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

"The body's eyes see ONLY form (matter, objects, bodies). They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and **not see past it**. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for ***they can see only illusions*** (matter is an illusion - ANYTHING SEEN WITH PHYSICAL SIGHT IS AN ILLUSION), unable to look beyond the granite block of sin (solid matter is sin), and stopping at the outside form of nothing (surfaces of objects). To this distorted form of vision, the outside of everything (all objects), the wall (matter) that stands between you and the truth (physical matter stands between you and reality), is wholly true."

"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness (the surface of objects), as if it were a solid wall (solid objects), see truly? It is HELD BACK by form (all objects, bodies, planets), having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form (matter) will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see." (cannot see reality or light ever - is permanently FIXED in false perception).

"What was its maker's GOAL, but not to see? For this the body's eyes are perfect means. But not for seeing (can't see reality ever). See how the body's eyes rest on externals (the surface of physical objects), and ***cannot go beyond*** (seeing a surface means photons bounced OFF the solid surface and BLOCKED YOUR VISION of what is beyond the surface!). Watch how they stop at nothingness (the physical world is an illusion and is nothing), unable to go beyond the form (shape, appearance, solidity etc) to meaning."

"(There is) nothing so blinding as perception of form (matter). For sight of form (objects, bodies) means understanding has been obscured. Only MISTAKES have different forms (objects are forms of error/sin), and so they can deceive. You can change form (matter, bodies etc), BECAUSE it is not true. It could not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is not reality, it must be an illusion, and is not THERE to see (all physical objects are illusions). And, if you see it, you must be mistaken (using body-based false perception), for you are seeing what can NOT be real, as if it were (believing the world is real is false perception because it's an illusion of a world). What cannot see beyond what is not there (cannot see past the physical universe), MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions as the truth (blinded by perception of form). Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth?"

"Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see (body cannot see it). Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of his body. (look PAST the body, past matter, past form, past error, past sin, past the solid universe)."

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen (fact, you cannot use the body's sight to see reality ever), for the illusions that they look upon (all planets are illusions) must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last (proven by decay, entropy, death), but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt (he did not create this world and the world he created cannot be seen by the body ever)."

"The world you see is an illusion of a world (seen with the body, it is illusory, and cannot be seen by the spiritual eye). God did not create it (fact! God did not create ANYTHING that the body looks upon!), for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see (with the body) that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end." (anything visible to the body has an end, including this planet - that's why it's an illusion not an eternal reality).

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face (solid matter blocks your vision of christ). But true perception (through the spiritual eye, NOT the body's eyes) looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant (the world is an illusion and can be OVERLOOKED - to forgive is to overlook - to NOT SEE). It is seen at last for only what it is (it is ONLY an illusion). And now it cannot fail to disappear ("illusions recognized must disappear"), for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived (body world) the face of Christ appears, and in that instant ***is the world forgot*** (earth, illusory universe, go bye bye), with time forever ended as the world spins ***into nothingness*** from where it came. (world of matter is NOTHING - there is no world)"

"A world forgiven cannot last (forgive Earth, it will disappear, forgiving it OVERLOOKS it - stops seeing it). It was the home of bodies (forgiven world is the illusory world). But forgiveness looks past bodies (christ vision). This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin (matter is sin - "the body is the idea of sin made flesh"), for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone ***what more remains to keep a separated world in place***? For place (space) has gone as well, along with time (spacetime ends). ***Only the body makes the world seem real*** (blinded by perception of form, world of matter/form is an illusion), for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible (no bodies in heaven). Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not (christ vision does NOT SEE the world of bodies). And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."

"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. ***And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God***. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has ***shone away time's final instant*** (and spacetime and all three-dimensionality), and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause (the "real world" is not the goal, its a stepping stone). For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls (no material universe), no bodies (no planets, no stars), and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

God is always light.

When we resist God, we try to block the light.

This blockage produces an illusion of the absence of light, ie a "lack of light."

This lack of light may seem like darkness. But this darkness is entirely dependent on the block remaining to obscure the light. When the block is removed, the light will be present and there will be no darkness.

God's law is that light always dispels darkness, and that the illusion of darkness only shows up when the light seems to be blocked/denied. This works the same as clouds - when the cloud blocks the sun the cloud seems dark, but the darkness is an illusion. When the sun shines upon the cloud from below it is illuminated.

"Light dispels darkness automatically, by definition." UrT1B22A

If there is a lack of light, also called a lack of love, this is merely a seeming absence. It's like there isn't enough of something, or it's being held back. It is not the presence of something.

A darkness is merely the dimming of light, producing an illusion that there is less light. But this isn't the same thing as a "presence of darkness." Your world doesn't become "filled with darkness" at night, it just has a lack of light.

Darkness is not causing the light to go away. The blockage to light is what obscures the light and makes it seem like it has gone away. The blockage directly causes a shadow or darkness to appear, but the darkness is entirely dependent on the blockage because the blockage is keeping the light from shining.

If the blockage were to be removed, there would be no lack of light, and no illusion of darkness, and the light would shine so much that there would be no darkness. Light always dispels darkness this way.

Someone who is blocking the light/love of God is merely mistaken. They are putting up a block trying to deny what is still true. This is seeming to shut out the light and love of God, but only in an illusory way, because God's light and love cannot be affected.

So blockages to light are really just forms of denial, in which we try not to admit that the light is still there, and hide it from awareness, covering our eyes to try to be blind to it. And we may go so far as to hide in the illusion of the darkness to pretend there is no light.

Doing this isn't a sin, it's just a mistake. It's an attempt to not extend God's light and love, or to put the brakes on creation, so that God is prevented from shining/extending outward. Trying "not to shine" holds the light in and doesn't let it out, producing an illusion of an absence of light - a darkness.

"God's extending outward, though not His completeness, was blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one." UrT6F2

If the denial of light, or the block to awareness of light, is recognised for what it is, without getting into ego, then it calls for an obvious remedy. It is seen as merely a lack of love, and the obvious response is that love needs to be supplied. So you give love/light to supply the lack. This is what miracles are for.

"Miracles are a form of healing. They supply a lack, and are performed by those who have more for those who have less." UrT1B8

There is no "sin" involved in this, only mistakenness ie denial of the truth. An unwillingness to admit that the light is still there.

"Sin" is a faulty interpretation of this whole scenario. It ignores that the block to love is the "cause" of the darkness, or that if the block were removed the darkness would be dispelled. To suggest this is to suggest that you could heal the darkness and replace it with light by removing the blockage.

The ego does not want this to happen. Ego is the idea that the blockage is not the cause of the darkness, and that the darkness exists in its own right. Such that whatever has put the darkness in place is irreversible, because it seems to have no cause other than itself.

Ego doesn't just see a shadow projected from the blockage. It takes the darkness and considers it as standalone thing, and fails to recognize that there is a lack of light/love. Instead it interprets that the darkness is the PRESENCE OF something else. Something which has its own existence, its own power, its own will, its own causality. Something which can make the light go away. Or as the course describes, this is the belief that darkness can hide.

"Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacy that darkness can hide. Man believes that what he cannot see does not exist, and his physical eyes cannot see in the dark." UrT1B22B

When a "lack of light" is interpreted to be the "presence of darkness", this is the idea that evil exists. That there is a power capable of causing light to go away. And then there becomes a vested interest in staying in the darkness in order to "exist". This is why the ego dwells in shadows and cannot exist in the light, and why it wants to keep the illusion of darkness going.

So we turn a lack of love into a "real sin" with "real consequences". We hold the lack against the person, and instead of saying that they are merely mistaken and we need to give them more love, we say that they have failed to love and do not deserve forgiveness. Therefore their blocks to love are irreversible and their darkness its produced is permanent and they are now wretched and darkened beings.

In effect, what should just be a simple error easily corrected by love, is misinterpreted as something real in its own right with its own meaning, proof that evil is real and exists, and holds that against the person as their truth. We take what should be easily forgivable and turn it into a crime, as though to say that they aren't just making a mistake, they are positively making an act of assault.

"The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love. It perceives it as a POSITIVE ACT OF ASSAULT. This is an interpretation which is necessary to its survival, because as soon as YOU regard it as a LACK, you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation. And you will also succeed. The ego regards this as doom, but YOU must learn to regard it as freedom." UrT5G8

So essentially the idea of the belief in sin, or interpreting things as sins, is rooted in taking something which is actually an absence, and interpreting it as the presence of something. It's not just an error, it's a crime. It's not just a mistake or something to be learned by a child, it's a deliberate attempt to harm and offend. It's not just an innocent lack of wisdom, it's a positive desire to do horrendous things on purpose out of malice and spite.

So really when we interpret someone as sinning, we're sort of saying "you're a dark evil person for being this way", rather than that "you are just lacking some light and need more light." Any sense of accusation, scapegoating, making guilty, turning what someone does into a crime, holding the mistake against them like it proves that they're unworthy of love etc, is all the ways that we convert a mere "lack of" love into a "presence of" evil.

True perception accurately and correctly views all illusory things - all blocks and the results of those blocks - as nothing more than temporary errors, which can be perfectly corrected without any punishment or need for chastisement or blame or hurt. And no death sentences or justified revenge. It merely sees an innocence and a mistakenness within the confused/lost person, rather than converting that mistakenness into "you're doing this on purpose to hurt people because you're evil and deserve attack."

There are only mistaken innocent souls who lack wisdom and are lost and confused and choose incorrectly, who need simple gentle correction by a loving hand such as the Holy Spirit. A simple classroom of children learning how to stop hurting themselves. When we turn this into a bloodbath or a warzone or a battlefield or a place filled with enemies and opponents and competition, we're moving into the belief in sin.

The belief in sin is the belief that darkness is real and contains real evil and can really produce real powerful consequences in its own right. This completely ignores the truth that there is only love and a lack of love, and never a sin. Nothing is a sin, because sin is nothingness misinterpreted as something. Your brother's sins are not sins, they are just mistakes calling for love.

"Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence. And, from THIS dream, the Lord of Heaven will Himself awaken His beloved Son." UrT27H14

It is not possible for you to suffer unless there is guilt in your own mind. The only way for a mind to have guilt in it, is for that same mind to believe it is guilty, thus identifying itself as guilty. All suffering is self-inflicted.

When it seems that you are upset in relation to someone else, suffering or feeling hurt by them, with them seeming to do something to you, or as though they are the cause of your upset, something has gone wrong with your perception.

You first believe yourself to be sinful and therefore guilty. But then you deny and repress this belief, portraying yourself as an innocent victim in order to pretend you are not guilty.

Then someone comes along and does something. It doesn't matter what they do, it has absolutely nothing to do with you and does not cause anything. It is "neutral". However, it may reflect, correlate to, play upon, emphasize, or put focus on, your own hidden belief in your own guilt.

This will "trigger" your own guilt to rise into your conscious awareness. Having denied that it exists, which places it into unconsciousness, it suddenly appears to come out of nowhere, and you still believe you are not the one who put it there.

It seems then fairly logical, even obvious, that this guilt only showed up when someone did or said something, so what they did must be tied to it or the cause of it somehow. Therefore, you conclude, they are the one who just hurt you and made you feel bad.

This is of course a mis-perception. But it leads you now to launch into a lengthy story, driven by pain, about how this other person must be the one who is mistaken. Whatever or whoever they are, if they caused your guilt and suffering, then there must be something wrong with them.

You then explain that they are the one who must change in order for correction to occur. You will feel justified in attacking them, getting revenge or seeing them as wrong, because you do not see how you have attacked your own self by believing you are guilty.

You can become very lost in this. This story unfolds in your perception about how this person is doing all this hurtful, upsetting stuff to you, causing you to suffer. And while you're in this mode, you will be stuck.

You'll be stuck because they are not the cause of your guilt, so getting them to change, even if you could get them to change, will not get rid of your guilt. The ego will tempt you to try to change another in order to atone and correct the situation, promising that it will "work" and succeed in restoring your illusion of peace. But it won't work, because only you are the cause of your guilt and suffering.

When you have identified your sense of self with sinfulness and guilt, you yourself have come to perceive and believe that you are made from sin and guilt. It redefines your identity. Sin and guilt can be targeted by the ego in others, because these things are inside of the ego thought system.

Anything within the ego thought system is fair game and open to being attacked by any other part of the ego thought system. If your sense of self is "within" this mind, made of or defined by what this mind believes, then this ego mind can attack what you are.

If you have identified yourself as made of sin and guilt, being sinful and guilty, you have identified yourself AS ego. You are now joined with and a part of the ego's belief system. Anything within that belief system can be attacked by that belief system. Then you will seem to experience that what you are can be attacked by other people's egos.

However, if your sense of Self, your identity, is outside of the ego's thought system entirely - if you are unconditional love, one with Holy Spirit, then you are literally out of reach of the ego's thought system. It cannot target you, it cannot attach to you, it cannot see you, it cannot identify you, it cannot interact with you, it cannot touch you, and it cannot hurt you.

The ego is incapable of accessing the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is the light of truth and light dispels darkness. Approach the light and the darkness in the mind must be dispelled and disappear. The ego is shown to be nothing, in the Holy Spirit's thought system, so it simply cannot exist where He exists.

You, identified as innocent and holy, are incapable of being affected by the ego, by any kind of attack, by any kind of guilt-inducing behavior, or any judgements or accusations from others. Without guilt in your own mind, and without you being the one to put that guilt there, nobody can put guilt there on your behalf. Nobody can reach outside of the ego and put guilt into the mind of the Son of God.

Therefore, without guilt in the mind, the mind cannot suffer. "A guiltless mind cannot suffer". A mind which does not, itself, believe in its own guilt, cannot suffer. A mind which does believe in its own guilt, must suffer, by its own hand, and it will project the cause of this suffering onto others. Yet nobody else is ever attacking what you are. Only the ego attacks itself, it never attacks love because it can't.

So if you are upset, caught up in a drama about what someone else is doing to you, how they are wrong, how they are causing you to be unhappy and stressed and upset, you are mistaken. It is YOU who believe you are sinful and guilty. It is YOUR sin and guilt that is triggered by them. They have merely come to show you, reflect to you, make you aware of, point out and trigger, the pre-existing belief in sin that you yourself put into your own mind. You cannot blame them for telling you what you believe is true.

Although you will hate for them to point out your own belief in your own faults, you can hardly blame them for what you yourself believe about yourself. You have to learn to admit that it is YOU who believe you are sinful and guilty, and your experience of upset because of this is entirely something you have chosen to experience. You yourself put it in place, and you yourself can undo it.

You are not upset because of someone else, you are upset because you believe you're sinful. You still believe you are guilty. And regardless of the form or specifics of someone else's attempted attack or judgement, it will touch upon and remind you of the guilt that you believe in. Thus you agree with the content of their attack, that it means you are guilty.

You will react and exclaim that no, they are not telling the truth, and that you have been unfairly attacked, but look again. You DO believe in what they say about you. You DO believe you are guilty. You DO believe you should suffer and be hurt. You DO believe in your own guilt. And that is the only reason you are upset.

You need to learn that all attack is really self attack. You need to learn that the secret to salvation is the admittance that you are doing this to yourself. That you chose this sin and guilt, and can change your mind about yourself - forgive yourself. It is YOU who needs forgiveness, not another person.

You cannot forgive another person. It is metaphysically impossible. You can only forgive yourself, because only you have really attacked yourself. It is not real or true that anyone else ever attacks you, so it cannot be something that is open for forgiveness.

Have you really sinned in the way that you believe you have? Was it a real sin? Or are you forgiven because you did not sin in reality? Are you forgiven because you cannot sin and are still innocent? These are the questions you need to be finding answers to, not attempting to figure out why someone else is hating you for you.

You are innocent. You are holy. You have done nothing wrong. Your sin is false. You are not guilty at all. Let yourself be free.

The "physical world", exists only IN false perception. This is why the body's eyes can see it. The body's eyes are rooted in false perception permanently.

"Everything the body sees is an illusion."

"These eyes made not to see will never see."

"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."

"Eyes perceive falsely"

The world is like a veil that hangs in front of the face of Christ to block your vision. It must be seen THROUGH and past, which is what it means to OVERLOOK it, which IS forgiveness.

When you overlook the world, and look to the light beyond all forms and bodies, the light of the real world, you will become UNABLE to see the world. At its peak, christ vision makes the veil become totally invisible, the world is utterly forgotten, and it disappears.

You only become able to see the physical world by LOWERING your "frequency" to one less loving, causing you to enter into illusions and start to allow them into your mind, making them real, causing you to "see them". Without false perception, you CANNOT SEE the false world. And you cannot see BOTH the false world and the true world in their simultaneous entirety.

"The world you see (the false world) must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."

"You cannot behold the world and know God."

In order TO see the real world, the TRUE world, you have to make the false world - Earth, FALSE, and not believe it's TRUE, otherwise you are making NO distinction between what is true and false and are CONFUSED (ego). Only by being clear about what is true and what is false, or what is good and what is evil, can you DISCERN with accurate (true) perception what is REAL and what is UNREAL.

The world that exists ONLY in false perception, DOES NOT exist in true perception. In true perception you see the real world, in which there ARE no streets, buildings, houses, shopping malls, street lights, not even night and day, and not even the sun and the earth.

If you want to see the face of christ, you have to LET GO OF this world. You have to access the spiritual eye and use christ vision. And you have to see PAST physical matter, IGNORING IT. Making it unreal to yourself. Recognizing it as false. Realizing it IS just an illusory world, not a real world. It is by recognizing that illusions ARE NOT REAL, that you transition from false to true perception. True perception recognizes what is real and what is illusion.

You cannot forgive the world and keep the world. "A world forgiven cannot last." You can ONLY forgive that which is an ILLUSION, and see through its illusory nature to the truth beyond it. Doing this makes the illusion DISAPPEAR. Forgiving the world UNDOES it, and makes it disappear. You cannot SEE IT when you see the face of Christ. Because then, the world is forgotten entirely.

In the following quotes, Jesus outlines clearly why you CANNOT see BOTH worlds at once, in full. And sight of one REQUIRES that you NOT SEE the other. You cannot therefore keep both heaven and Earth, you have to choose one or the other. And ONLY one of the two is real.

"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought that gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, ****where all the world must disappear**** and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."

"***The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it***, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when ***all things visible will have an end.***"

"The world as YOU perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is NOT as you see it. God created ONLY the eternal, and ***everything YOU see is perishable***. Therefore, there must be another world which you do NOT see."

"The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive ***nothing ELSE***. For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM."

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; ***the world forgotten***, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream"

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as ***nothing more than just a fragile veil***, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now ****it cannot fail to disappear****, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant ***is the world forgot***, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." ***This world you see MUST BE DENIED***, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. ***YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS.*** For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. ***The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER.***

***Both are not true***, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you IS unequal. 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.

This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all."

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal. This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. And of these two, but one is real. Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. The one answer to all illusions is truth."

"Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, ***simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight.*** The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute.'

The one and only real thought system is the system of God's thinking in his mind in reality. There is really no other system of thought or function that makes sense or that is wholly sane.

If there were to be another system of thought, it would have to be completely different to God's system. So much so it would have to oppose and reject and deny and attack God's system in every way possible, in order to be different. "The world was made as an attack on God."

In the separation, we attempted to produce a second thought system. We wanted to think unlike God. We tried to oppose his will and to function in a way he did not design. We wanted to be opposite and different and dream of things that he would never think of.

What basically happened is, in our total freedom, we were able to use our freedom to try to stop being free. This is entirely within the laws of God. However, even though we're capable of trying to do this, what we find out is that it makes no sense to do it.

Trying to use will to will not to will anything, is obviously a circular logic. You need to use the very thing you are trying not to use, in order to try not to use it. At some point you'll realize that it's impossible to completely switch off will while still willing to be unwilling.

It should be obvious to us that even attempting to will against will is completely futile and pointless and cannot really produce any real effects. It's not that God prevents us from attempting this, only that when we do attempt it we are basically not making any sense. This causes us to produce what seems like a second system of thought which is based on insanity and self deception and denial.

This second system of thought, which we call the ego thought system, is a rejection of reality and truth. So it also rejects immortality and eternity and permanence and every attribute of God. This is what has produced the world of space and time and death and suffering, which are utterly impossible in God's reality.

So we invented, or tried to invent, a secondary system or way of thinking, which is referred to as a "lower order reality". It seems to have reality only in that we attempt to believe it is real, when it isn't. Or that we believe it is possible when it isn't. Or that we think it makes total sense when it doesn't. It is the ego thought system, and everything in it is contradictory and a lie.

These are the only two thought systems that are possible, and only one of them is ultimately possible. The second thought system is really an attempt to believe that something completely impossible is possible. Notions of living without God, of suffering, of mortality, or impermanence, are all impossible in God. Believing in them and trying to produce proof of them is self deception.

The only task then is the undoing of the second thought system entirely, which is the atonement. It is the cancelling out of the ego and the entire lower order reality, so that minds return to sanity and the acceptance of only God's thought system.

Only in God's system is it accepted as obvious that there is no point whatsoever in even attempting to oppose free will. Only in his light is it evident that when you try to use creation to not create, or to will nothingness, or to be something you can never be, you are trying to do something that you will never really do. And only in make-believe and wishful thinking could you ever believe that you are doing it.

To return your awareness to the one and only higher order reality, which is the only true and self-consistent reality, you first go through a phase of correction and purification. This means learning to admit that the false world is false, and that unreality is not possible. It's the process of exchanging the laws of spacetime for the laws of God. And of re-aligning yourself with the one and only truth.

At the pinnacle of this process, the mind is at the heights of consciousness and perception, which becomes inclusive and closely reflecting the way God thinks. It is still within the realm of illusions and unreality, but the system of thought is exposing itself to the light of heaven.

Eventually when this is complete, and a person is fully willing to accept that only thinking like God makes any sense, only his truth is true, only his laws are applicable, and nothing else is possible, atonement is fully accepted. In accepting it, the mind wakes up to the one thought system of God and the second thought system completely vanishes.

No-one can truly believe in both thought systems at once. That is why when you enter into belief in the lower order reality you become blinded to heaven. "You cannot behold the world and know God." "You cannot see two worlds." "The world you see must be denied because sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."

Upon awakening to reality, that which seemed visible in the lower order becomes invisible to you. And that which seemed invisible in heaven becomes fully seen. Awareness returns as the knowledge of total reality returns to the mind, and the illusory world of contradictions disappears from sight.

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

"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."

"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning." UrW132L4

Some people regard this world as something negative, some as something positive. But the course regards it as NOT SOMETHING AT ALL. It acknowledges that the world is NOTHING, and the body is NOTHING.

It also acknowledges that when we think that it is SOMETHING, we will give it attributes and meaning that it does NOT have, and believe that it does have them inherently. This means we are deceived, because we are PROJECTING things onto a nothingness and seeing the projection AS IF it is there.

It's important to understand what NOTHINGNESS means. It does not mean negative, or positive. It does not mean meaningful, or meaningless as in the sense of it being a something that is depressing. It is not good or evil. It is not holy or corrupt. It is not really anything. It has NO ATTRIBUTES, no labels, no categories, no types, nothing. Like a void.

"Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality. And on this alone it is correct." UrW132L2

The world, the physical world, matter, spacetime, all flesh and bones bodies, the whole system, is NOTHINGNESS, pretending to be something. It's only seeming to be something because we keep projecting stuff onto it.

"What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something." UrU3A2

It is also true then that a "nothing world" acts like a mirror. A mirror is something which has NO ATTRIBUTES of its own. It has no inherent image, no inherent meaning, no inherent anything. It just REFLECTS, indirectly, seeming images and forms and meanings PROJECTED ONTO it from something once removed from it. In other words, what it seen in the mirror is not first hand reality, it is second-hand.

And then that projecting thing sees the REFLECTION of what was projected in the mirror, as feedback in consciousness, and thinks it is THERE. As if it is "in the mirror", part of the mirror. But confusing what is seen in a mirror for the THING that is reflected there, is a mistake.

"Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego." UrE14E5

"That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth." UrT18B3

Earth - spacetime, physical matter, bodies etc. ... can REFLECT, because these things are NOTHING IN THEMSELVES. They can reflect whatever you put ONTO them. You can project hellish ideas of sin and guilt onto them, and will then see that IN the mirror, as though part of the mirror. You can project heavenly ideas of love and peace onto them, and you will see that reflected in the mirror also, as though part of the mirror.

But when we confuse what is REFLECTED with the fact that we require a MIRROR in order to have a reflection, and the reflected thing is confused for BEING the mirror, we are lost in the mirror of perception. And now we think that the world IS this, or IS that. That if we project sin onto it is IS sinful. And if we project love onto it it IS love. And if we give it reality it IS real. This is a mistake. This is someone not recognising that they are looking in a mirror, and NOT at an objective reality. Whatever they PUT there to see, they see, and there is nothing else to see. If they walk away, the world is gone.

"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that." UrT21A1

"The world can give you ONLY what you gave it, for being nothing but your own projection, it HAS no meaning apart from what you found in it, and placed your faith in." UrT13C3

"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you MADE of it is NOT its reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it." UrT11H10

"Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind reflected outward." UrW304L1

So what we have to realize is, whether you're seeming to work with an evil hateful dangerous nasty world, or you're seeming to work with what seem like a benevolent lovely forgiven world, you are working with a REFLECTION IN A MIRROR, not an ACTUAL FACT.

The truth is, that there is no world there. There is ONLY your projection. You are seeing what you put there to see. That is hardly objective. In fact it is completely subjective, and the world has NO objective reality or truth of its own.

This means that in order to awaken from it, we have to learn to project "happier things" onto the mirror, so that it seems to reflect a "happier dream" to us, and we can seem to pull out of it aspects which seem to REFLECT heaven's nature. So that we'll be more prepared psychologically to move on to a realm of heaven where what we experience is NOT a reflection but an ACTUAL reality.

"Those who have learned to offer ONLY healing, because of the reflection of holiness in them, are ready at last for Heaven. There, holiness is not a reflection, but rather the ACTUAL CONDITION of what was but reflected TO them here." UrT14E8

So fundamentally, planet earth, every particle of matter, all energies, all of space and time, the whole galaxy and 'universe', is all part of a MIRROR. It is a mirror because it is NOTHING REAL and is a meaningless world. We PROJECT ONTO this world what we want to see IN it, and see it reflected. This is ONLY possible because the world HAS NOTHING OF ITS OWN, because it is nothing at all and doesn't really exist.

Recognising that the mirror reflects only what you put there to see, leads to the recognition that the world IS a mirror, and IS NOT a thing in its own right. That there is no world there other than your wishes projected outward from within. You are having a dream, making up a subjective "reality", hallucinating what you want to see, and are inventing meanings for a world that isn't there.

The ultimate teaching therefore is that THERE IS NO WORLD. Not that the world is transformed, or kept, or ascended, or turned into heaven, or made to be ANYTHING. IT cannot BE anything because it is a NOTHING. Mirrors don't have identities. Mirrors don't have their own nature. Mirrors have no substance of their own, no attributes, nothing. You thought you saw a world in a mirror for a while, and were deceived. It is not there. Only heaven exists.

"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly." UrW132L4

"To see a SINLESS body is impossible. For holiness is POSITIVE, and the body is merely neutral. It is NOT sinful, but neither is it sinless. As nothing, which it IS, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ OR of the ego. EITHER must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot BE. And BOTH must be undone, for purposes of truth." UrT20H4

"The body that is asked to be a god WILL be attacked, because its nothingness has not been recognized. And so it seems to be a thing with power IN ITSELF. As something, it CAN be perceived, and thought to feel and act, and hold you in its grasp as prisoner to itself. And it CAN fail to be what you demanded it to be. And you WILL hate it for its littleness, unmindful that the failure does not lie in that it is not MORE than it should be, but ONLY in YOUR failure to perceive that it is nothing. Yet its nothingness IS your salvation, from which you would flee." UrT29C9

"The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment. The world will end with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be." UrM15A2

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came." UrU5A4

The course appears to say that christ vision (true perception) isn't simply a state in which you "do not see the world". It's a state in which you see the forgiven world - the physical world - the world of bodies still, but through christ's eyes. And at the same time, that this vision is so open and inclusive that it sees ALSO beyond the physical, it sees the real world.

I used to think the course was saying we had to simply "look past bodies" ie not see them at all in order to see christ in people. But here it is saying clearly that we are to use christ vision to still look upon the physical world, while also seeing past it.

Christ vision CAN still see bodies, events, happenings, and the whole world as the forgiven world. It is forgiven because it is overlooked or "looked past", to the light beyond, which christ vision does see, but it also still sees the world below. We see the world as a thin veil which we see mostly THROUGH to a light beyond, but still see the veil - until the final instant in which the veil lifts completely.

I think this tells us that essentially your goal isn't to try "not to see" bodies. As per the quote about how it's almost impossible to deny the body, and trying to do so is an unworthy form of denial. Instead, we are trying to find a way to see that is more inclusive and open that can see the light that is beyond the bodies while ALSO translating the bodies into the forgiven world.

I see this as a vision which goes out and acts sort of like an x-ray vision, which is causing the view of this world to become somewhat "transparent" like an x-ray of a body, where you can see through and beyond it to the light shining behind the x-ray, but this also allows you to see the x-ray image properly. Christ vision is fixated on the light beyond but INDIRECTLY still can see and INCLUDE the physical things in its sight, in a forgiven way.

Only at the very very end of the road might we perhaps completely overlook bodies and physicality to such an extent where the veil LIFTS entirely, we see the face of christ ONLY, and then return to heaven. At this final moment the world is forgotten entirely and not seen. We pierce the veil and go beyond. But this NOT going to happen until the very end of the road.

Before we get there, we definitely are meant to be using christ vision to see THIS world in a forgiven way. What this means is that christ vision INCLUDES EVERYTHING in sight, while strictly false-perception body-like perceptions see EXCLUSIVELY and ONLY see the physical, believing it to be real and all there is. Spiritual sight open up awareness to detect and see the subtler light "between the lines" and "beyond the forms", which physical-only sight cannot see.

"Christ's vision ...has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world."

For a long time I think I bought into the idea of an either/or exclusive approach to this, in which as some people say - if we see the body at all we're not being forgiving. But we're not supposed to not see the body at all until the very end. We are MEANT to see the body, and MEANT to see the forgiven world, THROUGH the eyes of Christ, BEFORE the world disappears from sight. Otherwise we're skipping ahead.

This means that seeing the christ in someone DOES NOT MEAN that we do not still see the body, only that the body is translated in its meaning as a part of the reflection of heaven WHILE also being past it to a light which is growing ever brighter. Seeing with Christ is an expanded more inclusive full-spectrum vision, while seeing through "eyes of fear" ie ego exclusive narrow vision shuts out some of the signal.

This alleviates the rather awkward and seemingly insurmountable "issue" of trying NOT to see bodies at all, or to see only beyond them while excluding them. I don't think Jesus is asking us to NOT see the physical world - until the final moment of ascension. he's asking us to see something ADDITIONAL permeating it and transcending it, in which the physical becomes like a thin veil - still seen but given much less emphasis and belief.

We don't need to be rushing to try to DENY the physical world from our sight. We need to be focusing on seeing it in a different way so that we can arrive at the FORGIVEN WORLD first, which is a more inclusive and whole way of perceiving, prior to the world disappearing from sight entirely.

Trying to "not see the body at all" is an unworthy and unnecessary form of denial, spiritually bypassing the required step of seeing the world forgiven "in another light" first. To just try to "not see bodies" isn't very effective. We need to learn that bodies aren't all there is to see, first, and the strengthen our seeing of the light beyond, AS bodies begin to fade out.

All the bodies ... that the body's eyes see .... are translated into a forgiven world ..... by christ vision ..... seeing the body in a different way.

"Christ's vision ... has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world."

And yet christ vision also overlooks and sees beyond the body, to a light beyond it, at the same time.

"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created (yet it just got done saying christ's vision sees bodies differently). It beholds a light beyond the body (as well); an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation (does not dwell on making out that each separate object is truly separated). And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events (all physical bodily things!), without the slightest fading of the light it sees (beyond those things)."

"By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good."

"Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight."

"Today I let Christ's vision look upon all things for me and judge them not, but give each one a miracle of love instead."

"Christ's vision looks on everything with love (including this world). Yet even Christ's vision is not His reality. The golden ASPECTS of reality, which spring to light under His loving gaze, are partial glimpses of the Heaven that lies beyond them."

"For light must come into the darkened world, to make Christ's vision possible even here. (even in the physical)"

"Christ's vision is a miracle. It comes from far beyond itself, for it reflects Eternal Love and the rebirth of love which never dies, but has been kept obscure. Christ's vision pictures Heaven, for it sees a world so like to Heaven (the physical world forgiven) that what God created perfect can be mirrored there."

"Christ's vision is the bridge between the worlds (false and true perceptions), and in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world (physical seen exclusively) into one made holy by forgiveness (forgiven world)."

"For forgiveness is the only means whereby Christ's vision comes to me."

"Christ's vision looks through me today. His sight shows me all things forgiven and at peace, and offers this same vision to the world."

"Ours are the eyes through which Christ's vision sees a world redeemed from every thought of sin (the forgiven world)."

"RIGHT-MINDEDNESS listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ's vision sees the real world in its place."

"Christ's vision does not use your eyes, but you can look through His and learn to see like Him."

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it (still sees it) as nothing more than just a fragile veil (transparent), so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant (at the end). It is seen at last for only what it is (a veil of illusions). And now it cannot fail to disappear (AT the end when the physical is faded OUT and christ is faded IN), for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot (the veil lifts, you see ONLY christ, the physical world disappears), with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

While in Heaven, before the fall of man, everything that existed was of God. And it still is. Creation is the presence of something real. It exists. It has substance. It lives.

At this point, all things which DO NOT exist, simply did not exist at all. They were not anywhere. They had no substance, no reality, no life. They did not happen. They simply weren't anywhere. Nothingness was nothing. And nowhere was nowhere.

Non-existence simply does not exist. It is not somewhere you can go and exist. It is not a realm or a dimension. It has no presence or location. It is simply, logically, absolutely nowhere at all, is nothing, does nothing, and cannot be.

In the separation, the tiny mad idea suggested that in ADDITION to Heaven, the nothingness actually was SOMETHING. And that Heaven, God and His Son did not exist. It was a complete reversal of the truth.

This was a completely ridiculous idea and we should have laughed at its nonsense. Nothingness cannot possibly exist. It can't BE something. It has no presence. But we believed it could.

This was our mistake. It was a mistake because it is patently impossible and illogical and nonsense. Nothing cannot exist. Which is a similar thing as saying, only what CAN exist DOES. And that is only of God's creation. Anything other than God's creation simply isn't anywhere. There isn't anything else. But we believed there was.

By forming this belief in nothingness being SOMETHINGNESS, we basically were becoming confused. Confusing levels. Confusing the truth with what is false. Confusing possibility with impossibility. Confusing reality with unreality. We wanted to GIVE nothingness all the attributes of God's creation so that we could BELIEVE that it was in fact SOMETHING POSSIBLE, and something that has existence.

This of course was an insane notion and totally wishful thinking, because it still remains impossible. And even in believing that it IS possible this does not cause it to be possible. Nothing can never be something. Non existence cannot suddenly come into existing. Even the idea that non-existence could exist is to confuse existence and non-existence to the point or ludicrous nonsense.... how can non-existence STILL BE non-existent at the same time as claiming it exists? But this is what we insisted was true.

In attempting to MAKE non-existent things EXIST, we dreamed, imagined, wished for, wanted, and tried to MAKE HAPPEN, "a world" on the basis of non-existence. A world where everything opposite to God's creation is manifest. A world where life does not exist. Where love is blotted out by fear. Where death has come to replace life, and time to replace eternity. Where space opposes omnipresence and where evil substitutes for the good.

Even in doing this, in our imagination, essentially, we still were not ACTUALLY doing this, because it is patently impossible to make non-existent things have reality. But we still BELIEVED that we could, that we did, that we have, and that we continue to do so. And so we hallucinated a fictional world which IS NOT THERE, and CANNOT EXIST, as if it were existing.

And so here we are, on planet Earth, jewel of the solar system, a completely make-believe, false, unreal, non-existent world, which in our minds we BELIEVE IN, and want to exist, and try to make happen. Which nevertheless, at no time ACTUALLY exists, and is nothing but imagined - images in the mind, attempting to DREAM OF what it MIGHT be like IF non-existence could exist.

So we haven't even really made non-existence exist. Non-existence CANNOT be made to exist. But we have BELIEVED that it is possible, which is an insane and completely mistaken belief. And we persist stubbornly to DENY the facts, and AVOID the truth, and HIDE FROM reality, in an effort to keep the truth in the dark so that you won't ADMIT that a non-existent world isn't here. And meanwhile we dream of space and time and happenings and sickness and death as if they are possible.

"it (mind) merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere."

What ultimately happens when we reach atonement, which is the total willingness to admit to the truth and come to our senses, a return to SANITY, and a correct recognition of the facts, is that we come to RECOGNIZE that non-existent things DO NOT EXIST. What we thought existed, or what we thought happened, IS NOT THERE. This literally culminates in the awareness and accurate perception that THERE IS NO WORLD.

"Forgiveness recognizes that what you think your brother did has not OCCURRED."

Quite literally, the world, which is based on the idea of nothingness, IS NOTHING. It cannot be. It is not. It does not. It cannot. It doesn't. It hasn't. It isn't. It won't. The world is merely a fictional fairytale fantasy, trying to believe that impossible things are possible, and trying to PROVE it through fictional stories and images and deceptions, smoke and mirrors, illusions and lies. The world is nothing but confusion.

There quite literally is no world here. Only the Kingdom of God exists. The world is nothingness. The body is nothingness. And true perception recognizes that the world is nothing. This is why christ vision cannot SEE the world, because it MUST VANISH when recognized as NOT EXISTING. The body is not alive or dead. It is not even THERE.

"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. And that is what "rolling the stone away" means. The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. 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 body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist."

"At no time does the body exist."

"There is no world."

"There is no world apart from what you wish."

"He does not realize that he MAKES this world, for there IS no world outside him."

"Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so."

"Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions."

"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again."

"But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now."

Recognizing there is no world, is like FORGETTING the world. Paying no attention to it. Becoming unable to SEE it. Erasing it from memory. Like it was nothing. Like it never happened. Like not one single thing occurred. And then ONLY the Kingdom of God is accepted as real, existing, present, possible, and happening. And upon accepting that ONLY the truth is true and nothing ELSE is true, you awaken to the recognition of the real truth in God.

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream."

"The world you see must be denied."

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came.

A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."

"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish."

"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

The vital truth of forgiveness, is to recognize that what you thought happened, DID NOT HAPPEN.

"Forgiveness is the recognition that what you think your brother did has not OCCURRED."

This doesn't mean that it happened and then you forget about it. It doesn't mean you remember it and trust your memory of it. It doesn't mean there are real consequences that continually PROVE that it happened.

It means it literally DID NOT OCCUR. EVER.

Jesus says of the separation and the world:

"The changes wrought are substanceless. All events are nowhere."

This is a central idea. Not simply that the world exists or existed and we need to deal with it. But that the world DOES NOT exist, IS NOT happening, and NEVER DID happen. Essentially, that there IS NO WORLD.

I am not sure if many of us are willing to take our forgiveness to this extreme. Because we can recall "doing things" in the world. We can remember "sins", attacks, happenings. But even the slightest hint of the idea that "you did it" or "they did it" IS the belief that sin is real.

No one ever really DID anything, because of the CONTEXT of this entire world.

This world is nothing but A DREAM. It is an imaginary world. It has NO real consequences UPON anything real. It IS UNREALITY. It is the unreal world. Not one single thing in it is really happening. Not one single appearance is really there. It is an ILLUSION of a world.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it. For what He creates must be eternal as Himself."

Forgiveness isn't merely the overlooking of what "is there". It is the recognition that, literally, IT IS NOT THERE. This requires that you remember the entire CONTEXT of what you are INSIDE OF when you think that stuff is happening.

IF this world were reality, then yes, everything it is would REALLY be happening. And all sins would be real. And all attack is real. And all damage, suffering and death is real. IF the world is real, then it is ALL VALID, and it is all of God.

But if this world IS NOT real, if it is ONLY a dream and nothing more, then this COMPLETELY INVALIDATES absolutely everything within it. Not one single event is really happening. Not one single image is true. Not one single planet really exists. And NONE OF IT is real.

NONE OF IT!

The ultimate recognition of this fact, in its fullest possible capacity, is the recognition that THERE IS NO WORLD. AT ALL. It does not really exist. It is not there. Nothing is happening there. And no-one is living in it. There IS no history. There IS no past. There IS no planet.

"There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. ***Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere.*** Outside of Heaven, ***only the conflict of illusion stands***; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. Illusions are but forms. Their content is never true."

So when you consider, indeed remember, that THIS IS A DREAM WORLD, not a REAL world, it completely reframes everything that happens. Or rather, it even brings into question WHETHER anything is happening, and indeed WHETHER there is EVEN a world here.

Space-time is 100% fiction! It is a BELIEF and nothing more. A mistaken idea of separation and delay. Space and time don't even really exist.

So any "sins" that seem to occur, any happenings, any events, any attacks, and sicknesses, any deaths, any day to day lives, any people going to jobs, any houses being inhabited, any lakes being swum in, any wars being waged, all of is JUST A DREAM, WITHIN an imaginary context. And so ALL OF IT IS A LIE.

IT IS NOT HAPPENING.

And it is ONLY when you can recognize that YOU DID NOT REALLY DO what you think you did, that you can RECEIVE THE CURE, which is the atonement. And atonement IS forgiveness. There is no sin because sin is impossible, and recognizing this is atonement. You HAVE NOT sinned because you CANNOT sin, because THERE IS NOWHERE TO SIN and sin is impossible everywhere. NOTHING CAN HAPPEN OUTSIDE OF GOD'S KINGDOM and THIS world, earth, and all the solar systems and galaxies, IS the illusion of exile outside of heaven.

The shit does not exist.

You know this deep down. And you KNOW that if there is even a SHRED of a notion that this world IS REAL, then EVERYTHING YOU HAVE EVER DONE IS A REAL SIN. And it cannot be forgiven. You can only forgive an illusion and cannot forgive real sin. Sin has to be UNREAL for you to forgive it. Only when your sins are recognized as NON EXISTENT are you aware of your innocence. And they are non-existent because they are IMPOSSIBLE.

You have never sinned. You never will. And no-one has ever sinned against you. Sin does not exist anywhere ever. Nothing has happened. All of spacetime is fiction. "The world of bodies is the world of sin." A world of sin cannot exist in God's world of innocence. You have NEVER sinned. You WILL never sin. YOU CANNOT SIN. You HAVE NOT sinned. You are just as holy and innocent as when God created you. And all the world will vanish.

THE WORLD IS NOTHING.

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

"God creates only mind awake. He does not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He gives not, nor make conditions which He does not share with them. The thought of death is not the opposite to thoughts of life. Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly but yet within Themselves, for They are everywhere.

What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

It is critical to recognize this fundamental truth about the world. It is true of the world, it is true of every part of the world, of every world, every planet, every galaxy, and every part of space and time itself.

Time is change, and change is death.

Space is separation, and separation is death.

Space and time are systems of death.

There is no escaping this. There are no exceptions.

If something can change, it can stop being the way it is. Fundamentally it doesn't matter how perfect something seems to be, how new it is, how long-lasting, how impervious, how hard or solid, how much vitality it has, how much time was put into it, what it's made of, who made it, what brand name is slapped on it, how ancient it is, or how slowly it seems to change.

All things in space and time are constantly in a state of dying. We call "cell division" life. It is SEPARATION. It is death.

ALL THINGS HERE DIE.

"There IS no life outside of Heaven."

That which is immortal lives forever. It remains constantly the same. In order to be immortal it cannot change or be changed. It has to be invulnerable and impervious. It has to last forever. It cannot have any quality of modification, change, alteration or effect. It cannot be influenced, moved, transformed, attacked, made different, or questioned. It has to be always rock solid, the same, permanent, true, real, everlasting, and endless. Reality is ABSOLUTE.

That is true of all things in heaven's reality, in God. It is not true of ANYTHING in this world.

EVERYTHING in this world changes. Time forces it to change. TIME IS CHANGE. Time is a seeming force that takes whatever exists, and does not allow it to be permanent. It takes whatever is there now, and converts it into something else. It does not allow anything to stay the same. It does not permit permanence of any kind. Time is destructive. It is fundamentally a process of making sure NOTHING can last. NOTHING.

Time is death, and it is only a matter of time.

This means all things in space and time will end.

"Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end." "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."

Think not that there is just some small PARTS of the world that do this. Think not that there are some places you can go, people you can meet, body types, vocations, objects or anything at all anywhere in this whole system which escapes this law. It is the law of death. It is the law of NO freedom. It is the law of punishment. It is the law of sin and payment. Everything has a cost. Nothing is without sacrifice. And there is loss everywhere. Welcome to hell.

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

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

Time DEVOURS.

"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."

You cannot WANT this. But if you are not willing to look at its nature, you WILL want it, because you will be in denial. You will think the world is not like this. That there is hope. There is NO HOPE in the world. It has NO HOPE of ever succeeding at escaping death. It has NO HOPE of ever ceasing to disappoint.

It always falls short because something always changes. Everything always comes to an end. Every physical form transforms and decays and is no longer like itself. And nothing has any sense of any permanent identity at all, so there is no knowledge or anything trustworthy. You cannot rely on it. You cannot depend on it. It lies to you constantly. It is not your friend. It gives only to take away, and it never really gave in the first place.

You can only want the world if you are not willing to look at this. You can only want it if you think this is not true of the world. If you have the rose-tinted glasses of selective perception, in which you fake a sense of positivity and try to dress the world up as great and valuable. You invest time into it. You assemble its objects into pleasing configurations. You try to make it look new and shiny. You clean it and polish it. You make it appear never before seen as if it has given birth to something utterly fresh and interesting. And every single time it is a decoy to tempt you to stay in hell.

You cannot want the world because it was not MADE with love. It was not made through an act of wanting. It was made of rejection. You made it by rejecting the shit in your mind that you did not want and hated, by projecting it out. And thus your unwanted garbage turned into a dumpster pit filled with lies about external salvation and valuable treasures. You do NOT really want the world, and that is the underlying truth.

You cannot want a world which fails. You would be insane to do so. You cannot want a world which offers nothing of real value. You cannot want a world that does nothing for you and everything against you. You cannot want a world whose offerings are always death wrapped in a picture frame of sparkling jewels and special love. You cannot want a world that fundamentally can only die and can never sustain anything.

"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."

You cannot want a world that denies its own existence, hates itself, destroys itself, is completely disinterested in you, and attacks you at every turn. You cannot want a word that does not want you, and instead rejects you and abandons you. You cannot want a world that wants you to be destroyed and ignore who and what you are. How can you love something that is so utterly unloveable? To love it would have to be to completely overlook it.

That's what forgiveness means. "To forgive is to overlook." It means to NOT SEE the world. To look past the bodies and not see them. To look past physical matter and beyond the veil. To NOT SEE the world. That is forgiveness. Because your focus on the truth and the light of God BLINDS you to hell and makes the world of form turn transparent. You cannot look upon hell with love and expect the darkness to remain. Shine upon it and it will be dispelled from your sight.

"Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them."

"Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins that never were accomplished, healing but removes illusions that have not occurred." "What fear would feed upon, love overlooks."

"For, at its center, Christ has been reborn, to light His home with vision that overlooks the world."

"Forgiveness RECOGNIZED as merited will heal. It gives the miracle its strength to OVERLOOK illusions."

"To forgive is to OVERLOOK. Look, then, BEYOND error, and do not let your perception rest UPON it, for you will believe what your perception HOLDS."

"For you are asked but to forgive all things that no-one ever did; to overlook what is not there; and not to look upon the unreal as reality."

"It is impossible to overlook what you would see, and fail to see what you have chosen to behold. How surely, therefore, must the real world come to greet the holy sight of anyone who takes the Holy Spirit's purpose as his goal for seeing."

"To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, to LET IT GO."

"YOU DO NOT WANT THE WORLD."

"Is he (Jesus) the Christ? Oh yes, along with you. His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of us. He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God."

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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