If you are going to pray for someone, you’ll need to first discern what the problem really is.

The problem is NOT what is happening to the person, what they perceive as happening to them, or what your own ego says is the problem.

This means you need to forgive first, come to your senses, and *recognize* what the illusions are.

It’s actually always an ILLUSION that anyone is under attack by anyone other than themselves!

So in this sense, it is then pointless to pray e.g. that someone receives money, or that someone stop being hurt by someone, or someone gets along with their boss, or whatever.

The only meaningful prayer, perhaps, is one which aligns itself with God’s Will. That means, the prayer ACKNOWLEDGES the TRUTH about the person, not what is FALSE about them!

Just as forgiveness does not "make errors real" and THEN attempts to undo them, which cannot work, our prayers should also be forgiving. They should not fall for the ego’s tricks or make us believe the victim’s own interpretation of what is happening.

If someone asks you to pray for them, and then gives the reasons "why", which will entail all the perceived justifications for why they are in danger or under attack or suffering "against their will", take their prayer request and by all means pray, but do not pray for what the person believes is the problem.

Just as when you forgive, you need to learn to UNDO the belief that problems are real at all, withdraw belief that sin is real, and NOT believe that sickness and suffering are real, so too this needs to be incorporated into praying.

If you pray "with forgiveness", then you are praying with the power of God, and this CAN produce results because you’re now speaking God’s language of TRUTH. But if you fall for the ego traps and dramas and then use that as the reason to pray, praying for those "real" dramas to stop, it will not work.

Your prayers must ASCEND above the battlefield, above the ego’s lies, above even the illusion that someone is being attacked by a will OTHER than their own.

All attack is SELF ATTACK. The person needing praying for needs to stop attacking themselves! The prayer then should be in support of what is TRUE about the person, acknowledging and being thankful for that, as a way to diffuse the ego’s bullshit about the situation, and then to pray that the person themselves are lifted up into TRUTH, to join in truth, so that THEY stop attacking themselves.

It is therefore helpful to pray that a person stop believing they are vulnerable, to help them to recognize how loved they are, to ask that their mind be clarified, to ask for healing and to remind the person how loved and safe they are. It is helpful to ask for the person to be uplifted and awakened and made conscious and come back to their senses - to truth. It is helpful to send them love. And it is helpful to ask that they be helped by God to RECOGNIZE their own invulnerability, strength, power, certainty and fearlessness.

It is really self-attack that people need prayers about. Their failure to recognize the truth about themselves IS causing them to make theirown life a mess. Their unconsciousness is producing projected attacks. Their resistance against truth is causing problems and dramas.

No-one especially needs to be "saved" from apparently completely separate unfair attackers who come out of the blue for no reason. No one dies without their own consent! The problem is that a person has CONSENTED TO SUFFERING. THEY need help with learning to STOP ATTACKING THEMSELVES. TO stop believing things are true of them which are not true. To remember who they really are.

WE as "prayers" must learn not to be deceived by the ego’s illusions first, including those presented by "those in need". The reason for the prayer must not be an ego reason OR a reaction to an ego way of looking at a situation. If we’re making the problem real, but are saying "prayer words", WE now have a "split mind" and a "split will" and a "split allegiance", and that means we are not going to actually WILL anything with God.

I’ve been trying to remember this myself and to practice it by praying only for the person’s awakening to truth, the recognition of their perfection as Christ, and for them to be healed of the NEED to be prayed for for illusory reasons.

Instead, our prayer is not so much a request about something which needs changing, but moreso an EXTENSION OF GOD, an affirmation of recognition of what is already true, a denial of what is false, and to simply ask that God’s Will (the way that things should be if people weren’t interfering) be expressed. That’s not so much a "new request" as it is a CONTINUATION OF THE TRUTH.

Think about how the person’s HIGHER SELF is. What is true of their higher self, in the highest possible reality of God, THAT is the truth about the person and NOT how they appear. Their body symtoms, their life dramas, etc, are NOT true of them. Affirming what IS true of them, "speaking truth into the situation", is powerful and miraculous. Spoken prayers only posess POWER if they are speaking of what is TRUE IN GOD.

Speak about how God sees the person. Speak about what is only true of them in the most loving way - total innocence, perfect awareness, fearlessness, trust, confidence, happiness, joy, love, worthiness, etc... expressing that is an extension of love, and love heals. You don’t even really need to address the ego junk that is currently showing up. God’s Will is all that needs to be done, ie, you only need affirm and recognize and express what God has already created as TRUTH about the person.

Prayer and forgiveness go hand in hand. To pray with love must be to pray forgivingly. To pray WITH GOD, instead of "to God", is far more powerful than reacting pleadingly to illusions of suffering. Seeing and acknowledging the highest reality of a person is very uplifting.

There are some parts of the course which suggest that if you will just change HOW you look at the world, or what meaning you GIVE it, suddenly seemingly horrifying scenes are interpreted as healed and lovely.

Obviously this loveliness MUST transcend the FORM of what is happening, because a broken leg is still a broken leg, and an explosion is still an explosion. But somehow, Jesus is saying that just by changing your perception, a world which used to look like hell, can look "like heaven".

"What loveliness we look upon today! What holiness we see surrounding us! And it is given us to recognize it is a holiness in which we share"

"There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven."

This seems ridiculous at first. You ask yourself how this is remotely possible, and how it is not just a totally insane idea to suggest that THIS world's horrors can be "smiled upon" or interpreted as "lovely". But this is what true perception and forgiveness is offering.

Somehow, a changed perception projects God's love onto the world, God is seen as a reflection IN the world, and Earth now reflects heaven instead of hell. It still has its same forms, and the same things may be happening physically, but what they MEAN changes. And there becomes a light that you see in and around everything.

Jesus says the Holy Spirit can liberate even the darkest bullshit we made, and make it appear lovely and a blessing. That even a dead body could appear to use like it is sparkling and healed. And this doesn't necessarily mean it is in a form or condition that is physically healed, like a cancerous tumor disappearing, but it is still interpreted as healed.

This SEEMS to suggest that the cancer could remain, physically, while perceiving from an advanced perspective of love and light. It would be seen as "lovely". This however doesn't necessarily imply that the cancer SHOULD remain, because the mind is capable of performing miracles to change matter. And sane minds heal bodies so that even symbolically, even in form, they symbolize eternal life and healing.

"Think of the loveliness that you will see, who walk with Him! And think how beautiful will each of you look to the other!"

"The special ones are all asleep, surrounded by a world of loveliness they do not see."

It is hard to get ones head around how it is possible to see this shitty-ass world as beautiful, light-filled, lovable. But ACIM says that even God loves the world. And that we can see God in everything, when God is in our mind, due to projecting God's meaning ONTO the world. That you can see God IN it, because you mix it WITH His love.

I used to get a sense of this, when I would read the course even years ago, where it sounded like he was saying that just by having a different state of mind, the world would be seen as entirely healed. I wasn't sure this was a correct interpretation, because I wanted to also include miracles. But it does seem to hold without undermining miracles of healing.

The world seen through the eyes of Christ, is a "healed world". It's redeemed. It's "translated into heaven", ACIM says. And then this REFLECTION of heaven, paves the way to knowledge and to the return home to the real thing.

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

"The ability to perceive made the body possible, because you must perceive SOMETHING, and WITH something. This is why perception involves an exchange, or a translation, which knowledge does NOT need. The interpretive function of perception, (actually, a distorted form of creation), then permitted man to interpret the body as HIMSELF, which, although depressing, was a way out of the conflict he induced."

"Through Him, YOU stand before God's altar, where He gently translated hell into Heaven. For it is only in Heaven that God would have you be."

"Be not unwilling now, you are too near, and you WILL cross the bridge in perfect safety, translated quietly from war to peace."

"For, once you have accepted it as the ONLY PERCEPTION THAT YOU WANT, it is translated into knowledge, by the part that God Himself plays in the Atonement, for it is the ONLY step in it He understands."

"This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel you need a course which, in the end, teaches that only reality is true. But do you believe it? When you perceive the real world, you will recognize that you did not believe it. Yet the swiftness with which your new and only real perception will be translated into knowledge will leave you but an instant to realize that this alone is true. And then everything you made will be forgotten; the good and the bad, the false and the true. For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight. The end of the world is not its destruction, but its translation into Heaven. 9 The reinterpretation of the world is the transfer of all perception to knowledge."

"Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty. And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release.

All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing ALL illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there, in peace."

What we think is evil in the world, is really a judgement and a meaning that we've given to it based on the ego in us.

If we were not to decide that something is evil, perhaps it is not evil. And we are only ever upset because of the meanings we ourselves have given to things.

There is nothing inherently evil about the world because it is neutral and not actually anything. We make it seem evil by believing that parts of it are evil.

This includes believing that death and murder and destruction are evil, that dictators and presidents and politicians are evil, that crimes are sins and things we don't like are offensive.

But we are only ever really upset based on meanings that we ourselves have made up and projected onto things. Then we react to the projections of our own attempts at being evil.

What we think of as inherently evil is not inherently anything. This is a meaningless neutral world with no inherent meaning at all. It is the ego that tries to make out that a neutral world is hell.

You can just as easily decide to believe that the exact same things are beautiful and lovely and harmless and not a proof of evil at all. Because you make up the meaning of everything here.

This might not be popular with society which is hell-bent on finding ways to accuse things of evil in order to scapegoat and projects its hidden guilts onto others.

But if you are to reach a forgiven world, then even the things that you used to hate and despise must be converted into a present love, must be seen as not doing what you thought they were, and having no power to cause you upset at all.

Are we willing to stop scapegoating the world, to stop projecting sin onto it, to stop making it guilty, and to stop labelling it as fundamentally monstrous? It is a mistaken and strange world yes, but it is not a real hell.

We all like to keep our favourite scapegoats and keep judging them as wrong and keep believing they are fundamentally broken in some way. But these are just faulty judgements by a faulty ego.

What would the world look like without any condemnation, any labelling, any categorisation, and sense of attack or accusing of guilt, and without any attempt to claim it is an evil hell?

Perhaps you would see the forgiven world, in which nothing seems to offend you, everything seems harmless, and nothing is really attacking anything real. And therefore perhaps you will be safe and unharmed and invulnerable in such a world.

But are you willing to forgive your evil enemies? Or more importantly, are you willing to forgive yourself of your own belief that you are evil, which you keep trying to pass off as someone else's evil?

"The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness. The Great Transformer of perception will undertake WITH you the careful searching of the mind that MADE this world, and uncover TO YOU the SEEMING reasons for your making it. In the light of the REAL reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will SHOW you that there is NO reason here at all. Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty. And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release."

"All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing all illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there, he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there in peace."

"Father, Christ's vision is Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. How glorious and gracious is this world!"

"The teachers of God have trust in the world, because they have learned it is not governed by the laws the world made up. It is governed by a Power which is in them but not of them. It is this Power that keeps all things safe. It is through this Power that the teachers of God look on a forgiven world."

You always perceive in people what you CHOOSE to see in them.

If you CHOOSE to be upset and angry, it CHANGES how people look. It makes them SEEM like they are attacking you. And because of this change in YOUR perception - your filtering - YOU think that you are justified in this anger or upset "because of" what they so obviously are doing. But they only APPEAR to be doing this stuff because YOU are looking through a dark filter of unlove. It filters OUT the love and prevents you from seeing love IN the person, or something about them that is loveable.

When you CHOOSE to stop being upset with them, to like them and to love them, which your are perfectly free and capable of doing, this "fog of unlove" is lifted from YOUR mind and you see the person WITH love. This radically changes how they APPEAR to you. Or rather, what you see IN them. Whatever you perceive people as "being like", they only appear to "belike" that because YOU are CHOOSING to see them that way. How you see them and how they appear has NOTHING to do with them or what they’re doing.

If someone is upset with you, angry at you, saying they don’t like you, the only reason they don’t like you is because they are CHOOSING not to like you. Here’s the trick... if they would CHOOSE to like you, THEY WOULD LIKE YOU. This sounds so obvious but it’s true, because per the secret of salvation, anything that person doesn’t like about you is a result of THEM CHOOSING NOT TO. Whatever they think is "wrong" with you, they ONLY SEE because THEY choose to put that there. They think they are locked into this perception with no choice. They don’t realize if they would simply CHOOSE differently, they COULD choose to LIKE YOU, and would instantly warm up to you.

It sounds too obvious to be true, but this is how it works. You are NEVER justified in being angry at someone because that simply means, you are CHOOSING not to love them. The ONLY reason you don’t like someone is because you haven’t decided to like them, for whatever scapegoating mileage you’re getting out of that. YOU have the power to love everyone. YOU have the freedom to choose to love everyone. Because there is NO REASON NOT TO. The only time you find a reason not to, is when YOU have slipped into ego, YOU are attacking, YOU are projecting, an d YOU are accusing your brother of your own sins.

You are never upset for the reason you think. It is NEVER "because of" people, the world, the body, the environment, or anything other than YOU. You using your free will to CHOOSE TO BE UPSET. You are not at the effect of anyone. You are CAUSAL. Whatever you choose, you cause. You are a creator. If you do not LIKE what you are causing, that’s on you. But disassociating ownership for that responsibility is ego.

You don’t like xyz person because you decided not to like them. They now look like enemies because you WANT to see them as enemies. Your desire to hate them MAKES THEM appear to be unlovable. The only reason they appear unlovable is not because of THEM, it’s because of YOU. If you would decide to love them, they would stop looking like monsters. Set them free of your tyranny.

You are annoyed about xyz situation because you have not yet CHOSEN to be happy. You like being unhappy. When you decide to be happy you will love it.

You think you can’t love xyz person because of "what they are like", because YOU are choosing to be an asshole. There is NO REASON to be unloving. All the reasons we have, we make up. Just as there is no reason to be afraid and all fear is made up.

If I don’t like something, is the problem the THING I don’t like, OR ME choosing to be "not likey"? And while I’m busy pointing out the flaws and sins of others, which I ONLY SEE because I PUT THEM THERE through unlove, I might want to look closer to home at why *I* am being sinful towards them. MY problem causes THEM To look like THE problem.

Everyone is holy and innocent and deserves to be loved fully. If I’m not doing that, *I* have a problem. I need to choose again. The only way a sworn enemy becomes a beloved friend is by choosing to LOVE them, sooner or later. You are free to choose when to change your mind.

"The holiest of all the spots on Earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love."

"The power of decision is my own."

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies."

"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."

"And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God."

"For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

"Bodies now are useless, and will therefore fade away, because the Son of God is limitless."

"From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it."

"Sins are in bodies. They are not perceived in minds. They are not seen as purposes, but ACTIONS. Bodies act, and minds do not."

"It takes the central place in every dream, which tells the story of how it was made by OTHER bodies, born into the world OUTSIDE the body, lives a little while, and dies, to be united in the dust with other bodies, dying like itself."

"In the brief time allotted it to live, it seeks for other bodies as its friends and enemies."

"It hires OTHER bodies, that they may protect it, and collect more senseless things that it can call its own."

"It looks about for special bodies which can SHARE its dream. Sometimes it dreams it is a conqueror of bodies weaker than itself. But in some phases of the dream, it is the slave of bodies which would hurt and torture it."

"Is healing frightening? To many, yes. For accusation is a bar to love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers."

"For all the hurt that war has sought to bring; the broken bodies and the shattered limbs, the screaming dying and the silent dead, are gently lifted up and comforted. There IS no sadness, where a miracle has come to heal."

"YOU SEE THE WORLD YOU VALUE. On this side of the bridge, you see the world of separate bodies, seeking to join each other in SEPARATE UNIONS, and to become one BY LOSING. When two INDIVIDUALS seek to become ONE, they are trying to DECREASE their magnitude. Each would DENY his power, for the SEPARATE union EXCLUDES THE UNIVERSE. Far more is LEFT OUTSIDE than would be taken in."

"Within the dream of bodies and of death, is yet one theme of truth; no more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light created in the dark, where God shines still."

"Homeless, the ego seeks as many bodies as it can collect, to place its idols in, and so establish them as temples to itself."

"The Holy Spirit's purpose lies safe in your relationship, and not your bodies. You have ESCAPED the body. Where you are now, the body cannot enter, for the Holy Spirit has set HIS temple there."

"The unholy instant IS the time of bodies."

"You have a fear of broken bodies, because your ego cannot tolerate them."

"Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the holy Son of God."

"And sight of bodies becomes the sign that sacrifice IS limited, and something still remains for you alone."

"A mind within a body, and a world of other bodies, each with SEPARATE minds"

"Some idea of bodies MUST have entered, for minds can NOT attack."

"The thought of bodies IS a sign of faithlessness, for bodies CANNOT solve anything. And it is their INTRUSION on the relationship, an error in YOUR thoughts ABOUT the situation, that then became the JUSTIFICATION for your lack of faith."

"You do not perceive your brothers as the Holy Spirit does because you do not interpret their bodies AND YOURS solely as a means of JOINING THEIR MINDS and uniting them with yours and mine."

"But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of those who believe they ARE bodies and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of you."

"For only bodies can be separate, and therefore unreal. The home of madness cannot be the home of reason."

"It sees NOT through the body's eyes, nor looks to bodies for its justification."

"Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its power declines if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel."

"And if God created bodies, death would indeed be real. But God would not be loving."

This will fly against everything the ego believes, because the ego says that people are supposed to suffer. That guilt is justified. That punishment is needed. That somehow you are breaking the law if you help someone. Surely it's not possible to actually heal another person? To affect their mind? To undo their level confusion? To reverse their mental illness? To remove their blocks to love? Surely it is completely impossible to WAKE SOMEONE UP FOR THEM?!

Well.... think again.

There is a component of free will, in that if someone truly does not want something, they cannot receive it. These barriers are erected in their minds in the form of denial, shutting out love and making them suffer. If this resistance is strong enough, not even the most advanced healer can help and has to wait patiently until they are ready and willing.

"Love does not enter where it is not welcome."

This leads to the fact that at least SOME willingness is needed in order to work around the issue of free will. The person has to in some regard want to participate in recovery, otherwise they will reject all help. And naturally it would be unkind to force them to heal against their will. This is why "a little willingness" is essential. But it does only need to be little. Some willingness is not total unwillingness.

Once willingness is in play, the person has some degree of "belief" in healing. It now becomes possible to help them. And this is where the ego's laws begin to be violated. This is where it starts to become possible to actually lift someone up FOR them.

This is why Jesus says that you should not attempt to use to FORCE someone to BELIEVE, ie to be willing. Miracles should not be used coercively. Doing that would be to use miracles as "spectacles to induce belief." The recipient of miracles has to ALREADY believe, to some degree, so that the miracle helps and isn't a form of manipulation.

"The use of miracles as a spectacle ***to INDUCE belief*** is wrong. They are really used for and by believers. "

Once someone is willing to receive help, it's a whole new ballgame. This is where it becomes possible to actually heal other people. Jesus says the light in your mind is so powerful it can shine into another mind and heal it, just as His can. The Holy Spirit has also been created to Help and to Heal. If it were not POSSIBLE to help anyone who is at least partly unwilling to love, help would be impossible, and everyone would be left to their own devices, ie stuck in hell.

Similarly it is possible for one child of God to heal another, causing that person to be lifted up, corrected, healed, forgiven. It is possible to undo their level confusion. It is possible to remove blocks to awareness. It is possible to change their beliefs. It is possible to alter their perception. And it is possible to heal their bodies as well.

In effect, the ego sees this as "cheating". It's cheating because it makes it possible to get children of God to return home SOONER than expected. It's cheating because people are supposed to suffer and go through long drawn out periods of hell which they justly deserve. It's cheating because the ego has no forgiveness and wants to keep everyone stuck and unhappy forever

It reasons, surely it's not possible to do ANYTHING to another person? Surely YOU cannot AFFECT someone else? If everyone has free will, how is it possible? It's possible when they USE their free will to be open to help. And by being open to help, from heaven or from you, it becomes possible now to BYPASS the ego's laws of required suffering and SHORTEN the suffering of others.

In fact, if you look at this, it means that we all in fact can help each other to wake up sooner. It is NOT God's will that we suffer, and God would have us come home as soon as possible. As each of us HELPS one another, we actually accelerate the "celestial speedup" and bring atonement closer sooner. Jesus says that your mind can ENLIGHTEN another mind. If that mind were willing to receive it, atonement can be shared and GIVEN by another, in accord with their free will.

What we're doing here, in time, is we're breaking all the ego's laws of required suffering, and its long drawn out dirge of death, and actually HAVING AN INFLUENCE on how long it is until the atonement plan is complete. We actually have the power to help our bothers to wake up, be happy, be healed, be whole, be free and resume their function. Not merely through some hands-off means like writing a book for them to read, although that is one method. But through DIRECT HEALING ACTION upon their mind.

You literally have the power to heal other people. "The power to work miracles belongs to you." "It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive." "Those who are healed become instruments of healing."

Ego is a narrowing and an excluding of wholeness. We began in wholeness, into which a tiny mad idea of "not whole" was thought. An idea of limitation or something less than whole - as if lacking something.

In order to be not whole, some part of the whole has to be excluded. This introduced the idea of exclusion or exclusivity into what was originally entirely inclusive. And this also means a sense of being excluded from or separate from God and each other.

This is the idea that something can apply to you alone, and not apply to others equally. And so was the beginning of inequality. When things are not equal, unconditionality is lost and we now have conflict, and ideas of better than or less than.

It was actually a request to God that you be treated differently and in a special way, compared to others. As though having special favour with God, being more important than your brothers.

"You who prefer specialness to sanity could not obtain it in your right minds. You were at peace until you asked for special favor, and God did not give it. For the request was alien to Him, and you could not ask this of a Father who truly loved His Son." UrT12C11

Entering into this idea of "not whole" is entirely ego. It's a whole different kind of "thought system" or way or thinking, seemingly excluded from God's system of wholeness and oneness.

Everything about this system is egoic in some way, and while it persists the "ego", or egotism, persists. Another way to describe this is selfishnesss - something which applies only to you, and something which you do not share with others.

The separation from God was thus an entry into egotism, selfishness, and not sharing. It was an attempt to hoard, to have something that belonged solely to yourself, and to defend it against others so that they would lack it. As though exclaiming, "mine."

As mind progresses into this ego idea, a whole dynamic of relationship and identity and meaning unfolds. A sense of self shifts from being one with others, to being "only myself". What you have shifts from "shared with God and everyone" to "mine alone."

We begin to take credit for what God created, claiming God did not create it. We decided God is not our father and we try to be father (cause) to him, going against his will forcefully. We try to be more than God, usurp his will, overthrow heaven and exist excluded from infinity.

"This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. " UrT29I6

Egotism depends on exclusion. It depends on being less than whole. It depends on having enemies, lacking something, gaining something, and being always unfulfilled. It requires ongoing attack and guilt to maintain a sense of separation. And without this it cannot be there.

Egotism then turns to self interest. Our egos are only concerned with ourselves because we see ourselves as existing stranded on an island separate from everyone. We think of everyone else as outside of us beyond the perimeter, and therefore cannot possibly need to consider their interests.

It is very natural therefore that as mind narrows down from wholeness, seeing the boundary of infinity shrink down to the body, or even less, that its scope of interest shrinks also. And so it becomes concerned only with itself in isolation, trapped in a body, confined to a self-made prison.

As egotistical people we then have concern only for ourselves. We need constant recognition from others, wanting them to worship us and adore us for our artificial sense of power and pride. We need constant validation because the ego is unreal, have no real sense of worth because we've thrown infinite worth away, and are permanently insecure.

As egos we can't escape from some fundamental experiences which come as part of the package of being exclusive. Anxiety and depression, loneliness and fear, threat and attack, vulnerability and suffering, it's all part of the dynamic of being less than whole.

"Today's idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment which all the separated ones experience. Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering, and intense fear of loss." UrW41L1

The return to God very simply entails the expansion of the boundaries of Self to be wholly inclusive of the whole of the Kingdom. To share everything with everyone and to be one with everything. To have no concern for exclusive rights or self importance or specialness. And to recognize that we have nothing other than what God has shared with us, which is equally shared with all.

"The sudden EXPANSION of the self that takes place with your DESIRE for it, is the irresistible appeal the holy instant holds. It calls to you to be yourself, within its safe embrace. There are the laws of limit lifted FOR you, to welcome you to openness of mind, and freedom. Come to this place of refuge, where you can be yourself in peace." UrT18G16

"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." UrT1B40Y

"By steadily and consistently canceling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT. Follow His teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness IS His function, and HE knows how to fulfill it perfectly." UrT9C6

'In your own unconscious, deeply repressed by the ego, is the declaration of your release. GOD HAS GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING. This is the one fact which MEANS that the ego does not exist, and which therefore makes it profoundly afraid." UrT4D21

"Where there was darkness now we see the light. What was the ego? What the darkness was. Where was the ego? Where the darkness was. What is it now and where can it be found? Nothing and nowhere. Now the light has come: Its opposite has gone without a trace. Where evil was there now is holiness. What is the ego? What the evil was. Where is the ego? In an evil dream that but seemed real while you were dreaming it. Where there was crucifixion stands God's Son. What is the ego? Who has need to ask? Where is the ego? Who has need to seek for an illusion now that dreams are gone?" UrU3A6

“Before you will to do anything, ask Me if your will is in accord with Mine. If you are sure that it IS, there will BE no fear.”

Part of the ego belief is that we have a WILL which is opposed to God’s will. That we do not want to will WITH God, and therefore do not want to will LIKE God. That we will there be something else. It is also a will that you do not have the will that God gave you. This actually results in NOT having a will, or of denying will. But it shows up as what we might call “willing against God.” Or the ego’s seeming drives to choose and select and judge.

At some point though, we’ll have to learn to will in ACCORD with God’s will again. That doesn’t mean your freedom is taken away. It also doesn’t mean that God overpowers you. Nor does it mean that you end up having to do something you don’t really want to do.

What it does mean is that you will have to surrender your attempt to will anything ON YOUR OWN, or depend solely on your own judgement and will apart from his. You ultimately and naturally should want to will what God wills, or like him. To want what he wants.

To learn to want to ”do God’s will” is partly about surrendering your ego desire to decide “what you will”, or will not, do. It requires a willingness, to put aside your “separate will“, your conflicted will or your opposing will, and be willing to ACCEPT a function of will that is in line with God’s “intentions”.

Fortunately, what God wills FOR you, is the very best for you. It’s in your best interests, it brings you peace and happiness, it provides health and healing. Doing HIS will is, in a sense, like being a servant, or a follower, or student. It entails LISTENING and following guidance. Trusting and being truly helpful. Representing he who sent you.

This is why we’re asked to allow the Holy Spirit to make ALL decisions for us, to judge for us, to see for us, to forgive for us, to heal for us, and to operate through us. We are to get out of his way (thus our own) and be channels or conduits for his expression, to do his work in the world and in the minds of man.

Are we willing to be led, and to follow, to be disciples, and to serve God?

“My mind can only serve. Today I give its service to the Holy Spirit, to employ as He sees fit. I thus direct my mind, which I alone can rule. And thus I set it free, to do the Will of God.”

“A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another.”

“But be you, rather, grateful that YOU can be the means to serve His end. This is the ONLY service which leads to freedom.”

“The gentle service that you give the Holy Spirit IS service to yourself. You who are now HIS means must love all that He loves.”

“"Psychic" abilities have been used to call upon the devil, which merely means to strengthen the ego. Yet here is also a great channel of hope and healing in the Holy Spirit's service. Those who have developed "psychic" powers have merely let some of the limitations they laid upon their minds be lifted. It can be but greater limitations they lay upon themselves if they utilize their increased freedom for further imprisonment. The Holy Spirit needs these gifts, and those who offer them to Him and Him alone go with Christ's gratitude upon their hearts, and His holy sight not far behind.”

“His Voice does not see the body as YOU do, because He knows the ONLY reality that ANYTHING can have is the service it can render God on behalf of the function HE has given.”

“The spiritual eye, which looks within, recognizes immediately that the altar has been defiled, and needs to be repaired and protected. Perfectly aware of the RIGHT defense, it passes over all others, looking past error to truth. Because of the real strength of ITS vision, it pulls the will into its own service, and forces the mind to concur. This reestablishes the true power of the will, and makes it increasingly unable to tolerate delay.”

“The mind returns itself to its proper function only when it WILLS TO KNOW. This places it in the Soul's service, where perception is meaningless.”

“The miracle joins in the Atonement of Christ by placing the mind in the service of the Spirit. This establishes the proper function of mind, and abolishes its errors.”

“To "change your mind" means to place it at the disposal of True authority. The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has elected to be guided by Christ in HIS service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow him.”

“God's Will is perfect happiness for me.

And I can suffer but from the belief

There is another will apart from His.”

“We have no will apart from His, and all of us are one because His Will is shared by all of us.”

“Learning is an ability you made, and gave yourselves. It was NOT made to do the Will of God, but to uphold a wish that It COULD be opposed, and that a will APART from It was yet more real than It.”

“If sin were real it would forever be beyond the hope of healing. For there would be a power BEYOND God's, capable of making another will, which could attack His Will, and OVERCOME it. And give His Son a will APART from His, and STRONGER. And each part of His fragmented creation would have a DIFFERENT will OPPOSED to His, and in eternal opposition to Him AND TO EACH OTHER.”

“A magic thought, by its mere presence, acknowledges a separation from God. It states, in the clearest form possible, that the mind which thinks it believes it has a separate will that can oppose the Will of God and succeed. That this can hardly be a fact is obvious.” “Miracles are IN ACCORD with the Will of God, whose will you do NOT know because you are confused about what YOU will.”

“The kindness of his sight rests on himself with all the tenderness it offers others. For he would ONLY heal and ONLY bless. And, being IN ACCORD with what God wills, he HAS the power to heal and bless all those he looks on with the grace of God upon his sight.”

A fear years ago, I was at an ACIM retreat and we were doing a breathing exercise. I became filled up with some kind of energy, which lifted my "vibration" very high. My mind started to see past the physical and reach out and started to see God BEYOND the veil. In that moment I would've left the entire world behind to be with Him.

I'll skip some details but after that, I was seeing with true perception. The amount of awareness and wakefulness I had was off the charts. Everywhere I looked, still seeing physical objects with my eyes, I saw God. God was in everything I saw and God was in my mind. My mind had expanded in some way, moving up the hologram, to where my ego self seemed dissipated and diffused into the back of my awareness, as though I had no center. My mind somehow pulled back away from the world and I began to feel like I was melting into the background, one with it. I felt like I was becoming Christ.

My awareness for some days after, entailed the ability to see a profound gentleness in everything. Everywhere I looked there was unconditional love, in all things. This love seemed so whole and complete, no matter where I looked, that I felt I had no need to look anywhere else to go find anything. I saw it in a chair leg. In a water bottle. In the shadows on a wall.

People were still going about their business doing exactly everything in the same egoic way as before - nothing changed there, because the body's eyes can ONLY see the physical form of things. But at the same time, there was awareness of a love and presence. I was aware of something that it seemed no-one knew was there, even though it seemed obvious. I became so soft. God was so gentle, so soft and joyous. And he was very, very intimate, which was shocking at first because I had previously always put God far away in the sky and here he was well under my skin.

I also became aware of the higher levels of the hologram, an experience of unity, in which the whole was in each part. All of God was in each object I saw. I therefore recognized for the first time in experience, that even though physical objects seemed to assert that "nothing is the same anywhere" or "there is nothing that is whole" or "the whole is not in any of the parts", here in my awareness I could still see this forms and yet, simultaneously, my mind was aware that a single consistent unified whole was present in all parts, fully, transcending their limitations and differences. This taught me the way in which physical matter is a lie, a deception designed to shut out awareness of God's nature.

I was in an altered state for a couple of weeks. I was very ungrounded. I could barely do tasks because my mind was quite expanded and out of body. Yet each time I did something "grounding", this energy that was in me started to funnel down, and this produced immense joy. Joy would beam out of my face toward others as I started at them very directly, something I had shy'd away from before, recognizing I had no needs, no lack, and that there was only outward extension. Nothing could "come in" to me from the outside. I felt so safe and protected and free from needs. I didn't even want to eat food, it felt so alien.

Gradually as I grounded back into my body my expanded awareness narrowed down, became more focused into and through the body, and I became more immersed in the physical body again. This was like receiving some kind of brain damage. My awareness diminished greatly and it felt like being greatly subdued and suppressed, shut down and locked inside a prison suit. This also stripped away most of the intense wakefulness that I had, which felt like "leaving God", which was VERY upsetting.

This made it impossible for me to have God in my mind, and thus I stopped seeing God outside of me in all things. It seemed God left. I kept trying to find God outside of me because I thought that He was out there, having seen Him there, but I couldn't find Him because I was no longer aware of Him WITHIN my mind. And for weeks this was depressing and infuriating, although gradually I adjusted and was reassured by a few momentary glimpses that God was still with me. Returning to my body felt like a huge isolation. As my eye sight returned to looking out solely through the body's eyes, it was like building a brick wall "behind" me such that I could no longer have any sense of what was there. The body cut me off from awareness of God, and so I got to see first hand just how limiting bodies are.

What I later came to realize was this was an experience of true perception. A state of seeing a forgiven world. It was as though layer upon layer of thick "judgement" had been scraped off the surface of the world revealing an extremely gently held picture of something very lovable. And yet at the same time, the physicality was the same. The appearance physically to my eyes was the same. It was what I saw IN it, in SPITE of the physicality, that I longed to reconnect with.

This is why, for me personally, I know that this physical world is not real. I know how much the body lies. I know how the body's sense are massively limiting. I know how matter lies to try to obscure the holographic nature of God and his omnipresence. I've seen it and experienced the transition back and forth. God gave me a glimpse of awakening and it was the most profoundly directly educational experience of my entire life.

This is why I know first hand that there is something very much beyond this world, a reality which is completely obscured by forms and trapped by bodies. This world is not my home. I have grieved for the "loss of God" and gradually over time use this as incentive, a taste of what's to come, to find my way back to God again.

The attraction to Him was SO STRONG that I would've leapt into His arms in an instant without so much as a consideration for anything else in all the world. We have protected ourselves from remembering just how appealing God is, and why NOTHING else means anything even remotely close to Him. We only block awareness in order to hide this extreme attraction. Otherwise we would awaken in a heartbeat.

They are two MECHANISMS for seeing, and they REPORT in two entirely different ways, and it's to you to decide WHICH OF THEM you are going to listen to. And you cannot listen to them both, fully, at once.

"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see."

"for they can see only illusions"

"Everything the body sees is an illusion."

"Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception"

The body, has 100% permanent false perception. It is a fixed, PHYSICAL form of perception which CANNOT EVER see anything other than form, error and illusion.

"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body"

"The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all,"

"Vision adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary to desire. And if you see the body, you have chosen judgment, and not vision. For vision, like relationships, has no order. You either SEE, or not."

"Everyone sees only what he thinks he is."

"Forgiveness does not look upon bodies."

Christ vision, also, is a FIXED STATE. It is the spiritual eye. The spiritual eye CAN ONLY SEE THE LIGHT. Can only look upon the real world. It CANNOT SEE BODIES.

"the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled"

"YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."

Let's be clear about this.

There are two worlds. The world of false perception which is the physical world of bodies and sin and forms and errors and illusions. "Only the body makes the world seem real."

There is also the REAL WORLD, where there are NO BUILDINGS, no streets, bodies, forms, errors, not even the sun.

These are two separate fixed STATES.

1) False perception - TOTAL ERROR.

2) True perception - TOTAL SENSE.

The body's form of perception - the *physical sight*, USES the body's physical eyeballs to see. "These eyes made not to see will never see" reality. They CANNOT in any way be adapted to SEE in any way OTHER than they were made to see. They will NEVER see the real world. They are fixated on hell, on the illusory world. Physical. This is a fixed state of false perception.

Christ vision is an entirely different KIND of perception, which DOES NOT rely on the body whatsoever, does not USE the body whatsoever, does not NEED the body's eyeballs, and can SEE WITHOUT A BODY. This vision LOOKS ONLY AT THE REAL WORLD - at the face of christ. It is FIXED, in a position of TRUE PERCEPTION.

Now, this flies in the face of common belief that you "transition your ONE perception" from false to true. False perception is an illusory hell. True perception is an illusory heaven. You however can choose WHICH FORM OF SEEING YOU USE. You can also TRADE OFF one for the other.

Using 60% christ vision causes you to use 40% body sight. Using 90% christ vision causes you to use 10% body sight. You CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS.

So what actually happens is, your MIND is electing HOW MUCH TO BELIEVE in each of these TWO WAYS OF SEEING. Will it believe the body totally? Will it believe the spiritual eye totally? And how much? And as you believe one, you do NOT believe the other.

The spiritual eye is just as much a WAY OF SEEING as the physical eye is a way of seeing. Your MIND elects WHICH to pay attention to. And if you pay attention to one, it is because you have DENIED the other. You cannot FULLY use both at once. It's one or the other. You can't BOTH have physical sight AND christ vision operating FULLY at once.

"The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."

So instead of thinking of your perception as being this SINGLE thing that you need to "shift" out of falseness into trueness, instead thinking there being TWO RADIO CHANNELS, you can TUNE INTO one, by TUNING OUT of the other. You can't listen to both. As you TUNE IN to christ vision's station, you begin to see the LIGHT that christ vision can see. As you tune out of that, into the body's sight, you begin to see the WORLD OF BODIES (which is the world of sin). And doing this BLOCKS your RECEPTION of the christ vision station. It blocks your sight.

You cannot EVER make the body see reality. You also cannot ever make christ vision see the body. YOU, as mind, have to choose WHICH of them you will see, and how much. And only when you choose to see christ vision FULLY, will you STOP SEEING THE PHYSICAL WORLD. "The world is forgotten". The VEIL of physical matter becomes transparent and disappears!

"Its thinness and transparency are not apparent, until you see the light BEHIND it. And then you see it as a fragile veil, before the light."

"For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight."

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father."

"Only That can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be His only Son."

The physical world THUS VANISHES FROM YOUR MIND. You cease using the body entirely. You stop seeing physical matter. You stop interacting with the PHYSICAL world, which does NOT EXIST.

"Heaven is all that remains."

"Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God."

"here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

"The stars will disappear, and night and day will be no more. All things that come and go, the tides, the seasons, and the lives of men; all things that change with time and bloom and fade, will not return."

"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him.""