In the beginning of the ACIM Workbook, we're instructed to look around the room and tell ourselves, indiscriminately, that this thing we're looking at doesn't mean anything. And we're asked not to be selective in what we apply it to, applying it to everything equally. This EQUALIZING is what's important.

I'm finding that this basic idea is core to the process of mind training in order to awaken from this world. Basically, our minds have become very used to fragmenting everything into separate boxes, with separate labels.

We become blinded by perception of form, and we take the form of something to determine its meaning. Yet we've given it all the meaning it has. Differences and shifts and changes all seem to stand out as separate and exclusive. One thing is not another etc. And before you know it we have 1000 different responses to 1000 different things and never are we simple unconditional.

But the mind is not supposed to be in this kind of viewpoint, with a massive complicated hierarchy of illusions, with multiple different reactions and responses, treating one thing differently to another, adapting and changing based on circumstances etc. These are all unnatural for the mind which must be unconditionally constant in order to be healthy.

As we peruse the room and identify that one different seeming object is really to be treated no differently than another, we're beginning the process of collapsing the hierarchy of illusions, undoing the belief in separation, dispelling the illusion that one thing is NOT the same as another, and are gradually reprogramming the mind to be less conditional.

For me a huge way this has recently come to light is in the idea of the death of a body. On the physical level the ego world says that a body has been utterly destroyed and irreversibly erased from existence. But on the spiritual level the person still persists in eternal life. And they can't both be true.

Given that God would never allow one of his immortal creations to ever be destroyed, and there is no power greater than God's to overthrow his will, death is an absolute lie. The body's demise means absolutely nothing. It does not mean a person is dead, it does not mean God's son is destroyed, and it does not imply anything. Death is ultimately meaningless.

"The death of an illusion means nothing."

So then if you look at this closely and see that death cannot have a meaning, it causes nothing and has no effect, it is completely meaningless. And this then means that it doesn't MEAN anything DIFFERENT to a living body. And both of those bodies do not really mean anything.

"Nothing I see means anything."

It's in this erasing of the MEANING of separation, whereby you isolate something and give it a different unique meaning compared to something else, that the mind begins to split and fragment. Believing in separation plays out as believing the seeming messages we get from separate different objects.

It's as though the whole of physical unreality is screaming constantly to tell you that this one thing IS NOT another thing, this thing is NOT the same, this thing has unique properties, this one's red and that one's green, this one's bigger, that one's smaller etc. All constantly tempting you to believe that EVERYTHING is separate. And this couldn't be more OPPOSITE to how the mind is supposed to function.

When we see objects meaning something unique we are deceived by illusion, blinded by form, deceived by temptation, lost in a dream, and find our mind to be imprisoned. When we EQUALIZE forms and give them the SAME meaning, recognizing they have NO meaning of their own, that's when mind is entering a state of unconditionality, which means love.

"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."

So then we look at a body that seems dead and we do not assign it any meaning. And we look at bodies which seem alive and we do not assign them any meaning. And we recognize that both types of bodies are not really different in their meaning, or in what they are. They are both illusions, both unreal, both in ONE category.

Consider then that the mind in this state is a very cohesive whole unified mind. It's not a mind that goes putting labels on everything, putting things in separate boxes, emphasizing differences, or thinking of the things of the physical world as unique.

It's a mind that has ONE state, one feeling, one undivided will, one power, one wholeness, one unconditional action. It treats everyone and everything with the same singular completely still peaceful loving relationship. It responds to everything in the same way, and sees no "orders of difficulty".

Such a mind is not deceived by forms. Such a mind does not really pay any special attention to things which seem different, more important, less important, more serious, less serious. It has learned to see that both living and dead bodies are the same one illusion, the same one lie.

On a way then, the waking mind is finding a way to be whole and unmoved by the world, always constant and honest, always peaceful and loving. It doesn't buy into any temptations, it doesn't fall for the appearance of something seeming easier or harder, bigger or heavier. It finds a way to transcend all differences. And it really is about psychological transcendence. Completely disregarding the appearance of any differences of form whatsoever.

Such a mind isn't finding a way to see that the forms are ONE, or that God is the forms. It isn't finding oneness in them as such. It's transcending them toward the oneness that is behind and beyond them, a oneness that the forms don't even touch or influence in any way.

Because mind becomes whole and unified and loving and disregards differences, it sees in a sense a "reflection of heaven" - a unified transcendental perception - looking upon the physical separate objects still but NOT believing them, NOT falling for their forms, NOT blinded, NOT regarding them as truly different or true at all. But seeing them with a unified mind can't help but see unity IN PLACE of the differences, reflected there.

Cars are still separately driving down separate roads. Bodies are still separately walking down separate streets. Dogs are still barking at separate cats. But the healed mind is not deceived by how any of these things look. The healed mind becomes transcendental of all separate forms, all separate labels, all separate distinctions and differences.

So really in the start of the Workbook we're basically in at the deep end, starting off running, because we're already practicing this simple idea - getting the mind to wean off interacting with the world from a complicated chaotic jumble of vantage points, and shifting toward a singular vantage point which pays no attention to form whatsoever.

Its an odd idea really. Adopting a state of mind which is centered on a singular oneness, and unchanging wholeness, an unconditional love, rather than being 1000 separate things to 1000 separate people. Just being you, knowing thyself, unmoved and unchanged and unaffected. Simple and unified. Ignoring all separations and divisons. Having no belief in the false illusion of the material world at all. A wholeness of mind from another world.

"And what more transcendent aim can there be than to recall the Way, the Truth and the Life, and to remember God?"

"Reality is changeless. It is this that MAKES it real, and KEEPS it separate from all appearances. It MUST transcend all form to be itself. It CANNOT change."

"The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but by transcendence. For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom."

"Would you transcend YOUR prison and ascend to the Father?"

"Communion comes with peace, and peace MUST transcend the body."

"Then lay aside the body and quietly TRANSCEND it, rising to welcome what you REALLY want. And from His holy temple look you not back on what you have awakened FROM. For no illusions CAN attract the minds that have TRANSCENDED them, and left them far behind."

Sometimes, we can use the truth to deny what we really believe. We can say, ok in theory I get it, there is no world, people are not bodies, death isn't real, sickness is a lie etc. It all makes sense. But, that doesn't mean we really really deep down believe it. If we really believed it we wouldn't be here in sick bodies trying to die.

So then the truth is that at this time, right now, we do believe in death and sickness and that people are bodies. We can bring in the truth as a concept that people are not bodies, and that which gets sick is not really a person, and if the body dies the person hasn't really died. But at the same time the mind is still actually believing that people are bodies that get sick and die, and that still generates suffering. I'm doing the course, but life still sucks, and this is why.

Given that we do believe all kinds of lies, all kinds of mistakes, all kinds of illusions and falsehoods, as if they are real, we could be using these higher loftier truths, these theories, to hide from how we're doing right now. We could be hiding behind it and using it as a shield to cover up and deny and not look at and not recognize what we ACTUALLY believe right now. More of a spiritualised-ego wishful thinking, in love with the ideas but not living it.

I suppose that's some kind of a "bypass". We are giving lip service and partial belief to something higher, but are then using it to deceive ourselves into thinking that we no longer believe anything else. As if just by getting it intellectually that's going to undo all of our investment and belief and commitment to suffering and death. And doing a few lessons is going to fix it overnight. And just because I read some text it means I have no ego left.

There is in fact part of me still that does believe, for example, that my wife was a body, and that the body became horribly sick, so sick that it died completely, and now she is dead. That's an actual ongoing belief that I have, even if I strive towards higher truths that death is not real and she is still living in Spirit eternally. And that belief does still generate suffering.

Avoiding the fact that we do still believe in all kinds of ego bullshit, is a way to keep those beliefs protected. Covered over with a layer of garnish in the form of higher truths and platitudes. We keep telling ourselves we don't believe these things over and over again but deep down we still do.

And so the ego uses the truth to hide the lies, and keep them as sacred treasures. We can look and sound and seem all spiritual and as though we're clever at grasping metaphysics and are doing the lessons and all that to try to wake up. But it can easily be used by the ego, which is totally committed to the reality of death, to avoid admitting to what we DO believe. We're perfectly adept at using ACIM to add another layer of denial over everything the ego treasures in order to keep it going.

We do believe in suffering and death and sickness and pain and misery. We do believe Earth is reality and is God's cruel creation. We do believe that death is salvation and suffering is atonement. We do believe that guilt is justified and fear is totally rational. We do believe that we're not safe and that we are in constant danger. We do believe that the death of a body is an absolute loss of a part of reality that can never be regained.

We can't get past these beliefs if we aren't willing to at least admit that we do believe them. And we can't get past it by just going into denial and trying to take on a higher truth in order to COVER OVER those beliefs and pretend they're not there. A thorough investigation of what you DO believe in all honesty is required, to at least admit that you DO believe in it, in order to change your mind. Otherwise why would you bother.

This is also why Jesus says that we are supposed to admit that we DO believe the separation from God happened, that we DO believe we are a body, that we DO believe in things going wrong. But only so that we can THEN, in light of that, realize that we need and want to do something to correct it, and can properly undo those beliefs. If we just cover it up, Jesus refers it to a "misuse of denial".

"The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay." UrT2E50

So we do need to accept at least temporarily that we do not want anything to do with God. That we DO believe we are separate from God living apart from him devoid of him and that we do not want him. We hate God and want him dead. We have these beliefs. We find ourselves in spacetime in a human body pretending to be flesh and bones and believing this it is what we really are. We have to admit that this is our position if we want to get out of it. We can't get out of it by just hammering ourselves with theories and statements about what is true while keeping these beliefs going.

For me, I recently looked at this and recognised that I do in fact believe I am separate from God. And therefore, because of that, I need to now find a way to return to God. Almost like the very beginning of the journey, starting from scratch. It was as though I hadn't wanted to look at the fact that I did squarely believe in being separate, and had spent years avoiding that belief and pretending that I didn't believe it.

What keeps us from awakening and reality is the hidden desires we have to want nothing to do with it, and that has to be uncovered and relinquished. In effect, we don't get to God by just trying to go there, we have to unshackle ourselves from the chains that bind us to hell first. The ego commitment to death and the fact that you do want to die, has to be looked at. You want the opposite of God, which is why you're here in the first place. Just smothering that with shiny icing isn't going to make it go away.

Similarly in grief and loss I was not feeling happy, and had to admit that I was not happy, and that therefore because I wanted something else i wanted to be happy. And that was a stepping stone to seeking out that happiness, and realising that God is that happiness. I might not have done that if I would have kept pretending that I was happy. I didn't want to admit I was not happy because I thought that was "being more ego", but in fact it's merely admitting to how much ego I already believe in. I was trying to cover it over with denial and illusions of truth and fanciful ideas and lofty metaphysics.

We have to realise we're in the shitty stinky pig-pen if we want to realise that you're the prodigal son and want to go home. The way out of hell requires realising that you're in there in the first place. And the fact is that most of us in the world are so in denial that we don't even believe we're really suffering at all. Suffering has to be recognised AS suffering before you'll be willing to want something else. So long as it is kept hidden behind an illusion of the truth, you'll keep it going.

You are attacking victims with your false empathy. It's time for some honesty.

When you see someone as a victim, such as that they are sick, diseased, suffering, afraid, being victimized by someone else, are disabled, weak, helpless, vulnerable, at a loss, unhappy etc... you might take the position of caring, wanting to help them, saving them, being their hero, or wanting their suffering to stop.

The desire to want their suffering to stop can become very strong. It seems justified. It seems like you care a lot about what they're going through and want all this stuff to stop happening to them. It seems like you want to take it away and that you would if you could. But this is completely fake.

Every time you perceive someone as anything other than perfect love, it is an ego attack and you are using them as a scapegoat to get rid of your sin.

It can seem like your reaction to their victimhood is justified. It can seem like you really want to help them and take away their pain. However, what you're not admitting is that you have a secret benefit from seeing them this way, and you positioning yourself as their savior is actually a cover-up for how you are using them for your diabolical plan.

Even if you are coming across as caring and wanting them to stop suffering, you actually deep down want them to keep suffering. You want their pain to continue. You want to keep seeing them as a victim, and to keep pretending that you are their savior and not in any way someone who would be hurting them further. You would seem shocked and horrified at the suggestion that you are attacking them with your attempt at salvation.

Secretly, you have a belief that you sinned, and hold a lot of guilt to go along with it. You want to get rid of it and deny it's you who did it. Along comes a nice victim which someone or something else has set up to be in a state of suffering and punishment.

Fortunately for you, they are already appearing to be punished by causes outside of you, so you don't have any need to attack them overtly. You don't need to turn them into a victim because they are already being one. How convenient! Now all you have to do is take the opportunity of their victimhood to keep them being a victim, so that you can use them to scapegoat your sin.

Therefore instead of reacting with justified anger, as though they attacked you and you need to now establish them as the one who is wrong, you've already seen that they appear to be wrong already. So all that's left is to keep them in their suffering while making it look like you are here to save them from it.

Your perception of them as a victim IS an attack, but it seems to be an invisible attack because its effects are already implemented by circumstances. By making their EXISTING victimhood real, you get to appear as though you were not the one who did this to them, even though your AGREEING with it is just as much an attack - a veiled attack, which seems like it isn't even happening. You join in the attack by agreeing that they are a victim. Then you react instead with false empathy, a false attitude of caring and wanting them to be better.

Your desire to want them to be better, while still perceiving that their victimhood is real, is actually a choice to perceive them as wrong for being the way they are. You think they should not be being victimized, they should not be suffering, they should not be sick, that it's unfair that they've been mistreated, and you just want to "help" the poor fuckers get out of their situation.

But you don't. Your belief that they should NOT be being real victims is actually an attack. You're trying to deny them and get rid of them. You can't accept them the way they are. You will position yourself as the innocent hero who comes to save them, while secretly using them to prove that THEY are the one who is a sinner and not you.

Even though you might label a victim in such a way as to frame them as guiltless and sinless, as though innocent and not wanting their situation, by making their victimhood real and reacting to it with false empathy or false compassion, you are actually condemning them.

Your ego really wants them to stay being the one who is sick, to keep suffering, to maintain their diseases and their strife, because if they were to genuinely stop being a victim you wouldn't have a way to get rid of your unconscious sin and guilt.

So long as you can see them as a victim and pretend to care, you can enjoy a secret gladness that they are the one who is worse off and not you. "There but for the grace of God go I" - or rather, "I'm glad those fuckers are suffering because they must be guilty and not me." They are the one who must have sinned, in order to suffer, and you are clearly the one who didn't.

Even if you go to great lengths to help them and want to alleviate their situation, you're really doing so on false grounds. You do not recognize that they have attacked themselves. You do not recognize that they have chosen to suffer. You do not recognize that they want to be a victim. You don't see the ways that they are being vicious and attacking and using their ego illusions of victimhood to accuse others of sin. You do not see this because you do not want to admit to doing the same.

Eventually, someone who becomes very "helpful" in this way is actually an under-cover attacker. A wolf in sheep's clothing. A devil appearing as an angel. Helping disempowers. Helping takes away, it does not give. Becoming a fixer, and becoming addicted to fixing, simply indicates that you want other people to be broken as much as possible so that you can remain in denial about your own brokenness.

If they are the one who needs the help, it's not you. If they are the victim, it's not you. If there is something "wrong with them", then you get to look all innocent and have an illusion of being "loving". Your seemingly sincere wish to take away all their suffering and pain is actually making it real and adding to it.

YOU are causing them to suffer more. That's hard to look at and admit to. Your ego WANTS them to suffer so that you can use them and make yourself look innocent. Every time you move into false empathy and set yourself up with an ego reaction of "oh poor them, they're so sad", you are attacking them and keeping them imprisoned. You're not shining truth onto them or really helping them. Your "help" is actually HURT.

To be truly helpful can only mean that you apply forgiveness. Whatever their victimhood appears to be, IT IS NOT THAT, and something else is going on, both with you and with them. There must be a lot of denial involved and there must be a lot of self attack involved. Victims are not victims. They choose to make themselves appear to have stuff happen to them "unfairly", tragically, awfully, so that their ego can get away with murder. Your belief that their victimhood is justified and unfair is you getting away with murder as well.

Only through a correction of your perception, which is going to require you to own up to what you are using this person for, and admitting to the truth of WHY you want them to suffer, i.e. to keep your own self-attack hidden behind denial, will you then have any hope of helping YOU, OR them. You can release them from their prison by NOT agreeing with their victimhood and NOT seeing them as suffering needlessly and NOT believing the appearance of the story as to how things are happening against their will. Behind every victim is Christ pretending to suffer.

False empathy is deceit. It is not justified. It is an ego reaction. It is a tool to get rid of your own sin. It does not work, because it keeps your own sin intact and creates more. Only forgiveness of yourself will work.

It's a deadly trap to believe that you need to get that person to love you in order to prove you are lovable.

You can feel very sorry for yourself because of how other people seem to mistreat you or how they don't love you enough.

You can get into a state where you see yourself as unworthy and unlovable purely because other people don't seem to love you.

Then you will be yearning for them to love you, will try to manipulate them into loving you, will secretly want to take love from the, and will try to steal it from them, in order to get some love for yourself.

You think that if they will love you, you will feel better about yourself.

Well here's some news. It doesn't work this way.

Love has to come from God and come through you and be shared. Love is sharing. You have to share in it in order to have it, and by sharing in it you must also share it, meaning you must extend it and give it.

Now, this also leads people to another mistake which is the belief that you should always give give give in an attempt to give everyone what they want, so that you might be able to get them to give some love back to you.

This is a deadly trap as well. If you're waiting for or are dependent on other people to be the source of love for you, or to approve of you, or to give you attention, or make you be okay, or accept you, then you're going to be waiting a very long time and suffer the consequences.

Other people are not supposed to be the source of love for you. Other people are not supposed to approve of you. Other people are not supposed to accept you. Other people are not supposed to give you attention. Other people are not supposed to love you more than others. Other people are not supposed to save you. Other people are not supposed to be your savior or your idol or your hero. Other people are not where you should be receiving love from.

You can't experience love unless you are in it. You can't be in it unless you are sharing it with God because God is the only source of love. You can't share in it unless you are willing to receive it from God. You can't get it into you unless you are willing to remove all of your false beliefs which say that you don't deserve it, can't receive it, aren't good enough, or that you are in need of it. You can't share it unless you're willing to let others also receive it just as much as you. And you can't have it unless you are willing to give it away.

To your ego, giving away love means losing it, which means you are sacrificing it, which means if you give give give you will end up with none for yourself. This won't coerce others into loving you, nor will it make them love you in return in order to have an equal or fair relationship. That's bullshit. That's not a relationship, it's a bargain. Your ego needs to get out of the way if you are going to experience love.

You need to realize that God's love is infinitely abundant and always available and is unconditional and freely given to all equally, all the time. That includes you. You must be included in the love and having the love, even when you give it. If you are overflowing with God's love, from WITHIN, having received it inside of yourself directly from the source (God), then you will be so happy to share it and spread it around.

And here's the little secret. When you share and receive God's love and are open to an unlimited supply of it coming into you from Him, which He has already put there, you will have so much that even if you give it away, it will not decrease whatsoever. The secret is, that as you give real love, unconditional love, you not only get to keep that love, but the love INCREASES.

You don't need, and cannot get, love from someone else. It must come from God to you to others, in that order. If you don't feel lovable or loved, YOU are not loving yourself and YOU are not letting God love you. It's an inside job.

You will not EVER find love outside of you, and you will not EVER be loved from outside of you. "Outside of you" means separate from you, and anything separate from you is impossible to experience. You can only experience love when it is NOT separate from you, meaning it's INSIDE you, meaning God put it there and you're experiencing it where it IS.

You already have it. You just have blocks to awareness which is preventing you from accepting and allowing it. Your ego is getting in the way. It's making you believe, falsely, that you do not have love in you, cannot have love in you, don't deserve love in you, and that you are not love. YOU ARE LOVE ITSELF. You are an extension of love. How can you not be love, when Love (God) created you like Itself? You aren't going to get this love by force-feeding it from the outside in. You aren't really lacking it! You just need to UNCOVER IT, because it's already been given.

God has already given you 100% of all the love in existence. If you are blocking it, you're going to go seeking for it outside of yourself, and it will stay outside of yourself, and you will never have it that way. It's not anyone's job to love you. It's only God's function to love you, and He already has. The only part left now is your WILLINGNESS to accept and allow it and RECOGNIZE it where it is, within you, where God already put it. You are already loved, unconditionally and eternally, so if that's not what you are experiencing, YOU are blocking yourself from being loved.

It doesn't even matter if other people love you or not. Other people could be loving you 100% unconditionally and totally all the time, but you could still be shutting it out, ignoring it, rejecting it, and not believing you deserve it. How are you going to get that love into you if your entire reason for trying to find it out there is because you don't really believe you deserve it? No-one can give it to you if you don't allow it to be in you, and to allow it to be in you is to accept it from God.

Love has already been shared with you. Love is already available permanently. Love is what you are really made of. You can't not be loved or lovable or loving. But you can pretend, and you can cover it up, and you can be in denial. That simply means you need to uncover all these ways that you keep love from yourself. It's not because other people are keeping love from you, it's YOU that does not really want it. You say you do, but evidently you don't, or you would accept it from God right now.

God loves you. Just so you know.

When we all love each other, it means that we have love within us, because we are love, and are sharing that love, NOT BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE NEED IT, because they also have the love coming from God within themselves. To love everyone is not to substitute for their belief in lack, or to love them FOR them, or to force love upon them. We all are responsible for and naturally function as extenders of GOD'S LOVE, because God is the only source of love that's real. Access your own unique connection to Him, your own relationship, and heal it, so that you can experience love again.

The below quotes are from sections about true perception and how it works while still in a body.

It speaks of how the body's eyes STILL see what seems to be an "outside world" of differences, forms, bodies, places.

However, the mind is responsible for INTERPRETING, the messages which come in FROM the body's eyes. The body's eyes can ONLY look upon the physical world of form and never has real vision. The body's eyes cannot look past the world of forms and differences. So it is up to the mind to determine whether the "signals" coming to it are TRUE, or FALSE.

ONLY THE MIND PERCEIVES, not the eyes! Perception is not about what the body's eyes see AT ALL. The body's eyes just collect "data" and send it to the mind to evaluate. The body's eyes cannot ADJUST to anything. They cannot "see differently". They cannot change perception.

They can ONLY LOOK AT the world you made as hell. The physical form of the Earth. They cannot and do not INTERPRET what they see, because they were made to FIXATE ON FORM. They are neutral. They do not "see lovingly" nor do they "see hatefully" or fearfully.

A healed mind will put all such signals into a category of "false", *recognizing* that *everything* the body's eyes "see" is an ILLUSION. It recognizes they are ALL UNREAL.

The body's eyes at this point are still "seeing" the forms of the physical world. But the MIND, which is responsible for SEEING, is now seeing with forgiveness and recognizing that the physical world is ENTIRELY illusion. That every signal coming from the body is FALSE, and therefore totally unreal.

This is why in TRUE PERCEPTION, you STILL SEE the world, the bodies, the world events, all the same as before, but your MIND interprets the whole thing as FALSE, because it sees with the whole truth.

As stated below, reality is without size, shape, time or place and differences DO NOT exist in it. Heaven has no forms. And so in comparison to this, a mind aware of the truth knows that all forms, shapes, times and places are NOT reality. And so such a a mind perceives that the physical world of forms is NOT REAL.

Note it is also clear here that PERCEPTION is not about what the BODY'S EYES SEE, it is a function of the mind which either mistakenly interprets those "visual" signals and thinks that some of it is real, or correctly interprets those signals entirely as unreal. This is why you must not "believe your eyes" at all.

"M-8.3. Where do all these differences come from? 2 Certainly they seem to be in the world outside. 3 Yet it is surely the mind that judges what the eyes behold. 4 It is the mind that interprets the eyes' messages and gives them "meaning." 5 And this meaning does not exist in the world outside at all.

What is seen as "reality" is simply what the mind prefers. 7 Its hierarchy of values is projected outward, and it sends the body's eyes to find it. 8 The body's eyes will never see except through differences. 9 Yet it is not the messages they bring on which perception rests. 10 Only the mind evaluates their messages, and so only the mind is responsible for seeing. 11 It alone decides whether what is seen is real or illusory, desirable or undesirable, pleasurable or painful."

"M-8.6. The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. 4 But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal. 5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all illusions is truth."

Notice also that in terms of "projection makes perception", the quotes above state that the mind projects its hierarchy of values and preferences outward, THEN it sends the body's eyes to try to "see" that, the body now looks only at the FORM of the physical world, sends back signals of its physical nature, the mind is now FILTERING that signal through its belief system of values/hierarchy/preference, and only SELECTS what it wants to allow into awareness. This is described here:

"What perception sees and hears appears to be real because it permits into awareness only what conforms to the wishes of the perceiver. This leads to a world of illusions, a world which needs constant defense precisely because it is not real....When you have been caught in the world of perception you are caught in a dream."

Remember that perception is a function of the MIND, not the eyes. So here, the mind is filtering through its perception, its interpretation of body signals, what it wants the signals to mean. It only allows into awareness, the root of the perceptual system, that which makes it through the filter.

Therefore if the mind has false perception ie false interpretation and projections of filtering beliefs in attack etc, it is now MIS-perceiving and hallucinating a distorted version of the visual signals it's getting from the eyes, and READING INTO them, and EXCLUDING what it does not want to look at, in order to make it SEEM as though it's seeing the reality it PREFERS. "Perception SELECTS and makes the world you see." But the "world you see" is happening in your MIND, in your perceptual interpretation function, regardless of the world that is "out there".

Here is some additional material:

"Reason will tell you that the form of error is not what makes it a mistake. 2 If what the form conceals is a mistake, the form cannot prevent correction. 3 The body's eyes see only form. 4 They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. 5 And they were made to look on error and not see past it. 6 Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. 7 To this distorted form of vision the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true. 8 Yet how can sight that stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? 9 It is held back by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived."

"These eyes, made not to see, will never see. 2 For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. 3 What was its maker's goal but not to see? 4 For this the body's eyes are perfect means, but not for seeing. 5 See how the body's eyes rest on externals and cannot go beyond. 6 Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. 7 Nothing so blinding as perception of form. 8 For sight of form means understanding has been obscured."

"Only mistakes have different forms, and so they can deceive. 2 You can change form because it is not true. 3 It could not be reality because it can be changed. 4 Reason will tell you that if form is not reality it must be an illusion, and is not there to see. 5 And if you see it you must be mistaken, for you are seeing what can not be real as if it were. 6 What cannot see beyond what is not there must be distorted perception, and must perceive illusions as the truth. 7 Could it, then, recognize the truth?"

The "physical world", exists only IN false perception. This is why the body's eyes can see it. The body's eyes are rooted in false perception permanently.

"Everything the body sees is an illusion."

"These eyes made not to see will never see."

"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."

"Eyes perceive falsely"

The world is like a veil that hangs in front of the face of Christ to block your vision. It must be seen THROUGH and past, which is what it means to OVERLOOK it, which IS forgiveness.

When you overlook the world, and look to the light beyond all forms and bodies, the light of the real world, you will become UNABLE to see the world. At its peak, christ vision makes the veil become totally invisible, the world is utterly forgotten, and it disappears.

You only become able to see the physical world by LOWERING your "frequency" to one less loving, causing you to enter into illusions and start to allow them into your mind, making them real, causing you to "see them". Without false perception, you CANNOT SEE the false world. And you cannot see BOTH the false world and the true world in their simultaneous entirety.

"The world you see (the false world) must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."

"You cannot behold the world and know God."

In order TO see the real world, the TRUE world, you have to make the false world - Earth, FALSE, and not believe it's TRUE, otherwise you are making NO distinction between what is true and false and are CONFUSED (ego). Only by being clear about what is true and what is false, or what is good and what is evil, can you DISCERN with accurate (true) perception what is REAL and what is UNREAL.

The world that exists ONLY in false perception, DOES NOT exist in true perception. In true perception you see the real world, in which there ARE no streets, buildings, houses, shopping malls, street lights, not even night and day, and not even the sun and the earth.

If you want to see the face of christ, you have to LET GO OF this world. You have to access the spiritual eye and use christ vision. And you have to see PAST physical matter, IGNORING IT. Making it unreal to yourself. Recognizing it as false. Realizing it IS just an illusory world, not a real world. It is by recognizing that illusions ARE NOT REAL, that you transition from false to true perception. True perception recognizes what is real and what is illusion.

You cannot forgive the world and keep the world. "A world forgiven cannot last." You can ONLY forgive that which is an ILLUSION, and see through its illusory nature to the truth beyond it. Doing this makes the illusion DISAPPEAR. Forgiving the world UNDOES it, and makes it disappear. You cannot SEE IT when you see the face of Christ. Because then, the world is forgotten entirely.

In the following quotes, Jesus outlines clearly why you CANNOT see BOTH worlds at once, in full. And sight of one REQUIRES that you NOT SEE the other. You cannot therefore keep both heaven and Earth, you have to choose one or the other. And ONLY one of the two is real.

"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought that gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, ****where all the world must disappear**** and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."

"***The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it***, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when ***all things visible will have an end.***"

"The world as YOU perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is NOT as you see it. God created ONLY the eternal, and ***everything YOU see is perishable***. Therefore, there must be another world which you do NOT see."

"The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive ***nothing ELSE***. For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM."

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; ***the world forgotten***, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream"

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as ***nothing more than just a fragile veil***, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now ****it cannot fail to disappear****, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant ***is the world forgot***, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." ***This world you see MUST BE DENIED***, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. ***YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS.*** For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. ***The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER.***

***Both are not true***, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you IS unequal. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it.

This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all."

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that 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 healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal. This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. And of these two, but one is real. Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. The one answer to all illusions is truth."

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

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

We may not think that people are trying to destroy themselves. People can seem relatively happy, fairly sane, living a seemingly active life, enjoying success in their career, raising families and so on. But the fact of what is happening in the big picture is still there.

God's Kingdom is the realm of creation, of the constructive use of the power of the mind. It is there that life is wholeheartedly supported and sustained eternally. Any degree of suffering or sickness is completely impossible. Everyone enjoys perfection and eternal life and immortality.

But in the separation, all who participated in it did reject the Kingdom, and thus rejected immortality and perfection. This rejection of God was a rejection of life, a rejection of innocence, and a rejection of existence. It thus led to a death wish, or a desire to not create. The opposite of creation is destruction, and it was the destruction of God and Self that was the aim.

"The world was made as an attack on God."

"The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."

"This is a dream of death."

And so we entered into dreaming, in which all dreams are based in the rejection of creation and life. And so all dreams are dreams of death. And the physical universe is a system of death. All its laws are based on death, and all its roads lead to death.

We seem to have a seeming escape for a while, a kind of in-between state where we have a "life", before we die. But this is still essentially a period of dying. And it still leads to the grave, which is something we can deny and avoid but this denial doesn't stop it happening.

Nevertheless, this all only happens as a result of choosing death, ie choosing the opposite of creation. Choosing to not be with God. Which means choosing self destruction.

So if you are willing to look, you'll notice that everyone who is here is in various degrees or stages of self attack and punishment. This is not something pretty to look at. Many people are so riddled with guilt they can't even look you in the eye.

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its power declines if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel."

"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end?"

Why does this happen? It happens because each individual person believes they are a sinner. And in whatever way, somewhere in the mind there is a belief that sin is real and true, has happened, has had real irreversible consequences, and that they can never return to God.

But even moreso, we believe we actively deserve to be punished for it. That we want the punishment and want to suffer, because it is expected of us and we agree with it. And so the people inflict self attack upon themselves in all manner of ways and this eventually leads to the death of the body. And all of this is chosen and self inflicted. And if it were not for this, there would be no suffering or sickness or death.

The simple thing to realize then is that this whole world is filled with people who are trying to die. "a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die." Where we come to hate a while, wither and die. Jesus doesn't pull any punches on this stuff, he's very blunt about it.

So you've got a world full of sacrificial lambs, people destroying themselves in various ways, all manner of self attack, and all of it is essentially suicide. "You cannot die unless you choose to do so." "No one dies without their own consent." Which means that all of the sickness, all suffering, all forms of unhappiness, all death, is all a choice made by people who believe they deserve it.

Except that, they don't deserve it. No-one does. No one deserves suffering even if it's an illusion of suffering. No one deserves to be punished in any way. No one deserves to have to go through any kind of psychological hell or experience of pain or disfigurement or disability or disease. These are all forms of self abuse. Every single example is someone trying to hurt themselves.

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

We're a world filled with self attacking, self hurting, self abusing, self harming, self destructive, self sabotaging, self denying, self hating, self loathing, self corrupting people, all of whom think they deserve to suffer because they're guilty. But they're not really guilty, and the ENTIRE thing is just one huge mistake.

Sin is not real, or possible. Meaning attack on God is not real or possible. Meaning there is never justification for guilt, meaning there is never a PURPOSE for suffering, to inflict just desserts or due justified punishment. There is never a valid grounds for unhappiness or disease or depression or anything less than God's will that we be happy and healthy. The whole thing is a giant mistake.

So all that's really happening is that everyone is seriously mistaken, confused, lacking recognition, insane, unclear, uncertain, afraid, not sure of anything, and really kind of lost in a nightmare of their own making. All as a result of denial and an unwillingness to look at their own innocence. Which in a way is kind of funny, because if we'd just look at the fact that we could never have sinned, we'd stop trying to kill ourselves over it.

"What if you looked within and saw no sin? This "fearful" question is one the ego never asks. And you who ask it now are threatening the ego's whole defensive system too seriously for it to bother to pretend it is your friend."

Death isn't real, and nothing real can be threatened. But we certainly can go through the motions and try to make it happen, to have the experience of being a corrupt body, feeling pain and sensations, torturing ourselves in our dreams. All of which is unnecessary. All that's needed is the awakening to the truth. The acceptance of the facts. The recognition of what really is real and what is not. Because there really is no sin, in reality. And that means there is no grounds for any kind of self punishment, suicide or death.

No-one needs to be dying. No-one needs to be suffering or sick. No-one needs to be unhappy. We all just need forgiveness - the recognition of sin's impossibility, and the continuance of our absolute immortal endless innocence. And those who are innocent can never suffer, nor do they want to or choose to.

Because if you are just as perfect now as when God created you, and if you have never done anything to anyone, and if nothing you thought you did ever even happened, then all that's left is to thank God that you have been given eternal life.

Did you know you're living inside a giant hologram?

(this may take a bit to explain, so bear with me)...

Actually, that's only the half of it. There's a reason why you are inside a hologram, and there's a motive for making it that the ego wants to keep a secret.

The purpose of the physical universe, as a hologram (a holographic dream), is to profoundly obscure awareness of God. The ego has used it to create a way of experiencing which seems to be completely devoid of God. The physical universe was made to literally shut God out and to make it look like He does not exist. And it's done a pretty good job, because we all believe it. And you don't even realize you believe it.

As Jesus says in ACIM: "Nothing so blinding as perception of form".

So, how does this work and how does it obscure God, and why is form (physical matter) blinding? And what's this got to do with holograms?

Ok so bear with me as I try to explain, this is VERY hard to explain because it defies a lot of ego logic, so let me know if I lose you.

First we define what God is like.

God is oneness. God is omnipresent, meaning He exists everywhere. And God is whole and completely equal everywhere. What this means is, if you could think of God as occupying 'space', no matter where you are in that space, God is *exactly* the same there as He is in any other part of it. Over here He is God, over there He is God. No matter where you are in God, it's exactly the same as everywhere else.

It's kind of like if you were to take a road trip inside God you'd be driving for a while and then remark to yourself, you know what, this place looks exactly the same as the place we just came from. Exactly. Then you drive some more and it still looks exactly the same. It's almost like you aren't going anywhere. Ok so God is the same everywhere.

Now there's another part to this. This may be hard to imagine, but ALL of God is in all *parts* of God. (NB: The ego will say this is IMPOSSIBLE!) As you think of God as occupying space, and you're driving in that car to different parts of God, and its all the same, you might still be tempted to believe each 'part' or 'location' in God is actually a DIFFERENT part, but just 'looks' the same. Like, as if the whole landscape is a giant set in a movie and its all painted in white paint. You're accustomed to thinking that the stuff 'over there' is not the same as the stuff 'over here', in some way. Its sort of similar with God.

ALL of the properties of God are everywhere. ALL of the awareness of God is everywhere. ALL of the attention of God is everywhere. So then when you ask yourself, what parts of God are 'here', in this location, the answer is, ALL of Him. And when you then ask yourself, well what parts are over there in that other part, the answer is also - ALL of Him. And what about those parts you were driving through 50 hours ago... ALL of Him was there.

To the ego this would have to mean, well, if all of God is here, then there's no other parts left to be elsewhere, so elsewhere there is no God. But in God's reality, in God's 'universe', somehow God is capable of being fully present in every single part of it at the same time. In this sense its almost as if God is PERSONAL, personal and local to every single part of existence, and yet, simultaneously personal to ALL parts at the same time. (Revelations speak of this intensely personal quality.)

You could kind of think of God as though there are trillions of copies of Himself, which the ego mind might be able to grasp. Except that in God there are no separations. Absolutely all of God's being, all of God's mind, all of God's identity, all of God's wholeness, is SHARED by all parts of existence. And when you try to think of this in terms of what you are USED TO, in the physical world, you can only relate to like a large stretch of land that you call 'The United States', within which there are many different distinct places. But if this land were God, everywhere would be the same and there would only be ONE of anything. Hard to get your mind around!

Now, this is where the ego comes up with a device to shut God out.

As we know, the ego's only tool is "separation". What the ego does, is it tries to take the omnipresent oneness of God and start to make it `look like` God maybe ISN'T the same everywhere, or ISN'T fully present everywhere. The only way it can obscure God, i.e. make it seem like God has gone away, or that God does not exist at all, is to go against the nature of God. So if the nature of God is, all of Him is the same everywhere, the ego's attack will entail the idea that only PART of Him is PARTIALLY present in each location. And this implies that God is riddled with contradictory differences. (The ego is contradictory, God isn't).

So now it's kind of like, you're driving in that car through God and you notice that, some of these hills are starting to take on a different shade of color. There's some slight differences in how things look over here than how they looked back there. At first, the separation isn't strong or well defined. In fact it starts out very subtly with just a 'hint' of differences. Then as you keep driving the intensity of the separation increases, and it really starts to stand out that different parts of God are different in quite noticeable ways.

What's happening at the same time is that the ego is now suggesting, by manipulating your perception, that maybe God is not fully present here. Maybe God has some parts of Himself which are sort of 'tied up' elsewhere, or occupied or busy with something else, so he can only be partially present. And also the ego is suggesting God isn't the same everywhere. The way God is over here is not quite the same as over there, and the over-there parts are somehow distracted from being fully present here.

This is how the holographic dream is born. A hologram is the concept that "the all is in every part" - which is pretty close to the way I described God being if God were a 'space'. i.e. All of God is fully in every part of existence. If you want a primer on holograms or whatever maybe check out The Holographic Universe which is quite an interesting book.

Anyway. Basically, at the early stages of the hologram forming, a lot is still shared and things are still almost-one. But the 'density', if you will, of the hologram, increases by continued ego belief in separation. The ego starts noticing and emphasizing the ways in which different parts of existence seem not to be the same. And as this grows stronger, it starts to seem more and more as though only a small part of God is still present here, because all the `other parts of God` are apparently quite different and have become quite finite and specific, and they're all localized to other parts of existence. So what exists over there maybe does not or cannot exist over here.

As this progresses, in the mind, the hologram 'solidifies' more and more. Or another way to describe it is that, formless reality in which everything is the same everywhere starts to 'descend' into localized properties, differences, separations, divisions, fragmented identities. The more separate and clearly defined these differences become, the more the awareness of God's omnipresence, God's total attention, God's total awareness, and God's equal presence everywhere, APPEARS to be shut out of awareness. If it seems true to you that differences are real, and that you start to look AT those differences and breathe reality into them, then you will become fixated on the ways in which God is NOT THE SAME ANYWHERE.

Not only is God not the same anywhere, but this also has a dire conclusion. If you really strongly believe in the reality of differences, you must start to fixate only on the appearance of what's left. All of the different 'forms' of difference. And those forms of difference is what we call PHYSICAL MATTER. The solidification of wholeness into locality, the contraction and density of 'energy' if you will, is what happens in the 'lower levels' of the hologram. The further into separation and differences you go the more 'solid' everything starts to look, and the less there is any evidence or awareness that God is present, even AT ALL. At a certain point you would be forgiven for even believing that God does not exist AT ALL because ALL you can see are the intense, real-seeming differences of physical matter. The physical universe 'stops' God from being able to be in all places at once, or in all places equally, or in all places fully, replaced with the idea that everything is separate from everything else.

So while holograms start out subtle, or what scientists call 'diffused', the lower levels of the holographic 'dream' are much more divided and separated out and form 'images'. When you see the little images on your credit card which look 3d when you see them from different angles - those are a form of holograms. You see an image, and yet when you look from another angle, you see another image. Its as if ALL of the images are somehow 'in' the one location, SHARED. But on the level of physical matter, you can only ever see ONE of the versions of the image at a time. You can't see the 'all'. You can't see all of the angles of the little dove or whatever it is in the hologram, because it is obscured by the rules of the physical universe.

So when the Course is saying, nothing so blinding as perception of form, what it's saying is, physical matter is a very dense level of a holographic interpretation of God, which has the effect of completely obscuring any trace of oneness or all-ness, so that you fixate on only one version of one image, in which it seems like NOTHING is shared and therefore there is no God. 'Sharing' is the same as 'Oneness' so if there is no sharing (co-existing in the same space) then God doesn't exist.

In the physical world, an object does not seem to have anything shared with another object. There is no sense of there being any unity between them. There is nothing 'the same' that is exactly the same in both. This defies the property of God that all of him is everywhere. And then because the stuff that is `in` one object is NOT the stuff that is `in` another object, defies the property of God that all of his same properties are in all objects at the same time. So if you look at that matter and you BELIEVE the illusion that it is trying to SHOW you, its statement of 'what is', you will be blinded from seeing God.

Physical matter LITERALLY was made by the ego to make the properties of God totally obscured and distracted away from. If you believe physical matter does not share anything, you do not have awareness of God. It blinds you. If you do not believe that physical matter contains all of something which is also fully present in other parts of matter, you are blinded to God. Matter, in all its forms, is a giant blanket of the 'undoing' of God's reality, God's omnipresence. It is a physicalization of the idea of separation, but even moreso, the idea that God's law-defying everywhereness is NOT what existence is like, and therefore God does not exist.

It is designed SPECIFICALLY to shut out the awareness of God's presence so that, IF your mind is aligned with it and IF your mind functions according to the 'laws of matter' then you WILL NOT SEE GOD. If you SEE MATTER, you do not see God. Not fully. If you do not see PAST matter, you do not see God. If you fixate ON or look AT matter, you will not see God. Your mind needs to become able to OVERLOOK (forgive) the ILLUSIONS that are presented to you BY MATTER ITSELF.

This isn't just a matter of fixing your mind and staying in the world and not seeing God. Your mind needs to go back `up` the hologram to the point of Oneness, eventually, so that your awareness is able to discern that a) God is fully present, b) All of God is here, c) All of God is everywhere, and d) All of God is the same everywhere. If you believe that MATTER IS REAL or MATTER IS TRUE, then you cannot be aware of God. If the form of matter dictates how your mind perceives or you believe in its ILLUSION, you cannot see God. Matter is BLINDING. That is its function. And it will never have another function until it is undone.

What the ego in your mind does, is it looks at matter and uses it as a 'model' for what is true about your mind and what is true in your perception. Its illusion infuses into your mind and you take it at its word and consider it 'reality'. You buy into its illusion, its way of obscuring God, and its statements of the ways in which God is not here, God is not everywhere, God is not ALL in ALL. That is matter's message. That is the 'state of existence' of the physical universe, designed solely to shut God out - IF you believe it is real.

This also leads to another way to say, the physical universe is just a holographic dream, and it is just an illusion designed to obscure God, and NEVER will it be Heaven (because heaven is formless), and THE WORLD IS NOT REAL. Matter is not real. Separate forms are not real. Bodies are not real. Planets are not real. Physical matter is AN ILLUSION AND NOTHING ELSE. It is the illusion that God is dead and can never be real.

These are all ways of expressing the idea that God is not God, and that can never be true. And this is why eventually the physical universe WILL DISAPPEAR.

I have no idea if I explained this well or conveyed what I wanted to. I had a profound experience a few years ago which SHOWED me an EXPERIENCE of this - I experienced what it was like to go up the hologram in my mind, back toward Oneness, and how this allowed me to be AWARE of God's presence - all of His presence in every part of the dream, and how this totally defied what 'form' was trying to telling me was the truth of existence. So I speak from experience, but these things really defy the ego's logic so it's very hard to put into words. Let me know if I need to clarify something.

All is not as it seems in this world. The physical world ITSELF IS the 'form' of the egos attack on God, and IS its defense. You think you only have defenses in your mind inside your body. But the physical universe as a whole is a giant defense mechanism - IN the larger mind of the Son of God. You're literally looking at the MIND of the Son of God attempting to shut God out. That's what this world is.

The "tiny mad idea" was an idea of madness, leading to an entire thought system of insanity. Within this thought system there is a sense of self that we call the ego. The course refers to this as yet "unmanifested" thought system as "the first dream", which was then projected out as a "second dream" as the physicality of spacetime.

"The first dream has been seen and understood for merely an illusion of the fear on which the world was based." UrG3A9

The ego projected out, ie "mis-created" from fear, a world from the INSANE mind, symbolising in form its ideals, preferences, beliefs and attitudes. This produced the physical world, which symbolises the ego's "attack on God." A sort of solidified defence against the truth. And now the physical world SYMBOLIZES the ego thought system in all its ways.

"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear." UrW240W32

"This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. And until you realize that God's Son CANNOT be crucified, this is the world you will see." UrT11J4

"The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it." UrT11D10

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death." UrT11J2

"It can indeed be said the ego MADE its world on sin. Only in such a world COULD everything be upside down. This IS the strange illusion which makes the clouds of guilt seem heavy and impenetrable. The solidness this world's foundation SEEMS to have is FOUND in this." UrT19C6

This means that the way the physical world is set up and how it functions - its nature, the relationship of separate objects, what it seems to mean when things happen, was all originally a symbolic representation of an ego idea of madness. And this isn't with any kind of judgement or negating entering into it. Just its nature and how it functions is NOTHING like God's Kingdom.

"For this world IS the opposite of Heaven, having been made to BE its opposite. And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true." UrT16F3

For example the ego sees you as a separated off person, and in its insanity (which is sin), this insanity led to the making of the body, giving the body eyes and senses, and regarding the body as a real person.

"Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold?" UrW250W41

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin (egoic insane thought system) made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master." UrT20G11

Similarly the ego believes that there is a separation between giving and receiving, between cause (God) and effect (Son). Thus it perceives that to give is to lose, and means deprivation and sacrifice. This plays out PHYSICALLY by virtue of the fact that if you give someone something physical you DO NOT have it any more and have lost it. This is a simple fact. Any object you give you lack.

The idea of SHARING (oneness), natural in heaven, is pretty much obliterated on a physical level. So too is any idea of oneness or real love or creation or extension or sanity or harmlessness or safety or any other property of God. This is why the world is so opposite to heaven and so dysfunctional on a physical level, regardless of any judgements about it. It is designed by the ego to be "physically insane." And yes - that confusion of mind and body is what the ego is all about.

"Yet, in the dreaming, has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as bodies, which ARE separated, and which cannot JOIN." UrT28D2

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

Also on the physical level, when a body is regarded as a person, and if the body dies, this is a statement of the ego belief that death is real and the son of God is dead. Its whole system is anti-life and death promoting. It is against health and wholeness in every way possible.

"For vengeance is not part of love, and fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain." UrW190L3

The entire notion of physical space is an idea opposite to omnipresence and depends on separation. You can't even have particles of matter without separation. While time is an attack on eternity, attempting to make everything that existed before stop existing (die). Change itself is the idea of uncertainty (fear) and instability and impermanence - the opposite of immortality. As such everything in the physical world is mortal.

"They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die." UrM13A6

"Death (physical) is the symbol (physical symbol) of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds It from awareness like a shield held to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms await to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction." UrM28A3

"The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end." UrW129L2

Everything in the physical world is a SYMBOLIC VERSION OF THE EGO THOUGHT SYSTEM. Like a physicalised MIND. That's why it was made, that's who made it, and that's how it is set up. So it is indeed a PHYSICALLY INSANE world, so to speak. Riddled with separations, contradictions, attacks, death, murder, lack and loss, suffering of every kind, etc. All ideas the ego made up.

You can see throughout all these quotes that there is clearly a level of mind post-separation which is an insane thought system, which houses all of the ego's fearful beliefs. That mind is mad and dark and horrifying. That mind MADE spacetime and everything in it as a physicalised, condensed version of that thought system. You can see in the quotes sometimes references to the underlying "ego mindset", and in others to the physical world that was made FROM that.

"You do not realize the magnitude of that ONE error (the insane ego mad idea thought system). It was so vast and so COMPLETELY incredible, that from it, a world of total unreality HAD to emerge (the physical world/spacetime illusion projected from it). What else COULD come of it? Its fragmented ASPECTS are fearful enough, as you begin to LOOK at them (physical things). But nothing you have ever seen BEGINS to show you the enormity of the ORIGINAL error (underneath the surface, the ego mindset that made it), which seemed to cast you out of Heaven" UrT18B12

"That was the first projection of error outward (the physical world was a symbolic projection of the mental error). The world (spacetime, physical) arose to hide it (to hide the underlying mindset of ego), and became the screen (like a physical screen) on which it (the ego mindset) was projected (as a second projection onto the world AFTER the world was projected), and drawn between you and truth." UrT18B3

The ego thus projects its mindset out, making an insane world, which symbolises TOTAL INSANITY and a TOTAL OPPOSITE to heaven, as physical form and spacetime and galaxies. And then it projects its underlying insanity ONTO that world in its purpose and USE OF that world. To sort of "operate it", make it real and believe that what happens physically is what it means. The physical world is a MEANINGLESS world, and has no meaning of its own, because it is really nothing, like a void.

"Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space (void) which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void (spacetime) may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality. And on this alone it is correct." UrW13L2

You can see clearly that 1) We were in heaven ("level 1") and believed the mad idea, 2) This produces a whole thought system of insanity ("level 2"), 3) Ego symbolises this thought system, 4) Ego insanity projects out as spacetime ("level 3") a physical fake "universe", 5) That universe is meaningless and nothing, and now the ego tries to project its MEANINGS onto that spacetime world, using the SAME insanity it used to make it.

So now the ego's thought system, mindset, beliefs, attitudes, identification, starts to PERCEIVE (through the body) the physical world IT MADE, from its vantage point, with a psychological false perception that MATCHES a PHYSICAL false perception (physical sight).

It sees it through a thought system of insanity and darkness and evil. And so it believes that the physical world is reality, it believes people are bodies, it believes there is no level of mind (the physical denies the mind, hides the ego thought system), and basically regards physical things as the symbolic version of itself.

Thus even the body symbolises the ego, the egoic mind identifies with the physical, and believes this is all that exists, hiding in the body as "its chosen home." The ego in the mind sort of now "takes up residency" in the body it projected.

"The body is the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of separation. UrT15I8

"For your beliefs converge upon the body, the ego's chosen home, which you believe is YOURS." UrT23B3

So now you've got the underlying ego thought system which is insane still, a physical world being projected by that thought system as an hallucination, and then further projections of insane egoic meaning ONTO that physical world by that thought system to try to keep the separateness going.

For example it says that a physical person is the son of God, and when the physical body dies the son of God is dead. That death is a hard ending from which you cannot return. That's the egos idea of a total and utter permanent destruction and cessation of all creation. Putting a STOP to God. So it sees the death of a body as a total ending, after which there is nothing, and no coming back from it, producing horrendous loss. And there should be loss if a part of reality itself has been lost.

But this is the ego's insane perception of the world that IT set up to look this way on the surface. There is ANOTHER WAY to perceive the physical world thought because the insanity in the MIND can be corrected, causing the mind to USE the world for a higher purpose. You can see it without the ego, without the insanity, without the murderous thought system of separation. You can see it with the Holy Spirit with Christ Vision and forgiveness.

This forgiveness looks upon the highly malfunctioning lacking world that your ego made, and OVERLOOKS the ways in which it falls horrendously short of an immaculate creation. It does not BELIEVE the forms of the world. It does not interpret change as death, or the death of the body as a finality. I takes no meaning FROM the world, because it knows it HAS NONE. It recognizes that what is real is NOT OF THIS WORLD, and is utterly unaffected by what happens in form. Thus death is nothing and the world is nothing.

To this mindset of sanity and reason there is no death at all, and all physical things are illusions not to be believed. A mere MIS-creation produced by a MAD mind. It can be forgiven and reinterpreted and UNDONE by sanity. And then it must disappear, when an ego insane thought system is no longer upholding its separations and its physicalised lies and literal physical madness. The world is a mistake, not a sin, and mistakes can be undone.

"The world is false perception. It is born of error (a projection from an insane mind), and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought which gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation (insane mind) has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world (physical) be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear (physical literal disappearance), and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well." UrW240W31

Even death can be reinterpreted and seen as "not meaning" what it means to the ego. It can mean nothing more than that the illusory form has changed and the soul/mind has left the body to continue its eternal existence. That is a thought and perspective of permanence and immortality and continuation, rather than a thought of death and endings.

And so thoughts of eternal life replace the egoic thoughts of death and interruption, and this causes us to PERCEIVE the physical world as "the forgiven world", overlooking its nonsense and disregarding its physical falsity. Such a healed mind RUNS OPPOSITE to the nature of the world, and the entire thought system and physical nature is REVERSED.

"The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely." UrM29A2

"The only effort you need make, to give this world away (earth, physical, spacetime, bodies) in glad exchange for what you did NOT make (Kingdom of God, heaven) is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE (cus ego made it FROM falseness)" UrT12G3

"And now God's KNOWLEDGE, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its Kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever." UrU5A7v "Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions born. What can be born of death and still have life? But what is born of God and still can die?" UrM28A6

"The ego made the world as IT perceives it (how it perceive it is the SAME AS how it is designed physically), but the Holy Spirit, the RE-INTERPRETER of what the ego made, sees it only as a teaching device for bringing you home." UrT5E15

I can't stress enough right now that God has ALREADY created you perfect in every way, there is NOTHING you need to do to make yourself "better" or improved or to become anything.

The path of "awakening" is NOT about adding something, producing something, searching for something, making something, or becoming something.

It is ONLY about becoming aware, AGAIN, that YOU ALREADY HAVE EVERYTHING GIVEN YOU. There is nothing missing, nothing wrong with you, nothing broken, and no needs of any kind.

It is not about you trying to make yourself whole again. GOD has guaranteed your wholeness forever. It is ONLY about you being willing to recognize and accept that you are ALREADY WHOLE.

The wholeness, holiness, innocence, love, happiness, purity, joy, peace, it's all already in you, and it HAS NOT LEFT and it HAS NOT CHANGED and it IS NOT LOST.

Is is all still there as God created it RIGHT NOW, regardless of whether you are in denial of it, can't see it, are not aware of it, don't believe in it, don't want it, deny it, or fear it.

To awaken to it is merely to recognize IT IS THERE ALREADY. And enlightenment IS simply recognition of WHAT ALREADY IS! This takes no effort whatsoever other than to be willing to accept reality and truth as God created it. To admit you are Christ already, right now, and are just pretending not to be.

"I have already chosen what You will."

"then will I recognize salvation is already here, already given all my brothers and already mine as well."

"God has already done all things that need be done. And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self, my sinlessness, created for me, now already mine"

"In You is every choice already made. In You has every conflict been resolved. In You is everything I hope to find already given me." "I merely choose to recognize what is already there. Salvation is a decision made already."

"And I will understand it is impossible that I could have a problem which has not been solved already."

"The answer to this problem is already given me, if I will accept it."

"And here the limitless forgiveness you will give each other is ALREADY given; the face of Christ you yet will look upon ALREADY seen."

"The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. But the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized."

"What I ask have You already given me"

"God has ALREADY given him all that he REALLY wants."

"For here the final question is ALREADY answered, and what you ask for, GIVEN."

"Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now."

"No one needs practice to gain what is already his."

"There is no sickness not already healed. No lack unsatisfied, no need unmet, within this golden treasury of Christ."

"True prayer must avoid the pitfall of asking to entreat. Ask rather to receive what is already given; to accept what is already there."

"ou do not PUT the Spirit in them by inspiring them, because that would be "magic," and therefore would not be real healing. But you DO recognize the Spirit that is ALREADY THERE, and thereby REAWAKEN IT." "He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. Now must you share His function"

"the Soul is already perfect, and therefore does not require correction."

"The Soul is already illuminated"

"Yet, if God gave an Answer, there MUST be a way in which your problems are resolved, for what He wills already has been done."

"THIS recognition is wholly WITHOUT effort, because it is ALREADY true and needs no protection. It is in the perfect safety of God." "The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to."

"Revelation induces a state in which fear has ALREADY BEEN abolished."

"Our goal in the longer practice periods today is to become aware that God's plan for salvation has already been accomplished in us."

"So do we clear the way for Him today by simply recognizing that His Will is done already, and that joy and peace belong to us as His eternal gifts."

"I have already been forgiven."

"With God's Word in their minds they come in benediction, not to heal the sick but to remind them of the remedy God has already given them."

"But, through the eyes of faith, the Son of God is seen ALREADY forgiven, free of all the guilt he laid upon himself."

"BECAUSE reality is changeless is a miracle already there to heal all things that change, and offer them to you to see in happy form, devoid of fear."

"He has never failed to answer this request, because it asks only for what He has already willed."

"Prepare you NOW for the undoing of what never was. If you already UNDERSTOOD the difference between truth and illusion, Atonement would HAVE no meaning."

"Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real. Know, then, Who abides with you, merely by recognizing WHAT IS ALREADY THERE, and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you."

"We have repeatedly stated that one who has perfectly accepted the Atonement for himself can heal the world. Indeed, he has already done so."

"Essentially, a prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that we may be able to recognize something we already have."

"Ask not to BE forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Ask rather to LEARN how to forgive, and restore WHAT ALWAYS WAS to your unforgiving mind."

"According to the Holy Spirit's teaching, ONLY God's Purpose IS accomplishment, and it is ALREADY accomplished."

"The creation of the Soul itself has already been perfectly accomplished"

"Glory be to God in the highest, and to you because He has so willed it. Ask and it shall be given you, because it has already been given. "

"Faith in the eternal is ALWAYS justified, for the eternal is forever kind, infinite in its patience, and wholly loving. It will accept you wholly, and give you peace. But it can unite only with what ALREADY is at peace in you, immortal as itself."

"He would make a restitution though He is complete; a gift to you although He knows that you have everything already."

"What idol CAN be called upon to give the Son of God what he already HAS?"

"The Soul is therefore unalterable because it is ALREADY perfect, but the mind can elect the level it chooses to serve."

"The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished."

"Who can remain unsatisfied who asks for what he has already?"

"He has revealed it to me because I asked it of Him, and learned of what He had already given."

"There are many answers which you have already received, but have NOT YET HEARD."

"Who would "go" anywhere, if peace of mind is already complete?"

"But your minds are ALREADY continuous, and THEIR union need only be accepted, and the loneliness in Heaven is gone."

"We will but be making perfect TO you, what is ALREADY perfect IN you."

"For here is only healing, ALREADY complete and perfect. For here is God, and where HE is, only the perfect and complete CAN be."

"In me, you have ALREADY overcome EVERY temptation that would hold you back."

"To remember is merely to restore to your mind WHAT IS ALREADY THERE. You do not make what you remember; you merely accept again what has BEEN made AND REJECTED."

"I am the model for rebirth, but rebirth itself is merely the dawning on your minds of what is already in them."

"Then let Him teach you quietly how to perceive your guiltlessness, which is ALREADY there."