DAMAGED BODIES ARE ACCUSERS!

IF YOUR BODY STILL HAS SICKNESS, IT IS STILL ACCUSING AND FORGIVENESS IS NOT COMPLETE UNTIL IT HAS BROUGHT HEALING TO THE BODY AS WELL

Here is the passage which definitively explains that if you show a damaged, broken, sick, defective, disabled, ill, corrupt, dead, or in any way unhealthy body to your brother, YOU HAVE NOT FORGIVEN HIM. "A miracle of healing proves separation is without effect". The EFFECTS have to be CANCELLED, otherwise you are STILL condemning. This literally means that you MUST HEAL YOUR BODY in order to prove to your brother that you have forgiven him. It's not enough to just "do it in your head." You are to DEMONSTRATE a picture of immortality, not a picture of crucifixion.

From "The fear of healing"... (shitloads of fear around this for most people)

"Is healing frightening? To many, yes. For accusation is a bar to love, and DAMAGED BODIES ARE ACCUSERS. They stand firmly in the way of trust and peace, PROCLAIMING that the frail can HAVE no trust, and that the damaged HAVE no grounds for peace. Who has been injured BY his brother, and could love and trust him still? He HAS attacked, and will attack again. Protect him not, because YOUR DAMAGED BODY SHOWS THAT YOU MUST BE PROTECTED FROM HIM. To forgive may be an act of charity, but NOT his due. He may be PITIED for his guilt, but NOT exonerated. And if you forgive him his transgressions, you but ADD to all the guilt that he has really earned.

The unhealed CANNOT pardon. For they are the WITNESSES that pardon is unfair. THEY WOULD RETAIN THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE GUILT THEY OVERLOOK. Yet no-one CAN forgive a sin which he believes is real. And WHAT HAS CONSEQUENCES MUST BE REAL, because WHAT IT HAS DONE IS THERE TO SEE. Forgiveness is NOT pity, which but seeks to pardon what it knows to be the truth. Good cannot BE returned for evil, for forgiveness does not first ESTABLISH sin, and THEN forgive it. Who can say and MEAN, "My brother, you have injured me, and yet, because I am the BETTER of the two, I pardon you my hurt." HIS pardon and YOUR hurt can NOT exist together. One DENIES the other, and MUST make it false.

To witness sin and yet forgive it is a paradox which reason cannot see. For it maintains what has been done to you DESERVES no pardon. And, by GIVING it, you grant your brother mercy, but retain THE PROOF HE IS NOT **REALLY** INNOCENT. THE SICK REMAIN ACCUSERS. They cannot forgive their brothers AND themselves as well. For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns CAN suffer. HE HOLDS NOT THE PROOF OF SIN BEFORE HIS BROTHERS EYES. And thus he MUST have overlooked it, and removed it from his own. Forgiveness CANNOT be for one, and not the other. Who forgives IS HEALED. And IN HIS HEALING LIES THE PROOF that he has TRULY pardoned, and RETAINS NO TRACE OF CONDEMNATION THAT HE STILL WOULD HOLD AGAINST HIMSELF OR ANY LIVING THING.

FORGIVENESS IS NOT REAL UNLESS IT BRINGS A HEALING TO BOTH YOUR BROTHER AND YOURSELF. YOU must attest his sins HAD NO EFFECT on YOU, to DEMONSTRATE they were not real. HOW ELSE COULD HE BE GUILTLESS? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt? Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING LIES THE PROOF that they were merely errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A BROKEN BODY SHOWS THE MIND HAS **NOT** BEEN HEALED. A miracle of healing PROVES that separation is WITHOUT effect.

WHAT YOU WOULD PROVE TO HIM YOU WILL BELIEVE. The power of witness COMES from your belief. And EVERYTHING YOU SAY OR DO or think but testifies to what you teach to him. YOUR BODY CAN BE MEANS TO TEACH THAT IT HAS NEVER SUFFERED PAIN BECAUSE OF HIM. And IN ITS HEALING can it offer him MUTE TESTIMONY TO HIS INNOCENCE. IT IS THIS TESTIMONY THAT CAN SPEAK WITH POWER GREATER THAN A THOUSAND TONGUES. FOR HERE HIS FORGIVENESS IS **PROVED** TO HIM. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does YOUR HEALING (mind AND body) SHOW your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE CONVINCED his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you.

Thus does the miracle undo all things THE WORLD ATTESTS CANNOT BE UNDONE. AND HOPELESSNESS AND DEATH MUST DISAPPEAR before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has POWER FAR BEYOND the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt. The ancient Calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto his own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to SHOW YOU BROTHER that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to SHOW him, by your healing (physically), that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream.

How just are miracles! For they bestow an equal gift of FULL DELIVERANCE from guilt upon your brother AND yourself. YOUR healing saves HIM pain, as well as you. And YOU are healed BECAUSE you wished him well. This is the law the miracle obeys: That healing sees no specialness at all. It does NOT come from pity, but from love. And love would prove ALL suffering is but a vain imagining, a foolish wish, ***WITH NO EFFECTS***. YOUR HEALTH is a result of your desire to see your brother with no blood upon his hands, nor guilt upon his heart made heavy with the PROOF of sin. And what you wish is GIVEN you to see."

(See also "Only the mind AND BODY need atonement.")

Anyone who is sick, is trying to kill themselves.

That's the harsh truth of it.

"Sickness is but a little death."

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, ***for it is but another form of guilt***."

ALL sickness, is induced by guilt. And guilt is induced by believing that sin is real. If sin is real, you must be punished. This is the ego's law. It reasons logically that if you DID sin, you ARE guilty, and DO deserve to suffer as a result. It makes sense.

"The laws of sin DEMAND a victim."

"Guilt ASKS FOR punishment"

"The wages of sin is death."

"If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves."

These are harsh facts.

What this means in summary is, someone chooses to believe they have sinned, this automatically instills the belief they are guilty, the guilt turns into literal physical and mental sickness, which is an attempt to bring about self inflicted punishment - an attempt at suicide. The end result is always eventually death. Anyone who believes in sin or in being sinful has a death wish. And every single sick person is trying to destroy themselves.

The only way out of this seeming horror story, is through atonement, which entails the forgiveness of the belief in sin, the recognition and acceptance of innocence, and the undoing of the consequences of the mistaken belief in sin.

"Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

Sickness is NOT POSSIBLE without guilt. But where there is guilt, there is ALWAYS sickness.

Those who are sick DO believe they are guilty, deep down. Regardless of whether they admit it or are aware of it.

What that means is, everyone who has any belief in sin or guilt at all, IS sick, and IS trying to destroy themselves.

Which also means, this world is filled with people committing suicide.

"YOU HATE YOUR MINDS, for guilt has entered into them""For the wages of sin is death, and how can the immortal die?""Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

"Sin "proves" God's Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; Eternal life must die."

"Behold me, brother, at your hand I die."

Of course, keeping it all in perspective, it is not REAL sin, or REAL guilt, or REAL hatred, or REAL sickness or REAL death. These are all fiction and fantasy in an illusory dream world. Because nothing real can be threatened. But while we're here suffering we do not BELIEVE these things are unreal, and it is our belief in guilt and sickness and death that brings them to manifest in the body and mind. A guilty mind MUST suffer.

This is not a call to make anyone feel guilty for being sick, or to accuse anyone, or to try to make people feel worse about it. If you can put that ego reaction aside and look at it honestly, it's simply a truth which has the potential to set you free. Sickness is not necessary, or deserved, or needed. It is a reaction to condemnation of yourself. And you are literally incapable of really sinning. So you cannot be guilty, and you need not suffer.

"God does not will that you suffer."

No-one needs to be sick, to suffer, or to die a horrible death. Even if it's an illusion. The body can be healed by the mind that no longer believes in sin and death.

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone. We said before that illness is a form of magic. It might be better to say it is a form of magical SOLUTION. The ego believes that by punishing ITSELF, it will mitigate the punishment of God."

"Sin is the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts which are untrue. They are the "proof " that what has no reality is real. Sin "proves" God's Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; Eternal life must die. And God Himself has lost the Son He loves, with but corruption to complete Himself, His Will forever overcome by death, love slain by hate, and peace to be no more."

"A madman's dreams are frightening, and sin appears indeed to terrify. And yet what sin perceives is but a childish game. The Son of God may play he has become a body, prey to evil and to guilt, with but a little life that ends in death. But all the while his Father shines on him, and loves him with an everlasting Love which his pretenses cannot change at all.

How long, oh Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin? Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will you be ready to come home? Perhaps today? There is no sin. Creation is unchanged. Would you still hold return to Heaven back? How long, oh holy Son of God, how long?"

When I first began with the Course's forgiveness, it was much more focused on taking back my projections. The particular projections to be taken back revolved around other people and what they seemed to be doing to me. If things were not going wrong necessarily, I would lapse and not do any forgiveness.

People would say you only have to forgive the stuff that upsets you. And that's more or less the mode that I'd been in for some years. It seemed some part of me wanted to just get on with "my life" and have those assholes just sort of go away as a result of my becoming more honest and less blaming. When people appeared to not disturb me, I wouldn't seem to have any reason to forgive.

The radicalness of the Course, however, asks that we recognize not just that we have psychological issues "about" the world, but that the world ITSELF is also an illusion. That's a really HUGE leap in terms of beliefs and perceptions. That's a seemingly far bigger challenge to even comprehend yet alone overcome.

It isn't just telling me to stop projecting my shit onto people. Ok yes that's part of it. That's a good start. It isn't just telling me that I need to heal my past and let go of blocks to love and so on. Again yes, that's part of it. But there is more.

The body itself is an illusion. The world itself is an illusion. Other people's bodies are illusions. All forms are illusions.

So now, this is a much bigger endeavor. This isn't just a matter of undoing small mistakes in perception so that I can see this world better and feast my eyes on its form with a more loving attitude.

We have to realize that because this world is an illusion, IF you are truly waking up from this illusion it HAS to mean that we're going to not only overlook the world but that HOW it looks is going to change radically. Also what it means is going to shift. A sense of belief in it, or the notion that it is even REAL, is going to change.

If we're moving toward the real truth of God, and if this world is an illusion, its illusory nature is going to start to become apparent. The sense of it being real is going to start to dissolve. The appearance of form as irreversible and causal is going to be radically turned on its head. Our mind is going to move into a very different, very ego-law-breakaing state of awareness.

So then at some point, we have to move out of the "forgive people" mode and into the "forgive everything" mode. And by forgiveness we mean, recognizing the truth and using that truth to overlook and not be deceived by illusions. We might not be recognizing just how deluded we are, and just how deceived we are, that this physical world is REAL, that bodies are real, or that we're really actually "living" here.

The truth is far more radical than this. The truth is that this world is not reality AT ALL. It is literally nothing. A total illusion from top to bottom. Everything in it, all supposed life "forms", all sickness, all death, all suffering, all of the weather, all of the ways that objects affect other objects, all of the laws of physics and chemistry and biology, every property of matter, ALL OF IT is an illusion.

Believing that this stuff is real is a problem. It's insanity. It is not true perception. And if you perceive that this world is real, then you will not be able to perform miracles. Miracles completely defy all of the laws of this universe, coming from outside of spacetime, sourced in God's infinite love. If you're believing the world is real, there is no way that you're going to be able to overthrow the laws of this world. Your wish for it to be "true" - a real world - holds it in place, disabling you from having power (dominion) over it.

So this is a huge shift. Take the next step. Be willing to be open to the idea that there is no REAL sickness, no REAL death, and that this world is not really real at all. Then you will start to sense the power of God to have authority over all illusions and to perform miracles. It's one thing to do little forgivenesses here and there, it's another to realize you have to forgive the entire universe. That then this forgiveness doesn't just mean to see 'a real universe' as innocent, it means to see CELARLY and CORRECTLY, which MUST show you that it is an ILLUSION, not a real world. Otherwise you are not seeing at all.

"Seek and do not find" is the absolute rule of the ego's way of perceiving.

It's very simple logic.

1) You already have everything you need. You are love.

2) Deny everything you are. "It's not in you".

3) Feel deprived and lacking and driven to search for what you lost anywhere, except in you - because as per step 2, it is clearly not in you (notice here that we never mentioned it being anywhere ELSE either though).

4) Now you go on a passionate hunt for what you lost - yourself - God - everywhere OTHER THAN where it is. Everywhere separate from you. In every illusion that prevents you from being as you are.

5) COMPLETELY fail to find it, because it is NOT OUT THERE.

Sometimes you'll find something which you think is your salvation - idols, objects, people, relationships, activities, places, etc. You invest them with 'hope' that they will be 'the one' that will save you from this dilemma of denial of yourself. BUT at the same time, you absolutely DO NOT believe that they will do so, because you're convinced the truth is NOT in you and never will be ever again.

So whatever you find starts to fail and reveal its cracks and show evidence that it is not working - it's not restoring you to happiness or love or who you are. So you become disillusioned, maybe angry that you've been led astray. You feel deceived and abandoned and frustrated. This REINFORCES your feeling that you are not loveable, that you are not good enough for God, that you are not with God, and that you are not yourself. You feel terrible. Even worse than before. And how does the ego suggest you solve this?

Any guesses?

"Why not go looking somewhere else, since it's obviously not here?" - ... in other words, MORE DENIAL, leading to more compulsion to seek outside yourself where you WILL NOT find what you're looking for.

Every effort you make to 'hold on', forces you to 'lose'. Every effort to 'have' or 'get' forces you to lose. Every effort to 'gain' what you lost reinfoces it's loss and loses even more. Every time you try to 'keep' what you 'little left' you fear to lose, you believe in its loss even more and it goes away. Every time you try to control what's happening so that you don't lose any more of what you value, it all gets taken away from you.

This is how the ego functions. It is insane. Only the insane would tell you to go looking for what you don't have because of how you failed to find it the last time you went looking. The last hunt didn't work? Keep on looking, you're sure to find it someday! Not.

What you're really looking for is God. What you're looking for is your True Self. It's not fancy cars and people and sex and bodies and tv shows and weddings and vacations and rainbows and pets and political rallies and movies and whatever else. It's not out there.

What you want is BEHIND the wall of denial that you've constructed, which you USED the ego to accomplish - or rather, you made the ego BY denying who you are and what you already have.

Everything you really want and CAN ever really HAVE and BE and EXPERIENCE, is already given to you by God. It is what you are. It is love Itself. With this there is nothing else that you really want. That is why the course says, "this world holds nothing that you want". Sobering. It holds nothing you want because it's not WHAT you want, what you want was already yours - it's YOU, as God created you. And you already ARE that. It's in you.

And let's be very very clear about something, because this is the ego's entire cover-story that we're about to blow. Ready? .... Denial is NOT removal. Denial does NOT destroy. Denial does not get rid of anything. Denial merely COVERS UP what is already there and PRETENDS that it is not there.

You want to know what the ego's crowning glory of denial is? The total denial that you are love, that you even live? It's DEATH. Death is DENIAL, it does NOT remove anything, it does not destroy anything, it merely PRETENDS that Life (God, You) do not exist.

It's a cover up!

You merely need to look with Holy Spirit at where you are DENYING - God - Your True Self - and uncover that, expose it to the light again, and reclaim your "natural inheritance". God's already given you everything you could possible want to be satisfied. You're just choosing not to want it. And because of that, you WILL NOT find anything better or more satisfying anywhere else.

Undo denial and you awaken to the love that is already your natural birthright. God created you AS love and that will never change, NO matter how much you might DENY it. And it is still the truth about you, because denial has not touched it or changed it. You are love.

Love is the truth, forever.

"Everyone should love everyone."

"You cannot enter into REAL relationships with ANY of God's Sons, unless you love them all, and EQUALLY. Love is not special. If you single out PART of the Sonship for your love, you are imposing guilt on ALL your relationships, and MAKING them unreal."

This is a clear message from Jesus. Each one of us needs to get to the point where we love *everyone*, literally. Not a single exception, not a single "type of person", not a single reason why we can't love someone.

Regardless of what political party, regardless of criminal history, regardless of sins committed, regardless of what color or sexual orientation their body is, no matter their personality, no matter how they behave or what their voice sounds like or what foods they like or what team they support.

This is unconditional love. Love without exceptions. Love without special conditions.

If you are a man, a straight man, are you willing to fully love all other men? Including gay men?

If you are in an exclusive marriage, are you willing to love EVERYONE as much as you love your spouse?

Will you love your children as much as your husband?

Can you love all of the neighbors that you disapprove of?

Can you love all celebrities, political leaders, groups, corporations, the military, all war mongers, hitler?

Wherever there are reasons not to, there are reasons not to love yourself. Wherever there is some limit on WHY you cannot love them, there is a limit on why you cannot love yourself. If you cannot be willing to fully express love to every single one of God's children equally and fully, there is a limitation placed on how much love you are willing to receive. Which means you do not love yourself either.

Special relationships are especially prone to exclusion. That one special person, who is better than all others, your favorite, whom you love the most, such that no-one else compares, and everyone else sucks. Can you find the same love everywhere you go, regardless of whether that special person exists?

Can you love another man's wife as much as you love your own?

Can you love another woman's husband?

We're not talking here about having sex with them or getting into an orgy. We're talking about non-physical spirit-based extensions of love through the heart.

There can be no enemies if you want peace. There can be no-one identified as "not worthy of love" if you are to be worthy of love. You can't maintain that someone is wrong or sinful or undeserving. You can't keep separating off one group of people to spiritualize them at the expense of putting another group down.

Jesus loves EVERYONE EQUALLY. Every single person on or off the planet. All the children of God. When there isn't full total willingness to love everyone equally, there is a resistance to loving ANY of them fully. This is why Jesus says if you do not love them ALL fully and equally, you do not really love ANY of them.

If you have a special person or family member that you feel you love a great deal, but you do not love every other person to the same extent, you DO NOT love that special person fully. The love you withhold, the unhealed grievances, the special hate you have for others, must detract from how loving you can be towards a special person. To love that special person fully, you HAVE to love everyone fully. It's the only way that works. In case you didn't notice, you cannot love and hate at the same time.

For those who want to return to Heaven, to God, to unconditional reality without limits, all such grievances must be relinquished. All specialness has to be questioned. All exclusivity has to be transcended. Whether you choose to spend extra time or attention with certain people still, that's up to you. Holy Spirit wants to turn your special relations into holy ones. But to be holy, what applies to that one person must apply to all, including you.

You cannot love others if you do not love ourself. You are also included in this. To have enemies is to be at war with yourself. You cannot get away with it. Maintain enemies and you are not at peace, seeing yourself as under attack. Only when every single person is your friend are you free from this. And to do that you have to be a friend to yourself. You have to be willing to love yourself and receive love from God. When you do, you can then give or extend it. You must be included in this because love is a state of SHARING. It belongs to everyone.

"The test of everything on earth is simply this; "What is it for?" The answer makes it what it is for you. It has no meaning of itself, yet you can give reality to it, according to the purpose that you serve."

The world was made for a purpose. It was deliberate, intentional, chosen. We wanted there to be an alternative to heaven. And its form and function were made to serve that purpose. Just as all sickness is intentionally used to serve a perceived need.

Purpose is based on "how you are using it" or "what it is for". What is the goal attached to it. What is the ambition. How is it being used to accomplish that goal. How does it serve you and God.

We started out with a purpose of separation and attack, and produced a world which seems to be a world where that purpose could be fulfilled. That it could serve or be used as a way to avoid being with God. A hell where God could enter not.

But since the PURPOSE of the world or what it MEANS or is USED FOR, is distinct from what the world IS (just a neutral illusion), it's possible to give it a different purpose and a different meaning or use.

The Holy Spirit uses the world in a totally different way to our original intentions. To bring you home to God, to wake you up, to get you to let go of your artificial meanings and the meanings you've given everything. He presents an alternative meaning and use of the world and the body, based in love.

So in forgiveness, we're giving the world a different meaning and purpose. We're re-interpreting it. We're re-purposing it and coming up with a different use for it. Instead of using it to keep you away from God, we're trying to use it in such a way that it doesn't serve as an obstacle, or as proof of sin, or as a way to keep you suffering.

In effect, we're trying to use what we made against itself, to undo it. We're cancelling it out by forgiving it, ie giving it a meaning from an opposite thought system, which runs contrary to the world's nature, so that the world is recognized sanely, setting you free from it. Because illusions recognized must disappear.

So when Jesus asks you to consider "what is it for?", he's trying to get you to look at how you're using it, or for what purpose, or what meaning you're inventing for it, and to question that choice, and choose again the Holy Spirit's alternative meaning and purpose and use of the world and the body.To "let me not use this as an obstacle to peace, but help me to use it to facilitate its coming."

The forgiven world is the same world with a different purpose. A world which came to damn, made in false perception, now being used to return you to salvation. A body which was made to separate, being used to bring help and healing. A life which was made to hide in darkness, being used to bring light to the world.

Purpose aligns with perception and belief, because when you change your mind about what you believe is true and want, you are changing the meaning of things. And now you project that meaning onto the world and see it.

So if you recognize and believe and accept God's meaning and truth, it will change the meaning you give to the world. And now you are perceiving closer to Christ Vision or Real Truth because you're looking at the world from a different vantage point or angle. Framing it differently.

Essentially, it's the same world, combined with a different attitude. A more holy attitude seems to render the world as though it is holy and harmless. Ancient hatreds turn into present loves. Serious suffering turns into effortless healing. Death turns into resurrection. And fear turns into happiness.

Another way of saying "what is it for?", is "what meaning do I want to give it?" Do I want to use this for attack and making sin real, or do I want to use it repurpose it to remind me of God's truth and method by which I might be saved from hell? Can I see it in another light? There must be a better way.

If I am presently using the world in such a way that it means attack and offense and threat and damage and suffering and hell, I can admit that I am using it in a certain way, thereby "doing this to myself".

And then I can change my mind and choose a different meaning. And then elect to tune into Holy Spirit's perspective of forgiveness and repurpose what I think happened to help me move towards peace instead.

The body is entirely designed to look upon an illusory world and make it seem real. It is designed to take something unreal and give it seeming reality. To turn fantasy into fact and to experience its own unreality as if it were real.

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

Therefore you cannot ask the body to show you what is real or to ask it to describe anything true. It is not ABLE to see reality. It ALWAYS and permanently fixates on what is not real, and attempts to give it truth. And because the body itself is part of "what it observes", it will tell you that the body ITSELF is real, and will pass this off as a neutral observation.

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality."

"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see BEYOND what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and NOT see past it. 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. To this distorted form of vision, the OUTSIDE of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."

"You cannot expect the EGO to say "I am not real.""

The body then is a strange device which is utterly biased and incapable of being objective. The question of whether the body EXISTS or not, is given to the body to answer. And the body can ONLY report that it does exist. It will not ever report its own unreality. It is not capable of seeing reality, or recognizing it, or having the kind of vantage point to be able to discern whether something is real or not. That's because the body ITSELF is unreal and cannot step outside of its own unreality.

So what we do is, we keep using the body to try to evaluate what things are, whether they are true, whether they have reality etc. But the very device we're using to do this is utterly biased towards false perception. The body can ONLY see falsely and CANNOT see truth.

"But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely. "

The problem then is that the body itself is INCAPABLE of reaching outside of its own limitations. It is not capable of seeing heaven, nor is it capable of seeing the real world. The physical eyeballs are LOCKED into a mechanism of physics and biology based on separation, utterly dependent on separation to function. They can "see" only the reflected photons which were rejected by illusory surfaces, put there to BLOCK vision and to not see.

You cannot therefore USE the body to see reality, nor to discern what is true, or to correctly identify anything. It is a device made to be part of the very system that it is observing, such that it literally cannot discern anything unlike itself. And because what it observes IS like itself, it regards this as a validation of "reality" and of its own existence. You use the body to look at the body and the body reports, "this body exists". But this is not true.

The body is completely biased and one-sided and tainted in its supposedly "neutrality" of observation. It is incapable of making neutral observations because it, itself, is completely skewed towards making illusions seem real. It HAS taken sides. And it is on the side of hell and death and proving sin is happening. All things physical do this - they are all part of the deception of spacetime.

If you want to find out what is true or real you have to go beyond the body and beyond the physical. There has to be ANOTHER kind of vision, another way to see, which does NOT depend on the body and does not use the physical eyeballs. A way to discern what is real and what is true and what exists. This is the spiritual eye in the mind.

"Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body's eyes at all. The mind is its only source."

"Corrective learning always begins with awakening the spiritual eye, and turning away from belief in physical sight."

"The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all, but it perceives the altar within with perfect clarity. This is because the spiritual eye has perfect vision."

"The spiritual eye literally CANNOT SEE error"

"Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."

We are asked therefore to turn away from this isolating dependency on the PHYSICAL SIGHT, on the physical senses, and all the physical LIES of the body, and open up the spiritual eye to being able to SEE with vision, using the mind only, beyond the physical. This is what the development of true perception is about. It's about going beyond the body into the light where you can actually see what is real and true and not be deceived by an illusory physical world. And that has to mean overcoming the body and leaving it behind.

When a situation presents itself, on a physical level, with signs and symptoms and effects that you can see and touch, it seems to be real to you. If you do not overlook it, they form evidence and proof that something seems to be going wrong. On the basis of this you can't help but go into fear as a logical consequence. If the problem is real, you should be concerned.

What then happens is you'll start going into the "I have to do something about it" mode. This compulsion will arise as a natural logical consequence, following on from the belief that the problem is real. If it's real, it really needs solving. If it's real, it's seen as a real threat, calling for a real solution.

Before you know it, you'll be launching into a tirade of all the things that you thin should happen, need to happen, should be done, that other people should be doing, etc, in order to "save" the situation. And this will take the form of what appears to be genuine concern, caring, wanting to help, trying to fix, compelling others to act, trying to get something to be done about it, a sense or urgency and demand and even anger in the name of getting someone to solve it.

While on the surface this will look and feel like some fervent effort to help, and even if it might bring what many would consider forms of assistance and magical solutions that many would consider a resolution, this performance of drama and urgency is heavily laden with attack. If a person were totally fine and nothing were going wrong, and you were expressing these compulsions toward and about them, it would be attacking their invulnerability.

Claiming "something seriously needs to be done about it" relies entirely on the strong belief that there is attack, there is weakness, there is compromise and suffering. You can't have these kind of thoughts without buying into the belief in these things. And the belief in these things IS a form of attack. It contributes to supporting the notion that the problem exists, and you can't be doing that if you are trying to make it go away.

If I say, ok, someone needs to do something about this right now because there's really a major problem, then mixed in with what seems like selfless helpful attitudes is a whole array of undermining, making real, believing in suffering, giving power away, energizing the problem, holding it in a space of attack, and just generally having a negative fearful attitude about it. And fear, even if it seems to be an experience of being under attack, is itself a form of attack.

While it's seemingly true that a person might really "need help", at least on a physical level, through some magical means, and that this help might indeed seem to help the situation, there is also the fact that this help is in part harmful. And it will always have side effects to prove it. These side effects come from the fact that fear is a form of attack, and concern for physical appearances is actually an attempt to reinforce them, making them worse. The person trying to "save" with the ego is actually against salvation.

There is alternative way to help and to save, and it moves the mind and perception in the direction of true healing. Not just the illusion of healing but actual miraculous support. And for this, the entire ego mechanic of making the problem real and coming from fear and urgency has to be let go. It has to be recognized as fake help, a reaction based on the assumption that the problem is real. As fear turns to anger and insistence, it becomes murderous.

It's better that we move into true forgiveness, where we withdraw belief in the problem, we stop fearing by stopping believing that there is even a real problem happening, we move into a mindset of recognizing the person's wholeness and health, we get our mind out of the gutter of ego temptation, we affirm what is really true about them beyond appearances, step back and allow the Holy Spirit to heal, and dismantle the artificial forms of salvation that were making the problem worse.

In this we undo, take away, cancel, reverse, disbelieve, disempower, disappear, vanish and generally make non-existent the problem. There is no real problem. There is no real suffering. There is nothing real going on here that calls for serious reactions and actions. This stepping back has a power in it far greater and able to actually heal and correct the signs and symptoms and effects, than the measly magical efforts that were an attempt to extend fear. By NOT supporting the existence of the situation, you weaken it and move it towards undoing.

We either get to simply react to what appears to be happening, as though it were dreamed by someone else. Or we get to express God's Power and assert what IS true and make it so. We are the dreamer of the dream. We can change what we choose to occur in the dream. The power of decision is your own. Choosing what must be is far more powerful than reacting to what appears to have come from an alien will. Paradoxically it's by withholding the ego's outward reactions that your inner light intensifies and shines forth to correct all ills. By not trying to fix, you can truly save.

Everyone is immortal and cannot die. So anything suggesting otherwise MUST be an illusion and not a reality. Any sign or symptom MUST be a disguise, a lie, a mistake and is correctable. There can be no suffering in God because it's not God's will that you suffer. Only the truth is true and nothing else is true.

Jesus merely asks us to choose again. To keep choosing again until we make the correct choice.

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

He tells us that whenever we are not at peace, ie suffering in any form, it is because we have chosen to do so, and this resulted from making a wrong decision. We chose to suffer, and this was a mistake. He now invites us to try again to choose heaven, heaven being a choice I must make.

"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face, Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again.""

We are exercising our free will at all times, our ability to choose freely. Anything that we experience other than peace and joy and love is because we chose it. We can only attack ourselves and are the only one able to seem to hurt ourselves through a mistaken choice. And we have just as much power to choose otherwise.

"And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.""

"Mind is the mechanism of decision."

At all times, we are simply deciding. We are simply choosing. Do I want to accept that I am as God created me still, and therefore accept the whole Atonement principle and return to awareness of my soul, or do I want to continue choosing to suffer in various ways. It is up to me.

"God does not coerce."

"Learn of His happiness, which is yours. But to accomplish this, all your dark lessons MUST be brought willingly to truth, and joyously laid down, by hands open to receive, not closed to take. Every dark lesson that you bring to Him Who teaches light, He will accept FROM you, BECAUSE YOU DO NOT WANT IT. And He will gladly EXCHANGE each one for the bright lesson He has learned FOR you."

Lessons are nothing other than choices. By choosing that you want something, you put yourself into a psychological position. You have taught yourself that something seems to be true which is not, through a mistaken choice. Now the lesson is that you must unlearn this mistaken choice and re-learn or remember what the truth really is.

All lessons have the same outcome of re-accessing God's truth, because the only universal curriculum (which is mandatory) is the same for everyone - learning the single simple truth of God and awakening to acceptance of it.

What seem to be trials are simply present conditions that have been chosen, or scenarios arranged, offering an opportunity to change your mind about what you want, to learn to forgive and overlook rather than to use these mistaken selections to hurt yourself.

Always it is simply a matter of, what do I want. Do I want the world more than I want God? What do I value? What do I accept as true? What am I willing to do and accept? Do I want heaven today or do I want hell? It's up to you, you have the freedom always to come and go as you wish. And God waits patiently for you to freely choose to return Home to Him.

If you are suffering, you chose to. If you are experiencing unlove, you chose not to love yourself. If you are sick, you wanted to be for a reason. If you are happy, you chose only happiness for yourself. If you feel attacked, you decided to feel attacked. If you are in pain, the pain is serving your wishes. Only if this is true is the secret of salvation true without exception, and only if this is true is there any kind of hope for escape from hell by your own choice.

"In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face, Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again.""

"Be never fearful of temptation, then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ's strength prevail in every circumstance and every place you raised an image of yourself before. For what appears to hide the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, and disappears before His holy sight."

"For you WILL hear, and you WILL choose again. And in this choice is everyone made free."

"The power of decision is my own. .... No-one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No-one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No-one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no-one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

"My Self is ruler of the universe. ... It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept. For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my Will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them, and Him Who has created me."

Why do we try to keep bodies from dying? This is a very deep question. ACIM tells us we are immortal beings, incapable of sickness or death. That God has created us to live forever, because nothing real can ever be threatened.

It also tells us that we "play a game of death" by pretending to be something which can seem to die - a body. By believing we are mortal, our mind enters into identification with the body. We believe the body is our self, something vulnerable and limited and capable of being attacked.

"All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you." UrW191L9

Identifying as a body brings immediate fear. The body is fundamentally vulnerable and can be destroyed. If you are a body, you can never be safe. We know this, deep down. It produces a compulsion to then try to preserve and protect the body, believing that if the body dies we will die.

Anything which now seems to threaten the body is a threat to our existence. If the body becomes sick we are terrified that we're going to end. If a body dies, we feel it is the loss of someone real. This "fear of death" now turns into an entire death-worshipping culture in which we are constantly trying to keep bodies from dying. Constantly trying to deny that we believe they WILL die, and us along with them. Fearing whenever sickness strikes.

All our laws are set up to preserve bodies, to protect bodies, to defend them, to keep them going. We see sicknesses as defeat. We see death as total failure. We see all forms of attack as a threat to our existence and our health. We don't even live in a safe environment, surrounded by danger constantly. And yet we constantly try to surround the body with protections and shelter, all of which are guaranteed to fail.

"The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus." UrW153L1

If someone becomes sick, we feel afraid for their life, wanting their body ("self") to keep going. If someone is attacked, we rally around them and try to make them better. If someone is in a war, we see it as a tragedy, and how dare so many people be killed. Always essentially exalting the body, preserving the body, keeping the body going, worshipping the body, wanting the body to last forever. Wanting to avoid anything happening to "body-people" ever.

But the whole compulsion to have the body last forever is driven by the fact that bodies CANNOT last forever, the sheer terror this produces when you identify with it, and the NEED that arises to protect it to "save your life". We're not then trying to keep real people alive, we're trying to preserve a fake body person so that an otherwise immortal being can keep pretending to be mortal while denying they are mortal.

This applies not only to bodies but to the entire world and all physical life forms. Every single thing in this universe was made to be mortal, to lack, to lose, to suffer and to die. All the world's roads lead to death eventually, and all bodies and planets will die. That's just how it is, because this world depends on denying eternal life.

"Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions born. What can be born of death and still have life? But what is born of God and still can die?" UrM28A6

That fact is that we spend our entire lives trying to keep bodies going for as long as possible, avoiding all attacks, avoiding the weather, avoiding sicknesses, trying to end suffering, trying to stop the bodies from dying. But why? It is not necessary to stop bodies dying, because it has NO EFFECT on the immortality of the soul. Maybe we should stop resisting death so much, because resisting death induces it.

From the perspective of the immortal soul, the soul simply USES the world and the body for its higher purposes, as it attempts to awaken from the dream of death. It comes and goes, into one body, out of it, into another, until it learns its lessons. From its perspective, the body's purpose is to SERVE the soul's goal of reunion with God. And the body has no purpose or life of its own.

"Everyone can use his body best by enlarging man's perception, so he can see the real VISION." UrT1B40J

As far as the soul is concerned, it knows that certain lifetimes cannot last, and will not be the lifetime in which it awakens from the dream of death. It determines to use a body for a certain amount of time and for a certain purpose, and then puts it aside. It was never necessarily the goal to resurrect the body in that lifetime or to make it healthy. It was not a part of the plan or "useful" for the soul's lessons at that time.

Yet when we are so heavily focused on bodies and believing people are bodies, with "one lifetime and then you die", we constantly and obsessively try to avoid the body's demise at all costs. It is a faulty approach because it identifies the person with their body, trying to keep them in it for as long as possible. And always to avoid the fear of "ending".

You'll do everything you can to fix the body and save the body, thinking that by doing this you will avoid loss and death. But this isn't how the soul uses the body at all. Instead of letting souls be free, we imprison them in bodies for as long as possible, not wanting the body to go because it would mean the loss of a body-person. A body that a person is not.

"As long as you believe that, to be with a body, is companionship, you will be COMPELLED to attempt to keep your brother IN his body, HELD THERE BY GUILT." URT15H12

"The test of EVERYTHING on earth is simply this: "What is it FOR?" UrT24H6

"I am not a body I am free, for I am still as God created me." UrW219

The big question then is what is the body FOR, and how is it being USED, and WHY it is being used this way, and for what purpose? The body is NOT an end in itself or something to be kept for its own sake. The ultimate goal for the soul is reunion with God and total spiritual awakening to heaven's reality. Its goal IS NOT to keep bodies living for as long as possible. The soul does not care about bodies whatsoever, because it knows they don't even really exist.

Sometimes bodies no longer serve the soul, no longer function well enough, and become unhelpful. When bodies become severely sick and disabled they may no longer prove "useful", and the soul will want to move on to a new one. Sometimes it is simply "time" for a soul to leave a body, even if the body is NOT in a state of health or a symbol of eternal life, because it is no longer realistic or feasible to keep using that same body for awakening. This isn't a failure, bodies just don't last long enough for the soul to fulfill its very long road to awakening.

We need to drop the idea of constantly defending, fixing, saving, trying to cure, and trying to preserve bodies as if they are supposed to be eternal entities. They were never designed to last forever. They are not made of immortal spirit. They are always temporary at best. The mind attacks them and they break down and die, and this does not matter in the big picture. There will be a "second coming" of the soul, and another, and another.

But more importantly, the mindset and belief that people ARE bodies is the whole problem. This leads to an automatic sense of threat to your existence, which leads to automatic fear, which leads to a compulsion to "not die". Thinking of bodies as people, as though when anything "happens to" a body it's an awful tragedy which should never have happened and is real and must be avoided, is not in any way forgiveness. It is being "blinded by perception of form". It is a guilty worshipping of an idol and a mistaken sense of who and what someone is and what's important.

Actual souls CANNOT BE HURT, cannot suffer, and cannot die. All suffering and sickness and death is an illusion. That's the soul's view of bodies. Souls do not care whatsoever for whether bodies carry on or not. They are valueless and meaningless and are nothing. They are not worth anything. They are just tools that we're using temporarily towards an end. The end is not death. The end is transcendence of bodies and a permanent awakening to spiritual reality.

"The "self" that needs protection is not real. The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?" UrW135L9

You'll continue to see that the world will remain obsessed with body preservation, worshipping of babies, attempts to avoid death, and the frankly inhumane notion that letting someone die is never in their best interests. People should be allowed to come and go as they will. Sometimes it is better to depart than to stay. And they do anyway, because a death is always consented and planned by the soul. It does not care about keeping bodies going or avoiding death, and death can be a liberation.

Avoiding death isn't really a miraculous viewpoint. Trying to have bodies always be resurrected and healthy isn't really a miraculous viewpoint. Making death real and then trying to rescue a person from it, is not a miracle-minded viewpoint.

These things are okay if they happen as side effects of the mind healing, and indeed we are to demonstrate symbolic bodies representing eternal life. But not because bodies are important whatsoever, and in an attempt to avoid death, or to try to use miracles as a way to DENY that we believe we are going to die. To falsely resurrect bodies in the name of body preservation is anti-miraculous. Resurrecting the MIND, such that bodies may also be healed indirectly is miraculous. Mind's belief in bodies must end.

"Whenever you attempt to reach a goal in which the body's betterment is cast as major beneficiary, you try to bring about your death." UrT29H4

Let the bodies go. Let them die if they're going to die. Someone dying does NOT always mean it's the worst possible outcome or a total tragedy or even something to be upset about. Don't mistake bodies for people or for souls or beings. They are nothing but artificial pictures, empty voids, vehicles and tools, used temporarily by a higher power and worth nothing in themselves. They have no meaning and no life of their own, and nothing worth keeping. They are only useful until they're not.

We need to drop the idea that "staying in a body" is the only valid and sane choice. Or that we need to preserve the body in order to protect the self. Souls leave bodies when the body is no longer useful, and never again do they give the slightest interest in what becomes of the corpse. Souls will use up a bazillion bodies and throw them on a scrapheap, across countless lifetimes, it if means being able to eventually wake up from bodies entirely.

"The ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation." UrT1B40J