God created a perfect kingdom, in which we are created as perfect beings. We have perfect minds, we are perfectly innocent, we have perfect relationships, we are perfectly safe and happy, we are perfectly loving and sharing, we are immortal and can never suffer or have any problems, it's all good. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG!
But then there was this strange separation event where we had an idea of denying all this. So now we deny reality, we avoid it, we hide from it, we attack it, we don't want it, we try to be something else, we try to value opposite things, we try to make a world nothing like it to live in, we fake everything, we block out awareness of even our own self, we deny that God has created us, we bury our head in the sand and repeat mantras of death over and over to try to keep us away from God.
The situation we're in then does not call for us to try to make or create that which is perfect. We're not asked to hit ourselves over the head with affirmations trying to enforce or cause or make ourselves be more perfect. We're not asked to infuse ourselves with innocence or hammer sinlessness into ourselves or stretch ourselves out to be more inclusive. God has already done all this. God has already given a perfect system, a perfect environment, a perfect life with perfect relationships. WE ARE ALREADY ONE!
The issue is that we're blocking it all. We're saying we don't want it. So the solution is to remove the blocks and stop denying it. And that is all. Many approaches to dealing with the 'issue' is that we start trying to reinvent ourselves, we try to take our ego self into a more real place, we try to transform our sense of what we are. But we're not really asked to do that. God has already established a perfect life for us. We just need to uncover it.
So really it's much more about melting back into an acceptance of what is already true, letting go of things that are false, remembering who we really are, re-identifying with our real self that God already created perfect, opening up to the natural shared state of joined minds, stopping denying God's reality, and removing any blocks which are stopping us from being aware ... that everything in heaven is already perfect and doesn't need any fixing.
This is a very different approach of waking up from a dream, waking up TO a pre-existing ready-made perfect reality, rather than trying to 'convert' our fake world, fake self, fake reality, into something better. Our job is not really to re-create ourselves, to re-invent ourselves, or to cause ourselves to be innocent or perfect. That's God's job. God's will has already been done perfectly. We have to let him be the one that defines us and establishes our perfection and sets us up in a system where we have perfect relationships forever.
Our job is more to do with simply uncovering the truth, revealing what's already there, tuning into reality, accepting the truth/atonement, going back into the light, leaving the desert, becoming aware again of the perfect kingdom that God has created for us in which we live forever in total happiness and effortlessness. We're not builders of ourselves, nor are we really making a better version of ourselves. We're just letting go of those efforts and allowing what already is - to be. Awakening an ancient memory of heaven.
You don't have to become more of anything. God's done the work. You just need to reclaim your inheritance. This is why enlightenment is merely a recognition of what is already true, and is not a change at all. The only actual purpose of LEARNING, is to learn that you do not need to learn anything!
Key words: Uncover, reveal, remember, rediscover, accept, open up to, reintegrate, access, tap into, tune into, allow, re-identify, re-awaken, recognize, know, receive, unveil, return to, wake up to.
"Everything OUTSIDE the Kingdom IS ILLUSION. But you must learn to ACCEPT truth because YOU THREW IT AWAY."
"Your inheritance awaits only the recognition that you have BEEN redeemed."
"God's Law of Creation, in perfect form, does NOT involve the USE of truth to convince His sons OF truth. The EXTENSION of truth, which IS the Law of the Kingdom, rests only on the knowledge of WHAT TRUTH IS. This is your INHERITANCE, and requires no learning at all."
"Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own. It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home."
"Very simply, the purpose of psychotherapy is to remove the blocks to truth."
"All blocks to the remembrance of God are forms of unforgiveness, and nothing else."
"Your task is NOT to seek for love, but merely to seek and FIND all of the barriers WITHIN YOURSELF that you have built AGAINST it."
The real world is not this world. It is not planet Earth. Nor is it in fact the same thing as the forgiven world.
The real world is a "borderland of thought" which is IN BETWEEN this world and heaven. It is a transcendental state in which there are no physical objects, bodies, planets, streets, cities etc. No space or time or matter.
In a sense, it is a kind of layer of almost-oneness, underlying or behind all physical matter, yet still slightly outside of heaven. You could almost think of it as the 'container' which houses space, time and galaxies. It is a singular REFLECTION of heaven's oneness.
"There is a borderland of thought that stands ****BETWEEN this world (earth) and Heaven.****"
"Christ's vision is the BRIDGE BETWEEN the worlds. "
The real world is not space or time or within spacetime or having anything to do with matter or objects or bodies or planets. It transcends both space and time is a universal singular state.
"It is not a place, and WHEN you reach it is APART from time."
"This borderland is just beyond the gate of Heaven. Here is every thought made pure and wholly simple. Here is sin denied, and everything that IS, received instead.
Given that "The world of bodies is the world of sin", and thus because sin is denied, THE WORLD OF BODIES IS DENIED in the real world. This is why there are no bodies there.
"For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies"
This is the journey's end. We have referred to it as the "real world."" In the state of this real world, which is an inclusive state of accurate perception, the "world of illusions" which comprises a VEIL hanging over the face of christ, is seen as a SHADOW swirling around. It is transparent and fading and even at times forgotten.
"The world (earth) stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as ****nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant."***
"**** It is seen at last for only what it is. And ****now it cannot fail to disappear,****
"Things which seem quite solid here (in physical reality ie Earth etc) ***are merely shadows there; transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot****, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them."
"For a time the body is still seen, but not exclusively, as it is seen here (on earth)."
"Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant ****is the world forgot****, with time forever ended as ****the world spins into nothingness from where it came.****"
"***the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight***, and will at length be seen as ***little more than just a shadow circling round the good.***"
"****peace will lightly brush the veil aside****"
The veil, is the veil of the separation, the gap, the mad idea, space and time, the world we made, hell, earth, all galaxies and stars, the whole seeming content of the physical universe, all bodies, all creatures made of flesh, and all notions of beginnings and endings. It is a regarded as A SHADOW because it is made of darkness, being the idea of the opposition to the world of light.
If you think of the real world as a bucket of pure water, spacetime is swirling around in the water like an impurity. Some dark substance which is mixed in with it. Those who know the water is the reflection of purity, are not deceived by the impurity and recognize it as alien and false and unreal and an illusion.
The veil which hangs over the face of christ is the entire contents of spacetime, which was made to come between you and your brother. It is literally all walls, all flesh, all bodies, all surfaces, all matter. It hangs like a veil because it was made to separate you from yourself, and to come between christ and God. The world WITHIN the veil is a world of illusions. That includes planet Earth. The veil is not drawn ACROSS the earth, it IS the earth.
Eventually the veil itself completely vanishes, becoming utterly transparent. It is recognized as purely an illusion, and disappears from sight. For a moment, only the real world remains to be perceived, as the world is FORGOTTEN and returns to NOTHINGNESS. The reflection of heaven is complete and christ's face emerges as a symbol of the end of separation. THEN the mind crosses fully over the bridge, beyond the borderland, through the gates of heaven, and into heaven itself.
So what is the forgiven world? The forgiven world is the VEIL, the illusory realm, the shadow world, which includes earth and all galaxies, which is seen in a forgiving way from the perspective of the real world. It is not awarded any sense of reality or sin or attack or guilt, because the real world is a loving state of mind. But AT THE SAME TIME, it is also RECOGNIZED AS FALSE, unreal, and not really existing. It is the awareness of dreaming, that this world IS A DREAM.
"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies." Anything you forgive disappears, because you can ONLY forgive illusions. If you forgive the earth, IT MUST disappear. You cannot forgive it if it is reality. The forgiven world is the veil that interferes with christ, the real world is christ's vision which recognizes the veil as nothing but a dream, and ultimate reality is solely heaven itself, beyond both the forgiven world and the real world.
"The real world still is but a dream." "Even the real world will vanish from your site." "Heaven is all that remains."
ACIM is not really non-duality, or duality. It's sort of both. ACIM makes this clear statement about the nature of God and reality:
"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is PERFECTLY natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to you" UrT16C3
This is the holographic principle. There is a whole (God) which has parts (sons of God), and each part contains the whole (oneness with God). The one whole is shared by the whole and the parts (brothers, inheritance etc).
Most people think of reality as sort of "one thing". Like one large area or an expanse or some kind of bigness. But that's more or less the same as the idea of spacetime or the universe. God is not actually like that. God is holographic.
In a holographic system there is a singular wholeness, which we call God. But there is also a characteristic of this wholeness - the entire wholeness is in every part. Every part of God contains the whole of God. ALL of God pays FULL attention to EVERY part simultaneously - because God is infinitely transcendental and can do this even if it sounds impossible.
God is also a creator and is capable of fully absolutely creating secondary beings who are like himself. But he cannot add-on anything outside of himself, so instead he adds on INSIDE of himself.
He does this by SHARING himself entirely with that which he creates, and that means that his creation has to also SHARE all of itself with everything. This is a kind of "internal expansion" of the Kingdom. It does not involve creating OUTSIDE the kingdom or beyond be pre-existing totality of God.
This sharing produces fully-created beings who inherit everything from God and share everything with God. They have a oneness with God. But they ARE fully created individual beings. They are completely full in every sense of the word. They contain everything like God does. Which means they absolutely exist, and yet at the same time are one with the absolute.
This results in a holographic system in which God is the main whole who creates "additional wholes" that share everything with him and with each other. Each part of God has the whole of God in it. Each son of God contains the whole of God and everyone else. We are all unified and merged and fused together.
This doesn't mean we lose our duality. It doesn't mean we lose individuality, or that we can't tell where we end and God begins. We DO have a discrete independent existence as absolute beings. But we ALSO have total oneness with the whole.
This seems like a paradox to most people. But it is actually miraculous.
Because a holographic system has wholeness to it, we identify that wholeness as "oneness" and might call it "non-duality". However, a holographic system ALSO has parts to it - whole parts, which share the whole and yet are whole in their own right. These "parts" might be called "duality".
This means that IN REALITY, the nature of God as a holographic system comprises BOTH ... non-duality AND duality, fused together as one. Everything is God, but God has parts which are living beings in their own right.
This is what A Course in Miracles teaches. And it means that there is material which in a certain CONTEXT is focusing on the non-dual aspects of the hologram, such as the oneness and the "God is" and "there is no opposite" and all that. But in other contexts it also speaks of God's infinite creations, the many sons of God, your own creations, your own kingdom, permanent brothers and so on.
ALL of these aspects of the course are simultaneously true. Even if they sound contradictory. If God's reality was NOT holographic they would indeed be contradictory and you'd have to resolve that by separating off some parts as "ego" or "separation" or "illusions". That's what many people do, in error. Because they don't realize reality actually is a holographic system not a "blob".
Ultimately then ACIM is not non-duality, or duality. But it is PARTLY non-duality and PARTLY duality. The two are fused together in a kind of "trans-duality". Transcendent of both exclusive-oneness and exclusive-separateness. God is not EXCLUSIVE anything - God is INCLUSIVE. Which is why the "non-duality" INCLUDES "the duality".
By duality here I do not mean spacetime. Spacetime is duality WITHOUT the non-duality, ie exclusively dual. That's not the same as the trans-duality of God in which every part is the whole. In space time, every part is PARTIAL and incomplete. The opposite of duality is not-nonduality, it's transcendental of the whole "either this or that" mindset.
"The whole does define the part, but the part does NOT define the whole. This is as true of knowledge as it is of perception." UrT8H2
"There IS no difference between the whole and the part where change is impossible." UrT8H2
"Because the Sonship MUST create as one, you remember creation whenever you recognize part of creation. Each part you remember adds to YOUR wholeness, because each part IS whole." UrT9E5
"Creation is the holy Son of God, for in Creation is His Will complete in every aspect, making every part container of the whole." UrW320W113
"The whole power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His Will is either great or small." UrT10G10
"It shines in every part of Him, as in the Whole." UrT17E16
"Every loving thought held in ANY part (of the Sonship) belongs to every part. It is shared BECAUSE it is loving. Sharing is God's way of creating, and also YOURS." URT5F9
"The creations of every Son of God are yours, because every creation belongs to everyone, being created for the Sonship as a whole." UrT7J6
"But the Resurrection IS the symbol of sharing, because the re-awakening of every Son of God is necessary to enable the Sonship to know its wholeness." UrT6B13
Is it possible to accept the world?
First of all, we have to keep in mind that we have perception, and our perception of the world is going to change depending on our mindset. This renders the world not really a "static" objective thing. So as we attempt to be more accepting, most likely our perception is going to change, and it's going to show us something different about the world we were trying to accept.
Secondly, Jesus says that "whatever you accept into your mind you make real to you". So if we are accepting something into our mind, that's going to seem real. We seemingly need to be careful about what we accept, otherwise we could inadvertently make something real to us that isn't.
So if we're trying to be more accepting, we have to look at a willingness to let go. This means letting go of various aspects of ego false perception. Such as resistance, control, denial, unwillingness, unawareness, blockages, trying to change things, not wanting things to be a certain way, a need to fix, etc. Let's say that we make progress towards relinquishing a lot of this ego activity. What then happens to acceptance?
If we resist and deny the world less, as though we are becoming "more accepting of" the world, allowing it to be whatever it is, this should lift away from our mind various resistance and darkness, allowing us to see the world more fully and accurately. Being more accepting or allowing of the world should put us in a more spiritual mindset. Our perception should become truer and more whole, more encompassing, more inclusive. The exclusivity, narrowness, selfishness and control should diminish.
But this also is going to mean that how we see the world - the world we're trying to accept - is going to change. We will see less of what we were making of it, in our resistance, and more of its "true nature". In a way, this will seem like opening up to simply allowing the world to be whatever way "it is". As if to suggest, we are becoming completely passive in simply observing it. Neutral. But we have to be careful here.
We don't want to be accepting into our mind that the world is real. We don't want to be believing "something really bad is happening" and to then try to accept it. This is the same as making something real and not being able to forgive it. Maybe it's useful to equate acceptance with forgiveness. To properly accept the world for "whatever it is", we must be forgiving of it. Which means OVERLOOKING whatever it is and not making it real.
So perhaps we need a new definition of acceptance, just as the course introduces a new definition of forgiveness. If the old forgiveness was to believe things are real and to pardon then, not really undoing anything, the new forgiveness recognizes this is just a dream world where nothing is really happening and you should not make any of it real to you. Similarly, the old acceptance said "accept whatever seems to be happening", which accepts into your mind unreal things that aren't happening. The new acceptance should say, accept the truth about this world, that this world is not real or happening, allow it to be an illusion of nothing, accept that it isn't there, and don't fight with illusions.
You can accept the truth about the world without having to make it real and accept bad stuff. If you're experiencing it as bad stuff it's because you're not accepting it. As you go to accept "the bad stuff" the bad stuff should stop looking like bad stuff. Less resistance should make the world less real, not merely leave you at the same place you were before. Less denial should make the world less solid to you Jesus even says in the course that if you have more guilt in your mind it will make the world seem more solid - so having less guilt should make the world more transparent.
You really then cannot accept the world. You can accept that it is not a world. This is the atonement. You can accept that nothing happened. You can accept God. But you cannot really accept what isn't even there to accept. But if you use that fact to try to resist or deny or make real the illusory world prior to accepting, you're just going to accept things which aren't true.
I could accept that the tree is burning, but if I try to be at peace while believing this is true, it will be impossible. If I can recognize the tree is not really burning, trees and fire are not real, I am now accepting reality and truth, and this is acceptable. The burning tree is now recognized as an illusion of a burning tree, a mere figment in a dream, which I don't have to accept "as real", only to accept its "true nature". It's true nature is that it's part of an illusion and nothing to be concerned about. Accepting the "real world" allows you to not be disturbed by the unreal content.
You can only truly accept what true perception shows you about the world. A forgiven world can be seen as forgiven (overlooked). You can accept the holy spirit's view of it, which correctly identifies that it is unreal. But trying to accept the unreal world, the illusory world, as if it's real, will never work. There is no peace where illusions are real. You can't be at peace while believing something real is dying. But you can be at peace by recognizing and accepting that nothing real can ever die, so whatever seems to die isn't really there TO accept.
Then you need not resist the illusory world, or deny it, or hide from it, or make it real, but nor do you need to accept it as though it's something to be accepted. Being neutral it is nothing, asking neither for acceptance or denial. Only God can be accepted, everything else is unacceptable.
There are some parts of the course which suggest that if you will just change HOW you look at the world, or what meaning you GIVE it, suddenly seemingly horrifying scenes are interpreted as healed and lovely.
Obviously this loveliness MUST transcend the FORM of what is happening, because a broken leg is still a broken leg, and an explosion is still an explosion. But somehow, Jesus is saying that just by changing your perception, a world which used to look like hell, can look "like heaven".
"What loveliness we look upon today! What holiness we see surrounding us! And it is given us to recognize it is a holiness in which we share"
"There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven."
This seems ridiculous at first. You ask yourself how this is remotely possible, and how it is not just a totally insane idea to suggest that THIS world's horrors can be "smiled upon" or interpreted as "lovely". But this is what true perception and forgiveness is offering.
Somehow, a changed perception projects God's love onto the world, God is seen as a reflection IN the world, and Earth now reflects heaven instead of hell. It still has its same forms, and the same things may be happening physically, but what they MEAN changes. And there becomes a light that you see in and around everything.
Jesus says the Holy Spirit can liberate even the darkest bullshit we made, and make it appear lovely and a blessing. That even a dead body could appear to use like it is sparkling and healed. And this doesn't necessarily mean it is in a form or condition that is physically healed, like a cancerous tumor disappearing, but it is still interpreted as healed.
This SEEMS to suggest that the cancer could remain, physically, while perceiving from an advanced perspective of love and light. It would be seen as "lovely". This however doesn't necessarily imply that the cancer SHOULD remain, because the mind is capable of performing miracles to change matter. And sane minds heal bodies so that even symbolically, even in form, they symbolize eternal life and healing.
"Think of the loveliness that you will see, who walk with Him! And think how beautiful will each of you look to the other!"
"The special ones are all asleep, surrounded by a world of loveliness they do not see."
It is hard to get ones head around how it is possible to see this shitty-ass world as beautiful, light-filled, lovable. But ACIM says that even God loves the world. And that we can see God in everything, when God is in our mind, due to projecting God's meaning ONTO the world. That you can see God IN it, because you mix it WITH His love.
I used to get a sense of this, when I would read the course even years ago, where it sounded like he was saying that just by having a different state of mind, the world would be seen as entirely healed. I wasn't sure this was a correct interpretation, because I wanted to also include miracles. But it does seem to hold without undermining miracles of healing.
The world seen through the eyes of Christ, is a "healed world". It's redeemed. It's "translated into heaven", ACIM says. And then this REFLECTION of heaven, paves the way to knowledge and to the return home to the real thing.
"Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth."
"The ability to perceive made the body possible, because you must perceive SOMETHING, and WITH something. This is why perception involves an exchange, or a translation, which knowledge does NOT need. The interpretive function of perception, (actually, a distorted form of creation), then permitted man to interpret the body as HIMSELF, which, although depressing, was a way out of the conflict he induced."
"Through Him, YOU stand before God's altar, where He gently translated hell into Heaven. For it is only in Heaven that God would have you be."
"Be not unwilling now, you are too near, and you WILL cross the bridge in perfect safety, translated quietly from war to peace."
"For, once you have accepted it as the ONLY PERCEPTION THAT YOU WANT, it is translated into knowledge, by the part that God Himself plays in the Atonement, for it is the ONLY step in it He understands."
"This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel you need a course which, in the end, teaches that only reality is true. But do you believe it? When you perceive the real world, you will recognize that you did not believe it. Yet the swiftness with which your new and only real perception will be translated into knowledge will leave you but an instant to realize that this alone is true. And then everything you made will be forgotten; the good and the bad, the false and the true. For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight. The end of the world is not its destruction, but its translation into Heaven. 9 The reinterpretation of the world is the transfer of all perception to knowledge."
"Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty. And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release.
All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing ALL illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there, in peace."
I see now that forgiveness of another must entail an appreciation of how we are joined in oneness, sharing everything. We have to realize that we ARE each other, and that we are included in everything. There has to be awareness of the golden rule and the fact that giving and receiving are one. Whatever applies to me must be seen to apply to the other. And there must be shared interests. Without this there is not forgiveness.
It used to seem as though forgiveness was some act performed by one separate person towards or with regard to another separate person. There was something that the separate person did to the the other separate person, and now the separate person had to do something to forgive them. This is clearly not in accord with ACIM’s teaching on forgiveness because forgiveness requires the two minds to be one. You have to love your brother as yourself.
When your brother is seen from the perspective that they are included in who and what you are, and are thus part of you, sharing everything with you, everything now applies to both of you equally and simultaneously. You ARE each other. In that light, any unforgiveness is an attempt to separate from one another, while forgiveness is a reunion. The two become one in forgiveness.
The same applies to atonement, true perception, salvation, and miracle mindedness. It is not just some separated-off state, it’s an entirely shared state. It’s just a tiny bit short of total oneness. Communication means immersion and union and sharing everything as one, and miracles raise the level of communication and sharing. Miracles make minds one in God. Miracles unite you with your brother. Being IN the miracle is to be IN a united shared state.
More and more now it is becoming extremely clear that, very simply, “being separate” is the entire problem, and “being joined” is the entire solution. There is nothing else. Either you’re separating off of you are one with each other. Oneness isn’t two separate people bumping bodies. It’s literally a fusing, melding, merging, unifying, sharing of everything. True connection. True opening and trust. True communion.
You can’t see forgivingly without that shared union because it is literally the light in which you see. It is the way to recognize your brother’s attempts to separate as untrue and as a call for love. It the proper framing of your holy relationship. Without the union there is a breakdown in forgiveness. To be completely forgiving is to recognize that everything applies to both of you equally at once, as one, together, as the whole. Wholeness is inclusive, and wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles.
Either you live in such a way as to always regard your brothers as a fundamental part of your own self, in which you are literally one and two, sharing the same spark of life, in the same light, or you are moving into separation and grievance and war. It’s very simple. Separate or join, fear or love, die or live forever. Atonement is a lesson in sharing, because we’re forgotten how to do it.
All miracle mindedness requires a shared state of mind and identity. You have to BE the other person to join with their mind and share light with them. We can’t do any of this correctly if we remain separate. There is no miracle without sharing, there is no love without sharing. There is no atonement without sharing, there is no salvation without sharing. Your brother is your savior because he is your self.
“Your Father is as close to you as is your brother. Yet what is there that could be nearer you, than is your Self?” “This state, and only this, must YOU attain with God beside you. For until you do, you will still think that you are separate FROM Him. You can feel His Presence NEXT TO you, but CANNOT know that you are one with Him.”
“And He will speak to you, reminding you that you are Spirit, one with Him and God, your brothers and your Self.”
“He must see someone ELSE as NOT a body, one with him, without the wall the world has built to keep apart all living things who know not that they live.”
“Forgive him now his sins, and you will see that you are one with him.”
“Every altar to God is part of your Soul, because the Light He created is One with Him. Would you cut a brother off from the Light that is yours?”
“Your brother's holiness shows you that God is One with him AND you; that what he has is yours BECAUSE you are not separate from him OR from his Father.”
“No-one unites with enemies, nor is at one with them in purpose.”
“Then let him offer you the light you see in him, and let your "enemy" and Friend unite in blessing you with what you gave. Now are you one with them, and they with you. Now have you been forgiven by yourself.”
“I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”
When we typically experience the world from an ego viewpoint, we might encounter lessons and people and problems. And then we attempt to forgive these things. And we think we are then done with forgiveness. And then another one comes along. And then we do another forgiveness. And this gives you the impression that you are doing forgiveness.
But over time, you are really moving horizontally through the world, encountering obstacles, one at a time, and these obstacles always seem specific. The form of the obstacle is what deceives you. The problem with your mother, the problem with the plumbing, the problem with the sick brother, the problem with your boss. Each one seems specifically different and unrelated to the rest. And so you perform a string of seeming forgivenesses through time.
But as you perform each forgiveness and move towards truth, you are in fact moving UPWARDS, towards the light. And this upwards movement may seem to be more subtle and gradual, such that it isn't even specific and it may be difficult to realize whether you are making upwards progress. But over time, it will start to occur to you that each of the seemingly different "forms" that problems take, is itself an illusion.
You will start to see that each of these forgiveness opportunities have something in common. Common characteristics. There's always some problem with your belief in who is causing who. And there's always some issue of authority and power. And there's always fear and reaction involved. And there's always the same stresses. And as you progress you start to generalize the learning and start to transcend the forms and differences. And then it starts to occur to you that these are not all different situations.
What forgiveness reveals to you, is that you aren't really in fact having to deal with a multitude of totally different problems, but that in fact the whole world, ALL of the problems, are doing the same thing. And ALL of the problems have the same characteristics. And ALL of them are forgiven in the same way. And this starts to show you that it's not really a specific problem with specific people, or specific groups, or specific situations, it's a problem with THE WHOLE WORLD.
And then you start to question the nature of the whole world. Maybe the WHOLE world is a collection of attacks. Maybe all of it, regardless of the form it takes, is ONE problem. And now you are starting to not fall for the illusion of form or the shape that a problem takes. You are realizing that either you move downwards into the darkness of hell, or upwards into the light of heaven. And either you are lost in the battlefield of stress and misery, or you are above the WHOLE battlefield in light and happiness.
Forgiveness starts to now take on a different direction. Its not so much to do with having a DIFFERENT way of handling each situation, but of developing a SINGLE "way" of dealing with them all. And you start to see through the deception or form that each one presents. And you stop falling for the obvious temptations. And now forgiveness is seen as vertical, in which either you are moving into hell or out of it, as a whole. And the qualities of the whole WORLD are now being brought into question.
You are now asking yourself, whether ANY of the things that happen are real. Whether ANY problem is really happening. Whether ANY person's attack has anything to do with you. Whether there even IS anything specific or different about any of it. And as you broaden your horizons to learn very large abstract truths such as that there is no world, this is just a dream, NONE of it is happening to you, loving everyone equally is the way to holy relationship, unity is the truth, sharing with everyone is unconditional love, etc... you move away from the specific towards the abstract.
And now it boils down the real "root cause" of the WHOLE of suffering, the reason for EVERY reaction, the purpose behind EVERY sickness. And you discover there not only really is only one problem, there is also only one solution. One solution to rule them all. And only one lesson that the Holy Spirit is teaching. Either the world is real or its not. And if it is real, you will suffer. And if it's not, you are free. If it's a dream, you have no basis for reactions or fear. If it's not a dream, you cannot help but react in fear. This is a fundamental lesson in the generalization of the teaching. That every form the illusion takes is just as DECOY to distract you from realizing that it's ALL the same.
This causes you to also start realizing that the hierarchy of illusions is a lie. Some things are NOT harder or more difficult than another. The form of a problem lies about its severity. You start to question whether a giant cancer is really any more threatening than a headache. You see how the ego tries to correlate the seriousness of a cause with the appropriate level of reaction, and you stop falling for this lie. The hierarchy starts to flatten, and all of the deceptions that make it seem like a world-sized maze of confusing corridors and disjointed pieces, simply start to fuse into each other as they're all seen as ONE DREAM. One problem, one solution.
"Miracles entail a sudden shift into vertical perception".
"Yet they are all the same and must be recognized as one if the one solution which solves them all is to be accepted."
"Without the values from the past you WOULD see them all the same"
"We will try to realize that we have only one problem, which we have failed to recognize. We will ask what it is, and wait for the answer. We will be told."
"Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution."
"The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form."
It is not natural to feel sad, unhappy, depressed, angry, alone, lost, grieving, frustrated, offended, victimized, weak, afraid, guilty, sinful, hurt, broken or annoyed. These are NOT natural. They are NOT the signs of a person being "emotionally mature" or "in touch with their feelings" or "psychologically healthy". It is NOT natural to feel upset about anything for any reason.
"Anger is never justified."
"Depression is blasphemous."
They are all ego reactions to a belief that there is an external CAUSE in the world capable of FORCING you to have a certain negative reaction. They are illusions of consequences made up from an evil mindset. They are not real, or valid feelings. All of them are based in victimhood and attack and vulnerability and defensiveness. Even feeling happy "because of" something that happened to you is fake and driven by "positive victimhood." Especially feelings of love and happiness "caused by" a SPECIAL love interest.
The only real emotions are those which extend out of you from God, such as love and joy and happiness and peace and gratitude and holiness. Those are natural. They are signs of true sharing and connection and sanity. Those should be happening all the time and when they are not, something has gone wrong. No-one is supposed to be suffering in any way.
"God does not will that you suffer."
"God gives you only happiness."
"God's will for me is perfect happiness."
Just because the world is riddled with despair and loneliness and depression and rage and hatred and all manner of suffering, does not mean it is natural. Just because people TEND to have certain feeling reactions to terrible "real" things happening, does not mean it is natural. It is understandable, given their insanity, but it is NOT supposed to be happening.
It is utterly unnatural, against the nature of God, to ever be anything short of completely happy all the time.
"Happiness is a constant state."
If someone seems to be in a body and the person dies, it may seem natural, even supposedly unavoidable, that you would feel a terrible sense of loss and grief. Aloneness, anger, resentment, abandonment, and all manner of hell. But these responses are NOT natural. They are happening because the person believes that death is real, that bodies are people, and that things really happen in the world. This is deception, insanity, mental illness, and a failure to recognize the truth. Which results in suffering.
ALL of the ego emotions can be completely overcome and avoided through forgiveness and the recognition of what really is true. The recognition that the world is a DREAM and that nothing real can be threatened, is enough, if fully experienced, to completely obliterate the foundation for ANY sense of suffering. Emotional or physical. All forms of physical sickness are also symptoms of improper responses, reactions of un-love, to perceived external attacks.
"All forms of sickness even unto death are physical expressions of the fear of awakening."
Every single form of suffering, every emotional upset, all nightmares and hellish situations, every unhappiness, all sense of loss and lack and despair and hopelessness, are all SIDE EFFECTS of an improper perspective on life. They are all symptoms which show up as effects, "caused by" external seeming happenings, which really is a person's mind attacking itself.
A person who believes the world "does things to them" is victimized and thrown around by it senselessly. The world then dictates whether you are happy or sad, what you are able to receive, what you can get, how you should feel, how you should react, how severe something is, how important it is, what its value is, how you should react to it, and what it means to you. It practically shoves meaning down your throat and demands that you suffer, changing you against your will.
Anyone who believes the world is real and a cause of anything will fall into this trap and all manner of hellish experiences will result. Because it is completely unnatural, completely false and a total deception. Falling for the temptation to believe that you are AFFECTED, in any way, by the world, is deception and delusion. It is based in the confusion of not recognizing what really is true or real. Of not knowing yourself. Of being out of touch with the IMMORTAL CHRIST in you.
"Nothing real can be threatened."
You cannot be affected or made happy or unhappy by the world. Nothing in the world can "bring you joy". Nothing in the world is supposed to "make you happy" or "cause you to" feel anything. If it does, you have reacted to a dream as if were not a dream. And that begins the slippery slope into hell. The world is not there to CAUSE YOU to be enlightened, or happy, or spiritual, or holy. It cannot heal you. It cannot give anything to you. It is meaningless and is nothing.
Everything you can have, must come from God. All that you can experience, must be rooted in him. All real feelings must be shared with Him. Any states of happiness or joy must come from WITHIN. All love has to be EXPRESSED and given, from the inside out. You have to light up the world in order to see it as lovable or meaningful or filled with joy. You have to GIVE it that. You can't GET it from the world. The world is a piece of shit drizzled on a turd wrapped in a horseshite. It has NO value and NO power over you.
This is the one lesson to learn. The one lesson the holy spirit teaches over and other. That nothing that happens, no matter the seeming cause, no matter the suffering, it all has ONE CAUSE, that cause is in YOUR MIND, and you are doing it to yourself.
"The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.""
I'm kind of blown away right now, with this rapidly growing recognition that ALL suffering has ONE cause. That there is really only ONE lesson to learn.
The lesson simply is that,.... if you believe the world is REAL, YOU WILL SUFFER.
And so I look back at all the times I have suffered, all the upsets, all events, and I see that at the time I always thought they were DIFFERENT. And each form of suffering was caused by something specific. Maybe it was the situation, or the person, or the circumstances, or what happened, or the consequences, or the aftermath. Whatever it was, it always seemed specific.
But the truth is, that ALL suffering is caused by ONE problem, with one solution. If you make the world real, you take it seriously, you immediately enter into fear, and now you are suffering. And whatever then seems to happen in the unrecognized dream will be the form the suffering takes. And the ONLY thing that will stop you from suffering, is the RECOGNITION THAT IT IS NOT REAL.
And so either you are in the battlefield, lost and confused in amongst the many many FORMS of suffering, the many deceptions of suffering, OR you rise up out of the battlefield to the light in which you can see the truth, above it, the truth that IT IS JUST A DREAM.
Rising up above into the truth, it does not MATTER what the forms are, it does not matter who is doing what, it does not matter the situation or circumstance, this story, the details. They all become irrelevant. Because EVERYTHING in the world is recognized as EQUALLY UNREAL.
As soon as you change the PREMISE of the ENTIRE thing, which is the atonement, by recognizing ONLY God's truth is true, and only the false is false, it RE-FRAMES the entire world and everything in it. And now no matter what form or appearance the dream has, it does not matter. Because either you are immersed in a REAL dream, or an UNREAL dream. The question of its reality is the ONLY problem.
If the world is real, everything that "really is happening" is CAUSE for suffering. Just the mere suggestion that you see something that is not, hear something that isn't happening, or can sense something that isn't OF GOD, is enough to frighten you. And now you are suffering just by merely making the world real, ie believing that the world IS God. The ONLY solution is to make the world UNREAL, and recognize it is an illusion. There is no other way out, and this recognition of the SANITY of what is really true, IS forgiveness (overlooking illusions) and is atonement (acceptance of the one truth).
So now I look and I see.... a dream world, filled with obstacles, seeming problems, hassles, tortures, suffering, situations, dramas, threats, pain and sickness, and I remind myself... this whole world is not real, it's just a dream. And on this new premise I can base a true perception, that NONE OF IT EXISTS. And ONLY in that truth - "nothing unreal exists", can you be at peace.
And now suddenly I'm feeling not only peace and happiness and joy that there is no world, I'm feeling relieved that I don't HAVE TO be immersed and lost in suffering, in the battlefield, because the only reason I would enter into it is by FORGETTING that it is my own dream. And THIS is the secret of salvation.... the recognition that the dream IS a dream, and NOT a reality.
"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. ***For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming.*** Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This **single lesson** learned will set you ***free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes.***"
"The Holy Spirit will repeat this **ONE inclusive lesson** of deliverance, until it has been learned, ***REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain.*** Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this ***one answer TAKES AWAY the cause*** of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but **the SINGLE cause** of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.""
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. 4 ****But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal.**** 5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all illusions is truth."
The way the ego thinks about oneness is fraught with massive mistakes and assumptions and faulty conclusions. And a lot of people do this.
It seems simple enough to aim to "become oneness". But the way the ego thinks causes this to mean some things that it does not really mean.
And the aim often tends to be to get rid of the ego, but this is also then lumped in with self as though we are to have no self at all. And being one seems to imply that you cannot have a self, which is false.
There are numerous things wrong with this because not only does it erase the self that God created, it equates you with being entirely the same thing as God.
Now, in truth you actually are the same thing as God, up to a point, because you have all of God in you and are part of him. But God created you and you did not create him, so you are not his equal, and he IS greater than you.
This might imply you cannot be one with God, therefore, because if you are not totally the same as him how can you be one? But this isn't true either. You can be entirely fully one with God and still be secondary in creation. You can still be entirely one with God and still have a self.
I know it sounds paradoxical and nonsense but anything that is true sounds nonsense to the ego, just as anything the ego believes IS nonsense. And the egos beliefs ABOUT oneness are completely nonsense.
God is a holographic system of creation in which the whole is in every part and every part contains the whole. What oneness means in such a system is not the same as what it would mean in spacetime. The whole of God is in each of us, and each us of is whole and contains the whole - a shared whole. In this system, we DO have a self, AND we are one, and we are not, and we are.
What often happens is many people conclude that in order to gain oneness they have to give up self, so then there is this whole drive to destroy the self. This can only lead to more depression because self-repression is not natural. It's not natural because God created you to have a self. "I am still as God created me."
But we have to then reconcile how we can be one and still have a self. And that's easily explained by the fact that God's reality follows the holographic principle. Each individual part of God contains all of God.
"The whole power of God is in every part of Him"
"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is PERFECTLY natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to you."
So we don't actually want to be trying to get rid of self, but we also don't want our sense of "type" of self to be getting in the way of being able to be united with, one with, in communion with, the whole of God and creation.
We can be a part and a whole at the same time. That's the truth. It's only when we try to be a part that is NOT the whole that we move into ego. A partial part is a selfish part which is trying not to share with the rest. It's rejecting wholeness.
All we have to thus do to become one, is to reclaim and own and unite with the wholeness, while still being a part. We remove the egotism which is the idea of being apart-from the whole, which is the walls we surround ourselves with to shut it out. But we do not get rid of the prisoner in the prison cell - only the cell walls need removing, and then the sense or type of self is purified.
If we aim to be one with everything and have "no self at all", we're only getting half of the story. We are supposed to be full of self, not having no self. But some people teach and practice a non-dual view of having no self at all. This obliterates God's creations. Just because you're not an exclusive self doesn't mean you're not an inclusive self, and the opposite of false self is not no self - it's true self.
We don't want selfishness, but selfishness is an attitude problem, not a problem of what you are.
Trying to see yourself as "one", as the whole, as the entirety of everything, TO THE EXCLUSION OF selves, will result in further insanity twisted around to make it seem like there is a spiritual awakening while continuing to deny God's creation.
Being ONLY oneness is not the answer. You have to be oneness AND twoness. A self that shares, a self that unites, a self that gives, a self that relates, a self that includes, a self that loves. A self that knows it is one with and like its creator, but also knows its been given the freedom to be its own self, with free will, which is a gift from God. We are not supposed to be throwing the gift of having been created away.
So there is risk in focusing entirely on oneness, or on non-duality, because it can deny the self to such an extent that you end up with a sense of having none at all, which is not what God wills. You do have a self, it's just a very open shared self that includes others within it.
"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth.
"Your brother is your Friend BECAUSE his Father created him like you. There IS no difference. You have been GIVEN to each other that love might be extended, NOT cut off from one another."