"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys.

God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him.

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

This clearly tells us that God did not create the Earth because to do so would've required he be in TWO minds with TWO effects, which is impossible. Since Earth is opposite to Heaven in EVERY way, God would've had to have created two DIFFERENT creations, unlike each other in every way. This is impossible because everything God creates is the same in every way and like Him in every way.

God could only create ONE EFFECT coming from ONE MIND. He could only create ONE WORLD. And that world must be heaven. It MUST be heaven because love has no opposite, and only the creations of love (God) are real, and therefore the only WORLD that is real is the one God did create, which is Heaven.

Take your pick. Heaven or Earth. Which is your home? Do you REALLY want Earth when you could have Heaven?

Earth is nothing. Heaven is everything. Leaving the Earth behind and going to heaven you will gain everything and lose nothing. This world holds nothing that you want! A teacher of God will gladly give up all the pleasures of the world! This world is not your home! How can a place which does not even EXIST be your home?

As Jesus says:

"Go on to meet them gladly, and learn how much awaits you, for the simple willingness to give up nothing, BECAUSE it is nothing. The new perspective you will gain, from crossing over, will be the understanding of WHERE HEAVEN IS. From HERE, it seems to be outside, and ACROSS the bridge. But, as you cross to JOIN it, IT will JOIN WITH YOU, and BECOME ONE with you. And you will think, in glad astonishment, that for all this, YOU GAVE UP NOTHING! The joy of Heaven, which HAS no limit, is INCREASED with each light that returns, to take its rightful place within it."

Jesus also says we will watch the world (earth) disappear, together.

"Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there any time you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does. And then-and then-I cannot speak of that. A body cannot stay without illusions, and the last one to be overcome is death. This is the message of the crucifixion: there is no order of difficulty in miracles. This is the message of the resurrection. Illusion are illusions. Truth is true. Illusions vanish. Only truth remains."

Earth is illusion. It disappears. ONLY TRUTH remains. Earth does not become part of the truth. IT VANISHES. IT NEVER EXISTED TO BEGIN WITH!!!!!!!!

Earth does not exist. There is no world.

Here is an interesting teaching.

In its natural state, the body is a communication medium. The mind is supposed to flow through it and extend BEYOND it outwards. The body itself is not supposed to be part of the message as such.

But when the mind starts to STOP at the body, or to be blocked by the body, or runs up against the body, it prevents it from extending PAST the body. The communication medium can no longer communicate because the flow is blocked. This is what blocks to love do. They make you fixate on form and be blinded by illusion, which get in the way of seeing Christ.

When there are blocks to love, mind cannot extend through and past and overlook the body, and so fixates ON the body. This causes you to perceive that the body is what is there, in the mind, rather than looking PAST it. The body becomes what you are looking AT, rather than that you are looking at Christ PAST the body.

Making perception stop AT the body and blocking the flow of love, basically cuts that flow off and stops it from moving outward. That means it has become stifled, and now there is a kind of "separation" which has been introduced between the body and the outside. Or a gap, where extension of love was supposed to fill it externally, but is now left empty due to the blocked expression.

This blocking of extension makes the body SICK, because it focuses the mind ON the body and AT the body, instead of PAST the body. The body then becomes attacked by the mind as though "colliding with it" instead of flowing naturally through it and past it and onward in communication. Kind of like a dirty camera lens, or a blocked toilet, or a bunch of boarded up windows made to block the light. Another example would be a "blocked artery", making the blood flow impeded, and resulting in death.

So the blocks to love have to be removed so that the "surface" of the communication medium doesn't turn into the "message" and so that love can flow and extend, which means love is radiated and increased, which means HEALING comes through the body and the body is MADE WHOLE because it is COMMUNICATING WHOLENESS. When the mind is sane and flowing fully and freely THROUGH the body, the body is HEALED as the love passes through it making it essentially immortal, incapable of sickness or death.

Here is how Jesus says it:

"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.

To use a medium of communication as a medium of ATTACK is an obvious confusion in purpose. To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate. How can you do both simultaneously WITH THE SAME THING, and NOT suffer? Perception of the body can be unified only by ONE PURPOSE. This releases the mind from the temptation to see it in many lights, and gives it over ENTIRELY to the One Light in which it can be really understood at all."

Holy cow...

Workbook lesson 38.. ONLY number 38... and yet.... this powerful message:

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

Talk about hitting the ground running. It also says:

"Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator."

So early in the book and I know for a fact that when I went through these earlier lessons I felt so new to all this terminology and stuff, talking about me being "holy" .. I probably could not really relate to it or believe it. It seemed so lofty and advanced. It still does somewhat, but maybe I have made some progress ;-)

There is NOTHING my holiness cannot do because its unlimited power comes from God!

Suck that, ego world.

Here are FIVE passages from ACIM telling us about a body which is not sick, cannot suffer, cannot die, and symbolizes immortality.

"****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.**** And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."

-----

"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.****IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt****, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS.

Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that ****every scar is healed****, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. ****YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health.**** BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true."

-----

"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. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body's condition. Yet the teacher of God does not make this decision alone. To do that would be to give the body another purpose from the one that keeps it holy.God's Voice will tell him when he has fulfilled his role, just as It tells him what his function is. ****He does not suffer either in going or remaining. Sickness is now impossible to him.****"

-----

"****Now is the body healed**** because the source of sickness has been opened to relief."

"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. If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgement or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick. Give instant remedy, should this occur, by not allowing your defensiveness to hurt you longer."

-----

"Very simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death. It is a reawakening or a rebirth; a change of mind about the meaning of the world. It is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the world's purpose; the acceptance of the Atonement for oneself. It is the end of dreams of misery, and the glad awareness of the Holy Spirit's final dream. It is the recognition of the gifts of God. It is the dream ****in which the body functions perfectly****, having no function except communication."

"Brother, ****there is no death. And this you learn when**** you but wish to ****show your brother that you had no hurt of him****. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to SHOW him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream."

Here, Jesus reminds us that forgiveness is based on immortality, and therefore on eternal life. When you SHOW your brother, ie relate to him, in such a way that you demonstrate that he has done nothing to you whatsoever, you are expressing the idea that you are invulnerable.

When you show another that you "had no hurt of him", regardless of what he seemed to do, you're turning the other cheek and saying, hey, you didn't do anything to me. I am completely unchanged and completely unaffected. I am still as God created me. And from that viewpoint, you are expressing your immortality because you're continuing to be unaffected.

This is also a reference to Jesus demonstrating his resurrection, in that even when people tried to kill him off, he showed them that they had done nothing to him, and he did not hold it against them. He didn't condemn them or blame them or try to make them guilty. He literally physically demonstrated that they had not done anything at all, and his mind was completely invulnerable. He was out of reach of the ego and of death.

When you assert that you are so immortal that nothing has hurt you, the only thing left to express is love. If someone hasn't done anything to you, you will feel loving toward them. If the world has never done anything to you, you will love it. You have grounds for love and thus for forgiveness because your forgiveness is a recognition that there has not been a sin. You have not been attacked.

When someone seems to do something and it seems offensive or hurtful or triggering or an outright attempted assault or murder, it is your task to show that person that they have done nothing to you. Both in terms of your mind/spirit being unscathed, but also then demonstrated through the body to show them they have done nothing.

Forgiveness is not REAL or complete until the body has also been healed and lines up with the mind's attitude that everyone is still innocent and unharmed, thus healed. Showing your brother literally your resurrected body PROVES he has not sinned, symbolizes innocence, and points to HIS innocence, teaching him that HE is also healed.

When someone's message to you is, "I attack and destroy you", your message to them has to be "You have done nothing to me at all and I'm still in a state of love." It's a sense of imperviousness where things just "flow off your back" because your inner strength knows you cannot be hurt. And you don't have guilt that needs projecting. And you don't use people as scapegoats to get rid of it. You just remain in your immortal invulnerable state and nothing can harm you.

Any hint of a belief in your mind that someone HAS done something to you, will automatically produce a justification for anger, and thus for projection of guilt. Believing you have BEEN attacked, IS an attack upon yourself, condemning yourself and using something external to insinuate that you have stopped being immortal. To believe someone has hurt you is to hurt yourself. Only by believing you are COMPLETELY INVULNERABLE can you enter into the state of total forgiveness, reflecting your immortality and protecting the body from death.

Immortality is the will of God for you.

"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt?"

"Turning the other cheek does NOT mean that you should submit to violence without protest. ***It means that you cannot be hurt***, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness. ***Show him that he CANNOT hurt you***, and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself."

"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. ***IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt***, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS."

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die."

"Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF."

"You are not sick, and you cannot die."

"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."

"For you will remember His guiltless Son, who did not die because he is immortal."

"What is immortal cannot BE attacked"

"You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now."

"Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless."

"You are God’s Son. In IMMORTALITY you live forever."

"The Son of Life cannot be killed. He is IMMORTAL as his Father. What he is cannot be changed."

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has IMMORTALITY."

"You are as God created you. All else but this one thing is folly to believe. In this one thought is everything set free. In this one truth are all illusions gone. In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything; the central core of its existence and its guarantee of IMMORTALITY."

"Beyond the bodies that you interposed between you, and shining in the golden light that reaches it from the bright endless circle that extends forever, is your holy relationship, beloved of God, and holy as Himself. How still it rests, in time and yet beyond, IMMORTAL yet on earth."

"Salvation is God’s justice. It restores to your awareness the wholeness of the fragments you perceive as broken off and separate. And it is this that overcomes the fear of death. For separate fragments must decay and die, but wholeness is IMMORTAL."

"Yet time has still one gift to give in which true knowledge is reflected in a way so accurate its image shares its unseen holiness; its likeness shines with its IMMORTAL Love."

"Your present trust in Him is the defence which promises a future undisturbed, without a trace of sorrow, and with joy which constantly increases as this life becomes a holy instant, set in time, but heeding only IMMORTALITY."

"To change is to attain a state unlike the one in which you found yourself before. There IS no change in IMMORTALITY, and Heaven knows it not."

"Into this empty space, from which the GOAL of sin has been removed, is Heaven free to be remembered. Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death. 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. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."

"Whatever is perceived as means for truth SHARES in its holiness, and rests in light as safely as Itself. Nor will that light go out when it is gone. Its holy purpose GAVE it IMMORTALITY, setting another light in Heaven, where your creations recognize a gift from YOU, a sign that you have NOT forgotten them."

" In your brother is the light of God’s eternal promise of your IMMORTALITY. See HIM as sinless, and there can BE no fear in you."

"Faith in the eternal is ALWAYS justified, for the eternal is forever kind, infinite in its patience, and wholly loving. It will accept you wholly, and give you peace. But it can unite only with what ALREADY is at peace in you, IMMORTAL as itself."

"Yet for all the wild insanity inherent in the whole IDEA of sin, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. For the wages of sin IS death, and how can the IMMORTAL die?"

"The miracle of creation has never ceased, having the holy stamp of IMMORTALITY upon it. This is the Will of God for all creation, and all creation joins in willing this."

"In the temple, holiness waits quietly for the return of them that love it. For the Presence knows they will return to purity and to grace. The graciousness of God will take them gently in, and cover all their sense of pain and loss, with the IMMORTAL assurance of their Father’s Love."

"For you will remember His guiltless Son, who did not die because he is IMMORTAL."

"You are IMMORTAL BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now."

"But the guarantee of your continuity is God’s, not the ego’s. And IMMORTALITY is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while IMMORTALITY is constant. Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless."

"IMMORTALITY is HIS Will for His Son, and His Son’s will for HIMSELF. Yet God’s Son cannot will death for himself, because His Father is Life, and HIS SON IS LIKE HIM ."

"IMMORTALITY is a constant state. It is as true now as it ever was or will be, because it implies NO CHANGE AT ALL."

"That was the first projection of error outward. The world (Earth) arose to hide it, and became the screen (mirror) on which it was projected (a second projection ONTO the mirror which produces perception - what is reflected back to you as feedback), and drawn between you and truth."

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

"If you could accept the world as meaningless (has no content of its own like a mirror) and let the truth be written upon it (reflected in it) for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless (having no image of its own), you are impelled to write upon it (reflect in it) what you would have it be. It is this you see in it (reflected in the mirror)."

"The reflection of God (in the mirror) NEEDS no interpretation. IT IS CLEAR. Clear but ***the mirror***, and the message which shines forth from what ***the mirror*** holds out for everyone to see, NO-ONE will fail to understand. It is the message that the Holy Spirit is holding to ***the mirror*** that is in HIM."

"In the world you, can become ***a spotless mirror***, in which the holiness of your Creator shines forth from you, to all around you. You can REFLECT HEAVEN here (in the mirror). But no reflections (in the mirror) of the images of other gods must dim ***the mirror*** that would hold God's reflection in it. ****Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego.**** (because it's a mirror) You need but leave ***the mirror*** (Earth) clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it (reflections seen in it). God will shine upon it (reflect in it) of Himself

. Only the clear reflection (in the mirror of earth) OF Himself can BE perceived upon (reflect in) it. Reflections are seen in light. In darkness, they are obscure, and their meaning seems to lie only in shifting interpretations, rather than in themselves."

"***Perception is a mirror***, not a fact." (what you percieve are reflections in the mirror of earth that you projected onto it to see. The mirror Earth ITSELF Is not part of perception, it's the mirror which allows projection/perception to happen.)

"The reflections that you accept into ***the mirror*** of your minds in time, but bring eternity nearer or farther."

"Your picture of the world (the image you see in the mirror) can only ***mirror what is within*** (projected onto it). The source (origin) of neither light nor darkness can be found without (because what's out there is just the earth mirror, and you have to give it meaning). Grievances darken your mind, and you look out on a darkened world (reflection of darkness in the mirror, or "dirt" seen "on" the mirror obscuring the reflection of God). Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light (reflected in the mirror)."

"The world is nothing in itself (because it has no meaning, because it's just an empty mirror). Your mind must give it meaning (project images onto the mirror). And what you behold upon it (in the mirror as the feedback of your perceptions) are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them (reflected back at you) and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world (the mirror), but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for (put onto the mirror because you wanted to see it) when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish (because the world is a mirror and what you see in it is just your wishes), and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see (in the mirror), and all the world (reflection seen in the world) must change accordingly."

"Like all things in the world its meaning is temporary (projected onto it), and will ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came (the earth was a projection of the idea of nothingness - the opposite to everything) when there is no more use for it."

"Would God have left the meaning of the world to YOUR interpretation? If He had, it HAS no meaning. For it cannot be that meaning (images shifting) changes constantly, and yet is true."

"It is essential, therefore, that you learn to recognize the meaningless (the projections of ego meaning, a different context), and accept it without fear. If you are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world (mirror) with attributes (meaning, images) which it does not possess, and crowd it (project onto it then perceive in it) with images that do not exist."

"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it (projected onto the mirror), nothing more than that."

"There is a silence covering the world (mirror) that was an ancient dream so long ago no one remembers now. Its time is done, and in the little space it seemed to have is nothingness. The dream has gone, and all its dreams of gifts have disappeared as well. The first dream has been seen and understood for merely an illusion of the fear on which the world was based. (the mirror earth was formed from the idea of the opposite of love which is fear)"

You are not a body because you are as God created you which is a soul with a mind. Your soul/spirit has no need for a body whatsoever. But your mind is DREAMING of one.

Where did the body come from? Who is responsible for putting it there? It didn't show up on its own or as a result of any other causal power.

"The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards."

That means the mind, which is the realm of ideas, has an idea of sin, and projects it, which PRODUCES the body. This isn't a one-time affair, it doesn't just happen at birth, it is a constant projection all the time, like a movie projector projecting a movie.

"Love did not create the body" means a mind in total sanity does not produce/project a body, but an INSANE MIND does, because "the body is a device for separation."

Thus "The mind is responsible for every condition of the body" because the mind is the MAKER of the body. It determines whether it shows up or not, and in what condition, at all times. If it weren't for the mind making the body *constantly*, the body would vanish.

It seems to suggest the mind can be "free of the body" while the body STILL EXISTS, which is false logic. SOMEONE has to maintain the body or it simply will not show up at all. It does not have its own existence, its own life, or its own reality. The world does not maintain it "on its own". Some mind SOMEWHERE has to be projecting it constantly in order for it to keep showing up at all.

We cannot simply "escape" from sickness of the body by disappearing off into the mind and pretending that WE are not responsible for the body showing up. If it is still showing up, we are still putting it there, and to put a sick body there from a sane state of mind is utterly nonsense. No-one in their right mind would EVER demonstrate that "sickness and suffering are true", because it teaches your brother and communicates to him that he is a sinner.

When the mind is sane, it projects a healthy body. When the mind is sick, it projects a sick body.

"The mind, being sane, heals the body."

"A broken body is proof the MIND has not been healed."

Mind is where healing is truly needed. "All sickness is mental illness." But that does NOT mean that if you heal the mind, the mind is completely separate from the body and can be healthy while the body remains sick. That is an ego belief in separation and is disassociation. The mind is always responsible for the body.

Jesus says re resurrection "I came to demonstrate the mind that made the body can make another. They did not understand."

So you can't have "I am not a body I am free and I'll just be sane and healed in my mind and KEEP MAKING a sick body"... a sane mind WOULD NOT produce sickness. Sickness is a defense against the truth. The body MUST be used to demonstrate a symbol of immortality otherwise you teach your brother by example, "brother at your hand I die", because all physical sickness is an attack and an accusation on others. "Sick bodies are accusers." What shows up in your body as being "true of you" is also an attempt to say what is "true of others". The golden rule has no exceptions.

When you are sane and recognize that you are not a body because you are the CAUSE of the body and it is your EFFECT or projection, THEN you will temporarily project a healed body which is a picture of perfection and a symbol of immortality and holiness. Then you will simply choose to STOP PROJECTING IT and it will disappear. This is the ONLY way to leave the dream of death, which can only be left through truth not death. Holy Spirit can help you to materialize a body that is free of sickness on all levels:

"Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly treated, or in need of ANYTHING, you but accuse your brother of attack upon God's Son. You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes (as your sick body), that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate, and damning him to hell. Yet this is writ in hell and NOT in Heaven, where you are BEYOND attack, and prove his INNOCENCE. The picture of yourself you offer him (your body) you show YOURSELF, and give it all your faith. The Holy Spirit offers you, to give to him, a picture of yourself (a healed body) in which there is NO pain, and NO reproach at all (no form of illness, breakage, damage, suffering, disease etc). And what was martyred to his guilt becomes the perfect witness to his innocence."

and "The Holy Spirit's picture changes not the body into something it is not. It only takes away from it ALL signs of accusation and of blamefulness."

and here is the final stage of resurrection: "Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death. 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. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."

It is only possible to teach your brother through physical demonstration that he is not a sinner by not accusing him of sin, which means not using the body for attack, which results in the body being fully healed. "What you use the body for it becomes to you".

And Jesus re his resurrection and body disappearing:

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it.. It merely became what it always was. And that is what 'rolling the stone away means.' The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond... To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body's worthlessness to the world. This has been much misunderstood. I came to tell them that death is an illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. They did not understand. "

"Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there any time you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does. And then-and then-I cannot speak of that. A body cannot stay without illusions, and the last one to be overcome is death."

Many course students believe that the physical world is a kind of heaven-in-disguise, but simply hidden behind their mistaken perceptions. It's as if to say, once they purify their mind of false perceptions, they will see it 'how God intended it' and that this is the same thing as being in heaven.

If you are setting out with the belief that the physical world is reality, and especially if you believe God made it, then that background acts as a 'context' in which you read all of the rest of the Course. There is so much in the course written about undoing false perceptions and becoming able to see the real world or forgiven world etc, that it's possible to read into that to mean the physical world is reality.

For example, the course does say things like.... you must undo your false perceptions.... your false perceptions are clouding your perception of reality.... once you undo false perceptions you will see clearly.... then you'll see you brother as Christ and will see the beautiful forgiven/real world.... etc.... and there isn't specifically anything in those 'pieces' of the Course - if taken out of its total context - to challenge the notion that the physical world is real. So that can lead you to believe that this fundamental idea that the world exists goes unchallenged by the Course.

Another example is that people heavily believe they are bodies. They read things about how they should just accept the world 'as it is' and change their mind, and this leads to this kind of 'separation' between the mind and body. i.e., that we should let the body do whatever because its not real (a level confusion) and we should let the world do whatever because it's not real (a level confusion). And that's really a kind of paralysis, and a lack of responsibility, and a total lack of power (especially over death, which is a key part of the Course).

It is very possible therefore to take most of the course and slot it into an existing belief system and have it seem to mostly make sense. So then in order to bring the truth into the world, instead of bringing the world to the truth (in which it dissolves), people will try to sort of 'glue together' the broken pieces of out-of-context metaphysics, such as to say God made the world, the world is heaven on earth, the body can live forever, God made beautiful stuff in the world and sustains it, etc... none of that is in the course, but those finer points are easy to gloss over and ignore.

As I go back through the ACIM text and read it slowly and really digest it and ask myself what it is saying, how is it consistent, I continually see evidence that it is quite literally saying "there is no world" and that heaven and the world are completely opposed, that God did not create it - we did, that the world is something we 'made' as an attack on God, etc. Its not just our perception OF the attack that is an attack on God. The world ITSELF is fundamentally an attack on God, down to the very fabric of spacetime.

And on the point about perception, it is CLEAR in the text that the only point of having true perception (right mindedness) is that it parallels the One mind and allows us to transition to the one mind, which exists entirely beyond the world. Everything Jesus says clearly indicates this physical world is an ILLUSION and a dream and is not reality and never will be reality. It is VERY difficult for us ego humans to accept this as truth, and that is why the ego is extremely careful to disguise the evidence of this and gloss over the truth.

I guess I'm making this point because I continue to see prominent people 'teaching' other students with statements that seem to exalt the world and make it seem spiritual, but which is in fact the complete OPPOSITE of what the Course is actually teaching. As clearly defined in the Disappearance of the Universe, for example, which IS aligned with the Course's message, the world is basically a giant turd, metaphorically speaking, it holds nothing that we want, it is not our home, it is nothing more than a nightmare or bad dream, and IT WILL DISAPPEAR because it is not eternal.

It is quite a severe distortion of the Course's message when, within the wrong context, it can seem to be saying that the world will transform into heaven or the the world is God's 'movement' or that bodies are a permanent form of identification etc. The idea that the world is exalted and filled with any kind of truth is the absolute opposite of what the Course says and a total misinterpretation of its meaning. Imagine you believe an interpretation of truth that is 100% false. That's what many people are doing. To believe the world is our spiritual home is an absolute farce, and is precisely how the ego wants to INTERFERE with the Course and absolutely distort it to its aims of KEEPING ITSELF GOING.

The world isn't real.