Ego's world is run by the egoic thought system, based on an EITHER-OR mindset of separation.

God's world is run by God's thought system, based on a BOTH-AND mindset of sharing.

EITHER-OR is based on the idea of separation - there is a separation between who has and who has not, who does and who does not, what is and what is not, etc. An object is this, but not that. It's either red or blue. It's either here or there.

BOTH-AND is based on sharing, something is equally true of both me and you, we both have everything, me and you are loved the same by God, etc. There is no separation in that. What exists is in all locations simultaneously, space and time do not place limits on anything.

Because the world of physical matter is entirely an expression of the egoic thought system, space and time and everything within them (bodies, planets, etc) are governed by this idea of EITHER OR. Living in such a world, the seemingly "natural" way to think about anything is to align our thought processes to the "natural world" and think in accord with it.

So now we "learn" to think in an EITHER-OR way. Either I will turn left or right. Either I will eat at 5 or at 6. Either I'm male or female. Either I am asleep or awake. Either I choose option A or option B.

We adopt this as an entire way of thinking about the world, of reasoning about anything, of what to do, where to go, what to choose, always a selective judgement based on either this or that. It seems to "fit" well with the way the physical world is structured and how it behaves. But it is completely unnatural and completely opposite to God's world.

In God's world, seemingly miraculous things are possible. Everywhere. All the time. Everything in God's world breaks all the ego's laws of separation, and therefore the entire basis of EITHER-OR thinking. God does not think, hey, either one son or another will get my attention. He thinks, BOTH of them get my FULL attention. Nor does he think, I will give 50% attention to one and 50% to another. He thinks, I will give 100% love to both at the same time. And this is done WITHOUT loss, without sacrifice or lack, and without compromise.

The true meaning of divine sharing is that everything applies to BOTH me and you equally, simultaneously, and always. If there were such a thing as a divine pizza, I could eat the whole pizza and you could eat the whole pizza. We both get everything. This is not possible in the physical world, but it is possible in spirit.

One of the tricky things about understanding ACIM is that we come at it with the ego thought system. We come at it with EITHER-OR thinking. And that's a serious problem. Because whenever ACIM speaks of ANYTHING to do with God, Heaven, Creation, Sonship, Holy Spirit, Laws of God, beyond spacetime, etc.... any of those topics, the laws of GOD are applying, not the laws of ego.

So then a statement like "I and my father are One", is completely misunderstood. It's a truth WITHIN the scope of God's BOTH AND system of thought. There, I can be one with God while still being an individual. I am both, myself and part of God. The course also states that God has only one son, BUT that the one son is also many sons. It literally states that BOTH statements are true, that there is one, and many. The Sonship comprises many children, who are ALSO one.

But to the ego this seems nonsense, it cannot fathom how there can be ONE AND MANY at the same time. It insists that it is EITHER one, OR many. And then it decides that many sounds like an ego thing, and one sounds "more spiritual", so it hacks out the many from the one and ends up with its version of what Heaven must be like. And it's totally bullshit.

To grasp anything of the divine nature of the Kingdom, on ANY topic "that side" of the separation boundary, anything real and true, anything to do with Sonship or Creation or God, you have to totally put aside the EITHER OR exclusive separatist way of reasoning logically, think WAY out side the box, and adopt a BOTH AND way of reasoning. THEN the things that Jesus says that sound totally contradictory finally make perfect sense, WITHOUT having to change anything or turn stuff into ridiculous metaphors.

"One brother is all brothers." "One mind is all minds."

Does not mean there is EITHER one brother OR many brothers. Nor does it mean there is either ONE mind OR many minds. Literally, the entire statement is true. There are many brothers, and they are all one. There many minds, and they are all one. And as soon as your thought process tries to "axe" the "many" part of those statements in favor of keeping only the seemingly unifying "one" part of the statement, you're off on an ego tangent of error.

We are one, but we are still brothers. We are the one son of God, but we are also PART of a sonship of many sons. I am a child of God, and so are you. I have individuality, and so do you, and yet simultaneously we share everything. I have everything that God is, which should to the ego mean there is nothing left for you, but you also have everything that God is, simultaneously, because we share it all. Sharing does not mean a collapse of individuality either.

The BOTH AND system of thought, which "runs heaven", is a completely miraculous thought system. It defies all ego laws. It breaks space and time. It ignores silly limitations and false conclusions. It allows to be possible that which the world of EITHER OR would find absolutely impossible. It ignores spatial limitations of all kinds. This is why God is omnipresent, meaning existing in all locations simultaneously. It ignores the idea that we must be kept apart in order to be individuals. And it defies every attempt to split it up and compartmentalize it into nice little prison cells.

The entire Kingdom of God and everything in it is miraculous because of this fundamental logical premise of the whole system. "Nothing real can be increased (God cannot create) except by sharing". As God SHARES, this is an AND scenario. God AND his creation. God AND his son. BOTH God and His son exist. His son is in his likeness because they BOTH are of the same Kingdom and nature.

When I give to you, BOTH of us have it, and I do not lose it. This is why sharing INCREASES the supply in heaven, while sharing causes scarcity in the ego world. When God creates you, God gives ALL of himself to you and yet loses nothing and HAS everything still - BOTH you and God now share everything and there has been an INCREASE. This is miraculous, it dissolves the idea of separation and exclusivity, transcending all ego concepts. The entirety of reality depends on it.

The system of God's mind, his thought system, how the Kingdom is run, is entirely based on this idea of simultaneous sharing, union at the same time as creation, multiplicity at the same time as oneness, having everything while also sharing it with others without anyone being excluded in any way. Heaven is not like this world. It's laws are totally different to the separated-out world the ego made to depict isolation and selfishness. There is no selfishness in the Kingdom, only self-fullness.

"The ego is the idea of selfishness. The soul is the idea of self-fullness."

You have everything, and we all share it as God's family.

"Atonement is for all, because it is the way to UNDO the belief that ANYTHING is for you ALONE." UrT9C1

"The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO IT." UrT9C3

"But the Holy Spirit teaches you that if you look only at yourself you CANNOT find yourself because that is NOT what you are." UrT8D6

When you are being an ego, you believe you are a separate body. You suffer. And then you think that in order to improve yourself, you will work on improving YOU, and NOT others.

You think of yourself as isolated in a box, separated off, not sharing. And then you think that if you work on "yourself", you will be able to rise up to a high level, accept atonement for "yourself", and then be done. And it won't matter that everyone else has not chosen to do the same, because they're none of your business.

We could go about practicing the entire ACIM principles but still staying within the confines of the "I am a separate person" box. Improving me, awakening me, me becoming more loving, me undoing my own guilt, etc. This is all selfish of course and part of the ego identity.

What ACIM is ACTUALLY teaching, is something quite radical. That we are all part of a collective mind, sort of a collective hive mind of consciousness. And that means we are all one, and other people are a part of ourselves. Literally we are in them and they are in us. Our souls are fused together. EVERYONE CONTAINS EVERYTHING.

This is massively different. Because now it means that in order to come OUT of the prison of the ego and the body, you cannot just treat it like it's something that applies "only to you." You can't just "work on yourself" in isolation. It's not a "self study". It's not even POSSIBLE for you to approach awakening while still retaining a sense of "I am only myself, and other people are not me."

What we should be doing is recognising that at the higher level, the golden rule is kicking in, we are SHARING EVERYTHING with everyone, we are part of the whole sonship, and our mind is SHARED with other people's minds. Our souls, our identity in Christ, it is all SHARED. We are NOT just ourselves, we are many people.

"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth." UrW161L4

This is a holographic relationship. One whole (God), with many parts (beings), in which every part contains the whole (oneness among brothers), and there is ultimately only one whole (God) yet it has many wholes (sons of God) within it, which are collectively the shared one son/christ/heaven.

So if you are to make headway out of physicality, away from the body and the ego, any kind of progress in spiritual awakening, it can't be with the starting ego mindset of "I am a separate person", and you cannot KEEP that mindset if you want to awaken. It's not true of you. You are not ONLY yourself, you INCLUDE others. You are waking up FROM a sense of exclusion and selfish isolation, TO communion with everyone.

So if you want to apply something where you're like, I am holy and innocent and guiltless and sinless.... you can't really be regarding that as applying ONLY to you. It has to be more like, WE are BOTH innocent and guiltless and sinless. We are ALL innocent and guiltless and sinless. Because you ARE the sonship.

This reveals the extension of this that.... you have to INCLUDE your brothers in your own awakening, your own healing, your own giving and receiving. This is what makes you a teacher of God - shared interests. Other people are part of your self. You have to be willing to give love to the part of you that is in them, in order to receive it.

This is why, per the golden rule, what you do unto others you ARE DOING unto yourself. This is why you have to look for the GOOD in other people, in order to FIND it within yourself. Because you are not just you. This is why your BROTHER becomes your savior, because essentially there is part of YOU in your brother. If you want to see yourself as Christ or soul, you have to see the Christ/soul in the other person AS WELL. You are BOTH that.

Whatever applies to them applies to you, because you are equals. That means whatever you are trying to give to yourself - do for yourself - apply to yourself - you have to get out of that mindset and instead apply it to EVERYONE EQUALLY. You can't find your "self", or even your soul, by focusing ONLY on your own self/soul exclusively. You can't tap into "just my higher self", it has to be that you're tapping into the entire Kingdom of God.

You have to give to others what you want to receive for yourself. Which means you have to give love to other people in order to simultaneously give it to yourself. Giving and receiving are one.

The ego's law is one of inequality in which what applies to you does not apply to anyone else. Where you are separated off in isolation in a prison all alone. And to focus on accepting atonement "for yourself alone" is completely contradictory to how things really are. The golden rule, which is an unbreakable law of God, says that whatever is true of you is true of everyone. So either you BOTH are innocent, or you BOTH are guilty, but never can you be DIFFERENT or have something special that applies only to you and not them.

So our whole practice of applying spiritual principles "to ourselves", "for ourselves", HAS to start to OPEN UP and INCLUDE other people. It has to be about SHARING. Because heaven's law is all based on sharing. Everyone in heaven shares everything equally and fully. So I should be saying, WE are innocent, we are BOTH innocent, we are BOTH sinless, we are BOTH guiltless. This erases the SEPARATION BETWEEN us.

It's the separation that needs undoing, not some personal issue that hides in a separate box. If all you do is "fix only yourself", you are NOT undoing the separation BETWEEN you and the others, or between you and the part of you that is in them. And so that will put a ceiling on how much 'you' can wake up, because by not including others you are maintaining the separation and keeping it going, which limits you. You cannot go ALL the way without including everyone.

It is therefore ONLY through communication, shared minds, joined minds and hearts, union, holy relationship, true oneness, that the separation is actually undone. It's not enough to "work on yourself". You have to be open to working "on the sonship". You are working to help heal THE WHOLE, not just your selfish self. To accept atonement for yourself ACTUALLY means that you INCLUDE EVERYONE in "the truth that applies to all", in which you accept what is TRUE OF EVERYONE, not just yourself. Otherwise we're just staying selfish little separate people.

"The Miracle unites Souls directly with each other." UrT1B24K

"When two minds join as one, and share one idea equally, the first link in the awareness of the Sonship as one has been made." UrT16C4

"Healing is an act of thought by which two minds perceive their oneness, and become glad. This gladness calls to every part of the Sonship to rejoice with them, and let God Himself go out into them and through them." UrT5B1

"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness."

"The body can be healed as an effect of true forgiveness. Only that can give remembrance of immortality, which is the gift of holiness and love."

Sounds like we need to get a handle on this atonement and forgiveness business because Jesus is claiming it can cure ALL sickness, whether it be mind or body. Sickness is actually rooted in guilt. It's a form of punishment and vengeance.

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total."

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt."

When there is sickness, it's really that the mind is sick. A sick mind believes it is guilty. It sees itself guilty because it believes it has really sinned. Its guilt demands punishment and projects attack which attacks the body.

"But sickness is not of the body, but OF THE MIND. ALL forms of DISfunction are merely signs that the mind has split, and does not accept a UNIFIED PURPOSE."

"Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that IT will suffer pain." "and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick."

"Unless the mind BELIEVES the body is ACTUALLY acting out ITS fantasies, it will attack the body by INCREASING the projection of its guilt upon it."

"A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed."

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone."

Clearly there is a theme here that physical sickness is a form of guilt resulting from a sick mind. When there is guilt in the mind, the mind conceives of "sickness" and attacks the body with it. The body becomes sick, taking on the form of physical symptoms. And when the mind is guiltless the body becomes healthy because the mind believes in healing, harmlessness and life.

"The Holy Spirit KNOWS that ALL Salvation is escape from guilt."

"It (mind) will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey. Now is the body healed because the source of sickness has been opened to relief."

"(Atonement) It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

"There is no place where holiness is not, and nowhere sin and sickness can abide. This is the thought that cures."

"We will not be misled today by what appears to us as sick. We go beyond appearances today, and reach the source of healing from which nothing is exempt."

And we are reminded again that THE HOLY SPIRIT is the healer and the cure. "We will be still and listen for the Voice of healing which will cure all ills as one, restoring saneness to the Son of God. No voice but This can cure."

"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness. For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take. Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

To be clear, sickness is IMPOSSIBLE without guilt. Guilt IS sickness. The sickness of the body - illness, disease, damage, death, is all a form of guilt projected out as a shadow to disguise the guilt in the mind. "Guilt remains the only thing that hides the Father, FOR GUILT IS THE ATTACK UPON HIS SON."

"Minds ARE joined; bodies are not. Only by assigning to the mind the properties OF THE BODY, does separation SEEM to be possible. And it is MIND that seems to be fragmented and private and ALONE. Its guilt, which KEEPS it separate, is projected to the body, which suffers and dies, BECAUSE IT IS ATTACKED to hold the separation in the mind, and let it NOT KNOW its unity."

By associating a person with a body, believing the appearance of flesh and bones is "them", identifying them as physical, and thus making physical sickness a real and blinding deception, the body is confused with the mind. If the body is the mind then the body can cause sickness, which is level confusion and magic.

Thus to heal, the body must not be thought of as that which is truly sick. The body must not be thought of as the person. And the appearance of sickness must be recognized as an illusion covering up the mind's guilt. It's the guilt in the mind that is producing all physical symptoms. The mind is trying to destroy the body, having confused the body for the mind/self, as an attempt to destroy God's son.

In a sense, the notion of someone being "sick", is another way of saying "there's something wrong with you". Like when you accuse someone of "being sick" because of some disgust you have about what they're doing. The physical sickness is an accusation of guilt and corruption, or being dysfunctional and evil, a condemnation and an accusation of sin.

This is why the body is an effect or symbol of the mind, and its really the mind that is causing the body to die. This is why the body itself doesn't really "need" healing because it is just portraying the mind's sickness, and in and of itself is nothing but an image, faithful to its user and his/her intentions. Heal the mind of its guilt and the body MUST follow.

"The body needs NO healing. But the mind that thinks it IS a body is sick indeed! And it is here that Christ sets forth the remedy. His PURPOSE folds the body in His light, and fills it with the holiness that shines from HIM."

"And nothing that the body says or does but makes HIM manifest. To those who know Him not it carries Him, in gentleness and love, to heal their minds."

"Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have It not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die."

"With THIS as purpose IS the body healed. It is NOT used to witness to the dream of separation and disease. Nor is it idly blamed for what it did not do. It serves to help the HEALING of God's Son, and, for THIS purpose, it cannot BE sick."

"Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body's health is fully guaranteed because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible."

"I have forgotten what I really am,

For I mistook my body for myself.

Sickness is a defense against the truth,

But I am not a body. And my mind

Cannot attack. So I can not be sick."

Going into a questioning mode, in which you ask yourself, should I do this or shouldn't I.... is actually a movement into fear.

As soon as you're in this mode of perception, there is no way you're going to settle on a peaceful decision.

You'll think that deciding one way will bring you peace, except that.. you can't get the other way out of your mind. And then you think if you decide the other way, maybe that will bring you what you want, except that, the first solution still seems to have something about it that the other doesn't.

Always in this mode of fear, it is a mode of duality, where your mind is split in two and you can't "make up" your mind - because you HAVE 'made up' a mind - an ego mind, which is now trying to rectify the fact that it has to deal with two different and unrelated options.

By perceiving differences, you are fixating on the appearance that one option has something about it that the other does not, and these differences are what MAKE the two options seem like two distinct options. And yet, as soon as you see this and try to deal with it, you cannot possibly see any kind of certainty, truth, clarity, obviousness or lack of confusion.

There is no sane way to choose between these two different paths, at least not from within a position of choosing. When you're weighing up your options, what you're really doing is trying to decide whether to accept what's missing about one of the two things, versus whats missing about the other. And the fact that they are both incomplete, can only leave you uncertain and unconvinced.

The only way out of this confusion, which masquerades as very careful decision making - on your own, in isolation - but really is a movement AWAY from decision and certainty, is to entirely STOP this whole deception of choosing between things. When you are questioning what to do, you are questioning YOURSELF, and throwing yourself into fear and confusion needlessly. "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability." - ACIM

There is no way you can choose between things, because that requires separation and rejection and you will never be able to experience certainty or peace while separation is operating.

The only way to peace is to entirely step back out of the 'split' between options, to back off from being in a position of trying to know, or trying to figure out. You even need to get past the illusion that a decision even needs to be made, because the sense of NEED has entirely come from the very same FEAR that you have entered into, which has CAUSED you to think that you have to decide something in the first place. "Let my recognize my problems have been solved." - ACIM

You have to RECOGNIZE that what you are trying to do is impossible, and that's why you will be confused and frustrated. You need to see this deception for what it is - not two clear-cut choices, but a device for indecision, fear, egocentric control, and trying to know everything on your own.

You can't know everything when your mind is split. So when you are in this decision-making mode of selecting between things, you are not only choosing which of two things is "better", you're also choosing which of two IDENTITIES you want to associate with. And that means you are literally putting your SELF into one of two boxes.

Once you're inside boxes, or are attempting to hide in boxes in the name of getting out of a box, you can no longer see clearly and won't be able to feel the sense of relief and peace that comes from being OUTSIDE the box.

So really there is absolutely no way that your ego (split mind) can make a decision on its own and be certain or happy with it. Either you struggle and seek for truth in only one part of existence and not another, causing you to be inherently insane, or you stop trying to decide on your own.

Decisions can still be made from a vantage point outside of this split mind, where you join with Holy Spirit and see the whole situation as one, recognizing the temptation of the illusion of deciding for yourself and ceasing to enter into it. Then Holy Spirit can share His light and freedom with you, to instill a knowing, inspiration or guidance - a peace-based decision - which you CAN trust and feel certain about.

As Jesus says in the Course, seek not to make decisions about doing something you do not want to do, because it will only make you afraid.

You need to learn to notice when you've slipped into a "I don't know if I should" mode, or a "what should I do" mode, or a "I can't decide mode", which pretends to be decision-making, because it means you've gone into the ego split mind and cannot possibly decide anything. You are AFRAID, and for no real reason.

Questions are doubts. They are not real questions. This is why the tiny mad idea was a movement AWAY from knowing and truth, towards "questioning truth", i.e. entering into fear and doubt, in an attempt to pretend that you're looking for an answer, while using that excuse as a cover-up for actually moving AWAY from the answer.

Ego questions do not lead you to truth. They lead you to more illusions, and you will never find happiness or peace of mind there.

So stop yourself if you notice you're being indecisive. No matter what your ego mind says - for or against certain options - do not listen to ANY of the arguments or cases for or against anything. They are all deceptions, because the overall deception is you believing that you NEED to decide at all.

You only think you need to decide when you've become afraid, and really then you're in a state of fear, trying to decide something in order to gain relief from fear, but every effort to do so will just make you more afraid.

Imagine all the wonderful things you will actually achieve and 'do' and feel good about and act fearlessly on, when you're moving and flowing with Holy Spirit's truth and trust and awareness, instead of trying to be "sure" about what "you" need to do with "your" life.

What you will realize eventually, as is dawning on me now, is that maybe there isn't even a decision to be made, and maybe moving into decision-making is actually just fear and undermining yourself with your ego, and you need to stop doing THAT, because that is the real problem here, not what option to choose.

I thank Jesus for this clarification today, and for reminding me when I am questioning whether I'm doing the right thing, thinking that this means I have to decide all over again what to do, I need to recognize the real problem - I've entered into fear and have attacked myself, and that's the only reason I seem to be separated from truth. To return to truth I do not NEED to make this illusory decision, I need to stop listening to my own bullshit.

To accomplish this you need to portray yourself as different from God - not loving and not lovable.

You proceed to arrange for a whole bunch of people to come along and attack you. They are to do it out of the blue and it should appear to be uncalled for.

To make it uncalled for, you go into denial (amnesia) which puts you into a body. This body-self can now be attacked by the people you hired.

They come along and attack you and you feel affected. It changes your view of yourself. It makes you feel unloved. You use it to redefine yourself as unloved and unworthy of love. Apparently their actions proved it to you.

Now you, as the so-called victim, get to pretend that you did not ask for this at all. You also get to use this entire "I've been victimized" STORY, to describe and rationalize and justify why you're perfectly entitled to feeling unworthy. It was other people's choices, not your own. You claim you never hired them and didn't ask for it.

You feel sorry for yourself, hurt, destroyed, unloved, unworthy, sometimes to a very serious degree. It feels awful and you feel unfairly treated and sad about what happened to you. But, this is a fantastic disguise.

The unworthiness rejects love and portrays you as separate from God, because if God can't love you then you've had power over God's will. So indirectly, by way of your own self-arranged role of victim, you get to explain why God can't love you, which fulfills your WISH - your secret plan - to deny and reject God.

At some point you have to admit what you've done. You have to realize that you arranged everything to happen, you asked everyone to attack you, you orchestrated all of the events before you came into them, and you positioned yourself as a victim in order to disguise your secret death wish. You wanted to be dead because that would prove you are not like God, who is Life.

So if you're going to get honest, you will have to admit you did all of this. And since you arranged it all, you can no longer blame anyone. You can't blame the attackers. You can't use them to justify your unworthiness. And you can't keep up the PRETENSE that you are unworthy because, let's face it, you WANT to be unworthy on purpose so that you can deny God.

So really, as you allow this TRUTH to sink in, it is setting you free, because it's showing you that, really, nobody else has done anything against your will. You chose all of this. Sick as it may be, you did this to yourself.

Once you become REALLY CLEAR about this fact, completely owning up to this 100% without any blame on any external cause or anyone doing it to you or you being unfairly treated in any way, that it's all a big LIE, you are left with a simple situation.

There you are, all alone, having let everyone else off the hook (they were just doing their job which you hired them to do), you no longer can pin the responsibility on anyone else. Not even on God. It's not God's fault. So you're holding this whole game in your own hands, and you realize - the secret to salvation: You have done this to YOURSELF. All of it. The whole drama and the whole story that backed it up.

So if you did this to yourself, and if there is nowhere to PROJECT the blame, and you're taking full responsibility, THEN ...... you're going to experience something very obvious. You're going to experience what it feels like to admit that you have done nothing but be SELF DEFEATING. You haven't been defeated by anyone else or any other will. You've defeated yourself. And how does defeat feel?

Self defeat feels like TOTAL FUTILITY. That it is pointless. If nobody else is doing this to you - and you're fully clear on that - then - what's the point? Why continue with this game? Why continue with doing this to yourself when all of the 'reasons' - the false justifications and blame - has been shown for what it is, a lie? Why WOULD you do this to yourself?

When you get to this point and with nobody to project this onto, you ONLY have one decision. Either you keep feeling like SHIT, or you stop playing this silly ego game. Are you enjoying feeling unworthy for NO reason, especially when you DON'T HAVE TO? Accepting love starts to look a heck of a lot more attractive when you start to compare what your two options really are - do I give up this FUTILE fight against myself, which is only making me feel SHIT, or do I ADMIT that this isn't WORKING - it isn't making me HAPPY, and just drop the whole God-dam thing?

Why not just drop it and go back to God? Why keep fighting and denying and trying not to be loved, when love is perfectly on offer? You can't stop God from loving you. And he hasn't born a grudge because of your reluctance to accept it. So love is on offer, and you feel shit, and now what? Are you done feeling shit? Or do you want some more shit? Go ahead if you want some more. Maybe you are not ready yet. But typically (I am being presumptuous), once you take that full responsibility and stop projecting, and OWN the decision YOU made to WANT to deny love, you're probably going to realize how tremendously ridiculous it is, with no real merit at all. And that's probably enough to make you decide to SURRENDER.

Like, over here there's this big gleaming CAKE that you can eat and have as much as you like and it tastes great, OR you can go and starve and die. Your choice. Or, over here there is massive amounts of love that is totally FREE with no strings attached, being offered unconditionally, OR you can go rot in a corner feeling miserable.

Your choice. It was your choice to deny that God exists. It is still your choice whether you are WILLING to ACCEPT His love again. And this is where acceptance comes in. The opposite of denial is acceptance. Either you're denying love, or you're accepting it. Either you're choosing against love, or you're choosing FOR love.

And this is where it is decision time. You now get to CHOOSE. Do I want life, or death? Do I want happiness, or hell? Do I want love, or war? You choose. Nobody's forcing you. There's no pressure. You are free.

HOPEFULLY .... you will see enough SENSE, that you will choose to admit to the futility of your choice, and you will admit it is futile, and you will drop it. You'll drop your fight and just say, FUCK IT, I'm going back to God... going back Home to love. Why not! THERE IS NOTHING TO LOSE - because you already lost everything when you denied love. THERE IS EVERYTHING TO GAIN, because God is offering everything you could possibly want that you've been missing out on. It's a total WIN.

So now you choose God, by ACCEPTING what God is offering - the truth about God - love - and thus accepting that you are NOT separate from God, that the denial is a lie - God DOES exist, that God DOES love you, and that nothing has changed. This is accepting the ATONEMENT. You are becoming at-one with what you previously thought was separate.

Acceptance is peace.

Surrender your will and allow God to restore your sanity.

You need His love.

Choose again.

If someone tries to attack you, they have a problem. They are not sane. They are attacking themselves, but they're doing it in such a way that they think they are attacking someone else. Whatever they accuse you of, they are accusing themselves of.

Anyone who attacks is not in their right mind. No one in their right mind would attack, because they'd recognize that part of themself is in the other, and to attack them is to attack themselves. This is the law of God, the Golden Rule. Also the right minded are not split minded, and do not act against themselves or other.

If someone is attacking you, or it seems like they are, they are not really attacking who you are, they are attacking an image in their mind of what they think you are. And this image is really an image of what they think they are.

They target your body because they are being unforgiving toward themselves, and in this unforgiveness they can't help but focus on the form of objects. This mean they are not really seeing you, your spirit, or your real identity. The target of their attack is themselves, driven by guilt.

It can look like the attack is upon you, because in their dissociated state they separate off the part of their mind that attacks itself and see it as "outside themselves". They attack "it", to try to maintain the split minded state. And in dissociating from it, they tend to associate it with someone other than themselves. And that may seem to be you.

Even if they call your name, even if they speak of you and what you've done to them, even if they hurl abuse at "you", it is really nothing to do with you. Not even remotely.

"You but accuse your brother of your own sins."

"It can be but myself I crucify."

"I can be attacked by nothing but my thoughts."

So in no way has this attack got anything to do with you at all. It might seem to play out that way, or it might even seem that they physically attack your body as if that really is an attack upon you, but it is still themselves they are trying to attack.

"Let them be as vicious and hateful as they may. They could have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is your dream."When you yourself are not in your right mind, you will attack yourself. You'll accuse yourself of sin and judge yourself harshly. This means you believe it's true that you are guilty.

When this is happening, and if it is happening at the same time as another insane person fighting with their own shadows, you will fail to recognize that their attack is entirely a self attack. You will fail to realize they are calling out for love, and you will think that their hallucinated "attack on you", which is really on themselves, is actually about you.

Since what they accuse you of taps into what you have accused yourself of, you won't be able to discern between the two. This will create a kind of blind-spot in your mind. A block to awareness. And because of the block, you will be deceived. And being deceived you'll "read into" what they're doing, failing to see all of what they are doing to themselves. And due to this lack of recognition, you'll think that some of what they are doing, they are doing to you, and that it's really about you.

Because of your own self attack, you see yourself as vulnerable and affect-able. And you'll see yourself as being able to be accessed by the cause-effect relationships that seem to play out physically. And you will have confused yourself with your body, and now it may seem that because it can be attacked, you can be attacked. And so you're going to take their attempted attack personally as a threat to your identity and existence.

That means you're failing to remember it's your dream, and have entered into dreaming, or a state of greater unconsciousness. And in this state you'll think that someone else "is attacking you" and is "having an effect on you". It's really you having an effect on you, but you confuse it for them being the cause. So you blame them for it.

It can seem as if, what they do triggers pain in you. And its really your own pain that you put there, being raised to awareness. Because it resonates with what they are expressing and agrees with it. And then you'll think they caused the pain in you because it arose when they attacked, but its really your own self inflicted wound that is unhealed, resurfacing in resonance with their insane behavior.

You then are in the position of having to apply forgiveness processes to sort out "what is yours" and "what is theirs". And ultimately this has to lead to the undoing of the self attack, otherwise you won't be able to recognize that the other person was not the cause of your upset. And their innocence can only be recognized if you can see how they are solely attacking themselves.

The blinds spots and blocks to awareness in your own mind have to be removed, otherwise you cannot see the full picture. And without the full picture you can't tell whether what someone is doing is really about you or not. You can't tell your sin apart from theirs. You have to find your own innocence in order to recognize the innocence of others.

Once you do, what seemed like a call for attack, or seemed like an obvious selfish attack upon you, is now recognized as a call for love. It's calling for love because the person is solely interacting with themselves, within their mind, in a private world. And they are attacking themselves, believing it is not coming from them. And they seem to falsely accuse you of it, which you must not buy into, for your sake and theirs.

In recognizing the secret of salvation that people can only attack themselves, and no one ever really attacks anyone else, you take responsibility for your own choices and give them back responsibility for theirs.

Everything they are experiencing they are doing to themselves. Everything you are experiencing you are doing to yourself. And never the two shall meet. People are asking for love, in an attacking way, because they are denying their own love. The only thing that can truly be shared or communicated between you, is love.

Love is joining in peace and recognition. It facilitates sharing and communication and transfer. Without love, the breakdown of communication and separation of mind and relationship ensures that all attack is self contained. Just as trying to will against God disables all will and is an attempt to will nothing, trying to attack places you in a prison in your mind and stops any transfer to others. Attack is always separation between others and self. This happens because God does not will that attack between beings be possible.

No-one is ever affected by anyone else. No-one else is the cause of you. You have not caused anyone else, other than your own creations. And God is the only cause of you and your equal siblings. There has never been an attack on you, by anyone but yourself. And anyone who believes otherwise is not in their right mind.

We know the secret of salvation tells us that we are doing everything to ourselves, but we also need to realize how it applies to others. The only way to correctly grasp how it applies to others, is to recognize you are ONE WITH others. If you are your brother, and your brother is part of you, then anything that applies will apply to BOTH of you simultaneously.

If you are one with them, this gives you new insight into the secret of salvation. If you try to do anything to them, you will realize that you are doing this to yourself. Giving and receiving are one. But also anything THEY try to do "to you", they are also doing to themselves.

This becomes very obvious when you regard them as one with you. If you are one with them, you are a part of them. As part of them, when they do something "to you only", they are also doing it to themselves. The secret of salvation now applies to the part of you that is your brother. Your brother is doing it to themselves. In truth, the secret of salvation isn't just about you doing things to yourself (selfishly), but in fact tells us that EVERYONE DOES EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE.

When you are one, anything that is done is done to both. Everything is shared. Anything you alone give, you also receive. Anything they alone give, they also receive. The two of you are doing everything to the two of you. Anything anyone does is done to the whole sonship. When ego comes along, by which I mean separation, it always results in a sense of NOT being one. We separate off and stop sharing, because ego is about selfishness. This selfishness seems to imply that what I do to another person I DO NOT do to myself. And in turn, what they seem to do to me, they DO NOT do to themselves.

This is the default mode of arguments, fights, annoyances, upsets, reactions, special relationships, and all manner of conflict. It always appears that the other person is separate from you. Therefore, if you are angry at the person you SEEM not to be angry at yourself. If they are angry at you, they SEEM not to be angry at themselves. But this is a breakdown in the truth and is NOT the whole truth.

It is ALWAYS true that anything anyone does, they do to themselves. This is the golden rule, the law of God, and it is not negotiable. It applies to everyone everywhere at all times. Even when you think someone is doing something exclusively to you and not themselves (or others), THEY ARE. If you see yourself as separated off, you WILL NOT see this. You will fail to recognize that they're hurting themselves.

If you are separate from your brother, the TWO of you are separate from each other. You now see anything they do to you as being done ONLY to you, and not to themselves. And vice versa. You won't be able to recognize that anything is shared, and you won't realize that they are actually doing it to themselves as well.

The only way to break out of this is to join minds, share identities, recognize your brother as part of yourself, and be one with them. This means INCLUDING THEM in everything, just as you simultaneously include yourself in everything. Anything that applies, applies to BOTH of you at once.

In this oneness you can immediately see the efforts of the other person to separate off. You can see how when they attack, seeming to attack only you, they ARE also attacking themselves. You can see that YOUR attempted attacks are not only toward them, but also toward yourself. This INCLUSIVENESS is the light in which you can see the whole picture.

Having included your brother within yourself, within the scope of who and what you are, two as one, it becomes effortless, natural, and constant, to remember that everything always applies to BOTH. To you AND the other. Both/And is always the logic of the golden rule, while Either/Or is always the logic of the separation/ego.

Now when your brother appears to try to separate off and attack only you and not themselves, you will know that THEY ARE attacking themselves. They must have attacked themselves first in order to be projecting onto you. You will be open to seeing this. You will be open to recognizing they are hurting just as much as they're trying to make you hurt. You will not fall for the deception that their attack only applies to you, and you will see them as hurting themselves.

This is how you then become able to recognize a "call for love". Only in a SHARED STATE can you recognize the call for love, because you have to be open to the fact that giving and receiving are one. A person is recognized as calling for love when they are trying to DENY the shared state, trying to REJECT the golden rule, and are PRETENDING that it does not apply. When you KNOW it applies, because you ARE APPLYING IT, this will shed great light on the relationship and show you the truth about who is doing what to whom.

A person who seems to attack only you, trying to be excluded from the attack, is now clearly seen to be trying to hurt themselves. You no longer can play the role of victim, or see them as being solely a victimizer. You no longer fall for the attempts to frame you as the sole evil one, and instead you can have compassion as a result of ENCOMPASSING your brother in yourself. Wrapping them in the inclusive truth and seeing them from a perspective of WHOLENESS.

Recognizing your brother is attacking themselves, OBVIOUSLY compels you to a sense of compassion and understanding, and a response of love. The call for love, seen correctly as self-attack, and seen only IN a state of unconditional love (shared interests, joined minds, shared identity), now inspires ONLY LOVE as a response. Since you are already seeing them WITH love, in order TO recognize their call for love, love is all you are giving and receiving. The call for love is answered with love, and sharing is its only function.

Your oneness makes this possible. Your separateness hides it from you. In oneness your shared inclusiveness of your brother puts your arm around them and comforts them. In oneness you see the two of you as equal and as joined. In oneness everything applies to both of you simultaneously. Anything they do they are doing to themselves. Anything you do you are doing to both of you.

In this dynamic it becomes impossible to see yourself or the other as a victim or victimizer, and love becomes the only obvious course of action. Nor can it be TRUE that what they claim about themselves is the truth, because YOU know that in your joined state YOU love both of you. If you know you are both equally loved, and they claim they are unloved, you will recognize their claim is FALSE. And so it does NOT apply to either of you. And in this oneness you are both lifted up by a miracle.

"The only judgment involved at all is in the Holy Spirit's one division into two categories; one of love, and the other, the call for love."

"Each one must share one goal with someone else, and in so doing, lose all sense of separate interests. Only by doing this is it possible to transcend the narrow boundaries the ego would impose upon the self. Only by doing this can teacher and pupil, therapist and patient, you and I, accept Atonement and learn to give it as it was received."

"Those who would learn the same course share one interest and one goal. And thus he who was the learner becomes a teacher of God Himself, for he has made the one decision that gave his teacher to him. He has seen in another person the same interests as his own." "For fear IS a call for love, in unconscious recognition of what has been denied."

"Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your brother what he believes he cannot offer HIMSELF. Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health, is to recognize in hatred the call for love. And to give a brother what he REALLY wants, is to offer it unto yourself. For your Father wills you to know your brother AS yourself. Answer HIS call for love, and YOURS is answered. Healing is the love of Christ for His Father, and for HIMSELF."

"Mistakes are FOR correction. They call for NOTHING ELSE. What calls for punishment, must call for NOTHING. Yet every mistake MUST be a call for love. What, then, is sin? What COULD it be but a mistake you would keep hidden; a call for help that you would keep UNHEARD, and thus UNANSWERED?"

This is a big lesson for me and everyone: How to love all the time. It's natural, but our divine nature to always love and express love has been blocked by fear, attack thoughts, grievances, hatred etc.

When other people seem to be loving and we're "getting" something out of the relationship, ie specialness, we open up some of the flood gates and allow "exclusive love" to go towards the person.

But when the person fails to love you, is angry or upset with you or treats you poorly, there is great temptation then in the ego to simply use it as a way to prove that someone doesn't deserve your love. Then you form a grievance, hold onto attack thoughts, fail to heal, and stop being loving. In order to deny love to others, you have to block it, which denies it to yourself! You cannot love and hate at the same time!

This turns then into conditional love, which simply means you will only love others when they are doing something that you want or being a certain way. Particularly when they are seeming to be loving toward you or giving you what you think you want or need or lack.

We have to actually wean ourselves off of conditional love in order to reach atonement. That means that we have to recognize that our "loving" or expressing must not be tied to external conditions of any kind, causes of any kind, or people of any kind. That means that we don't love in "reaction" or response to others, but we simply love because it's what we are and how we want to express. It's a decision.

"Teach only love for that is what you are" says it all.

I've started to see glimpses of this. To refuse to be unloving even in a situation which seems it would warrant defenses or reactions. To simply choose... I'm only going to love right now. And to then love, to radiate love, to be love. Not because of the person, not as a defense, not as a reaction, nothing to do with the ego at all.

Then you find out that your willingness to love is not *dependent* on other people or the state they are in. And at first this seems crazy, that you would choose to love in spite of appearances or situations that seem to "call for" some other response. This expressing of love OVERRIDES the ego's laws in the situation, ignores the hierarchy of illusions, forgets/forgives grievances and has unexpected benefits to yourself.

In a situation, I decided I am only going to love. So I stood there and loved. I felt love in my heart area radiating out. I didn't know I was able to radiate this love. As I did this, the other person was not happy at all. My deciding to love was not in response to their ego. And so it seemed to me there wasn't really a "reason" to love, other than that... it sure felt good. Certainly better than entering into false empathy.

The really interesting thing is, if I choose to love, to extend love, the love expresses, like it goes out and radiates and "sends" love. In this sending, something really intriguing happens. I share in the love, I feel the love, and I become more sane. Love is the "natural nature" of a sane mind. It quickly corrects mistaken perception. It's like the sun comes out and the light is shining and everything is put into its proper place.

I also notice when I choose to love, just spontaneously, not as an ego reaction - to will to love - the extending of that love allows me to receive it. *I* feel loved. By giving love, love comes to me and through me. I was waiting a long time for a certain person to be more loving, and it wasn't until I decided to just love them that *I* experienced the love that I thought THEY were supposed to be providing.

This goes back to the very basic lesson (seek and do not find) that when we believe that we are lacking love, we will shift responsibility for love onto someone else and expect them to do the loving for us. Then they either will or will not, and when they will not, we stay in a lack of love. So we have to learn the difficult lesson, that we cannot get other people to love us and we are not SUPPOSED to. You can and will only experience the receiving of love, truly, when YOU LOVE.

When YOU choose to love, you instantly enter into love's extension and expression, you feel the love, you become part of the love. "To have all, give all to all." This is a basic law of God, that in order to have something you have to give it. If you are not having something, it's because you are not giving it.

If you do not have love and others don't seem to be filling the void for you, it's because you are not loving enough. And when you love enough, you don't NEED anyone to love you FOR you, because YOU are joining in unconditional love and extending God's love. Love comes through you, and you experience it.

It boils down to this simple state, which I presume is what it will be like in Atonement, where you simply love all the time. You express love all the time. You radiate it, flow it, extend it. It comes out through you from God and from your soul. And as it goes out, it has miraculous power. And this loving power actually has something to do with healing and miracle working.

Love has this property that, unless it is given or shared, it does not exist. Love isn't a "state" that's static. God isn't static. God is an extender and creator. "Love goes out because of what it is." "Divine abstraction takes joy in application."

Love HAS to be shared. "God did not will to be alone." When it is not being radiated and shared and GIVEN, it does not have any radiance, and does not shine, and has no presence. That means it is dead. Death is the denial of extension of love, which is also life.

So in order to be alive, to be in resurrection, to reach atonement, and to be happy, we have to remove these blocks to love SO THAT we can once again resume our NATURE of always extending, always loving, no matter what, no matter who, no matter what time or the reason. That means that you being loving really has NOTHING to do with anyone else. You just be loving because you ARE love. You can't help it. "Teach only love for that is what you are".

So that means being willing to love and extend love in ALL SITUATIONS regardless of the situation, or who it is, or how upset they are. And the reason you love really has nothing to do with the other person. You simply do it because it's natural, healthy, you are willing to, and it feels great.

I thought I was forgiving someone because I was doing forgiveness processes about them. But... I didn't really get to a point where I was LOVING them. THAT is the healed state that is the goal to reach with forgiveness. If I am not loving the person, literally, the I must still have some kind of grievance or block to love, therefore am not receiving it, because I am not extending it. And feeling "unloving" unfortunately automatically means you will also feel "unloved".

Love comes from within, and it extends outward to others. It radiates naturally when it is not obstructed. It also contains willingness because unwillingness is unnatural and everyone naturally wants to share love to increase their joy. "God, who encompasses all being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually (love) and want to share it to increase their joy."

That means if you want to feel the love, you have to BE the love. You have to give the love. And that doesn't mean special love, or sacrifice, or loss. It doesn't mean subservience or reaction or slavery or being carpeting. It means you love because YOU WANT TO, IN SPITE OF anyone else. And then you naturally bring that love to others simply because it serves BOTH of you. That is the golden rule. What applies to you applies to them.

Love first. Being loved is secondary and automatic. Trying to be loved first blocks being loved.

This means then we have to learn to decouple or disconnect "whether we will love" or "when we will love" from anything that other people are doing. Even if other people are stressing out and upset and angry or whatever. We have to decide, I, by myself, with God, am going to love right now, regardless of anyone else, even if that someone else is someone close to you.

And that means you have to claim the responsibility, freedom, joy and pleasure of LOVING for YOURSELF, which is the same thing as accepting atonement for yourself. It's your right to love and experience love. It's your inheritance.

There is a fairly simple question that can be asked to determine if planet Earth is real, exists, or is God's creation.

There are machine guns in this world. Machine guns full of bullets. The bullets are projectiles which shoot out of this gun and may penetrate other objects. Upon doing so it is capable of ripping holes in things, and if those things are biological organisms it is capable of mowing them down and destroying them and killing them.

Now, that's simply physical fact. That's what the gun does. That's how it functions. That's what it's capable of.

It does not matter if you forgive the gun, it will still function this way. It does not matter if you see it with false perception and hate it, or see it with true perception and love it. It will still function as a bullet-launching death machine, capable of seriously damaging and destroying anything it touches.

Your healed perceptions of the machine gun do not stop it from launching bullets. Nor does your perception change the shape of the gun from being still in the form of a gun. It still has a barrel and a set of machinery and metal bullets. It doesn't matter how many years you've been doing ACIM spiritual practices, it in no way changes a single fact about how that object functions.

Now you have to ask yourself, whether God in his infinite mercy and wisdom and gentleness and love, would EVER conceive of such an object? Because if that machine gun exists, and has reality, then it MUST be of God. It must be part of God's will. It must be what he wants. And God himself must endorse it. In fact God must have designed it himself and co-created it.

How does that sit with you? Even if you forgive the machine gun and send it love and do not blame it and do not project sin or guilt onto it, does it still have a design and capacity for mowing down citizens? Yes it does. Even if you are high on a cloud of spiritual consciousness, does the machine gun still operate according to physical laws? Yes it does. Is it still capable of murder regardless of how spiritual you become? Yes it is.

So you have to ask yourself, would God create such a device? Would God's world, which should be heaven, contain such a device? Could God have willed that such a device be possible? That there can be scenarios in which some of God's other heavenly-created objects are capable of being utterly ripped apart and destroyed in a matter of seconds? Is such a thing allowed and possible and sanctioned in heaven? Is it even a POSSIBILITY, that in God's perfect absolutely infinite immortal reality, that there can be things mowed down with metal bullets?

You have to come to terms with this because the answer is quite important. The ONLY WAY that planet Earth, the physical planet, the solid matter, all of space and time, can have come from God or be in any way God's will, is if God is a maker of weapons. And even if we lift away labels such as weapons and say "that's a lovely beautiful piece of machinery isn't it" in some kind of blissful state of rose-tinted-glasses, we STILL are going to have to accept that IF IT IS PART OF THE KINGDOM, GOD WANTS OBJECTS TO BE BLASTED APART.

So we're really asking now, what is God's nature and will? Can you sleep at night knowing that God is a God who facilitates and supports and contributes to the making of weapons of mass destruction? Is that within God's laws? Does God allow AND support such a thing? Because if he does, what kind of a God is that? And how would a loving, beautiful, gentle, kind, happy God, come up with a design for a very effective "killing machine" as part of HEAVEN?

I think MOST sane or semi-sane people in the world would have to agree, that if God is loving it is HIGHLY unlikely that God could ever be conceived of as personally willing the creation of a machine gun. Not even if the gun is radically forgiven, which has no real effect on the fact that it is still capable of being used to mow bodies down. And regardless of how beautiful and shiny the paint is, regardless of how lovely the sights and sounds of bullets flying are, the fact remains the machinery still functions to attack and destroy. Is is okay with you that God's kingdom, immortal and unattackable, indestructible, has items in it which can in fact still destroy things? God would be contradictory would he not? And heaven would be full of holes.

The only sane conclusion we can come to is that either God is murderous and is responsible for personally willing the making of machine guns and bullets and death and destruction, OR God is not that kind of a God. And if God is not like that, NOTHING like that can exist. Because anything that does exist, HAS to be a part of God's mind and will. Part of his heart. God has to love it and create it otherwise it is nothing and nowhere.

Either, machine guns exist and are real and God created planet Earth and physical bodies and space and time and all the galaxies, which means God must be murderous and cruel, OR, God would never sanely allow, make possible, condone, or contribute to, the making of such objects. And therefore, if God did not create machine guns, planet earth is absolutely unreal, bodies do not exist, destructible objects are absolutely nothing, human bodies don't exist, and there is no world.

Personally for me I can only accept that God's most-beloved Kingdom of heaven CANNOT EVER CONTAIN such objects. Not in any way. Not with any kind of perception or repurposing. Not merely that they don't exist, or haven't been created yet, but that even the POTENTIAL for them to be created does not exist. It must be IMPOSSIBLE for weapons to exist in God. I absolutely cannot bring myself to ever accept or conceive of being able to be at peace and loving with God with the loophole that he is a maker of murderous articles. They simply CANNOT EXIST in heaven's reality.

To me, this is so clear and black and white, there is absolutely no way that there is ANY OTHER way for the machine gun to exist and for it to simultaneously imply that God is benevolent. Either God is loving and exists and is real, OR, machine guns exist and God is murderous and self destructive. That's the choice you have to make. Either earth and bodies exist along with machine guns, OR THEY DO NOT. And quite frankly, we should ALL be recognizing by now that THEY DO NOT.

There will be no machine guns in heaven. Not today. Not ever. And similarly, there are no bodies, and no planet Earth. That is A Course in Miracle's teaching. There IS no other interpretation.

There is a pivotal moment when you let go of the ego's hand and decide to take the hand of Christ.

This can and will happen in many scenarios and many times over. And it's going to happen in your "real life" in relation to people and your beliefs about people.

Cate Grieves gave a good example of this recently in relation to her daughter where she would clash with the "ego" in her daughter, or rather, her own inner fight with her own ego projected there, but after having enough, one day she finally decided to recognize the Christ in her and to relate only to that identity, not to the ego. And everything shifted. That's an example of letting go of the ego's hand and taking the hand of Christ.

Similarly I had spent many many years believing in sickness, thinking it was real, irreversible, truth. Each time I saw it I had reactions and grief. I believed it was real. It was actually horrifying to see disability and very upsetting because I believed it was real, and how tragic it was what had been lost as a result of it. All that suffering was ego bullshit.

I had gone through many many periods of trying to heal it, fix it, rescue the person, trying to learn about what caused it, diagnosing it, figuring out why it happened etc. All of these ways that I was actually continually using the ego to try to find some kind of truth outside of me. Always it would lead me to dead ends and failing to find anything that made sense. It was infuriating. I tried and tried and tried to explain why and how the sickness happened and all that did was justify and keep it.

And this was all because I believed my own ego, my own intellect's ability to diagnose truthfully (which is impossible), and that if I would seek externally for truth I would actually be able to find it, if I looked hard enough. But this was all classic seek-and-do-not-find tactics. It was all based on me believing that the problem was real.

One day, I was getting to where I had really had enough, like, fucking hell I cannot put up with this bullshit any more. And I was starting to recognize with Jesus' help the ways that I kept trying to solve this "real problem", and He was just always trying to get me to surrender and stop doing that. When I was in 'fix it' mode my mind was just lost like in a tunnel vision of thinking that I was going to find the answer, not realizing and not having the awareness that this was fundamentally impossible. The entire basis for my searching was flawed and based in the ego, so I was trapped and failing before I even started.

Somehow enough of these events of futility and failure and gradual tiny steps in becoming aware of this, led to a moment where it started to dawn on me. I started to finally get it. This had all been based on the idea that sickness was REAL. And that also fed into an awareness that was growing in me that there just was no truth out there whatsoever. I had been looking in the wrong place - in the ego - for a truth that doesn't exist there. And that maybe this whole world had no truth in it at all.

Up until that point I'd been believing that the world was real and sickness was real and sin was real. Even if some part of me understood otherwise. And my belief that there is somehow a truth in this world just met with a total loss in finding it. That was GOOD, because it revealed to me that this ego pursuit was totally a distraction, and a pointless one at that. There IS no truth in the world. The truth is NOT out there. This really started a MAJOR shift in my awareness that has been leading to just a tremendous flood of insight and awakening lately.

But the main thing is, I had to question whether sickness was real. And that meant even going against everyone else who said sickness was real. Going against the doctors and the neighbors and the family members and even those closest to me who all believed in real sickness. I had to find enough certainty and be pissed off enough and fed up enough to finally say FUCK THAT. There is no truth there. So I decided, or at least found enough of a sense of conviction, like a ray of light peeking through the window for the first time, to open up to the idea that sickness is not reality, because this world is not reality.

This was a major turn of events because this has now laid a foundation for really huge strides forward, a foundation for hope, a foundation for miracles, and a foundation for healing. That would not have been possible had I remained in the ego belief that sickness is truth. So in this same way, I became able to let go of the ego's hand and take the hand of Christ. And because it took such tremendous frustration and desperation to exhaust the ego's bullshit and to really reveal to myself that this fundamentally major world-wide claim about real sickness was total f'ing bullshit.

So now something is different for me. It's a turning point, suddenly instead of looking at, believing in, and reacting to "real sickness", I am learning how it is an illusion, I am starting to actually overlook it, which means I am finally actually forgiving it. My mind and awareness are shifting and I'm seeing sickness in a whole different way. I'm no longer allowing the ego interpretation of it to be the limit of my belief or awareness, and instead am opening up to the Christ perspective that sickness is not the truth. It's not real, and because it is not real, it can be undone.

These shifts happen in big ways and small ways. Each time you come to question or doubt the ego and see that it's been leading you on a wild goosechase, and its claims are not the truth, you gradually let go of its hand and shift allegiance to Christ. You go from perceiving FORM as though it's real, and looking beyond it. You go from seeing people as real bodies, to no longer regarding them as "just that". Your vision no longer stops at sight of form and it starts to see a truth that transcends it. The person is not their body. The person is not their ego.

This basically means you are gradually de-coupling yourself from form, and are actually letting go of your own body at the same time. Everything in front of your eyes is an attempt to get you to see it as real, and to fail to overlook/forgive, leading to judgement. We need to learn to not believe it! It's not real. It's not truth. Form is just an effect of an idea, not a solid reality. Nor is it fixed, and nor is it identity.

Form is not the truth about a person. Their body is not the truth about them. Their personality/persona/shadow is not the truth about them. They actually are more than that. Even when they are filled with hate and rage, that's still not true about them. Their real self, holy and innocent, is still in there somewhere, just temporarily covered up. It doesn't go away! This justifies unconditional love at all times.