When we talk of duality, non-duality, pure-non-duality, we're talking concepts.
Duality means polar opposites (good/bad, right/wring, up/down etc)
Non-duality usually means both opposites are one thing. This also usually means the opposites still exist, ie the world is real, but it's all one thing. Close to a Buddhist teaching for example.
Pure-non-duality typically means the world doesn't exist at all, ie neither opposites exists. Instead, it's contrasted against "God". ie, only God exists.
While the Course DOES teach "there is no world", there is a problem with saying it's pure-non-duality.
If we're being really, really pure about it, if it's logically true that only God exists, it is impossible for God to create, impossible for God to have a son or to create heaven, its impossible for there to be a sonship, there could not even have been a dream of death, and if there were a dream of death God would now have to be the one dreaming it.
That also means, if there is only God, that God is dreaming of death, God is dying, God is stuck in a body, God is "learning" (ie lacking), God is not whole, and God is an illusion.
That's a pretty big problem.
That's what pure nonduality really indicates if you are being REALLY pure about it.
At times Jesus does say things in the course which could imply otherwise but you have to be careful to discern what level he's talking at. When he says, "God is, and then we cease to speak".... he's not saying, God is... and there is nothing else... he's saying WE as individual creations cease to speak and we become one with - sharing with - the allness of God, but still retaining our individual free will.
It's useful up to a point to say, there is no world, only God exists. But if that's the scope of your grasp of the logic, then you're falling short. It puts God in a box, all by himself. And in that box, there is no creation, there is no expression or extension, there is no son.
Pure-non-duality means God does not even have one son, yet alone many. That's a problem. Without a son God is the one dreaming and dying, which is ridiculous. Without a son, God is a sinner and a separator, which is ridiculous. Without a son, God has no effects, therefore he is not causal, therefore he is not permanent, therefore he does not exist. That's a completely logical conclusion that you should come to if you really purely believe in pure-non-duality. What started out seeming to say only God exists, MUST mean God does not exist at all.
In order for God to have in any way at all a "son" or a "creation", something which is technically not 100% equated with Himself, it has to be possible that what God is does not stay inside a nice theoretical box. For God to create, and for God to cause an effect, and produce even one son, there has to be what the course calls a "natural grand division."
A "world", as ACIM defines it, is a natural grand division, or a projection outward, from God. God is complete in and of himself, but when he extends Himself to create, He creates something which is - in a sense - "outside of His own completeness" - an "addition" to what exists. Reality is increased by creating/sharing. ie It's talking about heaven/creation. It is "divided" from God in a natural way, which is normal and healthy. It all hinges around cause-effect.
God is cause. God produces effects. Effects of God are creations, which are expressions/extensions. The course says, "nothing real can be increased except by sharing." God has to share, meaning, there is some room here, or some freedom. It also says, that God gave his sons (plural) free will, which was necessary in order to allow them to create freely. The aim was that naturally the sons would create more love and joy and the kingdom would expand. It's only when sons mis-create that they go into separation dreams.
Since God is causing the Son, and the Son is an effect, and the Son is not causing God, there is a "natural" division in terms of roles or functions between God and His Sonship. It is natural. "Separation", in course terms, is an un-natural division. Division between God and Sonship is natural. It does not mean the same thing as separation. It does not mean there are walls up between each son or between sons and God. It means there are many individual free-willed souls each sharing fully and freely and openly with each other and with God.
Getting off topic slightly. But you can see that in order to allow for God to be alive, to be creative, to express and extend, to share, what God is MUST be more than a self-contained box. There is nothing "outside" of Him as such but souls still have free will within the scope of God, and share God. You can't really technically call this "pure non duality", because there isn't a duality but there ARE MANY SONS, and many creations, and many thoughts of God, and the sonship has many parts. There are more than 250 statements in the course pertaining to God directly creating multiple sons.
A multiplicity of sons is hardly in keeping with the idea of pure non-duality. It's not the same thing. It's not a state of "there is only God". It's a state of "there is god and god's creations." It's not a singularity. It's not a concept or a theoretical box. It's alive. It's creative. It's expressive. It's more than ego logic can describe or understand.
This is why the course is really not pure-non-duality. In a general broad sense, yes, it is, up to the point where you really take a look at heaven and God and creation and the sonship, and find out that there are in fact many parts to it. It's not just one big "blob". And each soul IS endowed with free will. Will is free when it chooses to extend freedom and love. It becomes blocked when we will against God's will and therefore will against our own will. That's what victimhood is all about - attacking ourselves with our own will. It's also the secret to salvation.
If you want ACIM to be pure-non-duality, you're not looking closely enough at the facts. God and Son are not one single thing pretending to be two. God does not dream. God has not separated from Himself. We are the ones who are responsible for dreaming of impossibilities.
There is one other big problem with trying to fit the course into a pure-non-duality model. The fact that in pure-non-duality there are no individuals and no individual free will. In pure-non-duality there are no souls. There is no permanent "self" distinct in some way from others, or naturally divided. That means, the pure-non-dual teachers constantly tell you that you do not have a self, or that you are not an individual. It is BULL SHIT. God created many sons and gave all of them free individual will.
Quote: "In the creation, God projected His creative ability from Himself to the Souls He created, and He also imbued them with the same loving will to create. The Soul has not only been fully created but has also been created perfect." - ACIM
Quote: "The world (heaven), in the original connotation of the term, included both the proper creation of man (souls/sons) by God and the proper creation by man in his right mind (his own free-will creations). The latter (the son’s ability to create) required the endowment of man by God with FREE WILL because all loving creation is freely given (God gave us freedom). Nothing in these statements implies any sort of level involvement (no separation)or in fact anything except one continuous line of creation in which all aspects (each aspect being a son of God with free will) are of the same order." - ACIM
You DO have a soul. You ARE an "free individual". You may not have an EGO. Having a separating ego is not the same thing as being a free-willed soul. Ego means putting up walls and unnatural divisions between you and others. Absence of walls does not destroy your independent freedom, it simply allows you to share fully and freely with others. To be one with them, without losing your own soul.
The peddlers of pure-non-duality peddle "you do not exist" paradigm, which leads many course people to believe they are supposed to deny themselves. It in fact produces censorship of the soul and leads you to believe you are supposed to be getting rid of yourself. It actually results in a belief that the soul is supposed to DIE ie not exist. That to be in God, you cannot be a self in any way. That to be awake, you must not have any sense of existing individually.
Also if there are no souls and no individual freedoms, then you are literally responsible for the shitty choices that everyone else makes, they are literally you, and you are just as dead as the person who just died. It's ridiculous. It IS true that you share a oneness but you simultaneously have independence. This is possible in a holographic model of heaven in which the all is in every part, ie God is in every soul, and yet each soul is distinct and whole and complete in and of itself. This produces a state of simultaneous sharing with the whole AND independence. This is not in any way a pure-non-duality teaching.
"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.
God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him.
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."
This clearly tells us that God did not create the Earth because to do so would've required he be in TWO minds with TWO effects, which is impossible. Since Earth is opposite to Heaven in EVERY way, God would've had to have created two DIFFERENT creations, unlike each other in every way. This is impossible because everything God creates is the same in every way and like Him in every way.
God could only create ONE EFFECT coming from ONE MIND. He could only create ONE WORLD. And that world must be heaven. It MUST be heaven because love has no opposite, and only the creations of love (God) are real, and therefore the only WORLD that is real is the one God did create, which is Heaven.
Take your pick. Heaven or Earth. Which is your home? Do you REALLY want Earth when you could have Heaven?
Earth is nothing. Heaven is everything. Leaving the Earth behind and going to heaven you will gain everything and lose nothing. This world holds nothing that you want! A teacher of God will gladly give up all the pleasures of the world! This world is not your home! How can a place which does not even EXIST be your home?
As Jesus says:
"Go on to meet them gladly, and learn how much awaits you, for the simple willingness to give up nothing, BECAUSE it is nothing. The new perspective you will gain, from crossing over, will be the understanding of WHERE HEAVEN IS. From HERE, it seems to be outside, and ACROSS the bridge. But, as you cross to JOIN it, IT will JOIN WITH YOU, and BECOME ONE with you. And you will think, in glad astonishment, that for all this, YOU GAVE UP NOTHING! The joy of Heaven, which HAS no limit, is INCREASED with each light that returns, to take its rightful place within it."
Jesus also says we will watch the world (earth) disappear, together.
"Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there any time you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does. And then-and then-I cannot speak of that. A body cannot stay without illusions, and the last one to be overcome is death. This is the message of the crucifixion: there is no order of difficulty in miracles. This is the message of the resurrection. Illusion are illusions. Truth is true. Illusions vanish. Only truth remains."
Earth is illusion. It disappears. ONLY TRUTH remains. Earth does not become part of the truth. IT VANISHES. IT NEVER EXISTED TO BEGIN WITH!!!!!!!!
Earth does not exist. There is no world.
ACIM: "The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial."
"However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay."
It's a very common belief that ACIM teaches "separation is impossible". It's the idea that "the separation did not happen". And this also leads to the belief that "I need do nothing" because nothing's really happened. Which then justifies literally "doing nothing" in the presence of "something happening".
The fact remains, that there is a "something" body sitting looking at a screen reading these words on the surface of a physical object. And no matter whether separation "happened" or not, something other than total abstract reality IS occurring right now. You ARE reading this. If it were "the whole story" that "separation did not happen", it would not even be possible to read these words, or for you to even have eyeballs. But it is. And denying that is not helpful. Something is happening here. Or at the very least, SEEMING to.
The distinction that needs to be made is this. REAL separation is not possible. Let's be clear, that you cannot in reality change God or His Creation. "What God has has brought together let no man put asunder" basically means what God creates is permanent. So literally, you cannot create a REAL split in Reality. You can't ACTUALLY cut your REAL self off from the REAL Father.
It is in this sense and only in this sense, that separation is impossible and has not happened. You literally cannot and have not separated. It's the same thing as saying you cannot sin because you cannot cause God. Which means there literally is no REAL sin. Nothing real can be threatened. So we can say, you cannot REALLY separate from God. However, this is not the end of the story.
"Your Father created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."
While on the one hand you can co-create with God freely, in accord with His will, you CAN also DENY creation, because you HAVE that freedom. This is what "mis-creation" means. You use your freedom to create, against itself, to try to create nothingness. And here is the fact. We DID attempt to do this.
We DID have a tiny mad idea, that it was POSSIBLE to deny creation. Not merely to conceive of mis-creating or denying reality, but that by doing so it would have REAL EFFECTS. By mis-creating or attempting not to create, the result in truth is NOTHING HAPPENS. It's more like you become unwilling and stop willing anything at all, so you don't really do anything.
But you BELIEVE that by denying reality you DO something REAL, which you believe has real consequences or effects. You think that somehow "willing nothing" (death) can be real, and can replace reality. That "not creating" can be considered a "happening". It's because you believe in the mad idea, that you "make it real" to you. And whatever you believe in SEEMS like reality.
You cannot produce a REAL separation, and you haven't. BUT, you can deny reality and TRY to believe that an IMAGINED separation is possible. You can dream of separation. You can invent illusions, which is what it looks like when you repress or withhold extension. You can put the brakes on eternal life, by resisting your own creative power. And this is an attempt to STOP creation. ie, to kill it.
This results in what seems to be a state of death, or a dream of death. "Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem." As the mind denies itself, which imprisons its will, this kind of "puts it to sleep". It is resisting its own wakefulness. This resistance against life seems to take on the form of bodies and forms and sickness and death. These are the "slowing down" of unlimited extension, or the contraction of fear which "materializes" as physical matter. Or as the Course says, "the granite block of sin."
You can believe in this dream and make it seem real to you. You can imagine or mistake this dream for "actual" separation. And therefore can believe that a sin has really occurred. You can look to "events" and believe them, as if proving separation IS happening. But it's not REAL sin or REAL separation that we're trying to fight our way out of, it's an IDEA of it. We're believing that an IMPOSSIBLE separation is possible. And this believing is PRODUCING the world.
This is why Jesus says "The separation HAS occurred." Because He isn't referring to an ACTUAL separation. "The separation", also referred to as "the fall of man", isn't a name for a REAL separation from God. ACIM isn't even dealing with a real separation. But it is dealing with the fact that you DID have an idea of the impossible being possible, and you DID believe in it, and you DID mis-create, and you DID resist and deny reality.
While this "state" is not real separation, it IS a "mis-use" of freedom to create against creation. It has resulted in the "illusory" state of what it looks like to seemingly "not create". Or rather, to use creative power to make it seem like there is no creative power. To use life to pretend there is no life. To use the mind to pretend there is no mind. Even in death, a state of "no choice or will", both choice and will are being fully utilized to make it seem to happen.
"The separation" isn't anything to do with "you actually did separate". It's to do with you ACTUALLY DID DENY reality. You DID conceive of using free will against itself. You DID use your mind to deny your mind, putting it into what seem to be states of unconsciousness (death).
This has resulted in "dreaming", which has resulted in the making of entire illusory worlds, complete with seemingly happening bodies. And yet "all events are nowhere" because they are really a DENIAL of happening. The "occurring" or "happening" is actually a NOT occurring or happening, masquerading as an occurring or happening. This is how it deceives. It SEEMS to be real.
This has thus "made up" (fiction) a world which Jesus refers to as "a lower order reality". It is something you made in an attempt to NOT create anything. It is a NOT world. It is made of NOT bodies. It is the dream of pretending you are not creating anything, and not having eternal life. It's what you get when you use freedom to will against will. THIS illusory mis-creative state DID OCCUR. Mind DID go to sleep a while. It HAS dreamed of a universe made of nothing.
This doesn't mean a real separation has happened. But a fictional separation HAS happened. And so long as we believe it is a "something", rather than an attempt "not to do anything", or "not to live", we are in a state of denial. This denial produces all illusions of suffering and death. Thinking UNREAL things are real, that the world is real, is a mistake. It is a DENIAL OF reality.
"The world was made as a place where God (reality) could enter not".
God wills only to create. He does not ever will to use creation against itself. He does not deny himself or go to sleep. However, creation BY His children is not yet perfected, and so we need help to return to "sanity", which means only using creation constructively.
To be in reality means to not use will against itself, and to not believe that doing so does something. All it does is nothing. Mistaking the nothing for a something is "the fall of man", ie "the separation." Deception, denial, confusion, insanity, and the dream of death.
"The creation of the Soul itself has already been perfectly accomplished, but the creation BY Souls has not. God created Souls so He could depend on them BECAUSE He created them perfectly. He gave them His peace so they would not be shaken, and would be unable to be deceived. Whenever you are afraid, you ARE deceived. Your mind is NOT serving your Soul. "
"Your creation by God is the only foundation which cannot be shaken, because the light is IN it. "
So we ARE in a situation where we're making an illusory world, made of nothing, which seems like a something. And it's not quite a total nothingness otherwise even this would not seem to happen. It has a little amount of reality left in it. Even the ego depends on God a little. But these dreams of opposition to creation are lesser realities, denials of happiness and blocks to awareness. They also deny permanence and eternal life.
So the fact is, we DO need to "do something", given the context of the denial state we are in. Which is why God created the curriculum and the Holy Spirit. Because we DID choose to believe in unreality (the rejection of reality, using reality against itself). We are trying to hold a fake world in place. We, in time, are still choosing the ego.
"I need do nothing" is an atonement-level truth, only LIVED when fully accepted. It means there are no REAL NEEDS. You don't NEED to accomplish something because all that's happened is the ABSENCE of accomplishment. Darkness is the ABSENCE of light.
Even though in reality there are no real needs, your investment in neediness DOES have to be undone. You do need to UNLEARN everything you taught yourself in error. Until there is no more "need" for time and space. The curriculum therefore is aimed to help you to remember that mis-creating against your will is not what you want, and has no merit, or appeal.
It is futile, because you are merely attempting to NOT CREATE anything. The "creation" of death is not creation of anything. Or in other words, "the separation" does not cause anything to happen, has no real consequences, and is pointless. The "sane" would recognize this, and not bother to entertain the notion that "denying creation" is a worthwhile exercise. And in the total withdrawal from trying to make it achieve something real, the world you made disappears.
"The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."
There has been no real separation.
There has been AN ATTEMPT to make the impossible possible.
You have TRIED to separate from God.
You have used creative will against itself, denying your will to will anything at all.
You mistook the "willing of nothingness" for a "something".
You now seem to NEED atonement. To correct the mistaken belief that willing nothing will produce a SECOND KINGDOM.
Once you accept that ONLY the Kingdom of God accepts its own existence and is in accord with willingness, the world that was NOT created does not exist.
"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. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. 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."
There is no world. But you think there is.
The connection between denying illusions and working miracles...
"The miracle worker is one who accepts my kind of denial and projection, unites his own inherent abilities to deny and project with mine, and imposes them back on himself and others. This establishes the total lack of threat anywhere. Together we can then work for the real time of peace, which is Eternal."
The ego's kind of denial is the denial of God, the denial of truth and reality. It denies heaven and accepts hell.
The proper use of denial does the opposite, accepting God and denying hell. This means that denial itself is not necessarily negative or positive, but you HAVE to always deny something, because you also have to always accept something. Whatever you accept into your mind is reality to you, and whatever you deny is shut out of your mind.
"Whatever you accept INTO your mind has reality for you. It is, however, only the ACCEPTANCE which makes it real."
"Every illusion which you accept into your mind, BY JUDGING IT TO BE ATTAINABLE, removes your own sense of completion, and thus denies the Wholeness of your Father."
Similarly we are to use projection as Jesus would use it, because projection itself is NOT inherently positive or negative.
"WHAT YOU PROJECT YOU BELIEVE. This is an immutable law of mind in this world as well as in the Kingdom."
"We said before that WHAT you project is up to you, but it is NOT up to you WHETHER to project, for projection is a law of mind."
The ego's use of projection is to attack or deny what's within, and project separation.
The proper use of projection is to accept and see what is within and project wholeness and innocence.
A miracle worker therefore is tasked with using denial and projection appropriately, ie constructively. To deny the denial of the truth.
"The task of the miracle-worker thus becomes to DENY THE DENIAL OF TRUTH."
"This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other." Miracle mindedness is a state in which the world of form - anything not of God - is fully denied. And heaven is fully accepted. And whatever you accept into your mind becomes your reality, while whatever you deny (properly) becomes invisible to you. To see the real world you must accept its truth, which is atonement. And this requires that you DENY the physical world - anything not of God.
"Sickness and separation are not of God, but the Kingdom IS. If you obscure the Kingdom, you are perceiving WHAT IS NOT OF GOD."
"Whatever is revealed to Him that is not of God, is gone."
"Teach no-one he has hurt you, for, if you do, you teach YOURSELF that what is NOT of God, HAS POWER OVER YOU."
"THIS peace is totally incapable of being shaken by human errors of any kind. It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to effect you in any way."
The whole course can be summed up fairly simply as.... accept only the Kingdom of God, and deny the world you made. Refuse to accept anything is true about the world, and do not deny God.
Denial is a powerful defense and tool which acts like a pivot around which your whole perception revolves. Deny reality and you make an illusory world real. Deny all the illusions of the world and heaven becomes real to you again. To accept the atonement is to deny the illusory world and be utterly unphased by the dream, denying it any power over you at all.
To remain in miracle mindedness you must be vigilant for the Kingdom - accepting that only the truth is true and nothing else is true. To accept only that which is of God, wholly and openly, and refuse to accept anything God did not create.
"What God did not create does not exist. And everything that does exist exists as He created it. The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist."
"What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His. Therefore, it has no meaning."
"How can a meaningless world exist if God did not create it?"
"INDIRECT proof of truth is needed in a world made of denial, and without direction."
"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."
"Do not perceive ANYTHING God did not create, or you ARE denying Him."
"But denial is a defense, and so it is as capable of being used positively as it is of being used destructively. Used negatively, it WILL be destructive, because it will be used for attack. But in the service of the Holy Spirit, the law becomes as beneficent as all of the laws of God" "Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth."
"Remember a very early lesson, -- "never underestimate the power of denial." It has no power in ITSELF, but YOU can give it the power of YOUR mind, whose power is without limit of ANY kind. If you use it to deny reality, reality is gone FOR YOU. REALITY CANNOT BE PARTLY APPRECIATED. That is why denying any part of it means you have lost awareness of ALL of it."
Separation HAS occurred? Sort of.
Some people claim that it is impossible to explain the "tiny mad idea". It seems logical at first, because when the ego asks a question like "what if", it's not really a question, and the tiny mad idea hasn't "really" happened in reality. It has no real consequences in reality, and it's just a dream.
But the tiny mad idea HAS happened in IMAGINATION. It HAS happened in your mind, and you've "made it real to you". That is why you are sitting there right now reading this on your screen, which *seems* real. A dream "at all" wouldn't even be possible unless God gave you free will to choose to mis-create and dream.
"Whatever is true & real is eternal, & cannot change or be changed. The Soul is therefore unalterable because it is ALREADY perfect, but the mind can elect the level it chooses to serve. The only limit which is put on its choice is that it CANNOT serve two masters."
Your mind has FREEDOM, and therefore can be used to choose EITHER to will with God's will, or to will against it. Either in service to the soul/spirit, or in service to a fictional ego. This freedom granted you the very REAL "possibility" of being ABLE to make this choice, to use will against will, and to mis-create. God would not give you an `option` that could *actually* hurt you at all, and it has not, but this freedom HAS given you the ability to OPT not to laugh at the idea of separation, if you choose.
Jesus also describes below how while you have free will, it is necessary to choose both FOR (toward) God and AWAY from the option of ego/dreaming.
"While the ballot itself is a secret one, and the right to vote is fully protected, voting ALWAYS entails both election AND rejection. If two candidates are voted for for the same position, the machine cancels the ballot automatically.
This is necessary, because a split vote does not represent ANY REAL allegiance.
Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul. The Soul always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God.
The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished. The mind, if it votes to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul can create along the line of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, because such are the dictates of tyrants."
So you can see here that the mind actually has the freedom to "choose to dream" if it wants to. It CAN place itself under tyrranical rule and seem to "sleep". Of course this dreaming is FICTIONAL and it is not REALLY happening in reality, it has no real consequences in heaven, but it IS still a "valid option" that you are free to entertain or ELECT.
This essentially means that, the tiny mad idea is a POSSIBLE CHOICE, but it is not a REAL choice. That's a vital distinction. You COULD choose to dream if you want to, to mis-create, to opposte God's will (or try to), but it's not a REAL option. It's an option of unreality that the mind is quite capable of making if it chooses to. This is why "heaven is a choice I must make" - the mind HAS to freely, willingly, elect to choose heaven, ie the only real option, and not the ego, which is an imaginary option you've tried to MAKE real.
Does this mean the dream "has happened"? It has not happened IN REALITY, but it HAS occurred within the context of the mind's freedom to dream. It doesn't have REALITY to it, but it IS something you are CAPABLE OF PRODUCING through mis-creation. And when you DO freely choose it, with your free will, it will become seemingly real to you because what you accept into your mind becomes your reality.
"To "change your mind" means to place it at the disposal of True authority. The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has elected to be guided by Christ in HIS service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow him."
The mind has to ELECT (choose) to be under service to Christ. This IS a free-willed choice, not something forced upon you. God does not create slaves.
"Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny mad idea"
There DID creep an idea, a thought, an imagining, into the mind, because IT COULD. The mind CAN DREAM. But the dream that it produces is not real or like God. Elsewhere Jesus refers to it as "an order of reality", meaning that you gave reality TO it to try to turn it into reality, through belief, but the belief is based on a false premise, so it is ultimately unfounded and fundamentally unreal at its core.
"Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny mad idea", at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them BOTH away, and understand that time can NOT intrude upon eternity. It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which MEANS there is no time."
I will leave you this statement by Jesus:
"The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay."
What he means here, is not that the separation is REAL, but that in the MIND, it HAS OCCURRED as a thought, an idea, an IMAGINED possibility. There HAS been an attempt to usurp God's will. There HAS been a "dream". Not REALLY, but ... in the proper context, in the mind, this IS something that we CHOSE, something we TRIED TO MAKE REAL, something we tried to DO, to will it, to mis-create. We DID mis-create. That's the ONLY reason that you are able to be sitting there seeming to be a body reading this text right now. But the ultimate truth is, this is a dream, an unreality, it's ultimately based on a false foundation or premise - that there is an alternative to God's will, and because that is untrue, it is not REALLY REAL. So it hasn't REALLY happened in truth, in the biggest picture.
You DO, in a sense, dream a dream. But you CAN stop dreaming, by changing your mind. Dreaming is a state of MIND, of insanity, believing that time can replace eternity and space can replace God's presence. Effectively, there HAS been a "fall of man", but the fall is imaginary. It is ONLY an idea, but it IS an idea, not less than that. The "existence" of this idea, however, must be temporary, because it is an idea of being temporary, and is naturally limited and finite. It is therefore INEVITABLE that the dream will end and the IDEA - in which this entire physical universe dwells - will disappear.
Some believe that God is the only power and that of yourself you can do nothing. This seems to be a state of humility. But there is an ego trick at work here, suggesting that if God has all the power, you have NONE. This is bullshit.
When alone, isolated, separate, being ego, you are disempowered. You have given away and disowned your power. When you reclaim your power, you become very powerful. But this reclaiming of power also requires you to SHARE this power with God. It belongs to both of you. God GAVE YOU HIS POWER when He created you, in order to establish you as having THE POWER TO CREATE as a co-creator. You are very powerful as well. Christ is not weak or incapable.
"To say, "Of myself I can do nothing" is to gain all power. And yet it is but a seeming paradox. As God created you, you have all power."
"The creative power of both God AND His Creations is limitless"
"It was only my DECISION that gave me all power in Heaven and earth. My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision FOR YOURSELF."
"All power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is His."
"By teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you that ALL POWER IS YOURS."
"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 unto you in earth and Heaven. 2 There is nothing that you cannot do."
On your own, you make yourself powerless. When you join with God, recognizing He is the giver of YOUR power, YOU become empowered. You are now CAPABLE of exercising the power of your will, which is as powerful as God's. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do."
It is wonderful to acknowledge that all miracles "come from God". That we have enough humility to acknowledge that we are not "powerful egos". That WITHOUT God, we have NO POWER. To recognize that the SOURCE of OUR power is God.
But it does NOT follow, that you REMAIN powerless as you open up to God's power. In order to open to His power, YOU MUST become powerful also, to align with His power. He SHARES His power with you. You HAVE power too.
You are a very powerful being. God does not create weakness. God created POWERFUL CO-CREATORS. You have power in you. You have ALL power in you. It's just that... you didn't PUT IT THERE.
The light in you, the will in you, the power, the mind, the strength, GOD PUT IT THERE. It is not "of you". There is in fact nothing about you that is "of you". You did not create yourself. You are not OF yourself, having proceeded from yourself. That's what this means. You did not GIVE YOURSELF what you have. BUT this does not in ANY WAY mean that you HAVE NOTHING. You in fact HAVE INHERITED EVERYTHING.
You have the power of God in you. You are UNLIMITED. You are ALL POWERFUL. You can CAUSE. You can CREATE WORLDS. There is NOTHING you cannot do. You are totally powerful without limit. BECAUSE God is in you. Own it.
It's not about "you or God". It's about "YOU AND GOD".
All glory is His AND yours.
Jesus did not disown power. He did not disown capability. He merely recognized that He didn't give HIMSELF His power, he inherited it from His father. And so gave thanks to His father for the power to do what He was able to do, so as to steer clear of "look at me, I'm special, I did this WITHOUT Him." You and God are a TEAM.
"The body cannot create, and the belief that it can, a fundamental error, produces all physical symptoms. Physical illness represents a belief in magic"
Interesting huh. Jesus isn't saying that some illnesses are caused by a belief in the body having the power to create sickness. He is saying that ALL sicknesses of all kinds are produced by believing that the physical level of 'existence' has CAUSAL POWER over your mind.
Essentially, MAGIC, is the belief that something separate from the mind has power to cause the mind. This is the same as being a victim. It's the same as believing things outside of you do things to you. It's the same as the belief that your brother does something to hurt you and that you then demonstrate this is true by showing harm in your body. That is magical. It's a fantasy about how a 'special power' has come along and produced an 'effect' WITHOUT the mind being involved and WITHOUT YOU CAUSING IT.
The reversal of cause and effect is a gross "confusion of the levels". Confusing mind with body. But moreso, confusing the fact that mind is the creator/dreamer with the body which is the created/dream. Such confusion produces 'magical' explanations for why things happen - they don't seem to happen just because YOU had anything to do with it, they seem to happen through some kind of magical mysterious unexplainable 'something' that happens entirely outside your awareness.
Let's reiterate - ALL SICKNESS is caused by a belief in magic. A BELIEF IN magic. That means, every single time we see ourselves as a victim, every time we are irresponsible for our causal power, every time we are disempowered by ourselves, every time we are 'confused' about WHERE THE CAUSE IS (in our mind - GOD is the ultimate cause), that's when sickness is generated.
Sickness then is an attempt to mis-create by using creation against God. It's where we turn around and instead of extending God, we go AGAINST God. We attempt to block God, stop God, attack God, attack the mind, and prevent Him from being the Cause. That produces every physical, emotional or mental illness. ALL of them. Every sickness on the entire planet in the history of mankind AND all animals and creatures AND even that of the earth and air and water and whatever else... *every* form of sickness in the universe, is caused by this 'level confusion'.
We are looking at a 'creation' - the body - the world - and we are attempting to believe that IT has the power to create, to make things happen, that it has its own alien will, and that it can do things to you ON ITS OWN. That is magic. That will result in sickness.
But even moreso, what we're doing here is, we're trying to deny that God is the cause of all creation. It's not just about 'the cause is in my mind'. God is in your mind, or rather, your mind is IN GOD. When we try to deny that God is the Father, that God is the CAUSE or source of everything real, that produces sickness. We are sick because we're blocking the extension of eternal life (creation). We are sick because we don't want love. We are sick because we believe we are separate from God. We are sick because we don't want to love other people unconditionally. When God is not the cause, we're actually saying, the body/world/ego/separation IS GOD. And we worship it. And all its forms. We replace God with the world, and that means we will be sick.
Put God first!
God is wholeness, or Holiness. He is the whole of everything, everywhere. There is no lack in Him. He is unlimited and infinite. He is omnipresent. He is the all in all.
"The mark of Wholeness is Holiness"
"God is all in all in a very literal sense. All being is in Him because He IS all Being. YOU are therefore in Him because YOUR being IS His."
Every part of God contains all of God. All of God is everywhere. All of God is shared, within Himself, with all of Himself. All of God has access to all of God. And all of God is God.
"The Will of God is without limit, and all power and glory lie within it. It is boundless in strength and in love and in peace. It has no boundaries because its extension is unlimited, and it encompasses all things because it CREATED all things."
God cannot access anywhere that He does not exist, and there is nothing outside of God. He already exists everywhere, so there is nowhere to be added, and no space to add into.
"Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else. Nothing OUTSIDE THIS Oneness, and NOTHING ELSE within."
God cannot create an external space, nor can he add a separate thing outside of Himself. He cannot "tack on" any kind of a creation to the outside of Himself.
The internal nature of God, however, is one of sharing. God fully shares with Himself. He is fully open. He loves Himself, and therefore gives Himself to Himself.
"Nothing that is real can be increased EXCEPT by sharing it. That is why God Himself created you. Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what creation MEANS."
Within God, within His mind, within His being, there is total unlimited sharing. This sharing is a transcendence of space and time and limitation. It enables God to be a host, and to share Himself by giving Himself.
"Everything He created is given ALL His power because it is part of Him and shares His Being WITH Him."
"Being is known by sharing. Because God shared His Being with you, you can know Him."
"Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in His Being He encompasses all things. No mind holds anything but Him."
"You cannot separate your SELF from YOUR Creator, who created YOU by sharing HIS Being WITH you."
"I am forever host to God."
God wants to give Himself because it is His nature to share everything. This giving is what we call love, or life. It also leads to what we call projection, extension, or creation. Love loves itself.
"God shares His Fatherhood with you who are His Son"
"God shares His function with you in Heaven"
"Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what creation MEANS."
"projecting outward of God. That is why everything which He Created is like Him."
God is able to share Himself, within Himself, and can extend Himself as what we call Thoughts or Creations. These thought-creations can only occur provided they inherit the whole of God, and in turn share His will to share the whole of themselves.
"Creation is the sum of all God's Thoughts, in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit. Only Love creates, and only like Itself."
"God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind."
"Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul." "ALL princes INHERIT their power from the Father"
"the Children of the Father inherit from Him"
"Glory is your inheritance, given your Soul by its Creator, that you might EXTEND it."
Any thought-creation of God can only share what they are given, and can only give what they inherit. They also must create by sharing, and can only create by sharing, by hosting within their own being.
"By CREATING all things, it made them PART OF ITSELF. YOU are the Will of God, because this is how you were created. Because your Creator creates only like Himself, you ARE like Him."
"accept the Thought of God as its inheritance."
"Perceiving the majesty of God AS your brother is to accept your OWN inheritance."
"The inheritance of the Kingdom is the right of God's Son, given him in his creation."
Creation, therefore, really occurs as a kind of internal expansion, or a giving inward. God shares the whole of Himself, which produces creative thoughts, which must inherit the whole of God, and be wholly like God. "The Father and the Son are not identical, but you CAN say "Like Father, LIKE Son."
"GOD gave you the function to create in eternity."
"God gave Himself to BOTH of you in equal love"
"God GAVE you Heaven"
"God GAVE you all there is."
God also can only share wholly, or fully. He cannot only partially give, or partially create, or partially share. When He shares, He creates wholly, and creates only wholeness. And anything He creates must be completely whole. "Each part you remember adds to YOUR wholeness, because each part IS whole." "which recognizes the wholeness of God's creation and BY this recognition knows its Creator."
"That is the law of God, for the protection of the wholeness of His Son." "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."
This means that any creation of God, any extension of God, MUST be a completely whole creation. It must be fully given, fully established, fully sharing, and fully created.
"This is the ONLY love that is fully given, AND FULLY RETURNED."
"We have also emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also been created perfect."
This leads to the FULL creation of living thought-beings, ideas of children, which are the living thoughts of God. Each is a miracle, and each inherits absolutely everything from God. Each HAS everything, and IS everything. "You ARE the Kingdom of Heaven"
"You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did."
"God and HIS miracles are inseparable."
Absolute wholeness is passed down and is SHARED by every creation. Therefore, two things become true. 1) Every thought-creation is a completely autonomous being who is a whole fully-created being, and 2) Each being shares AND IS the whole of creation.
"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy."
This results in a scenario where each Son of God literally IS God, and is PART of God, and IS EACH OTHER. There can only truly be one whole, which must be shared by EACH whole. And therefore each whole is the one whole. This is what oneness really means.
"The wholeness of God, which IS His peace, cannot be appreciated EXCEPT by a whole mind, which recognizes the wholeness of God's creation and BY this recognition knows its Creator."
"God's wholeness IS the wholeness of his Son."
This means that each Son of God IS the other Sons of God, as well as being an individual Son of God. "Individual" does mean "undivided". And thus each brother is all brothers. And every soul is part of God. And every child of God is every other child of God. And all of them share the same whole - all of themselves - with all the rest.
"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."
"For your Father wills you to know your brother AS yourself."
"to know your brother IS to know God."
This produces the Sonship, which is the family of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. And having inherited everything from God, as His perfect extensions, each Son of God is a fully created being and has SO much freedom and autonomy that they are established as TRUE co-creators - free-willed "separate" beings.
"the Sonship is your Soul"
"you are part of God, and the Sonship is one"
"in a relationship in which ALL the Sonship is together blessed"
"Think not HE wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him. He would but KEEP your will forever and forever limitless." "If you believe that all of the Souls that God created ARE His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul MUST be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship."
This doesn't merely mean that they just do God's bidding, or that he dangles them like puppets, or that they are slaves to His will. They have been WHOLLY created, and therefore do in fact have free independent will. But remember that, at the same time, this will is ALSO shared with everyone. And to remain free it has to be shared, yet still retain freedom.
"The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given."
Blessed with free will, in a sense "free from God", or as "separate beings", individuality has been established. They are individual because they are whole in and of themselves. Yet they are one because they share everything.
"For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my Will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them, and Him Who has created me."
"be reminded of His Son, our holy Self, the Christ in each of us"
"every member of the family of God must return"
They now proceed to naturally share everything that they have, because this is their one nature. They can only share everything because it is by the sharing of everything that they exist at all.
"You HAVE the power to ADD to the Kingdom, but NOT to add to the Creator OF the Kingdom."
"We said before that WHAT you project is up to you, but it is NOT up to you WHETHER to project, for projection is a law of mind."
"Every mind MUST project, because that is how it lives, and every mind IS life."
So in turn they create their own creations by sharing everything and hosting them within their own mind and being, just like and with God. And as such the Kingdom continues to expand internally as a continuous line of extension and creation.
"all loving creation is freely given. Nothing in either of these statements implies any sort of level involvement, or, in fact, anything except one continuous line of creation, in which all aspects are of the same order." "As God's creative Thought proceeds FROM Him TO you, so must YOUR creative thoughts proceed FROM you to YOUR creations."
"YOUR creations belong in YOU, as YOU belong in God. You are part of God, as your sons are part of His Sons. To create is to love. Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained. Being limitless, it DOES NOT STOP. It creates forever"
"YOUR creations add to Him, as YOU do. But nothing is added that is different, because everything has always BEEN"
Wholeness, within wholeness, shared by the whole, in which each whole is the one whole, and all wholes are one. And yet at the same time, there are many wholes because God constantly shares itself. And all living beings therefore continually create and extend and think and give, and the increase of the Kingdom is endless.
"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father. Know then the Sons of God, and you will know ALL Creation."
"And BEING loving, they are like the Father, and therefore cannot die."
"A co-creator with the Father must have a Son (your creations). Yet must this Son (your sons) have been created like Himself. A perfect Being, all-encompassing and all-encompassed (by you and your brothers and God), nothing to add and nothing taken FROM; not born of size nor weight nor time, nor held to limits or uncertainties of ANY kind."
"You do not know YOUR creations, because you do not know your brothers who created them WITH you."
"for in him you will find your creations, because he created them WITH you."
The simple fact that God, who is whole, gives the whole of himself, wholly, to wholly create whole beings, who share the whole of himself, alignes exactly with the holographic principle. That the whole is in every part, and every contains and IS the whole, and every part is the SAME whole. And therefore all the wholes are one.
This is why heaven is a truly holographic structure. Not holographic in the sense of 3d projected images - which have nothing to do with holograms. But in the sense that the whole of God is in every creation of God, and every creation of God IS the whole.
"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is PERFECTLY natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to you."
This is what heaven is like. It is not some singular blob that sits there by itself. It is not just some kind of singular oneness which doesn't create or extend. It isn't populated by God alone. It is not devoid of individuality. Nor is it devoid of relationships or free will. It is host to an entire family of unlimited thought-beings, and every part of it is part of God, and part of you, and of your own spirit-children.
"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually"
"Each Soul knows God completely."
"By HIS willingness to share it, He becomes as dependent on you, as you are on HIM."
"God is as dependent on you as you are on Him, because HIS autonomy ENCOMPASSES yours, and is therefore incomplete WITHOUT it."
"TOTALLY dependent on their One Creator for EVERYTHING"
"God and the Souls He created ARE symbiotically related. They are COMPLETELY dependent on each other."
"God created Souls so He could depend on them BECAUSE He created them perfectly."
This is why certain other conceptual models of reality are not a good fit. Traditional ideas of oneness don't quite cut it, because they fail to acknowledge that oneness MUST share itself, MUST extend, and MUST be given to create.
Ideas of non-duality don't cut it either, because God is a creator and HAS to create whole expressions of Himself, forming a divine family. He does not will to be alone, or that you be alone, or that you will beings that are alone. All of heaven is about creation and sharing and openness and inter-dependence.
"the whole family of God, or the Sonship"
"the Holy Family"
"If you created GOD and He created you, the KINGDOM could not increase through its OWN creative thought. Creation would therefore be limited, and you would NOT be co-creators WITH God. As God's creative Thought proceeds FROM Him TO you, so must YOUR creative thoughts proceed FROM you to YOUR creations. In this way only can ALL creative power EXTEND OUTWARD. God's accomplishments are NOT yours. But yours are LIKE His. 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."
"The Kingdom is forever extending, because it is in the Mind of God."
"Your gifts TO the Kingdom are like His to YOU."
"God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you, who are co-creators with Him, extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit."
"And His Sons, who create LIKE Him, follow it gladly, knowing that the INCREASE of the Kingdom depends on it, just as THEIR creation did."
"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father. Know then the Sons of God, and you will know ALL Creation."
"The Kingdom of Heaven IS you."
"You, too, have a Kingdom which your Soul has created."
"I have a kingdom I must rule."
"God HAS kept your kingdom for you"
"Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world."
"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer."
"The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God, who left not his Father, and dwells not apart from Him."
"His Kingdom has no limits and no end, and there is nothing in Him that is not perfect and eternal."
"For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom."
"The inheritance of the Kingdom is the right of God's Son, given him in his creation."
"My Kingdom is not of this world, because it is in YOU. And YOU are of your Father."
"Because you are all the Kingdom of God, I can lead you back to your own creations"
"What God calls one will be forever one, NOT separate. His Kingdom IS united; thus it was created, and thus will it ever be."
"The Kingdom of Heaven is the right of the Soul, whose beauty and dignity are beyond doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the mark of the love of God for His Creations, who are wholly worthy of Him and ONLY of Him. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a gift for a creation of God Himself."
Believing is receiving.
Believe in God, you will receive eternal life.
Believe in ego, you will receive suffering and death.
You receive because you believe in it. You believe it is your truth. Your reality. And what you deserve. You receive it because you make it happen.
When you believe in God, you join with God's will and create with Him and thus receive what you create.
When you believe in ego, you join with the ego's will and create with it and thus receive what you create.
Whatever you are receiving, it reflects what you are believing in.
You can't have a belief which is disconnected from what you receive, and you can't be in a state where you believe one thing and receive something else.
If you want to receive a miracle, you need to receive God, by believing that His truth is your truth.
If you want the results of the miracle but you don't want the alignment with God that's required to receive it, to choose it, you won't receive it. That's how sickness and suffering remain.
You get to choose what to believe in.