The idea of death was made as the opposite of the idea of God. The separation from God was total opposition to God's nature. It's an assertion that God does not exist, blotted out and dead.
Whatever attributes God has, death is the idea of the total absence of all of those attributes. A total lack of life, of love, of happiness, of peace, of sharing. Anything that God is, death opposes.
"The thought of death is ... the opposite to thoughts of life." UrW167L8
God is creation, and so death is destruction. God is permanent, and so death is change. God is love, and so death is murder. God is reality, and so death is an illusion.
In order to oppose God, the truth must also be opposed. That which is false is asserted as true. True and false become swapped. The truth of God becomes a lie, and the lie of death becomes a reality.
As a result, all of the attributes of God are assigned to death, while all the attributes of nothingness are assigned to God.
Death is now seen as inevitable, real, permanent, eternal, irreversible, powerful, known, true, dependable, trustworthy, welcoming, wanted, attractive, loved, salvation, peace and happiness. God is now seen as uncertain, changing, vulnerable, hateful, vengeful, nothing, meaningless, lifeless, mindless, unloving, destructive, dark, murderous, unwanted, rejecting, an enemy, selfish, unsharing and unreal.
The result is that we have a belief in death, which takes on every possible form. It takes on physical form, as well as in the form of changes of mind, states of feeling, types of thoughts and senses of identity. Every illusion, all of space and time, every perception arises in the idea of God's opposite.
"Embodiment of fear, the host of sin, god of the guilty and the lord of all illusions and deceptions, does the thought of death seem mighty. For it seems to hold all living things within its withered hand; all hopes and wishes in its blighting grasp; all goals perceived but in its sightless eyes. The frail, the helpless and the sick bow down before its image, thinking it alone is real, inevitable, worthy of their trust. For it alone will surely come." UrW163L2
"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end?" UrM28A1
Anything less than the true nature of God is a form of death. This includes any sense of unhappiness, any notion of attack, any kind of sickness, any temptation, any desire for bodies, any false perceptions, any fear or guilt, any idol worship and any way that you see yourself and others as less than having eternal life.
There can't even be atoms and molecules and bodies and planets without the idea of death. Death is change and change is time and time is death. To be separated from life, from God, is to enter into an illusion of dying. Spacetime is the idea of the death of God, in which God appears to not exist.
"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except love's absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him." UrW230W32
"And the last to be overcome will be death." Of course! Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions born." UrM28A6
Every aspect of ego, every form of separation, every unloving relationship, every body worship is all a form of death. If you believe in anything but God's reality you believe in death and are trying to die. We came into this world precisely because we wanted to play with death and to pretend that we can die. We are immortal beings, making a world that is always dying in which we can pretend to die.
"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you." UrW191L9
Undoing death is resurrection. To resurrect is to side with eternal life and reject every form of death. Sickness, which is "a little death", must be forgiven and reversed. Death of a body must be reversible. And an entire world rooted in death must be undone. Without the idea of death, spacetime cannot exist. And without death, there is no world and no separation from God.
"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it into another world." UrT12G3
"Death is the symbol of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds It from awareness like a shield held to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms await to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction. Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature's "law of life." God is insane, and fear alone is real." UrM28A3
"The idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even the insane have difficulty in believing it." UrW163L7
"There is no death. The Son of God is free." UrW163
"There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their salvation and our own as well. God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. This the stand we take today. And it is given us to look past death and see the life beyond." UrW163L8
"There is no death, for death is not Your Will. And we abide where You have placed us, in the Life we share with You and with all living things, to be like You and part of You forever." UrW163L9
"This is the world of time, where all things end."
This should be fairly easy to understand. Time is the idea that what seems to be here now, cannot remain. It must change. It must stop being what it is.
This leads to realizing that time does not allow anything to be permanent. Everything becomes temporary. That means everything is forced to come to an end. Which means everything dies. And both birth and "death" are now part of a whole system of death, in which everything has the mark of death upon it, even from the outset of "new life".
Time is the very thing which seems to produce growth and change. It is the seeming driving force behind the beautiful flowers that grow from seed and bloom and share their fragrance for a little while, before time just as easily forces them to stop being this way, enforcing death and decay.
Time does not allow anything to remain as it is. It is an attack upon the idea of eternal life. It is a notion that what has always existed no longer exists, being the destruction of God himself. It essentially places God into the past and kills him off and converts him into some other mangled form. And even if it reflects glimpses of God it will only offer them temporarily.
The world, by which I mean planet Earth, but also the solar system, the galaxy and all the galaxies/interstellar objects, are all governed by time. Every particle of matter is governed by time. This means that everything in this system HAS to change, which produces a constant state of movement and the impossibility of perfect stillness. Nothing is ever allowed to rest and be truly at peace. Even the rocks sitting there for many years are gradually being changed and converted against their will. Nothing in the world or this "universe" can escape this.
"At no SINGLE instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered or anticipated, but NEVER experienced just now. Only its past and future make it seem real. Time controls it entirely. For sin is never present."
Since time enforces change, it enforces ends, which means it enforces death. Don't be deceived in thinking there are exceptions to this. Absolutely everything in the world has the mark of death upon it and will die, unless perhaps there is an interventional miracle from another world beyond the laws of time and space.
Time wants you dead. The very thing which seems to allow your body to move and change is also the very thing which is seeking its destruction. Time is the very thing which permits birth but also death. It is not picky about what state anything is in. Jesus is telling me to use the word "unscrupulous" here.
In a world of time, all things end. There can at best be seeming periods in which things seem to be fairly consistent, fairly constant, or even long-lasting, but they are never endless, and a time will come when they will end. These temporary illusions of almost-permanence mask the fact that the whole system is still gradually destroying itself. And if you fall for the illusion of believing that its presentation of "life" is at its maximum, you are blind to the fact that even the living are partly dead.
"There IS no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, their life must be. In ANY state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it SEEMS like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is NOT life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning."
Since there is no real eternal life outside of heaven, and Earth is a realm technically "outside" of heaven, or at least believed to be, it is not a world where there is real life, or maximum life. It is a world of death. This is because separation from heaven means the inducing of time and space, which is delay or avoidance or denial of reality.
So this whole system is set up for death. All the time it is devouring itself. All the time it is working on destroying itself. Sometimes it presents illusions of birth and newness and growth and prosperity, only to GUARANTEE that at some point it will just as easily take it all away without blinking an eyelid. And to some that may come as a shock or surprise, or something long put-off and avoided, as if it is not going to happen. But look at how everything you ever had in the world came to an end.
Essentially change is death. Although of course in this world it seems that you must change in order to "live", because the whole system is backwards. But change does not allow the immortal to remain immortal, and the eternal are brought into question by it. Without time you would live forever, but with time you are destined to be destroyed.
Jesus suggests that there is no hope of escape from death IN the world. You cannot stay IN time, and have there be no death. Time and space are both attacks on reality's nature. They cannot be combined or coexist. You cannot keep time, along with bodies moving and growing and so on, and still expect there to be no death. "Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped."
Read it carefully because it's telling you that there is NO WAY EVER to escape from problems WITHIN the world. The only way ultimately is to transcend it, rise above it, and eventually leave it. The whole system of spacetime will always entail death and destruction. It will not ever be heaven or offer eternal life. It cannot therefore save you and cannot save you from itself.
You HAVE to find a better way - another world, not of you, which God created perfect. The ONLY HOPE that you truly have is that this world is not real and is thankfully NOT doing what it appears to be doing. Do not be deceived into thinking that this world can ever be dressed up as a living world or a permanent world or a world of hope or a world of salvation and happiness. It is nothing and will never be true. All you really want is God.
"It might be worth a little time to think once more about the value of this world. Perhaps you will concede there is no loss in letting go all thought of value here. The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end."
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."
For a long time I have focused on "the secret of salvation". This is to do with realizing that you are the cause of everything you are experiencing. And therefore that you are responsible for all your own suffering. On the one hand it's humbling and on the other hand it's empowering, because if you can realize you're the one doing it you have the freedom to stop.
But l notice now that the secret of "how to be saved" applies in the case where you are not yet saved. It's helpful when you are in the suffering and need to get out of it. That's kind of the context of it, it's a tool you can use to recognize who is doing what to whom, so that you can stop doing it.
I have noticed also that with the secret of salvation, we are focusing a lot on taking responsibility. Which initially is seen as inciting guilt, and then moves into trying to be fully responsible for everything. But the further secret is, that if we try to take full responsibility ALONE, where "separate me" is fully responsible for everything, then we are still generating fearful outlooks, because depending on ourselves alone is a state of rejecting God.
So I've been locked into a stage for a while of trying to be fully responsible, but trying to take that responsibility in isolation, rather than GIVE that responsibility to the Holy Spirit. I feel that I personally am somewhat moving beyond this stage now and into more of the "I am saved" stage. By which I mean, I have recognized that it is my attempts to do anything "alone" that is the source of all suffering, because that's how I "be separate". And "I" can't be fully responsible without sharing that responsibility with God.
Whenever I try to be separate, I essentially am attacking myself, which makes errors, produces more ego fear, and induces suffering. This all comes about after I have judged and given meaning to things, using my own faculties for judging. Which means really, using my own past learning. This always leads to errors because it's lacking a lot of facts. And I keep being shown now just how wrong I can be when I don't know all the details.
So I'm now finding that if I admit to not knowing what anything means, and am willing to stop trying to judge anything I see, and instead seek out the Holy Spirit to join in his vision or interpretation, then this circumvents the whole process of going into error. Or rather, I guess I'm saying that if I seek the state of forgiveness sooner, then I don't go into judgement, and thus don't hurt myself. Which reminds me of this...
"Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven. "
This is what I am atuning to now. Trying to become closer to the Holy Spirit and more identified with my real self, so that I do not go INTO judgement or MAKE errors. Because as soon as you make errors, you'll start believing you've got a whole mess on your hands that you need to fix, problems to solve, fears to address and self-inflicted suffering to be undone. ALL of that can be avoided if you don't make the errors in the first place!
It's far more effective at preventing a movement INTO fear, when I try to remain OUT of the battlefield. Being willing to not be the one to judge, or decide, or plan, or figure out, or deduce meaning, I stay well out of the entire "fight" that we have with the world. If I don't do this and I go into solo-mode, ego pilot mode, then I start to "make a world" that's riddled with separations and conflicts and unresolved problems and threats and dangers.
I have been finding of late therefore that I actually feel... and this is a word Jesus just threw in my mind.... INSULATED.... against dangers. That is to say, I feel like there was an entire version of "the world" which I thought was out there, which has been scraped off the surface of my mind and isn't there anymore. An entire layer of experience and suffering and a sense of threat and engagement and littleness and fear. It's just gone. It's like I have stepped out of an entire world and it has disappeared. At least to a degree, and now I look upon what's left through much calmer and less aggravated perspectives.
I see now therefore what Jesus means about how false perception makes you see a world that looks like hell, and how as you move into more abstract states of mind you lift off of the world entire layers of vulnerability, fear, struggle and suffering. Its like a whole veil has been lifted to some degree, so much that I have been feeling like I'm in a different world. Like I literally just stepped out of one planet and am on another one where a lot of the strife doesn't exist.
And I am thankful for that, because there is a noticeable contrast between how much safer and calmer and happier I feel now without the tremendous burden of being some kind of "soldier on the battlefield" fending off the hounds of hell. I am simply not making as many errors, generating as much fear, producing as much control, making up as many problems, or developing as many meanings for things. And in fact as I look at objects now they appear to be new and fresh and interesting.
It's weird but Jesus basically says that we are to adopt a perspective in which everything is given ONE meaning, from a whole viewpoint where "wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles", where we look upon a forgiven world without trying to understand it, having given up all our past learning and become willing to be empty, to just surrender and let go of trying to know or do or control everything. I'm taking my hands off the steering wheel and the car is finding a a smoother path.
"The holy instant is the Holy Spirit's most useful learning device for teaching you love's meaning. For its purpose is to SUSPEND JUDGMENT ENTIRELY. Judgment ALWAYS rests on the past, for PAST experience is the basis on which you judge. Judgment becomes impossible without the past, for WITHOUT it you do NOT understand anything. You would make no ATTEMPT to judge, because it would be quite apparent to you that you do not know WHAT ANYTHING MEANS. You are afraid of this, because you believe that, WITHOUT THE EGO, all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that, without the ego, ALL WOULD BE LOVE."
If you are feeling unworthy or unwanted, know this.
In spacetime, cause and effect seem to occur whereby you cause something temporarily, it produces something temporary, and then the cause is withdrawn. As if it has deposited a creation and left it alone, essentially similar to the idea of birth.
Physical creations are like discarded pieces of trash, made momentarily and then forgotten about. In effect, its creator abandons it, does not want to maintain it, withdraws life from it, and leaves it to die alone.
What is deposited upon the Earth is merely thrown away, discarded and no longer nurtured by its creator. And being without a cause, it must die. This is true of all bodies and objects and forms, which are nothing but discarded rejects from a temporary creator who creates nothing that lasts and who wants none of his creations.
This is the metaphysical origin of feelings of unworthiness, of rejection by God, of being discarded and abandoned, of deserving death and of being orphaned in a trashcan of a world. If you ARE a body, then you are disconnected from your source, and your creator has rejected you as unworthy.
It is simply because you believe you are identified with something that is not permanent, came from a creator who does not permanently love you, were produced by a sinful evil cause who hated you and no longer wanted you, and who has left you for dead in a graveyard, lost and alone to wither and die.
No one can be sustained or maintained without a cause. Effects do not exist unless their cause is ongoing. You cannot step away from something, believing you have caused it, and have it remain. To do so is to reject and discard and abandon it to death. A creation which can exist on its own without its creator is a total illusion in this world. Without your creator you are nothing.
God is a permanent creator and he creates only that which is permanent, and he maintains you in his mind forever by his thought and will and power. He cannot ever stop loving you or stop creating you or sustaining you. That is why you are able to live forever, because he is permanently holding you in existence. You are forever ever-present and ever-perfect. He WANTS YOU permanently and so does NOT leave you.
Only in such a way can you BE worthy, or WANTED, or DESIRED by your creator, or VALUED enough to have permanent ongoing nurturing, support, maintenance and continued existence. Only if you were wanted FOREVER could you have eternal life. And this is how we have to learn to think of ourselves.
If we see ourselves as children of temporary parents, or deposits of a creator who has turned his back on us, or effects who have become orphaned from their cause, or fatherless sons, or motherless daughters, or in any way disconnected from our source, then we will see ourselves as unwanted. This is why all those walking the earth feel themselves to be unworthy, because they think they have become separate from God.
Separation is really the idea that cause and effect have become separated. That father and son have been separated. That the son no longer has a father. That the father is no longer a father and does not want a son. That the father has rejected the son and is trying to destroy him. And that the son has rejected the father and is trying to destroy him also. This MUST produce a sense of unworthiness because it means the father does not want the sons and does not value his life.
If you are the child of a permanent creator, who wants you permanently, and who can never stop wanting you, then you must be worthy and you must be wanted. If you are something lost and forgotten, discarded like a piece of trash, hated and reviled, evil and ugly, then obviously you're going to feel unworthy. Identifying with a body you MUST reject God and msut therefore feel valueless. The body is not worth ANYTHING, and if it is your self, then you have no creator.
A lack of worth therefore is nothing more than a breakdown in cause and effect. To be an effect without a cause, is to have been disowned. If you are disowned by your creator then what can that say of your value, who has turned his back and left you behind to suffer alone? Only if cause and effect are permanent can you be worthy of God. You cannot be some lump of flesh that was squirted out and became a separate thing, otherwise you ARE literally separate from your creator and are PHYSICALLY unwanted.
Fortunately God never leaves his children comfortless. He never abandons you. He never forgets you. He never stops loving and wanting you. He never finds you to be imperfect or worth discarding. He never stops suspending you in his mind, or making sure theat you live forever. He never leaves you and he never forsakes you. And most of all, he never fails to value you, because he has decided to hold you in his heart forever.
"You have not left me comfortless. I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to It."
"You do not walk alone. God's angels hover close, and all about. His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure: that I will never leave you comfortless."
"Before that, there was no need for healing and no-one was comfortless."
"It was accomplished FOR you by the Will of God, who has not left you comfortless."
"He will not leave you comfortless, nor fail to send His angels down to answer you in His Own Name."
"He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you."
"God did not leave His Children comfortless, even though they left Him."
"And he is entitled to everything, because it is his birthright as a Son of God."
"The Children of God are entitled to perfect comfort, which comes from a sense of perfect trust."
"God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ALL His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they, were created neither partially nor in part."
Is the miracle just for you, or for you to give to others also?
Did Jesus only experience miracles for Himself, or did He also share them with others?
When Jesus performed a forgiveness process, do you think that He was applying it only His personal, separate self and his own separate mind? Did the rules of forgiveness only work within his inner experience, or did they overflow onto others?
I am discovering something which I think has been majorly overlooked by the ACIM community. I overlooked it because I always thought "I" was doing the Course, therefore "I" was the one who needed forgiveness, that "I" should claim atonement for my ego self, and that therefore "I" am the only one who is going to benefit from forgiveness and miracles.
But the ego cannot claim the atonement for itself. So THAT "I" cannot be the Self that we are claiming the atonement for. Therefore if that I isn't the identity who experiences atonement, it must be an atonement that extends beyond that I, right? It must go beyond the ego self, and therefore the miracle MUST be shared with others. We MUST be awakening to a shared identity, which is a shared mind (minds that are joined cannot be sick), which means that whatever process of forgiveness and miracles I am applying, it CANNOT just apply to my "self".
I'm suddenly starting to see all manner of understandings about forgiveness, which I had applied to my "separate-me", suddenly applying to others. And as I look further into the idea of working "healing miracles" for others, it is starting to become glaringly obvious that the process of applying forgiveness "for my self" can actually be applied FOR another person.
In other words, this isn't all about me me me forgive myself. As within so without. The "in here" mind in this body is not all of my mind. The world "out there" is not outside of my mind. The out-there world is actually inside my mind because my mind CONTAINS the world. Now, we're talking about at the level of CHRIST here, not just the level of personal Higher-Self mind. The One Son, not the sonship.
I do believe that in ACIM Jesus is teaching us from a level of Christ much of the time, and that the truth's he's trying to point us to are at the Christ level, not just level 2 or 3. At the Christ level, the entire world is the ego, the entire world is an illusion, and the entire world is within my mind. Therefore, "other people" are also in my mind, they are part of my dreaming, their illusion of sickness and death showing up in form are aspects of MY delusions, and therefore I CAN heal their sickness by healing my "self" - ie returning to the Christ identity - the shared collective Christ consciousness.
That means the Course isn't just about me remaining separate - an ego - studying the Course in isolation, doing it "to myself" or "for myself", ie, for my separate identity. In order for miracles to express through me to "others", the rules of miracles must apply equally to the "me" that thinks it is separate inside this body, AND the "me" that is showing up externally. It is all One.
For example, when you look at someone else's body and you see sickness. If you believe it is real (God created it), there is an illusion in "the mind" relating to misperceiving that sickness. You think that illusion is in the mind that's in your body. So you go about a forgiveness process to correct that illusion seemingly in "your mind", to adjust your "personal perception", but it now means you see the other person's sickness correctly as an illusion. This however still leaves an illusion out there. The person is still sick. And in God's truth, illusions are not real, so that person cannot really be sick. Their illusory sickness must go!
So there is an "application" of a forgiveness process that is meant to be applied to OTHERS. This is the proper functioning of the "procedure" of performing a healing miracle for your brother. When bringing in the Holy Spirit and fulfilling your role as "asking for what you want" through commands, and are believing the person must be healed (per God logic) regardless of what *appearances* show, this means overlooking and thus forgiving the appearance of sickness being real.
The forgiveness is occurring in my mind and I move into a place of forgiveness, where I am not making errors, and where I do not see errors as real. And at the same time, that alignment with God will activate the Holy Spirit to flow through you. If you then express that the person is not sick but healthy, their body MUST respond and change to a healthy body.
My willingness to overlook the illusion of sickness in another, yes it heals my own mind if I have delusions about it, but once my mind is free of that delusion, I am now in a position of authority and power. And I am also now joining in mind with the brother. And I also no longer support their sickness. Therefore, as the loving thing to do, I can dispel it.
So what I'm seeing is, much of ACIM is taught as a sort of self-help program, focused on your separate self with no way to apply it to your brother, that you cannot apply it to them without splitting your mind, that you can only forgive yourself etc... but, there is confusion about IDENTITY here. WHO is being forgiven and that that leads to, is quite different.
You are the light of the world. You are the salvation of the world. That isn't passive. That isn't like just being a shiny light on a mountain top. It has power. It dispels illusions, not just at the personal-self level but at the united sonship level. This is why some of Jesus's teaching actually relate to being the Christ, in which all of the illusion exists, and the ability to overcome absolutely all physical laws.
You can wake up to your higher self at level 3, and be at peace with this world. But that will not necessarily grant you walking on water. To do that, you need to become the Christ.
And for the Christ, there are no limits.
"There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness, which is only a POTENTIAL in you."
Nothing belongs to you exclusively. Everything is shared by everyone inclusively. This is the law of God.
"We come in confidence today, aware that what belongs to us in truth is what He gives. And we would wish for nothing else, for nothing else belongs to us in truth."
"what is Yours belongs to me as well"
"As every gift my brothers give is mine, so every gift I give belongs to me."
"We ask no more than what belongs to us in truth."
"everything WE do belongs to you as well"
"God gives WHATEVER belongs to Him, because He gives OF HIMSELF, and EVERYTHING belongs to Him."
"Every loving thought held in ANY part (of the Sonship) belongs to every part."
"Sharing the perfect Love of the Father, the Son must share what belongs to Him, for otherwise He will not know the Father or the Son."
"And EVERYTHING belongs to each of them."
"What is God's BELONGS to everyone, and IS his due."
"The creations of every Son of God are yours, because every creation belongs to everyone, being created for the Sonship as a whole."
You have nothing that is yours alone. Which means you have nothing special or exclusive or just for you. This means you aren't special, have not been granted special favor, and don't have any treasures that belong just to you. This however doesn't mean you have nothing at all, because in fact you share everything with everyone. God's Kingdom is not a place of exclusive ownership. It's kind of like an open buffet. Everyone is welcome, everything is for everyone, everything belongs to everyone, and everyone has simultaneous access to everything. It's completely open and unlimited.
"Nothing real can be increased except by sharing."
God who is complete, cannot add anything to himself. He is already infinite and everywhere. He is kind of like a closed system that way. However, all parts of God host all of God, because every part of God is God. And this means every part of God shares the whole of God. All of God belongs to every part of God, and every part of God is whole.
God can therefore create by sharing himself. He hosts his creations within his own being, literally sharing his own existence. But this requires that anything he creates, must be created to purely and completely share all of himself. Any created being must have full access to everything God has, and must inherit everything from him.
Inheriting from God does not mean you receive a windfall that's exclusively just for you. It's not like winning the lottery. Everything that exists still belongs to God, and is him. But he creates you by allowing you to share everything he has. He gives himself to you in your creation. You inherit God, and inherit everything from God, but God is a co-owner of everything he shares.
"I who am host to God AM worthy of Him."
"When God GAVE Himself to you in your creation, He ESTABLISHED you as host to Him forever."
"And yet, it is your mind that IS the host to Him."
"The mind is then in a state of Grace, and naturally becomes gracious, both to the Host within and the stranger without. By bringing in the stranger, he becomes your brother."
This means that you are created to share everything, and the only way you can exist at all is if you share absolutely everything. God cannot add anything onto the outside of himself, so can only share what is inside of himself. You are hosted by God within his own being, and your entire function must be to share everything openly and fully. Only by sharing it can you have it at all, and you must be willing to give it all in order to have it.
This creates an environment in the Kingdom that we might describe as a totally open society. It's a relationship in which everyone has total full access to everything at all times. Everyone has all of God. Everyone is plugged into God. Everyone has FULL access to everything that exists, simultaneously and in parallel. One being having full access does not deprive any other being any kind of access. Their access overlaps.
"You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did."
"This IS the miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT."
You can exist only if God shares everything that exists with you. And now both of you have everything that already exists. And you can only exist if you are willing to fully share everything that exists with everyone else. Which means that no-one anywhere in the Kingdom has anything that anyone else lacks, and no-one lacks anything that anyone else has. Everything belongs to everyone forever.
This also leads to the fact that no-one can have anything that belongs ONLY to them. You have absolutely nothing that is yours alone. The ego begs to differ, because "the ego is the idea of selfishness." It is the part of you that believes in specialness and in exclusivity. It wants to have everything for itself, such that it shares nothing with anyone. The ego is the antithesis of sharing and openness, and wants exclusive rights, ownership and control. It was the desire not to share that led to the separation. "You were at peace until you asked for special favor, and God did not give it."
What this leads to is the truth that, in and of yourself, by yourself, alone, you have absolutely NOTHING that belongs exclusively to you. Nothing you can put your name tag on, nothing you can say is legally yours, nothing that is just yours and no-one else's. If it seems that you have such things, possessions, toys, clothes, cars, houses, bodies, whatever, which seem to be exclusively "yours", and no-one else's, then you are aligned with the ego.
We need to recognize that in and of our own selves, we can do nothing. We have no life without God. We have no power without God. We have NOTHING without God. You don't even have any existence without God. You have nothing that is personal just to you which is yours alone. Nothing belongs just to you. In effect, you are utterly powerless and tiny and weak and afraid and empty and non-existent if it all boils down to "what is only mine".
"I am nothing without the Father, and YOU are nothing without me because by DENYING the Father you deny YOURSELF."
"The presence of fear is a sure sign that you are trusting in your own strength."
"Here again is the paradox often referred to in the course. To say, "Of myself I can do nothing" is to gain all power. And yet it is but a seeming paradox. As God created you, you have all power. The image you made of yourself has none."
This is where it becomes interesting. You alone, on your own, in isolation, have absolutely NOTHING. That is to say, ignoring God for a moment, ignoring your inheritance, ignoring anything that anyone else has, you actually have absolutely ZERO "for yourself'. Zero that is "of you". Nothing that has been sourced in you, that you have invented, within yourself, which is unshared or belongs to you alone.
That really means that you don't have any kind of special talents or abilities that can be said to "make you unique". You don't have any special "super powers" that others lack. You don't have any exclusive "something", some kind of special secret treasure, that no-one else has. You don't have any possessions that really are yours alone, which is easily proven by the fact that anyone can take them away from you, and they all can be lost, because they were never really yours to begin with.
So you are empty. Without God, you are nothing. Without God you don't even have existence. HOWEVER, you are not without God. If you are willing to go beyond your ego, you in fact regain access to your inheritance. You become once again a member of the Sonship. You open up to receiving your inheritance, which is everything real, in exchange for giving up the NOTHING that you have otherwise. "We will gain EVERYTHING by giving HIM the power and the
glory, and keeping NO illusions of where they are."
"As You created me, I can give up nothing You gave me. What You did not give has no reality. What loss can I anticipate except the loss of fear, and the return of Love into my mind?"
"for the simple willingness to give up nothing, BECAUSE it is nothing" "Is it a sacrifice to give up nothing, and to receive the Love of God forever?"
"Of yourself you can do none of these things."
"Specialness is the function that you gave yourself. It stands for you alone, as self-created, self-maintained, in need of nothing, and unjoined with anything beyond the body. In its eyes, you are a separate universe, with all the power to hold itself complete within itself, with every entry shut against intrusion, and every window barred against the light."
So here are your options. On the one hand you have what the ego is offering, which is absolutely nothing, disguised as something special and rare, something which is exclusive just for you, something special, which makes you important and unique and different. But which really is made of nothing at all, and is not something you can really have, nor can it last forever. And by trying to have it, you may seem to gain the fictional world, and lose your soul.
"What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?" The alternative on offer, is that you are invited as a guest to join in the Kingdom of God, in which you are allowed to participate openly, freely, and fully. Provided that you are willing to share everything that exists with everyone. And provided you are willing to share your entire self with everyone. And provided you are willing to grant everyone total free access to everything at all times.
And provided you do not in any way attempt to hoard anything for yourself, to have any trace of selfishness, nor to regard anything as belonging ONLY to you. That nothing belongs ONLY to you doesn't mean you have nothing, only that what you HAVE isn't ONLY yours to have and must be shared. You DO have power, but it only so long as you acknowledge that you SHARE this power with God and with everyone. To take it away from them, to have it just for you, is to strip it from yourself and be powerless.
Provided you are willing to enter into a relationship with the whole sonship, where everything belongs to everyone equally, then you can enter the Kingdom of God. To receive your inheritance isn't to receive a big special christmas gift that no-one else gets to play with. All things that are real, that you can actually HAVE, have to belong to everyone. It belongs to God, it belongs to you, AND it belongs to all your brothers. And everyone can access all of it all the time at the same time. "To have all, give all to all."
So you can either have basically nothing for yourself, disguised as receiving the illusory riches of the world, which appear to be valuable bullshit items that you don't even really want, and which have no real value, but which appear to be extremely valuable treasures. Or, you can openly share non-exclusive rights with everyone, to own ALL of the Kingdom of God, ALONG WITH God and with everyone else, in which everything belongs to everyone.
The gifts of God are given in order to "passed forward". He gives you the power to create, so that you can share and give what you have been given. Quite simply, "give what you have been given" is the only rule of the system. Give the love that God has given you. Nothing is ever given to just you alone, it is given FOR everyone.
"The therapist does not heal; he LETS HEALING BE. HE can point to darkness, but he CANNOT bring light OF HIMSELF, for light is NOT of him. But being FOR him, it MUST be for his patient."
"Healing must be for everyone"
"It MUST be for your brother, BECAUSE it is for you."
"The gifts you have are not for you alone. What He has come to offer you, you now must learn to give. This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved you from the solitude you sought to make, in which to hide from God."
"It will NOT be for you alone, for therein lay its misery."
"Atonement is for all, because it is the way to UNDO the belief that ANYTHING is for you ALONE."
"Would God have created a Voice for you alone? Could you hear His answer EXCEPT as He answers ALL of God's Sons?"
"Salvation IS His Will BECAUSE you share it. NOT for you alone, but for the Self which IS the Son of God."
"The contrast is far greater than you think, for you will love this concept of yourself, BECAUSE IT WAS NOT MADE FOR YOU ALONE."
Quite simply, you either can be utterly powerless, afraid, weak, lacking, deprived, miserable, sick, unhappy, lost, desperate, improverished, bereft, and empty, OR .... you can acknowledge that the ONLY real thing you can HAVE is everything God has given already, and you can ONLY have it IF YOU ARE WILLING TO SHARE IT. Be selfish and end up alone and with nothing, or share with everyone and gain everything there is to have.
You can truly have what EVERYONE has, and only by ackowledging that it belong to them as well, OR you will end up empty handed. To try to take possession of some part of heaven for yourself, all of heaven will slip through your fingers. The more you try to own something, the less you have it. The more you try to depend on yourself alone, the less you become able to deal with life. The more you try to "go it alone", the more helpless you become.
God is your strength! His shared strength is literally YOUR strength. Without God, you have no strength at all. Of yourself you are nothing and have nothing. He is the battery-pack which fuels your power. However, because you are OF GOD, you HAVE EVERYTHING AND ARE EVERYTHING. God's power belongs to you, God's life belongs to you, God's entire creation belongs to you.
Everything real is YOURS. It is not just partly yours, it is FULLY yours. But it is also fully everyone's. You cannot have it by grasping for it to keep it for yourself, you can ONLY have it by acknowledging that it is EVERYONE'S RIGHT. And therefore you have to be open to GIVING IT. You must give what you have received, be open to sharing what you have, and everything must belong to everyone.
To admit that you have nothing SPECIAL about you, is humility. But this does not leave you powerless. It simply leaves you without a SPECIAL power that you invented. It strips you of your "super powers", your fictional sense of personal strength, and your illusion that you can do this ON YOUR OWN. You cannot do ANYTHING on your own. You are helpless and powerless on your own. The ONLY way you can live at all is to join with God and let him help you.
This is why you have to surrender your ego. You simply can't do life by yourself. When you try to you will depend on your own exclusive strength, which is pitiful at best and nothing at worst. And you will not be able to deal with anything. Only WITH God do you have stength. Only WITH God do you have anything at all! But with God, you are ALL POWERFUL. With God, you CAN DO ANYTHING.
"You can do ANYTHING I ask." "The power to work miracles belongs to you." "There is nothing my holiness cannot do." "Do his works." "What the holy spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world."
"He brings you gifts that are not of this world, and only he, to whom they have been given, CAN make sure that you receive them. He will place them on YOUR throne, when you make room for him on his."
"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you CAN see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them. Perceiving His RESULTS, you will understand where He MUST be, and finally KNOW what He is."
"God gives WHATEVER belongs to Him, because He gives OF HIMSELF, and EVERYTHING belongs to Him."
"The Unity that specialness denies will save them all, for what is One can HAVE no specialness. And EVERYTHING belongs to each of them."
"It knows that it is EVERYWHERE, just as it has EVERYTHING and FOREVER." "No-one who knows that he has everything could seek for limitation, nor COULD he value the body's offerings."
"Being wholly pure, everyone joined in it HAS everything. This is NOT the basis for ANY love relationship in which the ego enters. For EVERY relationship on which the ego embarks IS special."
"No-one who has everything WANTS the ego. Its own maker, then, DOES NOT WANT IT."
"Who would have more OR less is not aware that he has everything."
"Innocence is INCAPABLE of sacrificing anything, because the innocent mind HAS everything and strives only to PROTECT its Wholeness."
"When EVERYONE has EVERYTHING, individual contributions to the Sonship will no longer be necessary."
"Your inheritance can neither be bought NOR sold. There can BE no disinherited parts of the Sonship, for God is whole, and all his extensions are like Him."
"Glory is your inheritance, given your Soul by its Creator, that you might EXTEND it."
"Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned BELONGS to them."
God is wholeness, or Holiness. He is the whole of everything, everywhere. There is no lack in Him. He is unlimited and infinite. He is omnipresent. He is the all in all.
"The mark of Wholeness is Holiness"
"God is all in all in a very literal sense. All being is in Him because He IS all Being. YOU are therefore in Him because YOUR being IS His."
Every part of God contains all of God. All of God is everywhere. All of God is shared, within Himself, with all of Himself. All of God has access to all of God. And all of God is God.
"The Will of God is without limit, and all power and glory lie within it. It is boundless in strength and in love and in peace. It has no boundaries because its extension is unlimited, and it encompasses all things because it CREATED all things."
God cannot access anywhere that He does not exist, and there is nothing outside of God. He already exists everywhere, so there is nowhere to be added, and no space to add into.
"Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else. Nothing OUTSIDE THIS Oneness, and NOTHING ELSE within."
God cannot create an external space, nor can he add a separate thing outside of Himself. He cannot "tack on" any kind of a creation to the outside of Himself.
The internal nature of God, however, is one of sharing. God fully shares with Himself. He is fully open. He loves Himself, and therefore gives Himself to Himself.
"Nothing that is real can be increased EXCEPT by sharing it. That is why God Himself created you. Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what creation MEANS."
Within God, within His mind, within His being, there is total unlimited sharing. This sharing is a transcendence of space and time and limitation. It enables God to be a host, and to share Himself by giving Himself.
"Everything He created is given ALL His power because it is part of Him and shares His Being WITH Him."
"Being is known by sharing. Because God shared His Being with you, you can know Him."
"Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in His Being He encompasses all things. No mind holds anything but Him."
"You cannot separate your SELF from YOUR Creator, who created YOU by sharing HIS Being WITH you."
"I am forever host to God."
God wants to give Himself because it is His nature to share everything. This giving is what we call love, or life. It also leads to what we call projection, extension, or creation. Love loves itself.
"God shares His Fatherhood with you who are His Son"
"God shares His function with you in Heaven"
"Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what creation MEANS."
"projecting outward of God. That is why everything which He Created is like Him."
God is able to share Himself, within Himself, and can extend Himself as what we call Thoughts or Creations. These thought-creations can only occur provided they inherit the whole of God, and in turn share His will to share the whole of themselves.
"Creation is the sum of all God's Thoughts, in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit. Only Love creates, and only like Itself."
"God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind."
"Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul." "ALL princes INHERIT their power from the Father"
"the Children of the Father inherit from Him"
"Glory is your inheritance, given your Soul by its Creator, that you might EXTEND it."
Any thought-creation of God can only share what they are given, and can only give what they inherit. They also must create by sharing, and can only create by sharing, by hosting within their own being.
"By CREATING all things, it made them PART OF ITSELF. YOU are the Will of God, because this is how you were created. Because your Creator creates only like Himself, you ARE like Him."
"accept the Thought of God as its inheritance."
"Perceiving the majesty of God AS your brother is to accept your OWN inheritance."
"The inheritance of the Kingdom is the right of God's Son, given him in his creation."
Creation, therefore, really occurs as a kind of internal expansion, or a giving inward. God shares the whole of Himself, which produces creative thoughts, which must inherit the whole of God, and be wholly like God. "The Father and the Son are not identical, but you CAN say "Like Father, LIKE Son."
"GOD gave you the function to create in eternity."
"God gave Himself to BOTH of you in equal love"
"God GAVE you Heaven"
"God GAVE you all there is."
God also can only share wholly, or fully. He cannot only partially give, or partially create, or partially share. When He shares, He creates wholly, and creates only wholeness. And anything He creates must be completely whole. "Each part you remember adds to YOUR wholeness, because each part IS whole." "which recognizes the wholeness of God's creation and BY this recognition knows its Creator."
"That is the law of God, for the protection of the wholeness of His Son." "God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ALL His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they, were created neither partially nor in part."
This means that any creation of God, any extension of God, MUST be a completely whole creation. It must be fully given, fully established, fully sharing, and fully created.
"This is the ONLY love that is fully given, AND FULLY RETURNED."
"We have also emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also been created perfect."
This leads to the FULL creation of living thought-beings, ideas of children, which are the living thoughts of God. Each is a miracle, and each inherits absolutely everything from God. Each HAS everything, and IS everything. "You ARE the Kingdom of Heaven"
"You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did."
"God and HIS miracles are inseparable."
Absolute wholeness is passed down and is SHARED by every creation. Therefore, two things become true. 1) Every thought-creation is a completely autonomous being who is a whole fully-created being, and 2) Each being shares AND IS the whole of creation.
"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy."
This results in a scenario where each Son of God literally IS God, and is PART of God, and IS EACH OTHER. There can only truly be one whole, which must be shared by EACH whole. And therefore each whole is the one whole. This is what oneness really means.
"The wholeness of God, which IS His peace, cannot be appreciated EXCEPT by a whole mind, which recognizes the wholeness of God's creation and BY this recognition knows its Creator."
"God's wholeness IS the wholeness of his Son."
This means that each Son of God IS the other Sons of God, as well as being an individual Son of God. "Individual" does mean "undivided". And thus each brother is all brothers. And every soul is part of God. And every child of God is every other child of God. And all of them share the same whole - all of themselves - with all the rest.
"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."
"For your Father wills you to know your brother AS yourself."
"to know your brother IS to know God."
This produces the Sonship, which is the family of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. And having inherited everything from God, as His perfect extensions, each Son of God is a fully created being and has SO much freedom and autonomy that they are established as TRUE co-creators - free-willed "separate" beings.
"the Sonship is your Soul"
"you are part of God, and the Sonship is one"
"in a relationship in which ALL the Sonship is together blessed"
"Think not HE wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him. He would but KEEP your will forever and forever limitless." "If you believe that all of the Souls that God created ARE His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul MUST be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship."
This doesn't merely mean that they just do God's bidding, or that he dangles them like puppets, or that they are slaves to His will. They have been WHOLLY created, and therefore do in fact have free independent will. But remember that, at the same time, this will is ALSO shared with everyone. And to remain free it has to be shared, yet still retain freedom.
"The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given."
Blessed with free will, in a sense "free from God", or as "separate beings", individuality has been established. They are individual because they are whole in and of themselves. Yet they are one because they share everything.
"For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my Will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them, and Him Who has created me."
"be reminded of His Son, our holy Self, the Christ in each of us"
"every member of the family of God must return"
They now proceed to naturally share everything that they have, because this is their one nature. They can only share everything because it is by the sharing of everything that they exist at all.
"You HAVE the power to ADD to the Kingdom, but NOT to add to the Creator OF the Kingdom."
"We said before that WHAT you project is up to you, but it is NOT up to you WHETHER to project, for projection is a law of mind."
"Every mind MUST project, because that is how it lives, and every mind IS life."
So in turn they create their own creations by sharing everything and hosting them within their own mind and being, just like and with God. And as such the Kingdom continues to expand internally as a continuous line of extension and creation.
"all loving creation is freely given. Nothing in either of these statements implies any sort of level involvement, or, in fact, anything except one continuous line of creation, in which all aspects are of the same order." "As God's creative Thought proceeds FROM Him TO you, so must YOUR creative thoughts proceed FROM you to YOUR creations."
"YOUR creations belong in YOU, as YOU belong in God. You are part of God, as your sons are part of His Sons. To create is to love. Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained. Being limitless, it DOES NOT STOP. It creates forever"
"YOUR creations add to Him, as YOU do. But nothing is added that is different, because everything has always BEEN"
Wholeness, within wholeness, shared by the whole, in which each whole is the one whole, and all wholes are one. And yet at the same time, there are many wholes because God constantly shares itself. And all living beings therefore continually create and extend and think and give, and the increase of the Kingdom is endless.
"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father. Know then the Sons of God, and you will know ALL Creation."
"And BEING loving, they are like the Father, and therefore cannot die."
"A co-creator with the Father must have a Son (your creations). Yet must this Son (your sons) have been created like Himself. A perfect Being, all-encompassing and all-encompassed (by you and your brothers and God), nothing to add and nothing taken FROM; not born of size nor weight nor time, nor held to limits or uncertainties of ANY kind."
"You do not know YOUR creations, because you do not know your brothers who created them WITH you."
"for in him you will find your creations, because he created them WITH you."
The simple fact that God, who is whole, gives the whole of himself, wholly, to wholly create whole beings, who share the whole of himself, alignes exactly with the holographic principle. That the whole is in every part, and every contains and IS the whole, and every part is the SAME whole. And therefore all the wholes are one.
This is why heaven is a truly holographic structure. Not holographic in the sense of 3d projected images - which have nothing to do with holograms. But in the sense that the whole of God is in every creation of God, and every creation of God IS the whole.
"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is PERFECTLY natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to you."
This is what heaven is like. It is not some singular blob that sits there by itself. It is not just some kind of singular oneness which doesn't create or extend. It isn't populated by God alone. It is not devoid of individuality. Nor is it devoid of relationships or free will. It is host to an entire family of unlimited thought-beings, and every part of it is part of God, and part of you, and of your own spirit-children.
"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually"
"Each Soul knows God completely."
"By HIS willingness to share it, He becomes as dependent on you, as you are on HIM."
"God is as dependent on you as you are on Him, because HIS autonomy ENCOMPASSES yours, and is therefore incomplete WITHOUT it."
"TOTALLY dependent on their One Creator for EVERYTHING"
"God and the Souls He created ARE symbiotically related. They are COMPLETELY dependent on each other."
"God created Souls so He could depend on them BECAUSE He created them perfectly."
This is why certain other conceptual models of reality are not a good fit. Traditional ideas of oneness don't quite cut it, because they fail to acknowledge that oneness MUST share itself, MUST extend, and MUST be given to create.
Ideas of non-duality don't cut it either, because God is a creator and HAS to create whole expressions of Himself, forming a divine family. He does not will to be alone, or that you be alone, or that you will beings that are alone. All of heaven is about creation and sharing and openness and inter-dependence.
"the whole family of God, or the Sonship"
"the Holy Family"
"If you created GOD and He created you, the KINGDOM could not increase through its OWN creative thought. Creation would therefore be limited, and you would NOT be co-creators WITH God. As God's creative Thought proceeds FROM Him TO you, so must YOUR creative thoughts proceed FROM you to YOUR creations. In this way only can ALL creative power EXTEND OUTWARD. God's accomplishments are NOT yours. But yours are LIKE His. HE created the Sonship, and YOU increase it. You HAVE the power to ADD to the Kingdom, but NOT to add to the Creator OF the Kingdom."
"The Kingdom is forever extending, because it is in the Mind of God."
"Your gifts TO the Kingdom are like His to YOU."
"God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you, who are co-creators with Him, extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit."
"And His Sons, who create LIKE Him, follow it gladly, knowing that the INCREASE of the Kingdom depends on it, just as THEIR creation did."
"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father. Know then the Sons of God, and you will know ALL Creation."
"The Kingdom of Heaven IS you."
"You, too, have a Kingdom which your Soul has created."
"I have a kingdom I must rule."
"God HAS kept your kingdom for you"
"Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world."
"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer."
"The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God, who left not his Father, and dwells not apart from Him."
"His Kingdom has no limits and no end, and there is nothing in Him that is not perfect and eternal."
"For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom."
"The inheritance of the Kingdom is the right of God's Son, given him in his creation."
"My Kingdom is not of this world, because it is in YOU. And YOU are of your Father."
"Because you are all the Kingdom of God, I can lead you back to your own creations"
"What God calls one will be forever one, NOT separate. His Kingdom IS united; thus it was created, and thus will it ever be."
"The Kingdom of Heaven is the right of the Soul, whose beauty and dignity are beyond doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the mark of the love of God for His Creations, who are wholly worthy of Him and ONLY of Him. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a gift for a creation of God Himself."
"A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at ALL levels. Illness, which is really "not Right Mindedness", is the result of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the misbelief that what is amiss in one level can adversely affect another."
"All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion which created magic rested on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter, which can control the mind."
"It was the first level of the error to believe that the body created its own illness. Thereafter, it is a second mis-step to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents."
"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?"
"The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND'S FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND'S JOY."
"LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect. What you would prove to him you will believe."
"All sickness comes from a confusion of the levels."
"Sickness is but another form of guilt."
"Do not allow yourselves to suffer from the results of what is not true. Free your minds from the belief that this is possible. In its complete impossibility, and your full awareness of its complete impossibility, lies your only hope for release."
"Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception. And like all the rest, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself."
"Sickness is a defense against the truth."
"Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are you sick that truth may go away, and threaten your establishments no more."
"The body cannot heal, because it cannot MAKE ITSELF SICK. It NEEDS no healing. Its health or sickness depends ENTIRELY on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose that the mind would use it FOR."
"The ego SEPARATES through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches THROUGH it to others. You do not perceive your brothers as the Holy Spirit does because you do not interpret their bodies AND YOURS solely as a means of JOINING THEIR MINDS and uniting them with yours and mine. This interpretation of the body will change your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has NONE. If you use it for attack it is harmful to you. But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of those who believe they ARE bodies and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of you. If you use the body for this, and ONLY for this, you CANNOT use it for attack. In the service of uniting, it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion IS. "
"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."
"The IDEA of separation PRODUCED the body, and remains connected TO it, MAKING it sick because of its identification WITH it. ... "You THINK you are PROTECTING the body by HIDING this connection. For this concealment SEEMS to keep your identification safe from the "attack" of truth. If you but understood how much this strange concealment has hurt your mind, and how confused your own identification has become to you, BECAUSE of it! You do not see how great the devastation wrought by your faithlessness. For faithlessness is an attack, which SEEMS to be justified by its RESULTS. For, by withholding faith, you see only what IS unworthy of it, and cannot look BEYOND the barrier to what is joined with you."
"Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another Name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him."
"Thus are you JOINED in sickness, to preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherished, and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that leads to Him."
"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved. "
"Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make the separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount."
"Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health, is to recognize in hatred the call for love."
"What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive yourself defenseless and in hell. Yield not to this, and you will see all pain in every form wherever it occurs but disappear as mists before the sun."
"Only the wholly insane could look on death and suffering, sickness and despair, and see it thus. What guilt has wrought is ugly, fearful, and very dangerous. See no illusion of truth and beauty there."
"Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death, to their believers. The form in which they are accepted is irrelevant. No form of misery, in reason's eyes, can be confused with joy."
"Any form of mental illness can truthfully be described as an expression of viciousness. We said before that those who are afraid are apt to be vicious. If we were willing to forgive other people's misperceptions of us, they could not possibly affect us at all."
"Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. I have tried to give my inheritance away in exchange for the world I see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me."
"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone."
"For example, do not say, 'God did not create illness', but, 'God did not create cancer,' or heart attacks, or whatever may arouse fear in you. ... This is your personal repertory of horrors at which you are looking.These things are part of the world you see. Some of them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell. It does not matter.What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His. Therefore, it has no meaning."
"The gap IS little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every form of ill, because it is a WISH to keep apart, and NOT to join. And thus it seems to give a CAUSE to sickness which is NOT its cause. The PURPOSE of the gap is all the cause that sickness has. For it was made to keep you separated in a body which you see as if it were the CAUSE of pain. The cause of pain is separation, NOT the body, which is only its EFFECT."
"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."
"Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free. In pain is God denied the Son He loves. In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery."
"Pain demonstrates the body must be real. It is a loud, obscuring voice, whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness. Pain compels attention, drawing it away from Him, and focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means TO MAKE THE BODY REAL. What shares a common purpose IS the same. This is the law of purpose, which unites all those who share in it within itself. Pleasure and pain are EQUALLY unreal, because their purpose CANNOT be achieved. Thus are they means for nothing, for they have a goal without a meaning. And they share the lack of meaning that their PURPOSE has. "
"Sin shifts from pain to pleasure, and again to pain. For EITHER witness is the same, and carries but one message, "You are here, WITHIN this body, and you CAN be hurt. You can have pleasure, too, but ONLY at the cost of pain."
"Pain is a wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes which will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclaims God cruel. How could it be real in any form? It witnesses to God the Father's hatred of His Son; the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane desire for revenge and death. Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false?"
"Pain is but witness to the Son's mistakes in what he thinks he is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love Which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love."
"If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. But to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father IS the acknowledgment of yourself as you ARE. Your Father created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."
"Of one thing you were sure; of all the many causes you perceived as bringing pain and suffering to you, your guilt was NOT among them. Nor did you, in ANY way, REQUEST them for yourself. This is how ALL illusions come about. The one who makes them does NOT see himself as making them, and their reality does NOT depend on him. Whatever cause they have is something quite APART from him, and what he sees is SEPARATE from his mind. "
"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes. "
"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. "
"Delay will hurt you now MORE THAN BEFORE, ONLY because you realize it IS delay, and that escape from pain IS REALLY POSSIBLE. Find hope and comfort, rather than despair, in this. You could no longer find even the ILLUSION of love in ANY special relationship here."
"This makes it an end and not a means in your interpretation, and this ALWAYS means YOU STILL FIND SIN ATTRACTIVE. No-one accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his goal. You have thus not met your one responsibility. Atonement is not welcomed by those who PREFER pain and destruction."
"You are accustomed to the notion that the mind can see the source of pain where it is not. The doubtful service of displacement is to hide the REAL source of your guilt, and KEEP from your awareness the full perception THAT IT IS INSANE."
"This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies: "I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."
"I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son."
"Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness. Yet, in these dark and heavy garments, are those who seek illusions covered, and hidden from the joy of truth. Truth is the opposite of illusions, because it offers joy."
"No risk is possible throughout the day except to put your trust in magic, for it is only this that leads to pain. There is no will but God's."
"And to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause, and with no power to accomplish anything. It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not exist. And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence like itself. You have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will of God."
"To the ego, the body IS TO ATTACK WITH Equating YOU with the body, it teaches that YOU are to attack with, because THIS IS WHAT IT BELIEVES. The body, then, is not the source of its own health. Its condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function. "
"These are not laws, but madness. The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your 'laws' would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body."
"Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to YOU. UNLESS you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly WANT them."
I'm posting these quotes which focus on the ways that this world - Earth - is not created by God, is unlike God, and is the world WE made.
I'm posting these not in order to "be negative" or to attack the world or to make the world out to be something it's not. Nor am I trying to correct perception with these quotes - the true-perception view of this world is an entirely different topic.
I'm just offering a willingness to LOOK AT and recognize that ACIM is teaching that God DID NOT create this world, and that this is clearly stated. If God HAD created this world, the world itself would be perfect and would NOT be something requiring forgiveness, or needing salvation, and there would be no function for the Holy Spirit. The world HAS to be opposite to God's will in order for there to be any point to forgiveness at all.
"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end."
"The world stands like a block before Christ’s face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear."
"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place?"
"For where God’s memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it."
"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it, into another world."
"Love always answers, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made, and do not want. 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."
"To give this sad world over, and exchange your errors for the peace of God, is but YOUR will."
"He MUST deny the world of pain, the instant he perceives the arms of love around him. "
"Your Father knoweth that you have need of nothing. In Heaven this is so. For what could you need in eternity? In YOUR world you DO need things, because it is a world of scarcity, in which you find yourself BECAUSE you are lacking."
"God’s Son is not a traveler through OUTER worlds. However holy his perception may become, no world OUTSIDE himself holds his inheritance."
"Salvation FROM the world lies ONLY here. My peace I GIVE you. TAKE it of me, in glad exchange for all the world has offered but to TAKE AWAY."
"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought which gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."
"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except love’s absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him. Here was perception born, for knowledge could not cause such insane thoughts. But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely."
"We must save the world. For we who made it must behold it through the eyes of Christ"
"The world you see cannot be the world God loves"
"It is not the world that makes peace seem impossible. It is the world you see that is impossible."
"I am come as a light into the world which DOES deny itself everything. It does this simply by dissociating itself from everything. It is therefore an illusion of isolation, MAINTAINED by fear of the same loneliness which is its illusion."
"My purpose, then, IS to overcome the world. I do not attack it, but my light must dispel it because of WHAT IT IS. Light does not ATTACK darkness, but it does shine it away."
"The world MUST despise and reject me, because the world IS the belief that love is impossible. YOUR reactions to me ARE the reactions of the world to God."
"My Kingdom is not of this world because it is in you. And you are of your Father. Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from beyond this world."
"If you will accept the fact that I am with you, you are denying the world and accepting God."
"The world can add nothing to the power and the glory of God and His Holy Sons, but it can blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it."
"You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true."
"The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist."
"This world is not where you belong. You are a stranger here."
"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer."
"Except for God’s teachers there would be little hope of salvation, for the world of sin would seem forever real. The self-deceiving must deceive, for they must teach deception. And what else is hell?"
"The world will end in an illusion, as it began. "
"The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment."
"When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be."
"The world will end when its thought system has been completely reversed."
"The final lesson, which brings the ending of the world, cannot be grasped by those not yet prepared to leave the world and go beyond its tiny reach."
"The world will end in joy, because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come, the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in peace, because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will end in laughter, because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep?"
"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function."
""What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?""
"The world is very tired, because it IS the IDEA of weariness. "
"Memory rises in your mind, peace must still surmount a final obstacle, AFTER which is salvation completed, and the Son of God ENTIRELY restored to sanity. For here your world DOES end."
"It seems to you the world will utterly abandon you, if you but raise your eyes. Yet all that WILL occur is YOU will leave the world forever. This is the re-establishment of YOUR will."
"The world is nothing in itself. "
"Perhaps you think you did not make the world, 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 when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly."
"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again."
"Today’s idea is true because the world does not exist."
"Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world."
"There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to your eternal state. How can a world of time and place exist if you remain as God created you?"
"There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere? Deny illusions, but accept the truth. Deny you are a shadow briefly laid upon a dying world."
"On this side of the bridge, you see the world of separate bodies, seeking to join each other in SEPARATE UNIONS, and to become one BY LOSING. "
"Never forget the world the sightless "see" must be imagined. "
"This they do not believe. And so they keep the world they learned to "see" in their imagination, believing that their choice is that, or nothing. They hate the world they learned through pain. And everything they think is in it serves to remind them that they are incomplete and bitterly deprived. Thus they DEFINE their life and where they live it, adjusting to it as they think they must, afraid to lose the little that they have. And so it is with all who see the body as all they have, and all their brothers have. They try to reach each other, and they fail. And fail again. And they adjust to loneliness, believing that to keep the body is to save the little that they have."
"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its power declines if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel."
"If this were the real world, God WOULD be cruel. For no father could subject his children to this as the price of salvation, and be loving. LOVE DOES NOT KILL TO SAVE. For if it did, attack WOULD be salvation, and this is the ego's interpretation, not God's. Only the world of guilt could demand this, for only the guilty could CONCEIVE of it. Adam's "sin" could have touched none of you, had you not believed that it was the FATHER Who drove him out of Paradise. For it is in that belief that knowledge of the Father was lost, for it is only those who do not understand Him that COULD believe it."
"This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. And until you realize that God's Son cannot be crucified, this is the world you will see. But you will not realize this, until you accept the eternal fact that God's Son is NOT GUILTY."
"In this strange world which you have made, the Son of God HAS sinned. How could you see him then? By making him invisible, the world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt which you accepted, and you hold it dear. For the blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego never was, and can never be. Without guilt the ego HAS no life, and God's Son IS without guilt."
"Deny YOUR world, and judge him not."
"Let me accept the strength God offers me And see no value in this world, that I May find my freedom and deliverance."
"Illusions will not last. Their death is sure and this alone is certain in their world. It is the ego’s world because of this. "
"In a world of form the ego cannot be denied for it alone seems real. Yet could God’s Son as He created him abide in form or in a world of form? "
"Judgment, like other devices by which the world of illusions is maintained, is totally misunderstood by the world. It is actually confused with wisdom, and substitutes for truth. As the world uses the term, an individual is capable of "good" and "bad" judgment, and his education aims at strengthening the former and minimizing the latter."
"The world goes against your nature, because it is out of accord with God’s laws. The world perceives orders of difficulty in EVERYTHING. This is because the ego perceives nothing as wholly desirable."
"The unreal world IS a thing of despair, for it can never be. And you who share God’s Being with Him, could never be content WITHOUT reality. What God did not give you has no power over you, and the attraction of love for love remains irresistible."
"The real world was given you by God, in loving exchange for the world YOU made, and which you SEE."
"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seem to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are wholly unreal? Could you have faith in what you see, if you ACCEPTED this? And would you SEE it? Hallucinations disappear when they are recognized for what they are. This is the healing and the remedy. Believe them not, and they are gone. And all you need to do is recognize YOU did this. Once you accept this simple fact, and take unto yourself the power you GAVE them, YOU are released from them."
"Hallucinations serve to meet the goal of madness. They are the means by which the outside world, projected from within, adjusts to sin, and seems to witness to its reality. It still is true that nothing is without. Yet, upon nothing, are ALL projections made. For it is the PROJECTION which gives the "nothing" all the meaning that it holds."
"And all the figures in the dream in which the world began go with it. Bodies now are useless, and will therefore fade away, because the Son of God is limitless."
"But in this world there ARE no simple facts, because what is the same and what is different remain unclear."
"There is no basis FOR a choice in this complex and over-complicated world. For no-one understands what is the same, and seems to choose where no choice really is. "
"Only the Oneness of Knowledge is conflictless. Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world. Only IN this world is the idea of an authority problem meaningful. The world is not left by death but by truth, and truth CAN be known by all those for whom the Kingdom was created, and for whom it waits."
"God's laws do not obtain directly to a world perception rules, for such a world could not have been created by the Mind to which perception has no meaning."
"Give welcome to the Power beyond forgiveness, and beyond the world of symbols and of limitations."
"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."
"Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ".
""Heaven and Earth shall pass away" means that they will not always exist as separate states."
Personal note: For me it is perfectly clear that God did not create the Earth or this world. We made it as an attack on God and a defense against the nature of Heaven. As such it is a dream illusion, which does not really exist. Our task is to learn to see it in a different light (that's a whole other post), so that we can learn to recognize its unreality and go home to Heaven.