Search Results for "itself"

ARTICLE:

You think you are outside the Kingdom in another world

"When God created you (in Heaven), He made you part of Him. That is why attack WITHIN the Kingdom is impossible. But YOU made the ego without love, and so it does not love YOU. You could not remain WITHIN the Kingdom without love, and since the Kingdom IS love, you believe you are WITHOUT it (exiled from Heaven). This enables the ego to regard itself as separate and OUTSIDE its maker, thus speaking for the part of your mind that believes YOU are separate and outside the Mind of God. (outside of Heaven in another world)"

"You are safe in God, dreaming of exile (being external to Heaven in another realm)"

"There is no life outside of Heaven (in the big picture). Where God created life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven (e.g. planet Earth which is "outside" the Kingdom) life is illusion. At best it seems like life ("life forms, which are not life"); at worst, like death."

"Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusion stands (planet Earth, all things physical); senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven (granite block of sin, walls, bodies, forms). Illusions are but forms (all physical forms are an illusion). Their content is never true."

"Attack in any form has placed your foot upon the twisted stairway that leads from Heaven."

This is why the "physical universe" including Earth, which is "the strange world you made", is opposite to Heaven and an idea of being "outside the Kingdom". It was made like a kind of second "dimension", a fake universe, a bubble of spacetime within the Kingdom. Seeming to be made of the idea of exile and separation, it seems "separate from" the Kingdom, and therefore seems like an entirely cut off realm. This is why awakening from the dream of exile MUST take you back OUT of the realm of exile and INTO the Kingdom, which quite literally will seem like traveling to another dimension beyond space and time.

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

This is also why Jesus talks many times about the difference between being "on Earth" and "in Heaven".

"The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

"It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth in Heaven's plan to save the world"

"You have been told that your function in this world is healing, and your function in Heaven is creating. The ego teaches that your function on earth is destruction, and that you have no function AT ALL in Heaven."

"And as it is in Heaven, so on earth."

"Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God."

"His will is done because all power is given him in Heaven and on earth."

"As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on Earth."

"In Heaven, reality is SHARED, and not reflected."

"You on earth have no conception of limitlessness, for the world you seem to live in IS a world of limits."

"Father, in Heaven it is different, for there, there are no needs. But here on earth the miracle is closer to Your gifts than any other gift which I can give."

"The miracles you do on earth are lifted up to Heaven, and to Him."

"For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter."

"Because my feet are on the ground and my hands are in heaven, I can bring down the glories of Heaven to my brothers on earth."

Heaven is a place. Not just a state of mind. It is the reality of the Kingdom. Earth is just part of an illusory world based on the idea of exile, exclusion, separation and death. You can be "on Earth", or "in Heaven", but not both. Either you are aware of being in the Kingdom or you are aware of being in a body.

ARTICLE:

How to recognize illusions for what they are

"Illusions recognized must disappear."

Let's say there is a monster behind the door. It's dark back there, and there was a strange noise. Something seemed to move. Because of the darkness, there is a lack of ability to see clearly, and things are obscure. You're having to make evaluations based on a lack of clarity and not having all the facts. You can't see the whole context so it seems reasonable to conclude there is some strange dark beast lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce.

However, when you switch on the light, and you move the door aside, you see that in fact there is no monster there. It was a trick, a deception. What you thought was there, is not there. And all you see is some clothing which was hanging on the door which slipped off the door hook and fell down. You suddenly realize this is what made the sound you heard, and are relieved to realize this is "all that it is". You simply see the whole picture clearly, you have all the information, nothing is hidden or obscure, and "in the light" it becomes clearly obvious what is there and what is not. And upon seeing this, the illusion of a monster has disappeared.

This is what it's like to go through a transition from believing that illusions are real, to realizing and recognizing that they are not. Learning to recognize what the situation actually IS, rather than what you thought it was. Learning to SEE clearly, so that you only see things for what they actually ARE, instead of what you were making of them. And once you see the illusion for only what it is without adding to or removing anything, it no longer holds any threat or implication. It only is what it is, nothing more and nothing less, and what it is is false, not something to believe in or be upset about. And seeing it for what it IS, doesn't make it REAL.

A similar thing happens with puzzle solving. Let's say you have some puzzle, perhaps a three dimensional set of object pieces that you're supposed to disconnect but you can't see how to do it. You start out deceived by illusions. Something about the appearance of the puzzle has deceived you, causing you to make assumptions that are false, and so you're starting out with distorted perception OF an illusion. But you believe them, and so you are blind to the "solution" because you can't see past your deluded mis-perceptions and mistaken evaluations.

Eventually after much trying, it suddenly occurs to you that something you were seeing was not actually the case. It seemed to be something, but was actually something else. You suddenly remark "oh" and recognize what's actually happening. You recognize the illusion, see through the illusion, and awareness of a larger context dawns on you. In that greater light or perspective, outside of the illusions, you can suddenly "see" the answer, and WHY the puzzle was deceiving you.

You see through its deception and recognize the mechanisms of deception, and now can solve the puzzle. It is obvious then. And you kick yourself for having not seen something so blatantly obvious all along. Afterwards you can never see the puzzle the same way again or be deceived by it, because you have learned to recognize the truth and would have to deliberately blind yourself.

The same thing also happens with your beliefs, which have an effect on your perception and how things register to your awareness. What you believe is true, will seem real to you. And it will take on properties of power, causality, will, intensity and permanence. And by investing it WITH truth you will take it to be telling you the truth, as though it is factually real. But just because illusions appear to be real, doesn't mean they are. And so if you have illusions ABOUT illusions, you are having false perception.

If you have a belief, let's say, that you are an unworthy person who doesn't deserve love because of something you did 3 years ago, that's going to skew your perception and make it appear that it's TRUE of you that you don't deserve love. And because you believe in that, which ultimately is untrue in the big picture, you are blinded by this belief. You can't see past it or accept the truth about you - that you deserve love. Illusions about you seem to be true, rather than illusions about you being recognized as false.

But then if you work on this "true" belief, you transition from believing it is true, to recognizing and believing it is false. As you make that transition, how that belief "strikes" you or registers with your mind, changes. When you believed it was true it seemed to hold power and truth, to threaten and define you, and upset you, and seemed to be a CAUSE or reason why you are unlovable. It seemed to have truth in it and you were upset by it. But now, as you see it from a different vantage point, you STILL SEE IT, but it registers to your perception in a different way. It now just seems false, you don't feel like you believe in it, it doesn't appear to be true to you, and it doesn't hold any of that seeming "charge" that gave it a sense of power and causality. You now see the belief as nothing, nonsense, totally untrue, and something you are now WILLING to surrender and let go of.

As you work on transitioning from false perception to true perception, this is more or less the same process you will go through. False perception is a state where you are experiencing or presented with illusions but you are having illusions ABOUT those illusions, causing you to BELIEVE THEY ARE REAL. You believe they are true, are blinded by them, deceived by them, tempted by them, and you can't see past their *appearance*. You think they make sense and are valid, because you believe IN them and have placed a sense of trust and truth into them, seeing no reason to question their "reality."

Over time, you will still continue to see these same illusions, BUT, how they APPEAR to you, how they strike you, how they register to your awareness, will transition from that state where they seem to have power and causality and loom over you like they are unquestionable, to where they have lost all their seeming strength, all their power and causality, all their truth and validity, you have WITHDRAWN your belief in them, you see PAST their appearances, you no longer put your belief IN them, and therefore they simply now seem to be UNREAL. They have deflated and collapsed down into nothing. They register to your mind as FALSE. You see a bigger truth, in light of which these smaller lies are OBVIOUSLY false and cannot be believed. You wonder why you ever believed such nonsense in the first place.

Recognize here then that up until you are done perfecting your true perception/christ vision, you are in a state of being surrounded WITH illusions (the physical world), but are learning to RECOGNIZE them for what they REALLY ARE, rather than being deceived by them and believing they are true. And that means you're still going to PERCEIVE them, it's just that HOW you perceive them is going to change, and how they LOOK to you is going to change. What they MEAN to you is going to change. And whether or not you believe they are TRUE is going to change. The world is going to transition from seeming to be REAL, to being clearly UNREAL!

When illusions are seen but NOT recognized for what they are, two things are happening. There is a seemingly external illusion, PLUS you have a distorted vision which can't see past the appearances and takes the illusion to be real. So now there are TWO layers of illusions. When you are learning to OVERLOOK (forgive) the illusion, it is STILL SEEN for a while, BUT the DISTORTED INTERPRETATION *OF AN ILLUSION* changes to an ACCURATE interpretation of the illusion. That which is illusory is not merely your mistaken perception OF something. There are two layers to illusions. The illusion ITSELF (e.g. physical world, bodies), and whether or not you are DECEIVED by it (believe in it). Just because you undo your deception/misperception doesn't mean that you are done undoing the illusion ITSELF. Your misperceptions OF the world, merely reveal to you the truth ABOUT the world, the "reality" of it, which is that IT IS NOT REALITY.

When Christ vision is perfected and you no longer believe in ANY illusions, the illusion DOES disappear. Or shall we say, when you no longer believe that this ILLUSORY WORLD is real, and can RECOGNIZE IT for what it is - a dream - it will disappear. Along the way, as you undo your belief in ANY illusion being real, the illusion "THAT IT IS REAL" disappears, revealing the illusion FOR WHAT IT IS. That it IS an illusion, not a reality. And eventually the view that it is ALL an illusion becomes very clear and obvious, and then the entire thing disappears.

To "see through" the illusion is to OVERLOOK it, which is what forgiving it means. "To forgive is to overlook". By NOT BEING DECEIVED *BY* the illusory world, causes you to forgive the world and therefore produces "the forgiven world". But "a forgiven world cannot last", because IF you forgive it, ie if you recognize it for what is "really is", you WILL recognize that IT IS AN ILLUSION OF A WORLD. NOT a real world. "The real world still is but a dream." And this is why forgiven worlds MUST disappear BECAUSE they don't really exist!

This world, including Earth, is an illusion of a world. It is illusory ITSELF, a fake world made of illusions and deceptions. regardless of whether you RECOGNIZE it as that or not. And if you DON'T recognize it as that, you WILL believe it is REAL. And that is FALSE PERCEPTION. It was made to tempt you and deceive you. If you are still seeing it, you must believe in it to some degree. But as you transition towards Christ vision, you will gradually learn to regard it as FALSE, unreal, and untrue. This means you will be withdrawing your belief in it, withdrawing your faith from it, and learning to register it as false, or in the category of "unreality". You will no longer be deceived BY the illusion, or have illusions ABOUT the illusion.

***Just because your misperceptions become corrected DOES NOT MEAN that you are unveiling reality to yourself. It means you are unveiling the TRUE NATURE OF the ILLUSION!*** And reality is BEYOND IT!!!

Just because you have illusions ABOUT the world, does not mean that the world itself is REAL! Or that by "seeing what is true about it" is to see it AS true. Or to "see the reality of it" means it IS real. IT IS NOT REAL. Just because you misunderstand what the world IS, doesn't automatically mean it IS REAL or true BEHIND your misunderstandings. Your misunderstanding OF the world is that YOU THINK IT IS REAL WHEN IT ISN'T!!!!! It only means that you are not seeing WHATEVER IT IS, correctly. False perception does that. And it does not follow that seeing the world "truly" will show you that it is REAL, only that its "true nature" will be revealed, real OR illusory. It will show you the truth ABOUT the world. It will show you the "reality of" the world. But what the world is, in reality, in truth, IS UNREALITY. The world *ITSELF* is an illusion of a world, which you have been having illusions ABOUT.

***False perception falsely perceives illusions (with more illusions) and believes they are real.***

***True perception CORRECTLY perceives ILLUSIONS and RECOGNIZES them as FALSE.***

Undoing your illusions ABOUT the world therefore isn't going to lead to you realizing that this world is REAL, or reveal to you "its underlying reality". It SHOULD lead to you realizing that this world is UNREAL, and that it couldn't possibly have come from God, only from YOUR DREAMING. It's unreal precisely BECAUSE when you believed it was real, you were MISTAKEN. When you thought IT was true, you were mistaken and having misperceptions of insanity - believing that something illusory HAS REALITY. And so learning the truth ABOUT it, should revel to you that it is NOT REAL, AND NOT WHAT YOU THOUGHT IT WAS. False perception is a state of FALSELY INTERPRETING AN ILLUSORY WORLD. ***It is a state of HAVING ILLUSIONS ABOUT AN ILLUSION.*** Not falsely interpreting reality. True perception is a state of CORRECTLY INTERPRETING AN ILLUSORY WORLD TO BE FALSE, whereby the illusory world is OVERLOOKED (forgiven) and the REAL WORLD (heaven) comes into sight in place of it.

What the course typically calls "the real world" is that state of mind you get into when you solve the puzzle, or realize there is no monster behind the door. It's a state where the world is still briefly SEEN, but NOT BELIEVED. So that means, as you approach the real world, and you are seemingly IN THIS WORLD, in a body still, you SHOULD be realizing AND recognizing and perceiving this world AS. .... nothing but A DREAM, a fiction, UNTRUTH, UNREALITY. Walking around it in the "awareness of dreaming" KNOWING that it IS a dream, NOT a reality. Being aware that this world IS ILLUSION and holds nothing that you want. "It takes great learning to both recognize and accept that this world has nothing to give." And in that state of recognition, you are like dipping your toe into an unreal hell only for the sake of helping others to leave it.

The world should hold NO REALITY FOR YOU!!! NONE. The world IS NOTHING. IT DOES NOT EXIST! THERE IS NO WORLD! "The world will spin into the NOTHINGNESS from which it came."

To be a teacher of God is to be aware of dreaming. That means being aware that you are IN A DREAM WORLD. It is not the END of dreaming. You are still IN the dream, RECOGNIZING that it IS a dream, not a reality. NOT believing it is true or real. NOT believing in it. NOT buying into what you see. NOT buying into sickness. NOT believing bodies are really people. NOT believing that anything you see is TRUE or permanent or irreversible or happening in reality.

Yet still perceiving it, just enough that you can still operate in it temporarily. And eventually your clarity about the truth becomes so complete, there you will see THROUGH the illusory world fully, having NO ILLUSIONS ABOUT THE ILLUSION, such that the illusory world completely disappears, revealing the real world, and then you will transition effortlessly to heaven. Where is the illusory world then? It does not exist, and it never did, because there is no world.

When illusions are fully recognized, THEY DISAPPEAR. The illusory world, Earth, WILL disappear, BECAUSE it is an illusion. The body's eyes can see it BECAUSE the body can ONLY see illusions. The world and the body are both dreams. None of them are real. That is what true perception is supposed to reveal to you, NOT that this world is "actually real" behind your misperceptions of it.

Reality is BEYOND ANY PERCEIVED WORLD. It is beyond the falsely perceived illusory world, and it is beyond the truly perceived illusory world. It is beyond perception ENTIRELY.

ARTICLE:

The real world is just a recognition the world is an illusion, not reality

The tiny mad idea, a thought of separation, produced a "dream".

The dream is comprised of illusions. Thoughts of separation must always be illusory because reality is not separate. A thought of separation is also a thought of death (opposite to life).

Thoughts of separation must always produce "form". Form is a limited illusion. It just means, the "form" that the illusion takes - its appearance, which differentiates it from other illusions. All illusions are limited. All illusions are forms. Forms can be subtle, mental, energetic, emotional, or physical. They are all dreams, but of varying degrees of deception or "solidity". As Jesus says, waking dreams and nighttime dreams differ only in their form - both are illusions.

A thought of separation HAD to produce what we call a physical universe in order to fulfill, in the extreme, the death-wish which was put in place when we "sinned". Sin was believing that separation was possible, which began the dream in the first place. As soon as it began, death was written into it and this HAD to lead logically and consistently to what appears to be a "universe", containing a "world", in which there are "bodies", which can seem to die.

People within that world, inhabiting bodies, have in their minds *identified with* illusions and are now experiencing a layer of illusions ON TOP OF the illusion of the physical universe itself. They mis-interpret it and project stuff onto it. This is a *secondary layer* of illusions. The first layer of illusions was dreamed by the whole of the Son of God, and the second layer is added by individual ego-identified people.

When this layer of illusions (delusion) is seeming to happen, people mis-percieve "the world", or the physical universe in general, and do not recognize it. They distort it, attack it, judge it, and see their own sin in it. This is a false perception of a false perception. The universe was false perception in the mind of the Son of God in the first place, and now we are further mis-perceiving it even more.

"Individuals" have their own mis-perceptions of the illusory world, but also the illusory world itself is a mis-perception in the larger shared mind.

When we apply forgiveness, we are correcting mis-perceptions, which are beliefs in sin being real, and are taking back our projected hate from the illusory world. This causes us to BELIEVE LESS that the illusion of the world is actually reality. We were deluded so long as we thought the world was real. What we thought ABOUT the world was a mis-perception OF the world.

Believing the world is real, is believing an illusion is real. The world is not real. I it an illusion. It is a dream of a world. And being part of the physical universe, the same applies to the whole universe.

When the mind is purified of these mis-perceptions OF the world, we come to a CLEAR perception OF the world, which is "True Perception". This true perception looks "with truth" upon what the world "is". It *recognizes* that the world is an illusion, NOT a reality. "Making real" the physical world enforces upset and victimhood. Making it unreal, recognizing its urneality, frees us from suffering.

Being able to clearly perceive that the world is actually an illusion, is sight of the "real world". It is the real, as in actual, world that's there. Or to put it another way, we're seeing the "true state" of the world, which is that it is not real.

Jesus referred to it as the real world ONLY to contrast it against a perceived "unreal world" which is what you perceive when you are attacking yourself and projecting it onto the illusion of a world. Self-attack distorts your perception and shows you a world of hate. A forgiven self shows you an illusory world which is forgiven - the forgiven world, the "real" version of the illusory world - recognizing that it is NOTHING MORE THAN AN ILLUSION.

At that point, you have true perception and are seeing correctly, recognizing the world was never real and the physical universe that seems to contain it is not real whatsoever. This is where you then have a tiny step to take to cross over to the "REALLY REAL" "world", which is God's Creation, God's universe, which is beyond all physicality. In the light this produces, the physical world, which was an illusion, eventually disappears from the mind of the collective Son of God, BECAUSE it was not real. All the stars disappear in light, etc.... and the "truth of" the "real world", the true-perception of the lie, easily allows you to translate that to mean that only God's reality is true. The world is forgotten, and God is remembered.

ARTICLE:

What is the world for?

"The test of everything on earth is simply this; "What is it for?" The answer makes it what it is for you. It has no meaning of itself, yet you can give reality to it, according to the purpose that you serve."

The world was made for a purpose. It was deliberate, intentional, chosen. We wanted there to be an alternative to heaven. And its form and function were made to serve that purpose. Just as all sickness is intentionally used to serve a perceived need.

Purpose is based on "how you are using it" or "what it is for". What is the goal attached to it. What is the ambition. How is it being used to accomplish that goal. How does it serve you and God.

We started out with a purpose of separation and attack, and produced a world which seems to be a world where that purpose could be fulfilled. That it could serve or be used as a way to avoid being with God. A hell where God could enter not.

But since the PURPOSE of the world or what it MEANS or is USED FOR, is distinct from what the world IS (just a neutral illusion), it's possible to give it a different purpose and a different meaning or use.

The Holy Spirit uses the world in a totally different way to our original intentions. To bring you home to God, to wake you up, to get you to let go of your artificial meanings and the meanings you've given everything. He presents an alternative meaning and use of the world and the body, based in love.

So in forgiveness, we're giving the world a different meaning and purpose. We're re-interpreting it. We're re-purposing it and coming up with a different use for it. Instead of using it to keep you away from God, we're trying to use it in such a way that it doesn't serve as an obstacle, or as proof of sin, or as a way to keep you suffering.

In effect, we're trying to use what we made against itself, to undo it. We're cancelling it out by forgiving it, ie giving it a meaning from an opposite thought system, which runs contrary to the world's nature, so that the world is recognized sanely, setting you free from it. Because illusions recognized must disappear.

So when Jesus asks you to consider "what is it for?", he's trying to get you to look at how you're using it, or for what purpose, or what meaning you're inventing for it, and to question that choice, and choose again the Holy Spirit's alternative meaning and purpose and use of the world and the body.To "let me not use this as an obstacle to peace, but help me to use it to facilitate its coming."

The forgiven world is the same world with a different purpose. A world which came to damn, made in false perception, now being used to return you to salvation. A body which was made to separate, being used to bring help and healing. A life which was made to hide in darkness, being used to bring light to the world.

Purpose aligns with perception and belief, because when you change your mind about what you believe is true and want, you are changing the meaning of things. And now you project that meaning onto the world and see it.

So if you recognize and believe and accept God's meaning and truth, it will change the meaning you give to the world. And now you are perceiving closer to Christ Vision or Real Truth because you're looking at the world from a different vantage point or angle. Framing it differently.

Essentially, it's the same world, combined with a different attitude. A more holy attitude seems to render the world as though it is holy and harmless. Ancient hatreds turn into present loves. Serious suffering turns into effortless healing. Death turns into resurrection. And fear turns into happiness.

Another way of saying "what is it for?", is "what meaning do I want to give it?" Do I want to use this for attack and making sin real, or do I want to use it repurpose it to remind me of God's truth and method by which I might be saved from hell? Can I see it in another light? There must be a better way.

If I am presently using the world in such a way that it means attack and offense and threat and damage and suffering and hell, I can admit that I am using it in a certain way, thereby "doing this to myself".

And then I can change my mind and choose a different meaning. And then elect to tune into Holy Spirit's perspective of forgiveness and repurpose what I think happened to help me move towards peace instead.

ARTICLE:

Do you have power over what happens, including death?

Is there a power OTHER than the mind that can cause things to happen to us? What causes sickness? What makes death happen? Do we actually have any control over this world? Do we have a power, to such an extent, that we can actually determine what happens or doesn't happen? Can we actually CHOOSE to cause or not cause sickness and death?

This is an important issue because if we are not the ones orchestrating everything that occurs, everything we experience, then that places us in a rather vulnerable position. If there is a power or cause or law or something that drives stuff to occur, without our consent, without our choosing it, this basically means we are capable of being victims. Stuff can happen to us against our will.

It may seem SUPER radical to suggest that you could be in a position of having so much deliberateness, so much choice, so much power, that you could be orchestrating an entire dream. That the things that happen are what YOU decide will happen. That nothing else happens, because you haven't chosen it. It really then boils down to, are you actually able to choose not to suffer, to not be sick, to not die? Can you choose that events don't occur at all? Do you have the power to CAUSE these to not happen, and do you have the power to cause them TO happen?

This then really becomes a question of RESPONSIBILITY. Who or what is responsible, in every case, for what happens in your life? Do you shift responsibility and therefore "blame" onto others, onto the body or the world itself? For what seems to happen TO you? Who is responsible for whether you are attacked or not? Who is responsible for whether your body becomes sick, or is healed, or just carries on being sick without hope of relief? Because ultimately someone or some "thing" HAS to be the cause. It's either you, or it's something else. There are NO effects without causes.

If you look at the teachings of ACIM closely you will see that there is a huge theme of EMPOWERMENT. This empowerment is saying that you are so powerful that you literally are the dreamer of the dream. It says that you are ruler of the universe. It says that you can be attacked by nothing but your thoughts. It says you cannot die without your own consent. It says that you are not the victim of the world you see. All of these themes point towards you having POWER OVER what happens. YOU CHOOSE!

"If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God."

"Here again is the paradox often referred to in the course. To say, "Of myself I can do nothing" is to gain all power. And yet it is but a seeming paradox. As God created you, you have all power."

Indeed it leads to what ACIM calls "the secret of salvation". This is quite a radical passage because it basically says that unless you were to go into a kind of unconscious state of denial in which you disown power and see the dream as "happening against your will", NOTHING In the world can do anything to you - no matter how vicious it seems. And in fact, that the secret to being SAVED FROM all forms of suffering, is to realize and own fully that you are "doing it to yourself." That takes great OWNERSHIP of power.

We immediately start to bark with objections about how this can't be true in all situations. But the passage tells us that no matter who is the victim or victimizer, it is true. No matter who seems to do what to whom, or what the apparent severity, it is still true. So it's then telling us that despite any appearances, despite what may look like external causes or separate people acting in certain ways, no matter what it looks like on the surface, it is ALWAYS TRUE that you are doing it to yourself.

And it calls this the "secret of salvation" because it talks of how this is the ONE LESSON the holy spirit is teaching to SAVE YOU from ALL forms of suffering. That the cause of ALL forms of suffering, no matter what form it takes, including physical sickness, is the fact that you are the one doing it to yourself. And because you are doing it yourself, you can change your mind and STOP doing it.

"I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace. I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise."

Because in truth, really, UNLESS you are actually the one with the power to CAUSE anything to happen, you would not be in a position to be able to USE that power to NOT cause it to happen, or to undo it. It is because you DO cause it, that there is IS hope for salvation. There is a way out of hell and suffering and sickness and death BECAUSE you are the one that keeps putting it in place. And if you weren't the one putting it in place, you'd be stuck having to tolerate it, experience it, suffer from it, and go through it, without any hope of relief, ie no salvation.

This is quite a radical teaching and it is extremely central to the entire A Course in Miracles view of cause and effect, of who causes what, and of how POWERFUL you are. It rests on the fact that you are an immortal being, a permanent changeless being, who is always the same and is incapable of change or of being changed. A being that is NOT AFFECTED by the world.

"The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did."

Forgiveness rests on this immortal fact, because obviously if you are immortal nothing can happen to you, so you have no grounds for playing at being a victim, no grounds for believing that something is happening against your will, and no grounds for suffering. If you are immortal then you quite literally are invulnerable to the entire world, and there is not a single thing in all the world that has even the slightest power to cause anything that you do not want. In fact it means you have power OVER DEATH, because you cannot die.

This is what the entire teaching of ACIM is leading to. The total identification with spirit as Christ, the immortal son of God. The total owning of RESPONSIBILITY FOR BEING CAUSAL - a causal CREATOR. The total reclaiming of absolute unlimited POWER, which can do literally anything. The reclaiming of the power to work miracles, to heal sickness and to prevent death, and to change the world if needed. It is asking of you to reclaim a role and position of nothing LESS than TOTAL ABSOLUTE POWER.

By having such a power, a power so great that literally the entire dream is being dreamed up BY your mind, a power that puts the world in place and makes it spin, a power that materializes bodies, a power that causes events to transpire, we're talking about you being extremely DELIBERATE and CHOOSING everything that occurs or is experienced. And this does mean without exception. Not one single thing occurs that you do not choose, and because the power of decision is yours, you CAN CHOOSE not to have the body be sick, or die. YOU make the world go round.

This isn't a course in leaving any room open for some kind of fictional "alien will", a separate power, an external power, some kind of power the "dream" seems to have over you, some victim consciousness, some kind of external causation that can do things to you against your will, some kind of power that puts sickness into your body without your asking for it, or some kind of power other than your choice that seems to make death happen.

These are all the views that the EGO has, in its sense of weakness and powerlessness and vulnerability and fear. It sees itself as utterly at war with a separated-off power not within itself, that does things to it against its desires. And it sees itself as having no control or real power over anything, so instead to uses "force" and "doing" to try to make things happen.

"All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the FEAR OF AWAKENING. They are attempts to reinforce UNCONSCIOUSNESS out of fear of CONSCIOUSNESS. This is a pathetic way of TRYING NOT TO KNOW by rendering the faculties for knowing ineffectual."

We are being asked to own up to being immortal beings. Beings who are purely CAUSAL and CREATIVE. Beings who express from love and whose expressions come out as what you want, and as what you create and thus as what happens or exists. Where you are constantly choosing WHAT shows up and what occurs. There is no room in the mind of a creator/co-creator for stuff happening "by some other means", or of your choices being unheard, or of your decisions lacking power, or of your causation lacking effects.

This is a course in TAKING BACK YOUR POWER. And that means and includes the total responsibility and ownership of being THE CAUSE OF all your suffering, in every form it takes, INCLUDING the condition of the body, all of its forms and sickness and suffering, and even over death itself. You even have the power to literally move mountains and to make worlds. Only in this extreme of absolute ownership of the POWER OF GOD, which is your inheritance, is victimhood and vulnerability and pain and misery snuffed out forever. There is no power OTHER THAN the power of God that you share with him.

The question is whether you are willing to go all the way to accept this power, to take on this role and position of being ruler of the universe, whether you are willing to OWN this power and regain access to USE it consciously. Whether you are ready to let go of all victimhood roles and all sense of not choosing or not being the one who makes things happen. It's putting you in the hot-seat. If you are to reach the resurrection and FINISH the curriculum, you MUST gain the absolute power over death, which gives you the ability to cancel and reverse and prevent it EVEN on a physical level.

"I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God Created. Why do you believe that it is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in miracles: YOU do."

If you believe that sickness happens through some other reason, by some other cause, something in the world or body, something environmental, something someone else does to you, if events happen on their own chaotically or randomly, if death chooses for you when you will die, if sickness happens to the body, if sickness can remain within the body against the mind's choice, and if you believe that you do NOT have the power to do anything about this, that IS an egoic position of victimhood and powerlessness. And we are all-too comfortable playing this role.

It means you are "playing the game of death", as an immortal being, PRETENDING that you do NOT have the power of God, and trying to pull off a stunt of making it look AS IF you are not the one causing everything to occur. When it appears you did not choose something, it is an illusion. You are ALWAYS choosing what you experience, what you feel, what happens with the body, what events transpire. NOTHING happens without your consent. This is because you are an infinitely powerful being with an extremely powerful unlimited mind capable of creating entire worlds.

"There are no accidents in salvation."

"Your Father created you Wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."

Owning up to this power - the shared Power of God - which is UNLIMITED, and there is NOTHING that this power (thus your holiness) cannot do .... places you in a position of being co-creator with God. For a creator there is nothing that comes IN to you from the outside, there is ONLY an outflowing from the inside outward. An extension so strong it cannot be stopped. The unlimited will of God.

You cannot have things coming at you, attacking you, changing you, affecting you, choosing for you. YOU are the master. You dominate everything. You are the ultimate cause. YOU are in charge of your destiny. You are NEVER a victim, and NOTHING happens without your choosing it and causing it. OWN THIS, and you will be free from suffering and death forever.

"My Self is ruler of the universe." It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are."

"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. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

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

"When you are weary, remember you have hurt yourself. Your Comforter will rest you, but YOU cannot. YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW, for if you did, you could never have grown weary. Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer in ANY way, for that is not God's Will for His Son. Pain is not of Him, for He knows no attack, and His peace surrounds you silently."

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes."

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

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you."

"Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance, and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator. 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."

"Say ONLY this, but MEAN it with NO reservations, for here the power of salvation lies: ... I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked. ... Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done TO you. Acknowledge but that YOU have been mistaken, and ALL effects of your mistakes will disappear."

ARTICLE:

No one dies without their own consent - stop dying!

This is a central ACIM teaching, that death is not "normal" or "natural", but rather a choice, and that if you do not make the choice, death does not happen. It literally speaks to the real possibility of immortality, and the impossibility of death.

Think about this. Death cannot happen without you in some way being victimized. Something has to "happen to you". And that means, you are at the effect of the world in some way. That there is some kind of cause outside of you which somehow seemed to have power over you, which overpowered you, and did something against your will.

The only way that this kind of scenario can occur, is if there is something seriously mistaken about your mind. Your mind has to be seeing itself as a victim. It has to be believing it is affected by an illusion. It has to be playing the part of victim and of being attacked. It also has to be using the world, or people in the world, as scapegoats. Without the ability to accuse the world of causing the death against your will, the death cannot happen.

A key part of this is that even when it appears that death is happening against your will, even if you do choose it and play along with the victim role and being affected by something external, even then you are still giving full consent. You are still involved. Your mind is actually participating in laying down life and becoming un-willing to live. This is not passive.

The mind cannot ever be passive. The mind is always active and creating. If the mind chooses to have a sickness, the mind is still choosing the sickness and the mind is still putting the sickness there. The sickness isn't just happening on its own. And when the mind chooses not to put the sickness there the sickness disappears.

Even if it may *appear* at the time as though the sickness is happening outside the scope of your choice, or beyond what you can control, or that you were not even the one who chose it, the truth is that you did choose it, you put it in place yourself, it is you who are maintaining it, and it cannot even continue showing up without your consent.

So you have to realize what death is. Death is only "possible" as a state where our mind has something seriously fucked up about how it is seeing itself. It can only come about by the mind deciding to pretend that it is being seriously affected. Jesus describes it as a vain attempt to make no choice at all - really the disownership of choice or the attempt to be completely irresponsible for your existence.

In the activity or implementation of dying and death, the mind is actively choosing to pretend that it has nothing to do with living, nothing to do with what happens, and nothing to do with the circumstances that are arising. It is faking it. It is going under-cover, putting on a tremendous performance as if everyone and everything else is causal other than itself, and that it is purely an effect.

So what death really is, is an attempt to NOT be causal at all, to have no power, to appear to be making no choice, and to paint this picture of stuff happening seemingly against your will. But it's such an extraordinary lie, such a cover-up, that everyone seems to believe it. All the fingers will point in the direction of "cause of death" or "why they died" to explain how this death came about. But this will only explain the manner in which the death seemed to "happen", it will not in any way implicate the person as having been the author of these events, or of being the one who made it happen to themselves.

Death is a state of extreme lying. It is the most dishonest condition possible. It is a state of not only denying God, denying the unchangeable fact of eternal life, and denying that nothing can happen to you against your will (because that is God's Will and God has given you a will which cannot be affected).

If life seems to be degrading, and diminishing, and slipping away, and the external world seems to be mounting a successful attack, and the body seems to have a mind of its own, and circumstances appear to be transpiring against the person, and it starts to look AS IF it is unfair and unchosen and the person is not doing ANYTHING to contribute to this condition, that's because the illusion is INCREASING and the person is moving further away from truth.

Death is a complete reversal of sanity, a total reversal of the proper functioning of the mind, and a complete reversal of cause and effect. It places all power and will and choice and causality as outside of oneself, making oneself entirely an "effect" of something separate from oneself.

Death actually is an attempt to claim that God is external, that God is separate, that God has a will which opposes your own, that God is to blame for destroying you, that you have no power to stop Him, and that this is all happening to you entirely against your will. In other words, it is an attempt to claim that God is the cause of all death, and not the cause of life.

It then will appear that anyone who dies does not want to die. It will appear as if the person had no say in the matter, as if life just threw them a shit sandwich. It will seem as if they are being dragged kicking and screaming against their will into the firey pits of hell as if having absolutely no power to do anything about it. This is the most grandiose, lying, fabricated, fictional, deceptive, denying, dishonest, irresponsible and bullshit state of being possible. It's an attempt to accuse the entire world of destroying oneself.

Another way to put it is that we are inside this dream which WE are dreaming, and then we turn around and attempt to claim that this dream - which is coming from us - suddenly has the ability to cause us, to decide for us what we are, to make us what we are, that we are born from it and according to its nature, that we inherit from it, that is has power over us, that it decides if we live (are born) or if and when we die, and now we are a completely powerless victim of it. That's the entire illusion of death. The suggestion that a dream that WE MADE UP, is willing against us and has taken over possession of the very mind that dreamed it in the first place.

Another word for this also is "level confusion". Every single aspect of the ego thought system is level confusion. It means that cause and effect have been reversed and what was just an effect seems to be causal and what was always causal is seen to be at its effect. This means that the lower level - the effect - now seems to turn around and inflict a deadly blow against the higher level that made it in the first place, thus reversing the levels and creating an 'upward' direction of causality.

This is actually nothing more than the attempt to say "I cause God". It is the authority problem. Death is the result of the authority problem. It's an attempt to say, I have a will which is stronger than God's and I am successfully willing that God be dead, or that God is at the effect of me, or I can change God, and God is my victim. This is the idea of sin made real, that we can "actually" sin against God and cause Him harm. When we attempt to do this, instead of God dying, WE DIE. Instead of God receiving the effects, WE receive them. And so death in form is actually an expression of the attempt to kill God, and to kill His Son.

And Jesus goes into this in the Course quite a bit. The body is used as a kind of "anchor" to associate the Son of God with a form which can APPEAR to die or go through suffering, so that we can play out a fictional sadistic story of being successful at torturing and killing God's Son. When our sense of identity as God's Son is associated or identified with the body, or bound to the body, this makes us cling to the body and then we appear to become vulnerable. Eventually the body suffers and becomes weak, because we are using it for attacking ourselves, and then the body dies. And what does our ego think is happening when the body dies? It thinks that we are *succeeding* in destroying the Son of God!. Symbolically anyway. So all death is a SACRIFICE of God's Son.

This is also why this universe that we dreamed up, is a "picture of the crucifixion of God's Son". It's an attempt to implement death, to associate God's son with the form of a body or bodies, and to then destroy those forms in order to act out this idea that God and His Son have been murdered. This is of course utter bullshit and a total lie, because God and His Son are IMMORTAL, and cannot be changed or destroyed or harmed in any way.

God has granted ETERNAL LIFE to all souls He Created and it is absolutely impossible for any soul to truly die or suffer or be sick or upset or unhappy in any way. At the core of your being you know that you are already as God created you, you have not changed since God created you, and you cannot change what God created. At the core of your being you have no authority problem and you know that death is absolutely impossible for you. And yet here we are, pretending to be bodies, stuck in an illusion, bad stuff seeming to happen from our unconscious mind making it seem like we didn't ask for it, yet we are doing it ALL to ourselves.

The secret to salvation is that you are but doing ALL of this to yourself. All of the suffering, all the sickness and disease, all the upsets and unhappiness, all the tragic sudden car accident and airplane crashes and food poisoning and wars and all the rest of it. It's all a massive fictional illusion to make it seem like you are not doing it to yourself - that you are not trying to sacrifice yourself or crucify yourself. But you ARE. It's YOU that is doing it. It is YOU that is giving your consent. It not only that, not just that you are saying to someone hey, I give you consent to come along and kill me so that it seems I didn't do it myself, it's that you actually DO IT YOURSELF.

ALL death is suicide. All of it. Every single person buried in the ground was a suicide. Even the people who "died of old age" committed suicide. All of the people who suffered from terminal illnesses committed suicide. Every single still birth, every tragedy of war crimes, every murder, every unexpected accident, absolutely all of it is CHOSEN. And not one single person had anything happen to them which they did not choose and did not participate in causing to happen.

This is the truth of the Course. This is what Jesus is teaching us, to be responsible for the POWER that we have to make anything happen, and to stop denying it and stop pretending to be victims. We are NOT at the effect of the world we see, the world is nothing but an effect. It has no power to make you ill or weak or afraid or upset in any way! You are invulnerable. You are immortal spirit!

So fundamentally, death is IMPOSSIBLE because you are immortal. Period. You cannot die. But you can pretend to die, or as the course says, you can try to associate your identity with things that appear to die. Such as the body, which is an illusion, and a wonderful way to make it appear that you are not choosing.

It is utterly impossible, in all cases, for someone to move towards death, without their mind having made the decision to use death to try to sacrifice themselves. In every single case, if sickness is showing up, if suffering is happening, if there is punishment occurring, if there is unfair victimhood, or you seem unfairly treated, or something is happening that *seems* you have no power over, it is because you have GIVEN it power over you and you have given AWAY your power TO it, to make IT have the power to seem to choose FOR you that you will suffer and die, so that you can keep your power a secret even unto yourself, and pretend that this is all happening against your will.

Death cannot even begin to happen without your participation. It cannot even begin to happen without your consent. It cannot even begin to happen without your mind doing something wrong and unnatural. Death is NOT natural. It is completely unnatural. Anything that dies is filled with lies. Death is not an exit from the dream either. It is a guarantee of reincarnation. It doesn't matter how much of a famous guru you are. If you still go through death, you are still denying God, are still at the effect of the world, are still putting in place a state of victimhood, are still rallying things against you, and are still believing that God's Son can be killed.

So do not think that death is some kind of option or some kind of thing which is acceptable or peaceful or loving or kind or a sign of success or a way out of dreaming or inevitable or something which just happens against your will. IT DOES NOT. It cannot happen AT ALL unless you are making significant mistakes and are trying to bring about a will against your own will, meaning your will is divided against itself, meaning you still have a split mind. The symptoms of all sickness and death cannot show up AT ALL unless there is something going wrong with your mind.

"A broken body is proof the mind has not been healed." This is absolutely 100% literal. If there is some kind of sign of damage or breakage or sickness in the body, it is because the mind is attempting to attack ITSELF. What you use the body for it will become to you - use it for attack and it will become weak and sick and die. Use it to bring the word of God (immortality) to those who have it not and it becomes holy and being holy it CANNOT be sick, NOR CAN IT DIE. This is pure ACIM teaching.

Death is failure. Death is denial. Death is a lie. Death is a mistake. Death is victimhood. Death is self hatred. Death is sacrifice. Death is illusion. Death is suffering. Death is reluctance to accept the truth. Death is a defense against the truth. Death is sickness. Death is level confusion. Death is a reversal of cause and effect. Death is the authority problem. Death is a belief in the justified consequences of real sin. Death is absolutely the OPPOSITE of everything the course is teaching, everything true about God and His creation, and is a total reversal of sanity. Do not see it as normal or natural or an graceful exit.

Jesus is teaching us to stop killing ourselves. To accept immortality. To demonstrate immortality. To show the world that death is impossible. Jesus was crucified (by his own will) and came back and manifested another body to demonstrate that the MIND makes the body and can make another, to prove that the mind is completely NOT at the effect of the body or the world, and therefore has escaped death entirely. It is proof of immortality. Jesus overcame death. He wants us to overcome death, not give in to it. Not anticipate it or fear it or give it power or expect it or make it into a religion or worship it or put it on a pedestal like some kind of salvation.

Only the creations of light are real. Nothing real can be threatened. What is real is immortal. Spirit is is a state of grace forever. Heaven and earth are total opposites. Heaven is a state of eternal life. There is no death in God's Son.

There is no death! The Son of God is free! The Son of God can only be free if it is completely experientially true that nothing can happen against His will. And it IS true. There is no will but God's. Eternal life is GUARANTEED.

ARTICLE:

No one dies without their own consent. Stop dying!