FED-UP WITH SUFFERING? PUTTING UP WITH WHAT HAS HAPPENED? TOLERATING PAIN? WANT SOME RELIEF?!!

The ego’s thought system is specifically geared to make you suffer for as long as possible.

Every time something "happens" in this world, it is symbolic of sin. Sin seems like an irreversible event which, once it has happened, produces inevitable consequences. The consequences are believed to be irreversible, and so we resign ourselves to tolerating them, accepting them, allowing them putting up with them, and SUFFERING, for a long long time.

Sin, or events, as soon as they happen, move into the past. This was our ego device for using time to keep the "cause" of all problems locked in the past, beyond access to the present, so that it could not be changed. The past ITSELF is the idea of "something happened which cannot be changed." And pretty much everyone believes, you cannot undo the past.

Then, the consequences of sin proceed according to ego laws, extending indefinitely into the future, featuring lots and lots of suffering. We believe we cannot do ANYTHING to change what has happened, so we just put up with it. Our mind, believing this ego arrangement, starts to become CONDITIONED to think and perceive and be USED TO living this way. Stuff happens, we accept it as real, we do not undo it, we think we have to LIVE WITH IT.

This mental conditioning, kind of a habit of thought, which runs completely OPPOSITE to the thought system of the Holy Spirit, is a thought system of maintaining suffering. Ie, maintaining the consequences of sin indefinitely. We become used to it. We think it’s NORMAL! We then tolerate the suffering for as long as possible, until it adds up and destroys us. Living this way, is unforgiving. We have condemned ourselves to death.

Since this conditioning has been built up over a very long period of time, it seems almost impossible to even question it or do anything about it. Surely we cannot undo sin? Surely we cannot REVERSE the consequences of our wrong decisions, or events which seemed to "happen"? But we can.

Holy Spirit had news for me, because I believed and acted this way. I did not believe stuff could be undone. I didn’t even know there was ANY OTHER WAY to live. I was so USED TO accepting that whatever happens, it’s a done deal. As soon as I become sick, I accepted I must suffer it and use magic and try to get over it the "normal" way. This always means, a long drawn out period of suffering. Lots of time spent feeling like shit. I did not even IMAGINE that it might be possible NOT TO HAVE TO SUFFER this way.

Holy Sprit started teaching me that "you need not suffer". One day I burned my hand on hot water. It became sore fast. I started believing, I was going to have a sore hand for a week, would have to suffer with it, this was really really annoying, and I was mad about it. I saw no way to avoid that suffering, other than trying to use magic. It hurt, and I was pissed. But Holy Spirit had news for me! He said, "you need not suffer". My hand started to shake. A miracle was happening, but I did not want to LOOK at it. I was a bit frightened, because miracles blow the ego expectations out of the water.

Something was happening completely contrary to how things normally happen, against y ego, and against my resistance. After a few moments, I looked. All of the soreness was completely healed, all the redness gone. And at that moment, just for a moment, something happened in my mind... a sudden glimpse of some kind of miraculous state of being, a mind which knew that anything of the body can be flipped on or off like a light switch, to which it was completely immune. It was a moment of LIGHT. A state of mind I had never experienced, caused by my EGO ILLUSIONS being proven before my eyes, that they were NOT TRUE. Miracles are teaching devices!

At times I also have emotional releases of old pain. These used to require that I cry at great length. I have cried so many times over the past years doing the course it’s probably in the 1000’s. But lately, Holy Spirit has been teaching me, "you need not suffer". As I go to cry, showing a willingness to release, Holy Spirit immediately steps in. I can’t even get a tear out. He does his healing thing, producing various temporary effects and shaking and so on, and then the upset is GONE. Just disappeared. No need to cry at all. In fact, laughing at the end of it. I thought I had to suffer, feel upset, let it out the painful way. Not any more! Now, every single time I go to release emotions, Holy Spirit does it for me! You could say, I never need to cry ever again. Isn’t that something to be thankful for?! It’s a miracle every time.

Now, this applies to all of us, because this is what happens when a MIRACLE happens. Miracles REVERSE what seems to have happened (sin), proving it was NOT irreversible. They can reach BACKWARDS in time and beyond all "causes" that we think were in the past out of reach, and UNDO them, restoring us to how we were BEFORE stuff happened. Restoring our innocence and immortality! Miracles reverse time! This is completely the OPPOSITE of what we usually experience as "linear time". Linear time seems to only move forwards, shoving sin into the past and guilt and suffering into the future. Not so, say miracles! Miracles GO THE OTHER WAY! They rewind, they undo, they collapse, they correct, they reverse, they heal, they restore, and demonstrate that YOU DO NOT NEED TO SUFFER EVEN A LITTLE BIT FOR ANY TIME AT ALL!

This is mind-bending for us who are accustomed to thinking with the ego, assuming that linear time (shit happens and it gets worse) is "normal", and just taking the way this world SEEMS to function at face value. My mind is so used to moving "forwards" with the consequences of sin, that to get myself to even THINK about moving the opposite direction is a real challenge. My mind doesn’t seem to want to go that way! It’s like a whole different direction of perception. It takes baby steps. It takes practice. And each time I am a little bit willing to entertain this idea...."maybe I DON‘T HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS", and the sooner the better, and imagine that it MIGHT be possible to NOT have to go through the whole train of suffering in the future, I open up to the Holy Spirit, who CAN OFFER HEALING NOW, and prevent having to suffer a long drawn-out PUNISHMENT.

Holy Spirit is capable of REVERSING absolutely anything the ego has made, of undoing absolutely ALL SIN, proving and demonstrating that NOTHING stands in the way of God’s healing power, and that SIN is absolutely NOT PERMANENT and HAS NO REAL CONSEQUENCES. "Holy Spirit will undo the ALL the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him", literally means, MIRACLES WILL OVERRIDE ALL CAUSES AND EFFECTS and will UNDO every form of suffering you ever thought you "had to experience" based on "what happened" or "what you did". We do not "have to" go along with the whole "something bad just happened, let’s immediately accept it has happened and PUT UP WITH IT" bullshit. THAT IS THE EGO! We must STOP TOLERATING THE EGO, because the only place it leads to is suffering and death.

It can be hard to do, especially at first. I have experienced this myself, and I still feel like a baby at this. Each time something "goes wrong", or some sickness pops up, or whatever temptation there is that "there’s nothing I can do about this", the challenge is to catch myself and stop myself and be like.... wait..... I don’t have to accept this crap! This is not God’s will. I don’t have to SUFFER! MAYBE there is another option. "I can see peace instead of this", or rather, "I can choose a miracle and UNDO THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW! I don’t have to just go into a future-predicting VICTIM mode and the whole story of how this is going to ruin my life forever. THERE MUST BE A BETTER WAY.

There is! Question that time must go forwards. Question that you are stuck with what happens to you. Question the temptation to believe there is NOTHING that can be done to undo this. And you will be going up against YOUR OWN BELIE that there is nothing anyone can do, and it’s a strong one! You’re going to have to really stretch your mind to consider and be open, that EVEN THIS.... even this "thing" thats happening, big or small, EVEN THIS you don’t have to accept, it doesn’t have to stay, MAYBE it can be undone, MAYBE there is a way to heal this with God. And gradually you will develop TRUST in the Holy Spirit and be willing to BELIEVE His Power to heal anything, and thus become OPEN TO RECEIVE THE HEALING. Holy Spirit has an unlimited supply of healing waiting for you!!!!!! There is nothing your holiness cannot do. There is nothing his holiness cannot do.

But it will take practice, because your mind has been TRAINED to "go along with the consequences of sin", at great length. So much that you think it’s totally NORMAL - everyone seems to suffer the asame way, bad stuff happens and there’s nothing we can do. That’s the battle-cry of SIN! The ego LOVES TO SUFFER! Our mind may even have DIFFICULTY even beginning to entertain this idea that events can MOVE IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. Like someone hitting REWIND on the VCR! We do not have to live in a world of "doing" (to us). We can live in a world of UNDOING. Simply because we do not see hardly anyone demonstrating this, we have ASSUMED that we must suffer and whatever caused stuff to happen, we’re stuck with it. It’s bullshit!

We have not seen someone coming BACK to life after being dead. We have not seen a car accident being reversed and no consequences coming from it. We have not seen someone with terminal cancer suddenly have cancer no more. We have not seen a dead baby being resurrected. We have not seen a leg which was broken 5 minutes ago be completely healed. We have not seen broken objects be repaired, or lack be filled out of nowhere, or people being CURED of what the world says "cannot be cured". Ego/sin says nothing can be cured! It is CERTAIN of your death. We must choose the OPPOSITE DIRECTION! That’s what miracles are. Every miracle demonstrates the mind is more powerful than the body and more powerful than SIN.

Miracles are reinforced by forgiveness which recognizes sin has no consequences, and it UNDOES THEM! We simply ASSUME that everything proceeds forwards, starting with sin, ending in DEATH. It does not have to!

Let’s practice being the ones to DEMONSTRATE that sometimes, and it should be ALL THE TIME, things can go backwards. Stuff can get healed. There can be total reversal of death. "Causes" can be nullified and cancelled out, and all effects which came from them UNDONE. We need to work with the Holy Spirit in our OWN EXPERIENCE, learning that we don’t have to put up with the things that "happen to us" in life. Let him show you that you need not suffer.

Let him show you that you DON’T have to tolerate that cold for 2 weeks, that you DON’T have to just accept that you will never get your paralyzed limb back, that you DON’T have to just lay down and die just because SIN claims that you do.

This is learning to trust the supernatural healing power of miracles, which UNDO everythig the ego tries to DO. It is nothing short of the complete reversal of all death and destruction and chaos, and the undoing of the separation, and the guaranteed RESURRECTION of God’s Sons. Miracles REVERSE what the ego has "done". That is how they UNDO. Miracles don’t really do anything at all, because all they do is undo? Is that a sorry excuse for a watered down non-miracle? MIRACLES UNDO EVERYTHING THE EGO HAS PUT IN PLACE!

Guess also why Jesus says the MIRACLE is the only tool available to you to control time? Because miracles MOVE TIME BACKWARDS in order to revert and undo the consequences of sin! They RETURN YOU to innocence, health, wholeness and happiness from which you came, which is symbolically in the distant past. With miracles, you need not AGE, you need not DIE, you need not SUFFER, and you need not be SICK ever again! Nothing needs to go wrong and stay wrong! There is NOTHING YOUR HOLINESS CANNOT DO. This takes learning, patience, practice and trust, in the HOLY SPIRIT, that HE has the power and ability to HEAL ANYTHING FOR YOU if you will allow it and just be open to this one simple idea ..... maybe there is a better way, than having to suffer the consequences of sin.

When we try to make sense of things, we use logical reasoning. You do this all the time even if you don't realize it. You take what you "know is true" and build a conclusion from it.

Everyone tries to make sense of things. Whatever seems to make sense, you accept as true. When something doesn't make sense, you feel confused or regard it as false. This actually means you are HEAVILY dependent on whatever the logical process produces as a result, and usually don't question the process itself.

Everyone has a sense of what is true and what is false. What is true for you is the result of your reasoning. Your reasoning might be very accurate, or it could be very confused, but either way you end up with a conclusion.

The main way that people reason is based on a simple SEPARATION BASED method. It's based in separation because it defines whether or not something IS OR IS NOT something. A similar way we do this is trying to determine that something is EITHER THIS OR THAT. But with the clause that "it cannot be both". ie ... it's a model of NOT BOTH. SO it is "exclusive" and AGAINST equality.

Because the physical world itself, spacetime, is built from the separation idea, physical objects appear to be "separate" from each other. And being NOT equal, they are all DIFFERENT. This arrangement of "separate and different" objects lends itself very well to this kind of "either/or" reasoning.

So you can use this logic to say, my car is either in the garage or parked up front. Or, I will have the ham sandwich not the turkey sandwich. Or, my body is male not female. Or, this is my house not yours.

This kind of thinking maps exactly and very well to the arrangement of the physical world, because the physical world was MADE in an idea of separation. It has separation infused into it. And so Object A and Object B seem to be separate options. Either A, or B.

What this world, and this kind of reasoning, is EXTREMELY poor at, is dealing with matters of SHARING. It has no way to deal with the notion that something applies to BOTH, or to A AND B at the same time. It works very well when things are kept in separate boxes, sectioned off. But it has no way to deal with the idea that something is in two places at once, or that the truth applies equally to two things, or that two things are also one thing.

So in this world we can't usually say, I am sitting in my car AND I'm sitting in my house. Or that I am a human and a fish. Or that both me and my wife each get 100% of the pizza. These kind of ideas seem like nonsense or "not possible". We'd say, they are false.

The thing is, while THIS world is based on separation logic, as a THOUGHT SYSTEM founded on the idea of things being completely separate, God's reality is TOTALLY UNLIKE this.

God doesn't think in terms of separation. He doesn't think in terms of separate boxes. He also doesn't think in terms of EITHER THIS OR THAT. He doesn't draw contrasts between things in this way. He isn't exclusive or special or isolated or one-sided or treating one thing differently than another.

Also, given that God is whole and perfect, when God creates, God creates wholly and perfectly. This means that whatever God creates, has properties which are fully inherited from Himself and his nature. Like father like Son. But this means that, what is true of the father is true of the son. It means they are BOTH something. e.g. they are both holy, both innocent, both have everything, both are creators, etc. In fact this goes to such as an extent as to say they are ONE, and yet they are two, because they BOTH exist even though they share everything.

"This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER. Actually, the original statement was "are of one KIND."

Similarly the Golden Rule, which is God's law, which is based on the idea that what is true of one thing is true of another and all things are treated equally, DEPENDS ON the idea that what is true of me is true of me AND YOU. That BOTH of us get to have everything.

That ME AND YOU are exactly alike. That what is true of me, is true of you, and vice versa. This is perfect equality. And it even goes so far as to mean that there is no compromise, lack, scarcity, or competition, because everyone has FULL access to everything simultaneously. This is true sharing.

"You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did.""Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT."

However, this kind of equality, with a single truth applying to all things, where the truth is SHARED, and where BOTH elements are "as one", cannot be handled by the either/or logical process. In truth, for example, any thought of God contains all the thoughts of God. Any son of God is all the sons of God. This DOES NOT COMPUTE to the separation-based reasoning.

The ego, using separation thinking, would say, a son of God HAS TO BE EITHER, here, or there. He has to be in this box, or that box. He cannot be in both. God would say, that is totally untrue, that one son of God shares all of himself with another son of God, and BOTH of them are in BOTH boxes at the same time. That you are LITERALLY IN your brother, one with Him, as though he is part of you. This is absolutely sensible, rational, logical, and perfectly impeccable based on HOW GOD THINKS.

What you'll find is that, anything to do with God, his creation, his mind, heaven, reality, the sonship, sons/souls, holy spirit etc, absolutely anything that existed before the separation and without ego. .. is governed NOT by laws of "either this or that", but by laws of "both and". Laws of equality. Laws of identicality. Laws of oneness, which TRANSCEND BOUDARIES.

Therefore, whenever you think of any of these TOPICS, and you start trying to draw conclusions about these topics, IF you use either/or separation based logic to do so, you WILL come to COMPLETELY FALSE conclusions, but these conclusions will seem to make sense. They seem to have consistency, but they are based on a false premise (separation), and so are not sound or valid.

For example, God has created a sonship which comprises many sons. But it is also true that each of these sons IS the other sons. For example "one brother is all brothers. one mind is all minds". A son isn't just a "separate son", it's a son who IS ALSO the other sons. And there are many sons who are each other as well. And this is not in any way a contradiction nor is it anything to do with separation in the ego sense.

But if you use EITHER/OR based reasoning, and you look at heaven, you'll tell yourself, EITHER .... a) God has one son or b) God has many sons. And you'll tell yourself that it would not MAKE SENSE unless it were ONE OR THE OTHER. That the answer must be "not both". But "not both" is a TOTAL DENIAL of the fact that everything in heaven IS BOTH. It's a system founded on "both", on "and", on "sharing and inclusion."

The ego's way of thinking is EXCLUSION BASED. One object is excluded from another object. One boxes content is exclusive to that box and not the other box. This is how 99% of the world population thinks about EVERYTHING.

God's way of thinking is INCLUSION BASED. One object is also in another object. One object is in multiple locations. One object IS the other object. Two boxes contain one object. This is INCLUSIVE reasoning. This is how God thinks, and how his entire thought system functions. Because God is not BOUND by the LIMITATIONS of separation or a separation based system. God DEFIES separation.

So when you think "exclusively" about God's reality and creation, you are MAKING AN ERROR. Because you are using a logic system NOT designed to accommodate a system that overflows boundaries. So you are trying to FORCE boundaries onto that system, are trying to FORCE things into separate boxes that they are not restricted to, and are attempting to PROJECT SEPARATION onto heaven.

It is quite funny but almost everyone does this with regards to course topics. In other words, using an ego-based logic process to think about NON-ego topics, IN an ego way. The result is FALSE conclusions, which masquerade as "making total sense." But in truth, what makes sense to the ego, is totally nonsense, and what makes sense to God, is totally nonsense to the ego. Because the ego is insane.

That means that separation-based reasoning IS INSANITY. And trying to shove God's creations into finite boxes IS ISANITY. And trying to claim that God HAS to have only one son in one box IS INSANITY. And claiming that God can't have ONE son AND many sons AT THE SAME TIME, which is "perfectly legal" in God's system, is INSANITY.

The problem isn't so much that people are drawing false conclusions, it's more that people DO NOT realize that they are USING an ego-affirming thought process to FILTER and JUDGE a NON-egoic system. And so they SEE separations where they don't exist, AND they OVERLOOK separations where they DO exist as well. Such as here:

"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless ***created separate beings who have everything individually***, but who want to share it to increase their joy."

It would seem "logical" to most to say God EITHER has to have one son OR many sons, and it can't be both. And it seems logical to say that IF God only has one son HE CANNOT have many sons. And it seems logical to say that therefore those sons must be part of "separation" because "the absence of separations" is more spiritual. BUT ALL OF THIS IS A FALSE CONCLUSION, projected onto a divine system of logic, BY a BACKWARDS system of logic based on separation and exclusion.

We just don't realize that we do this. We do this all the time. Like literally EVERY conversation in this forum about the course uses separation-based reasoning. We think that reasoning in terms of either/or is totally normal, natural, and the ONLY way to think. It is TOTALLY not how God thinks and it is actually extremely unnatural. It is what leads to false perception in fact.

If your whole mindset and thought process is always proceeding along the lines of "this or that" "either or" ..... you are literally enforcing separation. You are being EXCLUSIVE, which means you are EXCLUDING others. And this is precisely what separation means - exclusion from the whole, exclusion from relationship, exclusion from communication and sharing.

If you THINK this way, about everything, all the time, you are thinking WITH the ego, even if you think you are being spiritual or thinking about spirit. This forces you into BODY identification because the body symbolizes a SEPARATE BOX, kept apart and exclusive from the other boxes. Exclusive reasoning anchors you into space and time and bodies. It is a thought system of death and isolation. This is NOT how God thinks and it is NOT how his thought system operates.

And anyone wanting to do the course will need to learn to grasp paralogical reasoning. Otherwise you can't possibly comprehend how your brother is yourself, or how you can have a holy relationship, or how you can be one with something without losing your identity.

Oneness with others is an INCLUSIVE idea, not an idea of exclusion, and you can't USE exclusive thinking to understand it. But you CAN use inclusive logic, which is holographic as well. Because God thinks holographically not linearly. We have to INCLUDE if we want to awaken, not shove God's creation into prison cells with only room for "one".

"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is perfectly natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to you. "

It is not JUST true that God has one Son. It IS true that God has one son. AND it is true that he has many sons. And his many sons are direct creations of his, while also the one son encapsulates them all, without removing them from him even slightly as a direct parent. To suggest God's SONSHIP - which is a collection of sons - is "an ego thing", is a COMPLETE LOGICAL FAILURE. To suggest that the presence of many sons is "separation", is a complete logical failure as well.

When there is BOTH AND ..... me AND you .... US as one ..... united and together as brothers forever..... THAT is reality. A system of total equality, sharing and simultaneous union. You exist, AND I exist. WE are one and many.

"We are the Kingdom, WE, the Sons of God."

As humans with egos, we are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as "separate people." This is because of the ego. We have identified "self" with an individual body, and not the bodies of others, and thus perceive that we are ISOLATED and SEPARATE.

It is from that perspective of being an isolated, cut-off, separated being, that we interpret what ACIM seems to be saying about your perception, your mind, exactly what is inside your mind and what seems not to be. This has led to a great deal of misunderstanding of Jesus's teachings about perception and correction because it's all being viewed FROM a state of EGO.

"What is the Body? The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built, to separate parts of his Self from other parts. It is within this fence he thinks he lives, to die as it decays and crumbles. For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love. Identifying with his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is."

You have to recognize that the Sonship, which contains all souls God created, are not just a sum total of many individuals. It's not simply "7 billion humans" all lined up next to each other. There is an essential part to the nature of God's holographic creation, which is SHARING.

The minds of each Son, WHEN in His right mind, is very much shared with other minds. Or let's say, "open to" or "joined with" or "connected to". Each Son is one PART of the holographic creation of God, and each PART contains the WHOLE. So while each Son seems to be an individual, and there are many individuals in Heaven, each individual is ALSO a "container" or medium through which the WHOLE also expresses. It's like being plugged into God.

"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."

"The mind that taught itself to think specifically can no longer grasp abstraction in the sense that it is all-encompassing."

The ONLY parts of this that turns into the ego, is when you unplug yourself from God, unplug yourself from the collective shared mindset, disconnect yourself from the Sonship, and see yourself as ISOLATED.

See, people think that you cannot be an individual and be in Heaven or that individuality is ego. This is because, as a starting point, they think that the individual is "separate" from others, and that this separation is therefore ego. But this is starting from a false premise. In God, the natural state of things is that everyone SHARES and is JOINED WITH everyone else, is open to them and shares and extends love with them. It is the reduction of the SHARING which brings about the ego, NOT their individuality. You could say, ego makes a person "more individual", it does not establish their individuality.

So if you can picture a soul in its natural state, it is an individual BUT IT IS ALSO sharing all of itself with the WHOLE of all creation, the entire sonship, and all of God. It is a part, but totally joined to the whole. And there are many parts, joined to the whole. As though everyone is sharing a collective experience, which is what we call oneness. But this oneness or sharing does not obliterate the wholeness of each individual soul.

It is ONLY when a soul unplugs itself from the whole, stops sharing God's mind, stops being one with the sonship, and "withdraws itself" from the collective, that it becomes ISOLATED. It seems isolated now because it seems cut off and separated off and DISCONNECTED from the whole. This state of isolation requires "walls" to be erected around the individual. Or to put it another way, we stop sharing with others and recoil into a defensive position of suspicion and conflict instead of lovingly embracing others. These are not walls which define the individuality ITSELF. They are walls which BLOCK SHARING. As if putting a blindfold on someone, or preventing them from ever touching anyone else.

These artificial "blocks to awareness" ARE the ego. They are what keep you CUT OFF from others, versus being JOINED WITH others. These walls are NOT what make you an individual. Your individuality is a state of being individual AND JOINED. What makes you an ego is ceasing to be joined, so that ONLY your individuality remains, as though you are now orphaned or blocked from sharing anything with the collective. It is an attempt to leave the Sonship and go off on your own.

The result of this isolation is that you end up seeming to STILL be an individual, but without a sense of being connected to the whole. Since it is normal and natural to be joined with the whole, when you are NOT joined with the whole there must be some kind of BLOCK in the way which is "separating you off", rather than allowing you to join. Joining DOES NOT UNDO YOUR INDIVIDUALITY. It SHARES IT. This makes total sense in a holographic model of heaven but not the ego's thinking.

Now, you as a "human" in "a body", this is an idea of you being separated off. As though in prison, or not allowed to share with anyone. Isolated, alone, separate, unable to join. That is what makes for an EGO. The ego is the idea of being separated from unity, but the ego is NOT the idea of having an individuality. Individuality actually is an OPENNESS TO LOVE, like a loving individual, whereas ego is an unloving individual. You can still be individual and love your family, or you can be an individual and hate your family. The hate is the ego, not the self, but the hate forms a FICTIONAL IDENTITY which you overlay on top of yourself. That fake self is a SUBSTITUTE for your real individuality, not the antithesis of existing as a self.

So you then think, ok, I am one of many separated humans in one human body. What's inside my body seems to be me. I've become separated from all others BY my body, and whatever is outside my body is not me. So that leads you to perceive, that you have a "personal mind", which is your own separate mind. You actually DO have an individual mind which God created, but it is not supposed to be isolated. It is kept in a box when it is kept inside the walls of the body. The body is a device for LIMITATION.

So you get used to this. And then you think to yourself, ok, here is A Course in Miracles, it's talking about "my perception", so it must be talking about what is INSIDE MY BOX, within my limited mind. And therefore, I need to change my limited isolated mind, my personal perception, in order to change my personal hell, and accept a personal atonement just for myself. No. That's not what the Course is telling you.

The Course completely acknowledges in fact that you SHARE illusions with other people just as much as that you have a personal set of illusions trapped in your own little box. It teaches that the content of this "world", physical objects, wars, bodies, death, sickness, lack, conflict, murder, etc, IS PART OF the illusions which are taking place in a JOINT ENDEAVOR of wrongful thinking, on the part of many many individual souls who COLLECTIVELY are DREAMING this entire universe.

So what appears to be just your personal mind, or your personal thoughts, or your personal ego illusions, which you are working on, and which the course DOES tell you to correct and heal.... that is only PART OF YOUR PERCEPTION. That is only part of your MIND. Because your mind, in its natural state, is not just that which is "isolated" within yourself like a separate cut off mind. You are not supposed to be applying the course ONLY to the part of mind which you've sectioned off and called your own.

The purpose of the course is to remove the LIMITS you placed on your mind, to undo the BLOCKS TO AWARENESS OF LOVE (awareness of the whole) which you placed on your mind, and to lift away the artificial barriers which made you think your mind was "separated off" in the first place. That means, that your mind is actually not JUST your personal private hell within your "little self". Your mind is ALSO OUT THERE, very large, very powerful, very spacious, SHARED WITH and joined with all other minds.

This is because you as part of the Sonship which God created, are not just a separate individual in a box. You RADIATE LIGHT AND LOVE outside of yourself, you extend love, and you SHARE LOVE AND MIND with all other minds. So that means, that "your perceptions" are not just limited to your boxed-in perceptions. Your perceptions ALSO INCLUDE perceptions being had by the parts of your mind which are more WHOLE, and the parts of your mind which are SHARING with other minds.

That then means, you have to look at what it is that the COLLECTIVE SONSHIP is dreaming, what the WHOLE is imagining, and recognize that this entire physical universe is actually an IDEA OF SEPARATION, within the SHARED MIND of the Sonship. And your mind IS PART OF THAT. So that means your mind also encompasses this entire universe, your mind is part of that which is dreaming this entire universe, all of the physical objects in this universe are IMAGES IN YOUR MIND, this entire world IS PART OF YOUR PERCEPTION, and the forms which are showing up are actually THOUGHTS AND IDEAS that you are having. Not just you, but many souls, collectively contributing to this mass visualization of hell.

So as you remember, ok, you are not a boxed-in separated mind, you are a JOINED connected mind, which is SHARING mind and will with the whole sonship, you are FAR LARGER than this universe and everything taking place in it even on what SEEMS LIKE a physical level,is actually happening WITHIN YOUR MIND - within all our minds. Not all illusions are totally "cut off and isolated" inside your head. There are illusions outside your head also. And even your head is an illusion. Your body is a separation device to make it seem like your mind is not part of the mind that's dreaming the world.

So if you think, ok, all I need to do is fix my own personal mind and claim atonement for myself, you are falling short. You're forgetting that you are an aspect of something much larger. And because PART OF the process of correction IS to do with correcting "your thoughts" and "your perceptions" and "your beliefs", you can find many many parts of the Course which support doing that. But if it's considered to be entirely within a context of "my separate self", you are missing additional parts of the picture.

You are MORE THAN the separate isolated self that you have come to think of as you. You are MORE THAN the self which thinks "about" this world as though it exists without your doing. You are MORE THAN the self that perceives itself to be so isolated and separated by its body, from what is "out there", that it thinks its mind is not even out there at all and is entirely housed within a box.

You are MORE THAN a perceiver OF forms which show up out there as if by magic. Who put them there? Who made bodies appear? Who invented planet Earth? YOU DID, along with many others, in a collective shared idea. Jesus says even ideas of separation have to be SHARED otherwise they cannot be ideas at all.

Separation is not just something you did alone, and it is not something that you will just undo alone. The acceptance of the atonement is NOT JUST FOR YOU. That is the selfish ego making itself special and trying to keep your mind from sharing itself with other minds. Your responsibility is to accept the atonement for yourself BUT ALSO SO THAT you accept it for others so that you can help them join you. It is not a selfish act. It merely means you must accept atonement so that you can GIVE IT because you are PART OF THE PLAN of atonement and need to become a miracle worker so that you can HELP OTHERS. This is spelled out in several quotes, like those below:

"The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. This means you recognize that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors are healed by the Atonement. Once you accept this, your mind can only HEAL (others). By denying your mind any destructive potential and reinstating its purely constructive powers, you place yourself in a position to undo the level confusion of OTHERS."

"The unforgiven have no mercy to bestow upon another. That is why your sole responsibility must be to take forgiveness for yourself. The miracle that you receive [into your own mind], you give [to others]."

"This is what is really meant by the statement that the one responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. The teacher of God is a miracle worker because he gives the gifts he has received. Yet he must first accept them."

"When you have been restored to the recognition of your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself. 6 As you share my unwillingness to accept error in yourself and others, you must join the great crusade to correct it; listen to my voice, learn to undo error and act to correct it. 7 The power to work miracles belongs to you."

"The forgiven are the means of the Atonement. 2 Being filled with spirit, they forgive in return. 3 Those who are released must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the plan of the Atonement. 4 Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the Holy Spirit unite with me for the salvation or release of all of God's creations."

So open your mind and eyes to recognize that the course is not a selfish course, it's not about your separate selfish ego doing the course for itself. It's not about maintaining isolation. It's not about you choosing something in isolation which has no effect on anyone else.

It's about you taking up your NATURAL FUNCTION as the light of the world, to share and extend the truth to others through miracles, to learn to give as you receive, to reclaim the role of being part of the WHOLE MIND which dreamed the world, to purify the perception that IS THE WORLD, and to therefore UNDO THE UNIVERSE by recognizing it is an illusion, even in its physicality, because it is nothing but a mistaken idea shared by the Sonship of which you are a PART AND WHOLE. Being "a part" does not mean "being apart".

The world is perception. Forms are ideas and thoughts. Objects are visualizations. Matter is an hallucination. Your mind is dreaming this entire universe along with other minds. The mind that needs correction is far broader than just your isolated little human self, yet it includes your separate self which needs to have its limitations lifted away to realize and recognize that YOU ARE THE WHOLE. You are the ONE SON OF GOD as much as you are ONE OF MANY sons of God.

Reclaiming your IDENTITY as the One Son of God is also part of recognizing your function in the Sonship and the part you play as one of many equal sons. To go from believing you are ONLY a part of God, to realizing you are part of God AND share the whole of God and his creation, is the identity shift that needs to take place. This is not a course in fixing up your ego identity, or making your isolated self happier or more at peace with an external world that you have no power over and no responsibility for and did not put there. This is a course is GOING BEYOND your identity to reconnect with the whole, the oneness, the sharing of love, which is far larger and more encompassing than you think.

Your mind IS responsible for the physical world showing up. It IS responsible for making wars happen. It IS responsible for producing mountains and deserts and forests. It DOES have that power. Not in isolation, but as part of its shared power with the Sonship. This course is not just about you. Nor is it about the ending of your individuality. It is about taking your separated-off individuality and plugging it back into the SHARED MINDS of the Sonship, and also into the collective unity of the One Son which is one with God's mind also.

That means your perception and your perceptual errors INCLUDE the world ITSELF, not just your isolated view OF the world, and not just the content of your individual isolated mind. Bodies were made by the ONE SON of God to separate "Himself" apart and make believe He is many separated parts. The One Son of God includes the Sonship, which ARE PARTS, but also are not separated off like the ego is. Instead they are JOINED NATURALLY and yet divided NATURALLY. Unnatural division is ego, not whether or not you are individual. In-dividual means 'cannot be divided', because it is A WHOLE. And wholeness means SHARING. So any whole must be shared with any other whole, and therefore all individuals must be part of a whole. This is the nature of God's creation.

When you are having true perception.... "M-8.6. The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be ***HEALED*** will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There ***will be those who seem to be "sicker"*** than others, and the *******body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before*******. 4 But ***the healed mind*** will put them all in one category; they are unreal.

5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories (false and true) are meaningful in ***sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world.*** (through the body's eyes) 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all illusions is truth."

As you begin your journey towards truth and are using the body's eyes, which SEEM to see the physical world, but isn't REAL sight, and is actually a state of not seeing anything real, you start to open the spiritual eye and develop christ vision. The whole workbook is designed for the purpose of developing christ vision, which, by the way, entails the simultaneous use of the body's eyes to READ the workbook lessons ;-)

The body's eyes, made not to see, are always functioning as biological machinery in the same way. They are sense organs, which pick up photons of light which are DENIED by surfaces of objects, and bounce into your retina, sending "signals" of "images" into your mind. The eyeballs obviously do not see at all even at the physical level, they are just relays or sensors, which pick up light and transmit it to the brain, where the mind then "sees" the images. Only the mind really sees.

The thing is that, if you BELIEVE these images depict truth or reality, that you are seeing reality when you see physical objects, you are deluded IN your mind, and your MIND is having false perception. That is, your mind is believing in, investing in, and "making real", the images coming from the body's eyes. So now the body is fixed having false perceptions of an unreal world, it's trying to send these pictures to the mind and the mind is deciding one thing: "are these images real, or are they unreal?" "are they true, or false?".

So yes, you can continue to SEE THIS WORLD.... EITHER as "it is real" or as "it is unreal". It's not a matter of "do I see the world or not", at the level of perception. Perception EITHER sees the ILLUSORY WORLD and BELIEVES it is true (false perception), or it SEES the SAME illusory world and BELIEVES it is false (true perception). In both cases, the world IS SEEN STILL!! It's a dream! Either you are seeing the nightmare dream of false perception or the HAPPY DREAM. A happy dream is the illusory world RECOGNIZED as being UNREAL!!! You are happy BECAUSE You know it is BULLSHIT!!! How else COULD you be happy but to recognize that images of hell are NOT TRUE?

In order to come to realize that these images are false and unreal, that the physical world is an illusion, the mind has to learn to FORGIVE. "To forgive is to OVERLOOK". Through forgiveness, you train the mind to recognize illusions as illusions, to NOT believe they are real, and to NOT see value or truth in them. This results in the continual transmission of images into the mind by the body's eyes but when the mind looks AT these images, it learns to OVERLOOK the ILLUSIONS they are trying to present, the temptation, and the mind learns to CATEGORIZE ALL of these images as UNREAL. Yet, the mind STILL IS SEEING THEM. It simply shifts its vantage point and sense of TRUTH, to be able to discern that NONE of these images depict truth or reality.

Therefore Christ Vision is gradually developed in parallel to having body eyesight, and the more that you progress in forgiveness of ILLUSIONS, which means THE WORLD, the more your mind is able to recognize the world is FALSE, and the world now registers with you experientially as something false. You still SEE IT, but it doesn't seem believable. It doesn't strike you as "really happening". In this state, your mind can be SIGNIFICANTLY HEALED, and very very close to awakening, while STILL seeing simultaneously with the body's eyes.

So what now is happening is, your mind is being STILL presented with images of hell - physical world - which it can still see, but these images become so OVERLOOKED, that they start to become transparent as if you are literally looking THROUGH them rather than stopping at the surfaces. You start to glimpse the face of christ BEYOND the physical images, beyond the universe, beyond the body. And so now you are starting to see God "in everything you see" because you are seeing God BEYOND the physical illusion of objects.

In this state, you are a teacher of God, who is still in the world, having a body, SEEING WITH the body's eyes, AND simultaneously seeing with Christ Vision which OVERLOOKS what the body sees. In this state, it is TOTALLY NORMAL to be able to still see the bodies of other people, moving around, doing things in the physical world, while ALSO overlooking them and recognizing them as unreal. Since the body's eyes do not "Switch off" at this point, it's kind of like you're getting bombarded with images of hell at the same time as trying to approach heaven. And so you have to learn to NOT BELIEVE what the eyes are showing you. BUT YOU DO STILL SEE IT "mixed in" with your Christ vision.

Jesus speaks of this again in this statement:

"M-12.6. Oneness and sickness cannot coexist. 2 God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. 3 It is a conscious choice. 4 For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. 5 The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are? 6 Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. 7 They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. 8 Yet they are not deceived by what they see. 9 They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. 10 Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. 11 And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."

Notice how it says that such persons are AWARE of dreaming, which means they can SEE the dream world - the physical world. Notice how it says THEY WATCH DREAM FIGURES come and go, shift and change, AND ... SUFFER AND DIE! All seen from A HEALED MIND!!! They CAN SEE bodies being sick, they CAN SEE "people" suffering, they CAN SEE DEATH, EVEN THOUGH they themselves are having a very healed mind, a very "sick free" mind, which does NOT BELIEVE IN sickness, and IS NOT PROJECTING SICKNESS ONTO OTHERS. And this is because the body is still dangling in front of the mind picking up signals from the dream world. The body will continue showing the mind pictures of sickness and death EVEN IF the mind does not believe in sickness and death. The result is that the images are SEEN, but they are NOT BELIEVED. They register as UNREAL, FALSE, NOT TRUE. It's a shift in vantage point which makes the whole world be RECOGNIZED as an illusion, instead of BELIEVED to be real.

In this state, it is perfectly possible for a teacher of God to be "in the world but not of it". To walk around the Earth, seeing bodies still, but overlooking them as well. Seeing people with broken legs, severe diseases, missing organs and so on, or even states of death. But the miracle worker in their right mind DOES NOT BELIEVE any of these things are true of any brothers, and they do not AGREE WITH what those brothers ARE BELIEVING about themselves and their bodies. The brothers ARE recognized as calling for love, since it is forgiving to recognize this and not that punishment is real, and as such there is EFFORTLESS perception of the "need" that people SEEM to have. And that means, you recognize who is viable as a recipient of A MIRACLE. It means you CAN SEE A CALL FOR HELP.

This combination of body vision and christ vision is precisely why JESUS was able to walk the Earth, SEE people sick and dying, and DO SOMETHING. He could tell that someone's body was showing up to his mind as "it is in the form of sickness", EVEN THOUGH he did not BELIEVE in sickness being TRUE. He did not merely "switch off" the ability to SEE the body at all, at that point. He did not have a state of "if I see sickness, I am sick". You have to remember there are TWO functions of seeing happening at once. In His mind, in his Christ Vision, he OVERLOOKED the sick body and it registered to him as NOT REAL. But in his body vision he could still SEE the state the body was in. And this is how he was able to SEE, those who were suffering and sick, even though HIS MIND did not believe the images he was seeing. HE was not sick. HE was not projecting sickness. HE was not MAKING people be sick. He knew the were not REALLY sick. But he also knew he could SEE that THEY believed they were suffering. So he HELPED THEM!

This is precisely the scenario that sets up a foundation for being a MIRACLE WORKER. Because now a teacher of God is HEALED, and yet CAN SEE those who are NOT healed. The teacher of God now has an abundance of love, while recognizing that those whose dream bodies still seem to suffer, are SEEMING to LACK love, and are "in need". That they are, from their own perspectives as individuals, suffering. Their minds are sick, their bodies are sick. And this establishes the dynamic where the miracle worker IS HEALED, but OTHERS ARE NOT. Thus, "Miracles supply a lack". and "Miracles are given by those who temporarily have more, to those who temporarily have less." It would be absolutely impossible to EVER be in a situation where you HAVE MORE, while others HAVE LESS, if the commonly-held mistaken view of how perception works were correct. And it would VIOLATE numerous miracle principles.

See, this is how most people think of perception, and it's wrong... the idea that "I have perception", it's one thing, it looks upon the world, and "I need to shift it". And the idea that projection makes perception, implying that whatever I see, I am putting there. So now it's like, my perception was aiming at hell, because I was putting hell there, and I need to redirect it towards heaven, so that I will perceive heaven and NOT SEE HELL at all. This is a big problem. Because if that's your model of perception, it means you become BLIND TO what is happening in the world as soon as you no longer believe in it. So like, if you stop believing sickness is real, in this model, you would literally expect to not be able to SEE anything that is sick, ever again. And this would imply, if you see sickness, YOU are sick, or you are attacking, or you are trying to make your brother be sick. That their sickness is your sickness. And this essentially makes you TOTALLY INCAPABLE of seeing whether or not your brother is in need of help.

Also in this broken model, it results in a situation where there is total inner and outer equality between what you believe and what you see. Therefore, you will assert that the outward picture (equated also with what the body sees) matches my inner condition and the world is like a mirror. So I see only myself. I'm all that exists (narcissistic, selfish). And thus you can never be in a position where "you have more" and someone else "has less". It means thus you never see any reason to help or heal or supply a lack for others, because you think "their sickness" is just a reflection of "your sickness." You think if you see sickness at all (e.g. broken leg), YOU must be making it be broken, and you need the healing, and no-one else needs anything. This is in TOTAL DENIAL of the way the body's sight functions continually in parallel to spiritual sight.

This is a very prevalent belief about how perception works, and it is totally bullshit. Or rather, it's only one half of the picture. It leads to a justification for NOT PERFORMING ANY MIRACLES FOR OTHERS. It completely WIPES OUT, the entire situation where miracles given to others could EVER be seen as "needed" or "making sense" to "called for", because the person now thinks that all they see is themselves. That the whole world is their own self. This thus becomes SELFISH. And it cancels the entire practice of miracle working in the world. It completely obliterates any reason why you would be able to SEE the "call for love" of another, yet alone giving a reason to respond to it. And this model of perception is treasured by those who do not want to work any miracles ever. It is a miracle-fearing, course denying paradigm of a mistaken understanding of how perception functions.

There is SOME truth to this false model, in the sense that it IS describing the transition from false perception to true perception. It is describing the healing of the BELIEF IN sickness being real or true. It IS a movement towards healed perception and christ vision. It IS the opening up to forgiveness and the overlooking of illusions and lies. It is recognizing the you DO project stuff onto others and see it. And it recognizes that YOUR MIND DOES need healing when you see illusions AS REAL. But that's a far cry from believing that you must not see the world AT ALL in order to be healed, which denies what the body's eyes are doing. It is taken in isolation to mean, THE BODY STOPS SEEING ANYTHING, or that, you will see through the body's eyes and NOT SEE AND BROKEN BODIES, with is totally a level confusion. It completely IGNORES and shuts out the FACT, that the body's eyes CONTINUE to send images from the physical world into the mind, right up until the atonement is accepted and you leave the world behind.

The result is that the body still sees "the veil", which is the physical world, while the mind is overlooking those images and seeing THROUGH them to the light of heaven BEYOND the physical. In that state, let's say the veil/body images are registering with 1% visibility and perception of heaven is registering at 99% visibility. You DO transition from one to the other, but body vision does NOT END until christ vision is TOTALLY 100% PERFECTED. seen.9

The result is that the body still sees "the veil", which is the physical world, while the mind is overlooking those images and seeing THROUGH them to the light of heaven BEYOND the physical. In that state, let's say the veil/body images are registering with 1% visibility and perception of heaven is registering at 99% visibility. You DO transition from one to the other proportionately, linearly, because "you cannot see two worlds", but body vision does NOT END until christ vision is TOTALLY 100% PERFECTED. Meaning you're going to HAVE TO still keep seeing the physical world UNTIL you are practically ready to ascend to heaven.

WHEN Christ vision is absolutely complete, the face of Christ appears. That means, heaven becomes "visible". And it also means, Earth become "invisible." Literally. If you look upon the face of christ it should last merely an instant before God takes you to Heaven. The forgiven world has disappeared from your sight. "Forgiveness does not look upon bodies." And then perception ends entirely, the body's vision ceases to send anything to the mind, because the mind is now free of bodies forever. And that's what it means to be 100% spirit identified. And ONLY THEN, when you no longer HAVE A BODY AT ALL, ONLY then do you no longer have a PERCEPTION with which to see the illusory world of hell and death.

UNTIL THAT HAPPENS, you WILL continue receiving images from the body's vision! You WILL continue being able to see bodies in various states of health. YOU WILL be able to discern "who" is calling out for love and who isn't. Who is SICK, and who isn't. Who is DEAD, and who isn't. Who is mistaken and delusional and who isn't. But your mind will recognize these things are not REAL. The people BEING sick DO think it is real, but you do not agree with them. And this is how you are able to set them free and weaken their belief. This is how you are able to PERFORM MIRACLES IN THE WORLD. To help others, to heal the sick, to raise the dead. To let the Holy Spirit USE YOUR BODY'S EYES for HIS PURPOSES! Because he is very much ready and willing and desiring to PERFORM MIRACLES IN THE WORLD TO HEAL THOSE WHO ARE IN THE WORLD. And that DOES include healing of sickness in mind AND body!!

Only when you ascend to heaven and leave the body entirely will you cease to be able to see the suffering of others in this world. And until then, you are to be a miracle worker. And if you're not doing that, you're in denial and being selfish.

This is possibly the most threatening and mind-blowing teaching in A Course in Miracles. There is in fact NOT a world here! It's not even a matter of who made the world, it's the even higher truth that it DOES NOT EXIST. Earth is in fact NOTHING.

"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it"

"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. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere?"

Everything that happened in the separation from God, involves a belief in something existing which does not exist, something being true which is false, something being real which is unreal.

For example, we made a separate self which seems to have free will to do as it pleases. However, this self is in fact the DENIAL of self, which is why it results in death. But it APPEARS to be the presence of a self. This is why it's an illusion - it seems to be showing you something which is not there, as if it is. It's supposed freedom of will is in fact an imprisoned will, which is not free, but SEEMS free.

Take a look at the body. "The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist." The body SEEMS to picture "you", presenting an appearance and form, it seems to positively exist and move and do stuff. But, the body is NOT you, it is a replacement for you, and is only an image of what you THINK you are. What it SEEMS to be, is the opposite of what it actually is. The body is the ABSENCE OF YOU. And you do not look like your body. "What you are cannot be seen nor pictured."

It is the same thing with regards the difference between light and darkness. Darkness is not possible. Where there seems to be an absence of light, there must be an ILLUSION of darkness. If you believe the darkness is real, you are giving it false reality and are claiming it "is a something." But a shadow on a wall is not the PRESENCE of darkness, it is the absence of light. It appears to be a something, but is really the lack of a something.

It is also the same with regards to sin and error. Error or mistakes are just illusions of impossibilities, recognized as false. In their "true form" it is clear they cannot be true. But if you invest belief in them, are deceived and tempted by them, and buy into them, they turn into sin. And now it seems that they assert that something has REALLY happened, and something is REALLY possible, that isn't. So sin is really a lie, depicting stuff happening that CANNOT happen, as though it is really happening. It is deceptive.

The same applies to this world. This world is in fact NOTHING. But by believing in it and investing it with reality, it turns from an illusion of a something to an ACTUAL something. It seems to exist. It seems to host events and happenings. Things in it seem possible. But the world is impossible, and the things which happen are impossible, and sin is not real. The world was made to try to prove that sin and guilt are real.

"Their aim is to fulfill the purpose which the world was made to witness and make real. They see in its illusions but a solid base where truth exists, upheld apart from lies."

"The world of bodies is the world of sin."

So basically, we have a world that SEEMS to be here, which is made of sin, which testifies and proves that impossible things are possible, which hosts the idea of the death and murder of reality, and SEEMS to have real consequences. But it has none. And it does nothing. And it causes nothing. And it has no power. And it isn't really there at all.

"It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere."

"The world does nothing to him."

"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."

The really deep thing to realize is this. The world is in fact, the ABSENCE OF EXISTENCE. It is the antithesis of heaven. It is the LACK OF HEAVEN. It is a HOLE, which we call the spacetime bubble, in which are housed impossibilities and unrealities. It is an hallucinated world, because it seems to be there to see, but isn't. You are projecting it and making it up as you go along.

The idea that there is no world isn't simply that the world "exists" and it has to be "undone". It's really the RECOGNITION that the world you thought was here, does not exist. And this doesn't mean there's a better view of it. It means the WHOLE THING IS GONE. It has no reality at all. No presence. No life.

"There is no life outside of heaven."

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

"He does NOT realize that HE MAKES THIS WORLD, for there IS no world outside him."

Through unwillingness, we resisted God. We failed to create. We wanted not to shine. We tried to end eternal life. We wanted to stop reality. We opposed the Kingdom. We attacked will. We tried to deny our own existence. We blocked awareness. We tried to destroy. And ultimately this is all a matter of TRYING NOT TO EXIST.

In so doing, we seemed to make a world which SEEMS to exist, which is really actually the LACK OF A WORLD. It's like you took a part of heaven and DRAINED IT of all life. Held it back and prevented its extension. As though you could attack heaven and remove its presence. This world, which includes the Earth, is the ANTI-world. It is a mis-creation. It is empty and it is nothing.

We have GIVEN the world, the fake world, all manner of belief in trying to MAKE IT BE SIN, so that it is GIVEN reality, so that we can try to make it exist. It's our attempt to give it life and immortality. But we can't. We tried to make the world be a cause. We tried to make it have power. We gave our power to it to try to animate it. We tried to make it appear to be alive with "life forms", which are illusions of life. We tried to imagine it has a mind and alien will of its own. We tried to make ourselves subject to it and affected by it, to confirm its reality. We made bodies to sense it and to tell us that it is there.

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."

Quite simply, this world, this planet, this galaxy, all the stars, all bodies, all animals and "life forms", are NOTHING. They are life's ABSENCE. They are the LACK OF LIFE. They are something that is really NOT there, appearing to be there. Like an hallucination. A lack of light, appearing to be the presence of a real darkness. And to believe in it is to believe that evil is real, asserting that the world has power OVER heaven. That the world CAN CAUSE immortal beings to die. Believing this world is real is level confusion.

Our task in forgiveness, then, is not to find a way to give EXTRA reality to the world, but to recognize ITS UNREALITY, and see finally that it SO NOTHING, that it disappears and fades into nothingness. All it is is a veil of illusions, a block, hanging in front of the face of christ, pretending to exist. Our guilt makes it seem solid. Our fear gives it reality. Our belief in sin anchors it in our minds. But it is not there at all. It is an empty shell.

"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within YOU, there is a force which NO illusions can resist."

"What can the causeless BE but nothingness. The picture of your brother that you see is wholly absent, and has never been."

"Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not. Its NOTHINGNESS is guarantee that it can NOT be sick."

"The body that is asked to be a god WILL be attacked, because its nothingness has not been recognized. "

"Yet its nothingness IS your salvation, from which you would flee."

"His body's nothingness releases yours from sickness and from death."

"For here is nothingness, where neither birth nor death is real"

"The final judgment on ****the world**** contains no condemnation. For it sees the world as totally forgiven, without sin, and wholly purposeless. Without a cause, and now without a function in Christ's sight, ****it merely slips away to nothingness.****"

"Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols; pills, money, "protective" clothing, "influence," "prestige," being liked, knowing the "right" people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness which you endow with magical powers."

"To recognize this is to recognize nothingness when you think you see it. As such, it is the prerequisite for vision."

"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it WERE a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else BUT form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see."

"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning."

"But if you refuse to worship him, in whatever form he may appear to you, and wherever you think you see him, he will disappear into the nothingness out of which he was made."

"To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, to LET IT GO."

"The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."

"The "changes" the ego seeks to make are not really changes. They are but deeper shadows, or perhaps different cloud patterns. Yet what is made of nothingness cannot be called new or different."

"We can but go from nothingness to everything; from hell to Heaven." "What loss can be for you in choosing not to value nothingness? This world holds nothing that you really want, but what you choose instead you want indeed!"

"***The world stands like a block*** before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just ***a fragile veil***, so easily dispelled that it can ***last no longer than an instant***. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it ***cannot fail to disappear***, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant ***is the world forgot***, with time forever ended as ***the world spins into nothingness*** from where it came."

"What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something. In a world of form the ego cannot be denied for it alone seems real. How could God's Son as He created him abide in form or in a world of form?"

"What can correct illusions but the truth? And what are errors but illusions which remain unrecognized for what they are? Where truth has entered errors disappear. They merely vanish, leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. They are gone because without belief they have no life, and so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains."

"The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the presence of God."

"God wills salvation be received today, and that the intricacies of your dreams no longer hide their nothingness from you."

"Nothingness will become invisible, for you will at last have seen truly." "Like all things in the world its meaning is temporary, and will ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came when there is no more use for it."

"All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding to be judged again, this time with Heaven's help, and all mistakes in judgment which the mind had made before are open to correction as the truth dismisses them as causeless. Now are they without effects. They cannot be concealed because their nothingness is recognized."

"How can a battle be perceived as nothingness, when you ENGAGE in it?" "There is a silence covering the world that was an ancient dream so long ago no one remembers now. Its time is done, and in the little space it seemed to have is nothingness. The dream has gone, and all its dreams of gifts have disappeared as well."

"Pursuit of the imagined leads to death because it is the search for nothingness, and while you seek for life you ask for death.

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death."

"The more complicated the results become, the harder it may be to recognize their nothingness, but it is not necessary to examine ALL possible outcomes to which premises give rise to judge the PREMISES truly."

"Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth.""

"EVERY illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness."

"And so is ALL time past, and everything EXACTLY as it was before the way to nothingness was made. The tiny tick of time, in which the first mistake was made, and ALL of them within that ONE mistake, held also the Correction for that one, and ALL of them that came within the first. And in that tiny instant time was gone, for that was all it ever was. What God gave Answer to IS answered, and IS gone."

"Specialness is the idea of sin MADE REAL. Sin is impossible even to imagine, without this base. For sin rose from it, out of nothingness, an evil flower with no roots at all."

"In the Divine psyche, the Father and the Holy Spirit are not incomplete at all. The Sonship has the unique faculty of believing in error, or incompleteness, if he so elects. However, it is quite apparent that so to elect IS to believe in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is the Atonement."

I'm trying to clarify what the real world is or it not. I'm just going to waffle on about it here as I look at each quote.

"The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers. Yet it stands for what is opposite to what you made.

This suggests the real world is something perceptual because dreams contain symbols, and since perception does not exist in heaven (only knowledge), this suggests the real world is not heaven. Yet it appears to be a "reflection of reality". (As I typed this, Jesus said "true").

"The real world holds a counterpart for each unhappy thought reflected in your world"

Suggesting it is also a reflection, or at least opposite to all illusions and lies. As real as perception can get?

"The real world shows a world seen differently, through quiet eyes and with a mind at peace. Nothing but rest is there. There are no cries of pain and sorrow heard, for nothing here remains outside forgiveness. And the sights are gentle. Only happy sights and sounds can reach the mind that has forgiven itself."

It sounds quite advanced that in this state of mind, there is no apparent registering of pain and sorrow coming from other people. These things are perhaps seen in a different light, as calls for love, and therefore there is a recognition that there is no "real sorrow". "The sights are gentle" seems to suggest you wouldn't even see war and death happening? But perhaps it is the WAY you look at them which shows them to you in a way which isn't upsetting any more. OR, possibly, the real world is seen AT THE SAME TIME as perception sees the physical world, since it is like "looking at heaven" vs looking at the world of form. This would be similar to the Holy Spirit being "fixated on God" while also perceiving.

"The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God’s Son no longer sleeps. His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father’s Love; the certain promise that he is redeemed. The real world signifies the end of time, for its perception makes time purposeless."

Again the real world is referred to as a SYMBOL, meaning it is part of the dream. And also it is referred to as a REFLECTION (not the actual thing, but a reflection of it, once removed). This suggests the term "real world" refers not to that state of mind being "real" in the truest sense, but "real-er" than other ways of perceiving.

"Its perception"... tells us it's something perceived, so we are still in the realm of the world and are not in heaven yet.

"Across the bridge, it is so different! For a time the body is still seen, but NOT exclusively, as it is seen here. For the little spark that holds the Great Rays within it, is ALSO visible, and this spark cannot be limited long to littleness. Once you have crossed the bridge, the VALUE of the body is so diminished in YOUR sight, that you will see no need at all to MAGNIFY it. For you will realize that the ONLY value that the body has, is to enable you to bring your brothers TO the bridge WITH you. And to be RELEASED TOGETHER there."

This lingo sort of seems confusing because it seems you cross a bridge and are on the other side (as if in heaven?) and yet you are still in a body, and yet the ability to remain in the body is very limited due to the magnitude of the mind. So this suggests a state of being still in a body and perceiving but being as pure of mind as is possible while in a body. Again a reflection of heaven rather than pure heaven.

"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."

In this sense, it seems that Jesus talks about the real world as if talking about heaven. If he is being very literal (which he usually is) then a state of mind where there are no buildings and people and stuff, ... does not really sound like the world or forms. Above he spoke of only seeing gentle sights and so on, as a "way" of seeing the world. Here he talks of a "place" where there IS no buildings or streets or other forms. This suggests to me that when He speaks of the real world he is a bit "loose" in terms of what it means. ie, the "real world" literally is Heaven, but when we are in a body and still perceiving we see a GLIMPSE of it and a REFLECTION of it, and so it now sounds "as if" the real world is within perception still, but more like... it is just touching on perception lightly and is actually mostly beyond perception and beyond bodies and beyond this world. Like peeking its head in the door. This also reminds me of "the kingdom of heaven is laid out upon the world but you do not see it" and "god is in everything I see because God is in my mind"... referring to states of perception still (seeing the world) but starting to glimpse a heavenly "reality" or "real world" beyond it.

The one word that confused me here at first was "shines forever". If the real world shines forever, that makes it permanent. If the real world were permanent it must be the same thing as heaven. And so since Jesus uses the term to refer sometimes to the reflection of heaven and sometimes to what is fully heaven, since the "real world" in perception reflects reality, it can seem to imply a real perceived world is permanent, but it is not. Because the UNREAL world is let go and disappears, the real world builds a bridge to heaven, and then the true real world is fully experienced as heaven, forever.

"Yet the real world has the power to touch you even here because you love it. And what you call with love will come to you. Love always answers, being unable to deny a call for help or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it from every part of this strange world you made but do not want. The only effort you need make to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did not make is willingness to learn the one you made is false."

Like here, Jesus says the real world "touches you even here", suggesting that it is NOT here, but is heaven, and yet it is so close that it "touches you" like when two worlds bump up against each other, but you are not yet IN IT. Which again suggests the real world is actually heaven (not this universe whatsoever), but can be "touched upon" while here.

"You will first dream of peace and then awaken to it. Your first exchange of what you made for what you want is the exchange of nightmares for the happy dreams of love. In these lie your true perceptions, for the Holy Spirit corrects the world of dreams, where all perception is. Knowledge needs no correction. Yet the dreams of love lead unto knowledge. In them you see nothing fearful, and because of this, they are the welcome that you offer knowledge. Love waits on welcome, not on time, and the real world is but your welcome of what always was. Therefore, the call of joy is in it, and your glad response is your awakening to what you have not lost. Praise, then, the Father for the perfect sanity of His most holy Son."

The "dream of peace" also sounds like another way to say that "perceiving" the real world while here in a body is still a dream of reality - that's why its a reflection or symbol, and not the actual thing. The real world seems like a bridge that bridges the gaps between heaven and earth, or at least is a joining place or state of mind which is sort of experiencing both temporarily.

"The bridge itself is nothing more than a transition in your PERSPECTIVE of reality. On this side, everything you see is grossly distorted, and COMPLETELY out of perspective. What IS little and insignificant is magnified, and what is strong and powerful, cut down to littleness."

Jesus does refer to a bridge, which suggests that the perception of the reality (truth, heaven) while still in a body is a glimpse of the real world that is on the other side of the bridge, and you can sort of position yourself on the other side and be very close to having heaven in your awareness, but still remaining temporarily in the world. This also correlates to what Jesus says about the body being able to be supernaturally protected, and a sign of immortality, while it is useful, and when used to bring the word of God to those who have it not.

Also I want to make a note about perspective. When there are clouds, the sun is above the clouds and always shining. When you are up there above the clouds, from that perspective, clouds are not blocking the light (awareness). When you move below the clouds however, from "this side", looking back towards the light having been separated from it, it SEEMS as if the clouds block the light. The bottom of the clouds become dark symbolizing their ability to block light and having resulted in the illusion of darkness.

When you are in a state of perception which is level confused, backwards and upside down, ie in the ego more, you see this way and regard darkness as a real block and as if light is hidden. But when you get past the clouds and are aligned with the light and ORIENTED in the direction the light is shining, then you no longer are limited by the clouds and see only light everywhere. From this vantage point or perspective, this is similar to seeing "from" the real world. So you could say that the bridge Jesus refers to, is really the "transition" from being in the dark to being in the light, shifting from false to true perception, and another word for true perception is perception of the "real world". Being on the "other side" of the bridge thus could be referring to being in true perception, since the bridge is somewhere between true and false perception, rather than between the perceptual world and heaven.

"Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear."

Here Jesus refers to both the real world and the fictional world as "not true". So again he's saying, the real world is kind of a term for the "slice" of reality which is partly seen while still in the fictional physical world. The glimpse of reality will become real to you and then act like a bridge TO heaven. The real world is what's perceived when perception is true and accurate, showing you that this world is false and unreal, and opening up to see Christ "beyond" it or "in" it. And eventually the world itself disappears and what was "beyond" and "in it" now becomes a fully present (and only) experience.

"God loves His Son forever, and His Son RETURNS his Father’s Love forever. The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true and WHOLLY YOURS. For all else you have LENT yourself in time, and it WILL fade. But this one thing is ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto His Son. Your ONE reality was GIVEN you, and BY it, God created you as one with Him."

Here he said "the WAY that LEAD YOU TO remembrance"... like a bridge, or as the meeting point of two worlds or sort of the preparation for going to heaven.

"Love waits on welcome, NOT on time. And the real world is but your welcome of what always was. Therefore the call of joy is in it, and your glad response is your awakening to what you have NOT lost. "

Welcoming what always was is sort of an invitation or openness to it, but not necessarily being in it yet.

"Is it a loss to find a world instead where losing is impossible, where love endures forever, hate cannot exist, and vengeance has no meaning? Is it loss to find all things you really want and know they have no ending, and they will remain exactly as you want them throughout time?

The world mentioned here I think is heaven. But it could apply apply to "Real world".

Yet even they will be exchanged at last for what we cannot speak of, for you go from there to where words fail entirely, into a silence where the language is unspoken and yet surely understood. Communication, unambiguous and plain as day, remains unlimited for all eternity. And God Himself speaks to His Son as His Son speaks to Him. Their language has no words, for what they say cannot be symbolized. Their knowledge is direct and wholly shared and wholly one."

Here then Jesus speaks of what happens when you make the transition FULLY to heaven, which is a world that you cannot see while seeing the physical world (you cannot see two worlds, you cannot behold the world and see heaven). In heaven, fully and completely, BEYOND perception, and BEYOND the slice of the real world that you saw as a reflection (also referred to as the face of christ - his FACE, not his WHOLE SELF), is the world God created which is Heaven, where all is one, and the "real world's" lack of buildings and streets and people is fully experienced.

"Can what has no beginning really end? The world will end in an illusion, as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in gentleness, will cover it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ends the world that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone."

Bye bye planet Earth and the physical universe.

"The world will end in joy, because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come, the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in peace, because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will end in laughter, because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. In blessing it departs, for it will not end as it began. To turn hell into Heaven is the function of God’s teachers, for what they teach are lessons in which Heaven is reflected. And now sit down in true humility, and realize that all God would have you do you can do. Do not be arrogant and say you cannot learn His Own curriculum. His Word says otherwise. His Will be done. It cannot be otherwise. And be you thankful it is so."