If someone is being completely loving toward you, responding with unconditional love, then they can see who you really are.

If they fail to respond with love, this means they can't really see who you are. So what they're looking at isn't so much 'you' as it is how you might appear in a certain way, based on what the person is hallucinating.

So then every time someone doesn't treat you with love, they're not really treating YOU with unlove, they're treating a projected sinful guilty idea of a person with unlove.

The catch is that it usually looks like the person is making their unlove about YOU, and that they target it at you, even using your name, referring to you, pointing in your direction, getting in your face with it, but it's still not about you.

When you think it's about you, you have also joined with them in illusions and have taken it personally. You've failed to overlook the illusion that the person is actually attacking themselves, and that they're interacting with their own projected sinful self. It's easy to be mistaken about this and to think that they're doing it to you when they're really not.

So long as you are clear about who you are, that you are love, you will realize their call for love is clearly their own call and need for love, and love is the only response. But if you fail to see your own identity and confuse yourself with ego, then you will take their attack personally and will think it's about you.

You will make it be about you, even though it isn't. And as such you will hurt yourself with it. And then you will feel upset, not because they attacked you or because it was about you, but because you used it to attack yourself.

Since you are OF God, being FROM God, you are exactly LIKE God. You cannot BE like anything else because you are not of or from anything else. You are not OF this world, or OF the body, or OF your parent's bodies. You are not FROM this world. You are not of or from the ego. You have been given BY God because you are a part of him. And anything he has not given you is nothing.

Your real identity must therefore be a part of God as well, aligned with Christ and shared with all your brothers. What you are can ONLY be of God. It cannot include anything else because only the truth is true. Anything you made, anything you invented, including the ego, the body, suffering, sickness, death, despair, unhappiness, depression, lack or loss or grief, fear or guilt, cannot be a part of what you are. It therefore cannot exist.

Anything which is not OF or FROM God, must be denied and rejected. It must be filtered out and forgiven. It must be handed over and let go. Anything in you which God did not put there, must be exhumed and purified away. All the barriers you built against love must be removed, because they are barriers against your real self, suggesting that you have and want something not of God.

"This is the PROPER use of denial. It is not used to HIDE anything, but it IS used to correct error."

"True denial is a very powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is NOT a concealment device, but a correction device. The "Right Mind" of the mentally healthy DEPENDS on it."

"THIS peace is totally incapable of being shaken by human errors of any kind. It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to affect you in any way."

As Jesus states here, if you want SANITY, then you MUST deny anything AND everything which is not of God. This is in the extreme. It means you have to deny the ego and the body and the world and all forms of suffering. To deny them is to withdraw value and belief and truth and reality from them. It is to dis-identify with them, recognizing them as NOT of God, and therefore that they cannot possibly be a part of you or your experience.

You have to take this ALL the way, because enlightenment is the recognition that only that which is of God exists, and nothing else has ANY power over you. Nor does it really exist at all. Enlightenment IS sanity. It is the end of false perception. It is forgiveness. Anything not created by God has to be thrown out. Anything not of God is impossible. Anything he did not create or give has no truth, no reality, no meaning, and no existence. It cannot therefore be WHAT you are.

You cannot be your emotions, your upsets, your unhappiness, your losses, your pain, your physical sickness, your death, your stresses, your thoughts, your body, the bodies of others, or part of the world. God did not create the world so you cannot be OF the world, or IN the world, or FROM the world. You are from another world. Your real self is IN HEAVEN WITH GOD. That is where you must anchor your whole sense of who and what you are. You are not ANYTHING that you made.

"Sickness and separation are not of God, but the Kingdom IS. If you obscure the Kingdom, you are perceiving WHAT IS NOT OF GOD."

"That is why you can choose to listen to two voices within you. One you made yourself, and that one is not of God. But the other is given you by God, Who asks you only to listen to it. The Holy Spirit IS in you in a very literal sense. It is the voice that calls you back to where you were before and will be again."

"Recognize this gladly, for in this recognition lies the realization that your banishment is not of God, and therefore does not exist. You are at home in God, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of awakening to Reality."

"Forgive all thoughts which would oppose the truth of your completeness, unity and peace. You cannot lose the gifts your Father gave. You do not want to be another self. You have no function that is not of God. Forgive yourself the one you think you made. Forgiveness and salvation are the same. Forgive what you have made, and you are saved."

"Failure is of the ego, NOT of God. "

"Guilt is more than merely not of God. It is the symbol of the ATTACK on God. This is a totally meaningless concept EXCEPT to the ego, but do not underestimate the power of the ego's belief in it. This is the belief from which ALL guilt really stems."

"We therefore are embarking on an organized, well-structured, and carefully planned program, aimed at learning how to offer to the Holy Spirit everything you do NOT want. HE knows what to DO with it. You do NOT know how to use what He knows. Whatever is revealed to Him that is not of God, is gone. But you must reveal it to YOURSELF in perfect willingness, for otherwise His knowledge remains useless TO you."

"You have condemned yourself, but condemnation is not of God. Therefore, it is not true. No more are any of the RESULTS of your condemnation."

"God is the ONLY Cause, and guilt is NOT of Him. Teach no-one he has hurt you, for, if you do, you teach YOURSELF that what is NOT of God, HAS POWER OVER YOU. THE CAUSELESS CANNOT BE. Do not attest to it, and do not foster belief in it in any mind."

"NOTHING you made has ANY power over you, unless you still would be APART from your Creator, and with a will OPPOSED to His."

No matter what you do you are innocent!

This is true, but it is grossly misunderstood and misused by the ego.

In order for this truth to apply, you have to BE in your innocence. It can't be intellectual. You can't use it to justify murder.

You first have to get yourself into your innocence, so that your innocent isn't just an informational fact, it's an experiential fact. And in order to experience innocence, that places you in the mind and being of LOVE.

It is not possible to experience such innocence without aligning yourself with love.

Therefore, once you ARE aligned with love, you are in your innocence, and whatever you do WILL be innocent. Or to put it another way, no matter what you do, it WILL be loving - and it will never prove you are guilty.

It's only when you take this fact and try to apply it to life without the experience/alignment with its truth (truth is an experience not intellectual information!), that you distort it and then use to justify actions that you perform not based on love, such as that it is okay to hurt someone or "do bad things" etc.

When you do that, you have "level confusion". You've attempted to take something that it is a truth on a higher level of metaphysics, which can only be *experiential*, and are attempting to apply it to a level of existence that is not experiential, where there is separation between you and the truth. And that's why it turns into justification for war. And this is also why religions have led to more wars than most any other cause.

No matter what you do, you are innocent, free, forgiven, loved and loving. But if you're not truly authentically living from such a state of being, then beware your ego's misuse of it.

It seems that Jesus is telling us in the course that all of our regular thoughts are the sole cause of all our suffering. Our faulty THOUGHTS are the problem. Just the mere act of HAVING a thought that is fearful or guilty or attacking produces an upsetting and endangered perception, which we complain about but continue to think of. Having the thought AT ALL is the problem. And there are much higher thoughts of love and peace and invulnerability that we could be having instead.

"My thoughts do not mean anything."

"My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world."

"I am affected only by my thoughts."

"I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts."

"My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."

"I see everything upside-down, and my thoughts are the opposite of truth. I see the world as a prison for God's Son."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you."

"The idea for today contains the only way out of fear that will succeed. Nothing else will work; everything else is meaningless. But this way cannot fail. Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see. It is with your thoughts, then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is to be changed."

"What but your thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the Eternal Life your Father wills for you?" "Only YOUR thoughts have been impossible."

-- -- -- --

However, Jesus also distinguishes that we can have true/real thoughts instead of false/unreal thoughts. And it is our false/unreal thoughts that are a problem. The problem is, we spend almost our entire time having false/unreal thoughts. And our thoughts produce 'images' or interpretations which affect or define what we see.

"As a man thinketh, so does he perceive."

"My thoughts cannot be neither true nor false. They must be one or the other. What I see shows me which they are."

"The thoughts which the mind of God's Son projects, HAVE all the power that he gives them. The thoughts he shares with God are BEYOND his belief, but those HE made ARE his beliefs. And it is THESE, and NOT the truth, that he has chosen to defend and love."

"As my thoughts of separation call to the separation thoughts of others, so my real thoughts awaken the real thoughts in them."

"Whatever I see reflects my thoughts. It is my thoughts which tell me where I am and what I am."

"The images I see reflect my thoughts."

"Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact."

"The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind"

"Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live."

"But there is indeed a point in changing your thoughts about the world. Here you are changing the cause. The effects will change automatically."

"Nothing except your thoughts can attack you. Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable. And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so."

"Today's idea introduces the concept that your thoughts determine the world you see."

"Until this shift has been accomplished, you can not perceive that it is but your thoughts which bring you fear, and your deliverance depends on you."

"I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts."

-- -- -- --

Jesus goes on to tell us that if we will opt to think with and like God, sharing the Holy Spirit's thoughts, then we will see differently and will stop hurting ourselves.

"Father, I give You all my thoughts today. I would have none of mine. In place of them give me Your own. I give You all my acts as well, that I may do Your Will instead of seeking goals which cannot be obtained, and wasting time in vain imaginings."

"Your Thoughts can only bring me happiness. If ever I am sad or hurt or ill, I have forgotten what You think, and put my little, meaningless ideas in place of where Your Thoughts belong, and where They are."

"But let today's idea find a place among your thoughts, and you have risen far above the world and all the worldly thoughts that hold it prisoner."

"You think with the Mind of God. Therefore you share your thoughts with Him, as He shares His with you. They are the same thoughts, because they are thought by the same Mind."

"Father, my mind is open to Your Thoughts, and closed today to every thought but Yours."

"We accept Your Thoughts as ours, and our will is One with Yours eternally."

"Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still."

"In quiet would I look upon the world, which but reflects Your Thoughts and mine as well."

"Place, then, your future in the hands of God. For thus you call the memory of Him to come again, replacing all your thoughts of sin and evil with the truth of love."

"If you would remember your Father, let the Holy Spirit order your thoughts, and give only the answer with which He answers you."

"Your ministry begins as all your thoughts are purified."

"Give Him your thoughts, and He will give them back as miracles which joyously proclaim the wholeness and the happiness God wills His Son as proof of His eternal Love."

"Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within. They know the way. For honest thoughts, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside yourself, become the holy messengers of God Himself."

"The higher mind thinks according to the laws which the Soul obeys, and therefore honors only the laws of God."

"And your thoughts will be as free as God's."

-- -- --

In order for us to atone to our real/true thoughts with God, we need to perform some degree of mind-training, mind-watching, and careful articulation of the mind's abilities. It isn't enough for us to just go about our daily business, mind-wandering, using thought to think anything and everything, and consequentially suffering from every single ego thought that crosses our minds. We have to learn to be carful with how and what we think. Especially if we want to be performing miracles which require a careful focus and intent.

"It is certainly much more useful to remind you that you do not guard your thoughts at all carefully, except for a relatively small part of the day, and somewhat inconsistently even then."

"As you sit and quietly watch your thoughts"

"Watch your minds for the temptations of the ego, and do not be deceived by it. KNOW it offers you nothing."

"Watch your minds for the scraps of meanness"

"You persist in believing that when you do not consciously watch your mind, it is unmindful."

"It is a particularly difficult form for the undisciplined mind because it represents a major goal of mind training."

"It is difficult at this point not to allow your mind to wander if it undertakes extended attempts. You have surely realized this by now. You have seen the extent of your lack of mental discipline, and of your need for mind training. It is necessary that you be aware of this, for it is indeed a hindrance to your advance."

"It is a particularly difficult form for the undisciplined mind because it represents a major goal of mind training. It embodies precisely what the untrained mind lacks. Yet the training must be accomplished if you are to see."

"It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what seems to be pictured before it is not there. This idea can be quite disturbing, and may meet with active resistance in any number of forms."

"An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of these exercises to train the mind to think along the lines which the course sets forth."

"The purpose of the exercises for today is to begin to train your mind to recognize when it is not really thinking at all. While thoughtless "ideas" preoccupy your mind, the truth is blocked. Recognizing that your mind has been merely blank, rather than believing that it is filled with real ideas, is the first step to opening the way to vision."

"THIS IS WHY VIGILANCE IS ESSENTIAL. Doubts ABOUT being MUST not enter your mind, or you CANNOT know what you are with certainty."

"Vigilance is not necessary for truth, but it IS necessary AGAINST ILLUSION."

"Your vigilance is the sign that you WANT Him to guide you. Vigilance DOES require effort, but only to teach you that effort ITSELF is unnecessary."

"Consider how much vigilance you have been willing to exert to protect your ego, and how little you have been willing to exert to protect your higher mind."

"By teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you that ALL POWER IS YOURS. Its application does not matter. It is ALWAYS maximal. Your vigilance does NOT establish it as yours, but it DOES enable you to use it ALWAYS and in ALL WAYS."

"Attack thoughts cannot enter such a mind, because it has been given to the Source of Love, and fear can never enter in a mind which has attached itself to Love. It rests in God, and who can be afraid who lives in Innocence and only loves?"

"Miracle-working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation. Otherwise, the miracle will be necessary to set the mind ITSELF straight"

"Miracles are thought-creations. Thought can create lower-order or higher-order realities. This is the basic distinction between intellectualization and thinking. One creates the physical, and the other the spiritual, and we believe in what we create."

When you thought that you had hurt your relationship with God and done something really bad - sin - you didn't think you were worthy of love any more. You felt ashamed. You went off on your own feeling sad and unhappy and afraid.

Love was the most beautiful cherished thing you could possible have and you felt that you'd lost it. And since you lost it, you have not found anything anywhere near as valuable.

To substitute for it you made up all kinds of TOTAL SHIT to try to substitute for what you lost. All kinds of inferior, stupid, ridiculous stuff that isn't even valuable or worth anything. You tried your best to imbue it with some kind of 'value' or 'meaning' to justify why you wanted it, but you didn't want any of it. Not really. All you wanted was God's love again. Sin, guilt, fear, idols, sickness, death, you thought it would fill the hole in God's absence, but none of it is worth anything and you are deeply disappointed.

So now here you are feeling like you have sinned and are guilty and afraid and unworthy of any amount of love at all, feeling all terrible and sorry for yourself, like you only deserve to die and be shoved in the ground because you're so worthless. You surround yourself with all these bullshit trophies, trying to celebrate sin and guilt and fear and death, putting stuff on pedestals to try to idolize it like it's worthy of you or meaningful to you. It's all just crap. It's not worth SHIT in comparison to God's love, and you know it. You think you want the world, your money, your possessions, your toys, your relationships? It's all a substitute for God.

But you think this is all that you deserve. You think this is valuable to you. You think it's all you have left, some minute disgusting tiny little speck of light amidst and cold dark world. You think your nightmares are worthy of you and that you deserve to suffer and die. You feel so sad about how you rejected God and threw away Heaven and all the tremendous beauty and life and happiness that you once had. Now you've got stuck with this stupid ugly world that just continues to decay and die and proves that God isn't around any more. All your favorite things decay and die. You really just want to go Home.

The fact is, that what you think you did to God, was actually not successful. It's like you launched a missile and then turned your back believing it was certain to hits it target and destroy it. But you never actually saw it be destroyed, you just assumed it must be true. And off you went on your sorry little adventure all by yourself, lonely and afraid and feeling lost and abandoned, shameful of what you did and guilty as to be deserving terrible punishment. But you were wrong. You were terribly wrong. Here's the good news.

Your attack on God did not work. At all. Sorry if that's bad news, but God is totally unharmed. He wasn't even phased. He just laughed at your silly attempt and didn't take it seriously at all. All your upset is for nothing. All your suffering and guilt, you don't need it. All your sense of sin and horror and terrible justification for punishment, it's all completely uncalled for. You were MISTAKEN! Big time. Huge time. Massively mistaken.

You haven't hurt God whatsoever and God is not mad with you whatsoever. He is very very happy and still loves you just as much as He ever did. And you're just terrified that what you thought happened is so true and has had such a real effect that you can never go back and be loved again. You still think you deserve to die for what you think you did. But you don't. God WELCOMES you back to Him. He is EAGER to love you completely. He has waited all this time for the opportunity for you to acknowledge that he finds you completely innocent. COMPLETELY INNOCENT.

You can go Home. You can return to God. He's not mad at you. He's not going to punish you or make you suffer or reject you. He never did that the first time. You've just got the wrong end of the stick. Everything you thought was true that isn't true - it's not true at all. All of the sin and guilt and fear that you think you deserve to be burdened with, none of it is called for. It's all completely irrelevant. All that baggage, those huge swaths of darkness and despair, it's all unnecessary. YOU CAN BE LOVED!

God is waiting on you to just simply let go of all this shit. All these lies about how bad you are. All the bullshit about your sinfulness. All the crap about how guilty you are and how afraid you should be. And that death-wish, come on... its totally bullshit. You don't deserve to die whatsoever, not even close.

All this stupid stuff seems to stand in the way of you accepting God's love. It's not like God is waiting to forgive you. It's not that he's delaying until you confront him so you can hash it out in a thunderstorm and clear the air. He's already totally convinced of how much He loves you and how innocent you are. It's all on you now. You're the one delaying and suffering needlessly. It's all your own reluctance to surrender. All this story that you've devised to explain why you can't go back to God... all this baggage and resistance... it's totally unfounded and is just a big mistake. You don't need any of it, not even a bit of it. Let it all go! You're forgiven - you didn't do anything wrong!

God's waiting to give you a great big hug of love and joy and happiness! Right NOW! He's ready. What's stopping you? Why do you still believe you committed a sin when He clearly is totally convinced that you have DONE NOTHING? It's really quite silly. This whole entire world is all there based on your conviction that you sinned and can't be forgiven. Sort of a big waste of time. You can stop trying to convince yourself at any time.

Those silly toys you made - sin, guilt, fear, death, they aren't true. They aren't what you deserve. They don't prove anything. All you really want to know is this - God loves you now and always has and always will. Your relationship with God has not suffered! God just wants to love the crap out of you. He is willing and welcoming. Love is available. The doors are open. Come home, prodigal son! You have done nothing wrong. Let go of everything else that keeps you at bay. Trust you can be loved again. You deserve it. You are it.

You are the love of God. Everything is OKAY! Rejoice!

Attempting to take your self closer to the truth in any way, will be met with ego resistance.

The ego itself is nothing, just a "way of looking" which is the opposite to seeing the truth. It distorts everything and makes everything seem the opposite to what it is. It inverts reality. It changes God into death/evil/murderous. It sees Holy Spirit as an enemy. It sees the truth as a threat. And it does not want anything to do with this idea of "waking up and not having an ego."

The ego by itself doesn’t do anything. The problem is that YOU have taken it on AS IF it is your own Self. You regard IT as the same thing as your identity.

What that does is it causes you to perceive WITH it, through it’s eyes. You then will see things the way the ego sees them.

So if you are "tied to" an ego identity which wants absolutely nothing to do with truth, cannot exist in the truth, and sees the truth as proof that it does not exist, then "YOU" will become very threatened by approaching the truth.

If for example the truth says, there is no sin, and the ego believe that sin is real and true, and therefore sin is your *identity*, to your sense of self this will SEEM to say "I do not exist."

Regardless of the fact that you may have sided with an insane ego, you do not RECOGNIZE it is insane. You think it makes perfect sense. It seems logical, sensible, rational. You will also want to defend it as though to do so is defending "your" life, because you think it is you. Therefore it makes sense to you to AVOID the truth at all costs.

The ego sees the truth as attack, vengeance, evil, warring, deadly, hateful, loss, non-existence, etc. If you identify with the ego, you will also see the truth as meaning this.

So then, you will attempt to reach out to the truth, to become closer to God, to go into the light, but because part of you is STILL holding onto the ego and is using it to perceive, that part of you seeing with the ego will think you’re trying to kill yourself.

No-one in their "right mind" would go against what seems sensible and true, and expose themselves to what must be the END of themselves. The truth is the end of the ego, and if you believe it, it means it’s the end of your self. Approaching the truth WITH the ego, pulling it along with you, is nothing short of you SCARING THE CRAP out of yourself by exposing yourself to your worst enemy, complete with no defenses.

This is the sole cause of all ego rebounds and resistance - the mis-perception that welcoming the truth is welcoming your own death. No-one wants to do this. IT seems sensible to protect yourself and defend yourself against this. In spite of your best efforts to "become more spiritual" by opening up to the light of truth, or to love, the rest of you - still perceiving the opposite to the truth, will fear out when you try to do it.

What can even happen is your ego self will create DEFENSES AGAINST THE TRUTH, which it thinks are *needed* in order to protect your "self". Or to put it another way, you who are identified with the ego, interpret the truth as your mortal enemy, and do not want it, are threatened by it and want to "naturally" defend yourself. In the name of preserving your own life, you will erect DEFENSES psychologically.

The only ego defense is *separation*, attempting to create a gap or sense of "distance" between yourself and the threat. Implementing this is an attempt to shut out the truth, by implementing a BLOCK. The purpose of this block is to block your awareness of the threat, because if you are not aware of it, to you this is practically the same experience as though it does not exist. You use DENIAL to hide the perceived danger from yourself, so you can enter an *illusion of safety*. This illusion of safety, this block, made of guilt, shows up as SICKNESS. Sickness is a defense against the truth.

The purpose of sickness then is to defend you against what you think is going to hurt you. But to implement it, you actually HURT YOURSELF. It should be obvious why this is insane. Perceiving your best interests through the filter of the ego is insane, because it shows you the *opposite* of what will actually help you. What would really help you, and what is the UNDOING of sickness, is to correctly perceive WITHOUT the ego, that the truth is NOT a threat or hurtful, is FOR you not against you, is welcome, you want it, and it does NOT mean you will not exist.

When you can perceive correctly that you are not being threatened by the truth, you will UNDO the NEED for the defense, and this will make the sickness *disappear*. Literally. All symptoms will be dropped, because you have no further need for them. Sickness is always serving the PURPOSE of being a defense to keep you safe, even though it does the opposite. Without its purpose, it will not exist because you will withdraw your belief from it.

Essentially, approaching the truth is going to make your ego-identified self threatened. It will want to defend itself and it will be horrified, offended, upset and scared of the truth. This can lead people to BECOME SICK by doing the course. It can also cause peoples lives to turn upside down, as reactions to the misinterpretation of the truth.

Gradually the way to undo this is the development of trust and coming to perceive correctly WITHOUT the ego’s interpretation. This will naturally lead to a WILLINGNESS to accept the atonement, and accept God’s truth as true. And then you will have no resistance whatsoever. It is only your beliefs to the contrary that try to defend you against the truth.

So each time you have an ego rebound, don’t belittle yourself or judge yourself as failing to do the course right. I used to think I was making big mistakes when I had rebounds, like I was guilty for having them. But I had to learn to be gentle and acknowledge what they were saying, recognizing it was a part of my SELF that was afraid and offended by the truth I was opening up to. It’s perfectly okay to take a BREAK from pushing yourself towards the truth, to let your ego settle down a bit, and integrate what you’ve learned so that you can move forward with more willingness and less fear.

"Whenever you question your value, say, "God Himself is incomplete without me."

"God is incomplete without you, simply because His grandeur is total, and you cannot BE missing from it."

"YOU are the work of God, and His Work is wholly loveable and wholly loving. This is how a man MUST think of himself in his heart, because this is what he IS."

Worth, is really a question of value, but even moreso a question of whether something QUALIFIES or "deserves". It's also related to appropriateness. Is it right, that you be loved. So we're also talking about your "rights", or what you are entitled to. Which also relates to what you are allowed, or what is yours, or what belongs to you inherently.

When we form any idea of having sinned, believing in separation, we are actually saying that we no longer qualify. If we have become sinful or guilty, instead of innocent, we have kind of "dropped out" of the running. We've positioned ourselves as not worthy or not capable or not of a quality sufficiently high or appropriate enough to meet the "requirements". By changing the premise to "I'm sinful", the logical conclusion is that you are no longer worthy. And the only sense of unworthiness is a sense of sinfulness against God.

Those who are innocent do meet the requirements of heaven, and so are entitled to heaven. They are entitled to the inheritance of God, and everything belongs to them. But when they attack themselves, they undermine their authority or "permission to access" the benefits which correlate to innocence. By stepping out of innocence we step out of deserving the love of God. At least, we believe this is the case.

If you believe you have sinned, are criminal, are evil or guilty, have done something wrong, messed up, or failed in some way, you will regard yourself as a failure. This is a view of yourself as weak and frail, powerless, hopeless, lost, alone, valueless, incapable, ineffective, not deserving freedom or love, and generally feeling horrible about yourself.

Feeling "unworthy" is kind of a logical conclusion based on the supposed evidence of what you think you did, or what you failed to do. If you see yourself as innocent you see yourself as deserving all of heaven. If you see yourself as guilty you see yourself as deserving all of hell.

This ties in very strongly to the victim role. If you feel unworthy, you will feel deflated, defective, lacking, having nothing much to offer, having very low "value", having no rights and no freedoms. You will feel like a prisoner, as though everyone else gets to decide your fate, as if you have no say in your own life. You'll feel like a kind of slave, undeserving of having any of your needs met, yet feeling very much in need.

Impoverished and empty, you'll regard yourself as not worth being given any attention, or anything. You'll also be afraid all the time because you'll see the whole world as defining your fate on a whim. Secretly this is an attempt to project self-blame onto the world, believing it is blaming you. The world will now seem like it's taking everything away from you and having power over you, because that's what YOU are doing to yourself.

If your value is so low, you will regard yourself as having failed, and therefore as being a failure. If you are a failure, you will feel like there is no point in trying to do anything, because not only do you see yourself as very likely to fail, you'll believe you have already failed before you even begin. This will stop you from doing many things on the basis that you "can't", rooted in some belief that "no-one wants me." Secretly this is your belief that YOU don't want you, projected and reflected back at you.

Of course, being unworthy, you have to believe no-one loves you. That everyone is against you and can "use you" for whatever purposes they see fit, for their own gains, with no regard for yours. This of course is a state that also results from such things as abuse, violence, attack, sexual assault, trauma and so on.

It can leave you feeling helpless and powerless and very "low", like you don't mean anything and have no value. That, even in your own eyes, you don't deserve anything because you aren't worth anything. Like something to be discarded and thrown away which no-one wants. Of course this is how YOU feel about yourself, because it's really you who has decided you are worthless. But by asserting "you're not worth anything" to the world, it reflects back to you from the outside in. A projection of self-hate.

Clearly when you're in such a state, although it feels unfair, and imposed from outside of you, much more likely you are actually the one who has decided that you are unworthy. You have in some way depleted your own idea of your own value. And we're not so much talking here about self-esteem as we are about God-esteem.

The only real value is the value God has of you, regarding your true nature. And so really the only thing in your mind that you care about is whether or not you qualify or meet God's "standards". Whether you are worthy of his love. Whether you deserve forgiveness or punishment. If you believe you are a weak and miseable valueless sinner who isn't worth anything and should be punished and hurt, then you are trying to decide for God what God thinks of you.

You'll do this on the basis of what you think you did. ie, which sins you think you committed, the reasons why you are guilty, the faults and lacks and insufficiencies of your personality or body or mind. The various value systems you yourself have invented and then judged yourself harshly by. Systems which God doesn't even use, because he simply ALWAYS finds you worthy of him.

If you are feeling unworthy, it's really kind of a severe case of a pity party. It's self-inflicted, just as the secret of salvation says. It might seem like it was induced or enforced by someone outside of you but really you went along with it and believed it. You allowed it to affect you and decided to comply with it, because deep down something far worse than other people condemning you is YOU condemning yourself. Only you can hurt yourself so deeply. And it's really just a matter of a lack of self-love.

We have to own up to this because really it's not God who is thinking of you as a miserable sinner or a worthless piece of shit. It's you. It's your self-talk and your self-attack. It's your self-destructiveness. Which when you think about it is quite weird because there you are, feeling utterly shit about yourself, while simultaneously having the total freedom and power to choose to feel that way. And you must've made a wrong decision because you're not at peace.

Taking ownership of your decision to reject God's evaluation of you, and your attempt to overthrow his will, and to ignore his unconditional love, is the only way out of it. You have to be willing to see that you are the one who has decided that your value is extremely low. That you're so worthless you pretty much just deserve to die, because no-one would want you. But hey, even if it seems true that no-one DOES want you, that's their problem and not yours. And it has nothing to do with whether YOU want you.

While you may think well, I can't do this or that because I am a failure and no-one would want me or anything I do, it's really you telling yourself this. It's you not wanting what you do. It's you being hard on yourself. And you shouldn't even be giving other people power over you to decide for you whether you are worthy or not. It's none of their business. God is the only one in the privileged position to determine your real value, and he finds you to be permanently worthy forever. It's not even really up to you.

You can't therefore really obliterate your value or worth, or decide that you deserve to die against God's will. You can pretend to do this, and you can believe in it, but even underneath your utter self-hate there is total self-love. You can't change what is really true of you, no matter how hard you try to destroy yourself. God has guaranteed your sinlessness forever. Your value is inestimable and infinite. And you are worthy and qualify for everything he has to offer. You qualified in your creation!

So if you're feeling low, down, bad about yourself, unworthy, not good enough, undeserving, a failure, weak, powerless, barely worth wiping a shoe on, recognize that this can't be true of you. It's absolutely not true in God's eyes. And it doesn't even matter what other people think of you or how they fail to properly value you. Everyone should be loving you, unless they themselves have failed to love themselves. It says nothing about your worth.

You have to decide to accept your perfection, your innocence, your value, your worth to God, your infinite credibility, your integrity, your divine honor, your holiness and your entitlement to the Kingdom of God. And that means you have to put aside all of the abuse and hurt and pain and misery and reasons "why" you deserve suffering. God does not will that you suffer, and nor should you.

"I who am host to God AM worthy of Him. He Who ESTABLISHED His dwelling-place in me created it as He would have it be."

"The truth about YOU is so lofty that nothing that is unworthy of God is worthy of you."

"But you COULD not make YOURSELF unworthy because YOU ARE THE TREASURE OF GOD. What HE values IS valuable. There CAN be no question of its worth, because its value lies in God's sharing Himself with it and ESTABLISHING ITS VALUE FOREVER."

"EVERY mind that God created is equally worthy of being healed because GOD CREATED IT WHOLE."

"You should know that all God's children are fully worthy of COMPLETE courtesy."

"He always teaches you the inestimable worth of EVERY Son of God, teaching it with infinite patience born of the Love of Him for whom He speaks."

"The Atonement is the only gift which is worthy of being offered to the Altar of God. This is because of the inestimable value of the Altar itself. It was created perfect, and is entirely worthy of receiving perfection. God IS lonely without His SOULS, and THEY are lonely without Him."

"A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable value simultaneously."

Everything that we consider to be a sin, is nothing more than being mistaken. Being mistaken means you are making an error in judgement. You've come to a false conclusion. It means you are incorrect. You have faulty reasoning. You are not recognizing what is true.

Sin is also the idea of insanity, and insanity really is nothing more than confusion about what is true and real. Believing that something is true which is not, is simply a state of being mistaken. You have simply made an error, and now you are confused.

While you are in the confusion, believing that your false truth is true, you ARE mistaken, but you do not recognize that you are mistaken. You believe that you have actually sinned, pulled off the impossible, and accomplished something that can never happen in reality.

To believe this IS, nevertheless, being very mistaken. Just as denial hides the truth from you. Just as framing all acts as sins is a failure to recognize they are JUST mistakes. God knows that his children as simply mistaken, and can never be sinners, and all they need is to recognize their error and accept the truth.

In fact let's put it this way. You should reframe EVERY sin, as nothing more than being mistaken. Every single thing which you consider sinful, evil, wrong, bad, negative, etc should be recognized for what it IS and not for what you think it is.

If someone is trying to attack another, they are simply mistaken. They are mistaken about who they are. They are mistaken in believing the other person is not one with them. They are mistaken for believing they are guilty, and they are mistaken in believing that projecting that guilt onto someone else is going to make it leave their mind. Even if they go through with this, they are still simply making a sequence of mistakes.

Even serious attack such as murder is a state of being mistaken. The person is obviously insane, which means they are confused and do not recognize what is true. They are very much mistaken about what the truth is. They believe that they are justified in the attack, when in fact they aren't, and so they are mistaken. They believe that the death of the other will allow them to gain something, which isn't true, and so they are mistaken. And by finding the other person to be deserving of death, is a totally mistaken notion, since no-one deserves death.

No matter how you look at it, if you look at the big picture and recognize what is true - the immortal innocence and perfection of all beings, it becomes very clear that we can simply be MISTAKEN, but we cannot sin. All evil acts are mistakes. All scapegoating is a mistake. All belief in your own unworthiness is a mistake. Every abuse, torture, rape, killing, destruction, is all to do with people being very mistaken. Even the causation of horrible events is a mis-creation, a mistaken choice in what to cause.

No one in their right mind is mistaken. Being sane means recognizing reality and knowing what is true. If you know what is really true, you are not mistaken about what is true. If you are in touch with reality, you are not mistaken about what is possible. No one in their right mind would even try to sin or attack anyone, because they recognize that they would have to be VERY mistaken to believe it could a) be accomplished and b) be justified.

If you feel guilty, you are simply incorrect about being guilty. You cannot be guilty in God's eyes, because He created you to be innocent forever. So your belief that you are guilty is an error. You are incorrect. You are confused about what is true. You might be insisting that you are RIGHT, but it's not going to make you HAPPY, because being right about something which is false is a state of the denial of happiness.

Forgiveness, in the purest sense, is nothing more than recognizing what is true. It's a state of NOT being mistaken. It's a state of recognition, sanity, and having the whole story. It lacks no information and is not deceived. It simply looks and notices that everything ego or evil is simply false, impossible, untrue, unreal, has no consequences, and does not prove anything. It also recognizes that to believe in such things as possible would be a mistake.

It's kind of like, a question of whether or not you have the facts. If you have all the facts, you are in touch with reality. You know what the whole picture is. But if some facts (information) are missing, you probably are going to start drawing some false conclusions. And now you are entering into illusions, into temptation and deception, because something now appears to be something it isn't.

So let's put it this way. Right now this instant, there is no sin anywhere. There is no evil anywhere. All there is, is a bunch of people who are, temporarily, very mistaken. That is all. They're not evil. They're not sinners. They're just confused. They are out of touch with who they are. They don't recognize their brothers. They believe things are true which aren't. They are just temporarily insane. And insanity is nothing but being mistaken.

Mistakes can always be corrected. They are just temporary errors that you are making. Kind of an "oops". You concluded something which was incorrect. You decided that something means something that it doesn't. You reasoned with faults and ended up confused. You are perhaps unwilling to accept the truth and are in denial of it, which is just a desire to stay mistaken, due to not recognizing that you are.

Those who are insane therefore don't recognize they are simply mistaken, and believe their beliefs are completely true. Those who are in denial do not recognize that they are in denial, they believe they are fully aware of everything and are accepting all of the truth. They aren't, and so they are mistaken. But they believe they are not mistaken.

This then ends up being the key to the turning point in the mind. It's a matter of having to have that "little willingness", to be open to the possibility, that what you believe MIGHT simply be a mistake that you've made. Not like having to admit to being in sin, or that you really are guilty, but just that you are somehow "technically" incorrect. This doesn't have to entail shame or guilt or other rebounds related to being "wrong". It's just a simple fact.

If, while you are in the midst of believing you are completely right, and are not mistaken, and are not recognizing why you are mistaken, you become at least a little willing to consider with some humility that you MIGHT not be "correct", then you start to open up to CORRECTION. You have to be able to get some larger truth into your mind. You need a miracle to shine in the mind and remind you of what is true. To correct your level confusion. Being CORRECT has nothing to do with being RIGHTEOUS.

Correction, which is provided by the Holy Spirit and the truth he represents, is simple the radiant fact of "the miracle", the truth, reflecting the truth of God. It acts as a light of sanity, correctness, accuracy, truth, recognition and reason. You need correction, having made ERRORS, so that you will become "corrected". When you are corrected, you are sane. When you are corrected, you are happy.

So really it all boils down to a simple matter of whether you are correct or whether you are mistaken. Sin never really enters into it, nor does guilt or fear. Those are all the seeming side effects of being mistaken, coupled with the rejection of correction. The rejection of forgiveness. Forgiveness is really just a matter of diffusing the drama of "sin guilt and punishment" and looking at the facts. Looking with sight, with reason, at what things ACTUALLY are. Recognizing that ALL you are right now is in a mistaken state, you've made an error somewhere along the lines, and now all you need is to correct it.

"CORRECTION of the error brings release."

"The term "right-mindedness" is properly used as the correction for wrong- mindedness, and applies to the state of mind which induces accurate perception."

ALL sin must be re-framed as nothing more than being mistaken. Every person you hate, is just mistaken. And you are just mistaken for hating them. Anyone who ever hurt you, was simply mistaken for hurting you, because they made an error. And any hurt you experienced was simply you being mistaken, believing you can be hurt at all, given you are immortal. So now you, and the other person, are just mutually mistaken. And that is all.

And what that tells you is that if someone's attack upon you was merely a consequence of them being MISTAKEN about yourself and themselves, they DID NOT REALLY MEAN IT. They were NOT in their right mind when they expressed this action, based on a mistaken state of mind. They did not realize what they were doing. They THOUGHT they were right and correct and true, but they were mistaken. They were CONFUSED. And they attacked you BY MISTAKE. Since what they did was out of a state of mind of being mistaken and in error, an error which they THEMSELVES did not even realize they were making, you cannot hold it against them.

To forgive someone, therefore, for sin or abuse or attack or harm of any kind, for any kind of upset or broken relating or outright onslaught, is merely to RECOGNIZE that they are NOT in their right mind, they ARE very mistaken. And if you buy into it, into the belief that they are TOTALLY sane in all their decisions and are acting against you ON PURPOSE knowing exactly what they are doing, deliberately, YOU are very mistaken as well. There's just got all these people making mistakes all over the place, NOT sinning, NOT being truly guilty.

The world is just a world of insanity. A mad world, within a mad idea. Even the tiny mad idea that you can do the impossible, was simply a mistaken conclusion. It was an effort to assert something that can NEVER be true. It was an attempt to claim that God can be attacked or opposed. That is not possible. Anyone who believes in that is SIMPLY MISTAKEN. And any belief in sin or separation or bodies or spacetime is SIMPLY a mistaken belief. These things are all false, untrue and impossible.

It utterly boils down to nothing more than a question of accuracy. Are you correct, or are you mistaken? Are you really in touch with what is true, or are you confused and mistaken? Are your beliefs lined up with God's will and truth, or have you invented some MISTAKEN truth which contracts the truth and is therefore mistaken? Do you recognize you are mistaken and are you willing to accept correction?

When Jesus says (biblically) "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do", this encapsulates the whole thing. If you were to recognize what people are doing, or what their state of mind is being driven by, you'd recognize they simply DO NOT KNOW what they are doing. They are MISTAKEN, in a mistaken state of mind, a state of insanity. They aren't even aware of what they're doing. They think they are doing something else. And if they do not love you they don't even recognize you.

By recognizing that all "sinful behavior" is simply by confused, temporarily mentally ill people acting out from states of mistakenness, not realizing what they are doing, not really knowing why they are doing it, how can you accuse them or hold it against them? All they're doing is making a mistake and being in error, doing something by mistake, believing it was something else, not REALLY intending to. No-one REALLY wants to hurt anyone. No one REALLY in a right-minded sane state WANTS to induce suffering.

Let's say that simply, when someone's mind goes into a state of confusion, they lose touch with reality. How they act or express themselves then is going to be coming from a kind of unconsciousness, a lack of awareness, not really knowing what they are doing. They are going to act in error. They BELIEVE they know what is true, but they don't. And everyone simply acts on what they believe is true. It's not possible to do otherwise. So now you've got people seeming to exhibit insane evil behavior, justifying it, but who are only acting WITHIN the confines of their thought system - within the confines of their truth.

When their truth is not true, when they are mistaken and confused, they are LOST. And when they are lost they are out of touch with themselves and with others. And all their actions now become ACCIDENTAL. They keep making mistakes. They keep justifying things based on mistakes. They keep being motivated by mistakes. Compelled by mistakes. Urged into certain reactions based on mistakes. Because they are not awake. And the whole time they don't even know they are doing this because their conscious mind is disconnected from reality and everything they do they believe is totally justified.

There is no sin. There is only a temporary error. And all errors can be corrected. And making a mistake does not call for PUNISHMENT of any kind. If someone is taking a math test and makes a mis-calculation and comes up with a confused result, which they think is accurate, and which they will defend, they hardly deserve to be punished, hit, abused, damaged or destroyed. Because those are not the things that the person NEEDS, and those things are NOT CORRECTION. It does not provide them with the CORRECT ANSWER in any way.

PUNISHMENT DOES NOT CORRECT MISTAKES. THOSE WHO PUNISH ARE MAKING MISTAKES.

In fact, punishment is itself a mistake. It's based on a false perception that the error was a SIN, and not just a mistake, and that a person can undo their temporary insanity by experiencing pain and suffering, to "motivate" them towards the truth. This is utterly ridiculous. All that punishment does is cover up the mistake, turn it into a sin, solidify it, lock it in, and add to the mental illness in the mind by adding more confusion-inducing pain and suffering. It does not work. All it does is lead to even more resentment and mistaken conclusions later.

If someone has made an error on their math test, what it really calls for is proper correction of the mistake. The person needs to be SHOWN, by example, what the CORRECT truth is, and why it is true. The MISTAKE needs to be identified and pointed out, not as a sin, but simply to bring awareness and recognition. Then the student recognizes WHY it was a mistake, because the true truth makes more sense, and automatically justifies alignment with it because it is OBVIOUS. The student than "takes on" the greater truth and receives it and is now corrected, such that in future they will not be mistaken again. They have become the truth. This is the true correction of errors without punishment ever entering into it.

A belief in sin calls for punishment and death. A belief that a mistake is NOT merely a harmless correctable mistake, is a belief that it deserves to be punished. Evaluating that all mistakes CAN'T be corrected, due to severity or consequences, is still a further mistake, which justifies punishment. Oops sorry, your mistake was TOO BIG, so it's overflowed into sin territory, so now we're going to attack you and take something from you so that you suffer, to "atone for it". Punishment then becomes atonement.

Yet even murder is JUST A MISTAKE, and through miracles all the consequences of that wrong decision can be undone by the holy spirit. "He will correct all the consequences of my wrong (mistaken) decision IF I will let Him."

Real atonement, the undoing of error, which is forgiving, and which always recognizing that we're all JUST mistaken, not sinners, is a gentle correction, a loving correction, a harmless correction, which merely makes you aware of what the truth really is and shines a light so that you can see. And then in that light the mistake is recognized for what it is, its underpinnings are exposed, the steps are retraced, and it is undone at its source. Now is the mind corrected and correct, accurate and truthful. And now forgiveness has brought a healing and life instead of death.

"I want the peace of God." W185

I've been realising more and more lately that peace is a vital core part of awakening to reality. And here's why.

Before "the separation" there was union and oneness. The idea of separation first began as nothing more perhaps than a very subtle sense of taking sides. Of there being a very slight difference between what seemed to be two things, instead of one thing. A hint of inequality and a vague notion of something belonging to one part and not another.

This mad idea later snowballed to the fullest extent of possibility, into greater and stronger senses of separateness, opposition, inequality, difference and all manner of exclusivity. In effect, "war broke out". A state of psychological war in which the peace of oneness was brought into question.

"And the peace of God's Son was shattered, for he no longer understood his Father." UrT12C11

"Angels came, too, but their protection was not enough, because the Separated ones were not interested in peace. They had already split themselves, and were bent on dividing rather than reintegrating. The levels they introduced into themselves turned against each other, and they, in turn, turned against each other. They established differences, divisions, cleavages, dispersion, and all the other concepts related to the increasing splits they produced." UrT2B43

Ultimately all of what we think of space and time, all physical matter, all objects, planet Earth, human bodies, and all the rest of it, descended as the crystallizing of this simple idea of being separate - separate instead of whole. And that was an idea of conflict, of war, of things disagreeing, of nothing being the same.

In heaven there is perfect peace because there is no possibility of war. There are no separated off things that can be enemies, nor can they attack anything else. There is no sense of threat or danger, no ability to harm or alter God's perfect creations. And without such threats there is no sense of fear, or a "loss of peace" or a disruption to "peace of mind."

Our minds did little more than enter into a state of believing in separate things. That sense of separation took on every conceivable form, including war and attack, blame and murder, sickness and death, destruction and change, judgement and condemnation, danger and threat, conflict and disagreement, inequality and disharmony, and everything we're all familiar with in our lives on earth - a planet which itself depends entirely on separation and war for its illusory existence.

We then need to seek to reclaim our peace of mind. That means, all the ways that we be SEPARATE have to end. All sense of attacking, all desire to hurt, all cruelty, all murderousness, all blame and judgement, all condemnation and grievances, it all has to collapse so that the SEPARATIONS between things are collapsed, restoring unity and oneness.

ONLY in that unity of oneness is true peace fully possible, because it's a state in which all sense of separation is absent. War becomes impossible, and without war there is no fighting, no conflict, no disturbance, no loss, no imbalance, no sin or guilt or death. Peace is an attribute of a sane healthy mind which has been restored to wholeness. Because in wholeness there is no split mind, no divided will, and you are no longer at war with yourself. This is accomplished through forgiveness.

"Forgiveness IS your peace, for herein lies the end of separation, and the dream of danger and destruction, sin and death; of madness and of murder, grief and loss." UrT29G1

"Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles of correcting the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others." UrT2A32

To gain peace, all your psychological weapons have to be laid down. All sense of wanting to attack, wanting to resist and fight, wanting to hurt and destroy has to be undone. And undoing all of this is a surrender. It is this surrender that ends the war, a surrendering of all ego pursuits and beliefs. When you wave the white flag, you return to peace, because the end of war is indeed peace. Nor will your peace mean defeat, but victory and invulnerability.

"Judgment is the weapon I would use against myself to keep all miracles away from me." URW347

"Now must you once again lay down your sword, although you will not recognize that you have picked it up again" UrM21A4

"Every time you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head." UrW192L9

"Nor is it possible the two can ever be the same, while specialness stands like a flaming sword of death between them, and makes them enemies." UrT24D4

"Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness." UrW190L9

"How long, oh Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin? Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys?" UrW250W45

God has one law. It is very simple.

God can only create in his own likeness. He doesn't know anything else. He creates beings - sons or souls - who are all identical to Him, and therefore are identical to each other. What applies to each one of them, applies to all of them equally. What is true of one, can be said to be exactly true of all of them.

This sets up "The Golden Rule", which is the primary law of God's creation, that everything applies the same to everyone, everywhere, at all times. The law simply states that what applies to you applies exactly the same to all brothers.

This law is always in effect. It is permanent. You cannot escape it. The law is in effect whether you like it or not. The law is in effect regardless of whether you are awake or asleep, aware of Heaven or suffering in the dream of spacetime. The law is the truth.

Our friend "the ego" is nothing other than the attempt to DENY that the law is in effect. It is an attempt to be outside of the law. The ego is nothing other than the belief that something DIFFERENT applies to one son versus another.

If the law of God means UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, since all sons are loved equally, then the ego means CONDITIONAL LOVE or "special favor", in which some sons are to be treated differently and unequally from others. Special love is a lack of love and so the ego is a thought system of lacking equality and unconditionality.

When you are trying to be "in the ego", you are in denial of the law. That doesn't mean the law stops applying. Denying that it always applies is suicidal. What happens when you try to operate outside of the law is that you will hurt yourself. You will believe that you can do something to others that you yourself escape the consequences of, and yet you will not escape those consequences.

When you do not treat your brother as a perfect identical equal, you will think you can get away with murder by getting away with attacking them and avoiding the effects. But you will not escape the effects. What you attempt to do to him you WILL do to yourself, because the law is always functioning. You cannot attack without being attacked. You cannot treat someone in a special way without withdrawing from love. You cannot attempt to hurt without hurting yourself.

The Golden Rule - the one law of God - also applies in the dream in terms of bodies, sickness, and death. The Course teaches clearly that if you show your brother a physical body which is sick, you are accusing him of sin and are attacking both of you. When you use the body for attack it becomes attacked and weak and sick and dead. This is a consequence of denying the law of God.

Simply, what applies to you always applies to others. So when you go into attack, attack is the idea that you can be different to others and have special treatment. This differences drives a wedge of separation between you and your brother and attempts to assert that what applies to them does not apply to you, or that you can attack without being attacked. This is the basis of all projection, where you try to project blame onto another as if to say "that is true of you, but not true of me".

When you do this, you are in denial of the law, and the law is still functioning, and so you will experience a split mind and are attacking yourself. You cannot cause your brother to be treated separately without treating yourself separately. Separation comes BETWEEN you. The body comes BETWEEN you as a separation device. You cannot have something apply only to him and not yourself.

Sick bodies are accusers. When you try to make your body sick you are accusing your brother of sin. That means that in your attempt to "make plans for him" you inevitably end up hurting yourself. You cannot accuse him of attack without being attacked. And so as you try to make out that your brother is a sinner, you are accusing yourself. It applies to you as it applies to him. And this hurts you. You will experience the consequences. It seems to be to an unfair consequence or something you did not want, but you literally did it to yourself. Whatever you try to do to another, you WILL do to yourself.

The Golden Rule also works in your FAVOR when you comply with it and recognize it and work WITH it. Recognizing it is the secret to salvation. That means you must be willing to have the truth be the same for everyone, all are treated equal and no-one is special. And that means moving into unconditional love. Here, the Golden Rule actually supports you and helps you, because it ensures that giving and receiving are one, therefore as you treat others with love you receive love. As you give miracles, you receive miracles.

When you acknowledge the law is in effect and you COMPLY with it, it ensures that you will be treated with unconditional love, that you will have access to sharing the entire treasure of God's creation, and that you will recognize your brother as your identical equal. "Healing is a thought in which two minds perceive their oneness and become glad". This means that the two minds recognize the law, know it to be true, see that they are identical children of God, and celebrate their equality.

A Course in Miracles is entirely based around this law. All of its concepts about how what you do to others you to do yourself, how giving and receiving are one, how you attack the body, how you become sick, how you must demonstrate a BODY THAT IS FREE FROM ATTACK, and how you must overcome death, is all based on the law of God - the Golden Rule. This is why Jesus says that either everything lives or everything is dead.

When the rule applies and you acknowledge equality, you are recognizing that anything God creates must be like him, and since He is life, everything He creates must live. And that means ALL that He creates is alive forever. And in this acknowledgement you are acknowledging that YOU are alive and cannot die, any more than anyone else can. Acknowledging life is the resurrection and in the resurrection the curriculum ends, because it's there, in the atonement, that you acknowledge and receive the unconditional love that comes from ALIGNING with the law of God. Accepting the truth.

When you comply with the law, everything is peaceful in Heaven. When you oppose the law, you make yourself suffer. Denying the law is ego and is suicide. Accepting the law is heavenly and protects you perfectly in eternal life.