It sounds counter-intuitive, but the more you try to rely on your own separate self, the more afraid you will become.

This means you are trusting the ego, and since the ego is completely unfounded and uncertain, it can only lead to a lack of reliability.

People the world over champion the idea of learning more, developing more skills, becoming moresuccessful, being independent, relying on yourself, gaining confidence, being a superhero, etc... but all of these are goals of the ego trying to bolster itself up to be a stronger ego.

What we really need is to let go of this and learn to trust Spirit/God. We don't have to tackle this life all on our own. We don't have to deal with the crap that happens all by ourselves. We are ill equipped. We are limited. We need help from beyond our 'self' - beyond our ego self.

And that means we're going to have to learn to trust God. Not just as an intellectual exercise, but actual real trust, openness, dependence on and teamwork with God.

When we share in God's power we are far more powerful and secure and confident than we can EVER be trusting the ego.

It is more important to heal the problem than to figure out why the problem is happening.

The ego believes if it can figure out the origins of the problem, or what is happening, it will then have an answer and can solve the problem.

This has been the main mode of operation of my own ego for a very long time, trying to explain and find answer to the story of the problem, by going further into the story.

The ego will go to great lengths to continue dwelling on trying to describe and understand the problem, as though not actually wanting to ever really solve it, yet at the same time identifying itself as a 'really good problem solver'.

The way God works, God does not dwell on problems. He doesn't attempt to analyze them or figure them out or describe them or go into detail about what is wrong. He doesn't dwell on the causes and background 'story' of why there is a sickness or why something is happening.

Instead, God simply restores. Now.

What do you want? The practical step of healing and restoration and to be completely done with this, or to get lost in 10,000 stories lasting 10,000 days about what has gone wrong?

"I am forever an effect of God."

While it is wonderful to reflect on your truly divine attributes, such as your immortality, invulnerability, permanence and unchangeability, we should also recognize that the ONLY reason you have these attributes is because of something other than yourself.

It is purely because of God that you are immortal. God is the one who is causing you to be what you are. You are eternal because of him, not because of yourself. You are permanent and unchangeable because of him. You are protected and safe because of him. You can never die because of him.

You are an effect of God. God causes you to exist. His will puts you in place and holds you in place forever. He wills what you be, and you have absolutely no say in this. Nor can anything in heaven or earth ever change this fact of what you are. God's will cannot be opposed and nothing can ever act against it.

You did not exist when God created you, so you had no input into what you were created to be. God himself, and only himself, decided what you are and what he wanted you to be. He extended himself as thought and life to create you and gave you everything that you are. You have absolutely nothing that does not come from God, and everything you have is inherited. You have not gathered up extra stuff, made yourself out of other things, nor added a single thing to what God has created you to be.

Jesus: "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."

You only have what you have been GIVEN by God, and you can only be what God has given you to be. You have been given AS a blessing to the whole Kingdom. God blessed creation by creating you as a gift. You are exactly what GOD intends that you be, and you can never change this. God creates you, causes you, maintains you, and keeps you going.

"God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind."

The only reason you are immortal is because God has GIVEN you immortality and sustains your immortality for you. The only reason you are sinless is because "My sinlessness is guaranteed by God", meaning that God himself makes it impossible for you to be anything other than innocent. God gave you his own innocence and shared it with you, and so you must be innocent because he is.

Everything about you is inherited from your creator and is shared with him. This does NOT mean that God handed over some things to you and let them go. It does not mean God died off and you got an inheritance afterwards. Nor does it mean God was depleted by giving everything to you. What it does mean is that the giving to you is active and ongoing, that you SHARE IN what you have WITH him, all the time and always, such that while it is your inheritance, it is STILL HIS as well.

"I am forever host to God."

"Love created my like itself"

So love created you loving, immortality created you immortal, invulnerability created you to be invulnerable, innocence created you to be innocent, perfection created you perfect, peace created you peaceful, light created you light, eternity created you eternal, unchangeability created you unchangeable, the absolute created you absolute, holiness created you holy, and happiness created you happy.

It is because of God that you are what you are, and because of no-one else. This is why you naturally are completely grateful to God because you ONLY have what HE has given you, and he has given you everything.

"God loves His Son forever, and His Son RETURNS his Father's love forever."

The ego would like to claim that you are immortal, but it would like to do it in such a way as to say God has nothing to do with it. That you aren't immortal because of him, but that you are a standalone independently immortal being in your own right, and because of yourself. It wants to claim credit for God's work. In this way the ego aggrandizes itself and inflates itself pretending to be like the sons of God or God himself but without God's causation. Without acknowledging God as your father.

To recognize you are immortal, permanent and unchangeable, you have to also acknowledge God is your creator. You are protected BY God and he does not allow anything to happen to you. Not only are you invulnerable because God says you are, you are invulnerable because he causes you to be invulnerable, and because you share HIS invulnerability.

"It is God's Will that nothing touch His Son except Himself, and nothing else comes nigh unto him. He is as safe from pain as God Himself, Who watches over him in everything."

"And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error."

"God is my strength. Freedom is his gift."

So because God is immortal and invulnerable, innocent and holy, perfect and permanent, unchangeable and absolute, so are you. He has created you by sharing himself with you, and you have inherited all his attributes. You are forever a host to him, and therefore he is in you. What is yours, is ALSO his, because it is shared with him. You have nothing exclusive of your own, you only have what you have been GIVEN. And you must share it in order to keep it.

This means that you have to give life and immortality and love and innocence and peace and freedom and unchangeability, in order to retain it in your mind. It must be shared. If it is not shared, you close it off to yourself and stop sharing IN it. God's gifts are given to you, as you, but also THROUGH you. Because YOU are a gift of God that is being given BY God TO OTHERS. What you have received from God, you have to pass on, as in the "pay it forward" idea.

This is why EXTENSION (of creation) is natural to all of God's creations. God extends himself to give himself to you, so that you can give God to others. Everyone shares in everything all the time. You are permanent because God is permanent and his permanence is yours. You are unchangeable because God cannot be changed. You are immortal because God is immortal. You can never die because God is eternal life.

Therefore you MUST still be exactly as God created you to be, originally and without flaw, without distortion, without degradation or decay. You must STILL be wholly innocent because of God's guarantee of your sinlessness, which is his own. You must still be perfect and immaculate and unharmed and unchanged. And not one single thing in all the world has ever altered what you are ever so slightly. You are the will of God, and what God wills lasts forever. "Lesson 326 "I am forever an Effect of God."

"Father, I was created in Your Mind, a holy Thought that never left its home. I am forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are my Cause. As You created me I have remained. Where You established me I still abide, and all Your attributes abide in me because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are indistinguishable. Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. And as it is in Heaven, so on earth. Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your Effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, where earth will disappear, and separate things unite in glory as the Son of God."

"I am as God created me.

I will remain forever as I was

Created by the Changeless like Himself.

And I am one with Him, and He with me."

The truth is that you are incapable of change. You cannot change yourself. No one else can change you. The world cannot change you. Even God cannot change you. You are exactly and precisely as you were created to be, and have never changed at all.

You have dreamed that change is possible, and this has produced dreams where you changed into something you're not. Dreams where you transitioned from innocence to guilt, from wholeness to destruction, from eternal life to death. But all of these must be a fantasy if God's will be that you are unchangeable forever.

It is because you cannot be changed by anything, that you are immortal. You are permanent and you will live forever. Since you cannot be changed, you cannot be attacked or hurt, threatened or destroyed. You cannot become corrupt or turn to evil. Nor can you alter your real identity and nature. Unchangeable, unchanged, and unchanging, you must still be exactly as God created you to be. You must still be exactly the original self that was given, without the slightest degradation or aging or decay or transformation. Without growth or withering. Without a change of any kind.

Your complete lack of change guarantees permanent peace. If nothing can disturb you, your peace cannot be disturbed. If nothing can attack and change you, you have no reason for worry. If there is no power in all of existence capable of redefining you, you are not in danger of being overthrown, rewritten, altered, abused, hurt or forgotten.

You are absolute and fixed. You are infinite and unlimited. You are immortal and endless. You do not falter, you do not fail. You do not have good days and bad days. You do not cease, and you do not begin. There is nothing you can do to destroy yourself or anyone else. And nothing in all existence can ever bring an end to your life.

"You have NOT attacked God, and you DO love Him. Can you change your reality? No-one can will to destroy himself. When you think you are attacking your SELF, it is a sure sign that you hate what you think you are. And this, and ONLY this, can BE attacked by you. What you THINK you are CAN be hateful, and what this strange image makes you do can be very destructive. The destruction is no more real than the image, but those who make idols DO worship them. The idols are nothing, but their worshippers are the Sons of God in sickness."

This is what you have to remember and attune to if you want to be at peace. Only the immortal can afford to rest eternally, certain of their endless indestructibility and invulnerability. Sure of their absolute perfect protection by the laws of God. Convinced that nothing in the world of dreams can alter them in any way, upset them, disturb them, horrify them, harm them or destroy them.

You are completely unchangeable. The only meaningful change possible, now that you have dreamed of change being possible, is to change your mind about the belief that change is possible. This means learning to accept that you really cannot change yourself, and you have never changed yourself. That you cannot change others either, except to restore to them the full awareness and expression of who they already are as given by God.

Forgiveness looks upon the unchangeable and changes it not. It is a direct recognition of reality and truth. It sees only the truth that sin has never been possible, because to sin is to change. If God's creation were capable of being changed, in effect attacked, this indeed would be a sin. Believing such a change has been accomplished must be a mistake. God's Kingdom has never even for a moment lost anything, nor has it been even mildly influenced.

Real life is always real because reality is changeless. It is precisely because it never changes that it has reality at all. To change is to be conditional and to depend on something other than what is. The truth never changes and this is why it is true. It withstands all assaults and all attempts to modify or define it. You cannot define what is true. What is true is of God. You can but accept its changelessness and be at peace.

"Reality is changeless. It is this that MAKES it real, and KEEPS it separate from all appearances. It MUST transcend all form to be itself. It CANNOT change."

"Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception both."

"BECAUSE reality is changeless is a miracle already there to heal all things that change, and offer them to you to see in happy form, devoid of fear."

"The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen."

"Nothing is asked of you but to ACCEPT the Changeless and Eternal that abide in him, for YOUR Identity is there."

"Who uses but Christ's vision finds a peace so deep and quiet, undisturbable and wholly changeless, that the world contains no counterpart."

"Give thanks as well that you are changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself."

"What is timeless IS ALWAYS THERE because its BEING is eternally changeless."

"You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever loved, as limitless as Your Creator, and completely changeless and forever pure."

"Put all your faith in the Love of God within you, eternal, changeless and forever unfailing."

"If you could realize NOTHING is changeless BUT the Will of God, this course would not be difficult for you."

"This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as GOD created it. But YOU think that you HAVE changed it, as long as you learn through the ego."

"When you heal, that is exactly what you ARE learning (doing). You are recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by perceiving (knowing) that he could NOT have changed his mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in him. It is ONLY the Holy Spirit in him that never changes His mind."

"And now God's KNOWLEDGE, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its Kingdom."

"When ANYTHING threatens your peace of mind, ask yourself "Has God changed His Mind about me?" Then ACCEPT His decision, for it is indeed changeless, and refuse to change your mind about YOURSELF."

"Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly but yet within Themselves, for They are everywhere."

"Nothing that God knows not exists. And what He knows exists forever, changelessly."

"Teaching aims at change, but God created ONLY the changeless."

"The miracle reminds you of a Cause forever present, perfectly untouched by time and interference. NEVER changed from what It IS. And YOU are Its effects, as changeless and as perfect as Itself."

"ITS effects are changelessly eternal, BEYOND fear, and PAST the world of sin entirely."

"What is in him is changeless, and YOUR changelessness is recognized in its acknowledgment."

"His changeless state is BEYOND time, for his purity remains forever beyond attack, and without variability."

"The Christ revealed to you NOW has no past, for He is changeless. AND IN HIS CHANGELESSNESS LIES YOUR RELEASE."

"Yet love must be forever like itself, changeless forever, and forever WITHOUT alternative. And so it is."

"Yet in your mind is One Who KNOWS it is unbroken, and forever changeless."

"It is impossible that God lose His identity, for if He did, YOU WOULD LOSE YOURS. And BEING yours, He cannot change Himself, for your identity IS changeless. The miracle ACKNOWLEDGES His changelessness, by seeing His Son as he always was, and NOT as he would make himself."

"His Will does not vacillate, being changeless forever."

"The Soul always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God."

The thing it realize about perception is this. The physical body itself has a form of sight. It can only see differences. Its sight is based on the reflection of photons of light, which seem to illuminate the surface of objects. This light enters the biological eyeballs and passes ”images” or sensory impressions on to the mind.

The physical body is actually permanently locked into FALSE perception. ”The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen.” It CANNOT SEE reality. Which in turn means EVERYTHING IT CAN SEE IS NOT REAL! What it is looking at is therefore NOT reality. Physical objects, photonic images, differences of form, shapes and sizes, colors and brightnesses, is not reality. These is ALL a part of false perception. “The world is false perception.”

It is not really seeing. It is in fact blindness. “Nothing so blinding as perception of form.” Since the body cannot see through or beyond physical surfaces, its seeing is in fact BLOCKED by objects. Objects blind it from seeing what is beyond. And therefore physical sight pretends to be seeing, but is in fact a lack of seeing.

These messages which the body seems to receive from the outside world, transmit into the mind, and the mind is sitting there EVALUATING THE MEANING of the messages. The mind is flexible in its beliefs, and can choose. It can decide what is true, and therefore what something MEANS.

The mind takes the ”physical images” provided by the body senses, and decides what they MEAN. It has perceptions ”about” the images, or projected ONTO the images. In a sense you could say the mind projects stuff ONTO the world or has perceptions ABOUT the world. But it’s really about the sensory signals being interpreted internally, once the body has received them.

The mind can decide whether these images represent the truth, or whether they are false. It can decide whether to believe in them or deny them. It can choose whether to regard them as real or as illusions. It can project sin and guilt ONTO these images and USE these images to mean attack, just as it can also project innocence and love ONTO these images which re-frames them as harmless. “I have given everything all the meaning it has for me.”

In and of themselves, the images actually have NO MEANING. They come from a world which itself HAS NO MEANING. This is why the course describes it as “a meaningless world”, and one which God DID NOT CREATE. The physical world is not merely meaningless ONLY when viewed in false perception, as if meaningful when perceived truly. It is in fact NEVER inherently meaningful. Meaning can be PROJECTED ONTO it, but in and of itself it is literally nothing. “The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it.”

So what actually happens is, the physical body provides a FIXED state of FALSE perception. And everything it sees is what we typically refer to as “the world” or planet Earth. Bodies, trees, houses, buildings, streets, the sky etc. Differences, changes, transitions, growth, decay, etc. This is all false perception and CAN ONLY been seen IN and WITH false perception.

Then at the same time, the MIND is sitting there INTERPRETING the physical signals. So the mind can ALIGN or IDENTIFY with the body, with physicality, and make the world seem real to it. When it does this, the MIND is now having false perception OF a false world - a false interpretation of a false image, at the same time as the physical body having false perception. They are in seeming agreement.

So what the falsely perceiving mind sees as coming from the body, it regards as TOTALLY REAL, because it is tempted anad DECEIVED BY the illusion. It totally agrees with and accepts it as true. That is what false perception means - not recognizing that an illusion is unreal. Just as true perception recognizes the world IS an illusion and not reality.

The mind can also move into a totally opposite state of TRUE perception, which is accurate perception. In this state, the BODY is actually STILL insisting on sending signals of physical unreality to the mind for interpretation. But the mind is not DECEIVED BY their falseness or their forms and appearances. Instead, the mind puts ALL of these physical signals into ONE category - THEY ARE ALL UNREAL. This is because it RECOGNIZES WHAT THEY ACTUALLY ARE, and is not deceived into thinking the physical world is reality. It recognizes these images ARE ILLUSIONS.

It regards them as UN real because it does not AGREE with or align or identify with the physical. It has identified with spirit, which is NON-physical and OPPOSITE to the physical world. Being fulled on the side of reality, everything unreal is now clearly and obviously unreal. And that means everything FALSE is ”truly seen” as false. As it is. And since the body can ONLY see falsely, and everything it sees IS FALSE, the sane mind now recognizes that the physical world is NOT REAL. Or even really there at all.

The body is trying to tell the mind that there is a world of differences and forms and attack and death ”out there”, BUT the mind is not BUYING INTO it at all. It does not fall for THE ILLUSION. It is not tempted. It RECOGNIZES what the physical really IS, which is that it is NOT TRUE. “The one you made is false.” It’s a false world which ONLY exists WITHIN false perception.

So now you’ve got FALSE signals of FALSE perception coming in from the body, and you’ve got a mind looking AT and USING these signals for a certain purpose. And its goal is the TOTAL OPPOSITE of the physical. So it does not believe in, accept, have faith in, nor is it deceived BY, anything the body is seeing. It’s a strange state, almost a paradox, where something UNREAL is recognized as an illusory physical world, while at the same time the mind is in a state of truth. “The world you see must be denied.”

True perception, christ vision, the spiritual eye, does not depend on, use, or rely upon, the physical sight mechanism. It is actually direct mind seeing. But this mind seeing does not SEE the physical world, because it regards it as FALSE, and what is false is shut out from awareness. This is why “It is impossible to see both worlds.” Either you see the false physical world AS IF it is real and true, or you see beyond it to reality. The mind’s eye also does not utilize physical photons for seeing, which is why in effect it cannot see the physical world. “Forgiveness sees it not.” It‘s sight is not based in space or time or distance or measure.

Truly, “To forgive is to OVERLOOK” and overlooking means ”forgetting to see”, or not seeing. You cannot look AT what you forgive. Looking AT it is unforgiveness. You look PAST it and fail to see it. That is what overlooking means. This is why “A world forgiven cannot last.” You cannot forgive the physical and still see the physical. When the mind is sane and healed, it categorizes ALL physical materials, worlds, energies, SPACE TIME, as entirely UNREAL. And this is the recognition of illusions which causes them to DISAPPEAR. And why “there is no world.”

The physical body is an illusion and sees ONLY illusions, in an agreein-with-illusions manner, which makes them seem real. “Only the body makes the world seem real.” All things physical are illusory and unreal. They are blindness. The blind body can only look upon the blind world, which was made to HIDE REALITY from your sight. “The world is drawn like a vail across the face of christ, but it can last no longer than an instant.” Only by recognizing that ALL body signals are FALSE AND UNREAL, can your spiritual eye rest upon the face of Christ, making you ready to return to God, ending perception forever.

The physical properties of matter, this universe, enacts the ego's law of separation between cause and effect. Every single thing which happens in this universe stems from this fundamental canvas of separation.

For one thing to do something to another thing and not experience the same effects, is separation. The laws of physics even tell us that an action produces an equal but opposite reaction - not the same reaction at all but one completely different.

In this world therefore, what applies to one thing does not apply to another. There is no equality. It therefore becomes "possible" to do something in isolation in this world, and have it affect only an isolated part of the world, and perhaps not even effect the person who does it at all.

Another way to put this is that this world allows the ego to get away with murdering God. Its pictorial statement that cause is separate from effect is a statement that God has been separated from His son. It is also therefore an attack on His Son and therefore a picture of the crucifixion of His son.

The way that the ego gets away with murder, is to suggest that it is capable of doing something to God, causing God in some way, but that the effects produced by that attack affect God only, and not the ego self. Therefore the ego self "gets away with it" by separating itself off from the effects. It claims that what applies to God does not apply to you, and therefore you can produce attack without experiencing the results.

This ENTIRE UNIVERSE is set up based on this. ACIM even explicitly says this: "This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son." Also in chapter 27 there is an entire section titled "The picture of crucifixion" where Jesus goes into this more.

The physical universe was made by the ego to depict what it would be like for God's son to be crucified, ie murdered and attacked and rendered separate from God. To be separate from God is to be separate from Cause, and therefore cause and effect are separate in this universe, down to the subatomic particle.

Even the idea of space and time, that there could be something which applies in one place or time and not another, is an idea of the separation between cause and effect, and Jesus states in the Course that both space and time are merely beliefs. That doesn't mean you have a belief ABOUT space and time, it means space-time ITSELF is a belief in the larger mind, and is therefore an illusion.

If it were not for this entire world, this entire universe, being based on this separation from Cause, it would be IMPOSSIBLE for you do any of the things you do "in life". You could not use a knife to slice an apple - if the effects which apply to the apple apply to the knife, the apple would have to equally cut the knife. You would not be able to eat food and digest it, the food would have to eat you and digest you also.

Nothing that we call "life" in this universe would be possible without the separation of cause and effect playing out.

Now, here is a VERY important point to make. You can change your mind about this world and work on changing what seem to be your personal beliefs "about" the world, correcting your thoughts and perceptions in terms of undoing your inner belief in separation from Cause. BUT, even if you achieve that, what is to become of the physical universe?

If it persists, it IS still a picture of crucifixion. It is still a physicalized expression of an idea of death and murder. It is still being run by laws of separation and conflict. Everything that takes place in it is un-heavenly and an attack. Every way that every single object moves and interacts with other objects symbolizes and IS the belief that cause and effect are separate - which ultimately is the belief that God and His Son are separate.

You could seem to be awake in the world and yet if the world continues to govern what happens to you, if you have no apparent power to undo it or change it, if you are subject to death, if you cannot heal the sick and undo disease, if you cannot cause objects to move or to change into other objects, then you are BOUND by the laws of the ego. That's a fact.

How can this be allowed to persist, thought to be in some way holy and real, as we stay in this world, confined by this world's laws, completely governed by them, still subject to aging and DEATH, and claim that we are enlightened? There is much more to the truth than this. This world was made as an attack. That's all it was made for. You can see it as a beautiful illusion but does it undo it?

This world's fundamental functioning, it's separation-based operational laws, is precisely what we derive our egoic beliefs from. We base our logic and reasoning and beliefs and values on top of how this separation of cause and effect operates. This leads to an "automatic" ego mind which believes and THINKS just like this universe functions, as though this universe makes sense and is normal and natural and true.

And if we are to reunite cause and effect in our awareness, in our mind, then this should mean that we re-gain access to a causal power which was completely separate from us when we believed what the world shows us. Its picture of death is completely the opposite of real life.

Its claim that cause and effect are separate is a law which MIRACLES break. Miracles come to demonstrate that this world's entire foundation, the fabric of this "reality" (bullshit) is simply false and not true and not what is running the show. Miracles demonstrate that cause and effect are NOT separate, because they come from a mind where the two are one.

Miracles therefore are capable of overriding everything which arises from this world, beyond the ego's laws, and that literally means your causal power is capable of doing absolutely anything which this world would consider physically impossible.

In this world an apple is not an orange. To a miracle-worker, an apple can be turned into an orange. In this world, throwing a ball at someone's head will hurt them. To a miracle-worker, throwing a ball at their head will stop the ball mid-air and turn it into a butterfly which then lands on the person's head and kisses them. In this world when a match is taken to a flammable liquid it will ignite and explode. To a miracle-worker, the match will be cancelled out and nothing will happen, and maybe even that flammable liquid will be turned into wine.

Miracles. Miracles. Miracles. Miracles which completely DEFY absolutely every physical law and limitation, every way that one thing does something to something else against its will, and any way that one cause seems to produce an effect on something other than itself. Think you can punch Jesus in the face and knock him out and leave him with a black eye? Have a try.

The Son of God is NOT subject to this stupid illusory world and its stupid pretend laws and made-up rules and fictional regulations. Jesus tells us in the course, literally, "there is nothing you cannot do". NOTHING. NO-THING. Not just just some small things, not just some big things, not just a few slightly miraculous-seeming hints at something magical. You can literally do ANYTHING. Including moving a mountain.

Is this too far fetched? Is your mind too scary to wield such power? Are you too afraid of the potential of this, being so profoundly abundant that you can manifest anything you need at any time directly from God's unlimited supply, without having to go through stupid ego laws to slave and work hard to earn ridiculous bits of paper and metal so that you can buy what you need at a store? You are far more capable than that. BY FAR!

There is no limit. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

The world is unlovable, in its form and appearance, being a picture of crucifixion in a dream of death. It was made to be ugly and cruel and unlike the divine holy nature of the Kingdom. But if we do not love it, our only choice is to attack it, believing the temptation to regard its illusory appearance as reality or "the truth of it".

This presents us with a perplexing scenario, and ACIM actually does state that God loves the world. It isn't that the world is inherently love itself, or made of love, or having virtue and divinity or sacredness. But in spite of its seeming form or appearance, we are told that God does love it.

How do you reconcile that God could love the world, with the fact that the world is an illusion he did not create, made in an attempted attack upon him? Would this not give reality to the world or give it permanence? Somehow God does love the world, in spite of any way that we might find the world unlovable.

Looking at this issue was a turning point for me, because it tells us that just because the world "is hell", does not mean there isn't a way to regard it that overlooks its hellishness, or that you could even feel loving towards it. The forgiven world is seen as lovely and beautiful, in spite of its illusory nature. And somehow we have to find a way to love it in spite of itself.

This may seem wrong, or ego-supporting, or a spiritualization of the world. We might recoil at the thought of loving the body, or the world. We can easily develop an anti-world attitude when we correctly discern it is made of the idea of death and contains no truth.

After all, "the world holds nothing that I want", it "will spin into the nothingness from which it came", "it takes great learning to both recognize and accept that the world has nothing to give", and "all its roads lead to death." As a world "made as an attack on God", it has nothing to offer in its nature that you could want. "You do not want the world."

But apparently God loves it, forgiving eyes look upon it without judgement, and true perception shows it in a new light. Even to the extent of it appearing to be a reflection of heaven, through an extraordinary reinterpretation or translation. We have to love it because we have to love, and true perception shows it to us without attack thoughts. Whatever it is, the world will be seen WITH love, through loving eyes.

What love sees IN it is a reflection of itself. And a world seen through forgiveness is no longer a world condemned or condemning. You can love it, but you cannot keep it. And you cannot love it based on its forms or shapes or colors, only because the love is coming through you from another world. To love it is not to be "in love" with it, or to want to keep it forever as a special idol.

You are not asked to have a special love relationship with it, or to conditionally love aspects of it. Only to unconditionally love always, which treats it all the same. Loving the world erases it, it does not possess it. You love it because of what you are, not because of what it is. And loving it translates it into a reflection of heaven to you.

You love the world because you forgive it and overlook the many ways that it sins and condemns and destroys. You love the world because you recognize it is not the cause of you, cannot attack you and has no power over you. You love the world because you come to trust that it is orchestrated by a higher power, with all events and encounters deliberately planned. You love the world because you know you are love and want to love all the time.

There is no world here to love. But we love it anyway, until perception ends and the world disappears, as we look upon the face of Christ and forget the world entirely. Because our aim here is not really to love the world, but to last PAST it, to Christ, which is our self, to rejoin with God, and to erase the gap of separation which was host to the pits of hell. Then God is not just in everything you see, it is ALL you see, and the world is gone.

"The world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world. God's Word has promised that peace is possible here, and what He promises can hardly be impossible. But it is true that the world must be looked at differently, if His promises are to be accepted. What the world is, is but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose this."

"God offers the world salvation; your judgment would condemn it. God says there is no death; your judgment sees but death as the inevitable end of life. God's Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it is unlovable. Who is right? For one of you is wrong. It must be so."

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

"In Heaven, reality is SHARED, and not reflected. By sharing its reflection HERE, its truth becomes the only perception which the Son of God accepts."

"You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself. Only the clear reflection OF Himself can BE perceived upon it. Reflections are seen in light. In darkness, they are obscure, and their meaning seems to lie only in shifting interpretations, rather than in themselves."

"The reflection of God NEEDS no interpretation. IT IS CLEAR. Clear but the mirror, and the message which shines forth from what the mirror holds out for everyone to see, NO-ONE will fail to understand. It is the message that the Holy Spirit is holding to the mirror that is in HIM. He recognizes it, because he has been taught his NEED for it, but knows not where to look to FIND it. Let him, then, see it in YOU, and share it WITH you. Could you but realize, for a single instant, the power of healing that the reflection of God, shining in YOU, can bring to all the world, you COULD not wait to make the mirror of your mind clean, to receive the image of the Holiness that heals the world."

"The image of holiness that shines in YOUR mind is NOT obscure, and will NOT change. Its meaning, to those who look upon it, is not obscure, for everyone perceives it AS THE SAME. All bring their DIFFERENT problems to its healing light, but ALL their problems are met ONLY with healing there. The response of holiness, to ANY form of error, is ALWAYS the same. There is no contradiction in what holiness CALLS FORTH. Its ONE response is healing, without ANY regard for what is brought TO it."

If you're like me, you probably regard your "self", whatever sense of self you have as "me", this self that seems to perceive and have emotions, as being NOT the ego. And you probably regard the ego as something tucked away in a dark corner that surfaces once in a while, something that you don't think of as "being" all the time. Surely your general day-to-day "self", that you refer to as "me", is not the ego?

But what if the entire sense of who you've regarded yourself as this whole time, who you call by your name, including all your emotions and egoic thoughts, all sense of a self that can suffer in any way, IS the ego? And what if that is not real, and your entire sense of being this self that suffers and feels unhappy and can be hurt is not really the real you?

Jesus hints that our personalities are superficial...

"The surface traits of God's teachers are not at all alike. They do not look alike to the body's eyes, they come from vastly different backgrounds, their experiences of the world vary greatly, and their superficial "personalities" are quite distinct."

In truth we're supposed to be experiencing a state of immortality and perfection where we are permanently happy, unaffected, invulnerable, incapable of suffering in any way. Our real self cannot suffer or die, or cannot suffer loss, cannot grieve, cannot be upset, cannot be unhappy or lacking peace in any way.

ACIM tells tells us that "Happiness must be constant" and "God's will for me is perfect happiness" and "Reality is a constant state" and "Immortality is a constant state." If your happiness is meant to be constant, how is it possible that you EVER experience unhappiness? It also tells us that we cannot really suffer, and whatever is experiencing the suffering cannot be my self. As if we have a sort of imposter self, a second self, that we've identified with as who we are, but isn't who we really are.

"The self you made is not the Son of God. Therefore this self does not exist at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing."

"The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God, and light and joy and peace abide in you."

"I am in the likeness of my creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die." Also lesson 248 says "Whatever suffers is not part of me. What grieves is not myself. What is in pain is but illusion in my mind."

Șo if "I" seem to be having upsets of any kind, unhappiness, sadness, loss, grief, guilt, shame, fear, anger, anything that isn't constant permanent joy, that "stuff" cannot really be a part of my real self. My real self cannot suffer and cannot be unhappy. My real self cannot experience any kind of loss or deprivation or guilt or anything less than perfection.

So if that's true, then what is this self that seems to suffer? And I don't mean some remote hidden ego, I mean the very self, out in the open every day, that you think of as "you" this whole time. On a daily basis, going through life reacting to things, having upset emotions, feeling horrible about stuff, being unhappy, perceiving threats, etc. It's way more out in the open and much closer to "you" than you might have realised. You're being it every single day.

This "you" that you're being, this you that suffers and is unhappy and has grief and anger and so on, that experiences any kind of suffering, THAT is ego (being identified with ego). Or more accurately, who you are has identified WITH a "suffering self", and you see yourself AS IT, as a self that suffers. A self that can feel hurt, a self that has pain, a self that grieves losses, a self that can be in fear or guilt. When "you" suffer, ego is suffering, and YOU are believing IT is who and what you are, as if it is YOUR suffering.

Somehow there has been a mixup, where you currently find yourself "constantly" experiencing various problems and reactions and upset feelings, thinking that these feelings are a part of yourself, that it's even POSSIBLE for you to have such feelings.

How can an immortal perfect loving constantly joyful being ever have even the slightest unhappiness as a part of themselves? They can't. So it then begs the question, this "self" that seems to suffer, which is the combination of your mind plus a false identification WITH ego/body/suffering, can it really be who and what you are? Is this suffering self really you? Can YOU really suffer at all?

This you that you've been all your life and think of as normal, that has emotional reactions and instability and fears and guilts. Can this possibly be a part of yourself as God created you? Jesus says that you cannot suffer and you cannot die. He says you cannot be unhappy and you cannot experience loss. How if you are experiencing loss and are unhappy, is that really YOU that is experiencing it? Or are you experiencing a false sense of self identity, bound to some kind of egoic construct, that sees "itself" (yourself) as even capable of suffering?

If I am having grief and loss for example it feels like "I" am grieving, and I have the feelings, and I feel unhappy, and I have the emotions and I have the cries and I am the one who has had a loss. But this can't be true. My mind can't bring an "end" to the loss by trying to "get over it" as an ego-identified self, but it can dis-identify from that which believes in loss, and that indeed will end it.

So if there is a feeling of loss, it has to be false, and it cannot be a part of myself. If I feel like, or experience it like, "I" am the one who IS IN the loss, HAVING the loss, then I have identified with something that can't be a part of myself in truth. My real self cannot ever lose anything, because nothing real can be threatened.

In such a suffering situation it means my so-called "ego" is not tucked away hidden from sight in the background, it's something I am actively BINDING to and see myself as IN, like I'm wearing it, and have identified WITH it, as if I am trying to be ONE WITH IT, living out from it every second of every day.

And that puts it right in front of my face and even closer than that. It's lurking in plain sight in the very sense of false "self", in the sense of "I am suffering". That it's ME that is suffering. That's my identification with something false. God-given mind, believing falsely.

That's pretty eye opening because no longer does it mean that the ego is some background figure that rears its head occasionally. Even if it is, identifying WITH AND AS it, trying to BE an ego, binds me to it and makes me experience life as though I am suffering. I am the one who is feeling, I am the one who is upset. Only ego can be upset, and if I am UNITING with ego I will be upset as though it's my own upset. And that leads to unconsciousness - spiritual sleep.

So if we ask ourselves, who or what am I, and if there is a feeling of upset, can this feeling of upset really be a PART of me? Can it be mine? Can it possibly be me that is really suffering, if it's impossible for my constant divine self to suffer, ever? If who I really am can NEVER suffer in any way, how can I BE something that suffers, and how can the suffering be truly mine?

It then frames your egoic emotion reactions, yours stresses, as not really yours. How can these upset feelings be yours? Yes you are identified and "one with" the ego self that suffers and who sees itself as capable of suffering through its false narrow perception, but this is a false association. IT's suffering cannot be YOUR suffering unless your sense of identity is confused with it. We don't just have a little ego in the back of our minds, we are actively holding onto it and trying to BE it and regard it as us!

So now it brings into question, whether we should be distancing ourselves from, detaching from, whatever seems to be suffering, and from suffering itself. If we have upset feelings in any way, perhaps we need to be telling ourselves, these feelings are NOT a part of me, I cannot suffer, and therefore I cannot be having these feelings. I'm not having these feelings. And we must have chosen to have them if we've put them there.

That seems pretty radical, to just regard all upset emotions and sickness and suffering as impossible and not a part of you.

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent."

If we are meant to be fully identified with and as immortal spirit, then we need to shift our identification away from this "suffering self". We can't BE a self that suffers if we are permanently holy. We can't be a self that is vulnerable and attackable, or frightenable, or capable of being guilty, or of experiencing loss and grief. Whoever or whatever is having that stuff, it can't be me or mine. And if it's there and I'm immersed in it so much that I feel like "its mine", I am unconscious and have identified with ego, and have forgotten who I am.

And that really brings into question, who are you really? Perhaps you are being FAR more ego than you thought. Perhaps every single day you are immersed in egotism and suffering and unhappiness. Perhaps your whole sense of identity is lost and wrapped up in living AS an egoic entity, seeing yourself as having emotions that are impossible in reality, as having forms of suffering that cannot affect your soul.

Perhaps you are much more ego-identified than you ever thought possible, and perhaps your whole sense of self, of who and what you are, is much more out of touch with your real self than you thoughts. Perhaps your real self is on some whole other level or dimension, and perhaps this self you're being every day is the self that is the "not me that lurks in the dark corner". To your real self, made of light, your everyday suffering self IS trying to be an ego. Who you have become, is not who you are.

Are we ready to identify fully with spirit, stop seeing ourselves as capable of suffering, bringing into question ALL ego emotions and reactions, and even questioning whether we are the self that we thought we were all this time? What if you are not you, and you are not being yourself right now, and you don't even know who you are?

"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."

When I'm projecting my own stuff onto someone else, I can't possibly see them as innocent. I'm putting my guilt onto them and I'm seeing it in them.

While the guilt is 'out there', there is simply no way my perception can show me their innocence. I have a screen in the way, a filter, a layer of dirt and noise.

I used to try to see other people as innocent, like, you know, they say to 'see everyone as Christ'. Well you can't do that if you're projecting. You can't just immediately launch into seeing them as Christ because you see them as guilty.

It is not until you take back your guilt, which you tried to make them responsible for, on your behalf, that you can possibly see them as innocent. Until you withdraw your projection from them, you can't see them for who they really are.

So you take back your stuff, and you own up to being the one who believes YOU are guilty. And you take the guilt back from their hands, recognizing it was NOT their guilt you were seeing, but your own. Having taken it back you CAN now see that they are innocent.

Also at this point, seeing that the other person is innocent isn't really a process, and it's also not some kind of label you put onto them, and it's not that you 'make' them innocent. In fact, all you've done is reveal the truth that is already there. Underneath your projected guilt, they already ARE innocent.

So you don't really have to be in the business of trying to talk yourself into 'believing' that the person is innocent. You don't have to try to convince yourself that someone else is Christ or holy. It's not something you need to make happen or do to the person or bestow upon them. Remember you are in the business of removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which means when you remove the block to your awareness, by taking back YOUR guilt that you gave to another, having accused them of your own sin, you naturally REVEAL what was there all along - their in-built, inherent, God-given innocence. Their innocence is there all by itself.

This is similar to how you need to go up into Holy Spirit's thought system, above the battlefield, stepping out of the projection of guilt, and entering closer to your own innocence, before you can look down IN forgiveness to see that everything below/outside is forgiven. Looking back on others WITH Holy Spirit/forgiveness allows you to recognize and see their innocence. You didn't give their innocent back to them because it was never taken away. You just had covered it up with your own stuff.

Note that when you look WITH Holy Spirit's forgiveness you will see innocence, and this is what it means to BE forgiving, rather than to 'do' forgiving. If there is a 'doing' of forgiveness (commonly thought of as 'applying'), that refers to you taking back your guilt and going to Holy Spirit with it so that you can come to be able to SEE the innocence in you and your brother. That process itself does not make innocent, it only uncovers it, and forgiveness then is the light in which you SEE.

So now you can also go to Holy Spirit and ask, hey, I think this guilt is mine, which I was putting onto them, and I now take it back and recognize it's not theirs, so they are innocent, but I still feel this guilt about myself. I think I'm guilty. Is it true Holy Spirit? I want you to decide. Tell me your verdict. "You are innocent", Holy Spirit will say, in one way or another. And then you will accept this with relief, let go of the guilt, allow Holy Spirit to HEAL IT FOR YOU, and release you from your own delusion that you are guilty. Now you can see your own innocence as well.

They say that by seeing the innocence in someone else you will see the innocence in yourself because your minds are One, and there is some truth to that. But this never really worked for me. I couldn't simultaneously lift guilt off their mind and my own, on my own, just based on the concept that this works. I can see now that I have to at least take back my guilty projection first in order to see my brother's innocence, and THEN I can take it to Holy Spirit and get it fully corrected. Then I will see my own innocence AND the unified innocence of my brother.

One of the difficult things about trusting Holy Spirit is the idea of 'showing up' empty handed and not knowing what the heck to do, and yet things still working out 'in the moment'.

Usually our minds are filled with all kinds of predictive, planning thoughts which try to know, beforehand, what needs to be known in order to do whatever it is that needs to be done, at the time. And we won't budge if we don't know what's going to happen first, because we're afraid.

When Holy Spirit asks me to write my book for example, I hesitate with thoughts like "I don't know what to write" or "what will I write about". And then Holy Spirit will keep on reminding/suggesting, "book, book, book". And I will keep on protesting mentally, "what shall I do". What He really wants me to do is to just stop the mental chatter and sit down and start writing AND THEN in the moment, in the flow, in the spontaneous present, HE IS THERE, and He helps me write.

So then it ends up being, I didn't need to know, by myself, what to do beforehand, because by `just doing it` was an invitation to Spirit to join with me in the PRESENT and support me and help me spontaneously and unrehearsed.

Going to do something when you have to put aside all notion of knowing what it is you will do, and all plans, and all sense of "I can only do this IF I know what will do"... its very exposing. It makes me feel empty-handed and blindfolded and clueless. It doesn't exactly support a concept of ego confidence. It's more like, I have to `just do it` anyway with a tremendous call to have COURAGE and FAITH and TRUST.

So when Holy Spirit is urging you to do something, I think we have to remember to trust that He WILL be there in the moment with us and He WILL be helping us and he WILL be working through us. It's like you have to take the leap first AND THEN the wings appear. You act 'as if' you will have all the support in the world and then it shows up.

This is difficult to learn, because I'm so used to ... hah... being in control. Lol, (thanks HS for that insert). So used to being in the drivers seat and relying on prior learning (the past) and thinking (lol) that I can only do anything if it's been premeditated and planned out. This is an ongoing lesson for me and probably for many people, because the ego is basically the thing that comes between surrender/letting go and being too afraid to make a move when you can't yet see the safety net - a safety net that you don't even really NEED when Holy Spirit goes with you. "If you knew Who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be impossible" - ACIM

The ego doesn't understand how to put trust/faith/spirit first and to expect support from outside of itself. It doesn't know how to let itself be abundantly supported or to be included in a bigger plan not of its own making. Holy Spirit has a plan. But it calls for us to step OUT of our own plan and our own controls - letting go of controlling all outcomes - so that we can step into the spontaneous flow of Spirit directing us and moving through us and healing through us. Which reminds me of this wonderful ACIM quote:

"I am here only to be truly helpful.

I am here to represent Him Who sent me.

I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do,

because He Who sent me will direct me.

I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.

I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal." - ACIM

To just show up, ready, willing, available, to be directed and used by Spirit, with no prior agenda, with perfect willingness and readiness, as an agent of God, without necessarily knowing or needing to know who/what/where/why/how ... that's what I/we need to get to. To go around doing God's will, working miracles, healing people, teaching and inspiring people, being moved by Spirit and supported in 'supernatural' ways. We need to learn to trust in Spirit's support and that, if we leap first, then we will find the power to fly.