The one thing I have found most helpful lately, is keeping in mind a clear picture of what the "TRUTH" is, and comparing and contrasting everything to it.
When you cannot remember what the truth is like, when you can't remember what heaven is like, or what God is like, or what is actually real and what isn't, is it any wonder that you will be confused and lost?
What is a problem, except the obscuring of the answer? What is the answer but the truth? When the truth is obscured, problems show up! All problems are manifestations of being unaware of the answer, and in awareness of the answer the problem does not exist. "Let me recognize all my problems have been solved"!
What is a puzzle, except the inability to see the solution? When the solution is visible, the puzzle is no longer puzzling. But when the solution is hidden, what is not a puzzle, becomes a puzzle.
To have a sense of what God is like, what heaven is like, what is true, a "true perpsective", is really the doorway home as well as the LIGHT with which you will be able to SEE.
Without this light, even if its at the conceptual level and not experienced, is the only way you're going to be able to find clarity and truth about what is happening to you. The truth literally sets you free, and it's the only thing that does.
Essentially, once you finally reach the whole truth, everything will be put into its proper perspective. Confusion will be impossible. It will literally be an "aha" moment because you'll be able to SEE CLEARLY what everything is or is not.
It will become completely obvious that there is no ego, there is no illusion, there is no body, there is no world, and there is no death. It's OBVIOUS... when you can see with Vision.
But when you are out of touch with the truth, you enter into a murky dark confusing mess where you can't even tell anymore whether something is true or not. You will mistake many things for being the truth which are not the truth. And you will think that many things are false which are actually true. It's very confusing.
It's like someone being in a dark room with the lights off, not knowing where anything is or what anything means or what's really there. Suddenly the light goes on, aha! oh.... that was a stapler that I just touched and not a scary animal. Oh, and that was a set of curtains that brushed my leg, not a nasty lizard. Even symbolically in this world, light gives you perspective, darkness hides it.
So what I try to do is to keep God's total truth in mind. You can COMPARE things to the truth. And when you compare them to the truth, this will show you where thing stand. Is this thing the same as the truth? Does it correlate to it? Do they contradict? If there is contradiction or they are not the same or not complementary, then this this cannot be the truth. That tells you that an illusion is an illusion, that ego is false, and not to believe things which aren't real.
This is VITAL. The AWARENESS OF TRUTH is the key, vital core necessity in order to maintain perspective, to remember what everything is and what it means, to be able to see, to be able to discern, and to recognize things for what they are - both those thing which are true and real, and those which which are untrue and unreal.
Every form of confusion and mistakenness and judgement and sense of attack and victimhood and unfairness all stems from not being able to SEE the truth, not being aware of the whole picture, and FORGETTING what God is really like. Learn the truth. Learn what God is like, remember His nature, recognize what can be true of him and what is not.
It is true that God sees you as eternally innocent forever. It is impossible for God to believe in sin or guilt or fear or death or sickness. Keep that in mind! It means that if any of these things seem to be showing up, God is NOT the one who put them there, they ARE NOT REAL, and you must have invented them yourself. That's helpful to know.
What I am learning personally right now is that God sees me only as perfectly innocent and deserving love and happiness. All of the other stuff, it MUST be what I am doing to myself. Any guilt I have is me guilting and shaming myself. Any fear I have is my own doing. Any suffering I have I am responsible for, NOT GOD. And so I have to recognize, it is ME who has been doing this suffering to myself, and because God is perfectly happy and loving me and recognizes me as permanently innocent, thats shows me that this stuff, in contrast, needs to be let go.
It literally means that ALL GUILT AND SIN has to be brought into question, that there is NO guilt that's called for and no sin that has anything to do with God. All guilt must be made up, uncalled for, unjustified, unreal, and untrue. And on no grounds and at no time should I EVER be feeling guilty.
Anything not of God, must be let go. Anything God did not create, does not really exist. Anything not of God's will is impossible. Anything God cannot express from love has no real effects. Anything God sees is the only reality.
A major mistake I keep making, or at least am starting to notice I'm making, is trying to find answers in the world.
Jesus is often hinting to me that I'm doing something wrong when I do this.
I'll be lost in the middle of trying to figure something out or decide between two things, or determine what the "real reason is", or find a cause, or basically find any sense of truth to do with anything in this world.
It's difficult because my mind is so used to thinking this way - looking outside of myself for truth, for salvation etc. I'm so accustomed to being in this "mode" of "is it this or that?"... when in fact BOTH of those things are not the answer.
It also happens any time I am in any amount of fear, which is often, whereby Jesus will poke me because I'm once again lost in doubt and trying to decide something. It's really a state of indecision and because of the presence of fear, there is literally no way I can see clearly or find a completely convincing truth.
It often takes several winks and nudges before I I might suddenly have enough awareness to even realize that "I'm doing it again". ... I'm basically trying to find some kind of truth or answer in the world.
A reason why someone is sick. A cause for why something happened. A truth that explains which path to take. Some evidence that shows me something is correct. A sense of certainty that cannot be found in uncertainty. A clear and obvious answer which is profoundly elusive in the presence of fear.
I get lost in all these ways, in what basically is a state of split ego mind, where I am just lost and looking in all the wrong places for a truth that isn't really there.
When I finally am nudged enough by Jesus to look at what I'm really doing, and I've run out of attempts to find answers to what it is that I am doing wrong (lol), and I have pretty much no other option left as to what it is that Jesus is trying to get at, THEN I might suddenly realize..... oh... I'm doing it again.... I'm trying to find truth in the world.
And so what has been really coming to me big time lately, totally unexpected, is this idea that... absolutely everything in this world is NOT THE TRUTH. And cannot be. And it is not real. No matter how it looks, no matter how convincing it is, no matter how well explained, no matter whose credentials are behind it, no matter how real it seems, no matter how I can pinpoint physical causes, no matter how explainable or understandable it seems to be, IT IS STILL NOT THE TRUTH.
It is not God's truth. And God's truth is the ONLY truth. There IS no truth in the world, EVER.
This is quite surprising to me given how much I've been used to finding answers (salvation) outside of myself. It's the totally automatic mode of the ego to find truth externally, or to explain situations, or diagnose sicknesses, or find the "real cause" of stuff. All that is doing is the ego is trying to give truth to its illusions, trying to make mistakes real, making sickness real, making the world real, and that is NOT forgiveness.
Forgiveness HAS to recognize that the ENTIRE WORLD and EVERYTHING IN IT is an illusion, is not the truth, has no truth to it, cannot provide an answer, is not the "final answer", an therefore there is ANOTHER TRUTH which goes beyond this world.
There is a truth which is of God. It is a truth which transcends the world. It is a truth of immortality, eternal life, absolute peace, total happiness, invulnerability, christ consciousness, oneness and love. This is THE ONLY TRUTH.
And so as I've been really really used to finding "some" of the truth outside of me, in the world, in explanations and what appears to be cause and effect in the illusion, where one thing appears to cause something else to happen, THAT is not truth. So I am now going into this process of quite literally becoming clearer and stronger in my discernment that EVERY attempt to find truth in the world will fail, and will only tell me something that is - in God's reality - not the REAL truth.
This is the foundation for miracle mindedness, because miracle mindedness completely defies the laws of physics, chemistry, biology. The laws of nature. The laws of what appears to be separate causes and effects. All rules. All results. All effects. All stuff that seems to "happen" in this world, it is all NOT the truth of God. And therefore, God has power OVER all of it!!!
This is why in order to perform MIRACLES (!!), we need to get our mind into a place where we're very clear about the fact that this world is NOT REAL, that there is NO truth to how it appears whatsoever, that sickness is just a fake image which can be easily changed, that the body is just a fake image which can be easily changed, and that, as ACIM says very early on, "there is nothing my holiness cannot do."
While I'm looking for truth in this world, in all the things I rely on and think are sources of certainty and reality, I am distracting myself from the truth of God. And that means I am not being miraculous. Miracles, the power of God's love, will flow IN SPITE of this world, and with DOMINION over this world, and with a POWER that this world has absolutely no idea about.
And therefore no matter what state or condition this world is in, and no matter how it appears, and what seems to be the "finality" of it, or bodily states which seem irreversible, or even DEATH as a statement of "you can't do anything about this because its real".. THATS BULLSHIT! God CAN do something about it, because God does not buy the lie that this world is reality. And that means miracles can happen, and people CAN be raised from the dead, temporarily or otherwise if its preferable, and you are NOT at the effect of this world.
A Course in Miracles thus makes no sense whatsoever UNLESS this world is an illusion, and unless this world has absolutely no truth to it whatsoever. Only then can it be possible that everything ACIM claims can be true, and only then is it possible that natural MIRACLES can happen, ALL THE TIME!
Hallelujah!
TEMPTATION
"What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real? "
Illusions are not inherently real. However, there is a potential in illusions to be "tempted" to believe they are real. If someone is sane, they will recognize the illusion is just a trick and will not believe it. But the illusion contains this property of "trying to convince" you that there is a hidden, delusional truth, which you will "see" when and if you believe in it.
The world, is an illusion. It "tempts you" to believe that you are physical, a body, in a physical world, which seems real. But this illusion is only "potentially" taken as real, depending on your belief system and perception.
You are tempted by form to believe that sin and error are reality. You are tempted by the body to believe that you are limited and isolated. All the time, this world and everything in it is potentially a temptation. It tries to persuade you to believe its lies.
But it is then up to you, whether you buy into it and fall for the temptation, or whether you come to your senses and rise above it into sanity and truth, recognizing the world and body as lies, and not listening to these messages of temptation.
"Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated."
""Let me not wander into temptation.""
"Even the most advanced of God's teachers will give way to temptation in this world."
"Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs. 2 It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die"
"When the temptation to attack rises to make your mind darkened and murderous, remember you can see the battle from above."
"The temptation to regard problems as many is the temptation to keep the problem of separation unsolved."
"Let him not wander into the temptation of crucifixion, and delay him there. 4 Help him to go in peace beyond it, with the light of his own innocence lighting his way"
"Yet there will be temptations along the way the teacher of God has yet to travel, and he has need of reminding himself throughout the day of his protection."
"The purpose is to protect yourself from temptation throughout the day"
"Let nothing that relates to body thoughts delay your progress to salvation, nor permit temptation to believe the world holds anything you want to hold you back."
"And if we hear temptation call to us to stay and linger in a dream, we turn aside and ask ourselves if we, the Sons of God, could be content with dreams"
"I am constantly tempted to make up other laws and give them power over me. 5 I suffer only because of my belief in them."
"Let this not tempt me to look away from me for my salvation."
"No temptation but becomes a nameless and unwanted thing before God's Name."
"The temptation of the ego becomes extremely intense with this shift in goals."
"As you look upon yourself and judge what you do honestly, you may be tempted to wonder how you can be guiltless."
"And he will reinterpret all temptation as just another chance to bring him joy."
""Lead us not into temptation" means "Recognize your errors and choose to abandon them by following my guidance.""
"If you are tempted to believe them true, remember that appearances can not withstand the truth these mighty words contain: 3 Salvation is my only function"
"When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is self-deception."
"Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell him silently: 3 Light and joy and peace abide in you. 4 Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God."
"If you are tempted to be dispirited by thinking how long it would take to change your mind so completely, ask yourself, "How long is an instant?""
"Perhaps you would be tempted to agree with the ego that it is far better to be sinful than mistaken."
"This releases the mind from the temptation to see the body in many lights, and gives it over entirely to the One Light in which it can be really understood."
"When you are tempted to deny Him remember that there are no other gods to place before Him, and accept His Will for you in peace."
"And you can want to see a sinless world, and let an "enemy" tempt you to use the body's eyes and change what you desire."
"When you are tempted to yield to the desire for death, remember that I did not die . 2 You will realize that this is true when you look within and see me."
"When you are tempted by the wrong voice, call on me to remind you how to heal by sharing my decision and making it stronger."
"The PURPOSE OF THE WORLD you see IS TO OBSCURE your function of forgiveness, and provide you with a justification for forgetting it. 3 It is the TEMPTATION TO ABANDON GOD and His Son BY TAKING ON A PHYSICAL APPEARANCE. 4 It is THIS THE BODY'S EYES LOOK UPON."
"NOTHING THE BODY'S EYES SEE CAN BE ANYTHING BUT A FORM OF TEMPTATION, since this was THE PURPOSE OF THE BODY itself."
When I used to do ACIM, it was always about me being here on Earth trying to forgive stuff. People were across from me in bodies, as bodies. I was a body. The focus was on me being here anchored in a body trying to somehow get closer to reality.
But then there was a big change and turning point, namely that my wife left her body and wend to heaven. But this was by no means the end of our interactions together, and instead she became a kind of anchor in heaven.
Since then my focus has noticeably shifted in how I deal with the course. I see it as telling me that I should be locating myself as IN heaven, and not of this world. Even if my body seems to be here, I should regard myself as with God. Physically on earth, mentally in heaven.
I see this also as relating to the topic of 'who I am really'. I am not a body, I am free. Well, where am I if I'm not a body - I'm in heaven. If I am Christ, where is Christ? Not on Earth. Christ IS heaven. If I am immortal spirit and recognize and identify myself as spirit, where is spirit? It's not on earth, it's in heaven, as heaven.
So for me now the focus has shifted quite a bit in terms of how I am 'oriented'. I am becoming increasingly more 'centered' in heaven, identifying as part of heaven, while my body continues to seem to exist on Earth.
I liken it to what it would be like if I was an angel in heaven, and came to Earth for a visit but was still entirely of the same nature and mindset that I was in heaven. Still believing I am with God, still in the light, still a spirit being, not confused about who or what I am. In the world, but not of it.
I think this is important because we need to realize we are not Earth people, we are not bodies or humans, we are not anchored here. Just because bodies are here it gives a flavour of ... everything I do is from the perspective of being here. But this isn't the proper perspective. To get above the battlefield mind has to see itself as NOT in a body, NOT outside the Kingdom, NOT separate from God.
I focus now much more on affirming and recognising who I really am - immortal spirit, where I really am - in heaven with God, how I really am - perfectly innocent and invulnerable. Lifting up and away from all the sense of the bullshit of the world, all the ideas of "something is going wrong", all the illusions of suffering and of being even someone or something that can suffer. Uncovering my true self.
We need to be above the world, looking down, not looking up from below. Believing we are firmly WITHIN God, not outside of God.
"You have been assured that the Kingdom of God is within you, and can never be lost."
"That is why we made no distinction before between HAVING the Kingdom of God and BEING the Kingdom of God."
"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer. The world can ADD nothing to the power and the glory of God and His Holy Sons, but it CAN blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it."
"Because you are all the Kingdom of God, I can lead you back to your own creations"
"To be IN the Kingdom is merely to focus your full attention ON it."
"The Kingdom CANNOT be found alone, and you who ARE the Kingdom cannot find YOURSELVES alone."
"You ARE the Kingdom of Heaven, but you have let the belief in darkness enter your minds, and so you need a new light."
"You who ARE the Kingdom are not concerned with seeming. Reality is yours because you ARE reality."
Everything within the ego thought system, every part of separation, this universe and world, issues with bodies, all forms of sickness, every problem or upsetting situation, all appearances of external causes and even death, can be described by one SIMPLE statement:
The sequence of cause and effect has been reversed.
This BEGAN in Heaven when you attempted to will against God's will. To will something separate from God's will. This "authority problem" was an act of trying to CAUSE GOD.
God is cause. You are God's effect. God did grant you the power to cause and create, but He did NOT grant you the power to cause HIM.
The entire separation and everything that followed from it, was formed on the basis of this belief that you are willing against God's will, and therefore God's will is outside/separate/external to your will and acting against your will.
This is the idea of sin. That you could cause and therefore produce EFFECTS in God, to hurt Him, to change His mind, to make Him not love you anymore, or to destroy Him, and that you have in fact been capable of doing this with "real effects".
This was the beginning point of all dreaming.
It's all entirely because you tried to stop being the effect of God and to instead cause God.
Let's describe that in terms of levels. The higher level is causal (God). The lower level is effect (You/Son of God). You are as God created you, as God intended, as God willed. When you, who are on the lower level, attempt to CAUSE the higher level to change, this is LEVEL CONFUSION. It is the authority problem. It is the belief in magic. It is the belief in an external will. It is the source of ALL SICKNESS. Eventually to will so strongly against your own cause, against God, is to deny God and deny life, and results in DEATH.
This all comes from reversing what the Course calls the "divine order". The proper sequence of creation. Cause produces effects, not the other way around. The world that we are in now, is also a "level", and it is being caused by a higher level. It is a dream-effect or a causal mind "above" this world. Everything in this world is an effect, not a cause. But when anything in this world is given properties of "causing" or "willing" or "making effects happen", that is LEVEL CONFUSION also, another layer of it. And this is the source of all our suffering.
Everything in your life that you "need to forgive", is BASED ON this same dynamic. Every upset you have. Every perception that someone is acting against your will. Every form of victimhood. All states of sickness and death. Every argument. Every conflict or war. All special relationships. Every part of the ego thought system is based on this reversal of causality. "All sickness is the result of confusing the levels". Whenever something "below" or an "effect" is believed to have an ability to CAUSE, that is level confusion, it is mental illness, it is an illusion, it is false, it is ego, and it encapsulates the entire ego thought system.
It causes you to "perceive" that cause is outside of you, causing AGAINST you. This is because instead of God flowing into you from "behind", and you extending it outward and "forward", you have instead turned around and taken a stand "against" God's outflowing will, to try to will in the other direction, to STOP God's will. Like a rock in a river trying to stop the flow. ALL your suffering and problems come from this.
So to CORRECT IT, to "apply forgiveness" as we like to say, you ONLY need to correct this one fundamental error in the dynamic. You need to re-reversed cause and effect so that the levels are in their proper ORDER, and so that you recognize yourself as the effect of God, so that you are not against God's will, and thereby do not perceive that there is a will acting against you.
That also means you no longer perceiving or believing that there is a "separate cause" outside of you, or a cause in the world, or a cause on a lower level, or a cause in the body, or a cause in other people, or a cause in laws of physics in the environment, or any other externalized cause. Cause is IN YOU. God is IN YOUR MIND, so Cause is in your mind, and your mind is the effect of GOD and nothing else.
Every situation in your life which seems like 1000 DIFFERENT problems with different dynamics and issues and reactions and emotions and so on.... all those differences are illusions COVERING UP the simple CORE THREAD which is the SAME in all of them. That is, somehow, you have become mistaken about what is a cause and what is an effect. And so now you see causes as doing stuff to you against your will, when they are not. And you've turned yourself into an effect of the world, instead of the cause of it. This same simple concept runs through EVERY FORGIVENESS LESSON.
Now, before you can undo this problem in real life situations, or even recognize it in your upsetting situations, you need to recognize something.
The ego has invented its own idea of cause and effect. It believes that causes and effects are "horizontal". This has resulted in "horizontal perception". That means, it believes and perceives that something in the world on this same "level", has the ability to "cause" something else on this same level, and produce effects in it. So now it seems possible that an object can produce a reaction in another object, a person can come along and hurt you, someone can be to blame for doing something to you etc. Causes and effects are seen as linear on the horizontal plane, or sideways. This is totally opposite to the truth, which is that the HIGHER level is the only cause and the LOWER level (this world) is ENTIRELY EFFECT.
So part of what you have to realize is, this world does not contain any real causes AT ALL. It is all effect. It is all a dream, all the effect of you dreaming from a higher level. It doesn't matter how it APPEARS, that a cause is outside you on this same level. There are NO CAUSES IN THE WORLD. There are no causes in your body. There are no causes in other people doing stuff. There are no causes in the environment. Cause is on a higher level, and it's in your mind, "above the battlefield."
The recognition that causality is VERTICAL, results in what the course calls "vertical perception." It also says a sudden shift from horizontal to vertical perception is required in order to produce a miracle. Miracles are expressions of VERTICAL CAUSALITY in which the levels are in their proper order, there is no level confusion, there is no belief in something in the world causing something else, and therefore the higher level which MADE the word can CHANGE it in total defiance of any illusory laws or horizontal cause-effect relationships. This produces supernatural miracles which are ABOVE (super) the "natural" (nature) of the horizontal illusion and prove through demonstration that cause-effect on this level is ENTIRELY AT THE EFFECT OF YOUR MIND.
So what you're going to need to do in an everyday upsetting situation, something you "need to forgive", is UNDO BELIEF IN horizontal cause and effect, so that you CAN SHIFT to a vertical perception, in which God is cause, you are His effect, and YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF THIS WORLD that you're dreaming.
Recognize therefore that the ego INVENTS the idea of being caused by things outside of you on this same level. It is never true. This forms a kind of fictional "connection", mentally and energetically, between you and other people. You perceive and believe they, or the environment, or you food, or events, or the body, can "cause you". This is FALSE. So what you need to do is COLLAPSE the ego's horizontal cause-effect beliefs and relationships. Cancel them out, separate them out, and that leads to a pretty simple goal:
Recognizing that there is NO CAUSE OR EFFECT between any two things in this world. This whole world is an EFFECT of your mind ON A HIGHER LEVEL. And therefore you are NOT ON THIS LEVEL, you are ABOVE IT.
So what you want to do is effectively "SEPARATE" cause from effect on this level. It's like two boxers in a ring who are fighting, you need to separate them, get them back to their corners, and stop them from affecting each other. Break them up. Put a GAP between the horizontal causes and the horizontal effects so that you can believe and perceive that YOU ARE NOT AT THE EFFECT of anything in this world.
The only way you can believe and perceive that you are not at the effect of anything in this world, is to not believe in CAUSES in this world, of any kind, and therefore to shift into a VERTICAL perception which is miraculous, which recognizes that this ENTIRE WORLD is made up, its a dream, it was all made at once, and every ILLUSION of causality or effects were made TOGETHER simultaneously. There ARE no real causes here.
I like to do this with a simple process of "correcting ideas" something like this:
You did not cause me. I am not at the effect of you. You have not made me upset. You are not the one who attacked me. You did not do anything to me. You have no power over me. I am free of you. You are not the source of my upset. Everything I am experiencing I have chosen. These feelings are my own. This hurt is something I put there myself. I am responsible for everything I am experiencing. It's got nothing to do with you. I must've wanted to experience this. I chose this myself and made a wrong decision and can choose again.
Notice regardless of the words you use, that there is only ONE THING happening here over and over. I am CUTTING TIES between myself and the other person. These are ARTIFICIAL ties of horizontal causes and effects. They are not real or true at all. I am SEPARATING MYSELF from the "fictional causes" so that I am not at their effect. You could express this a 1000 different ways, whatever words or aspects you need to use to break up all of your personal perceptual errors and beliefs in how something is affecting you.
But note that in order to FULLY CANCEL the ego's illusion of horizontal causality, you need to also apply this same set of clarifications to the other person or cause as well. This helps to "balance it out" or to complete the undoing of any other beliefs or perceptions which you might have such as that YOU affected the other person, resulting in guilt etc. This really helps to clean up any possible effects which have come from what you falsely experienced. For example:
I did not cause you. You are not at the effect of me. II have not made you upset. I am not the one who attacked you. I did not do anything to you. I have no power over you. You are free of me. I am not the source of your upset. Everything you are experiencing you have chosen. Your feelings are your own. Your hurt is something you put there yourself. YOU are responsible for everything you are experiencing. It's got nothing to do with me. You must've wanted to experience this. You chose this yourself and made a wrong decision and can choose again.
When you do this, you BREAK the ego's chain of fake causes and effects on the horizontal level. That means you actually will no longer believe or perceive or experience that there are ANY CAUSES on this level affecting you. While this is still a horizontal state of perception, it actually lays the groundwork for you being able to then shift into VERTICAL perception. You may be still in the world not affected by the world, but now you need to position yourself ABOVE the world, above the battlefield.
You got into your right mind, now you need to get into the ONE mind. So if there are no causes in the world that you believe in, this makes it pretty easy to then recognize you are ABOVE, in terms of levels and causality, the divine order is re-established, the levels are in their proper sequence, and you recognize that everything in this world is AN EFFECT and you are a HIGHER CAUSE.
This readies you to be MIRACULOUS. Miracles flow from a higher level to a lower level, like love or creation does. God causes you, you are the miracle of God. You then cause a level below yourself, and these are your miracles. When your higher mind CAUSES effects in the lower level of this world, these produce SUPERNATURAL EFFECTS. This is what miracles really are about. A higher level causing a lower level and proving that the lower level is nothing but an effect of the mind - that mind has total power OVER it.
This more or less is ALL you need to do. If you can really go deep with this, it will undo all your false perceptions, your upset, your stress, your emotional reactions, your fears, your obsessive thinking which can't let go of the situation, and it will bring you back to peace AND empowerment. Then you are in a position to ACCEPT THE ATONEMENT by recognizing that you are the effect of God, you accept that you are STILL as God created you, God has NOT been affected or changed, and therefore is not willing against you.
This process ALWAYS WORKS to undo ego because it addresses THE ENTIRE EGO THOUGHT SYSTEM at its foundation. There is not one part of the ego that escapes this, because the ego is BASED ON the reversal of cause and effect, so the correction of cause and effect cancels out the entire ego. Therefore it can be applied to EVERY situation and will always lead you back to truth.
Try it.
We can perhaps summarize this way:
God causes me.
I have not caused God.
I am the effect of God.
I am the cause of what I made/projected/created.
What I made/dreamed is not the cause of me.
Therefore I am still as God created me.
Sometimes I am told to 'surrender', or 'relax', and to me this means I need to actively express a willingness to drop ego. Often this is when I'm laying in bed.
I will then repeat several times over and over, something like:
"I surrender, I let go, I surrender, I surrender, I surrender, I let go".
I say this in quick succession so that my ego mind can't get distracted. Quickly I feel a sense of admitting, a sense of honesty, a sense of letting go. Several 'sighs' occur as I let go of ego. I have to admit that I'm trying to do something by myself and I have to stop.
Another process I've started using also is to invite Jesus to come in and heal whatever, and again as soon I make this request I then repeat some statements. e.g.
"Jesus please come into me and heal this...." (whatever it is).
Then I repeat, "I receive your healing" or "I receive as much as you want to give".
I tried out the latter "I receive as much as you want to give" this morning and I found it interesting how this connects Jesus's willingness to help with my willingness to receive help. Significant healing took place. I have no idea what Jesus actually healed or what was occurring, I just had to trust.
Often when Holy Spirit or Jesus are doing healing in me, they say to 'relax', and this means I have to basically ALLOW them to do whatever, even if that means my body is shaking all over the place. It's my job to receive and not interfere.
The final word I received after this, was "trust God". And immediately as I reached out in trust to God, everything suddenly seemed better.
Somewhere deep down inside you believe you are unworthy of God. You think God doesn't want you and doesn't love you. Or that even if He does, you don't deserve it.
Because you forgot who you are - that you are love itself - when someone came along and didn't love you it made you believe it meant something. It means you didn't' deserve love. That you were unwanted. It made you believe there is a separation between you and love - between you and God.
At some point you're going to have to confront that and question it, if you are to be able to open up to the possibility that you are loved and worthy. You need to heal the gap created by this idea that you are separate from love, that you are not where love is, that love has abandoned you and doesn't want you. Because the truth is, you ARE love.
Since you are love, you deserve love, you are wanted by love, you are loved. You are God's child and He loves you very much. The stuff you believe that says otherwise ... you have to get rid of it. It's standing in the way of the great REUNION that awaits you with God.
Because love is meaningful, and is far more meaningful to you than anything else, and because you love God more than anything else, all the bullshit about sin and guilt and fear is totally meaningless to you in comparison. You made up sin and guilt and fear to try to explain why God doesn't love you, or why you are unworthy of it.
None of it is true. It is all completely false. It's like a bunch of statements about yourself that are all completely untrue of you and every single one of them can be discarded. "God doesn't love me because I did this and that" "God doesn't love me because I sinned" "God doesn't love me because I pushed Him away" etc... its all false bullshit.
You know sin and guilt and fear are not true of you, because you know that ultimately you love God and God loves you. All that other bullshit is totally not true, and in all honesty, you will admit it. You made it all up. You're not really sinful or guilty and have no reason to be afraid of love.
Healing the rift between you and God is all you need. He loves you and you love Him. Everything else is irrelevant.
This is what came to me this morning after half an hour of being a blubbering mess and finding it extremely hard to admit or accept that this is true. I had to push through old beliefs and hurts to catch a glimpse of this. I still don't fully believe it, but I took some steps forward and was willing to release some baggage that stood in the way.
Ultimately the entire so-called 'separation' is nothing more than a mistaken belief about what has happened to your relationship with God and Your Self, and none of it is even remotely true. You just want to be with God, and that's all. It's the most meaningful, heartfelt desire in your entire being. You hope and long to be able to go back to God and to feel completely loved again. That's all you want.
You are wanted by God. You are loved by God. You deserve God's love completely. That is all that this is about. You just had a big misunderstanding in your primary relationship (with God) and went off all upset and afraid that you did something really bad, and you were totally wrong about that. God hasn't been hurt, He's not even upset with you and you didn't even really do what you thought you did.
You can come Home. You are welcome. You are loved. All is forgiven. You are safe.
If you as Christ, God's Son, are "one with God", does that mean you do not exist as an individual being/son? Does it mean there is only God and NO son? No. It also does not mean that your "brother" is an "ego idea of separation". Brothers are co-children of the same Father - God.
In not one single one of these statements does "one" mean a count of one.
"This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. ***There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER***. Actually, the original statement was "are of one KIND."
"This is because ***God and man are NOT equal***"
"The creative power of both God AND His Creations is limitless, but it ***is NOT in reciprocal relationship.*** You DO communicate fully WITH God, as He does with YOU. This is an ongoing process in which you SHARE, and BECAUSE you share it, you are inspired to create LIKE God. But in Creation ***you are NOT in a reciprocal relation TO God***, because He created YOU, but you did NOT create Him. We have already stated that only in this respect your creative power differs from His."
"I and my Father are one with you, for you are part of Us."
"Your Son is one with You in being and in will, and nothing contradicts the holy truth that I remain as You created me."
"Nothing has power over you except His Will and yours, which but extends His Will. 8 It was for this you were created, and your brother with you and at one with you." (oneness is happening at the same time as you AND your brother existing as creations of God!!!)
"You and your brother are the same as God Himself is One, and not divided in His Will. 2 And you must have one purpose, since He gave the same to both of you. 3 His Will is brought together as you join in will, that you be made complete by offering completion to your brother."
"I trust my brothers, who are one with me." (not "who are egos with me"!)
"His Oneness and ours are not separate, because His Oneness encompasses ours." (two onenesses? WTF, OMG, call the the course police)
"Your role in the redemption LEADS you to it, by re-establishing its oneness in your minds."
"And ONLY as you look upon him as guiltless, can you understand his Oneness."
"Nor do they love the Oneness which created them as One with Him."
"In unity with Him do they abide, and in their Oneness both are kept complete."
"Its truth established you as one with God."
"we stand together as one Son of God."
"every heart throughout the universe forever sings as one"
"As a man and as one of God's creations, my right thinking, which came from the Universal Inspiration which IS the Holy Spirit, taught me first and foremost..."
"In this equality is Christ restored as one Identity, in Which all Sons of God acknowledge that they all are one."
"He loves you both, equally and as one."
"When two minds join as one, and share one idea equally, the first link in the awareness of the Sonship as one has been made."
In none of these statements do the "two" cease to exist as two. This does not mean separation persists either. Nor does it mean that "two" always indicates "multiplicity of egos". Nor does multiplicities of brothers created by God in reality mean there is separation happening.
Separation does not mean "counting how many", any more than oneness means "a count of one". Separation ONLY means the attempt to be exclusive, selfish and isolated, in among a large group of individuals with whom you were previously sharing everything.
So many myths to dispel.
"I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace."
This means that if in ANY WAY I am not at peace, am sick, upset, unhappy, afraid, in pain, suffering or dying, it has come about ONLY because *I* made a wrong decision. This "consequence" is showing up ONLY because of the power of my own decision. I put it there. I made it happen to myself. There are no other causes. I am responsible for having attacked myself. I decided wrongly and it produced these effects. I must claim responsibility and ownership of this power to choose what I experience and stop blaming others.
"I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise."
This is further compounded in this second line - that *I* made the decision myself. Which means, the secret to salvation, I did this to myself. I am not unhappy because of something someone else did or something that happened to me against my will. I made a DECISION, on my own, which was a poor decision, which was a DELIBERATE decision, to choose ego and suffering, on purpose. I have to own that. I made myself suffer and unhappy. I chose it.
Then once I can see that I own that fully, I can now realize that, in spite of this, I can change my mind and "choose again". Acknowledging that I chose this in the first place puts me in touch with the power to choose. Owning the choice I MADE allows me to own my power of CHOOSING and therefore puts me back in touch with my power to choose a different experience. And whatever I choose, I will receive.
"I WILL to decide otherwise, because I WANT to be at peace."
Notice in the early version it says I *WILL* to decide otherwise meaning I actually DO IT, whereas in the FIP version they changed it to "I want" which is somewhat removed from actively DOING it. And so now you are realizing, that you no longer want what YOU CHOSE, you no longer want the suffering YOU MADE HAPPEN, and so now you WILL - choose - actively -towards a more sane decision which will results in consequences of peace instead of conflict.
"I do NOT feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM."
You now recognize clearly that you have not sinned, and merely have been mistaken. Mistakes can be corrected and they call for forgiveness, not punishment. Therefore you do not need to be guilty, which isn't helping anyone. Guilt is not love or a change of mind. I also don't have to worry about all the giant fuck of a mess that I made, myself, that I did to myself, even if that means having attacked myself and made myself sick or suffering or in pain or half dead.
Whatever the consequences of my wrong decision were, whatever the MANIFEST EFFECTS were, THEY can be undone. AND they can be undone BY the Holy Spirit through supernatural healing means. And the only thing remaining to ALLOW this to occur is my own willingness to LET HIM HELP ME. There is no consequence He cannot undo, including incurable diseases, and including death.
"I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me."
Again this says that I WILL, whereas I think in a later version it was changed to "I choose". We need to realize that WILLINGNESS is very important because it indicates full commitment and POWER. Your choice and your will are very powerful and your mind is powerful. This isn't merely an inert, neutral, powerless small decision. It is a choice to OPT for and CLAIM a different experience. If you change your mind, the whole world must change. You are ruler of the universe! Nothing happens that you do not choose and whatever you choose MUST HAPPEN.
Additionally, when you ALLOW Holy Spirit, you invite him into you, you let him help you, you ask for His healing and you RECEIVE the truth (atonement), He can AND WILL AND DOES come into you and can heal ALL OF THE CONSEQUENCES that you produced in your wrong decision. He can heal all pain and sickness and suffering. And you must be WILLING to let him, to trust him, to allow him, to give him permission, in order to have him take your INVITATION and come in to heal you and clean up the mess.
He is here to HELP YOU and you do not have to tolerate suffering of ANY kind, and you do not have to put up with consequences you caused, and you do not have to stay sick, and you do not have to do this all on your own. Allow yourself to RECEIVE THE LOVE that you now choose and WILL and accept as a sane decision. Love will heal you AND your body.
Some time ago, I did not even remotely recognize that I was choosing to be a victim. If I was afraid, attacked, threatened, hurt in any way, I would see it as the other person was entirely responsible.
Over time, as I've tried to apply forgiveness principles and the secret of salvation, taking responsibility for what I'm doing to myself and for choosing all feelings, my victimhood role has changed in appearance.
Now I see that when I "go into victimhood", this entails me deliberately trying to position myself as "at the effect" of others, trying to pull off a stunt of projection and blame, weakening myself, choosing to be upset, and generally being the cause of what I'm feeling.
As I practice this more and more, becoming "victimy" is recognized much more clearly as me descending into a funky state of "being affected", where I'm attacking myself and trying to pass it off as someone else's fault. I start to notice attacks coming out of me in an attempt to hurl it towards someone else. And I start to feel the typical feelings of fear and hurt that accompany this "role-play".
But I more quickly catch myself and take responsibility, to admit this stress and upset and suffering that I'm experiencing is solely because I've slipped down the slope into dishonesty, into projecting and blaming and trying to force myself to be affected by something. It's a way that I use other people to try to hurt myself. And I can no longer wholly accuse them of being the reason why I feel this way.
So the challenge now seems easier, to get myself out of this role and to stop "playing the victim", in recognition that I not only have the power of decision and responsibility to do so, I can do so and, when I do, no-one else can stop me doing so. It's up to me to decide that I want to feel better and to change my mind so that I do. This is especially much easier once you can see clearly and squarely that it's you doing this to yourself when trying to put forth the "lie" that it's not.
I now recognize much more clearly the component of self-caused suffering mixed in with what used to appear to be just the effects of attack. The unconsciousness of believing it was always coming from someone else is lifting. It's getting to the point where even if I do try to attack, project, hurt or blame, I simultaneously am aware of feeling that I am hurting myself, attacking myself, and am fully included in all the suffering I'm trying to get rid of.
I am seeing that this position of victim simply does not work, and I cannot escape what's happening inside my mind because "ideas leave not their source" even when I'm split minded and believing it's someone else who did this. I have "re-framed" the lie of fear enough to recognize that its entirely bullshit to claim I am afraid "because of" anyone or anything. In my fear is simply a dishonest attempt on my own part to disguise myself and portray myself as suffering, to try to gain the "reward" of passing off causation onto someone else through an accusation of sin.
As you become clearer and more recognizing exactly what it is you are doing, in your mind and attitude and choosing, versus what you thought you were doing when it was on auto-pilot, it simply becomes very obvious that you cannot move into egotism without feeling like shit, and you cannot escape the consequences of your choosing, nor can you blame without being blamed, or try to make suffer without suffering yourself.
The next step then is of course, in admitting to this charade, and recognizing its utter futility, simply stopping this "behavior" and lifting out of it, now that you "know better" and cannot pretend to hide from the simply truth that "you cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself." I am ceasing to play the role of victim and to instead step back into the shoes of Christ, personally empowered and stronger in the light of truth.
The victim role is not what it appears to be. It's not even remotely to do with what other people are causing or doing to you. It's entirely a fake postulating of yourself in trying to pull of a representation of you as "a sick and suffering you", so that you get the payoff of trying to blame someone else for it. Always always always you are doing it to yourself, and being in DENIAL of this fact is really the only problem.
Once you admit to it enough you can no longer put the cat back in the bag. And it's then impossible to even try to attack others when you're aware that doing so makes you hurt. If they are to suffer, you will suffer. The only way out is to stop hurting yourself. And when you choose your immortality and invulnerability, nothing can ever hurt you again.
"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true."