One thing I never could make sense of in the Course was when Jesus referred to minds being joined or how it wasn't possible to be sick if minds were joined.

My ego could not understand this. It made no sense in terms of people being normal separate minds in separate bodies. I could only think in terms of doing something to something separate. How does anyone join with the mind of someone else in the first place? And why would that bring about the impossibility of sickness?

What I see now is that individuals in separate bodies are just fragments of a larger Self - the Christ Self, the One Son, and that identity has a single mind. There are not multiple Christs.

Mind, in its natural condition, is a single mind shared everywhere. It is the mind of the Whole Self. When pieces of mind seem to split off and be separate, that's because there is an illusion of separation happening. This separation is the root of all sickness.

Separation is two-sided, in that when the mind is divided, there is a piece of mind over here and piece of mind over there and they are kept apart by some kind of illusion of not being joined. That belief in separation produces sickness because it's a belief in limitation and lack. The separation blocks awareness, and blocks to awareness are denials which deny Life and thus produce death.

So when separation is present, and there are "two selves", that's a state of sickness. The mind is sick. It has multiple personality disorder. I'm talking about the one mind here, not an individual's mind. An individual's mind also is sick and divided within itself - each personality of the multiple personality disorder of the one mind, has within it further multiple personalities, lol

Ok so, to maintain the separation between selves, and thus to mantain sickness, both of those parts of the multiple personality must continue to exist. Without them being different from each other they would be one. If one of those two parts of mind decides to transcend what seems like the illusory limits placed upon itself, and redefines itself as the WHOLE, not a part of the whole, then it comes to experience Oneness with the other part of the mind, recognizing it as literally itself. Then there is only one mind. The two parts of mind are joined as One.

If the other part of the mind was trying to be an individual, it no longer can maintain that state of sickness because the first part of the mind has decided not to believe in it. So it doesn't have support for its belief and no matter how much it tries, it can't establish separation. If part of mind has woken up to the One Self (Christ), the other part has no way to remain in separation either. They must both wake up together to a single identity.

When Jesus woke up, He must have woken up to the reality that we are all One. And thus His awakening must have been the awakening of everyone. I don't know if this means that our minds MUST be healed, but certainly that it is POSSIBLE to be healed. If we were to decide to be one with Jesus, we would be healed instantly.

In the thought system of Holy Spirit, we are all one shared mind, and one identity. Holy Spirit looks upon CHRIST. Nowhere does it say he looks upon multiple real individuals.

When minds thus join, there is a healing of the separation between them. The separation defines their separate identity, so this must mean the undoing of a false sense of isolation and opening up to realizing that you are much more than you thought you were. An increase in awareness. Awakening. We awaken TO the Christ mind, the one mind, that we all share as the One Son of God. We're all the same Self. And this is how miraculous healing is possible.

T-11.VII.1."The world as you perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is not as you see it. 2 God created only the eternal, and everything you see is perishable. 3 Therefore, there must be another world that you do not see."

"C-4.1. The world you see is an illusion of a world. 2 God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. 3 Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. 4 Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. 5 But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.

C-4.2. The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. 2 And so they do. 3 For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. 4 While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

"T-8.VI.2. The world can add nothing to the power and the glory of God and His holy Sons, but it can blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. 2 You cannot behold the world and know God. 3 Only one is true. 4 I am come to tell you that the choice of which is true is not yours to make. 5 If it were, you would have destroyed yourself. 6 Yet God did not will the destruction of His creations, having created them for eternity."

M-20.5. "You see in death escape from what you made. 3 But this you do not see; that you made death, and it is but illusion of an end. 4 Death cannot be escape, because it is not life in which the problem lies. 5 Life has no opposite, for it is God. 6 Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life. 7 Forgive the world, and you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real."

W-pI.14.1. "God did not create a meaningless world. ... What God did not create does not exist. 3 And everything that does exist exists as He created it. 4 The world you see has nothing to do with reality. 5 It is of your own making, and it does not exist.

"T-25.III.2. God's laws do not obtain directly to a world perception rules, for such a world could not have been created by the Mind to which perception has no meaning. "

W-pI.132.9"You are as God created you. 3 There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to your eternal state. 4 How can a world of time and place exist, if you remain as God created you?"

T-7.XI.1."The world goes against your nature, being out of accord with God's laws. 6 The world perceives orders of difficulty in everything. 7 This is because the ego perceives nothing as wholly desirable."

"T-13.VII.1. Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself: "The real world is not like this. 2 It has no buildings and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. 3 There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. 4 It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. 5 There is no day that brightens and grows dim. 6 There is no loss. 7 Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."

T-13.VII.2. The world you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. 2 You cannot see both worlds, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. 3 The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other."

T-14.V.1."Leave the world of death behind, and return quietly to Heaven. 9 There is nothing of value here, and everything of value there."

Think of yourself not as confined to a small body, but think of yourself as, in your natural state, being expansive and the size of the universe. You are omnipresent, you are everywhere and in all things. You share the entirety of existence with all other children of God. You overlap with everyone. You exist in the same space, share all of your being with other beings, and commune intimately in a state of oneness.

What happened to that self, which was a universe-sized fully sharing being, in the separation idea, is you attempted to withdraw from immersion in the whole, you confined yourself, you shrunk down, you limited yourself, you withdrew yourself from the communal experience, and so made yourself show up as an isolated body person.

You became small and little and weak and frail, fenced off from the rest, not wanting to share with anyone, wanting to have something special just to yourself, something exclusive, something that only you have, which makes you different and unique and selfish. Instead of being everywhere you decided to be somewhere, restricted in spacetime to a small tiny spot, around which you defend against the entire universe from entering.

This is what happened in the separation. This is how you took your pre-existing sharing self, and "made it separate". You separated it from its communal experience with other infinite beings, putting yourself in a corner and walling yourself in, in order to keep them out and you in. You did not want to share in them, and you didn't not want them to share in you. This was the purpose of the body idea, a separation device and a wall of flesh around the mind.

This produced what is termed "the separated self" which is a self who used to share with everyone, who now does not want to share at all. This imprisoned self, is still a real self, but has placed itself under limitations. And these limitations are made of illusions, which seem to now substitute for a sense of real, full self, making it seem as though you "made up a self" to replace the fullness of your soul. You made the body, and identified with and as it, in an attempt to isolate and exclude. This is all that happened in the separation. You just became selfish and special and different.

The restoration of your true nature simple entails the willingness to drop the walls, remove the isolation, transcend the body separation device, return to being the size of the universe, re-immerse yourself in creation, rejoin the community of the Sonship, and resume a state of perfectly unselfish sharing. The willingness to let others share you, as much as you share them. Restored to being your natural self as God created you, a self who is equal to all real brothers and who shares everything with everyone.

Once you can see what you were like BEFORE the separation - a limitless universal being who shares everything with every other limitless universal being - the family of God - you can easily contrast this against the position you now find yourself in, and realize that it was the attempt not to share that put yourself into this situation. Where you are now inside a body, everyone else is kept outside, you seem to inhabit it alone, and now no-one shares anything with you inside your little fence. Being kept apart and separated off and unwilling to join, is a lonely and isolating experience.

The walls of separation, the body itself, all physical matter, all illusions, the ego, body identification, forms, the world, all things little, every prison wall which keeps you from sharing and immersing yourself in communion with God and Sonship, which occurs only in Heaven, keeps you from being IN heaven, and keeps you imprisoned. This is why the body cannot contain you who are love, any more than God can enter a body or join you there. You must expand. You must become unlimited. You must return to being an eternal being who is everywhere and sharing with all other eternal beings in an unlimited, open and unselfish way.

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

Look at all these clear statements by Jesus testifying that you can either be IN HEAVEN, or ON EARTH. They are TWO WORLDS, two places, two locations if you will. You can be IN heaven, or ON earth. When you are on earth, you are not in heaven. The two worlds do not overlap. One is real, one is illusion.

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

"It unites all wills on earth in Heaven's plan to save the world, restoring it to Heavens peace."

"earthly form of love which as it is in Heaven has no form."

"It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. "

"The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

"Both Heaven and Earth are in YOU, because the call of both are in your wills, and therefore in your minds."

"It was only my DECISION that gave me all power in Heaven and earth. "

"As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing."

"God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."

"In Heaven as on earth this is forever true."

"It does not matter if you think you are in earth or Heaven. What your Father wills for you can never change."

"You on earth have no conception of limitlessness, for the world you seem to live in IS a world of limits."

"Those who have learned to offer ONLY healing, because of the reflection of holiness in them, are ready at last for Heaven. There, holiness is not a reflection, but rather the ACTUAL CONDITION of what was but reflected TO them here."

"Reflect the peace of Heaven HERE, and bring this world to Heaven."

"In Heaven, reality is SHARED, and not reflected."

"So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there. "

"Its perfect purity does not depend on whether it is seen on earth or not. The sky embraces it, and softly holds it in its perfect place, which is as far from earth as earth from Heaven."

"It is not the distance nor the time which keeps this star invisible to earth. But those who seek for idols cannot know this star is there."

"Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and, although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here."

"For there is nothing in Heaven OR earth that it resembles, and so, however much you seek for its reality, you CANNOT find it, because it is NOT real."

"The ego teaches that your function on earth is destruction, and that you have no function AT ALL in Heaven."

"For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter."

"The miracles you do on earth are lifted up to Heaven, and to Him."

"The miracle, without a function in Heaven, IS needful here. ASPECTS of reality can still be seen, and they will replace aspects of UNREALITY. Aspects of reality can be seen IN EVERYTHING and EVERYWHERE. Yet only God can gather them together by crowning them AS ONE with the final gift of eternity."

"Because my feet are on the ground and my hands are in heaven, I can bring down the glories of Heaven to my brothers on earth."

"As long as a single slave remains to walk the earth, your release is not complete."

"And who would pardon Heaven? Yet on earth you need the means to let illusion go."

"Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth. For being Heaven-borne, it has no form at all. "

"On earth, it is your ONLY function, and you must learn that it is ALL YOU WANT TO LEARN."

"Before you make ANY decisions for yourself, remember that YOU HAVE DECIDED AGAINST YOUR FUNCTION IN HEAVEN, and consider carefully whether you WANT to make decisions here."

"Father, in Heaven it is different, for there, there are no needs. But here on earth the miracle is closer to Your gifts than any other gift which I can give."

A very common-place belief is that you choose something at one moment in time, the "change" is implemented at that time, and then you stop making any changes. It then seems that the effects that you choose are on a kind of auto-pilot, just carrying over from the past, as if you are not making any decisions NOW that are resulting in the effects remaining.

So for example 20 years ago, someone attacked you and damaged your leg, and ever since then you've been walking with a limp. You THINK that the limp is there "because of" that one moment in time which changed the "direction" of your life, as though a temporary hand steered you in a different direction, but this is NOT how it works.

When anything happens, as a "one time" thing, it is not a one-time thing. If you accept it, thus believe in it, and YOU implement the effects, and you maintain the belief that it happened, you are CONSTANTLY BELIEVING that it happened. It's like you suddenly get into a groove, you STAY in the groove, and are continually now under the influence of this belief. The belief is CONSTANTLY EXPRESSING. The belief is continually RE-MANUFACTURING the effects that you chose, moment by moment.

So if we re-frame this, 20 years ago you DECIDED that you would walk with a limp. You NEVER CHANGED YOUR MIND about this. You THINK that you only decided this one-time 20 years ago, but in fact you have been deciding to walk with a limp for 20 years straight. Every single day you make the same decision, or commit to the same intention, and without changing it you KEEP MAKING the same effects. If you would realize you need not suffer, you would change your mind and set yourself free, NOW.

This works exactly like a projector, because it is a projective process. At some point in time, you put a movie reel into your projector and switched it on. It started projecting an image of a broken leg. Each moment, the projector shines light and broadcasts this image. And then the next moment it does it again. It puts that image out there again, and again, and again, and again.

Over time, the movie screen shows a broken leg, CONSTANTLY in a state of being broken. Why? Because the movie reel has not been changed. It just keeps RE-PROJECTING the same picture, based on the same programming. Putting the movie reel into the projector is not what "caused the broken leg" 20 years ago, it's the fact that the SAME movie reel (belief) is STILL in the projector! This movement INTO this state of damage has not been chosen against, in 20 years! You have no UNDONE IT.

This is how beliefs and choices really operate. Because in every single MOMENT, you have free will to CHOOSE what you will experience. And just because you seem to keep choosing the SAME experience over a prolonged period of time does NOT MEAN that you can't change that experience in an instant. Just because you have this long story of built-up belief that you were damaged 20 years ago and have had this broken leg for SO LONG that it can't possibly be healed, that's total bullshit. It is completely irrelevant. The decision to have the broken leg is happening NOW, not in the past.

Every moment, you are choosing and projecting a version of the body that you CHOOSE it be. Every moment you are broadcasting its image. Every moment you are determining its condition. Every moment you are putting out there a FRESH COPY of a picture of a body. It's not even RELATED to the one that you projected 5 seconds ago. And the one you "had" 5 seconds ago DOES NOT EXIST. Nor is the one you have now, a "carry over" from one you just had, nor has there been any transfer or maintaining of its "state" outside of your mind. The body does NOT have its own state.

The ego has been very good at creating the ILLUSION that the past carries over to the present, or that something happening 20 years ago is still affecting you in a kind of cause-effect relationship. As if the past causes the present. This is total fiction. The leg is not still broken because of the past, it's still broken because the MIND HAS NOT CHANGED.

So you have to realize this. Beliefs, when you implement them, are DECISIONS, which will CONSTANTLY EXPRESS, for as long as you keep the belief. The EFFECTS of this belief will continue to be produced - CAUSED - so long as you keep the belief. If you have this belief lodged in your mind for 20 years saying "my leg is damaged", it will constantly ensure that the leg shows up as damaged for 20 years. It's like you develop an ATTITUDE, and you keep this attitude going, and every day you have this attitude, and therefore every day PRODUCE the same EFFECTS.

Yet you are free to change your mind at ANY TIME. And the instant that you undo that belief and accept the CURE of Atonement, all of those signs and symptoms of damage will disappear. INSTANTLY. With no bearing on how long it's been there or "why" it's "more difficult" to heal it if you've had it for decades.

It's simply not true that decisions or "influences" or "causes" occur "momentarily", at one moment in time, affecting things just briefly (e.g. an accident), causing irreparable damage which just happens to then carry on "on its own". Nothing EVER carries on on its own. The mind HAS TO BE MAKING EVERYTHING HAPPEN AT ALL TIMES. "Mind makes this decision as it makes EVERY decision responsible for the condition of the body."

So you are either CONTINUING TO BELIEVE and therefore CHOOSE that the body be in a certain condition, for however long you decide to keep believing that, OR you change your mind and the body changes NOW.

It's through realizing this mechanism which is how things ACTUALLY work, that you will go on to realize this: WHEN the mind decides the body is sick, the body becomes sick. *****WHEN THE MIND DECIDES NOT TO BE SICK, IT INSTANTLY HEALS THE BODY*****. Or better, it instantly undoes the image it projected a moment ago and projects a fresh image of a body in a healed state SYMBOLIZING the beliefs of the mind. The body is not an end in itself, it only EVER is an EFFECT of the mind causing, choosing, believing.

As soon as the mind is changed and the BELIEF and NEED for the sickness are removed, do you really think the body just "carries on" being sick on its own? As if, once again, there is a cause-effect relationship through time where the PAST determines what the body's condition is NOW? It does not. If you remove the CONSTANT DECISION from the mind, as to the body suffering or being in a certain state, you are now making a NEW DECISION about the state of the body, and the body NOW MUST be projected in this "new form". This new appearance, to correlate to what your BELIEF IS NOW.

This means, there is a direct instant correlation between your state of mind and the state of the body. There is a DIRECT MIRRORING of mental health and physical health. If the mind contains an attack belief, the BODY will show up with attack in it. If the mind is HEALED, it ABSOLUTELY MUST only project a body THAT IS ALSO HEALED. Because the body is nothing but a SYMBOL OF THE MIND. The body is not a thing in its own right, with its own mind or will or continuity. There is no such thing as bodily continuity. There is only "what am I choosing to project this instant?"

You choose to switch out that movie reel, you get rid of the "broken leg" movie, take it out, the mind is clear of it, what happens? The leg STOPS SHOWING UP AS DAMAGED. Instantly. Because now there is a new projection, one which does NOT include broken legs.

I've seen this happen over and over. Typically, let's say that someone has a so-called "accident" (a choice to suffer), and in this accident they become "traumatized", and now they KEEP the trauma, and ADJUST to it, and allow it to stay. Basically that now means, they have formed BELIEFS, which are CHOICES, to go INTO a certain state of mind relating to this incident. Which means they now are carrying around with them this CONSTANT STATE OF SUFFERING, in the mind, which they have not healed. They have not UNDONE "what happened".

They have not released the pent up emotions relating to it. They have not freed themselves from ALLOWING (permitting) that incident to AFFECT them in any way. And so now they live under a dark cloud, choosing to STAY IN THE ACCIDENT MOMENT, continually, never letting it go. And therefore the symptoms and effects that are CAUSED BY THE BELIEF, continue to be regenerated and re-caused, at all times, every day. And as such every day is now suffering because they dipped down into hell and never got themselves back out of it.

When bad shit happens like that (you hurt yourself on purpose), you have to UNDO IT, otherwise you will simply carry it around with you CONSTANTLY going forward. You will not let it go. Until it is HEALED. You have to heal all such "events" and choices and beliefs relating to it, to ERASE IT FROM YOUR MIND. Then by doing so, you are no longer CHOOSING THAT IT BE HAPPENING. And therefore it does not occur, never did occur, and YOU are now re-living it every moment. When your mind STOPS believing in it, the symptoms MUST DISAPPEAR. They cannot show up WITHOUT your belief, and believing is choosing. If "life beats you down", you HAVE TO GET UP AND ATONE.

So in summary, decision making is a PERPETUAL thing, not a momentary thing. You are ALWAYS expressing from who you think you are. You are CONSTANTLY emitting and projecting based on your beliefs. And your beliefs are choices. So you don't ever make momentary decisions, you instead decide to go into or commit to a LONG-TERM state, and then you stay there in that state for years, not changing your mind. When you change your mind, it doesn't matter how long you've been in that state, your NEW STATE of mind must now project, NOW, a fresh image of a body. NOT CONNECTED TO the past "condition". The body does not have any continuity! It is not subject to causes and effects in the world. It is caused solely by your mind.

Which means, when your mind is sick, your body will show up as sick. When your mind is healthy, your body CANNOT BE SICK, NOR CAN IT DIE, because it can ONLY represent what your MIND IS CHOOSING to symbolize itself as.

"A guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being SANE, IT HEALS THE BODY."

"A damaged body is PROOF THE MIND **HAS NOT** BEEN HEALED."

"Those who are sick do not love themselves, for if they loved themselves they would heal themselves."

I complain that food manufacturers constantly package food in containers which are way larger than the contents, and when you go to open it up you find it's half empty and feel deceived. It IS a dishonest practice. At first it was the 'oh potatoe chips need extra air space to cushion them against breakage' but then it was... well, here's 20 other foods that don't have this risk but still come with a large airspace. The packaging mis-represents what you actually will get. Ok, that's just a deceptive shitty lie.

Ok. That's my complaint. Now, let's look at what has happened because of this complaint.

I've started out by seeing myself as being victimized. I ask, who am *I* in this scenario. There's the food manufacturer over there and there's the product sitting in front of me and I'm seeing this scenario where I'm looking at ME in a particular way. I think I'm looking at the food container and complaining, but that's actually a few steps down the road. What happened before my angry reaction was me seeing myself 'in' the scenario as a victim. ie..

1) If the food item has more empty space than needed, I have decided that this means there is dishonesty. It's dishonesty on the level of form and implies deceit.

2) If there is deceit in the food item, and because I say it means they are being deceiving, and because I have an interest in this food item, I am now a part of the story and it is ME that is being deceived. It's personal!

3) Now that it's 'affecting me' (because of the way I CHOSE to position myself as the victim in the story), I am now justified in anger and annoyance. Now I can blame them. Now I can say it's their fault that I am angry, because what they did happened before what I did. But this covers up the fact that what I did (made it real, gave it meaning it doesn't have, treated it as non-neutral), happened before anything else.

4) If I am seeing guilt in the food container then who is experiencing guilt? I might be trying to get THEM to experience guilt but it's a part of my reality, so *I* am experiencing guilt, albeit displaced. That means there's guilt in my mind, and I believe in my own guilt. That means I believe I've sinned, and I'm trying to pin it on the food container and the people who made it wrongly.

So as I find the huge airspace in a bag of chips annoying, or the gross vomit-like quality of tv dinners to be nothing like the beautiful arrangement on the box cover, or the totally unnecessary container size housing rather less product just to get me to think that I am getting more than I am, I have this opportunity to realize.... this is ONLY there to trigger my own self-attack and to remind me that I am CHOOSING to see myself as a victim, and I'm only choosing that because *I* BELIEVE* I am deceptive and dishonest and guilty. Hmmm.

So... then it boils down to this. I can't hold THEM guilty without holding myself guilty, because this guilt is mine. Hmm. Ok, I forgive them BECAUSE they did not do anything, I DID IT. And I forgive me because I did not really DO anything, nothing has happened. And I am forgiven already because none of this happened in the first place, it's just a dream that isn't real. And I am actually whole and one with GOD right now being HAPPY rather than right. Yay. We are ALL innocent and equal and One and none of us are guilty at all.

Ok now to eat some chips.

"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."

I thought I'd clarify a bit. In ACIM there are two ways that separation is referred to. One is "separation" in general - the other is "the separation".

Separation in general cannot happen, you cannot never really separate from God, and you haven't. This is what it means by separation being impossible, that "separation hasn't happened."

But you have to be very careful on the wording. ACIM has many references to "THE separation". When it refers to THE separation, it's not talking about the fact that you cannot separate. It's talking about the tiny mad idea which you BELIEVED was possible.

The mad idea is that idea that you CAN separate from God, even though you can't. And believing in the idea is insane, because it makes no sense. Given that the first type of separation - actual separation from God - is utterly impossible, the second variant of separation - the BELIEF THAT IT CAN HAPPEN - still remains possible.

You ARE free to believe things that aren't true if you so wish, and this is what happened when you BELIEVED that you could be separate from God. Even though this belief DID NOT make you separate from God, you still believed that IT DID. And your mind entered a state of sleep and dreaming in which it pretends to be mortal and apart from God, exciled from heaven, even though this is in truth impossible.

That second type of separation, the belief that you can be separate even though you can't, is referred to as "THE separation" in ACIM. It is also referred to as the "fall of man", "the journey into fear", "the descent into hell" etc. It's what happened when you in your mind decided to "listen to the lies of the serpent" and therefore threw your mind into a confused state.

NB: "The separation" shows up on over 45 pages in ACIM and is mentioned close to 90 times.

This second type of separation, HAS in fact happened. The tiny mad idea WAS THOUGHT in the mind. You did HAVE the idea. You also did entertain the idea and put your faith in it, thus believing in it in an attempt to MAKE it be true. You did this because it's NOT true, and although separation is NOT possible, you WANTED it to be possible.

The BELIEF in separation is what THE separation from God is all about, and it is because of this belief - which is a mistaken belief and NOT TRUE, that you find yourself sitting and reading facebook messages. It's why there seems to be a planet under your feet and why you seem to be using a body. All of this came about because of a BELIEF that you COULD be separate from God. And this believing is still ongoing until you reach the atonement.

So in time, we are stuck inside this belief-construct, which ACIM also refers to as "the space-time belief", which houses the cosmos and the galaxies etc. All of this is showing up in your mind as a hallucination because you BELIEVE IN IT. You think it is possible AND happening, and so it SEEMS to be happening. You make it seem real to you because you BELIEVE that separation is possible.

And in this sense, at least a fictional belief that you ARE separate has entered your mind. But this belief is mistaken, in light of the fact that separation is actually impossible. You cannot DENY that you have had this belief, or that you are still having it. You DO believe separation is possible, which is why you are 'here' on planet earth typing on an imaginary keyboard made of separate keys.

This is why ACIM itself DOES state clearly twice, that "THE separation has occurred." But also teaches that separation IN GENERAL is impossible, and therefore THE separation that's happened is a mistaken thought in the mind. The belief that you can separate has to be undone, but this does NOT mean that you HAVEN'T believed it. "THE separation" has happened (or has seemed to), but general separation has not.

"Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created Him. The Holy Spirit, being a creation of the one Creator, creating with Him and in His likeness or spirit, is eternal and has never changed. He was "called down upon the earth" in the sense that it was now possible to accept Him and to hear His Voice. His is the Voice for God, and has therefore taken form. This form is not His reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, His real Son, Who is part of Him."

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"He sees FOR you, as your witness to the real world. He is the Holy Spirit's MANIFESTATION, looking always on the real world, and calling forth its witnesses and drawing them unto YOU. For He loves what He sees within you, and He would EXTEND it. And He will not return unto the Father, until He has extended your perception even unto Him. And there perception is no more, for He has RETURNED you to the Father WITH Him. "

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"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you only through the witnesses who speak for it. For you can be AWARE of what you cannot see, and it can become compellingly real to you, as its presence becomes manifest THROUGH you. Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."

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"Whose manifestations would you see? Of whose presence would you be convinced? For you will believe in what you MANIFEST, and as you look out so will you see in. "

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"I am the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and when you see me, it will be because you have invited Him. For He will send you His witnesses if you will but look upon them. Remember always that you see what you seek, for what you seek you WILL find. "

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"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. Perception IS projection, and you look in BEFORE you look out. As you look in, you choose the guide for seeing, and THEN look out, and behold his witnesses. This is why you find what you seek. What you want in YOURSELF you will make manifest by projection, and you will accept it FROM the world, because you put it there BY wanting it."

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"When you want ONLY love, you will see nothing else. The contradictory nature of the witnesses you perceive is merely the reflection of your conflicting invitations. You have looked upon your minds, and accepted opposition there, having SOUGHT it there. But do not then believe that the witnesses for opposition are true, for they attest only to your decision about reality, returning to you the message you GAVE them. Love is recognized by its messengers. If you make it manifest, its messengers will come to you, because you INVITED them."

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"When you have accepted your mission to PROJECT peace, you will FIND it. For by MAKING IT MANIFEST you will SEE it. Its holy witnesses will surround you, because you CALLED upon them, and they will come to you."

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"When you look within and see me, it will be because you have decided to manifest truth. And as you manifest it, you will see it both without AND within, for you will see it without BECAUSE you saw it first within."

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"When you learn to make ME manifest, YOU will never see death. For you will have looked upon the deathless in YOURSELF, and you will see only the eternal, as you look out upon a world that cannot die."

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"Mind cannot be made physical, but it can be made manifest THROUGH the physical if it uses the body to GO BEYOND itself. By reaching out, the mind EXTENDS itself. It does not stop at the body, for if it does it is blocked in its purpose. A mind which has been blocked has allowed itself to be vulnerable to attack, because it has TURNED AGAINST ITSELF. "

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"Christ is within a frame of holiness, whose ONLY purpose is that He may be made manifest to those who know Him not; that He may call to them to come to Him, and see Him where they THOUGHT their bodies were. Then will their bodies melt away, that they may frame His holiness in them. "

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What appears to be the physical world is not actually "direct reality". It is in fact once removed. It is an effect of an entirely other layer of causality which seems hidden. Just as in the holographic model, the underlying "source" of the appearances you see, is obscured by "sight of form" and you end up believing that this physical world is "verbatim", ie this is all there is.

In understanding why miracles are supernatural, it is very important to recognize this. In order to be supernatural there has to be an order or layer of reality deeper or higher than what appears to be the physical surface of this universe. We have to recognize that bodies and objects are not "immediate reality", they are once removed, and are EFFECTS caused by some other hidden level of causality. There is a whole other layer of causality, and everything in this world is "coming from" that hidden realm, making this world entirely an secondary effect.

When observing just the appearances of the surface of this world, there is a tremendous vast illusion before your eyes, which seems to operate in terms of "horizontal cause and effect". It seems as if some parts of the world cause and effect other parts. But this IS entirely an illusion. It's not what is happening. Anything which looks like being "different" in this world, ie one thing is a cause and another thing is an effect, is an illusion.

What secretly is happening is a higher, hidden level, a more immediate level of reality, is causing this entire universe all at once. Causality moves in a "vertical" direction from above, downwards, projecting the universe below. This means that there is a realm where you are "outside of" or above the entire field of horizontal illusions, outside the dream, where you are under absolutely none of the illusory horizontal laws and free of ALL limitations.

In that realm, you essentially are like a movie editor, someone who can reach into the movie and rearrange parts of it, orchestrate what goes where, and make significant changes. While within the movie itself it seems there is this consistent "story" playing, which utterly depends on the existence of many limitations and props and illusions of things which "must" happen according to certain rules or laws, realize that all of these stories of causality are entirely a fiction, where nothing seems to betray the illusion, nothing hints at this not being all there is, and nothing "blows the illusion" of horizontal or linear causality.

An example is a movie that you go to the cinema to watch. When you watch the movie you believe it is a single seamless story, in which certain limits and rules have been put in place in order to paint a seemingly "consistent" picture. But the fact is, if you could've been in the studio when the movie was being created, you would realize it was simply a bunch of people "acting" and a bunch of computers producing CGI special effects, working "behind the scenes". You as as a miracle worker as a BEHIND THE SCENES OPERATOR who orchestrates and produces the second-hand "effects" or "results" of a creative process. We used this same process initially when FORMING the physical universe, which is an entire order of reality removed from those who pull the strings.

When expression is made from the higher level, the more immediate level of causality, that expression is able to cause changes to the expressed world below. Just as an editor would make changes to a movie sequence from outside the movie which has the potentially to "break the illusion" of linear consistency within the movie itself. And when it DOES "perform a miracle", it literally BREAKS the illusion of linear cause and effect - the horizontal consistency or predictability of one thing leading only to another specific consequence. It's like someone editing the movie, and to those observing from WITHIN the movie, it will look like reality just did something "impossible".

If you seem to be living in the movie and you think that all that can happen is what's inside the movie, then suddenly a spaceship appears out of nowhere because the movie director decided to insert one, you will "witness" what appears to be a miracle. Something happening that seems impossible based on the linear laws. If you think of The Truman Show - a great movie, the same laws and rules and limitations had to happen day after day to maintain an illusion that nothing could happen outside the law, but when the main character started to "wake up" and see through the limitations, the world around him started to "break" and he eventually stepped outside of the whole illusion, coming face to face with the "directory" of the movie. You as a miracle worker are a director of the physical movie.

Or similarly, if it appears that there is a law of gravity where, over time, objects are attracted towards the center of the earth, and therefore human bodies are almost glued to the surface (you can jump, but only so high before you are attracted back down), and if suddenly a human body were to fly up in the air or walk on water, this would BREAK the illusion of horizontal laws. That means, the laws "within" the linear dream, within appearances of horizontal causality, could not have "resulted in" this effect, and it must have required someone to reach in from OUTSIDE of the laws and make an adjustment that the laws themselves are incapable of producing.

The key point to realize is that all of the linear laws are VERY LIMITING. We are confined by them. We are trapped by them. They seem to play out as if having a force or power over us. We don't seem able to escape gravity, time seems to proceed in one direction, one object seems to collide with another, no objects share the same space, very large heavy objects like mountains seem completely immovable, even sickness seems to have a causality in the body or due to external forces. These are all very limiting illusions of things on the SAME LEVEL causing other things on the SAME LEVEL to change.

From the point of view of the miracle worker, who is under no laws but God's, there are NO LIMITS. And so when the miracle worker manipulates the limitations in ways which defy and BREAK the linear laws, this appears to those in the horizontal dream as SUPERNATURAL MIRACLES. Things which should technically be "impossible" according to the limits we have accepted, suddenly become possible. Things we have assumed to be "normal" or "natural" are shown to be ARTIFICIAL LIMITATIONS.

Since we don't generally recognize that we LIVE IN WORLD OF LIMITATIONS, we don't realize that there are additional FREEDOMS and flexibilities that we have decided are off-limits or impossible. Miracles are capable of exercising that freedom and of PROVING that you are NOT BOUND by the horizontal laws of the ego's illusory world. This is why miracles are super-natural, they have a freedom of potential way beyond what any physical law in this second-hand universe suggests is possible.

There is therefore literally NOTHING that they cannot do. We have to open our minds to see past the limitations of physical illusion and realize that even the things we think are impossible are perfectly possible. There is NO REASON why you cannot do anything you can imagine. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

So the main keys to this are:

1) This physical world is once removed from true cause, it is not immediate reality

2) This world has no real causes in it, they are all effects of a higher reality

3) Cause-and-effect in this world are totally fictional illusions designed BY a higher level causer, to create a "story" in which limited things happen according to limited rules

4) Miracles wield a freedom way beyond the limitations of this world and express and demonstrate that ANYTHING is possible because they originate in the FIRST ORDER of causal reality, and therefore can BREAK and OVERRIDE any of the limitations or laws present on the physical level, since those laws are limitations PUT IN PLACE BY someone from the more primal level of reality. This is why Jesus says "you made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both."

Here's what ACIM says:

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

"Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator. Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do."

"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence."

Practiced a little bit of `miracle working` this morning ... the 'change the dream' and 'reverse cause and effect' kind. I am reporting this just because I'm still experimenting/learning/discovering what is possible and maybe it is useful.

I had back pain from a couple days ago, was annoying. Could not sleep on my side last night. Woke up with a sore shoulder bla bla bla. Uncomfortable, predicting that the day would be awkward and painful again. But then, decided to ask Jesus for help. It goes something like this:

1) Place your hand on the affected area

2) Join with Jesus, acknowledging that you BELIEVE/have faith that HE knows how to heal anything (healing comes from the Christ mind and you yourself (your ego self) are not capable of it) - your Christ self is.

3) Get yourself out of the way, your attitude of being forceful, your attitude of having power, your attitude of making something happen yourself, being the fixer, being a healer. NO. It's NOT YOU that is going to do the healing (this is profoundly difficult if you are accustomed to being `a healer` or fixer or savior).

4) Join with Jesus and feel his presence and stand with him in your mind, and stay there. Don't be separate. Stand alongside him and in his power and strength.

5) Now you can say words directly specifically at the problem, COMMANDING them to leave and never return, in Jesus's name (or words to this effect, ie within/using/extending Jesus's power)

6) e.g. "In Jesus's name (in my belief that Jesus can heal this FOR me), I command you pain to leave this body right now and do not return. (Notice if you start doubting and try looking for results or checking for changes or claiming credit for what's happening - this is all ego interference). (Notice also if you start believing YOU have to summon amazing amounts of magical power yourself in order to force the thing to leave... no force necessary whatsoever, you have to LET JESUS DO IT).

7) Notice if you are trying to force it or are trying to use `your own` power or strength or aggression to make the thing go away... that doesn't work. It's interference by the ego. You don't even need to ask in a forceful way. IF I can get myself out of the way then when I say the words it seems like I am barely saying anything, like reciting something without any intensity - because I'm letting Jesus have the power

8) If this does not work... and often it does nothing to begin with... do it again. Do it a few times. For me, after about 3 or 4 times, I felt my hand begin to vibrate and 'energize' and for there to be a presence in my back area and a sensation of buzzing or something happening.

9) Keep doing it because each time you are clear and pure about Jesus doing the healing it opens up your mind more and strengthens the connection - sometimes you have lots of clouds of ego to get past and it can take some determination/repetition to make your point clear enough and to extend enough 'authority' and certainty to command the 'dream' to change.

10) Hopefully if you did this well you will see some results. It takes practice.

For me, I was surprised that after 4 or 5 rounds (patiently applied) .. the pain in my back and shoulder had SIGNIFICANTLY subsided, probably like 60-70% improved. It left me smiling. It left me surprised and a bit amazed that it actually felt a lot better. Thank you Jesus! Hallelujah, or something.

I don't see that this is hard to do, but getting your ego out of the way can seem difficult. Jesus/Holy Spirit are the healers (God is). Its a matter of getting out of the way, trusting, believing in their power, putting aside fear, joining in their authority and extending their truth.