Ok. Let's take a fresh look at miracles.

Your task is to correct your perception, but this does not take place in isolation. What applies to you, applies to others. The Golden Rule is always in effect.

If you extend love to others and be loving toward them, you will open yourself to receive love and share in love. If you do not extend love to others, you will shut down your extension and block your own receipt of love. You will either love yourself AND your brothers equally, OR you will hate both of you. This is inescapable law with no exceptions.

Your task isn't just to fix yourself. Your task is to REJOIN in Holy Relationship with your brothers and to HEAL BOTH OF YOU, by allowing the love in you to go out to them. Your task is to repair your connection with them and restore communication of love and sharing. You have to learn to love other people so that you will also be loved. And that is an outward expression or extension. It's reaching out with love and embracing others "as yourself".

The Holy Spirit is a gift from God. The Holy Spirit provides accurate perception of the "real world", forgiven and innocent. He is in you and in your brother, regardless of whether your brother is aware of this. In order for you to see your brother correctly with love, you have to look WITH the Holy Spirit. You will see the Holy Spirit IN your brother when you are looking at Him WITH the Holy Spirit in you fully.

Now, you of yourself cannot perform miracles or heal anyone. The light in you is healing, but you did not put the light there. God did. The love that is in you, which extends through you to others, is God's love. You can share in it, but not take possession of it. If you control it or block it or stand in its way, you hurt yourself and others. When you allow it to extend, IT provides healing. "Miracles are the Holy Spirit's gifts."

The Holy Spirit, being the idea of healing, isn't merely a static state of mind. It is a mind of love. It extends, and it HEALS. It can correct perception, dissolve error, shine away darkness, reverse sickness and death, and provide LIFE where it was lacking. When you become a "window" for the Holy Spirit to move THROUGH, this healing POWER goes out to the mind of another and heals them miraculously, which also restores health.

If your brother is lacking in some way, and calling for love, they have blocked their own ability to heal themselves. The light IN you is the same as the light IN them, being of God. This light is capable of healing them if you SUPPLY IT. The Holy Spirit is capable of SUPPLYING LIFE to others through you. You GIVE the Holy Spirit TO your brother, and HE supplies what is lacking, and they are healed. This is how miracles are performed. Miracle working is always about sharing love with others AND with yourself.

Miracles are given by those who temporarily have more, for those who temporarily have less. That means if your brother is weak and you are strong, or he is deluded and you are more sane, the Holy Spirit in you shines on him and brings him up to your level. This is also why Jesus says "forgiveness is not complete unless both of you have been corrected" (paraphrase).

Miracles are not something that you do in isolation. Nor are miracles "just for you", like where your own perception undergoes a shift. They are a means of repairing and restoring your Holy Relationship with others. They undo the separation that keeps you and others apart. They benefit BOTH OF YOU. This is why they are a maximal service you can render another. "I am not healed alone".

Miracles are ENTIRELY about what you SHARE WITH other people. The amount of love you are willing to see in others, also establishes the amount of love you will see in yourself. When you "shine" toward others, heartfelt, loving past their body, and recognizing the holiness in them, you are extending love and "connecting" your mind to theirs. Minds can only be joined in love. When minds connect, separation is erased, illusions vanish, and there is healing. The power of love from the Holy Spirit moves THROUGH you and actively HEALS you AND the other.

Recently when I have been attempting to pray for someone "in isolation", and would ask that God heal them or a certain part of the body etc, I would keep experiencing healing in my own self. I kept thinking this was some crazy mistake, that I wasn't asking correctly or focusing my mind properly. But truth is, miracles heal BOTH you and others equally. So if you are to be a miracle worker, you better be ready to start getting healed.

This is also why you can only give the miracles you have received, which means you are only WILLING to see a certain degree of love in others, corresponding to how much you are wiling to see in yourself. To love others more you MUST love yourself more, which is why you are supposed to accept the atonement for YOURSELF, SO THAT you can GIVE the miracles (perceptual blessings, mind healing) you have received from that acceptance/receiving of truth/love.

"Miracles make minds one in God." "Miracles unite you with your brother". "Healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad." All of these speak to miracle working by erasing the separation BETWEEN you and OTHERS. Separation is double-sided, it applies to you AND others. Healing therefore heals BOTH of you. *ALL MIRACLES* unite you with your brother, therefore ALL miracles are devices for undoing the separation BETWEEN YOU and healing your relationship/communion. They are applied to BOTH of you.

Now, the Holy Spirit is the only "cause" of miracles, although Jesus is also involved "miracles are corrections introduced into false thinking by ME". He and HS are One. But what makes YOU one of "God's miracle workers", is your willingness to ALLOW God's healing to be in you and through you. "Love goes out because of what it is, but you are needed that it can begin." Meaning you have to learn to allow love to shine onto your brothers, through you, in order to stop blocking love's extension. Your willingness, which makes you a co-creator, allows you to "do His works".

What about miracles such as moving mountains? The Holy Spirit can do that. You, if you are willing enough "do not limit what I can do through you or you will limit what I can do FOR you", He CAN do extraordinary things. You "work" the miracle by allowing Him to move on God's behalf, which requires that you be a "perceiver of love" in order to make a pure enough request. Prayer is the medium of miracles and we do have to be in a "high" state of mind - a loving mind of miracle readiness - in order for miracles to be performed of this kind.

Just as it's not merely your perception of others that heals, but rather the Holy Spirit IN YOU that moves through you and heals FOR you (you are a medium, not an isolated thing), when you are perceiving correctly there is NO LIMIT to what "you and HE" can do together. It's teamwork. It requires you to have the right perceptual content - "wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles", while also being free enough of ego and fear to let love extend ITSELF. *IT* does the healing. You, plus the power of God, can bring healing to the world.

"You have been told that your function in this world is healing, and your function in Heaven is creating." --- "you share His function on Earth" ... " do His works".

So miracle working is entirely to do with upholding the Golden Rule, it applies bi-directionally to you and others at the same time, they heal both of you (unless you are already healed), and they ALWAYS involve OTHERS.

Here is a selection of pertinent quotes....

"The miracle-worker begins by PERCEIVING light, and translates HIS perception into sureness by continually extending it, and ACCEPTING ITS ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Its EFFECTS assure him IT IS THERE. The therapist does not heal; he LETS HEALING BE. HE can point to darkness, but he CANNOT bring light OF HIMSELF, for light is NOT of him. But being FOR him, it MUST be for his patient. ... The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist. He makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which He is the Guide."

-&-

"The Holy Spirit CANNOT fail to undo FOR you everything you have learned" ... "The little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit for which He gives you everything."

"The Holy Spirit does NOT work by chance, and healing that is of Him ALWAYS works. And unless the healer ALWAYS heals BY Him, the results WILL vary."

"I will heal as I let Him teach me to heal" ... "He will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision if I WILL LET HIM."

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"Healing ONLY STRENGTHENS."

"Miracles are ENERGIZERS."

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"Healing is the one ability that everyone CAN develop, and MUST develop, if he is to BE healed. Healing IS the Holy Spirit’s form of communication, and the ONLY one He knows. "

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

"Miracles violate every law of reality as this world judges it."

"Miracles are not of this world.

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"The Spiritual eye is the mechanism of miracles, because what the Spiritual eye perceives IS truth"

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"The Holy Spirit's temple is not a body, but a relationship."

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"What you acknowledge in your brother, you ARE acknowledging in yourself. What you share you STRENGTHEN."

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"Fear is a symptom of your deep sense of loss. If, when you perceive it in others, you learn to SUPPLY the loss, the basic CAUSE of fear is removed."

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"The aim of the teacher is to give them more of what is temporarily his. This process has all of the miracle conditions we referred to at the beginning. The teacher (or miracle worker) gives more to those who have less, bringing them closer to equality with him, at the same time gaining for himself."

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"Miracles are healing because they supply a lack; they are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who temporarily have less."

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"Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love."

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"A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service you can render to another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. You recognize your own and your neighbor's worth simultaneously."

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"Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God's forgiveness by extending it to others."

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"Miracles enable you to heal the sick and raise the dead because you made sickness and death yourself, and can therefore abolish both."

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"A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive."

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"Our brothers ARE forgetful. That is why they need your remembrance of Me and Him who created Me. Through this remembrance you can change THEIR minds about themselves, as I can change YOURS. Your minds are so powerful a light that you can look into theirs and enlighten them, as I can enlighten yours."

-&-

"Would you cut a brother off from the Light that is yours? You could not do so, if you realized that YOU CAN ONLY DARKEN YOUR OWN MIND. As you bring HIM back, so will YOUR mind return. That is the law of God, for the protection of the wholeness of His Son."

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"The present offers you your brothers in the light that would unite you WITH them, and free YOU from the past. Would you, then, hold the past AGAINST them?"

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"And you will know you have forgiven me if you behold your brother in the light of holiness. He cannot be less holy than can I, and you can not be holier than he."

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"The light of joy is so strong that it radiates throughout the Sonship and returns ... That is why the healer's prayer is, "let me know this brother as I know myself."."

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"Thereby you teach yourself that fear does not exist IN YOU, for you have in YOURSELF, the means for removing it, and have DEMONSTRATED this by GIVING it."

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"But he can let HIMSELF be healed, and thus offer the other what he has received."

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"I give the miracles I have received." ... "No-one can give what he has not received. To give a thing requires first you have it in your own possession."

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"Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth. If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves. Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are DENYING TO THEMSELVES. If they knew the truth about themselves, they could not be sick. The task of the miracle-worker thus becomes to DENY THE DENIAL OF TRUTH The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them. But, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that light IS theirs.

The light in them shines as brightly, REGARDLESS of the density of the fog that obscures it. If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God. YOU CAN REMEMBER THIS FOR ALL THE SONSHIP. Do not allow your brother not to remember, for his forgetfulness is YOURS. But YOUR remembering is HIS, for God cannot be remembered alone. THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN. To perceive the healing of your brother as the healing of yourself, is thus the way to remember God. For you forgot your brothers WITH Him, and God's answer to your forgetting is but the way to remember.

Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your brother what he believes he cannot offer himself. Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health, is to recognize in hatred the call for love. And to give a brother what he REALLY wants, is to offer it unto yourself. For your Father wills you to know your brother AS yourself. Answer HIS call for love, and YOURS is answered. Healing is the love of Christ for His Father, and for HIMSELF."

I haven't been focusing on miracles for a while, but kind of accidentally lately I've been finding myself exposed to some statements about miracles. I seem to be seeing them in a different light. Which is funny because "seeing in the light" is a big part of it.

There is one thing ACIM says fairly clearly and it's that miracles are ONLY seen in light. It also says miracles and vision are completely connected to each other. At times it also suggests miracles are so high in terms of states of consciousness, as to be right up at the christ level. Such as that the eyes of christ deliver them to all they look upon.

It also tells us that miracles, seen in light, are all over the place. A miracle stands next to what seemed to be a false perception, and these miracles are even there when we don't see them. We can block awareness of the miracles but that doesn't mean they're not there. And that suggests they are "ways of seeing."

I also found in experience recently that in one instance where I was driving behind a car and was about to scapegoat and then chose not to, kind of "holding back" the projection of guilt, Jesus called it a miracle. So then that got me thinking, what is a miracle really? We're also told that miracles and grievances are opposites. Also that ego-projection and miracles are opposites. So that tells us a bit about the state of mind or the activities of mind.

We're also told that miracles don't "do" anything, although we're also told they UNDO the interference that the ego was DOING. They "correct" the mind and sort of straighten out perceptions. They're also described as the translation of denial into truth. Also that miracles merely remind the mind of who the dreamer is, ie putting your awareness back in touch with you being causal and not seeing yourself as a victim or as in a position to scapegoat.

Miracles appear to be tied into true perceptions, as though they are glimpses of an accurate perception of something. But we're also told that they are thought creations, that they can energize others, that they can supply a lack. And that they are expressions of love. In prayer love is received, and in miracles love is expressed.

The impression I'm getting is that the love is coming down from a higher level ie heaven, and we are the open door who has to extend them. This is a sort of cause-effect chain, where God gives us the miracles and then we transfer them to others. As in "Miracles are a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers."

If we are in a state of christ mind where we're fully open to the truth, then we are fully able to extend and pass on these miracles, these parcels of love. It's almost like they reflect the idea of creations, in which we are co-creating with God, extending God and paying forward what we've received. This is why you can only give the miracles you've received.

On the one hand it seems that a miracle is like a gift of love, a form of healing, which corrects the mind and lifts it up out of false perceptions into true perception. As stated in terms of miracles "entailing" a sudden shift into vertical perception. At the same time this gift of love has power and healing in it, as all love does, and so while it corrects your sight and you "see with the miracle" or through the miracle-sight, you also extend that love and power and it can cause things to happen.

Jesus also refers to them as examples of right thinking. Right thinking is sanity and true perception. Accuracy of thought and mind. These moments of clarity and non-attack and non-judgement and non-projection, recognize sinlessness ie as in forgiveness, and broadcast that wholeness of mind to the whole sonship. They are thus also expressions of holy relationship ie total unconditional relationship.

Since Jesus refers to them as thought-creations, and that thoughts can create higher or lower realities, these miracles are clearly a function of mind and thought, which includes power and love, as kind of acts of "higher dreaming". These miracles lift up the mind and heal it, as in "interceding for your holiness". And as a result you see correctly, and your correct seeing has corrective properties which can shine light into other minds and correct them.

Thinking of someone like Jesus in a state of christ-mind, or near to it, he was so sided with heaven's laws that he could constantly radiate and pass on that miraculousness at will. He could use the mind, in combination of thought and belief, and with the power of God behind it, to cause things to happen. And each of these were love-based expressions. Including raising the dead and healing the sick and moving mountains. The mind is just naturally miraculous and powerful when it's in its healed state.

So miracles are definitely tied to mind, and to seeing, and to light, and to forgiveness, and to giving and receiving, and to extension of God and love. They are acts, performances, expressions, doings, which emit out of the mind and are given and shared, as part of the natural outgoing of love and its unlimitedness. Someone miraculous has the light of God in their eyes and just sees everything with sparkling light and can effortlessly bestow blessings of supernatural transformation everywhere they go.

"The miracle is the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and who calls on his brothers to do likewise."

If a miracle can be as simple as a right-minded non-attacking non-scapegoating non-projecting opposite to a grievance, where you "look and wait and judge not", in which you are being closer in alignment to how the Holy Spirit sees, then we're asked to basically get our mind-seeing into the light where it can bestow miracles all the time. Seeing forgiveness given to everything. Meeting all things with heavenly blessing.

Or something like that.

"I am still as God created me."

"You are immortal and you cannot die."

One of the major hurdles in the separation, is that it has actually made yourself distant to yourself. There are blockages, barriers, obstacles, obstructions, walls, that have entered as the "split" in the mind, seeming to come in between "you" and your real self. And now you seem to be split off and apart and you do not know who you are anymore. And who you think you are is not who you are.

Since your real self is invisible to you, and the body cannot see it, and it's hidden behind the belief that illusions are real, and this in turn projects as a seemingly solid world that hangs as a veil in between you and everyone, including your real self and God, it really makes it hard to be in touch with the big-picture you.

For example, we should focus on what your real self is like. We should identify your immortal nature, the fact you ARE NOT sick, the fact you ARE NOT insane, the fact you CANNOT die, the fact YOU ARE NOT UNHAPPY, and the fact that you are completely perfect and whole. That is actually true of your real self right now, and always has been, but it is hidden from your awareness.

The mind, in its split state, is in a state of disassociation. And the part that seems like your current conscious self is kind of in the dark about who you even really are. This poses a problem because it now implies that you are not responsible for the state you are in. And it becomes much harder to compare the state you're in to the state you REALLY are in.

If you could SEE your immortal self, things would be so much easier. You would see obviously and easily, that your real self is totally unharmed, perfect, invulnerable, has absolutely no signs of sickness or death, is totally joyful and happy all the time, cannot be attacked, and is still the same as God created it. If you could even just GLIMPSE that for a second it would be enlightening.

If you COULD see that, or even conceive of it, it then would help you to put everything in perspective. You'd recognize that given your real self is TOTALLY HEALTHY, you would instantly recognize that any belief you have in sickness, any suggestion that you are sick, any notion of sickness existing, any damage that seems to be showing up, any mental illness, would all be immediately INVALIDATED. It would be shown to be patently FALSE AND UNTRUE. Because here is your real self, shining and bright and clean and new, and completely perfect. And all support for sickness would be removed, causing it to vanish instantly.

This also brings with it extreme responsibility. Because it now becomes clear that, given your real self is immortal, ANY suggestion on your part that you are mortal, vulnerable, hurt, damaged, sick, unhappy, upset, attacked, threatened, in fear, guilty, sinful, suffering in any way, MUST all be a total lie. It MUST be a way that you are faking it and lying about who and what you are. Just even one little glimpse of the truth about yourself would show you that. And then you would never be able to see these thing in the same way again.

In light of the fact that your holy self IS PERFECT NOW, and in light of the fact that your holy self IS YOU, and your mind is its mind, it really is "something you are doing to yourself" when it comes to any form of suffering. This is why the secret of salvation says you are doing this all to yourself. You are making your sickness, you are making your unhappiness, you are claiming your own suffering, you are punishing yourself, you are self destructive, you are the one trying to make yourself die, and you have given yourself sickness. And all of it is an attempt to PROVE that you ARE NOT who you really are.

The aim of these things, of course, is to KEEP you in the dark and keep your real self HIDDEN. So that you are not aware of the FACT, that what YOU ACTUALLY ARE, IS an immortal spirit being. The FACT that THERE IS NO SUFFERING in you, YOU ARE NOT SICK, and you can NEVER die. The PURPOSE of all the efforts to believe otherwise, is to BLOCK awareness of the FACT that there is nothing wrong with you. To disown your immortality and hide from it, to pretend it's not true of you. That is nothing less than dishonest and unauthentic. It is denial.

How you think of other people works along similar lines. Since you can't seem to see them (unless you have strongly developed christ vision), it makes it hard for you to SEE their real self, the SEE their holiness, their harmlessness, their immortality. Yet it is by acknowledging, recognizing, seeing their immortal self that you become able to heal them. You can see this FOR them, even if they in their own mind are in denial of who and what they are. Even if they are convinced they are sick and suffering, YOU can deny this and know the truth that they cannot be this.

In one way or another, either through direct experience or through concepts, it's very helpful to keep the perspective that your immortal self, and the immortal selves of others, is the ONLY truth about us. And any efforts to suggest otherwise cannot be true. And the closer you can get to experiencing and expressing FROM that truth, the more you can be helpful to those who do not know themselves. You can remember them FOR them, and thus help them to remember they are immortal.

Here's why having a thought of attack or judgement about someone else automatically includes you and attacks you.

Mind in its natural state is free of all judgements and attacks. It is "empty". It sees reality for what it is with no interpretation.

In order for mind have a 'judgement' about someone, the only way mind can do this is to generate some kind of situation within itself that looks like a judgement. An attack thought.

So within the mind itself, made from mind, mind has to invent images, forms, thoughts, impressions, sensations, which put a judgement into the mind's experience. Otherwise the mind wouldn't be able to PERCEIVE that there is a judgement taking place. Mind can only experience what is within itself and is absolutely blind to anything external (because there is nothing external, really).

So now the mind is having a judgement about "someone", but it couldn't create this judgement outside of itself. It's setting off nuclear bombs about this so-called other person, but the fallout from that explosion is affecting the mind because it's all taking place inside the mind.

Even though the mind is having a judgement ABOUT something that it thinks is outside of itself - beyond the body identity - the actual experience of the judgement and the conditions that this judgement creates, are happening inside the confines of the body-mind.

So that means it's happening to you. Not only is it happening to you just as much as it's happening to someone else, it's actually ONLY happening to you, and not happening to someone else at all!

So to perceptually attack someone else, you have to put attack into your mind. Your mind has to believe in attack, and it goes both ways. The mind doesn't conceive of 'attack on xyz person' hoping to escape how that attack feels, it conceives of 'attack' in general. And that means, the same rules it applies to someone else, applies to itself.

The mind cannot perceive or experience anything outside of itself. It's like, the ocean cannot know what life is like in a desert - it can't go there, it doesn't exist there, it can only be aware of what's in the ocean.

So you THINK that you can use your mind to make up stuff 'about someone not myself'. You THINK you have this ability to objectively sit on the sidelines and judge and attack and have absolutely no effects from this at all. That's absolutely mistaken and a totally ego-based self-deception. Nobody has this ability. It's a myth. If you want bombs to go off against other people, you have to set them off within you, and pretend that they're having an affect on someone else. Good luck with that.

So you have this vested interest in not attacking 'others' because in fact it doesn't even attack others, it attacks you.

Try hating someone or being really angry at them, at the same time as loving yourself. Any luck with that? It's not possible. You can't maintain a state of mind for love to exist while simultaneously having a state of mind where hate/fear/guilt/judgement/attack exists. YOUR mental condition has to degrade in order to generate hatred. Hatred destroys you. Your mental condition has to become unconscious and blocked in order for you not to see love in someone. And by not seeing it in someone, those blocks will block your own awareness of your own love. You put up walls to keep others out, and to keep you in a prison.

So you see you can't do anything to others and think that you're getting away with it, or that you are not going to be affected in some way. You are deeply affected, and ONLY you are affected, when you really get down to it. So it's utterly futile.

You have this interest in not attacking others not because you even can attack others, but because every single time you do this you do not realize that you are ONLY attacking yourself, YOUR mind suffers, YOUR mind changes into a hate machine, YOU are experiencing the hate, and other people aren't even experiencing it.

You think you can generate 'stuff' in you that somehow leaks out and overflows and travels over to other people and does stuff to them. You think you have these weapons of warfare, the power to affect someone else. You don't. It's a total myth. If someone doesn't choose to experience effects they will not. If you're in a judging hateful mood and you're going around believing you're capable of attacking people, and the people are all laughing and not taking it seriously, obviously you don't have the power to affect them. You're deluded.

You are the only one who is upset.

For Jesus, miracles were natural. We'd call them supernatural because our idea of natural is less than natural.

Each time He performed a miracle, it wasn't that He was shifting his awareness from illusions to truth. He wasn't doing some kind of correction of Himself in His own mind.

He performed miracles BECAUSE He had already gone through a purification process, not in order TO purify himself.

He was doing miracles all the time. Every single day, every hour, every minute He was miraculous.

This idea that a miracle (in A Course in Miracles) means the process of correcting your own illusions, clearly does not hold up against the evidence. Jesus would have run out of illusions a long time prior.

When he raised the dead, multiplied food, walked on water, turned objects into other objects, restored sight to the blind etc, he wasn't in a mode of "waking up". He was able to do these things BECAUSE He had woken up.

All of His miracles were inspired by, came from, and were powered by God's love. His simple willingness to love unconditionally was miraculous. That love was possible because of the removal of the blocks to love's awareness, for Himself, which He had more or less finished already.

If miracles come from love and require love, and if blocks to awareness shut love out, then you could believe that lifting away the block to awareness is a miracle. In a sense, you go from being less miraculous to more miraculous, because you go from less love to more love.

But it isn't the transition from darkness to light that is miraculous. It isn't the process of going from illusions to truth that is miraculous. It isn't the waking up process over time that is miraculous. Miraculous is what you naturally ARE once those processes are complete.

And yet, even without their completion, all that it takes is enough willingness and faith in an unseen truth to be able to bring forth demonstrations that that truth is true. Expressions of love, not just concepts of love.

"The perceptual content of miracles is wholeness" means that miracles occur when the mind is whole. If the mind is very far from whole and there is a lot to be undone yet, you can hardly call the undoing of a thin layer of illusion miraculous. That isn't wholeness.

Just as claiming the atonement once and for all is miraculous, and just as COMPLETE forgiveness is a state of having nothing left to forgive, so too is the miracle an expression of that state of mind. This is why the Holy Spirit, who is in the "right mind", is the mechanism of miracles, because He sees with whole perception. WHOLE perception, not partial.

As we are transitioning from partial perception toward whole perception, let's be honest. Those steps are worthwhile and they bring correction and it is easy to use various course quotes to justify calling this a miracle, but it's not. Miracles become POSSIBLE because of this process.

This is why it was natural for Jesus to perform miracles all the time, and why when miracles are not happening all the time, something has gone wrong. When something has gone wrong, you're in the ego illusion and need some purification, correction, but that is only to bring you BACK to the miraculous mind.

Having faith, from a standpoint of being still filled with illusions, creates a kind of bridge between where you're at and the mind of Holy Spirit. He is still able to be miraculous on your behalf because from His vantage point, He sees with wholeness. He is in a state of CORRECTNESS, which is capable of correcting, except that this correctness also knows that there is not really a NEED for correction.

He can help to correct by showing you only that, in truth, all is forgiven already and nothing need be corrected. That this is the truth. Correction does NOT mean "real correction" as in a change within an illusion which you believe is true. It is the UN-doing of illusions, and it not really a change at all.

You are miraculous because of what you ARE. You are miraculous because you are of God. You are love. And to the unnatural, who believe they are natural, this will appear to be supernatural. Awakened, purified, perfected, in perfect forgiveness, and having claimed the atonement COMPLETELY, you will not STOP doing miracles.

If miracles were just shifts in perception and you had no perceptions left to shift, does that mean you will stop being miraculous? No. The Course is telling just the complete opposite. When you are done shifting your perception to truth, or even as you take steps towards this, miracles will become your RIGHT, and you will share the Will of God to perform them. They will be second nature, happening all the time.

Being miraculous is the way of God's children.

I think one of the things that blocks us from healing others, is that we become deceived by their appearances. We look at the body and think that’s the person. We see signs of sickness. We see the person’s ego and it acts like a wall. We may see them as ONLY a body and ONLY an ego.

All of this is designed to block your sight so that you do NOT see the truth. The truth is really that the person is a perfect immortal being - the Christ - son of God - immaculate and perfect, with no flaws and no sickness. Technically speaking, no one actually needs any healing at all, because we HAVE NOT CHANGED since God created us. But we need to see this before we can help the MIND to come out of its confusion.

That’s hidden “behind” the illusory appearance that there’s something wrong with the person, they’re ill, they’re suffering, they are broken, they need treatment, they are in a dire situation which is threatening their existence, they need rescuing etc.

If we buy into all of these views of seeing their body, their ego, and stopping there, we can’t really be of much healing help. WE need to be able to affirm and reinforce the truth - that they are actually completely NOT sick, that they are absolutely whole and healed already, and that all of these appearances are NOT true.

To do this really requires us to embrace the idea that we ourselves are an immortal being of light with no imperfections, so that we can also then realize that other people must be that as well. By claiming ownership of being Christ, the son of God, flawless and permanent and eternal, we can then extend this to others.

If we haven’t claimed that for ourselves, how can we have it to give it? If we become deceived by beliefs that people are sick bodies, how can we see ourselves as incapable of sickness? Whatever applies to us applies to everyone. If you BELIEVE the sickness is TRUE of someone, you are reinforcing it.

The course says we should BEGIN by perceiving light. What does that mean but to see PAST all of the illusions and lies, past the body, past sickness, past their ego identity, to the truth that someone IS NOT sick at all. To acknowledge they are absolutely a divine perfect radiant being of light that has never changed.

This is seeing them as they really are. By focus on this we can JOIN with their mind at this level, and therefore prevent sickness in the mind. We are asked to extend the truth, the light, the love, the power of God, to another, and to continually keep extending it, so that the other is reminded and enlightened to their own pre-existing truth.

Healing is not about you putting in place the things that are missing, or making up for something lost, or trying to repair something that seems broken. The supposed “evidence” for ”sickness happening” is a deception and a lie in the first place, so why would we react to that? It’s a trap that leads to false empathy and mutual suffering.

It’s more about recognizing that there is no sickness, expressing only LIFE and only the belief in immortality, so that this REPLACES the illusion of “not life” and thus sickness. When we are overflowing with ONLY LIFE and NON-SICKNESS, we can give that life to others and resurrect them.

“The miracle-worker begins by PERCEIVING light, and translates HIS perception into sureness by continually extending it, and ACCEPTING ITS ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Its EFFECTS assure him IT IS THERE. The therapist does not heal; he LETS HEALING BE. HE can point to darkness, but he CANNOT bring light OF HIMSELF, for light is NOT of him. But being FOR him, it MUST be for his patient.”

“But do not give it power to REPLACE the changeless in him in your sight of him. There is no false appearance but will fade, if you request a miracle instead. There is no pain from which he is not free, if you would have him be but what he is. Why should you fear to see the Christ in him? You but behold yourself in what you see. As he is healed are YOU made free of guilt, and his appearance IS your own to you.”

Check out this epic quote:

”When you heal, that is exactly what you ARE learning (doing). You are recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by perceiving (knowing) that he could NOT have changed his mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in him. It is ONLY the Holy Spirit in him that never changes His mind. He himself must think he CAN, or he would not perceive himself as sick. He therefore does not know what his self IS. If YOU see only the changeless in him, you have not really changed him at all. But by changing your mind about HIS FOR him, you help him undo the change his ego thinks it has made in him.“

"The body needs NO healing. But the mind that thinks it IS a body is sick indeed!"

This is a difficult one to accept. To suggest the bodies needs NO healing, is not an attempt to make it "ok" that bodies are in "conditions" of sickness. It's not saying that "you should not heal the body" or attempt to be free from the physical manifestation of symptoms. Instead, it's saying that really, the body isn't the CAUSE of the problem and isn't the source of what's showing up as wrong with it.

The only real issue is the mind. The mind is the only thing that can be sick. For example Jesus says somewhere that "only perception can be sick". A sick perception projects its sick twisted mental conditions onto the body and confuses itself with the body, thus twisting the body into unnatural configurations. The body itself is nothing but a MIRROR IMAGE, reflecting the mind's condition. "The mind makes this decision as it makes ALL decisions responsible for the condition of the body."

The body makes NO decisions about its health. "The body is not sick, nor does it need healing" says the same thing. The body APPEARS sick, and seemingly "is sick", but the sickness is being PUT THERE by the mind. Since mind is the cause of the problem, fixing the EFFECT (the body) directly is only going to rearrange furniture. The mind is quite capable of re-manifesting the same or different sickness at a later time. It's like trying to fix a leaking tap by collecting the water, or trying to fix an overflowing bathtub by fetching a mop. Until the source 'tap' is switched off the problem will regenerate.

It's difficult to accept this is true because the BODY in its physical appearance is quite a convincing illusion. If you can SEE, feel, touch, forms of sickness or damage.. if you can see the wounds, if you can see the cancerous lumps, if you can have sensations of the disease etc... these are quite convincing temptations to believe "the body ITSELF has a problem". And because the body was made to blind you ("nothing so blinding as perception of form"), you think the body is the start and end of the problem. You don't SEE the projector - the mind - forcing the body into sickness, mangling its form, or attacking it. The attack is invisible.

The truth is though that the body is merely the end result or effect of the mind's activities. "All sickness is mental illness." ie, NO sickness is really something inherently wrong with the body itself. The body isn't containing "an issue". The body, even if it appears sick, isn't really "having" a sickness. It's merely REPRESENTING, or symbolizing, something that's going on in the mind. It's ONCE REMOVED from the problem. Even if you can see someone's broken leg, it is not really their leg that's broken, it's their mind. The body state is a reflection of the mental state. "A broken body is PROOF the ***MIND*** has not been healed."

It is very tempting upon witnessing the end result "form" of the body "looking sick" to want to then react to that perception. Having thus made the body real, believing the body is "really sick", falling for the appearance, buying into the story of how it came about, etc... it is then becoming a block to awareness. It now disguises the mind and hides the mind from view. It forms a wall of form, a form of error, which YOUR body's eyes are now failing to overlook. And so now you've fallen for believing in (and reinforcing) the body's condition without really noticing that its the MIND that has a problem. The mind is making the body suffer.

Essentially, the body has no mind, no will, no causality, no soul, no power, no decision, nothing. The body is totally nothing. And so the mind, in its attack upon or use of the body, is doing stuff TO the body "against its will", so to speak. The body simply responds with a reflection of what the mind wants it to represent. "Sickness is an attempt to prove you (mind) can be hurt." So the body just goes along with the mind's attack upon it and "faithfully" symbolizes what the mind wants to demonstrate, even if that is a will to demonstrate disease and death. The body has no say in it, and no will to stop it or resist it. The body has no fight, no cause, no defense.

Jesus describes the body's ONLY real defense as a state where the mind ceases to attack the body. "The mind, being sane, heals the body." So when the mind is not projecting attack onto it, to hurt it, the body is instead healed by the mind's use of it for extending Christ's love. The body is like the image on a movie screen. To fix the sick body you can't attack the movie screen. You've gotta to heal the movie projector. The projector is the mind. The mind is the only problem that needs fixing.

The question then becomes, how do you heal the mind? It seems easier to do this for yourself than for another mind. "The light in your mind can shine into another mind and enlighten it." Both minds are lit by the same lamp. Your minds can be one. This is a clue. How do you heal the invisible? How do you bring about mind correction, that's permanent, in another mind, through the broadcasting and expression of love? Through weakening their belief in sickness by not believing in their body's condition? Through prayer and the power of God moving to perform a miracle?

The focus needs to somehow move away from "I believe there is a real physical sickness" to "I recognize this physical sickness is not real whatsoever and the mind needs healing." And then proceeding to take steps to heal the mind directly. The body will follow.

A fear years ago, I was at an ACIM retreat and we were doing a breathing exercise. I became filled up with some kind of energy, which lifted my "vibration" very high. My mind started to see past the physical and reach out and started to see God BEYOND the veil. In that moment I would've left the entire world behind to be with Him.

I'll skip some details but after that, I was seeing with true perception. The amount of awareness and wakefulness I had was off the charts. Everywhere I looked, still seeing physical objects with my eyes, I saw God. God was in everything I saw and God was in my mind. My mind had expanded in some way, moving up the hologram, to where my ego self seemed dissipated and diffused into the back of my awareness, as though I had no center. My mind somehow pulled back away from the world and I began to feel like I was melting into the background, one with it. I felt like I was becoming Christ.

My awareness for some days after, entailed the ability to see a profound gentleness in everything. Everywhere I looked there was unconditional love, in all things. This love seemed so whole and complete, no matter where I looked, that I felt I had no need to look anywhere else to go find anything. I saw it in a chair leg. In a water bottle. In the shadows on a wall.

People were still going about their business doing exactly everything in the same egoic way as before - nothing changed there, because the body's eyes can ONLY see the physical form of things. But at the same time, there was awareness of a love and presence. I was aware of something that it seemed no-one knew was there, even though it seemed obvious. I became so soft. God was so gentle, so soft and joyous. And he was very, very intimate, which was shocking at first because I had previously always put God far away in the sky and here he was well under my skin.

I also became aware of the higher levels of the hologram, an experience of unity, in which the whole was in each part. All of God was in each object I saw. I therefore recognized for the first time in experience, that even though physical objects seemed to assert that "nothing is the same anywhere" or "there is nothing that is whole" or "the whole is not in any of the parts", here in my awareness I could still see this forms and yet, simultaneously, my mind was aware that a single consistent unified whole was present in all parts, fully, transcending their limitations and differences. This taught me the way in which physical matter is a lie, a deception designed to shut out awareness of God's nature.

I was in an altered state for a couple of weeks. I was very ungrounded. I could barely do tasks because my mind was quite expanded and out of body. Yet each time I did something "grounding", this energy that was in me started to funnel down, and this produced immense joy. Joy would beam out of my face toward others as I started at them very directly, something I had shy'd away from before, recognizing I had no needs, no lack, and that there was only outward extension. Nothing could "come in" to me from the outside. I felt so safe and protected and free from needs. I didn't even want to eat food, it felt so alien.

Gradually as I grounded back into my body my expanded awareness narrowed down, became more focused into and through the body, and I became more immersed in the physical body again. This was like receiving some kind of brain damage. My awareness diminished greatly and it felt like being greatly subdued and suppressed, shut down and locked inside a prison suit. This also stripped away most of the intense wakefulness that I had, which felt like "leaving God", which was VERY upsetting.

This made it impossible for me to have God in my mind, and thus I stopped seeing God outside of me in all things. It seemed God left. I kept trying to find God outside of me because I thought that He was out there, having seen Him there, but I couldn't find Him because I was no longer aware of Him WITHIN my mind. And for weeks this was depressing and infuriating, although gradually I adjusted and was reassured by a few momentary glimpses that God was still with me. Returning to my body felt like a huge isolation. As my eye sight returned to looking out solely through the body's eyes, it was like building a brick wall "behind" me such that I could no longer have any sense of what was there. The body cut me off from awareness of God, and so I got to see first hand just how limiting bodies are.

What I later came to realize was this was an experience of true perception. A state of seeing a forgiven world. It was as though layer upon layer of thick "judgement" had been scraped off the surface of the world revealing an extremely gently held picture of something very lovable. And yet at the same time, the physicality was the same. The appearance physically to my eyes was the same. It was what I saw IN it, in SPITE of the physicality, that I longed to reconnect with.

This is why, for me personally, I know that this physical world is not real. I know how much the body lies. I know how the body's sense are massively limiting. I know how matter lies to try to obscure the holographic nature of God and his omnipresence. I've seen it and experienced the transition back and forth. God gave me a glimpse of awakening and it was the most profoundly directly educational experience of my entire life.

This is why I know first hand that there is something very much beyond this world, a reality which is completely obscured by forms and trapped by bodies. This world is not my home. I have grieved for the "loss of God" and gradually over time use this as incentive, a taste of what's to come, to find my way back to God again.

The attraction to Him was SO STRONG that I would've leapt into His arms in an instant without so much as a consideration for anything else in all the world. We have protected ourselves from remembering just how appealing God is, and why NOTHING else means anything even remotely close to Him. We only block awareness in order to hide this extreme attraction. Otherwise we would awaken in a heartbeat.

"There is no world. This is the central lesson the course would attempt to teach."

You may not realize what this implies. But consider this.

It means that this entire world, planet Earth, its surrounding environment, the sun, all the stars and galaxies, which you made, you are dreaming of. And that means none of them really exist.

It means the entire history of the human civilization is fiction. It means there is no planet. It means your body is an illusion. It means that everything you think exists in the world is absolutely and literally nothingness.

Essentially, there is not really a dream. And everything that seems to be in the dream is not really anything at all. There is NOTHING HAPPENING. There is NOTHING HERE.

This is the proper use of denial. The recognition that what is false is false, what is true is true. What is illusion is not real. And death itself is something you made up.

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

The trees are not really there. The cars are not really there. The houses are not really there. The planet is not really there. It's all a huge giant dream. Dreams do not carry over when you wake up from them, because they depend entirely on you being unconscious. Dreams require you to be asleep, ie in denial of reality, so that you can imagine something UNLIKE reality. Whatever you make up in the dream simply stops being MADE when you wake up from dreaming. It switches off.

This is why this is such a huge, immensely radical and totally amazing lesson to learn. It means you cannot be fully awake while maintaining a dream body. "The body is a dream". "The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist." This is literally factually true. The body IS NOTHING. There is no real body. There is no world here.

That's how much of an illusion this world is. And this is why it's such a challenge to come to really believe and recognize this truth, as the culmination of the entire curriculum. It means you have to learn not to be deceived by ANYTHING you see or sense. It means you have to realize all your body senses were made to NOT KNOW reality. It means you have to realize everything you THINK exists, is happening, or has ever happened in this world, IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Nothing but an illusion. Nothing but a dream. A fantasy fairytale imagined universe in which NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS.

No-one is ever really sick. There is no real death. You made it up. You are an immortal spirit being who God has established as permanently real and perfect forever, who cannot change nor can you change what you are. You are temporarily in denial, wanting to believe that this isn't true, and in your denial you are trying to block awareness of the truth by dreaming of a UNIVERSE in which all manner of other stuff seems true and real. And none of it is.

Literally, ONLY the Kingdom of God is real. This world you made is NOT real, whatsoever. ONLY God's world is real. The world you made is total fiction, illusion, unreality, nothing. Literally NOTHING. Made of nothingness.

"The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."

That means you're here sitting there reading this crap thinking this is all real and happening, that even this message is happening, and it is not really happening.

"The world you made is an illusion of a world, God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as himself."

Nothing in this world is eternal. Nothing. It is all temporary, fleeting, transitioning, changing, illusory. That's WHY it's an illusion. Miracles demonstrate that illusions ARE illusions because they CAN be changed. Anything that changes is not real. Nothing real can be threatened or changed. Anything that ever seemed to change or be affected or hurt was not real. Nothing real can be attacked ever. You are reality. You are the Son of God. You are immortal. You cannot be hurt. Pretending that you can is futile nonsense.

You cannot even die. You can confuse yourself with things that do. You can pretend to go through it. But it has NO EFFECT on who you really are. It does not even touch your spirit at all. It is totally immaterial, inconsequential. You made up death in your denial of the fact that you are immortal and have eternal life. You are PRETENDING you can suffer.

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

You cannot be hurt. But you keep trying to prove it. You cannot die, but you keep trying to prove it. You cannot be attacked in any way, but you keep believing you can and have. This is confusion. You are mistaken. All beliefs in space and time are a mistake. There is no world here. Only God's Kingdom exists. Only the HOLY TRINITY is real.

There is no world. Sums up the entire truth about this realm. All of it is NOTHING. It's not even really here. It's all fiction. Do not believe it. The world is a lie. This isn't being negative about the world. It's factual. The world is not negative or positive. It is NOTHING. The body is not negative or positive. IT IS NOTHING.

"You cannot endow the body with attributes of Christ. Holiness is positive while the body is merely natural." (paraphrase). And when you think of the body and the world being NEUTRAL, you should NOT be thinking of them as being as SOMETHING. THEY ARE NOTHING. Neutrality means it has NO ATTRIBUTES AT ALL. The neutral world is NOT a world. The neutral body is NOT a body. You can't use neutrality to KEEP what does not exist.

We're hanging out on a fake planet interacting with imaginary characters played by sleeping brothers, pretending that things are happening, that we have important stuff to do, that there are places to go and things to see and do, important experiences to be had, magnificent illusions to sense, worlds to explore and accomplishments to be made. THERE IS NOTHING HERE. This is why ultimately "I need do nothing" - an atonement-level thought, in recognition of the fact that there is literally NO WORLD and NO SEPARATION and NO ILLUSIONS and therefore nothing has happened and there's nothing to do about it.

It's kind of like, you live in Heaven, but you're temporarily on a vacation to a fake imaginary planet Earth, and you're hanging out there for a LONG time, and kind of forgot to go back home. But some day you will go back home and leave this world, and never come back.

Here's some quotes explaining why what ACIM terms as "the real world" IS NOT Heaven - they are two entirely difference "places" or experiences. The real world is firmly rooted in perception, Heaven is beyond perception, beyond Earth, beyond this universe, beyond bodies of any kind, and can only be known and experiences in real awareness. This is why "Heaven is an AWARENESS (not perception) of perfect Oneness".

You are to reach the "real world" first and then God will scoop you up into Heaven. But the real world, itself, is actually NOT REALITY, and is UNREAL. This terminology has confused many people. It merely means, "the world AS IT IS" (the "real" version of it) rather than your perceptual distortion about it. It's "relative" terminology, not absolute.

Also Heaven is still very DIFFERENT to Earth, due to the fact that even the real world and Earth are still illusions based on separation.

"THE REAL WORLD STILL IS BUT A DREAM. Except the figures have been changed. They are not seen as idols which betray. IT IS A DREAM in which no-one is used to substitute for something else, or interposed between the thoughts the mind conceives and what it sees. No-one is used for something he is not, for childish things have all been put away. And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into A DREAM where all is joy, because that is the PURPOSE that it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms which enter in the dreams are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love."

"Perception of the truth is not the same as KNOWING it."

"For true perception is a remedy with many names. Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. They are the one beginning, with the end to lead to oneness far beyond themselves."

"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."

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."

"Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God."

"For where God’s memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, NO BODIES"

"The Holy Spirit has no need of time when it has served His purpose. Now He waits but that one instant more for God to take His final step, and time has disappeared, taking perception with it as it goes, and leaving but the Truth to be Itself."

"The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers."

"For, as your sleeping and your waking dreams represent the same wishes in YOUR mind, so do the real world and the truth of Heaven join in the Will of God. The dream of waking is easily transferred to its reality."

Here is where you move BEYOND THE REAL WORLD:

"Here (in the real world) are YOU forgiven, for here you have forgiven everyone. Here is the new PERCEPTION, where everything is bright and shining with innocence, washed in the waters of forgiveness, and cleansed of every evil thought you laid upon it. Here there is no attack upon the Son of God, and YOU are welcome. Here is your innocence, waiting to clothe you and protect you, and make you READY FOR the final step (to heaven) in the journey inward. Here are the dark and heavy garments of guilt laid by, and gently replaced by purity and joy.

Yet even forgiveness is NOT THE END. Forgiveness DOES make lovely, but it does NOT create. It IS the source of healing, but it is the MESSENGER of love, and NOTits Source. Here you are led, that God Himself can take the FINAL STEP unhindered. For here does nothing INTERFERE with love, letting it be Itself. A step BEYOND this holy place of forgiveness (beyond the real world). A step still FURTHER inward, but one you CANNOT take, transports you to something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT (heaven). Here is the SOURCE OF LIGHT; NOTHING PERCEIVED, forgiven, nor transformed. But merely KNOWN." (heaven).

Also

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange WORLD *YOU* MADE and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. 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."

"There walks with you the Spirit Heaven sent you that you might approach this door some day, and through His aid slip effortlessly past it to the light. Today that day has come. Today God keeps His ancient promise to His holy Son, as does His Son remember his to Him. This is a day of gladness, for we come to the appointed time and place where you will find the goal of all your searching here and all the seeking of the world, WHICH ENDS together as you pass beyond the door."

Entry to heaven: "Put out your hand and see how easily the door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. Angels light the way, so that all darkness vanishes and you are standing in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all things you see. A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause before you realize the world you see before you in the light reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite forget in wandering away in dreams."