Continuing with the "it's bullshit" theme, let's look at how guilt is also bullshit.

Guilt is not atonement. It is not compensation. It does not make up for doing something wrong. It does not help the person who you hurt. It does not undo what happened. It does absolutely nothing to correct sin. It does not give a gift to the person you attacked. Guilt does not heal anyone.

It doesn't pay for or correlate to the amount of sin that you caused. It does not prove that you did not want to sin. It does not demonstrate that you have "repented". It does not equate to atonement or forgiveness. It does not indicate that you really did not want to do what you did. And it does not raise the overall level of happiness in the world.

Guilt is justified self-attack, resulting from a failure to forgive. But guilt has an even deeper motive.

When you sin, or believe in sin, it is very deliberate. Whatever act it is that you "did", you did it by choosing to do it. Make no mistake that in your ego belief, you wanted to attack, intended to attack, wanted to destroy God, desired to be opposed to God, were being murderous and hateful, wanted the consequences of your attack to be real, desired to overthrow God's will and power, wanted to affect God and make Him dead, and wanted to really believe strongly in sin being "reality" - that you really did bring about real "success" in your attempted separation. Sin is a belief that death is real.

Realize also that at every stage of separation from God, denial is used to try to make whatever is present go unconscious. It is an act of trying to get rid of yourself, because the whole purpose for the dream of death is to destroy yourself. You tried to get rid of yourself by getting rid of God, shutting Him out of awareness, making him unconscious to you. Then you are left staring sin in the face.

But this wasn't enough for you. Just "sinning" did not completely destroy you. So you had to keep on denying yourself, keep on making stuff go unconscious, and keep progressing towards a state of TOTAL DEATH. Sin demands death and will stop at nothing until it is enacted, because only when it is completely implemented will the belief in the permanence and non-reversibility of sin be completed.

So what you did next was make sin go unconscious, denied that sin had happened, and covered it over with another layer of illusion. On purpose. The purpose was to KEEP the sin real, not heal or reverse it, and to add another layer of denial to take you closer to death. You implemented this by INVENTING GUILT.

Guilt, then, is this state of mind in which you start to claim, and make illusions which appear to show, that you DID NOT WANT TO SIN. OOoo.... so ok, first you are believing in murder and death and killing God, and then.... you start to pretend that you did not want to do it, even though you did. Guilt therefore is your attempt to FAKE that you really felt remorseful, guilty, ashamed, that you somehow RECOGNIZED that you did something that you should not have done, and that now you somehow want to "take it back" or "wish that it had no consequences" or "yearn for re-uinion" or whatever else bullshit.

Guilt will position you as APPEARING to claim that you didn't want to sin and "wish" that it hadn't happened, BUT a WISH is not a WILL. The guilt will not actually *do anything* whatsoever to undo the sin. The guilt merely establishes that you believe heavily in the sin, because you think it has reality and truth to it, and you have NO intention whatsoever of undoing that or challenging it. The guilt is a total facade to try to make out that you feel sorry about it or didn't mean it, in a completely powerless, non-active, non-consequence-producing way, which has absolutely no effect on the sin itself or its consequences.

Realize also then that guilt or shame is completely self-serving, and also contains a component of feeling sorry for YOURSELF that, because you sinned, you now are going to lose out or be punished. Guilt is a reaction to sin, the opposite of forgiveness. Forgiveness will say you did not really sin and nothing was hurt and there's no reason to be upset. But guilt goes the other way, and says the sin was so real that you don't deserve forgiveness.

This lack of deserving or worthiness of being forgiven, then starts to establish your belief that you are "not good enough" or you don't deserve to be loved or you are unworthy of God or forgiveness. And this will create a belief in you that God couldn't love you, SHOULD NOT love you, and that you REFUSE to accept that He DOES love you, because really you have NO interest at that point in retracing your steps. The positioning of yourself as unworthy and unlovable, which comes across even to yourself as a kind of sorrowful, pityful, unfairly-treated sort of experience, is actually the total opposite in its purpose. IT IS FAKE. It's nothing less than an attempt to KEEP sin and guilt and do *NOTHING* about them to actually change them in any way.

Just as there is no such thing as real sin, there is no such thing as real guilt. All guilt is fake. A "guilty conscience" is a bullshit conscience. Guilt has been put on a pedestal by the ego to celebrate its success at murdering God, and to pretend that it is innocent. It wants someone else to be *responsible* for it, to accuse someone else of sin (even if that means they kill you), but only so that the "evidence" that YOU were the one who chose to make sin real is completely hidden. No-one would suspect you of murder if you APPEAR to be innocent.

No-one would accuse you of being the one who sins if you come across as having a facade of sweetness and niceness, guiltlessness, weakness, powerlessness, hopelessness, unworthiness, fearfulness, vulnerability, littleness, or ignorance. The ego's entire strategy for IMPLEMENTING DEATH is to first of all set up the belief in death by believing in sin, then enacting every step necessary to bring about death. It does this by attempting to strip you of all responsibility, all power, all will, all mind, and to portray you as a weak helpless VICTIM, who can't POSSIBLY have chosen to sin and who is now being completely unfairly accused by external sources. Those external sources will then come to be the pretend jduge and jury who deal a death sentence and inflict the final blow on your now completely helpless, victim-ridden self, to prove that YOU DID NOT SIN.

Who could suspect you of sin if you were just innocently, inevitably, unfairly attacked and mistreated, in such a way that is destroys you and APPEARS to be against your will? It is a fake death. You are faking your own death by pretending to not believe in sin when you still believe in deep down. People who APPEAR innocent are NOT INNOCENT. They are very filled with sin and guilt. The fake innocence facade is a perfect disguise. Guilt is the 2nd step in implementing it, and the belief in deserving punishment which comes from guilt lays the groundwork for implementing the 3rd step - fear of punishment, which is also 100% bullshit.

So you see, guilt is not genuine. It does not help anyone or correct anything or atone for anything to be guilty. It just keeps all of the consequences of what you did and protects them behind layers of denial. If you were really, really interested in "atoning" for sin, you would actually take action steps which would UNDO THE SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. You wouldn't be like, oh I guess you have to live with the consequences now, nothing I can do about it. Instead, you'd be choosing MIRACLES to correct and undo all of the side-effects of your wrong decision, with Holy Spirit. And that means lifting all of the signs of attack off of yourself and anyone who was involved.

Going into guilt also is usually SUPPORTED by the person that you attacked, whereby they feel justified in proving you are guilty, leaping at the opportunity to condemn you, and failing to forgive entirely. To hold you condemned in guilt for your sin, the other person thinks they are righteous and justified but they are just as much enacting bullshit. It does not help anyone to be guilty. What the attacked person should be doing is finding you INNOCENT, forgiving you, overlooking the belief in sin, PROVING that they cannot be hurt by you by disallowing any effects in their mind or emotions or body, and therefore teaching you that YOU DID NOT attack them and are innocent.

Only when there is "redemption", ie both parties are lifted UP closer to the light, closer to forgiveness, closer to truth, closer to the undoing of sin and guilt, that is the ONLY real form of atonement. If you're not approaching the atonement then you're going into the ego, no matter who you are or what side the victim/victimizer drama you fall on.

Guilt is a lie. A big fat stinking lie. It's just another ego ILLUSION designed to LOOK LIKE you gave a crap about sinning, while doing nothing about it, using it as JUSTIFICATION to attack yourself even more and put yourself down and destroy yourself as a SACRIFICIAL OFFERING to the person you supposedly did this to. Dying is not atonement. Self destruction is not atonement. Guilt is not atonement.

Another way many people fall into this is by believing that if they hurt a loved one, they should be GUILTY in order to show that they are LOVING. They will go into guilt-ridden justifications and compulsions to try to "make it up" to the person. They will do housework out of guilt. They will buy make-up gifts out of guilt. They will "owe" the person something. They will try to do stuff to compensate and "balance out" the offense, to try to win back favor. This is not love! It is so often believed to be what it means to give a shit or to love someone. IT IS ATTACK. It's like rubbing salt in the wound.

All guilt is bullshit. We need to look at this and admit to it and stop using this EGO WEAPON as a disguise to pretend that we didn't want to sin. We did want to sin. Every death celebrates that fact. If we truly give a shit, we will undo guilt, undo sin, undo death, undo ILLUSIONS of consequences that we think we caused, recognize our PERMANENT INNOCENCE, and return to God. Guilt is arrogant. You ARE worthy of love and forgiveness.

Sometimes I become interested in something external, and excited about doing it. I seem to feel good about it at the time, and it seems as if the thing itself causes me to feel good about it. And I take that to mean that I should do this thing, because it feels good to do it. As if to say, doing this thing "makes me" feel happier.

But then, my mood changes, and with it my perception changes. The whole way that the thing is framed to my mind changes. It doesn't hold the appeal that it had before. It seems to lack the excitement and I've lost interest. I wonder to myself why I became disillusioned and whether it was the right thing to be doing after all, and how it was that I was seemingly so into it not so long ago and now I feel nothing about it.

And then perhaps I am encouraged and the excitement comes back and my perception changes and once again the thing seems appealing, as if it has once again taken on the magical sparkle. It again looks like it's something I'm into and enjoying and therefore, that must mean, that the thing itself is causing me to enjoy it, and so I should be doing it because it makes me feel good. Follow your bliss and all that.

But then the feeling state changes again, and once again the perception of the thing is different, and my whole interest in it melts into nothing as if I can't tell why I was ever interested in it to begin with. And then I look at it and it seems empty and cold.

This constant flip-flopping back and forth is really based on a mistaken idea that the thing outside of me is the cause of how I'm feeling. As if it's important in life to find things which "make you happy." And the things out there in the world, hobbies, projects, activities, whatever, have some inherent causal power of their own to do stuff to you that you "like" more than other things.

When you're in the good mood place you perceive the thing differently than when you're not in a good mood. I have wondered to myself if it is only the times that I don't feel so happy that I also lose interest in things. But I'm not sure it's just about happiness or not, it seems to shift all over the place.

The issue is that that I believe the thing itself is not neutral, and is able to cause me to feel something, that I should become able to "like it", and want to do more of it. Like your favourite ice cream flavour or candy bar which you prefer more than others. Because apparently I'm getting something from it. It's feeding me, doing something to me, changing me, defining me, forcing me to feel a certain way. As a kind of "positive victimhood."

But when my feeling state changes and my perception changes it's like the whole thing just went down the toilet. I can't seem to maintain a consistent steady mental attitude for a long time. Perhaps for a week or two, but then it shifts. Then I'm flip-flopping constantly wondering, should I be doing this thing, or not? Should I do this project, or not? Should I pursue this more, or not? And there's always this greener grass and something else to flip to.

And I then can't decide because I just seem to keep going back and forth on this rollercoaster of being at the effect of something external, seemingly... when in fact it's really the internal state that is the determiner of how I feel and perceive. By not recognising that the inner state comes first, I look to the outer state for evidence of whether a certain thing is something i want or not, on the basis of what it seems to "make me feel."

But it's always that how I feel internally is the determiner of whether or not I seem to be enjoying what is external. It comes from within, not without. I've gone back and forth on some things so many times with fleeting periods of interest and disinterest and never quite knowing whether I want to do the thing or not. Sometimes it's appealing and sometimes it's not.

What occurs to me simply is that this is all because my mind seems to look externally for validation and for figuring out whether something is something I want or not, whether I am getting something from it, and whether I like what I'm getting. But this ignores that I am always projecting, and then perceiving. It ignores that I am choosing how I feel first, and then am projecting that out and seeing it reflected in the thing I'm doing. I'm literally "making up" what it means to me as I go along.

Sometimes my projections make certain things look rosier and more interesting. Sometimes my projections make them look lacklustre and having no appeal at all. But I think if I stay "addicted" to getting stuff from outside of myself in this way, I will just keep flopping all over the place wondering whether or not something is "the chosen one". Trying to figure out what to do iin life, what I want, what to get, what to enjoy, on the basis of what it does to me, is a constant state of confusion.

It's possible based on personality or beliefs or interests or aptitudes that, yes, there could be some activities that seem to align more with one's nature, and those might seem to more easily induce feelings of attraction and happiness. But if all happiness comes from God, it can't really come from without. And if I am immortal and changeless, it can't be that even my feelings are forced upon me by external stimulation.

I think that the more I realize that all happiness belongs to God and that you can only be happy when you are with God, the more I'm questioning whether anything external can "make me happy" at all. Or whether all I've been doing all these years is just making stuff up as I go along and not realising it, not realising that I've been projecting completely random attitudes onto the world and then believing that what they show me is what things really mean, or what their value is.

ACIM would say that nothing in the world can bring oppression or make you ill or sad or weak or frail or die. And similarly that nothing in the world can bring you peace, or take your peace away. And it would probably also say that nothing in the world can force you to be happy, or give you what you want, or in fact give you anything whatsoever, or do anything to you, or stop you doing anything. Because the world does nothing at all, and all the rest of the make-believe story bullshit about whether it's the right or good thing or not is a totally subjective projection.

It's strange to realize that it's not the stuff I'm doing or the activities or the external things that are determiners of what I feel or whether I want to do them or not. It starts within with my inner state and my connection to God, or lack thereof. And then I project out from that state and perceive the world, giving it flavours, assigning meanings, dressing some things up as more worthy and more appealing while dressing other things down. And then it shifts and changes and is completely unstable. "What it means to me" is total fiction.

I guess the moral of the story is that, I have to learn not to depend on the world or specific forms of things to cause me to feel certain ways. To stop trying to find happiness from outside of myself. To realize that it's got nothing to do with whether a certain thing is right or wrong or interesting or boring or a "good fit for me."

It's just wholly a matter of... what will I align myself with within, first, and what will I bring to the world or extend out into it or project upon it. And maybe there's a way to be happy in spite of what is external, even in the presence of unconventional things which might before have "caused" unhappiness.

The final truth really is that the world is meaningless and neutral and nothing, and none of its forms mean anything more than others, and none of it does anything different to anything else, and none of it has any more potential to make us happier or sadder or anything whatsoever. Because we are no longer trying to "get" from the world... .when we know the only place we can get anything worth having, is from God within.

"It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events OUTSIDE him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were NOT his choice. His power of decision is the DETERMINER of every situation in which he seems to FIND himself by chance or accident. No accident or chance is POSSIBLE within the universe as God created it, OUTSIDE of which is nothing. Suffer, and YOU decided sin was your goal. Be happy, and you GAVE the power of decision to Him Who MUST decide for God for you. This is the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit, and even this He gave to you to give yourself. For, BY this gift, is given you the power to release your Savior, that HE may give salvation unto YOU."

"It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give."

"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."

Heaven is possible. Earth is impossible. This is a simple enough fact. But maybe you don't realize just to what extent the things of Earth are impossible. For it is here in "this world" that things which CANNOT OCCUR in heaven, seem to occur constantly. Things which cannot be true, appear to be always true. Events which cannot occur, seem to occur. Impossible consequences seem easy to cause.

For example, nothing real can be threatened or die. In this world, however, it is easy to threaten anything and destroy it. This is in fact technically impossible. Nothing in heaven can die because it has immortality. So what is this seeming appearance that something can be easily attacked and destroyed? It's can't BE HAPPENING. Everything about it must be a lie. Right down to the very atoms that are forming the murder weapon, and the subatomic forces that are allowing the body to be damaged. IT CAN'T BE!

When you really look at it, it is shocking. Everything that SEEMS POSSIBLE in this world IS IMPOSSIBLE in reality. Destruction of any kind of not possible. Sin is not possible. Death is not possible. Attack is not possible. Sickness is not possible. Damage is not possible. Fear and guilt are not possible. Murder is not possible. Space and time are not possible. The laws of physics are not possible. Consumption and decay are not possible. Change is not possible. Just look around you, all the things which seem COMMON and ever-present and constantly proving their possibility here, CANNOT BE. This world can't be here.

If a body is attacked, and it lays on the ground in a pool of blood, with flesh wounds and damage, this is impossible. This is what we call the "proof of sin". So long as it is there AT ALL, in this form, it is testifying that SIN IS REAL. That attack DID happen with real consequences. And its evidence is easy for anyone to look upon, and not deny. For if the body is damaged and dying on the ground, something IMPOSSIBLE is happening.

Do you realize the extent of this? It means that this whole world and all its workings and EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS, all events, all causes and effects, all states of matter, all forms of growth and decay, everything in this universe, IS A LIE. It CANNOT happen in reality.

" it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere."

Two planets colliding and blowing each other up, utterly impossible. Bodies consuming each other, utterly impossible. Sickness and suffering and pain, COMPLETELY impossible. All that is required here is to be aware of God's truth. Look at what is true in God and his reality. And then COMPARE it to this world. And recognize they are NOT the same. In fact Earth opposes heaven completely and totally. "Earth, which is heaven's opposite in every way."

Then you have to ask yourself, how can it be POSSIBLE, that this world is in ANY WAY like God or God's creation, given that it demonstrates things that are NOT POSSIBLE in God or to or for God? EITHER heaven's reality is true, OR this world is true. Either the Kingdom is real, or Earth is real. They CANNOT BOTH BE TRUE. Either death can happen, or it cannot. And death is RAMPANT on this planet, so can this planet be true? Not it cannot.

"Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world. "

When you understand what heaven is like, it becomes starkly obvious that this world comprises the EXACT OPPOSITE, and is constantly trying to demonstrate that what CANNOT HAPPEN is happening. That there is real pain and suffering and destruction. These things cannot even exist. If you are seeing them, you MUST be hallucinating a fantasy world. And no amount of forgiveness or changed perception will alter the fact that while bodies CAN still change and suffer and die, UNREALITY is there. Because the world you made is false.

"The ego may ask, "How did the impossible occur?", "To what did the impossible happen?", and may ask in many forms."

"Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not."

"Pain is impossible. There is no grief with any cause at all and suffering of any kind is nothing but a dream."

"grief and pain must be impossible"

"That is why attack WITHIN the Kingdom is impossible."

"You are in an impossible situation only because you thought it was possible to be in one."

"because the ego wishes for the impossible"

"In illusions the impossible is easily accomplished, but only at the cost of making illusions true."

"For it is here the split with God occurs. A split that is impossible. A split that cannot happen. Yet a split in which you surely will believe, because you have set up a situation that is impossible. And in this situation the impossible can seem to happen."

"Sin is impossible, and on this fact forgiveness rests upon a certain base more solid than the shadow world we see."

"Harm is impossible for God's teachers."

"Gentleness means that fear is now impossible"

"Fear is deception. It attests that you have seen yourself as you could never be, and therefore look upon a world which is impossible."

"It IS impossible to see your brother sinless, and yet to look upon him as a body."

"To see a SINLESS body is impossible."

"HE TEACHES THAT THE PAST DOES NOT EXIST, a fact which belongs to the sphere of knowledge, and which therefore NO-ONE IN THE WORLD KNOWS. It would indeed be impossible to BE in the world with this knowledge. For the mind that knows this unequivocally, knows also that it dwells in eternity, and utilizes no perception at all."

"It is impossible to conceive of light and darkness, or, everything and nothing, as joint possibilities."

"UNCONSCIOUSNESS IS IMPOSSIBLE."

"Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not."

"Attack is neither safe nor dangerous. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE."

"which makes ALL fear impossible"

"Loss of ANY kind is impossible."

"Being faced with an impossible learning situation, REGARDLESS of why it is impossible, is the most depressing thing in the world."

"What is more difficult to grasp is the lack of order of magnitude, which stamps the miracle as something that MUST come from elsewhere, NOT from here. From the world's viewpoint, this is quite impossible."

"For form is not enough for meaning, and the underlying LACK of content, makes a cohesive system impossible."

"terror is impossible"

"If the body could be sick Atonement would be impossible."

"But if destruction ITSELF is impossible, then ANYTHING that is destructible cannot be real."

"Actually, a meaningless world is impossible."

"Injury is impossible. And yet illusion makes illusion."

"Hear not its madness, and believe not the impossible is true. Forget not that the ego has DEDICATED the body to the goal of sin, and places in it ALL its faith that this can be accomplished."

"To God, unknowing is impossible. It is therefore not a point of view at all, but merely a belief in something that does not exist."

"Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is NOT in Heaven is not ANYWHERE."

"Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusions stands; senseless, impossible, and beyond ALL reason, and yet perceived as an eternal BARRIER to Heaven."

"Without illusions conflict is impossible."

"The idea for today is, of course, the reason why a meaningless world is impossible. What God did not create does not exist."

"It is impossible to let illusions be brought to truth and keep the illusions."

"The sight of innocence makes punishment impossible, and justice sure."

"The impossible can happen ONLY in fantasy."

"War is impossible unless belief in VICTORY is cherished."

"Those who communicate fear are promoting attack, and attack always BREAKS communication, and therefore makes communion impossible."

"If you wish to be the author of reality, which is totally impossible anyway, then you will insist on holding on to judgment.

"rejection is impossible."

"It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events OUTSIDE him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were NOT his choice. " "He offered us all a final demonstration that it is impossible to kill God's Son; nor can his life in any way be changed by sin and evil, malice, fear or death."

"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. "the special love relationship would thus ACCOMPLISH THE IMPOSSIBLE." "It IS the belief that conflicting interests are possible, and therefore means that you have accepted the IMpossible as true."

"It is impossible that one can gain because another loses."

"Perception is impossible WITHOUT a belief in "more" and "less."

"Partial KNOWLEDGE is impossible."

"Where there is death is peace impossible."

"The world MUST despise and reject me, because the world IS the belief that love is impossible."

"Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened."

"The learning situation in which you place yourself IS impossible, and IN this situation, you clearly require a special teacher, and a special curriculum."

"For if the dream were real, escape would be impossible, and there would be no hope except illusions."

"Impossible indeed; but every mind which looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone. But never in One God."

"How simple is salvation! All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never will be. The impossible has NOT occurred, and CAN have no effects. "

"And sin MUST be impossible"

"In this world, it is impossible to create."

Space and time are nothing but beliefs. This doesn't mean that we merely have beliefs "about" space and time, as if they really exist separate from our beliefs. They exist ONLY WITHIN our believing in them, and without believing in them they DO NOT exist at all.

"There is no world (spacetime) apart from what you wish."

If you have a good grasp of what space and time ARE, it becomes very obvious that they are not the same as reality. In fact they are totally opposite to reality. This also then tells you that anything WITHIN spacetime is opposite to reality as well. And it also further tells you that WITHOUT spacetime, nothing whose nature COMES FROM spacetime can exist, because it depends on spacetime for its entire existence.

In reality, God is omnipresent which means all of God is in all parts of God/existence simultaneously. God is everywhere. When we made the idea of "space", we attempted something COMPLETELY OPPOSITE to this.

Space is the idea of separated-out locations, in which each location is kept apart and is exclusive of the other locations. What is in one location is not in another location. There is no sharing of locations. The contents of one location cannot touch or overlap the contents of another. There is no true joining or sharing of any kind. All locations repel all others and hold them apart through what science calls atomic forces, but really is the idea of trying to put distance between yourself and God.

Space therefore invented the idea of a gap, separation, distance, avoidance, exclusion, repulsion, rejection, dissociation, and isolation. It gave rise to the seeming possibility that something can exist in one location and NOT exist in the others. Which in turn seems to make it possible for atoms and particles to exist separately and without touching each other. So long as there is the idea of spatial separation, "matter" is possible.

Matter requires that all its parts be kept SEPARATE otherwise not only could there not even be a three-dimensional object that "takes up space" or "spans across locations", but all objects would attempt to share the same space and cause a massive nuclear explosion. This is basic stuff supported by science. Atomic overlap causes atomic explosions. The seemingly physical material universe is therefore dependent on the idea of MAINTAINING SEPARATION at all costs.

Space also is the assertion that anything which exists only exists in PART of the space, and that what exists in that part is only a PART of existence. Therefore anything that exists does not WHOLLY exist and is NOT whole. This in turn implies that nothing is everywhere. Which also implies that everything is nowhere. Which is the entire idea that "God, whose nature is to be everywhere, does not exist anywhere". This is because "the world was made as an attack on God." "A place where God could enter not."

Just as space is UTTERLY upposite to God's nature, so too is time. Eternity means that what exists always exists. It is eternal, never-ending, permanent, immortal. It cannot ever stop existing. The idea of stopping existing is the idea of interruption, change, alteration, decay, modification, etc. This is totally incompatible with eternity. Nothing eternal can EVER change otherwise we introduce the potential for an END, and for death.

Time is the notion TOTALLY OPPOSITE to eternity, that whatever existed no longer exists, having died. And what exists now, is not the same as what used to exist, having changed. And what exists now will not always exist, because death or change is inevitable. Even the idea of change ITSELF is the idea of time, producing a "dream of death." SPACETIME IS DEATH! It's the very idea of bringing an END to what is endless, and making temporary what is permanent, and making mortal what is immortal.

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

Time was made as a total attack on God's nature. It is the suggestion that God and his creation, which are eternal and changeless, are in a state of total constant change, decay, suffering, alteration, interruption, attackability, impermanece and death. Just the idea that everything is always changing is the idea that "everything is always dying". The laws of nature such as that flowers bloom and die and human bodies bloom and die and planets bloom and die and so on, is INHERENT to the nature of time itself.

Time is really the idea that God is dead, once again in support of space's idea that God is nowhere. It says God is no-when, did not exist before, does not exist now, and will not exist in future. It is an attempt to eradicate eternity. Time was made in the separation in an attempt to DENY eternity. And everything that changes, grows, withers, dies, is born, transforms, modifies, interferes, attacks, can be hurt or damaged, etc... is entirely goverened by and DEPENDENT upon time.

"It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which MEANS there is no time. "

"It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die"

Therefore space-time is an attack on God, it is in TOTAL OPPOSITION to God's nature, it is ENTIRELY UNLIKE reality, and NOTHING like heaven. And everything which has arisen WITHIN the confines of spacetime, is similarly TOTALLY OPPOSITE to reality. "Earth, heaven's opposite in every way." And everything within spacetime COMPLETELY depends on space and time "existing" in order to "exist."

Without space you CANNOT HAVE OBJECTS. Of any kind. Planets, bodies, cake, houses, cars, galaxies, all depend on spatial separation of particles. They all REQUIRE an ongoing assertion that God is dead. "The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son." If space or time were to END, which they MUST because they are not permanent in any way, ALL THINGS which are based on space and time must end as well. They CANNOT REMAIN.

You cannot have a three dimensional physical object without the atoms being held apart by space, and time governing their constant chemical and physical interactions. There is no motion without time. There is no growth without time. There is no birth and death of bodies without time. There are no planets without space. There is no world of spacetime without space or time. And both space and time are entirely illusions of an attempt to deny the reality of God.

It is a mistake to think that there is a way to KEEP the physical world while being IN reality, or that the world IS heaven, or that three dimensionality can remain WITHOUT spacetime. Sorry but this is impossible. This is why the world will eventually end and all the stars will disappear in light and all the galaxies will vanish. They MUST go if spacetime goes. You cannot have any of it without the belief in separation.

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

"Perception is temporary. It is an attribute of the space-time belief, and is therefore subject to fear or love."

"Ultimately, of course, space is as meaningless as time. The concept is really one of space-time BELIEF. The physical world exists only because man can use it to correct his UNBELIEF, which placed him in it originally. As long as man KNEW he did not need anything, the whole device was unnecessary."

"Like all aspects of the space-time belief, healing ability is temporary."

"Acts were not necessary before the Separation, because the time-space belief did not exist."

"The Atonement was built into the space-time belief in order to set a limit on the need for the belief, and ultimately to make learning complete."

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what seems to be a wall of flesh around the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master. "

"The mind that serves the Holy Spirit is unlimited forever, in all ways, beyond the laws of time and space, unbound by any preconceptions, and with strength and power to do whatever it is asked."

"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."

"And those who serve the lord of death have come to worship in a separated world"

"And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible."

"And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant."

"For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

"The world 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, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. 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."

"Here He leans down to lift you up to Him, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and to eternity; out of all fear and given back to love."

In ACIM we're often talking about "the separation", or being separate. This is a way to describe a divide between two things. But another way is to refer to two "opposites". Heaven and hell, life and death, reality and illusions, etc. The separation was an act of opposition against God, producing an opposite state of mind.

When we're in a "separated state", we're in a state of opposition. This means we have an opponent, which we are totally un-like. And it also means we are at war. And because we are un-like our opposition, we do not "like" it. And this produces great tension.

When there seems to be opposition, there is tremendous temptation. The more extremely opposite two things are, the more they contradict each other and are in conflict. They can be in a state of extreme disagreement. In this disagreement, there is a maximal likelihood or temptation that conflict will arise, given how much the two seem to be at-odds with each other.

Tension arising from arguments, disagreements, conflicts, debates, righteousness, defensiveness, denial, protection of one's truth, opposition to or disbelief in the enemy's view, is all very likely to induce a form of war. There will be fighting and bickering and hatred and weapons being thrown and a taking of separate sides.

It's very difficult to "stay out of" such a conflict, when faced with extreme opposition. And the more they oppose you the higher the temptation is. If someone is digging in their heels and does not want a single shred of what you are offering, for example, there will be a stand-off, rejection, a communication breakdown, and a high chance of attack. They may want death, while you want life, but it won't stop them from trying to destroy you.

In this world, things which seem more alike or have something in common, seem to also experience an illusion of less conflict. I found this to be true when, for example, a person who was highly obnoxious and aggressive decided to walk a road with me one day. This person would take up a very opposing position of rebellion and anger, and this would produce a high likelihood of temptation and a flare-up of aggression. He was easily triggered due to his unhealed pain.

I decided on this occasion to pretend to be like him. So I sort of acted like him and agreed with him and spoke things he might speak, even though what I was agreeing to was not what I believed. And strangely this person started to see me as a friend or ally. I was actually doing this to try to protect myself at the time, but it showed me that it's really the distance or contrast between opposites that incites violent reactions, and so long as I did not "oppose" overtly, this person didn't target me at all.

There is similar temptation in ACIM circles, on any forum or discussion. When someone believes something opposite, particularly if it is wildly or deeply opposite, this produces a great temptation. Someone who is very patient, forgiving and calm, can perhaps resist the temptation. That takes some profound mastery. Someone who can't keep their cool in the face of intense conflict and contraryism, however, will likely lose it. How do you not be tempted by extreme evil? "One ring to rule them all"?

There is the most temptation or "tension" when something is completely opposite and contradictory. This is as if to say, someone is 180 degrees from you across the table and going head-to-head. There is also tension from misunderstanding, when someone is at 90 degrees, whereby the two do not look at anything from the same angle, like they are talking entirely different languages. They conflict more on a basis of not even understanding what each other is saying.

You'll perhaps notice that all the wars in the world are generally based on two parties very strongly disagreeing. They oppose each other. One tries to suppress the other to protect their own truth. They don't see it possible that they can live together in peace or accept each other's extremism. And just the mere existence of the other seems enough justification to destroy their heinous hedonism.

"Tension" is that sensation of very strong discordant energy between two opposites, and as each party has a stand-off and doesn't want anything to do with each other, it intensifies the tension. It's as though they rip apart from each other and pull on the fabric of existence in an effort to put as much distance between them as possible. The sense of resistance and rejection of each other heightens the tension, until breaking point.

The opposite of that tension is peace and harmony. But this can only exist either when the two opposites are able to be totally at peace with other without trying to disagree with each other, or when there are no opposites. It should also be obvious that you can't really hold a position that disagrees with someone else and be at peace. Like "let's agree to disagree" is really just a standoff, not an agreement. Either you have to be inclusive or you will be exclusive. And the only way to truly agree is that both believe exactly the same thing.

This all seems to be the same basic temptation presented over and over again in many forms in this world. Groups of people disagreeing with other groups. Nemesis and enemies going at it all over again. People getting heated because they think their beliefs are under attack. The sense of offense and hurt from other people seeming to be against your ideals. Everyone trying to correct and destroy everyone else that is different to them. Conflicts based on different bodies and genders and so on. The whole world is riddled with such temptations.

"Everything the body sees is a form of conflict." - ACIM

Sometimes when there is less contrast between two things they seem to get along. ACIM refers to them as allies, where the two are still in subjective egotism, but because their egotism "matches" they become in a way blind to each other. Neither of them "stands out" in opposition so they seem to be in harmony. But it is an illusion of harmony between two equally insane individuals. And if one of them defects, the claws come out and they scream betrayal.

Atoms and molecules conflict with each other, just by being different. Difference IS disagreement. Bodies conflict with each other just by being different. The first law of chaos is that the truth is different for everyone, and everywhere, and for everything. Every single particle of matter is different to, therefore in conflict with, every other. Everywhere you look, everything the body sees, mountains and forests and oceans and cities, it is all conflicting in its form. To be unalike is to be discordant and at war.

"The world was made as an attack on God."

"For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death."

And so where there is conflict or difference of opposition, there is temptation, because there is extreme disagreement. Difference IS attack. And if you buy into the opposition or give it any power whatsoever, you set it up as an enemy in your mind. And then you will feel attacked by it, and will be attacking yourself, and will retaliate defensively, trying to preserve your sense of truth.

All special relationships demonstrate this. They're all founded on an illusion of peace, brought about by two conflicted individuals, who are at war with the world, finding an escape from the conflict seemingly with each other by having something in common. They hide from a mutual enemy together in the confines of an exclusive relationship prison.

"When two INDIVIDUALS seek to become ONE, they are trying to DECREASE their magnitude. Each would DENY his power, for the SEPARATE union EXCLUDES THE UNIVERSE. Far more is LEFT OUTSIDE than would be taken in."

So you've got a world of differences which tempts war, and two people who are at war with the world, who "take sides" together because they see an absence of war in each other, because they both are warring in the same way. They both hate the same stuff, they both exclude the same stuff, and so they are narrow and closed off in a similar way. And this produces an illusion of love. The same happens when siding with political parties or sports teams or segments of society or religions.

But this love is very volatile and unstable and riddled with conditions and contradictions. And if any of those conditions are not met, it quickly devolves into the special hate that it's based on. If one person even decides to be more unconditionally loving, the other conditional person may see this as proof of defection, and that the other is against them and unwilling to hate with them. And then it's bye bye relationship.

I think its probably true of most people that we tend to avoid conflict and try to create an illusion of peace in life. A safe house to live in. A way to avoid sickness. An avoidance of bad people. Trying to eat the right food. Staying away from known threats and dangers. All to try to pretend that the world is not a world of conflict, to make a nice comfortable corner in the desert where you can hang out with a false sense of security. Until shit comes knocking.

True peace can only come from a transcendence of opposition. But it has to also come from "taking sides with God". That doesn't mean being against anything because in God there is no opposition. God is all encompassing and love has no opposite. It is really only the opposition to God that believes in opposites. This is why the ego attacks and hates the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit completely ignores it. He doesn't attack the ego at all, He just shows you that it is invalid.

To take sides with God is to be vigilant for his truth and his Kingdom. It means to believe only what God believes, if God had beliefs. To know what God knows. To be under no laws but his. To recognize that opposition is truly fiction and there is only one real world, one reality, one truth. This light then shines and shines away the darkness of rebellion and of sin and war. And in the final recognition that there is no opposite to love, conflict disappears forever.

tl;dr ... but it's a forgivable mistake.

Heaven is an environment of spirit, of sharing and openness, of oneness and love. It permits the shared overlapping presence of many created beings. All of spirit PERMEATES each other and PASSES THROUGH each other.

Remember that "nothing real can be threatened." Heaven does not permit any part of the environment to act against any other part. It does not put up boundaries, there are no walls to keep things out or in.

Everything has access to everything at all times. There are no prisons, nothing to imprison, and nothing to attack the prison. There are no objects that are solid, with surfaces that collide, or which can attack or damage other objects.

In heaven, there is nothing acting against the freedom of will. There is nothing to oppose the will of God. There is no way to will against anyone. This produces an environment where there are no COLLISIONS between things, there are no hard surfaces that keep things out, there are no separate wills or forces which can act upon objects and cause them to change or move against their will.

In the separation from God, we introduced an idea of SIN. It's the idea that will can be used against will, that you can attack and affect something without be affected, that one thing can act upon another without its consent, that something can be hurt with no power to stop it. It's an idea of destruction and damage, of sickness and death.

This idea alone produced what we call SPACE TIME, a whole second order of "reality" rooted in the idea that one part can be separate from another, that one thing can act upon another without its consent, and real irreversible effects can be produced. Where one thing can act upon another thing against its will and change it forever.

"Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects."

SPACE TIME is an environment, a system of thought in mind, completely dependent on the idea of sin. The idea of attack. That one thing can act against another. That there can be a war, a conflict, and a COLLISION. It is a world of attack on the will of God.

"The world (spacetime) was made as an attack on God."

This is why we have here physical matter, with objects which can act upon other objects without their consent. A rock can fall down a mountain and slam into a tree. The tree didn't ask for this. The tree is changed irreversibly. This is sin. Physical sin. One thing acting upon another without its consent.

It requires that there be solid surfaces. There has to be a resistance that is strong enough to REPEL something. This is why physical matter has atomic forces. The repulsion, a form of unwillingness, PUSHES AGAINST other things. It allows two objects to push against each other, thus affecting each other, moving each other, changing each other. Without solidity, sin is impossible. Without OPPOSING FORCES (wills) solid matter cannot exist and cannot have any properties.

"The world of bodies is the world of sin. For without a body sin is impossible."

A body, a solid material physical object, be it human or animal or a mountain or a planet, is required in order to have sin. There has to be a separation, to keep the things apart. This takes the form of materials which seem to have mass and solidity. These two "separate" things can now act upon each other independently, not sharing a will, not sharing a mind, not sharing interests. They are in CONFLICT with each other constantly.

Conflict and war and murder and attack and sin are BUILT IN TO SPACE TIME. It is its fundamental nature. The entirety of spacetime is an hallucinated image, a PICTURE, of what it would look like if heaven (God's Son) were attacked against its will, complete with forces acting upon each other and opposing each other and conflicting and damaging and destroying.

"This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."

One thing acting upon another thing against its will. That's the root of all of spacetime, the tiny mad idea, the violation of God's will, the attempt to oppose reality. The mere idea of FORCING something to happen TO something OTHER than (separate from) oneself. The idea of sin, of murder, and of death.

Because now if you can use power to cause/will a change in something else, and it changes, and the change is IRREVERSIBLE, that is the idea of sin. If I throw a brick through a glass window and the glass is broken and the brick is chipped, these are effectively PERMANENT changes. The broken window is now THE PROOF OF SIN, and testifies that someone DID throw a brick through the window. So long as the window remains broken, the proof is still there. And the window will never be the same again.

The ability to DAMAGE, to destroy, to attack, to rot and decay, to change anything at all, is the idea of sin. It's sort of like, we've tried to suggest that heaven can be attacked, hurt, changed, destroyed, and mangled into some new form. The entirety of spacetime is testifying to this at all times without end. Even when the objects are not touching. Even when they do. Even when the planets are far apart from each other. They are still at war.

It is an entire system of war, conflict, attack and death. The important thing to realize is that WITHOUT the idea that will can act against will, ALL of this is impossible. You cannot have WALLS, you cannot have OBJECTS, you cannot have BODIES, you cannot have PLANETS, you cannot have attack or murder or destruction, you cannot have MATTER, without the idea of sin.

Heaven is a system of total access. Spacetime is a system of denied access. Heaven is a system of everything being shared. Spacetime is a system of nothing being shared. Heaven is a system of nothing being separate or kept apart of unable to merge or overlap. Spacetime is a system where everything is kept apart and nothing ever joins or shares. They are TOTALLY OPPOSITE to each other in nature.

This also means that you CANNOT take Earth, bodies, space or time, INTO heaven, and keep it. They are absolutely incompatible. One denies the other. Sin is a "lack of love". You cannot take a lack of love INTO love and have it still BE a lack of love. Nothing about its LACK nature can be maintained if there is love. Just as light shines away darkness and REPLACES the darkness. You cannot take the darkness into the light and have it still retain its dark properties.

Earth, human bodies, space and time, are all ideas of sin and darkness and a lack of love. They will NEVER be that which they deny. They cannot be integrated into heaven because they ABSOLUTELY REQUIRE and DEPEND ON a LACK of heaven for their nature. As soon as you introduce the oneness, sharing, lack of walls, lack of hard surfaces, lack of collisions, lack of spatial separations, that is true of heaven's nature, there is nothing left to SUPPORT matter existing at all in ANY way. Earth DISSOLVES in the light and CEASES to exist. It is made of separateness.

You will not be able to "walk on the surface of the earth" in heaven's reality under heaven's laws. There are NO surfaces. There is NO gravity. There is no COLLISION between feet and ground. There is no SEPARATENESS to keep you from sinking into the planet. There is no POSSIBILITY of Earth or bodies whatsoever there.

What you CAN do, is you can adopt heaven's laws and viewpoint and look up the world of sin with forgiveness. It forgives the world BECAUSE of the world's limitations. It recognizes that the world (spacetime/earth) is not REAL sin, it is an ILLUSION of sin. And that really it is just A MISTAKE. Earth is a mistake. Spacetime is a mistake. It is FALSE. Not attacked, not condemned, simply nothing.

This is a key point which people need to really deeply realize. Spacetime is totally opposite to heaven. "Earth, which is heaven's opposite in EVERY way." There are no collideable solid material objects in heaven's reality. The world, earth, space and time, all bodies, must eventually be LET GO AND FORGOTTEN. Because they are nothing. And they cannot exist WITHOUT sin and death.

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master. And this unholy instant SEEMS to be life. An instant of despair, a tiny island of dry sand, bereft of water, and set uncertainly upon oblivion. Here does the Son of God stop briefly by, to offer his devotion to death's idols, and then pass on."

"And FROM this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise."

"A mind and body cannot both exist. Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one denies the other can be real. If you are physical your mind is gone from your self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really part of you. If you are Spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality."

"From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not."

"To see a SINLESS body is impossible. For holiness is POSITIVE, and the body is merely neutral. It is NOT sinful, but neither is it sinless."

"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings"

"How long can contradiction stand, when its impossible nature is clearly revealed? What disappears in light is NOT attacked. It merely vanishes, because it is not true."

"The body is NOT attacked, but merely PROPERLY PERCEIVED."

"The world will end in an illusion, as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no-one, limitless in gentleness, will cover it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ends the world that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone."

"The world will end with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be."

"The body is the symbol of the world. Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven."

"Forgiveness is this world's equivalent of Heaven's justice. It translates the world of sin into a simple world, where justice can be reflected from BEYOND the gate behind which total lack of limits lies."

"Forgiveness turns the world of sin into a world of glory, wonderful to see."

"Let us unite in bringing blessing to the world of sin and death."

"They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

The main thing I don't really like about ideas of non-duality and oneness, is that it really ignores the CREATIVE qualities of God.

If there is only God, and there is nowhere to go, and nothing to do, and God is just sitting there by himself, as a "oneness", in which there is no "duality" or separations of any kind, how do you get from there to a recognition that God CREATES?

For God to even have thoughts, or to create even one son, flies in the face of this idea that God is one thing. Even if you say, well, God has one son but it's part of Him... you can't even really say that either. There can't even be anything you can refer to as "one son", if there is only God.

Jesus says for example, "I am my father are one". And he goes on to clarify that this does not mean there aren't PARTS to that statement. It does not mean, there is only the father. It does not mean, that whatever we're referring to as the son is actually the father, and therefore we are really talking about "one thing". It ACTUALLY means, there *IS* a distinct Son, who is in SOME way "separate" from the Father, enough to establish that there are really TWO things.

"I" (part 1) and "the father" (part 2). Otherwise we might as well just not ever mention the Son or Christ whatsoever and just say that God is all that exists. Jesus is careful to make this distinction, that Son and Father are having some kind of mutual experience or state of being which he's labelled as "one", but that this oneness does not UNDO OR ignore the fact that there are still two things happening here.

In the truest sense of what non-duality or oneness means, it implies there isn't a two-ness of anything. And if you are being really, really, really strict about that logical reasoning, it SHOULD mean that God has NO SON AT ALL. There's either oneness - one thing, or there isn't.

There's a whole spectrum of beliefs out there which proceed from the strictest of interpretations ie "there is only God" through the slight blurring of boundaries to suggest "there is a son, but there's only one of them", through to "there are other sons but they're really the one son", through to "sons are the ego", and all manner of interpretations in between.

But here is the simple fact of it. If God has a thought which creates a son, or if his "effect" is his son, or his son is actually really "himself" pretending to be a son, then this makes himself also the dreamer of dreams and the maker of death. Does that fly with you?

Are you willing to have God be the one who is responsible for separation? And what about the Holy Spirit, did God - who must be dreaming, create the holy spirit as a perfect non-dreamer, in order to pull himself out of the dream he himself made, due to apparently not being able to wake up himself, while simultaneously having created a holy spirit who is not asleep? Does that make any sense whatsoever?

We're told conflicting messages by various teachers who have not really reasoned this out. If there is a God to return home to, a God who did not believe in the separation idea and did not dream, how is that even possible unless somehow there is something that distinguishes God from the one who is having a dream? Even if it's just ONE son, how is it that this one son is able to do ANYTHING that is COMPLETELY SEPARATE from the Father, ensuring that the Father does not entertain or enter into or be affected by this dreaming son?

If truly they are so joined and are so "one" that they literally are the same thing, or the same self, the son literally cannot dream without dragging the father into it. And that would mean the entirety of EXISTENCE would now fall from grace and we'd all be permanently dead, God included. There has to be SOMETHING about the son of God, or this aspect of God, which somehow renders its choices incapable of affecting God. How is that possible if God is supposedly so joined to and connected to this dreamer, in such a way that there is "influence" between them?

What it HAS to indicate, is that EITHER there is a separation between the Father and the Son, OR some other mechanism or dynamic of relationship which guarantees that God will not ever dream. Because if God is the dreamer, then God has made a world of death and also doughnuts and rainbows and chocolate bars. So what IS it that makes God NOT affected by the dream? What is it that sections off the dreamer from God? Even if it's just a dream, it IS still a made idea, it IS an IDEA in the mind, even if it's an idea of impossibilities. We DID have a mad idea, even if it's a nonsense idea. Why didn't GOD have the idea, and why isn't God trapped in an illusion?

The ego would conclude, it MUST mean that there is separation in heaven. It cannot conclude otherwise. But there is another possibility. FREEDOM. Is it not possible, that God gave such TOTAL FREEDOM to his creations, that by all intents and purposes, his creations actually are ABSOLUTELY free and therefore literally have a will of their own, a mind of their own, a spirit of their own, and can CHOOSE on their own, WITHOUT it having any effect on God whatsoever? If the son or sons is FREE, and God has "given" them FULLY, and has COMPLETELY set them in heaven as permanent free-willed beings, this WOULD completely explain why it's possible for God to not be part of dreaming.

"God, who encompasses all being, nevertheless created separate beings, who have everything individually, and want to share it to increase their joy."

For me, heaven absolutely IS NOT a picture of what we traditionally are told is a state of pure non-duality, or even really a state of this "oneness" where there is "only God" happening. It's NOT one thing. It contains FREE WILLED BEINGS OF LIGHT, who are SO free that they literally are free to choose whether or not to will with God.

So get this picture... that God created beings - who are not only fully created and completely SET FREE by unconditional love, but He even gave them SUCH freedom that they could in fact freely decide for themselves whether to love or not. You'd think that this would be quite insane, or suicidal, for God to create thoughts which seem capable of disagreeing with their own creator. Why would God do such a crazy thing? Because He knows that nothing REAL can be threatened, and even if they DO choose to side with dreams, these dreams don't REALLY threaten reality. And that anyone who does dream WILL awaken at some point, because it is not God's will that He be cut off from his creations.

The picture I have of God is that He is FAR more a creator of individual free-willed souls, to whom He has given TOTAL freedom, to the extent that they have to willingly COOPERATE and CO-CREATE by their own will, that they are not mere "parts of God Himself" but actually are real distinct entities with their own minds and their own being. They CAN and do naturally want to share their mind and being with God also, and with the whole sonship, but not because they are forced to or inherently made to. They freely willingly want to do so, to increase their joy, and because Heaven is filled with celebration of Creation.

God is a creator, not a blob. God has sons, many many many sons. God also created angels. This is all perfectly written about in ACIM by Jesus with hundreds if not thousands of statements supporting it. It is the EGO which has a tough time comprehending how it is possible for God, who is whole, could create "many wholes". Or how many wholes can exist simultaneously. Or how God can ADD something to existence. Or how He could create "distinct beings" who have everything "individually", including the creation of multiple minds, and how these multiple minds can coexist harmoniously without war, and without competition, and without differences.

Oneness means "of one kind". In the LIKENESS of God. It means SHARING, by multiple individuals. It does not mean "God is all that exists".

Yes there are statements which at times seem to speak to certain ASPECTS of God's nature in isolation which perhaps gives impression that Jesus is saying there is nothing but God, or that God is all that is, etc... but... it's not the complete picture. Sometimes Jesus refers to the "one son", sometimes to the sonship, sometimes to individual sons. References to the one son do NOT cancel out references to individuals. The ego has a SPAZZ about how this can make sense and be true. It sees only separations where there are none, and joins together things which are not one thing.

Oneness, as in, "there is only one thing" is actually an EGO IDEA. It is the result that EGO reasoning comes to when it boils everything in its EXCLUSIVE thought system down. And it thinks that this final conclusion is accurate and truthful. It is not. It is divisive and incorrect and a false conclusion. God's creation is not "one thing", God's sonship is not devoid of parts, and God DID create multiple beings. Objections to this are, funnily enough, THE EGO objecting to ITS belief in what Heaven must be like.

We are creations of God, children of God, God has created multiple minds, multiple souls, multiple sons, each of whom is SO FREE that they are able to decide for themselves whether or not to will with God. The only REAL choice is to will with God, but our minds DO have the ability and freedom to CHOOSE to dream of an alternative. And we have used that ability. And it has not affected God.

Many many times Jesus has said to me, "you are free". And I could never really quite accept or understand how this is possible, given the framework of how everyone is teaching the course. What wish teachings of "time is already over" and "there's only one son" and so on, I couldn't see how it's possible that I am free. How does a son of God be free, if that son is just part of God's enforced will or some kind of script? Gradually and very confusedly I've come to accept more that we actually DO have free will, because we DO have total freedom. We are to come to God WILLINGLY.

This is why we NEED to have "a little willingness" and eventually total willingness. Willingness isn't coercion. Love does not enter where it is not welcome. We actually literally MUST CHOOSE HEAVEN "heaven is a choice *I* must make". We have to WANT to WILLFULLY choose to accept it. We're not going be willing OR able to accept it if we think it's being forced on us and we don't want it. We have to have total personal willingness to will WITH GOD, to CO-CREATE, to participate and to exercise WILLINGLY the decision to carry out God's will. We are not slaves.

We are not JUST effects. We have been given the power to CAUSE as well, the power to will, and the power to create FREELY. Free will was given NECESSARILY in order to allow us to create freely like the Father. Without this freedom, we could not WILLINGLY WANT to agree with God's will for us. God, who is cause, caused us to BE causes. It is an EGO IDEA that we are "only an effect". That's a dead end. We are not a dead end. We are extenders and freely-willing CO-CREATORS with God. Because we want to be, because it's natural to want to be, and because God ONLY willed that we will FREELY.

I'd like to try to explain from my point of view what a miracle is. However, I have to acknowledge that there are still some aspects of miracles I do not understand. So this is a work in progress. Take what you like and leave the rest.

Firstly, there are two levels. A higher level and a lower level. Think of each level as a realm of existence. The higher level is where God hangs out. In-between them is the idea of separation, and then below is where the ego hangs out. You could equate these to heaven and earth.

In truth, the higher level is the only causal power. In this higher level sits the Son of God who is dreaming, and in His dreaming he makes the lower level. He sort of projects it downwards from above. Mind, as cause, produces the picture of the world, an effect.

This picture of the world contains *everything* in the world, and he simultaneously puts in place everything that moves or seems to have affects on other things, plus the effects that those causes seem to have.

There are no causes inside the dream, only effects. So he is actually like a puppeteer pulling the strings to make BOTH the "causes and effects" or "victims and victimizers" do everything that they seem to do, and the "story" of how one causes the other is FICTIONAL.

In this perspective, cause and effect are VERTICAL. What is above, causes what is below. So this means everything in the world below is only an effect of the dreamer above.

Within the world below, however, there are illusions of separation, and many of these illusions make it SEEM as if there are independent causes within the dream. An example would be that the wind blows and makes the leaves on the tree move. Or a person kicks a ball.

The wind DOES NOT blow the tree - the wind AND the tree moving are BOTH dreamed SIMULTANEOUSLY by the higher level mind. The person does NOT kick the ball, the person kicking and the ball moving are BOTH dreamed simultaneously by a single mind, to create an ILLUSION of cause and effect when viewed in "linear time".

In this perspective, cause and effect are HORIZONTAL. Or in other words, there is an ILLUSION that something in the dream is able to "cause" something else in the dream to be an effect. In essence, this turns the "effect" of dreaming into a cause in its own right. So then we believe that this world contains "causes" which produce "effects". In the horizontal, causes are VICTIMIZERS, and effects are VICTIMS. And it is possible for victimizers to be affected as causes transform into effects and back again, because they are all the same ILLUSION.

Someone kicks you in the leg and you develop a bruise. If you are a body, this puts you AT THE EFFECT of the world, making you an instant VICTIM. Being born "by" the world into a body is an ILLUSION which makes you an instant victim, but in truth you are NOT at the effect of the world, and you are NOT "created by" your parent's bodies.

This horizontal perception of cause and effect is ENTIRELY illusory, because even the things which seem to "cause" other things, and the "effects" of those causes, are actually BOTH EFFECTS of the higher level mind which is the only cause of them. The higher level mind, in its vertical causality, manifests both the person kicking the leg, and the bruise on the leg, simultaneously, making it SEEM as though there was a horizontal cause of the bruise.

In the horizontal perception, we come to believe there are thus illusory "laws" which SEEM to describe what we are seeing happen from within this level, without being awakened to the true nature of cause and effect. It SEEMS to us that every action (cause) has an equal and opposite reaction (effect). The laws of physics are based on this. Science has gone to great lengths to describe the APPARENT way in which stuff happens at the level of being inside the dream, unaware of the higher level.

All of these ego laws, horiziontal laws, are SHOWN to be completely false and illusory, when the higher level decides to DEMONSTRATE that IT is the cause of everything. It is therefore possible for the higher level to decide to project a different image or dream, below, which is unlike the condition it was in previously, WITHOUT OBEYING any of the lower level illusory laws. Because the higher level "overrides" the lower level, any illusions of how things are supposed to happen, or what is supposed to be possible, are completely ignored.

The higher level is the level of love. But it is not just love as we think of love "separate from" other qualities. It is also joy, peace, life etc. In particular, it is ALIVE. God's love is a LIVING PRESENCE, which contains within it life-giving, eternal-life giving qualities. It is able to extend life forever. It is able to express SO MUCH "livingness", that it is permanently in a state of incorruptible "health", it is absolutely impossible for it to become sick or die, and it is therefore a state of immortality.

The life-giving quality of God's love, naturally EXPRESSES at all times. God is therefore ALWAYS giving life and continuing life. God's love is so life-giving and restorative and absolutely refuses to include any form of death or problem, that if any kind of illusion of sickness or death were "exposed" to it, it would be so INFUSED with life, that all signs of decay or sickness or death will be completely reversed. Health (light) will totally obliterate suffering (darkness), shining it away permanently.

This life-giving quality of God, is what we refer to as MIRACULOUS. It literally is 100% unlimited in what it can do, and there is absolutely nothing that can deter it or prevent it from healing, ie being in a permanent state of perfection. God is PERMANENTLY MIRACULOUS. Permanently life-giving. And so is His Son. It is completely NATURAL for God and His Son to be permanently miraculous. If they were to seem to be not miraculous, something must have gone wrong! Miraculousness does not ever stop. It is an eternal aspect of God's creative power.

With this in mind, when we "descend" into the darkness, going down to the lower "level", into the ego world, hell, we are attempting to put distance between ourselves and God. The further we become distant from God, as though descending further downwards towards death (eventually to be buried in the ground), the more we will be blocked from the life-giving properties of God's loving expression. This will result in a mind which believes sickness and death are reality, and it will project a body which is sick and later dead.

Death, in the ego's world, is the final statement that God's life has ended, or that we are so distant from God's Will to Live, that "our" will to live is no longer a will to live, but a will to cease living, ie to die. This means we believe we are becoming *completely* separate from God. Death of the body and mind is the ego's final attempt to completely escape the realm where God's light shines. Only complete "non-existence" can seem to fulfill the ego's wish to be separate from where God is.

In the dark, our mind is believing in separation, and is therefore sick. We have blocks to awareness, so do not see the light very well. This causes us to attack ourselves and our body will show this. Forms of sickness will appear, and eventually the body will die because we have attacked it. In order to UNDO this and reverse it, even to reverse what shows up as physical death, we need a miracle. We need some of the miraculous life-giving radiance of God's love.

Exposure to such radiance will RESURRECT us back to life, first a restoration of health and life in the mind and body, and then later the completion of the resurrection in which the body disappears, because the mind has become SO pure that it can no longer be bound by a body image. There are degrees of darkness and because the body is an outward picture of an inner condition at all times, if the mind resurrects, the body will also. Any "symptoms" (fake effects) from the illusion of horizontal causality, will be UNDONE by the shift to vertical perception (true causality - mind over matter).

A "miracle" as we tend to think of it, seems to be a step towards God. Or as some people call it, a "shift in perception" from death to life. However, we need to be clear that God is permanently miraculous and so is His Son. The miraculous life-giving property of God never stops. The ability to do absolutely anything never comes to an end. The creative power of the mind never ceases. And God is ALWAYS being loving. Anything that comes from love as an expression of love, IS MIRACULOUS. This means that God is ALWAYS MIRACULOUS.

A miracle then, CANNOT BE defined as the shift from death to life itself. The miracle is the LOVE which EXPRESSES in order to PRODUCE a shift from death to life. The shift is an EFFECT. The shift takes place entirely in the realm of the ego's world, the lower level, the level of EFFECT, because a miracle is an expression from the higher level of love, shining down onto what is below, and lifting it upwards towards God.

A helpful analogy, is when Jesus says beautifully:

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."

What this is saying is, miraculous healing love shines "down from above" onto the illusory world below where stuff seemed dead, giving it life, pulling it closer to itself, and "life" erupts to show SIGNS (symbols) of the immortality that has been extended from love. Love expresses, the dead come back to life, even forms and bodies and objects come back towards life. As far as forms of life can, being limited as symbols in a dream.

Corresponding to this then, realize that miracles come down from heaven, from the higher level, FROM LOVE, as an expression of Love, and BLESS what is below (the dusty dead world), bestowing upon it the MIRACULOUS radiance of love's life-giving properties, and therefore "bringing life" to what is there, RESTORING to being "more alive".

Jesus says in his analogy that the signs of life now spring up. Simply, what once was seemingly dead or even partly dead, has had some measure of its "dead-ness" lifted away, that thing has been RAISED upwards, vertically, towards God, and therefore is now in closer proximity to the life-giving power of God's love, and therefore COMES BACK TO LIFE. This even means that ROADKILL can be brought back to life, all "effects" of war can be undone, and all death reversed. The body can even be made immortal, incapable of sickness and death, because it is SO infused with the life-giving power of love. A miracle indeed.

Miracles are also referred to as a shift in perception - FROM HORIZONTAL TO VERTICAL PERCEPTION. As I described, when the mind changes how it sees things, and no longer sees things entirely in a "horizontal" way in terms of cause and effect, is no longer believing that one thing in the dream caused another thing, it shifts its VIEWPOINT by moving awareness VERTICALLY up towards God.

Vertical perception is the awareness that the higher level (love) is the ONLY CAUSE, and everything "below" that seems to be in the world - bodies and such, is ONLY EFFECT. This so-called shift into alignment with how God operates, is a shift into the recognition that cause is inside you not outside you, or to put it another way, cause is above, and all effects are below.

The "shifting" itself IS NOT the miracle as such. The shifting itself, the transition from darkness to light, is not really what causes healing. What causes healing is God's LOVE expressing FROM above, shining down onto what is below, causing what is below to be partly dissolved, such that the mind seems to shift upward.

This has to be true, because if the miracle itself - the miraculousness of love - were ONLY the shifting from horizontal to vertical, then once the "shifting" itself had been completed, the miracle would be ENDED, and that means, love would stop being miraculous. Love is PERMANENTLY MIRACULOUS. It cannot stop being miraculous.

What happens is, once a shift to vertical has taken place and healing has been RECEIVED FROM ABOVE, and the level of communication has been raised (oneness increased, separation decreased), there are simply LESS BLOCKS to the extension of love. More love is allowed to SHINE from above, through the mind, and to extend outward.

It extends outward completely naturally because that is what love does all the time. So when you remove your block to awareness, whether you call it a shift or not, you REVEAL the presence of love in the mind, you open up to the higher level and allow it to shine through you, and therefore love can now EXTEND THROUGH YOU.

Removing blocks to love, is an act of removing blocks to the AWARENESS of love's presence, because love is ALREADY FULLY PRESENT, being miraculous all the time. Correction, shifting, purification, or removal of blocks, simply UNCOVERS the love which was trying to express, allowing it to express more.

Shifting perception DOES NOT CAUSE A MIRACLE and DOES NOT CAUSE LOVE TO EXIST. Love, miraculousness, already exists. That is the *ego's version of miracles*, which it thinks IT causes, because IT thinks that IT has power over love to make healing happen! The shift is seen by the ego as a cause, but it is an EFFECT from a higher level. A gift. A sign that the mind is WILLING TO RECEIVE LOVE, not an ability to 'make love happen'.

The shift merely puts us closer TO it and allows us to EXTEND it, thus RECEIVING healing FROM love. "We" do not cause healing by shifting perception, LOVE DOES ALL THE WORK. And this also means, that being open to RECEIVING LOVE from God is important in healing, not just doing stuff with your mind on your own. You do not have to do everything yourself, God WANTS TO HEAL YOU FOR YOU.

The INCREASE in the expressability of that love through you is what HEALS YOU. The shift does not heal, the unblocking does not heal, LOVE IS THE ONLY HEALER. Love is the miracle.

After a while, when you have removed enough blocks to love that you are starting to RADIATE LOVE on a more constant basis, or at least something approaching towards love, YOUR MIND is now being restored as a conduit or medium through which love can naturally extend.

This means you will now be willing and able to extend love outward. And since you're still in the body at the moment, that means you will be able to DO GOD'S WILL ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN, ie you will be able to express the LOVE OF GOD, here, which means expressing God's LIFE-GIVING POWER, here, to HEAL and undo absolutely any sign of "non-life" you encounter.

In other words, you do not simply perform a miracle in order to shift your mind towards love. You shift your mind towards love SO THAT you can be miraculous. Otherwise it would mean that someone who is heavily steeped in ego lies, upon making their first little shift, is suddenly a full-blown miracle worker. That is pretty much impossible.

"Miracles are everyone's right, but PURIFICATION IS NECESSARY FIRST". This means that your purification efforts will have to happen first, possibly over a prolonged period of time, BEFORE you will GAIN ACCESS TO the right to perform miracles. This is because you need to remove quite a lot of blocks to love BEFORE love can flow through you fully enough to show up as miracles in your life or on behalf of others. If you have a lot of blocks to love, you are GETTING IN THE WAY of the extension of love and therefore are blocking miracles.

You are not miraculous just because you start studying the course or doing the workbook, or "shifting your perception". Miracles come LATER, after much purification work ie correction of your mind, letting go of ego, applying forgiveness etc. Shifts in perception are not miracles, but eventually they LEAD TO miracles. If you could suddenly shift your perception very much to a highly vertical perception, you could conceivably perform a miracle right now. But it is uncommon. Usually we have to "prepare" to be able to do that.

You will OPEN UP TO miracles over time, the more you release blocks to love, because you will be placing yourself closer to God and therefore regaining access to love, a willingness to extend it, and therefore miracles can work through you from God. You can then perform God's WILL, but you are not going to be able to perform God's will after a few perceptual adjustments.

However, at some point, you WILL get to the point where you are spending much more of your time IN vertical perception, not believing in the horizontal ILLUSION of causality, and will become much more miraculous. When miracles are not happening ALL THE TIME, something has gone wrong. This means that miracles are a PERMANENT PART of the NATURE of the Son of God. And of God. It is a natural part of love and life. When we are not being constantly miraculous, constantly loving, we are not performing miracles all the time, so something is wrong.

When we do become more consistently aligned with God's Will, the Power of God will now extend through us. We will now be ABLE to EXPRESS LOVE. And since we're still in this world, this means, we are able to render the MAXIMAL SERVICE to our brothers, which is what every miracle does. At this point, "miracle working" does NOT simply entail shifting someone's perception towards truth. It entails utilizing the vertical perception of the higher level (God/Love/Life) to OVERRIDE any and every illusory "effect", or "cause" in this world.

This means your holiness is very powerful and there is literally nothing that it cannot do in the world. Miracles expressing from the higher level, love, do not see orders of difficulty because they do not believe the lower-level illusion of cause and effect. They overthrow ALL physical laws because all laws on the horizontal level are FICTION. What appears to be a cause in the world is NOT A CAUSE. Any state or condition or sickness or form of suffering or even physical death, CAN BE REVERSED.

Why would you do this? Well, you're going be expressing a LOT OF LOVE. And it is NATURAL for love to be miraculous. It is NATURAL for love to want to HEAL, to reverse suffering, to undo ego pain, to heal the SEPARATION, and so if separation is showing up as physical sickness or broken bodies, LOVE WANTS TO HEAL IT. It is not God's will that ANYONE suffer or die. It is God's Will that EVERYONE experience perfect health and resurrection and permanent happiness.

Why express miracles in a world which isn't real? First of all, that's level confusion. Second of all, it's because this is what LOVE WANTS TO DO. Love wants to HEAL THE WORLD to resurrect everything to a reflection of perfect health and incorruptability, and to then bring everyone home across the tiny gap between that "real world" and heaven. The world NEEDS miracles of healing from love. And third of all, it is our FUNCTION in this world to HEAL, a function which we share with the holy spirit, and while we are here, it is our natural RIGHT and PURPOSE to heal at all times.

This means PERFORMING MIRACLES EVERY SINGLE DAY. God wants us to BE MIRACLE WORKERS, in the world, helping our brother, healing our brother SUPERNATURALLY through the Holy Spirit, DEMONSTRATING that vertical perception is the truth, demonstrating that ego laws DO NOT APPLY, and teaching everyone by EXAMPLE what the TRUTH OF LOVE IS. We ARE supposed to be going out and healing the sick and raising the dead and teaching everyone that God is Love and all limitations are fictional. Miracles are the MAXIMAL SERVICE you can render your brother, and that means, extending God's love TO EVERYONE, which WILL HEAL THEM.

And what will the nature of these miracles be, will it be that we help someone to see differently? Perhaps. ANY expression of love is miraculous. But love is also capable of healing the sick, raising the dead, reversing death, undoing all suffering, curing all incurable diseases, even transforming bodies into different bodies. Love has so much power that it also is capable of DEFYING ALL PHYSICAL LAWS, including laws of gravity and space and time and size and mass and properties of matter and anything else which is an ILLUSION on this level.

This means, if necessary, you will have the ability to DO ANYTHING if it is helpful and loving. If it demonstrates that the egos' horizontal laws are COMPLETELY UNTRUE, and easily proven to be false, you will be willing to do it. If that means, lifting up a car with your mind to show that gravity means nothing, so be it. If it means, moving an entire physical mountain in order to show that the mind has power over the world, so be it. If it means manifesting food out of thin air to feed 5000 people, so be it. If it means making your body walk on water to prove that the laws of physics are bullshit, so be it.

You will walk this earth PROVING that cause and effect are VERTICAL, proving that love has the power to GIVE LIFE to the dead, curing what everyone says cannot be undone, proving that resurrection is God's Guarantee, and there will be literally NOTHING that your holiness cannot do. You will heal sick people, you will raise the dead, you will move mountains, and you will SAVE THE WORLD.

Saving the world does not so much mean that you save it FROM some attacker, but rather, that you save it from itself, because it is an ILLUSION. The ultimate healing of all the world will be the restoration of "immortal bodies" temporarily, the total undoing of all sickness across the entire planet, the recognition of the real world by the entire sonship, and then the complete DISAPPEARANCE of the universe, revealing that ONLY HEAVEN IS REAL.

Miracles are the MEANS of the atonement - how YOU get there, but because they are expressions from a higher level of love, you will also BECOME PART OF THE ATONEMENT by continuing to express love even as you are about to accept the atonement, still in a body, walking the earth. You become part of the atonement by becoming part of LOVE, part of God's Will, and DOING WHAT GOD WANTS YOU TO DO, which is to extend love and healing to everyone who needs it!

This is why you will join the "great crusade" and be part of the plan of atonement long-term, because it is YOUR NATURAL FUNCTION when you have received healing and naturally desire to alleviate the suffering of others. You will not have any willingness to support or keep sickness in yourself OR in others. You will be miraculous ALL THE TIME, EVERY DAY. Being miraculous is a PERMANENT QUALITY of the Son of God and all of God's creations. Being constantly miraculous in this world is NORMAL. Being un-miraculous is ABNORMAL. You will also have no desire to "opt out" of this crusade. Jesus needs active miracle workers to bring about the resurrection!

Miracles raise everyone towards God's eternal life. We are to use them WHILE it seems there is a "need". But miracles really acknowledge that "there is nothing to heal" just as forgiveness recognizes "there is nothing to forgive" and God's power recognizes "there is nothing to have power over". So long as illusions persist however, miracles HEAL the illusion, forgiveness UNDOES the ego, and God's power DEMONSTRATES what is true.

Miracles mean life. Resurrection of "what is dead" and brought back to life is the goal of the atonement. Miracles lead to revelation and atonement as the ultimate healing. We are in a state of semi-death right now, in this dream world, separate from God. We NEED miracles. The whole world NEEDS miracles from God. This world NEEDS LOVE.

And love will restore life, to turn the world into a SYMBOL of life, and then the symbol will give way to REAL LIFE. The lower level will disappear (since it was never real) and all that will be LEFT will be the higher level of God/heaven/truth. This is a course in CAUSE, not effect, a cause in how to express the miracle of love from that higher level, not to suffer as a victim of fake effects of death in an ego illusion!

Then we will simply extend God's love forever, which has been happening all along, continuing the miracle of eternal life.

People talk about forgiveness a lot, but might not recognize that judgement is its opposite. In order to forgive we have to give up being judgemental.

To be more accurate, the Holy Spirit does judge, but his judgement is completely accurate and impartial, simply seeing the truth of things. When we move away from his judgement we judge with the ego, and the ego is always biased and unfair and harsh.

Until recently I didn't see how important the idea of not judging is. The Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, "judging is the way that you perceive wrongly." That lead to a realisation that I was somehow in a mode of judging all the time. Judging everything I see, labelling, categorising, evaluating, selecting, analysing, figuring out, that's all judgement.

Judgement is something we made up to replace knowledge. In knowledge we have a direct knowing of what something is, a cognition of it, with no interpretation needed. We are one with it and be it, so we know it intimately like ourselves. But in the separation we threw knowledge away, meaning we could no longer just "know" what something is. We denied knowing and claimed not to know, which is a state of questioning and fear. We then needed a way to "find out" what stuff is, so in the split mind of consciousness and perception we invented judgement - to judge or assess reality.

Having invented judgement, perception is then totally based on it. Judging is what you do to try to figure out what something else, on the basis that you do not know what it is. And because you don't know it, you can't possibly correctly discern it, at least not unless judgement is completely lined up with knowledge in the state of true perception - as the Holy Spirit sees it.

To judge with ego is the attempt to decide what you think something is, what you make of it, what you read into it, and what you project onto it. And in fact it's then not an attempt to find out what the thing is, it's actually an attempt to push it away and not know it. Sensing is about not knowing, and is also part of this, via the body's senses.

So then we judge as an attack, in an effort to play God as if we can tell things what they are. As if we can put onto them our definition of them. A label to be attached. You're this, you're that. A finger to point and a sentence to hand down, a verdict of guilty. The ego always judges there to be something wrong with everything, while the Holy Spirit judges there to be nothing wrong but a mistake.

When I was thinking about not judging at all, I started noticing many quotes in the course confirming this. And then I thought, maybe God doesn't judge at all either. If God has knowledge he has no need for judgement. Which means he's not sitting there pointing a finger, blaming, resenting, assessing if we did well enough, deciding if we're worthy, looking down his nose at us, condemning and accusing us, hating and resenting and rejecting us, or any other kind of snooty dis-satisfaction.

In fact I'd been noticing this in a lot of near death experience accounts, where people discover that there is absolutely no judgement in heaven. And that means none of the above, none of that sort of sitting there in front of some panel of judges, or waiting to find out your fate, or being frowned upon for doing things wrong, or even condemned for crimes or sins or whatever. There is absolutely no judgement at all in heaven.

I found this quite inspiring, because I think we spend most of lives living inside of a state of judging and being judged. And the course says that if you judge others, you will judge yourself, due to the golden rule - other people are you, so if you judge them you are judging yourself. So then we're in a constant state of feeling judged and condemned, and trying to project that onto others. So we might then think that God does the same and judges the things we decide are sins. But he doesn't, at all.

I found this really interesting, to consider God as non-judgemental entirely. Not even batting an eyelid if we do the most heinous things, make horrendous mistakes, or even seem to deliberately hurt others or attack or whatever we would judge as evil. Not a single bit of judgement from God. It's a very loving and forgiving state when you think about that. That no-one up there is looking down their nose at you or holding anything against you whatsoever.

As I pondered this I was then wondering, well, what is it like to see things without judgement then... and then the Holy Spirit showed me one of his visions. In this vision I was aware of a person who was being seen with such innocence, such lack of judgementalism, that they seemed to be doing absolutely nothing wrong at all.

I could see that there was an awareness that the person was a bit lost, confused, perhaps making mistakes, but they just seemed to be seen as absolutely utterly innocent in that. Sort of like a child that just hadn't learned yet, didn't know any better, and was just finding their way. There was a total and utter lack of judgement against them, no sense of wrongfulness, no guilt, no condemnation, no sense that they are breaking rules, nothing but a deeply innocent and compassionate view that they are simply loved where they're at. Even their mistaken state didn't seem like a state of sin, it was just "how they were at the moment" framed in total innocence and harmlessness. As if all that remained was for them to gently find a way out of a maze or something.

No judgement, no condemnation, no failing to measure up, no sense of unworthiness, no anger or blame for doing something wrong, not even a sense that the way the person was mistaken was even "not supposed to be that way". There was no pressure, no hurrying them up toward a goal, no chastisement or punishment, and nothing but a loving sense of just gently guiding them to be less confused. Like all they had was a temporary slight confusion about things, and just needed to be shown the truth, and that is all.

I see now that forgiveness is completely non-judgemental in this way, and this is how the Holy Spirit sees everyone. It's also how heaven and God sees everyone. That we're not going through some kind of obstacle course, doing things hellishly wrong, committing sins all over the place, or causing any real problem. From heaven's viewpoint we're completely and totally innocent at all times, and just a little bit lost. With no sense of sin whatsoever, we are then just in need of being guided back home, like just a lovely little lost sheep that needs as little bit of help.

No sense of shame or guilt, no sense of punishment or sinfulness, no sense of demand or coming down like a ton of bricks, no sense of force or pushing or chastising or assessing whether someone is measuring up or not, no disappointment or annoyance or finger pointing, none of that. Just simple innocent love being nothing but innocent and gently offering a loving correction, with a smile behind it.

If to forgive is to suspend ego judgement, then we have to find a way to stop judging everything on our own. We have to let the Holy Spirit judge for us, and his judgement is a pure judgement based on innocence, in which there is no guilt or punishment of any kind. He only ever finds us to be innocent because he recognizes exactly what is true of us. And recognition is enlightenment, and is rooted in knowledge.

"Judgment and love are opposites. From one Come all the sorrows of the world. But from the Other comes the peace of God Himself."

"In the mind of the THINKER, then, He (Holy Spirit) IS judgmental, but only in order to unify it so IT CAN perceive WITHOUT judgment. This enables the mind to TEACH without judgment and therefore learn to BE without judgment."

"How can His Son AWAKEN from the dream? It is a dream of judgment. So must he judge NOT, and he WILL waken."

"Judge not, for you but judge yourself and thus delay this final judgment."

"Judge not that ye be not judged" it merely means that if you judge the reality of others at all, you will be unable to avoid judging your own. The choice to judge rather than know has been the cause of the loss of peace. Judgment is the process on which perception but not cognition rests."

"Judge not because you cannot, NOT because you are a miserable sinner too. How can the special REALLY understand that justice is the same for everyone?"

"The text explains that the Holy Spirit is the Answer to all problems you have made. These problems are not true, but that is meaningless to those who believe in them. And everyone believes in what he made, for it was made by his believing it. Into this strange and paradoxical situation, - one without meaning and devoid of sense, yet out of which no way seems possible, - God has sent His Judgment to answer yours. Gently His Judgment substitutes for yours. And through this substitution is the ununderstandable made understandable. How is peace possible in this world? In your judgment it is not possible, and can never be possible. But in the Judgment of God what is reflected here is only peace."

"On the contrary, he puts himself in a position where judgment through him rather than by him can occur. And this Judgment is neither "good" nor "bad." It is the only Judgment there is, and it is only one: "God's Son is guiltless, and sin does not exist."

"The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment."

"And in His judgment will a world unfold in perfect innocence before your eyes. Now will you see it with the eyes of Christ. Now is its transformation clear to you."

"Herein does he receive Atonement, for he withdraws his judgment from the Son of God, accepting him as God created him."

"You cannot judge. You merely can believe the ego's judgments, all of which are false. It guides your senses carefully, to prove how weak you are; how helpless and afraid, how apprehensive of just punishment, how black with sin, how wretched in your guilt."

"The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world's learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible. This is not an opinion but a fact. In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. Who is in a position to do this? Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself?"