"I could not atone for MYSELF ALONE. Listening to one Voice implies the decision to share It in order to hear It yourself. The Mind that was in me is still irresistibly drawn to EVERY MIND CREATED BY GOD, because God's Wholeness is the Wholeness of His Son. You cannot be hurt, and do not want to show YOUR BROTHER anything except your wholeness. Show him that he cannot hurt you and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself. This is the meaning of turning the other cheek."

"Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in His Being, He encompasses all things. NO MIND (implying there are many) holds anything but Him (therefore he created many minds)."

"Miracles make MINDS one in God. They depend on cooperation because the SONSHIP is the SUM OF ALL THAT GOD CREATED. Miracles therefore reflect the laws of eternity, not of time."

"God speaks for you in answering your question with these words: I walk with God in perfect holiness. I light the world, I light my mind and ALL THE MINDS WHICH GOD CREATED ONE WITH ME"

"ONE CHILD OF GOD (implying there are many) is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach ANOTHER (there are many!). One Teacher is in ALL YOUR MINDS, and He teaches the same lesson TO ALL. He always teaches you (one such mind) the inestimable worth of EVERY SON OF GOD, teaching it with infinite patience born of the infinite love for which he speaks."

"The Holy Spirit is the spirit of joy. He is the Call to return which God blessed THE MINDS OF HIS SEPARATED SONS. This is the vocation of the mind."

"Let us not wander into temptation, for the temptation of the Son of God is not Your Will. And let us receive only what You have given, and accept but this INTO THE MINDS WHICH YOU CREATED AND WHICH YOU LOVE. Amen."

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I don't know about you guys-n-gals but it sounds to me very clearly that there are MULTIPLE SONS and MULTIPLE MINDS. And that the presence of multiple minds is completely natural and normal because God CREATED THEM. Therefore EACH ONE has its "own mind". Each mind may well be "one" or in harmony with other minds, but there are still many minds, and each still has its own potential to choose whether to do God's will or not.

This is why some parts of the Course refer on ONE LEVEL to the ONE SON OF GOD, and on another level to the MANY INDIVIDUAL SONS (or souls).

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References to BROTHERS who are one with God:

"You are afraid of God because you fear your BROTHER. This BROTHER who stands beside you still seems to be a stranger."

"Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only BROTHER to the world. Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a BROTHER he would be to you. For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God."

"To know your BROTHER is to know God."

"Miracles unite you directly with your BROTHER."

"One moment of real recognition makes everyone your BROTHER."

"Any BROTHER with whom you have a limited relationship, you hate."

"Don't deny yourself the message of relief that every BROTHER offers you now."

"It is not up to you to change your BROTHER, but merely to accept him as he is."

"In your BROTHER is the light. See him as sinless, and there can be no fear in you."

"The miracle enables you to see your BROTHER without his past, and so perceive him as born again."

"Your BROTHER does not have to be aware of the Holy Spirit in himself or in you for the miracle to occur."

"What you acknowledge in your BROTHER you are acknowledging in yourself, and what you share you strengthen."

"The miracle acknowledges everyone as your BROTHER and mine. It is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God."

"Because the miracle worker has heard God's Voice, he strengthens It in a sick BROTHER by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does not share." (again confirmation that your brother can refuse healing even if you are healed)

"Where there is love, your BROTHER must give it to you because of what it is. But where there is a call for love, you must give it because of what you are." (similarly again, you give love to those who lack it)

"How willing are you to forgive your BROTHER? How much do you desire peace instead of endless strife and misery and pain? These questions are the same, in different form."

"Trials are but lessons you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one. In every difficulty Christ calls to you and gently says, My BROTHER, choose again."

"If you attack error in another, you will hurt yourself. You cannot know your BROTHER when you attack him. Attack is always made upon a stranger. You are making him a stranger by misperceiving him, and so you cannot know him. It is because you have made him a stranger that you are afraid of him. There are no strangers in God's creation."

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your BROTHER did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is the will of God."

"Not one does Christ forget. Not one He fails to give you to remember, that your home may be complete and perfect as it was established. He has not forgotten you. But you will not remember Him until you look on all as He does. Who denies his BROTHER is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized, his home remembered and salvation come."

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It seems to me what the One Son of God, as Christ, is considered a BROTHER to the MANY SONS, who were also created (souls?) as extensions of him/god, ... and that at times the course refers to them on an equal footing because they are made of God-stuff equally, even though Christ appears to be a "larger" identity than the individual sons. But Christ+the individual sons make up "the sonship". So the sonship is not just the individual sons, it also includes the one son, and all are considered equal brothers in that sonship.

In the physical world, there are bodies, which are fake people.

In the spiritual world, there are souls, which are real people.

The two never really meet and should not be confused with each other. All mixing and confusion between the two in which the two levels are trying to be combined, is the state of mental illness, ego and body-identification.

The soul never really truly incarnates or becomes a body. The body never enters heaven. We have to UNLEARN that souls/minds are bodies, or that they are even in bodies.

The only thing that appears to happen is that the MIND of the soul temporarily imagines bodies and tries to identify with them, dreaming of spacetime and a material world, believing in it and trying to become one with it. But it can't succeed because it's impossible to leave the spirit world or to truly separate.

We're not really incarnate, we are not bodies, and we never will be.

"The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, firmly tied to it, and sheltered by its presence. If this were the truth, the mind were vulnerable indeed!"

"He Who was always wholly spirit now no longer sees Himself as a body, or even as in a body. Therefore He is limitless."

"The Christ in you inhabits NOT a body. Yet He IS in you. And thus MUST it be that YOU are not within a body."

"Knowledge is not the remedy for false perception since, being another level, they can never meet."

"This MUST be true, if there is no communication AT ALL between the ego and the Holy Spirit."

"The body is the symbol of the world. Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven."

"God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there."

Jesus says in the course several times that we have a "sole responsibility". This responsibility is to accept the atonement. And this is usually attached to "for ourselves."

I think this has become one of the most selfishly misinterpreted teachings.

When Jesus mentions this, he ALSO mentions afterwards that once you have accepted atonement, you will now GIVE IT TO OTHERS. Which is not a selfish act. Nor is it exclusive. Nor does it mean you sitting there in isolation having accepted atonement CUT OFF from others, or unable to share it, or unwilling to heal others.

I also think that when he speaks of it being our sole responsibility, he is saying that because we have FREE WILL. Therefore, as the owner of the free will, I have to personally WILL to accept the atonement, and no-one can do this for me. So the responsibility lies SOLELY with me. I have to be willing. That's why it is the ONLY responsibility that lands squarely and solely on MY shoulders and not others. Because I have to exercise my free will. As Jesus says, "no one comes to the atonement except willingly."

Similarly, we have to realize that you cannot RECEIVE atonement WITHOUT giving it, because "atonement is a lesson in sharing." It means that you are aligning yourself with the golden rule and are now identify with your brothers and sharing with them. That in turn means that their interests are now shared with yours and it is your DUTY to fulfill the great crusade to HELP THEM AND HEAL THEM.

"The attraction of light must draw you willingly, and willingness is signified by GIVING."

I think Jesus is pretty clear that he never intended these statements about "sole responsibility" to be interpreted in such a selfish manner, where people THINK it means "I just accept it for myself in isolation and to hell with everyone else." The reason we accept it is SO THAT we become PART OF the atonement (plan) and now have a PROFESSION of atonement, which we do all the time, which involves GIVING TO OTHERS. Solely accept the atonement for yourself SO THAT you can share it!

Jesus's intention was NEVER to suggest that people are to accept atonement for themselves and then HOARD IT and NOT SHARE IT and NOT HELP ANYONE ELSE. In fact, we can interpret it to mean.... I accept atonement for myself because it is my sole responsibility to put myself into a position WHERE I can help others through a service of miracles!

"The sole responsibility of God's teacher is to accept the Atonement for himself. Atonement means correction, or the undoing of errors. When this has been accomplished, the teacher of God becomes a miracle worker by definition."

"The unforgiven HAVE no mercy to bestow upon another. That is why your sole responsibility MUST be to take forgiveness for yourself."

"If the sole responsibility of the miracle-worker is to accept the ATONEMENT, and I assure you that it is, then the responsibility for what is atoned FOR CANNOT be yours."

"The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept Atonement himself. This means that he knows that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors ARE healed by the Atonement. Once he accepts this, HIS mind can only heal. By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others. The message which he then gives to others is the truth that THEIR MINDS are really similarly constructive, and that their own miscreations cannot hurt them."

"The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything TO you. (That is, to restore the awareness. Later clarification.) You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did." ... "Having been restored to your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself. You now share MY inability to tolerate the lack of love in yourself and in everyone else, and MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE to correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is "Listen, Learn, and DO."

The very first level confusion occurs when we as Sons of God attempt to "cause God".

Whenever an effect, or a lower level, attempts to cause effects in the very cause that caused it, ie a higher level, that is level confusion.

The first level confusion was the separation from God itself.

God is cause. God creates and produces effects. We are his creations/effects.

As effects, effects do not cause the thing that caused them.

Sons of God do not have the ability to cause God. If they did, and this is what the whole separation is about, this would mean that we can produce effects in God and therefore change God. If they were to do that, they would be capable of destroying the very causal power which maintains their own existence, which is impossible.

There is a cause-effect distinction between what is God and what is a Son of God. God is "first cause". Sons of God are His effect. His Sons have been given the ability to cause ie create in God's likeness and their own, but they do not have the ability to actually cause anything other than this.

When Sons of God attempt to cause something unlike God, or something which goes against the freedom of will granted by God to extend love, "fiction" happens. A dream of impossibilities. Make-believe worlds and pretend bodies. That all comes from wishful thinking. And it's all a level confusion.

The attempt by the Son of God to cause His Father, to produce effects in the father, is the idea of sin. To make God change and be attackable/hurtable/modifyable is the very idea of sin. It is also the same thing as the authority problem - believing we have power to will against God's will.

So the very moment we entertained this tiny mad idea of being separate from God, it was an idea of being able to cause effects in God and therefore usurp his will. This was the first act of level confusion.

Every single thing that takes place inside the egoic dream of impossibilities and death, is also level confused. Absolutely every part of the ego is level confused. It is all entirely an attempt to reverse cause and effect. It is all a belief in magic and victimhood. And it is all impossible.

Everything about most religions is fairly accurate in that it describes what's happening INSIDE THE DREAM. They describe what APPEARS to be true here.

It SEEMS that sin is real, it SEEMS that therefore God will judge and condemn us, it SEEMS that death can be justified, and it SEEMS that we can never be with God again.

The key point is, there is a chunk of metaphysical truth regarding what happened BEFORE the separation, before the dream, which frames the entire dream in a different light. And this chunk of truth, missing from religions, is extremely key in putting everything into its proper perspective.

Recognizing that Heaven is real, God is unconditional love, separation is impossible, and the innocent cannot sin, would have to tell you that the entire content of the dream and everything that goes along with it is not REAL. It is impossible.

But without that key fact, if you only look at what seems true within the dream, after the illusion of separation, it starts to seem quite sensible to conclude the exact opposite. You'll then say that sin is real, death is real, God has vengeance, you need to repent of real sins, etc.

The religion then becomes all about this fiction of having "actually sinned", and what you need to do to atone for it. And ultimately within that same idea, there MUST be also the idea that only death can atone for sin. And so the religion, while seeming to uphold moral values and lead towards love, also inadvertently supports death.

Descriptions of what seems real in a dream can only ever be opposite to the truth.

This is the one key area in which A Course in Miracles is different, because it explains what happened BEFORE separation or what conditions were like, such that the entire content of the dream is clearly RECOGNIZED as being false, unreal, untrue and impossible. It gives us the clarity to see that everything within the dream is an ILLUSION, not a reality.

This puts an entirely different spin on everything we perceive here. It totally reverses the illusion of the meaning of what seems to happen, or all the conclusions that have been drawn from appearances. The proper framing of everything that goes on in the dream world puts everything into its correct place and perspective, recognizing the real truth for what it is, and recognizing the illusion as an illusion. Failure to do this, or the deliberate "omission" of this key foundation at the core of truth, makes the entire content of the dream suddenly twist to a completely opposite and confused explanation of events.

Only a truth based on completely pure non-duality can explain and properly frame why and how everything within the dualistic world is false and unreal. Otherwise if you stop just short of awakening from the dream, or you stop just beneath the peak of the dream's heights, it will make the dream seem to be real and you will not wake up from it. This is why those religions ultimately keep people asleep. They are religions of the ego, based in the ego's thought system, worshipping the ego's God of death.

Death can't be true and separation can't be true and sin can't be true because God only creates eternal innocent life. If the absolute truth remains hidden, all true meaning is lost and insanity begins to seem sane.

A very common-place belief is that you choose something at one moment in time, the "change" is implemented at that time, and then you stop making any changes. It then seems that the effects that you choose are on a kind of auto-pilot, just carrying over from the past, as if you are not making any decisions NOW that are resulting in the effects remaining.

So for example 20 years ago, someone attacked you and damaged your leg, and ever since then you've been walking with a limp. You THINK that the limp is there "because of" that one moment in time which changed the "direction" of your life, as though a temporary hand steered you in a different direction, but this is NOT how it works.

When anything happens, as a "one time" thing, it is not a one-time thing. If you accept it, thus believe in it, and YOU implement the effects, and you maintain the belief that it happened, you are CONSTANTLY BELIEVING that it happened. It's like you suddenly get into a groove, you STAY in the groove, and are continually now under the influence of this belief. The belief is CONSTANTLY EXPRESSING. The belief is continually RE-MANUFACTURING the effects that you chose, moment by moment.

So if we re-frame this, 20 years ago you DECIDED that you would walk with a limp. You NEVER CHANGED YOUR MIND about this. You THINK that you only decided this one-time 20 years ago, but in fact you have been deciding to walk with a limp for 20 years straight. Every single day you make the same decision, or commit to the same intention, and without changing it you KEEP MAKING the same effects. If you would realize you need not suffer, you would change your mind and set yourself free, NOW.

This works exactly like a projector, because it is a projective process. At some point in time, you put a movie reel into your projector and switched it on. It started projecting an image of a broken leg. Each moment, the projector shines light and broadcasts this image. And then the next moment it does it again. It puts that image out there again, and again, and again, and again.

Over time, the movie screen shows a broken leg, CONSTANTLY in a state of being broken. Why? Because the movie reel has not been changed. It just keeps RE-PROJECTING the same picture, based on the same programming. Putting the movie reel into the projector is not what "caused the broken leg" 20 years ago, it's the fact that the SAME movie reel (belief) is STILL in the projector! This movement INTO this state of damage has not been chosen against, in 20 years! You have no UNDONE IT.

This is how beliefs and choices really operate. Because in every single MOMENT, you have free will to CHOOSE what you will experience. And just because you seem to keep choosing the SAME experience over a prolonged period of time does NOT MEAN that you can't change that experience in an instant. Just because you have this long story of built-up belief that you were damaged 20 years ago and have had this broken leg for SO LONG that it can't possibly be healed, that's total bullshit. It is completely irrelevant. The decision to have the broken leg is happening NOW, not in the past.

Every moment, you are choosing and projecting a version of the body that you CHOOSE it be. Every moment you are broadcasting its image. Every moment you are determining its condition. Every moment you are putting out there a FRESH COPY of a picture of a body. It's not even RELATED to the one that you projected 5 seconds ago. And the one you "had" 5 seconds ago DOES NOT EXIST. Nor is the one you have now, a "carry over" from one you just had, nor has there been any transfer or maintaining of its "state" outside of your mind. The body does NOT have its own state.

The ego has been very good at creating the ILLUSION that the past carries over to the present, or that something happening 20 years ago is still affecting you in a kind of cause-effect relationship. As if the past causes the present. This is total fiction. The leg is not still broken because of the past, it's still broken because the MIND HAS NOT CHANGED.

So you have to realize this. Beliefs, when you implement them, are DECISIONS, which will CONSTANTLY EXPRESS, for as long as you keep the belief. The EFFECTS of this belief will continue to be produced - CAUSED - so long as you keep the belief. If you have this belief lodged in your mind for 20 years saying "my leg is damaged", it will constantly ensure that the leg shows up as damaged for 20 years. It's like you develop an ATTITUDE, and you keep this attitude going, and every day you have this attitude, and therefore every day PRODUCE the same EFFECTS.

Yet you are free to change your mind at ANY TIME. And the instant that you undo that belief and accept the CURE of Atonement, all of those signs and symptoms of damage will disappear. INSTANTLY. With no bearing on how long it's been there or "why" it's "more difficult" to heal it if you've had it for decades.

It's simply not true that decisions or "influences" or "causes" occur "momentarily", at one moment in time, affecting things just briefly (e.g. an accident), causing irreparable damage which just happens to then carry on "on its own". Nothing EVER carries on on its own. The mind HAS TO BE MAKING EVERYTHING HAPPEN AT ALL TIMES. "Mind makes this decision as it makes EVERY decision responsible for the condition of the body."

So you are either CONTINUING TO BELIEVE and therefore CHOOSE that the body be in a certain condition, for however long you decide to keep believing that, OR you change your mind and the body changes NOW.

It's through realizing this mechanism which is how things ACTUALLY work, that you will go on to realize this: WHEN the mind decides the body is sick, the body becomes sick. *****WHEN THE MIND DECIDES NOT TO BE SICK, IT INSTANTLY HEALS THE BODY*****. Or better, it instantly undoes the image it projected a moment ago and projects a fresh image of a body in a healed state SYMBOLIZING the beliefs of the mind. The body is not an end in itself, it only EVER is an EFFECT of the mind causing, choosing, believing.

As soon as the mind is changed and the BELIEF and NEED for the sickness are removed, do you really think the body just "carries on" being sick on its own? As if, once again, there is a cause-effect relationship through time where the PAST determines what the body's condition is NOW? It does not. If you remove the CONSTANT DECISION from the mind, as to the body suffering or being in a certain state, you are now making a NEW DECISION about the state of the body, and the body NOW MUST be projected in this "new form". This new appearance, to correlate to what your BELIEF IS NOW.

This means, there is a direct instant correlation between your state of mind and the state of the body. There is a DIRECT MIRRORING of mental health and physical health. If the mind contains an attack belief, the BODY will show up with attack in it. If the mind is HEALED, it ABSOLUTELY MUST only project a body THAT IS ALSO HEALED. Because the body is nothing but a SYMBOL OF THE MIND. The body is not a thing in its own right, with its own mind or will or continuity. There is no such thing as bodily continuity. There is only "what am I choosing to project this instant?"

You choose to switch out that movie reel, you get rid of the "broken leg" movie, take it out, the mind is clear of it, what happens? The leg STOPS SHOWING UP AS DAMAGED. Instantly. Because now there is a new projection, one which does NOT include broken legs.

I've seen this happen over and over. Typically, let's say that someone has a so-called "accident" (a choice to suffer), and in this accident they become "traumatized", and now they KEEP the trauma, and ADJUST to it, and allow it to stay. Basically that now means, they have formed BELIEFS, which are CHOICES, to go INTO a certain state of mind relating to this incident. Which means they now are carrying around with them this CONSTANT STATE OF SUFFERING, in the mind, which they have not healed. They have not UNDONE "what happened".

They have not released the pent up emotions relating to it. They have not freed themselves from ALLOWING (permitting) that incident to AFFECT them in any way. And so now they live under a dark cloud, choosing to STAY IN THE ACCIDENT MOMENT, continually, never letting it go. And therefore the symptoms and effects that are CAUSED BY THE BELIEF, continue to be regenerated and re-caused, at all times, every day. And as such every day is now suffering because they dipped down into hell and never got themselves back out of it.

When bad shit happens like that (you hurt yourself on purpose), you have to UNDO IT, otherwise you will simply carry it around with you CONSTANTLY going forward. You will not let it go. Until it is HEALED. You have to heal all such "events" and choices and beliefs relating to it, to ERASE IT FROM YOUR MIND. Then by doing so, you are no longer CHOOSING THAT IT BE HAPPENING. And therefore it does not occur, never did occur, and YOU are now re-living it every moment. When your mind STOPS believing in it, the symptoms MUST DISAPPEAR. They cannot show up WITHOUT your belief, and believing is choosing. If "life beats you down", you HAVE TO GET UP AND ATONE.

So in summary, decision making is a PERPETUAL thing, not a momentary thing. You are ALWAYS expressing from who you think you are. You are CONSTANTLY emitting and projecting based on your beliefs. And your beliefs are choices. So you don't ever make momentary decisions, you instead decide to go into or commit to a LONG-TERM state, and then you stay there in that state for years, not changing your mind. When you change your mind, it doesn't matter how long you've been in that state, your NEW STATE of mind must now project, NOW, a fresh image of a body. NOT CONNECTED TO the past "condition". The body does not have any continuity! It is not subject to causes and effects in the world. It is caused solely by your mind.

Which means, when your mind is sick, your body will show up as sick. When your mind is healthy, your body CANNOT BE SICK, NOR CAN IT DIE, because it can ONLY represent what your MIND IS CHOOSING to symbolize itself as.

"A guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being SANE, IT HEALS THE BODY."

"A damaged body is PROOF THE MIND **HAS NOT** BEEN HEALED."

"Those who are sick do not love themselves, for if they loved themselves they would heal themselves."

If you are upset by the world or offended by what people do, you will turn yourself into a false savior. You will make yourself look like you care, and you will become upset and reactionary about what happened. You'll seem to save the world from this "real sin" or sinner, and you'll want some form of revenge which you call justice. You'll position yourself as saving everyone from these injustices and that you're doing so out of the kindness of your heart.

But what's really happening is that you are attacking the world by believing in real sin, you are failing to actually undo the problem, you are using the opportunity to make your own ego bigger, you're not honestly being a representative of real truth, and you're basically using this as justification for denial. You're denying that you have attacked yourself, you're denying that you believe in sin punishable by death, you're denying that you deserve unconditional love, and you're denying that the world IS saved because it doesn't exist.

The ego's version of salvation looks great on paper. It acts great in appearance. But it is completely full of holes. It is a lie. It is fake. It is false. You cannot be upset and be the salvation of the world. You cannot be offended and be helpful. You cannot be hurt by the world and claim that you are making the world better by keeping the hurt and acting based on it. Salvation doesn't come from pain and suffering.

Salvation comes from the truth, which is that nothing can be threatened, nothing real has been threatened, nothing real will ever be threatened, so any offense or upset to the contrary is a denial of the truth and an inability to recognize what is true and thus what is false. Not being able to recognize the illusion that something false is true is the sole reason why anyone would ever justify being upset, or see it as making sense that they should be upset based on what happened.

This is a failure to recognize or see past illusions, believing that something unreal is real, something untrue is true, and therefore something true and real has been damaged. This secretly is an attempt to assert that God has been damaged by separation, which the ego will be glad to believe even if it covers it up with facades of innocently helping or caring or wanting to stop suffering. There is a big difference between wanting to stop suffering and to ACTUALLY stop it by stopping being the cause of it. And it takes a lot of honesty to admit that you are the only cause of suffering, because all suffering is self-attack.

Jesus is literally asking us to become spirit-identified rather than body-identified, to recognize that our body is merely an image being projected by our mind (which we can stop projecting at any time), and to learn to stop seeing ourselves AND others as bodies.

That's no small request either. We are so used to being bodies and seeing bodies, we think it is normal and natural.

One thing to realize is that a body is not a first-hand experience and it is not the origin or source of a person. It is a secondary layer placed OVER the inner spirit to try to hide it.

So when you are looking at a body and you see fish and bones and eyes and a face and you think that as you look at THAT, you are SEEING the person, you are not. You are seeing a wall of denial and separation. A disguise. It's designed to BLOCK you from seeing the person that is "trapped" inside, locked up in the body and unseen by anyone.

The body is a device for separation. And the golden rule always applies. What we see in others we see in ourselves. In order to become aware that we are not a body ourselves we have to overcome all forms of separation and all attack. And only when we can not see ourselves as a body will we be able to see past the bodies of others.

This is also the meaning of "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind".... ie, if you can get to where you have awareness of God in your mind, you will STOP seeing bodies entirely because God is not a body. If you are seeing God, you are not seeing form. You cannot see two worlds. So this does NOT mean that you see God "in the world", it means that God is ALL THERE IS and THERE IS NO WORLD.

It's a huge challenge to actually get to an experiential state where a) you do not believe you are a body at all (genuinely), b) you do not see your body as your self, c) your sense of identity is not attached to the body whatsoever, d) you do not see others as their bodies, e) you recognize that all bodies are fictional puppets that people dangle in front of them to pretend to interact, and f) that you do not need a body at all in order to exist as divine spirit.

Overcoming the body is the same thing as overcoming death. If you can become free of the body consciously and deliberately without using death to do so, you no longer need a body and can make it disappear. It will become transparent and will vanish.

It's important to realize the role of the Holy Spirit. We have A Course in Miracles, a book, which has teachings and theory and lessons and so on. And you could conclude this means all you need to do is use the book. But there are two things much bigger than the book.

1. The universal curriculum, is the plan of atonement, which applies to everyone in the universe regardless of backgrounds or beliefs or life experiences or religions, even if they've never heard of ACIM. Everything that happens, all lessons, all encounters, are orchestrated for a purpose of atonement. This goes way beyond the book. It includes everything that happens every day.

2. The Holy Spirit is God's literal answer to the separation. His function is not only to maintain an unbreakable bridge between your wandering mind and the Christ mind, guaranteeing that you will come home. He also is a healer, therapist, teacher, guide, helper, comforter, and friend. His presence isn't like some person sitting at the top of a mountain waiting for you to go up there to join him. He has an active function.

He is there to help you. He has been appointed to you, given to you, added to you. He is not just some principle or concept. He doesn't just sit there shining a light and asking you to join him. He actively comes INTO your dreaming mind. He can extend through the body. He can heal the body. He can perform miracles - he is the mechanism of miracles.

He enables you to do things which are so supernatural they are clearly not of this world and break all the laws of space and time and physics. He is the way by which Moses parted the oceans, and the way by which Jesus raised the dead. He can come into your body, into your emotions, into your thinking. He can influence you, direct you, guide you, even literally speak through your mouth. He can move your limbs. He tells you very specifically what to do. He counsels you and advises you and corrects you and steers you in the right direction.

He has the power to reverse death and sickness and all forms of suffering. He is a living spirit, with a mind, a Holy Spirit, able to literally guarantee the correction of every illusion, every form of mental or physical illness, to reverse death, and ultimately to completely undo the separation. He is the initiator of the atonement, he has the power to part oceans and to move mountains. There is nothing he cannot do.

So as we go forth working with the course, doing lessons and studying and discussing and so on, we really should be trying to get in touch with and develop trust in the Holy Spirit as much as possible. We need to be having a daily relationship with him. To talk to him, to ask questions, to have conversations. We need to be listening to and following his guidance with trust. We need to be allowing him to heal us and to heal through us, even physically.

The Holy Spirit is the power by which the disciples of Jesus go out to be physicians of the lord, healing the sick, casting out "evil spirits", raising the dead and so on. He was made accessible to all people when Jesus ascended, to stand in for Jesus and to be a way by which we can all express the same miraculous powers that Jesus demonstrated. We are to be livened and infused with him. Lifted up by him.

He is the power by which our physical bodies are supposed to be healed, for all signs of sickness and death and attack to be undone and reversed, so that He can use our bodies as "living examples" of harmlessness, symbolic eternal life, aliveness and health. To use our bodies to communicate the only thing that he can communicate - healing. We are to share his function with him on earth, which is healing. We are to be healers, using him and working with him to heal through us to help others be alleviated of suffering and darkness.

So the Holy Spirit is really super important. More important than the book. The book is only a beginning and a major goal is to put you in touch with and develop trust in the Holy Spirit so that he can continue to be your Teacher going forward, to continue to develop your miracle working abilities and to strength and support you. We are supposed to be using this help that God has sent to us, which absolutely means not doing everything yourself, not thinking of it as a "self study", opening ourselves up to rely on, depend on and trust the support of this living being that has been sent to guide us home.

It is our task to listen ONLY to the Voice for God and not to the ego.

"What the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world."

"The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

"The Holy Spirit can use ALL that you give to Him for your salvation."

"The Holy Spirit is the Bringer of Revelations"

"Power is of God, GIVEN by Him, and re-awakened by the Holy Spirit"

"When you hear the Holy Spirit, you merely feel BETTER, because loving seems POSSIBLE to you."

"Christ's Second Coming gives the Son of God the gift to hear the Voice for God proclaim that what is false is false, and what is true has never changed."

"Whatever your appointed role may be it was selected by the Voice for God"

"Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God and for your Self when you retire from the world, to seek reality instead."

"Be very still, and hear the gentle Voice for God assuring you"

"If you cannot hear the voice of God, it is because you do not choose to listen. "

"He will direct you VERY specifically. "

"Ask Him very specifically: "What would You have me do?" "Where would You have me go?" "What would You have me say, and to whom?" Give Him full charge"

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS."

"The happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings"

"Healing IS the Holy Spirit's form of communication, and the ONLY one He knows."

"Healing is the change of mind that the Holy Spirit in the patient's mind is seeking for him. And it is the Holy Spirit in the mind of the giver Who gives the gift to him."

"There is a way in which the Holy Spirit asks YOUR help, if you would have HIS."

"We have said that the Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracles."

"Right-mindedness listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world"

"To you who still believe you live in time, and know not it is gone, the Holy Spirit still guides you through the infinitely small and senseless maze you still perceive in time, though it has long since gone."

"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you only through the witnesses who speak for it. For you can be AWARE of what you cannot see, and it can become compellingly real to you, as its presence becomes manifest THROUGH you. Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."

"Say to yourselves the following, as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace.

I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.

I WILL to decide otherwise, because I WANT to be at peace.

I do NOT feel guilty, because ***the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.***

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

"Your sleeping and waking dreams have different forms, and that is all. THEIR CONTENT IS THE SAME. They are your protest AGAINST reality, and your fixed and insane wish to CHANGE it."

We are in a state of denial where we are attacking reality. We are blocking truth, we do not want to see what is really there to see, we're trying to hide from God, we don't want to own up to being who we really are, we're trying to bind ourselves to something we're not, and we see ourselves as separate from what is real.

When Jesus talks about vision, he's talking about your willingness to see reality. When we say "above all else I want to see", we're saying that above all else, we're willing to pierce through illusions and walls and denials and take a good hard look at what is actually there. This is also what the course calls "reality contact" .Physical sight cannot see it, so we need to open the mind.

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

For example, God right now knows you exactly as you really are. He is aware of your perfect permanent innocence. But you are not. You are blocking your awareness of the truth about yourself. You do not know yourself as you really are, because you do not want to. You think things about yourself which you prefer, but which are not true. God therefore knows you better than you know yourself right now, and your job is to come to know what is really true of you again.

Similarly the acceptance of the atonement is really the acceptance of what is actually true. It's a willingness to see everything as it is, to recognize what it is, and therefore to no longer be deceived. It means no longer being in denial and no longer resisting the truth. We quite literally are hiding from reality, trying to identify with bodies in order to keep ourselves away from God.

It's like we're protesting against reality. We're fighting with it, we don't want it, we constantly attack it, and want to be separate from it. So we're out of touch with reality, which means we are confused and lost. It means we do not recognize what is real or not real, true or false, and are mistaken. This also means we are temporarily insane.

The desire to SEE, is the desire to KNOW, and the desire to BE. To see the real world is to be open and inclusive enough that you want to directly experience what actually is real. You can only experience this by not attacking reality, not separating from God, and not denying your soul. We basically are part of a rebellion, which began in the fall of man, and is ongoing. An ancient war against the truth.

If we are "the resistance" against the truth, which is also sickness and death, then we have to lay down our arms and put away our sharp-edged toys and be willing to be exposed to God again. To be open to sharing, to union and to oneness. If we want to be awake we're going to have to be willing to take the blindfold off and open the spiritual eye.

To see closer to reality will show us the real world, and the unreal world of Earth will be forgiven. In "reality" it will only be seen for what it is, before it fades away into nothingness. The closer we come to intimate contact with reality, the more we will see the light of the real world, and see God's reflection in the Earth.

Full reality exposure will reveal God to you, and your true self as Christ will reveal itself as Christ's face finally appears. And then you are ready to penetrate through the gates of heaven into total immersion and communion with all that is. To be in reality is to be in heaven.

"Every adjustment is therefore a DISTORTION, and calls upon defenses to uphold it AGAINST reality."

"For what could house this mad idea AGAINST reality, but for an instant?"

"WILLING AGAINST reality, though impossible, can be MADE into a very persistent goal, EVEN THOUGH YOU DO NOT WANT IT. But consider the result of this strange decision. You are DEVOTING your mind to what you DO NOT WANT. How real can this devotion be?"

"To be alone IS to be guilty. For to experience yourself AS alone, is to deny the Oneness of the Father and His Son, and thus to ATTACK REALITY. You cannot love PARTS of reality, and understand what love MEANS."

"You ATTACK the real world every day and every hour and every minute, and yet you are surprised that you cannot SEE it."