"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you."

It can be difficult letting people suffer. Although that said, suffering is an illusion. The thing is.... we have lessons to learn and this is a classroom. Merely having an attitude of "take the suffering away" could also remove form someone a "painful lesson" they might need to learn.

If you remove the challenges or the limitations or the form that the lesson has taken, the person might not rise to the occasion. They might not question certain strongly held beliefs, they might not have a breakthrough, they might not learn to see their life differently, they might not change their priorities. Not to say that people should suffer, because God does not will that anyone suffers, but we've placed ourselves in a difficult situation where we believe all kinds of stuff that's mistaken.

And so we need to learn, which means we need scenarios to learn in. So if we were to seek to just "have it easy" all the time and have no seeming stimulation for growth or awakening, we might just linger in a lack of progress for longer. You could say perhaps that since people consent to everything, those who are suffering perhaps have agreed to go through something because they'll in the long run benefit from it.

When the soul knows that the ultimate goal is awakening and reunion with God, they can be prepared to take on tremendous challenges to help them move toward that. A person having a particularly hard life may well be making a lot more progress spiritually than someone who has it easy.

Not that you can't be a "happy learner" who learns without severe suffering but, it seems to be often the case that when people are mistaken about the truth they tend to mis-create some pretty bad-seeming scenarios because they haven't learned, and now the scenario acts as a way to help them learn. Perhaps a repurposing of the suffering they've consented to. The ultimate goal of course is learning that you cannot suffer and choosing not to, which does mean there is a way out when the lesson is learned.

Not long ago I had a dream in which I had to go through an extraordinarily arduous obstacle course, riddled with difficult terrain and hurdles and dangers and all manner of suffering. As I got to the end and emerged into the open, exhausted and strung out and weak, a guide appeared and asked me "What would be so important that you'd be willing to go through all that, if it meant that you could achieve a goal?" The revelation that suddenly came to my awareness was that this was all designed to serve a very big long-term goal of returning to God. No matter what it takes to learn the curriculum.

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

I've recently been noticing that my work with the course has shifted to the undoing of guilt. And that this was not the case in previous years. Overall it seemed I was working on undoing fear much more often.

Just theorizing here, but maybe when we're starting out with forgiveness our mind is just too "low" in its degree of truth and light. Sin and guilt still seem too buried and unconscious, hidden behind blocks. Our conscious mind may more likely find itself so blocked that it deals with fear and punishment on a daily basis more than anything else.

Over time, we work on forgiving, and it gradually chisels away at this overall "large block" of mind-junk. From the bottom up, we are gradually removing layers of stuff and raising our overall level of awareness and mastery. While there may be some issues or lessons where we undo fear, or guilt, or sin, or are working on sickness perhaps, overall we're still deeply immersed in "the lower levels" of mind.

I've done such a lot of work on fear that I think I have a much better grip on it now. And while fearful challenges still arise, I am much less deceivable. So I feel that my focus is "rising-up" or "going deeper" into the prior level that comes before fear - which is guilt. If you recall basically we get into sin first, which demands guilt, leads to fear of punishment etc.

So my focus now, or what I'm most often presented with, is the undoing of guilt. In fact I recently seemed to be only just starting to become aware that I even feel guilty at all. I did not recognize it. I did not know that I was guilty and the guilt I was feeling didn't seem to fit into a common definition of what guilt is. I am learning about it first-hand as I dig into it. Because for example guilt can often express as anger or a strong desire to project, and can feel like being offended even.

What I have noticed is that in working on this guilt, which is dredging up a lot of old crap as well, fear goes bye bye very quickly. You can't be afraid of punishment if you are not guilty. Without guilt there is no fear. So I now experience that as I work to undo guilt about stuff, it seems to have a "more powerful" effect in lifting me upwards towards light and truth. It feels more rapid in its consequences, and the fear literally just vanishes without a trace without having to do anything to work on it.

I noticed this when one day, I suddenly recognized I felt very guilty that I thought I caused someone to be sick, although this was not true. I still felt it. And I acknowledged it and spoke about it and let it out. And since bringing that to light, the next day I immediately noticed I felt much less afraid. A whole swath of fear melted.

And then I also was working through some feelings about when my wife was in the hospital etc and how that felt, and suddenly was recognizing that it felt so hellish because I was actually feeling guilty, which was causing fear. Undoing that guilt has really shifted things quickly. It in fact removed what seemed like a looming resistance and sense of dread about what would happen next, that was hanging around all the time.

I know also from experience that if you go straight to the core, the belief in sin, which is really the ultimate turning point of a total change of mind, it has the power to undo not only fear but guilt as well, very rapidly. But you have to be able to unearth and look at the feeling and belief in sinfulness. Sinfuless feels pretty awful. I got in touch with it one time and it felt like a desire to be dead, so bleak and desperate and so strongly believing that I was criminal or evil or had done something so terrible there was no other way out.

But at the moment I think that level of ego crap is still mostly buried beneath the "guilt layer". As I move through the guilt and clear it out, I rise up in mind closer to complete forgiveness and atonement. And as I rise up I go deeper within and uncover the secret sins and hidden hates.

Overall there seems to be the stuff we go through to try to forgive specific issues, which vary a lot, but in the big picture there seems to also be this very gradual movement towards God, truth, light, forgiveness, which takes you through these clouds of ego crap. First through layers of fear, then through layers of guilt, then through layers of sin, and then into the light. We seem to be undoing this from the bottom up, gradually ascending as we do.

You are never responsible for the freedom of others. If you make yourself responsible, you will believe they are part of your ego. Extending what you are responsible for, is like saying they are inside of the scope of yourself.

And now anything they choose, anything they do, anything that happens to them, is interpreted as being something you are responsible for. And you then are set up on a rocky boat in choppy waters, certain to be tossed around by forces you cannot control, and certain to be guilty for whatever happens.

When they suffer, you suffer along with them. When they are hurt, it hurts you. And when they die, you lose part of yourself. You will then actually grieve for what seems like part of your own self that has died along with them.

This can only possibly result from a sense of mis-identification, losing sight of who you are, and confusing yourself for another person. When you try to control the life of another person, you are effectively saying that you are them. Not in a spiritual way of oneness, but in a violating "shared suffering" kind of way.

You'll have constant concern, worry, fear, guilt and desperation, resulting from believing that this person is part of you, in an egoic way. They are part of you at the level of spirit, but not at the level of separate egos having special relationships.

Special relationships always entails a strange kind of manufactured "bond" or connection between two people. A two-way horizontal cause-effect relationship. It's like a way of trying to fuse two separate people together. To say, you are my ego and I am your ego. Or that you are the cause of me and I am the cause of you. This can only lead to mutual suffering.

In specialness, anything that happens to the "other", who you have tried to "possess", you feel as happening to your self. This can only mean that you literally believe they are you. Which also means you don't even really acknowledge them as a distinct whole person, and instead are really relating to a projected form of your own ego, which is overstepping its bounds."Yet the special relationship which the EGO seeks, does NOT include even ONE whole individual. For the ego WANTS but part of him, and sees ONLY this part, and nothing else."

Egos everywhere love the idea of violating other people's freedom. They are tyrannical rulers, selfish, hoarding, possessing and controlling. They overstep boundaries and invade other people. They are like psychic vampires. They feed off other people. They leave no room and have no humility for allowing others to be themselves. They want to devour and infest and take over other people. Egos overflow and try to spread, to inflate themselves and make themselves consume the space of those around them. And the worst of them even attempt to destroy others to remove the competition.

If a relationship entails any of this encroachment, and of this arrogance, this over-inflation of self, the invasion of other's boundaries and free willed choices, in any way tries to control or manipulate or coerce, or moves into areas of submission or dominance, then the relationship is ego driven and is unholy.

"The dominance-submission problem is related to the perception of helping others VERSUS helping the self. This is a misperception resulting from the failure to recognize the equal worth of both individuals in the interaction."

"No one CAN be "taken over" unless he wills to be. However, if he places his mind under tyranny, rather than authority, he intrudes the submission/dominance onto free will himself."

What we need to do is get our grubby little opinionated hands off other people's merchandise. Or as Jesus puts eloquently, "be passerby". We need to step back and let go of people. We need to withdraw control and stop coercing. And to do that we have to surrender not only the desire to be more than we are, but also let go of believing we are lacking in the first place.

It's really a sense of inadequacy, lack, inferiority, weakness, unworthiness or guilt that often drives us to overstep our bounds with others. We try to take from them through possession. We try to complete ourselves by assimilating someone else's soul. We try to unite in separation, through sacrifice and dominance. And this will always lead to a loss of peace.

The unwillingness to accept love for yourself is the key driving force behind all of this, producing compulsions of seeking outside of oneself. And that can only turn into an attempt expand the ego. Egos that see themselves as having nothing, attempt to possess everyone and everything.

If you are fully and completely responsible for yourself, for everything you feel, everything you experience, and every causality, then

1) You will not have any reactions because reactions require you to see yourself as a victim

2) You will not see yourself as victimized or caused by anyone or anything else

3) You will be free and invulnerable and immortal

You will know that you and what you experience are kind of .... enclosed... insulated.... invulnerable to.... detached from... shielded from.... protected from.... everything that is 'out there'. It will be like you're walking around completely invulnerable to everything, unaffected by anyone.

"Be passerby"

So if you see that this is kind of the 'goal' of total responsibility and acceptance of yourself and unconditionally being the love you are, then you can see what happens when you DON'T do this.

Without this responsibility you disown, you victimize, you see yourself threatened and vulnerable, you become imprisoned, you develop reactions, you go unconscious, you disown your feelings, you accuse everyone else of being the "reason why" your life now sucks, and you disassociate from your Self, trying to get others to live your life for you. And then instead of being yourself, you will try to be THEM, because now you are reflecting outward what is within - if you are not yourself, and you're expecting others to be you for you, you will start to become other people and lose yourself.

So no matter the situation, no matter what's happening, no matter who is doing what to whom, we need to get to this place of true responsibility where nothing outside of us is seen as the cause of anything we experience, other than God. We need to disengage. Detach from the drama that involves others.

All of the 'involvement' with others in an ego way creases an ego dependency relationship where it feels like you are joined to the other person and are exposed to them and that they can do stuff to you directly. That's the opposite of invulnerability. And that's doing stuff to yourself through them.

Freedom of Choice > Responsibility > Power > Causation > Effects.

To simplify, think of cause and effect. You are either the cause, or the effect. If you see yourself as the cause, you cannot be an effect. Your casual outpouring is so strong nothing can come at you. If you see yourself as not the cause, you MUST see yourself as being highly affected and therefore ARE an effect of something.

When you project responsibility outside yourself, onto another or the world, you are disowning and giving away your power. You are giving power TO them. You are framing them in your mind as having the power to CAUSE YOU, and to make you have effects. And it will seem these effects are against your will - something you did not choose.

But you are choosing it, because you are using your power to PRETEND to disown your power, you are still using your power to frame someone as having power over you, and the power that you see IN them acting against you IS YOUR POWER. You just are seeing it as though it belongs to someone else and is not a part of you.

You've separated yourself from your power and now your power is seeming to turn around 180 degrees and come back at you in the form of "an alien will", causing you, changing you, defining you, altering you without your choosing. Or so it seems. Because you ARE choosing this. You are choosing to see your power as against yourself, doing things to you. Even if it seems to be being done "through" others vicariously.

This means you're in a position which is rather strange, where you are FIGHTING YOURSELF. Like literally you are taking your power, moving it away from you, turning it around, and then launching it at yourself in an attack mode, causing you to have effects.

Your mind believes the power is out there against you. Your mind ALSO must believe therefore that since you are NOT having the power, you are NOT the cause, you are NOT responsible, you MUST BE AN EFFECT. The belief in being not the cause and being affected go hand in hand.

This means that your mind is putting in place both the framing of something external as "attacking you", AND it is putting in place the SYMPTOMS, physically mentally or emotionally, that you would expect to occur IF that power were acting upon you. Your mind ITSELF, makes up effects, that correspond to the perceived cause.

This literally means your mind makes symptoms in the body, makes up sickness and disease and even death, makes up wounds and heartache, makes up emotional reactions and loss and sadness and anger and hurt, to correspond to the perceived external cause. Not just imagining it, but actually MAKING IT, producing it, putting it into your experience, changing your feelings, changing your body.

This especially happens when you project guilt, in which you are basically projecting responsibility, which is cause. You are saying, I am not the cause of this, you are, and are pointing a finger and hurling guilt at another to try to make it stick to them. But moreso what you are doing is you are trying to give them power and responsibility and will and freedom and choice and causation to have these things INSTEAD of you.

It's rather bizarre then that we literally give power to people, to frame them as capable of attacking us, threatening us, making us afraid, upsetting us, doing things to us. We effectively WANT THEM TO. Even if on the surface we are claiming to be innocent, even if we are feeling that feeling of "I didn't choose this, I don't want this, I didn't ask for it."

You see, that victim perspective in which you feel like you are being unfairly treated, that's the feeling you get when you are becoming "an effect". It's the recognition that you have indeed projected power, cause, responsibility etc, and so see yourself as NOT responsible, NOT the cause, NOT the one using power to make something happen.

In victimhood (ego) you perceive that you are not the cause of what's happening, and you are in denial of this, and having denied it you are projecting it. So now you see cause as outside of you, in someone else, acting upon you, at the same time as NOT seeing that you are causing anything yourself. The denial acts as a barrier blocking awareness of what YOU are doing, that YOU are using power, that YOU are responsible, that YOU are causing this.

It's understandable then that as the victimhood role strengthens, the denial and disownership of power, causation and responsibility increases. You believe less and less that "it's your fault" (guilt-related). You believe less and less that you chose it, wanted it, made it happen, or had anything to do with it. Almost as if you were just minding your own business doing nothing at all and someone came out of the blue and attacked you for no good reason. As if you were just completely innocent (the face of innocence).

And that's simply because the power has been projected. The power has been given away, disowned, you don't want it, and you WANT the other to have it. So you simultaneously have this experience of "I didn't ask for this, how could you do this to me", and "that person is having power over me and is the cause of me." You can't have one part without the other. Just as you can't have a belief in an external cause WITHOUT a belief in having effects as well. "I want you to have my power, please use it against me, and I will pretend I don't want you to."

So we quite literally use the power of our mind to dissociate from our power, we hand it over to all kinds of things out there that HAVE NO POWER, other than us giving it to it in our minds. And then having given it to them, they seem to loom over us and we now fear them and feel powerless and weak and feeble. Unable to go up against such a power, as though we have no power at all. And now we are tempted to see ourselves as unfairly treated.

What we have to recognize of course is the secret of salvation - that we are doing this to ourselves. We have to recognize and own the power and responsibility. We have to take back the power of decision and use it to choose otherwise with the Holy Spirit. We have to stop believing that ANYTHING outside of us HAS OUR POWER, and indeed need to recognize that the power we THOUGHT was theirs is in fact our own. It only seemed like theirs because we disowned it and didn't want it.

So we take our power back. We claim responsibility for causing everything we are experiencing. We acknowledge, I have caused this thing, I have done this to myself, it is not being done by this other person or something in the body or the world, I am not a victim of this, I am not being affected by them, they have no power over me. I own and take back and reclaim my own power which I gave away, and take full responsibility for it. Which means that I must be CHOOSING what happens, I must be CAUSING what happens, and I MUST have caused all of my own suffering.

All my symptoms I put in place myself. All my upset emotions I put in place myself. All my despair and loss and shame and guilt I did to myself. All sense that I'd been attacked or mistreated or shamed or attacked by anyone else was MY MISTAKE in perceiving this wrongly. I did not recognize that I was using my power to pretend to disown my power, and using it to set up others to attack me for me. I didn't realize I was fighting against myself with a divided will. I have been using my power to try to destroy myself, attacking myself, using others to do my bidding, and then blaming them for it.

Ultimately you need to resume your role and position as ruler of the universe. You are the CAUSE of everything you see and feel and think and experience. You are the co-creator with God with unlimited power. What you say happens, what you do not want does not happen. You articulate reality. You CREATE. You cause what happens and you WANT what happens because you chose it. Everything that happens YOU MUST BE CHOOSING. And by the power of your decision you choose NOT TO SUFFER AND TO STOP ATTACKING YOURSELF LIKE THIS.

Indeed, when you realize that nothing at all has been attacking you OTHER THAN YOURSELF, through your mis-use of your power and will, you can find relief in knowing that if you would just stop hurting your own self, stop giving away your power so that you can be indirectly attacked by yourself, stop disowning responsibility for CAUSING, for CHOOSING, you would stop suffering entirely, and forever. Because NO ONE HAS POWER OVER YOU OTHER THAN YOURSELF! And no-one and nothing can ever cause you to suffer, to be sick, or to die without your consent.

"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."

"I want the peace of God." W185

There's over 100 references in ACIM to "the peace of God". Years ago I wouldn't have thought that peace is something I want. It wasn't a priority. I just wanted all the stupid people to go away, lol.

But the more I've done the course the more it's becoming apparent that peace is very central to the experience I SHOULD be having.

I had a dream a few years ago which showed me an example of extraordinary peace.

In the dream there was a small outdoor scene with some trees and a wild grassy area, and a sort of sky with clouds, although the clouds seemed to be very nearby.

The clouds parted and as they did, they took on an extraordinary emerald green color, rich and vibrant and beautiful. An opening appeared and there floated in, from beyond the clouds, were a pair of beautiful orbs of light, which seemed to be radiating life and light and coloring the landscape as they went.

These orbs were spheres, and glowed gently from within. It wasn't like a dazzling light, just a soft glow. They seemed mostly transparent, and about the size of a bowling ball.

The two orbs floated very slowly and quietly past where I stood, and continued to float on forward, under their own will. But the thing that really struck me was the quality of the atmosphere and how it felt.

The orbs were alive, and were aware, and were extremely peaceful. They seemed to have no ounce of a sense of attack or irritation or disturbance. They were so incredibly calm and quiet, so perfectly innocent, holy even.

They could not not have been more pure, more simple, or more beautiful. They just glided along softly together, as though accompanying each other, and were perfectly unhurried and peaceful.

That's about where the dream ends. But I still think back on it and, when I do, I feel that same peace, and it becomes an inspiration. As I think about what that felt like, I can draw a number of ideas from it.

A total lack of all conflict, a total absence of war, a total lack of any sense of fighting or disturbance or angry aggression. A total innocence, so pure and gentle and simple, like it was just born from God.

No sense of irritation, or annoyance, or frustration or any kind of bitterness or resentment. No sense of guilt or sin or shame or unworthiness. Not the slightest speck of inflammation or agitation or interruption of any kind.

Perfectly calm and tranquil, with no force or pressure, no sense of threat or danger, no concern or worry or doubt or fear. Nothing complicated or distorted, no denial or rejection, no defences, and absolutely no sense of urgency.

Just total calm and total peace and total simple being. Total freedom, total beautiful innocent simplicity, and total calm gentle joy.

This I feel is what I really want, and what we all want. And it highlights how all these things that were absent - are all things that we are so accustomed to living with and tolerating. All the ego emotions and hurts, all the fighting and war and conflict, all the fear and guilt. All of it has to go.

I used to think somehow that the pinnacle of human experience might be some kind of heroic role in which we have superpowers and can do whatever we want, flying around the room with a cloak on. But this ego fantasy of being the savior to wretched peasants is being replaced with a simpler goal of humbleness and quiet.

And when all of that stuff goes, stuff that we think is normal and commonplace, all the sense of separation and tension and conflict goes with it. And what is left is just this lovely extremely calm peacefulness, lacking all sense of something being wrong in any way.

Perhaps that's what we are really. Just simple orbs of light floating around calmly and happily, in total surrender and total contentment, with no enemies and no reasons for concern. Just being at peace with God. Free and alive, floating along with not a care in the world.

The thing about idol worship, is that it puts you down.

You can't put someone or something up on a pedestal without diminishing your own value.

Jesus speaks to this many times in ACIM where, for example, we give a gift to another person that we think they 'deserve' or are 'worthy of' and this values them at equality with that gift, and so basically says "you're only worth a box of chocolates".

And our society is actually quite hell bent on putting things up on pedestals, making us chase after objects and possessions and statuses that we seem to exalt 'above us' to make them seem special. All the while making those idols hared to reach and kept apart, in order to give them their appeal and addictive qualities. But if they are special and golden, it's only because we're not.

"We are not worthy" comes to mind, as an idol-worshipping mantra.

So all of industry is pushing this idea that you don't deserve the good stuff because you suck, and yet you should want the good stuff - the big flat screen Tv's on Black Friday - because then you've claimed a right to such treasures. And somehow they are now cherished toys to radiate and beam about. Because you're not as worthy as a television.

Similarly you can't be in a position where you are putting Jesus up on a pedestal without diminishing your birthright of being His equal. It puts you down and positions you as perpetually separate from Him.

Idolizing anyone or anything is a strange psychological condition where you praise and adore and exalt this thing to be so magnificently above you, hoping that it will somehow shower you with its mighty blessings that you barely deserve, all the while diminishing your sense of worth.

Eventually if the 'leader' that you are following becomes such an icon, you turn into a worthless sheep who can't even recognize their own value. In the ego's reasoning, the best idol worshippers are those who believe they will never allow themselves to take anything away from the idol, and so will sacrifice themselves as an offering, hoping to be ignored and attacked, and to then turn around and thank them for doing it.

Nothing is more worthy than a Child of God, which you are.

You know sometimes when you're doing something on a computer and there's a progress bar, and sometimes there are actually two progress bars - overall progress and the progress of one of many smaller tasks? Well I think it's kind of like that with forgiveness too.

There is an overall progress which slowly evolves along similar steps to how each individual forgiveness progresses, but it goes a lot slower. This means that in general, you will start out really strongly believing that forgiveness has something to do with other people, that it's their fault, that you have to forgive them in some way.

Then gradually you will pull away from that and start to realize that it's not really about other people, it's about you. Each time something happens, over time you are a little less convinced that you're starting out with someone else being the problem. So you sort of start a little further along the process.

Each time you do a small forgiveness, each time you tackle some individual issue, and you take it all the way to it being forgiven, you are sort of practicing. You wear away at the rock of sin. And then you do another one, and another one.

What I've seen is that as a result of all these practices, all these forgiveness of individual events and people and situations, in the big long-term picture my mind seems to be gradually moving its 'starting position' away from others and more toward myself.

Instead of falling for some of the more obvious ego traps that convince and tempt me to believe that it's all someone else's fault, there's been a progression where I at least don't fall for those basic starting illusions as easily. I start my forgivenesses a bit further along the process.

Lately I've been encroaching more closely on the idea that forgiveness has nothing at all to do with other people. Instead I'm seeing that there is stuff going on in my own mind, a conflict between two parts of my own split mind, and that I play both the role of victim and victimizer. Whatever way I am using my mind to judge or attack others, I see that this is just my own mind content playing out, there's activity in my own mind about myself, and I'm doing this to myself. I am sort of learning that I can completely ignore any suggestion that this upset has anything to do with other people.

So I think gradually we erode this overall attitude of unforgiveness, we gradually chop down trees and the forest starts to clear. We keep winning little battles and gradually we're winning the war, so to speak. I am much quicker now to recognize that my issues have nothing to do with other people, and can quickly jump over the whole emotional drama tangle of "they are doing this to me", "I'm a victim of them", "I don't want this etc". I've had to take that illusion, that perceptual fault, so many times that I guess I've learned, overall, or have become able to generalize that learning, so that I just kind of 'know it' now.

I think this is really how things progress. I can well imagine that as time continues to unfold I will just keep having fewer reactions, less belief in victimhood, less fear, that I will fall for illusions less, that I will inevitably gradually be sustaining a certain level of 'awareness' and 'wakefulness' which acts as the starting point for any further corrections that are needed.

We wake up gradually. We make progress. And once we've done enough of the undoing of the grosser, more ego-extreme aspects of our mistaken perceptions, we will learn and won't be so easily fooled by them. Then it will come down to the subtler aspects of what's happening, what I'm doing to myself, how my mind is functioning, as we gradually 'home in' on revealing to our awareness what the simple truth really is about us.

And someday we'll realize, there is nothing left to forgive, and forgiveness isn't even needed, because now we are in a permanently forgiving attitude with Holy Spirit that shows us a forgiven world all the time. Ultimately there is nothing to forgive when you get to that point because you're seeing clearly, and really you were only ever forgiving your mistaken belief that there was something wrong that needed to be undone. Nothing has really happened. We're all doing fine. Congratulations on your progress.

What is more important?

To spend huge amounts of time studying and analyzing sickness to try to describe all the ways that it is behaving and all the possible causes and all the remedies that may or may not work, only to likely just apply a bandaid that barely conceals the damage and doesn't really improve the situation long-term...

or

To fricking heal the problem once and for all in its entirety right NOW?

How about being DONE with sickness instead of dwelling on it? How about an immediate healing miracle which SOLVES the problem without fuss of fanfare and without the need to constantly dwell on or tolerate or suffer from all the justifications for why this sickness has to remain?

God has the power to heal anything. And provision has been made for how we can accomplish this healing by working with Holy Spirit. And Holy Spirit can and will heal anything in an instant.

The ego loves for us to lament on how long a sickness has been around, for how long we've had to suffer with it, all the reasons why it can't be cured, all the explanation for what is happening, the laundry list of artificial causes, the big long story about how all of this suffering wasn't asked for in victimhood, all the depth and detail of medical history that everyone loves to dwell on etc.

The ego also loves the fact that the ego has made sure there are no real 'cures' in its world of suffering. The cure would be the undoing of the ego, the restoration of God's will and the complete healing and wholeness brought back into demonstration. The ego will not allude to or align with that. It will instead come up with ways to KEEP the suffering, maintain the sickness, not address the real problem, avoid cause (God), and patch it up with archaic, bizarre, blind 'medical treatments' which may or may not help, and often can have fatal side effects.

The ego would trade one sickness for another, it would have you accept a new problem as an alternative to the one you had, wagering that if you do so you will be better off. It has no cures. It has no hope for your continuation of life. It wants you dead.

God has another answer. God has miracles. God can heal. And God is not interested in any illusions that talk about how serious or difficult or long-lasting or incurable a sickness is. God simply heals, completely, now. God is permanent health. Divine health. And we are actually entitled to experience and demonstrate divine health 'in the body' in this world even if it's an ego illusory world. We CAN bring divine healing to our own body and that of others, here in this crazy dream, even if that is not the ultimate goal of awakening. God doesn't want us to suffer.

The only reason we have stupid contracts of suffering and 'scripts' in which we're supposed to learn certain lessons, is because we want to take our sweet time in suffering and going through experiences in order to slowly accept God. But God is available for complete acceptance right now. And God wants to heal completely right now. And God has made it possible, through the Holy Spirit, to heal all sickness right now, regardless of whether people are even anywhere remotely ready to wake up yet and regardless of whether they are riddled with sin.

God just wants to love. We're the ones who think we're supposed to suffer with valid reasons to do so. And we're quite capable of being extenders of God's healing power, even while we're in this strange world.

Isn't it time we stopped focusing on sickness and all the reasons for it and all the explanations of it and all the ways to attack it that don't really heal, and to instead spend at least as much time focusing on learning how to work with God to permanently erase this problem forever? What do you want? A life of torment or a life or joy and gratitude?

Doctors, dentists, hospitals, clinics, nurses, pharmacies, they're all substitutes for a disconnection from God and an unawareness of His divine intervention. We are severely out of touch with the Holy Spirit. We are severely disempowered. We need to get plugged back into the source of LIFE!

One of the difficult things about trusting Holy Spirit is the idea of 'showing up' empty handed and not knowing what the heck to do, and yet things still working out 'in the moment'.

Usually our minds are filled with all kinds of predictive, planning thoughts which try to know, beforehand, what needs to be known in order to do whatever it is that needs to be done, at the time. And we won't budge if we don't know what's going to happen first, because we're afraid.

When Holy Spirit asks me to write my book for example, I hesitate with thoughts like "I don't know what to write" or "what will I write about". And then Holy Spirit will keep on reminding/suggesting, "book, book, book". And I will keep on protesting mentally, "what shall I do". What He really wants me to do is to just stop the mental chatter and sit down and start writing AND THEN in the moment, in the flow, in the spontaneous present, HE IS THERE, and He helps me write.

So then it ends up being, I didn't need to know, by myself, what to do beforehand, because by `just doing it` was an invitation to Spirit to join with me in the PRESENT and support me and help me spontaneously and unrehearsed.

Going to do something when you have to put aside all notion of knowing what it is you will do, and all plans, and all sense of "I can only do this IF I know what will do"... its very exposing. It makes me feel empty-handed and blindfolded and clueless. It doesn't exactly support a concept of ego confidence. It's more like, I have to `just do it` anyway with a tremendous call to have COURAGE and FAITH and TRUST.

So when Holy Spirit is urging you to do something, I think we have to remember to trust that He WILL be there in the moment with us and He WILL be helping us and he WILL be working through us. It's like you have to take the leap first AND THEN the wings appear. You act 'as if' you will have all the support in the world and then it shows up.

This is difficult to learn, because I'm so used to ... hah... being in control. Lol, (thanks HS for that insert). So used to being in the drivers seat and relying on prior learning (the past) and thinking (lol) that I can only do anything if it's been premeditated and planned out. This is an ongoing lesson for me and probably for many people, because the ego is basically the thing that comes between surrender/letting go and being too afraid to make a move when you can't yet see the safety net - a safety net that you don't even really NEED when Holy Spirit goes with you. "If you knew Who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be impossible" - ACIM

The ego doesn't understand how to put trust/faith/spirit first and to expect support from outside of itself. It doesn't know how to let itself be abundantly supported or to be included in a bigger plan not of its own making. Holy Spirit has a plan. But it calls for us to step OUT of our own plan and our own controls - letting go of controlling all outcomes - so that we can step into the spontaneous flow of Spirit directing us and moving through us and healing through us. Which reminds me of this wonderful ACIM quote:

"I am here only to be truly helpful.

I am here to represent Him Who sent me.

I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do,

because He Who sent me will direct me.

I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.

I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal." - ACIM

To just show up, ready, willing, available, to be directed and used by Spirit, with no prior agenda, with perfect willingness and readiness, as an agent of God, without necessarily knowing or needing to know who/what/where/why/how ... that's what I/we need to get to. To go around doing God's will, working miracles, healing people, teaching and inspiring people, being moved by Spirit and supported in 'supernatural' ways. We need to learn to trust in Spirit's support and that, if we leap first, then we will find the power to fly.