"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."

The Holy Spirit is a real spirit from God that has unlimited power. He can heal anything. He can undo anything. He can also move mountains. There is nothing he cannot do. The Holy Spirit is with you and would like for you to develop trust in him, to the point where you might be willing to allow him to enter you and help you on a practical, experiential level.

It is a matter of willingness, trust, letting go, surrendering your ego attempts to fight with everything, and allowing the Holy Spirit to come into you. He is invited every time you show at least some willingness to move in the direction of atonement and forgiveness. But without your "permission" or your knowing that it's safe to allow Him to help you in a supernatural way, He will not take those measures because He knows that you might be frightened.

I was having a period of time that was very difficult emotionally and kept turning to the Holy Spirit to help me to forgive and to let go. In heated moments of tremendous emotional upset I started to say over and over again, "I surrender". Or, "I let go". I would say it repeatedly many times, and would start to experience a sense of relief. Because if there's one thing the ego does is it controls, holds on, attaches, clings, manipulates, bears grudges, resists, fights, and tries to dig in its heels. By surrendering willingly, you cut right to the core and drop the ego activities quickly.

I did this many weeks, often at night before falling asleep. And each time I would ask the Holy Spirit to help me to forgive and let go. I know he helped me with thoughts and insights and so on. But what was more important, was that over time, each time I went and surrendered, he often would start to remind me to surrender. He would say "relax" or "let me". And so I would relax, physically, because when you relax the body physically it also is a sign that you are willing to receive. Physical tension can be a sign of active resistance. So I would physically relax and let go and just focus on surrendering over and over and over.

And as it turns out, this gradually developed to where my surrendering of ego was, in a way, also an opening up to or surrendering to the Holy Spirit. I was moving away from ego, towards Him. And in surrendering, as you let go, you become more allowing, more trusting, more willing to step aside, more open to receiving love and support and help. And so I developed trust in the Holy Spirit, to the point where I would start to ask Him, willingly, but tentatively at first, to "come into me and heal me". To help me to heal. And in fact, I started to experience things happening.

At first it would be that my hands would shake, involuntarily. Or maybe my feet. And I didn't really know what this was "doing" but I learned that it was a side effect of whatever He was doing. And so I gradually learned to let go more and more and trust Him more, that He knows what He's doing. Over time this increased and the vibrational, spiritual, supernatural healing intensified and became more effective, stronger and more powerful. My whole body would shake and vibrate in ways that I cannot re-enact. And after this period of activity, actual emotional energy would have been significantly reduced, maybe even removed completely, resulting in me laughing, without having to go through the normal processes to release it.

This also escalated through further trust and willingness to allow Him to help me to heal with physical maladies, pains, symptoms and effects in the body. He is just as capable. If I am willing, and not afraid, and trust, and open myself up, I can let Him heal sickness of all kinds. I'm not quite to the point of trust yet where I can let something just disappear instantly but I'm working towards it, continuing to deeper my trust and openness to allowing the Holy Spirit to work miracles through me. And it also has been starting to extend to others.

I say all this not to brag and ONLY to ENCOURAGE that any and everyone try this for themselves if you have not done so already. I have no idea how people relate to the Holy Spirit but I do know that until I invited him to come into my "body" and "do whatever he wants", all of this supernatural healing was not happening. He wasn't seemingly "removing all the consequences" for me, and only through surrender and trust did I start to be WILLING to allow him to actually remove all consequences, emotional or physical or otherwise, FOR ME, through no effort of my own.

Before, I thought I had to do all the correcting and undoing on my own, which was my ego trying to do the course by itself. If you have never experienced the Holy Spirit actively DOING SOMETHING, in ways that have manifestations that you can SEE and FEEL, then you are in for a surprise. There is literally nothing He cannot do if you will let him. He frequently says to me, when I am tempted to solve or fix something myself, "let me", I stop and allow, and immediately he shakes me all over the place (side effects) as he proceeds to heal it for me. I don't have to do anything but allow and try to not interfere, and stay relaxed.

Have a go, if you have time. Spend time time each day surrendering and letting go, feel the relief, open up to allow and trust and invite the Holy Spirit to work in and through you. Put aside fear of "disembodied spirit doing stuff"... you have to learn to trust past that. Spirit is perfectly capable of doing ANYTHING, it's only a matter of how much we are willing to get out of the way and LET HIM. If you develop this trust far enough there is no miracle you cannot perform, nothing you cannot heal and no limits to what He can do through you for others. I've already started to allow Him to heal others through me, and he is quite effective.

In ACIM, there is no real devil. However, he does describe our BELIEF in the separation, or the denial of God, as "the devil". It's like putting a label on our authority problem. Since "the ego is part of your belief about yourself", and its a belief in something opposite to God and Christ, the BELIEF can be said to be "evil". It's a belief IN evil, or an attempt to be "anti-christ".

"An idol is a false impression, or a false belief; some form of anti-Christ which constitutes a gap BETWEEN the Christ and what you see."

"All forms of anti-Christ oppose the Christ. And fall before His Face like a dark veil which SEEMS to shut you off from Him, alone in darkness."

"This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

"For anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those who dream the world is real."

"And you ask help of Christ or anti-Christ, and which you choose WILL join with you, and tell you what to do." Someone whose mind believes in separation from God, or who denies God, or who wants to overthrow the Kingdom, or who tries to attack the unattackable immortality of God, is in effect trying to be evil. They are becoming "a devil", or have a devilish attitude. This attitude is destructive instead of creative, and it also holds within it all the perspectives and behaviors that we might describe as "evil" in the world.

"The mind can make the belief in Separation VERY real and VERY fearful. And this belief IS the devil. It is powerful, active, destructive, and clearly in opposition to God, because it literally denies His Fatherhood. Never underestimate the power of this denial. Look at your lives and see what the devil has made. But KNOW that this making will surely dissolve in the light of truth, because its foundation IS a lie."

So Jesus is saying that our belief in separation from God, in sin, in death, in illusions, in sickness, in bodies etc, which is really our mental illness ie insanity, is "the devil". Another way of saying that is our egotism is the devil. The ego isn't really a real entity either, any more than the devil is. If you are being egotistical, ie "the ego is the idea of selfishness", which includes beliefs in specialness and so on, then you are effectively TRYING TO be evil. This means you're trying to change yourself from christ into the anti-christ.

"Accept atonement with an open mind which cherishes no lingering belief that you have made a devil of God's Son." "Behold him now whom you had seen as merely flesh and bone, and recognize that Christ has come to you. Today's idea is your safe escape from anger and from fear. Be sure you use it instantly, should you be tempted to attack a brother and perceive in him the symbol of your fear. And you will see him suddenly transformed from enemy to Savior; from the devil into Christ."

In effect, if we deny God and reality, we attempt to turn ourselves into devils. We are trying to oppose the Kingdom, to oppose life, to oppose the truth. The word we'd properly use for that is "evil". But evil isn't REAL, in the big picture. It's a mistaken sense of what is real. It's really a state of insanity in which that which is true is swapped with that which is false. The attributes of nothingness are assigned to God, while life's attributes are assigned to death. Hell is thought to be heaven, and heaven is hell.

This also gives rise to what you might call satanism ie a kind of rebellious attitude against God, which wants nothing to do with God. A system of thought which is seemingly unholy and dark and destructive and vengeful etc. A way of believing that is distorted and sick, giving rise to inhumane and insane ways of relating to others. Ways which you might call evil, or unnatural.

But such minds which seem to be "hell bent" are simply mistaken minds that are mentally ill. They are out of touch with reality. And these are the minds of christs, sons of God, who temporarily believe they are not themselves. You can see here Jesus talking about the devil ... ie our belief in hell and separation and death, in terms somewhat similar to those laid out in christianity.

"The devil is a frightening concept ONLY because he is thought of as extremely powerful and extremely active. He is perceived as a force in combat with God, battling Him for possession of Souls. He deceives by lies, and builds kingdoms of his own, in which everything is in direct opposition to God. Yet, he ATTRACTS men rather than repels them, and they are perceived as willing to "sell" him their Souls in return for gifts they KNOW are of no real worth at all."

All of these aspects are in fact metaphysically sound and in keeping with ACIM's principles. Devilishness is an attempt to oppose God, to use the power of the mind to actively being in combat with God. This produces "the ego" mindset or belief system in which everything unreal and untrue attempts to TEMPT you to believe it is real and true. And thus temptation is part of the evil, just as the belief in sin is.

This "evil" tries to keep you in hell by tempting you to believe it is heaven, ie reality, and that you want it. And therefore it tries to offer you to gain the whole world and thus lose track of your soul. In being unaware of or not remembering who you really are, in insanity, you then "lose your soul". Of course, souls cannot really be lost.

This egotism is a lie, just as the very notion of evil or ego or devil is al ie. They are NOT real, or even possible. But you can BELIEVE things which are false and this believing IS "the devil at work". It is even said for example that if a person is "a sinner", ie is indulging in some kind of unholy belief or action, then this gives "the devil" permission to enter that person and manipulate them.

This is a rather ... storytelling take.... on a simple principle. ie if you BELIEVE sin is real, then you are "being a sinner", and this makes your mind seem unholy, which means you believe in and WANT destructive beliefs. And that means you see yourself as sinful, therefore deserving of punishment and suffering. And indeed this is an invitation to insanity, which could be easily blamed for a whole host of bizarre behaviors which, in less civilized times, would have been likely described as the activities of "demons" or "the devil."

Basically then the devil is your "ego beliefs". It's you being devilish, in your attempts to reject God. It's your way of rebelling by denying reality and moving into insanity. It is indeed a twisted, backwards, self destructive, self harming, suffering-inducing, attacking, seemingly unholy, tormented, dark, hellish nightmare of an experience. Because that's what minds experience when they are out of touch with God.

"Man is capable of this kind of creation, too, being in the image and likeness of his own Creator. Anything else is only his own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the Creations of Light are real."

"Your Father created you Wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."

So when you deny God, you are rejecting his fatherhood, and therefore rebelling against heaven, and are trying to convince yourself that an opposite to holiness is possible. That evil can exist, or that you can attack or kill, or that suffering and death can happen. These are beliefs in sin being real. That punishment is inevitable.

People who believe in such seemingly evil things, are in effect "sinners". But not in the sense that they are REALLY sinners, because they are really just mistaken. Their mental illness is just confusion about who their father is and who they really are. Anyone in touch with the love of christ in them couldn't possibly believe any of this. Jesus does refer to sinners a little.

"The black-draped "sinners," the ego's mournful chorus, plodding so heavily AWAY from life, dragging their chains and marching in the slow procession that honors their grim master, lord of death."

"The magic of the world can SEEM to hide the pain of sin from sinners, and deceive with glitter and with guile. Yet each one knows the cost of sin is death. And so it IS. For sin is a REQUEST for death, a wish to make this world's foundation sure as love, dependable as Heaven, and as strong as God Himself."

"Love is the basis for a world perceived as wholly mad to sinners, who believe theirs is the way to sanity."

"To the world, justice and VENGEANCE are the same, for sinners see justice ONLY as their punishment, perhaps sustained by someone ELSE, but NOT escaped. The laws of sin DEMAND a victim."

"Love is NOT understandable to sinners. BECAUSE they think that justice is SPLIT OFF from love, and stands for something else. And thus is love perceived as weak and vengeance strong."

Being "a sinner" is just a temporary state of being mistaken. And mistakes can be corrected without punishment. This is why sin does not have to be punished, even though the ego/devil would say otherwise.

"We lay aside the arrogance which says that we are sinners, guilty and afraid, ashamed of what we are. And lift our hearts in true humility instead to Him Who has created us immaculate, like to Himself in power and in love."

"Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth."

"No-one is "punished" for sins, and the Sons of God are not sinners."

We are not really sinners, but we BELIEVE we are. And that is our attempt to turn ourselves from Christ into the anti-christ or devil. It is an attempt to make an ego of ourselves, to try to replace the soul. And in this belief system we make a world of hell and attack it and destroy it in attempting to enact the wages of sin. Sins that we think we are guilty of that deserve nothing short of death. This is all a mistaken state of mind and nothing more. A simple

insanity that needs healing. And it also means that in the big picture, THERE IS NO EVIL. There is no ego, and there is no devil. There is no sin and there is no death.

"What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit, the effects of error are TOTALLY non-existent. By steadily and consistently canceling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT."

What we call evil is nothing but the seeming LACK of love, or the seeming absence of light. It's just a distortion of mind. It isn't really dark any more than darkness can make light go away. It's just a lack of light. It's just confusion. Those who seem evil are not really evil, but they may seem that way. They are just mistaken. What they believe is not true. And they do believe they are sinners, which is a call for love and forgiveness.

Each thought system starts with a logical premise, which determines everything that comes from it, which are perfectly logical conclusions. This is true of both God’s creation and the EGO’s world, which are logical outcomes.

The separation from God followed NEAT, LOGICAL steps. The thought system of the ego is run by impeccable logic, just as God’s thought system is. The outcome of each system depends entirely on its logical premise. At the CORE of A Course in Miracle’s metaphysics is PURE LOGIC.

If you can understand the logical premise of each system, and if you can follow the progression of logical conclusions based on that premise - which is IMPECCABLE LOGICAL REASONING, you will correctly understand ALL of the metaphysics of the course. Where everything fits. The TRUTH about the entire separation from God, states of awareness, what is true and false, what is real or unreal, who created what, how the systems MUST function etc.

It is all TOTALLY LOGICAL. If you struggle with logical reasoning you may have difficulty SEEING the logic or following it.

This literally means, that states of mind, states of separation, the making of the body and the world, all of the mechanics of special relationships, sin and death, the nature of the physical universe and its laws, ALL OF IT, is a LOGICAL CONCLUSION. Correctly discerning what the logic IS, HOW it progressed, and WHY that makes SENSE, is the key to accessing the core metaphysics in the course. Once you do this, you can refer to this metaphysics as a cheat-sheet, a reference to TELL YOU, what ANY statement in the course MUST MEAN, where it fits, and what JESUS MEANS. GUARANTEED.

"T-23.II.21. From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. 2 It is because it follows that it seems to be a LOGICAL CONCLUSION; a valid STEP IN ORDERED THOUGHT. 3 The steps to chaos DO FOLLOW NEATLY from their starting point. 4 Each is a different form in the PROGRESSION of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth. 5 Think not one STEP is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. 6 The WHOLE DESCENT FROM HEAVEN LIES IN EACH ONE. 7 And WHERE YOUR THINKING STARTS, THERE MUST IT END."

"The ego's LOGIC is as IMPECCABLE as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."

"The Holy Spirit USES LOGIC as easily and as well AS DOES THE EGO, except that His CONCLUSIONS are not insane. 5 They take a direction EXACTLY OPPOSITE, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. 6 WE HAVE FOLLOWED MUCH OF THE EGO’S LOGIC, and have SEEN ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSIONS. 7 And having seen them, we have realized that they cannot be seen except in illusions, for there alone their seeming CLEARNESS seems to be clearly seen. 8 Let us now turn away from them, and follow the SIMPLE LOGIC BY WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHES the SIMPLE CONCLUSIONS that speak for truth, and only truth."

"The Kingdom is the RESULT OF PREMISES, JUST AS THIS WORLD IS. 2 You may have carried THE EGO’S REASONING TO ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION, which is total confusion about everything. 3 If you really saw this RESULT you could not want it. 4 The only reason you could possibly want any part of it is because you do not see the whole of it. 5 You are willing to look at the ego's PREMISES, but not at THEIR LOGICAL OUTCOME. 6 Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the premises of God? 7 YOUR CREATIONS ARE THE LOGICAL OUTCOME OF HIS PREMISES. 8 His THINKING has established them for you. 9 They are exactly where they belong. 10 They belong in your mind as part of your identification with His, but your state of mind and your recognition of what is in it depend on what you believe about your mind. 11 Whatever these beliefs may be, they are the PREMISES that will determine what you accept into your mind."

"Look calmly at the LOGICAL CONCLUSION of the ego's thought system and judge whether its offering is really what you want, for this is what it offers you. 2 To obtain this you are willing to attack the Divinity of your brothers, and thus lose sight of yours. 3 And you are willing to keep it hidden, to protect an idol you think will save you from the dangers for which it stands, but which do not exist."

"In one sense the ego's fear of God IS AT LEAST LOGICAL, since the idea of Him does dispel the ego."

Ok let's break down this passage and find out what it's saying.

"A miracle is a correction."

Before the correction, your mind is in a state of confusion, darkness ego. You are on a lower rung of the ladder. The correction corrects your mind and raises you up to a higher rung on the ladder. The false belief, mistaken perception, block to awareness, denial etc is "corrected" ie healed, and your mind opens up to some light. This alters your perception indirectly.

"It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false."

Being "like drops of healing rain", miracles are a little bit like detergent or soap for your mind. The correction actually comes from a higher level, e.g. the eyes of christ or through Jesus or Holy Spirit. The miracle shines or blesses or soaks into the "corrupted thought", the illusion, the false belief, the darkness, and "fixes it". Cleans it up. Gets rid of the blockages and dirt in the mind. To remind your mind that illusions are false, it lifts your awareness up towards forgiveness, into the light, where you have the correct perspective ie the state of forgiveness. They heal you so that you can recognize what is true and false rather than being confused. It doesn't have to add anything to do this (other than love which was lacking - "miracles supply a lack" of love/life).

"It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time's limits."

So this takes place in your mind within the range of perception between false and true perception. You start out perceiving and believing falsely and the miracle drips into your mind and heals the error, undoes the blockage or confused belief, and raises the mind up toward the atonement. It can't lift you up any higher than perception will go ie up towards atonement/forgiveness because all they do is essentially "remove ego."

"Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love's awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it gives."

Note that Jesus elsewhere states that "healing is NOT a miracle." Nor are shifts in perception, which are temporary effects. Miracles in fact are like nuggets of light, sparks, impulses, energy, love-power-bubbles, which come down from a higher level and heal the mind, lifting it up and returning it to life ie resurrection. Miracle are the REMEDY, which cause healing and shifting to occur, but miracles are independent of the healing or shifts. They are not the healing itself, they are the "healer" or healing agent. They prepare the mind for being in a state of salvation by gradually erasing all the ego junk and setting you free. They also can be transferred, given, sent, broadcast to others like a little package of life-force, causing resurrection.

"A miracle contains the gift of grace, for it is given and received as one. And thus it illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because it fails entirely to understand its ways."

For miracles to occur, or for you to "do them", you have to GIVE them ie to extend love. You cannot give miracles without receiving them also, and you cannot receive them unless you are willing to give them. Giving miracles to others, ie extending christ love, blesses both of you, and lifts you both up, and benefits both the giver and the receiver simultaneously. When you send love to someone, you will feel invigorated and lightened. You can't love without being loved. Nor can you perform miracles unless you are willing to also be healed. This is the opposite to the world's laws which say that you receive without giving or give without receiving, as in the unhealed healer.

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

This is an important part about body healing. Perception is upside down or backwards, when what is true is mistaken for what is false and vice versa. Levels become confused, and e.g. the lower level is thought to cause the higher, or body causes mind, or world/dream causes the dreamer. This is corrected because the distorted beliefs are undone (victimhood etc) and the mind is healed, thus perception changes as a RESULT of mind healing. Note that what you perceive comes from what you project FIRST, which comes from what you believe and value as true FIRST. Perception has no causal power in it, it's passive, like reading a book. Note that "perception is a RESULT not a cause".

In addition, the "strange distortions that were manifest" includes THE BODY'S PHYSICAL SICKNESS, because an unforgiving mind FORCES the body into sickness and death. The body becomes "distorted" by the mind through kind of "mind-force fields", which act on the body when coming from unloving attitudes and "hurt" the body, distorting it into forms of sickness, away from the body's "natural" blueprint of healthy functioning. When the mind is having upside-down/backwards beliefs/perceptions, it is believing in sin and attack, is projecting onto the body, and is using the body as a weapon. Thus the body becomes sick. As mind is receiving/giving a miracle, mind is healed, the remedy is provided, perception auto-adjusts as a result, AND the "strange distortions that were MANIFEST (visible)" in the body are also corrected. They simply are reversed and disappear because the mind stops holding the body in a twisted formation and lifts away all attack from it, thus healing it and restoring it. "Now is the body healed by miracles."

So moving upwards towards forgiveness, receiving healing, being corrected, having false beliefs undone, moving into the light and love, heals the mind, fixes perception, and then ALWAYS results in the body being healed. Or rather, "un-attacked".

"For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain."

"It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible."

"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. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all."

"Now is the body healed because the source of sickness has been opened to relief."

The miracles don't "do" something to the body so much as they CEASE the ego doings that were attacking it and which were BLOCKING love from shining on the body to heal it. And without constant ego distortion the body image "reverts" to its undistorted form. To me it's kind of like the body has a standard healthy form and then mind "twists, bends, distorts it" making it appear differently (as sickness), but if you remove the distorting/force-fields/mind-bending you're simply left with the healthy body showing up.

"Now is perception open to the truth. Now is forgiveness seen as justified."

Once the miracle has done its healing, mind is corrected so perception is in line with truth and forgiveness is seen as the only sane way to see things. Unforgiveness is what has been undone. Remember "the miracle does nothing. It merely takes away..." (which is kind of a doing) and it removes the distortions... it does appear thus to DO something, it does heal the body as well, it's just that it does it by UNDOING the ego influence and cancelling the evil distortions.

"Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love. "

Here Jesus is kind of shifting gears and is no longer talking about how miracles heal and move you up towards forgiveness, but is now talking about where miracle actually COME FROM - from the top down. e.g. "Miracles are a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers." Being IN forgiveness, having RECEIVED a miracle, and your mind now being CORRECT, YOU now "deliver them" to all you look on and miracles become effortless EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE which have miracle-working capabilities, because love heals and undoes error. You can now bestow miracle onto others from a christ-minded state of love and GIVE the miracles you have received.

Note that this raises the question, who does or where does the miracle come from when you personally are in a state of hell? Apparently you are not able to DO them until you are loving enough and close enough to christ. "Miracles are everyone's right but purification is necessary first." WHO bestows miracles on you when YOU are in the dark? Is it a healing that comes from the Holy Spirit? Does Jesus inject healing into your mind, like he says he does? "I inspire all miracles" etc. Certainly your distorted ego is not a miracle worker, nor is any beginner to the course. Yet you are able to find healing through forgiveness and purification work, most of this purification work is I think NOT a miracle.

"Miracles ENTAIL (require, before beginning to do them), a sudden shift into vertical perception." Vertical perception is christ vision. You have to be pretty advanced in your own mentally healed state in order to be able to DO them. In order to receive them you have to be able to GIVE them. So somehow you have to get yourself "high enough" first, and that takes purification work.

... skipping a couple paragraphs...

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."

Miracles are resurrection devices. They heal the mind and lift it up towards atonement. They literally GIVE LIFE where it was lacking, reversing the signs of death. The natural side effect is the cessation of ego attack, which eliminates the present-moment projection of body distortions and thus immediately heals all sickness and raises the dead. Every miracle increases life. "Miracles mean life, and God is the giver of life". Every miracle is a resurrection. "Miracles raise the level of communication." "Miracles enable you to heal the sick and raise the dead". By giving/receiving loving healing through expression/extension of love, where "miracles are a spark of life", the SPARK or POWER inherent to love is given and blesses and CAN REVERSE DEATH.

The ultimate result of miracles naturally is that there is nothing left TO UNDO, because everything has been healed, and so their PURPOSE comes to an end as the world is undone and all sickness is eliminated and all death cancelled. Before this ending, bodies become healed and now symbolize ONLY LIFE and become incapable of death, because "the mind being sane heal the body." And now the body is used for Christ/Holy Spirit purposes, representing LIFE and HEALING, and is a walking demonstration of miracle mindedness, now able to give the same miracles to others.

In ACIM, Jesus spells out that forgiveness and atonement are the same thing, and so is true perception. These are all a state in which there is recognition, accurate perception, and a forgiving attitude which sees that there is no sin. Or moreso, it is the acknowledgment and re-acceptance of God's truth and the willingness to accept your permanent innocence, as you are in the Kingdom.

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

You can see that Jesus mingles these terms interchangeably. For example, here Jesus mixes forgiveness with true perception as a way of looking:

"Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not."

"But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals."

"This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear."

And here he mixes true perception and atonement, also indicating that a forgiving attitude produces atonement, which means it also produces true perception:

"It is concerned only with Atonement, or the correction of perception. The means of the Atonement is forgiveness."

And here he tells us that complete forgiveness, aka true perception, is a state in which you have let guilt go, and have accepted atonement.

"If what you offer IS complete forgiveness, you MUST have LET GUILT GO, accepting the Atonement for yourself, and learning you ARE guiltless."

And here he refers to atonement as the undoing of errors, which is accomplished by forgiveness, which is ITSELF the state of atonement and true perception.

"The sole responsibility of God's teacher is to accept the Atonement for himself. Atonement means correction, or the undoing of errors."

Also how about this:

"Healing and Atonement are not related; they are identical."

"there are no degrees of Atonement. It is the one complete concept possible in this world, because it is the source of a wholly unified perception."

"Accept Atonement and you are healed. Atonement is the Word of God."

"The offer of Atonement is universal. It is equally applicable to all individuals in all circumstances. And in it is the power to heal all individuals of all forms of sickness."

Here is something to consider which might be controversial. Jesus refers to forgiveness as a means of accomplishing atonement, but also as completely synonymous with the atonement itself. Because complete forgiveness is the atonement is the state you enter with true perception. Which means, by implication, that any state prior to acceptance of atonement is NOT forgiveness.

There is a very widely prevalent myth therefore in the ACIM community that we are to "do forgiveness" in order to reach atonement. But atonement IS forgiveness. So what are we to call that which leads UP TO it? Perhaps a better term which Jesus uses is "purification"

"Miracles are everyone's right (miracle mindedness is also the same thing as atonement and true perception), but purification is necessary first."

Now, we need to look at something a bit deeper. The main pivotal cornerstone of the ego's thought system is SIN. Sin can go one of two ways. If you take sin to be real, forgiveness is not justified, and so you become UNforgiving. Sin becomes a condemnation and attack, and you move into guilt.

But when you go the other way, if you take sin and recognize its unreality, untruth, and non-existence, THAT will put you into the state of forgiveness. And in effect, that means this recognition of "there is no sin" IS the atonement, and IS the basis for true perception or corrected perception. It is a forgiving way of seeing (Christ Vision).

This all "hinges" around sin. Don't forgive it and you move into guilt. Forgive it and you move into the recognition of innocence which is true forgiveness.

"From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away."

But let's take it even further.

There are two thought systems. One is the thought system of God which is Heaven and the Kingdom. Reality is run by this thought system because this is where God actually DOES His thinking, and all creative thought OCCURS there. Thats where the thought system IS.

Then, in contrast, the ego thought system, which opposes God's thought system, can be said to be LOCATED on this side of the idea of separation and sin. On this side, where sin is real, the entire contents of being on this side of the fence is unforgiving.

So what Jesus is asking us to do, really, is to take our mind out of the ENTIRE realm of unforgiveness, ie the entire ego thought system, and put it BACK into the Kingdom. Which means crossing over from the thought system of ego to the thought system of God.

What this means is that the Atonement and the acceptance of it, is an acceptance that God's system of thought is true and real, and it's a way of really regaining access to the Mind of God, to the Kingdom, and to your innocent holy self which resides on the OTHER side of the separation divide. Essentially, in another world.

So when we get into the state of forgiveness, in which there is nothing to forgive because sin is recognized as not existing, and thus no sin is perceived as true, it really means we're re-accessing heaven.

To accept atonement is the ONLY cure and the ONLY way to TRULY undo something. "Only atonement can be said to cure", meaning that only in the moment that you accept the truth about you that is IN HEAVEN, does your mind completely change and is cured and healed of its false beliefs.

Accepting atonement on any particular issue should entail you flipping over from the ego thought system to God's thought system. Going from sin and guilt, to innocence. Going from not accepting God's love, to accepting it.

There are actually some statements Jesus makes where he is saying that you do not REALLY change your mind, UNTIL you switch to the holy thought system. Which means getting out of the ego system ENTIRELY and putting your mind back into reality.

"To "change your mind" means to place it at the disposal of True authority. The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has elected to be guided by Christ in HIS service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow him."

"the power of your simple change of mind: I loose the world from all I thought it was, And choose my own reality instead."

"The tiny change of mind by which the crucifixion is changed to Resurrection. And, being true, it is so simple that it cannot fail to be completely understood."

"Your hand becomes the giver of Christ's touch; your change of mind becomes the proof that who accepts God's gifts can never suffer anything."

"And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want."

Only choosing between TRUTH and ILLUSIONS, is your only choice, which is a choice BETWEEN thought systems, and therefore BETWEEN WORLDS. Either you will accept yourself as you are innocent in Heaven, or will accept yourself as sinful within the ego realm.

"Knowledge cannot dawn on a mind full of illusions, because truth and illusions are irreconcilable. Truth is whole, and CANNOT be known by PART of a mind."

While atonement and thus forgiveness and true perception might well be "illusions" within this world, outside the Kingdom, they are reflections of the Kingdom, and thus reflections of the truth about you IN the Kingdom. Accepting atonement is accepting that you are still as God created you, as you are in the Kingdom.

But Jesus clearly tells us that the FULL acceptance of Atonement SHOULD take you INTO HEAVEN. Whereby even true perception ends.

"Since perception rests on lack, those who perceive have not totally accepted the Atonement and given over themselves to truth. Perception IS a separated state, and the perceiver DOES need healing. Communion, not prayer, is the natural state of those who know. God and HIS miracles (you) are inseparable."

So when thinking of forgiveness, and doing forgiveness, or applying the course, we need to realize that if we DON'T get all the way to the atonement principle on some issue, we HAVE NOT really fully forgiven it. If we still believe that something happened or that sin was real, we are not IN a forgiving state of mind. In order to DO a forgiveness, successfully, essentially REQUIRES that you accept atonement - to accept the truth of your total ongoing innocence, and the complete recognition that there HAS NOT BEEN anything that needs forgiving.

While it seems there is something to forgive, and we think we're doing forgiveness, we actually are NOT doing forgiveness. What we're doing is preparing to enter a state of forgiveness. And that is purification work. But if we do that work, and we don't take it all the way to "nothing happened", "everyone is still innocent as God created us to be", "there is no sin", "sin is not real" etc... then we haven't really gone FAR enough in our change of mind, and are still really WITHIN the ego though system.

That means we've fallen short and the forgiveness is not complete, because we have not moved OVER to hooking our mind up with God, in service to Christ. Remember that mind in the service of Spirit/soul is its natural state, while when mind "goes rogue" and becomes its own tyrannical ruler, it is now in a separated state. To return to forgiveness and accept atonement is to actually put your mind back under the Authority of the Soul, which requires ACCEPTING THE INNOCENT SOUL AS YOUR TRUE SELF.

Only atonement can be said to cure, so we must be willing to go ALL THE WAY to the atonement truth and the acceptance of it, which opens you up to allow yourself to be loved by God, and to RECEIVE A MIRACLE, which you can then extend to others. Short of this, forgiveness is incomplete and atonement is still being avoided. And therefore it is not a complete cure. To truly forgive is to CURE, completely and totally and forever. Acceptance of your permanent innocence and worthiness is the only acceptable goal.

The funny thing with fear is, that while you are feeling it, it actually changes how reality looks to you .... so the world goes from appearing to be a place of safety and beauty, to a place of darkness and danger. And that's only because there is fear happening in your mind. You think you MUST be afraid if xyz is happening. That's not true.

So it's not as though you're actually having an objective, detached viewpoint. Every perspective of the ego always claims that it is being completely objective and capable of discerning what is true and false, when in fact it is always CONTRIBUTING to what it sees and experiences. As such ego thoughts are never neutral. "There are no neutral thoughts" - ACIM

You think that the amount of fear that you experience correlates exactly to how much of an 'actual' danger is out there. But fear distorts reality, and causes you to be incapable of seeing reality. So how do you know that there really is as much danger as you perceive?

And what if I were to tell you that "projection makes perception"? i.e. you are projecting fear onto the situation, which MAKES it look like there is a danger, so now you believe you are unsafe even if you are safe. You think there is such a thing as reliable fear, or discerning fear, or very carefully considered fear. There is no such thing. As in quantum physics, if you look with the ego you will change what you are looking at. You cannot be anything but subjective.

Outside of your fear, it is possible that there is a world that is not a threat to you, and is not a cause of fear. It is possible that the PRESENCE OF FEAR in you is actually the ONLY problem that needs to be dealt with. It's the mustard seed in your own eye the blocks you from perceiving truthfully, and as such you see blockages in the eyes of others, i.e. intentions to attack you. Your attack on them shows you this. Your fearing about them shows you a reason to be afraid.

This is the secret then to fear. Fear is its own problem. It tries to justify itself, and it changes how reality looks to you, and then shows you that altered reality as though claiming it is real. Therefore, the only things you are ever are afraid of are how reality looks when you are IN the fear, which paints a picture that's horrifying and threatening. You are not SEEING reality. You're seeing the mirror-reflection of fear itself. But when you are IN the fear, you really really believe that the threat is real. If you USE fear, which is a choice, you will find reasons to justify why you are afraid. And none of them are true. Fear is always false - a lie.

Outside of fear there is no reason or need to be afraid. Everything is safe. There is no danger or threat. Nothing can harm you. You are invulnerable. You are immortal spirit.

There are no requirements that must be met for you to return to God. There isn't anything that you must do, otherwise you won't be able to be with God.

If there is anything in the dream or in our ego identities that is capable of preventing God, then we would be stuck in the dream forever. If anything has the power to overthrow God's will, for real, we would be completely lost. So it is fortunate this is not so.

We do pretend not to be with God, and we can seemingly 'deny' that we are with God, but even while we're denying that we are with God, we are still with Him. We also can deny that we have eternal life, but even while we're denying that we have eternal life, we have eternal life. And even while we deny that we are completely loved, we are still completely loved.

It would seem we can 'hold off' the love and prevent the eternal life and reject God's will by making certain choices for ego and death. But even these choices do not affect God's love, or our eternal life. They are mistakes. They are make-believe. They are illusions of achievement. Nothing in a dream has the power to stop the dreamer from awakening.

Jesus does describe how The Kingdom of God has certain 'conditions', and that you need to meet those conditions in order to be ABLE to be in the Kingdom. However, those conditions effectively are always met and cannot be unmet. We are pretending not to meet them, but are not actually failing to meet them. Because we haven't left Heaven for real, and leaving is impossible.

So in our unconditional love, we need to be aware that there are absolutely no rules or requirements or demands as to why you can't be included in love or why you cannot be healed or why you cannot live forever. The ego has no power to overthrow God's will or God's creation. Sure, it can be deluded into believing it can, and you can seem to side with it and believe that you're actually pulling it off. But you're not really. You're severely mistaken, and thank God it IS only a mistake.

Nobody is denied God's love. Everyone is welcome. Everyone has full and free access. And just because a cloud comes along to seem to cover up the sun, it doesn't make the sun go away. We can cover ourselves up all we want, or try to, or make illusions that *seem* that they really do so, but they don't actually. It takes the awareness of CHRIST to be able to discern that these illusions ARE just illusions and to not buy into them. Illusions are very appealing and distracting, but they are not true.

All are welcome in God. All ARE in God. Everyone is loved fully and equally. And we are all Home already. Any illusion which seems to prevent your inclusion in love is merely that, an illusion, because nothing can prevail against the Kingdom of God or keep you apart from His love.

This is an important passage which describes how you bring the ego and its world TO the holiness of truth, EXPOSE IT to the light, and it is SHONE AWAY by the light. Earth, which is part of the ego's world, is to be brought "to holiness", so that it is shone upon BY the light of holiness, which MAKES IT VANISH. Because the ego's world is made of darkness and illusions.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world and God DID NOT CREATE IT."

Earth, CANNOT, EVER, BE CONVERTED INTO HEAVEN, because it is UNHOLY and an ILLUSION. If it approaches the light, it will temporarily SEEM to become more holy because the light ITSELF is shining on and through it, and only the light is holy. The Earth will be shone away by eternity. Keeping it AWAY from the light maintains it in your mind and gives it "reality". Earth is never holy because it is not WHOLE. Holiness is only of Heaven. Eternity SHINES AWAY the world you made. This is A Course in Miracles.

"The Atonement does not MAKE holy. You were CREATED holy. It merely brings UNholiness TO holiness, or what you MADE, to what you ARE. The bringing together of truth and illusion, OF THE EGO AND GOD, is the Holy Spirit's only function. Keep not your making from your Father, for hiding it has cost you knowledge of Him, and of yourselves. The knowledge is safe, but wherein is YOUR safety, APART from it? The making of time, to TAKE THE PLACE of timelessness, lay in the decision to BE NOT as you WERE. Thus, truth was made past, and the present was dedicated to illusion. And the past, too, was changed, and INTERPOSED between what ALWAYS was, and NOW. The past that YOU remember NEVER was, and represents only the denial of what ALWAYS was.

Bringing the ego to God, is but to bring error to truth, where it stands corrected, because it is the OPPOSITE of what it meets, and is undone because the CONTRADICTION can no longer stand. How long can contradiction stand, when its impossible nature is clearly revealed? What disappears in light is NOT attacked. It merely vanishes, because it is not true. DIFFERENT realities ARE meaningless, for reality MUST be one. It CANNOT change with time, or mood, or chance. Its changelessness is WHAT MAKES IT REAL. This CANNOT be undone. Undoing is for UNreality. And this, reality WILL do for you.

Merely by BEING WHAT IT IS, does truth release you from everything that it is NOT. The Atonement is so gentle, you need but whisper to it, and all its power will rush to your assistance and support. You are not frail, with God beside you. But WITHOUT Him, you are nothing. The Atonement OFFERS YOU GOD. The gift which you refused, is held by Him in you. His Spirit holds it there FOR you. God has not left His altar, though His worshippers placed other gods upon it. The temple still is holy, for the Presence that dwells within it IS Holiness. "

If you are going to pray for someone, you’ll need to first discern what the problem really is.

The problem is NOT what is happening to the person, what they perceive as happening to them, or what your own ego says is the problem.

This means you need to forgive first, come to your senses, and *recognize* what the illusions are.

It’s actually always an ILLUSION that anyone is under attack by anyone other than themselves!

So in this sense, it is then pointless to pray e.g. that someone receives money, or that someone stop being hurt by someone, or someone gets along with their boss, or whatever.

The only meaningful prayer, perhaps, is one which aligns itself with God’s Will. That means, the prayer ACKNOWLEDGES the TRUTH about the person, not what is FALSE about them!

Just as forgiveness does not "make errors real" and THEN attempts to undo them, which cannot work, our prayers should also be forgiving. They should not fall for the ego’s tricks or make us believe the victim’s own interpretation of what is happening.

If someone asks you to pray for them, and then gives the reasons "why", which will entail all the perceived justifications for why they are in danger or under attack or suffering "against their will", take their prayer request and by all means pray, but do not pray for what the person believes is the problem.

Just as when you forgive, you need to learn to UNDO the belief that problems are real at all, withdraw belief that sin is real, and NOT believe that sickness and suffering are real, so too this needs to be incorporated into praying.

If you pray "with forgiveness", then you are praying with the power of God, and this CAN produce results because you’re now speaking God’s language of TRUTH. But if you fall for the ego traps and dramas and then use that as the reason to pray, praying for those "real" dramas to stop, it will not work.

Your prayers must ASCEND above the battlefield, above the ego’s lies, above even the illusion that someone is being attacked by a will OTHER than their own.

All attack is SELF ATTACK. The person needing praying for needs to stop attacking themselves! The prayer then should be in support of what is TRUE about the person, acknowledging and being thankful for that, as a way to diffuse the ego’s bullshit about the situation, and then to pray that the person themselves are lifted up into TRUTH, to join in truth, so that THEY stop attacking themselves.

It is therefore helpful to pray that a person stop believing they are vulnerable, to help them to recognize how loved they are, to ask that their mind be clarified, to ask for healing and to remind the person how loved and safe they are. It is helpful to ask for the person to be uplifted and awakened and made conscious and come back to their senses - to truth. It is helpful to send them love. And it is helpful to ask that they be helped by God to RECOGNIZE their own invulnerability, strength, power, certainty and fearlessness.

It is really self-attack that people need prayers about. Their failure to recognize the truth about themselves IS causing them to make theirown life a mess. Their unconsciousness is producing projected attacks. Their resistance against truth is causing problems and dramas.

No-one especially needs to be "saved" from apparently completely separate unfair attackers who come out of the blue for no reason. No one dies without their own consent! The problem is that a person has CONSENTED TO SUFFERING. THEY need help with learning to STOP ATTACKING THEMSELVES. TO stop believing things are true of them which are not true. To remember who they really are.

WE as "prayers" must learn not to be deceived by the ego’s illusions first, including those presented by "those in need". The reason for the prayer must not be an ego reason OR a reaction to an ego way of looking at a situation. If we’re making the problem real, but are saying "prayer words", WE now have a "split mind" and a "split will" and a "split allegiance", and that means we are not going to actually WILL anything with God.

I’ve been trying to remember this myself and to practice it by praying only for the person’s awakening to truth, the recognition of their perfection as Christ, and for them to be healed of the NEED to be prayed for for illusory reasons.

Instead, our prayer is not so much a request about something which needs changing, but moreso an EXTENSION OF GOD, an affirmation of recognition of what is already true, a denial of what is false, and to simply ask that God’s Will (the way that things should be if people weren’t interfering) be expressed. That’s not so much a "new request" as it is a CONTINUATION OF THE TRUTH.

Think about how the person’s HIGHER SELF is. What is true of their higher self, in the highest possible reality of God, THAT is the truth about the person and NOT how they appear. Their body symtoms, their life dramas, etc, are NOT true of them. Affirming what IS true of them, "speaking truth into the situation", is powerful and miraculous. Spoken prayers only posess POWER if they are speaking of what is TRUE IN GOD.

Speak about how God sees the person. Speak about what is only true of them in the most loving way - total innocence, perfect awareness, fearlessness, trust, confidence, happiness, joy, love, worthiness, etc... expressing that is an extension of love, and love heals. You don’t even really need to address the ego junk that is currently showing up. God’s Will is all that needs to be done, ie, you only need affirm and recognize and express what God has already created as TRUTH about the person.

Prayer and forgiveness go hand in hand. To pray with love must be to pray forgivingly. To pray WITH GOD, instead of "to God", is far more powerful than reacting pleadingly to illusions of suffering. Seeing and acknowledging the highest reality of a person is very uplifting.

The ego's experience of someone dying is horrible. Ego thinks in transactional, finite terms. As if relationship is some commodity amount that you give and lose, and then you lack, and then you need the other to give it back by losing. This is the sacrifice of specialness.

This is the opposite of the golden rule, where the ego says giving and receiving are not one. That what you give you do not give to yourself. And therefore giving is loss. It sees someone's death in rather physical terms, meaning that the form has gone and therefore there has been a one-sided loss, and now they are not giving you what you gave. The thing that was supposed to give you back, albeit separately, has stopped giving, and so you now are in a state of lack because you depended on them.

From this viewpoint the only thing you can feel is loss, which feels horrendous. It's like saying, the person is dead and thats a true fact and there's nothing you can do about it, so you might as well just be in total despair forever. But this ego perception is rooted in victimhood, ingratitude, not recognising, not appreciating, seeing oneself as deprived, unfairly treated, taken from, stolen from, and diminished. And then the ego cries. A lot.

It can reason that there is no other way, and it will have no insight into the opposite of loss, which is gain. But the Holy Spirit gives another view entirely, a totally opposite view in fact. Because as far as He's concerned, there is no loss possible in the golden rule of God. What is given is received by both. What is given is given to yourself forever. There is no room for loss at all, and there is only gain.

The way forgiveness looks at death, it regards it as a gift and a blessing, rather than a curse. It sees that the event has simply purely given to you, by which you have purely gained. You have not been deprived at all, you have only increased. A great gift has been given, and you have received it, and by recognising that you have received it you can enter into justified gratitude. And this is how gratitude becomes part of forgiveness - the recognition of the truth that there is only gain and increase under God's laws.

Gratitude is the total opposite of loss. It acknowledges that you have not lost, that nothing is missing, and that in fact you have received so much that you are overwhelmed with how much you have been given, so much that not a single trace of loss remains. And how can you then feel loss in such a perspective of having been utterly blessed? Loss is literally a lack of gratitude, an unwillingness to receive, and a denial of God's blessing.

Of course, recognising this requires dismantling the ego's interpretation of death, which sees nothing except loss and no gain at all. It sees the situation as utterly hopeless and futile, with no possibility of finding any gain in it at all, dwelling entirely on what seems to be absent, what has been stolen away, and what is no longer there. As if loss is real and permanent and total. And this is the idea of "real death".

But of course this depends on form, because the ego only really registers form "as" content, and does not recognise content at all. If a physical body is gone, yes form is gone, but the love that was in and through the body is not gone. In fact it has been given in a blessing through the person's body to you, and you have received it, and now you are it, and you extend it, and it is alive in you, continuing to be given. And that is because miracles mean endless giving - they continually extend love.

To the ego there is no benefit to you that someone has gone away. It sees only the horrifying and seemingly real deprivation, the taking away of the specialness that you loved, the exclusive source that you thought was the love itself. It sees only a dark and deceitful treachery, that has ripped its beloved treasure away and utterly destroyed it beyond all hope of recovery. And it's never coming back - a stark and horrible fact. Such is the proof of sin and death and dissolution. Then it holds this up as the only reality and truth, as if there is nothing else to it. A total fact. And within this truth, you must simply feel like absolute shit because your whole world has been destroyed forever.

But the ego is utterly blind to the truth, it has no acknowledgement of roles played, of higher purposes, of the way that someone gave transcendent of form, that what was given is still with you and still giving, that loss is impossible, and in a forgiving view you can only possibly be blessed by everything. To forgive is to truly recognise that the world is not doing anything to you, death has no power over you, and therefore it cannot cause something to be taken from you. You cannot lose, you can only win. And if you cannot lose, you must be only gaining. You must be purely receiving, and to receive unconditionally with no strings attached is love. Upon receiving such unending love the only logic response in the mind is gratitude. And gratitude is also a part of giving.

It's similar to what happens when you at first seem to be a victim of someone, and you hate them and fight with them and they seem to deprive and hurt you. But then later you forgive, and you come to realise you hired them, and they played a role that you needed for your spiritual growth, and you gained tremendously from your enemies even if they seemed to be the very people you did not want to be around. You benefited. And then as your perspective grows, you come to more fully understand who did what and why, how you consented, how you used it, and what you did to yourself. And out of that comes a recognition of the innocence of the other and yourself, and the realisation that you have only happily gained from the encounter - that it is not a loss or an attack at all. And then you can be grateful to them for helping you to learn this lesson - to move you closer to God.

Another aspect of this is that if you believe someone else has become lost to you, or that love is lost, then by the golden rule you will also believe that you are lost. And then you will become lost as well, lost in despair and grieving and feelings of loss and hopelessness. And that is because you believe it's true that some other person can be completely lost, and if thats true of them it's true of you. This is why when the loss seems to happen, you feel like you have lost part of yourself. As if it was you that died. And then you stop living. But this is the ego's reasoning as well, because nothing real can die or be lost, and certainly nothing is missing from heaven.

The antidote to loss then is the broader and deeper perspective that you have not lost anything, and have in fact only gained. When you can see that you have only gained, then your response can only be gratitude, because you have been truly blessed and given everything. You've been given freedom and life and opportunity and a future. You've been given room to grow and learn and enjoy further relationships. This isn't a fake positivity either. It's not about just trying to put on a brave face and act as if things are great in denial of loss and feelings. It's a total uprooting of the belief in loss, which is really a lack of recognition. When lessons - and death is a lesson - is correctly perceived, it is recognised as being entirely beneficial. Something that happens only for your highest good.

This also leads into why the Holy Spirit's atonement plan is solely functioning for your highest good, and everything he arranges for you to go through - which you consent to - is leading you to eternal life. If you can see it from the perspective of gratitude and blessing, without the egoic interpretation of "its a loss" or "its difficult" or "i've been deprived" etc - which is a denial of the golden rule, then it is recognised as gentle and helpful and only a blessing. If the ego enters into it, it interprets the lessons as cruel and unwanted and a curse. Something that you want to go away and stop, to fear and resist. When you stop resisting you enter acceptance and presence, and then you also find forgiveness and gratitude. God has only given, he has never taken away.

The big picture truth is simply this: everything that happens is leading you home to God. Everything. Even people seeming to die. Only forms and illusions seem to die, anyway. What is true and real and our identity is permanent and eternal. And you literally are those who seem to move on, who must still be you as well. There is no loss in truth, no loss in God, and no loss in you. There is only a complete willingness to receive God's blessing and be fully grateful for it. Really, the only reason we despair is because we think God isn't loving us anymore, and this can only be a lack of recognition of what is actually true, or an unwillingness to see it. Undoing the belief in death as a block to love brings about a revolution into gratitude and happiness.

"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? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

"The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His."

"A happy outcome to all things is sure."