"But I am not a body. What am I?" W91

There are bacterias in your gut which process food and produce waste. Some of those bacterias leave the body within the waste. Every time you poop in the toilet billions of bacteria are being flushed. If you claim that you are your body, and you are all your body's cells, then you are also a bacteria cell, and each time that you poop you are flushing parts of yourself down the toilet. Can that even in any way whatsoever be remotely true of who and what you are?

If you are a body you are also your hair cells. When you cut your hair and throw the cut hair in the trash, you are literally throwing out parts of yourself if you are a body. When you cut your fingernails, you're clipping off parts of your extremity in self-mutilation. Over time your skin cells shed and turn into dust, effectively meaning parts of you are dying off and flaking off and scattering across the room, ready to be sucked up by a vacuum cleaner.

Can it in any way be possible that you are a physical organism that gets gradually thrown in the trash and sucked up by a vacuum cleaner?

How did the body go from being the size of a baby to the size of an adult? Where did all the extra cells come from? What are the building materials that were used to make them? They come from food. The body is nothing but an accumulation of food. You eat the food and the body turns the food into more body. Which means that "you are the food" or you are what you eat. Literally then if you claim you are a body, you're claiming that you are a burger and fries, you are ice cream, you are milk on cereal, you are a potato chip.

Can that be even slightly remotely true of what you are? The food came from the supermarket and entered the body and turned into more body. So are you now being sold by a food company? Are you sitting on the shelves at the store waiting to be consumed? What if someone else buys you instead of you?! It's ridiculous to think that you are a physical body in any way.

There are 75 trillion cells in the body. Many of those cells work independently. There are little immune systems cells wriggling around trying to track down toxins and invaders. There's bacteria cells independently multiplying and eating food and processing waste and so on in the gut. There's independent blood cells swirling around carrying oxygen to the organs, just free-falling through the blood supply.

Mind is not really 'controlling' all these things. It's like one big giant system or community, with all kinds of tiny little things happening as part of a kind of ecosystem. You can't really claim that you are an immune cell, or a blood cell, or a neuron in the brain trying to form branches. Nor can you really say you are a dead cell which the body - supposedly yourself - is getting rid of. It's a whole collection of tiny little parts working together. It's really quite an illusion that the whole thing adds up to "a body".

It's more of a city than an individual thing. And you're not one of those tiny little pieces, any more than you are all of the pieces. The more you think about it the more ridiculous it seems to suggest you can be a body, or even part of a body, at all. So then the question is, what are you if you are non-physical? And the only answer can be, that you are spirit.

"On this one choice does all your world depend, for here have you established what you are, as flesh or Spirit in your own belief. If you choose flesh, you never will escape the body as your own reality, for you have chosen that you want it so. But choose the Spirit, and all Heaven bends to touch your eyes, and bless your holy sight, that you may see the world of flesh no more, except to heal and comfort and to bless."

"Salvation lies in the simple fact that illusions are not fearful because they are not true. They but seem to be fearful to the extent to which you fail to recognize them for what they are; and you will fail to do this to the extent to which you want them to be true. And to the same extent you are denying truth, and so are failing to make the simple choice between truth and illusion; God and fantasy. Remember this, and you will have no difficulty in perceiving the decision as just what it is, and nothing more." - ACIM

We were born into an illusion in which all of the inhabitants believe the illusion is actually a real place. We came in with real-seeming parents living real-seeming lives. We lived near to real-seeming people living their real-seeming lives. Real-seeming things happened and we had real-seeming effects from it. And we just kept on going on this treadmill of alleged reality, confirmed by just about everyone that it is real and that the world is important and that we have very important things to do.

And then we got older and went to work at a job or started a company or received money some other way and thought that this was all important and necessary because the world was real. And bad things happened and we went through struggles and horrors and fear because it all seemed to real.

But this world is an illusion.

We entered into a giant illusion where everyone believes it's not really an illusion. Where everyone takes it seriously. Where were live in constant fear solely because we look at this illusion without recognizing it is just a bad dream. We think it's really happening. Real people seem to be getting hurt. Real people seem to be having ambitions and purposes and things to say and do. Real stuff seems to occur which nobody seems to be able to prevent. And then all this real stuff seems to really die. And it's just horrifying. IF you believe it's real.

You can' help but be afraid, as Jesus says, if you believe an illusion is reality. Every illusion is frightening because it claims something is true of God and of you which are not true. And IF they WERE true, they would be horrifying. It would be horrifying if it were true that you were separate from God, stuck in a body, waiting to die, ready to suffer, having to fight to stay alive, suffering along the way, only to end in the grave with nothing to show for it. Of course that's frightening IF it's real.

But this world is not real.

If you are going to progress with A Course in Miracles at some point you will have to start to really be open to the possibility that EVERYTHING in this world is an ILLUSION, and it is not real. It's a very different premise on which to base everything that happens here, and every interpretation of everything that happens. It frames everything very differently.

If it's an illusion that someone just broke their leg, then there is nothing to be upset about. And the leg can be easily reconfigured as a new leg as a result of the strength of knowing that broken legs are illusions. If we knew the world was not real, we would have NO REASON to be afraid, or upset, or guilty, or suffering. It seems like a tall order to question absolutely everything you thought was real, and to consider that perhaps it is not real at all. And that therefore it is not the truth, there is no truth TO it, and therefore it has no power over you.

The world is not left by death, but by truth. It is left by the recognition - the awareness - the true perception - that this world is an illusion and nothing more. If it is an illusion it cannot hold you captive. if it is an illusion, it cannot have really happened. So you cannot be its slave or its prisoner. You are free.

Holy Spirit is performing perfect forgiveness all the time. He is 'forgiving' all the time. This doesn't so much mean he is constantly beavering around trying to fix stuff and undo stuff. He isn't MAKING errors, so there is nothing to un-make. He gives ahead of the need for correction, so that correction already 'is'. He is already correct, and he fore-gives (gives first) in order to be protected FROM making mistakes.

Only a failure to fore-give means you have withheld the truth and therefore have projected an error, and therefore will perceive an error seeming to be real, and it will attack you, and you will try to attack it back to make it go away.

Clearly we need to get back to the kind of way of 'perceiving' that Holy Spirit is a constant example of, so that the presence of the errors we are making will cease. What we need to 'undo' is our failure to forgive, our error-making or errors in judgement. If we're seeing something incorrectly we will see something in need of correction. So how do you get to where something incorrect is corrected? You stop seeing incorrectly.

The process of transitioning from our failure to forgive, to 'being forgiving always', is what we usually think of as our 'forgiveness process', but really it is a PROCESS of correction, which LEADS TO a forgiving attitude. Forgiveness looks back upon what has been corrected and perceives that it is forgiven, because it is perceived forgivingly. Forgiveness is a CONSTANT STATE, not a one-off event.

Although Holy Spirit is constantly 'forgiving', as in has a forgiving attitude, this forgiving attitude ENSURES there is nothing to forgive. Forgiveness is pro-active. It is a state of grace and innocence from which errors are not made or seen. Once you make errors, you make errors seem real, and you do need correction because forgiveness has failed and you've entered into a false judgement. But when no errors are being made, you are 'fore-giving' all the time.

So it seems like another paradox that the ego struggles to understand. When you are fore-giving, there is nothing to forgive BECAUSE of the forgiving attitude. But when you fail to fore-give, you CREATE stuff that needs to be forgiven. It needs forgiveness then in the sense that you need to RETURN to forgiveness in order to dispel it, which MUST mean moving PAST the error to return back to where forgiveness IS.

Thus forgiveness OVERLOOKS the error in order to recognize that it does not exist and is not continuing to be made. When you fail to overlook, you look AT, and this is what the error is - a failure to extend love by stopping it. Love that has been stopped becomes 'form', including the body. Once love overlooks the body in forgiveness, it no longer MAKES the body real (the body is an error), and thus undoes it, having no need for it.

For a mind that is used to everything proceeding backwards and in the form of ego thoughts and counter-attacks and reactions, it can be hard at first to grasp how to 'un-do' rather than 'do'. Forgiveness isn't something you do TO errors, it's something you do INSTEAD of errors, so that you can be RESTORED to a forgiving mind where the error doesn't exist.

God shares the forgiving attitude of the Holy Spirit. This doesn't as such mean that God forgives, because there is nothing to forgive and God does not condemn. Yet God IS 'forgiving' in the sense of being 'fore-giving' because if he failed to be forgiving he would enter into condemnation (of himself) and all would be lost. In this sense, God forgives you for having NOT REALLY DONE any of the things you think you did in error and mistake, because He knows that they have not happened. Your belief that they have is your failure to forgive and he does not share this mistake.

Fortunately, because God IS fore-giving, this ensures there is always a forgiving home to return to, where error/dreams/bodies/worlds do not exist, and where we are always completely loved unconditionally. Forgiveness calls for overlooking all errors all of the time with absolutely no single moment of 'dwelling on' them to ponder how they demand punishment. Forgiveness relinquishes the need for punishment of any kind, including death, because in forgiveness you are innocent, holy and error-free forever.

Healing requires that we see the other person as already perfect, completely equal to our perfect self. We must START there and STRENGTHEN their perfection in THEIR mind by seeing it FOR them.

If we start with “you are sick, something’s wrong with you”, that is in fact - in contrast to their immortal perfection - a way of WEAKENING them. It is how the ego sees them and is an attack, even if it occurs while trying to “heal them.”

If healing or the need for healing is seen to be on the basis of “making up for what’s wrong with them”, this is not healing. It’s what the course calls magic. It’s the unhealed healer who still believes the person is something they’re not, and so contributes to the suffering instead of healing it.

How can you heal someone if you are starting out by perceiving them as guilty, suffering, sick, flawed, lacking, malfunctioning, a body, limited, weak or frail? This is NOT a correct way to see anyone and it means you are agreeing with the ego that your brother is defective and diseased and guilty and destroyed. To react to such nightmarish perceptions in an attempt to heal them without undoing the belief in them, is sure to fail, or only mildly work at best. Been there done that.

The course asks us to BEGIN by seeing the truth of a person, that they are immortal and holy, and that therefore they do not really NEED healing. It’s similar to forgiveness which looks without sin and sees “there is no sin”, ie there is in effect “no need for forgiveness” because it is seen AS forgiven already. Healing has this quality too - see them AS healed (their immortal God-given self) in order to confirm that the sickness is NOT THERE, in order to INDIRECTLY “make it go away” by shining that light of awareness into their mind FOR them so that they too become aware of it.

“The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them. But, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that light IS theirs.”

“Healing ONLY STRENGTHENS. Magic always tries to weaken. Healing perceives NOTHING in the healer that everyone else does not share WITH him. Magic ALWAYS sees something special in the healer, which he believes he can offer as a gift to someone who does NOT have it.” You could call this, “healing to destroy.”

"He may believe that this gift comes from God TO him, but it is quite evident that he does NOT understand God if he thinks HE has something that others DO NOT.”

If we think there is something true of us that is not true of others, we have entered into ego attack and specialness. God gives everyone the same perfection and this must be recognized. A healer does not have anything that anyone else doesn’t have, and the gift to heal is NOT exclusive. To be SHARED, health and life must be seen AS shared and inclusive of all.

In summary, you heal another by seeing their already-healed self - their Christ self, still as God created them - and this causes you to shine your light brightly, and this light shines INTO their mind and HEALS IT, awakening their mind to an awareness of the truth about themselves, and thus undoing all sickness. Because they are NOT sick.

"The "fearful healer" is a contradiction in terms, and is therefore a concept that ONLY a conflicted mind could POSSIBLY perceive as meaningful."

"Healing ALWAYS induces harmony because it proceeds from integration.”

"The unhealed healer wants gratitude FROM his brothers, but he is NOT grateful to them. This is because he thinks he is giving something TO them, and is NOT receiving something equally desirable in return.”

"Through this remembrance you can change THEIR minds about themselves, as I can change YOURS. Your minds are so powerful a light that you can look into theirs and enlighten them, as I can enlighten yours.”

"The mind WE share IS shared by all our brothers, and as we see them truly, they WILL be healed. Let YOUR minds shine with mine upon their minds, and by our gratitude to them make THEM aware of the light in THEM.

Lately for me what has become starkly evident and true of everyone, is the rather dark and twisted truth that everyone is self-destructive. Everyone is trying to die. Everyone is condemning themselves for a sin that never really happened, and the wages of sin is self-inflicted death. Everyone is being unfair to themselves, mis-representing themselves, attacking themselves and hurting themselves.

"...A dry and dusty world where starved and thirsty creatures come to die."

"Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

EVERYONE!

It's a suicidal planet. I wouldn't go so far as to say that everyone has the same degree of "deep self-hatred", but it is certainly rampant. The guilt that people have over the separation has driven them insane. We've collaborated on making an insane and stupid world where suffering seems normal and punishment is atonement.

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death."

"Sin is belief attack can be projected OUTSIDE the mind where the belief arose. Here is the firm conviction that ideas CAN leave their source made real and meaningful. And FROM this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise."

Let's just say it again. The whole world is MAD. And this is not merely an allegation or a speculation. It is EXTENSIVE. "This IS an insane world, and do not underestimate the actual extent of its insanity. There is no area of your perception that it has not touched, and your dream IS sacred to you."

"the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt"

Even in biblical terms, if I recall, we're sort of told that each of us on earth has become a "sinner" ie believing in sin, and that we need to "repent" ie find our innocence again.

So what I see now is the fact that we've got a huge population of people who believe they have separated from God. The course calls us "the separated ones." We believe we've accomplished separation by attacking God, or that which is in truth not attackable. And because it is not possible, yet we believe it, we are insane, because now we believe something impossible is true. And this all began with an insane idea.

"The instant that the mad idea of making your relationship with God unholy seemed to be possible, ALL relationships were made meaningless."

"In that unholy instant time was born, and bodies made to house the mad idea, and give it the ILLUSION of reality."

"Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects."

We as immortal beings, accused ourselves of a sin we could never commit, made ourselves horrendously guilty for it, attacked ourselves, punished ourselves, entered an insane dreaming state in which we dream of being mortal, made up every form of suffering and sickness, and try to kill ourselves off to prove we are right. MADNESS!!!

Fortunately our entire state of insanity is entirely temporary, entirely unfounded, entirely untrue, and entirely correctable, without the slightest punishment called for. We are all just very mistaken people, who believe absolute bullshit lies that we've taught ourselves, and we need correction. We need help from outside of the hell we made to help us wake up to reality and recognize what is true.

"My call to you is that you offer help from all the dreams the holy Son of God imagines, from the time that first of dreams was given false reality until all dreaming ends forever."

"Everything OUTSIDE the Kingdom IS ILLUSION. But you must learn to ACCEPT truth because YOU THREW IT AWAY. You therefore saw yourself AS IF you were WITHOUT it. By making another Kingdom WHICH YOU VALUED, you did NOT keep the Kingdom of God alone in your minds, and thus placed part of your mind OUTSIDE of it. What you have made has thus DIVIDED YOUR WILL and given you a sick mind that MUST be healed. Your vigilance AGAINST this sickness IS the way to heal it."

Yes Earth is not Heaven. Being ON EARTH, on the physical planet earth, is NOT being in Heaven. You cannot be in both places, and you cannot see both worlds. One or the other. This is your only choice. Either you are IN this world, or you are IN Heaven. Earth, or Heaven. You choose. Can't have your cake and eat it. Bodies or no bodies. Choose.

Earth is NOT the Kingdom of God and never will be. It is an ILLUSION OF A WORLD and does not really exist.

"The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven and Earth are in YOU, because the call of both are in your wills, and therefore in your minds."

"The ego teaches that your function on earth is destruction, and that you have no function AT ALL in Heaven."

"Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created Him."

"As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on Earth."

"He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other s sorry outcome which is Heaven s opposite in every way. "

"It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven."

"Just under Heaven does he stand, but close enough not to return to earth."

"Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and, although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here."

"This is the ONLY justice Heaven knows, and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth. "

"The miracles you do on earth are lifted up to Heaven, and to Him."

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has all the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."

"For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter."

"And you will have conviction then of Him Who knows the function that you have on earth as well as Heaven. "

"You makers of a world that is not so, take rest and comfort in another world where peace abides."

"And in His sight there IS another world. "

"Your WISH to make another world that is NOT real, REMAINS with you."

"The song of freedom, which sings the praises of another world, brings to it hope of peace. For it REMEMBERS Heaven. "

"It is your world salvation will undo, and LET you see another world your eyes could never find. "

"You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it, into another world. "

"The ark of peace is entered two by two, yet the beginning of another world goes with them."

"The miracle, therefore, has a unique function, and is motivated by a unique Teacher, Who brings the laws of another world to this one."

"Therefore, there must be another world which you do NOT see. "

"What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. "

"Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world. "

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

Here is a simple and effective forgiveness process which I did this morning with Holy Spirit.

You start by figuring out where you are on a spectrum from Life to Death. The spectrum has these stages:

Love/Innocence > Separation > Sin > Guilt > Fear > Punishment/Suffering > Death.

On whatever issue you want to do forgiveness, or even just a general forgiveness, locate what you seem to be *most directly aware* of right now. For me this was "fear".

Whatever stage you are most aware of, thats the stage which has not yet fully "projected" into the next stage. And all the stages beneath it are currently unconscious. I was experiencing fear because separation/sin/guilt were unconscious and I hadn't yet entered punishment.

Once you've located where your conscious mind is at, work your way backwards through the stages to undo each layer of belief. If you don't need one or more of the earlier steps because you didn't find yourself in them at the beginning, you can skip them. e.g. if you mostly feel guilty, you probably don't need to undo fear.

At each layer of awareness/belief, there are a few steps to go through.

1) You believe that the step is real, and you need to undo this belief. Holy Spirit can help here. Recognize you believe in "real" this (e.g. real fear), and affirm that it is not real (e.g. "fear is not real, I am not afraid").

2) You should then start to have the insight that the only reason you are experiencing this step is because the step you didn't get to yet (unconscious) is CAUSING this step. Separation demands sin. Sin demands guilt. Guilt demands fear. Fear demands punishment. Punishment demands death. Therefore the step isn't there in its "own right", as an isolated 'thing'. It's a projection from another level and is being generated by another level. Seeing this helps you to realize the current level of belief is not the CAUSE of it. It is an EFFECT. And since it's not a cause, it is not real, so you can let it go. Undo the belief by affirming it is not REAL. "There is no real fear" "There is no real guilt" etc. Fear does not cause fear. Guilt does not cause guilt. Sin does not cause sin.

3) Once you can realize that your current level of awareness/belief (the stage you're at) is coming from a hidden level, and you undo the current level by cancelling the belief and the illusion that it was real in its own right, notice that if you do not correct the next level, it will REPRODUCE the experience that you just got done removing! You can remove fear, but if you don't remove guilt, it will reproduce fear. You can remove guilt, but if you don't remove sin, it will reproduce guilt and fear. We have to work our way ALL the way to the Atonement in order to uproot the whole problem.

4) Having undone belief that the current step is real, and affirming you do not believe in it, and having released it (Holy Spirit can help), your mind should have shifted to being aware of the next step/level. If you undid the belief properly, you will feel "free" of the step you were on, should no longer be experiencing it, and will become aware of the experience of the next step. So if you were feeling fear, you should no longer be feeling fear, and will now be feeling guilty. Guilt will be the main thing you are conscious of. Or whatever comes as the next level from where you're at.

5) Continue on through the steps this way until you get to the recognition that sin is not real, separation has not happened, and therefore you are IN the experience of the atonement. If you have undone the belief that the punishment is real, that the fear is real, that the guilt is real, and that the sin is real, and that the separation really happened, you should now be in the TRUTH.

The truth should make you aware of GOD. God's truth should be in some way in your mind, whereby you should now be able to ACCEPT that you are innocent, because you do not believe you sinned. You should be able to realize that you are forgiven, because you did not really do anything. And you should be aware that God still LOVES YOU 100% because you are WORTHY of love, having not done anything wrong.

You may find yourself feeling "I AM FREE". You may experience JOY. You should feel RELIEF. Especially now that you can affirm "I have not sinned, I am innocent". Your mind is now experiencing the truth as your primary, conscious experience. Forgiveness accomplished. And because this has been ACCEPTED and OWNED, and because you've seen through all the illusory levels of the ego thought system, you are now PERMANENTLY FREE of what you forgave. It will not come back, because it has no foundation. The Atonement principle has completely undone the "cause" at its roots.

Your mind is now IN a state of forgiveness. You are in the Holy Spirit. You are now the light of the world. You are the Prodigal Son, and you've come Home!

When we separated from God, believing we had sinned, we projected the idea of this sin onto God, blaming Him for abandoning us and forcing us to be separate.

When we then entered into guilt, we projected this guilt onto God, accusing Him of being the one who made us sin.

When we then became afraid, we projected the cause of this fear onto God, claiming we are afraid of Him, because of Him.

Then we feared punishment, and we projected the source of this punishment onto God, believing he is the one who is going to punish us.

When we experienced punishment and felt close to death, we projected the cause of this onto God and believed that God wanted us to be dead.

And then we died. And it was God's wrath.

These are the stages that we have gone through in order to INVENT A FALSE GOD. Every ego projection of our own stuff, onto God, paints an image 'out there' of a source, a God, who has caused all this to happen. This is the ego's idea of God, a God invented to replace the Real God.

So now we have projected the cause and reason for all stages of separation onto God. God is the one who rejected us, God is the one who made separation happen, God is guilty, God is fearful and the cause of fear, God is going to judge and punish us, God is punishing us for good reason, it's God's will that we die, and by dying we're doing what God wants.

This is how we have defined and generated this false ego-created God in our minds. This is what we believe God is like. We have a death wish, trying to die, not just to escape God's wrath but because we think this God wants us to die, that it is His will, and that we are carrying out His will by dying.

At every stage, it is our ego denial of ownership of what we're doing, that brought about a projection and disassociation of that condition, onto God. We've tried to pull God into the problem. We've tried to blame Him for all of it.

This is also why we have an existential terror that God wants us dead. This is why we feel guilty just for existing when God apparently doesn't want it. This is why we feel unworthy of love. This is why we believe we can't go back Home to God because we don't think He will ever want us back or forgive us, wanting instead for us to be dead. We actually have this belief in us, and we also believe that God is the one who decided that we're terribly guilty.

It was never Him. God has had nothing to do with any of this. All of this disownership of the causes of this unfolding of sin-guilt-fear-punishment-death, has all been our own choosing and our own doing, to ourselves, within ourselves. None of it has taken place outside of ourselves. None of it has involved anyone else, no other, no person, no God. We have done this to ourselves. But along the way we've progressively disowned every part of it and projected it.

All of this projection has built an outward, separated picture of what God is like. This is the ego's false God. The ego also believes that it stopped having a parent/Father/Mother when it separated from God, and therefore has had to invent this alternative God, an artificial false God, which it not only worships and obeys (by carrying out its apparent death wish) but also fears to such an extend that it would try to escape into the grave to avoid God's wrath. This is how we've built this fiction of a God that is unloving, unkind, unforgiving, hurtful, vengeful, judgmental, condemning, conditional. This is not what God is like at all.

All of this has happened because of our disowning of ourselves. Our progressive disowning of ourselves at every stage of the development of the idea of being completely separate and unlike God. It's all to do with us disowning our power and projecting all of our self-attack onto God, believing He is the external cause of it all. So now it's all God's fault and we're just victims, lambs to the slaughter. This is the ego's creation story.

The ego attitude that we have, is an attempt to say that all of this terrible stuff happened because of anyone other than ourselves. And therefore we can't do anything about it. But the truth is, this entire process of 'creation', making, has taken place entirely within our own self. In our own mind. It never really projected. It was never God's fault and doesn't involve God whatsoever.

God is pure love. God is holy. God is innocent. God is freedom and light. God is happy with you. God is beautiful. God is harmless and ageless and deathless. God is peace. God isn't against you. God doesn't think these hideous things of you. God loves you unconditionally and for all time and beyond. And always will.

Anyone who is sick, is trying to kill themselves.

That's the harsh truth of it.

"Sickness is but a little death."

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, ***for it is but another form of guilt***."

ALL sickness, is induced by guilt. And guilt is induced by believing that sin is real. If sin is real, you must be punished. This is the ego's law. It reasons logically that if you DID sin, you ARE guilty, and DO deserve to suffer as a result. It makes sense.

"The laws of sin DEMAND a victim."

"Guilt ASKS FOR punishment"

"The wages of sin is death."

"If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves."

These are harsh facts.

What this means in summary is, someone chooses to believe they have sinned, this automatically instills the belief they are guilty, the guilt turns into literal physical and mental sickness, which is an attempt to bring about self inflicted punishment - an attempt at suicide. The end result is always eventually death. Anyone who believes in sin or in being sinful has a death wish. And every single sick person is trying to destroy themselves.

The only way out of this seeming horror story, is through atonement, which entails the forgiveness of the belief in sin, the recognition and acceptance of innocence, and the undoing of the consequences of the mistaken belief in sin.

"Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

Sickness is NOT POSSIBLE without guilt. But where there is guilt, there is ALWAYS sickness.

Those who are sick DO believe they are guilty, deep down. Regardless of whether they admit it or are aware of it.

What that means is, everyone who has any belief in sin or guilt at all, IS sick, and IS trying to destroy themselves.

Which also means, this world is filled with people committing suicide.

"YOU HATE YOUR MINDS, for guilt has entered into them""For the wages of sin is death, and how can the immortal die?""Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

"Sin "proves" God's Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; Eternal life must die."

"Behold me, brother, at your hand I die."

Of course, keeping it all in perspective, it is not REAL sin, or REAL guilt, or REAL hatred, or REAL sickness or REAL death. These are all fiction and fantasy in an illusory dream world. Because nothing real can be threatened. But while we're here suffering we do not BELIEVE these things are unreal, and it is our belief in guilt and sickness and death that brings them to manifest in the body and mind. A guilty mind MUST suffer.

This is not a call to make anyone feel guilty for being sick, or to accuse anyone, or to try to make people feel worse about it. If you can put that ego reaction aside and look at it honestly, it's simply a truth which has the potential to set you free. Sickness is not necessary, or deserved, or needed. It is a reaction to condemnation of yourself. And you are literally incapable of really sinning. So you cannot be guilty, and you need not suffer.

"God does not will that you suffer."

No-one needs to be sick, to suffer, or to die a horrible death. Even if it's an illusion. The body can be healed by the mind that no longer believes in sin and death.

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone. We said before that illness is a form of magic. It might be better to say it is a form of magical SOLUTION. The ego believes that by punishing ITSELF, it will mitigate the punishment of God."

"Sin is the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts which are untrue. They are the "proof " that what has no reality is real. Sin "proves" God's Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; Eternal life must die. And God Himself has lost the Son He loves, with but corruption to complete Himself, His Will forever overcome by death, love slain by hate, and peace to be no more."

"A madman's dreams are frightening, and sin appears indeed to terrify. And yet what sin perceives is but a childish game. The Son of God may play he has become a body, prey to evil and to guilt, with but a little life that ends in death. But all the while his Father shines on him, and loves him with an everlasting Love which his pretenses cannot change at all.

How long, oh Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin? Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will you be ready to come home? Perhaps today? There is no sin. Creation is unchanged. Would you still hold return to Heaven back? How long, oh holy Son of God, how long?"

Going into a questioning mode, in which you ask yourself, should I do this or shouldn't I.... is actually a movement into fear.

As soon as you're in this mode of perception, there is no way you're going to settle on a peaceful decision.

You'll think that deciding one way will bring you peace, except that.. you can't get the other way out of your mind. And then you think if you decide the other way, maybe that will bring you what you want, except that, the first solution still seems to have something about it that the other doesn't.

Always in this mode of fear, it is a mode of duality, where your mind is split in two and you can't "make up" your mind - because you HAVE 'made up' a mind - an ego mind, which is now trying to rectify the fact that it has to deal with two different and unrelated options.

By perceiving differences, you are fixating on the appearance that one option has something about it that the other does not, and these differences are what MAKE the two options seem like two distinct options. And yet, as soon as you see this and try to deal with it, you cannot possibly see any kind of certainty, truth, clarity, obviousness or lack of confusion.

There is no sane way to choose between these two different paths, at least not from within a position of choosing. When you're weighing up your options, what you're really doing is trying to decide whether to accept what's missing about one of the two things, versus whats missing about the other. And the fact that they are both incomplete, can only leave you uncertain and unconvinced.

The only way out of this confusion, which masquerades as very careful decision making - on your own, in isolation - but really is a movement AWAY from decision and certainty, is to entirely STOP this whole deception of choosing between things. When you are questioning what to do, you are questioning YOURSELF, and throwing yourself into fear and confusion needlessly. "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability." - ACIM

There is no way you can choose between things, because that requires separation and rejection and you will never be able to experience certainty or peace while separation is operating.

The only way to peace is to entirely step back out of the 'split' between options, to back off from being in a position of trying to know, or trying to figure out. You even need to get past the illusion that a decision even needs to be made, because the sense of NEED has entirely come from the very same FEAR that you have entered into, which has CAUSED you to think that you have to decide something in the first place. "Let my recognize my problems have been solved." - ACIM

You have to RECOGNIZE that what you are trying to do is impossible, and that's why you will be confused and frustrated. You need to see this deception for what it is - not two clear-cut choices, but a device for indecision, fear, egocentric control, and trying to know everything on your own.

You can't know everything when your mind is split. So when you are in this decision-making mode of selecting between things, you are not only choosing which of two things is "better", you're also choosing which of two IDENTITIES you want to associate with. And that means you are literally putting your SELF into one of two boxes.

Once you're inside boxes, or are attempting to hide in boxes in the name of getting out of a box, you can no longer see clearly and won't be able to feel the sense of relief and peace that comes from being OUTSIDE the box.

So really there is absolutely no way that your ego (split mind) can make a decision on its own and be certain or happy with it. Either you struggle and seek for truth in only one part of existence and not another, causing you to be inherently insane, or you stop trying to decide on your own.

Decisions can still be made from a vantage point outside of this split mind, where you join with Holy Spirit and see the whole situation as one, recognizing the temptation of the illusion of deciding for yourself and ceasing to enter into it. Then Holy Spirit can share His light and freedom with you, to instill a knowing, inspiration or guidance - a peace-based decision - which you CAN trust and feel certain about.

As Jesus says in the Course, seek not to make decisions about doing something you do not want to do, because it will only make you afraid.

You need to learn to notice when you've slipped into a "I don't know if I should" mode, or a "what should I do" mode, or a "I can't decide mode", which pretends to be decision-making, because it means you've gone into the ego split mind and cannot possibly decide anything. You are AFRAID, and for no real reason.

Questions are doubts. They are not real questions. This is why the tiny mad idea was a movement AWAY from knowing and truth, towards "questioning truth", i.e. entering into fear and doubt, in an attempt to pretend that you're looking for an answer, while using that excuse as a cover-up for actually moving AWAY from the answer.

Ego questions do not lead you to truth. They lead you to more illusions, and you will never find happiness or peace of mind there.

So stop yourself if you notice you're being indecisive. No matter what your ego mind says - for or against certain options - do not listen to ANY of the arguments or cases for or against anything. They are all deceptions, because the overall deception is you believing that you NEED to decide at all.

You only think you need to decide when you've become afraid, and really then you're in a state of fear, trying to decide something in order to gain relief from fear, but every effort to do so will just make you more afraid.

Imagine all the wonderful things you will actually achieve and 'do' and feel good about and act fearlessly on, when you're moving and flowing with Holy Spirit's truth and trust and awareness, instead of trying to be "sure" about what "you" need to do with "your" life.

What you will realize eventually, as is dawning on me now, is that maybe there isn't even a decision to be made, and maybe moving into decision-making is actually just fear and undermining yourself with your ego, and you need to stop doing THAT, because that is the real problem here, not what option to choose.

I thank Jesus for this clarification today, and for reminding me when I am questioning whether I'm doing the right thing, thinking that this means I have to decide all over again what to do, I need to recognize the real problem - I've entered into fear and have attacked myself, and that's the only reason I seem to be separated from truth. To return to truth I do not NEED to make this illusory decision, I need to stop listening to my own bullshit.