This may not be popular.
True relationship is between one person and everyone, simultaneously. The human body was constructed in order to disrupt this relationship, and to focus on isolation, so that rather than being in relationship with everyone, you are in relationship with typically only one other person.
By becoming closer to their body, and attempting to unite with the body, there is actually an attempt to move AWAY from everyone else. Far more is excluded than included. By attempting to join with "only one", 99.99% of the rest of existence is left out. One winner and billions of losers, as is always the result of competition. And so the sex act is a total opposite of true joining.
Bodies cannot join, they cannot even share the same space. One part protrudes, another caves in, there seems to be a surface friction but there is never a true merging. The ritual of the sexual act is really a ritual to death and sin, whereby the body is emphasized over spirit in order to move towards the body, towards sin, towards hell, and towards death.
Intercourse is movement towards death because it emphasizes that the body is real, it highlights sensations over knowledge, it shuts spirit out of awareness, focuses on the body's sensors, eyes, touch and so on, and makes you "lose your mind." It produces and increases body identification, believing you are the body and that you are interacting with a person who is a body. This closes the spiritual eye, shuts out life, and proceeds towards death.
You could say that by a man and woman copulating, they are performing a death ritual, in which they are attempting to manufacture a separate self, born from death, born in pain, and produced as a result of an illusion of joining made to actually prevent joining. The separation then increases, there is a fragmentation, and another "entity" shows up as the result.
This is very much no different to the illusion of cell division, in which separation is used to split cells in order to multiply them. This is called reproduction, but it is the opposite of creation of life. Bodies come together and do not join and some matter is transferred and some illusory biological processes occur and another body appears, increasing bodies. But what has actually occurred is separation has been used to testify to the end of God and a symbol of the separation has emerged. It's called birth, but it's an eruption of death.
All sexual acts involving a person attempt to utilize the person's body to get something, to meet a perceived need, or to mutually take from each other. Since the body is a picture of selfishness, resulting from specialness, sin and isolation, both body identified persons see themselves as lacking and limited, and want to fulfill themselves by getting something out of the activity. Of course, we then imagine that if we "only give and don't receive" this is somehow more loving, but giving without receiving is sacrifice, and you can be sure the ego is right there to emphasize it.
More or less, everyone with a body is interested in self gratification, a kind of masturbation, in which ultimately they seek through the body to experience something external, to sense something, to have something happen to them which they find to be preferable. For some the "happens to me" might be painful, sadistic and twisted, while for others they might seek what appears to be an illusion of "love making". But rest assured, sex is murderous and cannot in any way create love.
"What is not love is murder" is based on the Golden Rule, that what applies to one applies to another equally. When this law is broken by our egos, we move into a state of imbalance where something is more for one and less for another, there is finite limitation, there is "give and take", and attempts to believe something is true of one person not the other. "It's my turn" is selfish. Two people copulating is an attempt on both parts, typically, to gain something which the other is perceived to give them, both taking from each other, usually under the guise of giving.
Bodies cannot create. They do not create life. Life forms are not alive, they are death forms. Illusions of life. Babies bodies are just as much illusory as adult bodies. Bodies reproducing is a testament to the ego's attempt to produce alternative, different, unique, separated off identities. Little walking prison cells for the mind to inhabit. There is no particular glory in the production of an allegedly "god given" (ego given) baby any more than there is glory in those children becoming adults and trying to merge back together. You'd think it should be obvious that the bodies should not have been produced through separation in the first place if later a "re-joining" is the supposed goal.
Bodies cannot join. Just so you know, no two atoms of matter can ever touch each other. They are repelled by nuclear forces. The sensation of someone touching you is not really them touching you, it's the force fields repelling your force fields and causing there to seem to be a sensation of collision. No two bodies have ever touched and lived to talk about it, because this would result in a nuclear explosion. And the earth does not "move" this way.
For the most part, most of us body identified people are rather self absorbed with our bodies. Men and women alike preen and prune as if attempting to allegedly attract a mate, but quite honestly, almost all of it is self adoration. Because it is the body that we are in love with, not people. Bodies are idols to worship and we worship no bodies more than our own.
Most of what we allegedly do to prepare ourselves for a partner (an excluder) is of no interest to them and they probably can't relate to it. We bolster ourselves up in our vanity and egotism so that if we approve of our own condition, we're satisfied. We're all a bunch of egomaniac vain self-obsessed fools, falling over ourselves to manipulate someone into doing something to us that we prefer so that we can get our own rocks off - a form of positive victimhood.
Having become body identified, we have identified with being separate. The bodies are literally separate. There is space between them and the bodies will never touch. There is even a line in the course that says God is the only one who has ever touched his creations. Going into body mode, we then go through this process of trying to hump the brains out of all the other body identified people, in an attempt to overcome the very separation that we bought into in the first place, without doing so.
And there really is no real attempt TO do so, the whole purpose of it is to STAY SEPARATE. The whole dynamic of bodies joining is an attempt to KEEP the separation going, to reproduce the separation, and to produce more separate things. "Babies" come from this, as an increase in the population of ego flesh suits, ready for the next mind to be trapped in a brain and ready to suffer.
You could say, that the more an intimate couple focuses on the body, the less connected they are. The more they focus attention on sex, the more love is shut out. The more they make the body real, the more disconneced they become and have no real relationship. Then it becomes just about the physical sex, which is not love. They come together, almost literally, to separate from each other. Only love joins people together, not the body. And by starting out by going into body identification, they have already moved away from love, away from relationship and away from true joining. You could even say that this is a form of sickness.
In holy relationship there is no interest in the body for its own merits or purposes. It is recognized that the body is not inherently pleasurable, and anything related to it is not the cause of joy. In fact, the body would diminish true pleasure (which comes from doing God's will), by shutting God out of the equation in order to "sin together." Is it any wonder that a vast majority of sexual practice occurs in the dark, under the sheets, behind closed doors, in guilt and shame and fear, perhaps even with eyes closed? What is there to hide? Or rather, what are we hiding from? God?
The sins of the flesh, so to speak, include temptation. The temptation to believe that a son of God is a body. To then relate to their body as if it is the person, which is really an attack on the person and an attempt to imprison them. And to even ignore their body and focus on your own, for what it is getting from them. What you think you're getting from them is the rest of your self, which they stole, and housed in their body, which you hate them for and want to destroy them for, and you plug yourself into them in an attempt to regain what you think you do not have.
Being tempted by physical form is also another example of the rejection of Christ Vision and a willingness to be blinded by perception of form. As we oogle the nude pictures or watch the naughty porn movies or get all excited upon seeing a physical specimen we like, we are quite strongly falling for illusions, entering into body vision, losing sight of the truth, losing our minds, losing sanity, losing sight of the light beyond the body, and preferring bodies to God.
Of course, all of this is enough to induce guilt and make everyone feel like dirty little sinners. Which the ego is perfectly happy to label you with. Let's say that there is nothing at all wrong or sinful about any such activities because they are not real. And you can bet that millions of people are still "doing it" right now and will continue to do so for a long time to come. Course students included. But it is what it is.
Sex is something we invented, for a purpose. The only HOLY use of the body is for extending love and perhaps, if conception happens in such a way as that the persons are in christ vision and barely even noticing the body at all, you could call this the ultimate use of the body for procreational purposes only. But we have to also realize that the entire functional mechanism of what causes a man to inseminate a woman for example, is entirely based on sensations, body senses, chemistry, physical interaction, and usually hormonally driven, testosterone powered desire. And that's all at the level of ego body stuff. And it's selfish.
In essence, in truth, there were never supposed to be bodies in the first place. Yet alone to use them for separation, to make bodies real, to mistake subtle pain for pleasure, or to mistake copulation for love. There isn't anything love related about a sexual act. Unconditional love has nothing to do with it. It's purely a physical, biological, sensory process. Producing feedback, perceptions and justifying certain behaviors. You can do the same exact procedures with or without love being present.
Of course, someone who is loving, truly, unconditionally, may well enjoy the sexual performance with less guilt, more joy, greater fearlessness and confidence, but the point will come eventaully where what the body "offers" is so pale in comparison to what the spirit offers, that all desire for intercourse will end. Spiritual marriage, mind-to-mind joining, oneness with God, are orders of magnitude more meaningful and enjoyable than anything the body has to offer with its parody of love. "A teacher of God is willing to give up all the pleasures of the world." Knowing that you are gaining far more than you are giving up.
This is not to say, you have to give up sex right now. I'm not going to and nor is most of the planet. But we ARE in a process of learning what it really IS, and what it is not, as part of our journey home towards true union with God. And we can use this information to help move our special, sexual relationships, with others or self, towards a more innocent, holy experience, as we transition onwards its eventual total relinquishment.
At some point we will come to recognize it is not possible to do ANYTHING REAL with the body, and so will stop using the body entirely. Until then, boink your brains out if you so choose, or not. It's up to you - free will. But keep in mind, your MIND is more important than your body, and if body identification is increasing as a result of how you look at what you're doing, you're heading in the wrong direction.
In heaven there is no sex. In heaven, there is the constant bliss of needing nothing and being permanently fulfilled. Surely this is better than an occasional splurt at the end of a long road of effort. And certainly better than the frustrations and failures of sexual attempts to separate from God.
I asked Jesus last night fairly bluntly about death, whether a person's body can die without any problems in the mind, and whether a person can be fully awake/enlightened and still go through the death process.
His answer was short and sweet and cut to the chase:
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"Demonstrate death and you must believe in death."
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Just to make sure you grasp what this means, recognize the ACIM ideas that "to teach is to learn" and also "all teaching is demonstration" and "you will demonstrate what you believe is true" and "you are always demonstrating even while you sleep".
So that means, whatever you are expressing, whatever you are showing up "as", whatever state your body is in, whatever is coming through you, however you are using the body, whatever you are trying to communicate to others on all levels including the physical, whatever "message" you are giving through the state of your body which reflects the state of your mind, that is your DEMONSTRATION. Which means, it correlates exactly to what you BELIEVE IS TRUE.
This is proven out in this quote, which tells us that whatever you use the body to DEMONSTRATE, it will BECOME THAT, so if you use the body to demonstrate sickness or death, it becomes sick and dead, because you BELIEVE IN DEATH. The mind makes ALL DECISIONS about the body's condition, including whether it lives or dies:
"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies. Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body’s condition. "
So when you are believing in true health, you will demonstrate true health. When you believe in attack you will demonstrate attack. When you believe in sickness you will demonstrate a sickness. When you believe in death, you will demonstrate death!
What Jesus is saying is, in order to demonstrate death - "to die" as we like to refer to it, where the body goes through a death process, that is ONLY POSSIBLE when you BELIEVE that DEATH IS TRUE AND REAL. And it is because you believe in death being true, that you demonstrate that this is your truth.
It also means therefore, that if you DO NOT BELIEVE in death, YOUR BODY CANNOT DIE. Literally ****CANNOT****. Impossible for it to die, no matter what. If that is your 100% perfect belief in absolutely no attack, the body MUST become a symbol of immortality, to remain in perfect AGELESS HEALTH, as long as it is needed. Not even affected by weather or food or time.
Long story short..... DEATH CAN ONLY HAPPEN IF YOU BELIEVE IN IT!
And that also means... TO COMPLETE THE CURRICULUM AND FULLY WAKE UP, YOU MUST NOT BELIEVE IN DEATH, AND YOU MUST DEMONSTRATE IMMORTALITY.
So everyone is constantly demonstrating, teaching, communicating, what it is they believe the truth is, putting on a "show" which exhibits for everyone to see, exactly what it is you believe in.
Jesus also teaches simply that if you REALLY believe that something is true, you WILL be ABLE to demonstrate its truth. Not just a sort of powerless wishful thinking, but that if it is your actual experience that something is true, you will wholeheartedly be willing to demonstrate it to PROVE that you believe it. Nothing will hold you back from demonstrating it. Being fully convinced of its truth, it becomes REAL for you, and that gives you the POWER to demonstrate it.
"Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible and what has been learned can be recognized ONLY BY ITS RESULTS. Its generalisation is DEMONSTRATED as you use it in more and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there is no order of difficulty in miracles when you apply them to all situations. There is NO SITUATION (including sickness and death) to which miracles do not apply, and by applying them to ALL situations you will gain the real world."
So what this boils down to is this simple fact.
If your body becomes sick, or if you die, YOU MUST HAVE CHOSEN IT, BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE IN DEATH.
There is no exception to this. If you "demonstrate death" for all to see, you are PROVING that death is something you believe in, and that is why you are TEACHING DEATH to everyone through your EXAMPLE. You're saying, look everyone, look at how death is real, look at how death is happening, look at how death is my truth, and LOOK AT HOW YOU DID THIS TO ME!
When you look at all the passages in the course which talk about "demonstration" this is clearly revealed, that when you demonstrate something it "applies" your belief to others. And therefore when you make your body sick, you are attacking others because you are demonstrating your belief that you have been "made sick" by someone other than yourself. And when you are attacking others, YOUR BODY will be attacked, and will become sick, to DEMONSTRATE that you are believing in attack. And this is nothing other than the attempt to PROVE that your brother must be a sinner because EFFECTS are showing up in you which he MUST have caused.
And even further, when you CEASE believing in death and sickness, you EXONERATE your brother, because you are no longer believing that he is the cause of your state of being, or the world. Jesus used His own resurrection - the re-materialization of a body which was NOT DEAD, proving He had NOT been killed by crucifixion, to DEMONSTRATE that death is not real. Here:
"We said before that the purpose of the Resurrection was to "demonstrate that no amount of misperception has any influence at all on a Son of God." This demonstration EXONERATES those who misperceive, by establishing beyond doubt that they have NOT hurt anyone."
He refers to misperception because in a prior paragraph he spoke of how the misperception of others was the justification for their attempted attack on his life. He resurrected to PROVE that they were EXONERATED, through physical demonstration, because of his BELIEF that there is no death, and therefore showed that they were no longer ACCUSED of having caused the death. Simply, by showing up as "not dead", it immediately cancelled and proved false any belief that anyone had killed him, thus rendering all onlookers INNOCENT. He thus TAUGHT THEIR INNOCENCE through this miracle demonstration, because miracles are teaching devices.
The demonstration of what you believe is important. It is all over the course. When we are making ourselves sick, we are accusing our brother of sin. And yes THIS DOES MEAN AT THE PHYSICAL LEVEL. It is only at the physical level that you can see the RESULTS of miracles and the results of the mind's belief system. And this physical level is used as a COMMUNICATION device to make statements about WHAT IS TRUE OF BOTH YOU AND YOUR BROTHER. Your sickness attacks BOTH of you. Your death attacks BOTH of you. With death you are saying, "you killed me, and I killed you, and both of us are dead". This is spelled out in black and white, that "your sickness" is an attack on others and an attempt to accuse your brother of sin. Your body *MUST* be part of your awakening process and part of your view of yourself and part of what it is you believe in.
"The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price if they can say, "Behold me, brother; at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors must be sins."
Here Jesus is not talking figuratively or metaphorically about death. He's talking plainly about a person's body dying as an attempt to accuse your brother of sin. Anyone who is sick, anyone who dies, is accusing the whole sonship, and the world, and God, of "causing it", and therefore claiming that we are all sinners. Sickness and death OF THE PHYSICAL BODY are WEAPONS OF ATTACK. The body is an IMAGE you are showing your brother to say hey, this is what I think of you, and this is what is true of us both. This is why the body is an integral part of your MIND and an integral part of your entire process of spiritual enlightenment. IT MUST SHOW WHAT YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE.
You can't it be that the body just sits there like a separate "thing" having absolutely no input from your mind and not reflecting your inner condition whatsoever, with you blissing out in some corner of your mind pretending to be awake while the body is still showing everyone that you believe death is real. You can't just be like, oh I'm not a body I am free, I'll just sit here and not be a body, while my body is sick and dies, and I don't care if its sick or dead cus it's an illusion. THAT'S DENIAL. THAT'S A LIE. THAT'S DISHONEST. THAT'S BULLSHIT!!!!!!!
I know that many people cannot accept this and many deny it. But Jesus in A Course in Miracles, and supported by everything He has said in his own words, is telling us to STOP BEING SICK and STOP DYING. That sickness and death are the total OPPOSITE of God's Will, and that we are to DEMONSTRATE AN UNWILLINGNESS TO DIE, in order to PROVE that we really truly believe that death is not real.
It is not enough to sit on a fence and say, ok, I don't believe in death. And to then die. That is a lie. It is dishonest to say you do not believe in sickness and to then demonstrate being sick. Or to claim you are not dying and to then die. Or to say it's not my mind that's dying, it's just my body, which is not me. That's an intellectualization because THE BODY CAN ONLY DIE IF YOU ATTACK IT. It is a lie. The mind IS believing in death and is making the body sick. A SANE MIND heals the body!
"Now is the body healed, because the source of sickness has been opened to relief. "
"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, the mind HEALS THE BODY (making sickness and death IMPOSSIBLE) because it has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness because it cannot conceive of attacking anyone or anything."
If your mind is sane, YOUR BODY CANNOT DIE. If your body dies, YOUR MIND IS NOT SANE.
Whatever you demonstrate, whatever you express, whatever you show, it is coming from your inner condition as an outward picture. It is a demonstration of your thought system and what you REALLY believe. If you go through death, YOU DO BELIEVE IN DEATH. No exceptions. If you do NOT believe in death, YOU WILL NOT DEMONSTRATE IT.
You do not get to wake up from being a body in the dream and then go through death. You do not get to wake up from being a body and believe intellectually that you're not the body and to then have the body be sick and die. Where is the correlation of proof that your mind makes your body? Where is the consistent honesty? This is deception. You can't be demonstrating one thing and believing another.
Jesus is literally teaching us to OVERCOME DEATH. "You made sickness and death and can abolish both". This is not an OPTIONAL course teaching. This is not just some side-thread which you can elect whether to participate in. This is a CENTRAL TEACHING. It is inherent to healing. It is inherent to being right minded. It is inherent to miracles. It is inherent in all of the Course's metaphysics, and it is GOD's WILL that you not demonstrate death. Death is an attempt to kill God's Son, no matter what anyone claims about their supposed state of mind. Death is humanity's belief in hatred made manifest. Period.
Anyone who shows that they die in this world, is demonstrating and proving that they believe in death. That's all there is to it. It doesn't matter how much of a guru you are, how enlightened you seem to be, how many miracles you performed, how many yogic skills you have, how many followers you accumulated, how many people adore you, nothing. The proof is in the pudding. If you die, you did not overcome death.
"A dream of death is not left by death but by truth."
It's plain and simple. All the arguments about "oh this is just a dream and death isn't real so it doesn't matter if you die"... it's a logical ERROR, it's level confusion. All the arguments about "well I don't have the power to stop my own death", is also bullshit. It is UNWILLINGNESS TO LIVE. All the arguments about "death is natural" - absolutely false. All the arguments about death is inevitable - absolutely false. All the arguments about "everything dies" or "everyone dies"... how SORRY IS THAT?
That 99.99% of the human race is FAILING TO BELIEVE IN LIFE. That 99.99% of the human race is suicidal. "A dry and dusty world where starved and thirsty creatures come to die." And world where we come "to hate a while, whither and die".
This is not God's will.
It is God's will that you believe in life, you demonstrate that you believe in life, you ABOLISH DEATH, you undo ALL sickness, and you SHOW and PROVE that you cannot be killed, nothing can affect you in any way, and that the body can be overcome. You leave the dream through TRUTH, not through death. And truth brings light to illusions and disappears them.
This is the new frontier of A Course in Miracles. This is the true message Jesus is teaching. That you DO NOT NEED TO DIE and YOU SHOULD NOT DIE if you are to believe in everlasting life.
Again "demonstrate death and you must believe in death".
Death is what you are teaching. Death is what you believe in. If you are overpowered by disease and forces in the ego world, which you made, you have not undone your own self-attack. If your body is wracked with sickness, which are defenses you yourself put in place, and you have not removed those defenses, then you are still blocking God's Will.
No-one dies without their own consent. All death is suicide. Death is the opposite of God's Will.
"Sickness and death seemed to enter the mind of God's Son against His Will. 2 The "attack on God" made His Son think he was Fatherless, and out of his depression he made the god of depression."
"4 Many are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not understand what it means. 5 They do not realize that to deny God is to deny their own Identity, and in this sense the wages of sin is death. 6 The sense is very literal; denial of life perceives its opposite, as all forms of denial replace what is with what is not. 7 No one can really do this, but that you can think you can and believe you have is beyond dispute."
"T-10.V.2. Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others and not yourself have done this to you."
"From the ego came sin and guilt and death, in opposition to life and innocence and to the Will of God Himself. Where can such opposition lie but in the sick minds of the insane, dedicated to madness and set against the peace of Heaven. One thing is sure—God, Who created neither sin nor death, wills not that you be bound by them. He knows of neither sin nor its results. The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose Will it is they live. They are not following it; they are opposing it.
81 And what is the black-draped body they would bury? A body which they dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, offered to sin to feed upon and keep itself alive—a thing condemned, damned by its maker, and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself. You who believe you have condemned the Son of God to this are arrogant."
If you REALLY believe in God's Will and that God is eternal life, you WILL DEMONSTRATE IT IN THIS WORLD by proving you cannot be affected by the world IN ANY WAY, not even death can happen to you, and you are IMMORTAL. If you are not doing that, it is because you do not believe it, it means you do not fully want to do God's Will, and MUST still have mental illness. If you die, you are NOT awake. Death is a symbol of sleep within sleep. It is the total opposite of progress, the total opposite of awakening, and the total opposite of truth.
"There is no death, the Son of God is free" is true ONLY IF you can PROVE IT, by being INCAPABLE of dying, not merely as a mind, but in any way that you show up. If you are in a body, you MUST SHOW IT by showing you CANNOT DIE PHYSICALLY EITHER.
Do you really think if Jesus showed up in the world, projecting a body from His mind, that anything in the world could make that body dead? That you could hurt it in any way or make it sick against Jesus's will? THAT would be arrogant, and that is the arrogance of the ego. "There is no death, the Son of God is free" WHEN HE FULLY BELIEVES IN THE END OF DEATH and has the balls to show it to the world.
In A Course in Miracles there are hundreds of references to FREEDOM scattered throughout. Freedom is also contrasted against its opposite, which is imprisonment, enslavement, being bound to the ego, to the body, to darkness, suffering and death. The whole course is geared towards you reclaiming your freedom, and giving freedom to others. Through your miracles you are setting others free, and releasing them from the chains of imprisonment you held them in before.
"I am not a body I am free."
"Essentially, ALL healing is the release from fear."
"I have deluded myself into believing it is possible to imprison the Son of God. I was bitterly mistaken in this belief, which I no longer want."
"It is NOT your will to be imprisoned, BECAUSE your will is free."
"That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom."
"I give you to the Holy Spirit, as part of myself.
I know that you will be released, UNLESS I WANT TO
USE YOU TO IMPRISON MYSELF."
"But their thought is so powerful that they can even imprison the mind of God's Son IF THEY SO CHOOSE."
"For you have taught yourselves HOW TO IMPRISON THE SON OF GOD, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even DREAM of it." "When man projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to the extent that he reinforces errors they have already made."
"They release him from a prison in which he has imprisoned himself. By freeing his mind from illusions, they restore his sanity, and place him at the feet of Jesus."
The idea of freedom really goes back to your creation as a free-willed being by God. God has absolute freedom, being free from all limitation. God is unlimited. He who is unlimited can only give complete freedom, because he knows not of imprisonment. God does not create by imprisoning, he creates by giving freedom. All his children are not only free, they are fully free. It is because they are completely free ... in a sense, free from God .... though still sharing freely with him, that they are established as truly cooperative co-creators in heaven.
"Think not HE wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him. He would but KEEP your will forever and forever limitless."
"Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His."
Any attempt you make to imprison another, to attack, to judge, to condemn, to blame, to project, to hurt, to destroy, to make guilty, to accuse of sin, to be victimized by, to victimize, to narrow to a body, to induce suffering of any kind, is actually an attempt to take away the freedom of others, AND to deny your own freedom. You cannot be a victim or suffer in ANY way if you acknowledge your total freedom. But in order to gain your own freedom, you MUST acknowledge that everyone else is also free from YOU, and you from them. You are not bound BY your brothers, any more than they are bound by you.
Dwell for a moment on the feeling of "keeping to yourself", in the sense that you ALLOW everyone to be free FROM YOU. Acknowledge that everyone is completely free. You are free from their tyranny over you. They are free from your tyranny over them. Let go of all manipulation, expectation, wanting others to be a certain way, or resisting their choices. Withdraw all your efforts to control and coerce, to blame and accuse. Let go of everyone. Let the whole world be itself. Settle back into your own inner freedom. You are free from enemies, free from attack, free from the choices of others, free from the body, and free from the world.
The course is in fact leading entirely to your TOTAL FREEDOM. Claiming your freedom is the restoration of your birth right. You cannot however claim your total freedom if you are imprisoning others, because the attempt to do so is an attempt to reinforce the idea that freedom doesn't exist. And thus you imprison yourself. It is said that your brother can set you free, or is the key to your salvation. By GIVING him total freedom, you give it to yourself. By recognizing he IS FREE, you recognize YOU are free. Try it.
Atonement is all about claiming freedom for yourself and the whole sonship. It is an act of setting everyone free from imprisonment. It releases you and everyone from slavery, bondage, body identification, death identification, and from all forms of suffering. You cannot BE affected by forces outside of you. The world cannot make you imprisoned or take your freedom away. No-one can deny your freedom for you. Not even God can decide whether you are free or not. He established you as free forever, and only you can deny your OWN freedom by denying it to the whole sonship.
When you acknowledge that you are COMPLETELY FREE FROM EVERYTHING, you settle back into your soul, you lift your hands away from the territory and lives of others and you set everyone free. In so doing you BECOME free yourself. You can feel it inside you, an acknowledgement of your own freedom, and it makes you feel happy and safe. You are safe from all attack because you are claiming your freedom. You are even save from suffering and death and from all the forces in the world. Nothing can imprison you or act against your will, but your will itself. When you stop imprisoning, you stop imprisoning yourself.
Below is an extensive collection of quotes from ACIM on the topic of freedom.
"How wonderful it is to do your will! For that IS freedom. There is nothing else that ever should be called by freedom's name."
"The world awaits the freedom you will give, when you have recognized that YOU are free."
"And no-one walks upon the earth but must depend on YOUR decision, that he learn death HAS no power over him because he shares YOUR freedom, as he shares your will."
"No-one but yearns for freedom, and tries to find it, but he will seek for it where he believes it IS, and CAN be found."
"But be you, rather, grateful that YOU can be the means to serve His end. This is the ONLY service which leads to freedom. To serve THIS end, the body MUST be perceived as sinless, BECAUSE the goal is sinlessness."
"Only in dreams is there a time when he appears to be in prison, and awaits a future freedom if it be at all. Yet in reality his dreams are gone, with truth established in their place. And now is freedom his already. Should I wait in chains which have been severed for release, when God is offering me freedom now?"
"I did not understand what made me free, nor what my freedom is, nor where to look to find it. Father, I have searched in vain until I heard Your Voice directing me. Now I would guide myself no more. For I have neither made nor understood the way to find my freedom. But I trust in You. You Who endowed me with my freedom as Your holy Son will not be lost to me. Your Voice directs me. And the way to You is opening and clear to me at last. Father, my freedom is in You alone. Father, it is my will that I return."
"How glad are we to find our freedom through the certain way our Father has established. And how sure is all the world's salvation, when we learn our freedom can be found in God alone."
"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found."
"We sound the call of freedom 'round the world with this idea."
"The Holy Spirit is the home of minds that seek for freedom."
"In conflict-free and unequivocal response to mind with but the thought of freedom as its goal, the body serves, and serves its purpose well. Without the power to enslave, it is a worthy servant of the freedom which the mind within the Holy Spirit seeks."
"Be free today, and carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body."
"For He would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full accomplishment in God."
"Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance."
"For as we offer freedom it is given us. And we would not remain as prisoners, while You hold out our freedom unto us."
"He leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard, or look beyond EVERYTHING that would hold you back."
"That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom"
"That is because you have taught YOURSELF that imprisonment IS freedom"
"The Holy Spirit's teaching takes only one direction, and has only one goal. His direction is freedom, and His goal is God."
"Will to BE without you. When you have learned that your will IS God's, you could no more will to be without Him than He could will to be without YOU. This IS freedom and this IS joy."
"Father, I thank You for today, and for the freedom I am certain it will bring. This day is holy, for today Your Son will be redeemed. His suffering is done."
"Thanks for today, my Father. I was born into this world but to achieve this day, and what it holds in joy and freedom for Your holy Son, and for the world he made, which is released along with him today."
"Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world."
"Let us not worship idols, nor believe in any laws idolatry would make to hide the freedom of the Son of God. He is not bound except by his beliefs. Yet what he is is far beyond his faith in slavery or freedom."
"But those who are FOR freedom, even if they are misguided in HOW they defend it, are siding with the one thing in this world which IS true."
"And is it THIS that you would see within your Savior FROM insanity? He is as free from this as you are, and in the freedom that you see in HIM, you see your own."
"Those who choose freedom will experience only ITS results. Their power is of God."
"Nothing but this can touch them, for they see ONLY this, sharing their power according to the Will of God. And thus their freedom is established AND MAINTAINED. It is upheld through ALL temptations to imprison and to BE imprisoned. It is THEM, who learned of freedom, that you should ask what freedom IS."
"And where he rests a while, to forget imprisonment, and to remember freedom."
"Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God's." "I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's. And His are the laws of freedom."
"Forgiveness, truly given, is the only way in which your hope of freedom lies."
"Yet you must learn alternatives for choice, or you will not be able to attain your freedom."
"The level of your prayer depends on this, for here it waits its freedom to ascend above the world of chaos into peace."
"For thus is freedom given us from all we did not know and failed to understand."
"If you want to be LIKE me, I will help you, knowing that we ARE alike. If you want to be DIFFERENT, I will wait until you change your mind. I can TEACH you, but only you can choose to LISTEN to my teaching. How else can it be, if God's Kingdom IS freedom? Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of ANY kind, and the perfect equality of ALL God's Sons cannot be recognized through the dominion of one will over another. God's Sons are equal in will, all being the Will of their Father. This is the ONLY lesson I can teach, knowing that it is true."
"In our remembrance of EACH OTHER lies our remembrance of God. And in this remembrance lies your freedom, because your freedom is in Him."
"This is our gift of gratitude to Him, which He will share with ALL His Creations, to whom He gives equally whatever is acceptable to Him. BECAUSE it is acceptable to Him, it is the gift of freedom, which IS His Will for all His Sons. By OFFERING freedom you will be free, because freedom is the only gift which you can offer to God's Sons, being an acknowledgment of what they are and what HE is."
"Freedom is creation because it is love. What you seek to imprison you do NOT love. Therefore, when you seek to imprison ANYONE, including YOURSELF, you do not love him and you cannot identify with him. When you imprison yourself, you are losing sight of your true identification with me and with the Father."
"Only the function God has given me
can offer freedom. Only this I seek,
and only this will I accept as mine."
"In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice; this choice is always between two choices or two voices. Will is not involved in perception at any level, and has nothing to do with choice."
"It must be, then, that the world is really a place where he can be set free. I would look upon the world as it is, and see it as a place where the Son of God finds his freedom."
"When I see the world as a place of freedom, I will realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules which I made up for it to obey. I will understand that peace, not war, abides in it. And I will perceive that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share this place with me."
"Can I lay limits on the Son of God, whose Father willed that he be limitless, and like Himself in freedom and in love?"
"So will YOU learn the freedom that I taught, by teaching freedom to each other, and so releasing me. I am within your holy relationship, yet you would imprison me behind the obstacles you RAISE to freedom, and bar my way to YOU."
"So would I liberate all things I see, and give to them the freedom that I seek. For thus do I obey the law of love, and give what I would find and make my own."
"Today's idea is one step we take in leading us from bondage to the state of perfect freedom."
"And you are free, and glad of freedom. You have sought to be both weak and bound, because you feared your strength and freedom. Yet salvation lies in them."
"All this lies in the Holy Spirit's plan to free you from the past, and open up the way to freedom FOR you."
"Accept this key to freedom, from the hands of Christ, Who gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light to darkness. For, like your brothers, YOU do not realize the light has come, and freed you from the sleep of darkness."
"Behold your brothers in their freedom, and learn of them how to be FREE of darkness. The light in you will waken them, and they will not leave YOU asleep."
"His are the laws of freedom, but yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable, their laws CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD TOGETHER."
"You are NOT free to give up freedom, but only to DENY it."
"Think what a happy world you walk, with truth beside you! Do not give up this world of freedom, for a little sigh of seeming sin, nor for a tiny stirring of guilt's attraction."
"How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it! What can you value MORE than this? For here is YOUR salvation and YOUR freedom. And it MUST be complete, if YOU would recognize it."
"But You have offered freedom, and I choose to claim Your gift today."
"My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever from all thought of loss; complete deliverance from suffering. And only happiness can be my state, for only happiness is given me."
"The mind that is made willing to accept God's gifts has been restored to Spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own."
"Then are you free, for freedom is your gift, and you can now receive the gift you gave."
"Condemn and you are made a prisoner. Forgive and you are freed. Such is the law that rules perception. It is not a law that knowledge understands, for freedom is a part of knowledge."
"Today we practice letting freedom come to make its home with you."
"Thus do we lift the chains which bar the door to freedom from the world, and go beyond all little values and diminished goals."
"Peace and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world when you release your mind from chains, and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home. It will be grateful to be free a while. It knows where it belongs. But free its wings, and it will fly in sureness and in joy to join its holy purpose. Let it rest in its Creator, there to be restored to sanity, to freedom and to love.
"He would only have you learn your OWN will and follow it, not in the spirit of sacrifice and submission, but in the gladness of freedom."
"The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but it CAN be offered you through the grace of God."
"It contains the foundation for the peace, relaxation and freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve."
"The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health; his perfect freedom from all forms of lack; and safety from disaster of all kinds."
"LOVE IS FREEDOM. To look for it by placing yourself in BONDAGE, is to SEPARATE yourself from it. For the love of God, no longer seek for union in separation, nor for freedom in bondage! As you release, so will you BE released."
"The holy instant is His most helpful tool in protecting you from the attraction of guilt, the REAL lure in the special relationship. You do NOT recognize that this IS its REAL appeal, for the ego has taught you that FREEDOM lies in it."
"It is impossible to see two worlds.
Let me accept the strength God offers me
And see no value in this world, that I
May find my freedom and deliverance."
"It is impossible to see two worlds.
I seek my freedom and deliverance,
And this is not a part of what I want."
"And think how holy HE must be, when in him sleeps your OWN salvation, with HIS freedom joined."
"What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into Heaven, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one comes home."
"It is no sacrifice that he be saved, for BY his freedom will you gain your own."
"He HAS no need but this; that you allow him freedom to complete the task God gave to him."
"But if he could but realize the war is between forces that are real and UNREAL powers, he could look upon himself, and SEE his freedom."
"The war is gone. For you have heard the hymn of freedom, rising unto Heaven. Gladness and joy belong to God for your release, because YOU made it not. But, as you made not freedom, so you made not a war that could ENDANGER freedom. Nothing destructive ever was, or will be. The war, the guilt, the past, are gone as one, into the unreality from whence they came."
"In the holy instant, in which you see yourself as bright with freedom, you WILL remember God. For remembering Him IS to remember freedom."
"Practice GIVING this blessed instant of freedom to all who are ENSLAVED by time, and thus make time their friend FOR them."
"Freedom is given you where you beheld but chains and iron doors. For you must change your mind about the purpose of the world, if you would find escape."
"Peace is the answer to conflicting goals, to senseless journeys, frantic vain pursuits and meaningless endeavors. Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God." "Be merciful today. The Son of God deserves your mercy. It is he who asks that you accept the way to freedom now. Deny him not. His Father's Love for him belongs to you."
"Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you."
"It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved."
"The song of freedom, which sings the praises of ANOTHER world, brings to it hope of peace."
"Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real."
"But the experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself."
"The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all."
"For you have cause for freedom NOW. What profits freedom in a prisoner's form?"
"You have denied HIS freedom, and by so doing, you have denied the witness unto YOURS. You could as easily have FREED him from the past, and lifted from his mind the cloud of guilt that binds him TO it. And in HIS freedom would have been your OWN."
"Salvation is accomplished. Freedom from conflict has been given you. Accept that fact, and you are ready to take your rightful place in God's plan for salvation."
"There is ANOTHER vision and ANOTHER voice, in which your freedom lies, awaiting but your choice. And, if you place your faith in them, you will perceive ANOTHER Self in YOU."
"The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone."
"You will have to choose between TOTAL freedom and TOTAL bondage, for there are no alternatives but these."
"In the name of MY freedom, I WILL your release,
Because I recognize that we will be released TOGETHER.
So will the year begin in joy and freedom."
"For we would meet with our Reality in freedom and in peace."
"Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. And now you are prepared for freedom."
"A madman thinks the world he sees is real and does not doubt it. Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last." "Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world"
"Where COULD his freedom lie but in himself, if he be free ALREADY? And who could bind him but HIMSELF, if he DENY his freedom?"
"Prisoners bound with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated, weak and exhausted, and with eyes so long cast down in darkness they remember not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free. It takes a while for them to understand what freedom IS."
"Strengthen your hold, and raise your eyes unto your strong companion, in whom the meaning of your freedom lies."
"Freedom to choose is the same POWER as freedom to create, but its APPLICATION is different."
"Today escape from madness. You are set on freedom's road, and now today's idea brings wings to speed you on, and hope to go still faster to the waiting goal of peace."
"The first step toward freedom, then, MUST entail a sorting out of the false from the true. This is a process of division only in the constructive sense, and reflects the true meaning of the Apocalypse."
"Give joyously to one another the freedom and the strength to lead you there. And come before each other's holy altar, where the strength and freedom wait, to offer and receive the bright awareness that leads you home."
"His is the Voice of God, and also yours. And thus He speaks of freedom and of truth."
"There is no death. The Son of God is free. And in His freedom is the end of fear."
"Whom you forgive is GIVEN power to forgive you your illusions. By your gift of freedom is it given unto YOU."
"Behold the gift of freedom that I gave the Holy Spirit, for BOTH of you. And be you free together, as you offer TO the Holy Spirit this SAME gift, and, giving it, receive it OF Him, in RETURN for what you gave."
"Offer each other freedom and complete release from sin, here in the garden of seeming agony and death. So will we prepare TOGETHER the way unto the Resurrection of God's Son."
"Fear of escape makes it difficult to welcome freedom, and to make a jailer of an enemy seems to be safety."
"It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Father and of Son."
"There are the laws of limit lifted FOR you, to welcome you to openness of mind, and freedom."
"Do not ALLOW him to belittle himself in YOUR mind, but give him freedom from his belief in littleness, and escape from YOURS."
"Freedom from illusions lies only in not BELIEVING them."
"Nor will you leave the prison house or claim your strength until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed and found and fully recognized."
"And what they see upholds their freedom FROM imprisonment and death." "Those who would let illusions be lifted from their minds are this world's Saviors, walking the world with their Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and freedom and RELEASE from suffering to everyone who NEEDS a miracle to save him."
"The prayer for enemies thus becomes a prayer for your own freedom." "We bless the world as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, now our own."
"Begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of your mind to learn what each idea you will review that day can offer you in freedom and in peace."
"Accept today's idea, and you have released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains that locked the door to freedom on it."
"We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom."
"What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your Savior has been waiting long for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours."
"Above all else you want the freedom to remember who you really are."
"It is your special function to ensure the door be opened, that he may come forth to shine on you, and give you back the gift of freedom by receiving it of you"
"The special ones are all asleep, surrounded by a world of loveliness they do not see. Freedom and peace and joy stand there, beside the bier on which they sleep, and call them to come forth and waken from their dream of death."
"When you have seen your brothers as yourself, you will be RELEASED to knowledge, having learned to FREE yourself, of Him who knows of freedom. "
"The miracle teaches you that you have chosen guiltlessness, freedom, and joy. It is not a cause, but an EFFECT. It is the natural result of CHOOSING RIGHT, attesting to your happiness that comes from choosing to be FREE of guilt."
"Therefore, make your INVULNERABILITY manifest to everyone, and teach him that, WHATEVER he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can BE harmed, shows him HE is guiltless."
"You who will yet work miracles, be sure you practice well the idea for today. Try to perceive the strength in what you say, for these are words in which your freedom lies. Your Father loves you."
"The possibility of freedom has been grasped and welcomed, and the means by which it can be gained can now be understood."
"I call you to fulfill your holy part in the plan that He has given to the world, for its release from littleness. God would have His host abide in perfect freedom."
"He cannot choose to change His Son, nor make your mind accept the perfect freedom He has given you." "Healing is freedom, for it demonstrates that dreams will not prevail against the truth."
"Your special relationships will remain, NOT as a source of pain and guilt, but as a source of joy and freedom. It will NOT be for you alone, for therein lay its misery."
"The ego is immobilized in the presence of God's grandeur, because HIS grandeur establishes YOUR freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because of the complete lack of investment in it."
"For faith can keep the Son of God in chains, as long as he believes he IS in chains. And, when he is RELEASED from them, it will be simply because he no longer BELIEVES in them, WITHDRAWING faith that they can hold him, and placing it in his freedom INSTEAD."
"Here it is given him to choose to spend this instant paying tribute to the body, or LET himself be given freedom from it."
"He may not yet have learned HOW to exchange his guilt for innocence, nor realize that ONLY in this exchange can freedom from pain be his."
"My role is only to unchain your will and make it free. Your egos cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose your free decision at every possible moment, and in every possible way."
"Free will MUST lead to freedom. Judgment always imprisons, because it separates segments of reality according to highly unstable scales of desire."
"Miracles need freedom from fear. Part of their Atonement value involves just that. Note that the word "atone" really means "undo."
"In this phase of learning, working miracles is more valuable because freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you."
"Look on your brother, and behold in him the whole reversal of the laws that SEEM to rule this world. See in his freedom YOURS, for such it IS."
"To have faith is to heal. It is the sign that you HAVE accepted the Atonement for yourself, and would therefore share it. By faith, you OFFER the gift of freedom from the past, which you have RECEIVED." "Be not afraid to look upon the special hate relationship, for freedom lies here."
"For the body IS little and limited, and only those whom you would see WITHOUT the limits that the ego would impose on them, can offer YOU the gift of freedom."
"Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to ATTACK the present you will NOT SEE the freedom that the present holds."
"For you have chosen but the goal of God, from which your true intent was NEVER absent. Throughout the Sonship is the song of freedom heard, in joyous echo of your choice."
"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you MADE of it is NOT its reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it."
"And you will carry its message of love and safety and freedom to everyone who draws nigh unto your temple, where healing waits for him."
"The belief in EGO autonomy is costing you the knowledge of your dependence on God, IN WHICH YOUR FREEDOM LIES."
"You could accept peace NOW, for everyone you meet, and offer them perfect freedom from ALL illusions, BECAUSE YOU HEARD. But have no other gods before Him, or you will NOT hear."
"Nothing of God will enslave His Son, whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by HIS Being."
"HIS slip (rivet) was an expression of a Soul gaining enough strength to request freedom from prison. It will ultimately DEMAND it."
"Because of his failure to accept his own perfect freedom FROM the past, Cayce could not really perceive others as similarly free."
"Freedom from fear can be achieved by BOTH teacher and pupil ONLY if they do not compare either their needs or their positions in regard to each other in terms of higher and lower."
"In the service of the "Right Mind", the denial of ERROR frees the mind and re-establishes the freedom of the will. When the will is REALLY free, it CANNOT miscreate, because it recognizes ONLY TRUTH.
"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the Laws of God."
God is the law. His nature is the law. His creation is an extension of the law. Anything created is within the law and under the law and governed by the law. It is impossible that anything God created can be unlawful or capable of breaking the law, otherwise it would break God. God's will cannot be opposed.
Part of God's law is that everything created is unlimited in its freedom. This includes even the freedom to try to use freedom to imprison oneself and others. This is an attempt to be "freely imprisoned", which is an obvious contradiction and circular logic. This is why it's not really possible.
But the mind is free to deny that it's impossible and to pretend that it can be accomplished, even if doing so is insane and makes no sense and still cannot be accomplished. We cannot actually create a body, or create planet Earth, or create space or time, but we can imagine what they might be like if it were possible. And that's all we've done.
So now we seem to live in an imaginary world which seems to be a world where all of the laws of God are violated. Where everything is opposite to God's nature. Where impossible things seem to happen all the time, such as sickness and death. Things which would be a total violation of God's nature if they were possible, but cannot be possible in reality.
Even if you attack and destroy someone or something in this dream, this imagined world, it isn't actually accomplishing anything. Nothing real can be threatened, nothing immortal can die, nothing of God can be hurt. What is being attacked? Nothing but an illusion, attacked by an illusion, with illusory effects which mean nothing at all.
God's law is that we are free forever. Even if we attempt to use that freedom to deny freedom. If we use our freedom to deny the freedom of others we attempt to imprison and destroy them, expressing the idea that they are not free to exist - a seemingly murderous thought.
We are allowed to have this thought, the freedom to be mistaken is entirely within the scope of God's law. It doesn't mean God intends that you be imprisoned or that you imprison others, and in truth you cannot actually imprison or destroy anyone. You can dream of imprisoning and destroying but it isn't actually happening.
So you are free to, in a dream world, do whatever you want, without limits, given that you are free to do whatever you want per God's law. And therefore even if you seem to be a murderous evil person you still are not breaking God's law. That might sound controversial, but the attack isn't real and it has no real effects on anything real. So you are free to imagine you can be evil, but you can't actually be evil.
In effect all you can be is either correct or mistaken. You can either accept reality or deny it. But you can never change the law, you can never break the law, and you can never actually commit a real sin. You can dream of sinning and dream of being guilty, but these are fictional guilts and make-believe sins. They're not even real sins. And believing they are real sins is part of being mistaken.
God still wills that we be free and happy and loving, but he doesn't demand it or stop us from trying to be otherwise. Thus there is no guilt and no sin, no actual attack, no violation and no real victims. There are dreams and nightmares of such things but they're not real. They're just mistakes, all rooted and founded on a lie that such things are even possible in reality. We're kidding ourselves when we think we hurt people, so there's no point in trying to.
Forgiveness isn't about you recognising that you did something and then trying to get over it. It's about recognising that you actually didn't do anything. And your brother didn't actually do anything. It's all a dream fantasy of doing things that can't really be done. A dream of mortality and murder which has no effect on anything real.
This doesn't justify doing such things, because a person who is in touch with unlimited freedom is also unconditionally loving. A person aligned with God's will only wills life and happiness. Ironically and paradoxically, granting everyone total freedom to do anything produces a state of mind in which there is only a desire to do good, as God sees it. In other words, being truly free to 'murder' actually produces a state of having no desire to do so. It's only when you deny freedom that you think you could gain something from attack.
So God's laws can't be broken, we are never breaking them, and we are never in a state of sinning. We never do anything that demands a real guilt, because there isn't even such a thing as real guilt. There's a mistakenness about being guilty which is founded on a lie, that sin is possible when it isn't. You couldn't cause yourself to be destroyed even if you tried because God wills that you live forever, along with everyone else.
So really we need to recognize we cannot break the law of God, and this is the only real law. But if you embrace the law it means having to give freedom and love to everyone, because freedom and love is the law. And anything else you try to do can be nothing but an illusion.
"The ego cannot OPPOSE the laws of God, any more than YOU can. But it can INTERPRET them according to what it wants, just as YOU can."
"The ego, using its own warped version of the laws of God, uses the power of the mind ONLY to defeat the mind's real purpose."
"It is the distorted product of the misapplication of the laws of God by distorted minds which are misusing their own power."
"This IS the law of God, and it HAS NO EXCEPTIONS"
"You do not think this mysterious, even though ALL the laws of what you awake to WERE violated while you slept."
The physical world we live in was deliberately designed by the ego mind to create the ILLUSION that separation is real. It is meant to, on purpose, deceive your awareness so that you believe how it APPEARS to be. Taking it to be REAL is an absolutely huge mistake.
One of the most powerful parts of this illusion is the appearance that we are SEPARATE PEOPLE, because we appear to be 'in' separate bodies. Separate bodies are a gross deception, which shows you through your 5 senses that you are isolated and cut off from so-called 'others', and that this is 'proven' by the body itself and the way it interacts with the environment.
In fact, the only purpose of the 'environment', is to create a separate SPACE of separation in between you and others, to reinforce the idea that you are not joined or connected or shared in any way.
But let's keep in mind, this world is made, on purpose, with the INTENTION of fooling you, and of fooling everyone. It very deliberately and purposefully was set up to make it look like we're all separate, nothing is shared, nobody is the same as anyone else, and that we are all housed in separate forms.
The result of this, IF you believe the illusion, is that we believe we are a limited to, confined to, and isolated within, our physical bodies, which seems to form a wall around our minds and limits our awareness.
The physical body is setup such that IF you believe the illusion, you will have a very restricted sense of awareness. Your awareness will seem to be 'stopped' at the perimeter of the body form itself, such that it seems that anything outside of the body is not something you have direct experience of. You can receive signals and sensations through the 5 senses that tell you, indirectly, what is 'out there', but generally speaking you will not be able to DIRECTLY experience it with your inner awareness. And for sure, you will not be able to experience it with a sense that it is part of YOURSELF.
This is how it was all set up. It's a tremendously powerful illusion that shows us everything that is UNTRUE, and everything that is false, in a very convincing way. And guess what.... almost everyone has fallen for it, hook line and sinker. Bigtime.
Most of us believe we are not other people. Most of us do not experience other people as ourselves. We've bought the entire lie that human beings are separate creatures. We even have laws set up about how when one person's body does something to another person's body, that person was responsible for the crime but not the person who was victimized. The entire gamut of ego illusory thoughts and perceptions are tied into perceiving this 'as real'.
And so this world is a huge trick. And if you've fallen for this trick, you will have all kinds of beliefs going on in your mind that tell you how the "ego" thought system is true. Such as that something can happen to one person and not another. Such as that someone can do something to someone else and have absolutely no effects from it. Such as that something can happen to you that you did not ask for in any way, and that therefore you are justified in being angry. Victims, victimizers, these ALL arise from the ILLUSION that we are all separate. And it is not the TRUTH.
This is why we have to learn to 'forgive', i.e. undo belief in, everything in front of our face. Because everything to do with 'form' IS a deliberate lie, a deliberate deception, a deliberate illusion, which has been put in place in a very INTENTIONAL way to bring about this deception. As Jesus says, "nothing is so blinding as sight of form". Form is the exact OPPOSITE of the truth. Yes, a conspiracy, to undermine the truth and to shut out awareness and to render everyone separate and unconscious. This is the ego's conspiracy against God, and this entire physical universe was made by it in order to COVER UP THE TRUTH.
So don't think this world is real, or that it's showing you truth, or that people are really bodies, or that we're all really separate, or that there really are victims and victimizers, or that anything is unfair, or that things happen that people don't choose,... those are ALL illusions and MISTAKES that you believe because you believe the ILLUSION that's in front of your face. The illusion that you seem to 'live in'. Its a huge trick. A massive con. It is not the truth, it is not REALITY, and it is not what God intends for His Son. As ACIM says, God could not submit His Son to a world such as this and BE loving.
This whole world and everything in it is an illusion. So we have a very big challenge in front of us, to learn NOT to believe in it, even while we're in it. To work our way out of it, back to an awareness of what the TRUTH really is. An awareness of God. An awareness of how these illusions operate and what they attempt to deceive in us. Our awareness is isolated and locked up in these little bodies imagining that this is all we are, or this is all there is. No, this is not all there is. This world is not all there is, not at all. In fact, this world is all that there is NOT, because it's not even real at all!
And if you will go as far as Jesus asks us to go with Him in the Course, in his radical truth.... "there is no world, this is the central thought the course would attempt to teach" - ACIM
Do we believe it? Can we see past the ILLUSION? Are we deceived? Have we come to believe it? Is it real? Why do we think we are separate people? Why do we think there are multiple identities in the world AND multiple identities inside what is left of your own self? It's not true. There is only ONENESS.
So welcome to the world. Welcome to the insane theater production of 'does not exist'', where nothing is as it seems, and there in no truth in it anywhere, and yet it is so deceptive and real-seeming that all who come here are caught in its web for a very long time.
It's a DREAM. But it's time to wake up.
You may notice that when we apply forgiveness, a big part of this is taking the projected blame off of other people. Recognizing that it's really you that you're blaming and then undoing that condemnation. This all seems to imply your brother is innocent and had nothing to do with your upset etc. And so we return within to our own mind and our own healing and then we think we're done.
Well, this has a tendency in and of itself to imply a kind of selfishness. If we stop there, if we forgive ourselves and then do nothing, we're really not completing the process. Forgiveness should bring love and love must be shared, given and extended.
Let's say that someone had come along and triggered you. They attacked you in some way. But then you did a forgiveness and remembered the secret of salvation and took responsibility and then undid your own self attack. Well, what of this other person?
This other person who played a role to help you heal, may nevertheless still be in a state of their own self attack. They triggered you by launching an attack of their own. And so in effect they are still sick, they still need healing, and they are now left on their own while you go off and do your forgiveness. Just because you feel better, they may not.
What needs to really happen is that once you have forgiven yourself, the forgiveness must extend to your brother and heal him. You are supposed to offer a miracle of healing to him as well as to yourself. In fact, if the forgiveness is NOT GIVEN to your brother as an act of HEALING, then the forgiveness is not complete.
"When I heal I am not healed alone."
"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it has brought a healing to your brother and yourself."
Your brother may still be upset. They may be angry still. They may be confused. And so now it is your function to heal them. You offer healing to them through love and it's now your task to remind them of what you have reminded yourself of. The truth you've accepted in your own acceptance of atonement must be given and shared.
You might now approach the person and recognize how they are attacking themselves, how they are finding themselves guilty, why they are projecting their own self hurt. And you may shine your light and the love you have received and offer it to them as well. And perhaps now you will be in more of a position to uplift them and supply a lack that helps them to heal also.
Having been made stronger in the truth yourself, through your own healing, your function turns to your brother and to assisting him in healing his own attack. His mind must heal as well as yours.
Coming from love allows you to supply the lack. Coming from love, you temporarily have more and now are in a position to give to those who have less. Coming from love you are able now to not only forgive your brother but also heal him.
This completes the cycle. What seemed to begin with an externalized projection of sin, coupled with your brother playing the role of victimizer, should end with you healing and loving your brother. Being able to do this, to forgive him for him, to undo his sins, to heal his mind, is a privilege and a pleasure, which is bestowed you to bless him with, now that you are healed.
"It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive."
So it doesn't just stop with your own forgiveness of yourself. It must be shared and given. You have to give love to have love. In fact you cannot accept atonement for yourself unless you are willing to share it, by recognizing that it applies to you AND to everyone. And now having been restored to YOUR right mindedness you also now recognize the lack of right mindedness in others and can offer it to them.
"I can only give the miracles I have received."
This is why, having accepted atonement for YOUR SELF, your proper purpose now is to give it to another.
"It is the sign that you have accepted the Atonement for yourself, and would therefore SHARE it."
"By accepting the Atonement for YOURSELF, you are deciding AGAINST the belief that you can BE alone"
"Atonement as a Lesson in Sharing.Atonement is for all, because it is the way to UNDO the belief that ANYTHING is for you ALONE."
"Refuse to accept anyone as WITHOUT the blessing of Atonement, and bring him INTO it by blessing him. Holiness MUST be shared, for therein lies everything"
"That is why you MUST share it, because it must be INCREASED in strength"
"To the Holy Spirit, it is the fundamental law of sharing, by which you give what you value in order to keep it in your OWN minds."
Atonement is not about you accepting something SOLELY for yourself. That is in fact SELFISH. Forgiveness returns you to a state that is SHARED by everyone, and in which giving is natural, and in which atonement becomes your natural profession.
"Atonement is the natural profession of the Children of God, because they have professed Me."
Part of that entails that you have to GIVE your brother what YOU want to accept into your mind. Therefore atonement and forgiveness have to be GIVEN AWAY in order to have them. And that means you have to heal your brother as well.
It is a mistake many make to think of atonement as something entirely personal and isolated. Especially since the course says your sole responsibility is to accept it for yourself. This only means that you have a responsibility, the emphasis is NOT on the "for yourself" part, as if to imply ONLY for yourself. That is a selfish interpretation.
"The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO IT."
"Each one of you has a special part to play in the Atonement"
"Having been restored to your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself. You now share MY inability to tolerate the lack of love in yourself and in everyone else, and MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE to correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is "Listen, Learn, and DO." This means:
Listen to MY Voice, Learn to undo the error, and DO something to correct it.
The first two are not enough. The real members of MY party are ACTIVE workers."
A few quotes about working miracles for others...
"In time, you have been told to offer miracles as I direct, and let the Holy Spirit bring to you those who are seeking you. (T-15.V.10:7)
And you will offer miracles because you are one with God. (W-pI.77.1:3)
No one can ask another to be healed. But he can let himself be healed, and thus offer the other what he has received. (T-27.V.1:6-7)
Today I let Christ's vision look upon all things for me and judge them not, but give each one a miracle of love instead. (W-pII.349.Heading)
Offer Christ's gift to everyone and everywhere, for miracles, offered the Son of God through the Holy Spirit, attune you to reality. (T-13.VIII.7:2)"
I used to attack myself pretty severely through the fear of being judged by others. I was painfully shy and perceived a need to withdraw in an effort to protect myself, but all this did was hurt myself deeply.
My shyness was a coping mechanism for protecting my sensitivity. I had failed to learn how to express myself fully, and it didn't help that I was an introvert. I had trouble learning social skills and asserting myself. Every social interaction was literally painful.
I did not realize what I was doing to myself. My perception was that other people were perceiving me in a certain way, which I was simply trying to get away from.
After a social encounter, particularly one with strangers or where I had to go into someone else's home or be surrounded by a crowd, I would feel deeply, deeply hurt. I would become strongly embarrassed in the midst of the situation, would tense up, become very quiet (paralyzed) and experience things as though everyone was judging me.
I would return home with a very very deep inner emotional pain, a feeling of "hurt", that was so strong I had no choice but to have a deep cry in order to deal with it. Every social encounter seemed like a total failure and something I did not want to be a part of, making me avoid them even more. It was deeper and stronger than any other emotional upset about any other situation in life. It felt absolutely horrible.
When strangers would even walk past I would immediately cringe and feel attacked. I suspected they were a threat, and saw them as enemies or someone I did not want to be around. They seemed to have power over me and I hid away and withdrew in an effort to avoid people.
I had no idea what was happening in my perception or what I was doing to myself. I only thought that other people were hurting me and causing me to feel like shit. It seemed to all be their fault, and they were the ones who we being judgmental.
But over time I have gradually, slowly learned, that this is not the case. It was difficult to come to realize this.
I saw that I was in fact judging everyone else. I saw them as judged in some way, although this seemed to be subtler and concealed behind my reaction to this perception. Seeing them as judgers automatically meant I was judged by them and therefore at their effect. The effects this produced in my own self was the deep hurt.
I had to realize that in order to see them as judgers, I had to believe they were the ones being judgmental, which was in fact my own belief. I was making them out to be judgers. And that meant, I was simultaneously judging my own self by seeing myself in the role of "judged" by them.
It never really had anything to do with other people judging me either. In fact, probably in 99% of cases they were not being judgmental at all. They were not even interested. They weren't saying anything about me or pointing a finger or anything. But I had this "mental illness" of strongly believing that I couldn't go anywhere without being under attack. And it wouldn't matter if someone pointed out that no-one really cared to judge me because they were too busy with their own selfish interests, I couldn't see it.
What I was really doing was seeing myself as judge-worthy, disassociating a part of my mind and projecting it onto others, seeing them as the judger rather than myself, and then creating the effects within myself that correspond to how I perceived others to be perceiving me. I literally was hurting myself. The hurt I did to myself was far worse than anything anyone else ever did, and it was all because of how I was mis-perceiving.
Underneath this fear of judgement there was a belief that I deserved to be judged, because I believed I had sinned and was guilty. I didn't see myself as worthy of love and therefore perceived that others agreed with me. My direct self-attack turned into indirect self-attack that appeared to be coming at me from other people, but was really coming at me from within a part of my mind that I did not recognize as myself.
I was being both the judger of myself, and the one who was judged. Or in other words, a victimizer and a victim. I played both roles but only saw myself as playing the victim role, and unfairly so. The mere act of perceiving oneself in a victim role automatically creates effects in yourself, typically emotional reactions which try to correspond to the causes that you see as outside of yourself. Because I saw others as judging me severely, I felt severely hurt. Truth is, both the perception that others were judging and the hurtful effects of the judgement were both put in place simultaneously by myself.
I needed to forgive myself. And this has taken a very long time and it's been a very gradual slow process. Over the years, a sense of being separate from others has diminished. A sense of being trapped in myself has diminished. A sense of frustration at not being able to fully express has diminished. A sense of it not being okay to simply be the way I am has diminished. In fact, recently there has been a growing, wonderful freedom, of finally not giving a fuck.
This funnily enough manifested in recent hairstyles. It suddenly became fun to play with looking ugly, rather than trying to look pleasing. And I don't mean this ugliness is another judgement, just that, I've found myself being really "ok" with looking whatever way I look without it meaning anything or causing a judgement.
This is so freeing. It now becomes more of a "playful" experience, where it doesn't matter one way or another, and where I'm growing stronger in my willingness to present myself in whatever way I like without caring (worrying) about what people will think of it.
You may have noticed over time that in my writing I now swear a lot more often. I used to be so repressed that I would never swear, and thought I was more special or holier than others by not doing so. It's now more of a pleasure to swear. To some this may seem like I'm turning 'evil' but that's not the case. I'm becoming more authentic and more myself, censoring myself less and recognizing that I am free.
Taking responsibility for everything I am experiencing shows me that I can only be upset if I hurt myself, no-one else is the cause of what I feel, and therefore I am set free of concern for massive people pleasing or not showing up fully as myself. I was trying to be everyone but myself, to be something I am not, and to disown myself. There is nothing but pain and suffering there when we do that.
There are some people out there especially those who are painfully shy, who appear on the surface to be sweet and nice but have a strong persona, a facade of everything being alright all the time when underneath there is a searing self hatred and repression and sense of unworthiness and of not being "allowed" to do anything. It's a state of self imprisonment. I still at times struggle with limiting myself and Holy Spirit having to remind me "you are allowed". I often thought I was imprisoned by someone else in life, but really it was my own doing.
Some of these people who are suffering from self-inflicted unworthiness and quiet suffering, turn to suicide as an escape. My own life became one of depression and despearation and a growing feeling that I was approaching some kind of "end". If I had not met my wife at about that time I probably wouldn't be here.
A sense of an "end" was a sense of intense separation, isolation and being cut off from everyone. I was ostracized "by society" for an earlier "accident", but really it was a way for me to do this to myself, to give me a good reason why I should suffer in silence and be unhappy. I have had to crawl out of my own self-inflicted hell-hole. Some people are not able to do this. There was a guy at my workplace who was similarly shy who no one would suspect was suffering painfully every day through false perceptions, and he shot himself.
I am thankful for the Holy Spirit and Jesus who have helped me immensely to come out of my nightmares and into a happier place. I still have work to do but everything keeps heading in the direction of heaven. A Course in Miracles has been a God-send in terms of correcting my perceptual distortions and helping me to undo the grossly self-inflicted false beliefs that torture and condemn from the inside out. I am so different to how I used to be now that I don't recognize myself in photos.
Freedom and relief from suffering comes from the recognition of what we are doing to ourselves. We are the ones who need to forgive ourselves and undo our own self attack. There is a way out of hell, because we are the only ones keeping us in hell. No-one is keeping us here but ourselves. Fear of judgement is secretly the fear of being judged by God, which is an attempt not to go Home by justifying self attack. But there is a better way. And that means, if we will become willing, we can go Home to God and be happy. Thank God for that!
It's very useful as a tool to consider what something means if God were included. We think far too often "separately" and without including God.
Since God created you as a part of him, you are literally part of God. Such as in the lesson which says "Love created me loving" "Peace created me peaceful" etc. You inherited God. And you actually live within God within his being and mind. You're part of him.
So properly speaking, anything which applies to YOU, or to anyone, ALSO applies to God. Something can't be true of you unless it is also true of God. That's very useful to keep in mind.
So for example, if someone seems to be sick, we shouldn't just think of that person in isolation. We should include God. We should remind ourselves, if that person is a part of God, and God cannot be sick, then that person cannot be sick. Otherwise God would have to also be sick. This is along similar lines to:
"If God is real there is no pain. If pain is real there is no God."
"There is no cruelty in God and none in me."
That's the simple logic of it. If your brother, or yourself, is a part of God, and if God has a certain divine attribute, then you and your brother must also have that attribute. If they seem to have attributes that God cannot have, then they and you cannot have that attribute either.
Also if you accuse yourself, blame yourself, feel guilty, condemn yourself, attack yourself, etc, you should also remember that you are doing this to God as well. And in fact, also to the whole sonship.
We have to learn that we are not JUST ourselves, isolated and separate and disconnected from everyone. Everything we do or think affects the whole universe. When we assert that something ungodly applies to ourselves, or to others, we're also saying it applies to God.
We can use this fact to deprogram ourselves from illusions. We can say, since God is innocent, and I am part of God, I must also be innocent. If I were guilty, part of God would be guilty, and God can't be guilty. Therefore I can't be guilty. Or, since my brother is a part of God, he cannot be sick, because otherwise God would be sick. This is also a way to seeing God in yourself and others.
In general we need to open up more to being joined, connected, one, sharing, united in identity, with a truth (the golden rule) which applies to ourselves AND to others. An inclusive truth, instead of always cutting everyone off and pointing fingers at exclusive little boxes.
"If what you do to my brother you do to me, and if you do everything for yourself because we are PART of you, everything WE do belongs to you as well."
"It is not true that you can make decisions BY yourself, or FOR yourself alone. No thought of God's Son CAN be separate, or isolated in its effects. Every decision is made for the WHOLE SONSHIP, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of."
"His Father's Love for him belongs to you. Your function here on earth is only to forgive him, that you may accept him back as your identity. He is as God created him. And you are what he is. Forgive him now his sins, and you will see that you are one with him."
"You can overlook your brother's dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions, he becomes your Savior from YOUR dreams."
"Today let me give honor to Your Son, for thus alone I find the way to You. Father, I lay no limits on the Son You love, and You created limitless. The honor that I give to him is Yours, and what is Yours belongs to me as well."
God is the truth. Originally there was only the truth. But then we made up an opposite. We thought there could be something false as well, a falseness which had truth to it.
"For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM." UrT10H2
And so we swapped what is true and what is false, and confused them. We took all the attributes of truth (God) and assigned the to something untrue (an illusory world). And then we took all of the attributes of illusions (non-existence, death, evil etc) and assigned it to God.
So there was this huge reversal in our minds. Not only did this put us out of touch with reality, which meant we were insane, we also were extremely confused and lost. We became lost because we could no longer tell whether something is true or not. We lost track of which way is up, what God is really like, etc.
This meant we lost the ability to properly discern the difference between what is true and what is false. It meant we developed a belief that God is cruel and evil and wants us dead. And it also means we invested all our sense of value and attraction into a false world in order to stay as far away from him as possible.
"You HAVE carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING." UrT7J9
So now when you look at death, you actually do in your mind believe it has some properties of life and truth and reality. And when you look at attack you think it is salvation. And when you look at hell you think of it as heavenly. And when you look at suffering you think it is atonement. And when you look at God you think he is an evil enemy to be avoided.
So then you have this sort of totally mixed up radar. Your whole navigation system of "what you want to go towards" is all thrown off by a kind of huge magnetic storm, which is affecting your compass. All your arrows which point in directions you think you want to go, are actually pointing in the opposite direction from where they're supposed to point.
The problem is because you're so lost in the woods you can't tell which way the arrows are supposed to point. So everyone in the world keeps making suffering for themselves because they keep choosing things which they believe are good and true which are not. And people will create sickness because they think that getting away from God (life, health, wholeness) is saving their lives. And people will even destroy and kill the body believing that it's going to set them free.
So there's not only a huge amount of confused and lost people in the world, all these people have a backwards upside-down thought system. They don't recognize what they are actually choosing in the big picture, and believe they're making excellent choices in the narrower picture. But the ego temptations are leading them down dark paths under the guise of making good progress.
This is really the problem of the world. That we're all mis-creating very faulty outcomes, poor choices, which are bringing us suffering, because in the big picture we are actually choosing suffering but we don't recognize that we are. We think we're making choices that will lead to us being better off. We are deceived, confused, insane, and lost. We don't know which way to get home, so we keep heading down a dark tunnel to death.
This also brings with it a huge amount of resistance and unwillingness to go towards God. It creates a fear of being helped. It can cause people to suspect that a miracle is going to destroy them. That the Holy Spirit is a threat. That God is not going to love them. Who would stay away from God's love unless they thought that it would make things worse for them? But that's what people believe.
So when you go to help people often they do not want the help because they see it as harm or as a threat, as if its going to take away their treasure. And they want to keep their suffering and keep trying to destroy themselves because they think that's in their best interests.
You've got a world full of very confused backwards-thinking people who don't know what they are doing or why they are doing it, but they think they do, so they keep blindly choosing very poorly and ending up suffering, having not mastered their creative power.
What we need is to get our minds straightened out and to learn to recognize again what is really true. But that's going to mean that you have to question what you believe, and be open to the possibility that you are VERY mistaken, and you have to then be willing to want something better. Not something you think is better, but something actually better in God's terms. And you will resist that and NOT want it.
It will literally be like you're being asked to go towards the very thing you want to get away from. You will advance in fear and see the destination as a threat to your existence. This is because the ego is so backwards and has framed God as the opposite of love. All of this confusion has to be sorted out and undone. And that's really all we have to do. A lack of recognition is the problem.
This is why we are to learn that "only the truth is true", ie to find out that only God's truth is true, and it's a loving truth. And to recognize also that false things ARE false and ARE unreal. Such as this world, and the body. Because while we believe we are a body in a real world we'll want to KEEP that, because letting it go or questioning it would be a threat to our entire existence.
This is why there is a lot of reluctance in some people to question whether this world even exists, and they'd rather stay asleep in a pleasant dream of a physical reality and not upset the apple cart. Some people are just not ready for the higher truth.
It also means that because people are confused, they do not recognize they are confused, and they believe they have the whole truth already when they don't. It requires great humility to be willing to be mistaken and to become open to something you were heavily resistant towards before. Everyone will get there eventually but it will take a lot of time for everyone to overcome their reluctance to go home to heaven.
"ALL are called but few choose to listen. Therefore, they do not choose RIGHT." The "chosen ones" are merely those who choose right SOONER." UrT3F23