What appears to be the physical world is not actually "direct reality". It is in fact once removed. It is an effect of an entirely other layer of causality which seems hidden. Just as in the holographic model, the underlying "source" of the appearances you see, is obscured by "sight of form" and you end up believing that this physical world is "verbatim", ie this is all there is.

In understanding why miracles are supernatural, it is very important to recognize this. In order to be supernatural there has to be an order or layer of reality deeper or higher than what appears to be the physical surface of this universe. We have to recognize that bodies and objects are not "immediate reality", they are once removed, and are EFFECTS caused by some other hidden level of causality. There is a whole other layer of causality, and everything in this world is "coming from" that hidden realm, making this world entirely an secondary effect.

When observing just the appearances of the surface of this world, there is a tremendous vast illusion before your eyes, which seems to operate in terms of "horizontal cause and effect". It seems as if some parts of the world cause and effect other parts. But this IS entirely an illusion. It's not what is happening. Anything which looks like being "different" in this world, ie one thing is a cause and another thing is an effect, is an illusion.

What secretly is happening is a higher, hidden level, a more immediate level of reality, is causing this entire universe all at once. Causality moves in a "vertical" direction from above, downwards, projecting the universe below. This means that there is a realm where you are "outside of" or above the entire field of horizontal illusions, outside the dream, where you are under absolutely none of the illusory horizontal laws and free of ALL limitations.

In that realm, you essentially are like a movie editor, someone who can reach into the movie and rearrange parts of it, orchestrate what goes where, and make significant changes. While within the movie itself it seems there is this consistent "story" playing, which utterly depends on the existence of many limitations and props and illusions of things which "must" happen according to certain rules or laws, realize that all of these stories of causality are entirely a fiction, where nothing seems to betray the illusion, nothing hints at this not being all there is, and nothing "blows the illusion" of horizontal or linear causality.

An example is a movie that you go to the cinema to watch. When you watch the movie you believe it is a single seamless story, in which certain limits and rules have been put in place in order to paint a seemingly "consistent" picture. But the fact is, if you could've been in the studio when the movie was being created, you would realize it was simply a bunch of people "acting" and a bunch of computers producing CGI special effects, working "behind the scenes". You as as a miracle worker as a BEHIND THE SCENES OPERATOR who orchestrates and produces the second-hand "effects" or "results" of a creative process. We used this same process initially when FORMING the physical universe, which is an entire order of reality removed from those who pull the strings.

When expression is made from the higher level, the more immediate level of causality, that expression is able to cause changes to the expressed world below. Just as an editor would make changes to a movie sequence from outside the movie which has the potentially to "break the illusion" of linear consistency within the movie itself. And when it DOES "perform a miracle", it literally BREAKS the illusion of linear cause and effect - the horizontal consistency or predictability of one thing leading only to another specific consequence. It's like someone editing the movie, and to those observing from WITHIN the movie, it will look like reality just did something "impossible".

If you seem to be living in the movie and you think that all that can happen is what's inside the movie, then suddenly a spaceship appears out of nowhere because the movie director decided to insert one, you will "witness" what appears to be a miracle. Something happening that seems impossible based on the linear laws. If you think of The Truman Show - a great movie, the same laws and rules and limitations had to happen day after day to maintain an illusion that nothing could happen outside the law, but when the main character started to "wake up" and see through the limitations, the world around him started to "break" and he eventually stepped outside of the whole illusion, coming face to face with the "directory" of the movie. You as a miracle worker are a director of the physical movie.

Or similarly, if it appears that there is a law of gravity where, over time, objects are attracted towards the center of the earth, and therefore human bodies are almost glued to the surface (you can jump, but only so high before you are attracted back down), and if suddenly a human body were to fly up in the air or walk on water, this would BREAK the illusion of horizontal laws. That means, the laws "within" the linear dream, within appearances of horizontal causality, could not have "resulted in" this effect, and it must have required someone to reach in from OUTSIDE of the laws and make an adjustment that the laws themselves are incapable of producing.

The key point to realize is that all of the linear laws are VERY LIMITING. We are confined by them. We are trapped by them. They seem to play out as if having a force or power over us. We don't seem able to escape gravity, time seems to proceed in one direction, one object seems to collide with another, no objects share the same space, very large heavy objects like mountains seem completely immovable, even sickness seems to have a causality in the body or due to external forces. These are all very limiting illusions of things on the SAME LEVEL causing other things on the SAME LEVEL to change.

From the point of view of the miracle worker, who is under no laws but God's, there are NO LIMITS. And so when the miracle worker manipulates the limitations in ways which defy and BREAK the linear laws, this appears to those in the horizontal dream as SUPERNATURAL MIRACLES. Things which should technically be "impossible" according to the limits we have accepted, suddenly become possible. Things we have assumed to be "normal" or "natural" are shown to be ARTIFICIAL LIMITATIONS.

Since we don't generally recognize that we LIVE IN WORLD OF LIMITATIONS, we don't realize that there are additional FREEDOMS and flexibilities that we have decided are off-limits or impossible. Miracles are capable of exercising that freedom and of PROVING that you are NOT BOUND by the horizontal laws of the ego's illusory world. This is why miracles are super-natural, they have a freedom of potential way beyond what any physical law in this second-hand universe suggests is possible.

There is therefore literally NOTHING that they cannot do. We have to open our minds to see past the limitations of physical illusion and realize that even the things we think are impossible are perfectly possible. There is NO REASON why you cannot do anything you can imagine. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

So the main keys to this are:

1) This physical world is once removed from true cause, it is not immediate reality

2) This world has no real causes in it, they are all effects of a higher reality

3) Cause-and-effect in this world are totally fictional illusions designed BY a higher level causer, to create a "story" in which limited things happen according to limited rules

4) Miracles wield a freedom way beyond the limitations of this world and express and demonstrate that ANYTHING is possible because they originate in the FIRST ORDER of causal reality, and therefore can BREAK and OVERRIDE any of the limitations or laws present on the physical level, since those laws are limitations PUT IN PLACE BY someone from the more primal level of reality. This is why Jesus says "you made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both."

Here's what ACIM says:

"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."

"Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator. Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do."

"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence."

Some people like to claim oneness with God, unity with God, the lack of boundaries with God, BEING God, being equal to God, etc.... but your relationship and function with God are NOT 100% the same in all cases. There are some important differences. And not understanding these differences will lead to various egoic conclusions such as that you are God and your oneness with Him makes you HIM. This is a mistake.

1) God created you, you did not create God. This is a cause-effect relationship. "I am forever an effect of God". This means God causes you and establishes you and shares his being/mind/will with you, but you do not DO THAT TO HIM. You do not turn around and cause God. Believing that you do is the authority problem and is what got you into this mess in the first place - you trying to be God.

2) God is greater than you. It is appropriate to have AWE for God, because He is the source of you. It is not appropriate to awe a brother, who is a true EQUAL. Because God is GREATER, "I and my Father are One" acknowledges not that you ARE God, but that you SHARE with God and RECEIVE from Him various qualities and attributes per His Will. God is ABOVE you and BEFORE you.

3) God is a FATHER, you are HIS SON. You are not His Father. Trying to be His father or to separate "father and son" is to separate cause and effect which leads to hell. You cannot father your father.

4) God is complete in and of Himself. The extending outward of His being is creation. "Nothing real can be increased except by sharing". God's inner "self" is complete, in and of itself. It is only the "going out" of His extending that is "blocked" in his communication channels when you put up resistance to receiving Him. His channels of extension become blocked "through you", and yet His own BEING is not blocked in any way, because He is complete in and of Himself. He does not lack completeness in his own right, and that means you are ADDITIONAL to Him. He, who is real, could only be increased, by SHARING HIMSELF WITH YOU, he created you by KNOWING you, and you are a real creation. He has ADDED YOU to existence. "God did not will to be alone". Nor did he will that YOU be alone, so he gave you brothers.

5) God created souls. "The soul has not only been created perfect, it has been FULLY created. There is no lack in it". What this means is that God gave himself SO fully, so unconditionally, so lovingly, so letting go, so freeing, giving ALL of Himself, the WHOLE of Himself, that He literally has established ADDITIONAL WHOLE BEINGS. He gave His mind, his will, his being, to be shared by and extended by, the beings/souls that He created. His Sonship. This essentially establishes you, a soul, as an AUTONOMOUS BEING who has his own FREE WILL, his own mind, his own soul, his own being. This establishes you as a free-willed CO-CREATOR WITH GOD, who freely, willingly, creates and extends God's being in His likeness. "God does not coerce". You are not some helpless "effect only" that has no will of its own. You can EXTEND, you can CREATE. You are causal as well but you are not the cause of Him.

6) Because God gave you free will, as a co-creator, who WILLINGLY wills with God, this freedom essentially "sets you free from God" in a sense. Almost similar to the idea of being separate from Him, this TOTAL FREEDOM, allows you to be your own being with your own free will. Naturally, in your right mind, you only want to will WITH and LIKE and in accord with God's will, it being an expression of your nature which is like His. But when you are NOT in your right mind, you will against His will. It is because your will is FREE, that it can do this, WITHOUT AFFECTING God's Will, and WITHOUT dragging God INTO your fantasies of insanity. If it weren't for this FREEDOM, that God is "separate from" your dreaming, and does not lose sight of Himself when you block communication with Him. It is FREEDOM that has ensured HE remain FREE OF your "willing unlike God's will". God does not support or condone or believe in your dreams of death. If he was totally equal with you, he would dream them WITH you and you'd both never wake up.

7) God created the Sonship. The Sonship is the total of all the beings God created, all his many thoughts, all of his creations, all his children. He established the Sonship, YOU DID NOT. You do not have the ability or function to establish the sonship. Which is why when you TRY TO, you go into DENIAL, instead of accomplishing it. While God's function is to CREATE the Sonship, it is your function to EXTEND it ie add to it. YOUR creations are co-created extensions. "Children of your will", which are created by willing WITH God in accord with His will as CO CREATORS. Two creators.

8) God created the angels. You did not. "God's angels". He created them for protection.

9) God created the Holy Spirit. You did not. The Holy Spirit is recognized sometimes as being "in your mind" or "as your own right mind" etc... but he is also shared by ALL THE SONS OF GOD and so is transcendent of any one person's mind. He is an eternal creation OF GOD, that God created. You did not create the Holy Spirit and He was ADDED to your mind BY GOD. If you were to be equal with God in every way, YOU would be the Holy Spirit's father.

10) "God, who encompasses all being, NEVERTHELESS created separate beings, who have everything individually and want to share it to increase their joy." These separate beings are DISTINCT AUTONOMOUS FREE-WILLED BEINGS WITH THEIR OWN MINDS, who also SHARE or are plugged into the Christ Mind of the "one son", sharing with God. God, who encompasses all being, is not the same as you, who do NOT encompass the being of God. You are INSIDE God's being. And YOUR creations are inside YOUR being. It is like a hierarchy. And you are not at the top of that heirarchy. Believing you are is playing God, which is the authority problem.

So you see, these (and other reasons) explain WHY you are NOT CORRECT when you try to totally equate yourself with God. The idea of "oneness" can be very nebulous and you can attempt to use it to say, well, there's nowhere that God starts and I end, so I must be him. Or, I am part of God so I am God. Or, God is all there is so dreams are part of God too. Or It's all just mind. Or whatever. These all DENY the many dynamics and functional reasons why YOU ARE NOT GOD. You are PART OF HIM, you are not Him. You are not his creator or his cause or his father. There is a MAJOR DIFFERENCE in the POSITION you have in Heaven and the position He has.

So when you think, ok, we're all just one thing, or its all oneness, or my oneness with God means I am totally blurred into Him and we are one thing... NO YOU ARE NOT. Oneness does NOT MEAN what EGOS think it means, ie "one big nebulous blob". IT is not that. Oneness does NOT mean that. It actually means being OF LIKE KIND or the SAME NATURE.

Your oneness with God, your joined nature with God, your sharing with God, and your sharing with your brothers, does NOT establishes you AS GOD, nor does it establish you as your brother's creator. GOD IS HIS CREATOR, and your brother is a BROTHER. In Heaven. Per God's will. As another CHILD He created, independent of you.

And it is because of this independence that REVELATION is a communication from God TO ONE CHILD ONLY, symbolizing the original creative act of God creating you, in which "others" do not seem to participate and it is INTENSELY PERSONAL. And yet God wants you to take the content of the revelation TO YOUR BROTHERS.

God is a whole. God gave ALL of Himself to create you. God gave the WHOLE of himself. He created ANOTHER WHOLE. There are now two wholes, in heaven, in reality. TWO WHOLES. AT LEAST. And there are in fact many many many wholes. Every of the many creations of God are WHOLES. They lack nothing. Totally complete in and of themselves. The soul has been FULLY CREATED, as a WHOLE BEING. A REAL SON.

God put HIS LIGHT into YOU, and it is NOT OF YOU. You did not put the light there. God put HIS WILL into you. You did not put it there. God put HIS POWER into you. You did not put it there. Of yourself you are nothing. You are AS GOD CREATED YOU to be. You have been FULLY CREATED. You are one of many children of God. You are A SON OF GOD. And all the other sons are your permanent brothers.

"We are Creation, WE, THE SONS OF GOD."

"The Kingdom of God includes ALL HIS CHILDREN, AND THEIR CREATIONS."

The "One Son" is nothing but a synonym for "the sonship" which is a system of a very large number of children that God directly created as "God's children". It is God's Family. And you are a PART of that. And the sonship SHARES openly and lovingly in all relationships. And the unity they share, AS MANY, is the Christ Mind, which does not come between them and God. They are DIRECT CREATIONS OF GOD. Children. You are a CHILD OF GOD. Always will be. There's nothing you can do about it.

"Perhaps there is a fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy."

Perhaps worse than guilt, shame is self destructive and a form of self imprisonment. There is not much spoken of this in ACIM. But shame is very prevalent and heavy and harmful.

I looked up psychology definitions of how shame and guilt are different. A loose summary goes like this...

GUILT - A kind of internal judgement that you feel, based on what you did outside of yourself. Like attacking another person or breaking some moral or social code. It's not too far removed from remorse or regret, and somewhat "feels sorry for" the person. It to some degree recognizes that your behavior was wrong but it doesn't condemn your entire self.

SHAME - A kind of external judgement upon your entire inner self, based on what seems to be true of you. This can be based on something you did that you're guilty of, or just on some condition that you have. It can be based on your body's state or life situation or relationship status or whatever.

It's a condemnation that you are not deserving of love, you're lacking, deficient, inadequate, not good enough, weak, decrepit, insufficient, inferior, bad, sinful, evil, unlovable. Somehow that your SELF is fundamentally judged as "of lesser or no value". That you are not equal to others, you're beneath them.

When you apply shame to yourself, it's like a form of self punishment and imprisonment. ACIM does say that when you attack in any way, it induces guilt. But what it doesn't go into is that once you've found yourself to be guilty, you now decide that BECAUSE OF your guilt, you do not deserve forgiveness. To be found guilty is to sin and NOT forgive it. Having found yourself guilty, you've decided you are UNFORGIVABLE. And that also means you should not be loved, you are unworthy, and you should be ashamed. That you should feel deeply bad about yourself as if you've "become a permanent sinner".

Feeling ashamed is feeling really bad about who you are, as if you are inherently flawed. It causes you to withdraw and separate and hide and shrivel up. It's a disempowered state. Shame can also be fairly closely tied to embarassment. E.g. if you get pulled over by the cops for speeding for you might feel guilty for breaking the law, and then feel ashamed at having to "face the judgement" and be found guilty, for it to be proven that you were deficient and flawed. And if that's taking place in public with a crowd watching, you're going to feel shameful.

Shame is very self destructive. It's one thing to feel guilty, and the course talks a lot about guilt. But once you've found yourself guilty, you start to punish yourself. You agree you do not deserve forgiveness, which relegates you to being some kind of inferior creature. Something that does not DESERVE to be treated well. Like some caged animal that has no rights.

Because surely there is something inherently WRONG with you, that you did this. And this puts a major dent in your sense of worthiness. You feel unworthy of love and forgiveness. You feel unworthy of happiness. You feel unworthy of having relationships. You feel unworthy of existing, because you're not valuable enough to "qualify".

Within that state, a person moves further towards suicide. It's like they are bringing a ton of bricks down upon their own head. It's self condemnation. A desire to hurt and destroy oneself. And it's rooted in this belief that you don't deserve to live or be happy, therefore you deserve to DIE and be unhappy. And if death were to come to punish you, you'd practically welcome it, unwilling to choose against it, because you yourself think it would be justified, based on your self loathing.

You can become ashamed even just through simple mistakes. You can mistakenly accidentally hurt someone. And then you might feel ashamed of yourself that you were so incapable of avoiding it that there must be something wrong with you. You can also take on shame through public judgement by others, peer pressure, social pressures and so on.

You can feel ashamed from not fitting in, being different, looking and moving differently, not matching up to some kind of ideal standard. Shame is always a discrepancy between what you are "meant" to be like ideally, and what you are actually like (due to ego). You can feel ashamed for having an uncommon trait or body shape or being "too this" or "not enough of that." Not measuring up. Shame evaluates that you are simply LACKING, which places you below everyone else in the pits of hell.

Feeling ashamed makes you feel like you are some kind of lesser creature. That you don't have the same rights as others. That you can be used and stepped upon and mistreated, and you have no right to stand up to it. It's welcomed as though you think you deserve it, like you're this hideous unlovable ugly wart of inhumanity that everyone hates. And because you then believe you do not deserve love or respect or freedom, your only seeming remaining option is to seek out distorted forms of affection and attention - little conditional scraps here and there, from those who typically want highly special relationships and to take from you. Which feeds right into becoming a martyr, a slave, a victim and a punching bag for others.

Perhaps the worst part about shame is that it's really an attempt to destroy your very self, and your identity. To de-value and de-humanize you. It strips you of your freedom, your rights, your validity, your sacredness. It labels you and puts you in a box. It cuts you down and diminishes you and stomps all over your dignity.

It puts you out of touch with who you really are. It's a major loss of power and a state of weakness and fear. It makes you live in a little darkened cage like an animal, with no friends and no allies. It puts you into isolation, separates you off, portrays you as worth nothing, and seeks your destruction. Shame is like being eaten alive from the inside out.

When you have shame, therefore... through "secret sins", this HAS to be healed. You have to find forgiveness. And you have to find a way to regain your "self worth" - to recognize your value. You have to get your power back and become able to stand up to those who might try to diminish your light or limit you. In particular you have to find a way to forgive YOURSELF, in order to approach a sense of being valuable to God, to regain acceptance of your innocence.

In shame, it will always seem like everyone else has power over you, that you are not good enough, strong enough, capable enough, powerful enough, smart enough, creative enough, good enough, loveable enough etc.... just not enough... for anything or anyone. And this will make you feel limited and like a constant failure.

You'll avoid doing things because you believe you'll fail at it because you're already a failure. You'll fear the judgement and rejection and punishment of what you think is others, for an inevitable insufficiency and heaps of mistakes that you are destined to make, because you believe you are fundamentally flawed. And this will turn you away from expressing and creating and playing and enjoying simply on the basis that it threatens to expose you. It threatens to put you in the spotlight in the arena where you are much more likely to be called out for being unworthy.

The only way though that this can seem to affect you is by you yourself agreeing to it. Which means its your own harsh judgement of yourself that you have to get past. It's really not other people holding you down or making you inferior, it's you. It's your decision that you are unworthy because of your guilt. That has to go, so that you're not constantly second-guessing everything you do. You cannot feel confident about anything while you're riddled with self-sacrificing martyrdom and making yourself small and playing the part of weak and helpless.

Then you'll find that what was really holding you back was YOUR shame, which you imposed upon yourself. And it wasn't really that other people were keeping you locked in a tiny corner of the world, but your own unwillingness to be seen, to be heard, to stand up, to own yourself, to be authentically you, or to stand firm in the face of un-called-for criticism. You have to grow in your strength and power and your imperviousness to judgement.

Ultimately the fact is that all mistakes are forgivable, everyone is worthy to God, no-one ever needs to feel guilty or ashamed, and everyone is loveable. Whatever you did that you feel so bad about, that you're dragging along the ground like a ball and chain around your ankle, you don't deserve that. And because you don't deserve punishment, you don't deserve to die. And that means you deserve to live and resurrect and enjoy your life. You deserve freedom and power and health and joy and relationships.

Below are some of the very brief things ACIM says about shame...

"Perhaps there is a fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy."

"The seeds of sickness and the shame of guilt He cannot bridge,..."

"For specialness is triumph, and its victory is his defeat and shame. 9 How can he live, with all your sins upon him?"

"Let not some dreams be more acceptable, reserving shame and secrecy for others."

What if everything that's happening in the world is exactly what is supposed to be happening, per everyone's agreement and decision? And there are no accidents or mistakes and nothing is going wrong? And I don't mean, that "bad things" aren't happening, just that they're not happening accidentally or without consent.

On the surface, the world looks like hell. And it's hard to consider that everything is happening according to agreement. But there's more to life than meets the eye.

What if everything that happens can only happen because you agree to it? What if you have to put some kind of contract in place which has to be agreed to by everyone involved, in order for anything to happen? What if everything that happens is completely deliberate, and every single event in the world is deliberately orchestrated and chosen by everyone, on purpose?

What could this purpose be, but to assist you in spiritual awakening?

Before you incarnate, you make agreements with people that they will help you with your spiritual growth by playing certain roles for you. You ask them to do this and they agree freely. A contract is made. The terms of the contract state exactly what the person is to do and that they are to do nothing else. They do not add to the workload or take away from it. They are to play their part faithfully.

This includes contracts that you make with your own ego. You chose, on purpose, to make your ego, so that it would function according to your design and your rules. You wanted it to do certain things for you, to adjust your perception in certain ways, to change your values and beliefs in certain ways, and to fulfill a purpose that you wanted. You wanted the ego to function as a loyal and trustworthy device that would enable you to go through various struggles so that you could awaken spiritually. This is its only purpose.

A lot is said about how the ego is devious and vicious and all of this, pointing the finger at it and making it out to be a horrible enemy. But what role are you playing in that scenario? You are the victim. And this is the lesson. Lessons are there for your benefit to help you to wake up. The ego can be seen as a device for facilitating what's needed in order to awaken, if you perceive it correctly and use it correctly.

A spiritual lesson occurs when there is some part of you which is asleep, or at least that believes it is. This part of you, you put to sleep in the first place. And now it seems to be unaware of some aspect of truth. In its unconsciousness, in certain situations and scenarios with certain people you will suffer and struggle because you do not see the truth. This part of you will act exactly according to how you designed it. The purpose of the lesson is awakening and the solution to the lesson is always to wake up to the truth.

All lessons point to the truth and the outcome of learning a lesson must always be that you come to see the metaphysics or structure or mechanism of the lesson clearly. To step out of the lesson, out of your unawareness into awareness, and out of lies into the truth.

The ego, just like your bodily ailments, just like your relationship woes, just like your enemies, just like your financial struggles, and everything else, is only a device acting under contract to fulfill what you told it to do. It can hardly be to blame for anything when you are the one that made it. And you made it with great intricacy and intelligence, and you could say that it is a beautiful creation. It does for you according to what you wanted it to do for you.

Jesus tells us in the Course not to play down the magnificence of your mind's creative power, or to tell yourself that you are stupid for having created a monster. You must acknowledge and access that your mind is a very powerful creator and that it has been used to create your ego. Regardless of whether the ego is real or not, it is still very impressive - this whole universe is very impressive. You made it.

Also recognize that every person that you encounter, no matter what they do, they are doing because it's part of a lesson in which you asked them, under contract, to come along and treat you this way. Even if they seem to be an enemy, someone that hates you or abuses you or attacks you or even tries to end your life, they are still under contract. There is a spiritual purpose. They are trying to help you. That sounds absurd doesn't it, at least to the unawakened mind. But everyone is in your life because they are playing the roles that you hired them to play. You asked for it. You wanted it.

You wanted it because you wanted to awaken back to God and you need their assistance. You need them to trigger you, to get you to engage with your own ego, to get you to look at your own beliefs, to get you to heal, to get you to learn to forgive, etc. These are valuable lessons. Even the person you hate the most is completely acting under contract with you in agreement with you and according to your will.

Even if you are engaging with them in such a way that it makes it seem you totally do not want them to do what they are doing. Your unwillingness to accept their help is actually the lesson you need to learn. You need to find a way to see them as helpful, as innocent, as serving your highest good, as servicing your spiritual growth, and as being loyal and faithful servants according to everything you wanted.

Initially, asleep, you will react to these contractors with resistance and rebellion, because in your ego state you won't see how they are helping you. And this is what you need to learn... So you need to then transition from your initial reaction, which is blindness and forgetfulness, to becoming aware of a bigger truth, a bigger picture, in which you can see clearly. In that clarity you come to realize how they are doing what you asked, how you are not a victim, how you wanted this, how you contracted it yourself, and how you have been dutifully served.

At some point, when your lesson has been learned, and you have come to recognize the truth, you will see all of the ways that a person who once was seen as your enemy was in fact your best friend trying to help you wake up. You will see clearly, without having to add anything to the situation, that it's actually true that you asked them to do what they did. You will also see clearly that everything they did helped you, that you grew from it, that you gained awakening from it. You will see how it benefited you in the bigger picture of your life.

At this point, with clarity and truth and recognition and having therefore transcended the lesson, you will be perfectly poised to enter into genuine gratitude. This does not mean artificially forced gratitude or people-pleasing gratitude or trying to be positive gratitude. It is a gratitude that involves an appreciation - an understanding - a recognition - of what has really happened. It's the ability to see. It's the ability to recognize that this person has served you selflessly and faithfully according to what you wanted and the only possible genuine response to that is genuine gratitude.

And so you will look at this person recognizing their innocence, because they obviously can't be to blame for doing to you what you asked them to do to you. And you will see their help as welcome. And you will recognize the great benefit it has given you. And you wI'll appreciate their help. And in this moment there is a kind of reverence and sacredness or recognition. It's like the two of you will bow before each other, the fight is over, and you are both in full acknowledgement of a job well done. Services rendered. Contract completed to perfection. No loose ends, no resentments, no ties, no desire to get rid of the person or end their involvement prematurely, no grief or sense of loss of harm, just total appreciation.

And then it's as if you both bow in divine brotherhood and see each other as being absolutely the best of friends and for each other, and set each other free. And it is in this moment of freedom and love that you are finally set free of the contract. This is the only way that you can complete a lesson and be free of a contract. This is what al lessons are leading to - a recognition of your freedom and innocence and truth and equality with all your brothers. No victims. No enemies.

So with any problem you have, be it a person or a body sickness or a financial struggle or a noisy neighbor or whatever it is, while you see the problem as unnecessary, unwanted, uncalled for, inappropriate, unjustified, un-asked-for, or in any way happening outside of your will, you will be lost in the ego. And you will therefore be in the midst of a lesson and will need to learn a thing or two about the truth. You can fight with your helpers all you want, that won't help. You can struggle with your contractors, that won't help. You can try to get rid of the problem, that won't help either. You got what you asked for and nothing else. You put this thing into place, on your own, and nobody put it there for you. So at least admit to that and stop attacking what you made.

So how to do you find freedom when you're in a lesson? Forgiveness. Undoing the ego perspectives. Shifting your perception away from attack and toward welcome. Shifting your way of looking at things as happening for you, not to you. Using it as an opportunity to be triggered so that you can look at and heal what you do not want to look at. Allowing the problem to attack you so that you can see how you believe you are attackable, so that you can learn not to attack. Ultimately the purpose is for you to sort out what is really true from what is apparently false and to receive love in everything that happens.

So if you can shift your viewpoint this way and learn your lesson, you will find that you are in a moment of mutual recognition with the thing you made - the contract you created - the person you hired - the sickness you put in place - the lack you chose etc... where you can acknowledge full responsibility for what has occurred, claim the full benefits of the lesson, recognize the innocence and compliance of everyone involved, and set both you and that problem free in a moment of gratitude and welcome.

What you made cannot leave your presence until you can set it free in gratitude and recognition. Any measure of seeing it as your enemy or unwanted attaches you to it and keeps it hounding you, because then you have not learned your lesson. If you want to be free of something, you have to see how you made it yourself and why you wanted it and what you gained from it. What are the benefits? How did it serve you? Where is the silver lining? What function did you give to it? It's simply a matter of whether you truly want to continue with the need for the functionality of this self-made device or not.

And if your ultimate, very long-term goal is to awaken to God's love, then you'll be perfectly happy to keep your devices and not get rid of them, simply because you know that you still need them until you can learn your lesson. Your priority above all else is to learn to awakening to the truth, to return to God, which is more valuable to you and important to you than anything else. So given that, why would you want to keep getting rid of the very lessons that are helping you to wake up? Not that you must suffer... only if it helps you awakening and only for so long as is needed to learn the lesson. You need not suffer at all.

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? (W-135.13)" - ACIM

It's all for the best.

God's Kingdom is the level of primary reality. We then made a SECOND world, with the power of our minds. When we made the world we also invented all the rules of the world, all of the laws of physics, all of the ways spacetime would function, and populated it with every object and body and planet and galaxy.

What this means is there are now two levels. There is the level of source, actual reality, and then there is the lower level of the world. The lower level is sometimes referred to as a lower-order reality. This lower level was made, well within the confines of what is possible for the higher order to accomplish. It was a limited mis-creation, is filled with limitations, and its rules are completely invented restrictions.

We who live within this lower order world, who take it at face value, might believe that this world is first-hand reality. And we might believe that the very strictly enforced laws of spacetime physics cannot be broken. We accept all kinds of limitations as being "normal" for this universe. There are so many things that seem impossible, so many things which proceed according to certain rules... it's "just the way thing work here".

But what we might not realize is that this world is not primary reality, its laws are not actually the most fundamental lowest-level limitations, all limits are artificial, and every single "impossibility" is an illusion. In science now the holographic theory is starting to point to this, recognizing that this world is NOT primary reality but a secondary by-product, and is therefore once removed from source.

There are a couple of good analogies. The first is that of a movie director. The director is outside of the movie at the level of what we'll think of as actual reality. The director decides to piece together a set, to populate it with characters, to assemble a scene and make it appear as though certain stories are playing out.

The director will even play a bit with the rules/laws, perhaps they will devise some illusory special effects which LOOK as if they are believable when you look through the camera and don't see all the strings being pulled and all the behind-the-scenes stuff that is going on. And the illusion depends on not seeing the secret workings of the scene in order to maintain believability. To the casual observer, the romantic tale playing out in the movie is believable and "happening". Limitations are accepted as normal and not questioned.

But the movie director could decide to do something completely outside the realm of this little illusion. They could decide to suddenly walk onto the set in front of the camera. This would blow the whole illusion of a scene set in the 1950s. They could decide to move the camera to see the set from a certain vantage point that reveals the buildings aren't real buildings. They could "break" the laws that seem to run the world.

Another analogy is that of someone who builds 3D CGI scenes in a computer. At first the scene is empty. The modeler wants to make a scene where a CGI car crashes into a lamp post. They put the car into the scene, then the lamp post. But there are no laws in place to govern any kind of collision. There is no physics. They have to tell the computer what they want to happen.

They have to invent some physics laws and implement them, so that it SEEMS that when the car touches the lamp post the post bends in a way that makes it look AS IF the car caused the damage. And perhaps the front of the car needs to be remodeled to make it appear AS IF it has been dented.

They also have to make the car move, define how fast, and configure every parameter of what happens. It's sort of similar to how a child plays with a toy car and pretends the car crashes and has to make the object it crashes into move as well to pretend it caused something to happen. In truth the car does not cause anything to happen, the lamp post is not at the effect of the car, and there is no "real damage". It's all pieced together to make an illusion. To seem as if it's believable. There is no actual cause and effect here.

It's possible for the modeller to decide to do something to the car which would "break" the normal laws of physics. They could make the car float, they could change its color, they could turn it into an apple. These would be "unbelievable" to someone who bought into the illusion of the scene, and would appear miraculous.

Which is another point. Within this world we're used to living in, we believe there is cause and effect on the horizontal level. That a brick thrown through a window causes the window to break. One thing is a cause, another thing is an effect. And sometimes the thing that caused becomes affected. We buy into this as if it's a closed system. As if the dream that we caused is causing us.

But in truth, the director has VERTICAL causality over the movie scene. The 3D modeller has VERTICAL causality over the entire contents of the what happens. And so too the MAKER of this world has entire power OVER everything that happens in this world.

Since you MADE PHYSICS, you can BREAK it. You can decide, hey, I am under no laws but God's, I am not bound WITHIN the laws of physics, I made the laws, I will transcend them and break them. I will do something OUTSIDE the laws. I will walk on water, breaking the law of gravity. I can ignore gravity because I made gravity myself. Since you are above, beyond, and outside of, the level of the laws, you have the FREEDOM to exercise your will to bend, break, and totally override the rules.

You who made the world are PRIOR to the world. You are able to pull the strings. You can do thing to the laws and the scene that the laws and the scene itself says are impossible. Things which cannot seemingly be undone or reversed, are reversible with miracles. You can control space and time. Your mind has power over matter. You can literally move a mountain. You can reverse death and sickness. There is nothing beyond your ability to rewrite the dream. You're the dreamer, YOU call the shots.

When you break the laws of the world, the effects or "what happens" is seen by the natives as "miraculous". Or "impossible". When you walk on water, breaking gravity, this seems impossible. Such a demonstration shows that because you are DOING IT, the law of gravity must be an illusion. This is why "miracles are teaching devices."

Also since miracles "do the impossible", this is often why many people do not believe in them as being capable, as if such things are just "magic", as a way to try to explain why miracles CANNOT BE supernatural. This is due to a belief that the world is real. Those to have fallen for the illusion of the lower-order scene are convinced by appearances and made-up laws and believe they cannot BE broken.

Demonstrations of your power over the world reveals that all the limitations and laws you thought you were bound by, you are NOT bound by. When a few loaves of bread and some fish are multiplied out of nowhere to feed 5000 people, this seems miraculous. But he who is operating on laws OUTSIDE the laws of this world is merely exercising their freedom. Anything goes when you are literally above the law!

When a dead body is suddenly resurrected to life and the person starts walking around as if nothing happened, this is considered a miracle by the people who anticipate that death cannot be reversed. In total defiance of all the laws of this world, the laws of decay and time and chemical decomposition, can be broken. Even bodies that have been dead for years can be resurrected. Even when the pieces are scattered and decayed and beyond help. This should not be considered "difficult". There is NO order of difficulty.

You are not bound by ANY LAW of this universe. It is all an entire level removed from the level at which you exercise your creative freedom. This world is further down the chain of causality than the starting point, and you at the starting point can therefore change your mind and change the whole world. It doesn't matter how irreversible, solid, permanent or impossible something seems to be, all of that is overridden when you operate from a higher level of causality.

"Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly."

Since you are operating from a level above the world, you are having vertical causality over the world. You even cause the causality of the word. You cause the causes, and the effects. You set up the causes and the effects to PRETEND that the causes caused the effects. You can violate the illusion of causality at any time. You are above the world. This is why the coures says:

"41. The miracle is a learning device which lessens the need for time. The sudden shifts from horizontal to vertical perception which the miracle entails..."

Vertical perception is a state of seeing yourself as prior to the world, above the battlefield, causal over everything below, overriding all horizontal causality, under no laws but God's. Miracle working ENTAILS shifting INTO vertical perception, SO THAT you can be miraculous. What you then perform FROM vertical perception breaks the laws of the world. Miracle mindedness is vertical perception.

Since super" means above, and "natural" is of course to do with the nature of things, super-natural means "above nature". Being above the nature of the world. Beyond and above the laws of the world. This is why miracles are rightfully "supernatural". At least in terms of looking at them from below. In truth they are completely natural and should be happening all the time. Miraculousness is actually the NATURE of God's Kingdom, which has UNLIMITED POWER.

Everything that is of God is supernatural and naturally so. "God's miracles" "You are a miracle" "You are a miracle not of your own making" "Miracles mean life and God is the giver of life" "The miraculous nature of the soul" "Miracles are a universal blessing from God" etc. Being miraculous is natural, being UN-miraculous is UNNATURAL.

Being BOUND by the laws of space time is UN NATURAL. And the NATURE of everything within space time is NOT NATURAL. What we affectionately call "mother nature" is OPPOSITE to the nature of God. "Earth, Heaven's opposite in every way." And "miracles are natural and should be happening all the time. When they aren't, something has gone wong."

So being a miracle worker means being supernatural. Miracles are supernatural acts. They CAN BE spectacular. "A miracle is MISUNDERSTOOD when it is REGARDED as a spectacle". "The use of miracles to INDUCE BELIEF is a misunderstanding of their purpose. They are for and by believers." Nothing wrong with throwing a mountain into the sea. Nothing wrong with materializing objects or turning a snake into a branch. Nothing wrong with multiplying food and walking on water. Nothing wrong with reversing death or sickness and giving eyeballs to those born without them. This is *natural*.

"The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form, because it can so easily be CHANGED. This demonstrates that it was never real, and could not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change."

Miracles express from above and outside of the nature of this world. They are supernatural, and what they are capable of IS UNLIMITED.

"Your mind has the power to make worlds."

"There is nothing your holiness cannot do."

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

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

"I am under no laws but God's."

"one point already tells you that miracles reverse the physical or lower order laws."

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

"The 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."

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

Ok so, this is possibly a touchy subject, and I'm not trying to make anyone feel guilty. If you have some kind of a sickness, pain, upset, disability, whatever, this is going to be talking about that and I don't mean to make anyone feel attacked. But I want to look at something the course discusses.

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

I've been looking at this lately because I've been having to heal a sense of guilt and blame for someone else being sick. Once I started to look at what the course says about my own situation, I saw that we basically are immortal beings who keep attacking ourselves, making ourselves suffer, inducing our own sickness, and trying to die. And then I started to think about whether other people were doing this, and this is where some lightbulbs went off.

If a person is having a physical sickness, it does mean that they are attacking themselves. It means that they, as an immortal being, are trying to destroy themselves. They believe they are guilty and sinful for attacking God. This is then projected onto and through the body. The body in turn takes on forms of sickness as a shadow of the guilt in the mind, a shadow of deformity.

"Illness can be but guilt's shadow, grotesque and ugly since it mimics deformity. If a deformity is seen as real, what could its shadow be except deformed?"

But the sickness in the body isn't just there as a sickness, it's there for a purpose. The purpose is accusation. The sickness is actually part of the attempt to project sin onto others. The body is made to appear sick and weak and suffering, so that the person appears to be innocent, and so that someone else is accused of sin. The sight of a sick body therefore means someone is holding a "picture of crucifixion" up to accuse you of sin, and "sick bodies remain accusers."

"The sick remain accusers."

"You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate, and damning him to hell."

Jesus has gone even further than this, to say that in this self-destructive, projective situation, we actually are trying to kill others. As we scapegoat, ie project sin, we make the body sick, in order to prove another's guilt. And one of the ways this takes shape is in terms of contagion of physical illness, such as with a cold or flu, where someone is trying to "infect" others with their sin and guilt, so that if others become sick and suffer for it, this exonerates the sick person.

Jesus even says that when we are sick, we are being merciless, like we have this intense almost evil attitude of destruction, first towards ourselves and then towards others. We're actually even willing to die, if it means someone else is accused of causing it. And so the dead body testifies to the sinfulness of another. That we're literally willing to destroy the body in order to try to exonerate ourselves of the original sin, and pin it on something external.

"Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die."

So this then made me realize that, a major reason that I often have a sense of guilt or self-blame around other people's sicknesses, is because they are in fact attempting to accuse me of their sin. Their sick body is attempting to project guilt onto me, its a way they are using their body for attack, and having tried to destroy themselves they now are projecting destruction onto me. So then I end up feeling guilty because, essentially, if I "make their body real" to myself, I'll buy the temptation that the sickness is literally accusing me of sin.

I think part of realizing this, for me, entailed having to be willing to look at someone else and ask myself if they are doing the very same thing the course says I am doing to myself. ie are they trying to destroy themselves, do they have guilt from the separation, are they punising themselves, are they projecting and are they using their body for attack? And the answer is yes.

But this answer also gives rise to the realization that, the truth about myself, also applies to them. Just as I might realize that I am not sinful or guilty, that God has not been attacked, and I don't deserve to suffer, and I need to stop blaming myself or making myself guilty..... so too does this apply to others.

So now my approach to the "sick person" changes to one of compassion for them doing the exact same self-attack that I've been doing, a recognition that they are similarly not sinful, realizing that they are mistaken to believe they should be guilty, and therefore shifting to a more supportive position of reminding them of what is really true of them. And this in turn alleviates my guilt because it means I am not responsible for their condition, and its "truth" doesn't apply to either of us.

What's really true of them is that they have not sinned, their innocence is intact, they have no reason to be guilty, they have no need for sickness, they have no basis for punishing themselves, and they don't need to destroy themselves, because they haven't done anything wrong.

I am finding in fact that this kind of attitude toward them is in fact "miracle working". Because the more I express toward someone "the atonement" principle of their sinlessness, the more I am being loving, and also am treating my neighbor as myself. If my "work" is to express toward someone that they deserve love and health and happiness because they have not sinned, I am in fact joining my mind to theirs by accessing the part of them that's innocent. The "innocent self" BEHIND the self-accusation. And the accused guilty self is not who they really are.

And so it's important to overlook their self-accusation and not see it as applying to them. As I do this, I feel a POWER, and a sense of ENERGY, funneling through me. And I am quite certain this is opening the door to working miracles. If I can accept my own atonement ie my sinlessness, then I can also recognize other people have been similarly attacking themselves needlessly and can help to support them in finding their way back to their innate perfection.

"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. The message which he then gives to others is the truth that THEIR MINDS are really similarly constructive, and that their own miscreations cannot hurt them."

"He MUST work a miracle on behalf of himself here (See the point about miracles as a perception corrector) before he can effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are."

What this reveals to me is also that, when I have ever done forgiveness, it's almost always been with a somewhat selfish intent. Even if I am forgiving "others", it mostly revolves around taking stuff off them and putting it back on me, so that I can address the deeper problem in "my separate self". But what I see now is, that in fact, the very same practice which I might use to apply to myself, to undo my own belief in my own sinfulness, I can use that very same approach FOR SOMEONE ELSE on their behalf, and forgive them FOR THEM.

In effect, it's like "doing a forgiveness" for someone else on their behalf, applying it TO them, reminding them of what THEIR truth is, and helping them to see their own innocence. Just as I would do for myself, but applying to them instead.

I am certain this has a lot to do with working a miracle. Because a miracle worker begins by seeing the light in another, which you an only do if you see light in yourself, and then you reinforce their light by shining your light into their mind, as you "pick them up" and "lift them up" through the expression of the truth about them.

It's kind of like telling someone that they've been hard on themselves, mean to themselves, unfair to themselves, and have not loved themselves.... and that the reason they've done this is unfounded, and they don't deserve this self-abuse, nor do they deserve to suffer in sickness or pain or misery. To set them back on the right path and get them back in touch with their own innate soul perfection. To be like, hey, brother, what you think about yourself is not true, you are .... and then list all the things which are true of them in reality.

(Forgiveness) "It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth."

This IS forgiveness because it's what it means to overlook the layers of ego sin, guilt, fear, self-attack, symptoms, body-stuff, in another, and look to the fact they are a christ entity, perfect and holy, temporarily mistaken, believing stuff about themselves that isn't true, and knowing and remembering FOR them that their lies are not true of them.

This also taps into a new "mode" of forgiveness, in which we attempt to reap the benefits not by forgiving "for ourselves" or by withdrawing from others into our separate minds, but by reaching OUT to others and telling THEM what we want to be true of US.

Expressing towards someone a higher truth, simultaneously makes it true of YOU, but without the selfish component. In this sense yes your brother is your savior. You can only give the miracles you have received but you can also bolster what you receive by giving. This is why "miracles benefit both the giver and the receiver."

To pour love into someone, to recognize when they themselves do not love themselves, and to supply the lack of love, by reminding them of what is really true about them, joins your mind to theirs and enlightens it, shines truth into their mind, empowers them, awakens them, and resurrects them.

Lately I've been noticing that .... my state of mind, has something to do with what happens. I know that sounds a bit far fetched to many people. But we are after all told that this world is a dream, and that our minds are dreaming it.

I see how sometimes events and the appearance of certain people seem to correlate to certain attitudes or modes that I'm in. Sometimes a freer happier mode seems to produce the appearance of certain types of people, while unhappier or angrier modes seem to produce other types.

One of the ways that I've noticed this manifesting is with the idea that "what you resist persists". For example if you are driving a car and some slow person is in front of you, and you resist them being there, they seem to linger more than if you let them be there. When you let them go and don't make them an obstacle, they seem to leave sooner. In a sense, the showing up of a roadblock or "reason to slow down" shows up when you are "pushing too hard" or rushing. It influences what happens.

I've seen also times where, if I am doing a healing and saying things which are truthful, such as a few times in the hospital recently, following those times I noticed how other people seemed to lighten up a lot and laugh more. The whole sort of "atmosphere" of the place changed, the people changed and their moods changed and the events became more supportive.

For sure I also find that if I am upset or angry or frustrated, I start producing things going wrong. More and more things seem to fall on the floor, break, slip out of reach, get in the way, or generally just become "more reasons to be annoyed." I don't think that this is merely a matter of being annoyed and interpreting them as annoying. I think there is actually an increase in the number of things that happen, which don't appear to happen in such a condensed way at other times. Mind mind is literally influencing what happens.

Sometimes I get a sense that there is a kind of "psychic weather", in which, let's say.... it seems like maybe there are some minds that are contributing to external conditions - to dream content. Certain events seem to transpire as though "put there" by the minds of certain people. It seems at times as if there is a kind of psychological war playing out, literally orchestrating changes in events and what objects or people show up, in a subtle but noticeable way.

"This is not safe, because ***external conditions are produced by the thoughts of many***, not all of whom are pure in heart as yet."

Overall, I sense and notice more often, that the world in fact does appear to be a malleable dream. Not just some fixed physics-driven state of objective reality, but really a much more malleable fluid sort of "mix" of contributions and influences. It even appears to be possible that stuff which seems like it would've taken a long time to "plan" or "make possible", becomes possible complete with backstory, just to "fit" into place. As if the whole world just "changed" to line up with expectations.

There are some days when I wake up and I feel like everything has changed, in a subtle but noticeable way. Almost like as if you had jumped to a different "dimension" or "version" of the world, in which everyone and everything is subtly different in the same way.

I wouldn't be the first to claim this either, because there is plenty of evidence and stories out there about buildings appearing out of nowhere, strange correlations, sudden appearances or disappearances of things which couldn't seem possible, etc. Again suggesting that this world is not a fixed predictable place but rather a "mind-driven" realtime mixture of effects coming from the minds of people.

I think that in some way, the more that I become responsible for causation, as per the secret of salvation, and less of a victim, and perhaps stronger spiritually, I'm seeing more "influence" happening. Perhaps in the early stages of this development, but it does seem that my mind and focus and mood often influences the environment around me. Not merely in a subtle way as suggested in the heisenberg principle of quantum physics, but at even a much more "macrocosmic" level.

I feel this also points to having to also be more responsible and vigilant for thought, for more carefully managing my projections and my ego activities. After all, Jesus in ACIM also says that we need a healthy respect for the power of the mind....

"All miracle-workers HAVE to be trained that way. I have to be able to count on them. This means that I cannot allow them to leave their mind unguarded, or they will not be able to help me. ***Miracle-working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation.*** Otherwise, the miracle will be necessary to set the mind ITSELF straight, a circular process which would hardly foster the time-collapse for which the miracle was intended. Nor would it induce the ***healthy respect that every miracle-worker must have for true cause and effect.***"

Notice here that Jesus says that mind is very powerful and we need to be careful about mis-creating. If we are indeed powerful creators, and we have power of mind over matter, and mind is stronger than bodies, etc... and mind knows its dreaming, then obviously mind is going to start being able to "control" what dream content there is, what happens, and what does not happen.

"Yet this world is ONLY in the mind of its maker, along with his REAL salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing WHERE it is, ***will you gain control over it***. For you DO have control over your mind, for the mind is the mechanism of decision."

This suggests to me that in fact the workbook lesson "my self is ruler of the universe" where "what happens is what i desire" is not merely suggesting that we live in an objective world where we are "okay with" whatever happens, but that in fact LITERALLY we actually CAUSE EVENTS TO HAPPEN. That we begin to orchestrate the dream, consciously. Perhaps we can call it "lucid dreaming" in a sense. Indeed the mind certainly seems to have an INFLUENCE.

What this suggests then is this quite profound idea.... As you awaken more, your mind becomes more powerful. It becomes more causal, or more focused or "in control" of more DELIBERATELY CHOOSING. And this results in actual effects. It causes the dream to change. Your mind actually dreams of a different world. Not simply that you dream of the same world in a different way, or interpret the world differently, but that you PRODUCE a different world. The so-called "physical world" literally turns into a different configuration.

This would mean that the mind actually has the power to change the dream world directly, to manipulate events, to cause objects to show up and disappear, to have power OVER matter, to quite literally manipulate the world through direct effects. This would mean that, for example, for a person of enough power, they do not merely walk "the world", they walk whichever kind of world they want to emanate.

They literally can cause events, and prevent events. Nothing happens without their consent. They begin to have control over the dream world, over objects, over what transpires and what doesn't. And perhaps they can even literally force death and attack not to happen. They can cause events to steer away from destruction and death. Just as ACIM states that the Holy Spirit can clear a path for you so that you are free from obstacles...

"He will go before you, making straight your path, and leaving in your way no stones to trip on, and no obstacles to bar your way. NOTHING you need will be denied you. ***Not one seeming difficulty but will melt away BEFORE you reach it.*** You need take thought for nothing, careless of everything except the only purpose that you would fulfill. As THAT was given you, so will its fulfillment be. God's guarantee will hold against ALL obstacles, for it rests on certainty, and NOT contingency. IT RESTS ON YOU. And what can be more certain than the Son of God?"

That is quite a radical interpretation of the course because it suggests we don't just "re-perceive" the world in a better way, but that in fact the world literally is OUR DREAM, our mind is literally THE CAUSE of it, and we literally can dream of something else, CAUSING literal physical-seeming things to change. Why would this NOT be the case, when the mind has the power to actually cause bodies to heal, and the dead to resurrect, and mountains to move, and storms to calm? Such a mind can, let's say, ALTER REALITY. And that's quite exciting and interesting. And it means MIRACLES CAN MODIFY DREAM CONTENT DIRECTLY.

Obviously someone would need to become very vigilant about heir mind, very careful NOT to mis-create, very careful not to deliberately cause "bad situations", very careful not to CHOOSE events in which there is suffering etc, and to only induce dream environments which are conducive to healing etc. But this doesn't mean they can't choose anything they want. Imagine that Jesus could manifest any object he wanted out of thin air. Imagine that Jesus could make things multiply out of nowhere, he could turn bodies into other bodies, and could make things disappear. Why not, when he was "ruler of the universe"?

Not a mere passive traveler in a foreign land, but an ACTIVE DREAMER. Indeed, a "miracle worker", someone who can literally transform ANY APPEARANCE into any other, manipulating space and time and matter as if it's something to play with. In which the laws of reality as the world knows it are violated, any there is NOTHING your holiness cannot do.

"There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought."

"But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. "

"The idea for today is a beginning step in dispelling the belief that your thoughts have no effect. Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact."

"There is no point in lamenting the world. There is no point in trying to change the world. It is incapable of change because it is merely an effect. But there is indeed a point in changing your thoughts about the world. Here you are changing the cause. The effects will change automatically."

"Neutral thoughts are impossible because all thoughts have power. They will either make a false world or lead me to the real one. But thoughts cannot be without effects. As the world I see arises from my thinking errors, so will the real world rise before my eyes as I let my errors be corrected."

"Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it."

"I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body AND the power of the mind, by uniting MY will with that of my Creator, which naturally remembered the Soul and its own real purpose."

"Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind. Nobody remains fully aware of it all the time. This is inevitable in this world, because the human being has many things he must do, and cannot engage in constant thought-watching. However, if he hopes to spare himself from fear, there are some things he must realize, and realize them fully, at least some of the time."

"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."

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains.

It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it.

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

"My Self is ruler of the universe. ... It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do."

Many here are familiar with a line that says your "sole responsibility" is to accept atonement for yourself. This has, however, been butchered and used as a separation device, and an excuse for not doing anything. When you look at ALL of the quotes about taking "sole responsibility", every one of them is tied to some manner of ACTIVITY which ensues when you accept atonement.

This phrase has been misunderstood. People have taken it to mean "the only thing you have to do." Or perhaps worse, "the only thing there is to be done." As though to say, once you do this ONE thing, you have NO responsibilities to do anything else. This is unfortunate because it is TOTALLY opposite to the course's teaching. It has been used to justify against miracles, against healing, and against helping others.

What he's really saying is that, because you are a free willed being, you have the right and the freedom to CHOOSE. The secret of salvation tells you that YOU are responsible for what you experience. YOU are responsible for your own suffering. YOU are responsible for your own sickness and death. You "do it to yourself." Owning that, accepting that, admitting that, being aware of that, is "taking responsibility." It's a recognition of WHO is causing stuff to happen. The PURPOSE of taking responsibility is in fact SO THAT you can be miracle minded and perform miracles FOR OTHERS.

What this leads to is the recognition that you are the ONLY ONE (sole) who is responsible for the condition of your mind and your experience. God has already done his part by creating you and giving you free will. YOUR part is to "be you", or to be as God created you. To be your natural true self. To be true to the truth about you and others. Because you have free will, it is YOUR CHOOSING that determines whether you are experiencing heaven or hell. And it is this choice that you are SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR.

What the course actually says is that you have a responsibility for CHOOSING the atonement (accepting it). This is because it is your free will choice whether to accept or not. "No one comes to the atonement except willingly." "Heaven is a choice I must make." Just because it says "for myself" on the end of it, people's egos have taken a hold of it and have used it to mean "this applies only to me and no-one else is involved." This couldn't be further from the truth because atonement means SHARING WITH OTHERS.

Taking that full responsibility and electing to do God's will and align yourself with truth, puts you in a position of accepting the truth ie the atonement. But this is only to do with the scope of your freedoms. What you CAN do. What you ARE in a position to decide about in relation to your free will. You are responsible for accepting the atonement for yourself because no-one else is capable of forcing you to accept it. You have to "do your part."

This however has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with whether or not "there are responsibilities" besides this for you to embark upon. In fact, logically speaking, what is true of you must be true of everyone. This is the Golden Rule. As Jesus states in the course you CANNOT accept atonement WITHOUT sharing it. If you are going to accept that YOU deserve love and power, then you MUST also grant ALL OTHERS the same right to love and power. You also MUST support them in accessing that love and power, which means that, because they are PART OF YOU, you cannot fully rest if your brothers are still experiencing hell.

Miracle Principle 24:

"24 A miracle is a Universal Blessing from God through Me to all My Brothers. Explanation: You once said that ***souls cannot rest until everyone has found salvation.*** This happens to be true. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive. The Disciples were officially and specifically told to ***heal others, as Physicians of the Lord.*** They were ***also told to heal themselves***, and were promised that I would never leave them or forsake them. ***Atonement is the natural profession of the Children of God, because they have professed Me."***

Atonement is not simply a STATE. It is not something that you do IN ISOLATION. It is not something you CAN accept only for yourself. Only yourself CAN CHOOSE to accept it, but OF ITSELF it is not about "just you"! It is something that applies to the entire sonship and by accepting it you are agreeing to UPHOLD it FOR everyone and to participate in bringing EVERYONE into the atonement. It is PART OF YOU. You become PART OF the atonement itself. The process of it, for the whole sonship. And because your brothers are part of you, you CANNOT rest fully knowing that they are still suffering.

In fact what Jesus says is TOTALLY opposite to what many people believe, ie that "the only thing you have to do" is to accept atonement. Like it's some kind of thing you pick up off a shelf and then you "get it" and possess it and it's yours. And then you sit there on a cloud picking your nose. Jesus's view is that to enter into atonement is to enter into RELATIONSHIP with everyone, and to SUPPORT everyone, and to HEAL everyone. To EXPRESS FROM the atonement. Miracles are EXPRESSIONS from the atoned state.

"The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and acceptance of his Atonement. The mind is then in a state of Grace, and naturally becomes gracious, both to the Host within and the stranger without. By bringing in the stranger, he becomes your brother."

"I repeat that you will see Miracles through your hands through MINE. Conviction really comes through accomplishment. Remember that ability is the potential, Achievement is its expression, and Atonement is the Purpose."

Atonement is a PURPOSE. The purpose is to bring all your brothers back home to God WITH you. That does not happen by you "just accepting atonement for yourself." In fact, when a person isolates off the atonement as a "me only" thing, they are in fact being utterly selfish. This is the ego's version of accepting the atonement. You get to be included, and everyone else is excluded.

"Refuse to accept anyone as WITHOUT the blessing of Atonement, and bring him INTO it by blessing him. Holiness MUST be shared, for therein lies everything that makes it holy."

So Jesus isn't actually saying, in his wording, that you only have a singular "project", or a singular "thing to do". As if you just need to reach the finish line and then you're done. Jesus is still very active in spite of accepting atonement - if you notice he's written a large book and helps you to learn it. He is an active teacher. ANYONE accepting atonement MUST .... HAS TO.... IS REQUIRED TO... CANNOT AVOID.... DOES NOT WANT TO AVOID ..... helping others to find atonement for themselves. It is in fact a metaphysical and logical and mystic condition that your own peace of mind is NOT complete while others remain in darkness. You can't go home without them.

"Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return."

"only the whole Sonship is a worthy co-creator with God"

"YOUR salvation IS critical to the whole Sonship."

"To teach the WHOLE Sonship WITHOUT EXCEPTION demonstrates that you PERCEIVE ITS WHOLENESS and have learned that it IS One."

"The voice of the Holy Spirit IS the call to Atonement, or the restoration of the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed, there will be no call to return, but what God creates is eternal."

"Every decision is made for the WHOLE SONSHIP, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of." Jesus does not MEAN that you have only one job to do. He means that there is only one scope of free will that you can be responsible FOR, which is your own free will choice to accept atonement. This in NO WAY means that accepting it absolves you of ALL responsibilities, nor does it mean that you don't HAVE a duty - a responsibility - to help others with their atonement. It is in fact a privilege to do so, not a chore, or some crappy job you don't want.

This is not about spiritual laziness. It's not about you "getting what you want" and then forgetting about everyone else. You can't accept atonement WITHOUT accepting that you are eternally BOUND to everyone else and cannot be entirely at peace knowing that they are still suffering. Regardless of whether that suffering is ultimately real or not. The only thing you CAN be responsible for is your own free willed choice to accept the truth. But you are ALSO responsible for the whole sonship. Once you have accepted atonement and have BECOME TRULY RESPONSIBLE, you are now in a position to BE responsible, and you are now responsible FOR EVERYONE.

"You have a PART to play in the Atonement. But the plan of the Atonement IS beyond you"

"The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO IT."

"Holiness MUST be shared, for therein lies everything that makes it holy." "The sole responsibility of God's teacher is to accept the Atonement for himself (you are responsible for MAKING THE CHOICE TO ACCEPT IT - this says nothing about what you DO IN THE ATONED STATE). Atonement means correction, or the undoing of errors. When this has been accomplished, the teacher of God becomes a miracle worker by definition." ( you can't even be a FULL miracle worker until AFTER you accept atonement and THEN are in a position to DO ANYTHING ).

"The unforgiven HAVE no mercy to bestow upon another. That is why your sole responsibility MUST be to take forgiveness for yourself."

"If the sole responsibility of the miracle-worker is to accept the ATONEMENT, and I assure you that it is, ...."

"Would you take unto yourself the sole responsibility for deciding what can bring ONLY good to everyone?"

"The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept Atonement himself. This means that he knows that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors ARE healed by the Atonement. ***Once he accepts this, HIS mind can only heal.*** 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.*** The message which he then gives to others is the truth that THEIR MINDS are really similarly constructive, and that their own miscreations cannot hurt them."

"Miracle Principle 8

Miracles are a form of healing. They supply a lack, and are performed by those who have more for those who have less."

"I told you you were now restored to your former role in the Plan of Atonement. But you must still ***choose freely to devote your heritage to the greater Restoration. As long as a single slave remains to walk the earth, your release is not complete.*** Complete restoration of the Sonship is the only true goal of the miracle-minded."

"My part in the Atonement is not complete until YOU join it, and give it away. As you teach, so shall you learn. I will never leave you or forsake you, because to forsake you would be to forsake myself and God who created me. You will forsake yourselves and your God if you forsake any of YOUR brothers. You are more than your brother's keeper. "

"The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything TO you. (That is, to restore the awareness. Later clarification.) You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did.

Having been restored to your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself. You now share MY inability to tolerate the lack of love in yourself and in everyone else, and *************MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE************* to correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is "Listen, Learn, and DO."

This means Listen to My Voice, Learn to undo the error, and DO something to correct it.

The first two are not enough. The real members of MY party are ACTIVE workers."

When God created you, He created you perfect. You were created whole, complete, absolutely divine and lacking nothing. He created you incapable of sin, capable only of extending love and joy.

It is IMPOSSIBLE for you to change what you are, what God created, your identity, your nature, or anything about you.

It is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for you to BE anything other than the perfect divine soul that God intended for you to be.

God does not create you at one 'moment in time'. There is no time. God is ETERNALLY EXPRESSING YOU. You are constantly and permanently being radiated by God, and whatever God expresses is what you are, and you HAVE NO SAY in changing that.

You are the EFFECT OF GOD, The Son of God, and His Will has absolute power over your creation, your existence, and your nature. What you are is a reflection of His own perfection, and you CANNOT CHANGE IT. And you HAVE NOT changed it.

You ARE still as God created you. Your soul is STILL perfect. It has not changed, it has not sinned, it has not been damaged, it has not been lost, it is not unconscious, it is not asleep or deluded, it has no ego, and nothing can happen to it.

Regardless of what it looks like to you, right now, in time, your soul - your REAL SELF - ALREADY EXISTS IN PERFECTION. You have ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED being "perfectly spiritual". You have ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED being divine, holy, perfect. You are already beyond the atonement. You are ALREADY IN HEAVEN WITH GOD. Right now.

So if there is anything else going on in your mind, any other beliefs to the contrary, any suggestions that you are lacking or not there yet, any delusion that something has gone wrong or something is wrong with you, or that you need to "do something" to become better or more spiritual or more pure and holy, or that you are not forgiven yet, or you didn't atone yet.... ALL of that is ego bullshit lies.

ACCEPTING the atonement means accepting this fact. It means, accepting that NOTHING HAS HAPPENED, nothing changed, you did not go anywhere, you did not die or suffer, you did not sin or become guilty, you did not stop being with God, you are literally incapable of willing against God or yourself, and you are STILL exactly as God created you. You WILL ALWAYS BE as God created you, and there is literally NOTHING you can ever do to change that.

Even if it seems this is not true of you, and you are this ego identity who lacks and suffers and has a long way to go and all this crap... it's not true. The spiritual self that you are trying to become, IS ALREADY IN YOU. Your higher self, your holy self, your spirit, your soul, you real identity, your christ self, you as a son of God, your heavenly identity, is already here, already fully complete, already perfectly awake and aware, already absolutely cured and healed, already in perfect divine happiness and health, and ALREADY EXISTS.

Even if it seems you will become this holy self "in the future" or "you are not there yet", THAT is a lie. Your holy self is ALREADY HOLY. So while you are contemplating what you need to do to get back to God, you never left. Right now, this second, you are DONE. You are DONE with the entire spiritual path. And seemingly, at the same time, you SEEM to be not done with it. Your holy self can talk to you right now. Your holy self is, in a sense, your future self. But it is really your real PAST self, because it existed BEFORE TIME and did not stop existing.

I think this is really important to recognize because this can be very powerful in putting everything into its proper perspective. I've talked before about how you need to get some idea of TRUTH into your awareness in order to have a reference point, to compare things to, and to put things into their proper perspective. Remembering that you are ALREADY AS GOD CREATED YOU PERFECT, reflect on the nature of your soul, and acknowledge your EXISTING PERFECTION, this can really cut through the ego bullshit like nobody's business.

So like, there I am, feeling sorry for myself, feeling guilty, thinking I sinned, but wait... I am still as God created me, I am still perfectly innocent and with God, so how can it be true that I have done anything at all? How can it be true that I sinned or am guilty? What IS this guilt and sin but simply FALSE? It is a lie. I am not sinful or guilty, and I do not need to "become" innocent again because I already am. I already am perfectly holy, nothing has happened, and this other stuff must be ego illusions.

See the entire ego thought system, all of the separation from God, and everything to do with sin and death, is A LIE, and it's all an attempt to COVER UP WHAT IS ALREADY TRUE. And what is already true has already been established by God, is permanent, YOU cannot create or invent it or make it happen by yourself, all you can do is ACCEPT IT. And that means SURRENDERING every effort you have ever made to deny it, to try to make something else true, or to try to make it untrue.

When you stare the truth in the face like this, and you acknowledge, yes, I need do nothing because I AM STILL as God created me, it forces you to have to ADMIT, that everything else you've been believing is FALSE, it's a lie, you've basically just being trying to deny and not accept or allow this to be true, to try to claim that something else is true, but it's not. It's almost brutal in how the acknowledgement of this truth shows you that you LITERALLY CANNOT CHANGE THE TRUTH, you HAVE NOT CHANGED THE TRUTH, and YOU NEVER WILL.

There is absolutely ZERO ROOM for you to have any power to do that. And the entire separation from God is ALL about your belief that it is POSSIBLE to do that. That you could somehow bring about a sin, or make guilt real, or produce a real sickness, or create death, or will against God, or defile Heaven, or make God convinced that you are not worthy, or make yourself unworthy, or whatever else. It is ALL A LIE. You do not have that power at all. Not even a tiny bit. Either you accept God's truth and ADMIT you are ABSOLUTELY INCAPABLE of changing it, or you will be in denial.

The problem is not whether you are spiritual enough or not. The problem is that you ARE spiritual enough and you keep pretending not to be.

Remember this is not a course in love because the meaning of love cannot be taught. It's a course in UNDOING THE BLOCKS TO THE AWARENESS OF LOVE'S PRESENCE, because the love is ALREADY THERE and you are simply not aware that it is already there. You have denied that it's there. Blocks to love make it seem like WHAT IS TRUE, is not true, or that it has gone away, or love is lost, or you have stopped being as God created you. That's their purpose. To deny the truth. They do not CHANGE the truth, they merely cover it up to PRETEND that it is not true already. Death is a form of denial, an attempt to claim that you do not have eternal life ALREADY. YOU DO. YOU ARE ALREADY IMMORTAL. You can't NOT be immortal!

So as Jesus says, the course is not about establishing love, or making you more spiritual, or necessarily about waking up or having to do anything at all. It is about a RECOGNITION of the ENLIGHTENED SELF that YOU ALREADY ARE, RIGHT NOW, which is merely hiding behind walls and clouds of FAKE SHIT, which you tried to use to cover up the EXISTING TRUTH, which God has already PERMANENTLY established. The course is ONLY about undoing your beliefs that you aren't ALREADY IMMORTAL, or ALREADY INNOCENT, or ALREADY WITH GOD, or ALREADY A PERFECTLY DIVINE SOUL.

So let's say this. Right now, accept that you are still as God created you, a perfect soul. You are in heaven NOW. You are already DONE with any supposed "ego goal" of trying to GET THERE. You are already FINISHED with making yourself innocent. You are already COMPLETE in the establishing of your perfection in the eyes of God. God has not changed his mind about you. He still sees you as perfect because HE IS CONSTANTLY EXTENDING YOU as perfect. You did not create yourself, and therefore you have NO SAY in changing what God has created. You have NO ABILITY WHATSOEVER to overthrow God's will by undoing OR CHANGING his creation in any way, and YOU HAVE NOT. You're done already. Already perfect. Already complete. Already whole. Already happy. Already loved. Already innocent. Already safe. Already divine.

Everything else is what needs to be let go. All the beliefs about this not being true. All the attempts to make out that you are mortal or can suffer or be sick or die. It's bullshit. You who ARE IMMORTAL ALREADY cannot ever die or even suffer a tiny bit. You are permanent. All of this pretending that things have gone wrong, it has to go. All of this pretending that you can be dead, it has to go. All of this disbelief or rather, UNWILLINGNESS to accept, allow, welcome or acknowledge, THE TRUTH, which already is perfectly established, has to go. All of this desire to NOT ACCEPT the atonement - the truth - has to go. All reluctance, unwillingness, denial, rejection, choosing away from, unconsciousness, hiding, secret sins and hates, it all has to go. Because it is never true and cannot ever exist.

And in fact, this entire world, does not exist. It has not been created. It has not happened. If it's not part of heaven, it does not exist, is not real, and has not been created. The entire history of human civilization is a bullshit lie. This world holds NOTHING that you want. Your heart is with God, NOW. This world that we "made" was NOT really made, it is not even here, it does not exist at all, and NOTHING IS HAPPENING. Nor has anything happened. No-one has ever died, there has never been a real war, all sickness is bullshit, death is imaginary, YOU CAN'T STOP BEING IMMORTAL.

So we need to learn, basically, since enlightenment is a recognition and not a change, to recognize and acknowledge what ALREADY IS TRUE, what God has ALREADY ESTABLISHED, and give thanks for the fact that WE ARE ALREADY SAVED and are ALREADY IN HEAVEN, NOW. All the other ego pursuits, the spiritual path, processes, techniques... unless they UNDO and REMOVE the fake lies that the truth is not already true, it is ego. Unless it moves you INWARD back closer to WHAT YOU ALREADY ARE, it is ego. Unless it makes you aware that you are ALREADY PERFECT and therefore do not need to SEEK, it is ego. Unless it produces GRATITUDE for what God has already given, it is ego.

You are already done making yourself perfect. God accomplished that already. It's not your job. It's not what the course is for at all. The only purpose of the course is to help you to let go of what is FALSE, and merely ACKNOWLEDGE what is ALREADY TRUE. You're sitting in heaven right now, happy as heck, totally overjoyed and celebrating that nothing can ever go wrong, and completely in love with God. Everything else... bullshit.

Some quotes:

"God and the Souls He created are completely dependent on each other. The creation of the Soul has already been perfectly accomplished... He created them perfectly. He gave them His peace so they could not be shaken and would be unable to be deceived."

"We have also emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also been created perfect. There is no emptiness in him. The next point, too, has already been made, but bears repetition here. The Soul, because of its own likeness to its Creator, is creative. No Child of God is capable of losing this ability, because it is inherent in what he IS."

"Spirit is in a state of grace forever. Your reality is only spirit. Therefore you are in a state of grace forever."

"Be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom. As long as belief in God and His Kingdom is assailed by any doubts in your minds, His perfect accomplishment is not apparent to you. This is why you must be vigilant on God's behalf.The ego speaks against His creation and therefore does engender doubt."

"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."

"The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance."

CLAIM YOUR INHERITANCE! IT IS ALREADY YOURS!

If you look at the various things ACIM says, it becomes clearer and makes more sense when you don't think of "mind" or "one mind" or "christ mind" as being the highest or deepest level of existence. We need to distinguish that mind IS NOT the same thing as spirit, soul, SON or being.

For example, there is a distinction between MIND and SOUL:

"Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul. The Soul always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God."

For example, the soul USES the mind to create or miscreate. The mind is at its disposal, like a tool, described here as a MEDIUM *through which* the soul/son/spirit expresses itself:

"The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished. The mind, if it votes to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul can create along the line of its own creation."

For example, we're told that YOU (whatever you are) has control OVER the mind. That mind is the mechanism of decision (free will), and so the "what you are" CONTROLS the mind or has POWER OVER it, meaning it is on another "level", causality-wise:

"For you DO have control over your mind, for the mind is the mechanism of decision. "

All of this indicates that you essentially are OUTSIDE OF your mind. Your mind is something you HAVE, not something you ARE. It's something you USE, and it's not the same thing as your soul.

Soul is a synonym for spirit, and a synonym for "Son of God". So too is BEING an aspect of the soul/son/spirit NOT an aspect of the mind. The essence of what you are at the deepest or highest level, is BEYOND the mind, and CONTAINS the mind inside of it. What you ARE, is the soul/son/spirit/being.

Now look at this:

"Your will is the means by which you determine your own condition, because will is the MECHANISM OF DECISION. It is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy accordingly. My will cannot overcome yours, because YOURS IS AS POWERFUL AS MINE. If it were not so, the Sons of God would be unequal."

Here, "separation" or "joining" occur WITHIN the realm of your free will, WITHIN the realm of decision, which is WITHIN the mind. Note also that Jesus clearly states your free-will decision is AS POWERFUL AS HIS. That the two of you, EACH, have a free will. Therefore, you both have your own minds.

If you can distinguish these two "levels" within reality, whereby at the highest level there is being/soul/son/spirit, and at the lower level there is MIND, which has IDEAS such as the tiny mad idea, and where ALL ideas are contained INSIDE the mind and do not leave the mind (never affect or determine anything about the soul), then it becomes OBVIOUS that "the ego" is occurring IN THE MIND, NOT IN THE SOUL.

The ego is occurring on an entirely different LEVEL to your soul/spirit/being/son/self.

This means that WHAT you are - a spirit being - is in a larger realm than your MIND, and the ego is never happening in the realm of the spirit. Your SPIRIT does not have a separation idea, the mind does. Your SPIRIT does not develop an ego, the mind THINKS of egotism. Ego is an idea, a thought, in the mind, NOT part of the soul.

Which means... drumroll please... that whether or not there are many SONS, many SOULS, many BEINGS, or many SPIRITS, has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not there is EGO or separation. They're on two entirely different levels. How many sons there are, thus, is completely BEYOND the realm of ego, beyond all speculation as to "it means separation", and beyond all ideas of separateness in the EGO sense. The KIND of separateness that we're trying to undo, has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with souls, sons, spirits or beings. We're ONLY trying to correct the MIND, NOT THE SOUL.

The separation is a MIND problem, NOT a soul problem.

And this in turn means, that whether there are many souls/sons, or one, or not, has absolutely nothing to do with the separation or the ego. It is NOT a separation IDEA to suggest that there are many sons, because IDEAS are confined to the MIND, and souls/sons are BEYOND that.

This is why, Jesus is able to tell us in the course that WHAT we are, is permanent brothers, permanent real beings, permanent family, permanent souls, permanent multitudes of spirit beings, and that this fact has NOTHING to do with the ego THOUGHT in the mind.

The ego thought does not come BETWEEN souls, it does not DEFINE their "separateness", it does not CAUSE them to BE separate, and it says absolutely nothing as to the VALIDITY of whether it is NATURAL for there to be many souls in reality. Or therefore, many sons of God. And in fact it also means any statements about "sons of God" plural is absolutely NOT contradictory against ideas of ego separation. They're not even on the same level. Ego is inside the bubble of mind, mind is inside the bubble of being.

"Mind is the activating agent of spirit."

Does not mean mind IS spirit. It's merely a PART of what you are or HAVE.

This is why it's totally OKAY, NATURAL, NORMAL, REAL, and NOT AN EGO THING, that there are MANY SONS OF GOD. And that these son's of God are many in NUMBER *without* it having anything to do with "an ego thing".

God literally has MANY thoughts, in his mind, which is not his being. He literally creates many other BEINGS, and GIVES THEM their own mind, as a reflection of his own nature. Thus God has created many minds, many sons. This is "the family of God".

"Creation is the sum of all God's Thoughts, in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit."

The "One Son of God" is a synonym for Creation, meaning ALL of the sonship. Christ is the MIND that is SHARED in communication between God and the Sonship. SONS are the SOULS/spirits/beings that God created as equals forever (brothers, children of God). And each child has a soul/spirit/being and a MIND with which to create.

Sons of God (meaning God's literal direct descendent IN REALITY) is mentioned 82 times, in direct relationship between God as Father and US (plural) as many BEINGS:

"All the Sons of God"

"We are creation; we the Sons of God."

"Only one equal gift CAN be offered to the equal Sons of God, and that is FULL APPRECIATION."

"Know then the Sons of God, and you will know all Creation."

"When the Atonement has been completed, all talents will be shared by all the Sons of God." (AFTER the ego is GONE, no separation left, there are STILL many sons of God sharing talents!)

"When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed…the Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless their creations and keep them in the light of joy." (AFTER the ego, with no separation left, the SONS OF GOD are STILL PLURAL!)

"Our creations are as holy as we are, and we are the Sons of God Himself and therefore as holy as He is."

God creates permanent BEINGS (plural):

"Since only beings of a like order can truly communicate, His Creations naturally communicate WITH Him and communicate LIKE Him."

"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy. "

God creates permanent CHILDREN (plural):

"God watches over His children and denies them nothing."

"God knows His Children with perfect certainty."

"The Children of Light cannot abide in darkness, for darkness is NOT in them." (no ego!)

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

"Let us today be children of the truth, and not deny our holy heritage."

"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father." (not only are there multiple sons, there are multiple CREATIONS BY sons - grandchildren of God).

"Only God's own holy children are worthy to be channels of his beautiful joy"

And similarly there is plenty of mention of SOULS (plural), over 120:

"They represent the original form of communication between God and His Souls"

"It is the final lesson that I learned, and God's Sons are as equal as learners as they are as Souls." (soul=son)

"Souls were given their own true authorship"

"The Revelation unites Souls directly with God."

"In the Creation, God projected his Creative Ability out of Himself toward the Souls which He created, and also imbued them with the same loving wish (or will) to create."

"It should be noted that God has begotten only one Son (the combined totality of ALL the sons). If you believe that all of the ***Souls that God created are His Sons***, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then ***every Soul must be a Son of God***, or an integral part of the Sonship." (every means PLURAL! - MANY beings, who SHARE everything).

"They represent the original form of communication between God and His Souls"

"Many Souls offered their efforts on behalf of the Separated Ones" (not all souls used their minds to believe in ego!)

God additionally also created MANY MINDS, not just one:

"God's memory is in our holy minds"

"How holy are our minds!"

"If you allow yourselves to HAVE in your minds only what God put there, you are acknowledging your mind as God created it."

"And peace will be restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His Son" (good example of the ego-rule-breaking logic, that God has many sons who are, IN TOTAL, "His Son").

"Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one." (still many minds, they don't stop being many just because they are ONE. On means IDENTICAL, of like nature or KIND, NOT one in number).

"all the minds which God created one with me"

"Not being in their Right Minds, they turned their defenses from protection to assault, and acted literally insanely." (MULTIPLE right minds)

The evidence is totally overwhelming for anyone willing to be open to this. It does NOT mean "separation" in the ego sense. It does not mean, ISOLATION, or SPECIALNESS. It only means many EQUAL BEINGS WHO SHARE EVERYTHING AND YET ARE INDIVIDUALS.

There ARE many beings, spirits, souls, sons. There ARE many minds that SHARE as the Christ mind. Ego has NOTHING to do with this. It's NOT unnatural. It's not "wrong". It's not "the separation". Individuality is NOT an ego thing. Ego has ONLY anything to do with whether INDIVIDUALS choose to BELIEVE in lies or truth, WITHIN their minds. That's is all.