We're asked to demonstrate that nothing our brother does has the ability to affect us.

We're asked to show by example that our brother has no ability to hurt us or harm us or upset us or offend us.

If we demonstrate this, we are showing the truth to our brother who, if they are attempting to do something to cause us to be upset, must be mistaken about what the truth is. Truth cannot be attacked and attempting to do so is utterly wasted.

This demonstration shows them what the truth is, by demonstrating that the True Self is beyond the reach of all ego attacks and all ways that the ego targets individuals.

What cannot be affected by the world reveals that what our brother does has no effects. This proves to them that regardless of what they think they did, even if they did it seemingly intentionally, it has had no effects at all and so did not happen.

This is a demonstration that they did not really sin, or that whatever sin they seemed to do had no power to do anything to anyone. This literally requires complete invulnerability and demonstrates immortality.

If you can be sick or upset or offended or hurt by anyone or anything, you are demonstrating that you are less than immortal. "Sickness is an attempt to demonstrate that you can be hurt". - ACIM

If you cannot be hurt and are not hurt because you realize that you can only hurt yourself and you stop doing so, then nothing anyone attempts to do can hurt you. If their attempts to hurt you fails, or in other words, their attempts to sin do not produce any effects, this proves to them that sin can be undone and that nothing has happened.

This demonstration of innocence proves their innocence as well as your own. It teaches that forgiveness is called for and is present and is given, and that whatever they thought they did or whatever reason they seemed to have for doing it, it is completely irrelevant and nonsense and false and unreal.

This educates your brother that they are innocent in spite of what they think they did, which may be shocking to them but it will set them free. It will heal their mind and show them that what they believe about themselves cannot be true. They do not have the power to affect the Son of God. They do not have the power to destroy God's Creation. They have no authority over Christ and who they thought they were is not who they must be.

Be a living demonstration that this is your complete, whole truth, at all times, in order to be the salvation of the world. If you choose to go into upset and offense and reactions and fear and suffering, you are failing to fulfill this function and are in denial about who and what you really are. You are not being true to yourself. Only by being true to yourself can you be the truth to others.

You are not saving the world when you are offended by what other people do and feel hurt by it and react based on that, even if it is with good intentions or an attempt to help. You are not the salvation of the world if you keep attacking yourself and hurting yourself and then are accusing others of putting this hurt into you and are using that to justify retaliation or judgement. You are not anyone's savior if you are upset by anything anyone does or says or attempts to make happen.

These are all false attempts at salvation, designed to make it look like you care and want to save the world from suffering, but is really an attack. It is an attack on yourself and on the other person when you take their attempted attack seriously, fail to overlook it, and fail to demonstrate that it is meaningless. When you take it seriously and react to it and then try to fight with it to stop it, you are delusional and are fighting with your own self-attacking perceptions. This isn't helping anyone. It is the ego's version of salvation and is a complete lie.

You are the salvation of the world only when you demonstrate that the world IS saved from attack because attack is impossible. You are the salvation of the world only when you demonstrate that there has been no sin, can be no sin, sin has no effects, everyone is equally innocent, and God loves everyone just the same. You are only a savior when you are able to show that you are unharmed, unharmable, harmless and cannot be harming to others, because regardless of what transpires, it does not change you whatsoever.

You are immortal. You are the light of the world. You only function is salvation.

"The test of everything on earth is simply this; "What is it for?" The answer makes it what it is for you. It has no meaning of itself, yet you can give reality to it, according to the purpose that you serve."

The world was made for a purpose. It was deliberate, intentional, chosen. We wanted there to be an alternative to heaven. And its form and function were made to serve that purpose. Just as all sickness is intentionally used to serve a perceived need.

Purpose is based on "how you are using it" or "what it is for". What is the goal attached to it. What is the ambition. How is it being used to accomplish that goal. How does it serve you and God.

We started out with a purpose of separation and attack, and produced a world which seems to be a world where that purpose could be fulfilled. That it could serve or be used as a way to avoid being with God. A hell where God could enter not.

But since the PURPOSE of the world or what it MEANS or is USED FOR, is distinct from what the world IS (just a neutral illusion), it's possible to give it a different purpose and a different meaning or use.

The Holy Spirit uses the world in a totally different way to our original intentions. To bring you home to God, to wake you up, to get you to let go of your artificial meanings and the meanings you've given everything. He presents an alternative meaning and use of the world and the body, based in love.

So in forgiveness, we're giving the world a different meaning and purpose. We're re-interpreting it. We're re-purposing it and coming up with a different use for it. Instead of using it to keep you away from God, we're trying to use it in such a way that it doesn't serve as an obstacle, or as proof of sin, or as a way to keep you suffering.

In effect, we're trying to use what we made against itself, to undo it. We're cancelling it out by forgiving it, ie giving it a meaning from an opposite thought system, which runs contrary to the world's nature, so that the world is recognized sanely, setting you free from it. Because illusions recognized must disappear.

So when Jesus asks you to consider "what is it for?", he's trying to get you to look at how you're using it, or for what purpose, or what meaning you're inventing for it, and to question that choice, and choose again the Holy Spirit's alternative meaning and purpose and use of the world and the body.To "let me not use this as an obstacle to peace, but help me to use it to facilitate its coming."

The forgiven world is the same world with a different purpose. A world which came to damn, made in false perception, now being used to return you to salvation. A body which was made to separate, being used to bring help and healing. A life which was made to hide in darkness, being used to bring light to the world.

Purpose aligns with perception and belief, because when you change your mind about what you believe is true and want, you are changing the meaning of things. And now you project that meaning onto the world and see it.

So if you recognize and believe and accept God's meaning and truth, it will change the meaning you give to the world. And now you are perceiving closer to Christ Vision or Real Truth because you're looking at the world from a different vantage point or angle. Framing it differently.

Essentially, it's the same world, combined with a different attitude. A more holy attitude seems to render the world as though it is holy and harmless. Ancient hatreds turn into present loves. Serious suffering turns into effortless healing. Death turns into resurrection. And fear turns into happiness.

Another way of saying "what is it for?", is "what meaning do I want to give it?" Do I want to use this for attack and making sin real, or do I want to use it repurpose it to remind me of God's truth and method by which I might be saved from hell? Can I see it in another light? There must be a better way.

If I am presently using the world in such a way that it means attack and offense and threat and damage and suffering and hell, I can admit that I am using it in a certain way, thereby "doing this to myself".

And then I can change my mind and choose a different meaning. And then elect to tune into Holy Spirit's perspective of forgiveness and repurpose what I think happened to help me move towards peace instead.

The book, is an expression FROM truth, attempting to point to truth. It contains SYMBOLS of truth, twice removed from reality.

Because truth expressed the book, the symbols in the book are not necessarily all possible expressions from truth. Truth could conceivably express a million books, all from the same source or mind. They could all appear to take on different forms and use different words, yet essentially say the same thing.

The form of the book, the words used, the sentences, the sections/chapters, is only one collection of symbols, all coming from the same source.

It is entirely possible for that source of truth to continue to express itself in many, many more forms. It is possible that the Course could in fact be 1000 times larger, or a million. There is basically no limit to how many "forms" it could take, provided those forms express or symbolize a consistent source.

This is why it is then important to recognize that, of all the FORMS in the book, all of the words, you are not necessarily getting ALL words that can ever be said about truth, and you're not necessarily hearing every possible clarification.

For example, in the main Course itself Jesus doesn't really explicitly talk about making his body disappear. Yet, in the notes given to Helen later, from the same source/truth, he clarified further by adding extra information. That information is clarifying as to the meaning of various other parts of the Course, especially surrounding resurrection and how we might leave the dream without death being involved.

There are also times when Jesus says one little phrase somewhere in the Course and doesn't really expand upon it, and yet it's a very key phrase which puts many other things into perspective.

There are also times when I really wish Jesus would've gone into much more detail about certain things, especially miracles and some of the aspects of the end of the universe. In other words, if Jesus were present, there would be a lot of questions we could ask Him which would clarify many things. This is why it is VITAL to get in touch with Jesus/Holy Spirit and develop a relationship with them, so that you can learn from them DIRECTLY.

It's important then not to get too hung up on the specific exact WORDS which Jesus expressed, thinking that the FORM of those words is the truth. The form is not the truth, it's just one of MANY possible symbols and expressions. Further additional forms might possibly change your perception of those words and what they really mean.

If for example you will only accept something as correct if it has an explicit quote in the Course that you can point your finger at, then you are getting bogged down in form and are not seeing the metaphysics.

The form of the words of the Course are twice removed from reality. Once removed from reality is the metaphysics, and/or the symbols in the dream. For example, outer space, filled with seemingly nothing but emptiness, is symbolic for the ego's attempt to make God as absent as possible. Bodies are symbols of having an identity God did not create. etc.

When you look at the words and learn from the words, you should learn, or be able to infer/imply, what the metaphysics of the truth is. Stuff like the structure of the dream, the levels, what certain things mean, where they fit, etc... is not always necessarily 100% spelled out in words. You have to look deeper. As you "generalize the teaching", you will gradually build a clearer picture for yourself about how everything fits together.

Some of those clarifications will bring you insight into how, sometimes, Jesus uses words in certain specific contexts which, if taken verbatim, might imply or infer something which is incorrect. Also sometimes He speaks at certain "levels" and confusing those levels produces a lot of confused metaphysics. Some things apply at certain levels and not others.

Also sometimes Jesus uses words which He seemed to have build up quite a specific definition of elsewhere, but uses them quite loosely in "general conversation" in such a way that people then take this and think it's some kind of metaphysical fact. Sometimes Jesus is just simply talking casually and using normal language, how most people would, and not necessarily teaching doctrine in every word.

With enough exposure and learning you should be able to transcend the Course's words and get more in touch with the "core metaphysics" which is kind of hiding somewhat behind the words. The structure of the dream, the proper location of certain levels and their meaning etc, becomes more apparent when you go deeper into it, and Jesus hasn't necessarily "spelled it all out" directly.

We have to be careful not to get hung up on "where does it say that in the course" kind of approaches. Not everything IS said in the course. And yet, some things are true/logically consistent which may never have been expressed.

We also have to beware of thinking that only what is said in the Course is coming from Jesus's authority and therefore no-one else can say anything that Jesus hasn't said. As you transcend the words and get more of the metaphysics you'll be able to extrapolate it and come to conclusions which are completely consistent with Jesus's teachings.

That makes it possible to write additional content, additional words/symbols, based on the same metaphysical foundation, in order to be consistent with Jesus and not contradict his intentions. You don't need to be in his mind of authority to do this, you only need to grasp the basic logical structure of the separation.

There is a lot of material in the Course and it can become quite blinding through its sheer volume and seeming complexity. But we need to learn, in a sense, to forgive it, by learning to overlook its appearance and look deeper to see a closer or more accurate truth. The truth is simple, not complicated, but the ego has a field day with getting caught up in the form of things.

At the moment, I am focusing on receiving healing. Much has happened the past several months and I am still recovering from it.

One valuable tool I've found is to repeat short phrases in quick succession. These include:

I surrender

I surrender to your love

I let go completely

I receive God's healing love

I open to receive

I trust you Holy Spirit

I receive

I let go

I admit I'm mistaken

I let go of controlling

I receive God

While saying these casually to yourself in your mind, you may find that as you say them back-to-back without a pause, you don't allow the ego to sneak in between, and it begins to have a powerful effect to shift you.

e.g

"I surrender, I surrender, I surrender, I surrender, I surrender." etc

You don' have to say it quickly, but it does help to not allow pauses between statements.

These are all to do with the relinquishment of ego, letting go of control, admitting to being mistaken, being WILLING to be corrected.

They all demonstrate "a little willingness", which means in some way, you are WILLING to move away from illusions and in the direction of truth. This also means moving away from imprisonment towards freedom, and as you open up to the freedom of the will, by being willing to be free, and willing to let go of what you are doing that imprisons you, you are INVITING THE HOLY SPIRIT.

"This is the invitation to the Holy Spirit. I told you that I could reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you. But I can bring Him to you only at your own invitation."

"You find it difficult to ACCEPT the idea that you need give so LITTLE, to receive so much. And it is very hard for you to realize that it is NOT personally insulting that YOUR contribution and the Holy Spirit's are so EXTREMELY disproportionate."

"He asks but little. It is HE Who adds the greatness and the might. He JOINS with you, to make the holy instant far greater than you can understand.

It is your realization that you NEED do so little, that enables HIM to give so much. Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust IMPLICITLY your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this, and be NOT disturbed that shadows surround it."

This little willingness is a vertical movement. And furthermore, it is a way to develop trust. You are saying, I am willing to let go of being in charge, controlling, managing life, fighting with people, stressing and struggling to do this on my own, I want help and am willing to receive help by ALLOWING the Holy Spirit to heal me for me.

I've found that in particular, "I surrender" and "I receive God's healing love" have been the two most powerful statements to repeat. Especially when coupled with a willingness and intention to open to receive and to let go deeply.

If you are willing, you can open to receive God's love into you. You can feel the sensation in your heart. You can allow love to come TO you, without you having to do anything to effort to put anything out. You don't even have to "give", only to receive.

The more deeply you can receive love, the more it will touch you, heal you, and dig out your unhealed wounds. If you can stand it, sometimes you can take it very far to the point where you are so filled with love, it will likely trigger a large emotional catharsis, and you may need time to recover from that. I have only "gone there" a couple times, approaching a sense of holiness and bowing before God, and it's very powerful.

As you put aside ego control, invite the Holy Spirit into you. Even, go as far as to verbalize it, "I allow you into me Holy Spirit, do whatever you want to do to heal me". It's important to place trust in Him, which includes both suspending the fear that he will do something frightening or harmful in you, and being willing to give him very broad open permission to do ANYTHING. That takes trust to give such sweeping "access", to you, and to your body. And it's that trust that makes it possible for Him to come in and heal you on all levels.

The result for me of doing this deeply, through curious exploration and trust development and willingness (and need), is that He now comes in and heals me physically, emotionally, mentally at any time. We now have a kind of working relationship. I experience dramatic shaking and vibrations and energetic sensations, every single day, usually several times a day. It has become so commonplace and normal, it's probably happened 1000 times already. And every time it leaves me in a more healed condition. This is one of the gifts of God.

Receive healing for yourself. "Those who are healed become instruments of healing." "I will heal as I let Him teach me to heal." You must be willing to work with Him and have a trusting relationship with Him. He is there as your appointed therapist, guide, counsellor, healer, teacher, friend. Use Him. Let Him in. Receive His support, guidance and healing. He is the HELP that God has sent to you. There is nothing His power cannot do. "The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

"The holy instant does NOT come from your little willingness alone. It is ALWAYS the result of your SMALL willingness COMBINED with the unlimited power of HIS WILL. You have been wrong in thinking that it is needful to prepare YOURSELF for Him. It is impossible to make arrogant preparations for holiness, and NOT believe that it is up to YOU to establish the conditions for peace. GOD HAS ESTABLISHED THEM. They do NOT wait upon your willingness for what they ARE. Your willingness is needed ONLY to make it possible to TEACH you what they are."

"Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first."

--

"Purification is of God alone, and THEREFORE for you. Rather than seek to prepare YOURSELF for Him, try to think thus:

"I, who am host to God, AM worthy of Him.

He Who ESTABLISHED His dwelling-place in me created it as He would have it be.

It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I DO NOT INTERFERE with His plan to RESTORE to me my own AWARENESS of my readiness, which is eternal.

I need ADD nothing to His plan.

But to RECEIVE it, I MUST be willing NOT to substitute my own, IN PLACE of it.""

--

"Say to yourselves the following, as sincerely as you can, remembering that ***the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation***:

I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace.

I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.

I WILL to decide otherwise, because I WANT to be at peace.

I do NOT feel guilty, because ***the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.***

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

--

"Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God? You will accept only whom YOU invite. You are free to determine who shall be your guest, and how long he shall remain with you. But this is not REAL freedom, for it depends on how you see it. For the Holy Spirit is THERE, although He cannot help you without your invitation, and the ego is nothing, whether you invite it or not. Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real. Know, then, Who abides with you, merely by recognizing WHAT IS ALREADY THERE, and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you."

Your relationships can turn from hate to holiness, if you will recognize that you have a common enemy.

Your relationship is not just you and the other person.

Your relationship is you, the other person, and the ego.

The two of you may seem to be in conflict, and you believe that there is no one else involved in this conflict. Just the two of you.

But there is always another third party involved in every conflict. The ego.

The ego is like this vicious little monster, sort of like how Christianity refers to the devil, which sits on the sidelines and attempts to COME BETWEEN people.

Its intentions are malicious and it tries to pit people against each other, to instigate fights and wars, and to get people to see each other as separate and different.

Since the ego is more or less invisible, people do not notice that it is part of the relationship. And since they do not realize that THEY have sided with the ego, they do not notice it standing out in contrast to who they are.

If you are in the middle of a fight, argument, conflict, war, tension, drama, toxic relationship etc, the two of you are being PLAYED by the ego.

It is helpful for you to both recognize and learn that you're not really upset with each other. You're upset because THE EGO is trying to make you against each other. IT is influencing you both. IT wants for you to attack each other and find each other guilty. IT wants you to be at war.

So now, in this 3-way relationship, recognize that there is an opportunity. The opportunity is for you and your enemy to decide to TEAM UP, against the ego.

It is only because of your mutual lack of RECOGNITION that the ego is involved at all, that you allow its influence to continue destroying your relationship.

Once you recognize the ego is a third party, now there comes a scenario where you have a new option. You can team up with your supposed enemy - the other person - by recognizing that you BOTH have a common, mutual enemy.

The ego is your common enemy, because it is attacking BOTH of you at the same time, it is pitting you both against each other, it is trying to SEPARATE you more, and is emphasizing all the ways that you are different from each other.

Its strategy is to split you apart and produce hatred. Really, to instigate murder. It wants you both dead, and does not CARE one iota who does it to whom. It would cheer you BOTH on as you attack each other, and would hope that you will destroy EACH OTHER.

This is its secret plan all along. As soon as you have started to fall for the ILLUSION that the ego is not involved, and that you really are an enemy of your brother or sister, you have actually bought into the EGO's TRICK that it wants you BOTH to fall for. You've bought into ITS plan for your mutual destruction.

It takes three to tango! It takes two to buy into the ego's conflict of separation. However, it takes a REUNION and therefore ONE in order to instigate a Holy Relationship.

When one person looks at the situation and realizes that the ego is a third party, and sees its ambitions to create war between you and your brother, you thus recognize the SHARED INTEREST that you and you brother have.

Your shared interest becomes that you are on each other's side and are in support of each other, because you recognize that each other is not really the enemy. The ego is. It is the ego mind that is really the culprit behind the conflict, and it is the ego mind that is trying to increase the flames of war between you.

When one person remembers this and recognizes that the ego is at play, and that you have fallen for its plot of separation, that *IT* is coming between you and your brother/sister, your UNWILLINGNESS to continue playing into ITS hands automatically disarms the conflict. Your perception of your brother changes from them being your "real enemy" to the ego being the "real enemy", and therefore your brother is now on your side.

If you will acknowledge that instead of you being right or the other person being right, you are BOTH losing out because the EGO is winning, and that IT wants you both to be separated, then you can JOIN with your brother and refuse to participate in the ego's game.

When you decide not to play the game, even if the other person is still playing the game, you cannot experience separation. You are having a holy relationship. Even if the other person is not aware of your perception of them as holy. And because it is holy, no real conflict can produce any real effects in the relationship. At least not to you. The other person may still be attacking themselves but your relationship to them is now forgiven.

If you can both join in holiness and return to ONENESS together, that is even more powerful. It is a decision to unite in saying no to the ego and yes to wholeness, yes to God and yes to peace. It is the end of war. It is first the end of the war for individual parts of the sonship and then it is the end of war for the entire sonship.

You don't have a beef with your enemies. The ego is using both of you. IT is the thing that you both need to be questioning together. Stop your fight. It's not about your brother at all.

The appearance of the sickness is actually an illusion which covers up what the problem is. The sickness, the symptoms, are actually there to function as a distraction, to make you focus on the body and to make the body real. This is a protective mechanism to try to defend your ego-aligned self against a misperception of the truth.

It's not that the form of the sickness is the problem. The PURPOSE of the sickness is the problem, which is to act as a defense. There is a perceived NEED for a defense, and that manifests as physical symptoms. But the appearance of it, the physicality of the sickness, is not really the cause or the thing that's happening.

What's happening is the underlying attempt by the MIND to shut out God and to cling to the body. It just happens to CREATE symptoms such as pain and disease, in order to try to get the awareness to fixate on the body, to think that the body is very real, and therefore IGNORE the truth - to shut it out of awareness.

So sickness is an escape from reality. If someone has cancer they don't need to be healed of cancer. They need to be healed of the belief that they need cancer in order to protect them from reality. As Jesus says, when the purpose of the sickness is recognized, and when it is understood to be an illusion, it must disappear. If you had no more "use" for the sickness, and it wasn't serving a purpose of any kind, it would have no basis for the mind to keep sustaining it, and it would vanish.

So it's like, someone gets exposed to truth but their ego misinterprets it and their interpretation scares or threatens them, so they put up a "shield" of protection, which cuts them off from Life and blocks life-sustaining "energy" flowing in the system, and creates distortions in the body image. The body image then shows a sickness to symbolize the need for escape, and to provide an escape. Therefore the sickness is always a form of distraction and an attempt to make the body MORE real than the truth. Trying to make illusions more real than reality produces sickness.

If you could be convinced that you don't really have a need for the sickness because the purpose of it was misinformed, and what you experienced as a threat is not really a threat, and it's not a threat because you're not really the ego self that sees it as a threat, then you'd be willing to let it go and stop using it to protect you. You'd see no purpose in it, no need for it, and no use for it. So it would disappear.

The trouble is that once sickness is implemented, its symptoms and suffering can be so effective at distraction, so effective at absorbing your attention, so effective at making the body seem real and frightening, that you have all kinds of peripheral reactions as a whole other "layer" of experiences. You start trying to defend yourself against the defense! And that means you start to view the sickness as though you did not choose it.

Theres's a very good reason why you do not want to admit to having chosen the sickness, and it's because if you did, you'd have to own up to that and wouldn't be able to hide behind it. The sickness was made to block awareness and to shut out the truth, so if you were to admit you made it, you would not longer be able to receive its benefits of defending you.

You don't want that, so instead you shut out awareness that you made it, perceive that you did not want it or ask for it, and then launch into a series of reactions to the sickness as though it is attacking you, you want it to go away, etc... but you really don't. Not honestly. If you really wanted it to be done with you wouldn't react to it at all, you'd just admit to the ways you wanted and needed it and would drop those, having come to accept that the truth was true and your misinterpretation of the truth was invalid.

Fighting with sickness therefore is part of the huge distraction that sickness presents, and can have you spinning your wheels trying to just deal with the symptoms and discomforts. Part of you is saying you want it to go away, while another part of you - now unconscious - is actively choosing to keep it, because in the bigger picture you're still terrified of what you saw in the truth and are trying to protect yourself. It therefore frightens you to think of actually being HEALTHY, because that would mean you'd take away your PROTECTION, and then the truth would be able to attack you again. So efforts to become "well" actually can have a lot of resistance and a lot of defense against, because it actually threatens you more to become free of the sickness, IF you are still misperceiving the truth.

Perhaps a key then lies simply in the mistaken perception you originally had which seemed to show you that you needed to become sick in order to defend yourself. You need to look at what you perceived and why you perceived it. But you need to look at it with Holy Spirit or a higher perspective of truth. You need to be willing to have been mistaken. This is why you need to APPLY FORGIVENESS, to undo the ILLUSIONS that you were under that made you misperceive, creating the need for a defense. You need to disassociate from the ego identity in some way so that you do not take the truth as a threat, and do not see it as meaning that you are going to stop existing.

The primary "cause" of sickness, if you will, is the simple fact that you have bound yourself to the ego, are perceiving what IT perceives, are interpreting the truth THROUGH it, and therefore you become frightened whenever you are exposed to the truth. The truth is that the ego is not real and does not exist, and everything it believes in is false. If you are identified with it and think that it is you, then whenever the truth comes along you will be frightened that you are being attacked by it, that it implies you do not exist, that you are not real, and that's horrifying. It is a misperception, but it's horrifying. And who would not want to defend themselves against that?!

Correction is needed therefore, and a forgiveness is needed and a willingness to consider that who you are is not the ego. You need some reassurance and clarity and perspective that just because the truth says something, does not mean it is attacking you. Who you thought you were was mistaken. How you were perceiving was mistaken. What you saw in the truth was projected onto it by your own mistakes. It amounts to a willingness to accept that the truth is TRUE, and not that the truth contains evil intentions. If you can accept that the truth is true, and not false, and that what you thought was true is false, then you have the key to unlock the NEED for sickness to protect you from it.

When there is no misperception of the truth, there is no need for sickness, and you will not create it or use it.

Sickness isn't really the problem that needs healing. Sickness showing up in form is an ILLUSION, because it covers up the underlying secret ambition of self preservation, and is meant to be a distraction and a smoke-screen. That's why sickness isn't real. It's not the problem that needs to be corrected. Trying to treat the sickness or the symptoms of sickness therefore will fail.

It should be obvious that since sickness is an attempt at self-preservation, making oneself sick and likely to die in the name of self-preservation is insane.

God just wants to love us.

But we fight it. We fight by trying to be in control of our lives. By trying to manage our own minds. By thinking. By directing things. By figuring out. By wanting to be in charge. Wanting to do.

But we need to become receptive.

The most frequent guidance I receive from Holy Spirit which ALWAYS runs contrary to my ego-mind's efforts, and always seems like it's asking me to do something totally the opposite of what I'm doing, is to SURRENDER.

Surrender. Relax. Let go. Receive. Yield. Step aside. Get out of the way.

There's a very important reason for us to do this. In order to receive from God, to experience His love and healing, we MUST open up to receiving. We can't be receptive if we are trying to broadcast our own ambitions and intentions. We can't receive when we're trying to control or to make things happen on our own.

Our ego mind is totally addicted to trying to MAKE stuff happen, to force it to occur, to control it, to manipulate it, to screw it up, and to resist the FLOW of God's love. Totally addicted. We just can't seem to stop ourselves from interfering, acting, doing, adjusting, planning, COMING BETWEEN ourselves and God, and generally trying to be God in place of Him.

Why are we trying to be God?

We're trying to be God because that's the only way we have of shutting God out. We are trying to be the SOURCE. We want everything to start with us, rather than it start with God. This is how the ego disconnects us from God. It puts a separation between us and God, between us and real love, so that it makes it seem like there's no CONNECTION between God and us.

Once there is no connection, and you're separate, and all alone, now you have no choice but to 'go it alone', to try to live by yourself, to make EFFORT to force life to be the way you want it, in desperate measures. We're constantly trying to collect together some semblance of safety and security having just experienced what seemed to be ejection from Heaven, or original sin, or to run away from God's wrath. We're trying to scurry off on our own with our own limited resources, our own 'separate self', trying to RELY ON OURSELVES to accomplish everything.

Once we are separated from God we don't believe we can (or want to) depend on God at all. We want to be in charge. We want to be God now. And we want to keep it that way. This its the ego operating - a sense of self that begins following the separation. A sense of self that is divorced from God and wants nothing to do with Him. A sense of self that does not WANT help from God and does not want God to GIVE help, and therefore we do not want to RECEIVE help.

The total opposite of this ego paradigm, is a simple paradigm where God gives, we receive, and we give in turn (extend). God FLOWS to us an unlimited supply of love and power, we open to and WELCOME it, we receive it thankfully, we share in it and experience it, and it OVERFLOWS NATURALLY from us. And notice here that there is no part where you suddenly take over and start to force it on someone, or do it to someone, or make something happen, which is all ego.

Instead, we have to be willing to stand IN the flow like an open door. Like a medium. We are the open door through which God flows. We have to get out of the way and not interfere. And to the ego-addicted mind that can seen very counter-intuitive and unwanted. So we have to repeatedly be guided by Holy Spirit to surrender, to let go, to stop controlling, to relax, to lighten up, to release, to receive love. We need to open our hearts back up to God again to RECONNECT with God, to plug ourselves back into God, and to then be willing to receive the flow of God THROUGH us. And this is how miracles occur.

We must be plugged into God to flow God's power. Like an electrical cord. Me must plug our hearts back into God, switch on the power, funnel and channel the power, and DO NOTHING so that it can flow. It's quite unusual to experience this.... doing nothing while EVERYTHING is happening... doing nothing while, simultaneously, trusting and having faith that GOD WILL DO IT FOR YOU. It's like being silent yet active, or still yet moving, or at peace yet enlivened. It's not how the ego wants to be at all and it seems very unusual and kind of awkward at first.

So this is what I am continuing to learn. To simply yield to God, to open to God, to expect God's love/miracle, to receive from God, to experience what God is sharing, to align with God's will, and to then be OPEN to allowing that to go beyond myself. If I connect with God I simultaneously connect with my brother. If I share in what God is, I share what God is with what God has created. "Miracles praise God's son through you."

So there is more to the PURPOSE of surrendering than just that it undoes ego and helps us to relax. The purpose is to get everything that interferes with and separates you from God out of the way, so that you can be open to RECEIVE and SHARE in an experience of God. That's the ultimate prize. To be One with Him again. But even moreso, it is the total RESTORATION of your natural relationship with God in which He is Father, you are Son, you receive and you extend creation miraculously.

You are in your brother's mind, and he is in yours. You share minds and are joined in holy relationship.

When you believe in separation, using the ego weapons of attack, judgement, sin, guilt, fear, etc, you split off a part of yourself from your brother and isolate it into a body. You become body identified. The part of you in his mind is hidden from your awareness, and you see yourself as being only in your body.

In this state you are in a state of sickness, because you have introduced a split into your mind. The split isn't happening inside your body. The split is between the part of you that is in your body, and the part of you that is in your brother. The body, as a wall, is the separation device that is coming between you and the rest of yourself. Between the you that is in your body, and the you that is in your brother.

The body is then emphasized and focused on, made real, given artificial powers, and made to serve purposes of attack. The body now symbolizes attack and death in an effort to prove or enforce the idea that you are separate from others (and yourself).

The body takes on forms of sickness to both accuse your brother of sin, and to attack both of you in both directions. The body becomes an image of sickness and suffering to depict the belief you have that you are not one with others or yourself. It depicts death in all its forms, because the mind is using it to separate. And so the body faithfully reports death as the message being shared between you and others, and yourself.

When you join with others, reconnecting to the part of you that is in their mind and body, beyond the body of yourself and theirs also, you are returning to a state of whole mindedness. This erases the split in the mind, closes the gap of separation between you and others, and restores you to union with your brothers.

This "heals" or erases the separation that was coming between you and yourself, thus healing your split mind. Your mind no longer pays any attention at all to the body, using it solely to extend through and beyond. It's purpose is only to get out of the way to allow the mind to extend past its limitations and to join with others.

It no longer is forming a solid barrier and is no long needed to depict images of attack. Thus the body "heals", its sign and symptoms of death vanish, and all of its sicknesses are reversed. It now symbolizes only eternal life because now there is no attack upon it from the mind attacking itself. A mind that does not attack can only heal and so it heals the body.

This healing of the body is the only sane thing to do, and is unavoidable, because now the body is communicating a message of innocence, joining, wholeness and harmlessness. It must depict and symbolize love and life, so all signs of error and sin and attack are removed from it. This allows the body to physically and symbolically communicate innocence, and to exonerate your brother from any accusation of sin.

Anything you think he did to you, which you depicted in your body to prove his sinfulness, is removed by your mind's willingness to join and be wholly united. Any symptoms or effects which he seemed to put there are reversed. All symbols of pain and suffering and sickness and distortion are corrected. The mind heals the body so that he body is only communicating love and wholeness on all levels.

The body has no choice in this. It can only symbolize what its user is transmitting through it. It either depicts pain and death or it depict health and life. The mind makes this decision as to how to use the body, and the body responds by demonstrating and depicting the mind's intentions. Either the body relays images of death or images of life, depending on the mind's attitude. A living mind can only heal, a sick mind can only destroy.

Your brother can now see, hear, feel, touch, taste, no signs of death upon your body, proving that any sin he thinks he might have committed against it cannot have happened. His mind cannot maintain the belief that he really did sin or attack, because there is no proof. And so he must be mistaken and his innocence is revealed to him through your demonstration of a body symbolizing eternal life.

As minds join, bodies raise from the dead. Your health becomes his health, and together you are healed.

"Forgiveness lets me know that minds are joined."

"Minds that are joined, AND RECOGNIZE THEY ARE, can feel no guilt. For they can NOT attack, and they REJOICE that this is so, seeing their safety in this happy fact. Their joy is in the INNOCENCE they see."

"Minds ARE joined; bodies are not. Only by assigning to the mind the properties OF THE BODY, does separation SEEM to be possible. And it is MIND that seems to be fragmented and private and ALONE. Its Guilt, which KEEPS it separate, is projected to the body, which suffers and dies, BECAUSE IT IS ATTACKED to hold the separation in the mind, and let it NOT KNOW its unity."

"Today we are again emphasizing the fact that minds are joined."

"When two minds join as one, and share one idea equally, the first link in the awareness of the Sonship as one has been made."

"The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not in it. If the mind believes the body is its goal, it will distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it, will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot but foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else."

"WHAT IS NOT LOVE IS MURDER" - ACIM

Here's how this works.

A mind which is fully awake and aware, recognizes that it actually shares a mind with everyone. It is at one with them. It sees its own identity within others, and knows that they are part of itself.

A mind of oneness therefore recognizes that whatever applies to others directly applies to itself. It is aware enough to see that, because it is "in" others, if it were to attack others, it would be attacking itself. And because this is very obvious to the awake mind, it recognizes that such actions would be completely self-defeating, and so does not attack.

When the mind can see clearly that it is one with others, it will treat others only with love, because to do anything else would hurt its own self.

However, when the mind enters into a belief in separation, what it's doing is it's introducing an illusion of denial inbetween itself and others. This denial makes it seem as if other people do not have "shared interests" with itself, other people are different somehow, other people are disconnected from itself, and therefore what applies to them does not apply to itself. It does not recognize or see itself in others so does not believe that what applies to them applies to itself.

On these terms, the mind is now partly unaware that it is one with other minds, does not see itself in others, and does not recognize that to hurt others would hurt itself. It now seems plausible that there is an `option`, a possibility, to do something unto others that is not done unto itself.

Another way to put this is that a separation is introduced in-between cause and effect. The mind now believes it is capable of causing effects in others which are not caused in itself. It does not see that attempting to hurt others hurts itself, so it think it can "get away with" or be excluded from those effects.

The idea of being able to do something to others which does not directly affect yourself, is the idea of "getting away with murder." It means you can now seem to attack another without experiencing the consequences. This is attempted murder. The entire ego thought system is based on this, and absolutely everything that happens in the ego thought system is murderous!

The problem of the mind then is that even though it believes it is not one with other minds, and that it can get away with attacking/causing without being affected, it's actually not true that it gets away with it. In one way or another, the mind IS still attacking itself, and it is hurting itself when it tries to hurt others. The ego will claim this is not true, and that you can escape from the consequences, but it is in denial. If the mind attacks another, it itself will be attacked BY itself.

This then becomes the ego trap of believing that you can get away with projecting your sin onto others without having to deal with the consequences. It sets up the entire foundation of how you will deal with your sin/separation, by trying to make someone else receive the consequences of it, supposedly making you innocent or rather, letting you "get away with" your murderous intentions by having someone else be blamed for them. In this way, the ego creates a state of "fake innocence"... where you seem innocent because someone ELSE has taken the blame for your attack.

Therefore to the ego, innocence is murderous. To the ego, it is possible for the innocent to sin, and for the innocent to insanely destroy others without destroying itself. Can you imagine how ridiculous and twisted it is to believe that someone can be free of responsibility even though they're standing there with the murder weapon having just attacked their brother, believing they are completely free of all consequences? Within the dream, this is insanity, given they did not and will not escape the consequences. The cost of attack is the loss of their own identity.

When we say "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", this does not really mean that other people are separate from you and you should just treat them well. This would mean that maybe, maybe not, they might treat you well in return. This is still a breakdown in cause and effect, leaving open the possibility that even if you treat others well, they may still attack you.

The real meaning of this is that, in the mind aware of its oneness, how it treats others IS how IT treats itself. Therefore it is in its own vested interest ("shared interest") to treat others as it DOES treat itself, because whatever it does to another it IS DOING to itself. This does not rely on others to decide whether or not to reciprocate, because if you treat others with love you WILL experience the effect of love. This is also the true meaning of "karma", not that separate causes will decide to attack you in retaliation, but that YOU attack yourself. All attack is self attack.

What is not love, is murder. Any belief in attack, any sin, any guilt, and anger, any argument, any belief that something applies to others and not you, any way you come between people, any sense of separation, any illusion of being innocent while secretly scapegoating your sin onto others, means you are being murderous. You are trying to "get away with" having sinned and to not suffer the consequences.

The fact is, you do not escape the consequences of sin. If you believe in it, it will destroy you. It's not possible for something to apply to someone else that you don't also believe applies to yourself. You never really get to be "right" and others wrong, because if you are right, you are wrong. You never get to "succeed" in the ego's terms, because that means you have failed. You never get to "win" the ego's game, because that means you have used separation and have lost.

The only way to end the murderousness is to return to love. That means removing the blocks to awareness which prevent you from being able to RECOGNIZE yourself in others, to be aware of your ONENESS with others, and to therefore KNOW that if you do even one tiny thing to hurt anyone, it's going to hurt you. That's a pretty big incentive to always remain loving, because to attack is to be attacked by yourself, and who in their right mind, a sane mind, would want to do that? There is no sense to it.

The fact that what is not love is murder should not be used by the ego right now to make you feel guilty, or to say, well, this means that I'm being murderous because I'm not awake yet, therefore I'm even more sinful. Don't let the ego use this information to accuse you even more than you already have. Simply recognize this is what's happening and continue with your forgiveness of yourself. Murder is not REAL, it is an illusion. There is no REAL attack or REAL separation. It is just a state of being mistaken and thinking that it's possible to accomplish murder and to get away with it, when in fact it's not possible, AND you cannot really hurt who you really are.

There is no murder in heaven. There is no murder in God's reality. Only love is real.

For me I read ACIM in a fairly straightforward way. I don't think it's really meant to be that hard. It says things in plain enough language, the meaning of which we should all mostly be grasping in the same way.

If I were to say to you, I left the car keys on the table, that doesn't need an explanation. You know what it means. There's nothing more to it.

If the course says to you, God didn't create your body, then you should be like, okay, I understand what you're saying. So my body isn't a creation of God's.

If the course says to you, you are not a body you are free, then your response should be, okay, simple enough, I'm not a physical body, I'm free of bodies. It's not exactly rocket science here.

There are many things Jesus says in the course in a very honest, straightforward, simple manner. He is direct and unambiguous. In fact he says he's taken every effort to try to make things as plain and obvious as possible.

"Like the Text for which this Workbook was written, the ideas which are used for these exercises are very simple, very clear, and totally unambiguous."

"Contradictions in MY word mean lack of understanding, or scribal failures, which I make every effort to correct."

"I have made every effort to use words which are ALMOST impossible to distort, but man is very inventive when it comes to twisting symbols around."

"The reason why this course is simple, is that TRUTH is simple. Complexity is of the ego, and is nothing more than the ego's attempt to obscure the obvious."

Generally speaking if Jesus has done a good job of teaching, then most people who read the course should come away with roughly the same message and learning.

When he refers to things, we should recognize that he is referring most often to the standard things we recognize. Because he's using what we already know and understand to try to teach us.

So if he refers to "the body" you know he's very likely talking about your physical body. Everyone in the world knows what a body is. If he refers to "Earth", you know it's the name of this physical planet. It's not anything else.

Fortunately most people have the same definitions of things and this makes it easier for Jesus to "speak our language" and make his points.

When he says something like, "Earth, which is heaven's opposite in every way", we should be able to grasp that, okay, planet Earth is apparently opposite to and nothing like heaven. And they're two distinct places. There isn't anything more complicated to it.

If he says, "the body is clearly destructible and therefore not of the kingdom", we should be able to very easily glean some facts. Firstly that he's talking about our physical bodies - nothing more strange than that.

Secondly that our bodies are indeed "clearly" destructive - everyone should really be able to grasp and agree with that fact because we've all experienced the proof of it.

And thirdly that because these bodies are destructible, they cannot be a part of God's creation/kingdom. Which means, the body, and the environment the body is a part of, such as the things it feeds on, and uses, and touches and so on, cannot be the kingdom of God.

This is very easy to deduce. It doesn't take much thought whatsoever. Jesus is using our simple language and learning and using it to point is towards truths. When he says for example that "the body is a dream", you know he's referring again to your physical body, and is telling you it's not really real - it's a dream. You can then quite easily conclude that, if the body is a dream, then the body and its environment must be a dream, and not reality.

These kinds of simple conclusions are very easy to come by, and don't take a particularly high level of intelligence to figure out. In fact I think Jesus prefers that we don't have to figure things out so much. "Usability", the ease with which something can be used by the user/reader, has to be high, otherwise we would just become very confused and lost in the course.

There are of course some times where Jesus shows his mastery and genius, his great wisdom and intelligence and insight, and sometimes those things might be more subtle and harder to figure out. But for the most part the basics of the course are NOT difficult or complicated.

Sometimes people reading the course will massively alter everything it says, over-think and over-analyse, read into it all manner of meanings it doesn't haver, distort its message, pull things out of context, not see the bigger picture, and generally lose track of what should be simple and obvious.

I think if Jesus's message about this world, our bodies, our life, our real identities and our home in heaven, required extraordinary levels of scholarship and study, incredible insight and intellectual ability, and extraordinary grasp of subtle nuance and esoteric contexts, then most people would fail and get lost.

And if Jesus's actual message was indeed so strangely nuanced that it seems to actually mean the total opposite of what it obviously says, in which only a tiny handful of people actually grasp it, that doesn't say much about Jesus's teaching ability. In fact it's rather a slap in the face to him, suggesting that he is so awful at presenting information in a way people can understand and follow, that only the elite few are capable of getting its true meaning. And that means Jesus sucks pretty bad as a teacher.

I don't think Jesus sucks as a teacher. In fact I think he is the best teacher, and extremely masterful at teaching, and very carful to avoid confusion and distortion and ambiguity. He presents things very clearly and in no uncertain terms, such that a vast majority of people reading the course come away with the same basic understanding. And that's a good thing, and hat's off to him.

This is why we have to be careful listening to people who have "alternative" views of the course, such as that planet Earth is God's most incredible creation, or that bodies are spirit, or that God didn't create any sons, or other strange things which aren't really in the book. Some people do do this, changing meanings and twisting things and making things fit into existing worldviews. We need to be careful to discern when this is happening and try to stay true to Jesus's obvious and clear intentions.

This is meant to be a simple and obvious course. A learnable course. A useful and practical course. It should not require someone to be among 'the few' who grasp its "real hidden message" in order to make use of it. And indeed if its message is so obscure that hardly anyone sees it, then it's probably not a course worth learning.