Can you accept the atonement?

For the ego, atonement means that you really did something wrong, and now you have to pay for it. This is the idea that you must make up for the losses you caused, because of your guilt. It calls for you to make a sacrifice, to have some portion of yourself or what you value taken from you, to make up for what you stole when you sinned. It suggests that if you "do your time" and suffer enough, MAYBE... just maybe, there might be a forgiveness or a pardon.

MAYBE those with authority and justification and righteousness to judge you guilty might decide to pardon you and let you off the hook. Except that, these judgemental accusers are never really satisfied, and there is no amount of atoning you can do to make up for your sin. Once a criminal, always a criminal. And all crimes are considered punishable by death. Even little ones.

If you believe that this is the truth of what atonement means, you will not want to accept the atonement, or understand it.

Similarly, it is believed by many that when Jesus allegedly died on the cross, he was suffering and in pain. And that this tremendous suffering, having to undergo death, somehow "carried the weight" or "paid for" or "took on the sacrifice for" or "suffered for" everyone else's sins, so that everyone else could be considered forgiven thereafter. It's even said that God, in all his loving ways, condemned His beloved son to death, in order for this atoning to occur, so that everyone else could be let off the hook.

Nevertheless, it's quite obvious that in spite of this alleged atoning and suffering, pretty much everyone is still riddled with sin and guilt and fear and murder and death. So it didn't exact "work", according to the evidence. And the fact that this explanation is evidently false is covered up with further theological justifications which are all unfounded band-aids trying to patch up a broken fundamental misunderstanding of what atonement is.

Jesus's atonement was misunderstood. He did not suffer on the cross. He was a profound miracle worker, had no guilt in his mind (the guiltless mind cannot suffer), did not believe in death at all, had already raised the dead, had power and authority over all illusions, and was an embodiment of the power of Christ. Nothing could happen to him against his will. He was not a body at all, and anything seeming to happen to his body did not happen to him. He was truly beyond it, beyond all suffering and death and sin.

He was not a victim in any way at all. It is claimed that Jesus was "sacrificed" for us. How can sacrifice be in any way associated with Jesus, who does not believe in the sacrificial thought system of the ego, and its belief in egoic atonement through loss? Jesus was not asked to sacrifice and he was NOT a sacrifice. He was a demonstration that sacrifice was an illusion and was not POSSIBLE, because sin was not real, and He had not done anything wrong. And he knew that we hadn't either, so sacrifice was never even called for.

His act of being on the cross showed that in spite of the fact that he was supposed to die, he could not die, and could not feel pain, to DEMONSTRATE the miraculous truth that you are not a body and you are invulnerable. And upon returning in a brand new manifested body later, He further demonstrated and proved that bodies are not who you are, that you cannot die, and that you are immortal spirit.

Jesus knew this because He knew what the atonement really was. He knew that it meant that, in truth, nothing real can be threatened because the entire world, bodies, and death, are all illusions. He did not believe in them. AND he did not believe in SIN. Not one bit. He had no sin in him because He did not believe in it. In that view, HE knew that everyone else's "alleged" sinfulness was forgiven, because nobody had really sinned at all. And all of the ways that people believed they were sinful, HE knew that those were not "real sins" in the eyes of God, and that all sin WAS undone because it had not really occurred. That's the true meaning of the atonement and most people did not get the memo.

That also demonstrates why, in spite of the fact that Jesus knew and perceived and experienced the atonement principle, that nobody was sinful or guilty at all, claiming it for himself and thus for everyone, this didn't prevent everyone else from STILL BELIEVING IN SIN. In fact, most onlookers believed in sin so much that they thought that his death was real and did not "get" the teaching of his demonstration that the body is not real at all. And it was precisely the people who DID believe in sin and death and bodies, who MADE UP the interpretation of Jesus being "really sacrificed" and "really suffering for us", which has been an ongoing ego myth for 2000+ years. The ego rejoices that so many people believe that Christ could suffer and be sacrificed. It's satanic!

And so people have carried on believing in real sin and in BEING in sin, because they still believe that sin is real. That's why Jesus's atonement did not instantaneously lift the belief in sin from everyone's mind, which it should have done if what is claimed about the crucifixion were true, ie that Jesus took the hit for us. If he did that, why are we still believing in sin and death? Jesus's awakening should've removed all sin from everyone. In HIS eyes, this was done, but in OUR eyes, it was not done, because WE still freely chose to continue believing in real sin and real death. And plenty of people have demonstrated this by DYING ever since.

Jesus IS the atonement in that Jesus has united with the Holy Spirit in a mind of pure innocence, in which God recognizes the truth that we HAVE NOT SINNED, and that sin is not reality. Jesus knows this is true of us, but WE have not woke up to this reality yet. And so we DO continue to still do "real sins" because we still believe in real sin. That keeps us bound to sin and death. We CAN be liberated from this if WE will accept the atonement, but WE do have to willingly do that ourselves. Jesus can't force it on us. He knows we have not sinned but we don't believe him. Not really.

So all these false definitions of atonement have to be thrown out. The atonement means that literally nothing "real" has actually happened, and that all the things that you thought were "real" were just imagined, just a dream, a vast illusion, masquerading as a real world with real bodies doing real bad stuff. Its UNREALITY is the proof of innocence. You cannot have become less than innocent if you did not achieve a REAL sin. Make-believe sins do not count! You cannot REALLY sin and you have not really sinned. But while you believe that you HAVE, that's a problem. That's keeping you from the truth and keeping you from ACCEPTING Jesus's demonstration of the atonement.

The world is not reality. It is an illusion. And you have not really done anything wrong here, because everything you've ever supposedly "done" has ONLY ever been a portion of a made-up dream that isn't really real. It sure as heck can seem real, but ONLY because you believe that dreams are reality. Look around you at all the people who have set up camp in this dream, believing it's the real world, believing it is real life, prepared to hang out here and just die and not wake up to the truth. There is more than this.

Undo all of your beliefs that the physical world is reality. It is not. Jesus proved it, IF you will believe it from His vantage point. He knew that there was no real sin, and saw that everyone's sins ALREADY were forgiven before He even came to that awareness. God does not condemn. God does not judge. God knows your innocence is still pure and holy. And God knows that you cannot POSSIBLY "actually" separate from Him other than in a dream-like illusion of separation. Your innocence is guaranteed. It is ALREADY the truth, even while you believe that you have really sinned.

The truth of the atonement ALREADY WAS TRUE before Jesus became the first to claim it for Himself and for all. It was ALREADY TRUE that God had not condemned us and had not believed that we really sinned. It was ALREADY TRUE that God's unconditional love had not wavered for a second, and that He KNEW that it was IMPOSSIBLE to actually separate from him. Real Sin is impossible. Jesus came to ACCEPT that the atonement is true, He did not CREATE the atonement. The truth of the atonement is God's truth, and has always been true and always will be.

It's a done deal. Nothing happened. Wake up.

If this world is real, then it is a cruel world. And all its paths lead eventually to death. There is no escape in the world. "The world was made that problems could not be escaped."

In this world, when something goes wrong, it stays wrong. Unless you can find a physical solution which seems to solve the problem. But the problem does not really get cured, and the solution does not prevent more problems.

The ego's plan for this world is that everything ends in death. It does not matter how long it takes or what form it takes. All that is physical is inherently made of the idea of death.

If this world is true, then if someone becomes physically sick, there is no hope. There is no way to undo it. If something goes terribly wrong, there is no hope. No way to solve it. The world was made to be a place of hopelessness, and if you follow its laws and its rules there is literally no hope of escaping its death sentence.

This is why we are being asked in ACIM to rise above this battlefield, to awaken from it, to lift up and see it from a different vantage point. We're asked to forgive and overlook it, to not believe it is reality, and to not regard it as true. Only in this way, by recognizing there is ANOTHER world filled with hope, that you can have any hope at all.

Recognizing that this world is fundamentally cruel and insane, your ONLY hope is to learn to recognize that because of its insanity it cannot be real. The pain and hell that arise from its cruelty are seemingly tolerable up to a point, but produce hellish nightmarish experiences.

There comes a turning point where you can no longer accept that this world CAN be real, because of its utter cruelty and hell-bent focus on inevitable death and irreversible damage. There has to be a better way. There has to be some other world more true than this. There has to be some way to have hope.

This is where we begin to seek out the light, to leave the darkness of the desert and find a way to rise above the bullshit of the planet. This begins to open up what ACIM calls our spiritual eye. It's an attempt to liberate ourselves from suffering, to laugh in the face of death, and to even become miraculous.

"Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. 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."

This flies in the face of everything the world says is true. It requires you to DENY the world through a proper use of denial, such that you are not willing to accept what it shows you, what it tells you, or the plans it has for your demise. It goes totally against the grain and against everything the world believes is true and possible. Because "it is the world you see that is impossible."

The world, being as utterly insane as it is, cannot possibly be real. If it is real then we might as well give up and die, because it offers on way out.

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. All its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes."

Overcoming the world requires an ability to resurrect. It requires an ability to go against the laws of the world. It requires a movement into miraculousness, because only through a literal breaking of the laws of spacetime can you truly overcome death.

You have to fly in the face of everything that seems to be happening and defy it. You have to rise up above it and have a power over it. You have to be able and willing to undo it, reverse it, and demonstrate the cancellation of sin and death. Through miracles there is hope, but without the possibility of operating opposite to the world there is no hope at all.

We have to find a way, a path to the light, which the world does not support, which the world says is impossible, which the world actively tries to oppose. It requires the proper use of denial, the weakening of the investment in physical sight, the ignoring of physical sensory inputs which lie to you through the body, and to look beyond appearances. This means recognizing illusions as illusions and not being tempted or deceived by the world. This is a tough challenge. But the world must be denied, otherwise it is true.

"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."

The ultimate pinnacle of this teaching is that there literally is no world here at all. "There is no world. This is the central lesson the course would attempt to teach". Only if there is NO world, and NOTHING has happened, and this is ONLY a dream, can there be hope of escape, and hope of liberation from its nightmare. Only through recognizing that it IS NOT REAL is there any way to laugh at its unbelievable bullshit, to find a way back to God, and to return to a state of happiness.

The only way out of hell is through forgiveness, the overlooking of illusions and the recognition of ACTUAL reality, which is the Kingdom of God and not the Earth.

"There is another advantage, - and a very important one, - in referring decisions to the Holy Spirit with increasing frequency. Perhaps you have not thought of this aspect, but its centrality is obvious. To follow the Holy Spirit's guidance is to let yourself be absolved of guilt.It is the essence of the Atonement.It is the core of the curriculum.The imagined usurping of functions not your own is the basis of fear. The whole world you see reflects the illusion that you have done so, making fear inevitable. To return the function to the One to Whom it belongs is thus the escape from fear. And it is this that lets the memory of love return to you. Do not, then, think that following the Holy Spirit's guidance is necessary merely because of your own inadequacies. It is the way out of hell for you."

"A miracle can offer nothing less to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did not do. And so is he convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with 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.*** This call has power far beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt. The ancient calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto His Own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. 11 Yet it is given you to show him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream."

I think that I recently reached a turning point. It's particularly to do with the sense of being a "separate person". This seemed to come into question, particularly in terms of relationships with others, how I see them, who I think they are etc. And it also very much involved questioning the reality of my body and the bodies of others.

I seemed to be opening up to an idea of oneness, a sense of sharing, of joining minds, and that others are a part of myself. I could see how I had been trapped inside a kind of prison of isolation for a long time, identified with my body and with being "not others". As if everything I did and how I thought about people all revolved around this sense of me being separate from them. I found myself apologizing a lot in my mind for all the ways I'd been wrongly separating myself off through various forms of conflict and scapegoating.

As I embraced more the idea that my brothers are part of myself, this began to transcend bodily boundaries. It also began to open up a sense of inclusion and shared interests. I started experimenting with the idea of "being" other people, and trying to include them in myself as I related to them. It changes the energy dynamics completely and totally deflates all sense of going to war. I realized this was a major part of the golden rule, the atonement, the idea of sharing, and deeply connected to true miracle-working.

Since that turning point, and as this sense of joining continues to expand, I've been noticing a few things that are changing. I feel as though I am stepping outside of a box that I've been in. As if there's been a little circle drawn on the floor around my feet and I've never before stepped outside the circle. Everywhere I've gone, I've still been inside the circle, cut off from people. And as I now step outside of it, it makes me realize all the more that the body is a device for separation.

In particular I feel that I've been just stuck in the idea of "I am a body" my whole life, and that the body has served as a way to remain separated off. I suddenly started seeing how every way I related to people was a special relationship, based on them being "not me", and all revolving around the body being the thing that separates me off. Seeing other people as confined to their bodies. Seeing myself as only that which is inside this body.

This boundary, which has been there, is now recognized as being the "cause of" a great deal of struggle, conflict, loss and unhappiness. Being identified and anchored to this body and "excluding" others, has formed the basis of all scapegoating, justifying all finger-pointing, all blame, all sense that something applies to others and not me. I see the body now as the core of what keeps me apart from others. And if I separate them off based on their body being separate from my body, that's the whole trap.

Suddenly I find myself stepping outside of this entire dynamic. Transcending bodies. Including people as a part of myself. Developing a sense of shared identity. I realize that peace is only possible by sharing and joining, because only in oneness is there no separation or war. And that it is ONLY through joining of mind and sharing an identity that you can actually work true miracles. It literally requires the two minds to have a shared sense of oneness and identity which transcends bodies. It is that mystical, psychological, joining of two beings as one, that literally undoes the separation, and therefore sickness and death.

I see now much more clearly the "road home", as being a movement away from being separated off, and towards being reunited with others. Of finding more ways to include others in myself. And I see that this truly is the only way to end the war, the conflict, the arguments, the projections, and all the ego activities. We came from a state of union and we have to return to it.

It is quite startling in fact to recognize that, in truth, we are supposed to be basically everywhere, united with everyone, sharing everything, one with all minds, being a part of all beings, and that in contrast, bodies are doing the absolute extreme opposite of that. They are serving as ways to keep people apart, promote conflict, imprison and trap, produce loneliness and isolation, and breed sickness.

I can see now in fact that it is my belief in being separate that fuels sickness in myself and others. It is the very sense of the rift or split in my mind - our mind - a sense of us not being one with each other, that manifests as illness. I have been producing illness between myself and others as a projected form of the idea of being at war with them.

Pictures of crucifixion have arisen as psychological images of dream-weapons held up to support the idea of "not being each other". Of being in a state of attack and special relationship. A state of separating off and being an enemy. It breeds a dream of death that I've been doing to myself. And always whenever the body is involved as a separation device, the relationship is always one of specialness and conflict and hatred.

It feels like coming out of a shell, out of hiding. It feels like realizing that you've been living in a prison cell all your life, anchored inside the body, and suddenly are realizing that this has hemmed you in and has tended to make you withdraw to your isolation as a way to solve problems. Now that I suddenly realize I don't have to be trapped in the body, I can spread my wings and encompass others, be more inclusive and share more.

It's strange but this seems also be precisely what it means to truly forgive. Because forgiveness isn't just about recognizing people's innocence. Forgiveness is atonement, atonement is sharing, and that means joining of minds. Forgiveness literally entails and requires minds to be inclusive of each other. It's not just a state of truer perceptions and more accurate judgements, it's actually a state of union and sharing. A return to shared identity and being.

As a result, and without deliberately attempting to do so, I suddenly am noticing myself giving people far more credit, benefit of the doubt, charity, etc. Just as I found myself doing in certain forgiveness meditations, such as in lesson 121 in the course - forgiveness is the key to happiness, in which you are guided to see light in an enemy and find ways to credit them with the good they've done rather than focus on their shortcomings.

I find myself seeming to put my arms around people psychologically, my mind keeps taking an automatic step away from holding things against people and has this sort of "space" between where they're at and what I credit them with. I seem to be transcending their bodies and their egos along with my own. And that means, what I feel to be, true forgiveness is happening. I'm actually taking a vantage point, generalized and widespread, in which I am literally being more forgiving all the time, more loving, more inclusive, and more sharing.

I've been finding myself suddenly opening up to people more, connecting with people, serving people, helping people more than ever. It is diminishing and removing fears about relating to strangers, and seems to be powering me, not with some kind of bravado or arrogance but with gentleness and connection. I seem to be opening up. And to me that means that, living as a separated off body-identified self means being closed down. It means being cut off from others.

The simple truth is that bodies have been lying to us this whole time. We've bought into being bodies hook line and sinker. And that means being separated from each other, because bodies are literally never joined. The more we are a body the less we share. The more we are a body the more we are at war. The more we are a body the more confined we become to one little spot in the world, which becomes the center of the ego universe, and everyone else becomes an enemy.

Getting away from being a body is the key. It's like opening a door that I never realized was shut all this time. I've been doing this same thing over and over and over forever. Everything I've said and thought and done and related has been still within the confines of this prison cell. Still from a vantage point of being a separated self, a self that is not shared with other selves. A self that isn't united or whole or one or part of a sonship. The unhealed healer that is suffering from "separation sickness" and thinks they have something that others lack - ie that they lack me.

That's been the one common denominator this whole time, and now I'm learning to open the door and step outside. To expand my sense of self, to include myself in others, and to become a part of life. To restore relationship and connection, as well as to uphold health and wholeness. And I knew, it's not going to be long, as this continues to develop and increase, the movement towards being able to truly join minds and perform miracles of union.

Sharing is the key. Joining is everything. The oneness is our true nature. Not in rejection of our individual souls, but joining them together as a collective. We are still a holographic family, many yet one, each other yet ourselves. This means still being "me", but it also means being "more than just myself" and including others in what I am. I've focused too much on the "separate me" part and not enough on the "oneness" part. And it was the "oneness" part of that that I was missing out on. Not any more.

"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."

"Be free today, and carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body. Be you free, so that the Holy Spirit can make use of your escape from bondage to set free the many who perceive themselves as bound and helpless and afraid. Let love replace their fears through you. Accept salvation now, and give your mind to Him Who calls to you to make this gift to Him. For He would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full accomplishment in God."

Over time with ACIM you may come to realize that you're making everything up as you go along. What things mean when stuff happens isn't actually a part of what happens. There is a judgement happening which comes in between you and the events.

You could also call it a projection or a decision, an intention or an attitude. An expression or a wish. There is this entire layer or filtering and choosing and deciding what to MAKE OF things which happens in between you and all external happenings.

In the past you might have thought that all these interpretations and experiences and the meaning of things was locked into what happens. As if the form of the situation dictates what you feel, the people involved decide your experience, and the consequences dictate what is true.

But there actually isn't any inherent meaning in the world, or the body, or in anything that happens here. Everyone has totally and utterly made up the entire thing as they've gone along. At some point in time someone has decided to give certain things certain meanings and labels. Totally arbitrary and out of the blue.

We've all inherited a lot of these labels from society etc. But what you have to realize is you're actually deciding what to MAKE OF things all the time. You have to ask yourself, is this thing really what you think it is, or are YOU determining that it is that? Are you the one GIVING it this meaning? Does it only seem to be "this bad thing" because YOU have said that it is? And what if it isn't?

As you start to explore the fact that you give everything all the meaning it has for you, that you project your decisions about what you want to see, that you decide often wrongly what to make of situations, and you are the one who judges that you should be in fear, you may realize that you're doing all this to yourself. Your "attacking thoughts" make the world seem attacking, but it isn't.

"I have given everything I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) all the meaning that it has for me."

"I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts."

Now the secret of salvation says you're doing it to yourself which makes you think of an inward direction, as if you are attacking yourself from the outside in. But what you actually do is you, from the inside out, reach inside and decide what you want, what you believe, what you want to see and experience, what meanings you think are true, and THEN you project them out onto or as the world. And then you perceive it. And as you perceive it you take it as total fact.

What that means is that it is your judging, labeling, deciding, projecting, expressing, intending, your attitude, your viewpoint, your desires, your completely arbitrary choice of what you want to MAKE OF the world, that you then put ONTO it and decide is real. As such you do everything "to" the world, so to speak, and the side-effect is that you then experience exactly what you decided it was going to cause you to experience. You experience what you make of it. So then indirectly you are doing it to yourself.

As you realize that all your engagement with the world has been forced through a filter which is in you, in which you direct what to make of the world before you see things in it, you might also then realize that you can choose something else. You could conceivably choose to believe or make of the world something other than what you had been making of it. And why not? Why not just arbitrarily decide to see good in it?

Certainly if you are not at peace, you have made a wrong decision. But what this means is that you have chosen to PROJECT a decision ie a judgement about the world ONTO the world, choosing WHAT you want to make of it, and this has resulted in a loss of peace through the feedback loop of perception. Therefore, you are not at peace because you made a wrong decision ... about what you wanted to see in it.

You may not have realized yet that you actually have the freedom and control and power TO decide what you want to see in the world, and you don't HAVE to just adopt the automatic unconscious inherited interpretations of things that everyone buys into. You need to realize that the world really is totally meaningless and has no inherent meaning. Nothing that happens really means what people have decided it means. Even death is not really death.

"Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life."

We've taken certain physical states and have given them labels. We've decided that a body laying motionless is death and bodies moving around are life. This is NOT the truth. They are both just different forms of the same images with NO meaning. The whole world is mistaken in even thinking that a motionless body MEANS death. It is no more alive OR dead because bodies are equally illusions in all states. So YOU in your mind decide that one of the states is bad and awful and tragic and the other is not.

We might think there's a whole host of meanings and definitions for things in the world as if they are just accepted by everyone, but ALL of these have to be questioned. They have in fact all been GIVEN TO the world by you.

"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that."

So now as you refine and heal your mind, and practice forgiveness and responsibility, it becomes more clear that you're making up all the meanings that things seem to have, and you are reacting to the very meanings you give to them. You MAKE OF situations what you would have them be. You COULD potentially make of a situation something far more light, than the dooming tragedy that you're making it out TO be. In other words, there IS another way of looking at this.

"In dreams, YOU arrange everything. People BECOME what you would have them be, and what they do YOU order."

"Since the purpose of the world is not the one I ascribed to it, there must be another way of looking at it."

So this is where we have to recognize that we have the power of decision to choose, we always choose what meaning we give to everything, we're not in a position to choose or judge accurately because we don't have all the facts, we should open up to the Holy Spirit's judgement or interpretation and stop hurting ourselves with faulty evaluations.

We can potentially just as easily DECIDE, that someone is going to do well, as we can decide that they are going to do poorly. We might think ok if the situation looks like it's bad, then I will decide to agree that it's bad, and will suffer. But does it have to be seen as bad or wrong or going south? You COULD just as easily decide to believe that it's going to go well. You COULD adopt a brighter outlook. There is nothing stopping you.

It may seem at first that this is like playing with insanity or just throwing out all morality or values or sense of what things are, like some kind of LIE that you're telling yourself, some kind of thing that you're "making up". As if you're being totally fictional or in "in denial" about what's "really happening", pretending things are not bad. And indeed forgiveness IS "a happy fiction". You are MAKING a different interpretation of the world, one where you decide to see it right instead of wrong and not use it for attack.

This reveals that probably you have been floating around in a completely untethered free-roaming state, washed around by the crashing waves, believing that the world has decided for you what situations mean while all along just flitting back and forth between made-up meanings. You have been undecided and fickle and unstable and changing your mind and just all over the place with inconsistency.

Most likely you have adopted a general "attitude" or "mood" about life, maybe it's filled with bitterness, maybe it's very judgmental, maybe you attack a lot, maybe you have become pessimistic, maybe you hate people, maybe you just have "learned" that everything sucks. Or maybe you have TAUGHT YOURSELF that it does. Maybe you haven't realized that you decided every single thing you perceived in it, and COULD have changed your mind to seek a better way.

"Judgment was made to be a weapon used against the truth. It separates what it is being used against, and sets it off as if it were a thing apart. And then it makes of it what you would have it be."

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

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

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

Jesus simply is saying that the world doesn't mean anything at all, we are constantly making up meanings and PRETENDING that they are inherent to the situation or the forms you see, and we can EASILY just elect to believe something else. There are brighter happier outlooks that are possible, there are miraculous loving viewpoints that you could just as easily adopt. There is a higher happier healthier outlook you could have.

And again this goes back to your thoughts, because everything you think is praying for, asking for, and producing, the very thing you want to experience. It's GIVING the meanings that you have decided things have. The key is realizing YOU are in the driver's seat making all these decisions, usually deciding on your own, and it's you that's made up all the dire meanings that you see in things. You can instead adopt the holy spirit's meanings and see with his vision instead. By letting him decide FOR ME what everything is and means, from a very lofty perspective, I can experience the world in a much happier way.

I am never upset for the reason I think.

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

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

The world can't really be held responsible for its nature. It was given its nature by those who made it. It was made for a purpose to serve them. And it functions exactly as they wanted it to.

Its makers wanted the world to be a place opposite to heaven in every possible way. Whatever was true of heaven, the world we made had to be unlike it in the most extreme ways possible.

Whereas heaven was light and strong and eternal and perfect, the world we made HAD to be dark and weak and temporary and imperfect. There was no real choice in this. Certainly the world itself had no choice in this, because it didn't make itself.

We wanted an opposite to God, an opposite to heaven, an opposite to eternal life. So we made an unreal dream of death and unhappiness. A dream of mortality and impermanence in which all things are infiltrated by death and destruction. A world opposite to creation where creation is impossible.

"Creation is impossible in this world."

The world cannot help this. It was made to be like this. Its nature is the only nature that is even possible as an opposite to heaven. It HAD to be this way in order to be different to the Kingdom.

It's not like the world can actually choose to be heaven, or have a nature that is exactly the same as heaven. Nor is it possible that the world is actually electing which nature to have. It cannot make this choice. It is something we made, and isn't the creator of itself.

This is also why the ego - something else we made, is forgivable. It is just as forgivable as the world because it did not make itself. It has the nature it has simply because it could have no other nature. A device spawned from an idea of separateness COULD ONLY lead a state of selfishness and isolation, exclusion and limitation.

The ego itself had no say in this. In fact it has no say in its own nature. In this sense it too is not responsible for being the way that it is. It was forced to be this way by its makers. And now it is true to its nature and follows the laws assigned to it.

The ego cannot really be accused of therefore doing bad things on purpose as though it could actually ever choose not to. It isn't a device for truth and salvation, nor is it a mind that can make a decision. It certainly isn't its own author, even though it has invented a story about a false God that it thinks made it.

The ego HAD to be the way it is because this is the natural outcome of an idea of separateness. Separateness never looks any other way or functions any other way. The world and the ego and the body simply CANNOT function any other way. They were given a function when they were made and they cannot deviate from it. The reason being that this function derives from a premise which has never been altered.

So in a sense we can't really hold the deeds of the ego, or of bodies, or people, or the world, against them. They are being faithful to their nature. They are just ticking over like a machine which was designed to function a certain way. They cannot do anything about it.

"The ego's voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect the EGO to say "I am not real."

The world cannot suddenly decide to be nice to you. The ego cannot suddenly tell you what the truth is. The body cannot suddenly be immortal. Objects cannot suddenly transcend spacetime. They are all locked into a system. It's a system-wide state of laws and rules by which they were made, they always abide, and they can never escape.

They cannot escape themselves, nor can they offer salvation from themselves. They are not going to change their minds. They are not going to take on a different nature. They are always going to keep running and operating on the same dysfunctional basis because that's the nature that was given to them, and they know nothing else. Nor are they capable of anything else, just as a tool or device can only do what it was designed to do.

So while the world and the ego and bodies attack and murder and destroy, in a sense they cannot help it. It's what they do. It's all that they do. They don't know how to do anything else, nor can they be taught to. Nor can they be kept while they are transformed into something better. They can only ever keep on being the way they were always going to be from the start.

Because they do not know what they do, they are forgivable. Because they did not create themselves, they are forgivable. Because they can only function in fault and failure because they were supposed to, they are forgivable. Because they can't help but break and disrupt and distort and skew and deceive and destroy, they must be forgivable. They aren't doing it "on purpose" out of optional spite, nor are they doing it on a basis of being free to do anything else.

The world can only destroy, and it can only deny, and it can only lose, and it can only fail. That is its nature. It can only disappoint and it can only fall short and it can only hurt. That is its nature. It can only be at war, it can only decay, and it can only die. That is its nature. It was born to die, and never to live except for death.

We cannot hold its nature against itself when it doesn't even have the slightest say in its nature or behavior. We cannot redeem the ego. We cannot redeem the world. The world cannot be saved in this sense because it cannot stop functioning the way it does even if "it wanted to". It is helpless. It is powerless. It has no causal choice. It can make no decisions. It is weak and vulnerable and fearful and nothing. So it can't really do anything of its own volition.

The world and the ego are nothing but puppets on a string being dangled by sons of God playing with sharp-edged toys. The world and the ego won't stop trying to kill you off either. Nor will they suddenly turn perfect or operate with holiness and happiness. The world is a pointless depressing hopeless place because all its roads lead to death. It doesn't know how to live, it only knows how to die. You can have pity for it in that sense. You can even have compassion for it.

"Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will you be ready to come home?"

The world will never be other than what it has to be in order to fulfill the function of separation. And the ego will never have a loving truthful nature. They are lost because they are loss. They are faulty because they were not made with love. They are broken because they were not given immortality. And they can only but disappear.

I forgive the world for being true to its maker. I forgive it for being incapable of real change. I forgive it for not knowing how to function better. I forgive it for being only capable of disappointment. I forgive it for attacking and destroying mindlessly and without consideration. I forgive its determined mercilessness, driven solely by its inherent function and its blindness to anything else. I forgive its evil which does not know what it does. And I forgive it for ever seeming to be needed, for a purpose of attack, from which it cannot deviate.

There is no spiritual ego. There is no sacred planet. They don't exist and never will. How can you hold a dream against ITSELF when YOU are the one who dreamed it into existence? It is what you want it to be, and it does what you wanted it to do. And until you stop dreaming it will continue to be a dream of death.

"It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as "the way of nature," not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the "natural" law of life."

"Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature's "law of life." God is insane, and fear alone is real."

"The world goes AGAINST your nature, because it is out of accord with God's laws. The world perceives orders of difficulty in EVERYTHING. This is because the ego perceives nothing as wholly desirable."

"The ego cannot make this choice because of the nature of its origin."

"For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. "

"You see the world which you have made, but you do not see yourself as the image-maker. You cannot be saved from the world, but you can escape from its cause."

"The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is unbelievable and will forever BE unbelievable."

"the world will never give a gift that is not made of fear"

"Everything the world can offer promises some joy that it will never give." "Your ego and your Soul will never be co-creators" "the body may become his chosen home, but it will never be his home in truth."

"The body's eyes will never see except through differences."

"These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see."

"The body's serial adventures, from the time of birth to dying is the theme of every dream the world has ever had. The "hero" of this dream will never change, nor will its purpose."

"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 is 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 the ILLUSION of love will NEVER satisfy you. But its REALITY, which awaits you on the other side, WILL give you everything." "It costs the world we see, for the world will never again appear to rule the mind."

"There IS no meaning in the form, AND THERE WILL NEVER BE."

When we are greatly distracted by, tempted by, and lost in the world, it is hard to recognize the secret of salvation.

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF."

But the real key part of this isn't just that you are doing things to yourself, rather than it being others who do it. It's that it can ONLY BE YOU who can hurt yourself.

Jesus describes many times that you have hurt yourself. You have hurt your mind. You have attacked yourself.

"Because you had attacked yourself, and BELIEVED THAT THE ATTACK WAS EFFECTIVE, you behold yourself as weakened."

"Although you have attacked yourself, and very brutally, you will demonstrate that NOTHING HAPPENED. Therefore, by attacking, you have NOT DONE ANYTHING."

"By doing this UNCONSCIOUSLY, you try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself FIRST out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe."

"You HAVE attacked him, and you MUST have attacked yourself first."

It is easy to place a lot of focus on other people. On forgiving the world. On healing the body. On world events and problems. It is easy to spend a great deal of time caught up in relationships and dramas. But all of these forms of suffering are really quite far down the line in terms of what came first, and where the real power is.

What comes first happens quickly and so close to home, that it is easy to miss. YOU .... attack yourself....... BEFORE. ... the entire world happens.

"Only the self-accused condemn."

You accuse yourself FIRST. You attack your invulnerability FIRST. You try to undermine your immortality FIRST. You position yourself as afraid FIRST. You make yourself a victim FIRST. You see yourself as lacking FIRST. You condemn yourself FIRST. You accuse yourself of sin FIRST. You do everything to yourself FIRST.

THEN ..... having attacked yourself, the whole thing starts to cascade into projection and blame and dissociation and denial and displacement and various other ways to "disown" responsibility for what you have done to yourself.

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you."

It then becomes possible to become confused as to WHO did this to you. You deny that you did it to you. You pretend that someone else did it to you. You shift the responsibility. You hide from your own self attack. You don't want to look at the fact that YOU are trying to self destruct. All self attack is an attempt to kill God's son - which is YOU - which is suicide. And eventually this results in suffering, sickness, and death, ALL OF WHICH are self inflicted.

"It means that you cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness." "YOU CAN BUT HURT YOURSELF. This has been oft repeated, but is difficult to grasp as yet."

"For you HAVE hurt yourself, and made your Self your enemy. And now you MUST believe you are not you, but something alien to yourself and "something else," a "something" to be feared instead of loved."

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

This doesn't have ANYTHING to do with anyone else, or the body, or the world, or spacetime. It's entirely to do with. ... do you love yourself or not? Do you accept and live in your IMMORTAL nature which is given by God, or do you DENY that you are immortal and TRY to make yourself mortal? The only ambition of trying not to be mortal, is that you try to destroy (kill) yourself. But since your immortal self cannot die, you confuse yourself with a body and kill it instead, as a representation of yourself dying.

"If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves"

"Yet you CANNOT crucify God's Son, for the Will of God cannot die"

"What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die. Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF."

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

The attack upon YOURSELF, is all the only problem. You thinking that you attack others, is YOUR problem of being confused, and you are mistaken. You thinking that others attack you, is you being confused, and you are mistaken. NO ONE has ever attacked you against your will. You have never suffered against your will. You have never been sick against your will. You have never died against your will.

"Would you not rather live than choose to die?"

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

Salvation, and the secret of salvation, is simply that ANYTHING you experience other than immortality, YOU are doing to yourself. You are the SOLE cause of it. There are no external causes of suffering. There are no external causes of sickness or death. "There are no accidents in salvation." Nothing in the world can do ANYTHING to you against your will. No one can vioalte you or offend you or hurt you against your will. You CANNOT BE A VICTIM unless you deliberately decide to be one.

So this really has nothing at all to do with anyone else. It is entirely to do with .... are you going to forgive yourself, or not? Are you going to love yourself, or not? There is another subtle part to this though. Your soul and your mind are two different things. Your soul is your self, your identity in christ. But your mind is a medium that your soul uses for expression. Your soul does NOT need salvation because it is permanently immortal. It has never been attacked and never will. But your MIND is confused and HAS tried to hurt itself. It DOES need "healing" or correction.

This means that, even your own self attack, even your mind's efforts to destroy you, even your belief in sin and evil, even your death wish, in truth has NO EFFECT on your immortal soul. Nothing changes about the truth of you. Even your self induced suffering is not REAL suffering. Even your self inflicted pain is not real pain. And as you try to kill yourself off, you as the son of God is totally unaffected.

This means that EVEN IF you attack yourself, you are not REALLY attacking yourself. You have not REALLY ever done anything to yourself. "I am still as God created me."

Recognize first that ALL attack is SELF attack. This is not easy when you have slipped down the slipper slope into projection. It has to all come back to YOU being totally responsible for sin. BUT, you must not stop at being responsible for sin because it is not real. You need swift correction, so that you will recognize you HAVE NOT even sinned against yourself. You must admit that YOU are the ONLY cause of ALL your suffering, and decide to STOP HURTING YOURSELF. And then you can receive healing.

This simple truth, that YOU are the only one hurting yourself, and YOU can decide to love yourself instead. .. is the CORE of A Course in Miracles. Once you love yourself, or. .. seek first the Kingdom of God (which is you) .... your way will be made straight. Everythign else will fall into line naturally, including performing miracles, healing the body, and undoing the world.

"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."

"When you are weary, remember you have hurt yourself. Your Comforter will rest you, but YOU cannot. YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW, for if you did, you could never have grown weary. Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer in ANY way, for that is not God's Will for His Son."

"It can be but myself I crucify."

All that I do I do unto myself.

If I attack, I suffer. But if I

forgive, salvation will be given me."

"As prayer is always for yourself, so is forgiveness given you. It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your sins you see in him."

"I repeat again that if you ATTACK error, you will hurt yourself."

"To see a body as anything EXCEPT a means of pure extension is to limit your mind and HURT YOURSELF."

"To you the miracle CANNOT seem natural, because what you have done to hurt your minds, has made THEM so UNnatural that they do not remember what is natural to them."

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

"When he thinks that he is hurt in any way, it is because he has forgotten who he is, and that he is as You created him." "If ever I am sad or hurt or ill, I have forgotten what You think, and put my little, meaningless ideas in place of where Your Thoughts belong, and where They are. I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts."

"I will not hurt myself today."

"His thoughts can frighten him, but since these thoughts belong to him alone, he has the power to change them, and exchange each fear thought for a happy thought of love. He crucified himself. Yet God has planned that His beloved Son will be redeemed."

"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."

"The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who ARE life."

The body is not alive, and the body is not dead.

Life is eternal permanent life which sees no death.

The body seems to symbolise life by seeming to be what we call alive, for a while.

Then the body seems to symbolise what we call death.

But at no time is the body really alive, or dead. It is not permanent and does not last forever.

When it comes into being it is not really life or a life form. And while it seems to live it is not really alive. And when it seems to die it is not really dead.

But by not being really dead this does not mean that it is actually alive either. The body is not either alive, or dead.

The body is actually nothing, because it is an illusion in a dream. It sometimes seems like life, and sometimes it seems like death, but these are both made up meanings and labels given to something which is not really anything.

"In ANY state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it SEEMS like life; at worst, like death."

A person (body) who is dead was not alive prior to the death. The death is not the end of life, because the body was not really life to begin with.

A body in a dead state is actually not really any different to a body in a living state. Even when the body was seeming to be alive it was not really alive, and it was not really the person.

"As nothing, which it IS, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ OR of the ego. EITHER must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot BE. And BOTH must be undone, for purposes of truth."

The coming and going of a body says nothing whatsoever about the immortal spirit beings who temporarily use them from time to time. A person is no more alive or dead at any time because a person - a spirit being - can only be alive forever, and never dies.

"I came to tell them that death is illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. They did not understand. But now I talk to you and give you the same message. The death of an illusion means nothing"

In a world of bodies in which we are deceived and believe that bodies are people and bodies are alive and bodies must avoid death at all costs, we fear the end of the body. But we only fear its end when we are identified with the body and think we are the body.

Anyone who believes they are a body will be afraid because the body can be attacked, the body is always in a state of change and instability, and the body eventually will likely die. Or at least, will transform its form into a state that we have decided to arbitrarily call death. A death that we make out to be an enemy to be avoided at all costs.

"Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life."

"They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams."

There is then a resistance against the "death state" happening, because it's in the interests of body-identified people to stay in their bodies for as long as possible. And to keep others in their bodies for as long as possible. Leaving the body or the world is seen as a "very bad thing".

There is then a fear of the death state and a resistance against it happening and an attempt to avoid it at all costs. This entails digging in heels, pulling all the strings, being in denial, living in fear, and trying not to "die".

"As long as you believe that, to be with a body, is companionship, you will be COMPELLED to attempt to keep your brother IN his body, HELD THERE BY GUILT."

But all this really does is increase a sense of separation between the state of the seemingly living body and the state of the dead body, which increases the belief that an illusory world is real. It comes from body identification and an unwillingness to recognize that bodies were never alive in the first place.

When you are constantly trying to avoid "the end", you're doing so to preserve you "being in a body", and the deadly ending is seen as the termination of your self. If bodies are real then a person dying is seen as their extinction, beyond which they stop existing. They go down with the ship. There is no hope there. And if you see a person AS a body that dies, you MUST experience loss.

But by identifying a person as a spiritual immortal being who can never die, and who lives forever in life, and never really was a body, and never could be "alive" as one or dead as one, your mind is lifted out of the hellish nightmare of fearing death.

To fear death is really also to fear life, because you can't do one without the other. And if you are fearing life you are not really living. And living doesn't mean being a body as much as possible. It means being a body as little as possible, and eventually not at all.

No one who appears to be a body has ever really died, or lived. Bodies are not alive. They are illusions of life. Your mindset should not be catering to the social norm of trying to preserve body incarnation for as long as possible.

It should be recognising that souls use bodies only so long as they are useful for serving the soul's long-term multi-lifetime goal of reunion with God. When the body is no longer serving that purpose, the soul should leave, and this should not be seen as a tragedy.

Bodies are not the central core or heart of a person nor should everything revolve around whether they are there or not. They are temporarily vehicles to be used as tools for a while and then put aside while the soul moves on to something else.

When a person leaves the body they absolutely do not end or die or stop in any way. They are immortal timeless endless beings who live forever, and were never really the encounter suits that they appeared to animate while they showed up here. Bodies are not real, they are dream figures in a dream world. People are not bodies. Bodies do not really exist at all.

"At no SINGLE instant does the body exist at all."

"I am not a body I am free."

"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found. The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, firmly tied to it, and sheltered by its presence."

"To be without a body is to be in your natural state."

"The world is not left by death but by truth, and truth CAN be known by all those for whom the Kingdom was created, and for whom it waits."

"There IS no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In ANY state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it SEEMS like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is NOT life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is NOT in Heaven is not ANYWHERE."

The "secret of salvation" is simply the recognition that, if you are suffering in any way, you must have done it to yourself. No-one else could have done it to you, because you are immortal and invulnerable.

Paired with this realization is the recognition that, therefore, the world and its inhabitants cannot have been the cause of anything you are experiencing. So if you are upset, you must've done it yourself. But let's go even deeper with this. The real truth behind the secret of salvation, is that you are a permanently immortal being that can never change. You have been created to last forever and to never waver or be different. It is impossible for anything to happen to you in truth, whether seemingly caused by another person or the world or even yourself.

If you are truly immortal, no-one and nothing can affect you. There are no causes that can have power over you. There are no forces or wills that can oppose you or act upon you. There is nothing anywhere that can change you even slightly. Nothing can redefine you or manipulate you or force you into a different state. Nothing can upset you or disturb you or make you sick or dead.

The secret of salvation suggests that if you are seeming to suffer in any way, it can't be that anyone or anything ELSE other than yourself is to blame. YOU must have done this to yourself. But it is also true that in reality, even you do not really have the power to destroy yourself in any way. You cannot change what God created you to be. But you can BELIEVE that you have.

So if you are suffering, you must have entered into a mistaken BELIEF, that you have stopped being as God created you, you have forgotten who you really are, you have lost touch with your immortality, and are now suggesting that you are MORTAL. And in this mindset of mortality, you are now having FANTASIES about causes of distorted mental states in which you seem to suffer. You inflict suffering upon yourself and your body while pretending it is caused by something else.

The purpose of the secret of salvation therefore isn't just to point out that all suffering is self inflicted, but to point you BEYOND the suffering to the fact that you are an immortal being. The ultimate "secret" behind the secret of salvation, is that you HAVE NOT changed, you ARE NOT suffering, you ARE NOT sick, and you CANNOT die.

Any states in which you seem to suffer must be an illusion. Any forms of sickness must be a fantasy in the mind. Any bodily ailments or states must be fictional. Any unhappiness or disturbed peace or stress or nightmares must be of your own making. But even these, even all forms of suffering and destruction cannot ACTUALLY affect who you really are. They must be dreams and fantasies of mortality and of impossibilities.

What God has put together, no man can put asunder. In other words, since God has GIVEN you eternal life in your creation, you are endlessly perfect and cannot be "put asunder" ie destroyed. Not even you can destroy yourself, although you can believe that you are by CONFUSING yourself with something that is NOT yourself and trying make it look destroyed.

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

Recognize clearly that this says you ARE NOT sick. If you seem to be sick, the sickness cannot be true, and it cannot exist. It only appears to exist because you believe in it and are maintaining it with your mind, doing it to "yourself". And your identification with the body makes it appear to be YOU who is sick. But you are immortal and can NEVER be sick. Even underneath the sickness you are unharmed.

So we are to not only recognize "you are doing it to yourself", we are to STOP doing it to ourselves and move into KNOWING ourselves. Moving out of "I am mortal and I can suffer" into "I am immortal and I cannot suffer." Our whole problem is that we keep trying to be mortal, we keep trying to die, we keep trying to be sick, we keep trying to attack ourselves and play at being victims.

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you."

Jesus is literally saying that we as immortal beings are playing a game of death. Pretending to die, pretending to suffer, to be weak, to be unhappy, to be lost and attacked, to be hurt, to be temporary and destructible, to be offended and upset, to be vulnerable and threatenable, and to be anything less than permanently invulnerable. We are pretending to be mortal beings. And all of our blame of people and the world is just a cover-up for our suicidal ambitions.

We must choose eternal life again in order to stop pretending to be something that can suffer and die. To fully live is to live without suffering, sickness, fear or death. To live completely is to life forever. And to do this we must reclaim our immortality and stop pretending to be mortals.

"Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are."

"Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

This is our only issue. We are immortal beings pretending to be mortal. We need to identify clearly the many forms that "mortality" takes. The belief in death is also "I am upset by that person", and "they did this to me", and "I am sick", and "i am unhappy", and "there is reason to be afraid", and "my body is damaged", and "I cannot forgive them", and so on. Everything in the world is a form of death and the belief in death. And we need to learn to stop playing these games, stop participating in these activities, stop believing in these roles, and stop using them to try to prove that we are destructible.

If you want to not die, to never suffer pain, to never be sick, to never be unhappy, to never have your peace disturbed, to never be afraid or threatened, to never lose or grieve or feel guilty, then you need to enter into FORGIVENESS, which is the acknowledgement that you are still as God created you, there is no sin, there is no attack, nothing real can be threatened, and you are still eternal.

"What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

All this forgiveness offers you, and more. It sparkles in your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the day. It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rests upon your eyelids so you see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. All this forgiveness offers you, and more."