Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place, made out of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deception UNdone.

This is something I think we've all struggled with. It seems the world is cruel, vicious, hateful, dangerous, murderous, and at times evil. It is filled with horros and torment and suffering and death. How can you love such a place?

It seems that when the world is being evil, you can't love it. More likely you will despise it, hate it, fear it, judge it as wrong, or consider it broken. How can you feel love in the face of atrocities and attack, or when you are witnessing war and destruction?

It then seems even insane to suggest that while the world is being evil, you can love it. Because this implies that somehow you love evil. If the evil is really happening, and it seems real to you, you logically HAVE to despise it. To love evil is itself unthinkable, and seems insane.

What occurred to me today, is that approaching the "how to love it" from this angle, is really looking at a special relationship. We're talking in terms of what the world is causing in us, how we are reacting to it, and how we are affected by it. What IT is doing to us and others, and whether or not IT is CAUSING US to love it. ie we JUDGE it to be lovable.

In specialness, we believe that something outside of us affects us. It can affect us positively or negatively. We believe it causes us and has power over us. We then seem to PREFER that it treat us well, and if it does, we will love it. And if it turns on us, we will hate it.

It's within that framework that we are stuck, when asking how we can love a cruel world. And it seems we can never love the world, because it is always messing up. If the world remains cruel, it is not going to inspire love. More likely it will inspire revoltion and bitterness.

If I allow my relationship with the world to be based on what the world "does to me", and if I'm waiting for the world to be RESPONSIBLE for causing me to love it, then chances are that how I feel about the world will waver by the minute.

Sometimes the world might seem loving, perhaps a lovely sunset or a pleasant smell. We then say that we love it, and become enamored with it. Then we see a car crash and are horrified, just as the smell of death wafts into our noses.

When we are worshipping idols, we are looking for those aspects of the world which "we like" or approve of, or prefer. We may even become obsessed with them, collectors or them, trying to gather them up to surround and immerse ourselves in them. The foods we like, our favorite color, the music we like, our favorite shows, toys and games we like to play with, etc. So long as we avoid the rest and pretend it's not there.

In this mindset we can only sporadically, conditionally, love the world. We love it when it seems to CAUSE us to love it. When it does something TO us that we prefer, we clap our hands. When it seems to meet our rules and does FOR us what we have assigned it responsibility to do.

Responsibility, however, also ties into the cause of sin. If we assign responsibility to the world, and it does not do what we want it to do, we consider it in violation of its duties. And now it has failed to act responsibly, or do what we wanted it to do, and it has now acted against our will, sinning against us.

We can't love the world like this. We can't love it on a basis of what it does to us or for us. In fact we can't love it on a basis of it doing anything at all. It can't be what the world IS that makes us love it. Nor can it be because of what it DOES, whether things we like or not. It can't be some effects we prefer, while despising others. Our love can't be based on the world being RESPONSIBLE for whether we love it or not.

What I'm learning is that a feeling of love or happiness is not supposed to be a REACTION to the world, or something the world causes in me. I shouldn't be feeling love for the world on the basis of what I GET from it or what IT is like. Love based on the world's CONDITIONS is conditional love - special love.

Love actually is supposed to be an outward expression FROM WITHIN, extended from the unconditionality and permanence of God. It is something I GIVE TO what is out there. And this giving should not happen as a reaction, or on the basis of adjusting to external conditions. Nor should I be doing it ONLY when the world lines up with my wishes. Expectation is not love.

The world should be loved, ONLY because YOU are loving, and not because OF the world. We're not loving it for its lovely scenery. We're not loving it's cute animals. And we're not loving it for the things it does for us. These are all special relationships.

We don't want to be getting lost in a state of idol worship or external dependency or only being happy based on worldly conditions. If we jump up and down when the world is in a certain configuration, or cower in fear and hate when it is in another, we are merely on a rollercoaster ride of fake happiness and despair.

The world, itself, is going to keep on being intermittently cruel and vicious and hateful and warring and decaying and deadly. It is going to continue operating within the laws which established it as a weapon against God.

It will try to delight you some of the time, and try to take away your peace at others. It will inspire guilt and fear and continue to attack itself in all its ways. You can't place your happiness or love on such unsure footing, or give the world the POWER to take it away from you when it wishes.

An inner love arises as you forgive yourself and love yourself, applying love at all times. This inner love has permanent qualities. It is unconditional. It is not a REACTION of love. It is not a love you only feel IF or WHEN certain conditions are met. It's a love you just feel, hopefully all the time, for "no seeming reason". "Happiness is a constant state."

It comes FROM WITHIN, and expresses outward. It shines ONTO the world. It is something you GIVE to the world. You PROJECT love onto it. And you then SEE the love you put there, mixed in with the world's cruelty. You enjoy it ONLY because you EN-JOY it, which means to GIVE IT JOY. Love is its own reward.

"Peace is impossible to those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to those who ***offer peace***. How easily, then, is your judgment of the world escaped. It is not the world which makes peace seem impossible. It is the world you see that is impossible."

The world IS a world of impossibilities. It cannot represent love or freedom. It cannot be real. It cannot be true. It is its nature to attack and destroy. That was what it was made to do. But to see only this is to judge it and hold it against itself. Only by GIVING peace and love TO it can you FEEL peace and love in relationship with it.

"Yet has God's Judgment on this distorted world redeemed it and made it fit to welcome peace. And peace descends on it in joyous answer. Peace now belongs here, because a Thought of God has entered. What else but a Thought of God turns hell to Heaven merely by being what it is?"

This projected love changes the framing of the world, and what it means. It shows you that the world's cruelty is not true or real. That it is just an illusion of sickness and suffering. That its images of death are not really death, because they are fake, and powerless to change you.

And at the same time, you look upon love IN SPITE OF the world, thus PUTTING LOVE THERE to see. This is the projection of the "real world", with which you OVERRIDE hell with heaven. And what you project you will perceive.

You OVERRIDE the world with your extension of happiness. You remain happy NO MATTER WHAT is happening, not because of some kind of "acceptance of it" but because of your REFUSAL to allow the world to come INTO you from the outside. You have power OVER it and dominate it with what you radiate. You are master of it. And you experience love because you chose to.

You really cannot love the world from the perspective of expecting the world to BE LOVABLE. The world is NOT lovable. No-one can make murder and death real and love it. That would be insane, to be in love with evil.

The only way to love is to recognize the evil is NOT REAL. It is not compatible with love. The world makes love IMPOSSIBLE. The only way TO love is to love it in spite of itself. And as such, you can love unconditionally precisely because you love IN SPITE OF the world being cruel. This also grants you the miraculous power to override its cruelty.

I find myself now, more often, smiling upon the world - upon subtle things, small objects, textures, colors. Feeling an inner sense of projected beauty. A sort of gentle happiness that bestows love, which shines upon, the world. And this is not because of what the world IS or what it DOES. It is because of what I am GIVING to it. Because I am staying IN MY LIGHT and shining it ONTO what I see, even if faced with a twisted hell.

It is more like an inner choice. A choice to love, regardless of what something is. To love something, even if it is a picture of brokenness or damage or malfunction. Not because IT is lovable, in its form or nature, but because I can CHOOSE to love, and will not ALLOW the thing to interfere with whether I am loving or not.

This means a love which is not DEPENDENT upon the world, triggered BY the world, or an EFFECT OF the world. It is not a love I GET FROM the world, and reciprocate, in some kind of bargain.

It is a love which is given outward TO the world, regardless of whether it seems to deserve it. Because *I* deserve it. Because if I stop being love, then I stop experiencing love. If I let my love switch on and off depending on externals, then I am a victim of the world, allowing it to affect me both positively and negatively.

Real love, or let's say, a holy relationship with the world, can only take place by IGNORING what the world suggests, and REPLACING IT with love. Giving it love even when IT hates, recognizing IT as calling for love.

We're told in ACIM that the cruel world is NOT the world God could love. And this makes perfect sense. But it also tells us that God loves the REAL world. God DOES love HIS PROJECTION OF LOVE. He gives peace, and sees peace. He feels love, and so is loving "toward" the world REGARDLESS of what the world is like. He doesn't love it BECAUSE OF what it is. He loves it IN SPITE of what it is. In spite of its evil ways.

If you think about this, it ties in properly with forgiveness. Unconditional love overlooks and ignores what something claims about itself, and sees past its illusion, and sees love instead. And only because it GIVES love and innocence.

Not because the thing is "being innocent". The world cannot be sinless or guiltless. "To see a sinless body is impossible." But we can choose to not believe in sin and guilt, and to thus project forgiveness and light UPON a sinful world. And we then see the reflection of our light, or of God, IN it. Because we PUT it there.

No one can love the world we made, on the basis of it being lovable, or on the basis of it acting lovingly. It is not that, and it cannot be that. It will always be a world of separation and death for as long as it appears to exist.

But we can love ... while the world seems to be there... in spite of what IT says or does, even WHILE it is being cruel, because the choice to love does not DEPEND on the world, or come from it. We can love in the FACE OF cruelty, in spite of the cruelty, which will render the cruelty seen with loving eyes. But this will not JUSTIFY the cruelty, because the love is not BASED ON the cruelty.

This is the only way to "love hell". No one can love hell, on the basis of what hell does to or offers them. The world in fact holds NOTHING that you want, and has NOTHING to give you. It effectively has NO redeeming qualities. Because it is nothing.

"The world can ADD nothing to the power and the glory of God and His Holy Sons"

But you can "love hell" - which does not mean BEING IN SPECIAL LOVE WITH hell, on the basis of what you OFFER TO IT. You be loving, even when surrounded with evil people. You can love unconditionally regardless of whether the world was made from love. It wasn't made of love, and never will be. But this must not stop us from loving. Otherwise we cannot feel happy.

Our challenge is to stay strong IN OUR LIGHT, even when confronted with evil. To remain IN THE TRUTH, even when faced with lies and deception. To remain IN POWER, even when the world pretends to take power away. And to NOT ADJUST to the world in any way, or allow it to cause us to waver or change our decision to love. This is the only way God is able to love the world. To love it, because he can do nothing BUT love, REGARDLESS of whether the world "is lovable" or not.

"The world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world. God's Word has promised us that peace is possible here, and what He promises can hardly be impossible. But it is true that the world must be looked at differently, if His promises are to be accepted. What the world is, is but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose this."

In terms of the truth, these are our only two options: either accept it as it is, or deny it. Denying it is an attempt to reject what the truth is, and to replace it with something else.

Jesus says denial is an act of 'positive creation' not just an attempt to negate the truth. By denying, we substitute the truth for something else, and invent or make some other illusion to take its place, to try to prove that something else is true. We actively erect barricades and something else to fixate on and believe in.

In the Atonement, we accept the truth as it is, as God has established it, without any desire or need to change it.

The opposite of Atonement or resurrection, is death, in which there is an attempt to reject all truth (life) and prove that something opposite is true (death).

Denial produced the physical universe. Denial implements all forms of sickness. Denial is death. Denial is also fear. "All forms of sickness even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening." Or to put it another way, when you do not want to accept the truth, you invent fear to try to explain "why" you cannot accept it. The fear is fake, just as death is fake. Death does not END real life, it DENIES IT and paints a picture which PRETENDS the immortal son of God has been killed. ("You have made a bargain you cannot keep.")

Denial was the attempt to reject the fact that you cannot sin, by trying to replace it with an attempt to prove that sin can and has been accomplished. Even in that attempt, it is a state of denial. It hasn't changed the truth. Denial has no power to actually alter what the truth is. But, being denial, denial is "in denial" of this fact, and so attempts to change the truth anyway, believing that it is possible. Such is denial.

Denial also represents unwillingness. When we attempted to deny God's will, or to deny that we are as God created us, we moved into unwillingness. This was an attempt to suppress our own will. We became unwilling rather than willing, or imprisoned rather than free. Death is a state of unwillingness, as are punishment, suffering, fear, guilt and sin. This is why it takes "a little willingness" in order to move towards acceptance of the Atonement (truth) because denial has to be undone.

Blocks to awareness are denial. Since the truth cannot be changed (it's established by God's will permanently), denial cannot actually change the truth into something else. And the only way to "believe in" something else being true, is to block out awareness of the fact that the truth is true. While you are still aware that only the truth is true, you cannot bring yourself to believe or be convinced by an alternative. So you have to "block awareness".

Denial does this by putting up an illusory psychological barrier, comprised of a "will to reject", which makes the truth go unconscious. Conscious awareness is cut off from accessing the truth, hidden behind this wall of denial, and so now all that you are consciously aware of is "whats left" that hasn't yet been denied. The stuff that has been denied now forms the unconscious mind, hidden from awareness and kept in the dark. Consciously, since you are no longer aware that it is present, or still true, or an unchangeable fact, and you cannot "find it" when you search around with your awareness, it SEEMS not to exist.

Many false conclusions are made based on this unawareness - based on incomplete information. For example if you are not aware that you yourself chose to believe in sin, you made the sin unconscious by implementing denial and inventing fake guilt to cover it up, you will now be unable/unwilling to see that you are the one who made you guilty. Instead you will now search elsewhere for a "cause" of the upset, and inevitably blame it on someone else, because that seems to make sense given that you are not aware of the hidden key fact of what you did to yourself. This is why Jesus said "Forgive them father for they know not what they do" - as soon as you go into denial, you do NOT KNOW what you are doing, because you don't have all the facts in awareness.

The secret of salvation lies in your willingness to remove the block to awareness, so that you can become able to SEE the chain of causality coming from yourself, the choices you made, and thereby realize that none of your conditions are caused by anyone else. Your mind is the sole cause of your experience. But this block to awareness, in order to remove it, MUST entail the willingness to remove denial. The layer of denial which literally blocks awareness - blocks the ability to SEE, must be undone. And that will only be undone through honesty and willingness.

Denial takes on many forms, and indeed all forms. It includes the belief that you are already innocent even if you have unconscious hidden hates, secret sins, unhealed wounds and layers of self-repression that you don't want to admit to. This can produce a state of "fake innocence" in which you don't SEE that you are the cause of something and so become justified in blaming it on someone else - scapegoating, accusing your brother of your own sin. It also then justifies anger, and this is why anger is never justified - to become angry is ALWAYS based on denial and unawareness of the facts. If you knew the facts, the truth, you would have NO reason to conclude that you should be upset.

Denial also accounts for this world - Earth - this universe. Jesus says in reference to it, "a world that denies itself cannot exist." The world denies itself, because it is made OF denial of God's Kingdom. All denial is self denial, and so this world is made of denial. That is why it is a BLOCK to awareness. "Nothing so blinding as sight of form." This is also why, when denial is lifted, and we are willing to see the whole truth, this world must disappear because, being made from denial AS a block, it is merely an illusion preventing us from seeing, and once you see PAST it and become AWARE that you are the cause/dreamer of it, you will stop USING IT to make God's Kingdom unconscious.

Another expression or use of denial is in the ego's motto of "seek and do not find". By denying that you already are perfect, you don't SEE the perfection in yourself so you think it is not there, and so are now empty, and are in need, and this need compels you to search for a solution to the emptiness somewhere ELSE, outside of yourself. This sets you on a "spiritual path" - ultimately the journey without distance. Here you will pursue FAKE SPIRITAULITY, fake peace, produce a spiritualized ego, spiritualize the world, spiritualize the body, and seem to side with one half of duality (ultra positive or ultra negative).

This also produces the PERSONA, which is a fake identity or fake mask which forms this idea of who you think you are, which is made of the denial of yourself. Even your physical body is a fake image, designed to make people believe that they are seeing YOU when they see IT, when in fact it is made to HIDE YOU. The body and persona then become filled with fakery, lies, self deception and dishonesty, resulting in a veneer of "looking spiritual" or "acting spiritual", decorated with spiritual clothing and performing fake rituals, which are all really designed to maintain the denial and block you from being AUTHENTICALLY YOURSELF.

The facade of innocence hides unconscious guilt, and makes a person seem holier than they really are. The main problem is the person themselves is unwilling to admit to why they are overcompensating for a deep belief in unholiness, by pretending to be holy and trying to convince everyone that they themselves are convinced of it. This "spiritual seeker" has to be undone just as much as any other denial, because it takes you away from yourself. You do not need to seek. You need to *acknowledge* what is already TRUE about you, and be grateful that God's creation has not changed.

Denial also plays out in the unwillingness to accept what is happening in your life. I spent many many years in denial that I was unhappy, afraid, angry, and it wasn't until my mid-20's when I started to admit that the way I was feeling was even those things. I did not recognize the mountain of upset in me AS fear or AS anger, and didn't even know that I was afraid and angry. Such was the denial. Denial obscures, making reality seem twisted and not what it is, so that you do not *recognize* it, and so remain in a state where you think it IS something ELSE. This failure to recognize the truth is what keeps us in the dark. Yet "illusions recognized must disappear". They can only be recognized by not being in denial.

Denial also produces various kinds of blindness. The unwillingness to see the truth. Even though people may be walking around in bodies talking and performing activities, they can be in various states of awareness ie various states of denial, thus various states of unconsciousness. Just because someone is working in a job and playing on the internet and chatting to their friends, does not mean they are aware or awake. Denial indeed is sleep. It is a suppression of awareness.

Since denial is unwillingness, it also produces justification for fear whenever the truth comes along to challenge the denial. If you are in denial and you are believing that the truth is not the truth, you've made it out to be evil, and have replaced it with a lie that you believe is your salvation. When the truth comes along, you see it as an attacker, a threat, and thus USE denial once again as the ego's only tool to reject, shut out, or put distance between, you and that truth. You bury your head in the sand to avoid it and to pretend it is not there. This induces all forms of sickness, because sickness is a defense against the truth. So yes, sickness is denial of life, as is death.

The funny thing about denial is that instead of being able to actually change the truth at all, you instead hide from the truth and block your awareness of it, reasoning that if you are not AWARE of it, it must not BE there. This is clearly denial because you are simply hiding your vision. Pretending that something is not there, does not make it go away. But in the ego, we become convinced by this delusion and think "out of sight, out of mind"... that if we can't SEE something, or cannot be AWARE of it, then it must not exist.

This way, we've told ourselves that we actually UNDID God, reversed creation, cancelled Heaven, and erased our true self. By believing that our denial of truth CAN change the truth (that darkness can hide the light), it's very easy to make the tiny shift from "I'm in denial of it" to "It's actually gone." Therefore we have come to believe, in ego denial, that we ACTUALLY HAVE changed the truth because our awareness does not show it to us and it seems not to exist any more. This way we came to believe that sin is real and has had real consequences. We think that we actually HAVE hurt God, produced a new truth, got away with murder, and destroyed ourself and our inheritance.

This belief then leads to the distorted perception that we stopped being innocent, CHANGED into a different state, our innocence went away, and now all that we're left with is guilt. And in that view it seems as though we have become unworthy, have transformed from sinless to sinful, or from innocent to guilty. The blocked awareness viewed from inside denial, makes it SEEM as if this is true. And so in denial, we automatically come to believe that our denying is actually WORKING, and is CAUSAL, and has power OVER the truth to change it. And so we think we have sinned, are really a sinner, deserve to be guilty, should be punished for it, and are worthy only of death. Denial produces the death wish.

From this side of denial, not seeing that our denial HAS NOT changed reality, we're quite convinced that we actually are guilty sinners who don't deserve love or forgiveness. And so we think we are working on or in or with this guilty "ego self", which has not only replaced our real self, but is the ONLY self left. In denial, we are not aware that our real self - our innocent self - still as God created it - is STILL THERE, still fully alive, still perfect, and has not changed whatsoever. That real self is right here with you now. That real self is already in heaven and never left, nor did it change anything in reality.

And so now we're in this strange position where we think we are only this evil self who can never go back to being holy, while all along our true self is perfectly undefiled and holy forever, existing in parallel to this false idea of ourselves. Your "higher self" therefore exists right NOW, even if your sense of identity is all caught up in denial and confusion and ego. This is why "enlightenment is but a recognition and no a change at all". It merely entails the willingness to be AWARE of what is ALREADY TRUE. And to reach that awareness, ALL layers of denial MUST be removed from the mind so that you CAN be aware of it.

To admit to being in denial, or even to admit to wanting to stay in denial - wanting to keep your denial - is still an admittance. It reveals a willingness to allow the truth to enter. Even if you say, "I admit I do not want to wake up", that is better than an unwillingness to even admit that. To admit, is to permit access. It means you are willing to let truth be said or expressed about whatever the situation is. And this truth then sets you free. Even if just a little bit. Even if you are just admitting to being in denial and that you don't want to do anything about it, admits more truth than to not even want to admit to that.

This therefore takes some willingness, and it takes honesty. It requires a willingness to be mistaken, without implying punishment. It requires you to get honest with yourself, to stop being in resistance or avoidance, and to LOOK AT what it is that you don't want to see. And looking at it with the truth, is looking at it with the Holy Spirit. He represents the state of mind in which there is no denial. Your willingness to dig out and offer up secret sins, hidden hates, grievances, and also ways that you don't want to admit or accept something, allows Him to shine away those lies and release you.

Now, in ACIM circles there are various forms of denial and blindspots and each person is different. I've seen the most denial circling around topics to do with the body not existing, and to do with the world not existing. These are two of the major sticking points because the ego denial has

built a fortress to protect belief in these two things, and believing you "are" a body or that there "is" a world are the two most fundamental "givens" in this world. The body is the hero of the dream, and the world is the dream itself. To question belief in either of these seriously pushes the ego buttons and seems to "threaten your establishments."

There is a lot of denial around these topics and a lot of refusal to accept them. Accepting that there is no world is one of the hardest things to do, because denial makes the world seem true, real, valuable and desirable. Denial that the world is a cruel place, for example, leads many to believe God created it. And with that kind of a conclusion, who would want to question God's reality? Yet we are still in denial until we are sure to have removed all denial. And we will be in denial that we are in denial, because we don't SEE that there is something unconscious to us that we believe does not even exist.

There are also good and bad forms of denial, or uses of denial. If denial is used to reject the real truth, that's not a good thing. If denial is used to reject lies, that IS a good thing. Or rather, if denial is used to reject the belief that denial is true, using the mind to ADMIT that the denial is there, or that it is FALSE, that is a worthy form of denial.

There are unworthy forms of denial, which usually entail either a direct 1st-hand rejection of what is real, OR a 2nd-hand rejection of the illusions that have arisen due to the first level of denial. For example it is denial to produce a body. The body was made to deny God and shut out sharing with the Sonship. This denial needs to be undone. But additionally, on a second level, while you are making a body, if you KEEP making it through denial, but then pretend in some way that it does not exist and try to "separate from" it, THAT is also an unworthy form of denial. Up to a point, "the body is merely a fact of human existence." But at some point, human existence (bodies) is also denial of Spirit. These denials are at different levels.

Jesus also tells us in ACIM that "the separation HAS happened." Many people DENY this, mainly due to confusion about "nothing happened" as the atonement principle. This is level confusion. We did have the tiny mad idea, and we did share it, and it did produce imaginary worlds of illusion. Jesus even says, that to deny this fact is an unworthy form of denial. But to "accept" that it has happened should only be done in order to quickly realize that atonement is the only meaningful "correction" for the separation, and that it should be done as soon as possible.

It is also possible to have denials on top of denials on top of denials. For example when you are in fear, you are pretending that you have good reason to be afraid of something outside you. But the fact is, the fear is a decoy to deny guilt. Fear is protecting you from guilt and deflecting attention away from it as the "reason" why you are afraid. Fear makes guilt unconscious and blocks the guilt. The only reason you are afraid is because you think you are guilty and want to punish yourself. But without awareness of that, in fear you'll look for causes of the fear externally. To undo fear you must remove the denial behind it, become MORE AWARE of what you denied, reveal the guilt, and fix the guilt. So you can see there are multiple layers of distortion surrounding the guilt, and even guilt itself is denial.

The ego only has one tool. "Deny what is." The one antidote is the atonement - "accept what is". But to accept what is, you have to first remove the denial, so that your awareness of "what is" increases. So this doesn't mean just accepting the world "as it is", because how you are perceiving it is NOT the fullness that's present. You are NOT seeing it for what's really there, and are not recognizing it as an illusion. Blocks have to be removed in your mind, so that you can SEE. By seeing accurately and fully, you have true perception, which shows you the truth about this world, that it is not real and doesn't exist. Without removal of denial you will try to accept it, but won't be able to recognize it or accept its unreality.

The ego used denial to hide God, by making sin. The ego used denial to hide and keep sin, by making fake guilt. The ego hid the guilt behind fake fear using more denial. The fear produces self punishment but by denying that you are doing so. And eventually death is denial even of punishment. At every step the ego is denying, denying, denying. Denying who you are, stripping away layers of what remains, until eventually there is nothing left to deny. In death there is TOTAL denial of the truth, and no-one who goes through death is in their right mind.

It all boils down to this simple dynamic. Either you accept the truth - God's truth as God established it, or you deny it. You have no other choice. And because denial does not change the truth, denial MUST be a lie, where you are PRETENDING that the truth is not true. So either you are pretending to be something you are not, or you are being your real authentic self - as created by God. It's your choice, whether to accept or deny. But no-one gets to define what the truth IS. Only God can do that. And being in denial DOES NOT redefine the truth, even though those in denial believe that this is precisely what they're achieving. This is the authority problem, which is nothing but denial and an unwillingness to be honest.

The freedom we have is one of accepting or rejecting, not establishing, but anyone in denial with an ego will be in the business of trying to establish what the truth IS, acting as a gatekeeper to have to "approve" or "disapprove" before anything is permitted into awareness. Only when we are willing to give up our attempt to be God, to make the truth, will we be willing to simply open up to ACCEPT and RECEIVE it. Accepting the atonement is like throwing up your hands and admitting, only the truth is true, and only God's will is possible, and only God's way will work. Nothing else works. The ego is a lie and death is failure. Nothing else is true. I might as well accept it and go with it. And this takes TOTAL SURRENDER.

Thankfully, the truth is on our side, and loves us and has created everything for us. A perfect home, the inheritance of eternity, immortality, absolute peace and total joy. Not too shabby an option to accept, when you realize you stand to gain everything and give up nothing by letting go of denial.

"No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth."

"Heaven is a choice I must make."

"A dream of death is not left by death but by truth."

"The truth shall set you free."

In this world, death is inevitable. This is a scientific and metaphysical fact. Entropy guarantees the end of the universe. It's all going to die.

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

Meanwhile, since it seems that the dying is long and drawn out, this can create the impression that there is some life to be lived. There are even what we call new births, growths, things to see and do, entertainment and short-term goals. Do it all - while you still can. The clock is ticking.

This however doesn't mean that even these new things won't die. All the flowers that ever bloomed are dead now. All the babies that were born are dead in the ground. And there's only a handful left to populate the Earth, seeming to live, standing in line, waiting to die.

All that remains of what we call "alive" is a thin surface, a small collection of those things that temporarily aren't fully dead yet. And it's a vey small amount compared to what has come and gone. Life is a small slither of the dying, and billions of years have already come and gone.

The fact is that the world does not GIVE you a choice in this matter. It is set up to guarantee death. It can appear that there is life temporarily, but it is also certain that it will not last. What appears to be life, such as a seed growing into a plant, producing a flower and then dying off, is all living on borrowed time. The flower was destined to die as soon as it was sown.

All the world's roads lead to death. Sometimes there are roads which don't seem like they're so bad, and are tolerable, and sometimes even seemingly enjoyable. These are diversions and detours. They present an illusion of what seems like it's not dying. They might even look like growth and building and construction and birth. But not one of these things will escape death.

There is not one single city that has been built that hasn't crumbled. There is not one house that hasn't been reduced to a pile of rubble. There is not one body that hasn't been laid in the ground, if there was anything left to bury. There is not one food that hasn't rotten. There is not one place that hasn't deteriorated. And there is not one meaningful civilized movement that hasn't come to an end.

Why is that? Because death is built into the system. Space and time MEAN death. Delay, which is time, is an avoidance of being present, an attack on permanence, and an attempt to overthrow eternity. Time means death and time guarantees death. All the things in spacetime end up dead because time itself forces them to change, to stop being what they are, and to stop existing.

"This is the world of time, where all things end."

There is a seeming regurgitation of death, appearing to turn into new life, such as when trees in a forest are feasting on the corpses of their ancestors. New flowers seem to bloom as so-called "nature" attempts to find a way to perpetuate itself. Only to continually be met with an onslaught of destruction. Yet while the "new" stuff seems to perpetuate an illusion of a life, the rest of it just withers and dies. And even the new stuff will end someday.

This dire situation is simply the state of the world. It is hopeless. Anything you begin will end. Anything you build will crumble. Anything you think you've achieved will come tumbling down. Everything you've tried to create will be destroyed. Not one thing you've ever made will withstand the laws of physics. And time will sweep your whole life under the carpet.

Given that death is inevitable then, logically speaking it really means there is no point in living. After all, what's the point in putting in so much effort to do and achieve and accomplish when it's all just going to be destroyed anyway? At some point the sun is going to go supernova and blow your hopes and dreams to smithereens, and there will be not one trace left of everything you worked for.

Civilization rests on the idea that somehow you will leave a legacy and pass on the relay baton to the next runners who, like you, will also have to pass it on to the future generations because they too will die before the finish line. And so mankind pretends to live as screaming corpses toss the temporary illusion of life to the newcomers and ask them to do the same when their time comes to die. And we call this a sustaining of life against all the odds.

This is what spacetime has in store for you. And because of this, there really is no point doing anything. There can only be seeming short-term rewards, temporary advantages, momentary gains and short-lived enjoyment, all guaranteed to come crashing down and be trampled on by the universe. Have you not realized this yet, that the whole world is set up to try to kill you off? It was MADE as an attack on God and as an attempt to destroy you.

The truth is then that even though there sometimes seems to be a reprieve or temporary ceasefire, ALL the worlds roads and paths and choices eventually lead to death. All its roads do NOT lead to God. They all lead to destruction and despair and suffering. This is the way of the world. If you attempt to deny this you are mentally ill, and out of touch with reality. Death has plans for you that it will never give up.

So the truth is that, really, in the big picture, you do not HAVE a choice in life. You are not really choosing between life and death. You are choosing between death now or death later. You are choosing only to some extent when it will happen, and certainly not IF it will happen. And for the most part, it is going to choose for you. A sudden tragedy, a spontaneous seeming sickness, an accident, an act of nature, whatever it is that comes knocking to give you a really bad day.

You don't have a choice, if this world of spacetime is all that exists. If this is all there is, you are bound to death. If this world is the only reality, you will never escape death and it is your destiny to die. That means you are bound by fate and there is nothing you can do about it. Therefore you are not free. You are prisoner in a prison world, doing time, and waiting to die.

The only way, logically speaking, for you to have an ACTUAL CHOICE, is if there is some kind of way of existing that is not bound by the laws of spacetime. The only way you can have an alternative TO choose from, is if there IS actually a real alternative. There has to be an alternative to spacetime, otherwise you have no choice at all.

And don't be deceived in thinking that you have a lot of choices in life, to decide how you can make your life better, to choose something you prefer over something you don't, to choose which compromise appeals to you more. For everything you gain you will lose something else, and will not come out on top overall. Life will give you little scraps and will then take them away again. It will award you and please you and delight you and then shit in your face.

And you'll think it was unfair and unnatural and just some exception that things went to hell. But then it will happen again. And again and again and again. And you won't seem to be getting the message that this is how the whole system is set up. There is NO ESCAPE from the problems of the world. The world was made so that problems would be endless and no escape is possible. There's plenty more in store for you if you stick around. The world has an unlimited supply of hands to slap your face with.

You might believe that problems are only temporary. You might be delighted with your ability to fix things and problem solve. You might think that you're able to create a little oasis in the desert where you seem to be relatively safe and life is good. But that means you're living in denial. You are not prepared for what could happen, and it will happen, and you will be shocked and upset because you thought it could never happen. And then you will exclaim it is unfair and try to move on and look for the next lull in the storm, ever lurching onwards towards the grave like a half-living zombie.

Unless there is another world beyond space and time, out of reach of death and destruction, you have no hope. Unless there is an actual reality where you can live and have life and experience, out of the reach of death's clutches, there is no hope. Unless there is GOD, heaven, creation, God's Kingdom, you do not have any hope. Unless there's an actual real alternative to this world, you are not going to surmount death or overcome the world or find a way to live forever.

It is quite insane to suggest that being born, living for a while, and then dying, is natural. It is commonplace yes, but that doesn't mean it's natural. All the things of "nature" seem to do it, but that also doesn't mean it's natural. It is completely insane to suggest that there could be a life which is given, but you only have a short time, and then it's going to be ripped away unfairly before you're done. That you could live for only a short period and then stop. It makes no sense at all to think that people could just be destroyed endlessly.

Due to death seeming to be so inevitable, people think they do not have a choice. That there is nothing else to choose. In fact they don't even think they have a choice at all, not really. Even though they pretend to choose things all the time, they are just choosing different roads to death that temporary look appealing. And none of them offer any REAL choice because none of them lead to permanent life. There is no alternative when the only option is death, and that means you have no choice to choose with.

If there were to be another option, you actually would have a valid choice. This would mean two things. Firstly that you can choose something else, and secondly that if you choose it you will have it. It has to be true then that death is actually a decision, and that you somehow have it within your power to choose what you want and to make it happen. Otherwise, if permanent life were an option and you chose it, death could still take it away from you. It has to be that somehow in you there is a power of decision which overthrows what happens and determines your own destiny.

This means ultimately that, even while death disguises the fact that you are free to choose, death itself must be chosen in order to happen. This same power in your mind that can choose eternal life can also choose the illusion of death in space and time. If there really is an alternative, and you can choose it, and by choosing it it becomes yours, you must have the power to NOT choose death, to not consent to it, and to therefore PREVENT it. Even to reverse it, undo it, cancel it, and make it impossible.

The only real alternative therefore to this world of eventual death is a world of permanent life, in which death is impossible, and life is inevitable. Where there is a power capable of keeping death at bay, of guaranteeing immortality, of ensuring invulnerability, of making certain that nothing can be attacked or harmed or destroyed in any way. It must be a world of creation and not destruction, rooted in laws of permanence and protection, of safety and of love, of harmlessness and order.

To entertain that there is a valid alternative to the world requires you to believe in God. To have faith in heaven. To trust and be open to the possibility that such a place actually exists, that you can go there and merge with it and live there forever, out of harm's way. To do this is the only way to step out of the downhill slide towards destruction. You have to believe in a movement towards life, and life is God. Going towards life resurrects you and restores your life, while going away from God takes you into the world and towards death.

If you want to live forever, you will have to turn your back on death and on the world. You will have to overthrow the laws of physics. You will have to violate every seeming natural consequence of the world. You will have to become able to demonstrate through miracles that you are under the laws of God and not the laws of death. You will have to be able to raise the dead, resurrect to life, and restore order. Only by surmounting death and preventing sickness and reversing decay can you prove that you really mean business in your commitment to living.

Accepting sickness is not a commitment to living. Sickness is a form of death. Tolerating suffering is not full living. Putting up with dying is not living. Only the sustained continuation of life endlessly is real life. And if you are not in favor of that, are not actively choosing that, are not causing that to happen, then you are choosing death. It's not a difficult thing to consider. You either choose to live or die, and it's on you. Living doesn't mean living for 80+ years. It means living forever.

Since everything in the world points toward death, even in its forms of life and its new births and so on, you will have to fly in the face of the entirety of spacetime in order to overcome death. You will have to believe in laws that are not of this world, you will have to side with God, and you will have to reject every belief in sickness and death. All forms of suffering will have to by uprooted and every denial that you use to pretend you're going to live has to be questioned.

There IS a real alternative to death, and it's not of this world. Life is of God who is eternally alive. If you want to live you will have to side with God. You will have to choose to resume your natural station of being like God. If you do not choose this, you are choosing to be unlike life, and therefore dead. And that is what you will receive. If you do not want to receive it, you will have to choose immortality. And the only way to choose it is to stop choosing anything the world says must happen.

You're going to have to go against the grain, run contrary to the worlds beliefs, defy the opinions of everyone, stand up for the real truth, stop supporting the number-one religion of death-worship, have faith and trust in God's power to correct all problems, and become a medium through which resurrection can occur. The ONLY way out of this is through miracles. The ONLY way to end death and guarantee life, is through the expression of life and the giving of life. And through miracles you will return to an endless life in God.

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped." "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."

"Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to GAIN that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them."

"All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes."

"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? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it still more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as "the way of nature," not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the "natural" law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path, - all this is taken as the Will of God. And no-one asks if a benign Creator could will this."

----TL;DR: Changing your perception OF a sick body, isn't enough to change what you are projecting. You are projecting your body and the symptoms.----

"Projection makes perception. The world that you see is what you have put there to see; nothing more and nothing less and so it is important to you. The world that you perceive is the witness to your state of mind, the outward picture of your inward condition. As you think so do you perceive."

Recognize that projection COMES FIRST, then perception happens SECOND.

"The world you see" (perceive) "is what you have put there to see" (what you projected first).

"The world you perceive" (second) "is witness to your state of mind" - your perception "witnesses", perceives, and reflects back to you, your state of mind, because your state of mind PROJECTED what it is that you are now PERCEIVING.

These are two different processes. The act of having a certain state of mind, which you then project FROM, puts stuff "out there", which you THEN perceive as a secondary process.

Even the body itself is a projection. "The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards". The body then PERCEIVES, AFTER having been projected.

Jesus talks about how this is a circular logic for us, a trap, whereby we believe what we want to see, we project it because we believe in it, we "make it appear" (manifest it), then we "perceive" ie let the body tell us what it is we projected.

Perception then, is distinct from projection. It is a secondary act. Without projecting, there would be nothing TO perceive.

So here's what you need to realize about perceptions of sickness.

The mind, in whatever state it is in, has beliefs in it, thoughts, which then project. These projections MANIFEST the body and many other forms and objects. The mind for example projects the body ITSELF.

If the mind has a belief in separation, it will project a body which shows up with signs and symptoms of sickness, because it is a PICTURE of your inward condition, and your inward condition is one of "I am under attack". So the body SHOWS it. it is a WITNESS ie corresponds to your state of mind. This is why "a broken body is proof the mind has not been healed." The body literally only shows up as the mind's manifestational projection. It's an image being projected by the mind.

Jesus speaks to this in his "special notes to helen"....

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it.. It merely became what it always was. ... The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond... To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness.

I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body's worthlessness to the world. This has been much misunderstood.

I came to tell them that death is an illusion, and THE MIND THAT MADE THE BODY CAN MAKE ANOTHER SINCE FORM ITSELF IS AN ILLUSION. They did not understand."

So here we can see, the MIND, MAKES the body. Your mind is projecting your body, and everything about it, right now. However it is showing up, witnesses to your mental content and your belief system. If it is showing up as sick, it is therefore directly correlated, it is PROOF, that your mind is not healed.

This also means, that when the mind IS healed, or close to, and it is still projecting a body, it MUST project a body which appears without signs or symptoms of sickness. This is because the body COMES FROM the mind, mind is its source, and a healthy mind WILL ONLY project a healthy-appearing body image.

Now. There is a problem here in how many people are interpreting the correction of perception.

Remember perception happens to look upon WHAT YOU PROJECTED, after you projected it. The body's eyes receive little photons of light to tell it, oh look, there's a body there. That's part of perception. The illusion that the very thing YOU PROJECTED, is now telling you what IT IS, completely forgetting that you put it there in the first place.

So now perception, is ONCE REMOVED from the direct expression or projection of the mind. Perception therefore is a secondary experience.

So now, let's say that you have projected a body with a broken leg. The broken leg was not caused by anything in the world. It was ONLY projected from the mind. The mind did not project a broken leg ONTO the body. The mind directly projected ONLY an image of a body with a broken leg. The body does not EXIST as a separate object, or a "thing", or something as an end in itself. If you do not project it, nothing shows up! If you do not project it, there is no body!

So now, that you projected an image of a body with a broken leg, you now will perceive. Perception can be in a state of correctness/clarity or in a state of false perception/distortion. Since your MIND has a belief in sickness in it, and has made a sick-appearing body image materialize, it also now believes sickness is real. Perception is now going to take place, and that same mind which PROJECTED the "sick body", is also going to see that same belief in sickness IN the body that was projected.

This means perception is now going to show you a hallucination of "sickness is real", "something is wrong", "sin and guilt" etc, as though it is *IN* the body. It is not in the body, it's in the mind. Thus the idea of sickness, which made the body to begin with, is now SECONDARILY projected ON TOP OF the body that you projected.

Then you will have various ego reactions to what you are misperceiving, and will start to seek a resolution. But your planned strategy here isn't typically anything to do with fixing your PROJECTION, it's always to do with fixing your PERCEPTION. And that means, something very obvious is about to happen.

If all you do, is fix your perception OF what you projected, you might be able to seem to "be at peace" with what is showing up. You might seem to become less upset or resistant or less fighting with, your broken leg. You'll tell yourself, if your perception OF the body is healed, you will be TOTALLY DONE. But this leaves you with a problem, and a state of denial.

Fact is, even if your so-called "perception" is perceiving your broken leg as "lovely and wonderful", oh how lovely that death looks.... your leg is STILL BROKEN. And that's a problem. Because now you are demonstrating that you can be hurt, you are attacking the entire world by claiming that something OTHER THAN YOU put the break there, you are holding this broken leg up for everyone to see to make them guilty and accuse them of sin, and you are attempting to demonstrate that God's Son can be killed.

It also means that since ALL sickness manifests as a DEFENSE against the truth, in the mind, which then projects a "defending body", which shows up as attacked, you CANNOT accept full and total peace while still maintaining that defense. It is impossible. The defense has to go, which means the belief in separation has to go, which MUST produce a projected body which shows up as HEALED.

Nothing happens to the body that was sick that you projected previously. It does not exist. You just RE-PROJECT A NEW ONE, every moment. Sickness in the body can only show up if the mind is defending against truth, and sickness can only show up in the body if the mind has GUILT. "Sickness is but another form of guilt". Therefore, if the mind does not have guilt and defenses, the body WILL ONLY show up as healed, as PROOF, that the mind is healed. The mind will PROJECT a healed-appearing body to testify to ITS inner condition.

So while that broken leg persists, you are in denial. You may be owning up to the fact that you have some control over your PERCEPTION. But you are not admitting that you have the power to PROJECT what you are even looking at.

This is a fundamental difference and there is a pretty big divide in the ACIM community based around this one distinction. Many people believe all they need to do is fix their perception OF the world, or what's showing up, and then they are done. In this belief system, it becomes justified that you can still have sickness show up and have a "healthy mind", that you can still DIE and be innocent, you can welcome death, you can keep your sickness and be totally happy, etc.

Yes, to a degree, as a preparatory step, you can come to be "relatively peaceful" about these things through changing your perception. What you are INDIRECTLY doing there, is that it's not actually your perception that you're fixing, is the content of your mind that PROJECTS the body in the first place. Attempting to change your perception is a second-hand roundabout way of trying to address the content in your mind, which is "showing you" a belief in sin and sickness "in" the broken leg. But at some point.... you're going to hit a wall.

The wall will simply be, that in order for you to really thoroughly change your perception so that you do not believe in sickness, and have no sickness in your mind, you're going to have to also ADMIT, that your mind is projecting the FORM OF SICKNESS *AS* the body, in the first place, regardless of your perception OF it.

So many people are onto this "change my mind about the world" kick, which changes perception OF the world. But they do not realize, at some point, if you are not going to perceive sickness, your mind has to be emptied of all belief in sickness, AND THIS MUST result in the PROJECTION changing. It has to. The mind can't retain some small amount of belief in separation and have *perception* be a state of peace.

If that broken leg is still showing up, but you are relatively "ok with it", you are IN DENIAL. That broken leg is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SHOWING UP AT ALL. A sick body is PROOF the mind HAS NOT been healed.

There is this second camp of ACIM folk then who see this, and acknowledge, that the mind projects the body. Jesus Himself said it in that quote above. The mind that projects the body can make another. And if the mind can project the ENTIRE BODY, then IT is 100% responsible for making the body show up with ANY sign of sickness or death. This is how no-one can die without his own consent! If your mind does not put it there, it cannot be.

So if you just stop at.... I'm going to just be okay with this sickness, I'm going to perceive this sickness differently, I'm going to perceive this BODY differently, I'm going to look at this body in a more loving way etc.... that's a step TOWARDS healing the mind's content. But if that body is still showing up as BROKEN, you are NOT DONE.

This is where there comes to be a lot of denial, because not only is it often difficult to see that you projected the sickness AS the body (it can happen really fast and then go unconscious), there is also a lot of FEAR about this idea that your mind is THAT POWERFUL, that it can not only make sickness and death happen to you BY your will, but that the mind can also reverse that. Yet Jesus teaches:

"You made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both." ABOLISH means, to TOTALLY REMOVE. That means, the reversal of ALL forms and signs and symptoms of sickness in the body AND mind, and EVEN DEATH. It Literally means, the ability to reverse death, to raise the dead, and to completely restore life. It is the ability to REWIND SIN and UNDO ALL OF THE CONSEQUENCES (effects) of your wrong decision.

Your mind is cause. Your body is your effect. The body is NOT CAUSED by the world in any way whatsoever. Ever. Your sickness is NOT PUT THERE by any cause outside of your mind, EVER. You are responsible for what you have chosen. And because you are, you can CHANGE YOUR MIND and it MUST CHANGE THE PROJECTION.

So yes it's one thing to work on changing your perception, but your perception has arisen from what you have projected. And that means, if you are GENUINELY undoing the sinful content in your mind, are taking full ownership of your power, are NOT believing that anything in the world has the power to affect you or your body, and are NOT attempting to demonstrate that the Son of God can be hurt and killed THROUGH the symbol of the body (the body can become a sign of immortality), then YOU WILL STOP PROJECTING SICKNESS AND DEATH.

You do not project it ONTO the body. You project it AS the body. No-one else put the body there. Your parents did not put the body there. Biology did not put the body there. Chemical reactions and physical interactions did not put the body there. The world, the dream, other people, did not put the body there. ONLY YOU DID.

So that means, if you're to go all the way with this.... this is where you get into MIRACLE WORKING. Because it means, you are willing to DEMONSTRATE, to live by example, that it is possible to reverse all sickness and death in yourself, AND IN OTHERS.

You first reverse it in yourself by accepting atonement. This allows you to receive miracles. Then you are able to express those miracles to and for others. If they are willing to accept it.

We are not supposed to be walking around with limbs hanging off and body parts failing and organs malfunctioning and eyesight going bad and developing a limp and a having cancers and diseases and various other forms of SIN.

Death is an attempt to demonstrate that the Son of God can be killed. Pain is an attempt to bind the son to the body to fixate him on and identify with being a real body. Sickness is an attempt to prove the Son can be hurt. Sickness is an attack on your brother. Sickness is the result of seeking outside of yourself, and demonstrates level confusion. None of this is God's will. It is a demonstration of the OPPOSITE OF GOD'S WILL for you.

No-one is supposed to be dying. Bodies are not supposed to be decaying and dying. There is NOT supposed to be 7 billion people planning their own death, who will very likely die in the next 100 years, putting 7 billion corpses in the ground, just because they did not want God's healing and love. That's their choice. It does not have to be yours.

If we are to demonstrate that we are immortal and invulnerable, we ARE supposed to demonstrate here, in the flesh, that the body cannot be hurt, BECAUSE, the body is ONLY coming from the mind, and therefore if you project a healthy body it will STAY HEALTHY at all times. And nothing can attack it. It is IMPOSSIBLE for it to be sick. NOR CAN IT DIE.

"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."

Later, when it's done being useful, it is simply DISAPPEARED. Just as Jesus did:

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it.. It merely became what it always was. And that is what 'rolling the stone away means.' The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond... To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. "

It was not a matter of it disappearing from his perception OF it. The body ITSELF disappeared because HE STOPPED PROJECTING IT.

THIS is our natural inheritance, this ability to work miracles, to reverse all sickness and death, to not only correct perception but to CORRECT PROJECTION. To UNDO everything we have PROJECTED. AND that ultimately includes your body, everyone else's body, all sickness, all death, all forms of separation, all objects, all planets, and this entire ILLUSORY UNIVERSE which is a PROJECTION coming from the mind.

So don't stop at "I will just change how I see the world." "Seek not to change the world, seek to change your mind about the world. Perception is a RESULT (effect of projecting) and not a cause (the body that shows up is not alive!). "And that is why order of difficulty in miracles is meaningless." ie... change your MIND, your body and the world MUST CHANGE to reflect the content of your mind. Without exception.

There are people who wake up in this world. There are people who are awake in the dream. There are people who have purified perception to such an extent that they seem to be seeing the real world or something close to it. They recognize that they were contributing sin to what is here, projecting it "onto" the body and world. But what they usually do not realize is, THEY are projecting the body and the world. And therefore, typically, they age, and they die. And then they reincarnate and make another body. Why? Because they did not get to the level where they woke up FROM dreaming, and FROM perceiving.

To wake up FROM the dream, you have to get in touch with the fact that you are the DREAMER of it, the one who is PROJECTING IT, and you are the one who is PUTTING ALL OF ITS OBJECTS OUT THERE. This puts you in touch with miracle working because now you are able to enact VERTICAL PERCEPTION, cause and effect are now vertical not linear, and you recognize the power of YOUR MIND to manifest absolutely anything in this dream, or change it, at will. Because you will realize, you have been DOING THAT all along. Your body was coming from YOUR MIND, and your mind only.

To wake up from the dream requires the undoing of dreaming, which overrides ALL perception, deals with separation at ITS CAUSE, and therefore DISAPPEARS THE DREAM UNIVERSE. That means, the disappearance of the physical universe, including precious "planet earth", which was never anything but a mental projection. All that is then left, is God's creation, which is Heaven.

I want to make an important point which I think many people overlook with what the Course is teaching.

There is something that you may not have realized about this world. It is not what you think it is.

Physical matter ITSELF, is an ILLUSION, of such profoundly convincing proportions, that you do not even suspect that there is something unnatural about it.

Its form and appearance are so deceiving, and so successful at convincing you it is "natural", that you don't even consider that there is something untrue about it. It is SO BLINDING that it is assumed to be "just the way it is", as if any universe would have objects like this.

This blindness about form has led many ACIM students to not even question physical form, as if it's just there and is real. Like it's a given, so vast and seemingly consistent that it seems to be outside of our minds and impossible to influence directly. And this then leads to a severely mistaken interpretation of the Course.

If physical form is natural, and it's not even up for question, then the only thing that seems changeable is "inside your mind", which will be interpreted to mean "inside your personal non-form self", separate from the world.

You will then start to interpret the course as meaning you should only change your mind "about" the world, because it seems to be the only part of "you" that CAN be modified easily.

It's as if, the world is a separate "thing", so big and so unchangeable by you, that you don't even begin to question its nature. The Course then becomes entirely about you accepting atonement "for yourself", you changing "your mind" ABOUT the world, you not changing the world at all, and you not having any miraculous power to do so.

What also results from this is a false sense of context, that your "perception" is kind of a personal thing, inside your mind, inside your body. Everything physically external to your body is considered to be something else.

Indeed there is barely any consideration for this entire universe being "inside your mind" in any way - that seems like FAR too big of a responsibility or a magnitude of identity FAR too big to be able to accept or relate to. We have become SO USED TO LITTLENESS, that we do not think big at all.

I want to make it clear just how BLINDING form is, and WHY it is so deceiving, lying, unnatural, false and unreal.

I also want to reframe this entire world as being inside the collective mind of the Sonship. This leads to a very important point, which is, that the appearance, manifestation, physicality and nature of "physical matter" is actually nothing more than a STATE OF MIND. Or to put it another way, it is PERCEPTION.

The Course literally says "This world IS perception." This does not mean perception OF the world, which is once removed. It means literally, the mind of the Son of God which is dreaming this universe, is having a false perception, which is showing up as a tree, a car, and a young child. These seeming forms are not really physical matter, they are IDEAS IN THE MIND. And all of these ideas are just thoughts. And thoughts are nothing more than PERCEPTIONS. So this seemingly physical universe is in fact the Son of God mis-perceiving, and the hallucinations He's having in his false perception are showing up as IMAGES which we think are physical objects.

There is a huge camp of people in the ACIM community who generally do not see or believe this. As described above, they think that this world is somehow real and natural and that we are only supposed to change our "little" minds about it, to see IT differently. Not realizing whatsoever that IT ITSELF is perception, INSIDE A MIND, a mind so vast and powerful that we don't even conceive of it as being who we really are or what we are capable of.

Now. How is it that form is blinding, or an illusion, and exactly HOW does form deceive you? How is it lying to you? What is it trying to DO? And what is its PURPOSE? Remember the Course tells us to ask, "what is it FOR"? What is form FOR?

Physical form is a device for massively obscuring the nature of God, by presenting a "picture of the crucifixion of God's Son" (ACIM terms), so that you see something completely UNNATURAL presenting itself as if it is "the nature" of existence, so that God's presence will be HIDDEN.

This entire world, this planet Earth, this universe and everything with it, IS A LIE. It is FALSE. It is unreal. And it does not exist. This is reflected in "there is no world". IT IS LITERALLY TRUE. So exactly how is physical matter lying or covering up God's nature?

In terms of how the ego thinks and how this world SUGGESTS things are true, it seems to us that physical objects cannot occupy the same space. It is also suggested that whatever is contained within one area of space, cannot be contained elsewhere. It seems there is only so much material (matter) to go around, and that in order to make something presence elsewhere it has to be *removed* from where it was, thus indicating a lack or limitation to "how much" there is of anything.

This is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to the nature of God. God is omnipresent. He is everywhere, fully, at all times. If you were to think of God as occupying "space" - as an analogy for the sake of explaining this - then ALL of God is in one location, AND, God is also fully in another location, at the same time, without any lack, any diminishing, or any limitation. All of God is in America, all of God is in Africa, all of God is in Europe, etc. This does not mean God has sectioned off 1/3rd of himself to be in the USA so that there is "some left" for the other places. He is fully 100% present in ALL of these locations simultaneously.

To the ego, this is absolutely impossible and absolute nonsense. In terms of physical matter it is impossible for some amount of substance to be fully located in more than one place. So physical matter inherently has this "belief system" built into it, of finite limitation, lack, difference, competition, murder, attacking (causing) without being affected, the opposite of abundance, absolutely no sharing, no unity, no stability, no sameness or equality, no constancy, nothing permanent, everything changing. Physical matter is the EMBODIMENT of the ego's thought system. THIS WHOLE UNIVERSE IS THE EGO THOUGHT SYSTEM!

Given that God's nature is to be everywhere fully, simultaneously, at all times, without lack, and completely defying all ego laws, when we are presented with an image of FORM, we are being presented with a picture of the OPPOSITE to God's nature. It is a massive lie. It is DELIBERATELY DESIGNED to obscure God's nature, to paint a picture of attack and crucifixion and death, to make it SEEM AS IF there is absolutely no sharing or abundance, that it is "natural" to lack or have limitations.

Even the way that one physical object seems to be separate from another, sharing nothing with it, unable to merge or be "one" with each other, different in their properties and which "physical laws" (ego laws) apply to them, influencing each other differently and unequally, is specifically INTENDED by the ego to LIE TO YOU, so that you will be convinced that it is normal and natural for things to be this way. It is NOT NORMAL OR NATURAL for objects to not share space, for there to be limitation and lack, or for there to be DIFFERENCES or different appearances.

So the fact is this. You are surrounded by a massive, very solid-seeming ILLUSION, which IS PART OF THE EGO, part of the ego thought system, and is inside of MIND, and is being thought by those who are separate from God, and is coming from a state of belief in sin and separation. Physical objects are SIN. "The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outward."

Whenever "events" seem to happen in this world, and something seems to go wrong, this is an IDEA playing out, an idea of sin made real. This is why the REVERSAL OF THE PHYSICAL STATE represents a supernatural MIRACLE. To rewind time, to undo the symptoms, to cancel the chain of illusory cause-effect, to modify the outcome of sinful events, is an expression of miracles. Physical form is the idea of sin made flesh, and to reverse that IDEA will make that flesh DISAPPEAR. It must disappear because it is an idea in the MIND. Physical forms are IN THE MIND. Change your mind and "the world" MUST CHANGE ITS FORM, or disappear entirely.

This presents an entirely radically different view of some of the Course principles, that somehow PHYSICALITY is actually INCLUDED IN changes that are made to mind. The body is not outside the mind, nor is this world. They are not solid or real. They are IDEAS OF SEPARATION. That means as mind changes, physical form must change as well. This is why the physical body can become a symbol of immortality, why all sickness must be reversed, why a broken body is PROOF that the MIND has not been healed, and why there is a VERY PHYSICALLY ORIENTED aspect to performing miracles.

Miracles, true miracles, are not restricted to the "scope" of your LITTLE MIND. Nor are they limited to the scope of what you THINK of as mind, separate from matter. Miracles apply to THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE, because it is inside the mind, and IT IS perception. Physical matter is misperception of God. Period. You can change how "you" seem to perceive it, to see God "in it" etc, but if you are still seeing physical matter according to ITS ILLUSORY LAWS, and still think of yourself as separate, then you are still not perceiving correctly.

Fact is, because physical forms are IN THE MIND and are thoughts/ideas, changing the mind HAS TO CHANGE THE FORM. So what that means is something very interesting.... there is a direct connection between "changing your perception" and changing PHYSICALLY. So if for example Jesus changes water into wine, he is not really changing water into wine, he is CHANGING HIS MIND and it's showing up as water changing into wine.

This means, we have to stop thinking of physical bodies and forms as "separate from mind". That's part of the ILLUSION that they are trying to convince us of, that they REALLY ARE SEPARATE, because forms "prove" that separation IS REAL. Believing forms are real is falling for the illusion they were intended to convince you of. Instead we need to think of physical matter as IDEAS or THOUGHTS IN THE MIND. And that means, we are not living in a physical world, we are living INSIDE A MIND, and as the Course says, "everything is an idea". That means, if you HAVE A DIFFERENT IDEA, it will materialize as an image of a form.

It also means if you change your ideas/thoughts, IT WILL show up as things changing in the world. And this testifies to the POWER OF THE MIND, which most of us are scared shitless about. We literally MUST change forms if we change our mind and form MUST ALWAYS REPRESENT our state of mind. There is no matter separate from mind. There is no matter separate from our ideas and thoughts or misperceptions. Whatever form is showing up, that testifies to what we think about God. So a change in perception is not without power - a change in perception LITERALLY MUST show up as a change in physical images, because we are LIVING INSIDE A MIND and everything is fluid and changeable. Form is not "solid and fixed" implying that mind is only that which is flexible. Form IS WITHIN the mind.

This is NOT a physical world. This "world" is a THOUGHT. It is an idea, in the mind. Inside a VAST mind. The mind of the Son of God, not just the mind of a little separate human. If we are to be miracle workers, it MUST MEAN that we demonstrate that this PHYSICAL WORLD IS A LIE, by showing HOW it is a lie, by changing it, in order to SHOW that it is a lie, so that people are educated experientially. The course literally tells us to do this, and that our demonstrations will exonerate our brothers from belief in sin.

When the Course also teaches, which it does, that we are supposed to demonstrate a PERFECTLY HEALTHY BODY, free of all sin and symptoms and signs of death, it tells us this because our physical body is an IDEA in our MIND, which we are presenting to our brother. If the body is broken, the MIND IS DREAMING OF A LIE. So that proves the mind is not healed.

So if we show sickness to a brother, to his physical eyes, we are actually presenting a THOUGHT OF DEATH AND ATTACK, which shows up in what we call "physical form", but is really an IDEA in the mind. So now our physical body HAS TO BE USED as a "medium" through which God's laws are demonstrated, and the mind is SHOWN to be healed, through the miraculous absence of all signs of mental illness.

You cannot have mental health without physical health, and you cannot have sickness without mental illness. "All sickness is mental illness." And that's simply because, the body is IN THE MIND, so whatever state of mind you have it WILL SHOW UP as the body. And when the mind is perfectly purified, the body will disappear entirely.

What this reveals is that in A Course in Miracles, which many people think is about the mind (inside the body), MUST INCLUDE the transformation of FORM, as a symbol of truth, to use form to demonstrate the truth, and to use form to show that form is a lie. And these demonstrations are what the Course refers to as MIRACLES. They DO incorporate changes of mind, because form IS IN THE MIND. The body is not separate from the mind, nor are physical objects, nor is the world.

And this is why our PROVING of God's truth and laws must take place IN THIS WORLD, using miracles which demonstrate SUPERNATURALLY (beyond the illusory nature of physical matter), that the truth is true. If one object is multiplied into two objects, with no lack or limitation, this is a miraculous demonstration of the fact that the EGO'S LIE, which is physical form, does not apply to the nature of God.

"That the body cannot heal the mind but the mind can heal the body proves that the mind must be stronger than the body. EVERY MIRACLE DEMONSTRATES THIS." Miracles can ONLY demonstrate this by showing that the mind can HEAL the body, mind is more powerful than matter, mind is free of the ego's laws of physics, and therefore the mind has SUPERNATURAL POWER over physicality. This is a central, core teaching of A Course in Miracles.

"What you use the body for it will become to you." tells us that if you use the body with love, the body should BECOME A PICTURE OF LOVE. If it is being used for attack, IT WILL become a picture of sickness, proving the mind is not healed. The body is literally A REFLECTION OF YOUR MENTAL STATE. Because it is being projected by your mind. Just as this whole universe is being projected by the mind of the Sonship. And everything which seems physical IS NOT, it is in the mind. And so if you change your mind, THE WORLD MUST CHANGE.

We are not inside a physical world. The physical world is a lie inside our mind. Nothing more than an idea or thought, or a false perception. It is a visualization of mental illness. And because it is IN the mind, within the scope of the mind's influence, it can EASILY BE CHANGED by someone who is purified in their awareness of love's power.

So ACIM is not just about hey, I'm going to heal my mind in isolation, regardless of what other people do, in private, and not have ANY EFFECT on others or on the world. There are entire sections in the course talking about how we are afraid of the FACT that thoughts produce effects. "All thought produces form at some level." Therefore, all form is a thought, therefore it must be within the mind, therefore it must be changeable if the mind changes.

Form is the "form of error". Error means the unforgiving idea of sin and death considered to be real. All physical form is ERROR. It is an IDEA of attack, separation, difference and UNNATURAL conditions.

There is a great section in the course talking about how the body's physical eyes were designed to look upon FORM (of error) and make it real, BLINDING YOU to true vision or the ability to REALLY SEE or recognize the ILLUSION that matter is.

”The body's eyes see only form. 4 They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. 5 And they were made to look on error and not see past it. 6 Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. 7 To this distorted form of vision the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true. 8 Yet how can sight that stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly?"

In this section we are told how the ego made form (matter) as errors, vs mistakes, and made the body with physical eyes, to be BLIND YOU, NOT to see. Physical sight is an ILLUSION, pretending to "see" when in fact it is like burying your head in the sand.

From the perspective of the whole of existence, in which you can see everything at once, the body was made to ISOLATE YOUR VISION, to trap you in an illusion, like going inside a closed box, in which you are only allowed to see the inside of the box. It's like being forced to look at a tv screen forever and ever, never allowed to look away or look at anything else. It gives you pre-presecribed images to look at, and to ONLY look at them in a certain way, so that you will NOT SEE ANYTHING REAL.

Physical matter, and sight of it with body eyes, was INTENDED by the ego to BLIND YOU, so that you would never question that physical forms are illusions, or can be changed, or have anything to do with mind, or that you put them there through dreaming for the sole purpose of LYING about the nature of God.

You cannot and should not believe your eyes, or any body senses. They are designed to FAIL TO SEE, to FAIL TO SENSE, and to NOT BE AWARE of what is real. Body sensory organs are LIES, pretending to be able to be "aware of" something when in fact these sensations BLIND YOU to true awareness. This is why pain and pleasure both make the body real. Sight of form, belief in form, and assumption that physicality is natural, is part of the ego thought system.

Demonstrations that it is false and limited is a miracle, revealing the TRUE NATURE OF GOD. If miracles could not demonstrate that the ego's laws, its world, physicality, matter, are NOT REAL OR TRUE, and are not governed by the laws that the ego made up, we would have NO WAY to prove that God's laws are true, there could be NO HEALING, and the ego could not be undone. As Jesus says, the mere fact that illusions CAN BE CHANGED by miracles proves their impermanence.

So open your mind. This world is not what you think it is. It is a huge lie. You are not little, isolated to a body. Nor do you have a private awakening. Your mind is not stuck in your body. You are bigger than this universe, and more powerful than anything this world can demonstrate. This world IS perception and it must be corrected. That's how it turns into a happy dream, not just a happy interpretation of hell, but the TRANSLATION of hell into Heaven, initially through the transformation of matter towards symbols of Heaven, and then its disappearance.

"Heaven and Earth are opposite in EVERY WAY." And that could not be more true - physical matter and its "nature" are SO OPPOSITE to God's nature, they have nothing in common. Matter is a lie. Objects are fiction. Bodies are illusions. Worlds and planets and stars are fake. There is no separation, no difference, no appearance and no forms. There is only God's nature governing the TRUE LAWS of existence, which we are to demonstrate through miracles HERE in this illusion so that we can teach others that this world is NOT NATURAL, and that the truth is therefore SUPER NATURAL.

In A Course in Miracles there are hundreds of references to FREEDOM scattered throughout. Freedom is also contrasted against its opposite, which is imprisonment, enslavement, being bound to the ego, to the body, to darkness, suffering and death. The whole course is geared towards you reclaiming your freedom, and giving freedom to others. Through your miracles you are setting others free, and releasing them from the chains of imprisonment you held them in before.

"I am not a body I am free."

"Essentially, ALL healing is the release from fear."

"I have deluded myself into believing it is possible to imprison the Son of God. I was bitterly mistaken in this belief, which I no longer want."

"It is NOT your will to be imprisoned, BECAUSE your will is free."

"That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom."

"I give you to the Holy Spirit, as part of myself.

I know that you will be released, UNLESS I WANT TO

USE YOU TO IMPRISON MYSELF."

"But their thought is so powerful that they can even imprison the mind of God's Son IF THEY SO CHOOSE."

"For you have taught yourselves HOW TO IMPRISON THE SON OF GOD, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even DREAM of it." "When man projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to the extent that he reinforces errors they have already made."

"They release him from a prison in which he has imprisoned himself. By freeing his mind from illusions, they restore his sanity, and place him at the feet of Jesus."

The idea of freedom really goes back to your creation as a free-willed being by God. God has absolute freedom, being free from all limitation. God is unlimited. He who is unlimited can only give complete freedom, because he knows not of imprisonment. God does not create by imprisoning, he creates by giving freedom. All his children are not only free, they are fully free. It is because they are completely free ... in a sense, free from God .... though still sharing freely with him, that they are established as truly cooperative co-creators in heaven.

"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."

"Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His."

Any attempt you make to imprison another, to attack, to judge, to condemn, to blame, to project, to hurt, to destroy, to make guilty, to accuse of sin, to be victimized by, to victimize, to narrow to a body, to induce suffering of any kind, is actually an attempt to take away the freedom of others, AND to deny your own freedom. You cannot be a victim or suffer in ANY way if you acknowledge your total freedom. But in order to gain your own freedom, you MUST acknowledge that everyone else is also free from YOU, and you from them. You are not bound BY your brothers, any more than they are bound by you.

Dwell for a moment on the feeling of "keeping to yourself", in the sense that you ALLOW everyone to be free FROM YOU. Acknowledge that everyone is completely free. You are free from their tyranny over you. They are free from your tyranny over them. Let go of all manipulation, expectation, wanting others to be a certain way, or resisting their choices. Withdraw all your efforts to control and coerce, to blame and accuse. Let go of everyone. Let the whole world be itself. Settle back into your own inner freedom. You are free from enemies, free from attack, free from the choices of others, free from the body, and free from the world.

The course is in fact leading entirely to your TOTAL FREEDOM. Claiming your freedom is the restoration of your birth right. You cannot however claim your total freedom if you are imprisoning others, because the attempt to do so is an attempt to reinforce the idea that freedom doesn't exist. And thus you imprison yourself. It is said that your brother can set you free, or is the key to your salvation. By GIVING him total freedom, you give it to yourself. By recognizing he IS FREE, you recognize YOU are free. Try it.

Atonement is all about claiming freedom for yourself and the whole sonship. It is an act of setting everyone free from imprisonment. It releases you and everyone from slavery, bondage, body identification, death identification, and from all forms of suffering. You cannot BE affected by forces outside of you. The world cannot make you imprisoned or take your freedom away. No-one can deny your freedom for you. Not even God can decide whether you are free or not. He established you as free forever, and only you can deny your OWN freedom by denying it to the whole sonship.

When you acknowledge that you are COMPLETELY FREE FROM EVERYTHING, you settle back into your soul, you lift your hands away from the territory and lives of others and you set everyone free. In so doing you BECOME free yourself. You can feel it inside you, an acknowledgement of your own freedom, and it makes you feel happy and safe. You are safe from all attack because you are claiming your freedom. You are even save from suffering and death and from all the forces in the world. Nothing can imprison you or act against your will, but your will itself. When you stop imprisoning, you stop imprisoning yourself.

Below is an extensive collection of quotes from ACIM on the topic of freedom.

"How wonderful it is to do your will! For that IS freedom. There is nothing else that ever should be called by freedom's name."

"The world awaits the freedom you will give, when you have recognized that YOU are free."

"And no-one walks upon the earth but must depend on YOUR decision, that he learn death HAS no power over him because he shares YOUR freedom, as he shares your will."

"No-one but yearns for freedom, and tries to find it, but he will seek for it where he believes it IS, and CAN be found."

"But be you, rather, grateful that YOU can be the means to serve His end. This is the ONLY service which leads to freedom. To serve THIS end, the body MUST be perceived as sinless, BECAUSE the goal is sinlessness."

"Only in dreams is there a time when he appears to be in prison, and awaits a future freedom if it be at all. Yet in reality his dreams are gone, with truth established in their place. And now is freedom his already. Should I wait in chains which have been severed for release, when God is offering me freedom now?"

"I did not understand what made me free, nor what my freedom is, nor where to look to find it. Father, I have searched in vain until I heard Your Voice directing me. Now I would guide myself no more. For I have neither made nor understood the way to find my freedom. But I trust in You. You Who endowed me with my freedom as Your holy Son will not be lost to me. Your Voice directs me. And the way to You is opening and clear to me at last. Father, my freedom is in You alone. Father, it is my will that I return."

"How glad are we to find our freedom through the certain way our Father has established. And how sure is all the world's salvation, when we learn our freedom can be found in God alone."

"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found."

"We sound the call of freedom 'round the world with this idea."

"The Holy Spirit is the home of minds that seek for freedom."

"In conflict-free and unequivocal response to mind with but the thought of freedom as its goal, the body serves, and serves its purpose well. Without the power to enslave, it is a worthy servant of the freedom which the mind within the Holy Spirit seeks."

"Be free today, and carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body."

"For He would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full accomplishment in God."

"Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance."

"For as we offer freedom it is given us. And we would not remain as prisoners, while You hold out our freedom unto us."

"He leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard, or look beyond EVERYTHING that would hold you back."

"That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom"

"That is because you have taught YOURSELF that imprisonment IS freedom"

"The Holy Spirit's teaching takes only one direction, and has only one goal. His direction is freedom, and His goal is God."

"Will to BE without you. When you have learned that your will IS God's, you could no more will to be without Him than He could will to be without YOU. This IS freedom and this IS joy."

"Father, I thank You for today, and for the freedom I am certain it will bring. This day is holy, for today Your Son will be redeemed. His suffering is done."

"Thanks for today, my Father. I was born into this world but to achieve this day, and what it holds in joy and freedom for Your holy Son, and for the world he made, which is released along with him today."

"Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world."

"Let us not worship idols, nor believe in any laws idolatry would make to hide the freedom of the Son of God. He is not bound except by his beliefs. Yet what he is is far beyond his faith in slavery or freedom."

"But those who are FOR freedom, even if they are misguided in HOW they defend it, are siding with the one thing in this world which IS true."

"And is it THIS that you would see within your Savior FROM insanity? He is as free from this as you are, and in the freedom that you see in HIM, you see your own."

"Those who choose freedom will experience only ITS results. Their power is of God."

"Nothing but this can touch them, for they see ONLY this, sharing their power according to the Will of God. And thus their freedom is established AND MAINTAINED. It is upheld through ALL temptations to imprison and to BE imprisoned. It is THEM, who learned of freedom, that you should ask what freedom IS."

"And where he rests a while, to forget imprisonment, and to remember freedom."

"Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God's." "I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's. And His are the laws of freedom."

"Forgiveness, truly given, is the only way in which your hope of freedom lies."

"Yet you must learn alternatives for choice, or you will not be able to attain your freedom."

"The level of your prayer depends on this, for here it waits its freedom to ascend above the world of chaos into peace."

"For thus is freedom given us from all we did not know and failed to understand."

"If you want to be LIKE me, I will help you, knowing that we ARE alike. If you want to be DIFFERENT, I will wait until you change your mind. I can TEACH you, but only you can choose to LISTEN to my teaching. How else can it be, if God's Kingdom IS freedom? Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of ANY kind, and the perfect equality of ALL God's Sons cannot be recognized through the dominion of one will over another. God's Sons are equal in will, all being the Will of their Father. This is the ONLY lesson I can teach, knowing that it is true."

"In our remembrance of EACH OTHER lies our remembrance of God. And in this remembrance lies your freedom, because your freedom is in Him."

"This is our gift of gratitude to Him, which He will share with ALL His Creations, to whom He gives equally whatever is acceptable to Him. BECAUSE it is acceptable to Him, it is the gift of freedom, which IS His Will for all His Sons. By OFFERING freedom you will be free, because freedom is the only gift which you can offer to God's Sons, being an acknowledgment of what they are and what HE is."

"Freedom is creation because it is love. What you seek to imprison you do NOT love. Therefore, when you seek to imprison ANYONE, including YOURSELF, you do not love him and you cannot identify with him. When you imprison yourself, you are losing sight of your true identification with me and with the Father."

"Only the function God has given me

can offer freedom. Only this I seek,

and only this will I accept as mine."

"In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice; this choice is always between two choices or two voices. Will is not involved in perception at any level, and has nothing to do with choice."

"It must be, then, that the world is really a place where he can be set free. I would look upon the world as it is, and see it as a place where the Son of God finds his freedom."

"When I see the world as a place of freedom, I will realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules which I made up for it to obey. I will understand that peace, not war, abides in it. And I will perceive that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share this place with me."

"Can I lay limits on the Son of God, whose Father willed that he be limitless, and like Himself in freedom and in love?"

"So will YOU learn the freedom that I taught, by teaching freedom to each other, and so releasing me. I am within your holy relationship, yet you would imprison me behind the obstacles you RAISE to freedom, and bar my way to YOU."

"So would I liberate all things I see, and give to them the freedom that I seek. For thus do I obey the law of love, and give what I would find and make my own."

"Today's idea is one step we take in leading us from bondage to the state of perfect freedom."

"And you are free, and glad of freedom. You have sought to be both weak and bound, because you feared your strength and freedom. Yet salvation lies in them."

"All this lies in the Holy Spirit's plan to free you from the past, and open up the way to freedom FOR you."

"Accept this key to freedom, from the hands of Christ, Who gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light to darkness. For, like your brothers, YOU do not realize the light has come, and freed you from the sleep of darkness."

"Behold your brothers in their freedom, and learn of them how to be FREE of darkness. The light in you will waken them, and they will not leave YOU asleep."

"His are the laws of freedom, but yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable, their laws CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD TOGETHER."

"You are NOT free to give up freedom, but only to DENY it."

"Think what a happy world you walk, with truth beside you! Do not give up this world of freedom, for a little sigh of seeming sin, nor for a tiny stirring of guilt's attraction."

"How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it! What can you value MORE than this? For here is YOUR salvation and YOUR freedom. And it MUST be complete, if YOU would recognize it."

"But You have offered freedom, and I choose to claim Your gift today."

"My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever from all thought of loss; complete deliverance from suffering. And only happiness can be my state, for only happiness is given me."

"The mind that is made willing to accept God's gifts has been restored to Spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own."

"Then are you free, for freedom is your gift, and you can now receive the gift you gave."

"Condemn and you are made a prisoner. Forgive and you are freed. Such is the law that rules perception. It is not a law that knowledge understands, for freedom is a part of knowledge."

"Today we practice letting freedom come to make its home with you."

"Thus do we lift the chains which bar the door to freedom from the world, and go beyond all little values and diminished goals."

"Peace and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world when you release your mind from chains, and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home. It will be grateful to be free a while. It knows where it belongs. But free its wings, and it will fly in sureness and in joy to join its holy purpose. Let it rest in its Creator, there to be restored to sanity, to freedom and to love.

"He would only have you learn your OWN will and follow it, not in the spirit of sacrifice and submission, but in the gladness of freedom."

"The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but it CAN be offered you through the grace of God."

"It contains the foundation for the peace, relaxation and freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve."

"The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health; his perfect freedom from all forms of lack; and safety from disaster of all kinds."

"LOVE IS FREEDOM. To look for it by placing yourself in BONDAGE, is to SEPARATE yourself from it. For the love of God, no longer seek for union in separation, nor for freedom in bondage! As you release, so will you BE released."

"The holy instant is His most helpful tool in protecting you from the attraction of guilt, the REAL lure in the special relationship. You do NOT recognize that this IS its REAL appeal, for the ego has taught you that FREEDOM lies in it."

"It is impossible to see two worlds.

Let me accept the strength God offers me

And see no value in this world, that I

May find my freedom and deliverance."

"It is impossible to see two worlds.

I seek my freedom and deliverance,

And this is not a part of what I want."

"And think how holy HE must be, when in him sleeps your OWN salvation, with HIS freedom joined."

"What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into Heaven, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one comes home."

"It is no sacrifice that he be saved, for BY his freedom will you gain your own."

"He HAS no need but this; that you allow him freedom to complete the task God gave to him."

"But if he could but realize the war is between forces that are real and UNREAL powers, he could look upon himself, and SEE his freedom."

"The war is gone. For you have heard the hymn of freedom, rising unto Heaven. Gladness and joy belong to God for your release, because YOU made it not. But, as you made not freedom, so you made not a war that could ENDANGER freedom. Nothing destructive ever was, or will be. The war, the guilt, the past, are gone as one, into the unreality from whence they came."

"In the holy instant, in which you see yourself as bright with freedom, you WILL remember God. For remembering Him IS to remember freedom."

"Practice GIVING this blessed instant of freedom to all who are ENSLAVED by time, and thus make time their friend FOR them."

"Freedom is given you where you beheld but chains and iron doors. For you must change your mind about the purpose of the world, if you would find escape."

"Peace is the answer to conflicting goals, to senseless journeys, frantic vain pursuits and meaningless endeavors. Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God." "Be merciful today. The Son of God deserves your mercy. It is he who asks that you accept the way to freedom now. Deny him not. His Father's Love for him belongs to you."

"Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you."

"It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved."

"The song of freedom, which sings the praises of ANOTHER world, brings to it hope of peace."

"Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real."

"But the experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself."

"The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all."

"For you have cause for freedom NOW. What profits freedom in a prisoner's form?"

"You have denied HIS freedom, and by so doing, you have denied the witness unto YOURS. You could as easily have FREED him from the past, and lifted from his mind the cloud of guilt that binds him TO it. And in HIS freedom would have been your OWN."

"Salvation is accomplished. Freedom from conflict has been given you. Accept that fact, and you are ready to take your rightful place in God's plan for salvation."

"There is ANOTHER vision and ANOTHER voice, in which your freedom lies, awaiting but your choice. And, if you place your faith in them, you will perceive ANOTHER Self in YOU."

"The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone."

"You will have to choose between TOTAL freedom and TOTAL bondage, for there are no alternatives but these."

"In the name of MY freedom, I WILL your release,

Because I recognize that we will be released TOGETHER.

So will the year begin in joy and freedom."

"For we would meet with our Reality in freedom and in peace."

"Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. And now you are prepared for freedom."

"A madman thinks the world he sees is real and does not doubt it. Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last." "Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world"

"Where COULD his freedom lie but in himself, if he be free ALREADY? And who could bind him but HIMSELF, if he DENY his freedom?"

"Prisoners bound with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated, weak and exhausted, and with eyes so long cast down in darkness they remember not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free. It takes a while for them to understand what freedom IS."

"Strengthen your hold, and raise your eyes unto your strong companion, in whom the meaning of your freedom lies."

"Freedom to choose is the same POWER as freedom to create, but its APPLICATION is different."

"Today escape from madness. You are set on freedom's road, and now today's idea brings wings to speed you on, and hope to go still faster to the waiting goal of peace."

"The first step toward freedom, then, MUST entail a sorting out of the false from the true. This is a process of division only in the constructive sense, and reflects the true meaning of the Apocalypse."

"Give joyously to one another the freedom and the strength to lead you there. And come before each other's holy altar, where the strength and freedom wait, to offer and receive the bright awareness that leads you home."

"His is the Voice of God, and also yours. And thus He speaks of freedom and of truth."

"There is no death. The Son of God is free. And in His freedom is the end of fear."

"Whom you forgive is GIVEN power to forgive you your illusions. By your gift of freedom is it given unto YOU."

"Behold the gift of freedom that I gave the Holy Spirit, for BOTH of you. And be you free together, as you offer TO the Holy Spirit this SAME gift, and, giving it, receive it OF Him, in RETURN for what you gave."

"Offer each other freedom and complete release from sin, here in the garden of seeming agony and death. So will we prepare TOGETHER the way unto the Resurrection of God's Son."

"Fear of escape makes it difficult to welcome freedom, and to make a jailer of an enemy seems to be safety."

"It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Father and of Son."

"There are the laws of limit lifted FOR you, to welcome you to openness of mind, and freedom."

"Do not ALLOW him to belittle himself in YOUR mind, but give him freedom from his belief in littleness, and escape from YOURS."

"Freedom from illusions lies only in not BELIEVING them."

"Nor will you leave the prison house or claim your strength until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed and found and fully recognized."

"And what they see upholds their freedom FROM imprisonment and death." "Those who would let illusions be lifted from their minds are this world's Saviors, walking the world with their Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and freedom and RELEASE from suffering to everyone who NEEDS a miracle to save him."

"The prayer for enemies thus becomes a prayer for your own freedom." "We bless the world as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, now our own."

"Begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of your mind to learn what each idea you will review that day can offer you in freedom and in peace."

"Accept today's idea, and you have released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains that locked the door to freedom on it."

"We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom."

"What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your Savior has been waiting long for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours."

"Above all else you want the freedom to remember who you really are."

"It is your special function to ensure the door be opened, that he may come forth to shine on you, and give you back the gift of freedom by receiving it of you"

"The special ones are all asleep, surrounded by a world of loveliness they do not see. Freedom and peace and joy stand there, beside the bier on which they sleep, and call them to come forth and waken from their dream of death."

"When you have seen your brothers as yourself, you will be RELEASED to knowledge, having learned to FREE yourself, of Him who knows of freedom. "

"The miracle teaches you that you have chosen guiltlessness, freedom, and joy. It is not a cause, but an EFFECT. It is the natural result of CHOOSING RIGHT, attesting to your happiness that comes from choosing to be FREE of guilt."

"Therefore, make your INVULNERABILITY manifest to everyone, and teach him that, WHATEVER he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can BE harmed, shows him HE is guiltless."

"You who will yet work miracles, be sure you practice well the idea for today. Try to perceive the strength in what you say, for these are words in which your freedom lies. Your Father loves you."

"The possibility of freedom has been grasped and welcomed, and the means by which it can be gained can now be understood."

"I call you to fulfill your holy part in the plan that He has given to the world, for its release from littleness. God would have His host abide in perfect freedom."

"He cannot choose to change His Son, nor make your mind accept the perfect freedom He has given you." "Healing is freedom, for it demonstrates that dreams will not prevail against the truth."

"Your special relationships will remain, NOT as a source of pain and guilt, but as a source of joy and freedom. It will NOT be for you alone, for therein lay its misery."

"The ego is immobilized in the presence of God's grandeur, because HIS grandeur establishes YOUR freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because of the complete lack of investment in it."

"For faith can keep the Son of God in chains, as long as he believes he IS in chains. And, when he is RELEASED from them, it will be simply because he no longer BELIEVES in them, WITHDRAWING faith that they can hold him, and placing it in his freedom INSTEAD."

"Here it is given him to choose to spend this instant paying tribute to the body, or LET himself be given freedom from it."

"He may not yet have learned HOW to exchange his guilt for innocence, nor realize that ONLY in this exchange can freedom from pain be his."

"My role is only to unchain your will and make it free. Your egos cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose your free decision at every possible moment, and in every possible way."

"Free will MUST lead to freedom. Judgment always imprisons, because it separates segments of reality according to highly unstable scales of desire."

"Miracles need freedom from fear. Part of their Atonement value involves just that. Note that the word "atone" really means "undo."

"In this phase of learning, working miracles is more valuable because freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you."

"Look on your brother, and behold in him the whole reversal of the laws that SEEM to rule this world. See in his freedom YOURS, for such it IS."

"To have faith is to heal. It is the sign that you HAVE accepted the Atonement for yourself, and would therefore share it. By faith, you OFFER the gift of freedom from the past, which you have RECEIVED." "Be not afraid to look upon the special hate relationship, for freedom lies here."

"For the body IS little and limited, and only those whom you would see WITHOUT the limits that the ego would impose on them, can offer YOU the gift of freedom."

"Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to ATTACK the present you will NOT SEE the freedom that the present holds."

"For you have chosen but the goal of God, from which your true intent was NEVER absent. Throughout the Sonship is the song of freedom heard, in joyous echo of your choice."

"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you MADE of it is NOT its reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it."

"And you will carry its message of love and safety and freedom to everyone who draws nigh unto your temple, where healing waits for him."

"The belief in EGO autonomy is costing you the knowledge of your dependence on God, IN WHICH YOUR FREEDOM LIES."

"You could accept peace NOW, for everyone you meet, and offer them perfect freedom from ALL illusions, BECAUSE YOU HEARD. But have no other gods before Him, or you will NOT hear."

"Nothing of God will enslave His Son, whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by HIS Being."

"HIS slip (rivet) was an expression of a Soul gaining enough strength to request freedom from prison. It will ultimately DEMAND it."

"Because of his failure to accept his own perfect freedom FROM the past, Cayce could not really perceive others as similarly free."

"Freedom from fear can be achieved by BOTH teacher and pupil ONLY if they do not compare either their needs or their positions in regard to each other in terms of higher and lower."

"In the service of the "Right Mind", the denial of ERROR frees the mind and re-establishes the freedom of the will. When the will is REALLY free, it CANNOT miscreate, because it recognizes ONLY TRUTH.

It's really impossible to separate from God, given that God is everywhere and there is nowhere else to go. But the ego mind believes that the impossible is possible. It thinks it can actually succeed in being separate and can have an existence somewhere that God doesn't exist. To be separate from God, if it were possible, would have to mean you exist somewhere that God is absent, and that is why following the separation, God seemed to no longer be present.

But this is all really an illusion, being impossible in truth, and only by some illusory interpretation of what is happening could you believe that you have actually succeeded in achieving this separation. It's as if you found some kind of loophole or exception or special interpretation which allowed the impossible to become possible. There must be an illusion that God does not exist, otherwise you couldn't possibly believe that separation is possible, it would make no sense, and you would not believe it. Only by hiding or denying the truth does an illusion seem to make sense to you.

This mentality carries on through all stages of separation from sin to guilt to fear to death. At every step, we actually believe that if we buy into the ego's illusion, we're actually becoming capable of succeeding at doing something impossible. We then believe that doing it actually "works", that we're actually getting away with it. And because in this illusion there doesn't seem to be any reason why you can't do this, it seems justified and as though you have the freedom to do it. Nothing therefore seems to be stopping you from getting away with murder - the murder of God and His Holy Son.

It's not that you're an inherently evil person. You don't automatically see things in a twisted way. You're not fundamentally broken. You actually keep with you at all times an attempt to maintain some semblance of truth. You also always retain an attempt to make sense out of what you are experiencing, using some kind of logic or reasoning to explain it, to come to conclusions based on it, and to then act on those conclusions. Decisions are actions based on all previous conclusions.

You're actually just in the business of trying to make sense of your experience of reality (or unreality), and base your conclusions on all of the information that you are aware of. You look around you at everything you can see, and you look within at everything you aware of taking place within yourself, and you look at other people, and often it seems to just make sense that they must be the cause of your upset. You do not see what the real cause is because you do not see fully, or the whole of what is happening, but you believe you do.

At all times you believe that whatever is within the scope of your awareness is all that exists, is all that is true, and is all that is happening. This is true whether you are fully with God or whether you are hiding in a dark corner in an unconscious state. The extent of your awareness determines what you can SEE, and therefore the scope of your idea of "wholeness". You believe, even if you are not whole and are in denial of a great many facts, that you are a whole person, with a whole perception, seeing the whole situation clearly.

Given that you believe this is true, and you do not suspect there is anything hidden from you, you then attempt to make sense from the evidence. You look at it and examine it and judge it and then conclude certain things based on that. The trouble is, you're not really in a state of wholeness or full awareness, and there are many important facts and pieces of truth which are hidden from your awareness.

Whatever the scope of your awareness is, you'll also find that this correlates to your sense of identity. You will ALWAYS be believing that you are a whole self, regardless of how limited you are. However, when you become more conscious, to be aware of parts of you that you were blind to before, you become aware that you are more than you thought you were.

Your awareness uncovers not only the truth that love is present, but it also uncovers the rest of your hidden identity. And if you are unaware, you do not fully or clearly perceive who you really are, and so do not see all of your motivations or beliefs, or the full extent of your will, or the full extent of what you might be doing in the situation.

If you are having any kind of experience of unhappiness, unlove, unforgiveness, fear or guilt, punishment or suffering or upset, it is guaranteed that you must be in some kind of state that isn't really whole. Love and forgiveness and happiness come from true wholeness, so if this is absent, then immediately it means that you have some blocks to your awareness which are preventing you from being aware of those conditions. And yet you will believe that you are whole, in your partiality, and that there is nothing more to see.

Whatever is outside of your awareness you will believe does not exist at all, and you might not even suspect that there IS anything else. Whatever is unconscious to you is outside of your conscious awareness, as though it is nowhere, and so you do not see it. Any evidence it might provide you will dismiss. That is, unless you are willing to look deeper for the truth.

If you are upset or unhappy, and given that happiness is wholeness, you cannot truly be whole. There must be something blocked or something you are unaware of. But you will believe you are aware of everything. You don't see what you're choosing or why you're choosing it. You don't see what you're doing to yourself. You don't see who is truly responsible for what you are experiencing. You don't see how you might be using your reactions or behaviors for a secret motive. And you don't remember having asked for suffering.

Along comes what appears to be a situation which seems to attack you, and you look inside the confines of your awareness to examine all the possible causes or influences or reasons why it is happening. You use your ego mind's logic to try to come to some kind of understanding, to try to make sense of what you are experiencing. This is quite natural and everyone does this at all levels of awareness. Whatever you are aware of and are experiencing is the truth to you - reality, and its truth equates with 'sense' or with rationality or sanity, and so you attempt to make sense out of your limited viewpoint.

So you're now experiencing attack and you look around, you do not see that you are involved, you do not see that you're choosing it, you do not see that you're using the other person as an opportunity to get rid of a hidden sin, and you don't realize what you're doing to yourself. You see this other person is present and when they showed up the attack seemed to start and you started to suffer, and not seeing your involvement it seems to "make sense" that they are the cause of it. You seemed innocent, being unaware of any guilt or causality on your part, so it MUST be their fault.

It simply makes sense to you, based on your limited evidence which you think is the whole evidence, that they are the culprit and so you are now justified in being angry. You didn't seem to ask for this, it was unwanted and uncalled for, and it seems real. Given this fundamental basis for your deciding what the truth of the matter is, it seems only logical, sensible, understandable and rational, to be upset about what this other person apparently is doing to you against your will.

Anger becomes justified and so does a counter-attack, which is an attempt to defend yourself. You believe you are acting in self-defense, given that you did not seem to be the one to start all this. You see yourself as upholding your innocence, as having been needlessly and unfairly treated, at which you are outraged. You do not in any way see that your anger has another motive, or that it is self destructive, or that it does not work to alleviate your suffering. Instead, your unawareness of some key facts has led you to be MISTAKEN, so now you actually believe that your angry retaliation can succeed in achieving the impossible, once again.

If you could retaliate against the attack and prove them wrong, it would seem to prove you right, and thereby uphold your obvious innocence and keep you justified in maintaining your sense of identity and wholeness. Your enemy came to attack your truth and you must defend it. The trouble is, the goal being the defense of yourself and the maintaining of your truth, all of that is thrown into jeopardy as soon as you justify your anger.

Your belief in attack attacks yourself and undermines your innocence. Your counter attack therefore renders you guilty, which destroys your innocence and shakes the foundation of your truth. What you thought would "work", does not work. And yet in unconsciousness you may not even realize it is not working, and will just carry on with this device believing that it is helping your situation.

Only with a lack of information and a lack of truth could you continue using a device which is broken, does not work, isn't bringing about the peace you lost, and is working against your own goal. Yet you won't stop using it while you continue to fail to correctly recognize the faults in your system, the lack of truth in your reasoning, and the mistakes that you are making. You don't see them AS mistakes because you believe you're totally logically, naturally, and inherently justified.

This is how we continue to use the ego in the same way we did at the separation from God, all the way through our progress towards death, believing that whatever we are doing with the ego makes sense, is understandable, is justified, it works, it can succeed, and that if you will just do more of it you will reach your goal. It is extraordinary, however, that given how obviously the ego's promises are lies, and how they constantly fail to deliver, and how they always make your situation worse while pretending they will help, that we can so easily "overlook" the truth and believe that we're getting away with the impossible.

We'll keep using the ego this way, keep falling for its traps, keep reacting with anger and justification, and keep remaining in denial, simply because it all seems to make sense and seems rational given what we're aware of. So long as we are keeping our illusions and keeping the truth out of awareness, we're really just doing our best to respond to situations in a way that makes sense to us.

We're simply very mistaken and are making "errors" in perception and judgement, without realizing it. It's not as though we are fully aware of the whole entire truth and are then making a deliberate decision to defy it and ignore it and act in insane ways. We do not SEE them as insane. We've blocked out so much truth that we simply are not aware of the ways that our beliefs and perceptions are mistaken.

If we had all the evidence of what's really going on, and were aware of it, it would once again make sense. We'd evaluate it and look at all of the pieces and see how they fit together. Without any denial, it would be obvious and clear exactly who caused what to happen, why it happened, and what the effects were. There would be no confusion within that context. Everything would be completely clear and obvious and easy to accept.

And you would accept it, because you will always be accepting of whatever you have ALLOWED into your awareness. Whatever is inside your awareness and not outside of it, you have accepted into your mind, and it therefore becomes part of you and is your truth. You can only accept what you believe is true, and anything you believe is not true or of which you are not aware, you will see as false and dismiss it as false evidence.

If you had the whole truth, you'd see the part that you play in all of your experiences. You'd see exactly who it is that is doing things to you - it's yourself. And you'd see the entire chain of cause and effect stemming from your own initial decision to separate from God and all the way through to all of the forms of suffering you are experiencing. You would not be ABLE to deny that it is all coming from you. It would be so obvious. The only sensible conclusion you would be able to draw from it is that you did all of this to yourself and no-one else was ever to blame.

The trouble is, key evidence and key truth has been blocked from your awareness. You do not know what you do not know. And even in a state of profound denial and unconsciousness, whatever little amount of awareness you have left seems to you to be "all" that there is. And whatever you see, from that perspective, seems to show you a reflection outside of you which you also believe is "all there is". And since that is truth to you, that presents to you a world which seems hostile, unfair, confusing, dramatic, upsetting and unsafe.

These are conclusions which you must come to, albeit mistaken. You can't conclude anything else because you have no other evidence to the contrary. All of these beliefs and perceptions about how the world is against you, life is unfair, people are victimizing you, you are alone and afraid, you're suffering against your will, you're constantly in conflict with other people, etc... it all comes solely from a lack of awareness and a lack of truth. It all seems to make sense to you and you believe in it, even if it is very upsetting.

People believe in the inevitability and un-avoidability of death, simply because of a lack of truth and a block to awareness, which seems to show them that they have no say in the matter and no power to choose otherwise. Such power is unconscious, such ability to decide is unconscious, and such truth that shows them that they cannot die because they are really immortal is also unconscious.

Without those key facts, death seems like something that happens to you against your will and it just "makes sense" to you that you must die. You see no other way out of the dark maze of hell and will therefore ACCEPT it and allow it, even if you seem not to want to.

This is also why when things happen to you seemingly against your will, you experience them as upsetting and unwanted. And yet, simultaneously, you experience them. You can't seem to make them go away, because you don't see that you are choosing them. You'll be very upset or afraid or suffering and experience it as though you really, really do not want this and are not in any way choosing it. And death is the ultimate expression of this - the idea that you are not choosing what you experience whatsoever, and therefore have become a passive victim of fate.

You'll experience these upsetting situations as being so against your will that you resist them and hate them and wish they would stop. You'll kick and scream all the way to the grave as though someone else is deciding for you what will happen to you. You seem not to want to be a victim, that you don't want to be afraid, you don't want to be sick, you don't to suffer and die. But it seems to be happening. And given you are unaware of the secret fact that you can CHOOSE for or against all of this, you don't believe you have any power to stop it. And that is terrifying and very upsetting.

You'll then set about trying to change others, trying to stop events, trying to resist life, trying to prevent bad stuff from happening, and trying to defend yourself from all the ways that some "other will" - an unexplained influence - seems to be deciding when you are or are not happy. You want all those bad influences to just go away so that you can carry on being innocent and harmless, to enjoy your "life", but bad stuff keeps cropping up. You don't see what you are doing to yourself so it seems entirely unwelcome and you just wish it would stop. Why is life so unfair? Why can't they just leave you alone and let you live in (an illusion of) peace?

These dramas and stories of suffering and unfairness will continue until you become willing to look at how you might be mistaken. It takes for you to become a little bit open minded about the possibility of something which seems very unlikely. If you are experiencing that you are a whole person, that you are fully aware of everything that's happening, and that you know everything there is to know about what is causing what, then you may not be willing to entertain this idea. But the idea is, that you MIGHT NOT BE WHOLE, and you MIGHT NOT BE FULLY AWARE, and there MIGHT BE MORE TRUTH than you are currently aware of.

Sometimes this is expressed in the form of "there must be a better way". This can be a natural reaction to the experiences of unfairness and strife and misery which all SEEM to happen for no good reason, which perhaps after a while don't seem to make sense, which perhaps seem so unbearable and stupid that it surely can't be the truth. When life becomes too painful and unmanageable, there can be a stirring of awareness or a desire for peace of some kind that prompts you to start to question whether what's happening - your experience of it - is really the truth, or whether there must be some kind of "deeper" truth or meaning that you just aren't seeing.

This requires a willingness, however small, to consider that you MIGHT be mistaken about what you're experiencing, or about the conclusions you keep coming to based on the evidence you have. It means literally a willingness to question your SELF, your own righteousness and your own sense of knowing everything. It even means questioning the truth of your identity - who you are - and what is the basis for yourself. To the ego this seems like self-attack, but in truth it is a willingness to dismantle your false self to reveal the "True You".

It's the beginning of humility, it's the beginning of honesty, and it's the beginning of opening up to a possible truth that exists in 'addition' to your current idea of Self. In other words, you are beginning to make ROOM for the truth in your life, creating a space where a larger truth can dwell where you are not filling that space with all of your own egoic conclusions and interpretations. It means you are making room for God, stepping aside a little bit from your ego mind and becoming willing to LOOK AT the situation from a slightly different perspective. And that means, you are starting to ALLOW a bigger truth to enter your awareness - therefore you are starting to wake up.

Illusions will be kept so long as they make sense to you, so long as you do not see their real purpose, and so long as they seem to work. Or at least, even if they don't work, you keep them because you believe they CAN work, if you will just use them hard enough. You think for example that in your justified anger, your anger will somehow bring about happiness.

If you can be angry enough at someone else for what they did, and thus prove that you are right and justified, then there will be some kind of acceptance by the other person, a backing down of their attack on your truth, and you will get the respect and recognition that you believe your truth deserves.

In their acceptance and admittance of how they were wrong and you were right, you'll feel vindicated and satisfied having "proven" that your truth is true. It's as though you need others to admit to YOUR truth and accept it and humble themselves, in order for YOU to believe your own truth more - that you've given them the power to accept your truth for you, which is what you want because it's part of your disowning of responsibility for you own decision-making.

You think then that you'll find peace and satisfaction from this. But does anger ever produce peace and happiness? No. It does not really work. Getting someone else to admit to your truth for you will not cause you to be happy indirectly, but you think it will. And most likely their ego will not be humble enough to accept your truth on your behalf, meaning you cannot gain the happiness that lies in their hands. To admit to that fact is to admit to the truth, which means you are allowing a greater truth to shine its light on this response and to show that it is false.

Everything that you do in the ego thought system has a justification, a purpose, a reason behind it, a motive, a secret plan and an attempted goal that it would achieve. Just as in the truth everything you do is deliberate and intentional, producing exactly the results you ask for every time, this still holds true in your use of the ego. Every decision you make to believe in the ego's interpretation and follow its advice, is based in a deliberate, intentional decision to do so. You have a purpose and a use for every ego device you use.

Generally speaking the overall purpose of the entire ego thought system is to get rid of yourself by becoming an artificial self that doesn't exist. To replace yourself with non-existence. To replace God with death. And because your attempt to do this is based in your belief in SIN, the attempt to get rid of your sin is just another part of your attempt to get rid of yourself. Every step of the way, in every ego device that you use whether it be denial or projection or anger or reactions or suppression of guilt or punishment or death, all of these "tools" have a purpose for you, in furthering your attempt to get rid of sin and to get rid of yourself.

So when you are angry with someone, even though you are angry because it seems completely justified and sensible, given the (lack of) facts, this anger is actually also serving this goal. It is an attempt to get rid of sin by finding someone else guilty. Behind this anger, in greater truth, you actually are the one who believes YOU sinned, you have accused yourself of a horrible crime, and subsequently felt extremely guilty. You are trying to cover that up and get rid of it, because you believe deep down that YOU are the one who "did it".

When someone comes along and SEEMS to be the one who must have done something to you, instead of seeing that you believe that YOU are the sinful one, you take the opportunity quickly, based on the lack of awareness and the presence of denial, to scapegoat the person and put all your sense of guilt onto them. You might seem as though you are projecting onto them because "clearly" they did something to you against your will, and it therefore seems justified, but the rest of the evidence shows that you actually are USING that person to get rid of your sin and ultimately yourself.

In light of that additional information, it would also show you that your attempt to use them to get rid of sin is actually an attack on YOUR part, towards someone who is NOT the cause of your sin, and they in fact are the one who is innocent. So now you have committed a further crime, for which you will feel guilty. Even if you think your anger is justified, you will not be able to explain why you feel remorse and guilt and "bad" about having done so.

The truth would also reveal that you in fact WANTED that person to "seem" to attack you, because you wanted to have an opportunity to get rid of your sin. Even if it seems to you as though you did not want it, did not choose it or ask for it, and that it was completely uncalled for, you in fact DID call for it, ask for it, and were given what you asked for. You hired the person to play the role of attacker so that you could use them. Even if you suffered, even if you didn't SEEM to want it in your semi-conscious state, you really DID want it. You wanted to be hurt so that you could make out that you are not the one who is guilty.

Without this key information, without the awareness of what you are doing to yourself, without realizing and recognizing how you are using these ego devices for an ego purpose, and how everything is a deliberate part of your plan to get rid of yourself, it is easy to see how and why you would conclude what you do. It also then becomes easy to see why you are MISTAKEN, and are making an error, and why you therefore need CORRECTION. You need the truth in order to see what is REALLY happening here, and to have any hope of being set free.

If it is true that you did not ask for suffering, then you are stuck. Suffering is going to happen against your will and you will not be able to stop it. If it is true that you did not ask for death, then death will happen against your will and you will have no power over it. But if it is true that you made sickness and death and suffering, and have chosen them, and are using them for a special purpose (to get rid of yourself), and you want them, and you yourself are using them against yourself, then at least now there is potential for you to CHOOSE AGAIN and to decide to stop doing this to yourself.

It also means realizing that because you are doing this all to yourself - this is the truth which you have been keeping hidden from yourself - there is a possibility now for SALVATION. If you are doing it to yourself, you can change your mind. You can stop your self attack. You can forgive yourself. Your mistakes can be undone and corrected by your willingness to become more aware of the whole truth, and you can be free of all suffering and death. It also means you will realize that no-one else ever attacks you, there is no other will acting against you, and therefore you are perfectly safe forever.

The secret to salvation is that you are doing this all to yourself. But until you can become aware of and admit to this truth, allowing this truth into your awareness, you will not be aware of it and will not be able to use it to make sense out of what you are experiencing. If it also remains in the realm of intellectual concepts, you will not be able to experience it and know it and feel it and trust it.

You have to actually be willing to shift your experience by expanding your awareness, becoming more conscious of what was unconscious, admitting to or owning up to what you have been doing yourself, and bringing your unconscious mind back into your conscious awareness. That is only going to be possible if you are willing to question or doubt your current experience, reconsider whether what you think is true is really true, undermine your own beliefs which hold the truth prisoner or judge it wrongly as "false", and be willing to be corrected in your mistakes.

Essentially this means you need to be willing to surrender and let go of your ego's illusions, its holding onto false truths, its blame and denial, and its various ways of convincing you that you can actually get away with or succeed at using its tools to produce a desirable outcome. It is only because you do not see what the ego's outcomes are (always worse, leading to death), that you think they must work. And even if they don't work you'll still keep using them, insisting that they MUST work because they seem to make sense to you. You won't question what makes sense to you because you trust it as the basis for your whole reality.

But what makes sense in a limited ego consciousness makes no sense in a greater expanded awareness. And even if you believe that you know all there is to know or are aware of all there is to be aware of, both within you and without you, you need to be willing to question that. There IS stuff outside of your conscious awareness, stuff you have denied, stuff you have forgotten, stuff you have deliberately avoided wanting to admit to or allow into awareness.

Even if you see yourself as whole, complete, innocent, truthful, loving and caring, or seeing completely clearly, be assured that if there is something in your unconscious mind - if you have an unconscious mind - your facade of innocence and perfection WILL NOT hold up to the truth. And it will not be capable of stopping bad stuff from happening to you. Being ultra perfect and ultra pure is not going to stop your unconscious separate will from attacking you, and it's not going to keep you safe, and it's not going to prevent you from attacking yourself indirectly.

So if you think you are perfect and your life is still filled with suffering of any kind, you must KNOW that this means you have something outside of your conscious awareness, some way that you are attacking yourself and therefore you need to become willing to question whether your idea of perfection is really sound. There must be some way that you are in denial and there must be some truth you do not want to admit to. There must be some false belief you have which you think is true but which is not. And your sense of identity - of who you even ARE - must be not quite whole or complete or as true as you thought.

It can be difficult to look more deeply for a greater truth, and it can seem at first to be pointless given how much you are convinced you are all of yourself. But you have attempted to get rid of yourself, in a big way. You are Christ, maker of this universe, pretending to be a little suffering self in a body that dies.

There is much more to who you are than you are AWARE of, and that means that there is more to BE aware of than you are aware of right now. And that means it is highly likely you are going to be mistaken and come to false conclusions about what things mean and what sense it makes. It means you will act and respond to "reality" based in false perceptions and will make errors, and these will seem to hurt you against your will. But there is a way out.

The Holy Spirit, maintainer of truth in your mind, protector of your connection to Truth as God, is always with you and is the very truth in which you are recognized as being set free. Even your sin isn't real. Even your self attack isn't happening. And even your real identity has not been lost or changed or damaged. There is much truth that awaits you in which you literally will be set free from all suffering forever. There is no real death. There is no real sin. The Son of God is free.

A little willingness is all it takes to invite the truth into you - to invite Holy Spirit into you. A little willingness to put aside your ego identity and make room for the truth. A little willingness to open up to receiving a truth from beyond your little ego self, which also means receiving love. A little willingness to let go of what you thought was real, what you valued and what you thought was important, based only on false conclusions you came to just because you didn't have all the information.

There is more to your identity and more to your sense of self than you may be currently aware. Even if you think you are the whole of you, there is more to you than this. You are bigger and more magnificent than you realize. And you are far more free from suffering and death than you realize as well. There is no cause for fear because sin is impossible and separation is impossible. There is only cause for gratitude to God, that because of what God is, you can never be anything other than how He Created you.

You are innocent and holy, forgiven because you have done nothing wrong, are immortal and invulnerable, and permanently reside in Heaven as One with your Creator. And all is well.

Let's have a closer look at what the course says about the world and whether it is God's creation. This is going to be a long post so bear with me or pick and choose which quotes you want to look at. I put a comment after each one.

To me, the way that all of these statements sound paints a clear picture that the "physical world" i.e. the physical universe - planet Earth, is NOT God's creation whatsoever in any way shape or form.

It also says to me and that every time Jesus refers to the world as something we do not want, he is not referring to some "misperception of it" that we don't want - some imagined version of the world, which he talks about in other passages - but rather, literally "the world" - planet Earth. It is an illusion not created by God, and it does not exist, and it is not our home.

Confusion comes in because at times, Jesus IS speaking about our false perceptions and the need for the correction of perception. But at other times, he is speaking at a higher "level" either at the level of someone with true perception, or even higher at a level of the One Son of God who made this universe. Not having a clear distinguish about WHICH level he is talking at in any given quote leads many people to a lot of confusing and false conclusions. Let's take a look at some quotes....

"You do not want the world." (who would want a world God didn't create?)

"The world provides no safety." (because it is an attack on God)

"This world was over long ago." (because it never happened)

"Nothing the world believes is true." (because the world itself is fundamentally a lie)

"Love was never in the world of dreams." (because God cannot be in the world or of the world nor can He create the world. The world of dreams is not your dreamy interpretation of planet Earth, it IS planet Earth, a dream which you are inside of right now, sleeping - look around you! "Your sleeping and your waking dreams have different forms, and that is all." - tells us that when we wake up in the morning to eat breakfast, WE ARE INSIDE A DREAM, not a world that God created.)

"There are no satisfactions in the world." (because the world was made by us as a substitute for God's universe)

"It is the world you see that is impossible." (because the world we see - literally planet earth, not your interpretation of planet earth - is impossible. It cannot exist because God did not create it.)

"Miracles do not obey the laws of this world." (because this world is entirely an EFFECT and it has no power to do anything)

"The world is not left by death but by truth." (because the world ITSELF is death, and truth is its undoing)

"Without the idea of death there is no world." (see .. the world is MADE OF DEATH and it will not ever be made of Life or given life or resurrected or turned into something living or God-created).

"All the "pleasures" of the world are nothing." (because they are illusions, and substitutes for God's love. This means the world can NEVER be a satisfying replacement for God's Creation).

"Perception selects, and makes the world you see." (Many many people think this means, that you have misperception OF the world, peeking out from a separate body, looking incorrectly at planet earth which somehow objectively came to exist "on its own" or created by God. What this really means is, YOUR perception, as the One Son of God, MADE THE ENTIRE WORLD, and the world *itself* IS a state of mind containing images. Trees, houses, people, it's all part of perception. Not perception OF trees and houses and people, but literally the things themselves. Those objects, your body, planet earth, are misperceptions.)

"The world you see is but a judgment on yourself." (because you are the One Son of God and the ENTIRE WORLD is a judgement against you. It's an attempt to deny who you are, to turn you into a form which dies, to picture what it would be like to be dead, and to completely obscure the light of Christ. The world itself IS judgement. Judgements OF or ABOUT the world are an entirely additional LAYER of bullshit that you added as a separate human, and is a SECOND LAYER of sleeping you added on top of dreaming the world.)

"The world you see has nothing to do with reality." (Again, this is one which many people think means, the world your little separate body-located self sees... thus your private perception. No. It's the world your eyes see. You see trees. You can call the trees good trees or bad trees, hated trees or loved trees, you still see trees. The trees you SEE - trees AT ALL - are nothing to do with reality. God did not create trees.)

"If this were the real world, God would be cruel." (This SHOULD be an obvious one. Given all the suffering and terror and death in the world, which is inherent to the world's nature, should NOT be possible if God created it. And claiming that it's really love or life if viewed correctly, is a complete distortion, again based in one person's body-identified personal opinion about the world. God does not create worlds where there are forms or bodies or things which die, NOR does he create worlds where even if those things are all part of one lovely "whole", they are possible either. God only creates HEAVEN, which is formless and has absolutely nothing to do with planet Earth in any way.)

"The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness." (Yes, planet Earth, is a bleak little world, and it will vanish into nothingness, because God did not create it. This does not mean your personal misperception of the world will vanish (though it will also) - the world ITSELF will vanish, because it is a lie).

"The world was made that problems could not be escaped." (the purpose for this self-made world was to create problems that are inescapable, such as sickness and death. These problems however have no power over miracles which can undo them all BECAUSE God did not create a world of problems.)

"This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son." (I like this one because it says it like it is. The entire world, the entire physical universe, is a "picture" in the MIND of the Son of God, who is absolutely vast and unlimited, who is dreaming this ENTIRE physical universe and everything in it, and it was designed by him as the crucifixion of himself. Its depiction of things which have beginnings and ends, stars which are born and die, flowers which wilt, people who die of disease, planets that die, etc... is a picture of CRUCIFIXION not a picture of "God is very loving." While you can come to perceive it in a more forgiving way, that does not make or prove it is God's creation either, because if you recognize it for the illusion/lie it is, it MUST disappear.)

"The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all." (This is because the world is an effect of dreaming. What appears in it as "causes" are illusions of causes put in place by the dreamer. The world has no consequences. Anything God creates MUST have the power to CAUSE, and since the world cannot cause anything, it cannot be a creation of God.)

"The unreal world is a thing of despair, for it can never be." (There can only be joy and love and peace in what CAN be, i.e. God's creation, heaven, the kingdom, but outside of that there is no life and nothing can be joyful or loving or peaceful. The world is inherently a depiction of what peace is NOT like. Separation in all its forms is played out here, and every single particle of matter is at war with all the rest.)

"Salvation is no more than a reminder this world is not your home." (This world is not your home... literally, planet Earth is not your home. This entire physical universe is not your home. But some people interpret this to mean, well, this imaginary interpretation of the world is not my home - the world I'm putting on top of the world is not my home. Bullshit. "The world" is simply planet earth. Planet earth is not your home. Surely you FEEL this? Surely you recognize that you feel like an alien here, and that the more you wake up the more you recognize that you do not belong in this illusory place? I know I do.)

"There is a place in you where this whole world has been forgotten."(Thank God, because this world is not something God would ever create. God is suddenly the author of duality and sickness and death? God sees sickness and death as lovely and precious? I think not.).

"The world has never been at all. Eternity remains a constant state." (Planet Earth has never existed at all. This is hard to accept I know. There is no world. This is the one core teaching in ACIM which many people refuse to entertain. This is because we believe the world is REAL and cannot conceive of how it would not be. Especially if you come to the course with a background in beliefs which say God made the world in some way, that's hard to put down. This isn't referring to a privately perceived interpretation of the world. Again, it's just simply... this world, planet earth, has never existed. We can deny and fight this all we want.)

"In the world of scarcity, love has no meaning and peace is impossible." (Would you say planet earth is a world of scarcity? I sure would. That's not a judgement or an inability to see its pure loveliness. Yes there's a forgiven world, which is the recognition that this world is an illusion and is nothing, but I think most would agree this is a world of lack and rarity. Just look at how empty outer space is and how distant civilizations or inhabitable planets are. Extreme scarcity.)

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt." (So here again you could say, well, this means my perception is nuts and I'm not seeing the world correctly. Ok. That's one LAYER of the problem. Once you undo that false perception you're going to find out, that the world is STILL a delusional system. Inherently, the mountains, trees, planets, forests, oceans, it's all a state of DELUSION, and that's not going to change when you get over your personal misinterpretations of it. See, the problem is, we think that when we overcome "my" personal misperceptions, that's going to be the end of the story. It's not. You have to not only get over your personal interpretations (which is ONE level of awakening), AND then go beyond the definition of "my self" to incorporate ALL SELVES into one single Son of God - as Christ. And in that view, there is an entirely second level of awakening which leads to God, and the acceptance that the One Son of God MADE this world out of insanity and guilt. Guilt, denied, became unconscious, and projected out as the physical universe, in which we are now hiding from it by pretending to be innocent. Hmmm)

"The Holy Spirit sees the world as a teaching device for bringing you home." (because the world ITSELF is not your home. It's just a way Holy Spirit can USE it to help you to ESCAPE from it through truth - because it doesn't exist)

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it." (Plain and simple. Normal language. The world you see, with your eyes, regardless of your mental interpretations or labelling or judgements, is an illusion of a world. God did NOT create it. Many people want this mean, my personal interpretation of the world is not the world God created, and once I am free of my personal interpretation, God is going to reveal that this world - planet Earth - is his lovely creation. Good luck with that. Planet Earth does not exist. It is an illusion. The course even tells us the "real world" is an illusion and will disappear.)

"There is no world! This is the central thought the Course attempts to teach." (AHA!.. .. If you can GET this one and accept it, you've made a huge leap away from the ILLUSION that this world dis real, or that God could have created it whatsoever, to the awareness that this world can NEVER be real because to believe that requires a belief in sin and death. There is no world. Yes, planet Earth. There is no planet earth, neither as a separate planet nor as part of some seamless "soup" of God-stuff. Pretty threatening to the ego which is why it fights it tooth and nail.)

"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never be undone." (Miracles can UNDO the world itself, and everything the world says cannot be undone (itself), BECAUSE the world CAN be undone, proving that it is NOT REAL. What is real cannot be undone. If miracles can undo the world, they can bring about RESURRECTION - the undoing of death in ALL its forms, including physical and mental death. Eventually the entire physical universes is going to be UNDONE, because it does not exist. Only God's kingdom will remain.)

"This is an insane world, and do not underestimate the extent of its insanity." (Obviously, but this actually does not just mean that the people in the world are nuts (and most are, me included), it means the world ITSELF, the very fabric of spacetime, is insanity. It is impossible to be separate from God and this universe attempts to prove otherwise.)

"On confusion has this world been based, and there is nothing else it rests upon." (here, we're told the world RESTS UPON confusion. The world itself. Now, if this means your perception, sure, that'd seem to make sense. You can be confused, and become unconfused. Sure, makes sense. But this statement isn't speaking about you or your personal world. In fact, most of the course is not speaking to or about anyone's EGO SELF, and yet 90%+ of ACIM students THINK that the Course is talking about THEIR PERSONAL EGO, which leads to a ton of confusion. The world ITSELF is based on confusion because it's an expression of a belief that separation from God is possible, which is a confused state of mind.)

"It is not will for life but wish for death that is the motivation for this world." (And this never changes. The world is BASED ON death, made of death, and is ALWAYS DEAD. There is no life here. There is no life outside of heaven. All forms of "life" in the world, all bodies, animals, plants etc, the sun and stars, it is all part of a DREAM OF DEATH, and not one part of it has eternal life. Death was the motivation that MADE THIS WORLD. This world was MADE BY A DEATH WISH, not by God. That's quite extremely opposite to the folk who believe God created this world somehow).

"The world is only in the mind of its maker. Do not believe it is outside of yourself." (When this says "yourself" note that it does not just mean "you in a body and not other people." Most people take it that way because they have an ego. Statements about you making the world or the world being in your mind, is not about it being in your SEPARATE MIND. It's about it being in THE ONE MIND of the son of God. The ONE son of God is the maker of this entire world. It is not outside of THAT SELF. You are busy focusing on how to get your LITTLE SELF to a state of awakening of maximal naturalness, but there is more beyond that - realizing that you are the entire sonship and more. You are Christ, not just one Son.)

"What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?" (Who wants the crappy world anyway? It's full of shit.)

"You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up." (You can believe you are victimized when you believe the world itself is a CAUSE and you are its EFFECT. But when this is reversed (this is a course in cause not effect), YOU become the cause and the world is recognized as an EFFECT. It has no power over you because it is an EFFECT of YOUR dreaming it (as the One Son). This is how you are not a victim of it. Otherwise, the world can still kill you against your will. No-one dies without their own consent.)

"Holy are you, eternal, free and whole, at peace forever in the Heart of God. Where is the world, and where is sorrow now?" (Apparently Jesus is clear that the world is not a place of peace or freedom or holiness. So God cannot have created it.)

"What is seen in dreams seems to be very real. Yet the Bible says that a deep sleep fell upon Adam, and nowhere is there reference to his waking up. The world has not yet experienced any comprehensive reawakening or rebirth." (Yes dreams seem very real. What if i told you right now that you are actually INSIDE A HUGE DREAM? Right now... this room you are in or whatever, the people you are near, it's part of a DREAM. This is not what God created because it is a DREAM, not a reality. God does not dream or make worlds of dreams, or dreams of death. God did not create a dream world. You're dreaming, and you need to wake up FROM this dream, not TO it.)

"Forgive the world, and you will understand that every thing that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real." (Objects in this world have ends and beginnings. Every particle begins and ends. Every flower is sown and grows and blooms and dies. Beginnings and endings. It's not just a matter of not seeing them correctly or not realizing that "God is making them grow" or some BS, it's simply that, ALL FORMS ARE FORMS OF DEATH, and they all end, and that is why they are NOT eternal, and God did not create them.

"Temptation has one lesson it would teach in all its forms wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty and bound by what it orders him to feel." (Exactly, and elsewhere Jesus tells us that love (God) did not make the body. God does not create forms, or planets, or a physical universe).

"The tiny instant you would keep and make eternal, passed away in Heaven too soon for anything to notice it had come. What disappeared too quickly to affect the simple knowledge of the Son of God can hardly still be there, for you to choose to be your teacher." (The entire world and all things in it were MADE by us to be NOT ETERNAL, which is WHY it passed away, because it could not last. Nothing God creates can die or end or transform or change, no matter what words you use to try to make out that it wouldn't be seen "as change" when you're awake.)

"Everything in this world is little because it is a world made out of littleness." (I like this quote also because it locks in the form of the world as being evidence of a mistake. Everything in the world, bodies, objects, even the planet, are "little". All little particles and atoms. All little tiny little creatures walking around thinking they are big. Go up in an airplane and you'll see how little it all is. Every FORM in this world is little, as an idea of not being unlimited or infinite, because it's an idea of contraction AWAY from God. This is not God's creation or God's will, and God would not maintain this for an instant.)

"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. (mind over matter)" (Again this is another one which people can and do use to try to prove that references to the world are all about "your personal misperception", and that you need to fix how you see in order to see it properly, and that afterwards, you'll keep the world and stay in it because it's real. No. Your WISHES have MADE A PLANET. The wishes of the one son of God, has made an entire physical universe. These are wishes to die. Wishes to be crucified. Wishes to sin. Wishes against God's will. God did not make this. What you want to see, changes, IN FORM, as mind-over-matter, because your mind is THAT POWERFUL. It doesn't just mean you change your perception OF stuff, when your perception properly changes, the world ITSELF must change form, and so must the body.)

"The world that you see is what you have put there to see; nothing more and nothing less and so it is important to you. The world that you perceive is the witness to your state of mind, the outward picture of your inward condition." (You put it there (forms, bodies, trees, buildings) because you WANT TO. Do you think you don't have that much power? The mind is very powerful. The world must match the outward picture of the inward condition of the mind of the ONE SON. The One Son is attempting to destroy himself BY fragmenting himself into many many individuals and forms scattered across many worlds. What shows up as objects and bodies is what the Son of God wants to see there. It IS his perception. The course says literally "the world IS PERCEPTION", which does not mean that your little human "perception" contains the illusory world, it means the ENTIRE WORLD OF EARTH is inside the perception of a vast mind - it is that mind's IMAGINATION. Meaning, physical objects, are actually a part of SEEING, the mechanism of trying to VISUALIZE STUFF, which brings it into appearance as fake images i.e. objects and forms and bodies. When the mind is free of all this, the physical world - yes - planet earth in all its ways - MUST DISSAPPEAR.)

"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer. 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." (I would rather have what the Kingdom of God offers than what this world offers. This world is not my home. It does not contain the truth. It is not real. And God did not create it. It HAS blinded the sons to the father, which was its purpose. You cannot behold (see in any way) the world (physical planet earth) and behold the kingdom. Only one of them is true and real. Planet earth does not exist, was not created by god, is an illusion, and if you're still SEEING IT in any way, with any mind whatsoever, you are not in the Kingdom. To suggest you can BE in God, in his kingdom, while the world continues to appear or move or change or have form, you are in denial.)

"O my brothers, if you only knew the peace that will envelop you and hold you safe and pure and lovely in the Mind of God, you could but rush to meet Him where His altar is. Hallowed your Name and His, for they are joined here in this holy place. Here He leans down to lift you up to Him, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and to eternity; out of all fear and given back to love." (Looking forward to this! Finally a relief from this world of nightmares and death and suffering. THERE IS ANOTHER WORLD BEYOND THIS which God did create - his kingdom, heaven, filled with joy and life and peace and celebration. It is HOME. It is where you really want to be. Do not let the world, planet earth, bodies, objects, forms, people, places, idols, or anything else, KEEP YOU FROM going there and accepting it as your true home where your true nature is free at last. The world offers nothing in comparison. Pleasure is not love. Specialness is not love. Forms are not love. Sunsets and kittens are not love. "Never was love in the world."

There is no world. The people who do not believe this will continue to not believe this, and will object to this post and everything it says. They are free to do so, but they are not free of the confusion that is going to accompany those beliefs, or the fear that will be induced upon being confronted with this truth. I would hope people will change their mind and see what the course is really telling us. Then we have real hope.