The golden rule is the nature and law of God. In God, everything is equal and shared. What applies to one brother applies to all brothers. What is true of me is true of you. But even moreso, because brothers are ONE, they literally share identity and soul. I am in you and you are in me. We are part of each other. We are irrevocably joined and share everything, even our selves.

We can describe this as the golden rule, in which what I do to you I also do to myself. There is no option or clause that your brother MIGHT treat you a certain way. You treat your brother a certain way SO THAT you are treated a certain way, because you ARE him, and so you are DIRECTLY treating yourself how you would wish to be treated.

There are no exceptions to this and it is impossible to violate or break this law or be outside of it. It is always operating, whether you are accepting of it and living by it, or whether you are attempting to ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply to you.

If we are one, then I have a shared interest with you. Whatever I do to you I do to myself. Whatever I give to you I receive. Giving and receiving are one. If I were to attack you, I'd be attacking myself. Therefore, it's in my own best interests to ONLY LOVE, otherwise I will make MYSELF suffer, and by my own hand. I have to INCLUDE you, otherwise I will suffer from exclusion.

"Ego" is nothing more than an attempt to oppose, deny and ignore this law. It is an attempt to pretend that it does not apply. That I am not you and you are not me. That we are not equal. That what applies to me doesn't apply to you, because we are different. If we are separate, we not one, and now I should have my own selfish interests - survival of the fittest.

It's like, were both standing on the same floor. Then there is a separation, like an earthquake. The floor cracks in two. I now seem to be on one side, and you on the other. But also the heights of the floors have shifted, and mine is slightly above yours. The two floors are now separate and different and not equal.

This is the separation from God, the seeming split in the mind, which suggests that instead of us all being one, we are now two, split apart, separated off, isolated in our own private territories, and kept apart. We can't seem to share because we can't span the divide of the broken ground, and everything we do is separate.

On this basis of separation, or not being able to share, the breakdown in unity, the collapse of oneness, the arising of exclusion, and the seeming imprisonment on either side of the rift, we get the denial of the golden rule. It seems possible now that because I am not a part of you, and am separate and isolated on my own island, I can only now think of my OWN interests. What I do to myself is done to myself alone, and if I throw a rock over at you, it hurts only you and not me.

While I might believe that what I do to you is NOT done to myself, or what is true of you is NOT true of me, it becomes possible to enter this state where we're trying to get away with murder. It suggests I could attack you, and escape the consequences. I could do something to you which is not done to me. I could give something that I do NOT receive, because I am not INCLUDED in it, because I've become EXCLUDED from you. As though giving and receiving are not one.

So the whole ego system is all about this sense of being exclusive, separated off, not sharing, not one, unequal, different, disconnected, dis-associated, and isolated. Our whole belief then shifts to it seeming to be plausible that we can attack without being hurt, or we can accuse without being accused, or we can make someone be guilty to take the guilt off our own shoulders. That no matter what we cause, we can escape the effects. I can hurt you, and not myself.

So this is then what the ego does, all the time. IT HAS ONE MODE of functioning. It's all it CAN do, because it is ONLY the idea of separation. Its aim is to emphasize, enhance, increase, and deepen the sense of being separate, so that IT increases. That's it's only goal. To attack ever more strongly and cause ever more disruption in equality. It's entire existence DEPENDS on the continuation of this inequality, this rift between brothers, and this sense that you cannot share anything with anyone because they're separated from you.

If the two floors or islands were to meet, and reconnect, and level out, and become one single unified space again, the two brothers could be reunited, and all sense of inequality and difference would melt. And ALSO there would have to now be an acceptance of the golden rule, because if we are sharing everything, then what applies to me now also applies to you and vice versa. We are now the SAME. We are one. So I cannot do anything to you without doing it to myself.

The interesting thing is that even when we're in an ego state of believing that we ARE separate, and are not a part of others, the golden rule actually still applies. We can BELIEVE that we are attacking something "not myself", and we can BELIEVE that the effects are being felt ONLY by that other separate person, and we can BELIEVE that we completely escape any consequences for it, BUT WE DO NOT. Because there are dire consequences STILL operating, consequences which are SELF INFLICTED, which CANNOT be avoided.

If you attack another, you STILL attack yourself, because you STILL ARE them. If you hurt another, you ARE hurting yourself. If you try to destroy another, you ARE destroying yourself. You may not REALIZE that you are, because you think of yourself as PROTECTED BY THE SEPARATENESS, as if the prison walls keep you SAFE. And so you think that attacking someone makes you SAFER. But it in fact erodes your safety because the more you attack the more YOU become imprisoned and weakened.

"Exclusion and separation are synonymous. So are separation and dissociation. 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. The reason, however, may not be as clear to you as you think. What you project you disown, and therefore DO NOT BELIEVE IS YOURS. You are therefore EXCLUDING yourself from it, by the very statement you are making that you are DIFFERENT from someone else. Since you have also judged AGAINST what you project, you attack it because you have already attacked it BY rejecting it. By doing this UNCONSCIOUSLY, you try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself FIRST out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe."

You cannot be strong without your brother. You cannot be happy without your brother. You cannot be healthy without your brother. You cannot be loved without your brother. You cannot be powerful without your brother. You cannot be free without your brother. You cannot be innocent without your brother. You cannot be holy without your brother.

So if you try to attack in any way, to produce the separation, to make yourself MORE separate, emphasizing the ways that someone else is an inferior evil shit that you hate and who should feel terribly guilty for being so wrong, YOU ARE accusing yourself of this. So you might ask yourself, "would I accuse myself of this?" You will think you're NOT accusing yourself because you don't see yourself as A PART OF the other person, but you are still doing it.

There is a HUGE COST to attempting to ignore the golden rule. The cost is that your mind becomes split, you become self-destructive and suicidal, you become alone and lonely, you become weakened and live in darkness, the world becomes a nightmare of conflict and war, you lose all sense of peace and happiness, communication breaks down and you become unable to relate to anyone, it makes you question whether you even exist, and you will try to destroy yourself. That's a pretty major cost for believing something that isn't true, as if it were real.

You DO have a vested interest, because when you attack you DO experience consequences, even if you do not REALIZE that you do. You may not recognize that every time you attack you feel worse. You may not recognize that when you hate someone you feel awful and guilty.

You may not recognize that when you accuse someone angrily of being guilty of something, to make yourself feel better, you increase your sense of being separate and small and weak and alone. Or that anger hurts your mind and body. You have to recognize what the consequences of attack ARE, so that you will decide that you do not WANT to be murderous anymore, because it actually is not REALLY in your best interests.

The golden rule always applies. It is never broken or violated. You can deny it. If you deny it you will suffer. If you deny it you will be confused as to why your life sucks, and you will probably blame it on someone else, thinking that they are not you, and that therefore you haven't blamed yourself. Everything you do you to do yourself and to all your brothers, to the entire sonship and to God. This is also the secret of salvation. You are INCLUDED IN EVERYTHING. And inclusion is ultimately love.

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision."

"The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form, because it can so easily be changed."

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer I cannot experience loss and I cannot die. I am not a body. Love created me like Itself."

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Grief from a loss can be very, very difficult to deal with. I've personally had to go through a ton of it. 18 years ago I left my home country of England and immigrated to the USA.

This entailed a significant sense of loss in ways I never imagined and was just horrendous to go through producing massive amounts of tears over a span of several years. Some of the losses included:

Loss of family - not being around them or able to be around them, even on holidays. Not being able to travel easily to see them. Not a single member of my family was at our wedding or any other event. Although no-one literally died, it was as though they all had. Actually just even writing that just now has brought me to tears again.

Loss of culture - not being immersed in the culture and not even realizing it was a culture. Being surrounded by a completely alien environment where no-one even speaks your language or sounds like you, where there are no recognizable holidays or shared events, with no familiar social cues, no familiar traditions, sense of dress code, or anything. Top this off by being surrounded by an entire country that celebrates things you have no familiarity with or sense of identification with, and it adds up to even more alienation.

Loss of familiar forms - an entirely different set of foods, brands, products, money, buildings that are completely different in design, traffic laws totally flipped around, extremely different weather, totally different tv shows, clothing, standards, a different style of working, all new holidays, etc. Not to mention the loss of a sense of "home" or belonging or fitting in or being part of anything.

Loss of identity - I assumed that so much of what made me "me" was inherent to me. It was not. It was inherent to the country and culture. Once I was outside of it it brought into question who I even am, what is truly "mine" and what was just something I inherited or assumed as part of "normality". My whole sense of self was shaken to the core and transformed. I grieved even for who I used to be.

Each year various thing would trigger me off. Especially holidays, birthdays, christmas, and even American holidays which were celebrated en masse but which I could not relate to, making me feel deeply left out in a whole other way. Christmas was a nightmare. The first sign of decorations or snow or holiday jingles would immediately trigger 2 months of hell. Sometimes I felt powerfully compelled to just run away and get the hell out of here.

What I had to learn, was about what this grief is, what is causing it, and what I can do about it. Besides hundreds of boxes of tissues, accompanying the massive purge of "losses" that I perceived, I tried various things. One thing which did immediately help was EFT (emotional freedom technique) - a form of acupressure, which alleviates emotional pain. It takes the edge off and offers some relief. But I wanted to truly heal this suffering.

What I've learned about grief is that is stems entirely from ego beliefs. Just as the course say, "No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision." Meaning, unless I am doing something to myself, there can be no basis for grief.

Every single sense of grief or loss comes from a perceived "real separation" occurring. Something which seemed real, which is now inaccessible, unavailable, distant, kept apart, or more permanently removed. This can be a loss of a person's life or a country or a pet or a culture or a favorite job or a tv show or whatever.

The ego first values these things by making them special, making them real, attaching to them, identifying with them, and believing they are important. Then, when one of these things is "lost" or separated from us, we literally are experiencing this idea that we're separated from reality, from what we "love", from what we think is valuable or important. This produces a rift within our mind, a split, and it can be very deep.

This sense of "real separation happening" is absolutely nothing short of a reflection or fragment of the idea of being separated from God. Every "loss" is the idea that God has been lost. That love has gone away. This produces horrendous feelings of lack, emptiness, depression, sadness, loss, loneliness, hurt, anger, fear, guilt, shame, you name it.

Additionally, in the ego thought system there is an idea of sacrifice. Sacrifice means that you first of all make something real or valuable or special, and then you believe that in order to atone you have to forceably be deprived of it, even while you still value it, which *guarantees* that you will suffer a sense of having lost something important to you. It is the idea that if you lose i.e. sacrifice something, you will gain something. The ego is totally nuts.

Even giving something to someone else through the ego and perceiving it as you being diminished or lacking or losing in some way, is the exact same dynamic which all grief is based on. And your reaction to it will be varying degrees of a sense of loss. It may not be a deep deep grief when you begrudgingly give up something you liked, but it's still the same dynamic.

I've found over time that all of my grief stems from my false perception. i.e., it ENTIRELY erupts out of the perception that a "real separation" has occurred. There is no other cause of it. It is not really about "oh I miss that person" or "oh I lost that job I loved" or "oh I don't have my family any more". These are mere forms of the same basic content of separation. It is the sense of having lost something you are attached to or which is special to you, i.e. fake reality, that produces the ego responses of grief.

I have also found, that even if I am deep in feelings of grief and it becomes possible to reclaim or get back or visit people or things which were "lost", this still does not in any way fix the grief. It is my own perception of real separation which causes the upset and until that is undone, as a false belief, I can still be in the presence of the very people or things I lost and still feel a loss. All loss is an inside job.

The grieving is actually taking place INSIDE my mind, between one part of myself that I made special and another part which has lost it. I've seen that my grieving is entirely selfish and about myself, and never really about anything outside of me. This has also taught me that e.g. returning home or going back to family will NOT resolve the problem of grieving, and through my own experience it never has. For the ego it's a fake promise of salvation.

I've also found therefore that any grief that I am having is entirely due to my own beliefs, my own choices, my own perceptions, my own attitude, and what I choose to perceive. If I choose to believe death is real, I WILL automatically be very upset when someone dies. If I choose to make someone special or attach to them or "need" them, I will AUTOMATICALLY grieve whether I like it or not when they are taken away. I set myself up for loss every time that I try to take possession of something or depend on it too heavily or make it special or considering it more exclusively valuable or conditional. And so, I literally do this to myself.

Every ego attempt to make something special, to "have it" or value it or attach to it or believe in it (ego beliefs) or possess it or need it, will AUTOMATICALLY bring with it the conditions for its INEVITABLE LOSS. It is a total trap. You literally are signing up for LOSS, when you sign up for "getting".

The truth is, no-one needs to grieve, no-one is supposed to be experiencing loss, no-one is supposed to be crying or unhappy, no-one is supposed to spend 50 years getting over the loss of a parent or child, no-one is supposed to be SUFFERING like this. Without using ACIM whatsoever, and just fudging our way through this stuff, we will take however long it takes to cry and cathartic and remember and try to keep them alive etc...ie reluctantly letting go. Without any other tools, most people spend years dealign with deep losses.

And then there is another camp of people who are so level-confused that they'll try to force you to just "get over it" or repress it or censor it or not feel any feelings or never cry or bypass it with ACIM pleasantries like "it never happened" etc. For most people, they HAVE to go through a "grieving process" because its the only way they have to heal the ACTUAL problem, which is a sense of separation from God. And that is the ONLY problem, even in the case of grief, and even in the case of death.

If a person is having such a deep emotional pain, there is nothing helpful in repressing it or trying to ignore it or not letting it out or trying not to cry or to shove it down in some way to pretend it's not there. Feelings, once they are created, MUST be felt and allowed to flow. And usually the sense of loss is so deep that it simply generates a ton of feelings. They must be felt, not turned into emotional constipation. But that said.... tentatively.... there must be a better way, and there is.

Tackling the real issue, which is a sense of "real separation" or "real loss" or "real sacrifice" or "real absence", which is a BELIEF in your mind that has nothing to do with the world or other people, there is much more HOPE for a swifter recovery. What a person has "suffered" in a "loss" is really that they are suffering from a false perception of reality (God) being lost permanently, as though completely real. It is very, very convincing to the ego, and it produces just horrendous depths of unhappiness.

But this separation, this loss, it can be healed. And it can be SIGNIFICANTLY undone if not entirely, through applications of ACIM principles. i.e. forgiveness, seeing the truth, unearthing the lies about "justified grief" or "everyone grieves" or "loss is normal after death" or whatever else... stuff that well-meaning psychiatrists have made up to explain why most ego-driven people suffer. Jesus has a different message: "You need not suffer."

It is ONLY a perception of real separation that produces grief or loss, ever. There is no other cause. And perception CAN be healed because beliefs CAN be changed. It is NOT necessary to have terrible grief. It is NOT necessary to have a deep, bottomless pit of misery for years and years. It is NOT necessary to feel like you lost part of yourself forever and ever. It is NOT necessary to feel hurt and angry and abandoned and upset for the rest of your life. There is nothing that cannot be healed.

For me now, every single year my "christmas grief" has dwindled at a rapid rate, since doing the course. This years was the least upset I've ever been. Triggers have been collapsed. Ideas of real loss undone. A sense of major separation significantly reduced. Tears have dwindled. It's not simply been through years of suffering and tears or "normal grieving process". It's because I apply forgiveness principles to what I am experiencing. In the middle of a moment of grief, if I can even remember that "I am not separate from God", and that this grief is about that... it immediately cuts through it like a knife.

Grieving can be a very long term process for many people, me included, but it does not HAVE to be. There is no requirement in God's Creation that anyone be upset for any reason. There is no justification for unhappiness. There is no rational for why it's "normal" to be seriously upset about anything. The Course is offering us the END of all death, all suffering, all sickness, and all grieving. To restore us to life, to happiness, to joy, to freedom, to liberation from all sad feelings and all sense of God being dead.

You need not suffer. What can you possibly grieve for but the belief in separation from God, which is not real? There has been no loss. Separation has not happened. God is alive and well and loves you. What's to be grieving about in truth?

I've been having some unexpected encounters with angels recently.

After researching more about miracle-working and watching some more videos from people doing it, I learned that it's possible to use your mind and imagination to not only visualize someone being healed, but to also perceive the current state of their body on a "spiritual" level. The imagination and/or inner vision provides this capability.

I ask Holy Spirit to show me someone's "spiritual body". I don't necessarily need Him to do this, as I can see it myself, but it doesn't hurt to be including Him and getting some support. I don't necessarily mean the physical body, but more like their "astral" or "mind body". This shows up in my inner vision as seeing the person's body, if I will reach out a bit in belief that I can do this. The body shows up not as physical flesh but usually as transparent.

A healthy person typically has a transparent or light-filled body on the mind level, while a person with sickness or issues often has "dark areas". The contrast between the very light joyful transparent areas and the dark areas is really obvious. You can use your inner vision to "scan" the person's body, with your eyes closed, and literally SEE if there's any issues.

These dark areas, some would refer to as "evil spirits". You can also think of them as thought forms, attitudes, or energy formations produced by the person's thinking. It's important to be centered in truth and in authority when doing this because if you start buying into fear or making it real or turning it into some kind of battle, you will give your power away and thereby open yourself up to self attack.

When I saw several of these in a person I commanded them to leave, authoritatively, in the name of Jesus, very directly. "In the name of Jesus Christ you MUST leave, I take authority over you in Jesus's name and I command you to leave right now, and do not come back, in the name of Jesus. Go! Get out!" or words to that effect. They must obey, provided you are sure enough of the truth of Jesus to not buy into fear or take no for an answer.

Some just left. One said to me, telepathically, it was not leaving. However this is not optional. You must be firm and persistent. I told it to go nevertheless and that it must, in Jesus' name. These illusions MUST leave because the Christ mind has authority over them. They have no power to truly resist if you don't give them any, and they must comply "in the name of Jesus", which means with the authority of Christ. Christ has authority over all illusions.

One such "entity" said, after some persistence, "I will leave", and I could sense its presence leaving the person and flying off. These things, whatever they are, however you want to interpret them, while they remain in the person they can be "causing", or at least be the illusion of a belief in causing, the person to be sick. They are the embodiment of their ego beliefs about themselves. So they need to be cast out ie the "cause in the mind" needs to be removed. Or to put it another way, the "consequences of a wrong decision" needs to be undone.

A few of these things which I saw even had teeth, or other partial body parts, or may be attempting to clamp onto something or wrap around something, as though they are partially formed entities. And they can come across as being very "mean" or even vicious. You might call it evil. Jesus told me they essentially are "just fear", either generated by the person or attracted to them as a result of their own belief in sin and ego. They seem to attach to certain parts of the body and produce symptoms either there or in any other area that's seemingly unrelated. They must go, because they are not the truth.

Bear in mind that your own focus on these darknesses, which is ego, is you giving power to them and asking for them. You will attract them to you by making them real or believing in them as reality. They are ultimately nothing. And you do not need to think about "defense" because that's just belief in them. Keep it calm and confident and minimal. You don't want to be attracting some kind of revenge.

I won't get much more into that, and I suggest you have confidence in God's truth enough before you attempt to mess with these things. Not because they are a "real threat", but because if you believe they are, you'll make yourself more vulnerable and maybe scare yourself.

But another part of this is that once the dark parts are cleared, you may sense the overwhelming joy and transparency of that person's body parts, and the energetic feeling of this is so profoundly different that it's literally like night and day. When I cleared a person's body in this way, that person on the higher level thanked me. And as I sensed the area of the body which was now transparent, it was SO incredibly joyful and light and free that at first I could not believe I was seeing it properly. The contrast between extreme vicious darkness and brilliant joyful light is huge.

Now, after clearing these "thought forms" and "attack thoughts", repairs need to be made, ie healing, ie miracles which reconfigure the demonstration and representation of the new state of truth in the mind. This is where things get pretty cool.

I now begin to make statements affirming God's truth about the person, and holding out my hands, begin visualizing that Holy Spirit and "light", or "waters of life", are flowing out or firing out like a laser, into the body part that needs correction. As I apply forgiveness to cancel out illusions and COMMAND correction into that area, with a dedicated focus and not being distracted or trying to do several things at once, I start to feel Holy Spirit flowing.

It's important to point out that you need to use your imagination to VISUALIZE the healing taking place. You can also use your imagination to visualize the dark "entities" leaving. You need to SEE on the spiritual level what the healed final result body condition will look like, what is the new truth of it, before it will show up in the physical. And as you visualize what a "healed brain" or "completely recreated knee" or whatever looks like, this starts a manifestational process.

This is because you need to CONCEIVE of the "future healed state" BEFORE it can manifest. So picture what it's going to look like when the healing is done, as though it has "already happened", avoiding the idea of it not having happened yet and not focussing on signs and symptoms and physical illusions that "prove" nothing has changed..

Now, most of what I've been experiencing doing this has been totally unexpected. I did not expect to be able to "see in the spirit", or to be able to discern "negativities" in people, nor how they'd show up, nor how they would at times appear to be interactive. But what I also did not expect, and what has happened 2 or 3 times now, is that when you start to VISUALIZE the body part in its healed state, while commanding and being authoritative over the illusion of sickness, ANGELS start to show up.

When this happened the first time, I felt suddenly that there was a LARGE, joyful, powerful being that was like, overlapping me. Standing just in front of me or actually in the same place as me. It was definitely larger than myself, maybe like 10 feet tall. It had a joyous, calmly confident, helpful feel to it. I did not know what this was at first. I could really feel the presence of this angel much more than I've ever felt them before, and it seemed to be assisting me with the healing. I thought maybe I was imagining this or making it up.

The second time this happened I noticed it again, and it was completely unexpected, and the angel just showed up in my energy field and awareness as though it once again had noticed what I was doing and had come to provide support. Notice that I DID NOT "ask" for angelic support in any way at all, OTHER than by a direct expression and willingness to DO the will of God and carry out His truth and extend His love. That IS asking for God's support, because this is the highest form of prayer. Not asking for what does not exist, but taking an active role in bringing about what you want to exist. I was, you could say, "fulfilling my function", and when you do this, Heaven rushes in to support and empower you!

This happened last night and I could feel this large angel once again as though I was "inside" of it, and it was bigger than me. I asked if it had a name, and it responded (if I remember) "Adam". I asked if the same angel came each time, and the answer was no.

Now, I think this is pretty cool, but I'm still just getting started. The guy that I learned about this from goes further and has much more experience performing miracles. When he does this stuff, the angel doesn't just show up and join with him, it actually goes to the person, and puts its hands into the person's body and fixes stuff. And those fixes show up in the physical body almost immediately. I feel that I haven't quite got to that stage yet, and there is some step or level of commitment or focus or something that I haven't quite opened up to yet, to cause them to take the next steps on their side.

But basically, your mind is capable of interfacing with other people's minds - their mental body - directly, using your inner vision. And because this is happening on the "spiritual plane" (like astral level), the angels notice this and come to assist. As you step into your role as doing God's healing work, and fulfilling your function as the light of the world, Mighty Companions DO come to help you and to carry out God's will. You get support!

This is also similar to the fact that you need to have faith in God in order for miracles to happen. Faith sort of means, you go ahead and just DO IT even though you may not have evidence or proof that it's going to work. You do it first, based on the TRUST that when you take action, the support will happen, the miracle will come, things will fall into alignment, and stuff will get reorganized to match your commitment and conviction. It's like you have to act "as if" it is going to work based on unseen faith first, and this is the confidence needed to CAUSE the effects to occur.

So similarly, as you start to work at expressing miracles and affirming God's truth and sharing healing with people and so on, Heaven DOES come to support you and help you in your service, BECAUSE you had faith and because you took a risk and stepped up and defended the truth about someone. You are not in this alone. I think there is some ACIM quote about how heaven will rush in to support you and so on, but I'm not sure on the wording.

So, if you're feeling adventurous, give this a try. I'm looking forward to expanding on this as we go along and as this working with the angels unfolds more.

Here's some ACIM quotes:

"The Atonement is so gentle you need but whisper to it, and all its power will rush to your assistance and support"

" Yet to the dedication to the truth as God established it no sacrifice is asked, no strain called forth, and all the power of Heaven and the might of truth itself is given to provide the means, and guarantee the goal's accomplishment."

"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 Holy Spirit is a real spirit from God that has unlimited power. He can heal anything. He can undo anything. He can also move mountains. There is nothing he cannot do. The Holy Spirit is with you and would like for you to develop trust in him, to the point where you might be willing to allow him to enter you and help you on a practical, experiential level.

It is a matter of willingness, trust, letting go, surrendering your ego attempts to fight with everything, and allowing the Holy Spirit to come into you. He is invited every time you show at least some willingness to move in the direction of atonement and forgiveness. But without your "permission" or your knowing that it's safe to allow Him to help you in a supernatural way, He will not take those measures because He knows that you might be frightened.

I was having a period of time that was very difficult emotionally and kept turning to the Holy Spirit to help me to forgive and to let go. In heated moments of tremendous emotional upset I started to say over and over again, "I surrender". Or, "I let go". I would say it repeatedly many times, and would start to experience a sense of relief. Because if there's one thing the ego does is it controls, holds on, attaches, clings, manipulates, bears grudges, resists, fights, and tries to dig in its heels. By surrendering willingly, you cut right to the core and drop the ego activities quickly.

I did this many weeks, often at night before falling asleep. And each time I would ask the Holy Spirit to help me to forgive and let go. I know he helped me with thoughts and insights and so on. But what was more important, was that over time, each time I went and surrendered, he often would start to remind me to surrender. He would say "relax" or "let me". And so I would relax, physically, because when you relax the body physically it also is a sign that you are willing to receive. Physical tension can be a sign of active resistance. So I would physically relax and let go and just focus on surrendering over and over and over.

And as it turns out, this gradually developed to where my surrendering of ego was, in a way, also an opening up to or surrendering to the Holy Spirit. I was moving away from ego, towards Him. And in surrendering, as you let go, you become more allowing, more trusting, more willing to step aside, more open to receiving love and support and help. And so I developed trust in the Holy Spirit, to the point where I would start to ask Him, willingly, but tentatively at first, to "come into me and heal me". To help me to heal. And in fact, I started to experience things happening.

At first it would be that my hands would shake, involuntarily. Or maybe my feet. And I didn't really know what this was "doing" but I learned that it was a side effect of whatever He was doing. And so I gradually learned to let go more and more and trust Him more, that He knows what He's doing. Over time this increased and the vibrational, spiritual, supernatural healing intensified and became more effective, stronger and more powerful. My whole body would shake and vibrate in ways that I cannot re-enact. And after this period of activity, actual emotional energy would have been significantly reduced, maybe even removed completely, resulting in me laughing, without having to go through the normal processes to release it.

This also escalated through further trust and willingness to allow Him to help me to heal with physical maladies, pains, symptoms and effects in the body. He is just as capable. If I am willing, and not afraid, and trust, and open myself up, I can let Him heal sickness of all kinds. I'm not quite to the point of trust yet where I can let something just disappear instantly but I'm working towards it, continuing to deeper my trust and openness to allowing the Holy Spirit to work miracles through me. And it also has been starting to extend to others.

I say all this not to brag and ONLY to ENCOURAGE that any and everyone try this for themselves if you have not done so already. I have no idea how people relate to the Holy Spirit but I do know that until I invited him to come into my "body" and "do whatever he wants", all of this supernatural healing was not happening. He wasn't seemingly "removing all the consequences" for me, and only through surrender and trust did I start to be WILLING to allow him to actually remove all consequences, emotional or physical or otherwise, FOR ME, through no effort of my own.

Before, I thought I had to do all the correcting and undoing on my own, which was my ego trying to do the course by itself. If you have never experienced the Holy Spirit actively DOING SOMETHING, in ways that have manifestations that you can SEE and FEEL, then you are in for a surprise. There is literally nothing He cannot do if you will let him. He frequently says to me, when I am tempted to solve or fix something myself, "let me", I stop and allow, and immediately he shakes me all over the place (side effects) as he proceeds to heal it for me. I don't have to do anything but allow and try to not interfere, and stay relaxed.

Have a go, if you have time. Spend time time each day surrendering and letting go, feel the relief, open up to allow and trust and invite the Holy Spirit to work in and through you. Put aside fear of "disembodied spirit doing stuff"... you have to learn to trust past that. Spirit is perfectly capable of doing ANYTHING, it's only a matter of how much we are willing to get out of the way and LET HIM. If you develop this trust far enough there is no miracle you cannot perform, nothing you cannot heal and no limits to what He can do through you for others. I've already started to allow Him to heal others through me, and he is quite effective.

Sometimes you may not realize that you are being a victim, particularly if you are angry.

A person becomes angry as a reaction to the perception that something has happened to them that they didn't seem to choose.

The perception of things happening outside of your will, is victimhood, and usually entails some 'other' source or person that 'causes' the situation. And since they seemed to choose it 'for you', you see yourself as being unfairly or unjustly treated.

Then you believe that your anger is justified because you see yourself as 'innocent', i.e. it's not you that's wrong, but the other.

Whenever it is the other that is wrong, i.e. you are angry at them for any reason, believing they have done something, you ARE in victimhood.

Now, it may not seem like victimhood, because we may usually think of victimhood as when you feel afraid or you've been attacked and are hurt or whatever. But if you're in anger, you definitely are experiencing and perceiving yourself as a victim, or as having been victimized.

Anger comes out of the hurt. Anger comes out of the victimization.

You may not realize that being angry is being a victim, because the anger turns into victimization or outward attack/retaliation, which makes it feel like you are 'empowered' or 'rising up against' the oppressor, which gives you a false sense of being justified in making THEM a victim, which conceals the fact that if you are angry, you DO perceive yourself as a victim and are playing a victim role.

This absolutely REQUIRES that you, cooperatively, willingly, and freely, have actually chosen to go along with the perception of seeing the situatuation in such a way, that you look like you've been victimized. It requires your own mind to look at the role you're playing in the situation, and to conclude that you didn't ask for this. this is of course grossly mistaken because you cannot be an unwilling victim. I know that is incredibly controversial and maybe hard to accept, but the mind actually USES situations to position you as victimizable and attacked, because it has motives that run much deeper than just this situation (such as the death wish, or the desire to be unconscious).

So as the Course says, "anger is NEVER justified".

It's never justified because nothing ever happens to you against your will. And you MUST have chosen to perceive yourself as being in a 'victim dynamic' in order for you to then experience the reaction to that perception, which manifests as anger or righteousness.

So yes. If you are angry and upset in any way, you MUST be believing you are a victim, and probably you are blaming the other person, and probably you are not admitting honestly the part that you play in this.

It requires tremendous HONESTY to be able to realize and admit not only that you are angry because YOU CHOOSE TO BE, and not only that you're angry because YOU VICTIMIZED YOURSELF through your false perception, but also to be honest enough to admit that IF you do not choose to see yourself in this 'role' or 'relationship' to 'other', then you CANNOT experience yourself as a victim and therefore cannot be angry.

I myself did not realize that being angry was being a victim, until Jesus pointed this out. And if you see yourself as victimized, your anger WILL turn into victimization quite quickly. Then you will retaliate. That's what anger is, a retaliation (reaction) against a perceived mis-treatment. But you can never be mis-treated. If you see yourself mis-treated, you are mistaken in your perception and you are unaware of the power of your own mind.

Our mind in its natural state is joined with our Soul and with God. In this state, it receives the causal expression and extends it. In a sense, the mind does not have its own content, it just extends what it receives.

After separating from God and ourselves, the mind is cut off from its "owner". This is due to a separation introduced between cause and effect. That which at the effect, the mind, starts to see itself as causeless, and so begins to make up its own ideas about what it is and what is true.

This turns the mind from being an extender of truth, to being a solo broadcaster of imagination.

The problem then is that anyone with an ego tends to broadcast a lot, and tends to receive very little. Being alone or isolated or trying to live without God makes us weak, vulnerable, afraid and helpless. Yet it also makes us spew out "noise", the noisy broadcasts of the ego, which basically is an attempt to be recognized as the cause of oneself, rather than being caused by God or Soul.

In a world where so many people are broadcasting themselves, there isn’t much listening. Consequently, even though people are broadcasting loudly, 24/7, everyone is talking over everyone else. People then are not really being present, available, un-distracted with themselves, or able to pay full attention. That means that those who are broadcasting, paradoxically end up not being heard.

This is because the rest of the broadcasters are not willing to receive. So no matter how loud you shout, if everyone else is also shouting your expressions will be stunted and stifled and you won’t feel like anyone really listens to you. In fact, the more that you shout louder in an attempt to be heard more, you will be heard less.

Many people in this world are expressing the ego. Few are expressing silence or stillness or presence or quietness or a willingness to receive. If you yourself become willing to receive from Spirit, your own mind will become quiet and you will subsequently become willing to receive ie listen to and pay attention to, what other people are expressing. Without distraction from your own thoughts or memories or judgements or attempts to process or reflect on what someone said.

Learning to listen is part of waking up, because it entails your own willingness to listen to Spirit. That means instead of running your own show, you turn your mind and your life over to the care of God. You become willing to receive input from Spirit. You become willing to trust Spirit. You become willing to let Spirit guide your every action, to even speak for you and through you.

The willingness to receive is what has become blocked by the ego. Separations and blocks to awareness are attempts to not listen to God, to hide from God, to replace God’s Word with your own, and to make up your own truth. Becoming willing to accept Atonement entails becoming willing to receive from God, to be guided by God, to allow yourself to accept love, and to let miracles be performed through you.

Therefore as you tune into Spirit, handing over your stolen life to its rightful owner, and giving back control of the mind to Love, you automatically become a better receiver and listener. You become better at being present. You become more available. And you start to allow others to fully express, willing that you receive everything they are offering. This simultaneously creates space for them to fully express themselves, to be heard, and to know that their expressions are not being met by deaf ears or a wall of selfishness. This holding space alone can be very healing.

You simply need to put all of your ego distractions aside, pay full undivided attention to the person, let them express absolutely anything they want to without interrupting or interfering or offering advice or any kind of transmission, without your secret mental judgements or attempts to chew on what they expressed, free of your reactions and defenses, just totally being fully present for them.

Do this for someone and you’ll be offering a tremendous healing service just by listening attentively without judgement. Afterwards, even if their ego erupts in a free-flow of expression, they will feel so peaceful and relieved that finally they could express themselves fully without someone being self-absorbed with their own ego reactions.

Give the gift of unconditional receiving and listening to someone this year. Let them have the microphone 100%, not 50%. Let them tell you whatever they want to tell you and just receive it.

Giving and receiving are one.

If you are feeling unworthy or unwanted, know this.

In spacetime, cause and effect seem to occur whereby you cause something temporarily, it produces something temporary, and then the cause is withdrawn. As if it has deposited a creation and left it alone, essentially similar to the idea of birth.

Physical creations are like discarded pieces of trash, made momentarily and then forgotten about. In effect, its creator abandons it, does not want to maintain it, withdraws life from it, and leaves it to die alone.

What is deposited upon the Earth is merely thrown away, discarded and no longer nurtured by its creator. And being without a cause, it must die. This is true of all bodies and objects and forms, which are nothing but discarded rejects from a temporary creator who creates nothing that lasts and who wants none of his creations.

This is the metaphysical origin of feelings of unworthiness, of rejection by God, of being discarded and abandoned, of deserving death and of being orphaned in a trashcan of a world. If you ARE a body, then you are disconnected from your source, and your creator has rejected you as unworthy.

It is simply because you believe you are identified with something that is not permanent, came from a creator who does not permanently love you, were produced by a sinful evil cause who hated you and no longer wanted you, and who has left you for dead in a graveyard, lost and alone to wither and die.

No one can be sustained or maintained without a cause. Effects do not exist unless their cause is ongoing. You cannot step away from something, believing you have caused it, and have it remain. To do so is to reject and discard and abandon it to death. A creation which can exist on its own without its creator is a total illusion in this world. Without your creator you are nothing.

God is a permanent creator and he creates only that which is permanent, and he maintains you in his mind forever by his thought and will and power. He cannot ever stop loving you or stop creating you or sustaining you. That is why you are able to live forever, because he is permanently holding you in existence. You are forever ever-present and ever-perfect. He WANTS YOU permanently and so does NOT leave you.

Only in such a way can you BE worthy, or WANTED, or DESIRED by your creator, or VALUED enough to have permanent ongoing nurturing, support, maintenance and continued existence. Only if you were wanted FOREVER could you have eternal life. And this is how we have to learn to think of ourselves.

If we see ourselves as children of temporary parents, or deposits of a creator who has turned his back on us, or effects who have become orphaned from their cause, or fatherless sons, or motherless daughters, or in any way disconnected from our source, then we will see ourselves as unwanted. This is why all those walking the earth feel themselves to be unworthy, because they think they have become separate from God.

Separation is really the idea that cause and effect have become separated. That father and son have been separated. That the son no longer has a father. That the father is no longer a father and does not want a son. That the father has rejected the son and is trying to destroy him. And that the son has rejected the father and is trying to destroy him also. This MUST produce a sense of unworthiness because it means the father does not want the sons and does not value his life.

If you are the child of a permanent creator, who wants you permanently, and who can never stop wanting you, then you must be worthy and you must be wanted. If you are something lost and forgotten, discarded like a piece of trash, hated and reviled, evil and ugly, then obviously you're going to feel unworthy. Identifying with a body you MUST reject God and msut therefore feel valueless. The body is not worth ANYTHING, and if it is your self, then you have no creator.

A lack of worth therefore is nothing more than a breakdown in cause and effect. To be an effect without a cause, is to have been disowned. If you are disowned by your creator then what can that say of your value, who has turned his back and left you behind to suffer alone? Only if cause and effect are permanent can you be worthy of God. You cannot be some lump of flesh that was squirted out and became a separate thing, otherwise you ARE literally separate from your creator and are PHYSICALLY unwanted.

Fortunately God never leaves his children comfortless. He never abandons you. He never forgets you. He never stops loving and wanting you. He never finds you to be imperfect or worth discarding. He never stops suspending you in his mind, or making sure theat you live forever. He never leaves you and he never forsakes you. And most of all, he never fails to value you, because he has decided to hold you in his heart forever.

"You have not left me comfortless. I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to It."

"You do not walk alone. God's angels hover close, and all about. His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure: that I will never leave you comfortless."

"Before that, there was no need for healing and no-one was comfortless."

"It was accomplished FOR you by the Will of God, who has not left you comfortless."

"He will not leave you comfortless, nor fail to send His angels down to answer you in His Own Name."

"He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you."

"God did not leave His Children comfortless, even though they left Him."

"And he is entitled to everything, because it is his birthright as a Son of God."

"The Children of God are entitled to perfect comfort, which comes from a sense of perfect trust."

"God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ALL His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they, were created neither partially nor in part."

If you had NO blocks to awareness, you would be vividly, constantly aware, that anything you attempt to do to others, you do directly and immediately to yourself.

Anything you express towards others, you experience.

Anything you give to others, you receive.

"Giving and receiving are one."

You cannot move an inch in any way towards another without moving that same inch in your own direction.

Anything you do to them you do to yourself.

If you attack them, you are literally going into a state of a split mind in which your mind is under attack.

If you are angry at someone, trying to destroy them through guilt, your destructive hatred towards them is an attempt to destroy yourself.

In awareness, you and your brother have SHARED INTERESTS. It is in both your interest and the interest of another, that the way you treat them IS how you want to be treated. Because it is how YOU are treating yourself.

This is beyond traditional definitions of the Golden Rule. It is not mere wishful thinking or hope that another MIGHT treat you the same. It is in fact metaphysical law, completely inescapable, and applicable to everyone always.

What is true of another is true of you.

You cannot so much as send a tiny little zap of annoyance toward someone without YOU suffering from it.

When your mind IS blocked, and you are not aware of the fact that you ALWAYS have shared interests because you are literally ONE WITH your brother, you start to believe that how you treat others is SEPARATE from how you are treated.

This is the slippery slope of the ego, of inequality, and the breaking of the law of God. In attempted IGNORANCE of the golden rule, the ego claims that you can get away with murder because cause and effect are NOT connected (separation between father and son), allowing you to attack without being attacked.

Believing that you can have harmful attitudes towards others WITHOUT being harmed, is an absolute lie. You may not be AWARE that you are harming yourself, because you are in denial, and your mind is blocked. But you ARE DIRECTLY hurting yourself whenever you in ANY WAY attempt to hurt anyone.As the blocks to awareness become lifted and you can learn to SEE the unity and oneness with others, which is opening to the shared mindset of God and the Holy Spirit, it becomes much easier to see AND FEEL, the fact that when you try to destroy someone, you ARE destroying yourself.

Those who are hurt hurt others. Those who see themselves as abused abuse others. Those who hate feel hated. Those who cannot love do not feel loveable. Those who are sick are trying to prove they should be punished. Those who attack or blame believe they deserve to die.

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

"It can be but myself I crucify."

"I can be attacked by nothing but my thoughts."

"You are doing this to yourself."

Because you are one with your brothers, your MIND is IN THEIR MIND."One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds. Such is the truth."If you think that another person is NOT ONE WITH YOU, then you make them a "stranger". This is because you have become estranged from yourself. A separation or gap has formed, a SPLIT, in between you and another person. And this gap houses the body which becomes a separation device, keeping you isolated and alone.

Believing you are NOT IN others, you believe you can attack them and NOT attack yourself. This is a lie. It is based entirely in denial and unawareness. Anything you attempt to do to anyone you DO DIRECTLY to the part of you that is SHARED with them.

In every way you can imagine, any measure of inequality in which you and your brother are considered to be NOT ONE, or to not share, or to have different rules apply, or different truths for each, is EGO. Ego simply means inequality.

Believing you are not equal to others, not a brother, not an equal sibling of the same father, you will conceive of the many ways that you can be SPLIT OFF from them and thus from part of yourself. And you can then attack the split off part and believe it is not you. This is nothing other than dissociation in your mind.

"The separation IS the notion of rejection."

"Exclusion and separation are synonymous. So are separation and dissociation."

"the separation was and is dissociation"

Dissociating one part of your self from another, is the split mind, and is the ego. It IS the separation! And in this split minded state you are at war with yourself, and yet you belief and experience it as if it is NOT YOU that you are at war with. As if there is a SEPARATE PERSON who is the enemy or attacker or sinner. This is simply part of you which you've split off and disowned.

This means every attack you think is coming from another is coming from this split off part of your own self, and has nothing to do with anyone else. This is why the secret of salvation tells you that EVERY form of attack is self attack. And if you would NOT split your mind through attempts to create a SEPARATION BETWEEN you and others, you would not be sick or suffer or die.

It seems very strange to say this but, shared interests means that you literally are IN your brothers as part of them, and how you treat them IS how you are directly treating yourself. Which means there is NO WIGGLE ROOM or loopholes for how you can have an attitude toward or about someone else "separate from" your self. EVERY expression and every decision you make is to either attack BOTH OF YOU, OR NEITHER.

Having something in common is not a shared interest. It is a mutual agreed-to pair of separation devices which happen to clash the least. A true shared interest requires the recognition that you SHARE ONE MIND.

"Healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad."This is VERY ALIEN to how the world thinks and acts. Because the world is riddled with divisions, separations and split minded people. Everyone with an ego is living in a state of DISSOCIATION. Every single person is against themselves and trying to kill themselves, but are doing it through such disowning of themselves that they think someone or something ELSE is doing it to them.

Imagine being so divided within yourself that you don't even recognize when you are destroying and attacking yourself, and you think it's someone totally separate from you that is your worst enemy, when all along your mind is split in half and at war with itself. That's what happening in the world.To share interests is to be of ONE interest. With an interest in oneness.

It's a deadly trap to believe that you need to get that person to love you in order to prove you are lovable.

You can feel very sorry for yourself because of how other people seem to mistreat you or how they don't love you enough.

You can get into a state where you see yourself as unworthy and unlovable purely because other people don't seem to love you.

Then you will be yearning for them to love you, will try to manipulate them into loving you, will secretly want to take love from the, and will try to steal it from them, in order to get some love for yourself.

You think that if they will love you, you will feel better about yourself.

Well here's some news. It doesn't work this way.

Love has to come from God and come through you and be shared. Love is sharing. You have to share in it in order to have it, and by sharing in it you must also share it, meaning you must extend it and give it.

Now, this also leads people to another mistake which is the belief that you should always give give give in an attempt to give everyone what they want, so that you might be able to get them to give some love back to you.

This is a deadly trap as well. If you're waiting for or are dependent on other people to be the source of love for you, or to approve of you, or to give you attention, or make you be okay, or accept you, then you're going to be waiting a very long time and suffer the consequences.

Other people are not supposed to be the source of love for you. Other people are not supposed to approve of you. Other people are not supposed to accept you. Other people are not supposed to give you attention. Other people are not supposed to love you more than others. Other people are not supposed to save you. Other people are not supposed to be your savior or your idol or your hero. Other people are not where you should be receiving love from.

You can't experience love unless you are in it. You can't be in it unless you are sharing it with God because God is the only source of love. You can't share in it unless you are willing to receive it from God. You can't get it into you unless you are willing to remove all of your false beliefs which say that you don't deserve it, can't receive it, aren't good enough, or that you are in need of it. You can't share it unless you're willing to let others also receive it just as much as you. And you can't have it unless you are willing to give it away.

To your ego, giving away love means losing it, which means you are sacrificing it, which means if you give give give you will end up with none for yourself. This won't coerce others into loving you, nor will it make them love you in return in order to have an equal or fair relationship. That's bullshit. That's not a relationship, it's a bargain. Your ego needs to get out of the way if you are going to experience love.

You need to realize that God's love is infinitely abundant and always available and is unconditional and freely given to all equally, all the time. That includes you. You must be included in the love and having the love, even when you give it. If you are overflowing with God's love, from WITHIN, having received it inside of yourself directly from the source (God), then you will be so happy to share it and spread it around.

And here's the little secret. When you share and receive God's love and are open to an unlimited supply of it coming into you from Him, which He has already put there, you will have so much that even if you give it away, it will not decrease whatsoever. The secret is, that as you give real love, unconditional love, you not only get to keep that love, but the love INCREASES.

You don't need, and cannot get, love from someone else. It must come from God to you to others, in that order. If you don't feel lovable or loved, YOU are not loving yourself and YOU are not letting God love you. It's an inside job.

You will not EVER find love outside of you, and you will not EVER be loved from outside of you. "Outside of you" means separate from you, and anything separate from you is impossible to experience. You can only experience love when it is NOT separate from you, meaning it's INSIDE you, meaning God put it there and you're experiencing it where it IS.

You already have it. You just have blocks to awareness which is preventing you from accepting and allowing it. Your ego is getting in the way. It's making you believe, falsely, that you do not have love in you, cannot have love in you, don't deserve love in you, and that you are not love. YOU ARE LOVE ITSELF. You are an extension of love. How can you not be love, when Love (God) created you like Itself? You aren't going to get this love by force-feeding it from the outside in. You aren't really lacking it! You just need to UNCOVER IT, because it's already been given.

God has already given you 100% of all the love in existence. If you are blocking it, you're going to go seeking for it outside of yourself, and it will stay outside of yourself, and you will never have it that way. It's not anyone's job to love you. It's only God's function to love you, and He already has. The only part left now is your WILLINGNESS to accept and allow it and RECOGNIZE it where it is, within you, where God already put it. You are already loved, unconditionally and eternally, so if that's not what you are experiencing, YOU are blocking yourself from being loved.

It doesn't even matter if other people love you or not. Other people could be loving you 100% unconditionally and totally all the time, but you could still be shutting it out, ignoring it, rejecting it, and not believing you deserve it. How are you going to get that love into you if your entire reason for trying to find it out there is because you don't really believe you deserve it? No-one can give it to you if you don't allow it to be in you, and to allow it to be in you is to accept it from God.

Love has already been shared with you. Love is already available permanently. Love is what you are really made of. You can't not be loved or lovable or loving. But you can pretend, and you can cover it up, and you can be in denial. That simply means you need to uncover all these ways that you keep love from yourself. It's not because other people are keeping love from you, it's YOU that does not really want it. You say you do, but evidently you don't, or you would accept it from God right now.

God loves you. Just so you know.

When we all love each other, it means that we have love within us, because we are love, and are sharing that love, NOT BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE NEED IT, because they also have the love coming from God within themselves. To love everyone is not to substitute for their belief in lack, or to love them FOR them, or to force love upon them. We all are responsible for and naturally function as extenders of GOD'S LOVE, because God is the only source of love that's real. Access your own unique connection to Him, your own relationship, and heal it, so that you can experience love again.