We're presented with an interesting challenge. Before you seems to be a brother who seems to have a body, seems to have a personality, seems to have a history, seems to believe various things and perceive in various ways.

But then, at the same time, your REAL BROTHER, is actually a spirit being, a soul, who is an absolutely perfect light of Heaven, completely invulnerable and immortal, absolutely awake, totally free from sickness and suffering, perfectly sane, happy, free, and full of love.

So now the question is, when you "relate" or interact with a person, are you going to consider that their bodily limited self is REALLY the person, or are you going to consider that their HOLY self is really the person? And if you acknowledge and relate only with the holy self, does this not show you that the bodily self is NOT WHO HE IS? Does it not frame all of his illusions AS illusions and as lies and falseties about him, that you are not supposed to believe, or see, or confirm, or hold against him?

It becomes now a matter of, are you willing to overlook everything about him that seems to be "here", as a body self, a worldly self, an ego self, and completely IGNORE all of it, and connect and relate ONLY to a REAL SELF, that is hidden by the body, obscured by false perceptions, and lurking in and BEYOND the body as your ACTUAL BROTHER?

Are you willing to realize that all of these body persons are actually not real, all of these forms and differences are illusions, no-one is really a body, no-one is different or unique, everyone is equally a brother and equally lovable? And are you willing therefore to LET GO OF, the belief you've had for thousands of years, that these "people" populating the dream that you thought were "real", they are just shadows of real beings who are temporarily invisible to your body's eyes, and who are absolutely perfect?

At some point we have to become willing to disregard these illusions that are being presented to us, these obstacles to peace, and learn to overlook them. This is literally forgiveness, which changes your perception, awakens your mind and shows you with CHRIST VISION the true nature of the brother that stands before you. And that means learning to question, let go of, ignore, not believe in, not take seriously, and basically disregard, anything and everything about a person that seems "traditionally human", and to instead look PAST THAT, to what can ONLY be the truth about them. That they are still perfectly the Christ as God created them, flawless and immaculate, perfect in every way, unconditional and universal, and free from all suffering, sin, guilt, fear and death.

It's a strange thing to do. Because we've been so used to looking with the body's eyes and seeing "people" and thinking this is all there is to them, looking at bodies and taking them as first-hand reality, looking at behaviors and appearances and differences and thinking this is TRUE of the person, and generally interacting with DREAM CHARACTERS. And these dream characters are NOT REALLY the depiction or representation of your actual brothers. Not unless, perhaps in currently rare cases, your brother is using his body to accurately symbolize his immortality. And even then, he is not his body.

Are you willing to overlook EVERYTHING your body's eyes show you? Are you willing to start interacting with the "higher self" or holy true self of your brothers? Are you willing to stop dwelling on bodies and what bodies do, and start peering deeper into people into their minds and souls? Are you willing to disbelieve anything about your brother that is not given by God, is not in accord with God's laws, and does not represent God's perfection? To recognize that all the rest is NOT TRUE of them or you? And to realize that all of your brothers are your perfect equals AS GOD CREATED US?

This is what it means to forgive your brother. To totally overlook ("to forgive is to overlook") the illusions that hide your brother from you, and learn to SEE the TRUTH of Him, which is absolutely as perfect and permanent as He has always been and forever will be.

"Look at your holy brother, sinless as yourself, and let him lead you there."

"Look, then, BEYOND error, and do not let your perception rest UPON it, for you will believe what your perception HOLDS."

"Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a brother he would be to you."

"Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception both."

"And while you see your brother as a body, APART from you and separate in his cell, you are demanding sacrifice of him AND you. "

"And to ACCEPT the limits of a body is to IMPOSE these limits on each brother that you see."

"It must reach out beyond itself, as you reached out beyond the body to LET yourselves be joined."

"Far beyond his dreams is his reality."

"When you attack a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by what you have perceived in him. You do not look beyond his errors. Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self that lies beyond your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours."

In ACIM Jesus warns us against mind-wandering, ie allowing your mind to just go wherever it seems to go with no sense of choosing or spiritual responsibility.

I've found myself mind-wandering about grief recently, causing a lot of upsets. And a lot of emotion had to be felt. But now that it's simmering down I find myself noticing my thoughts more and how they cause suffering.

"I can be attacked by nothing but my thoughts."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain."

Hmm.

Well, a few years ago I was at a hospital often with my wife, and quite often there would have to be conversations about the future. And often these were based on circumstantial evidence and opinion, but as a result of even considering the outcomes at all it would cause a lot of upset. Just even having the thoughts at all produced strong nightmarish emotions. But you're "supposed" to think these things through, right? The emotions are just natural right, and you're supposed to have them?

Over time, eventually, I realised that just even having these thoughts, going through these motions, even to just think about and consider "what might happen", was an egoic pursuit that simply generated a lot of unnecessary suffering. The outcomes almost never actually came to pass, the circumstances kept changing, and after a while it seemed pointless to even think about it. People would say that's "irresponsible" but it was really not that helpful to consider how hellish hell was going to be.

In various situations in life, based on the hierarchy of illusions, ie that some things external cause upsets more than others, we also can get lost in kind of "automatic" thought processes. Lines of thinking which are triggered off by external situations, which we think we "have to" think about and entertain. Something happens and our mind goes off on a tangent trying to solve a problem or explore what's happening etc. Victim consciousness kicks in and before you know it you're having a nightmare.

The problem is that all of these reaction-based trains of thought are a form of victimhood and self-attack. Just even going on these thought journeys actually stirs up and chooses suffering, making things worse than they had to be. No wonder you're upset all the time if you're constantly thinking about how upsetting things are.

Over time it becomes more obvious that it's the thoughts really that are the starting point of the suffering. If I just don't think about something, and don't let my ego throw me into certain lines of thinking, I can avoid quite a lot of suffering. This isn't the same as being in denial, in the negative sense, but there can be a positive use of denial which helps you to remain in the truth.

"When you are afraid of ANYTHING, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you."

"True denial is a very powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is NOT a concealment device, but a correction device. The "Right Mind" of the mentally healthy DEPENDS on it."

I've been noticing this with myself recently also. I seem to be getting a bit of a handle on at least some thoughts about grief and loss. I can see that there are certain thoughts I have along the lines of "she's gone", in which there's a kind of black and white separation-oriented thought. It's almost like a death thought, a thought of separateness and aloneness. This thought isn't very productive and just induces strongly upset feelings. I might think that these feelings are normal and natural or that I "have to have them", but I don't.

I noticed also that reflecting on the past in various ways also was inducing suffering. Thinking about some times that were unpleasant and far from ideal, times that I saw with false perceptions and victimhood, if I would think about them it would make me upset again. And it seemed like I was dwelling on these things because they were unresolved, which led to more upset. Jesus was guiding me to stop doing that but for a while I felt a bit compelled because I was reacting too easily to these lines of thought without being careful with what my mind was doing. Again I didn't realize there was any other "better way".

We think we can just think about anything and it has no consequences. Jesus is teaching us that our mind is powerful and thought can produce real effects.

"People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them. "

"Death wishes do not kill in the physical sense, but they DO kill spiritually. ALL destructive thinking is dangerous."

The moral of the story is, you don't necessarily HAVE to have certain lines of thinking. You don't HAVE to consider all possible dire future outcomes. You don't HAVE to dwell on or talk about or go over all the details of stuff that's happened. It's okay to completely avoid talking or thinking about something, not as an attempt to deny it but as a constructive way to have mastery of the power of thought. To be in control of and responsible for what you think, aware of the consequences of what you're choosing.

Thoughts DO have causal power in them and can cause things to happen, as well as being able to cause all forms of suffering. The ego says we can just use thought to think of anything we like with NO effect, but this is totally untrue. It wants to make the mind insert and powerless, and so thinking about "anything" can lead to all kinds of victimhood and upset. You can easily go down dark paths and wander around lost in the woods.

We do have to try to be more vigilant and masterful over our actual thoughts than this. Otherwise we are apt to attack ourselves and make our own situation worse. We need to recognize that thinking can cause pain and suffering, and the right thinking can cause miracles and healing. We need to stay out of drama and thoughts of separateness, of disaster and loss and things being wrong. We need to stay out of thoughts of blame and guilt and it's our own responsibility to stay away from "where angels fear to tread."

At least then we do have the power to prevent ourselves from hurting ourselves, for lessening our own suffering, and preventing having as much upset as we think we must have. We don't have to just go through the motions being a victim, we can get back some power and make a better choice to more responsibly manage and own the minds thought processes. To allow your mind to go into dark places, unchecked and as a string of unconscious reactions, is mis-creation and "makes" suffering and unhappiness and hell.

"Miracle-working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation. Otherwise, the miracle will be necessary to set the mind ITSELF straight"

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains."

"You are much too tolerant of Mind-wandering, thus passively condoning its miscreation."

One thing people in the world don't realize, is that when you make one part of the world 'special', it HAS to make other parts of the world rejected.

So if I say, I really love Mac computers, it tends to make me feel that I dislike PC's. Or if I say, I like sporty-looking cars, it tends to make me believe that other cars are 'uglier'. Or if I say, I like the summer, it tends to make me feel antagonistic toward winter.

We do this every day, but we just don't really realize how we are actually *creating* the enemies that we despise, indirectly, by elevating various other things to special/hero/idol-worshipped status.

If I worship an idol and put something on a pedestal and believe it is my savior, that's all well and good but I don't realize that simultaneously I've created a nemesis somewhere else. It may not even seem to be in my conscious awareness, but I can't MAKE something an idol without using a tool of attack on everything the idol is not.

So people are going around for example trying to be good, trying to people please, trying to have the right behavior, trying to choose the right political candidate, trying to be in love with a special something, trying to save a special group of individuals, trying to stand up for some kind of social justice, or trying to eat the right foods etc. And what does this do?

What happens in the mind when we say "only this part of the world is acceptable?". We reject the rest of it, which is an act of denial, which is an attack, which throws all kinds of darkness and secret hate onto the 'rest' of the world. And since this is all really about the MIND, it basically creates an unconscious mind filled with everything we don't want.

And then this unconscious mind turns around and projects into the world and manifests as enemies, examples of what we hate, examples of the kind of people we think are sinners, examples of behaviors and actions that we consider not allowed, etc. And the more we try to really intensely focus on what is 'right', we inadvertently keep CREATING what is 'wrong' and reinforcing it.

Then all this extra wrong stuff shows up in the world and we hate it more and try to separate from it more, which is secretly an ego ploy to reinforce and keep it. We go on our crusade and blow our trumpet in defense of 'all that is good' which is exactly what actually creates and manifests 'all that is bad'.

If we're not being neutral, if we're attached to outcomes, it we're judging something as right or wrong, if we're invested in seeing a certain thing be kept while other things are destroyed, we just keep creating a greater TENSION between 'right and wrong' rather than actually undoing what's wrong. And this tension grows the more we try to separate from what's 'wrong', because the pursuit of what's 'right' ISN'T a pursuit of the truth - its a pursuit of one-sidedness and is a spiritualizing of the world.

So everyone's on this ego rollercoaster of chasing after what they have decided means 'right' and 'correct' and 'not sinful' and not realizing that this is directly and explicitly creating even more of the stuff they are trying to get away from. Because all that they're really doing is trying to escape from, deny, and shut out, everything they consider bad. You can't have a happy life by being in FUCKING DENIAL!

The world is neutral. It's we who give it all the meaning it has and label it with all our made-up labels of 'oh that's ok' and 'oh thats not ok'. And this constant effort to separate out the ok from the not-ok is just more ego separation which leads to war, hate, anger, and attack. It does not WORK. And it does not lead to progress. If you want the kind of progress where you create a world where everything is only 'good' and nothing 'bad' happens, you will never attain it, because the very desire to do so is a desire to DENY that 'bad' exists and therefore create it. And so the world is spinning its wheels. Isn't it horrifying to realize that YOU are creating the very enemies that you hate the most, and that you will keep doing so while you keep trying to reject a part of yourself?

Have you ever had a dream at night where you're being chased by someone and you're running away in fear and you just can't seem to get away, and the more you run away or fight with the person the stronger and more adamant they seem to become? This is exactly this dynamic, because the person chasing you is YOURSELF who is only appearing as an attacker because you keep rejecting yourself. In your dreams, when you stop running, and you surrender, and you do what the ego would say is 'letting yourself be caught', the person stops chasing you, and they stop attacking you, and all of a sudden you are friends. How about that?

We have to become able to ACCEPT and ALLOW everything. Not split it out and say one part is ok and one part isn't. This is true equality. This is a value worth pursuing. Unconditional love, not conditional love. Not a love that's only given to friends and not enemies. Not a love that, in being given only to friends, turns everyone else INTO an enemy, for the sake of being able to reject them further.

What would Jesus do? He would overlook all sin and recognize the innocence and equality of everyone.

Ok.. stepping off the righteous soap-box for now.

"It is because the thoughts you think you think ****appear as images**** that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your "seeing" was made. ****This is the function you have given your body's eyes.**** It is not seeing. It is image-making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions."

Consider a photograph. A photograph appears to be an image of something. Maybe it's an image of a city, which you took while on vacation. As you look at the photograph it appears to you to be a city, and you think there is a city there. Just as when you look at people on the TV you think you're seeing people, and even react as if they were real sometimes. This is because the images are very convincing and lifelike.

However, consider the difference between the photograph and the actual place. The photograph is not really a city, it just looks like one. And the real city is somewhere else. Well, how about we suggest that this physical world, planet Earth etc, is in fact not a real world, but is in fact like a photograph of a world? It LOOKS LIKE a world, but isn't an ACTUAL world. It's an IMAGE OF a world, or what a world would LOOK LIKE, but isn't one.

A tree that you look at, isn't actually a tree. It is a three-dimensional "hologram" of a tree. It sure looks like one, feels like one, moves like one. It even seems alive. But it is still just an image of a tree. A kind of 3D animated picture. Like a movie clip. As it plays out, it sees to sway in the wind and drop its leaves and sprout new ones, but all the while it's not an ACTUAL tree. It's just a picture of one.

This is because everything in this world is not actually a world. It's an IMAGE of a world. A collection of pictures. The body is a picture. The trees and houses and cars are just images. The planet is in fact just a PROJECTED IMAGE from the mind, which has tried to depict what such things would look like if they existed. It is a representation or symbol of such things, but is not really those things.

The body's eyes were designed to "see images" of a world made of images. To reflect back those images into the mind, to form some kind of "sight". And so now you look upon images. And the body can only see images, it cannot see real actual places.

Recognizing that this world is really just a collection of pictures, imagining a world, visualizing forms that don't really exist, you can better understand why this world is a dream or hallucination. The mind is "seeing" what it thinks it wants to see. It is picturing a world of bodies. And these images are made to block true vision. You look upon them thinking you are surrounded by an ACTUAL world, when all you are surrounded by is a hollow empty picture.

"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."

"You see the world which you have made, but you do not see yourself as the ****image-maker****. You cannot be saved from the world, but you can escape from its cause. This is what salvation means, for where is the world you see when its cause is gone? Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. Loveliness can ****light your images****, and so transform them that you will love them even though they were made of hate. For you will not be making them alone."

"What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real, and guarded as one's own."

"All the images His Son appears to make have no effect on what he is. They blow across his mind like wind-swept leaves that form a patterning an instant, break apart to group again, and scamper off. Or like mirages seen above a desert, rising from the dust."

"These images, with no reality in truth, bear witness to the fear of God, forgetting being Love. He must be joy."

"You ARE as God created you, and so is every living thing you look upon, REGARDLESS of the images you see."

"That is because you surround yourself with the environment you want. And you want it to protect the image of yourself which you have made. The image is part of it. What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. It is not vision. Images cannot see."

"To be told that what you do not see is there sounds like insanity. It is very difficult to become convinced that it is insanity not to see what is there, and to see what is not there instead. You do not doubt that the body's eyes can see. You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light."

It's important to become able to distinguish clearly between 'love' and a 'call for love'. However, know that to do this correctly requires Holy Spirit-level awareness. As Jesus says:

"You cannot safely make this division (between love and a call for love), for you are much too confused, either to recognize love, or to believe that EVERYTHING else is nothing but a NEED for love. You are too bound to form, and NOT to content. What you CONSIDER content, is not content at all. It is merely form, and nothing else. For you do NOT respond to what a brother REALLY offers you, but only to the particular perception o this offering by which your EGO judges it. The ego is incapable of understanding content, and is totally unconcerned with it. To the ego, if the form is acceptable, the content MUST be. Otherwise, it will attack the form."

So here Jesus is saying that Holy Spirit is able to clearly distinguish love from a 'call for love' because He clearly recognizes what love really IS, and therefore can tell when something is a call for love. But we have a lot of ego judgements in us and this prevents us from being able to make this call on our own, at least not until later after there has been a lot of purification. We are here to learn HOW to discern love from a call for love, by getting our own call for love answered BY love, enough to have some discernment. Discernment is a characteristic of the Holy Spirit, not the ego.

It means there's something you have absolutely no awareness of. You can't see it, taste it, smell it, touch it, hear it or sense it. It's as though it does not exist whatsoever. And since you place a lot of trust in your body's perceptual abilities you conclude that whatever is unconscious simply does not exist. That's the whole point of having made something unconscious in the first place.

For you, what you consider sanity, and what you consider to make sense, and who you think you are, are all based on how much awareness you have. You believe that you are fully aware right now of everything there is to be aware of.

Your sense of identity is intimately tied into this, because the edges of your awareness of Self creates a sense of where you stop and where otherness begins. Anything outside of your self seems to be not who you are.

The problem is that it's possible for there to be something so out of your awareness, so inaccessible to your senses, that you have absolutely no evidence of it and absolutely no way to believe that it's there. It'd be like me telling you there's a giant pink monster dancing outside your house, and without you being able to see it whatsoever you have absolutely no reason to believe me.

You do place a lot of trust in what your body shows you and if you cannot perceive something, you basically will say, well.... that doesn't exist, it's not true. And if someone else is experiencing something that seems totally unreal and untrue for you, you will not believe them, and dismiss it as fictional nonsense.

But it is actually possible for there to be something that exists outside of your conscious awareness. It's actually there, but you seem to have absolutely no awareness of it. This relates not only to immense unconscious guilt and unconscious sin, but also to the presence of God. You have made God unconscious to you, and in being not aware of His presence you basically believe that He does not exist.

While you are unconscious of God, or other stuff, it's possible for your mind to conceive of what might be there, to develop trust that it is there, and to utilize it in some way or experience/witness its expressions, without you necessarily being able to be fully aware of it, to understand it, to directly experience it or to see it. Placing some amount of belief in its existence, even if it is outside of awareness, is an act of "faith", ie trusting in something you believe is true in order to bridge the gap between your limited awareness and a state of greater awareness which is temporarily hidden.

As A Course in Miracles says: "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."

As Jesus is telling us, it is possible to have faith in God and trust God's truth, to some extent, even if you're not fully experiencing Him yet. You might not be in a state of revelation, but miracles pave the way for revelation. This also means that it is possible to receive the benefits or expressions of that love, even if it's coming from outside your awareness, and to SEE (ie witness) its power and effects in the form of miracles, even if you do not yet understand it.

Such miracles don't require you to be fully aware of God. They only require you to trust and therefore have faith that God is there to do His part and fulfill His function at all times, regardless of your readiness or willingness, and all it takes is a LITTLE willingness from you to open the door and let Him in. This includes the correction/healing of your mind but it also includes the expression of love as miracles of healing and other manifestations, which can come about through having faith/trust even if you are not yet aware of the whole of yourself as Christ.

At some point we will cease to be unconscious and therefore will cease to be limited. We will be more directly able to express love and use its power. Until then, we learn to trust in a power greater than what we are aware of, even if we can't see it, and gradually the gap between you and it will diminish, it will reveal itself more directly over time as love's presence, and you will eventually be One with it, recognizing yourself in it.

When a situation presents itself, on a physical level, with signs and symptoms and effects that you can see and touch, it seems to be real to you. If you do not overlook it, they form evidence and proof that something seems to be going wrong. On the basis of this you can't help but go into fear as a logical consequence. If the problem is real, you should be concerned.

What then happens is you'll start going into the "I have to do something about it" mode. This compulsion will arise as a natural logical consequence, following on from the belief that the problem is real. If it's real, it really needs solving. If it's real, it's seen as a real threat, calling for a real solution.

Before you know it, you'll be launching into a tirade of all the things that you thin should happen, need to happen, should be done, that other people should be doing, etc, in order to "save" the situation. And this will take the form of what appears to be genuine concern, caring, wanting to help, trying to fix, compelling others to act, trying to get something to be done about it, a sense or urgency and demand and even anger in the name of getting someone to solve it.

While on the surface this will look and feel like some fervent effort to help, and even if it might bring what many would consider forms of assistance and magical solutions that many would consider a resolution, this performance of drama and urgency is heavily laden with attack. If a person were totally fine and nothing were going wrong, and you were expressing these compulsions toward and about them, it would be attacking their invulnerability.

Claiming "something seriously needs to be done about it" relies entirely on the strong belief that there is attack, there is weakness, there is compromise and suffering. You can't have these kind of thoughts without buying into the belief in these things. And the belief in these things IS a form of attack. It contributes to supporting the notion that the problem exists, and you can't be doing that if you are trying to make it go away.

If I say, ok, someone needs to do something about this right now because there's really a major problem, then mixed in with what seems like selfless helpful attitudes is a whole array of undermining, making real, believing in suffering, giving power away, energizing the problem, holding it in a space of attack, and just generally having a negative fearful attitude about it. And fear, even if it seems to be an experience of being under attack, is itself a form of attack.

While it's seemingly true that a person might really "need help", at least on a physical level, through some magical means, and that this help might indeed seem to help the situation, there is also the fact that this help is in part harmful. And it will always have side effects to prove it. These side effects come from the fact that fear is a form of attack, and concern for physical appearances is actually an attempt to reinforce them, making them worse. The person trying to "save" with the ego is actually against salvation.

There is alternative way to help and to save, and it moves the mind and perception in the direction of true healing. Not just the illusion of healing but actual miraculous support. And for this, the entire ego mechanic of making the problem real and coming from fear and urgency has to be let go. It has to be recognized as fake help, a reaction based on the assumption that the problem is real. As fear turns to anger and insistence, it becomes murderous.

It's better that we move into true forgiveness, where we withdraw belief in the problem, we stop fearing by stopping believing that there is even a real problem happening, we move into a mindset of recognizing the person's wholeness and health, we get our mind out of the gutter of ego temptation, we affirm what is really true about them beyond appearances, step back and allow the Holy Spirit to heal, and dismantle the artificial forms of salvation that were making the problem worse.

In this we undo, take away, cancel, reverse, disbelieve, disempower, disappear, vanish and generally make non-existent the problem. There is no real problem. There is no real suffering. There is nothing real going on here that calls for serious reactions and actions. This stepping back has a power in it far greater and able to actually heal and correct the signs and symptoms and effects, than the measly magical efforts that were an attempt to extend fear. By NOT supporting the existence of the situation, you weaken it and move it towards undoing.

We either get to simply react to what appears to be happening, as though it were dreamed by someone else. Or we get to express God's Power and assert what IS true and make it so. We are the dreamer of the dream. We can change what we choose to occur in the dream. The power of decision is your own. Choosing what must be is far more powerful than reacting to what appears to have come from an alien will. Paradoxically it's by withholding the ego's outward reactions that your inner light intensifies and shines forth to correct all ills. By not trying to fix, you can truly save.

Everyone is immortal and cannot die. So anything suggesting otherwise MUST be an illusion and not a reality. Any sign or symptom MUST be a disguise, a lie, a mistake and is correctable. There can be no suffering in God because it's not God's will that you suffer. Only the truth is true and nothing else is true.

Here is something that many people will reject as totally bullshit. But if you will consider it carefully you may see that it makes sense.

Your mind is not just inside your body. Your mind is bigger than the universe. The world is inside of it! Therefore your psychological ERRORS have taken the form of PHYSICAL OBJECTS!!!

The physical world is in your mind as a THOUGHT FORM. A physicalization or condensing of the thought of SIN BEING REAL.

"This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."

Physical objects are literally ***SIN*** contained by your mind!!!

(e.g. "The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards." "To see a sinless body is impossible.")

Your mind, bigger than the universe, is dreaming of a WORLD, inside of your mind, which is hosted by your mind, and clouds your mind with IMAGINED OBSTRUCTIONS, which manifest as PHYSICAL FORMS, which are thought images WITHIN you.

You made the little body, within your mind, as part of the world that's in your mind, to look AT that world, to look at SIN, as if it's real and not see past it. The body can only see the form of error, and all physical forms represent the idea of sin being "apparently real." You actually perceive the world from the outside in.

You perceive "physical sins" with the body's eyes!!!

When you consider that the world and the body are WITHIN your mind, both of them are ILLUSORY PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVICES your mind is using to hide from reality. You've constructed a dream of deception, within your mind, in the shape of a world, to hide reality. "The world was made as an attack on God."

Your mind - a universe-sized CONTAINER, has invented a world, inside of itself, designed to block THE CONTAINER, from **SEEING THE CONTAINER**. And now the container is seemingly UNAWARE OF ITSELF, asleep and lost in its own IMAGINED WORLD. A dream world.

Physical sight through the body, looking at FORMS (physical objects), is your mind's attempt to NOT LOOK PAST SIN, given that physical objects are SINS within your larger mind.

The eyes fixate on sin and make it real. This is what they were MADE TO DO. If the world seems real, you have MADE SIN REAL and are looking at an ILLUSION, which seems outside your body, but the world and the body are SMALLER THAN YOU. If you believe what the body sees is reality, you are blind and insane. "Nothing so blinding as perception of form."

The body's vision is a device for NOT SEEING THE TRUTH, to blind the mind and keep it from looking PAST ALL PHYSICAL FORMS - which are MIND BLOCKAGES - to reality which lies beyond them.

"The world IS false perception." "The world IS perception." This means you, who are a universe-sized container, are visualizing WITHIN yourself, an entire planet, which is the FORM that "perceiving incorrectly" takes, as a visualization of an UNREAL WORLD, so that you are lost in your own INNER planet-sized dream. The physical world IS your universe-sized mind PERCEIVING!! "Perception is a separated state". You are projecting it!

"Blocks to awareness" include PHYSICAL MATTER. Spacetime itself IS A BELIEF, smaller than your mind, within your mind!

The body has been made as a device IN YOUR MIND to block your VISION. Your mind is HOST to an imaginary world, which it is looking AT, so that it does not look PAST it, to ITSELF.

Your mind, and your correction of perception, is not just taking place within the safe confines of your body-mind, as if trapped in a body and totally confined to "whats inside my body."

Realize instead that your mind is also OUT THERE. Physical matter is a BLOCK. It is an IMAGE in your mind. Not merely an image within your mind in a body. An image in your mind BIGGER THAN THE UNIVERSE. YOU are supposed to LITERALLY see past it in order to be aware of YOURSELF and to look upon CHRIST just as the Holy Spirit does.

When your mind - your universe-sized mind, changes its mind, and starts to use reason to SEE PAST the illusory world, it will stop believing in the dream it's having, and realize it is the dreamer. This will DISAPPEAR THE DREAM, which includes the literally disappearing of ALL PHYSICAL OBJECTS, which ARE ALWAYS FORMS OF ERROR AND SIN.

In the atonement therefore, you have the recognition that THERE IS NO WORLD, because "the world you made" was merely a fictional vision you were holding inside your mind temporarily, while you dreamed, and now the dreaming has ended. THERE IS NO WORLD to block your *awareness* of your SELF, and thus you return to looking ONLY UPON your Christ Self, which is formless and timeless, OUTSIDE OF SPACETIME, which has now ended.

YOU, are the Kingdom of Heaven.

Here is how Jesus puts it:

"SIN IS A BLOCK (to awareness), set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. 3 No one who LOOKS ON IT without the help of reason would try to pass it. 4 THE BODY'S EYES BEHOLD IT AS SOLID (yes, your fricking EYES are LOOKING AT SIN) granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. 5 Yet reason SEES THROUGH IT (sees through physical matter), because IT IS AN ERROR (all physical matter is an ERROR!). 6 The FORM (physical form) it takes cannot conceal its EMPTINESS (there IS NO PHYSICAL WORLD - IT IS EMPTINESS) from reason's eyes."

"Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception" ... "The body's eyes see ONLY form." .... "These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see." .... " See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and cannot go beyond.".... "Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. "

"There is nothing SO BLINDING as PERCEPTION OF FORM (physical matter). For SIGHT OF FORM means ***understanding has been obscured***. Only MISTAKES have different forms (physical objects are mistakes), and so they can deceive (physical objects deceive). You can change form (you can change objects), BECAUSE it is not true (because physical objects are NOT TRUE).

IT COULD NOT BE REALITY (physical matter IS NOT REALITY!), BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is not reality, IT MUST BE AN ILLUSION (physical FORMS ARE ILLUSIONS), and ****IS NOT THERE TO SEE**** - the physical world DOES NOT EXIST - there is no world.). And, if you see it, you MUST BE MISTAKEN, for you are seeing what CAN NOT BE REAL, AS IF IT WERE. What cannot see beyond what is not there, MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions as the truth. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth? "

THIS IS IMPORTANT!

"Some miracles may seem to be of greater magnitude than others. But remember the first principle of the course; there is no order of difficulty in miracles. In reality you are perfectly unaffected by all expressions of lack of love." - ACIM

Miracle principle 1: "There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not "harder" or "bigger" than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal." - ACIM

In the ego's dream, there is an ILLUSION of a hierarchy of difficulty. That is, forms appear to take on different properties and meanings or different levels of severity. It may seem "easy" to cut an apple, but "hard" to fix a broken leg. It may seem "easy" to walk down a street, but "hard" to teleport yourself to your destination.

The appearance of a given form, and all forms are illusions, dictates what it SEEMS its qualities are, or how much of a challenge it presents, or how difficult it would be to change it.

You will find that in the ego thought system, when something "more serious" happens, you also have a bigger reaction. This is practically automatic, psychologically. For example if someone tells you you have a booger hanging out of your nose, your reaction might be slight embarrassment. But if someone tells you you are terminally ill and will die in a week, your reaction will be horror and terror. Buy does it HAVE to be? Unchecked, the ego will react to the degree it perceives a threat, and you'll find that big problems cause big reactions, only because we're convinced by their appearance or order of difficulty.

These reactions that you have, are directly in proportion to the appearance or illusion of what this "external cause" is capable of doing to you. If the thing seems like a tiny threat, you consider it insignificant and have insignificant reactions. If it seems "life threatening", you consider it to have some kind of profound power, that it's really serious and dangerous, and you subsequently exhibit really strong symptoms or reactions within yourself, or in your body.

BUT ALL OF THESE ARE ILLUSIONS. All of these levels of meaning and significance and severity are illusions. There IS nothing special or important or difficult or harder to change about someone's broken leg, than to get them to wipe their nose. If someone shows up with a broken leg we'd have bigger automatic reactions. We think it's more serious, that it contains more "power" to make bad things happen, and therefore is much more of an opponent, is harder to change, harder to heal, harder to fix. It's not.

We are tasked with learning to change our perception to such a degree that we do not BELIEVE these illusions. When the Course tells us that we've given everything the meaning it has for us, this goes even to the extent of how we perceive and believe that some things in the world are more serious than others or warrant a bigger response. Getting rid of a hurricane is NO MORE DIFFICULT than getting rid of a booger, IF you can recognize clearly - and RECOGNITION is the key here - that the profound ILLUSION of the intense severity of a hurricane IS NOT REAL, IS NOT TRUE, and HAS NO POWER more than a booger on someone's face.

The ego deliberately made illusions of death and destruction, in contrast to illusions of "relative calm", to tempt us to believe that some illusions are worse than others, some should be avoided, some should be kept, and some are preferred. Jesus warns us not to mistake an illusion of peace (absence of "hard levels of difficulty"), for real peace. Similarly we need to learn to completely overlook ie NOT BUY INTO, any suggestion by any FORM - physical bodies, environmental objects etc - that what it is is dictated by HOW IT APPEARS. It is not that. All of those appearances are FALSE!

If we want to become miracle workers, it DOES REQUIRE us to learn NOT to believe in the hierarchy of illusions. And that means, if someone comes along with cancer, we RECOGNIZE that IT IS NOT REAL CANCER, it has nothing true about it, it is not difficult, it is not a "bigger threat", it does not cause more fear, it has literally NOTHING to it any more significant than a puff of air. If we can't see and recognize it this way, we will fall for the illusion of the reversal of cause and effect, disempower ourselves, react with the ego, and FAIL to work a miracle of healing.

We need to so completely collapse our own belief in the STORY of how cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, broken limbs, strokes, organ failure, brain damage etc, are all ILLUSIONS with ABSOLUTELY NO TRUTH TO THEM WHATSOEVER. Not one single aspect of any of these things is true, and every way that they TRY TO TEMPT US TO BELIEVE THEY ARE, is the ego's attempt to tempt us to believe the Son of God is a body which can die. Basically in a word - bullshit.

Miracles CAN heal the sick and raise the dead, literally. They CAN move mountains, literally. They CAN part the sea, literally. And they CAN heal absolutely all forms of sickness, all illusions of separation, and all ways in which problems show up. And this is because to be MIRACLE MINDED you MUST RECOGNIZE illusions for what they are and not be fooled by them, otherwise you WILL believe in a hierarchy of illusions, you will believe in orders of difficulty, and you will therefore incapacitate yourself and be unable to change those forms because you yourself believe they have a special power to RESIST the miracle.

No-ones sickness, no matter how advanced, or how much the person believes in it, or how much they have chosen it, or how much they want to keep it to protect them from the truth, or how much they want to die, NOTHING has power over miracles. There is NO order of difficulty. Not some, not a little, NONE. All illusions are the same illusion. Believed in, tempted by, convinced by, is a state of not being miracle minded. Once you CAN recognize illusions properly and not be FOOLED by them, you WILL be able to change them at will, in an INSTANT, and **EASILY!** Jesus himself said in the course how EASILY these thing can be changed.

Make no mistake, the entire world and all forms and objects and bodies are ILLUSIONS within a MIND which is dreaming them, and it's not just about fixing your own personal perception OF those things or about those things. You need to learn to recognize those things for what they are and not believe in them whatsoever. If you think you are awake and you're still incapable of healing the sick or raising the dead, you probably are not awake all the way. You are still subject to the laws of chaos. And the dream is still telling you where to get off.

Miracles are miracles for a reason. They completely defy ALL of the laws of the ego's world, completely IGNORE all appearances of the severity of problems, and TRANSCEND form entirely. "Miracles are shifts into invisibility, that is why they heal" - meaning they are a movement by mind AWAY from the illusion of form and therefore has power OVER form to change form and "heal" form. Even if that healing is temporary, and even if we are not bodies, and even if the entire world is just a symptom of sickness, we CAN and SHOULD and WILL develop a miracle-working ability IF we are to truly awaken from this world. To not do so is to be convinced by illusions and remain in the cycle of birth and death. This is also why the Bible says, "signs and wonders follow those who believe."

Say you have some illusions. Something that isn't true. It could be a physical thing, or some belief or whatever.

If your mind is open, it is open to the possibility of being mistaken, the possibility of not knowing, the possibility that the thing could be true or false. The mind isn't locked into some position or defending some viewpoint or prior belief. It's open to considering possibilities.

This openness allows you to "see" all of what is there, without filtering anything out with some kind of bias. It lets you recognize what things are, without distortions and without preferences. It's just sort of a way of saying, "tell me what you are", "what is this really?". it requires honesty and a willingness to be mistaken.

Open mindedness can allow you to see a mistake, recognize it as a mistake, and recognize that it needs correcting. It is a light which is open to everything, so it can see all sides and all angles, all perspectives. Including being able to see from a perspective of wholeness, which holds things in its light and in its true perspective to reveal what things really are.

Open-mindedness could be said to be the same thing as forgiveness. It's a mind that is willing to accept the truth regardless of what the truth is, and is not deceived by appearances. It's open to questioning what it sees and considering that it may or may not be true or real. It's the same thing as true perception - openness to the whole truth.

Sin on the other hand is a state of close-mindedness, which we could call false perception. You could call it narrow-mindedness as well. The mind narrows down and instead of being open to the whole, to everything, it becomes very focused and specific. It shuts out the peripheral vision, so to speak, and focuses only on what things appear to be on the surface.

A closed mind is not open to considering that anything is mistaken, or to questioning the reality or truth of anything at all. It takes everything at face value. Illusions are taken to be reality, lies are considered truth. Whatever seems to happen is believed to be really happening.

A closed mind also narrows down and homes in on specific things, so will focus on "what someone did" to the exclusion of all else. Even if the person has merit or does good dees in addition to their mistakes, sin focuses only on the mistakes and shuts out the good deeds.

Thus a closed mind becomes a darkened mind, focusing only on what people are doing wrong - given that everything in form is basically a mistake it turns everything into a sin. It mistakes illusions for truth and believes that whatever appears to be happening is permanently irreversibly true.

Sin has no openness to correction, to healing, to another viewpoint. It is very rigid and stuck and fixated on nothingness. It will not budge or allow any change to its viewpoint, or any way by which anything can be questioned. It takes everything as gospel and without question at all, accepting illusions into the mind without any sense of real perspective.

A sinful false perception therefore, a closed mind, does not see that there is even a possibility of mistakenness, a possibility of unintentionally, or of a need for gentle correction. It sees only deliberate evil acts, which appear to be utterly unforgivable, and sees that there is no other way to look at anything. It does not allow any openness to consider its position being flawed, or to register any sense of sin itself being a mistaken view.

As such a closed mind is an unforgiving mind, a mind which will not allow forgiveness because it will not question whether or not what happens is really happening. Whether that it sees is really there to see, or the truth at all. It believes it knows everything already, has all of the truth already, cannot be told anything new, and will not listen to reason. It won't consider the possibility of any alternative viewpoint, because to sin there is only one factual truth - you sinned and you should die for it.

As we awaken, we are moving from the viewpoint of sin - or closed-mindedness, and are opening up the mind and expanding our viewpoint so that we are more inclusive, more open, considerate, willing to question, willing to be mistaken, and willing to recognize that other people's choices are mistakes and not sins. This requires broadening the focal point and expanding it out to see the whole picture. To reframe everything in the light of the whole.

In forgiveness, everything false is recognised as false, without judgement. And everything true is recognised as true without distortion. It recognizes that all illusions are just mistakes, and there is no sin, because there is nothing closed off from the light of truth. The whole is recognised, perception is open to wholeness, and the whole informs everything. To forgive, you must open your mind and question illusions and let go of trying to make everything into a sin. There is no sin.

"What is forgiveness, but a willingness that truth be true? What can remain unhealed and broken from a Unity Which holds all things within Itself? There is NO sin. And EVERY miracle is possible the INSTANT that the Son of God perceives his wishes and the Will of God are One." UrT26H9

"Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizons, and direct approaches to the special blocks which keep your vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal." UrW180 "Only by doing this is it possible to transcend the narrow boundaries the ego would impose upon the self." UrP3C8

"And if I need but stillness and a tranquil, open mind, these are the gifts I will receive of Him." UrW365

"It is therefore essential that you keep a perfectly open mind, unhampered by judgment, in selecting the things to which the idea for the day is to be applied." UrW3L2

"Accept atonement with an open mind which cherishes no lingering belief that you have made a devil of God's Son." UrW101

"Dwell not upon the past today. Keep a completely open mind, washed of all past ideas and clean of every concept you have made." UrW75L5

"An open mind is more honest than this." UrT12D3

"Healing will flash across your open mind as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings." UrW136L16

"The Savior's vision is as innocent of what your brother is as it is free of any judgment made upon yourself. It sees no past in anyone at all. And thus it serves a wholly open mind, unclouded by old concepts and prepared to look on ONLY what the present holds." UrT31G13

"It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is." UrT31E16