The way you are meant to function correctly, as a child of God, is to be joined to God, plugged into His mind, hooked up to His Divine Health and absolute abundance, and sharing in all of His Power.

You are meant to be able to use His Power, according to His laws, to create just like Him, which has absolutely no limitations of any kind. It means you can create, and manifest in form, anything whatsoever that you desire to. And it also means, eternal life.

But when you are cut off from God and going it alone, you are literally disconnected from power, from healing, from love, from joy, from trust, from abundance, from Life, from everything that God wants to share with you right now.

So what kind of a life do you expect to find yourself living, when you're living a lie? What kind of life will you experience when you refuse to allow it to be a life joined to and being lived WITH God?

It's going to pale in comparison, and it's going to be a life of weakness and suffering and death and fear and loss and disaster. You can try going it alone and doing it all yourself and keep shutting God out, but God is very patient and constantly offers His Gifts to you without conditions.

So this is kind of your choice. You either can keep living 'with' the ego which means being separate and having to manage your own life all alone and to experience unhappiness, suffering, and eventually death, OR you can choose to receive, accept, and share in God's mighty abundance, to illuminate your life from the inside out and to set you in a position of exquisite joy, peace and power.

The two lives really are nothing alike. And there's really nothing the ego can offer you that is ANYWHERE near what God can offer you. Okay so I sound a bit religious or recruiting here... but ok. You think the ego has given you amazing things in the world and you cherish and find important? Wait till you get in on the action with God!

Salvation is EXTREMELY simple.

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

In this one sentence is the whole course. Just stop hurting yourself!

Let's try to make this extremely clear.

You are an immortal being which cannot be affected by anything. Nothing real can be threatened. You cannot be hurt or attacked or damaged. Nothing can happen against your will. You are absolutely invulnerable.

No-one else can do anything to you. No-one else can cause you to feel anything, experience anything, think anything, have a reaction, or make you do anything at all. There is no power, force, causality, mind, will, agent, or any kind of manipulative source in the world capable of making ANYTHING happen to you. Nothing can change you in any way, to any degree. You are absolutely permanent.

SO...... the ONLY THING that seems to be able to happen, is that *YOU*, and only you, can decide to begin to hurt yourself. All attack is self attack. And this attack MUST be an illusion that YOU made up, because you CANNOT BE HURT in reality.

YOU, can decide, to accuse yourself of sin, to have an attack thought, to deny your reality, to suppress your love, or whatever form it takes. But let's be 100% clear. It is COMING FROM YOU. You are the one choosing it and are always doing it to yourself. No-one else is to blame. No-one else is involved. No-one else has caused ANY of it, not even a tiny bit.

If you would just stop attacking yourself you would stop suffering forever.

If you would just stop denying what you are you'd be yourself.

If you would just stop hurting yourself, or believing that you have, or that you even can, you would never have to suffer ever again.

So what can't we get this? It's so incredibly simple. There's only you hurting yourself. So if you are upset, you are doing that to yourself. If you are unhappy, you are choosing that. If you are suffering and sick, you are making it happen. If you are dead, you consented to it and chose it and wanted it.

The PROBLEM IS.... we are UNCLEAR, CONFUSED, about WHO is responsible for making life miserable. WHO IS THE CAUSE. Who has the power. Where is the cause. Who is the one to blame. We are CONFUSED about this. And we are mistaken about it very often - if not most of the time or even all the time.

This confusion, alone, is the reason why we think that there is something more complicated about being at peace, or saved, or happy, or healthy. In any scenario, wherever we are or with whom or whatever it involves or what form it takes, IT DOES NOT MATTER. If we think THEY are doing it, THAT is causing it, THIS is doing it to me, THAT's the reason I'm upset, etc... we're wrong. Very mistaken. We are never upset for the reason we think. And it is NEVER EVER EVER because of anyone other than ourselves.

This is so extremely true, that you can practically accept that if you are anything less than totally joyous and peaceful and healthy, it has NOTHING to do with this entire universe. Nothing to do with other people, or places, or events, or happenings, or body states, or reactions. It's not coming from anywhere else other than YOUR SELF.

Your brother is not the cause of you. God is the only cause of you. All people on the planet and beyond are NOT the cause of ANYTHING you experience. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Not one single attack, hurt, damage, upset, accusation, nothing. None of what you experience has anything to do with anyone but yourself.

You are invulnerable. Either you accept this invulnerability OR you pretend that you are vulnerable. You pretend by disowning your invulnerability, which requires you to DISPLACE it onto something else. You have to GIVE IT TO someone. You give away your power. You give away causality. You give away responsibility. You give away strength. You give away your self. And you put it into the hands of a seemingly SEPARATE something, anything, so long as you think it's not yourself. This is the ENTIRE problem that CLOUDS your judgements and confuses you into believing YOU AREN'T THE CAUSE.

We probably spend 90%+ of our time in this state of delusion. Perceptual distortions derived from false beliefs, attempting to assert "I'm being caused by something not myself." "There's an alien will". "That person made me" "I'm upset about". etc. This is always not true. Sifting through the massive stockpile of LIES that this produces, is 99% of the effort entailed in purification and correction, trying to get to a state of forgiveness. Trying to dig yourself out, to dig real causality out, from underneath this huge pile of confusing rubble.

This is what it always comes back to. What am *I* doing. Why am *I* doing this. Why did *I* choose this. If I am upset, why am I choosing to be upset? If I am unhappy, why did I make myself unhappy? Why am I choosing to have attack thoughts? Why am I believing I'm sinful and then disowning it and projecting it onto someone else?

"You but accuse your brother of your own sin" tells you that your brother HAS NOT SINNED EVER. It's you that thinks YOU have sinned, and now you're lost in scapegoating someone for something you think you did, and subsequently positioning yourself as their victim SO THAT you can maintain the DENIAL that this is ABOUT YOU, BY YOU, and has nothing to do with them at all.

If we could just become clear on this. If we could just sort out, who is really doing what to whom. Who is causing all this. Where is it coming from really. Am I responsible. In every case, you are. 100% full responsibility for everything you experience. Which means 0% of what you experience is "because of" this entire universe or anything in it.

We have to peel ourselves away from this immersion, entanglement, confusion, binding, with other people, in which we lose sight of who is really doing this to us. We have to realize, any time I am upset and thinking it's because of ANYTHING to do with another person, I MUST be mistaken in believing this, because I've now lost sight of salvation's fact - that right now *I'm* doing something TO MYSELF, and what *I* am doing is the SOLE CAUSE of what I am experiencing. If I do not like what I am experiencing, I must choose again. And whatever I choose must be my experience.

"At least I can decide I do not LIKE what I feel now."

"And so I HOPE I have been wrong."

"I WANT another way to look at this."

"Perhaps there IS another way to look at this. What can I LOSE by asking?"

Get a clear picture here.

1. I am not affected by anything beyond myself.

2. No external causes EVER cause me.

3. I cannot be hurt or upset by anyone or because of anyone's situation.

4. Whatever I am experiencing, I WANTED to and CHOSE to.

5. I am free of ALL causes of sickness and death. The ONLY cause of sickness and death is my choice to be sick and dead.

6. No-one has EVER done anything to me. I have NEVER done anything to anyone.

7. I am not at the effect of ANYTHING in the world.

8. If I think anything but myself caused WHATEVER, I'm mistaken.

9. If it's all about my own FREE WILL CHOICE, which not even God can oppose, no one can stop me from choosing whatever I want to experience.

10. Heaven is a choice I must make, and when I choose it, nothing in all the world can stop me.

This would seem to be EXTREMELY SELFISH. To the ego. To emphasize that YOU AND ONLY YOU has ever had any effect on you, and all those effects were imaginary. And that by focusing on the love of yourself, and accepting atonement for yourself, you become the most UNSELFISH towards others. And then will proceed to treat them as you treat yourself, with miraculous expressions of love.

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

"NOTHING can prevail against a Son of God who commends his Spirit into the hands of His Father. By doing this, the mind awakens from its sleep, and the Soul remembers its Creator. All sense of Separation disappears, and level confusion vanishes."

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

"Nothing except your thoughts can attack you. Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable. And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."

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

The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo." "

There is a view of what ACIM says, based around the idea that this universe is all there is.

It's a view that God created this universe, and thus created all the galaxies and planets, all bodies and objects etc.

People with this view will adopt a model of ACIM in which perception is projected onto God's creation.

They will then believe that false perception means a misinterpretation OF God's perfect creation, and a true perception means a perfectly accurate view of God's creation.

They also will then believe that knowledge is merely a slightly different or more direct way of seeing the SAME stuff that you saw with true perception. That this same world is kept and known.

And therefore to these people, forgiveness means that you forgive the world instead of attacking it, BECAUSE it is real. Because it is God's Kingdom, it's thought to to be your job to "forgive the Kingdom" and stop attacking it. As if "forgiveness means to "be loving toward what's really there."

Another side effect of this view is the belief that, in the separation from God, we DID NOT make a second world. There was no making of space or time by us. There was no forming of galaxies or planet Earth by us. There was no making of human physical bodies by us.

Essentially that there was no result from opposing God, no other world made, no effect producing a dream world, other than that you entered into some kind of egoic state of mind where you don't see heaven correctly. And then the correction of this lets you see heaven directly.

This leads to yet another strange occurrence, whereby since there is no "second world" covering over heaven, and you didn't make THIS world, any references in the course which refer to "the world" are now grouped together with references to egoic perceptions.

So when Jesus says something about "the world", which would be referring to the second world we made without God, and since it's believe such a world was never made be us, those same quotes are now thrown into a "must be an ego interpretation" bucket.

If any such statements suggest that "the world" is not real, is not created, is cruel, is in denial, attacks itself, is contradictory, or anything else that seems un-God-like, then such believers now have to put ALL of those statements into a "false perception" bucket. They have to be interpreted as being egoic mis-perceptions of what would otherwise be recognized as a perfect creation.

As such, since in this model there is no second world to assign anything to, and there is only the first world of the Kingdom of God, anything speaking about "this world" in a less than holy way is thought to be part of the ego's use of it, and NOT a statement about the world itself. Thus false perceptions/interpretations and projected meanings are now MIXED IN with factual statements about the INHERENT nature of the world.

This of course then strips away every single statement which might suggest "this world" is not God's Kingdom, and shuffles all of those facts into an ego bucket where they are safely tucked away and brushed under the carpet. If there is no second world, there is no world to ATTACH them to or associate them with or see them referring to, except "the ego's world".

The end result of all this is that, if you believe there never was a second world made in the separation, and if you believe that Earth is therefore literally God, as God's creation/extension, then you will be completely unwilling to question this world's authenticity.

Forgiveness then becomes a love-affair with the planet, in which we think that we should love what God created, and keep what God created. And forgiveness is no longer seen as UNDOING something that's unreal, but rather as "correctly seeing" something that IS real.

The fact that forgiveness would make what is forgiven DISAPPEAR, because you can ONLY forgiven illusions, becomes swept under the carpet. The notion that the world will disappear when recognized for what it is, as NOT God's creation, now becomes completely denied. There is no place for such a notion in a mindset that cannot accept that we made this world.

So now instead of forgiving the world in order you undo it, we would see our function as forgiving it as though it's something completely perfect and real that we've been mean to and need to apologize to and come to love again. Our entire relationship to this world and what it is thus vastly different when you think of it as God's creation and will, rather than the antithesis of God's nature.

In this model, which seem simple, there is simply God's creation and our perception of it. If we perceive it as anything other than God's perfection, we're seen to be doing something wrong. And if we perceive it as holy and perfect then we're doing something right. And direct cognition or knowledge is then thought to be almost identical to true perception - that true perception shows you what you will still continue to see in a state of knowledge.

But while this model seems simpler and, in and of itself has internal consistency, it still flies in the face of a great amount of what A Course in Miracles says. ACIM actually does say many many times in many many ways that we produced a second world. It says that we made a world opposite to God's world.

It also distinguishes clearly that this second world was DISTINCT from the ego's USE of this world. That ego projected meaning onto this world AFTER it was made by us. And that the Holy Spirit's REPURPOSING of what we made, is NOT a repurposing of the ego or of false perception, but a repurposing of a second world. We can see Earth reflecting heaven or hell, due to its neutral nothingness.

If God truly had created this world, the course would actually be somewhat easier to grasp. We would simply need to realize that we should love everything we see with the body's eyes. That it is all real. Another problem arises though, that the course does not speak well of the body. It even states that it does not really exist and is not God's creation.

In a mindset that thinks that this world IS God's creation, references to "the body" HAVE to take on a different meaning. If the course says the body "is nothing, which it is", this doesn't fit with the idea that God created the physical world. So then we have to shift the body once removed from the world, ie think of the term "body" not as referring to the physical "God created" body but rather to some kind of internal EGO PERCEPTION. And now, this should mean, that all references to "the body" are NOT talking about the physical body, bur about some internal interpretative state.

This kind of shifting of levels, this displacement of meaning and the need to completely redefine basic recognizable words, is an unfortunate side effect of this warped view of the course. Changing the meaning of words becomes necessary otherwise they would indeed imply that physical things are not God's Kingdom.

Indeed, "The body is clearly destructible and therefore not of the Kingdom" tells us that all physical things are not the Kingdom of God. And yet a belief system bent on believing the opposite to this will refuse to accept this meaning. Instead, "body" will be redefined as "must be something the ego is doing", because we don't like the idea that the actual human body is being identified as inauthentic and not of God.

In fact, what we find is that in many many areas, believing that God created this world leads to a completely OPPOSITE belief to what ACIM is actually saying. It produces beliefs which are absolutely and completely diametrically OPPOSED to the teachings of A Course in Miracles. 180-degrees opposite, heading AWAY from the truth instead of towards it.

So when the course tells us that Earth and the body are not of God, such a believer will believe they ARE of God. And when the course tells us that WE made this world, such a person will believe we DID NOT. And when we're told that false perceptions look at an illusion and make it seem real, such a person will invert this to mean that a false perception happens when you're looking at something REAL in an illusory way. And now as someone develops a special-love relationship with the planet, they THINK that they're entering into a genuine and holy relationship with it.

This whole view of ACIM leads to a complete flipping upside-down of almost everything it teachers. It puts reality and creation where it does not belong. It fails to see that the Kingdom of God is not like this world. It cannot comprehend that the physical body is not of God and nothing like our true nature. It completely reverses the meaning of false and true perceptions. It suggests that keeping the world is atonement, instead of its undoing. And it finds no reason to leave this world behind.

In this estimation of the world, it also includes having to believe that things which die are a part of God. That the seasons are God's will. That murder and rape and torture are entirely within what God allows to happen. That war and conflict and destruction are completely normal and natural. And that if you're not accepting them with love then you must be perceiving them with the ego.

As such, believers of "Earth is God" will insist that all of the dark twisted things of the world, when seen with true perception, will be seen as so holy and perfect that they will be deemed on par with God's will and nature. That it is absolutely natural for leaves to fall from trees, for animals to be squashed on roads, for weapons to be manufactured and guns shot towards bodies, for explosions to destroy buildings and for wars to destroy cities. These "destructions", these physical events and objects, are considered to be absolutely divine creations. And it should be fairly obvious that such a suggestion implies that God is far from sane.

It is one thing to forgive a world in which these things occurs, on the basis that they are NOT God's creations, which leads to seeing them in a better light with more forgiveness. But only as a stepping stone toward their dissolution. It's quite another to suggest we would not only love these things but even desire to KEEP THEM FOREVER, as an inherent part of what God is like. The PURPOSE of forgiveness is no longer seen as the end of even the potential for destruction, and instead is seen as a way to recognize that from God's view, destruction IS creation.

"You have expressed surprise at hearing how VERY different is reality from what YOU see. You do not realize the magnitude of that ONE error. It was so vast and so COMPLETELY incredible, that from it, a world of total unreality HAD to emerge. What else COULD come of it? Its fragmented ASPECTS are fearful enough, as you begin to LOOK at them. But nothing you have ever seen BEGINS to show you the enormity of the ORIGINAL error, which seemed to cast you out of Heaven, to shatter knowledge into meaningless bits of disunited perceptions, and TO FORCE YOU TO FURTHER SUBSTITUTIONS."

Jesus said a curious thing to me last night, after I was pondering how I seemed to be here and was uncertain if he was present. He said:

"I'm not invisible, you are."

There is quite a lot of truth to this. This world we live in that we think is visible, is really invisibility. It is the attempt to hide from God, in darkness, and be unseen. It's a world of a lack of recognition. Of unawareness. Of not seeing. "I cannot see in darkness but in light".

And then there is a world, Heaven, where Jesus is, which is completely exposed, absolutely obvious, totally visible, where everything is seen in the light and nothing is hidden. How can that be called invisibility? Yet it seems invisible to our BODY.

The body was made specifically to feast its 'eyes' upon form and be blinded by it. It was made to shut out VISION, and to replace it with 'sight'. But that sight was designed to ONLY show you illusions and errors and projections and dreams, and not reality. It was in fact made to cover up reality and shut out vision.

So here we are walking around thinking everything is oh-so visible and yet this is a movement into invisibility. And we think that we're the ones who are 'showing up' and 'being present', through physical means, but physical means is the OPPOSITE of showing up and being present.

Jesus is therefore saying, he is right here in front of our face and we don't see Him. He is not hiding. We are. And he is totally visible, and we are not.

Beings who have gone before us and are of a 'higher vibration' and who are ascended etc seem to leave the field of frequency of our body's ability to perceive, but it's not actually that they stop being with us or around us, it's just that WE stay in too low of a frequency and we think that visibility is invisibility, and vice versa. They actually enter into visibility, and we stay invisible, and then think we can't see them any more.

So what Jesus is saying to me and to you is, he is with you, all the time, fully and completely, 'in person', and he is even more present than you are and it's you that needs to wake up and become aware of 'sights' that you are missing and things that you are not seeing. To join the heavenly party.

Jesus is waiting for us to show up!

In this physical world, we have made ourselves extremely "little" and limited. We have implemented so much separation in our collective mind that most people barely have any sense of being connected to the minds of others.

It seems completely normal to consider that your mind is so separately restrained inside your body, that everyone has their own completely private mind to do with as they wish.

Following the separation, the ego implemented this idea of the absence of everything that existed - ie God - creating a profound emptiness and lack. It was as if to say nothing real exists. Barely any self remained. Mind was split apart into minds and isolated into tiny specks, hidden in bodies.

It seemed then that the beginning of time started from emptiness and nothing, the Big Bang - and that everything then had to be "evolved" from there. This was the beginning of "seek and do not find". It was also the beginning of the spiritual path.

What has resulted is that human beings are profoundly limited in comparison to God or Christ. We are hugely isolated in bodies, kept apart and separate by flesh and made to perceive only that which the body allows us to perceive.

When someone gains even a hint of a psychic ability or anything resemling overcoming these profound limits, we get all excited and think of it is amazing and rare. But in comparison to the extreme openness of the One Mind, these little "abilities" are barely anything at all, tiny glimpses of a connection which should be TOTAL, not just a little blip.

We can be quite excited and ooh and ahh about tiny little developments in "evolution" or scientific discovieries, as though we're really pushing the limits. But it's more like we are barely opening up a tiny little spec of a glint of light in an otherwise extremely thick wall of unconsciousness and limitation. We think we are impressed with this world, but it is absolutely nothing in comparison to God's reality.

We have become far too used to being little. Little people living little lives on a little planet for a little time. This littleness is a defense against God, and so to celebrate the little ways that we overcome this littleness is quite hypocritical and fake. If we really wanted to make a huge leap we'd unmask ourselves as Christ - as creator of this entire universe, to which all other things pale in comparison.

We think this world is everything but it is nothing. This world holds nothing that I want.

Everything in this world is little, because it is made out of littleness. Littleness is the opposite of magnitude. You, who are created by God in His likeness, are magnificent in that you are infinite and unlimited and everywhere. To contrast that against being VERY SMALL, being little is the antithesis to Heaven.

This entire world therefore was made FROM the idea of being very small, little, confined, limited and isolated. This is why the "building blocks" of matter, particles and such, as so extremely tiny. They are the idea of the total extreme of being as little as possible, in OPPOSITION to the nature of Heaven, where everything is infinite. You made a world on the FOUNDATION of the idea of being as small as possible!

Human bodies, as large as they seem to be, are still extremely little, in contrast to the universe and to spirit. You might think therefore you are just this "little" person on a huge planet. This could not be further from the truth and is TOTALLY backwards, in defiance of God's will. You are gloriously magnificently massive, and this "bleak little world" is absolutely TINY in comparison to what you are. This is why "the body cannot contain you who are love." To remain in a little tiny body, confined to it, when you could spread your wings and envelop all of Creation, is a condemnation of what you are.

"T-15.III.1. Be not content with littleness. 2 But be sure you understand what littleness is, and why you could never be content with it. 3 Littleness is the offering you give yourself. 4 You offer this in place of magnitude, and you accept it. 5 Everything in this world is little because it is a world made out of littleness, in the strange belief that littleness can content you. 6 When you strive for anything in this world in the belief that it will bring you peace, you are belittling yourself and blinding yourself to glory. 7 Littleness and glory are the choices open to your striving and your vigilance. 8 You will always choose one at the expense of the other."

Also, in this world, things which are truly small are blown way out of proportion, and things which are large are made to look tiny. This world is a REVERSAL of the laws of God and the nature of Heaven. You who seem tiny, are really huge. What seems huge - this world, is really nothing.

The truth can seem quite bizarre in comparison to what you've been used to. Your whole life you've spent having experiences of suffering, being affected, upset, threatened, afraid, guilty, ashamed, having various sicknesses, changes in emotion and mood, all kinds of stresses etc.

What the truth says it that YOU CANNOT BE CHANGED. Hmm.... if this is true, then what's with all these seeming attempts to BE CHANGED by the world? How can any of these forms of suffering be relevant is you are unchangeable?

"You were NOT born to die. You CANNOT change, because your Function HAS been fixed by God." UrT29G4

It's a simple idea at first but it has very deep and far reaching consequences. If you cannot change you cannot be caused by the world in any way, you cannot be made to feel something in particular, you cannot have your self modified, your identity can't change, you can't even be hurt or become sick or have a change in mood.

If you are the unchangeable eternal permanent being that God created, which you are, then ALL of the seeming influences in the world are null and void. Not one single thing in the world has any power over you whatsoever. Not one influence, not one force, not one person, not one place, nothing. It does nothing to you, in the most extreme way.

So what's with this farce, this lie, this total world full of deceptions and untruths, things that claim to be happening to you, changing you, modifying you, defining you, creating and causing you, when in truth they are doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. A dream of nothing, causing nothing, doing nothing, with no effect.

"What does this recognition "cost"? It costs the world we see, for the world will never again appear to rule the mind. For with this recognition is responsibility placed where it belongs; not with the world, but on him who looks on the world and sees it as it is not. He looks on what he chooses to see. No more and no less. The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did." UrM6C3

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

Jesus says in the miracle principles, that miracles should be happening ALL THE TIME, and that when they are not happening, something has gone wrong.

What this MUST mean, is that miracles are not simply shifts in perception TOWARDS truth, but they are expressions OF truth. The expression OF truth may well shift perception if perception needs shifting, but the miraculousness of the miracle is an expression from a higher place of LOVE.

When there is love, there is miraculousness. When there is love, supernatural "abilities" are absolutely unlimited. When love is not blocked, there are NO LIMITS to what the mind can do. There is nothing that your miraculous holiness cannot do. Being miraculous is a PERMANENT CONDITION.

Being miraculous is not something that just happens in the dream while we are waking up and then STOPS. Bullshit. Miracles are supposed to be happening ALL THE TIME, and when they are not happening, something has gone wrong. Therefore, the only time where miracles are NOT happening is when something has gone wrong, meaning we are in the ego. When we are NOT in the ego, MIRACLES WILL BE CONSTANT.

YOU are also a miracle of God. God's CREATION is a miracle. Miraculousness is NATURAL. It is the natural way that an immortal spirit is able to create using the UNLIMITED power of the mind, at any time, in any way. It is an expression of LOVE. Love is always expressing "supernaturally", in comparison to this world's unnatural nature.

You will not put miracles aside when you wake up. When Jesus woke up to God he did not STOP being able to perform miracles! In fact he is now utterly UNLIMITED in what He can do. There is nothing your holiness cannot do. ALL EXPRESSION OF LOVE ARE A MIRACLE. When you return to being loving you will RETURN to being miraculous.

Permanently miraculous. You will become "miracle minded". A miracle worker.

Miracles shift perception towards God and atonement, IF that perception is unhealed and "needs a miracle". When perception is all the way SHIFTED, and is IN the atonement, the mind does not suddenly drop its ability to perform miracles or to heal. It becomes EVEN MORE ABLE. AND then its focus will be more on performing miracles for OTHERS, because miracles are the MAXIMAL SERVICE that you can render to others. Ie, loving others unconditionally and fully is healing and helpful to the absolute maximum degree possible. Meaning, unlimited.

Miracles are an EXPRESSION of the atonement. Miracles are love. Love is natural. Miraculous love should be happening all the time.

Here in ACIM Jesus talks about the devil. He describes it is another other than our own self denial and what we do to ourselves. He makes it clear, it is not an external power. It is nothing other than our own egotism. By this reasoning, "the devil" as a distinct entity does not exist. It is another word for your own denial of God, which you have full power to undo.

This is in direct contradiction to Christianity.

"The devil is a frightening concept ONLY because he is thought of as extremely powerful and extremely active. He is perceived as a force in combat with God, battling Him for possession of Souls. He deceives by lies, and builds kingdoms of his own, in which everything is in direct opposition to God. Yet, he ATTRACTS men rather than repels them, and they are perceived as willing to "sell" him their Souls in return for gifts they KNOW are of no real worth at all.

This makes absolutely no sense. The whole picture is one in which man acts in a way he HIMSELF realizes is self destructive, but which he does NOT WILL to correct, and therefore perceives the cause as beyond his control."

-&-

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

-&-

"Attacking misidentification errors is neither MY function nor YOURS. Destroying the devil is a meaningless undertaking. "

-&-

"Lucifer" could be literally translated "Light Bearer". He literally PROJECTED himself from Heaven. Projection still has this "hurling" connotation, because it involves hurling something you DO NOT want, and regard as dangerous and frightening, to someone else. This is the opposite of the Golden Rule, and having placed this rule upside down, the reverse of miracles, or projection, follows automatically."

-&-

"After all, Lucifer fell, but he was still an angel. He is thus the symbol for man. Atonement is the knowledge that the belief that angels can fall is false. It is true that mind can create projections as well as miracles, but it's NOT true that projections are REAL."

-&-

"The "Princes of this World" are princes only because they are really angels. But they are free to establish their kingdom where they see fit."

"The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is KNOW THYSELF. There is nothing else to learn. Everyone is looking for himself and the power and glory he thinks he has lost."

"The Bible instructs you to "KNOW thyself," or BE CERTAIN. Certainty is always of God."

Do you know who you really are? What you really are is an immortal, eternal, changeless, endless, permanent, absolute being. As an immortal being, you can never change, never become anything, never turn into anything and never die. Nothing can ever happen to change you, and you cannot change yourself.

In order to KNOW who you are, you will have to be willing to fully embrace and acknowledge that you are an immortal being. If you are immortal, it is impossible that anyone has attacked you, has power over you, has hurt you, offended or upset you, or that the world has the power to do anything to you.

When you suggest that the world or its inhabitants have caused you in some way, causing you to change in some way, you are insinuating that you DO NOT know yourself. If you knew you were immortal you could not believe these things. If you enter into believing these things, you are losing touch with who you are and no longer know who you are.

It cannot be that you know yourself while someone else has the power to modify what you are. If someone can change you in ANY way, influence you in ANY way, you are unknown and are lost and confused about who and what you are. If you are absolutely certain of who and what you are, nothing and no-one can in ANY way change you or define you or modify you or cause you or hurt you or influence you. You must be unmoved and undisturbed by the world.

This means that anyone who believes in any way that they are affected by the world, does not know who they are. Anyone who believes they can suffer, be sick, die, be unhappy, be upset or offended, caused to change against their will in any way, does NOT know who they are.

You cannot remain in the knowledge that you are immortal while believing that you are vulnerable and susceptible. That you can be affected and attacked. You cannot maintain that you are invulnerable and permanently alive if you are asserting that you have been assailed by someone, damaged by something, destroyed in some way.

These are beliefs in mortality, which is a belief that you are dead and not alive. You can't know yourself to be immortal if you are confused about whether you have eternal life or not. Any suggestion we have that someone has done something to us is an attack upon our own immortality. Just as in "my attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability" and "I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts" and "nothing in the world can bring oppression."

The question of forgiveness then, as to whether I am forgiving or not, or how much, boils down to the degree to which I am CERTAIN about WHO I AM. If I KNOW myself with perfect certainty, then I am automatically forgiving. I will not accuse anyone of doing anything to me, because this is literally an attempt to assert that I am mortal. I will not produce a sickness because this also is an attempt to prove I can be hurt.

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

By acknowledging your immortality you are automatically going to detach yourself from all the supposed causes in the world, you will take back all your power that you've given away, you'll see yourself as an immovable object in the river, and completely DOMINANT of everything you see. This is how you have power over death and power to overcome the world. NOTHING can prevail against a son of God who knows who he is, and his power is unlimited and absolute and unopposed.

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

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you seem to have to deal with fear or guilt, upsets of any kind, any kind of stress or suffering, any sense of shame or unworthiness, any apparent sickness or loss or malfunction, or even death, you MUST have forgotten who you really are. You must be out of touch with knowing that you are immortal, and you are trying to prove that you are susceptible, vulnerable, damageable, hurtable, attackable, weakened, capable of being destroyed and able to be CHANGED by something.

The immortal can never be changed by anything or anyone. If I claim that such and such a person upset me, I am literally claiming that I am changeable, malleable, affect-able, underminable, weak, victimizable, and destructible. It is a belief in mortality. When I am being unforgiving, I am asserting and choosing death. When I am suffering in any way, I am forgetting that I am still as God created me. When I am blaming people for stuff, I am doing myself a disservice.

Your task then is to remember who you are, be certain of who you are, be extremely in touch with who you are, be absolutely clear about the fact that you are an immortal permanent being that can never be changed by anyone or anything, and KNOW your self. To know yourself you have to remember your SOUL, the you that God created to live forever. And through this knowing you are in perfect forgiveness, because nothing can happen to those who have eternal life.

"That is why blame must be UNDONE, NOT re-allocated. Lay it to yourself, and you cannot KNOW yourself, for ONLY THE EGO BLAMES AT ALL. Self-blame is therefore ego identification, and as strong an ego defense as blaming others. YOU CANNOT ENTER GOD's PRESENCE IF YOU ATTACK HIS SON."

"You can know yourself only as God knows His Son, for KNOWLEDGE is shared WITH God."

"Separation is only the decision NOT to know yourself. Its whole thought-system is a carefully-contrived learning experience, designed to lead AWAY from truth, and into fantasy."

"To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead"

"This is a course in how to KNOW yourself. You have TAUGHT what you are, but have NOT let what you are, teach YOU."

"Accept as true only what your brother IS, if you would know yourself. Perceive what he is NOT, and you CANNOT know what you are, BECAUSE you see HIM falsely. "

"Can you who see yourselves WITHIN a body, know yourself AS AN IDEA?"

"Blasphemy, then, is SELF-destructive, not God destructive. It means that you are willing NOT to know yourself, IN ORDER to be sick."

"Identity and function are the same, and BY your function do you know yourself. "

"To believe that you can perceive the real world is to believe that you can know yourself."