Workbook Lesson 128 "The world I see holds nothing that I want." tells us all about the first world. It is the world of FALSE PERCEPTION. This is an hallucinated world added ON TOP OF the manifest world (world #2 below). These are personal, private worlds of ego isolation and insanity. You could say there are as many such worlds as there are egos. This is the same thing as "hell" in course terms. Perceived separation.

Workbook Lesson 129 "Beyond this world there is a world I want." tells us about the second world. It is the world of TRUE PERCEPTION, also known as the real world and the forgiven world. "Now is the last step certain; now you stand an instant's space away from timelessness." .... the "real world" is slightly removed from heaven and the lesson HINTS at there being a world beyond this 2nd world. This is also the world in which we can see a reflection of heaven IN SPITE OF the fact that this world is still an illusion. This is still a world of perception but it's a short distance from here to heaven.

Workbook Lesson 130 "It is impossible to see two worlds." does not yet introduce the 3rd world, but it lets us dwell on the distinction between the first 2 worlds - between false perception OF this world, and true perception OF this world. It has us practice distinguishing or discerning true vs false since this is large part of correcting perception. It also basically tells us that the world we see at this level is what we put there to see, ie we are dreaming this world.

Workbook Lesson 131 "No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth." Finally reveals to us there is a 3rd world, beyond even the "real world" or forgiven world. It is HEAVEN. It is the world that God created. It is your home. This lesson even takes you on a little experimental journey, to go past the world of perception (containing the first 2 worlds), and into the light, accompanied by angels, attempting to bridge the gap to Heaven itself.

3 Worlds. Only one of them is reality. Heaven is reality.

In this world, death is inevitable. This is a scientific and metaphysical fact. Entropy guarantees the end of the universe. It's all going to die.

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

Meanwhile, since it seems that the dying is long and drawn out, this can create the impression that there is some life to be lived. There are even what we call new births, growths, things to see and do, entertainment and short-term goals. Do it all - while you still can. The clock is ticking.

This however doesn't mean that even these new things won't die. All the flowers that ever bloomed are dead now. All the babies that were born are dead in the ground. And there's only a handful left to populate the Earth, seeming to live, standing in line, waiting to die.

All that remains of what we call "alive" is a thin surface, a small collection of those things that temporarily aren't fully dead yet. And it's a vey small amount compared to what has come and gone. Life is a small slither of the dying, and billions of years have already come and gone.

The fact is that the world does not GIVE you a choice in this matter. It is set up to guarantee death. It can appear that there is life temporarily, but it is also certain that it will not last. What appears to be life, such as a seed growing into a plant, producing a flower and then dying off, is all living on borrowed time. The flower was destined to die as soon as it was sown.

All the world's roads lead to death. Sometimes there are roads which don't seem like they're so bad, and are tolerable, and sometimes even seemingly enjoyable. These are diversions and detours. They present an illusion of what seems like it's not dying. They might even look like growth and building and construction and birth. But not one of these things will escape death.

There is not one single city that has been built that hasn't crumbled. There is not one house that hasn't been reduced to a pile of rubble. There is not one body that hasn't been laid in the ground, if there was anything left to bury. There is not one food that hasn't rotten. There is not one place that hasn't deteriorated. And there is not one meaningful civilized movement that hasn't come to an end.

Why is that? Because death is built into the system. Space and time MEAN death. Delay, which is time, is an avoidance of being present, an attack on permanence, and an attempt to overthrow eternity. Time means death and time guarantees death. All the things in spacetime end up dead because time itself forces them to change, to stop being what they are, and to stop existing.

"This is the world of time, where all things end."

There is a seeming regurgitation of death, appearing to turn into new life, such as when trees in a forest are feasting on the corpses of their ancestors. New flowers seem to bloom as so-called "nature" attempts to find a way to perpetuate itself. Only to continually be met with an onslaught of destruction. Yet while the "new" stuff seems to perpetuate an illusion of a life, the rest of it just withers and dies. And even the new stuff will end someday.

This dire situation is simply the state of the world. It is hopeless. Anything you begin will end. Anything you build will crumble. Anything you think you've achieved will come tumbling down. Everything you've tried to create will be destroyed. Not one thing you've ever made will withstand the laws of physics. And time will sweep your whole life under the carpet.

Given that death is inevitable then, logically speaking it really means there is no point in living. After all, what's the point in putting in so much effort to do and achieve and accomplish when it's all just going to be destroyed anyway? At some point the sun is going to go supernova and blow your hopes and dreams to smithereens, and there will be not one trace left of everything you worked for.

Civilization rests on the idea that somehow you will leave a legacy and pass on the relay baton to the next runners who, like you, will also have to pass it on to the future generations because they too will die before the finish line. And so mankind pretends to live as screaming corpses toss the temporary illusion of life to the newcomers and ask them to do the same when their time comes to die. And we call this a sustaining of life against all the odds.

This is what spacetime has in store for you. And because of this, there really is no point doing anything. There can only be seeming short-term rewards, temporary advantages, momentary gains and short-lived enjoyment, all guaranteed to come crashing down and be trampled on by the universe. Have you not realized this yet, that the whole world is set up to try to kill you off? It was MADE as an attack on God and as an attempt to destroy you.

The truth is then that even though there sometimes seems to be a reprieve or temporary ceasefire, ALL the worlds roads and paths and choices eventually lead to death. All its roads do NOT lead to God. They all lead to destruction and despair and suffering. This is the way of the world. If you attempt to deny this you are mentally ill, and out of touch with reality. Death has plans for you that it will never give up.

So the truth is that, really, in the big picture, you do not HAVE a choice in life. You are not really choosing between life and death. You are choosing between death now or death later. You are choosing only to some extent when it will happen, and certainly not IF it will happen. And for the most part, it is going to choose for you. A sudden tragedy, a spontaneous seeming sickness, an accident, an act of nature, whatever it is that comes knocking to give you a really bad day.

You don't have a choice, if this world of spacetime is all that exists. If this is all there is, you are bound to death. If this world is the only reality, you will never escape death and it is your destiny to die. That means you are bound by fate and there is nothing you can do about it. Therefore you are not free. You are prisoner in a prison world, doing time, and waiting to die.

The only way, logically speaking, for you to have an ACTUAL CHOICE, is if there is some kind of way of existing that is not bound by the laws of spacetime. The only way you can have an alternative TO choose from, is if there IS actually a real alternative. There has to be an alternative to spacetime, otherwise you have no choice at all.

And don't be deceived in thinking that you have a lot of choices in life, to decide how you can make your life better, to choose something you prefer over something you don't, to choose which compromise appeals to you more. For everything you gain you will lose something else, and will not come out on top overall. Life will give you little scraps and will then take them away again. It will award you and please you and delight you and then shit in your face.

And you'll think it was unfair and unnatural and just some exception that things went to hell. But then it will happen again. And again and again and again. And you won't seem to be getting the message that this is how the whole system is set up. There is NO ESCAPE from the problems of the world. The world was made so that problems would be endless and no escape is possible. There's plenty more in store for you if you stick around. The world has an unlimited supply of hands to slap your face with.

You might believe that problems are only temporary. You might be delighted with your ability to fix things and problem solve. You might think that you're able to create a little oasis in the desert where you seem to be relatively safe and life is good. But that means you're living in denial. You are not prepared for what could happen, and it will happen, and you will be shocked and upset because you thought it could never happen. And then you will exclaim it is unfair and try to move on and look for the next lull in the storm, ever lurching onwards towards the grave like a half-living zombie.

Unless there is another world beyond space and time, out of reach of death and destruction, you have no hope. Unless there is an actual reality where you can live and have life and experience, out of the reach of death's clutches, there is no hope. Unless there is GOD, heaven, creation, God's Kingdom, you do not have any hope. Unless there's an actual real alternative to this world, you are not going to surmount death or overcome the world or find a way to live forever.

It is quite insane to suggest that being born, living for a while, and then dying, is natural. It is commonplace yes, but that doesn't mean it's natural. All the things of "nature" seem to do it, but that also doesn't mean it's natural. It is completely insane to suggest that there could be a life which is given, but you only have a short time, and then it's going to be ripped away unfairly before you're done. That you could live for only a short period and then stop. It makes no sense at all to think that people could just be destroyed endlessly.

Due to death seeming to be so inevitable, people think they do not have a choice. That there is nothing else to choose. In fact they don't even think they have a choice at all, not really. Even though they pretend to choose things all the time, they are just choosing different roads to death that temporary look appealing. And none of them offer any REAL choice because none of them lead to permanent life. There is no alternative when the only option is death, and that means you have no choice to choose with.

If there were to be another option, you actually would have a valid choice. This would mean two things. Firstly that you can choose something else, and secondly that if you choose it you will have it. It has to be true then that death is actually a decision, and that you somehow have it within your power to choose what you want and to make it happen. Otherwise, if permanent life were an option and you chose it, death could still take it away from you. It has to be that somehow in you there is a power of decision which overthrows what happens and determines your own destiny.

This means ultimately that, even while death disguises the fact that you are free to choose, death itself must be chosen in order to happen. This same power in your mind that can choose eternal life can also choose the illusion of death in space and time. If there really is an alternative, and you can choose it, and by choosing it it becomes yours, you must have the power to NOT choose death, to not consent to it, and to therefore PREVENT it. Even to reverse it, undo it, cancel it, and make it impossible.

The only real alternative therefore to this world of eventual death is a world of permanent life, in which death is impossible, and life is inevitable. Where there is a power capable of keeping death at bay, of guaranteeing immortality, of ensuring invulnerability, of making certain that nothing can be attacked or harmed or destroyed in any way. It must be a world of creation and not destruction, rooted in laws of permanence and protection, of safety and of love, of harmlessness and order.

To entertain that there is a valid alternative to the world requires you to believe in God. To have faith in heaven. To trust and be open to the possibility that such a place actually exists, that you can go there and merge with it and live there forever, out of harm's way. To do this is the only way to step out of the downhill slide towards destruction. You have to believe in a movement towards life, and life is God. Going towards life resurrects you and restores your life, while going away from God takes you into the world and towards death.

If you want to live forever, you will have to turn your back on death and on the world. You will have to overthrow the laws of physics. You will have to violate every seeming natural consequence of the world. You will have to become able to demonstrate through miracles that you are under the laws of God and not the laws of death. You will have to be able to raise the dead, resurrect to life, and restore order. Only by surmounting death and preventing sickness and reversing decay can you prove that you really mean business in your commitment to living.

Accepting sickness is not a commitment to living. Sickness is a form of death. Tolerating suffering is not full living. Putting up with dying is not living. Only the sustained continuation of life endlessly is real life. And if you are not in favor of that, are not actively choosing that, are not causing that to happen, then you are choosing death. It's not a difficult thing to consider. You either choose to live or die, and it's on you. Living doesn't mean living for 80+ years. It means living forever.

Since everything in the world points toward death, even in its forms of life and its new births and so on, you will have to fly in the face of the entirety of spacetime in order to overcome death. You will have to believe in laws that are not of this world, you will have to side with God, and you will have to reject every belief in sickness and death. All forms of suffering will have to by uprooted and every denial that you use to pretend you're going to live has to be questioned.

There IS a real alternative to death, and it's not of this world. Life is of God who is eternally alive. If you want to live you will have to side with God. You will have to choose to resume your natural station of being like God. If you do not choose this, you are choosing to be unlike life, and therefore dead. And that is what you will receive. If you do not want to receive it, you will have to choose immortality. And the only way to choose it is to stop choosing anything the world says must happen.

You're going to have to go against the grain, run contrary to the worlds beliefs, defy the opinions of everyone, stand up for the real truth, stop supporting the number-one religion of death-worship, have faith and trust in God's power to correct all problems, and become a medium through which resurrection can occur. The ONLY way out of this is through miracles. The ONLY way to end death and guarantee life, is through the expression of life and the giving of life. And through miracles you will return to an endless life in God.

"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 that problems could not BE escaped." "The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end."

"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."

"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it still more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as "the way of nature," not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the "natural" law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path, - all this is taken as the Will of God. And no-one asks if a benign Creator could will this."

The ego mind is a mind of separation and conflict.

The ego mind always has two faces - a persona and a shadow.

Within the ego mind itself, one part of itself is against the other part. The ego mind attacks itself, being an idea of self attack.

The persona portion of the ego mind is what most people most often identify with, thinking that this is their entire 'self'.

The shadow portion of the ego mind is the part most people disassociate from, project onto others, and hide unconsciously. This part of the mind we do not identify with, and believe it is not even a part of ourself. Therefore we scapegoat it onto others and accuse other people of being it.

But at all times, both the positive and negative are within the confines of our ego mind. Both the stuff we think is good and the stuff we think is bad are within our mind. And the stuff we think is our 'self' and the stuff we think is 'not self' (i.e. 'others) is still within our own mind.

Both the enemies that we perceive as 'not me', or 'out there', and the innocent victim that we try to position ourselves as 'in here', are both a part of a single mind which is at war with itself.

This war is taking place between your mind and your mind. It is a war of self-attack. Within the arena of your mind, you have these two sides, comprising the persona judger and the shadow retaliator. Or, the persona victim and the shadow victimizer.

Most of the time the shadow is projected and disassociated from, meaning we see it outside of 'our self' (the persona self) and disconnected from it. We literally believe through disassociation that it is not our own self, we want nothing to do with it, we try to get rid of it, and we use the persona part of our mind to attack it. Even though it's a part of (not apart from) this one mind.

We become so deceived by this 'split' in consciousness, this mental delusion of two selves, that the persona part of us, which we most typically believe is the whole ego, does everything it can to disassociate itself from the projected sin/guilt/fear/wrongness. It wants nothing to do with it, entirely because this attitude increases the sense of *separation*, or the severity of the 'split' within the mind, between the good-favoring and bad-favoring parts.

We need to learn the secret to salvation, according to Jesus, which is that "you are doing this to yourself".

What this means is, our whole mind is a container in which there is both the ego persona and the ego shadow. The stuff we deny, reject, judge, project, and attack is the shadow part, but it's still a part of our own mind. And the persona part which tries to reject that part is also in our own mind. It is not that the good parts are good or that it is being attacked by the bad parts that's the issue. That's not the problem. The problem is the sense of *separation* between these two parts.

The sense that the 'bad stuff in me' is 'someone else', is our major error. The accusation of sin onto someone else, which is really our own sin, is a mistake. The belief that someone is not One with us, is a mistake. The projection of our darkness outward, and our cutting it off from ourselves to create an enemy, is a mistake.

The darkness of the shadow ONLY appears to be dark and unwanted because of how intensely the 'good-seeking' persona part of us, that we retain identification with, tries to increase the 'contrast' between the two. The darkness would not appear AS dark if this separation or rift or split were not as pronounced. But this would also have to mean that the good-focused part of the mind be diminished in its exclusivity, its favor and its judgement.

See it is not just the bad icky shadow stuff that we need to 'get rid of'. In fact it is the ego persona that tries to get rid of that stuff, which means the ego persona is kept, and therefore the ego is kept, making this a trap. The more you try to get rid of stuff the more you manufacture a story about how dark that stuff is, and it will grow stronger as an enemy of the persona. All enemies are pretty much tied into the persona's idea of what it does not want, in order to make itself look better. But if the persona is going to attack the shadow, then the mind is going to become more split, and both parts are still going to stay within the confines of the single mind. So you will suffer.

Enemies are not the problem. Separation between good and bad is the problem. Separation between good-loving persona and good-hating shadow is the problem. And not realizing that both of these parts of your experience are entirely WITHIN your own mind, and has NOTHING to do with anyone else, is the big realization here.

You need to come to a perspective, an awareness, where you are looking at the contents of your mind, and realize that both the persona part of your mind is within you, AND the shadow part - the enemy, the attacker, the things you don't want, the parts you think are 'other people', that is ALSO in your mind. And you need to get to where you can see BOTH at the same time as being part of YOU. It is that awareness, where a sense of Self 'spans' and INCLUDES both parts, that you are in the kind of space where you can see that you are, literally, doing this to yourself. You are the victim and the victimizer. You are the persona and the shadow. You are both parts of this separated ego.

When you see this, and hold this perspective for a moment, where you can see both 'characters' if you will, both parts of you at once, you will see in that light how ridiculous it is that you are against yourself. The awareness that who you thought was an enemy, is YOU, will wake you up. The awareness that you thought you were against some other person but were in fact against YOU, will wake you up. The awareness that the behavior of the enemy, which you thought you had nothing to do with, is actually just another puppet - another part of YOU, that YOU are using against yourself... seeing that will wake you up.

You have to get to where you can see and accept that both sides of the split-mind war are WITHIN your mind and are both parts of what's going on inside yourself. This awareness will show you the utter ridiculousness of the war that you are waging against yourself, the roles that you are playing in your mind which you thought were distinct, the Self that you are - the awareness which encompasses the persona and the shadow, which is your real PERSONALITY. You are the awareness in which you see the war that you are waging, and the fact that you are playing BOTH SIDES, that you are literally against yourself with two artificial personalities.

You have to see that you are BEING both of those fake personalities (persona and shadow, victim and victimizer), and that it makes absolutely no SENSE that you can possibly be truly both at once unless you lose sight of this awareness. And since you are in this awareness, the 'illusion' that you are only one of these two parts cannot be maintained. It's like realizing that two characters in a play - enemies - are both being played by the same actor. And that awareness will set you free from the illusion of a separation.

This awareness is the key to salvation, because in this awareness and in the admitting that you are both the victim and victimizer, you will see how utterly futile and ridiculous that is, as well as owning up to the awareness that you are the one doing this... nobody else is involved, because the 'other person' was actually your own shadow, which is part of your own mind, part of your split identity - one of two parts of you. This UNIFIES your awareness, because you are likely willing to drop this stupid activity as soon as you see it, because it is so obviously insane and self-defeating.

When you see this... just wait to see how long you need to have this awareness before the entire thing just disappears ... it only takes a moment. It only takes for you to glimpse this, and both the persona and the shadow will cancel each other out. As soon as you see that you've been doing this all to yourself, both sides will collapse. The awareness that saw both these parts as parts of itself, is the light which will dispel this darkness. The darkness was the *illusion* of a separation between these two parts - the idea that one of these parts was 'not you'. But it is you. And that undoes the separation, so both sides have to now cease to be separate. They come together, unify, all contrast disappears, and ONENESS is restored. And it will be like nothing even happened.

The secret to salvation... you are doing this to yourself.

Get used to this idea. Stop trying to make the world out to be a wonderful great thing that you want to keep forever. It's okay to forgive it and love toward it but in and of itself it is absolutely NOTHING. It is not worth a single thing! All this special-love baloney about how Earth is so special and save the planet and all this bullshit, you're not even supposed to be here.

The body and the world are absolutely worthless. They are not your home, they are not where you belong. God did not create them, and so they are meaningless, valueless, worthless. Putting the body or the world on a pedestal and worshipping it is worshiping false idols. They are not Gods. When you are done with the body and the world you will throw it in the trash and walk away.

The world holds NOTHING that you want. It IS nothing. How can you value nothing? To do so is to completely fail to recognise the world is an illusion. It's not really there to have! You can't keep it, you can't save it, you can't make it mean something it will never mean. You are supposed to forget it entirely and return to heaven. It is VITAL that you recognize the world is nothing. Recognizing this will set you free from suffering.

While we're busy getting excited about all the magical things in the world, all the places you can go, things you can do, stuff you can gawk at, it's all ultimately purposeless until you repurpose it toward awakening FROM it. The world has absolutely nothing to give you, it adds absolutely zilch to God's Kingdom, it doesn't give you any abilities or benefits whatsoever that you didn't already have in spirit, and all it does is limit and take away. Stop making the world into a special relationship. The world is absolutely nothing. There is no world!

"The "self" that needs protection is not real. The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?"

True prayer, which is the medium of miracles, and is how you "ask", occurs in the heart, not in words necessarily. There is a guy who performs a lot of miracles who teaches to "pray with your whole heart". The heart has to be experiencing love, in order to be experiencing wholeness. Whatever is "in your heart", that is what you are asking for. Being "pure of heart" is important.

God doesn't care about your words or whether they really match what you are asking for or not. Your asking actually happens in the heart in terms of what it is you "want" or feel a "genuine" desire for. And typically that means that your prayer has to be aligned with God's Will and reflect His Laws in order to produce a miracle.

I was trying to do miracles and had a moment of feeling love and Holy Spirit excitedly said to me "that is all you need!" - the love, in the heart, heartfelt prayers. The intellect is good at saying words and all that, but the heart has to be involved. Words without the heart part, does nothing. Heart part with words does something. Heart part without words does something. The heart is all that's needed.

Finding enough LOVE in your heart to pray this way... it's not exactly easy if you are not "naturally" in a play of significant love. You may have to really stretch yourself and dig deep. Really go within and not only receive love (can only give the miracles you have received) and create as much feeling of love as you can, first, before you pray. And having this much love for total strangers is not easy, if you still have blocks to love or judgements to undo. "One instant of love without fear is all that's required that all of this should happen".

Here it is in Jesus's own words:

"M-21.1. Strictly speaking, words play no part at all in healing. 2 The motivating factor is prayer, or asking. 3 What you ask for you receive. 4 But this refers to the prayer of the heart, not to the words you use in praying. 5 Sometimes the words and the prayer are contradictory; sometimes they agree. 6 It does not matter. 7 God does not understand words, for they were made by separated minds to keep them in the illusion of separation."

"When he said "mind is the builder," he did not realize that it is only what it is building NOW that really creates the future. The past, in itself, does not have the ability to do this. Whenever we move from one instant to the next, the previous one no longer exists."

Here's a little statement which correlates to the idea that your body is not really a continuation from the past, nor does it have its own ongoing "state". It is a NOW-MOMENT-PROJECTION from the mind, and the mind is currently projecting NOW a fresh image NOW of the body, in whatever condition it wants it to appear in NOW. If the body *appears* to "carry over" conditions that seemed to be established in the past it is because the MIND is NOW re-projecting a similar image to the image it projected previously, NOT because the body itself has a "causal past" that makes its current condition predetermined.

The spacetime continuum is an illusion. And this also matches with the fact that in this 2019 moment right now, the mind is projecting this universe, and making it APPEAR to be a picture of a very old universe, even complete with all the details necessary to suggest that its current condition is the causal "result" of a distant past big bang, and yet every single speck of this world is a NOW MOMENT PROJECTION from the mind, designed to make it APPEAR as though this world has been taking a very long time to reach its current condition. The universe is no more than a nanosecond old.

This is reflected in night time dreams also, whereby when you go to sleep, you dream, you imagine an environment, and it seems the environment is very established and would've taken countless millions of years of evolution to arrive at its current condition, and yet it has NO HISTORY, having only just been dreamed at a moment's notice. Even if it seems to have a huge back-story or a sense of time having passed, the entire thing is being made up RIGHT NOW to LOOK AS IF it's very old and as if there is evidence of the processes that it must have undergone to reach this current condition. There is no past! It's all a present-moment projection. You are dreaming this all up right now!

This means that when someone is in ego and is trying to attack you, you love them.

This means that when terrible disasters are occurring on the news, you love everyone involved.

This means that when someone is portraying themselves as sick and a victim, you love them.

This means that there is never really anything 'personal' in you that gets engaged with the story or illusion of what seems to be happening.

This means there is only this extending of love and at no point in this is there ever need for concern or fear or wondering what to do or figuring out how to speak or what to say or how to react differently to each situation.

The call for love requires a response of love, and nothing else. But we are extremely conditioned to respond to seemingly individual, separate illusions, with individualized, separate responses, coming from an individual that is separate, in separate ways.

The unification of our response, becoming "always love", is the aim of awakening. It may seem to be a tremendous challenge, to be free of ego reactions and upsets and involvement and interference, especially in the midst of 'temptation' by someone else or when someone's ego or pain is trying to distract your mind or to tempt you into conflict. But even then we are asked to only love.

This is difficult for me to do, and yet this is part of the lessons I am learning now. To choose to love ANYWAY, even if it does not seem called for, even if it is not asked for, even if it doesn't seem warranted or justified or deserved, and even if I am all upset and pissed off because my ego has gotten triggered.

I cannot love all the time. I can only partly love part of the time. But I am learning how loving fully all of the time is the truth of God and the light in which I am set free of my own unlovability. Because the lovability I see in others, is the lovability of myself, and my failure to love them is a failure to love me.

Always love.

"Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."

In A Course in Miracles, we are taught in many ways that we are all one. By this we mean, that God created an entire family, a sonship, comprising many individual beings, who simultaneously are individual and one. Each Son of God is all the Sons of God, as the One Son. "One brother is all brothers."

This means we have a kind of collective consciousness or "hive mind". The Christ Mind is this shared mind, which each individual mind created by God is merged and identified with. This means that anything in one mind, is also in another. Any form of healing is experienced by everyone. And everything you give or do affects everyone.

It also means you are not really an isolated, separated off stranger, who stands alone and has private personal experiences. This is why there are no private thoughts. The body is the idea that you are disconnected from everyone. But relationship re-establishes that you share and are joined, with the whole sonship. In fact you ARE the whole sonship. Part of you is in EVERY child of God.

In truth then, it is not possible for you to do or think or feel anything without it in some way influencing or being shared by THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. Every attitude you have affects everyone. Every thought is heard by all. We are all plugged into a giant psychological web, sort of like a holographic internet. And everyone has access all the time to everything.

When Jesus accomplished the resurrection and ascension, he DID IN fact accomplish it for and with ALL of us. We could not be excluded from it, and all of us are a part of it. The atonement IS about sharing and is a collective relationship between an individual and THE WHOLE.

"The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO IT. The Holy Spirit merely reminds you of what is your NATURAL ability."

When Jesus resurrected and ascended, a "part of" all of us MUST have done this as well. The part of Jesus that is IN you, which IS you, accomplished this. Jesus had to basically plug into and accept the parts of him that are in all of us, shared with and one with us, knowing us AS himself, in order to accept atonement fully. Therefore his awakening did in fact wake all of us up, to some degree. He plugged us ALL back into God.

Each individual mind in the collective has its own will. So what does that mean when someone chooses to rise into the light? It means everyone else must be pulled upward at least a little, even if they themselves are pulling the whole sonship down. Some light MUST enter their minds, because the light in Jesus's mind is in ALL minds.

When Jesus accomplished this, we were ALL illuminated and enlightened to some degree, and some part of us knows this. And each time YOU heal or resurrect or think well of yourself and others, you ARE resurrecting the whole sonship. Part of you IS Jesus, and IS already awake in heaven. And as each person chooses the atonement, it is being chosen on behalf of everyone.

"You WERE in darkness until God's Will was done completely by ANY part of the Sonship. When it was, it was perfectly accomplished by ALL. How else could it BE perfectly accomplished? My mission was simply to UNITE the Will of the Sonship WITH the Will of the Father by being aware of the Father's Will myself. This is the awareness I came to give YOU, and YOUR problem in accepting it IS the problem of this world. Dispelling it is salvation, and in this sense I AM the salvation of the world."

"Then turn to one who laid all limits by, and went beyond the farthest reach of learning. He will take you with him, for he did not go alone. And you were with him then, as you are now."

"I ask for your forgiveness, for if YOU are guilty, so must I be. And if I surmounted guilt and overcame the world, you were WITH me."

"A miracle is never lost. It touches many people you may not even know, and sometimes produces undreamed of changes in forces of which you are not even aware."

"I am alone in nothing. Everything I think or say or do touches all the universe. A Son of God cannot think or speak or act in vain. He cannot be alone in anything. It is therefore in my power to change every mind along with mine, for mine is the power of God."

"To heal, or to make joyous, is therefore the same as to integrate and MAKE ONE. That is why it makes no difference TO what part or BY what part of the Sonship the healing is done. EVERY part benefits, and benefits equally. YOU are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your brothers anywhere. You should want to bless them in return, out of gratitude."

"When I am healed I am not healed alone.

And I would share my healing with the world"

"I am in charge of the process of Atonement, which I undertook to begin. My Atonement was for the canceling out of all sins (i.e., lack of love) which human beings could not otherwise correct. That is what the Biblical statement "underneath are the Everlasting Arms" means. (Helen Schucman explanation: This means that He will backstop whenever human miracles will not suffice for atonement purposes. However, it is perfectly clear that when a person can atone by miracles, both giver and receiver are atoning. It is better to atone this way because of the mutual benefits involved.)"Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these, my children" really ends with "you do it unto yourself and ME." The reason why YOU come before me is because I do not need miracles for my own Atonement, but I stand at the end in case YOU fail temporarily."

"It is impossible that anyone be healed alone. In sickness must he be apart and separate. But healing is his own decision to be one again, and to accept his Self with all its parts intact and unassailed. In sickness does his Self appear to be dismembered and without the unity which gives It life. But healing is accomplished as he sees the body has no power to attack the universal Oneness of God's Son."

"And as you let yourself be healed, you see all those around you, or who cross your mind, or whom you touch, or those who seem to have no contact with you, healed along with you. Perhaps you will not recognize them all, nor realize how great your offering to all the world, when you let healing come to you. But you are never healed alone. And legions upon legions will receive the gift which you receive when you are healed."

"No-one is healed alone. This is the joyous song salvation sings to all who hear its Voice."

"I can help because the world is illusion, and I have overcome the world. Look past the tomb, the body, the illusion. Have faith in nothing but the spirit and the guidance God gives you. He could not have created the body because it is a limit. He must have created the spirit because it is immortal."

"Only the mind sees". "Minds do not need bodies to communicate."

Mind by itself has awareness and SEES in the light. It needs nothing else for this seeing to work. This seeing is not perception at all. But when we went into the separation, we invented a separated state where we do NOT see only with the mind, and instead INTERPRET. "Perception is fundamentally judgemental". This interpretative mechanism is like a filter, which is a layer over the mind. Another term for this mechanism is the belief system.

The mind, in a sense, is now looking UPON or "through" the belief system, through perception. At the same time, the body is now sending signals into the mind from outside to report on an illusory world. The body is set up to only see the world with false perception, permanently, and to "see objects" as if they are real. It shows images of these objects to the perceptual mechanism. These are images of hell, an inability to see reality and a blindness by perception of form, regarding physical matter as "really there".

The belief system then INTERPRETS what the body is showing it. The belief system/perception now categorizes various things into separate boxes and labels them per the meaning it gives things, and assigns meanings to them. The mind, looking at these boxes, then "sees" the meaning that perception gave TO what the body's eyes were looking at.

Additionally when the belief system is not one of wholeness, certain images are spiritualized and others are ignored. Fear is used to shut out from awareness whatever the perceptual system does not want to see or believe in, and "acceptance" into the mind is permitted to the things it does want to see and believe in. Jesus says that whatever you VALUE, you will BELIEVE IN, and whatever you BELIEVE IN, you will WANT TO SEE, and because you want to see it, you will make yourself see it IN whatever the body is showing you. Projection makes perception, and obviously that is a state of hallucination.

So the belief system is now giving meaning to what is seen in the world and is interpreting it and hallucinating that it is something it's not. This means the perceptual SYSTEM is now a system/filter based in false perception, the body's eyes are also based in false perception, and so now the belief system is "lined up with" or in accord with/believing what the body reports without questioning it. That is unconsciousness, in which you take whatever the body shows you as "real".

In order to move away from this, the body's eyes continue to report the same photon-based false perceptions of fake objects as before, an illusory world seen as real, but the perceptual mechanism/belief system now REINTERPRETS the meaning and purpose of what is being sent to it. This leads to "true perception", which is a REINTERPRATION of the world "The Holy Spirit is the great re-interpreter of the world you made."

In true perception the belief system has been purified and equalized and all the meaning you gave to a meaningless world has been ironed out. Instead of a fragmented interpretation, there is now an interpretation/filter based in a reflection of the laws of God, which is wholeness. The belief system is still being bombarded with body-world-is real images but it now categorizes them all as UNREAL. It has to, in order to see with love, because the body can ONLY show you pictures of hell seeming to exist (solid objects) and so the mind has to learn NOT to believe what it is being shown. It has to recognize that this picture of crucifixion is actually not true, not real, not really there, and not happening. It looks PAST those illusory images and OVERLOOKS them, which is forgiveness

The mind's belief system now is a system of forgiveness which doesn't fixate on the surface of objects that the body is trying to report still, but instead overlooks those images entirely and sees the face of Christ BEYOND them, because it is now having mind-to-mind perception, BYPASSING the body's sight and practically ignoring the images the body presents. The body's images become like a "thin veil" before the face of Christ, because their LIES are SEEN THROUGH (REASON sees THROUGH the forms of error) so much that they become transparent. The light of Heaven is seen as being BEYOND what the images report, and the forms of matter are recognized as nothing.

All of these REINTERPRETATIONS of "the world you made" and "the world you see" (with the body) that the body is fixated on, with its false perception, are now "seen truly", with true perception, and recognize the illusion AS an illusion, not as reality. It looks past it to the light of Heaven. But what's happening now is the MIND, which is the only thing which SEES, is now looking AT the "reinterpreted images", while also looking through them TO SEE ITSELF, to see Christ. The belief system becomes transparent. The body images become transparent. The light of God is shining through the whole "system" of mind/perception/body and providing a REFLECTION of Heaven in the world. A symbolic representation of "light within darkness". The mind having true perception is looking a this fake world "in quite another light."

At this point though, the mind still is having perception, albeit true perception, and it is still in two minds. It is still having a separated state, perception, with a belief system. It's just that the belief system now is more or less empty, and God's truth is seen truly as true. Only the truth is true. The mind doesn't NEED the perceptual mechanism in order to SEE with Christ Vision, and the body and its signals have now been overlooked ENTIRELY. The whole "world" that the body was reporting as "there" has been SEEN THROUGH. And Christ has been glimpsed beyond the images.

The images of the world disappear, the body disappears, the mind stops having a belief system, perception comes to an end, the "filter" is removed, the separation is undone, and the mind now returns to a state of PURE MIND, in which there is no body and no world and no perceiving. In this state, sight is KNOWING, and knowledge of the Kingdom of God has been restored. This is the "sight of the Son of God." It is being IN Heaven. Recognizing where you really are and who you really are as Christ. And communing with God in fullness, which wasn't possible while the separated state of perception was lasting. Now perception is gone, the world is gone, the body is gone, and all that remains is your natural state of being. The entire world of bodies has literally become TOTALLY INVISIBLE to you and does not exist.

In summary, the mind sees, and while there is body/perception, the mind sees what the perception/belief system SHOWS it, which is an INTERPRETATION of what the BODY shows the perception/belief system. And as the mind sees BEYOND the body and perception, it sees itself as Christ and sees nothing else. This is all supported in various ACIM statements about seeing, vision, perception, sight, body's eyes etc.

There is a reason why we believe death is inevitable, and why we think there isn't any other choice.

At the beginning of separation from God, we attempted to sin against him. That means we tried to attack God, cause Him, and therefore produce real effects to change Him against His will. This was the Son attempting to be the Father's father.

More simply, we attempted to reverse cause and effect. We who are an effect/creation of God, tried to be the cause of Him, and to make Him the effect of us. This is a simple logical reversal of states. This is level confusion.

Having believed that we accomplished this, which is the belief that sin is real, that we really did it and there are real consequences, we automatically believed that God has been attacked against His will. The automatic logical state for God now is that He is now JUSTIFIED in anger and revenge, because he's been unfairly treated.

Part of the belief in real sin includes this "re-framing" of God as someone who rightly SHOULD be angry at us, should want revenge toward us, whose will is in opposition to ours, and who is an enemy that we've attacked. This frames God as unforgiving, not recognizing our innocence, and not wanting us to live with Him.

By believing in sin, we believed also in the false idea of God, and in the idea that we cannot be forgiven and don't want to be forgiven. We did not want to believe in being forgivable because we wanted to keep the idea of sin real. And real sin would depend on God agreeing with us that we are sinful. We believe he should agree with us because we believe in what we did to hurt Him and his right to seek compensation.

This belief in real sin leads automatically to the belief that God wills that we be dead, which logically produces the fear of God. We appear to then be unwelcome to God, we consider ourselves as exiled, we see our Home as "off limits", and God's unforgiveness seems to cast us out. Believing in our sinfulness makes us believe that it is not possible to BE forgiven, OR to return Home, OR to be innocent, OR to ever share ETERNAL LIFE with God.

This sets us up for the next step in the ego's logical progression of conclusions. That is, that since we can't return to eternal life, life is no longer an OPTION. It is no longer possible for us to return to the Kingdom of eternal life. We've banished ourselves. And on this basis alone, we believe that since life is not possible for us, DEATH is the only possibility that remains.

It seems all we can do is slither away in shame and darkness, hide in a corner, suffer and die. And we believe this is all we rightly deserve, in order to not only comply with God's will that we die, but also to support and KEEP the idea that our sin is irreversible and unforgivable. We demand that we MUST die, in order to "pay for" the sin we firmly believe we committed. And so all death is a chosen suicide.

And so now we "accept" that because "sin is real" to us, death is INEVITABLE. It appears to not even be a choice, because it seems to be the ONLY outcome that's possible. There doesn't appear to be any alternative. And so we seem to come into the world, to "come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

It's almost as if we gave up on eternal life right from the start, threw it away, and left God behind to go and die alone in hell. This "death wish" and its foundation is responsible for EVERY death that happens in this world. Every death is a form of self attack and suicide, no matter how it looks or what happens or who does what to whom. "No-one dies without their own consent."

The good news is that this need not be, nor is it God's will. We need to learn that sin is not real, we did not attack God, we are still innocent, God still loves and welcomes us, we can go Home, we are forgiven, we did not really do anything at all, no consequences came from it, it was nothing but a delusional dream of death, and we can be reunited with love and RE-ACCESS ETERNAL LIFE. We've been MISTAKEN about God and ourselves and what we thought we did, and all is forgiven.

This means that as we progress in our return to sanity and awareness, we'll gradually accept the atonement truth that nothing real was threatened, nothing unreal happened, and all is well. Upon realizing that we did not sin, LIFE becomes an option again. It becomes possible to return to eternal life and to trust that God wants us to live. It becomes possible to not HAVE TO die. There now appears to be a choice, between life and death. And now death is no longer the inevitable single outcome,. Death is merely an "fake alternative" to what God wills for you.

At some point we will fully accept not only that death is unreal and has no consequences, but also that LIFE is all that we choose. We re-invest in the Kingdom, we open up to forgiveness, we allow ourselves to recognize the truth about us and our brother's innocence, that there is no sin, and we prepare to return Home to God - in recognition that we never really left.

Here we decide to side with life so fully that we will not even support notions of death AT ALL on any level or in any way. Not even while in a dream, not even while still having a body. We prepare to exhibit our conviction that we are immortal and eternal, by demonstrating it symbolically through the body's condition. The more we accept our innocence and extend love, the more the body is healed along with us. All the way to the point where even the slightest sign of sickness and death is no longer a part of your physical demonstration.

You then are teaching only life on all levels, mentally and physically, for as long as it is useful. And then the appointed time arrives for the completion of your journey without distance, back to where you never left. A complete awakening from the dream of death, our of bodies an out of the world, into the Kingdom of Heaven, remembering your immortal soul and continuing as a co-creator with God. Forever, and ever, and ever. Permanently alive. Permanently immortal.

In recognition that death is nothing but an illusion, death now becomes the "impossibility". It is now seen as having no effect, no causality, and no consequences. It is surmounted and overcome. It is seen as nothing. And not one single thing in all the world can make it happen to you against your will. When the illusion of death is recognized, it disappears. And now the only outcome truly possible, is the INEVITABILITY OF LIVING FOREVER.

You no longer have a choice, because there IS no death TO choose. Death has ended and is snuffed out. Only Real Life is possible for you now, and now you cannot fail to continue as an immortal being, Created by God to share eternal life with Him Forever. There is no death.

"There is no death, the Son of God is free."