We often talk about the versions of the course, the editing, whether all the facts are included etc. And then on top of that we try to understand its metaphysical model, its concepts and ideas, and argue over which model is the right one.

But what we should perhaps really be more concerned with is whether true information has been lost. ie whether we have the whole truth represented in word form, or whether key detail has been lost.Information is ... the minimum amount of detail that is needed to represent something with perfect logical accuracy.

In its simplest form, for example, let's say there are two squares next to each other. One is black and one is white. You can distinguish that there are two, because they contrast to each other. This contrast is information. If you were to, for example, color both squares white, you cannot tell whether its one square or two squares. Information has been lost.

In information theory, which is used for such things as data compression algorithms for example, and also in science, there is something called entropy. Entropy is a measure of the absolutely minimum possible size that the information can be, in order to fully and accurately represent something.

When you have files on your computer, or images for example, you can "compress" them. Usually this is based on representing larger repeated things with smaller symbols. You can get back exactly what you started with by "de-compressing" it based on the symbols. But this can only be done up to a point. There is a threshold at which you CANNOT compress the files any smaller, without losing information. All the "information" needed to fully describe the image must be retained in some form.

With images for example, the jpeg file format is not an accurate representation of the image. It LOSES ACCURACY as a trade-off for making the files smaller. The more accuracy it loses, the smaller the representation becomes, the blurrier the image is. It starts to develop artifacts which are visual errors. From that "overly reduced" data, you CANNOT get back the original full fidelity and quality of the original image. Key accuracy of information is LOST.

When we conceive of truth, when we try to describe reality, or talk about God and his creation etc, these lofty and rather abstract metaphysical ideas, the temptation is to make the representation of that truth, the symbol of that truth, be as SMALL AND SHORT as possible. We somehow think that less is always more, and that "simpler" must be more true. This is NOT true. TOO FEW words is INACCURATE.

When an accurate representation of something is reduced SO much, it has to in fact LOSE very important detail. The information becomes blurred, vague, generalized, overly abstract, and really does NOT contain the subtle nuances that are actual aspects of the whole truth. It may SEEM like it represents the whole of the truth but it doesn't. It's an APPROXIMATION, like a jpeg image, which is "sort of close" to being accurate and gives you some idea of it, but IS NOT accurate.

Examples of this happening include "reductionistic" statements like "Everything is God." Well now. For some reason that sounds all mystical and special and lofty. But, such a vague statement lacks enough detail to be accurate. You cannot GET BACK the full story when you BASE logical conclusions on this information. The reconstruction of the whole story is corrupted.

You could say for example, well, it seemed like the Son of God feel asleep and dreamed of death. But ... since ITS ALL GOD.... THIS MUST MEAN, logically, that God HIMSELF fell asleep and dreamed of death. That is absolutely what it implies. You can argue that "no it doesn't" but all you're doing is trying to pretend that it is accurate because the BS alarms are going off to indicate errors. The fact is that the information that's given is NOT ENOUGH, it DOES NOT accurately represent the whole truth, and it's too vague.

MORE WORDS IS BETTER! Or perhaps we can say, you want ideally the fewer number of words which FULLY AND ACCURATELY represent the whole truth. I you can be sure this is not going to be 3 words or even 20 words.

So yes, even in terms of thinking about abstract spiritual stuff, even in terms of oneness, god being all, everything is mind, son and father blending into each other, going beyond words and concepts... all this stuff.... when you are USING LANGUAGE and logical constructs to THINK about it..... and you strip SO much away that you start losing vital information, going BEYOND the entropy threshold, you are literally turning a detailed and nuanced truth into a blob of mush and mud and blurriness and meaninglessness. Because you think that is what spirituality is like .... this oneness thing... must mean, we only need to use one word. Not even close.

There IS an entropy limit beyond which you cannot go, in logical reasoning, in discussion, in theorizing, in metaphysics, in conceptualizing reality, where if you DO go beyond it, you have chopped out SO much information that you're not even really talking about the whole truth anymore. You're making a vague approximation which is NOT accurate enough. And it is therefore MISELADING. The more you push it towards eradicating as many words as possible, down to like "everything's God"... you have seriously censored significant major truths.

If for example I have a flower with 6 petals and I tell you that I have "a flower", but I don't tell you that it has 6 petals, in your mind you may envisage a flower with 8 petals. You are wrong. I did not give you enough information to represent the whole truth about what I have. There is information loss. I have been TOO VAGUE. I have reduced the accuracy of the representation of truth BEYOND the limit of information entropy, and have gone into the realm of a LACK OF TRUTH. A loss of precision.

It is funny then that when we talk about "its all one thing", we are actually LACKING truth, while pretending to talk about truth. We are not being accurate because we are not giving enough information. In fact we're trying to SPIRITUALIZE WORDS by having the fewest words possible. Less words is not more spiritual! In fact less words can be corrupting and destructive and a complete misrepresentation of the truth.

There are some people that go so far with their stripping away of any notion of anything informational - which usually means anything separate-sounding - any contrast or delineation or division or any notion of a "something" or two of anything.... that they enter a logical realm of total abstract bullshit. It devolves into meaningless drivel with specialness all over it. Ego loves to do this because it thinks a count of one is more spiritual than a count of two. It's concept of truth is flawed.

If for example it is true that God has at least one son. And if we say that this son IS God. And that is ALL that we tell you. If we tell you that is the WHOLE truth. Then someone is going to think ok.... the son IS God, so.... when the son fucks up and dreams of death and imagines murder, this must be God doing it right? Sure thing. God is now dreaming of death. We weren't specific enough or accurate enough.

It's a nice idea to imagine that God is this total 100% abstraction which is SO abstract that there is NO detail to it, no properties, no structure, no qualities, no characteristics, nothing. Just a nice blob of existence sitting there all by itself. That is NOT an accurate enough representation using words and symbols and language. It is a massive information loss. And God DOES in fact have properties, qualities, a "nature", a premise, law, mind, thought, causation, will, love, etc. The attempt to reduce truth to NOTHING, is an attempt by the ego to destroy the truth!

We HAVE to understand that God is for example infinite and absolute. We have to properly specify what God'e nature actually is before we can start basing conclusions on it. If you knew that God is causal and a creator, you would also know that God MUST have creations which MUST in turn have creations. The logic in this is utterly impeccable. But you can't see that or come to that conclusion is you DON'T specify that God is causal, or that his creations have to inherit through extension, or that he is a creator at all.

So when you become too vague, thinking it is spiritual, thinking you are representing truth more, thinking that "its oneness" is the most spiritual thing anyone has ever conceived of. ... it is not true. You CANNOT go that far into the loss of information and represent the whole truth using language and logic. But people are doing it all the time. "It's all God" ... well, sort of... but no. It's not. God has creations. "God is everything" .. well.. sort of, but no. God is not an illusion. Did you specify that? You need to.

So in terms of the editions of the course and the editing and the words in the book and the repetition of concepts and ideas and whether it contains ALL distinct information, fact, accuracy, precision and is "complete" informationally, you really need to think more in terms of ..... is there a full and accurate representation of the whole truth here. Is there ENOUGH words to represent the whole message. And that does NOT mean there should be too FEW words OR more than is needed. More words is not always an improvement either.

We might ask if something has been LOST, vital information, which is not repeated, which is missing, and that without it the picture is incomplete. It doesn't matter so much if the same ideas are presented many times, or if the concepts taught are built upon by others, etc. We need the whole accuracy and full scope of the truth, enough description to leave no loopholes, but we don't necessarily need 550,000 words to do that. But what matters is when you become SO reductionistic that you chop out VITAL information and disappear up your own arse.

So perhaps we can steer away from all these super-short ultra-vague trying-to-be-mystical statements of vagueness, and instead realize that you HAVE to use enough words in order to fully communicate an idea. You can't JUST say "God is" at this level and expect someone to understand that this DOESN'T imply that God is a piece of dog poop on the sidewalk. A more accurate, more detailed definition is needed, to close loopholes and stop logical errors from happening. This is why ACIM is presented as rather a lot of words, and not just one.

The course tries to represent a picture of the whole truth. It tries to talk about God and his nature. It doesn't do it in 2 words. It does it with a great many words because Jesus knows that you CANNOT represent the nuances of reality in such a small number of symbols. There is a certain level of entropy to this. You can't properly represent God, creation, kingdom, sonship, holy spirit, souls, your creations, eternal life, immortality, etc... in two words.

It has nothing to do with a person's inability to "grasp the truth of oneness" either. No one is grasping the truth of oneness by using the word oneness in a sentence. Oneness actually encapsulates rather a lot of details which you might not think are a part of it. Oneness doesn't forego God having a son. But it implies that there is no son at all. That is wrong. It is not an accurate representation and not enough information. The son is literally lost in that formulation.

Nor is someone being "all spiritual" just because they talk about God as if he's SO abstract that you can't say anything about him accurately at all. We might as well say that God is so beyond everything that you can't even say that God is beyond everything. What then? If you're GOING to use words, and language, and logical arguments, you CANNOT REDUCE IT beyond a certain point and expect to be accurately representing it.

God is ... much more than... just oneness.

When something is logical, you start with a premise, and then as the nature of this premise "extends", it produces logical conclusions. The conclusions that will come from this premise are really established in the premise itself. The limitations or scope of the premise determines what can come from it, and what comes from it is completely in accord with its starting point.

"Every system of thought must have a starting point. It begins with either a making or a creating, a difference we have already discussed. Their resemblance lies in their power as foundations. Their difference lies in what rests upon them. Both are cornerstones for systems of belief by which one lives."

When you use logic, and you arrive at a logical conclusion, what you're looking for is consistency, or the lack of contradiction within the logical system. If what you end up with seems to correlate to what you started with, and there was no obvious "nonsense" creeping in, then you can conclude that your logical conclusions are valid. You won't see any sign of contradiction so you'll consider the conclusion to be "correct". It will seem that the logic "makes sense".

What's happening is you're finding an internal consistency within the system, set up by the premise you started with. And each step you took in your reasoning did not violate the rules of the logic system. So whatever conclusions you ended up with seemed to make sense, based on what you started with. And this gives you a notion of things making sense, being valid, even being correct.

The problem is that the premise itself has absolutely everything to do with what you end up with. The conclusions that come from it, if you follow the logical steps carefully and impeccably, are really "automatic". If you start at a given starting point, you WILL end up at an ending point which is in harmony with the starting point. And you won't be able to come to a "false conclusion" if you reason it through carefully.

But if you start off on the wrong foot, if you begin with an assumption, of your premise is entirely wrong to begin with, what will happen? You'll still make logical steps, you'll still seek out internal consistency, you'll still look for that sense of "it all seems to fit together", and you'll still draw conclusions which seem to be in accord with the premise you started with. And you'll conclude "it makes sense" even. But the conclusions you come to, if you start off on the wrong foot, will be actually false. Even though they'll seem correct.

So you can be logical, and be wrong. If you start out wrong, you will only get something wrong at the other end. If you begin with a lie, you will end up with a lie, but it will be a logical lie which makes sense within the context of the whole system.

Thought systems work the same way, whatever the system is based on determines what can come from it, and only that can come from it and nothing else, unless you want to be contradictory. Yet if you start out with a system based on a lie, you will end up with lies. The lies will seem to make sense and even will seem "true" in that they seem to "add up" without contradicting the starting point, but they will still be false in the big picture. But if you believe them, you will be trapped and stuck, while believing you are free. And that is false perception.

This is the problem with the ego thought system. In the really big picture, the ego's system is a "small picture", and it is out of context, and it does not start with the whole truth. It is not beginning with something that is actually really true. It is starting out on the wrong foot, such as the belief that separation is true, or sin is real, or the impossible is possible, or death is life, or something real can be threatened etc.

When you start out with something ultimately false like that, you will produce an ENTIRE logical "system", where your reasoning will progress completely "logically" from the start to the end. And you will end up with conclusions which seem consistent. The conclusions will even seem to make total sense, IF the premise is true. But in the big picture, if it is recognized that the premise was false to begin with, then even though the conclusions are logically consistent, they are still false conclusions.

So the ego starts off on the wrong foot, on an assumption which is wrong. It starts with the belief that separation is possible, or sin is real, and then begins a progression of seemingly natural logical conclusions. If separation is real, then it must be true (consistent) that bodies are real. Then if bodes are real, it must be true that anything bodies experience is real. And if their experiences are real, then death is real. etc. That's a natural logical progress and completely impeccable logic. But the conclusion is insane because the whole "system of thought", the system of logic, began with a false premise.

When you start with a true premise, such as that God is infinite and permanent and immortal, there are once again logical progressions which come from this. If you follow the steps and start to draw conclusions based on that, and if you are careful to be consistent and not contradictory, you will end up with natural conclusions. And these conclusions will make sense, and seem valid, and they ALSO WILL BE TRUE. If you start with truth, you will end up with truth. And so whether or not the result is true or false, depends on whether the premise is true or false. And what you get out of the system as a natural logical conclusion or outcome, is set up in its starting point.

When the starting point is God, the natural logical outcome of God is the creation of the Kingdom. It's not that God randomly decides to create immortal beings, it's that the whole system just functions that way, truth goes in at the start, progressions of logical consistency occur, and you automatically get creation out the other end. And because you started with immortality, you end up with immortality. "God is but love, and therefore so am I." Such conclusions therefore are not only making sense, they are also TRUE.

"The Kingdom is the result of premises, just as this world is. You may have carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is total confusion about everything."

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos do follow neatly from their starting point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth."

When you begin a thought process/system on a lie or illusion, you will end up with illusory lies which seem to make sense but are false. This means the total absence of REASON, which is the absence of sanity, because the whole system of thinking started out insane. When you start out the thought process/system with sanity and truth, you end up with a SANE conclusion. This is what ACIM refers to as REASON. The reasoning is LOGICAL, just as the ego's reasoning is logical, but it starts with sanity so ends with sane conclusions.

Just because something seems extremely logical, does not mean it is true. And this is a BIG problem for a lot of people studying ACIM. If for example you start out with a premise that e.g. God created the world, and you do not challenge this premise, the ENTIRE course will now be interpreted to try to "fit" it into that premise. And every conclusions drawn will not challenge that premise.

In order to uphold the premise that God created this world, a LOT of adjustments have to be made to the course's meanings, in order to produce consistency and a lack of contradiction. And this can lead to what seems like a consistent picture, but it is also completely wrong. Because it started out with a belief that is completely mistaken and unfounded, in light of God's nature.

A massive collection of CONSISTENT logical conclusions will be made based on it. And all of these conclusion together will form the appearance of what seems like a completely consistent internal coherence. It will STILL all seems to "fit together". A clear "picture" will form. There won't appear to be any contradictions. And any steps necessary to keep the premise valid will be made, regardless of the extent to which that means changing the meaning of the course.

Everything it says will be interpreted through that lens and filter. And the person will end up with a very elaborate, consistent, highly polished, internally supportive, self un-contradictory, and seemingly highly sensible set of conclusions. And it will all seem TRUE because it seems to make sense. And they will marvel at the seeming beauty of its logical harmony. BUT, the entire thing will be bullshit, because it all starts out with a false premise. And so the entire system of thought is completely mistaken. Yet it is regarded as truth because of its consistency.

You have to therefore be careful that your reasoning begins with something which is absolutely true. You need to understand God's nature first. And when you reason based on the truth, you will end up with truthful and valid and consistent answers, which are correct. You can't start with the world and try to reason backwards to find the truth. You have to start at the beginning of the system.

You have to have an awareness or grasp of what the absolute truth IS FIRST, before you can even proceed to think about anything. If you set off on the wrong foot, every conclusion you come to will be potentially false. But most of us will start out with false conclusions and assumptions and not question them, resulting in more false conclusions. Because we're starting out exploring all this with our egos, which has taken a whole bunch of assumptions as true, and this has not yet been questioned.

We have to find out first what the premise of our entire thinking is, whether we have started out on the wrong foot or not. And for that you have to ask yourself, what is the ultimate truth really like? What is God like? What is his nature? What IS the ultimate absolute premise? Where DID everything actually start, and what is the logical nature of that premise? Because from God, everything real proceeds as a logical system of thought, and it proceeds only according to His nature, and nothing can come from it which is unlike its starting point. So you have to be REALLY clear about God's nature before you can reason anything correctly.

When you can understand what God is like, you can start to draw truthful conclusions. And if you are careful, you can be GUARANTEED that these conclusions will be true. But if you do not understand God's premise, or you have difficulty being impeccable with your logic, then you will come to false conclusions because you'll be starting out with something false. And yet these conclusions will see true to you and make sense, even though they are mistakes or errors in reasoning. And you can end up with a whole lot of "it makes sense" even if you start out with lies.

This is happening A LOT in ACIM circles because many students are not yet in a position to grasp the nature of God's system, the premise of reality and the one truth. And so most of us are struggling to come to terms with what the conclusions are, yet alone being able to grasp where it all started or what it's all based on. And a lot of time is spent trying to uncover or learn about the premise.

If you return to the highest possible starting point, the pre-separation system, and you look at how God functions, and then you begin to reason out what CAME from that premise, and if you do so impeccably logically, you WILL come to true conclusions. But if you are mistaken about God, you will be mistaken in everything you conclude.

Those true conclusions will not only show you the things God COULD do, it will also show you what he COULD NOT do. What CAN come from Him, and what cannot. What He would will, and what he would not. And thus what you are, what your nature is, and what you are capable of in reality. When you do that, you'll see why the ego's system is entirely a FALSE premise, and EVERYTHING that comes from it will be false. And that includes the attempt to oppose God's premise, to overthrow the Kingdom, to make another world (including Earth), and why Earth CANNOT have come from God due to its nature being a complete contradiction of God's nature.

God does not make contradictions because He is logically consistent. For Him, heaven is the natural outcome of His premise. And Heaven is the ONLY outcome of His premise. Nothing else CAN come from it because it is rooted in truth. And because of His nature, Heaven HAD to be created. It's in God's nature to extend His logical premise to produce The Kingdom. Which is why it has always existed.

Earth, which is OPPOSITE to heaven in *EVERY* way, CANNOT COME FROM GOD. Its nature is opposite to His premise. It does not function like Him. It does not begin with the premise He begins with. And it cannot be a natural outcome of His thought system. If He were to create it, in addition to creating Heaven, that would mean two entirely different and opposing outcomes can result from a single premise. This is logically IMPOSSIBLE regardless of what the premise is. Each premise produces ONE conclusion in accord with it, not two different ones.

God could only create one or the other, and which one is set up in his beginning nature. Since Earth is opposite to Heaven, God could NOT have created it, otherwise He would have to have STARTED OUT with a split mind and be opposing himself. He would have to be fundamentally contradictory, as a premise, in order to PRODUCE two contradictory outputs. He could only Create ONE or the other, not both, and they cannot both exist or "be one" because of their contradictory natures. If Earth is real, heaven does not exist at all.

God is NOT contradictory, so He can ONLY produce ONE outcome. That outcome is HEAVEN, and Earth is therefore NOT OF GOD, and is not based on truth or reality. And since God is real, Earth therefore, logically, cannot be real. And since only what God creates CAN exist, Earth does not exist at all. And if God is permanent, Earth cannot be permanent. And if God exists, having Created ONLY heaven, Earth cannot exist at all. This is why "there is no world" and God did not create it.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates MUST be eternal AS HIMSELF" is a logical statement. Since Earth is NOT eternal, it must have come from a NON-ETERNAL premise, and since God is eternal, it cannot have come from HIS premise. And because HIS premise is true, it must have come from a FALSE premise. And therefore Earth is an illusion, and never will it be His one outcome.

"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."

This sounds like a tall order, but ACIM is saying we should not in any way be at the effect of the world. It should not do anything to us. We should regard other people as having not done anything to us. That is forgiveness. You are immortal and unchanged.

Forgiveness therefore is being causal and not an effect of the world. In forgiveness nothing happens to you, no-one offends you, nothing upsets you, nothing can hurt you, nothing can be taken from you. The world does absolutely nothing to you at all.

There is a very strong thread through the course that teaches this. It basically means you should be having absolutely no reaction to the world for any reason. You should be in a calm and whole state of mind which is always unconditionally loving, always deliberately acts, always gives the same one response to everything, and never re-acts to anything.

A "re-action" is an indirect action, a response, to a seeming provocation from outside yourself. Something happens first, and then you act, rather than acting first. And the action you perform is determined by what was done to you, rather than by what you truly will to do from love.

Reaction means you are a victim. It happens when you believe that stuff in the world is doing something to you. This happens when you believe it is REAL. This applies to everything physical. Everything the body can see and sense. All physical things are illusions, with a nature that is designed to tempt you all the time.

The world tempts you to believe that bad things are happening, cruelty and injustice, threats and dangers, wars and attacks, sicknesses and suffering. It shows this to you as pictures of crucifixion, pictures of bodies, pictures of things going wrong. It presents this to you as physical images, as physical objects, suggesting to you - look at this, it's true!

All physical things are forms of sin. Even the body is made from the idea of sin and deception. They give rise easily to a sense of guilt and fear, IF you buy into them. If you look at them and you start to buy into it, believe it, trust it, want it, you'll be giving it power over you. And then you'll perceive that it is causing you. Which means you are being affected by it.

This then causes you to be changed BY the world, seemingly. Or rather, you are using the world to pretend you are affected by the world. The result is that your mind will believe the external world is causing it, and it will manufacture effects to correspond to it. Your feelings will change, you will be "made" to feel a certain way, and you'll start having all kinds of effects - reactions, to what you've perceived.

Basically, if you believe that anything in the world is true, you are giving it power and truth and reality, which in your mind will set you up as the victim of it, and that will cause a reaction. If you are reacting in any way, with upset, fear, guilt, anger, anything at all, you have bought into the illusion that the world exists and is truly causing you.

The aim then is that you need to get to where you recognize that the world - which is a dream - is only a dream, which you are dreaming. And because it is only a dream, it is not a cause, and is only an effect. You must withdraw all power from it, all truth, and all reality. You must recognize it as nothing, doing nothing, causing nothing. All of its physical testimonies and states and forms must be recognized as lies - false - untrue.

Anything you see with the body's eyes, do not believe it. if you believe it, you will become deceived. It means you've bought into a temptation, and temptation puts you in hell. Anything that seems to be happening or existing in the physical world is NOT OF GOD and is not true. It must be denied. To deny it you must withdraw all belief in it, not play along with it, not go into false empathy, not join with it or become one with it.

The aim is to reach a state where you recognize that the world does nothing whatsoever, it has no power and no cause over you. You dominate it because you are all-powerful and causal. You are its dreamer. And as a result you cannot react to anything. It means the end of victimhood, the end of being affected or upset, the end of suffering because of anything other than yourself.

It does sound like a tall order - to not react to anything here whatsoever. To not react to a war, or a murder, or an abuse, or a fire, or a loss, or a threat. To be completely calm and still and unmoved and uncaused by anything in the world. But it is the goal we're seeking to achieve. If we are to be forgiving, it means we must be overlooking the world, which means not resting on the world, and not giving the world things it does not have.

In full recognition of being the cause or dreamer of the dream, you no longer can go along with believing that people are really suffering, or that sickness is true, or that death has any power to suppress anyone, or that bad things can make you unhappy, or that anything in the world can take anything away from you by any means.

It means the end of all effects from the world, all shifts to emotion, all fluctuating state and responses. It means being singular and unconditional, with one response to everything. I am not at the effect of the world I see. I will not react to the world I see. The world I see does nothing to me. I am immortal spirit and nothing in the world can change me or do anything to alter me in any way.

"That this is all the BODY does, is true. For it IS but a figure in a dream. But who REACTS to figures in a dream, UNLESS he sees them as if they were real?" UrT27I4

"For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes." UrT27I10

"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within YOU, there is a force which NO illusions can resist." UrT22F5

"Be not deceived by the form of problems today." UrW79L10

"Now it becomes your task to let the illusion be carried to the truth. Be steadfast but in this; be not deceived by the "reality" of any changing form." UrM28A7

"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeing and yet surely theirs." UrM13A6

"For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take." UrW140L4

"Be not deceived by forms the "something" takes." UrT29I8

"You have need to use the symbols of the world a while. But be you not deceived by them as well. They do not stand for anything at all, and in your practicing it is this thought which will release you from them." UrW184L4

"The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end." UrT31D2

"Be not deceived by what appears as many choices." UrT41G14

"Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done TO you. Acknowledge but that YOU have been mistaken, and ALL effects of your mistakes will disappear." UrT21C2

"He looks on what he chooses to see. No more and no less. The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did." UrM6C3

"for the world will never again appear to rule the mind" UrM6C3

"Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are." UrW190L5

"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" UrT11C5

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal." UrM9A6

"The purpose of the world you see is to obscure your function of forgiveness, and provide you with a justification for forgetting it. It is the temptation to abandon God and His Son, taking on a physical appearance. It is this which the body's eyes look upon." UrW64L1

"Nothing the body's eyes seem to see can be anything but a form of temptation, since this was the purpose of the body itself." UrW64L2

"Temptation has ONE lesson it would teach, in ALL its forms, WHEREVER it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach." UrT31H1

"What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive YOURSELF defenseless and in hell. Yield NOT to this" UrT31H6

"For all temptation is nothing more than the attempt to substitute another will for God's." UrM17A9

"Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated." UrT27K4 "The world I see has nothing that I want." UrW128

"God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children's toys?" UrM14A4

"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." UrW137L7

"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other." UrT12G1

"This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. And until you realize that God's Son CANNOT be crucified, this is the world you will see." UrT11J4

In ACIM the term "solid" or "solidity" obviously refers to what we recognize it to mean..... things which seem solid to us. Physical matter, heavy objects, solid materials, walls, bodies, planets, all things which science would tell us are in a solid state of matter. Hard, tangible, measurable, biological, chemical, physical. Planet earth.

The course goes on to tell us that these things which appear to be solid will eventually be seen as transparent, like a shadow, or a smoke-screen, or a veil of illusions. And that these solid things stand in front of the face of Christ, initially blocking its view entirely but later moving aside and fading away to reveal the true light of the real world. That the "world", ie the solid earth, is nothing but a wall of illusions standing in the way of reality.

Christ vision becomes able to "see through" solid matter, kind of like x-ray vision. This is because it is forgiving, and "to forgive is to overlook." To overlook something is to not see it, which is why what you forgive must disappear. By forgiving the physical material solid world, therefore, you become able to see through and past and beyond it to the light of another world. A world which is not earth and is not the physical solid material plane.

In fact, Jesus says that it is the guilt in our minds which makes the veil of illusions - earth and spacetime - appear to have solidity. It is guilt which drags our mind down into false perceptions, blinded by perception of form, looking through and believing the body's eyesight which is completely incapable of forgiving or looking past the solidity of matter.

It is our belief in guilt and sin and fear and death which locks us in to the prison of solid matter and makes it appear opaque to our minds. It is only because we are not forgiving that the world appears to show up at all as "solid". And once we forgive completely, the whole world must disappear, and that does mean the solid physical world will fade into nothingness, leaving behind only the light of heaven, because the world IS nothing but a veil of illusions we made to cover up reality.

The physical material solid world literally was made as a kind of curtain or screen or wall to come "between" you and yourself, between you and God, to hide God and block out heaven. It is like a layer of dirt covering over what should be bright and obvious, a stain upon the creation of God, a shadow of darkness. Belief in it causes the body to be lit up and made to seem real and solid, emphasizing the rift of the gap of separation which contains the entire separation from God in the split mind.

Christ vision looks past this world to the light. It does not mistake the body for the son of God. It does not fixate on physical forms. It does not believe the world of separate objects is real. It doesn't merely look upon and regard it as unified, it looks fully beyond it entirely. It glances at the disappearing thin veil of nothingness as it leave the mind's awareness and opens up fully to perceiving only the light of reality. Then it is game over for the world, which was nothing to begin with.

This is then the end of solidity, the end of matter, the end of the physical, the end of the world of shadows, the end of darkness, the end of separation, and the end of death. The world is at first forgiven, seen past, overlooked, and ignored, and then ultimately returns to nothing at all which it is. There is no world, and only heaven remains.

"It can indeed be said the ego MADE its world on sin. Only in such a world COULD everything be upside down. This IS the strange illusion which makes the clouds of guilt seem heavy and impenetrable. The solidness this world's foundation SEEMS to have is FOUND in this. For sin HAS changed creation from an Idea of God to an IDEAL the EGO wants; a world IT rules, made up of bodies, mindless, and capable of COMPLETE corruption and decay."

"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. "

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

"And so you stand, here in this holy place, before the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ. LET it be lifted! Raise it together, for it is but a veil that stands between you. Either alone will see it as a solid block, nor realize how thin the drapery that separates you now."

"Standing BEFORE the veil, it still seems difficult. But hold out your JOINED hands and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and the holy Self you share."

"The mechanisms of illusion have been born instead. And now they go to find what has been given them to seek. Their aim is to fulfill the purpose which the world was made to witness and make real. They see in its illusions but a solid base where truth exists, upheld apart from lies. Yet everything which they report is but illusion which is kept apart from truth."

"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and WITHOUT a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would TRY to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to ATTEMPT to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily BECAUSE it is an error. The FORM it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from REASON's eyes."

"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it WERE a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else BUT form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see."

"Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount."

"For anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those who dream the world is real. The body seems to be more solid and more stable than the mind. And love becomes a dream, while fear remains the one reality which can be seen and justified and fully understood."

"This heavy-seeming barrier, this artificial floor that looks like rock, is like a bank of low, dark clouds that seem to be a solid wall before the sun. Its impenetrable appearance is WHOLLY an illusion."

"Yet in this cloud bank it is easy to see a whole world rising. A solid mountain range, a lake, a city, all arise in your imagination, and FROM the clouds, the messengers of your perception return to you, assuring you that it is all THERE. Figures stand out and move about, actions seem real, and forms appear and shift from loveliness to the grotesque. And back and forth they go, as long as you would play the game of children's "make believe.""

"Christ's vision is the bridge between the worlds, and in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there, transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them. Holiness has been restored to vision, and the blind can see."

"If you are not a body, what are you? You need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in your mind. You need to feel something to put your faith in, as you lift it from the body. You need a real experience of something else, something more solid and more sure; more worthy of your faith, and really there."

"The world you see is based on SACRIFICE of oneness. It is a picture of a COMPLETE disunity and total LACK of joining. Around each entity is built a wall so seeming solid that it looks as if what is inside can never reach without, and what is out can never reach and join with what is locked away within the wall."

"The final one, the hardest to believe is nothing, and a seeming obstacle with the appearance of a solid block, impenetrable, fearful and beyond surmounting, is the fear of God Himself."

"You who believe you walk in sanity, with feet on solid ground, and through a world where meaning CAN be found, consider this: These ARE the laws on which your "sanity" appears to rest. These ARE the principles which makes the ground beneath your feet seem solid. And it IS here you look for meaning. These are the laws YOU made for your salvation. They hold in place the substitute for Heaven that you prefer."

"This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real. Yet those who think it real must still believe there is another will, and one which leads to opposite effects from those He wills. Impossible indeed; but every mind which looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone. But never in One God."

"The actions of the body are perceived as coming from the "baser" part of you, and thus of him as well. By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good."

"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."

"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."

"Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past EVERYTHING you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes."

"Such is your resurrection, for your life is not a part of anything you see. It stands beyond the body and the world, past every witness for unholiness, within the Holy, holy as Itself."

"Desiring to look upon their brothers in holiness, the power of belief and faith goes far BEYOND the body, SUPPORTING vision, NOT obstructing it."

"Grace is not given to a BODY, but to a MIND. And the mind that RECEIVES it, looks INSTANTLY beyond the body, and sees the holy place where IT was healed."

"And now God's KNOWLEDGE, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its Kingdom. 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. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

You hear often that 'the world' as a term becomes substituted with terms like "its a dream", "its an illusion", "its not real", "we made it up", "its a projection" etc.

But, this doesn't really grasp what an illusion is. It's not just some word you can replace other words with.

The definition of an illusion is something appearing tobe something it is not, designed to deliberately deceive and block awareness of the truth. It is a device that lies to you and tricks you into believing something that isn't true. But in order to even KNOW that it is an illusion, you have to have enough awareness of what it's like to NOT be deceived by the illusion. You have to be aware of how the illusion works, what it's actually 'doing' to portray an appearance, how it is distracting you, and basically to 'see through it'.

Overlooking illusions is forgiveness. This means being aware of all of the 'tricks' that the illusion attempts to perform, but seeing through them and past them and not being fooled by them. And this is an entirely different state of consciousness and awareness, than to simply stay IN the ego illusion and start labeling it 'illusion'. That's like just switching out the term "planet earth" for "planet illusion". That doesn't really reveal HOW it deceives you.

So the big problem we have is that we do NOT realize how the illusion is an illusion. We do not recognize it AS an illusion. We do not see through it, or past it. We are fooled by it. We are made unconscious by it. It's like being hypnotized or put into an unconscious stupor, in which we take the illusion seriously, at face value, and listen to its appearance as if that is reality. Mistaking an illusion for reality is our only mistake.

Here's an example of an illusion. You are in the dark. The room is unlit. In the room there are objects. One of the objects you touch and it feels really strange and it seems to move as you touch it, and this makes you suddenly afraid that there's maybe a person in the room, and you scream. So you've fallen for the illusion, the impression, that there is something serious and frightening happening. But what happens when you switch the light on, suddenly you have MORE INFORMATION. You are now aware of more parts and pieces that you couldn't even see before, and were not aware of at all. Suddenly you realize that the thing you touched was in fact just a large house plant which you brushed up against, and it's completely safe and not scary at all. You feel relieved, right?

This is what it means to see through the illusion. It means, you have seen the truth, which has revealed to you, by shining a light of increased awareness, ALL of what is present, rather than only a narrow context or portion of what is present. When things are taken out of context they become a nightmare. Meaning becomes distorted. Reality becomes disjointed. We start to hallucinate that things might be happening that aren't really happening. This is how someone experiences insanity - losing touch with the bigger picture and becoming fixated on something whose relationship to real meaning has been distorted and blocked, such that you can no longer tell what anything really is and everything becomes frighteningly animated and motivated by bizarre nonsense forces that you don't understand.

The physical world, in the form that it appears, is an illusion. This does not mean that the physical world of form is being seen 'correctly' and fully, by seeing objects as they are. Or like, you become more aware of how all the objects contain beauty or contain God etc. That isn't seeing through the whole illusion. What you do not realize, because you have forgotten what it means to be NOT DELUDED AT ALL, is that the physical world of forms is, in its entirety, designed to block and distract away from the awareness of the presence of God. Even if you awaken to some 'stage' in which you see God in all things, if you are still seeing forms you are still deluded by the illusion.

"Nothing so blinding as sight of form" - ACIM

"Everything the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole without the meaning that the whole would give." - ACIM - "T-22.III.4."

Also.. "T-22.III.5. 3 The body's eyes see only form. 4 They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. 5 And they were made to look on error and not see past it. 6 Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. 7 To this distorted form of vision the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true. 8 Yet how can sight that stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? 9 It is held back by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived." - ACIM

What you may not realize is, this entire physical universe is a holographic projection, designed SPECIFICALLY and INTENTIONALLY, to distort and block all trace of the nature of God. It is deliberately designed to obfuscate, distort, give an opposite appearance to, and completely make it appear, that God does not exist at all. The form that it takes is DELIBERATELY designed by the ego to show you something that looks nothing like God, has no properties of God, completely diffuses and blocks God's character, and makes you completely BLIND to God. The body's eyes then can only see this form, the appearance of the absence of God, and cannot see past it TO God. The entire physical universe is a DECEPTION!

The way this works is, every 'form', every object, presents to your awareness the idea that all things are different. It presents the idea that all objects are separate from each other, none of them share anything at all including the same space or time, none of them truly are equal or perfectly alike, and all of them are in conflict. Does that sound like a picture of God? No. That's intentional. Form, the form of error, was deliberately made make God not apparent, and to make it seem to your awareness that God does not exist at all anymore. That's the ego's wish. That's why it made this illusion.

So the 'illusion' is, that forms present an image to you which is not the truth, which is extremely deceptive, and which you fall for easily. For example, consider problems. The ego presents to you a specific problem which is usually limited to a handful of forms. It tells you that only these forms are a problem, so you need to solve it. You solve it, but this has no effect on the 50 billion other problems in the world. The ego's solution to problems only seems to apply to a tiny portion of the world, and has no transfer value to other problems.

The ego absolutely hates the idea of it being possible to solve ALL problems with ONE solution - that is the Holy Spirit's attitude. It does not want that at all. So it keeps you focussed on looking at objects as being very DIFFERENT to each other. A dog is not a cat. A car is not a house. An attack by a coworkers is not an attack by a neighbor. The ego makes it all APPEAR different and separate. THAT is how it deceives you. Because in truth, there is only ONE problem and ONLY solution resolves the entirety of it completely.

The abstraction needed to SEE and to RECOGNIZE that all forms are THE SAME THING, the same illusion, takes some significant forgiveness and awakening. Being able to look at all forms and recognize, every single one of the deceptions and temptations that every one of these forms is trying to SHOW me, to try to convince me that they are TRUE, is the SAME LIE, and they are all using the SAME STRATEGY. Ultimately, the entire world is the same ONE illusion, presented by the ONE ego, using ONE set of seemingly diverse and apparently highly fragmented deceptions. Each time that you fall for one of its deceptions and think, hey, yes, this illusion is real and this problem is separate from others, and this object is not one with other objects, and that person is separate from this person etc... that's you FAILING to see through the illusion. That's you FALLING FOR THE TRICK!

So yes, there is a way of seeing, which doesn't just overlook illusions but which is AWARE ONLY OF GOD. There is a way of recognizing everything that is false for what it is - false. There is a way of no longer believing a single thing that any appearance of object or form or separation or expression of fragmentation/multiplicity suggests to you in any way. There is a way of COMPLETELY IGNORING what the senses are shown via external signals. There is a way of absolutely not listening to a single shred of ego consciousness whatsoever. And there is a way of SEEING GOD DIRECTLY AND FULLY. And guess what? God does not look ANYTHING like how the physical world looks, and they have nothing in common at all.

In revelation, the entire world disappears. The entire illusion disappears. All physical objects disappear and are replaced with brilliant bright light and total awareness of love. That is all. This is reality. This is an experience of no illusions. Compare that to the PURPOSE of the world that the ego made, and recognize that forms looks like forms FOR A REASON, and separate objects appear to be separate FOR A REASON, and separate problems appear to be distinct and unique FOR A REASON, and all temptations and deceptions are designed to distract you and lead you into unconsciousness FOR A REASON.

The ego's use of the world is NOT that it is neutral. The ego's use of the world is to create a 'veil', an illusion, a huge TRICK, a distortion of consciousness, a BLOCK to awareness, over your awareness, so that you can no longer fully experience God or recognize His nature. God is the same everywhere. God is in all parts equally. All of God is in every part of God. When you are presented with objects which appears to only contain distinct separate parts in each part and there is no sign of any sharing or oneness whatsoever, in form, THAT is the illusion that there is no God. You have to learn NOT TO BELIEVE YOUR EYES!

This is what illusion means. You have to get out of the illusion to know that it is an illusion. You have to awaken to a greater reality in which you are aware of how God is everywhere, God shares everything, God is in everything fully, all of God is in all parts of existence, there is no separation, and all appearances are a LIE. Lies are not meant to be paid attention to, you are meant to discern that they are lies and not listen to them and not take what they present to you seriously or as though it is even real. Recognize the entire physical universe was made to SHUT OUT GOD, and not just in terms of you having a separate perception OF the world that has errors in it, but that the world ITSELF is an error and has taken on a multitude of forms to completely deceive your comprehension of 'what is'. We fall for this every single day and every time we believe in any kind of differences whatsoever.

There are no forms in God, not even forms that seem like they have God in them. NO FORMS. Complete formlessness. Forms are separation and separation is not real.

Every time we think one thing is not something else. Every time we think one object is not another object. Every time we experience separate problems and separate solutions. Every time we believe that we are separated from other people by bodies. Every time we don't recognize that there is only ONE problem, and only ONE solution is needed once and for all to solve them all, permanently. Every time we fall for this grand illusion and can't find a vantage point in awareness from which we can see 'the whole', the one, we fall for the ego's deception. Truly this world is not just a 'thing' and not just a 'place', it is a mechanism for reality distortion, consciousness obstruction, enforced unconsciousness, fragmentation of mind, and loss of life. This is what we have to see past and not believe what our senses are saying is out there.

"There is no world. This is the central thought the Course would attempt to teach." - ACIM - think about that deeply, the entire physical world is a magic trick aimed at stopping Creation, stopping awareness, and stopping God.

We are immortal Spirit. We are God's creation. We are infinite and unlimited by form. We are equal everywhere. And we are real. And we have no differences. And we are not separate objects. And we are not limited by space or time.

"I cannot see in darkness but in light" - "I am not an illusion but a reality." - ACIM

The metaphysics of ACIM is not something that someone made up, it is not an interpretation, it is not subject to someone's opinion, and there is no room for questioning it. It is not one of many possible definitions of the truth. It is THE truth. Either you understand it as it is and accept it as logically true, or you are in denial and confusion.

Metaphysics are FACTS. The thought system of the Holy Spirit is completely logically consistent, as is the thought system of the ego. There is absolutely no room for interpretation. What is "true" can easily be determined by looking at the logical structure of what has happened and where things fit. If you master the metaphysics, you will be able to extrapolate the logical thought system to explain absolutely anything in its correct perspective.

What happens after the separation from God is completely 100% logical. Everything that happens after separation MUST happen, and it MUST happen in a very specific way. The effects of separation are not varied or one possibility among many. There is only one way to separate, there is only one scenario which comes about when separation seems to have happened, and there is only one outcome.

If you can learn the fundamental, completely logically consistent metaphysical structure of the separation, it gives you a framework in which everything else fits into place. A Course in Miracles is teaching this metaphysical structure, but it is not always very obvious. Its obscure nature tends to lead people to not even realize there is a solid "core" to the Course or that you can use this structure to perfectly explain everything the ego does, the meaning of death, and what MUST be true based on it.

For example, separation from God is not possible, because you cannot be somewhere that God is absent. God is everywhere. This immediately tells us that, logically, to believe that this IS possible is insanity. It also must tell us that to believe in such a separation is to believe in a DREAM, a fiction, something which is false or not true and not real. This is already the beginning of some very solid metaphysics, and many people grasp this basic starting point.

But then there is a progression, because as soon as there is a belief in separation, the ENTIRE ego thought system can be logically described and predicted for how it will operate, what it will perceive and believe, what it will value, and everything else about it. Even such things as special relationships, special hate, unconscious guilt and so on, are not just things that happen to be a part of the situation we're in, they MUST ABSOLUTELY FEATURE in an experience of being separate from God. There is a completely LOGICAL progression of thought and circumstance which HAS to come about when there is separation, which leads to all of these things.

Jesus describes some of this in the Laws of Chaos, where he says that first there are separations into individuals/bodies, then this MUST give rise to the perception that each individual is different and therefore lacking, and this MUST then give rise to a sense of competition because others have something you lack, and this MUST mean every individual is sinful for the attack that their "independence" inflicts on each other, and you then end up trying to "get" from others what you lack, by valuing what they lack and trying to possess it - which is the purpose of "specialness" and leads to all special relationships. All of this is a completely logical progression. It's simply what must happen and must unfold based on the separation having taken place.

Another example is what happens right after separation in terms of the split mind and how it becomes at war with itself. If the mind believes in separation, in order to be separate from God, it MUST have separation within itself. There is nowhere else for the separation to be. So the mind becomes divided, believing in "self and other". This MUST mean that WILL is also split, and this MUST mean that both of those parts are in conflict. There are two wills operating seemingly separately or with separate goals, since they logically cannot be the same or in agreement otherwise they could not BE separate. They MUST be at war with each other. They MUST be in a state of conflict. This conflict leads to ALL expressions of war and attack and vengeance and eventual death. It all progresses completely logically.

The metaphysics also shows that what once was a single whole mind, or whole self (Christ), must have become divided and split apart following separation. This mind that believes in separation thus gave rise to multiple illusions of individuals. The illusion of these individuals BEING individual is completely dependent on a strong illusion of the ways they are different, and as this illusion of difference becomes stronger and more established, it turns into what we call "form", which is what the BODY is. So a body is actually a logical progression of the thought system of separation and MUST come about if the separation has happened. Bodies are just very strongly-believed-in fragments of mind appearing separate and unique in order to maintain the ongoing breakdown of wholeness. This is also why bodies are a "picture" of the destruction of Christ, made as separation devices to keep individuals apart and therefore keep Christ from being whole.

There is no guesswork here. There are no opinions. There is no interpretation. This is simply a completely logical, consistent development which takes place. If there is a separation, it has "features" which come from it quite "naturally" and which are completely unavoidable. They are not optional. Bodies, worlds, special relationships, death, sickness, it is ALL a "natural" part of a thought system of separation. The metaphysics recognizes this and gives a perfectly consistent structure to it. The metaphysics can explain WHY all of these things come about.

As you learn the metaphysics, which is somewhat deeper than just "the words" of the Course, you will acquire a kind of template or set of simple laws which you understand to make perfect sense. These can be somewhat abstract so it can require some learning to "generalize" the learning and realize that it's all based on a simple set of logic. But once you then "get" the simple logic, you can now USE that simple logic to examine absolutely any aspect of life, any activity or purpose or way that something happens, and describe it in terms of what the METAPHYSICS says about it, which will be the truth. Irrefutable truth. Provided your grasp of the metaphysics is clear and consistent and you're not making subtle logical errors, the metaphysics gives you VISION to be able to see the truth of what's happening or where things fit together.

For example, recently there have been discussions about whether you can be at peace with death. There were many opinions given. None of the opinions were relevant. The only truth is in what the metaphysics says. In the metaphysical truth, the body is a separation device, it is an illusion, and it is within the mind of Christ. It blocks and hides what is behind it and its only function and purpose is to maintain the illusion of the mind being separate. The metaphysics also tells us that since God is life, and being opposite to God is the separation, separation MUST be death. It also must be a fiction of death - a dream of death. It HAS to be. It also tells us that therefore when the body is "alive", the body is still inside a dream of death. This also tells us that the death which occurs at the end of "life" is just a symbol for death, because what happens before it is also death. This is why Jesus says "death is not an end, it is a continuation."

Also since the metaphysics teaches that death is the opposite of life, and life and peace are one, and therefore death is not peace, we VERY SIMPLY can conclude that it is IMPOSSIBLE for there to be death and peace at the same time. This is irrefutable, perfect logic. This is the truth that the metaphysics tells us. It has nothing to do with anyone's opinion, anyone's lack of understanding, anyone's version of what they think is true based on their so-called experiences, or anything else. It CANNOT be true that death and peace are the same thing or that they truly can be 100% experienced at the same time. Yet many people have tried to justify that they are at peace with death or have come to accept it. They MUST be in denial. The metaphysics makes this clear.

Another simple truth which you can conclude based on the simple metaphysics of separation, is that the split mind is in a state of war BUT it also simultaneously NEEDS that war to continue, in order to maintain a sense of being less than whole and of having an opposite. If truly the opposition were completely wiped out of existence, there would be no more possibility of being at war, and war is entirely founded on being separate and having a split will. So on the one hand, the ego now is constantly trying to attack and be opposed to the "other", but at the same time, it MUST KEEP the other as an enemy for as long as possible. It does not want war to actually SUCCEED, it wants war to be CONTINUOUS.

This is a simple logical conclusion based on the metaphysics of separation. It's not my opinion or someone's interpretation. Therefore all states of conflict and war entail people choosing to suffer for as long as possible. It also means that if one group of people wins the war and totally wipes out the opposition, there would have to be PEACE, because without an opponent there is no basis for fighting. To end the war would thus truly undo the separation, it would be the undoing of those who tried to wage war, and this is not what the ego thought system wants. This is all simple logic. So if someone comes along and has a discussion about war or conflict or attack, if you grasp the metaphysics you can use it to explain what MUST be true about war and conflict.

The separation from God is an entirely CLOSED SYSTEM. There is no room for accidents, there is no room for multiple opinions or interpretations. There is only the FACT of what has happened. You can accept it or you can deny it. If you have a solid grasp of the metaphysics you can DEPEND on it so much that you can TRUST it and you can use it to discern whether people are saying bullshit or whether they are aware of the truth. It also however requires that YOU not be in denial and you not be making logical errors. And the fact is there are a lot of people making a lot of logical errors. Sometimes they are quite subtle. But when someone thinks they know what the truth is but have not quite got it, they will defend it to the death and it must produce war.

Metaphysics reveals that there is only one truth. There is no room for error. There are facts, and that's it. You don't get an opinion. You don't get to interpret it to fit what you want it to be. You don't get to change it. In fact, this extends to your relationship with God and the fact that you keep trying to believe that God has changed His mind about you, or that you can change God. Both must be logically false. But that doesn't stop us believing otherwise, because we are insane. To not get the metaphysics is insanity, and the ego will use it to confuse you and delude you.

There is so much "insight" which can flow out about all kinds of topics if you will just learn the fundamental basic structure of separation. It also reveals to you that there really is only one problem, one dream, one solution. Illusions of how certain things seem different or unique or unlike each other, calling for a special explanation, can be "seen through" if you have the metaphysics right. You will know what to trust, and how to discern. You will be clear about what is true and what is false. You will also be amazed at how you're able to use the metaphysics as a powerful TOOL to give you the truth - what MUST be true - based on what you have learned is logically consistent, EVEN IF you have never thought about the particular topic before. The metaphysics will tell you WHAT IS the truth of the situation, and MUST be true about it, regardless of whether you even believe it yourself.

This logical consistency also builds upon itself. It's like, if you have this blueprint and you use it to place the first few pieces exactly where they belong, then you start being able to draw further logically consistent conclusions from it. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, where if you start out with the correct corners and the correct edge pieces, all of the other pieces can be correctly positioned and discerned, leading to a completely consistent whole picture. It's almost like effortless learning. You don't need to keep learning lots of individual separate modalities or pieces of information. You just get this one 'guidance system' which is the light of truth, the thought system of the Holy Spirit, which puts into perspective absolutely everything else. You switch on this one light and ask IT what is the truth, instead of being in the business of MAKING UP what you want the truth to be all the time, and it will very obviously and clearly tell you exactly what the truth is, from a clear and consistent perspective.

This is also why it is imperative to surrender your egoic attempt to always be the one who decides everything, to always be the one who decides what things mean, to always have your own opinion, to always be running "your own life" which you see as a possession of your own separate from God's will. Trusting Holy Spirit/God is trusting the metaphysics of the truth. The metaphysics completely correlates to the Holy Spirit's thought system. As you trust IT, you are trusting HIM. And as you begin to THINK WITH it, you are thinking WITH HIM, and you will start to have thoughts which are in line with, compatible with, and consistent with, HIS way of thinking, which is perfectly supportive of the metaphysics. The metaphysics of truth IS the way that the mind functions from a true perspective.

So our opinions mean absolutely nothing. Our separate viewpoints are an act of war. Thinking we know that our interpretation of the Course is right, unless it actually IS in line with Holy Spirit's thought system, MUST be a state of denial and MUST entail the authority problem - the ego trying to be the one who determines what is true or not. Only the truth is true. We can accept it, or we can be in denial. If we are in denial, believing we know the truth, we are mistaken. You can accept God's love, or you can reject it, but you cannot change it. You can deny that God is real but that won't change the metaphysics of reality whatsoever. You can pretend all you want, but ultimately, all of reality is a CLOSED SYSTEM with no options and no alternatives. It is what it is. Trying to make it be something it is not, is ego, and WILL produce the illusion of death.

Okay so, you hear people saying the Earth is flat - the "flat Earthers"... and obviously it's not. But... technically it is.You see, there is this thing called the "hierarchy of illusions". The hierarchy is an ILLUSION that there are differences. All differences are illusions.

So you've got things like different importance, different value, different size and weight, different difficulty, different materials, different appearances, different behaviors, different forms, all of that.

However, the world isn't real, and these differences aren't real.Imagine a canvas on which an artist is going to paint a picture. The canvas itself is just one thing, neutral, empty. There is nothing inherently pictured on it. This is the background of the illusory world.

The artist takes the paint and starts to paint pictures of humans. There's a large body over here, and a small one over there. There's one with two arms, and there's one with only one arm. There's one that's jumping in the air, and one that's laying seemingly dead on the ground.

But the truth always is, that these are all just images, made of the same paint. There is really no difference between the body jumping in the air and the one that appears dead. They're both equal in the sense that any of their difference are an illusion. There aren't really ANY bodies on the canvas, it's just images of bodies.

And so what the illusion of the picture of a world of bodies is, is really a picture of what those things might LOOK LIKE. A body which looks LIKE a dead body, a body which is similar to how a living body might look. And this makes the images on the canvas once removed from the actual thing, from "reality" or "real bodies". They are pictures OF bodies, not actual bodies.

The thing is, the physical world is usually considered to be real, where the "real bodies" are, but in fact the physical world is the realm of the what LOOKS LIKE a world. It's a picturing of a world, an image, like a photograph of some place that you visited. The photograph is not the place itself, just an idea of what it might be like there. That's what the world is. The world is the paint on the canvas, pretending to look like things. A picture OF some OTHER place that doesn't exist.

"The mind can think it sleeps, but that is all. It cannot change what is its waking state. ***It cannot make a body***, nor abide within a body. What is alien to the mind does not exist because it has no source. For mind creates all things that are, and cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state. ***It cannot make the physical. What seems to die is but the sign of mind asleep.***"

ie The physical world is not REALLY a REAL physical world, it's a picture of one, an imagined idea of what a physical world might be like. It is like a dream about a far off land that you never really visited.

You have never actually REALLY seen a real body, you have only seem what bodies MIGHT look like if they existed. Because really the world is a dream of, an idea of, what it MIGHT be like IF you were able to separate from God. It remains true that you cannot separate from God because God is everywhere. Nor can you REALLY create bodies. So we've just pictured a world which looks LIKE some OTHER place that we've never been to, trying to form it in its likeness to represent it. To symbolize it. The world is a SYMBOL OF a world OUTSIDE of God, which does not exist.

Now, because the physical world of form is the layer of paint on the canvas, and let's say the canvas is what ACIM calls "the real world" which has no inherent forms or bodies or places or things, when you look at it and recognize it as "all made of the same stuff", or "its all just paint" or "its all an equal image", this FLATTENS the hierarchy of illusions. It's stops it appearing as though one thing is bigger or heavier or more important or different to another. Or that any of it is real.

This recognition that the world has NO hierarchy, and that it is all just one thing appearing to be many things, is what it's like to recognize that the picture is just the layer of paint, and it's all just paint. Which means that really a picture of a living body is just as much equal and just paint, as a picture of a dead body. Neither of them are truly different. They're both illusions.

The form of the living body may appear different to the dead one, but that is the illusion of it. "Nothing so blinding as perception of form." When you focus on the forms and their differences you're being deceived by the painted picture, and are failing to recognize it for the trick that it is. You're not realizing it's only a painting, and are mistaking it for BEING the thing it visualizes. You think the PICTURE OF a body really IS a body. That pictures of death really ARE death.

When you overlook ie forgive the ILLUSION of things being different, and you don't fall for there really being a live body or a dead body, and you see the paint instead of the picture, that is true perception. That is accurate perception. It isn't a perception that looks at paint on a canvas and believes there are real people living there with real bodies. It isn't the way the "brain" sees a photo of a body and believes it's looking at the actual person. It's a recognition that it's JUST a photograph, looking at the grain on the paper and the blots of ink.

This is a "flattening" of the hierarchy. A PICTURE of a dead body is now equal to a picture of a living one. A PICTURE of a body with disease is no different in truth than a picture of a body that seems healthy. Because really they are both just images on a blank canvas. And neither of them is more dead or alive, in truth.

"They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."

There is no more MEANING in a dead body. There is no more "seriousness" in a dead body. There is no more "lack of life" in a dead body than in a supposedly "living" body. Which tells you also that the living bodies are NOT REALLY ALIVE either. The bodies aren't alive, and they aren't dead, they are just pictures of bodies. They are symbols, not ends in themselves. All made of the same illusory stuff.

"The body neither lives nor dies, for it cannot contain you who are life."

"There is no life outside of heaven."

"At best an illusion of life, at worst death."

"The body is not an end in itself."

So what that calls for, in order to see with forgiveness, is to recognize that there is no truth, life, will, mind, power, causality, strength, force, capability, or existence, to either the living bodies or the dead bodies. They are nothing but pictures. They don't have a "life" to be defended against death, and "death" cannot happen to them any more than life can. e.g.

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays ***a picture*** of a DIFFERENT you. It is ***a picture of a body*** still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all."

The body is just a picture, in a painting in your mind, which has NO DEPTH. It is not really three dimensional. And its differences are ALL illusions of the way (form) that it's painted in. See the paint for what it is and you no longer see bodies there, or imagine that pictures of houses are real houses, or that pictures of cars are really cars, or that pictures of death are really death.

This ultimately flattens the hierarchy and means there IS NO DIFFERENCE between illusions. There is only one separation, one illusion, one picture, and it's all equally false. Even the suggestion that something would be more DIFFICULT to change than another thing, is part of the illusion of the hierarchy. It is not true. And this ultimately means that there really is no "orders of difficulty."

"The only effort you need make, to give this world (earth) away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make (heaven), is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."

From the vantage point of recognizing it all as ONE THING, one dream, one illusion of a world, and ignoring its FORMS, overlooking its differences, and not being deceived or tempted to believe there really ARE any differences at all, there is no "orders" in the world. There are no divisions and levels and parts and pieces. It's all just one illusion, one separation idea. Which means live bodies and dead bodies are the same thing, pretending to be two different things. They are both the dream of death. An illusion.

"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem."So ultimately THE WORLD IS FLAT, because the hierarchy is flat. When you take away all the illusions of difference, which is false perception - not recognizing it's all just paint - all you end up with is a FLAT world. A world where there is ONE WAY of looking at everything, and it is recognized as ONE THING. And so there is no bigger or smaller or harder or easier.

From that perspective, which is the state of miracle mindedness and true perception, in which everything is given NO extra meaning other than the universal ONE meaning of love, and there is no falling for the deception that a sick body is "a really serious bad thing", and there is no difference in meaning given to "that body seems really healthy" versus "that body seems disease-ridden and ugly", you are now coming from ONE perspective. One vantage point. One loving outlook. One all-inclusive perspective. No longer tempted by form.

From that one perspective, with Vision, for you there is no longer a rough terrain, or a 3D world, or a world where some things are dealt with differently to others. There is one problem and one solution, not many. And there is no hierarchy of orders of difficulty. So now it is ONE ACT, to change the painting, to any given form. It is ONE ACT to perform a miracle which modifies a PICTURE of a dead body into a PICTURE of a living one. One act which can in turn convert a living body into a dead one, and back again. Because all bodies are fake.

To that mind, there is "no order of difficulty in miracles." "They are all the same". Each one is an expression of a spark of life which repaints the picture. A modification to the mind projecting so that the paint on the page changes to SYMBOLIZE something else. Because remember the paint is what something looks LIKE, not what something is. It is all symbolic and once removed. So the body now SYMBOLIZES eternal life, instead of symbolizing death.

It now becomes useful to heal the mind to heal the body, ie to convert the PICTURE of the body into a body free of pain and suffering and damage and death, because this picture in the dream world demonstrates and SYMBOLICALLY communicates an IMAGE of, a representation of, innocence and immortality and harmlessness and holiness. And this TEACHES those who look upon it that they must be innocent, because it does not play by the rules of the laws of a world of difficulty. It does not prove their sinfulness. And proof of sin is not there, breaking the laws of physics.

"Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him."

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

"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live.""

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

So you see, the world IS flat, because it is only an ILLUSION that it has any FORM at all. And all its differences are illusions. Bodies and planets and galaxies are not alive, or dead, or anything. They are once-removed PICTURES on a canvas, the underlying canvas of "the real world", and the pictures shift just like the shadows on the wall of the cave. And they are not reality. They are just imagined ideas of what it might be like to go be where God is not. it's not the same place as actually going there. And so the world is just a brochure for hell, not real hell itself.

There is no death, and dead bodies are no more dead than live ones. And live ones are no more alive than dead ones. And all levels of sickness are meaningless. And all degrees of suffering are a lie. And miracles express from a higher vantage point in which the Earth is flat and the hierarchy is flat and every artistic act of "healing bodies" is merely a way of reconfiguring the paint, so that it can symbolize eternal life and point in the direction of heaven rather than hell. As a physicalized symbol of forgiveness.

In this view the body is nothing but an IMAGE in the mind. It has no sickness or health. It cannot be well or dead or suffer at all. I this no will, it has no mind of its own, or instincts, or natural ways. It does not really obey ANY laws of the world, unless your mind believes in the hierarchy of illusions. When you lift away from this PICTURE of a body, the rules and laws and restraints that your mind GAVE to it, trying to make it something OTHER THAN just a neutral image in a dream, it no longer serves the laws of the world.

And now the body is not under the effect of the world. And it cannot become sick on its own, nor can it die against your will. It is now simply suspended in the mind as a figment of imagination, and mind has complete power and control over it, to override any external influences. It cannot age, it cannot get sick, it does not need the world to exist, it does not depend on anything, it just moves around like a puppet for the mind. An avatar in a dream. A figure pretending to be you. A symbol of your immortal self.

Of course, when you throw the painting in the trashcan there is no world, and "heaven is all that remains."

Our traditional definitions of what the ego IS, may need a rethink, based on what it ACTUALLY says in the course.

Interestingly, the course tells us that we have a SPLIT mind.... and that this division - which IS THE SEPARATION - has produced what seems like TWO selves. And yet it does not say that either of these two selves is the ego.

"And these two halves appear to represent a split within a self perceived as two."

"In a split mind, identity MUST seem to be divided."

"It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its ONLY purpose is to KEEP THE SEPARATION GOING."

"***The Separation is merely another term for a split mind.***"In a way, it more accurately uses "ego" to describe the effort WITHIN the split itself, to perpetuate and increase the separation.

Kind of like an "agent of separation" working to magnify the division or increase the gap between the two halves.It also tells us that the split ITSELF needs to be undone, so that the two parts of mind REUNITE as one mind. Because BOTH parts of mind MUST BE REINTEGRATED.

"They had already split their minds, and were bent on further dividing, rather than reintegrating. ****The levels they introduced into their minds turned against each other****, and they established differences, divisions, cleavages, dispersions, and all the other concepts related to the increasing splits which they produced."

This has absolutely nothing to do with getting rid of the second portion of mind in order to "heal it", and in fact destroying part of mind is the GOAL of the separation. Healing is entirely to do with undoing the SEPARATION BETWEEN the parts of mind.

So the question then arises, where does the EGO come into it, or the idea of a false self?

Because in truth, the separated off second part of mind, IS NOT the ego. That second portion of mind is to be KEPT AND HEALED and REINTEGRATED with the first part. So we can't say that this second portion IS the ego.

We could more accurately say, that it is the DIVISION ITSELF which is ego. The division is what seems to arise, when there is a SEPARATION, which means there is an INEQUALITY. You can only have a seeming separation, in which there seem to be "two things", when there is something DIFFERENT about each of those things.

This difference, a kind of rift or inequality, produces a kind of "territory" in-between the two parts, a fence around a part of the mind, where we could say that it is "in between" the two parts, or is what defines the two parts as being distinct from each other. And we could call this inner seeming territory the GAP or the SEPARATION. Indeed, we can accurately call it SPACE TIME!

This separation GAP, which is kind of like the "pit of hell", seems to come in BETWEEN the parts of minds, which now appears to be inner and outer, or associated and dissociated parts of mind.

In fact, one part of mind then seems to be on "this side" of physical matter (e.g. inside the brain), while the OTHER HALF of mind seems to be BEYOND "the granite block of sin" or "the veil" that is physical matter - the illusion of separation. This is why you have to overlook (forgive) physical matter and see the face of christ BEYOND it, in order to REJOIN WITH the other half of yourself.

The part of mind you associate WITH, you believe is your whole self, which is the sunbeam believing it is the sun. While the sun is the metaphor for the REST of the mind, or the whole of mind.

The body, for example, becomes a SEPARTION DEVICE, which comes BETWEEN the associated part of mind, and the dissociated part of mind. It stands between you and your brothers, as do all forms and bodies, like a literal physical wall. It symbolizes our separateness, or rather, the separation between you and the rest of you.

But then the question then arises, where or what is the EGO?The course says that the WORLD is the symbol of the separation, and the BODY is the symbol of the ego. This almost suggests, and perhaps it does, that separation in general is not quite the same thing as EGO.

Through separation, we split the part of the mind which is in heaven from a part which seems to be in hell, just as we split the part that seems to be housed in a body from the part that seems outside of it. You could say that separation is a vertical split, while ego/body is a horizontal split. It's almost like saying that the ego is a symbol of separation INSIDE the world, which is itself a symbol of separation. Making the ego twice removed or "within" the realm of separation.

Either way, ego or egotism, is defined in the course as SELFISHNESS. It is synonymous with specialness, uniqueness, differences, favoritism and inequality. Why would we say that this places ego INSIDE the portion of mind that is in the body, and not the part outside? Perhaps because as ego condenses and possesses and claims exclusive ownership for itself, it tends to partition itself off and contract into a specific location in spacetime. Thus ending up AS or IN a body.

We can also though say that the WORLD, is the ego thought SYSTEM. That the whole system of ego thinking, based on differences, visualizes the physical universe. This would associate ego with the entire "realm" of separation ie separateness.

It's important to realize though, that ego is really something that comes BETWEEN, and emphasizes SEPARATION. It tries to INCREASE separation. It also thus increases inequality. So regardless of "where" we try to locate it, it is very much tied to the notion of separating. It might even be valid and useful to relate ego to the idea of "the devil", an attitude WITHIN THE SPLIT, that operates as active thought WITHIN the idea of separation, to lend reality and value to the separation.

Similarly the body, when it is made to be sick, doesn't simply testify that its host is sick, but that the body is trying to attack BOTH the host AND its brothers. "Sick bodies remain accusers". They are attempts to be contagious and to destroy others. So the sickness is bi-directional. Or in other words, the sickness is acting like a SEPARATION. And this happens when the body is being used AS a separation device. ie the more you emphasize the body as a SEPARATING WALL BETWEEN you and others, the sicker it becomes.Either way, for me, I'm finding it makes a lot more sense to think of ego simply as the same thing as SEPARATION in general, rather than thinking of it as ONE SIDE of a separation, or ONE PART of mind, or ONE OF the two "selves" which are formed BY separation.

Ego will in fact play BOTH SIDES of the separation. It takes positions on both sides of every conflict. Because ego is the idea of SELF DENIAL, and therefore self destruction. So it is literally against itself and is the idea of suicide. It has no interest in who WINS any kind of fight or competition, only that both sides are attacking and increasing the inequality and separation between them. It doesn't care how the game of death is played so long as you're playing it.

The thing to realize then is that if ego IS separation, and separation entirely depends on INEQUALITY, then the restoration of perfect equality causes ego to vanish. In fact, since ego is illusion or a shadow, a fake appearance, or a sense of a LACK OF light as in darkness, this lack is based on inequality. ie that one thing lacks what another has. And without this lack, there can be no ILLUSION OF the ABSENCE OF what the other part has. And so as you approach equality, you simply phase out separateness and erase differences, thereby completely undoing ego. And there is no ego AT ALL in an equal state.

To me this makes metaphysical and logical sense. It makes less sense to me, and perhaps is not even supported by the course, to say that ego is some kind of separate person, or ONLY the separate person, or one half of mind, or a made-up self.

The course does refer to a false self and a false self image, but this false sense of self is kind of a side effect of the division BETWEEN parts of mind. This separation - the split mind - results in both parts of mind being seemingly lacking or diminished. The half you associate with maybe takes on more of a sense of "artificial identity" - artificial identification or association. While the other half seems to become unconscious.

But really in the big picture, when you look at it, Jesus essentially just describes "the separation from God" and its undoing through atonement. It describes separation as synonymous with dissociation and the splitting of mind into two parts. So the undoing of this split, the removal of separation BETWEEN the parts, undoes the separation and restores the WHOLENESS of the mind. The unification or oneness of the mind.

One thing to bear in mind though is that in fact, in a split minded state, we do tend to DISSOCIATE a large portion of mind. The part of mind we DO associate with, which seems to be experienced as WITHIN us or inside the body or inside the bounds of its container, looks upon the other split-off part as "outside" of itself.

And this tends to project it and place it external to the body, which it identifies as symbolizing the "perimeter" of itself, making it easy to ASSOCIATE the second half of mind with other bodies. This leads to the effortless CONFUSION WITH other bodies, associating this other half of mind WITH other bodies, and thus believing other people are "where the sin is" or are "who the enemy is".

This then leads to our continued efforts to DESTROY this other half of mind, labeling it as the home of sin and guilt, projected externally, bound to others, as if accusing THEM of our own sin. "You but accuse your brother of your own sins". You then attempt to correct what seems to you to be "them", when in fact it is the OTHER PART OF YOURSELF that you are attacking.

This is especially true on another level as well, in that your brothers ARE you, in a oneness kind of way, and attacking them DOES also attack you. So as you split off part of your mind and label it "not me", by DISSOCIATING from it, you tend to split off the part that is IN YOUR BROTHER or one with Him. And so you then tend to target YOUR BROTHER as the home of sin and guilt.

But all the while, this is all still happening INSIDE the totality of your whole mind. One part of your mind is at war with the other part. And it is by INTEGRATING BOTH PARTS, which results by UNDOING THE SEPARATION BETWEEN THEM, that restores the mind to health and wholeness. In addition to reawakening your awareness of the whole of your identity. Kind of like large "dormant" parts of mind coming online - coming into awareness, because they are no longer hidden behind walls.

What this tells you ultimately is that your egotism is an attempt to REJECT. And ACIM confirms that the separation was an act of REJECTION. And through rejection you rejected God's will and your self and your brothers, simultaneously rejecting the part of your mind which is ONE with and IN them. So it is through acceptance, the undoing of denial, that you are restored to awareness of the whole of yourself, one with your brothers and God.

Ego, or egotism, or selfishness, or specialness, or idol worship, or special relationships, or valuing illusory treasures, or elevating the body etc, is all different ways of EMPHASIZING DIFFERENCE, which is a primary ego function of INCREASING SEPARATIONS. Its only goal is to INTENSIFY the separation, to make you believe you are MORE separate, and to SPLIT your mind further.

All of the egos activities are so fully fixated on this "increase in separation", that you really can equate the two things. Ego is far less some kind of sneaky little devil entity hiding in the mind, and more of a SABATEUR, coming BETWEEN you and your brothers, interfering with relationship, breaking down communication, and trying to SPLIT YOU IN HALF.

You become more split as you REJECT. You become less split as you INTEGRATE. You become more split as you attack. You become less split as you JOIN. You become more split as you hate and hurt. You become less split as you love and heal. And it is really the RIFT between YOUR OWN PARTS OF MIND, that you are working on healing.

One part of your mind you see as an EXTERNAL VICTIMIZER, and another part as an INTERNAL VICTIM. The internal victim puts on "the face of innocence", while the external victimizer puts on the face of evil and sin and death. The secret of salvation tells you thus that your DISSOCIATED part of mind SEEMS to be attacking the ASSOCIATED part of mind. The "outer" self, is attacking the "inner self". And this takes place by backward perception ie the reversal of cause and effect - being at the effect of the "world."

But the truth is you are NOT at the effect of THE WORLD, you are at the effect of the part of your MIND that you have ASSOCIATED WITH the world, projected onto it. It is not some other person who is willing against you, it is YOU using your will AGAINST your own will, in a war against yourself. And this is all happening WITHIN YOU. Inside your mind.

So now you have to realize that the externalized "not me", really IS YOU. It is part of your mind ACTING AGAINST the rest of your mind. And this happens because you have a divided will, due to the SPLIT. It's like having two heads or two conflicting opinions in the same mind. You have to find a way to bring these two parts together into the light. And there you have to see the SEPARATION BETWEEN THEM disappear, so that the two parts are reintegrated as ONE.

This never involves the destruction of MIND or any part of mind. Mind is permanent. All it involves it the removal of EGOIC ATTITUDES,, which produce SEPARATION. The undoing of the separation from God is what atonement and forgiveness is all about. And once YOUR MIND is no longer split, you CANNOT BE ATTACKED.

In fact, it is SO clear that you need to reintegrate the dissociated parts of mind, and that these parts of mind are YOUR ONLY ENEMY, that once you realize that EVERY form of attack against you IS COMING FROM YOURSELF.... playing the part of an INDIRECT victimizer, you realize that you can be FREE from suffering forever if you will stop attacking yourself.

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

"It is but myself I crucify."

"Secret of salvation" .... "you are doing this to yourself."In this realization, that the externalized part of mind is WITHIN your mind, and the OVERLOOKING of the "differences" between the parts of mind, which results in UNIFICATION or reunion, you heal the mind's SPLIT and restore its sanity. And this means taking full responsibility for being the one who has been doing everything to you.

This sets you free because it acknowledges you have NEVER suffered except by YOUR OWN hand. No one, nor the world, has EVER attacked you. Every form of suffering has been self inflicted. And it has only EVER been YOUR MIND'S DIVIDED STATE that has produced illusions of suffering. You CANNOT suffer, without a split mind. This is also why it's true that everyone is SELF-destructive in this world.

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer." Nor can it be sick, or attack, and NOR does it use the body FOR attack, OR as a separation device. And this heals the body and guarantees its health. So the healing of the SPLIT in YOUR mind is ALL you have to do. This is what it means by accepting atonement FOR YOURSELF. Which has NOTHING to do with other people, until you share and express it. And in the atonement, the ego - the SEPARATION - is erased.

A Course in Miracles itself is over 550,000 words of deep and dense material. It appears filled with meaning dripping from every word, and seems to talk on many topics. But really the entire thing has very simple origins and a very simple goal.

You simply started off in heaven's reality with God, and then you tried to rebel against his will and put yourself to sleep. You had a strange dream of mortality, and now you're trying to remember what your immortal reality is like again, so that you can wake up. It's no more complex than that.

Jesus even summarizes what the course/atonement is encouraging you to accept, in just 4 words, as "only reality is true." Or similarly "only the truth is true and nothing else is true." Or "I am under no laws but God's."The "truth" is what is "real", what is actual, is the most encompassing and the least interpreted. Just simply, what really exists as given by God. That which is actually happening and its truest actual meaning without distortion or denial.

The whole course is simply saying that you fell into a strange sleep where you appear to be insane and have lost touch with reality. And now he is trying to help you to become sane again. It's funny when after a while he says: "you are no longer WHOLLY insane."

"Not wholly mad, you have been willing to look on much of your insanity, and recognize its madness. Your faith is moving inward, past insanity and on to reason."

"For you are no longer WHOLLY insane, and you WOULD recognize the guilt of SELF-betrayal FOR WHAT IT IS."

But it's worth realizing that words are symbols of symbolic things - dream things. Just as the body is a dream, it symbolizes separation and ego. And the word "body" symbolizes that symbol. And A Course in Miracle as a book of 550,000+ words is filled with symbols.

Symbols always point beyond themselves to something else that they represent. They are not ends in themselves and don't really have their own meaning. They are representatives of a state prior to themselves, from which they express. Just as the body is a symbol and an expression which represents the mind from which it comes.

Jesus teaches that "nothing so blinding as perception of form". And that believing form is real or true is false perception. So when you look at the forms of the words in the course and you take them to be the truth, in and of themselves, based on the form they take, you are in fact blinded by perception of form.

Some people become very enamored with the choice of symbols in the course, the beauty of its seeming artistic poetry, and its mastery of language. But it only appears this way because it came from an origin higher and beyond and prior to itself, who articulated otherwise random symbols into seemingly symbolic arrangements to convey a message.

It's possible to mistake the words in the book for the truth itself, to idolize those words, to put them on a pedestal and think of them as the word of God. It's also possible to then become blinded by them, unable to look deeper or see the meaning on which they are based. Ultimately the purpose of the course is to make itself unnecessary, all of it has to eventually be let go and all of its words overlooked through forgiveness.

There becomes fanatical defense against the words being changed, the preservation of the words, and the attempt to prove logical arguments based on whether or not the words show up in the book. But this is all a false perception of the course, taking an illusion to be reality.

What is really needed, to go deeper, is a forgiveness even of the course itself. What begins as false perceptions of very sophisticated wordings must at some point move past the appearance of its symbols. To mistake a symbol for the thing it symbolizes is a mistake.

If you want to really find out what things mean, where they came from, why those symbols were chosen, or what they are expressions of, then you have to move beyond the words. You have to overlook their form and not get hung up on whether or not something is explicitly written, or whether it's in its original form, or whether it's been edited all to hell.

Jesus expressed A Course in Miracles from a very lofty vantage point, a point in which words mean nothing. He translated his awareness and experience into symbols upon symbols and into sequences of symbols, to try to speak a language that you might understand, or which might at least serve as an in-road towards their origin.

The words in the book are signposts and pointers, aiming in the direction of the truth. But they are not the truth itself. Nor are they even capable of accurately representing that truth, although Jesus has done an exceptional job of being very careful to convey meaning as accurately as possible. But you still have to learn to look past the words if you want to find out what they really mean, otherwise the course is just another idol.

What I personally found is that behind all of the words in the book, there is a deeper metaphysics. There is a logic which is amazingly impeccable and self evident, a living logic. There are natural structures and perfect extensions of truth. That even God is a logical premise with a logical conclusion.

There are reasons for everything being the way it is in reality, and in the ego's realm. Even the separation and the nature of this world are a progression of logical reasoning. The descent into hell was a procession of logical steps leading away from the truth, and all of this can be carefully detailed.

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos do follow neatly from their starting point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth."

What you eventually have to do is a total rewind of all learning back to the origin, back to the nature of God and his reality. You have to then look logically and with reason, and very carefully, at how and why God is the way he is. To look at what it means to be absolute, infinite, unlimited, immortal, eternal and so on. There are laws behind all of this.

This is because God is actually the logical premise of all reality. It is his nature which dictates the entire laws that heaven is based upon. He is the truth and the source of all reality. If you understand why he is the way he is, then you can begin to logically reason why everything else must be the way it is. Because everything began with God and everything else followed very precicely.

Even if you completely forget everything you ever learned in ACIM and just start over from the very beginning, with the nature of God's reality, and reason out from there, you will surprisingly find that you'll come to the exact same conclusions that are written in ACIM.

Thats's because everything ACIM is saying is logically perfect. It is completely true. And if it weren't, the logic would be out of alignment with it and show why it is flawed. But it's not flawed, because Jesus is not flawed, and he knew exactly what he was talking about, as he still does.

In fact the entire nature and structure of creation, of all real relationship, including the shared sonship and the laws of heaven, all derive according to very simple and clear logical rules. These rules and their extension can be followed perfectly and make absolutely perfect logical sense. They are completely impeccable and flawless in their clarity that only a fool would argue against them once explained.

When you take these very simple logical foundations and you look at what they mean and imply, and then you take A Course in Miracles and you look at what it says about God's reality and nature, you find that they EXACTLY match in every case. They validate each other. Which means that everything in reality is perfectly logical, is exactly is the way it is, and can only be that way, and cannot be any other way. And that therefore ACIM is in fact based on the real truth.

Looking to these logical foundations, the logic can be expressed in simple words or diagrams, and it can be shown step by step, exactly why God is the way God is, exactly why and how he creates, exactly what must be created and its nature, and why the Kingdom of God operates the way it does. It can all be accurately described, and in far less words than are in ACIM. The basics are quite simple.

When you get all the words out of the way, so to speak, and see the deeper connection or basis for all of it, then you realize that Jesus really is just basing all his expressions on very simple concepts. Seeing past the complexity of the many ways it has been expresed, and not being blinded by its forms is the hard part. And it can take many years to try to find the needles in the haystack.

See, Jesus doesn't really write at the level of the words. It's not like some regular human who is sitting in this world at a typewriter pounding the keys and coming up with an egoic novel about ego stuff. He has written the course from a maximally high level, translating truths into an elegant breakdown of its aspects. How it applies to the world, how it applies to the body, how it applies to relationship etc.

He's done this so that you can be reached wherever your starting point is, and in terms you are familiar with, and using language and references you can understand. But the purpose isn't to leave you there poking around in the dirt and arguing over words, but to raise you up and bring you closer to the origins of the course. To the state of reality Jesus shares, and to its divine truth.

The metaphysics that the course is based on, shows that the course itself is an expression of something higher and deeper. It comes from a source that is very simple and is in touch with reality. Just because a person is putting the same teaching into over half a million words, or even a trillion words, doesn't mean that even more than a few words are needed to convey the whole truth, such as that "God is".

You don't necessarily need all those words. You don't really need to learn every single word form or memorize every quote or only quote from a specific version. In fact if you cannot use reason to determine WHETHER or not something is true and accurate, you are already in a state of not only depending entirely on but being blinded by the words themselves. You're supposed to see the logic behind them.

You don't really have to even read the whole book. It has a holographic nature reflecting the holographic nature of reality, such that the whole truth is in every part, because every part is an expression from the whole truth, given wholly and truthfully. Jesus wrote it all from a single whole truth and all of it expresses a cohesive single message, which you can find on every page.

You do need to fully apply it yes. You need to fully learn the simple truth, the basic nature of your self. You do need to shift allegiance from the forms of error to the unified reality. And you do need to develop trust and learn to relate with actual love and so on. But you don't need hundreds of thousands of words to do that. Maybe at first it seems you do, then later you realize you don't.

What I'm doing in the book I'm working om right now, is stripping away all the words entirely and "starting over" with pure logic. I'm examining what is deeper than all these words. I'm going to present extremely clearly what the real logic of God is and what reality's nature is.

I'll be explaining in simple clear steps exactly how heaven came to be and why it is run by the laws that it is. How creation comes of it and what must be true of you. This can all be arrived at through simple logical steps. Even God's nature can be logically and accurately described, because what you find out is that reality is in fact a living logic system of divine states, with very specific rules.

The aim is to come up with a "reformulation" of the form of the course's teachings, in far fewer words and in much simpler terms. A deep look at the ideas behind its many words. A formulation which still represents the truth with perfect accuracy, but which can be learned very quickly and easily in its more purified form.

Really the metaphysics behind the course is very simple and clear-cut, its not all that complicated once you can see it. But for many people, seeing through the fog of the course's words can be a hurdle in itself. It needs to be laid out in the simplest and clearest way possible, to save time and effort and to provide accuracy and clarity. And it has to bypass the entire realm of "opinion" - the logic has to stand on its own two feet and speak for itself.

That's why I'm making the book that I'm making right now. It will cut through all the noise and all the opinions and all the ego arguments and all the confusion. It goes deeper than debate and countless theories and interpretations that are hung up on word choices.

It's kind of like brushing away all the many forms that have covered over the course's true origins, to reveal what's behind it at all. I hope it will act as a "primer" and easier introduction, especially for those who are newer to the course.

You'll see, once you read it, and as you follow its reasoning, that it is extremely hard to deny what it says, and it is ultra clear in making total sense. I'm deliberately making it so that it is practically impossible to find fault in it. The logical is very flawless, not because I'm "expert" at it but just because reality's laws are themselves flaweless. Such that the true metaphysics of the course will be revealed in the light and seen for what it must be, completely accurately and consistently.

Then the really interesting thing is that, once armed with this tool, a kind of magnifying glass for the course bringing its depths totally into the light, it actually shines a light of clarity onto all that the course says. It helps to frame its meaning, to clarify intentions, to properly identify what Jesus meant in his wordings, and to steer away from common misinterpretations. The logic even helps you to realize things which must be true, which may not even be written in ACIM itself, yet are completely consistent with it.

The book itself actually stands alone in that it comes to the same conclusions as the course through its own process. It doesn't even rely on the course or anything the course says, to make its points. It doesn't need any quotes from the book either. It simply uses clear reasoning to come up with a clear metaphysical foundation.

Then it looks to what the course says to find out IF it agrees. And it happens to validate and agree with everything it says. And both of them reflect each other perfectly because they're based on the same exact truth.

God and his Kingdom of Heaven are the truth. God's laws are the only laws. Anything which is true is true of God and his creation. There is no other truth because God's truth is absolute and all-encompassing.

In the "separation from God", we tried to make an opposite to this. We wanted to oppose the truth. The opposite of what is true, is clearly what is false. It must be false if it does not share any of the properties of what is true, and claims the exact opposite.

And so we actually made up a world, a fiction or fantasy world, which depicts things AS IF they are true, but which are inherently false. Since what is true is also what is real, and alive, the world that we tried to invent is both unreal and unalive.

It is also true that God and his truth are the only meaning. God is fully meaningful because he is fully truthful. That means he is honest, and accepts only the truth as true. He does not confuse what is true with what is false.

This also means that the world we made is meaningless, because we wanted to oppose meaningfulness. And so we made a meaningless, unreal, false, untrue, artificial world. A world which isn't really what it seems to be.

Another word for what is false, is a lie. Or we can also call it a deception. All illusory unreal things deceive because they cannot be true, but attempt to assert that they are. This effort to be something they are not, is what we call temptation. It is the temptation to believe that what is false is true, what is unreal is real, and what is impossible is possible.

This is why the world depicts a great many things which seem like they are possible, are happening, are true, are real, as if the world is even alive and existing. This cannot BE true, because the world opposes all of these things. It opposes possibility, truth, reality, and existence.

What this basically boils down to is that the world is a fiction and everything in it is impossible. It is a lie. A huge gigantic universe-sized lie. Absolutely everything in it is not true. Not one single thing that seems to be happening is happening. Not one single thing that seems possible is possible. Not one thing which seems to prove evidence that it HAS happened, has happened at all.

So now you have a world which is fundamentally a mistake. We were mistaken when we made it, because we believed the impossible was possible - in the tiny mad idea. We made it "by mistake" in the sense that we thought it could be achievable, even though it wasn't. And so all we really did was wish and dream for a world that cannot ever exist.

Ultimately then, heaven is in a state of perfection, reality and truth, wherein everything there is happening and does exist and is alive. Everything there is completely natural and permanent. There is nothing wrong with it, nothing ever goes wrong with it, and it cannot be affected or attacked by anything.

In that truth, which is the only truth, everyone is permanently safe. No one is ever really sick. No one ever dies. There is no suffering of any kind. No-one has any real unhappiness. There is no attack or war or grounds for murder. Everything is permanently perfect and everyone knows it.

So then what we have in front of our physical false faces, is a depiction of a lie, an idea of something utterly impossible, which isn't really there and isn't really happening. All the things you see in the news. All the wars and conflicts, arguments and attacks, people with sicknesses and pain, murder and deaths, and all the claims of "the proof of sin" that say "it really has happened" are entirely lies.

So yes that means that even if there seems to be a dead body laying on the ground PROVING that a murder did happen, and there is police evidence, this is STILL not true. There is not really a dead body anywhere, or even a ground. And so the world is riddled with what we call the "proof" that sin is happening all the time. The seemingly undeniable in-your-face look-at-it-and-don't-deny-it lies which are held up as victory over God and over reality.

NONE OF THIS IS REAL. IT IS ALL A LIE.

The weird thing then is that we have a reality of the Kingdom of God which is perfectly happy and joyous and filled with love and peace and celebration, in which everyone is utterly perfect and harmonious. And then we have "over there" this "picture of crucifixion" which depicts all manner of horrible nightmares and upsetting events transpiring. And only one of these can be true.

Either God's reality is true and there is no nightmare of any kind, or the world is real. Either there are only God's permanent laws, or the laws of physics are true. Either we are immortal unlimited beings or death is real. Either sickness is utterly impossible or sickness is completely happening all over the place.

This is the choice we are making all the time, between heaven or hell. It is the only choice there is. Are we going to be CONVINCED by this LIE OF A WORLD, or are we going to be convinced of the truth of heaven's reality? Is God correct, or is the ego? Is eternal life the only possibility, or is mortality and suffering and death the ultimate truth? You have to pick a side because they can't both be true.

If the world is indeed a lie, then NOTHING IN IT IS TRUE. And learning this fact and accepting it is the recognition of enlightenment. It means being faced with an illusion and SEEING THROUGH it. "To forgive is to overlook." And the world that you forgive has to disappear. "Illusions recognized must disappear." "A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies, but forgiveness looks past bodies."

Heaven asserts, nothing has ever gone wrong, and everything is still perfect. Everything real is still perfectly immortal and unharmed and undefiled and there is absolutely nothing to be upset about. The Earth asserts, everything has gone wrong, it's all falling apart and going to hell, everything dies and there is no escape. Which are you going to listen to? The ego represents the shrieking voice of hell and evil, while the Holy Spirit represents the Voice that speaks For God - in favor of God.

Only one truth can be true. Are you going to trust, have faith in, believe, side with, and adopt God's truth as the only truth, or are you going to allow a completely fictional false world to masquerade as reality?

All miracle workers must recognize the world IS FALSE, and everything in it IS UNREAL. That sick bodies are faking it. That dead bodies are not really dead. That there is nothing they cannot do because they rest on the unlimited laws of God. They dispel and disbelieve any claims by anyone that there is anything wrong with them, disregard all symptoms as lies, and refuse to acknowlege the lie that death can happen. And through this strength of conviction their miracles come forth and resurrect the sleeping and the dead.

"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source."

"You looked upon the unreal and found despair. But by SEEKING the unreal, what else COULD you find? The UNreal world IS a thing of despair, for it can never be."

"But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change." "This is the great deception of the world, and you the great deceiver of yourself."

"Judging truth as something they do NOT want, they perceive deception and block knowledge."

"But to give illusions to Truth is to enable truth to teach that the ILLUSIONS are unreal, and thus enable you to ESCAPE from them."

"to overlook the truth in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an illusion true."

"Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you."

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

"the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."

"We try to hide from Him, and suffer from deception."

"Except for God's teachers there would be no hope of salvation, for the world of sin would be forever real. The self-deceiving must deceive, for they must teach deception. And what else is hell?"

"Pain is a wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes which will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclaims God cruel. How could it be real in any form?"

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you REALLY understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who SEEM to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are WHOLLY unreal?" "Let not the dream take hold to close your eyes. It is not strange that dreams can make a world that is unreal. The WISH to make it IS incredible."

"Each thing you look upon you saw but for an instant, long ago, before its unreality gave way to truth."

"Let not the world deceive you. It was made to be deception. Yet its snares can be so easily escaped a little child can walk through safely, and without a care that would arrest its progress."

"this strange world you made, but do not want. The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."

"Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self deception. And like all the rest its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself."

"The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it."

"The real world was given you by God, in loving exchange for the world YOU made, and which you SEE."

"Leave ALL deception behind, and reach beyond all attempts of the ego to hold you back."

"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."

"You are no more a slave to time than to the world you made."

"You made the body in attempting to deceive yourself."

"It IS essential it be understood what they are FOR, because it is their PURPOSE to make meaningless, and to ATTACK the truth. Here are the laws that rule the world you made. And yet they govern nothing, and need NOT be broken; merely looked upon and gone beyond."

"If the center of the thought system is TRUE, only truth extends outward from it. But if a lie is at its center, only DECEPTION proceeds from it."

"The mind can make the belief in Separation VERY real and VERY fearful. And this belief IS the devil. It is powerful, active, destructive, and clearly in opposition to God, because it literally denies His Fatherhood. Never underestimate the power of this denial. Look at your lives and see what the devil has made. But KNOW that this making will surely dissolve in the light of truth, because its foundation IS a lie."

"Side with me CONSISTENTLY against this deception, as we have sided against it briefly already."

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception."

"Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done TO you. Acknowledge but that YOU have been mistaken, and ALL effects of your mistakes will disappear."

"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within YOU, there is a force which NO illusions can resist."

"The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given." "You have need to use the symbols of the world a while. But be you not deceived by them as well."

"Now it becomes your task to let the illusion be carried to the truth. Be steadfast but in this; be not deceived by the "reality" of any changing form."

"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see."

"For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take." "Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place, made out of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deception UNdone."

"Leave it behind. Do not listen to it, and do not preserve it. Listen only to God, who is as incapable of deception as are the Souls he created. As teachers and therapists, release yourselves and release others. Do not present a false and unworthy picture of yourselves TO others, or accept such a picture OF them yourselves."

"Illusions serve the purpose they were MADE to serve. And FROM their purpose, they derive whatever meaning that they seem to have. God gave to ALL illusions that were made ANOTHER purpose that would justify a miracle, WHATEVER form they took. In every miracle ALL healing lies, for God gave Answer to them all as one. And what is one to Him must BE the same. If you believe what is the same is different, you but deceive yourself. What God calls one will be forever one, NOT separate. His Kingdom IS united; thus it was created, and thus will it ever be."

"Be not deceived by what appears as many choices. There is hell or Heaven. And of these you choose but ONE."