple, but has been obscured by heavy clouds of complication, which were MADE to keep the problem unresolved?"

"Alternatives are in your mind to use, and you CAN see yourself another way."

"No one who has learned from experience that one choice brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs much conditioning. The ego cannot withstand the conditioning process, because the process itself DEMONSTRATES that there is another way."

"Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight."

One of the major teachings of A Course in Miracles, also present in Buddhism and Hinduism and many other belief systems, even present in the very first lessons of the Workbook, is that the physical world is a world of illusions. That many different objects only appear to be different, and their differences are meaningless.

In effect, the teaching is that you cannot judge a book by its cover, and you absolutely cannot take the objects of the world at face value. While most of the world believes that the world contains many many different things, different forms, objects, bodies, types, shapes, sizes, configurations, combinations etc, in truth there is actually only one thing here.

At first, to a person who is somewhat "blinded by perception of form", the world appears to be a tremendously complicated place filled with many different things. The differences are identified by how they appear, or what materials it seems to be made of, or how it behaves, or how it's constructed, or what it is used for, or what the symptoms seem to be etc. But these are all disguises.

Such a person will then believe that there really is a major real difference between a hammer and a screwdriver, between a car and a house, between a man and a woman, between a cake and some icecream. Places will all seem to be different and offer different seeming experiences. The next new toy will appear to be something you've never seen before. And everywhere you turn every single object seems to be distinct, separate and unique.

In such a view, uniqueness is valued highly, as though being unique and different sets you apart and identifies you and defines you. As if you stand out and be yourself by being unlike anything else. This merely emphasizes the sense of separateness between things and reinforces the belief that space and time are real.

The more a person thinks that there really are real differences between things, the more they will buy into what we call the "hierarchy of illusions". That is where some things are considered to MEAN something different to others, such as that a death is far "worse" than a mild headache, or that a million dollars is better than 1 dollar, or a burning house is a far worse problem than just that your fingernails need clipping.

For such a person, the world is seen as having the power to cause them, to victimize them, to do things to them. They see the world as both offensive and attractive. Some parts of it they will separate out and label as desirable, wanted, meaningful and valuable. At the same time other things which induce more unpleasant reactions will be relegated to hell and labeled as unwanted.

A person then will be living half a life, separated off, trying to maximize the good stuff and minimize the bad stuff. Always on the run and living in fear, trying to hide from and prevent all the terrible suffering and tragedies that happen, while simultaneously strongly investing in, believing in and wanting to keep, the very same world which induces these things - for its supposed benefits.

This is clearly an insane state of mind, in which a person is in a relationship with a fickle, unpredictable, demanding, controlling, overpowering world, which sometimes throws them a bone and gives them something to seemingly celebrate, while quickly turning around and slapping them in the face the next day with some horrifying problem.

Such a life is a rollercoaster of constantly being thrown around by the waves of whatever's next, with no real peace and no consistency and no true invulnerability. It is a life of fear, wrapped up in an interpretation which frames parts of it as a life that is wanted. A life of judgement, in which some aspects of the world are despised and rejected while others are overly embraced and absorbed into. This is not a spiritual life, it's a life of contradiction and conflict.

What we have to all come to realize, and what a person generally WILL realize given enough time, is that the offerings of the world are not REALLY different things. It may take exposure to a great many things the world seems to separately give, in order to "tire" of the lure of these differences, to transcend them, to see through them, and to realize they are all the same.

This is real spiritual progression, where a person begins to see that the differences between objects are all artificial and meaningless. That having that super precious rare gem is not really that important, versus having a glass of water. Where the extremes of the values of things versus others, flattens out, and a person becomes far less attracted to, or put off by, any particular "temptation" that the world is offering that day.

What this means is that the learning becomes generalized. As a person matures more spiritually they will realize there isn't really a significant difference between things. That in order to retain a sense of integrity, peace, consistency and honesty, the difference forms of things have to be ignored. In order not to be constantly thrown around on the rollercoaster of hell, reacting to everything as if it means something, you have to learn to become more stable and unconditional.

Not changing moods based on conditions, not adapting to what's happening, not allowing the world to do things to you, not seeing yourself as either victimized negatively OR positively, not giving power TO the world to change or define you, not allowing circumstances to dictate what will happen, not giving away power to the extremes of the hierarchy of illusions, and no longer falling for the temptation to believe that the world in certain configurations means hell on earth.

Being deceived by the forms and differences of the world is unconsciousness. It is a state of unawareness and spiritual irresponsibility. It indicates a person who is selfish and wants to get things from the world, but at the same time doesn't want the world to give them the wrong things. It's a person whose relationships are all based on specialness and unholiness, a person who is themselves not whole, who is in denial of wholeness and therefore distanced from God in their "independence."

In order to wake up to reality, a person has to learn that this world isn't really offering anything different. It is really regurgitating the same stuff. It spews out the same illusions in different forms. Masses of materialistic products are made in which everyone now tries to create every single possible variation of a thing. And how many such variations does anyone really need? Their differences are insubstantial and superficial. Their different appearances are regarded as the defining factor as to how valuable they and what price tag they come with. But it's all made of the same lies and untruths.

The real truth is that there IS no difference between anything in the world. All appearances are illusions. All forms and shapes and sizes and amounts and values are utterly deceptive. They are all designed to tempt you to believe, to deceive you into believing, that physical reality is real when it isn't. That there is a world of many things, all of which are unlike the others, offering you constant distractions and side-quests and tempting pathways, all of which lead to the same ultimate end in death.

The truth is that there is not really any choices in the world. ALL of the things the world offers lead to death and destruction. Whether it appears to temporarily give you something you want or to take it away quickly, all forms end in death. They are made of death because they are made of the attempt to separate things out, to attack the other, to be unlike, unequal, in a constant state of war and conflict, incapable of peace and never offering anything consistent.

Fluctuating illusions cannot be reality. If something can change its form and be something one day and something else the next, it has no real permanent identity. A flower goes from a seed to a bloom to a wilted mess and not one of those states is reality. It is all the same thing. Be not deceived by what you see in the world. The world presents a picture of nothing pretending to be something, and it has absolutely no meaning.

The entire drive of A Course in Miracles is to teach us and help us to practice NOT being deceived by physical differences, by appearances, or by any sense of there being any variation in importance or relevance between one object and another. As we look around the room and OVERLOOK any particular reason to categorize things or to say they are more or less applicable to the ONE truth, we are training ourselves to no longer be deceived by the world and its lies.

"The belief in order of difficulties is the basis for the world's perception. It rests on differences; on uneven background and shifting foreground, on unequal heights and diverse sizes, on varying degrees of darkness and light, and thousands of contrasts in which each thing seen competes with every other in order to be recognized. A larger object overshadows a smaller one. A brighter thing draws the attention from another with less intensity of appeal. And a more threatening idea, or one conceived of as more desirable by the world's standards, completely upsets the mental balance. What the body's eyes behold is only conflict. Look not to them for peace and understanding."

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives."

"Appearances deceive BUT CAN BE CHANGED. Reality is changeless. It does not deceive at all. And if you fail to see BEYOND appearances, you ARE deceived. For everything you see will change, and yet you thought it real before, and now you think it real again. Reality is thus reduced to form, and CAPABLE of change. Reality is changeless. It is this that MAKES it real, and KEEPS it separate from all appearances. It MUST transcend all form to be itself. It CANNOT change. The miracle is means to demonstrate that ALL appearances can change BECAUSE they are appearances, and CANNOT have the changelessness reality entails. The miracle attests salvation FROM appearances by SHOWING they can change."

"But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change."

"Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form MEANS understanding HAS BEEN obscured. Only MISTAKES have different forms, and so they CAN deceive. You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is NOT reality, it MUST be an illusion. And is Not THERE to see. And, IF you see it, you MUST be mistaken, for you are seeing what can NOT be real, as if it WERE. What cannot see BEYOND what is not there, MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions AS THE TRUTH. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth?"

"Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived."

"Applying the same idea to each of them separately is the first step in ultimately recognizing they are all the same."

"Everyone in this world seems to have his own special problems. Yet they are all the same, and must be recognized as one if the one solution which solves them all is to be accepted."

"This world SEEMS to hold out many purposes, each different, and with different values. Yet they are all the same. Again, there is no order, but a SEEMING hierarchy of values."

"The spark of beauty, or the veil of ugliness; the real world, or the world of guilt and fear; truth or illusion; freedom or slavery, - it is all the same. For you can NEVER choose EXCEPT between God and the ego."

"If you can accept the ONE GENERALIZATION NOW, there will be no need to learn from many smaller lessons."

Effectively what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach you is ONE LESSON. This one lesson is to learn how to "teach only love", because you are only love. It's to have a single response of love in all situations, to use love's miraculous power to heal all sickness and to solve all problems. To recognize no orders of difficulty or hierarchies of illusion, to see all forms of suffering as the same effect having the same ONE cause. One problem with one solution to rule them all.

Over time, in the application of what may seem like more specific lessons, ultimately what you are LEARNING is really to simply be as God created you. To be loving. To be singular, or ONE. One in character and substance and nature and identity and attitude and response. One single way of always consistently being the same, in complete disregard for any illusions of forms or differences. Completely ignoring orders of magnitude or difficulty or importance or seriousness or size or duration or any other property.

As we gradually "polish" our minds from seeming to be fragmented, with different responses for different people, different relationships with different individuals, different reactions to different objects, different meanings for different things, we gradually GENERALIZE the learning and move into a much more ABSTRACT state of mind. A much more singular state of mind, whole and one and unified and undivided and free from conflicts. Being so one, this state of mind - miracle mindedness, houses the power of love and truth and sees all things from a single perspective.

This is the ONE LESSON which the Holy Spirit is teaching, behind all the lessons in the workbook, behind all the text material and all thoughts and life lessons/trials, behind all relationships and dramas, the simple movement away from complexity and multiplicities of action, towards simple unification, integration, wholeness and oneness. This lays the groundwork for one-mindedness, which is a state of complete abstract purity and wholeness, in which the entirety of everything acts as one with no conflict or difference or adjustment to conditions.

Unconditional love is completely ignorance of conditions. It ignores the form of problems, the shapes of bodies, the types of sickness, the reasons for their supposed causation, the worldly powers, the forces of nature, the laws of physics, the many rules and regulations. It doesn't even care to need to know how something came about, to analyze it or diagnose it or figure out the complicated pathways of cause and effect. It simply APPLIES ITSELF singularly by giving itself and sharing itself, to increase itself and to supply the lack - the lack of love, the lack of unification, or seeming unwholeness, which is the basis for all suffering.

Learn this ONE LESSON, and you are done with the curriculum forever. See past the illusion of separations, which gives rise to countless numbers of bits and pieces. Look to the one vision to show you the one true reality. And you will rise above the fragmented battlefield into the wholeness of light.

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF." "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."

"My one lesson, which I must teach as I learned, is that no perception which is out of accord with the judgment of the Holy Spirit CAN be justified." "That is why you must teach only ONE lesson. If you are to be conflict free yourselves, you must learn ONLY from the Holy Spirit, and teach ONLY by Him."

"We said before that the message of the Crucifixion was teach ONLY love, for that is what you ARE. This is the ONE lesson which is perfectly unified, because it is the only lesson which IS one. And only BY teaching it can YOU learn it."

"As the teacher of God advances in his training, he learns one lesson with increasing thoroughness. He does not make his own decisions; he asks his Teacher for His answer, and it is this he follows as his guide for action. This becomes easier and easier, as the teacher of God learns to give up his own judgment."

"But the Holy Spirit teaches one lesson and applies it to ALL individuals in ALL situations. Being conflict free, He maximizes ALL efforts and ALL results. By teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you that ALL POWER IS YOURS. Its application does not matter. It is ALWAYS maximal."

"Thus is YOUR healing everything the world requires, that it may be healed. It needs ONE lesson that has perfectly been learned."

"As you perceive more and more common elements in ALL situations, the transfer of your training, under the Holy Spirit's guidance increases and becomes generalized. Gradually, you learn to apply it to everyone and everything, for its applicability IS universal. When this has been accomplished, perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share the unification of the Laws of God. What is One cannot be perceived as separate, and the denial of the separation IS the reinstatement of knowledge."

"The purpose is to train the mind to generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is as applicable to one situation as it is to another."

"the impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure" "Place cause and effect in their true sequence in one respect, and the learning will generalize and transform the world."

"The specificity of the ego's thinking, then, results in a spurious kind of generalization, which is really not abstract at all. It will respond in certain specific ways to all stimuli which it perceives as related. In contrast, the Soul reacts in the same way to everything it knows is true, and does not respond at all to anything else."

"Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible, and what has been learned can be recognized ONLY by its RESULTS. Its GENERALIZATION is demonstrated as you use it in more and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there is no order of difficulty in miracles, when you have applied them to ALL situations. For there IS no situation to which miracles do not apply, and by applying them TO all situations, you will gain the REAL world."

"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you CAN see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them. Perceiving His RESULTS, you will understand where He MUST be, and finally KNOW what He is."

The ego wants to believe that God created this world.

The ego believes the world is real.

The ego believes the body is real.

The ego wants to keep all forms and bodies.

The ego believes bodies and forms are alive.

The ego believes there is value in keeping objects.

The ego does not regard the world as unreal or a dream.

The ego insanely believes the illusory world is reality.

The ego believes God created its world and justifies it.

The ego tries to make its illusory world permanent.

The ego attempts to give the world reality and keep it real.

The ego does not want to look past the world.

The ego does not want to forgive or overlook the world.

The ego puts the world on a pedestal and worships it.

The ego has no conception of a world beyond this world.

The ego is totally in denial of the existence of heaven.

The ego has no desire to believe in a spirit realm.

The ego believes that there is nothing beyond its world.

The ego believes there is nothing beyond the body.

The ego believes you don't even have a mind.

The ego believes your body is your mind and thinks for itself.

The ego believes your body is the cause of life.

The ego both values and hates the body.

The ego manifests as the form of physical objects.

The ego is permanently stuck in false perception.

The ego made the body so as to only fixate on sinful forms.

The ego regards all forms and objects as real sin.

The ego believes everything the body senses and sees.

The ego uses the world as an attack on God and reality.

The ego made this world to defend against reality.

The ego made this world to try to block and deny God.

The ego constructed this world as a wall of sin and death.

The ego uses the world to block the reality of Heaven.

The ego believes that bodies are special and are living.

The ego values the body as a place to hide from God.

The ego does not question whether the world is real or not.

The ego has accepted that the world is real to it forever.

The ego has no intention other than to destroy everything.

The ego manufactured this planet for a reason.

The ego made the world to obscure God's nature.

The ego invented an artificial nature to replace God's nature.

The ego made the world to be completely unnatural.

The ego runs the world based on unnatural laws of death.

The ego has no intention of waking up, nor can it.

The ego pretends it can become spiritual.

The ego spiritualizes the world to lead you away from spirit.

The ego does not want you to leave this world and go home.

The ego regards this world as its home and yours.

The ego has placed the world on a pedestal and worships it.

The ego doesn't believe the world is a dream at all.

The ego has investment, faith and trust in the world it made.

The ego made bodies to ensure your unconsciousness.

The ego surrounded you with forms of error to trap you.

The ego made a world filled with temptation.

The ego made hell, and this world is hell.

The ego has no desire to go towards light or truth.

The ego leads entirely towards darkness and death.

The ego is unaware of the truth about God and Holy Spirit.

The ego sees life here as death and death as life.

The ego is threatened by reality.

The ego has no reality.

The ego's world is not real.

The ego's world is a delusional system of insane dreamers.

The ego made physicality to blind your perception.

The ego made space and time to live inside of.

The ego made planet Earth and all galaxies and worlds.

The ego made the world from unwillingness to accept truth.

The ego materialized the planet from a desire to attack God.

The ego ensures that all things it made will die.

The ego provides no escape from problems of any kind.

The ego built sickness into the world.

The ego tried to make death an inevitable part of spacetime.

The ego does not want you to question the world's reality.

The ego doesn't want you thinking of the world as illusion.

The ego hides in the world, in the body, in the darkness.

The ego is threatened by the idea that there is no world.

The ego sees God as the undoing of itself.

The ego sees the Holy Spirit as making itself invalid.

The ego sees eternal life as death and mortality as life.

The ego doesn't really exist, nor does its world.

"Illusions will not last. Their death is sure and this alone is certain in their world. It is the ego's world because of this. What is the ego? But a dream of what you really are. A thought you are apart from your Creator and a wish to be what He created not. It is a thing of madness, not reality at all. A name for namelessness is all it is. A symbol of impossibility; a choice for options that do not exist. We name it but to help us understand that it is nothing but an ancient thought that what is made has immortality. But what could come of this except a dream which, like all dreams, can only end in death?

What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something. In a world of form the ego cannot be denied for it alone seems real. Yet could God's Son as He created him abide in form or in a world of form? Who asks you to define the ego and explain how it arose can be but he who thinks it real, and seeks by definition to ensure that its illusive nature is concealed behind the words that seem to make it so.

There is no definition for a lie that serves to make it true. Nor can there be a truth that lies conceal effectively. The ego's unreality is not denied by words nor is its meaning clear because its nature seems to have a form. Who can define the undefinable? And yet there is an answer even here.

We cannot really make a definition for what the ego is, but we can say what it is not. And this is shown to us with perfect clarity. It is from this that we deduce all that the ego is. Look at its opposite and you can see the only answer that is meaningful.

The ego's opposite in every way, in origin, effect and consequence, we call a miracle. And here we find all that is not the ego in this world. Here is the ego's opposite and here alone we look on what the ego was, for here we see all that it seemed to do, and cause and its effects must still be one.

Where there was darkness now we see the light. What is the ego? What the darkness was. Where is the ego? Where the darkness was. What is it now and where can it be found? Nothing and nowhere. Now the light has come: Its opposite has gone without a trace. Where evil was there now is holiness. What is the ego? What the evil was. Where is the ego? In an evil dream that but seemed real while you were dreaming it. Where there was crucifixion stands God's Son. What is the ego? Who has need to ask? Where is the ego? Who has need to seek for an illusion now that dreams are gone?"

When a situation presents itself, on a physical level, with signs and symptoms and effects that you can see and touch, it seems to be real to you. If you do not overlook it, they form evidence and proof that something seems to be going wrong. On the basis of this you can't help but go into fear as a logical consequence. If the problem is real, you should be concerned.

What then happens is you'll start going into the "I have to do something about it" mode. This compulsion will arise as a natural logical consequence, following on from the belief that the problem is real. If it's real, it really needs solving. If it's real, it's seen as a real threat, calling for a real solution.

Before you know it, you'll be launching into a tirade of all the things that you thin should happen, need to happen, should be done, that other people should be doing, etc, in order to "save" the situation. And this will take the form of what appears to be genuine concern, caring, wanting to help, trying to fix, compelling others to act, trying to get something to be done about it, a sense or urgency and demand and even anger in the name of getting someone to solve it.

While on the surface this will look and feel like some fervent effort to help, and even if it might bring what many would consider forms of assistance and magical solutions that many would consider a resolution, this performance of drama and urgency is heavily laden with attack. If a person were totally fine and nothing were going wrong, and you were expressing these compulsions toward and about them, it would be attacking their invulnerability.

Claiming "something seriously needs to be done about it" relies entirely on the strong belief that there is attack, there is weakness, there is compromise and suffering. You can't have these kind of thoughts without buying into the belief in these things. And the belief in these things IS a form of attack. It contributes to supporting the notion that the problem exists, and you can't be doing that if you are trying to make it go away.

If I say, ok, someone needs to do something about this right now because there's really a major problem, then mixed in with what seems like selfless helpful attitudes is a whole array of undermining, making real, believing in suffering, giving power away, energizing the problem, holding it in a space of attack, and just generally having a negative fearful attitude about it. And fear, even if it seems to be an experience of being under attack, is itself a form of attack.

While it's seemingly true that a person might really "need help", at least on a physical level, through some magical means, and that this help might indeed seem to help the situation, there is also the fact that this help is in part harmful. And it will always have side effects to prove it. These side effects come from the fact that fear is a form of attack, and concern for physical appearances is actually an attempt to reinforce them, making them worse. The person trying to "save" with the ego is actually against salvation.

There is alternative way to help and to save, and it moves the mind and perception in the direction of true healing. Not just the illusion of healing but actual miraculous support. And for this, the entire ego mechanic of making the problem real and coming from fear and urgency has to be let go. It has to be recognized as fake help, a reaction based on the assumption that the problem is real. As fear turns to anger and insistence, it becomes murderous.

It's better that we move into true forgiveness, where we withdraw belief in the problem, we stop fearing by stopping believing that there is even a real problem happening, we move into a mindset of recognizing the person's wholeness and health, we get our mind out of the gutter of ego temptation, we affirm what is really true about them beyond appearances, step back and allow the Holy Spirit to heal, and dismantle the artificial forms of salvation that were making the problem worse.

In this we undo, take away, cancel, reverse, disbelieve, disempower, disappear, vanish and generally make non-existent the problem. There is no real problem. There is no real suffering. There is nothing real going on here that calls for serious reactions and actions. This stepping back has a power in it far greater and able to actually heal and correct the signs and symptoms and effects, than the measly magical efforts that were an attempt to extend fear. By NOT supporting the existence of the situation, you weaken it and move it towards undoing.

We either get to simply react to what appears to be happening, as though it were dreamed by someone else. Or we get to express God's Power and assert what IS true and make it so. We are the dreamer of the dream. We can change what we choose to occur in the dream. The power of decision is your own. Choosing what must be is far more powerful than reacting to what appears to have come from an alien will. Paradoxically it's by withholding the ego's outward reactions that your inner light intensifies and shines forth to correct all ills. By not trying to fix, you can truly save.

Everyone is immortal and cannot die. So anything suggesting otherwise MUST be an illusion and not a reality. Any sign or symptom MUST be a disguise, a lie, a mistake and is correctable. There can be no suffering in God because it's not God's will that you suffer. Only the truth is true and nothing else is true.