This goes way beyond "just healing yourself."

"To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother AND yourself by sharing the Holy Spirit with him. This places you both WITHIN the Kingdom and restores ITS wholeness in your minds."

Note that such healing REQUIRES that you ***SHARE THE HOLY SPIRIT*** with others. He cannot be left out of the equation.

"***Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself.*** YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt? Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the proof that they were merely errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, ***offering salvation to your brother AND yourself***. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect. "

Note that "the world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible" and that the physical world is "the granite block of sin", tells us that when sins are forgiven, BODY-LEVEL healing should occur to undo the presence of "physical" sin.

It's saying that unless your mind AND BODY are healed, and unless your brother's mind AND BODY are healed, forgiveness is not real or complete. Essentially, all trace of occurances, sins, events, attacks, must be ERASED from showing up anywhere at all, in yourself AND in your brother. And it must leave no trace behind.

"Idols MUST disappear, and leave no trace behind their going."

It also suggests that as you forgive, it SHOULD also induce healing in OTHERS simultaneous to your own.

This is very different to the idea that you just "do forgivenesses" for yourself in isolation, or with no effect on others. Jesus is saying that your joined minds should produce healing effects in BOTH of you.

"I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts." tells you something very similar.

"My forgiveness is the means by which the world is healed, together with myself. Let me, then, forgive the world, that it may be healed along with me."

"How just are miracles! For they bestow an equal gift of full deliverance from guilt upon your brother AND yourself. YOUR healing saves HIM pain, as well as you. And YOU are healed BECAUSE you wished him well. This is the law the miracle obeys: That healing sees no specialness at all."

"So does your healing (physically) 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.***"

"It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive."

"And thus is healing given BOTH of you."

"Show THIS (healed body) unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And ***he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes*** will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. ***YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health***. BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true."

"When I am healed I am not healed alone.

Today's idea remains the central thought on which salvation rests. For healing is the opposite of all the world's ideas which dwell on sickness and on separate states."

"It is impossible that anyone be healed alone. In sickness must he be apart and separate. But healing is his own decision to be one again, and to accept his Self with all Its parts intact and unassailed."

"Healing might thus be called a counter-dream, ***which cancels out the dream of sickness*** in the name of truth, but not in truth itself. Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins that never were accomplished, healing but removes illusions that have not occurred."

"Healing is shared."

"And as you let yourself be healed, you see all those around you, or who cross your mind, or whom you touch or those who seem to have no contact with you, healed along with you."

"But you are never healed alone. And legions upon legions will receive the gift that you receive when you are healed."

"Those who are healed become the instruments of healing."

"When I am healed I am not healed alone. And I would share my healing with the world, that sickness may be banished from the mind of God's one Son, Who is my only Self."

"When I am healed I am not healed alone. And I would bless my brothers, for I would be healed with them, as they are healed with me."

"I will heal as I let him teach me to heal."

"denial DEPENDS on the real belief in what is denied for its OWN existence."

To deny something, implies that you actually believe it EXISTS, but that you do not WANT to acknowledge its existence. This isn't the same as the thing not being there at all. It doesn't take any denial to establish that something is really NOT there. Denial REQUIRES the belief that it IS THERE, and is unwanted.

Therefore, when you are in denial, you actually are AFFIRMING that the thing you are denying, is true. You are saying, I believe that it does exist, but I don't want to openly admit it. This means that denial in fact DEPENDS ON the very thing it is denying. And you cannot be in denial of something that doesn't actually exist.

Fear, ego, death, illusions, it's all the same thing as denial of reality. When you are in fear, it seems like you're saying you are afraid of reality or truth. But, in order to make this claim, you have to be asserting that reality IS real and true, and true reality cannot be feared. Reality is loving and kind. The fear of love and kindness ACKNOWLEDGES its presence, just as denial acknowledges what it hides from.

So when you are afraid, a part of you CANNOT BE afraid. Part of you HAS to believe in love, in order to fear it. Part of you HAS to believe in safety, in order to suggest that your safety is BEING DENIED to you. It's not that safety is GONE, only that you are rejecting it's presence. You could not possibly be afraid of something that actually does not exist at all. You can only be afraid of something you believe IS THERE. And so the "fear of love" is in fact an AFFIRMATION that love exists, which in turn undermines the fear. This is because fear and denial are self-contradictory states.

Jesus says that if you can look at fear/denial and recognize that the fear actually AFFIRMS its own absence, when this is recognized it actually undermines the belief in the fear. The fear is not regarded as "only fear", but is now recognized as fear + a belief in its opposite. Within the fear there is love mixed in. And therefore the truth that it HIDES is acknowledged as STILL PRESENT. If you can focus on this and realize that fear PROVES love's presence, and can hone in on that fact, then you have to realize that it is IMPOSSIBLE to be purely afraid, or to obliterate the very love that you are afraid of. And all fear is the fear of love, being love's supposed absence.

To acknowledge that fear implies love's existence, means you cannot fully believe in the fear, and so the fear cannot be wholly true. EVEN the fear tells you that love is real. EVEN denial tells you that what you are denying exists. And so it not possible EVEN in fear to truly obliterate love from your mind. You can mix in some fear with the love but you cannot replace the love."The ego sees SOME good, but never ONLY good. That is WHY its perceptions are so variable."

This also means the ego does not ever see ONLY BAD. There is no such thing as ABSOLUTE evil. There is only relative evil/ego. And all forms of ego are LIMITED in their egotism. You can't be fully egoic, because egotism is the idea of not-wholeness. By recognizing that even the egos lies imply the truth is still true, you have a way out. You can use this to realize that the fear cannot be wholly true, and therefore must be false, because even fear tells you that God is real. To fear God is to affirm his existence. So even in fear you are to some degree expressing your love for God.

By recognizing that fear/denial isn't ACTUALLY able to remove or hide or completely eradicate what you are in fear/denial OF, you can see that it DOES NOT WORK. And it therefore is useless. Denial affirms the very reality is tries to block. Fear affirms the very love it asserts against. If fear CANNOT seem to exist WITHOUT affirming the very thing you're supposed to be afraid of, then fear cannot accomplish what you set out for it to do. And so you might as well discard it and embrace the love instead.

This constant affirmation of God even in states of denial, is the inherent and un-removable attraction to God. The attraction to God is present at ALL levels and orders of reality, even in dreaming, to at least some degree. Even the ego-believing part of mind is dependent upon God and drawn to him.

"By interpreting fear correctly, as a POSITIVE AFFIRMATION OF THE UNDERLYING BELIEF IT MASKS, you are undermining its perceived usefulness by rendering it useless. Defenses which do not work AT ALL are AUTOMATICALLY discarded. If you raise what fear conceals to CLEAR-CUT, UNEQUIVOCAL PRE-DOMINANCE, fear becomes meaningless. You have denied its power to conceal love, which was its only purpose. The mask which YOU have drawn across the face of Love has disappeared."

"The truth is still that the attraction of God is irresistible at ALL levels, and the acceptance of this totally unavoidable truth is only a matter of time."

"If you would look upon Love, which IS the world's reality, how could you do better than to recognize, in every defense AGAINST it, the underlying appeal FOR it?"

I had an 'aha' moment today about being a teacher, i.e. being helpful in this world, which probably applies to everyone.

ACIM says that "those who temporarily have more" give to "those who temporarily have less". This is the relationship of teachers to students.

But let's look at what this means.

The teacher has to be someone who temporarily appears to be more aware of truth than the student. And that means if the student can learn anything from them, the student has to be temporarily less aware.

Being temporarily less aware means you must be more insane, and you must believe in less truth, and you must therefore see truth as the enemy.

So this means that, potentially, the student will reject the teacher, i.e. the teachING, at least at first, because there is a clash of belief systems. The student comes to the teacher IN ERROR, seeking CORRECTION.

What this means for the teacher, is that the teacher will very likely experience REJECTION, conflict, attack, misunderstanding, etc. i.e. a lot of confusion and interference, at the beginning, moreso than potentially at the end AFTER teaching has been accomplished.

So here's the problem for the teacher or anyone who wants to be a teacher. And this also applies to anyone who wants to express themselves more fully, anyone who wants to express something that other people may not be able to accept, anyone doing art or creative pursuits, and anyone trying to say anything that might actually HELP or contribute to the awakening of humanity.

The problem is, that there will be a fear of rejection, a fear of judgement, a fear of abandonment, BY the student, i.e. by the audience. And you hear this a lot like people who are artists being afraid of the 'pressure' to have their art be liked, or a writer who gets a block because they are too worried about the audience's reaction. Or a teacher who wants to share and uplift others but is afraid that the teaching will be ridiculed.

The insight I had, about this, which is very freeing, is this. IF you want to in any way help, uplift, inspire, teach, awaken, guide, educate, or cause people to experience something or enjoy something that you created, there absolutely WILL be rejection. At least at first. There HAS to be rejection by the student otherwise the student wouldn't NEED the teaching. The art critic MUST 'not get' the art, at least at first, otherwise the art really has no transformative

power.

In other words, if you as a teacher/artist/creative etc can ACCEPT, that there is rejection built in whenever you step outside the box or attempt to open people's minds, that THEY will not understand because they CANNOT understand, at first, you can perhaps see that it is not PERSONAL. It is not that they are personally attacking you, it's that their .. 'ignorance'... is resisting exposure to what you are offering. And that only means, that they are not as aware, and they have come to you BECAUSE they are ripe for increasing their awareness. "Those who are to meet will meet" - ACIM .... When the student is ready, the teacher will appear (I forget if that's ACIM or not).

So those who have a potential to learn, at least will find the teachers, or the artists, or whoever is offering the expanded mind. The teacher/artist/expresser should EXPECT that there HAS to be rejection, because the student's mind has not yet opened up to the teaching/offering. And so it's not that the teaching is crap, or the art is crap, or the creation is crap... it's that the viewer hasn't yet opened up to it - and that's because of THEIR mind and THEIR unconsciousness and THEIR resistance. It's nothing to do with what you're offering. And really it should be the PURPOSE of the art or teaching, to help that student transform and awaken out of their resistance/rejection, into acceptance and understanding.

So I guess my insight is, which helps me immensely, is.... that instead of being afraid of rejection, and thus hiding from 'coming out' as 'a teacher', I need to recognize that there will be rejection and why, and realize that it will not actually have anything to do with me. Those who are ready and willing to open up will do so, and those who are not will not do so. I need to DETACH from the ego effort to 'force' or 'coerce' others into accepting what I say, therefore indirectly accepting ME. I need to take the ME out of it. Just put it out there for "those who have ears to listen", and just accept that everyone else will fall into the 'rejection' camp. And this is normal. And it's not personal. And it's nothing to do with me.

Expecting that rejection and welcoming it and knowing that it is because of a person's un-readiness or inappropriateness to be a student, takes the burden off the 'false' expectation that *EVERYONE* MUST ACCEPT YOU. You don't need *everyone's* acceptance. Not everyone is ready. Not everyone is meant to meet you. That's not how the plan works. We each have an appointed function. Talents. Gifts. etc. Or as some people say, "just do you".

I guess in a way this means being unconditional in how you express yourself. Being true to yourself and expressing who you are and what YOUR message is, in the knowing that SOMEONE is meant to receive it, and that everyone else is irrelevant. Which means there is absolutely no reason NOT to express yourself exactly how you want to. With freedom. And not with dependency. So what is 90% of people hate your stuff. Let them. Help the rest.

MY SICKNESS IS MY RESPONSIBILITY

OTHER PEOPLE'S SICKNESS IS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY

YOU CAN’T WAKE PEOPLE UP FOR THEM

Jesus has the power to undo all sickness in a brother right now, BUT WILL NOT if they do not want it. Love cannot enter where it is not welcome!

I am responsible for everything I experience. Other people are responsible for everything they experience. This is directly supportive of the secret to salvation, that "we are doing this to ourselves".

All sickness we are experiencing is something we are doing TO OURSELF.

Right now, God is 100% awake, and because of this, it IS IMPOSSIBLE that there be sickness in any mind anywhere. In reality anyway. However, Sons of God have the illusory "ability" to DENY GOD. When they do so, they put denial in place, which is a block to life, which implements sickness. This is a FREE WILL CHOICE.

Love does not force anyone to be healed of this against their will. Jesus will simply WAIT for us until we are ready to accept the truth.

This is also why we must have A LITTLE WILLINGNESS, because only when we are WILLING to receive the truth, can the Holy Spirit take the opportunity to heal us. And he WILL take any opportunity we give him, no matter how small. But if we do not give that willingness, we will stay in our illusions of sickness for as long as we choose to against His will.

If we are not willing with God, doing God's will, we are willing against God. That's the entire point of the separation, the idea of sin being that we willed against God (yes, its fiction). If we BELIEVE it, individually, we will enter into a dream of suffering and death. And sickness will feature heavily in that dream because it is what we choose. It won't be real sickness at all, but we'll believe it is, using it as a device for keeping God's love at bay. Sickness is a DEFENSE against the truth. A block to awareness.

To understand this correctly REQUIRES that you believe that there are multiple sons of God, each with their own individual free will. Because if you don't, it will not make sense. To be able to have "your own choice" as to whether you are WILLING to receive healing, your own choice as to whether to ALLOW LOVE IN, is necessary in order to have a "separate will" which acts against God's will. There are many separate wills.

This is also required in order to understand how Jesus could wake up completely and yet that the rest of us are dragging our feet in snoozeville. We do not have the free will to set the curriculum ("learning to love"), but we DO have the free will to DELAY it or to choose WHEN to take it. That means we can choose NOT to accept God's will or God's healing. We can deliberately KEEP sickness if we want to, against God's will, and against Jesus's will. And it is true that there is NOTHING they will or can do about this, except gently lead us to see the error of our ways over time.

Jesus tells us that our will is AS POWERFUL as His, and that this is why he cannot forcibly take away our fears or sicknesses against our will. If we want them or hold onto them, he cannot take them. We have to be WILLING TO LET GO. Just because we are using our powerful will to make an illusion of being weak and little and powerless, doesn't mean our will is diminished at all. Mind retains its creative power at all times. Jesus CANNOT and WILL NOT go against this.

This means that even though AWARENESS OF LOVE can be complete in one brother (e.g. Jesus), it can be highly absent in another, at the same time. "Miracles are gifts given by those who temporarily have more, to those who temporarily have less." This is because IT IS POSSIBLE in illusions for some individuals to be MORE AWAKE THAN OTHERS. That means, it is NOT TRUE, that one person's healed perception automatically heals everyone. It does not. It OFFERS healing to everyone, but other people CAN REFUSE IT. And they CAN retain forms of sickness as long as they want "against your will."

Awakening to the awareness of love's presence cannot extend to the entire sonship UNTIL the sonship is FREELY WILLING to receive it, every single "individual son" has to choose it and be willing to accept it. IF they do not, the sonship remains incomplete, and there's nothing it can do about it other than to keep OFFERING love and waiting patiently for the rest of the sonship to wake up. Love is not forceful. It has INFINITE PATIENCE, which would not be NEEDED unless people weren’t so resistant.

It is true AT SOME LEVEL that your mind is ONE with the mind of others. That you share a mind. You share a mind with Jesus. However, awareness of that sharing can only be fully experienced when both of you are completely purified and healed. And then you will SHARE that state of love.

But until then, it is perfectly possible within illusions for you to REJECT that union, to deny reality, and to choose against God's will. Thus you will retain your own freely chosen sickness and problems, regardless of whether you are surrounded by infinite love and healing or not. God surrounds us RIGHT NOW with unlimited healing, and yet we STILL keep projecting images of sickness in order to REFUSE IT.

This is also why it was possible for Jesus to go around giving a GIFT OF HEALING to those who were suffering, sick, missing limbs, blind, even dead, unable to help themselves due to their own unawareness that they were doing this to themselves, and yet who had enough FAITH in HIS ability, enough trust, enough willingness, to ALLOW Him to heal them for them. You do NOT need to be fully awake in order to receive a miracle! And you CAN only receive it if you TRULY WANT IT.

"The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it.."

Having enough FAITH i.e. trust and WILLINGNESS to receive HELP, from outside of yourself, from a brother who has more love than you do right now, who is more ABLE to help right now, is enough to RECEIVE help from beyond your own current abilities. All you need is ENOUGH trust to allow the Holy Spirit HIMSELF to perform the miracle FOR YOU, from beyond your awareness, showing up as demonstrations of TANGIBLE CHANGES (witnesses), which helps you to learn that HE REALLY IS THERE, and HE REALLY CAN HEAL. This develops trust.

Jesus went around performing miracles for those who temporarily had less, who temporarily were blind, who temporarily were sinful, who temporarily were UNAWARE of the whole truth. He did NOT do this by having a mind which was "pure yet contained sick people". His mind could NOT have been WHOLE, if it was "one with sick people", or had "sick parts" in it. The presence of sick parts in his mind would've rendered him UNCONSCIOUS, just as the presence of ego persona/shadow in our own mind right now renders us UNABLE to be aware of the WHOLE of our identity. Mis-identifying with ego BLINDS YOU. Jesus was WHOLE MINDED, and yet could still perceive the "unwholeness" others were experiencing, without their unwholeness affecting HIS.

Jesus had true perception. Jesus could SEE. He was aware of the truth. He was able to RECOGNIZE that sickness is a complete illusion, not real, and posing no problem whatsoever. This gave HIM this ability to extend the HOLY SPIRIT who is the mechanism of miracles, to perform a healing WHERE it was welcome. And where it was not welcome, HE COULD NOT PERFORM ANY MIRACLES. He had to leave entire villages in suffering because their minds were too resistant to receive healing. His state of awakening did not FORCE anyone else to wake up!

Even if He saw those other people as one with Him, even if He knew them to be "himself" or "ourself", even if He was connected to the entire Power of God, there was NOTHING he could do to help those, at that time, who DID NOT WANT IT. This is because, YOU are responsible for YOUR sickness, and for your willingness. If you are unwilling, healing will not "happen to you". Sick people, with broken limbs and defective organs, will not be healed by your true perception, UNLESS they want it. And thinking that you are "healing yourself" by healing what is showing up "as their sickness" is NOT going to work if they do not want it, because IT IS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY. THEY MADE IT, NOT YOU.

You are responsible for choosing the atonement for yourself. You are responsible for being WILLING to REJOIN the sonship's oneness for yourself. You are responsible for every sickness you experience within yourself, NOT outside of you in others. You are responsible for your own belief in sin. You never attack anyone else, you never affect anyone else, you never do anything to anyone else. And the reverse is true. No-one ever affects you, no-one ever does anything against your will. You are not at the effect of the world. And no-one is at the effect of you. Your attack does not affect others whatsoever, and nor does your love, unless THEY CHOOSE WHAT THEY WILL EXPEIRNCE.

Love can be shared, WHEN it is welcome, and when it is welcome, the person is effectively giving it to themselves. It can be given to those who have a "lack" of it, BY those who have an abundance of it, BECAUSE people are in different states of perception simultaneously. This IS possible because people have an individual will and mind, even if at the highest level they are the One Son. Jesus’s resurrection DID NOT CURE EVERYONE because they did not want to be cured. YOU MUST CHOOSE IT.

Trying to bring about healing by assuming that other people are "you" and therefore their sickness is "your sickness" and that if you undo "that sickness" it will heal the other person, is a twisting of what happens. First of all, it's true that you and your brother are one, yet you are BROTHERS, with your own free will. Secondly, "their sickness" is THEIR CHOICE, not yours, and it is NOT PART OF YOUR MIND, and it is NOT YOUR SICKNESS OR SIN.

When you project YOUR sin, it DOES NOT LEAVE YOUR MIND. Ideas leave not their source. IT stays inside of you. You become split minded and perceive this sin as a separate attacker, attacking some other split off part of yourself. You interact with it as though it is outside of this part of you, as though not yours, but it is ALWAYS IN YOU. It never ever even leaves you and goes over to someone else.

It does NOT put sickness into other people against their will! To suggest you can heal someone else’s sickness "because its really your own" is actually to suggest YOU CAN MAKE SOMEONE SICK AGAINST THEIR WILL AND TAKE IT AWAY AGAIN. This is FALSE! If someone else were choosing never to be sick, your attempted projection of sin could not put sickness into them. And if someone else was choosing never to be sick, YOU COULD STILL be believing that you are a sinner and STILL be trying to project your sin and STILL seeing it in the other person. Your projection has NOTHING to do with other people’s state of mind. Withdrawing your projected sin WILL NOT HEAL THEM, if they have chosen to be sick on their own and want to keep it. Go ahead and try to heal someone who does not want to be healed. It will fail!

Otherwise, if someone could be causing someone else to be sick against their will, which is an EGO BELIEF, someone's sickness would INFECT JESUS by the power of their will. This is an extension of the idea that we CAN sin and hurt God, which is impossible. Our sickness is OUR CHOICE against ourselves. Thirdly, just because you RECOGNIZE that their sickness is entirely an illusion, that does not disappear it FOR THEM if they continue to WILL TO KEEP IT. You cannot override their will. You getting healed WILL NOT wake everyone up. You will wake up FROM them, FROM the illusion, FROM the ego, INTO a state of awareness, but if other people choose to stay in the ego, THEY WILL.

The ACT of attempting to undo that sickness, by cancelling it or not believing in it or asserting it is not there or pushing it away or shining love onto it or whatever, that ACT of trying to FORCE IT TO GO is actually the EGO attempting to have power OVER something it made real. This is the attempt to "heal to destroy", to first make real then try to undo what you made real. That’s you fighting with your own sin. It won’t heal the person’s sickness or yours.

The Holy Spirit MUST BE INVOLVED in all miracles, because He is the mechanism of miracles. HE is the one who heals. HE is the one who is capable of raising the dead. He must be the one who performs the healing of the mind because healing must come from outside of separation. While He does not perceive sickness as REAL, He still nevertheless KNOWS that people are experiencing nightmares and that they NEED HEALING, in spite of the fact that HE is already in a state of TOTAL AWARENESS AND LOVE. He will not FORCE himself onto anyone, and just because HE is healed/healing it does not mean PEOPLE WANT TO RECEIVE HIM. This is why we have to CHOOSE to be willing to listen to his voice rather than the ego. It’s up to us.

It is difficult to accept that some people DO NOT WANT TO BE HAPPY. It is difficult to accept that some people WILL AGAINST GOD AND REFUSE TO ACCEPT LOVE. It is difficult to accept that PEOPLE CHOOSE TO BE SICK and that they want to keep being sick to protect themselves. It is difficult to accept PEOPLE DON'T WANT A MIRACLE, and they DON’T WANT YOUR HEALING. And that's their right. And their freedom. And we are to respect that and be patient in waiting for them to BECOME willing. Love isn't forceful. Miracles don't happen to people against their will.

Believe me I've tried... I've tried many times to heal someone who is very sick, and who was not ready to heal, and it did not work. It was very upsetting to me that I could not heal it. It was a difficult lesson personally, but a necessary one, because until we can see how healing might FAIL (be blocked by the recipient), we may not come to LET GO of the belief in sickness for ourselves.

I eventually asked Jesus why this wasn't working. Despite many prayers and attempts at miracles. Even one time I did a miracle-working act where angels came to help and I felt it was very powerful, and Jesus said that "it was fully given". But.... just because it was fully given, DOES NOT mean it was fully received. I asked Him, why didn't it seem to work.

Why was the person still sick?! And I don’t mean... why was I still believing in sickness... the question was, why did that person still maintain an illusion of symptoms of sickness.

His answer simply... "they are not ready to receive it."

This was discouraging, because I used to believe, like many, that it SHOULD BE POSSIBLE to HEAL EVERONE if I just learn HOW. But it does not work that way. It was, however, encouraging to me to also be told that at some point THEY WILL become ready to receive it, which is heartwarming, but we still have to learn, just because WE are waking up to love and are willing to be miraculous, it does NOT mean other people will suddenly stop being sick or unloving. It is their lesson. It is their choice. We have to allow other people to be sick IF they want to. It's not God's will, but it's that person's will. God does not condone sickness, he offers to HEAL IT RIGHT NOW, but people refuse.

Trying to heal everyone, or to "perform miracles indiscriminately", is what Jesus tells us NOT to do. He knows WHO is willing and ready to receive them, and He will send the appropriate WILLING people to us. This won't be EVERYONE. It will only be those who are ready to receive. Some people are, some people aren't. We won’t get to be hero saviors or "ego healers" because other people are NOT playing along with our fantasy.

And just because Jesus COULD POTENTIALLY heal everyone in an instant, THEY DO NOT WANT IT. I asked Jesus time and again to heal someone and do you know what he said, "I cannot". And I asked why - why would someone so powerful and capable and miraculous NOT be able to heal it. "They don’t want it."

Sorry to say... this is why TIME is still ticking over with events happening and lessons being learned RATHER THAN God simply snapping his fingers and waking everyone up RIGHT NOW "against their will". God ALLOWED US to have our free will dream illusion of separation, knowing that at some point we would return to him unscathed. It is not happening because God wills it. If God had his way we never would’ve even DREAMED of separation. But WE had the free will to choose to pretend it’s possible, and it’s still our free will to keep doing that, EACH OF US, if we want to. Individually.

So please let's get off this perspective that if you heal YOUR perception, everyone else will suddenly be free of sickness. That if YOU don't perceive "sickness", you will not SEE anyone suffering with sickness. That if you gain true perception for yourself, you will be incapable of seeing anyone suffering. Or that their sickness is part of your own mind and therefore you need healing. You are only responsible for what YOU DO TO YOURSELF. And even though at a HIGHER LEVEL they are one with you, THEIR CHOICE is their own.

You will still see the form of people’s bodies being projected with sick characteristics, because that's the will of you brother! But you won't see it AS real sickness, you'll see THROUGH it, and recognize it is JUST AN ILLUSION. Just because you don’t believe sickness is REAL, doesn’t mean you will be incapable of seeing that OTHER PEOPLE still think it is real, or that they are still projecting bodies that are sick. Jesus was perfectly CAPABLE of SEEING people who were in need, people who were suffering, and people who were dying or dead, EVEN THOUGH His perception did not INTERPRET those things as reality. Your recognition of it being an illusion WILL NOT BE SHARED by them until they are WILLING AND READY.

Believe me I've tried many many times to heal indiscriminately and to alleviate suffering and it's not necessarily because I can't, but because the people involved were not willing to be healed. THEY HAVE THE POWER TO REFUSE LOVE. They already HAVE refused love. They already DID reject God's eternal life and totally healed condition. They already HAVE attempted to block miracles and to reject life. (Yes, its an illusion) Even GOD did not overthrow their free will to do this. (yes I know its an illusion, didn't happen)... but God RESPECTS free will and will ALLOW people to keep being sick IF THEY WANT TO. And so did Jesus.

This unfortunately is a hard lesson to learn, that some people simply do not want to be well, want to be sick, want to keep being sick, and there IS nothing you can do about that right now. All you can do is keep praying and offering and extending love that MAYBE they will accept and receive it BY their will, and therefore CHOOSE to be well BY THEIR OWN WILL, and therefore CONCUR with the will of God, and thus RECEIVE the love that heals them. Receiving is a choice. You can still attempt to perform miracles, but even if you give a bucketload of love, it STILL won’t produce effects if it is not welcome or goes against the person’s will.

Until you can receive the atonement or even a small piece of atonement on one particular issue you will not be willing to RECEIVE LOVE AT ALL. The first time that I did a really thorough forgiveness and took it all the way to the atonement principle, becoming WILLING TO ACCEPT THAT IT IS TRUE that I was innocent on a particular topic, I became willing to RECEIVE LOVE FROM GOD finally on that topic, and Jesus said to me "Now you will be able to perform miracles". Because I had be WILLING TO RECEIVE for myself. "You can only give the miracles you have received".!

We can offer healing. We cannot force it. We will not undo everyone’s suffering just by undoing our own. Even if we go to Heaven as Jesus did, knowing sickness is impossible, brothers will STILL be dreaming of sickness for as long as they want to. We can but OFFER love to them and pray for them and send miracles to them, but it’s up to them to let go of their resistance, to CLAIM the healing that has already been given.

God has ALREADY GIVEN ALL HEALING, He has already given eternal life, and yet we refuse it. It’s our choice

God created a perfect kingdom, in which we are created as perfect beings. We have perfect minds, we are perfectly innocent, we have perfect relationships, we are perfectly safe and happy, we are perfectly loving and sharing, we are immortal and can never suffer or have any problems, it's all good. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG!

But then there was this strange separation event where we had an idea of denying all this. So now we deny reality, we avoid it, we hide from it, we attack it, we don't want it, we try to be something else, we try to value opposite things, we try to make a world nothing like it to live in, we fake everything, we block out awareness of even our own self, we deny that God has created us, we bury our head in the sand and repeat mantras of death over and over to try to keep us away from God.

The situation we're in then does not call for us to try to make or create that which is perfect. We're not asked to hit ourselves over the head with affirmations trying to enforce or cause or make ourselves be more perfect. We're not asked to infuse ourselves with innocence or hammer sinlessness into ourselves or stretch ourselves out to be more inclusive. God has already done all this. God has already given a perfect system, a perfect environment, a perfect life with perfect relationships. WE ARE ALREADY ONE!

The issue is that we're blocking it all. We're saying we don't want it. So the solution is to remove the blocks and stop denying it. And that is all. Many approaches to dealing with the 'issue' is that we start trying to reinvent ourselves, we try to take our ego self into a more real place, we try to transform our sense of what we are. But we're not really asked to do that. God has already established a perfect life for us. We just need to uncover it.

So really it's much more about melting back into an acceptance of what is already true, letting go of things that are false, remembering who we really are, re-identifying with our real self that God already created perfect, opening up to the natural shared state of joined minds, stopping denying God's reality, and removing any blocks which are stopping us from being aware ... that everything in heaven is already perfect and doesn't need any fixing.

This is a very different approach of waking up from a dream, waking up TO a pre-existing ready-made perfect reality, rather than trying to 'convert' our fake world, fake self, fake reality, into something better. Our job is not really to re-create ourselves, to re-invent ourselves, or to cause ourselves to be innocent or perfect. That's God's job. God's will has already been done perfectly. We have to let him be the one that defines us and establishes our perfection and sets us up in a system where we have perfect relationships forever.

Our job is more to do with simply uncovering the truth, revealing what's already there, tuning into reality, accepting the truth/atonement, going back into the light, leaving the desert, becoming aware again of the perfect kingdom that God has created for us in which we live forever in total happiness and effortlessness. We're not builders of ourselves, nor are we really making a better version of ourselves. We're just letting go of those efforts and allowing what already is - to be. Awakening an ancient memory of heaven.

You don't have to become more of anything. God's done the work. You just need to reclaim your inheritance. This is why enlightenment is merely a recognition of what is already true, and is not a change at all. The only actual purpose of LEARNING, is to learn that you do not need to learn anything!

Key words: Uncover, reveal, remember, rediscover, accept, open up to, reintegrate, access, tap into, tune into, allow, re-identify, re-awaken, recognize, know, receive, unveil, return to, wake up to.

"Everything OUTSIDE the Kingdom IS ILLUSION. But you must learn to ACCEPT truth because YOU THREW IT AWAY."

"Your inheritance awaits only the recognition that you have BEEN redeemed."

"God's Law of Creation, in perfect form, does NOT involve the USE of truth to convince His sons OF truth. The EXTENSION of truth, which IS the Law of the Kingdom, rests only on the knowledge of WHAT TRUTH IS. This is your INHERITANCE, and requires no learning at all."

"Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own. It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home."

"Very simply, the purpose of psychotherapy is to remove the blocks to truth."

"All blocks to the remembrance of God are forms of unforgiveness, and nothing else."

"Your task is NOT to seek for love, but merely to seek and FIND all of the barriers WITHIN YOURSELF that you have built AGAINST it."

The real world is not this world. It is not planet Earth. Nor is it in fact the same thing as the forgiven world.

The real world is a "borderland of thought" which is IN BETWEEN this world and heaven. It is a transcendental state in which there are no physical objects, bodies, planets, streets, cities etc. No space or time or matter.

In a sense, it is a kind of layer of almost-oneness, underlying or behind all physical matter, yet still slightly outside of heaven. You could almost think of it as the 'container' which houses space, time and galaxies. It is a singular REFLECTION of heaven's oneness.

"There is a borderland of thought that stands ****BETWEEN this world (earth) and Heaven.****"

"Christ's vision is the BRIDGE BETWEEN the worlds. "

The real world is not space or time or within spacetime or having anything to do with matter or objects or bodies or planets. It transcends both space and time is a universal singular state.

"It is not a place, and WHEN you reach it is APART from time."

"This borderland is just beyond the gate of Heaven. Here is every thought made pure and wholly simple. Here is sin denied, and everything that IS, received instead.

Given that "The world of bodies is the world of sin", and thus because sin is denied, THE WORLD OF BODIES IS DENIED in the real world. This is why there are no bodies there.

"For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies"

This is the journey's end. We have referred to it as the "real world."" In the state of this real world, which is an inclusive state of accurate perception, the "world of illusions" which comprises a VEIL hanging over the face of christ, is seen as a SHADOW swirling around. It is transparent and fading and even at times forgotten.

"The world (earth) stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as ****nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant."***

"**** It is seen at last for only what it is. And ****now it cannot fail to disappear,****

"Things which seem quite solid here (in physical reality ie Earth etc) ***are merely shadows there; transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot****, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them."

"For a time the body is still seen, but not exclusively, as it is seen here (on earth)."

"Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant ****is the world forgot****, with time forever ended as ****the world spins into nothingness from where it came.****"

"***the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight***, and will at length be seen as ***little more than just a shadow circling round the good.***"

"****peace will lightly brush the veil aside****"

The veil, is the veil of the separation, the gap, the mad idea, space and time, the world we made, hell, earth, all galaxies and stars, the whole seeming content of the physical universe, all bodies, all creatures made of flesh, and all notions of beginnings and endings. It is a regarded as A SHADOW because it is made of darkness, being the idea of the opposition to the world of light.

If you think of the real world as a bucket of pure water, spacetime is swirling around in the water like an impurity. Some dark substance which is mixed in with it. Those who know the water is the reflection of purity, are not deceived by the impurity and recognize it as alien and false and unreal and an illusion.

The veil which hangs over the face of christ is the entire contents of spacetime, which was made to come between you and your brother. It is literally all walls, all flesh, all bodies, all surfaces, all matter. It hangs like a veil because it was made to separate you from yourself, and to come between christ and God. The world WITHIN the veil is a world of illusions. That includes planet Earth. The veil is not drawn ACROSS the earth, it IS the earth.

Eventually the veil itself completely vanishes, becoming utterly transparent. It is recognized as purely an illusion, and disappears from sight. For a moment, only the real world remains to be perceived, as the world is FORGOTTEN and returns to NOTHINGNESS. The reflection of heaven is complete and christ's face emerges as a symbol of the end of separation. THEN the mind crosses fully over the bridge, beyond the borderland, through the gates of heaven, and into heaven itself.

So what is the forgiven world? The forgiven world is the VEIL, the illusory realm, the shadow world, which includes earth and all galaxies, which is seen in a forgiving way from the perspective of the real world. It is not awarded any sense of reality or sin or attack or guilt, because the real world is a loving state of mind. But AT THE SAME TIME, it is also RECOGNIZED AS FALSE, unreal, and not really existing. It is the awareness of dreaming, that this world IS A DREAM.

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies." Anything you forgive disappears, because you can ONLY forgive illusions. If you forgive the earth, IT MUST disappear. You cannot forgive it if it is reality. The forgiven world is the veil that interferes with christ, the real world is christ's vision which recognizes the veil as nothing but a dream, and ultimate reality is solely heaven itself, beyond both the forgiven world and the real world.

"The real world still is but a dream." "Even the real world will vanish from your site." "Heaven is all that remains."

When you are in denial, the denial itself paints a picture that whatever it is you're denying is WORTH denying, because it's not good, even though WHAT you are denying is outside of your awareness. Like, as though there really is something there being denied - something you shouldn't STOP denying because then you'll be in big trouble.

It's the same with fear. Fear tells you there's something real to be afraid of, that the fear is justified. The fear says its worth being afraid, because if you aren't, you'll have to confront what it is you area afraid of. Think about that - if you're NOT afraid, you will have to FACE something fearful. Makes no sense.

The ego's basic mind-trick is avoidance of God, avoidance of the truth, avoidance of reality. But the thing is, it doesn't just avoid God. God is love. It isn't really telling you that you are avoiding love. If you knew you were avoiding love, and you remembered what love is, you wouldn't be willing to avoid it. So instead, it tells you you are avoiding something else.

The ego says, you're avoiding an evil God, and you wouldn't want to go anywhere near it. It tells you, you're avoiding real sin and guilt in the mind, and you shouldn't go anywhere near it. It tells you, you have a really big reason to be afraid because God is coming after you, so that you'll be justified in being afraid. All of this is designed to make you believe that you're actually doing the right thing by being in denial, or being afraid, or avoiding God, or going out of your mind.

The lie here is that fear itself INVENTS its own idea of what you are afraid of. And denial itself INVENTS its own idea of what you are denying. Once you enter into denial or fear, you're in a place of hallucinating and projecting ideas based in denial in fear, which out pictures God, or your mind's content, as also being fearful.

Here's the key. It's not that your mind HAS real guilt in it. It's not that you HAVE a real reason to be afraid of God. It's not that you HAVE sinned or that, if you looked within, you'd be confronted with the horrors of what you've really done. The key is.... ITS ALL A LIE!

There IS no reason to be afraid of God. There IS no real guilt in your mind. There IS no sin that you have accomplished. There is no dark icky content lurking for you to discover, to be ashamed or, or to feel bad about. THERE ISN'T ANYTHING THERE. You haven't really done anything. You haven't sinned. You're not guilty. THIS is what the ego does not want you to really FIND OUT when you look within. And this is what it DEFENDS against by telling you it is very justified in making you use denial and fear to protect yourself.

You're innocent. "What if you looked within and saw there was no sin?" - ACIM

So you have to realize this, the ego's devices of avoidance of God/Self/Mind all CLAIM that you should be afraid to look within, they all CLAIM that you've got tonnes of guilt to heal, they all CLAIM you sinned and that you would die if you faced God, but it's all a self-perpetuating myth. They're all lies. They're all defenses against the truth.

Ego defenses never defend you against the TRUTH, because they are designed to OBSCURE the truth, so that you believe you are defending yourself against something ELSE. You could never believe that defense against LOVE is ever justified - you can't hold an awareness of real love in your mind and at the same time believe you would ever not want it. So instead the ego tells you that there IS no love, its been replaced with something dark and sinister, and you need to defend against THAT - the God of hate that the ego made up (as itself).

So all the while you are fixated in your 'issues' about what you did, the sin, the guilt, the fear, all of that is designed to block and distract you from looking at what is BEYOND these things. Before sin there was separation, yes, but before separation there was LOVE. The ego doesn't want to you keep investigating what's real because eventually you'd unearth the love that you buried and realize it still exists AS love. And then it's game over for the ego.

The truth is, you are completely innocent and free. The truth is, when you look into your mind, you might AT FIRST seem to encounter guilt and fear and sin and shame and attack, but only because you still believe these things are real. They're just clouds of illusions. Temporary distractions. They're lies, all of them. Fear is never truthful. Denial is never called for. You don't need any defense from God because God is love.

All of these avoidances are really designed to cover up the ATTRACTION TO GOD which is so intensely powerful and undeniable that if you were to become aware of it, you would rush into God's arms and into eternal life immediately. It is this POWER that you attempt to cover up. It is this LOVE that you attempt to deny exists. It is this VALUE and MEANING that you try to stay away from by making up stories about what it's frightening. God isn't frightening, the ego is.

God is love.

Ok I thought I'd have fun with an overly long title ;-)

There is something that some ACIM students do, which I find quite annoying. I shouldn't. But I do.

Ok so ACIM has "levels" in it. There are contexts. There is the bigger context of God/Heaven/Creation, there is the context of the separation and everything inside the ego's world (the "real world" or forgiven world at best). And there is the context of mis-perceiving the world you made (making the world seem like hell).

What happens is, you can be talking about one of the lower levels, discussing some topic, and someone comes along and "trumps" everything you say, by jumping out of context to the higher level. This makes it almost impossible to hold a conversation about anything.

For example, you could be talking about performing miracles and healing people and raising the dead etc, and someone will come along and say "there's no point doing that, bodies don't exist". Or, "there is no world, why bother healing anyone". Or, "its an illusion so whats the point" sort of thing. What's happening there is LEVEL CONFUSION, where they're believing the larger context of truth at a higher level, while still being AT a lower level, and then using the higher-level information to modify whether to do or not do something on the lower level. Classic level confusion.

But what really drives it home, is the ego benefit that doing this has. It means you can jump "higher" than someone else's statements by switching levels. You get to "one up" them by superceding the entire context of the conversation, overriding everything that is said, not because it seems true but because the ego uses it as a weapon or device for "winning" against others.

Trying to find this "higher ground" of "bigger truth" so that arguments can be won. Even if it's totally off-topic. The benefit to the ego is that this makes the person intellectually arrogant, condescending, righteous, sacrificial, cold-hearted and ignorant of the miracle-working that we're supposed to be doing while in the world. And if anything even hints at implying that "there are bodies" or anything remotely like that, they're all over it like a swarm of ants.

It has led many people to this kind of cold-shoulder attitude about the world, in which these higher-level statements are used as "defenses" and denial, to deflect away any suggestion that there's any point doing ANYTHING to help anyone else. By shifting levels either mid-conversation or mid-sentence, the person is able to overthrow the conversation and grin happily at having seemingly blown up all reasoning.

I've found over time that such people generally seem to have "difficulty" comprehending or discerning or recognizing "context", especially if they are not aware that the course contains levels. It is also near-impossible to explain to such persons why they are doing this. I've met some people who will focus so heavily on the "higher level truth" in such total denial of ANYTHING to do with a lower level - the world, dealing with bodies, healing others etc, that they will not let you even say a single thing about the lower-level without it being "corrected" and evaluated as wrong.

They come across as cold, arrogant, uncaring and lacking empathy. I've had to block some of these people because I find them to be emotionally abusive, often aggressive, stubborn, righteous and unwilling to listen. It's as if to say "nothing happened, so any discussion of anything happening is an error". It's used as a defensive weapon of false logic to justify doing nothing in the world, helping no-one else, and basically disappearing off on a cloud and leaving everyone else behind. Honestly, it is SELFISH, egotistical, and separating.

Some of these same people also tend to become quite "non-duality" focused, which is a view in which there is only one son and there is no-one else to help, nothing else to do, nothing to heal, etc. It's unfortunate, and it's not just that they are so advanced that they understand the levels and where and when they are switching levels and why, or that they even show a willingness to stay within context.

They literally are blind to it and will just position themselves intellectually on the "side" of the higher truth in an effort to reject, separate from, attack and conquer anything remotely "down to earth". I also find that these same people seem to have trouble with reasoning and logic, and so the metaphysical foundation of things is obscure to them. They will brush aside any rational statements by switching levels and trumping the discussion through denial. The level of denial is generally high and somehow they've used denial to "deny the world" and the body, rather than really being willing to properly heal it. They seem stuck in their heads.

Anyway... just one of my pet peeves at the moment. Something to forgive of course.

You made the ego as a device for separating from God. Symbolically, the body is the ego - the hero of the dream. The ego is a machine designed to operate in separation, opposition, and delusion, believing that illusions are reality and that reality is an illusion. Its perspective is that what is true is false/evil, and what is false is the truth. It is convinced that death is salvation from God, and that sin is real.

You who made this ego really are not bound by it at all, since it is imaginary and doesn't really exist. But you chose to believe that it is real. You gave reality to it by using it, since it is a device for turning illusions into reality.

Your decision to identify with it, was an attempt to attract yourself and attach yourself, or cling to, something other than God, like a magnet, which would allow you to attempt to resist the attraction of God.

So you tried to wear the ego like a piece of clothing, and this is pretty literally symbolized by the wearing of the body, which is the symbolic manifestation of the ego - the false self image. It is helpful to recognize that the body itself is the symbol of the ego, within this dream, although this entire dream is also the ego.

Now, in order to try to repel God and attract yourself to something more attractive than His Love, your ego device offers you the pretend opportunity to be magnetized to something else. You hold onto the ego, cling to it, attach to it, attempt to join with it, and try to be one with it. You try to make it your identity.

Your very sense of self you try to give to it, you empower it, you add reality to its illusory nature, and really you are trying to bring it to life. It is like a frankenstein which is made of death, that you pretend can be animated and take over your self. This is the ego's version of raising the dead!

One of the major ways that you accomplish this, and how this symbolically plays out in the dream, is in your identification with the body - the symbol of the ego. The ego is hiding in the body, as the body, as its attempt to withdraw from God and be protected against the truth. This is why the body is fundamentally an idea of sickness, which must eventually disappear when it gives way to the truth. The body is a defense.

Knowing this, each time that you identify with the body and thus the ego, you do so in order to pull yourself away from God. You are trying to rip yourself away from being identified with God and to anchor yourself into some other identity. You're trying to fuse yourself with the ego and body and turn yourself into them.

The closer that you associate with the body, and the more you push God away, the more the body starts to exhibit sickness. Sickness is a defense against God, and it makes the body more real. The more reality you give to the body, the more you are able to become "one" with the ego, and therefore whatever happens to the body is happening to you.

Eventually, a profound "unity" with the ego, as the body, produces death. Death simply means that you've created so much sense of clear distinction and separation between you and God, that you have super-magnetized yourself to the body, and have done everything you can to cut off the source of Life.

The body then cannot be long maintained when it is starved of Life, and the perception that you are disassociated from God makes you perceive that you have no power and no causality. What has no cause cannot exist, so without a cause you will die.

In attempting to overcome this, the journey simply involves giving up the identification with the ego and thus the body. But at first this is going to be difficult. Each time that you find a willingness to expose yourself to the truth, your association with the ego is going to have a major reaction. Since you've come to see through the ego and with the ego, you will interpret the meaning of the truth as the ego would interpret it.

Whatever the truth says, the ego perceives to be false, unwanted, an attack, dangerous and threatening. Whatever the truth claims is true, the ego cannot see clearly or correctly, will read into it, and will see reflected back to it its own ego nightmare, which will be frightening. So this produces a lot of resistance. You will defend the ego, protect its beliefs, side with it, trust it, believe it is telling the truth, and go along with its guidance. You will think you're doing this completely sanely and in order to not only uphold innocence but also to protect your life. You are trying to preserve your sense of self.

No-one in any state of mind wants their self to really be destroyed. Whether your self is identified with your real self, or with the ego self/body, you will protect it and defend it. If you are associated with ego and the ego experiences the truth as an attack, you will defend your ego, believing that you're doing exactly the right thing. However, when you defend the ego, you are choosing death.

Each time that you are aligned with the ego and try to protect it, because you think that you are protecting what you are - what you perceive yourself as - your self/identity - you protect illusions and give reality to them. This cuts you off from God/Life, which is a step towards death. It will produce sickness. So in the name of self-preservation, you will actually believe you're preserving your existence while in fact you are destroying yourself.

This is how people choose to die! This is why all death is a choice and all death is suicide. People don't realize that when they're identified with the ego/body, they keep doing the perfectly natural thing of defending themselves, but because their identity is all caught up in the ego, they inadvertently defend the ego. And that is a major problem. Everyone defends the truth, as they see it, and if the truth is the ego's truth, they will defend it to the death, literally.

Also when you are exposed to the truth, if you are holding onto the ego identity/body and believe/see yourself as the body, you will perceive that the truth is threatening you. Anything in agreement with your current beliefs is seen as truth and anything not in agreement is seen as an unwanted evil attack. This is what makes it difficult to learn to trust God - because initially God is thought to be evil, a threat, a danger, and an attempt to stop you from existing.

This is why you have developed in your mind a sense of a "false God" who is evil, out to get you, wants you to stop existing, is trying to destroy you and wants you dead. This is your ego's view of God. This is its interpretation, and you've made it your interpretation. This is the God of wrath and vengeance and revenge. And this part of you, the ego part, really believes that it is God's will that you die. And it uses this as perfectly rational-seeming justification for why you should die - because it's what God wants for you and you think it's inescapable. This is the death wish.

In order to overcome this "evil God", you need to recognize that your association with the ego has clouded your judgement, has presented the truth as something false, has presented what is false as something true, your whole world is upside down and back to front, and you need to become willing to rediscover what the truth really is.

That's not going to seem easy or welcome, especially to your ego alliance, because the real truth appears as the complete opposite to what the ego believes. It seems to be evil and dangerous, and you will feel tremendous resistance to approaching it. You think it wants you dead, and nobody in their right mind would want to approach their most feared enemy.

However, you need to learn that the God you fear is not REALLY what God is like. The God you think will mean you don't exist, does not REALLY prove you don't exist - that's just what the EGO thinks about God. God demonstrates not only that you exist but that you exist forever, are immortal, eternal, and that God completely supports and sustains you in every way.

This isn't the view of God that the ego will ever be able to see or accept, because it was not designed to do so. It was only designed as a kind of filtration device, to block the truth and invert it, and make illusions seem real. That's all it does and that's all it was meant to do. That's what you designed it to be, and that's why the ego cannot awaken. How can an illusion awaken? The ego isn't really anything at all.

So to awaken, you must awaken FROM the ego, in spite of the ego, and in order to recognize that the ego is not real. Everything the ego perceives and believes in MUST be false and unreal. So you get this choice, to decide who you are going to side with. God or the ego. There isn't really a choice because the ego isn't real and doesn't exist, but it will seem like a choice so long as you think the ego is who you are.

Believing you are the ego goes hand in hand with believing you are a physical body, because the body is the symbol of the ego thought system. And as you expose yourself to truth, mis-perceiving it with the ego will threaten "you", or your sense of self (ego aligned self), and you will want to defend yourself against it. Therefore you will resist the truth, resist waking up, want nothing to do with the Holy Spirit, will not want to entertain the idea of powerful miracles, and you will fear the rejection of God. Not just God's rejection but that, if God is real, you (ego) do not exist.

That is terrifying to the ego, so if YOU have associated yourself with the ego and believe it is you (you are a body), then you will be afraid that you don't exist. You might have noticed when you read ACIM especially at the beginning, that you feel like it is saying a truth that completely ignores you, doesn't even mention you, doesn't acknowledge you, and acts as though you don't even exist.

It can be maddening and make you genuinely angry. This is the ego, because the truth DOES ignore the ego and does not acknowledge it as existing. Because it really doesn't. It simply overlooks it entirely and demonstrates that it is not real. So if you are tied to the ego you will think that this applies to YOU, and that is pretty upsetting.

You might even put up a defense against the truth because you do not want it and see it as an evil enemy, and therefore implement sickness in your body/mind/emotions to try to protect your identity from the truth. You'll try to make the body more real than the truth, and give truth to the body.

This will put power into the ego, will distort your view of yourself as someone little and vulnerable, will shut you off from the Source of Life, and will show up in the body/as the body as sickness and disease. Eventually if you do not choose to be willing to accept the real truth as it is, and not the ego's misinterpretation of it, this will produce death, and you will have chosen it on purpose because you thought you were saving your life.

So really it's a struggle to wake up when you have this ego thing that you made that you are still pretty fond of, which you side with and listen to and trust and use, because it makes you very defensive against the truth and very suspicious of it. Remember the ego will go from suspiciousness to visciousness, and you can bet that with enough exposure to "reality" it will turn viscious in an effort to block it out.

Gradually you will surrender and let go, allow the truth to seep in with little steps of willingness, open yourself up to accepting God as the truth, allow Holy Spirit into your heart and mind, and come to recognize that illusions are not real. This will mean realizing the body is not real, just an illusion, as a symbol of the ego in the mind, and that you do not need it.

Your dependence on it and on the ego's laws regarding what the body needs must also go. And so your mis-identification with the ego will come to an end. Finally you will let go of it, detach from it, and recognize that it is nothing at all. It has no power, it is not real, it holds no truth, it cannot do anything to you, and you are free of it. And having no further purpose or use for it, it will disappear, and it will not be YOU that is disappearing but just something that didn't really exist to begin with.

So you can see this is all really an exercise in identity. Who are you? You've become an ego, but it's not who you are. You cling to it and the body like you're trying to turn it into yourself, or yourself into it. You use the body and your oneness with it through sickness to reinforce your ego's reality and deny God's. All because you are always trying to protect your "self" even if your sense of self is misplaced.

The desire to defend yourself isn't misplaced, although the course says "If I defend myself I am attacked", meaning that if you defend the EGO, you are attacked. Defending your enemy will result in attack. You just don't quite as yet recognize fully the ways in which you and the ego are best buddies, trying to stay associated with it and to keep it ONLY because you've become convinced that it is you.

If you were to recognize clearly that YOU are not the ego at all, and it is nothing but an illusory device, having withdrawn all belief that its illusions are real (including sin and death and sickness and physical matter and the body and the world), then you wouldn't have any real reason to need to defend 'it' AS you, and you'd simply be who you really are. YOU need no defense at all when your sense of identity and self is associated with your Real Self - the Higher Self - or even as Christ.

Be free!

The problem in your mind is that you have condemned yourself to be a sinner. You've accused and attacked yourself, claiming you are guilty. You cannot tolerate this guilt, so you want to make it go away, but your belief in the ego/sin is a desire to also keep it.

The ego then provides what seems like a solution. It suggests you can make the guilt go OUTSIDE of your mind, and the blame can then be pinned on someone who is completely separate from you. An external scapegoat will take the fall for you.

This of course requires that you identify yourself as separate from other people, typically on the basis of them being "a separate body". If you are body-identified, you will see yourself AS the body. So anything inside the body is you, and anything outside is not. This is how the body serves the purpose of a separation device.

The ego will say that if you push the guilt outside of you, and pin it on someone else, you will escape it. What it does NOT tell you is that this is impossible. You cannot take an idea or a thought or feeling or belief which is mind content, and make it exist OUTSIDE the mind itself. It has to stay in the mind, which is why "ideas leave not their source."

What happens is, you go into denial that the guilt is in you, and you deny that trying to make it go outside your mind is impossible. This forms a block to awareness. You then attempt what we call "projection", or the ego's use of projection, in which you try to displace the guilt beyond the outer limits of what you consider to be yourself.

Again, what the ego doesn't tell you is that this will not work, because you cannot make anything go outside your mind or your self. The whole world is inside of you. "You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts." "Heaven and earth are both in your mind."

What you actually do is you split your mind into two compartments. You place the guilt into one compartment, and you IMAGINE that this compartment is OUTSIDE of the second compartment. The second compartment, inside the body, is considered to be the whole of yourself, or your whole mind.

So now what you're doing is you are actually increasing the belief in separation WITHIN your mind, are making a rift in your mind which hurts it, you are emphasizing separation within yourself, and you are dissociating from a part of your own mind. You now believe that part of your mind is NOT part of your mind, and is EXTERNAL to your mind. And you also believe this must be outside of the body.

So now it becomes easy to associate this guilt with anything external, whether it be the wrong weather, another human body, a group of people, some organization, an event, certain types of foods, belief systems other people have, body traits, or whatever. It's easy to believe the guilt BELONGS to them, because you believe the guilt is OUTSIDE your body - outside of yourself. It then MUST belong to someone else.

What you will then do is believe that your guilt is bound to the other person. You project it onto them, mixing them with it, as though it is an inherent part of what they are. A part of their sinfulness.

This is ESPECIALLY easy if the other person appears to make a mistake or do something wrong. It is certainly a blessing in disguise if they commit some kind of serious crime or sin. Because now you have a wonderful opportunity to seize their error, holding it against them as a sin, to AMPLIFY how guilty they are, on the apparent basis of what THEY did, as if to suggest they are guilty because of THEIR OWN sin.

This appears to exonerate you, because now you can point a finger at a "self-contained" guilty person and say, YOU are guilty, and I am not. While doing this, however, your mind secretly tries to ADD YOUR OWN guilt to what you think is theirs. You try to secretly slip your guilt into the situation while claiming it belongs to them, and is justified in being attributed to them. You give them YOUR guilt, and call it theirs.

The thing is, even while you do this, YOUR guilt IS NOT leaving your mind. You will, however, believe that it is outside of you and even see and experience it as if it is. In fact this dissociation can become very strong. You can become extremely convinced, and therefore perceive, that the guilt is entirely theirs and not in you at all. Look at what THEY are doing wrong! But this IS a state of tremendous self-deception.

What is really happening is your mind is PRETENDING that it has projected or displaced the guilt outside the borders of your self, it is convincing itself that it has succeeded in getting rid of it, it has convinced itself that the guilty party is NOT itself, that the guilt is NOT in the mind any more, and that YOU have been set free from it. This is all a lie, and is all a state of mental illness, because a mind AT WAR WITH ITSELF is insane.

When you are then attacking what seems to be the other guilty person for what you think is THEIR guilt, your mind IS in fact attacking ITSELF, WITHIN itself. It is attacking the portion of your mind that you have believed is "not a part of me", which YOU have attacked, causing a split in your mind, and the guilt that you think you're looking at IS STILL inside the limits of your mind. Your mind believes the guilty mind is SEPARATE, but it is STILL joined to your mind.

"It can be but myself I crucify." "You're doing this to yourself."

"YOU CAN BUT HURT YOURSELF."

So as you attack another in anger, attempting to make someone else - someone "not me" - seem guilty, you ARE in fact STILL ATTACKING YOURSELF, trying to make YOU NOT BE YOU. You only seem to be indirectly doing this because of the seeming separation IN your mind. You may think separation is now taking place BETWEEN brothers, ie between your separate body self and your brother's separate body self, but really it is taking place INSIDE OF YOU.

The guilt you see in them is STILL your guilt. The sin you are accusing them of you are still accusing yourself of, but are heavily in denial of that fact. The idea of guilt NEVER leaves your mind. You are SEEING your own guilt projected onto someone else. You BELIEVE if you can angrily attack them and find them to be extra guilty, then this will mean YOU are not guilty. But in fact it REINFORCES your own guilt.

This happens because not only did you start out with guilt from your OWN self attack, you have now believed that you have successfully attacked another, and justly, causing them to be hurt, which now induces even more guilt in you. And while you are busy BELIEVING that you are destroying your enemy, the enemy is actually part of your own mind, and your mind is destroying itself.

"Anger is never justified."

Each time that you become angry, you are projecting your guilt. Each time that you find ANYONE to be guilty of anything even slightly, you are trying to escape from YOUR guilt. Each time you find someone to be accused of anything, YOU NEED a scapegoat because YOU deep down believe you are guilty. This means you are running away from your guilt by trying to use DISSOCIATION to PRETEND that it is not inside of you.

The more you intensify your attack on another, the more you hate them, the more you seem to find them to be sinful, the more you want to separate from them, the more you think you cannot stand being around them and want nothing to do with them, the more murderous you become, the more YOUR MIND SPLITS. You THINK that you're finding someone else guilty but you are ONLY EVER finding yourself guilty.

In effect, the mechanism of denial, dissociation and projection, DOES NOT WORK. It does not heal you! The ego claims it will work every time, and you can convince yourself very profoundly that you are succeeding at doing this. But you ARE mistaken. The thought of guilt CANNOT leave your mind. It cannot exist outside the scope of a mind that thinks of it. And there IS nothing outside of mind, because mind is all-encompassing.

Therefore, everytime that you think you are successfully finding someone ELSE guilty, you ARE NOT succeeding in removing guilt from your mind. You are side-steppping and avoiding it, denying that you hate yourself. You are PRETENDING that it is not in you, by believing it is outside of you. And every attack you make upon it IN your brother, IS a direct attack UPON YOURSELF. And YOU DO therefore experience the consequences. The Golden Rule is always in effect.

This means every single time you try to get rid of your guilt this way, which really is an attempt to KEEP IT AND NOT HEAL IT, you magnify your guilt and run way from it. Your denial increases and you become ever more divided within yourself. You will sense yourself as being separated from your brothers, but even worse, you are separating WITHIN YOURSELF. This is self destruction.

Every time you accuse anyone of guilt, YOU ARE literally directly accusing a part of your mind of being guilty. You NEVER accuse anyone of their own sins, or their own guilt. You can't even really tell if anyone is guilty or not. You can only try to shove YOUR guilt onto them and accuse them of it. You ADD your guilt to their mistakes, turning them into sins.

You only EVER accuse anyone of YOUR sin and YOUR guilt. You try to MAKE others be guilty because of how guilty YOU feel. Which means you USE them as scapegoats so that YOU will convince yourself you are less guilty. Even if you're lying to yourself.

The ego does not want you ever looking within at the guilt that you think is there. It wants you believing its plan of "forgiveness to destroy" will work. Its plan is that if you will just place the guilt OUTSIDE yourself, someone ELSE can take the fall for it. But this literally is absolutely impossible. All you end up doing is making yourself worse off, increasing your belief in separation, and hurting yourself more.

Given that the ego's "magical solution" to the guilt is really an attempt to KEEP IT AND HIDE FROM IT, it simply DOES NOT actually make the guilt go away. It does not reduce it or heal it. You use denial to try to block it out of awareness, and you use dissociation to try to pretend it's not yours. But it remains in you, festering and unforgiven. Because it is always YOU that needs your forgiveness, because "all attack is self attack."

Your brother is NOT GUILTY. The guilt IS NOT THEIRS. YOU think you are guilty. You are in denial about it. YOU need to heal this guilt and actually undo it, because it is based on a lie. YOU are not guilty because sin is not real.

YOU don't NEED to project guilt because you are NOT a sinner. This is the forgiveness YOUR MIND needs in order to heal the separation. Because the separation is IN YOU. And it is in YOUR MIND that it needs to be healed.

"You but accuse your brother of your OWN sins."

"Only the self-accused condemn."

"But consider how strange a solution the ego's arrangement is. You PROJECT guilt to get rid of it, but you actually merely CONCEAL it."

"The ultimate purpose of projection, as the ego uses it, is ALWAYS to get rid of guilt. But, characteristically, it attempts to get rid of it FROM ITS VIEWPOINT ONLY. For much as the ego wants to RETAIN guilt, YOU find it intolerable."

"Only by persuading you that IT is you, could the ego possibly induce you to PROJECT guilt, and thereby keep it in your mind."

"Ideas are of the mind. What is projected OUT, and seems to be EXTERNAL to the mind, is NOT outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has NOT left its source. God's Answer lies where the belief in sin MUST be, for only there can its effects be utterly undone, and without cause."

"ALL anger is nothing more than an attempt to MAKE SOMEONE FEEL GUILTY, and this attempt is the ONLY basis which the ego accepts for special relationships. Guilt is the only need the ego has, and, as long as you identify WITH it, guilt will remain ATTRACTIVE to you."

"When you have accepted the Atonement for yourselves, you will realize that THERE IS NO GUILT IN GOD'S SON. And ONLY as you look upon him as guiltless, can you understand his Oneness. For the IDEA of guilt brings a belief of condemnation of one by another, projecting separation in place of unity. You can condemn only yourself, and by doing so, you cannot know that you are God's Son."

"Forgiveness-to-destroy will overlook no sin, no crime, no guilt that it can find and "love."

"Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

Would I accuse myself of doing this?

I will not lay this chain upon myself."

"Minds that are joined, AND RECOGNIZE THEY ARE, can feel no guilt. For they can NOT attack, and they REJOICE that this is so, seeing their safety in this happy fact."

"See no-one, then, as guilty, and you will affirm the truth of guiltlessness UNTO YOURSELF. In every condemnation that you offer the Son of God, lies the conviction of your OWN guilt. If you would have the Holy Spirit make YOU free of it, accept His offer of Atonement for ALL your brothers. For so you learn that IT IS TRUE FOR YOU. "