I find very often that if I am not constantly "rebuking" everything the world seems to portray, I will fall into temptation and buy into problems. Then I'll have reactions based on ego and form and bodies and appearances, and will suffer, wondering how to get out of it.

The fact is that we're presented with a false word, right in our faces, 24/7, every single day. The body continuously reports on it as if it's real and makes it seem real. Every single sensory input is a lie to the mind, suggesting that something untrue is true, something impossible is possible, and something that can never happen in reality is happening.

It may seem completely casual, living our everyday lives, interacting with objects, doing household tasks, looking at things and commenting on them, seeing bodies, etc... as though this is totally normal and natural. We can just "live an ego life", a body life, functioning the same way we always have. Immersed in space and time and physicality. Interacting with the world as if it's just another day, things are just ticking over as they always do, as is this is totally normal.

But as we start trying to wake up to reality, we start to find that the world is absolutely opposite to reality. And now we're tasked with trying to peel ourselves away from absolutely everything the world throws at us. Every appearance is false, every body sickness is a lie, every picture of death is unnatural, every problem isn't really there. If we don't counteract these inputs, they become overwhelming and we just sink down into them like it's what everyone does.

It seems then that we have to constantly fight against illusions. Every second. The kind of life we live without even thinking about it, as if it's normal, is riddled with deception. If we drop our guard and just go through the motions acting like everything in the world is how things are supposed to be, within seconds we'll find ourselves thinking and speaking and acting based on what the body says is real. And now we're lost all over again. And every morning we wake up immersed back into the same dungeon of deception and darkness.

It sure as heck seems that if we aren't CONSTANTLY asserting God's truth, constantly denying what is not of God, constantly stating and affirming that body states are not fact, constantly PUSHING and broadcasting God's truth and light all the time, repelling sin and hell, then we will just once again fall for the next subtle trap. The next little everyday seemingly insignificant scrap of an illusory world which is just as deceptive and distorting as all the rest.

The impression I'm getting lately then is that we have to eventually get to a state where we are "professing christ" all the time. And I mean like, being on our guard at all times. In a sense, praying a higher prayer all the time. Giving off happier more loving vibes all the time. Teaching only love, all the time. Refusing to accept anything we see in the world, all the time. And that means being really heavily centered in God's truth and laws and mindset and just constantly vigilant for staying in that mindset as much as possible, even when the world is sandblasting you in the face with visual lies.

Jesus says in the course that atonement is our natural profession. That we should PROFESS christ. Which means to express, emit, teach, radiate, give christ at all times. To counteract and fly in the face of the world. To be coming from God at all times. To be healers at all times, in the world but not of it at all times. Under no worldly laws but God's at all times.

Because, quite frankly, what I've found is that if I DON'T attempt to do that, I will just sink right back down into ego land, body sensations, false perceptions, reactions to bodies and sicknesses appearing real. At every turn, someone's sick body is attempting to testify to them having been changed and corrupted against God's will. And it is our task to NOT believe that, to assert and SEE and claim the truth of the person that they are still as God created them. Which is in complete defiance of what their body looks like, staring you in the face with its fake suffering and temptation.

The degree of temptation is just so totally off the charts. It seems that if we don't rise above it and stay above it and continually REPEL it every minute of the day, we're just going to keep falling back into it. Maybe over time we can talk ourselves into such a state of conviction that we can more effortlessly remain in the light and the truth and not have to make such an effort of it. But meanwhile it seems like a constant fight, a constantly struggle, to get out of hell and get back into a more heavenly state. Day after day after day of the world trying to pull us back down.

"The Disciples were officially and specifically told to heal others, as Physicians of the Lord. They were also told to heal themselves, and were promised that I would never leave them or forsake them. Atonement is the natural profession of the Children of God, because they have professed Me."

"In His perception of the world, nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness. Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete forgiveness."

If we are to INSTANTLY meet every perception with forgiveness, that means we have to CONSTANTLY be in a state of forgiveness every single second. We have to be on our toes. We have to be totally ready and right minded at all times. As in keeping our mind right-side up at all times and sane in order to be ready to perform miracles.

"Readiness here means keep your perception right side up, (or valid), so you will ALWAYS be ready, willing, and able. These are the essentials for "listen, learn, and do. You must be READY to listen WILLING to learn and ABLE to do"

To stay OUT of deception and temptation and distraction is difficult. Everything the world believes is not true. Everything physical matter shows is false. We have to pierce the veil and push past the body and connect with the divine. To have "reality contact".

"Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra- and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer sees the truth as God created it. This is what is meant by the point on "perspective adjustment."

It really seems to me that in order to be a consistent miracle worker we have to be practically from another world, a temporary visitor here, come to help and heal and uplift, siding entirely with God, falling for no temptation, buying into nothing the world suggests. As if we were briefed before we came, that the world was going to try to eat us alive, and that we had to stay on our toes and not for a second believe a single bit of it. To float above the battlefield constantly lest we fall off the wagon again and again and again. To clarify just how extremely difficult it can be, Jesus even says that the most advanced teachers still succumb to temptation at times.

The world can seem insurmountable in its immensity, its diversity of illusions, its deceptions. Gradually the mind HAS to be trained away from believing any of it. Has to learn to see through and past illusory things. Has to learn NOT to believe in what the body reports. And that takes time to reinforce the mind's attitude over and over and over and over again with affirmations and restatements and reframing.

"Even the most advanced of God's teachers will give way to temptation in this world."

Every day, every hour, every minute, every second, we have to be watchful for buying into the world. Over and over again we will keep slipping back down the slippery slope to hell, and have to keep pulling ourselves back out of the muck again and again and again until we can learn to fly enough that we stay out of it for good.

There is a huge difference between CREATING, and MAKING. "The world you MADE" is NOT a world that's been CREATED.

Creation is the perfect extension of the whole of God. God creates perfect children who are perfect mirror image reflections of Himself. They are given ALL of God. They are equipped to create fully and wholly, just like God, with no lack or limitation. The creations of these creators are also just as equipped to create perfection and wholeness.

At every step of the extension, there is no loss of abilities, no differences, no partial inheritance, no lack, no interruption to creative power, and no interference with sharing absolutely everything of God. Every created being shares the entire whole of creation and is fully unlimited in every way. The creation is a continuous line which extends forever as a whole, which creates wholes, who in turn create wholes, on and on and on. Each created being has ALL THE ABILITIES of its parent, and what is true of the father is true of the son.

Now, **MAKING** is not like this at all.

Making is based on a belief that there is lack, limitation, restriction, a lack of inheritance, a lack of perfection, differences, something missing, and is actually the idea of death. To make, rather than create, is an attempt to put the brakes on extension and bring creation to a halt. It is the attempt to bring about an END to creation, so that that which is made is NOT ABLE to create, CANNOT replicate itself in its own likeness, and completely fails to extend.

The collapsing down of creative power, the distorting and interruption of perfect extension, the mangling of God's will, the twisting of reality, and the dreaming of creating something UNLIKE God, has produced THIS WORLD, which is the idea of sin and death, and is TOTALLY UNLIKE THE FATHER.

It is through MAKING, which is actually an attempt to NOT CREATE ANYTHING, and is also an attempt to deny creation and bring creation to a STOP, that we "made this world." Planet Earth, and the rest of this universe, is "the world you made" per ACIM terms.

When you look at this world you can see WHY this is true. Nothing in this world can extend. Nothing in this world can create a perfect mirror image reflection of itself. What is true of any parent here is NOT perfectly true of its children. Forms and bodies and physical objects are NOT able to extend themselves indefinitely, nor can they create more of their own self in their own likeness.

This is because the world is fundamentally the picture of the crucifixion of God's son, it was MADE as an attack on God/Creation, it was made so that God could enter not, AND it runs completely CONTRARY to your nature. It is the nature of your soul to extend God's being forever. It is this world's nature to PUT A STOP to that. This happens at the level of PHYSICAL MATTER, not perception. Matter is fundamentally made of the thought of the idea of an end to life, the thought of separation.

Through making, we invented "an end to creation" and "an end to life". Making, is death. It produces a condensing of expression, a collapsing of unlimitedness, an imposing of limits, the manifestation of FORMS of error, the production of pictures of sin, and the solidification of the idea of grinding to a halt. This forms PHYSICAL MATTER, which is extremely resistant and dense. Jesus says we made this world from UNWILLINGNESS, which is why it is very hard to change it.

Truly then, this whole universe is what it looks like when you try to stop the extension of God's creation, resist life, deny immortality, reject God's will, oppose the nature of Heaven, and try to bring about DEATH. It literally ENDS in death, and it is literally MADE OF the idea of death, because in this world ALL PHYSICAL FORMS CANNOT CREATE OR EXTEND.

You take a computer and you design a car. The computer operates the machinery and robots and the people play their part to build the car. But, now because the car has been defined as specific forms, with limitations imposed on it, it has now lost the ability that the engineers have. The car, cannot create, other cars.

Even the human body and the bodies of other "death forms" are not capable of creating a perfect reflection of themselves. Human children may inherit traits from one parent and not another, or even from prior generations. None of them are alike and none of them represent the truth of the parent. All forms are different and lacking and every body is incomplete, keeping the rest of existence outside of itself and isolated.

This world, quite literally, down to the particles and energy (really thought) that it seems to be made of, is MADE OF the IDEA - the thought - of "what is it like if life comes to an end" or "what is it like if unlimited extension is limited and stops".... and this is the idea of **death** - the END of eternal life. "Without the idea of death, there is no world." There literally CANNOT BE a planet Earth without the idea of death, which means, without the assertion that EXTENSION MUST STOP, CREATION MUST END, and therefore that LIFE IS ENDED.

Life, REAL LIFE, is of Heaven. "Only the creations of light are real." "There is NO LIFE outside of Heaven." Earth, which is "outside" of Heaven, HAS NO LIFE. It is a picture of death. Real life extends forever, has immortality, lives without sickness or suffering, is fully and wholly creative, ONLY CREATES WHOLENESS, and extends life itself forever. This ONLY happens in Heaven.

Fake life, which is really various degrees of the idea of death, even if the body is "holy" or "a picture of immortality", is STILL A DREAM OF DEATH, and still a separated state, and still NOT perfect unlimited extension of God's being. This world, this planet, your body, my body, are all illusions of life MIXED WITH the idea of death, and so are all limited.

All "semi life, semi death forms" here, WILL PERISH, because they were MADE in the idea of EXCLUDING GOD, which means they are made WITHOUT LIFE, and they are literally made NOT TO LIVE FOREVER. They are LITERALLY an expression of an attempt to MAKE LIFE END. All dreams, are dreams of death. Therefore all things MADE automatically have an END. "The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came". The world WILL END. The dream WILL END. It has to because it has ENDING built into it. It is made FROM the idea of the END of existence.

Jesus says "A world which attacks itself and denies its own existence cannot exist." This is earth. Earth is a DENIAL OF EXISTENCE. It's an attempt to reject Heaven, an attempt to OPPOSE Heaven in every way, and an attempt to assert "there is no heaven." This world was MADE BY YOU from the notion that God's world, God's creation, DOES NOT EXIST, and is the attempt to prove it, by picturing the idea of "world does not exist". This world, is a picture of NOT EXISTING. It is denial of life and denial of self. And that is death. And it is non-existence. WHICH IS WHY IT DOES NOT EXIST.

Similarly, ONLY CREATION IS REALITY. Anything which extends forever perfectly has eternal life and is REAL. Anything which is MADE, which is NOT CREATED, and which is the illusion of a resistance to reality, IS UNREAL, and DEOS NOT EXIST. Therefore, because this world is the world you ***MADE***, NOT the world you "created", IT HAS NOT BEEN CREATED. It has not been created by God because God only creates eternal life and perfect extension. This world IS NOT EXTENSION AT ALL. It is NOT CREATION. It is MAKING. And making is the fiction of opposing God's will. THIS WORLD IS NOT GOD'S WILL. IT HAS NOT BEEN CREATED. IT DOES NOT EXIST. THERE IS NO WORLD!!!

In all encounters with people, you have basically two ways of relating. Either you will give love, or you will withhold love. When you give love, you are in alignment with the Golden Rule, and recognize that the only strategy that will work without hurting yourself is to love the person. In so doing, you become empowered by that love, become invulnerable to attack, and gain a boost in confidence due to the absence of fear that it induces. This is a natural "extension" of love and is the healthy way to relate to people. To teach only love.

But learning to be this way and to do this, in actual encounters, is not always easy and for me used to be far from what I thought would "work". For a large portion of my life I was extremely painfully shy, socially anxious, and really not liking people in general. There was so much fear and worry about interacting, and everyone seemed to be a powerful stranger. It was a very isolated and lonely state of being, very fragile, weak and filled with suffering. I would people please all the time and never felt seen or acknowledged, as if I had no right to be equal to anyone.

Usually my way of dealing with people was to shut them out, avoid them, deny them, and try to escape them. They all seemed to be threatening and I was very dis-empowered. I lacked confidence and felt insecure all the time. I dreaded social situations and when I was forced into them it was excruciating. My perception of and belief that everyone was judging me made me profoundly embarrassed and this inflicted the most horrendously negative, deep emotional pain, not because they actually judged but because I believed they were. I had no idea what I was doing to myself. What I felt as a result of my self attack was 10 times worse than any other emotional upset I've ever experienced resulting from what anyone else ever did.

The strategy I had, which is entirely an ego strategy, was that in order to become safe or better off in any way, I needed to separate myself from people. I didn't see a possibility of feeling calm and happy and confident in any situation, only afraid, and just wanted to escape. It seemed as if escaping would work, and so I had trust in it. But all that escaping did was isolate me more and make me withdrawn from society. This also actually led to years of depression in my late teens and a sense that my life was so stuck that it was coming to an end.

It was around that time also though that I started to get into spiritual things and there was this strange period of mystical experiences at the same time as being mixed in with a lot of fear and inadequacy. I started to work on healing myself in whatever way seemed to work, although at first that was very haphazard and flawed. It was about that time that I suddenly met my wife, whose spiritual light and strength was so bright and filled with unconditional love, that I thought she was literally an angel. It wasn't until my late 20's that I found A Course in Miracles and everything continued to spiral upwards from there.

So for me the idea that in a situation, when I perhaps don't even feel like interacting, trying to push people away doesn't really work. It has a side effect of attacking myself. Whatever I try to make apply to others applies to me. An alternative approach has been gradually revealing itself, and it's one where I realize that I need to extend love, and that by doing so I'm not only going to be healed but the love will also shine away my fears, strengthen me and make my more invulnerable. The love gives me what seemed lacking when I wasn't extending it, and then I feel that I have what is needed to genuinely relate to the person. And then I don't feel like escaping, because the love is there.

It's a strange flipflop but it's like you spend your whole life using this one strategy of separating yourself from others, to "deal with" the way the world seems to be when you have that perspective/perception, only to find that there is another totally opposite alternative whereby you deliberately decide to bring the love and stay put, knowing that it's really the only approach that is going to work in your favor. This is "new" to me as I guess it is to most people but I'm finding out quickly just how beneficial it is to broadcast, radiate, transmit, extend love, in situations that previously I might have wanted to "stop".

I can testify that when you psychologically try to make people go away, stop, you resist them in any way, wish the wouldn't do what they're doing etc, it attacks you and induces sickness and pain. Physically. Very quickly. You can believe that what you're doing is just an attempt to defend yourself in which it does something to them and does nothing to you, but it's not true. It's double-sided and you both get attacked. You are attacked by your own defenses, and never was that more true that "my defenses are attacking my invulnerability". Only by letting the defenses down and shining love instead, exposing yourself, being open and accessible, paradoxically makes you completely invulnerable and strong and unattackable. You can in a sense "hide in plain sight" that way. The light protects you.

It kind of feels like breaking out of a shell or coming out of an egg. Holy Spirit's guidance to me lately has been to "bring" the love to the world that seems to be lacking in it, and to "extend" love in order to work miracles. It's through expressions of love, which is its natural extension, that miracles occur. They are "given" this way. And for sure, living in fear is totally anti-miraculous and more like being a psychic black hole. And it's not merely enough to ask God or Holy Spirit to send love to someone. You yourself have to actually feel and express and extend the love, if you want to benefit from it.

It's actually for our highest good and in our own best interest, and a shared interest, to "only love". The extending of love to others has a profound affect on your OWN mind. But at first it seems unnatural. Like some kind of "new trick" that you need to practice more. To be able to actually muster some love, and really feel it. It's been through all these years of trying to forgive and healing and releasing old pains and so on that I've very gradually "shifted" to being "able" to find this new "mode" of relationship. And it's for the most part still quite spotty. But there's a sort of underlying "more loving" baseline that's there all the time, which was not there in years past, and that's thanks to the course.

I suppose you could correctly call it being the light of the world, it's like you choose to shine and love comes out of you, even if the world itself is so severely lacking in love (which it is). It gives you the protection you were lacking when you were afraid, and it strengthens and empowers you. It solves all of the problems that the ego's remedies never really solved. And it gives you a whole new sense of purpose in life. Not forgetting how much happier it feels :-) It provides strength and confidence. It empowers you and puts you in a position where you can be truly helpful, rather than completely useless.

All it takes is seemingly a change of direction. Rather than being so withdrawing, it is more of a confronting. Instead of being escaping, it's a willingness to be present. Instead of running away in fear, it gives you the power to stand your ground and assert yourself in a healthy way. It's taken a long time to learn this and I'm still learning. But if you could put who I am now alongside who I used to be 20 years ago, you would probably think we're not even the same person. And thank God for that!

"This means that I cannot allow them to leave their mind unguarded, or they will not be able to help me. Miracle-working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation. Otherwise, the miracle will be necessary to set the mind ITSELF straight, a circular process which would hardly foster the time-collapse for which the miracle was intended. Nor would it induce the healthy respect that every miracle-worker must have for true cause and effect."

When you're having emotions, typically they are reactions. You have a thought which produces a perception of the world. And in this thought you're seeing yourself as a victim or being affected in some way. And this produces a negative emotion.

These ego emotions seem to be changes in you, which you believe are the effect of causes outside of you. They cause you to change against your will, and so your "emotions" or "effects" go on a rollercoaster ride or constant shifts, seemingly chosen BY the world and enforced upon you.

But if you'll look you'll notice that all ego emotions have this backwards cause-effect quality to them. They all seem like they are telling YOU what you feel. They seem like they are happening to you. And the basis for these feelings always seems to be something you believe is happening to you outside of you.

How can it be that if you are the cause of everything you experience, per the secret of salvation, that you can be at the effect of emotions? How can it even be that you even HAVE emotions that have this affected quality to them? Emotions of fear and guilt, emotions of grief and loss, emotions of suffering?

If you are cause, and are owning up to being the cause, then you must realize your emotions are coming from you. You are causing them. Not the world, not the circumstances, not other people or the body. You must be choosing them. You must have made a wrong decision if your emotion is not peace.

Surely you have the ability to choose what you are going to feel? Or at least, you have the ability to choose whether to produce upset feelings or not. You can choose whether you feel guilty. You can choose whether to feel grief. You can choose whether to feel unhappy for any reason. It is always you that chooses what you are experiencing.

So this then means we have to get behind the feelings and stop regarding them as just "happening to us". And stop interacting with them as if they are telling US how we feel. We need to stop listening to them as if looking to them to guide us and inform us of what state we're in. WE PUT THEM THERE. We shouldn't be asking something WE PUT THERE to tell us how we feel, as if they know and we don't.

All ego emotions are "effects" which your mind puts in place, under the belief that the world puts them in place. If you believe the world has power over you then you will produce emotions, effects, symptoms, reactions, which all seem to try to TELL YOU what you are and how you feel and what you must experience. You have to stop listening to them. But even more you have to stop creating them.

This all goes back to the mind. It goes back to thought. If you look at thought you will notice that it is the CAUSE of all your suffering. You can be affected by nothing but your thoughts. It is your thoughts alone that bring you pain. Nothing in the world can bring oppression. Your thoughts literally cause all of your upset emotions.

The origin of upset feelings therefore is the nature of your thinking. You might be used to thinking and feeling like a victim, in which you seem to only have feelings if they happen "to you", and you only have thoughts as a kind of passive "commentary" on what is "happening to you." But this is really a destructive use of thought, which reverses cause and effect, and sees you as at the effect of the world.

You have to realize also then that your thoughts have been acting just like a victim, just like your ego emotions, pretending to be happening to you. They have been thoughts of suffering, thoughts of despair, thoughts of being victimized, thoughts of being attacked, thoughts of sickness and death. These thoughts have CAUSED what you have been experiencing, emotionally and physically.

Your thoughts, or rather your thinking, therefore has to go through a transformation in terms of how much destructiveness they contain. Thought has been used by the mind in its belief in death, to produce suffering. Thought can similarly be used far more constructively, positively, in a life affirming way, to uplift and heal and bring life. Thought can be used to give strength.

But you are not used to thinking like this. You are used to being a victim on a battlefield where everything happens to you. You even think that your thoughts are thinking you. This has to be reversed. You have to start using your POWER to think higher thoughts. To think well of yourself and others. To think of happiness. To elect light and love and life.

At first it will seem like you can't do this because you have been so used to just "having" thought and you don't realize you can control it and master it. This is why it takes some practice. But you need to learn that you can actively choose to have uplifting thoughts. You can just as easily have a thought that someone actually is doing well, as you can have a thought that they are suffering. And you have to realize your thoughts have a REAL POWER which can produce REAL EFFECTS.

Your thoughts can and do affect you AND other people. You are not alone in experiencing the EFFECTS of YOUR THINKING. Probably all your life you've been thinking in an egoic way, in a victimy way, which has actually contributed to the suffering of yourself and others. Now you are going to think deliberate, intentional, chosen, free-willed and higher thoughts. Purposeful thoughts of deciding that someone IS doing well, IS healthy, IS healed, IS happy, IS safe, IS innocent, IS resurrected.

You may have never even conceived that your thoughts even have any power. You might've only experienced thoughts like a mental chatter which seems to ramble on without seeming to affect anyone or anything. You might not have put two-and-two together to realize your thoughts have a causal power in them. That they are creative. And that you have been using them TO destroy.

Your mind can heal. Your mind can raise the dead. Your mind can think of miracles. Your mind can decide someone is not sick. Your mind can strengthen and reinforce the truth. Your mind can give life. And your mind can be filled with the power of God. Your thoughts are extremely powerful. The misuse of them has been the sole cause of all your suffering. And now you can turn your thoughts to God and to reality and truth and light and love and express the power of love through thought to others.

"Miracles are thought-creations. Thought can create lower-order or higher-order realities."

"He, too, MUST begin to think of himself as a very powerful receiving and sending channel"

"The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will. Many of your ordinary expressions reflect this. For example, when you say "don't give it a thought", you are implying that if you do not think about something, it will have no effect on you. This is true enough."

"While expressions like "think big" give some recognition to the power of thought, they still come nowhere near the truth. You do not expect to grow when you say it, because you don't really believe it. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains."

The body is a wall, like a fence, which was drawn around a PART of your total mind, in order to section it off and claim it as personal territory. The purpose of this body fence is to define that some tiny portion of your mind is yours alone, not shared with anyone, and that all of God and Creation are kept outside. Within this fence is the idea of the selfish self, the ego, which now regards itself as a whole self, but through bodily identification lacks the relationships that imply being.

This means that as you return to the wholeness of yourself, of your soul, you necessarily must re-inherit and open up to the vast expanse of the rest of your mind, which had been disconnected and externalized. Literally, the rest of you is out there, in your brothers. You are much larger than the tiny little PIECE of self that is hidden in a body. Only a PART of your mind finds itself imprisoned in flesh and the rest of you is unlimited.

Your mind is in fact so unlimited it is larger than the universe of spacetime. And symbolically we invented bodies as a tiny speck of a fence around a tiny speck of the total mind/self. This tiny piece of yourself is what finds itself within the body, as an ego, believing it is the whole of yourself. The whole rest of yourself symbolically is outside the body fence as the external universe. And it is huge in comparison. When you awaken, you reunite with the rest of the universe that you separated a PART of your mind off from. Thus not ALL of you went into the separation, only a tiny portion of your total mind.

"The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist."

"The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built to separate ***parts of his Self from other parts***. It is ***within this fence he thinks he lives***, to die as it decays and crumbles. For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love (the whole of himself). Identifying with his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is. How else could he be certain he remains within the body, keeping love (the rest of him) outside (symbolized by the external world)?"

"God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on love will ALWAYS seem to shut Him out, and to keep you APART from Him. The body is a tiny fence ***around a little part*** of a glorious and completely limitless idea (your full self). It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little ***segment*** of Heaven (a PART of your full mind), splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom, where God can enter not. Within this kingdom the ego rules (the selfish/special/posessive self that produces the body fence), and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe (the rest of you which seems outside the body and symbolically extremely vast).

***This fragment of your mind ("the ego") is such a tiny part of it***, that, could you but appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest sunbeam is to the sun (you are much bigger than your little body self). Or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean. In its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam has decided it IS the sun; this almost imperceptible ripple hails itself as the ocean. Think how alone and frightened is this little thought, this infinitesimal illusion, holding itself apart, against the universe. The sun (God/soul/oneness) becomes the sunbeam's "enemy," which would devour it. And the ocean terrifies the little ripple, and "wants" to swallow it.

Yet neither sun nor ocean is even aware of all this strange and meaningless activity (God does not acknowledge your belief that part of you is separate from the rest). They merely continue, unaware that they are feared and hated by a tiny segment of themselves. ***Even that segment is not LOST to them*** (this tiny part of mind must be KEPT and reintegrated), for it could not survive APART from them. And what IT thinks it is in no way changes ***its total dependence on them FOR ITS BEING***. Its whole existence still remains IN THEM (you are always joined to the rest of yourself). Without the sun, the sunbeam WOULD be gone; the ripple WITHOUT the ocean IS inconceivable.

Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by bodies seem to be. Each body seems to house a SEPARATE mind (a part of your total mind that is separated off), a DISCONNECTED thought, living alone and in no way joined to the Thought by which it was created. Each tiny fragment seems to be self-contained (your little sense of self), needing each other for SOME things, but by no means TOTALLY depended on their One Creator for EVERYTHING. And needing the whole to give them ANY meaning, for by themselves, they DO mean nothing. Nor HAVE they any life apart, and by themselves. (the little part of mind separated off in the body is still part of the whole).

Yet, like the sun and ocean, your Self continues, unmindful that this tiny part regards ITSELF as you. It is not missing; ***it could not EXIST if it were separate*** (its not really separate), nor would the whole BE whole without it. It is not a separate kingdom, ruled by an IDEA of separation from the rest. Nor does a fence surround it (body is an illusion), preventing it ***from JOINING with the rest*** (of you), and keeping it apart from its Creator. This little aspect is NO DIFFERENT from the whole (still holy mind), being continuous with it, ***and at one with it***. It leads no separate life, because its life IS in the Oneness in which its being was created.

Do not accept this little, fenced-off aspect ***as*** your Self (because you are unlimited). The sun and ocean are as nothing, beside what YOU are. The sunbeam sparkles only in the sunlight, and the ripple dances as it rests upon the ocean. Yet in neither sun nor ocean is the power that rests in you. Would you remain WITHIN your tiny kingdom (body), a sorry king, a bitter ruler of all he surveys, who looks on nothing (the world/gap), but who would still die to DEFEND it? This little self is NOT your kingdom. Arched high above it, and surrounding it, with love, is the glorious whole, which offers all its happiness and deep content to EVERY part. (including the separated off mind that's in a body)."

Here is also an additional quote from elsewhere in the course which confirms further that only a small part of our mind was stolen away from heaven, not all of us, and finds itself now to be in a body.

"Therefore, it is the tiny part of your self, the little thought that seems split off and separate, that the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in God's keeping, and needs no guide. But this wild and delusional thought needs help, because, in its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and slavery.

This is the LITTLE part of you you think you stole from Heaven. Give it back to Heaven. Heaven has not lost it, but YOU have lost sight of Heaven. Let the Holy Spirit remove it from the withered kingdom in which you set it up, surrounded by darkness, guarded by attack, and reinforced by hate. Within its barricades is still a tiny segment of the Son of God, complete and holy, serene and unaware of what you think surrounds it. Be you not separate, for the One Who DOES surround it has brought union to you, returning your little offering of darkness to the Eternal Light."

The whole problem with false perception is really just one of confusion about "what is the cause." Or more to the point, who is causing it. We could rephrase that as "I don't know what God (cause) is."

In the separation there was a disassociation from the role of "causer" or chooser (creator), and the ownership and responsibility of this causing was projected onto others. We then ended up in an extremely confused state of not being able to clearly discern, "who is doing what to whom?"

In the ego thought system, cause and effect are completely reversed, things which are true seem false, things which are false seem true. There is a breakdown of the Golden Rule, in which anything that's true is true of both of us.

It's replaced with the ego's idea that what is true for me is not true for you. Which really is another way of saying, cause and effect are separate. I can cause you without being affected. And you can cause me without being affected. I can accuse you of doing something I did not do, and thereby believe I am innocent while you're guilty.

This is the ego's idea of "getting away with murder", because it believes it can cause things to happen and escape the consequences. So when we get into "its you not me", or "you did this to me", any kind of blame or finger-pointing or scapegoating or believing that "cause" is outside of you, you will instantly go into a victim role. And victims are always confused about who is attacking them.

In that confused state of ego reactions, it always seems like it's someone else doing this to us, some external event happened, some unforseen circumstance, some unwanted happening

Usually you'll feel devoid of all responsibility for causing it. ie it'll seem like you didn't choose any of it, and you don't want it. But this is because you have no clue whatsoever what is really causing anything. And so random fingers point at random targets hoping some mud will stick.

As you apply forgiveness, ie you become more honest and less in denial about your contribution, you start to sort out exactly WHO is causing stuff to happen. At first it seems like it's everyone except you, but then gradually each time you see that YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF, or was something you did in fact choose, or that it did have an effect on you, the picture starts to become clearer.

The more you can take responsibility for choosing the more you will discern clearly and recognize that you are the cause of your suffering. You will also start to notice that the ego's breaking of God's laws does not work, and in fact when you do attack or scapegoat another you do NOT escape the consequences. It makes you feel guilty, it frightens you, it upsets and stresses you out.

Eventually, there becomes a clear association between "being a victim" and "attacking yourself". A clear line of causation from what you are choosing and the effect YOU experience as a result. You'll see it's not possible to blame another without feeling blamed. It's not possible to judge without feeling judged. It's not possible to attack without feeling attacked. And it's not possible to accuse someone of being the cause of you without you feeling like a vulnerable victim.

And so then it becomes obvious, that you feel like a victim BECAUSE you positioned yourself as one, seeing yourself in that role, and wanting to do so in order to try and get a payoff of scapegoating. But you no longer can pretend that your attacks on another don't hurt yourself. You can't help but notice that the instant you try to shift guilt to someone else, you will immediately feel that familiar weakness, threat and lack of safety that accompanies a victim mentality.

It then becomes an unavoidable no-brainer. That is, you clearly recognize and distinguish, whenever I attack, I feel attacked. Whenever I want to make someone out to be guilty, I feel like a victim. Whenever I try to be unforgiving, I feel unforgiven. It has a direct correlation, because I AM the cause of everything I experience, NOT the other person.

It then becomes harder to pretend to yourself that your attempted attacks on others have no effect on you. You are affected every time. You simply cannot maintain peace and happiness at the same time as being angry with someone. You can't truly honestly justify anger in any situation because you know that it's bullshit. And it'll become increasingly noticeable that you're bullshitting yourself as you sort out exactly who is causing everything you feel.

So then it becomes quicker and easier to catch yourself. You can see, well, as soon as I went to point a finger at someone and use them as a scapegoat, I felt like a victim under attack. Funny that. I made that happen. I gave myself that experience. And so I can choose again and withdraw that self-attack, that self-positioning of "I'm the victim here!". That demand that I be weak and vulnerable and recognized as a suffering frightened liar.

Since I then see that I do this to myself and it was very obvious that I did this, the entire "appeal" of playing the victim role withers away. There's no point to it when you can more accurately discern that it very much does hurt you. There are consequences. And so the challenge then is to no longer see yourself unfairly treated or as a victim of anyone or anything, recognizing that it's only when you do that you feel that way at all. And you no longer want to feel that way.

Fortunately since it's an inside job where you're the only one causing, and other people are never the cause of you AT ALL, it really boils down to your own willingness to admit to what you're doing to yourself and to want a better way. To prefer not suffering over suffering. To recognize that hurting hurts and attack attacks, rather than believing it does something else. Because in our confusion we don't even realize what the fuck we're doing to ourselves, and we end up killing ourselves in the name of self preservation.

True perception is accurate perception. It is recognition. It is awareness and discernment. It is the ability to SEE, clearly, what the truth of this situation is. What is really going on. Who is really causing and choosing. Where things really originate and what their effects actually are. It's the willingness and ability to not be blinded or confused by the ego temptation to think its one-sidedness can work. It's simply honesty and openness to the truth.

Who would hurt themselves unless they thought they weren't hurting themselves in doing so?

Who would hurt themelves once they recognized that they cannot be hurt unless they do so?

Who would hurt themselves if they recognized that even the slightest attempt to hurt others diminishes your own happiness?

Who would hurt themselves when joy and peace and love are the price?

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

"No-one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No-one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No-one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no-one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

""My Self is ruler of the universe." - It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."

At all times you perceive ONLY what you believe is true. This can be a trap when you're not ACTUALLY believing the Real Truth.

What it does, is it makes you think that you are seeing everything there is to see, when in fact you are only seeing a 'version' of reality that has your idea of truth/reality projected onto it.

So then you get stuck, because you think, well, today I feel afraid because the world is scary. Or, today I am happy and everyone seems happy too. Or, today I am terrorized and the world is full of terrorists, etc.

What I've noticed is, that the kind of world I see totally depends on what is going on inside of me. And I'll be convinced that I'm seeing OBJECTIVELY, as though I'm not having anything to do with why the world appears to me the way it does. And so then I don't see any way out of it - my only choice is to try to 'cope' with it.

So if you think of the world as being like a mirror, in which you see reflected your own mind's content, you'll be basically looking at yourself everywhere you go. And by yourself I mean, your belief in whatever you think is true. Because whatever is 'true' for you, you take that as your identity and as your reality, regardless of whether it is actually true.

So your perception of the world is usually SUBJECTIVE, and limited, BUT you do not realize that you are being subjective and limiting in the way you're looking at what's there. You don't realize you're filtering OUT stuff because of the way that your idea of truth filters IN stuff. You select some attitudes or beliefs as 'correct' and others as 'incorrect' and all of that incorrect stuff ends up outside of your awareness - you make it unconscious through rejection and denial.

For example, if I choose to be loving, it is extraordinary that, all of a sudden, it seems like there aren't any reasons to be afraid. People seem less threatening. Life seems more fun. But if I don't be loving, I feel more afraid, and more threatened, and it really seems like other people are the cause of the threat - like they 'really are' being threatening. But them seeming to be that way and me experiencing fear go hand in hand... they go together.

What you experience in your perception is ALWAYS matched up to/aligned with what kind of a world you will see. If you are in fear, you can ONLY see a fear-inducing world. If you are in love, you can ONLY see a love-inducing world. And so if the world seems to suck, it's because you believe that you suck. Or rather, you believe in some things which suck but you think they don't suck.

And that's part of the trap. You can get lost in your narrow filtered perception, thinking you're really seeing everything there is to see, and that you're seeing correctly and clearly, when in fact you are majorly distorting and blocking out many parts of 'what is out there', because you're blocking it in your mind. When there are no blocks, you'll see 'the forgiven world', because you will have forgiven yourself. But when you haven't forgiven yourself, you will see a condemned world, because you have condemned yourself.

You'll notice then that whatever experience you're having of the world 'out there', it seems to 'call for' or directly map to certain 'reactions' of a given amount of severity. And when the world 'out there' seems to be intense and serious, you seem compelled to also have an intense serious reaction, because you always connect what you perceive out there with what's going on inside of you.

If the world out there seems to 'make a move' and do something to 'make' situations worse, your ego self is pulled right along with the story and down into the story, where YOU become the mirror of what's happened. And you have a severe reaction. Whereas when YOU decide to make a move, realizing that you are NOT seeing everything there is to see, that you are only seeing the past, and that everything that's happening right now is because of PAST decisions and the future DOES NOT have to be the same, now you are starting to step outside of your own 'reality bubble'. You can deliberately choose to accept more love into yourself, within, and therefore REVEAL to yourself more love without - which, by the way, was always there, just hidden.

The way that the out-there maps to the in-here is what sets up the "hierarchy of illusions". ie, varying kinds of inner and outer statements of truth cause reactions of equivalent amounts. It's almost like in the law of physics where each action has an equal and opposite reaction. Each external-seeming event produces an equal response in the ego within - because secretly, that's where it CAME FROM.

So be careful not to get stuck in thinking that you are being objective. The only objectivity is PURE LOVE. If you are not in pure total love, you are filtering reality and have blocked yourself from being aware that LOVE IS PRESENT. You do not see God because you think he is not there, and you think this is an objective fact, but the only reason you don't see God is because you do not believe God is in your mind. Your mental blocks to love cause the world outside of you to seem like a blocked, insane place.

It is extremely easy to get stuck in this, for example if you are afraid, you will perceive that the whole world 'really is' a fearful place, and that fear is JUSTIFIED because of the kind of world you see. But you don't realize that the fearful world you see is fearful BECAUSE you are being afraid. It did not cause the fear, it is a PROJECTION of the fear. A mirror. A reflection. So while you're having your insane nightmare, and really believe that bad stuff is happening outside you, it's because bad stuff is happening inside you. They go together hand in hand.

So you have to be willing to make a kind of leap of faith. The leap of faith says, maybe there is a greater reality, a greater truth, outside of what I currently believe, outside of my self-imposed prison, and outside of the condition of the world as I currently see it. Maybe there is are hidden parts to what's out there, that I don't currently see, because I am blocking it. And maybe, maybe God is out there, and maybe God is love, and maybe I am just not seeing and experiencing God's presence because I'm blocking it. Maybe BEHIND and BEYOND my blocks, love is still there, with me.

This is what faith is about... hurdling over the obstacles to peace and trusting that God is still love and you are still love regardless of how your perception CURRENTLY looks. It isn't about staying IN your current subjective perception and believing that it is objective reality or that you have to stay there, because in order to BECOME aware of God's love you must actually GO past those blocks and OPEN UP to the awareness that God really is present. And for that, you have to remove those blocks and filters from your mind, otherwise you simply cannot see Him right in front of your face.

God is right with you right now, smiling and happy. If you're not experiencing that, you've got some healing to do. The forgiven world is right in front of your face right now, filled with love and light, and if you're not seeing that, you've got some forgiving to do. Ultimately, you are still with God right now and the separation hasn't happened, and if you're not seeing that, you've got some undoing to do.

Be willing to be mistaken about how the world looks to you. You're not seeing it clearly unless you're seeing love.

So ultimately, when you are afraid, or you're struggling with the world in the way that the world 'is' (seems to be). .pause a moment and ask yourself, is it possible I am not seeing all of reality? Is it possible that my justification for being afraid or upset is actually CAUSING myself to see the world incorrectly and PRODUCING the justification? What if ... what if I choose instead to be more loving or truthful or authentic, and maybe keep my mind open to the possibility that WHEN I CHOOSE LOVE, I WILL SEE LOVE.

And when you do choose love, that love in you will shine away all of the fear and all of the seeming 'reasons' to be afraid. And all problems will melt. And you'll have no way to justify the ego, because all of its justifications only seem true from WITHIN it. Once you step outside of your private reality bubble, the ego is gone and there is NO REASON to be afraid or upset, because all that's left is God's love. When there is only love, and that is true for you, there is no reason to be afraid. Literally. There only seems to be reasons to be afraid when you are afraid. If you CHOOSE not to be afraid and to be love instead, all of the 'reasons' for fear will completely disappear from your awareness. They were just illusions.

So it takes a willingness to go beyond yourself, beyond your blocks and self-made limits, and to realize YOU ARE NOT STUCK because you have a CHOICE and if you exercise that choice and stop believing your own HALLUCINATIONS, and your own filtered version of reality, and realize that all your reactions TO it are PART OF you MAKING IT seem to be the way it is, you can make a LEAP into a more truthful, loving experience, in which you are absolutely safe because there is only love there.

There is no fear or danger or death in reality. There is no cause for alarm. There is only safety and love and peace. How else can God be constantly at peace if there were ever reasons to threaten that? God is the peace that God experiences. Herein lies the peace of God.

There are really only two modes of functioning of which you are capable. It really does boil down to a simple "this or that" decision. Either you are in love, or you are in fear. Love has only one nature, but fear masquerades as an untold number of illusions. All of them are fearful and they represent egotism. But they are all essentially a withdrawal away from love.

To love is an outward expression. It is extension. Love shines and radiates out of you towards others. This love seeks to uplift, empower, heal, nurture, strengthen, join, share, communicate, connect, give, supply, support, make whole. Love is always given/extended through you from God and goes out to your brothers and to the world. It is an outward transfer which entails you loving and joining with everything.

Love, and all expressions of love, are miraculous and healing. Love is powerful, it is happy and joyful, and it is peaceful. It is meaningful. Love is sanity. Love heals and resurrects. And love can reverse all forms of suffering. Love shines like a bright light, and as you give it, you receive it because it is shared and for all. As you give it, you shine, and in this shining you illuminate both yourself and others, and in this light you can see, and what you look upon is illuminated with love and is lovable.

The opposite of this is fear. Fear is separation, contraction, withdrawal, and inward focus. Fear is selfish, victimizing and victimized. In fear you feel afraid, angry, upset, hurt, weakened, sick, tired, stressed and damaged. In fear you pull way from others and the world, you hate and attack, you feel imposed upon and controlled, and eventually die. Fear is an attempt not to extend love, not to give life, and to be alone. In fear you will feel alone, cut off, isolated, imprisoned.

In fear you will feel like you've been taken hostage, all the happenings around you will seem like they are against you with no escape, all problems will seem insurmountable and unfair and cruel, and you will feel like you're in a dark pit of hellish despair that you can't get out of. It's as if you've been taken hostage by a tyrannical ruler who has imprisoned you and kept you in a dark hole in the ground. And everywhere you turn there will be enemies and haters and attackers and prison guards.

What it boils down to is a very, very simple difference between the two approaches to life. Each approach entails a different kind of seeing. Fear places you in false perception, where the whole world seems like a prison. Love places you in true perception, where the whole world is harmless and forgiven.

Love entails giving in order to receive. As you give love, as you shine your light, as you extend, you yourself are uplifted. "Miracles benefit both the giver and the receiver." Even if you start out in fear and lack, efforting to love more will empower you and lift you out of darkness. To love is to fulfill your natural function. You are supposed to shine. You are supposed to radiate. You are supposed to give and extend and reach out to join with others in love. AS you do this you automatically are protected and saved and it raises you up into the light where you are happy and at peace.

When you don't do this, you must recoil and withdraw into fear. You will step back and not give. And it will now seem that the world has taken from you. A gap will form in between you and others. You will develop enemies and opponents. You will hate some of them and hate yourself for hating them. You will become weak, afraid, lost, alone, and suffer in the dark. You will feel isolated and sick and like no-one is on your side. The world will loom heavily over you as if it has power to make your life hell. And all the while you will be trying to get, to take, to have, to own, to possess, to be special, and you will feel selfish. And everything offered by love will be missing.

It really is as simple as if you have only one choice. Either you give love or you lose love. It's like there's an emotional beacon in you, in your heart, where either your heart is giving outwardly and energy and light are flowing out of you in support of others, or your heart is cold and empty and you are withdrawing and escaping as an enemy of the world. Either your energies express and extend outward, or you hold yourself back. Either you feel loving and warm and bright, or you feel hateful and cold and dark.

You get to make this simple choice at all times. You can switch on love at any time. You can feel it in your heart. Even in the midst of any other illusion of suffering. And yet the ego is expert at making it seem like there is no way out of suffering and love will not help. Can it be as simple as that your heart is not switched on? Of all the many seeming problems, stresses, upsets, emotions, can it be that simply loving more will cure it?

The ego would say no, it will tell you that each of these problems is unique and needs a separate solution. And what it thinks it needs it tries to get. And yet getting it does not make you happy. Underneath all the complicated forms in which fear arises, and all the ways you can feel unloved, there IS in fact only simple solution to all of them. Simply love more. It lifts you out of all upset feelings, it brightens you, makes you feel happier, stronger, more confident. It dispels fear and erases upsets. It heals you.

Being 'human' can seem so complicated but actually what's happening in your mind is incredibly simple. You are like a piece of machinery whose function is to extend the love of God to others. That is all. "The only function of spirit is to extend God's being." You are host to God and extend God. That is all. Your only choice is to continue extending God at all times, or separate yourself off into isolation and fear, in which you will experience all forms of suffering. And at any time you can switch back into fulfilling your function as the light of the world.

The only way to be happy is to fulfill your function. To love. To express love. It's completely natural and produces miracles. It is holy relationship. It is God's will. It is God's will that you love and be happy and healthy. Love makes this possible and guarantees your health and perfection. Either you extend God's love, or you will attack yourself and make yourself sick.

This is why Jesus says "teach only love for that is what you are." It's an extremely simple choice, between love or suffering. To love is to heal and to be happy. To love your brother is to uplift and resurrect him along with you. Your focus should not be on yourself and your needs, or your body. These vanish when you love your brother. Focusing on your body makes it sick because mind is supposed to extend PAST it to others. The light has to shine, to produce health. The light shines PAST sickness and bodies, because it is forgiving.

To love or not to love, that is the question. And only love can make you happy.

"Learning must lead beyond the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished only if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension. The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of ***all illness*** because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND'S FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND'S JOY. "

"Salvation is a lesson in giving, as the Holy Spirit interprets it. It is the re-awakening of the laws of God in minds that have established other laws, and given them power to enforce what God created not."

"We have said that you have but two emotions, love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered BY the eternal TO the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it INCREASES as it is given. The other has many forms, for the content of INDIVIDUAL delusions differs greatly. But they have one thing in common; they are all insane. They are made of sights which are NOT seen, and sounds which are NOT heard. They make up a PRIVATE world, which CANNOT be shared. For they are meaningful ONLY to their maker, and so they have no meaning at all. In this world their maker moves alone, for only HE perceives them. "

"You have but two emotions, yet in your private world you react to each of them AS THOUGH IT WERE THE OTHER. For love cannot abide in a world apart, where, when it comes, it is not recognized. If you see your own hatred AS your brother, you are not seeing HIM. Everyone draws nigh unto what he loves, and recoils from what he fears. And you react with fear to love, and draw AWAY from it. But fear ATTRACTS you, and believing it is love, you call it to yourself. Your private world is filled with the figures of fear you have invited into it. And all the love your brothers offer you, YOU DO NOT SEE. "

"You have but two emotions, and one you made and one was GIVEN you. Each is a WAY OF SEEING, and different worlds arise from their different visions. See through the vision that is GIVEN you, for through Christ's vision, He beholds Himself. And seeing what HE is, He knows His Father. Beyond your darkest dreams, He sees God's guiltless Son within you, shining in perfect radiance, which is undimmed by your dreams. And this YOU will see as you look with Him, for His vision is His gift of love to you, given Him of the Father FOR you."

Some people don't believe in miracles. Some don't think A Course in Miracles is about the kind of miracles Jesus was known for, and some are quite convinced they have nothing to do with healing the body or being able to cure all forms of suffering.

Mainly this is because of sin. "The world of bodies is the world of sin", which the body's eyes were made to believe is permanent reality, and this sin is a sense of "irreversibilitly". It's the apparent nature of this world that all roads lead to death, all things seem to degrade and get worse, there is entropy and it all seems to be built into the laws of physics, as if there is no escape.

The whole world in its conditions and maladies seems to attest that all these things cannot be undone, cannot be changed or healed or reversed. That sin is real and permanent and there is nothing you can do to stop it's march toward death. The seeming inevitability of death is founded as the logical outcome of the belief in sin, and all the universe seems to testify that sin is real and its effects are permanent.

But in the Course we are actually being taught to believe that this is completely untrue, that sin is NOT irreversible, and that in fact all the laws of this world can be completely broken by miracles. That things are POSSIBLE that this world would suggest simply cannot happen or is highly unlikely. That in fact, miracles are completely capable of reversing, undoing and healing every single thing you can find in this world that seems to be permanent or "too difficult" to heal.

For example, even the things that medical science has no ability to cure, such as deadly cancers, heart attacks, stroke and brain damage, alzheimers and parkinsons, paralysis, kidney failure, aging, death - all these really serious seeming problems that seem to just get worse. The world in its expression suggests this is simply all too difficult, all too permanent, you just have to live with it and die. That all these things lead eventually to total destruction and that this is "natural". Yet it could not be more unnatural or unalike the nature of the Kingdom. The course says:

"Thus does the miracle undo **all things** the world attests **can never BE undone**. And hopelessness and ****death MUST disappear*** before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt."

So what is this saying? It's literally saying that when you are operating from the laws of God, which are not of this world, there is nothing you cannot do, and as a miracle worker you should not believe in orders of difficulty. You should not "buy" the appearance of permanence in this world, or the suggestion of something being so far gone there is no hope of reversal. You should not have to tolerate or live with any kind of sickness or death, and there is literally no law of this universe that cannot be broken by miracles.

"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."

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

"Miracles do not obey the laws of this world."

So on the one hand we have this world of death in which the entire system is set up to testify that sin is real and cannot be undone, glaring us in the face, with our own body sensing it and making it seem real and full of difficulty. And then on the other hand we have this light, this power, the Holy Spirit in our mind, which believes the TOTAL OPPOSITE, completely denies that anything of this world is permanent or real, CAN REVERSE AND UNDO anything the world says cannot be undone, and can even reverse death itself.

This is what miracles are about and this is what miracles are capable of. They are not just merely little changes in how you see things that influence how the world looks to you. They are a power, from an entirely different level of reality, a spark of life from God, which fall like drops of healing rain from heaven, which are capable of resurrecting that which seems to be death and reversing ALL the effects of sin. There is literally not even ONE single thing in all this universe which has a power STRONGER than OR equal to the Power of God, which demonstrates that ANYTHING can be changed, BECAUSE it is an illusory world.

So we're not just talking here about having a different view of this world. We're talking about adopting a TOTALLY OPPOSITE viewpoint, which completely disregards everything the world seems to suggest is true, real, permanent, or a given. And that includes the overthrowing and cancellation and reversal of death in all its forms. Every form of sickness, every "extremely serious disease", every damage, every effect of war, all conflict, all hurt, all seeming effects of sin and attack, even to overcome gravity and walk on water, not one thing is beyond being shown to be reversible, healable or changeable to a miracle.

"The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health; his perfect freedom from all forms of lack; and safety from disaster of all kinds. The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form, because it can so easily be CHANGED. This demonstrates that it was never real, and could not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change."

And it would indeed BE miraculous to witness such a thing, because it literally would break and defy all the laws of space and time. It would show you that what you thought could never be possible, is possible. What you thought could never be healed or undone CAN be. The bodily conditions that seemed so hopeless you had resigned yourself to accept inevitable death, is NOT the only way. And in fact it is ridiculous to think that death IS the only way.

And so now you will find that you are torn between what this world seems to demonstrate as "natural and likely", versus what the Word of God is expressing as a supernatural miraculous nature completely in defiance of every law of space time, which breaks every seeming limitation, and completely ignores any "claim" the world makes about what is impossible. "It is the world you see that is impossible". And possibility is of God. When you are under no laws BUT God's, you are NOT under the laws of the ego. And then anything is possible for you as a miracle worker.

So you'll find this tug of war going on between, do I believe what the world and body are suggesting can never be solved, do I believe these inescapable problems, do I buy into this hierarchy of difficulty, do I just accept that there is no hope for a cure, OR .... do I put my faith in this quirky book which is telling me that through the Power of Love, through miracle impulses, and through the Holy Spirit, even LITERAL mountains can be moved? That the dead can be raised, and every sign or symptom or effect of damage or attack in any form can be completely obliterated and disappeared? Who do you trust? The world the ego made, or the Power and Word of God?

This is why we have to hang onto the hope of healing, recovery, miracles and possibilities, which regardless of a lack of faith, remain always accessible. This is why we have to HAVE faith and trust and develop our relationship with the very power God gave TO enable such miraculous demonstrations. We're asked to really dig deep and go beyond the world's dirge of death and put our faith in possibilities not of this world. Potentials and capabilities that defy and go against everything even your own senses suggest can be possible.

If you are willing, and if you will receive healing, you too can perform the miracles that Jesus demonstrated are possible through the Power of God in this world. This is what A Course in Miracles is about. It's about learning to be a miracle worker, to never believe orders of difficulty, to overcome the laws of space time, and to become a master over this world.

"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."

"My Self is ruler of the universe. It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."

"Unless the healer heals HIMSELF, he does NOT believe that there is no order in miracles. "

"I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God Created. Why do you believe that it is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in miracles: YOU do. I have called and you will answer. I KNOW that miracles are natural, because they are expressions of love. My calling you is as natural as your answer and as inevitable."

It's a matter of responsibility. Is death of the body caused solely by your mind and is your mind solely responsible for whether or not it happens? Do you actually have the freedom NOT TO DIE if you so choose? Can you prevent death, and cause the body not to die? Can you reverse death and restore life?

Or, does death only happen through external causes, things outside of you, the environment or other people, weapons and wars, poisoned food and toxic water? Are we at the effect of an alien will and alien power not our own, such that we do not ask for death and do not cause it to happen, seeing it as happening solely against our will?

And if death does seem to happen through causes NOT in our own mind or power or choice, will we simply "write it off" by relegating it to an illusion, describing it as unreal, dismissing it as meaningless and not important, as a way to continue the belief that death - if it happens at all, even in a dream - happens BECAUSE OF the dream happening to us?

Are there actually accidents? Do people fall off cliffs through a mis-step? Do planes crash through some mistaken fault that seems random? Do planets collide just through sheer force of the laws of physics? Are we all fated to be swallowed up in a supernova someday when the sun explodes, with no choice or power to prevent it? Are we powerless beings?

Some people like to relegate all things of this world to a bucket of illusions, slap a label of unreality on it, and toss it under the rug. But we can't be dismissing this and writing it off. Yes only the soul/spirit is real and has eternal life and nothing real can be threatened. Yes bodies are illusions and don't even really exist.

But let's look at it another way, right now you have a body, and it has an illusion of existence. There are billions of them. People's minds inhabit them and walk around in them. And for the most part, most of these bodies are sick and have issues. Some much worse than others. And all of these issues are forms of death - as the course says, sickness is but a little death. So most people have a little death going on, "a form of vengeance not yet total", which later becomes total.

If the body seems to "become sick", is that because something happened OTHER THAN your mind and its power? Because if that is the case, then death does in fact have power over the mind. If mind cannot choose away from it, cannot undo it, and did not cause it to begin with, then mind has NO WAY that it can see itself as not at the effect of the dream.

If death just "happens to you", you are a victim. If there can be causes which are beyond the mind, beyond your power, beyond your control, you are a victim. It doesn't matter that the world is just a dream and real things can't be threatened. At the body level, mind is supposed to have power over everything. Might I remind you that your self is ruler of the universe, and nothing is supposed to happen other than what you decide.

There is NO POWER in the view that we do not have power over death. There is NO POWER in the view that death doesn't matter because bodies aren't real. There is NO POWER in the view that we can have bodies becoming sick "on their own" or staying sick "on their own" WITHOUT our consent. There is NO POWER in having bodies die "against our will". And there is NO POWER in pretending that this is all okay to happen "because it's an illusion."

The only place where there is any power, is where your mind has power OVER these things, is RESPONSIBLE FOR these things, CAUSES these things, and therefore HAS THE POWER to choose otherwise. A Course in Miracles is a course in cause and not effect, it is a course is reclaiming your POWER. And might I remind you that Jesus says that our minds are extremely powerful, capable of creating worlds, of moving mountains, and that we are supposed to reach a state of resurrection which means "the surmounting of death."

There is no surmounting of death by just writing it off as an illusion. If your mind does not have the POWER to prevent it from occurring, and does not have the power to raise the dead as Jesus did, then the mind has not reached a state of resurrection. A Course in Miracles' curriculum ends in the resurrection, in which death is OVERCOME FOREVER. Which means, no more sickness, no more death, and no more reincarnation.

It is NOT ENOUGH to accuse the world of causing sickness and death to happen. It is NOT ENOUGH to shift responsibility for the body's condition onto a dream. It is NOT ENOUGH to claim that someone else caused your body to be sick. It is NOT ENOUGH to suggest that death can continue to happen to the body against your will. It is NOT ENOUGH to take a position of continued POWERLESSNESS over death, in which death remains victor at the end of the day, as it proves again and again that a separate alien will is stronger than your own power of decision.

I will remind you that A Course in Miracles makes this unequivocal statement:

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

DO you see where it says that no-one dies without his own consent? That means that if you DO NOT give consent, through your mind's power and responsibility, death WILL NOT happen. That means having power OVER death, not merely sidestepping it or jumping onto a theological high-horse trying to be holier than thou. This is real responsibility. It is BECAUSE nothing happens without your consent that you HAVE the possibility of salvation.

If sickness or death can ever happen or be maintained or continue in a any way, through any cause or responsibility OTHER THAN your mind and its power and choice, YOU DO NOT have any hope whatsoever of salvation. It means there is a power that has power over you which can keep you in hell and suffering for as long as it wants. It means you cannot return to heaven and can be locked into a hellish experience forever. It means endless reincarnation and never waking up. It means death has power over God.

Jesus is teaching us to be powerful responsible creative beings. To reclaim the power of God, which is not only unlimited, there is nothing it cannot do. It can have power over all forms of sickness be they mental or physical. It can have power over all matter and energy and every force in spacetime. ONLY IF we have consented to and thus chose AND CAUSED sickness and death to occur, are we ever in a position to CHOOSE AGAIN, and choose otherwise, choosing NOT to die.

"Swear not to die, thou holy Son of God! You make a bargain that you cannot keep. The Son of Life cannot BE killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in all the universe that MUST be One."

You are responsible for whether or not sickness happens. You are responsible for whether or not death happens. You are ruler of the universe. Nothing happens against your will.

"My Self is ruler of the universe. It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."

EVEN IN THIS WORLD ..... even in the illusion/dream of Earth, you RULE your destiny. You have power to choose what happens, and what does not happen. If sickness happens, YOU CHOSE IT. If death happens, YOU CHOSE IT. YOU MUST CHOOSE NOT TO CAUSE SICKNESS AND DEATH, and it is within your power to do so, because you are 100% responsible for everything that happens.

If you in any way assign responsibility for death to ANYTHING anywhere other than your own mind, you have a victim consciousness and cannot be healed. A mind that believes in BEING AT THE EFFECT OF THE WORLD, is not an awakened mind.