Here is even more proof.

God created free-willed individual souls. That is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE if God is purely a concept of "no parts" or "a single thing". Even ONENESS cannot mean "one thing", because a "one thing" does NOT create "separate beings" as quoted below. Nor can the son of God dream WITHOUT God being part of the dreaming, if they are literally "one".

"God, who encompasses ALL Being, NEVERTHELESS CREATED SEPARATE BEINGS WHO HAVE EVERYTHING INDIVIDUALLY, but who want (free willed) to share it to increase their joy. Nothing that is real can be increased EXCEPT by sharing it. That is why God Himself CREATED YOU. Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what creation MEANS."

"If you believe that ALL THE SOULS THAT GOD CREATED ARE His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One (does not mean no souls), then every Soul MUST be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship. You do not find the concept that the whole is greater than its parts difficult to understand. You should therefore not have too great difficulty with this. The Sonship in its Oneness (still many parts which share) DOES transcend the sum of its parts (see, there are parts). However, it loses this special state as long as any of its parts (more parts) are missing. This is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved UNTIL all of the INDIVIDUAL PARTS OF THE SONSHIP have returned. Only then, in the true sense, can the meaning of wholeness be understood."

So you can see, if you can accept this, that God DID create individuals, and Jesus even goes so far as to say "separate beings". He also says the sonship contains multiple parts. This kind of thing just is totally incompatible with ideas of oneness, singularities, non-dualities, "God is and nothing else is" etc.

The truth is though, it's not a question of EITHER God is Oneness OR God has created parts.... it's actually that BOTH ARE TRUE. There is a oneness, as in a SHARING, BY PARTS, which does not undo the fact they are parts. This sharing allows them to AGREE WITH God's Will, freely.

More pertinent quotes:

"To be egocentric IS to be despirited. But to be self-centered in the RIGHT sense is to be inspired, or in the Soul."

"Projection (creation), as defined above, is a fundamental attribute of God, which he also gave to his Son. In the Creation, God projected his Creative Ability out of Himself toward the Souls which He created, and also imbued them with the same loving wish (or will) to create."

"We have also emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also been created perfect. There is no emptiness in him."

"The Soul, because of its own likeness to its Creator, is creative. No Child of God is capable of losing this ability, because it is inherent in what he IS."

"Right perception is necessary before God can communicate directly to His altars, which He established in His Sons."

Here is the clincher, Jesus stating that GOD GAVE FREE WILL TO ALL HIS SONS:

"In this sense the creation includes both the creation of the Son by God, and the Son's creations when his mind is healed. 8 THIS REQUIRES GOD'S ENDOWMENT OF THE SON WITH FREE WILL, because all loving creation is freely given in one continuous line, in which all aspects are of the same order." - ie the son MUST have the freedom to CHOOSE to WILL, otherwise he does not have freedom and is not like God. God therefore HAS CREATED individually free-willed sons.

The holy spirit is not a metaphor, or an idea, or a concept, or a fiction, or just part of your own mind. He is an eternal, immortal spirit being. He is also a creator. Just as much real as you are.

"The Holy Spirit, being a creation of the one Creator, creating with Him and in His likeness or spirit, is eternal and has never changed."

In fact, Jesus tells us that we are part of the Holy Spirit, as much as He is part of us. He shares himself with each of us just as much as we each share ourselves with each other. This does not make him literally "our own self".

"This form is not His reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, His real Son, Who is part of Him."

The holy spirit existed before Jesus accepted atonement and exists forever.

"He has established Jesus as the leader in carrying out His plan."

"The Atonement principle was given to the Holy Spirit long before Jesus set it in motion."

The holy spirit is a bridge across the gap of separation who remains permanently aware of God and permanently aware of your connection to him. He is the answer to separation and the bringer of salvation.

"The Holy Spirit is described as the remaining Communication Link between God and His separated Sons. In order to fulfill this special function the Holy Spirit has assumed a dual function. He knows because He is part of God; He perceives because He was sent to save humanity. He is the great correction principle; the bringer of true perception, the inherent power of the vision of Christ. He is the light in which the forgiven world is perceived; in which the face of Christ alone is seen. He never forgets the Creator or His creation. He never forgets the Son of God. He never forgets you. And He brings the Love of your Father to you in an eternal shining that will never be obliterated because God has put it there."

Jesus further clarifies that the Holy Spirit "abides" in your mind, but this does not mean he is literally you or "your right mind". He is IN your right mind and the right minds of all souls, and yet has his own being or spirit and his own mind. He *represents* your self - that doesn't mean He IS your self. He is alike your self, and alike God. He proves you and your father are one, ie, of like kind. The part of your mind that joins with the whole sonship in "christ" is where He lives.

"The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind. He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are One. He speaks for God and also for you, being joined with Both. And therefore it is He Who proves Them One."

After the atonement plan is complete, and after resurrection of all sons, Holy Spirit will remain as a permanent real creation of God. His function of perception will disappear and He will remain holy. His return to the formlessness of God does not mean He ceases to exist.

"And you will be with him when time is over and no trace remains of dreams of spite in which you dance to death's thin melody. For in its place the hymn to God is heard a little while. And then the Voice is gone, no longer to take form but to return to the eternal formlessness of God."

"When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed, there will be no call to return, but what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless THEIR creations and keep them in the light of joy."

In our attempts to run away from pain and suffering, we might view ACIM as a path that leads us out of the world and into God.

There are a great many students who believe the course is telling them to do just this, to essentially turn their back on the world and seek for an escape. Trying to find a sense of peace that let's them no longer be bothered by the world, eventually to hit the eject button and exit it entirely, leaving it behind for all the other sorry souls to suffer alone.

But what actually happens when you uncover the light within, the love of God, is this light shines out and extends and radiates. You are actually supposed to be the light of the world, a teacher of God, a healer, a manifestation of Christ, using the body for a holy purpose. You are supposed to be part of the great crusade, working miracles in the world and bringing life to death.

That means that in fact we have it totally backwards. We are not tasked with fleeing a sinking ship. We are tasked with replacing the ship with God's Kingdom. Not of disappearing off into a safe house while everyone else remains in hell, but rather of bringing heaven into the prison cell to melt the walls and set everyone free.

The light of heaven has to be shine into the spacetime, in order to bring life to death, and produce resurrection. The entire course is about resurrection, and this world is nothing more than an illusion of a death area of heaven that needs healing. Essentially we need to heal a "part of heaven" that has temporarily taken on a form that seems to be heaven's opposite, so that the forms will disappear and only heaven will remain. You can't do that if you are trying to flee to higher ground.

Thus we actually are tasked with bringing light INTO the darkness, SO THAT the darkness is shone away and replaced with light. That's how the light works, it dispels and shines away the darkness and replaces it. It doesn't hide on a fence or in some passive back alley avoiding the world.

You can't really be a teacher of God if you are not extending God. And that means you are shining love into the world here and now. And that love will bring life and healing to minds and bodies, a love which eventually will actually infuse the world so much that it will shine it away, leaving only the light of God.

Heaven is means to REPLACE the world we made, and we are meant to be part of the means by which this replacement happens. And that means you have to bring God's reflection into the world, bring the light into the darkness, shed miracles onto spacetime, and essentially to reverse the attack on God that made the world in the first place.

The world is basically like a wound that needs healing, but the purpose of healing the wound isn't to keep the wound but in a healed condition. The purpose of healing is to erase the wound entirely. At first the wound appears to heal, to transform, to reflect wholeness, then eventually it itself gives way to the underlying wholeness it was hiding.

And then only heaven remains, and there is no longer an attempt to escape (which is a form of separation), but simply a dwelling in the here and now of eternity within heaven itself, since there is no longer anywhere else to be.

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."

"Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place, made out of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deception UNdone."

Imagine that you live in a reality where you are always included in everything. Anything that happens, happens to others, and it happens to you. Anything that you give, you give to others, but you also receive. Anything that transpires happens to all at once.

Anything that is expressed by you is received by everyone, and received by yourself. Like, you literally ARE the whole of everything. The whole is your self. The entire realm of reality, the kingdom of God, is your self. So anything that takes place, you know about it, you feel it, you experience it along with everyone.

Everyone co-creates together. You are never excluded in any way. That's the fundamental fact of how reality actually IS. This is the law of God. This is the golden rule. What you do to another you do to yourself. You are one with everyone. You are the whole environment, not just a figure in the environment. You are heaven. The kingdom is your self. The sonship is your soul. All your brothers are part of you. No-one escapes anything ever. Everyone is always included, shares everything, has everything.

This is how reality really is. This is what produces shared interests. How would you act, think, feel, behave, if you knew that this was the fundamental law of existence? That anything you do even slightly you will do to yourself as well? This provides the incentive that you should only love, otherwise you will deprive yourself of love. You should only heal, otherwise you will make yourself sick. You should only include, otherwise you will become alone.

This is what ACIM is teaching you to remember and to attune to. Knowing your neighbor and brother as yourself. Realizing that if you do something you do it to yourself. The secret of salvation. Whatever you give you receive. Anything you see as being in your own interest is to be seen as being in the interests of everyone. Miracles are given to you in order that the be given through you to others and thus shared by everyone. Miracles are a universal blessing from God to the entire sonship all at once.

We need to re-learn this because we have forgotten how to live as shared entities, with shared identities. We think we are separated off by bodies, exclusive, omitted, rejected, lost, alone, not qualifying, left out. As though others can do something that doesn't include themselves, and you can do things in return that don't include yourself. As if you can get away with murder. As if you can attack without being attacked, or project guilt and escape from it without it still belonging to you. This is all the ego's realm of lies and deceit, denial and projection, dissociation and separation.

You have to learn to remember again that you are not just some separate figure in the world, separated off from others, separate from effects. You are the entire environment. You are the whole. You are the sonship. You are the kingdom of God. You are included in everything at all times. Every thought affects everyone. Every act impacts the entire universe. You are the one, shared with all. Everything belongs to you and to everyone else simultaneously. Everyone has full access to everything at all times. There are no limits anywhere.

"The secret of salvation is that you are doing this to yourself."

"I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thinking."

"When I heal I am not healed alone."

"Nothing is for you alone."

"Atonement is a lesson in sharing."

"I will not judge lest I be judged."

"Giving and receiving are one."

"Miracles are a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers."

"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds. Such is the truth."

"You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did."

"The sonship is your soul."

"We are the kingdom, WE, the sons of God."

"The Kingdom of heaven includes all his children and their creations."

"I and my father are one."

From Lesson 132... totally filled with juicy proof that the world is not real or God's creation.

"W-pI.132.4. THE WORLD IS NOTHING IN ITSELF. 2 Your mind must give it meaning. 3 And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and THINK THEM REAL. 4 Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. 5 Yet in truth you found exactly WHAT YOU LOOKED FOR when you came.

W-pI.132.5. THERE IS NO WORLD APART FROM WHAT YOU WISH, and herein lies your ultimate release. 2 Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly. 3 Ideas leave not their source. 4 This central theme is often stated in the text, and must be borne in mind if you would understand the lesson for today. 5 It is not pride which tells you that YOU MADE THE WORLD you see, and that it changes as you change your mind.

W-pI.132.6. But it is pride that argues you have come into a world quite separate from yourself (made by God?!), impervious to what you think, and quite apart from what you chance to think it is. 2 THERE IS NO WORLD! 3 This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. 4 ****Not everyone is ready to accept it****, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. 5 He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again.

W-pI.132.7. But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn THERE IS NO WORLD, and can accept the lesson now. 2 Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize. 3 Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. 4 Others find it in EXPERIENCE THAT IS NOT OF THIS WORLD, which shows them that THE WORLD DOES NOT EXIST because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly CONTRADICTS THE WORLD.

W-pI.132.8. And some will find it in this course, and in the exercises that we do today. 2 Today's idea is true because THE WORLD DOES NOT EXIST. 3 And if it is indeed YOUR OWN IMAGINING, then you can loose it from all things you ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these appearances. 4 The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death.

"HOW CAN A WORLD OF TIME AND PLACE EXIST, if you remain as God created you?"

"THERE IS NO WORLD APART FROM YOUR IDEAS because ideas leave not their source, and YOU MAINTAIN THE WORLD WITHIN YOUR MIND IN THOUGHT."

"Yet if you are as God created you, you cannot think apart from Him, NOR MAKE what does NOT share His timelessness and Love. 2 Are these inherent in the world you see? 3 Does it create like Him? 4 Unless it does, IT IS NOT REAL, and cannot be at all."

"IF YOU ARE REAL THE WORLD YOU SEE IS FALSE, for God's creation is UNLIKE THE WORLD IN EVERY WAY."

"THERE IS NO WORLD because it is a thought APART FROM GOD, and MADE TO SEPARATE the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus DESTROY His Wholeness. 2 Can a world which comes from this idea be real? 3 Can it be anywhere? 4 Deny illusions, but accept the truth."

"Today our purpose is to free the world from all the idle thoughts we ever held about it, and about all living things we see upon it. 2 THEY CAN NOT BE THERE. 3 NO MORE CAN WE. 4 For we are in THE HOME OUR FATHER SET FOR US (Heaven), along with them."

"For I am real BECAUSE THE WORLD IS NOT, and I would know my own reality."

For some time I've been confused about freedom.

A term I am often told by spirit is "you're free."

This always felt uncomfortable. It seems to allow me to do absolutely whatever I wanted to do.

It always seemed like spirit was giving me permission to do things, even things that seemed unhealthy. And this is because freedom really is unconditional, regardless of what you use it for.

Often when I would ask about what to do, whether to do something or not, they'd say "you're free". It didn't seem like a helpful response.

But I see now that it seemed to prefer to give me the freedom of choice, and to not impose any sense of one thing being more guilty than another.

Even so, I would often feel a need to then push further to ask for guidance or advice as to what to do - from someone who knows better. Because this freedom would also highlight that maybe what I was considering choosing wasn't in the spirit of freedom, ie was unloving in some way.

I still couldn't quite come to terms with "being free" though. I would ask my wife (in spirit) something for example, something perhaps relating to our relationship or earth life, and she would say "you're free". If it was ever a request about whether some kind of ego-need was 'okay', she's say I'm free.

In some way it almost seemed like a sort of "i'd prefer you don't do that, but do it if you want to" sort of begrudging. But I am sure it's my own mind that couldn't help but project that onto it.

I also struggled with the idea of being free in general, especially as it relates to my wife's passing and trying to move on and get over grief and loss.

She has been reminding me often "you're free". This hasn't always sat well, because it often was interpreted to mean "we're separate". I have since come to see that this is a sense of physical freedom - or a breaking of relationship, as though to say we have no relationship anymore, but that's not what it means.

It's finally sort of sinking in, especially from the huge download I received last night, that all this talk of freedom doesn't really mean what I thought it did.

I suddenly see now that freedom is really something that was given by God in my creation. It's a wholesale unlimited unrevokable freedom. And it has no strings attached, nor is there any suggestion of guilt for choosing one thing or another.

In this freedom is responsibility for choosing, the power to choose, the power to cause and create, and the inability to BE guilty. If we are free, and God has said "have at it", there is no coercion or requirement or pressure or punishment or judgement of any kind.

This has revealed the truth that, by being free I literally am free to come and go, free to choose, free to do one thing or another, with no strings attached anywhere. Strings are not of heaven or of God or spirit. Strings are conditions, part of conditional love. There are no chains or ties, no limits, no imprisonment.

We are all each one of us individually completely 100% free to dream or awaken, stay in hell or move toward heaven, remain suffering or regain our power, act like an effect or a cause, do evil things or good things, whatever. God does not forceable stop anything, but he does will and encourage us through his plan and help to choose a better way - a more loving happier way.

This is why I keep being told "you're free". It's a God-given right. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. Whatever I want to do comes to pass. I a responsible for everything I experience. I consent to whatever I cause to happen. There is no victimhood, no specialness, no ties and no conditions.

It doesn't matter what I do, coming or going, advancing or retreating. God still loves me and so does all of heaven. I am guided gently forward and gently upward, and so long as I trust and have willingness I will return to God. Not because I have to, but because I want to.

"Forget not that the choice of truth or sin, power or helplessness, IS the choice of whether to attack or HEAL. For healing comes of POWER, and ATTACK of helplessness. Whom you attack, you CANNOT want to heal. And whom you would have healed, MUST be the one you chose to be PROTECTED from attack. And what IS this decision, but the choice whether to see him through the body's eyes, or let him be REVEALED to you through vision? HOW this decision leads to its effects is NOT your problem. But what you WANT to see, MUST be your choice. This is a course in CAUSE, and NOT effect." UrT21H8

Lately for me what has become starkly evident and true of everyone, is the rather dark and twisted truth that everyone is self-destructive. Everyone is trying to die. Everyone is condemning themselves for a sin that never really happened, and the wages of sin is self-inflicted death. Everyone is being unfair to themselves, mis-representing themselves, attacking themselves and hurting themselves.

"...A dry and dusty world where starved and thirsty creatures come to die."

"Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

EVERYONE!

It's a suicidal planet. I wouldn't go so far as to say that everyone has the same degree of "deep self-hatred", but it is certainly rampant. The guilt that people have over the separation has driven them insane. We've collaborated on making an insane and stupid world where suffering seems normal and punishment is atonement.

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death."

"Sin is belief attack can be projected OUTSIDE the mind where the belief arose. Here is the firm conviction that ideas CAN leave their source made real and meaningful. And FROM this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise."

Let's just say it again. The whole world is MAD. And this is not merely an allegation or a speculation. It is EXTENSIVE. "This IS an insane world, and do not underestimate the actual extent of its insanity. There is no area of your perception that it has not touched, and your dream IS sacred to you."

"the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt"

Even in biblical terms, if I recall, we're sort of told that each of us on earth has become a "sinner" ie believing in sin, and that we need to "repent" ie find our innocence again.

So what I see now is the fact that we've got a huge population of people who believe they have separated from God. The course calls us "the separated ones." We believe we've accomplished separation by attacking God, or that which is in truth not attackable. And because it is not possible, yet we believe it, we are insane, because now we believe something impossible is true. And this all began with an insane idea.

"The instant that the mad idea of making your relationship with God unholy seemed to be possible, ALL relationships were made meaningless."

"In that unholy instant time was born, and bodies made to house the mad idea, and give it the ILLUSION of reality."

"Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects."

We as immortal beings, accused ourselves of a sin we could never commit, made ourselves horrendously guilty for it, attacked ourselves, punished ourselves, entered an insane dreaming state in which we dream of being mortal, made up every form of suffering and sickness, and try to kill ourselves off to prove we are right. MADNESS!!!

Fortunately our entire state of insanity is entirely temporary, entirely unfounded, entirely untrue, and entirely correctable, without the slightest punishment called for. We are all just very mistaken people, who believe absolute bullshit lies that we've taught ourselves, and we need correction. We need help from outside of the hell we made to help us wake up to reality and recognize what is true.

"My call to you is that you offer help from all the dreams the holy Son of God imagines, from the time that first of dreams was given false reality until all dreaming ends forever."

"Everything OUTSIDE the Kingdom IS ILLUSION. But you must learn to ACCEPT truth because YOU THREW IT AWAY. You therefore saw yourself AS IF you were WITHOUT it. By making another Kingdom WHICH YOU VALUED, you did NOT keep the Kingdom of God alone in your minds, and thus placed part of your mind OUTSIDE of it. What you have made has thus DIVIDED YOUR WILL and given you a sick mind that MUST be healed. Your vigilance AGAINST this sickness IS the way to heal it."

When I am upset, feeling unhappy, having a cry, feeling guilty or afraid, or whatever, Holy Spirit is gentle and compassionate. He often says, "I know". Sometimes I feel a hand on my shoulder from Him or Jesus.

They are compassionate in that they know that *I* believe I am experiencing something upsetting, that *I* feel sad or whatever. They are there for me, and they don't judge it. They don't even use the opportunity to push me towards some kind of forgiveness or greater awareness. They just hold me and hug me.

However, the fact is that all upset feelings come from a mis-perception that I chose. And I chose that mis-perception so that I could further my separation from God.

So for example, I might feel upset because I saw myself victimized by someone. I might feel sad about how someone rejected me or whatever. And those feelings seem genuine, it seems like I really feel this way and that it's very sad and unfortunate. But, once I'm done with feeling, at some point I need to find the willingness to move beyond this.

I've witnessed how, in particular, when old hurts come up from the past, to be healed, they always feel like how it felt at the time. They're always based on how I was perceiving when I was younger and less aware. Even though at the time I did not understand what was going on, or what it meant, how it made me feel at the time based on that perception is now the feeling that I need to work through and release. But I've also seen how obvious it is, that these feelings were just how I felt 'within' the framework of a certain way of looking at life, and there is usually some kind of mistake in that.

I saw myself as hurt because I didn't perceive correctly. I saw myself as unloved because I didn't recognize my infinite lovability. I saw myself as unworthy because I devalued myself sort of 'by accident' because I didn't know what i was doing. And so I created feelings of unworthy and unlove and so on, which I must 'heal' and release, but even though these feelings seem like they reflected some kind of 'truth', they're not really the ultimate truth.

I need to become willing to admit that, once I've allowed myself to feel and release the 'energy' produced by a false perception, that the perception ITSELF was faulty. And it was the fault perception that LED to faulty feelings. Unhappy feelings come from unhappy perceptions. So I need to now be willing to see differently, to look for a greater truth, to own up to the part that I played in choosing to suffer, to take back my power, to claim responsibility for doing this to myself, and to realize that nobody involved was doing it without my will.

So there is a 'forgiveness' process that needs to occur, above and beyond unhappy feelings, to correct the perception that led to them. And even though Holy Spirit knows this, he seldom prompts or forces me to 'go there' especially not right when I'm feeling how the feelings felt. I let myself fully feel because this releases the energy, even though it's a FALSE energy, to clear it out. To cathart it. THEN my mind is clearer and can have a cognitive shift, as well as being more willing and able to now apply a 'forgiveness' to change my perception.

It's important to let yourself feel and let out the trapped negative emotions, but recognize also that they are only there because of a mistaken way of looking at life, and that mistake needs to be corrected at some point. When you are ready. And not before. And nobody is pushing you or forcing you to have to do that, especially not when you're in the middle of a deep release. Trying to rush someone out of feeling into truth isn't compassionate.

So it's possible to have compassion for someone who is feeling upset even if you know that their upset is false, and there really isn't a need to be upset. Holy Spirit knows that nothing has gone wrong and there is ONLY reason to celebrate, but to tell me that in the middle of me believing heavily that I've been wronged, isn't entirely helpful because I can't hear it until I'm ready and willing. We really believe we've done something terrible to God and deserve to be punished for it, and as we work through those feelings, Holy Spirit is very patient to give you time to 'process' the consequences of a mistaken decision. And then at some point, when you're ready, you will undo the belief that caused it.

Miracle principle 11 says "A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable value simultaneously."

If you believe and perceive that your neighbor is not yourself, that they are a separate person, and you are not one, you will find yourself unwilling to give to them.

There is a very simple reason for this. If the two of you are separate, then logically when you give something to them, you are excluded from receiving it. What is theirs is not yours.

This leads to the quite sensible conclusion that, since your brother seems separate from you, you should NOT give to them, because if you do, you will stand to lose everything that you give.

It makes perfect sense because if the premise is that the two of you are separated, then it also makes sense to say that what belongs to you does not belong to them, and vice versa.

Believing that the two of you are separate, you will therefore find yourself "naturally" unwilling to give to others. You will not want to perform any miracles. You will not want to share yourself or give love.

Giving love across a divide, to a separate person, who is cut off from you, can only seem to entail a sense of loss. You believe quite logically that whatever you give you will lose, and giving will be a sacrifice.

This is rooted in the fundamental dynamic that giving and receiving are not one. If you and your brother are separated, then giving and receiving are also separated. Who you give to will appear to exclude your self, and so you will see yourself as not the receiver. If you do not stand to receive, then you will not want to give away, because it will seem detrimental to you.

In a sense, you could say that this appears to be selfish. However, the person is really just doing what seems logical based on the premise that they are separate. A person is unwilling to give because they want to keep what they give. They want to be included in the receipt of it. But because they see themselves as not included in the "list of receivers", they conclude that hoarding is a better strategy. This is entirely sensible and logical.

What this means then is that if you see yourself as separate from another, and you think you have something they lack, or you see yourself as a healer or giver, but do not see yourself as one with the other person, you will not want to give to them. You will be unwilling to perform a miracle of union on the grounds that giving so fully will deprive you of everything. And no-one is going to argue that this makes no sense.

If your brother is indeed separate from you, then by all means you should not give anything to him, because what he stands to gain you stand to lose. And so the ego will counsel that it's important to recognize the separation, make it real, and therefore stay within your private prison. And that it is in your best interests not to even try to give, or to perform a miracle of love, because this runs against your best interests.

So long as this separateness is maintained, you will of course maintain separate interests. What is in your own best interests is not the same as what is in the interests of another. If the two of you are not actually one, then there is no way for you to really receive or keep what you're giving. Only IF the two of you are one, can your interests be mutual, and therefore shared.

Only through shared interests, recognizing that you are one with the other person, they are a part of your self, and therefore it IS in your best interest to give to the part of you that you share with them, can you be naturally and logically willing to perform a miracle.

The ego will suggest this is impossible because it claims that you are currently separate. And if you are separate, there is no logical basis for saying that giving is going to help your situation. In fact giving will appear to deprive you, so long as you remain separate. And it's clue here is that if you give love, in an attempt to heal, the healing will have no effect on YOU, and therefore there is no way to bridge the gap anyway.

The interesting thing, however, is that regardless of how separated you are right now, when you TRY to give, you will find that the giving of love actually heals you along with it. You cannot heal without being healed. The love that you try to squeeze through to share with another is actually received by you as well. It includes you in it. And this inclusiveness of love actually unifies your minds and lifts your spirits.

If you can recognize therefore, however dimly, that your brother is yourself, and is part of you, and therefore you are not losing by giving, then you will become willing to give. Giving is sharing and inclusion, not loss If you believe that giving is going to deprive you, then you have to recognize you currently see yourself as separate. It's actually then a necessity to be willing to try to overcome this sense of separateness, in order for you to be okay with giving.

Indeed the course suggests that "miracles are taken first on faith", because you may be in a position where you do NOT really recognize your oneness with another, and you do not see them as part of yourself. They still seem separate to you. Which means that you're going to have to "take it on faith" that IF you give love and attempt to join, to heal the isolation that keeps you apart, then the love will do its job and make it clearer to you that you are in fact NOT separate, AND that you stand to gain from the giving.

"A miracle is a reversal of the physical order because it brings more love to the giver AND the receiver."

Your willingness to try to share, join, be one with, see yourself as, with others, brings a healing love to you, to heal the gap in your own mind, and to lift you up in addition to lifting another up. You actually receive the love that you give. When you try to heal another, therefore, you should find that you yourself become healed as well. Both of you are recipients of love's benefit because it is inclusive.

So if you assess how much you see another as separate from you, you'll also find that this correlates to how much of an "unhealed healer" you are. If you regard yourself as having something others lack, you are seeing yourself as separate. And then you will feel that you can expend effort and therefore become taxed by trying to give healing.

This sense of limitation or that "healing is a sacrifice", is all part of the unhealed healer's thought process. To overcome this the healer has to be included in the healing and thus receive what is given. If I feel that I cannot perform miracles because it would be too much effort, would require me to give a lot, and I'm not willing to lose a lot in order to do so - because I'm selfish, then obviously I need to learn that by giving I will receive and the sense of separation and sacrifice is unfounded.

By learning to give to another AS yourself, you can actually take that all the way, and through such equality of giving and receving you will find God.

"Atonement is for all, because it is the way to UNDO the belief that ANYTHING is for you ALONE."

"It is impossible for a Child of God to love his neighbor EXCEPT as himself. That is why the healer's prayer is, "let me know this brother as I know myself."

"The unforgiving mind does not believe that giving and receiving are the same."

"The interval you think lies in between the giving and receiving of the gift SEEMS to be one in which you sacrifice, and suffer loss."

"Yet it is always God Who calls to you, and he who asks your help is but yourself. Who is the giver and the receiver then? Who asks the gift and who is given it?"

"Each miracle is an example of what justice can accomplish, when it is offered to everyone alike. It is received and GIVEN equally. It IS awareness that giving and receiving ARE the same."

""Father, I must return Your Love for me. For giving and receiving are the same, and You have given all Your Love to me. I must return It, for I want It mine in full awareness, blazing in my mind, and keeping it within Its kindly light, inviolate, beloved, with fear behind and only peace ahead. How still the way Your loving Son is led along to You!""

"Do not allow your brother not to remember, for his forgetfulness is YOURS. But YOUR remembering is HIS, for God cannot be remembered alone. THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN. To perceive the healing of your brother as the healing of yourself, is thus the way to remember God. For you forgot your brothers WITH Him, and God's answer to your forgetting is but the way to remember."

When you feel angry at someone and believe they are guilty, you will also feel afraid of them. And you will find that behind this fear, YOU feel guilty for some reason. You feel guilty because you have attacked this person with your mind. And you attacked "them" in trying to get rid of the guilt that arose from your self-attack.

You will also find that this idea that you have of them in your mind, this picture, of some kind of monster that you hate, is not really THEM. It's not the person. It's actually a separate image that you've invented which you hate. You hold this image up and hate IT, but it's not really targeted at the person. You see IT, INSTEAD of them, and it blinds you to their light.

"Who sees a brother's body has laid a JUDGMENT on him, and sees him not. He does not REALLY see him as sinful; he does not see him at all. In the darkness of sin, he is INVISIBLE. He can but be IMAGINED in the darkness, and it is here that the illusions you hold about him are NOT held up to his reality."

Images of guilty people in your mind STAND IN FOR the actual people, which you project ONTO them and think you see IN them. You aim your guilt at this image and you try to destroy it, thinking it is the person, because the image blinds you. You cannot see past it. So you see it instead of them. And while you think you are hating them, you are not really.

In truth, this guilty monster in your mind, your so-called enemy, which comes up every time you think you're thinking of that person, is really just a way that you're separating off YOUR OWN GUILT, and holding it within your own mind, and trying to destroy it. It's part of how you are attacking yourself.

You think you're finding this other person to be guilty, and that the hate is directed NOT at you, but it really is. "Ideas leave not their source", nor does the guilt leave your mind. You are just dissociated, which means your mind is splitting apart and your sense of identity has broken away from this guilty part of you.

To forgive, you have to actually work on forgiving this "idea" of the person, this image that you have of them. It's not really anything to do with the ACTUAL person. It's this overlay that you've put together and built up, a case against them, a frame around them, in which you PICTURE them as guilty and wrong.

This picturing, this projection of guilt, needs to be healed. It's actually your mind that needs the healing. You need to forgive this IMAGE of the person, by seeing light and goodness and innocence in it, giving the imagined person credit, letting them off the hook, seeing what they've done that deserves praise and worthiness. Because you're actually talking about your own self here, a part of YOU that you find guilty.

As you work on this, undoing your false PICTURES of people, which look like other people, but are actually PARTS OF YOU, you are forgiving yourself. You only really need to forgive yourself. It's your mind that has guilt and has become split apart, and needs reintegrating. It's nothing to do with these other actual people out there, you just have used them to form faulty interpretations, and it is the INTERPRETATION of them that you hate.

You need to forgive the images of guilty people that are in your mind, because it's really YOUR MIND that needs forgiveness. Those images are NOT those people, they are stand-ins, and just take on the form of those people while being PARTS OF YOU. Thus you forgive yourself by forgiving "them", by giving these split-off personalities/identities innocence and guiltlessness, so that YOU become guiltless and forgiven.

"Exclusion and separation are synonymous. So are separation and dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and IS dissociation, and also that once it had occurred, projection became its main defense, or the device which KEEPS IT GOING. The reason, however, may not be as clear to you as you think. What you project you disown, and therefore DO NOT BELIEVE IS YOURS. You are therefore EXCLUDING yourself from it, by the very statement you are making that you are DIFFERENT from someone else. Since you have also judged AGAINST what you project, you attack it because you have already attacked it BY rejecting it. By doing this UNCONSCIOUSLY, you try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself FIRST out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe."