It is not natural to feel sad, unhappy, depressed, angry, alone, lost, grieving, frustrated, offended, victimized, weak, afraid, guilty, sinful, hurt, broken or annoyed. These are NOT natural. They are NOT the signs of a person being "emotionally mature" or "in touch with their feelings" or "psychologically healthy". It is NOT natural to feel upset about anything for any reason.

"Anger is never justified."

"Depression is blasphemous."

They are all ego reactions to a belief that there is an external CAUSE in the world capable of FORCING you to have a certain negative reaction. They are illusions of consequences made up from an evil mindset. They are not real, or valid feelings. All of them are based in victimhood and attack and vulnerability and defensiveness. Even feeling happy "because of" something that happened to you is fake and driven by "positive victimhood." Especially feelings of love and happiness "caused by" a SPECIAL love interest.

The only real emotions are those which extend out of you from God, such as love and joy and happiness and peace and gratitude and holiness. Those are natural. They are signs of true sharing and connection and sanity. Those should be happening all the time and when they are not, something has gone wrong. No-one is supposed to be suffering in any way.

"God does not will that you suffer."

"God gives you only happiness."

"God's will for me is perfect happiness."

Just because the world is riddled with despair and loneliness and depression and rage and hatred and all manner of suffering, does not mean it is natural. Just because people TEND to have certain feeling reactions to terrible "real" things happening, does not mean it is natural. It is understandable, given their insanity, but it is NOT supposed to be happening.

It is utterly unnatural, against the nature of God, to ever be anything short of completely happy all the time.

"Happiness is a constant state."

If someone seems to be in a body and the person dies, it may seem natural, even supposedly unavoidable, that you would feel a terrible sense of loss and grief. Aloneness, anger, resentment, abandonment, and all manner of hell. But these responses are NOT natural. They are happening because the person believes that death is real, that bodies are people, and that things really happen in the world. This is deception, insanity, mental illness, and a failure to recognize the truth. Which results in suffering.

ALL of the ego emotions can be completely overcome and avoided through forgiveness and the recognition of what really is true. The recognition that the world is a DREAM and that nothing real can be threatened, is enough, if fully experienced, to completely obliterate the foundation for ANY sense of suffering. Emotional or physical. All forms of physical sickness are also symptoms of improper responses, reactions of un-love, to perceived external attacks.

"All forms of sickness even unto death are physical expressions of the fear of awakening."

Every single form of suffering, every emotional upset, all nightmares and hellish situations, every unhappiness, all sense of loss and lack and despair and hopelessness, are all SIDE EFFECTS of an improper perspective on life. They are all symptoms which show up as effects, "caused by" external seeming happenings, which really is a person's mind attacking itself.

A person who believes the world "does things to them" is victimized and thrown around by it senselessly. The world then dictates whether you are happy or sad, what you are able to receive, what you can get, how you should feel, how you should react, how severe something is, how important it is, what its value is, how you should react to it, and what it means to you. It practically shoves meaning down your throat and demands that you suffer, changing you against your will.

Anyone who believes the world is real and a cause of anything will fall into this trap and all manner of hellish experiences will result. Because it is completely unnatural, completely false and a total deception. Falling for the temptation to believe that you are AFFECTED, in any way, by the world, is deception and delusion. It is based in the confusion of not recognizing what really is true or real. Of not knowing yourself. Of being out of touch with the IMMORTAL CHRIST in you.

"Nothing real can be threatened."

You cannot be affected or made happy or unhappy by the world. Nothing in the world can "bring you joy". Nothing in the world is supposed to "make you happy" or "cause you to" feel anything. If it does, you have reacted to a dream as if were not a dream. And that begins the slippery slope into hell. The world is not there to CAUSE YOU to be enlightened, or happy, or spiritual, or holy. It cannot heal you. It cannot give anything to you. It is meaningless and is nothing.

Everything you can have, must come from God. All that you can experience, must be rooted in him. All real feelings must be shared with Him. Any states of happiness or joy must come from WITHIN. All love has to be EXPRESSED and given, from the inside out. You have to light up the world in order to see it as lovable or meaningful or filled with joy. You have to GIVE it that. You can't GET it from the world. The world is a piece of shit drizzled on a turd wrapped in a horseshite. It has NO value and NO power over you.

This is the one lesson to learn. The one lesson the holy spirit teaches over and other. That nothing that happens, no matter the seeming cause, no matter the suffering, it all has ONE CAUSE, that cause is in YOUR MIND, and you are doing it to yourself.

"The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.""

"Dreams show you that you HAVE the power to make a world as you would have it, and that, BECAUSE you want it, you SEE it. And WHILE you see it, you do NOT doubt that it is real. Yet here is a world, clearly WITHIN your mind, that SEEMS to be outside. You do NOT respond to it as though you made it, nor do you realize that the emotions which the dream produces MUST come from you."

The key part here is, "a world, clearly WITHIN your mind, that SEEMS to be outside. You do not respond to it as though you made it."

So Jesus is saying, both at night and in the waking world, you are dreaming, and you MAKE A WORLD. Your mind has the power to make an ENTIRE environment. AND THEN... you pretend that you didn't make it!

You do not respond to it as if you made it. You see it as separate from you. You DISASSOCIATE yourself from it, and pretend to be a little figure in the dream, just one body among a vast landscape, and pretend that you have control over only this one PART, and NOT the whole thing.

Yet who makes the worlds that show up when you dream at night? Who puts the buildings and the people into the dream? YOU DO. Yet in your dream you pretend and convince yourself that you are nothing but a little figure going about your business in some world that was "there on its own".

Think about it.

This world is the same. This physical world, planet Earth. IT IS ALSO A DREAM WORLD THAT YOU ARE MAKING UP WITH YOUR MIND.

AND YOU ARE ALSO HAVING DISASSOCIATION FROM IT.

AND YOU ARE ALSO PRETENDING NOT TO BE THE ONE WHO PUTS IT THERE.

AND YOU ARE ALSO PRETENDING TO BE A LITTLE BODY AMONG MANY THINGS SO THAT IT DOESN'T SEEM LIKE YOU HAVE ANY CONTROL OVER THE REST.

It's exactly the same dynamic in waking and nighttime dreams. You are dreaming of planet Earth. You are making up environments and people and events. AND THEN you are pretending to HIDE in your OWN DREAM, to pull off a stunt of making it look like you're JUST this one little part of it.

THAT IS A HUGE DECEPTION. It is the illusion.

You MADE THIS WORLD. God did not create it. You are dreaming of the entire universe. And without you dreaming of cars and houses and mountains and forests, THEY WOULD NOT EXIST.

To not OWN that, is DISASSOCIATION. It is the belief that what's OUTSIDE of you is NOT WHAT YOU PUT THERE. That it is not PART OF YOU. Or it is not yours.

That is the VAST LIE that we are telling ourselves here, in bodies. We're huge, vast, universe-sized beings of light and power, who are manifesting WORLDS, and pretending to be tiny little insects running around on the surface suffering against our will. UTTER BULLSHIT LIE.

YOU made the Earth. Not God.

In ACIM Jesus warns us against mind-wandering, ie allowing your mind to just go wherever it seems to go with no sense of choosing or spiritual responsibility.

I've found myself mind-wandering about grief recently, causing a lot of upsets. And a lot of emotion had to be felt. But now that it's simmering down I find myself noticing my thoughts more and how they cause suffering.

"I can be attacked by nothing but my thoughts."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain."

Hmm.

Well, a few years ago I was at a hospital often with my wife, and quite often there would have to be conversations about the future. And often these were based on circumstantial evidence and opinion, but as a result of even considering the outcomes at all it would cause a lot of upset. Just even having the thoughts at all produced strong nightmarish emotions. But you're "supposed" to think these things through, right? The emotions are just natural right, and you're supposed to have them?

Over time, eventually, I realised that just even having these thoughts, going through these motions, even to just think about and consider "what might happen", was an egoic pursuit that simply generated a lot of unnecessary suffering. The outcomes almost never actually came to pass, the circumstances kept changing, and after a while it seemed pointless to even think about it. People would say that's "irresponsible" but it was really not that helpful to consider how hellish hell was going to be.

In various situations in life, based on the hierarchy of illusions, ie that some things external cause upsets more than others, we also can get lost in kind of "automatic" thought processes. Lines of thinking which are triggered off by external situations, which we think we "have to" think about and entertain. Something happens and our mind goes off on a tangent trying to solve a problem or explore what's happening etc. Victim consciousness kicks in and before you know it you're having a nightmare.

The problem is that all of these reaction-based trains of thought are a form of victimhood and self-attack. Just even going on these thought journeys actually stirs up and chooses suffering, making things worse than they had to be. No wonder you're upset all the time if you're constantly thinking about how upsetting things are.

Over time it becomes more obvious that it's the thoughts really that are the starting point of the suffering. If I just don't think about something, and don't let my ego throw me into certain lines of thinking, I can avoid quite a lot of suffering. This isn't the same as being in denial, in the negative sense, but there can be a positive use of denial which helps you to remain in the truth.

"When you are afraid of ANYTHING, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you."

"True denial is a very powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is NOT a concealment device, but a correction device. The "Right Mind" of the mentally healthy DEPENDS on it."

I've been noticing this with myself recently also. I seem to be getting a bit of a handle on at least some thoughts about grief and loss. I can see that there are certain thoughts I have along the lines of "she's gone", in which there's a kind of black and white separation-oriented thought. It's almost like a death thought, a thought of separateness and aloneness. This thought isn't very productive and just induces strongly upset feelings. I might think that these feelings are normal and natural or that I "have to have them", but I don't.

I noticed also that reflecting on the past in various ways also was inducing suffering. Thinking about some times that were unpleasant and far from ideal, times that I saw with false perceptions and victimhood, if I would think about them it would make me upset again. And it seemed like I was dwelling on these things because they were unresolved, which led to more upset. Jesus was guiding me to stop doing that but for a while I felt a bit compelled because I was reacting too easily to these lines of thought without being careful with what my mind was doing. Again I didn't realize there was any other "better way".

We think we can just think about anything and it has no consequences. Jesus is teaching us that our mind is powerful and thought can produce real effects.

"People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them. "

"Death wishes do not kill in the physical sense, but they DO kill spiritually. ALL destructive thinking is dangerous."

The moral of the story is, you don't necessarily HAVE to have certain lines of thinking. You don't HAVE to consider all possible dire future outcomes. You don't HAVE to dwell on or talk about or go over all the details of stuff that's happened. It's okay to completely avoid talking or thinking about something, not as an attempt to deny it but as a constructive way to have mastery of the power of thought. To be in control of and responsible for what you think, aware of the consequences of what you're choosing.

Thoughts DO have causal power in them and can cause things to happen, as well as being able to cause all forms of suffering. The ego says we can just use thought to think of anything we like with NO effect, but this is totally untrue. It wants to make the mind insert and powerless, and so thinking about "anything" can lead to all kinds of victimhood and upset. You can easily go down dark paths and wander around lost in the woods.

We do have to try to be more vigilant and masterful over our actual thoughts than this. Otherwise we are apt to attack ourselves and make our own situation worse. We need to recognize that thinking can cause pain and suffering, and the right thinking can cause miracles and healing. We need to stay out of drama and thoughts of separateness, of disaster and loss and things being wrong. We need to stay out of thoughts of blame and guilt and it's our own responsibility to stay away from "where angels fear to tread."

At least then we do have the power to prevent ourselves from hurting ourselves, for lessening our own suffering, and preventing having as much upset as we think we must have. We don't have to just go through the motions being a victim, we can get back some power and make a better choice to more responsibly manage and own the minds thought processes. To allow your mind to go into dark places, unchecked and as a string of unconscious reactions, is mis-creation and "makes" suffering and unhappiness and hell.

"Miracle-working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation. Otherwise, the miracle will be necessary to set the mind ITSELF straight"

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains."

"You are much too tolerant of Mind-wandering, thus passively condoning its miscreation."

Another word for forgiveness is "honesty". It's to do with admitting to the truth and being clear about what the truth is. This entails surrendering of the ego's motivations and lies and owning up to responsibility and authenticity. But it's also an honesty that goes beyond appearances, physical events, what it looks like happened or who seemed to be the cause. Because, in all honesty, such "truth" is not the truth.

If you are in the middle of some ego tangle, upset emotions flying all over the place, believing that it's caused by someone or something other than yourself, then you're not really being honest. To be honest you'll have to really take a good look at what you're doing any why, and if you can discern and see what it is you're doing, you will have to admit to yourself that you've been deceiving yourself.

A big part of the problem of how to forgive, is that when you're in the middle of a dramatic story you're really quite lost. You've lost track of clarity. You've lost sight of what the truth is. You're deluded and distracted by something big and ominous which *seems* to be the problem but really isn't.

You've pinned the blame or cause for this story onto something that isn't the cause of it. You generally aren't seeing clearly. There's so much going on and so many things which seem to mean something, that it's just all very confusing. This confusion essentially is dishonesty because you've lost touch with the truth and are defending evidence of that which is false.

So really, if you have no other practice, it would be useful to remind yourself from time to time, that you need to get HONEST as quickly as you can. And this honesty involves questioning what you've been doing, how you've been perceiving, what you've been believing, and all the "truth" that you made up that hasn't come from God.

Honesty shines a light to help you see clearly and puts everything into its proper place. It's admitting to what's really happening, admitting to how you feel, admitting to what you're experiencing and admitting to what's really causing it.

When you're upset and its because someone else did something or didn't do something correctly, it's because you've disowned responsibility and are projecting guilt, which is a dishonest act. It's not the other person's guilt or sin. You're passing your sin off onto them and believing they're the cause of it. This is dishonest. It's deceptive.

The person who stands to gain from your honesty is yourself. Owning up to the truth sets you free, aligns your mind to the truth, clarifies what is happening in the situation and helps you to see correctly. When you can see correctly and clearly you get back in touch with the experience that, in truth, you are perfectly happy and at peace and free of all ego suffering.

Honesty is not good for the ego. It's not good for the part of you that wants to keep a story going. It's not good for the part that wants to control and blame and manipulate. It's not good for maintaining a cover or keeping up appearances or putting on a face/persona. It's means revealing what is real, and that means there can be no cover-up.

Where are you being dishonest with yourself, what do you need to own up to and admit to, and are you willing to surrender your support for maintaining lies that are only bringing you suffering?

Denial is an attempt to get rid of something, make it go away, place it anywhere other than here, push it outside of conscious awareness, and to disassociate from it. It’s an attempt to pretend it does not exist. This is a psychological act.

When there is denial, the "displacement" of what is being avoided appears to become separate from where it is (in you) and is sort of "pushed away" from you. Thus you push it outwards - outside of yourself.

So where there is denial, there is a pushing away, ie projection.

You can often experience this happening if you are ever around someone who represses their feelings. Regardless of how they feel, they will attempt to pretend they’re not feeling it, or they try to hide the feeling from themselves in an attempt to hide it from others. They think that if they are not aware of something, others won’t be aware of it either.

This is quite funny really and is similar to how we hide from God in order to pretend that God is not there. It’s also why we hide our secret sins and hidden hates, to KEEP them but pretend they are not there. Out of sight out of mind, but it doesn’t work.

What then happens is these people, because of denial, broadcast their stuff outward quite intensely. The more the denial, the more they project. This can especially be true of more intellectual people who do not like to feel emotions. They become loud broadcasters of what they do not want to feel. They are trying to get rid of it by projecting it away from themselves. They think that hiding it from themselves makes it go away from everyone, but it does not. Their feelings, pushed onto others, are even EASIER to see by others.

If you are sensitive or empathic you will likely easily pick up on these broadcasts and wonder why you are suddenly flooded with confusing feelings. Being around "projectors" can be quite toxic. They are emotionally irresponsible people who want to maintain a persona of everything being okay all the time, instead of being authentic. People-pleasers do this too.

This is also how we project stuff in our mind. Projection makes perception. Or you could say, denial makes projection. Upon "not wanting to see" what is being denied, it will be projected outward and then seen even more intensely. The only difference is there is a disassociation and a denial that it is inside yourself or has anything to do with you.

Always, being more responsible for everything you experience and feel will put you much more in touch with who you really are, give you strength, make you more aware and loving, and you will be much more authentic. You will also then stop sliming everyone else with your garbage disposal system.

What you believe is true, you will believe is true of you, and therefore defines what you are. You become one with whatever you believe is true. If you believe and trust God's truth, you will identify with your soul/spirit. If you believe and trust the ego, the body and the world, you will believe you are these things.

In order to identify with spirit, you have to believe that spirit's qualities are true of you. And you also have to believe that the ego/body/world's properties are NOT a part of what you are. Therefore, all of the ego reactions, upset emotions, hurts, angers, fears, guilts, shames, losses, loneliness, desperation, angst etc must all be a part of something which you are NOT.

Your sense of what I am and what is my self, my identity, has to be separated out from all the things that are not of God. You have to tell yourself that you're not the body, nor are you the ego reactions or emotions or thoughts. Whatever the ego is, as nebulous and hidden as it seems to be, only the ego can actually suffer, only the ego can be guilty, and only the ego can seem to die.

You have to tell yourself that these things are not a part of yourself. You as immortal spirit cannot suffer, cannot be upset, cannot be unhappy, cannot be sick or dead, cannot be afraid or guilty, cannot have loss or grief, cannot be threatened or damaged, cannot sin or be evil, and can have no part of the body or the world.

Jesus tells us that he has nothing that does not come from God, and that this is the only difference between us. Because we believe we have and are something that does not come from God. We think we are bodies and egos and the world. We think we are upsets and stress and turmoil. We think it is us that is having and experiencing and being these things. But it isn't a part of who we really are, all of these upsets are an illusion.

How can you be upset when you are immortal and perfect? How can you have loss and grief when you have everything? How can you have suffering of any kind when you are invulnerable and eternal? You have to identify with being that which is perfect forever, flawless and immortal and unassailable, strong and innocent and powerful.

Your whole sense of self - of what am I, what is true of me, has to filter out and reject any experience or thought or feeling that is not in line with God's creation.

You remain as God created you. You are perfect spirit. You are holy and pure. There is no ego in you, no body in you, no earth in you. You are not of this world. You are of God, and anything not of God is not you.

"There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness, which is only a POTENTIAL in you."

"Identify with love, and you are home. Identify with love, and find your Self."

"Identity in Christ is fully recognized as set forever, beyond all change and incorruptible."

"There are those who have reached God directly, retaining no trace of worldly limits and remembering their own Identity perfectly."

"You will identify with what you think will make you safe. Whatever it may be, you will believe that it is one with you."

"Identify with love, and you are home. Identify with love, and find your Self."

"I will identify with what I think is refuge and security."

"Try to identify with the part of your mind where stillness and peace reign forever."

"Identify with fear, and you will be a stranger to yourself."

"To identify with the ego is to attack yourself, and MAKE YOURSELF POOR."

"It follows, then, that if you identify WITH the ego, you MUST perceive yourself as guilty."

"The belief in hell is inescapable to those who identify with the ego."

"Guilt is the only need the ego has, and, as long as you identify WITH it, guilt will remain ATTRACTIVE to you."

"You who identify with your egos cannot believe that God loves you."

"My true Identity abides in You."

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

"The Son of God is my Identity."

"Father, my thanks to You for what I am; for keeping my identity untouched and sinless in the midst of all the thoughts of sin my foolish mind made up."

"Let me remember You created me. Let me remember my Identity."

"Deny your own identity and you will not escape the madness which induced this weird, unnatural and ghostly thought which mocks creation and which laughs at God. Deny your own identity and you assail the universe alone, without a friend, a tiny particle of dust against the legions of your enemies. Deny your own identity and look on evil, sin and death, and watch despair snatch from your fingers every scrap of hope, leaving you nothing but the wish to die."

"Identity in Christ is fully recognized as set forever, beyond all change and incorruptible."

"Identity in dreams is meaningless BECAUSE the dreamer and the dream are one."

"Then I lose myself in my Identity, and recognize that Christ is but my Self."

"Thanks be to You for Your eternal gifts, and thanks to You for my Identity."

"What could we seek but our Identity?"

"Your altar stands serene and undefiled. It is the holy altar to my Self, and there I find my true Identity."

"But we have listened to Your Voice, and learned exactly what to do to be restored to Heaven and our true Identity."

"My true identity is so secure, so lofty, sinless, glorious and great, wholly beneficent and free from guilt, that Heaven looks to It to give it light."

"In this equality is Christ restored as one Identity, in Which all Sons of God acknowledge that they all are one."

"Identity and function are the same, and BY your function do you know yourself."

"In a split mind, identity MUST seem to be divided."

"And we have already learned that this identity is shared."

"Your goal is to find out who you are, having denied your identity by attacking creation and its Creator."

"By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its identity and losing sight of what it really is."

"For self-condemnation is a decision about identity, and no-one doubts what he believes he is."

"Here you understand the Word, the Name Which God has given you; the One Identity Which all things share; the one acknowledgment of what is true."

"There are those who have reached God directly, retaining no trace of worldly limits and remembering their own Identity perfectly." "Again, how simple is salvation! It is merely a statement of your true identity."

"But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs about your Identity, Which God alone established in reality."

"Today we will again give thanks for our identity in God. Our home is safe, protection guaranteed in all we do, power and strength available to us in all our undertakings. We can fail in nothing."

"Remember if you SHARE an evil dream, you will believe you ARE the dream you share. And, fearing it, you will not WANT to know your own identity, because you think that IT is fearful."

"Those who have joined their brothers HAVE detached themselves from their belief that their identity lies in the ego. "

"Do you not WANT to know your own identity?"

"Remember always that your identity is shared, and that its sharing IS its reality."

"Be confident that you have never lost your identity and the extension which maintains it in wholeness and peace."

"They do not realize that, to deny God, is to deny their own identity"

"I want the peace of God." W185

There's over 100 references in ACIM to "the peace of God". Years ago I wouldn't have thought that peace is something I want. It wasn't a priority. I just wanted all the stupid people to go away, lol.

But the more I've done the course the more it's becoming apparent that peace is very central to the experience I SHOULD be having.

I had a dream a few years ago which showed me an example of extraordinary peace.

In the dream there was a small outdoor scene with some trees and a wild grassy area, and a sort of sky with clouds, although the clouds seemed to be very nearby.

The clouds parted and as they did, they took on an extraordinary emerald green color, rich and vibrant and beautiful. An opening appeared and there floated in, from beyond the clouds, were a pair of beautiful orbs of light, which seemed to be radiating life and light and coloring the landscape as they went.

These orbs were spheres, and glowed gently from within. It wasn't like a dazzling light, just a soft glow. They seemed mostly transparent, and about the size of a bowling ball.

The two orbs floated very slowly and quietly past where I stood, and continued to float on forward, under their own will. But the thing that really struck me was the quality of the atmosphere and how it felt.

The orbs were alive, and were aware, and were extremely peaceful. They seemed to have no ounce of a sense of attack or irritation or disturbance. They were so incredibly calm and quiet, so perfectly innocent, holy even.

They could not not have been more pure, more simple, or more beautiful. They just glided along softly together, as though accompanying each other, and were perfectly unhurried and peaceful.

That's about where the dream ends. But I still think back on it and, when I do, I feel that same peace, and it becomes an inspiration. As I think about what that felt like, I can draw a number of ideas from it.

A total lack of all conflict, a total absence of war, a total lack of any sense of fighting or disturbance or angry aggression. A total innocence, so pure and gentle and simple, like it was just born from God.

No sense of irritation, or annoyance, or frustration or any kind of bitterness or resentment. No sense of guilt or sin or shame or unworthiness. Not the slightest speck of inflammation or agitation or interruption of any kind.

Perfectly calm and tranquil, with no force or pressure, no sense of threat or danger, no concern or worry or doubt or fear. Nothing complicated or distorted, no denial or rejection, no defences, and absolutely no sense of urgency.

Just total calm and total peace and total simple being. Total freedom, total beautiful innocent simplicity, and total calm gentle joy.

This I feel is what I really want, and what we all want. And it highlights how all these things that were absent - are all things that we are so accustomed to living with and tolerating. All the ego emotions and hurts, all the fighting and war and conflict, all the fear and guilt. All of it has to go.

I used to think somehow that the pinnacle of human experience might be some kind of heroic role in which we have superpowers and can do whatever we want, flying around the room with a cloak on. But this ego fantasy of being the savior to wretched peasants is being replaced with a simpler goal of humbleness and quiet.

And when all of that stuff goes, stuff that we think is normal and commonplace, all the sense of separation and tension and conflict goes with it. And what is left is just this lovely extremely calm peacefulness, lacking all sense of something being wrong in any way.

Perhaps that's what we are really. Just simple orbs of light floating around calmly and happily, in total surrender and total contentment, with no enemies and no reasons for concern. Just being at peace with God. Free and alive, floating along with not a care in the world.

Here's some very simple logic which will be hard to actually accept if you have an ego.

In God's truth, nothing real has happened to warrant any kind of upset, suffering or concern. Absolutely nothing has gone wrong. There's no grounds for any kind of upset whatsoever.

SOooooo... IF you are upset or suffering in some way, you are not upset about something that's REALLY happened because it has, in truth, NOT really happened.

THEREFORE..... ALL of your upsets and suffering are FALSE, are COMPLETELY UNFOUNDED, you have NO good reason why you should be upset, all of your upset is 100% unjustified, and the ONLY thing that is justified is that you be happy and alive and joyfully with God.

This SHOULD mean, that if you could get this, you'd simply cast aside every single problem and upset and form of suffering instantly and it would leave you. Immediately. Because it is utterly without any basis in reality.

There IS no REAL reason to be upset about anything!

Every time you are upset, it is about something that IS NOT REALLY HAPPENING. This is reflected in the workbook lesson "I am not upset for the reason I think", and also "I am upset because I see something that is not there".

Recently, I was quite upset and emotional and crying about something that seemed big and intense and not at all pleasant. It seemed to me that this amount of upset was justified or called for (hierarchy of illusions). However, I had this little thought, "maybe I'm making this into something more than it is". And Jesus chimed in, "BIGTIME".

And yet, here I was, upset, snot and tears, and believing that something has gone wrong and I should be upset.. and yet... in the middle of that... there's this idea... this ENTIRE UPSET is completely without any basis in the truth WHATSOEVER. I am upset about something that I should not even be upset about because it's not true!!!

I am literally upset for reasons that are not a "real" cause for upset, because they are not real. I am upset because I believe something is happening in this scary dream which is not really happening and IS just a dream. I am upset because I think all kinds of shit has gone wrong and people are suffering and I'm suffering, but all of that is based in and around this ONE simple core belief.... that separation from God HAS really happened, something REALLY has gone wrong, and therefore I SHOULD be upset about this.

Its bullshit!

As unpleasant as it is to suffer, and as unpleasant as it is to feel upset and unhappy and releasing emotions, and as gentle and kind and patient as Holy Spirit and Jesus will be with me when I am like that, comforting me and supporting me and not pushing me at all, IF I am willing, there is a much bigger truth at hand. The truth is, you have no reason whatsoever for being upset or to suffer at all. There is no reason to die. There is no reason to be in pain. There is no reason to be unhappy. There is no reason to be in ANY state other than a state of total happiness, which is God's WILL for you!

So all this other stuff... lol.... fetch the kleenex... but ... really, it's all very very mistaken. If we could just get this, it's so simple but the ego has so many defenses against it. In truth nothing has happened. In truth, only Love is real. In truth, there is only cause for celebration and joy. In truth, everyone is okay. In truth, disasters and murder and death and destruction are not real. In truth, nobody is really abused. In truth, nobody has been truly victimized. In truth, nothing unreal has happened and nothing unreal exists.

We should be jumping for joy all day long every day! This is the "good news" that Jesus is bringing to us in the Course.

But.... much easier said than done, to one who believes in suffering. And that's me and probably most of you too.

More forgiveness to do.

Perhaps rather than say everything in this world dies, which really only describes one aspect of it which seems to shut out the 'living' part of it ..... we should say instead, everything in this world changes. It's a place of change, in which everything is constantly transforming. Nothing stays the same. Everything is constantly in a state of turning into something else. Almost like it has a curse upon it which forces everything to stop being itself and transition into something different and strange.

The sperms and eggs turn into babies which turn into children and adults and old people and decayed corpses and compost and plants. It all just keeps changing. Change encompasses both birth and death and every illusion. Things becoming other things, transitioning between things, never stopping forever to be anything permanent. Always temporary, always shifting and modifying and losing itself. It's an entire system of things becoming unrecognisable, where truths turn to lies and everything becomes lost.

Seeds become plants which become flowers which become seeds which become dried up leaves which become soil which join again with seeds to become plants. It all just keeps changing all the time. It's not just that things die, because thing are also 'born', but all things here are encompassed by change. Nothing stable, nothing permanent, nothing trustable, nothing reliable, nothing consistent, nothing constantly true, nothing that is ever anything for very long.

All things that seem to be here now will not be here at some point, when time has converted them into who knows what like a systemic disfigurement and a constant distortion of reality. The world has always been this way and always will be until it disappears someday. Don't expect ANYTHING in this world to last forever. Illusions come and go, but what is of God is eternal and never changes and is not a world of change.

"The shifts and change are what the dream is made of."

"Sin shifts from pain to pleasure, and again to pain."

"Perception changes, MADE to take the place of changeless knowledge."

"Our very being seems to change as we experience a thousand shifts in mood, and our emotions raise us high indeed or dash us to the ground in hopelessness."

"The result is a weaving, changing pattern that never rests, and is never still. It shifts unceasingly across the mirror of your mind, and the reflections of Heaven last but a moment, and grow dim, as darkness blots them out. Where there was light, darkness removes it in an instant, and alternating patterns of light and darkness, darkness and light, sweep constantly across your minds. The little sanity that still remains is held together by a sense of order which YOU establish. The very fact that you can DO this, and bring ANY order into chaos, shows you that you are NOT an ego, and that MORE than an ego MUST be in you. For the ego IS chaos, and if it were all of you, no order at all would be possible."

"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur."

"False perception", ie being heavily in your ego, is a state of imprisonment. It's a very closed way of looking at things, it cuts you off from the light, wraps you in heavy walls, and makes everything look serious. It faces you to focus on how things look physically as if there is nothing else, and even shuts out the mind.It offers no bigger picture and dwells entirely on appearances.

In this view it becomes apparent that there are serious problems, and the problems seem impossible to solve. One thing seems to depend on another to be righted and everything seems locked in. It makes you feel stuck and lost and alone, powerless and helpless. It starts to feel like there's no way out, no solution, no hope. It is a state of psychological darkness and limitation.

False perceptions always feel imprisoning because the mind is actively trying to imprison. It's seeing things in such a way as to focus on what is wrong, what is broken, what can't be solved, what is evil, what has been done to something, how bad it is, how sorry it is, how awful it feels, how much it's painful etc. It emphases and blows everything bad out of proportion making it seem far worse than it is. It also shuts down any openness to positive possibilities.

Such a state of mind is easily driven by old unforgiven hurts, grievances, being triggered, upsets and heavy ego emotions, loss and grief, anger and frustration. It's as though the ego functions always at a very low level of consciousness and with a very dire outlook, and everything it thinks and feels and experiences is gloomy and a nightmare. When you get into that you can't help but see that way and it seems practically impossible to get out of it.

All the problems become real and you become filled with reactions, which are attempts to make it go away. But none of them work because the problem looms heavily and seems completely solid and fixed and stuck, unmovable and unchangeable, irreversible like as sin. This is what ACIM refers to really as "the granite block of sin", something that seems to be happening that seems utterly impossible to undo.

The only way out of this is to move into the light, and miracles are seen in the light. The only way to get into the light is to start to look for the light and seek it out. The light means looking on the brighter side, looking for openings which lead to freedom, looking for goodness, looking for a higher purpose, looking for a sense of calm and peace, looking for positivity and holiness. It requires stepping back and realizing that you're actually being unforgiving, and to look at what you're doing to attack through fear, and choosing to stop doing that. To break out of psychological jail.

Only by becoming more forgiving can you get out of hell. It is literally the only way. To be forgiving entails increasing the light so that you can see more clearly, and letting go of grievances and reactions. Eventually it entails taking away all sense of heaviness and darkness, strength and power, reality and irreversibility from the situation. There has to be a surrendering of control and an opening up to higher help. Seek out the Holy Spirit to help you, to heal you, to correct you, direct you, decide for you. Let yourself receive some love and light to brighten up the situation. Everything always looks better with the lights on.