Quite often we are driven by a desire to stop being affected by the world. We all want to get away from suffering and find some peace.

We initially see ourselves as an EFFECT, and we see CAUSE as outside of us. We want somehow to get away from these causes. So we try to stop thinking of ourselves as being affected by the world.

This leads to a belief that if we can just stop being affected by things we'll be okay. It begins a journey of a kind of WITHDRAWAL, where we start rejecting and weeding out the world from our experience.

This can lead to what seems to be a place of peace, where we are convincing ourselves that we're "okay with" anything that happens, that we don't mind if there is sickness, we're okay with death, we don't want to change the world we just want to let it happen.

This seems like a form of acceptance, as though atonement, because when we stop resisting the world we can be more accepting of it, more allowing. And somehow there is some peace to be found by not fighting with it all the time.

In essence, you find a state of what seems like peace by "not minding what happens". But at the same time, there is something missing here.

Originally you were seeing yourself as EFFECT, and the world as CAUSE. As though you are dreamed by the dream. So you then sought to run away from the cause or find a way to try to transcend it. You wanted to stop being an effect, but you didn't necessarily want to take on being a cause.

This seems to happen quite a lot, where people focus so much on not being affected that they don't realize that they are supposed to be BECOMING THE CAUSE. If you're not going to be the effect, you have to be causal. But many people seem to gravitate toward not being an effect WITHOUT being causal.

"This is a course in CAUSE, and NOT effect."

This results in a state where a person seems to be okay with suffering, still has pains and sickness, does not prevent the body from dying, has no real ability to work miracles, does not heal others, and generally has an attitude of sitting on a fence minding their own business.

It's almost like a disowning of power in a whole other way. We are in fact supposed to be owning up to being the cause of everything, admitting to being the dreamer of the world, taking back the power of God, seeing ourselves as immortal beings that can't be victimized or hurt, having immense strength, reclaiming the power to work miracles, and proceeding to demonstrate this.

But the people who get themselves kind of backed into a corner hiding under a rock and calling it peace, don't seem to be interested in this. Their whole goal is to escape and get away from things and go on a spiritual vacation. There becomes great aversion to anything that looks like it might point in the other direction.

Going toward the world, going into the world, doing anything, performing any miracle, healing bodies, demonstrating the power of God, being supernatural, anything like that is written off as noooo... we don't want to go there, that's the path back into the darkness. That's going to take us back closer to the world again and we want to get away from it.

But that's what's asked of us. We can't pick and choose. We either have to be effect or cause. You can't just drop causation entirely. Sitting on a fence in peace and having no power to cause anything in the world to change is a whole new breed of victimhood.

I think people maybe don't realize how much power the power of God entails, how strong it is, what it is capable of. It is immense and vast and deep and unlimited. And we are to demonstrate this power on earth, using it as Jesus did to teach and to show that the laws of physics are a lie, that bodies can be healed, that suffering can be alleviated by this power.

Most of all we are to reach a point called resurrection. Resurrection is the surmounting of death. It means having so much power over death that death cannot happen. Also that so much life is being asserted through that power that it can convert dead things back into living things. If a person is reaching what they call a state of peace but cannot raise the dead or show that death has no power and no cause, they are not in a state of resurrection.

"There have been many healers who did not heal themselves. They have not moved mountains by their faith because their faith was not WHOLE. Some of them have healed the sick at times, but they have not raised the dead. Unless the healer heals HIMSELF, he does NOT believe that there is no order in miracles. "

There is no order of difficulty in miracles, which means raising the dead is supposed to be effortless for us. When miracles like this are not happening around a person and the person is claiming peace, if they are claiming peace while having a sick body still, if there is a double message of peace + suffering in any way, then that person isn't really claiming ownership of being Christ and they have not reclaimed the power of God.

They are still victims. They just are very quiet passive victims that don't want to take the leap to actually owning up to the power of God. We are meant to be strong powerful beings for whom nothing is impossible, nothing is too hard, nothing is too great. We are to be masters of our minds and masters of the world. If we can't stop death then we are still victims at the effect of the world.

"What do you think "the meek shall inherit the earth" MEANS? They will literally take it over because of their strength."

Innocence is not weakness. Innocence is power.

"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."

What did you do?! Did you hurt someone? Did you steal something? Did you break it and cover it up? Did you destroy a relationship? Did you deceive and lie? Did you commit a secret crime? What was it? Come on, own up. You really did something bad and evil didn't you? Something you want no-one to ever know about?

Ok well..... you didn't do it.

So long as you believe that IT HAPPENED, in some kind of "reality", in a real world, that you REALLY did it, you will not be able to forgive yourself. It doesn't matter how much you reframe it, cathart it, think about it, process it, heal it, work on it. There will always be this "core" thread that seems to keep it tied to you. Something that prevents you from COMPLETELY letting it go. You just can't seem to forgive yourself all the way.

This happens because the belief that YOU DID IT, is the core of sin. It is the absolute ROOT which is anchoring it in your mind. The memory of you doing it, the experience of it, the feelings surrounding it, the sense that "that happened".

It doesn't matter how much you hack at it with your amazing spiritual tools and healing devices. It WILL NOT go away so long as you believe, fundamentally, that "you did it." It doesn't matter how loving you attempt to be, or how much you try to forgive yourself "for doing it". If you believe and accept "I DID THAT" .... you MUST find yourself sinful.

Psychologically it simply is impossible to be forgiven for something that you BELIEVE IN. Your belief in it keeps it anchored in your mind. It means you WANT it, and so your mind holds onto it. The only way you can be free of it, to truly let it go, and feel RELIEVED, is to recognize IT DID NOT HAPPEN AT ALL.

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in this view are all your sins forgiven."

The only context in which you DID NOT DO what you believe you did do, deep down, is where this world is NOT REAL. Only if this world is a DREAM, a fiction, in which fantasies play out, and in which NOTHING REAL IS THREATENED, can it be possible that you DIDN'T REALLY DO what you think you did. And only in this context can you BE forgiven.

Your innocence can only logically and psychologically remain pure IF you DID NOT do it. If you did it, you are a sinner. If you did not do it, you are innocent. This is all your mind understands. But the only way that you could NOT have done it, is if your actions were IN A DREAM, and NOT in reality. If you only did it in dreaming, then nothing real has been harmed. If what you did took place NOT IN HEAVEN, but in some kind of fictional world, then your real innocence has NOT been changed. You just IMAGINED that you sinned.

This is the crux of the matter. Do you believe it was a real sin taking place IN REALITY, or was it a FAKE SIN taking place in a FAKE WORLD? If it took place in a fake world, then you DID NOT sin, and sin is NOT POSSIBLE. "There is no sin." This is what sets you free. This is ATONEMENT. Accepting the truth that "I am still as God created me", you have not changed, "God has not changed his mind about me", and your innocence is STILL undefiled.

You are innocent because YOU DID NOT DO what you think you did. You were mistaken. You mistakenly believed you did something wrong, when all it was is a fantasy in an UNREAL world. Nothing real has been hurt. You have not done anything to God. You have NEVER hurt another soul. No one else has EVER done anything to you. No one has ever died or suffered in truth. None of "what you did" took place in the reality of God, and he knows IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO SIN in his kingdom.

God did not create you capable of really sinning, or attacking, or hurting, or damaging, or stealing, or betraying, or breaking, or doing anything at all to destroy any kind of perfection. You CANNOT SIN. You have not sinned, ever. You never will sin. This is the view of forgiveness. This is the only light in which you can recognize YOU ARE forgiven, by yourself, because it's the recognition that YOU DID NOT SIN in any real way.

This world is just a dream. You did not do what you think you did. Even your "physical actions" WERE FAKE. Even the PROOF that you caused something to happen IS FAKE. Even the "lasting effects" ARE FAKE. Even your memory of DOING it is fake. It has NOT happened in reality. Nothing real can be threatened or destroyed or hurt. You have never hurt anyone. You DID NOT DO what you think you did. You are innocent and holy and forgiven.

Only in this light can you recognize that you are FREE FROM the feeling of guilt and sin because it has NO TIES TO YOU, because you HAVE NOT DONE ANYTHING in God's reality. What happens in dreams stays in dreams, and only in dreaming did you ever seem to do anything wrong. Dreams mean nothing. They have no real consequences upon anything real. You have NEVER sinned and you never will. Stop crucifying yourself.

"God's Will for you is perfect happiness because there is no sin, and suffering is causeless."

"There is no sin. Creation is unchanged."

"Healing is done, for what is perfect needs no healing, and what remains to be forgiven where there is no sin?"

"Before a holy relationship, there IS no sin."

"What is forgiveness, but a willingness that truth be true? What can remain unhealed and broken from a Unity Which holds all things within Itself? There is NO sin."

"The Holy Spirit will NEVER teach you that you are sinful. ERRORS He will correct, but this makes no-one fearful. You are indeed afraid to look within, and see the sin you THINK is there."

"Then let me, Father, look within and find Your promise of my sinlessness is kept; Your Word remains unchanged within my mind, Your Love is still abiding in my heart." "

"Now let His true perception come to me, that I may waken from the dream of guilt and look within upon my sinlessness, which You have kept completely undefiled upon the altar to Your holy Son, the Self with Which I would identify.""

"If you would look within, you would see only the Atonement, shining in quiet and in peace, upon the altar to your Father."

"What if you looked within, and saw NO sin?"

The road to enlightenment really boils down to a matter of recognition. There's more than 100 references to "recognition" in ACIM.

"Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all."

Here Jesus is saying that we are ALREADY LIGHT, alreadty holy and whole. We just keep DENYING that it is already true of us, like someone who doesn't want to admit what's true. We are covering our eyes and trying NOT to see reality.

What does recognition mean? It means you accurately and correctly discern and acknowledge what something actually IS, without any distortion or denial or illusions or attempts to change it.

This obviously means being AWARE of what it is, and so yields awareness, or awakening. To be awake to what something IS is to recognize its reality. To not recognize reality is to be unaware of what is real, which places the mind in a state of sleep or unconsciousness, in which it dreams a world of lies.

The interesting thing is that, within you right now, there is a holy, perfect, happy, peaceful, divine, innocent self. It's ALREADY THERE. And it is already true. God has in fact already established the fact of what you ACTUALLY ARE.

The only problem we have, is that our minds are currently in a state where we don't clearly acknowledge this about ourselves, we don't recognize it is in us already, and we don't seem to want it. We have REJECTED OURSELVES, and don't want to be who we are.

"Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

Part of the problem of not wanting it is simply because we don't recognize it. When you DON'T recognize something, you think it is something else. And now you've entered into illusions and confusion and insanity. It means you are out of touch with reality.

Accepting reality means coming into "contact" with it, rather than being separated off from it or distanced from it. Being in contact with reality is sanity and recognition of what is already true. Such a state of mind is mirarcle mindedness.

"Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra- and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer sees the truth as God created it."

Atonement is the same. We are asked to accept the atonement. The atonement is an expression of the truth. We are simply asked to accept what is true, in terms of the truth as God established it. To accept what God has GIVEN you. Which is also to reclaim your inheritance.

"Innocence is not of your making. It is GIVEN you, the instant you would HAVE it."

"The remedy is NOT of your making, any more than YOU are." "God Himself gave you the perfect correction for everything you have made which is not in accord with His Holy Will."

We aren't even really asked to do anything special or elaborate. We're basically just asked to "know thyself". To be true to what we actually are. To recognize its truth, to acknowledge it as true, and to accept it.

This means that while we're NOT doing that, we must be in some kind of strange mental state where we're AVOIDING the truth, we want something ELSE to be true, and we've put our faith in things which are false. We've given reality TO illusions and lies, instead of letting reality be reality.

It surely can't be hard to simply turn within and acknowledge actual facts. A truth which can be experienced. To let go of all desires to have the truth be something it is not, and to merely accept what is true. To let yourself be as God created you. To stop trying to turn yourself and others into something they're not.

Enlightenment then isn't even really an activity, it's more like just a total surrendering and allowing what ACTUALLY IS to be what it is. Which also means allowing God to be God, and you to be you, and your brother to be your brother.

It's like, just giving up and stopping all the ego games of wanting things to be different to how they are in reality, and being willing to ADMIT that only the truth is true. To lay down all the defense and denials and ways that we try to INSIST that something else is true and real.

It was our insisting on not being okay with heaven, that produced this false world. It was our denial of God that produced our egotism and suffering. It was our wanting to be something we could never be, that placed us in bodies and space and time. And it was our attempt to oppose life that induced our own seeming death.

"You ATTACK the real world every day and every hour and every minute, and yet you are surprised that you cannot SEE it." The road home couldn't really be more simple. We just give up fighting against reality and become fully willing to accept and receive an "off the shelf" solution from God, take His truth to be our own, align with His will for us, and just return to living in your NATURAL state.

"To be without a body is to be in our natural state. To recognize the light of truth in us is to recognize ourselves as we are."

"By DEMONSTRATING to yourselves that THERE IS NO ORDER OF DIFFICULTY IN MIRACLES, you will convince yourselves that in your NATURAL state there IS no difficulty, because it is a state of Grace."

"Grace is the natural state of every Son of God. When he is NOT in a state of grace he IS out of his natural environment, and does NOT function well. Everything he does becomes a strain, because he was not created for the environment which he has made. He therefore CANNOT adapt to it, nor can he adapt IT to HIM. There is no point in trying. A Son of God is happy ONLY when he knows he is WITH God. That is the only environment in which he will not experience strain, because that is where he belongs. It is also the only environment that is worthy of him, because his own worth is beyond ANYTHING that he can make."

"Health is the natural state of anything whose interpretation is left to the Holy Spirit, who perceives no attack on anything."

I don’t like having to go into Bible references, but there is one statement Jesus made which encapsulates in one place all the key miracle working principles of ACIM. It’s to do with moving mountains. There are different versions but this is a good one:

"For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith."

There are key parts to this which are ALL important and have ACIM principles to back them up.

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1) You must pray with your heart. It doesn’t matter what words you say because God does not understand words, but He understands what is in your heart.

ACIM: "Strictly speaking, words play no part at all in healing. The motivating factor is prayer, or asking. What you ask for you receive. But this refers to the prayer of the heart, not to the words you use in praying. Sometimes the words and the prayer are contradictory; sometimes they agree. It does not matter. God does not understand words, for they were made by separated minds to keep them in the illusion of separation. Words can be helpful, particularly for the beginner, in helping concentration and facilitating the exclusion, or at least the control, of extraneous thoughts. Let us not forget, however, that words are but symbols of symbols. They are thus twice removed from reality."

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2) You must have faith and trust in the Holy Spirit. Faith means trusting in God’s laws. "I am under no laws but God’s". Faith means believing, knowing, accepting (atonement), aligning with, the Will of God.

ACIM: "The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought you saw."

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3) You must BELIEVE that it will happen and be convinced, essentially that it has alread been received.

ACIM: "There is no miracle you cannot give, for all are given you. Receive them now by opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid and giving them away."

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4) This believing entails a kind of IMAGINATION or VISUALISATION of the END RESULT of what you want to happen. Ie seeing the mountain in the sea in your mind’s eye.

ACIM: Not sure on a quote for this yet but other miracle workers have taught that the mind’s eye/imagination must be used to visualize what the person or thing will be like AFTER it has been healed/received. E.g. picturing someone swinging their arms around after paralysis has been removed.

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5) You must not have any doubt or fear. NONE. That means there will be LOVE and WHOLENESS in your heart and mind and perception.

AICM: You can do ANYTHING I ask. I have asked you to perform miracles, and have made it VERY clear that these are NATURAL, CORRECTIVE, HEALING, and UNIVERSAL. There is nothing good they cannot do. But they cannot be performed in the spirit of doubt.

Remember my own question, before you ask yours "Oh ye of little faith, wherefore didsth thou DOUBT."

(Reference to Christ and the apostles walking on water.)"

"Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles" - meaning, shifts in perception are not miracles because they are not *wholeness*. You must perceive with wholeness/love.

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6) Prayer is the medium of miracles. You must actually pray to "ask" and receive. The miracle doesn’t happen by just looking at the mountain.

"We said before that prayer is the medium of miracles."

"The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression."

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7) God/Holy Spirit are the power that makes the miracle happen, "not you". They work through you. The Holy Spirit is not a metaphor. It is a SPIRIT, a permanent creation of God, and it shares the POWER OF GOD.

"The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles. He recognizes both God's creations and your illusions. He separates the true from the false by His ability to perceive totally rather than selectively."

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8) You must be single minded. That comes from being whole hearted, aware of love.

"A divided will can accomplish nothing." Or "a split mind can accomplish nothing" or "an untrained mind can accomplish nothing."

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Through these principles used in this combination, THIS is how supernatural miracles are performed. This may however be easier said than done. To have no fear. To have love in the heart. To be single minded you have to be aware of love, your heart has to be whole. You can’t have any fear or doubts. You have to have STRONG belief.

ACIM also puts it this way:

"There have been many healers who did not heal themselves. They have not moved mountains by their faith because their faith was not WHOLE. Some of them have healed the sick at times, but they have not raised the dead. Unless the healer heals HIMSELF, he does NOT believe that there is no order in miracles. He has not learned that EVERY mind that God created is equally worthy of being healed because GOD CREATED IT WHOLE."

"While expressions like "think big" give some recognition to the power of thought, they still come nowhere near the truth. You do not expect to grow when you say it, because you don’t really believe it. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains.

It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don’t believe it. People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them."

Remember this: "There is NOTHING your holiness cannot do."

This is a course in HOW TO MOVE A MOUNTAIN. That is a miracle.

What we need to do, is learn to PRACTICE THE PRINCIPLES.

"Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles of correcting the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others."

The world cannot make you peaceful. The world cannot take your peace away. If you have peace, it is INNER peace. Inner peace means the peace is inside of you regardless of what's outside.

Peace is an attribute of WHAT YOU ARE. It isn't something you have to add-on or feel as an emotion or attain. You have peace in you because God put it there. The peace in you IS HIS. It is a meeting place in you in where you are calmly quiet in the presence of God. It's inherent to your being.

Peace, as part of your being, cannot be given to you by the world, because the world is not the author of you, cause of you, creator of you, or your father. You are not a product or side-effect of the world. The world can't make you be at peace. It doesn't matter how many devices or toys or special relationships or events or special practices or whatever you do, the peace you're trying to find is a part of you, not something someone can give to you.

Peace can be uncovered, or tuned into, but that means tuning into your real self. It means joining with God. Accepting God's GIFT of peace which was infused into you in your creation. To be at peace you merely need to be yourself. The world didn't put it there, nor can it change it. Only you can decide whether to acknowledge your inner peace or deny it, which means you want to cover it up and pretend it's not there.

Your inner peace can't therefore be taken away, upset, disturbed, shocked, changed, or made to stop, by anything that happens in life. The only reason you "lose your peace", or rather lose touch with it, is because you cover it up by going off on tangents of ego. You choose not to be yourself, and that means you deny your natural peace. Only you can hide your peace, and not even you can destroy it because God himself is holding it in place.

You can be in your peace no matter where you are, no matter what you do, who you see, what happens or doesn't happen. You can be in your peace in spite of the world. You can be in your peace in all situations. You can be in peace permanently. What is the world going to do then, when you choose to stay in your peace and it can do nothing to stop you? When, by choosing your peace, the world has no say in whether you are peaceful or not?

You have to learn to separate your peace from the world. To stop believing that certain things in the world could give you peace or make your life more peaceful. And similarly, stop believing that things in the world have POWER to take your peace away. If you feel that something is going to happen that is taking your peace away, you are GIVING it power over you, and pretending that it is causing your peace to go away. But it's you doing this to yourself.

What if you were to go through the exact same events, seeing the same people, doing the same tasks, encountering the same seeming problems, but stayed in the state of experience that YOU want to be in? What if you could maintain peace all the way through it, and not HAVE to suffer or be stressed out or annoyed or angered? What if you can just be "passer by", not ALLOWING others to seem to take power from you or dictate your INNER state?

This is part of what "I need do nothing" is about. That you will remain calm and happy and in touch with the LOVE AND PEACE THAT YOU ARE, regardless of the BUSY things that you are doing in the world. "It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events OUTSIDE him."

"It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace. But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace, or upset you in any way. Today's idea places you in charge of the universe, where you belong because of who you are."

"But there will always be this place of rest, to which you can return. And you will be more aware of the quiet center of the storm, than all its raging activity. This quiet center, IN WHICH YOU DO NOTHING, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent."

"You have given your peace to the gods you made, but they are not there to take it FROM you, and you are NOT able to give it TO them. You are NOT free to give up freedom, but only to DENY it."

"There is a light which this world cannot give. Yet YOU can give it, as it was given YOU."

"I could see peace in this situation instead of what I now see in it."

"Love's arms are open to receive you, and give you peace forever."

God's will for us is perfect happiness, all the time. Total safety, love, blessing, peace, joy, no problems, perfect health, invulnerability, miraculousness, innocence. The end of sadness, grief, pain, sickness, fear and death. God wants this for us all the time. Do we want this? Why aren't we happy and at peace right now?

If you ask yourself, as you experiencing what God wills right now, the answer is probably that you do not really want it. If we're honest, we're not in that state. So what must that mean?

If God wills that we be happy and we are not happy, we must not want what God wills. We must be WILLING to experience something opposite, something unlike happiness. That means we must WANT to experience being unhappy. We don't want God's love. This is reflected in:

"I must have made a wrong decision because I am not at peace. I made the decision myself..."

If I am not happy or at peace, I must have WILLED, chosen, wanted, to be unhappy. It was a mistaken and poorly-made decision, made in egotism. So now we are unhappy and are trying not to do God's will. And it isn't bringing us joy because we don't want joy.

So if we get honest, this means unless we are having that experience of perfection and joy, we DO NOT WANT God's will. Which equates to, we do not really want God either. It must mean that something in us actually doesn't want it, doesn't like it, doesn't believe in it, resents and rejects it, doesn't believe it deserves it, fears it, etc. The appropriate name for that something is "the ego".

We have to be willing to look at this. Somewhere in us, if we're not doing God's will perfectly all the time, there is a desire to suffer. There's a sense of animosity toward God. There's some kind of rebellion going on. There's this part of us that does not want to wake up, does not want to be free, does not want to do God's will, does not want to be happy and does not want what God is offering.

It's not a pretty thing to admit to. Either I want God or I don't. You can kind of feel the sense of "attack" that the ego in us has toward God. We've kind of left God in a way, pushed Him away and distanced ourselves from Him. This recoil into darkness has made part of our mind twisted and unwilling. We're going to have to seek out and remove these blocks to being WILLING to be aware of love's presence.

We might be saying we want awakening or atonement or forgiveness or God but if we're not experiencing it NOW, some part of us does not want it. We have the freedom to decide that, but pretending we're not doing that is just more denial. The ego in is us kind of disgusted with God, feels vengeance, holds grievance against Him, resents a perceived abandonment, feels guilty and unworthy of Him, and is really at odds with His will.

God's will is supposed to be shared with us, and is so supportive and rewarding, that there should be no reason not to want it. It showers us with blessing and our divine inheritance. It gives us eternal life, freedom from all suffering and death, and eliminates all nightmares. It makes us happy and at pace and invulnerable. Just as "forgiveness holds everything I want".

And even if we think we want something else, something not of God, we can't possibly genuinely really want it, deep down. And so we've accepted that we want something that we don't really want, as a substitute for God, knowing full well that "The Son of God cannot be happy unless he knows he is with God."

This is what the gap of separation is all about. There is this "distance" we have between our ego and God. And our egotism wants to maintain and increase that gap. It's a relationship problem. An unholy relationship between God and our sense of self. We actually need to "forgive God" and learn to trust Him again. And in order to do His will without seeing it as "what we don't want to do", we have to be fully willing to embrace it as entirely on our side, helpful to us, supportive of us and in our best interests. It has to match what we want.

Any egoic sense of not wanting what God is offering, is keeping us unaware of His love. We're like pouting children hiding in a corner not wanting to cooperate, even though our parent only wants to love and support us. We keep saying no to reality. We keep saying yes to a wide variety of other distractions and meaningless things that we think we want more. But all the idols of the world are set up to be artificial forms of meaning and value, designed to keep you turning away from God and wanting something other than Him.

If we're to be willing to do God's will, to go where he sends us, to heal as we let Him teach us to heal, to be truly helpful, then we need to look at these ways that we are denying the truth, blocking God from loving us, not accepting atonement and believing things that are various forms of attack. God loves us, and His will for us is completely positive and enriching. Our inheritance is tremendous. Are we willing to allow ourselves to be loved again? Are we really willing to let go of our protest against Life and resurrect into eternal happiness?

"You are at home in God, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of awakening to Reality. Is it your will to do so?"

The truth is that there is nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong with you, there is nothing wrong with anyone. All of creation which God created in and as heaven is still absolutely perfect, untouched, unchanged. The so-called separation from God has absolutely no effect on it.;

"So VERY long ago, for such a tiny interval of time that not one note in Heaven's song was missed."

The REALITY is, the TRUTH is, that we are all in fact, in our Christly spirit self, absolutely the same as we have always been. Nothing has happened to us, nothing has changed us, and we have not changed ourselves into something else. This has always been true, it is true now, and it will always be true.

So what's with all this suffering? What's with this world of bodies, of events and disasters, or wars and fighting, of pain and sickness? It must not be true. Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing real has ever been threatened. This unreal world is not a threat to God's kingdom.

"Healing is freedom, for it demonstrates that dreams will not prevail against the truth."

"The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected, and the ego will not prevail against it. Amen."

The truth is that this world is entirely an illusion. Everything that seems to happen here is false, untrue, a lie. Nothing the world believes is true. No events mean anything. The changes that seem to happen are empty and powerless. Nothing in the world does anything to you.

"It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere."

"The world does nothing to him."

"Nothing in the world can bring oppression"

"I am not at the effect of the world I see."

Everything that this world depicts is not true, and is having no effect. The world has no power over what is real or what you are. Little specks of dust gather on the ground, pushed there by the wind and forces beyond their control, and they lie there motionless and easily displaced because they have no power to cause anything. A world of dust has no power because it is not of God.

The happy news is that, in fact, you have a self right now which is actually perfect and whole, it's totally devoid of sickness and pain, it has no disturbance or irritation or inflammation, it is utterly beyond all attack and damage, it has never been hurt and cannot be destroyed in any way. It can't even change slightly.

This is actually a fact. A hard fact. This self exists right now, perfect as ever. The ONLY thing that seems to be coming between 'you' and your awareness of this existing fact, this present truth, is that you are hiding from it. You are in denial. You are pretending it's not true and are covering your eyes.

"Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all."

Why is enlightenment a recognition? Because the truth already exists and is always perfect. All you have to do is be AWARE of it and ACCEPT it. You aren' putting it in place, you aren't fixing it, you aren't doing anything to it at all. You just need to look at it and realize it's there. Your real perfect unharmed immaculate self is sitting there right now waiting for "you" to identify with it.

"Christ waits for your acceptance of Him as YOURSELF, and His Wholeness as YOURS. For Christ is the Son of God, who lives in his Creator, and shines with His glory."

"At God's altar, Christ waits for the restoration of Himself in YOU."

So in truth, the truth that you are already Christ is very reassuring. It means you are safe in God, it means nothing in the world can hurt you, it means you can never die, it means you're not sick, it means you must always be happy, it means you are already at peace, it means nothing that happens in the world has any effect on you, and it means there's nothing to be afraid of.

"It is sin's unreality which makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received."

"And now you are prepared for freedom. If you have been practicing thus far in willingness and honesty, you will begin to sense a lifting up, a lightening of weight across your chest, a deep and certain feeling of relief."

By accepting the REALITY of what you are, what you ACTUALLY are right now, hidden behind your layers of denial and blindness and unwillingness to admit to it, is a truth so safe and sure and certain that it is a deep RELIEF to accept it and recognize it. It's completely reassuring to realize that YOU ARE SAFE IN GOD. And you always have been, far from all suffering and all danger.

"The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within."

This is why forgiveness leads to happiness and a sense of peace. It is based on your immortality. It reminds you that nothing can happen to you, that you are protected by God, that your sinlessness is guaranteed, that you have never become guilty, and that you cannot change. It reminds you of your stability, your certainty, your centeredness. It restores to your awareness your true identity and lets you be true to yourself. And ultimately it leads to knowing thyself as God created you - which brings the happy revelation that THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU.

"What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

All this forgiveness offers you, and more. It sparkles in your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the day. It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rests upon your eyelids so you see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. All this forgiveness offers you, and more."

"YOU are a miracle. God creates only "that which, or one who, is of surpassing excellence or merit." Man is capable of this kind of creation, too, being in the image and likeness of his own Creator. Anything else is only his own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the Creations of Light are real."

"Although you have attacked yourself, and very brutally"

In the separation from God, each of us has condemned ourselves. We've accused ourselves of sin, and condemned ourselves to suffer. We want ourselves to be punished, murdered, and destroyed. Ultimately this is a death wish, in which we have become suicidal because we don't believe we deserve to live or to be loved by God. You might be thinking, suicidal? I'm not suicidal. Well think again.

At the same time as trying to destroy yourself to prove you don't exist in God, your true self is utterly sinless, guiltless, innocent, holy and pure. You have never sinned or hurt or commit a crime or broke a law. You have never done anything to anyone, and no-one has ever attacked you. You are immortal and eternal and endless and permanent. And no harm can come to you because God himself protects you.

"The Thought of God protects you, cares for you"

The problem is, there is a seeming "gap" between what is really true of you, and what you currently BELIEVE. And if you are not in touch with your utter immaculate sinlessness, then some part of you DOES believe you are condemned to hell. God isn't doing this condemnation, nor are your brothers.

It's all an inside job of your own self attack. It is your self destruction. And this is suicidal. Even though death isn't real, this needs to be undone because the belief in your non-existence keeps you from being happy.

Looking at what you are doing to yourself is not pretty. If you are not accepting your sinlessness, it means you are believing you are sinful. It means you don't love yourself. It means you actively attack yourself and are trying to destroy yourself. Such as in "my attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability." It means you don't really like yourself, yet alone love yourself with the love of God.

So now if you think about it in terms of the "relationship" that you have "with yourself", as if you could relate to yourself like a third party, how do you really feel about yourself? What is your honest current attitude towards yourself? If it's not one of total unconditional perfect love, then it isn't a very healthy relationship.

If there is a belief in being sinful, or evil, or a monster, or unworthy, or not good enough, or you resent yourself, or are angry at yourself, or keep judging yourself, or see yourself as weak, or hurt yourself emotionally or physically, or keep being abusive towards yourself, there are all signs of a breakdown in relationship.

And what that ultimately means is that you have not forgiven yourself. You're in this relationship with someone that you don't want to be with. And that is going to split your mind and hurt your mind. If you don't love yourself and embrace yourself with acceptance then how can you possibly relate to yourself at all?

Think of yourself as in the shoes of a person that you don't like in a similar way. If you don't like that person you don't want to be near them. You don't want to give them things. You don't want to share with them or spend time with them. You don't want them to exist. You don't care if they get hurt or suffer. You want them to suffer. And you may even feel so bitter towards them that you wish they were dead. Is that the relationship you are having with YOURSELF?

You have to look deep within yourself with much honesty to find this out. And it's probably going to be somewhat painful or even scary. You may not actually even realize or recognize that you have it in for yourself, or want yourself to suffer, because you may be so used to a general level of background destructiveness that you think it's totally normal. You might not have even seen how much you hate yourself.

"You who think you hate your bodies, deceive yourselves. YOU HATE YOUR MINDS, for guilt has entered into them, and they would remain separate, which they CANNOT DO."

"You HATE the prison that you made, and would destroy it."

"You are afraid of Him, and do not see you hate and fear your Self as enemy."

"And why do you attack them anywhere except you hate yourself?"

"But if you hate part of your own Soul, ALL your understanding is lost, because you are looking on what God creates AS YOURSELF without love."

"You do not realize how much you hate each other. You will not get rid of this until you DO realize it, for UNTIL then, you will think you want to get rid of EACH OTHER and KEEP THE HATRED. "

So you have to look at this stuff. And typically you need a strong contrast in order to recognize it. Get in touch with what it means to be sinless. That your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Get a feel for total pure innocence and the complete absence of all attack, even slight annoyances. And then in that light, look at how you feel about yourself.

Do you still feel like attacking? Do you still feel a need or requirement to judge and blame? Do you condemn others to hide your self condemnation? Are you constantly fighting with people? Do you feel unhappy most of the time? If you have any of the "symptoms" of the ego, which is anything not of God, then certainly there is room for improvement in your relationship with yourself.

First you need to recognize that you even DO hate yourself, before you can be willing to take steps to heal that relationship. And you can't see that unless you have some kind of higher truth about you to compare it to. Your utter pure sinlessness in God, your immortal innocence, the guarantee of eternal life, can act as a contrast and at reality-tester to find out just how you really do feel about yourself. And once you find that out, you have healing work to be done upon yourself. You need correction and forgiveness. You need to FORGIVE YOURSELF, in order to recognize you are sinless and free.

"You have condemned yourself, but condemnation is not of God."

"You who believe you have condemned the Son of God"

"But in the dream of judgment, you attack and ARE condemned."

"And unless He had given you a way to remember, you would have condemned yourselves to oblivion."

"Now has the mind condemned itself to seek without finding; to be forever dissatisfied and discontented; to know not what it really wants to find."

"If the Son of God is guilty, then is he condemned, and he DESERVES no mercy from the God of justice."

"Guilt is ALWAYS in your OWN mind, WHICH HAS CONDEMNED ITSELF. Project it not, for while you do, it cannot BE undone."

"The delusional can be very destructive, for they do not recognize they have condemned THEMSELVES."

"It is not God Who has condemned His Son. But ONLY you, to save his specialness, and kill his Self."

"Remember, then, that whenever you look without and react unfavorably to what you see, you have judged yourself unworthy, and have condemned yourself to death."

"You have handled this wish TO KILL YOURSELF by NOT KNOWING WHO YOU ARE, and identifying with something ELSE. You have projected guilt blindly and indiscriminately, but you have NOT uncovered its source. For the ego DOES want to kill you, and if you identify WITH it, you MUST believe ITS GOAL IS YOURS."

You don't need to die. You need to forgive yourself.

It's interesting that it is people with egos who seek to become more spiritual.

This is based on the ego belief that they are not already perfect, complete, holy, innocent etc. Life probably sucks in some way, and this compels them to search for greater meaning or truth.

The problem is we have two identities rolled into one. The ego is one identity. Our Real Self is the other. The problem is we've become attached to, identified with, and confused with the ego. It wants us to think it is what we are and that we are nothing else. This gives us the impression we have one self, a separate self, but in fact we have another self - a Real Self, which is actually all of who we are.

So then as we become compelled by pain and suffering to 'seek for a better way', it's who we THINK we are that starts to seek. And that means, it's us plus the ego. The ego is along for the ride. And the ego will bring with it all of its baggage and misunderstanding and misinterpretation. And that's also what happens when anyone starts to study A Course in Miracles - they will filter it through their ego, bigtime, not really understand or accept it, and will distort the living crap out of it. I know because I did this too.

So what's happening is, the ego wants to compel us to be always seeking and never finding. It wants to take us away from accepting or having or being. So then we - the ego-infested self, starts to seek for the truth. And this might surprise you that the ego seeks for the truth, but seeking the truth and actually finding the truth are very different things. Seeking does NOT lead to finding! It's a trick. Seeking the truth actually takes you AWAY from the truth, because the truth is always PRESENT already. Any form of searching is actually a blindfold.

So at first, we want to be more spiritual because we cannot see that we already HAVE everything God gave us. That's because we have blocks to awareness. And so we'll go off seeking, and actually will take ourselves onto tangents and directions that actually lead AWAY from truth. And you will find as you do this, that you start to SACRIFICE. Ie you'll start to give up on things that were in your life that you suspect maybe are the definition of 'not spiritual'. You'll misinterpret the truth and think it's calling for you to give up stuff, to give up forms and people and things you enjoy, because your ego does not understand the truth. It comes to its own conclusions.

And then as you get to grips with the Course a bit more the ego gets undone a bit and you make some progress, but you also start to become a 'spiritual ego', or rather, you start trying to act like you are 'special' in your spirituality. You will spiritualize things in the world. You'll try to sound like you are spiritual. You'll try to act like you're spiritual. You'll basically try to 'integrate' spiritual truth into your EGO life, which is a realm of form and behavior. So the ego is trying to keep its life and the ways of living that it is used to, but bring the truth 'into' that realm so that the ego is retained. Yet it's quite possible to fill your life with a combination of sacrifice and spiritual specialness, to create the ILLUSION that you are becoming more truth-filled. The ego loves that you're thinking of being a spiritual savior/hero ;-)

At some point after this if you are making true progress through sincere honesty, purification, letting go, healing, surrender, and seeing through your OWN ego lies, you will see through the ego's efforts to seek, and all of these activities you've been doing even with the Course to try to 'get to' where the truth is. You'll learn more that the truth is already present, and that God is already present, and that even in your spiritual seeking it has been taking you AWAY from what is. So now your 'path', what's left of it, now becomes more like a form of surrendering, stopping searching, relinquishing trying so hard, maybe even letting go of sacrifice and opening up to reclaiming into your life things which are 'okay' that you thought were 'un-spiritual' before. You may start to bring joy back into your life. And you will start practice a simpler art of acceptance, listening to God, communing with God, being present, becoming aware of what is, and letting go of every 'block' that was telling you you needed to be a spiritual seeker to get back everything you don't have.

Even though the Course says you need to undo the blocks to awareness, to reveal the love that cannot be taught, which is hidden but already present underneath those blocks, the spiritual ego seeks to find love by seeking for it where it does not exist - externally. And instead of actually working on the undoing of those blocks, it would happily spend its time working on the 'accumulation' of 'spiritual information', intellectual understanding, special powers and so on, so long as you avoid actually healing the root cause of the spiritual seeking itself.

If you were to actually look within and see there is no sin, and heal the sense of lack, you would find the truth, but the ego does not want that, so it has you seeking everywhere that the truth is not. And then when you don't find the truth, the ego is happy that you might give up seeking and go back to ignorant unconsciousness. But what if instead you decide the ego was lying to you and you learn to stop trusting its voice? Maybe you become aware of a deeper truth that transcends it, and which is already in you. And maybe, as you realize the ego led you in the wrong direction, this will finally teach you what the right direction is - within! And so the ego has helped you awaken.

The real truth then starts to reveal itself. That you already have everything God gave you. You already are how he wants you (in Spirit, not form). That you are already loveable. That you are already forgiven. That nothing has really happened etc. And so you approach the real atonement, and true forgiveness, and Holy Spirit's mind of stillness and peace. You stop so much being a spiritual seeker as a spiritual finder, realizing the seeking stops you from finding, and the truth is already here. It was here in front of your nose all along, this whole time that you thought it was somewhere else. And so now you have uncovered the truth of who and what you are and have returned home to yourself in God. This is "the journey without distance", back to the True Self that you already are.

What comes next I have no idea, haha! To be continued...

I never really knew how much my 'mind' seems to think that it has an answer about everything. It can't seem to shut up. I am completely addicted to the belief that "thinking equals knowing". And it's becoming apparent that it will come up with an answer even if it has really no grounds for knowing. And it will share that answer like it's some kind of fact. I go around clucking like a chicken making all these mental noises and thinking that I'm actually speaking truth, when in fact all of the things that come out are just stories and ego-based comments. I'm some kind of babbling idiot.

All of these activities seem to make up a 'me' that I really thought was aware and speaking truth. But everything coming from my ego mind is deception and illusion. In every way possible, my mind is constantly attempting to seek for the truth outside of it, and separate from where truth is.

I realize more and more, that God is the ONLY location of truth. The ego quite literally is running around this world believing 'it' knows everything, when in fact it knows absolutely nothing. It thinks it knows what is true, but it absolutely doesn't know any truth at all because truth is GOD!

The ego is not a faculty of knowing and the ego mind is NOT CAPABLE of knowing anything. All it can do is imagine and think and believe that it can obtain and hold the truth. Yet it is not a faculty of connection to Truth (capital T). It is not a device that can even perceive what the truth really is. It is obsessed with finding partial answers in amongst an absolute minefield of fragmented possibilities, seeking deeply to have the 'intelligence' to 'solve' apparent problems by delving into them even deeper, which makes them worse, and which turns into an exasperatingly frustrating experience of loss and failure.

It relies completely on analysis of the situation. In other words, it has already made everything seem real and now goes into detail trying to explain 'why' whatever is happening is happening. And as it digs for this answer in a swampland of confusion, it always comes up empty handed. It never finds any sense of absolute certainty, although instead it comes up with what it thinks is certainty, which is really, honestly, not complete certainty. And no matter how many times I take this trip with it, even if it comes up with what the world would think of as 'the' answer, it STILL is not the answer.

There is still no sense of completion in the search, no sense of complete acceptance, no sense of finding a truth which encompasses everything so fully that there is no doubt left. It is quite literally incapable of finding such a Total Truth within the realm of partial ideas, partially perceived distorted perceptions, false ideas, cleverly imagined possibilities, carefully explained analysis or any other approach to trying to find truth IN the illusion. All the time this ego mind has been looking for truth outside of it, in everything and everywhere other than in God, believing it is actually POSSIBLE to find truth outside of itself.

All of this activity is geared towards a completely impractical waste of time, to always avoid a real solution or answer, to avoid healing, to ignore God and to shut out the correction which would undo the perception of there being a problem in the first place. The ego is absolutely not interested in truly solving any problems whatsoever, or of really succeeding at finding 'the' answer that gives a satisfying and acceptable explanation for 'what is' (i.e. it is not interested in accepting God). It is only interested in dissecting and studying them deeply, wearing a hat which says "worlds best problem solver" on it. It seeks and does not find, all of the time.

It constantly fails to find a real answer, anywhere, about anything, in spite of the fact that it fervently believes it CAN find an answer, which makes it an obsession. And since the answer can never be found, going looking for it (seeking) always comes up empty handed, frustrated, lost and confused, obsessed over why there 'should' be an answer, and simply not letting go of the total absorption with its own reliance on itself.

Absolutely every ego activity, thought, behavior and process, entirely stems from this ... insane search, which is absolutely guaranteed to fail, because the very thing that would actually conclude the search and bring an answer is the very thing which would inherently UNDO the entire ego. God is the answer and God is the only truth. God is the only place where you will experience a sense of wholeness or completion or a sense of peace at having 'found' something which actually completely SOLVES all problems. And the problem is only solved by rejoining and being one with God/Holy Spirit, which the ego has absolutely no interest in.

The ego would have to SURRENDER, which means stopping searching, stopping seeking, stopping looking for, stopping figuring out, stopping imagining outcomes, stopping trying to control the situation, stopping giving energy to fruitless pointless conceptualizing and storytelling, stopping running away from God, and stopping believing in separation in all its forms. The ego mind is only even in a state of doing things 'on its own' BECAUSE OF the separation from God which gave birth to it. The separation from God was a separation from truth, answers, facts, reality and peace of mind. For the ego to believe it can find any of these things is insanity.

It seems to want to now be in the driver's seat, in charge of running the show, playing God, depending on its own prowess and utilizing its own separate intelligence and intellect to solve aaaaaaaaaall of the problems that have arisen because of its own seeming existence. How can the ego solve its own existence when IT is the problem it's trying to solve? How can it be free of a problem when its attempt to solve it creates it? How can it pursue the truth where it is not, expecting to find it, and have any hope of doing so?

The only truth is God. The only answer is love. The only response to any situation is love. The only sane practical solution is to extend God. The only response to the world is unconditional love. The only practical and wise response to any problem is to HEAL IT NOW through the miracle. And the only way for the problems to all 'go away' is for the EGO to go away. It is our very own ego self, our intellectual mind, our reliance on our separate faculties, and our intent to never surrender to actually ASK GOD FOR THE ANSWER, that ensures we will just keep spinning our wheels in suffering.

The ego will never be the truth. It will never find the truth. It cannot know the truth. And it is not the truth. The ego is FALSE. Your ego self is false.

Your TRUE SELF is in God. The truth is in God. And who you really are is in God. The answer to every problem is in God. The end of suffering is in God. The practical application of healing and correction that truly ANSWERS all problems is in God. And God is all there is.