Cause produces effects. This is God's permanent law, without exception. It applies everywhere always. There is a secret to performing miracles based on this, resulting in the undoing of effects. This is directly tied into the Atonement and The Miracle.

"the word "atone" really means "undo." (remove illusory effects)

"The miracle does nothing. All it does is to undo (removes effects). And thus it cancels out (by not causing) the interference (effects) to what has been done (caused in reality). It does not add, but merely takes away (removes effects)."

I have experienced several times the instant vanishing of symptoms when causation was removed. This takes place at the level of the mind and the mind's belief in causes. As I stripped away belief in who or what caused this, the entire symptom literally disappeared in a split second.

Nothing happens without causation. Effects can only appear when there is a cause. This includes the **belief** in there being a cause, even if the cause is made up in dreaming. When the cause stops causing, or is undone, the effects immediately disappear. Causation is like a broadcast, emitting consequences, effects, symptoms and results. Effects come from it.

Just as God is first cause, He MUST create effects. His effects are His Kingdom of Creation, including the Sonship. Because God is permanently causal, and true cause means creation, His creations have eternal life and always exist. True causality creates permanent, living beings. You did not cause God (which would be sin, authority problem, level confusion), God caused you.

"I am forever an effect of God."

There is also what we call "making", which is also a form of causality. It causes destructive illusions instead of creative reality. It is a made-up BELIEF in a cause, as an attempted cause, in the mind. It's a made-up cause that we believe is real, and which in turn produces made-up effects which we believe are real. Just because it is made-up doesn't mean it does not DO something.

A **belief** in a cause isn't a real cause, or of God. So what it produces is not a real effect, but is an effect nonetheless. Artificial causes produce artificial effects. But they DO produce these effects, which includes symptoms of sickness in the body, and ultimately the body itself.

"The body cannot remain without illusions (illusory causes)."

When the mind believes there is a cause, it MUST include the belief that there are effects. The mind thus believes in BOTH. They are made together, and are undone together. Effects cannot remain without a cause of some kind. When you switch off the broadcast projector, there is no more making of images. Both the broadcaster and the broadcast disappear.

It would be easy for us to switch on and off causes and effects at will. This always takes place in our minds. The problem is that we keep disassociating from the part of our mind that is causing or believing in causes, and project the ownership of the causation onto external things - anything other than our own mind.

So if we think a person is causing us to be upset, we're in false perception. We see cause as separate from and outside of our own mind. Yet this BELIEF in cause, is INSIDE our mind because "ideas leave not their source."

We are confused in thinking that someone else is causing our upset. But the IDEA of "someone is causing me to be upset" is our own mind's idea, which projects, resulting in a false perception. And this idea IS STILL CAUSAL. By believing, "I am being caused", we literally are CAUSING ourselves, and our mind DOES produce effects within us, from it. And this is actually part of the belief that we are creating ourselves, the result of a split mind.

It is not possible to believe in a cause, WITHOUT the belief itself having an effect. Even if the visualized cause seems to be mapped onto some other person, it is STILL a "belief in cause" in our mind, and this gives it power. If our mind is generating, picturing, imagining, "there is a cause", it WILL and MUST also picture, generate and imagine an effect to correspond to it. And usually the severity of the effect lines up with where the cause falls in the hierarchy of illusions.

This now means that as we picture ourselves as being caused, we WILL also picture ourselves as being affected. This believing in and use of causality, no matter how it is dressed up in appearances about others, will result in OUR MIND producing EFFECTS in ourselves. These will show up as symptoms in mind and body, as emotional reactions, fearful thought responses, justified anger, and other effects.

As the secret of salvation tells us, it does not matter how it appears that someone is a victimizer, or who is doing what. When your mind "sees itself" as being victimized, that way of seeing itself ALONE victimizes you. And you cannot see yourself as being victimized WITHOUT seeing yourself ALSO as a victim.

Funny that - as you believe in victimization it sets up a causal belief in your mind which causes you to MAKE YOURSELF a victim. Your mind then generates the effects and symptoms of having been affected. It pictures itself in the roles of victim AND victimizer.

Now, here's the key. Based on this law, that even your BELIEF in a cause IS CAUSAL, and has illusory believed-in effects, removing this belief in a cause MUST remove the effects. This even includes the physical symptoms of sickness which YOUR MIND put into your body, as a result of YOUR MIND visualizing itself as at the effect of its own causal beliefs.

If my belief is that a person is upsetting me, three things are happening. 1) I am "projecting" causality onto the person falsely, resulting in a false perception that "they" are causing me. 2) MY belief in being caused is causing me, 3) I am inventing the upsetting effects because of this belief, BY this belief. If I clear up the confusion about WHO is causing who, and then STOP causing through this belief, the effects MUST go.

If my mind is thinking, "I am upset because of them", and I"m feeling the upset, my mind MUST be seeing a line of causality starting with "them" and coming into me and impacting upon me, producing upset. This is what my mind is picturing. This is HOW I am making the effects. If I tell myself, "they are not causing me to be upset", I am taking a step towards undoing the cause.

I'm almost saying, "since they are not causing this upset, I am not upset." or "everything that came from them, has not come". They then become your savior because now you are using them to explain why you are NOT affected negatively, or as a way to say "I am healed because of you". Or as the course puts it, "Brother, at your hand I live." This requires the removal of all symptoms of attack in the body and mind, accomplished by removing fake causality or accusing your brother of causing (sinning against) you.

Sometimes, if the causing seems fairly clear-cut and well defined as to who I think did what, and I remind myself I am NOT caused by the person, it can be enough to undo my mind's belief in the cause, and thus stop causing my own upset. Symptoms of upset vanish instantly. Even physical symptoms, because *I* was producing them.

Other times, I've found I've built up a collection of beliefs in causes, which have to be dismantled more methodically, piece by piece. I have to remove all belief that anyone or anything else is causing my issue. I must not believe that I am at the effect of anyone else's mind or any "causes" that I THINK are in the world. My BELIEF in them being causes does not make them causes. This is confusion/projection/disassociation.

MY BELIEF in being caused is what causes me to suffer. When something is seen as having NO causes left, and being the cause of nothing, it disappears.

I have to also remove all belief that I am causing any issue in others, because this too ties me to guilt. For example if I have an argument, it is not enough to undo the belief that I am being upset by them. I will likely believe I upset them also, and this too is fake causality. Anything THEY are experiencing, THEIR mind has chosen to cause. I must be accepting of this by dismantling my belief that I caused them, which in turn will heal them and set them free from imprisonment.

"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself."

Once this is clarified, that no-one caused my effects but myself, and that cause is in my mind because I believed I was caused, I must now recognize that my own choice to believe I am being negatively caused DID produce my own symptoms. I am responsible for it. This is the secret of salvation. But we can't stop there. WE must STOP causing our own suffering.

This requires us to stop believing that even WE have caused our suffering. Seeing that we did it to ourselves, and recognizing our own mind is causing itself, may be enough to collapse it. Recognizing the futility of hurting ourselves, we will drop the desire to continue. Seeing that we are causing our own suffering, we cannot escape the causation or blame it on anyone, have to admit the truth, and admitting the truth presents us with a fact - we did this, and we no longer choose to.

We might have to work on undoing the belief that we are caused, as well as being willing to no longer suffer the role of victim. Without a cause that we believe in, we cannot believe in being affected. In recognizing we were the victimizer of ourselves, we can stop being the victim. No-one has ever been victimized by another person.

Remember that you have no neutral thoughts. All thought creates form on some level. All thought is causal. You cannot neutrally casually think about stuff without producing effects. Imagining fearful things happening to you, IS actually you DOING them to yourself. Dreaming about scenarios isn't a freebie thought. We deliberately DO, or DO NOT. We cause, or do not cause. And only what we cause happens.

""My Self is ruler of the universe." It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens (effects) is what I desire (cause). What does not occur (effects) is what I do not want (cause) to happen. This must I accept."

"I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts."

"My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."

Stripping away all sense of "the cause of this", MUST undo the effects. When you cease attacking yourself with thoughts of being attacked, you will not be attacked or attackable.

Without a cause, there can be no effects. Without belief in separation, there can be no sickness. Without seeing yourself as a victim you cannot be victimized. Without victimizing yourself you cannot be hurt. Without belief you are sinful (caused bad stuff) you cannot be guilty, and without guilt you cannot frighten or threaten yourself. Without a cause, your sickness must vanish. And without a cause, the dead must rise.

All illusions have no REAL cause. The causes are made up beliefs, which DO cause illusory effects, and without maintaining these beliefs the effects cannot stay. Anything not of God or made without love has no real cause. We MADE sickness and death by believing they have been caused and are the cause of us (the God of sickness and death), and can abolish it by believing they have NOT been caused.

To recognize something has NOT been caused, is to recognize it CANNOT have happened. Without a cause, the effects must go. What has not been caused cannot exist. And since illusory effects and symptoms DEPEND on the mind believing in them, without believing in them they MUST vanish. Which undoes physical suffering, sickness and death

This is forgiveness and atonement. The recognition that separation has not been caused and sin has not caused effects because there is no sin. The lack of belief in sin as "causing evil" erases death. The knowing that there is no death. Withdrawing causes of illusions will undo them all.

"Illusions recognized (I caused this myself, it did not cause me) must disappear."

This literally is tied into the atonement. If to atone is to undo, then by cancelling the fake causes that we were using to make things "be done", and if miracles undo and take away the effects by recognizing they have not been caused, then to accept the atonement is to accept that there are NO CAUSES other than God. We HAVE NOT CAUSED separation, there is no cause of death (sin), illusions DO NOT exist, and we are no longer manufacturing fake effects.

This will ultimately UNDO the world because the world is nothing but an EFFECT of a belief - the spacetime belief.

Shifting away from made-up causes, and aligning ourselves with God's Will, which is truly causal and creative, we become miracle workers. Operating from vertical causation, not mis-creation. Our causing now becomes love-based, constructive, creative, healing and miraculous. No longer against ourselves, no longer affected by the world, we regain invulnerability and power. We can now give life and cause resurrection.

We become a cause that does not cause itself. We become free from effects of our own making, or the illusion of effects made by others. Our will is now undivided and single-minded. Nothing can oppose us as ruler of the universe. We are free to carry out the will of God. To cause with IMMEDIATE effects. And to be truly helpful to others through causal miracles.

"This is a course in cause and not effect."

"miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.""

"Without a cause there can be no effects, and yet, without effects, there is no CAUSE."

"Who can predict effects without a cause? And who could fear effects UNLESS he thought they had BEEN caused, and judged disastrous NOW?"

"Who can perceive effect WITHOUT a cause? What can the causeless BE but nothingness."

"And this DENIES the fact that ALL are senseless; EQUALLY without a cause or consequence, and CANNOT have effects of ANY kind."

"In its passing went its consequences, left without a cause."

"And to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause, and with no power to accomplish anything."

"Nothing can have effects without a cause, and to confuse the two is merely to fail to understand them both."

"Without a cause, and now without a function in Christ's sight, it merely slips away to nothingness."

"It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to effect you in any way."

"Fear cannot be real without a cause, and GOD is the only Cause."

"The healing of effect WITHOUT the cause can merely shift effects to other forms."

"A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect. What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief."

"And therefore all your sins have been forgiven because they carried no effects at all."

"There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression."

"And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect it cannot make effects."

"What is projected OUT, and seems to be EXTERNAL to the mind, is NOT outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has NOT left its source."

"Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind."

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move (cause) mountains. It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it. People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert (cause) real control (effects) because they are literally AFRAID of them."

"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."

"And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place?"

"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."

"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt? Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the proof that they were merely errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect."

In God, you are eternal life. You are immortal. You are given life by God, and you are made of life. Your gift of life allows you to give life. And so you can create life just as God gave life to you. And so on Earth you also can give life, to resurrect the lifeless and raise the dead, to restore minds to life and to re-empower those who are trying not to live.

To perform a miracle is to express life, which is also love and power and light. You provide life to those who lack life and they return to life. Miracle working is life-giving. Miracles give life to the dead and resurrect the sonship. As a miracle worker you are a life worker. You work on behalf of life and on behalf of all that lives in God.

"ALL miracles mean Life, and God is the giver of Life."

"As fear is witness unto death, so is the miracle the witness unto Life. It is a witness no-one can deny, for it is the EFFECTS of life it brings. The dying live, the dead arise, and pain has vanished."

"The miracle of life is ageless, born in time, but nourished in eternity. Behold this infant, to whom you gave a resting place by your forgiveness of EACH OTHER, and see in it the Will of God. Here is the babe of Bethlehem reborn. And everyone who gives him shelter will follow him, NOT to the cross, but to the Resurrection and the Life."

"The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death."

"The gift of life IS yours to give, because it was given YOU."

"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life."

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."

"He sends a witness to your Life in Him Who knows no death. Each miracle He brings is witness that the body is NOT real. Its pains and pleasures does He heal alike, for ALL sin's witnesses do His replace."

"Its life and power are its believer's gift, and this is what the miracle restores to what HAS life and power worthy of the gift of Heaven and eternal peace."

"Life is given you, to give the dying world."

"And we see it in the dying and the dead as well, restoring them to life."

"EVERYTHING is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the Mind. If we share the same mind, YOU CAN OVERCOME DEATH BECAUSE I DID."

"he can effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are."

"Very simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death."

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

"I am YOUR resurrection and YOUR life. You live in me because you live in God. And everyone lives in YOU, as YOU live in everyone."

"But let the whiteness of your shining gift of lilies speed him on his way to Resurrection."

"Let us give redemption to each other, and SHARE in it, that we may rise as one in resurrection, and not SEPARATE in death."

"So will we prepare TOGETHER the way unto the Resurrection of God's Son."

"God has one Son, and he is the resurrection and the life. His will is done because all power is given him in Heaven and on earth."

"YOUR resurrection is your re-awakening."

"It has also promised that there is no death; that resurrection must occur, and that rebirth is man's inheritance."

Should you change the world?

There are many parts of ACIM which SEEM to suggest you should not. Such as:

"Seek not to change the world, but seek to change your mind about the world."

Also Jesus tells us we need to correct the real cause of suffering in our mind, in our perception, in order to truly heal it.

Some say that this might possibly lead to a "side effect" of the body being healed, or it might not. Which is wishy-washy bullshit.

Let's break it down.

If you believe this world is reality, and as a world it sucks big time, and you hate it, and its insane, and you think it's "really insane" as in, it actually IS, then YOU have a problem in your mind because you're not seeing correctly. The world is an ILLUSION!

If the world is real to you, then you've mistaken illusions for the truth. You've given reality to illusions. And now when you see an illusion of a "bad world", you're going to react to it with despair, depression and hopelessness, only because you think it is REAL and not because of its form.

If you then seek to change the world to "look better" AS a real world, which is what happens when most people try to change the world, you're actually going to KEEP the belief you have that this world is reality. You will move the furniture around, maybe to some configuration you prefer temporarily, with tradeoffs, but it's not necessarily going to give you real lasting happiness. It will give you a temporary illusion of happiness which is dependent on the world, and it will change on you.

There is a different way to change the world. Perhaps we should say, to TRANSLATE or TRANSFORM the world.

When you withdraw your belief that this illusory world is reality, and you stop taking it seriously, and stop reacting to errors, sins and sickness as though they're real, you will be much happier. You will know there is not REALLY any reason to be upset, that the world is not REALLY bad, and it's not REALLY anything. This will alleviate all possible reasons for upset.

From that vantage point you will see the "forgiven world", which you will be OVERLOOKING, to Christ's face which is beyond form.

You will also be miraculous, and with the power of God, you WILL have access to be able to "change the world" in any way that is appropriate. Albeit that perhaps it would need to be a) inspired by love, b) in alignment with Jesus's plan of atonement/awakening, and c) for the good of all.

Just as Jesus performs intercessions/interventions by way of MIRACLES, so can you, and you may well bring about "changes" in the world as a result. You may well seem to make the world a happier place, not because its FORM is better, but because there is healing taking place. People are waking up to the truth, miracles are educating about God's reality, and belief is shifting away from illusions. That's a helpful way to change the world.

Thus it's not then so much about to staying IN the world and fixing it up and making it all pretty and real, but more to do with you converting it to an illusory yet more tolerable "happy dream", which smooths the way to awakening and eases suffering and gently helps you and others to return to God. This "use of the world" for awakening is a better purpose than to try to "use the world" to produce a "real world" that is considered better than the old one.

There's nothing wrong with you changing the illusion. Jesus did it many times. Every miracle does it. Miracles rearrange space and time. Jesus tells us its a device for the manipulation of time (and space)! Why not ease the nightmare and lift some burdens lovingly so that people can see EXAMPLES and DEMONSTRATIONS of right-minded thinking, the truth of God's kingdom, the POTENTIAL of awakening, and the FREEDOM that is everyone's right!

The purpose then isn't to change the world for the world's sake, but to change the world to help people wake up from the world and return to reality.

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt" - ACIM from "Only salvation can be said to cure".

Sickness is a form of guilt. You cannot recognize it as guilt if you do not clearly recognize what salvation is, ie the truth of the Atonement. You need to be able to be clear about what guilt IS, and what it is not, ie that it is not innocence, in order to clearly see sickness and recognize it as a form of guilt.

Accepting the atonement for yourself, which is accepting the "cure" for yourself, allows you to recognize what the truth is, on its terms, without your ego distorting it. In your willingness to accept it is true, to understand why it is true, and to experience its truth, it shines a light which reframes the illusion of sickness when seen in others.

Sickness is then more clearly recognized not as a valid state of truth, but as a state of guilt. A state of self attack. A state of punishment. If sickness is present, the person IS attacking themselves, and there is only one reason to do so - they believe that they sinned. Their sickness is literally a symptom of guilt.

Those who believe in sin do not believe in innocence. Those who believe in sin do not believe in health. Those who believe in sin are busy finding ways to punish themselves. Sickness becomes equated with, and actually seen as "guilt", when the Atonement is accepted and innocence is recognized as true.

When somenone is sick, (and in ACIM terms, sicknes means any kind of sense of separation from God, not just physical expressions of sickness), when they are mentally separated from truth, they are believing in guilt. And this will manifest as forms of sickness in the body and in other areas of life. And these will be areas of guilt and punishment.

If you are willing to accept salvation for yourself, which means to become able to ACCEPT that the Atonement is true, ie there is no such thing as real sin and real sin has not happened, your clarity and willingness then allows you to claim "for others" that they too are worthy of love because they too have not sinned.

Their sins become more obvious as being untrue of them, as much as your own are untrue of you. You will not see their sickness as truth or as reality. You will recognize the person is experiencing guilt and is acting against themselves. They do not deserve this. They deserve the same love that you have come to recognize you deserve, because of your acceptance of the Atonement's message and reality.

Cancelling the illusion of sickness, masquerading as sickness, seeing past it to recognize the guilt, and recognizing it as untrue, gives you the power to set your brother free. This is why Jesus was able to tell people that their sins were forgiven. It wasn't that they had been pardoned, but that He knew their sins were not really sins. Sin is not real.

He instead recognized their state of believing they were sinful needed to be healed and undone. He was so certain and clear that they were nothing short of completely innocent, that He did not get hung up on their illusion of sickness for a second. And that gave him the ability to dispel those illusions and cast them off like they were nothing.

If the Atonement is true for you, it MUST be true for your brothers and sisters also. The Atonement tells you that there is no division and there is no separation and there is no set of rules that apply differently to one person and not another. If love applies to you, because you are forgiven, then it also applies to everyone around you. They are seen as lovable because you see yourself as lovable.

Because they are you. They literally are your shared identity in Christ. One.

"Projection makes perception."

You look within first, then project out what is within you. What is projected becomes what you perceive.

"Perception is a result not a cause."

Your business therefore should NOT be "changing your perception". That is an EFFECT.

Your business should focus on what is IN your mind that you PROJECT, which results in perceptions.

If there is shit in your mind, you will project the shit and see the shit in other people and in the world. You will make the shit real.

You can try to "forgive other people" or "forgive the world" but this is INDIRECT. And it will take you a long time. The world is very big.

What you need to do in fact is clean out the gunk that is in the PROJECTOR. Which means healing YOUR MIND and changing your beliefs, SO THAT you will not project sin and guilt outward.

"You but accuse your brother of your own sins." Therefore, do not have sin IN YOU in the first place, then you won't ACCUSE anyone. You can't project sin onto the world if you don't have any in you!

If there is no sin or guilt in you, you will not have any TO project. You therefore won't ACCUSE your brother of sin or guilt, and won't have to clean up the mess that results when you do.

Similarly you don't need to really work on forgiving the whole world, even though the forgiven world is what you want to reach and go beyond eventually. If you fix YOUR MIND, you will SEE with love and forgiveness, which is the eyes of Christ, and this will SHOW you the forgiven world.

The world, and your brothers, will appear forgiven you you, AS A RESULT OF, you not having sinful shit in YOUR mind, that you project onto them. Without belief in your own sinfulness, you cannot FIND sin in your brothers or in the world. You do not put it there, because you have none to put there.

This is HOW the world and your brothers become forgiven. They are SEEN and RECOGNIZED as forgiven BECAUSE you find YOURSELF to be forgiven.

You CANNOT forgive other people! Forgive YOUR SELF FIRST, and your way will be made straight. Forgive your OWN self condemnation and the unlove of yourself, and remove the sin from your OWN eye, so that you won't see it in its projected form.

Without even trying to "forgive the world at all", if you work on healing your mind and then return to the world, you will find the world is automatically "more forgiven". It is seen in a more forgiving light because you see YOUR SELF in a more forgiving light.

"Everyone sees what he IS."

Attempting to forgive others is just part of unravelling your confusion as you WHO has accused WHOM and WHO needs forgiveness. It is YOU who has accused YOURSELF and it is YOU that you need to forgive.

"It can be but myself that I crucify."

"Secret of salvation" ... "you are doing this to yourself."

Allow yourself to be loved and healed, and you will allow yourself to SEE with love and healing, and thus EXTEND love and healing to the world and to your brothers.

Perception TAKES CARE OF ITSELF. It is nothing but a result of the changes in your mind. It comes AFTER projection, which comes AFTER your inner content is established. Change your mind ABOUT YOURSELF and the whole world will appear to change, and your perception will appear to shift.

You do not work on perception directly. You work on your value system, your beliefs, your inner relationship with yourself. All the rest comes automatically after that because you project or extend whatever is IN you. Deal with the problem at its SOURCE, not in its projected form.

See yourself with love and you will see your brothers with love. Recognize the christ in you and you will see christ in your brothers. Be aware of the presence of God in you and you will see God in the world.

"God is in everything I see... BECAUSE God is in my mind."

The world, meaning the larger physical universe and everything in it, is fiction. It's a dream, coming from a dreaming mind. The mind is dreaming of states of being in which there is degradation, decay, change, entropy, uncertainty and death. This shows up as what we call the universe. It's an image, an illusion, picturing what God's creation (His Son) would be like if it were NOT what it is like. It's the idea of the opposite of Heaven (reality), and is hell (illusion).

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

"He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God."

As a dream, it's not real. It's actually entirely nothing. Nothing whatsoever. It's merely an illusion of something. It's not there. At most, it is completely neutral, in that it causes nothing and has no effect on anything real. It is nothing but a thin "veil" of illusions, covering up reality. It has no mind, no will, no self, no soul, no power, no causality, no identity. It is not life and nothing in it lives forever. It has no real properties at all. Made of darkness, it is the illusion of the absence of light. When light comes, it disappears.

"Eternity will shine away the world."

"The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."

"It is at best an illusion of life, at worst, death."

"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."

You are the dreamer of the dream. The cause of the manifestation of the illusory universe. It is in your mind and coming from you. You put into place everything that happens and everything the world contains. This is "the world you made".

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways"

"For, if you think the world you made has power to make you what it wills, you ARE confusing Son and Father; effect and Source."

"My self is ruler of the universe."

"You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts."

"Both heaven and earth are in your mind."

Now. You as a dreamer, the cause of the dream world, have within your power the ability to choose whether to believe God's true reality is the one reality, or whether to put belief into the world you made. The only way to believe that the world you made has any truth or reality to it at all, is to believe God's world is lacking in truth and reality. This requires you to confuse what is really true, with what is false.

The false world you made (which includes planet Earth), by believing it exists at all, seems to take on properties of its own, as if it exists, as if it causes, as if it is happening, as if time and space actually occur. Through a reversal of cause and effect, believing that the effect of you is the cause of you, that your dream world is dreaming you, this forces your mind to "perceive" itself as being "caused by" the universe. This level confusion takes you out from "above" (or prior to) the world and places you seemingly "within it" (below it).

This is the foundation for incarnation into or the making of a body, which pictures you as if you have been "made by" the world, at the effect of it, and anchored in space and time like a prisoner. The body depicts the idea that the world is causing you, rather than that you cause the world. And now you seem to perceive in, through, and with the body.

Without this reversal of causality, there is no body. This also means everything the body "perceives" is false, perceived in a false way, confusing a false world with truth, and therefore perceiving it as if it is really there. This is what the senses were made to report (lies). They were made to look upon illusions of forms ("the forms of error"), and NOT see past them, taking them to be real objects and things.

"It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere."

"Even in its most spiritualized form perception involves the body."

"Everything the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception"

"Perception is a witness but to this, and never to reality."

"Its eyes perceive it not; its senses remain quite unaware of it"

"The body's eyes will NEVER look on it." (reality)

"The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There IS no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream, in which it acts as if it were a person, to be seen and be believed."

The perceptual function of the body, through the body's eyes and senses, reports illusions to the mind as if to suggest these illusions are really there to perceive. The body relays images of a *false world* to the mind. These are neutral images with no real meaning. Snapshots of a fake world. Pictures of nothingness seeming to be something. It is then entirely up to the mind to determine what to make of these messages.

The body always and only perceives what is false. It can ONLY look upon false things. Everything it sees MUST be false (the world is false). It is literally incapable of perceiving reality or truth of any kind. It's vision is locked into hell, for as long as it seems to exist. It cannot see light, reality, heaven, or God. It was designed not to AND it never will, regardless of your state of mind. The body sees only sin. The world is made of the idea of sin and death. Every form, object, body, planet, galaxy, is made of the idea of separation, sin and death, being a dream of death. Physical objects are sin - illusions of separations seeming to happen.

"The world of bodies is the world of sin."

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

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

"endless list of forms of nothingness that you endow with magical powers."

"For sin arose from it, out of nothingness"

"Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. To this distorted form of vision the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true. Yet how can sight that stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? It is held back by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived."

So there's the body, showing you pictures of sin and hell, constantly. That's all it can do. Anything it "sees" is a result of vision being blocked by illusions, unable to overlook (forgive) anything. Unable to see through the block of solid physical sin (matter). Repulsed by it. Imprisoned by it.

The mind however, is the only thing that sees. "only mind can see". The mind "looks upon" the images of hell that the body relays to it through the senses. The mind is the location of the belief system. The mind is where any kind of distortion of reality is happening, and it's where you assign meaning or value or "reality" to illusions. Depending on what the mind accepts as true and real, determines how it will interpret the images of a fake world. It will either believe they are real, or will believe they are not real. But so long as the body persists, it WILL continue seeing the false world.

When the mind wants to believe (value) illusory things as real, it misinterprets what the body is showing it. It is confused. It confuses unreal things for real things. The mind, therefore, has a false perception ABOUT, the images being sent to it by the body's eyes. Since the body is showing you images of the FALSE WORLD, and the mind is believing these illusions are real, the mind is now having "false perceptions about" a FALSE world. The body only shows the mind images of "hell is real". If the mind agrees with the images and is convinced these images are indeed real hell, the mind too has false perception.

Believing the body's eyes is false perception. The body is always seeing falsely, but the mind can choose whether to be confused about what it's being shown (taking it as real), or to recognize that these images are false. Images of a false world, a fake world, an untrue world, a world that is not real, or happening, a world where the sin it is made of is recognized as not real. Not true. The mind decides what meaning to give to what the body is seeing.

"Nothing I see means anything."

"I have given what I see all the meaning it has for me"

"Therefore ... will to change your mind ABOUT the world. Perception is a RESULT, and not a cause."

Note that just because you change your mind ABOUT what the body is showing you, DOES NOT MEAN that the world is inherently real or true. It does not mean the world is REAL behind your misperceptions of it. It does not mean the world is suddenly the Kingdom of God if you would just stop projecting stuff onto it. The world is NOT REAL, IN ADDITION TO, your false perceptions "about it". You have false peceptions ABOUT a false world, which makes that false world SEEM like a real world. Therefore believing the world (which is an illusion of a world) is real, or created by God, IS FALSE PERCEPTION.

A mind that believes the world is real, is having false perception. This is a false perception about a false world. The world is false, because you invented it to oppose God's truth. It is the OPPOSITE of truth. Perceiving a false world falsely, you regard it as a true world or a real world, you take it seriously, you think you live in it, and that you are at the effect of it. A true (corrected, healed) perception of a false world, reveals to you that the world IS in fact false. This is *recognition*. It is a recognition and a correct identification that this world IS in fact illusory, false, unreal, untrue, not happening, not real sin, not causing anything, not existing.

"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."

"Illusions recognized must disappear."

"Earth, heaven's OPPOSITE in every way."

"Enlightenment is but a recognition"

Just prior to total awakening from the dream, having sorted out what is really true and really false, having come to recognize illusions as illusions, not being confused about what is real, the mind is very much healed and still uses the body temporarily as a teaching device. It is used by the Holy Spirit to communicate healing and to symbolize immortality. This is the state of being "a teacher of God."

A teacher of God is still in the world, still dreaming, still causing the body as a result of slight cause-effect reversal, but almost awake ("those who perceive still need healing." The teacher of God still looks using the body's eyes, upon a fake world, where nothing is real. And it still remains in a world that continues to function according to ego laws, space and time, change and death, war and conflict, sickness and suffering. The world is still a picture of crucifixion. But the development of true perception is the development of the "spiritual eye" which overlooks these illusions and does not believe them. It looks PAST them, through them, beyond them, to the truth of reality, ignoring the illusory world and not believing in it.

"To forgive is to overlook."

"Oneness and sickness cannot coexist. God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are?"

"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. ***They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see.*** They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is ***no more real*** than to regard it as healthy and beautiful."

In this state, the mind is becoming aware it is making the world. It is the dreamer of the dream. It is causing the world. It has power over it. Miracle mindedness allows for the breaking of all laws. There is nothing you cannot do. The mind here is still perceiving, and the body is still showing it pictures of hell (bodies sick and damaged, people unhappy, death and decay etc), but having *recognized* the truth (God's) it now sees things in their proper perspective.

It's a recognition that a false world IS false, illusions ARE illusions, sickness is NOT REAL, and everything you're seeing in the dream IS nothing but a dream. If you see sick bodies, you do not BELIEVE they are really sick, even though they still APPEAR as illusions of sickness you can perceive. The body can still show you broken legs. You just RECOGNIZE that they are not REALLY broken legs. They are false images, and you are not deceived by it.

The distinction is simple. Failing to recognize that a false illusory world is exactly that, confuses the mind and makes the world seem real. Recognizing it for what it is, overlooking it, not buying into it, or believing in it, reveals its FALSE nature, BECAUSE you know what is true. What you used to believe was true, real, valuable, causing you, now clearly appears to be interpreted as doing nothing, having no reality, causing nothing and producing no real effects. The illusory world is recognized as not *really* sinning. It's sin is fake. It's sicknesses are not true of anyone. And death can be abolished at will.

"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem."

"Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."

"Miracles reawaken the awareness that the spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth."

"You are the dreamer of the world of dreams. No other cause it has, nor ever will. Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God's Son, and made him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made war upon himself."

In this state of mind the world becomes "the forgiven world." It is forgiven because you are seeing truly. True perception is ACCURATE perception. To accurately see the world you made reveals its "true nature" or "the reality of it". The reality of the world is that it is NOT real. "The real world" is Heaven. Seeing a false world truly, recognizes this world is nothing. False things are seen, but not believed.

Realize that this is a state of continuing to perceive the world and all its ills. It cannot help but be a dream of death. Being in true perception does not in any way change the laws of physics, unless you perform a miracle. The world still spins regardless of how you look at it. Blood falls to the ground regardless of how you look at it. How you look at it is NOT a cause, it is a RESULT. Perception does not cause anything. Perception is *feedback*. It shows you what YOU MADE. It shows you the dream that you're causing.

So you are still seeing the hell you made through the body's eyes, BUT you are no longer believing it is real or confusing it for reality. False perception is a failure to *recognize* an illusion when you see one, and the world is made of illusions. And illusions are not "only" your perceptions "about" the world. The world and the body are both illusions in their own right. You will still look upon them or with them but without the confusion that they are reality.

"The body is a dream."

"The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist."

"God did not create the body."

"The world you see is an illusion".

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

It's important to realize then that when your mind is almost 100% healed, you will still see a world of death. You will still see bodies being sick. You will still see (illusions of) war and suffering. The body keeps showing it to you per the ego's laws of physics. Just because you see this stuff, it DOES NOT MEAN that you are sick or believing in sickness. Just because you see someone suffering, it does not mean you are making them suffer. Just because you see your neighbor with a broken leg, it does not mean you are believing in broken legs. The key is whether you BELIEVE IT IS REAL. Whether you confuse it for truth. NOT "whether or not I see it."

Having truer perception DOES NOT MEAN "I will no longer see bad stuff." It does not mean "I will not be able to see sickness, otherwise it means I am still sick." It does not mean you cease being able to perceive death. It ONLY means you REINTERPRET what you see. You change what it MEANS to you. You change how you evaluate or judge it. You change whether you BELIEVE it is true or false, real or unreal. That has nothing to do with "whether I see it" UNTIL you attain 100% Christ Vision and the world disappears.

"The Holy Spirit is the great re-interpreter of the world."

You will continue to see this world until you ascend to Heaven. That's a fact. You being near enlightened will not change the way that the sun rises or the fact that oceans still are polluted or that death seems to happen. What changes is who you see it WITH and whether or not you *recognize* it for what it actually is. You either recognize a broken body is an illusion of a fictional broken body, pretending to be sick but being actually nothing but a fake image which you can easily change, OR you fail to recognize it and take it to be real, seeing a "real need", regarding it as "sin really happened", taking it seriously and reacting with fear. If you make the sickness real to you by believing in it, you are failing to recognize illusions and are now in need of healing yourself.

True perception, aligned with the Holy Spirit, aka Christ Vision, aka Spiritual Eye, is a clear and direct and un-distorting accurate way of seeing, which recognizes TWO things. Not just what is true, but also what is false. You must learn to recognize the false stuff AS false, and you do that by learning what is really true. In light of what is true, in the big picture, discerning, clearly recognizing, illusions are recognized as false and reality is recognized as true. BOTH occur simultaneously. You don't get to ONLY see "the truth" or "Reality" UNTIL you ascend to Heaven. Until then, you see both.

The false is seen for a while, but as false. The truth is also seen, becoming increasingly obvious as true. There are two perceptions happening at once. Body eyes and spiritual eyes. What is true (Heaven) becomes able to be seen BEYOND the thin veil of the false illusory world. The world becomes thin. Transparent. Illusions are overlooked. Bodies are not believed in. Fake causes are laughed at. Miracles demonstrate you are under no laws but God's, and break all the illusory laws of this world, including space, time, gravity, atomic forces, size, weight, distance, etc. These are all fiction.

The world seems to become forgiven, in that you no longer ADD attack to what it is. The world, when seen with forgiving eyes, isn't a REAL world, but is a NOT BELIEVED world. NOT believing that the world is real, or sinning, or attacking, or guilty, or anything at all, can make the illusory world seem lovely. It can seem lovelier than a world onto which you overlaid your projections of sinful belief. BUT, it is not lovely due to being real. It is lovely because it has no sin projected onto it. It becomes seemingly "innocent", BUT IT IS NOT REAL INNOCENCE. It becomes seemingly "holy", BUT IT IS NOT HOLINESS. It is NOTHING. It is seen merely as a thin veil, a picture of illusions of attack, which isn't really attack, and so sparkles with light as if clean and new and free from accusation. BUT IT IS STILL UNREAL. A forgive, yet STILL STRANGE world made of illusions.

"To see a sinless body is impossible. For holiness is positive, and the body is merely neutral. It is not sinful, but neither is it sinless. As nothing, which it is, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ OR of the ego."

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not."

Then the veil parts. Christ is seen. The world is forgotten. The illusory world DISAPPEARS. The body vanishes. Death is snuffed out. There is no world. No perception. The mind awakens in Heaven's reality and continues Creating with God, where it left off, as if nothing ever happened. Because it was just a dream. And now it is gone. And everything made of dreams has disappeared. Now you are Home. Now you are awake in God.

"What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists."

"A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at ALL levels. Illness, which is really "not Right Mindedness", is the result of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the misbelief that what is amiss in one level can adversely affect another."

"All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion which created magic rested on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter, which can control the mind."

"It was the first level of the error to believe that the body created its own illness. Thereafter, it is a second mis-step to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents."

"The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not in it. If the mind believes the body is its goal, it will distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it, will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot but foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else. ... To use a medium of communication as a medium of attack is an obvious confusion in purpose. To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate. How can you do both simultaneously WITH THE SAME THING, and NOT suffer?"

"The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND'S FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND'S JOY."

"LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect. What you would prove to him you will believe."

"All sickness comes from a confusion of the levels."

"Sickness is but another form of guilt."

"Do not allow yourselves to suffer from the results of what is not true. Free your minds from the belief that this is possible. In its complete impossibility, and your full awareness of its complete impossibility, lies your only hope for release."

"Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception. And like all the rest, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself."

"Sickness is a defense against the truth."

"Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are you sick that truth may go away, and threaten your establishments no more."

"The body cannot heal, because it cannot MAKE ITSELF SICK. It NEEDS no healing. Its health or sickness depends ENTIRELY on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose that the mind would use it FOR."

"The ego SEPARATES through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches THROUGH it to others. You do not perceive your brothers as the Holy Spirit does because you do not interpret their bodies AND YOURS solely as a means of JOINING THEIR MINDS and uniting them with yours and mine. This interpretation of the body will change your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has NONE. If you use it for attack it is harmful to you. But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of those who believe they ARE bodies and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of you. If you use the body for this, and ONLY for this, you CANNOT use it for attack. In the service of uniting, it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion IS. "

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you.Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies.Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body's condition."

"The IDEA of separation PRODUCED the body, and remains connected TO it, MAKING it sick because of its identification WITH it. ... "You THINK you are PROTECTING the body by HIDING this connection. For this concealment SEEMS to keep your identification safe from the "attack" of truth. If you but understood how much this strange concealment has hurt your mind, and how confused your own identification has become to you, BECAUSE of it! You do not see how great the devastation wrought by your faithlessness. For faithlessness is an attack, which SEEMS to be justified by its RESULTS. For, by withholding faith, you see only what IS unworthy of it, and cannot look BEYOND the barrier to what is joined with you."

"Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another Name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him."

"Thus are you JOINED in sickness, to preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherished, and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that leads to Him."

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved. "

"Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make the separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount."

"Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health, is to recognize in hatred the call for love."

"What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive yourself defenseless and in hell. Yield not to this, and you will see all pain in every form wherever it occurs but disappear as mists before the sun."

"Only the wholly insane could look on death and suffering, sickness and despair, and see it thus. What guilt has wrought is ugly, fearful, and very dangerous. See no illusion of truth and beauty there."

"Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death, to their believers. The form in which they are accepted is irrelevant. No form of misery, in reason's eyes, can be confused with joy."

"Any form of mental illness can truthfully be described as an expression of viciousness. We said before that those who are afraid are apt to be vicious. If we were willing to forgive other people's misperceptions of us, they could not possibly affect us at all."

"Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. I have tried to give my inheritance away in exchange for the world I see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me."

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone."

"For example, do not say, 'God did not create illness', but, 'God did not create cancer,' or heart attacks, or whatever may arouse fear in you. ... This is your personal repertory of horrors at which you are looking.These things are part of the world you see. Some of them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell. It does not matter.What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His. Therefore, it has no meaning."

"The gap IS little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every form of ill, because it is a WISH to keep apart, and NOT to join. And thus it seems to give a CAUSE to sickness which is NOT its cause. The PURPOSE of the gap is all the cause that sickness has. For it was made to keep you separated in a body which you see as if it were the CAUSE of pain. The cause of pain is separation, NOT the body, which is only its EFFECT."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."

"Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free. In pain is God denied the Son He loves. In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery."

"Pain demonstrates the body must be real. It is a loud, obscuring voice, whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness. Pain compels attention, drawing it away from Him, and focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means TO MAKE THE BODY REAL. What shares a common purpose IS the same. This is the law of purpose, which unites all those who share in it within itself. Pleasure and pain are EQUALLY unreal, because their purpose CANNOT be achieved. Thus are they means for nothing, for they have a goal without a meaning. And they share the lack of meaning that their PURPOSE has. "

"Sin shifts from pain to pleasure, and again to pain. For EITHER witness is the same, and carries but one message, "You are here, WITHIN this body, and you CAN be hurt. You can have pleasure, too, but ONLY at the cost of pain."

"Pain is a wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes which will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclaims God cruel. How could it be real in any form? It witnesses to God the Father's hatred of His Son; the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane desire for revenge and death. Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false?"

"Pain is but witness to the Son's mistakes in what he thinks he is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love Which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love."

"If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. But to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father IS the acknowledgment of yourself as you ARE. Your Father created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."

"Of one thing you were sure; of all the many causes you perceived as bringing pain and suffering to you, your guilt was NOT among them. Nor did you, in ANY way, REQUEST them for yourself. This is how ALL illusions come about. The one who makes them does NOT see himself as making them, and their reality does NOT depend on him. Whatever cause they have is something quite APART from him, and what he sees is SEPARATE from his mind. "

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes. "

"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. "

"Delay will hurt you now MORE THAN BEFORE, ONLY because you realize it IS delay, and that escape from pain IS REALLY POSSIBLE. Find hope and comfort, rather than despair, in this. You could no longer find even the ILLUSION of love in ANY special relationship here."

"This makes it an end and not a means in your interpretation, and this ALWAYS means YOU STILL FIND SIN ATTRACTIVE. No-one accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his goal. You have thus not met your one responsibility. Atonement is not welcomed by those who PREFER pain and destruction."

"You are accustomed to the notion that the mind can see the source of pain where it is not. The doubtful service of displacement is to hide the REAL source of your guilt, and KEEP from your awareness the full perception THAT IT IS INSANE."

"This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies: "I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."

"I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son."

"Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness. Yet, in these dark and heavy garments, are those who seek illusions covered, and hidden from the joy of truth. Truth is the opposite of illusions, because it offers joy."

"No risk is possible throughout the day except to put your trust in magic, for it is only this that leads to pain. There is no will but God's."

"And to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause, and with no power to accomplish anything. It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not exist. And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence like itself. You have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will of God."

"To the ego, the body IS TO ATTACK WITH Equating YOU with the body, it teaches that YOU are to attack with, because THIS IS WHAT IT BELIEVES. The body, then, is not the source of its own health. Its condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function. "

"These are not laws, but madness. The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your 'laws' would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body."

"Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to YOU. UNLESS you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly WANT them."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holy Spirit's suggestion to take the next step in a healing, was to "cancel".

This means that you cancel, as in undo, your belief that an illusion is a reality. Whatever has been asserted by the ego as true or real, you cancel it. You confirm it is false and delete it from your mind.

So if someone seems to be sick, initially you probably believe that the sickness is real in various ways. You've seen it, heard about the symptoms, know the story, believe in the body, think it's actually happening, give it value, attribute it to various fake causes, etc. All of that needs to be collapsed because it is not God's truth.

So to cancel it, you first need to forgive, i.e. undo the delusions. You need to come to recognize that all of it is an illusion, NOT a reality. There is NOT a real sickness. The person is NOT a victim. The symptoms are NOT real. It is NOT really happening. The story is NOT the proof of how it happened. The explanation for it is NOT the real cause.

Cancel out all those false beliefs. Just reverse them. If they seem true, and if it's not God's truth, it is FALSE. This undoes all of the belief in the reality of the problem in your mind so that you're not SUSTAINING the sickness. Believing the sickness is real, at all, empowers it, fuels it, feeds it, keeps it, protects it, desires it, and chooses it.

So negate, cancel, undo, collapse, disappear, dissolve, make vanish, all of everything about 'it'. Get every single belief about the sickness being real out of yourself and out of your life. Get rid of all beliefs in sickness in yourself and others, let there be no permission for sickness to stay, reject all suggestions by everyone that sickness is real or true or permanent or justified, and do not believe in it.

Cancel the lies in whatever way that seems to be needed to get your mind to a place where you find yourself starting to state the core truths... like, there isn't even a sickness there, the sickness does not exist, there is no sickness, IT IS ALREADY GONE.

As you approach the truth, you are empowering yourself, by undoing those illusions. And you may (should) start to experience a building up of POWER in you. That's the Holy Spirit. Because you're aligning yourself with God's truth, you should start to feel His flow of 'electricity'. Your words are becoming more powerful, they are starting to contain Spirit, and you're expressing a higher vibration of love.

This is kind of like a prayer that ascends up to the truth of the Atonement: there is no real sin, nothing has happened, the sickness cannot exist because God did not create it. Or even, recognizing the sickness was a defense against the Atonement, there is no real NEED for the sickness, therefore the need for it was the problem that caused it, the need is unfounded, therefore the symptoms are unnecessary defenses. Illusions recognized as illusions must disappear.

As you hook yourself up to the truth, plugging your mind into God on one end, out of the other end you can utter miraculous healing words - commands of what MUST be, given God's truth. Dispel illusions, replace them with a higher order, something more symbolic of divine health. Speak LIFE into people. Stop them from constantly reinforcing, repeating, reiterating and compounding the reality of their problems. Someone needs to stop the madness and step in and make a statement of THE REAL TRUTH.

Later, you will then find that because you undid your own illusions about the sickness being real, you will not need to make much effort to defend against ego assertions that the healing didn't work etc... those thoughts mostly will not arise, and if they do you won't believe them. Because you already got done undoing the belief in those truths. This puts you on a much firmer footing for being convinced that, believing, that the healing has been accomplished by God and that the person MUST be healed.

Cancelling the delusions about sickness being real automatically cancels out the foundation for doubt, and doubt defends against miracles.

Its quite easy to write something that says the truth. For example, refer to my previous post about a model for healthy existence. All the statements are true.

Now, when you read such statements .... you are worthy of love, you're innocent, there's no guilt in you etc... to some degree this 'news' can feel good. I mean, as you read it sometimes it feels like a relief to just see the words written and to experience that. I remember many times reading the Course itself and Jesus would say something simple like "there is no sin" and I'd feel this sense of relief and joy, like it soothed me or healed me in some little way.

Thing is, this is all very nice and I think maybe you can experience some degree of healing and help from reading or writing such things. And then everyone applauds and likes it and so on (thanks ;-)... BUT.... this CAN become a substitute for really deep healing and change. And it also at times becomes a bit of a quote-fest where we all like to take our favorite (special?!) bits of the Course and throw them out there, because... to some degree, it sort of makes us feel a bit soothed or tingly inside.

But we really need to make sure that this isn't all that we're doing. It's not enough to just repeat what's been said or to read the text or to quote it or to discuss the words or to say things that sound spiritual. We still have to do healing work. We still have to be willing to realize that everything happening in our normal mundane everyday life is only there as a spiritual lesson, nothing is not a lesson, and we have some work to do.

We still need to find our blocks to awareness of love's presence, which can come in the form of some deep healing at times. It can mean healing what you think of as 'past stuff', ie reinterpreting it. It isn't all cerebral. There's a lot of cerebral superstars working with the Course who are good at dealing with life on that level but don't really ever talk about how they just were a blubbering mess or had a huge catharsis or are struggling with ego reactions or having a hard time forgiving a particular person. That's where the work is, and that's where the blocks are getting removed.

So there are a few activities or types of Course people, and only one of these is actually really helping you to wake up:

1) Quote what the Course already said

2) Quote what some other Course person said

3) Refer to your favorite course sound byte

4) Discuss or debate what the Course means

5) Think about the metaphysics and figure it out

6) Understand the course concepts

7) Try to be more loving and spiritual

8) Seek for the obstacles to awareness of love and remove them

Only the last one is actually getting you to be awake! Its a dirty messy nasty business that involves a lot of healing and inner transformation. It's not about thoughts. It's not about discussion. It's about you being faced with your personal curriculum on a daily basis, which is not the same as anyone else's, and being challenged to learn a lesson, and not wanting to, and having to find a way to forgive and heal and release and transform your viewpoint to that of the Holy Spirit, using this personal situation for that purpose. It's laborious. It's long-winded. It takes time and effort and willingness. It's not comfortable. Sometimes it hurts. But unless you're actually working on changing what you are EXPERIENCING, you will not be able to eventually experience the truth.

Sometimes when I post loftier thoughts and metaphysics and statements about what God thinks of you, it can sometimes lead you to falsely conclude that digesting it is your only role, or that you should attain such a truth overnight. That's misleading. I apologize for that confusion. If its not practical and you can't really use it to help you heal, then what use is it other than to have a passtime of being interested in Course stuff, being a commentator, or a critic, or a storyteller? The Course is meant to be USED to change your mind.