Surround search terms with " " double quotes for exact matches e,g, "drops of healing rain"

The thought system of the ego has directly produced this physical universe.

The thought system of God has directly produced heaven.

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other’s sorry outcome which is Heaven’s opposite in every way."

It's not just that Heaven is "another place" that you can think about in the same way you think about Earth or this universe. Heaven THINKS DIFFERENTLY from how this world thinks, it reasons differently, it draws conclusions differently, and its logic does not operate like the ego's logic.

This world represents and is part of or inside of, the ego mind. Anything this side of the separation from God IS the ego thought system, including this universe. The ego mind's THINKING has produced this universe and all forms of matter reflect the idea of EXCLUSION.

Heaven represents and is part of or inside of, God's mind. Anything THAT side of the separation from God is the Holy Spirit's thought system, including Heaven. Heaven proceeds according to entirely different THINKING and its nature, it structure, is nothing like the ego predicts.

The two thought systems are so extremely opposite to each other, as to be nothing alike. The two "worlds" are unalike in EVERY way, and Earth being totally unlike God's nature cannot possibly have been created BY him because it is not LIKE Him at all.

The problem arises when, unfortunately, we USE the ego's thought system to attempt to look at or understand the nature of God's thought system. Extraordinary misunderstandings arise from this, because the ego's way of thinking and reasoning fundamentally *requires* seeing things in a certain way. When looking at something unlike itself, it literally cannot see it correctly without major distortions.

This is why we have to be extremely careful about the conclusions we come to about Heaven, God, Sonship, Creation etc, because in just about every case, we are USING the ego to think about it. And this has unfortunately led to a huge list of false conclusions about the nature of Heaven.

We may not realize it, but we actually THINK WITH the ego, and all of our thought processes follow ego laws and proceed according to ego rules. The way that we reason things out, the way that we "make sense" of anything, it all stays INSIDE OF the ego's thought system. When we try to use the ego to make sense of heaven, therefore, we don't actually LEAVE the ego's thought system to go TO heaven to THINK LIKE GOD, instead we look upon it from afar and make false judgements about it.

Jesus says that we need to learn to THINK LIKE GOD, and that means learning a whole different way of reasoning and thinking and concluding. A whole different way of "making sense", if we are to have any hope of comprehending WHY God acts a certain way or WHY it's possible for Him to have created individuals with free will. Or WHY He could not possibly have created this physical universe. Or HOW the nature of this world is fundamentally IMPRISONING right down to the atom.

We literally are living INSIDE the tiny mad idea, which is an idea of "separation thought" and all of our thinking follows exclusive, separating rules. These rules split things apart and make them different and pit them against each other, because it is a murderous thought system. The result of using the ego's thinking processes to evaluate God's creation is that it results in MURDER of God's creation. And yet the ego will evaluate that it has merely "made sense". When the ego makes sense of something, it makes NONSENSE.

While the Course largely focuses on USING the ego's thought system and its way of thinking, to lead you OUT of its way of thinking, this is only because it's how you DO think for the most part and so He is trying to speak our "language" and to use how WE think and reason to help us to make conclusions AGAINST the ego. But the truth remains that the way the ego thinks is fundamentally false and excluding and separating, so at some point we have to move past this to learn to think like God.

When you think like God, which is holographic INCLUSIVE logic, it becomes clear that the conclusions the ego came to about God's Creation are simply false.

There are a few parts to this. And it is highly paradoxical.

1) God is the first cause creator of us and we are SECONDARY creations, as his effects. We are co-creators with him as sons of God/souls. This does imply a kind of separation between us and God. In this respect you are NOT GOD. God is greater than you.

2) You are still one with God because you share the whole of everything and are part of God. God is not just in you, he is you. So in this sense, you ARE GOD. You are made of God, sustained by God, extending God.

3) If you play at being God you are being ego, which is an attempt to replace and reject God. In this sense you are not being God, and are supposed to be God. This is where you claim you are all of God and God who was God has stopped existing.

4) If you claim to be God in an attempt to get out of ego, this claim is so exclusive that it rejects the fact that you are also a creation of God's. Then you are still being ego and playing at being God. This "oneness" must recognize that you are secondary in creation also. Just being the oneness or non-dual isn't the whole story.

So yes. You are God, and you aren't, at the same time. It's paradoxical. You are both separate and one. It is arrogant to claim you are God alone, as if you are all of God and no-one else is and there is nothing else. But it is also arrogant to claim you are not God, because you are one with and part of himself. You are nothing without him and everything with him. He is everything you are yet you are yourself also. You are an individual being who shares God's being entirely.

It's important thus to realize YOU ARE GOD, in order to overcome the sense of separation and fear that keeps you from being ONE with Him. But at the same time, you also have to realize that you are simultaneously NOT GOD in order to acknowledge God as your father and undo the authority problem. Yet jus because God is the CAUSE of you doesn't mean you aren't one with him.

"I choose the second place to gain the first."

"I am forever an effect of God."

"Your teaching has already DONE this, for the Holy Spirit is PART OF YOU. Created by God, He left neither God nor His creation. He is both God and you, as you are God and Him together."

"God is not in you; YOU are part of HIM."

"The insane, thinking they are God, are not afraid to offer weakness to the Son of God."

"Let me remember I am one with God."

"There is one life, and that I share with God."

"I welcome them into the home I share with God, because I am a part of Him."

"Now are we one in shared Identity, with God our Father as our only Source, and everything created part of us."

"Communication with God is Life."

"God is the Mind with which I think. I have no thoughts which I do not share with God."

"In Timelessness, we coexist with God."

"The Soul never loses its communion with God."

"It is as like your real relationship with God, as equal things are like themselves."

"And can one who is one with God be unlike Him?"

"The therapist in no way confuses himself with God."

"But in the holy instant, you unite DIRECTLY with God, and ALL your brothers join in Christ."

"Your mind IS one with God's."

"Meditation is a collaborative venture with GOD."

"For what is yours IS everything, and you share it WITH God."

"The Revelation unites Souls directly with God."

"In the beginning was the thought, and the thought was with God, and the thought WAS God."

"I and my Father are one with YOU, for you are part of us."

"Your fatherhood and your Father are One."

"Those who receive the Father are one with Him, being host to Him Who created them."

"This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER. Actually, the original statement was "are of one KIND."

"God has but one Son, knowing them all as One. Only God Himself is more than they, but they are not less than He is."

"Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in His Being He encompasses all things. No mind holds anything but Him."

"I light the world, I light my mind and all the minds which God created one with me."

In order to perform healing miracles for others, you do not necessarily need to be what's thought of as a 'miracle worker', ie someone who has attained a high level of advancement.

The fact is, it is not you, in isolation, that can heal. Of yourself you can do nothing. You do not have a special healing power and you are not a healer.

The fact is, God is the healer. God is love and love heals. And it is also not necessary for you to be in perfect alignment with God's will in order for healing to occur.

If we were required to be enlightened in order to facilitate healing, nobody would be able to receive healing and there'd be no hope for the sick.

The fact is, Holy Spirit has been given to us as the answer to the ego and to undo every aspect of the entire ego illusion. He is capable of functioning to heal us FROM the dream, even when we're in the dream, and even when we're still dreaming. If he did not have this ability, we'd never wake up.

Nor are you required to be free from all sin or ego thoughts. Nor do you need to have a perfect relationship with Christ.

All that God needs in order for a healing to take place, is for you to have enough belief that it is TRUE that God can heal, that God will heal, that God HAS healed, that God wants to heal, and that God IS healing.

And all you then need is enough acceptance of this to step out of the way and to act as a channel, medium, conduit or bridge through which God's healing can flow. That can take the form of you simply being open to RECEIVING and BELIEVING God's providence of healing, which you then are infused with and radiate, or it may come in the form of you laying on your physical hands to someone else, or by you using words which are spoken in a God-aligned way.

Since God's nature is absolute, not relative, God doesn't do things by half measures. God is certain. God is consistent. God is completion and wholeness. So if there are aspects of incompleteness or waiting for the future or uncertainty, in how you approach someone (ie forms of fear), that will block God's flow.

But if you take on an 'absolute' attitude which has no question in it, no uncertainty in it, and it is resolute and firm and truth-filled, you now are forming a bridge for God to flow across. This can come in the form of words which you speak, and these words really don't matter. As you speak, words are energy conduits which allow Holy Spirit to transfer.

And as you speak, you speak TO the problem, directly, and you tell it what to do. You don't talk about the problem. You don't ask God about the problem. You don't ask God to do something about the problem. God has already provided healing. It is your job now to extend it, to share it. And you don't ask the problem to go. You don't request that it go. You don't sidestep around it. You get VERY DIRECT. God is very direct. Immediate. Direct in terms of you directly confronting the exact thing (e.g. pain, sickness), and immediate in terms of time (ie this will be fully healed NOW).

You must expect the result to be immediate and complete, not partial or off in the future. You must also have an expectation that healing definitely will occur, that you could bet your life on it. Certainty. That you will walk away having commanded it to heal and it WILL be healed. And you can't waver from that or go into doubt based on how things appear to be. That's losing faith.

For example, you put your hand on someone, maybe in the area of sickness, and you COMMAND IT TO GO. You tell it what you want it to do. "pain, leave right now, GO!" "tooth, be whole, right now" "brain, return to normal functioning right now" etc.. You have to be firm and assertive. This is how God is. God knows what is true. God doesn't waver. God doesn't listen to the ego's illusions that try to distract you. You have AUTHORITY over the ego.

This takes some practice. It's good to experiment.

1) Join with Holy Spirit/Jesus/God. Feel love.

2) Place hand on person

3) Believe and expect total healing, not taking no for an answer

4) Command it to leave. Repeat if necessary.

5) Allow Holy Spirit to flow through you. You don't need to do anything else.

You can do this whether you're awake or not because this is what God has set up to be possible. It does take some amount of certainty and belief and conviction in God's truth, so the more you have of that the better, but you don't need to be an ascended master to get some results.

In the Holy Mind (whole mind, one mind), what applies to you applies to others, because they are one with you. There is nothing you can do to them that you don’t *directly* do to yourself. Because you are AWARE that you are "in" other people, in harmony with them, it is in your best interests to ONLY LOVE them, in order for you to love yourself.

It is impossible in the shared mind to attack another without attacking yourself. You can’t have something apply to someone that does not apply to you.

Enter then into the ego’s game of death, it’s vast illusion of separation. The game has one rule. If you play within the game, you will die. It’s a very simple rule. However, it is possible to be in DENIAL of the rule, and to start believing there is SOME WAY that you can have something apply to someone else that does not apply to you.

As you lose awareness, you will forget that you have SHARED INTERESTS with everyone because of your Oneness with them. You will start to think they are not one with you, something applies to them differently than applies to you, and therefore there are victims. This also means, you believe you can get away with murder - that you can CAUSE something without experiencing the EFFECTS.

Even if you are under this illusion, believing that this is true and that you’re SUCCEEDING at getting away with murder, rest assured that the RULE of the game does not change. Even if you are in DENIAL of the rule, it applies to you. The law is fixed because it is part of the metaphysics of the one mind. What applies to you ALWAYS applies to others, immediately, directly, and without exception, EVEN if you are in a dream pretending that this is not true.

When you play the ego’s game and take sides, hold a grievance, maintain an enemy, hate someone, attack someone, judge someone, be against or opposed to something, or in any other way USE SEPARATION, it means you are using the EGO. This immediately enacts the one rule of the game - that you will DIE. It also means, that you will have DONE IT TO YOURSELF.

Since the mind of oneness is a mind where what you do to others you do to yourself, you cannot escape the EFFECTS that you attempt to cause. You cannot get away with murder. When you try to, you will KILL YOURSELF.

There is no way to play the game in any special, skilled, clever, educated kind of way. To do so is an attempt to CHANGE THE RULES, which you will NEVER be able to do. Belief in and use of separation is a belief in death, and it will "cause" you to die. This is why all death is suicide, because when you attempt to attack your brother, it destroys YOU, one way or another, sooner or later.

The secret to salvation is the *recognition* that you are doing this all to yourself. You cannot SUCCEED at the game, win over someone else, win a war, or be the victor. Every time you attempt to win, YOU WILL LOSE, beacuse you used separation, and that is self-attack. You cannot WIN the ego’s game of death. Its one rule always applies. If you play it at all, you will die, because that is what you will be choosing.

It doesn’t matter how much you think you can change the rules, find loopholes, figure it out, compete better, one-up someone, make someone else the scapegoat, judge another, or inventively get rid of your sin. If you are playing the ego’s game, YOU WILL DIE, and you will have done it to yourself.

This is why you MUST at some point FORGIVE absolutely everyone. If you don’t, you will hold a grievance against YOURSELF while pretending it is about someone else. You cannot get to heaven with an ego. You cannot win the ego’s game. It is not escaped or won by death or by playing it better. Success at the ego’s game is FAILURE. The only way out, is truth. You MUST surrender the ego, or you will keep weaving illusions of self destruction.

It is perhaps sad news that you have to forgive EVERYONE. It is not welcomed by the ego to recognize the rule of the game clearly. Recognizing the game helps you to NOT PLAY. Only by not playing it can you have awareness of eternal life. This is all metaphysical fact. There is no exception.

"Forgive or die." It is in your best interests to forgive absolutely everything for what it has not done, in order to RECOGNIZE your own innocence. You can only be innocent if the same is true of everyone. It’s all or nothing. The entire sonship is holy, or none of it.

You cannot play the game of death and live. Truth is the ONLY exit.

The Son of God is causal and creative.

The Son of God paints brand new pictures on a blank canvas.

The Son of God does not paint pictures on top of old pictures.

The Son of God does not ask old pictures to comply in getting out of the way so that He can paint new pictures.

The Son of God doesn't wait for old pictures to listen to His powerful brush-strokes and to then decide on their own to form a new picture.

The Son of God knows that there really are no old pictures and there really only ever is a blank canvas.

The Son of God directly paints to the blank canvas every time, bypassing all old images, ignoring their stories.

The Son of God enforces the paint to be laid on the canvas, and needs no cooperation from whatever was there before.

The Son of God doesn't listen to the pictures that are before Him, he simply paints anew, obliterating the old.

The Son of God is not obstructed. There is nothing standing in His way.

The Son of God has no enemy or opponent or force of resistance working against Himself, because He has reclaimed all of His own power.

The Son of God knows that any force of resistance was always His own power working in conflict with His own will.

The Son of God dances merrily, painting here and there new realities and new worlds, care-free and absolutely.

The Son of God is free.

You are the Son of God. Pick up your brushes and paint!

"I am not weak, but strong.

I am not helpless, but all powerful.

I am not limited, but unlimited.

I am not doubtful, but certain.

I am not an illusion, but a reality.

I cannot see in darkness, but in light."

There is a good reason why this paragraph is a correction. Each time that we react to the world as though we are at its effect, and that it is causing us to suffer, we are in a state of weakness, helplessness, limitation, doubt, illusion and darkness. This isn't our natural state.

What we need to get to as we reverse cause and effect to its proper sequence (I am at cause, not at effect), is that we're regaining access to the truth about ourselves. We're reclaiming strength and power and certainty. We're becoming more responsible and light-filled. And so this little prayer affirms that and helps us to move out of darkness into truth.

"I am not weak, but strong.

I am not helpless, but all powerful.

I am not limited, but unlimited.

I am not doubtful, but certain.

I am not an illusion, but a reality.

I cannot see in darkness, but in light."

It directly leads us out of ego, into the Holy Spirit.

I like to do recite this and to then ADD to it as many other contrasts as I can think of. e.g.

I am not afraid but empowered.

I am not guilty but innocent.

I am not sick but healthy.

I am not separate but whole.

I am not divided but one.

I am not at loss but abundant.

You might not be used to telling illusions what to do. You are more likely conditioned and used to a certain degree of victimhood, or powerlessness, which means that you allow stuff outside of you to seem to have power, or to have a say in what happens against your will.

Or to put it another way, you are used to listening to the ego. You're used to believing appearances. You're used to letting the world tell you what is happening. You're used to believing that these illusions are real and that they dictate what you are going to experience.

With divine healing, your attitude has to be different. It has to not listen to the ego. It has to not pay attention to appearance. It has to cut through all of the incoming signals from the ego illusion, ignore them completely, and demand and command the illusion to do what you want it to do.

So because of your mental conditioning in which you are very used to being quite wishy-washy about situations, where you sit on fences and maybe 'ask' life to change, you have to get out of that PASSIVE mentality. You have to stop paying so much attention to what your senses tell you and stop acting like a weak victim.

So this can actually take some practice to overcome and push past that conditioning, that way of using your mind that you've been so used to. It takes practice to learn whether you are actually fully COMMANDING that something change or be healed, versus whether there are elements of .. indecision, doubt, fear, uncertainty, paying attention to how things look, being caught up in the seeming reality of it, having reactions based on how the situation appears, etc... you have to weed all of that stuff out.

You need to become a finely tuned, PURIFIED, focused, clear, direct, certain, creative and firmly expressive miracle worker. You need to have authority. You must not lay down and just let the illusion, sickness, or whatever walk all over you with how much power it seems to have.

There is no order of difficulty in miracles, which means one miracle is not more difficult than another. But it ALSO means, MIRACLES ARE NOT DIFFICULT! Miracles are meant to be EFFORTLESS! In fact one of the miracle principles speaks of how miracles shouldn't be under conscious control, which speaks to how we need to be a conduit or bridge for the miracle to flow across without interference. But if our bridge is only half-built and stops short of fully extending into the illusion, to fully DELIVER God's promise of divine healing, then the effects will also fall short.

So experiment. Take time to speak TO the problem and tell it what you want it to do, explicitly and directly, not taking no for an answer. You have to be firm, and you have to be very clear. This takes some refinement. I've found that I tended at first to 'ask' problems to go. This does not work. I found that I would describe the problem. That doesn't work. I found that I would talk about the problem, to myself or others or to God. That doesn't work. I found that I would then talk about what I wanted to happen in a kind of future tense, but that also did not work. You have to tell the problem directly, NOW, in first-person immediate language, in a commanding way, "sickness, leave right now. Go! Get out!". You have to CONFRONT IT, which takes some balls especially if you are a people pleaser ;-)

I've found that it took several attempts and various failures to learn how to be commanding. It was not natural to me at first. I was too passive and uncertain and afraid. I would buy into doubts too much, like wondering if it would work or what would happen. We cannot be like that. We are representatives of God. We are like his policemen, enforcing his law. We have to be AUTHORITATIVE. And illusions MUST obey. But if you are not authoritative, illusions and sickness and all other forms of suffering will STAY because you are failing to give it a direct order to leave. If you don't use very direct commanding language, which is vague and wishy-washy, you will see 'reflected back' in the dream mirror vague results or half-hearted responses.

Illusions must respond to the commanding confidence of Christ.

In all cases, when Jesus healed the sick and so on, he always gave a very direct command. "Get up and walk". "Lazarus, get up and a live". etc... these are not requests. They are powerful commands. And that is how power flows across them. Words are a transit system for the communication and flow of God's power. You have to speak to the problem and tell it what to do.

"For truly I say to you, whoever SAYS to this mountain (notice the SPOKEN command), 'Be removed and be thrown into the sea!' and does not doubt in his heart (no fear, no uncertainty, completely belief and confidence), but BELIEVES that what he says will come to pass (believing it is a very important part of conviction), he will have whatever he says" (Bible, Mark 11:23).

We are constantly choosing, and in that choice are most often choosing to pretend that we have no choice.

That's the same thing as choosing to pretend that we have no power and that things are happening against our will.

When we are disempowered, we then tend to seek to fight against oppressors, rise up against enemies, and struggle with life. We think we're justified in doing so and that by doing so we are being powerful.

But that is not empowerment. That's weakness. War is always about weakness not power. There is no strength in conflict. War is just a "show" of strength that looks like strength but is actually vulnerability. We're just making the disempowerment more real, and keeping us stuck.

You actually have the real power to DIRECTLY affect outcomes, not that you need to manipulate them indirectly or wait for someone else to make the changes.

We have to learn to stop pretending that we do not have power. We need to stop make-believing that someone took it from us or that we have none. We just keep giving it away, over and over again. We keep disowning ourselves and hiding under a rock.

The more that we displace our own power onto other people and make them responsible for our lives, the more we wait for them and demand that they be the ones to change so that they will 'make our lives better' for us. And in that position we will be terrified and vulnerable, believing we have no power of our own to do anything.

You can't hide your power and feel powerful. You can't put responsibility for your life into other people's hands and experience strength or freedom. If you want other people to be responsible for your life, there's another word for that: imprisonment.

The body is a separation device. It was made to section off and fence in a SMALL PORTION of mind, which seems then to find itself housed "inside" the body, while the larger portion of mind appears to be "separated off" or unconscious, outside the body. The sense of being isolated, separated, limited, partial, not whole, thus belongs to the "inside the body" experience, which is an experience of being only PART of yourself. To return to wholeness you have to thus transcend the body, erase the body, have no separation devices in the mind, and therefore collapse the gap between the outer and inner. The body symbolizes the split in the mind and once the split is erased the body is erased.

"God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on love will ALWAYS seem to shut Him out, and to keep you APART from Him. The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and completely limitless idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom, where God can enter not. Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe."

Since the body itself is a separation device BETWEEN parts of mind, designed to keep one part of mind sectioned off from the other part, it can only seem to EXIST at all while there is a sense of separation. If the mind is split, the split shows up as a body coming between "you" (within the body) and the rest of you (outside the body, in others). The body is thus a symbol of separation in the mind, and when the mind does not have separation in it there cannot be a body at all.

This is why God cannot enter a body, because that's like saying you can keep a separation device, something which sections off inner and outer, and keeps them apart. It's like saying the whole of God which is everywhere (within and without) can be stuffed inside a container which is less than everywhere, and all of God can thus be housed inside a box and be ABSENT from the outside. This is utterly impossible because God is unlimited and infinite and all encompassing.

Thus God, all of God, cannot enter a body or dwell in a body entirely. Nor can you, who find yourself to "be in a body" or rather, who have a split mind which shows up AS a body coming between you and the rest of you, join with God fully while maintaining a body. The body can only be there IF there is separation in the mind. If the mind has NO belief in separation it utterly not only transcends the body but ERASES the body. There can be no body at all without a belief in separation. Total wholeness wipes the body away completely. Meaning that to truly be whole you cannot be inside a body. And you therefore cannot fully MEET, join, be one with all of God, while there is a body present. You have to leave the realm of bodies entirely to be infinite and unlimited.

"Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. In this form you can fulfill your function even here, although ***what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still.***"

This is similarly why you cannot be Christ in a body, IMO. Christ is similarly unlimited and whole and infinite. Just as is your soul. Your soul cannot enter a body either. "The body neither lives nor dies because it cannot contain you who are life." Christ cannot directly in a first-person way be CONFINED in a body or sectioned off and found to be isolated to one place and not another. However, I believe ACIM is saying that you can "channel" Christ in a body, to some extent. You can be close to Christ and you can extend His love and miracles, but it's like he is working "through you" once removed, not directly.

I don't think Jesus was thus "Christ in a body" because if Christ could be in a body, fully, with no limitation at all, bodies could coexist with Christ and be his equal, and bodies would then have to exist in heaven as creations. Christ is unlimited, infinite, everywhere, and bigger than the universe. In ACIM Jesus lets us know that he "was a man who remembered his soul" and he remembered it in the atonement and ascension to heaven. And prior to that, he still had some trials and lessons, not least of which was the crucifixion. He BECAME identified fully with Christ, but not until getting out of here.

"To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body’s nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."

"The death of an illusion means nothing. It disappears when you awaken and decide to dream no more."

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it. The last one had gone. It was laid in the tomb, but there was nothing left to bury. It did not disintegrate because the unreal cannot die. It merely became what it always was."

The book, is an expression FROM truth, attempting to point to truth. It contains SYMBOLS of truth, twice removed from reality.

Because truth expressed the book, the symbols in the book are not necessarily all possible expressions from truth. Truth could conceivably express a million books, all from the same source or mind. They could all appear to take on different forms and use different words, yet essentially say the same thing.

The form of the book, the words used, the sentences, the sections/chapters, is only one collection of symbols, all coming from the same source.

It is entirely possible for that source of truth to continue to express itself in many, many more forms. It is possible that the Course could in fact be 1000 times larger, or a million. There is basically no limit to how many "forms" it could take, provided those forms express or symbolize a consistent source.

This is why it is then important to recognize that, of all the FORMS in the book, all of the words, you are not necessarily getting ALL words that can ever be said about truth, and you're not necessarily hearing every possible clarification.

For example, in the main Course itself Jesus doesn't really explicitly talk about making his body disappear. Yet, in the notes given to Helen later, from the same source/truth, he clarified further by adding extra information. That information is clarifying as to the meaning of various other parts of the Course, especially surrounding resurrection and how we might leave the dream without death being involved.

There are also times when Jesus says one little phrase somewhere in the Course and doesn't really expand upon it, and yet it's a very key phrase which puts many other things into perspective.

There are also times when I really wish Jesus would've gone into much more detail about certain things, especially miracles and some of the aspects of the end of the universe. In other words, if Jesus were present, there would be a lot of questions we could ask Him which would clarify many things. This is why it is VITAL to get in touch with Jesus/Holy Spirit and develop a relationship with them, so that you can learn from them DIRECTLY.

It's important then not to get too hung up on the specific exact WORDS which Jesus expressed, thinking that the FORM of those words is the truth. The form is not the truth, it's just one of MANY possible symbols and expressions. Further additional forms might possibly change your perception of those words and what they really mean.

If for example you will only accept something as correct if it has an explicit quote in the Course that you can point your finger at, then you are getting bogged down in form and are not seeing the metaphysics.

The form of the words of the Course are twice removed from reality. Once removed from reality is the metaphysics, and/or the symbols in the dream. For example, outer space, filled with seemingly nothing but emptiness, is symbolic for the ego's attempt to make God as absent as possible. Bodies are symbols of having an identity God did not create. etc.

When you look at the words and learn from the words, you should learn, or be able to infer/imply, what the metaphysics of the truth is. Stuff like the structure of the dream, the levels, what certain things mean, where they fit, etc... is not always necessarily 100% spelled out in words. You have to look deeper. As you "generalize the teaching", you will gradually build a clearer picture for yourself about how everything fits together.

Some of those clarifications will bring you insight into how, sometimes, Jesus uses words in certain specific contexts which, if taken verbatim, might imply or infer something which is incorrect. Also sometimes He speaks at certain "levels" and confusing those levels produces a lot of confused metaphysics. Some things apply at certain levels and not others.

Also sometimes Jesus uses words which He seemed to have build up quite a specific definition of elsewhere, but uses them quite loosely in "general conversation" in such a way that people then take this and think it's some kind of metaphysical fact. Sometimes Jesus is just simply talking casually and using normal language, how most people would, and not necessarily teaching doctrine in every word.

With enough exposure and learning you should be able to transcend the Course's words and get more in touch with the "core metaphysics" which is kind of hiding somewhat behind the words. The structure of the dream, the proper location of certain levels and their meaning etc, becomes more apparent when you go deeper into it, and Jesus hasn't necessarily "spelled it all out" directly.

We have to be careful not to get hung up on "where does it say that in the course" kind of approaches. Not everything IS said in the course. And yet, some things are true/logically consistent which may never have been expressed.

We also have to beware of thinking that only what is said in the Course is coming from Jesus's authority and therefore no-one else can say anything that Jesus hasn't said. As you transcend the words and get more of the metaphysics you'll be able to extrapolate it and come to conclusions which are completely consistent with Jesus's teachings.

That makes it possible to write additional content, additional words/symbols, based on the same metaphysical foundation, in order to be consistent with Jesus and not contradict his intentions. You don't need to be in his mind of authority to do this, you only need to grasp the basic logical structure of the separation.

There is a lot of material in the Course and it can become quite blinding through its sheer volume and seeming complexity. But we need to learn, in a sense, to forgive it, by learning to overlook its appearance and look deeper to see a closer or more accurate truth. The truth is simple, not complicated, but the ego has a field day with getting caught up in the form of things.

A Course in Miracles - Urtext material - reproduced with permission from the Foundation for Inner Peace (acim.org), and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles (facim.org).
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