The physical world was made as a projection of a false idea. Everything in it is false, untrue and unreal. It therefore depicts a lie, a deception, an illusion, and an attempt to ASSERT that something false is true. That something impossible is possible. That everything which CAN go wrong HAS gone wrong, or is about to.

Everything it does and says and expresses is fiction and make-believe. This is because you made it by WANTING to believe that something untrue was true. And so you produced a world which constantly asserts the idea that an impossible evil exists. And now everything in the world is there to try to convince you that this is true.

If you consider the idea of hell, and you think of a place where everything in it is trying to PULL YOU DOWN, to SUCK YOU IN, to PERSUADE you, to try to get you to BUY into it, to KEEP you there, whispering evil lies in your ear, then you have an idea of what temptation is.

It's like the "devil" telling you things which are utterly untrue and heinous and blasphemous, trying to get you to side with it, so that you'll stay and give it your strength. To talk you into believing it instead of trusting God's word. It wants your soul in exchange for all of hell to be yours forever.

Be not mistaken that this whole world is set up to do this. And the body was made in attempting to deceive yourself thus. And now the world acts as a picture of total utter bullshit and madness, in the hope that you would convince yourself with it and fall for the trap, buying into illusions as if they are real, rendering yourself insane.

"This IS an insane world, and do not underestimate the actual extent of its insanity. "

"Nothing the body's eyes seem to see can be anything but a form of temptation, since this was the purpose of the body itself."

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt."

If your mind gives any BELIEF to the world, to the body, to anything physical, then you are falling for temptation and are not in forgiveness. If even a speck of it seems TRUE to you, has validity, is worth listening to, is actually happening, or is anything you WANT, then you are falling for temptation.

"Lead us not into temptation" really means, help us to not believe that anything in the world is true. Help us not to fall for the ego trap of believing in hell. The world we made IS hell, but can only gain our support if we GIVE it our support. And we do that by buying into it, wanting it, believing it, trusting it, having faith in it, valuing it, giving it power, giving it credit, and siding with it. If you side with Earth, you are siding with an illusion of evil and are trying to make sin real.

"your mind has all the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects." (not both)

"He (Holy Spirit) will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God."

Make no mistake then, in the separation from God we DID attempt to make hell itself. The hell we made, the world we made, including bodies, is the opposite of heaven. Its whole nature was an attack on God and an attempt to deny eternal life. Which is why it has produced a dream of death and corruption.

We may not RECOGNIZE it as "actual hell" because of our silly ideas of fire and brimstone and pitch forks, but earth basically is the opposite of heaven. And heaven's opposite IS hell by definition. You are in hell right now, or so it seems.

"...and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

"For this world IS the opposite of Heaven, having been made to BE its opposite. And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true."

"The mind can make the belief in Separation VERY real and VERY fearful. And this belief IS the devil. It is powerful, active, destructive, and clearly in opposition to God, because it literally denies His Fatherhood."

"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except love's absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him."

"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master."

Fortunately, your experience of the world of temptation, of a hell which at every turn is blasting you in the face with IMAGES OF SIN, trying to TEMPT YOU to believe that evil really is possible and sickness can happen and death is inevitable, depends entirely on your mind GIVING it power over you.

You give hell power by believing in it, valuing it and wanting it. If there is hell IN YOU, then you are supporting the world of temptation. What you accept as true becomes your reality. Heaven and earth are both in your mind, and you can SIDE WITH one or the other. But you can't have both because they are opposites.

If you side with spirit/heaven, you are denying earth and the body. You are giving up nothing to gain everything. Because hell, ie earth or the world, is really nothing in and of itself. It's just a fiction sitting there doing nothing until you decide that it is more than that. And then you give it all the meaning it has. Changing your mind about is remains entirely possible.

"This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. And until you realize that God's Son CANNOT be crucified, this is the world you will see."

"You are safe in God, dreaming of exile (hell), but perfectly capable of waking to reality."

So hell - the world - is there to POTENTIALLY tempt you, or to at least very strongly lean in the direction of being a demonstration of "real evil" and impossibilities. A picture of the opposite of God, or the anti-christ. But if you decide not to BELIEVE it, then you stop supporting it, and it loses its seeming power. Because it has no power other than what you give to it. It NEEDS your support in order to even seem to exist at all, because you are dreaming it.

This means the way "out of hell" is to learn to side with God, with heaven. To be vigilant for the Kingdom, ie to put all your focus and value and wanting and trusting onto what is actually real. Which means denying the world and not falling for temptation.

"The world you see must be denied"

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

As you side with reality/heaven, you side against the illusion of an evil world. You become more identified with spirit and stronger in the truth. You learn that only God's truth is true and learn to better catch yourself when you fall for the potential trap of ego and external salvation.

To NOT believe that the world is REALLY hell, is to be saved from it. Because it in truth is not really anything. It is only an illusion of hell pretending to be hell. And it has no reality or truth or strength or anything at all APART from what you give it. Apart from your wishes. Yet if you choose to believe in it, you will become very confused and lost and deceived.

It's like a world of smoke and mirrors which can do nothing unless you give it your faith. And by doing so you go into it and become confused. To get out of it you literally have to learn to say NO to everything the world says is happening or possible, and say YES to everything that God says is possible. Ultimately, ONLY God is possible, and the world CANNOT exist at all.

The simple recognition that only the truth is true, is the culmination of a process of purification which leads to the atonement, and to enlightenment. It is the simple recognition that hell is nothing and there is nothing in it that you want, and therefore nothing in it can tempt you or hurt you in any way.

You are done with your window shopping for death's costumes and now are ready to move on to reality and to eternal life.

"The imagined usurping of functions not your own is the basis of fear. The whole world you see reflects the illusion you have done so, making fear inevitable. To return the function to the One To Whom it belongs is thus the escape from fear. And it is this that lets the memory of love return to you. Do not, then, think that following the Holy Spirit's guidance is necessary merely because of your own inadequacies. It is the way out of hell for you."

When we typically experience the world from an ego viewpoint, we might encounter lessons and people and problems. And then we attempt to forgive these things. And we think we are then done with forgiveness. And then another one comes along. And then we do another forgiveness. And this gives you the impression that you are doing forgiveness.

But over time, you are really moving horizontally through the world, encountering obstacles, one at a time, and these obstacles always seem specific. The form of the obstacle is what deceives you. The problem with your mother, the problem with the plumbing, the problem with the sick brother, the problem with your boss. Each one seems specifically different and unrelated to the rest. And so you perform a string of seeming forgivenesses through time.

But as you perform each forgiveness and move towards truth, you are in fact moving UPWARDS, towards the light. And this upwards movement may seem to be more subtle and gradual, such that it isn't even specific and it may be difficult to realize whether you are making upwards progress. But over time, it will start to occur to you that each of the seemingly different "forms" that problems take, is itself an illusion.

You will start to see that each of these forgiveness opportunities have something in common. Common characteristics. There's always some problem with your belief in who is causing who. And there's always some issue of authority and power. And there's always fear and reaction involved. And there's always the same stresses. And as you progress you start to generalize the learning and start to transcend the forms and differences. And then it starts to occur to you that these are not all different situations.

What forgiveness reveals to you, is that you aren't really in fact having to deal with a multitude of totally different problems, but that in fact the whole world, ALL of the problems, are doing the same thing. And ALL of the problems have the same characteristics. And ALL of them are forgiven in the same way. And this starts to show you that it's not really a specific problem with specific people, or specific groups, or specific situations, it's a problem with THE WHOLE WORLD.

And then you start to question the nature of the whole world. Maybe the WHOLE world is a collection of attacks. Maybe all of it, regardless of the form it takes, is ONE problem. And now you are starting to not fall for the illusion of form or the shape that a problem takes. You are realizing that either you move downwards into the darkness of hell, or upwards into the light of heaven. And either you are lost in the battlefield of stress and misery, or you are above the WHOLE battlefield in light and happiness.

Forgiveness starts to now take on a different direction. Its not so much to do with having a DIFFERENT way of handling each situation, but of developing a SINGLE "way" of dealing with them all. And you start to see through the deception or form that each one presents. And you stop falling for the obvious temptations. And now forgiveness is seen as vertical, in which either you are moving into hell or out of it, as a whole. And the qualities of the whole WORLD are now being brought into question.

You are now asking yourself, whether ANY of the things that happen are real. Whether ANY problem is really happening. Whether ANY person's attack has anything to do with you. Whether there even IS anything specific or different about any of it. And as you broaden your horizons to learn very large abstract truths such as that there is no world, this is just a dream, NONE of it is happening to you, loving everyone equally is the way to holy relationship, unity is the truth, sharing with everyone is unconditional love, etc... you move away from the specific towards the abstract.

And now it boils down the real "root cause" of the WHOLE of suffering, the reason for EVERY reaction, the purpose behind EVERY sickness. And you discover there not only really is only one problem, there is also only one solution. One solution to rule them all. And only one lesson that the Holy Spirit is teaching. Either the world is real or its not. And if it is real, you will suffer. And if it's not, you are free. If it's a dream, you have no basis for reactions or fear. If it's not a dream, you cannot help but react in fear. This is a fundamental lesson in the generalization of the teaching. That every form the illusion takes is just as DECOY to distract you from realizing that it's ALL the same.

This causes you to also start realizing that the hierarchy of illusions is a lie. Some things are NOT harder or more difficult than another. The form of a problem lies about its severity. You start to question whether a giant cancer is really any more threatening than a headache. You see how the ego tries to correlate the seriousness of a cause with the appropriate level of reaction, and you stop falling for this lie. The hierarchy starts to flatten, and all of the deceptions that make it seem like a world-sized maze of confusing corridors and disjointed pieces, simply start to fuse into each other as they're all seen as ONE DREAM. One problem, one solution.

"Miracles entail a sudden shift into vertical perception".

"Yet they are all the same and must be recognized as one if the one solution which solves them all is to be accepted."

"Without the values from the past you WOULD see them all the same"

"We will try to realize that we have only one problem, which we have failed to recognize. We will ask what it is, and wait for the answer. We will be told."

"Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution."

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

The only real choice you have, the only moment at which you are actually choosing between ego and God, is when you decide whether or not to accept the Atonement.

Here are your only choices:

A) I really did sin, and therefore every consequence of sin should happen and I deserve to die and I will make it happen.

or

B) I really did not sin in reality, nothing real has been threatened, God still finds me worthy, I am still innocent and nothing has happened.

This is your ONLY choice.

And this choice ONLY happens at the CLIMAX of a forgiveness process, a process of purification, in which you are undoing beliefs in death, punishment, fear, guilt and sin. You have to undo and PURGE all of that shit BEFORE you can even get to where you will be WILLING and able to accept some atonement.

If you imagine that being "in the ego" is like being in a dark warehouse, that warehouse contains shelf upon shelf of sin, guilt, fear, punishment, sickness, death. You have to find your way out of the dark and reach the exit. But before you can get to the exit, you have to most PAST all of these shelves of ego lies. You have to not believe any of them and clear them out of your way so that you can get to the exit.

The exit from the warehouse will take you INTO THE LIGHT, into Heaven, into the Atonement, into your INNOCENCE, but the ONLY way you can go through that door is through willingness to accept the truth is true, and choosing to admit that it is so. That nothing has happened and you are still innocent, that you are still as God created you. Then you step OUT of the warehouse of darkness INTO the light, and it is ONLY THEN that you have placed yourself back INTO the thought system of the Holy Spirit or God.

Whether or not sin is true, or whether the belief in sin is true or false, is THE PIVOTAL POINT at which you are deciding, whether you are allegiant to the ego, or allegiant to God. All of the prior steps of undoing fear and guilt and sickness and punishment etc are prerequisites but do not actually directly take you OUT of the ego thought system. They are steps TOWARDS it. They are you meandering around the warehouse in the dark trying to find the exit. All of these corrections and changes of belief and purification and releases and letting go and shifts in perception and so on are mere PREPARATION for exiting the building and becoming miraculous.

This is why when you apply forgiveness processes you MUST at some point take it ALL THE WAY to the atonement truth, OTHERWISE you are not completing the forgiveness and are falling short. You are actually STAYING IN the ego thought system UNLESS you TOTALLY EXIT through that door of accepting the atonement is true of you. And many people are doing exactly this - falling short of exiting the building, and instead lingering in various levels of denial and unconsciousness, with blocks to awareness still in place, not really undoing or looking at the unconscious belief in sin or the DEATH WISH which lurks in the darkness right in front of the doorway home.

This has to all be uprooted and dug out and undone and un-believed in PRIOR to reaching the exit, so that when you get to the exit you will no longer have any ties or objections or reasons of doubt or faith in the ego beliefs as to why you CANNOT exit, or why you don't want to, or why you cannot accept it is 100% true. It takes a lot of "work" to go through all the shit to uncover these layers of blocks to awareness, to really become literally AWARE of the truth. And only then, when you finally can SEE that it makes total sense that you MUST STILL BE INNOCENT because you DID NOT SIN in reality, only then are you actually making the choice between the ego and the Holy Spirit.

That's the only point where you're saying yes to God and no to the ego. It's also the point at which, as you exit, you become OPEN TO RECEIVE MIRACLES. This is because you now open up to accept that you CAN BE LOVED because you are worthy of it because you are still innocent. Only AFTER EXITING THE BUILDING do you step INTO THE LIGHT, and upon EXPOSURE to the light, now allow yourself to be LOVED BY GOD. And it is in this reunion, in this moment of becoming PART of the atonement itself, that you are actually willing to RECEIVE LOVE. And in your receiving of this love, THAT is how you receive a miracle and THAT is when you get healed. Because now you allow the love to love you and it heals you. If you believe sin is real then you are saying NO to love and are not receiving it.

THEN, you can take the healed part of your mind to others, to bring the atonement to others, and to SHARE and extend the miracles you've received - the love, the worthiness, to others, as part of the atonement plan. And you can do this whole process over and over again on any individual issue in order to keep accepting miracles upon miracles, until there is nothing left keeping you in the dark at all.

It's very helpful for me to keep in mind the key fact, that every time I am upset about other people I am using them to get rid of my own sin.

Each time I become angry or upset or annoyed, or see myself as being attacked by someone, or they are just "wrong", it can SEEM as though I do not want them to be this way. BUT I DO!

I absolutely want them to attack me, hurt me, offend me, annoy me, be opposed to me, be wrong to me, etc.

Each time I SEE them as falling into this category, I will believe I am JUSTIFIED in being angry and upset about them. And my justification will tell me I SHOULD be upset.

But it's a lie. I'm lying to myself and them. I want them to hurt me so that I have a way to justify projecting my own sin and guilt onto them.

It's not that they are wrong, or sinful, or guilty, it's that I believe *I* am. I want to SEE them as the one who is sinful, at any opportunity, so that I can get rid of my shit.

Each time I find myself going into this justified reaction, if I can be honest and remember that I actually WANT them to be this way so that I can use them to scapegoat, it stops me in my tracks.

Seeing that my reaction is NOT justified, because the purpose and reason for my reaction is an dishonest attack on my part, it deflates the reaction and makes it easy to not pursue further.

The angry reaction just stops when the truth is introduced, because anger is a false reaction to a lie. Just this one simple little truth is leading me to give up every case of finding others guilty. Anger and blame was a TOOL I was using for a secret purpose.

It literally takes a step in the undoing of the ego, and marks the beginning of the end of all anger forever.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and your way will be made straight" - this is the ULTIMATE FORM OF FORGIVENESS.

I will explain.

There is only one problem. Not many. Not multiple layers. One problem: separation from God. We are simply too caught up in being distant from God that we keep trying to forgive stuff within a layer of mind that is still quite far from the origin of all problems, cleaning up the mess, dealing with what appear as multiple fragmented issues. But as we 'home in' on God and on the real CORE of EVERY problem, it all boils down to this one totally simple thing: You believe that you did somethig to separate yourself from God.

So now in your forgiving you attempt to address the 'fallout' of this separation in various layers. Maybe you try to let other people off the hook, maybe you attempt to withdraw your projections, maybe you try to withhold judgement and just observe, maybe you monitor your thoughts and try to have 'the right ones', maybe you go to Holy Spirit and ask Him to do something. But let's be clear now. All of these remedies attempt to address the real cause of all problems somewhat distant from that cause, hidden behind multiple layers of psychological fragmentation. Where is the ROOT CAUSE?

Behind all these worldly distractions and needing to forgive individual people and needing to deal with specific body issues and needing to correct thoughts and so on, there is ONE PROBLEM and it is that you believe you are separate from God. It is very abstract and very primary. It underlies EVERYTHING else that seems to have gone wrong.

So what you need to ultimately do, whether you do this now or soon or in future or whenever, when you are ready, at some point you are going to have to GO TO GOD. Your relationship with God appears to have suffered. You believe you attacked Him and rejected Him and now he seems distant from you. How do you suppose this is going to get HEALED by you pussyfooting around the real elephant in the living room, avoiding this one fundamental issue?

Imagine you had a big fight with someone you love or a best friend and you feel terrible about it, but it caused you to be at odds and now you're not talking. You've gone off on your separate ways and you feel alone and guilty and angry etc. How exactly do you suppose you're going to repair this relationship? It's not going to be enough for you to focus on withdrawing projections or questioning judgements or all this kind of stuff that happens `down the pipeline`. You're likely avoiding that person. You don't want to go near them. But how are you going to get to what you really WANT, which is a REUNION with them? How are you going to get to where the two of you are standing there in a moment of rapture and love, letting go of every single sense of grievance and upset, utterly overjoyed at accepting each other back into your lives and completely dismissing everything that ever came between you?

At some point your'e going to have to GO TO GOD. Ok. So, God is the Kingdom of Heaven - that's His creation which He is One with. The more you AVOID Him the more you will orbit around and make silly noises and try to explain why your relationship is getting repaired from a distance. But what you really want is to reunite with God completely. You want to go up to Him, reaaaaaly close and personal, and have a confrontation of sorts (which you are terrified of), and 'apologize', so to speak, and move PAST all of the hurt and sense of separation that has kept you apart. You want to really get in there and commune deeply with Him, letting go of aaaaal accusations and fears and worries and all the guilt that stemmed from your falling-out. And you want to get past all of that and get to where you are beaming at each other with love in your eyes and joy in your heart at the absolute beauty and RELIEF that the love you thought you'd lost IS STILL THERE. It hasn't been hurt, nothing serious has transpired, and all is forgiven. Now your'e back to being 'best friends' and the whole separation bullshit has just disappeared.

That's what it would be like to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven. If you're going to totally undo all your problems, you need to UNDO THE SEPARATION. So as you apply forgiveness, instead of focussing on the distant levels, go straight for the jugular. Recognize that whatever your problem is, it's because you believe you are separate from God. There is no other reason. You don't need to blame it on the projection or the judgement or the thoughts or wahtever. It's all because you and God had a falling out and now you want Him back. Period.

"Holy Spirit, correct my belief in separation and help me to reunite with God". How about that?

"Holy Spirit, undo the guilt I feel because I separated from God and help me reunite with His Love."

"Holy Spirit, my body is sick because I am separate from God, please remove this evidence of separation."

"Holy Spirit, heal the separation between me and God"

Or even better, sometimes addressing Holy Spirit can be a way to avoid God ;-) ..... I don't see many people including GOD in their forgiveness words....

"God, please forgive me for trying to separate from you and help me to be with you again."

"God, please heal this separation now"

"God, I rejoin with you in peace"

"God, we are One"

Try this... Try skipping all the other levels of forgiveness and go straight for the repair of your sense of separation. ALL your problems stem from it so if you fix that one thing, everything else should take care of itself and "your way will be made straight."

All you really want is to heal the separation between you and God and return to a loving relationship. It's no more complicated than that.

"The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone." In the separation from God, we rejected the meaning of divine order and replaced it with meaningless chaos. Through separation and fragmentation, there was no longer a single truth shared by everyone. Instead, everyone believed their own truth, and now everyone was in conflict.

In a state of fundamental disagreement, this gave rise to an entire seeming universe, or system of thought, in which conflict, clashes, wars, disagreement, argument, inequality, domination, submission, tyranny, attack, fighting, selfishness, hoarding, scarcity, and all manner of separation became commonplace.

This also expressed as the world itself, on a physical level, in terms of the seeming laws of physics and of space and time, which are utterly opposed to the divine laws of God. This produced an environment in which every particle of matter is at odds with every other, all things are different, kept apart, and in conflict, and where one thing can seem to destroy another. In a world without divine order, "senseless laws" seem to govern it.

"Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusions stands; senseless, impossible, and beyond ALL reason, and yet perceived as an eternal BARRIER to Heaven. Illusions ARE but forms. Their content is NEVER true."

"The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. "

"The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His. Everything else is merely lawLESS, and therefore chaotic. But God Himself has protected EVERYTHING He created BY His laws. Therefore, everything that is not under them does not exist."

In a chaotic world, the most random-seeming things can happen. They appear to happen without the involvement of any kind of will or mind. Seemingly without the participation or attention of anyone. As if the world is simply on some kind of autopilot, allowing for things to happen which make no sense, for no useful purpose, and producing effects which appear completely random and unintended.

As such "accidents" seem to arise and we enter into a realm of "bad luck", where coincidence seems possible and shit can just seemingly happen "by chance." Physical objects and their interactions seem to trigger a cascading chain of effects, as rocks tumble from a mountain, as people slip on banana peels, as decay sets in, as random wind finally blows the roof off, as meteorites happen to strike a person's body, as the weather happens to be worse, as sick bodies seem to take a turn for the worse, and as you just happened to step on a specific piece of dog shit today.

We think this world is normal and natural but it is completely devoid of divine order and meaning. Utter nonsense can transpire for no good reason. Things can seem to happen, unfortunate events, strange twists of fate, odd unlikelihoods transpire, trees fall on cars, rotten wood crumbles, a person steps on a nail which was left behind 50 years ago, there isn't quite enough energy to keep the phone running to capture that UFO in the sky, and someone's wheel falls off because the bolts on the hub were just slightly loose enough today.

When you look at all the stupid stuff that happens in the world, all the dangers and pitfalls and strange occurrences and injuries and houses falling on people's heads and so on, most of it really boils down to a seemingly lifeless environment, run by chaotic laws. Unfair, mean, cruel laws, where animals starve because they get stuck in a hole between some rocks. Laws which seem to be consistent and make sense, but which are founded on the complete absence of love and belonging and harmlessness and wholeness.

In a way, most of what transpires is "forgiveable" in the sense that, most of it is just the laws of physics playing out, as if it's not "personal". We might yell at the door for slamming on us, but it was just the physics in the hinges and the weight of gravity. We might be annoyed at the handle falling off the saucepan but it was just the rust setting in to corrode the metal. We might stub our toe and swear at the little bump in the sidewalk, but it's just an arrangement of matter sitting there. It isn't transpiring against you, as such, it's just ticking over like a mindless dead program, like some kind of debris that's just left behind from centuries of pointless events.

The world really is kind of like a dead world, a graveyard in which "stuff" just sits around doing next to nothing, until it is disturbed slightly, and seeming forces and energies collude into the mix, resulting in seeming new effects. And now the rock falls on your head and the tree crashes into the car and the tornado throws a random cow through your window.

And then the little stone tumbles off the hill, and bounces off the recently grown leaf, and hits you on the head as you just happen to walk past. All seemingly totally at random. In a world where everything seems to be utterly chaotic, pointless, senseless, meaningless, purposeless, without divine design, orderless and lifeless. Where the dust comprised of the dead corpses of skin cells clog your nose and triggers and chemical reaction.

In heaven there are no such accidents, no things which happen in chain reactions of random collisions. There is no chance or bad luck or probability or likelihoods. There is no unintended consequence, or lifeless discarded piles of trash, or little objects that sit around waiting to be victimized by external forces, or giant "natural disasters" that bring totally arbitrary suffering and completely unpredictable chaos to all concerned. Where who survives and who does not depends on whether a particular piece of wood floats past at the right time.

The world is like an old trash heap where all manner of garbage has just been collected together and piled up, and now the pile is unstable and it topples over, and once in a while just enough gravity affects something to cause a sudden shift, and a landslide begins as particular specific items are involved and others left out, falling and plummeting to their new doom, until they settle and are stifled and end up in a new meaningless ugly formation of rotten stench.

This is the world we made. This is the opposition to heaven and to the divine order. This is how we wanted our life to be - dangerous and victimizing and unfair. And now most of our lives we spend trying to navigate through an obstacle course, barricades on a battlefield, with pokey nails sticking out and nasty sharp corners and little annoying things that just keep breaking and stuff that wears out and even your tangled shoelaces transpire against you.

The entire world has taken shape as an unpleasant and seemingly dangerous, unstable, and untrustworthy torture chamber, just to piss you off on a Monday and to reach out of the blue with its sudden breakdowns. Most of us then spend most of our lives trying to just "manage" to "survive" in such a strange and meaningless environment, angered when the laws of physics dictate that something else random and badly timed happens, trying to keep our frail bodies from being affected, and trying to scrape by unscathed in what effectively is a harsh and unnatural environment.

"There IS no safety in a battleground. You can look down on it in safety from above, and NOT be touched. But, from within it, you can find NO safety. Not one tree left standing still will shelter you. Not one illusion of protection stands against the faith in murder. Here stands the body, torn between the natural desire to communicate, and the unnatural intent to murder and to die."

Battlefields are places for thorns and spikes and bombs and armies. We have to find a way to rise above and out of the chaos if we are to reconnect with order, with peace and with divine order. There is no peace to be found amongst the twisted thorns and sharp corners of a meaningless world. Only the reality of Heaven offers a safe and meaningful home. And no-one can experience a sense of holy protection while standing on a landmine, which may or may not take them with it.

"The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus."

"When he is NOT in a state of grace he IS out of his natural environment, and does NOT function well. Everything he does becomes a strain, because he was not created for the environment which he has made. He therefore CANNOT adapt to it, nor can he adapt IT to HIM. There is no point in trying"

"A Son of God is happy ONLY when he knows he is WITH God. That is the only environment in which he will not experience strain, because that is where he belongs. It is also the only environment that is worthy of him, because his own worth is beyond ANYTHING that he can make."

"You still could not will against Him, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. It is NOT a world of will, because it is governed by the desire to be unlike Him. And this desire IS NOT WILL. The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it."

"The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone. Like all these principles, this one maintains that each is separate, and has a different set of thoughts which SETS HIM OFF from others. This principle evolves from the belief there is a hierarchy of illusions; some are MORE valuable, and THEREFORE true. And each establishes this FOR HIMSELF, and MAKES it true by his attack on what another values. This is justified BECAUSE the values differ. And those who hold them SEEM to be unlike, and THEREFORE enemies."

""Laws of chaos" are meaningless, by definition. Creation is perfectly lawful, and the chaotic is without meaning, BECAUSE IT IS WITHOUT GOD. You have given your peace to the gods you made, but they are not there to take it FROM you, and you are NOT able to give it TO them. You are NOT free to give up freedom, but only to DENY it. YOU CANNOT DO WHAT GOD DID NOT INTEND, because what He did not intend DOES NOT HAPPEN. Your gods do not BRING chaos; you are ENDOWING them with chaos, and accepting it OF them."

""I am upset because I see a meaningless world." Insane thoughts are upsetting, and They produce a world in which there is no order anywhere. Only chaos rules a world which represents chaotic thinking, and chaos has no laws. I cannot live in peace in such a world. I am grateful that this world is not real, and that I need not see it at all unless I choose to value it. And I do not choose to value what is totally insane and has no meaning."

"The "laws of chaos" CAN be brought to light, though NEVER understood. Chaotic laws are hardly meaningful, and therefore out of reason's sphere. Yet they APPEAR to constitute an obstacle to reason and to truth. Let us, then, look upon them calmly, that we may look BEYOND them, understanding what they ARE, NOT what they would maintain. It IS essential it be understood what they are FOR, because it is their PURPOSE to make meaningless, and to ATTACK the truth. Here are the laws that rule the world you made. And yet they govern nothing, and need NOT be broken; merely looked upon and gone beyond."

"Dreams are chaotic BECAUSE they are governed by your conflicting wishes. And therefore they have NO concern with what is true."

"This is the characteristic of the ego's judgments. SEPARATELY, they seem to hold, but PUT THEM TOGETHER, and the system of thought which arises from JOINING them, is incoherent and utterly chaotic. For form is not enough for meaning, and the underlying LACK of content, makes a cohesive system impossible."

"For the ego IS chaos, and if it were all of you, no order at all would be possible."

"To think that God made chaos, contradicts His Will, invented opposites to truth, and suffers death to triumph over life, all this is arrogance."

"This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. 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."

"Except he judges this as does a child, who does not KNOW what hurts and what will heal. And bad things seem to happen, and he is afraid of all the chaos in a world he thinks is governed by the laws he made."

"In the world, not even the body is perceived as whole. Its purpose is seen as fragmented into many functions which bear little or no relationship to each other, so that it appears to be ruled by chaos."

Here is a very interesting paragraph from ACIM:

"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought that gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."

Notice that it leads off by saying that the world *IS* false perception. In the mind of Christ, in whose mind the entire physical world is imagined, the world itself IS false perception. Not a false perception OF the world, but that the world itself is a state of perceiving falsely.

This also adds weight to the fact that when perception is corrected and undone, at the christ level, the illusion of a world MUST disappear from the mind of the Son of God.

We work on correcting perception believing that it is our own private, separate perception, our own little mind in our own little body. But Jesus clearly references perception as the imagination of the One Christ, in which the entire physical universe is his imagination at work. The world IS made of thought, and it WILL disappear when the mind of Christ has entirely awoken from all dreaming.

We can work on correcting our own private perceptions, but we cannot stop there. The perception which has visualized the entire world must also be corrected. What is "out there" is MIND STUFF. Thought. Its physicality is an illusion, and all of it can be changed.

This once again confirms for me that some parts of the course apply at the 'I am one body with a little mind' level, and some parts apply at the 'I made the entire universe with a huge mind' level. I think that many of us ACIM students are falling WAAAAAAY short of what the Course is teaching, when try to fit everything into the little "I'm one little mind" level, body-identified, not realizing the HUUUGE implications of the power that we have over the entire world. The Christ-level of awareness is unlimited in its power and has dreamed the entire universe, having more than enough power to undo it in its entirety. The physical universe IS a state of perception IN the christ mind at a universe-sized scale. AND we are being asked to step into those massive shoes by Jesus, shoes which perform extraordinary supernatural miracles!!

In the ego's world, someone has to be to blame for everything that happens. It's way of thinking is a very closed system. No matter what happens, if something happens, someone is to blame for it, even if that person had barely any control over it or much to do with it at all. To the ego, this is responsibility.

The ego wants you to confess that you are, in fact, guilty, and that you do, in fact, deserve punishment, because you did, in fact, separate from God and make all manner of shit happen. To the ego, this is being responsible and 'mature'.

In the ego's model there is zero room for forgiveness. Absolutely no forgiveness whatsoever. Everything that 'happens' in the physical world is proof, to the ego, that it has caused "real consequences" to occur as a result of separating from God. It is evidence of sin, and proves that everyone involved is guilty without question. To the ego, anything 'happening' in this world is a sin, and only sin can happen. To the ego, nothing unsinful can ever happen and God is impossible, meaning innocence is impossible.

So to the ego, when someone makes a mistake, maybe they bump into the fridge and it knocks a glass tray that was resting on the top and it crashes to the floor, you can bet, to the ego, that person is "responsible" for this entire thing. Not just the accidental bumping, not just the item falling down, not just the smashing, but all of it. Every single bit of it. And, to the ego, every single bit of it was ON PURPOSE, completely deliberate and intentional, producing real irreversible effects. It will point the finger in condemnation and declare "you have sinned". The ego has no concept of `not on purpose` or `unintentional` or `accidental` because that would suggest not guilty, which it refuses to accept.

To the ego there is no room for anything happening without it being involved in guilt in some way. To the ego, nothing occurs but without someone's deliberate intention and involvement, and therefore every single thing proves that someone is guilty. The ego claims that if you own up to this and "accept responsibility" for this and take full responsibility upon yourself for every single part of what happened, then and only then might you be excused or let off. If there is even the slightest hint of what seems like a resistance to accepting this "responsibility" it will condemn you further for avoidance and irresponsible carelessness. It demands you must own up to what you did (sin), that you must completely admit to it (it happened), that you did it intentionally (its your fault) and that you should enter into shame and guilt and suffering because you DESERVE it.

This is not responsibility. It is condemnation. It is a death sentence. When you hold other people to these standards, where the ego exalts the idea of getting someone to admit to being wrong, you hold yourself to that standard also and therefore find yourself constantly guilty for every little thing you do. You don't really want that. It's a way to be a victim and to be constantly tortured and therefore in need of being constantly 'good' in order to avoid making even a tiny mistake.

It's okay to make mistakes and break shit and do things wrong and be in error and not know everything and not be accountable for every single little consequence of events set in motion. You're not guilty for clouds moving, or objects falling, or people bumping into each other. You're not even guilty for seeming to deliberately do something wrong. Why does mistakedness have to always call for judgement and attack and the 'justice' of punishment? Punishment is never justified and it fails to correct anything, so it does not really stand for a pure or right way of living but only for how to get fucked over when you step out of line.

True responsibility MUST include the concept of you being 100% innocent. True responsibility must mean that no matter what you did or what effects it had or how serious or whatever, you are still innocent. It must mean you are unconditionally innocent. There is nothing like this in the ego's repertoir. To let you off the hook here and there it would see as begrudging pardons, or stern warnings, and it would never ever consider that you could be wholly found innocent for EVERYTHING that you seemed to do as a blanket statement. Yet Holy Spirit sees only your innocence.

Do you deserve judgement, condemnation, proof of fault, the justice of punishment, self hatred and shame, or some horrific shock treatment in retaliation for an accident? Nope. You're not guilty, no matter what. You made a big giant mess? You deserve love. You totally fucked up your life? You deserve love. And you broke everyone else's favorite toys? If they have a shit-fit that's not exactly your responsibility. Not to justify any behavior. But you're always innocent. Always. And only by being innocent can you be truly responsible. Because you have a responsibility to BE INNOCENT.

People that make mistakes need to be returned to a corrected state of not making those mistakes. They need to be returned to love. This is in the best interests of everyone. It is completely against everyone to punish that person or to feed lies and attack into them. That causes them to become your enemy. You don't want that. It's in everyone's interests that everyone be forgiven and reminded of the truth of who they are. We all need to own up to being God's innocent child. We all need to take responsibility for being who we authentically are, not who people condemn us for being. Responsibility WITHOUT the guilt.

True responsibility means ownership without blame. It also means that only the extension of God happens and there aren't any other consequences. It means everything is correctable. It means mistakes call for forgiveness and love, not punishment. It means you are let off the hook even before anything happens. It means that when stuff happens, you should be laughing, because it does NOT prove anything about your worth. It also means that you're not guilty when you make mistakes and you do not need to claim the guilt that surrounds them. You can own up to being mistaken, which is helpful, but this should never mean "I really did it".

When Jesus says that nothing can happen without our consent, and that nobody can die without their own consent, what he's saying seems pretty extreme.

We are so used to living in such a way that we constantly believe things happen by accident, or that something can "go wrong", or that there is unfairness and injustice, or that victims have nothing to do with asking to be victimized, or that war is a haphazard chaos.

Yes these are very common perceptions and this is what we're up against, these beliefs and ways of perceiving which fall for all kinds of illusions and trickery. On the surface it definitely appears that all of these things are true, that nobody wants to be victimized, that bad stuff just happens, that things go wrong, and that we don't want to die.

But that's the challenge, you see. That's the spiritual challenge, because what many do not know is that this entire world is a big trick, a set up, orchestrated by those to whom nothing happens by mistake, and who have such power of creation that if they so choose it, it will happen, and nothing else will happen. I know this sounds like some kind of 'God' pulling the strings. But in truth you are God-like.

So all these beliefs about having not chosen, about not having freedom, about being affected, about stuff happening that we don't want, and about the horrible idea that death is just going to happen to you against your will, ALL of these have to be questioned and undone completely. Because they are all false. They are all lies, that everyone is falling for 24/7. Yet as Jesus says in ACIM, you made sickness and death and you can abolish both.

This is why A Course in Miracles is so radical. The Truth flies in the face of how everything appears in this world. It goes against how everything is set up and how everything was deliberately designed to look like it proved we did not choose this. This entire world is a cover-up in which the Son of God is pretending to hide from a made-up enemy, and He very much is responsible for animating every single character and event in this dream regardless of whether He appears to suffer at His own hand.

Attempting to 'wake up' from the illusion of this world does not seem to be easy. It's a huge mind-fuck. As the Course says, we do not escape this illusion through death, but by TRUTH. Only the real Truth can set you free. And as a certain movie says, "you can't handle the truth".

Well, you can handle it... when you're ready to accept it. Because it's a pretty huge Truth that is not at all like what this world seems to suggest is true. And to go there, to be open to it, seems like a huge journey somewhat 'against' the world. But everyone is making this journey, and sooner or later everyone will come to realize what the Truth really is, and this entire universe will disappear.

There is a risk of accepting the world. Because we have to be aware that our perception and beliefs have a lot to do with what we see in the world, or as the world.

If we are in ego and we believe the world is real, not an illusion, e.g. war is real, suffering is real, sickness is happening etc, and we try to "accept that", that's not going to work. Your belief in it as true and real will hold it in place and work against and effort to find peace about it. No one can ever find peace on the basis of believing the world's nightmares are reality. Trying to "adjust to" the world or accommodate it or "come to terms with it being shit" or "accepting that death happens" or trying to "die in peace" is all total ego bullshit.

We have to remember that whatever you accept into your mind becomes real to you. The world is not real. If you accept it into your mind "as real", through an act of "trying to accept everything that happens", you're going to be stuck. Accepting appearances as true is not right mindedness. Accepting that there "really is war, but I'm okay with it" is not right mindedness. Accepting that "I am sick but I'm at peace with it" is a lie. Accepting "something died but it's ok" is not really acceptance.

The only thing that can be truly accepted is true reality. Only the truth is true. You can accept the atonement truth, God's truth, as being true and real. It is acceptable while being simultaneously compatible with peace, because nothing unreal exists. Recognizing the world is an illusion, there is NOT really war, there IS no sin or sickness or death, is what brings peace, not trying to "integrate" a nightmare into your peaceful mindset.

We should focus on overlooking what the world is, which is forgiveness. NOT seeing it from a perspective which shows it to us as though it's really there and happening. Because otherwise we're just falling into an illusion, have false perception, believe a dream is reality, and now are trying to "withdraw" into the mind to sit on a fence of "i need do nothing" and pretend that this is peace. It's an illusion of peace.

You can only find true peace by accepting that only God's Kingdom is reality, nothing unreal exists, the world does not exist, and this is "acceptable" to you. You allow the truth ABOUT the world to enter your mind and accept it. You don't allow the FORM of the world to enter your mind or accept it as anything but false. Acceptance goes hand in hand with agreement, which goes hand in hand with belief in what's true. So you have to be careful what you are trying to find acceptance about. Getting "comfortable" with suffering is not peace or awakening or spiritual.

"The world you see must be denied"