In our attempts to run away from pain and suffering, we might view ACIM as a path that leads us out of the world and into God.

There are a great many students who believe the course is telling them to do just this, to essentially turn their back on the world and seek for an escape. Trying to find a sense of peace that let's them no longer be bothered by the world, eventually to hit the eject button and exit it entirely, leaving it behind for all the other sorry souls to suffer alone.

But what actually happens when you uncover the light within, the love of God, is this light shines out and extends and radiates. You are actually supposed to be the light of the world, a teacher of God, a healer, a manifestation of Christ, using the body for a holy purpose. You are supposed to be part of the great crusade, working miracles in the world and bringing life to death.

That means that in fact we have it totally backwards. We are not tasked with fleeing a sinking ship. We are tasked with replacing the ship with God's Kingdom. Not of disappearing off into a safe house while everyone else remains in hell, but rather of bringing heaven into the prison cell to melt the walls and set everyone free.

The light of heaven has to be shine into the spacetime, in order to bring life to death, and produce resurrection. The entire course is about resurrection, and this world is nothing more than an illusion of a death area of heaven that needs healing. Essentially we need to heal a "part of heaven" that has temporarily taken on a form that seems to be heaven's opposite, so that the forms will disappear and only heaven will remain. You can't do that if you are trying to flee to higher ground.

Thus we actually are tasked with bringing light INTO the darkness, SO THAT the darkness is shone away and replaced with light. That's how the light works, it dispels and shines away the darkness and replaces it. It doesn't hide on a fence or in some passive back alley avoiding the world.

You can't really be a teacher of God if you are not extending God. And that means you are shining love into the world here and now. And that love will bring life and healing to minds and bodies, a love which eventually will actually infuse the world so much that it will shine it away, leaving only the light of God.

Heaven is means to REPLACE the world we made, and we are meant to be part of the means by which this replacement happens. And that means you have to bring God's reflection into the world, bring the light into the darkness, shed miracles onto spacetime, and essentially to reverse the attack on God that made the world in the first place.

The world is basically like a wound that needs healing, but the purpose of healing the wound isn't to keep the wound but in a healed condition. The purpose of healing is to erase the wound entirely. At first the wound appears to heal, to transform, to reflect wholeness, then eventually it itself gives way to the underlying wholeness it was hiding.

And then only heaven remains, and there is no longer an attempt to escape (which is a form of separation), but simply a dwelling in the here and now of eternity within heaven itself, since there is no longer anywhere else to be.

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

"Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place, made out of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deception UNdone."

Independence can seem like a good thing. It seems to in some way be better than dependency on others, or codependency. It seems to represent being responsible for ones own life, and having the freedom to choose anything.

The ego has an idea about independence. To the ego mind, independence from God is highly sought after. If you can exist and be autonomous without Him, that's your goal. And you can be relatively successful at this, albeit that usually the success will be punctuated with failures and is short lived.

You can, if you want, have your life all to yourself and do whatever you want to do. But at some point it will become obvious that something is missing. There is an emptiness, and your heart yearns for meaning. And that's because your independence is an attempt to be separate from meaning.

Separation from God, in which God's love is heartfelt and meaningful, must lead to a meaningless life in which the ego has taken over control of your life and is running the show on its own. This autonomy is artificial and pretends to be freedom. But it leads to death.

Without God, alone and incapacitated, there is only so much you can do. You cannot move the planets or heal the sick. You cannot raise the dead or bring miracles to those in need. And you cannot experience true peace.

Your independence from God is at a price. You may not realize it at first, but the cost is great. To be separate is to have nothing. And yet independence from God is an attempt to have everything for yourself. This grasping and holding-on to everything cannot accomplish what it aspires to do. Instead, everything is lost and you have nothing of value.

Your very existence, your being, cannot last while it is disconnected from the Source of Life. Cut off from supply, you will become sick and die. Disconnecting from your Real Self and from God is a lonely path of weakness, vulnerability, suffering and death.

If you want to eat real food at the table of God, then it comes with requirements. The Kingdom has some conditions you must meet. It is not that the Kingdom is conditional, but it does not include the ego. The idea of independence from God must be recognized as an ego attempt to be separate from God, to have a will of your own, to overthrow the Authority of God and to play at being God of your own world.

This you must be willing to let go if you are to reconnect and reunite with the only source of True Strength. This you must surrender if you want the benefit of Eternal Life. You must give up your desire for separate control over your life, and allow yourself to receive God again. Together you can share everything, but alone you have nothing but scraps.

The world is a dry and dusty desert where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Without God, it has no life, and there is no hope of forever. Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven, come to rejuvenate, resurrect and bring life back to the living. Only when you allow God to nourish you in this way might you enjoy the fruits of Heaven.

You can have it your way, exercising all the rights and freedoms to the full extent that individuality and separation allows, yielding every possible result that can come from an single separate self. But you will grow tired and be thirsty for more. And true meaning will not be found in a separate life.

God is your home. The Father shares everything worth having. True Peace can be yours again if you will open your heart and mind and let Him help you with living. Plug yourself back into His Power Source and return to Life. You have been dead without Him. Now is your time of resurrection. It's time for the prodigal son to come home.

A miracle, is actually a THING. It's discreet thing. Like a ball of energy, if you will, expressing from you and causing something to happen.

"Miracles are a spark of life."

"Miracles are energizers".

"Miracle impulses".

"Miracles are thought creations."

There is actually a SOMETHING that arises out of the christ mind and expresses and transfers from the giver, TO the receiver.

A pulse of electricity.

A ball of fire.

A spark of presence.

The Holy Spirit.

Whatever you want to call it. A miracle begins with an impulse and then something happens. Something comes OUT of the mind, EXPRESSEs, and applies TO something.

It's NOT just a matter of your holiness sitting there "shining" and rubbing off side effects.

Jesus also refers to them as a POWER SURGE.

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

If that power surge were CONSTANT you wouldn't be able to switch the dam thing off. And we are told that "the number of them you can perform is unlimited", meaning you are not ALWAYS performing miracles, you DO IT and then you stop. And then you do it again. It's an ACTION. A DOING.

This is something IN ADDITION TO a STATE of right mindedness or miracle mindedness. The STATE of miracle mindedness is NOT the same thing as multiple unlimited miracles which are PERFORMED.

What many people describe as miraculous is MERELY the state of miracle mindedness. In that state, you are READY, WILLING, and ABLE to perform miracles. But this is entirely distinct from miracle WORKING or DOING.

"it is a state of miracle-READINESS."

"Readiness here means keep your perception right side up, (or valid), so you will ALWAYS be ready, willing, and able. These are the essentials for "listen, learn, and do." You must be:

READY to listen

WILLING to learn

and ABLE to do."

"The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression."

Many people completely IGNORE "miracle doing" in ACIM and focus entirely on "miracle mindedness", because they think they are supposed to change their STATE of mind and get TO a state of true perception/miracle mindedness and then they're done. This completely IGNORES EXPRESSION of miracles FROM the state of miracle mindedness.

There is an EXPRESSION FROM the state of miracle mindedness. An expression. Like when you DECIDE TO TALK. Something expresses, temporarily. Something is generated. A thought creation happens and GIVES LIFE to something. Something goes out, a spark, a power, a force.

It's not the same thing as the miracle mind sitting there just doing what it does all the time. It is a distinct, momentary, separate DOING, EXPRESSION, a decision to PERFORM, to DO something, for a specific person, at a specific time and place.

And this EXPRESSION emits a POWER SURGE which is a SPARK OF LIFE, which proceeds out of your mind into the mind of another and heals it, with the consequence being the body is also healed.

This is what miracle WORKING means. You DO something. Something happens out of the ordinary. It is NOT the same thing as being miracle minded or right minded or christ minded or any other kind of STATE of mind. It's an EXPRESSION of a POWER which has causal effects.

"Thus is the body healed by miracles."

"Members of my party are ACTIVE workers."

"Miracles are a form of healing. They supply a lack, and are performed by those who have more for those who have less."

"The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love."

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

"Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love."

(an expression, is not a state).

"Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind"

They ARISE FROM, a STATE of miracle mindedness. They are EXPRESSIONS! Something comes OUT of the state of mind and causes something to happen!

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

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

Ok.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

"You are God’s Son. In IMMORTALITY you live forever."

"The Son of Life cannot be killed. He is IMMORTAL as his Father. What he is cannot be changed."

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

"You are as God created you. All else but this one thing is folly to believe. In this one thought is everything set free. In this one truth are all illusions gone. In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything; the central core of its existence and its guarantee of IMMORTALITY."

"Beyond the bodies that you interposed between you, and shining in the golden light that reaches it from the bright endless circle that extends forever, is your holy relationship, beloved of God, and holy as Himself. How still it rests, in time and yet beyond, IMMORTAL yet on earth."

"Salvation is God’s justice. It restores to your awareness the wholeness of the fragments you perceive as broken off and separate. And it is this that overcomes the fear of death. For separate fragments must decay and die, but wholeness is IMMORTAL."

"Yet time has still one gift to give in which true knowledge is reflected in a way so accurate its image shares its unseen holiness; its likeness shines with its IMMORTAL Love."

"Your present trust in Him is the defence which promises a future undisturbed, without a trace of sorrow, and with joy which constantly increases as this life becomes a holy instant, set in time, but heeding only IMMORTALITY."

"To change is to attain a state unlike the one in which you found yourself before. There IS no change in IMMORTALITY, and Heaven knows it not."

"Into this empty space, from which the GOAL of sin has been removed, is Heaven free to be remembered. Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death. The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of IMMORTALITY to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."

"Whatever is perceived as means for truth SHARES in its holiness, and rests in light as safely as Itself. Nor will that light go out when it is gone. Its holy purpose GAVE it IMMORTALITY, setting another light in Heaven, where your creations recognize a gift from YOU, a sign that you have NOT forgotten them."

" In your brother is the light of God’s eternal promise of your IMMORTALITY. See HIM as sinless, and there can BE no fear in you."

"Faith in the eternal is ALWAYS justified, for the eternal is forever kind, infinite in its patience, and wholly loving. It will accept you wholly, and give you peace. But it can unite only with what ALREADY is at peace in you, IMMORTAL as itself."

"Yet for all the wild insanity inherent in the whole IDEA of sin, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. For the wages of sin IS death, and how can the IMMORTAL die?"

"The miracle of creation has never ceased, having the holy stamp of IMMORTALITY upon it. This is the Will of God for all creation, and all creation joins in willing this."

"In the temple, holiness waits quietly for the return of them that love it. For the Presence knows they will return to purity and to grace. The graciousness of God will take them gently in, and cover all their sense of pain and loss, with the IMMORTAL assurance of their Father’s Love."

"For you will remember His guiltless Son, who did not die because he is IMMORTAL."

"You are IMMORTAL BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now."

"But the guarantee of your continuity is God’s, not the ego’s. And IMMORTALITY is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while IMMORTALITY is constant. Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless."

"IMMORTALITY is HIS Will for His Son, and His Son’s will for HIMSELF. Yet God’s Son cannot will death for himself, because His Father is Life, and HIS SON IS LIKE HIM ."

"IMMORTALITY is a constant state. It is as true now as it ever was or will be, because it implies NO CHANGE AT ALL."

The real world is not this world. It is not planet Earth. Nor is it in fact the same thing as the forgiven world.

The real world is a "borderland of thought" which is IN BETWEEN this world and heaven. It is a transcendental state in which there are no physical objects, bodies, planets, streets, cities etc. No space or time or matter.

In a sense, it is a kind of layer of almost-oneness, underlying or behind all physical matter, yet still slightly outside of heaven. You could almost think of it as the 'container' which houses space, time and galaxies. It is a singular REFLECTION of heaven's oneness.

"There is a borderland of thought that stands ****BETWEEN this world (earth) and Heaven.****"

"Christ's vision is the BRIDGE BETWEEN the worlds. "

The real world is not space or time or within spacetime or having anything to do with matter or objects or bodies or planets. It transcends both space and time is a universal singular state.

"It is not a place, and WHEN you reach it is APART from time."

"This borderland is just beyond the gate of Heaven. Here is every thought made pure and wholly simple. Here is sin denied, and everything that IS, received instead.

Given that "The world of bodies is the world of sin", and thus because sin is denied, THE WORLD OF BODIES IS DENIED in the real world. This is why there are no bodies there.

"For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies"

This is the journey's end. We have referred to it as the "real world."" In the state of this real world, which is an inclusive state of accurate perception, the "world of illusions" which comprises a VEIL hanging over the face of christ, is seen as a SHADOW swirling around. It is transparent and fading and even at times forgotten.

"The world (earth) 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,****

"Things which seem quite solid here (in physical reality ie Earth etc) ***are merely shadows there; transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot****, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them."

"For a time the body is still seen, but not exclusively, as it is seen here (on earth)."

"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.****"

"***the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight***, and will at length be seen as ***little more than just a shadow circling round the good.***"

"****peace will lightly brush the veil aside****"

The veil, is the veil of the separation, the gap, the mad idea, space and time, the world we made, hell, earth, all galaxies and stars, the whole seeming content of the physical universe, all bodies, all creatures made of flesh, and all notions of beginnings and endings. It is a regarded as A SHADOW because it is made of darkness, being the idea of the opposition to the world of light.

If you think of the real world as a bucket of pure water, spacetime is swirling around in the water like an impurity. Some dark substance which is mixed in with it. Those who know the water is the reflection of purity, are not deceived by the impurity and recognize it as alien and false and unreal and an illusion.

The veil which hangs over the face of christ is the entire contents of spacetime, which was made to come between you and your brother. It is literally all walls, all flesh, all bodies, all surfaces, all matter. It hangs like a veil because it was made to separate you from yourself, and to come between christ and God. The world WITHIN the veil is a world of illusions. That includes planet Earth. The veil is not drawn ACROSS the earth, it IS the earth.

Eventually the veil itself completely vanishes, becoming utterly transparent. It is recognized as purely an illusion, and disappears from sight. For a moment, only the real world remains to be perceived, as the world is FORGOTTEN and returns to NOTHINGNESS. The reflection of heaven is complete and christ's face emerges as a symbol of the end of separation. THEN the mind crosses fully over the bridge, beyond the borderland, through the gates of heaven, and into heaven itself.

So what is the forgiven world? The forgiven world is the VEIL, the illusory realm, the shadow world, which includes earth and all galaxies, which is seen in a forgiving way from the perspective of the real world. It is not awarded any sense of reality or sin or attack or guilt, because the real world is a loving state of mind. But AT THE SAME TIME, it is also RECOGNIZED AS FALSE, unreal, and not really existing. It is the awareness of dreaming, that this world IS A DREAM.

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies." Anything you forgive disappears, because you can ONLY forgive illusions. If you forgive the earth, IT MUST disappear. You cannot forgive it if it is reality. The forgiven world is the veil that interferes with christ, the real world is christ's vision which recognizes the veil as nothing but a dream, and ultimate reality is solely heaven itself, beyond both the forgiven world and the real world.

"The real world still is but a dream." "Even the real world will vanish from your site." "Heaven is all that remains."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gotta start somewhere!

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

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

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

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

All sickness is merely a lack of love. When love is lacking, life is lacking. There is a diminishing of light, of presence, of strength. In the darkness there begins to be limitation, deterioration, fragmentation, weakness and corruption.

The simple task of miracle-working then becomes to "supply what is lacking". What is lacking is love. This is why "Miracles are expressions of love." "Miracles are a form of healing. They supply a lack, and are performed by those who have more for those who have less."

If you have more of this "life", this light and love, this power, you give it to another. What can that mean other than to simply extend love from God to the person. God is life and to give love is to give life. "Miracles mean life, and God is the giver of life." "Miracles are a universal blessing from God".

Can it be any simpler really? To give life is to resurrect, to strengthen, to encourage, to uplift, to inspire, to rejuvenate, to energize. "Miracles are energizers." A lack of love or life is a lack of "energy", for want of a better word. A seeming withering or weakness, a reduction in the brightness of the spark of life.

Let's simply say that love is life, it is light, it is power, it is strength, it is innocence, it is invulnerability, and it is healing. If someone is seeming to "lack love", remembering that "sin" is merely a seeming absence of lack of love, and the "proof of sin" are merely the outward appearances of the "presence of an absence", then simply supplying the lack corrects the problem.

"Sickness is but another name for sin (a lack of love/life). Healing is but another Name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him."

Where there was darkness light is given. Where there was a manifestation of a lack of wholeness, wholeness re-establishes life. Where glimpses of death seemed to be showing up, they are merely shadows of the seeming absence of life. Evidence of sin, or of "unforgiveness". Because "forgiveness is an earthly form of LOVE."

Miracles are restorative. They resurrect and raise the dead. They raise the dead in the sense that someone lacking in love is "not fully alive." "No man who lives in fear is really alive." Fear is another name for the absence of love and life, especially since love is safety.

A lack of life is an illusion of a state of death, and "sickness is but a little death". The miraculous power of God that is love, enlivens and renews and undoes the consequences of wrong decisions. It removes the interference to perfection. By infusing the other person with life you are "raising them up", in terms of psychology and energy.

A person with more "life" in their mind and experience will stop manifesting symptoms of death. As the inner spark is ignited and amplified, the outer manifestations of that raised, more enlightened awareness, must give rise to what would outwardly appear to be the disappearance of sickness and death. And thus will the body literally appear to return from death.

Miracle-working is about giving love and life. It is about FUELING another through a flow of energetic healing power from God. People in absent states suffer from "drained batteries" if you will, and need to be recharged. Emphasizing the higher truth of the person, giving love, and extending God to them, must lift their spirits. You have to "pour love into them."

Miracles energize the weak and give them life. Loving expressions support and uplift and empower. What has light has life, and what has life is immortal.

"I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God Created. Why do you believe that it is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in miracles: YOU do."

"Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural communication of the Created with the Creator. Through prayer, love is received, and through miracles love is expressed."

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

In heaven, we’ve had an innocent little idea. We’ve wondered, what it might be like if things weren’t the way they are.

Nothing happens. We just have an idea. Like a daydream. We use our "imagination" to imagine what it MIGHT be like. We visualize it.

As a human, I can similarly take a moment to IMAGINE what it might be like, if I were a different person. I can imagine myself perhaps from a different country, with a different body, a different lifestyle, doing different things. I can imagine it in a fair amount of detail, maybe even imagine sights and sounds and smells and experiences, which seem partly real to some degree.

But my imagining what that might be like, is a far cry from what it would mean to *actually* be another person. When I stop daydreaming, I come back to my senses and remember the obvious fact of who I "actually am". Who I imagined myself to be is simply dropped, like a discarded toy. My body didn’t actually turn into another person from another country. Who I seem to be is not changed at all. I was just having an idea.

When I wake up from my little visualization, it no longer exists. I was just dreaming. Imagining. There are no consequences to "this" reality from my little daydream. Everything in the daydream does not exist and never really did.

The Son of God is having a little dream like this. Except the Son of God’s mind is VERY powerful. It is able to have really, really big ideas. When the Son of God imagines He is not as God created Him, his little fantasy is *extraordinarily* sophisticated. Very, very elaborate.

He dreams of an entire universe, with billions of planets, all kinds of creatures and objects and strange things happening. A massive history of time spanning billions of "years’, and even an illusion of time passing very slowly.

He also dreams of planet Earth, complete with human bodies and plants and animals and mountains and oceans. He does this in such extraordinary detail, with such POWER, that it produces a massive massive dream. A huge visualization.

But remember, this is just an IDEA. He’s having a thought. He is not CREATING it for real, it is entirely him "wondering", exploring the idea, thinking about it, imagining it. This universe "showing up" is HIM THINKING. An idea.. what MIGHT it be like IF I were separate from God. This IDEA contains the entire physical universe and the Earth. It’s a huge idea. Everything that seems to happen is INSIDE that idea.

"Ideas leave not their source" ultimately means that the universe we made (this "world", containing Earth), did not LEAVE the IDEA. Nor did any causes in the dream leak out" and effect reality. Nor did any of that idea of separation *actually happen*. It ONLY IS AN IDEA. A "what if?"

This idea, did not ACTUALLY produce a separation. God is sitting there totally happy and unaffected. The Son of God is just a little bit asleep having this really really big idea. And that’s all. Nothing else is happening! Just an idea.

The entire "universe of separation" is inside of and part of that IDEA. It’s just a dream. A fantasy. Imagination.

There is a MASSIVE difference between, an IDEA of separation being dreamed, and an ACTUAL separation happening in reality. Separation does not happen in reality or in truth, at all. All that happens, is the Son has an idea. And everything he imagines INSIDE that idea, is still just part of the idea. It‘s got nothing to do with reality.

Since we as the Son are dreaming, having an IDEA, we are seeming to currently experience what it’s like INSIDE the idea. And inside the idea, it seems huge and elaborate and convincing. This makes us THINK, that "it is really happening". We even think, we really are a body. We even think, there really is a planet earth!

But the truth is, there is ONLY an idea of a body, there is ONLY an idea of a planet earth, and there is ONLY an idea of being separate from God. A visualization, an imagined image of what it MIGHT BE LIKE, *IF* it were to happen. Not *AS* it happening.

We are mistaken when we believe this idea is in fact HAPPENING. We are mistaken when we believe we are ACTUALLY a body. We are mistaken when we believe that the universe we are IMAGINING, is actually existing. We are mistaken when we think the PLANET EARTH, actually EXISTS.

All of this, is inside of an IDEA. Just a THOUGHT. Not a thought which "DID make something happen". Not a thought which "DID happen in reality". It’s a thought that DID NOT HAPPEN IN REALITY, or TO reality, or outside of the IDEA.

An idea of being separate from God, is NOTHING LIKE *actually* being separate from God. Being actually separate from God is IMPOSSIBLE. Being separate from God HAS NOT HAPPENED AT ALL! The *idea* has had no REAL consequences outside of itself. In other words, the DREAM of what separation *might* be like, did not cause anything to happen OUTSIDE of the dream. It had NO EFFECT on God, no effect on the Son of God, and no effect on reality.

Separation from God is just an idea. "We" as humans are living INSIDE A THOUGHT ABOUT SEPARATENESS! Not inside a real separation. Sin, the idea that we actually DID separate from God "for real" and that separation had "real consequences" on "reality", ie something *leaked out* of the dream/idea and did something IN REALITY. If this were true, God would have been affected, and you as the DREAMER would no longer be as God created you.

For example, in this dream, when something *seems* to happen, we tend to believe something REALLY happened. This is a belief that sin is real - that dreams affect reality. Then we believe there are "real consequences", that something "real" was affected and changed. And this of course produces guilt.

We therefore need to become able to recognize, that whatever seems to "happen" inside this huge IDEA, is not actually happening in REALITY. It is not happening TO reality. Nothing is REALLY happening. Therefore whatever appears to happen "as a sin", is not being done TO reality and has NO REAL CONSEQUENCES. God is not affected in the slightest. Your real self, which is dreaming this whole thing, has not been affected. Your real self, your dreaming self, having an IDEA, is STILL as God created you.

Since sin did not happen IN reality or TO reality, that must mean, that you are only having an innocent idea. Your idea has no reality. Your idea has no consequences. It’s FICTION. Which means, whatever you think you DID, you DID NOT DO IT in reality. You only do it INSIDE AN IDEA. Inside a dream. And it does not leave the dream. God is unaffected.

Which means....... drumroll...... that you are STILL 100% INNOCENT, you HAVE NOT sinned against God, there HAS NOT been a separation, there ARE no consequences, you are NOT guilty, you are STILL as God created you, and your idea is ONLY an idea.

When your dream ends, when you stop having the idea, when you stop imagining that you can be something you can never be, what has happened? Nothing. Just an idea. Just a thought. Just a little daydream where you wondered what separation might be like. You don’t return from a real separation. It was NOT a real separation. It was nothing more than an IDEA. And ideas ARE NOT in any way anything like THE REAL THING.

Your idea is an idea of impossibility. "It is the world you see that is impossible." This "world" is the content of EVERYTHING inside the idea. An entire universe of fantasy separation. That includes the entire planet Earth, the sun, the moon, and the whole rest of this universe. This is the world you MADE UP. You did not create it. You did not make it ACTUALLY EXIST. You just dreamed of it.

This means, even the Earth, the sun, the galaxy, the universe, all bodies, all physical forms, all creatures here, the oceans and mountains, has never ACTUALLY existed in REALITY. It has only seemed to exist inside an IDEA. A dream. A fictional fairytale. An imaginative visualization of something impossible seeming possible.

So when the Course says, "there is no world", it is saying, this entire "world" - dream existence - that we thought about for an instant, and never actually created, DOES NOT REALLY EXIST. This world, including earth, does not exist. It does not exist IN REALITY. Dreams do not exist in reality. Sin does not exist in reality. "The Earth" does not exist in reality. This whole physical universe does not exist in reality.

Were just having a little idea. That’s all. The idea has no real effects. Having the idea doesn’t create the thing we’re having an idea about. The world we made-up is a figment of our imagination. It’s not there!

There is nothing in, or about, the Earth, which will ever be a part of reality. It is made of thought. IT’s an idea. And this tiny mad idea was over the instant it seemed to be thought. It’s already over. The thought of limitation has been limited. The idea of an end has ended. Not a single note in heaven’s song has been missed.

The really key thing to realize is, AT NO TIME did Heaven stop being Heaven. At no time did you stop being as God created you. At no time did God change. Your inncence was NEVER affected. You did not sin, requiring you to have to undo the sin. There is no sin. There is no death. There is no world. Your real self, did not stop being real. Even when you had this little idea, your true self did not change even slightly. It is as God created it RIGHT NOW, always has been, and always will be. Just because you are having a MAD LITTLE IDEA, doesn’t change anything real AT ALL.

When you dream at night of all manner of strange things happening, perhaps that you have a terrible disease and people are chasing you down a dark alley, you wake up the next day.... where is the terrible disease? Did it leak out of the dream and affect your body? Not at all. Where are the figures who seemed to chase you? They are nowhere to be found. They were fiction. A dream. NOT REAL. Not happening. Nothing. Just a temporary idea, which seemed convincing from inside it, but was utterly unconvincing from outside of it.

You are just inside a dream. IT’s not happening. There is no earth. There are no bodies. There is no death. The son of God is FREE! Separation has not happened. There is no sin. You simply had a little idea, and it is already over.

An idea of something happening is not the same as something happening. Nothing has happened. There is no world. Accepting this is the atonement. Stop dreaming. Wake up.

"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real."

"Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly."

"Your brother thinks he made the world with you. Thus he denies creation. With you, he thinks the world he made, made him. Thus he denies he made it."

"Your mind is capable of creating worlds."

When you sleep at night, you dream, and in the dream you find yourself in a fully-developed environment, where it seems the walls have been weathered, the ground has eroded, things have aged, time has passed, as if all this existed before you arrived and must have taken many years to reach this condition. As though buildings took time to be built and as if creatures took years to grow. The trees are 50 years old and the hills are older still. As if the body merely existed already and you simply "incarnated" into it, electing to join with it, having not made it.

But, the fact is, you only just started dreaming, and since 10:30pm last night you literally just made this whole environment IN this condition, spontaneously, now. You just made an entire world, which LOOKS AS IF, it's been there for a long time. You PUT the erosion there, you PUT the signs of decay there, you MADE the illusions that this is a very old place which took thousands of years to come to its current condition. You did it in an instant. Just because it SEEMS old, does not mean it is. It is a fresh image of time having passed.

Consider this. In your waking life, on Earth, which is a dream also, you seem to arrive in a little body into a world which SEEMS to have been here for billions of years. It has all the hallmarks of time having passed, erosion, decay. In fact so accurate is the depiction of a "great history", that you can even study this history, examine the evidence, and seemingly prove that the world is very old.

But, is that true? Did this tremendous history EXIST before you started dreaming? Did this universe REALLY begin with a big bang, or did we simply BACK-FILL the illusion, invent evidence of time passing, put in place what seem to be effects with causes that SEEM to stretch back billions of years, SO THAT we can, in PRESENT TIME, make this ILLUSION that we're in a world that has existed forever?

What if NOW, your mind is dreaming of an OLD WORLD? What if NOW, you are making up the proof that the universe all leads back to a starting point? What if there was no start? What if the big bang is totally an invention of your mind, made to SEEM as if it occurred, as part of the way that you have DECORATED your present dream? What if there is only the presence and what you are dreaming NOW, and what if you are making this world NOW, and what if this world is an hallucination? What if you are NOW having an hallucination of an OLD-looking world, which literally HAS NO PAST? What if you are forcing it to seem old?

What if the entire history of the universe is being written NOW, to SEEM LIKE it "happened before" chronologically, but is merely you exercising your mind's power to DREAM OF a world that has "signs of aging" in it? What if the world is not even a second old? What if there is no past, or future? What if there is no time, or space? What if you made this all up? What if you're dreaming of a world that doesn't even exist at all, yet alone one that is the end result of billions of years of evolution? What if you made up the laws that seem to imply it all began with a giant explosion? And what if the state you hold it in NOW *causes* the past to be re-written to align with it?

There is evidence arising of objects appearing in places in the world where they should or could not be. As though they have been there far longer than before they were even invented. There are things showing up as if to suggest they were around millions of years ago, and yet were not invented until recently. Why is that? Why are we PUTTING nearer-time objects into the further past? Why are we MAKING UP this stuff? Why are we inventing a past? We are literally RE-WRITING HISTORY in the present moment. We are causing the ILLUSION of a history to be changed.

NONE OF THIS IS REAL.

THERE IS NO TIME.

THERE IS NO HISTORY.

THERE IS NO PAST.

THERE IS NO WORLD.

IT'S A DREAM.

YOU'RE DREAMING IT.

YOU'RE MAKING IT ALL UP AS YOU GO ALONG.