Where could be absolutely no sympathy for victims, IF you could clearly see that the victim is 100% choosing everything that happens to them.

If someone is suffering with sickness and disease, you might feel sympathetic toward them, but would you feel this way if you could clearly see that the person was causing this themselves on purpose? If they were deliberately putting the sickness in place and making it happen, would you feel sympathetic as though it were happening against their will?

If someone is afraid, you might feel sympathetic and sorry for them, but would you feel this way if you knew that this person was completely making up every single part of this fear? That they did not really have any need to be afraid and were just pretending to be afraid?

If someone is feeling guilty, you might feel sympathy for them, but would you feel sympathy if you knew they were totally making up all of the guilt, had absolutely no real need to be guilty, were just pretending to be guilty and it was all just a big lie?

If someone were riddled with sinfulness and remorse over some terrible thing they did, would you feel any sympathy for them if you could clearly see that, in fact, and in truth, they had not only not done anything wrong whatsoever, but also you could see clearly that they were just pretending to be sinful, were putting on a big show, and were totally faking it?

See .... we have all these ways in which we support, protect, reinforce, and make real, all of these layers of suffering... all of these experiences, in which it SEEMS like the person is not choosing, does not want it, did not create it, hasn't contributed to it, and therefore they are this sort of innocent victim.

The fact is that the APPEARANCE of someone being an innocent victim is nothing more than an ILLUSION. It's an illusion, because it seems to paint a picture that could be believable ONLY IF you were unaware of the whole picture of what is going on. You only fall for it and have a response of sympathy, based on the fact that YOU were fooled by their trickery, YOU fell for the deception, and YOU failed to have the ability to see through/past/beyond/overlook what APPEARS to be a "real problem".

Your unawareness causes you to react to things that you see as though they are real, ONLY because you do not recognize that it is an illusion, and you do not SEE what is really going on. You don't have all the information. And only when you are lacking information could you believe, for an instant, that someone is ACTUALLY a victim. If you do not see the ways they are choosing, and if you do not recognize their immense power, and if you forget that they can create anything, and if you are unaware of how they've set up the entire event - EVEN IF within the event it looks totally obvious that the world has transpired against the person - against their seeming will - it's STILL an illusion. The person is STILL choosing it.

Nothing happens against your will. Nothing happens to anyone against their will. Absolutely every event in 'life' is planned, orchestrated, chosen on purpose, and set in place, and set in motion, and ENACTED BY, every person that is involved. Cooperatively, deliberately, and on purpose. Because it serves the overall intention of spiritual growth, learning lessons, proceeding in awakening, and the ULTIMATE goal of returning to God.

This goal is so far-reaching and so long-term and so FIXATED on being accomplished, that we even create scripts in which we suffer and die and have disease and are attacked brutally JUST SO THAT there will be something that will happen to our mind, something that MIGHT just trigger us to take steps towards truth, towards God, towards love. These are just lessons. Horrible nasty painful lessons, sometimes, but STILL chosen. Still agreed to.

The days of the innocent victim are numbered. Its game is up.

The body is supposed to be used as a communication device. This is much misundestood. What it means is that the body is to be used in a way that reflects our function of extension in heaven. We (mind/soul) are a MEDIUM or "communication channel" of extension, through which God is hosted and extends. We are to pass on what we receive. And this produces a continuous outward expansion and increase of creation. This is also communication - the outward expression of love.

"Creation and communication are synonymous. God created every mind by communicating His Mind to it, thus establishing it forever as a channel for the reception of His Mind and Will." That means, the body is supposed to, from a higher repurposing perspective, be used solely to extend and join and communicate, like a medium that you express THROUGH and BEYOND. Whereby you use it solely like a tool to give to others, placing no focus ON the body itself, or on the bodies of others. Because bodies become a LIMIT on communication if you make them real. They turn into brick walls.

The entire problem comes when you begin to focus ON the body, making it an idol, worshipping it, mistaking it for a THING in its own right, considering it an entity, dwelling on its form and function, and identifying with it as if it is your self. This converts the "channel" from being a channel, to being a roadblock in the channel. It turns the body into a blockage of separation instead of extension.

All of the minds attention is put ON the MEDIUM ITSELF, as if the medium itself is important. This separates the mind off because it now stops at the body's limits and does not go past it to join with other minds beyond their bodies. This increases the rift in the mind and induces all forms of sickness including death. It's a mis-use of the body - trying to use what's supposed to be a PIPE, as though it's a brick wall.

This is also why holy relationship is important because you're supposed to USE the body to relate BEYOND the body. It's only supposed to be used temporarily as a device for this purpose, and is not supposed to be used to exalt itself or to act as a prison or barrier. When you become body focused, you literally "lose sight" of your brother and yourself. It means we're turning a device for learning into the FOCUS of learning, as if trying to make the body BE something in its own right, which it isn't. The body is used for communication when the body ITSELF becomes NOTHING and invisible in the equasion.

"Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not IN it. If the mind believes the body is its GOAL, it WILL distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot BUT foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else."

"To confuse a learning device with a curriculum GOAL is a fundamental confusion. Learning can hardly be meaningfully arrested at its own aids, and hope to understand them OR its real purpose. Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished ONLY if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension. The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND's FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND's JOY."

"The Holy Spirit's purpose lies safe in your RELATIONSHIP, and NOT your bodies. You have ESCAPED the body. Where you are now, the BODY cannot enter, for the Holy Spirit has set HIS temple there."

"You CANNOT make the body the Holy Spirit's temple, and it will NEVER be the seat of love. It is the home of the idolater, and of love's CONDEMNATION. For here is love made fearful, and hope abandoned. Even the idols that are worshipped here are shrouded deep in mystery, and kept APART from those who worship them. This is the temple dedicated to no relationships, and no return."

"The Holy Spirit's temple is NOT a body, but a RELATIONSHIP. The body is an isolated speck of darkness; a hidden secret room, a tiny spot of senseless mystery, a meaningless enclosure carefully protected, yet hiding nothing. Here, the unholy relationship escapes reality, and seeks for crumbs to keep itself alive. Here it would drag its brothers, holding them here in its idolatry. Here it is "safe," for here love CANNOT enter. The Holy Spirit does not build His temples where love can never be. Would He Who SEES the face of Christ choose as His home the only place in all the universe where it can NOT be seen?"

Usually we want to get rid of everything we do not like, everything that feels harmful, every fear, every upset, every ounce of grief or loss. We want to get rid of all our enemies and things that hurt.

But this is actually the ego in action. It wants to get rid of these things because there is a potential that these things might be used to wake you up.

So long as you're in the midst of a lesson, in which something seems to be against your will, you will have this sense of "I don't want this and it shouldn't be happening". This is the ego's reaction. It does not want you to use this opportunity for forgiveness. It does not want you to learn the lesson.

Not that the ego is arbitrarily against you. You made it and you asked it to do this for you. You wanted it to deflect you away from sources of healing, from anything that might trigger an awakening to truth. You wanted it to keep telling you that stuff isn't supposed to happen to you, and you wanted it to make you see things as if they are happening against your will. That way you could stay asleep.

But each time you try to 'get rid of' what you do not like, or be free of a lesson, or fix a problem, or make a bad person go away, or stop something from happening, you're really using ego denial. And you do this in the name of spirituality.

You think it is spiritual to have a life where there are no problems, where nothing is happening to you, where you have no enemies, where everything goes well, where people seem to just adore you, and where you aren't hurt or offended by anyone. I mean, as a goal that's great... That could be true of real spirituality, but the ego wants this goal WITHOUT awakening.

So that means, getting rid of all protagonists, all offenders, all enemies, and all threats. It tells you you shouldn't be afraid and that fear is a bad thing. It tells you not to be guilty. It even tells you you should be constantly happly or people-pleasing. These are all deceptive ways the ego gets you to NOT deal with your shit, and it forms a spiritualized ego.

When you are afraid, that's very good, because you are being confronted with the results of some belief that you have and it's coming into your awareness. This is a great opportunity. Instead of the fear hiding out in the back of your mind, it's being brought into awareness. You don't like it, for sure, but recognize it is an opportunity because now some normally hidden dark shit has come out into the open where you can take a look at it.

It's all about how you use things - whether you use it to deny your shit or use it to bring light to your shit and undo it. So you could take the fact you're scared as a great opportunity to look at WHY you are scared, rather than to just want the fear to go away. It's pretty normal to want the fear to go away, but it's not healthy. It is healthier to take a look at it with Holy Spirit and find out why you are afraid... What guilt is the fear based on? What's the deeper cause of it? Why do you want it? How's it serving you to keep you in the dark? Where is the so-called truth that surrounds the fear to make it seem justified? What is the real truth of this situation?

Its the same with feeling guilty, upset, angry, offended, whatever... Each time this stuff comes to your awareness it's a great opportunity to heal and undo. So don't try to hide this stuff away. Don't shove it back down or want to get rid of it or to avoid it. And don't blame people for triggering it off - they're trying to help you to look at the stuff you don't want to look at. You're better off dealing with it and then being done with it, rather than constantly hiding from it and feeling its torment in the back of your mind, only to keep resurfacing saying "please acknowledge me and recognize my message to help you grow, and please use me for awakening."

This is all great material. Great opportunities to make progress. It's hard work but it's worth it, and it's far better for you than to want to just keep making this stuff go away. You can be free of it permanently if you deal with it properly and heal it. Isn't that better?

When you try to remove something from your life but you aren't genuinely ready and healed to the point of recognizing that you're already detached from it, it is like ripping it out and trying to enforce a state of compliance. That is the ego working overtime, taking over the spiritual path to try to be the enforcer of spiritual laws on a behavioral level.

You cannot let go of something while you value it or while you believe it is the truth. And regardless of whether that thing is good for your sanity or not, or even if it is making you suffer, the demand to remove it when you're not ready to brings about sacrifice. And usually it means you are "should-ing" yourself.

It is the ego's way of attempting correction without actually correcting anything. It wants to simply take an axe to anything in your life that has been deemed "unspiritual" or not in alignment with "the course" etc, as if doing so will make you more spiritual. And yet these so-called unspiritual things are OF the ego. So then it's the ego pretending to get rid of the ego, which it will attempt to do with great gusto. That passionate slaying of the dragon passes for what appears to be a valiant effort to be more spiritual, but really keeps and reinforces and increases the ego.

So sacrifice, while seeming to be a call for a reduction of ego, is actually a call for an increase of ego, masked by the illusion that sacrificing has the same 'goal' as true spirituality. If the course says you are not a body, the ego will come along and say "get rid of the body otherwise you are not being spiritual". Yes the goals are the same, but the reasoning and the consequences and the purpose of this information is different. Or rather, how the goal is obtained is different. Spirit would have you gently look at what makes you believe the body is real and to examine how beliefs you've held are in fact false, so that you can recognize you are not them, thus releasing them, avoiding the need for sacrifice. But the ego would tell you, ok, you gotta get rid of this shit, you are not spiritual enough.

The ego's intention therefore is to reinforce the sense that you are deprived, not good enough, not spiritual enough, and lacking, such that it will compel you to "sacrifice more" in order to become more spiritual in a short space of time. This really is a device to increase the sense of separation between what you are (love) and what you think you are (ego) by affirming just how in need of correction you are. What it means then is that underneath this attempt to sacrifice is some form of guilt which is telling you "you're not spiritual enough" and "you need to get more spiritual urgently", which compels a sense of panic and attack, taking the form of sweeping cuts to all kinds of things which you're not ready to relinquish.

Sacrifice then is the ego trying to be spiritual, trying to move too fast, trying to enforce the Course's truth before you are ready, trying to make out that you are in spiritual poverty and therefore need some horrific sweeping tools to correct you. This is not what the Holy Spirit asks of you. It is not what the Course asks of you. It is what the ego tries to make of the course, in the name of upholding its truths.

Holy Spirit asks only that you become willing, of your own free will, to have your perception corrected, when you are ready, so that you can SEE clearly what is true and what is false, so that you can recognize that what you thought was valuable is not, and what you thought was true is false, and thereby recognize that you no longer want the ego. Only then can you genuinely be willing to let go of it, or rather, recognize that it never really was something you had to begin with. Then it falls away without any fanfare or enforcement or effort. And certainly no sense of sacrifice or pushing or urgency. Holy Spirit is infinitely patient and kind in this matter and would never ask you to be ripped from the ego while you still believe it is who you are.

Be kinder to yourself today in recognition of what you still have left to correct and let Holy Spirit be the gentle corrector, according to your genuine willingness and readiness, and try not to impose artificial enforcement upon yourself asking for sacrifice. It's ok to take your time and it's okay to still be doing "all the guilty things" that are "of the ego" for as long as you need to, while you're still believing in them. Correction needs to take place at the level of willingness and readiness, not at the level of leaping ahead and skipping steps just to prove you are worthy of God.

In ACIM, there is a central pillar which was not clear to me before. It is an unexpected strategy for acheiving salvation, which is pointed to and reinforced over and over again. And in effect is the ONLY way.

We may be familiar with the idea that ATONEMENT is the goal. Yes it is. The course also states that atonement, true perception, forgiveness, and salvation are all one, ie synonyms.

Atonement, as salvation, is a major goal. How do you find salvation, ie atonement? How are you saved from death and suffering? What power or ability is it that you have to get there?

Recognizing that salvation and atonement are the same thing, and salvation is "the ONLY way out of hell", the next key is to ask, how do you achieve salvation? Is there a secret to it perhaps?

Jesus refers to the "how", the key, as "the secret of salvation". Simply, "you are doing this to yourself." And to back this up, the supporting statement would be, "You can be affected by nothing but yourself."

This is similar to "Only the truth is true and nothing else is true". So let's say...

I am the one who causes ALL my suffering.

Nothing else causes ANY of my suffering.

If I so choose, I will not suffer.

This may seem unexpected, because we spend a huge amount of time lost in the ego, tangled up in other people, dramas, upsets and suffering. Our focus is pulled away from this idea constantly by ego temptations. And this builds confusing walls around this core idea.

Whenever it we've bought into the idea that someone else is causing us, we are affected by something, the world is upsetting us, things are happening against our will, we don't want something but don't see how we can stop it, etc... we're getting lost in FALSE causes, and losing sight of the forgiving truth that WE ARE CAUSING THIS. The cause is in OUR mind.

It is the movement AWAY from those confusions and untruths, TOWARD the STATE of salvation/atonement/forgiveness, that is "applying forgiveness". Undoing our false beliefs about WHO is causing us, is part of forgiving.

Becoming clear about how WE are causing OUR OWN suffering, is applying forgiveness. Our goal, to achieve the STATE of forgiveness, which is also true or corrected perception, we must "correct" the "errors" we are making in our discernment of what is true.

What is true is that WE ARE THE CAUSE of ALL of our own suffering. Becoming clear about this, seeing this accurately, recognizing it fully, is true perception. Perception "corrects" as you sift through and remove belief in "other causes" beyond yourself, which are FALSE causes. Illusions.

What I find surprising is that Jesus clearly is teaching us to simply CHOOSE NOT TO SUFFER. And that if we are suffering, we HAVE chosen to do so.. And there are NO EXCEPTIONS. Our mind causes all suffering, all sickness, and death in the body. There is NO OTHER CAUSE.

At its simplest, this means, you have free will and choose what you experience. At all times. In all cases. And there is NO POWER capable of interfering with this. There are NO OTHER CAUSES of you other than God. Anything that happens, YOU CHOOSE. Anything you feel, YOU CHOOSE. Any suffering, YOU CHOOSE. You do it to yourself.

Why is that? It's simply because you have been given TOTAL FREEDOM by God. Free will provides you the ability to CHOOSE what you want and thus what you value. You ARE free to deny God if you so choose, and "God does not coerce" you to do otherwise. It IS up to you to CHOOSE heaven and happiness.

"Heaven is a choice I must make."

Because you CAN CHOOSE, and there IS NO other cause of what you experience, you CAN CHOOSE NOT TO DIE. You can choose never to be sick. You can choose to always be happy. It does not take effort, it merely takes recognition, clarity, sanity, and decision.

You do not MAKE happiness or love or peace, those are shared with God who has created reality. But you DO choose whether to accept or reject them. You do not choose WHAT the choices are, but you do choose WHICH you elect to experience - real heaven or an illusory hell.

You can choose to go home. Nothing can stop you when you choose God. Death has no power over you. You are at the effect of NOTHING in this world.

The surprising, unexpected thing about this to me, is that I did not used to think this was the main focus. I did not think forgiveness would lead to this. I did not recognize that "forgiving" was about choosing, or that I HAD a choice, or WAS choosing. I did not think the secret of salvation was even necessarily the be-all and end-all of "how to get there."

But Jesus is clear. Atonement as salvation, is achieved ONLY through the total acceptance of your free will and the exercising of your CHOICE never to die, and thus to accept God and eternal life. You are free to come and go. You are free to make yourself suffer. And you are free to wake up at any time. Nothing can stop you.

The challenge then, in applying this idea, is examining WHAT you are doing, and then identifying not IF you are doing this to yourself, but HOW and WHY. A first step is to recognize you ARE doing to this to yourself, in all cases. The second step is identifying HOW you are doing this to yourself. The third step is identifying WHY you are doing this to yourself. And then finally the fourth step is CHOOSING OTHERWISE. ie, stop hurting yourself.

This reveals that really, this world is a world is suicide and death. Every person is attacking ONLY themselves. There are NO victims. Every person here is suicidal and self-attacking and hurting themselves. And we are all trying to learn how to LOVE OURSELVES. How NOT to hurt ourselves.

That entails RECLAIMING our power and freedom as CHRIST, a co-creator with God, capable of choosing whether to live or die, to come and go as we wish, and to become willing to choose ONLY LIFE. To choose God and go home. Not through coercion or force, not through wishful thinking, but simply by being in touch with the POWER of our decision to simply be ABLE to do so.

Jesus is telling us that NOTHING happens to us against our free will, as a result of someone else doing something to us, by accident, by acts of nature, by external laws, or by ANY CAUSE other than YOU. Your mind has TOTAL DOMINION OVER THE WORLD. You are the cause.

"This is a course in cause, not effect."

Being cause, is being empowered. Being cause is being strong. Being cause is being fearless. Being cause is being miraculous and creative. Being cause is being loving and whole. Being cause is freedom. Being cause, it is impossible that ANYTHING happen to you un-chosen by yourself.

This means TOTAL RESPONSIBILITY. You have the power to choose not to die. You have the power to choose never to suffer or be sick. Anything you ARE experiencing, you HAVE chosen, and you CAN change your mind. And this choice DOES NOT depend on anyone else. Nor is this choice made BY anyone else, nor is it limited by anyone else or any circumstance.

YOU have the power of God in you. You have His freedom.

"Nothing can affect you but yourself."

Atuning to this state of total responsibility and freedom and power of choice IS FORGIVENESS. It IS the atonement, and is your resurrection.

Forgiveness is a state of mind in which you recognize that there is nothing that NEEDS forgiving. It is a recognition in which you know there is no sin, sin is impossible, attack is impossible, so nothing can have happened to be forgiven. It's an awareness of innocence.

Forgiveness however isn't "passive", it is ACTIVELY converting illusions into truth. It is actively translating sin into error. It is actively interpreting and changing something. It is causing a healing and radiating life.

What you do to get your mind INTO the state of forgiveness, in which forgiveness is "complete", or in which you are "completely forgiving all the time", as an attitude, is what we might call "purification" or correction or healing.

Healing, or shall we say, being in a state in which you or another is healed, must entail similarly a recognition that "there is nothing that NEEDS healing." If we are focusing on "something is wrong", we are reinforcing and giving reality to sickness and damage. If we think a person "is a sick body", that's actually an attack on their immortal nature.

Like forgiveness then, proper healing entails a recognition that there is nothing to heal, because it recognizes immortality and wholeness and harmlessness. It recognizes invulnerability and permanence and the impossibility of attack/sin/guilt. It ASSERTS only "you are fully alive".

Perhaps we can then say that you can ONLY correctly heal, as in correctly forgive a sick person, by looking for and focusing on the NON-SICK self in them. Finding the pre-existing UNCHANGED perfection in them. Recognizing them as NOT SICK, as not broken or damaged, as not guilty or punished, and as not a victim. And certainly not a body.

Holding this light for the person, shining the truth into them, seeing them IN the light WITH light AS light, is the absence of a BELIEF IN sickness. It places no attention ON the sickness. When you have made sickness real and are reacting to it, even trying to "fix it", you're giving it power and reinforcement. In order to heal sickness you have to NOT give sickness any power. Which means giving it no direct attention. The symptoms will disappear naturally when the UN-SICKNESS is given power.

Now, we have to be careful that we're not saying .. I'm not just going to "do nothing". We're not talking about NOT performing a miracle of healing. We're not talking about just idly sitting there. We're talking about HOW TO HEAL. You heal by actively choosing to "see health". To join with your brother's mind in the light and through a light-based vision. To SHINE LIGHT into them on purpose, to deliberately FILL them with light so that they are enlightened.

Just because we're recognizing that the person doesn't REALLY need healing, and isn't REALLY sick, doesn't mean we're just ignoring it or doing nothing about it. We must focus on their immortal self, remembering the truth about them, taking all attention off any illusion of a mortal self or a body self, and putting all attention on who they really are. Acknowledging who they are FOR them.

Recognizing their LACK OF SICKNESS for them. This is a SERVICE. "A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable value simultaneously."

To reject and thus to CANCEL all belief in, reality of, attention given to, power in, sickness or damage, WITHDRAWS power from those things and weakens them in your mind. Because you are joining in love/light with your brother's mind this weakens it in their mind also because you do not support their belief in being mortal.

Simultaneously, to not support death is to ASSERT LIFE. This is an actual active assertion, an EXPRESSION of love. Something which goes out and is given and is can be received by another. Something that can be shared. While you remove all power from death and mortality and ideas of a person being a body, you GIVE all power to where it belongs - to their immortal christ self which is flawless and perfect and has nothing wrong with it.

Miracle don't just "take away" the illusion of sickness which seemed present. They also ASSERT and EXPRESS and RE-ESTABLISH or "repair" what was given by God. By "cancelling" what is not really there, miracles remove the ego and the guilt and the symptoms of sickness. This IS A CHANGE, but it a change in the direction of REMOVAL, resulting from an ASSERTION or expression of love's power. "THE MIRACLE DOES NOTHING. All it does is to UNdo. And thus it cancels out the interference to what HAS BEEN done. It does not add, but merely takes away."

"A miracle inverts perception which was upside-down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest."

All fearful reactions to someone's physical state are your own unforgiven deceptions. Trying to manage, control, defend against, make go away, all physical APPEARANCES of sickness is wasted effort. It's part of you giving power away to them, because you do not remember who you are. Having stopped knowing yourself, you have entertained the idea of mortality and death YOURSELF, and have forgotten you are unchangeable. As a result you begin to believe that you are a mortal body, that other people are mortal bodies, that your bodies are being changed and that you need to desperately do something to stop it.

None of that business and reaction helps at all. As Jesus frequently tells me, "relax", ie chill and stop dwelling on what's going wrong. Stop buying into the appearance of a LIE, and let us remember that ALL sickness is an illusion. There is no REAL sickness. And focusing on the body of another results from your OWN body-identification, which is you forgetting your own true nature. That means YOU need a miracle of healing for yourself.

"He MUST heal his perception in this respect. He MUST work a miracle on behalf of himself here (See the point about miracles as a perception corrector) before he can effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are."

To get your own mind right requires you remembering and knowing yourself, tuning into the fact you remain as God created you, recognizing why you cannot change or be changed, and identifying with your IMMORTAL SPIRIT. Knowing that you cannot be hurt, cannot be sick, cannot die and cannot suffer. Once you have accepted this for yourself and have thus received healing and correction, you can now GIVE what you have received. And this is where you become able to give a miracle as "a creative energizer."

It is creative energizers that are GIVEN TO OTHERS. This is where you now EXTEND the light of christ you've seen in yourself, and SHARE it with another. Where you have joined the Holy Spirit in his view of you within yourself, and now see that same unchangeability in another, focusing on their immortal nature and their incapability of being sick. You tell them psychologically, "you are immortal and perfect and you can never be sick." You recognize in the light of truth that their body and their sickness IS NOT TRUE. That it cannot be true in light of God's truth. Only God's truth is true and nothing else is true.

It is in this "joining in christ" or "sharing light" with another that both of you are resurrected. In which "those who temporarily have more give to those who temporarily have less." It is where you recognize your brother's inestimable worth as equal to your lovable value in God. And where you see the other as ALREADY HEALED AND WHOLE. Already perfect, created by God to be perfect forever. ALREADY devoid of sickness. INCAPABLE of suffering. In which death and sickness and deformity and disability as IMPOSSIBLE.

Thus do you know you brother as one with you, like you, whole like you, healed like you. Thus do you know your neighbor as yourself. Thus do you support ONLY LIFE, and completely give no attention whatsoever to the illusion of death or the goal of death. In which your ONLY goal is life, shared with the Holy Spirit, in which you ONLY RESURRECT, and CAN ONLY HEAL.

"The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept Atonement himself. This means that he knows that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors ARE healed by the Atonement. Once he accepts this, HIS mind can only heal (others). By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others (heal others). The message which he then gives to others is the truth that THEIR MINDS are really similarly constructive, and that their own miscreations cannot hurt them (because they are immortal)."

"To the ego, the goal is death, which IS its end. But to the Holy Spirit, the goal is life (life=eternal life/immortality), which HAS no end."

"When you heal, that is exactly what you ARE learning (doing). You are recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by perceiving (knowing) that he could NOT have changed his mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in him. It is ONLY the Holy Spirit in him that never changes His mind. He himself must think he CAN, or he would not perceive himself as sick. He therefore does not know what his self IS. If YOU see only the changeless in him (his immortal self), you have not really changed (healed) him at all (have seen him as not NEEDING healing). But by changing your mind about HIS FOR him (recognizing his immortality), you help him undo (heal) the change his ego thinks it has made in him. "

"Your brother has a changelessness (immortality) in him beyond appearance and deception both. It is obscured by changing views of him which you PERCEIVE as his reality. The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health; his perfect freedom from all forms of lack; and safety from disaster of all kinds (symbolic of his immortality). The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form BECAUSE IT CAN SO EASILY BE CHANGED."

"The test of everything on earth is simply this; "What is it for?" The answer makes it what it is for you. It has no meaning of itself, yet you can give reality to it, according to the purpose that you serve."

The world was made for a purpose. It was deliberate, intentional, chosen. We wanted there to be an alternative to heaven. And its form and function were made to serve that purpose. Just as all sickness is intentionally used to serve a perceived need.

Purpose is based on "how you are using it" or "what it is for". What is the goal attached to it. What is the ambition. How is it being used to accomplish that goal. How does it serve you and God.

We started out with a purpose of separation and attack, and produced a world which seems to be a world where that purpose could be fulfilled. That it could serve or be used as a way to avoid being with God. A hell where God could enter not.

But since the PURPOSE of the world or what it MEANS or is USED FOR, is distinct from what the world IS (just a neutral illusion), it's possible to give it a different purpose and a different meaning or use.

The Holy Spirit uses the world in a totally different way to our original intentions. To bring you home to God, to wake you up, to get you to let go of your artificial meanings and the meanings you've given everything. He presents an alternative meaning and use of the world and the body, based in love.

So in forgiveness, we're giving the world a different meaning and purpose. We're re-interpreting it. We're re-purposing it and coming up with a different use for it. Instead of using it to keep you away from God, we're trying to use it in such a way that it doesn't serve as an obstacle, or as proof of sin, or as a way to keep you suffering.

In effect, we're trying to use what we made against itself, to undo it. We're cancelling it out by forgiving it, ie giving it a meaning from an opposite thought system, which runs contrary to the world's nature, so that the world is recognized sanely, setting you free from it. Because illusions recognized must disappear.

So when Jesus asks you to consider "what is it for?", he's trying to get you to look at how you're using it, or for what purpose, or what meaning you're inventing for it, and to question that choice, and choose again the Holy Spirit's alternative meaning and purpose and use of the world and the body.To "let me not use this as an obstacle to peace, but help me to use it to facilitate its coming."

The forgiven world is the same world with a different purpose. A world which came to damn, made in false perception, now being used to return you to salvation. A body which was made to separate, being used to bring help and healing. A life which was made to hide in darkness, being used to bring light to the world.

Purpose aligns with perception and belief, because when you change your mind about what you believe is true and want, you are changing the meaning of things. And now you project that meaning onto the world and see it.

So if you recognize and believe and accept God's meaning and truth, it will change the meaning you give to the world. And now you are perceiving closer to Christ Vision or Real Truth because you're looking at the world from a different vantage point or angle. Framing it differently.

Essentially, it's the same world, combined with a different attitude. A more holy attitude seems to render the world as though it is holy and harmless. Ancient hatreds turn into present loves. Serious suffering turns into effortless healing. Death turns into resurrection. And fear turns into happiness.

Another way of saying "what is it for?", is "what meaning do I want to give it?" Do I want to use this for attack and making sin real, or do I want to use it repurpose it to remind me of God's truth and method by which I might be saved from hell? Can I see it in another light? There must be a better way.

If I am presently using the world in such a way that it means attack and offense and threat and damage and suffering and hell, I can admit that I am using it in a certain way, thereby "doing this to myself".

And then I can change my mind and choose a different meaning. And then elect to tune into Holy Spirit's perspective of forgiveness and repurpose what I think happened to help me move towards peace instead.

A lot of people interpret forgiveness to be some kind of process you do to fix your mind.

But ACIM seems to say something different. For example:

"Only Christ forgives, knowing His sinlessness. His vision heals perception and sickness disappears."

So, hang on a minute. Joe Smith doing ACIM thinks he's "doing forgiveness", and has a little procedure he practices and tries to take back projections and undo judgements and so on and he thinks he is forgiving. But ACIM say, ONLY Christ forgives. So isn't Joe's ego claiming to be doing forgiveness?

Forgiveness is actually the state of TRUE perception, which is the end goal of the course, and not exactly something that someone is in white they're undertaking the course, especially not in earlier stages.

How about the fact that we're also told that forgiveness is a form of LOVE ... how often do you hear people saying that forgiveness is the SAME thing as love? Hardly ever. But full maximal love is quite a highly advanced spiritual state. Forgiveness and love are basically the same thing, but who ever describes forgiveness as love?

"Forgiveness is an earthly form of love which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. In this form you can fulfill your function even here, although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still."

Then we're also told that it is perhaps not even our FUNCTION at this point to forgive. For example:

"The Holy Spirit forgives everything, BECAUSE GOD CREATED EVERYTHING. Do not undertake HIS function, or you will forget YOURS."

So we're being asked not to take over the Holy Spirit's function of forgiving. And it even suggests that in terms of us being forgiven, it is not US that forgives ourselves. More to the point, it says that we ARE forgiven already - as far as the Holy Spirit is concerned, and our work is more to do with acceptance of this truth rather than the production of this truth. WE don't put forgiveness in place!

"Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function. Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven."

Essentially, forgiveness is a final state of true perception which is the same thing as accepting atonement and achieving salvation and resurrection. It isn't a step along a path. It isn't a process or procedure or technique. It's the end result natural state of a healed mind that is loving, and BE's FORGIVING toward everything. It is the nature of a loving mind expressing and relating from love with love.

When you're IN that state of mind you are being one with Christ, and with the Holy Spirit, which is why you then can claim to "be forgiving." But really until you reach that state, and you're still in false perceptions trying to undo your hell, what you're DOING isn't really forgiveness.

What if every reference to forgiveness in the course is a reference to the END STATE, and not a process?

What if we're being asked to "practice forgiveness" only in the sense of trying to get ourselves TO the state of forgiveness? And what if we should not be calling that practice "forgiveness", but rather perhaps - purification, or mind training? Or accepting that we've been forgiven already?

I think the term forgiveness has been rather hijacked by a lot of people, students and teachers alike. It really refers to the purified state of miracle mindedness, whole perception, true perception, a healed mind and heart, a state filled with love, identified with Christ, and the perfect enlightened recognition that there is nothing LEFT to be forgiven - that only innocence exists.

We can practice moving toward that state as our goal, but what we're doing to get there must not take over the Holy Spirit's function or presume that we are "being forgiving" when all that we're doing are a few basic steps to reclaim slightly less insanity. Forgiveness is really on the level of miracle working.

"Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through miracles, man accepts God's forgiveness by extending it to others."

Forgiveness that is not COMPLETE forgiveness is not really forgiveness. COMPLETE forgiveness immediately BE's forgiving toward everything without need for thought or practice or procedure or technique. It is loving relationship.

"In His perception of the world, nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness. Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete forgiveness."

"And that, in COMPLETE forgiveness, in which you recognize that there is nothing to forgive, YOU are absolved completely."

"Remember that you who want peace can find it only by complete forgiveness."

"Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. They are the one beginning with the end to lead to Oneness far beyond themselves. True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin, for sin does not exist. And it is this that true perception sees."

Your natural state of being is:

1) God is the source of love and extends you

2) You receive everything from God and extend it further

3) Your own creations receive from you

Another way of putting it is:

1) God is the Father and extends you as His Son

2) Since he shares everything He is with you, you also inherit the ability to be a father

3) You therefore father your own creations which are your Sons

And another way of putting it is:

1) God is the source of love and love is miraculous

2) God creates you miraculously and shares miraculousness with you

3) You extend God's miraculous love and perform miracles

In this arrangement, which is the way things are in Heaven, and which is the perfect condition of your relationship with God, you RECEIVE everything from God. God just loves you unconditionally all the time for no reason other than to love you. You receive that, and appreciate the awesome gift that it is, and you joyfully extend it.

Now, when the 'separation' happened, the Fatherhood of God was separated from the Sonship of the Son. The son stopped experiencing Himself as the Son of God because, having cut off God's role as His father, He no longer could see Himself as a Son. However, the former Son of God retained the outward creative fatherhood properties He was given. So He continues to try to create, except that having disconnected from the Father he is no longer EXTENDING God's creation, but instead tries to be the SOURCE of what He creates. That means creating without God, which is MAKING.

The former Son of God also then sees Himself as orphaned from God and, having no source for Himself, is left only with 'Himself' to deal with His situation. Instead of receiving love and support from God, this 'separated self' has to invent its own support and its own substitute or love. Having separated from God, this separated self is now alone and afraid and lacking and limited. He is also powerless and weak. He attempts to continue the behavior of extension but without sourcing 'what to extend' in God. So instead he INVENTS, makes up, dreams and projects an imaginary creation (the world) which does not really exist, which is not sustained by God's love, and which therefore must perish.

Clearly, what's gone wrong in the separated Son's life is the disconnection between Himself and God... the shutting off the FLOW that comes FROM God to sustain Him, to provide for Him, to protect Him, to nourish Him, and to give abundantly to Him and to BE everything for Him. That's what the separation shut out of His mind. So now His mind seems intent on going off on its own tangent, running its own life, deciding everything alone, doing everything alone, and generally failing and suffering a lot. There is only one problem - separation from God, and there is only one solution - repairing the separation from God.

So now we find ourselves in this dreamworld of unreality, with separated lives and separate wills, with everything going to shit, and we wonder why. And we wonder how to get back to peace. And then we start doing our forgiveness and our thought management and so on, but you need this bigger picture in order to realize WHY you are doing all this and what the overall goal is. The goal is to UNDO THE SEPARATION FROM GOD completely. And that must mean, the restoration of the dynamics of the relationship that you had with God before the separation.

So this means, your mind/self now needs to transition from being alone, separate, making up lies and doing everything yourself, to RECONNECTING to God, opening up to receive supply/abundance/safety/love/protection/guidance FROM God again, becoming willing to extend what GOD has created (His love), allowing Him to be the source/God/origin instead of you having to invent stuff on your own, and then EXTENDING that outward to all of creation, acknowledging that this 'ex Son of God' is once again THE Son of God, restored to perfection.

So this means having to learn to surrender all of the side-effects that came about from becoming a separate self, which includes surrendering thinking for yourself, deciding for yourself, controlling life, regarding your life as 'your life' that you own in exclusion/exile, giving up the ways that you block the flow of love/miracles, undoing all sense of judgement/attack/separation/sin/guilt/fear that comes between you and God, opening your mind to RECEIVE from God His guidance and love and support, and weaning yourself off of all the ARTIFICIAL SOURCES of support and coping and replacements for what you lost (special love etc), which you MADE to take the place of God.

So as we RECLAIM our rightful place as Son of God again, and restore the relationship with God, and re-open ourselves to receiving the flow/extension of God's love/miracles, we are returning to being Christ and we're letting go of the 'circumstances' of how things ended up after separating from our Father. All the ways that we 'coped' with the separation need to be undone and replaced with getting our supply from God again.

A few quotes coming to mind...

"God goes with me all through the day"

"I am sustained by the love of God"