Someone said to me that they do not believe it's possible to walk on water.
The simple response to this is, you are unlimited and there is nothing your holiness cannot do. Your beliefs are your CHOOSING. If you want to believe something is not possible, it's not because it isn't possible, it's that you're CHOOSING that it not happen. And you think your belief is justified based on some kind of evidence or truth but it's TOTALLY MADE UP.
There is no fence-sitting position where you can just decide what is and isn't possible. GOD is the only one who determines what possibility is and what impossibility is. You can accept what is possible or you can be in denial.
"Believing" that you can't walk on water is a CHOICE NOT TO DO IT. Believing that you CAN, is a choice to do it. There is no in-between state of getting to decide whether or not it is possible.
This also ties in with you being 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."
There are no exceptions.
If you comprehend the secret of salvation also, that you do everything to yourself, you have to realize this simple fact. YOU HAVE FREE WILL. You have freedom to CHOOSE. And that means whatever you choose, happens. Whatever happens, you must have chosen. And if you do not want something to happen, do not choose it. You choose it by believing in it.
Belief is a choice and a switch, not merely a REFLECTION OF some other worldly law. If you believe something is possible IT IS, because this is in alignment with your TOTAL FREEDOM. If you believe something is not possible, you are implementing an ARTIFICIAL LIMITATION on your holiness.
This isn't a state where you can have a once-removed impartial evaluation (ego) of whether something can happen or not. It is an ACTIVE DECISION. Either "I will not walk on water" or "I will walk on water".
The fact is that you are unlimited in what you can do. "There is NOTHING my holiness cannot do." That nothing is ABSOLUTE. Nothing you can imagine or dream up is beyond your ability. YOU ARE TOTALLY UNLIMITED AND FREE.
And that means that if you are sitting there saying, well, I'm skeptical of miracles and I don't believe you can walk on water or levitate or turn water into wine or raise the dead, THEN SO BE IT. YOU ARE CHOOSING THAT THIS BE TRUE FOR YOU. It is an attack on your unlimited power and a decision to cower in fear instead of demonstrate your freedom.
Literally, we are making everything up as we go along. We make up the rules, the laws, the limitations, the restrictions, what we think is and isn't possible. WE are the ones who put the limitation on ourselves. We just totally invent them out of thin air. Because in this world, there IS NO TRUTH, so we just keep GIVING IT ALL THE MEANING IT HAS and DECIDING, choosing, believing, in certain degrees of limitation or freedom.
Let's be clear. There is NOTHING KEEPING YOU IN THE DREAM. Other than YOURSELF. Other than your choosing. Death has no power over you. Nothing in the world can make you ill or weak or sad or afraid. There is no cause in the world that can KEEP YOU BOUND in hell. NOTHING CAN OPPOSE YOUR WILL. There is no alien will or alien power that can keep you locked up in a prison of YOUR own making. YOU hold the key. YOU are responsible for CHOICE. You are supernatural.
Whether something CAN or CANNOT happen is up to YOU. Whether something IS or IS NOT possible is entirely a matter of you either applying artificial limits, or lifting them away. Because you are naturally unlimited in what you can do so if there's anything "I can't do" that's you DECIDING NOT TO. No-one and nothing is imposing limits on you OF ANY KIND.
Walking on water is nothing compared to the fact that you MADE A WORLD WITH YOUR MIND.
"You maintain the world in your mind, with your thoughts."
Yes, you dreamed up a universe. So walking on water is insignificant in comparison to the POWER OF THE MIND.
So you are free. You get to choose. Can you walk on water? It's not even a question of whether you can. It's ONLY a question of whether you CHOOSE TO DO SO. Because you are unlimited, free, all powerful, and totally UNRESTRAINED in your holiness.
Skepticism is an attempt to simply CHOOSE a selection of beliefs in LIMITATIONS, freely, for no particular reason, while attempting to justify that these limitations are REAL by believing in them and trying to explain them. They are ALL MADE UP. Every limitation is fake. Every restriction is SELF IMPOSED. Every sickness is SELF INFLICTED. Every law of space and time and physics is SELF MADE.
"I am under NO LAWS BUT GOD's" and God did not create gravity.
Walking on water should be effortless, easy and natural. Anyone can do it. The ONLY question is whether anyone WILL CHOOSE TO. Because all arguments of "you can't" are utter bullshit self-imposed limitation and fear.
Here's a fact. NOTHING ABOUT YOUR BODY HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU. The body is not your self. Its form, shape, color, size, activities, say NOTHING about you. Your face isn't even your face. Its gender and sexual persuasion is not yours. You have been a hundred bodies in a hundred lifetimes. Not even ONE of them defines you or is TRUE of you. If you believe otherwise, you are confused about who you are, and have a body-identification issue. To be spirit-identified you must stop confusing yourself with the body. To awaken, you MUST recognize yourself as ONLY SPIRIT. And ALL spirit is identical.
"I am not a body I am free, for I am as God created me."
You are not a man or a woman.
You are not straight or gay or bi or trans or anything else.
You are not beautiful or ugly based on the body's looks.
You are not fat or thin or chunky or rotund or lanky.
You are not oversized or overweight or underweight.
You do not have a face.
You do not have arms and legs.
You do not have genitalia of any description.
Your musculature says nothing about your strength.
Your wimpyness says nothing about your strength.
The size of your private parts says nothing about you.
The way your brain functions is unrelated to what you are.
Your amount of seeming intellectual ability is meaningless.
You are not tall or short or anything in between.
You are not hairy or bald or naked or dressed.
Your clothes do not say anything about you.
The trinkets and ornaments you wear do not define you.
Your tattoos and birthmarks are not your identity.
Your amount of sexual libido or prowess means nothing.
Your taste for certain foods is irrelevant to your soul.
You do not have any of the needs that the body has.
You have not been born or grown or aged or suffered.
You have not changed in any way due to body changes.
You never gained or lacked anything.
Your body's features have nothing to do with you.
The color of your skin says nothing about you.
Your ethnic background does not define you whatsoever.
You have not ever done anything that the body did.
You have never touched another person.
You have never seen another person with the body.
Your body joining with a body is nothing to do with you joining with your brother.
Your hair size, shape, length, color, style, is not you.
You are not that which you see in the mirror.
Your defects, disabilities, missing or damaged parts, have absolutely no bearing on your perfection.
Your differences and uniqueness has nothing to do with your perfect equality with all God's children.
The identity that is in you is the same as in everyone.
How long you've been in a body means nothing.
What generation you seem a part of it irrelevant to you.
The pride of being part of a certain family is artificial.
Your support of certain body-groups is mistaken.
Your preference for certain body types is part of your own body identification.
Your hatred of certain body types if part of your own body identification.
All the body's senses tell you nothing.
Every sensation is illusory.
You have never been born and you will never die.
Complements about your body have nothing to do with you.
Hatred towards your body has nothing to do with you.
When your body is attacked you are not attacked.
You don't really have a face or arms or legs or a butt.
Your eyes are not your eyes.
You are not from a certain part of the world.
Your cultural background is entirely made up.
Your prejudices are evidence you think people are bodies.
Your racism is a belief in being a body race.
Your homophobia is an over-identification with your body.
How your body smells does not define you.
You have no color, no shape, no size.
You do not move in a certain way.
You do not sit down or stand up or sleep.
You do not eat food or drink.
You cannot be affected or changed or grown.
You have never had any kind of appearance.
It's not great to be a [fill in body type], you are not that.
You are not what you inherited from your parents.
You are not genetic.
You are not stuck with any type of body.
You are not limited by bodies.
You are not worshipped when your body is worshipped.
You have never communicated with a body.
Your body is no more valid than anyone else's.
Your body is no better or worse than anyone else's.
Your body is not more important than anyone else's.
No-one has anything you don't have.
You are not good looking or ugly or plain or handsome.
Being naked does not expose your real self to anyone.
The makeup on your body does not change you.
You do not have an image, you are not an image
You are not fashionable or poorly dressed.
NOTHING ABOUT THE BODY IS TRUE OF YOU!
YOU ARE NOT A BODY. YOU ARE SPIRIT!
Anything that God did not give you is not true of you. "God did not create the body."
When the body is recognized as an illusion of NOTHINGNESS, it will disappear. YOU are all that remains.
"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, i cannot experience loss and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today. I will worship no idols, nor raise my own self concept to replace my Self. I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like itself."
I have made a pretty big mistake with ACIM, and maybe you are doing the same. Sorry this is a bit long and rambly, I'm still coming to terms with it....
I always believed that the goal in ACIM was awakening to the awareness of God's presence, which was some kind of a singular state of being. As I read and worked with the Course it at first seemed plausible that every reference to 'what truth is like', or the high-level metaphysics, all described a single absolute state of being/mind.
I felt confused by some of the interpretations of this that other people were expressing because it seemed there was a level of truth deeper or 'more true' than what most other people were understanding. So I felt I needed to go deeper into re-reading it and re-learning what it has to say. So I started reading the urtext. And I actually learned a lot, much of which made me question what the status quo understanding was on many topics. I polished and refined my grasp of what the truth really meant, all still within this idea of 'there is only one kind of awakening', like, either you are totally doing it perfectly or you're kidding yourself.
I even saw how some people who claim to be awake were still falling short of what I believed that should really entail. I always felt a certain faith in Jesus and his example, and never could see anyone matching up to that. Yet I felt that in the Course it does directly speak to the kind of total mastery that he demonstrated. This included the ability to heal all sickness, raise the dead, have total mastery over illusions, be capable of changing form, of appearing as any kind of a body, absolute invulnerability (literally), not dying simply because you choose not to etc. I had Jesus practically flying around the room.
The thing is, all of the metaphysics in ACIM seemed to point to this potential and it made total logical sense to me that we "should" be able to wield total power over all illusions. Just like Jesus. So I had in my mind this kind of very high-level 'goal', which was very lofty, which I thought we were meant to strive to achieve. That was my idea of what it means to be fully awake, and anything short of that was not it. I felt frustrated that some people were saying they were awake and yet were clearly not demonstrating Jesus's level of mastery, and so of course that led to judgement but also confusion. Why was the Course saying one thing and then other things were happening? Why were people not matching up to Jesus's level and how is it possible there (obviously) has been an awakening of some kind in some people and yet they still can't raise the dead? The Course clearly spoke of some extremely high-level truths and implications which nobody seemed to be getting.
Well. As it turns out, the Course actually encompasses several "levels" of metaphysics. I had no idea of this, so I was always lumping everything together as a kind of super-level and then trying to attain that. I had no idea about this until Michael Murray started to bring forward this information about "the levels", or rather, the timing of me stumbling upon his videos and being ready to listen. Basically, there is much more going on than it appears, and without this extra information you'll make the huge mistakes I've made.
In very brief summary... this physical universe is only one of several levels or dimensions of the dream of separation. These dimensions are all states of mind but they also, to our senses, appear to be 'places' which have entire universes of their own. The physical universe is the lowest level. Above this there is a "spiritual universe" which is also the level at which the Holy Spirit resides. You might've heard it referred to also as the astral plane or similar. These levels are btw somewhat referred to in Hinduism and some other religions and you might be more familiar with them if you are "new age". Anyway.. above "level 2" the Holy Spirit's mind, there is a level 3 where our "higher self" resides, and also this is where angels seem to exist, the akashic records, and also this is where "the sonship" is - as separate higher selves. Above this level there is a fourth level which is the level of Christ where the sonship is ONE. Jesus 'the higher self' was the first to transcend the previous level and unify as Christ. Then above this level is Heaven - God.
Ok so... here's what I did totally wrong and this is where my spiritualizing ego got totally screwed up, and this is also probably where you are doing the same. Clearly, because there are levels to the dream beyond the physical, there are effectively different levels of awakening. This also means there are different levels of 'capability' and mastery (someone at level 3 does not have mastery over level 3 because to do that you must be on level 4). Also because of these levels, there are certain "capabilities" that are only possible at certain levels and there are certain 'parts' of the Course that are directly related to certain levels, e.g. the 'real world 'is a very high level thing (and nothing to do with the physical world). This also reveals that the Course itself 'speaks' on many different levels, in other words, in relation to different dimensions of the dream and different universes where the experience is on a whole different level. Truths which apply on one level totally superceded stuff on the levels below, so as we ASSUME that all of this is just ONE BIG LEVEL, or 'the one goal', we get really messed up and confused about what's being asked of us.
Also because of these levels, typically in order to go "up" the levels you need to go in sequence. You can't just jump to the 5th level or just pop into heaven when you're still down at level 1. And pretty much most of us are on level 1, me included. So here's the huge mistake I made.
In assuming there were no levels, and lumping them all together, and in becoming aware of the Christ-level truths in the Course, I created for myself an extremely lofty Christ-level goal, comparable to Jesus. Because I can see the parts of the Course which DO speak of/from this level (all of the course comes from the Christ level but speaks OF or as-if from other levels also), this 'highest truth' level became my concept of "the only level" or "what awakening means".
So I was basically down here on level 1, with my big ego, and trying to BYPASS all the way up to the Christ level in one straight shot. I wanted to embody and encompass ALL of the characteristics of Christ, in a kind of all-or nothing grand-master-of-the-universe power-over-everything ultra-mastery i-can-fly-around-the-room-if-i-like-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it sort of ideal. Anything short of this was "not good enough". So now I had this hugely lofty "should" or how I am supposed to be, or what I'm supposed to get to, or what I need to realize etc. And this also included this HUGE burden of 'what I am responsible for'... as if I caused the entire universe and everything in it, all by my little ego level-1 self, which is NOT true.
Having this extremely lofty goal of "be Christ", bypassing all of the levels that are REQUIRED to go THROUGH in order to get there, put an ENORMOUS BURDEN on my shoulders. A huge weight of guilt at falling short and not even barely being able to accomplish it. And believe me I tried, really hard. I even attained some small ability to bring about healing through Holy Spirit, some of the time, in small amounts. And I KNEW that the parts of the Course that speak of the Christ-level were true. So this kept me dangling from a thread, chasing after this carrot of perfection and power, but falling way short. All this did was put PRESSURE on me (and my wife) to match up to this enormous responsibility which is far beyond what 'I' (level 1 me) am actually capable of. Yes my Christ self IS capable of such things, but that's way above where I'm at or can even GET TO or ACCESS from where I'm at.
The truth is that we are only really capable of going from level 1 to level 2. The first awakening. Some people bypass this and jump to level 3 but only in extreme rare circumstances. The rest of us can only, and are only really asked to, go from level 1 to level 2, which in Course terms meaning letting go of the persona and shadow and aligning with Holy Spirit's mind and letting go of the *physical* world level. This lets us be in the "spiritual universe", or to move up from there. But we can't just jump to the top, especially not WITH the ego. And that's what we're all trying to do - a huge spiritual bypass in which our ego gets to try to be Christ.
So this is a blow to the ego. Here's little me down in level 1 world believing that I'm oh-so-spiritual, advanced, getting ready to graduate, believing that I'm more spiritual than others, and finding out that I actually am probably on this level BECAUSE I am still on level 1. Hah. Not level 2 or 3 or 4 or 5... level 1. Sucks! lol ... BUT the freedom comes from this realization..... you don't need to try to be Christ. You don't need to even try to be the higher self or to jump up to that level. You ONLY need to get to level 2 - the Holy Spirit's mind. So this somewhat lets you off the hook.
It means that you can drop all of huge expectation that you're putting on yourself to be Christ-like. It means you can stop trying to raise the dead or expect yourself to be able to. I have to tell you, I recently got a 'sty' in my eye and it was sort of infected and stuff, unsightly and uncomfortable, and I really dug DEEP into possible causes and unforgivenesses in attempt to heal it, because I was really convinced I was SUPPOSED to be able to just 'make it go away' with my mind. I did some healing, yes, but the dam fucker did not change. It didn't just disappear. So this was a blow to the spiritual ego, which thought it had to be Jesus-like or that it could. And I had to accept I just cant do that. Fuck it.
But this is really a relief. It's a huge relief to realize that you do not have to "try" to be christ. You do not have to be responsible for stuff that is in "the script" - a script written by and powered by a mind far huger than yours is now. You don't have to try to be this dead-raising master. You don't have to turn water into wine or be some extraordinary guru. You're not capable of that until probably the 5th dimensional awakening. You don't have to blame yourself for all the shit that comes from the unconscious mind that you are not consciously choosing, as if it's all your fault. You don't have to own every single little thing that happens as if, just by it happening, it proves that you SUCK and that you're a total course failure. You don't have to keep beating yourself up for "not doing the course right" ie not matching up to the kind of capabilities that you pretty much CANNOT accomplish until you ARE at the Christ level, which is not going to happen until you've at least gone through 2 or 3 other levels of awakening.
So there's all this huge weight of guilt and expectation that we've all been putting on ourselves because we're all trying to live up to this extraordinary goal of being Christ when, in fact, from this level 1, we can only really be expected to get to level 2. It's true that there is no world and its just a dream and that the Christ mind can create planets... ok... but little me, little you... at level 1, no, there isn't going to be any planets getting made. So that's not something you can be responsible for. We have this hugely inflated spiritual ego (ok, speaking for myself, but I bet you do too) that's trying to claim the "power" of being Christ while still being very limited and incapable.
We have to stop putting level 3/4/5+ realities and responsibilities and powers onto our shoulders as level 1 ego folks and stop expecting ourselves to live up to this hugely lofty standard. WE have to accept that we are NOT at the level of Jesus and probably very few people are going to be. We have to accept that even the best of the best of the ACIM teachers aren't even at that level. Not even the enlightened gurus and yogis necessarily at that level. All we need to do is do our SIMPLE job of forgiveness and development of trust in Holy Spirit and come into his mind and accept his truth and his way of perceiving. The other levels and the potency and power of those other levels will follow on from there naturally as the 'next steps'. But we can't just bypass and jump to those steps. And we have to admit we've been doing this, our spiritualized egos are about to POP, and we can take a big sigh of relief that we're NOT supposed to expect such huge things of ourselves.
This should relieve us of all the guilt, all the sense of failure, all of the exasperation at not getting it, all of the fear and guilt and frustration that we have to accomplish Christ-level capabilities otherwise we're going to die, etc. We have to strip it all back. Let go of the highest goals. Focus on the NEXT step which is just getting to level 2 - Holy Spirit's level, and letting go of the idea that our LEVEL 1 EGO is EVER going to be capable of being at the Christ level, LET ALONE even level 2. And yet it's trying. It's been trying hard this whole time to live up to some kind of universe-creating mega goal. It loves to. Even though it's a total failure at it. So we can at least admit, we don't have to think of ourselves as total failures any more because we were never meant to be level-5 ego's to begin with.
All this comes from the clarity that the Course contains levels, that we're on level 1 trying to get to level 2, and that everything else is irrelevant. Yes at some point we will create planets but not today. First things first. One step at a time. We're getting ahead of ourselves and our expectation and fear of not being able to match up to the high-level truths is, thankfully, not even being asked of us right now.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
There is a simple law about health that you need to know about, as described here:
"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use if for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies. Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all."
If you do not regard yourself as an illusion in any way ("I am not an illusion but a reality"), you do not see YOURSELF as an illusion, and therefore you do not SHOW UP AS an illusion. Instead, you show up as INVISIBLE. As if you have no body. You do not need a body, and the body would not be an accurate identification of what you think of yourself.
The body is always coming from your mind, as an outward picture of an inward condition. Always. It is always being projected outward. It never has its own condition or its own state of being or its own mind or will or power or thoughts or anything else. It’s purely a projected mental image. It is YOUR mental image about what you think your identity is. Or, what you are made of. Or, what you think is true of you.
If you think it is true of you that you are less than as God created you, pure spirit, wholeness, having no form or need for form, you WILL materialize - ie mis-create - what appears to be a body out of nowhere. The mind makes the body. And the mind can make as many bodies as it likes. As Jesus said in the special notes to Helen, here are his exact words where he describes exactly what I’ve just said:
"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it.. It merely became what it always was. And that is what 'rolling the stone away means.' The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond... To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body's worthlessness to the world. This has been much misunderstood. I came to tell them that death is an illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. They did not understand."
His body disappeared because He had no illusions about himself, his identity. He did not identify himself as dead, or made of separation, and so He stopped showing up as that. He stopped imagining himself as that.
Note he also says, the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. The mind MAKES the body. And it constantly is projecting a body when it sees itself as limited. It is projecting the body at every moment to sustain an illusion of a constant self. But the body is always an effect, never a cause of anything. So if the mind wants to believe something else, the body MUST change. It has no will to stop the mind.
Now, a very important thing to realize is, the state of the body, being a mental picture of "self", directly corresponds ALWAYS to how a person’s mind is seeing itself. What it believes it is. So if it believes it is sinful or guilty, the mind will attack itself, thus attack its own image of itself which will show up as a body infected by or attacked by guilt and sin. This will make the body appear, ie be projected as though, it seems to be "sick". It does not "have" a sickness, it IS a sickness.
It will REMAIN showing up as sick for as long as the MIND decides to be sick. It will have no ability to heal itself. Bodies DO NOT heal themselves. The immune system is a bullshit ego concept. It is an illusion. Bodies does not heal anything. They do nothing. Only the mind orchestrates stuff happening.
When the mind says jump, the body jumps. Literally. When the mind says, I am sick and separate, a body will be projected which shows signs of sickness and separation. When the mind says, now is the time that I am well and joined with God, the body MUST show up as a picture of a body that is in perfect health.
You have to realize, the body has NO ABILITY to counter the choice of the mind as to how it wants to identify itself. It IS the mind’s attempt to identify itself as an illusion. There also IS NO OTHER CAUSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD that can do anything to the body. It cannot be made sick, or hurt, or damaged in any way, unless the mind is believing it is damaged. And then the MIND puts the damage into the body, not the world. As Jesus says here clearly:
"Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself ... No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail."
That means there is NO CAUSE outside of you, at all. Ever. The body CANNOT be caused against YOUR will. Ever. However it shows up, is how you are MAKING IT show up.
There is nothing in the world that makes your body do or feel or adjust or change in any way at all. Any appearance to the contrary is some illusion the mind is putting in place to pretend it is irresponsible. Sickness IS irresponsibility. The mind however is ALWAYS in charge even if it makes an illusion of death. Death cannot happen to the body unless the mind destroys the body itself. "No-one dies without their own consent".
This also means, that if the body is showing up as sick, SOMETHING IS WRONG with the mind. Guaranteed. 100%. If the body is sick, the mind HAS NOT been healed. This is metaphysical law with zero exceptions. There can be states of mind reached which seem like awakening, but where the body remains sick. In such states, the mind HAS NOT awoken from the dream of death, as proved by the fact that the body still seems to die, because the mind STILL BELIEVES it does not deserve eternal life, and so accepts death - an illusion of giving up all will and causality. An attempt not to choose at all.
Rather than see this as some kind of condemnation or guilt-inducing statement that, if you are sick, it’s your fault, which the ego would love to indulge, instead see it as perhaps shocking or upsetting at first, to have to admit that YOU are responsible for making your sickness. This is not always welcome news, often producing ego reactions of guilt and fear and so on. But it is also revealing to you a POWER that you have. A power and a CHOICE, a FREEDOM, a HOPE, in which IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND, you NEED NOT SUFFER.
This does not EVER mean, that if you change your mind, you will transcend sickness and death and not care that it "happens to you". This is 100% missing the point and a total bastardization of the teaching. No-one can be at peace with death because peace is evidence you do not believe in Eternal Life. Sickness and death DO NOT happen to you. YOU HAPPEN. Sickness only happens in your body beacuse it’s a picture of YOUR MIND’s sickness. Death only happens in your body because YOU DESTROY YOURSELF. This has to be owned up to before you can claim the right, and power, and freedom, to EXERCISE your FREE WILL choice to NEVER SUFFER AGAIN.
It does mean, on the one hand, you HAVE to admit to being responsible for causing ALL of the suffering you have experienced, it was ALL you doing it to yourself, and no-one and nothing-else EVER caused anything you’ve experienced. That can be a big chunk of crap to swallow. BUT.... it also opens the door to the POSSIBILITY, that you still have this power, and can CHOOSE AGAIN and therefore produce a state of NO SUFFERING.
You MUST demonstrate a body that is invulnerable, cannot be hurt, cannot be damaged, has no sickness, does not show any signs of attack, and PROVES that your brother and the whole world has done NOTHING to affect the Son of God. OTHERWISE... you WILL attack yourself, and you will suffer, by your own hand. No-one else will be doing it to you but yourself. This is the SECRET TO SALVATION! YOU ARE DOING THIS ALL TO YOURSELF. And because you are - if you OWN IT - you can choose simply to NEVER AGAIN be sick or dead or suffer in any way. Claim your IMMORTALITY!
There is no power in all the world that does anything to you against your will, other than YOU. There is no cause in the world whatsoever to produce effects in you or your body that YOU do not put there yourself. Worldly causes are cover-up jobs for your mind to pretend its irresponsibility is someone else’s fault.
There is no form of sickness, even DEATH, that cannot be reversed, if the MIND decides to no longer believe in it. Whatever you believe about yourself, IT WILL SHOW UP. It must. Mind is cause. Form is the effect of believing in illusions. Your mind has power over ALL MATTER. "My self is ruler of the universe".
So realize this. While you have a body, your body ALWAYS EQUALS your state of mind. So long as you THINK you are a body, YOU WILL MAKE ONE. So long as you think you are separate from God, you will PRESENT A PICTURE of what you believe for all to see. "Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt"!! But there can also be a totally transparent depiction of what’s going on inside of you, if you fully accept atonement.
If the body is showing up as sick, your mind *IS* sick. You ARE responsible for it. No-one else is. The world is not. The body is not. Having mastery over form REQUIRES extreme, absolute ownership and responsibility for EVERYTHING you are experiencing, down to the atoms that make up the body. YOU are putting them there. If the body is not doing well, it’s because you keep attacking yourself. Period. Don’t let this induce guilt or worthlessness. Instead forgive yourself and choose again.
If you can recognize this correlation between mind and body, you will realize that *IF* you change your mind, THE BODY HAS TO FOLLOW. It is guaranteed. It is a depiction of your "Self" as you see yourself. This is why when you shift into a miracle, you temporarily move into INVISIBILITY. "Miracles are temporary shifts into invisibility, that is why they heal." Invisibility (of form) correlates to having a mind which is CLEAR and FREE OF SEPARATIONS. You can see through it because it has become transparent and UNBLOCKED. This movement into formlessness heals the mind and thus the body MUST follow.
This also means, as Jesus has said, *IF* you get your mind into a state of perfect clarity and truth, and given that you are temporarily still projecting a body, the body BECOMES INVULNERABLE because YOU ARE, it cannot BE sick for ANY reason, because you are not sick, and IT CANNOT DIE because you see yourself as immortal spirit. Or at least a glimpse of that. Jesus assures us there is a divine protection that the body will experience IF we will be purely vigilant for the truth. Your body CAN be indestructible, free of aging, weather, the need for food and water, and so on. "I am sustained by the love of God all through the day", goes to the extreme!
And He literally means this..... IT CANNOT be sick. Sickness is IMPOSSIBLE where guilt has been removed. Sickness CANNOT RETURN where guilt has been removed. A guiltless mind cannot produce a suffering body. And why would it. A suffering body is an attack on your brother and yourself, due to a belief the world is causing you. Sickness is NONSENSE. It is a portrayal of a victim who believes they are sinful. But everyone is free to choose. You can choose whatever you want, but you cannot escape the consequences of your decisions.
You are cause. This is a course in cause, not effect. Choose health by choosing to heal the mind of its misperception of itself, and it will automatically take care of projecting a healthy body in the short term. This is the same as saying to seek first the kingdom of God and your way will be made straight.
Here are some very interesting passages from the section about "The Mind of the Atonement" plus a few others. It's talking about God creating the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit is FOR.
Do not underestimate or disregard what GOD HAS DONE! Do not throw away the opportunity for healing that the Holy Spirit represents and provides! GOD HAS GIVEN YOU HELP!
It is clear that God created the Holy Spirit as HIS ANSWER to the separation, and is the MEANS BY WHICH the separation will be healed. He does not need YOUR answer to the separation.
"****Resign NOW as your own teachers.**** THIS resignation will NOT lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourselves, and of the learning outcomes which have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, ****which you can neither provide nor understand****, you will become excellent learners AND teachers."
What this means is, you need to "resign as your own teacher" and stop trying to wake up by yourself. GOD HIMSELF has created the MEANS by which you will wake up to reality. That means is the Holy Spirit. The means IS NOT YOUR EGO.
We are asked to LISTEN TO HIM, and to LET HIM help us. In fact, we're even told that we should not attempt to forgive AT ALL without first asking for his help. And secondly that his FUNCTION is to FORGIVE US, which means, to bless us with HEALING, AND to remove our fear and hatred FOR us, AND to undo all the consequences of our wrong decisions FOR US.
That's a whole lot of HELP coming from the Holy Spirit to correct the separation, heal the mind, and undo the ego. That means that OUR PROPER ROLE as students, is to LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION by asking him for help, letting him literally HEAL US, and allowing him to change our mind FOR us.
This is radically different than the typical ego approach which entails everyone running around like headless chickens trying to convince themselves that a bunch of concepts are true. Our own individual efforts to HEAL OURSELVES WITHOUT HIM, are egocentric and arrogant. You are shit at waking yourself up!
God himself has GIVEN US the help that we need. The Holy Spirit has the power, the ability, the wisdom, the knowledge, the holiness, the innocence, the perception, the clarity and awareness, TO BE of help to us, to give us the help that we need.
We are NOT supposed to be doing this course alone or without him. We are supposed to be making FULL USE OF HIM, as intended by God. And when we don't do that, we are depriving him of his function and are saying "no thanks" to God.
We must ask the Holy Spirit to HELP US to see everything in a better light, in a more forgiving way, and LET HIM actually MODIFY our mind and perception for us, so that we then in fact start to see with Christ Vision. Not as something we go out independently and try to manufacture, but as something he is there to install in us, to BLESS US WITH.
The holy spirit is our healer, our therapist, our comforter, our friend. We should rely on him for our entire awakening process instead of all this "self help - self study" bullshit. Are you done with going it alone and trying to do this all yourself? Can you save yourself like God can?
You are choosing a GUIDE FOR HELP, and if you choose the EGO as your guide you will reject the Holy Spirit's help in fear and arrogance and try to do it all yourself. When you choose the Holy Spirit to be your guide to awakening, your awakening will accelerate and skyrocket in ways you had never dreamed of.
"The Holy Spirit, the shared Inspiration of all the Sonship, ****induces a kind of perception**** in which many elements are like those in the Kingdom of Heaven Itself."
"****The Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION**** for miracle-mindedness. ****It is the will to HEAL the separation**** by letting it go. It is IN you because God placed it in your mind, and although you can keep it asleep you cannot obliterate it. *****God Himself keeps it alive by transmitting it from His Mind to yours as long as there is time.****"
"The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Joy. ****It is the call to return****, with which God blessed the minds of the separated Sons."
"The Holy Spirit was ****God's answer to the separation, the means**** by which the Atonement could repair until the whole mind returned to creating."
"When man made the ego, God placed in him ***the call of joy. This call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at its sound.****"
"That is why you can choose to listen to two voices within you. One you made yourself, and that one is not of God. ****But the other is given you by God, Who asks you only to listen to it****. The Holy Spirit IS in you in a very literal sense. It is the voice that calls you back to where you were before and will be again."
"********Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function.******** Your part is ***only*** to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to ****LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven.**** On your little faith, joined with HIS understanding, HE will build your part in the Atonement, and MAKE SURE that you fulfill it easily. And ***WITH Him***, YOU will build a ladder planted in the solid rock of faith, and rising even to Heaven. Nor will you use it to ascend to Heaven alone."
"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."
"All therapy is release from the past. And that is why ****the Holy Spirit IS the only therapist.**** HE TEACHES THAT THE PAST DOES NOT EXIST, a fact which belongs to the sphere of knowledge, and which therefore ****NO-ONE IN THE WORLD KNOWS.****"
"****The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist.**** He makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which He is the guide. The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. ****He needs no help for this.**** ****He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do****, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE. Remember that you ARE choosing a guide for helping, and the wrong choice will NOT help. But remember also that THE RIGHT ONE WILL. ****Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God.****"
"If you can accept the ONE GENERALIZATION NOW, there will be no need to learn from many smaller lessons."
Effectively what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach you is ONE LESSON. This one lesson is to learn how to "teach only love", because you are only love. It's to have a single response of love in all situations, to use love's miraculous power to heal all sickness and to solve all problems. To recognize no orders of difficulty or hierarchies of illusion, to see all forms of suffering as the same effect having the same ONE cause. One problem with one solution to rule them all.
Over time, in the application of what may seem like more specific lessons, ultimately what you are LEARNING is really to simply be as God created you. To be loving. To be singular, or ONE. One in character and substance and nature and identity and attitude and response. One single way of always consistently being the same, in complete disregard for any illusions of forms or differences. Completely ignoring orders of magnitude or difficulty or importance or seriousness or size or duration or any other property.
As we gradually "polish" our minds from seeming to be fragmented, with different responses for different people, different relationships with different individuals, different reactions to different objects, different meanings for different things, we gradually GENERALIZE the learning and move into a much more ABSTRACT state of mind. A much more singular state of mind, whole and one and unified and undivided and free from conflicts. Being so one, this state of mind - miracle mindedness, houses the power of love and truth and sees all things from a single perspective.
This is the ONE LESSON which the Holy Spirit is teaching, behind all the lessons in the workbook, behind all the text material and all thoughts and life lessons/trials, behind all relationships and dramas, the simple movement away from complexity and multiplicities of action, towards simple unification, integration, wholeness and oneness. This lays the groundwork for one-mindedness, which is a state of complete abstract purity and wholeness, in which the entirety of everything acts as one with no conflict or difference or adjustment to conditions.
Unconditional love is completely ignorance of conditions. It ignores the form of problems, the shapes of bodies, the types of sickness, the reasons for their supposed causation, the worldly powers, the forces of nature, the laws of physics, the many rules and regulations. It doesn't even care to need to know how something came about, to analyze it or diagnose it or figure out the complicated pathways of cause and effect. It simply APPLIES ITSELF singularly by giving itself and sharing itself, to increase itself and to supply the lack - the lack of love, the lack of unification, or seeming unwholeness, which is the basis for all suffering.
Learn this ONE LESSON, and you are done with the curriculum forever. See past the illusion of separations, which gives rise to countless numbers of bits and pieces. Look to the one vision to show you the one true reality. And you will rise above the fragmented battlefield into the wholeness of light.
"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF." "This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes."
"The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."
"My one lesson, which I must teach as I learned, is that no perception which is out of accord with the judgment of the Holy Spirit CAN be justified." "That is why you must teach only ONE lesson. If you are to be conflict free yourselves, you must learn ONLY from the Holy Spirit, and teach ONLY by Him."
"We said before that the message of the Crucifixion was teach ONLY love, for that is what you ARE. This is the ONE lesson which is perfectly unified, because it is the only lesson which IS one. And only BY teaching it can YOU learn it."
"As the teacher of God advances in his training, he learns one lesson with increasing thoroughness. He does not make his own decisions; he asks his Teacher for His answer, and it is this he follows as his guide for action. This becomes easier and easier, as the teacher of God learns to give up his own judgment."
"But the Holy Spirit teaches one lesson and applies it to ALL individuals in ALL situations. Being conflict free, He maximizes ALL efforts and ALL results. By teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you that ALL POWER IS YOURS. Its application does not matter. It is ALWAYS maximal."
"Thus is YOUR healing everything the world requires, that it may be healed. It needs ONE lesson that has perfectly been learned."
"As you perceive more and more common elements in ALL situations, the transfer of your training, under the Holy Spirit's guidance increases and becomes generalized. Gradually, you learn to apply it to everyone and everything, for its applicability IS universal. When this has been accomplished, perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share the unification of the Laws of God. What is One cannot be perceived as separate, and the denial of the separation IS the reinstatement of knowledge."
"The purpose is to train the mind to generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is as applicable to one situation as it is to another."
"the impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure" "Place cause and effect in their true sequence in one respect, and the learning will generalize and transform the world."
"The specificity of the ego's thinking, then, results in a spurious kind of generalization, which is really not abstract at all. It will respond in certain specific ways to all stimuli which it perceives as related. In contrast, the Soul reacts in the same way to everything it knows is true, and does not respond at all to anything else."
"Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible, and what has been learned can be recognized ONLY by its RESULTS. Its GENERALIZATION is demonstrated as you use it in more and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there is no order of difficulty in miracles, when you have applied them to ALL situations. For there IS no situation to which miracles do not apply, and by applying them TO all situations, you will gain the REAL world."
"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you CAN see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them. Perceiving His RESULTS, you will understand where He MUST be, and finally KNOW what He is."
Each of us has free will. Each of us has everything within us, given by God. No-one can add to what you are or to what is true of you. However, when you are denying your own perfection, a situation arises where you may seem to need guidance or teaching from others.
But the ultimate aim of this teaching isn't to give you something you don't have, it's to help you to find it within yourself, given that it's there already. Actually in the Psychotherapy pamphlet we're told that really psychotherapy is the only form of therapy, ie teaching. That any teacher is really a healer/therapist who should be helping you to heal from your self-induced amnesia.
But what often happens is that we become enamored with certain teachers, particularly in terms of personality worship. We grow dependent on them, look up to them, put them on a bedestal, and look to them to give you everything you lack. And when they do seem to give you things you think you lack, you think of them as a kind of savior. And you will then start to defend them rather blindly against any questioning of their integrity or truth.
What happens here is that when we lack total responsibility for what we are doing to ourselves, and for owning up to being CHRIST, we project this responsibility onto teachers. We more or less want them to be what we are insisting on not being. We want them to have all the answers, to do for us what we don't want to do ourselves, and to lead us out of the desert.
There is a high likelihood that, when it appears that someone else has stuff that you lack, or knows stuff you don't know, that you'll form a dependent relationship with them. You'll actually be forming a SPECIAL relationship with them. This means that you include them and allow them to give to you, or to get from them, at the same time as shutting others out and rejecting them.
It's a conditional relationship permitted only within the confines of your limitations. It's even possible to use a teacher to keep yourself in the dark, by finding someone who agrees with everything you say and never questions your mistakes. And so your specialized ego "likes" them and sees them as an ally, precicely because they really don't challenge or teach you anything you don't already believe. Using them as a way to prove yourself right isn't really an openness to learning.
These special relationships with teachers lead a lot of "followers" to become sheep, or blind cattle, the herd, simply following along and hanging off every word as if it's the whole truth. Not questioning anything and trying to just absorb whatever is expressed. This happens when a person stops thinking for themselves and places far too much responsibility into the hands of another.
Particularly if that other is quite intelligent and seems to know more than you, in that they can run circles around you and keep you bound to them because you lack the ability to see through their deceptions.
What is supposed to happen to move towards a holy relationship, is that you are supposed to become EQUAL with everyone. And that means you can't be under the thumb of a teacher, or bound to a specific individual, or worshipping the ground someone walks on, or just blindly believing everything someone says without any discernment of your own. You're not supposed to be a sheep, you're supposed to be a fully autonomous perfect being with no needs and dependent only on God. And if you're becoming defensive on behalf of some teacher you think is infallible, you've got a problem.
What I see is that these dynamics of idol worship and specialness mirror a lot of what happens in parent-child relationships. Whereby the parent takes on a role of "being parental", which often involves control and protection and manipulation and so on, and in many cases an obsession or "need" to forever maintain that role. The parent can identify with the role and see themselves as only that, instead of an equal.
And in turn, the child can often "be a child" for life, always under the parent's thumb, not seeing themselves as equal to the parent or having a holy relationship with them.
There's always tons of skewed dysfunctional relationship dynamics, where the child can't get out from under the weight of the parent's overbearing nature, and the parent doesn't want to stop being a parent. So that sets up a vicious cycle of being kept in the dark, disempowered, overpowered, and unequal.
The same thing happens with all kinds of teachers IF the teacher or the student develops a special relationship with them. If the teacher doesn't lift the student UP to their own level and SET THEM FREE of themselves, then they are not really teaching a whole lesson. If the student is addicted to the teacher and of remaining in their shadow and having a conditional exclusive relationship with them, they are trying to remain a child, treating the teachers as a parental figure.
You can see this happening a lot when people hang off every word a particular teacher says under some kind of assumption that everything they say is correct. Or people who seem to "resonate" with a certain person, and who "seems to make sense" to them, and so they don't see a need to question anything. People then form into camps and groups and little armies which fight silly wars about which one is right.
What any ACIM student should be doing is honoring their TOTAL FREEDOM, by recognizing that a guide should always respect their free will, and the fact that you were created perfect. This means recognizing that no other person can give you what God gave you in your creation. And any person can only at best ADVISE you and give you guidance or information, and you're not supposed to treat them like an idol to be worshipped or as some kind of God-like parental figure that you live in the shadow of. We are all supposed to be equals.
Addiction to teachers can particularly happen, I think, for people who perhaps struggle with the course a lot, and need someone else to help them. But if we are not careful we in fact give our power away to such people and blur the lines as to who is responsible for CHOOSING TO BELIEVE whether something is true or not. We are all supposed to discern and freely decide whether to accept or deny truths, not to just "feed off" someone who looks like a leader who seems to spoonfeed endless volumes of food to you.
Think for yourself. Question your teachers. Find out if IF something is true and WHY. Be willing to be mistaken. And be willing to recognize that any and all teachers may be mistaken as well. Only the Holy Spirit and the ascended ones truly know what the whole story is.
Our main problem in separating from God is simply not recognizing what is true. "Enlightenment is but a recognition".
If we were to recognize accurately what is true, and what is false, without any distortion, we would attain enlightenment. This recognition is the pure sanity of our right mindedness.
A mind which is so correct in its recognition of truth, practically KNOWS it, which is how true perception paves the way for knowledge. Our problem then is that we DON'T recognize what is true, or how it is opposite to what is false. In the separation we simply swapped the true and the false. We gave all manner of true properties to that which is false, and all manner of false properties to that which is true. This produced immense confusion.
"You HAVE carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING."
In a state of confusion, you do NOT recognize reality or truth. You believe that things which are true are not true, and things which are false are true. You give reality to illusions, believe in lies, and mistake hell for heaven.
This reversal is so great that it leads to the belief that death is life, hell is heaven, suffering is healing, punishment is atonement, and God is evil.
Everyone naturally gravitates towards whatever they believe is true, and tries to avoid what they believe is false. In fact Jesus in the course says that you cannot SEE what you believe is false, and you can only see what you believe in a true.
"All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would judge reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight, because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized."
This presents a problem, because it means you end up choosing something which is NOT what it appear to be. You think it will save you, but it hurts you. This manifests particularly in using sickness as a defense against the truth.
We first fail to recognize that God's truth is true. We believe it is false and evil and wrong. We don't want it. Then we believe that its opposite will save and protect us. That we want whatever IS true, even though the things we think are true are false.
Then we choose false things, to move away from true things, but believing they're helping us. Sickness is an attempt to defend your life and perpetuate your truth, to save you from the attack of "what is false" - God - but what is false has been mis-identified.
So you end up choosing suffering, under the belief that it is helping you. You choose sickness in an attempt to save your life.
This happens only because you do not RECOGNIZE what is really true and what is false. You are confused, and so you make a poor decision. You then end up hurting yourself because you are confused.
"I must have decided wrongly because I am not at peace. I made the decision myself"
What the course then tells us is we have to sort out and correctly identify things which are true, and things which are false. To identify what is OF GOD, and what is not. What is real, and what is unreal. This includes sorting out what is really life, and what is death, and what is health and what is suffering.
"If you obscure the Kingdom, you are perceiving WHAT IS NOT OF GOD."
"Whatever is revealed to Him that is not of God, is gone."
"It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to effect you in any way."
"True denial is a very powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is NOT a concealment device, but a correction device. The "Right Mind" of the mentally healthy DEPENDS on it."
We actually don't recognize that suffering IS suffering. We don't realize we are feeling guilty and afraid. We can even be angry without actually recognizing it as anger. In denial, we'll even believe that our sickness is saving us, and so we want to keep it.
Our task is to become clear about what IS true and what IS false. To properly "categorize" stuff. To put the things of God into the "true and real" category, and the stuff of this world of ego and death into the "untrue and not real" category. The illusions of Earth belong in the not-real category.
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."
In true perception then, which is close to enlightenent, we are doing two things. We are correctly recognizing that illusions ARE illusions and death is NOT real and there is no real sin and Earth doesn't really exist. AND, we are recognizing heaven and the face of christ and the real world and reality, shining beyond the illusory world.
Once we actually can distinguish that suffering IS suffering, and attack IS attack, and death IS death, rather than confusing them for something else, we will recognize not to choose them. Anything we associate with what is false, we will choose away from. Whatever we associate with truth, we will gravitate towards.
In order to choose heaven and not hell, we have to first learn that hell IS hell, and not heaven. We have to stop confusing Earth for heaven, or mistaking an unreal world for a real one. We have to deprogram ourselves and become clear about what really is true and what isn't.
"the necessary distinction between the true and the false."
"But HIS function is to distinguish ONLY between the false and the true, REPLACING the false WITH the true."
"His Voice WILL teach you how to distinguish between pain and joy, and lead you out of the confusion YOU have made."
"Therefore, if you learn the tests by which you can distinguish everything from nothing, you will make the better choice."
"Only by learning what fear IS, can you finally learn to distinguish the possible from the impossible, and the false from the true."
"This is because of the miracle's inherent avoidance of within-error distinctions. Its SOLE concern is to distinguish between truth, on the one hand, and ALL kinds of error, on the other."
"The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."
Miracles, then, are states of mind in which the real truth is recognized as the ONLY truth, and nothing ELSE is believed to be true. All errors are correctly identified as false, untrue, unreal, and nothing. All reality is acknowledged and welcomes as ACTUALLY real and true and meaningful.
When all truth is "separated out" from what is false, you will cease to make confused mistaken choice, will stop choosing death and sickness and suffering, and will be ready to choose heaven.
The false world (Earth) is false and does not exist. The true world (Heaven) is true and is all that exists. Truth is everything, the false is nothing. Correctly recognizing God allows you to recognize who you are. In remembering your true nature, you are ready to identify with your soul, and as Christ.
You can't sin. What is sin but the ability to actually achieve separation from God in some way? Whichever way that separation manifests, whether it is a thought of murder or attack or withdrawal or hate or a split mind or a tiny mad idea or whatever, the fact remains it is impossible for it to happen in *reality*.
God CANNOT be separated from. God is so pervasive and so everywhere that there just is nowhere to go that He is not. Believing it is *possible* to do this is just insane.
You can't sin because you are permanently innocent.
If you are completely pure and holy, do you think it's really possible for you to do anything or act in a certain way that is not pure and holy? How could you even CONCEIVE of it being possible to do anything that isn't innocent? It can't even occur to you or enter your mind. Your innocence is permanent because it is established by and recognized by God, forever.
It is SO holy and pure that it simply CANNOT PRODUCE SIN. Sin cannot COME FROM innocence. So it is utterly impossible for there to one moment be a state of perfect innocence, and then the next moment, for sin to suddenly show up. Sin CANNOT have come from innocence or from an innocent mind or an innocent Son of God. Sin 'appearing' has to be totally unreal and fictional.
Sin therefore HAS to be a huge lie. It is causeless. Sin is bullshit.
Symbolically speaking, it would be like saying that a newborn baby is capable of murdering thousands of people as soon as it emerges from the womb. It's obviously absurd because the "innocence" of the baby is so obvious (even at the level of illusion). No-one in their right mind would even begin to consider that this crime is possible, it is utterly ridiculous. (nb: this is just an analogy, innocence in bodies is not real innocence)
As the course says, "no one can argue with a fact." When something is plainly obvious and has not been denied, it simply cannot BE denied. You just have to admit that it is plainly true. It is plainly true that you are STILL 100% as innocent as you always were and that you are utterly incapable of anything you could call "real" sin.
Sin is not real. It doesn't take place in reality. It does not have consequences which are real. It does not affect what is real. It has no truth to it and is entirely a fictional story you are dreaming. The sin is INSIDE the dream, not outside of it in reality. All of the consequences that sin supposedly has inflicted or produced, are HALLUCINATIONS. Not one of them is accurate or truthful or real.
The intent of sin is to murder God, to get rid of yourself, and to deny Life. Its natural consequence is death. From the very start it is an act of war and vengeance and a strong belief that sin has power OVER the will of God, able to affect God, hurt God, change God, and destroy God. It is the authority problem - believing you have power over God's will, which you don't. Right off the bat, sin is a lie.
One of the problems is that, since you are dreaming and you THINK you are a PART of the dream, inside the dream, you believe that sin is real. You think it is real because you think the dream is reality. The dream is NOT reality, even if it seems real.
You think that your sin against God REALLY HAPPENED. Somewhere in the dark recessed of your mind hidden behind layers of denial is a belief that you sinned IN REALITY, caused reality to change, and now deserve to die. This gave rise to the death wish, which will not stop until it finishes you off, unless you undo the belief that sin is real.
When you start to explore your mind and undo denial and remove blocks to awareness you will likely encounter this belief in sin within yourself. You'll experience it as though it is real and true, as if you actually DID something horrendous, causing you to be guilty. But as you question sin and take a closer look at the facts, admitting the truth, you can actually start to RECOGNIZE that this thing you referred to as "real sin" is actually FAKE SIN. It is an ILLUSION of sin happening. You thought it was real, which is why you have freaked out. But it's not. It's a PRETEND CRIME.
There is nothing that sin claims that can be true. It is not possible to oppose the will of God. It is not possible to change God. It is not possible to make God hate you. It is not possible to hurt or attack or damage God. It is not possible to make God disappear. It is not possible to kill God. It is not possible to kill yourself. It is not possible to change your permanent innocence. It is not possible to oppose reality and replace it with an illusion which isn't even real. Everything sin claims you HAVE DONE, is not true.
It's like, you're this kid who THINKS that they did something terribly wrong, because they were in a state of fear and misunderstanding and did not really perceive correctly what happened. They think they did something really terribly bad and that they're going to be horribly punished, and because they think they really did it, they will be convinced they deserve to die, and will refuse any suggestion to the contrary. But this is all based on a MISUNDERSTANDING.
Another example might be, if someone were driving a car and accidentally didn't see someone step into the street, and their car seems like it hit something right at that moment, which you thought was the person. You were so horrified that you fled the scene, without having actually seen IF it was true, and lived the rest of your life in guilt and self-torture. What you didn't realize is that you did NOT hit the person, no-one got hurt, and you're not even guilty. You just drove over a piece of wood in the road that you didn't see. So then you try to kill yourself for something YOU DID NOT EVEN REALLY DO.
God is here to tell you, "My Son, you are innocent and always will be. There is nothing you can do to deter me from loving you. I am forever in your presence and reminding you gently of your lovability and worthiness. You have done nothing to offend me. I am at peace. I am unharmed. I love you now and have for eternity. There is nothing you can do to make me resent you. My only will is for your return to me to embrace in love and live forever in my sight. I love you now and always will."
Sin is not true of you. You did not do what you think you did. You imagined a crime and made it up, wanting to believe it was real and possible. THANK GOD it is NOT TREU! Sin isn't real. It's a fantasy. "What if you looked within and saw there was no sin?"
You are forgiven. Come home.