If it's true that you choose everything that happens, making it possible to find salvation by choosing eternal life and denying death, then everything you choose you must WANT.
Wanting, desiring, allowing, accepting, believing in, is all an act of positively electing something, in the belief that it appeals to and attracts you. Meaning you want it.
To accept atonement you have to want it. This is a matter of willingness. If you want to suffer you will suffer because you want to. If you die, you want to die. If you are sick its because you want to be sick. If you are unloved you do not want to be loved.
Look at the world and look at in the light that everyone is a powerful creator or miscreator, creating exactly what they want in every case. See how there are no victims, only willing participants who consent to everything that happens. A world of ameteur creators who have not yet perfected the constructive use of their powers.
Everyone is in fact getting exactly what they want at all times. Each wanting or choice is a prayer, and all prayers are always answered - by you. You always receive what you give.
"No-one is healed through double messages. If you wish ONLY to be healed, you heal. Your single PURPOSE makes this possible."
If you want salvation nothing can stop you. If you want God nothing can stand in your way. If you want health it shall be yours. If you want to never die you will live forever. But you cannot be in two minds or in denial.
If you think something is happening that you do not want, you are denying it which is why you think you don't want it. You really secretly do want it, otherwise your single minded decisive power would rid you of it. Complaining about it is a decision NOT to change your mind and to stay in suffering.
Everyone is always getting what they want. The problem really is not one of receiving things you didn't ask for, but of being unmasterful of your asking such that you keep asking for things that don't bring you happiness. You still ask for them because you ask for hate, because you want to hate.
Not recognizing what you actually are choosing is half the problem. It requires a lot of honesty to admit you want to hurt yourself, want to be afraid, want to be sick or want to die, especially when on the surface this induces fear which makes you recoil from what you are choosing. Or to admit you are NOT doing what you think you're doing.
The only reason people seem to not want all the shit they keep wanting, is because they keep wanting to threaten themselves. They keep seeking ways to be punished and hurt, yet recoil at the hurt. This is just the two-faced nature of the ego. We keep choosing in a confused state of mind and end up making a poor choice.
"I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace. I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise."
When you want only health, happiness and wholeness you will have only that, and nothing else will you have. If life sucks, congratulations on getting what you wanted. Then choose again if you want something else.
We simply are immature creators with confused minds who keep causing hell to happen by mistake. On purpose. Because we think its what we want, because we don't recognize what things are, because we're insane. But all you have to do is change your mind about what you want.
"This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as GOD created it. But YOU think that you HAVE changed it, as long as you learn through the ego. This DOES place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which SEEMS contradictory: you must learn to change your mind ABOUT your mind. Only by this can you learn that it IS changeless."
"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you."
"He has asked for what will frighten him, and bring him suffering. Let us resolve today to ask for what we really want, and only this, that we may spend this day in fearlessness, without confusing pain with joy, or fear with love."
"You were at peace until you asked for special favor, and God did not give it."
"In peace he needed nothing, and asked for nothing. In war he DEMANDED everything, and FOUND nothing."
"What you have asked for cannot be denied."
"If a magic thought arouses anger in any form, God's teacher can be sure that he is strengthening his own belief in sin and has condemned himself. He can be sure as well that he has asked for depression, pain, fear and disaster to come to him."
"I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."
"For NEITHER will recognize that HE HAS ASKED FOR HELL, and so he will NOT interfere with the ego's ILLUSION of Heaven, which it offered him TO INTERFERE WITH HEAVEN."
"NOTHING can prevail against a Son of God who commends his Spirit into the hands of His Father. By doing this, the mind awakens from its sleep, and the Soul remembers its Creator. All sense of Separation disappears, and level confusion vanishes."
"It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."
"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are."
We here in spacetime are accustomed to living well within the confines of the ego thought system. This whole world, this universe, was made in a thought of separation. It IS the ego thought system - a system of thought which seems like an order of reality, founded on sin.
All of space and time and its contents embody the idea of sin being real. It was made to tempt you to believe that sin is happening and has happened, with lasting irreversible effects. "The world of bodies is the world of sin."
But the thing is, outside of this bubble, sin is seen in quite a different light. In truth, sin is impossible. God is real and permanent and eternal, making it impossible to affect Him. In fact it's impossible to attack or change anything real. Reality is changeless and unassailable. Which means it is literally impossible for you or anyone to sin against it.
So the notion that you can sin, are sinning, or have sinned, or will sin, is completely nonsense. It's a totally mistaken wishful-thinking belief. From this perspective, Jesus refers to it as an "error", not a sin. It's a mistake to even BELEIVE in it, and nothing more.
It's a mistake to believe that, given sin is literally impossible, that you can sin. It is a mistake to believe that, given nothing real can be threatened, that you have in fact sinned against God by attacking Him against His will. It is a mistake to believe that, given you cannot sin or change anything real, that you have in fact produced irreversible consequences in something real.
To believe that you can or have done this is obviously a completely FALSE belief. It's utterly not true. There is no truth to it whatsoever. The belief that it is true is completely mistaken. It literally is false and always will be false.
The thing is, once you go INTO the ego thought system, and enter into the bubble of spacetime, and start to BELIEVE that what is impossible is actually possible, which is an insane idea (a tiny 'mad' idea), it starts to look AS IF sin is real. You see a world of sin, a world of sinful bodies, a world of sinful happenings, evidence of irreversible attack, and everything seemingly real can be threatened.
Since we've been living "inside" this bubble of sin for so long, confined by it, tempted by it, upset by it, we're not used to the idea that the ENTIRE THING is mistaken. That NONE of it can be true. All of our ego reactions, all of our upset feelings, all of our stresses and dramas, all sickness and suffering, seem to prove that sin is real and permanent.
We're so used to this and so blinded by the mere idea that sin IS possible, that we are not used to thinking COMPLETELY outside this box. This is where forgiveness comes in. Because forgiveness, as the atonement, shows us a doorway which borders on true reality, allowing us to step OUTSIDE the bubble of sin and death, and peer into heaven, to recognize that the idea of sin is utterly bullshit.
When you can get your mind to move to a perspective PRIOR to "sin is real", which is required to accept atonement, it makes total sense to realize that sin is impossible. Forgiveness recognizes that you literally have not sinned, cannot sin, and nor can anyone else. Just even the BELIEF that sin is possible, is a mistake. It's a false conclusion.
It's a conclusion that we must've come to by making an ERROR in reasoning. We must've had to have turned a blind eye to facts, and imagined, and defiantly and absurdly WANTED sin to be real, in spite of the hugely obvious reality that sin is forever impossible. There is, in truth, NO real sin ANYWHERE in reality. And God's Kingdom has not been changed in the slightest by any kind of sin.
This is why the belief in sin, the separation, the tiny mad idea, WAS an insane idea. It is insane to even suggest that reality can be attacked. It is insane to believe that you can exist where God does not exist, given God is all encompassing. It is insane to believe you can attack what is permanent. And it is insane to believe you have a power stronger than God's will to affect His will against His will.
But this is what we did. We defiantly, stubbornly, ridiculously, mistakenly, simply made a huge MISTAKE, a silly childish choice, to BELIEVE that we COULD do what we could NEVER do. Even faced with the facts of reality that sin is impossible, we INSISTED that sin is possible. You DEMANDED that sin be possible, even though it is not. Like some rioter or picketer making a huge pointless protest for something that can never happen, against the truth, in defiance of God.
To do this is insane. And it is what made us go into a state of insanity. It is insane to believe the impossible is possible. And in this insanity we believe and thus perceive that sin is real, happening, permanent and seemingly solid. But we are ONLY mistaken. It's just a big ERROR that we made.
We are mistaken for believing sin is possible. We are mistaken for believing we attacked God murderously. We are mistaken for believing God is affected by our will. We are mistaken for believing we have a power capable of overthrowing reality. We are mistaken for believing we can be anything other than innocent. We are mistaken for accepting the ego into our minds, believing that it is the truth. Were's simply mistaken. And mistakes can forgivingly be corrected without punishment.
The whole world is false. There is no truth in it at all. The entire separation idea is false. The whole of spacetime is false. Every single supposed sin is a false sin. There is no sin! Real sin is not possible and does not exist. No one has ever sinned. You have never sinned nor have you ever been sinned against.
The bizarre thing is just this sensation, this familiarity, that sin ACTUALLY is real and has happened. We believe in it too much. We seem to experience it every day. Stuff happens against our will. We do stuff against the will of others. The world attacks us. There is no safety anywhere. And all of spacetime seems hell-bent on murder and self destruction. We have become used to this. We think it's normal, but it's not.
We have to get our minds OUTSIDE of the idea, the belief, that sin is real. It is necessary in order to complete forgiveness. It is necessary in order to correctly FRAME sin in its PROPER light, recognizing it for what it IS, not for how it appears when you are trapped "inside" it. Sin has to be recognized as impossible. It has to be correctly identified as having never happened. And the truth of reality's immortality and perfect changelessness has to be acknowledged.
God is laughing at our belief that sin is possible. If you go look at reality, you will find that there is no trace of proof that you ever attacked anything real. God is unharmed. Heaven has not skipped a single note in its song. All the Children of God are perfectly protected. There is not a single stain or bruise or blemish or hint of attack anywhere in reality. And all of Heaven is exactly as perfect now as it always was. God's world is STILL PERFECT!
This seems alien to us. The idea that reality is utterly unaffected and unchanged. That God is totally happy with us. Given how much we believe that sin is happening and has happened. But accepting and recognizing the constancy of reality is vital to accepting atonement. The ENTIRE belief in sin is mistaken. It has not one shred of truth to it. All who believe in it are insane. All who think it proves something are mistaken.
"Sin is insanity."
"Reality is a constant state."
From God's perspective, all of us here are simply having a bizarre, fictional dream, filled with strange twisted worlds and meaningless environments. Not one single thing has really happened. Every single sin, every evidence of attack, is a lie. We're all just very confused, mistaken people. We have a belief in something which is completely false. We want it to be true for ridiculous reasons. But the facts remain. There is no sin anywhere, sin is impossible, and you are still as God created you.
"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."
"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning." UrW132L4
Some people regard this world as something negative, some as something positive. But the course regards it as NOT SOMETHING AT ALL. It acknowledges that the world is NOTHING, and the body is NOTHING.
It also acknowledges that when we think that it is SOMETHING, we will give it attributes and meaning that it does NOT have, and believe that it does have them inherently. This means we are deceived, because we are PROJECTING things onto a nothingness and seeing the projection AS IF it is there.
It's important to understand what NOTHINGNESS means. It does not mean negative, or positive. It does not mean meaningful, or meaningless as in the sense of it being a something that is depressing. It is not good or evil. It is not holy or corrupt. It is not really anything. It has NO ATTRIBUTES, no labels, no categories, no types, nothing. Like a void.
"Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality. And on this alone it is correct." UrW132L2
The world, the physical world, matter, spacetime, all flesh and bones bodies, the whole system, is NOTHINGNESS, pretending to be something. It's only seeming to be something because we keep projecting stuff onto it.
"What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something." UrU3A2
It is also true then that a "nothing world" acts like a mirror. A mirror is something which has NO ATTRIBUTES of its own. It has no inherent image, no inherent meaning, no inherent anything. It just REFLECTS, indirectly, seeming images and forms and meanings PROJECTED ONTO it from something once removed from it. In other words, what it seen in the mirror is not first hand reality, it is second-hand.
And then that projecting thing sees the REFLECTION of what was projected in the mirror, as feedback in consciousness, and thinks it is THERE. As if it is "in the mirror", part of the mirror. But confusing what is seen in a mirror for the THING that is reflected there, is a mistake.
"Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego." UrE14E5
"That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth." UrT18B3
Earth - spacetime, physical matter, bodies etc. ... can REFLECT, because these things are NOTHING IN THEMSELVES. They can reflect whatever you put ONTO them. You can project hellish ideas of sin and guilt onto them, and will then see that IN the mirror, as though part of the mirror. You can project heavenly ideas of love and peace onto them, and you will see that reflected in the mirror also, as though part of the mirror.
But when we confuse what is REFLECTED with the fact that we require a MIRROR in order to have a reflection, and the reflected thing is confused for BEING the mirror, we are lost in the mirror of perception. And now we think that the world IS this, or IS that. That if we project sin onto it is IS sinful. And if we project love onto it it IS love. And if we give it reality it IS real. This is a mistake. This is someone not recognising that they are looking in a mirror, and NOT at an objective reality. Whatever they PUT there to see, they see, and there is nothing else to see. If they walk away, the world is gone.
"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that." UrT21A1
"The world can give you ONLY what you gave it, for being nothing but your own projection, it HAS no meaning apart from what you found in it, and placed your faith in." UrT13C3
"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you MADE of it is NOT its reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it." UrT11H10
"Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind reflected outward." UrW304L1
So what we have to realize is, whether you're seeming to work with an evil hateful dangerous nasty world, or you're seeming to work with what seem like a benevolent lovely forgiven world, you are working with a REFLECTION IN A MIRROR, not an ACTUAL FACT.
The truth is, that there is no world there. There is ONLY your projection. You are seeing what you put there to see. That is hardly objective. In fact it is completely subjective, and the world has NO objective reality or truth of its own.
This means that in order to awaken from it, we have to learn to project "happier things" onto the mirror, so that it seems to reflect a "happier dream" to us, and we can seem to pull out of it aspects which seem to REFLECT heaven's nature. So that we'll be more prepared psychologically to move on to a realm of heaven where what we experience is NOT a reflection but an ACTUAL reality.
"Those who have learned to offer ONLY healing, because of the reflection of holiness in them, are ready at last for Heaven. There, holiness is not a reflection, but rather the ACTUAL CONDITION of what was but reflected TO them here." UrT14E8
So fundamentally, planet earth, every particle of matter, all energies, all of space and time, the whole galaxy and 'universe', is all part of a MIRROR. It is a mirror because it is NOTHING REAL and is a meaningless world. We PROJECT ONTO this world what we want to see IN it, and see it reflected. This is ONLY possible because the world HAS NOTHING OF ITS OWN, because it is nothing at all and doesn't really exist.
Recognising that the mirror reflects only what you put there to see, leads to the recognition that the world IS a mirror, and IS NOT a thing in its own right. That there is no world there other than your wishes projected outward from within. You are having a dream, making up a subjective "reality", hallucinating what you want to see, and are inventing meanings for a world that isn't there.
The ultimate teaching therefore is that THERE IS NO WORLD. Not that the world is transformed, or kept, or ascended, or turned into heaven, or made to be ANYTHING. IT cannot BE anything because it is a NOTHING. Mirrors don't have identities. Mirrors don't have their own nature. Mirrors have no substance of their own, no attributes, nothing. You thought you saw a world in a mirror for a while, and were deceived. It is not there. Only heaven exists.
"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." UrW132L4
"To see a SINLESS body is impossible. For holiness is POSITIVE, and the body is merely neutral. It is NOT sinful, but neither is it sinless. As nothing, which it IS, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ OR of the ego. EITHER must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot BE. And BOTH must be undone, for purposes of truth." UrT20H4
"The body that is asked to be a god WILL be attacked, because its nothingness has not been recognized. And so it seems to be a thing with power IN ITSELF. As something, it CAN be perceived, and thought to feel and act, and hold you in its grasp as prisoner to itself. And it CAN fail to be what you demanded it to be. And you WILL hate it for its littleness, unmindful that the failure does not lie in that it is not MORE than it should be, but ONLY in YOUR failure to perceive that it is nothing. Yet its nothingness IS your salvation, from which you would flee." UrT29C9
"The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment. The world will end with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be." UrM15A2
"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." UrU5A4
"If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."
You may be wondering how "the separation" was possible, and how we came to seem to be in the situation we're in. There IS an explanation, which Jesus has given in many forms.
The essence of it, is that God gave you TOTAL unlimited freedom when you were created.
"The latter required the endowment of man (Souls) by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given."
"Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul."
This means God gave us all absolutely free will. Our will has TOTAL freedom. Now, here's the interesting part.
Because the will is totally free, it actually has the freedom, or potential, to try to use its own free will against even itself. It can actually try to "will not to will." It actually is free to even use its freedom to try to prevent its own freedom, if it so chooses. Doing so is self-defeating, but you CAN do this.
This is an inherent function of the mind and actually completely natural, because it's part of being totally free. God HAD to give you the freedom to potentially "mis-use" your will, otherwise you could not be free. He couldn't just lock you in to some kind of mandated use of it, you had to be free to use it as you saw fit.
The freedom God has given you INCLUDES the freedom even to deny God if you want to. It includes the freedom to resist him, to deny reality, to try to use free will to stop willing, the ability to try to create nothing, to use the will destructively, and to at least ATTEMPT to separate itself from its source.
Your mind can in fact go into a state of denial. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, in terms of it being "not allowed by God." God had to GIVE YOU this ability in order to give you total freedom. He doesn't necessarily will for you that you USE the will in this way, ie non-constructively, but you CAN if you so choose.
When you do choose to use it in a self-defeating way, you are "mis-creating", in an attempt to use the will against itself. This is really an attempt not to create, or to cause nothing, or to be inept and inert, or to not extend. It's like a kind of resistance, which is also fear. An attempt to be UN-WILLING, or to NOT will what God wills. Indeed, to attempt to will AGAINST him, which is "the authority problem."
"Remember, we have already stated that denial is not a purely negative device; it results in positive miscreation."
There is a fundamental truth that you cannot will against God's will. But, that does not mean you aren't free to TRY to. You are free to attempt it. When you do attempt it, you FAIL to change his will at all, and instead go into denial.
In the denial you BELIEVE that you have succeeded, but you haven't. Also when you are in this denial state, you are denying yourself, denying God, and denying reality. It's very important to realize however that denial does not CHANGE reality. It has no effect on the truth. Denial merely means to believe that something is not true, even though it still is true. It's a kind of rejection or refusal - an unwillingness - to accept what is true.
Your mind, as given by God, DOES HAVE the freedom and ability and power to go into a state of denial. This is BUILT IN to its fundamental freedom. It HAS to be able to potentially use its own freedom even against itself, otherwise it is not free. It is because of this "clause" if you will, that we could potentially elect to "go into the separation", ie to believe that we have become separate, even though we haven't. ie to go into denial.
"The sense is very literal; -- denial of Life perceives its opposite, as ALL forms of denial replace what IS, with what is NOT. No-one can really DO this, but that you can THINK you can, and BELIEVE YOU HAVE, is beyond dispute."
"For the separation is only the DENIAL of union, and, correctly interpreted, attests to your eternal knowledge that union is true."
Mind then is perfectly natural in its ability to try to deny its own creator if it so chooses. God has given it the freedom to use itself against itself. The fact is that it HAS DONE THIS, which is what we call "the separation" or the fall of man. Our minds HAVE elected to deny their own freedom, placing themselves into a state of imprisonment.
When mind uses its own free will to will AGAINST freedom, it induces a state of imprisonment. The will becomes imprisoned and the mind seems to go to sleep, or seems to become unable to will anything.
"That is why the ego IS the denial of free will. It is NEVER God Who coerces you, because He SHARES His Will WITH you."
"If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, because such are the dictates of tyrants."
This has actually happened, without in any way leaving God or leaving God's laws or operating outside of your inherent nature. There is fundamentally nothing "wrong" with this as such, but it IS out of accord with God's will. It is an attempt to reject his will. All this can produce is a state of denial, because God's will itself cannot be opposed, but you can thus "believe" that you are opposing it. Even if it's just a belief, it DOES alter your mind when you believe it.
"Remember a very early lesson, -- "never underestimate the power of denial." It has no power in ITSELF, but YOU can give it the power of YOUR mind, whose power is without limit of ANY kind."
"God did not ALLOW this to happen. But you DEMANDED that it happen, and therefore believed that it was so."
"God did not blot it out, because to eradicate it would be to attack it."
"It is NEVER God Who coerces you, because He SHARES His Will WITH you."
The main truth is that there is no real benefit to using freedom against freedom. The circular logic becomes obvious. For example, we're saying that it's possible to "will not to will". The more that you will not to will, the more you are using will, and obviously contradicting what you're claiming to accomplish. You therefore cannot will NOTHING, and have to will something. So instead you will a sense of EMPTINESS or a sort of "lack of creation."
"If a mind creates without love, it can create an empty shell. This CAN be possessed by evil."
"We also have observed that man can create an empty shell, but cannot create nothing at all. This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection."
"He can create an empty shell (see previous reference), but he DOES NOT create nothing at all."
So in fact what happened is we used our free will and our freedom of choice to elect to use the mind, mis-creatively, to try to "create nothing", and this produced a sort of empty creation, or a lack of creation - a lack of love's extension. In the mind this produced the hallucinated state of the lack of God, which is space-time and all its contents. Jesus refers to it as an empty screen onto which we then project meanings.
So long as the mind is unwilling and is resisting freedom and therefore is in denial, it is maintaining its belief in something opposite to God. That maintains 'the ego' and the illusion of a meaningless world. The world is meaningless because it is an "empty shell" which has no real content of its own, onto which we project images and meanings either thought false or true perception.
While it is true that mind cannot create a real separation, and you cannot leave God, and you cannot violate his reality or his laws, it is also true that the ability to deny IS within his laws and his reality. It is part of your rights as a created free-willed being.
God actually does not COERCE or shame you or guilt you or punish you for WANTING to use your freedom against itself. You ARE FREE to do so if you so choose. It's just that when you do so, you do bring suffering upon yourself and He does not will that you suffer.
"If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it."
So God gently INVITES you to return back to willing constructively with him rather than destructively. You have to FREELY CHOOSE IT, and accept atonement because you want to, not because you are forced to. This is because your mind still has the power to exercise freedom - a power that you have never lost.
So being in the denial of God, is actually a possibility of reality. It is not PREFERRED, but it is possible. It is not what God wills for you, but he HAS given you your own will, so even though he does not make it possible for you to actually separate, he DOES allow you to BELIEVE that you have. And this has taken place. This is why Jesus says "the separation has occurred." We HAVE tried to deny God and we HAVE believed that we've become separate.
The problem then isn't REALLY denial. Denial is NOT a negative functionality. It is not inherently a bad thing. You actually can use denial positively and for protection. The proper use of denial actually denies illusions and supports the truth of reality. It is only the improper use of it which has led us to deny God and accept lies, instead of accepting God and denying lies.
"Because of your Father's love, you can NEVER forget Him. For no one can forget what God Himself placed in his memory. You can DENY it, but you CANNOT LOSE IT."
"You can DENY His knowledge, but you CANNOT change it."
"But denial is a defense, and so it is as capable of being used positively as it is of being used destructively."
We have actually moved into a denial state, in the mind that God gave us, as part of the freedom he gave us, and this has TEMPORARILY produced the 'tiny mad idea' and the 'unholy instant'. It has led to the hallucination of spacetime - a belief in possibilities which aren't actually possible in truth. This has happened. But none of the things which seem to happen WITHIN this denial, have really happened.
"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 substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."
This ability for the mind try to elect to be what it is not, to assume an alien power it doesn't really have, or to enter a state that it can't really enter, IS the power of denial that all minds are naturally capable of, in reality or otherwise. If you use the mind against itself it attacks itself and produces insanity. And since denial is a rejection of or avoidance/hiding from reality, it is a form of unconsciousness or an attempt "not to know", which induces a sort of sleep, in which we dream of imaginary worlds.
You CAN deny God, that's not against his law. But when you do, you induce a nightmare of suffering.
"What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His."
"What God did not create does not exist. And everything that does exist exists as He created it. The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist."
The world you "made up" does not really exist. It's a dream. The ability TO dream, is not made up. It is part of your natural freedom. God is not stopping you from choosing to go into denial, but he IS inviting you to come out of that denial when you are freely willing to do so, and therefore return to a happier state in alignment with his will. Denial is not an illusion, it PRODUCES illusions when misused.
So basically, "the separation", otherwise called "the attempt to deny the truth" has happened, the mind HAS exercised its free will to repress its own freedom, and this HAS induced a kind of sleep state in which the mind dreams of separation. The dream isn't valid at all. The DREAMING is a mind function and not to be discarded. It is simply something that you can choose or not choose. When you DON'T choose to dream, you instead choose to accept ultimate reality, and use the mind ONLY for constructive creative purposes.
"By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others."
Long story short, mind DOES have the potential and freedom to go into denial, and this is entirely within the laws of God. It's just that when we do this, we are not happy, and it induces fantasies of things that aren't really possible. God does not will that we suffer so he instead calls us to return to him, knowing that it's best to use our free will creatively rather than self-destructively.
"It is for this denial that you need Atonement. Your denial made no change in what you are. But you have split your mind into what knows and does not know the truth."
"Both the power and the strength of man's creative will must be understood, before the real meaning of denial can be appreciated and abolished. Denial is NOT mere negation. It is a positive miscreation."
"Extension cannot be blocked, and it has no voids. It continues forever, however much it is denied. Your DENIAL of its reality arrests it in time, but not in Eternity."
"The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial." "For fear IS a call for love, in unconscious recognition of what has been denied."
"The out of mind is out of sight, because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does NOT depend upon your recognition."
"Fear and love are the only emotions of which you are capable. One is false, for it was made out of denial, and denial DEPENDS on the real belief in what is denied for its OWN existence."
Mind is free to deny itself, at any time. It has denied itself. That's why we're dreaming of exile. Its ability to do this is God-given. Its election TO do this is its own free choice. It HAS chosen to do this, and so it IS in a denial state. That is why there arose a NEED for atonement and God had to create the Holy Spirit to maintain a link to his children, guaranteeing that they can return to him when they are willing to do so.
We are not to be in the business of trying to "deny" that the mind can or has done this. It absolutely has done this. But it can choose again. It can choose to stop mis-creating and to instead create only the extension of God. It can choose to stop denying its own freedom and reclaim its inheritance. It can move out of its temporary state of resistance, into acceptance, out of fear into love. And at no point is God sitting there saying "denying me is against the law." He doesn't condone it, but he also doesn't force you not to choose it.