In Heaven, God's thought system entails profound sharing. Each part of the system contains the whole of the system. It is holographic. This is how God thinks.
"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is perfectly natural. For it is the way God thinks, and what is natural to Him is natural to you."
"The whole power of God's son lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone. God would not have us be alone because God does not will to be alone."
"Every altar to God is part of your Soul, because the Light He created is One with Him."
"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for everyone mind is one. Such is the truth."
"Every part is a container of the whole."
In that system, each child God created as a whole, producing multiple wholes, SHARES the whole of creation. That means, you have total access to *everything*, to experience it fully as if it were your own, while simultaneously EVERY other child is doing the same.
The key principle of Heaven, and Creation, is sharing. And so multiple children of God SHARE one mind, and that one mind is the "one son of God". Yet there are many children. Sharing is like "overlapping", literally co-existing in the same space. Your mind is plugged into the whole like how your computer is plugged into the internet and shares the internet with everyone else.
Before the separation idea there were ALREADY multiple individuals. There were already multiple children, who were so UN-SELFISH, that they were willing to SHARE everything with everyone. No-one wanted to be special or to have exclusive access to anything. Everyone was willing to ALLOW all of the others to share everything, themselves, and all that exists. It is the total absence of ownership. It is communal.
When the separation idea occurred, these pre-existing, eternally existing beings, decided to try to seek special favor from God. The idea was that they wanted to have something EXCLUSIVE, just for them, which the others did not have. They wanted to be SPECIAL. They wanted God to give them something which ONLY they had, and which others lacked. They wanted to be better than others. They wanted to be SELFISH. They wanted to find a way to shut out everyone else, to NOT SHARE ANYTHING, and to have something to call "just my own".
This produced a state in which souls, who were many prior to this, surrounded themselves with walls and barricades to try to "shut out" and EXCLUDE, "access", which all other souls had shared with them up to that point. Because even your own soul is something to be shared, you tried to not allow yourself to be shared WITH others. You put up a fence around your mind, to serve two functions: to keep them out, and to keep you in. This way you could fence off a tiny part of yourself and regard it as "exclusively mine", and stop everyone else from SHARING it directly.
In so doing, you withdrew from the collective shared experience of the sonship, you STOPPED SHARING, you went off into a corner and pouted by yourself, you attacked God and your brothers to try to keep them from sharing with you, and you created this illusion that you occupy a little space where NO OTHERS share with you, some kind of autonomous self-owned, self-run, isolated, personal PIECE of the whole, that you wanted to call your own SPECIAL self.
"Everything the ego perceives is a separate whole, without the relationships that imply sharing."
Doing this made you "alone". By trying to not share with anyone else, you stopped the RELATIONSHIPS that come with sharing, you closed the doors on your mind, you prevented access, and you said to the rest of the sonship "stay away, this is my castle and you can't come in." So then you find yourself pulling away from infinity, narrowing down, confining, withdrawing, isolating, imprisoning yourself, into a small tiny area of littleness, and that manifests as the condensing of thought into a BODY. A human body. Which is "a device for separation."
This body will then represent the idea that because you HAVE something exclusive that your BROTHERS do not have, you are now DIFFERENT to them. And this is also why every body is NOT THE SAME, on purpose. It's the idea of being UNLIKE anyone else, not equal, and unlike God. The body keeps all of creation OUT, and traps you IN, so that you can pretend there is some part of existence that is EXCLUSIVELY YOURS.
*THIS*.... is what it means, to have a separate self. It's got NOTHING to do with you being a self or not. It's got nothing to do with the fact that God created MANY SONS prior to the separation, which will CONTINUE after the atonement. It's got nothing to do with you being an individual. It's ONLY got to do with you attempting to NOT SHARE ANYTHING, within a realm where the total sharing of eveything is completely natural for all beings.
"The ego is the idea of selfishness. The soul is the idea of self-fullness."
So by trying to be SELFISH, in the midsts of a SHARED COMMUNITY, to stop communion, to stop communication, to take up arms against your brother, to PUSH OTHERS AWAY, and to try to EJECT them from your own shared experience, so that all that seems to be LEFT is you, THAT is the ego. That is what it means to be "separate". That is the separation IDEA. That's what the course means BY separation.
"Separation", as a word or term, does NOT MEAN, "there are many". It does NOT MEAN, "The presence of multiple brothers is an ego idea." It does NOT MEAN "there can only be one son." The fact there are many WHOLES who are HOLY, is NOT a problem whatsoever in reality. It is NATURAL. It's is God's Will. That you have a self, an individuality, is NATURAL. This has NOTHING to do with the tiny mad idea or separation from God. The separation is ONLY to do with you trying to STOP SHARING, in a realm where sharing is totally natural, prevalent, and something that everyone is doing.
It is not the creation of "a separate self", as if there was NO SELF before. You already HAD a self prior to the separation. The separation from God has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the invention or creation of "a self", or multiple selves. The separation ONLY has to do with your *RELATIONSHIP* to others, your willingness NOT TO SHARE WITH THEM, and your attempt to EVICT THEM from sharing with you, so that all you end up with is YOUR SELF, in isolation, sharing with no-one. That's what the separation from God is all about.
The reversal of the separation from God will reconnect you to the sonship, restore your willingness to share everything with everyone that exists forever, join your mind back to other people's minds, make you willing to share your SELF with others and theirs with you, and to return to this state of Oneness, in which there is ONE MIND, but MULTIPLE BEINGS. Many souls, who are all alike and who share *everything* with each other without a single ounce of selfishness or possessiveness. THAT is heaven. That is natural. The end of separation and ego is NOT the annihilation of God's children, OR the end of your brothers.
So the separation from God merely means the rejection of a shared experience, and the attempt to bring an end to sharing, so that you can claim exclusive rights to some little piece of the whole that you don't want to share with others.
Having a separate self merely means your ACTUAL self is trying to pretend that it no longer SHARES anything with others, and so is "outside of" the shared communal experience AS IF it were "separate from it".
The ego, as the separate self, is nothing other than the rejection of the fact that you are PART OF everyone and are part of the WHOLE, as a SELFISH attempt to OWN part of the whole and call it your own, at the expense of others. It's your attempt to BLOCK ACCESS to your mind, from other minds, so that you SEEM not to be part of the whole anymore. When the ego ends, you simply stop being selfish and LEARN TO SHARE AGAIN. That's not the end of your SELF, ever. You in fact REGAIN more of yourself than you even have now, you expand your self, and you return to the WHOLE of yourself. "The soul is the idea of self-fullness."
So when we're talking about there being many sons in heaven, or many children, or "separate beings", we're NOT in any way talking about anything unnatural or against God's will. We're not even talking about the ego, or the separation idea, or the tiny mad idea. It's not until the MANY REAL BEINGS, the MANY PERMANENT BROTHERS, trying to compete with each other and vie for attention and be SPECIAL, that we start talking about the descent into ego, and the making of an illusory experience of "being separate". To be cut off in a body is to be ALONE, having disallowed anyone else to SHARE YOU. That's all it means to "be a separate self." A seeming outsider or stranger, cut off from the rest and having no relationships with anyone.
God's creation is perfectly natural containing multiple wholes, multiple individuals, multiple selves, multiple brothers, multiple beings, multiple minds. Because they all are willing to SHARE unconditionally and 100% with each other, coexisting in a communal state of total joining and freedom. It's only when someone starts trying to be special or selfish that we run into a problem. The end of the ego is the end of isolation, the end of exclusion, the end of selfishness, and a return to STILL EXISTING but SHARING EVERYTHING with everyone forever. The regaining of your natural inheritance, which is all of Heaven and all beings.
"We have also emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also has been created perfect. There is no emptiness in him."
"There can be no disinherited parts of the sonship, for God is whole, and all his extensions are like him."
"For in your part lies ALL of it, without which no part is complete, nor is the whole completed without your part."
"Though every aspect IS the whole, you cannot KNOW this, until you see that every aspect is the same, perceived in the same light, and therefore one."
In ACIM there is a theme which says ... we need to surrender control of our lives and hand it over to the Holy Spirit in trust.
We've put ourselves in a position of being greatly disadvantaged, blinded, confused, lost, alone. We can't see the whole picture, we don't have all the facts, we are lacking greatly.
And yet at the same time, we've adopted a position of trying to be an "authority". As though we have rejected the authority of God. We don't want God telling us what to do, what is true, how to live, or anything. We value our own judgement, we value our intellect, we value our experience and education, and think that we know it all - that we don't need or want any help.
In that position, we have to depend on our own strength - which is really a lack of strength, which makes us afraid. We have to make all decisions on our own, which leads to huge amounts of guilt and fear. We have to try to control everything, which leads to everything becoming uncontrollable. And we stubbornly refuse to admit to being mistaken.
What if God came along and said, hey, I will just plan your whole future for you, I will orchestrate everything that is going to happen, I will choose everything for you, I will make all decisions, I will smooth the way, I will cause the right people to show up at the right time, I will put you in the right situations, I will guide the right people to come to you for help from me, and we'll do this all together.
What would you say to handing over control and management of your whole life to the Holy Spirit? Would you accept an off-the-shelf inheritance, rather than one you made up yourself? Would you be willing to admit that you are not in a POSITION to be ABLE to correctly do anything on your own?
The course has several teachings that focus on this in different ways.
1) You cannot decide anything on your own
2) You're not in a position to judge anything correctly
3) You're supposed to put your whole future into God's hands
4) You're supposed to let the Holy Spirit make all decisions
5) You're supposed to go where you're directed
6) You'll be told specifically what to do
7) If you depend on yourself you become afraid
8 ) You are trying to take on the Holy Spirit's function
9) You're being asked to resign as your own teacher
10) There is an atonement plan in place
11) You're asked not to interfere with God's plan for salvation
12) The Holy Spirit leads you to eternal life by his planned events
13) You are nothing without God
14) The right people are being sent to you at the right time
15) You don't know anything because you lost knowledge
16) You have a big problem with God having authority
17) The ego in you has ruined your life and you trust it
18) You don't trust God to look after you
19) You think you are separate and autonomous
20) You keep trying to control and manage reality
The list goes on and on. The central core of all of this is you RECOGNIZING that you are NOT in a position of knowledge or capability. You have put yourself at a disadvantage, with limited abilities, a massive lack of awareness, a great inability to make wise decisions, you're making a mess of your own life. We've even given ourselves learning disabilities.
Rather than carrying on like a bunch of headless chickens, it would be better for us to have humility and humbleness and admit that we are ILL EQUIPPED to run our lives. That we do in fact NEED HELP. This takes surrender and willingness to look at the fact that we are essentially very disabled in our ability to be aware of the whole picture, or to know anything for sure.
In the course Jesus asks us to admit that we cannot judge on our own, and any time that we judge anything without total whole awareness we are making a mistake. That it's not just that we make bad judgements all the time, but factually we cannot actually make any judgement at all. Because we are so out of touch with reality and knowledge.
Instead of us being so arrogant, so dependent on ourselves, so alone and isolated, so putting our egos on pedestals, idols worshipping ourselves, thinking we're better than others and proud of all our useless education and worldly learning, perhaps we should be admitting that we generally suck. We have very limited resources, very limited perception, very limited truth and very limited ability.
So that being the case, we are far better off admitting that without God we are nothing. That since we're not aware of everything right now, we cannot do anything correctly. We are lost in the woods. We need help from outside of the scope of this world. And that means admitting that you are flawed and limited.
Egos everywhere will not like the idea whatsoever of admitting to being limited or incapable. Ego will take it as an affront, suggesting you are inadequate, uneducated, don't know enough, not successful enough, not enough social standing, not intelligent enough, stupid, flawed, lacking in some way. Ego does not like to admit that it is woefully inadequate at fulfilling the ROLE of God. Yet we are all in our egos trying to play at being God - being an authority, because we have a big problem with his authority.
How would it be, if you let the Holy Spirit run everything? Like, put your entire future in his hands, let him decide everything, let him tell you what to do, where to go, what to say. In which you TRUST that whatever he decides, whatever is in HIS plan, is right for all concerned. That you don't NEED to know the details. You don't NEED to be informed of the reasons and why and explanations of what it's based on - which all undermines trust. What if you just trusted that everything he's orchestrating and telling you to do is absolutely correct, and just went with it?
What if you don't need to know everything, don't need to figure everything out, don't need to explain the reasons for everything, don't need to "be sure", don't need to control and manage anything, don't need to find the correct judgement, don't even need to make any decisions? What if you just had faith and trusted? What if you just asked for His Help and listened and followed his guidance, saving you massive amounts of time and effort and thinking and worrying?
Adopting this position of humility and downplaying the ego's importance is not only VITAL to salvation and awakening, it is REQUIRED.
"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life." UrW136L19
"Resign NOW as your own teachers. THIS resignation will NOT lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourselves, and of the learning outcomes which have resulted." UrT11F11
"If you are trusting your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious, and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?" UrW47L1
"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." UrM30A3
"Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow HIS plan of Salvation, in recognition of the FACT that you do NOT know what it is. His work is NOT your function, and unless you accept this, you CANNOT learn what your function IS." UrT9C6
"You would make no ATTEMPT to judge, because it would be quite apparent to you that you do not know WHAT ANYTHING MEANS." UrT15F1
"The giving up of judgment, the obvious prerequisite for hearing God's Voice, is usually a fairly slow process, not because it is difficult, but because it is apt to be perceived as personally insulting. The world's training is directed toward achieving a goal in direct opposition to that of our curriculum. The world trains for reliance on one's judgment as the criterion for maturity and strength. Our curriculum trains for the relinquishment of judgment as the necessary condition of salvation." UrM10A2
"You are still convinced YOUR understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and MAKES IT WHAT IT IS. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing." UrT18E8
"The Thought of God protects you, cares for you, makes soft your resting place and smooth your way, lighting your mind with happiness and love." UrW165L2
"EVERYTHING you have taught yourselves has made your power more and more obscure to you. You know not WHAT it is, nor WHERE. You have made a SEMBLANCE of power, and a SHOW of strength, so pitiful that it MUST fail you. For power is not seeming strength, and truth is beyond a semblance of any kind." UrT14G1
"You taught YOURSELVES the most unnatural habit of NOT communicating with your Creator." UrT13H16
"You do not know how to OVERLOOK errors, or you would not make them. It would merely be further error to think either that you do NOT make them, or that you can CORRECT them without a GUIDE TO CORRECTION." UrT9C2
"The Bible tells you to become as little children. Little children recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they ASK WHAT IT MEANS. Do not make the mistake of believing that YOU understand what YOU perceive, for its meaning IS lost to you. But the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning FOR you, and if you will LET Him interpret it FOR you, He will restore what you have thrown away. As long as you THINK YOU KNOW its meaning, you will see no need to ask it OF Him. You do not know the meaning of ANYTHING you perceive. NOT ONE THOUGHT YOU HOLD IS WHOLLY TRUE." UrT10H6
"There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:
"I do not know the thing I am, and THEREFORE do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world and on myself." Yet in this learning is salvation born. And what you are will TELL you of Itself. UrT31E16
God is wholeness, or Holiness. He is the whole of everything, everywhere. There is no lack in Him. He is unlimited and infinite. He is omnipresent. He is the all in all.
"The mark of Wholeness is Holiness"
"God is all in all in a very literal sense. All being is in Him because He IS all Being. YOU are therefore in Him because YOUR being IS His."
Every part of God contains all of God. All of God is everywhere. All of God is shared, within Himself, with all of Himself. All of God has access to all of God. And all of God is God.
"The Will of God is without limit, and all power and glory lie within it. It is boundless in strength and in love and in peace. It has no boundaries because its extension is unlimited, and it encompasses all things because it CREATED all things."
God cannot access anywhere that He does not exist, and there is nothing outside of God. He already exists everywhere, so there is nowhere to be added, and no space to add into.
"Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else. Nothing OUTSIDE THIS Oneness, and NOTHING ELSE within."
God cannot create an external space, nor can he add a separate thing outside of Himself. He cannot "tack on" any kind of a creation to the outside of Himself.
The internal nature of God, however, is one of sharing. God fully shares with Himself. He is fully open. He loves Himself, and therefore gives Himself to Himself.
"Nothing that is real can be increased EXCEPT by sharing it. That is why God Himself created you. Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what creation MEANS."
Within God, within His mind, within His being, there is total unlimited sharing. This sharing is a transcendence of space and time and limitation. It enables God to be a host, and to share Himself by giving Himself.
"Everything He created is given ALL His power because it is part of Him and shares His Being WITH Him."
"Being is known by sharing. Because God shared His Being with you, you can know Him."
"Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in His Being He encompasses all things. No mind holds anything but Him."
"You cannot separate your SELF from YOUR Creator, who created YOU by sharing HIS Being WITH you."
"I am forever host to God."
God wants to give Himself because it is His nature to share everything. This giving is what we call love, or life. It also leads to what we call projection, extension, or creation. Love loves itself.
"God shares His Fatherhood with you who are His Son"
"God shares His function with you in Heaven"
"Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what creation MEANS."
"projecting outward of God. That is why everything which He Created is like Him."
God is able to share Himself, within Himself, and can extend Himself as what we call Thoughts or Creations. These thought-creations can only occur provided they inherit the whole of God, and in turn share His will to share the whole of themselves.
"Creation is the sum of all God's Thoughts, in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit. Only Love creates, and only like Itself."
"God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind."
"Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul." "ALL princes INHERIT their power from the Father"
"the Children of the Father inherit from Him"
"Glory is your inheritance, given your Soul by its Creator, that you might EXTEND it."
Any thought-creation of God can only share what they are given, and can only give what they inherit. They also must create by sharing, and can only create by sharing, by hosting within their own being.
"By CREATING all things, it made them PART OF ITSELF. YOU are the Will of God, because this is how you were created. Because your Creator creates only like Himself, you ARE like Him."
"accept the Thought of God as its inheritance."
"Perceiving the majesty of God AS your brother is to accept your OWN inheritance."
"The inheritance of the Kingdom is the right of God's Son, given him in his creation."
Creation, therefore, really occurs as a kind of internal expansion, or a giving inward. God shares the whole of Himself, which produces creative thoughts, which must inherit the whole of God, and be wholly like God. "The Father and the Son are not identical, but you CAN say "Like Father, LIKE Son."
"GOD gave you the function to create in eternity."
"God gave Himself to BOTH of you in equal love"
"God GAVE you Heaven"
"God GAVE you all there is."
God also can only share wholly, or fully. He cannot only partially give, or partially create, or partially share. When He shares, He creates wholly, and creates only wholeness. And anything He creates must be completely whole. "Each part you remember adds to YOUR wholeness, because each part IS whole." "which recognizes the wholeness of God's creation and BY this recognition knows its Creator."
"That is the law of God, for the protection of the wholeness of His Son." "God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ALL His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they, were created neither partially nor in part."
This means that any creation of God, any extension of God, MUST be a completely whole creation. It must be fully given, fully established, fully sharing, and fully created.
"This is the ONLY love that is fully given, AND FULLY RETURNED."
"We have also emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also been created perfect."
This leads to the FULL creation of living thought-beings, ideas of children, which are the living thoughts of God. Each is a miracle, and each inherits absolutely everything from God. Each HAS everything, and IS everything. "You ARE the Kingdom of Heaven"
"You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did."
"God and HIS miracles are inseparable."
Absolute wholeness is passed down and is SHARED by every creation. Therefore, two things become true. 1) Every thought-creation is a completely autonomous being who is a whole fully-created being, and 2) Each being shares AND IS the whole of creation.
"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy."
This results in a scenario where each Son of God literally IS God, and is PART of God, and IS EACH OTHER. There can only truly be one whole, which must be shared by EACH whole. And therefore each whole is the one whole. This is what oneness really means.
"The wholeness of God, which IS His peace, cannot be appreciated EXCEPT by a whole mind, which recognizes the wholeness of God's creation and BY this recognition knows its Creator."
"God's wholeness IS the wholeness of his Son."
This means that each Son of God IS the other Sons of God, as well as being an individual Son of God. "Individual" does mean "undivided". And thus each brother is all brothers. And every soul is part of God. And every child of God is every other child of God. And all of them share the same whole - all of themselves - with all the rest.
"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."
"For your Father wills you to know your brother AS yourself."
"to know your brother IS to know God."
This produces the Sonship, which is the family of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. And having inherited everything from God, as His perfect extensions, each Son of God is a fully created being and has SO much freedom and autonomy that they are established as TRUE co-creators - free-willed "separate" beings.
"the Sonship is your Soul"
"you are part of God, and the Sonship is one"
"in a relationship in which ALL the Sonship is together blessed"
"Think not HE wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him. He would but KEEP your will forever and forever limitless." "If you believe that all of the Souls that God created ARE His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul MUST be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship."
This doesn't merely mean that they just do God's bidding, or that he dangles them like puppets, or that they are slaves to His will. They have been WHOLLY created, and therefore do in fact have free independent will. But remember that, at the same time, this will is ALSO shared with everyone. And to remain free it has to be shared, yet still retain freedom.
"The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given."
Blessed with free will, in a sense "free from God", or as "separate beings", individuality has been established. They are individual because they are whole in and of themselves. Yet they are one because they share everything.
"For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my Will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them, and Him Who has created me."
"be reminded of His Son, our holy Self, the Christ in each of us"
"every member of the family of God must return"
They now proceed to naturally share everything that they have, because this is their one nature. They can only share everything because it is by the sharing of everything that they exist at all.
"You HAVE the power to ADD to the Kingdom, but NOT to add to the Creator OF the Kingdom."
"We said before that WHAT you project is up to you, but it is NOT up to you WHETHER to project, for projection is a law of mind."
"Every mind MUST project, because that is how it lives, and every mind IS life."
So in turn they create their own creations by sharing everything and hosting them within their own mind and being, just like and with God. And as such the Kingdom continues to expand internally as a continuous line of extension and creation.
"all loving creation is freely given. Nothing in either of these statements implies any sort of level involvement, or, in fact, anything except one continuous line of creation, in which all aspects are of the same order." "As God's creative Thought proceeds FROM Him TO you, so must YOUR creative thoughts proceed FROM you to YOUR creations."
"YOUR creations belong in YOU, as YOU belong in God. You are part of God, as your sons are part of His Sons. To create is to love. Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained. Being limitless, it DOES NOT STOP. It creates forever"
"YOUR creations add to Him, as YOU do. But nothing is added that is different, because everything has always BEEN"
Wholeness, within wholeness, shared by the whole, in which each whole is the one whole, and all wholes are one. And yet at the same time, there are many wholes because God constantly shares itself. And all living beings therefore continually create and extend and think and give, and the increase of the Kingdom is endless.
"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father. Know then the Sons of God, and you will know ALL Creation."
"And BEING loving, they are like the Father, and therefore cannot die."
"A co-creator with the Father must have a Son (your creations). Yet must this Son (your sons) have been created like Himself. A perfect Being, all-encompassing and all-encompassed (by you and your brothers and God), nothing to add and nothing taken FROM; not born of size nor weight nor time, nor held to limits or uncertainties of ANY kind."
"You do not know YOUR creations, because you do not know your brothers who created them WITH you."
"for in him you will find your creations, because he created them WITH you."
The simple fact that God, who is whole, gives the whole of himself, wholly, to wholly create whole beings, who share the whole of himself, alignes exactly with the holographic principle. That the whole is in every part, and every contains and IS the whole, and every part is the SAME whole. And therefore all the wholes are one.
This is why heaven is a truly holographic structure. Not holographic in the sense of 3d projected images - which have nothing to do with holograms. But in the sense that the whole of God is in every creation of God, and every creation of God IS the whole.
"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is PERFECTLY natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to you."
This is what heaven is like. It is not some singular blob that sits there by itself. It is not just some kind of singular oneness which doesn't create or extend. It isn't populated by God alone. It is not devoid of individuality. Nor is it devoid of relationships or free will. It is host to an entire family of unlimited thought-beings, and every part of it is part of God, and part of you, and of your own spirit-children.
"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually"
"Each Soul knows God completely."
"By HIS willingness to share it, He becomes as dependent on you, as you are on HIM."
"God is as dependent on you as you are on Him, because HIS autonomy ENCOMPASSES yours, and is therefore incomplete WITHOUT it."
"TOTALLY dependent on their One Creator for EVERYTHING"
"God and the Souls He created ARE symbiotically related. They are COMPLETELY dependent on each other."
"God created Souls so He could depend on them BECAUSE He created them perfectly."
This is why certain other conceptual models of reality are not a good fit. Traditional ideas of oneness don't quite cut it, because they fail to acknowledge that oneness MUST share itself, MUST extend, and MUST be given to create.
Ideas of non-duality don't cut it either, because God is a creator and HAS to create whole expressions of Himself, forming a divine family. He does not will to be alone, or that you be alone, or that you will beings that are alone. All of heaven is about creation and sharing and openness and inter-dependence.
"the whole family of God, or the Sonship"
"the Holy Family"
"If you created GOD and He created you, the KINGDOM could not increase through its OWN creative thought. Creation would therefore be limited, and you would NOT be co-creators WITH God. As God's creative Thought proceeds FROM Him TO you, so must YOUR creative thoughts proceed FROM you to YOUR creations. In this way only can ALL creative power EXTEND OUTWARD. God's accomplishments are NOT yours. But yours are LIKE His. HE created the Sonship, and YOU increase it. You HAVE the power to ADD to the Kingdom, but NOT to add to the Creator OF the Kingdom."
"The Kingdom is forever extending, because it is in the Mind of God."
"Your gifts TO the Kingdom are like His to YOU."
"God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you, who are co-creators with Him, extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit."
"And His Sons, who create LIKE Him, follow it gladly, knowing that the INCREASE of the Kingdom depends on it, just as THEIR creation did."
"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father. Know then the Sons of God, and you will know ALL Creation."
"The Kingdom of Heaven IS you."
"You, too, have a Kingdom which your Soul has created."
"I have a kingdom I must rule."
"God HAS kept your kingdom for you"
"Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world."
"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer."
"The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God, who left not his Father, and dwells not apart from Him."
"His Kingdom has no limits and no end, and there is nothing in Him that is not perfect and eternal."
"For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom."
"The inheritance of the Kingdom is the right of God's Son, given him in his creation."
"My Kingdom is not of this world, because it is in YOU. And YOU are of your Father."
"Because you are all the Kingdom of God, I can lead you back to your own creations"
"What God calls one will be forever one, NOT separate. His Kingdom IS united; thus it was created, and thus will it ever be."
"The Kingdom of Heaven is the right of the Soul, whose beauty and dignity are beyond doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the mark of the love of God for His Creations, who are wholly worthy of Him and ONLY of Him. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a gift for a creation of God Himself."
In the separation from God, we introduced an idea of "separateness" into wholeness. We believed it was possible for there to be a lack of wholeness. This produced the idea of "over here" and "over there", each distinct and different and seeming to lack the some part of the whole, setting them apart.
This laid the foundation for both space and time - notions that what is here is not there, or what is there lacks what is here. And so each seeming part of it seems to have a different form, a partial collection of attributes which sets them apart from each other. And neither has everything.
"You who believe that God is fear made but ONE substitution. It has taken many forms, because it was the substitution of fragmentation for wholeness." And then we continued to subdivide and split the mind. We tried to assign certain collections of properties, aspects, characteristics, to some parts, and others to the rest. To break wholeness into seeming isolated chunks of form.
Each part took on a different form and meaning. Various forms or examples or versions of the same one error of separateness. This caused a multitude of differences to seem to appear, each held apart from the rest and separated out as if many things.
This inevitably produced an entire universe of many "forms of error", where each object or body is different to the rest. Each lacks what the others have, rooted in sacrifice and limitation. Not one is whole, and every one is partial.
And so each form appears to comprise different materials, shapes, structures, behaviors, colors, textures and appearances. From these scattered fragments of illusion, entire worlds seemed to arise, each unlike the others and unique in its appearance. Including every human body and every atom.
An illusion is the appearance that something is other than what it actually is - seeming to be something it is not. The single idea of separation, the one problem, shows up as multiple things and multiple problems. It is really one thing, but separateness leads to many forms. And every form is an illusion that the one error is many errors.
Each form says, "look at the ways I am not the same as the rest". And so as one form pulls itself away from sameness, another form does the same. And the two forms try to disguise the fact they are one thing.
And now each form seems to vie for attention. Every form is different, and therefore in conflict and competition. Some are larger, smaller, more or less important, more or less valuable, more or less serious, more or less difficult to deal with.
And now we have an entire hierarchy of illusions, from the gigantic to the tiny, and everything in between. The form that each form takes deceives by distracting you with its claim that it is not like the rest. My car is not a house. My boat is not an airplane. My trousers are not shoes. My ice cream is not a burger.
Every form is designed to assert a deception, a temptation, an illusion, that if its form is real and true, then it IS NOT the other things. This was founded in the simple premise that this world is NOT reality, or the negation of God, and so everything appears to be NOT the rest.
If you believe it, you are deceived. Because every form is a form of deception, an illusion that a singular idea of separation is many things.
One part says, I am not like the other part. Look at how I am different. Look at my different shape, color, size and makeup. Look at what sets me apart. Look at what I have which the other lacks. Look at our differences. Look how we are separate and not the same at all.
And to believe this is to be completely blinded to the the truth. Because if you fall for this and take sides, if you come to prefer one form over another, or think they are truthfully unique and valuable, then you have fallen for the ONE temptation of the world.
Every form is a lie. Every physical object and every body is a lie. Every planet and every star and galaxy is a lie. They are all designed to hide and disguise the one single illusion of separation.
So long as you are caught up in a life where the worshipping of DIFFERENCES prevails, where you prefer some forms over others, where you think that two things are not THE SAME, you are deceived and blinded. There is nothing so blinding as to fixate your vision on the perception of FORM, making the separation real.
The body's eyes look only upon the forms of error. Only the body makes the world seem real. Its fixation on differences, changes, inequalities and comparisons, blinds you to seeing any kind of singular truth. It sees a world of a billion truths, none making any sense or meaning anything at all. The whole message of ACIM is that we need to transition AWAY from a world of differences, towards wholeness. To repair the sense of fragmentation in the mind and restore singular oneness.
This requires seeing THROUGH the deception of form, and not believing it. Not believing that a car and a house are real differences. Not believing that a living body and a dead body are real differences. Not believing that some objects are more important or valuable than others. Realizing that we gave the world of forms ALL the meanings that they have.
To flatten the hierarchy of illusions is to recognize that ALL illusions are one illusion. A single error presents itself to you in every conceivable form of deception. If you buy into it, you think there is an order of difficulty, where some things are harder to deal with or change than others.
To recognize there IS no hierarchy, is to recognize that all forms are the SAME. That every form of suffering is the SAME. That every form of sickness and death and life is the SAME. That there is ONE thing here, not many. That the manyness and the differences are entirely untrue. That one thing is sneakily showing up as a massive multitude to HIDE its true nature of being just one thing.
This is why there is really only one lesson the Holy Spirit teaches, that ALL FORMS of suffering have a SINGLE cause. This is why the workbook lessons have us NOT be selective in which forms we apply things to, so that we will learn that forms are meaningless decoys. This is why we are to recognize there is ONE problem not many. And this is why there is ONE truth and ONE law and ONE atonement.
Every form that the world takes is a lie. Every time it says you should want this form or that form, it is trying to get you to take sides. Every time you take sides there is war. Every difference of form IS conflict. Everything you see with the body IS conflicted, with objects vying for attention, some nearer some further, some louder some quieter, some more "appealing" than others.
All of this is ONE thing, one effort, one scheme, to TEMPT you to believe in the differences so that you will not recognize they are ALL THE SAME. That this whole world is entirely unreal. That not one form is more real or important or valuable than another. That there aren't billions of choices, there is only one choice.
ALL illusory forms are like two characters who act and speak and present themselves differently to try to create the illusion that they are not ONE actor. The mind is ONE actor, taking on the role of multiple simultaneous parts, pitted against each other. So long as you do not recognize that ONE mind is playing ALL the roles, of both victim and victimizer, you will be deceived by form.
In a world of forms, all the forms are untrue. Not one of them IS reality. And none of them show you what is true. To see only physical form is to see nothing but error and sin. True vision will show you that their many appearances are lies, and that there is a singular truth behind them. We are addicted to a world of forms, believing in specialness and made-up values. Made-up worth. Made-up importance. Goals and toys and special jobs and relationships and things you want and things you don't want.
All designed to keep you locked into a hell of form and separation. To keep you tempted that the next big thing will save you. That the next form the illusion takes will be the one you've always wanted. So that you never realize NONE of them are true, NONE of them are real, and NONE of them are what you really want.
That without deception, lies, falsehood and temptation, there is NO WORLD HERE AT ALL. Without form, there is no planet and no body. And behind all forms is the one lie that started it all, which the world of forms was made to hide - that separation is even possibe.
"A problem can appear in MANY forms, and it will do so while the problem lasts."
"It is not a thought which judges an illusion by its size, its seeming gravity, or anything that is related to the form it takes. It merely focuses on what it is, and knows that no illusion can be real."
"For how can one illusion differ from another but in attributes which have no substance, no reality, no core, and nothing that is truly different?"
"Today's idea is another giant stride in the perception of the same as the same, and the different as different. On one side stand all illusions. All truth stands on the other."
"Illusions battle ONLY with themselves. Being fragmented, they fragment."
"Illusions CAN conflict, because their forms ARE different. And they do battle ONLY to establish which FORM is true."
"The meeting of illusions leads to war."
"EVERY illusion is an assault on truth."
"Bodies may battle, but the clash of forms is meaningless."
"The gap is carefully concealed in fog, and misty pictures rise to cover it with vague, uncertain forms and changing shapes, forever unsubstantial and unsure. Yet in the gap is NOTHING."
"The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take."
"Sickness takes many forms, and so does unforgiveness. The forms of one but reproduce the forms of the other, for they are the same illusion."
"For time and space are ONE illusion, which takes different forms."
"The dream is but illusion in the mind."
"The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing."
"Your sleeping and waking dreams have different forms, and that is all. THEIR CONTENT IS THE SAME. They are your protest AGAINST reality, and your fixed and insane wish to CHANGE it."
"You are so used to choosing between dreams, you do not see that you have made, at last, the choice between the truth and ALL ILLUSIONS."
"This course attempts to teach no more than that the power of decision cannot lie in choosing different forms of what is still the SAME illusion and the SAME mistake."
"Death is a thought which takes on many forms, often unrecognized."
"Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion."
"Those who are special MUST defend illusions against the truth."
"Guilt ASKS FOR punishment, and its request is granted. NOT in truth, but in the world of shadows and illusions BUILT on sin."
"What is perceived takes many forms, but NONE has meaning. Brought to truth, its senselessness is quite apparent."
"Yet has God given Answer to the world of sickness, Which applies to ALL its forms."
"NO illusion has ANY truth in it. Yet it appears some are MORE true than others, although this clearly makes no sense at all. All that a hierarchy of illusions can show is PREFERENCE, NOT reality."
"What relevance has preference to the truth? Illusions are illusions, and are false."
"Illusions HAVE no witnesses, and no effects. Who looks on them is but deceived."
"The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone. Like all these principles, this one maintains that each is separate, and has a different set of thoughts which SETS HIM OFF from others. This principle evolves from the belief there is a hierarchy of illusions; some are MORE valuable, and THEREFORE true."
"For this establishes degrees of TRUTH among illusions, making it appear that some are HARDER to be overcome than others."
"Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusions stands; senseless, impossible, and beyond ALL reason, and yet perceived as an eternal BARRIER to Heaven. Illusions ARE but forms. Their content is NEVER true."
"The laws of chaos govern ALL illusions. Their forms conflict, making it SEEM quite possible to value some above the others."
"This illusion can take many forms."
"Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth.""
"The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth."
"The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to PROVE it is autonomous and real."
"Though the dream itself takes many forms, and SEEMS to show a great variety of places and events wherein its "hero" finds itself, the dream has but ONE purpose, taught in many ways."
"Bring, then, all forms of suffering to Him Who knows that every one is like the rest. He sees NO differences where none exist, and He will teach you how each one is CAUSED. None has a DIFFERENT cause from all the rest, and ALL of them are easily undone by but a SINGLE lesson truly learned."
"Not once do the advanced teachers of God consider the forms of sickness in which their brother believes."
"The gap that is not there is filled with toys in countless forms."
"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see BEYOND what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and NOT see past it. 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."
"Only MISTAKES have different forms, and so they CAN deceive. You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is NOT reality, it MUST be an illusion. And is Not THERE to see. And, IF you see it, you MUST be mistaken, for you are seeing what can NOT be real, as if it WERE. What cannot see BEYOND what is not there, MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions AS THE TRUTH. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth?"
"You are advancing to love's MEANING, and away from ALL illusions in which you have surrounded it."
"You who believe that God is fear made but ONE substitution. It has taken many forms, because it was the substitution of fragmentation for wholeness. It has become splintered and subdivided and divided again, over and over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was one, and still IS what it was. That ONE error, which brought truth to illusion, infinity to time, and life to death, was all you ever made. Your whole world rests upon it. Everything you see reflects it. And every special relationship you ever made is PART of it."
"Temptation has ONE lesson it would teach, in ALL its forms, WHEREVER it occurs."
"Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing forms that shift with time and place, is an illusion that has no meaning."
"Never foster this illusion in yourself, or encourage it in others. An "object" is incapable of release, because it is a concept which is deprived of creative power."
"What is seen as "reality" is simply what the mind prefers. Its hierarchy of values is projected outward, and it sends the body's eyes to find it."
"All that a hierarchy of illusions can show is PREFERENCE, NOT reality."
"Fear is the emotion of the world. It has but one. Its forms are many - call them what you will - but it is one in content."
"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning. ... Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form MEANS understanding HAS BEEN obscured."
"Before a holy relationship, there IS no sin. The FORM of error is no longer seen."