(Comments on "the mechanism of miracles.")

"Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth."

... Here I initially thought Jesus is talking about a typical form of denial, like, not wanting to admit something. But Jesus seems to be referring to the fact that you can deny LIFE and health and thereby implement all forms of sickness and even death. Miracles then can reverse the "denial of life", ie death. Miracles resurrect.

"If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves."

...Loving yourself can heal your sickness. All sickness is a lack of love.

"Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are DENYING TO THEMSELVES."

...This seems like a quandry, people want to not be sick, but behind the denial they do, so they continue to deny what would make them well - the admission of love.

"If they knew the truth about themselves, they could not be sick."

...Recognizing you are love heals all sickness.

"The task of the miracle-worker thus becomes to DENY THE DENIAL OF TRUTH."

...To help someone heal, you must not believe what THEY are believing about themselves. They are in denial of their love, you must acknowledge their love and overlook their denial/belief in being unloveable.

"The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them."

...At first this suggests you cannot heal anyone else.

"But, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that light IS theirs."

...So since someone has "disabled" themselves, blocking the source of their own healing, and while requesting help are also rejecting it, someone ELSE needs to help them. The light in YOU as a miracle worker IS the "same" as the light in the other. Therefore you can cause THEIR light to BYPASS their own denial.

"The light in them (the miracle worker) shines as brightly, REGARDLESS of the density of the fog that obscures it. If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God. YOU CAN REMEMBER THIS FOR ALL THE SONSHIP."

...Even as your brother sees themselves as imprisoned, you have to see them as NOT imprisoned. Not buy into the illusion of the denial or sickness. You must not "give power to" the sickness and must not believe it HAS any power, otherwise you are making it real and giving it strength, which reinforces it. You must deny the belief that THEIR denial (showing up as sickness) has any power, including the belief that the sickness is too difficult to heal.

"Do not allow your brother not to remember, for his forgetfulness is YOURS. But YOUR remembering is HIS, for God cannot be remembered alone. THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN."

...Recognizing your brother as "not really sick" and remembering his true self/love for him, recognizes it in both of you. You remember FOR both of you. Ie you put the ove back into both of your minds.

"To perceive the healing of your brother as the healing of yourself, is thus the way to remember God. For you forgot your brothers WITH Him, and God's answer to your forgetting is but the way to remember."

...Some have interpreted this to mean that your brother "is" you which is almost true. You are identical and you share with him. When you can see that what is true of him is true of you, YOU are remembering God. For both of you.

"Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your brother what he believes he cannot offer himself."

...Love is the basis of miracles. Expressing love can heal sickness. But notice it also says OFFER... which doesn’t mean it is forceful, and it potentially can still be rejected. There is a line in ACIM which says "miracles are not always effective because of what love is" or something like that.. because they respect freedom.

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

...This is quite advanced. To perceive WHOLENESS requires no fear and complete love. Perception has to be very "correct" in order to *recognize* that the sickness is a call for love, and to not be deceived by it. The person has implemented sickness through denial of love, via hate. You have to not believe the hate.

"And to give a brother what he REALLY wants, is to offer it unto yourself. For your Father wills you to know your brother AS yourself. Answer HIS call for love, and YOURS is answered. Healing is the love of Christ for His Father, and for HIMSELF."

...You must give love to both of you. This is why "you can only give the miracles you have received". In order to share love which will heal your brother, you must be IN the love yourself. If you are not willing to love yourself, you cannot heal others. But if you do love yourself and are healed, you CAN heal others.

Your brother really wants love, but has denied it to himself. To give it to him, you must love him "as you love yourself". Loving your brother shares it with both of you and restores unity and wholeness to both of you. Worth repeating:

"Healing is the love of Christ (sonship) for His Father (father of all souls) and for Himself (all brothers and yourself).

Love yourself so that you can love others. Love works miracles.

"The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them. But, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that light IS theirs"

"Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your brother what he believes he cannot offer himself. "

Here is a secret to helping others to heal. Jesus is saying that a sick or unhappy or suffering person is only this way, because they are denying or blocking their own inner love/light, which would heal them if they would allow it. They are literally rejecting happiness and wholeness and health.

And because this person is making themselves sick and blocking their own self-healing (embracing and allowing the light already in them to heal them), they need someone ELSE to shine a light for them.

He goes on to tell us that you should OFFER your brother what he isn't offering himself. If he is not offering himself the love/light that is in him, it is your job to OFFER HIM LOVE AND LIGHT.

It's very simple, and highly resisted by the ego in us. But we're simply asked to LOVE STRONGLY, so that the light of love shines onto others. This means literally to BROADCAST LOVE as though it were a kind of transferable "energy", to another person.

"...miracles as a perception corrector, before he can effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are"

"The miracle, on the other hand, is an ENERGIZER. It always strengthens, and never depletes. It DOES induce peace, and by establishing tranquillity (not relaxation) it enables both giver and receiver to enter into a state of Grace. Here his miracle-mindedness, (not release from tension) is restored."

We're also told:

"The miracle-worker begins by PERCEIVING light, and translates HIS perception into sureness by continually extending it, and ACCEPTING ITS ACKNOWLEDGMENT."

So in healing others, we want to focus on the light/truth/love in the other person, acknowledge/be thankful for the true nature of the person as God created them, still unchanged, and then transmit love to them.

In whatever way and with whatever words, you want to simply EXTEND GOD'S LOVE to the other person, transmit it, relay it, broadcast it, transfer it. Over and over again.

You will find that as you send love, even if you are starting out not feeling very loving or able, your OWN feeling of love will increase, YOU will be brightened, your whole mood will lift, and your perception will change. As you give the love, it heals both the giver and the receiver.

"it enables both giver and receiver to enter into a state of Grace."

"Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating it is as blessed to give as to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver."

If you transmit love for a while, you will feel quite strong and miraculous and happy and energized afterwards.

Essentially this leads to a simple conclusion. If YOU want to feel good, you HAVE to help others to feel good. Eventually you will be permanently in a state of love, in which giving and receiving are one, and are then constantly miraculous toward everyone you meet.

First of all, let's touch on what the "authority problem" is. You as a Child of God, were authored by God. God caused you. His authority, or His power to Author you, designed you to be the way God wanted you to be.

You are the result of His Will, your nature is as He chooses, everything you have is inherited from Him, you only have what He has given you, you are only capable of what He created you to be capable of, your identity was given to you by sharing His with you, and you cannot change anything about yourself.

In fact, you are an extension of God Himself, you "host" God within yourself. It's not just that God is sitting there in a chair and then created you sitting in another chair some distance away. He extended out from Himself and put Himself into you, as you.

"I, who am host to God, AM worthy of Him. He Who ESTABLISHED His dwelling- place in me created it as He would have it be."

"When God GAVE Himself to you in your creation, He ESTABLISHED you as host to Him forever. He has NOT left you, and YOU have not left HIM."

You host Him, which is what your "inner altar" is. So you are not only a self, you are a self that also contains all of God. You are joined to God within you. You overlap with Him. You are a part of God which is also host to the whole of God. His own being is embedded into what you are. It's like, His light is shining in your heart. He is radiating through you. He is so intimately close with you that He is inside of you, and together you co-create as one.

In the separation idea, you questioned authority. Which means you questioned who was the Author of you. You questioned God. You protested against being Authored by God, and became unhappy with the fact that you were ONLY as God created you. You wanted to be not only the author of yourself, you wanted to be the author of God also, the definer of reality, and the chooser of what is true.

You wanted to become something other than you are. You wanted to change your idea of what God is. You wanted God to stop Authoring you, so that you could "be God", ie so that you could take Authority away from Him, and have this authority for yourself. Even to the extent that you wanted to have authority OVER His Authority, which is the idea of sin - the ability to affect, change, and cause God.

In concert with Him, you shared His Authority. His Power, His Authority, is in you. And it operates through you. But you wanted to be able to exercise a power that did not come from Him. You wanted a power of your own, or to regard yourself as authoritative without His Authority being the source of it.

"The issue of authority is really a question of authorship. When an individual has an "authority problem," it is ALWAYS because he believes he is the author of himself"

In fact you wanted God not to be your Father, to not be the source of you, and to not be the Author of your identity, inheritance, or nature. And by denying that God was the Author of you, you denied that you had been Fathered (created) by Him. This was necessary in order to reject or oppose His Authority.

But by doing so, you made yourself fatherless, like an orphan. And so instead of being the Self that God created, you become "anonymous", attempting not to share His identity, rejecting your inheritance, and claiming to have not been Authored at all. This was an attempt to separate cause and effect, Father and Son, and to block awareness of your identity.

"and men preferred to remain anonymous when they chose to separate themselves FROM their Author. The word "authority" has been one of their most fearful symbols ever since."

"The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in the minds of man that some people have gone so far as to doubt whether they were ever created at all. "

Now that an individual has developed an artificial "problem with Authority", they move into the ego thought system. Here they believe God is not their Father, who and what they are is not defined by God, they do not want to be defined by God, they are the author of themselves, and they even proceed to invent a new Father to explain their own origins.

"being uncertain of their true Authorship, men believe that their creation was anonymous. This has left them in a position where it SOUNDS meaningful to consider the possibility that they must have created themselves."

"Third, the belief that man can distort the Creations of God (including himself) has arisen, and is tolerated. ... Fourth, that since man can create himself, the direction of his own creation is up to him."

"The "attack on God" made His Son think he was fatherless, and out of his depression he made the god of depression."

"he would not accept the fact that, although he was a creator, he had been created."

While rejecting God's Authorship of you places you into turmoil, accepting it restores you to peace. God HAS established the only facts of your existence, the only truth that is true of you, and is the sole source of your nature. You cannot change this fact because it is absolute. It is impossible to alter God's will, but you can deny it. You can reject the fact that "you inherit God", but this just makes you unaware of your inheritance, which God saves for you.

"Peace is a natural heritage of the Soul. Everyone is free to refuse to accept his inheritance, but he is NOT free to establish what his inheritance IS. The problem which everyone MUST decide is the fundamental question of his own authorship."

"He has thrown away the reason for his own peace, and sees himself only in pieces. This strange perception IS an authority problem."

The question then is how to return to an acceptance of what your true Authorship is, how do you return to being a host to God, how do you become aware of your inheritance, and how do you resume your real function in heaven. Obviously this will involve the undoing or ceasing-to-do of the various ways that you play God, the attempt to author/define yourself, and the unwillingness to accept your function as extender of God's being.

It entails acknowledging that whatever you are, you are what God says you are. And you need to become okay with that. It needs to become acceptable to you, even welcomed, that you are ONLY as God created you. That ONLY the truth is true of you, and nothing else is true.

It means you have to recognize that the way Creation is set up, you ARE an effect of God, He DOES define you, you CANNOT define what you are AT ALL, and you have no desire to do so. Accepting Atonement simply means accepting the truth is true, accepting your position in the machinery of heaven.

You were created to create with God. You were created to HOST God. God is in you, at your sacred inner altar. You and God are one, and everywhere you go He is in you. You do everything together. And you are still as He created you. Nothing has changed, you have not changed His Will or His Mind, and you Will only to Will like Him, in accord with His Will.

"Instead of "seek you first the Kingdom of Heaven" say "Will ye first the Kingdom of Heaven," and you have said "I know what I am, and I will to accept my own inheritance.""

This means putting aside your need to be the gatekeeper or decider of what is real or true. It means making room for God to operate THROUGH you. It means accepting that you have nothing of your own, and everything you DO have, which is everything, is OF or FROM God. Even AS God.

"Recognizing that all Power is of God is to gain all Power."

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

It means giving up trying to do everything alone, or by yourself, or dependent on your own strength, which is at best highly lacking. You HAVE nothing that God has not given. Not even strength, ability, will, power, mind, or anything. You are in a symbiotic relationship with God. You cannot live without Him.

"Symbiosis is misunderstood by the mentally ill, who use it that way. But I also told you that you must recognize your total dependence on God, a statement which you did not like. ... God and the Souls He created ARE symbiotically related. They are COMPLETELY dependent on each other. 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."

You and God function like a Team. It's kind of like He is the hardware, His mind and power is His software, He creates you as a new piece of Hardware, and downloads His software into you. Without Him you have nothing. With Him you have everything, but you only have what He has given, and what you create together.

So it's really a matter of humbleness and honesty and a willingness to make room for you to host God again. You have to receive Him. You have to allow Spirit to guide you again. You have to plug your mind back into your Soul. You have to become an instrument through which healing can occur. And you have to be willing to let your mind be loving so that it can not interfere with the automatic extension and expression of love, which is miraculous.

In your purified state, you resume the proper function as the Light of the world, because HIS Light is in you and extends through you. You resume your place as powerful miracle worker, because HIS power operates through you. You act as a relay station for His miraculous love.

"The miracle extends WITHOUT your help, but you ARE needed that it can BEGIN. ACCEPT the miracle of healing, and it WILL go forth because of what it IS. It is its NATURE to extend itself the instant it is born. And it is born the instant it is offered and RECEIVED."

Your proper function is to express God and Christ. To be in such a state of cooperation and alignment and agreement that their functioning empowers your functioning. You thus become a miracle worker, able to give what you are receiving, to others. This is simply because having been Authored by God, He has given YOU the ability to Author, and thus you become able to create and to work miracles. To extend and express what is in you, which is God Himself.

The final acceptance of being host to God, and thus that God operates through you to others, is what establishes you as an UNLIMITED miracle worker, and is the acceptance of the atonement. It requires you acknowledge God is your True Father, the ONLY cause of what you are, that you are not caused BY anything else, and therefore resume your place as a Son of God, co-creator of miracles and life.

"Souls were given their own true authorship"

When you act as/with Christ, operate through the Holy Spirit, and activate the Power of God, there is nothing your holiness cannot do.

"24. A miracle is a Universal Blessing from God through Me to all My Brothers. EXPLANATION: You once said that souls cannot rest until everyone has found salvation. This happens to be true. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive. The Disciples were officially and specifically told to heal others, as Physicians of the Lord. They were also told to heal themselves, and were promised that I would never leave them or forsake them. Atonement is the natural profession of the Children of God, because they have professed Me."

"A miracle is a Universal Blessing from God through Me to all My Brothers. " simply reflects on this arrangement of beings. You host God, God is in you, God is the source of miracles, Holy Spirit is the mechanism, it extends THROUGH you, TO ALL OUR BROTHERS, or perhaps to an individual brother. You operate as a "physician of the lord" to go out and profess Christ, healing the sick and raising the dead as a miracle worker. This is atonement - being part of the great crusade to give to those what they seem to lack.

"The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability. I repeat that you will see Miracles through your hands through MINE. Conviction really comes through accomplishment.

Remember that ability is the potential, Achievement is its expression, and Atonement is the Purpose."

"There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness, which is only a POTENTIAL in you."

God is everywhere. This is the common idea of omnipresence. But it goes further than this. To just say he's everywhere tends to be interpreted in terms of spacetime. Like, God is in the house and the tree and the car. It makes sense.

But there's a key component we need to consider. God can't be partly anywhere, because he is absolutely one within himself. Nor can only a part of him be somewhere, because all of him has to be there in completion.

So then think of it this way. The entirety of the whole of God is in the house, while simultaneously the entirety of the whole of God is in the car, while simultaneously the entirety of the whole of God is in the tree.

If you can visualize this at all in your mind, it is mind blowing. It defies and breaks all the laws of physics. We would claim, well, if all of God is in the car, how can he also be entirely and fully and completely in the house at the same time? Normal laws of spacetime would not permit this.

We'd normally say, well, if all of something is somewhere, none of it can be anywhere else. But this is spacetime reasoning. This is not how God thinks or how he functions and exists.

God transcends all the laws of separation. Therefore, God CAN be entirely in one place, and in another place, and in another place, all at the same time. And he is not only partly there, but totally there. His entire attention, if you will, all of his being, is fundamentally in EVERY location at the same time.

This is not the same thing as saying that he is just a very big object which has some parts of it spanning across space, where some of the outermost parts are in one location and some of the other parts are in another. It is not the same thing as saying God is a universe whereby it is very big and God's left hand is over here and God's right leg is over there. God is not space or time.

In fact God utterly transcends space and time, being omnipresent and eternal. The laws and limits of space have no effect or bearing whatsoever on his nature. All of God CAN BE ENTIRELY in one place, while also being ENTIRELY in another simultaneously.

This is somewhat akin to a "blur". If you take some object and you totally blur it, spreading it out, the object seems to be everywhere at once. You can't easily put a finger on it and see the original shape, it has lost all form in the blurring. But all of it is everywhere. It's sort of like being out of focus.

The thing is though, that it is the laws of spacetime that cause the object to not be identifiable in its clear form, at the same time as being distributed. And this does not apply to God.

God is not out of focus. He isn't sort of ... distracted and distributed and diffused and unlocalized. ALL of him, his entire attention, is in one place, AND all of his attention is in another place. He breaks all the laws and requirements of spatial separation. This means he is simultaneously abstract ie out of focus, AND entirely focused.

Ultimately not only is God everywhere, but ALL of God is everywhere. This in turn means that God is impersonal, AND fully personal, at the same time. He is impersonal in that there is no difference between who or what he is in any particular location or part of himself, treating everything in the same way. And he is ENTIRELY personal in that his entire being is in every part of himself and is fully present for every part.

Since God DID create a very large number of personal beings who each are a whole and fully created being, God has a COMPLETELY personal relationship with all of them individually and specifically. But at the same time, their relationship is open and shared with all others, and is equal to all others, making it entirely IMPERSONAL.

God loves YOU fully, and loves your brother's the same way.He therefore has an entirely personal AND impersonal relationship with all his creations.

"Revelation is intensely personal." - "They represent the original form of communication between God and His Souls" (personal communication between father and sons).

"God is everything and everywhere."

"Your brothers are everywhere."

"God Himself goes everywhere with us."

"God is still everywhere and in everything forever."

The main thing I don't really like about ideas of non-duality and oneness, is that it really ignores the CREATIVE qualities of God.

If there is only God, and there is nowhere to go, and nothing to do, and God is just sitting there by himself, as a "oneness", in which there is no "duality" or separations of any kind, how do you get from there to a recognition that God CREATES?

For God to even have thoughts, or to create even one son, flies in the face of this idea that God is one thing. Even if you say, well, God has one son but it's part of Him... you can't even really say that either. There can't even be anything you can refer to as "one son", if there is only God.

Jesus says for example, "I am my father are one". And he goes on to clarify that this does not mean there aren't PARTS to that statement. It does not mean, there is only the father. It does not mean, that whatever we're referring to as the son is actually the father, and therefore we are really talking about "one thing". It ACTUALLY means, there *IS* a distinct Son, who is in SOME way "separate" from the Father, enough to establish that there are really TWO things.

"I" (part 1) and "the father" (part 2). Otherwise we might as well just not ever mention the Son or Christ whatsoever and just say that God is all that exists. Jesus is careful to make this distinction, that Son and Father are having some kind of mutual experience or state of being which he's labelled as "one", but that this oneness does not UNDO OR ignore the fact that there are still two things happening here.

In the truest sense of what non-duality or oneness means, it implies there isn't a two-ness of anything. And if you are being really, really, really strict about that logical reasoning, it SHOULD mean that God has NO SON AT ALL. There's either oneness - one thing, or there isn't.

There's a whole spectrum of beliefs out there which proceed from the strictest of interpretations ie "there is only God" through the slight blurring of boundaries to suggest "there is a son, but there's only one of them", through to "there are other sons but they're really the one son", through to "sons are the ego", and all manner of interpretations in between.

But here is the simple fact of it. If God has a thought which creates a son, or if his "effect" is his son, or his son is actually really "himself" pretending to be a son, then this makes himself also the dreamer of dreams and the maker of death. Does that fly with you?

Are you willing to have God be the one who is responsible for separation? And what about the Holy Spirit, did God - who must be dreaming, create the holy spirit as a perfect non-dreamer, in order to pull himself out of the dream he himself made, due to apparently not being able to wake up himself, while simultaneously having created a holy spirit who is not asleep? Does that make any sense whatsoever?

We're told conflicting messages by various teachers who have not really reasoned this out. If there is a God to return home to, a God who did not believe in the separation idea and did not dream, how is that even possible unless somehow there is something that distinguishes God from the one who is having a dream? Even if it's just ONE son, how is it that this one son is able to do ANYTHING that is COMPLETELY SEPARATE from the Father, ensuring that the Father does not entertain or enter into or be affected by this dreaming son?

If truly they are so joined and are so "one" that they literally are the same thing, or the same self, the son literally cannot dream without dragging the father into it. And that would mean the entirety of EXISTENCE would now fall from grace and we'd all be permanently dead, God included. There has to be SOMETHING about the son of God, or this aspect of God, which somehow renders its choices incapable of affecting God. How is that possible if God is supposedly so joined to and connected to this dreamer, in such a way that there is "influence" between them?

What it HAS to indicate, is that EITHER there is a separation between the Father and the Son, OR some other mechanism or dynamic of relationship which guarantees that God will not ever dream. Because if God is the dreamer, then God has made a world of death and also doughnuts and rainbows and chocolate bars. So what IS it that makes God NOT affected by the dream? What is it that sections off the dreamer from God? Even if it's just a dream, it IS still a made idea, it IS an IDEA in the mind, even if it's an idea of impossibilities. We DID have a mad idea, even if it's a nonsense idea. Why didn't GOD have the idea, and why isn't God trapped in an illusion?

The ego would conclude, it MUST mean that there is separation in heaven. It cannot conclude otherwise. But there is another possibility. FREEDOM. Is it not possible, that God gave such TOTAL FREEDOM to his creations, that by all intents and purposes, his creations actually are ABSOLUTELY free and therefore literally have a will of their own, a mind of their own, a spirit of their own, and can CHOOSE on their own, WITHOUT it having any effect on God whatsoever? If the son or sons is FREE, and God has "given" them FULLY, and has COMPLETELY set them in heaven as permanent free-willed beings, this WOULD completely explain why it's possible for God to not be part of dreaming.

"God, who encompasses all being, nevertheless created separate beings, who have everything individually, and want to share it to increase their joy."

For me, heaven absolutely IS NOT a picture of what we traditionally are told is a state of pure non-duality, or even really a state of this "oneness" where there is "only God" happening. It's NOT one thing. It contains FREE WILLED BEINGS OF LIGHT, who are SO free that they literally are free to choose whether or not to will with God.

So get this picture... that God created beings - who are not only fully created and completely SET FREE by unconditional love, but He even gave them SUCH freedom that they could in fact freely decide for themselves whether to love or not. You'd think that this would be quite insane, or suicidal, for God to create thoughts which seem capable of disagreeing with their own creator. Why would God do such a crazy thing? Because He knows that nothing REAL can be threatened, and even if they DO choose to side with dreams, these dreams don't REALLY threaten reality. And that anyone who does dream WILL awaken at some point, because it is not God's will that He be cut off from his creations.

The picture I have of God is that He is FAR more a creator of individual free-willed souls, to whom He has given TOTAL freedom, to the extent that they have to willingly COOPERATE and CO-CREATE by their own will, that they are not mere "parts of God Himself" but actually are real distinct entities with their own minds and their own being. They CAN and do naturally want to share their mind and being with God also, and with the whole sonship, but not because they are forced to or inherently made to. They freely willingly want to do so, to increase their joy, and because Heaven is filled with celebration of Creation.

God is a creator, not a blob. God has sons, many many many sons. God also created angels. This is all perfectly written about in ACIM by Jesus with hundreds if not thousands of statements supporting it. It is the EGO which has a tough time comprehending how it is possible for God, who is whole, could create "many wholes". Or how many wholes can exist simultaneously. Or how God can ADD something to existence. Or how He could create "distinct beings" who have everything "individually", including the creation of multiple minds, and how these multiple minds can coexist harmoniously without war, and without competition, and without differences.

Oneness means "of one kind". In the LIKENESS of God. It means SHARING, by multiple individuals. It does not mean "God is all that exists".

Yes there are statements which at times seem to speak to certain ASPECTS of God's nature in isolation which perhaps gives impression that Jesus is saying there is nothing but God, or that God is all that is, etc... but... it's not the complete picture. Sometimes Jesus refers to the "one son", sometimes to the sonship, sometimes to individual sons. References to the one son do NOT cancel out references to individuals. The ego has a SPAZZ about how this can make sense and be true. It sees only separations where there are none, and joins together things which are not one thing.

Oneness, as in, "there is only one thing" is actually an EGO IDEA. It is the result that EGO reasoning comes to when it boils everything in its EXCLUSIVE thought system down. And it thinks that this final conclusion is accurate and truthful. It is not. It is divisive and incorrect and a false conclusion. God's creation is not "one thing", God's sonship is not devoid of parts, and God DID create multiple beings. Objections to this are, funnily enough, THE EGO objecting to ITS belief in what Heaven must be like.

We are creations of God, children of God, God has created multiple minds, multiple souls, multiple sons, each of whom is SO FREE that they are able to decide for themselves whether or not to will with God. The only REAL choice is to will with God, but our minds DO have the ability and freedom to CHOOSE to dream of an alternative. And we have used that ability. And it has not affected God.

Many many times Jesus has said to me, "you are free". And I could never really quite accept or understand how this is possible, given the framework of how everyone is teaching the course. What wish teachings of "time is already over" and "there's only one son" and so on, I couldn't see how it's possible that I am free. How does a son of God be free, if that son is just part of God's enforced will or some kind of script? Gradually and very confusedly I've come to accept more that we actually DO have free will, because we DO have total freedom. We are to come to God WILLINGLY.

This is why we NEED to have "a little willingness" and eventually total willingness. Willingness isn't coercion. Love does not enter where it is not welcome. We actually literally MUST CHOOSE HEAVEN "heaven is a choice *I* must make". We have to WANT to WILLFULLY choose to accept it. We're not going be willing OR able to accept it if we think it's being forced on us and we don't want it. We have to have total personal willingness to will WITH GOD, to CO-CREATE, to participate and to exercise WILLINGLY the decision to carry out God's will. We are not slaves.

We are not JUST effects. We have been given the power to CAUSE as well, the power to will, and the power to create FREELY. Free will was given NECESSARILY in order to allow us to create freely like the Father. Without this freedom, we could not WILLINGLY WANT to agree with God's will for us. God, who is cause, caused us to BE causes. It is an EGO IDEA that we are "only an effect". That's a dead end. We are not a dead end. We are extenders and freely-willing CO-CREATORS with God. Because we want to be, because it's natural to want to be, and because God ONLY willed that we will FREELY.

"Healing ONLY STRENGTHENS."

"Miracles are ENERGIZING."

"What you share you STRENGTHEN."

"Miracles are healing because they supply a lack."

"A miracle is a universal blessing from God"

"..he can let HIMSELF be healed, and thus offer the other what he has received."

"I give the miracles I have received"

"But, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that light IS theirs."

"By lending you his strength, he strengthens himself."

"And both are strengthened by their union with each other."

"They will strengthen him and stabilize you."

"KNOWING this perfection is shared, it RECOGNIZES it in others, thus strengthening it in both. "

"A miracle is a correction factor introduced into false thinking by ME. It acts as a catalyst, shaking up erroneous perception and snapping it into place."

"The miracle dissolves error"

"See the point about miracles as a perception corrector before he can effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are."

The idea that you are totally equal to God, is what's called the Authority Problem. Actually it's also the idea of sin. Some who think their relationship with God is to be "one" with Him, and thus completely equal with Him, are not understanding that God came FIRST. Or that oneness does not actually mean "you are Him".

He is the creator of you, you are not the creator of Him. He created the Sonship and you were created to ADD TO the Sonship. But you cannot create God or cause God or add to God Himself. That makes you "below" Him in a sense, or as Jesus says in the course, "the Father is GREATER".

It is also appropriate to have AWE of God because He IS greater and above you, and not to have awe of your brothers who ARE your equals. God is GREATER because He is all encompassing, and you are within God, as a part of God, caused BY God, as one of His thoughts, and He therefore spans more than just your own soul.

The idea that being one with him means total equality completely ignores these dynamics and suggests you are as much the creator of God as he is of you. And that unfortunately is where the tiny mad idea began, where you as an effect of God attempted to be the cause of Him, and where the entire ego thought system started. His Kingdom also cannot increase at all if you are God's exact equal because you and God would be in a deadlocked power struggle.

You have to be a son, in order to set up the dynamic that "A Son of a Father must have a Son", establishing God's fatherhood and your sonhood. And being like the father you too become a father, thus co-creator with Him. But your co-creatorship does not allow you to co-create God Himself, and yet God Himself does create you.

And so you are not equal to God in all ways and functions, but you ARE like Him in terms of mirroring the ability to create, IN ADDITION TO what already has been created BY Him. The notion that you have equal creative function with God is to suggest you are capable of creating yourself, and that is what the ego believes is true.

You can add your creations to His Kingdom, but you cannot overthrow the Kingdom itself. Nor can you attack or destroy what HE already created, that being yourself, your brothers, the Holy Spirit, and the angels. All of this "state of the union" is somewhat more elaborate than simply to say that "it's all just oneness", and it certainly is not compatible with an idea of non-duality which implies "no sons at all."

God has a family, and you are part of it. God is a creator with many creations and those creations have many creations and all of them co-create together. This is what A Course in Miracles teaches, not that we're all going to just dissolve into nothing, with no self and no creative function. God has established you as a free-willed co-creator forever.

In fact, if you weren't a SON of God and not God's equal, you would have INHERITED NOTHING, and would never be a HOST to God Himself. God GAVE you everything He had in your creation, thus extending His Self to you, sharing His will and mind and power, and establishing you as SHARER of his being. Because God is your father, you have an inheritance which is waiting for you to reclaim it.

"The world, in its original connotation, included both the proper creation of man by God, AND the proper creation by man in his Right Mind. The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given."

"Think not He wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him. He would but keep your will forever and forever limitless."

"My mind holds only what I think with God. That is a fact, and represents the truth of What you are and What your Father is. It is this thought by which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator with Himself."

"Revelation is NOT reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO man (souls). This is because God and man are NOT equal. "

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

"The creative power of both God AND His Creations is limitless, but it is NOT in reciprocal relationship. You DO communicate fully WITH God, as He does with YOU. This is an ongoing process in which you SHARE, and BECAUSE you share it, you are inspired to create LIKE God. But in Creation you are NOT in a reciprocal relation TO God, because He created YOU, but you did NOT create Him. We have already stated that only in this respect your creative power differs from His."

"I have repeatedly emphasized that awe is not appropriate in connection with me (Jesus), BECAUSE of our inherent equality."

"The word "Awe" should be reserved only for revelations, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is NOT appropriately applied to miracles, because a state of true awe is worshipful. It implies that one of a lesser order stands before the Greater One. This is the case only when a Soul stands before his Creator. Souls are perfect creations, and should be struck with awe in the presence of the Creator of Perfection."

"Equals cannot be in awe of each other, because awe ALWAYS implies inequality. Awe is not properly experienced even to me (awe of Jesus). That is why in that short introductory vision, I knelt beside you, FACING the light."

"Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for your creation. They do not leave you, any more than you have left your Creator."

"He (God) does nothing last, because He created first and for always. It must be understood that the word "first" as applied to Him is not a time concept. He is first in the sense that He is the First in the Holy Trinity Itself. He is the Prime Creator, because He created His co-creators. Because He did, time applies neither to Him nor to what He created. The "last step" that God will take was therefore true in the beginning, is true now, and will be true forever. What is timeless is always there, because its being is eternally changeless."

When we talk of duality, non-duality, pure-non-duality, we're talking concepts.

Duality means polar opposites (good/bad, right/wring, up/down etc)

Non-duality usually means both opposites are one thing. This also usually means the opposites still exist, ie the world is real, but it's all one thing. Close to a Buddhist teaching for example.

Pure-non-duality typically means the world doesn't exist at all, ie neither opposites exists. Instead, it's contrasted against "God". ie, only God exists.

While the Course DOES teach "there is no world", there is a problem with saying it's pure-non-duality.

If we're being really, really pure about it, if it's logically true that only God exists, it is impossible for God to create, impossible for God to have a son or to create heaven, its impossible for there to be a sonship, there could not even have been a dream of death, and if there were a dream of death God would now have to be the one dreaming it.

That also means, if there is only God, that God is dreaming of death, God is dying, God is stuck in a body, God is "learning" (ie lacking), God is not whole, and God is an illusion.

That's a pretty big problem.

That's what pure nonduality really indicates if you are being REALLY pure about it.

At times Jesus does say things in the course which could imply otherwise but you have to be careful to discern what level he's talking at. When he says, "God is, and then we cease to speak".... he's not saying, God is... and there is nothing else... he's saying WE as individual creations cease to speak and we become one with - sharing with - the allness of God, but still retaining our individual free will.

It's useful up to a point to say, there is no world, only God exists. But if that's the scope of your grasp of the logic, then you're falling short. It puts God in a box, all by himself. And in that box, there is no creation, there is no expression or extension, there is no son.

Pure-non-duality means God does not even have one son, yet alone many. That's a problem. Without a son God is the one dreaming and dying, which is ridiculous. Without a son, God is a sinner and a separator, which is ridiculous. Without a son, God has no effects, therefore he is not causal, therefore he is not permanent, therefore he does not exist. That's a completely logical conclusion that you should come to if you really purely believe in pure-non-duality. What started out seeming to say only God exists, MUST mean God does not exist at all.

In order for God to have in any way at all a "son" or a "creation", something which is technically not 100% equated with Himself, it has to be possible that what God is does not stay inside a nice theoretical box. For God to create, and for God to cause an effect, and produce even one son, there has to be what the course calls a "natural grand division."

A "world", as ACIM defines it, is a natural grand division, or a projection outward, from God. God is complete in and of himself, but when he extends Himself to create, He creates something which is - in a sense - "outside of His own completeness" - an "addition" to what exists. Reality is increased by creating/sharing. ie It's talking about heaven/creation. It is "divided" from God in a natural way, which is normal and healthy. It all hinges around cause-effect.

God is cause. God produces effects. Effects of God are creations, which are expressions/extensions. The course says, "nothing real can be increased except by sharing." God has to share, meaning, there is some room here, or some freedom. It also says, that God gave his sons (plural) free will, which was necessary in order to allow them to create freely. The aim was that naturally the sons would create more love and joy and the kingdom would expand. It's only when sons mis-create that they go into separation dreams.

Since God is causing the Son, and the Son is an effect, and the Son is not causing God, there is a "natural" division in terms of roles or functions between God and His Sonship. It is natural. "Separation", in course terms, is an un-natural division. Division between God and Sonship is natural. It does not mean the same thing as separation. It does not mean there are walls up between each son or between sons and God. It means there are many individual free-willed souls each sharing fully and freely and openly with each other and with God.

Getting off topic slightly. But you can see that in order to allow for God to be alive, to be creative, to express and extend, to share, what God is MUST be more than a self-contained box. There is nothing "outside" of Him as such but souls still have free will within the scope of God, and share God. You can't really technically call this "pure non duality", because there isn't a duality but there ARE MANY SONS, and many creations, and many thoughts of God, and the sonship has many parts. There are more than 250 statements in the course pertaining to God directly creating multiple sons.

A multiplicity of sons is hardly in keeping with the idea of pure non-duality. It's not the same thing. It's not a state of "there is only God". It's a state of "there is god and god's creations." It's not a singularity. It's not a concept or a theoretical box. It's alive. It's creative. It's expressive. It's more than ego logic can describe or understand.

This is why the course is really not pure-non-duality. In a general broad sense, yes, it is, up to the point where you really take a look at heaven and God and creation and the sonship, and find out that there are in fact many parts to it. It's not just one big "blob". And each soul IS endowed with free will. Will is free when it chooses to extend freedom and love. It becomes blocked when we will against God's will and therefore will against our own will. That's what victimhood is all about - attacking ourselves with our own will. It's also the secret to salvation.

If you want ACIM to be pure-non-duality, you're not looking closely enough at the facts. God and Son are not one single thing pretending to be two. God does not dream. God has not separated from Himself. We are the ones who are responsible for dreaming of impossibilities.

There is one other big problem with trying to fit the course into a pure-non-duality model. The fact that in pure-non-duality there are no individuals and no individual free will. In pure-non-duality there are no souls. There is no permanent "self" distinct in some way from others, or naturally divided. That means, the pure-non-dual teachers constantly tell you that you do not have a self, or that you are not an individual. It is BULL SHIT. God created many sons and gave all of them free individual will.

Quote: "In the creation, God projected His creative ability from Himself to the Souls He created, and He also imbued them with the same loving will to create. The Soul has not only been fully created but has also been created perfect." - ACIM

Quote: "The world (heaven), in the original connotation of the term, included both the proper creation of man (souls/sons) by God and the proper creation by man in his right mind (his own free-will creations). The latter (the son’s ability to create) required the endowment of man by God with FREE WILL because all loving creation is freely given (God gave us freedom). Nothing in these statements implies any sort of level involvement (no separation)or in fact anything except one continuous line of creation in which all aspects (each aspect being a son of God with free will) are of the same order." - ACIM

You DO have a soul. You ARE an "free individual". You may not have an EGO. Having a separating ego is not the same thing as being a free-willed soul. Ego means putting up walls and unnatural divisions between you and others. Absence of walls does not destroy your independent freedom, it simply allows you to share fully and freely with others. To be one with them, without losing your own soul.

The peddlers of pure-non-duality peddle "you do not exist" paradigm, which leads many course people to believe they are supposed to deny themselves. It in fact produces censorship of the soul and leads you to believe you are supposed to be getting rid of yourself. It actually results in a belief that the soul is supposed to DIE ie not exist. That to be in God, you cannot be a self in any way. That to be awake, you must not have any sense of existing individually.

Also if there are no souls and no individual freedoms, then you are literally responsible for the shitty choices that everyone else makes, they are literally you, and you are just as dead as the person who just died. It's ridiculous. It IS true that you share a oneness but you simultaneously have independence. This is possible in a holographic model of heaven in which the all is in every part, ie God is in every soul, and yet each soul is distinct and whole and complete in and of itself. This produces a state of simultaneous sharing with the whole AND independence. This is not in any way a pure-non-duality teaching.