Surround search terms with " " double quotes for exact matches e,g, "drops of healing rain"

I went back and slowly re-read the entire "miracle principles" from a very early urtext version, plus some other sections.

The impression I have of miracles now is different and more cohesive. Whatever our understanding of them is, they must incorporate every single thing Jesus says about them, including the ability to literally move mountains, to heal the sick and raise the dead, and also to correct perception. Here are some key points and new clarity on the subject.

1) Miracles are best understood in a vertical direction. They come down from above and lift upwards, or restore life and reality. "Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from heaven." "performed by those who have more (above) for those who have less (below)". They extend or radiate down into the world from God. They also go out sideways between brothers because brothers are ultimately IN heaven.

2) Every aspect of the "descent" into egotism, separation, degrading reality, becoming insane, unwillingness, unconsciousness, etc which is all an attempt to introduce separation between brother's minds (to split the sonship or divide the Kingdom), to interfere with mind-to-mind communication, is the exact opposite of miracles. Projection is opposite to miracles. Magic is opposite to miracles. Miracles inherently correct level confusion, heal projections, undo magic (which includes sickness), and restores awareness of the truth.

3) Every movement towards restoring communication, reintegrating reality, bringing wholeness to your mind AND your brother's mind, uniting you with your brother, healing relationships, removing separations, all effects resulting from separation and sin (including sickness, illness, suffering, death), and cancelling out the "consequences" of sin, are accomplished by miracles. "Miracles unite you directly with your brother". "The purpose of miracles is to restore reality". "Miracles make brothers one in God" etc. The ultimate aim of miracles is to induce revelation and direct communion with God. This however does not exclude miracles that manipulate forms or move mountains, because mountains are actually also thought-forms in the MIND and are actually BELIEFS which mind can manipulate. "The world IS perception" (in the mind).

4) Miracles originate in the mind of Christ. They require the absence of fear, and an awareness of Christ's presence. Jesus inspires them. While they come FROM the Christ mind, you can be in varying degrees of "miracle mindedness" depending on whether your mind is functioning and responding in an ego-driven way or a love-based way. "Miracles are seen in light" "Miracles reflect an inner awareness of Christ." They are therefore typically requiring quite an advanced state of mind, BUT they also can be performed even by "beginners" who are able to temporarily put fear aside and shift into VERTICAL perception away from the horizontal belief system, which allows them to bring forth a miracle which helps develop "conviction in the ability" by seeing physical appearances change. The ability to make this shift isn't necessarily an act of your own purification but a USE OF the parts of your mind that have already been purified.

5) There are two aspects - miracle-mindedness/readiness, and miracle-working. To be miracle-minded is based on the STATE of your mind. But a mind based on love is not unexpressive or static. It is a mind that extends, gives in order to have, shares, increases, creates. Being miracle-minded/ready emphasizes that you are "ready, willing, and able" to "perform" or "do" miracles. The "action" aspect of miracles should be under Christ control (Jesus) due to the atonement plan and should be "involuntary". You are not supposed to consciously control that part of it yourself, but you ARE responsible for becoming "ready, willing and able".

6) "Miracles are thought-creations". Our mind goes through varying degrees of power to CREATE or project, depending on how much ego there is. We become more able to express creatively as we wake up. The mind can shine INTO and BLESS other minds due to having both been created by the "same spark" of God - being of like kind. Miracles not only unite you with your brother, they also increase your own strength by giving love, and also strengthen your brother. They in a sense "repair" the sense of separation between both of you, increase the level of communication, and therefore UNDO the manifestations of the separation idea (forms of sickness etc). Miracles are tightly associated with CREATION, and therefore are capable of creating. They combine "thought-creation" with belief, in order to produce results, which includes changes to *appearances* - meaning all forms, in a law-defying way (including moving mountains).

7) Miracles are not shifts in perception as such. However they can produce a shift in the perception OF OTHERS. Miracles are inter-personal ACTS. They are something you DO to EXPRESS the state of love that you are. They are an "application" of your holiness, and thus create in the same way that God applies himself to create. Because they can "correct" misperceptions in yourself AND others, they can heal your brother and yourself. They bestow grace and blessing on others. Miracles can correct perception and shift it, but when you yourself "correct thinking" and "change perception" that act itself is not necessarily a miracle. Miracles express from above downwards, changes of mind express from below upwards. You stepping "up" to the miraculous mind can require many steps before you are "high" enough to express "downward" with miracles. In a way though, any movement towards God/truth/love is a step in the right direction. The shifting itself isn't the miracle, the miracle is the love that expresses AFTER the blocks to awareness are removed. Although having said that, when you express a miracle it strengthens you also, increasing your sanity, so....

8) The miracle-mind thought system is totally different to the ego thought system in that it has an omnipresent and holographic nature. This means that the miracle is everywhere. It also means the miracle can express in "a part" of the dream and seem to produce a wide variety of specific results. However all miracles are inherently united and consistent and devoid of any recognition of levels of difficulty or heirarchy or size or any other ego construct. "To God all things are possible." I visualize God as like this ocean of liquid where all aspects are fluidly flowing all over the place and completely defies the entire ego thought system and all of its very rigid, compartmentalizing laws. The miracle-minded are literally miraculous in that they can create anything, can do anything, can heal anything, can produce any changes to any appearance, and there is nothing they cannot do.

9) Miracles collapse time because they introduce sort of a separate "moment" of time in which all of the horizontal laws are defied and a "new state" is directly implemented, instantly, which is almost like taking a tiny clip from "the future" and inserting it into the current timeline "out of the temporal order". Another analogy is a vynil record, as if you suddenly bump the arm and it skips some tracks and resumes playing further along in the song. The interval in-between of the "thousands of years" that were skipped, essentially has collapsed or deleted an entire portion of the timeline. Their purpose IS to collapse time and bring about the end of the need for time. Ultimately they lead to revelation and total wholeness, and then are no longer needed. This is all to do with mind. But this DOES NOT exclude apparent changes to forms, bodies, sickness or death, because all of those things are actually mental states, thought-forms, ideas, images in the mind, which are just as much within the scope of mind-power as anything you would normally consider "inside your mind". You have to realize the entire universe is WITHIN our shared minds, and therefore even physical forms have to be ultimately disappeared and "healed" and "shone away" by our light, in order for the the entire sonship to totally be free from dreaming.

10) Miracles are a maximal service you can render a brother. All expressions of love are maximal. That means they express FROM "total" love, not partial. However, you can be in varying degrees of miracle mindedness depending on how you express or "relate". If in a given situation, you have one possible response which is egotism where you make the problem real and use it for attack etc, and another possible response is that you remain "in love" and affirm the truth of both of you and see your brother as sinless and calling out for love and you "empower" both of you, this is a miracle. You chose to love instead of hate, you chose to express a truthful healing charitable gracious blessing rather than attack.

11) Miracles are also "energizing" in that they give LIFE to others ("all around the signs of life spring up"). They supply a lack. They are given by those who have more to those who have less. Lack is just "lack of love", so by supplying love you bless and remove a curse and energize and shine light onto the "area of separation" which causes it to reintegrate and become whole again. "The perceptual content of miracles is wholeness" because you have to be in a mindset of wholeness (miracle readiness) in order to see your brother's holiness and innocence, which strengthens this in both of you and thus energizes and gives life to both of you. When you heal, therefore, BOTH of you receive healing. Separation isn't a "private idea", it's something that "comes between" like a double-sided sword, and removing this sword restores communication in BOTH directions.

12) Miracles can move mountains and raise the dead. Since both of them are illusions and all forms are illusions, and all illusions are based on separation, the miracle-minded have total power OVER these things, either by bringing life to them and healing them, or by demonstrating this power OVER them by changing appearances. A body returning from death and decay to life, or a mounting moving from left to right, are both "changes to appearance". Miracles change appearances to PROVE and demonstrate that the forms themselves ARE illusions BECAUSE they could be changed, and therefore cannot be real because they are so easily manipulated by the mind. The illusion of objects being physical, heavy, large, or that death is too difficult to undo etc, all these illusions crumble to nothing when they are shown to be changeable.

13) Miracles require faith and trust. Having faith in your brother's innocence even when they show up as guilty/sinful/sick, overcomes/overlooks/forgives their illusions and can shine them away. Your mind CAN enter the mind of another and enlighten it. Also certainty (fearlessness) is required (even if temporarily suspended), because miracles occur as thought-acts which are decisive and committal. You don't have to merely have "strong belief" "of your own", you need to also RELY ON or depend on God, trusting HIS power and strength, and knowing what HE is capable of, so that you have TRUST in the certainty of the outcome and KNOWING that it must occur. This goes beyond your "self" as an individual or separate miracle worker. You can do nothing on your own, but you can work WITH God to co-create. Faith/trust also correlates to belief.

14) Miracles also correlate to acceptance/receiving of atonement. They are expressed through PRAYER, which brings about the active "doing" of miracles, because in the prayer you combine thought and belief and faith (key ingredients that are MUST have's), and ask with the heart (not necessary to use words). This "asking" is almost the same thing as "expressing" or "stating" and "seeing" what change you want to occur, as though it has already happened and has been received. "Believe you have received and you shall have it." Miracles EXPRESS FROM the atonement. You have to accept some atonement to accept some "miracle juice", so that you can give it. That means that in some small way, in some part of you, on some issue, you accepted the truth about you as innocent and loved, rather than condemn yourself with sin. This part of you now has received a miracle or has been restored to a more miracle-oriented way of being, and this now can express to others. In a healed part of you, when confronted with another situation like what happened before, you might now "bless" instead of "see sin", and this IS capable of healing others.

15) Overall it seems miracles are essentially HOW the entire illusion of separation is reversed. In all its way, all its appearances, all its consequences. Every form of suffering, all sickness, death, and also demonstrations of the falseness of the ego's laws. Moving a mountain may well demonstrate and violate laws of physics and weight and size and so on, proving that these are not TRUE, that illusory limitations are not true, and this can bring healing to the mind. Miracles can be teaching devices. They remind you and your brother of what is true about you. The entire "lifting up" of all brothers and the "lifting away" of all forms of separation and the "disappearing" of all suffering and forms and illusions and eventually the universe itself, is "the miracle", which is kind of everywhere and omnipresent and comes from God.

16) You are a miracle. This means that God creates miraculously because God is also miraculous. It's natural to be miraculous. You are miraculous in the sense that anything is possible to the holy, and God who is alive has miraculously created the sonship. To the ego, it should not be possible, but it is. A miracle as a "creative expression of thought" is your natural way of creating in heaven. It's how you express love. It's an extension of yourself and increases joy and overcomes lack and restores BOTH you and the thing you create. When you express miracles or miraculously in the world it similarly follows the same laws of GOD and creates wholeness, healing, health, happiness, freedom, love, perfection, holiness, joy, peace, life.

17) Miracles are super-natural. This means they are totally above the ego's "nature", and fly in the face of everything we think of as "the nature" of this universe. This includes all ego laws and physics and time and space. They express from above the battlefield, from heaven, falling like drops of healing rain on the desert (absence of love) below and supply a lack and bring the dead back to life, raising it up towards resurrection. Miracle workers are like angels or holy beings who step inside a dream of death and start expressing themselves, demonstrating all over the place that nothing here is fixed or limiting or has any power over you at all. As beings of light and immortality and creativity, when we express as this kind of identity (christ-aligned) we totally defy every law of the world and therefore literally produce "miraculous" effects. To the ego, miracles are considered un-natural, but to God they are considered completely natural. There is nothing they cannot do and there is nothing your holiness cannot do. You are UNLIMITED, and the sheer degree of limitation of this ego world is shown to be extremely false by every miracle expression.

18) Being miraculous is your natural inheritance and does not require anyone else to choose to be miraculous. It doesn't "require" a holy relationship. BUT, it can IMPLEMENT a holy relationship due to the fact that it heals the separation between brothers. Jesus as the one who woke up can perform them for anyone, and he inspires all miracles which intercede for your holiness, but in so doing, he also unites you with Himself and the two of your minds join and share love, if you are willing. You still have free will and no-one can force anyone to wake up or be healed if they do not want it or if it would frighten them.

19) If you can grasp how God's mind is omnipresent and this means that all of him is in every location FULLY at the same time, which TOTALLY defies the entire ego world and all its forms of matter and space and time, you can get a better sense of how anything is possible in God. And how, in contrast to that, this world and its laws are set up to be extremely limiting, to suggest no two things share anything, forms are things in their own right, nothing is coming from the mind, mind has no power over anything ("the mind must be stronger than the body, every miracle demonstrates this"), and everything is separated off and compartmentalized into boxes and finite objects. This is SO TOTALLY OPPOSITE to God's nature and the nature of anyone who has access the miracle-working mind or the "attitude of love". Love isn't just a finite thing in a box. It is miraculous, life-giving, spacetime defying, and completely ignores all illusory differences. When the world is PROVEN to be NOT separated out, and NOT disconnected from the mind, and NOT a thing in its own right and can easily be changed by the power of the mind, the true nature of God's UNLIMITEDNESS is revealed.

20) Miracles are what happens when an ego-defying, omnipresent, spatially-defying, time-defying, massively potential, unlimited, whole miraculous mind, comes into contact with the ego illusion of limitation and separateness. You can express them and bestow them everywhere, they are unlimited in number, and all support each other forming a "web" of atonement. You have to realize that all physical objects are part of the MIND, and are thoughts, and are perceptions, and are ideas in the mind. Therefore when mind changes and there are actions of expression of miracle-mindedness, this CAN and DOES also change and manipulate the appearance of physical objects. Separating mind from body is an error in this sense. Mind has power OVER the body. "That the mind can heal the body but the body cannot heal the mind proves the mind must be stronger than the body." Whenever you elect to "be a bit more miraculous" or "be a bit more loving" or "express and stay strong in the truth" or "utilize your creative power" or "bless another" or "repair separation" or "reveal the unreality of an illusion" or "demonstrate that you are not limited" or "join minds with your brother" in any way, you are being miraculous.

AND WHY THERE IS NO ORDER OF DIFFICULTY IN MIRACLES...

In this world, forms of objects and bodies and planets are all made to establish how one thing is DIFFERENT to another.

So when we look at the spectrum of types of sickness for example, we have DIFFERENCES in appearances. A headache, a cold, some back pain, a broken leg, a disease, and death, all SEEM different in their FORMS.

However, difference IS NOT reality or truth or sanity. Differences are fundamentally an ego thing.

So what do you think happens to your body when all of its "differences" are undone? Clearly it cannot even exist at all. If it is not being used to make differences real, then it is not being used to differentiate degrees of sickness.

It is DIFFERENCE between things that produces all forms of sickness and death. Or in other words, forms of SEPARATION. Total death requires total intense separation from Life, identifying the body as being so UNLIKE LIFE that it must be dead.

So on this spectrum, death is literally just an attempt to reinforce or EMPHASIZE how "unlike life" the body is. And that's a result of the MIND that is projecting and using the body, and ITS degree of belief in how unlike life it is. Death is ISOLATION from life, which confines you to and identifies you closely with being a body, because a body is a symbol of something STANDING APART from the whole.

When you believe you are NOT LIKE GOD, or you are not the way God created you which is in His likeness, you WILL produce some kind of "difference" in your mind and that WILL produce an APPEARANCE (illusion) of difference in the body. The body will start to look like it is not LIKE LIFE, and so will start to show up as falling apart and malfunctioning and dying.

The body ITSELF, in terms of its FORM, was made as an attempt to assert that what you are is DIFFERENT from all others. That's because "your body" is literally physically cut off from other bodies, does not look like them, has different qualities and seems not to be operated by any other minds, if you ARE this body then you are SEPARATE from others, and therefore you are UNLIKE WHOLENESS, and therefore you are not like LIFE, and therefore you are DEAD.

So the body itself is actually a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son, or the idea that the Son is DEAD because it has been separated out into illusions of distinct different parts which are unlike and disconnected from each other. This fragmentation of identity as FORMS OF DIFFERENCE is, however, an ILLUSION.

The mind does not HAVE to elect to SEE this way. It does not have to regard itself as confined to or IDENTIFIED BY the body or the way that this particular body is showing up versus those of others. The mind can elect to OVERLOOK the body, recognizing that it actually was made to SEPARATE, by its fundamental nature of appearing different and isolated, and it was designed as an instrument for ISOLATING YOU to one very small limited location.

The mind can elect to NOT BELIEVE that this isolated body form is actually representative of its identity. It can believe and perceive that this one body is not ITSELF, and does not limit it, and that the mind is not "identified as" the body. To do that however requires the undoing of mental beliefs in DIFFERENCES BEING REAL. And that means learning to OVERLOOK ALL DIFFERENCES and to not believe in them.

That means you have to learn to not be convinced that one APPEARANCE is actually TRULY different to another, that one sickness is more severe than another, or that even death itself is any more "true" than a paper-cut. When we believe in separation we believe in difference and therefore automatically start believing in the "hierarchy of illusions", which is TOTAL FICTION.

When you can learn to NOT pay attention to the ILLUSION OF DIFFERENCES, of forms, and LOOK PAST them, which DOES mean to FORGIVE them, you get into the kind of mind that recognizes that ALL forms are illusions and are all THE SAME, NOT DIFFERENT, and therefore any miracle that you would apply to one is THE SAME as would be applied to another.

This is what results in awareness that THERE IS NO ORDER OF DIFFICULTY IN MIRACLES. If death is not REALLY any different to a broken nose, then it should not in any way present any greater difficulty in healing than to stop the nose bleeding. Jesus in fact mentions in the Course that the idea of raising the dead should really be no harder than anything seemingly less severe. This does however require total faith and quite an advanced degree of NOT BELIEVING illusions of separation, or appearances.

ALL appearances of difference were made to DECEIVE and BLIND YOU. "Nothing so blinding as sight of form". The Holy Spirit CAN utilize the body as a holy temple through which it is only used for COMMUNICATION. Communication means extension, ie total SHARING, oneness, unity, IDENTICALITY, seeing that you and your brother are ALIKE in every way, overlooking all DIFFERENCES, and recognizing that the same Love that God put in YOU is also in your brother. This results in HEALTH and HEALING, because the belief in *separation* is the root cause of ALL sickness and death.

Without BELIEVING YOUR EYES, or rather, without believing that "differences are true", you can no longer believe that a certain form is any more true or difficult to heal than another. It also therefore means, that when you can demonstrate that THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE, and that the appearance of a difference - regardless of its extremeness - can be easily "ironed out" by a mind that does not BELIEVE in the difference (because it's an illusion), this can literally IRON OUT the difference IN FORM, producing a collapsing of the extremes of "different forms", the reversal of sickness, and even restoring LIFE to the DEAD.

The "erasing of death" should thus be natural to a miracle worker, and as easy as showing that there IS NO SEPARATION in any sickness. That sickness itself is merely an idea of fictional difference and a mind that does not believe in it can produce changes in APPEARANCE that represent NO DIFFERENCE, which causes sickness to literally disappear from the form because the mind is stronger than the body and stronger than all forms.

This also ultimately means, that once communication is whole and there is no belief in the LIE OF MATTER, and not being convinced by ANY illusory APPEARANCE of difference in form, this ENTIRE UNIVERSE must simply be cancelled out. If there cannot be any differences, and if all differences are illusions, and the entire fabric of MATTER is based on belief in one thing being separate or different from another, there literally CANNOT BE ANY MATTER, because there ARE no differences between things, and thus does this universe COMPLETELY DISAPPEAR once it is RECOGNIZED as an illusion. "Illusions recognized must disappear".

This is why there is no world and why God could not have created something that exhibits conflict and separation and death.

If you are open and whole and unified as a single awareness, that is who you are. That is your identity.

If you close down and put yourself into a box, associating yourself with some 'part' of the environment that is different or separate from other parts, your awareness becomes blocked. You are no longer aware of what is outside the box, so you think that your awareness is limited TO the box, and therefore this is the extent of who you are. Now you equate yourself with the box and think you are it.

So you come into this body and you think that you are this body, only this body, and nothing else. And that's fairly natural given you have fallen for the ILLUSION that you are only this self and not any other selves. The body seems to suggest that you are separate from your brother, and that who you are is NOT them in any way.

When you then look out at the world you see a world of separate individuals, where you do not see yourself in them. You see the form of their body and you think that is what defines their identity, because you're focussing on what is different and unique about them.

But these differences and uniquenesses are actually what keep people separate, and what reinforces the ILLUSION that they, and you, are not whole, and not one.

This isn't your true identity, or theirs.

When you take the lid off the box and stop believing the illusions that suggest you are not other people, that there is no oneness anywhere, which is what this entire physical world was set up to try to achieve, you would become aware of a greater sense of self. This sense of self would accompany the amount of AWARENESS that you have that there is ONE IDENTITY spanning multiple individuals.

Whatever size box you are inside of, and are aware of, that dictates the limits and confines of your identity. So if you think you are your body, you are very limited indeed. You will simply not have the awareness that you are everyone else. Or that you are part of God. And since that oneness is outside your awareness, you will not experience it as your SELF, and will not believe it is real.

Therefore, there is a very intimate relationship, a literal connection, between what you are are AWARE of, and what your IDENTITY is.

If your awareness is small a limited by differences, appearances and forms, blinded by form, so too will your sense of identity shrink down to fit inside that definition. Those blocks to awareness, those obstacles to peace, will shut out awareness of any kind of 'larger sphere' or greater scope of awareness that you might experience, or any sense of being joined to or sharing SELF with others.

But your sense of self really is derived from how INCLUSIVE your awareness is. When it is very exclusive and separation-oriented, you will experience 'your self' as small and fragile and afraid. But when your awareness becomes more inclusive, you will experience yourself as larger, expansive, joined, open and united with others.

The ultimate sense of self then will be when you come to no longer be deceived by appearances of form, no longer deceived by illusions of separation, and access a shared unified consciousness that spans everyone and is the same in everyone. The ONE SON OF GOD. The Christ consciousness. This IDENTITY as Christ is experienced as a result of the AWARENESS that there IS christ, that awareness includes everyone and that everyone is a part of and SHARES this awareness.

So then you, as the awareness of Christ, an awareness of oneness, of being the one Son of God, the single unified creation, will be inclusive of all seemingly separated 'sons' in the brotherhood. This will literally mean, that everyone else IS YOU. Is part of this shared wholeness. That we are literally all one self.

This 'identity' that we call self is therefore completely dependent upon WHAT it is that we are aware of. The whole, or the part. Being aware only of the part is what we call an ego identity because it is limited and blocked and includes unconsciousness - a lack of awareness. Ignorance. But you will still think of this - whatever the extent of your awareness is - as your 'self'. Yet as your awareness expands so too is your 'self' expanding, letting go of the isolated separated ego self and opening up to a bigger, shared self that is the same for all of us, in which we are all one family. Not just a family of equal or separately at-peace beings, but in fact FAR more unified than this - a true family where we literally ARE each other.

Eventually the brotherhood will unite in this oneness and we will all unify in the ONE SELF. One with God. Inclusive of all.

Physical objects are forms, taking on one form or another, to produce a range of forms. Some of them we call life forms. Others we might call lifeless forms, forms of materials, forms of objects etc.

The body's eyes look at these forms and takes them to be exactly what they are. It looks at the shape, the position, the color, the nature of it, and claims that this is what the form MEANS. It derives meaning from the form based on how the form looks.

A form will then imply something, suggest something, seemingly tell you a truth about itself and its world, as if the form is a cause which has influence and power. And so we look to forms with the body's eyes and ask the form to tell us what the world means.

We see the form of a broken body and we think that this means the body is damaged. We see the form of a puppy and think this means it was recently born and still innocent. We see a rotting apple and think this means death is taking place.

We constantly are sending the body's eyes out to look upon the world, as if the world can then tell us what everything means just by looking at it. If a body is sick we think it means the person is sick. If the body is dead we think life has ended. And we thus allow the world to dictate every sense of meaning.

This has happened, therefore .... that has happened, therefore. ... constantly analysing situations and scenery and coming up with explanations based on what appears in form to be there.

This way of seeing is what we call false perception or unforgiveness. It holds the form against itself and derives meaning from it, suggesting the form is defining meaning from the outside in, telling us a story of truth through perception.

But all we're doing here is failing to overlook the form, we're fixating on differences, emphasising the way one thing is not like another, finding the ways that nothing is shared between them, and trying to elicit meaningfulness from the uniqueness of the objects.

When something then seems to go horribly wrong, there is a severe damage to the body, a car is crashing, a house is on fire, or any other such drama in which form is screaming at us to believe it, if we only look at it based on its form we will be horrified.

Whatever the form dictates we'll take as truth, and will react accordingly. We'll absorb the hierarchy of illusions and have emotional reactions and disturbance based entirely on what the situation appears to be. We can't seem to rest in peace until all the forms have resume their proper arrangement and the bodies have stopped dying and the threats and dangers and pointed spiky things have become blunted.

If all we do is look at the physical world, believing everything we see, not questioning anything, falling for differences and appearances, buying into every little nuance of change and inequality in order to tell what's going on and what it means, we are lost and blinded. There is nothing so blinding as perceiving forms.

Forgiveness asks for an entirely different way of looking at this. It does not mean that you continue to focus on specific, individual, exclusive, separate things, in exactly the same was as before, with the body's eyes, but trying to find some kind of new angle on it. This is not an improvement whatsoever.

Forgiveness actually requires that all the sense of differences, inequalities, uniqueness, shapes, sizes, colors, behaviours, all physical properties, be completely OVERLOOKED, not dwelled upon, not seen, not thought to mean anything, not thought to dictate what the situation is, and no sense of truth whatsoever is derived from them.

Forgiveness must transcend the form entirely and look past it, past all sense of "many separate things" to look for a singular oneness of truth. And that truth is not inherent to those forms, or a part of them, but lies beyond them, because the forms were made to hide the truth entirely and to obscure all meaning. This is why Christ Vision does not become distracted by bodies or forms or the planet and looks past it to the light, to real meaning which lies beyond all objects and all physicality.

When we are buying into the way the world looks, with separate objects vying for attention, objects at war with each other, objects having differences, and being deceived to believe that these differences are important and meaningful, we are not being forgiving. We are being lost in a dream and falling for an illusion.

The appearance of one object seeming to have properties that another object does not have, if regarded as meaning something, is an illusion. It deceives you just by looking at it and not seeing through the disguise. Believing that a bike is not a house and a car is not an airplane, your vision splits apart and separates out and becomes totally fragmented, turning into a hierarchy of illusions instead of a singular vision.

These appearances of different form are all lies and deceptions designed to steer the body's physical sight down a rabbit hole into a dark corner where the mind cannot escape. This is temptation. This is falsely perceiving. This is believing the world is real and that constantly shifting forms and constantly dying objects are somehow the truth.

To forgive we have to find a way to not simply regard "what happens physically" to be in any way true, in any way a whole story, or in any way meaningful. A dark disturbing physical situation should not be seen as dark and disturbing. The darkness and dustrbingness are just properties of its form, the appearance it's taking, and is NOT meaningful.

A bloodied body should not induce feelings of horror and upset, otherwise the form is now acting like a cause and is dictating the truth based on its shape and appearance. A broken body, a disabled body, a suffering person, a scenario of starvation, a warzone, a battlefield, are all deceptive lies in which objects in certain forms suggest that certain things are true, that bad things have happened and that they are real.

Configuraitons of objects are meaningless. The entire physical world is meaningless. Its forms do NOT mean anything at all. Bodies in one state and not another does not mean anything. Sickness in one form or another does not mean anything. Bodies seeming to be alive or dead does not mean anything. These differences are all lies. A change in form from one state to another is utterly meaningless.

Remember that we have given everything all the meaning that we think it has, but typically we're doing this by looking at the form of objects and asking it to dictate TO us what "that" means. One shape means this, another shape means that. If the shape changes, the meaning changes. And then our response to it changes.

What we need to be striving for is a complete ignoring of all forms, all physicality, all objects, looking past it with forgiveness, taking none of it seriously, believing nothing we see through physical sight, ignoring all differences, having absolutely no change of reaction when external circumstances change, and being completely unmoved by the bullshit lies and temptations of the physical world. Not one single thing the physical seems to suggest is true. And nothing that happens physically is really possible in God's reality.

True meaning comes from God and is a singular whole meaning, a consistent unconditional meaning, which does not change or waver. It is the meaning of love and is so genuine and valuable that it is truly meaningful to us. It is all that means anything at all to us, and it's all that we really want. We can look out through this one meaning onto a world of a trillion meanings and disregard all the world's claims as false. Nothing in the world matters and it means nothing.

A teacher of God, a healer, does not consider for a moment the appearances of form, the forms of sickness, the stories of suffering about how this form came about, the family history, the background of what happens or the chain of events. None of it means anything and none of it is a cause. The miraculous mind considers only administering the love and truth that is missing, extending the power of God to fill and erase the gap, ignoring the form entirely.

The forms may change, the body may heal, the world may resurrect, but these too are illusions that ultimately mean nothing. Temporarily they symbolise changes in the mind and perception but ultimately there is no world to mean anything anyway. How can a world which does not exist mean something, and how can the events that transpire mean anything at all? There is no meaning to be found in a meaningless world. Only God's Kingdom of heaven has any meaning at all.

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

"Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form MEANS understanding HAS BEEN obscured. Only MISTAKES have different forms, and so they CAN deceive. You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is NOT reality, it MUST be an illusion. And is Not THERE to see. And, IF you see it, you MUST be mistaken, for you are seeing what can NOT be real, as if it WERE. What cannot see BEYOND what is not there, MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions AS THE TRUTH. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth?"

"Therefore, He OPPOSES differences in form as meaningful, and emphasizes always that THESE DIFFERENCES DO NOT MATTER."

"ONLY the form of error attracts the ego. Meaning it does not RECOGNIZE, and does not know if it is there or not. Everything which the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole, without the meaning that the whole would give."

"There IS no meaning in the form, AND THERE WILL NEVER BE."

"What is perceived takes many forms, but NONE has meaning. Brought to truth, its senselessness is quite apparent. Kept APART from truth, it SEEMS to have a meaning and be real."

"Illusions ARE but forms. Their content is NEVER true."

"For form is not enough for meaning"

"The Holy Spirit is not concerned with form at all, being aware only of MEANING."

"Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth. For being Heaven-borne, it has no form at all. Yet God created One Who has the power to translate into form the wholly formless. What He makes are dreams, but of a kind so close to waking that the light of day already shines in them, and eyes already opening behold the joyful sights their offerings contain."

"Come home. You have not found your happiness in foreign places, and in alien forms which have no meaning to you, though you sought to make them meaningful. This world is not where you belong. You are a stranger here."

"Bodies may battle, but the clash of forms is meaningless."

"God knows not form. He CANNOT answer you in terms which have no meaning. And YOUR will could not BE satisfied with empty forms, made but to fill a gap which is not there."

"Fear is the emotion of the world. It has but one. Its forms are many - call them what you will - but it is one in content."

To perform a miracle, you must attune your belief and awareness to the state of truth that you are bringing about in the future.

With your mind imagining the future, picture the end result of healing in the state of it having actually happened. This is in effect accepting the atonement, that nothing unreal happened and only God's truth has happened already.

To do this goes against the ego because the ego holds onto what it believes is true now and tries to reinforce it, pulling up the past to prove and keep it.

"Overlooking" (forgiving) current appearances is a key part of miracles. You have to overlook how things seem now, recognizing that the current condition is the result of the past and you can change your mind to produce a new future completely unlike how it is now.

So in a way, overlooking the current state is like looking to the future.

Then, trusting that you have conceived of what the result WILL be like, regardless of how the world or body appears now, you remain fixated on that truth and believe it.

You believe it in the sense that it is "already done". So you bring that future state of "after the healing" back into the present. Believe now that you are already at that future moment, after the healing is already accomplished, putting the obstacles to healing behind you.

Having FAITH that the unseen will manifest as truth even if it is not showing up yet, is a key to miracles. "Miracles are taken first on faith."

I used to think that "false empathy" meant when you are basically empathizing with someone, sympathizing, or sort of getting into their emotional drama etc....

Now I see it is more than that. It means really `joining` with someone in, and agreeing about, ANY kind of ego scenario, relating to ANY appearance or ANY illusion that covers up the immortal, God-created Real Self.

If a person comes along and is in any way demonstrating belief in being anything less than God created them, perfectly whole and holy and innocent and invulnerable, then that's an ego drama. If I go along with it, buy into it, join with them in it, participate in it, take it seriously, listen to it, judge it, engage with it or any of that, that's me entering into false empathy.

It's kind of like a false Oneness... a false joining, that says, I will join with you in a subjective illusion and pretend it is objectively real, and the two of us will then be 'infected' with this ego attitude and at least we'll agree with each other that this it the truth.

Real empathy then would entail absolutely not joining in ANY ego whatsoever, overlooking all ego, persona, and appearances, not believing in or taking seriously ANY presentation that runs against that (including anyone seeming to be sick, diseased, afraid, upset, etc)... holding the light, holding the truth, being a beacon, a leader, and strength that invites the other person to remember who they really are.

Most people in this world are trying to find the Self that they think they lost.

They're trying to find the Love (God) that they think they are separate from.

They are looking everywhere that this Self/Love/God does not exist, outside of themselves and away from presence, also in the past and future.

So everyone in all their seeking is really trying to locate and get back the sense of 'I Am' that they covered up when they started seeking. How will they find 'home' away from home?

So all the gathering and getting and taking and stealing and earning and succeeding and achieving and efforting and hunting and acquiring and buying and so on ... it's all the world's attempt to reclaim what it deeply believes it has LOST.

And what it believes it has lost is God.

It seeks to replenish that loss through all these external avenues, using illusions and forms and objects and falseness and idols and special relationships etc, to try to 'fill up' that sense of emptiness - the lack of God - the lack of True Self. Because God and True Self have been covered up, and that's what has made everyone believe they are in need, and therefore need to seek.

The truth is that God is not missing, and everyone's True Self is eternal and still exists just as God created it.

It's all just a matter of unconsciousness - ego - standing in the way of awareness, deceived by illusions and appearances, attempting to assert that God is lost and therefore finding 'other stuff' will replace Him.

Nothing can replace love because love cannot be removed. But that also means love is not lost. It's just hidden.

Its our job to reveal and open up to and accept and reclaim our inheritance. What is already ours. And what can never be undone.

You still are. God still is.

I think one of the things that blocks us from healing others, is that we become deceived by their appearances. We look at the body and think that’s the person. We see signs of sickness. We see the person’s ego and it acts like a wall. We may see them as ONLY a body and ONLY an ego.

All of this is designed to block your sight so that you do NOT see the truth. The truth is really that the person is a perfect immortal being - the Christ - son of God - immaculate and perfect, with no flaws and no sickness. Technically speaking, no one actually needs any healing at all, because we HAVE NOT CHANGED since God created us. But we need to see this before we can help the MIND to come out of its confusion.

That’s hidden “behind” the illusory appearance that there’s something wrong with the person, they’re ill, they’re suffering, they are broken, they need treatment, they are in a dire situation which is threatening their existence, they need rescuing etc.

If we buy into all of these views of seeing their body, their ego, and stopping there, we can’t really be of much healing help. WE need to be able to affirm and reinforce the truth - that they are actually completely NOT sick, that they are absolutely whole and healed already, and that all of these appearances are NOT true.

To do this really requires us to embrace the idea that we ourselves are an immortal being of light with no imperfections, so that we can also then realize that other people must be that as well. By claiming ownership of being Christ, the son of God, flawless and permanent and eternal, we can then extend this to others.

If we haven’t claimed that for ourselves, how can we have it to give it? If we become deceived by beliefs that people are sick bodies, how can we see ourselves as incapable of sickness? Whatever applies to us applies to everyone. If you BELIEVE the sickness is TRUE of someone, you are reinforcing it.

The course says we should BEGIN by perceiving light. What does that mean but to see PAST all of the illusions and lies, past the body, past sickness, past their ego identity, to the truth that someone IS NOT sick at all. To acknowledge they are absolutely a divine perfect radiant being of light that has never changed.

This is seeing them as they really are. By focus on this we can JOIN with their mind at this level, and therefore prevent sickness in the mind. We are asked to extend the truth, the light, the love, the power of God, to another, and to continually keep extending it, so that the other is reminded and enlightened to their own pre-existing truth.

Healing is not about you putting in place the things that are missing, or making up for something lost, or trying to repair something that seems broken. The supposed “evidence” for ”sickness happening” is a deception and a lie in the first place, so why would we react to that? It’s a trap that leads to false empathy and mutual suffering.

It’s more about recognizing that there is no sickness, expressing only LIFE and only the belief in immortality, so that this REPLACES the illusion of “not life” and thus sickness. When we are overflowing with ONLY LIFE and NON-SICKNESS, we can give that life to others and resurrect them.

“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.”

“But do not give it power to REPLACE the changeless in him in your sight of him. There is no false appearance but will fade, if you request a miracle instead. There is no pain from which he is not free, if you would have him be but what he is. Why should you fear to see the Christ in him? You but behold yourself in what you see. As he is healed are YOU made free of guilt, and his appearance IS your own to you.”

Check out this epic quote:

”When you heal, that is exactly what you ARE learning (doing). You are recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by perceiving (knowing) that he could NOT have changed his mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in him. It is ONLY the Holy Spirit in him that never changes His mind. He himself must think he CAN, or he would not perceive himself as sick. He therefore does not know what his self IS. If YOU see only the changeless in him, you have not really changed him at all. But by changing your mind about HIS FOR him, you help him undo the change his ego thinks it has made in him.“

Forgiveness only seems to be needed, as a process, because you currently believe there are things that need to be forgiven.

In other words, you currently are experiencing unforgiveness, and therefore the world seems unforgiven and unforgiving. And therefore, you think that you need to forgive.

But this process of forgiveness, is supposed to take you from a state of unforgiveness - an unforgivingattitude, to a state of forgiveness - a forgiving attitude.

It's supposed to occur to you that the purpose of forgiving is to undo the perceived need to 'do forgiveness'. Because ultimately there is not anything that needs to be forgiven.

There is a forgiven world here. A world of innocence. A world with no guilt. But you don't perceive it because you have judged it as unforgiven and unforgivable, having judged yourself as such.

So it seems like you need to do some forgiveness. And as you do this forgiveness, what you're doing is re-accessing the awareness that whatever it was that you thought was unforgivable, is forgivable, and is in fact innocent. An ancient hatred has become a present love.

Whatever it was you thought was judged and hated, is innocent. Whatever it is you thought was really happening, is not happening and you don't even see it anymore.

So as you proceed with your forgiving, your practice, you should gradually come to realize, there is less and less to forgive, precisely because you're becoming aware of the real world. You're becoming aware that everything is forgivable and forgiven.

Forgiveness ultimately is not a process, but a state of awareness in which you see forgivingly, with a forgiving attitude, and this forgiving attitude does not show you things to forgive. It does not show you errors or mistakes. It only shows you innocence.

This attitude of being forgiving doesn't mean you are having to constantly forgive and forgive and do more work and counteract more crap that shows up. When you are in a forgiving attitude, you do not see crap. You do not see problems. You don't see enemies or things to forgive.

So its a bit of a paradox, that when you have a truly forgiving attitude, when you are in the Holy Spirit's mind, you see everything as forgiven already. You pro-actively fore-give, which means you give ahead of time, which means you extend love and you extend innocence and truth and therefore that is what you will perceive because that is your reality.

In your reality there isn't any 'thing' to forgive. All is forgiven.

So really, you think you need to do lots of forgiveness still. Yes, for a time. But only because you think forgiveness is needed. Only because you're not yet able to sustain a consistently forgiving attitude. Only because it hasn't yet dawned on you that everyone including you is completely innocent and calls only for love.

So as you work you way through this forgiveness 'process', this undoing, this purifying, you're really erasing the mistakes that you're making in your forgiveness, you're polishing up your attitude, you're getting ready to see with forgiving eyes. You're preparing to look upon the world with innocence in order to see only innocence.

This process is itself not forgiveness. This process is the way that you gradually wake up to forgiveness. It's a sorting out, of what is forgiveable and what is not forgivable. Eventually you will accept that everything is forgivable, and as such, will no longer seen anything as unforgiven.

A forgiving attitude shows you a forgiven world. A forgiving attitude doesn't give you lots of work to do trying to counteract illusions of judgement. A forgiving attitude is simply clarity. It's the clarity of truth, the clarity of awareness. A forgiving attitude shows your mind, clearly, that when you can see clearly and with truth, you are able to properly discern that THERE IS ONLY INNOCENCE.

All appearances of things not being innocent, only looks that way because you have blocks in your mind. All appearances that there is nasty dirty stuff and grievous enemies to overcome, is because of blocks in your mind. These things DO NOT REALLY EXIST.

You see them, you look upon them, precisely because your mind is distorted and is projecting images that aren't real. You see enemies because you are attacking your innocence. You see attack and threat and danger and victimhood because you don't realize that you can't be a victim. You see impossible things because you are not yet aware of how these things are impossible - you actually take them seriously and think they are possible.

So ultimately, this forgiveness process that we all undertake, it's really a transition away from "I need to forgive" towards "there is nothing to forgive". There is nothing to forgive because there is no sin, there is no guilt, there is no fear, there is no attack, there is no harm. There is nothing to forgive because nothing has gone wrong. Nothing has happened. Holy Spirit sees this. You need to learn to see it too. And then you will be done with the 'effort' of forgiving, which ultimately is not a 'doing', but a 'being'.

"THE BODY'S EYES SEE ONLY FORM. 4 THEY CANNOT SEE BEYOND WHAT THEY WERE MADE TO SEE. 5 And they were MADE TO LOOK ON ERROR AND NOT SEE PAST IT. 6 Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they CAN SEE ONLY ILLUSIONS, UNABLE TO LOOK beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of NOTHING."

Ok so.... the body's eyes, the physical eyes, your eyeballs, are like little machines or sensing devices. All they do is detect sensory input. They do not see. Even in basic scientific interpretations all the eyes do is "send signals to the brain." The body's eyes do not interpret anything. They don't think, they don't "see", they don't have a mind, they don't do anything other than transmit messages beyond themselves. A physical object will still "look like" the same physical object no matter how your perception interprets things.

The body's eyes were made to fulfill a very specific function, just like a machine. They are "locked into" that function. They cannot clean the dishes, they cannot build a house, all they can do is "perceive falsely" and look at illusions. All they can do, is see illusions, errors, sins, surfaces of forms, as if they are real. This is all they were designed to do.

They will not EVER be able to do anything else. You cannot and will not ever be able to make the body's eyes look AT or SEE anything other than a world of forms, bodies, objects, physicality, sin, error, and illusions. No matter how enlightened you are, no matter what kind of interpretation you have, no matter what state your "perception" is in, your body's eyes can ONLY fixate on forms and appearances of physical objects.

The body's eyes are FIXED in a state of permanently seeing HELL, as if it's real. They have FALSE perception. They send signals to your mind, pictures of hell seeming to be real, pictures of forms which block awareness, pictures of bodies moving around in various states of sickness. This will ALWAYS be what the body's eyes do. No matter how advanced you are.

And this is a problem. Because now you've got to find a way of seeing the world in a different way, to interpret these IMAGES and messages in such a way, that you don't keep fixating on form, illusion, sin, error or illusions.

That means your mind has to learn to SEE PAST these images. You have to learn to OVERLOOK what they seem to show. You have to forgive them. You have to NOT BELIEVE what they are showing you. You have to learn to see BEYOND the surface of physical objects, to the Christ, which the objects were made to obscure.

That means learning to recognize that the ILLUSIONS that the body's eyes are ONLY capable of seeing, are NOT TRUE. You have to learn that everything they see is NOT REAL. They ONLY look at illusions as if they're reality. You have to learn that these pictures of illusion seeming real are FALSE, and stop buying into them!

You have to transition away from the physical eyes, which are permanently fixated on illusions, to using the spiritual eye (Holy Spirit's vision) which overlooks everything the body's eyes claim is real, and sees reality BEYOND them. You need a new way of SEEING.

This is how your mind learns to perceive love and light "in" the world BEYOND the world, in spite of the world, overlooking the world, seeing past bodies, disregarding appearances, looking beyond differences, and basically looking THROUGH and PAST all physical forms, as if they do not exist. Because they don't.

Do not believe your eyes!

Your eyes will not EVER show you heaven. But the images they show you of HELL, can be interpreted in a TRUTHFUL way, a correct way, which is the recognition that these images are FALSE ILLUSIONS, and that reality is something ELSE beyond them. God is IN everything you see because God is IN your mind.... God is BEYOND everything you see. You see God IN SPITE OF and BESIDES seeing forms. This does not make forms reality. It proves that forms are ILLUSIONS. And all the physical world has ever been doing is pulling the wool over your eyes and blinding you to reality.

You will never see these images AS HEAVEN. You will never see them as TRUTH. They will ALWAYS be photographs of hell. But what needs to happen is your awareness must expand beyond the physical, beyond forms, beyond the images, to see some other content that the body's eyes CANNOT SEE. To see the presence of God, love and light. You see that additional material IN SPITE OF the limitations that are shown by the body's sight. You don't suddenly turn those images into images of heaven.

You see heaven PAST those images and recognize that those images are not interfering with your vision. You have to learn that your body was made NOT for seeing, and to see using a whole new apparatus of vision which is NON PHYSICAL and does not look at the physical AT ALL.

A Course in Miracles - Urtext material - reproduced with permission from the Foundation for Inner Peace (acim.org), and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles (facim.org).
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