I hear the term "I don't know what anything means" thrown around quite a bit. It leads to this idea that we're meant to 'not know anything' in order to wake up.

I was just reading in the Text last night, Jesus was talking about power. He said knowledge is power, and here he is talking about real knowledge - knowing, direct experience of truth/God, which occurs in Spirit. He spoke of how we still have the power of God but we've denied it and covered it up with all of the things we've taught ourselves (of the ego).

And in that context alone, He goes on to explain that we need to admit that the things we have taught ourselves are not really knowledge - they are things of the ego, and in that sense what we think we know is not really knowing... and so what we think we know, we don't actually KNOW, we just justify and rationalize that it's truth.

We need to let go of THAT.... but, we're only letting go of that ego education so that we can reveal to ourselves the power of God/true knowledge, which we DO know and can know. We need to get back in touch with the power of God (knowledge), and we need to become aware of what we really DO know. It's still in us, just hidden by false knowledge.

The things I think I know, I do not really know, and are not really knowledge. I need to let those go and not depend on them. Then I can become aware again of the presence of real knowledge with God (awareness of love's presence).

Jesus says: "I am the teacher of the ego."

He also says "The ego is the idea of selfishness."

Now, consider this. Your mind is either in a state of sanity or a state of mental illness. When mentally ill, YOUR MIND is "being selfish". It believes in specialness. But when that SAME mind chooses not to be selfish, that mind returns to sanity. The selfishness itself is gone, and the mind remains.

So if the ego is the idea of selfishness, the ego is also the idea of or a label for "the illness" that seems to be occurring when YOU are mentally ill. It is perhaps far more accurate, then, to consider "the ego" to be more of an ATTITUDE, than a THING.

We should not think of the ego even as "the ego", because there is great temptation to label it as a "something" that "is not me" and to then seek to identify with Spirit in an effort to "dis-identify" from "the ego". There is some positive benefit to that "positive separation", but this implies the ego is a distinct something that exists separately from you. This results from putting the ego in a box and not realizing it is coming FROM your mind, and part of your mind is being thrown out in that same box.

The ego is not "separate from you", it has to live within your mind because ideas leave not their source. "The ego" is your bad attitude. It is better to think of it as "your egotism" than "an ego". Or similarly as Jesus says, it is YOU BEING SELFISH. And being not-selfish does not erase your self, nor does it require you to "separate from" the mind that was being selfish. The mind itself is not the problem, its attitude is the problem, and there is temptation to throw out the mind right along with the egotism.

Someone or something needs to learn. Someone or something is taking the course, learning the lessons, pursuing a curriculum. Who or what is learning? In a sense, the self - you, your mind, is the one learning. And this mind is learning "not to be egotistical". So its egotism is coming under scrutiny and it's having to learn to adopt a more loving attitude.

When the mind is believing things which are false, it is believing "in the ego", but moreso, is "believing in something false". This doesn't mean there is now an entirely separate ego "entity" that has come into existence. Or even really what we can label as a "false self".

Your self never becomes false, it is permanently in the sight of God, holy forever. What becomes false is your relationship with reality through the mind and YOUR attempt to block it. And that's more a matter of YOUR attitude and YOUR attempt to change reality into something else. It's still entirely within the realm of your will and your power of decision, as to whether and when you take the curriculum and learn your lessons.

It is YOU that is being educated, and while you are mistaken, you are "being an ego". ie you are ATTEMPTING to be ego. In pure purest most logical condition, "the ego" is really another word for "non existence". It's the logical opposite of existence, reality, truth, life and God. But such an idea literally does no exist, it is nothingness. You cannot go there, you cannot be it. So even in our egotism we HAVE NOT become "a non-existent self", or purely real death. It's literally impossible.

Our egotism is merely the ATTEMPT to, and failure to be, separate. It's our desire and belief and wishful thinking to be something we are not, but in such a way that can never succeed. You can't destroy yourself, and the only way to be purely ego would be to not exist. We attempt to get as close to that as possible, in death, but even that doesn't do it. We can't get outside the bubble of God's all encompassing love.

So what is an ego? It's not really anything. There are just some people who are confused. There are just some people whose minds have taught themselves things which aren't true, and whose minds need correction. And so those minds, although being egotistical and selfish, and seeming to therefore exhibit signs of "the ego", are really just minds in a state of denial and being mistaken. And mistaken minds can be corrected and healed.

So that means our egotism can be healed. Our mistakenness can be forgiven. We can be taught. Our "egoic selves", really a mind having an egocentric attitude, can be adjusted so that the egocentricity is "undone", the distortions of the mind untangled, and the mind restored to a state of accord and wholeness. This essentially means in a way that "our egotism can be converted to holiness".

"Ego", more as a label for "being egotistical", can be undone. And "our ego" is kind of "transformed" along the way BACK to the state of a holy mind that it was in previously. It can become untwisted and untangled. Corrected and healed. Not because the illness is changed into reality, not because the egotism ITSELF is maintained and becomes holy, but because the egotism or illness is just a label for the temporary states we APPEAR to get into when we're mistaken.

If I have mental illness, the illness could be called "ego". But when my mind is healed of the illness, it's not that "the illness" is still an illness but in a healed configuration. The illness is gone, the illusion of egoic stuff is gone, and the mind that "had" the illness is restored to sanity. As "the ego evolves" out of sin into innocence, the ego is simultaneously undone and transcended. IT doesn't become holy as such, we let it go. But "the ego" was always OUR mind's attitude, and our mind is what becomes transformed.

We could try to put all of the ego stuff into a box and label it "the ego" and then try to recognize that our self is really our soul and not the ego. This is sort of true. But this can be a form of bypass because the only thing maintaining the ego is the mind. There is some mind MIXED IN with the egotism.

The mind is "having" an ego, just as it has mental illness but is NOT the mental illness. Mind is not the ego but HAS egotism. When "separating" ourselves off from "the ego", we could risk trying to separate ourselves off from the mind that HAS the ego, causing a further split in the mind. And so this can be another form of disassociation, and another way that "the ego" tries to remove the ego.

This is also why we are responsible for all our choices, all our suffering, and all our mistakes. They are not real sins, but it IS us that is mistaken, not "the ego". Our mistakenness IS just another word for "the ego". Our false beliefs may seem to gather together to form "a sense of separate self" but this is of course an illusion. It can seem like you are letting go of "that self", but the mind that was producing "that self" is not let go. It is healed.

The world plays into this in the same way. The world is a symptom of the presence of mental illness in the mind. "The world is false perception". When the mind is healed, it no longer produces the world of separation. While producing the world, the mind thinks the world exists and it seems to be "a thing", with a label.

But the "healing of the world" or "saving the world" really means saving the mind that was producing the world, from its own selfish egocentricity, so that its dream is a happier dream. The world then appears to transform from hell to a reflection of heaven. Or as Jesus says, it is "translated". And the holy spirit is the "great reinterpreter" of it. A mind that is corrected and healed does not make hell and does not make ego errors, and in this view there "is no ego" because the egotism is gone.

So is Jesus teaching the ego? In a sense yes. He is teaching the mind that is trying to be an ego, that it is not really an ego but a holy mind. The ego, the mistakes, are not taught. They are corrected. Because true learning is correction and undoing, just as to atone is to undo. To truly atone or fix the ego problem, the ego must be undone, meaning the egotism must end, meaning the mind is freed from believing it is "an ego." Thus is "the ego" undone and the condition of the mind changed back to ego-free holiness.

Can the ego wake up? No, because it can't maintain what makes it ego at the same time as experiencing awakening. But the mind can wake up FROM the ego, or rather, FROM attempting to be egocentric. As "your egotism" or "the part of mind trying to be separate" learns not to be separate, the mind that was being ego DOES wake up, but it does not take the egotism with it. It wakes up BECAUSE "the ego" is left behind, ie by recognizing there is no ego within it. We do not "separate from" the ego. We erase it from ourselves so that there is nothing to separate from.

Ultimately there is no ego, and the Holy Spirit knows this. His is the mind that reminds us of our true condition of holiness. The recognition that we are sane and whole and true. And in that holiness there is no selfishness, specialness, or egoic attitude. Only an attitude of love and forgiveness. And a loving forgiving mind is ego-free.

"Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit, the effects of error are TOTALLY non-existent. By steadily and consistently cancelling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT."

For many, ACIM is about self help and doing the lessons and trying to get back to a simplified idea of God/reality. But the scenario of what is happening in this world, why we're here, and what we're returning to, is part of a big picture "story" that I don't really see talked about a whole lot. At least not in fully encompassing terms.

Basically we existed as eternal beings in heaven, God's sons, and he had also created the angels etc... and everything was groovy, and then this separation thing happened, there was "war in heaven", a split, and the descent into "hell" through the making of hierarchies of illusions, levels, dimensions, worlds etc... and we ended up with this physical universe.

And now God has created the Holy Spirit and is sending his angels to guide and support and educate us, to help us to come back home to our heavenly home. Which means... drumroll.. this entire world is like a DEVICE which heaven is using as a mechanism for bringing home all of the lost souls who attempted to war against God. And the whole purpose of this world is for the lessons and learning - the curriculum, which has been set up by God, by which we might learn the truth and return willingly to cooperation with God's will, freely.

When people for example have near-death experiences they go and encounter these situations, where they are having life reviews and meeting with God and talking to spiritual beings and all this stuff, and then being sent back and "its not your time" and so on... script to be fulfilled, lessons to learn etc.... and so you get this overall picture that this world is not just some random world that we're trying to wake up from, and we're not just trying to wake up to an nice sanitary idea of "reality" or "oneness" or "non-duality".

There's way more to this story. And there's an entire foundation for "the fall of man" and how we got into this mess, and realizing that this world IS the mess we made of reality, and how we now need to clean up the mess and go home. And that means that despite all the theories that various people have, despite all the religious beliefs, despite all the concepts of why we are here, the scientific models, bla bla bla, agnostics, atheists, whatever, basically underneath everything it's TRUE that we all descended from heaven, fell in the "tiny mad idea" which really was a huge monstrous idea, are now having go through a special curriculum for salvation, and eventually will be ready to return to God's Kingdom.

So all this sort of Christian-religious stuff about heaven, making hell, believing in sin, suffering, death, illusions, trying to be separate from God, authority problem trying to oppose his will, angels helping us, there being scripts and curriculums, life lessons that are orchestrated before birth, all this stuff, it's all actually quite correct. It's all part of this huge PLAN, the atonement plan. And all because of what went on in heaven, the fall of man, the descent into hell, and the subsequent need for the atonement to correct us and restore us to awareness of love's presence.

But I think we get really out of touch with this a lot in the course community, drifting off into these intellectual models of what the course is about, vague ideas of oneness/reality, somewhat clinical God-less models, and a whole bunch of skepticism about anything not "explicitly" mentioned in the course text. We get rather narrow and start to see things through a kind of "ACIM filter", through which we filter OUT stuff that doesn't seem like it's mentioned in course lingo etc. But if you look all this stuff is in there. It lines up quite significantly with what the bible says albeit that a lot of the bible stuff is somewhat distorted. But it has the basics down.

We are part of a giant classroom, in which the atonement plan/curriculum is playing out. And this is precisely the same atonement plan that is to do with our incarnations, our themes and scripts for our lives, our lessons that we agree to, the mighty companions and angels that help us, spirit guides, the astral plane and other dimensions, and the fact that no matter what anyone in the world believes they are ALL part of this same scenario. We're all in the boat of "wanted to be separate from God" and "made worlds to live in apart form God" and are all in various ways trying to find our way back because that's what God wants.

For some it's more accepted than others. For others they don't even think any of this is true, and fixate on various other explanations for why we exist. For many ACIM is just some nice little tiny behind-closed-doors self-study "course" with very little to do with this huge big story of how we got here.

But we can't change the facts. We're living the curriculum that God established to correct the separation. This world isn't just some scientific experiment. It's not some virtual reality. It's not just a random chaotic environment. It's a school - repurposed from the hell we made, designed to lead *everyone* of *every kind* of civilization back towards the reality of heaven, our true home. There's no way to avoid this fact. We can deny it and believe other things but this is the underlying "framework" that encapsulates this whole world.

God is using this world as a device to bring us back to God. The whole thing. It's one giant school for learning, to lead us back to awareness of love - back to God, back to the Kingdom that we fell from - where we are safe in God, dreaming of exile. This world is the exile. Going home to God is the goal for everyone, regardless of how much they accept it or are aware of it. This is why Jesus calls it "the universal curriculum". Everyone is part of the plan. There are no exceptions. Even people not "doing ACIM". Even the atheists and scientists. Everyone is part of this. "The great awakening".

Everything in the Course makes so much more sense to me now that I see there are MANY INDIVIDUALS in God's creation.

1) Recognizing that you and your BROTHER each have your own mind and your own free will

2) Recognizing that bodies were made to ISOLATE you from your brother

3) Recognizing that healing and miracles take place when you JOIN with your brother

4) Recognizing that what you thought applied only to yourself applies to BOTH of you (golden rule)

5) Recognizing that atonement is chosen be EACH brother individually and you therefore become PART OF the atonement plan to help OTHER brothers

6) Recognizing that miracles are a maximal service you can render A BROTHER, because there are others

7) Recognizing that there is not just one dreamer of the dream and therefore you can wake up while others sleep.

8) Recognizing that you have a self - a soul, which DOES exist, and you DO have a self, and your self IS NOT the ego.

9) Recognizing Holy Relationships - you have to HAVE a brother to have a relationship WITH.

10) Recognizing that YOU have a choice for which you are 100% responsible and to whom nothing happens without your choosing.

So many of the course's teachings RELY on the recognition or multiple brothers. It's got NOTHING to do with the illusion of multiplicity of egos or the separation of bodies. Every teaching becomes FAR clearer and makes much more sense when it very naturally acknowledges that OTHER PEOPLE have their own soul, mind, will, freedom, choice, path, awakening, atonement, lessons, etc.

How we ever could have taken on board the idea of us all being just one big blob with multiple personality disorder is quite bizarre really, and we did it in the name of thinking this was more spiritual.

Recognize this. The body was made to have permanently false perception. To be permanently unforgiving. It is absolutely incapable of ever forgiving anything. All it can do is sense what it detects seemingly in the world, and report it back as REAL. It cannot question it. It cannot rise above the battlefield. It will NEVER see reality. It cannot get even the slightest glimpse of real light or real truth It is permanently fixated on the physical form of objects, utterly blinded by them and incapable of seeing past them. It takes the form of objects as utter reality and meaning. It is completely convinced by the hierarchy of illusions, orders of difficulty, levels of problems and all manner of suffering. And to the body, every difference or change is real.

Every sickness appears utterly real to its senses. Every death is seen as undeniable proof of termination. It is tempted by literally everything it looks up or senses. It has never made even the slightest progress towards forgiveness, and it never will. It cannot step out of hell, it cannot wake up, it cannot even begin to suspect there is another reality, and it will not ever look upon God. What was made in vegas stays in vegas, and the body is MADE OF unreality.

This is just what the body is. It is a limited piece of biological machinery designed to deceive. It has one specific function of turning illusions into reality. It is an embodiment of the belief that separation is possible, and implements that belief. "The body is the idea of sin made flesh".

It is a reality inverter. It absolutely shuts out all trace of reality and light and truth and God, and only allows illusions and unreality and falsehoods to pass through its filters. And as false things pass through its filters, it regards them as the whole truth. What is false is seen as true, what is unreal is seen as real, and what is evil is seen as holy. This is because it was in an attempt to swap all the properties of what is true with what is false.

The body is a polarizer. It takes what is not true and makes it seem true. It takes what is true and makes it seem false. It denies God's Kingdom of heaven and opens itself up to hell. It makes itself "invulnerable" to eternal life and makes itself vulnerable to death. It is the very idea of exposure to death and to hell, to murder and sin, to suffering and fear. It is the inside-out expression of the desire to be unnatural and uncreated.

The body is always going to be like this. You can change the purpose that you use it FOR, but you cannot change its nature. You cannot make the body see reality, or wake up, or know what's true, or discern facts from fiction. The body is limited. It was made TO limit and to remain limited forever. It is the "lens" through which hell is looked upon and regarded as real, and not for a single second will any body EVER gain access to the light of reality.

The body ALWAYS sees with UNFORGIVENESS. It is absolutely locked into false perception. It constantly makes all unreal things real to itself. It cannot forgive, overlook, see past, recognize, correctly judge, discern, or recognize anything. It is blind to reality, and sees only unrealities.

And because the body itself is made of that same unreality, an unreality seeing an unreality registers as "truth". The body thinks an unreal world is true because unreality is the body's truth. Two negatives seem to make a positive. It does not see the world as opposite to its own nature, and so regards it with agreement. Even though both the body and the world are false. And this makes it utterly biased toward always regarding unreality as real.

The body will not ever show you God. The body will not allow you to be with God. The body will not bridge the gap to God. The body cannot open your mind. The body will never ever see the light of truth, or the real world, or heaven. The body cannot have visions of God or Christ. The body will never see Christ in your brothers. It is NOT CAPABLE. And it will always be incapable. And it cannot love.

The body is only what it is. It was made to confine and to limit and to imprison. You cannot use a prison to experience freedom from prisons. You cannot use handcuffs to know what it's like to be unlimited. You will not EVER turn the body into an awakened being, or get it to look upon reality, or make it able to forgive anything whatsoever. It cannot even BEGIN to forgive because it is absolutely PERMANENTLY HARDWIRED into hell.

There must be a better way, yes? There must be ANOTHER WAY TO SEE. There must be some way that your MIND can choose away from the body and experience without it. A way to escape from hell. There has to be freedom FROM the body. "Do you want freedom of the body, or of the mind? For both you cannot have." If you want your mind to be free, it has to be free FROM the body. The body itself cannot be free because the body IS imprisonment. And there's no point polishing a turd.

We have to then learn to recognize the body for what it is and what it is not. The body is a JUDGER and a condemner. It is an accuser. It cannot stop judging sin to be real. It cannot stop testifying to the proof of sin. The body is utterly selfish. The body is so locked into unreality that the ego actually sees the body as its ally, something it is in "agreement with", because both the body and the ego identify hell as reality. That's why the body became the ego's "chosen home."

As Jesus says, we have to leave the desert. The body has to be transcended and the mind has to open up to ANOTHER WORLD, another vista, through another sight, which does not depend on the body at all. It has to get out of the box and step out of limitation. And if you are going to forgive at all, it CANNOT be that the body forgives. Your mind has to overlook what the body shows it and recognize it as false. Only if all of hell is false can heaven be true.

"Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body's eyes at all. The mind is its only source."

Picture yourself in the spiritual realm (non physical world) standing at a console where you are planning your next lifetime.

You look at possible life events in a brochure which precicely and specifically tells you exactly what will happen and what the results of this will be.

You find one you don't like the look of, some tragedy or a sickness or a guilt trip, and you almost want to skip past it. But then you take a look at the list of benefits that arise from the experience.

These include an increased ability to love yourself, an enhanced sense of compassion for others, a greater awareness of who you really are, the opportunity to help others to learn how to care more, and perhaps an increased sense of joy once you finally learn to let go of the experience.

You weigh up your options. You say, well, the experience sounds like it SUCKS, but the payoff is huge. So then you say, well, what's there to lose, since I'm immortal spirit and can't really be hurt.

From that vantage point, you decide that the benefits are worth the hassle, so you say yep, sign me up. I'll go on that trip.

Then you incarnate, and so it unfolds. And you forget you chose it. And then it happens and you think it sucks, which it does. But then you start to learn the benefits of the experience and move past it, and you gain great spiritual rewards from it.

Later, looking back, you acknowledge yes, I got exactly what I wanted, I came away with a gift and I am much richer for it. I'm more aware now and I am closer to God. I am grateful.

Then you pick up the brochure again and go on another trip, and another, and another, until you pretty much run out of benefits that you can gain from it. You pick your last trip, knowing that it's the final one and that you just need to clean up some loose ends.

Off you go. It all happens. You wake up and receive the gift of reunion with God. And it's all been worth it.

Here's another angle on the problem of regarding ACIM as "non-duality."

In ACIM we're told that God is a creator, and has created sons. You are one of those sons, which means you are a child of God. It means God is your parent. God is the CAUSE of you, and you are an EFFECT. In the separation from God, or "fall of man", there was a rebellion against God being your parent. The sons of God rejected God's causation of them and wanted to reinvent/create themselves.

They developed a problem with God's authority. The wanted to have power over God and to be his equal, instead of being his child. They did not want to be secondary creations, they wanted to be primary. They did not want to be an effect of him, they wanted to be "free from his influence".

This then led to the making of a world of bodies and egos where we would try to reinvent ourselves and deifne what we are, without God. But this means that in order to wake up to reality, to become "one with God", to experience oneness and truth, you have to actually return to a role and function where you are SECOND to God.

It is not about returning to being first, or primary, or God's equal, or having the same function as God. It is not about you going to the top of the mountain and having nothing above you.

In order to get out of hell you have to undo your problem with authority. You can only have a problem with authority if in truth you actually are BELOW God and God is GREATER than you, so that there might be grounds for wanting to overthrow his authority over you.

"recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER."

If you subscribe to a non-duality idea of reality, where you claim to return to oneness, where you claim to be God, where you see yourself as not a fully-created separate being or a "child of God", and where you do not acknowledge God as your father, you are missing a HUGE portion of ACIM's teaching.

ACIM doesn't teach that you are going to just become the oneness and be God and rule reality. It says that you need to accept God as your source, receive your inheritance from him, that you are only what HE has created you to be, that your only function is to EXTEND him, and that you will forever be an EFFECT of him.

This idea of being an effect of God, second to God, is absolutely core in ACIM's metaphysics. There MUST BE a created second being, a child of God, a son of God, in order for there to have ever been a separation ie authority problem in the first place. There could be no rebellion without you being LESS than God, in a sense.

So non-duality doesn't usually accomodate this. Nor does traditional ideas of "its all oneness". It doesn't usually acknowledge that God has created anything, that he has children, that YOU have a parent, or that there is something BIGGER AND GREATER THAN YOU.

But ACIM is telling you that the only way for you to find salvation and return to reality is to accept that God is your father, NOT your equal. You cannot regain your inheritance without accepting that you inherited it FROM God BECAUSE he is your parent. And you cannot resume your role and function in reality as co-creator without acknowledging that God is the FIRST CAUSE and you are SECOND. You are a CO-CREATOR not the PRIMARY creator. God came first.

"Think not HE wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him."

Since for example in Adviata non-duality usually means "there is no second", it is TOTALLY incompatible with ACIM's teaching. It does not acknowledge God having a child, or of you BEING a child. OR that your ultimate role and maximal experience of reality is going to entail you being what SOMEONE ELSE wants you to be. That you are AS GOD created you to be, not what "you chose".

It thus requires humility to accept that God is greater than you and that in ultimate reality you are going to return to a position in which you are NOT FIRST, you are not the prime creator, you are not the all-encompassing source of reality, and you DO NOT MAKE THE RULES.

Non-duality rarely suggests any compatibility with this idea of being a CHILD of God, or of there being any grounds for an authority problem, or a necessity for its undoing. Usually it points to the dissolution of your self, the erasing of God's CHILD, and some kind of lofty return to you being "only God". As if you are the oneness and you are the ultimate. YOU ARE NOT!!!!

God is first, you are second. That is what acceptance of the atonement means. God is your father and he is greater than you, and you're going to have to "suck it up" and accept it instead of wanting to be the central figure and star of the show. You are a secondary being. Not less than God but also not greater, and not equal. You are not equal to ultimate reality. You are a part within it.

To recognize this is to recognize that ACIM cannot be non-duality because it has to accommodate SONS OF GOD in order to accommodate the authority problem AND its proper undoing. You cannot wake up to reality without accepting that you are AN EFFECT of a creator other than yourself, that you did not create yourself, that you are not "God" in this sense, and that your function is to PASS ON what you have RECEIVED from him.

"The extension of God's Being is the Soul's only function."

What you are is given by God and decided by God. You will have to be willing to accept there is a creator GREATER THAN YOU if you want to experience the truth. As such non-duality is generally speaking a problem with the authority of God, because it positions you AS God or AS his equal, and this is inappropriate. It suggests even in some cases that God is dreaming and making death. To say "I am God" is the arrogance of the ego.

Unless you can accept that reality contains you as a second-level creation, you are not listening to what A Course in Miracles is saying. And you are then missing out on the beautiful relaltionship which comes from the recognition that you HAVE A REAL PARENT. Someone who is in fact literally protecting you always, is maintaining you forever, and is making sure that your innocence is permanently guaranteed FOR you. This is not all about "me me me" self-centered non-dualtiy "I will be God" garbage.

"There is no world. This is the central lesson the course would attempt to teach."

You may not realize what this implies. But consider this.

It means that this entire world, planet Earth, its surrounding environment, the sun, all the stars and galaxies, which you made, you are dreaming of. And that means none of them really exist.

It means the entire history of the human civilization is fiction. It means there is no planet. It means your body is an illusion. It means that everything you think exists in the world is absolutely and literally nothingness.

Essentially, there is not really a dream. And everything that seems to be in the dream is not really anything at all. There is NOTHING HAPPENING. There is NOTHING HERE.

This is the proper use of denial. The recognition that what is false is false, what is true is true. What is illusion is not real. And death itself is something you made up.

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

The trees are not really there. The cars are not really there. The houses are not really there. The planet is not really there. It's all a huge giant dream. Dreams do not carry over when you wake up from them, because they depend entirely on you being unconscious. Dreams require you to be asleep, ie in denial of reality, so that you can imagine something UNLIKE reality. Whatever you make up in the dream simply stops being MADE when you wake up from dreaming. It switches off.

This is why this is such a huge, immensely radical and totally amazing lesson to learn. It means you cannot be fully awake while maintaining a dream body. "The body is a dream". "The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist." This is literally factually true. The body IS NOTHING. There is no real body. There is no world here.

That's how much of an illusion this world is. And this is why it's such a challenge to come to really believe and recognize this truth, as the culmination of the entire curriculum. It means you have to learn not to be deceived by ANYTHING you see or sense. It means you have to realize all your body senses were made to NOT KNOW reality. It means you have to realize everything you THINK exists, is happening, or has ever happened in this world, IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Nothing but an illusion. Nothing but a dream. A fantasy fairytale imagined universe in which NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS.

No-one is ever really sick. There is no real death. You made it up. You are an immortal spirit being who God has established as permanently real and perfect forever, who cannot change nor can you change what you are. You are temporarily in denial, wanting to believe that this isn't true, and in your denial you are trying to block awareness of the truth by dreaming of a UNIVERSE in which all manner of other stuff seems true and real. And none of it is.

Literally, ONLY the Kingdom of God is real. This world you made is NOT real, whatsoever. ONLY God's world is real. The world you made is total fiction, illusion, unreality, nothing. Literally NOTHING. Made of nothingness.

"The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."

That means you're here sitting there reading this crap thinking this is all real and happening, that even this message is happening, and it is not really happening.

"The world you made is an illusion of a world, God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as himself."

Nothing in this world is eternal. Nothing. It is all temporary, fleeting, transitioning, changing, illusory. That's WHY it's an illusion. Miracles demonstrate that illusions ARE illusions because they CAN be changed. Anything that changes is not real. Nothing real can be threatened or changed. Anything that ever seemed to change or be affected or hurt was not real. Nothing real can be attacked ever. You are reality. You are the Son of God. You are immortal. You cannot be hurt. Pretending that you can is futile nonsense.

You cannot even die. You can confuse yourself with things that do. You can pretend to go through it. But it has NO EFFECT on who you really are. It does not even touch your spirit at all. It is totally immaterial, inconsequential. You made up death in your denial of the fact that you are immortal and have eternal life. You are PRETENDING you can suffer.

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

You cannot be hurt. But you keep trying to prove it. You cannot die, but you keep trying to prove it. You cannot be attacked in any way, but you keep believing you can and have. This is confusion. You are mistaken. All beliefs in space and time are a mistake. There is no world here. Only God's Kingdom exists. Only the HOLY TRINITY is real.

There is no world. Sums up the entire truth about this realm. All of it is NOTHING. It's not even really here. It's all fiction. Do not believe it. The world is a lie. This isn't being negative about the world. It's factual. The world is not negative or positive. It is NOTHING. The body is not negative or positive. IT IS NOTHING.

"You cannot endow the body with attributes of Christ. Holiness is positive while the body is merely natural." (paraphrase). And when you think of the body and the world being NEUTRAL, you should NOT be thinking of them as being as SOMETHING. THEY ARE NOTHING. Neutrality means it has NO ATTRIBUTES AT ALL. The neutral world is NOT a world. The neutral body is NOT a body. You can't use neutrality to KEEP what does not exist.

We're hanging out on a fake planet interacting with imaginary characters played by sleeping brothers, pretending that things are happening, that we have important stuff to do, that there are places to go and things to see and do, important experiences to be had, magnificent illusions to sense, worlds to explore and accomplishments to be made. THERE IS NOTHING HERE. This is why ultimately "I need do nothing" - an atonement-level thought, in recognition of the fact that there is literally NO WORLD and NO SEPARATION and NO ILLUSIONS and therefore nothing has happened and there's nothing to do about it.

It's kind of like, you live in Heaven, but you're temporarily on a vacation to a fake imaginary planet Earth, and you're hanging out there for a LONG time, and kind of forgot to go back home. But some day you will go back home and leave this world, and never come back.

Here are some very interesting passages from the section about "The Mind of the Atonement" plus a few others. It's talking about God creating the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit is FOR.

Do not underestimate or disregard what GOD HAS DONE! Do not throw away the opportunity for healing that the Holy Spirit represents and provides! GOD HAS GIVEN YOU HELP!

It is clear that God created the Holy Spirit as HIS ANSWER to the separation, and is the MEANS BY WHICH the separation will be healed. He does not need YOUR answer to the separation.

"****Resign NOW as your own teachers.**** THIS resignation will NOT lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourselves, and of the learning outcomes which have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, ****which you can neither provide nor understand****, you will become excellent learners AND teachers."

What this means is, you need to "resign as your own teacher" and stop trying to wake up by yourself. GOD HIMSELF has created the MEANS by which you will wake up to reality. That means is the Holy Spirit. The means IS NOT YOUR EGO.

We are asked to LISTEN TO HIM, and to LET HIM help us. In fact, we're even told that we should not attempt to forgive AT ALL without first asking for his help. And secondly that his FUNCTION is to FORGIVE US, which means, to bless us with HEALING, AND to remove our fear and hatred FOR us, AND to undo all the consequences of our wrong decisions FOR US.

That's a whole lot of HELP coming from the Holy Spirit to correct the separation, heal the mind, and undo the ego. That means that OUR PROPER ROLE as students, is to LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION by asking him for help, letting him literally HEAL US, and allowing him to change our mind FOR us.

This is radically different than the typical ego approach which entails everyone running around like headless chickens trying to convince themselves that a bunch of concepts are true. Our own individual efforts to HEAL OURSELVES WITHOUT HIM, are egocentric and arrogant. You are shit at waking yourself up!

God himself has GIVEN US the help that we need. The Holy Spirit has the power, the ability, the wisdom, the knowledge, the holiness, the innocence, the perception, the clarity and awareness, TO BE of help to us, to give us the help that we need.

We are NOT supposed to be doing this course alone or without him. We are supposed to be making FULL USE OF HIM, as intended by God. And when we don't do that, we are depriving him of his function and are saying "no thanks" to God.

We must ask the Holy Spirit to HELP US to see everything in a better light, in a more forgiving way, and LET HIM actually MODIFY our mind and perception for us, so that we then in fact start to see with Christ Vision. Not as something we go out independently and try to manufacture, but as something he is there to install in us, to BLESS US WITH.

The holy spirit is our healer, our therapist, our comforter, our friend. We should rely on him for our entire awakening process instead of all this "self help - self study" bullshit. Are you done with going it alone and trying to do this all yourself? Can you save yourself like God can?

You are choosing a GUIDE FOR HELP, and if you choose the EGO as your guide you will reject the Holy Spirit's help in fear and arrogance and try to do it all yourself. When you choose the Holy Spirit to be your guide to awakening, your awakening will accelerate and skyrocket in ways you had never dreamed of.

"The Holy Spirit, the shared Inspiration of all the Sonship, ****induces a kind of perception**** in which many elements are like those in the Kingdom of Heaven Itself."

"****The Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION**** for miracle-mindedness. ****It is the will to HEAL the separation**** by letting it go. It is IN you because God placed it in your mind, and although you can keep it asleep you cannot obliterate it. *****God Himself keeps it alive by transmitting it from His Mind to yours as long as there is time.****"

"The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Joy. ****It is the call to return****, with which God blessed the minds of the separated Sons."

"The Holy Spirit was ****God's answer to the separation, the means**** by which the Atonement could repair until the whole mind returned to creating."

"When man made the ego, God placed in him ***the call of joy. This call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at its sound.****"

"That is why you can choose to listen to two voices within you. One you made yourself, and that one is not of God. ****But the other is given you by God, Who asks you only to listen to it****. The Holy Spirit IS in you in a very literal sense. It is the voice that calls you back to where you were before and will be again."

"********Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function.******** Your part is ***only*** to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to ****LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven.**** On your little faith, joined with HIS understanding, HE will build your part in the Atonement, and MAKE SURE that you fulfill it easily. And ***WITH Him***, YOU will build a ladder planted in the solid rock of faith, and rising even to Heaven. Nor will you use it to ascend to Heaven alone."

"I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace. I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise. I WILL to decide otherwise, because I WANT to be at peace. I do NOT feel guilty, because ****the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.**** ****I WILL to let Him**** by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

"All therapy is release from the past. And that is why ****the Holy Spirit IS the only therapist.**** HE TEACHES THAT THE PAST DOES NOT EXIST, a fact which belongs to the sphere of knowledge, and which therefore ****NO-ONE IN THE WORLD KNOWS.****"

"****The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist.**** He makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which He is the guide. The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. ****He needs no help for this.**** ****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. Remember that you ARE choosing a guide for helping, and the wrong choice will NOT help. But remember also that THE RIGHT ONE WILL. ****Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God.****"

There are two distinct aspects to creation. One is God's own Self which is complete, the other is God's creation or the exending/projecting outward of God. This extension is referred to as Christ or the Sonship or Kingdom.

Now, we're told that it is the Son who is dreaming, not God. We're also told that God does not believe in or acknowledge the dream, otherwise God would have become insane and there'd be no God to go back to. How is this possible?

Technically speaking, if everything is one and there is only God, then God is responsible for the dreaming of the cocacola delivery truck which just drove past my window. And he is responsible for babies seeming to die. And he's responsible for war. Can God conceive of war, even in a dream?

There's a bit of a problem there, because the course says "never was love in the world", ie, God did not "enter into" the dream. Jesus is also quite clear that while the dream never truly happened in terms of reality, the IDEA of it happening did happen. Can God have an idea of being separate? Is he even capable of that? What would happen if he were capable of that? Who is going to get God OUT of the dreaming state and wake Him up, if God Himself is asleep?

This is why God created the Holy Spirit to "do his dirty work" so to speak. To awaken His son from sleep, cooperatively.

What this all boils down to is this. If God is not part of the dream or dreaming, there ABSOLUTELY MUST be some kind of "distinction" or "separation" between what is God and what is the Son. The Son's mistaken use of will does not affect the father. The son can't cause the father. So that means the Son effectively has free will. COMPLETELY FREE will. It means if the Son chooses to try to will against God, although it in truth impossible, He can still imagine it happening, without God's "approval" so to speak.

Jesus describes mind (of souls) as having two potential functions. One is creation - which uses mind as a medium to Create along the same lines as God, AND He uses the term "co-create" several times. The other is the POTENTIAL of mind to PROJECT, which means it actually has the freedom to ELECT whether or not it will will with God or not. He even says that the fallen angels are "free to establish their kingdom wherever they choose". ie God isn't going to force them to comply with His will anytime soon.

This is ALSO why, the curriculum is mandatory and REQUIRED, BUT... you can elect WHEN to take it. You can postpone it, ignore it, choose away from it, and decide not to learn it right now. How is that possible, if God's will is somehow forcing you to act a certain way or make certain choices? And how is it possible that "love does not enter where it is not welcome", meaning that if YOU elect to do so, you are able to make love not welcome?

Basically, long story short, God does not WILL that there be death, God does not will suffering, God does not will war or conflict, God does not even will any kind of dream. In fact God wills that you WAKE UP from dreaming, and that's why He created the Holy Spirit to facilitate that. And this is why you also have to give your WILLINGNESS - your little willingness - in order to CO-OPERATE with God's Will for you.

There absolutely definitely IS a distinction between the freedom of God's will, and the freedom of your own will. Will does not coerce or force you. While you are an effect of God, you are not his slave. You are not created to "have to" do anything you do not choose to do.

The ONLY WAY that God cannot be the one who dreams, is by having given you ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY FREE WILL. As in... practically the same thing as saying you are SEPARATE. Absolute complete freedom. If you did not have absolute total autonomous freedom to decide for yourself, dreaming would be impossible and if dreaming were happening God would die.

This is why A Course in Miracles is not well represented by thinking of it as a teaching of conceptual "oneness" ie singularity, or as a teaching of "non-duality". Non-duality completely ignores the FREEDOM with which God creates, and the total freedom He GIVES to his creations. As the course says itself

"How wonderful it is to do your will! For that IS freedom. There is nothing else that ever should be called by freedom’s name. Unless you do your will, you are not free. And would God leave His Son without what he has chosen for himself? God but ensured that you would never lose your will, when He gave you His perfect Answer."

"The mind can be right or wrong, depending on the voice to which it listens. "

"Souls were given their own true authorship, and men preferred to remain anonymous when they chose to separate themselves FROM their Author."

"Peace is a natural heritage of the Soul. Everyone is free to refuse to accept his inheritance, but he is NOT free to establish what his inheritance IS."

"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy. Nothing that is real can be increased EXCEPT by sharing it. That is why God Himself created you. Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what creation MEANS."