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Many course students believe that the physical world is a kind of heaven-in-disguise, but simply hidden behind their mistaken perceptions. It's as if to say, once they purify their mind of false perceptions, they will see it 'how God intended it' and that this is the same thing as being in heaven.

If you are setting out with the belief that the physical world is reality, and especially if you believe God made it, then that background acts as a 'context' in which you read all of the rest of the Course. There is so much in the course written about undoing false perceptions and becoming able to see the real world or forgiven world etc, that it's possible to read into that to mean the physical world is reality.

For example, the course does say things like.... you must undo your false perceptions.... your false perceptions are clouding your perception of reality.... once you undo false perceptions you will see clearly.... then you'll see you brother as Christ and will see the beautiful forgiven/real world.... etc.... and there isn't specifically anything in those 'pieces' of the Course - if taken out of its total context - to challenge the notion that the physical world is real. So that can lead you to believe that this fundamental idea that the world exists goes unchallenged by the Course.

Another example is that people heavily believe they are bodies. They read things about how they should just accept the world 'as it is' and change their mind, and this leads to this kind of 'separation' between the mind and body. i.e., that we should let the body do whatever because its not real (a level confusion) and we should let the world do whatever because it's not real (a level confusion). And that's really a kind of paralysis, and a lack of responsibility, and a total lack of power (especially over death, which is a key part of the Course).

It is very possible therefore to take most of the course and slot it into an existing belief system and have it seem to mostly make sense. So then in order to bring the truth into the world, instead of bringing the world to the truth (in which it dissolves), people will try to sort of 'glue together' the broken pieces of out-of-context metaphysics, such as to say God made the world, the world is heaven on earth, the body can live forever, God made beautiful stuff in the world and sustains it, etc... none of that is in the course, but those finer points are easy to gloss over and ignore.

As I go back through the ACIM text and read it slowly and really digest it and ask myself what it is saying, how is it consistent, I continually see evidence that it is quite literally saying "there is no world" and that heaven and the world are completely opposed, that God did not create it - we did, that the world is something we 'made' as an attack on God, etc. Its not just our perception OF the attack that is an attack on God. The world ITSELF is fundamentally an attack on God, down to the very fabric of spacetime.

And on the point about perception, it is CLEAR in the text that the only point of having true perception (right mindedness) is that it parallels the One mind and allows us to transition to the one mind, which exists entirely beyond the world. Everything Jesus says clearly indicates this physical world is an ILLUSION and a dream and is not reality and never will be reality. It is VERY difficult for us ego humans to accept this as truth, and that is why the ego is extremely careful to disguise the evidence of this and gloss over the truth.

I guess I'm making this point because I continue to see prominent people 'teaching' other students with statements that seem to exalt the world and make it seem spiritual, but which is in fact the complete OPPOSITE of what the Course is actually teaching. As clearly defined in the Disappearance of the Universe, for example, which IS aligned with the Course's message, the world is basically a giant turd, metaphorically speaking, it holds nothing that we want, it is not our home, it is nothing more than a nightmare or bad dream, and IT WILL DISAPPEAR because it is not eternal.

It is quite a severe distortion of the Course's message when, within the wrong context, it can seem to be saying that the world will transform into heaven or the the world is God's 'movement' or that bodies are a permanent form of identification etc. The idea that the world is exalted and filled with any kind of truth is the absolute opposite of what the Course says and a total misinterpretation of its meaning. Imagine you believe an interpretation of truth that is 100% false. That's what many people are doing. To believe the world is our spiritual home is an absolute farce, and is precisely how the ego wants to INTERFERE with the Course and absolutely distort it to its aims of KEEPING ITSELF GOING.

The world isn't real.

Separation from God follows a perfectly logical sequence of consequences. The Holy Spirit's thought system is perfectly logically consistent, and so is the ego's. Everything which arises in the ego's thought system is a completely logical progression based on the dynamics of being separate from the truth.

It is possible to derive from the separation an entire metaphysical structure which puts into context everything which MUST happen and DID happen as a result of it. This includes the proper recognition of what the physical universe is, what the other dimensions/universes are, where it all fits into the picture, why bodies were made, and why there is death.

Regardless of whether you are an ACIM student or not, if you understand precise irrefutable logic, it is possible to see the true metaphysics behind the Course. What has happened in the ego split mind MUST happen in any split mind.

There is essentially nothing "special" about the ego's dream and nothing special or unusual about what has happened in it. There is nothing special about ACIM's metaphysics and there is nothing unusual or exceptional or out of place. There is only one way to separate from God, and there is only one outcome that results from it.

You do not need to go on a quote-fest, or nit-pick individual words, or dwell on whether Jesus said it in the course or not, in order to figure this out and be clear about it. In fact, if you can grasp the metaphysical background of existence then it will even clarify for you what Jesus meant in the Course when he said certain things, rather than having to rely on your own "best skills" at trying to grasp what it means.

There is nothing out of place in the ego's dream. Everything which has happened in it has been a completely logical progression of consequences and is perfectly consistent. There are no loopholes. There is nothing which just so happens to have happened for "some reason". What has happened is ONLY what had to happen and nothing else. The ego's dream is a closed system. It is entirely predictable.

There doesn't really need to be debate about what the Course does or doesn't say or who has authority to say it or what Jesus meant or what the quotes seem to suggest. Jesus wrote the Course FROM a mind which understands with perfect clarity a metaphysical context which ANYONE can access and understand and express from. If you don't grasp that metaphysical structure, then you will fall back to relying on "the words" of the Course or what was expressed based on that metaphysical structure. And then you will become lost, because you're once removed from it.

Without seeing the perfect metaphysics you will have to lapse into personal opinion. We shouldn't really be in the business of expressing personal opinion. We should be open to learning directly from the truth itself, or the source of truth/Holy Spirit etc, what the truth is. If we do not know what the truth is, we need to be able to admit this, and be open to learning. We should not be in a constant state of arguing and debating who is right. Either we're willing to accept the truth from the horse's mouth or we're just going to get into a big fight about whose version of it is the best. This is completely unnecessary once you can see the metaphysics behind everything.

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, the mind HEALS THE BODY (making sickness and death IMPOSSIBLE) because it has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness because it cannot conceive of attacking anyone or anything."

This quote is often MIS USED in attempt to prove that if the mind is free of guilt, it cannot suffer WHEN THE BODY IS SICK, or WHEN THE BODY IS DYING.

This is BULLSHIT. It is taken out of context. A sane mind MUST HEAL THE BODY and makes sickness and death IMPOSSIBLE. You are not supposed to "transcend sickness". You are not supposed to sit on a fence and watch while the body dies, believing you are not it. You are supposed to MAKE IT LIVE.!!!!!!! Only through LIFE can the body be made to disappear forever.

"It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains. They are the range of choice beyond which your decision cannot go. The real and the unreal are all there is to choose between, and nothing more than these."

As Jesus states here, the real and the unreal are all that you can choose between. Each of these is a "world", or a system of thought or order or thought. Reality is the higher order reality, an unreality is the lower order "reality" - the illusion of spacetime. These are the only two states that you can choose between. Two worlds, not three.

The "real world" described in A Course in Miracles, sometimes speaks in a manner which makes it sounds as if it is some kind of "in-between world", between heaven and earth. Not earth, not heaven, but something else. There are also references to it being a borderland of thought between the two. Kind of like the threshold of a doorway which is not really a place but a transition or meeting place, like a bridge.

But there are also other references to the real world which are framed more as if references to heaven itself. Such as "nothing there but shines and shines forever." And "This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all." And "Yet the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT." These references are to me clearly references to heaven, yet use the term "real world".

I think in ACIM circles the attempt to grasp "what is the real world" has led to a lot of confusion especially due to the use of the term "real", and has led people to think it is a third world interposed between heaven and earth. I don't think this is really the case. I've been shown and told that the real world is the kingdom of God.

In terms of what Jesus has said about there being only TWO options, the "real world" becomes a far more appropriate term for HEAVEN. Because after all, Jesus is very careful and accurate in his choice of words, and heaven IS very appropriately "a real world". Not a pseudo-reality or an inbetween-almost-reality but actual reality. What else would you very appropriately call heaven but "a real world" - because it is actually completely real.

I see also references to christ vision looking beyond the physical unreal world to the light of heaven. I see references to us seeing christ - and christ is in heaven. I see references even to seeing God or having visions of God, who is not in this world. There are references to seeing your creations as well, which are in heaven. These all seem to further point to "the real world" being heaven.

Now, that said, it IS clear that there is a CONTEXT, and it also is the most frequent context, in which "the real world" term is referring to something seemingly "outside" of heaven. Particularly in terms of "For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight." And "The real world still is but a dream." Plus "And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into a dream where all is joy, because that is the PURPOSE that it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms which enter in the dreams are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love."

Now here's how I'm interpreting this. Let's simply and logically clearly say that heaven is the only real world. It is appropriately titled the real world. Let's also recognize that in spacetime we are using perception. Perception is once removed from knowledge. It is judgemental and interpretative rather than direct cognition or knowing. Perception is image-making. This "layer" of images overlays reality.

So now let's say that there is heaven AS a real world, and then there is a PERCEPTION OF heaven from "outside of it". This is a perception experienced by those who still have perception, who are looking in the direction of heaven, toward the light of God. They are literally peering INTO heaven from the outside. I think of this as "window shopping". They're outside heaven, in a body, having a perception or "vision" (true perception), but they're looking towards and upon reality.

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

This PERCEPTION OF reality is a dream still. It's like an image or a surface crust or layer of how heaven would appear TO perception. And let's not forget that "Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception CAN be, is without meaning in Heaven. Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light." This to me implies that perception can reach to heaven and can see heaven.

So now what I'm saying is, the context where "the real world" is described as a borderland, a bridge, an image, a symbol, the face of christ, still a dream which can disappear, this is all talking about the PERCEPTUAL INTERPRETATION OF HEAVEN. It's not a direct experience of heaven or christ but it's how heaven and christ look when you use perception to look at them instead of direct knowing. It's still a little removed from heaven but it forms a kind of "image" or symbolic experience of it. This image is still a dream and that's why it comes to an end.

"The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God's Son no longer sleeps. His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father's Love"

"But the Face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. He is as near to Heaven as is possible outside the gate."

So here Jesus seems to be confirming that "the real world" as used in its more common context, being removed from heaven, is SYMBOLIC - a symbolic version of the ACTUAL REAL HEAVEN. And symbols aren't something in themselves, they POINT TO the thing. They represent it, like a photograph. By using PERCEPTION to look upon the reality of the kingdom, you see it symbolically and no longer see the physical world. The "face of christ" then literally is like a surface appearance of christ, an outside "facade" ie a symbolic representation of the christ that is WITHIN heaven.

This to me is currently the only way to support the idea that there are ONLY two worlds. Not that there is a "real world" sandwiched in between them, or that this borderland has stuff in it. Because we're also told ""The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."

To me, the only way "the real world" can have contents that shine FOREVER, in contradiction to the fact that "even the real world will vanish from your sight", is that it's a reference to HEAVEN. Heaven's contents will shine forever. Heaven IS the real world. But the PERCEPTUAL VISION of heaven is what he refers to in the context of "the real world" that is a symbolic dream, which ends. First you see the kingdom as accurately as perception CAN, within its limits, and then you go INTO it.

"Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light. But no perception, however holy, will last FOREVER."

"Nothing that you remember, that made your heart seem to sing with joy, has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. FOR YOU WILL SEE THE SON OF GOD. You will behold the beauty that the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and that He thanks the Father for."

Note here that he's telling us that in the holy spirit's PERCEPTION, we will see the son of God. Where is the Son of God? He's in heaven. He IS heaven. He is the sonship. The Holy Spirit loves to look upon christ who is in heaven. His perception is a vision of christ, which later gives way to the direct cognitive knowledge of christ.

"And he cannot fail to look upon what Christ would have him see, and share Christ's love for what he looks upon."

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" is another way of saying the same thing. Only the innocent CAN see God."

This is why I've concluded that essentially the forgiven world is the ILLUSORY world of space and time and matter, which is looking AWAY from heaven towards form. It is earth, the world, which has been forgiven. And forgiveness forgives it BY OVERLOOKING IT, looking beyond it towards heaven. The real world is heaven, and it is the light which christ vision sees, which is initially seen using perception. When this perception is full and complete, as in seeing the face of christ or "christ as if seen from the outside", perception ends and you now enter into heaven.

ie "the real world" really is the kingdom of God. The perceptual interpretation of that real world is what is commonly thought to be "the real world". The real world is NOT a reinterpreted earth. That's the forgiven world. Because reality cannot be forgiven, only illusions can be overlooked. Christ vision which is true perception forgives the world by looking past it to the light of reality.

There are only two worlds. Reality and unreality. Perception is always within the realm of unreality, but can be adjusted to be more accurate and thus to perceive reality from the "outside". To interpret the kingdom. This is its view of the real world of heaven from within the perceptual landscape. When this perception is whole, the illusory forgiven world disappears entirely and is forgotten, and perception comes to an end.

So the commonly referenced "real world" (outside of heaven) is actually a perceptual interpretation OF the ACTUALLY REAL world of heaven. It's you looking at heaven through perceptual interpretation, with vision (true perception). It looks just like heaven because it is looking AT heaven. It is not a third world but is actually an experience of heaven's reality and contents through the heaven-aligned filter of true perception. Perception no longer distorts it and perceives it directly. This perceptual layer thus becomes irrelevant because it is not needed, and you then move into the direct experience without perception in the way, to SEE the SAME REAL WORLD of the kingdom, forever.

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream."

"Beyond this world there is a world I want."

"Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world."

"Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other."

"No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him."

"The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true, and wholly YOURS. For all else you have LENT yourself in time, and it WILL fade. But this one thing is ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto His Son. Your ONE reality was GIVEN you, and BY it God created you as one with Him."

"As mediator between the two worlds, He (Holy Spirit) knows what you have need of, and WHICH WILL NOT HURT YOU."

"It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains." "Heaven remains your only alternative to the strange world you made."

"The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies BEYOND the picture. As you look on THIS, you realize that IT IS NOT A PICTURE, but a reality. This is no figured REPRESENTATION of a thought-system, but the Thought Itself. What IT represents is THERE. The frame fades gently, and God rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of creation,"

"The (physical unreal) world stands like a block before Christ's face (perception's view of christ in heaven). But true perception (vision) looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil (of illusions), so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is (an illusion, nothing). And now it cannot fail to disappear (so it is recognized and vanishes), for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears (a vision of heaven), and in that instant is the world forgot (the forgiven unreal world) , with time (spacetime) forever ended as the world (forgiven) spins into nothingness from where it came."

"And now God's KNOWLEDGE, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its Kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

What our minds really need is a paradigm shift. That means a really radical sweeping upgrade in terms of premise, context and outlook. Some kind of system-wide "shift" out of an entire field of form into some radically greater perspective.

It's not enough to be dwelling in the realm of problems and trying to solve them. We have to get our minds out of the entire belief in problems. That's a paradigm shift, a refusal to engage with the level of suffering and a desire to completely transcend it.

This is why Jesus tells us for example to not to try to find freedom in the body, or in the world. It doesn't exist there. Or to not seek for love outside yourself, but within.

We've been looking to solve problems and suffering at the level of the problems and the suffering, which at best makes illusions of solutions but doesn't stop it happening. If you want it to all stop completely you have to stop the entire system, to not play the game.

The same applies with death and sickness. Questioning whether such things even exist at all, instead of dwelling on how to solve them. It's the withdrawal of power from illusions that undoes them, just as forgiveness is an entire perspective above the battlefield that renders the whole system obsolete.

The ego for example counsels that a war is real, and that you should play the game of war, and that if you take a side you will win, or alternatively you will lose. What it doesn't tell you is that both sides of the war is a loss, because to exterminate anyone is to lose yourself, because you are one. It is not interested in oneness only in separation. If you play the game, you lose, regardless of the outcome. The only way to shift the entire paradigm is not to play at all.

All reactions to a suffering world that you've made real, which compel you to change it so that you don't seem to suffer, are faulty. They might seem to produce some changes and make the illusion more palatable, but it doesn't really wake you up. What wakes you up is questioning the entire premise of the thing and whether or not it's even possible.

Shifting from a premise that this world is real, to a premise that it is just an unreal dream with no real consequences, is a total paradigm shift. It's always about adopting a much broader and higher context which completely reframes everything. A whole new paradigm, a new thought system, a new perception, a new truth, which is so far reaching and deep that it completely redefines the meaning of everything, and puts everything in its proper perspective.

"Freud was more clear-sighted about this, because he knew a BAD thing when he perceived it, but he failed to recognize that a bad thing cannot exist. It is therefore wholly unnecessary to try to get out of it. As you very rightly observed yourself, the thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE."

"Yet freedom of the body HAS no meaning. And so the mind is DEDICATED to serve illusions."

"Fear not to cross to the abode of peace and perfect holiness. Only there is the completion of God and of His Son established forever. Seek not for this in the bleak world of illusion, where nothing is certain, and where everything fails to satisfy. And, in the Name of God, be wholly willing to abandon ALL illusion."

"Judgment is but a toy, a whim, the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your imagination. But vision sets all things right, bringing them gently within the kindly sway of Heaven's laws."

Various things seem to happen in the world. Sometimes seemingly happy things, sometimes tragic. Sometimes things seem to be going well, sometimes they fuck up. There are dramas. There's emotion. People seem to be well, others seem to be dying. There is a whole lot of "material" to react to, respond to, deal with, manage, etc.

It all seems plausible and true. It seems to have reality. It seems like it's something to be taken seriously. We seem to have to care about certain outcomes. It seems like there's real problems and real solutions. But this is all within the context of "the world is real".

IF the world is real, it makes sense that we should be taking things seriously. We should be caring, paying attention, reacting, dealing with issues, trying to control things, etc. This all seems "valid". It seems justified. It even seems to make sense. If someone is struggling with something it seems like there are certain courses of action. If there is a problem that seems serious, it seems you should be quite upset about it.

But here is the thing. This is all based on the assumption that the world is real. And that's a big assumption. It's a framework or a basis. A logical premise. It's a starting point on which to derive all these conclusions, evaluations, judgements, strategies etc. But what if the world isn't real?

What if the the world is in fact just a dream? You see, if the world is a dream, this changes the ENTIRE context of everything that seems to be happening. If it's a dream, nothing is really happening here. If it's a dream, even if it seems like some person just died, they didn't really die. If it's a dream, sickness is also an illusion and is completely fake. If it's a dream, everything that occurs is just some made up fantasy.

"What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

In a dream world, it's as though there are just scenarios, situations, scenes, fictions and stories, which come and go fairly randomly. They don't actually have any particular rhyme or reason or meaning. Over here is the scene of a person at work. Over there is the scene of a person battling with disease. Over here is another person waking up in the morning. Over there is another person tying their shoes on a subway train. Just strange little vignettes of activity, drama and story.

If it's a dream, none of these things are really happening. The dream reframes the entire and every episode as not being what it seems to be. Are we to keep taking it seriously when something shows up that seems serious? Or should we laugh at yet another strange episode of dreaming in which we seem to be experiencing strange events and people?

Yes, if its real, then we probably should react to it. But if it is ONLY a dream, this lifts away ALL of the reasons and rationale for taking it seriously, believing it means anything, reacting to it as if it's posing real threats, buying into its illusions. And don't think the illusions aren't extraordinarily creative and well made. They are designed to deceive and tempt you and distract you and disarm you. But even a scenario of a person standing there trying to destroy you, it laughable in the context that it's ONLY a scene within a dream and you are not the body nor can you be attacked.

If you could observe the world, from outside of it, from outside the dream, it would be a radical change in perspective. What you once thought was being really threatened is now recognized as nothing but some illusion pretending to threaten an illusion. Nothing REAL can be threatened. You'd know that the whole world is one big fake fairytale. There aren't really any bodies, there's no real sickness, no real death, on real war, no tears or upsets or problems. It's all made up.

And changing your frame of reference, your point of perspective on this world, is how you forgive and develop true perception. Learning to see from a vantage point of the truth about the world, that it IS a dream, rather than the perspective that it's really happening and worth being alarmed about. False perception shows you the world as if it's NOT a dream, but a terribly real-seeming nightmare with tragic events and threat and danger. In such a world there is no safety, if you have identified with the dream figure.

This is why it's very vital to dis-identify from the body. Not just because bodies are distracting and act as anchors to bring down the Son of God, but because they are INSIDE the dream. They are part of it. They are just characters and costumes. So you, who are dreaming the world from OUTSIDE of the world, if you start to believe you are one of the characters in the dream, a body, you're going to lose sight of yourself, lose track of the truth, and believe that the world is happening to YOU because YOU are now believing you're a body. "What you are cannot be seen nor pictured".

Becoming spirit identified merely means the same thing as recognizing this is just a dream. It means remembering who and what you are, which is, that you are the dreamer of the dream, NOT the contents of the dream. You are not the body or the house or the family or the children or the job or the role-play. You are outside the dream bubble. Outside of spacetime, in heaven. In the awake world, the reality of the Kingdom. Attaching your "self" to "world stuff" just makes you believe you're under attack from a dangerous world where everything is chaotic and destructive.

Jesus's approach to the world is to learn to recognize that it IS only a dream. And being a dream, it should not be taken seriously. It should not be afforded any kind of reality or truth. Any kind of "it's really occurring". Any kind of artificial meaning or implication. In fact, he tells us that this is the secret of salvation. If we would recognize it's JUST a dream, we should be laughing at every part of it, realizing that it's complete fiction. Like some movie on a screen.

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, ****they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream.**** This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes.

The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.""

The vital truth of forgiveness, is to recognize that what you thought happened, DID NOT HAPPEN.

"Forgiveness is the recognition that what you think your brother did has not OCCURRED."

This doesn't mean that it happened and then you forget about it. It doesn't mean you remember it and trust your memory of it. It doesn't mean there are real consequences that continually PROVE that it happened.

It means it literally DID NOT OCCUR. EVER.

Jesus says of the separation and the world:

"The changes wrought are substanceless. All events are nowhere."

This is a central idea. Not simply that the world exists or existed and we need to deal with it. But that the world DOES NOT exist, IS NOT happening, and NEVER DID happen. Essentially, that there IS NO WORLD.

I am not sure if many of us are willing to take our forgiveness to this extreme. Because we can recall "doing things" in the world. We can remember "sins", attacks, happenings. But even the slightest hint of the idea that "you did it" or "they did it" IS the belief that sin is real.

No one ever really DID anything, because of the CONTEXT of this entire world.

This world is nothing but A DREAM. It is an imaginary world. It has NO real consequences UPON anything real. It IS UNREALITY. It is the unreal world. Not one single thing in it is really happening. Not one single appearance is really there. It is an ILLUSION of a world.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it. For what He creates must be eternal as Himself."

Forgiveness isn't merely the overlooking of what "is there". It is the recognition that, literally, IT IS NOT THERE. This requires that you remember the entire CONTEXT of what you are INSIDE OF when you think that stuff is happening.

IF this world were reality, then yes, everything it is would REALLY be happening. And all sins would be real. And all attack is real. And all damage, suffering and death is real. IF the world is real, then it is ALL VALID, and it is all of God.

But if this world IS NOT real, if it is ONLY a dream and nothing more, then this COMPLETELY INVALIDATES absolutely everything within it. Not one single event is really happening. Not one single image is true. Not one single planet really exists. And NONE OF IT is real.

NONE OF IT!

The ultimate recognition of this fact, in its fullest possible capacity, is the recognition that THERE IS NO WORLD. AT ALL. It does not really exist. It is not there. Nothing is happening there. And no-one is living in it. There IS no history. There IS no past. There IS no planet.

"There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. ***Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere.*** Outside of Heaven, ***only the conflict of illusion stands***; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. Illusions are but forms. Their content is never true."

So when you consider, indeed remember, that THIS IS A DREAM WORLD, not a REAL world, it completely reframes everything that happens. Or rather, it even brings into question WHETHER anything is happening, and indeed WHETHER there is EVEN a world here.

Space-time is 100% fiction! It is a BELIEF and nothing more. A mistaken idea of separation and delay. Space and time don't even really exist.

So any "sins" that seem to occur, any happenings, any events, any attacks, and sicknesses, any deaths, any day to day lives, any people going to jobs, any houses being inhabited, any lakes being swum in, any wars being waged, all of is JUST A DREAM, WITHIN an imaginary context. And so ALL OF IT IS A LIE.

IT IS NOT HAPPENING.

And it is ONLY when you can recognize that YOU DID NOT REALLY DO what you think you did, that you can RECEIVE THE CURE, which is the atonement. And atonement IS forgiveness. There is no sin because sin is impossible, and recognizing this is atonement. You HAVE NOT sinned because you CANNOT sin, because THERE IS NOWHERE TO SIN and sin is impossible everywhere. NOTHING CAN HAPPEN OUTSIDE OF GOD'S KINGDOM and THIS world, earth, and all the solar systems and galaxies, IS the illusion of exile outside of heaven.

The shit does not exist.

You know this deep down. And you KNOW that if there is even a SHRED of a notion that this world IS REAL, then EVERYTHING YOU HAVE EVER DONE IS A REAL SIN. And it cannot be forgiven. You can only forgive an illusion and cannot forgive real sin. Sin has to be UNREAL for you to forgive it. Only when your sins are recognized as NON EXISTENT are you aware of your innocence. And they are non-existent because they are IMPOSSIBLE.

You have never sinned. You never will. And no-one has ever sinned against you. Sin does not exist anywhere ever. Nothing has happened. All of spacetime is fiction. "The world of bodies is the world of sin." A world of sin cannot exist in God's world of innocence. You have NEVER sinned. You WILL never sin. YOU CANNOT SIN. You HAVE NOT sinned. You are just as holy and innocent as when God created you. And all the world will vanish.

THE WORLD IS NOTHING.

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

"God creates only mind awake. He does not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He gives not, nor make conditions which He does not share with them. The thought of death is not the opposite to thoughts of life. Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly but yet within Themselves, for They are everywhere.

What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

I hear the term "I don't know what anything means" thrown around quite a bit. It leads to this idea that we're meant to 'not know anything' in order to wake up.

I was just reading in the Text last night, Jesus was talking about power. He said knowledge is power, and here he is talking about real knowledge - knowing, direct experience of truth/God, which occurs in Spirit. He spoke of how we still have the power of God but we've denied it and covered it up with all of the things we've taught ourselves (of the ego).

And in that context alone, He goes on to explain that we need to admit that the things we have taught ourselves are not really knowledge - they are things of the ego, and in that sense what we think we know is not really knowing... and so what we think we know, we don't actually KNOW, we just justify and rationalize that it's truth.

We need to let go of THAT.... but, we're only letting go of that ego education so that we can reveal to ourselves the power of God/true knowledge, which we DO know and can know. We need to get back in touch with the power of God (knowledge), and we need to become aware of what we really DO know. It's still in us, just hidden by false knowledge.

The things I think I know, I do not really know, and are not really knowledge. I need to let those go and not depend on them. Then I can become aware again of the presence of real knowledge with God (awareness of love's presence).

When you are not aware and are in an unconscious ego state, projecting blame and finding other people wrong, you start trying to make "sense" out of what you're seeing.

You start trying to figure out how or why a person is doing what they're doing, as if there's an explanation for it within the context of them being really wrong.

You try to "understand" what is wrong with them. You try to put the pieces together and make sense of why this person is "obviously being ego".

We can get really adamant about this, trying to explain, justify, rationalize.

What we're trying to do is to maintain a consistent sense of what is true. We see something and we believe it's the truth but something about it doesn't add-up and we don't know why. Something doesn't fit. But we don't know that its our own projection that is mistaken, we just think the other person doesn't fit into the truth. They must be wrong because they aren't doing what your truth is saying they should be doing.

The thing is, they might not be fitting in with what you think the truth should be, because your idea of what the truth should be is mistaken. Maybe they are in fact being aligned with the truth, and you are not, and because you're not, you cannot recognize that they are.

So we find other people to be wrong when they are not wrong, because we are wrong. And we only see people as wrong because we're trying to make the truth be something it isn't. We're not seeing straight. We're misinterpreting reality. We're misinterpreting God.

It can be convincing, but we have to realize at some point, maybe this... which seems to be totally true, is not actually the whole truth. Maybe what I think is real and true is actually false, and I'm not seeing correctly. I need correction. Holy Spirit help!

Correct perception entails recognizing that a person is Christ.

That means they are immortal.

As you are listening to someone go on and on about their problems or what happened to them etc, just imagine or perceive that they are *completely* immortal, whereby absolutely nothing can happen to them.

This provides you with a reference point, a contrast, and a clarity, with which to discern correctly whether what they are saying is true, or what they are REALLY doing.

Recognize you are in the company of an immortal being, and this immortal being is complaining, blaming, scapegoating, projecting, denying, going on and on with some story about who did what and why it happened and how they have no choice and so on.

And then it becomes quite obvious to you the mistakes they are making, and what is UNTRUE about what they are saying.

If it is all seen in its proper context, that the person is immortal and invulnerable, it really shows up in quite an obvious way the lies they are telling.

And then you can affirm, silently or otherwise, that this is NOT TRUE. What the person is claiming is false. They are immortal. They cannot be hurt. Nothing can have happened to them against their will. Whatever the are claiming and believing, it's not reality.

In this way, you are holding them in the light. In this way, you are recognizing and affirming the truth in them, and refusing to join them in their illusions.

You might find that you start to feel like there is some kind of ... energy... that comes off you... truth... Holy Spirit, which radiates out to the person and supports them in truth, and may in fact bring about a healing to their mind. Just by your presence, and your awareness of the light.

Everyone is immortal. Don't believe a word they say if they claim otherwise!

A Course in Miracles - Urtext material - reproduced with permission from the Foundation for Inner Peace (acim.org), and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles (facim.org).
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