A selection of quotes (with mostly my emphasis) talking about how this world ends and how you move beyond it to Heaven...

"Now He waits but that one instant more for God to take His final step, and TIME HAS DISAPPEARED, taking PERCEPTION with it as it goes, and leaving BUTthe Truth to be Itself. That instant is our goal, for it contains the memory of God."

"And as we look upon a world forgiven, it is He Who calls to us and COMES TO TAKE US HOME, reminding us of our Identity Which our forgiveness has restored to us."

"You dwell NOT HERE, BUT IN ETERNITY. You TRAVEL BUT IN DREAMS, while safe at home."

"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. GONE IS PERCEPTION, false and true alike. GONE IS FORGIVENESS, for its task is done. And GONE ARE BODIES s in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. 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."

"Across the bridge, it is so different! For a time the BODY is still seen, but NOT exclusively, as it is seen here. For the little spark that holds the Great Rays within it, is ALSO visible, and this spark CANNOT BE LONG LIMITED TO LITTLENESS. Once you have crossed the bridge, the VALUE OF THE BODY IS SO DIMINISHED in YOUR sight, that you will see no need at all to MAGNIFY it. For you will realize that the ONLY value that the body has, is to enable you to bring your brothers TO the bridge WITH you. And to be RELEASED TOGETHER there."

"The WORLD WILL END when its thought system has been completely reversed."

"And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. IN BLESSING IT DEPARTS, for it will not end as it began."

"The WORLD WILL END when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment.The WORLD WILL END with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, THE WORLD IS OVER. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely CEASE to seem to be."

"And WHAT you see is only what YOU HAVE MADE, with the blessing of your forgiveness on it. And, with this final blessing of God's Son UPON HIMSELF, the REAL perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose.

The STARS WILL DISAPPEAR IN LIGHT, and the SUN, which opened up the world to beauty, WILL VANISH. PERCEPTION WILL BE MEANINGLESS, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will HAVE NO FUNCTION. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The PERCEPTION OF THE REAL WORLD WILL BE SO SHORT, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."

"From the FORGIVEN WORLD, the Son of God is LIFTED easily TO HIS HOME. And THERE he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there, in peace."

"Even SALVATION WILL BECOME A DREAM, and VANISH from his mind. For SALVATION IS THE END OF DREAMS, and, with the CLOSING OF THE DREAM, will have NO MEANING. Who, AWAKE IN HEAVEN, COULD DREAM that there could ever be NEED of salvation?"

"BEYOND THE BODY, BEYOND THE SUN AND STARS, PAST EVERYTHING YOU SEE, and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes.

The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it no longer is contained at all. The light expands and covers everything (not earth), extending to infinity, forever shining, and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it, everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything could be outside. For there is nowhere that this light is not. This is the VISION of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of him who knows his Father. Here is the memory of what you are; a part of this, with all of it within you, and joined to all of it as surely as all is joined to you.

Accept the vision that can show you this, AND NOT THE BODY."

"When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, WHERE ALL THE WORLD MUST DISAPPEAR and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and ITS EFFECTS HAVE GONE AS WELL."

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his MISCREATIONS CAN DISAPPEAR in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because IT IS A VISUAL MISPERCEPTION. "

"No one remains in HELL, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect His perfect, timeless and unchanging Love. 2 You will find Heaven. 3 Everything you seek but this WILL FALL AWAY. 4 Yet not because it has been taken from you. 5 It will go because you DO NOT WANT IT. 6 You will reach the goal you really want as certainly as God created you in sinlessness."

"Heaven remains your ONE ALTERNATIVE to this STRANGE WORLD YOU MADE and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. 2 God made no contradictions. 3 What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. 4 He did NOT MAKE two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and EARTH THE OTHER'S SORRY OUTCOME which is HEAVEN'S OPPOSITE IN EVERY WAY."

"Put out your hand, and see how easily the door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. 2 Angels light the way, so that all DARKNESS VANISHES, and you are standing in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all things you see. (not earth) 3 A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause before you realize the world you see before you in the light (heaven) reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite forget in wandering away in DREAMS."

"He offers thanks to you as well as him for you arose with him when he began to save the world. And you will be with him when TIME IS OVER AND NO TRACE REMAINS OF DREAMS of spite in which you dance to death's thin melody. For in its place the hymn to God is heard a little while. And then the Voice is gone, no longer to take form but to return to the ETERNAL FORMLESSNESS of God."

"LIKE ALL THINGS IN THE WORLD, ITS MEANING IS TEMPORARY AND WILL FADE INTO THE NOTHINGNESS FROM WHICH IT CAME when there is no more use for it. Now its real meaning is a lesson. Like all lessons IT IS AN ILLUSION, for in REALITY there is nothing to learn. Yet this illusion must be replaced by a corrective device; ***ANOTHER ILLUSION*** that replaces the first, SO BOTH CAN FINALLY DISAPPEAR. The first illusion, which must be displaced before another thought system can take hold, is that it is a sacrifice to give up the things of this world. What could this be but an illusion, since this world itself is NOTHING MORE THAN THAT?

It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that THE WORLD HAS NOTHING TO GIVE. What can the sacrifice of NOTHING mean?"

"God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children's toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No one who has escaped the world AND ALL ITS ILLS looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifice its values would demand of him. To them he sacrifices all his peace. To them he sacrifices all his freedom. And to possess them must he sacrifice his hope of Heaven and remembrance of his Father's Love. Who in his sane mind chooses NOTHING as a substitute for everything?"

"Today the lights of Heaven bend to you, to shine upon your eyelids as you rest BEYOND THE WORLD OF DARKNESS. Here is light YOUR EYES CANNOT BEHOLD. And yet your MIND CAN SEE it plainly, and can understand. "

"When the light comes, and you have said, "God's Will is mine," you will see such beauty that you will KNOW it is not of you. Out of your joy, you will create beauty in His Name, for YOUR joy could no more be contained than His. THE BLEAK LITTLE WORLD WILL VANISH INTO NOTHINGNESS, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will LEAP INTO HEAVEN and into the presence of God. I cannot tell you what this will be like, for your hearts are not ready. But I CAN tell you, and remind you often, that what God wills for Himself He wills for YOU, and what He wills for you IS yours. "

"THE WORLD YOU SEE IS AN ILLUSION OF A WORLD. GOD DID NOT CREATE IT, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is NOTHING IN THE WORLD you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when ALL THINGS VISIBLE WILL HAVE AN END.

The BODY'S EYES are therefore ***NOT THE MEANS BY WHICH THE REAL WORLD CAN BE SEEN***, for the ILLUSIONS THEY LOOK UPON must lead to more ILLUSIONS of reality. And so they do. For EVERYTHING THEY SEE not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

"THE WORLD STANDS LIKE A BLOCK before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as NOTHING MORE THAN JUST A FRAGILE VEIL, SO EASILY DISPELLED that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for ONLY WHAT IT IS. And now it CANNOT FAIL TO DISAPPEAR, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant IS THE WORLD FORGOT, with TIME FOREVER ENDED AS THE WORLD SPINS INTO THE NOTHINGNESS FROM WHICH IT CAME."

"A WORLD FORGIVEN CANNOT LAST. IT WAS THE HOME OF BODIES. ***BUT FORGIVENESS LOOKS PAST BODIES*** This is its holiness; this is how it heals. ***THE WORLD OF BODIES IS A WORLD OF SIN***, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. 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. ONLY THE BODY MAKES THE WORLD SEEM REAL, for BEING SEPARATE IT COULD NOT REMAIN WHERE SEPARATION IS IMPOSSIBLE. Forgiveness proves it is impossible BECAUSE IT SEES IT NOT. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."

"O my brothers, if you only knew the peace that will envelop you and hold you safe and pure and lovely in the Mind of God, you could but rush to meet Him where His altar is. Hallowed your Name and His, for they are joined here in this holy place. Here He leans down to lift you up to Him, OUT OF ILLUSIONS INTO HOLINESS; OUT OF THE WORLD AND INTO ETERNITY; out of all fear and given back to love."

"Real choice is no illusion. BUT THE WORLD HAS NONE TO OFFER. All its roads but lead to DISAPPOINTMENT, NOTHINGNESS AND DEATH. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. THE WORLD WAS MADE SO THAT PROBLEMS COULD NOT BE ESCAPED. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes. "

"There is nothing you CAN hold against REALITY. All that must be forgiven are the ILLUSIONS you have held against your brothers. Their reality HAS no past, and ONLY illusions can BE forgiven. God holds nothing against ANYONE, for He is INCAPABLE of ILLUSIONS of ANY kind. Release your brothers from the slavery of THEIR illusions, by forgiving them for the illusions which YOU perceive in them. Thus will you learn that YOU have been forgiven, for it is YOU who offered THEM illusions. In the holy instant, this is done for you IN TIME, to bring to you the true condition of Heaven."

(in true perception) "The BODY'S EYES WILL CONTINUE TO SEE DIFFERENCES. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will NO LONGER ACKNOWLEDGE THEM. 3 There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the BODY'S EYES WILL REPORT THEIR CHANGED APPEARANCES AS BEFORE. 4 But the healed mind will put them ALL IN ONE CATEGORY; ***THEY ARE UNREAL*** 5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives FROM WHAT APPEARS TO BE THE OUTSIDE WORLD. 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as REALITY IS WHOLLY REAL, APART FROM SIZE AND SHAPE AND TIME AND PLACE—FOR DIFFERENCES CANNOT EXIST WITHIN IT—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all ILLUSIONS is truth."

A Course in Miracles has some basic structure to it. The very simplest of these is the contrast between reality and illusions. e.g.

God, reality, awakening, light, creation, eternity, wholeness, permanence, heaven, truth, the Kingdom of God, etc... these all represent THE ONE TRUTH. This is "really big picture stuff". Only the Holy Trinity is real.

Illusions, separation, ego, denial, unconsciousness, death, dreaming, attack, murder, sickness, suffering, unawareness, darkness etc... these all represent THE EXACT OPPOSITE TO that one truth.

This produces what you could either think of as "two boxes", or as a container within a container.

Box A: Heaven, God, Creation etc

Box B: World you made, illusions, ego etc

as in "Earth, heaven's opposite in every way"

or

Larger container: Heaven, God, Reality etc

Smaller container inside it: ego, illusions etc

as in "you are safe in God, dreaming of exile"

You as a being, with a mind, are able to seem to "be in" either one of these two states. You can be in reality, or in illusions. You can be in heaven, or on Earth. You can be out of a body, or in a body. You can be having eternal life, or seeming to suffer and die.

In every case, there is a clear distinction between the "box" of reality and the box of illusions. Because in truth, the box of illusions does not really exist. There really IS only reality, and the "illusory fearful world" isn't real.

"Life has no opposite, for it is God."

Jesus describes this:

"If perfect love casts out fear, and if fear exists, then there is NOT perfect love. But only perfect love really exists. Therefore, if there is fear, it creates a state which does not exist"

Your experience of "where you are" and "what you are", is determined by whether you believe that Actual Reality is REAL, or whether an ILLUSION is real. If you believe illusions are real, you will substitute reality for it, BLOCKING your awareness of reality, and you will believe that illusions are reality. This is the ego at work. Being deceived by things which don't exist.

When this happens, you seem to find yourself WITHIN the "context of" which of the two boxes you believe is reality. Either heaven seems real, or earth seems real. Either God's Kingdom is reality, or "the world you made in dreaming" seems real. And if the world you made is your reality, you will believe you are LOCATED inside of it.

Now, there are things which ACIM states about reality, which is true in the biggest possible picture. For example, "Reality is a constant state", "Nothing real can be threatened", "Nothing unreal exists." In this CONTEXT, it might correctly identify that, from the perspective of reality, "the body is a dream" - "the body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist" - "God did not create the body."

These are statements made FROM the context of reality. BUT, in the same Course, Jesus might go on to start talking about the body. He might talk about your USE of it. He might talk about what it pictures or symbolizes. He might talk about how to heal it, and about sickness of the body. These statements are made WITHIN or inside of the context of assuming that "the illusory body seems to exist."

So Jesus then is dipping inside of the "illusions" box, and starting to talk about the body as if it matters. But then later he might jump out of that box again and talk about it as though it is nothing and doesn't exist. He might say "The mind, being sane, heals the body." This is squarely within the context or box of "IF the body exists." We are ASSUMING here that we're talking about the body AS IF it is real. And so now Jesus talks about how to heal or change its condition.

But then Jesus might go on to say, "The body cannot stay without illusions" - "the body is a limit" "therefore it does not exist" etc. And this means he has stepped OUT of the context of the illusion box, into the BIGGER truth. The big truth now reveals that sick bodies and healthy bodies are EQUALLY ILLUSIONS.

What happens then is, if people don't RECOGNIZE which box Jesus is speaking FROM, what the CONTEXT is, what is assumed or accepted for the sake of description, mistaken conclusions will be drawn.

If you don't realize that there even ARE these two "levels" or contexts, you might read the entire course thinking it is describing ONE single context or state. And this will produce significant confusion and contradiction, because he isn't talking that way. What this then means is that you are "confusing the levels" because you are not clearly recognizing the context he's talking in.

So you might say, as if on the same level, "Jesus says sick bodies are the same as healthy bodies"... and "therefore, there's no point healing them." Do you see the subtle shift between contexts? It suddenly went from a "big picture" context, took that "level" of truth, and then shifted into the small picture context, and tried to make the big-picture truth apply equally at that level. This is a mistake in reasoning.

It leads to things like "there's no point changing the world", "there's no point healing bodies", "there's no point working miracles for others" etc. It also leads to "I'm not really a body so I should stop eating", "the world is not real so why bother having relationships", and all kinds of other nonsense. Confusing the levels leads to false conclusions. It also leads to sickness.

There are times where Jesus speaks highly of the world. In its forgiven state, He suggests it is the loveliest thing you'll ever see. How there is nothing but holiness reflected in it. That it's practically like heaven on earth. This is within the context of "inside the illusion box". It's under the ASSUMPTION that we're accepting that "the world seems to exist."

But Jesus then goes on to talk about how the world is NOTHING, the "sorry outcome" of a split mind, a world made by minds driven mad by guilt, an attack on God, a picture of the crucifixion of God's son. That eternity will shine away the world, and even the forgiven world will spin into nothingness. He even goes so far to as imply that in comparison to Heaven's reality, IT IS UGLY.

"This little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through time into eternity, and beyond all **ugliness**, into beauty that will enchant you, and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection."

So at one moment he is speaking seemingly very highly of this world. Speaking of the highest possible way that you can look upon whatever it is, as if he's putting it on a pedestal and worshipping it. Then the next, he jumps OUT of that context of "the illusory world forgiven" and reminds us of how in the BIG picture, everything he just said so amorously about he world is dashed to the rocks and thrown into oblivion.

Because in the bigger picture, in that CONTEXT, there literally IS NO WORLD. Describing the world then as an illusion, false, unreal, hell, temptation, lack, darkness, the world of sin etc, is a CORRECT and truthful perspective when regarding the world from the LARGER perspective of reality. And this SEEMS now to be a "negative" tone, not at all praising the world or "sounding loving". Yet it is true.

This could cause a lot of confusion if you think that there are no levels or "structure" in the course. Many people, me included, read the course thinking that everything it says is all one ONE level and applies to everything. But believing this, one must be fundamentally confused by what it says. Jesus must sound contradictory. And what He says is likely to be only PARTIALLY accepted.

In this way, we will gravitate towards parts that we find acceptable or "sounding" more lovely, and will likely reject the parts that "sound negative". One part of the course will be pitted against another part and held up as defense against what the other part says.

It is vital to realize that there ARE levels because there IS a significant difference, TOTAL OPPOSITION, between reality and illusions. Which means effectively there are TWO WORLDS. The Kingdom God created, and the one you made to OPPOSE it. And the one you made in dreaming is totally opposite to God's.

"Earth, heaven's OPPOSITE in EVERY way."

You find yourself on earth in a body because of the fact you don't want to be IN the CONTEXT of heaven. Each of these two major contexts are not just concepts. Each one is a thought system. Each has produced an entire REALM of existence. And each is its own WORLD.

When you are IN the context of reality, you are NOT in this world. When you are IN the context of illusions, you are in THIS world. You cannot be in THIS world, this context, and be free of illusions. "The body cannot stay without illusions." "Indeed, you cannot remain in the world with this knowledge." "God cannot enter a body, nor can you join him there." "Those who perceive still need healing". etc.

So there are two major contexts, two worlds, two realms in which to find yourself, two thought systems, two "universes", and only one of them is totally true. The other seems true ONLY WITHIN its own context of "it seems to exist." If the world is accepted as existing, there IS something to be done to help others in the world. There is a curriculum to learn. There are miracles to perform. Bodies and minds need healing.

"The Soul never loses its communion with God. ***Only the mind and body need Atonement.*** The miracle joins in the Atonement of Christ by placing the mind in the service of the Spirit. This establishes the proper function of mind, and abolishes its errors."

Outside of the context of "I am in this world", being OUTSIDE the illusion box, you exist in Heaven with God. In Heaven there is absolute reality, permanence, truth, certainty, communion, creation, eternal life, holiness, omnipresence, immortality, constancy. "Outside" heaven in the dream world, none of these things are possible because the illusory world DENIES all of them.

So beware when you read ANYTHING in the Course, try to discern WHAT level it's on. What context is it being said within. And watch even for shifts in context/levels mid-sentence. Creating in your mind a crystal clear distinction between the two levels, assigning appropriate things to EACH BOX, will go a really long way to clarifying what Jesus MEANS and what he's referring to.

There are some extremely lofty beautiful things He says which are STILL squarely within the realm of illusions. And there are things which don't sound beautiful at all which are actually coming from a HIGHER level. "There is no world" isn't a damning condemnation of this world. It's just being honest about this illusion, from the perspective of the big picture. It actually should be cause for celebration.

"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer. 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."

In this world, it SEEMS that death is linear, ie horizontal. You make a passage through time, the body gradually malfunctions, and eventually it dies. This seems to mean that death is the final result of life, at the end of a long road.

But let's consider for a moment, that perhaps death is not linear, but vertical. You don't become more dead by moving sideways, you become more dead by moving DOWNWARDS, away from God who is life.

If a person is closer to God, they are closer to life. They are high on life. If they are more distant from God, they are closer to death. They are removed from the present, riddled with guilt and lost in time. This is irrespective of the age of the body.

When someone enters into sickness they are entering into death. "Sickness is but a little death". But, if the sickness is healed, what does that mean? It means they have resurrected a little. They have moved closer to God who is life. Death has, for now, been surmounted. We do in fact move in and out of death, or rather UP AND DOWN between life and death, as we move in and out of avoidance of God.

Anyone who is young, or who is old, can be said to be more or less alive, not based on the age of the body in time, but upon whether the mind is close to or more distant from love. God is love, God is life, God is health and wholeness. If you are closer to that, you are more healthy in the mind, and this will result in a healthier body. Some people even become more healthier "later" in life.

Advancing upwards towards the light, is resurrection. Resurrection means "a return to life", suggesting a temporary absence or lack of life. A person can quite easily dip down towards hell, at some point in their life, hit rock bottom, and then return upwards. And in this upwards motion there is a resurrection and a healing. Life is restored, health is restored. The person is less dead than they were. They are more filled with the life of God. "Miracles mean life and God is the giver of life."

The Course asks us to "swear not to die". It is asking us to swear not to move down into death away from life, or into the ego away from God. It isn't simply pointing at you causing the body not to die at age 90, it's telling you to stop killing it at all ages. Even that it may be in near-permanence for an indefinite time.

We need to think of death not so much in physical terms but in mental terms. A "more dead" mind is one filled with ego, fear and separation. An attacking mind is certainly not in-line with life. A heavily sick mind is half dead already. An attacking mind is also very much more prone to express sickness and attack the body, making it symbolize its distance from health and life. Remember "the sick are merciless and in contagion do they seek to kill", because in sickness we are defending against life.

Death therefore really doesn't so much have anything to do with the linear progression of time, or how old the body seems to be. It is much more, and perhaps only, to do with how vertically a person becomes closer or more distant from life itself. If we remove ourselves from harmony, peace, love, sanity, harmlessness, we are removing ourselves from health and vitality as well. We are darkening our light and attacking our bodies. The ego worships the "God of sickness" who is against health and against life itself, so the more ego-filled we are the more dead we are.

A destructive mind is a deadly mind. A constructive mind is a resurrective mind. Regardless of what happens to the body, or whether perhaps it is laid down or exited or disappeared, if the mind of the person in the body is filled with life and light, the body is much less prone to destruction, decay, damage or death. It has been infused with a higher vibration of order and sustaining of life, making it much harder for degradation to take hold. And a mind free from guilt completely CANNOT suffer. "The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body, for it cannot conceive of illness." etc

This may explicitly account for the cases of "incorruptible bodies" of some saints, whereby even though their soul/mind has left the body behind, the presence of LIFE and light and spirit, working through that body, infuses it with continuation. With life-supporting vibes. Or rather, attacks it much less, and so it is not left with an imprint of death and destruction. This causes it to remain in health and avoid decomposing because as an "energy pattern" or "thought form", it is a thought of life and not a thought of destruction. A thought FROM a living mind.

Death has to be considered vertical, in fact, because we know that death is a manifestation of fear. "All forms of sickness even unto death are physical expressions of the FEAR of awakening." Therefore death, which is the same as sickness, and all forms of sickness of the body, all malfunctioning, is really nothing to do with linear causes at all, and only to do with vertical causes. A fearful mind attacks the body and destroys it by pushing it away from heaven towards hell. A loving mind heals the body and maintains it in perfect health by lifting it up in ressurection.

What we call health then, cannot be described in terms of linear happenings. We have to think of it as a question of whether you are close to heaven (thus to order and harmony), or whether you are closer to hell (thus to disorder and disruption). The body symbolizes and represents where the mind is at, in its vertical alignment. "The mind, being sane, heals the body." "A damaged body shows the mind has not been healed." This is a vertical axis of life vs death, not horizontal.

This also corresponds perhaps to aging. If we think of aging in terms of horizontal time measurements, we are maybe missing the whole point, because horizontal aging is an ILLUSION. Yes the body can transform into various states of what we might call maturity over time. But whether or not the body is healthy or sick is nothing to do with its age. It's more to do with how the mind is using that body at a particular time. Because "what you use the body for it becomes to you." When used for attack it becomes sick (dead), and when used to bring God's word it CANNOT be sick or die - it's too close to life.

So we could say that when a person's mind is closer to the light, the body is held in a state of health and healing. It symbolizes eternal life and immortality. It is free from pain, from scars, from damage, and represents harmlessness. The healed mind heals the body and cannot conceive of illness. It forces the body into a resurrected state, by the extension of love through it, lifting it out of suffering. Light, love, life, from above, shines downwards, and lifts upwards. A light-filled body cannot age or decay or become sick or die beacuse it is infused with POWER. Vertical life overrides horizontal death.

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from heaven (downwards from above) on a dry and dusty world where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. And all around the signs of life spring up (upwards from below)."

Life, progressing from death to life, as in vertical resurrection, is a vertical movement towards God. Towards truth. Towards innocence. Towards guiltlessness. Since "sickness is but another form of guilt", and sickness cannot EXIST without guilt, the removal of guilt from the mind (as in moving upwards towards the light) causes the body to represent a higher frequency or order, and thus health. A higher mind is a more POWERFUL mind and it is filled with holiness and healing.

In fact as ACIM teaches, as the mind move upwards towards atonement, it is moving towards health and wholeness. And it enforces the body into a symbolic representation of that. It takes on "the power to represent an endless life." So at the pinnacle, the body is suspended in light and higher "vibration", free from attack, free from guilt, free from psychological torture. And this effectively leaves the body in a state of symbolic immortality. ie that it cannot become sick at all, and it has no death in it. Its appearance can also then be modified at will, to represent any age or gender or form. It becomes transparent and light and is not pulled down into suffering or the lower vibrations of decay.

So we really need to realize that in ACIM Jesus talks of sickness and death and health on a VERTICAL axis. Is mind high, or low. It it close to the light, or hiding in darkness. It is moving upwards towards God and atonement and LIFE, or is it moving downwards into sickness, damage, attack and destruction. The minds constructive powers have to be reinstated in order that it can take power OVER sickness and death, which really means, to RISE ABOVE IT, by moving the mind into a higher state, and therefore abolishing exposure to anything lower. Death is the lowest state and is simply "out of reach" for an enlightened mind.

We, all of us, on this planet, right now, are in various states of life vs death. We all need resurrection. Any measure of sin or guilt or attack or fear in the mind IS a state of removal from life. It IS a rejection of life and of health. Any movement into ego is a movement into choas and disorder and malfunction and failure. And death IS failure. It is a failure to live, a failure to be in the light, and represents the fear of God. Perhaps it's fitting to consider that death ends in the ground, while ascension takes you into the heavens.

"Very simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death. It is a reawakening or a rebirth; a change of mind about the meaning of the world. It is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the world's purpose; the acceptance of the Atonement for oneself. It is the end of dreams of misery, and the glad awareness of the Holy Spirit's final dream. It is the recognition of the gifts of God. ****It is the dream in which the body functions perfectly****, having no function except communication."

"The resurrection ***is the denial of death***, being the ***assertion of life*** Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely. Life is now recognized as salvation, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell. Love is no longer feared, but gladly welcomed. Idols have disappeared, and the remembrance of God shines unimpeded across the world. Christ's face is seen in every living thing, and nothing is held in darkness, apart from the light of forgiveness. There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy of Heaven has come upon it.

Here the curriculum ends."

Let's think about projection as more like an energy thing. You are a light, and you shine outward. You broadcast and radiate energy.

It depends what's in you, at the root of the light, as to what will shine out of you. If there are clouds of darkness at the source, it blocks some of the light coming out, and darkness seems to come out instead. But if the light source is free of blockages, the light shines brightly and strongly.

Another way to think of the blockages is as filters. They filter the light. The more opaque they seem to be the less light permeates through. And different kinds of filters block different frequencies and "color" the light. Anger might produce a red light, maybe fear produces a dark green light, and perhaps guilt is orange.

This light emits out of you, out of your body, our of your face, through your eyes. It in fact influences your vision. You look out through the light that you shine, so if it's blocked your vision is blocked as well. And if the light has taken on a lesser color, your seeing is also flavored by that sentiment.

You thus look out and have a direct experience of what we call the reality of the world. This is in two layers. There is a contribution from physical sight, but there is also this overlay of colors and energies, or emotions and felt experience, of meaning and purpose, which you project onto the physical. Anything less than love distorts how you see, and therefore what you project. And what you project narrows what you see, and thus defines it.

If I am in fear, I try to shine, but the shining diminishes, and leaves a lack of light, which seems like a darkness. And now I shine out what seems like a darkness, and my vision becomes dark, and I see reflected back to me that darkness. The darkness interferes with what I'm looking at and filters it. Now everything seems frightening and dark, because I am looking with fear and darkness.

"I can obscure my holy sight, if I intrude my world upon it. Nor can I behold the holy sights Christ looks upon unless it is His vision that I use. Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind reflected outward. I would bless the world by looking on it through the eyes of Christ. And I will look upon the certain signs that all my sins have been forgiven me."

You might think that the things you see in such looking is objective and passive, that you're seeing what's really there. But you're really seeing a distorted version of what's there, filtered through your blocks to light. You can only really see what you put there to see, and whatever you're seeing you have actually projected. You see fearful things because you are looking in a fearful way.

You then might think that you see many things which seem objectively fearful, that dramas are amassing, and problems are mounting, and dangers are looming, and risk is increasing. And you will take this to be the whole of reality, because you don't see anything outside of the confines of the filter of darkness. And this further deceives and tempts you into fear.

"The world you see is but the idle witness that you were RIGHT. This witness is insane. You trained it in its testimony, and, as it gave it BACK to you, you listened and convinced yourself that what it saw was true. YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF. See only this, and you will also see how circular the reasoning on which your "seeing" rests."

Soon, you don't recognize that you are projecting fear, and instead believe you are seeing the whole of what is really there. This is because you've lost context, due to blocked light frequencies. And now the world appears frightening and dark and terrible, with no way out, like a living hellish nightmare. And everwhere you turn you are confronted with fear and threat and danger. As if it is an inherent part of everything.

But if you can step back and check yourself, check your broadcast, check what kind of energy you're emitting, what kind of light you're shining, what you're giving, then you may be able to realize that you're actually making things look frightening. It's because you're projecting fear from within you, and not because the fear is starting outside of you. You either project fear or love, and everything else is just a variation of that.

Then you have to recognize that you have fear in you before you project it, and you can only see it when you project it. And you aren't seeing fearful things unless you are making them fearful inside of you first. Wihch means really there is a fear in you, lurking behind your projection, behind the radiant glow of your energy, which is blocking your light much closer to the source.

So then we have to look deeper within, much more intimately, much closer to your self, much nearer to where the projecting begins. The issue that's interfering with the light is happening much sooner and closer to home than you thought. It's in your mind, it's even prior to your projections. Somehow there is a fear in you that you didn't realize was there, which you've just been projecting all over the place and believing it's outside of you.

This begs the question, if there is fear inside of you, and the fear is not in the world or caused by the world, what is making you afraid WITHOUT the world? And that line of questioning has to lead to realizing that you likely have made yourself guilty, are punishing yourself, are threatening yourself, and are believing you have sinned against God. Because really it all goes back to the original sin and to what you think you did that made you worthy of suffering and punishment.

Always the projection of your inner content is extremely deceptive. It's fine if you are coming truly from an inner peace and a loving heart, which projects innocence and safety and sinlessness, rendering everything appearing to you as completely harmless and beautiful. But if you have blocked this love, and thus have guilt and fear in you, then this is going to fly out of you at the earliest opportunity, from the cess-pool of your mind.

Minds area always projecting, because it is their natural function. They give or express what is in them. It expands and moves outward. All minds shine like lightbulbs, regardless of whether the light is filtered or covered up. It's not a question so much of if you will project, but whether you will interfere with the natural extension of love, trying to pollute it with egoic beliefs and dark veils and false beliefs. Or such things as hidden hates and secret sins and unhealed wounds.

If I look to what is coming out of me, which I can FEEL, if I've crossed the line into believing that the world is the problem, I am already very deceived. If I am buying into the projected version of what was inside, believing it's outside, I'm already way down the line of the chain of causation. I have to look at my energy, what does it feel like, what am I broadcasting, what's coming out of me, am I attacking and fearing and accusing and trying to find scapegoats, or am I loving, safe and happy?

A scapegoat isn't just some person you pick out, it's the target of your energetic broadcast. It's a psychological thing you attach your inner gunk to. The mind looks to scapegoat, ie to find something to associate its dissociated guilt and fear with, so that it can attach it to something outside of you. Kind of like flying a kite, anchored in your mind, on a long tether, flying in the sky in front of your eyes, dangling like a carrot of temptation.

To scapegoat is to project ego, just in the mere act of projecting it, regardless of what is being said about a person or how they're being used. If I'm projecting fear or sin or guilt, I am scapegoating. I'm actively trying to get rid of my inner content. It's being pushed out of me, hurled onto the world. It's actively RADIATING out of me like an energy broadcast. I'm putting it onto the world.

It may land and attach to certain people or bodies or objects or events but it's always going to be something physical, because fear always blocks the light and narrows vision to illusions. And once I'm seeing fear and guilt outside of me, I see it as making me afraid and guilty. And now I'm stuck with a backwards perception and am deceiving myself. I have to realize I'm the one who is making the world frightening, by putting my inner fear onto it and singling it out as a target.

"When vision is DENIED, confusion of cause and effect becomes inevitable. The PURPOSE now becomes to KEEP OBSCURE the cause of the effect, and make effect appear to BE a cause. This seeming independence of effect enables it to be regarded as STANDING BY ITSELF, and capable of serving as a CAUSE of the events and feelings its maker thinks IT causes."

I have to watch myself doing this. It doesn't happen at an intellectual or theoretical level, it happens experientially and in a felt energetic broadcast. It's a psychological state. It's not a story or a concept about someone - that's just some form it might take later. It's more to do with, whether I am blessing with love and light, or am I cursing with nasty dark harmful energies, trying to attack psychically or whether I am providing the gentle healing remedy of a miraculous expression.

It is actually especially useful and a relief to recognize that nothing in the world is causing any of your upset, any of your fear, any of your guilt, or any of your belief in sin. Nothing, not ever, has any influence on you, but yourself. Becoming lost in the world and believing it's doing stuff to you, or your happiness and peace depends on someone else changing, that's all about being lost and confused in your own projections. It's NEVER about other people or the world. It's all to do with what you are doing to yourself on the inside.

To be wiling NOT to project hate, attack, anger, guilt, shame, blame, judgement, fear, sin, etc onto others, and to not let it leave your mind (seemingly), keeps it from latching onto external targets. It renders everyone innocent and loved, because really your upset has nothing to do with anyone else or the world. Then you can go deeper and unravel the mystery of where this interior bullshit is coming from, why you've attacked yourself, finding the reason why you cannot be sinful, and finally to embrace the atonement for yourself.

ALL of your problems are INSIDE OF YOU. And NONE of it is caused by anything outside of you! And it can ONLY be corrected INSIDE of you where the problem and solution are together. You are responsible for how everything looks to you, because it entirely depends on what you chose to believe about yourself, and how that radiates through your vision. Light IS vision, and seeing IS projection. Project only love to see through the eyes of christ, by seeing yourself as christ first.

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."

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

""This is the ONLY thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the COMPLETE escape from sin, ALL to be given you. Say ONLY this, but MEAN it with NO reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:

I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."

Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done TO you. Acknowledge but that YOU have been mistaken, and ALL effects of your mistakes will disappear." "You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you."

"My self is ruler of the universe. ... It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."

"It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events OUTSIDE him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were NOT his choice. His power of decision is the DETERMINER of every situation in which he seems to FIND himself by chance or accident. No accident or chance is POSSIBLE within the universe as God created it, OUTSIDE of which is nothing."

To the ego, it will not attempt to teach anything that it does not already know. It relies entirely on its own learning or what it already believes is true.

In this sense, everything within the ego thought system has already been there for a very long time and there is "nothing new".

The ego does not therefore really learn anything. It just reveals to itself more pieces of what was already within its thought system, but kept unconscious.

The ego pretends to learn by gradually bringing into the open more information which seemed hidden before, from its vast reserves of useless information, laws and regulations, any anything that sustains its thought system or makes it more real.

The ego does not want you to be open to guidance, it does not want you to trust a source of information outside of its thought system, and it's not really interested in learning. It's entire purpose is to unlearn the truth, to block the truth, and to keep you in the dark. And it can do that very effectively with an ILLUSION of learning, in the guise of learning something which is not really God's truth. And we've done this a lot.

There is a line in the Course for example which says "your mind is a blank". Even though the ego mind seems filled with thoughts and activities, it is really filled with nothing but illusions and so nothing is really happening. Even our ego thinking is not real activity. It is not creation. Plus we're given ourselves what Jesus describes as a "learning disability", an attempt to make our ability to learn more difficult, so that we will resist the truth.

Now, as you become willing to un-learn the ego's bullshit, and reveal the real truth to yourself, you'll begin to develop trust in a source of information outside of the ego's mind. Holy Spirit is there to help, along with many Mighty Companions.

But in order to "learn" what is outside of the ego's thought system, it requires the un-doing or un-learning of the ego, to make room for what's to come IN from outside. And also the rules for learning change as you open up to the Holy Mind.

In the ego's system, it will only attempt to teach if it ensures that you will not learn anything, or it sets you up as solely a teacher who is not a student, a dictatorship basically. The students are considered inferior and the teacher is superior. Teaching or the classroom is then more or less a prison.

It won't let you attempt to teach or even feel confident about teaching, unless you seem to already know everything there is to know, and are certain enough of being in control of that enough to be able to seem to give it to someone else. And when the teaching is occurring, the teacher is not intent on learning at all.

This works differently with Holy Spirit. In order to learn the truth, conditions have to be set up where you are willing to receive new input. But because in the One Mind giving and receiving are equal/one/balanced, there cannot be input without output. You cannot "share" and thus experience the new truth, or learn it, unless you are also willing to have it flow through you and extend out of you. In a way this means you cannot "learn the truth" without the truth flowing through you and being shared, in a "teaching and learning" role.

The Kingdom of God must be extended in order to exist, and that means the truth has to be shared. You have to be open to having that truth come through you, even if you do not seem to know what that truth is going to say. You won't necessarily get a head's up and you aren't going to be able to learn it all ahead of time. Instead, it's going to only be fed to you, shared with you, and shared through and beyond you, in the moment, in the instant that you are actually attempting to give it to another.

This requires that you drop what you think you know, open up to trust in a higher source, and that source may not even be seen or directly accessed yet. This therefore requires FAITH, ie trust that even if you yourself do not know, you're going to be supported and given what you need and told what to do and where to go, spontaneously, as and when it's the right time. In a way it's like being blind or in the dark blindfolded, but trusting someone else to guide you safely to the exact right destination without hurting yourself.

If you are unwilling to "teach" because you don't think you know the subject matter well enough, you will never learn it. Teaching means demonstrating, so it doesn't necessarily have to be through writing or traditional roles, it can just be by being a living example of love. But what is true for you, you will demonstrate/teach. If you stop yourself from TRYING, you won't gain access to support and guidance. You have to take a leap of faith. You have to be willing to be mistaken, and you need to be open to learning AS you teach. You teach, in order to learn.

Basically you just need to show up, be willing, and step into a FLOW. As the flow begins, as you start to express, IF you trust the truth you are attempting to express, MORE TRUTH WILL COME AS YOU GO. The new truth will only enter once the flow is flowing.

It's kind of like plumbing. You've got this water in the pipe, but the only way new water is going to enter the pipe, is when the water that's already in the pipe starts to flow out the other end. Otherwise there is no room, and there's no flow. A lack of flow is a lack of extension. The water can't extend out of the pipe if you won't RECEIVE and if you are not willing to just be open minded to let whatever comes in, come in, just as it's needed, spontaneously.

Heaven's support, and the flow of truth, is very spontaneous. It is ready to act NOW. You don't get the whole download on the spot and then go write about it. You just make yourself flow out the stuff you already know, albeit limited, maybe based on just one little insight, and then you get into a flow about it.

As you do, Heaven comes to support you. The reason is that you are now fulfilling your function. You are aligning yourself with the truth by being willing to have it express through you, you are letting truth sort of align your wavelength to Heaven/Holy Spirit, and the result of that is that Heaven actually rushes in to support and help you. Mighty companions show up. Jesus and Holy Spirit start to wisper in your ear. You start to be told specific words and corrections and things you weren't expecting.

You start to "channel". And as you do this, you receive stuff that you didn't even know beforehand, and you therefore learn, often just as much as anyone else reading or hearing what you expressed. And then you may find yourself going back to read what you wrote because you yourself are its student as well.

This also means you are learning to COMMUNICATE. Communication in the Course is different to the ego's communication. The ego only communicates what it thinks its already knows and nothing else, regurgitating the past. Real communication entails the EXTENSION OF TRUTH, the flow of truth, in true sharing, where receiving and giving are one, and where there is an openness to spontaneously, creatively express from a place that's totally outside the ego. Just in the moment, freely flowing a loving expression.

So it takes an act of faith. Miracles are taken first on faith, because you may come to trust something which is as yet unseen, but which is there, and which has proven it must be there by its witnesses, ie evidence or proof which manifests as a result of taking a leap and putting one foot in front of the next. You don't have to teach alone, and you can't. You can only truly teach truth if you are open to receiving it at the same time, and then it speaks through you.

Holy Spirit is the highest communication medium, in that He is so pure and devoid of ego that he can perfectly "channel God", as it were, to be the Voice for God. You also can become a Voice for God if you are willing to spontaneously flow Heaven and therefore to actually communicate. Just speaking words is not communication, because the ego is very good at just waffling on about bullshit. But when the words are coming from a higher place, extending God as a "Teacher of God", now you are learning God because you are teaching God.

In essence you should ALWAYS be in this state of "learning", not so much a state of accumulating or building up some knowledge base, but being always RECEPTIVE and CREATIVE in the flow of truth without having to know beforehand what's going to be said or what will happen.

As you learn to trust this, you will teach and it will become your own teaching of yourself as well. The best way to learn is to try to teach someone else what the truth is, to prove to yourself what the truth is. If you can communicate, truly, to another, you will learn the truth. The act of attempting to tell someone else what the truth is, causes your mind to become creative and dynamic and spontaneous in visualizing and sort of filling in the blanks as you go. The MODE of mind functioning to "express" puts it into a state of flow, and you just need to get stuff MOVING OUT even if it feels like you are totally winging it, or even "fake it till you make it". Just the act of expressing even without knowing what the next word is going to be, allows guidance to come IN immediately as it is needed.

You only need to start out with a little idea. What I usually am doing is I just had some kind of spontaneous idea or insight, or I just learned some basic thing, or something became relevant for me in the past 24 hours. So I will start to write about it based on what I already know... ego learning.... but I go about it with Holy Spirit/Jesus at hand, and then they start to inject more flow and more idea and more clarifications and as the whole thing unfolds, it ends up being an education not just for others but for me also.

When I get to the end I then have to go back and re-read it myself, to digest it and take it in more, because what came out was usually mind-expanding in some way. This very post itself for example, I was not planning to write whatsoever, until I was inspired by a post that Myron Jones wrote today, and felt this intuitive "excitement" about elaborating on. I did not know how this would come out or in what words until I just started to do it.

So just start with what you think you know and be open to extending truth and just making yourself available, just sit down and start writing something, and so long as you are expressing truth in some way, Heaven will rush in to support you and give you help and put words in your mouth. This is how you learn to "channel" or be a Voice for God.

Speaking or writing the truth gets the attention of Heaven, angels will come to you to help you, and Holy Spirit and Jesus will be right there to support you and guide you. This is also partly how miracles come about, because as you spontaneously trust and start to speak the truth about someone and diffuse illusions and authoritatively command an expression of the truth of God, things line up and you magnetize Heaven's strength to you and through you, and then the earth moves. It's a collaboration. Your willingness is all it takes to get into the flow. Just start somewhere and see what happens as you go. But if you don't start at all, you'll never see the miracles and you won't learn.

Teach like a fool. Teach even when you don't know what to say. Just start doing it. The rest will follow automatically. Seek the Kingdom of God and express it and your way will be made straight and will be held up by Heaven's helpers.

For example, on my website I started a 'questions and answers' service, because I felt that I wanted to be pushed to have to answer things that I did not know how to answer, and wanted people to come up with questions so that I wouldn't be able to premeditate or just write about what was relevant to me at the time. What I found happens is, when someone asks something, it's usually not something I even thought of as being a topic people needed help with.

And then I'll ask Holy Spirit what He wants to say about this, and to please help me with it. And then I start writing about it, and I just get into this place where the most amazing stuff gets written, especially when I didn't really know what I was going to say or what there even was to say about it. It all just comes together because I TRUST that I'm going to be helped and the help shows up. Provided I am willing to just show up and be available and let the truth be written through me.

The idea of non-duality is an attempt to describe reality or the nature of God. What is really real and really exists. At first we have the idea of duality or polar opposites. Then we reach the idea that the world is secretly "all one thing", as though all the objects are connected together by a singular "one" something.

Then we're presented even further with the idea that if we're being really "pure" about it, the forms and objects really don't exist at all, and the "oneness" beyond them is all that really exists, ie God. In this model of "pure non-duality", there is no world", and this is what SEEMS to correlate to SOME of what ACIM says. This usually leads to conclusions such as "oneness" as in "a count of one something", "its all God", "it's all mind" etc.

So various people took up the idea that ACIM is pure non-duality. But this has some problems. Let's put it this way - the idea is not pure enough. Because if this is a logical concept and we're trying to get down to the purest essence of "what is", usually you'll find that the pure non-duality folk will ACCEPT that "God has one son". There's a lot of material about God having a son - "The Son of God". And while this is accepted, it's not actually pure.

How can God have a son, at all, if there is only God? How can you even label some aspect of God - like his "radiance", as "a son"? God would not be able to have parts, or aspects, or anything you can ever attach a label too. Not even in the most vague of ways. Some people like to try to get around this by suggesting that the Son of God is so joined to God that there is nowhere he ends and God begins... while STILL keeping somehow in their minds this loose idea that SOMEHOW, you can still point a finger at this "part of God" and call it God's Son. THAT is still not pure. It's a bandaid attempt to explain it.

The problem is that if you get really pure about it, and we remove all sense of separations, divisions, multitudes, labels, parts and aspects etc... and we REALLY boil it down to "one thing" as in the traditional idea of "oneness" (the ego's idea of purity), we end up with .... there literally is only God. And that means God, sitting there ALONE, by Himself, WITHOUT a Son, without a sonship, without any creations or thoughts, just totally alone, no-one to share with, nothing to communicate with, just complete a total loneliness. THAT, actually, is the purest possible interpretation of "pure" non-duality. That "there is only God" all by Himself and he doesn't even have a Son at all. Not even one.

But many people will not want to "go there" because to suggest there isn't even one Son flies in the face of a lot of ACIM material. And certain popular teachers have taught for a long time that a) there is only one thing but b) a slight exception is made for there being a single son. This sort of hybrid mishmash of logical concepts has been quite widely accepted as a correct mapping to what ACIM is saying. One God + One Son, who is God, but isn't, but is. It's a bandaid and not logically pure nor does it match what the Course itself says.

The fact is, if there is truly this "oneness" in which there are not "many" of anything, in an effort to avoid "duality", there is **no son** there whatsoever. Not even as an aspect or expression or radiance or thought or part of God. And that leads also to the super watered-down conclusion of "it's all God" ie "there is nothing else". And that conclusion by itself has problems because e.g. the Course speaks of how a) God does not will to be alone and b) God is a creator and c) God has at least one Son and d) God created the Holy Spirit and e) God created angels and f) the Son has his own creations as well. Which is shaping up to be a lot of "parts", a lot of "somethings" that are sufficient enough to say there isn't "just" God there - that there HAS BEEN an act of creation. That something has been ADDED TO reality.

There is also an issue of freedom. If everything in reality is God and God is just being God in all of His ways, then there is no freedom in which any part or aspect has any free will. There is no way that you as a Son of God can dream of exile. There is no way that anything can occur without it being God doing it Himself, directly. And any idea of a Son must really be an idea of some kind of PUPPET that God is manipulating that has no mind or life or will of its own - no freedom at all. Which really runs counter to what Jesus tells us of the Son of God, free will, the ability to choose and the separation seeming to happen.

If you also blob it all together and say "its all God" then you end up with the alarming scenario that God therefore MUST be dreaming of exile, God must have invented the illusion of death, God is REALLY cruel, and God has attacked himself. This renders God insane, and that just isn't acceptable. Because if God could go off the rails, there is no way He would ever return to sanity, and all of existence would vanish.

It is vital that there be some kind of freedom between God and the Son in order for God NOT to be pulled into insanity along with His Son's dreaming. Free Will is absolutely vital in order to prevent this. But to have free will means, you guessed it, there MUST be a kind of "independence" or individuality, in which the Son CAN, if He so chooses, try to will against God. And this is based on the fact that God is the CAUSE of His Son, His Son is the EFFECT of Him, and God has given His son FREEDOM to SHARE His freedom with Him, or deny it. Either way, without freedom there is no free will and no son at all.

There is also another major problem with non-duality. God by His nature is love and love MUST be given. Unless it is given ie shared, it does not extend or shine and so becomes essentially lifeless. IT MUST go out and create. If God has no son, there is nothing TO love or to SHARE it with. And so love cannot love. And this means, ultimately, logically, that God is dead because He isn't LOVING. This again is unacceptable as a conclusion. God can't be dead or unloving. But to be alive, GOD MUST CREATE, so we must accept God has created ADDITIONAL BEINGS in a state of freedom.

And this is the key part that non-duality shits all over. Regardless of the fact that it destroys the sonship and ignores God's creations, it basically denies that God CREATES at all. It's the idea that God is just sitting there alone twiddling his thumbs. And this means He is not creating a son, not even one. It means there is no Kingdom. No Heaven. No HOME for the Son of God. No inheritance. It means the denial that God has a family. It denies that God's SON is a creator, AND it denies that God's son has created children. It's not conceptually a good FIT for ACIM's metaphysics.

So non-duality basically suppresses the MANY thought creations of God, denies many aspects of REALITY, and overthrows the Kingdom. It kills off God, puts a stop to Creation, eradicates sharing, makes it impossible for God to create many children, and interprets the Sonship as a collection of egos. Now, WHO exactly do you think comes up with such a concept of "what reality is like"? THE EGO. These are the EGO's conclusions, non-duality is an EGO CONCEPT, and like all ego concepts it actually NEGATES what is true and cancels or denies reality.

All non-duality models are the ridiculous FALSE conclusions that the ego comes to when trying to understand something TOTALLY BEYOND the ego. Something whose nature is NOTHING LIKE the ego, and so the ego is utterly clueless as to its nature. Non-duality is not really an attempt to define or describe reality, it's an attempt to destroy it.

At best, and only loosely, non-duality MIGHT describe "God Himself", if you could isolate Him and say, God is one whole being, PRIOR to creation. But beyond that, in terms of God being a CREATOR, who HAS CREATED CHILDREN, it totally falls flat on its face. There is no sonship without creation. Non-duality is Kingdom-denying. Reality IS NOT a state of "its all God" or "its all mind". It's all God AND God's creations AND their creations. Because you can ADD TO REALITY, reality cannot be non-dualistic.

"HE created the Sonship, and YOU increase it. You HAVE the power to ADD to the Kingdom, but NOT to add to the Creator OF the Kingdom."

"God created His **Sons** by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ALL His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they were created neither partially nor in part."

"You should know that all God's children are fully worthy of COMPLETE courtesy."

"We are creation, WE, the Sons of God."

"And we, God's children, rise up from the dust and look upon our perfect sinlessness."

But let's back up a moment. The Course DOES say that there is only God. It DOES say God has one Son. It DOES say there is only one mind (Christ mind). It DOES speak of oneness. "Into eternity where all is one" "I and my father are one" "God has but one son" etc. And that *seems* to support the idea that "its all God". But here's the thing. IT IS all God, it IS all "one", BUT.... THERE IS **ALSO** CREATION. And all created BEINGS are LIKE God, share with God, are one with God (of the same nature, joined to Him), yet have THEIR OWN FREEDOM.

God HAS created a family of beings. God IS a creator. God DID create at least one son. SO non-duality is out the window. Reality is not some giant expanse of singularity. It's more like a womb in which God has given birth to creations, WITHIN His own being, and has given them FREEDOM. Living, whole-minded, willfully free beings. Children of God. And if that makes you uncomfortable because it "does not compute" or "it sounds like duality", too bad. It is what it is and its your job to accept it.

It's not the same thing as duality. Duality means the localization of parts which are split off and kept separate by NOT SHARING with each other, confined and isolated and different. Duality is the nature of space and time, where nothing shares. Non-duality is the idea of the opposite of that - that the differences are illusions and everything is one thing. But that too is not accurate. Reality isn't some "state" where God is contemplating his navel. Reality isn't like duality even with its many parts because they STILL are all "one" AND YET also many. And each part SHARES with all the rest and IS EVERYWHERE. "One mind is all minds."

Love is EXPRESSIVE. "Divine abstraction takes joy in application." "God did not will to be alone." And as such God has gone BEYOND the concept of "there's only one thing there". God has CREATED children. He has ADDED to existence, and your function is to add to it further. That's not non-duality by a long shot. Nor is it duality (spacetime where things are separated and limited).

God has created a Kingdom. A home for His Sons. Who are one, but many. This is what's miraculous and ego defying. Because of SHARING ("nothing real can be increased, except by sharing"), God has "made room" for beings within Him who share with Him FULLY (oneness) but who STILL retain their own souls. The soul has been FULLY ADDED to existence.

"The soul has not only been created perfect, it has been FULLY created. There is no lack in it."

After the ego is undone, after the separation has ended, after the universe has disappeared, after all divisions and artificial UNNATURAL separations are gone, when duality is no more... the children of God WILL REMAIN children of God, just as they were BEFORE the separation.

"I am as God created me".

"The Holy Spirit promotes healing by looking beyond it to what the children of God were before healing was needed, and will be when they have been healed."

"The Voice of the Holy Spirit is the Call to Atonement, or the restoration of the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete ***and the whole Sonship is healed*** there will be no Call to return. But what God creates (Holy Spirit) is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with ***the Sons of God***, to bless ***their creations*** and keep them in the light of joy."

A Course in Miracles is NOT non-duality. It only loosely teaches that "its all ONE" or "we are all one". That's TRUE. We're woven from the same cloth. BUT, it's not the WHOLE truth. We are ONE, BUT, God as the Oneness has created many of us WITHIN His being. And this is NOT contradictory to God, only to the ego. It is miraculous. And this is because God is MIRACULOUS. He HAS done what seems impossible to the ego. He HAS created a Kingdom filled with souls, beings of light, who share everything together as one united family, WITHOUT destroying reality and without fragmenting existence.

"God, who encompasses all being, NEVERTHELESS (regardless of whether you like this or it makes sense) created **separate beings**, who have everything **individually** and want to share it to increase their joy."

We hear people latching onto this phrase quite often and using it to justify inaction. But Jesus doesn't use it in this way in the course. He speaks of it more as a psychological state and a recognition of truth.

We are actually asked to first recognize that there is no NEED for US to "do anything", because in recognizing the truth we see that everything real is perfect and nothing unreal exists. However, we are also asked to remain in this state of mind and bring it with us INTO a great many BUSY DOINGS, which we are SENT to do.

"This quiet center, IN WHICH YOU DO NOTHING, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. For, FROM this center, will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly." UrT18H10

So just because we might reach a recognition that nothing is really needed, it doesn't mean we are not acting, not doing something physical, not using the body, not changing anything in the world or not interacting with and helping other people through the body.

It just means that WITHIN, our mind is peaceful in recognition of truth, as we continue meander through the dream world TAKING ACTIONS, coming FROM a quiet centre.

We are also told that "I need do nothing" is something you will realize more or less in a very advanced state, toward the end of the awakening process.

"When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation, and fight against giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation, or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it ALWAYS comes with just ONE happy realization, -- "I need do nothing." Here is the ultimate release that everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time."

This means that we shouldn't be using this idea as a way to say, I will DO NOTHING prior to this awakening. In fact, not only are we to do things in the world up to this point, but EVEN WHEN we recognize that we need do nothing WE STILL do things.

There is also an aspect to this that because we inherit everything from God, and God works with us and through us, we OF OURSELVES need do nothing. This is because God is going to be doing some things through us. And in order for God to do some things through us we have to not interfere with that and become willing vessels FOR DOING THINGS, allowing the BODY to be used by the Holy Spirit.

"And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self" UrW337L1

"I am not alone, and I would not intrude the past upon my Guest. I have invited Him, and He is here.

I need do nothing except NOT TO INTERFERE." UrT16A4

Now some people have a strange view of what it means to not interfere. This is because most people think in terms of either/or - either this or that. So they think, either I will do something or God will do something. This is not how it's set up.

We do need to acknowledge that God has all power. But in doing so, we also thus acknowledge that all power has been GIVEN to us, and that FULLY means that WE are now powerful beings. It just means that the power that we have, does not belong EXCLUSIVELY to ourselves, because it is a shared power. That doesn't mean it is not ours or that we in ourselves are not powerful or are incapable.

So as we approach God and approach the atonement and are aiming not to interfere with God's will, that doesn't mean WE are not willing something - our will LINES UP with his, it isn't TAKEN OVER by his. We become willing participants just as we are co-creators in heaven. God does not force anything or possess you or use you like a puppet. YOU still have to DO something.

This is why there is a lot of talk in the course about your being sent to people, and people being sent to you. Because you are actually required to help out in the atonement plan and to DO SOMETHING to help others in the world.

"Every busy doing on WHICH YOU ARE SENT."

"Everyone who is sent to you is a patient of yours. " UrP4A1

"And bring with you all those whom He has sent to you to care for as I care for you."" Ur6A6

"includes very specific contacts to be made for each teacher of God. There are no accidents in salvation." UrM4A1

So we're not really talking here about NOT DOING ANYTHING. The emphasis actually is on the absence of NEED for yourself. Just because YOU recognize that YOU do not need anything, and that in truth on the level of spirit others do not need anything either - because nothing is really wrong in reality - this DOES NOT APPLY in the level of time and space.

In the level of time and space there is a great need. There is a lot of lack. There is a great absence of love and wholeness and health. There is a great amount of perceived suffering. While it is not real in the big picture IT IS happening in time. And this is why anyone who has not fully embraced atonement DOES NEED HELP.

So even if you recognize that you do not REALLY need do anything, even if you recognize that the true nature of others as Christ does not NEED anything, you should also be recognizing that other people have mental illness, and their state of mind IS a need - they are calling out for love and help and healing and teaching. And that is why it is STILL your role to GIVE HELP as and where it is needed - as and where you are SENT TO DO BUSY THINGS.

This statement for example might seem to say that you should ignore all bodies. It doesn't mean that.

"To DO anything involves the body. And, if you recognize you NEED do nothing, you HAVE withdrawn the body's value from your mind. Here is the quick and open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and ESCAPE from time." UrT18H9

What it's saying is that for you personally, if YOU recognize you need do nothing, you also recognize the body has no real function. But this doesn't mean you don't USE the body and it doesn't mean the body isn't repurposed. In fact the Holy Spirit repurposes it and guides you to use it for a higher purpose of healing and communication and teaching. Plus Christ needs your body to reach others.

"The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another." UrT1B40J

"My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today have but one purpose; to be given Christ to use to bless the world with miracles." UrW353

In heaven there are no needs. In reality and in truth there are no needs. In your perfect soul there are no needs. In THIS world THERE ARE NEEDS. And thus in this world, YOU DO NEED TO DO SOMETHING.

"Having been restored to your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself. You now share MY inability to tolerate the lack of love in yourself and in everyone else, and MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE to correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is "Listen, Learn, and DO. ... The first two are not enough. The real members of MY party are ACTIVE workers." UrT1B23H

The great crusade which you are told YOU MUST JOIN - mandatory - is also in the FIP 3rd edition, in some form...

"As you share my unwillingness to accept error in yourself and others, you must join the great crusade to correct it; listen to my voice, learn to undo error and act to correct it. ⁷The power to work miracles belongs to you. ⁸I will provide the opportunities to do them, but you must be ready and willing." T-1.III.1:6-8

Jesus is quite adamant here that even if you accept atonement you STILL have a duty. And it is a required duty. And the reason it is required is because - other people are a part of you, and even if YOU seem to independently accept atonement it doesn't mean other people have stopped their nightmares. A part of you is in them, and a part of them is in you. Your healing heals them in part, but their suffering also prevents you from TOTAL peace.

We are in fact asked to PROFESS CHRIST, and that atonement is our natural PROFESSION. A profession is something that you DO. It's an activity, a set of actions and doings. Something that you give to the world and share with others.

"You once said that souls cannot rest until everyone has found salvation. This happens to be true. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive. The Disciples were officially and specifically told to heal others, as Physicians of the Lord. They were also told to heal themselves, and were promised that I would never leave them or forsake them. Atonement is the natural profession of the Children of God, because they have professed Me." UrT1B24A

By all means let's all steer towards affirming and acknowledging that there is in reality no true needs and requirement to do anything. But let's also NOT be ignorant to the fact that there has been a separation, untold numbers of beings are stuck in it, it could take millions of years for them all to awaken, and everyone single one of them is calling out for love and help and healing.

"You will forsake yourselves and your God if you forsake any of YOUR brothers. You are more than your brother's keeper." UrT5F14

As claimers of needing to do nothing, as people with peaceful minds and open hearts overflowing with love it is our responsibility to CONTINUE TO DO THINGS to help others. You remain in a psychological INNER state of rest and peace and "no need" - which means no lack - within, WHILE you accomplish a great many DOINGS in the world. It does not mean that you just sit on a fence and be passive and literally do nothing at all.

This must not be used as an excuse or doing nothing, not helping, not being a teacher of God, not working miracles, not healing others, not helping, having total passivity and inaction, or dwelling only on your own apparent lack of needs. This is not a selfish course, it's a course in sharing. And many of us need to learn that we are TO SHARE what we receive, and GIVE the miracles we have received, and help our brothers along the way to God.

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

If a person - ie a body - does something wrong, and you focus on their body and what it did, you are being unforgiving. It isn't possible to keep focusing on the body and forgive the person. You can't be psychologically aiming your focus at the person's body while exclaiming that you forgive them. To focus on their body IS to imprison them AND accuse them AND not forgive them.

What is required then is to completely disregard ANYTHING that the body person seems to have done, on the basis that they are NOT that body self. That body self - the combination of the body and the ego - is NOT their soul. It is not who or what they really are. This means basically dismissing anything anyone physical ever seems to do, with a thought that completely ignores anything involving the body, recognizing NONE of its behaviors are real.

This of course takes an initial willingness to approach the idea that a person IS NOT their body. This can be very difficult and threatening at first, especially with strong special-relating tied up in it, valuing the body, associating a sense of identity of the person WITH their body, and constantly referring to their body-self whenever thinking of "them". We have to become open to the idea or the possibility that the person's identity or self IS NOT their body, or their ego. And everything the ego-body does is not real or relevant.

That means challenging your own belief and conviction that people are fundamentally bodies. This is a HUGE change. That when you look and your physical eyes see a body, you think "that's a person", and you give it a name such as Michael or Jane or whatever, referring to IT as if its the person. We do this all the time. If you watch and notice whether or not your references to a person are including the body, you'll probably find that ALL of them are. You barely can even think of anyone without your mind bringing up pictures of their body in your mind.

"For the body IS a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was MADE to limit the UNlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical; for it was made to limit YOU. Can you who see yourselves WITHIN a body, know yourself AS AN IDEA? Everything you recognize you identify by EXTERNALS, something OUTSIDE itself. You cannot even think of GOD without a body, or some form you think you recognize."

We essentially have to deprogram ourselves away from regarding the ego-body-self as the truth about the person, or that it even IS the person at all. We have to be open to the idea that their ego-body-self IS NOT who or what they are. It is entirely unreal and fictional and NOT part of their self. That's completely bizarre to contemplate and rather threatening when you are very much bound to living in a world of bodies, as a body. The bottom line is, ALL relationships with bodies are special relationships.

But we need to find a way to not hold anyone's ego-body stuff against them. If their ego-body stuff is real or happening or associated with them, it DOES ACCUSE THEM OF SIN. Just even merely looking upon it accuses them of sin, if we're identifying them with their body and its actions. To NOT accuse them of sin, to be forgiving, to overlook, actually REQUIRES that we look beyond the body. It's can't be that the person IS a body if we are to forgive them. The forgiveness has to include the recognition that people ARE NOT BODIES AT ALL.

So anything the "person's" ego body does, any actions you see with your physical eyes, any mistakes they make, anything that comes out of "their" mouth, any behaviors, any attacks "they" seem to make, any way at all that their body is regarded as "the person", HAS to be undone. We have to learn that this world is not populated directly by souls or real identities, it is populated by FAKE IMAGES of FAKE BODIES doing fake things. And if ANY thing that any such body-self does is held against anyone, you are accusing them of sin.

That effectively means that we have to be willing to let go of a person's body-self, stop referring to them as their body self, stop binding them to their body whenever we think of them, and realize the quite shocking revelation that you've been in a relationship with AN UNREAL BODY SELF all this time, which has had nothing to do with their real self.

You'll also find that you will be afraid of admitting that their body is not really the person, because this implies that the very people (bodies) that you love the most don't exist as those bodies. They are beyond them. And your ego may interpret that as a loss, or a threat to your relationship, or an attempt to kill off the people you value.

You can more or less disregard all bodies, and basically ignore what any body does, on the basis that it is nothing. It is basically part of a dream. "The body is a dream." The body is not real and it is not the person. Anything you've seen them do or heard them say basically HAS NOT HAPPENED. It has no real consequence and means nothing whatsoever. Your challenge is to basically not hold ANYTHING IN THE WORLD against anyone!

So you might as well just brush off absolutely everything you ever see "any-body" seeming to do, simply on the basis that it is NOT THEM. And thus not hold their own body against them, nor the ego behaviors that seem to emit from it. If you try this you will find that you move into a much more forgiving space and are much happier, because now you're actually BEING forgiving by recognizing that bodies are not real, sins are not happening, no-one is doing anything, and nothing REAL has been threatened.

"Your brother's body is as little use to you as it is to him. When it is used ONLY as the Holy Spirit teaches, it has no function. For minds NEED not the body to communicate. The sight that SEES the body, has no use which serves the purpose of a holy relationship. And while you look upon each other thus, the means and end have NOT been brought in line. "

"This is no gift your brother's BODY offers you. The veil that hides the gift hides him as well. He IS the gift, and yet he knows it not. No more do you."

"Your brother's BODY shows not Christ to you. He IS set forth within his holiness."

"You who believe it easier to see your brother's body than his holiness, be sure you understand what made this judgment. Here is the voice of specialness heard clearly, judging AGAINST the Christ, and setting forth, for YOU, the purpose that you CAN attain, and what you can NOT do."

"Who sees a brother's body has laid a JUDGMENT on him, and sees him not. He does not REALLY see him as sinful; he does not see him at all. In the darkness of sin, he is INVISIBLE. He can but be IMAGINED in the darkness, and it is here that the illusions you hold about him are NOT held up to his reality. Here are illusions and reality kept SEPARATED. Here are illusions NEVER brought to truth, and ALWAYS hidden from it. And here, in darkness, is your brother's reality IMAGINED as a body, in unholy relationships with other bodies, serving the cause of sin an instant, before he dies."

"Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise before your vision, and give you joy. And place NO value on your brother's body, which held him to illusions of what he is. It is HIS desire to see his sinlessness, as it is YOURS. And bless the Son of God in your relationship, nor see in him what you have MADE of him. "

"Let your awareness of your brother NOT be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of his body. What is there in him that you would attack, EXCEPT what you associate with his body, which YOU believe can sin? BEYOND his errors is his holiness, and YOUR salvation."

"When you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. His true identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is. His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own. And thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he accepts this separate name as his."

"He is not brother made by what he DREAMS, nor is his body, "hero" of the dream, your brother. It is his REALITY that is your brother, as is yours to him. Your mind and his ARE joined in brotherhood. His body and his dreams but SEEM to make a little gap, where yours have joined with his. And yet, between your MINDS there IS no gap. To join his dreams is thus to meet him NOT, because his dreams would SEPARATE from you."

"And as you see him shining in the space of light where God abides within the darkness, you will see that God Himself is where his body is. Before this light the body disappears, as heavy shadows MUST give way to light."

"Choose, then, his body OR his holiness as what you WANT to see, and which you choose is yours to look upon."

"The Christ in you beholds his holiness. Your specialness looks on his body, and beholds him not."

"Limit your vision of a brother to his body, which you WILL do, as long as you would not release him FROM it, and you have denied HIS gift to YOU. HIS BODY CANNOT GIVE IT. And seek it not through YOURS."

"Framed in his body you will see YOUR sinfulness, wherein YOU stand condemned. Set in his holiness, the Christ in him proclaims HIMSELF as you."

"As long as you believe that, to be with a body, is companionship, you will be COMPELLED to attempt to keep your brother IN his body, HELD THERE BY GUILT. And you will see SAFETY IN GUILT, and DANGER IN COMMUNICATION."

"Everyone can use his body best by enlarging man's perception, so he can see the real VISION. THIS VISION is invisible to the physical eye. The ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation."

A major theme in ACIM is that you are supposed to come out of the PAST into the PRESENT. Basically it's saying that in the separation from God, we made time, by inventing a sense of the past being different to what is here now. Or as an attempt to change what is here now into something it is not, resulting in a different future. Time was an attempt to destroy or deny what exists, by claiming that it has changed, being no longer like it was.

In doing this we kind of avoided the eternal always now of the present in ETERNITY, which is timeless. And instead we positioned ourselves separate and distanced from that sense of now-ness, inventing the past and the future which are both avoidances of the now. The past is also the idea of sin, suggesting that your past sin caused a guilty present and will be punished in the future, as a kind of chain of cause and effect.

So we literally invented time displacement, which is also distance, and is thus also space. We invented spacetime, a belief in not being now or of being distanced from what is. The "now" moment in time, while still being IN time, is actually symbolic of eternity. It is the holy instant. It is not eternity but it is very close to it because it centers time on a rejection of "past and future", and therefore invites the end of time.

In ACIM therefore we are literally being asked to bring about the END OF TIME AND SPACE, by moving out of the past and future into the present. Because it's only in the present that you can be forgiving, and have vision, and be healed. Love is present, God is present.

We are told that "I see only the past", and to then gradually learn to come out of the past into the present so that "I see only the present." To see relationships in terms of what your brother is NOW without his past, which is forgiveness, laying the basis for holy-relating.

This is rather similar to the "Power of Now" that Eckhart Tolle has touted. ACIM is actually asking us to stop believing in the past and the future and to become very focused and centered in the present, so that we can align our mind with the eternal now. Heaven is always in a state of "now is always and forever", unchanging and never moving away from what is here now - never avoiding God.

Avoiding the present is the avoidance of God. Which is why the ego is dedicated to the past, and to maintaining time - or a gap between what is and where you are. We are literally being asked to come out of time, out of the sense of history or future, and into a pristine, clean, "new", fresh look at what is here NOW, so that we can truly see what is here now, which allows us to see the real world, and thereby forgive the world.

All condemnation of sin is always about the past. All projections of guilt and blame are based on past doings. Even in the moment that someone sins, it is already old. Holding it against them is holding the past against them and against ourselves. PRESENCE, therefore, is a major central pillar in ACIM's teaching.

We are being asked to be fully present, fully aware, fully attentive to what is, fully wholly undivided in our dedication to the immediacy of reality. This leads to holy instants, to the real world, and lays the path back to heaven. By coming out of the past and future we literally are undoing the gap of separation, and are therefore collapsing both time and space.

The present is the key to the disappearing of spacetime and everything it. And it is the doorway to resurrection and to miracles. It is in the PRESENT that we become a "born again Christ-ian."

"To be born again is to let the PAST go, and LOOK WITHOUT CONDEMNATION UPON THE PRESENT. For the cloud which obscures God's Son to you IS the past, and if you would have it past AND GONE, you must NOT SEE IT NOW."

"At no SINGLE instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered or anticipated, but NEVER experienced just now. Only its past and future make it seem real. Time controls it entirely. For sin is never present."

"The miracle enables you to see your brother WITHOUT his past, and so perceive him as born again. His errors ARE all past, and by perceiving him WITHOUT them, you are RELEASING him. And since his past is yours, you SHARE in this release."

"His past has NO reality in the present, and you CANNOT see it."

"Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to ATTACK the present you will NOT SEE the freedom that the present holds."

"Look lovingly upon the present, for it holds the ONLY things that are forever true."

"The present is before time WAS, and WILL BE when time is no more. In it is everything that is eternal, and they ARE one."

"The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end, believes that the past is the ONLY aspect of time that is meaningful. You will remember that we said its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity, by MAKING THE FUTURE LIKE THE PAST, and thus AVOIDING the present."

"For the ego uses the present ONLY as a brief transition TO the future, in which it brings the past TO the future, BY INTERPRETING THE PRESENT IN PAST TERMS."

"NOW has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of PAST hurts, and it reacts to the present AS IF it were past."

"The ego teaches that you always encounter your PAST, and because your dreams WERE not holy, the future CANNOT be, and the present is without meaning."

"The continuity of past and future, UNDER ITS DIRECTION, is the only purpose it perceives in time, and it closes over the present, so that no gap in the EGO's continuity can occur. ITS continuity, then, would KEEP you in time, while the Holy Spirit would release you FROM it."

"For healing CANNOT be accomplished in the past, and MUST be accomplished in the present to RELEASE the future. THIS interpretation ties the future to the present, and EXTENDS THE PRESENT, rather than the past. But if you interpret your function as DESTRUCTION, you will lose sight of the present, and hold on to the past TO ENSURE A DESTRUCTIVE FUTURE."

"Who can grieve or suffer, when the present has been freed, extending its security and peace into a quiet future filled with hope?"

"Father, we were mistaken in the past, and choose to use the present to be free. Now do we leave the future in Your hands, leaving behind our past mistakes, and sure that You will keep Your present Promises, and guide the future in their holy light."

"There is a real world which the present holds safe from all past mistakes." "The Holy Spirit teaches thus: There IS no hell. Hell is only what the ego has made OF THE PRESENT."

"Fear is NOT of the present, but ONLY of the past and future, which do not exist."

"The choice is not whether to see the past or the present: it is merely whether to see or not."

"For the present IS forgiveness."

"The special relationship TAKES VENGEANCE ON THE PAST. By seeking to remove suffering IN THE PAST, it OVERLOOKS the present, in its preoccupation with the past, and its TOTAL COMMITMENT to it. NO SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP IS EXPERIENCED IN THE PRESENT."

"Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. It therefore cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything." "Sometimes the past seems real, as if it WERE the present. Voices FROM the past are heard, and then are doubted."

"The aim of prayer is to release the present from its chains of past illusions; to let it be a freely chosen remedy from every choice that stood for a mistake."

"Your learning gives the present NO MEANING AT ALL. Nothing you have ever learned can help you understand the present, or teach you how to undo the past. Your past IS what you have taught yourselves."

"The present now remains the only time."

"A miracle is a beginning and an end(ing). It thus abolishes time. It is always an affirmation of re-birth, which seems to go back, but really goes forward. It undoes the past in the present, and thus releases the future."

"We look neither ahead nor backwards. We look straight into the present. And we give our trust to the experience we ask for now."

"What time but now can truth be recognized? The present is the only time there is."

"The making of time, to TAKE THE PLACE of timelessness, lay in the decision to BE NOT as you WERE. Thus, truth was made past, and the present was dedicated to illusion. And the past, too, was changed, and INTERPOSED between what ALWAYS was, and NOW. The past that YOU remember NEVER was, and represents only denial of what ALWAYS was."

"the Son of God is risen from the past, and has awakened to the present. Now is he free, unlimited in his communion with all that is within him."

"In the holy instant, you see, in each relationship, what it WILL be, when you perceive ONLY the present."

"He is as safe in the present as he was before illusions were accepted into his mind, and as he will be when he has let them go."

"The real world signifies the end of time, for its perception makes time purposeless."

"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."

"So do the parts of God's Son gradually join in time, and with each joining is the end of time brought nearer. Each miracle of joining is a mighty herald of eternity."

"Everyone seen WITHOUT the past thus brings you nearer to the end of time, by bringing healed and healing sight into the darkness, and ENABLING THE WORLD TO SEE."

"And it is given you to be the means

Through which His Voice is heard around the world

To close all things of time, to end the sight

Of all things visible; and to undo

All things that change. Through you is ushered in

A world unseen, unheard, yet truly there."

"I do not know what anything, INCLUDING THIS, means. And so I do NOT know HOW TO RESPOND TO IT. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now."

In terms of possibility, and impossibility, heaven is the only possibility. God has made it possible, because God is possible. God's freedom is all possibility, and the one possibility or outcome is the creation of the Kingdom.

In the separation from God, we imagined an opposite to possibility. We tried to be unwilling to do what is possible. We placed limitations on ourselves and hid behind denial. This produced what seems to be a world. And this world seems to make possible what is utterly impossible in heaven. But what seems possible here is in fact an impossibilities disguised as a possibility - an illusion of a possibility.

In heaven it is not possible to die. In this world, however, death seems so common and possible that it's even considered inevitable. Some kind of a given that death is certain. But if in heaven's reality death is impossible, death cannot actually be possible. Which means whatever this death thing is, it's something utterly impossible and must be at best pretending to be possible. This means death must be an illusion of death because real death is impossible.

In terms of miracles, we say that the things of this world are possible. We see sickness and regard it as possible. We see things breaking and destroyed and regard it as possible. We see death happening and attack and murder and think these things are possible. But they cannot be possible in heaven's reality and so they cannot really be possible.

The things then that we consider to be possible in this world, are actually impossibilities. They appear to be possible because they are illusions. They are lies. They are deception. They are wishful thinking and a belief in things which are false. They simply cannot be possible and are utterly impossible. Yet to the everyday person we would say all these things are possibilities. They are so possible that everyone believes they're totally normal and natural.

In light of this, and not recognizing that we live in a world of such limitation that we have in fact limited possibility heavily, we would regard certain things as "impossible". We'd say, it is impossible to reverse death. It is impossible to break the laws of physics. It is impossible to heal a sickness in a split second. It's impossible to be in two places at once. It's impossible to turn water into wine or cause bread to multiply out of thin air.

We think these things are impossible because they ignore and break all the rules that we've made up as to what is possible in this world. But what we think of as possibilities here are lies at best, and fiction at worse. They are not really possibilities at all.

They are attempts to do something that is NOT possible, but disgused as something SO possible that it seems to be PROVEN that it is happening. You can see and touch and taste and so on to sample the evidence. Because "only the body makes the world seem real." But in truth all the things of this world are impossibilities, masquerading as ALL that is possible, while shutting out everything that is REALLY possible. And we think this is reality.

Someone being sick in any way is not possible in reality. Someone dying is utterly nonense. These things cannot happen in reality. We say they represent the natural scope of what "can happen" in the world, but they aren't even remotely possible AT ALL. Except in some kind of tiny mad dream of hell.

Miracles then recognize that this is a world in which seemingly impossible things present themselves as possibilities. Miracles reverse all the things the world says are possible, by recognizing they are in fact not possible. Sickness and death are recognized as NOT possible.

Miracles then enable you to do things which the world would consider or label as impossible, because these things not only cancel all notion that the things of this world are even possible, they reverse and undo all things the world says can NEVER be undone.

Essentially, to be miraculous is to assert life, which is the assertion that only heaven is real. It is the assertion that what the world calls impossible is the ONLY possibility, and the things the world claims are the ONLY possibility are in fact IMPOSSIBLE. This is a complete reversal of what the world thinks can happen, and it results in things being able to happen which defy the world, break its laws, undo its consequences, and cancel the world entirely.

Only the laws of God are possible. Only the truth is true. Only the kingdom is real. Only miracles can happen. Everything else is impossible. Miracle workers are NOT BOUND by the laws of this world. They operate based on the laws of God, laws which this world would judge as IMPOSSIBLE. And yet God's laws are the ONLY POSSIBILITY, rendering the impossible fictions of this world as truly imposible. It is by recognizing their impossibility that they vanish.

"All power is of God. What is not of him has no power to do anything."

"miracles reverse the physical or lower order laws"

"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt."

"THE MIRACLE DOES NOTHING. All it does is to UNdo. And thus it cancels out the interference to what HAS BEEN done. It does not add, but merely takes away."

"The miracle but shows the past is gone, and what has truly gone HAS no effects."

"The miracle does nothing but to show him that HE has done nothing."

"Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance, and limits of any kind."

"Today we practice making free our minds of all the laws you think you must obey; of all the limits under which you live, and all the changes which you think are part of human destiny."

"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you CAN see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them. Perceiving His RESULTS, you will understand where He MUST be, and finally KNOW what He is."

"My oneness with the Christ establishes me as Your Son, beyond the reach of time, and wholly free of every law but Yours."

"For fifteen minutes twice today escape from every law in which you now believe."

"A miracle is a reversal of the physical order"

"Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are ALWAYS miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws."

"Christ inspires all miracles, which are essentially intercessions. They intercede for man's holiness, and make him holy. They place man beyond the physical laws, and raise him into the sphere of celestial order. In this order, man IS perfect."

"The mind that serves the Holy Spirit is unlimited forever, in all ways, beyond the laws of time and space, unbound by any preconceptions, and with strength and power to do whatever it is asked."

"time and space are under My control"

"The ego may ask, "How did the impossible occur?", "To what did the impossible happen?", and may ask in many forms."

"Pain is impossible."

"In fact, it is impossible. But you must remember that when you put yourselves in an impossible situation, you believed that the impossible WAS possible."

"You are in an impossible situation only because you thought it was possible to be in one."

"You CAN wish for the impossible, but you can only WILL with God."

"It is the world you see that is impossible."

"Fear is deception. It attests that you have seen yourself as you could never be, and therefore look upon a world which is impossible. Not one thing in this world is true. It does not matter what the form in which it may appear. It witnesses but to your own illusions of yourself. Let us not be deceived today."

"The laws of this world cease to hold any meaning at all."

"There are no laws except the laws of God."

"Magic imprisons, but the laws of God set free. The light has come because there are no laws but His."

"Healing is also a science because it obeys the laws of God, whose laws are true."

"Miracles do not obey the laws of this world. They merely follow from the laws of God."

"What I seek today transcends all laws of time and things perceived in time."

"Reality observes the laws of God, and NOT the rules you set."

"As you awaken other minds TO Him through HIM, and not yourself, you will understand that you are not obeying the laws of this world, but that the laws you ARE obeying WORK."

"Time can have no sway upon you, nor can any laws of earth have power over you. Your hands will heal, and give the gifts that you accept of me."

"The miracle, therefore, has a unique function, and is motivated by a unique Teacher, Who brings the laws of another world to this one."

"When you feel guilty, KNOW that your ego has indeed violated the laws of God, but YOU have not. Leave the sins of the ego to me. That is what the Atonement is for."

"Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to SHOW him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream."

"But you can show him his suffering is purposeless and wholly without cause. Show him YOUR healing, and he will consent no more to suffer. For his innocence HAS BEEN established in your sight AND his."

"Show him that he CANNOT hurt you, and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself."

"Show THIS (healed body) unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health. BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true.