When you are confused by believing the ego's world, you assign to illusions all the properties of reality. You take the properties of God away from God and from your real self, and give them to the non-existent world.

This is how you give your power away and empower sickness. You assign the permanence of heaven to make sickness seem permanent. You give God's irreversibility to sickness to make it irreversible sin. You try to make it last by trying to give it immortality. You impart truth to it to try to have it be the truth. You make it valid, and believe it is whole, and see it as natural and real.

Then having assigned all the properties of God, heaven and reality to an illusion, you are now faced with the natural relationship to these things. What is real cannot be changed, thus it seems sickness cannot be changed. What is permanent is always there, so sickness becomes irreversible to you. Eternal life is assigned to the sickness meaning it will last forever.

You give all power to the sickness and strip it from God and from yourself, leaving you in a state of powerlessness and weakness. You now see that sickness has become your God. The God of sickness. And it looms over you with strength and resistance and threat. And as you look upon sickness made real, you are looking the God of sickness in the face, and he is insurmountable.

"Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to YOU. UNLESS you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly WANT them."

"The rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding. Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to him. Depression MEANS that you have foresworn God."

You now actually worship sickness and death because you have assigned all the properties of God to an illusory world. Which means you actually believe the world IS God. If God is its creator, it is reality, and God is the world. And now sickness can never be changed because it is against God's will. And death is his doing. And you have no power over it.

In this perspective, you cannot but help but be AFRAID OF the power of sickness. It looms over you. It seems real. You cannot surmount it. You cannot even dare approach it for the belief that if you try to heal it you will fail. You see yourself as weak and powerless before it. It torments you and you suffer at its whim. And as it turns for the worst you have no freedom and no choice but to suffer more intensely. There seems to be nothing you can do.

In this perspective or way of perceiving, this belief system, you cannot but see yourself as powerless and incapable of miracles. You cannot possibly heal a real illusion. You cannot forgive it because it has reality and permanence and irreversibility. What you need is an entire change of perspective, a totally different way of regarding the world, and this fundamental pivotal change MUST take place in the PREMISE of the entire system.

If you do not uproot the whole system by recognizing that the world DOES NOT have the properties of God or reality, your efforts will continue to be undermined. You have to realize that God IS NOT the world, DID NOT create it, and therefore NOTHING in it has the properties of heaven. This means recognizing that the world IS an illusion, it is nothing, is does not exist, there is no sickness, every single illusion is ONE THING - a fake dream, a fiction, and to not BELIEVE or BUY INTO a single piece of it on any basis.

What you need is to change the premise of the whole thing. The whole world has to be considered to NOT have ANY of the properties of God. It cannot be thought to be really happening, it cannot be believed to be irreversible, it cannot be assigned power, it cannot be given credit, it cannot be seen as true, and it must not be regarded as alive. It is a dream of death.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world, God did not create it."

"Death the central dream from which all illusions stem."

"There is no world."

Changing your mind about the world means recognizing IT IS NOT OF GOD. And you must "deny anything not of God any power to affect you". "This is a powerful protective device."

Simply, by reassigning ALL POWER TO GOD, all life to God, all truth to God, all reality to God, all permanence to God, all irreversibility to God, all healing to God, and all existence to God, taking it AWAY from the world of sickness, you strip the world of what you THOUGHT was a big looming powerful enemy. Sickness stops looking like a threat. Sickness stops having a sense of unmoveability. It stops seeming serious. It stops having reality or truth. It stops being a nightmare. And it stops looking like it even exists. And what does not even exist cannot be DIFFICULT to heal.

When it is recognized as NOTHING, your relationship to sickness is vastly different. Instead of being confronted with an immensely powerful enemy which you cannot influence, you instead see YOURSELF as immensely powerful and FULLY able to influence sickness. And IT is now recognized as weak and frail and powerless to resist you. Because you now have the power of God in you because you have GIVEN all power back to God. And thus you have gained it. And it has been TAKEN AWAY from sickness.

"To recognize that all power is of God is to gain all power."

Give to God what is God's, and everything will be made right. Only God can heal the sickness because only God IS eternal life. And only God HAS power. And God IS real. And only God's laws apply. And only His truth is the truth. And HE has immortality and permanence. And you with Him as His extension. And NOW you are miraculous because you are now in a dominant relationship to the world. You have power OVER the world and over the body rather than the other way around, BECAUSE IT IS NOTHING AND NOT REAL AND DOES NOT EXIST.

Only in this perspective is it possible to escape the hierarchy of illusions or the illusion of difficulty. Sickness only SEEMS difficult to heal or change or affect BECAUSE you inappropriately assign it GOD'S PROPERTIES. And you have no power over God. You are confused about it. You think it IS reality. You think it IS ALIVE. You think it has power. It does not. If it HAS NO power, then it does not present ANY challenge, it can EASILY be influenced, it is EFFORTLESS to change it, and IT DOES NOT RESIST AT ALL. Therefore you who are all powerful WITH God in you can overthrow it, manipulate it, change it and demonstrate healing.

"There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is ***you who have the power to dominate all things you see*** by merely recognizing what you are."

"Do not look to the god of sickness for healing, but only to the God of love, for healing is the acknowledgment of Him. When you acknowledge Him (that all of his properties BELONG to him), you will KNOW that He has never ceased to acknowledge you, and that in His acknowledgment OF you lies your Being. You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

Make sickness be FALSE, UNTRUE, UNREAL, NON-EXISTENT, IMPOSSIBLE, UNNATURAL, FINITE, LIMITED, NOTHINGNESS, ILLUSION, POWERLESS, NOT THERE, CAUSELESS, NOWHERE.

Only in this view is there no grounds for you to believe or perceive that it can resist your will. And now the power of God which you have correctly given back to God, operates through you, to have power OVER sickness and death and the world. You can then overcome the world, raise the dead, and perform miracles. Because there is NO DIFFICULTY, NO hierarchy, and NO effort needed to do so. Because the Holy Spirit heals through you with the Power of God.

There is no difficulty in miracles once all power is given back to God, because the world is recognized as HAVING no power to resist His will. What is nothing cannot be hard to overcome, and as a miracle worker you don't have to do HARD things. In fact, miracle working should be easy and effortless. Even literally that you do practically nothing while the Holy Spirit does everything.

The world we made - Earth etc - seems like a world we cannot control. When you look at it, almost no-one has any ability to DIRECTLY move objects with their mind. To change one thing into another. The amount of limitation of the seeming ability to "will that something happens, is EXTREME.

"he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach."

This is because when we made this world, we were willing AGAINST God's will, and against will itself. We thus imposed a sense of imprisonment ON our will and shut ourselves off from our power. In willing a world based on unwillingness, we made a world that is NOT a world "of will", and this has effectively cut our minds off from being able to "will" that the world change.

"You still HAVE the power, but you have interposed so much between it and your AWARENESS of it, that you cannot use it."

This doesn't mean we don't have this power, or cannot access it. But for most people it means they live in such a way that the body limits their entire expression and confines them inside of it. Mind seems unable to reach past it to influence anything. You can't even seem to move a single speck of dust no matter how hard you try.

By making a world of "not will" or unwillingness, or against will, we made a world that seems out of control. A world where things just seem to happen haphazardly and chaotically. Where objects just tumble to the ground, where things just fall and land wherever the wind takes them, and where all manner of stuff just happens seemingly accidentally. As if no-one willed it. As if it just was following some basic laws of physics, which are really the absence of laws.

"You were willing to accept even death to deny your Father. But He would not have it so, and so it is NOT so. You still could not will against Him, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. It is NOT a world of will, because it is governed by the desire to be unlike Him. And this desire IS NOT WILL. The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it."

So now we're confronted with a world that we seem unable to control. However, through forgiveness and re-acquiring access to the power of the mind, we can GAIN control over it. And our miracles can demonstrate that this is so. By undoing imprisonment, which involves de-identifying from the prison - the body - we can regain access to the power of the mind.

"Yet this world is ONLY in the mind of its maker, along with his REAL salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing WHERE it is, will you gain control over it. For you DO have control over your mind, for the mind is the mechanism of decision."

"Yet all that stands between you, and the power of God in you, is but your learning of the false, and your attempts to UNDO THE TRUE. Be willing, then, for ALL of it to be undone, and be glad that you are not bound to it forever. For you have taught yourselves HOW TO IMPRISON THE SON OF GOD, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even DREAM of it."

"People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them."

"But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of those who believe they ARE bodies and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of you."

"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."

"I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body AND the power of the mind, by uniting MY will with that of my Creator, which naturally remembered the Soul and its own real purpose."

"Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind."

"The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will."

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains."

"Why is it strange to you that faith can move mountains? This is indeed a little feat for such a power."

"Your mind is capable of creating worlds"

As you become more aware that you are doing everything to yourself, and you gradually learn to take responsibility for everything you are experiencing, at some point you'll start noticing more and more that you keep attacking yourself.

Whereas before you noticed perhaps when you were attacking other people, and were thinking that this had no effect on you, and somewhat learned to forgive them and see their innocence, now the focus shifts a bit more directly to yourself.

"My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability" takes on a more obvious meaning. You literally keep attacking your own self.

The way these attacks happen is through moments of fear and guilt.

I'll be in the middle of some form of questioning, or self doubt, or worrying about something, and Jesus will poke me... ."Paul".... and then I know that means, I'm making some mistake here. So then I stop and just look at what I'm doing.... and usually it'll be sort of obvious that I'm either in fear, or I'm in guilt. Those are the two main ones.

Often though it's not so obvious what mistake I'm making. Sometimes I have to open up and try to figure it out, especially if I'm far into it. It can be quite confusing and obscure. Fear is not always obvious in its many many forms.

In general, I undermine myself all the time. So what I've become aware of is that, just as the Course says, I keep doing stuff to myself. I keep having attack thoughts and mistaken perceptions which *directly* work against myself.

So its kind of weird when you realize this, that you actually are at war with yourself. You keep on believing, thinking, perceiving, feeling and doing stuff that undermines you, thwarts you, detracts from your confidence, makes you feel unworthy, doesn't give yourself credit, diminishes your value and all kinds of other stuff.

So now it's sort of a cleanup job. You have to realize all the ways that you keep being AGAINST YOURSELF. At the very least, you have to realize you are against yourself, at all.

This being against yourself was completely covered up in a state of denial, when you were more involved with projecting onto others. And that projection really strongly distracted you from *recognizing* that you were attacking yourself. It convinced you that it was always other people who you needed to attack, who were receiving the effects of your attacks, and who this was all about. Once enough of that projecting is undone and you learn to do it less, it suddenly becomes apparent that it's actually not them that you've been attacking, its YOU.

So now you have to deal with yourself. But this is kind of interesting now, because it means that you now know you're really dealing with YOURSELF, not other enemies. You are your ONLY enemy. And there is a lot of hope in that, because it means that you are more aware that you have an opportunity. Since your enemy is yourself, you recognize that if you simply stop attacking yourself, and learn to recognize the ways that you do attack yourself, then there is basically NOTHING STOPPING YOU from becoming a far more capable, empowered, aware, happy person. There is nobody else and nothing else to influence you to stop you once you're on this fast-track to your true self.

So now the challenge for me and you, is recognizing more often and more clearly, when we are attacking ourselves, and learning what that attack comprises - is it fear, is it guilt, is it unlove - and CHOOSING AGAIN and learning not to do that to ourselves. As we do this we will grow in confidence and certainty and love and happiness, on our way home to God.

"We said before that the purpose of the Resurrection was to "demonstrate that no amount of misperception has any influence at all on a Son of God." This ***demonstration*** ***EXONERATES*** those who misperceive, BY ESTABLISHING BEYOND DOUBT that they have NOT hurt anyone."

The curriculum of ACIM ends in resurrection. Resurrection is the final state prior to going to Heaven. When Jesus accomplished this, his body had allegedly been attacked and "killed" by crucifiers, through the crucifixion. All of these people believed that they HAD attacked him. Or if they were bystanders, they believed the attack was REAL, was really affecting Jesus and attacking the Son of God, due to a confusion between Him and his body.

After this, and after Jesus made his body disappear, he accomplished the resurrection. He then MATERIALIZED A BODY, as a miracle, in order to PROVE AND DEMONSTRATE the absolute total truth and conviction, that what He is could not be attacked, and that this body he showed was a SYMBOL of that perfection. It was a body in perfect health, showing no signs of suffering, no attack, no sickness.

Onlookers, and crucifiers (and the onlookers were also crucifiers by their judgement of real sin), had to then bring into SERIOUS QUESTION, what it is that they THOUGHT had happened and the sinfulness that they thought occurred. By Jesus demonstrating resurrection, symbolized as a LIVING BODY, using the body to PROVE that the body had not been killed and thus Jesus had not been killed, FORCED them to have to DISBELIEVE, their own condemnations, sin, guilt and fear about "what happened to him".

Because obviously, here standing in front of them was a NON-CRUCIFIED body, appearing to be alive, symbolizing immortality, with Jesus smiling through it, happy and at peace and clearly NOT DEAD. And so the contrast was a POWERFUL TEACHING, to all who encountered that body, which showed that that IMMORTALITY is true, that the body is NOTHING, that attacks on a body do not change anything REAL, and thus nothing real can be threatened.

By this demonstration, which was totally miraculous in the true sense, death itself had been snuffed out and all "effects" and consequences of sin removed by the Holy Spirit. Due to the lack of effects, the lack of suffering, and the lack of death, ALL those who seemed to attack Jesus or believe in him being attacked, WERE PROVEN MISTAKEN, because miracles are teaching devices. And this demonstration of a miracle of total healing and resurrection (miracles raise the dead and produce resurrection), they were EXONERATED.

They were PROVEN, that they COULD NOT have sinned, they could not have attacked, and their BELIEF IN REAL DEATH was brought into question. They could no longer believe the body is real. They could no longer believe sin had real effects. They could no longer believe sin is irreversible. And they could therefore no longer believe in THEIR OWN SINFULNESS. And thus in this exonerated state all onlookers and those who met him WERE TAUGHT, THROUGH DEMONSTRATION, BY EXAMPLE, WITH CONVICTION, COMPELLING them to believe, that THEY MUST BE INNOCENT ALSO, because HIS BODY WAS NOT HARMED.

This is the teaching of "brother at your hand I live". This is the teaching of resurrection. This is the demonstration of miracles. And this is the message that EVERY ACIM STUDENT has to at some point demonstrate through the HEALING OF THE PHYSICAL BODY, to undo the picture of crucifixion and to replace it with the Holy Spirit's PICTURE OF IMMORTALITY, as a body which has no signs of sickness or suffering or death or harm of any kind. Because only by reaching a state where YOUR BODY IS HEALED and TEACHES AND COMMUNICATES ONLY LOVE AND HEALING AND HEALTH, only then can your MIND be ready to return to Heaven to access eternal life. "The mind, being sane, heals the body."

A Course in Miracles is about RESURRECTION! You are being raised from a state of death. A dream of death. Raised from sickness. Raised from suffering. Moved AWAY FROM DEATH, TOWARDS LIFE. If you are moving towards sickness, punishment, suffering, death, physical ailments, illness, disease, broken body parts, or any other PHYSICAL DEMONSTRATION OF THE BELIEF IN ATTACK, which are ALL attempts to TEACH YOUR BROTHER OF HIS SINFULNESS, you are moving AWAY FROM LIFE and away from the atonement and away from the resurrection. And that is NOT what A Course in Miracles is asking of you.

This is a course in LIFE! You are supposed to only move TOWARDS LIFE, NOT TOWARDS DEATH. If you head towards death you've got the course backwards!!!!

LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE <3

This is the teaching of A Course in Miracles. This is a course in LIFE. Life is CAUSE.

"Swear not to die, you holy son of God." IN THIS LIFETIME. CHOOSE THAT YOU WILL NOT DIE OR PRODUCE BODY SICKNESS OR BODY DEATH!! Swear to demonstrate resurrection!!!

"WHAT IS THE RESURRECTION?

Very simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death....

The resurrection is the denial of death, being THE ASSERTION OF LIFE...

Here the curriculum ends."

What's really driving home for me at the moment is the difference between WHAT I AM, and WHAT I BELIEVE I AM.

In ACIM metaphysics, what you are is a soul or son of God that God created. This self is FIXED, permanently perfect, flawless forever, absolutely immortal, incapable of corruption or sickness, unable to sin or be guilty or afraid, in need of nothing, lacking nothing, always absolutely at peace in love.

That's what you ARE, deep down. And the thing is ... this is always true. It NEVER CHANGES. It cannot be undone, replaced, overwritten, cancelled, deleted, or in any way modified.

So then what does that tell you? Anything that you believe about yourself that says otherwise MUST BE A LIE. And that includes everything we call ego, all sense of neediness, believing you lack or are unworthy, any belief that you are guilty or sinful, any fear, anything at all that is not of God is NOT A PART OF YOU.

It's actually like some other "layer" of junk piled on top trying to cover up and disguise the fact that you are STILL exactly as God created you. All of it must be a total lie, completely false, and it it not actually defining what YOU ARE, it's saying something SEPARATE FROM what you are, disconnected from you, like a camouflage wrapped around you to try to keep your true perfection hidden.

So that means all our issues, all our guilts, all sinfulness and fear, all sickness and definitions of ourselves that we made up, are all LIES that just float around the OUTSIDE of what you are, including the body, and NEVER even touch upon or change or have any influence on your ACTUAL NATURE at all.

Deep down inside you right now this second you are STILL exactly pure and perfect and holy and innocent, guiltless and sinless. SIMULTANEOUS to all the other stuff that you think is true of you. Innocent right now, while believing you are guilty. Perfect right now, while believing you are flawed. Immortal right now, while believing you are dying.

This contrast then shows you that what God has created you AS is ALWAYS TRUE, and it's what YOU ARE. And anything else that says otherwise is not anything to do with what you are, it's just a bunch of lies swirling around.

When the separation from God happened we DID NOT CHANGE AT ALL. All that happened was in our minds... we temporarily BELIEVED that we had changed, and bought into the beliefs so much that we thought they were true. They were all lies, completely fictional, absolutely unfounded.

Literally we're sitting there in heaven floating about being happy and then we PRETEND that we're not. We make up a bunch of stuff about ourselves which STILL isn't true, when OBVIOUSLY our perfect immortal innocent self is sitting right there still shining perfectly and flawlessly. It's just that we bought into these lies and took them to be actually true of us, imagining that we had changed, that we have defiled ourselves, that we have become corrupt end evil. WE HAVE NOT. It's just a psychological mistake.

So even right now this second inside you, you are STILL INNOCENT, there IS NO SIN in you. You have no real guilt. No flaws or defects. No sickness. Nothing lacking. No needs. Nothing to be fixed. Nothing you can do to change yourself. All that's happening is there's a big giant lie swirling around your mind that you're listening to even though it obviously completely contradicts everything about you. And UNDERNEATH these lies you are absolutely unphased, unchanged, unmoved.

Inside you, are you IN HEAVEN, BEING HEAVEN. Right now. The only cleanup work is to remove all the silly fictional stories about yourself that are not true.

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception."

"The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within."

Here is why your body's health is a DEMONSTRATION of what your mind believes is true. A broken body shows that the mind is NOT healed, and a healed mind PRODUCES a healed body. "A sane mind heals the body."

The body MUST demonstrate health otherwise it is TEACHING ATTACK and accusing your brother of not being innocent. EVEN THE BODY has to show innocence, physically, otherwise you are communicating to your brother that he is a sinner! Only through your health is it PROVEN to him that he is EXONERATED! You are either teaching "behold at your hand I die" or "behold at your hand I live". Your body is doing one of the two, and if it's that you are dying "because of" external causes you haven't corrected, you ARE accusing your brother of sin.

"Is healing frightening? To many, yes. For accusation is a bar to love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers. They stand firmly in the way of trust and peace, proclaiming that the frail can HAVE no trust, and that the damaged HAVE no grounds for peace. Who has been injured BY his brother, and could love and trust him still? He HAS attacked, and will attack again. Protect him not, because your damaged body shows that you must be protected FROM him. To forgive may be an act of charity, but NOT his due. He may be PITIED for his guilt, but NOT exonerated. And if you forgive him his transgressions, you but ADD to all the guilt that he has really earned."

---

"You have a fear of broken bodies, because your ego cannot tolerate them. Your ego cannot tolerate ego-weakness, either, without ambivalence, because it is afraid of its own weakness and the weakness of its chosen home."

----

"That is really why you recoil from the demands of the dependent, and from the sight of a broken body. Your ego is threatened, and blocks your natural impulse to help, placing you under the strain of divided will."

----

"Those with broken bodies are often looked down on by the ego, because of its belief that nothing but a perfect body is worthy as its OWN temple. A mind that recoils from a hurt body is in great need of rehabilitation itself. A damaged brain is also hardly a danger. ALL symptoms of hurt need true helpfulness, and whenever they are met with this, the mind that so meets them heals ITSELF."

----

"If you WITHHOLD agreement, and accept the part YOU play in making sickness real, the other mind cannot project its guilt without your aid in LETTING it perceive itself as separate and apart from YOU. Thus is the body NOT perceived as sick by BOTH your minds, from SEPARATE points of view. UNITING with a brother's mind prevents the CAUSE of sickness, and perceived effects. Healing is the effect of minds that join, as sickness comes from minds that separate. The miracle does nothing just because the minds ARE joined, and CANNOT separate. Yet, in the dreaming, has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as bodies, which ARE separated, and which cannot JOIN.

Do not allow your brother to be sick, for if he is, have YOU abandoned him to his own dream, by SHARING it with him. He has not seen the cause of sickness where it is, and YOU have overlooked the gap between you, where the sickness has been bred. Thus are you JOINED in sickness, to preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherished, and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that leads to Him. Fight not His coming with illusions, for it is His coming that you WANT above all things that seem to glisten in the dream. The end of dreaming is the end of FEAR, and love was NEVER in the world of dreams."

----

"For all the hurt that war has sought to bring; the broken bodies and the shattered limbs, the screaming dying and the silent dead, are gently lifted up and comforted. There IS no sadness, where a miracle has come to heal. And nothing more than just ONE instant of your love WITHOUT attack is necessary, that all this occur."

---

"Let yourself be healed that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother and yourself. A broken body shows the mind has not been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is without effect. What you would prove to him, you will believe. The power of witness comes from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him.

17 Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony of his innocence. It is this testimony which can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness proved to him. A miracle can offer nothing less to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed and has forgiven what he did not do. And so is he convinced his innocence was never lost and healed along with you."

---

"We said before that the purpose of the Resurrection was to "demonstrate that no amount of misperception has any influence at all on a Son of God." This demonstration EXONERATES those who misperceive, by establishing beyond doubt that they have NOT hurt anyone. "

There is a myth which is perpetuating in the ACIM community that the Holy Spirit does not operate in the world. That he does not "find you parking spaces" or help you deal with your bank account, especially not that he might directly have power over or influence physical objects.

This is completely false in terms of what A Course in Miracles ACTUALLY says about the Holy Spirit. We're told instead that he is completely aware of this world, aware of bodies, aware of space and time. He orchestrates them, has power over them, can work THROUGH them. He can even manipulate matter and bodies.

He absolutely CAN assist with finding parking spaces, making your grocery shopping more efficient, giving you advive about anything and everything. This is not something he only does for beginners, or people who have not escaped concepts or people who have not risen up to the heights of non-dual oneness. He does this ALL THE TIME EVERYWHERE.

It is simply patently false that the Holy Spirit is not aware of or able to operate upon the world. He in fact repurposes and USES EVERYTHNG in the world for his atonement plan. And if he had no awareness of it or access to it or power over it he would NOT be abe to help us!

"The ego SEPARATES through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches THROUGH it to others." UrT8G3

We're told here that the holy spirit is able to USE A BODY and operate THROUGH a body.

" Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured." UrT27B3

We're told here that the holy spirit can MAKE A BODY.

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?" UrW135L19

We're told here that the holy spirit PLANS ALL EVENTS IN SPACETIME.

"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the Laws of God." UrT25D4

We're told here that the holy spirit is a CO-MAKER of this dream world of physical matter.

"He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE." UrT9D11

Here we are told the holy spirit sends people to you in the world, AND that HE himself will SPEAK through your physical body to that person.

"Remember that the Holy Spirit interprets the body ONLY as a means of communication." UrT9G2

Here we are told the holy spirit is aware of AND interprets the body and uses it for communication.

"The body disappears because you have no need of it except the need the Holy Spirit sees." W199L4

Here we are told the holy spirit has a NEED for the body and that he SEES it. "The Holy Spirit teaches that you CANNOT lose your Soul and there IS no gain in the world, for OF ITSELF, it profits nothing." UrT11G1

Here we are told the holy spirit is aware of the world and whether or not it is useful to you.

"To the Holy Spirit, the world is a place where you learn to forgive yourself what you think of as your sins." UrW64L2

Here we are again told the holy spirit is very much aware of the world and what it is to be used for.

"It is, however, part of His plan that everything in this world be used by the Holy Spirit to help in carrying out the plan." UrP4C1

Here we are told the holy spirit uses EVERYTHING in this world as part of his atonement plan.

The list goes on and on and on confirming that the Holy Spirit is compeltely aware of this world, of the body, of physical matter, he has total access to it, he can use it for any purpose he sees fit, he can work THROUGH it, it can USE it to literally physically speak to others, to heal bodies, to even move objects and mountains.

Thoughts are attempts to create. They are attempts to give and express. They produce effects. They are not passive or neutral. A negative attacking thought is an attempt to use thought for destructive purposes. That means to "mis-create" or to attempt to "create destruction" or to "not create", ie to create a lack of love (an emptiness/sin).

Let's say that expression/extension is life, and is a matter of thought. As you express anything, you are creating or miscreating. Either way you are producing an effect. Mind, as it thinks, is applying itself. It actually causes something to happen.

When we having loving thoughts, the thoughts we think with God, they have a miraculous healing power because they are thoughts of wholeness, holiness, innocence and harmlessness. They are creative thoughts. They are miracles with the power to affect others.

When we having attack thoughts, thoughts thought with "the ego" or "lacking God", lacking life, we are thinking destructively and are attempting to bring about a less-than-creative outcome. This has an effect just as much as holy thoughts, except holy thoughts are far stronger because innocence is strength.

A thought you have of someone is not just a separated-off commentary, it is an expression and a transmission. It is a creative act. You are trying to give something to them and send it to them. And there are no private thoughts, so they will receive it. This is also how people perform "psychic attack" by thinking negatively or fearfully of others.

Jesus indeed even goes on to say that we curse others through what we might call a "spell", which is an attempt to reinforce the ego beliefs others have already chosen, which further imprisons them. Your thoughts are capable of imprisoning others just as much as setting them free and healing them.

Perhaps we don't want to admit that thought has such a power or influence because we are really afraid of thought and of the responsibility which comes with "thinking well" of ourselves and others. And the fact that this is also the secret of salvation. The ego interprets responsible thinking as a reason for guilt and blame.

The thoughts we have of others aren't merely mental chatter, or a conversation. They are creative acts. You give people your thoughts. You communicate them to them, sharing the thought with them, to either strengthen or weaken them.

If you have high uplifting thoughts of others, you resurrect them with your mind. If you have fearful victimized concerned guilty thoughts about others, you imprison them and attack them. If you feel lovingly toward them to are thinking them into health. Thoughts are powerful, they are not idle.

"If I did not think I would not exist, because life is thought."

"Miracles are thought-creations. Thought can create lower-order or higher-order realities. This is the basic distinction between intellectualization and thinking. One creates the physical, and the other the spiritual, and we believe in what we create."

"ALL thinking produces form at some level. The reason why people are afraid of ESP, and so often react against it, is because they KNOW that thought can hurt them."

"By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers"

"And YOU are healed BECAUSE you wished him well. This is the law the miracle obeys"

"It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it.

People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them." "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thinking."

""Casting spells" merely means "affirming error", and error is lack of love. When man projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to the extent that he reinforces errors they have already made."

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains."

"The truth is that you ARE responsible for what you THINK, because it is only at this level that you CAN exercise choice."

"You WOULD be responsible for the effects of all your wrong thinking IF IT COULD NOT BE UNDONE."

"It is pointless to believe that controlling the outcome of mis-Thought can result in real healing. When you are fearful, you have willed wrongly."

Let's talk a bit about this notion that all you have to do is transcend "what's happening" in order to be at peace.

The major assumption here is that stuff is happening "on its own". The world is ticking over, events are occurring out of nowhere, no-one is necessarily responsible for making anything happen, attack thoughts pop into the mind seemingly out of nowhere, shit just happens, suffering happens, sickness happens, death happens. Seemingly all on its own with no input from you. So then you try to escape it.

This assumption is only possible if you perceive yourself as having NOTHING whatsoever to do with "causing" the world to be this way, causing sickness, causing suffering or death. The viewpoint is one of total powerlessness, in which the world seems to be the CAUSE OF YOU, the dream decides your fate, things happen to you against your will, and you are entirely at the effect of the world. It's a position of victimhood.

But this for everyone is usually the kind of mindset that you start out with, in the ego, identified with a limited body, perceiving the world as a huge objective reality that does stuff on its own. And then you come to the course and start trying to digest its teachings WITHIN that kind of viewpoint without questioning it. Without questioning the assumption that the world is running on autopilot, or that the body gets sick because of outside influences, or that death will "happen to you" when it decides to.

Finding yourself in a world that's attacking you (causing you, making you affected), you seek for SALVATION or ESCAPE, and you think that you will find it by some kind of AVOIDANCE of what's happening. That if you could crawl into a hole and hide and get away from the causes, you would find some kind of peace. This is entirely an ego strategy. It keeps the attacking world real, maintains external causes, and keeps you at the effect of everything, but then persuades you that if you will step back and sit on the fence just enough maybe you'll be beyond the reach of its influence. That it's totally normal for a hideous disease to be ripping the body apart so long as you're smiling, or that somehow it's natural to still get angry but "observe" the anger from a detached viewpoint. Split mind anyone?

This leads many people along the EGO path of seeking for salvation by some kind of "transcending" of what is happening. That is, firmly believing that what happens is entirely permanently outside your control, you have no power over it, it will STILL continue to do what it does, and there is nothing you can really to do STOP IT. And that therefore your only solution is to "change your mind about it" or try to "see it in a different way" so that, perhaps, you can WELCOME IT, or not interpret it as an attack, or position yourself beyond it somehow.

And so then the entire effort to progress spiritually becomes about a kind of withdrawal from the world, an attempt to transcend it, an attempt to bypass it, an attempt to KEEP THE WORLD functioning the way it does, keep the attacks, keep the wars, keep the sickness, keep the suffering, and keep the death, but find some way to "be at peace with it". Or to be happy "in spite of it".

The thing is, there is SOME truth to this, because the world is in fact not real, it's a dream, and taking it seriously makes you unhappier. Believing in its illusions and temptations produces stress. Reacting to it increases suffering. etc. So you reason that you will find more peace if you will sort of calm yourself down, become tranquil, try not to be upset by it and thus reach some kind of peaceful state. While the world keeps being murderous against your will. And then along comes death, and what can you do to stop it? Hold up a peace sign? Throw some vitamin water at it?

What happens here is that people find a kind of escape from suffering through avoidance and "re-framing". It's perfectly legitimate to reframe the world because the world is a dream and not to be taken seriously. But at the same time, while people will take "causality" away from the world as if to say, you are no longer "at the effect of" the world, they still won't go so far as to OWN THE CAUSALITY. They won't admit to having power over the world, nor admit to DREAMING IT. It's like becoming a passive dreamer who is still unconscious of the fact that the world is coming from their own mind.

They see no purpose or power or ability to actually INFLUENCE it in any way. And this is a result of the ASSUMPTION that the state of major limitation you find yourself in is "normal" and natural. In this state there has been no transcendence of the order of difficulty in miracles. The hierarchy of illusions has not been dismantled or flattened. The power of the mind has not been admitted to or owned or mastered. Miracles are not being performed. Healing is missing. In effect, every way in which you would be THE CAUSE OF WHAT HAPPENS, is completely ignored.

So what happens is, we still believe the world is the cause of everything, the world still spins on its own, events still happen outside your control, people still attack, the environment still causes your body to be sick, the death still decides when your time is up. But supposedly you are happy and at peace. And yet you are powerless. Passive. An "observer". A fence-sitter. Sitting there on a cloud doing basically nothing to engage with the world, heal sickness, cast out death or overcome the LAWS that you made up to govern you.

If you are under no laws but God's, why are you pinned down by gravity? Why are you restricted by space and time? Why do you depend on air and food? Why when "sickness happens" do you not realise you PUT IT THERE? Why when death seems to loom are you not seeing that you HAVE POWER OVER SICKNESS AND DEATH BECAUSE YOU MADE THEM UP AND CAN ABOLISH THEM BOTH?

Being "not at the effect of the world" does NOT mean "I don't let the world affect me". It means YOU STOP HURTING YOURSELF. It means YOU take responsibility for CAUSING everything, and you choose to stop attacking yourself. It means you stop believing there even IS an outside cause or power or will or mind that can affect you against your will. It means you stop believing that the body EVER "gets sick" through any process other than YOUR MIND ATTACKING IT. And it also requires the recognition that even death has NO POWER OVER YOU, and therefore you DO NOT MAKE IT HAPPEN, and there is NO cause anywhere to make it happen against your will. Jesus: "SWEAR NOT TO DIE!"

This is the part of ACIM that so many poeple do not want to see or admit to or own up to. That the world is not simply "not causing you" to be upset, but that YOU ARE CAUSING IT. SOMEONE is responsible for EVERYTHING that happens. Nothing happens without a MIND CAUSING IT. The planet does not even EXIST without a mind dreaming it. Sickness does not happen unless a MIND decides to make sickness. Death does not occur unless some MIND CHOOSES to make death appear to happen.

It is not anywhere near enough to simply seek out being "at peace" in a kind of escape from "a real world that does stuff to me on its own". That is not mastery. That is not transcendence, it's avoidance. There is no power in that. It's a state of passivity and really not much different than laying down and allowing death to happen "on its own". Being not "affected by" something does not mean it still HAPPENS and you are "okay with it". You have to look at WHY does it even HAPPEN AT ALL? It happens because YOU are responsible for making it happen. That's a whole different ballgame.

It's not merely about what the world does and how you respond to it, it's about YOU ARE THE DREAMER WHO IS MAKING IT ALL HAPPEN. And therefore you can choose to NOT making it happen, or to undo anything you have made. It is a position of POWER. It is a position of being able to HEAL whatever occurs. It is a position of miracle working and supernatural power. It's not a state of contemplating your navel and becoming mostly peaceful then having the body "become sick and die" in a total display of victimhood.

You are to not be affected by the world. That does not mean the world still does stuff "on its own" to you against your will. It means realizing the world DOES NOT do stuff on its own, YOU DO IT, and then deciding to STOP DOING IT. So that the world CANNOT DO ANYTHING without your consent. Because you do it all to yourself. This is the secret of salvation. This is why there is no power or cause in the world capable of bringing oppression, making you suffer, sick, sad or afraid. The world is the EFFECT OF YOU. Which means you, in your unlimited nature, should be able to CHANGE IT any way you see fit. Because you are the dreamer.

It's also not enough to meditate and "watch thoughts come and go". WHO MAKES THE THOUGHTS? You do. Stopping making the thoughts is correcting the problem at its CAUSE, rather than allowing the thought-generation to continue and to then try to BYPASS it. That is not peace. A healed mind should not be GENERATING attack thoughts. There should be no need to "observe" thought processes, given that those troublesome thought processes should not even be HAPPENING in the first place. It's not your job to let attack thoughts keep occurring by try to sidestep or ignore them (actually a form of disassociation). It's your job to uproot those motherfuckers at their source and stop making them.

The course says not to seek to change the world, but to change your mind about the world. A lot of people SOTP THERE. But it goes on to say, that if you change your mind about the world, THE WHOLE WORLD WILL CHANGE. Because your mind has the power to CHANGE THE DREAM. That is a VASTLY different standpoint than one of "only" changing your mind "about it". You never really change your mind ABOUT the dream anyway.... as you change your mind, the dream changes. There is no "about", unless you believe that the world is a SEPARATE THING FROM YOUR MIND.

"You made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both."

"You made the world."

"You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts."

If your focus is to try to LET STUFF STILL HAPPEN and "just observe it", you are turning yourself into a fence-sitting inert powerless action-less miracle-less passive recipient of death.

Jesus states that "members of my party are ACTIVE WORKERS."

There is miracle mindedness, that is one thing. It's a state of true perception and readiness to perform miracles. But then there is MIRACLE DOING, or working, which is an ACT of CAUSING illusions to change or disappear. Miracle DOING is the part that so many are afraid of and do not want anything to do with. Because that means having power over the world and not just seeking out an escape from it.

"Your function on earth is healing." "You share the Holy Spirit's function on earth."

If you want to be a miracle WORKER, not just "miracle minded" or "transcendent", it has to go WAY beyond passivity or trying to meditate or trying to let stuff keep happening without any ABILITY to do anything about it. Faith without works is dead. You must EXTEND LOVE, CAUSE HEALING, and REVERSE DEATH. This is not a spectator sport UNTIL the entire sonship is awakened.

Lately I've been noticing that .... my state of mind, has something to do with what happens. I know that sounds a bit far fetched to many people. But we are after all told that this world is a dream, and that our minds are dreaming it.

I see how sometimes events and the appearance of certain people seem to correlate to certain attitudes or modes that I'm in. Sometimes a freer happier mode seems to produce the appearance of certain types of people, while unhappier or angrier modes seem to produce other types.

One of the ways that I've noticed this manifesting is with the idea that "what you resist persists". For example if you are driving a car and some slow person is in front of you, and you resist them being there, they seem to linger more than if you let them be there. When you let them go and don't make them an obstacle, they seem to leave sooner. In a sense, the showing up of a roadblock or "reason to slow down" shows up when you are "pushing too hard" or rushing. It influences what happens.

I've seen also times where, if I am doing a healing and saying things which are truthful, such as a few times in the hospital recently, following those times I noticed how other people seemed to lighten up a lot and laugh more. The whole sort of "atmosphere" of the place changed, the people changed and their moods changed and the events became more supportive.

For sure I also find that if I am upset or angry or frustrated, I start producing things going wrong. More and more things seem to fall on the floor, break, slip out of reach, get in the way, or generally just become "more reasons to be annoyed." I don't think that this is merely a matter of being annoyed and interpreting them as annoying. I think there is actually an increase in the number of things that happen, which don't appear to happen in such a condensed way at other times. Mind mind is literally influencing what happens.

Sometimes I get a sense that there is a kind of "psychic weather", in which, let's say.... it seems like maybe there are some minds that are contributing to external conditions - to dream content. Certain events seem to transpire as though "put there" by the minds of certain people. It seems at times as if there is a kind of psychological war playing out, literally orchestrating changes in events and what objects or people show up, in a subtle but noticeable way.

"This is not safe, because ***external conditions are produced by the thoughts of many***, not all of whom are pure in heart as yet."

Overall, I sense and notice more often, that the world in fact does appear to be a malleable dream. Not just some fixed physics-driven state of objective reality, but really a much more malleable fluid sort of "mix" of contributions and influences. It even appears to be possible that stuff which seems like it would've taken a long time to "plan" or "make possible", becomes possible complete with backstory, just to "fit" into place. As if the whole world just "changed" to line up with expectations.

There are some days when I wake up and I feel like everything has changed, in a subtle but noticeable way. Almost like as if you had jumped to a different "dimension" or "version" of the world, in which everyone and everything is subtly different in the same way.

I wouldn't be the first to claim this either, because there is plenty of evidence and stories out there about buildings appearing out of nowhere, strange correlations, sudden appearances or disappearances of things which couldn't seem possible, etc. Again suggesting that this world is not a fixed predictable place but rather a "mind-driven" realtime mixture of effects coming from the minds of people.

I think that in some way, the more that I become responsible for causation, as per the secret of salvation, and less of a victim, and perhaps stronger spiritually, I'm seeing more "influence" happening. Perhaps in the early stages of this development, but it does seem that my mind and focus and mood often influences the environment around me. Not merely in a subtle way as suggested in the heisenberg principle of quantum physics, but at even a much more "macrocosmic" level.

I feel this also points to having to also be more responsible and vigilant for thought, for more carefully managing my projections and my ego activities. After all, Jesus in ACIM also says that we need a healthy respect for the power of the mind....

"All miracle-workers HAVE to be trained that way. I have to be able to count on them. This means that I cannot allow them to leave their mind unguarded, or they will not be able to help me. ***Miracle-working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation.*** Otherwise, the miracle will be necessary to set the mind ITSELF straight, a circular process which would hardly foster the time-collapse for which the miracle was intended. Nor would it induce the ***healthy respect that every miracle-worker must have for true cause and effect.***"

Notice here that Jesus says that mind is very powerful and we need to be careful about mis-creating. If we are indeed powerful creators, and we have power of mind over matter, and mind is stronger than bodies, etc... and mind knows its dreaming, then obviously mind is going to start being able to "control" what dream content there is, what happens, and what does not happen.

"Yet this world is ONLY in the mind of its maker, along with his REAL salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing WHERE it is, ***will you gain control over it***. For you DO have control over your mind, for the mind is the mechanism of decision."

This suggests to me that in fact the workbook lesson "my self is ruler of the universe" where "what happens is what i desire" is not merely suggesting that we live in an objective world where we are "okay with" whatever happens, but that in fact LITERALLY we actually CAUSE EVENTS TO HAPPEN. That we begin to orchestrate the dream, consciously. Perhaps we can call it "lucid dreaming" in a sense. Indeed the mind certainly seems to have an INFLUENCE.

What this suggests then is this quite profound idea.... As you awaken more, your mind becomes more powerful. It becomes more causal, or more focused or "in control" of more DELIBERATELY CHOOSING. And this results in actual effects. It causes the dream to change. Your mind actually dreams of a different world. Not simply that you dream of the same world in a different way, or interpret the world differently, but that you PRODUCE a different world. The so-called "physical world" literally turns into a different configuration.

This would mean that the mind actually has the power to change the dream world directly, to manipulate events, to cause objects to show up and disappear, to have power OVER matter, to quite literally manipulate the world through direct effects. This would mean that, for example, for a person of enough power, they do not merely walk "the world", they walk whichever kind of world they want to emanate.

They literally can cause events, and prevent events. Nothing happens without their consent. They begin to have control over the dream world, over objects, over what transpires and what doesn't. And perhaps they can even literally force death and attack not to happen. They can cause events to steer away from destruction and death. Just as ACIM states that the Holy Spirit can clear a path for you so that you are free from obstacles...

"He will go before you, making straight your path, and leaving in your way no stones to trip on, and no obstacles to bar your way. NOTHING you need will be denied you. ***Not one seeming difficulty but will melt away BEFORE you reach it.*** You need take thought for nothing, careless of everything except the only purpose that you would fulfill. As THAT was given you, so will its fulfillment be. God's guarantee will hold against ALL obstacles, for it rests on certainty, and NOT contingency. IT RESTS ON YOU. And what can be more certain than the Son of God?"

That is quite a radical interpretation of the course because it suggests we don't just "re-perceive" the world in a better way, but that in fact the world literally is OUR DREAM, our mind is literally THE CAUSE of it, and we literally can dream of something else, CAUSING literal physical-seeming things to change. Why would this NOT be the case, when the mind has the power to actually cause bodies to heal, and the dead to resurrect, and mountains to move, and storms to calm? Such a mind can, let's say, ALTER REALITY. And that's quite exciting and interesting. And it means MIRACLES CAN MODIFY DREAM CONTENT DIRECTLY.

Obviously someone would need to become very vigilant about heir mind, very careful NOT to mis-create, very careful not to deliberately cause "bad situations", very careful not to CHOOSE events in which there is suffering etc, and to only induce dream environments which are conducive to healing etc. But this doesn't mean they can't choose anything they want. Imagine that Jesus could manifest any object he wanted out of thin air. Imagine that Jesus could make things multiply out of nowhere, he could turn bodies into other bodies, and could make things disappear. Why not, when he was "ruler of the universe"?

Not a mere passive traveler in a foreign land, but an ACTIVE DREAMER. Indeed, a "miracle worker", someone who can literally transform ANY APPEARANCE into any other, manipulating space and time and matter as if it's something to play with. In which the laws of reality as the world knows it are violated, any there is NOTHING your holiness cannot do.

"There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought."

"But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. "

"The idea for today is a beginning step in dispelling the belief that your thoughts have no effect. Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact."

"There is no point in lamenting the world. There is no point in trying to change the world. It is incapable of change because it is merely an effect. But there is indeed a point in changing your thoughts about the world. Here you are changing the cause. The effects will change automatically."

"Neutral thoughts are impossible because all thoughts have power. They will either make a false world or lead me to the real one. But thoughts cannot be without effects. As the world I see arises from my thinking errors, so will the real world rise before my eyes as I let my errors be corrected."

"Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it."

"I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body AND the power of the mind, by uniting MY will with that of my Creator, which naturally remembered the Soul and its own real purpose."

"Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind. Nobody remains fully aware of it all the time. This is inevitable in this world, because the human being has many things he must do, and cannot engage in constant thought-watching. However, if he hopes to spare himself from fear, there are some things he must realize, and realize them fully, at least some of the time."

"The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will."

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains.

It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it.

People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them."

"My Self is ruler of the universe. ... It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do."