It's important to realize the role of the Holy Spirit. We have A Course in Miracles, a book, which has teachings and theory and lessons and so on. And you could conclude this means all you need to do is use the book. But there are two things much bigger than the book.

1. The universal curriculum, is the plan of atonement, which applies to everyone in the universe regardless of backgrounds or beliefs or life experiences or religions, even if they've never heard of ACIM. Everything that happens, all lessons, all encounters, are orchestrated for a purpose of atonement. This goes way beyond the book. It includes everything that happens every day.

2. The Holy Spirit is God's literal answer to the separation. His function is not only to maintain an unbreakable bridge between your wandering mind and the Christ mind, guaranteeing that you will come home. He also is a healer, therapist, teacher, guide, helper, comforter, and friend. His presence isn't like some person sitting at the top of a mountain waiting for you to go up there to join him. He has an active function.

He is there to help you. He has been appointed to you, given to you, added to you. He is not just some principle or concept. He doesn't just sit there shining a light and asking you to join him. He actively comes INTO your dreaming mind. He can extend through the body. He can heal the body. He can perform miracles - he is the mechanism of miracles.

He enables you to do things which are so supernatural they are clearly not of this world and break all the laws of space and time and physics. He is the way by which Moses parted the oceans, and the way by which Jesus raised the dead. He can come into your body, into your emotions, into your thinking. He can influence you, direct you, guide you, even literally speak through your mouth. He can move your limbs. He tells you very specifically what to do. He counsels you and advises you and corrects you and steers you in the right direction.

He has the power to reverse death and sickness and all forms of suffering. He is a living spirit, with a mind, a Holy Spirit, able to literally guarantee the correction of every illusion, every form of mental or physical illness, to reverse death, and ultimately to completely undo the separation. He is the initiator of the atonement, he has the power to part oceans and to move mountains. There is nothing he cannot do.

So as we go forth working with the course, doing lessons and studying and discussing and so on, we really should be trying to get in touch with and develop trust in the Holy Spirit as much as possible. We need to be having a daily relationship with him. To talk to him, to ask questions, to have conversations. We need to be listening to and following his guidance with trust. We need to be allowing him to heal us and to heal through us, even physically.

The Holy Spirit is the power by which the disciples of Jesus go out to be physicians of the lord, healing the sick, casting out "evil spirits", raising the dead and so on. He was made accessible to all people when Jesus ascended, to stand in for Jesus and to be a way by which we can all express the same miraculous powers that Jesus demonstrated. We are to be livened and infused with him. Lifted up by him.

He is the power by which our physical bodies are supposed to be healed, for all signs of sickness and death and attack to be undone and reversed, so that He can use our bodies as "living examples" of harmlessness, symbolic eternal life, aliveness and health. To use our bodies to communicate the only thing that he can communicate - healing. We are to share his function with him on earth, which is healing. We are to be healers, using him and working with him to heal through us to help others be alleviated of suffering and darkness.

So the Holy Spirit is really super important. More important than the book. The book is only a beginning and a major goal is to put you in touch with and develop trust in the Holy Spirit so that he can continue to be your Teacher going forward, to continue to develop your miracle working abilities and to strength and support you. We are supposed to be using this help that God has sent to us, which absolutely means not doing everything yourself, not thinking of it as a "self study", opening ourselves up to rely on, depend on and trust the support of this living being that has been sent to guide us home.

It is our task to listen ONLY to the Voice for God and not to the ego.

"What the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world."

"The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

"The Holy Spirit can use ALL that you give to Him for your salvation."

"The Holy Spirit is the Bringer of Revelations"

"Power is of God, GIVEN by Him, and re-awakened by the Holy Spirit"

"When you hear the Holy Spirit, you merely feel BETTER, because loving seems POSSIBLE to you."

"Christ's Second Coming gives the Son of God the gift to hear the Voice for God proclaim that what is false is false, and what is true has never changed."

"Whatever your appointed role may be it was selected by the Voice for God"

"Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God and for your Self when you retire from the world, to seek reality instead."

"Be very still, and hear the gentle Voice for God assuring you"

"If you cannot hear the voice of God, it is because you do not choose to listen. "

"He will direct you VERY specifically. "

"Ask Him very specifically: "What would You have me do?" "Where would You have me go?" "What would You have me say, and to whom?" Give Him full charge"

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS."

"The happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings"

"Healing IS the Holy Spirit's form of communication, and the ONLY one He knows."

"Healing is the change of mind that the Holy Spirit in the patient's mind is seeking for him. And it is the Holy Spirit in the mind of the giver Who gives the gift to him."

"There is a way in which the Holy Spirit asks YOUR help, if you would have HIS."

"We have said that the Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracles."

"Right-mindedness listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world"

"To you who still believe you live in time, and know not it is gone, the Holy Spirit still guides you through the infinitely small and senseless maze you still perceive in time, though it has long since gone."

"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you only through the witnesses who speak for it. For you can be AWARE of what you cannot see, and it can become compellingly real to you, as its presence becomes manifest THROUGH you. Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."

"Say to yourselves the following, as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace.

I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.

I WILL to decide otherwise, because I WANT to be at peace.

I do NOT feel guilty, because ***the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.***

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

The thing about the body is that it's a limitation. You as a spirit are unlimited, infinite, everywhere. You are omnipresent like God. To seemingly "enter" a body you have to massively confine yourself to one location, separated off from the rest. It's like having your hands tied. Huge amounts of awareness have to be shut out. Not to mention that your intimate expansive unified relationships with the entire Sonship are shut out.

You are squeezed into this tiny little space that you then seem to inhabit. The body forms this fence around a part of the mind and seems to keep it inside, protected and separate from the rest of the mind which is outside. Large distances are placed between bodies to ensure they are kept separate. This is all the ego's design for isolating and imprisoning God's children.

Then the ego goes one step further and says, ok, now that you are in this body, wouldn't it be great if you could connect with other people? How about we bring your body closer to other bodies? How about we have your bodies try to join with other bodies? Maybe you'll feel wonderful things as you merge and feel close to others. And the usual response to this temptation is that is sounds great, it seems like an improvement, we don't have to be so alone and isolated.

The problem here is that we're accepting a massive artificial limitation as though it can never be changed, we're deliberately confining ourselves to being trapped in a little body, acting from littleness. We're handicapping ourselves, and then pretending that to bring bodies together is going to somehow "undo" this. But so long as the handicapping nature of the body is maintained, so long as we are isolated in space and time, anything the ego offers as a special relationship is a ridiculous substitute for true joining.

Two spirits should share, join, merge, connect, be one, and access each other fully and completely and in a truly unlimited way. You are in your brother's minds. You share everything with them. To do that, you need to not be restricted and limited. Trying to first accept massive limitation and to then try to continue to join, is like two people with a ball and chain around their ankles, chained up to separate prison cells, trying to reach out to be closer to each other. They can't leave the prisons or get past the bars.

It's also a simple fact that nothing in spacetime can truly join. Quantum particles are designed to be separated off. If atoms were to truly occupy the same space they would annihilate each other in a nuclear explosion. Forces repel the particles and keep them separated. Even what seems to be a physical collision or sensation of touch is really what it feels like to bump up against these force fields. Atoms don't ever really touch each other at all. So right off the bat the ego has made this scenario where even if it looks as though you are as physically close to something as possible, you still aren't actually making real contact. All sensations of touch are sensations of two forcefields repelling each other.

To try to join with another spirit while having a body is next to impossible. Someone who knows they are spirit would also find it pointless and very limiting to try to make this connection via the body. Why, when you can experience direct mind-to-mind communication ("minds need not bodies to communicate"), would you first filter all communication through your body, then through another body, in attempting to share something? Why not just go mind-to-mind?

When two bodies attempt to join in sexual acts it also really is an attempt to identify with your own body, to identify the other person with their body, to bring the two bodies together in an attempt to believe that the two persons/spirits are actually joining. This is a body delusion. The physical bodies are all that are coming together, and even their sensations of contact are illusions. Forms, matter, energy, keep individuals separated off at all levels and at all times.

Trying to relate to another brother, a spirit, by trying to relate TO or WITH the body, is almost like you're having a relationship with someone's clothing. If you were to fall in love with someone's jacket and trousers and completely ignore the person wearing them, this would indeed be very strange and somewhat insane. But this is what we do when we relate to people as bodies, completely failing to overlook the illusion of the body, failing to see the real person beyond it.

The ego first established a state of massive lack and deprivation. Its isolating of us made us lonely and in need. It built compulsions to try to join physically, not in an effort to bring us closer together, but in an effort to reinforce and emphasize the reality of the body. Pleasure and pain accomplish the same goal of making the body and illusions of sensations the primary focus. "To sense is not to know", and by focusing on sensations we become blinded by perception of form.

In efforts to bring two bodies together in a special, body-worshipping relationship, we actually necessarily exclude vast quantities of individuals. More is left out than is taken in. Due to the separating and localizing nature of spacetime, bringing 2 bodies together must entail excluding billions. The attempt to make two bodies extra special, psychologically, requires the downplaying and attack upon other bodies. A special body cannot be elevated and idol worshipped without condemning all the rest.

"On this side of the bridge, you see the world of separate bodies, seeking to join each other in SEPARATE UNIONS, and to become one BY LOSING. 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. For God is left WITHOUT, and NOTHING taken in."

What appears on the surface to be an attempt to join, is ACTUALLY an attempt to separate. And so the ego's promise of body union in fact leads to an increase in separation, unconsciousness, loss, lack, loneliness, isolation and imprisonment. The supposed freedom produced by sexual union actually produces an increased state of exclusion and illness. With the body as the main focus, the mind is shut out and true joining based in real love becomes impossible.

You could say, in fact, that the attempt of two bodies to come together to join to make a baby, is actual a death ritual. The bodies celebrate their triumph over all other bodies, they worship the idol of death, separation ensues and now there are three bodies. Illusions have given birth to illusions. And while this is much celebrated in the world, the ego does have these underpinnings in its mechanics of what is actually happening.

It's possible, for a time, to still use the body for a holier purpose. Love can be extended through it to others, it can be used to teach, to make the body less real, and to overlook form. To the Holy Spirit, the body actually is seen as having NO function.

"It is still true that the body has no function of itself."

"When it is used only as the Holy Spirit teaches, it has no function."

"It is the dream in which the body functions perfectly, having no function except communication. "

"Healing IS the Holy Spirit's form of communication, and the ONLY one He knows."

Trying to make bodies real, to use them as exclusion devices, emphasizing and believing in and falling into the temptation of the flesh, being deceived by physical sensations not recognized as illusions, believing your brother is a body, etc are all ways that the ego uses the body to keep you from what it promises will be the outcome. The ego guarantees separation, while the Holy Spirit guarantees union.

For a time we can use the body with the Holy Spirit, but not to emphasize bodies. Not to use it as a way to focus on the body or believe it can give us anything. Not to use it to get from others. And not to use it as a symbolic act of exclusion. We are to love everyone equally, and this is impossible at the physical level.

"You cannot enter into REAL relationship with any of God's Sons unless you are willing to love them all AND equally."

"Think not that we can relate in peace to God or our brothers with ANYTHING external."

The entire world of bodies has to be more or less "overlooked". "To forgive is to OVERLOOK." To overlook means to "bypass seeing", to see past and beyond. If we stop to dwell on the physical, our sight is blinded. If we stop to focus on the body, the mind stops extending past it. This produces various forms of illness. If we truly want to have a real relationship with anyone, it has to be a real relationship with everyone, at the level of unconditional love, through mind and spirit.

ACIM: "Miracle Principle 7

Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first."

DICITIONARY: "the process of making something spiritually or ceremonially clean."

What is purification? It is the process of removing "impurities", so that you end up with something that is "pure" and has no impurities in it.

What is it we are purifying? Our minds. We are removing "impure thoughts", beliefs, values and attitudes, so that we can be pure. Or rather, aware of our purity in God.

What are examples of impurities? All of the ego stuff, including evil thoughts, attack thoughts, grievances, unforgiveness, blame, anger, murderousness, all forms of sickness and death, separation ideas, body identification, guilt, fear, a sense of sinfulness, unworthiness, etc.

Heaven is a state of perfect purity. Another word for purity is innocence. It's a state completely devoid of any kind of sin or evil. It's so pure, that there isn't even a tiny trace of desire to attack or hurt, there isn't the slightest hint of anger or resentment, and absolutely no sense of fear resulting from seeing others as attackers.

Heaven is SO pure, it is very likely far more pure than you can imagine. And in order to enter awareness of heaven, you have to purify yourself of all states and attitudes that are impure. This actually entails being willing to give up a whole bucketload of ego things, which you may not be currently totally happy about giving up.

You have to give up ALL anger. You have to give up ALL attacking. You have to give up ALL guilt. You have to give up ALL sin. You have to give up ALL temptation to see yourself as victimized. You have to give up ALL desire to hurt other people. You have to give up ALL guilt, shame, and sense of not being good enough. You have to give up ALL motives relating to trying to get stuff. You have to give up all specialness, all selfishness, and all trace of conditional love. You have to give up unhappiness, sickness, suffering and death. And you have to give up the entire ego thought system.

The end result of this relinquishment, is a state of PERFECT PURITY. It is a purity SO pure that it is utterly immaculate, undefiled, and completely holy. The degree of holiness is off the charts in the extreme. You cannot enter such a state with any trace of malice in your heart or any amount of unforgiveness. You have to have forgiven absolutely everyone and everything, and hold nothing against anyone, and see yourself as utterly absolutely sinless.

Only through the complete removal of the belief in sin can you achieve this, because it is the atonement. It is the recognition that there is no sin anywhere, not in you, and not in anyone or anything. It is a state of TOTAL SINLESSNESS. That doesn't mean like, sin is real and evil is real and you have to stop being that through repentance, but more like, the recognition that these things are NOT real and you CANNOT BE them. That sin does not exist for you. There is only total harmlessness, gentleness, softness and love.

The most holy and pure, the most innocent and harmless, the most gentle and clean, the most unwilling to hurt, the most beautiful and new, are those who have purified themselves of the ego, of temptation and of death. It is the purity of the angels. It is absolute allegiance to God. It is a complete and total surrender of all control and egotism and all false ideas of self. It is the complete letting go of all false goals and made-up laws and artificial identities, and any attempt to be other than God created you.

So ACIM is saying that in order to become miraculous, to access the miracle-minded state in which you can PERFORM MIRACLES, which is a very loving state of sinlessness and holiness, you have to FIRST purify yourself. Your mind has to be decluttered and washed out with the spirit and ALL ego in you has to be utterly removed. You have to be cleansed and spiritually renewed. Jesus refers to this in ACIM also as a "rebirth", like becoming new again, as if nothing had ever happened to turn you into an evil monster.

You purify through whatever process works for you. But let's also realize that forgiveness is really the state OF purity, of atonement and of true perception. We are trying to reach that state. Because "only christ forgives" and that means we need total acceptance and alignment and awareness of Christ, TOTAL, MAXIMAL LOVE, in order to be in a state of forgiveness. Anything we do towards that goal is our "practice" or "application" of course principles in which we are trying to move ourselves CLOSER to that state.

This is why ultimately our entire work with the course up to its end goal of resurrection, is really a process of PURIFICATION, which RESULTS IN a state of total forgiveness. In which you have completely forgiven yourself, ie, have recognized that there is absolutely zero ego or sin or death in you. Where your mind is completely open and clear and in the service of spirit. Where Christ can now move through you, and Jesus can perform miracles through your hands.

To purify, you do whatever works, provided it entails the successful progress of moving closer toward total purity. Closer towards God, who is utterly pure, sinless and innocent. You can't be having attitudes of ego, attack, anger, blame, guilt, shaming, destruction etc, if you are to be pure. You can't be a keyboard warrior on facebook. This is the part the ego in you does not like or want, because it means giving up the things the ego CHERISHES and wants. Its way of relating to others through murderous attitudes. It does not WANT purity or holiness, it wants to be evil and wrong and bad, vulnerable and unhappy and destructive.

You can use catharsis, letting go, surrendering, development of trust, opening your mind, trusting God, various modalities of healing, practicing performing miracles, tuning into the love and light in you, prayer, asking for help, receiving love and healing, inviting the Holy Spirit to operate on you (mind/body/emotions), affirmations, cancelling error, reprogramming yourself, convincing yourself, reminding yourself, doing workbook lessons.

You can purify by forgiving people, polishing up your relationships to make them holy and equal and sharing, learning to be more unconditionally loving, working with the angels, giving the day to the Holy Spirit, seeking out blocks to love and removing them, digging out old hurts and unforgivenesses, getting rid of secret sins and hidden hates in the light, handing stuff over to the Holy Spirit, receiving guidance, doing Christ's work etc.

Whatever works. However you purify, however it is you can get yourself into a state of PURITY, of innocence and holiness. A state where you no longer WANT to hurt yourself, or others. A state where you see your TOTAL SINLESSNESS, and therefore project sinlessness onto others and the world, seeing them as sinless, and therefore having no grounds for fear or blame. Purity gives you harmlessness, just as it also puts your mind into a supernatural state of being invulnerable and IMMORTAL.

The innocent are strong and powerful. They are protected by God. They cannot BE hurt and DO not hurt themselves. "You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself." "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability" etc. They feel safe and secure and protected and guided. They cannot be attacked and are above the battleground. Nothing can intrude upon them because of the strength of spirit. And they can bestow healing and miracles and life upon those who are not yet purified - those who believe they are the living dead.

Once purification is reached, in part or in whole, you will have access to miraculous power. You will have the innocence with which to love, and the light with which to see. You will have the purity of heart and the total angelic harmlessness and gentleness with which to heal others. "Those who are healed become instruments of healing." You will become a miracle worker, able to raise the dead and resurrect the impure.

You will be able to actually purify others for them. "It is the privilege of the forgiven (pure) to forgive (purify)." And now you are doing God's work, until you go home to heaven, to the state of total and utter purity and innocence forever.

Let's just be VERY, VERY clear for a moment. Heaven and Earth are definitely TWO VERY DISTINCT STATES/PLACES in A Course in Miracles. If they were the same place there'd be no point Jesus referring to them as opposites or as two things. Or as "in heaven" or as "on earth". THEY ARE TWO PLACES. You cannot be in, or see, both of them, at once. THEY ARE OPPOSITES, diametrically opposed in every way.

This is important to realize, because Jesus frequently states how Heaven is DISTINCT from Earth and being IN Heaven is very different to being ON Earth. And yes folks, EARTH DOES MEAN THE PLANET EARTH, not some strange twisted metaphoric interpreted labelling of your inner ego interference "about" a world. The only way the Earth is "about" anything is in that it is an attack on Heaven.

Heaven and Earth. TWO PLACES. Earth has "place" because it is inside spacetime. Heaven is "not a place" only in that it has no FINITE LOCATIONS, because IT IS EVERYWHERE, and so transcends spacetime. It is STILL A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN EXIST AND LIVE!!!

If you EVER think that Earth is Heaven, you are stuck and have totally missed the obvious. Anyone reading theses statements SHOULD, using NORMAL LANGUAGE, get the impression and message that Jesus literally means TWO WORLDS, and that they can never be one because they are OPPOSITES. And only Heaven really exists. If someone reads these and doesn't get that? Read it again and take it literally.

"He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

"Only this is the real world, and perceiving ONLY this will lead you to the real Heaven, because IT WILL MAKE YOU CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING IT."

"For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing IS yours."

"Because my feet are on the ground and my hands are in heaven, I can bring down the glories of Heaven to my brothers on earth."

"You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego."

"Both Heaven and Earth are in YOU, because the call of both are in your wills, and therefore in your minds."

"It was only my DECISION that gave me all power in Heaven and earth."

"The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

"Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created Him."

"All power in Heaven and earth is therefore given him and he will share it with you when you have completed yours. "

"Just under Heaven does he stand, but close enough not to return to earth."

"As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."

"You have been told that your function in this world is healing, and your function in Heaven is creating. The ego teaches that your function on earth is destruction, and that you have no function AT ALL in Heaven."

"The miracle, without a function in Heaven, IS needful here."

"The golden ASPECTS of reality which spring to light under His loving gaze, are partial glimpses of the Heaven that lies beyond them."

"As miracles in this world join you to your brothers, so do your creations establish your fatherhood in Heaven."

"Deny a brother here, and you deny the witnesses to your fatherhood in Heaven."

"The miracles you do on earth are lifted up to Heaven, and to Him."

"This is the ONLY justice Heaven knows, and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth. "

"Reason will tell you that there is no middle ground where you can pause uncertainly, waiting to choose between the joy of Heaven and the misery of hell. Until you choose Heaven, you ARE in hell and misery."

"The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky. So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there."

"The sky embraces it, and softly holds it in its perfect place, which is as far from earth as earth from Heaven. It is not the distance nor the time which keeps this star invisible to earth. But those who seek for idols cannot know this star is there."

"For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change."

"No one on earth can grasp what Heaven is, or what its one Creator really means. Yet we have witnesses."

"There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven."

"I give You thanks for what my brothers are, and as each one elects to join with me, the song of thanks from earth to Heaven grows from tiny, scattered threads of melody to one inclusive chorus"

"There IS no change in immortality, and Heaven knows it not. Yet here on earth, it has a double purpose, for it can be made to teach opposing things."

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has all the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects. But let us again remember that both are in you."

"It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth in Heaven's plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven's peace."

"Forgiveness is an earthly form of love which as it is in Heaven has no form."

"His will is done because all power is given him in Heaven and on earth."

"And you will have conviction then of Him Who knows the function that you have on earth as well as Heaven. "

"Just as your light increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in God's plan."

"There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy of Heaven has come upon it."

"It is the bond by which the giver and receiver are united in extension here on earth as they are one in Heaven."

"It is the reflection of God's Love on earth. It will bring me near enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me to my home."

"No-one outside of Heaven knows how this can be. For understanding this is Heaven itself. Even the real world has a purpose still beneath creation and eternity."

"God limits not. And what is limited can NOT be Heaven. So it MUST be hell."

"Now a quiet time has come in which we put away the toys of guilt, and lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of Heaven's children and the Son of God. We pause but for a moment more, to play our final happy game upon this earth. And then we go to take our rightful place where truth abides and games are meaningless."

"Father, in Heaven it is different, for there, there are no needs. But here on earth the miracle is closer to Your gifts than any other gift which I can give. "

"His Words contain all hope, all blessing and all joy that ever can be found upon this earth. His Words are born in God, and come to you with Heaven's love upon them."

Take a look at this one statement.

"Nothing the body's eyes seem to see can be anything but a form of temptation, since this was the purpose of the body itself."

"You made the body in attempting to deceive yourself". You designed the body to BUY INTO TEMPTATION, so that you would BE deceived by the world and believe it to be real! And everything it sees and senses testifies to the reality of the world. "Only the body makes the world seem real."

This is very extensive. It means EVERYTHING your physical eyes can see, is a form of temptation. Not just small things, or one or two things. EVERYTHING. The whole planet, the stars, all bodies, all objects, every material, all states of matter and energy, all of it. The ENTIRE cosmos of time and space, was made as a form of temptation.

If you also recall, "the world was made as an attack on God." And "the world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son.". So this "picture" of impossibilities, sins and lies, is sitting there in front of your face, 24/7, TEMPTING you to believe that God is attacked and death is possible. All day, every day, every second of the day, in every object, every body. All of it, constantly trying to tempt you to believe in hell.

Death is not possible in God's reality because God is immortal and permanent. Death is an illusion and cannot be true. Every dead leaf, every roadkill, every decaying flower, every rusted car, every dust-bunny, all discarded trash, every exhaust fume, all poops, every broken object, all sick bodies, every graveyard, it is all trying to say "death is possible and happening". To TEMPT you to believe in hell.

If you start to label everything that "happens", everything you "see", as "temptation", you'll start to get a sense of this. Spend a little while in the day responding to everything by recognizing, "that's a temptation".

"It's trying to tempt me". It applies to everything you see. Cars, houses, people, trees, streets, trash, furniture, food, animals, the sky, whatever. "Only the body makes the world seem real." and "The body's eyes are not the means by which the real world can be seen." So the body's eyes were deliberately designed to MAKE the world seem real, by BUYING into temptation. Everything they see screams, "believe this", or "hell is happening", or "God is overthrown" or "you are not immortal" or "real threat is possible." It's all over the place.

Your challenge then is not to buy into it. Not to fall for the trap. Not to believe what you're seeing and sensing. Not to go along with it. Not to accept it as real. Not to give it credit. Not to assign power to it. Not to use it for attacking yourself. And to not listen to its insane shrieks of sin. Everything the world suggests and believes IS FALSE.

"Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are."

The only reason you would start to question what you are, is because you're starting to let the world TEMPT you to believe something that ISN'T true. And the whole world is doing this. Your drinking cups are doing this. Your socks are doing this. Your cat is doing this. Your wallpaper is doing this. The grass out the front is doing this. The clouds in the sky are doing this. They all present pictures of IMPOSSIBILITIES, and tempt you to make them real, and to believe in them.

If you put any belief any of it, you are moving into a hellish state of mind, and away from yourself and God. The world, in its entirety, is trying to act like a magnet to draw you into insanity, darkness, despair and suffering. As soon as you take ANY of it seriously, you're going to start having psychological reactions of fear and thoughts of vulnerability. We must remember also the whole purpose of temptation is to make you identified with a BODY. And you actually use the world, through the body's eyes, to testify to you BEING physical.

"Temptation has ONE lesson it would teach, in ALL its forms, WHEREVER it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach."

Whenever you take any of the physical world to be true or real, you are lowering your vision, blinded by form, isolating yourself into space and time, associating yourself with the physical, believing you are a physical form such as a body, are shutting out your mind, and are are falling for temptation. To become bound to the body is really the same as becoming bound to hell. You become bound to the WORLD. Bound to the battlefield.

Jesus even suggests that the world is going to CONTINUE trying to tempt you right up till the end. That even advanced teaches of God - not just regular teachers of God but ADVANCED ones, will STILL fall for temptation at times. The world will just continue to present its lies to you so long as it seems to exist.

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

This is why we have to be VIGILANT. Vigilance for the Kingdom of God really means doing the opposite of falling for temptation. Let yourself be tempted by REALITY. Let yourself be absorbed into God's truth and to "believe in" his evidence. Deny the world and accept heaven.

"The world you see must be denied, for it is costing you a different kind of vision."

To have vision, which is to see, which is to NOT be tempted by what the body sees, and to use the spiritual eyes which does NOT depend on physical sight, is to rise above the battlefield of hell and look out through Christ's eyes toward the light of heaven BEYOND the physical.

This is why forgiveness, atonement, true perception, being the light of the world, being as God created you, places you OUTSIDE of the reach of temptation. It places you back into the hands of God. And one who fully embraces God's reality can no longer be tempted by the world.

"We have repeatedly stated that one who has perfectly accepted the Atonement for himself can heal the world. Indeed, he has already done so. Temptation may recur to others, but never to this One. He has become the risen Son of God. He has overcome death because he has accepted Life. He has recognized himself as God created him, and in so doing he has recognized all living things as part of him. There is now no limit on his power, because it is the Power of God. So has his name become the Name of God, for he no longer sees himself as separate from Him."

"We have said before that the separation was and IS dissociation, and also that once it had occurred, projection became its main defense, or the device which KEEPS IT GOING."

Believing in separation from God produces a split in the mind. The mind becomes confused because it's trying to believe in both light and dark, or true and false, without distinguishing between them. The will becomes divided and the mind seems to form two areas. Being in fear (uncertainty), you are now "in two minds".

One area seems to become associated with "who and what I am", and the other area seems to be projected as "who I am not", seen as outside yourself in others. You can refer to these as the persona and the shadow. The persona is the accepted parts of mind and the shadow is the denied repressed parts.

In this dynamic, there's always two parts to what you experience. For example if you are in fear, where you believe that you are under attack by another, you are in fact also attacking them. But the part of you that is attacking them is dissociated and projected - kind of disowned. You don't want to believe it's still part of you. So you "associate it" with someone else.

So then in fear you see yourself as "only the victim" and you do not see yourself as "the victimizer". But your mind, as a whole, is actually playing both roles. It's just that the projected disowned role of victimizer seems like it's "not you", and the you that you think is being victimized is just one split off half of the mind.

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth."

"Ideas leave not their source."

So the split mind has sort of become divided against itself and is now at war with itself. And various different properties seem to be assigned to one half, which you accept as "yourself", and the other half is denied and projected onto others as "not yourself".

Yet both parts are in your mind and don't go outside of it. So this whole roleplay of the two parts interacting, is happening inside your mind - ie you as a whole are actually doing it to yourself. This is the secret of salvation, to realize that you are NOT just one half of the equation. You are playing BOTH sides.

This is actually true of all things ego. If you take the position of victim, you are also victimizing. If you take the position of fear, you are also frightening and terrorizing. If you take the position of being sick at the hands of the world, you are also causing your own sickness. If you take the position of being helpless against death, you are also trying to destroy yourself from the outside in - which seems indirect.

So if i catch myself being afraid, I need to also remind myself that I am also the one who is scaring myself because I am the one who is doing the attacking. If I catch myself focusing on sickness, I need to remind myself that I am also the one causing sickness. If I am having pain, I need to realize I am making myself be in pain while pretending that it's not coming from me.

The stronger the state of dissociation, the less "oneness" there is with others. You'll see others as separated off from you, and you'll want nothing to do with them. You may even want to "get rid of them" at all costs, or wish they'd not exist, in extreme cases. The other seems to look truly "not me", to you, to such an extent that you think you are justified in blaming them for causing everything.

But what that means is that your mind is divided and strongly "taking sides" against itself. It's hiding from the other part of itself which it has projected through blame. You might think that the innocent victim self is the whole of your self, or your mind, because it's all you seem to be aware of as "within you".

This is because THAT part, thinks of the OTHER part, as OUTSIDE of itself. And therefore due to this separation between the two parts, you - this one part - believes the other part is "not you". And this is the major ego hurdle to be overcome.

Jesus describes ACIM as a course in "reintegration".

"To heal, or to make joyous, is therefore the same as to integrate and MAKE ONE."

"The purpose of this course is integration."

What is being integrated? The two sides of the split mind need to be rejoined as one whole mind. The sense of dissociation which splits you off from "your attacker" and frames others as "outside of you" needs to heal. It's not WHICH side you take that matters, it's the fact that you are taking sides at all.

We heal by becoming whole, moving from a state of "I'm playing the role of being on this one side", towards the recognition that you are playing BOTH sides. You play both sides of every conflict. You receive the effects of your own attack. What you do to others you do to yourself. What applies to them applies to you. This is the Golden Rule.

So if you find yourself "one sided", with you seeming to be caused by or at the effect of anyone or anything else, you know there is a brick wall of denial and disowning standing in front of you, behind which is the other half of your mind. And the wall needs to come down so that you can see that the part "in the shadows" and the part "in the light" are both parts of the same one mind.

By recognizing that both "sides" or "roles" or "personalities" or "identities" are existing within ONE mind, you recognize that NEITHER of them can be true. They are both illusions of separate identities - a victimizer and a victim. And the mind is pretending to be both of them. Neither really exists, and on seeing this both disappear, as the mind recognizes and "wakes up" to the fact that it is ONE MIND, not two.

"Opposites must be brought together, and not kept apart. For their separation is only in your mind, and they are reconciled by union, as YOU are."

"Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking, whereby two systems of belief, which CANNOT coexist, are BOTH MAINTAINED. It HAS BEEN recognized that, if they were BROUGHT TOGETHER, their joint acceptance WOULD become impossible. But, if one is kept in darkness FROM THE OTHER, their SEPARATION seems to keep them both alive, and equal in their reality. Their JOINING thus becomes the source of fear, for, if they meet, acceptance MUST be withdrawn from one of them."

"In our longer practice periods today, we will claim the peace that must be ours when the problem and the answer have been brought together."

"The light of guiltlessness shines guilt away because, when they are BROUGHT TOGETHER, the truth of one MUST make the falsity of its OPPOSITE perfectly clear."

"The miracle is possible when cause and consequence are brought together, NOT kept separate."

Over the weekend I came down with what seems to be 'a cold'. Actually it is more likely just a strong 'release', and I find that pretty much every time I have a 'cold' it is accompanied by strong emotional releases.

So anyway.. I was semi-miserable. Suffering a bit.

I wanted to know if any kind of healing was possible, and Holy Spirit hinted that we'd talk about it at night ie before sleeping.

So that time came along and I remembered. And I was also feeling fairly willing to just 'accept' being sick for a while. I thought to myself, well, I made this sickness, so I should actually honor and respect the power that I've wielded and appreciate what I've created. I mean, after all, it's a pretty nice illusion I made, and Jesus does warn in the ACIM text about it being an error to underestimate the power of what we made with the ego. I didn't want to fight with it or attack it. I was trying to be more accepting. I did a little bit of "I love this sickness" and then I asked Holy Spirit:

"Holy Spirit, is there any way at all that there can be a healing of this, or do I have to just accept it for the next 2 weeks of snot and tissues?"

HS: "There is"

So I said, "Ok, I'm willing to admit I don't know anything about healing, I don't know how to heal this, I don't know why I made it or what its purpose is, I don't know why I have it and I don't know what to do about it. Help me to know what I need to 'do' if anything to help you to facilitate healing." And in this, I seemed to be unusually 'open minded' and receptive instead of just going on about what 'I have to do' to fix this. Holy Spirit said:

"Receive God"

I was like, WHAT?! It seemed I was here asking about how to fix this sickness and instead I get an answer that tells me I'm about to be loved?? So I was, like, ok... I let myself just 'receive God' ... like, without doing anything other than receiving and maybe repeating to myself, "receive God".

Immediately I felt a sense of love descend and come into me and it went deeper than a sense of unlove and unworthiness that was in me that I didn't realize was there. And I started to cry because it was beautiful and a relief. And the ego part of me was somewhat in shock because I couldn't figure out WHY God would love me. I had all kinds of ego reactions around it like, why would God love me, I've never been loved, surely I'm not lovable, etc.

Nevertheless, my body started to shake, my hands shook vigorously, I coughed and spewed a bit as I felt something being ejected from me and lifted out. Then I cried a bit more because I could feel how this love was given so FREELY, like, there were absolutely no strings attached, and it wasn't asking that I give anything whatsoever, and was totally unconditional. I couldn't comprehend how or why it was being given so free of any expectations or conditions or requirements, like 'a freebie'. Why would God just give give give? How was it possible that I would be just given to like that?!

Anyway... I felt this healing tremendously helped to lift away a sense of unlove and unworthiness and, in particuarly, a sense that God/Father loved me, which apparently was at the root of my sickness. I felt a lot better. It wasn't all gone, but much improved. I couldn't help but feel grateful, and somewhat in awe, and a bit shocked. I actually felt a slight sense of ... how dare you love me this much without asking for anything in return. It was shockingly unconditional. God loved me MORE than I loved me.

This is then when ego came in and tried in various subtle ways to reproduce or trigger or influence this 'receiving God' thing... like it kept trying to pretend that IT was causing the transmission of love, or IT was able to control it, or IT was going to trigger it off, or IT knew what made the healing flow. And yet it didn't. I noticed all that activity and how it was interfering. And it wasn't until I could stop all of those efforts to "be the healer" that I allowed myself to "receive God" a bit more. Genuinely. To just receive in openness and willingness without trying to force it. Because to receive without 'doing' anything disables the ego from all its activities.

So grateful. And so unexpected.... I had no idea that I was going to receive healing AND be unconditionally loved, like, without having to do or give anything in return, anything other than to just be open and willing to receive. It seemed like such a blessing that really exposed any sense of unworthiness or reasons why I shouldn't.

I asked also then, if it were possible to heal another person this way. Holy Spirit said that the other person has to be "ready to accept willingly". I could understand and accept that. You can't force healing on someone. And I only felt a healing because I was WILLING TO RECEIVE. And it was not anything that *I* did whatsoever. Other people can receive healing from God too, but they have to be willing to accept and allow it. And it has to be pure 100% receiving, not any effort to control or interfere or even to 'give'. I can see how the ego tries to pretend it is seeking healing by trying to force healing or produce it from its own efforts, but real healing is completely counter-ego, requiring the ego to be suspended and uninvolved.

"Receive God". Simple.

I am amazed mostly at how God gives love so freely, so without conditions, so totally and unrestrained. It's like a huge outpouring, a massive giving, almost like a revelation. Everything coming FROM God to you, and your only job is to RECEIVE. Receive receive receive.

It's like sunbathing - God-bathing...you don't go trying to force the sun to shine with your ego, you don't trigger the sun, you don't make it shine on you. You have to surrender and relax and let go and receive the light. The sun does the shining. God does the shining. Difficult to get the ego out of the way and be totally receptive. But it seems like the more I can 'let love in' the more I am allowing myself to be loved, to a depth and extent that I have never experienced or thought possible.

Ahhhhhhh.

Still sniffling today. The 'cold' is still there. But... I know I am healed in some way on some level. A sense of unworthiness has been replaced with worthiness. Thanks God.

One last insight. .. the lesson I needed to learn, in Holy Spirit's words:

"Let God"

Jesus clearly refers to the physical body dying. He remarks about how the physical worms eat the physical body. Which is indeed true. Go dig up a freshly buried corpse and look at the worms. Just as the body is destructible and can be destroyed, so too are the worms destructible and can be destroyed. What do you suppose the worms would eat if this world was heaven and there was no destruction and no way to take anything away from anything?

The worms wouldn't even eat, because eating is part of the devouring aspect of destruction. And human bodies wouldn't eat or digest either because all that means is they harvest chunks of the world and kill them off and destroy them and shit them out.

"Death is the symbol of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds It from awareness like a shield held to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms await to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction. Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature's "law of life." God is insane, and fear alone is real."

When people suggest that planet Earth is God's creation and is real, it sets off my immediate bullshit alarms. There is absolutely no two ways about it, and no way to twist it around. We could say, well, the world is totally neutral, it doesn't have any meaning, so if an animal seems to die and we strip away all meaning, we could say that's totally neutral and means nothing and its not really death and its not really life. We could smile on it and love it and be joyful even as it happens and clap our hands as human bodies are mowed down my machine guns and bombs which we celebrate along with God as the children are savagely killed.

We could celebrate happily as the bodies are blown up. And if the bodies were real, that would indeed be quite insane. Who would be able to feel joyful about people's bodies getting killed off if the bodies are really people and the world is real? If the world is real all those victims are horribly mistreated and destroyed against their will and it is all terribly upsetting. There is NO WAY to be happy about that, if it is true. The mind HAS to suffer because of its belief that it is true.

We could say, well, if you lift away all judgements and all meanings and sense of guilt and attack and calling some things bad or wrong and labelling some things as horrible etc, then what are we left with? A strangely neutral meaningless world in which, even so, the machine guns are blazing and the bombs are ripping through the bodies and all the nice creatures are snuffing it still. Can this really be completely natural and normal and sane and the way things really are? Can this really be the hallmark of a completely loving creator?

Can it be, in all honesty, the will of a loving creator God, to create a world which is simultaneously regarded as perfect and harmless and holy and innocent and joyous and eternal and safe and free from all attack, smiling upon it like it's an absolutely beautiful creation, while simultaneously the actual forms of the world continues to fight and kill each other and suffer? While the pain receptors are still firing and the bombs are still destroying the houses and the bullets are still ripping holes in people's bodies. If you are totally forgiving toward it and seeing it with love and holiness then it could perhaps reflect heaven. But this heaven would have to be still separate from the things that occur.

It would be quite ridiculous to suggest that God in his infinite love would simultaneously love AND attack, or create beautiful things AND cause them to not last and to destroy each other and to change their forms such that none of them have long to exist at all, becoming unrecognisable and forgotten. Does it really make sense to suggest that even a world loved and forgiven that continues to have creatures falling down holes and weather freezing bodies and starvation and pain and all manner of limitations and difficulties, that this would make Earth BE heaven? It simply cannot be.

Who wants a God that is so contradictory that he produces a chaotic world while laughing about it? Who wants a God that in his infinite unlimited unconditional love produces environments for his creations to live in which simultaneously attack them and make their lives difficult? Who wants a God that "allows death to happen" as though He Himself condones and causes and sanctions and lives it? And who wants a world created by such a split-minded freak? Surely anyone with half a brain can at least see that the idea of God creating this world is utterly nonsense.

Some people will take this obviousness - that the suffering in the world is ridiculous and no-one can love it if it's real - and draw a conclusion. Either you could conclude the world is real and therefore life is bullshit and God is an asshole or doesn't exist at all. Or you could conclude that God does exist and is not an asshole and instead the whole world is not his creation. Either the world is real and God sucks, or the world is not real and God is great. Those are the only options. And thankfully God's reality guarantees that the suffering can end forever.

The strange twisted unforgiving loveless difficult limiting world of Earth and space and time is not of God. You can look upon it without judgement and forgive it, you can project the meaning of love onto it, you can transcend its separations and overlook its differences of form, you can bypass its behaviours and its faults and shortcomings, and remain in a happy state in spite of it. But to think that this means the world IS heaven is a huge mistake.

Heaven, the Kingdom of God, the world created by a truly loving and benevolent creator, could never even so much as CONCEIVE of forms and shapes that conflict, of scarcities that require feeding, of such things as weather which threatens existence, of wars and war machine and weapons, of having any such bullshit as a part of his pure perfect divine holy mind and life. Regardless of forgiving these things, of lifting away the demonising of these things, or labelling them as sinful, regardless of shining happily upon them as the light of the world and blessing them with love and healing, EVEN THEN the machinery of spacetime marches on its dismal chaotic endless tirade of destruction and uncertainty and constant indecision.

God could never create a world such as this. And if he could, he could not be a God, nor could he live, because his own nature would be to be partly alive and partly dead. He would be literally devouring parts of himself, destroying parts of himself only to make up new parts that were nothing like the ones that came before. This constant shifting and changing and fluxing of reality would mean that nothing is real AT ALL because there is no stable reality or constant state or perfect dependable anything. If God created the Earth, God is fragmented and deceptive and has multiple personalities and is at war with himself and is insane.

Anyone with half an ounce of sanity should recognize that a world such as the physical is absolutely in all ways and to all degrees utterly removed from what God could EVER be capable of creating or condoning. It is NOT his will that you live in this environment, in this way, with these objects, around these things, with these happenings. The world is insane and God wants better for you than this. God has created an environment for you in and as heaven which is so perfect you would laugh hysterically at even the suggestion that Earth could match up to its qualities.

This has nothing to do with hating Earth, or judging it or attacking it, or condemning it, or dwelling on its negativities, or amplifying its faults. It just is what it is. It is a flawed mistaken world made from insane minds that thought they could do better WITHOUT God. It just is what it is and nothing more. It simply is far short of the divinity of heaven and the perfection of real creation. A beautiful mistake at best, a half-hearted effort at best, and a rather confused strange twisted mistaken effort at best. But you can do better, and you deserve better.

"What COULD you choose between, but life or death, waking or sleeping, war or peace, your dream or your reality?"

There is only one choice in the world. Not a million choices. Not a million scenarios. Not a million conditions to judge and evaluate and decide upon. There is only one choice. You are always choosing either life or death.

Life here means eternal life, immortality, invulnerability, perfect health, wholeness, happiness, love, peace, joy, etc. The attributes of God and His Kingdom of creation.

Death here means the cessation of eternity, an attack on God, a rejection of health and wholeness, a desire for destruction and death, and an attempt to make God non-existent.

The physical world itself is set up such that everything in it tends to lead towards death. It is not in support of God because it was made as an attack on him. This is why everything in it seems to make death inevitable.

But just because the world says all things must die, it doesn't mean you don't have a choice. It doesn't mean you have to go along with it and just give up and drop dead. Nor does it mean you have to find a way to try to accept death and cozy up to it.

What many in the world do not know is that there IS an alternative to death and dying and destruction and degradation. To embrace it requires a recognition of two things.

1) The world is ONLY offering death and there is no hope of life. 2) There is ANOTHER world which is offering only life and no hope of death.

Only if you can recognize that there IS AN ALTERNATIVE to the world's ways, do you even have a real choice. If there is no better world, no God, no eternal life, no miracles, no healing, no resurrection, then you really DON'T have a choice. You are set on a rollercoaster ride to hell and death and will not get off it until you're worm food.

We might think there are choices be made along the way, electing for different states of dying, different kinds of sicknesses, different unhappinesses, trying to trade-off one thing for another to come out on top. But the world has news for you - it is not ever going to let you come out on top in the long run.

So you have no real choice at all, because death is looming and you have no way to stop it. Or do you? Only IF there is another option do you actually have any real choice in life at all. Otherwise you're destined to die. And you cannot be at peace with such a fate because it is utterly insane.

Only if there is another world, another way, another option, and only if you have some kind of power of decision to choose it and make it be your experience, is there any REAL HOPE at all. There is REAL HOPE if you can in fact CHOOSE not to suffer, be sick, or die. And there is REAL HOPE if you have in your mind the POWER to actually make that choice, to choose away from death, and actually CAUSE life and REVERSE death.

Only if you can surmount death and overcome the world, can you be free from the descent into hell. Only if you can resurrect and raise the dead and reverse sickness and perform miracles, can you head in the direction of God who is life. Only if you can demonstrate harmlessness and invulnerability can you prove your commitment to immortality.

The world does not think immortality is possible. It is seen as a silly idea thought by crazy people. It is seen as having had almost zero examples and certainly does not appear to be commonplace. It seems like no-one gets out of here alive. And everyone has just decided to try and accept this fate and "live with it". To then adjust to it and try to "make the most" of the little lot of life we have, begging death for scraps of time and asking for little gifts of nothingness before we're extinguished.

Unless you are open to God and open to immortality and open to resurrection and miracles and healing, you are NOT open to life. You are committed to dying. And that is the only reason it will happen. You are CHOOSING it by not choosing away from it. And you are free to make this choice. If you do not choose God, you are choosing destruction. If you do not choose resurrection and healing, you are choosing to die.

This is your responsibility because you actually have a power in you to decide what you want. You do not HAVE to die or go through sickness or suffering. You CAN in fact elect not to have any of these things happen, and make it so. This is not a fantasy. Your mind is just as capable of causing life as it is of causing death. But to choose eternal life IS going to require you to fly in the face of the entire world, all its supporters, all its believers, and all of its pathways.

Only with help from beyond the world can you be liberated from the world. Only with the Holy Spirit can you find a solution, an answer, a way, which breaks all the laws of physics and violates all the seeming laws of reality. Only with his power can you recover and heal and resurrect even in the face of what the world would say is an impossible irreversible situation.

You have to choose towards God and towards life, away from death and way from destruction, if you want to live. If you want to escape from death and from sickness and hell, you have to choose life. This is really a no-brainer. If you are choosing life you will have life, if you are choosing death you will have death. You are free to choose.

"You who fear salvation are WILLING death. Life and death, light and darkness, knowledge and perception are irreconcilable."

"Either you give each other life or death; either you are each other's Savior or his judge, offering him sanctuary or condemnation."

"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt. The ancient Calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto his own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to SHOW him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream."

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die."

"Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. No compromise is possible."

"The emphasis this course has placed on that idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about yourself. It is the reason you can heal. It is the cause of healing. It is why you cannot die. Its truth established you as one with God."

"Now do we live, for now we cannot die. The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend to be."

"Even in time you cannot live apart from Him, for sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die. Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF. Yet God's Son cannot will death for himself, because His Father is Life, and HIS SON IS LIKE HIM."

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

"And BEING loving, they are like the Father, and therefore cannot die."

"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."

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came 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."

Here is an ACIM teaching which many will find controversial or unacceptable. This is often overlooked or disbelieved. Surely it can't be claiming what it's claiming? Let's find out.

Basically, Jesus says that your body must be healed, so that it can teach life and resurrection and innocence to your brothers, in the dream. When it is not healed, it presents a "picture of crucifixion" to him, whose symptoms of sickness or damage actually accuse him of sin. Jesus also states that it is by healing your body, that you PROVE to him that he must be innocent, and therefore your health heals him. This is not figurative or metaphoric.

"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself."

Healing by the way typically means the actual transformation of the mind AND body from a state of sickness to a state of health and wholeness.

"YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they were not real."

How will you attest this? How will you demonstrate, visually, that your brother's sin did not affect you in any way? Only by healing the body of any damage or consequences of sin/attack is this possible.

"How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt?"

So if your brother attacks you, sins against you, seeming to damage your body, and if you maintain the symptoms of attack, these symptoms testify that your brother DID SIN. They prove it, and you hold this proof before him to demonstrate to him, he IS a sinner. Only by forgiving AND REMOVING the signs of attack do you prevent him from having grounds for guilt. He cannot be guilty if his attack DID NOT WORK.

"Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the proof that they were merely errors."

As the effects of sin/attack are undone, in your mind and body, overlooked by forgiveness, healed, reversed, you prove that sin IS REVERSIBLE. This occurs through a miracle of healing. The undoing of the symptoms proves that he did not sin, he was just mistaken, and there is no evidence to back up his claims.

"LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself."

So you heal your mind, which also heals your body, which OFFERS salvation to your brother, by showing him that because YOU are saved from the effects of sin, SO IS HE. Your healed body testifies to his innocence and TEACHES him that he is NOT a sinner.

Now, you might be skeptical and are wondering, maybe this applies only at a mental level of perception, that you must heal your mind only. But Jesus clarifies, this is not so...

"A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect."

He's clearly been talking about the BODY being healed by a miracle, all along. And so yes, he does mean, that the physical body must be healed by a miracle, in order to NOT accuse your brother of sin. You are either accusing your brother of sin or accusing him of innocence, by the depiction of your body, which is a teaching device. You either teach him "I am hurt, therefore you are sinful" or "I am healed, therefore you are innocent."

Jesus goes much further into this teaching by talking about how the body, in a state of sickness, accuses your brother of sinning against you.

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief."

You send the picture of your human body to your brother, by showing it to him. This bleak picture attempts to suggest, "look what you've done to me." Because you have damage, he must have caused you. Because you are at the effect, he is the sinner. Your symptoms attempt to convince him of his sinfulness.

"And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved."

He elaborates further:

"The power of witness is beyond belief, because it brings conviction in its wake. The witness is believed BECAUSE he points beyond himself, to what he REPRESENTS."

The human body is a witness. It testifies. It represents something. It symbolizes, either eternal life, or death. What you use it to symbolize, teaches that to your brother. It is a communication device which takes on the form of its message. And so as your body is sick, it is holding sin against your brother.

"A sick and suffering you but represents your brother's guilt; the witness which you send, lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you swear he never will escape."

Don't think that sickness is in isolation. It is never "just you" that is sick. It is not "just your body" sitting there sick. There is cause and effect at work. If your body shows effects of sickness, your mind MUST be believing that an EXTERNAL cause put the effects there. This external cause is your sinful brother. By making your body sick, you accuse him of sin. Your body now witnesses to this and attempts to find him guilty. If he looks upon this and believes it, he stands condemned.

"This sick and sorry picture YOU accept, if only it can serve to punish him."

What this means is that you deliberately make your own body sick, in order to be ABLE to accuse your brother of sin. You are willing to ACCEPT this broken image, in order to reap the side effect benefits, which is that it assuages YOUR guilt and projects it onto him. You allow some amount of physical suffering SO THAT the "cause" of the sickness can be displaced onto your brother. In your physical sickness, you believe you are now innocent. That your death is caused by the world. You would even go so far as to KILL the body, in order to be able to displace ALL your sin onto another. You believe the payoff is worth it.

"The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."

Jesus is not holding anything back here. He's literally saying that we make our bodies sick in an effort to be contagious. Sickness is an attack, not just on ourselves, but on our brother also. It attempts to come between brothers and prove them different. To separate them. "Arrest the extension of the mind and you foster separation and induce illness." Your physical sickness then becomes a witness to HIS guilt, and the death of your body prove HIS sinfulness. Your death is thus a huge accusation that everyone BUT you is a sinner. That THEY caused you to die, and not you. And all the while YOU put the death in place to accomplish this lie.

In another passage, Jesus says much the same thing.

"Is healing (of the body) frightening? To many, yes. For accusation is a bar to love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers."

When the body is damaged, it DOES ACCUSE, beacuse the damage is an EFFECT of external causes. So long as the effects are showing up, physically, they testify that there WAS a cause, and this accuses your brother of sin.

"They stand firmly in the way of trust and peace, proclaiming that the frail can HAVE no trust, and that the damaged HAVE no grounds for peace. Who has been injured BY his brother, and could love and trust him still?"

By the body being sick, it claims that you cannot trust your brother, nor can you be at peace. It gives justification to NOT LOVING your brother. A sick body is a finger you are pointing at others, condemning them to death.

"He HAS attacked, and will attack again. Protect him not, because your damaged body shows that you must be protected FROM him."

Here Jesus says that you are justified in revenge, because your damaged body shows that you need protection from HIM. And by the way, this is true EVEN IF he did not seem to have ANYTHING to do with your body becoming sick. Your brother is FALSELY accused regardless of his participation.

"To forgive may be an act of charity, but NOT his due. He may be PITIED for his guilt, but NOT exonerated. And if you forgive him his transgressions, you but ADD to all the guilt that he has really earned."

Here Jesus is basically saying that you might pardon your brother or pity him, on the basis that you think "he did it", but by keeping the sin real, and keeping the effects to prove it, your pardoning of him will induce MORE guilt because he'll feel you are forgiving him for something he DID do, and so he won't be able to believe in his innocence. Your pardoning is a guilt trip.

And here, Jesus gets explicit again that you must remove the sickness.

"The unhealed CANNOT pardon. For they are the witnesses that pardon is unfair. They would retain the CONSEQUENCES of the guilt they overlook."

The consequences are the physical effects, the symptoms and signs, which PROVE "sin happened." So long as the symptoms remain, pardon is UNFAIR and unjustified.

"Yet no-one CAN forgive a sin which he believes is real. And what has consequences MUST be real, because what it has DONE is there to see."

If you can SEE the EFFECTS of sin, symptoms, sickness, damage, then you cannot forgive this. Thus you cannot forgive your brother. Thus he cannot forgive himself.

"Forgiveness is NOT pity, which but seeks to pardon what it knows to be the truth. Good cannot BE returned for evil, for forgiveness does not first ESTABLISH sin, and THEN forgive it. Who can say and MEAN, "My brother, you have injured me, and yet, because I am the BETTER of the two, I pardon you my hurt." HIS pardon and YOUR hurt can NOT exist together. One DENIES the other, and MUST make it false."

If your hurt remains, mentally, emotionally, or physically, your brother is still accused.

"To witness sin and yet forgive it is a paradox which reason cannot see. For it maintains what has been done to you DESERVES no pardon. And, by GIVING it, you grant your brother mercy, but retain the proof he is not REALLY innocent."

If you retain the proof, ie the body is STILL sick, this MUST imply, that your brother is NOT really innocent. The appearance of "seemingly real sickness" proves, if believed, that he is a sinner.

Jesus now instructs us to REMOVE THE SICKNESS. Get rid of the proof. Cancel the evidence. Demonstrate physically that there is no damage, therefore THERE IS NO SIN.

"The sick remain accusers. They cannot forgive their brothers AND themselves as well. For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns CAN suffer. He holds not the proof of sin before his brother's eyes. And thus he MUST have overlooked it, and removed it from his own."

"Forgiveness CANNOT be for one, and not the other. Who forgives IS healed. And in his healing (mind and body) lies the PROOF that he has truly pardoned, and retains no trace of condemnation that he still would hold against himself or any living thing."

Pretty dam literal here. If you hold a picture of crucifixion (crucified, attacked, damaged, sick body) in front of your brother's eyes, you apparently are STILL CONDEMNING HIM. Your mind MUST still be using the body to attack and accuse him. Your mind CANNOT BE HEALED, because it if WERE, it would have healed the body and STOPPED PRODUCING effects, accusations, sickness or death. "The mind, being sane, heals the body."

Not one single trace of condemnation must remain in the body. Sickness is condemnation. And here Jesus is suggesting to you, something very powerful.

"You made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both."

You PUT the condemnation there, which made the body sick. You can REMOVE IT.

But this goes on to indicate something even more profound. You absolutely MUST remove it if you are to NOT BE CONDEMNING. If your mind is healed, it WILL heal the body. No one in their right mind would CONTINUE making the body sick, if they are teaching and demonstrating harmlessness. And the Holy Spirit CAN ONLY use the body to teach healing by SHOWING that the body is healed. "Thus is the body healed by miracles." The Holy Spirit intends to HEAL THE BODY, so that you can use it to SYMBOLIZE your brother's innocence to him, which teaches him his own belief in sin is mistaken, and heals his mind.

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured."

The holy spirit heals the body and presents a picture (body image) of you, representing your innocence.

"But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS."

And there it is. He heals your body SO THAT it is a picture of health, a demonstration of having NEVER been hurt, a PROOF that BECAUSE it has no damage, suffering or pain (no symptoms of sickness), it CANNOT be attacked. That YOU have never been attacked, YOU believe in healing, YOU CAN PROVE IT, and you are giving an EXAMPLE for all to see.

"Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you."

You see, your healed body now becomes a teaching device, for your brothers. HE looks on it, and because of its LACK of damage, he sees only harmlessness and innocence in it. He sees no PROOF of sin. Especially if HE was the one who seemed to attack your body, to put the effects there, the effects are GONE, reversed, undone by the power of the Holy Spirit through miracles. "The mind must be stronger than the body, every miracle demonstrates this." And so this says to him, YOU DID NOT SIN. He sees His forgiveness in YOUR healing, shown to him physically.

"Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ***ever had effects of any kind***. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health. BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true."

This is powerful, because your healing, your body being healed along with your mind, COMFORTS HIM, and MAKES HIM HEALTHY. It denies HIS belief that he sinned, proves he is mistaken, and proves he MUST be innocent. Your body thus teaches him, "brother, at your hand I live." ie, "you have caused me to be innocent, you have forgiven me, you have healed me, so you too must be innocent, healed, and forgiven."

We can USE the body to TEACH INNOCENCE in this world, by reversing sickness and demonstrating ONLY healing and health. To SYMBOLIZE eternal life, rather than to symbolize death.

"The Holy Spirit's picture changes not the body into something it is not. It only takes away from it ALL signs of accusation and of blamefulness."

"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents."

By the body's HEALTH and loveliness, it relays the message of holiness it RECEIVED from the mind, and PROCLAIMS that holiness by REPRESENTING it symbolically.

"Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."

Here is why the body is powerful as a testament to eternal life, WHEN used by the Holy Spirit to DEMONSTRATE immortality.

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

This is the proper USE of the body to EXTEND HEALING to your brother. This cannot be done while the body maintains sickness. Because if the sickness remains, the mind HAS NOT been healed. There SHOULD NOT BE SICKNESS IN THE BODY.

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

You give the miracle you receive. You AND your brother are healed through your healing.

"How just are miracles! For they bestow an equal gift of full deliverance from guilt upon your brother AND yourself. YOUR healing saves HIM pain, as well as you. And YOU are healed BECAUSE you wished him well."

"Your health is a result of your desire to see your brother with no blood upon his hands, nor guilt upon his heart made heavy with the proof of sin. And what you wish is GIVEN you to see."

Love your brother that YOU AND HIM may be healed together, and both your bodies may testify to the whole world that forgiveness is complete, there is no sin or sickness or death, and nothing can happen against your will.

Resurrections means life. This is a course in returning to the LIVING. The reversal of death in all its forms. Physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.

A total CURE.