When I used to be sick or suffering, the only options at my disposal was to take a medication, or "wait it out" or "let it run its course" or go through the suffering until I had "fully suffered". Like waiting for the body to heal itself.

Like there was some kind of requirement or this was the only way to "get past it". There was no quick fix. And so I was simply used to this way of existing where problems could not be easily resolved. This seemed "normal."

But then Holy Spirit started to do his thing. And all of a sudden this assumption that suffering and healing take a lot of time, came into question.

All of a sudden it started to seem possible that, "maybe I don't have to suffer"... or "maybe I don't have to tolerate this" ... or "why should I have to wait for this to run its course"... or "what if I can choose not to just let this snowball into weeks of turmoil?"

And as I began to receive Holy Spirit's help and healing, I started to discover that if I was willing, I could start to challenge whether or not I HAD to suffer... I could start learning a little at a time to question this.... maybe I don't HAVE to go through this, or let it just have power over me to dictate how long I have to put up with this. What if there is a better way?

And so I stated to peel back my alignment with the ego and my belief that I should just "go along with" the suffering, as if I had no other option. I started to get used to this idea of stopping myself and not just blindly going along with the program, and realizing that maybe I don't HAVE to. And as there started to BE another option - that I could get healed by Holy Spirit, that really started to bring into question whether suffering had to be TOLERATED or put up with.

What also has increased is a kind of REFUSAL and strength to say NO to the prescribed suffering, to rebuke it, to realize that I DO have a choice, and that in actual fact there IS a POWER in decision. That I can decide NOT to suffer. That I do not have to accept or tolerate it. If I am willing, there is another way. I can instead refuse to just lay down and accept this and instead forgive and get into willingness and choice and get out of victimhood and learn to let go, to let myself receive help and get some healing.

This has really undermined the sense of having to just let shit happen. Holy Spirit is adamant that you DO NOT HAVE TO SUFFER. There is no merit in it. You don't have to be guilty for a month and suffer with a sickness. All He wants is for you to return to happiness - it's God's will. So as you start to practice this and open up to it and receive help, you also start to erode the belief in "required suffering", which is a belief in sin and guilt.

This is also part of why sickness and death are NOT GOD'S WILL, and being sick or dead is AGAINST God's will. God wills instead that you be FULLY HEALED, that you do not have to merely tolerate or put up with suffering or being sick or hurt or damaged in any way. He wants to release you from this torture and help you to realize that you deserve and CAN ACCESS permanent healing and health and happiness. That death and sickness are not supposed to be part of your experience AT ALL.

In this world we've all heard the statement "I love you". This is usually from one person to another one person. Also this is not usually true unconditional love, and is most often special love.

This is an exclusive love, which is directed by one separate person to one separate person, maintaining a sense of separation while also claiming to reach the heights of at least "some loving sentiment" toward them. But not too much mind you, lest it challenge the very notion of being separate.

As we open up to the atonement, which is all about sharing, we have to actually learn that we don't do anything alone. We are not alone. The Holy Spirit being with us guarantees we will never be alone, and our acknowledgement of his presence ensures an end to our solitude and loneliness.

Then it becomes not so much about what you are doing alone, but what you and the Holy Spirit are doing together. That he becomes involved in your doings and you become involved in his. "Do his works". And now as you go to express and give and love, you should find that he becomes involved in this as well. And now the two of you are doing it together.

If you take this to its logical extreme, you should have the experience that you and the Holy Spirit are completely one, joined, fully open to each other, willing God's will together, and that together you are expressing the same intention and love. That the two of you are, for example, sending love to a person. The two of you love that person.

This also extends outward to be fully inclusive, in which you should experience that, in truth, you are the whole sonship, including Jesus. And Jesus is also with you and you should be aware of being one with him. And you and the Holy Spirit and Jesus all together should be functioning as one unit, expressing one love.

And then it becomes more obvious that you aren't just a solitary lonesome loser expressing limited exclusive love to one special individual, it's more that you AND the whole Kingdom of God AND God also are expressing love together in a co-creative act of mutual willing and sharing.

The whole kingdom creates as one. The whole sonship gives everything to everyone. And one single person is not even the only target, because the love spills over and resonates and is shared among everyone when you give it to even one person - because they too ARE the whole.

In my healing efforts now to send love to a person, I now find myself including the Holy Spirit, Jesus and God. That all of us together express and extend love. This is in alignment with our co-creative ability and natural function.

For me it brings to light a renewed meaning to when Jesus says repeatedly, "you will see miracles through your hands through mine." Because if we can join with Jesus and be aware of his presence in us, sharing with him, and TOGETHER we can operate and function as one, then BOTH you and Jesus can perform the functioning of miracle working. And thus you will see HIS miracles AND your own working together as one, through your hands.

I fully imagine at this point, that at some future time I will become so much immersed in union with Jesus and Holy Spirit that it will be as though Christ is working through my body and the whole light of heaven is pouring through it along with me at the same time. We don't do this work alone. It's a team effort. The whole Kingdom of God is professing christ, which is the work of the atonement.

Below are two very important paragraphs. I say this because these MIGHT be the only two paragraphs which make this specific point in the whole course.

A teacher of God is someone who is still in the dream, in a body, thus USING the body's eyes, while ALSO having a highly developed spiritual eye/christ vision.

They do not have 100% christ vision ONLY, because if they did the veil of spacetime would lift entirely and they would no longer see the world at all. You cannot see the real world ONLY if you are invested in still seeing the illusory world at least a little. "You cannot see both worlds" FULLY. But you CAN see both worlds PARTLY.

JUST PRIOR to that state of perfect perception, you utilize TWO ways of perceiving, IN PARALLEL (overlaid). This allows you to see the illusory world of bodies, sickness, war and death, BUT in such a way through alignment with the spiritual eye that all of these things register to your mind as FALSE, UNREAL, NOT TRUE.

You can see them, BUT NOT BELIEVE THEM. This allows you to see a call for love, see the sick and dying, see the suffering, BUT be in a position to provide miracles to help those in need because you are NOT DECEIVED by what you see.

Your mind RECOGNIZES illusions are illusions - that the illusory world is not true. But you DO still see it, until the veil lifts completely. This puts you in a unique position to be a Teacher of God, a miracle worker, who CAN HELP OTHERS whom you SEE as in need of help, WITHOUT your mind being deceived.

This overthrows the idea that "if you see it its yours" because it recognizes that we have access to TWO TYPES OF EYES - the body's eyes and the spiritual eye. And we use BOTH of them at once, until true perception is perfected. A kind of double vision. Which means you can still see things which ARE NOT yours, without barely any belief in them, just enough to be truly helpful.

"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice.For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences.The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are?Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die.Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."

"M-8.6. The body’s eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body’s eyes will report their changed appearances as before. 4 But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal. 5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all illusions is truth."

Should you change the world?

There are many parts of ACIM which SEEM to suggest you should not. Such as:

"Seek not to change the world, but seek to change your mind about the world."

Also Jesus tells us we need to correct the real cause of suffering in our mind, in our perception, in order to truly heal it.

Some say that this might possibly lead to a "side effect" of the body being healed, or it might not. Which is wishy-washy bullshit.

Let's break it down.

If you believe this world is reality, and as a world it sucks big time, and you hate it, and its insane, and you think it's "really insane" as in, it actually IS, then YOU have a problem in your mind because you're not seeing correctly. The world is an ILLUSION!

If the world is real to you, then you've mistaken illusions for the truth. You've given reality to illusions. And now when you see an illusion of a "bad world", you're going to react to it with despair, depression and hopelessness, only because you think it is REAL and not because of its form.

If you then seek to change the world to "look better" AS a real world, which is what happens when most people try to change the world, you're actually going to KEEP the belief you have that this world is reality. You will move the furniture around, maybe to some configuration you prefer temporarily, with tradeoffs, but it's not necessarily going to give you real lasting happiness. It will give you a temporary illusion of happiness which is dependent on the world, and it will change on you.

There is a different way to change the world. Perhaps we should say, to TRANSLATE or TRANSFORM the world.

When you withdraw your belief that this illusory world is reality, and you stop taking it seriously, and stop reacting to errors, sins and sickness as though they're real, you will be much happier. You will know there is not REALLY any reason to be upset, that the world is not REALLY bad, and it's not REALLY anything. This will alleviate all possible reasons for upset.

From that vantage point you will see the "forgiven world", which you will be OVERLOOKING, to Christ's face which is beyond form.

You will also be miraculous, and with the power of God, you WILL have access to be able to "change the world" in any way that is appropriate. Albeit that perhaps it would need to be a) inspired by love, b) in alignment with Jesus's plan of atonement/awakening, and c) for the good of all.

Just as Jesus performs intercessions/interventions by way of MIRACLES, so can you, and you may well bring about "changes" in the world as a result. You may well seem to make the world a happier place, not because its FORM is better, but because there is healing taking place. People are waking up to the truth, miracles are educating about God's reality, and belief is shifting away from illusions. That's a helpful way to change the world.

Thus it's not then so much about to staying IN the world and fixing it up and making it all pretty and real, but more to do with you converting it to an illusory yet more tolerable "happy dream", which smooths the way to awakening and eases suffering and gently helps you and others to return to God. This "use of the world" for awakening is a better purpose than to try to "use the world" to produce a "real world" that is considered better than the old one.

There's nothing wrong with you changing the illusion. Jesus did it many times. Every miracle does it. Miracles rearrange space and time. Jesus tells us its a device for the manipulation of time (and space)! Why not ease the nightmare and lift some burdens lovingly so that people can see EXAMPLES and DEMONSTRATIONS of right-minded thinking, the truth of God's kingdom, the POTENTIAL of awakening, and the FREEDOM that is everyone's right!

The purpose then isn't to change the world for the world's sake, but to change the world to help people wake up from the world and return to reality.

In the ego's world, having expectations seems to produce stress and upset. We seem to be tasked with dropping all expectations, so that whatever happens, we will be okay with it. It is good not to have attachments to outcomes, or to be trying to control things, or to expect or hope that something is going to turn out a certain way only to have that expectation dashed against the rocks.

But here's what's really going on.

If you have an expectation, with the ego, it is typically a half-arsed wishful thinking, which has no power, and doesn't actually CAUSE anything to occur. Yet the ego believes that its expectations are lining up with how things will be. Then, because of this lack of POWER, when events do not follow the expectation there is anger and frustration and suffering. And so then it seems to be better not to use expectation at all since it always seems to lead to upset. We need to let go of the ego's form of expectation, but we shouldn't throw expectation out of the window altogether because Holy Spirit has his own use of it.

The fact is that you can either be expecting WITH the ego, or you can be expecting WITH Holy Spirit.

Expecting with the ego is what most people are familiar with as expectations. In other words, the ego perception doesn't believe it has any power over anything, since it wants to be a victim, and so makes INSANE expectations which really are a resistance to what is happening. Resistance is the ego's form of magical power, which it thinks it can wield in order to 'make' the world be the way it wants it to be. This is of course denial-based, and a deception, and basically leads to great suffering because it's out of touch with reality. When the ego expects something, it is choosing a wholly SEPARATE version of events than those that will possibly happen, as a form of rebellion, and its degree of belief in things turning out that way is really actually very weak. Resistance is weakness. And so usually it is thwarted and then you end up miserable and angry that things didn't turn out. So yes, it's good not to have ego expectations or ego attachment to outcomes.

HOWEVER ....

Expecting with the Holy Spirit is not like this. Holy Spirit doesn't use resistance, he uses EXTENSION, which is a creative power. Expecting with the Holy Spirit means that you are extending the POWER OF GOD, demanding and requiring that illusions fall into place. Expecting with the Holy Spirit has real authoritative power. Power to heal, power to manifest, power to change the world. Expectation through Holy Spirit means you are lining up with GOD's will, rather than the ego's fictional will, and what God will's MUST occur. It is not a matter of a request that things change, or a desire that things be different. It FORCES them to be different.

God has a constant expectation that there is perfect peace and permanent divine health. If God were to stop 'expecting' this to be true, he would enter into delusions. He is so certain that there will always be immortality, and that no illusion can assail his Kingdom, that he has every right to have ABSOLUTE EXPECTATION. Absolute knowing. Not just like, referring to something and asking it if it might be the way He wants it to be, but CREATION, actually PUTTING INTO EFFECT God's will. Making it so. Creating by His will to produce what he wants to be. There is no room for 'events' turning out any other way in this. There is no room for a conflict between expectation and what is. God's expectation overrides all illusions.

So it is perfectly okay, and encouraged, to expect with God. To expect in alignment with Holy Spirit. To expect that miracles will occur. To expect that there will be an end to death. To expect that a person can live forever. To expect immortality. And that faith isn't misplaced. It's not a delusion. It is law.

There isn't really anything that you need to do about the ego. It's really a matter of recognition. You simply don't as yet recognize it for what it IS, and you think it is something else.

Recognition requires you to have a full picture, all the information, nothing hidden, nothing missing. And in this light of the whole truth, everything is put into its proper perspective.

In this perspective, which is sanity and true perception, there is simply a factual awareness of what the ego IS. With no delusions about it. The fact that it is a lie, and there is no ego. That the ego is false and unreal and doesn't really exist.

In recognition, it simply becomes apparent that the ego never really was there at all. And now you can see the sense in this. It's the idea of nothing, which for a while seemed to be something else wh

ile you were confused and failing to recognize illusions for what they are.

So it's like, when you get into the recognition state of mind, the ego is properly framed, and everything is in its right place, and what is false is obviously false, and what is true is obviously true, and it takes no effort whatsoever to make it be that way. Because the ego just IS false and it never can be true.

You don't have to make the ego be false, you don't have to do anything to change its meaning. It simply already is false. And so all you end up doing is just noticing its nature and dismissing it because it obviously is absurdly impossible.

It doesn't require you to fight with it, change it, attack it, try to make it into something else, or to do anything to it at all. You simply need to get a good clear look at it. And in that clarity it is shown to be only what it is, nothing more and nothing less.

And that is the recognition of sanity, which is enlightenment. The simply recognizing of what is really true, and what is actually false. The final sorting out of whether or not the world exists. What is is made of. Whether it's even possible that it's happening. And whether you are deceived to want something it seems to offer in madness.

Until you get to a place of complete simple "accurate perception", as Jesus calls is, looking straight and honestly and not being deceived or distorted or confused or distracted or lost or insane, you'll probably be unsure about the world, and the body, and the ego.

They'll seem to have properties they don't have. They'll seem real, happening, true, existing. They'll seem to be a real threat and danger. They'll seem to be alive. They'll seem a whole bunch of things that they are not, because you do not recognize them for what they are. You are deceived by them.

And recognition brings with it the clarity of simply "knowing" or being in alignment with knowing what it IS and what it ISN'T. Because true perception is simple accurate seeing or reality-vision. Truthful perception. Honest perception. And that is all that you need in order to be sane. Plus the willingness to accept it.

To admit and accept the truth, which is to accept the atonement, is simply to recognize what is true and what is false with no confusion between them. The spiritual path entails the sorting out of which is which, the undoing of that confusion, and getting everything straightened out in your mind.

Once you get a final look at the truth about this world, the body, the ego and death, you will never take it seriously ever again. You'll remember to laugh at its utter ridiculousness. You'll recognize its impossibility. And you'll not even give it a second glance as you return home to God.

"Illusions recognized must disappear."

"I will forgive and this will disappear."

"A world forgiven cannot last."

"Enlightenment is but a recognition and not a change at all."

"Only the truth is true and nothing else is true."

God has a nature and a power to express that nature. It is automatic to him to express what he is, to uphold his own nature and to extend it. He is willing to do this because it is natural to him. And because he has absolute power, his will has no opposition and is immediate.

When God will's something, it is done. There is no uncertainty or delay. He wills it, it is so forever. Also since God is eternal, what he wills is always there and his mind maintains it forever. It's kind of like a permanent endless expression.

In reality, God wills the creation of living beings, who share everything in the sonship. His will comes from his own nature, in terms of what he is naturally open to, capable of, able to do, and so on. God expresses himself with his unlimited causal power, and creation occurs.

His will extends his being and his nature. His nature is innocence, holiness, immortality, wholeness, peace, love, light, happiness, joy, power, perfection, permanence, etc. So when he expresses his will, ie what he is and wants, these are what come from him. He gives himself.

God wills that you exist as an eternal soul. Therefore, it is done. There is no question in this. It is always and forever permanently fact. This means that you are what God wills, and God has willed you into being. You therefore represent and are what he wills, meaning you are now an extension of his will. You are what he wants AND you are now capable of expressing what he wants.

This puts you in a position of sharing his will, because now the nature of himself has been given to you through your creations. You now share a similar nature to him and are like him. So, naturally, you now will - or are open to and support and want - the same kind of stuff that he wants - happiness, love, eternal life, peace, joy, power, etc.

You are now able to will in alignment and accord with God's will, to create with him and like him, along with him, as a co-creator in harmony and collaboration. Just by merely being yourself as God created you, you are "doing his will". Just by creating with him, you are doing his will.

God simply wills to give you ... to create you, as a blessing to everyone, and for you to continue the giving through your creating and sharing, so that God is continuing to give and create endlessly. You are a kind of medium through which his will expresses forever. As such, your function is to co-create with him and to share in and give what you have received.

Simply by being your natural real self as you are in heaven, you are doing God's will. For example God wills that you be happy, so when you are being true to yourself, knowing yourself, you are happy, because you know you are with God and are perfect. What God wills for you, or wants for you, is simply what he already gave you in your creation.

It's not like God's will hasn't finished being done yet. God completely willed you into being and willed that you be exactly all of what he wanted you to be. It is finished. So now you are the fulfillment of his will. And yet because this is open-ended, you now continue to will with him and like him in support of and gratitude for what you have received, so that his will can be done again.

So it's not like God's will is that you buy a car, or God's will is that you move to a new city, or God's will is that your enemies are conquered. It's more that, God's will is for you to exist in your natural condition. To be the will that God already willed. And in fact, it's more like you cannot NOT be God's will, because his will is already done. He already willed in your creation and you're already automatically doing it.

When you deny God or block awareness of reality or try to attack your immortality or pretend to be a victim etc, you are not doing God's will. You are in a mode of unwillingness, in which you're trying to use your free will to will against itself, to will nothing or to will death/ends/destruction. If you move your mind and body toward death you are not doing his will, because he wills there be life. This is why Jesus says that people at a funeral are not doing God's will.

"The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose Will it is they LIVE. They are not FOLLOWING it; they are OPPOSING it."

God wills that there be only life, and that life be eternal. When a person is pretending that death is possible and is portraying this by using the body for attack, thus rendering it harmed and seemingly symbolizing death, they are opposing God's will. God wills life and resurrection and healing and permanent existence. God wills endless happiness and freedom and perfection and joy. God wills that you live forever.

Sometimes ACIM speaks of you doing God's will on earth as it is in heaven. This means that you are honoring what God wills in heaven, psychologically, and are using the body to symbolize that as closely as possible while you're in the world. That means that you're using miracles for healing and resurrection, that you're giving life and bestowing love, that you're making happy, and that you're being as true to heavenly relationship as possible. "The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

So what this means is that you can be the reflection of heaven's laws, God's nature, the condition of your true self/soul, here on earth in a body, temporarily, symbolizing how you would be in heaven. When you are "doing God's will" on earth it's again not so much about certain activities as it is about the quality and contents of your mind, whether you are in alignment with the nature of God or not. Although that said, the Holy Spirit can and will direct you specifically as well. And you can be truly helpful.

To "do God's will" then is simply a matter of being God-like. Aligning your willingness to the nature of reality, accepting atonement, being forgiving/loving, adopting miracle mindedness and using creative miracles for healing and resurrection, sharing the Holy Spirit's goal of eternal life, and being happy. If you are unhappy or are suffering in any way, you are essentially trying not to do God's will, because God does not will that you suffer.

This also entails honoring and respecting the freedom of will that is present in all your heavenly brothers, even while they are in bodies. Freedom and willingness are aspects of free will, everyone has it, and therefore you have to respect the freedom everyone has to both do God's will and to be unwilling if they so choose.

"I cannot will what God does not will. I CAN offer you my will to make yours invincible by this sharing, but I CANNOT oppose yours without competing with it and thereby violating God's Will for you."

To be "still as God created you" and thus to perform your natural function, which in heaven is creation and on earth is healing, is to do God's will. God's will is not pending, or not done yet. God's will is already completed. Creation has occurred. You exist to share and extend it.

On earth you can reflect temporarily that which, by God's nature, is really permanent. The body can symbolize eternal life, and the mind can raise the dead through miracles. To return to eternal life is to return to the will of God. And it is God's will that you live forever.

"Oh my children, if you knew what God wills for you, your joy would be complete! And what He wills HAS happened, for it was ALWAYS true."

"But I CAN tell you, and remind you often, that what God wills for Himself He wills for YOU, and what He wills for you IS yours."

"I want all of Heaven and only Heaven, as God wills me to have."

"THE WILL OF GOD CAN FAIL IN NOTHING. Have faith in only this one thing, and it will be sufficient; God wills you be in Heaven, and nothing can keep you FROM it, or IT from you. "

"They will not prevail against the peace God wills for you."

"It MUST have been accepted by the Son of God, for what God wills for him, he MUST receive. For God wills not, apart from him."

"We will be told exactly what God wills for us each time there is a choice to make."

"Yet what God wills is here, and you remain as He created you."

"God's messengers are joyous, and their joy heals sorrow and despair. They are the proof that God wills perfect happiness for all who wi

ll accept their Father's gifts as theirs." "And, being IN ACCORD with what God wills, he HAS the power to heal and bless all those he looks on with the grace of God upon his sight."

"God wills you perfect happiness NOW."

"Instead, accept His answer, for He KNOWS you are worthy of everything God wills FOR you."

"Everything God wills is not only possible, but has already happened."

"God wills NO-ONE suffer. He does not will ANYONE to suffer for a wrong decision you have made, including YOURSELF."

"Only you can limit your creative power, but God wills to release it. He no more wills you to deprive yourselves of YOUR creations than He wills to deprive Himself of His."

"Give Him your thoughts, and He will give them back as miracles which joyously proclaim the wholeness and the happiness God wills His Son as proof of His eternal Love."

"For what God wills is whole, and part of Him BECAUSE His Will is One."

"YOU STILL WILL WHAT GOD WILLS, and no nightmare can defeat a Child of God in his purpose."

"God wills you learn what always has been true. That he created you as part of Him, and this must still be true BECAUSE ideas leave not their source."

When the mind clearly recognizes that CAUSE is in the mind, and Cause is God, and that the mind extends God's will, God's Power can extend forth to enact miracles.

This means, that God has FULL power over illusions. Or in other words, God is not a victim of illusions and God does not pay any attention to what illusions say can or cannot occur.

Let's talk about it in terms of authority. God is the One Authority. When we are fully aware of and aligned with God, we too inherit Authority. We are now representatives of God, or you could say, a "Teacher of God" or "Advanced Teacher of God".

With authority, you have commanding authority over all illusions, all ego, and all deception. This includes all sickness, and death. If you say that something will happen, it MUST happen. If you command that something be healed, it MUST heal. It must fall into line with your authority.

Now, in this authority there is no sense of paying attention whatsoever to ANYTHING that illusions appear to say. It is as if being blind to illusions (overlooking them completely, which is true forgiveness), not listening to ego, giving absolutely no credit to any grounds for fear, and not even really paying attention to even what the eyes and ears are telling you is happening in the illusion.

None of the things of the illusion, world, body, sickness etc, none of them are important because none of them have CAUSAL POWER over God and His Son (you). The world is NOTHING but an effect. It MUST fall into line and be/do what YOU command it does. This is why there is "no order of difficulty in miracles". The authority you have as a representative of God/Christ, does not listen to the world of form in any way whatsoever, believes in no ego, and completely ignores appearances. Instead it simply ENFORCES GOD'S WILL (that there be healing etc). And there's nothing the ego illusion can do to stop it.

Now, when someone is a victim, what this means is there has been a great reversal of cause and effect. There is also a DIS-EMPOWERMENT. There is a listening to the ego, a paying attention to illusions, a making illusions real, a becoming afraid because of how frightening the illusion SEEMS to be, and a taking it seriously. This is all of course to do with listening to the ego, which means, listening to what the ILLUSION is telling you. What the world is telling you, what the body is telling you, what the sickness is telling you.

So for the victim, what this means is, their attention has stopped being fixated on God, and is now fixated on the world/ego/body and all of its reasons 'why' (justifications, rationalizations) something cannot be healed. All of those reasons are bullshit. They are all temptations. They are all deceptions. We are to NOT listen to them. But for the victim, in the victim's mind, they perceive causal power as outside of them, separate from them, inaccessible, and acting AGAINST them instead of for them. And as such, they perceive and believe, that form/illusions/ego has power over God. This is the reversal of cause and effect.

This is also the AUTHORITY PROBLEM, because the victim has a mistaken sense of who has authority over whom. The ego/victim having authority over God is POWERLESSNESS. Weakness. Fear. Failure. The ego's attempt to be God is its attempt to block God's authority (which some would call aligning with 'hell'). It is also an ignorance of YOUR real authority, which is extended to you by God. A victim is not AWARE of their authority, and that's why they experience themselves as being weak and vulnerable and victimized, and at the same time believe they have a false authority over God.

So, the entire point of waking up, as it were, is the transition from victimhood, where you are allowing the world to dictate "what is" (i.e. to dictate to God a resistance against God, the authority problem, which tries to assert that God has no authority here), to a state where you are ABSOLUTE CAUSE, recognizing the world is ONLY an effect, and therefore it is absolutely under your power and MUST absolutely comply with any change you choose to make to it. And yes, when you are in this mind of cause (Holy Spirit onwards), you CAN change the world/dream/illusion because you have total authority over its deceptions. You recognize the world is a LIE, and therefore it has no power over YOU.

When the Son of God commands with authority and firm conviction and lack of fear and with strong belief (all of which are required!), that the illusion MUST do something, the illusion WILL comply. But it won't comply if you do not have this unshakeable certainty. It won't comply if you are in doubt. It won't comply if you are listening to the ego and fearing that there is a level of difficulty here beyond what can be changed. It won't comply when you listen to your own uncertainties or when you start to 'change your tune', trying out different words and so on. This means you've allowed the illusion to start to encroach on your authority/territory and invade your mind and you're starting to listen to what it's saying and are taking it seriously. This is dis-empowerment. Victimhood.

Your word is your 'wand', and you need to speak to the illusion and command it to heal and so on. You need to exercise your authority over it. Reversing cause and effect back to their proper orientation (which is a correction of level confusion also), doesn't just mean, oh, now you realize cause is 'in' your mind and you're not at the effect of the world. It LITERALLY means, there is now ONLY cause in your mind, and the world is ONLY effect, and IT MUST OBEY. It doesn't just mean the world still has some kind of fixed nature or objectivity, and that your subjective perception is now unaffected yet still 'passive'. It means you are now in command, in charge, you have dominion over it, and you tell it what the fuck to do.

That is how it is possible to enforce God's will, to enact healing, to raise the dead, etc. People being dead bodies is an EGO ILLUSION, a part of the dream world that attempts to put on a really big 'show' about how this is more powerful or important than God. God has power OVER it, and when you are aligned with God's power, YOU have power over it, to literally reverse death. It means not believing a single shred of the ego illusions, appearances, any state of form, any reason 'why' something cannot be changed, or anything else that comes 'from' the illusion/form/ego/body. If you are listening to form, you are listening to the ego. If you are tempted by the severity of form's condition, you are listening to the ego.

This is why we must become single minded, one minded. Absolute certainty. We must have firm 'belief' i.e. conviction that it is TRUE, that healing can, must, and will occur... even in the sense that it HAS occurred and therefore the ego MUST represent this healing, e.g. by the body image 'demonstrating' that there has been no attack. Jesus instructs us many times to demonstrate our brother has had NO EFFECT ON US, which means anything outside of you has NO POWER to do anything to you whatsoever, YOU hold all the causal power, you are NOT at the effect of ANYTHING in the dream (and therefore must be 100% responsible and 100% free of victimhood). We are to demonstrate that the Son of God - you - are NOT at the effect of the dream, the world, sickness, death, the ego's forces, agents of hell, deceptions or lies.

This isn't just about getting our mind straightened out and getting things into their proper order. Once cause and effect are CORRECTED, all the powerlessness that you thought you had will be replaced with POWER. All of the fear that you had will be replaced with CERTAINTY. All of the victimhood you had will be placed with CONVICTION. And you will become CLEAR that everything in form, everything of 'level 1' of the dream, is UNDER YOUR COMMAND. This isn't passive. This means you are an agent of God, you extend God's power (because you stop resisting or blocking it), and your alignment with love produces CONSTANT NATURAL MIRACLES. Where do miracles occur? THEY CORRECT THE ILLUSION (world/body/dream), NOT just the inside of your private inner world.

Miracles are "miracles" because they are 'supernatural' acts which come from a place of inner causality, BEYOND the world, via a clear alignment to and experience of the 'metaphysics' of the truth, and which therefore ABOLISH all of the ego's laws and have absolute power over everything in this world. This means it can defy all sickness and death, it can defy the laws of physics (e.g. Jesus walking on water), it can defy all forms of lack (feeding the 5000), it can defy all disease (healing the blind, raising the dead etc), because we have POWER OVER ALL OF IT.

This is not a drill. This is for real folks. And it's going to be up to you, once you access that authority and power and certainty and clarity, experientially, to decide when and where you might 'exercise' your miracle-mindedness. Maybe you will perform no such miracles. Maybe you will perform many. But they will be natural and effortless and unlimited. Just look at Jesus as an example. He performed even more miracles than are mentioned in the bible. He performed miracles DAILY! And as Jesus tells us in the urtext, "each morning ask me what miracles you would have me perform today, and help me to perform them." Every day folks!

It's a Course in MIRACLES because it's a Course that will lead you to God and will set you free and miracles are your RIGHT!

Amen.

The ego is telling you that you are eating healthy ripe fruit when in fact you are eating putrid decaying rotten flesh.

The ego is telling you that the suffering you're enduring is what it is like to be happy and healthy and that it is perfectly deserved.

The ego is telling you that if you were to die, you would be free from all of God's wrath and saved forever.

The ego is telling you that whatever God says is not true and not to listen to it.

The ego is constantly telling you one thing is the truth, while at the same time using this to cover up a lie. It actually convinces you that you deserve to suffer, should die, that dying is God's will, and that attacking someone is salvation. It tells you all kinds of things and it paints this rosy picture around it to try to tell you that it's perfectly harmless and natural and normal, when in fact it is totally far from healthy or normal.

The ego is selling you one thing and telling you that you're getting something else. This is what it does, every time. It is a deceptive liar. It is two-faced. It covers up hate with special love. It covers up guilt with projection. It covers up death with a glowing shiny light that it says hey.... go ahead and go into this shiny light and be saved from God's wrath forever... only to result in death.

It even tells you that SUICIDE makes total sense and that you should kill yourself because it's completely sensible and rational and sane to do so. Even if that simultaneously totally terrifies you, the ego will keep trying to convince you that it's the best thing you could do for yourself... better than staying alive, better than being with God. And you BELIEVE IT. And that's why almost everyone dies (death is always by consent only).

You really need to understand just how far this deception goes. The ego quite literally will 'frame' death in such a way as to make it seem ATTRACTIVE to you. Something you totally want. And simultaneously it will 'frame' God as something completely repulsive to you, that you totally want nothing to do with. And your mind is quite capable of this astronomical somersault, this total twisting and distorting of perception, that your mind can actually PERCEIVE that this is TRUE. That somehow you can EXPERIENCE how this all makes sense and seems to fit and seems to justify deadly action. You will choose death, as you have for countless lifetimes, solely because you're convinced by the ego's BIG GIANT LIE, that death is LIFE and you want to live, therefore you should die.

Life is life. Death is death. The truth is true. But the ego says, life is death and death is life. All of the merit and trust and faith and hope and happiness and loyalty and allegiance and alignment that you would normally have in GOD .... the ego is taking and trying to make you have that same sense of attraction and reliance and belief in DEATH. It actually wants you to see death as WELCOME and a LIBERATION and as your SALVATION. That it will save you from a fate WORSE than death.... which is God.

How can God who is love and light and purity and healing be worse than death? How can God who cares and loves and knows you and provides for you and shares everything with you and trusts you be worse than death? How can eternal life and unending glory and permanent certainty and endless love be worse than death?

God loves you. He just wants to love you. That's what you really want, and deep down you know this is permanently true in spite of how you are convinced by your own ego complex. You are just confused. You are just a bit mistaken. And you can't really be harmed, nor can you die. The ego can't take your life. You are a child of God, in whom He is well pleased. It's safe to trust Him. But you need to let go of believing the lies. Death is not real and you are immortal, so there's nothing to be afraid of. God's not out to get revenge for something you didn't even really do. There is only love. Only love is real.

Peace.

An idea that keeps coming back to me lately is that everything that's happening in the world is absolutely chosen, deliberate and intentional. It's the idea that we're all powerful creators, powerful choosers, and we simply keep on making poor decisions. We keep making, i.e. creating, mistakes.

I keep seeing this idea of everything flowing outward from us, of everything coming from us, and absolutely nothing happening to us from the outside. Only the stuff that we broadcast gets projected out there. So it's all us, 100%... whatever we dream up we manifest, and we put out there in the dream.

In this idea there is absolutely nothing happening in the opposite direction. There is nothing flowing inward from outside. There's nothing happening to anyone. There's nobody doing anything to anyone. There's only stuff coming out from you. So you are the source of everything. You shine like a light, you radiate reality, you extend your self.

So in this idea, it's not at all got anything to do with bad stuff happening to anyone or people being victims or stuff seeming unfair or random chaos or bad luck or anything like that. There's only people choosing, choosing, choosing, choosing, choosing all the time. Broadcasting, extending, projecting, shining, outward outward outward. That's all that's going on behind the illusion of appearances.

It's all coming from a high place and going out. And there is no going in. But the thing is we keep choosing mistakes. We keep literally 'making' mistakes. We keep making situations which look like examples of not choosing. We keep making situations where it seems like we're victimized. We keep making situations where it's set up to look like stuff is happening that we're not choosing, even though we're choosing that too. We're pretty clever at choosing, that we can even choose what seems like complete opposite of having a choice. We can put on a really great show and everyone will fall for it, thinking that we really didn't choose this. Fooled you though.

All is choice.

So really it's just that we keep pushing ourselves off the horse. We keep tipping the bike over. We keep crashing the car. We keep steering badly. We keep making these choices for having no choice. We keep deciding to seem to not be deciding. And we keep wanting to not want stuff. But at all times, absolutely all times, we are still in touch with that freedom of choice.

AND we can choose again at any time. AND we can become so pure and clear in our choosing that we stop choosing mistakes and only choose things which reflect the totality of our freedom and choice. We choose choosing. We align with alignment. We stay on the bike and stop inventing stories about how someone else made us swerve and hit a fence. It's all coming from us.

This is the divine 'play', if you will. The big story. The cover-up. The performance, which the Son of God is playing at over and over. Experimenting with death, even though He can't die. Toying with destruction, even though He is always creative. Pretending to not be Himself. Avoiding having His cover blown. But eventually He'll give up the toys and simply return to a state where He doesn't make these mistaken choices on His own, and simply admits that this is all a big farce. That it's not really real, and that it's always been just an illusion that stuff happened against His will. It's not really true, is it.

It's not REALLY possible to choose to be void of choice. Its not really possible to die. It's not really possible to have other people choose for you. It's not really possible for other people to be responsible for what you experience. It's not really possible to have stuff happen to you. That's what we need to own up to and admit to. The power of our choice. The absolute unshakeable FREEDOM that we always have and always will.

So what are we going to choose today? Are we going to choose the illusion of having no choice? Are we going choose to seem like we have no say, that we're powerless? Or are we going to choose to admit to eternal life, to God's Will, and to absolute divine immortality? Because that's the truth of what we are, behind these ego facades of victimhood and stuff happening on its own.

Can you feel the sheer POWER of being the chooser of everything? And guess what happens when you admit to choosing everything? You choose EVERYTHINGNESS - i.e. God.

Choose again.