In ACIM the definition of forgiveness is not well understood. I did not understand it for many years.

I especially got caught up in this seemingly 'better than just theoretical' wave of 'you need to APPLY the course', which typically then means you need to 'do forgiveness' through some kind of process, and that this is what forgiveness is. And then you hear terms like 'quantum forgiveness' and 'true forgiveness' and stuff thrown around like this describes 'what you do to forgive', which most people take to mean the process of applying it.

But that's not it.

There were also phrases like "Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing ... It merely looks and waits and judges not." and "I need do nothing" which seemed to totally contradict this idea of 'doing' forgiveness.

And it continues with "he who would not forgive must judge" which then leads to further confusions like 'well that means I must stop judging'.

That's not it either.

There are really two different vantage points and it depends on which vantage point you're currently taking as to what forgiveness means for you or what your role is. You could think of it as two different levels. On the ego's level (level 1) there is no forgiveness, only unforgiveness. On the Holy Spirit's level (level 2) there is absolute forgiveness.

Much of the course, when it speaks of forgiveness, speaks of how the Holy Spirit perceives, such as "forgiveness is the light in which I see" and "forgiveness is still, and quietly does nothing". For the Holy Spirit, he is in a state of BEING FORGIVING. Now, this has absolutely nothing to do with some kind of activity. Activity is not needed. Because Holy Spirit is BEING forgiving, he is looking from above the battlefield upon everything and is recognizing that there is only innocence. He is only SEEING innocence because He is in the light. He is not seeing guilt, he is not seeing projections. He is in effect in a state of perfect, constant forgiveness. And here forgiveness is not a 'doing word', it's a 'being' word.

The Holy Spirit's forgiveness is proactively forgiving, SO THAT there is nothing that needs to be done. He overlooks error SO THAT there is no messy errors to clean up. He sees WITH light so that he does not SEE darkness. He has a forgiving attitude, which does not mean that something happens and then He forgives it. It means, he is FORE-giving, giving ahead of the need to forgive, which is a kind of blessing, in order to MAKE CERTAIN that there is nothing TO forgive. If he were to stop having a forgiving attitude, he would enter into error, create illusions, invent guilt, and then there would be 'work' to do. Correction would be needed, and He would NOT be in a forgiving attitude any more.

Forgiveness, in terms of the Holy Spirit's state of perpetual forgiveness, forgives SO THAT judgement does not arise. He sees that all are innocent and knows that there is no sin. "In that view, are all your sins forgiven." So the Holy Spirit doesn't have to 'do forgiveness', because there is nothing to forgive when you ARE ALREADY FORGIVEN. He knows that nothing has happened and forgiving in order to correct something that's happened is not required. He looks, is still and quiet, and does nothing. And this also does not mean that he undoes ego. There is no ego to undo while His attitude is still perfect forgiveness. This is a perfect, pure state of total forgiveness, the atonement, in which there is only innocence recognized everywhere. It's described also in how you will see 'the forgiven world' which will sparkle with innocence and no guilt anywhere. That's what BEING FORGIVING really means, it has NOTHING to do with any kind of process of correction or sorting out perception or changing your mind. It's the FINAL STATE where there is nothing left to forgive.

Now, this isn't typically the state we find ourselves in. Instead, we find ourselves in a state where we have already failed to be forgiving, and we now have an 'unforgiving' attitude, which results in judgement. And that judgement encapsulates all belief in separation, sin, guilt, fear, projection, victimhood, punishment and death. That's the state we find ourselves in most often. In this state, we are NOT being forgiving. So now we ask ourselves, how do I get out of this state and return to innocence? And usually the answer to that is, "you need to apply forgiveness".

No, not really. You can't suddenly take Holy Spirit's 'forgiveness is already accomplished' attitude and 'use it' in the midst of 'level 1' ego bullshit. And you certainly can't use it like a weapon to be used ON the ego's bullshit or TO it.

Remember Forgiveness, per the Holy Spirit, is not a process of doing something 'to' an illusion to make it go away. It's a state of it having not existed in the first place. We need to get INTO that state, and return to having a forgiving attitude. And only AFTER we have returned to that forgiving attitude will we be able to SEE innocence. "Forgiveness is the light in which I see" literally means that you CANNOT see clearly when you're in the middle of unforgiveness, and you cannot see the innocence of yourself or your brother while you still believe something has HAPPENED that needs forgiving.

But still we seem to cling to the need for this so called 'process' to try to somehow bridge the gap, to get us from the state of suffering we're experiencing now (ego mind), to some other state where there is no suffering (Holy Spirit's mind). So then we think we have to DO something. And then we think we have to DO forgiveness. And then we think we have to go through some steps or whatever and that this is dutifully doing forgiveness, ie applying the course. This isn't what it means to be forgiving. But this is a 'process of correction'. This is the undoing of the ego. In effect, forgiveness shows you that THERE IS NO EGO (death), and in this sense only does it 'un-do' ie NOT-DO ego. But it doesn't do something 'TO' the ego. "Holy Spirit does not attack the ego."

When we are doing this process, we are not doing forgiveness, but we are doing this process SO THAT we take back judgements and projections and remove blocks to awareness so that we might become AWARE that there is nothing to be forgiven. We are lifting the illusions from our mind so that we can join with Holy Spirit in His light where, forgivingly, it is seen that all are innocent already - that nothing's really happened and therefore there is only cause for acknowledgement/acceptance of the atonement. In effect, we only get into 'forgiveness' at the END of the process of undoing, and as soon as we enter into that perfect forgiving-ness we immediate RECOGNIZE that there is nothing to forgive because everyone is already innocent and nothing's happened.

All this other ego junk, the judgements, the projections, the belief in sin and guilt, the view that we're victims, etc... this is all ego. We need to cancel this stuff out. We don't do something TO it, we don't apply forgiveness TO it. We UN-DO, ie not-do these ego things. By not continuing to DO these ego things, we are undoing the ego. It's hard to get your head around that because it's really like making the mind work backwards, retracing your steps. You need to withdraw your belief that something has even HAPPENED at all, rather than work on trying to make 'what happened' go away.

If I need to 'do a forgiveness' it really means I am being unforgiving and my attitude needs to change back to being forgiving. Only when my attitude HAS shifted to 'being forgiving', and the 'process of correction' is complete, ONLY THEN am I actually forgiving. And only then can I see innocence. And only then am I in forgiveness, with Holy Spirit. And only then do "I need do nothing", having stopped doing all the stuff my ego WAS doing to try to 'do something'. So be aware, 'doing forgiveness' is an EGO DECOY because the ego loves to 'do' as a way to perpetuate itself. Getting your mind to 'not do' seems very counter-intuitive and not at all what you are used to.

Forgiveness is the end result of stopping an unforgiving attitude.

or..

Forgiveness is the natural state of the Son of God when He has not failed in that attitude, and where any belief that there is something to forgive has been healed.

It is not what gets you TO a forgiving attitude. Correction, ie HEALING, is what gets you there. Or in a term the Course uses in the miracle principles, "miracles are everyone's right, but PURIFICATION is necessary first". Purification. That's what we seem to be 'doing', so that we can RETURN to being forgiving.

The Holy Spirit does have a function of HEALING, which is, an ACTIVE role of correction which is capable of undoing what the ego has made - "the consequences of your wrong decision". And this is also where MIRACLES come in. Miracles are the means by which Holy Spirit ACTIVELY CORRECTS the mind (thus the emotions and body also), by blessing it with a forgiving attitude. Holy Spirit is miracle minded. He has miracle readiness. He has a role to play of LIFTING YOU UP to His state of forgiveness, where all that needed to be 'forgiven' is already healed. He has a function of RESTORATION, of restoring you to an awareness of your God-given condition of innocence, holiness, and health. This extends from His forgiving attitude, through you, and on to others.

We need to no longer 'do forgiveness'. My only job is to offer up to Holy Spirit the wrong decisions I've made for HIS correction and healing, and to open up to allowing Him to heal me, so that I can enter INTO a forgiving state of mind with Him.

"The blameless cannot blame, and those who have accepted their innocence see nothing to forgive."

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven."

See here that it says forgiveness RECOGNIZES that nothing occurred... which is a state where the idea of that 'something happened' has ALREADY BEEN UNDONE, a state where innocence has ALREADY BEEN RESTORED. Forgiveness sees WITH forgiveness in order to see that there IS nothing to forgive. It doesn't look at 'things still to undo'. We need to join Holy Spirit in this state, and 'getting there' is really a matter of stopping avoiding being there, which is what the ego's distractions are for.

Also recognize that once you are IN forgiveness, it is automatic to RECOGNIZE a pre-existing innocence and atonement. There is no effort involved, and the innocence you see is simply REVEALED to you, because it was always there and always true. You have removed the block to the awareness of its presence. Getting yourself into the Holy Spirit's state of mind is the only seeming 'task' that we seem to have to 'do' and really it does not involve doing... but rather recognizing all the ego things we are 'doing' and STOPPING THEM.

Yes, stop judging, but moreso, stop being unforgiving. Stop projecting. Stop believing in sickness and death. Stop hating yourself. Stop believing in sin. Stop being separate from God. Say no to the ego by giving it no power or energy. Stop buying into illusions. And start opening up to your relationship with God based on love and innocence and a forgiving attitude that recognizes, and shows you, that Christ is still innocent.

The purpose of learning is to learn that there is nothing to learn. The purpose of change is to change the mind from its belief in change so that it recognises that we are changeless and have not changed. Learning is a strange somewhat paradoxical state. Before the separation it wasn't "needed", but technically in truth it's supposed to lead to a state where you realize you have no needs and therefore there is nothing to learn.

The recognition of identification with Christ realising that you have always been Christ and always will be and are Christ now and forever ... undoes the "need to learn". After all learning is supposed to END when you HAVE learned or attain the state of completion. But the fact is the learning itself does not produce the state of Christ. Learning is not about putting in place or accumulating knowledge, it is about uncovering knowledge and truth that God already put in place. Learning is not a cause. God put the state of Christ in place. The learning just takes you close to it so that you can realize you can drop the learning - and the course - and just be what you are.

It can take a lot of "traditional learning" to get to a point where you are willing to recognize and accept that you're already perfect and have no needs. Buddha for example went through a lot of hassle trying to starve himself and deprive himself in attempts to wake up, but then realised they essentially "didnt' work" and were themselves a hinderance, ie the learning was getting in the way of achievement, and once he recognized nothing worked he dropped it all and woke up to the Christ state in which he recognized (enlightenment) that he didn't really need any of that stuff because he was "already enlightened."

It is always the ego that drives us to "learn" due to its view that you are fundamentally lacking in some way and therefore have a NEED, and the need compels you to SEEK and do not find, by looking for what is missing everywhere other than where it seems to be missing. The truth is that you are not lacking or in need at all, and the sense of lack is itself a LIE or a false learning, something you taught yourself which is untrue. And this learning has to be UN-LEARNED, which is the un-doing of the atonement, in order to reveal the fact and truth that what you thought you needed to learn or acquire you ALREADY HAVE. And thus you have no real need to seek to find it.

In fact, having a "spiritual path" is a way of taking you away from yourself and away from the perfection you already have, in an attempt to find it through external saviours and idols and various other distractions. We seem to need paths and spiritual growth and becomings and learnings and accumulations and transformations and healing UNTIL the point at which we realize that we don't NEED it, and are already complete and finished and whole. And then we can drop it. But without the learning we might not get TO that state of recognizing it's not needed, due to the fact that we BELIEVE IN the "need" to learn at the moment.

What is healing but being restored to the recognition that there is nothing that needs healing because God already gave you wholeness? And what is forgiveness other than the recognition that there is nothing to forgive because there has been no sin in reality? And what is atonement but the recognition that everything is still as God created it and has not changed and has no need for fixing?

And so we "seem to need" a course in miracles or other paths to get to the point where it undoes itself. After all the whole point of the course is really ultimately to make itself unnecessary - as any good teacher would - which is also the real purpose of the body and all learning and also the world. They are just devices designed to point us in the right direction and when we ARRIVE here and now in the Christ present state reality we can be done with all this stuff and just be in heaven with God.

We don't really need the world, the body, space, time, perception, healing, miracles, teaching, learning, correction, undoing, or anything else. But we seem to need them to get TO the awareness that we don't need them. They are then simply signposts and devices which ultimately render themselves completely unnecessary.

They do not put the truth in place, they merely point toward it, so that we might one day suddenly remember what we always knew - only God's kingdom and reality are true and nothing else has ever gone wrong. You're not supposed to be stuck in a state of learning forever, or in a state of "doing the course" forever. You're supposed to graduate from learning and no longer need anything. Eventually you will drop the course when its purpose is complete.

"Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all."

"The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the Bible, was not originally an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of complete need-lack. Even in the literal account, it is noteworthy that the pre-Separation state was essentially one in which man needed nothing."

"Infinite patience calls upon infinite Love, and by producing results NOW renders time unnecessary."

"A miracle has thus the unique property of abolishing time by rendering the space of time it occupies unnecessary."

"The miracle is much like the body, in that both are learning aids which aim at facilitating a state in which they are unnecessary. When the Soul is finally in the original state of direct communication, neither the body nor the miracle serves any purpose."

"The physical world exists only because man can use it to correct his UNBELIEF, which placed him in it originally. As long as man KNEW he did not need anything, the whole device was unnecessary."

"The Holy Spirit interprets time's PURPOSE as rendering the need for it UNNECESSARY."

"Long ago we said that the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good teachers, whose ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary, by teaching their pupils all they know."

"Vigilance DOES require effort, but only to teach you that effort ITSELF is unnecessary."

"The whole value of right perception lies in the inevitable judgment which it necessarily entails that it is UNNECESSARY."

"Healing was an ability which was lent to man after the Separation, before which it was completely unnecessary. Like all aspects of the space-time belief, healing ability is temporary."

"But, as we have said before, all teaching devices in the hands of good teachers are aimed at rendering themselves unnecessary."

"The ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation."

"This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as GOD created it. But YOU think that you HAVE changed it, as long as you learn through the ego. This DOES place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which SEEMS contradictory: you must learn to change your mind ABOUT your mind. Only by this can you learn that it IS changeless."

"Simply do this: Be still and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false or good or bad; of every thought it judges worthy and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God."

"When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation, and fight against giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation, or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it ALWAYS comes with just ONE happy realization, -- "I need do nothing."

"It is NEVER God Who coerces you, because He SHARES His Will WITH you." God has given you freedom. This cannot be revoked. You are free to create, or to mis-create. God cannot oppose your will because it is part of his own freedom.

This means that you have to decide to go back to God, of your free will. You can't be forced, coerced, manipulated or made to do anything you don't want to. You have to willingly choose heaven again.

"The attraction of light must draw you willingly, and willingness is signified by GIVING."

"But to accomplish this, all your dark lessons MUST be brought willingly to truth"

"Heaven is a choice I must make."

Does this mean that you can take forever? Does it mean that you can decide NEVER to return to God? Does it mean that you could stay in separation and never wake up?

Given that you have total freedom, it should mean that you can take as long as you please, and even to never return.

The thing is, that while God wills that you be free forever, he also wills that you be one with him forever. And here we have signs of a "natural limit" placed by God.

"Free will does not mean that you establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what to take when. It is just because you are not ready to do what you should elect to do that time exists at all."

"Free will can temporize, and is capable of enormous procrastination. But it cannot depart entirely from its Creator, who set the limits on its ability to miscreate by virtue of its own real purpose."

The way I read this, "will" always has an element of freedom to it, even when will is being USED to try to be unwilling. You cannot escape willingness. You will always have some willingness even if you are highly unwilling, which means that you will eventually will to be back with God.

"He can wait, delay, paralyze himself, reduce his creativity almost to nothing, and even introduce a real developmental arrest or regression. But he CANNOT abolish his creativity. He CAN destroy his medium of communication, but NOT his potential."

God has also placed a limit on spacetime, ie the separation. It has been repurposed as a classroom to learn lessons, which involves consent. And we have all willed freely to participate. In effect, there is a guarantee that we will wake up eventually.

"The Atonement was built into the space-time belief in order to set a limit on the need for the belief, and ultimately to make learning complete."

"For if you could REALLY separate yourselves from the Mind of God, you WOULD die."

Another thing is that trying to be away from God is painful. It is a rejection of happiness and love and ease and joy. A rejection of health and wholeness. It is a state riddled with suffering. And eventually this is intolerable, especially when it becomes extreme.

The more extreme the separation, the more it hurts. The more you try to be evil, the worse your life gets, and the more you become insane. The harder you try not to exist, the more you repress and hate yourself. And it does not feel good. Some people have extreme tolerance levels but not unlimited.

"The misuse of will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way."

This is part of the fact that there is a safeguard built into free will. Basically, in order to fully will something, you have to be fully willing. If you become unwilling, ie try to use will to NOT will, you are arresting the will. This causes you to shut off access to your power to create, and you become "weaker".

Effectively, if you oppose God's will, you become powerless. If you deny your freedom, you imprison the will. It all gets automatically shut down because by choosing separation you're literally denying freedom and power.

""Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul."" ... "If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, because such are the dictates of tyrants."

The end result is that you cannot use will to attack will, or to attack or change God. Or to change the truth or anything real. When you try to, there is a lack of will, which shuts it down and causes nothing to happen. You might hallucinate that the nothing is something, but nothing is really created.

Also the Holy Spirit has been created to guarantee holographically that the whole is always in the part, and thus no matter how many times mind tries to split itself the whole of God is still there. You cannot leave eternity or really separate.

"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the Laws of God. NOT as the Law Itself upholds the universe as God created it. But in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has. Corrected error IS the error's end. And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error."

So God has naturally caused a number of things all which guarantee you are not only protected and safe (immortal) and have not really done anything, but also has the side-effect that when you choose away from him you do not like it, and inevitably choose against it. It's almost like saying the impluse to return is built-into the attempt to leave. And you never did quite leave in the first place.

"I CAN offer you my will to make yours invincible by this sharing, but I CANNOT oppose yours without competing with it and thereby violating God's Will for you. Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His. God GAVE your will its power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of His."

We could say then that, we are always free, and can choose when to return to God, but at the same time staying away from God is fundamentally unpleasant, and eventually you will seek to return.

Another aspect of this is that God is so certain and so powerful, and the Holy Spirit shares his infinite power, such that he CANNOT FAIL in helping us to return. In his repurposing of the world we made, he guarantees that we will return to heaven. There are no loopholes in God's plan for salvation.

The Holy Spirit has effectively already finished the job.

"His task is mighty, but the power of God is with Him. Therefore, to Him, it is so easy, that it was accomplished the instant it was given Him for you."

"God's promises make no exceptions. And He guarantees that only joy can be the final outcome found for everything. Yet it is up to us when this is reached; how long we let an alien will appear to be opposing His."

"God's guarantee will hold against ALL obstacles, for it rests on certainty, and NOT contingency."

"Reality observes the laws of God, and NOT the rules you set. It is His laws which GUARANTEE your safety. All illusions that you believe about yourself obey NO laws."

"The Atonement is the GUARANTEE of the safety of the Kingdom. Nothing good is lost, because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the voice for Creation."

"The world WAS a way of healing the Separation, and the Atonement is the GUARANTEE that the device will ultimately do so."

"No force except your own will is strong enough or worthy enough to guide you. In this you are as free as God, and must remain so forever."

"The truth is still that the attraction of God is irresistible at ALL levels, and the acceptance of this totally unavoidable truth is only a matter of time. But you should consider whether you WANT to wait, because you CAN return now, if you choose."

In the separation, we entered a state of mind opposite to God. THEN we projected this state of mind outward, trying to hide from it. This produced the world of spacetime.

"That was the first projection of error outward. ***The world arose to hide it***, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth."

"***The world you made*** is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was ***made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind***, because you were AFRAID of it."

This means that the world is actually once removed from the state of mind of the separation. It is a second stage in separation. The first dream is of being separate, and was then projected as a second shadow dream of a physical universe.

This in turn implies that all things physical are a decoy, a kind of "effect" being projected from a hidden mental state. Therefore, anything physical is not a cause, nor is it capable of sinning, or of doing anything. It is a symbol of something hidden.

The whole world is an illusion of a world, an image, projected from a sick mind. It is being put there by an unseen process. It is not the world that needs to be forgiven and corrected. Or to put it another way, we must forgive the world in the sense that it has not done what we think it is responsible for. It is "following orders."

As purely an effect, the world cannot decide for itself, or choose what happens. It is the mind that is orchestrating every dream, every circumstance, all events and encounters. Behind the physical world its a state of mind which needs to be healed. It is the circle of fear. It is not seen by the body's eyes or by perception. It is prior to projection, and without projection there is no perception.

This is what we might call unconscious guilt, or at least a hidden and more direct sense of attack and sin. Its projected form, the physical world, was made to hide its viciousness.

"You would be willing to look upon your savage wish to kill God's Son, IF YOU DID NOT BELIEVE THAT IT SAVES YOU FROM LOVE. For this wish CAUSED the separation. You have protected it (producing the physical world), because you do not WANT the separation healed, and you realize that, by REMOVING the dark cloud that obscures it (the underlying belief in separation obscures God), your love for your Father would IMPEL you to answer His call, and leap into Heaven."

The world is a symbol of what it has been projected from. Just as the body is a symbol of the ego. It is not an end in itself. This whole world, this universe, is not an end, but a secondary expression from another state of mind. It represents that state of mind, an outward picture projected from an inward condition.

"It is still true that the body has no function of itself. This is because it is NOT an end."

"Perception seems to TEACH you what you see. Yet it but witnesses to what YOU taught. It is the outward picture of a wish, an image that you WANTED to be true."

"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that. But, though it is no MORE than that, it is NOT less. Therefore, to YOU, it IS important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the OUTSIDE picture of an INWARD condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the WORLD, but will to change your mind ABOUT the world. "

The whole point of forgiveness then is to recognize that the world is once-removed from what is causing it, and what it causing it is in the mind. Therefore, cause, mind, will, and power, have to be brought back into the mind and recognized as being there. This is where the answer and the healing is. To take back your projection really means to take back the physical world.

Nothing physical is sinful, because it isn't the SOURCE of what it is doing. It is a projected image. It's where the world is coming FROM that is where you'll find the sin. The world was made to disguise the internal sin, to make it look like sin is externalized. That's why "the world of bodies is the world of sin." But it is really a projection of the idea of sin. "The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outward."

To lift the belief in sin away from the world, to see "the forgiven world", simply means recognizing that all of spacetime is not the cause of itself. It is coming from somewhere in the mind. Anything it does is a second-hand projected form of what is projecting it. Being solely AN EFFECT of an internal belief, it can't be held accountable for anything. The belief in sin is internal, and not perceived out there.

This is why the world really has no meaning of its own. Why it's a meaningless world. Why it's neutral. Why it can act like a mirror to reflect internal ideas of sin, or internal ideas of love. Because it is really nothing but a screen onto which we project stuff. It is an externalization of what's inside us. To blame it for anything, or to even look to it to identify "what to heal", is to misplace what is causing it. The world is a SYMPTOM AND SIDE EFFECT of the belief in separation. The belief in separation is the real problem, and the only problem.

If "all my problems have been solved", it is because the world is NOT the problem. The underlying secret sins and hidden hates are the problem. The unforgiven grievances. The attack thoughts. The belief in sin and death. The idea of separation. All the mental content which projects as the body and the world. Those are the problem that needs healing. The physical world will reflect whatever internal changes we make.

This is why sickness is a projected form of guilt. The inside becomes the outside. This is why death can only happen if the mind chooses it. This is why the mind has power over the body, and why miracles can resurrect and heal it. This is why changing your mind about the world changes the whole world. You're really changing your mind about yourself and God, and this results in a different projection.

First we will project a world of sin and death. Then, changing our internal material, we will project a world of harmlessness and peace and love. And then we will so fully extend our projecting in line with God's will that we will simply resume the full extension of heaven. And in total extension there is no denial or dissociation or "ego projection" or disowning. And so the projected world, which came from the tiny mad idea projected outward, will simply cease to have a source. And without a cause in the mind, without the idea of death, it will simply cease to be made.

"The final judgment on the world contains no condemnation. For it sees the world as totally forgiven, without sin, and wholly purposeless. Without a cause, and now without a function in Christ's sight, it merely slips away to nothingness. There it was born, and there it ends as well. And all the figures in the dream in which the world began go with it. Bodies now are useless, and will therefore fade away, because the Son of God is limitless."

The world, the physical world, BEGAN IN a dream. A secret hidden dream of sin and ideas of attack and death. Without this IN the mind, the world has no cause to PROJECT it. It came from nothingness and must return to nothingness.

It's a deadly trap to believe that you need to get that person to love you in order to prove you are lovable.

You can feel very sorry for yourself because of how other people seem to mistreat you or how they don't love you enough.

You can get into a state where you see yourself as unworthy and unlovable purely because other people don't seem to love you.

Then you will be yearning for them to love you, will try to manipulate them into loving you, will secretly want to take love from the, and will try to steal it from them, in order to get some love for yourself.

You think that if they will love you, you will feel better about yourself.

Well here's some news. It doesn't work this way.

Love has to come from God and come through you and be shared. Love is sharing. You have to share in it in order to have it, and by sharing in it you must also share it, meaning you must extend it and give it.

Now, this also leads people to another mistake which is the belief that you should always give give give in an attempt to give everyone what they want, so that you might be able to get them to give some love back to you.

This is a deadly trap as well. If you're waiting for or are dependent on other people to be the source of love for you, or to approve of you, or to give you attention, or make you be okay, or accept you, then you're going to be waiting a very long time and suffer the consequences.

Other people are not supposed to be the source of love for you. Other people are not supposed to approve of you. Other people are not supposed to accept you. Other people are not supposed to give you attention. Other people are not supposed to love you more than others. Other people are not supposed to save you. Other people are not supposed to be your savior or your idol or your hero. Other people are not where you should be receiving love from.

You can't experience love unless you are in it. You can't be in it unless you are sharing it with God because God is the only source of love. You can't share in it unless you are willing to receive it from God. You can't get it into you unless you are willing to remove all of your false beliefs which say that you don't deserve it, can't receive it, aren't good enough, or that you are in need of it. You can't share it unless you're willing to let others also receive it just as much as you. And you can't have it unless you are willing to give it away.

To your ego, giving away love means losing it, which means you are sacrificing it, which means if you give give give you will end up with none for yourself. This won't coerce others into loving you, nor will it make them love you in return in order to have an equal or fair relationship. That's bullshit. That's not a relationship, it's a bargain. Your ego needs to get out of the way if you are going to experience love.

You need to realize that God's love is infinitely abundant and always available and is unconditional and freely given to all equally, all the time. That includes you. You must be included in the love and having the love, even when you give it. If you are overflowing with God's love, from WITHIN, having received it inside of yourself directly from the source (God), then you will be so happy to share it and spread it around.

And here's the little secret. When you share and receive God's love and are open to an unlimited supply of it coming into you from Him, which He has already put there, you will have so much that even if you give it away, it will not decrease whatsoever. The secret is, that as you give real love, unconditional love, you not only get to keep that love, but the love INCREASES.

You don't need, and cannot get, love from someone else. It must come from God to you to others, in that order. If you don't feel lovable or loved, YOU are not loving yourself and YOU are not letting God love you. It's an inside job.

You will not EVER find love outside of you, and you will not EVER be loved from outside of you. "Outside of you" means separate from you, and anything separate from you is impossible to experience. You can only experience love when it is NOT separate from you, meaning it's INSIDE you, meaning God put it there and you're experiencing it where it IS.

You already have it. You just have blocks to awareness which is preventing you from accepting and allowing it. Your ego is getting in the way. It's making you believe, falsely, that you do not have love in you, cannot have love in you, don't deserve love in you, and that you are not love. YOU ARE LOVE ITSELF. You are an extension of love. How can you not be love, when Love (God) created you like Itself? You aren't going to get this love by force-feeding it from the outside in. You aren't really lacking it! You just need to UNCOVER IT, because it's already been given.

God has already given you 100% of all the love in existence. If you are blocking it, you're going to go seeking for it outside of yourself, and it will stay outside of yourself, and you will never have it that way. It's not anyone's job to love you. It's only God's function to love you, and He already has. The only part left now is your WILLINGNESS to accept and allow it and RECOGNIZE it where it is, within you, where God already put it. You are already loved, unconditionally and eternally, so if that's not what you are experiencing, YOU are blocking yourself from being loved.

It doesn't even matter if other people love you or not. Other people could be loving you 100% unconditionally and totally all the time, but you could still be shutting it out, ignoring it, rejecting it, and not believing you deserve it. How are you going to get that love into you if your entire reason for trying to find it out there is because you don't really believe you deserve it? No-one can give it to you if you don't allow it to be in you, and to allow it to be in you is to accept it from God.

Love has already been shared with you. Love is already available permanently. Love is what you are really made of. You can't not be loved or lovable or loving. But you can pretend, and you can cover it up, and you can be in denial. That simply means you need to uncover all these ways that you keep love from yourself. It's not because other people are keeping love from you, it's YOU that does not really want it. You say you do, but evidently you don't, or you would accept it from God right now.

God loves you. Just so you know.

When we all love each other, it means that we have love within us, because we are love, and are sharing that love, NOT BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE NEED IT, because they also have the love coming from God within themselves. To love everyone is not to substitute for their belief in lack, or to love them FOR them, or to force love upon them. We all are responsible for and naturally function as extenders of GOD'S LOVE, because God is the only source of love that's real. Access your own unique connection to Him, your own relationship, and heal it, so that you can experience love again.

"Miracles violate every law of reality as this world judges it."

"Miracles do not obey the laws of this world."

"The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all."

"The world is but an effect and not a cause at all."

"The mind must be stronger than the body. Every miracle demonstrates this."

"It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen."

"Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail."

----- There are two levels -----

1. Higher mind, which is causal and causes everything. It causes the EFFECT of a lower level 3D world, which is entirely governed by what this mind decides to make happen. This is the level of "the dreamer."

2. The world, a 3D projected image which is entirely an EFFECT of the higher level. This level has NO causality and cannot make anything happen on its own. No part of it causes any other part of it to do anything. This is the level of "the dream."

The higher level CAUSES the lower level effects. That means causality is "vertical". It proceeds from above to below.

The lower level of the world itself, has NO CAUSALITY in it. It is 100% pure effect. It is not alive, it has no will, it has no mind, there are no forces or powers, no reactions, no chain of events, nothing. It's like a movie that's been projected onto a screen. The movie cannot DO anything outside of the content that the PROJECTOR has put onto the screen.

However, the higher level mind is capable of creating ILLUSIONS of lower-level causality. For example, it can place an apple in the world, next to an orange. It can then make the orange move (which cannot move by itself). The orange can move towards the apple. However, there are NO lower-level laws that DO anything, not even laws of physics. So the orange moves THROUGH the apple, having no effect on it. It's like it's not even there. It's just an IMAGE. Two images overlapping.

In order to make the orange "collide with" the apple, the higher level mind of causality has to make the apple move, at just the right moment as the orange SEEMS to touch it, so that there is an ILLUSION of a reaction, which makes it look AS IF the orange collided with the apple. There were NO laws on the level of the world causing this reaction. It's entirely fictional, decided upon by the higher level mind.

To an observer who has "bought into the illusion", it SEEMS as if there is some kind of "law" on the lower level, governing what will happen when the orange hits the apple. And the these are described as laws of physics. These laws are based on the idea that stuff on the lower level is capable of CAUSING EFFECTS on the SAME lower level. This is the idea of "horizontal causality". ACIM refers to the illusion of this as "horizontal perception."

The illusion is so convincing that it seems there is a "law" in effect, some kind of universal rule, that ensures the apple and the orange will act AS IF they are colliding. These are then thought to be natural laws or laws of nature. THEY ARE NOT. THEY DO NOT EXIST! The orange NEVER causes anything to happen. The apple NEVER is affected by the orange. BOTH OF THEM are being simultaneously moved and animated BY the higher level mind.

So in the world, it SEEMS as though there are laws of physics which govern how everything interacts, but it's 100% once removed from what ACTUALLY causes everything to occur. The world ITSELF is once removed from reality/causality, which is why it is an EFFECT or illusion and DOES NOT EXIST!

The things in the world that you THINK are "causes" or "causing something", are NOT THE CAUSE. Cause is always in the mind! They are ILLUSIONS of causes, pretending to be causes. Both causes AND effects on the level of the world are BOTH EFFECTS. This is why Jesus says "the world you see DOES NOTHING. It has no effects at all" (it has no causal power at all).

So while there is this horizontal illusion of cause and effect, which is of the ego, since these so-called "laws" are actually fictional and not the REAL cause, when the mind decides to make a change in what it PROJECTS, it is capable of BREAKING THE LAWS. If the mind decides suddenly, that the apple and the orange will combine together to produce a banana, THEN SO BE IT.

Vertical mind will CAUSE a banana to be projected INTO the world as a banana showing up. This will VIOLATE every conceivable "horizontal law" that you can imagine. And THIS IS MIRACULOUS! "Miracles violate every law of reality as the world judges it." The mind has simply decided to CHANGE ITS DREAM, and this breaks all of the FICTIONAL horizontal laws that APPEAR to explain why things are the way they are, or what limits they are restricted by. Mind OVERRIDES the law!

Miracles are also demonstrations. And miracles are also teaching devices. When the higher mind expresses its power OVER the lower level, and shows that it is the AUTHOR of the "fake laws" by breaking those laws, it demonstrates that those laws ARE ILLUSIONS. "Appearances can be changed." And by changing those appearances, it is PROVEN that those appearances MUST have been illusions. This is educational.

Additionally, the "nature" or "natural law" of the horizontal level, which is fake, is BELOW the TRUE NATURE of the higher level mind that causes it all. That means that which CAUSES the lower level effects is ABOVE the NATURE of the lower level. Another word for that is SUPER (above) NATURAL. Supernatural. Miracles are supernatural! They transcend the "nature" of the "ego", which is the illusion that horizontal causality is real. Also the idea that horizontal causality is real, is really the ego idea that there is no God! That there is no HIGHER CAUSE.

This is why it was possible for Jesus to do things like walking on water to defy gravity, multiplying food to defy ideas of limited materials, changing a tree branch into a snake and back again, raising a body from seeming death, etc.

These are all POSSIBLE because the mind that MAKES all this worldly content show up has POWER OVER IT from a higher level. When a person's mind has become VERTICALLY ORIENTED, which relates to "miracles entail a sudden shift from horizontal to vertical perception", the mind aligned with CAUSALITY can make ANY changes you can possibly conceive of, OUTSIDE of the illusion of "laws that can't be broken." And this is what MIRACLE WORKERS demonstrate. The idea of irreversibility is SIN. Miracles prove sin is not real by CHANGING what the world says cannot be changed.

The distinction between what is CAUSE, and what is its EFFECT, perfectly explains the structure of cause and effect and WHY supernatural miracles are possible and HOW they operate. They are acts of MIND and WILL firmly rooted in causal power, simply electing to produce a different EFFECT. Since "the world is but an effect and not a cause at all", there is nothing in the world or OF the world that cannot be changed, healed, undone, reversed or manipulated by the power of the Mind. This includes bodily sickness and death. "The mind (cause) must be stronger than the body (effect), every miracle demonstrates this!"

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given unto you in Earth and Heaven. There is nothing you cannot do."

The "physical world", exists only IN false perception. This is why the body's eyes can see it. The body's eyes are rooted in false perception permanently.

"Everything the body sees is an illusion."

"These eyes made not to see will never see."

"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."

"Eyes perceive falsely"

The world is like a veil that hangs in front of the face of Christ to block your vision. It must be seen THROUGH and past, which is what it means to OVERLOOK it, which IS forgiveness.

When you overlook the world, and look to the light beyond all forms and bodies, the light of the real world, you will become UNABLE to see the world. At its peak, christ vision makes the veil become totally invisible, the world is utterly forgotten, and it disappears.

You only become able to see the physical world by LOWERING your "frequency" to one less loving, causing you to enter into illusions and start to allow them into your mind, making them real, causing you to "see them". Without false perception, you CANNOT SEE the false world. And you cannot see BOTH the false world and the true world in their simultaneous entirety.

"The world you see (the false world) must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."

"You cannot behold the world and know God."

In order TO see the real world, the TRUE world, you have to make the false world - Earth, FALSE, and not believe it's TRUE, otherwise you are making NO distinction between what is true and false and are CONFUSED (ego). Only by being clear about what is true and what is false, or what is good and what is evil, can you DISCERN with accurate (true) perception what is REAL and what is UNREAL.

The world that exists ONLY in false perception, DOES NOT exist in true perception. In true perception you see the real world, in which there ARE no streets, buildings, houses, shopping malls, street lights, not even night and day, and not even the sun and the earth.

If you want to see the face of christ, you have to LET GO OF this world. You have to access the spiritual eye and use christ vision. And you have to see PAST physical matter, IGNORING IT. Making it unreal to yourself. Recognizing it as false. Realizing it IS just an illusory world, not a real world. It is by recognizing that illusions ARE NOT REAL, that you transition from false to true perception. True perception recognizes what is real and what is illusion.

You cannot forgive the world and keep the world. "A world forgiven cannot last." You can ONLY forgive that which is an ILLUSION, and see through its illusory nature to the truth beyond it. Doing this makes the illusion DISAPPEAR. Forgiving the world UNDOES it, and makes it disappear. You cannot SEE IT when you see the face of Christ. Because then, the world is forgotten entirely.

In the following quotes, Jesus outlines clearly why you CANNOT see BOTH worlds at once, in full. And sight of one REQUIRES that you NOT SEE the other. You cannot therefore keep both heaven and Earth, you have to choose one or the other. And ONLY one of the two is real.

"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought that gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, ****where all the world must disappear**** and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."

"***The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it***, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when ***all things visible will have an end.***"

"The world as YOU perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is NOT as you see it. God created ONLY the eternal, and ***everything YOU see is perishable***. Therefore, there must be another world which you do NOT see."

"The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive ***nothing ELSE***. For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM."

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; ***the world forgotten***, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream"

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as ***nothing more than just a fragile veil***, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now ****it cannot fail to disappear****, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant ***is the world forgot***, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." ***This world you see MUST BE DENIED***, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. ***YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS.*** For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. ***The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER.***

***Both are not true***, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you IS unequal. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it.

This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all."

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal. This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. And of these two, but one is real. Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. The one answer to all illusions is truth."

"Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, ***simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight.*** The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute.'