Those course students who believe they are only supposed to correct their own perceptions - perceptions of the physical world, as though the physical world is reality and you simply need to see it without judgement in order to keep living in it peacefully, are missing a major point.
If the world is real, you have all your faith in the ego and none in God. You are faithless.
Also if you believe the world is reality, you will completely cut yourself off from God's supernatural power. You will cut yourself off from MIRACLES!
Miracles must demonstrate that the ego's laws are broken and have no power over God. That cannot happen if the physical world is reality. What is REAL cannot be changed and nothing has power over it, so how can miracles happen if the world is real?
When believing this world is real, or that the things happening in it are real, you will constantly be bogged down in a state of tension, upset, reactions and suffering. It's like a heavy blanket laid across everything. Every day will be like yet another day of doing "important things" and avoiding "serious things" and worrying and fearing and reacting with upset. No matter what happens, it will seem real and you will react to it with your ego.
It is not just that your mind has "illusions about" the world. There are two separate things. There are illusions, and then there are DELUSIONS. Delusions is the belief that an ILLUSION is reality. If you weren't delusional, you would recognize and see through the illusion and not fall for its appearance. You would not believe it was real, you'd know that it was a trick, and you would stop falling for it.
So most people seem to be working on their delusions but are thinking they are working on their illusions, and that therefore when they remove their illusions "about" the world out there, they'll come to be at peace with its reality. This then justifies as whole SHITLOAD of CRAP, about how events are still going to happen, things are still going to go wrong, people are still going to get sick, and Course students are going to "die in peace", which is a complete failure to understand the truth.
Shit does not have to happen AT ALL! The world is not real, and we share and extend God's supernatural power over it. The world ITSELF is a massive illusion, and BELIEVING IN IT means you are falling for that illusion and are convinced it is REAL, when in fact it's really nothing at all.
If you believe the world is real, sickness is real, sin is real etc, you will go through every day with your mind trapped inside a heavy shell of horror. Every single thing you perceive will make you react, either strongly or subtly, but never not at all. You are SO USED to this mode of functioning that you may not even realize the freedom that you can experience by regarding and relating to "this world" as though it actually IS an illusion.
You will not take it so seriously, you will not be so upset by it, you will not react to it, you will not perceive it as attacking what you are, and you will recognize there is nothing stopping you from changing it with the Power of God. It holds no weight, it's not real, it's like just some big giant pretend 3D holographic projection pretending to look like a world. It's not even really there. And if it weren't for certain atomic forces you would pass right through it!
Only by recognizing that the world ITSELF is just an illusion of a world, not a real world, can there be ANY justification whatsoever for having faith in God, relying on supernatural provision, TRUSTING God's truth, or any foundation whatsoever for performing miracles. Miracles and truth and trust and faith and love and Heaven might as well not exist if you want to keep believing the world is real.
And the reason you won't want to give up that belief is because you have a LOT invested in it. All the objects in your life that you are attached to. All the relationships you think are special. All the history and past which you value greatly. All the places you think are special. All the ways that you've come to develop a "spiritualization" of certain things and believe they are holy. All of the delusion that people really get sick and suffer and die. That's a LOT of belief. It's a lot of faith in the ego, trust in the ego, reliance on the ego, and permission being granted to the ego. And you can't believe the ego and believe God at the same time.
There is a common trend towards trying to accept everything in the world. To allow it. To give it permission. To let it be whatever way it is.
There is one part of this which is beneficial. If you resist things, you make them real. If you control things, you make them real. If you judge and attack things, you make them real. It would imply that if you accept them "as they are", you can find some kind of peace, where you're not really attached to outcomes or conditions or situations or people. As if the world will just fluidly flow over your experience without triggering anything or upsetting you. Because you accept it. But this also can be a trap, and a massive justification for keeping suffering and death.
Because the fact is that this world is not real. It's an illusion, and everything in it is a lie. It's not supposed to be happening. It's not natural. Whatever you accept into your mind you make real to you. If you accept the world into your mind, you make it real. If you are in a position of "allowing" it, you are handing over causality and permission and power to it. If you are trying to simply be at peace with whatever happens, you are not owning the fact that you are making everything happen. If you focus on trying to transcend whatever's going on, which can bring a sense of peace, it does not necessarily bring into question whether things are happening or not.
The task at hand is more to do with learning to recognize that this world is NOT happening. There is not anything to really ACCEPT about it because it isn't really doing anything. You don't have to ADJUST TO conditions, or try to persuade yourself to be okay with suffering, sickness, unhappiness and death. You're not supposed to be having any of these things.
The only true acceptance, the only thing you should ever accept, and thus believe in fully, is THE ATONEMENT. God's truth. Reality. This world is not reality. In accepting the atonement you are accepting something that should be accepted. Something which will bring a cure. Something which will instill miracle mindedness and the ability to be invulnerable. Something which puts you in touch with the power of God, to have dominion over this fake world.
There is merit in not being in such a 'fight' with the world, not resisting it or taking sides against it or having this whole ego un-peaceful counter-attack scenario in your mind. Yes, so it's good to accept things on that basis, because it at least includes less conflict mentally. BUT, this also should not be on a basis that "the world is real" and "things are really happening" and "bodies are really sick" and so on. You should not be accepting that these things are true. You should not be "allowing" them as such. Otherwise you become a passive, miracle-less fence sitter with no power to do anything.
Detaching from the world is great. But it must include the *recognition* that the world is not real, it is entirely illusory, you should be not "agreeing with" it, you should not be justifying it, and you should not be confusing acceptance with authorizing death. It may seem paradoxical but accepting the TRUTH should entail the DENIAL OF the world, the rejection of death, and a demonstration of symbolic immortality in the body.
You are not supposed to just find a way to "let the world happen", you're supposed to become aware you are DREAMING IT and MAKING IT happen, and thus regain power OVER it to change it at will. That's a massively different position than merely trying to get comfortable with "real suffering" or "whatever happens that I did not cause." There is no causality in that kind of acceptance, it's a total passivity. Yes you can try to accept that you feel unhappy but you shouldn't be feeling unhappy. You can try to accept your body is sick but it is not supposed to be sick. Are you going to accept your death?
You might think well, if I am so at peace and accepting of what's SEEMING to happen in this illusory world, why would I bother changing it? Because if the body is sick, the mind is STILL sick. The body can't get healthy unless the mind is healthy. And the mind cannot get healthy while the body is being constantly bombarded with mind attack. "A broken body IS PROOF the MIND HAS NOT BEEN HEALED." So the body DOES have to get healed as well, which means the reversal of sickness and death. Death has to get UNDONE, not accepted. Otherwise there is no true resurrection of mind OR body.
ACIM does not teach to "accept everything that happens in a dream world". It teaches there IS no dream world and YOU are the dreamer who makes it be whatever you decide it is. And if you change your mind, THE WHOLE WORLD MUST CHANGE. This is a course in CAUSE, not being passive. "Members of my party are ACTIVE workers." Will you lay down and let death happen against your will, and try to "accept it"? You cannot be at peace with death. Death can only "happen" if you CONSENT to it, which means you CAUSE it, because you have an attacking unhealed mind that's not at peace.
If you want people, you must learn to undo the world and stop dreaming of nightmares. Not because otherwise you'd be at the effect of external causes of un-peace but because being at peace goes hand in hand with HAVING POWER AND BEING THE CAUSE.
Punishment comes from a FAILURE to know what is an appropriate correction.
The only appropriate correction for any mistake, is a correction based in love. The Holy Spirit knows how to truly correct, thus heal, mistakes because he is loving and forgiving.
When we are not aligned with love, we're already in a state of having punished OURSELVES, and we are just ready to jump at any opportunity to find a SKAPEGOAT.
Conveniently, someone, perhaps a child or whomever, does something that seems to be a mistake, and it REMINDS us of our own mistake, which we've already condemned ourselves for, and we already believe in punishment (of ourselves), so now we try to get rid of this self-blame by putting it onto the person.
It's an excellent opportunity to try to convince ourselves and everyone that we are absolved of guilt, becaues this other person is the 'elected' guilty one. The one who gets to die on our behalf so that the rest of us can live. This is nothing more than sacrificing people to 'the God's in order to try to avoid the wrath. That's how archaic it is.
So when you punish someone else, it is because you have already punished yourself and you already believe in punishment, and you also believe that punishment is JUSTIFIED because you are WORTHY of it and it APPROPRIATE given that you have sinned. You get to try to project your own sin onto others when they slip up, because it triggers your own unworthiness and you want to cover up that awareness as quickly as possible. To get rid of an awareness of sin you use projection and denial.
So, punishing someone for a mistake, does not correct their mistake, because you're really punishing them for YOUR mistake, AND you are not actually correcting your mistake by doing so - or theirs. All you're doing is adding your own mistake to theirs, as if to say, if they carry the burden of both mistakes then you'll be set free.
And so as you believe their punishment is called for, secretly you are getting relief from your own sin and are performing an act of terrorism. So then how can you claim the other person is guilty when you are the one who is guilty? And it's your sin that you see in them.
This is why punishment doesn't help anyone. It doesn't provide a TRUE correction. It doesn't HEAL or UNDO the mistake. It doesn't properly correct the person so that they won't contain, in their mind, the same guilt that compelled them to make a mistake in the first place. You might think punishing them for the EFFECTS of their mistake will correct the CAUSE of it. But it's totally removed from the cause. All it does is gloss over the problem and the cause.
This is why most efforts to correct bullying also don't work. If you make it all about 'anti bullying' and you go after the bullies and get all pissed and angry at them or you punish them, it WILL NOT stop them from being bullies. They are bullies because they themselves have beaten themselves up and believe they are very guilty. They're finding skapegoats (the victims) because of the huge amount of guilt they already carry around which nobody is addressing. They need a lot of LOVE, not punishment. They need HEALING and compassion.
The same applies to all victimizers. Even murderors. Can you imagine the kind of nightmaring torment that goes on in such a person's mind, who feels so separated from others and so victimized and so guilty that they have to disassociate from their guilt and project it intensely onto someone else, to feel justified in committed a terrible act. They will always feel even more guilty for doing so, because it's an ego solution - the ego's attempt to destroy itself while preserving itself. Obviously that won't work. But the murderor also needs a lot of love and healing. They need compassion. Otherwise if you ADD punishment they will only feel even worse about themselves and enter into even more darkness and hell. This is also largely why locking people up in prisons with no real HEALING ("rehab") is largely an exercise in the rest of society committing a massive act of DENIAL, rather than actually correcting the problem.
Always with any policies you'll notice that they do not really address the true cause of any problems, only the effects further down the chain of consequences. And doing that will only chop off some of those consequences temporarily. It's like digging up weeds and leaving the 'root' in the ground, which will only sprout more weed eventually. If you're not truly healing the CAUSE of something, it is not getting fixed. Period. This is why I laugh when, for example, the British government orders more security cameras to 'fix crime'. Like that will do anything. Or how software companies increase 'security' in order to try to combat hacking, even though the increase in 'security' increasingly UNDERMINES trust and erodes safety. People don't really want to fix the true cause of anything and the world will just keep manifesting problems all over the place until the real cause in our mind is healed.
Punishment just doesn't work. Counter-meaures and reactions do not work. Only love can work.
God is omnipresent. What this means is, the entirety of His being is fully present in every part of His being.
If you could conceive of God as taking up "space", then this means that in one particular location, the WHOLE entirety of God is fully present. And yet, simultaneously, in another location, the WHOLE entirety of God is present. This should give you a sense of how God is SHARING or is "stretched out" between these two locations, as though he completely DEFIES all sense of spatial limitations.
And when God is fully and completely present in one location, this does not detract from His presence in another location. He is able to be everywhere simultaneously and fully. This UTTERLY defies the entire ego's way of thinking and its world of separation, in which nothing can share with anything, an object cannot be in two places at once, and everything shows you a picture of there being some things in one place that are not in another.
For God to be able to be fully in multiple locations at once, defies absolutely all ego laws. God simply is UTTERLY UNLIMITED by any concept or law or structural or spatial construct. Jesus says that ALL of Him is in EVERY PART, fully and equally. And this is why every PART has been expressed as a SOUL, which is an entire WHOLE within itself because God expresses His wholeness in every part of Himself and creates WHOLE BEINGS.
The closest I can come to conceiving of God's nature is some kind of absolutely massive network of connections that share every part of Himself everywhere. Every part of God is EVERYWHERE. In God there IS no space or time. He is instantaneous omni-present and fully present in every speck of existence.
Similarly, God utterly transcends absolutely every limitation or difficulty or restriction or space-time concept that you can ever come up with. He quite literally, is INFINITE and UNLIMITED in every way. This is absolutely ego defying. Totally law-breaking and COMPLETELY OPPOSITE to this world.
This world was made as an attempt to shut out God by presenting a picture of what God is NOT LIKE, a world where nothing is shared, nothing is in multiple locations, there is no omnipresence, every location lacks something or has compromised with others, there is severe finite limitation placed on everything etc. This is totally unlike God.
In our development of trust, we ARE to learn to start TRUSTING and putting FAITH IN God's totally unlimited nature, in defiance of this world's totally LIMITING framework. We are to learn to OVERLOOK the limitations of matter and form, to NOT BELIEVE the sight of form, because "nothing is so blinding as sight of form". Form literally was made by the ego to create an artificial, unnatural "nature" that operates and looks NOTHING like God's nature. We have to learn to NOT BELIEVE IT, look past it, and recognize the sheer POSSIBILITY AND FREEDOM present in God.
This freedom breaks absolutely every law of this universe, because this entire universe is in OPPOSITION to God's nature. And so God's nature completely DEFIES every conceivable limitation. That means we have to learn, literally, to put our FAITH and trust in a God who can DO ANYTHING, a God who IGNORES orders of difficulty, a God who is completely FREE of all limitations and problems, and a God for whom NOTHING is impossible.
That means shifting our allegiance away from the ego, not just in our mind and perception but also in terms of what we think we are "stuck with" or what is "assumed" or "cannot be changed" or " is a given" in this world, including the so-called inevitability and irreversability of death, which is nothing more than one more ego statement that "This has the power to prevent God's will, and kill His Son, and He can do nothing about it." That is the ego's motto, and we've fallen for it.
Now it is time for a new thought system. A new way of looking at the world, and a new POWER to place our trust in. This is the foundation of all MIRACLE WORKING, which IS SUPERNATURAL, which defies and breaks all ego laws and proves that NOTHING CAN RESIST GOD'S POWER, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, and therefore show that this world is EASILY changed because it is merely an illusion.
If we are to be miracle workers, we can't be sitting on a fence looking happily upon a dying world. Our task is to demonstrate that to God anything is possible, and therefore that is NOTHING that cannot be healed or reversed, and even death - the consequences of sin, all torment and sickness and disaster and world-wide or even universe-wide problems CAN be reversed. "There is NOTHING my holiness cannot do", not even the most radically extraordinary things you could ever imagine being possible.
The limitations of this world are a total lie. We are to demonstrate this fact by performing miracles which place total faith in GOD'S COMPLETELY UNLIMITED NATURE. If we trust that HE CAN DO ANYTHING, then we too can do anything in cooperation with His Will.
You do not need to find the power to rise up against a seemingly mighty external power.
That external power is YOUR power. It's your own power that you have temporarily displaced into the hands of someone else.
You want that other person or group to hold onto your power for you, so that you can disown it.
This makes you think 'they' have power over you, since now you are left with like 10% power to their apparent 90% power. So now you see yourself as a vulnerable victim. And in that victimhood you will experience it as though.... I don't like how these other people have power.
But that's a fucking lie.
You want them to have the power because its YOUR power and you do not want to take YOUR power back from them.
And if you were to take back the 90% of YOUR power that you handed over to them, how much power would they be left with to hold over you?
ZERO!
So you do not need to find the courage to rise up and be like some kind of super opponent to a powerful enemy. You do not need to become some kind of dragon slayer or wage a massive war against a power that is completely fixed in the hands of others.
The war is YOU against YOURSELF.
You play them off as having power over you so that you can create a disguise, whereby it SEEMS like they conveniently have taken it from you against your will, and it can SEEM like you don't have any left. Oh, poor you, weak and powerless. Well, .... you are PLAY ACTING at being weak and powerless, when all the while you are fricking invincible.
So take YOUR power back. Take it back out of the hands of the people you have put it into, and recognize therefore that it was never THEIR power that you were afraid of, it was YOUR power that you were afraid of. You were afraid of it because in order TO put it into the hands of someone else, you have to use FEAR, which is a device for disownership and the illusion of rejection and is the greatest cover-up deceptive lie of all time. Fear makes it look like you are not having ANYTHING AT ALL to do with why your power has been displaced into someone else's hands, when in fact it is precisely this fear that GIVES it to them.
Take it back. Its yours. Own it. Be yourself. THEN.... who is out there with power over you? Who has power over the Son of God who knows that he is all powerful?
"I am not weak but strong". "I am not afraid but all powerful" - ACIM
So now instead of being a powerful opponent, or an equal power in a war, or rising up in protest and conflict with other people's apparent power, now in your empowerment you are invulnerable because THERE IS NO OTHER POWER OUT THERE.
You have the power. YOU are the one. And the ego has no power when you do not GIVE it any. And when you take back your power, you will have to stop being a victim and stop being afraid, and HAVING your power back will do that for you. You don't need to be super brave or courageous. You just need to own up to the fact that all the stuff outside of you that you are afraid of, ITS YOURS. Reclaim it and the fear device has no further purpose of separation and it must disappear. And you must be empowered.
And here is the climax.
Those who are empowered have no enemies.
Those who are empowered are invulnerable.
Those who are empowered are immortal.
Just as being forgiving ensures there is nothing to forgive, just as being awake ensures there is no reason to fall asleep, and just as being loving ensures there is nothing unloveable, so too does being empowered ensure there is nothing that you need to have power OVER because ALL of the power is yours.
If there were some power left out there that is not yours, you would still have enemies. There is ZERO power out there that is not yours. You share ALL POWER WITH GOD.
This is why.... Jesus says repeatedly...... FEAR NOT. You have nothing to fear because only love is real. If you choose to fear, you will STOP being powerful and lose your power. Don't do that.
Be all powerful.
In ACIM there is a theme which says ... we need to surrender control of our lives and hand it over to the Holy Spirit in trust.
We've put ourselves in a position of being greatly disadvantaged, blinded, confused, lost, alone. We can't see the whole picture, we don't have all the facts, we are lacking greatly.
And yet at the same time, we've adopted a position of trying to be an "authority". As though we have rejected the authority of God. We don't want God telling us what to do, what is true, how to live, or anything. We value our own judgement, we value our intellect, we value our experience and education, and think that we know it all - that we don't need or want any help.
In that position, we have to depend on our own strength - which is really a lack of strength, which makes us afraid. We have to make all decisions on our own, which leads to huge amounts of guilt and fear. We have to try to control everything, which leads to everything becoming uncontrollable. And we stubbornly refuse to admit to being mistaken.
What if God came along and said, hey, I will just plan your whole future for you, I will orchestrate everything that is going to happen, I will choose everything for you, I will make all decisions, I will smooth the way, I will cause the right people to show up at the right time, I will put you in the right situations, I will guide the right people to come to you for help from me, and we'll do this all together.
What would you say to handing over control and management of your whole life to the Holy Spirit? Would you accept an off-the-shelf inheritance, rather than one you made up yourself? Would you be willing to admit that you are not in a POSITION to be ABLE to correctly do anything on your own?
The course has several teachings that focus on this in different ways.
1) You cannot decide anything on your own
2) You're not in a position to judge anything correctly
3) You're supposed to put your whole future into God's hands
4) You're supposed to let the Holy Spirit make all decisions
5) You're supposed to go where you're directed
6) You'll be told specifically what to do
7) If you depend on yourself you become afraid
8 ) You are trying to take on the Holy Spirit's function
9) You're being asked to resign as your own teacher
10) There is an atonement plan in place
11) You're asked not to interfere with God's plan for salvation
12) The Holy Spirit leads you to eternal life by his planned events
13) You are nothing without God
14) The right people are being sent to you at the right time
15) You don't know anything because you lost knowledge
16) You have a big problem with God having authority
17) The ego in you has ruined your life and you trust it
18) You don't trust God to look after you
19) You think you are separate and autonomous
20) You keep trying to control and manage reality
The list goes on and on. The central core of all of this is you RECOGNIZING that you are NOT in a position of knowledge or capability. You have put yourself at a disadvantage, with limited abilities, a massive lack of awareness, a great inability to make wise decisions, you're making a mess of your own life. We've even given ourselves learning disabilities.
Rather than carrying on like a bunch of headless chickens, it would be better for us to have humility and humbleness and admit that we are ILL EQUIPPED to run our lives. That we do in fact NEED HELP. This takes surrender and willingness to look at the fact that we are essentially very disabled in our ability to be aware of the whole picture, or to know anything for sure.
In the course Jesus asks us to admit that we cannot judge on our own, and any time that we judge anything without total whole awareness we are making a mistake. That it's not just that we make bad judgements all the time, but factually we cannot actually make any judgement at all. Because we are so out of touch with reality and knowledge.
Instead of us being so arrogant, so dependent on ourselves, so alone and isolated, so putting our egos on pedestals, idols worshipping ourselves, thinking we're better than others and proud of all our useless education and worldly learning, perhaps we should be admitting that we generally suck. We have very limited resources, very limited perception, very limited truth and very limited ability.
So that being the case, we are far better off admitting that without God we are nothing. That since we're not aware of everything right now, we cannot do anything correctly. We are lost in the woods. We need help from outside of the scope of this world. And that means admitting that you are flawed and limited.
Egos everywhere will not like the idea whatsoever of admitting to being limited or incapable. Ego will take it as an affront, suggesting you are inadequate, uneducated, don't know enough, not successful enough, not enough social standing, not intelligent enough, stupid, flawed, lacking in some way. Ego does not like to admit that it is woefully inadequate at fulfilling the ROLE of God. Yet we are all in our egos trying to play at being God - being an authority, because we have a big problem with his authority.
How would it be, if you let the Holy Spirit run everything? Like, put your entire future in his hands, let him decide everything, let him tell you what to do, where to go, what to say. In which you TRUST that whatever he decides, whatever is in HIS plan, is right for all concerned. That you don't NEED to know the details. You don't NEED to be informed of the reasons and why and explanations of what it's based on - which all undermines trust. What if you just trusted that everything he's orchestrating and telling you to do is absolutely correct, and just went with it?
What if you don't need to know everything, don't need to figure everything out, don't need to explain the reasons for everything, don't need to "be sure", don't need to control and manage anything, don't need to find the correct judgement, don't even need to make any decisions? What if you just had faith and trusted? What if you just asked for His Help and listened and followed his guidance, saving you massive amounts of time and effort and thinking and worrying?
Adopting this position of humility and downplaying the ego's importance is not only VITAL to salvation and awakening, it is REQUIRED.
"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life." UrW136L19
"Resign NOW as your own teachers. THIS resignation will NOT lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourselves, and of the learning outcomes which have resulted." UrT11F11
"If you are trusting your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious, and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?" UrW47L1
"There is another advantage,- and a very important one, - in referring decisions to the Holy Spirit with increasing frequency. Perhaps you have not thought of this aspect, but its centrality is obvious. To follow the Holy Spirit's guidance is to let yourself be absolved of guilt. It is the essence of the Atonement. It is the core of the curriculum." UrM30A3
"Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow HIS plan of Salvation, in recognition of the FACT that you do NOT know what it is. His work is NOT your function, and unless you accept this, you CANNOT learn what your function IS." UrT9C6
"You would make no ATTEMPT to judge, because it would be quite apparent to you that you do not know WHAT ANYTHING MEANS." UrT15F1
"The giving up of judgment, the obvious prerequisite for hearing God's Voice, is usually a fairly slow process, not because it is difficult, but because it is apt to be perceived as personally insulting. The world's training is directed toward achieving a goal in direct opposition to that of our curriculum. The world trains for reliance on one's judgment as the criterion for maturity and strength. Our curriculum trains for the relinquishment of judgment as the necessary condition of salvation." UrM10A2
"You are still convinced YOUR understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and MAKES IT WHAT IT IS. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing." UrT18E8
"The Thought of God protects you, cares for you, makes soft your resting place and smooth your way, lighting your mind with happiness and love." UrW165L2
"EVERYTHING you have taught yourselves has made your power more and more obscure to you. You know not WHAT it is, nor WHERE. You have made a SEMBLANCE of power, and a SHOW of strength, so pitiful that it MUST fail you. For power is not seeming strength, and truth is beyond a semblance of any kind." UrT14G1
"You taught YOURSELVES the most unnatural habit of NOT communicating with your Creator." UrT13H16
"You do not know how to OVERLOOK errors, or you would not make them. It would merely be further error to think either that you do NOT make them, or that you can CORRECT them without a GUIDE TO CORRECTION." UrT9C2
"The Bible tells you to become as little children. Little children recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they ASK WHAT IT MEANS. Do not make the mistake of believing that YOU understand what YOU perceive, for its meaning IS lost to you. But the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning FOR you, and if you will LET Him interpret it FOR you, He will restore what you have thrown away. As long as you THINK YOU KNOW its meaning, you will see no need to ask it OF Him. You do not know the meaning of ANYTHING you perceive. NOT ONE THOUGHT YOU HOLD IS WHOLLY TRUE." UrT10H6
"There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:
"I do not know the thing I am, and THEREFORE do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world and on myself." Yet in this learning is salvation born. And what you are will TELL you of Itself. UrT31E16
I would like to propose that TRUE miracle working entails the USE OF the POWER OF GOD. And nothing less than total absolute unlimited power!!!!!!!!!!
A miracle is thus not a mere small shift in a perception, or a slight change of mind. True miracle working is GOD'S POWER working through you.
God's power is unlimited. It is an absolutely massive strength so strong and so intense that it can EASILY do anything at all - even move a mountain, part an ocean, calm a storm, create a world.
Intense absolute unlimited infinite power ENGENDERS miracles.
If you read carefully you will find the course is very obvious about this. Quotes are below. Miracles entail the use of the power of God. The power of God and not of you engenders them. There is nothing your holiness cannot do. NOTHING. Because the power of God is in it, and his power is UNLIMITED POWER.
This is something SORELY missing from so much ACIM teaching and teachers and views of the course and interpretations of what a miracle is. True undiluted miracles wield the absolutely unlimited and unstoppable POWER OF GOD.
This power can heal the sick, it can reverse death, it can move mountains, it can convert objects into other objects, it can multiply food, it can calm storms, it can create entire worlds. It its the true power of your mind which can DO ANYTHING.
We are SO used to seeing ourselves as small little tiny little humans, powerless little victim humans, weak and afraid and vulnerable little specks of nothing. Such that we are extremely OUT OF TOUCH with the power of God. But A Course in Miracles is actually teaching us to get back in touch with that power and to facilitate the power of God to move through you.
I have experienced once, so far, the immense enormity of this power, and it DID produce an instantaneous healing miracle including a total reversal of all symptoms in the body and a healing of the mind so strong that the person forgot they were ever even in pain. This power is immense, and you COULD be intimidated by it. We ARE afraid of it. It is the power of God. And until we can stop being afraid that God is so incredible powerful, we will not be able to work with this power or do the holy spirit's works.
Miracles VIOLATE THE LAWS OF SPACE AND TIME and break ALL THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. This is not just about your mind or you waking up or you shifting perception. There is nothing your holiness cannot **DO**. There is nothing the POWER OF GOD cannot **DO**!!!!!!!!!
We must stop talking about miracles like they are these powerless little shifts and changes in the mind. There is a reason that Jesus talks over and over again about how they use the POWER OF GOD. There is no "power" in changing your mind a bit or being a bit more loving. You have to think more in terms of an absolute infinite immoveable force SO strong that nothing in all the universe can move against it. That is God's power.
"Miracle-working entails a full realization of the ***power of thought***, and real avoidance of miscreation." UrT2E18
""It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains. It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it. People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them." UrT2E10
"The ***power of God***, and NOT of you, engenders miracles. The miracle ITSELF is but the witness that you HAVE ***the power of God*** in you." UrT14F7
"The ***power to work Miracles*** BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability. I repeat that you will see Miracles through your hands through MINE." UrT1B23K
"***Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest.*** Through your holiness the power of God is made available. And there is ***nothing the power of God cannot do.***" UrW38L1
"There is nothing my holiness cannot do because ***the power of God lies in it.***" URW38L5
"It is therefore ***in my power to change every mind*** along with mine, for ***mine is the power of God***." UrW54L4
"Then ***let the power of God work in you and through you***, that His Will and yours may be done." URW69L7
"It is only your weakness that will depart from you in this practice, for it is ***the practice of the power of God in you.***" UrT15C7
"There is now ***no limit on his power***, because it is the Power of God." UrM24A2
"***The power of God***, from which they both arise, is yours as surely as it is His." UrT14G15
"Behind the dark doors which you have closed lies nothing, BECAUSE nothing CAN obscure ***the gift of God***. It is the CLOSING of the doors, that interferes with recognition of the ***power of God*** that shines in you." UrT14D10
"Who can limit the power of God Himself? Who then can say ***who can be healed of what***, and what must remain beyond ***God's power to forgive***?" UrM23A7
"***The power of God***, and all His Love, without limit, will support you, as you seek only your place in the plan of Atonement arising from His Love." UrT16H10
"***The power of God* will support every effort you make on behalf of the magnitude of His dear Son." UrT15D5
"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you CAN see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for ***miracles violate every law of reality***, as this world judges it. ***Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended***, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them. Perceiving His RESULTS, you will understand where He MUST be, and finally KNOW what He is." UrT11H3
For me I want a course that can be learned, is accessible, easy enough to understand, and can be applied without too much hassle. I think A Course in Miracles does this, and that Jesus is an excellent teacher. I think he knows what he's talking bout.
I think he is very masterful and wise and has taken huge efforts in the writing of ACIM to try to be as clear and obvious and relatable as possible, so that as many peopleĀ as possible can learn the course and use it correctly. After all, it would be a pretty awful course if it was so obscure and difficult and hard to fathom that no-one could actually succeed at it.
"Contradictions in MY word mean lack of understanding, or scribal failures, which I make every effort to correct."
"...a host of related fallacies, including the misbelief that God rejected man and forced him out of the Garden of Eden, or that I am misdirecting you. I have made every effort to use words which are ALMOST impossible to distort, but man is very inventive when it comes to twisting symbols around."
For me, I recognize that Jesus makes some VERY SIMPLE straightforward statements. He states facts, in the clearest way possible. He uses words which are familiar to us, and which have associations with things in our world that we recognize. He isn't speaking some foreign gobbledygook language, or trying to make things obscure. He is very direct, factual, honest, obvious and clear.
So for example in the course he uses some terms such as "Earth". I think we ALL recognize that a reference to Earth is talking about the physical planet that we're on, the ball of rock, which is floating in space. Planet Earth. I think 100% of readers should agree that Earth refers to that object. If you think that it DOES NOT refer to that object, or that "Earth is NOT really a physical planet and has some other kind of reality", something is wrong.
Similarly he talks often about the body. Even already as I write this sentence you have an association in your mind which recognizes I just mentioned the human flesh-and-bones body. That's what the body is. My human body, your biological body, the bodies of people walking down the street.
This isn't rocket science. This does not have to be difficult or hard to understand. And it especially shouldn't call for us to have to perform massive mental gymnastics, get subtle nuances, re-word things, redefine meanings, shift things around, or have massive long debates about what it means. For fucks's sake, the body is just the body!
So for example if he gives a simple statement such as: "At no time does the body exist", we're supposed to learn that he really does mean that literally. The human flesh and bones body that we're used to walking around in, does not really exist. That's the teaching. That's the fact. That's his intention.
When he then also tells us for example that "The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist", the most obvious thing to learn is that once again, this human flesh and bones body does not really exist. Everything about it is geared towards separation, and it DOES NOT EXIST. NOTHING about it exists, in any way, to any degree, anywhere.
He goes on to reiterate the same simple truths in many ways, in many forms, in many statements. e.g. "As nothing, which it is, the body cannot be meaningfully endowed with the attributes of Christ." or "The body's nothingness", or "God did not create the body." etc. All of these tell us the same exact thing. The body is nothing, it doesn't exist, it's not really there. There is NOTHING ELSE to learn from this. There is NO OTHER MEANING.
You SHOULD be learning therefore that because of the many times Jesus has reiterated this simple teaching, one of many, you should be trying to learn and accept that "your body" is not really there, the bodies that you see around you don't really exist, and there are no real bodies. You should NOT be attempting to SKEW this, or to find loopholes, or ways to keep the body.
You should not be trying to explain how there is some VERSION of the body that is going to be kept. Or how references to the body are NOT really referring to the body. Or how the body is "not really physical" but is something else. Or how when he talks of the body he is only talking about it "as the ego sees it", or "as you perceive it". We have to stop tacking on all these extra clauses and exceptions and ways of DISTORTING the very basic most obvious teaching. The body is NOTHING. It's not there.
This means that all of the atoms, do not exist. It means that, the flesh and bones and organs and eyeballs and hands and feet, do not exist. Not one single part of its energy exists. None of its fluids or chemicals, none of the gut bacteria, none of the cells, nothing that gives it space, or takes up space, or is made of matter, or energy, or thought, or ANYTHING, none of it is there. That we should not be attempting to redefine it, keep it, view it differently in order to have it still exist somehow, or anything else. We need to learn to accept, THERE IS NO BODY. Zero. Totally non-existent in all places at all times in every way forever.
This is a simple teaching. It's not hard. It's not meant to be hard. You aren't required to study this course deeply for decades in an attempt to fathom the deeper mysteries of what these simple statements mean. It does not take for you to do the workbook lessons. It does not require for you too read the text 100 times. You should get it as soon as you read it the first time. The body is nothing and does not exist. It's not that hard. Jesus is not being obscure or clever or mystical or difficult or trying to tell us something in a very obscure context which only advanced students can ever get. This course is for YOU. ANYONE. To learn easily.
Statements about the body have implications. If the body is nothing, then it stands to normal sane reasoning, that anything the body is "made of" does not exist. For example if the body has carbon atoms in it, which it does, then carbon does not exist. And this by extension means, that trees which are also made of carbon, do not exist. Any if the skin cells fall from the body and become dust and contribute to the soil of the earth, then also the soil of the earth does not exist. And if the body breathes the air and depends on it, then so too is the air not real either. And as you take foods into the body and digest them and they BECOME the body, this must indicate that those foods, and their original forms, and the plants and trees and sources they came from, ALSO must not exist.
This is very simple reasoning, it's not rocket science. It's simple common sense. If your body doesn't exist as Jesus spells out clearly and easily, then it also MUST mean that anything around the body does not exist, the body's environment does not exist, and the entire cosmos does not exist. This is a very sensible and sane and rational conclusion. It's all made of the same stuff, so it applies to all of it. That means therefore that planet earth, does not exist. We could rephrase Jesus's statements to EASILY mean the same thing. e.g. "At no time does the planet Earth exist. It is either anticipated or remembered, but never exists just now." "The planet earth is a dream." "The planet earth's nothingness." "As nothing, which it is, planet earth cannot be meaningfully invested with the attributes of christ." "God did not create the planet earth."
The course is NOT meant to be ANY more complicated than this. All readers should be coming to the same conclusions. In fact there shouldn't even really be much of a process involved in "drawing conclusions". You should be seeing that Jesus has already done most of the work for you. He's already EXPLICITLY telling you outright, LITERALLY, that the body is nothing and does not exist. And he extends that in many ways to include the world as well.
"There is no world. "Earth, the other's sorry outcome, which is heaven's opposite in every way." "The place where it is reflected is not real." "The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it." etc. Very simple, the course teaches normal everyday readers that planet earth does not really exist. Which is a very profound teaching. And it's our job to ACCEPT this and recognize it. But it becomes incredible at times the lengths that some students will go to, to avoid this. It is driven in part by the STRONG belief that people bring with them TO the course, based on prior experiences, that the planet seems to them to be real. All the pain, all the misery, all the experiences, the memories, all the bodies, all the relationships, all the events, which all seem to contribute in our minds to suggesting that Earth really does exist. But ALL of that is FLYING IN THE FACE of what Jesus is telling us, and so we have a lot to learn, or rather a lot to UNLEARN. Because we've taught ourselves a lot of stuff that is NOT TRUE, and is NOT what the course is teaching us.
That means we have to be willing to be mistaken, we have to be willing to question our beliefs, we have to be open minded to consider an alternative, and we have to also keep sight of THE PLAIN AND OBVIOUS. And of what makes simple logical sense. When we are reading something like the body being nothing and not existing, and we can't quite bring ourselves to accept it is true, because of our commitment to identifying with the body, we will DEFEND AGAINST what Jesus is saying. And then even a simple statement such as "the body does not exist" will be met with doubt, suspicion, questioning, deception, distortion and attempts to have it NOT mean what it means. Our egos will try to CHANGE its meaning and NOT SEE the obvious.
"We will use this simple lesson in the obvious because it has results we cannot miss."
Even the most obviously, BLATANT statements can be distorted if the mind is not ready or willing to listen to it. We can quite easily project onto the course a vast array of false perceptions. We can mangle it out of all recognition. We can take even the simplest clearest statements and FIND WAYS in which we can try to justify that they DO NOT mean what they mean. We can even take statements and give them completely OPPOSITE meanings, and feel "okay with that", as if it makes sense to us. As if it doesn't seem to contradict OTHER things we believe, because in our arrogance we think we already know what is true and don't want to question it.
To accept even the most simple truths in the course sometimes may require us to go through a tremendous purification process, letting go of faulty beliefs and backgrounds, discarding old baggage and world views, even questioning our most deeply held beliefs about who and what we are. And we do not WANT to do that. So we will resist it, and will instead NOT SEE the most simply obvious truths in front of us. Because we don't want to. We want the truth to be something else. And we do not TRUST it, because we trust something else.
So we have to sort through and sort out ALL of our other beliefs and find out if they line up with what Jesus is telling us. And that's going to be some rough territory because we COULD start trying to educate ourselves as to "what he means", and teach ourselves things that he DOES NOT mean. After all, if we don't even really know what is true, and are supposed to learn from him, then we need to really be willing to put aside out OWN teaching of ourselves and open up to BEING TAUGHT and actually learning something new. Otherwise we're not really being students, we're just being spewers and projectors of what we already decided is true.
Not that it takes rocket science to grasp the basic facts. Many things in ACIM are NOT supposed to be difficult. It's just that sometimes the truth is so profound and deep and intense that we do not LIKE it and do not WANT it. So we avoid it with an incredible array of creative means. An incredible arsenal of distortions, twists, defenses, manipulations, bandaids, and all manner of other strategies to not directly see or recognize or accept the simplest facts. No one with an ego wants to accept "there is no world" at its fullest intensity. And no one who believes they are a body REALLY wants to accept fully that their bodies don't exist.
But even with all these obstacles, even with learning disabilities, self inflicted filters, and all manner of unwillingness and denial, there are STILL some very, VERY basic aspects to Jesus's teaching that we all should really learn and agree to. The SIMPLEST of truths. Such as that the human physical biological body has absolutely no reality, value, existence, or meaning. It is NOT THERE. And also by extension, that this planet, the physical world, which is like the body and of the body, also is NOT THERE. These are fundamentally two cornerstone principles of ACIM. To not at LEAST accept them intellectually is going to produce a huge array of distortions of the course's teachings, and it has already done so.
"A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct. This sense of separation would never have arisen if you had not distorted your perception of truth, and had thus perceived yourself as lacking."
Let's be clear. Every single manifestation of form in this world, all problems, all upsets and conflicts, every single sickness, all forms of "life" and death, every event, all people in all bodies, all creatures, all planets, every single civilization, all of time and space... absolutely all of this is a SYMPTOM of lacking God. ie being separate from God.
There is not "God over here" and "a world of problems over there". The world and its problems are not distinct problems, or many problems. Nor are they just random problems or nothing to do with your relationship with God.
EVERY form of matter, every event in time, every spatial relationship, is a symptom of attempting to be without God.
All of these things are built from lack. They are all based on the idea of lacking love. This ENTIRE UNIVERSE, is a picture of the attempted crucifixion of God's Son. Or to put it another way, this entire universe is what we will seem to experience when we try to reject God.
There is absolutely no exception to this. There are not random things in the world that have "other reasons" for existing. There are no sicknesses which have come about for "other reasons". There is no death that happens because of circumstances or free-willed events outside of this one problem.
The separation from God is THE ONLY PROBLEM in this entire universe, and it is the source and explanation for everything in this universe.
This also tells us what the solution is, and what the solution is going to "do". See, the problem is only one problem - believing you are not with God. The solution is coming to recognize this is not true and that you are with God and never left. What's going to happen to all of the SYMPTOMS of separation, when the separation has ended? What's going to happen to the EFFECTS of lack and being without God, on a universal scale - absolutely massive scale, when you return to God?
All of these things are going to DISAPPEAR.
These problems are not going to disappear merely as the result of finding answers or figuring out how to fix broken stuff or building a better toolkit or whatever else. There IS only one problem - separation. When THAT problem is fixed, every other symptom and consequence of this wrong decision will be undone completely by the Holy Spirit.
So let's put it this way. Every sickness in the world is actually being fed by and based on and coming from and symptomatic of, the absence of God. That's the ONLY cause.
Every death that occurs, is entirely related to the attempt to be separate from Life, from God, and to prove there is no God. When this is disproved, what's going to happen to death? It will be undone completely. This is the resurrection.
Every war, every argument, every upset, every mistrust, every state of suffering and lack, every lack and emptiness, is all the absence of God. Period. There is no other lack and no other problem.
All of the FORMS of problems, are designed by ego as illusions, to try to trick you to believing that not only are there many very different problems, but also separation from God is not the problem.
While you're fixated on fixing the leaky pipes in your kitchen, you're probably not noticing that it's got anything whatsoever to do with being away from God. While you're trying to do your taxes, you're probably unaware of the fact that there would be no taxes without separation from God. When you're struggling with a relationship, thinking it's all about the two of you and nothing else, you may not realize it's entirely about how you are failing to relate fully with God.
There is NO PROBLEM in this world, and NO WORLD, other than "within" the BELIEF, that you are separate from God.
Returning to God solves every problem. "There is no problem that trust would not solve now".
Lesson 109 "I rest in God" : ""I rest in God." Completely undismayed, this thought will carry you through storms and strife, past misery and pain, past loss and death, and onward to the certainty of God. There is no suffering it cannot heal. There is no problem that it cannot solve. And no appearance but will turn to truth before the eyes of you who rest in God."
Apparently according to Jesus, if you simply be in God all your problems are solved! It's true.
If you have a bunch of fears, doubts, questions, concerns, worries, and you go try to commune with God for a while... if you let God in even a little bit, if you sense love even a little bit, you might notice something. All your questions vanish. Why?
Why didn't you get your important questions answered with what seem to be the answers or form of answers you were anticipating were needed? Because the questions themselves were the problem. The questions were arising out of a lack of God. They were forms of fear, coming from believing God does not love you. When you receive God's love, you have no NEED for the questions anymore. It all just vanishes.
Love is the answer. Love is all that you need. Love can solve everything. Love is the answer given by God, as the Holy Spirit. It literally is the solution to all separation, and is the solution to this ENTIRE universe, because it literally UNDEOS this entire universe. This whole universe is based on and is the expression of the belief in separation being real. When recognized as unreal, this universe simply has to vanish. ie be recognized as having never really existed.
This is the meaning also of "there is no world". There is no universe here. Only God's creation of Heaven is real. This is why this universe is going to "disappear", ie be recognized as having never really existed at all. It's purely an illusion and an hallucination.
There is nothing in the world that cannot be solved by God. There is nothing in the world that God cannot heal. There is nothing in the world with the power to stop the Son of God from returning to happiness and health. There is nothing in the world capable of preventing the undoing of the universe, because it is God's will that you be with Him forever. And you are.
A belief in separation takes place within your own mind. Your own mind becomes divided. A portion of your will goes into one part and the rest into another. Eventually this forms the conscious self and the unconscious self.
Separation leads to a splitting out of cause from effect, receiving from giving, and other from self. But because it splits the will, it results in two opposing wills which do not see things the same way.
"Being in two minds" means having an ego mind - a divided mind at war with itself. It must produce indecision and an inability to resolve conflict. It in fact must produce conflict, because one part of will is acting to cancel out the other. This creates a standoff, or a stalemate, or a situation of simultaneous push and pull.
The result of two wills acting against one another in opposite directions is that they will cancel the effects of each other and create a paralysis. One will tries to move in a given direction, the other will stops it. The other will tries to move in a given direction, the first will stops it. Nothing happens.
With two opposing wills trying to operate at the same time, there must conflict - an inner war with yourself. You will thwart everything you try to express. This conflict is literally the same thing as insanity, because the single whole mind is attempting to achieve two opposite and incompatible goals at the same time. It produces impossibility - which is the opposite of the possible. Miracles are another name for possibility. And with God, all things are possible.
When you are in this world and are in two minds, ie you have an ego and therefore two wills, you are literally against yourself. You are experiencing self attack. Your will and ambitions will be thwarted, sabotaged and undermined. You will become "stuck", ineffective, powerless and frozen.
Ultimately this leads to fear which will stop you in your tracks. Fear is a state of intensely experiencing separation between yourself and yourself, where one part of you seems like you and the rest seems like a separate enemy. Fear is paralyzing. It puts a freeze on action, it strips both parts of mind of all power, collapses the power of will and is an attempt to extinguish yourself.
No wonder then that when your mind is split, you cannot manifest miracles, you cannot see yourself as sharing God's power, you do not see yourself as causal, and every time you try to even perform a miracle it becomes thwarted and nothing seems to happen. You get used to this mode of being un-mraculous, believing it is normal to have no power over anything.
The only reason you can't make objects move, raise the dead, heal the sick, levitate or whatever else, is because your mind and heart is not WHOLE, with a single focus or goal. It is divided against itself. You try to cause stuff to happen, but the rest of you tries to stop it.
A simple example is that you attempt to produce a miracle but you "ask" for something to change, you fear that it won't change, you have doubt about seeing results, you look to form to change to see if something worked, and generally undermine yourself. You waver. You lose sight of the truth. You listen to other people's doubts and buy into the appearance that it isn't working. You listen to the ego. And this basically cancels your efforts.
But you'll think that all of these things are happening against your will or that you're really trying hard to make this miracle happen. PART of you is. ONE of your wills is. But you have another separated will - part 2 - which you are still actually USING, albeit largely unconsciously, to sabotage your efforts.
Your belief in fear splits your will. Your belief in a lack of authority splits your will. Your belief in not being completely causal, or not having power over anything, splits your mind. If your mind becomes split like this, you are literally working against yourself. One hand is reaching to express a miracle, the other quickly wrestles with it and stops it. Not physically, but in your mind and perception.
To work miracles requires an allegiance to the truth, and a loyalty and clarity about staying true to it no matter what illusions present. Holding fast regardless of things appearing to not work, or even if they seem to become worse. Is it the truth? No. But if you take it in and make it real, that's you using the other half of your will against yourself.
The only reason that a miracle won't happen, effectively, is because you stopped being causal and turned yourself into an effect. You paralyzed yourself - dis-empowered yourself. It is your false perceptions which strip you of your sharing of God's power. You can't work miracles when you're divided against yourself and thus God. It's like asking God to stop flowing. It means you do not really know what you want, and uncertainty does not produce the certainty of God's power.
Another way of saying that is that when your mind/will is split, you are asking for two things at once, which is like asking for nothing clearly at all. So you get nothing, or you "mis-create", and end up with effects that you don't think you asked for.
When you "ask" by focusing on only one thing, wholly and clearly, it must be given you. Therefore realize if the only thing stopping your miracles was your own divided will, once your will, mind and heart are whole, you will not stop yourself, and no-one else has any power to do so either. Anything is possible.
Being so used to having a split will, which renders us practically powerless and inept, we are not accustomed to being solely causal. We are not used to the power of the mind when it is expresses in one direction, with one intention, one focus, one belief, one thought, one love. We are not accustomed to giving and receiving being one. And we are not used to having so much authority over illusions.
The mind has massive creative power. It never stops being creative, Jesus says. It's just that we keep using it against itself and thus keep mis-creating, producing effects which conflict with part of what we asked for, or we create things which attack ourselves, or things which seem unwanted or a mistake. There are no mistakes. You ARE getting what you're asking for, it's just that you keep asking from a confused state of not really knowing what you want.
What happens when you cause and you do not stop yourself? You create. That's what produces miracles, manifestations, signs, healings, wonders, etc. Jesus was masterful at this, coming from such a state of pure love that He could express all of God's power, undivided, certain, with great authority, and there was nothing He could not do. You can be this way also.
I asked Holy Spirit how better to produce miracles. He said, "be truth." Truth is absolute. All or nothing. Commitment. Certainty. Confidence. Authority. Power.