For miracles of healing to function, there must be firm belief that healing will occur.

God's will is permanent healing, and miracles extend this, coming from love. So if there is any way that you believe healing will not happen, that means you don't believe God's will, so are actively working against it.

God has certainty and a complete knowing that healing has already occurred. We need to share in this.

This is why when you go to perform a miracle, you also need to believe in what God believes. You need to have this certainty that healing will and has happened. And what that translates to, is that you need to EXPECT MIRACLES TO HAPPEN.

Expectation comes when your belief is so refined and certain, that you are convinced and sure that it will happen. This puts you into a state of expecting, which in a way is a form of demanding/commanding. It is a refusal to accept any other outcome. Complete certainty.

Expectation is a very firm way of not only believing but of actively EXTENDING the certainty of God that "healing is truth". It's like, "of course it will heal!", or even better, "it MUST heal". No doubt. This is where you are extending God's authority over illusions.

Once all doubt and fear are gone, which is a requirement of miracle-mindedness, expectation results as a perception of certainty. It's not a request, it's an enforcement of God's will.

When there is no doubt left that healing must occur, in which you are merely enforcing God's will kind of like a law-enforcement officer, you KNOW the law and you KNOW what God wants and you KNOW that this is not negotiable. As such, what is left but to completely expect, reliability, certainty, trust... that "it is so". Illusions must bend to this because they have no authority over God.

Expect miracles to happen, believe it totally, pray with God and receive.

The Course talks about the development of trust. What is that?

Well, at first you trust the ego and its false truth. You don't trust God, and you don't trust the real truth. You have trust, it's just misplaced.

Trust is the same thing as faith which means, that you learn over time that God's truth is true and the ego's truth is not true. Also you learn that God's truth can be trusted, and you come to learn that the ego that you used to trust is actually not trustworthy.

The ego's trust is based on you being unaware of its motives and the side-effects of believing in it. It wants you to think its your friend. It wants you to think it is cohesive and makes sense and is sane. It doesn't want you to see the ways in which it does stuff which undermines its trustworthiness.

While the ego has the wool pulled over your eyes you will trust it. You'll trust everything about it. You'll trust your senses. You'll trust the idea that you are a physical body. You'll trust your body's senses, your memory, your perceptions. You'll trust that the world is really happening.

But these are in fact forms of mis-trust in God, because to have so-called trust in illusions is to not trust at all.

Learning to trust God means that you become convinced that God's way is the truth, that you can depend on it, that you rely on it, and that you want it. And that HAS to entail you relinquishing your trust in the ego's version of reality.

You have to to unlearn the trust you've placed in the ego in order to reveal the trustworthiness of God.

God can be trusted because God is love and wants only to love and support you. The ego can't be trusted because it is the anti-christ and would like you to cooperate with its plan of death. It's a slight difference.

As you gain trust in God's truth, you begin to seriously question trusting the ego's world. And that means when the ego makes shit happen you have trust in God moreso than the appearance of what's happening. You trust God more than events suggest you should. You ignore what the ego is screaming at you through all your senses, and listen within instead. That's having faith. Faith is trust.

It's safe to trust God.

Sometimes when an old hurt is coming out, you'll start to project it onto someone else. It's kind of as if you switch on a movie projector, you fetch an old tape from your vault, load it up and press play. The movie starts to project and you start to see it and experience it. Except now it's mapped onto other people who probably were totally unrelated to causing it, which starts to make it seem like they are causing it.

As you project, you are kind of hurling the pain at someone else. Whatever the issue is, let's say you are angry at someone for how they treated you or that they acted a certain way that was hurtful. As this hurt comes up in your mind, it will find a target and project toward it. It actually tries to turn that person INTO the person that you are upset about, and you start interpreting their actions as though they're doing exactly what that person did.

And as you do this projecting, it's kind of like you are judging, condemning and attacking the person with this stuff. You're trying to turn them into this stuff, to fill the role. And for most people this actually influences them and may cause them to start acting in a way that fits the 'role' that you are projecting. And this makes it even more plausible that all of this upset is because of them.

In the midst of such hallucinations you can really get to believing that this person is doing this to you, and at the same time you are feeling the old hurt, and putting two and two together you think its because of them. But what's really happening is the person is just triggering your old hurt and you're not really dealing with it.

Whatever the person seems to be doing, it likely is similar to what someone else did in your past. Form-wise it may not be similar at all. It could be that the person has the same attitude, or reminds you of how someone was a certain way when around you, even though their physical behavior and appearance may be different. The psychological 'content' seems to match and this creates a connection.

In this state of semi-consciousness it's pretty hard to realize that this is what is going on, especially when you're convinced it's all to do with this other person. But what you're feeling is your own stuff, for which you are responsible, and this projection is just hurting the other person. You are accusing them of what you believe someone else did to you so that you have a way to scapegoat the energy and seem to get it out of your mind. Which doesn't work.

The only way is to realize that you are triggered, you are reacting, you are re-experiencing old stuff, it's nothing to do with anyone else, and you need to own it and heal it. Taking the burden off the shoulders of the other person is a good start.

There is a strange tug of war between the idea that a person is a body who dies, and the idea that the person is more than a body.

If you believe the person is a body, and only a body, and the body dies, you will believe heavily that the person has literally ceased existing. No soul moving on to heaven, nothing. That will be the basis for the worst kind of grief imaginable. "Reality died" is the basis of all grief and loss.

As I transition to the truth about my brothers/sisters I am to learn that they are not even remotely their body. Who and what they are isn't their flesh and bones, not by a long shot. Or at all. And that means learning to "associate" them with their permanent spiritual self. And that means recognizing their permanent spiritual self cannot die. So if the body ends up dead the person has not died at all in my mind.

With that kind of view, that death applies ONLY to the form and NOT to the spirit, and having a relationship with the person at the spirit level not confusing their form with their self, the entire basis for grief and loss is cancelled. There is merely a constant continuation of eternal life at all times and ultimately there should be no perceived difference between who a brother is while in a body vs out of one.

And so if the spirit of the person is permanent, it doesn't or shouldn't matter one iota whether their body ends up dead or not because nothing will have really changed or affected who they really are. And so if physical death changed absolutely nothing (nothing real can be affected), what grounds is there for anything but celebration?

Of course this becomes more difficult when the person themselves is body identified and presents themselves as if they are an isolated egoic person, because that egoic self is partly going to pass along with the body and this will seem like a death. We have to look past what our brother even thinks of themselves and learn to see their Christ self or Real/Holy/Spirit/Soul self beyond it, recognizing that THAT is the person and THAT self cannot die ever.

So after a while of focusing in this way, you might have thoughts that a person will die and how tragic this will be (if it seems real), but then also thoughts of well, their real self is permanent and they will just continue unaffected, just not in a body. No harm done, as it were. And that's a reassurance. Until you can get to the point where you're SO convinced by the spirit and not the flesh that for you, death means absolutely nothing, does not prove any kind of separation, has no reality and does not signal the end of anything real.

Then the time of tears is over forever.

"There is no death, the son of God is free".

"The world will end in laughter because it is a place of sorrow."

"And God himself shall wipe away all tears"

"Salvation is the recognition that the truth is true and nothing else is true. "

DENIAL

The truth is true.

You do not want the truth.

You have denied the truth.

You use denial to make the truth seem like it's not true.

You think that what you denied is made false by the denial.

You don't want it to be true.

You want something else to be true.

You believe something else is true, so that the truth is not true.

If you want the truth, you will have to stop being in denial.

You do not want to look at what you have denied.

Denying the truth keeps it away from you.

Denying the truth stops it being true.

You think that what you denied is not the truth.

You think your denial is justified because the truth is not true.

You do not want what is not true.

You think your truth is the only truth.

You think your denial is a fact, and not an opinion.

ACCEPTANCE/FORGIVENESS

You will have to be willing to question what you think is true.

What you think is true is not true.

Your truth that you treasure is a lie.

You haven't recognised how it is lying.

You haven't realised why it's not true.

You've convinced yourself that something false is true.

You will have to be willing to consider you are mistaken.

You will have to look at what you've denied.

You don't want to look at it because you think it's your enemy.

You don't want to give your enemy any credit.

But the truth only seems false because you keep denying it.

You will have to become willing to reconsider what the truth is.

You will have to forgive it and give it more credit.

You will have to become able to see and recognize its truth.

You will have to be willing to let go of what you thought was true.

You will have to change what you want.

You will have to want the truth to be true, to stop denying it.

You will have to side with it, against what is false.

Thus your whole thought system will have to undergo a complete reversal.

What you once thought was your enemy becomes your friend.

What you once thought was untrue becomes the truth.

What you once thought was true becomes a lie.

You recognize that only the truth is true, and only the false is false.

You have accepted atonement.

The side-effects of having a mistaken perception are really quite understandable.

If you choose to attack yourself, and to then deny that you're the one who did that, you will disown it. This disownership is what we call projection. We displace it onto some sense of 'not me' or 'others'. Then we seem to see it in them as though they own it or they created it, convinced that we did not do it to ourselves.

Then because we perceive this about them, and still in denial that we're hallucinating our own projected crap onto them, whatever they do will seem to offend us. And then we'll experience it as though we're being attacked by them, but we're really being attacked internally by our own self-attack.

And then because we are still in denial and don't see our self-attack, instead believing that someone else is responsible for doing this to us, it will seem completely justified to be angry at them.

IF it were true that people attack you against your will, or that something is happening that you have not chosen, then it makes TOTAL SENSE that you would be justified in being angry and upset. And it is within this context that these feelings and reactions will happen.

BUT, it is a mistaken reaction, always, and is never really justified, precisely because it is NOT TRUE that someone else has attacked you. It was really YOU attacking you, you were just in denial of it and disassociated from your own responsibility. You did not SEE yourself attack yourself because you blocked it from your mind and shoved it onto someone else, so now it seems like they did it to you. If they had done it to you, yes, you'd be justified. And that's why people feel like they're always justified in being angry or outraged or offended. But they're not.

When you're angry or outraged or offended, it's usually involving a claim that OTHER PEOPLE ARE WRONG for some reason, and that all you're doing is innocently pointing out the obvious truth. Well, that's not the whole truth. The truth is YOU are being dishonest and irresponsible, YOU are an attacker, YOU have attacked yourself first and foremost AND you are now blaming that attack on someone else, so YOU are attacking them for your own attack, which is a double attack. So who is in the wrong here? Who is really mistaken?

When I have guilt in me, I am unaware. Guilt blocks my awareness. I can't even tell that I'm guilty. It's not like, I have full complete awareness and there is also guilt present. If I had full complete awareness there would be no guilt. When guilt is present, my awareness is diminished and I don't know what I'm doing or what I've done.

This is really why our sense of separation from God is riddled with guilt, there is an aspect to it of shock and horror and not realizing what we've done. We then seem to have some awareness of the results of what we've done and it seems like we must've made a terrible mistake, and therefore we are now horrified by ourselves and are afraid.

What's needed to escape this isn't so much to admit to guilt. Guilt can't be admitted to. There can't be a total admittance of truth at the same time as guilt existing. You can admit to being innocent, but you can only deny being guilty. And the only solution to being guilty is to reclaim innocence. Owning up to guilt, if you were to do it, would just hold the guilt against you and make you suffer. This is why we don't want to do it. Deep down we know we just made a mistake and that we didn't mean to.

"Forgive them father, for they know not what they do."

It's hard for me at times to admit to 'what I did' even if what I did was an accident, because that means owning the guilt. If it were possible to admit to something without being guilty, that would be easier. But nobody wants to own guilt. It is counter-productive. We should want to get back to innocence, as a true atonement, rather than say "I'm really guilty". Owning guilt doesn't atone for anything. To the ego it atones because the ego wants to find someone to blame and to keep the guilt, but to the Holy Spirit we are always innocent.

Is regret healthy? Is a guilty conscience helpful? Should we suffer in remorse? How long is enough time to be ashamed? How much suffering is enough to atone for a sin?

The ego wants us to own up to 'really doing stuff' because this makes the error real and doesn't forgive it. Holy Spirit asks us to be forgiving, to overlook error, and to demonstrate that it has had no effects. To demonstrate that we and the other person are innocent because nothing has really happened. The ego doesn't want this, because then it can't find anyone guilty. It takes practice.

Do you have the right to claim innocence and to choose to relieve yourself of all guilt and return to innocence with Holy Spirit? And what if someone else doesn't believe you deserve it yet?

We need to all remember that if we find someone else guilty it doesn't prove that they are guilty, it proves that WE are guilty. We can't find someone else guilty without us being involved, no matter how convinced we are. If the other person is truly the separate guilty party, then we should remain in perfect innocence. And if we remain in perfect innocence, we will see perfect innocence in the other person, so we won't be able to find them guilty. It's not possible to find someone guilty without including ourselves. That kind of puts a damper on the ego's parade. We MUST forgive otherwise we ourselves cannot be forgiven.

In ACIM the idea of evil is defined as 'ego', more or less. Not just individual egos but also a collective one.

The ego uses temptation to distract you from the truth. It is capable of creating scenarios in which it seems like you want and enjoy things which you would normally not want or enjoy.

It is also very cunning in that it can use your very own weaknesses against you. If you think that some person or project or activity might be 'the answer' and that it will save you, even though it's not true, the ego will encourage you to pursue it. And it knows you are likely going to go along with it because you yourself are the one who is believing it will work, or is what you want.

I have only recently discovered that my own ego has been 'playing me', using my own self deceptions to lure me away from the truth. It's particularly bad if I am very mistaken about something, like I think I'm onto some kind of solution or really great thing, but really it's another ego bullshit wild goose chase which will have me 'seek and do not find' for a long time.

In other words, if I choose to believe in an illusion and I give it faith and am convinced of its supposed value, this becomes a blind spot in my awareness. My ego comes along and says "why don't you do that thing, you know you want to, you know you like it, you know how appealing it is". And then I'll be all gooey eyed with hypnotic spirals spinning in my eyeballs while I salivate over this very appealing, attractive opportunity. All the while, my mind is completely distracted from God.

Notice though that the ego thus really has no power of its own. It can only use the things I have agreed to as a way to tempt me away from the truth. If it weren't for me getting gooey eyed over some new piece of technology or some amazing movie or some pathway that seemed really enticing, the ego would have no way to deceive me. I have deceived myself, willingly, and that is all the ego needs.

It can trigger off a memory of these tempting offers just at the right moment, knowing that their allure will particularly hurl my awareness off in a different direction, like some rat in a maze that just caught a glimpse of a big chunk of delicious cheese. Suddenly all my senses are ignited and the unfinished business I have with this 'promising savior' has captivated/captured my attention. I fall for my own traps.

It's good to be aware the ego is actively tempting us in this way, using our own mistakes against us, and trying to get us to reinvest in anything other that what we really are. There is nothing guilty or bad or wrong with enjoying life, but if we are psychologically using it as a false savior, then we will fall for temptation - the temptation to believe the truth is not true and God does not deserve our attention.

Watch out ... for yourself :-) You are the one who gives the ego the fuel it needs, and you thus hire it to serve your false interests. It is merely a reflection of your own self deception. It is not against you but for you. You want it. But you need to want God instead.

When I read in the course that anger is an attempt to make someone guilty, I didn't at first relate to it. I had to stop and look at what happens, what I'm doing, when I get angry toward someone.

And that didn't typically happen all that often, but when it did I noticed it was true, what I was basically doing was trying to reinforce "how guilty" someone was. I was trying to MAKE them be guilty.

In anger there's this attempt to amplify the "guiltiness" of someone. And it's not even really tied to what they appeared to do or the severity of it. We could just be going to town raging at them way beyond what anything calls for. Probably convinced that whatever "sin" they committed is the REASON WHY the anger is justified.

But then the second insight is that in order to make someone BECOME guilty, we actually have to put guilt ONTO them. A guilt that they do not have initially. Where does that guilt come from? We actually provide it ourselves, and hurl it towards them through projection.

So then we see that anger is really "what it feels like" when you are hurling guilt. The whole intensity of it, the enforcement of it, the sense of righteousness, the pushing and forcing, it's all designed to "hurl" and "transmit" guilt onto the person.

But then this also gives rise to a third insight, that if we are hurling guilt at people, and it's not their guilt, then we must be reaching inside of ourselves and finding some guilt there, in order to have something to hurl. So that means... drumroll... we're really the ones that we think are guilty.

In addition this means that the "reasons why" we claim we're being justified in anger are false - it's not because of what someone else did, we're angry because of what we believe WE did. We are accusing them of our own sin and guilt, so that we can try to make ourselves feel better and deflect attention away from the darkness within. This is why anger is never justified and you are never upset for the reason you think.

So if we're the guilty ones, it basically means we're angry at ourselves and have attacked ourselves first. And if we hadn't done this, if we hadn't manufactured a whole stockpile of guilt, we'd have nothing to hurl at other people. We wouldn't be able to FIND other people to be guilty of anything.

This then leads to the fourth insight, that if we were to undo all of our guilt within ourselves, we would never have to even lift a finger to try to find others innocent. We'd automatically be innocent within, and would look out from this innocence upon others and find them innocent also. We'd never be angry, never project blame, and would just be happy all the time.

"I am never upset for the reason I think." UrW5

"ALL anger is nothing more than an attempt to MAKE SOMEONE FEEL GUILTY, and this attempt is the ONLY basis which the ego accepts for special relationships. Guilt is the only need the ego has, and, as long as you identify WITH it, guilt will remain ATTRACTIVE to you." UrT15H10

"Anger is NEVER justified. Attack has NO foundation. It is here escape from fear begins, and will be made complete. Here is the real world given in exchange for dreams of terror. For it is on this forgiveness rests, AND IS BUT NATURAL." URT10G1

This was something that our spiritual guides often told us years ago, and at the time it seemed to have some meaning. But I didn't realize just how far reaching it is.

You get to choose... everything. Total responsibility.

Part of our problem, being unconscious, is that we have attempted to HIDE the fact that we are responsible, and that we have a CHOICE. We seem to not even realize that we have a choice. The hallmark of the disempowered, victim mindset is the apparent absence of the freedom to choose.

In the victim mindset, it seems the victim didn't choose what's happening to them. And death is the ultimate expression of this where, allegedly, it "just happens" on its own. Not only that, there's nothing you can do to stop it or resist it. No choice whatsoever, or at least, that's how it appears.

So if you're in a situation where you are "being a victim", you for sure will in some way believe you do not have a choice. Instead, you'll talk about how such-and-such is going to happen and how you can't do anything about it.

An example of this is the weather. The weather is forecast and then everyone goes apeshit about how such-and-such a weather "is going to happen" (to me) because "they said". This is the victim mindset. You don't want to own the fact that you are responsible for the weather, or that you have power over it, or that you can choose it, or that you ARE choosing it. The weather forecast is just reflecting back to you what YOU already set in motion.

It always boils down to the belief, and the perception, that you do not have any choice and that choice has been taken away from you by some outside force and there's nothing you can do to change it. And these proclamations about how disempowered you are will always be loud and convinced as though you're saying, I don't want this to happen, but at the same time, really not doing ANYTHING to change it. This is "complaint".

Complaining is the act of making a situation real, seeing yourself as victimized by it, completely disowning your power to do anything to change anything, and yet making a great big tirade about why its unfair and who's fault it is and how there's nothing you can do about it. So you basically stay... STUCK. That's why complaining about the situation only KEEPS it, compounds it, and makes it worse. Complaint that you have no choice is a CHOICE to NOT have a choice.

You DO have a choice! But you're not going to be able to access the POWER of that state of "freedom" unless you're willing to drop all the victimhood shit and OWN up to actually having power. Why don't people want to own up to being responsible, or having freedom, or having a choice, or being able to make a change? There's no downsides to that, other than that it means less allegiance to the ego.

So you're not stuck. You can choose again. You have the power. You are free. And everything that's happening NOW is your choice. And if you don't like it, RECLAIM your power to choose and choose something else.