"What difference does the content of a dream make in reality? One either sleeps or wakens. There is nothing in between."

I thought it was interesting in lesson 140 - only salvation can be said to cure - talking about a cure vs the world's remedies etc. It says that we need to awaken FROM the dream world. In this awakening, it does not matter what the dream contains. Nor does it matter to especially change the dream to some other form, in such a way that doesn't awaken you FROM the dream.

It says you can cause bodily healing on the form level but without awakening the mind FROM the dream, and therefore not really enacting a real change. You can thus DREAM OF healing, in which there may be bodily changes, but WITHOUT the mind changing. True healing, and the true and only cure, is to cure the mind in God, such that the mind is waking up from the entire world. Getting your head out of the sand.

It says to me that our forgiveness really is a very GLOBAL function that applies to everything all at once. Like when we say that "nothing in this room means anything." We have to realize that the ENTIRE CONTENTS of the world means nothing, or is not true, or is false or unreal. Not just some parts of it. Not just certain people. We need to realize we are HAVING a dream, and EVERYTHING the body sees is part of that dream world. The WHOLE THING is false and we should to believe ANY part of it.

We need to awaken from the whole world, from all of space and time, and from the whole universe. That kind of global perspective is a universal perspective, just as the course says that "miracles are a universal blessing from God." We need a more "blanket statement" kind of approach to forgiveness which renders everything in the world as EQUALLY UNREAL. The people's bodies, the events, the speeches, the behaviors, the happenings, all of it must be put into a single category of unreal.

We thus need to assert that not one single bit of this world is true. As in "nothing the world believes in true." That not one single body is real. That there is no one single shred of REAL sickness or death anywhere. That all appearances, all forms, all events and happenings are NOTHING and nowhere. Nothing in this room is really happening right now. Nothing that you see really exists right now. Nothing that bodies are claiming is true right now. None of this world is reality. Mind needs to wake up OUT OF this dream realm.

Awakening is truly a movement AWAY from the ENTIRE world. A movement into "awareness of dreaming". A movement in the direction of God away from spacetime, away from Earth, and away from bodies. The WHOLE THING has to go.

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal. This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. And of these two but one is real. 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. The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. The one answer to all illusions is truth."

"What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. 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. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

"My body, Father, cannot be Your Son. And what is not created cannot be sinful or sinless; neither good nor bad. Let me, then, use this dream to help Your plan that we awaken from all dreams we made."

"Do you believe that truth can be but SOME illusions? They are dreams BECAUSE they are not true. Their EQUAL lack of truth becomes the basis for the miracle, which MEANS that you have understood that dreams are dreams, and that escape depends, NOT on the dream, but ONLY on awaking. COULD it be some dreams are KEPT, and others WAKENED FROM? The choice is NOT between which dreams to keep, but ONLY if you want to live in dreams, or to awaken from them. Thus it is the miracle does not select SOME dreams to leave untouched by its beneficence. You cannot dream some dreams and wake from some. For you are either sleeping OR awake. And dreaming goes with only ONE of these."

"Then let the Son of God awaken from his sleep, and opening his holy eyes return again to bless the world he made. In error it began. But it will end in the reflection of his holiness. And we will sleep no more and dream of death."

"Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

I will awaken from the dream that I

Am mortal, fallible, and full of sin,

And know I am the perfect Son of God."

"How can His Son AWAKEN from the dream? It is a dream of judgment. So must he judge NOT, and he WILL waken. For the dream will seem to last while he is PART of it."

"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeing and yet surely theirs."

"The miracle-worker begins by PERCEIVING light, and translates HIS perception into sureness by continually extending it, and ACCEPTING ITS ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Its EFFECTS assure him IT IS THERE. The therapist does not heal; he LETS HEALING BE. HE can point to darkness, but he CANNOT bring light OF HIMSELF, for light is NOT of him. But being FOR him, it MUST be for his patient.

The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist. He makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which He is the Guide. The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE. Remember that you ARE choosing a guide for helping, and the wrong choice will NOT help. But remember also that THE RIGHT ONE WILL. Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God.

As you awaken other minds TO Him through HIM, and not yourself, you will understand that you are not obeying the laws of this world, but that the laws you ARE obeying WORK. "The good is what works" is a sound though insufficient statement. ONLY the good CAN work. Nothing else works at all. This course is a guide to behavior. Being a very direct and very simple learning situation, it provides the guide who tells you what to do. If you do it, you will SEE that it works. Its RESULTS are more convincing than its words. THEY will convince you that the words are true."

When you are willing to step aside and let the holy spirit work through you, making sure not to interfere, or to even think you need to be the one who makes something happen, this open conduit is a channel through which HE can express healing miracles. As soon as your ego takes over and tries to interfere by trying to "be the one" who is causing the healing, it interrupts the process. Similarly by actively stepping back and allowing and letting go, the Holy Spirit can best utilize your body to heal through.

The exciting challenge we have is to really realize that the Holy Spirit IS HERE as a HEALER AND THERAPIST, and we are supposed to seriously LET HIM fulfill that function , to let HIM do profound things through you, to get out of the way and be nothing more than a conduit through which he performs HIS miracles of healing.

That’s a very different role and function than believing that healing originates with your egoic forcefulness. And it can take a while to learn to stop trying AT ALL and allow and TRUST him to do the miracle. This doesn’t mean "not doing anything at all", you still have to participate. He needs to use your body to move THROUGH to reach others. But HE is the one with the power to cause things to happen, so our job is to be willing to LET HIM do the profound healing work THROUGH us.

This means, standing there with your hands on someone, plugged into the Holy Spirit, trusting him, allowing HIM to do stuff through your body, and recognizing you are doing NOTHING to interfere with HIS expertise. HE knows how to heal anything. YOU DO NOT. You haven’t the first clue how to repair a body. So you don’t be the healer. You just be a doorway through which a true healer moves through you. You let HIM do the work.

This is humbling because it means giving up all effort to BE the one who heals someone. Ironically, paradoxically, when you stop trying to use your ego to heal, trying to force it to happen, and failing, and you give up that entire desire and identity, you are then willing to surrender enough to ALLOW HIM to perform miracles through you.

This means dropping the spiritualized ego, the hero, the performer, the savior,the rescuer, the fixer, the resister, and getting rid of all ego attempts to be a miracle worker. To try doing it yourself and to fail at it, so that you can open up the door to a supernatural power not of this world, and not of you. In a way, you be a miracle worker by letting HIM be the miracle worker.

"BUT DO NOT INTERFERE. The power set in you, in whom the Holy Spirit's goal has been established, is so far beyond your little conception of the infinite, that you have no idea how great the strength that goes with you."

"The holy do not interfere with truth."

"Purification is of God alone (the Holy Spirit), and THEREFORE for you. Rather than seek to prepare YOURSELF for Him, try to think thus:

"I, who am host to God, AM worthy of Him.

He Who ESTABLISHED His dwelling-place in me created it as He would have it be.

It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I DO NOT INTERFERE with His plan to RESTORE to me my own AWARENESS of my readiness, which is eternal.

I need ADD nothing to His plan.

But to RECEIVE it, I MUST be willing NOT to substitute my own, IN PLACE of it.""

"We thank You, Father, for Your guarantee of only happy outcomes in the end. Help us not interfere, and so delay the happy endings You have promised us for every problem that we can perceive; for every trial we think we still must meet.""

"What the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world."

"The Holy Spirit is the MECHANISM of miracles." (He does them!)

"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you only through the witnesses who speak for it. For you can be AWARE of what you cannot see, and it can become compellingly real to you, as its presence becomes manifest THROUGH you. Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."

The idea is simple. There is only one lesson. This one lesson sets you free from every form of suffering. It's simply this:

Take full responsibility for everything that you are experiencing.

What is this based on? It's based on the fact that you are an immortal being that cannot be changed by anything, because you are the will of God.

This means that nothing in this entire "universe" of spacetime, nothing in the world, can do even the slightest thing to CAUSE you in any way.

You have never changed, you have not changed yourself, God has never changed you, and you will never change. You are always the same and always perfect.

Because of this, it's not POSSIBLE for anyone or anything to do anything to you. This is the basis of forgiveness. Recognizing that sin cannot happen, guilt is impossible, and everything is perfect still.

If you are immortal then the ONLY way by which something can SEEM to happen to you, is YOU using your own mind and free will to put in place what seem to be illusions of suffering.

Because the truth is that you cannot suffer at all. Not even slightly. You yourself have to literally warp your own mind and dream your own dream and invent your own suffering, which is even fake suffering, in order to experience what seems like suffering at all.

It cannot be put in place by anyone else because no-one else has power over your infinite will. It cannot be caused by the world or anyone in it. Nothing that seems to happen can be the reason why you are experiencing what you are experiencing.

So it goes back to the secret of salvation, no matter how it looks, no matter who seems to be the cause, no matter what anyone appears be trying to do to you, no matter what reactions you seemed to have that you thought they caused, it is NEVER true that anyone BUT YOU is the cause of your suffering.

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true."

This means you can never pin blame on anyone or anything other than yourself. You can never truly believe that anyone or anything is the cause of you, other than God. God is the ONLY cause of you in all existence. There is NO OTHER POWER that can cause anything at all. Whatever happens is what you desire.

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

This is all tied together. You are ruler of the universe because anything that happens is by your will alone. Forgiveness is based on your immortality and the fact nothing can happen against your will. The secret of salvation reminds you that you can be saved only by admitting that YOU are the one willing it. And only by identifying with Christ can you fully claim responsibility for what you really are.

If in any way you are believing that what you are experiencing now, right now, is the result of, something other than yourself in any way, you are mistaken. You are deceived. If you think any person did this to you you are wrong. If you think the world or the body or the emotions or thoughts are doing it to you, you are wrong.

ONLY YOU can make yourself suffer.

"It means that you cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness. Show him that he CANNOT hurt you, and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself."

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

"My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."

"Father, Your Son can not be hurt. And if we think we suffer, we but fail to know our one Identity we share with You."

"Truth will correct all errors in my mind. I am mistaken when I think I can Be hurt in any way. I am God's Son, Whose Self rests safely in the Mind of God."

"Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?"

"For once you understand it is impossible that you be hurt except by your own thoughts, the fear of God must disappear."

"The Son of God could NEVER sin, but he CAN wish for what would hurt him. And he HAS the power to think he CAN BE hurt. What could this be EXCEPT a misperception of himself?"

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS."

"If you will listen to His voice, you will know that you cannot either hurt or BE hurt, but that many need your blessing to help them hear this for themselves."

"The Self Which God created cannot sin, and therefore cannot suffer."

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today."

"Your Name replaces every thought of sin, and who is sinless cannot suffer pain."

"How can he fear or doubt or fail to know he cannot suffer, be endangered, or experience unhappiness, when he belongs to You, beloved and loving, in the safety of Your Fatherly embrace?"

"Herein lies my claim to all good and only good. I am blessed as a Son of God. All good things are mine because God intended them for me. I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am."

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed."

"Love CANNOT suffer, because it cannot attack."

"Joy is the inevitable result of gentleness. Gentleness means that fear is now impossible, and what could come to interfere with joy? The open hands of gentleness are always filled. The gentle have no pain. They cannot suffer."

"I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."

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

If you believe you are part of a dream, made of dream stuff, you can be attacked. If you recognize yourself as the dreamer of the dream, outside the dream like the container in which the dream is taking place - the mind - then you cannot be attacked.

"If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgement or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick."

The dream of death, space and time, the world of sin, is all taking place in thought. If you identify WITH this thought, you shift your sense of "who and what I am" away from "that which thinks" to "the thought itself". Away from mind to the dream.

To do this requires that you deny what you are. To deny your soul. Doing this invents perception, and doing it a lot pushes you towards false perception. Here, you believe that since you are a dream, or part of a dream, or made of dream-stuff, the dream ITSELF must be your creator.

This now begins the process of believing that you are at the effect of the world. If you are identified with or as something IN the dream, then you are now vulnerable to anything that seems to take place in the dream. And anything that happens to dream stuff, you will believe is happening to you.

"You are immortal and you cannot die. But you can confuse yourself with things that do."

By confusing your SELF, with dream figures, ie by believing you are a body, and by extension actually believing that you ARE THIS WORLD ("The world is perception"), you position yourself at the EFFECT of the dream, and introduce all manner of suffering into your experience.

If your identity is something OUTSIDE OF space and time, something BEYOND the body, something more encompassing than the dream world itself... if you are the MIND that is dreaming it, or even better, the soul that is using the mind to dream it, then you are FAR BEYOND the reaches of the dream itself.

"You are safe in God, dreaming of exile"

"The Kingdom of God is perfectly protected. Nothing can prevail against it."

"Nothing can prevail against a son of God who commends his spirit into the hands of God."

"For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream."

Believing that you ARE a part of the dream, lands you directly onto the battlefield. The dream is the battlefield. If you are a body, and "the body is a dream", then you will believe that you are fundamentally unsafe, because the body is exposed and susceptible and attackable and limited, in the midst of a harsh and hostile world full of danger.

"Today's idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment which all the separated ones experience. Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering and intense fear of loss. The separated ones have invented many "cures" for what they believe to be "the ills of the world." But the one thing they do not do is to question the reality of the problem. Yet its effects cannot be cured because it is not real."

Anyone believing they are a body cannot truly feel safe. They must live in fear. To believe you ARE a body requires that you believe you ARE the dream. And to believe you ARE the dream requires you to believe you are at the EFFECT of the dream or dreamer. That you are defined by it. And that means the dream is the cause of you. And being able to cause you with an alien will is an instant threat to your peace.

It can never be, that you can say, "Look at me, I'm a man, I am fearless". And it can never be, that you can say, "Look at me, I am a fierce and powerful woman". By identifying AS a body or a gender identity, or the attributes of the flesh, or the size and shape of its form, or its abilities, you are literally positioning yourself as a target for attack. And this belief in attack is inherent to seeing yourself AS a portion of a dream, and it is your own mind that is doing the attacking because it believes in being affected.

You cannot be "an invulnerable man" or "a bullet-proof woman". But you can be an immortal spirit, a soul, a child of God, who temporarily utilizes the dream body for a higher purpose, and therefore infuses it with life and protection. But this is a miraculous supernatural act, in which a power NOT OF THIS WORLD, from outside the dream (holy spirit), is used to OVERRIDE the physical laws of the dream.

It all hinges around the simple question of identity. Who or what are you? What are you identified WITH and AS? What is your NATURE? Are you made of illusions? Are you a reality? Are you something in space and time? Are you eternal and timeless? And this really boils down to the question or, where did you GET your identity from? Where did your TRUEST NATURE come from?

The answer to that comes down to, who is your father? Or who created you? What is your source? How did you come to exist? Because in that question lies all the facts about THEIR nature, and WHAT they could do in your creation, and WHAT you INHERITED from them. And if the ego is your daddy, then you are a mortal temporary limited fictional character in a spacetime of hell. But if God is your daddy, then you are immortal and permanent and can never be affected by dreams.

"The ego IS therefore a confusion in identification, which never had a consistent model, and never developed consistently. It is the distorted product of the misapplication of the laws of God by distorted minds, which are misusing their own power."

"We said before that YOU are the will of God. His will is not an idle wish, and your identification with His Will is not optional because it is what you are."

"All these things are cherished to ensure a body identification. They are songs of praise to the ego. Do not put your faith in the worthless. It will not sustain you."

"In his complete identification with the Christ, the perfect Son of God, His one creation and His happiness, forever like Himself and One with Him, Jesus became what all of you must be."

"Now are we one in shared Identity, with God our Father as our only Source, and everything created part of us."

"The Son of God is my identity."

"Then I lose myself in my Identity, and recognize that Christ is but my Self."

"The step I take today, my Father, is my sure release from idle dreams of sin. Your altar stands serene and undefiled. It is the holy altar to my Self, and there I find my true Identity."

"You I choose, and my Identity along with You. Your Son would be Himself, and know You as his Father and Creator and his Love."

"Long ago we said this course will teach you what you are, restoring to you your identity. And we have already learned that this identity is shared."

"The idea for today presents a very different view of yourself. By establishing your Source it establishes your Identity, and it describes you as you must really be in truth."

"His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity."

"They do not realize that, to deny God, is to deny their own identity, and in this sense, the wages of sin IS death."

"Choose once again what you would have him be, remembering that every choice you make establishes your own identity as you will see it, and believe it IS."

"But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs of your Identity, which God alone established in reality."

"I am not an illusion but a reality."

"A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at ALL levels. Illness, which is really "not Right Mindedness", is the result of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the misbelief that what is amiss in one level can adversely affect another."

"All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion which created magic rested on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter, which can control the mind."

"It was the first level of the error to believe that the body created its own illness. Thereafter, it is a second mis-step to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents."

"The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not in it. If the mind believes the body is its goal, it will distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it, will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot but foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else. ... To use a medium of communication as a medium of attack is an obvious confusion in purpose. To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate. How can you do both simultaneously WITH THE SAME THING, and NOT suffer?"

"The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND'S FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND'S JOY."

"LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect. What you would prove to him you will believe."

"All sickness comes from a confusion of the levels."

"Sickness is but another form of guilt."

"Do not allow yourselves to suffer from the results of what is not true. Free your minds from the belief that this is possible. In its complete impossibility, and your full awareness of its complete impossibility, lies your only hope for release."

"Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception. And like all the rest, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself."

"Sickness is a defense against the truth."

"Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are you sick that truth may go away, and threaten your establishments no more."

"The body cannot heal, because it cannot MAKE ITSELF SICK. It NEEDS no healing. Its health or sickness depends ENTIRELY on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose that the mind would use it FOR."

"The ego SEPARATES through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches THROUGH it to others. You do not perceive your brothers as the Holy Spirit does because you do not interpret their bodies AND YOURS solely as a means of JOINING THEIR MINDS and uniting them with yours and mine. This interpretation of the body will change your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has NONE. If you use it for attack it is harmful to you. But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of those who believe they ARE bodies and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of you. If you use the body for this, and ONLY for this, you CANNOT use it for attack. In the service of uniting, it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion IS. "

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you.Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies.Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body's condition."

"The IDEA of separation PRODUCED the body, and remains connected TO it, MAKING it sick because of its identification WITH it. ... "You THINK you are PROTECTING the body by HIDING this connection. For this concealment SEEMS to keep your identification safe from the "attack" of truth. If you but understood how much this strange concealment has hurt your mind, and how confused your own identification has become to you, BECAUSE of it! You do not see how great the devastation wrought by your faithlessness. For faithlessness is an attack, which SEEMS to be justified by its RESULTS. For, by withholding faith, you see only what IS unworthy of it, and cannot look BEYOND the barrier to what is joined with you."

"Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another Name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him."

"Thus are you JOINED in sickness, to preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherished, and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that leads to Him."

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved. "

"Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make the separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount."

"Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health, is to recognize in hatred the call for love."

"What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive yourself defenseless and in hell. Yield not to this, and you will see all pain in every form wherever it occurs but disappear as mists before the sun."

"Only the wholly insane could look on death and suffering, sickness and despair, and see it thus. What guilt has wrought is ugly, fearful, and very dangerous. See no illusion of truth and beauty there."

"Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death, to their believers. The form in which they are accepted is irrelevant. No form of misery, in reason's eyes, can be confused with joy."

"Any form of mental illness can truthfully be described as an expression of viciousness. We said before that those who are afraid are apt to be vicious. If we were willing to forgive other people's misperceptions of us, they could not possibly affect us at all."

"Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. I have tried to give my inheritance away in exchange for the world I see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me."

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone."

"For example, do not say, 'God did not create illness', but, 'God did not create cancer,' or heart attacks, or whatever may arouse fear in you. ... This is your personal repertory of horrors at which you are looking.These things are part of the world you see. Some of them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell. It does not matter.What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His. Therefore, it has no meaning."

"The gap IS little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every form of ill, because it is a WISH to keep apart, and NOT to join. And thus it seems to give a CAUSE to sickness which is NOT its cause. The PURPOSE of the gap is all the cause that sickness has. For it was made to keep you separated in a body which you see as if it were the CAUSE of pain. The cause of pain is separation, NOT the body, which is only its EFFECT."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."

"Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free. In pain is God denied the Son He loves. In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery."

"Pain demonstrates the body must be real. It is a loud, obscuring voice, whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness. Pain compels attention, drawing it away from Him, and focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means TO MAKE THE BODY REAL. What shares a common purpose IS the same. This is the law of purpose, which unites all those who share in it within itself. Pleasure and pain are EQUALLY unreal, because their purpose CANNOT be achieved. Thus are they means for nothing, for they have a goal without a meaning. And they share the lack of meaning that their PURPOSE has. "

"Sin shifts from pain to pleasure, and again to pain. For EITHER witness is the same, and carries but one message, "You are here, WITHIN this body, and you CAN be hurt. You can have pleasure, too, but ONLY at the cost of pain."

"Pain is a wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes which will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclaims God cruel. How could it be real in any form? It witnesses to God the Father's hatred of His Son; the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane desire for revenge and death. Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false?"

"Pain is but witness to the Son's mistakes in what he thinks he is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love Which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love."

"If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. But to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father IS the acknowledgment of yourself as you ARE. Your Father created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."

"Of one thing you were sure; of all the many causes you perceived as bringing pain and suffering to you, your guilt was NOT among them. Nor did you, in ANY way, REQUEST them for yourself. This is how ALL illusions come about. The one who makes them does NOT see himself as making them, and their reality does NOT depend on him. Whatever cause they have is something quite APART from him, and what he sees is SEPARATE from his mind. "

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

"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you. "

"Delay will hurt you now MORE THAN BEFORE, ONLY because you realize it IS delay, and that escape from pain IS REALLY POSSIBLE. Find hope and comfort, rather than despair, in this. You could no longer find even the ILLUSION of love in ANY special relationship here."

"This makes it an end and not a means in your interpretation, and this ALWAYS means YOU STILL FIND SIN ATTRACTIVE. No-one accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his goal. You have thus not met your one responsibility. Atonement is not welcomed by those who PREFER pain and destruction."

"You are accustomed to the notion that the mind can see the source of pain where it is not. The doubtful service of displacement is to hide the REAL source of your guilt, and KEEP from your awareness the full perception THAT IT IS INSANE."

"This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies: "I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."

"I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son."

"Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness. Yet, in these dark and heavy garments, are those who seek illusions covered, and hidden from the joy of truth. Truth is the opposite of illusions, because it offers joy."

"No risk is possible throughout the day except to put your trust in magic, for it is only this that leads to pain. There is no will but God's."

"And to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause, and with no power to accomplish anything. It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not exist. And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence like itself. You have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will of God."

"To the ego, the body IS TO ATTACK WITH Equating YOU with the body, it teaches that YOU are to attack with, because THIS IS WHAT IT BELIEVES. The body, then, is not the source of its own health. Its condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function. "

"These are not laws, but madness. The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your 'laws' would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body."

"Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to YOU. UNLESS you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly WANT them."

I can't stress enough right now that God has ALREADY created you perfect in every way, there is NOTHING you need to do to make yourself "better" or improved or to become anything.

The path of "awakening" is NOT about adding something, producing something, searching for something, making something, or becoming something.

It is ONLY about becoming aware, AGAIN, that YOU ALREADY HAVE EVERYTHING GIVEN YOU. There is nothing missing, nothing wrong with you, nothing broken, and no needs of any kind.

It is not about you trying to make yourself whole again. GOD has guaranteed your wholeness forever. It is ONLY about you being willing to recognize and accept that you are ALREADY WHOLE.

The wholeness, holiness, innocence, love, happiness, purity, joy, peace, it's all already in you, and it HAS NOT LEFT and it HAS NOT CHANGED and it IS NOT LOST.

Is is all still there as God created it RIGHT NOW, regardless of whether you are in denial of it, can't see it, are not aware of it, don't believe in it, don't want it, deny it, or fear it.

To awaken to it is merely to recognize IT IS THERE ALREADY. And enlightenment IS simply recognition of WHAT ALREADY IS! This takes no effort whatsoever other than to be willing to accept reality and truth as God created it. To admit you are Christ already, right now, and are just pretending not to be.

"I have already chosen what You will."

"then will I recognize salvation is already here, already given all my brothers and already mine as well."

"God has already done all things that need be done. And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self, my sinlessness, created for me, now already mine"

"In You is every choice already made. In You has every conflict been resolved. In You is everything I hope to find already given me." "I merely choose to recognize what is already there. Salvation is a decision made already."

"And I will understand it is impossible that I could have a problem which has not been solved already."

"The answer to this problem is already given me, if I will accept it."

"And here the limitless forgiveness you will give each other is ALREADY given; the face of Christ you yet will look upon ALREADY seen."

"The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. But the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized."

"What I ask have You already given me"

"God has ALREADY given him all that he REALLY wants."

"For here the final question is ALREADY answered, and what you ask for, GIVEN."

"Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now."

"No one needs practice to gain what is already his."

"There is no sickness not already healed. No lack unsatisfied, no need unmet, within this golden treasury of Christ."

"True prayer must avoid the pitfall of asking to entreat. Ask rather to receive what is already given; to accept what is already there."

"ou do not PUT the Spirit in them by inspiring them, because that would be "magic," and therefore would not be real healing. But you DO recognize the Spirit that is ALREADY THERE, and thereby REAWAKEN IT." "He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. Now must you share His function"

"the Soul is already perfect, and therefore does not require correction."

"The Soul is already illuminated"

"Yet, if God gave an Answer, there MUST be a way in which your problems are resolved, for what He wills already has been done."

"THIS recognition is wholly WITHOUT effort, because it is ALREADY true and needs no protection. It is in the perfect safety of God." "The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to."

"Revelation induces a state in which fear has ALREADY BEEN abolished."

"Our goal in the longer practice periods today is to become aware that God's plan for salvation has already been accomplished in us."

"So do we clear the way for Him today by simply recognizing that His Will is done already, and that joy and peace belong to us as His eternal gifts."

"I have already been forgiven."

"With God's Word in their minds they come in benediction, not to heal the sick but to remind them of the remedy God has already given them."

"But, through the eyes of faith, the Son of God is seen ALREADY forgiven, free of all the guilt he laid upon himself."

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

"He has never failed to answer this request, because it asks only for what He has already willed."

"Prepare you NOW for the undoing of what never was. If you already UNDERSTOOD the difference between truth and illusion, Atonement would HAVE no meaning."

"Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real. Know, then, Who abides with you, merely by recognizing WHAT IS ALREADY THERE, and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you."

"We have repeatedly stated that one who has perfectly accepted the Atonement for himself can heal the world. Indeed, he has already done so."

"Essentially, a prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that we may be able to recognize something we already have."

"Ask not to BE forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Ask rather to LEARN how to forgive, and restore WHAT ALWAYS WAS to your unforgiving mind."

"According to the Holy Spirit's teaching, ONLY God's Purpose IS accomplishment, and it is ALREADY accomplished."

"The creation of the Soul itself has already been perfectly accomplished"

"Glory be to God in the highest, and to you because He has so willed it. Ask and it shall be given you, because it has already been given. "

"Faith in the eternal is ALWAYS justified, for the eternal is forever kind, infinite in its patience, and wholly loving. It will accept you wholly, and give you peace. But it can unite only with what ALREADY is at peace in you, immortal as itself."

"He would make a restitution though He is complete; a gift to you although He knows that you have everything already."

"What idol CAN be called upon to give the Son of God what he already HAS?"

"The Soul is therefore unalterable because it is ALREADY perfect, but the mind can elect the level it chooses to serve."

"The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished."

"Who can remain unsatisfied who asks for what he has already?"

"He has revealed it to me because I asked it of Him, and learned of what He had already given."

"There are many answers which you have already received, but have NOT YET HEARD."

"Who would "go" anywhere, if peace of mind is already complete?"

"But your minds are ALREADY continuous, and THEIR union need only be accepted, and the loneliness in Heaven is gone."

"We will but be making perfect TO you, what is ALREADY perfect IN you."

"For here is only healing, ALREADY complete and perfect. For here is God, and where HE is, only the perfect and complete CAN be."

"In me, you have ALREADY overcome EVERY temptation that would hold you back."

"To remember is merely to restore to your mind WHAT IS ALREADY THERE. You do not make what you remember; you merely accept again what has BEEN made AND REJECTED."

"I am the model for rebirth, but rebirth itself is merely the dawning on your minds of what is already in them."

"Then let Him teach you quietly how to perceive your guiltlessness, which is ALREADY there."

The sight used by the physical body, based on seeing photons, is not a forgiving sight. The body is completely 100% biased because it only ever says that things like itself exist. If the body can see itself, this registers as "bodies exist."

So now you have a sensory device which you might think is able to be objective, trying to use it to tell you whether something exists or not, but the dial on it is switched entirely to one side so that it only EVER reports that physical things exist.

In turn, it is 100% completely blind to anything real, anything of God, and any part of actual reality. It can only EVER say that the physical things it senses must be there to sense, and so they exist and are real and true. ie if you can see it, it's real.

The body is completely biased because it uses its own senses to sense whether it itself exists. And it only ever reports "yes", that it exists, because it senses itself. This is obviously completely tainted information, 100% closed off, biased, and blind.

So basically anything that the body can sense, does not exist. But the body is only capable of saying that it does. It is 100% on the side of the physical, and validates the physical, and is squarely focused only on the physical. It is incapable of finding that the physical world is unreal, and it is not able to sense reality AT ALL.

"Only the body makes the world seem real." UrU5A5

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do." UrU5A2

"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see BEYOND what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and NOT see past it." UrT22D5

Literally, the physical body was made to NEVER see reality, to ONLY look upon error, and to COMPLETELY "believe" that everything it senses really exists. It is the perfect device for deception, for making sure you are completely stuck in unconsciousness, for making forgiveness impossible, and for proving that everything impossible is possible.

In effect, we made the body in an attempt to deceive ourselves COMPLETELY. And this makes the body 100% unforgiving. It cannot be objective, it cannot question whether the physical world is real, and it has absolutely no way to see actual reality. It is a "device for separation", NOT a device for oneness.

It is unforgiving in that, anything it sees is an illusion, and that illusion registers as 100% real. It sees illusions as reality and reality as an illusion. That is false perception. That is total insanity. That is total confusion. Sin is insanity, which is why the world of bodies is made of the idea of sin.

Anything that occurs in the physical world, which is "the world of sin", is regarded as a REAL SIN. Something happens, it registers as having happened, the body witnesses the physical proof that it happened, and regards this as irreversible truth. I can see it, I can touch it, I can smell it, taste it, hear it, it is RIGHT THERE, screams the body.

Physical sight, if it were believed without question, would result in the mind being completely convinced by death and destruction and sickness and suffering. Anything that occurs would be regarded as real and true. All physical causes and effects would prove separation is real. Every physical attack would be seen as real and undeniable, justifying revenge. There is no forgiveness there. It is the "battlefield."

Now, a lot of how you experience this illusory world depends entirely on the mind and its USE of the body, the mind's belief system or thought system, and whether it BUYS INTO the deception of the physical world. What MEANING it gives to the signals coming in from the body, whether it believes they are true or not.

If the mind thoroughly deceives itself by aligning its identity with the body, narrowing itself to the body, imprisoning itself in it, seeing itself as "separated off" by it, believing the body IS itself, and as such shutting out the mind, then the mind is going to become UNFORGIVING. In the extreme, this "nihilism" of believing that "the physical world is all there is" would produce a state of total insanity.

This is because physicality IS deception and believing in it means you are deceiving yourself, and deception is evil. Which essentially means that the physical world and the body are evil. Or at least were made in an attempt to be evil, to oppose the "good" of God. But whether it is experienced as hell-like or heaven-like depends on the mind's USE of it.

So basically the body itself presents a POTENTIAL which, in and of itself, is 100% wired for unforgiveness. But the mind can OVERRIDE this, by changing what it makes of the signals it receives from the body. The mind is responsible for whether it BELIEVES in what the body is showing it. And the mind HAS to be willing to categorize EVERYTHING the body senses as FALSE, if it is to be sane and forgiving.

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."

As the mind moves towards God, therefore, it moves away from physical sight. It recognizes that everything the body senses is NOT TRUE. This means forgiveness is an assertion that the physical world IS NOT TRUE, which dismisses all deceptions and blame.

But mind can "use" the physical for a higher purpose, e,g, to help others who are in the physical world. But in the mind, it is not buying into, believing, or being deceived by, anything in the world.

What this ultimately means for FORGIVENESS, is that to be truly forgiving you have to NOT believe anything the body tells you, NOTHING that the physical world presents, and recognize it for the illusion it is. As we "practice" forgivenesses we are trying to get our minds to move into that higher "true perception", where we properly recognize the physical as FALSE. In its entirety.

It's then like the body is a sensor dipped into a completely false illusory unreal world, picking up signals about what's going on there, and reporting back, but the mind that looks AT these signals is not deceived by them, does not believe they are ultimately true, and recognizes their falsety. It can still USE the body's signals temporarily, e.g. such as when Jesus walks the Earth and can use the body to SEE the sick bodies, to offer help, but the healed mind does not BELIEVE anything it's witnessing here.

And that's because everything physical is unreal. And forgiving the physical causes it to cease to seem to exist, overriding the body's insistence that it does.

"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams, once they are recognized for what they are? Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see." UrM13A6

"Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are meaningless. It cannot see nor hear. It does not know what seeing IS; what listening is FOR. It is as little able to perceive as it can judge, or understand, or know. Its eyes are blind, its ears are deaf. It can NOT think, and so it cannot HAVE effects." UrT28F4

"Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear or reach to grasp? What would they sense at all? To sense is not to know." UrW250W41