Here's your secret. It's a bigger secret than that you tried to kill God's son. And it's a bigger secret than that you attacked God and still want to be separate.

The biggest secret of all, is that you are actually already Christ.

Christ is your true identity. It's who you are.

Now, let's talk about the secret. See, you are trying to disguise who you are. You're trying not to admit who you are. You're trying to deny it and cover it up and pretend you are someone else. Just as you are trying to deny that God loves you, you're denying that you ARE as God created you.

So, here's a useful forgiveness practice. How about we call this... OWNING UP TO WHO YOU ARE. This contains elements of 'taking full responsibility', but also essentially ties it all together in one simple package.

How about you admit to your real identity, and how about you admit to what the truth is about you? How about you come clean and own up to being Christ and to being completely innocent? How about you drop all the pretense that you are someone or something else, or that you have need for all of your pain and misery and problems... which are ALL just cover-ups. Right?

Every single problem in your life, every upset, every unworthiness, every bad experience, every false identity, and every attack you've ever been through, is all part of you denying who you really are. Let's be honest now. Let's own up to who we really are.

I am willing to admit I am Christ.

I am willing to admit that I am not really [your ego name] and in fact I'm God's holy son. Actually it's true that I'm innocent and holy and forgiven completely and have never done anything wrong.

I admit that I am God's child and cannot sin. I have my hands in the air and I CONFESS, I am absolutely immortal spirit and I have never been able to die and I never will die. And I also admit that I am not the little ego self that I keep trying to convince everyone of, including myself, that I am. I am not this separate self I am One.

I admit that I made up this entire illusion to cover up my identity and that I've been in disguise and undercover this whole time, trying to make out that I am some kind of unworthy unlovable nothing, so that nobody will notice what my real identity is. I admit that I have always known who I really am and I've always been Christ.

You're right, I've been pretending this whole time that I'm not with God and that I don't belong with God. It's not true. I've been bluffing this entire time, all these lifetimes, pretending not to be Christ. I've portrayed myself as all kinds of pretend bodies and people and identities to perpetrate a huge conspiracy that I'm someone else and that God' Son no longer exists.

I've been 'undercover boss' this whole time, hiding in the shadows and lurking and not owning up to my power and not claiming my true identity. I admit it, I'm actually God's creation and God has created me permanent and real and I am not any of the illusions that I've been saying I am.

My cover is blown and you caught me out, I'm really ultimately guiltless and sinless and I haven't even separated from God. My whole life story is just a big distraction to get everyone to believe that something happened to me and that I didn't want anything to do with it. I orchestrated the whole thing. I made it all up myself and fooled you all, and even tried to fool myself. I've been in disguise, concealed behind layers of denial and pretend forgetfulness.

Yup. I'm Christ. I confess. I own up to it. It's who and what I am. I am immortal spirit and I always was and nothing has happened to change anything about me. Of course God loves me, He has this whole time, I was just lying when I said He didn't. The lid is off, the cat is out of the bag.

Like, hellllooooooooooo. I'm Christ, ok. ... you got me.

"The body cannot create, and the belief that it can, a fundamental error, produces all physical symptoms. Physical illness represents a belief in magic"

Interesting huh. Jesus isn't saying that some illnesses are caused by a belief in the body having the power to create sickness. He is saying that ALL sicknesses of all kinds are produced by believing that the physical level of 'existence' has CAUSAL POWER over your mind.

Essentially, MAGIC, is the belief that something separate from the mind has power to cause the mind. This is the same as being a victim. It's the same as believing things outside of you do things to you. It's the same as the belief that your brother does something to hurt you and that you then demonstrate this is true by showing harm in your body. That is magical. It's a fantasy about how a 'special power' has come along and produced an 'effect' WITHOUT the mind being involved and WITHOUT YOU CAUSING IT.

The reversal of cause and effect is a gross "confusion of the levels". Confusing mind with body. But moreso, confusing the fact that mind is the creator/dreamer with the body which is the created/dream. Such confusion produces 'magical' explanations for why things happen - they don't seem to happen just because YOU had anything to do with it, they seem to happen through some kind of magical mysterious unexplainable 'something' that happens entirely outside your awareness.

Let's reiterate - ALL SICKNESS is caused by a belief in magic. A BELIEF IN magic. That means, every single time we see ourselves as a victim, every time we are irresponsible for our causal power, every time we are disempowered by ourselves, every time we are 'confused' about WHERE THE CAUSE IS (in our mind - GOD is the ultimate cause), that's when sickness is generated.

Sickness then is an attempt to mis-create by using creation against God. It's where we turn around and instead of extending God, we go AGAINST God. We attempt to block God, stop God, attack God, attack the mind, and prevent Him from being the Cause. That produces every physical, emotional or mental illness. ALL of them. Every sickness on the entire planet in the history of mankind AND all animals and creatures AND even that of the earth and air and water and whatever else... *every* form of sickness in the universe, is caused by this 'level confusion'.

We are looking at a 'creation' - the body - the world - and we are attempting to believe that IT has the power to create, to make things happen, that it has its own alien will, and that it can do things to you ON ITS OWN. That is magic. That will result in sickness.

But even moreso, what we're doing here is, we're trying to deny that God is the cause of all creation. It's not just about 'the cause is in my mind'. God is in your mind, or rather, your mind is IN GOD. When we try to deny that God is the Father, that God is the CAUSE or source of everything real, that produces sickness. We are sick because we're blocking the extension of eternal life (creation). We are sick because we don't want love. We are sick because we believe we are separate from God. We are sick because we don't want to love other people unconditionally. When God is not the cause, we're actually saying, the body/world/ego/separation IS GOD. And we worship it. And all its forms. We replace God with the world, and that means we will be sick.

Put God first!

I complain that food manufacturers constantly package food in containers which are way larger than the contents, and when you go to open it up you find it's half empty and feel deceived. It IS a dishonest practice. At first it was the 'oh potatoe chips need extra air space to cushion them against breakage' but then it was... well, here's 20 other foods that don't have this risk but still come with a large airspace. The packaging mis-represents what you actually will get. Ok, that's just a deceptive shitty lie.

Ok. That's my complaint. Now, let's look at what has happened because of this complaint.

I've started out by seeing myself as being victimized. I ask, who am *I* in this scenario. There's the food manufacturer over there and there's the product sitting in front of me and I'm seeing this scenario where I'm looking at ME in a particular way. I think I'm looking at the food container and complaining, but that's actually a few steps down the road. What happened before my angry reaction was me seeing myself 'in' the scenario as a victim. ie..

1) If the food item has more empty space than needed, I have decided that this means there is dishonesty. It's dishonesty on the level of form and implies deceit.

2) If there is deceit in the food item, and because I say it means they are being deceiving, and because I have an interest in this food item, I am now a part of the story and it is ME that is being deceived. It's personal!

3) Now that it's 'affecting me' (because of the way I CHOSE to position myself as the victim in the story), I am now justified in anger and annoyance. Now I can blame them. Now I can say it's their fault that I am angry, because what they did happened before what I did. But this covers up the fact that what I did (made it real, gave it meaning it doesn't have, treated it as non-neutral), happened before anything else.

4) If I am seeing guilt in the food container then who is experiencing guilt? I might be trying to get THEM to experience guilt but it's a part of my reality, so *I* am experiencing guilt, albeit displaced. That means there's guilt in my mind, and I believe in my own guilt. That means I believe I've sinned, and I'm trying to pin it on the food container and the people who made it wrongly.

So as I find the huge airspace in a bag of chips annoying, or the gross vomit-like quality of tv dinners to be nothing like the beautiful arrangement on the box cover, or the totally unnecessary container size housing rather less product just to get me to think that I am getting more than I am, I have this opportunity to realize.... this is ONLY there to trigger my own self-attack and to remind me that I am CHOOSING to see myself as a victim, and I'm only choosing that because *I* BELIEVE* I am deceptive and dishonest and guilty. Hmmm.

So... then it boils down to this. I can't hold THEM guilty without holding myself guilty, because this guilt is mine. Hmm. Ok, I forgive them BECAUSE they did not do anything, I DID IT. And I forgive me because I did not really DO anything, nothing has happened. And I am forgiven already because none of this happened in the first place, it's just a dream that isn't real. And I am actually whole and one with GOD right now being HAPPY rather than right. Yay. We are ALL innocent and equal and One and none of us are guilty at all.

Ok now to eat some chips.

If you're open-minded to the idea that heaven is a place you can go, which is not the Earth, the retelling of a profound near death experiences will be clarifying and validating for you.

After leaving the body, we travel to a kind of summer land, a beautiful "other side" dimension (which is not Earth), complete with beautiful landscapes and people etc ... likely what we might call the astral plane or "lower heaven". Then we move on to a direct encounter with God in his higher dimension of heaven.

For me this is roughly the "structure" that I believe "exists", ie Earth and spacetime are a much denser lower-order realm, above is the astral "spirit world" dimension where people typically hang out between lifetimes etc, and then beyond that is heaven proper where we are one with God.

A Course in Miracles does lend itself to these ideas because as it states in Song of Prayer:

"If there has been true healing, this can be the form in which death comes when it is time to rest a while from labor gladly done and gladly ended. Now we go in peace to freer air and gentler climate" This "gentler climate" is the astral spirit world - still a dream perhaps but a higher dream and more beautiful than this lower denser world we call Earth. I do SOMETIMES wonder if "the real world" spoken of in ACIM might be perhaps in some way a reference to that "summer land", another dimension beyond this one yet short of heaven.

One possible clue is when Jesus speaks of rivers which never waste away - which have been spoken of in various near-death experiences.

"when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision? And AFTER vision, who is there who COULD refuse what MUST come after?"

I guess we'll find out. For sure I am firm in the belief that this physical level of human bodies and bullshit is not and never could be God's Kingdom. Beyond this world there is at least another entire dimension, if not many. When you hear people speaking of actually experiencing it, we can no longer remain closed-minded or regard the spacetime of the "physical universe" to be real, or our true home in God. Ultimately, it is nothing.

"Salvation is no more than a reminder this world (Earth/Spacetime) is NOT your home"

"The (physical) body can be made a home like this BECAUSE it lacks foundation in the truth. And yet, BECAUSE it does, it can be seen as NOT your home, but merely as an aid to help you reach the home (when you leave it behind) where God abides (in heaven)."

When I am reminded of things like this, which sometimes are thought to be outside of "acim teachings", but nevertheless hinted at by them, I feel more in touch with my own inner truth. I recall that there are indeed other dimensions, life beyond the physical, and a heaven that is not of this world.

"Your Kingdom is not of this world (Earth/Spacetime) because it was given you from BEYOND this world (Heaven)."

"Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world (Earth/Spacetime) does not exist because what they behold (Heaven) must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world."

Lesson 14 simply says that God did not create physical things because they are not real. For example.

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

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

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

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

If you notice it says that God did not create an airplane crash. So let's think about that for a moment. It isn't saying that there's an airplane crash that can be looked at with a different kind of perception which somehow sees that God DID create the airplane. It isn't saying that the airplane is REAL. It isn't saying that the airplane has any kind of existence at all.

It's saying literally that there IS NO airplane, and there is NO CRASHED airplane, and the whole thing DOES NOT exist because God DID NOT create it.

While yes in the short term you might have a changed perception which allows you to look upon the airplane crash and not label it as a tragedy, or not think of it with fear, or not regard it as a problem, in some bigger perspective, this still does not change what the lesson is teaching. The lesson is simply teaching that the ENTIRE THING DOES NOT EXIST.

What does that tell you?

It tells you that planet earth, all physical objects, all physical bodies, all matter, all galaxies, the whole contents of space and time, every form of matter, ever shape and object, all of it IS NOT created by God. It does not say that we are merely failing to recognize it as God's creation. It does not say that if you look at it properly you'll see that it is made of God. It does not say that forgiveness will show it to you differently than the ego shows it, although that will happen. But even a true perception of it will NOT change the facts of what the lesson is teaching.

The lesson is teaching you that God does not create airplanes, or crashes, or the potential for crashes, or objects with metal wings, or motorized propellors, or air conditioning units, or oxygen tanks, or any other such physical things. Not even the physical bodies of the pilots or the passengers, or their luggage. NONE OF IT.

The simple lesson is that the whole thing IS NOT REAL. It is NOT THERE. It DOES NOT EXIST.

And on that basis, it is implying clearly and obviously that planet earth does not exist. Not that we're merely mis-perceiving earth, or mis-perceiving something that God DID create. It's telling you that he had absolutely nothing to do with airplanes whatsoever, on any level, in any way. And therefore because these things are not real, they DO NOT exist, have NOT been created, are NOT part of God, and are NOT THERE.

It could have simply gone on to say "God did not create that planet earth and therefore it is not real."

This in turn tells you that there must be some OTHER WORLD which is there, which God did create, some kingdom of God which is like God's nature and DOES NOT contain airplanes that crash or airplanes of any kind. Who needs airplanes when you can be anywhere you want with a thought? Who needs crashes when you are immortal spirit?

It's not merely that we're misperceiving earth, as though there is a real earth beneath our ego projections. There is NO EARTH. It's an entirely un-created, un-real world on all levels and in all ways. And that is where it is part of a second system of thought, secondary to God's system of thought - which is heaven, and which is a kingdom NOT OF THIS WORLD, and NOTHING to do with earth at all.

This should be very simple to understand and accept, and it is statement like this that should tell you one and for all the earth is not only not real and not a creation of God, it does not exist in reality at all. Hence the teaching "there is no world."

This is an absolutely bullet-proof teaching. It is impossible to conclude anything else about it without states of denial and twisting of meanings and distortions of truths.

It should also be obvious that even in a practical sense God did not create airplanes because PEOPLE make them out of piles of parts. And God did not create the parts, or the materials that they're made from. God had nothing to do with it. YOU MADE THIS UP!

In ACIM Jesus sometimes says things which SOUND contradictory, but they are not. He will claim one thing, then claim another, sometimes in the same sentence. And it will sound like the two things are totally opposite. So then you'll tend to conclude only one of the two statements can be true. But this is a mistake.

Here are some examples of logically cryptic-sounding self-contradictory statements:

"It should be noted that God HAS begotten only ONE Son. If you believe that all of the Souls that God created ARE His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul MUST be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship."

"I and my Father are one."

"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."

"Within its holy circle, is everyone whom God created as His Son."

"Healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad."

"God has but one Son, knowing them all as one."

The reason they sound contradictory is because they simultaneously take two logically opposing positions. For example he tells us God has one son, but in the next breath tells us God created many sons. Or he tells us there's "I" and "my father" and then says they are "one". Then he's talking about brothers, suggesting more than one, but is talking about how they are seemingly one thing. Or how God created "everyone" within heaven, but then refers to them as a seemingly singular "one son". Even to suggest that God has one son, but that he knows "them all" as one.

So then you find yourself asking, how can it be possible that God is having one son AND that God is knowing "them all" as one? And USUALLY what almost everyone does, who thinks the way most people think, is to SIDE WITH one or the other of the statements, and DISMISS the other. Because that "seems to make sense". Because if you can turn a blind eye to the contradiction, you seem to "solve" the problem. But this is a TOTAL FAIL. Here's why.

The ego thought system is based on separation. The separation always suggests that something is true of one thing which is NOT true of another. It is the opposite of an equality-based system. It reasons that the truth is DIFFERENT for everyone. That something is either true of this OR that, but not both. The whole ego approach is to differentiate and make un-equal everything it refers to. This results in ME VS YOU, ie war.

Examples of this are e.g. "I am innocent, you are guilty". "I parked in the first parking space, not the second". "I bought the red one, not the blue one". "Its either male or female". "You can go north or south". "I took the left door, not the right door." "I am Paul, not Jim" etc.

The whole PHYSICAL world, and all of space and time, was MADE based on this thought process or "way of reasoning". In fact you can say the physical world IS the ego thought SYSTEM. And so when you THINK this way, in terms of "EITHER THIS OR THAT, BUT NOT BOTH", it maps very very well to the physical world. It doesn't seem to produce contradictions either.

I'm either in America or in England but not in two places at once. I can go north or south, but not both. I am old or young, but not both. I can have the salad for supper or the beef steak but not both. I can buy the house or the condo but not both. etc. I can go left or right but not both. etc

The trouble is, God's Kingdom is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to this way of thinking, being opposite to THIS WORLD.

"Earth, heaven's opposite in every way."

The whole system is completely unlike it. And what's POSSIBLE in God's system is IMPOSSIBLE in the ego's system. And what makes SENSE in God's system appears to be utter NONSENSE in the ego's reasoning.

And the thing is, pretty much everyone in this world, whether you're into ACIM or not, and even if you are, USES the ego's reasoning system to draw conclusions.

That's fine, if you're talking about the physical world. But the instant you start talking about God's Kingdom, his laws, his nature, his creations, you are now in TOTALLY inappropriate territory for that way of thinking. That way of thinking is NOT how God thinks, so it WILL NOT map correctly to God's Kingdom or draw correct conclusions about it. And HIS world is not broken up into pieces of "either this or that."

The key difference is that God's Kingdom and system of thought, logic and reason, are based on INCLUSION AND SHARING. Whereas the ego's system is based on EXCLUSION and SEPARATION. This can be simplified to two simple equations or formulations:

God: BOTH THIS AND THAT ARE EQUALLY TRUE.

Ego: EITHER THIS IS TRUE OR THAT IS TRUE, BUT NOT BOTH.

You can also see that since God's Kingdom is reality, and the ego is the idea of the OPPOSITE of God, the ego is a logical "operation" of NOT GOD, or the negation of God. And if eternity is "always", the ego's opposite is NEVER. ie "always never."

Which is why its whole system is based on this notion of "This is true, but that is not". ie EITHER this is true, OR it's false, but not both. Or this applies to ME OR YOU, but not both at once. There is no simultaneous, at-once, sharing, or inclusiveness, in the ego world. And that limits its thought process.

In God's thought system, God shares all of himself with his creations. This SHARING, fundamental to his nature, means that his creations HAVE everything God has. Without limit. Without compromise. Without one person having something and having to wait until the other is done with it. They SHARE it, like simultaneous access. And they OVERLAP each other, which is impossible in the physical world without causing an atomic explosion.

Similarly, the Golden Rule which describes God's thought system, applies here just the same. What is true of one brother, is true of another brother. What is true of one of God's creations, is true of ALL creations. Every thing God creates is EQUAL in its nature and its wholeness and its perfection and its LIKENESS to God.

So now you can say something which sounds bizarre like, if what is true of ME is true of YOU, then it is true of BOTH of us. It is true of ME *AND* YOU. Which means if it is true that I am me, it must also be true that YOU ARE ME ALSO. And now there are two things, me and you, which are ALSO simultaneously BOTH one thing, while still being two things.

THAT is the "oneness" that is taking place in reality. And it's this oneness of sharing that many do not understand because it DEFIES exclusive thinking. I am INCLUDED in my brother, I am INCLUDED In God, and my creations are INCLUDED in me.

In God's system, a whole bunch of seemingly bizarre things are possible and true. For example Jesus talks about how when you GIVE in reality, you SHARE it, and now YOU have it AND the other has it. Because now both of you share the same thing. And instead of having to LOSE the thing, you now allow another to GAIN it while you RETAIN it. Which means it has INCREASED. This defies the ego's reasoning.

"Ideas are increased by sharing."

It would be silly to suggest that when God creates, he sacrifices himself and there is nothing of himself left, given that he GAVE ALL of himself to his creation. But that's what the ego would conclude. The ego would also conclude that if YOU have everything, NO ONE else can have ANYTHING, because there is nothing left to have that is not already yours.

Ego produces a FINITE system because it does not want to share anything and so sees everything as LIMITED in its amount. This also leads to conditional love, like love is a scarce commodity to be traded. The ego would say if you have all of God, no-one else can have any of God, because the ego is based on SELFISHNESS, which arises naturally as part of a system of exclusion. As Jesus confirms:

"Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT."

In the ego system, when you give something, you lose it, the other gains it, you sacrifice, and there is no increase. If I have a pizza and I want to "share" it with you, I have to SACRIFICE AND LOSE half the pizza. This is compromise, not sharing. We both have less than wholeness. But in heaven, its the total opposite. I can have the whole pizza, you can have the whole pizza, because we share it. We OVERLAP. We merge together and are one in our having of the pizza. And now we BOTH have THE WHOLE.

Similarly when you think about sons of God, the EGO's way of thinking would say you have to put things in concrete boxes and keep them SEPARATE. Which leads you to conclude, EITHER I am in my body, OR I am in your body, but not both. But God's law would say, I am in my brother and in myself at the same time. What is true of me is true of him. Therefore there are TWO brothers who ARE ONE. Their oneness or union DOES NOT IN ANY WAY overthrow or erase or undo or cancel, the fact that there are STILL TWO. And this applies clearly in cases like "one brother is all brothers", and "I and my father are one." Jesus confirms:

"This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER. Actually, the original statement was "are of one KIND.""

"Every mind is in all minds."

Notice here that he clarifies that there are STILL TWO PARTS in the statement. There is still ME and GOD. Two entities. Yet, they are ONE. Which means logically, 1=1 and 2=1. This makes no sense to the ego. But it is true. And accurate. And correct. This is how things are in reality. God has created a son, SHARED everything with him, so now THEY BOTH have everything, and thus they BOTH AS TWO ... are one. Their oneness does not undo their twoness, and their twoness does not undo their oneness. None of this has to do with the ego or "the separation".

The ego on the other hand, or those who THINK WITH the ego, tend to think about God's kingdom in EITHER OR terms. This is a complete logical failure. It results in false conclusions all over the place. If AIR, let's say, is in one box AND in another box, the ego would have to say, the air can only be IN one box OR the other box, not both. But the air is in both boxes. Similarly, a son of God is in his own box, BUT he is ALSO in the boxes of all the other sons. And in God's box/being.

If you use ego reasoning to draw conclusions about the inner contents of the Kingdom, YOU WILL come to a false conclusions, guaranteed. God's Kingdom is not made up of SEPARATE (un-shared) BOXES. It's made of SHARING boxes. So you can't say "either this or that", or "either one son or many", or "either God or God and a son", or "either oneness or separation" or "either one or many". That's all ego thought. It's a mistake. You have to THINK LIKE God to "get" what God's system is really like. And that way of think is to think WAAAY outside the box.

Once you recognize that God's system is based on a totally different kind of logic, basically "BOTH AND" rather than "EITHER OR", *EVERYTHING* Jesus says no longer is a contradiction. It is no longer contradictory to say "God has but one son knowing them all as one". It does not mean He only has a count of one son, because that ignores the fact he has many. And is does not mean that by having many they are "separate" in the ego sense, because they DO SHARE EVERYTHING and therefore transcend their boxes and thus ARE one. Their oneness and manyness coexists.

If all you do with these kind of statements is to TAKE SIDES with one PART of the statement and relegate the other to "the ego", that's a total fail. Because now you will relegate perfectly legitimate multitudes of creations of God to the realm of EGO, or multiple minds are now considered fragments of one mind, or multiple sons is considered an illusion. WHICH IS WRONG. It is completely a total failure of logical reasoning because the wrong kind of logic is being used

You can't just say "well it says I and my father are one, therefore I don't exist.". That's BS. That's what the EGO concludes. That's not God's conclusion, nor is it true. It is still true that YES, essentially, in truth, you and God ARE ONE THING. But, this oneness DOES NOT in the traditional sense mean or imply that there aren't ALSO two things. God IS a father and DID create a son.

I want to just make it clear that this is also NOT the same thing as"duality". Some people will argue that God having many of anything is duality. It is not the same at all.

Duality is the ego's idea of separateness. That is, that something is EITHER this OR that. This denies sharing. When you change the "OR" into an "AND", to correctly map to God's nature, the statement becomes THIS AND THAT. Which now suggests that there is sharing between TWO or more things. This is no longer duality, but it is also NOT THE END of individuality or many-ness. In any "contradictory" statement Jesus makes like that, THIS (part A) AND THAT (part B) are BOTH true. Without cancelling each other, and without opposing each other.

God's Kingdom is not duality. Duality means separate boxes WITHOUT sharing. As Jesus confirms:

"It is the part that believes your existence means you are SEPARATE. Everything the ego perceives is a separate whole, without the relationships that imply BEING."

Those RELATIONSHIPS, are the SHARING nature of the Kingdom. You need more than one of something to have relationship. It's what joins you with God and the Christ mind. But these relationships also do NOT undo your individuality. Nor does it imply that you having a self is unholy.

God who is whole, creates additional wholes beings. He cannot create partial beings. "The soul has not only been created perfect, it has been FULLY created, there is no lack in it." So now if God has a son, which he does, because he's a creator, and a father, His son MUST BE A WHOLE, yet to ego logic you can't have two wholes.

If God is all encompassing, there is NO ROOM FOR ANY SON AT ALL. To the ego, anyway. Because "two wholes" is nonsense to the ego. Yet many proponents of oneness and non-duality like the idea of there being at least a son still, which is COMPLETELY illogical in any thought system.

Ego thinkers who struggle with logic will conclude this. But the truth is God does have a son, and there ARE TWO WHOLES. The reason this is POSSIBLE is because of sharing. The two wholes SHARE everything, and therefore ARE ALSO ONE WHOLE. EACH SON therefore is a WHOLE SON, has everything, and shares it with the WHOLE of the rest. As Jesus confirms:

"God who encompasses all being, NEVERTHELESS created "separate" beings, who have EVERYTHING individually, and want to share it to increase their joy."

This is a statement of divine logic. God is whole, and yet, he SHARED himself to create MANY "separate" beings, INDIVIDUAL WHOLES - souls, sons, who HAVE EVERYTHING because they share all of God, and they WANT to SHARE it. This statement was taken out of later editions btw, probably due to ego thought processes that deemed it "nonsense" or "suggesting separation", appearing to be a contradiction when it IS NOT. God created separate beings who are share as one.

Technically God should not have a son, or be a father, or a creator, if God is everything. Because what is all encompassing cannot have an opposite, thus cannot create a division or separation. BUT God DOES that, not by SPLITTING, but by SHARING. He allows within his own being the presence of additional beings provided they SHARE ALL of what is, thus NOT invalidating their individuality OR the wholeness of the system

"Nothing real can be increased, except by sharing."

Even to the ego the idea of God having even ONE son makes no sense. It implies separation and two-ness. And that is against the EGO'S spiritualized concept of "oneness" meaning "a count of one". Ego reasons, if you remove all separations, you must end up with ONE BLOB. One perfect blob, which we'll call oneness or God. And thus IT concludes THIS is what God is like. But this is the logical outcome of EGO thought processes. And it is COMPLETELY WRONG.

Or perhaps we can say it is partly right, because God IS one and his whole creation IS one, BUT.... it is also many. And it is this "one AND many" which the ego CANNOT comprehend. It can reason there is one, OR many, but not both. And BOTH is true. Because God IS a creator of many sons, and has a FAMILY. And his nature is to share, and be inclusive, which means BOTH me AND God exist.

"the whole family of God, or the Sonship"

"Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return"

AND, you have your own creations, which further adds to the sonship. AND God created the holy spirit. AND the angels. The Holy Trinity DOES have three entities. And "The Kingdom of God includes all his children and their creations." AND "Heaven is the sum of all God's thoughts, in number infinite." Infinite creations is a LOT MORE than "one". But the ego would balk at this as if it's some kind of "duality", or separation, or ego. EGO concludes that God is ego-like!

So if you really want to grasp HOW and WHY Jesus is NOT contradicting himself, and WHY his seemingly opposite statements are NOT against each other, and why ALL parts of his statements are true simultaneously, and why God did create multiple children who are BROTHERS, and why separate individual beings does not mean ego or duality, you have to adopt a whole different way of reasoning. A thought system LIKE how God thinks.

"Either this or that" is ego and DOES NOT work when used to think about ANYTHING in heaven. And this one "default" way of reasoning is what almost EVERY acim student uses, because we don't recognize that we're basing all our thought on a false permise and assumption. It's an assumption to believe that two things cannot be one thing, or it's "natural" for two things to be separate and not share anything, or that you can never have two things being one thing. You have to question this.

Such thinking has led to countless horrendous manglings of the course material and its meaning. Relegating Jesus's TRUE statements to PARTIAL truths and partial falsehoods. Which has produced interpretations of the course which fall way short. People then either conclude WRONG things about heaven, or they give up and exclaim its not possible to undestand it because they can't see HOW to think outside the box. BOTH are ego reactions to ITS failed logic.

"No-one who looks upon this "reasoning" EXACTLY as it is could fail to see it does NOT follow, and it makes NO sense. Yet it SEEMS sensible"

To the ego, the truth is UTTER NONSENSE. But what is nonsense to the ego, makes perfect sense to God. To him it is completely natural to create an infinite number of creations which all are whole and coexisting in total harmony, sharing everything without selfishness or egotism. And God's creations DO NOT think in terms of "me or you", but in terms of US. You have real holy brothers and always will.

"We are creation, WE, the sons of God."

Arriving at work I encountered my first truck load of live pigs on their way to the sausage factory across the street. It was a double-decker piggy wagon complete with air holes and little pink piggy bits poking out and wiggling around. As I realized what it was, and that it was about to pull into the bacon death machine, I had a reaction.

The reaction felt like sadness coupled with anger. The anger felt like wanting to go stop it, and the sadness felt like the pigs didn't know what was about to happen to them - that they were going to be victimized. Regardless of what was happening, I was having a reaction so now I have to do a fricking forgiveness.

Ok.

So obviously my perception is mistaken, otherwise I wouldn't be upset. It's impossible to be upset about the truth. My perception was showing me that the pigs were helpless victims with no power and seemingly innocent. A voice in my mind, perhaps Jesus, said

"they know what's going to happen". But this didn't necessarily stop me reacting. Truth is though, on some higher level they do know because nothing happens but by choice, and it was really me that was having a dark experience.

So... by seeing the pigs as `innocent victims` with `nasty ego power` being wielded over them against their will, it was a strong contrast showing me where I believe certain things. And it's not about the piggies, because both the pigs and the sausage makers are part of the same ego thought system. The pigs only appear to be victims because I don't see that they chose this, and the sausage folk only seem like victimizers because I think they do something to the pigs they didn't ask for.

And what's this got to do with me? Always it's something to do with me and nothing really to do with them. I'm not upset because of the pigs. I'm not upset because of the bacon fest. I'm upset because it's showing me that I already have something in me, in my mind, which believes in something incorrect, and it's triggering it off. It's not about them, it's about me. I have to withdraw all blame from the pig mongers and also withdraw all projection of victimhood from the piggies.

The piggies are not victims. The farmers are not victimizers. The greasy sausage folk are innocent. They don't even really exist. They're not really out there. It's a dream. I'm dreaming it. So....

That means I made up this whole scenario. I made pigs. I made sausages. I made bacon factories. So secretly this reminds me that I actually made up this whole thing myself which would mean I am guilty. So the guilt I see in them is my own guilt. Hmm.

Hmm. Ok. I am flashed a memory of a time in childhood when I used to hunt butterflies, ... and kill them. I used to swat them with a tennis racket, or capture them and keep them a while but then they died because I didn't feed them etc. Or even perhaps would stick a pin in them. Vicious! ooo.. juicy pool of guilt there. I didn't know what I was doing, so it's forgivable.

So even though I made that mistake and I secretly covet bacon and sausages and want to stick a pin in the pigs, its only because I have lost touch with the truth of who I am. I forgot I am love. I forgot I am holy and innocent and have no needs. I forgot God loves me. So.. .I'm just mistaken about being guilty. Even if I did nasty things to innocent creatures, I'm still innocent because I am not in my right mind. So I'm making mistakes and not realizing it. I'm not to blame. The butterflies forgive me. I forgive me. I am forgiven not for what I have done but because... I have not really done it.

This is a dream, it hasn't happened. I'm with God. I am guiltless and sinless. I haven't done anything to anyone. God is not harmed. Real immortal life has not been changed. I have not stopped being perfect love. I am absolutely forgivable and innocent and free. God loves me 100% because he knows that pigs and butterflies are just parts of a dream that has no meaning and I gave it all the meaning it had. I used the pigs and pig farmers as skapegoats to project my own guilt so that I would have a reason to justify being guilty, which would help me to stay away from God. I wanted to be away from God so I could keep my ego and not be loved.

So... do I want to keep suffering? Am I willing to let this go? Can I let go and surrender this need to prove I am guilty? Yes.. I willingly surrender this guilt and recognize I am forgiven, I claim and own up to being innocent because none of this really happened. God loves me. Nothing has gone wrong. Nothing has died. Death isn't real. Everyone is equally innocent and holy. Only love is real.

Holy Spirit, please heal my mind and correct my thinking and remove all of this guilt and help me to remember my true innocent and that of all concerned. I let it go. I accept your truth.

Amen.

Do you need to be fully awake in Christ in order to perform miracles? NO!!!!!!!!!

ACIM says of the miracle, "The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought was there."

I think this is telling us that there are sort of two 'modes' in which miracles can occur.

1) You have a degree of "faith" in the truth being true, which means believing in God, and disbelieving illusions, to at least some degree. And as a result of this, you TRUST a higher source of miracles to provide them. Jesus is the source of said miracles, and Holy Spirit is the mechanism. They come through you and around you, but you DO play a certain facilitating role in being a "conduit" for them. aka laying on of hands, speaking truth etc.

2) Eventually the faith that you had that God's truth was true, which was used to 'bridge the gap' between where you were and where God's truth was, is no longer "needed" as such because you have moved yourself into the Kingdom, into the Holy Spirit's mindset, and you are now in the position to actually perform the miracles directly.

In the paragraph, Jesus explains that the miracle is FIRST taken on faith, and you may not be able to see or understand its origins. This means it's still happening (the witnesses to faith still show up), and it's still a miracle, just that it's coming from a place you presently cannot see and you don't fully understand. But you're open enough to CONCEIVE of it, and that is enough to get you "access" to be part of the miracle process. You're willing to believe in it even if you don't FULLY trust it yet, and this is enough, because miracles depend on God's love, not on YOUR personal strength.

This initial faith will produce miracles and it will provide "proof" to your perception that there must really BE a God, there must really BE a source of miracles beyond what you currently can perceive. And then as your faith grows stronger or you become more awakened (same thing), as you gain trust in the truth, you will become aware of the "world" which the miracles were coming from (Heaven). You are then the Christ, sharing in the source of miracles, and having a fully miraculous mind (miracle readiness).

I think from this metaphysical structure, we can see that most miracles being performed today are in the first category, are based on faith, STILL PRODUCE RESULTS, and demonstrate that God's world is real.

However, there are FEW, if any, who are in the world right now, who are performing miracles as a result of being fully awakened to the Christ mind.

When you look at pretty much all of the Bible-based miracle workers, because they quite strongly believe that Jesus is the only Son of God (most of them anyway), this in a way puts a cap on their ability to "become Christ". Therefore almost the entirety of the miracles they perform appear to be based in a faith in the miracle-working power of Jesus, though unseen, and strengthen through faith. These miracles are impressive, but there is EVEN MORE beyond this that Christ is capable of in those who have fully mastered the illusion. That level of functioning is the final goal, as demonstrated by Jesus.

So yes you can perform miracles, or at least participate in the miracle process, even while you are "not yet Christ". While you are not fully awakened, they can still occur through you and around you and produce significant results. This type of miracle working can even raise the dead. There is no real distinguishing as to what is possible. You can share and extend Jesus' miraculous authority over illusions to produce supernatural results. But if you want to REALLY go all the way, able to demonstrate such things as walking on water, changing one object to another, flying, teleporting, dematerializing, multiplying food, manifesting stuff out of thin air, etc.. the FULL POTENTIAL of miracles, then you need to get yourself all the way to the Christ mind.

The passage also tells us that it is normal and natural as part of our awakening "process" to develop faith first, to have trust in the real truth, to some degree, and that this trust is ENOUGH to bring forth "signs" which demonstrate that miracles are occurring. You yourself are not as yet ONE with their Source, or even aware of their source directly, but you're still able to like... cast a fishing rod into the invisible ocean and pull out a miracle. Later, as you advance, you will become more "directly" positioned in the role of miracle worker.

Gotta start somewhere!

This passage by the way is followed by one of Jesus's beautiful paragraphs, which speaks again to our IMMORTALITY:

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."

(signs of Life as in signs of Eternal Life as in Miracles).

Quotes from workbook, p. 463; W-pII.13

Nothing happens without someone's mind deliberately willing it to happen. There are no exceptions to this. Separation did not happen without someone choosing it. Atonement does not happen without someone choosing it. Sickness does not happen without someone choosing it. Healing does not happen without someone choosing it.

Everything thus serves a PURPOSE. Everything is being USED. Everything has a FUNCTION. You make a choice, and if its a poor choice you will produce suffering and negative consequences. "I made the decision myself." You will need to "decide otherwise" if you want the result to be different. Whatever your mind sets up as a PREMISE, produces a logical OUTCOME. This it true all the way from God to the ego.

While there may be an ILLUSION of accidents, chaos, lack of order, unintentional outcomes, slip-ups, mis-haps, things that you did not will, stuff happening that you did not choose, random acts of nature, and all the other bullshit illusions of unintentionality, ALL of this is a lie. There is ALWAYS intention and deliberation and choice behind everything because you have free will. Nothing CAN happen without you willing it. And anything that does not happen is because you did not will it.

You move with utter deliberation. You make a choice and you execute it and it produces the EXACT result you intended. The only time you seem to produce results you did not intent is when you ACTUALLY DID intend it but believed that you were intending something else, because you had a split mind. This ties into the secret of salvation, which is the recognition that whatever you are experiencing you are choosing and there are NO other causes of your suffering, sickness, or death, other than YOUR deliberate decision to make them happen.

Nothing is accidental. Everything is planned. All acts are intentional. Everyone is always deliberate at all levels. What happens is what is being chosen to happen. If you do not like what you get you need to change your mind. Your mind has creative POWER. It causes effects. If you do not like the effects your mind made a wrong decision. Make the right decision and you will have salvation. Creating unconsciously is mis-creation only because you keep using your own toolset against itself, which hurts you, seemingly by mistake, but actually on purpose. If you don't want to hurt, stop hurting yourself.

There ARE no victims or victimizers. There are only choosers and consenters. You are a powerful creative force. Creations or illusions come out of you. Whatever you decide to produce will be produced. If you are producing a shit life it is because you are making shit choices. You HAVE the power to will in line with God's will, to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, which WILL make the way straight and bring total healing. If you will ONLY to heal, you will ONLY be healed.

This is single-mindedness, the opposite of split mindedness. This is an un-divided will, the opposite of a split will. This is being of one mind, the opposite of being in two minds. Nothing can oppose you because you are free.

Some years ago I had a dream of angels. In a pretty courtyard, a portal of light opened up, a few feet above the ground. There then floated through beautiful white-light angels. They all looked alike. They floated and then stopped, until deciding to move. When they moved they moved entirely deliberately. They floated to a new position and stopped mid-air. When they decided to move again, they moved and then stopped. It was completely intentional. Nothing happened that they did not choose. Every motion and action was on purpose. It was beautiful to behold.

"There are no accidents in salvation."

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

"Non one dies without their own consent."

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

"No-one is healed through double messages. If you wish ONLY to be healed, you heal. Your single PURPOSE makes this possible. But if you are AFRAID of healing, then it cannot come through you. The ONLY thing that is required for a healing is a lack of fear. The fearful are NOT healed, and cannot heal."

"Sickness is not an accident" .... "Defenses are not unintentional, nor are they made without awareness. They are secret magic wands you wave when truth appears to threaten what you would believe. They seem to be unconscious but because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them. In that second, even less, in which the choice is made, you recognize exactly what you would attempt to do, and then proceed to think that it is done."

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

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

If there is fear in you, and if you are projecting it outward, you will project it onto specific things. This is because fear is divisive and not whole, so it attaches to PARTS OF the environment. And in particular it can project onto a specific body.

When fear is projected, another's body is seen in a very isolating way. Fear distorts perception heavily and anchors you into the physical. It then seems that only the physical exists, only the physical rules apply, only physical causation is real, and there is no escape from anything.

By making your brother's body his "reality", focusing on its condition or form or appearance, projecting fear onto it, you turn it into an enemy. You give it power over you. Your whole awareness sinks into the ego and you can find no way out.

As the body is given reality, which is very easy to do when you are afraid, your whole focus shuts out the mind and awareness of any higher truth. And now you feel like you are completely imprisoned and held captive by this "sinful body" you see. Like you are locked in and completely at its effect. Anything it does, or doesn't do, now seems to completely affect you against your will, as if you have no ability to stop it or do anything about it. If the person has a sickness or problem and cannot fix it, or isn't trying to, you will now feel like they are imposing limits on you and forcing you to suffer.

Seeing yourself as a victim of this dynamic, already deep in fear with nowhere to turn, everything now seems like a closed system. Having bound your brother to his body, imprisoning him, you see yourself as imprisoned. And now your brother's body seems to be attacking you. This incites reactions of even more fear, which turns into anger and rage, justified due to what he seems to be doing to you.

It will now feel like there is nothing you can do to be free, as if your mind is somehow locked onto their body state, as if you have merged with it and are kind of one with their body. You will feel exposed to it and completely vulnerable to it, as if you have opened up a conduit or bridge, a cord that has bound you to it. Its every move seems to dictate your suffering, and you cannot seem to be free unless the other person changes. And now you will demand they change, rather than look at the fact you are projecting fear.

This really is the ego's version of "forgiveness to destroy" taken to the extreme. The projection of fear blinds you to stepping back or looking into your mind, seeing yourself as doing anything to yourself. It warps your perception and turns it inside out. Cause and effect are backwards and you see yourself as completely victimized. The more you go into it the more you lose sight of the fact that you have any power or are choosing any of this.

Your whole sense of peace then seems to completely "depend" on the other person. If their body has any issue at all, you'll blow it out of proportion and see it as a threat and a danger. And how dare they not resolve it for your benefit. The only way out of this is to stop projecting fear, look at the fear within you, heal it and return to love.

True forgiveness is needed, and you must be clear that fear really is an attempt to attack. "The fearful are apt to be vicious." Viciousness comes out when you are afraid. And by attacking, you will see another as attacking you. And having attacked them by seeing them as only a body, you will see their body as attacking you. Just even by sitting there in its condition, it is experienced as a threat, because you have threatened it, having threatened yourself.

Fear is really part of your self-attack, resulting from guilt, resulting from a belief in sin. Your own sinlessness is the key to salvation and to removing the basis for fear. There is nothing to fear because only love is real.

"It seems to be the body we feel limits our freedom, makes us suffer and at last puts out our life. Yet bodies are but symbols of a concrete form of fear."

"But fear attaches to specifics, being false."

"Bodies attack, but minds do not." "This is the reason bodies easily become fear's symbols."

"The body is the target for attack, for no one thinks he hates a mind."

"When hatred rests upon a thing, it calls for death as surely as God's Voice proclaims there is no death. Fear is insatiable, consuming everything its eyes behold; seeing itself in everything; compelled to turn upon itself and to destroy."

"Who sees a brother as a body sees him as fear's symbol. And he will attack because what he beholds is his own fear external to himself, poised to attack, and howling to unite with him again. Mistake not the intensity of rage projected fear must spawn. It shrieks in wrath, and claws the air in frantic hope it can reach to its maker and devour him."