I can't stress enough right now that God has ALREADY created you perfect in every way, there is NOTHING you need to do to make yourself "better" or improved or to become anything.

The path of "awakening" is NOT about adding something, producing something, searching for something, making something, or becoming something.

It is ONLY about becoming aware, AGAIN, that YOU ALREADY HAVE EVERYTHING GIVEN YOU. There is nothing missing, nothing wrong with you, nothing broken, and no needs of any kind.

It is not about you trying to make yourself whole again. GOD has guaranteed your wholeness forever. It is ONLY about you being willing to recognize and accept that you are ALREADY WHOLE.

The wholeness, holiness, innocence, love, happiness, purity, joy, peace, it's all already in you, and it HAS NOT LEFT and it HAS NOT CHANGED and it IS NOT LOST.

Is is all still there as God created it RIGHT NOW, regardless of whether you are in denial of it, can't see it, are not aware of it, don't believe in it, don't want it, deny it, or fear it.

To awaken to it is merely to recognize IT IS THERE ALREADY. And enlightenment IS simply recognition of WHAT ALREADY IS! This takes no effort whatsoever other than to be willing to accept reality and truth as God created it. To admit you are Christ already, right now, and are just pretending not to be.

"I have already chosen what You will."

"then will I recognize salvation is already here, already given all my brothers and already mine as well."

"God has already done all things that need be done. And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self, my sinlessness, created for me, now already mine"

"In You is every choice already made. In You has every conflict been resolved. In You is everything I hope to find already given me." "I merely choose to recognize what is already there. Salvation is a decision made already."

"And I will understand it is impossible that I could have a problem which has not been solved already."

"The answer to this problem is already given me, if I will accept it."

"And here the limitless forgiveness you will give each other is ALREADY given; the face of Christ you yet will look upon ALREADY seen."

"The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. But the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized."

"What I ask have You already given me"

"God has ALREADY given him all that he REALLY wants."

"For here the final question is ALREADY answered, and what you ask for, GIVEN."

"Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now."

"No one needs practice to gain what is already his."

"There is no sickness not already healed. No lack unsatisfied, no need unmet, within this golden treasury of Christ."

"True prayer must avoid the pitfall of asking to entreat. Ask rather to receive what is already given; to accept what is already there."

"ou do not PUT the Spirit in them by inspiring them, because that would be "magic," and therefore would not be real healing. But you DO recognize the Spirit that is ALREADY THERE, and thereby REAWAKEN IT." "He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. Now must you share His function"

"the Soul is already perfect, and therefore does not require correction."

"The Soul is already illuminated"

"Yet, if God gave an Answer, there MUST be a way in which your problems are resolved, for what He wills already has been done."

"THIS recognition is wholly WITHOUT effort, because it is ALREADY true and needs no protection. It is in the perfect safety of God." "The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to."

"Revelation induces a state in which fear has ALREADY BEEN abolished."

"Our goal in the longer practice periods today is to become aware that God's plan for salvation has already been accomplished in us."

"So do we clear the way for Him today by simply recognizing that His Will is done already, and that joy and peace belong to us as His eternal gifts."

"I have already been forgiven."

"With God's Word in their minds they come in benediction, not to heal the sick but to remind them of the remedy God has already given them."

"But, through the eyes of faith, the Son of God is seen ALREADY forgiven, free of all the guilt he laid upon himself."

"BECAUSE reality is changeless is a miracle already there to heal all things that change, and offer them to you to see in happy form, devoid of fear."

"He has never failed to answer this request, because it asks only for what He has already willed."

"Prepare you NOW for the undoing of what never was. If you already UNDERSTOOD the difference between truth and illusion, Atonement would HAVE no meaning."

"Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real. Know, then, Who abides with you, merely by recognizing WHAT IS ALREADY THERE, and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you."

"We have repeatedly stated that one who has perfectly accepted the Atonement for himself can heal the world. Indeed, he has already done so."

"Essentially, a prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that we may be able to recognize something we already have."

"Ask not to BE forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Ask rather to LEARN how to forgive, and restore WHAT ALWAYS WAS to your unforgiving mind."

"According to the Holy Spirit's teaching, ONLY God's Purpose IS accomplishment, and it is ALREADY accomplished."

"The creation of the Soul itself has already been perfectly accomplished"

"Glory be to God in the highest, and to you because He has so willed it. Ask and it shall be given you, because it has already been given. "

"Faith in the eternal is ALWAYS justified, for the eternal is forever kind, infinite in its patience, and wholly loving. It will accept you wholly, and give you peace. But it can unite only with what ALREADY is at peace in you, immortal as itself."

"He would make a restitution though He is complete; a gift to you although He knows that you have everything already."

"What idol CAN be called upon to give the Son of God what he already HAS?"

"The Soul is therefore unalterable because it is ALREADY perfect, but the mind can elect the level it chooses to serve."

"The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished."

"Who can remain unsatisfied who asks for what he has already?"

"He has revealed it to me because I asked it of Him, and learned of what He had already given."

"There are many answers which you have already received, but have NOT YET HEARD."

"Who would "go" anywhere, if peace of mind is already complete?"

"But your minds are ALREADY continuous, and THEIR union need only be accepted, and the loneliness in Heaven is gone."

"We will but be making perfect TO you, what is ALREADY perfect IN you."

"For here is only healing, ALREADY complete and perfect. For here is God, and where HE is, only the perfect and complete CAN be."

"In me, you have ALREADY overcome EVERY temptation that would hold you back."

"To remember is merely to restore to your mind WHAT IS ALREADY THERE. You do not make what you remember; you merely accept again what has BEEN made AND REJECTED."

"I am the model for rebirth, but rebirth itself is merely the dawning on your minds of what is already in them."

"Then let Him teach you quietly how to perceive your guiltlessness, which is ALREADY there."

Quite often while reading the ACIM text I am blown away by Jesus's crystal-clear clarity on various topics. It's like, there couldn't possibly be any way to explain MORE clearly. Last night as I read about forgiveness it was no exception. Immediately I knew I had been misunderstanding parts of it all this time.

The ego's version of forgiveness has you taking a good, clear look at an 'error' and then attempting to overlook it, but you can't overlook it because you've made it real. Looking AT the error is not looking PAST the error. It is not overlooking, it's just looking. Once the error is firmly in our sights, we are holding onto it and maintaining it, so cannot simultaneously transcend it.

What the Course then says is that once we've made errors real - which is the situation we find ourselves in almost all the time and usually this is the state that compels us to want to forgive - we will be tempted to believe that we have to "UNDO what we have MADE in order to be forgiven". We made the illusion, we invented it, we believed in it, we have faith in it, and if it is real then we have to undo what we made in order to forgive. So then we start to set about trying to UNDO the thing that seems to be upsetting us. But we can't undo it that way because our belief in it holds it firmly in place.

The Course goes onto to describe Holy Spirit's forgiveness. It says simply and clearly, that Holy Spirit is ALWAYS overlooking all errors, and DOES NOT SEE ERRORS, in a pro-active manner - fore-giving, SO THAT errors will not ARISE, and so that they therefore do not need to be later 'undone'. The Holy Spirit does not make errors real in the first place. He does not `make` illusions. And so to Him, there IS no error. This is where it becomes paradoxical. The Holy Spirit forgives constantly in order that there is nothing to forgive. He fore-gives, ahead of the need to address an error, so that no errors arise whatsoever. He therefore has a 'forgiving attitude' which is incapable of registering error whatsoever. This is why HIS forgiveness is "quiet, still, looks and does not judge, and does nothing".

So the Course is describing these two types of forgiveness. Ego forgiveness which tries to undo things it's made real and cannot, vs Holy Spirit's forgiveness which HAS NOT made things real and so is permanently overlooking all errors in the knowledge that NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. The Course also says that the ego attempts to take over control of all activities, and this is why the ego thinks IT is the one who has to do forgiveness. But the Course also says, Forgiveness is the HOLY SPIRIT's function. Holy Spirit constantly is forgiving in order not to have anything to forgive. OUR function is different.

The error I have made is in thinking that I am the one that forgives - as the ego - who has made errors real and now attempts to do something to/about them in order to make them go away. Holy Spirit is the light which actually shines so brightly that there is nothing to forgive.

So, then I found myself asking, how then does one transition from being in the ego and `needing to forgive` or `needing to undo` due to seeing something that seems real, to aligning with Holy Spirit's viewpoint which is that ALL IS FORGIVEN already in a pro-active, preventative way. How do I go from maintenance and cleanup after observing a mess, to proactive preventative measures. How do I go from 'attack it with the course' to 'nothing happened'.

Somehow I have to get my mind to ALIGN with Holy Spirit's way of looking at things, so that I can see that all is forgiven. But while I'm believing that something has gone wrong and I need to do something, THOSE beliefs are actually preventing forgiveness. The truth is that nothing has really happened and nothing has gone wrong, and its my believing in the reality of the error that IS the error. Its an error in my forgiveness. I have to get my mind to change its viewpoint away from 'I need to forgive this because it's happened', to, 'I am forgiven because this HAS NOT HAPPENED'.

This is kind of along the same lines as "I recognize we are both forgiven for what we HAVE NOT done", which is the viewpoint of Holy Spirit. The ego's version of forgiveness is very misleading and distracting. I see them now as two wavelengths, the lower wavelength of ego mired in illusions of illusions, and the higher wavelength of Holy Spirit floating above everything knowing there are no real illusions.

The process of 'transitioning' from an ego viewpoint to the Holy Spirit's viewpoint seems to what we call 'applying forgiveness'. We try to 'not do' (undo) the WAY OF SEEING that was producing a view of error, recognizing we must be mistaken if we believe there even IS a real error. Holy Spirit said to me we need to "withdraw" our conviction and belief that the error is real in every way, so that we can move towards the atonement viewpoint, which says nothing happened. Holy Spirit sees WITH the atonement.

One thing I always was mistaken about is when I heard that Holy Spirit perceives, I always thought it meant he perceives illusions, therefore he can see all of our errors etc. But the Course has clarified that Holy Spirit only sees clearly by OVERLOOKING all errors and NOT seeing them. He perceives, but he perceives with total right-mindedness, proactively forgiving and looking pass all errors to The Face of Christ. Sort of, `in` the world but not of it. This was my mistake because I thought he saw the errors as well. The EGO is the one that sees errors, and the ego is IN the world. This separation of roles and perspectives has really clarified things for me as to WHO is doing the forgiving and WHO is holding the appropriate perspective.

The only area now where I have some questions, and I'm sure continued reading of the Text will reveal more... is in.... through what seeming 'process' or 'steps' do we transition our mind away from the ego's version of forgiveness to the Holy Spirit's. When I'm in the ego I do not understand forgiveness and I apply 'something' but it isn't Holy Spirit's version. When illusions are particularly strong I believe heavily that the problem is separate and that IT needs to be changed by throwing Course at it. That's totally ego. But that's the starting point. That's not HOW I need to forgive, it's the KIND of forgiveness that I need to learn NOT to do. If I see a house on fire, my forgiveness should be - there is no house on fire, 'how can I forgive this burning house'.

I'd always thought that the process of 'undoing' and of 'correcting' and of trying to shift toward Holy Spirit WAS forgiveness... even the goodie-two-shoes student approach of APPLYING the Course ... but that apparent 'process' is not forgiveness itself. Forgiveness is the Holy Spirit's view which is always the same. Whether I JOIN Holy Spirit in His view is the question/decision. And if it takes time TO join with Him, it seems like that 'journey' toward Holy Spirit is a forgiveness process, but it's more of a ... 'realization that nothing needs to be forgiven' process. A process of correction. Holy Spirit IS the source of correction because He sees CORRECTLY. My (ego) attempt to `do` the forgiving and to become forgiven and to get to where I see that it IS forgiven, is really my struggle between allegiance to ego and allegiance to truth. That's where the 'work' seems to be needed and surrender needs to happen, SO THAT I can get to where I can SEE clearly that 'all is forgiven' already - ie that all is looked upon WITH forgiving eyes and sees only Christ.

(I'm not sure if I'm explaining clearly what exactly has become clearer for me 'overnight'. .. more to follow)

There is no world - one of the hardest things to accept. There is no error, there is no problem, there is no ego.

Thank you Jesus for your unceasingly clarity and for sharing it with us!

This is an important point. When you are being forgiving, you do not continue to LOOK AT the thing that you were forgiving. Sight of it was the result of NOT forgiving.

Forgiveness is NOT ABOUT looking "at" bodies and at the world and regarding them as sinless and holy. This is not how forgiveness functions. Forgiveness does not make something real and then try to look past it, nor does it make something real and then attempt to endow it with qualities of love and perfection.

To forgive the world does NOT MEAN to keep looking AT the world in a loving way. To forgive the world does NOT MEAN to love the world and believe it is God's creation. To forgive does not mean that your SIGHT stops at the outside surface of material objects and still regards them as reality. I'm sorry but that is NOT forgiveness.

To forgive means to OVERLOOK. It means to SEE PAST. It means to NOT FIXATE ON. It means to NOT BE DECEIVED BY. It means to GIVE NO REALITY TO. It means to CANCEL illusions. It means to DIMINISH illusions in your sight so that you can see THROUGH THEM and PAST THEM to the truth (Christ) that was being hidden BY them.

The world stands like a block of sin before the face of Christ. So does all bodies. You have to OVERLOOK THEM if you want to see Christ in your brother. The Christ in him is BEYOND HIS BODY.

"It must reach out beyond itself, as you reached out beyond the body to LET yourselves be joined."

"Beyond the bodies that you interposed between you, and shining in the golden light"

"And place no value on your brother's body, which held him to illusions of what he is."

You have to OVERLOOK PHYSICAL OBJECTS. Your sight, your spiritual sight, has to take the place of your body's vision (which lies to you and only looks at bodies). To be forgiving, to forgive your brother, and to forgive the world, does not mean you're still SEEING THE WORLD or seeing bodies. Nor does it mean you still see exactly the same stuff you saw before but with a sense of innocence and loveliness. You are NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SEEING THIS WORLD.

Those of you who believe that God created this planet, are particularly apt to be mistaken about this. It is an error to say that your aim is to "love the world". Your love would dispel the world. "Eternity shines away the world." You cannot love what isn't really there. You can only love the reality and truth which is BEYOND the world. To want to keep the world and the bodies and keep SEEING them, and keep being BLINDED by sight of form, while trying to simultaneously reach a state of love and forgiveness, is IMPOSSIBLE. You have to let the world go. You are NOT being forgiving if you keep fixating on it.

All things in this world are the form of sin and error. You must learn to OVERLOOK these errors and see PAST them with reason. Only this way can you "see God in everything you see". It's not because you keep seeing the world AS God. You see God IN PLACE OF the world. Behind the world. He was hidden BY the world. That was why you made it, to shut him out. To forgive is to recognize that this illusory world IS NOT THERE, HAS NOT HAPPENED, AND DOES NOT REALLY EXIST. Only by looking PAST forms to the Christ BEYOND can you recognize God's Son.

When your mind stops at the outer surface of objects, you are blinded and the extension of your mind has been arrested. If you arrest the extension of the mind you foster separation and induce illness. It is unnatural to see this world and bad for your health. You need to see PAST its illusion in order for your mind to JOIN with the Christ that is hidden BEYOND the world and beyond bodies. It is the only way you can communicate and it is the only way you can love. Love shines PAST illusions and renders them unreal and irrelevant. The world is irrelevant. The body is irrelevant.

It's like in the Matrix movies... you have to learn to see the 'matrix code' instead of being deceived by illusions of a world that doesn't exist. Then you can get out of hell and get back to being in Heaven.

Only love is real and "love was never in the world". Love wants the world to end.

"Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins..."

"...brought to its forgiveness is gently overlooked, and disappears"

"He overlooks the mind and body, seeing only the face of Christ"

"Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances."

"By its ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up the way to truth"

"To forgive is to OVERLOOK."

"You can overlook your brother's dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions"

"For you are asked but to forgive all things that no-one ever did; to overlook what is not there; and not to look upon the unreal as reality."

"For it is your unwillingness to overlook what seems to stand between you that makes it look impenetrable"

"(body)... Its eyes ADJUST to sin, unable to overlook it in any form, and seeing it everywhere, in everything."

"Let love draw near them and overlook the body, as it will surely do"

"Thus are his sins forgiven him, for Christ has vision which has power to overlook them all. In His forgiveness they are gone. Unseen by One, they merely disappear because a vision of the holiness which lies beyond them comes to take their place."

"When you have looked upon each other with complete forgiveness, from which no error is excluded and nothing kept hidden, what mistake can there be anywhere you can not overlook? What form of suffering could block your sight, preventing you from seeing past it?"

"In your madness, you OVERLOOK REALITY COMPLETELY, and you see ONLY YOUR SPLIT MIND everywhere you look."

"To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, to LET IT GO."

"See him as guiltless as I look on you, and OVERLOOK the sins he THINKS he sees within himself. "

"Condemn your Savior not because he thinks he is a body. Far beyond his dreams is his reality"

"But what is that to those who have been given one true relationship, BEYOND the body?"

"He holds not the proof of sin before his brother's eyes."

"This separating off is symbolized, in your perception, by a body which is clearly separate and a thing apart. "

"To see a brother in ANOTHER body, SEPARATE from yours, is the expression of a wish to see a little PART of him, and sacrifice the rest."

"And while you see your brother as a body, APART from you and separate in his cell, you are demanding sacrifice of him AND you. "

"What witness to the wholeness of God's Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? He is INVISIBLE in such a world."

"In Heaven God's Son is NOT imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in solitude to sin."

"If you but recognized how little stands between you and your awareness of your union! Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within you, there is a force which no illusions can resist. This body only seems to be immovable. This force is irresistible in truth. What, then, must happen when they come together? Can the illusion of immovability be long defended for what is quietly passed through and gone beyond?"

Now, pause a moment, and watch out for an ego reaction of guilt. My intention is not to make anyone feel guilty. Nor is it Jesus' intention. But he is trying to educate us with deep honesty about what sickness is and is not so that we can be more easily freed from using it to hurt ourselves. We need to be willing to look at this, it's part of the course. We are adults here, right? We can handle it.

Jesus's statements simply tell us that all forms of sickness are part of an attempts to make our body sick, in order that we can hold it up as proof that our brother is a sinner, accusing him of having caused the effects/symptoms. We show him sickness, evidence of attack and sin, to imply that we have been affected against our will, thus able to scapegoat him and accuse him of sin. Scapegoating isn't just psychological, it is physical.

And furthermore, Jesus is clearly teaching that the body, as a symbol, CAN symbolize innocence and forgiveness, through its physical healing. A healed body teaches and demonstrates and proves that there has not been sin, it exonerates your brother, AND it helps to heal his mind. Your physical health, stemming from your psychological health, becomes your brother's health. When the body is sick, it accuses your brother "Brother, at your hand I die". This happens are psychological, physical, and metaphysical levels.

If you want to love yourself and your brother, the body MUST depict only a symbol of heath and wholeness. Otherwise it is serving the ego's purpose of making sin real. "The mind, being sane, heals the body."

*** Physical sickness is a symptom of an unholy relationship with your brothers! ***

Jesus demonstrated this principle through the resurrection. Here's what he says in passages from "The picture of crucifixion" and "The fear of healing." These are POTENT teachings not often accepted in ACIM circles.

"A sick and suffering you but represents your brother's guilt; the witness which you send, lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you swear he never will escape."

"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."

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved."

"Is healing frightening? To many, yes. For accusation is a bar to love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers. They stand firmly in the way of trust and peace, proclaiming that the frail can HAVE no trust, and that the damaged HAVE no grounds for peace. Who has been injured BY his brother, and could love and trust him still? He HAS attacked, and will attack again. Protect him not, because your damaged body shows that you must be protected FROM him. To forgive may be an act of charity, but NOT his due. He may be PITIED for his guilt, but NOT exonerated. And if you forgive him his transgressions, you but ADD to all the guilt that he has really earned."

"The unhealed CANNOT pardon. For they are the witnesses that pardon is unfair. They would retain the CONSEQUENCES of the guilt they overlook. Yet no-one CAN forgive a sin which he believes is real. And what has consequences MUST be real, because what it has DONE is there to see."

"To witness sin and yet forgive it is a paradox which reason cannot see. For it maintains what has been done to you DESERVES no pardon. And, by GIVING it, you grant your brother mercy, but retain the proof he is not REALLY innocent. The sick remain accusers. They cannot forgive their brothers AND themselves as well. For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns CAN suffer. He holds not the proof of sin before his brother's eyes."

"Who forgives IS healed. And in his healing lies the PROOF that he has truly pardoned, and retains no trace of condemnation that he still would hold against himself or any living thing."

"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt? Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the proof that they were merely errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect."

"What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him. Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."

"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."

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

Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health. BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true."

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

What if you decide that you are not going to die?

Immediately this flies in the face of everything the world's population holds as true and inevitable. It flies in the face of an entire weight of collective thoughts and beliefs about what is normal and natural in this universe.

You wouldn't be the first to accomplish this either. St Germain for example was known to be "in a body", maintaining agelessness, for several centuries. Babaji is known to be hanging around without aging. There are others.

Jesus calls for every A Course in Miracles student to accomplish this also. He asks us to swear not to die. He tells us to choose resurrection, to not attack the body, to not make it sick, and to heal it. He asks us to make it a picture of health not a picture of crucifixion.

He asks us not to make the body age, or decay, or be sick, or die, but instead to maintain it in a state of guaranteed perfect health indefinitely, for as long as this is useful. That could mean thousands of years, or just a few.

You probably have assumed all your life that just because everyone else's bodies grow old and die and no-one can seem to cure death, that this is the only option. That death is inevitability and it's your fate. Particularly that death cannot be reversed, yet alone prevented.

You see the seasons come and go, the leaves die off, the flowers wilt, the animals turn to carcasses, and people are put in the ground. And we think this is normal and natural and unavoidable. Something to be "accepted" and adjusted to and made out to be something you can do "in peace".

But Jesus is asking a much higher calling for us. He wants us to use the body as a symbol of eternal life, a breath of immortality, to those who have grown tired of the fetid scent of death.

He wants us to allow the Holy Spirit to heal and resurrect the body through miracles, to present a picture of total health and loveliness to your brothers so as to teach them there is no sin and no attack.

He wants us to demonstrate, in person, physically, that there is no death, and that we have power over death. And that means that we make it possible for this exact body we have right now to not die. To not decay. To not grow old and withered and look like a prune. And to be incapable of corruption.

Are you willing to take up this challenge? If you're going to take this course the whole way then it is going to require of you at some time to actually commit to not dying. You cannot have a shred of belief in death or experience of death in your mind and being if you are to reach the end of the curriculum, which is resurrection - death's total opposite.

So you might as well decide right now. I am not going to die this time. I am going to move towards health, life, happiness, wholeness, healing, miracles, the power of the mind over the body, and I refuse to simply go the way of the worms along the funeral procession of death and decay.

How about you decide today, that you will not intent to die this time, you will not merely unconsciously accept notions that you will die, and you will not allow the body to die. It is your challenge to become miraculous and to heal the body's ailments and cure its diseases and undo death itself. To demonstrate your immortality using the body as a tool to prove your mind is stronger than death.

Few will rise to the challenge. It seems ridiculous. It seems impossible. It flies in the face of everything. Just stop and think for a minute. What if in this lifetime right now, with this body, you simply are not going to go through death? What if you're going to simply keep this body, heal it, resurrect it, protect it through miracles and the Holy Spirit, and maintain it in perfect functioning? For as long as you like?

Once the body is being healed by a sane mind, it cannot become sick, nor can it die. So now it is not possible to leave it through death. "A dream of death cannot be left through death but by truth". Truth means resurrection and life.

The body becomes a shining symbol of immortality and you can longer leave it through sickness or decay or suffering. The old doorway to darkness is closed. And the only way to then leave is to simply lay it aside, without decay, without attack, without sickness, in which the body does not corrupt or destroy or symbolize hell. And then it disappears.

What if you don't have to die physically? And what if you can resurrect all the way to invulnerability and immortality? And what if you can prevent the body from being attackable? And what if you do not have to keep aging? What if you can fly in the face of everything the world believes and choose not to die?

"You cannot die unless you choose to do so."

"No one dies without their own consent."

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

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

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

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you.Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies.Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all."

"Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body's health is fully guaranteed because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible. ... Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching"

"What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him. Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."

"Swear not to die, you holy Son of God! You make a bargain that you cannot keep. The Son of Life cannot be killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in all the universe that must be one."

The "tiny mad idea" was an idea of madness, leading to an entire thought system of insanity. Within this thought system there is a sense of self that we call the ego. The course refers to this as yet "unmanifested" thought system as "the first dream", which was then projected out as a "second dream" as the physicality of spacetime.

"The first dream has been seen and understood for merely an illusion of the fear on which the world was based." UrG3A9

The ego projected out, ie "mis-created" from fear, a world from the INSANE mind, symbolising in form its ideals, preferences, beliefs and attitudes. This produced the physical world, which symbolises the ego's "attack on God." A sort of solidified defence against the truth. And now the physical world SYMBOLIZES the ego thought system in all its ways.

"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear." UrW240W32

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

"The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it." UrT11D10

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death." UrT11J2

"It can indeed be said the ego MADE its world on sin. Only in such a world COULD everything be upside down. This IS the strange illusion which makes the clouds of guilt seem heavy and impenetrable. The solidness this world's foundation SEEMS to have is FOUND in this." UrT19C6

This means that the way the physical world is set up and how it functions - its nature, the relationship of separate objects, what it seems to mean when things happen, was all originally a symbolic representation of an ego idea of madness. And this isn't with any kind of judgement or negating entering into it. Just its nature and how it functions is NOTHING like God's Kingdom.

"For this world IS the opposite of Heaven, having been made to BE its opposite. And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true." UrT16F3

For example the ego sees you as a separated off person, and in its insanity (which is sin), this insanity led to the making of the body, giving the body eyes and senses, and regarding the body as a real person.

"Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold?" UrW250W41

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin (egoic insane thought system) made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master." UrT20G11

Similarly the ego believes that there is a separation between giving and receiving, between cause (God) and effect (Son). Thus it perceives that to give is to lose, and means deprivation and sacrifice. This plays out PHYSICALLY by virtue of the fact that if you give someone something physical you DO NOT have it any more and have lost it. This is a simple fact. Any object you give you lack.

The idea of SHARING (oneness), natural in heaven, is pretty much obliterated on a physical level. So too is any idea of oneness or real love or creation or extension or sanity or harmlessness or safety or any other property of God. This is why the world is so opposite to heaven and so dysfunctional on a physical level, regardless of any judgements about it. It is designed by the ego to be "physically insane." And yes - that confusion of mind and body is what the ego is all about.

"Yet, in the dreaming, has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as bodies, which ARE separated, and which cannot JOIN." UrT28D2

"The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus." UrW153L1

Also on the physical level, when a body is regarded as a person, and if the body dies, this is a statement of the ego belief that death is real and the son of God is dead. Its whole system is anti-life and death promoting. It is against health and wholeness in every way possible.

"For vengeance is not part of love, and fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain." UrW190L3

The entire notion of physical space is an idea opposite to omnipresence and depends on separation. You can't even have particles of matter without separation. While time is an attack on eternity, attempting to make everything that existed before stop existing (die). Change itself is the idea of uncertainty (fear) and instability and impermanence - the opposite of immortality. As such everything in the physical world is mortal.

"They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die." UrM13A6

"Death (physical) is the symbol (physical symbol) of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds It from awareness like a shield held to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms await to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction." UrM28A3

"The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end." UrW129L2

Everything in the physical world is a SYMBOLIC VERSION OF THE EGO THOUGHT SYSTEM. Like a physicalised MIND. That's why it was made, that's who made it, and that's how it is set up. So it is indeed a PHYSICALLY INSANE world, so to speak. Riddled with separations, contradictions, attacks, death, murder, lack and loss, suffering of every kind, etc. All ideas the ego made up.

You can see throughout all these quotes that there is clearly a level of mind post-separation which is an insane thought system, which houses all of the ego's fearful beliefs. That mind is mad and dark and horrifying. That mind MADE spacetime and everything in it as a physicalised, condensed version of that thought system. You can see in the quotes sometimes references to the underlying "ego mindset", and in others to the physical world that was made FROM that.

"You do not realize the magnitude of that ONE error (the insane ego mad idea thought system). It was so vast and so COMPLETELY incredible, that from it, a world of total unreality HAD to emerge (the physical world/spacetime illusion projected from it). What else COULD come of it? Its fragmented ASPECTS are fearful enough, as you begin to LOOK at them (physical things). But nothing you have ever seen BEGINS to show you the enormity of the ORIGINAL error (underneath the surface, the ego mindset that made it), which seemed to cast you out of Heaven" UrT18B12

"That was the first projection of error outward (the physical world was a symbolic projection of the mental error). The world (spacetime, physical) arose to hide it (to hide the underlying mindset of ego), and became the screen (like a physical screen) on which it (the ego mindset) was projected (as a second projection onto the world AFTER the world was projected), and drawn between you and truth." UrT18B3

The ego thus projects its mindset out, making an insane world, which symbolises TOTAL INSANITY and a TOTAL OPPOSITE to heaven, as physical form and spacetime and galaxies. And then it projects its underlying insanity ONTO that world in its purpose and USE OF that world. To sort of "operate it", make it real and believe that what happens physically is what it means. The physical world is a MEANINGLESS world, and has no meaning of its own, because it is really nothing, like a void.

"Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space (void) which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void (spacetime) may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality. And on this alone it is correct." UrW13L2

You can see clearly that 1) We were in heaven ("level 1") and believed the mad idea, 2) This produces a whole thought system of insanity ("level 2"), 3) Ego symbolises this thought system, 4) Ego insanity projects out as spacetime ("level 3") a physical fake "universe", 5) That universe is meaningless and nothing, and now the ego tries to project its MEANINGS onto that spacetime world, using the SAME insanity it used to make it.

So now the ego's thought system, mindset, beliefs, attitudes, identification, starts to PERCEIVE (through the body) the physical world IT MADE, from its vantage point, with a psychological false perception that MATCHES a PHYSICAL false perception (physical sight).

It sees it through a thought system of insanity and darkness and evil. And so it believes that the physical world is reality, it believes people are bodies, it believes there is no level of mind (the physical denies the mind, hides the ego thought system), and basically regards physical things as the symbolic version of itself.

Thus even the body symbolises the ego, the egoic mind identifies with the physical, and believes this is all that exists, hiding in the body as "its chosen home." The ego in the mind sort of now "takes up residency" in the body it projected.

"The body is the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of separation. UrT15I8

"For your beliefs converge upon the body, the ego's chosen home, which you believe is YOURS." UrT23B3

So now you've got the underlying ego thought system which is insane still, a physical world being projected by that thought system as an hallucination, and then further projections of insane egoic meaning ONTO that physical world by that thought system to try to keep the separateness going.

For example it says that a physical person is the son of God, and when the physical body dies the son of God is dead. That death is a hard ending from which you cannot return. That's the egos idea of a total and utter permanent destruction and cessation of all creation. Putting a STOP to God. So it sees the death of a body as a total ending, after which there is nothing, and no coming back from it, producing horrendous loss. And there should be loss if a part of reality itself has been lost.

But this is the ego's insane perception of the world that IT set up to look this way on the surface. There is ANOTHER WAY to perceive the physical world thought because the insanity in the MIND can be corrected, causing the mind to USE the world for a higher purpose. You can see it without the ego, without the insanity, without the murderous thought system of separation. You can see it with the Holy Spirit with Christ Vision and forgiveness.

This forgiveness looks upon the highly malfunctioning lacking world that your ego made, and OVERLOOKS the ways in which it falls horrendously short of an immaculate creation. It does not BELIEVE the forms of the world. It does not interpret change as death, or the death of the body as a finality. I takes no meaning FROM the world, because it knows it HAS NONE. It recognizes that what is real is NOT OF THIS WORLD, and is utterly unaffected by what happens in form. Thus death is nothing and the world is nothing.

To this mindset of sanity and reason there is no death at all, and all physical things are illusions not to be believed. A mere MIS-creation produced by a MAD mind. It can be forgiven and reinterpreted and UNDONE by sanity. And then it must disappear, when an ego insane thought system is no longer upholding its separations and its physicalised lies and literal physical madness. The world is a mistake, not a sin, and mistakes can be undone.

"The world is false perception. It is born of error (a projection from an insane mind), and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought which gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation (insane mind) has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world (physical) be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear (physical literal disappearance), and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well." UrW240W31

Even death can be reinterpreted and seen as "not meaning" what it means to the ego. It can mean nothing more than that the illusory form has changed and the soul/mind has left the body to continue its eternal existence. That is a thought and perspective of permanence and immortality and continuation, rather than a thought of death and endings.

And so thoughts of eternal life replace the egoic thoughts of death and interruption, and this causes us to PERCEIVE the physical world as "the forgiven world", overlooking its nonsense and disregarding its physical falsity. Such a healed mind RUNS OPPOSITE to the nature of the world, and the entire thought system and physical nature is REVERSED.

"The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely." UrM29A2

"The only effort you need make, to give this world away (earth, physical, spacetime, bodies) in glad exchange for what you did NOT make (Kingdom of God, heaven) is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE (cus ego made it FROM falseness)" UrT12G3

"And now God's KNOWLEDGE, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its Kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever." UrU5A7v "Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions born. What can be born of death and still have life? But what is born of God and still can die?" UrM28A6

"The ego made the world as IT perceives it (how it perceive it is the SAME AS how it is designed physically), but the Holy Spirit, the RE-INTERPRETER of what the ego made, sees it only as a teaching device for bringing you home." UrT5E15

"The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and its content is not true."

First let's be clear that all true properties belong to God. God's reality entails what is real, permanent, certain, true, exists, is happening, is powerful, has will, causes, with real effects (creation), is eternal and immortal.

The separation from God was an attempt to conceive of an opposite to God's reality. It ultimately produced what appears to be an entire world. In light of the fact that God's reality is real, this second world we made as its OPPOSITE is unreal. It inherently has the properties of the opposite of God's properties.

The world we made is unreal, temporary, uncertain, false, it doesn't exist, nothing in it really happens, it is powerless, has no will of its own, causes nothing, has no real effect, is not eternal, and everything in it is mortal. It is an illusion of a world because it is not a reality of a world.

"it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere."

"The world you see does not exist BECAUSE the place where you perceive it is not real."

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what he creates must be eternal as himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever."

So now we have these two seeming worlds. One is completely real, one is completely unreal. One holds all the truth, one is utterly false. One is permanent and powerful, the other is temporary and powerless.

The unreal world, which is the world of bodies, is a mistake. It presents ideas that are not possible. It is not possible for example for anything real to die or be threatened, but in the unreal world it seems things can die and be threatened. In reality everything is immortal, yet in the unreal world everything has mortality. In reality everything is unlimited, and in unreality everything is limited.

The unreal world is actually an idea of what is not possible, founded on a "mad idea". God's reality holds all possibility. The opposite of possibility is impossibility. The unreal world seems to show things happening which are not possible in God. In God nothing can die, so leaves falling from trees and flowers dying and bodies dying is not really possible.

The unreal world presents pictures of impossibilities all the time. Everything in it is impossible because the world itself is the idea of impossibility. The world "is not" - which is why ultimately "there is no world."

"It is the world you see that is impossible."

Now. In ADDITION to the reality of God, and the unreal world, there is also a matter of BELIEF, resulting in an act of projection UPON these worlds. There is something that happens in the mind in terms of belief. Mind can choose to be fully aware and accepting of the sane fact that ONLY God's truth is true - that only heaven's reality is real. OR, it can go into a state of denial.

When the mind is in denial, it flips everything around. It takes ALL the properties of God's reality, and assigns it to the unreal world. It then takes all the properties of the unreal world and assigns is to God's reality. This produces total confusion and insanity. It is insane because you've lost track of what is really real and what isn't, and can no longer distinguish between them, making you lost and confused - ie mistaken.

"You HAVE carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING."

In a state where the attributes of God are assigned to its opposite, you are confused and insane. This puts you into what we call "false perception". In false perception, everything about God is assigned to the unreal world, and vice versa. The ramification of that, is that a simple MISTAKEN world, an IMPOSSIBLE world, begins to take on properties of actual reality. This interprets mistakes as SIN, because sin mean "a real error that can't be undone because it's real."

So now, the unreal world is considered to be real, have permanent qualities, to be eternal, to depict the truth, to house all possibilities, to have a will of its own, to be meaningful, to be heaven, to be life, to be really existing and really happening. In this mode, you have "made illusions real", ie have "made the world real", because you have GIVEN it reality. You are assigned reality's properties to it. You BELIEVE it's real.

There is also a flipside to this. All the properties of UNreality are now assigned to God's reality. God is now considered to be false, non-existence, lacking will power, not happening, being totally unreal, having no life, being mortal and dead, being impossible, being insane, and making no sense. God is considered to be nothing, is rejected as untrue, and relegated to oblivion.

When mind is in this state, this is where the world is experienced like a nightmare. Given that an unreal world is very UNNATURAL and disturbing, if it is REAL then you'll experience it as a horror show. This is what is happening when you see problems arise and you feel like you cannot do anything to change them. The reason they seem unchangeable, is because you've assigned properties of permanence, existence, happening and reality to them. This in a sense "locks them in". ONLY illusions can be forgiven or undone or changed, and not whatever is regarded as real.

If it is true that this world is REAL, then everything in it is permanent, fixed, unchangeable, irreversible, absolute, total, certain, and eternal. Because these were all attributes of God's reality before the confusion. Given that you believe this about the world, you CANNOT bring yourself to conceive of how you can possibly do anything about anything. Everything will seem like some horrible fate, some pointless hopeless disaster, some kind of cruel unchangeable unhealable trauma, that just happens by its own will leaving you a helpless victim.

In this state of false perception you will also completely forget about God's reality. It will seem like it does not exist. Mind will shut down. Any sense of being above the battlefield, stepping back, detaching, being able to wield supernatural miracles, anything to do with healing or correcting problems genuinely will go out the window. Your mind will fixate on THIS world, the unreal world, as if it is THE ONLY REALITY, and all that exists is happening before your body's eyes. Everything it sees is now real to you and you are powerless over it. If an unnatural, "evil", impossible world of conflict and disaster is REAL, you MUST suffer without escape, and death is now the wages of sin. "Only the body makes the world seem real."

This is the state that produces all despair and suffering, all sense of the "irreversibility of sin", all notions that what happens cannot be undone, that sickness is progressive, that death is inevitable, that your fate is set in stone and you have absolutely no say in what happens. This is the state of being a victim, with the world doing everything in its power to simply be horrifying and traumatic, throwing up unsolvable problems all over the place every single day.

So the world in the state of false perception is a COMBINATION of .... 1) an unreal world of mistakes and impossibilities, and 2) the properties of reality being confused with and assigned to it. You MAKE the world seem real by GIVING it properties of reality, and this converts all illusions of sin into what seems like REAL sin.

Once illusory events, which really cannot be happening, are UNITED or "made one with" properties of reality, everything that happens will appears to be a sin. The whole hierarchy of illusions will demand specific responses, reactions and effects. You'll feel compelled to just go along for the ride and have every single reaction that the world says you should be having. And anything anyone does that appears in any way wrong will be regarded as a REAL SIN. An unforgiveable act, and you will NOT be able to forgive it because you believe it is REAL, and therefore permanent.

"The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, NOT to establish them as real, and THEN forgive them."

"Good cannot BE returned for evil, for forgiveness does not first ESTABLISH sin, and THEN forgive it"

What the world IS, in terms of it being an UNREAL world, an ILLUSION of a world in which nothing is true, is distinct from your interpretation of that world - ie what it means to you. If you GIVE the world reality, then you BIND reality WITH illusions and the result is a nightmare of inescapable sin and irreversible suffering. If the world is REAL, nothing in it can be undone, because reality is permanent and can never end.

But your way out of this hell of suffering is simply then to change your mind. This is NOTHING more than a change in the PREMISE of the world. It's a shift from "the world is real" to "the world is not real." Every single attribute of reality and God that you have mistakenly given to the world, you have to TAKE BACK from it.

You have to dis-identify everything God created from the world, and RE-IDENTIFY it with spirit. This is the same as shifting from body-identification to spirit-identification. What is TRUE AND REAL about you has to be re-identified with what God created, requiring your IDENTITY to transition from a limited body to an unlimited soul.

"If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God. YOU CAN REMEMBER THIS FOR ALL THE SONSHIP."

You have ASSIGNED power to the unreal world. That's why it seems to have power over you. You can and must TAKE BACK that power, and assign it back to God/spirit/soul where it belongs. This is the only real change of mind. It's a change of belief. It's a restoration of your acceptance of, and recognition of, WHAT REALLY IS TRUE. Or of what really is REAL.

"This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel that a course which, in the end, teaches nothing more than that only reality is true is necessary. BUT DO YOU BELIEVE IT?"

"Only the truth is true, and nothing else is true."

Our task in "applying forgiveness" then is nothing more or less than properly assigning the properties of reality to GOD's reality, and the properties of unreality to the unreal world. To undo the confusion between the two. To become very clear only God's stuff is real, and all the illusory stuff is not. That only God's world is TRUE, and the world you made out of illusions IS FALSE.

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

The unreality of this world has to be recognized. This is what "true perception" means. It is accurate perception, or the ability to recognize accurately WITHOUT confusion, what the world "actually is". Or in a sense, to see "the truth of" or "the reality of" this world. When you see the reality of an UNREAL world, ie the truth that IT IS unreal, you are seeing it for what it "actually is". Yet an unreal world isn't "actually" anything, because IT IS unreal. Recognizing this recognizes IT IS NOTHING AT ALL.

To then transition from being heavily absorbed, confused, lost, and threatened by, a mistakenly mis-assigned property ... where you've given the world or something in it - some body or event or thing - properties of God, you need to go through some kind of purification or process to revert your mind back to the truth. To return to sanity. We call this sort of "applying the principle of forgiveness", or trying to "atone".

"To atone is to undo." What we are undoing is our CONFUSION about what the world is and is not, and what God is and is not. BOTH the truth AND what is false have to be fully and clearly distinguished and recognized, and NOT confused with each other.

"The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing ELSE. For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM." By correctly identifying all properties of God WITH God, and taking them AWAY from the world - or undoing their mis-association with the world, your mind returns to sanity.

"Sin is insanity", meaning that when you combine the insanity of confusion about what is real, WITH an unreal world, you turn a mistaken world into a sinful world. You make sin seem real when you are insane, but when you return to sanity sin converts back to a mistake - or what Jesus calls an error. The world is simply an error, not a truth.

To forgive then, we simply need to undo, reverse, cancel out, heal, purify, and correct, the mistaken beliefs that we have about what the world's nature is. We need to remind ourselves, maybe we need to talk ourselves into it, maybe we need help and healing from the Holy Spirit or Jesus, maybe we need affirmations or reminders or cue cards or whatever it is. We need to LIFT AWAY from the world all the properties of reality which we gave away TO it, and give them back to God. The ACIM workbook is designed to facilitate this correction, e.g.:

"God did not create that war, and so it is not real."

"God did not create that airplane crash, and so it is not real."

"God did not create that disaster (specify) so it is not real."

"God did not create that illness (specify with name of person) and so it is not real."

This could simply be in the form of you telling yourself, "this world is not real, it is just a dream." "This is an illusion of a world, not a reality." "Nothing is really happening here." "No-one has sinned because it did not take place in reality." "Nothing is held against anyone because it's a dream and is not true." "People are not really bodies." "My identity is not a body." "The world is urneal." "Only God is real." "Only heaven's reality is my reality." etc. Whatever form it takes.

All that needs to happen is the proper re-categorization of everything in the world. To put the world itself into the "unreal, non-existing, not-happening, not permanent, entirely undoable and nothing" bucket. And at the same time, putting heaven back into the "really does exist and has reality and is the only reality" bucket.

"There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."

To forgive then is simply to RECOGNIZE what is true and what isn't. To get the mind back into a state where it has been deprogrammed of the LIES that appears as real sins. Nothing in the world is real. Nothing in the world is causing anything. Nothing in the world is happening. Nothing in the world is permanent. Nothing in the world is changeless. Nothing in the world is true. "Nothing the world believes is true."

"There is no sin" because "real sin" requires the combination of an unreal illusion, incorrectly mixed with "a sense of reality." When you withdraw the sense of "it is real" from the "sinful act", it is no longer a REAL sin. It is only a mistake, an error, a forgiveable nothingness which hasn't even really occurred.

"Forgiveness recognizes what what you think your brother did has not OCCURRED."

This LITERALLY means that anything you think ever happened in this world, HAS NOT OCCURRED. It has not occurred FOR REAL, because it is taking place in an UNREALITY, in a dream, which is NOT real, and nothing real happens in a dream. Dreams by definition are fantasies and hallucinations. Everything in them is false. No events in the history of planet Earth have ever occurred. Accepting this is to accept atonement, in which only the truth of God is true, and the world is false.

"When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear, and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."

"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 ancient Calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto his own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to SHOW him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream."

"The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No-one is AFRAID of them, when he perceives HE MADE THEM UP. The fear was held in place BECAUSE he did not see that he was AUTHOR of the dream, and not a figure IN the dream. He gives HIMSELF the consequences that he dreams he gave his brother. And it is but this the dream has put together and has offered him, to show him that his wishes have been done. Thus does he fear his OWN attack, but sees it at another's hands. As victim, he is suffering from its effects, but NOT their cause. He authored NOT his own attack, and he is innocent of what he caused."

We made a meaningless world. Not a world that means bad things or good things, but which means nothing at all. A world devoid of meaning, being the opposite of God which is all meaning.

"the final judgment upon this world. It is the judgment of the truth upon illusion, of knowledge on perception; IT HAS NO MEANING AND DOES NOT EXIST. This is NOT your decision. It is but a simple statement of a simple fact."

"The world you see does not exist BECAUSE the place where you perceive it is not real. The gap is carefully concealed in fog, and misty pictures rise to cover it with vague, uncertain forms and changing shapes, forever unsubstantial and unsure. Yet in the gap is NOTHING."

The world became an empty mirror, having no identity or truth of its own, and able therefore only to reflect that which is projected upon it. We can project heaven onto it just as easily as hell, and it will reflect what we put there to see.

"Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality. And on this alone it is correct."

Notice how Jesus refers to the world or "gap" as essentially an empty VOID, onto which you project things to try to "fill it". You can see here that the ego attempted to ADD its meanings TO the world, once the world had been made. It tried to write pictures of hell and interpretations of cruelty onto it. It condemned the world and accused it of sin, and of proof of hell.

"That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth."

"The test of EVERYTHING on earth is simply this: "What is it FOR?" The answer makes it what it IS for you. It has NO meaning of itself, yet you can GIVE reality to it, according to the purpose which YOU serve."

"You think that what upsets you is a frightening world, or a sad world, or a violent world, or an insane world. All these attributes are given it by you. The world is meaningless in itself."

The world, therefore, arose to hide the original error or idea of separation in the mind, along with the guilt it produced, and since it was an idea of a lack of meaning, it projected a meaningless world. This meaningless world becomes an EMPTY SCREEN, onto which meaning could then be projected.

"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that."

Note that it also says that once the screen was made, as the world, as Earth etc, as form, the idea of separation was PROJECTED ONTO it. On top of it. This again is referring to what was mentioned in the prior quote about the ego rushing in to try to fill the empty meaningless space with its own meanings of attack and sin and guilt.

The idea of separation was projected ONTO a false world. Since the separation idea was an idea of opposition to reality and God, and was an attempt to distort the truth, and to swap what is true for what is false and vice versa, the projection of this idea ONTO the screen of the world produced a FALSE PERCEPTION of the world. This false perception is what you get when you interpret truth as lies and lies as truth. It is what turns the UNREALITY of the empty meaningless world into a seemingly real living hell. It is a faulty interpretation of what the world IS and what it means.

We are asked then to take these projected meanings away from the world, lift the IDEA of separation, sin and guilt and death, OFF of the world, which SAVES THE WORLD from your sinful use of it. From trying to make it be really sinful. We are asked then to lift all separation-oriented meanings (judgements, attacks) off of the world, so that it is recognized again as an EMPTY SPACE, a mirror, upon which temporarily the meaning of God himself is projected, and seen as reflection, as the real world.

"An empty space that is NOT seen as filled, an unused interval of time NOT seen as spent and fully occupied, become a silent invitation to the truth to enter, and to make Itself at home."

"Into this empty space, from which the GOAL of sin has been removed, is Heaven free to be remembered. Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death. The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death."

"The reflection of God NEEDS no interpretation. IT IS CLEAR. Clear but the mirror, and the message which shines forth from what the mirror holds out for everyone to see, NO-ONE will fail to understand."

"This loveliness is NOT a fantasy. It is the real world, bright, and clean and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun." "Could you but realize, for a single instant, the power of healing that the reflection of God, shining in YOU, can bring to all the world, you COULD not wait to make the mirror of your mind clean, to receive the image of the Holiness that heals the world."

"You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself. Only the clear reflection OF Himself can BE perceived upon it."

Notice here how it says that the world can REFLECT THE EGO. And there is also a contrasting of heaven vs hell. Meaning in essence that THE EGO IS HELL, NOT THE WORLD. The ego is that which produces false perception, believes in guilt, condemns, attacks, and turns everything into a nightmare. The ego is the insanity. It is the false perception. It is the twisting of the trust and the denial of God.

The WORLD was a projection outward of the idea of separation, an idea which gave rise to the ego WITHIN the idea, as a kind of spokesperson for the separation. And then the ego took ahold of the separated state (lower order reality etc, spacetime), and USED it for its purposes, producing a mindset that perceived the world AS hell, only because of its focus on death and destruction, and not because of what the world is. It is the ego (egotism) that makes an illusion of a meaningless world turn into a nightmare.

That same world which the ego has tried to make out to be hell, by projecting hellish ideas onto it, can also have God's meaning of love projected onto it, which renders it very differently and interprets its contents very differently. That's is the forgiven world or real world. The reflection of heaven, where God is seen in everything I see because God is in my mind. And here you become ready to go home to him.

"What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this you see in it. It is this that is meaningless in truth. Beneath your words is written the Word of God. The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His."

It's very simple. God is the ONLY cause of you. God is the ONLY cause of anyone. Everyone who exists is solely caused by God and NOTHING else. Whatever God wills that we all be, we are that, and even we have no say in this.

We are all totally EQUAL and next to each other, and God is above. God creates me fully and creates you fully. I do not create you, and you do not create me. It is nonsense to suggest that I am your creator or that you have caused me to exist.

This means that your brothers are NOT the cause of you. Nor is the world. Nor is the body. NOTHING ELSE can EVER cause you. Not one single person in the world is causing you right now, nor who has ever caused you, nor have you ever caused anyone.

When you believe someone is at fault or doing something to you, you MUST be confused about who your creator is. Whoever creates you causes you. No-one else has any input to this or any power over you. To believe someone is causing you is to believe you are NOT caused by God. To blame someone is to reject God as your creator.

Forgiveness then can very simply entail deprogramming yourself from ANY belief that ANYTHING other than God has power over you. This is the same as saying you should use the power of denial to deny anything NOT of God ANY POWER over you. That includes denying that your brother has any power over you, or that you have power over anyone.

The EGO is the confusion about cause and effect, about who your creator is, and therefore where CAUSE is coming from. If you assign cause to your brothers, or to the world, or to the body, then you are confused. They are NOT the cause of you in any way. When you believe cause is outside of you making you its effect, or you are at the effect of the world, you are claiming that the world is your creator.

You DO actually have creations which YOU HAVE caused, which are the living beings in heaven that you co-created with God and your brothers. These are not the people of the world. You DO have power over these beings because you are the CO-CREATOR of them. But you have created them by giving them freedom, just as God has with you.

If in any way right now you think that some person is doing something to you, or some company, or some group, or something in the body, or some aspect of the world, or anything at all in this dream, then you ARE MISTAKEN.

The ego will then form notions of a kind of cord or connection or chain or cause and effect, between you and others, between you and the body, or you and the world. It will suggest there is a tie or bridge across which stuff from another person "comes into you" and "does things to you" or "makes you" or changes your emotions or induces reactions in you. The belief in these artificial cause-effect relationships have to be SEVERED.

Whenever you are mistaken about causality you will find a belief in your mind that someone or something has kind of latched onto you, is outside you, causing you from the outside in, and now you are at its effect. This is NOT true. This belief has to be undone.

You can simply do this by just looking at the beliefs you DO have about these horizontal cause-effect relationships, and UNDOING your belief in them.

I am not being caused by that person. That person is not doing anything to me. I am not at the effect of them. They are not responsible for how I feel. They are not making me upset. They are not doing anything to me. They are not the cause of my feelings. They have not attacked me. They are doing NOTHING to me.

You can see then that this leads to the fact that your brother is innocent, because if they truly are NOT CAUSING you at all, then you cannot claim that they are in ANY WAY sinful, guilty, wrong, bad, evil or attacking. So they must be innocent. Sorting out the fact that they are NOT the ones doing anything to you, helps you to see their innocence and yours, and places responsibility for sight back your own court.

It is also important to affirm that you are not doing anything to anyone else. I am not attacking them. I am not hurting them. I am not abusing anyone. I am not causing anyone to feel anything. I am not making anyone upset. I am not responsible for anyone feels. I am not making anyone sick or afraid. I am not attacking anyone. This is simply because YOU are innocent. You CANNOT DO ANYTHING TO ANYONE.

God himself PROTECTS everyone by his will. No-one but him can touch his children. His children CANNOT hurt each other in reality. This is the simplicity of forgiveness and atonement. Simply putting cause and effect back into their proper place, being willing to be forever an effect of God, and realizing that LOVE is all that you can actually share with anyone.

"It is God's Will that nothing touch His Son except Himself, and nothing else comes nigh unto him. He is as safe from pain as God Himself, Who watches over him in everything" "I am forever an Effect of God."

"Father, I was created in Your Mind, a holy Thought that never left its home. I am forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are my Cause. As You created me I have remained. Where You established me I still abide, and all Your attributes abide in me because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are indistinguishable. Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. And as it is in Heaven, so on earth. Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your Effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, where earth will disappear, and separate things unite in glory as the Son of God."

"I am not the victim of the world I see."

"How can I be the victim of a world which can be completely undone if I so choose? My chains are loosened. I can drop them off merely by desiring to do so. The prison door is open. I can leave it simply by walking out. Nothing holds me in this world. Only my wish to stay keeps me a prisoner. I would give up insane wishes, and walk into the sunlight at last."

"Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God's. I am constantly tempted to make up other laws, and give them power over me. I suffer only because of my belief in them. They have no real effect on me at all. I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's. And His are the laws of freedom."

I am entitled to miracles because I am under no laws but God's. His laws release me from all grievances, and replace them with miracles.

Ok's let's step back and look at the big picture. God exists. God created the Kingdom of Heaven, which comprises the sonship and the Holy Spirit. You and your brothers co-create to add to the Kingdom. The holy trinity is all that really exists.

"Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for YOUR creation."

"Through our creations we extend our Love, and thus increase the joy of the Holy Trinity."

"The Holy Trinity is holy BECAUSE It is One."

Then there was this thing we call the separation from God, which is a mad idea. It's mad because it's not possible in reality, so believing it is insane. It's a mistaken belief that you have become separate through sin, when you haven't. This belief denies God and therefore makes the awareness of reality unconscious to you. It induces a kind of sleep state where God seems to be denied.

Denial does not change the truth, nor does it affect reality in any way. It is merely an attempt to hide from it, by shutting it out of awareness and pretending it is not true. Denial in fact implies that what has been denied IS STILL THERE, which is why denial contradicts itself.

"What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while."

"The out of mind is out of sight, because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized."

In this sleep state we dream of an entire world whose nature is completely opposite to heaven. A world of space and time and galaxies and planets and civilizations. Worlds populated by bodies at war with each other. All of this is nothing but a fiction, because it cannot be true or really exist or happen in the Kingdom of God.

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

In the dream of space and time, it SEEMS like impossible things happen. Sin occurs. Wars occur. Events seem to happen. People seem to do stuff. But the fact is that it is all a form of wishful thinking, it is all impossible, and none of it has any bearing on the reality of the Kingdom. This means that the entire history of the universe we made means absolutely nothing, does nothing, and does not even really exist.

"It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was.

"Time is a trick; a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic."

The important thing to realize is that the premise of God leads to the conclusion of heaven, and the premise of "not God" (separation, attack on God) leads to the dream of hell and death.

If the premise for the world of death is FALSE, and if in truth the world is JUST A DREAM and has no reality in God's creation, then anything that seems to happen in it IS VOID. Every event is just part of a fictional dream. Every attack is a fantasy. Every dead body is an illusion. Every war is happening to nothing. Every conflict is artificial and make-believe. Every form of suffering is completely impossible.

Not one single thing in the dream world bleeds over into the reality of the Kingdom. Not one single attack has any effect whatsoever on anything real - remembering "nothing real can be threatened." Not one single child of God can ever by hurt, because all God's children are immortal and perfect. Not one single sin has every occurred.

Anything that you think you did in this world, anything that anyone else seems to do in this world, has NO EFFECT on anything real. No-one is ever really at war. No-one is every really hurt. No-one is ever invaded or attacked or suffering or dying. This is A DREAM. It's a dream that you're having because you are ASLEEP. Your mind is hallucinating a terrible world of conflict and nightmares.

"Anything else is only his own nightmare, and does not exist."

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you REALLY understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who SEEM to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are WHOLLY unreal?"

The ONLY way therefore to "forgive" what's seeming to happen, is to recognize that IT ISN'T. This is the proper use of denial to deny anything not of God any reality whatsoever. If the premise of this world is that the world is real, then every event is real and meaningful and true. But if the premise of this world is that it is UNREAL and a DREAM, then NOTHING that seems to happen means anything whatsoever. Nothing is having any real effect on anything real, because this world is NOT REAL.

If someone seems to attack someone in an UNREAL world, there has not really been an attack. If someone wages a war in an unreal world using unreal weapons to invade and attack an unreal country on the basis of believing there are "real benefits" to doing so, or justified reasons for anger, or any other such nonsense, then those people are delusional. They are fighting over scraps of dreams, imaginary lands, fictional purposes, and for completely made-up reasons. This is insanity.

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in this view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God."

In order to recognize that what you THINK your brother DID, has NOT OCCURRED ..... you have to recognize this whole world is a dream. ONLY IF it is a dream can it be true that it has NOT OCCURRED. Even if you saw it, even if you remember it, even if it's on the TV, even if it's in the history books, even if there appears to be "real bloodshed" or evidence or proof of sin, even if huge chunks of the planet are destroyed.... if the whole premise of this environment is that IT IS NOT REAL, then NONE OF THIS HAS OCCURRED in reality.

There is no war in God. There is no pain in God. There is no attack in God. There is no conflict in God. There is no ownership in God. There is no invasion in God. There are no weapons in God. There is no land in God. There is no earth in God. There are no bodies in God. There is no disagreement in God. There is no suffering in God. NONE of these things are POSSIBLE in God because God is permanently perfect, his creation is perfect, his children are perfect, and nothing else is EVER true.

This is what you need to see if you want to forgive ANYTHING in this world. You cannot forgive it if you think it has really happened. You cannot forgive it if you think there is real proof that it happened. This is why the course asks you to "demonstrate that you had no hurt of him", which you do by healing your body, in order to SHOW HIM PROOF of his innocence, defying his attempts to destroy you, in order to testify to the fact that nothing can happen against your reality.

"For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns CAN suffer. He holds not the proof of sin, before his brother's eyes."

Nothing in the history of the human race, or the history of planet Earth, or the history of this all space and time, has happened. "All events are nowhere". NOTHING has happened. There is not even really a world here.

"There is no world." The ONLY way it is forgiven is by recognizing it has no substance, no value, no importance, no truth, no reality, no existence.

Your brother is forgiven because he literally in reality CANNOT DO ANYTHING to you. Your brother is forgiven because in reality HE CANNOT SIN against anything real. Your brother is forgiven because it is NOT POSSIBLE to wage war in the Kingdom of God. Your brother is forgiven because everything he SEEMS to do to sin is happening entirely in a MISTAKEN state of mind, in a dreaming state of sleep, in a TOTAL FANTASY, which has NO REALITY AND NO TRUTH.

None of this has happened. Only the Kingdom of God exists. There is no world. There is no war.