If we describe the Holy Spirit as having the power of God, of knowing everything, of having a healing solution for every problem, of being able to guide us specifically and tell us what to do, to make all decisions for us, and be an authority, then this should clearly position us in a receptive frame of mind to listen, learn, and do.

If we are unclear as to the absolute and total strength of the Holy Spirit, we will think that there are some things he cannot do, is not equipped to do, and cannot be trusted to do. And then we will doubt him, and we will start to trust our own egos. And then we will usurp his functions and take over control, unwilling to listen to or follow instructions. This means we basically are not giving him enough credit or acknowledging fully what his function is.

Part of the problem is that our egos are inflated and we want to be gatekeepers, in control of everything, making all decisions, knowing what everything is, being special and important, and all the rest of it. All of this clouds our dependence on the Holy Spirit and makes us be in competition with him. We do not want his help and we won't seek it out, listen to it, accept it or welcome it. We think we know better and don't need him.

We need to very fully and clearly spell out precisely what the Holy Spirit's function is and what he is capable of, so that we are in no way mistaken about what his duties and functions are. Only if we can be clear about exactly what he's supposed to be doing, can we be clear about what we are supposed to be doing. What is his role, and what is our role. Otherwise we will have a blurred boundary and the ego will step in.

If I acknowledge that the Holy Spirit has all of the power of God, this power is unlimited, it can heal every sickness, it can solve every problem, he knows absolutely everything that is going on with everyone all the time, he knows exactly what every problem is and how to solve it, has access to all information and facts and variables in the past present and future, and is squarely in a position to KNOW, then this tells me clearly that I can depend on him knowing. He knows how, he is fully equipped, he cannot fail, and he can be depended upon. That means I do not NEED to know everything because I can LET HIM do his part.

This then tells me that I can depend upon him and work with him as a team member, utilizing him for his function and turning to him TO help in all the ways that he is equipped and assigned to do so. Then I will not look to MYSELF to try to fulfill those functions, recognizing that I am not in a POSITION to do so. This tells me that it isn't my function here to know everything, to decide everything, to heal anything, to correct anything, or to pretend that I have all the information. I should be turning to him for that and letting him advise and help.

This also opens up the door for easier trust, because if you are now clear about what He is supposed to be doing and are acknowledging that he CAN do it, you will have more FAITH in him. Part of this entails recognizing that he has the power of God, he is absolutely unlimited in his power, and there is nothing he cannot do. To admit and acknowledge that might, to your ego, strike you as frightening. So you're going to have to work on that and get past it. If you can acknowledge and be comfortable with the Holy Spirit being immensely powerful, and on your side, then you can go forth with greater confidence knowing He is backing you up.

Since he shares God's power, he more or less can be thought of as an extension of God. And that means you should be having faith and trust in him to the same extent and in the same way that you would with God. The Holy Spirit has been appointed by God to help us, on purpose, AS the answer to the separation, TO guarantee our return home to heaven. He knows how we got into this mess, he knows how to get us out of it. We have to learn to let him do that. He also knows how to solve all problems, heal all sickness, and reverse death. We have to learn to let him do that.

Now that you know just how helpful and powerful the Holy Spirit is, you can make room for him and work alongside him as a partner rather than work against him vying for attention. You can let him help you, heal you, resurrect you, and enlighten you. He can solve all your problems and undo all your suffering.

"I will step back and let Him lead the way."

"I do NOT feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo ALL

the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

"You know not where you go, but One Who knows goes with you. Let Him lead you with the rest."

"I will step back and let Him lead the way,

For I would walk along the road to Him."

"Then let him turn within to his Eternal Guide, and let Him Judge what the response should be."

"Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function. Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven."

"I rest in God today, and let Him work

In me and through me, while I rest in Him

In quiet and in perfect certainty."

"And so I give all judgment to the One You gave to me to judge for me. He sees what I behold, and yet He knows the truth. He looks on pain, and yet He understands it is not real, and in His understanding it is healed. He gives the miracles my dreams would hide from my awareness. Let Him judge today."

"That is because I do not yet realize that God has placed the answer together with the problem, so that they cannot be separated by time. The Holy Spirit will teach me this, if I will let Him. And I will understand it is impossible that I could have a problem which has not been solved already."

"Let Him be Judge of what you are, for He has certainty in which there is no doubt because it rests on Certainty so great that doubt is meaningless before Its Face"

"Let Him be Judge as well of everything that seems to happen to you in this world."

"Let Him evaluate each thought that comes to mind, remove the elements of dreams, and give them back to you as clean ideas which do not contradict the Will of God."

"Follow His light and see the world as He beholds it. Hear His Voice alone in all that speaks to you. And let Him give you peace and certainty, which you have thrown away, but Heaven has preserved for you in Him."

"The CAPACITY to empathize is VERY useful to the Holy Spirit, provided you let Him use it in His way."

"The Holy Spirit asks only this little help of you. Whenever your thoughts wander to a special relationship which still ATTRACTS you, enter with Him into a holy instant, and there, LET HIM RELEASE YOU."

"God's Voice alone can tell you how to heal. Listen, and you will never fail to bring His kindly remedy to those He sends to you, to let Him heal them, and to bless all those who serve with Him in healing's name."

"And now I place you in His hands, to be His faithful followers, with Him as Guide through every difficulty and all pain that you may think is real. Nor will He give you pleasures that will pass away, for He gives only the eternal and the good. Let Him prepare you further. He has earned your trust by speaking daily to you of your Father and your brother and your Self. He will continue; now you walk with Him as certain as is He of where you go; as sure as He of how you should proceed, as confident as He is of the goal, and of your safe arrival in the end."

"I place you in His charge, and let Him teach you what to do and say and think each time you turn to Him. He will not fail to be available to you each time you call to Him to help you."

"Let Him uncover the hidden spark of beauty in your relationships, and SHOW it to you."

"Then turn to Him who shares your function with you, and let Him teach you what you need to learn to lay all fear aside, and know your Self as Love Which has no opposite in you."

"He is the strong protector of your innocence, which sets you free. And it is HIS decision to undo EVERYTHING that would obscure your innocence from your unclouded mind. Let Him, therefore, be the only guide that you would follow to Salvation. He knows the way, and leads you gladly on it. WITH Him, you will not fail to learn what God wills FOR you IS your will."

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

"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."

"The Holy Spirit knows NO-ONE IS SPECIAL. But He also perceives that you have MADE special relationships, which He would purify, and NOT let YOU destroy. However UNholy the reason why you made them may be, He can TRANSLATE them into holiness, by removing AS MUCH FEAR AS YOU WILL LET HIM. You can place ANY relationship under His care, and be sure that it will NOT result in pain, if you offer Him your willingness TO HAVE IT SERVE NO NEED BUT HIS."

"And yet he is NOT crucified. For here is both his pain AND his healing, for the Holy Spirit's vision is merciful, and His remedy is quick. Do not HIDE suffering from His sight, but bring it gladly TO Him. Lay before His eternal sanity ALL your hurt, and LET Him heal you. Do not leave any spot of pain hidden from His Light, and search your minds carefully for any thoughts which you may fear to uncover. For He will heal every little thought that you have kept to hurt you, and cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the magnitude of God."

"Thank God that He is there, and works through you. And all His works are yours. He offers YOU a miracle, with every one you LET Him do through you."

"Do not make the mistake of believing that YOU understand what YOU perceive, for its meaning IS lost to you. But the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning FOR you, and if you will LET Him interpret it FOR you, He will restore what you have thrown away. As long as you THINK YOU KNOW its meaning, you will see no need to ask it OF Him. You do not know the meaning of ANYTHING you perceive. NOT ONE THOUGHT YOU HOLD IS WHOLLY TRUE."

The world of separation, of space time, including planet Earth and all bodies, all forms and objects, is NOTHING AT ALL.

This is the simple teaching of A Course in Miracles. There is no body, there is no world. It is NOTHING. It is not a thing, it has no attributes, it has no inherent nature, it isn't good or bad, or holy or evil, it is absolutely nothing. It is an illusion of nothing pretending to be something, but is in fact nothing when recognized. This is why when you recognize illusions for what they are, they disappear, because they are really nothing.

The world is nothing. This is all we have to learn about the world. It has nothing to give, and cannot take anything away. It cannot live or die. It cannot do anything. It cannot bring oppression or make you sick or dead. It cannot hurt you. It has no value, and has no meaning. We did not create something in the making of this world, we opposed everything, which resulted in nothing.

God has guaranteed that opposing his will, wills nothing. And that trying to create without creating, has no effect. And that nothing real or serious can come of tiny mad ideas. That nothing has really happened, and all events are nowhere. The body is not something, it is nothing. The planet is not something, it is nothing. It is when we try to give it egoic meanings that it does not have, that we induce sickness and suffering. We give it power over us because it has none.

When we replace the egos projected meanings with God's projected meanings, the world is seen in another light, in which its nothingness IS RECOGNIZED, at the same time as seeing it with love. The love we give to it is the only reality that we seem to experience from it, because the love BLINDS us to the world's nothingness. The nothing is temporarily interpreted by the mind as a REFLECTION of heaven on earth, and then the earth disappears entirely. It was never really there to begin with, it was never really created, and it has never really lived. There is no world.

"There is no world."

"The world is nothing in itself."

"At no SINGLE instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered or anticipated, but NEVER experienced just now. Only its past and future make it seem real."

"The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist."

"Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world."

"Today's idea is true because the world does not exist."

"But what is truth to him must be brought to the last comparison that he will ever make; the last evaluation that will be possible, the final judgment upon this world. It is the judgment of the truth upon illusion, of knowledge on perception; IT HAS NO MEANING AND DOES NOT EXIST. This is NOT your decision. It is but a simple statement of a simple fact."

"The world you see does not exist BECAUSE the place where you perceive it is not real. The gap is carefully concealed in fog, and misty pictures rise to cover it with vague, uncertain forms and changing shapes, forever unsubstantial and unsure. Yet in the gap is NOTHING."

"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again. But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now."

"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?"

""And the last to be overcome will be death." Of course! Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions born. What can be born of death and still have life? But what is born of God and still can die?"

"The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality."

"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 arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth"

"This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection." "Pragmatically, what has no real effect, has no real existence. Its REAL effect, then, is emptiness. Being without substantial content, it lends itself to projection."

"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and WITHOUT a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would TRY to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to ATTEMPT to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily BECAUSE it is an error. The FORM it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from REASON's eyes."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"Dreams are dreams, and every one is equally untrue. This is the only lesson to be learned. Yet will fear linger until every one is recognized as nothingness, and seen exactly as it is and nothing more."

"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. There it was born, and there it ends as well. And all the figures in the dream in which the world began go with it. Bodies now are useless, and will therefore fade away, because the Son of God is limitless."

"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."

"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."

"Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning."

"We can but go from nothingness to everything; from hell to Heaven."

"A firm commitment to darkness or nothingness is impossible. Nobody has ever lived who has not experienced some light and some of everything."

"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."

"But hold out your JOINED hands and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and the holy Self you share."

"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?"

"Why burden it with further locks and chains and heavy anchors, when its weakness lies, NOT in itself, but in the frailty of the little gap of nothingness whereon it stands? What CAN be safe which rests upon a shadow?"

"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."

"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."

"To mean these words acknowledges illusions are in vain, requesting the eternal in the place of shifting dreams which seem to change in what they offer, but are one in nothingness."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Go on to meet them gladly, and learn how much awaits you, for the simple willingness to give up nothing, BECAUSE it is nothing. The new perspective you will gain, from crossing over, will be the understanding of WHERE HEAVEN IS. From HERE, it seems to be outside, and ACROSS the bridge. But, as you cross to JOIN it, IT will JOIN WITH YOU, and BECOME ONE with you. And you will think, in glad astonishment, that for all this, YOU GAVE UP NOTHING!"

ACIM: "The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial."

"However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay."

It's a very common belief that ACIM teaches "separation is impossible". It's the idea that "the separation did not happen". And this also leads to the belief that "I need do nothing" because nothing's really happened. Which then justifies literally "doing nothing" in the presence of "something happening".

The fact remains, that there is a "something" body sitting looking at a screen reading these words on the surface of a physical object. And no matter whether separation "happened" or not, something other than total abstract reality IS occurring right now. You ARE reading this. If it were "the whole story" that "separation did not happen", it would not even be possible to read these words, or for you to even have eyeballs. But it is. And denying that is not helpful. Something is happening here. Or at the very least, SEEMING to.

The distinction that needs to be made is this. REAL separation is not possible. Let's be clear, that you cannot in reality change God or His Creation. "What God has has brought together let no man put asunder" basically means what God creates is permanent. So literally, you cannot create a REAL split in Reality. You can't ACTUALLY cut your REAL self off from the REAL Father.

It is in this sense and only in this sense, that separation is impossible and has not happened. You literally cannot and have not separated. It's the same thing as saying you cannot sin because you cannot cause God. Which means there literally is no REAL sin. Nothing real can be threatened. So we can say, you cannot REALLY separate from God. However, this is not the end of the story.

"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."

While on the one hand you can co-create with God freely, in accord with His will, you CAN also DENY creation, because you HAVE that freedom. This is what "mis-creation" means. You use your freedom to create, against itself, to try to create nothingness. And here is the fact. We DID attempt to do this.

We DID have a tiny mad idea, that it was POSSIBLE to deny creation. Not merely to conceive of mis-creating or denying reality, but that by doing so it would have REAL EFFECTS. By mis-creating or attempting not to create, the result in truth is NOTHING HAPPENS. It's more like you become unwilling and stop willing anything at all, so you don't really do anything.

But you BELIEVE that by denying reality you DO something REAL, which you believe has real consequences or effects. You think that somehow "willing nothing" (death) can be real, and can replace reality. That "not creating" can be considered a "happening". It's because you believe in the mad idea, that you "make it real" to you. And whatever you believe in SEEMS like reality.

You cannot produce a REAL separation, and you haven't. BUT, you can deny reality and TRY to believe that an IMAGINED separation is possible. You can dream of separation. You can invent illusions, which is what it looks like when you repress or withhold extension. You can put the brakes on eternal life, by resisting your own creative power. And this is an attempt to STOP creation. ie, to kill it.

This results in what seems to be a state of death, or a dream of death. "Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem." As the mind denies itself, which imprisons its will, this kind of "puts it to sleep". It is resisting its own wakefulness. This resistance against life seems to take on the form of bodies and forms and sickness and death. These are the "slowing down" of unlimited extension, or the contraction of fear which "materializes" as physical matter. Or as the Course says, "the granite block of sin."

You can believe in this dream and make it seem real to you. You can imagine or mistake this dream for "actual" separation. And therefore can believe that a sin has really occurred. You can look to "events" and believe them, as if proving separation IS happening. But it's not REAL sin or REAL separation that we're trying to fight our way out of, it's an IDEA of it. We're believing that an IMPOSSIBLE separation is possible. And this believing is PRODUCING the world.

This is why Jesus says "The separation HAS occurred." Because He isn't referring to an ACTUAL separation. "The separation", also referred to as "the fall of man", isn't a name for a REAL separation from God. ACIM isn't even dealing with a real separation. But it is dealing with the fact that you DID have an idea of the impossible being possible, and you DID believe in it, and you DID mis-create, and you DID resist and deny reality.

While this "state" is not real separation, it IS a "mis-use" of freedom to create against creation. It has resulted in the "illusory" state of what it looks like to seemingly "not create". Or rather, to use creative power to make it seem like there is no creative power. To use life to pretend there is no life. To use the mind to pretend there is no mind. Even in death, a state of "no choice or will", both choice and will are being fully utilized to make it seem to happen.

"The separation" isn't anything to do with "you actually did separate". It's to do with you ACTUALLY DID DENY reality. You DID conceive of using free will against itself. You DID use your mind to deny your mind, putting it into what seem to be states of unconsciousness (death).

This has resulted in "dreaming", which has resulted in the making of entire illusory worlds, complete with seemingly happening bodies. And yet "all events are nowhere" because they are really a DENIAL of happening. The "occurring" or "happening" is actually a NOT occurring or happening, masquerading as an occurring or happening. This is how it deceives. It SEEMS to be real.

This has thus "made up" (fiction) a world which Jesus refers to as "a lower order reality". It is something you made in an attempt to NOT create anything. It is a NOT world. It is made of NOT bodies. It is the dream of pretending you are not creating anything, and not having eternal life. It's what you get when you use freedom to will against will. THIS illusory mis-creative state DID OCCUR. Mind DID go to sleep a while. It HAS dreamed of a universe made of nothing.

This doesn't mean a real separation has happened. But a fictional separation HAS happened. And so long as we believe it is a "something", rather than an attempt "not to do anything", or "not to live", we are in a state of denial. This denial produces all illusions of suffering and death. Thinking UNREAL things are real, that the world is real, is a mistake. It is a DENIAL OF reality.

"The world was made as a place where God (reality) could enter not".

God wills only to create. He does not ever will to use creation against itself. He does not deny himself or go to sleep. However, creation BY His children is not yet perfected, and so we need help to return to "sanity", which means only using creation constructively.

To be in reality means to not use will against itself, and to not believe that doing so does something. All it does is nothing. Mistaking the nothing for a something is "the fall of man", ie "the separation." Deception, denial, confusion, insanity, and the dream of death.

"The creation of the Soul itself has already been perfectly accomplished, but the creation BY Souls has not. God created Souls so He could depend on them BECAUSE He created them perfectly. He gave them His peace so they would not be shaken, and would be unable to be deceived. Whenever you are afraid, you ARE deceived. Your mind is NOT serving your Soul. "

"Your creation by God is the only foundation which cannot be shaken, because the light is IN it. "

So we ARE in a situation where we're making an illusory world, made of nothing, which seems like a something. And it's not quite a total nothingness otherwise even this would not seem to happen. It has a little amount of reality left in it. Even the ego depends on God a little. But these dreams of opposition to creation are lesser realities, denials of happiness and blocks to awareness. They also deny permanence and eternal life.

So the fact is, we DO need to "do something", given the context of the denial state we are in. Which is why God created the curriculum and the Holy Spirit. Because we DID choose to believe in unreality (the rejection of reality, using reality against itself). We are trying to hold a fake world in place. We, in time, are still choosing the ego.

"I need do nothing" is an atonement-level truth, only LIVED when fully accepted. It means there are no REAL NEEDS. You don't NEED to accomplish something because all that's happened is the ABSENCE of accomplishment. Darkness is the ABSENCE of light.

Even though in reality there are no real needs, your investment in neediness DOES have to be undone. You do need to UNLEARN everything you taught yourself in error. Until there is no more "need" for time and space. The curriculum therefore is aimed to help you to remember that mis-creating against your will is not what you want, and has no merit, or appeal.

It is futile, because you are merely attempting to NOT CREATE anything. The "creation" of death is not creation of anything. Or in other words, "the separation" does not cause anything to happen, has no real consequences, and is pointless. The "sane" would recognize this, and not bother to entertain the notion that "denying creation" is a worthwhile exercise. And in the total withdrawal from trying to make it achieve something real, the world you made disappears.

"The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."

There has been no real separation.

There has been AN ATTEMPT to make the impossible possible.

You have TRIED to separate from God.

You have used creative will against itself, denying your will to will anything at all.

You mistook the "willing of nothingness" for a "something".

You now seem to NEED atonement. To correct the mistaken belief that willing nothing will produce a SECOND KINGDOM.

Once you accept that ONLY the Kingdom of God accepts its own existence and is in accord with willingness, the world that was NOT created does not exist.

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

There is no world. But you think there is.

Most of us approach a spiritual path as something that we have to DO. But I'm questioning what exactly it is that we have to DO. And in fact, DOING is the OPPOSITE of what we're supposed to be doing.

For example, God has already accomplished the absolutely perfect act of creating us to BE perfect FOREVER. We have been given an absolutely perfect holy loving joyful innocent self which has eternal life and is immortal. There is nothing wrong with it and there never will be.

So in that light, what is there to DO? The course tells us that when we reach the END of our path and awaken to the truth, we will gladly realize "I need do nothing", because it's a recognition that everything true is still true, everything false is false, and you are still exactly as God created you. So there's nothing to do.

If in truth there is nothing to do, and heaven is still perfect and undefiled, then what exactly is HEALING, or correction, or waking up, or all this learning stuff? Because ultimately the actual purpose of learning is to learn that there is nothing to learn. The purpose of choice is to choose against choosing on your own and to eventually realize there is nothing to choose between. So what are we supposed to be DOING?

The truth is .. .I think... that it's all really about UNDOING. The course for example says that the miracle doesn't "do anything", it just UNDOES. That is still a change and an act, but it sort of takes away distortions and removes blocks and cancels out ego stuff. That's not a sort of "addition" of something, it's a removal. And atonement meant to UNDO. It's more like a path that SUBTRACTS, takes away, cancels out and STOPS doing. You come to God with EMPTY HANDS, not hands full of ego achievements.

So how do you "do the course" or "do awakening" if the process is really supposed to be centred around NOT doing? Perhaps the focus is on learning NOT to do the things you are already doing with ego. More of a "melting within" as the course says.

It certainly is NOT a process of building, assembling, erecting, putting together, creating, establishing, accumulating, or any other form of "I need to be the one who makes things perfect". God has already created that which is perfect. So it's certainly not our job to be trying to "perfect something". And really this makes it more clear that the spiritual path isn't a sort of "growth" towards something that doesn't exist yet, it's a RETURN to something that God ALREADY GAVE.

Along those lines, we can spend an awful lot of time hammering home course quotes and concepts and ideas trying to sort of ... induce some kind of higher state, to steer ourselves toward God. But the course also says quite simply that fear is the only problem, and the only solution to fear is love. Love is literally WHAT YOU ARE as created by God, as a self which is completely centred in and identified as that love, within God.

So what it's really saying is, just as light shines away darkness, it's really the light of God, or the love of God, coming from your true self, that CAUSES all your darkness to be shone away. As it says, "salvation comes from my one self." So the truth is that your one self has the POWER OF LOVE in it. But the question is, what is it that we are trying to heal? It seems to be more about gaining ACCESS to the love/light/self that has power in it, to let IT shine away our problem - but the catch 22 seems to be that we need that love in order to get TO that love, which is why we need help and willingness.

The self that you really are does not need any healing. It has nothing wrong with it. There is nothing to be done to it to fix it. It has no needs or lacks or faults. And it is in fact the LOVE - which is God - that is present IN AND AS what you are, that is the established "proper functioning" of yourself. It is God himself who guarantees your proper functioning, as in "my sinlessness is guaranteed by God." And God is the mind with which you think, the strength in which you trust, his will is your will etc.

So if you think about it, the love that you have in your real self, your christ soul self, IS THE REMEDY, because it is that love that heals and shines away sickness and undoes death and ego. It its the love that is ALREADY in you, that melts away the mental distortions of denial and deception.

So it's a very strange scenario where your already-perfected self is the very thing which is come to save "you" and heal you from the BELIEF that there is something wrong with you. This of course seems completely backwards. You believe you are a defective limited self that needs a lot of help and lacks a lot and is sinful and guilty and afraid.

And yet this self is NOT what you really are, and what you really are - Christ - will actually PROVIDE the LOVE that melts and heals your mind from this faulty view of yourself. So you in effect - as a perfect soul - will save you - the idea of your false self - from believing that you are not christ.

You can think ok, if I do this lesson and recite this text and say these affirmations and "do" this forgiveness, then it will get my mind into a state where I am more loving. As if to say, that all these things will CAUSE the love to show up, or will MAKE healing happen in your mind, or FIX your problems, or RESTORE your sanity.

But mind is something you have absolutely no comprehension of. It's more like a presence of living light. You have no clue how to fix it or correct it. And you'll find that it's not any of these "techniques" that CAUSE the presence of love or to get the mind to be more awake. How do you even manufacture "wakefulness"? How can you put love in place? You can't. And you don't.

So you can become actually very stuck in this cycle of trying to fix what is not broken, trying to apply all kinds of methods to somehow "put in place" what you think is missing, as if it's your job to make yourself have the perfect nature that you're supposed to have. But that's not your job, and you are completely unequipped to do it.

GOD HIMSELF has established your nature, has created you from love with love, and this love is beyond description and concepts. It is actually the LOVE ITSELF that CAUSES the miraculous healing of your mind and that of others. It is not that you need to do something to MAKE the love show up, it's that the LOVE needs to do something in order to make the UNLOVE go away. And your ego self is an identification with being the unlove - ie a lack of love, which is also called sin and fear and death. Lack of love can only be healed by LOVE BECOMING PRESENT, as light REPLACES darkness.

It is the LOVE OF GOD that shines away the darkness. This is its POWER. Remember that "healing is but another name for God." And "miracles are a universal blessing from God." God GIVES YOU the healing and remedy that you need. God operates ON YOU to heal your mind. God SENDS YOU the love that shines away all sorrows. God PUTS IN PLACE the proper perfect nature and condition that your mind needs to be in - IF you will let him.

This is why the course then says that the Holy Spirit - NOT YOU - THE HOLY SPIRIT - WILL UNDO, ALL the consequences of your wrong decisions - IF you will let him. If you will let HIM, NOT YOU. And this is to do with the question of, what's your proper function? What are you supposed to be DOING here, how are you supposed to be functioning, what is your ROLE? Your roel is NOT "I am going to separately individually and on my own fix my entire self and make it holy and spiritual."

The truth is that a "thought of God" has entered the darkness of our minds to BRING LIGHT INTO our minds, to shine away the darkness. That is a miraculous blessing from God. That's the Holy Spirit's function of HEALING. HIS function is to heal our minds WITH the eyes of christ and the love of God. With the very love that is in and comes through your real self.

So then what are we supposed to be DOING? Well, it then cannot mean that it is our function or job to DO anything really, except that, we're supposed to be WILLING to LET OURSELVES be forgiven, to let ourselves be healed, to RECEIVE HELP, and to let God do the work for us. The course even says that we do not even do the miracles and we have no clue what miracles even are really, other than vague descriptions of them. We have no idea how to ESTABLISH perfect love in ourselves.

So really the "spiritual path" is quite paradoxical. It's about using the body to make the body unnecessary. It's about using learning to learn that there is nothing to learn. It's about using change to learn that you are changeless and have never changed. It's about surrendering separateness. It's about letting God come back into your awareness and be in your mind and share himself with you - to let him GIVE LOVE TO YOU, to shine away your darkness FOR YOU.

So I think overall we're really supposed to be acting more like ... having willingness and humility and surrender to stop trying to wake ourselves up on our own, and instead open up to letting God perform spiritual surgery on us. We HAVE to get God's LOVE into our awareness.

As the course says, "identify with love and find yourself". Love itself is what you are, and in the presence of that love there is no fear or guilt or death. Nor because we hold these things at bay with the amazing power of our concepts, but because the LOVE SHINES IT AWAY FOR US. The atonement is the idea of God's love, shining away and undoing all ego and death.

All we've really done is we've gone into denial, and the solution to that is to do the opposite - which is acceptance. But acceptance isn't a DOING, it's a laying down of all the DENIALS and blocks and barriers and resistance and fear that try to PREVENT the love from doing what LOVE does. It's all an attempt to STOP GOD'S WILL. So the solution can't be that we keep doing our own separate will and expect it to work - we've God to let GOD'S WILL do its thing.

And that ultimately means coming to recognize that God's will is already DONE, because God is not indecisive or in two minds or uncertain. He already has GIVEN us EVERYTHING, and the only part missing is that we keep pushing it away, we have become ungrateful, and we do not want it. So it's a matter more of stopping the resistance - the resistance is a doing that needs to stop. And all the things we've taught ourselves have to be let go. And all the barriers we've built AGAINST receiving everything from God have to be dismantled.

Really then what we're supposed to do is LET GO AND LET GOD, receive God's love and support, let the Holy Spirit operate on us and HEAL US FOR US, let ourselves recognize that we have already BEEN forgiven, and gently let go of all the things that say otherwise. That's not so much a doing in terms of a putting in place, but more of a sort of PURIFICATION, a sort of clearing out, an emptying of self-made bullshit, a letting things come and go without attachment, a relinquishment, a purging catharsis, a kind of release from everything we made.

The very thing we need - the power of God as the love of God - is the very thing we have denied. And yet it is still there waiting to help us through Christ. As the course says, "ONLY Christ forgives." WE ARE NOT being forgiving at the level of having an ego, forgiveness is not complete until we are IN CHRIST BEING CHRIST looking out through Christ vision. Because forgiveness is a result of maximal love. The love has to be there FIRST in order to result in true perception.

From our ego perspective it's more like opening up to becoming a "medium for God", or a channel through which God can resume his expression and extension. "The extension of God's Being is the Soul's only function." We are learning to resume our function of LETTING GOD, doing his will, not blocking him, and thus receiving and extending the love he is already giving, which will heal our minds and undo ego. GOD'S LOVE WILL DO what needs to be done. There is NOTHING ELSE to do.

Accept, receive, allow, admit, open, extend, give, share, include, be grateful, recognize, acknowledge, be.

LOVE TRANSMITS, YOU RECEIVE AND EXTEND. THAT IS ALL!

"I must accept Atonement for myself, and nothing more. ***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, to feel God's Love protecting me from harm, to understand my Father loves His Son; to know I am the Son my Father loves."

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

"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***. It is not their hands that heal. It is not their voice that speaks the Word of God. They merely give what has been given them. Very gently they call to their brothers to turn away from death."

"I do NOT feel guilty, because ***the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM***.

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

"Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function. Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to ***LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven***."

"When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation, and fight against giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation, or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it ALWAYS comes with just ONE happy realization, -- "***I need do nothing.***" Here is the ultimate release that everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time. "

"THE MIRACLE DOES NOTHING. ***All it does is to UNdo. And thus it cancels out the interference*** to what HAS BEEN done. It does not add, but merely takes away."

"***The extension of God's Being is the Soul's only function***. ITS fullness cannot be contained any more than can the fullness of its Creator. Fullness IS extension. The ego's whole thought system BLOCKS extension, and therefore blocks YOUR ONLY FUNCTION. It therefore blocks your joy and THIS is why you perceive yourselves as unfulfilled. Unless you create, you ARE unfulfilled. But God does NOT know unfulfillment, and therefore you MUST create."