You always perceive in people what you CHOOSE to see in them.

If you CHOOSE to be upset and angry, it CHANGES how people look. It makes them SEEM like they are attacking you. And because of this change in YOUR perception - your filtering - YOU think that you are justified in this anger or upset "because of" what they so obviously are doing. But they only APPEAR to be doing this stuff because YOU are looking through a dark filter of unlove. It filters OUT the love and prevents you from seeing love IN the person, or something about them that is loveable.

When you CHOOSE to stop being upset with them, to like them and to love them, which your are perfectly free and capable of doing, this "fog of unlove" is lifted from YOUR mind and you see the person WITH love. This radically changes how they APPEAR to you. Or rather, what you see IN them. Whatever you perceive people as "being like", they only appear to "belike" that because YOU are CHOOSING to see them that way. How you see them and how they appear has NOTHING to do with them or what they’re doing.

If someone is upset with you, angry at you, saying they don’t like you, the only reason they don’t like you is because they are CHOOSING not to like you. Here’s the trick... if they would CHOOSE to like you, THEY WOULD LIKE YOU. This sounds so obvious but it’s true, because per the secret of salvation, anything that person doesn’t like about you is a result of THEM CHOOSING NOT TO. Whatever they think is "wrong" with you, they ONLY SEE because THEY choose to put that there. They think they are locked into this perception with no choice. They don’t realize if they would simply CHOOSE differently, they COULD choose to LIKE YOU, and would instantly warm up to you.

It sounds too obvious to be true, but this is how it works. You are NEVER justified in being angry at someone because that simply means, you are CHOOSING not to love them. The ONLY reason you don’t like someone is because you haven’t decided to like them, for whatever scapegoating mileage you’re getting out of that. YOU have the power to love everyone. YOU have the freedom to choose to love everyone. Because there is NO REASON NOT TO. The only time you find a reason not to, is when YOU have slipped into ego, YOU are attacking, YOU are projecting, an d YOU are accusing your brother of your own sins.

You are never upset for the reason you think. It is NEVER "because of" people, the world, the body, the environment, or anything other than YOU. You using your free will to CHOOSE TO BE UPSET. You are not at the effect of anyone. You are CAUSAL. Whatever you choose, you cause. You are a creator. If you do not LIKE what you are causing, that’s on you. But disassociating ownership for that responsibility is ego.

You don’t like xyz person because you decided not to like them. They now look like enemies because you WANT to see them as enemies. Your desire to hate them MAKES THEM appear to be unlovable. The only reason they appear unlovable is not because of THEM, it’s because of YOU. If you would decide to love them, they would stop looking like monsters. Set them free of your tyranny.

You are annoyed about xyz situation because you have not yet CHOSEN to be happy. You like being unhappy. When you decide to be happy you will love it.

You think you can’t love xyz person because of "what they are like", because YOU are choosing to be an asshole. There is NO REASON to be unloving. All the reasons we have, we make up. Just as there is no reason to be afraid and all fear is made up.

If I don’t like something, is the problem the THING I don’t like, OR ME choosing to be "not likey"? And while I’m busy pointing out the flaws and sins of others, which I ONLY SEE because I PUT THEM THERE through unlove, I might want to look closer to home at why *I* am being sinful towards them. MY problem causes THEM To look like THE problem.

Everyone is holy and innocent and deserves to be loved fully. If I’m not doing that, *I* have a problem. I need to choose again. The only way a sworn enemy becomes a beloved friend is by choosing to LOVE them, sooner or later. You are free to choose when to change your mind.

"The holiest of all the spots on Earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love."

"The power of decision is my own."

The realisation that you need do nothing, is really the realisation of ENLIGHTENMENT. It's something that suddenly becomes very clear to you, as you reach the final goal.

The truth is that in the separation from God, there was NOT a loss of perfection, and NOTHING real changed at all. The only thing that happened was we entered a state of denial, in which we blocked AWARENESS OF that perfection, and believed in the presence of imperfection.

"The separation was not a loss of perfection, but a failure in COMMUNICATION."

That means that there really is still a perfect state, a perfect heaven, you are still exactly as God created you, nothing has really changed at all. But to our egoic insane minds, we believe that's not true, and we think we've become evil monsters.

So as you forgive and return to the state of enlightenment, in which you RECOGNIZE everything as is it is, you'll be suddenly realising that ... hey... oh shit. .. there's actually nothing wrong with me ..... nothing's actually gone wrong ..... I'm still perfect.

You'll look upon yourself and everyone and everything and it'll suddenly seem totally obvious that there is nothing wrong whatsoever, and all of the sense that anything was ever wrong was nothing but a dream. Some delusion that you had, some mistaken perception, some false belief, some fantasy or wishful thinking where you thought and hoped you could pull off the impossible.

Because the truth is that "underneath" what seems to be your corrupted state, your confusion and insanity, your ego and your false beliefs, there remains still a PERFECT state of heaven, your actual real self which is still 100% intact and perfect, and all of creation which has not been even remotely affected or changed.

"Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all."

So as you get to that final state and you wake up, it's not actually going to be a CHANGE at all. You're not going to suddenly change into something. Rather, you'll simply just suddenly recognize the TRUTH about you and everything, that everything real is absolutely UNCHANGED. There never was really anything wrong, there has never really been a disaster or tragedy, there's never really been a death or a sickness or a suffering. It was all a lie. Some nightmare that you had when you were nuts for a while.

So that then means that in your recognition that NOTHING IS WRONG AT ALL, it's the recognition that you do not "need to do anything", to fix anything, to make anything better, because everything IS ALREADY PERFECT. That's the true meaning of "I need do nothing". It's not really anything to do with doings or happenings or whether you're busy or being of service or not, it's to do with the recognition of the fact that everything real is completely perfect and unchanged. That there is no real need.

It still remains that there does appear to be a NEED for those who are NOT YET AWARE of their perfection, and who therefore believe in and dream of being mortal and corrupt and powerless and victims. THEY have an illusion of a need, and while they have that illusion they do need help. But what they need is help to realize that they do not have any needs, because there not broken. And to that end, you can DO THINGS to help them with that temporary sense of need, to move them towards the state where they realize also that "I need do nothing - because I'm already perfect."

This relates also to forgiveness because true forgiveness it the recognition that THERE IS NO SIN, and therefore nothing TO forgive. The recognition of no sin is the ability to see that there is no lack, nothing is broken, nothing has gone wrong, and so there is no need for any correction. No-one has done anything wrong in reality. Perfection is still perfect. There is only permanent innocence - a sinlessness guaranteed by God.

Long story short, there basically is nothing really wrong with anyone anywhere whatsoever. There is no separation, and no sin, but there is a BELIEF IN THEM, and that belief needs to be corrected in order to recognize that nothing ever really went wrong with God's creation. Or as God told me one time, "There's nothing wrong, it's all an illusion."

So we're not really, really actually sort of healing something that has "happened", we're trying to heal from the belief that something needs healing. We're not really trying to change the mind as such, we're trying to get the mind to change its belief that it HAS BEEN changed, and to therefore recognize that change is NOT POSSIBLE.

"This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as GOD created it. But YOU think that you HAVE changed it, as long as you learn through the ego. This DOES place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which SEEMS contradictory: you must learn to change your mind ABOUT your mind. Only by this can you learn that it IS changeless."

Or to put it another way - hey, GOOD NEWS ... You and God and everyone are still absolutely perfect and unchanged RIGHT NOW and there's nothing that you need to do whatsoever to establish or correct its condition. God has already done the work of willing that it be perfect forever, and so it is. All you need to is ACCEPT IT, RECOGNIZE IT, KNOW IT, EXPERIENCE AWARENESS OF IT.

You're perfect right now, and you don't even know how perfect you are! lol

Here is Jesus mentioning this realisation that happens as you awaken, at the end goal...

"When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation, and fight against giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation, or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it ALWAYS comes with just ONE happy realization, -- "I need do nothing." Here is the ultimate release that everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time."

And further that as you reach THE END OF TIME and escape from time, you will realize that you need do nothing further for your salvation...

"And, if you recognize you NEED do nothing, you HAVE withdrawn the body's value from your mind. Here is the quick and open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and ESCAPE from time. This is the way in which sin loses ALL attraction RIGHT NOW. For here is time denied, and past and future gone. Who need do nothing has no need for time. To do nothing is to rest, and make a place within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides."

The ego is sneaky about projecting sin and guilt onto others. If someone else is not really doing anything wrong, it is riskier and perhaps more difficult for you to "unfairly" project your own sin and guilt onto them. If you do, it will appear much more obvious that you are the one doing the attacking, and that it is not called for. This is too "overt". Just picking some random innocent target and attacking it would indeed be vicious, but our ego tends not to do this.

Instead, we lay a trap and lay in wait, trying to find a target. A target is someone who, of their apparent own free will, is sinning on their own. Someone who is digging their own grave. Someone who is hurting, attacking, being at fault, choosing poorly, doing something offensive, believing wrongly, saying harmful words, punishing or whatever. So long as the person is, themselves, seeming to be clearly the one who is sinning.

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt."

Once we see this "proof of sin" in someone else, it becomes a strong temptation. It tempts you to believe it. It almost invites you to agree with it, to see judgement as justified, and to therefore launch an attack which reinforces the person's sinfulness. But this is a slippery slope, even though it's what the ego enjoys as its less overt tactic.

When it's clearly someone else who seems to be wrong, it presents a wonderful opportunity for your own ego. Since all attention is on the other person, and since they appear to be the one who is making things worse for themselves and everyone, your ego takes the "opportunity" to sneak in and USE it for its purposes.

If it can now condemn and accuse the person, based on "what they are doing", it seems completely justified. But the sneaky thing is that you aren't having to "invent" a sin for them to be accused of. They have already provided a nice sin for you to latch onto. All you have to do is "point it out". So now the ego simply seems to be mirroring what the person is already doing, rather than making a "fresh accusation".

By doing this, the attack upon the person becomes disguised. It hides in the darkness of the other person's actions. They were already sinning, so it seems like you're not ADDING anything to them. And so simply by "identifying it" and "pointing it out" and labelling it AS a sin, you appear to be not attacking them at all. But if you step back, you ARE still in fact accusing them of sin still, you are attacking them, you are compounding their own sin, and are being just as judgemental as before.

It's just that, when someone else provides the "material", you seem to not be the one who is "inventing" the sin, so your accusation against them seems invisible. It doesn't stand out from what they are already going. It's like you slip in a little sin of your own hidden by theirs. All the focus is on them, by their own doing, so your ego gets to hide from being the center of attention. It's still attacking but now it seems like you're not doing anything.

This becomes quite risky though, to yourself, because you can become quite blinded by this sleight of hand, even unto yourself as you're doing it. You may not even realize that you have been "tempted" by the sin of another, and that you fell for it, believed in it, and recognized it as a perfect opportunity to condemn without the implication fo yourself. You can then find yourself accusing the other of "doing what they're obviosuly doing", convincing yourself that YOU are not doing anything, and therefore are now are attacking even more unconsciously.

It's one thing to be more aware of your desire to project your own shit onto someone else. It's another to be attacking someone on the basis of what they are seeming to do, and then not even realizing that you're attacking them. When they are the "source" of the sin, you can easily lose sight of how you are contributing to it, or mirroring it. Your own attack becomes invisible to you, and then you believe that you're not even doing anything wrong at all.

Thus you end up in a pattern of not attacking people unless they sin first, and then when they do seem to sin, you take it as an ideal opportunity to scapegoat. Because you think no-one will notice what YOU are doing because they'll be so busy focusing on what THEY are doing. A good decoy goes a long way. Except that you even distract your own attention, and now you much more easily allow your mind to fall into a scapegoating mode.

Overall I personally experience this as "falling for temptation", in that the world is constantly presenting "opportunities" to focus on sin and make it real. It's a constant vigilance to try not to "take a cheap shot", when someone is obviously mistaken in some way. If I don't recognize it as "just a mistake", I will make it real and try to compound it, drawing myself away from myself, trying to displace my own guilt onto someone else. But only if "they started it."

No-one wants to overly be seen as an unjustified attacker, so we wait until someone makes the first move, before we pounce on it. Then the gloves come off and the claws come out, and rightly so, because now the other person has invited us to attack them. They want punishment, and if we agree with that we will give it to them, and benefit from doing so. It's much easier to "fall for" this temptation to "beat someone when they are down" than to look like a total a-hole hurting people for no apparent reason. This is why almost all attacks on others are "justified" as being "called for" based on what we think other people "did wrong first."

Of course, "only the self-accused condemn" and "we but accuse our brother of our own sins."

When I rest within, go within, focus within, dwell with God within, stay within, remain calm, be at peace, connect to my holiness, step back from the world, disconnect, etc.... I feel that where and what I am is centered and calm and dwells inside of me.

Within me according to ACIM there is an inner altar, where we are host to God. And also that deep within us there is a place of complete holiness. And we're also told we can find a state of rest in an "I need do nothing" state, where we can experience a sense of calm and rest "in the midst all the busy doings on which you are sent".

The more that I forgive the world and recognize it does not exist, the more I only have "left" what is within me. If everything seemingly external or outside of me, which also includes the body, is not there and does not exist, because there is no world, then all I "have" is what is within my mind. In my awareness.

I find myself becoming aware of this inside state of calm and holiness more and more often. If I put my attention there, it's like turning my mind away from the world and looking within. Focusing on where I am coming from, not on where I am going to. Stepping back from the world and stepping back from my stepping out, and simply remaining deep within. And this inner state is abstract and simple and one and whole, not a myriad of forms and differences.

Within me there is a place of peace and calm and surrender and inactivity. It's a quiet, holy state. It isn't out there, or externalized, or projecting, or losing center, or being caught up in illusions, or upset, or thrown around by the world. It's like just sitting centered within yourself and in what you are and not leaving yourself. Not abandoning yourself. Not being pulled away on another wild goose chase.

When I move away from this state, which seems to be very natural and easy to move into as well, my focus and attention shifts to the external world. To the body. And now if my mind goes into ego, and it goes into believing the world is real, it now starts to lose sight of that inner calm. And now the mind seems to reach out, attach, hold onto things, psychologically and energetically.

Each time this happens a seeming "bridge" forms, which is based on the idea of horizontal cause and effect, or being affect-able by the external world. It feels like a cord, tying me to something. And by believing in external causes and sinners I then feel this sense of vulnerability and accessibility, wherein because I am forming these bridges of horizontal causation with external things, my attack can flow out across these bridges, and external attack can flow in to me as well. They are beliefs in affecting and being affected.

Once I am attacking and receiving attack, my psychological experience is that I am vulnerable, attackable, unprotected, and what is external can seem to come all the way into me and make contact with what I am, and attack it, and now I am affected, and now I am having effects and upsets and emotional reactions. And now I am thrown off center and am lost, and have lost sight of my inner self, and the calm is disturbed, and all sense of holiness and peace thrown out the window.

Then I forgive. I remember there is no world. And as I forgive I dismantle these inroads, these bindings and attachments and beliefs in something external having access to my inner self. And as I do, as I recognize the world is not real, it does not exist, it is not causal, it is not happening, this wipes the world off the plate of my mind. Everything external is a lie. And now what is left? All that's left is what I am within me. And what I am is deep within. And it is calm and peaceful and holy and innocent and light and gently happy and in the presence of God. And it is already there, waiting for me to just uncover it and be it.

So now what I'm noticing is, I am spending progressively more and more time within, being what I really am, and less and less time without, lost and being untrue to myself and wildly reactive and upset and terrified, caught in a dream and tempted by illusions. So it seems then that remaining within, centered, in my inner calm place, is where I really am, and if I were to just stay there, I would not lose sight of myself and bleed out into the world. And I wouldn't react to figures in a dream, or even feel particularly engaged with the world.

It then is like being passer-by, remaining within, with God, and looking without, but not moving out into the world mentally. Not abandoning my post. Not running away from the inner altar. Not getting distracted and deceived and alarmed and threatened by the external. And so I just remaining within. Like a turtle in its shell, just peeking out at the world but not thrusting myself into it. Not losing my center or going off on some tangent of a wild goose chase after dreams and fantasies of physical spiritualization.

So then if I walk the world, from within, and an remaining within as I do so, keeping in the inner holy calm while I do so, I am no longer lost in the world. I am above the battlefield. I am outside the spacetime. I am further than any illusion can reach. I am beyond the ego. Because ego is always all about going without, externalizing, abandoning yourself, leaving yourself behind, moving away from what you are, seeking and not finding, seeking anywhere but within where you already are perfect. And now I be passerby, watching, noticing, but staying close to God within.

Paradoxically, when you go within, you access the light, and then the light can project and extend outward. You do not shine the light by trying to force light out of you into the world. You do not shine light by leaving your light bulb. You do not illuminate the world or be the light of the world, by confusing yourself with what goes out. Love and light extend on their own. You only have to go within and join with the SOURCE, plug yourself into the electrical socket, and then you light up, within.

"Love goes out because of what it is, but you are needed that it can begin."

And once you have an inner light, it automatically radiates and extends and shares. It seems counter intuitive but the only way to give to others is to receive. And as you receive the inner light you automatically give it. Provided you don't try to take it away from yourself and sacrifice it in trying to give it to another. You are to be the light bulb, not the photons. You have to be in the inner holiness in order to have power over what is exteranal.

Going within allows you to extend and project light without. You have to move within, and become closer to God, in order to have something worth giving. And as you give it, you do not abandon your intimacy with God otherwise you stop having anything to share. And as you connect to the inner light, this also transcends the outer, and so joins you with other minds in light, because it is deep within you that you are connected to others, who SEEM to be external and separated off. We are joined together by mutually going within, so that we transcend the world, and thus are not at a distance.

There is a saying, "If I do not go within, I will go without". And this is the whole thing. When you stop dwelling within, you lose yourself and lose everything. You lose touch with what you are and with God. And the light dims and you cannot shine. In a sense, by moving inward which seems to be away from others, you actually reach a state of joining and sharing. You can't access this joining and sharing state by forcing yourself outward, because that actually produces special relationships, attachment, ownership and control.

All that remains when there is no world, and there is no body, and there are no temptations, and there is no distraction, and you are not confused with the world, and you do not believe you are a physical object, and you recognize the world was just a dream, and you reach enlightenment, which is what God gave you. What is coming from God. And what comes from God is received within at your inner altar. And this is where you are host to Him. And when this is all you have left, and you have nothing of the world, you are ready to go home.

Fear has but one cause, not many. It is not caused by what you think it’s caused by. Every single fear in the world has one cause.

When you tried to sin, you may have believed you succeeded in creating real effects. Real irreversible damage. But you had an option. Either proceed forward to guilt, or go backwards to the reversal of sin. Guilt or forgiveness was the choice. Either sin is real and you are guilty, or sin is not real and you’re innocent.

Choosing not to forgive yourself, and choosing to keep your belief in sin, the only option is to condemn yourself to death. Go towards forgiveness and you’ll choose life, accepting that you deserve to be forgiven. Go towards guilt and you’ll choose death, accepting that you deserve to be punished for what you did.

This is where the core root of all fear comes in. You actually ACCEPT and AGREE that you SHOULD be punished, because you’re guilty. The punishment seems completely justified. Your own belief that you deserve punishment for being guilty then creates fear of that punishment. But it’s not a fear of being punished by others. Here’s the secret cause of all fear:

You are afraid of what you are going to do to yourself.

This fear arises solely because you, yourself, believe you deserve to be punished, in total agreement that you are guilty, and having accepted that "it is true" that you really sinned and are therefore guilty. It is your own belief about yourself. You actually "agree" that it not only makes sense, but is completely justified, and acceptable, that you be punished for this.

This is a big problem, because it is the continued development a death wish. It means you want to hurt yourself and you believe you should be hurt.

This is not only the source of all fear in the world, it is also the source of all victimhood. Because at this point, you actually welcome punishment. You actually position yourself so that you can be attacked. You actually make yourself powerless, and allow yourself to be abused. You actually hire people to come along and hurt you. And you actually make plans for being attacked justifiably.

Ultimately then you become afraid of the fact that YOU have it in for yourself. That YOU want you to be punished and to "atone" for your sin. And ultimately the only punishment you believe is justified and worthy of you, is death.

This is not anything to do with anyone else. It has nothing to do with what other people are going to do to you. It’s not even anything to do with the fear of HOW the punishment will come or of WHO will be the one to inflict it.

Typically however you will make your own death wish unconscious and project it and then obsess over this general anxiety about what "someone else" is going to "do to you" against your will. But while you are busy in conscious awareness making plans to avoid your attackers, unconsciously you are asking to be attacked.

If someone were to seem to then attack you would claim it was completely unjustified, because you have made your self-attack and death wish unconscious. You actually think you don’t want to suffer or be punished, nor deserve it. That’s what the facade of fake innocence is for - it covers up you guilty secret. Then you get to pretend you are justified in being angry when someone hurts you, as if you didn’t want it. But you did ask for it, and you did it yourself.

On the surface, consciously, you will experience this as being a victim, as if you are not asking for and do not want any kind of punishment at all. You’ll even run away from it and try to make yourself safe and avoid people and create an illusion of innocence and security, presenting yourself as harmless and that no-one should suspect you of guilt. But it’s only to cover up the underlying belief that you deserve to suffer and die because you believe you are guilty.

It’s pretty grim isn’t it. This is what every ego plans for its host.

But the fact is, you cannot be free of such suffering until you can admit that it is YOU who is trying to do something to yourself. So long as it *seems* as if someone else is the one punishing you, or its your job, or its the weather, or food you ate, or something environmental, or a group of people, whatever, these projections are designed to KEEP your unconscious self hatred hidden. The more you can disown it and project it and see it coming "from" anyone other than yourself, the more you can play the victim role and pretend you don’t want it.

Make no mistake. NO-ONE dies without their own consent. All attack is self attack. You are 100% responsible for what you are trying to do to yourself. You cannot suffer AT ALL if you do not choose to believe you are guilty or sinful. All of your projected causes of fear, which make it look like you’re afraid of what is going to "happen to you" without your will, it is a DECOY for what you secretly are planning to do to yourself.

You have to get to where you are willing to admit to this, if you want to be free of it. It’s you who believes you deserve to die, not the world, and not anyone else. YOU, need to forgive YOURSELF, for what you have not really done. YOU, need to let go of your belief that you really are guilty and deserve punishment, so that you will stop planning for your own suffering while building fake defenses against it.

No-one is attacking you against your will. The world is not causing you. Death cannot happen to you against your will. Remember that all attack is self attack and it is only your attempt to be at war with yourself that needs to be corrected. A belief in deserving punishment, or of being truly sinful or guilty, IS a belief in death and being deserving of death. It is, literally, a suicidal belief. All death is suicide.

Forgiveness is needed, of yourself, to recognize your innocence and to opt to NOT believe you sinned. You do NOT deserve to die, and you do NOT need to be punishing yourself. You DO deserve the love of God and you ARE innocent. All the rest is a mistaken ego belief.

All fear is the fear of yourself.

Here is how Jesus puts your self attack:

"Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven's peace holds all things still at last. Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. Let no attack enter with you. Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness."

Everything in the physical world is temporary. It comes, it lingers a while, and then it goes. This applies to absolutely everything. Bodies, worlds, animals, foods, cars, birds, insects, bicycles, trees, you name it. It seems to begin, it seems to remain as if promising to be there always, but then it leaves. Always, always, always it leaves.

However, the things of God are not temporary, they are permanent and eternal. They do not come and go, or last only a little while, or even a long while. They are forever. They have no beginning and no end. They are endless and immortal, incapable of fading away or decaying, of becoming sick or dissolving into death. Because what God has created cannot BE put asunder.

When you assign the properties of God's creations to the things of this world, you will have psychological sickness, because they will fail to be permanent. This includes valuing the things of this world as if they can be kept, being attached to the things of this world as if they are worth having, wanting the things of this world to never end, trying to keep bodies going for as long as possible, resisting change, not letting go of what inevitably must pass, and even attempting to stop death from happening.

Trying to make this world eternal is a mistake. Trying to give it reality and life, will and power, mind and value, is all a mistake. Every time you think of the things of this world as though they should last forever, believing they will not end, wishing they would always be there, or wanting them to never die, you are confusing immortality and mortality. Believing this world is your permanent home will tear you apart, because this world will tear apart.

Believing the things of the world must last forever, you will suffer psychologically. The things of this world WILL end, and the whole world will end, and everything you ever wanted to keep here will be destroyed. Even the things you spend a lifetime building. All the world's roads lead to death and destruction. It will leave, and it will take away, and all things physically will die. So when you're busy wanting them not to, you will be torn apart and experience loss and grief. The things you think you value will be destroyed, the bodies you think should live indefinitely will be mangled, and every treasure will be crushed.

You will suffer if you believe this world is anything BUT temporary, or anything but death. Trying to have it be permanent is to confuse it for heaven. It is not of God, it is not his kingdom, and it is not his will. Nor is it like him, having been made to be opposite to his kingdom in every way. All forms of attachment, resistance, ownership, specialness, valuing, believing real, trying to sustain, not wanting it to end, will make you suffer. Because it will end anyway and everything you thought you loved will be ripped away, leaving you empty and bereft, while you play with death.

The only way to alleviate this suffering is to cease the confusion of levels between heaven and earth. To stop trying to make this world last indefinitely. To stop trying to keep people in bodies. To stop valuing things that will die, and to stop resisting their going. You have to let the whole world go, because it is going to go whether you like it or not.

The only way to find salvation from a world that was dying before it was born, is to transcend the world and rise above it. To detach from it and recognize it as temporary and old and destined to die. The kingdom of God offers you everything that this world cannot give, and just as this world has disappointed you since time began, heaven has delighted you and will do so without end. Only the creations of God can satisfy you and bring lasting happiness.

Bodily relationships will come and go. You'll think they'll last forever and then they will end and you will be upset because you wanted it to last. All your collections and objects and toys will be destroyed. Everything you eat will turn to shit, if you manage to eat it before it rots. All places through all seasons will destroy everything they contain. Even entire solar systems and galaxies will be swallowed up and exploded apart.

Nothing in this world will last forever. The sooner this can be accepted and sink deeply within, such that you become willing to release it and let it all go, the sooner you will find happiness and peace.

"You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust, even as you made it."

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

"You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the "gifts" it merely lends to take away again, attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus."

"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."

I used to attack myself pretty severely through the fear of being judged by others. I was painfully shy and perceived a need to withdraw in an effort to protect myself, but all this did was hurt myself deeply.

My shyness was a coping mechanism for protecting my sensitivity. I had failed to learn how to express myself fully, and it didn't help that I was an introvert. I had trouble learning social skills and asserting myself. Every social interaction was literally painful.

I did not realize what I was doing to myself. My perception was that other people were perceiving me in a certain way, which I was simply trying to get away from.

After a social encounter, particularly one with strangers or where I had to go into someone else's home or be surrounded by a crowd, I would feel deeply, deeply hurt. I would become strongly embarrassed in the midst of the situation, would tense up, become very quiet (paralyzed) and experience things as though everyone was judging me.

I would return home with a very very deep inner emotional pain, a feeling of "hurt", that was so strong I had no choice but to have a deep cry in order to deal with it. Every social encounter seemed like a total failure and something I did not want to be a part of, making me avoid them even more. It was deeper and stronger than any other emotional upset about any other situation in life. It felt absolutely horrible.

When strangers would even walk past I would immediately cringe and feel attacked. I suspected they were a threat, and saw them as enemies or someone I did not want to be around. They seemed to have power over me and I hid away and withdrew in an effort to avoid people.

I had no idea what was happening in my perception or what I was doing to myself. I only thought that other people were hurting me and causing me to feel like shit. It seemed to all be their fault, and they were the ones who we being judgmental.

But over time I have gradually, slowly learned, that this is not the case. It was difficult to come to realize this.

I saw that I was in fact judging everyone else. I saw them as judged in some way, although this seemed to be subtler and concealed behind my reaction to this perception. Seeing them as judgers automatically meant I was judged by them and therefore at their effect. The effects this produced in my own self was the deep hurt.

I had to realize that in order to see them as judgers, I had to believe they were the ones being judgmental, which was in fact my own belief. I was making them out to be judgers. And that meant, I was simultaneously judging my own self by seeing myself in the role of "judged" by them.

It never really had anything to do with other people judging me either. In fact, probably in 99% of cases they were not being judgmental at all. They were not even interested. They weren't saying anything about me or pointing a finger or anything. But I had this "mental illness" of strongly believing that I couldn't go anywhere without being under attack. And it wouldn't matter if someone pointed out that no-one really cared to judge me because they were too busy with their own selfish interests, I couldn't see it.

What I was really doing was seeing myself as judge-worthy, disassociating a part of my mind and projecting it onto others, seeing them as the judger rather than myself, and then creating the effects within myself that correspond to how I perceived others to be perceiving me. I literally was hurting myself. The hurt I did to myself was far worse than anything anyone else ever did, and it was all because of how I was mis-perceiving.

Underneath this fear of judgement there was a belief that I deserved to be judged, because I believed I had sinned and was guilty. I didn't see myself as worthy of love and therefore perceived that others agreed with me. My direct self-attack turned into indirect self-attack that appeared to be coming at me from other people, but was really coming at me from within a part of my mind that I did not recognize as myself.

I was being both the judger of myself, and the one who was judged. Or in other words, a victimizer and a victim. I played both roles but only saw myself as playing the victim role, and unfairly so. The mere act of perceiving oneself in a victim role automatically creates effects in yourself, typically emotional reactions which try to correspond to the causes that you see as outside of yourself. Because I saw others as judging me severely, I felt severely hurt. Truth is, both the perception that others were judging and the hurtful effects of the judgement were both put in place simultaneously by myself.

I needed to forgive myself. And this has taken a very long time and it's been a very gradual slow process. Over the years, a sense of being separate from others has diminished. A sense of being trapped in myself has diminished. A sense of frustration at not being able to fully express has diminished. A sense of it not being okay to simply be the way I am has diminished. In fact, recently there has been a growing, wonderful freedom, of finally not giving a fuck.

This funnily enough manifested in recent hairstyles. It suddenly became fun to play with looking ugly, rather than trying to look pleasing. And I don't mean this ugliness is another judgement, just that, I've found myself being really "ok" with looking whatever way I look without it meaning anything or causing a judgement.

This is so freeing. It now becomes more of a "playful" experience, where it doesn't matter one way or another, and where I'm growing stronger in my willingness to present myself in whatever way I like without caring (worrying) about what people will think of it.

You may have noticed over time that in my writing I now swear a lot more often. I used to be so repressed that I would never swear, and thought I was more special or holier than others by not doing so. It's now more of a pleasure to swear. To some this may seem like I'm turning 'evil' but that's not the case. I'm becoming more authentic and more myself, censoring myself less and recognizing that I am free.

Taking responsibility for everything I am experiencing shows me that I can only be upset if I hurt myself, no-one else is the cause of what I feel, and therefore I am set free of concern for massive people pleasing or not showing up fully as myself. I was trying to be everyone but myself, to be something I am not, and to disown myself. There is nothing but pain and suffering there when we do that.

There are some people out there especially those who are painfully shy, who appear on the surface to be sweet and nice but have a strong persona, a facade of everything being alright all the time when underneath there is a searing self hatred and repression and sense of unworthiness and of not being "allowed" to do anything. It's a state of self imprisonment. I still at times struggle with limiting myself and Holy Spirit having to remind me "you are allowed". I often thought I was imprisoned by someone else in life, but really it was my own doing.

Some of these people who are suffering from self-inflicted unworthiness and quiet suffering, turn to suicide as an escape. My own life became one of depression and despearation and a growing feeling that I was approaching some kind of "end". If I had not met my wife at about that time I probably wouldn't be here.

A sense of an "end" was a sense of intense separation, isolation and being cut off from everyone. I was ostracized "by society" for an earlier "accident", but really it was a way for me to do this to myself, to give me a good reason why I should suffer in silence and be unhappy. I have had to crawl out of my own self-inflicted hell-hole. Some people are not able to do this. There was a guy at my workplace who was similarly shy who no one would suspect was suffering painfully every day through false perceptions, and he shot himself.

I am thankful for the Holy Spirit and Jesus who have helped me immensely to come out of my nightmares and into a happier place. I still have work to do but everything keeps heading in the direction of heaven. A Course in Miracles has been a God-send in terms of correcting my perceptual distortions and helping me to undo the grossly self-inflicted false beliefs that torture and condemn from the inside out. I am so different to how I used to be now that I don't recognize myself in photos.

Freedom and relief from suffering comes from the recognition of what we are doing to ourselves. We are the ones who need to forgive ourselves and undo our own self attack. There is a way out of hell, because we are the only ones keeping us in hell. No-one is keeping us here but ourselves. Fear of judgement is secretly the fear of being judged by God, which is an attempt not to go Home by justifying self attack. But there is a better way. And that means, if we will become willing, we can go Home to God and be happy. Thank God for that!

Gradually over time I am becoming more and more aware that, in truth, nothing has ever gone wrong. And in fact, it is absolutely impossible for anything to really go wrong.

Everything about God's reality is permanent and unchanging. This seems like a tiny little fact, but is everything.

It means that the Kingdom of God cannot be changed, all forms of suffering and death are fictional, you literally are incapable of sin, everything real is still exactly as God created it, nothing can attack reality, and nothing has ever happened to you. It also means you are permanently in a state of enlightenment and resurrection and eternal life.

"Believe in the Resurrection because it has BEEN accomplished, and IT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED IN YOU. This is as true now as it will ever be, for the resurrection is the Will of God, Which knows no time and no exceptions."

The problem we have is that we *currently* are so immersed in an experience that seems totally contrary to this, so surrounded by it all day long, that we think of this truth as distant and difficult to stay in touch with. Like it's some far off possibility that we can't access. And so the ego and all its stories of things going wrong, suffering, murder and death seem all too "real" and true.

But gradually we shift towards allegiance to the truth and discover something. It is not a matter of there being a war between the light and the dark. Instead, the darkness is at war with ITSELF and the light is UNTOUCHED. Everything real is as immaculate and perfect and innocent as it has always been, because that is God's will and NOTHING can change God's will in any real way.

We've bought into the lies of dreaming all too strongly and have become convinced of them. We seem to believe that what we are is not something real or permanent, and that we can be changed. That somehow we did sin and changed from being innocent to being a sinner. And then we think that we really are having sickness, suffering, problems and death, as though these things can really happen or DO something to us.

Underneath all of these LIES we are still perfectly innocent, holy, immortal, invulnerable, unaffected, unchanged, perfect, eternal, happy, loved and loving, in divine health forever, free form fear and death, and incapable of separation.

So the question arises, simply, which of these two "realities" are you going to believe in and be allegiant to? Are you going to recognize that it is ACTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE for anything to be affected or die, or are you going to keep believing that death CAN affect God's creation? That's the choice that you have. The illusion that there is an opposite to life, or whether there is ONLY life.

Slowly but surely I find more and more evidence and reason telling me of the IMMORTALITY and invulnerability of all things God created. The utter IMPOSSIBILITY of anything the ego claims. It is impossible to sin. It is impossible to oppose God's will. It is impossible to die. It is impossible for God's Son to suffer. It is impossible that you have "real reasons" to be afraid. All of it is a dream. A fiction. A huge massive lie, like a cover-up.

It is VERY reassuring to realize then that THE TRUTH IS that everything real is still exactly the way God created it. What you are is real and cannot be changed or hurt or affected in any way. What your brother is cannot sin against you or be sinned against. It is literally absolutely impossible for you to sin AT ALL. Sin is NOT real. It is fake sin. Just as guilt is fake guilt, fear is fake fear, sickness is fake sickness, and death is fake death.

What a relief it is to realize the sheer PROTECTION of God's Kingdom. Nothing real can or has been threatened whatsoever. Anything else MUST be unreal and not truly happening. Even the worst war and most horrific death MUST be a total bullshit lie with NO TRUTH in it whatsoever.

No illusion can assail the creations of God. Darkness cannot blot out the light. The ego cannot replace the Sons of God with death. It is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for you to sin against or leave God or oppose His will. We must remember that anything that says otherwise MUST be a fictional illusion, just some kind of lie or tall tale or deception, a form of denial, because in truth it is IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO DIE.

What you ARE, in reality, is deathless, ageless, timeless, spaceless, immortal, invincible, invulnerable, eternal, impenetrable, unchangeable, permanent, fixed forever, and totally beyond any threat or danger.

So the challenge we are faced with is the contrasting and clarifying of these two positions. One says you are forever immortal and nothing else can ever be true. The other says you are mortal and weak and afraid and must suffer and can actually die. Only one of these two can be true. And if God's version is the truth, the other must be TOTALLY false.

Coming to realize that God's creation is always PERMANENT and utterly beyond all damage or conflict has tremendous peace to it. The sheer impossibility of it being hurt in any way. It is so powerful. Like an immovable object, it asserts itself and simply IS, forever, and nothing else can ever change it. In the face of it, the ego has absolutely no room to even EXIST.

Do you think Heaven is concerned? Is heaven trembling in fear at what the ego or the darkness might do? Is there really upset over what has happened? Has even one of God's children ever been really threatened? Are we not ETERNALLY SAFE FOREVER IN GOD? Can lies and illusions and little shadows of despair ever truly DO ANYTHING to anything real? Is heaven at war with the ego? Is the Holy Spirit fighting with the ego? He simply RECOGNIZES that THERE IS NO REAL EGO. So what's there to worry about?

We're busy freaking out that everything has gone to shit, and in reality, NOTHING HAS HAPPENED! We keep fearing that we're becoming sick and old and dead and this is impossible. We keep worrying about what's becoming of the world and yet it doesn't even exist. We are so concerned that we've gone off the rails and will never get home, but we're already still there! How bizarre this grand illusion that so many things have gone wrong, when in fact NOT ONE SINGLE THING HAS GONE WRONG AND NEVER WILL.

How much PEACE there is in realizing this freedom from FICTIONS of suffering. God, His Kingdom and His Holy Sons are not merely hiding away from the world hoping not to be attacked by it. Rather, they know that the world is TOTALLY FICTIONAL and does not really exist at all. There IS NO THREAT, there IS NO DANGER, there IS NO ATTACK, there IS NO DEATH. All of this worldly stuff, it's just totally bullshit. All of it. None of it is true! The secret to salvation is that THERE IS NOTHING TO BE SAVED FROM!!!!

ONLY THE TRUTH IS TRUE. ONLY THE CREATIONS OF LIGHT ARE REAL. ONLY THE KINGDOM OF GOD EXISTS. THERE IS NO WORLD. NOTHING REAL CAN BE THREATENED. NOTHING UNREAL EXISTS.

When you are in the world and the world seems real, and you feel like life is meaningless and empty, instead of seeking truly within you tend to seek without.

The ego has asserted that the absence of meaning is real, and that the truth is not already here. You fail to look within for it, believing it is not there now. So you start to look outside yourself for a substitute. Surely the meaning is out there and can be found, in the world?

This sets you on a path of seeking, at which the ego is chuckling because you're now falling for "seek and do not find", trying to find something out there which only exists within you.

The ego then reasons that it will keep the world real, but that somewhere within the world there is something worth finding. If you read the "laws of chaos", the ego's laws eventaully result in a desire to find something "special" within the external or in others - special love - which is substituting for the belief that you don't deserve or have real love already. It suggests you can really find it and that it will be your salvation.

Keeping the world means that any quest to find truth must find it within that context, so "the truth is out there". This immediately means that you will start to try to make some aspect of this world special and spiritual. Some aspects of it or some attitude about it will seem to be spiritual while others will seem to be unspiritual.

This is really the ego split mind which is perceiving some parts of what is as good and some as bad, trying to emphasize the good and reject the bad, which increases separation. The ego then begins to claim that the good stuff is "not the ego" and the bad stuff "is the ego". In the pretend name of getting rid of that which is unspiritual, it over-emphasizes that which it deems spiritual.

The good stuff is what your persona likes to keep, and the bad stuff is what you put into your "shadow" which is unconscious mostly. This results in you starting to try to change your persona, your conscious self, to "make it more spiritual".

So the ego has this entire path laid out for you, to "become more spiritual" by seeking externally and trying to find some alleged truth IN the world. This leads many people down a path which very much seems spiritual and positive and "better than the dark crap" but is actually an ILLUSION of spirituality.

While the ego is busy trying to make it seem like you're becoming more spiritual, you're actually moving away from your spiritual self (which is within, and was there all along), and is trying to get you to "find yourself" outside of yourself.

This leads to a variety of delusions such as that there is something sacred about the world, or the divine cosmos, or the universe is conscious and helping you, or that certain special objects or music or clothing or foods are all more spiritual.

It also leads the person's persona to become quite lost in the conceptual intellect, which is attempting to pretend to be spiritual way beyond what it is actually experiencing. It's attempt to reach out to lofty spiritual ideals is so far removed from "actual experience" that it can't help but go into the head and turn into a concept of the truth. It then believes it can find the truth by searching in the intellect or using the intellect to find it. This is a dead end.

It also causes the person or persona to become quite fake and filled with illusions of being spiritual. The trouble is, that the persona is a device for getting rid of anything about yourself that it deems not spiritual enough, and the only way to become really ultra spiritual is to get rid of as many bad parts as possible.

This turns into self sacrifice and a false idea of being selfless where you practically sell your soul in trying to be holier than thou. And in this you lose yourself, thinking that you're meant to serve and obey and do things you don't want to do. You'll take it very seriously and try to be as lofty and heightened in consciusness a possible, which usually translates to having a lot of thinking and conceptualizing. You then lose touch with reality, or at least, you lose touch with what you are really experiencing, and go into a fantasy land.

This fantasy land is the ego's idea of spirituality. It believes it can attain enlightenment and yet stay separate from God, becoming a God of its own making. This is a trap for every seeker. Everything spiritual-seeming, every illusion of spirituality, is offered up as a temptation or bribe to get you to actually abandon yourself and believe in the reality of an external truth even more. Believing in an external truth also means believing in an external God. Yet God is within you.

Sometimes that ego bubble bursts as the persona breaks down and the repressed rage of the shadow comes screaming into awareness to ask you to please acknowledge your real self and your actual experience, instead of your fictional life of ultra-specialness. This can be very unpleasant and come across as a form of insanity, but in a way it is a form of healing which is attempting to awaken you to the fact that your very own spiritualized persona is what has been destroying you all along, with its attempts to "perfect you" and transform you, instead of accepting you as you are.

These are difficult illusions to overcome, largely because the mind is unaware of what the persona is doing, and is unconscious of what it's shoving into the shadow. Many are led astray by this ego illusion of being spiritual. It is not really spiritual at all. There is no wholeness to it. There is a lack of authenticity to it. There is no real personality behind it.

Beware then, that as you attempt to become spiritual, the ego has an entire bucketload of tricks and temptations and traps and false masks for you to wear, to dress you up and make you look like you're being spiritual, even to yourself. And the only reason you fall for it is because you yourself believe that the truth is not in you. You agree with the ego that it is somewhere else and that you need to find it, which takes you on a long pointless journey to nowhere.

Once a seeker always a seeker, until you stop seeking and see the futility of it. What you are trying to find is yourself, and God, and truth and love. It's already in you. It's just covered up with illusions that make it seem like it is not there and cannot be there. But it is there. It was there all along. This is why the course asks us to remove the blocks to awareness of it, instead of seeking to find love somewhere else. We don't need a replacement for love, we just need to realize and accept where the love is.

Everyone has free will. If someone uses their free will to choose to be mistaken, that's up to them. If they use their free will to try to be a sinful evil-like person, that's up to them. If they use their free will to be angry and violent and abusive, that's up to them. If they use their free will to wage war and murder, that's up to them.

It's actually not a 'right' of ours to judge that the choices people have made are sinful. The choices they have made might be very mistaken, very ineffective, very backward or confused, but it's still their free will to make that choice. We don't actually have a right to hold their mistakes against them or to decide that they are sinful because of what they've chosen.

This means that we have to allow people the freedom to be very wrong, the freedom to attack, the freedom to hurt and damage, etc. That is their free will right. This is not to say that they are sane in those choices, or that it's 'morally right' or justified or loving behaviour etc. But it is still their freedom. If they want to suffer, if they want to produce suffering, that's their freedom.

We therefore have to find a way not to judge such choices as sins. We have to be more like, okay, if that's what you want, then you're totally allowed. Whether or not there are actions or counter-measures or defences or protections or whatever after that point, is another matter. Whether there are consequences of legal actions or imprisonment or whatever, that's another matter. But the person does have the free-will right to do what they want.

What this means is that regardless of how someone is different, regardless of the form it takes, what choices they make, what they seem to want, we have to have an attitude that these differences don't define them as guilty sinners. We can't be judging them for it.

If we start going into modes of like... you did this thing, it's a bad thing, therefore you are sinful, therefore I'm justified in blaming you and shaming you and punishing you .... now we're on shaky ground.

What it means is that we actually want people to have poor choices so that we have an opportunity to see them sin. If they sin, then we can find them guilty. Then we can project our own guilt onto them while making out that they're the guilty one, and it'll all seem nice and tidy and covert. We ourselves as "with sin", and we are trying to cast stones at people we want to be sinful.

As Jesus says in the bible "He who is without sin should cast the first stone." In other words if we're busy judging people and hurling stones at them to punish them for 'sin', we should be a bit more honest and look at the ways we ourselves are being sinful before finding other people to be sinful. We don't really have a leg to stand on. And only those who are forgiving and sinless would be in a position to judge, and would refrain from doing so.

In effect, if we are judging people for making poor choices, seeming to suggest that we think that shouldn't be acting that way, we actually DO want them to act that way, because we get a great opportunity to scapegoat. And that means we can shove some of our guilt onto them and justify it on the basis that they are the one who deserves it, and our anger is justified. Thank God they chose to sin so that we could have a chance to be innocent.

To be more honest we have to stop judging people as being sinners for what they've chosen. But this also does mean that even in the face of people seeming to do what we might classify as horrible things, abusive things, evil things, we have to STILL find them not guilty. We have to still not judge them as evil or wrong or bad people. They are just mistaken.

Criminals, murderers, rapists, child abusers, terrorists, war-mongers, thieves, bullies, you name it... yes they are making quite poor choices but they are not sinful for it. Nor are we supposed to be pointing a finger of blame and saying they are the guilty ones. Or holding it against them, or shaming them, or wanting to counter-attack them, or punish them for it.

If we're doing that, trying to use the things in the world that seem less than holy as justification for revenge and hate and accusation, then we're in our ego. Because the ego loves to judge harshly and find guilty and make wrong. That means we are being "judgey". As "judges" we act like "judge and jury", some kind of God or authority that has the 'right' to determine who is innocent and who is guilty, and to sentence the sinners to death.

We're judgemental and unforgiving. Instead of being forgiving toward them for their mistakes, we step out of forgiveness and go into judgement. We reason that we're not being forgiving BECAUSE the person is judged to be wrong. The judgement tries to justify NOT forgiving, by pointing out how the person is obviously sinful and MUST be judged. So then we're justifying unforgiving attitudes on the basis that people are doing wrong all over the place, which is itself the perceived result of not forgiving them in the first place.

Bottom line is, we are not supposed to be judging anyone or anything. Judging is just another form of attack and projection. At times it can seem to not be angry, maybe just a subtle annoyance, but it's still a way to project guilt. All the things we judge against, we have to find a way to stop doing that. All the ways we say people are wrong, and hold their acts and choices against them, we're being unforgiving.

So ultimately it means that in order to be forgiving, we have to forgive everyone and everything. There mustn't be anything that we single out for punishment, no-one that we call names, no one that we hate or are offended by, no-one that we see as deliberately evil, and no-one that justifies our anger or revenge.

People in their differences need to be allowed to be different. It doesn't mean differences are true or real, but if people are choosing to be different that's up to them. If in any way we categorise their choices as wrong, we're being judgemental. No matter how weird their choices, how strange, how unnatural, how fake, how immature, how selfish, whatever.... we have to still let them have the freedom to make those choices and not accuse them of being stupid, sinful, evil, bad, wrong, guilty, or any other negativity because of it.

We don't have to agree with the differences, we don't have to choose the same things, we don't have to condone it or support it, we don't have to go along with it or let ourselves or others be in the line of fire. We don't have to go into inaction or being carpeting or a martyr or letting people walk all over us etc, but at the same time we must not be having such unforgiving attitudes towards them.

It requires infinite patience. And it requires a willingness not to be at war. In judgement we are unforgiving and cold and heartless and unloving. Only in forgiveness - an earthly form of love - can we be kind and supportive and truly helpful.

"Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearance that it likes. It merely looks and waits and judges not. He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. But he who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is." UrW220W14