Forgiveness is a high state of mind, aligned with the Holy Spirit's vision, in which you SEE and RECOGNIZE everything for what it truly is. That which is true is recognised and accepted as true, while that which is false is recognised and rejected as false.

The problem is, when you are lost and confused amidst various mental distortions, delusions, deceptions, convictions, being a victim and seeing yourself as a body and other such things, that high state of accurate truth that would set you free is "inaccessible."

So then you have a paradox. The very state of mind you need to get INTO in order to be free from the delusions of the mind and its suffering, is only a state that you can reach AFTER the delusions have stopped. The very forgiving viewpoint needed for accurate perception and recognition, is hidden behind all the clouds of deception and lies. So how do you navigate out of the ego mess you've made when you can't see straight?

First thing is you should ask the Holy Spirit to help you before you even attempt to forgive, and ACIM tells you you should be doing this every time:

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

So you are supposed to ASK FOR HELP first, because you're so lost and confused you don't know the way out of your insanity. Then having asked for help, you RECEIVE help, by being willing and open. Particularly a willingness to be mistaken about what you believe, and willing to move closer to the truth.

Then the Holy Spirit can help you. You should find that as you then begin to try to unravel the tangled mess of your ego victimhood, your mind is going to take a different course - the Holy Spirit can and will influence your thinking and cause you to come to insights and conclusions and realizations and perspectives quite effortlessly.

Like your mind just starts to open up and flow on a kind of slipstream of inspiration, on a path that leads quickly upwards. This is the Holy Spirit enlightening your mind, and it works in realtime AS you proceed to work through your dilemma. As you have willingness and receptivity to find a way to the truth, He helps you along and lifts you up.

Eventually you'll want to get to the place where you can see clearly that the beliefs you had were mistaken, the guilt was unfounded, there has been no sin, and therefore there's no need to keep supporting the victimhood and suffering that you were choosing. Then in that atonement-view you can let it go.

"Ask then His help, and ask Him how to learn forgiveness as His vision lets it be. You are in need of what He gives, and your salvation rests on learning this of Him."

"To keep it for yourself to solve WITHOUT His help is to decide it should remain UNsettled, UNresolved, and lasting in its power of injustice and attack."

"Prepare for this each morning, remember God when you can throughout the day, ask the Holy Spirit's help when it is feasible to do so, and thank Him for His guidance at night. And your confidence will be well founded indeed."

Another ego trap with forgiveness is believing that you need to be at peace regardless of what's going on in life. While this might ultimately be the goal, meanwhile the things that happen in life are there because they are lessons.

They're not just happening at random. Each of us has a curriculum. That means, whatever point you are at right now in your spiritual path, which is extremely unique to you, and whatever you are experiencing now, there are certain things you are going to have to learn or discover in order to move forward.

And the way that you learn those things is that you have learning experiences, ie lessons. And usually these lessons are things that you seem to NOT WANT. And so a great big steaming SHIT comes along in your life and dumps itself on your foot and you just go about trying to shake it off, but it's really trying to help you wake up.

There is something involved in your interaction with the shit and how you deal with it and look at it and experience it, which is going to bring stuff up for you, trigger you, and cause you to have certain kinds of perceptions and thoughts and ideas. And you might not have had those if it were not for this stimuli. But before you just try to get rid of the shit for coming along to disturb you, realize that this is actually an opportunity to grow and heal and become more awake spiritually.

So you don't necessarily want to be in the business of making life SEEM to be like it doesn't have anything upsetting happening, or that it's just one big smooth ride, because that can be a form of denial, avoidance, and disassociation. And it can keep you stuck. Not saying you have to suffer willingly, but willingly is better than unwillingly, lol

Anyway... so ... forgiveness isn't about avoiding bad stuff. And it isn't just about transcending it and being at peace about it. The bad stuff is there FOR A REASON, because its a lesson in the curriculum, and you not only need it but have asked for it. And that's why it's come. Because you are ready for it. And now you need to learn a lesson from it. And if you don't learn it this time, it will come back again. You don't have a choice in that.

Be aware that the ego, especially the persona part of the ego, wants to get rid of all bad stuff and create an ILLUSION OF BLISS, which really plays into the idea that "ignorance is bliss", because in ignorance ie unconsciousness, you think you don't have any issues because you're in incredible denial. You don't want that. You don't really want a life of total ease and an easy ride, at least not until you genuinely have woken up all the way and don't have any curriculum left. Then it's truly plain sailing.

So 'doing forgiveness' should not be about making bad stuff go away, even though that's what most of us use it for most of the time. It's really to help you learn lessons and to undo what you have taught yourself already, which is mistaken. It is unlearning, which is how lessons are completed - the question is unlearned to reveal the answer. There was no problem until the answer became obscured by the separation, see.

There are over 250 references to this in the course explicitly tying God to the creations of many individuals. To refuse to accept this is simply unwillingness and denial. It means that oneness does not equate to "no individuals". It also means ACIM is NOT non-duality and we are not one big blob.

The information below is courtesy of Robert Perry.

The Course uses a number of terms to speak of the plurality of Sons.

Sons

The Course uses the term "Sons" 82 times. Simply using a plural term like this, of course, implies that there is more than one Son. Further, the Sons are often associated directly with Heaven, implying that they are not just post-separation illusions: "The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons" (T-7.XI.7:10).

Children

The Course uses the term "children" to refer to the "children of God" 42 times. This, of course, is another plural term. It, too, is often used to speak of God's children in Heaven, not just on earth, thus making clear that it's not just a post-separation concept. For example, "God knows His children with perfect certainty. He created them by knowing them" (T-3.III.7:9-10).

Creations

Creation is a technical term in the Course, referring to an act that takes place solely in Heaven. The Course is clear that no creation takes place in this world: "In this world it is impossible to create" (T-17.IV.2:1). Interestingly, the Course uses the plural word "creations" 118 times, mostly referring to God's creations (though many times to our own heavenly creations). For instance, "In the creation, God extended Himself to His creations and imbued them with the same loving Will to create" (T-2.I.1:2).

Sonship

The term "Sonship" is used 104 times. It is particularly significant because it at once captures both the unity and plurality of the Son. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the suffix "-ship" as referring to "the body of persons participating in a specified activity." The Sonship, then, is "the body of persons participating in the activity of being God's Son." It's clearly a membership concept. The Course refers to this, talking about "the members of the Sonship" (T-1.II.6:2). Further, the Course clearly links the Sonship with creation, which rules out the idea that the Sonship is a post-separation product: "The Sonship is the sum of all that God created" (T-1.I.19:2). "He [God] created the Sonship" (T-7.I.2:6).

Other terms

There are a number of other terms the Course uses to denote the plurality of Sons. Parts: "the parts of God's Son" (T-20.V.1:5), "parts of the Sonship" (T-12.IV.6:8). Aspects: "all aspects of the Sonship" (T-13.VI.6:4). Extensions: "His [God's] extensions are like Him" (T-12.IV.6:8). Channels: "His [God's] communication channels are not open to Him" (T-6.V.1:5). Brothers: "In every case you have thought wrongly about some brother God created" (T-4.IV.2:3). Minds: "all the minds which God created one with me" (W-pI.156.8:6). God's Thoughts: "All His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other" (T-6.II.8:1-2). Souls: This term was used copiously in the original dictation of the Course, and eleven references to it remain. It, of course, captures exactly the notion we are talking about, that of a God-created spiritual identity that is in some sense individual.

"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth."

"I am not of this world."

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

"There is no world apart from what you wish. ... Today’s idea is true because the world DOES NOT EXIST. And if it is indeed your own imagining, then you can loose it from all things you ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these appearances."

"How can a world of time and place exist if you remain as God created you?"

"There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought."

"Yet if you are as God created you, you cannot think apart from Him, nor make what does not share His timelessness and love. Are these inherent in the world you see? (No) Does it create like Him? (No) Unless it does, it is not real and cannot be at all. If you are real the world you see is false, for God’s creation is unlike the world in every way."

"There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere? "

"He always perceives this world as OUTSIDE himself, for this is crucial to his adjustment. He does not realize that he MAKES this world, for there IS no world outside him."

"My Kingdom is not of this world because it is in you. And you are of your Father. Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from beyond this world.

The world is not left by death but by truth, and the truth can be known by all those for whom the Kingdom was created, and for whom it waits.

If you will accept the fact that I am with you, you are denying the world and accepting God. My will is His, and your decision to hear me is the decision to hear His voice and abide in His Will.

The world can add nothing to the power and the glory of God and His Holy Sons, but it can blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it.

You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true. I am come to tell you the choice of which is truth is not yours to make. If it were, you would have destroyed yourself. Yet God did not will the destruction of His creations, having created them for eternity. His Will has saved you, not from yourself but from your illusion of yourself. He has saved you for yourself.

What God did not create does not exist. And everything that does exist exists as He created it.

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

Earth is in fact an alien world, and human bodies are alien bodies. Given that our true natural state or "home world" is The Kingdom of God (Heaven), Earth represents the total opposite to what is natural and is alien to it.

That which is is "alienated" is that which is separated or exiled or unlike. That which is "alien" is that which is so unlike your nature that it seems completely against it.

Jesus also refers to "alien" in the sense of heaven's truth being "alien to" how you are on earth, because it is so different. Here's what he has to say about you trying to be an alien in an alien world...

"Grievances are completely alien to love."

"If I hold grievances I am attacking love, and therefore attacking my Self. My Self thus becomes alien to me. "

"Try to avoid the tendency toward self-directed selection, which may be particularly tempting in connection with today's idea because of its wholly alien nature. Remember that any order which you impose is equally alien to reality."

"What is your Self remains an alien to the part of you which thinks that it is real but different from yourself."

"Stranger yet, he does not recognize to whom he comes, and yet maintains his home belongs to him while he is alien now who is at home."

"For in his home his Self remains. It asked no stranger in, and took no alien thought to be Itself."

"A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place which called you to return although you do not recognize the Voice, nor what it is the Voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown. Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here. Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind again."

"Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father's house, and knows that He is alien here."

"For He would bring you back with Him, that He Himself might stay, and not return again where He does not belong and where He lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts."

"Go home with Him from time to time today. You are as much an alien here as He."

"Yet it is up to us when this is reached; how long we let an alien will appear to be opposing His."

""Let me not separate my function from my will."

"I would not use this for an alien purpose."

"Today's idea, completely alien to the ego and the thinking of the world, is crucial to the thought reversal which this course will bring about."

"Today we try to understand the truth that giver and receiver are the same. You will need help to make this meaningful because it is so alien to the thoughts to which you are accustomed."

"When you GIVE UP peace, you are EXCLUDING yourself FROM it. This is a condition which is so ALIEN to the Kingdom that you CANNOT understand the state which prevails WITHIN it." "In your FORGIVENESS of this stranger, alien to you and yet your ancient Friend, lie HIS release, and YOUR redemption WITH him."

"The mind can think it sleeps, but that is all. It cannot change what is its waking state. It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body. What is alien to the mind does not exist, because it has no source. "

"When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while."

"Yet your defense sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable. For love now has an "enemy," an opposite; and fear, the alien, now needs your defense against the threat of what you really are."

"Its alien nature, TO THE EGO, is proof you will NOT find the answer there."

"Reason is ALIEN to insanity, and those who use it have gained a means which cannot BE applied to sin."

"The constancy of joy is a condition quite alien to your understanding."

"What NEEDS interpretation MUST be alien. Nor will it EVER be made understandable, by an interpreter you cannot understand."

"This child will teach you what you do not understand, and make it plain. For his will be no alien tongue."

"If you think about it, you will see that, while this kind of thinking is totally alien to having THINGS, even to the lower mind it is quite comprehensible in connection with IDEAS."

"He is not attempting to force an alien will UPON you."

"If you did not have divided wills, you would recognize that willing is salvation because it IS communication. It is impossible to communicate in alien tongues."

"Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own."

"For you HAVE hurt yourself, and made your Self your enemy. And now you MUST believe you are not you, but something alien to yourself and "something else," a "something" to be feared instead of loved."

"The Eternal Guest remains, but His Voice grows faint in alien company. "

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

"Without its function then, it has no peace, and happiness is alien to its thoughts."

"It is not the purpose of an alien power, thrust upon you unwillingly."

"And you WILL deny your Self, and walk upon an alien ground which your Creator did not make, and where you seem to be a "something" you are not."

"He would have no separation, like an alien will, rise between what He wills for you, and what YOU will."

"You know not what you say, and so you know not what is said to you. But your Interpreter perceives the meaning in your alien language."

"The seeds of sickness and the shame of sin He CANNOT bridge, for He cannot destroy the alien will that He created not."

"Nothing is so alien to you as the simple truth and nothing are you LESS inclined to listen to."

"He does not see the Christ in him who calls. What answer can he give to one who seems to be a stranger; alien to the truth and poor in wisdom, without the god who must be given him?"

"Herein lies the basis of all errors, for all of them are but attempts to compromise by seeing just a little bit of hell. This is a mockery so alien to God that it must be forever inconceivable. But the insane believe it because they are insane."

"Dreams of any kind are strange and alien to the truth."

"Sin has no place in Heaven, where its results are alien, and can no more enter than can their source. "

"If you will consider WHAT you have taught, and how alien it is to what you THOUGHT you knew, you will be COMPELLED to recognize that your Teacher came from BEYOND your thought-system, and so could look upon it fairly, and perceive it was untrue."

"It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names and thousands more. Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which communication is achieved and concepts can be meaningfully shared."

"God's Will does not oppose. It merely is. It is not God you have imprisoned in your plan to lose your Self. He does not know about a plan so alien to His Will."

"Let us not try longer to impose an alien will upon His single purpose."

"And no thought ALIEN to His Oneness can abide with Him there."

"The ego does not know the difference between grandeur and grandiosity, because it does not know the difference between miracle-impulses and ego-alien beliefs of its own."

"There is no thought in all the world which leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought which it reflects. It is as alien to the world as is your own reality."

"Perceiving something alien to itself in your MIND, the ego turns to the body, NOT the mind as its ally BECAUSE the body is not part of you."

"The world began with one strange lesson, powerful enough to render God forgotten, and His Son an alien to himself, in exile from the home where God Himself established him."

"Nothing at all has happened, but that you have put yourself to sleep, and dreamed a dream in which you were an alien to yourself, and but a part of someone ELSE's dream."

"The son of man perceives an alien will, AND WISHES IT WERE SO."

"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."

"To value specialness is to esteem an alien will, to which illusions of yourself ARE dearer than the truth."

"By adopting the ego's viewpoint, you undertook an ego-alien journey WITH THE EGO AS GUIDE. "

"Salvation does not seek to use a means as yet too alien to your thinking to be helpful, nor to make the kinds of change you could not recognize."

"Vengeance is alien to His Mind BECAUSE He knows of justice."

"To the world, generosity means "giving away" in the sense of "giving up." To the teachers of God, it means "giving away" in order to keep. This has been emphasized throughout the text and the workbook, but it is perhaps more alien to the thinking of the world than many other ideas in our curriculum."

"Teaching devices which are totally alien to a learner's perceptual system are usually merely disruptive."

"Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT."

At all times you perceive ONLY what you believe is true. This can be a trap when you're not ACTUALLY believing the Real Truth.

What it does, is it makes you think that you are seeing everything there is to see, when in fact you are only seeing a 'version' of reality that has your idea of truth/reality projected onto it.

So then you get stuck, because you think, well, today I feel afraid because the world is scary. Or, today I am happy and everyone seems happy too. Or, today I am terrorized and the world is full of terrorists, etc.

What I've noticed is, that the kind of world I see totally depends on what is going on inside of me. And I'll be convinced that I'm seeing OBJECTIVELY, as though I'm not having anything to do with why the world appears to me the way it does. And so then I don't see any way out of it - my only choice is to try to 'cope' with it.

So if you think of the world as being like a mirror, in which you see reflected your own mind's content, you'll be basically looking at yourself everywhere you go. And by yourself I mean, your belief in whatever you think is true. Because whatever is 'true' for you, you take that as your identity and as your reality, regardless of whether it is actually true.

So your perception of the world is usually SUBJECTIVE, and limited, BUT you do not realize that you are being subjective and limiting in the way you're looking at what's there. You don't realize you're filtering OUT stuff because of the way that your idea of truth filters IN stuff. You select some attitudes or beliefs as 'correct' and others as 'incorrect' and all of that incorrect stuff ends up outside of your awareness - you make it unconscious through rejection and denial.

For example, if I choose to be loving, it is extraordinary that, all of a sudden, it seems like there aren't any reasons to be afraid. People seem less threatening. Life seems more fun. But if I don't be loving, I feel more afraid, and more threatened, and it really seems like other people are the cause of the threat - like they 'really are' being threatening. But them seeming to be that way and me experiencing fear go hand in hand... they go together.

What you experience in your perception is ALWAYS matched up to/aligned with what kind of a world you will see. If you are in fear, you can ONLY see a fear-inducing world. If you are in love, you can ONLY see a love-inducing world. And so if the world seems to suck, it's because you believe that you suck. Or rather, you believe in some things which suck but you think they don't suck.

And that's part of the trap. You can get lost in your narrow filtered perception, thinking you're really seeing everything there is to see, and that you're seeing correctly and clearly, when in fact you are majorly distorting and blocking out many parts of 'what is out there', because you're blocking it in your mind. When there are no blocks, you'll see 'the forgiven world', because you will have forgiven yourself. But when you haven't forgiven yourself, you will see a condemned world, because you have condemned yourself.

You'll notice then that whatever experience you're having of the world 'out there', it seems to 'call for' or directly map to certain 'reactions' of a given amount of severity. And when the world 'out there' seems to be intense and serious, you seem compelled to also have an intense serious reaction, because you always connect what you perceive out there with what's going on inside of you.

If the world out there seems to 'make a move' and do something to 'make' situations worse, your ego self is pulled right along with the story and down into the story, where YOU become the mirror of what's happened. And you have a severe reaction. Whereas when YOU decide to make a move, realizing that you are NOT seeing everything there is to see, that you are only seeing the past, and that everything that's happening right now is because of PAST decisions and the future DOES NOT have to be the same, now you are starting to step outside of your own 'reality bubble'. You can deliberately choose to accept more love into yourself, within, and therefore REVEAL to yourself more love without - which, by the way, was always there, just hidden.

The way that the out-there maps to the in-here is what sets up the "hierarchy of illusions". ie, varying kinds of inner and outer statements of truth cause reactions of equivalent amounts. It's almost like in the law of physics where each action has an equal and opposite reaction. Each external-seeming event produces an equal response in the ego within - because secretly, that's where it CAME FROM.

So be careful not to get stuck in thinking that you are being objective. The only objectivity is PURE LOVE. If you are not in pure total love, you are filtering reality and have blocked yourself from being aware that LOVE IS PRESENT. You do not see God because you think he is not there, and you think this is an objective fact, but the only reason you don't see God is because you do not believe God is in your mind. Your mental blocks to love cause the world outside of you to seem like a blocked, insane place.

It is extremely easy to get stuck in this, for example if you are afraid, you will perceive that the whole world 'really is' a fearful place, and that fear is JUSTIFIED because of the kind of world you see. But you don't realize that the fearful world you see is fearful BECAUSE you are being afraid. It did not cause the fear, it is a PROJECTION of the fear. A mirror. A reflection. So while you're having your insane nightmare, and really believe that bad stuff is happening outside you, it's because bad stuff is happening inside you. They go together hand in hand.

So you have to be willing to make a kind of leap of faith. The leap of faith says, maybe there is a greater reality, a greater truth, outside of what I currently believe, outside of my self-imposed prison, and outside of the condition of the world as I currently see it. Maybe there is are hidden parts to what's out there, that I don't currently see, because I am blocking it. And maybe, maybe God is out there, and maybe God is love, and maybe I am just not seeing and experiencing God's presence because I'm blocking it. Maybe BEHIND and BEYOND my blocks, love is still there, with me.

This is what faith is about... hurdling over the obstacles to peace and trusting that God is still love and you are still love regardless of how your perception CURRENTLY looks. It isn't about staying IN your current subjective perception and believing that it is objective reality or that you have to stay there, because in order to BECOME aware of God's love you must actually GO past those blocks and OPEN UP to the awareness that God really is present. And for that, you have to remove those blocks and filters from your mind, otherwise you simply cannot see Him right in front of your face.

God is right with you right now, smiling and happy. If you're not experiencing that, you've got some healing to do. The forgiven world is right in front of your face right now, filled with love and light, and if you're not seeing that, you've got some forgiving to do. Ultimately, you are still with God right now and the separation hasn't happened, and if you're not seeing that, you've got some undoing to do.

Be willing to be mistaken about how the world looks to you. You're not seeing it clearly unless you're seeing love.

So ultimately, when you are afraid, or you're struggling with the world in the way that the world 'is' (seems to be). .pause a moment and ask yourself, is it possible I am not seeing all of reality? Is it possible that my justification for being afraid or upset is actually CAUSING myself to see the world incorrectly and PRODUCING the justification? What if ... what if I choose instead to be more loving or truthful or authentic, and maybe keep my mind open to the possibility that WHEN I CHOOSE LOVE, I WILL SEE LOVE.

And when you do choose love, that love in you will shine away all of the fear and all of the seeming 'reasons' to be afraid. And all problems will melt. And you'll have no way to justify the ego, because all of its justifications only seem true from WITHIN it. Once you step outside of your private reality bubble, the ego is gone and there is NO REASON to be afraid or upset, because all that's left is God's love. When there is only love, and that is true for you, there is no reason to be afraid. Literally. There only seems to be reasons to be afraid when you are afraid. If you CHOOSE not to be afraid and to be love instead, all of the 'reasons' for fear will completely disappear from your awareness. They were just illusions.

So it takes a willingness to go beyond yourself, beyond your blocks and self-made limits, and to realize YOU ARE NOT STUCK because you have a CHOICE and if you exercise that choice and stop believing your own HALLUCINATIONS, and your own filtered version of reality, and realize that all your reactions TO it are PART OF you MAKING IT seem to be the way it is, you can make a LEAP into a more truthful, loving experience, in which you are absolutely safe because there is only love there.

There is no fear or danger or death in reality. There is no cause for alarm. There is only safety and love and peace. How else can God be constantly at peace if there were ever reasons to threaten that? God is the peace that God experiences. Herein lies the peace of God.

When you are angry, you are using projection to try to make someone guilty. It's really an attempt to take some guilt or pain or upset from inside of you and push it out onto the world.

"ALL anger is nothing more than an attempt to MAKE SOMEONE FEEL GUILTY."

When you do this, if you watch carefully, you may notice a sensation of "separating off". While it seems like you are attacking outwardly, as if pushing something onto the world, you also feel a sense of withdrawing, distancing, stepping away. As though you are breaking off from the thing you're attacking and being more separate from it.

Although the feeling you have may be one of hurt or pain or guilt or justified anger, which you're trying to accuse someone else of, the actual side effect is that you are attacking yourself from the outside in and pulling yourself away from others. So you simultaneously are pushing and pulling at the same time, which splits the mind, like ripping it apart. It's this splitting that actually produces suffering.

"Projection will ALWAYS hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its ONLY purpose is to KEEP THE SEPARATION GOING. It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel DIFFERENT from your brothers and separated FROM them."

What this means is that you are trying to "separate from" what you see. In the workbook there is a curious lesson which speaks of you joining with what you see instead.

"For vision CAN but represent a wish, because it has NO power to create. Yet it can look with love or look with hate, depending only on the simple choice of whether you would JOIN with what you see, or keep yourself apart and separate."

"Today we are trying to use the new kind of projection. We are not attempting to get rid of what we do not like by seeing it outside. Instead, we are trying to see in the world what is in our minds, and what we want to recognize is there. Thus we are trying to join with what we see, rather than keeping it apart from us. That is the fundamental difference between vision and the way you see."

When I first read this in Lesson 30 I had no clue what it meant by "joining with what you see." Like, how do you do that? How do you join with a world which is supposed to be an illusion? How am I not joining now? Surely I'm not separated off, in a position to need to join?

But for sure when we are angry and expressing ego pain we are indeed separating off. We attack in anger and hatred. We make everything an enemy. We make the whole world wrong and condemn it for its shortcomings. And while doing this, our own mind is actually splitting.

The split then seems to take place between you and the other, or you and the world, not realizing that part of your mind includes them and is in them. So you split off from the fact that you are here AND there. And then you see yourself as only here, and not there. This is something you can actually notice happening in your mind while you do this.

To join with what you see then means to stop attacking, stop splitting, stop projecting guilt, stop making guilty, and essentially, "stop separating."

The separation from God wasn't just some ancient moment of leaving heaven. It was a movement into a dissociated state in which your mind becomes split, and then attempts to continue that state indefinitely. The separation was the beginning of the war upon yourself, and the ego tries to keep it going.

It is something that takes place in your mind between your mind and itself. It's actually a form of dissociation. It's a way whereby you experience internal conflict and attack upon yourself, split off part of yourself and see it as a separate enemy.

"Exclusion and separation are synonymous. So are separation and dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and IS dissociation, and also that once it had occurred, projection became its main defense, or the device which KEEPS IT GOING."

So notice here that Jesus is saying we've put ourselves into a separated state by attacking ourselves and splitting our mind, AND then we KEEP IT GOING, by projecting it through hate onto what SEEMS to be stuff outside or separate from yourself, in order to REINFORCE the idea that "it" IS separate from yourself, in order to keep perpetuating separation.

So if you are angry at something, you are trying to be separated off. And if you'll notice, if you attempt to "not separate", ie not attack, your projection of guilt subsides and your ego deflates and you stop projecting and separating. And what you then experience is more of a sense of unity or wholeness, a sense of joining ,a sense of love and connection.

You can actually try to "not separate", ie to not resist, attack, push away, condemn, judge, or make guilty, etc. Instead embracing and opening and allowing and accepting, loving and sharing and joining. Separation is you REJECTING stuff, trying to EXCLUDE it.

So really the question is, are we walking around being separators, or are we walking around being joiners? Are we attacking or healing? Are we projecting guilt or withholding judgement? Are we broadcasting hate and hurt or are we giving love?

"What you project you disown, and therefore DO NOT BELIEVE IS YOURS. You are therefore EXCLUDING yourself from it, by the very statement you are making that you are DIFFERENT from someone else. Since you have also judged AGAINST what you project, you attack it because you have already attacked it BY rejecting it. By doing this UNCONSCIOUSLY, you try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself FIRST out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe."

If you exclude, ie attack, ie project guilt, you are increasing separation and insanity. By excluding, you are separating off. This is forming an ego or a sense of being separate. When you are separate you will feel like the whole world is against you and that you are at war with it, that you have taken a side against it and are not on the same side as it or anyone else. This is because there is internal conflict in the mind. An excluding mind is a split mind, because it does not want to share a single space with anyone else. Another word for joining is INTEGRATION.

You may also notice that fear produces the same split mind, the same separation, and the same desire to push something away. Fear is an attempt to run away from and thus separate off from something else. There is a pulling away and a sense of wanting to be separate or distanced from something. To get away from it.

This is a rejection, just as the projection of guilt through anger is also secretly an attempt to reject. Anger seems less obvious of a rejection because it has overtones of attack aimed outward, but subtly you'll find that fear also is a form of attack in a more passive way. If anger is over outward attack, with subtle withdrawal, fear is overt withdrawal with subtle outward attack. Both are just more forms of the same attempt to SEPARATE. "Fear produces dissociation because it induces SEPARATION. Healing ALWAYS induces harmony because it proceeds from integration."

"When you think you are projecting what you do NOT want, it is still because you DO want it. This leads DIRECTLY to dissociation, for it represents the acceptance of two goals, each perceived IN A DIFFERENT PLACE, separated from each other BECAUSE YOU MADE THEM DIFFERENT. The mind then sees a divided world OUTSIDE ITSELF, but NOT within. This gives it an illusion of integrity, and enables it to believe that IT is pursuing one goal. As long as you perceive the world as split, YOU are not healed. For to be healed is to pursue one goal, because you have ACCEPTED only one, and WANT but one."

"Can you be separated from your identification and be at peace? Dissociation is NOT a solution; it is a DELUSION."

"What better vocation could there be for any part of the Kingdom than to restore it to the perfect integration that can make it whole?"

"The mind always strives for integration, and if it is split, and WANTS TO KEEP THE SPLIT, it will believe it has ONE goal by MAKING IT ONE."

"True depth perception becomes possible only at the highest order of perceptual integration."

Ok so this might be a bit controversial.

It seems to me, there MUST be "different things" in heaven, somehow. When you start to look at it, there's just too many different things happening there.

1) God created the one son or sonship, which comprises the sons of God. That's fine. If God were to have only created this we could perhaps say that everything God created is of one kind and its all like God and there are no differences. Except...

2) God also created the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not exactly identical to the sons of God and has his own function or role. Now ask yourself, how is it possible for there to be multiple roles in a reality that's supposed to be all equal and one?

3) Beyond this, God also created the angels. We're told for example that Lucifer was an angel who projected himself out of heaven in the separation. Which means he lived in heaven prior to the separation. So now we have this different 'type' of being. And we're also told that angels were created "below" the sons of God, with a function of protection, whereas the sons of God have a function both protection and creation. So doesn't this imply that angels do not have their own creations? So how is it not possible that God has created "different kinds of beings?"

4) This leads on to the fact that the sons of God were created to add to the sonship, and do so by creating their own children. And what's to say that all of these children are exactly the same like a bunch of clones? So now you've got the children of the sons of God, who presumably we can say are equal in every way to the sons of God, including the fact that the children also are co-creators. This doesn't necessarily violate the idea that God only creates one kind of thing though, as we're told there is one continuous line of creation.

"Nothing in either of these statements implies any sort of level involvement, or, in fact, anything except one continuous line of creation, in which all aspects are of the same order."

5) If you now look slightly further afield, for example in the bible and elsewhere, or through personal experience, you'll discover that there are allegedly many different KINDS of angels. For example there are the archangels, guardian angels, cherabim, seraphim, principalities, thrones, and these all have various "hierarchy" to them. It also appears that each of the archangels for example has a "special role" or function, whereby they focus on helping people in various aspects of life, be it healing or protection or guidance etc. And we're also told Lucifer was the light-bearer or one of the brightest/most beautiful angels and why would he be different to others in this way?

It seems to me that regardless of any attempt to force heaven's contents into a nice ego box, the reality is that God in fact has many thoughts ("heaven is the sum of all God's thoughts, in number infinite.") And some of these thoughts might in fact be different. Which suggests God is not just sitting there "radiating" like some fixed light bulb, but rather is a living, thinking being, that is capable of having "different thoughts".

After all, the thought that produces the sonship and sons of God, is in some manner different to the thought that produces angels. And that in turn is also different to the thought that produced the holy spirit. Just the mere fact that the holy spirit was created in response to the separation, and was added to the christ mind, as something that was not in the christ mind prior, tells you that God is CAPABLE of creating "different things with different functions."

Now don't be fooled by the idea of differences always means ego. It does not. Nor does the idea of separation always mean ego divisions. e.g. Ego separation is not well understood by many people and it does not mean that the removal of all hints of separation is "non-ego".

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

So we're told God created distinct individuals, who share everything with each other, which is fine. There's nothing ego about that, because ego is a problem of ATTITUDE and a breakdown in COMMUNICATION, it's not a problem of whether there are many beings or individuals. It's only an issue that they no longer want to SHARE EVERYTHING, which enters them into thoughts of selfishness and specialness.

It's quite plausible, if you think about it, that God is quite capable of very intelligently, unlimitedly, having various kinds of thoughts or thoughts which result in various kinds of creations, all of which are still living in harmony, all of which still possess divine holy properties, all of which share everything, but that nevertheless are distinct in some ways. Particularly in terms of their roles and capabilities. Because it does not sound as though angels are co-creators as such. That said, we ARE told that the holy spirit is also a co-creator.

What I want to be able to say is that God is one nature and one being and has one extension which is like a mirror image of himself and that's all he has created. But this just does not seem to correlate to what Jesus says in the course. Not only has he created more than one son in the sonship, in fact great numbers of beings, but also it appears he has created beings that have different functions and roles IN heaven, that has nothing to do with ego or separation. Which makes you wonder what ELSE God might have created.

We are also told that God created some manner of a universe or world, and so that now throws an additional "thought creation" into the mix. God has a kingdom, and he also mentions that angels have a kingdom, and so do you. And that your mind has the power to create worlds. Which all is starting to paint more of a picture that perhaps heaven is not just some big blob of light in which nothing is really happening, but rather than perhaps it is teaming with life and various different "stuff", that spirit beings are floating around having creative thoughts and conversations of some kind, and who knows what else.

What it boils down to for me is simple that God evidently has the power, ability, flexibility of thinking, and will, to be ABLE to create more than one kind of thing. Sons, angels, holy spirit, they are not all the same. And there IS a holy trinity which is real, and has distinct parts. There are so many statements in the course talking about parts and aspects of God. It does not appear God is a one-trick pony nor that he can only "burp out a single son of God". God appears to be much more versatile, unlimited, and quite capable of a plethora of creations. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to create the holy spirit.

I was thinking about this and about the fact that "God did not create the body." And what came to mind was that perhaps in heaven, there are not bodies - which are walls of flesh and separation devices surrounding the mind - but that in fact in heaven we still have our mind/soul but WITHOUT the body SURROUNDING it, separating it off in a prison. Like, who you are within, your mind/soul/spirit, remains as a full being, and the outer-shell of the body which is made of sin is no longer there. We're like the oyster inside the shell.

Jesus tells us also that "to be without a body is to be in your natural state" and "minds need not bodies to communicate." Does this not imply that 1) we exist together as a family without bodies surrounding our selves, and 2) we interact through communication, and 3) we're having communication with other spirit beings in heaven through a telepathic mind-to-mind means? That doesn't exactly paint a picture of "nothing happening" in heaven.

While it's true there are no separation forms or spacetime-bodies or physical materials coming between us in reality, it is perhaps false to suggest that this means we don't have an individual difference. Our spirit being, let's think of it as perhaps a whisp of light, a spark of life, a shaft of being, perhaps does have some kind of unique "something" about it. What if God did in fact create all sons of God slightly differently? And what if this is not an ego thing? How is it that the angels have different abilities and functions? What if you actually have some kind of "personality" that is a little different to other personalities, in reality?

When you read stuff in other texts like the bible etc about the fall of man and so on, you hear about how there were things going on in heaven. There were arguments and conflicts, even a kind of war, and different individuals had different attitudes. In the course even, Jesus literally says that there was someone called ADAM, who started the tiny mad idea. How is it possible that people even had NAMES that are potentially different and potentially "human like"? And why does Jesus even refer to the sons of God as MAN?

Referring to people, sons of God, as 'man', or as souls that have choices and are co-creators, and different kinds of angels, etc certainly seems to hint at Heaven containing a plethora of different beings, who perhaps are distinct in some way, whereby their "spirit" has certain qualities or character. Beings of light are not just blobs. And just because we think of them abstractly doesn't mean they're non-descript and have no kind of personality. In fact, there are even statements in the course to suggest that God has feelings.

The jury is out, and more information is needed, but just based on what I've talked about, to me it sure sounds as though there's a whole lot more going on in Heaven than we might give it credit for.

Time and eternity are opposites. The eternal is always existing, always is here and now, and is forever. There is no beginning or end. There is never a possibility of change, or of what has always existed ceasing to exist. There is no death, and only eternal life is real.

Time is an attack on eternity. It is the idea that what has always existed no longer exists, what is here now is not eternal, and what is here now will end. It is the idea of change, and of the idea of loss and therefore death. It is an attempt to insert a delay in eternity and to crease a distance from the here and now. It is avoidance of presence and avoidance of God.

Spacetime is a completely artificial construct and is completely false and unreal. It is nothing like eternity and has no permanent reality. It had a seeming beginning and it absolutely will have a seeming end. Endless time is an impossibility. Infinite time is an impossibility. Time is not real, and neither is space. Delay or distance from the ever-present unceasing and forever permanence of God is nothing more than denial.

Space is an attack on the ever-present existence of God. It suggests that God who is everywhere always, is nowhere ever. That nothing is ever whole, or wholly existing. That what is here is not there, and what is there is not here. That everything is limited and nothing is unlimited. That everything is separate and nothing shares anything.

Given that God is everywhere always, space attacks God by suggesting that there is nowhere that everything exists. And nothing exists everywhere. Meaning the everything exists nowhere, and God therefore does not exist. This is why in spacetime it appears that God has no existence whatsoever. It is false and untrue and completely opposite to reality. Both space and time are nothing but a false belief, believed by insane minds, dreaming of exile from the eternity of truth.

"Ultimately, of course, space is as meaningless as time. The concept is really one of space-time BELIEF. The physical world exists only because man can use it to correct his UNBELIEF, which placed him in it originally. As long as man KNEW he did not need anything, the whole device was unnecessary." UrT1B41AR

"Together, we can laugh them BOTH away, and understand that time can NOT intrude upon eternity. It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which MEANS there is no time. A timelessness in which is time made real; a Part of God Which can attack Itself; a separate brother as an enemy; a mind WITHIN a body; all are forms of circularity, whose ending starts at its beginning, ending at its cause." UrT27I6

"Today the light has come. And you will see the world that has been promised you since time began, and in which is the end of time ensured." UrW75L7

"So do the parts of God's Son gradually join in time, and with each joining is the end of time brought nearer." UrT2F1 "And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time." UrU5A5

"the Holy Spirit KNOWS it is not true. He stands at the end of time, where YOU must be, because He is WITH you." UrT11J8 "And here They join, for 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." UrU5A7