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In ACIM Jesus makes many clear references to a distinction between heaven and earth. He particularly uses the term "in heaven" as an opposite to "on earth". This clearly implies to most readers that heaven is some kind of place which is "not earth", which is "other than earth", which is "beyond earth", and which you can "be in" as an alternative to "being on earth".

"The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God, who left not his Father, and dwells not apart from Him."

"Heaven waits for his return, for it was created as the dwelling place of God's Son."

Jesus clearly distinguishes that there are two places. You can be in heaven, and you can be on the earth. And they are not the same. Heaven is actually a vast realm of creation and living beings which earth barely has any awareness of. And heaven is a place you can "go to". Do not be deceived by statements such as "heaven is not a place", because this refers only to it not being localized in space. Heaven is everywhere, earth is nowhere.

It is also clear that heaven's properties are not like the properties of earth. We can bring some aspects of heaven "down" onto the earth, such as forgiveness which symbolizes heaven, and such as holy relationships which symbolize real relationships in heaven. Indeed earth can even "reflect" heaven. But it cannot BE heaven.

Jesus is clear that these are two states and two orders of reality and they are opposites. And even when earth is reinterpreted "as if part of heaven", it is still not the same. Nor is there any life outside of heaven, and earth is outside of heaven.

You can be on the earth, or in heaven. On the earth, your function is to forgive and heal to prepare your mind for God to take the final step, which literally takes you OFF the earth and INTO heaven. Back home to God where you belong. Heaven is your home. Earth is an alien world to you. Forgive the world and go home.

"Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. And as it is in Heaven, so on earth. Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your Effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, where earth will disappear, and separate things unite in glory as the Son of God."

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

"He was "called down upon the earth"

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

"Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It is the reflection of God's Love on earth. It will bring me near enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me to my home."

"His holy will can never be denied, because his Father shines upon his mind, and lays before it all the strength and love in earth and Heaven."

"Forgiveness represents your function here. It is not God's creation, for it is the means by which untruth can be undone. And who would pardon Heaven? Yet on earth you need the means to let illusion go. Creation merely waits for your return to be acknowledged, not to be complete."

"Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth. For being Heaven-borne, it has no form at all."

"The gifts of God are in my hands, to give to anyone who would exchange the world for Heaven."

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

"For God's Will is done in earth and Heaven."

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

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

"Yet he whom I forgive will give me gifts beyond the worth of anything on earth. Let my forgiven brothers fill my store with Heaven's treasures, which alone are real."

"The song of freedom, which sings the praises of ANOTHER world, brings to it hope of peace. For it REMEMBERS Heaven. And now it sees that Heaven HAS come to earth at last, from which the ego's rule has kept it out so long. Heaven has come because it found a home in your relationship on earth. And earth can hold no longer what has been GIVEN Heaven as its own."

"His Words are born in God, and come to you with Heaven's love upon them. Those who hear His Words have heard the song of Heaven, for these are the words in which all will merge as one at last."

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father. Let today be celebrated both on earth and in your holy home as well."

"Your will be done! In Heaven as on earth this is forever true."

"It does not matter if you think you are in earth or Heaven. What your Father wills for you can never change."

"You become the symbol of his Father here on earth."

"No-one on earth can grasp what Heaven is, or what its One Creator really means. Yet we have witnesses. It is to them that wisdom would appeal." "All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do."

"The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven and Earth are in YOU, because the call of both are in your wills, and therefore in your minds."

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

"But God has given him a better Friend, in whom all power in earth and Heaven rests."

"In Heaven, means and end are one, and One with Him. This is the state of true creation, found not within time, but in eternity. To no-one here is this describable."

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

"It is His holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one."

"He denies NOT his own reality BECAUSE it is the truth. Just under Heaven does he stand, but close enough NOT to return to earth. For this relationship HAS Heaven's holiness. How far from home can a relationship so like to Heaven BE?"

"It does not judge your proper role. It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth in Heaven's plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven's peace."

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

"Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and, although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here."

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

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

"For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter."

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

"You want to see the sunlight and the glow of Heaven shining on the face of earth, redeemed from sin and in the Love of God."

"Prayer is a ladder reaching up to Heaven. At the top there is a transformation much like your own, for prayer is part of you. The things of earth are left behind, all unremembered."

"Today's idea takes another step toward quick salvation, and a giant stride it is indeed! So great the distance is that it encompasses, it sets you down just short of Heaven, with the goal in sight and obstacles behind. Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to Heaven's gate; the quiet place of peace where you await with certainty the final step of God. How far are we progressing now from earth!"

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

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

"The miracles you do on earth are lifted up to Heaven, and to Him. They witness to what you do not know, and, as they reach the gates of Heaven, God will open them. For never would He leave His own beloved Son outside them, and beyond Himself."

"How could there be a meeting place at all where earth and Heaven can be reconciled within a mind where both of them exist?"

"He understands all power in earth and Heaven belongs to him because of who he is."

"And then you hold the key that opens Heaven's gate, and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven. God will take this final step Himself."

"Not yet is Heaven quite remembered, for the purpose of forgiveness still remains. Yet everyone is certain he will go BEYOND forgiveness, and he but remains until it is made perfect in himself."

"There is a hope of happiness in him so sure and constant he can barely stay, and wait a little longer with his feet still touching earth. Yet is he glad to wait 'til every hand is joined, and every heart made ready to arise and go with him. For thus is HE made ready for the step in which is all forgiveness left behind."

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

"But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming."

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

"There IS no change in immortality, and Heaven knows it not. Yet here on earth, it has a double purpose, for it can be made to teach opposing things. And they reflect the teacher who is teaching them."

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

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

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

"Your other life has continued without interruption, and has been and always will be totally unaffected by your attempts to dissociate."

"The body is the symbol of the world. Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there anytime you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so."

Once upon a time, in heaven, there was a rebellion against the will of God. The children of God believed they were separate, and threw themselves into a nightmare world of magic and hell and death.

God saw this and, loving his Children, created the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was a divine idea in God's mind, a single perfect idea of healing the entire separation. A thought of miraculous power and of love. An expression, as though a voice, calling his children to return, and providing them with all he help and healing they would need.

The Holy Spirit was established as the single perfect solution to the thought of separation, the bringer of the atonement, the very idea of resurrection and healing. The miracle, which was given by God to completely and fully and successfully heal the entire sonship.

The Holy Spirit has been endowed with all of the power in heaven and earth. All of God has been given him and he is absolutely unlimited in his capabilities. He is the mechanism of miracles, because he alone is in a state of the transfer from hell to heaven.

He is your only appointed friend, he is your only teacher, your only qualified therapist, and your comforter. He has been given to you by God as the only help you need to return to heaven, to become a miracle worker, to act as a healer, and to resurrect the dead.

His healing capability is perfect and flawless and guaranteed to always work. He never fails. His healing is powerful and effective and there is absolutely nothing beyond his reach. There is no situation he cannot resolve and no sickness he cannot undo.

He is your guide through foreign lands and alien worlds. He is there for you. He has been created as a permanent part of reality, bridging your mind and God's mind like a bridge, guaranteeing your absolute success in returning to reality.

The Holy Spirit cannot fail. He is beyond all flaws, beyond weakness, and beyond death. There is nothing he cannot do, and nothing he cannot do through you when you are willing to let him. He can undo all the consequences of all wrong decisions, all faulty choices, all attempts to make yourself suffer, and all forms of sickness. The reversal of death is effortless to him.

He has been given to you by God as the single perfect solution to your desperate attempt to be separate. He is the answer to the questioning and the doubting and the fearing of God. He provides the vision for you to see, the power for you to heal, and the guidance and comfort to guarantee all outcomes.

Your mission is to align with him, follow his guidance, turn to him for all decisions, depend on him for healing, work with him to heal others, and help to facilitate and extend his perfect function in the world. Your destiny is to be a healer with the Holy Spirit. He is the power that works miracles through you. Utilizing his power is the natural expression of all the children of God for the good of all.

He is not of this world. He is of God and of heaven. He brings to you and to this world a power and a functioning which is in complete violation of all the world's laws. He stands for an opposite and alternative solution, a happier dream, and the only way home. He will guide you and strengthen you and support you and work through you. He will speak for you, see for you, decide for you, heal for you, and resurrect you. And he will guide you back to eternal life. With him you are unstoppable and all powerful. With him there is nothing your holiness cannot do as a miracle worker, the light of the world, a teacher of God, a physician of the Lord, and a representative of God.

"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you CAN see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them. Perceiving His RESULTS, you will understand where He MUST be, and finally KNOW what He is."

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

"Lead not your little lives in solitude, with one illusion as your only friend. This is no friendship worthy of God's Son, nor one with which he could remain content. But God has given him a better Friend, in whom all power in earth and Heaven rests. The one illusion that you THINK is friend obscures HIS grace and majesty from you, and keeps his friendship and forgiveness from your welcoming embrace. Without him you are friendless. Seek not another friend to take his place. There IS no other friend. What God appointed HAS no substitute. And what illusion CAN replace the truth?"

"Make NO illusion friend, for if you do, it CAN but take the place of him whom God has called your Friend. And it is he who is your ONLY Friend in truth. He brings you gifts that are not of this world, and only he, to whom they have been given, CAN make sure that you receive them. He will place them on YOUR throne, when you make room for him on his."

"All therapy is release from the past. And that is why the Holy Spirit IS the only therapist."

"The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist. He makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which He is the guide. The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE. Remember that you ARE choosing a guide for helping, and the wrong choice will NOT help. But remember also that THE RIGHT ONE WILL. Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God."

"Do not, then, think that following the Holy Spirit's guidance is necessary merely because of your own inadequacies. It is the way out of hell for you."

"Leave ALL decisions to the One Who speaks for God, and for your function as He KNOWS it. So will He teach you to remove the awful burden you have laid upon yourself, by loving not the Son of God, and trying to teach him guilt INSTEAD of love."

"Make no decisions about what it is, or where it lies, but ask of the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING, and leave ALL decisions to His gentle counsel. The One Who knows the plan, of God which God would have you follow, can teach you what it IS. Only His wisdom is capable of guiding you to follow it."

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

"Perception is not an attribute of God. His is the realm of knowledge. Yet He has created the Holy Spirit as the Mediator between perception and knowledge. Without this link with God, perception would have replaced knowledge forever in your minds. With this link with God, perception will become so changed and purified that it will lead to knowledge. That is its function as the Holy Spirit sees it. Therefore, that is its function in truth."

"The Holy Spirit was God's answer to the separation, the means by which the Atonement could repair until the whole mind returned to creating. The Atonement and the separation began at the same time. When man made the ego, God placed in him the call of joy. This call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at its sound."

"The Atonement principle was given to the Holy Spirit long before Jesus set it in motion."

"Therefore, says reason, if escape from guilt was given to the Holy Spirit as His purpose, and by One to Whom NOTHING He wills CAN BE impossible, the means for its attainment are MORE than possible. They must be THERE, and YOU must HAVE them."

"The seemingly new abilities that may be gathered on the way can be very helpful. Given to the Holy Spirit, and used under His direction, they are very valuable teaching aids."

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

"The Holy Spirit is the mind of the Atonement. It represents a state of mind that comes close enough to one-mindedness that transfer is at last possible."

"The Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracle-mindedness. It is the will to HEAL the separation by letting it go. It is IN you because God placed it in your mind, and although you can keep it asleep you cannot obliterate it. God Himself keeps it alive by transmitting it from His Mind to yours as long as there is time. It is partly His will and partly yours. The miracle itself is just this fusion or union of will between Father and Son."

"The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Joy. It is the call to return, with which God blessed the minds of the separated Sons. This the vocation of the mind."

"The way to LEARN TO KNOW your brother is by perceiving the Holy Spirit in him. We have already said that the Holy Spirit is the bridge or thought-transfer of perception TO knowledge, so we CAN use the terms as if they were related, because in HIS mind they are. "

"The Holy Spirit is the IDEA of healing. Being thought, the idea GAINS AS IT IS SHARED. Being the call FOR God, it is also the idea OF God."

"The Holy Spirit is the mediator between the interpretations of the ego and the knowledge of the Soul. Its ability to deal with symbols enables it to work AGAINST the ego's beliefs in its own language. Its equal ability to look BEYOND symbols into eternity also enables it to understand the laws of God, for which it speaks."

"The Holy Spirit is the perfect teacher. It uses only what your minds ALREADY understand, to teach you that you do not understand it."

"The voice of the Holy Spirit IS the call to Atonement, or the restoration of the integrity of the mind."

"The Holy Spirit is the radiance that you must let to banish the idea of darkness. His is the glory before which dissociation falls away, and the Kingdom of Heaven breaks through into its own."

"The Holy Spirit is the call to awake and be glad."

"The Holy Spirit is the Christ mind that senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception. It came into being with the separation as a protection, and inspired the beginning of the Atonement at the same time."

"The text explains that the Holy Spirit is the Answer to all problems you have made."

"The Holy Spirit is the home of minds that seek for freedom. In Him they find what they have sought."

"The Holy Spirit IS the translator of the Laws of God to those who do NOT understand them."

"We once said that the Holy Spirit is the Answer. He is the answer to EVERYTHING, because He knows what the answer to everything IS."

"The Holy Spirit is the part of the mind that lies between the ego and the Soul, mediating between them ALWAYS IN FAVOR OF THE SOUL."

"The Holy Spirit is the light in which Christ stands revealed."

"We have said that the Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracles. This is because He ALWAYS tells you that ONLY the mind is real, because only the mind CAN BE SHARED."

"Remember that the Holy Spirit is the ANSWER, not the question." "The Holy Spirit is the bridge to Him, made from your willingness to UNITE with Him, and created by His joy, in union WITH you."

"Remember that the Holy Spirit is the communication link between God the Father and His separated Sons. If you will listen to His voice, you will know that you cannot either hurt or BE hurt, but that many need your blessing to help them hear this for themselves."

"The Holy Spirit is the Highest Communication Medium."

Originally, the only existence was in Heaven. But in the separation, we opposed heaven and made an opposite state of mind. This state of mind then projected an opposite world, rooted in the idea of death (opposition to eternal life). This includes the Earth and the Sun.

"Earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way." "For this world IS the opposite of Heaven, having been made to BE its opposite. And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true."

What we actually did was, we went from total heaven, to total hell. We took it to the extreme. We wanted to be AS opposite to heaven as possible, opposing EVERY law and nature and property of reality. This threw us immediately into insanity, resulting in "false perception."

In making a world opposite to God's nature, we made space and time and matter and planets and bodies. All of these were made in the spirit of opposition and falseness, of attack and sin, of murder and death. The body was also made within false perception, LOCKED IN to false perception, such that we could only see what is false and project it out to make a world. The world was therefore made by us to symbolize total opposition to reality, and the crucifixion of God's son.

"The world is false perception. It is born of error"

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

"These eyes made not to see will never see."

"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."

"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except love's absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him. Here was perception born, for knowledge could not cause such insane thoughts. But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely."

It's important to realize that in fact TWO things happened in the separation:

1) Your mind was in a false state, believing in the murderous opposition to God. It was insane, driven mad by guilt over the attack on God. It could not perceive accurately or truly, it could only be confused and lost and afraid and murderous. It was trying to destroy itself. It had lost touch with truth and reality, and was in darkness or 'evil'.

2) From this dark state of mind, we projected the world. This includes the making of the physical planet Earth and all its bodies and forms, as well as the environment around it. We made the physical world as an attack on God. Due to the insane state of mind we were in, we made it "in hate", with laws of death and punishment, and with the intent to destroy. This is why everything in it eventually dies.

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt."

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

"The world of bodies is the world of sin." "The body is the idea of sin made flesh." "You made the body in attempting to deceive yourself."

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death."

Since we made the world in INSANITY, to oppose heaven's nature and to attack God's family, we really made it without seeing it clearly. We made it in a confused state of mind. We made it in blindness and in darkness and in unwillingness to see. We made it TO hide reality from ourselves, and so have not really looked upon its 'actual' nature. We haven't seen what we really made, we've only seen what it APPEARS to be while in a state of inner false perception.

What Jesus is saying in the course is that because this is all rooted in your mental state, and you can change your mind, you can also be restored to sanity. Your internal landscape can be healed so that it becomes able to recognize reality, recognize that an illusory world IS an illusion and not real, and that you can then return to having real vision. That you can open your eyes and actually take a good clear look at what you made, WITHOUT the negative dark evil baggage of false perception.

It's like, okay, you were in a bad mood one day, you lashed out and made some horrible sculpture, which seemed evil and twisted and wrong. And then your mood brightened, and you lightened up, and you remembered sanity, and then you looked upon the sculpture you made and saw it as if new - as if for the first time, without the past and without hate or sin or guilt or fear. And in that "new light", it does not appear to you the way it appeared in false perception.

Note that this does not mean the world's FORM necessarily changes at all. In fact, the same physical laws apply, the same decay and chaos and war and famine and murder and death and sickness still occur. And the body, which is part of that system, is always able to still "see" that as its reality. BUT, when you see it without the ego baggage of murderous destruction, you are "forgiving it".

Jesus refers to true perception as "accurate perception". That means you are becoming able to see correctly, or clearly, "what is there". ie, to take a look at the twisted, "strange world you made", but from a lighter mood. With a more loving attitude. One which doesn't project guilt and sin ONTO it. But one which also lets you "see it straight", without distortion and without confusion. And this lets you see the world you made in a "forgiving way".

This doesn't in any way really change the fact that the world STILL is a place of suffering and murder and death, or run by death's laws, or designed to attack. But you no longer are DECEIVED BY it, tempted by it, fall for its forms and appearances, or buy into its implications.

"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."

"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."

"Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. Loveliness can light your images, and so transform them that you will love them even though they were made of hate."

"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought which gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear, and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."

So what we're trying to do here is to, while being in a body, change the internal contents of our minds, so that we are no longer in the same state of mind we WERE in when we made the world as a projected attack, so that we STOP PROJECTING THAT. At first, the world is seen WITHOUT the hateful baggage, and then later the lack of ITS SOURCE within our minds, the undoing of the world WITHIN our mind, causes us to STOP PROJECTING IT AT ALL. And then the world disappears.

"These words are sacred, for they are the words God gave in answer to the world you made. By them it disappears, and all things seen within its misty clouds and vaporous illusions vanish as these words are spoken. For they come from God."

"You have been promised full release from the world you made. "

"The real world was given you by God, in loving exchange for the world YOU made, and which you SEE. But take it from the hand of Christ, and look upon it. ITS reality will make everything ELSE invisible, for beholding it is TOTAL perception."

"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."

"For time YOU made, and time you CAN command. You are no more a slave to time than to the world you made."

"For, if you think the world you made has power to make you what IT wills, you ARE confusing Son and Father; effect and Source."

"LOVE ALWAYS ANSWERS, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of 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."

""The real world, in its loveliness, YOU learn to reach. Fantasies are all undone, no-one and nothing remains still bound by them, and, by YOUR OWN forgiveness, you are FREE TO SEE. And WHAT you see is only what YOU HAVE MADE, with the blessing of your forgiveness on it. And, with this final blessing of God's Son UPON HIMSELF, the REAL perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose.

The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him.

The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness. The Great Transformer of perception will undertake WITH you the careful searching of the mind that MADE this world, and uncover TO YOU the SEEMING reasons for your making it. In the light of the REAL reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will SHOW you that there is NO reason here at all. Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty. *****And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness.***** Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release.

All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently ***across chaos*** (the chaos is still there), and removing all illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign (symbol) of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there, he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there in peace.

Even salvation will become a dream, and vanish from his mind. For salvation IS the end of dreams, and, with the closing of the dream, will have no meaning. Who, awake in Heaven, COULD dream that there could ever be NEED of salvation? How much do you WANT salvation? It will GIVE you the real world, trembling with readiness to BE given you. The eagerness of the Holy Spirit to give you this, is so intense He would not wait, although He waits in patience. MEET His patience with your IMpatience at delay in meeting Him. Go out in gladness to meet with your Redeemer, and walk with Him, in trust, ***out of this world***, and into the real world of beauty and forgiveness."

(and why this world is NOTHING like God’s creation)

"For what you are is what He is. There is no love but His, and what He is is everything there is. There is no limit placed upon Himself, and so are you unlimited as well."

Everything about the ego is based on the idea of not sharing anything. This results in everything being completely separate from everything else. What is in a banana, is not in an apple. What is in my house, is not in your house.

Because this ENTIRE UNIVERSE has been made by the ego thought system, every property of matter follows the same law. The ego’s entire statement is "share nothing". Bodies do not share or join. Atoms do not share or join. One mountain is not another mountain. The Earth is not Mars.

In this ego world, absolutely everything is confined to limited FORM. The form or appearance of the surface of objects, fixated on by the body’s eyes, show you a picture of "nothing being shared". Another word for a world where nothing is shared, is DEATH!! This is a world of death, a dream of death, fundamentally. That is why is it OPPOSITE TO LIFE, and OPPOSITE TO HEAVEN IN EVERY WAY. "There is no life outside of heaven" "Only the creations of light are real."

The form of your TV separates and distinguishes it from the form of your chair. Forms seem to have different properties, qualities, identities. This applies not only on the level of the PHYSICAL UNIVERSE, it also applies in all aspects of EGO THINKING.

The ego literally thinks in terms of not sharing. It fundamentally assumes that one thing is separate from another. That one thing is limited by its form and is not something else. There is no oneness. No sharing. No overlap. No unity.

To the ego, there is "only so much to go around". It evaluates the "amount" of something based on "how much form there is". Or in other words, how limited something is. It does not give ANY value to any idea of sharing. It does not count something twice. It does not measure amounts by anything present in multiple objects simultaneously.

This leads to a way of thinking which is anti-abundant, has built in SCARCITY, is fundamentally a thought system of LACK, and therefore produces competition, war and sacrifice. To the ego, there is simply NOT ENOUGH to go around. Not enough of anything. This is the ego saying, God is not enough, God is not sharing, God is nowhere, and love is limited.

It does not simply make this statement or belief on a mental level. It is DEMONSTRATED on the level of PHYSICAL OBJECTS. This entire universe is an idea of lack, deprivation, limitation, scarcity, loss, with nothing being shared, and God being nowhere.

This is because the ego is very very EXCLUSIVE in its thought processes. It *separates out*. It divides. It sees in one part what is MISSING from other parts. If I own the only 1 pound diamond in the world, you do not. If I own the best property in New York, you do not. If I bought all the apples at the store, there are none left for you. There is NO SHARING in the ego. It has absolutely NO CONCEPT of INCLUSIVITY whatsoever.

This is intentional. Because this is the TOTAL OPPOSITE of what God is like. God is not like this AT ALL. This is why "Heaven and earth are opposites IN EVERY WAY". Earth, and this "physical" universe, fundamentally demonstrate the idea of SEPARATION in ALL ITS FORMS. Every form - or object - is the form of ERROR. This world is fundamentally NOT LIKE GOD, down to the subatomic quantum particle. This is why GOD DID NOT CREATE THIS WORLD. It is NOTHING LIKE HIM!!

Here is what God IS like.

God thinks ONLY INCLUSIVELY. God thinks only in terms of SHARING. God thinks only in terms of INCREASE, abundance, availability, unity, creation, an NO form of exclusion.

God does not think, hey, all of myself is over here being shared with Paul, therefore, there’s none of myself left to share with that other person. God does not DECREASE by sharing himself. He is not a quantity. He is not limited. He is not finite. "Nothing real can be increased except by sharing".

Because of SHARING, which the ego has completely opposed, it IS POSSIBLE in God’s world (Heaven) for something to be accessed by multiple individuals simultaneously without ANY LACK. This is because there is no POSSESSION or ownership or exclusivity. Everyone SHARES everything.

This means not simply, there is a limited amount of stuff and we all compromise on how much each gets. That is ego. Rather, each time something is shared, IT INCREASES, because it is CREATED, and this ADDS TO what exists. Each time God shares himself in an act of creation, he puts all of himself into the creation, and yet STILL has all of himself left.

Remember, ideas are INCREASED by being shared or given way. Remember also that nothing real can EXIST UNLESS it is shared and extended. It must extend in order to have PRESENCE, and this makes it shine with radiance. In God’s reality, if you give something to another, you do not LACK it. You do not lose it. You are not left wanting. What you give, YOU HAVE, and you give it only because you have it, and you KEEP IT by giving it. "To have all, give all to all". Giving does not REDUCE. Giving INCREASES.

That means, unlike in the EGO WORLD, Heaven is utterly filled with abundance, everything functions based on SHARING, and sharing does not mean lack or loss. This sharing requires the ability for multiple individuals to OVERLAP, to literally SHARE the same space. Another word for this is oneness. Oneness doesn’t mean "one finite thing" - that is the ego’s version of oneness. Oneness means SHARED WITH ALL AND BY ALL. It DEFIES ego logic.

You being a creation of God, one of many, occurred because God shared the WHOLE of Himself in order to create you. And He created you AS A WHOLE. You have been FULLY created. God thus INCREASED His Kingdom by creating you. You have been ADDED to God. This means that God is IN you, fully, and yet it ALSO is fully present in all other souls. God being in you does NOT limit Him or deprive anyone else of Him. For one simple reason, the one idea and NATURE that the ego hates: SHARING.

You SHARE God with all other creations. You all have access to all of Him, at the same time, with no lack and no private hoarding. This gives new meaning to "whats mine is yours". "One mind contains all minds" "One brother is all brothers". God has One Son AND MANY SONS simultaneously - this is the Sonship. It is REAL BECAUSE it is shared. This is impossible in terms of the ego world of matter, but entirely possible in heaven. "It is the world you see that is impossible" refers to the physical universe, which is a picture of impossibility, a picture of death, a picture of NOT EXISTING because there is no sharing, and a picture of the crucifixion of God’s Son, IN MATTER.

This can be demonstrated through miracles WITHIN this impossible world. Here, it should NOT be possible to feed 5000 people with only a few loaves of bread and a few fish. This is because there is not enough FINITE AMOUNT to go around. The ego says, by its laws, you can only give 5 loaves to 5 people and you have no more to give. This is embedded into the nature of the PHYSICAL OBJECTS.

If there are only a few loaves of bread and a handful of fishes, and there are 5000 people to feed, the ego says there is not enough to go around. God says, YES THERE IS. And through SHARING, at the supernatural level, those loaves and fishes MULTIPLY. The amount INCREASES. All 5000 people get fully fed. This *demonstrates* that what appeared to be finite lack, was an ILLUSION, was not TRUE, was not God’s law, and it was PROVED to be false through a miracle of demonstration. Jesus fed all the people by demonstrating GODS LAW, God’s truth, that sharing increases abundance, there is NO LACK, giving does not diminish, and supply is unlimited.

This is what it means to perform a MIRACLE in this world. To demonstrate that the ego’s ways, the ego’s laws, the very nature of matter itself, IS FALSE, a lie, can be demonstrated to BE a lie, and that God’s power is UNLIMITED. This shows through proof, that this world is lying to you, because its laws of lack and limitation are NOT TRUE. This is why miracles are teaching devices. Jesus didn’t just feed the 5000, he TAUGHT that THERE IS NO LACK, there IS enough for everyone to have ALL of what is available without loss, and what is given to one person is GIVEN EQUALLY to all from an unlimited source.

God shares all of himself with EVERY PART of his creation. There is no competition, no war, no scarcity, no lack, no deprivation, no loss, no reduction, no inability to have everything, no isolation, no exclusion, and no posession. This is why God’s world - heaven - is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to the "physicality" or physical NATURE of this entire universe. God CANNOT have created this world of limitation. Next time you don’t have enough money, remind yourself, THE EGO DID THIS. When you run out of food, the ego did this. When you had to SACRIFICE, the ego did this. There is no sacrifice in God. EVERYONE SHARES EVERYTHING FULLY.

There is an abundance of love to go around. Being loved does not mean others are not loved. Getting God’s attention does not mean others are excluded. Receiving a LOT does not mean the supply is reducing. Having a lot does not mean others are being deprived. God has an UNLIMITED SUPPLY OF LOVE. Everytime it is given, it increases. God has FULL LOVE for you, not just scraps of attention or leftovers from what other people have ripped away as their own posession.

Ultimately your SELF is unlimited. You thought you could posess a part of God’s creation and make it your own. You thought you could STOP SHARING and place a limit on your identity. Your individuality is not a problem and is not ego. All of God’s children are permanent and real. The only problem is that you tried to reduce by seeking to be special, to have exclusive interests for yourself. To give yourself more, so that others would have less. This is the opposite of SHARED INTERESTS. Everything in heaven has shared interests.

You being a self is not ego because your self naturally SHARES. You being SELFISH and not wanting to share, is ego. You being an individual is not ego. You believing in sacrifice and lack and deprivation and possessiveness is ego. You being one of God’s Sons is not a problem. You trying to ISOLATE YOURSELF so that SHARING is prevented, and so that there is a LIMITATION on yourself, THAT is the ego. Lack of sharing is imprisonment.

Placing your mind under authority of ego places it under tyrannical rule and leads to imprisonment. It leads to the ego’s thought system of NO SHARING and lack and finite limitations. It leads to BODIES being made to represent the idea that nothin is shared AS physical, limited matter. It makes this universe. It leads to all forms of suffering, lack and sacrifice. And it leads to DEATH. What is starvation but the total lack of sharing or access to what you need? Death is DENIAL OF GOD. Death is DENIAL OF SHARING.

That is not God’s will for you. It is God’s will for you that you HAVE EVERYTHING, and that you share it with ALL OTHERS, AND that you increase it by creating MORE, which ALL SHARE IN. Abundance is your natural inheritance. You will NOT find it in the physical world, which is a world of lack, limits and sacrifice. It is a world of compromise and loss. Although you can DEMONSTRATE it here through supernatural miracles which prove just how UNLIKE God this world is, and that "you are undo no laws but God’s".

Your abundance is waiting for you in Heaven. In God’s world. By Gods laws. God wants to share ALL OF HIMSELF with you, and he already has. That is how you were created and that is what is natural for you. You ARE sharing fully with God, with His One Son, with All His Sons, and with the whole Sonship, FOREVER.

You are loved and provided for by God, UNLIMITEDLY. "There is NOTHING my holiness cannot do."

Everything in the world is an illusion. Everything. And this includes the bodies which are seemingly healthy, the bodies which are seemingly sick, and the bodies that seem dead. This also means that trees which have fresh green leaves are as much an illusion as trees whose leaves have fallen and are decaying. Images of a lovely sunset are just as much an illusion as stormy skies. Animals leaping around happily is just as much illusion as carcasses on the side of the road.

In the ego world, there are symbols, because it is a dream. And sometimes these symbols seem to imply that some parts of the world are different to others, or mean something that other parts do not mean. So we are used to the idea that a dead body is the idea of death. But bodies that are walking around are also not really alive either. We can think that when the leaves are falling from the trees, it's death happening, but perhaps we didn't realize when the leaves were on the trees that it was still a dream of death.

So in this world, there is deception all over the place. Things appear to be something they are not. The symbols that look like life only seem to be life, while the ones that look like death are only different in their forms. And it is us who have given meaning to them and decided "this one means death and that one means life". All of the forms, in whatever condition they are, are forms of death. As Jesus tells us:

"There IS no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. *****In any state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it seems like life; at worst, like death.***** Yet both are judgments on ****what is not life****, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. Outside of Heaven (e.g. on Earth), only the conflict of illusions stands; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. Illusions ARE but forms. Their content is NEVER true. "

So because illusions are forms (objects, shapes, materials, bodies, planets etc), their content is not true. They are illusions of life and death. An illusion of life is not really life. Life actually means ETERNAL LIFE, that which can never perish, that which is not born and does not grow and does not die and has no sickness or transformation. Life means that which never changes because it is permanent. Only in Heaven's reality is there eternal life, and that is the only REAL life there is. The rest of what we call life, the "life forms" of this world, are an illusion of life AT BEST.

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

Here Jesus is contrasting vertically the two states or levels. In Heaven all things live and cannot die. In illusions, all things die and cannot really live. The world we see is an illusion of a world that God did not create.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end."

So having been in this world a long time, we are likely very used to the deception that some things in the world are more alive than others. Some people seem to have more health than others. Some bodies seem more dead than others. This is an illusion. All bodies are illusions, and their condition or state does not make them more or less real. One is not really more or less dead than another. Even a dead body in the ground is, in terms of miracle mindedness, no more dead than a living body. This is why for a miracle worker "dead-seeming" bodies can be converted or resurrected into living-seeming bodies as a kind of "translation of form".

"EVERYTHING is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the Mind. The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who ARE life."

Again Jesus is telling us life is to do with mind and heaven, not to do with bodies. And it's reinforced by this idea.

""And the last to be overcome will be death." Of course! ***Without the idea of death there is no world.*** All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions born. What can be born of death and still have life? But what is born of God and still can die? "

"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem."

So every illusion, every part of the dream, all objects, all bodies, in all states and configurations, are all made of illusions, and ALL illusions are made of death. We have to therefore realize that death does not mean HORIZONTAL death, as in, at the end of the road of time for a given object. Or a state that follows on after another. Rather, the ENTIRE world we made, the universe, is all a dream of death. This whole planet is an idea of death.

VERTICALLY, anything on this level physically is an attempt to remove ourselves away from where eternal life is, away from Heaven. To move down a level. To drop into illusions, to sink into a dream world. And that world is based entirely on the idea that reality, Heaven, is not real. It's the idea of separation or opposition to Eternal Life, that you are exiled and outside of the Kingdom where eternal life is. And so it's the idea of NOT being alive. It's an idea of the opposite to life and permanence. And everything in it, no matter its form or appearance, is an illusion of death or partial life at best.

Even the most vibrant bunch of flowers is actually an illusion of not life. Even a newborn baby, of any species, is not a "new life" but rather a new form of death. Even as the season of spring seems to give life to new fresh growth, it is only later to transition into the season of "dying" and decay simply because both the birthing and dying are built into the system. Anything made of illusions has the mark of death upon it, meaning it already is formed from ideas of death and separation at the moment it is made. Every particle of matter is a separation idea and therefore an idea of opposition or attack upon God.

"You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. ****Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it.*** Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust ****even as you made it.****"

So even at the instant that illusory things are first formed, they are formed FROM the idea of death and separation and limitation. They have it built in. If they are born at all, death is guaranteed and "happening" already. Because all forms are lacking in some way, they are all lacking what the other forms seem to have, and all of them are inherently limited and limiting. None of them are whole, none are complete, and not have eternal life. And every single body is an idea of being little and lacking and less than everywhere.

"This aching world (Earth) has not the power to touch the living world (Heaven) at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it, into another world."

So this world is not the living world. The Kingdom of God is the living world, because life means permanent life, not some temporary mockery of life. It is insane to think that real life is a matter of existing a little while and then dying at a bodily level. Life perpetuates and sustains and continues forever and cannot be destroyed. God creates ONLY the eternal.

"Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end?"

"What God creates is eternal."

A big part of awakening then must entail the re-framing or re-evaluating of everything you see here. We need to realize the dream entails a hierarchy of illusions, and this hierarchy is entirely fictional. And everything it suggest through different FORMS is a deception and a temptation to believe something that isn't true.

Big bodies, small bodies, healthy bodies, dead bodies, are all the same illusion. None of them are more real than another. None of them are really closer to God. Big sickness, small sickness, tiny headache, massive tumor, none of them are any different. The only reason you would believe they are different, or more or less serious, is by looking to the appearance of their form and taking it as evidence or MEANING as to what the thing is. Every single illusion is deceptive. Every appearance is a lie.

"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are? 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 seeming and yet surely theirs."

When we reach a state of not being deceived by ANY appearance, we are in miracle mindedness. Which is right mindedness. Here the hierarchy of illusions is completely flattened and meaningless. There is no difference between a form in one configuration or another. We are not deceived by physical form, shape or appearance. One type of appearance does not trigger worse reactions than another, or any reactions, nor means something different to the rest. A "dead" appearing body is not regarded as any more dead than a living one. As such raising the dead is seen as NO MORE DIFFICULT than curing a headache, because all illusions are the same and you are not deceived by them. You can raise the dead as easily as heal an upset feeling.

"You who are dedicated to the incorruptible have been given through your acceptance, the power to release from corruption. What better way to teach the first and fundamental principle in a course on miracles than by showing you the one that seems to be the hardest can be accomplished first?"

When you are not deceived by illusions of life and death, forms of sickness, appearances of severity, you cannot be afraid, you can only be miraculous. Miracle mindedness transcends the world of illusions because The Miracle IS the state of Christ Vision which overlooks all forms. There is, from that position, nothing that your holiness cannot do. And it is from this state that you are a miracle worker. Here you are using miracles as demonstrations to PROVE that what appears to be death is not death, and you are under no laws but God's, where miracles break all the illusory laws of the world of appearances.

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

"Miracles reflect the laws of eternity, not of time."

"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for ****miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it.**** Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them. Perceiving His results, you will understand where He must be, and finally KNOW what He is."

What if our mind has the power to modify the world, given we are the dreamer and it is a dream - our effect? What if by mental intention you can cause events to proceed differently? What if you can steer outcomes? What if you can change physical matter? What if the world is really NOT the seemingly fixed, closed, solid, permanent-seeming thing that we think it is, and that's all an illusion?

This is the next area of exploration for me having recently focused very much on how the world is very locked into its nature. By realizing the world is stuck being the way it is, I had to then naturally ask myself, how does one go about escaping its impossible ways, forgiving it, and being free of it? How can it be overridden? And this is now leading to me to the simple progression of QUESTIONING the world, what it is, and what our minds can do to CHANGE IT DIRECTLY. And the fact that IT IS THE EFFECT OF MY DREAMING.

Jesus says in ACIM that if you change your mind about the world, ALL THE WORLD MUST CHANGE. He also says the world is an effect, and therefore, that if you change the CAUSE in your mind the world MUST change. Like LITERALLY PHYSICALLY change. He also tells us we are the dreamer of the dream. To me what he is actually getting at is that our minds are powerful, thought exerts real influence, the physical is not really physical but dream-stuff, and we have the POWER to modify it.

I've seen some evidence for this INFLUENCE of mind over the "physical world". so I'll tell you some stories.

At my job, I deal with computer stuff, as a sort of IT-department fix-it person at times. But it would turn out that very often the problems people came up with would seem to "fix themselves" when I showed up. They definitely had the problem beforehand, but then suddenly it seemed like something "in the world" just happened out of the blue to changed the course of events. The problem became seemingly "magically" (miraculously really) solved. It usually took the form of someone realizing something, a change of mind, some fact that was overlooked comes to light, or even literally physical devices which were not working suddenly work and no-one could explain why.

Over time some people called me "the computer whisperer" because it literally seemed uncanny that when I came along to help them the problem just melted into "not a problem any more". And I mean on a physical level. Something kept transpiring in terms of the FORM of how it seemed to change, something tangible or what you might call what APPEAR to be natural changes in circumstances, environmental factors, whatever, but although it LOOKED LIKE just normal "reasons why" stuff got fixed, it was actually due to something in my mind that caused a change.

There are also some times where in my mind I am not interested in playing into a problem or having to deal with an issue. So my mental attitude is one of "I do not agree with this", not like in an annoyed wanting it to go away sense, but like I don't believe in this - not buying it. I hold firm somehow to another truth, or perhaps to another intent or desire, and somehow this has a power in it. And this power seems to alter the course of events and cause problems to go away.

A boss approaches with some issue and then I mentally reject it or want nothing to do with it and suddenly he seems to realize something or changes his mind or things just suddenly resolve themselves. And I can't tell you how man times when I've needed some "time to myself" he just seems to have somewhere else to be. What I'm literally saying here is along the lines of .... when you walk through a dying forest flowers start springing up around your feet out of nowhere. That would be a very vivid example and I'm not at that level but it seems like that is possible.

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

Mind can have such power and influence that it can actually produce real changes in what we call "physical stuff". In effect, your mind can "dream" a different dream and have power over what the dream contains. And as I read about how the physical world/earth IS A DREAM, and see Jesus's references to us dreaming of worldly events and how he calls it a dream, it seems to make so much sense that our mind ACTUALLY IS dreaming and producing the environment in realtime, AND it can change the environment to another form at will. And behind material happenings there are "mind forces" at play, including the atonement plan.

"But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

Some years ago some people were walking down a path and it was spring, so the blossom petals on a tree were falling across the path. The couple walked under it and the petals fell onto them and for some reason this was a happy thing to me. I watched this from inside a room with a closed window, from probably a couple-hundred feet away. I had a sudden feeling of joy in my mind out of nowhere, and suddenly literal blossom petals materialized in front of my face, inside the closed window in the room with me.

Another time I was looking for money in a coin box, in which there was no "pound coins". There were only 1p a 2p bronze coins left (british). I rifled through insisting that there must be higher value money there. I did this for some time maybe even a minute, and somehow in my mind I was convinced and insistent that there MUST be some higher currency in there. Suddenly in front of my eyes as if they had been there all along, yet out of nowhere, two pound coins appeared on the top of the pile. There was no magical effect of anything to them being there, they were just not there one moment and the next they were there. And they were definitely not in the coin box hidden before.

There have also been other times where if I am fairly centered in my mind and in what I believe is true, or perhaps what Jesus calls "being strong in the truth" or at least clear about when someone is bullshitting, if I mentally stand my ground and do not buy into someone projecting or scapegoating me, it actually has an influence on them. Something changes in their mind and they suddenly become self-aware of what they're doing as if they adopted my view of them, and will suddenly realize there's something about what they said which isn't true. And then they will take it back and reconsider what their position is, because somehow the truth-focus in MY mind influenced theirs.

"People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them."

"The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will."

I've had to pick up subtle clues and nuances to come to realize this and this is definitely still new territory, but it seems clear that this world we're calling a physical solid world IS NOT THAT. It is in truth actually just a bunch of dream images. And our minds are not just inert little observers, they are powerful and quite capable of CAUSING the dream to change. And by dream I am NOT talking about projected meanings and interpretations of perception, I'm talking about the PHYSICAL MATERIAL WORLD. It can be changed by the mind. Mind literally has power over matter. It can steer events, cause objects to materialize, can manipulate weather, and can do all kinds of stuff - including healing sickness and reversing death and decay.

My wife has a strong will also and she has this ability too. In the past we would joke about having power to control the weather, which has proven a number of times. If I ask her to pray for me for example, my whole inner experience lights up and becomes far more happy and light and energized. She is quite capable of having a powerful influence, even at a distance. One time that we went to visit the UK for example usually the weather is crap and very consistently cloudy, but for like 3 days solid as soon as we arrived it became very clear and sunny non-stop which was very unusual. Also I know I've had influence in calming storms a couple times that I've tried to do that.

I am also convinced from some stories other people have shared that our minds influence each other including each other's bodies. Such as that for example a person was in fear and this fear was affecting the other person they were with and causing a medical condition. And then as this was pointed out the fear lifted and the medical condition just went away quickly. How is that possible unless mind has the power to influence the minds and bodies of others? That it can actually cause a different dream to just emerge out of nowhere?

Are we to really believe that the world is literally this kind of paper-thin fragile tentative sort of "material only" existence, in which everything is just the laws of physics holding it together and there's nothing else to it besides solid form? Because that's just how it APPEARS to be. The world is not actually that, because it's a dream, and it is an illusion, and it presents an illusion of a world, and this illusion CAN BE CHANGED BY THE MIND.

"Appearances deceive BUT CAN BE CHANGED."

"Yet nothing in the world of dreams remains without the hope of change and betterment, for here is NOT where changelessness is found."

"You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed."

We are being asked to become aware that the world is an EFFECT of our mind. Jesus literally says "You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts" and "Both heaven and earth are in your mind." The whole planet, the whole dream, is a mental construct. It's a fairytale of imagination in the mind, and the mind is literally projecting an imaginary world complete with all its "physical" details. And even though it LOOKS physical and as if it has laws that govern it and reasons why it cannot BE changed, that's all illusions, because it can EASILY be changed by a mind that knows it is dreaming.

"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."

So imagine the physical world is in fact like a LUCID DREAM. A dream in which you are awake and aware that IT IS a dream. And then you are aware that even though it appears solid and fixed, it is in fact your dream, and you CAN DO ANYTHING. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do." You can literally put your hands through physical matter, you can materialize objects, you can fly if you want to. You can change one thing into another. This is all a totally malleable dream environment, NOT really a hard solid fixed physical reality.

Do not be deceived by its illusion of hardness, solidity and so on. "What He (Holy Spirit) enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."

And as MIRACLE WORKERS we are being trained and asked to adopt a position as the "dreamers of the dream", where we recognize it IS coming from us, and WE CAN CHANGE IT in any way we see fit at any time, just by the power of the mind. The Holy Spirit is capable of manipulating the atoms of the world, just as Jesus also says that space and time are under his control.

"If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind MUST BE STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this."

Jesus was masterful at this "dream manipulation". His mind was in touch with being THE CAUSE (the dreamer), and knew the world was HIS EFFECT. Therefore he was not a victim of it in any way, and had power OVER IT. He recognized he was not affected BY IT in any way because he was DREAMING it - putting it there. This is what resurrection is about, the SURMOUNTING of death - the ability to have POWER OVER DEATH. Which includes the ability to reverse "physical death" and to manipulate bodies by the mind, into any state, and any form.

He was able to give body parts that were missing, he could walk on water, calm storms, change outcomes, turn objects into other objects, multiply and materialize objects out of nowhere, appear in different body forms, could likely levitate and fly if he so willed it, and pretty much NO LIMIT to what he could do. The examples of his USE OF his power only paints a limited picture of the fact that he was able to do literally anything. And so can you, because this world is NOT a fixed solid world, it's totally at your whim and under your power!

We have barely begun to realize the sheer power of our minds, the influence our minds have on the world, the ability of our minds to change matter, the ability of our minds to heal both mind AND body, and the influence we have on ALL THE WORLD when we change our mind. Our healing literally heals the world. Our focus on truth literally awakens our brothers. And our broadcast signal of love literally transforms the dream in unlimited ways.

Miracles as expressions of love are expressions of love from a powerful mind. I think in ACIM terms perhaps miracles are actually a SUBSET of what the mind can do. When mind is aware and expresses, which must also be a loving state, it has tremendous power, and this can CHANGE THE DREAM. It can cause literal physical transformations, impossible changes, violation of laws, breaking of space and time and distance and possibility. It can heal the sick and raise the dead, produce and change objects, and even move entire mountains.

This is not even a difficult feat for such a power, but so many people are afraid and skeptical and not even suspecting that such a power of POSSIBLE, yet alone that it is in their own minds. "While expressions like "think big" give some recognition to the power of thought, they still come nowhere near the truth. You do not expect to grow when you say it, because you don't really believe it. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains."

"Why is it strange to you that faith can move mountains? This is indeed a little feat for such a power."

"If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."

You may be wondering how "the separation" was possible, and how we came to seem to be in the situation we're in. There IS an explanation, which Jesus has given in many forms.

The essence of it, is that God gave you TOTAL unlimited freedom when you were created.

"The latter required the endowment of man (Souls) by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given."

"Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul."

This means God gave us all absolutely free will. Our will has TOTAL freedom. Now, here's the interesting part.

Because the will is totally free, it actually has the freedom, or potential, to try to use its own free will against even itself. It can actually try to "will not to will." It actually is free to even use its freedom to try to prevent its own freedom, if it so chooses. Doing so is self-defeating, but you CAN do this.

This is an inherent function of the mind and actually completely natural, because it's part of being totally free. God HAD to give you the freedom to potentially "mis-use" your will, otherwise you could not be free. He couldn't just lock you in to some kind of mandated use of it, you had to be free to use it as you saw fit.

The freedom God has given you INCLUDES the freedom even to deny God if you want to. It includes the freedom to resist him, to deny reality, to try to use free will to stop willing, the ability to try to create nothing, to use the will destructively, and to at least ATTEMPT to separate itself from its source.

Your mind can in fact go into a state of denial. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, in terms of it being "not allowed by God." God had to GIVE YOU this ability in order to give you total freedom. He doesn't necessarily will for you that you USE the will in this way, ie non-constructively, but you CAN if you so choose.

When you do choose to use it in a self-defeating way, you are "mis-creating", in an attempt to use the will against itself. This is really an attempt not to create, or to cause nothing, or to be inept and inert, or to not extend. It's like a kind of resistance, which is also fear. An attempt to be UN-WILLING, or to NOT will what God wills. Indeed, to attempt to will AGAINST him, which is "the authority problem."

"Remember, we have already stated that denial is not a purely negative device; it results in positive miscreation."

There is a fundamental truth that you cannot will against God's will. But, that does not mean you aren't free to TRY to. You are free to attempt it. When you do attempt it, you FAIL to change his will at all, and instead go into denial.

In the denial you BELIEVE that you have succeeded, but you haven't. Also when you are in this denial state, you are denying yourself, denying God, and denying reality. It's very important to realize however that denial does not CHANGE reality. It has no effect on the truth. Denial merely means to believe that something is not true, even though it still is true. It's a kind of rejection or refusal - an unwillingness - to accept what is true.

Your mind, as given by God, DOES HAVE the freedom and ability and power to go into a state of denial. This is BUILT IN to its fundamental freedom. It HAS to be able to potentially use its own freedom even against itself, otherwise it is not free. It is because of this "clause" if you will, that we could potentially elect to "go into the separation", ie to believe that we have become separate, even though we haven't. ie to go into denial.

"The sense is very literal; -- denial of Life perceives its opposite, as ALL forms of denial replace what IS, with what is NOT. No-one can really DO this, but that you can THINK you can, and BELIEVE YOU HAVE, is beyond dispute."

"For the separation is only the DENIAL of union, and, correctly interpreted, attests to your eternal knowledge that union is true."

Mind then is perfectly natural in its ability to try to deny its own creator if it so chooses. God has given it the freedom to use itself against itself. The fact is that it HAS DONE THIS, which is what we call "the separation" or the fall of man. Our minds HAVE elected to deny their own freedom, placing themselves into a state of imprisonment.

When mind uses its own free will to will AGAINST freedom, it induces a state of imprisonment. The will becomes imprisoned and the mind seems to go to sleep, or seems to become unable to will anything.

"That is why the ego IS the denial of free will. It is NEVER God Who coerces you, because He SHARES His Will WITH you."

"If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, because such are the dictates of tyrants."

This has actually happened, without in any way leaving God or leaving God's laws or operating outside of your inherent nature. There is fundamentally nothing "wrong" with this as such, but it IS out of accord with God's will. It is an attempt to reject his will. All this can produce is a state of denial, because God's will itself cannot be opposed, but you can thus "believe" that you are opposing it. Even if it's just a belief, it DOES alter your mind when you believe it.

"Remember a very early lesson, -- "never underestimate the power of denial." It has no power in ITSELF, but YOU can give it the power of YOUR mind, whose power is without limit of ANY kind."

"God did not ALLOW this to happen. But you DEMANDED that it happen, and therefore believed that it was so."

"God did not blot it out, because to eradicate it would be to attack it."

"It is NEVER God Who coerces you, because He SHARES His Will WITH you."

The main truth is that there is no real benefit to using freedom against freedom. The circular logic becomes obvious. For example, we're saying that it's possible to "will not to will". The more that you will not to will, the more you are using will, and obviously contradicting what you're claiming to accomplish. You therefore cannot will NOTHING, and have to will something. So instead you will a sense of EMPTINESS or a sort of "lack of creation."

"If a mind creates without love, it can create an empty shell. This CAN be possessed by evil."

"We also have observed that man can create an empty shell, but cannot create nothing at all. This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection."

"He can create an empty shell (see previous reference), but he DOES NOT create nothing at all."

So in fact what happened is we used our free will and our freedom of choice to elect to use the mind, mis-creatively, to try to "create nothing", and this produced a sort of empty creation, or a lack of creation - a lack of love's extension. In the mind this produced the hallucinated state of the lack of God, which is space-time and all its contents. Jesus refers to it as an empty screen onto which we then project meanings.

So long as the mind is unwilling and is resisting freedom and therefore is in denial, it is maintaining its belief in something opposite to God. That maintains 'the ego' and the illusion of a meaningless world. The world is meaningless because it is an "empty shell" which has no real content of its own, onto which we project images and meanings either thought false or true perception.

While it is true that mind cannot create a real separation, and you cannot leave God, and you cannot violate his reality or his laws, it is also true that the ability to deny IS within his laws and his reality. It is part of your rights as a created free-willed being.

God actually does not COERCE or shame you or guilt you or punish you for WANTING to use your freedom against itself. You ARE FREE to do so if you so choose. It's just that when you do so, you do bring suffering upon yourself and He does not will that you suffer.

"If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it."

So God gently INVITES you to return back to willing constructively with him rather than destructively. You have to FREELY CHOOSE IT, and accept atonement because you want to, not because you are forced to. This is because your mind still has the power to exercise freedom - a power that you have never lost.

So being in the denial of God, is actually a possibility of reality. It is not PREFERRED, but it is possible. It is not what God wills for you, but he HAS given you your own will, so even though he does not make it possible for you to actually separate, he DOES allow you to BELIEVE that you have. And this has taken place. This is why Jesus says "the separation has occurred." We HAVE tried to deny God and we HAVE believed that we've become separate.

The problem then isn't REALLY denial. Denial is NOT a negative functionality. It is not inherently a bad thing. You actually can use denial positively and for protection. The proper use of denial actually denies illusions and supports the truth of reality. It is only the improper use of it which has led us to deny God and accept lies, instead of accepting God and denying lies.

"Because of your Father's love, you can NEVER forget Him. For no one can forget what God Himself placed in his memory. You can DENY it, but you CANNOT LOSE IT."

"You can DENY His knowledge, but you CANNOT change it."

"But denial is a defense, and so it is as capable of being used positively as it is of being used destructively."

We have actually moved into a denial state, in the mind that God gave us, as part of the freedom he gave us, and this has TEMPORARILY produced the 'tiny mad idea' and the 'unholy instant'. It has led to the hallucination of spacetime - a belief in possibilities which aren't actually possible in truth. This has happened. But none of the things which seem to happen WITHIN this denial, have really happened.

"What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

This ability for the mind try to elect to be what it is not, to assume an alien power it doesn't really have, or to enter a state that it can't really enter, IS the power of denial that all minds are naturally capable of, in reality or otherwise. If you use the mind against itself it attacks itself and produces insanity. And since denial is a rejection of or avoidance/hiding from reality, it is a form of unconsciousness or an attempt "not to know", which induces a sort of sleep, in which we dream of imaginary worlds.

You CAN deny God, that's not against his law. But when you do, you induce a nightmare of suffering.

"What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His."

"What God did not create does not exist. And everything that does exist exists as He created it. The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist."

The world you "made up" does not really exist. It's a dream. The ability TO dream, is not made up. It is part of your natural freedom. God is not stopping you from choosing to go into denial, but he IS inviting you to come out of that denial when you are freely willing to do so, and therefore return to a happier state in alignment with his will. Denial is not an illusion, it PRODUCES illusions when misused.

So basically, "the separation", otherwise called "the attempt to deny the truth" has happened, the mind HAS exercised its free will to repress its own freedom, and this HAS induced a kind of sleep state in which the mind dreams of separation. The dream isn't valid at all. The DREAMING is a mind function and not to be discarded. It is simply something that you can choose or not choose. When you DON'T choose to dream, you instead choose to accept ultimate reality, and use the mind ONLY for constructive creative purposes.

"By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others."

Long story short, mind DOES have the potential and freedom to go into denial, and this is entirely within the laws of God. It's just that when we do this, we are not happy, and it induces fantasies of things that aren't really possible. God does not will that we suffer so he instead calls us to return to him, knowing that it's best to use our free will creatively rather than self-destructively.

"It is for this denial that you need Atonement. Your denial made no change in what you are. But you have split your mind into what knows and does not know the truth."

"Both the power and the strength of man's creative will must be understood, before the real meaning of denial can be appreciated and abolished. Denial is NOT mere negation. It is a positive miscreation."

"Extension cannot be blocked, and it has no voids. It continues forever, however much it is denied. Your DENIAL of its reality arrests it in time, but not in Eternity."

"The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial." "For fear IS a call for love, in unconscious recognition of what has been denied."

"The out of mind is out of sight, because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does NOT depend upon your recognition."

"Fear and love are the only emotions of which you are capable. One is false, for it was made out of denial, and denial DEPENDS on the real belief in what is denied for its OWN existence."

Mind is free to deny itself, at any time. It has denied itself. That's why we're dreaming of exile. Its ability to do this is God-given. Its election TO do this is its own free choice. It HAS chosen to do this, and so it IS in a denial state. That is why there arose a NEED for atonement and God had to create the Holy Spirit to maintain a link to his children, guaranteeing that they can return to him when they are willing to do so.

We are not to be in the business of trying to "deny" that the mind can or has done this. It absolutely has done this. But it can choose again. It can choose to stop mis-creating and to instead create only the extension of God. It can choose to stop denying its own freedom and reclaim its inheritance. It can move out of its temporary state of resistance, into acceptance, out of fear into love. And at no point is God sitting there saying "denying me is against the law." He doesn't condone it, but he also doesn't force you not to choose it.

"You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but ****has the mark of death upon it****. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust, even as you made it."

Jesus here tells us that this world, Earth, which comprises homes and cities and roads etc, has the mark of death upon it. That even from the start, even when it was made, it already had death and disappointment infused into it. It was made in an idea of death, being the idea of the opposite to eternal life. This is because "Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem." and so an illusory world is really a dream of death.

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it ****are the laws of death****."

Recognize then that by death he's talking about the fact that everything in spacetime, including spacetime itself, is founded on the idea of an interruption to life, or an attempt to change the eternal into the temporary. Things coming to an end. Things changing over time. Things decaying and rotting and dying. Things becoming sick. Things lacking and sacrificing and losing. Even things growing and transforming. All various forms of limitation. A limit on life and on eternity. A notion of "not forever".

One thing that I've been doing lately is just accepting the fact that this world's laws, the laws of physics, are just automatically set up to fail. Chaos becomes possible because of the way that objects interact with each other seemingly randomly. Your car breaks down. Objects fall on the ground. You bump into things. Stuff breaks. Your new toy has a mark on it. Your clothes wear out. Your food rots. Your house needs repairs. Your kitchen smells bad. And your clothes are all dirty.

We could struggle against such things as if we have an expectation that the world can be perfect or free from defects. And some people try to control the world and twist it into an illusory palace of perfection. But the problem is, it can't be that. It is fundamentally rooted in the idea of death, of interruption and inconsistency and difference and change and transformation. All the royal castles crumble. Always there is the drive to become something it's not now.

If we try to expect that we can make a life where these things are avoided, or you can make a little oasis or illusion of safety and security, you really are in denial. Sooner or later the grim reaper is coming to look for you and yours. Either in terms of bodies dying or in terms of melting your phone or sickening your pets or scorching your grass or breaking your flowers or freezing your toes or puking in your shoes or whatever.

"Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end."

It's better to recognize this is the way of the world, based on its laws. It's just how it is. It's how this whole system, this whole universe, functions. There's no point in being mad about stuff breaking, or things falling on the floor, or stuff getting trapped in the door, or physical objects doing their quirky strangely annoying things, especailly when you're in a bad mood. They kind of can't help it. They are governed by rules that force them to "behave" this way, like they always will. Even in a forgiven world, the cookies still crumble.

I've been finding a lot more patience and forgiveness in just accepting that this is the functioning of this whole world. It just is broken from the start. The laws of physics are simply "at it again". Gravity is messing with you. Forces and energies are messing with you. And none of it is really "personal" because it's just doing what it does blindly and mindlessly. To expect it to ever not be like this must be some kind of insanity because a separated world cannot help but act this way.

We do need to accept that we did in fact make a fundamentally broken world. A world that does not really function properly according to the laws of God. A world where stuff is pretty much destined to change and break and grow old and die eventually. Where things collide and conflict and seem to attack, and where you can seemingly even be hurt - a notion which is utterly impossible in heaven's reality.

"The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus." "The laws of chaos govern ALL illusions. Their forms conflict, making it SEEM quite possible to value some above the others."

Jesus is clear that you cannot really want this world, because it is not a perfect world. It is not heaven. It was made in a mad idea of rebellion against reality. It is a protest against harmony and peace. It was made to attack God and to attempt to depict the death of his creations.

"The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."

"YOU DO NOT WANT THE WORLD. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it YOU look upon with love."

"Here is the world you do NOT want"

We have to be willing to look at this. The world is not EVER going to satisfy you and make you happy. It is not ever going to give you what you want. It is not ever going to feed your properly. It is not ever going to make you well or heal you or fix your problems. It has a neverending supply of madness and problems and difficulties. ALL its roads are pointed towards change, dissolution and death. Even planets and stars and galaxies die off eventually. And problems are completely built into its chaotic systems.

"You on earth have no conception of limitlessness, for the world you seem to live in IS a world of limits. In this world, it is NOT true that anything without order of difficulty can occur."

"Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped."

The world does not really give you any real choice, because ALL of its options are rooted in death. This isn't a pessimistic or negative view either. It is an honest and truthful view. The entire system was set up on a basis of separation and attack. Everything about it is aimed towards punishment for original sin, trying to bring about the death of life and the end of God.

"The ego's laws are strict, and breaches are severely punished. Therefore, give no obedience to its laws, for they ARE laws of punishment." "The laws of sin DEMAND a victim. WHO it may be makes little difference. But death MUST be the cost and MUST be paid."

"Sin calls for punishment"

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

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. 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. And each is but the means to GAIN that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes."

Can you accept that everything in this world was set up to die, right from the start? That this its inherent NATURE? Because only by looking at that and recognizing "there is no way out", on its terms, can you be willing to seek for a better way.

This is just how the world is set up. There is no point in denying it. There is no point in expecting it to behave differently. The laws of physics work how they work. The only reason we become angry about stuff breaking and things failing and attacks happening and so on is because we have an unrealistic expectation that the world isn't going to be like this. That somehow in the world we can make a little safe corner where the bad things don't happen, to fend off death and keep attack at bay. Good luck with that delusion.

Now, of course if this were the only state of affairs then we would indeed be screwed. But fortunately we are not stuck inside this closed-loop of hell. There is another way. There is another perception and another belief and another reality. This other way, however, isn't a rose-tinted glass of pretending in denial that the world isn't a world of death. Nor is it a form of denial that says it's okay that things die and suffer. Or an attempt to dress up the world or to expect it to be something it's not. The world can't work because it began with an impossible goal.

We can become miraculous, in that we can in fact override the laws of death. We can overcome the laws of physics. We can see past what the world was made to see. We can see with a mechanism of vision that doesn't depend on the physical eyes. We can overlook and not hold the world against itself, or condemn it for its shortcomings. We can recognize that a world made in error cannot help but be mistaken. And we can disregard notions that the world is real in its sin and attack. Indeed we are supposed to do this in order to be forgiving and to be set free from suffering.

For me lately, I have been doing a lot of physical stuff. Rearranging the house, buying and assembling new furniture, throwing out old stuff, cleaning, organizing, moving things around, and to some extent enjoying new stuff. But I've also become aware that all of these things are already fundamentally limited in what they are and can be. I'm not in denial or pretending that they can be perfect.

The furniture with the dents in it, the gaps between the planks of wood, the poorly written instructions, the missing parts, the slightly wrong color, the stuff that doesn't fit, the wrongly shipped item, the misunderstood specs, all the ways that there is shortcomings and failures and forms of death. Lacks of perfection and order.

But I feel mostly unbothered by all these things because I am no longer expecting the world to be capable of better. It is not capable of being perfect, so I now accept that "good enough" or "less than perfect" is the best it can acheive. And then I can let it go instead of trying to find perfection where it is impossible.

We made a broken world. It can't fix itself. And it's not capable of taking on a form of perfection. It will not ever fully satisfy us. And even in forgiveness where it is seen beyond and reflects heaven, even then it still falls short in its forms and its functioning. Ultimately, the world cannot make you happy. It cannot give you peace, or take it away. It cannot be the cause of anything. Nor can it really have any meaning of its own.

At best it can reflect meaning you give to it, and that is all, because by itself it is an empty void. We made a meaningless, chaotic, broken world, and we need to simply recognize this about it. The world is not our home.

"When he is NOT in a state of grace he IS out of his natural environment, and does NOT function well. Everything he does becomes a strain, because he was not created for the environment which he has made. He therefore CANNOT adapt to it, nor can he adapt IT to HIM. There is no point in trying. A Son of God is happy ONLY when he knows he is WITH God. That is the only environment in which he will not experience strain, because that is where he belongs. It is also the only environment that is worthy of him, because his own worth is beyond ANYTHING that he can make."

The sooner you realize this the better, provided you also realize what CAN make you happy. What makes you happy is to laugh at the fundamental brokenness of the world. To realize the WHOLE THING is limited and false and can't do what you hoped it could do. The whole world is handicapped and disabled, falling short and incapable of eternal life. That's all it can be. And yet there is another world, a world we want, where this need not be.

"You on earth have no conception of limitlessness, for the world you seem to live in IS a world of limits. In this world, it is NOT true that anything without order of difficulty can occur. The miracle, therefore, has a unique function, and is motivated by a unique Teacher, Who brings the laws of another world to this one."

"But we are thankful, too, the need is done to walk the world of limits, and to reach the Christ in hidden forms and clearly seen at most in lovely flashes. Now we can behold Him without blinders, in the light that we have learned to look upon again."

"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it into another world. Yet the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT. And what you call with love WILL come to you. LOVE ALWAYS ANSWERS, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of 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."

"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? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the Face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No-one who has escaped the world and all its ills looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifice which its values would demand of him. To them he sacrifices all his freedom. To them he sacrifices all his peace. And to possess them must he sacrifice his hope of Heaven and remembrance of his Father's Love. Who in his sane mind chooses nothing as a substitute for everything?

THE BODY'S EYES ***CANNOT SEE REALITY*** EVER!

THIS IS A VITAL A COURSE IN MIRACLES TEACHING!!!

THE BODY CANNOT AND NEVER WILL BE ABLE TO LOOK AT REALITY. YOU HAVE TO DEVELOP AN ENTIRELY NEW WAY OF SEEING - VISION - WHICH DOES NOT LOOK AT BODIES OR THE WORLD **AT ALL**.

THIS ALSO WHY THERE ARE NO BODIES IN HEAVEN! THEY ARE ***USELESS***. "To sense is NOT to know."

Many people are trying to "see" Heaven in the world and to look at this world WITH the body, keeping the body, and supposedly SEE reality. YOU CANNOT. The body's eyes are permanently fixated on hell. You have to use an entirely different kind of vision to SEE reality BEYOND the world.

Too many are getting lost in believing this world - Earth - is to be "looked at" in a loving way. It is supposed to be LOOKED PAST. If you look AT IT and SEE IT you are blinded by sight of form. The world WILL NEVER be Heaven. The body will never show you God's Kingdom. Spiritual vision requires mind-to-mind awareness which completely bypasses ALL forms, bodies and planets.

Check out these vital statements from Jesus about how the body is completely limited and CANNOT SEE. You cannot USE IT to see Heaven or reality. You cannot see your brother if you see a body. "To see a sinless body is impossible."

You must choose your method of sight, and what you will look upon. If you choose the body, you will see ONLY hell (Earth). If you choose the spiritual eyes/Christ Vision, you will see ONLY Heaven. You cannot see two worlds. Sight of one denies the other.

The entire PURPOSE of the Workbook is to train you to develop A NEW WAY OF SEEING that doesn't rely on the body!!!! IT says so in the workbook introduction! "The workbook is divided into two main sections, the first dealing with the undoing of the way you see now, and the second with the acquisition of true perception" "The very nature of true perception is that it has no limits. 6 It is the opposite of the way you see now." True perception is not just an alternative perception, it's based on the holy spirit's thought system which is spirit-based and it transcends the laws of the world!

"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."

"You look still with the body's eyes. And they CAN see but thorns. But you have asked for AND RECEIVED another sight. Those who accept the Holy Spirit's purpose as their own, share also His vision."

"Your chosen home is on the other side, beyond the veil. It has been carefully prepared for you, and it is ready to receive you now. You will not see it with the body's eyes."

"Here is a world established that is sick, and this the world the body's eyes perceive. Here are the sounds it hears; the voices which its ears were made to hear. Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are meaningless. It cannot see nor hear. It does not know what seeing IS; what listening is FOR. It is as little able to perceive as it can judge, or understand, or know. Its eyes are blind, its ears are deaf. It can NOT think, and so it cannot HAVE effects. "

"Let not the body's ears and eyes perceive these countless fragments seen within the gap that YOU imagined, and let THEM persuade their maker his imaginings were real."

"The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes. ITS vision IS distorted, and the messages IT transmits to you, who MADE it to limit your awareness, ARE little and limited, so fragmented that they are meaningless. From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true. For YOU sent forth these messengers, to bring this BACK to you."

"The body cannot see this, for the body AROSE from this for its protection, which must ALWAYS depend on keeping it NOT seen. The body's eyes will NEVER look on it."

"What witness to the wholeness of God's Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? He is INVISIBLE in such a world. Nor can his song of union and of joy be heard at all. Yet is it given him to make the world recede before his song, and sight of him REPLACE the body's eyes. "

"What can the body's eyes perceive, with power to CORRECT? Its eyes ADJUST to sin, unable to overlook it in any form, and seeing it everywhere, in everything. Look through its eyes, and everything will stand condemned before you. All that could save you, you will never see. "

"It is your world salvation will undo, and LET you see another world your eyes could never find."

"Is it not evident that what the body's eyes perceive FILLS YOU WITH FEAR? Perhaps you think you find a hope of satisfaction there. Perhaps you fancy to attain some peace and satisfaction in the world as YOU perceive it. Yet it MUST be evident the outcome DOES NOT CHANGE. Despite your hopes and fancies, ALWAYS does despair result. And there is NO exception, nor will there ever be."

"And what is this decision, but the choice whether to see him through the body's eyes, or let him be revealed to you through vision?"

"And you can want to see a sinless world, and let an "enemy" tempt you to use the body's eyes, and change what you desire. "

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

"Faith sees him only NOW, because it looks not to the past to judge him, but would see in him ONLY what it would see in YOU. It sees NOT through the body's eyes, nor looks to bodies for its justification. It is the messenger of the NEW perception, sent forth to gather witnesses unto its coming, and to return their messages to YOU. "

"The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances. "

"But what is there to see by searching for your Savior, seeing Him through sightless eyes? "

"And this will be your concept of YOURSELF, when you have reached the world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see."

"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."

"That is because your idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body, and its eyes and brain."

"These are among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body's eyes can see. You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. "

"It is your weakness that sees through the body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes which cannot see and cannot bless."

"The strength in you will offer you the light and guide your seeing, so you do not dwell on idle shadows that the body's eyes provide for self-deception."

"Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will practice seeing in the light, closing the body's eyes and asking truth to show us how to find the meeting place of self and Self, where light and strength are one."

"You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body's eyes."

"How can you judge? Your judgement rests upon the witness that your senses offer you. Yet witness never falser was than this. But how else do you judge the world you see? You place pathetic faith in what your eyes and ears report. You think your fingers touch reality and close upon the truth. This is awareness which you understand, and think more real than what is witnessed to by the eternal Voice of God Himself."

"He will not tell you that your brother should be judged by what your eyes behold in him, nor what his body's mouth says to your ears, nor what your fingers touch reports of him. He passes by such idle witnesses, which merely bear false witness to God's Son."

"Properly speaking, this is the release from hell. Perceived through the ego's eyes, it is loss of identity and a descent into hell."

"Let me not look to my own eyes to see today. Let me be willing to exchange my pitiful illusion of seeing for the vision that is given by God. Christ's vision is His gift, and He has given it to me. Let me call upon this gift today, so that this day may help me to understand eternity."

"Beyond His Will lie only illusions. It is these I choose when I think I can see apart from Him. It is these I choose when I try to see through the body's eyes. Yet the vision of Christ has been given me to replace them. It is through this vision that I choose to see."

"You closed your eyes to shut him out."

"How can you become increasingly aware of the Holy Spirit in you, EXCEPT by His EFFECTS? You cannot see Him with your eyes, nor hear Him with your ears."

"You dream of isolation, BECAUSE your eyes are closed. You do not SEE your brothers, and, in the darkness, you cannot look upon the light you GAVE to them. "

"Anger but screeches, "Guilt is real!" Reality is blotted out as this insane belief is taken as replacement for God's Word.The body's eyes now "see"; its ears alone can "hear." Its little space and tiny breath become the measure of reality. And truth becomes diminutive and meaningless."

"And you look up and on toward Heaven, with the body's eyes but serving for an instant longer now. "

"You do not doubt that the body's eyes can see. You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light."

"Miracles are seen in light. The bodys eyes do not perceive the light. But I am not a body. What am I?"

"The dream of crucifixion still lies heavy on your eyes, but what you see in dreams is not reality. "

"Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear or reach to grasp? What would they sense at all? To sense is not to know. And truth can be but filled with knowledge, and with nothing else.The body is the instrument the mind made in its striving to deceive itself."

"It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your "seeing"was made. This is the function you have given your body's eyes. It is not seeing. It is image-making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions."

"Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body's eyes at all. The mind is its only source."

"What you see of His Son through the eyes of the ego is a demonstration that His Son does not exist, yet where the Son is, the Father MUST be. "

"There has been some controversy (in human terms) as to whether seeing is an attribute of the eyes, or an expression of the integrative powers of the brain. Correctly understood, the issue revolves around the question of whether the body or the mind can see (or understand). This is not really open to question at all. The body is not capable of understanding. Only the mind KNOWS anything. "

"But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely."

"Here are the sounds it hears; the voices which its ears were made to hear. Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are meaningless. It cannot see nor hear."

"This is because you actually cannot see anything, and it is easier to recognize that no matter how vividly you may picture a thought, you are not seeing anything."

"It is indeed a senseless point of view to hold responsible for sight a thing that cannot see, and blame it for the sounds you do not like, although it cannot hear."

"His vision cannot SEE the body, because it cannot look on sin."

"You cannot see the invisible. But if you see its effects, you KNOW it must be there."

"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. "

"We said before that the spiritual eye cannot see error, and is capable only of looking beyond it to the defense of Atonement."

"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. 3 No one who looks on it without the help of reason would try to pass it. 4 The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. 5 Yet reason sees through it easily, because it is an error. 6 The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes."

"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."

"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."

"These eyes, made not to see, will never see. 2 For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. 3 What was its maker's goal but not to see? 4 For this the body's eyes are perfect means, but not for seeing. 5 See how the body's eyes rest on externals and cannot go beyond. 6 Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. 7 Nothing so blinding as perception of form. 8 For sight of form means understanding has been obscured."

"Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see. 3 Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins and of his body. 4 What is there in him that you would attack except what you associate with his body, which you believe can sin? 5 Beyond his errors is his holiness and your salvation."

"You HAVE been wrong about the world, because you have misjudged YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point, what COULD you see? All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would JUDGE reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does NOT depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind, and enter into the world He holds out to you in love."

Here, Jesus appears to simply say that whatever you believe is true, you will see. The kind of world you will see depends entirely on your mind's decision as to what to accept. Whatever you accept into your mind becomes your reality. Therefore inversely, whatever you reject as false does not enter your mind, and therefore you do not see it.

This means that if you believe the world of bodies is true and real, you will see it, and as a result of seeing it, you will make the real world invisible to you. Because the real world is blotted out by this choice to perceive an illusory world and not a real world.

Similarly, if you desire to see only love, you will see only the real world. As a result, that which is now recognized as false, will not be seen. This is reflected in the teaching "you cannot see both worlds." And "The world you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."

Jesus also confirmed this basic law here: "This is in strict accord with vision's FUNDAMENTAL law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you WANT it there. Perception HAS no other law than this."

So very simply, whatever you want to see, you will see. In all cases. Whether it be "I want to see a sinful world" or "I want to see reality" or "I want to see love" or "I want to see death as though it's really happening." Whatever you value, desire and believe in, you want to see, and so you see it.

"Vision adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary to desire. And ****if you see the body, you have chosen judgment, and not vision****. For vision, like relationships, has no order. You either SEE, or not."

The spectrum of choice here is in terms of whether you want to see death, darkness, evil nightmares, sin and guilt and murder etc, or whether you want to see harmlessness, peace, joy, love, safety etc. Consider this a vertical spectrum, ranging from darkness to light.

At the bottom in the greatest darkness, there is the most belief that illusions are real. Here there is significant denial, blockage, unwillingness, condemnation, belief in sin, horizontal causality, suffering and death. As resurrection towards the light is made, all of this diminishes and is replaced with calm, happiness, peace, love, gentleness, loveliness, forgiveness etc.

The darkened state of perception, Jesus is calling false perception. The lightened state of perception, Jesus is calling true perception. ie, in false perception, that which is FALSE is SEEN because you WANT TO. In true perception the TRUTH is seen, because you want to. This is a spectrum between illusions and reality, between death and life, between fear and love, between chaos and peace.

So this depends on what is happening in your mind and what you believe is true. Your mind decides this FIRST, and THEN sees what it has believed in. Projection of the belief makes perception. "Perception is a result, not a cause". Jesus also likens this process to HALLUCINATION, in which you basically make up IMAGES based on what you want to see, regardless of whether it's really there.

Someone in great darkness is hallucinating strongly (insanity). They SEE a world that strikes them as horrifying and upsetting. As the focus shifts to love, the hallucinations diminish and "what is really there" is revealed. ie the real world, or rather, the illusory world "as it is" with nothing added to judge it. The world is now "forgiven" and appears neutral and lovely. You wanted to see love in it, so you do. "Love looks upon itself."

Jesus also appears to be quite clear, that by choosing to "shift perception" towards Christ Vision, which enables you to become aware of and see "the real world", doing so causes you NOT TO SEE the dark icky world. In fact, he even goes so far as to say that in the purest true perception, the world of bodies is completely forgotten, you don't even see bodies AT ALL. And the real world HAS no bodies.

"And if you see the body, you have chosen judgment, and not vision."

"You have the vision that enables you to see the body not."

"Thus is the concept of himself laid by, for nothing stands between his sight and what he looks upon, to judge what he beholds. And in this single vision does he see the Face of Christ, and understands he looks on everyone as he beholds this One. For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight."

He is clear that you cannot see both worlds. You cannot see BOTH the false perception world and the true perception world as the same time. At least, not seeing either of them fully. To fully have vision is to NOT see the world of bodies. "Forgiveness does not look upon bodies." And this is simply because the Spiritual Eye does not USE the body's eyesight to see. And ALL it sees is the face of Christ. It does not see a world based on photons of light because it does not use the body's light sensors (eyes).

"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."

This is key because it means, either you will look at the false world, or the true world. Either the illusory world, or the real world. Either the world that has no buildings or streets or stores or the sun, OR the world that has buildings and streets and stores and the sun.

"For vision, like relationships, has no order. You either SEE, or not."

This means, either you are using the body's physical sight, OR you are using the Spiritual eye. The Holy Spirit correlates to the spiritual eye and He only looks upon Christ.

I have come to think of these as like two "devices." Both of them are also illusions, and therefore technically ego. But the illusion of forgiveness can point towards the truth. You can either use the body's physical sight sensors to pick up images of a physical world, or you can use the Spiritual Eye, which CAN ONLY SEE SPIRIT. The spiritual eye CANNOT BE USED to look upon the world of form! It can only look at REALITY. And the world of form is an ILLUSION.

For you, as mind, you can decide how much of the Spiritual Eye you will behold. ie how much you believe it's messages are true. But here is the catch. To the extent that you ATUNE to the spiritual eye, you inversely TUNE OUT of the physical eye. Which means, you're going to either emphasize or deemphasize what the body's eyes are showing you, based on how much you have forgiven.

"Corrective learning always begins with awakening the spiritual eye, and turning away from belief in physical sight."

"This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight."

The body's sight is one source of "input" to your mind's awareness. The spiritual eye is the second source of input to your mind's awareness. Dialing the knob tunes between the two. Your mind thus ALIGNS WITH, ie agrees with as real, either the physical world or the spiritual world. And agreement means, you believe it is true and real. By tuning into one, you tune OUT of the other. You cannot see BOTH!

In order to SEE the physical world, therefore, your mind has to CLOSE the spiritual eye. Guilt is required in order to tune into it. A belief in sin is required. A belief in death is required. The physical is also tuned into through body identification.

By believing in narrowness, blockage, sin, guilt, fear, death, attack, isolation, separation, selfishness, upset, unhappiness, sickness etc... your mind confines itself to the body. The more it binds itself to the body the LESS it sees with the spiritual eye. The more it believes these things are TRUE, the more it will SEE them in the world it sees.

The body is like a fixed frequency of hell. The spiritual eye is like a fixed frequency of heaven. The more you tune into one the more real it becomes to you. And this then determines what of the TWO worlds you will see.

The world you made, is the illusory world, which includes all dreams and includes the real world and the physical. Within this, christ vision shows you this world as having NO FORMS, while the BODY shows you this world as having solid forms.

There are no objects or bodies in the real world. If you see bodies your mind is in judgement and is starting to sin, causing you to see bodies made of sin. "Only if there were a body is sin possible." "It is impossible to see a sinless body." Christ Vision does not see the body AT ALL, because innocence ERASES the separation idea and bodies are incompatible with innocence.

Essentially, the belief in ego causes your spiritual eye to close, your mind to shut down, your perception to ATUNE to the body's frequency of permanent FALSE perception, which shows ONLY a false world, and then you will have visions of hell. And the world will now seem upsetting and threatening and dark and dangerous, and not deserving of forgiveness.

THe whole purpose of the body was to accomplish this, such that if the mind were to believe that it is ONLY a body, a perception of hell would ensue. "Only the body makes the world seem real" tells you that if you tune INTO the body level of sight, physical sight, and believe it, the world WILL seem to be the ONLY reality. It will take on greater solidity, firmness, tangibility and intensity.

"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 a block" ... "The body's eyes behold it as solid granite"

"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."

"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and cannot go beyond. Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning."

If you tune into body identification, a belief in sin, fear, or any kind of denial of reality, any form of judgement or egoic attempt to defend against God, you will narrow your focus and isolate to a body, causing you to see more exclusively through its eyes, and project onto its images heavy judgements of sin and guilt, which will turn the body's images into visions of hell and real suffering.

If you tune out of the body, into spirit, and into the spiritual eye, you tune out of body perceptions. Out of false perception. Physical sight becomes de-emphasized, and it is given less credit. Thus what was seen as the physical material world through the body's eyes begins to be seen as a transparent, thin veil, rather than a heavy solid surface of matter.

"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."

"Its thinness and transparency are not apparent, until you see the light BEHIND it. And then you see it as a fragile veil, before the light."

"For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight."

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father."

As you tune into the radio station of the real world, you tune out of the radio station of the physical world of forms. Christ enters your awareness and the world of bodies leaves. "The world of bodies is the world of sin". As your belief in sin leaves, so does the world of sin.

In the transition, temporarily there is a parallel of utilizing the body's sight in part, and the spiritual eye in part. These are occurring simultaneously. This causes the physical world to still be seen, up to a point (before christ's face is unveiled) but all the judgement and fear and guilt are lifted away from this image of a fake world. It becomes but a thin veil, a forgiven world, an image of loveliness and a reflection of heaven. But simultaneously it is becoming thin, light, transparent, and is fading from sight, because you DON'T WANT IT. Upon reaching the face of Christ, the physical world is forgotten ENTIRELY and completely VANISHES from view. It literally becomes INVISIBLE to you. "Illusions recognized (as false) must disappear."

Becoming able to see the real world is the final step just prior to going to heaven. But the fact is that to be ABLE to see it, you have to NOT USE the body's eyes AT ALL. And in fact the Spiritual eye does not depend on OR use the body's eyes, and can even function without a body. The Spiritual eye is direct mind-to-mind seeing, and BYPASSES anything physical entirely, overlooking it. When the shift to true perception is complete, Christ is ALL that is seen, AND NOT THE WORLD OF BODIES. It is NOT POSSIBLE TO SEE BOTH! "You cannot see both worlds."

Here, then, as the world is GONE from view, you are ready to return to heaven, and in this state, the physical world has literally faded out of view. It is no longer there TO see, and you do not believe in it, or want it. You do not see it because you do not WANT to see it, and you do not see it because you have CHOSEN to ONLY see reality - vigilance only for the Kingdom. Here, only the truth is true.

By focusing on truth, you DO NOT SEE WHAT IS FALSE. What is false does not exist. And there literally IS NO WORLD to perceive. The world is GONE. It never was, and sights of it were hallucinations. Only reality is real. And now perception has finished its function and you are ready to ascend from the real world into Heaven.

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

"You cannot behold the world and know God."

"Now is there silence all around the world. Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense. Now is there tranquil light across the face of earth, made quiet in a dreamless sleep. And now the Word of God alone remains upon it. Only That can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be His only Son."

"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."

"The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."

A Course in Miracles - Urtext material - reproduced with permission from the Foundation for Inner Peace (acim.org), and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles (facim.org).
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