"I am not a body. I am free, for I am still as God created me. All that I do, I do unto myself. If I attack, I suffer. But if I forgive, salvation will be given me."

If you get angry or start blaming and pointing a finger at someone, you perceive as if it really is "about them". You see them doing something, you judge "them" for it, and your mind starts attacking them. But here's the truth.

When you do this, ideas do not leave their source. You might perceive that you're successfully attacking a "separate person out there", but the attack is actually taking place INSIDE your mind. It isn't leaving you. And this has two key parts to it:

1) The attack is taking place inside your mind

2) The "target" of the attack is also inside your mind

So both the attacker and the one being attacked are IN YOU.

You might have a tremendous sense of disassociation in that it seems you are just blaming xyz person for something, casually and easily, but you may not be realizing that even when you're hurling abuse at someone who obviously is "in the wrong", you're basically having a PRIVATE SELF ATTACK, inside a private bubble, in your mind.

So all that attack that you're trying to get rid of through projection and blame, although it doesn't seem like, is actually part of your mind attacking another part of YOUR mind. Which means that you literally are attacking yourself. You think "that asshole cut me off in traffic". Well, your mind there is saying to ITSELF, that it is an asshole.

"You but accuse your brother of your own sins". It's simple and easy to say, but may not always be obvious to recognize as what you're doing. In every case, every way that you seem to be "able" to attack someone else without experiencing the seeming effects and consequences, you MUST be in denial, MUST be mistaken, MUST have disassociation happening in your mind, AND you are attacking ONLY yourself.

So this is the thing. Your angry attack on another is NOT really an attack on another. The idea does not leave your mind. The thought does not leave your mind. The source of the attack (the attacker) does not leave your mind. And the thing that is attacked does not leave your mind. So while it SEEMS like you're "not targeting yourself", YOU ARE. In every case.

Underneath the illusion that it's not about you, it's always about you. Always. 100% of the time. Every time you think you can "get away with" having someone else experience the effects of what you're causing, without you participating in those effects, you are mistaken. Not only do you participate in the effects, ONLY YOU participate in the effects

If that other person chooses to be innocent and invulnerable your mental illness attack has absolutely no effect on them. If they choose to laugh in the face of your attempted attack, it has no effect on them. Whatsoever. You could be sitting there screaming at someone thinking that you're successfully attacking ONLY THEM, they could be totally happy and at peace and immune to it, and YOU are the only one suffering. And it's not simply that you are suffering because you're being angry, you're suffering because you are actually the THING that you are angry AT. You are RECEIVING the attack. What seems to aim "outward" actually goes inward.

See, your mind isn't only inside your body. Your mind is everywhere. Infinite. Bigger than the universe. And when you have a split mind of self attacking conflict, you position part of your mind seemingly "outside of your body". You disassociate from it and believe it is not inside you, is not your self, and is in fact another separate alien willed person who is doing stuff "Against" your will. Well, it's actually your will against your will. Your will is in conflict with itself and having a war. That "external" target is squarely YOU, INSIDE your mind.

This is sobering. Because simply put, it means that it is not possible to even attempt to attack anyone without attacking yourself. It's not possible to blame without hurting yourself. It's not possible to be angry at someone without accusing yourself of sin. So at some point you have to realize, it's got nothing to do with anyone else ever doing anything to you. It's ALWAYS about you doing stuff to yourself. Each time you attack and project and THINK it's not about you, it is. Each time you are annoyed about someone, it's YOU that you're annoyed about. And each time you retaliate, it's against yourself.

Which means that you've been hurting yourself, all this time. And it's never been about anyone else. And every single time in your life that you thought you were simply justified in reacting to someone else's bullshit, you NEVER WERE, you were hurting yourself. Nothing ever left your mind. Every argument was with yourself. And the question is, are you tired of hurting yourself? Do you want to keep doing it?

If you would simply be aware of this, and realize and recognize it, you'd realize the simple Golden Rule. Whatever you try to do to others you do to yourself. Whatever you think is true of others is true of you. It has nothing to do with whether they reciprocate or not. You do to yourself what you would have yourself do to you. Others never do anything. They are never the cause of you. Ever.

If you realized that you could not ever make a single effort to attack "someone else" without it being 100% an attack on yourself, you would not do it. It would be insane to do it. If you knew that it's not possible to attack another without hurting yourself, you would not do it. It hurts too much.

If you knew that you can NEVER get away with murderous behaviors without hurting yourself, you'd see the sense in never even considering attacking, knowing that to do so would hurt yourself. It's a kind of self regulating thing. All you need is the awareness that you are in fact INCLUDED in, and the ONLY one included in, receiving the effects of whatever you're trying to cause.

So the question simply is, if you are aware of this and can stay aware of it, do you really want to keep hurting yourself? It is in your best interests to only love. It is in your best interests to only ever be loving toward yourself and others. You can't have one set of rules that apply to others and another for yourself. You can't have it be that you are loved while others are hated. Its BOTH, or NEITHER. Either both you and others are loved or both you and others are attacked. There is no escape. And the ego is the thing that suggests there IS a way to get away with this without any consequences.

There is no escaping consequences. Whatever you do you do to yourself. This is the secret of salvation. All you need is awareness to SEE that any slight mis-step against "another" is REALLY a mis-step against yourself, and you do not want to do that because it hurts you. And it splits your mind. Which makes you disassociate from yourself and imagine an enemy, which makes you project, which doesn't REALLY project at all. External enemies are indirect self attack from your mind to your mind.

You've never attacked anyone but yourself. No-one has ever attacked anyone but themselves. You've never been attacked by anyone other than yourself. You have the power not to attack yourself. To not attack yourself you must also not want to attack others, because the fantasy of being ABLE to attack others will make you hurt yourself under the belief that it's having no effect on you. Secret of salvation. You're doing it all to yourself. Stop hurting yourself. Love yourself. Easy peasy.

1. God made the world, you are just a spectator in a body, you change your perceptions about it, you stay in it because it’s God’s creation (Heaven on Earth) and never want to leave. "There is no world" refers to ego perceptions of the world. The world is not believed to be an illusion.

2. God did not make the world, you are not just a spectator but a dreamer who made the world, its forms are your thoughts, your mind is bigger than the world, and beyond the world entirely is ANOTHER world (Heaven) that God created as reality. Earth is just an illusion, bodies aren’t real. There is no world.

I’ve encounted many people now and they always fall into one or the other camp. It always hinges around whether God made the world or not. Whether it’s real or not.

If you believe God made it, automatically all of the rest of what the Course says has to be adjusted to FIT that and is seen as supporting it. Various things are easily read into and seem to add verification of that viewpoint.

Some people have been studying ACIM for 30-40+ years and believe #1 (God made the world) is the ACIM teaching. They value the world, want to keep it, want to see bodies, and attempt to spiritualize it and love it and stay in it. They can’t really help this because the entire model of reality steers you in that direction when the premise is that God created Earth... "and therefore".

I do not believe #1. #1 is "false perception" and believing illusions are real. I believe #2. It is far more radical and difficult to accept. The ideas of God not having created the world are far "bigger" and mind bending. #1 is much safer and "easier" to relate to.

#2 is much more challenging and requires questioning of just about everything you ever assumed was true. That includes assumptions that you are confined to a body, the world outside of you is really there, and that the world "exists" or has happened. These aren’t easy to look at given what that implies. That there is literally no world here.

It means you made the world ("the world you made"), you are pretending to be a little body when in fact you made the whole environment, you are dreaming a universe, Heaven is another realm entirely, and everything you ever thought happened in the world did not happen - not even the world itself. It also then means you have to find a way to SEE beyond this world, to look past the illusion of forms and bodies, and leave this place to go Home to heaven where you belong.

At times I get this sense that when "life lessons" come along, they are not so much "optional lessons" or just painfully difficult trails and struggles,, but rather, that situations and circumstances happen "on purpose" as a kind of "conditioning". A kind of reprogramming.

You are exposed to these conditions and the conditions change you. Rather than that, like, you have to learn by making decisions and picking up facts and figuring something out mentally. You kind of inevitably end up learning something almost as if the situation "forced" you to. But of course, you have free will still.

It seems at times these lessons are more like... corrections... in the form of three dimensional spatial scenarios and interactions and happenings .... as if, some larger being is putting stuff in front of us that it knows will change us in a certain direction. That it is in fact, a form of healing? That you can't really fail to "learn the lesson", you just "go through it" and come out the other side changed.

It seems also that whenever Holy Spirit tells me some difficult situation is a lesson, before I would've thought of that as annoying as hell, and confused about what I have to learn. But lately when He says this, I almost get that this is a clue telling me "it is educating you" "it is correcting you" "it is steering you" "it is prompting you to change your mind in a good way"... almost "it's happening to you, choose God".

Like, this situation and your way of dealing with it and so on WILL lead to you discovering new things and developing more trust and opening up to new truths. Sometimes when I get through a lesson I might've learned something new about working miracles or had some deep insight or it produced a major catharsis or something.... and so when the lesson is "happening", I might more easily consider, "somehow, this is leading to growth and making me better off".

Like, the lesson is a "nudge in the right direction" regardless of how it appears, and you always come out the other end "better off". Because what I see and know now versus what I didn't know at the beginning of a recent "trial" I could never have imagined would be the outcome or insights gained as a result of going through the difficulties.

You could almost think of life situations as little "scenarios", little holographic 3D classrooms, into which you enter and are exposed to, and the classroom itself molds and shapes you and steers you in a certain direction. And generally speaking you will learn whatever you are ready to learn, freely, while passing "through" that chamber of conversion.

It really reminds me of the dream I had just recently where I was going through all kinds of trials, obstacles, escape acts, problems and people chasing after me, running through different rooms and stuff, ending up in an open area where the "host" of a game show (Holy Spirit) showed up as this woman... who asked, "what is it that is so valuable to you that you would be willing to go through all this to attain it"? And the instant answer in my mind was HOME... Heaven... I would be willing go through all these trials and life events IF it would in the very long term picture actually POINT me in the direction of home.

This also ties in with what I've heard about writing our life scripts before we incarnate... we literally choose to go through various things, those who are to meet will meet, we choose our family and major life events etc, even our enemies and people we will clash with. Even our serious illnesses and accidents etc. Even when we are likely to "die" ie leave the classroom. And then we come in and "go through it all" like it's a real "pain in the ass you wish wasn't happening", but in the big picture, somehow, using these difficult scenarios as a way to guide us home to love.

And the only reason the life events SEEM like trials, or difficult, or stressful, or upsetting etc.. is because of our ego. Our egotism and "what we need to learn" or unlearn is what makes the situations into a challenge. It's why we sort of "need" these lessons. So that we can move closer to love and way from ego choices. To that we will will surrender. And sometimes the lessons are so annoyingly fucked up that the only thing you are left able to do is surrender and give up and let go. And that's a good thing. lol

This makes me think of this...

"W-pI.135.18. What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? 2 Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. 3 But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. 4 While you made plans for death, He led you gently to eternal life."

and

"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face, Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again." He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you whom God created alters unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you."

Here's the common fact for most of us right now. We VALUE something about this world and do not want to leave it. That's why we're here. That's why we SEE it.

We have a long list of reasons to STAY. We therefore do not actually RECOGNIZE what the world is, or its nature. Instead, we have blinded ourselves and have convinced ourselves that it is something is it NOT. We have overlaid upon it meanings that seem to give credit where it is not due, give value where it is unworthy, and even idolizes aspects of it in a state of worship.

If we did truly recognize what the world IS, we would not want it. In fact, this is why we need to be willing to take a good hard look at its nature without flinching or denial. This is part of sorting out what is true and what is false. We need to learn that we DO NOT WANT anything in the world. Not because we hate it, but because it simple is so false and unnatural and actually offers nothing at all, and therefore there IS nothing there to have.

We only want the world because we have decided to value something about it, and have therefor GIVEN it value. What if the world is completely and utterly valueless, worthless, meaningless, pointless, futile, ridiculous and unbelievable? What if it can add absolutely nothing whatsoever to God's creation?

What if in and of itself it is so utterly devoid of meaning that it isn't even really anything at all? And what if all it has to offer are choiceless roads which ALL leads to death? Would you want it if you recognize it as a slaughterhouse?

UrM14A4 "Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the Face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No-one who has escaped the world and all its ills looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifice which its values would demand of him."

If we are not willing to recognize the world's true nature, which is part of true (accurate) perception, distinguishing clearly that it is NOT the incredible amazing thing that we thought it was, then we will also NOT be willing to leave it. Who would want to leave a castle that they cherish and value and adore and think of as their home? Who would want to leave a place they think is valuable and worthy and loyal and true?

"Each thing you value here is but a chain that binds you to the world," UrW128L2

This tells you that you have to learn to NOT VALUE ANYTHING in the world. And this actually doesn't require you to attack or hate the world in any way, all it requires is for you to RECOGNIZE it. Because in truth, in actual fact, it HAS no value because it is really nothing. The truth that there is not even really a world here has to dawn upon your mind by recognizing its NOTHINGNESS.

If you are willing to really push your mind to recognize the worlds total valuelessness, the worthelssness of the body, and the complete unimportance of everything here, it will simultaneously give ample justification and motivation for seeking out ANOTHER world. There MUST be a better way. There MUST be a world devoid of pain. There MUST be a higher reality and a greater truth than the complete failure that the world has to offer.

So long as you do not clearly see the world's worthless nothingness, you will not WANT to go back to heaven. So long as you do not recognize its insanity, you will think it's not so bad. So long as you think pleasure is not pain, and you can do things here without a cost, you will carry on doing them. So long as you think you are gaining something real and valuable here, you will sacrifice your soul and lose sight of reality.

It doesn't require for you to attack or condemn or accuse the world in order to find the clarity that you DO NOT WANT IT. You didn't want it when you made it. It was projected out of your mind because you did not want what was in your mind.

UrT11D10 "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."

T11G3 "YOU DO NOT WANT THE WORLD."

T12G2 "You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began."

If you value the world you are giving it a value it does not have. And if you value it you will anchor yourself to it. And by valuing it you will see it. And it will become your reality. Yet if you recognize it as unwanted, undesirable, valueless, worthless and nothing, then you will naturally be in a position to want something else. You will want the Kingdom because you will value it and recognize its inherent worth. It is worth having because it is real and true and meaningful.

UrT9E8 "In your open mind are YOUR creations, in perfect communication, born of perfect understanding. Could you but accept one of them, you would not want ANYTHING the world has to offer. Everything else would be totally meaningless. God's meaning is incomplete without you, and you are incomplete without your creations."

UrT12G3 "The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."

UrT12G14 "My peace I GIVE you. TAKE it of me, in glad exchange for all the world has offered but to TAKE AWAY. And we will spread it, like a veil of light, across the world's sad face, in which we hide our brothers FROM the world, and it from them."

Practiced a little bit of `miracle working` this morning ... the 'change the dream' and 'reverse cause and effect' kind. I am reporting this just because I'm still experimenting/learning/discovering what is possible and maybe it is useful.

I had back pain from a couple days ago, was annoying. Could not sleep on my side last night. Woke up with a sore shoulder bla bla bla. Uncomfortable, predicting that the day would be awkward and painful again. But then, decided to ask Jesus for help. It goes something like this:

1) Place your hand on the affected area

2) Join with Jesus, acknowledging that you BELIEVE/have faith that HE knows how to heal anything (healing comes from the Christ mind and you yourself (your ego self) are not capable of it) - your Christ self is.

3) Get yourself out of the way, your attitude of being forceful, your attitude of having power, your attitude of making something happen yourself, being the fixer, being a healer. NO. It's NOT YOU that is going to do the healing (this is profoundly difficult if you are accustomed to being `a healer` or fixer or savior).

4) Join with Jesus and feel his presence and stand with him in your mind, and stay there. Don't be separate. Stand alongside him and in his power and strength.

5) Now you can say words directly specifically at the problem, COMMANDING them to leave and never return, in Jesus's name (or words to this effect, ie within/using/extending Jesus's power)

6) e.g. "In Jesus's name (in my belief that Jesus can heal this FOR me), I command you pain to leave this body right now and do not return. (Notice if you start doubting and try looking for results or checking for changes or claiming credit for what's happening - this is all ego interference). (Notice also if you start believing YOU have to summon amazing amounts of magical power yourself in order to force the thing to leave... no force necessary whatsoever, you have to LET JESUS DO IT).

7) Notice if you are trying to force it or are trying to use `your own` power or strength or aggression to make the thing go away... that doesn't work. It's interference by the ego. You don't even need to ask in a forceful way. IF I can get myself out of the way then when I say the words it seems like I am barely saying anything, like reciting something without any intensity - because I'm letting Jesus have the power

8) If this does not work... and often it does nothing to begin with... do it again. Do it a few times. For me, after about 3 or 4 times, I felt my hand begin to vibrate and 'energize' and for there to be a presence in my back area and a sensation of buzzing or something happening.

9) Keep doing it because each time you are clear and pure about Jesus doing the healing it opens up your mind more and strengthens the connection - sometimes you have lots of clouds of ego to get past and it can take some determination/repetition to make your point clear enough and to extend enough 'authority' and certainty to command the 'dream' to change.

10) Hopefully if you did this well you will see some results. It takes practice.

For me, I was surprised that after 4 or 5 rounds (patiently applied) .. the pain in my back and shoulder had SIGNIFICANTLY subsided, probably like 60-70% improved. It left me smiling. It left me surprised and a bit amazed that it actually felt a lot better. Thank you Jesus! Hallelujah, or something.

I don't see that this is hard to do, but getting your ego out of the way can seem difficult. Jesus/Holy Spirit are the healers (God is). Its a matter of getting out of the way, trusting, believing in their power, putting aside fear, joining in their authority and extending their truth.

With regards to your ego and the ego of your brother, everything about it is self inflicted and separate. What is in your ego is not in your brother's ego. They are two separate, private worlds. They do not connect or join or communicate or share.

Everything happening within your own ego is not happening because of or in connection with or caused by what's happening in someone else's ego. It's all happening entirely independently.

Therefore, where the ego is concerned, you need to be completely responsible for the self-contained world that your ego lives in, which is a closed world, closed to your brother. Everything about it, all of the ego experiences, feelings, reactions, perceptions, are all entirely within yourself and are yours. Own them.

You need to disconnect your ego from the egos of other people. You need to realize that two egos do not communicate. You need to realize that what another person's ego is doing (anything unloving) is not in any way shape or form a cause of anything happening in your own ego. And vice versa. You are not doing anything to their ego and their ego is not doing anything to you. Egos are separate. Egos are individuals.

However, there is something that you do share with your brother. The only thing you can share with your brother, is sharing itself. Sharing means love, joining, communication, openness, equality, freedom, truth. These things, you DO share with your brother. These things, happen to both of you at the same time. These things are mutual, shared interests. These things connect you to your brother and join you together.

So be clear about this. The parts of your experience that are ego, you need to become very clear that these are SEPARATE from your brother and have nothing to do with him. They are your own private hallucinatory world. Nothing goes outside of this world. Ideas leave not their source. Your brother's ego ideas do not leave your brother either. Neither of you causes anything in each other through the ego. Your egos are completely separate and disconnected. All they can do is make noises and postulate before each other, but it is up to each person to decide whether to use their ego or Holy Spirit in perceiving the activities of another.

If it's ego, its yours. If it's love, it's shared. Never do egos really communicate and never do egos really cause things to happen to each other. The idea of attack is entirely an illusion because attack is withdrawal into a private world. Nothing any ego says is ever about you. Nothing your ego says is ever about anyone else.

Only in the holy relationship is there any real sharing or real communication or real relationship because it is a relationship based in reality. Ego relationships are not relationships at all.

While we talk of non-duality and whether ACIM is non-dualistic, many people also make mention of duality as if knowing what duality is. But duality is not what you think it is.

We very loosly and vaguely describe duality as there being "two or more things". That these things are "separate". This seems to be easy to put into words. But the language isn't accurate enough here. Are they TOTALLY separate things?

When you look at it closer, for example, we could say there are two cars, they are separate from each other in space, and therefore there are two separate objects. But if you look even closer you'll have to admit that they in fact do share something. They both exist in the same realm. They share spacetime.

Then, ask yourself, what would total complete separateness be like? Well, it would have to be the difference between existence and total non-existence. To make something TRULY separate from something else, it could not exist in the same realm. Just as existence and non-existence are TOTALLY separate and complete opposites, and they do NOT SHARE the same realm otherwise they would share something.

So what we have are actually two concepts. One is "absolute separation" and one is "relative separation". For something to be "totally" something, it has to be absolutely that. For an object to be totally separate, it has to be ABSOLUTELY separate. But to be absolutely separate, it cannot share ANYTHING at all with the other, not even existing in the same realm. If one car existed in "existence", another car would have to be in "non-existence" in order for them to be ABSOLUTELY separate. Totally and utterly cut off from each other at all levels.

Since the two cars actually share the same realm, they cannot be absolutely separate. In fact you can easily prove that by the fact you can SEE both of them simultaneously. They can sit next to each other, they can even touch each other. So they are not absolutely separate. You can even crash the two cars and insert some pieces of one car into the other. They are not absolutely separate from each other. You can even melt one of them down and make body parts for the other one. They are not totally kept aprt.

But the cars are relatively separate. There is a degree of seeming separation. The degree also can vary from "none" to "some" or even to what might seem "mostly", but they can never reach "absolutely separate." So they are not really absolutely in a state of "duality", ever. Duality is not, therefore, really a state of absolute separation. Duality really means RELATIVE SEPARATION. Which means, at best, PARTIAL separation. And if something is only partly separate, it is not really separate at all.

This also gives rise to the idea that if they are only RELATIVELY separate, they must be PARTLY connected. They must share something. They do at least share spacetime. And at most, they could share the same materials. But this idea of relative separation indicates both that they are neither TOTALLY joined, OR totally separate. They are partly joined, and partly separate, because all illusions are contradictory. This is also beause spacetime was made as an attempt to believe that BOTH sharing and separation exist in the same place.

Science has also been proving this. Recent quantum theories suggest that an object isn't really anything in its own right, it is only something in relation to something else. Like, objects depend on other objects for their identity. Or rather, what something is, as an illusory object, is inferred or is indirect or "shared with" or implied by something else. That some of its identity is in another thing, because they share a little. And since no object is totally separate, no object has an entire absolute identity of its own. Which makes all objects symbols and not ends in themselves.

This is reflected in ACIM in terms like "at no time does the body really exist" "it is either anticipated for remembered". And "the body is not an end in itself". And "the body is a symbol". Symbols, which are what dreams are made of, ("the body is a dream"), are something which does not get its identity or nature from itself, but rather inherits it from something else that it points to or represents. Just as the body can be a symbol of eternal life, or a symbol of death/picture of crucifixion. And just as "Earth can reflect (symbolize) heaven or hell." It has no inherent absolute properties of its own, which is why we sometimes refer to it as a neutral mirror.

Also courtesy of spacetime science, there is the principle of quantum entanglement. This tells us that it does seem possible here, in this illusory world of relative separation, that one thing can be in two places at once. "Spooky action at a distance" reveals that this world is SORT OF a hologram, or at least is a devolved hologram, where the parts do not contain ALL of the whole, but do contain some of it. And so you cannot easily recognize the wholeness by focusing on the form of the parts. And the wholeness in the parts is so limited that they all appear to be unlike each other and not a hologram at all.

The idea that one particle or photon etc can seem to have entangled, ie shared, influence in total transcendence of spatial distance, tells you that the objects here are not QUITE separate. They DO share something. They ARE all connected in some underlying way. It's just that their connectedness is SO distorted and extremely de-emphasized by the forms of difference, that it seems very un-obvious and hard to recognize. This is part of the temptation of illusions. Quantum entanglement does indicate that duality is not really absolute duality, it's only a state of "relative separation". And if you look deeply enough (e.g. at quantum levels) you start to see a holographic kind of sharing that transcends spatial separation.

People go on to talk about non-duality or the seeming total absolute lack of separateness. As if non-duality is diametrically opposite to duality. In technical terms, absolute non-existence is the diametric opposite of absolute existence. But duality isn't absolute non-existence. It's only relative. ACIM confirms this here:

"The opposite of (eternal) life can only be another form of life (not totally absolute no-life). As such, it can be reconciled with what created it, because it is not (absolutely) opposite in truth. Its form may change; it may appear to be what it is not. Yet mind is mind awake or sleeping. It is **not its opposite** in anything created, nor in what it ***seems to make*** when it believes it sleeps."

This would sound totally cryptic and confusing unless you recognized that duality is not really what people think of as duality. It isn't a state of absolute separation, it's only a state of the illusion of trying to be separate, or of partial/relative separation. It's just a BELIEF IN separation, in a state of the DENIAL that everything is shared. So it is still WITHIN the confines of mind which can NEVER be separate in truth. All it can do is deny (hide, obscure, disguise) unity. And without this disguise (which is death), it is nothing.

"Without the idea of death (denial of unity) there is no world."Which means that duality is still housed within the mind as a mis-creative use of mind, a lower-order reality, and a system of thought within that same mind. Duality is NOT "actually outside of God". Outside of God is total non-existence, and it doesn't exist at all, not even as an illusion. In this world, you are NOT in non-existence. You are still in existence, pretending not to be.

The "dualistic world" is simply a mis-created devolved level of thought within the one mind, which attempts to use mind against itself or freedom against freedom or will against will, to present an illusion of relative separation, symbolizing separation and opposition. It is still something the Son of God is "making" in his mind, dreaming of, inventing, but it is an attempt to reject the sane true nature of the mind. So it results in illusions of separateness, which are not really separateness.

I like to think of this world as a kind of "last truck stop" on the way to leaving God. We never really get outside of God's envelope. But the world is the "last dying breath", as it were, in the effort to absolutely leave God and go outside of God to be "separate from Him". And physical death is just how it appears as you try to "remove all life" from something so that it can be "empty of life" and devoid of God. Trying to leave God, produces death, as a symptom of "the rejection of existence."

If you could be absolutely separate from God you would leave God entirely and enter "non-existence". This is what death of the body symbolizes, the attempt to LEAVE and actually separate from existence. As if you can go to oblivion and finally be totally without God, in absolute separation. Of course, that is impossible because non-existence doesn't exist and God is everywhere.

We never really leave God or get outside of Him, or go beyond the mind, but we do invent illusions of - lies about - symbols of - the idea of not being IN him. Of being exiled from or outside of heaven.

And this world of "duality" that we made is not so much ACTUAL duality, as it is just a state of PARTIAL duality. Of attempted separation, that fails. And of impossibilities believed to be possible while still being impossible.

So duality does not really mean what people usually think it means. It's not just about "separate things" or "a count of two or more". These are based on very loose separations that aren't really total separations. My apple and my orange are not REALLY totally separate, nor are they really part of a duality. They just appear to be separate things based on form and appearances, which are deceptive. The apple and the orange are connected together by the fabric of spacetime.

String theory and the notion that something exists as a "quantum field" which coalesces into a "concentration" of energy showing up as a particle, is just another extension of this. It's just how everything is part of a giant pool of energy, as it were, in this world, in the background, which seems to become more focused as consciousness (mind) interacts with it, producing physical matter. Ultimately everything in the world dwells "unfocused" in the quantum field which is a more shared state. This is also why subatomic particles are not actual "absolute particles", they are "probabilities".

Duality's "partialness" and relativity is also why this is possible:"Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release."

The hidden beauty is in seeing the connectedness of things which would otherwise seem mostly separate. And thus the world, earth, can be seen as a forgiven world which symbolizes heaven, a reflection of heaven, "a sign (symbolic representation) of God's perfection" etc. The forgiven world is what you see when you look beyond the illusions of partial duality and see an underlying singular background... the one dream. The one illusion. The face of christ, seen through perception. Even in supposed separation we are not really outside of God.

"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without ***some link that kept it still within the laws of God***; NOT as the law itself upholds the universe as God created it, but in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has."

We ARE still within God. We ARE still within God's holographic thought system. And we ARE still always creating. And we ARE always still joined together. The physical world is just an attempt to make it SEEM as if that's not true, using the clay of creation to form appearances of the opposite of creation. But creation HAS no opposite, and even what we made or asserted in our mis-creating is still WITHIN our mind and USING its power. Even a sleeping mind is STILL a powerful mind. "The mind is always creating, it never sleeps". Even a dream of death still has a thread of connectivity running through it. This is also why death is not an end and is just pretend death.

When you redefine duality as "attempted partial separation" or "relative separation", it has to acknowledge that even duality is still INSIDE OF the dreaming mind of Sons of God. And that means you are still in heaven. "You are safe in heaven, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of waking to reality." This doesn't mean the dualistic world is TRUE REALITY, because its forms are an illusion of opposition to reality, but they are MADE OF mind-stuff.

"We also have observed that man can create an empty shell, but cannot create nothing at all. This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection."

Spacetime is the empty shell, an attempt to create nothing, which produces an actual creation of a seeming lack of content, produces form. And then we project illusions into this emptiness or "idea of lack and limitation" (mortality) as we dream. Because even in your dreaming, you are using your mind's power TO dream, TO make illusions, and TO deceive yourself.

Never do you go outside of mind. And never do you leave God or heaven. It's just that this world cannot BE heaven because it symbolizes its absence. Even as a reflection of heaven it only symbolizes heaven. Because it's a perceptual realm and "perception is a separated state." - a state of an illusion of being separate. Illusions of separation ARE NOT absolute separation.

Only God's Kingdom is true absolute permanent reality. Your dream world is temporary and relatively partially created. And what is not absolutely created is not FULLY created at all. And so it remains just a state of temporary instanity, hallucination, wishful thinking and fiction.

"It is NEVER God Who coerces you, because He SHARES His Will WITH you." God has given you freedom. This cannot be revoked. You are free to create, or to mis-create. God cannot oppose your will because it is part of his own freedom.

This means that you have to decide to go back to God, of your free will. You can't be forced, coerced, manipulated or made to do anything you don't want to. You have to willingly choose heaven again.

"The attraction of light must draw you willingly, and willingness is signified by GIVING."

"But to accomplish this, all your dark lessons MUST be brought willingly to truth"

"Heaven is a choice I must make."

Does this mean that you can take forever? Does it mean that you can decide NEVER to return to God? Does it mean that you could stay in separation and never wake up?

Given that you have total freedom, it should mean that you can take as long as you please, and even to never return.

The thing is, that while God wills that you be free forever, he also wills that you be one with him forever. And here we have signs of a "natural limit" placed by God.

"Free will does not mean that you establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what to take when. It is just because you are not ready to do what you should elect to do that time exists at all."

"Free will can temporize, and is capable of enormous procrastination. But it cannot depart entirely from its Creator, who set the limits on its ability to miscreate by virtue of its own real purpose."

The way I read this, "will" always has an element of freedom to it, even when will is being USED to try to be unwilling. You cannot escape willingness. You will always have some willingness even if you are highly unwilling, which means that you will eventually will to be back with God.

"He can wait, delay, paralyze himself, reduce his creativity almost to nothing, and even introduce a real developmental arrest or regression. But he CANNOT abolish his creativity. He CAN destroy his medium of communication, but NOT his potential."

God has also placed a limit on spacetime, ie the separation. It has been repurposed as a classroom to learn lessons, which involves consent. And we have all willed freely to participate. In effect, there is a guarantee that we will wake up eventually.

"The Atonement was built into the space-time belief in order to set a limit on the need for the belief, and ultimately to make learning complete."

"For if you could REALLY separate yourselves from the Mind of God, you WOULD die."

Another thing is that trying to be away from God is painful. It is a rejection of happiness and love and ease and joy. A rejection of health and wholeness. It is a state riddled with suffering. And eventually this is intolerable, especially when it becomes extreme.

The more extreme the separation, the more it hurts. The more you try to be evil, the worse your life gets, and the more you become insane. The harder you try not to exist, the more you repress and hate yourself. And it does not feel good. Some people have extreme tolerance levels but not unlimited.

"The misuse of will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way."

This is part of the fact that there is a safeguard built into free will. Basically, in order to fully will something, you have to be fully willing. If you become unwilling, ie try to use will to NOT will, you are arresting the will. This causes you to shut off access to your power to create, and you become "weaker".

Effectively, if you oppose God's will, you become powerless. If you deny your freedom, you imprison the will. It all gets automatically shut down because by choosing separation you're literally denying freedom and power.

""Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul."" ... "If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, because such are the dictates of tyrants."

The end result is that you cannot use will to attack will, or to attack or change God. Or to change the truth or anything real. When you try to, there is a lack of will, which shuts it down and causes nothing to happen. You might hallucinate that the nothing is something, but nothing is really created.

Also the Holy Spirit has been created to guarantee holographically that the whole is always in the part, and thus no matter how many times mind tries to split itself the whole of God is still there. You cannot leave eternity or really separate.

"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the Laws of God. NOT as the Law Itself upholds the universe as God created it. But in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has. Corrected error IS the error's end. And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error."

So God has naturally caused a number of things all which guarantee you are not only protected and safe (immortal) and have not really done anything, but also has the side-effect that when you choose away from him you do not like it, and inevitably choose against it. It's almost like saying the impluse to return is built-into the attempt to leave. And you never did quite leave in the first place.

"I CAN offer you my will to make yours invincible by this sharing, but I CANNOT oppose yours without competing with it and thereby violating God's Will for you. Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His. God GAVE your will its power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of His."

We could say then that, we are always free, and can choose when to return to God, but at the same time staying away from God is fundamentally unpleasant, and eventually you will seek to return.

Another aspect of this is that God is so certain and so powerful, and the Holy Spirit shares his infinite power, such that he CANNOT FAIL in helping us to return. In his repurposing of the world we made, he guarantees that we will return to heaven. There are no loopholes in God's plan for salvation.

The Holy Spirit has effectively already finished the job.

"His task is mighty, but the power of God is with Him. Therefore, to Him, it is so easy, that it was accomplished the instant it was given Him for you."

"God's promises make no exceptions. And He guarantees that only joy can be the final outcome found for everything. Yet it is up to us when this is reached; how long we let an alien will appear to be opposing His."

"God's guarantee will hold against ALL obstacles, for it rests on certainty, and NOT contingency."

"Reality observes the laws of God, and NOT the rules you set. It is His laws which GUARANTEE your safety. All illusions that you believe about yourself obey NO laws."

"The Atonement is the GUARANTEE of the safety of the Kingdom. Nothing good is lost, because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the voice for Creation."

"The world WAS a way of healing the Separation, and the Atonement is the GUARANTEE that the device will ultimately do so."

"No force except your own will is strong enough or worthy enough to guide you. In this you are as free as God, and must remain so forever."

"The truth is still that the attraction of God is irresistible at ALL levels, and the acceptance of this totally unavoidable truth is only a matter of time. But you should consider whether you WANT to wait, because you CAN return now, if you choose."

What if you decide that you are not going to die?

Immediately this flies in the face of everything the world's population holds as true and inevitable. It flies in the face of an entire weight of collective thoughts and beliefs about what is normal and natural in this universe.

You wouldn't be the first to accomplish this either. St Germain for example was known to be "in a body", maintaining agelessness, for several centuries. Babaji is known to be hanging around without aging. There are others.

Jesus calls for every A Course in Miracles student to accomplish this also. He asks us to swear not to die. He tells us to choose resurrection, to not attack the body, to not make it sick, and to heal it. He asks us to make it a picture of health not a picture of crucifixion.

He asks us not to make the body age, or decay, or be sick, or die, but instead to maintain it in a state of guaranteed perfect health indefinitely, for as long as this is useful. That could mean thousands of years, or just a few.

You probably have assumed all your life that just because everyone else's bodies grow old and die and no-one can seem to cure death, that this is the only option. That death is inevitability and it's your fate. Particularly that death cannot be reversed, yet alone prevented.

You see the seasons come and go, the leaves die off, the flowers wilt, the animals turn to carcasses, and people are put in the ground. And we think this is normal and natural and unavoidable. Something to be "accepted" and adjusted to and made out to be something you can do "in peace".

But Jesus is asking a much higher calling for us. He wants us to use the body as a symbol of eternal life, a breath of immortality, to those who have grown tired of the fetid scent of death.

He wants us to allow the Holy Spirit to heal and resurrect the body through miracles, to present a picture of total health and loveliness to your brothers so as to teach them there is no sin and no attack.

He wants us to demonstrate, in person, physically, that there is no death, and that we have power over death. And that means that we make it possible for this exact body we have right now to not die. To not decay. To not grow old and withered and look like a prune. And to be incapable of corruption.

Are you willing to take up this challenge? If you're going to take this course the whole way then it is going to require of you at some time to actually commit to not dying. You cannot have a shred of belief in death or experience of death in your mind and being if you are to reach the end of the curriculum, which is resurrection - death's total opposite.

So you might as well decide right now. I am not going to die this time. I am going to move towards health, life, happiness, wholeness, healing, miracles, the power of the mind over the body, and I refuse to simply go the way of the worms along the funeral procession of death and decay.

How about you decide today, that you will not intent to die this time, you will not merely unconsciously accept notions that you will die, and you will not allow the body to die. It is your challenge to become miraculous and to heal the body's ailments and cure its diseases and undo death itself. To demonstrate your immortality using the body as a tool to prove your mind is stronger than death.

Few will rise to the challenge. It seems ridiculous. It seems impossible. It flies in the face of everything. Just stop and think for a minute. What if in this lifetime right now, with this body, you simply are not going to go through death? What if you're going to simply keep this body, heal it, resurrect it, protect it through miracles and the Holy Spirit, and maintain it in perfect functioning? For as long as you like?

Once the body is being healed by a sane mind, it cannot become sick, nor can it die. So now it is not possible to leave it through death. "A dream of death cannot be left through death but by truth". Truth means resurrection and life.

The body becomes a shining symbol of immortality and you can longer leave it through sickness or decay or suffering. The old doorway to darkness is closed. And the only way to then leave is to simply lay it aside, without decay, without attack, without sickness, in which the body does not corrupt or destroy or symbolize hell. And then it disappears.

What if you don't have to die physically? And what if you can resurrect all the way to invulnerability and immortality? And what if you can prevent the body from being attackable? And what if you do not have to keep aging? What if you can fly in the face of everything the world believes and choose not to die?

"You cannot die unless you choose to do so."

"No one dies without their own consent."

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked."

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all."

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you.Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies.Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all."

"Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body's health is fully guaranteed because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible. ... Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching"

"What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him. Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."

"Swear not to die, you holy Son of God! You make a bargain that you cannot keep. The Son of Life cannot be killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in all the universe that must be one."

Did a healing for myself after feeling pain in my hand, which was anger I was holding onto.

After a process of visualizing the healing and commanding it to leave etc, I was again not expecting it but.... there was an angel kneeling at my side holding my hand very gently. It kissed my hand.

I felt extremely touched that a being so innocent and pure would bow down and kiss "me"... the impure. It made me feel very worthy beyond my own unworthiness. It then maneuvered and kissed the back of my hand a few times.

I could feel its presence beside me. Again I did not ask for it to come nor did I in any way imagine that there would be an angel involved in what I was doing. But what I was doing once again attracted the angels to assist me.

All pain has disappeared, such that I didn't even remember that this happened until now.

Clearly when we are fulfilling God's will and are expressing the truth that sickness is unreal and that we deserve healing and love, and actually take steps to bring that about, we "align" ourselves with heaven and do what Heaven would do, and Heaven comes to support us in that!