One of the worst and most generalizing interpretations of ACIM's teaching, is that "there is no separation". This has framed any kind of separateness as wrong. It has associated all separation with duality, and has stripped oneness of any possibility of being many things.

So now we have in our minds this idea that oneness must be the total absence of separation. This even seems to make logical sense. But it's not the truth. How do we even know that reality has to be oneness? Where did we learn that crap? We've also taken it further to mean that, separation equates with duality, and a lack of separation equates with oneness. As if, there literally is "only one thing", a count of one, as reality. And obviously that must be God, so there is only God. God being alone all by himself. But that's not the truth etiher.

For a start, just as a cursory glance, ACIM has all kinds of material talking about God having a son. A what now? How can God have a son if there is no separation? If you are being strict about this it's impossible for God to have a son at all. Surely that implies there are separations in reality? Surely it's not true that reality has separate parts to it? Surely it has to be all one thing?

Who came up with this notion that reality HAS TO be all one thing with no parts? That is a gross preconception. So many of us keep projecting this idea onto what the course is saying, insisting that reality HAS to be one thing. It HAS to be oneness. We all want that lovely shiny oneness, and it absolutely cannot have any separations in it, because separation is ego, right? Well no.

How about, it would be okay for there to be a kind of separation, where even though there is a separation, it isn't a complete severance? How about if a single environment can contain two things, which are indeed two fully distinctly and wholly created things, but those two things ALSO are unified and share everything with each other? Is it still separation or ego if they are completely open to sharing everything without any selfishness?

The kind of separation that exists in reality is not the same kind of separation that exists in the ego world. The thing that you really need to get your head around is this. One thing can also be many things while still being one thing. Does that sound too radical or difficult to understand? Is such a thing impossible, and why does it have to be "not the truth"?

Wouldn't such a scenario where something is one thing, but is also two things, and the two things are still two things, but are also one thing, be somewhat transcendental? It would have to warp and transcend every notion we have about how everything is supposed to be in a nice tidy box of its own, wouldn't it. It would be some kind of weird thing where something can be one thing and two things at the same time. It might even have to be described as miraculous.

If God cannot create, God cannot live. If God cannot share, God cannot give. If God is devoid of any kind of separation, God can never create a son. Not even one. Not a single son of God can exist in God if God is this very vague idea of "oneness". Some people seem to not be comfortable with the idea of God having TWO sons, but they seem to be okay with him having ONE son, even though that's still a logical contradiction. Why is ONE SEPARATION okay?

Just on the general jist of it, ACIM is saying a whole lot of stuff about God having a son. Now, I don't know about you but if it were to be meaning that he DOES NOT have any sons AT ALL, then I would say Jesus is a terribly misleading author. Just on the basis of how often and how much "the son of God" is referenced, either Jesus is full of shit, or Jesus is deceptive, or the ENTIRE course is metaphorical.

Now, sometimes people actually do opt to believe that the whole thing is metaphorical, because that seems to put a nice bandaid on it and COVER UP the truth. It sort of ties up some loose ends. Those nasty little loose ends that keep saying God has a son. It would be great to just say, well it's all a metaphor, there isn't really a son of God, and to then go onto say that Jesus is just placating your little pretend ego self because it can't handle the truth. Where have you heard that before?

It would be quite convenient IF Jesus actually were only talking in riddles, and the entire course was a lie, and the whole thing was just playing to your ego's need for specialness, and if only "the special advanced students" will get and accept the fact that there really is NO SON AT ALL.

This is the kind of of mad thinking that some people have adopted to try to justify and explain away the very intensely radical truths in the course, to make themselves feel better and to try to understand what the heck it's saying. But it's simply wrong.

God absolutely does have a son. You're going to have to deal with that. If you think he does not have a son, then there is only God. What are the implications of this idea? If there is only God, then you are God entirely, God is dreaming of exile from God, God is insane and believes in death, God has special relationships, God creates poop, and God kills people. Hmm... Is that going to jive with your spiritual goals? It doesn't exactly sound very loving, but it is perfectly logical.

For God NOT to have participated in this madness of a hellhole we're in, he MUST be distinct from you in SOME way. There has to be some kind of freedom that you have "from him" that allows YOUR insanity to not affect him. Otherwise any madness you go into would instantly infect him, and then we'd all be lost forever. God did NOT enter "the separation", did not buy into the mad idea, and did not dream of hell. So who did? And the obvious answer is of course that you - as the Son of God - or at least ONE OF the sons of God did.

The kind of warped bandaids that a person has to come up with to try to mangle the course's meaning to make certain untruths "fit" is quite incredible. We've got people saying that God has no son at all, people saying that one separation is acceptable but not two, and we've got people saying that God can't have many sons because that mean separation. It doesn't, but that's what they think.

And mainly it's because people just cannot seem to conceive of something that TRANSCENDS "either this or that". They just can't seem to envision what a reality is like where one thing is also two things, or even many things, while still being one thing. There is NO parallel to that in the physical world. There are NO examples in your environment that you've ever encountered where one thing is also two things, or two things are one thing, or two things entirely overlap and share the same space. It seems impossible. But THIS world is impossible, so don't you think that means "one as two" is entirely possible?

What some people then don't like is the seeming SIMILARITY between this idea of God being "one and many", and their idea of duality. Oooh... it's a little bit too much like duality isn't it, that must be an ego thing, that must be a bad thing, let's get rid of it. But duality is NOT the same thing as the transcendental multiplicities of reality.

Duality really means, things are separate, AND they do not share anything. The lack of sharing is a vital part of it. It's not just that there's a separation, it's that the two things are kept apart and do not join or connect. So then you might ask what is the opposite of that? Is it oneness? NOT NECESSARILY. How about the opposite of duality, is a reality in which there are STILL many things, BUT at the same time, they SHARE EVERYTHING? What would that be like? Because that's what reality IS like.

That's exactly what Jesus describes over and over again in ACIM. A reality in which there are many parts, and where each part is the whole, and each part shares everything with all the other parts, yet is STILL a part. You being one with God, while STILL being yourself. You having your own soul, while ALSO sharing the soul of others. You being christ, while OTHERS are also christ. You having many brothers, yet each brother BEING the other brothers. That's all over the course in hundreds of ways and that's what you have to come to realize about reality.

"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is PERFECTLY natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to you."

Reality IS NOT ONENESS. It is not the kind of "opposite of separation" that you think it is. It IS oneness, but it's not ONLY that. It is a oneness which has expressed infinite power to CREATE additional ones. It is a wholeness which has FULLY created additional WHOLE beings. It's an entire constellation of creations, where each INDIVIDUAL creation is also so joined to the others that they are ALSO one. Oh my God, did he just say that we have an INDIVIDUAL SELF IN REALITY? How can that be?!!!

"We share our life because we have one Source, a Source from Which perfection comes to us, remaining always in the holy minds which He created perfect."

"We have also emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also been created perfect. There is no emptiness in him."

Now I can hear the thoughts in your mind trying to whirl around to visualize this. And you're probably thinking well, how do these many separate things be joined, to the extent that they are one, without DISAPPEARING? Because in spacetime we only have analogies where, as two things become one thing, the separation vanishes and you can't tell them apart any more. But that's NOT the case in reality. The two things are FULLY two things, AND fully one thing, at the same time. That's what you have to come to accept. The dynamics of heaven's reality is NOT the same as the laws of physics.

God is one, and has many children, who are one, who have many creations of their own, which are one. And every one creates with every other one. And the whole sonship, which is a collection of ones, creates as one, to create many additional ones, with God, who is one with them all. Oneness extends itself, to produce more onenesses, which are each oneness, and each gives oneness, creating more onenesses, which are in turn still the same oneness. One thing, creating separate things, which are one thing still.

This cannot be understood by separating things into separate boxes. It cannot be understood by insisting that reality be a count of one. It cannot be understand by projecting ego ideas of the "lack of separations" onto it. It cannot be understood by trying to get rid of all the sons of God and all your brothers and turning the world into a solo-gameshow of you vs yourself. There ARE other people here, there are other dreamers here, there are other free willed beings here, and you DO have relationships.

The course has been smushed, crushed, distorted, twisted, mangled, bent, upheaved and shattered, by well-meaning but mistaken individuals who THINK they know that heaven has to be a singularity of God. ACIM if you read it carefully does not support this idea. Even when it says "God is". Even when it says "God has but one son". Even then it STILL ALSO SAYS that God has many sons and a family and even grandchildren. Your creations are his grandchildren. That's all in A Course in Miracles, whether a person likes it or not, or whether it makes sense or not.

Can we just let the course be what it is and say what it does and try to FIND A WAY TO ACCEPT IT, instead of keep trying to CONVERT IT INTO the models and concepts and theories and theologies that WE think it has to be? Because it is not like them. ACIM is not non-duality, it is not adviata vedanta, it is not about oneness in the traditional sense, and it doesn't teach that there is only God.

Let it be itself and let it tell you what the whole truth is. Take ALL of what Jesus says and recognize that he does NOT contradict himself, and if he says two things which SOUND contradictory, it does not mean they are. What it means is YOUR THOUGHT SYSTEM contradicts itself when it is exposed to a truth that trancends it. It isn't the course that's confused, it's you. Jesus knows what he's talking about. "We are the Kingdom, WE, the Sons of God."

"For you dwell in the Mind of God WITH your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone."

"Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself."

"God did not will to be alone. He SHARES His Will with you" "God would not have us be alone because HE does not will to be alone. That is why He created His Son and gave him the power to create with Him."

"It was not His Will to be alone. And neither is it YOURS. Forgive your brother, and you CANNOT separate yourself from him, nor from his Father."

God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy. Nothing that is real can be increased EXCEPT by sharing it.

All thoughts create form at some level. This is because thoughts (ego thoughts) are ideas about separation. Regardless of their specific content they are always separation ideas.

Separation ideas always therefore lead to "form" in some way.

What this means is, the idea of separation from God, having that tiny mad idea, AUTOMATICALLY means that form MUST come from it. Form must be the end result of an idea of separation. The thought ITSELF shows up as form - separate images appearing real, and eventually being so "firm" that they seem like solid matter.

Form results from thoughts of separation because separation requires us to make an illusion of how two things are different and disconnected, not sharing space or properties. These illusory appearances make it seem like separation is real and result in the illusion of "separate objects".

Any ego thought therefore emphasizes separation between illusions. As the division between thoughts intensifies, or becomes more "dense", it HAS to eventually lead to the illusory manifestation of what we would call "physical solid matter" - a physical universe - which is essentially just a very heavy/serious thought.

Or to put it simply, the mad idea of being separate from God HAD to create a physical universe. It is a completely logical progression and consequence of having such an idea. Form derives from separation.

If separation is perceived or believed to be real, some kind of universe of forms, to some degree, must seem to manifest.

Before the physical universe there were also prior "stages" if you will, subtler levels of this, which have produced additional levels in the dream. Other dimensions. These are all part of the same ego holographic dream and many of these levels feature form to varying degrees.

As Jesus says for example, nighttime and waking dreams differ only in their forms/content. Being in the physical world is nothing more than being inside the tiny mad idea of separation. It is just an idea, and is not really happening. This is why the physical universe is an illusion. It's an illusory thought of separation - a thought of impossibility.

When you can recognize the illusion correctly, you have completed forgiveness. This means being able to transcend and overlook the thought which has made the physical world. Seeing the truth of this, is seeing the "real world", ie the true nature of the worlds of form (which may pertain to physical level as well as higher levels/dimensions of form).

Overlooking illusions makes them disappear. Overlooking the thought of separation makes it, and everything which has come from it (is inside it), disappear. This is why the physical and other higher dimensional universes MUST eventually disappear, or rather be recognized as having been nothing more than a dream/illusion to begin with. Illusions recognized must disappear. The tiny mad idea, recognized as purely false, must end.

Only Heaven is reality, the home of Immortal Spirit. Only Heaven will be left when all of these illusory universes disappear. Only Heaven is the Home of God and the Son of God. Only Heaven, God's Creation, is the real truth - the real universe of oneness.

In ACIM's teaching, there was originally just one "level" or realm in which to exist - The Kingdom of God, Heaven. This is true because the Kingdom is one logical state or nature.

In the separation, we invented a second level or logical state, by trying to be opposite to the Kingdom. This wasn't a partial opposition it was a total opposition, like light and darkness. This second state is a state of dreaming and perception, opposing knowledge. It's technically inside of Heaven, but it a belief in being exiled or outside of it. So this forms a kind of second "level."

We often visualize the two main levels as "above and below", where Heaven is the higher level and Earth is the lower. The two levels contrast and oppose each other in EVERY way imaginable. Light vs Dark, Reality vs Illusions, Life vs Death, Love vs Fear, Immortality vs Mortality, etc. Some refer to the two main levels as level 1 (heaven) and level 2 (earth).

Within level 2 (earth) - "Earth, heaven's opposite in every way", which is the level of "all perception", there is a wide spectrum of states of mind ranging from false perception to true perception. But it's often helpful to contrast them more extremely which suggests two additional levels within the level of perception - the lower dream and the higher dream.

In the lower dream there is false perception, physical objects, form, bodies, the world/earth, attack, sin, death, sickness etc. In the higher dream there is true perception, no physical objects, no bodies, the real world, no sin or sickness, no death etc. They are effectively opposite states WITHIN level 2.

It's important to realize that this basic logical structure is infused throughout the course, because Jesus is at various times talking within the context of different levels. For example he might talk about the higher dream of true perception, and it can sound glowing and lovely, but if you forget that it is within the CONTEXT of level 2, you might be tempted to forget that ALL of the rules that apply to level 2 still apply.

For example the course tells us a glowing report about the real world, or the forgiven world, or true perception/salvation, but at the same time it also reminds us in other passages that "the real world still is but a dream" and "those who perceive (at all) still need healing." So within level 2, the dream of perception, even when we're talking about true perception or forgiveness or the healed body, we have to keep in mind that both the rules of true perception (higher dream within level 2) AND the rules of level 2 itself are simultaneously applying.

Confusing these levels, not being clear about which statements are referring to which levels, not understanding which contexts certain statements are given in and not keeping in mind that the larger context of levels 1 and 2 always apply when discussing anything to do with the realm of perception, can lead to a whole lot of confusion about what stuff means or implies. This is part of what's called "level confusion", not knowing which level is above or below or inside of another.

The general story, in summary, is that you began in level 1, you dreamed of level 2, and while dreaming of level 2 you dreamed of a level 2 inside of level 2 - a lower dream of hell and form, and then the holy spirit provided a higher dream - a level 1 inside level 2, which reflects the real level 1 of heaven, to lead you out of the dream into reality.

There are two sort of perspectives relating to perception that we seem to fall into.

1. There is an objective world with our perception OF it, and what we project ONTO it is to do with how we interpret it.

2. There isn't an objective world and we're just dreaming it up and not projecting anything "onto" it because we're projecting IT in the first place.

I am coming to see that neither of these is correct.

There is a third possibility.

3. I am having a dream, which is surrounding me with a fictional environment which is coming from my mind. Without my dreaming of it - my projecting it - there wouldn't be any world here at all. There is NO objective world. There is ONLY a subjective world. My projection makes my perception and makes "the world I see."

The important distinction here is that the world I am projecting/dreaming, is coming from my mind and SEEMS to be an objective world. AND yet at the SAME TIME, this world is being projected BY me. So it seems to be both objective and subjective.

The key is that the objective part does not exist at all, and that's what ACIM means by "there is no world apart from what you wish", and wishes are dreams.

So it's not just to do with hey, I'm projecting something "onto" the objective world. It's that literally I am projecting the world ITSELF - that I think is an objective world - with my dreaming mind. And when my mind dreams of a different world, I project out an entirely different world. The old world doesn't transform because it has no objective reality or continuity of its own. I just project a different dream and stop projecting the old one.

When we go into false perception, however, there is an additional LAYER of projection, which seems to project "onto" the dream. Like, you're filled with anger and hate and so this seems like it projects "onto" the objective world. But the objective world itself is still being projected from your mind at that same time. So in truth, you are not really projecting ONTO the world, you are projecting the world and your "bad projecting" is actually changing the world and making it appear like a bad world to you.

In this way, it would appear that ACIM is never really talking about "projecting onto" anything. It's entirely talking about you projecting the world itself, directly, and your "bad attitude" projects what later is perceived to be a world that you seem to experience in a negative way. You think there is some other objective world that is "not negative" hiding underneath your negativity, but there isn't! You think you're projecting ONTO the world, but in fact you're not. You're projecting the world, period. Projection makes perception. Not "projection makes perception makes projection makes perception."

Just as at night when you dream, your mind forms en entire environment/world filled with buildings and people and stuff, and you seem to show up as a single body person. But your mind is making the world AND your body person. How the body person seems to experience the dream is an illusion because the person is actually MAKING the environment. Any attacker in the dream is you. People in the dream are figments of your own mind. It's the same with "waking life". We are literally dreaming of an entire universe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ONLY model for a correctly functioning family, is God's model of Heaven.

It is very simple.

God creates all children of God (Sons of God/Souls) simultaneously.

All of these children are perfectly equal and identical and loved equally. They all love each other equally.

NONE of the children are the CAUSE of each other. They are not Father OR Children to each other. There is NO CAUSALITY between them. They neither cause nor affect each other.

God is their only Father.

God's family has only these levels:

1. God

2. All of His children as equals

3. The children of each child

At all times, you and your brothers are ALWAYS the direct creation of God, and there is nothing else in-between you and God. You do not accrue a lineage of grandparents.

Each son of God also creates, and extends God's love, to produce additional beings who are the children OF children. These are the ONLY part of reality that are truly children of YOU - creations within your being. These children remain only in Heaven and do not incarnate into bodies.

The only correct functioning then is to recognize that ALL CHILDREN OF GOD share the same single Creator - the Holy Father/Mother - God.

This means that there is absolutely ZERO cause or effect between individual sons. Your brother does not cause you. You do not cause your brother. Therefore THERE IS NO horizontal causality between brothers. All you can do is share love with "others".

Anything else that seems to happen, any other dynamic of not being equal to others, any ARTIFICIAL relationship structure such as human parents vs human children, or bosses vs employees, or strangers doing something to you, or you being able to attack others, or some group having power over you, or laws which work against God's family structure, is DYSFUNCTIONAL.

It becomes inherently dysfunctional the instant that you believe your brother can or does do something to you. This is literally the belief that he is the cause of you, meaning you think he is your creator or father, and you are his child. You are positioning yourself as the effect of him. You are NOT the effect of any brother. You are only the effect of God.

Believing otherwise instantly leads to dysfunction where suddenly it seems possible that individual beings are able to attack each other. "Attack" in all its form is an attempt to implement HORIZONTAL CAUSALITY, which the Course refers to as "horizontal perception". Within this horizontal perception, it seems that one brother causes another, one object causes another to react, one cause on the SAME LEVEL causes effects on the SAME LEVEL.

Your brother is on the same level as you. There is no causality on the same level. This level you are on is the EFFECT of a higher level. To believe that your brother is the cause or effect of you is LEVEL CONFUSION.

How about this. How about you recognize that NEVER EVER has there EVER been a cause coming from ANY BROTHER EVER. All throughout history, all throughout your life, all of your experiences, even in childhood, NEVER has there been causality coming from other people toward you, and you have NEVER done anything to anyone else. And right now, you are 100% responsible for EVERYTHING YOU CHOOSE TO DO TO YOURSELF, an there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE that can happen to you against your will because there is NO OTHER CAUSE on the level of your brothers or the level of the world.

What if it is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE for any brother to cause or attack you EVER? And what if no-one has EVER done so? Where does that leave you? It leaves you in a position where you MUST acknowledge that ONLY YOU are the chooser who makes stuff happen to you. Anything you are experiencing YOU MUST HAVE PUT THERE. Anything you feel you want to feel. Any upset you have you choose. Any sickness is put there by yourself. And if you do not choose die nothing can cause you to die. This is the truth of the Course.

No-one else ever causes you anything. You are 100% responsible for everything. "You chose sickness and death and therefore can abolish both."

Perhaps one of the greatest miracles of all performed by Jesus was simply that He made his body permanently disappear. He did not die because He was not his body at all. His body didn't lay in the tomb rotting. He - immortal Spirit, Christ, made the body disappear completely because he no longer believed in any of the illusions that it was made to uphold. He did not have to "go through death" in order to exit the world. As ACIM says, the world is not left by death, but by TRUTH!

He had withdrawn absolutely all belief in separation, all belief in the body being the cause of anything, all victimhood, all belief in being at the effect of the world, and that means the body to Him had absolutely no further sense of apparent reality. He knew it was - LITERALLY - nothing at all. It wasn't that it still existed and was something special, or a special communication device (that was a pre-ascension state). He recognized the complete absolute truth, that there is no world and there is no body. It is NOTHING other than an illusion that isn't real.

And with that, His body literally disappeared from existence. This was the final demonstration, the final statement, that He had overcome death, that He was not a body at all, and that the body is just an illusion.

It is our task, similarly, to learn to DISAPPEAR the body, to learn to disappear sickness, to disappear death, to overcome all material laws, to reverse every sign of sin, and to recognizing that all of the things of this world are literally NOTHING. They are not a special something, or a God-filled something, or a real-something, or meaningful, or important.

"There is no world. This is the central thought the Course would aim to teach". Quite literally, Jesus's disappearing of His body foreshadows the "Disappearance of the Universe", which WILL happen when the brotherhood is again united in truth, because this world is NOTHING more than an illusion and God did not create it.

You do not need a body to exist. You do not need this world to exist. You are Immortal Spirit, forever.

Below is the quote from Jesus where He described this from the additional material given to Helen.

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it. The last one had gone. It was laid in the tomb, but there was nothing left to bury. It did not disintegrate because the unreal cannot die. It merely became what it always was. And that is what "rolling the stone away" means. The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body’s nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear.

I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body’s worthlessness to the world. This has been much misunderstood. I came to tell them that death is illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. They did not understand. But now I talk to you and give you the same message. The death of an illusion means nothing. It disappears when you awaken and decide to dream no more. And you still do have the power to make this decision as I did.

God holds out His hand to His Son to help him rise and return to Him. I can help because the world is illusion, and I have overcome the world. Look past the tomb, the body, the illusion. Have faith in nothing but the spirit and the guidance God gives you. He could not have created the body because it is a limit. He must have created the spirit because it is immortal. Can those who are created like Him be limited? The body is the symbol of the world.

Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there anytime you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so. And then, and then… I cannot speak of that.

A body cannot stay without illusions, and the last one to be overcome is death. This is the message of the crucifixion; there is no order of difficulty in miracles. This is the message of the resurrection: Illusions are illusions. Truth is true. Illusions vanish. Only truth remains.

These lessons needed to be taught but once, for when the stone of death is rolled away, what can be seen except an empty tomb? And that is what you see who follow me into the sunlight and away from death, past all illusions, on to Heaven’s gate, where God will come Himself to take you home."

God thinks in a holographic way, in that God who is whole can only wholly create whole beings who are themselves whole. And yet these whole beings must inherit and share their wholeness with their creator and with each other, because there is only one whole. This produces a dynamic in which many parts are themselves whole because they share and inherit their wholeness with the rest. God thus has many whole children who are part of Him and inherit all of Him, and who are co-creators with Him and with each other.

"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is perfectly natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to you."

What this then means is that God uses His mind to create additional minds which are, while whole minds in and of themselves, share a single mind. This singular mind is the Christ mind which is also their shared identity, and yet while being wholly Christ they are also simutaneously many individual souls. And each one of them has everything.

"You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did.""One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."

Literally and without limitation or exception, you ARE ALL of your brothers. And EACH individual one of them, is themselves, and are also ALL of you. And together you are the Sonship, and in union you are the One Son, Christ.

Oneness does not ONLY mean that there is only one mind. Oneness does not ONLY mean that there are many separate minds who stay separate. Oneness means the many minds are one mind AND yet still many minds. Because this is how it works in a holographic system - which is the thought system of God.

The natural conclusion is therefore. ... every other person IS you, and you ARE them, and you are IN them, and you SHARE everything with everyone. You are literally IN their mind, and their mind literally IS your mind. And yet, at the same time, you have your own mind, because you have your own soul. That you can be fully yourself, and that this entails being also simultaneously fully all others, is miraculous.

"We are the Kingdom, WE, the Sons of God."

"The Kingdom of Heaven IS you."

To recognize a shared interest requires that you recognize your brother - who temporarily seems to be in a body, is LITERALLY your shared self. If you were to recognize they are you, or part of you, your "interests" would be to look out for THEIR best interests as well as your own, and that it would serve you to support what is only in BOTH your best interests.

If they are you, it serves both your interests that you not attack yourself OR them, otherwise you are attacking both, and therefore yourself. This is where you begin to live by the Golden Rule, that the truth is the same for both of you. And it is by recognizing that they are literally one with you, that it becomes obvious that there is no sense in anything other than loving them.

As soon as a person recognizes in some way that other people ARE themselves, by which I do not mean there is ONLY you, but that we have a collective mind, in which you are you and they are them and yet you are both each other, this is the beginning of being a Teacher of God. It means that your mind is willing to transcend separation and recognize some degree of oneness with another, which is a unifying light, and therefore reflects God.

"A teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be one. His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else's. Once he has done that, his road is established and his direction is sure. A light has entered the darkness.It may be a single light, but that is enough. He has entered an agreement with God even if he does not yet believe in Him. He has become a bringer of salvation. He has become a teacher of God."

It is wrong to merely say, "My brother is myself", as if to say that there is ONLY you. This is an ego standpoint. It also blinds you to the free will of others. It is also wrong to say "Me and my brother are SEPARATE". This also is an ego viewpoint, in which we are two and NOT one. Neither of these viewpoints are true and neither reflects God. What reflects God is what reflects His holographic nature, in which your brother IS you, and yet, they also have their own soul. Where it is simultaneously true, that you have a self with free will, and yet, you also share everything with other selves.

It's time to start being part of the living hologram of the mind of God. It is the BODY that hides this truth from all of us, acting as a separation device and presenting images of each other as different, unshared and unalike. Bodies are illusions. "What you are cannot be seen nor pictured." But you can know your brother as yourself.

"THE BODY'S EYES SEE ONLY FORM. 4 THEY CANNOT SEE BEYOND WHAT THEY WERE MADE TO SEE. 5 And they were MADE TO LOOK ON ERROR AND NOT SEE PAST IT. 6 Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they CAN SEE ONLY ILLUSIONS, UNABLE TO LOOK beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of NOTHING."

Ok so.... the body's eyes, the physical eyes, your eyeballs, are like little machines or sensing devices. All they do is detect sensory input. They do not see. Even in basic scientific interpretations all the eyes do is "send signals to the brain." The body's eyes do not interpret anything. They don't think, they don't "see", they don't have a mind, they don't do anything other than transmit messages beyond themselves. A physical object will still "look like" the same physical object no matter how your perception interprets things.

The body's eyes were made to fulfill a very specific function, just like a machine. They are "locked into" that function. They cannot clean the dishes, they cannot build a house, all they can do is "perceive falsely" and look at illusions. All they can do, is see illusions, errors, sins, surfaces of forms, as if they are real. This is all they were designed to do.

They will not EVER be able to do anything else. You cannot and will not ever be able to make the body's eyes look AT or SEE anything other than a world of forms, bodies, objects, physicality, sin, error, and illusions. No matter how enlightened you are, no matter what kind of interpretation you have, no matter what state your "perception" is in, your body's eyes can ONLY fixate on forms and appearances of physical objects.

The body's eyes are FIXED in a state of permanently seeing HELL, as if it's real. They have FALSE perception. They send signals to your mind, pictures of hell seeming to be real, pictures of forms which block awareness, pictures of bodies moving around in various states of sickness. This will ALWAYS be what the body's eyes do. No matter how advanced you are.

And this is a problem. Because now you've got to find a way of seeing the world in a different way, to interpret these IMAGES and messages in such a way, that you don't keep fixating on form, illusion, sin, error or illusions.

That means your mind has to learn to SEE PAST these images. You have to learn to OVERLOOK what they seem to show. You have to forgive them. You have to NOT BELIEVE what they are showing you. You have to learn to see BEYOND the surface of physical objects, to the Christ, which the objects were made to obscure.

That means learning to recognize that the ILLUSIONS that the body's eyes are ONLY capable of seeing, are NOT TRUE. You have to learn that everything they see is NOT REAL. They ONLY look at illusions as if they're reality. You have to learn that these pictures of illusion seeming real are FALSE, and stop buying into them!

You have to transition away from the physical eyes, which are permanently fixated on illusions, to using the spiritual eye (Holy Spirit's vision) which overlooks everything the body's eyes claim is real, and sees reality BEYOND them. You need a new way of SEEING.

This is how your mind learns to perceive love and light "in" the world BEYOND the world, in spite of the world, overlooking the world, seeing past bodies, disregarding appearances, looking beyond differences, and basically looking THROUGH and PAST all physical forms, as if they do not exist. Because they don't.

Do not believe your eyes!

Your eyes will not EVER show you heaven. But the images they show you of HELL, can be interpreted in a TRUTHFUL way, a correct way, which is the recognition that these images are FALSE ILLUSIONS, and that reality is something ELSE beyond them. God is IN everything you see because God is IN your mind.... God is BEYOND everything you see. You see God IN SPITE OF and BESIDES seeing forms. This does not make forms reality. It proves that forms are ILLUSIONS. And all the physical world has ever been doing is pulling the wool over your eyes and blinding you to reality.

You will never see these images AS HEAVEN. You will never see them as TRUTH. They will ALWAYS be photographs of hell. But what needs to happen is your awareness must expand beyond the physical, beyond forms, beyond the images, to see some other content that the body's eyes CANNOT SEE. To see the presence of God, love and light. You see that additional material IN SPITE OF the limitations that are shown by the body's sight. You don't suddenly turn those images into images of heaven.

You see heaven PAST those images and recognize that those images are not interfering with your vision. You have to learn that your body was made NOT for seeing, and to see using a whole new apparatus of vision which is NON PHYSICAL and does not look at the physical AT ALL.

ACIM is not really non-duality, or duality. It's sort of both. ACIM makes this clear statement about the nature of God and reality:

"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is PERFECTLY natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to you" UrT16C3

This is the holographic principle. There is a whole (God) which has parts (sons of God), and each part contains the whole (oneness with God). The one whole is shared by the whole and the parts (brothers, inheritance etc).

Most people think of reality as sort of "one thing". Like one large area or an expanse or some kind of bigness. But that's more or less the same as the idea of spacetime or the universe. God is not actually like that. God is holographic.

In a holographic system there is a singular wholeness, which we call God. But there is also a characteristic of this wholeness - the entire wholeness is in every part. Every part of God contains the whole of God. ALL of God pays FULL attention to EVERY part simultaneously - because God is infinitely transcendental and can do this even if it sounds impossible.

God is also a creator and is capable of fully absolutely creating secondary beings who are like himself. But he cannot add-on anything outside of himself, so instead he adds on INSIDE of himself.

He does this by SHARING himself entirely with that which he creates, and that means that his creation has to also SHARE all of itself with everything. This is a kind of "internal expansion" of the Kingdom. It does not involve creating OUTSIDE the kingdom or beyond be pre-existing totality of God.

This sharing produces fully-created beings who inherit everything from God and share everything with God. They have a oneness with God. But they ARE fully created individual beings. They are completely full in every sense of the word. They contain everything like God does. Which means they absolutely exist, and yet at the same time are one with the absolute.

This results in a holographic system in which God is the main whole who creates "additional wholes" that share everything with him and with each other. Each part of God has the whole of God in it. Each son of God contains the whole of God and everyone else. We are all unified and merged and fused together.

This doesn't mean we lose our duality. It doesn't mean we lose individuality, or that we can't tell where we end and God begins. We DO have a discrete independent existence as absolute beings. But we ALSO have total oneness with the whole.

This seems like a paradox to most people. But it is actually miraculous.

Because a holographic system has wholeness to it, we identify that wholeness as "oneness" and might call it "non-duality". However, a holographic system ALSO has parts to it - whole parts, which share the whole and yet are whole in their own right. These "parts" might be called "duality".

This means that IN REALITY, the nature of God as a holographic system comprises BOTH ... non-duality AND duality, fused together as one. Everything is God, but God has parts which are living beings in their own right.

This is what A Course in Miracles teaches. And it means that there is material which in a certain CONTEXT is focusing on the non-dual aspects of the hologram, such as the oneness and the "God is" and "there is no opposite" and all that. But in other contexts it also speaks of God's infinite creations, the many sons of God, your own creations, your own kingdom, permanent brothers and so on.

ALL of these aspects of the course are simultaneously true. Even if they sound contradictory. If God's reality was NOT holographic they would indeed be contradictory and you'd have to resolve that by separating off some parts as "ego" or "separation" or "illusions". That's what many people do, in error. Because they don't realize reality actually is a holographic system not a "blob".

Ultimately then ACIM is not non-duality, or duality. But it is PARTLY non-duality and PARTLY duality. The two are fused together in a kind of "trans-duality". Transcendent of both exclusive-oneness and exclusive-separateness. God is not EXCLUSIVE anything - God is INCLUSIVE. Which is why the "non-duality" INCLUDES "the duality".

By duality here I do not mean spacetime. Spacetime is duality WITHOUT the non-duality, ie exclusively dual. That's not the same as the trans-duality of God in which every part is the whole. In space time, every part is PARTIAL and incomplete. The opposite of duality is not-nonduality, it's transcendental of the whole "either this or that" mindset.

"The whole does define the part, but the part does NOT define the whole. This is as true of knowledge as it is of perception." UrT8H2

"There IS no difference between the whole and the part where change is impossible." UrT8H2

"Because the Sonship MUST create as one, you remember creation whenever you recognize part of creation. Each part you remember adds to YOUR wholeness, because each part IS whole." UrT9E5

"Creation is the holy Son of God, for in Creation is His Will complete in every aspect, making every part container of the whole." UrW320W113

"The whole power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His Will is either great or small." UrT10G10

"It shines in every part of Him, as in the Whole." UrT17E16

"Every loving thought held in ANY part (of the Sonship) belongs to every part. It is shared BECAUSE it is loving. Sharing is God's way of creating, and also YOURS." URT5F9

"The creations of every Son of God are yours, because every creation belongs to everyone, being created for the Sonship as a whole." UrT7J6

"But the Resurrection IS the symbol of sharing, because the re-awakening of every Son of God is necessary to enable the Sonship to know its wholeness." UrT6B13