Communication means sharing. Not sharing where one person hands over something to someone else, who now possesses that thing, but the first person doesn't. It means, you both have access to the same state at the same time concurrently. In other words, communication means Oneness.
When there is a breakdown in Oneness, where separations are introduced, it' like erecting walls that come between. Separate parts of mind - or individuals - now seem to be on either side of the wall, like the Berlin wall. This wall breaks communication. It makes it hard to share and join and connect.
Once communication has broken down, i.e. sharing has broken down, we get into a state where there is barely any real sharing. Separate individuals now seem cut off from each other with various forms of distance between them.
The physical world with all its illusions arises out of this breakdown in communication, resulting from separation and illusions of fragmentation and distance. "Spacetime" really means "distance from here."
When communication is diminished, it degrades and devolves into what we commonly think of as forms of communication. These forms of communication are severely strained because there is so much separation involved.
While you can write or speak to others, across a gap of separation there must be misinterpretation. Information will be lost, mis-perceived, and disagreed upon. When two people seem to be a little more eye-to-eye, communication may be elevated, or they may seem to share more.
But there is also an illusion of sharing. Prowess at using the ego's forms of communication doesn't necessarily mean there is openness to true sharing. There are excellent "communicators" in the world but they are not necessarily One with God, or experiencing the same exact identity and state of being as the One Son of God.
The body limits communication, and every way that we use it to express through its forms, are breakdowns in communication. Once in the body this way, unless you are so awakened that you are communicating from pure love, you will feel this urge to try to, or to have to, force others to see things the way you see them.
This happens because you know that there is a major difference between the way you perceive separately and the way they perceive separately. You have to make egoic efforts to force them to listen, and the ego then produces this fictional idea that ... if you could just get people to "get" what you are saying, if you could just get them to "see" your point of view, or if you could just shake the denial out of them to get them to agree with you wholeheartedly, THEN this would be communication. However, this is impossible to achieve.
This automatic compulsion to coerce others to see things your way, is simply because you are not both sharing the same direct experience and there is no Oneness. This means the other person will have to be changed in order for them to seem to share what you are experiencing, and this change can only be brought about through force, in defense of what you perceive as being the whole truth.
While there is a separation, there cannot be perfect communication. The ego will attempt to claim it is possible to KEEP the separation between you and others, to communicate only through its approved channels, and to nevertheless perfectly transfer what is in you to others, or to precisely get from others what is in them. This is impossible and will never work. The separation distorts the message and will always inhibit it.
True communication in ACIM means Oneness. When there is a revelation, God is communicating fully to you. When there is full awakening, you are then able to share in full communication. The Course speaks of how we are to use miracles to help us to "raise the level of communication". What this means is decreasing separation so that there can truly be real sharing - oneness.
"To be with a body is not communication."
"The whole aim of the miracle is to raise the level of communication."
"11. Prayer is the medium of miracles. It is a means of communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed."
"Like any communication medium, the body receives and sends the messages that it is given. It has no feeling for them. All of the feeling with which they are invested is given by the sender and the receiver."
This also means that, in fact, the ego does not facilitate communication - it blocks it. It spins illusions of communication to try to bridge the gap of separation which it itself put in place, which is "special communication" (that's not an official course term but it could be). Illusions of successful communication, or the ways that you improve the ego's forms of communication, covers up and distorts real communication.
In truth then, nothing that the ego attempts to "share" goes anywhere. It's ultimate form of communication is attempted death, whereby the body is used as the ultimate weapon to try to prove that oneself is dead and therefore so are others. And yet, this has no effect on others. The more you enter into the ego the more cut off from others you become, and the effects of what you attempt to bring about cease all the more.
This is also why nothing real can be threatened. The ego cannot attack God. The more it attempts to attack God the less effective it is. The ego's attacks are withdrawals from God. The more it tries to bring about death, the more confined and separated it becomes, and this keeps all of its effects securely at a distance from God. The Kingdom of God cannot be assailed because the ego's forms of communication - "attack" - is actually an act of failing to will anything real.
"Exclude any part of the Kingdom from yourself and you are not whole."
"The body no more dies than it can feel. It does nothing."
"Nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace."
"Nothing can destroy your peace of mind because God goes with you wherever you go."
"There is no death because the Son of God is like his Father. Nothing you can do can change Eternal Love."
Attempting to take your self closer to the truth in any way, will be met with ego resistance.
The ego itself is nothing, just a "way of looking" which is the opposite to seeing the truth. It distorts everything and makes everything seem the opposite to what it is. It inverts reality. It changes God into death/evil/murderous. It sees Holy Spirit as an enemy. It sees the truth as a threat. And it does not want anything to do with this idea of "waking up and not having an ego."
The ego by itself doesn’t do anything. The problem is that YOU have taken it on AS IF it is your own Self. You regard IT as the same thing as your identity.
What that does is it causes you to perceive WITH it, through it’s eyes. You then will see things the way the ego sees them.
So if you are "tied to" an ego identity which wants absolutely nothing to do with truth, cannot exist in the truth, and sees the truth as proof that it does not exist, then "YOU" will become very threatened by approaching the truth.
If for example the truth says, there is no sin, and the ego believe that sin is real and true, and therefore sin is your *identity*, to your sense of self this will SEEM to say "I do not exist."
Regardless of the fact that you may have sided with an insane ego, you do not RECOGNIZE it is insane. You think it makes perfect sense. It seems logical, sensible, rational. You will also want to defend it as though to do so is defending "your" life, because you think it is you. Therefore it makes sense to you to AVOID the truth at all costs.
The ego sees the truth as attack, vengeance, evil, warring, deadly, hateful, loss, non-existence, etc. If you identify with the ego, you will also see the truth as meaning this.
So then, you will attempt to reach out to the truth, to become closer to God, to go into the light, but because part of you is STILL holding onto the ego and is using it to perceive, that part of you seeing with the ego will think you’re trying to kill yourself.
No-one in their "right mind" would go against what seems sensible and true, and expose themselves to what must be the END of themselves. The truth is the end of the ego, and if you believe it, it means it’s the end of your self. Approaching the truth WITH the ego, pulling it along with you, is nothing short of you SCARING THE CRAP out of yourself by exposing yourself to your worst enemy, complete with no defenses.
This is the sole cause of all ego rebounds and resistance - the mis-perception that welcoming the truth is welcoming your own death. No-one wants to do this. IT seems sensible to protect yourself and defend yourself against this. In spite of your best efforts to "become more spiritual" by opening up to the light of truth, or to love, the rest of you - still perceiving the opposite to the truth, will fear out when you try to do it.
What can even happen is your ego self will create DEFENSES AGAINST THE TRUTH, which it thinks are *needed* in order to protect your "self". Or to put it another way, you who are identified with the ego, interpret the truth as your mortal enemy, and do not want it, are threatened by it and want to "naturally" defend yourself. In the name of preserving your own life, you will erect DEFENSES psychologically.
The only ego defense is *separation*, attempting to create a gap or sense of "distance" between yourself and the threat. Implementing this is an attempt to shut out the truth, by implementing a BLOCK. The purpose of this block is to block your awareness of the threat, because if you are not aware of it, to you this is practically the same experience as though it does not exist. You use DENIAL to hide the perceived danger from yourself, so you can enter an *illusion of safety*. This illusion of safety, this block, made of guilt, shows up as SICKNESS. Sickness is a defense against the truth.
The purpose of sickness then is to defend you against what you think is going to hurt you. But to implement it, you actually HURT YOURSELF. It should be obvious why this is insane. Perceiving your best interests through the filter of the ego is insane, because it shows you the *opposite* of what will actually help you. What would really help you, and what is the UNDOING of sickness, is to correctly perceive WITHOUT the ego, that the truth is NOT a threat or hurtful, is FOR you not against you, is welcome, you want it, and it does NOT mean you will not exist.
When you can perceive correctly that you are not being threatened by the truth, you will UNDO the NEED for the defense, and this will make the sickness *disappear*. Literally. All symptoms will be dropped, because you have no further need for them. Sickness is always serving the PURPOSE of being a defense to keep you safe, even though it does the opposite. Without its purpose, it will not exist because you will withdraw your belief from it.
Essentially, approaching the truth is going to make your ego-identified self threatened. It will want to defend itself and it will be horrified, offended, upset and scared of the truth. This can lead people to BECOME SICK by doing the course. It can also cause peoples lives to turn upside down, as reactions to the misinterpretation of the truth.
Gradually the way to undo this is the development of trust and coming to perceive correctly WITHOUT the ego’s interpretation. This will naturally lead to a WILLINGNESS to accept the atonement, and accept God’s truth as true. And then you will have no resistance whatsoever. It is only your beliefs to the contrary that try to defend you against the truth.
So each time you have an ego rebound, don’t belittle yourself or judge yourself as failing to do the course right. I used to think I was making big mistakes when I had rebounds, like I was guilty for having them. But I had to learn to be gentle and acknowledge what they were saying, recognizing it was a part of my SELF that was afraid and offended by the truth I was opening up to. It’s perfectly okay to take a BREAK from pushing yourself towards the truth, to let your ego settle down a bit, and integrate what you’ve learned so that you can move forward with more willingness and less fear.
Anyone believing in death or thinks death is inevitable or irreversible needs to read this.
Here is a *FANTASTIC* section of the Course which explicitly details why death is not normal, natural, inevitable, or irreversible. And in fact, that the body can become completely incorruptible when it is free of YOUR attempt to kill it.
It hardly paints a picture of a body which suffers and dies against your will. In fact, it tells us the body can be IMMORTAL AND INVULNERABLE and remain so while it is useful.
I love the opening paragraph about funerals especially!
"The Incorruptible Body
One thing is sure; God, Who created neither sin nor death, wills not that you be bound by them. He knows of neither sin NOR its result. The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose Will it is they LIVE. They are not FOLLOWING it; they are OPPOSING it. And what is the black-draped body they would bury? A body THEY dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, OFFERED to sin to feed upon, and keep ITSELF alive. A thing condemned, damned by its maker, and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself.
You who believe you can condemn the Son of God to this ARE arrogant. But you who would RELEASE him are but honoring the Will of his Creator. The arrogance of sin, the pride of guilt, the sepulchre of separation, all are part of your unrecognized dedication to death. The glitter of guilt you laid upon the body would KILL it. For what the ego loves, it kills for its obedience. But what obeys it not, it CANNOT kill. You have ANOTHER dedication which would keep the body incorruptible and perfect as long as it is useful for your holy purpose.
The body no more dies than it can feel. IT DOES NOTHING. Of itself, it is neither corruptible nor incorruptible. IT IS NOTHING. It is the result of a tiny, mad IDEA of corruption, WHICH CAN BE CORRECTED. For God has ANSWERED this insane idea with His Own, an Answer that left Him not, and therefore brings the Creator to the awareness of every mind which heard His Answer, and ACCEPTED it. You who are dedicated to the incorruptible, have been given, through YOUR acceptance, the power to RELEASE from corruption. What better way to teach the first and fundamental principle in a course on miracles than by showing you the one that SEEMS to be the hardest can be accomplished FIRST?
The body can but serve your purpose. As you look upon it, so will it seem to be. Death, were it true, would be the final and complete disruption of communication, which IS the ego’s goal. Those who fear death see not how often and how loudly they CALL to it, and bid it come to SAVE them from communication. For death is seen as SAFETY, the great dark savior from the light of truth, the answer to the Answer, the silencer of the Voice that speaks for God. Yet the retreat to death is NOT the end of conflict. Only God’s Answer is its end.
The obstacle of your seeming love for death, which peace must flow across, SEEMS to be very great. For in it lies hidden all the ego’s secrets, all its strange devices for deception, all its sick ideas and weird imaginings. Here is the final end of union, the triumph of the ego’s making over creation, the victory of lifelessness on life Itself. Under the dusty edge of its distorted world, the ego would lay the Son of God, slain by its orders, proof in his decay that God Himself is powerless before the ego’s might, unable to protect the life that He created, against the ego’s savage wish to kill.
My brothers, children of our Father, this is a DREAM of death. There is no funeral, no dark altars, no grim commandments, nor twisted rituals of condemnation, to which the BODY leads you. Ask not release of IT. But FREE it from the merciless and unrelenting orders you laid upon it, and forgive it what you ordered it to do. In its exaltation, you COMMANDED it to die, for only death COULD conquer life. And what but insanity could look upon the defeat of God, and think it REAL?
The fear of death will go as its appeal is yielded to love’s REAL attraction. The end of sin, which nestles quietly in the safety of your relationship, protected by your union, ready to grow into a mighty force for God, is very near. The infancy of salvation is carefully guarded by love, preserved from every thought that would attack it, and quietly made ready to fulfill the mighty task for which it was GIVEN you. Your new-born purpose is nursed by angels, cherished by the Holy Spirit, and protected by God Himself. It NEEDS not your protection; it is YOURS. For it is deathless, and within it lies the END of death. What danger can assail the wholly innocent? What can attack the guiltless?
What fear can enter and disturb the peace of sinlessness? What has been given you, even in its infancy, is in full communication with God AND you. In its tiny hands, it holds, in perfect safety, every miracle you will perform, held out to YOU. The miracle of life is ageless, born in time, but nourished in eternity. Behold this infant, to whom you gave a resting-place by your forgiveness of EACH OTHER, and see in it the Will of God. Here is the babe of Bethlehem reborn. And everyone who gives him shelter will follow him, NOT to the cross, but to the Resurrection and the Life.
When anything seems to you to be a source of fear, when any situation strikes you with terror and makes your body tremble and the cold sweat of fear comes over it, remember it is ALWAYS for one reason; the ego has perceived it as a symbol of fear, a sign of sin and death. Remember, then, that neither sign nor symbol should be CONFUSED with source, for they must STAND FOR something OTHER than themselves. Their meaning CANNOT lie in them, but must be sought in what they REPRESENT. And they may thus mean everything or nothing, according to the truth or falsity of the IDEA which they reflect.
Confronted with such seeming uncertainty of meaning, judge it not. Remember the holy Presence of the One GIVEN you to be the Source of judgment. Give it to Him to judge FOR you, and say:
"Take this from me and look upon it, judging it for me.
Let me not see it as a sign of sin and death, nor use it for destruction.
Teach me how NOT to make of it an OBSTACLE to peace,
but let You use it FOR me, to FACILITATE its coming."
"
"Only the mind AND body need atonement."
So long as the effects of sin remain, there is evidence which proves and teaches that your brother DID COMMIT A SIN, and therefore is NOT exonerated. Only by healing your body and removing the consequences of attack can he be innocent. Your healed body teaches him HIS innocence AND heals HIS body, and thus he is healed along with you. Miracles heal your body AND your brother's body.
Healthy mind, healthy body. Sick mind, sick body. There are no exceptions.
If your brother attacks you, you MUST heal your body and demonstrate HE DID NOT SIN, and is therefore innocent.
**THIS IS REAL FORGIVENESS**
Here are excerpts from the section of A Course in Miracles titled "The Fear of Healing."
"For accusation is a bar to love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers."
"Who has been injured BY his brother, and could love and trust him still? He HAS attacked, and will attack again. Protect him not, because your damaged body shows that you must be protected FROM him."
"He may be PITIED for his guilt, but NOT exonerated."
"The unhealed CANNOT pardon. For they are the witnesses that pardon is unfair. They would retain the CONSEQUENCES of the guilt they overlook. Yet no-one CAN forgive a sin which he believes is real. And what has consequences MUST be real, because what it has DONE is there to see."
"forgiveness does not first ESTABLISH sin, and THEN forgive it. Who can say and MEAN, "My brother, you have injured me, and yet, because I am the BETTER of the two, I pardon you my hurt."
"To witness sin and yet forgive it is a paradox which reason cannot see."
"you grant your brother mercy, but retain the proof he is not REALLY innocent. The sick remain accusers."
"For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns CAN suffer. He holds not the proof of sin before his brother's eyes. And thus he MUST have overlooked it, and removed it from his own."
"Who forgives IS healed. And in his healing lies the PROOF that he has truly pardoned, and retains no trace of condemnation that he still would hold against himself or any living thing."
"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt?"
"Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the proof that they were merely errors."
"LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect."
"What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him."
"Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him."
"So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."
"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt."
"And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to SHOW him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream."
"How just are miracles! For they bestow an equal gift of full deliverance from guilt upon your brother AND yourself. YOUR healing saves HIM pain, as well as you. And YOU are healed BECAUSE you wished him well."
"And love would prove ALL suffering is but a vain imagining, a foolish wish, with NO effects. Your health is a result of your desire to see your brother with no blood upon his hands, nor guilt upon his heart made heavy with the proof of sin."
"The Holy Spirit knows YOUR healing is the witness UNTO his, and CANNOT be apart from him at all. As long as he consents to suffer, YOU will be unhealed."
"But you can show him his suffering is purposeless and wholly without cause. Show him YOUR healing, and he will consent no more to suffer. For his innocence HAS BEEN established in your sight AND his. And laughter will REPLACE your sighs BECAUSE God's Son remembered that he IS God's Son."
-- See also this passage from "The Picture of Crucifixion" which precedes "the fear of healing"...
"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. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS.
Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health. BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true."
-- Also
"Now is the body healed by miracles."
"The mind must be stronger than the body. Every miracle demonstrates this."
I was doing something and inquired of Holy Spirit, "Is it okay that I'm doing this?". The response was, "You're free."
This is always the response I get when questioning what I'm doing. Regardless of what I'm doing. Regardless of what anyone would think about what I'm doing. And regardless of any moral explanation for whether what I'm doing is right or wrong or good or bad.
You're free.
You're free because God gave you TOTAL freedom and you have free will to use as you see fit.
Where my mind went next was more interesting though. If I am free to do something that my judgement or beliefs might label as "wrong" in some way, and it's NOT wrong, this actually indicates that THERE IS NO SIN.
If you are free, and if everything you do is in total freedom, and everything you choose you are totally free TO choose, then there can never be ANY grounds for sin or guilt. Either you wanted to do it and did it, or you didn't. And you only did what you wanted and intended in full acceptance of it. There is never a scenario where "you shouldn't have chosen that" or "it wasn't okay to do that" or "you should've willed differently".
From God, there is no pressure, no judgement, no coercion, no condemnation, no persuasion, nothing. Because He already set you free in your creation. He does not revoke this freedom or add conditions to it. Which means WHATEVER you choose, you are free to choose. No matter what it is, no matter the consequences.
That includes murder and rape and war and attack of all kinds. If you so choose. Hitler was free to perform genocide. God did not stop him. Did you notice that?
This is not in ANY way to say that you are justified in doing these things, or that its wise, or recommended, or something a loving person would choose. Nor does it in any way suggest God condones murder and war. God's will is still that you, preferably, choose peace love and happiness. But it's still up to you whether you accept His will for you or not. Your free will gives YOU the freedom to decide whether you will accept it or deny it.
"God does not coerce." "Even God would not go against your will."
So beware getting into level confusion with this. But the point I mainly wanted to make is that, since you are completely FREE, there is nothing inherently "wrong with" anything you choose. All meaning is meaning you've given it. People are rapidly choosing death by the thousands on a daily basis, that's their choice. The key is that BECAUSE they are free, it CANNOT be a sin. They might be unwise or mistaken, but their freedom guarantees them sinlessness.
It could only be a sin if, somehow, God placed conditions on your freedom and had a set of rules about what you're "allowed" to do and what you're not. God would have to have lined up a whole segment of activities that are "not ok" or out of bounds compared to those that are sanctioned or ordained.
And if you step out of line, there'd have to be some kind of method by which God implements correction and punishment and slaps your wrists and strikes you down with a lightning bolt to keep you in line. Or worse, you'll live in fear of his judgementalism and wrath and the potential for being sent to hell and damnation for "misusing your freedom in unapproved ways."
God doesn't do that. And all of the belief and fear surrounding the "fear of God" or fearing punishment, is entirely an ego device to SUGGEST that you are NOT free, should not have exercised freedom, should not have made a decision, and have no right to freely choose whatever you want. It's a way for the EGO to keep you in line and treat you like a slave.
You are free. Without limit. Without conditions. You are unconditionally free because God is unconditionally free. He is not a judgement manipulative specially preferential God. He is not a judger or evaluator of what is and is not a sin.
This does however mean that
1) Whatever you DO choose, its your choice, and you will have to accept the consequences.
2)You can choose to live or die and nothing can oppose your decision.
3) Anything you do has NO grounds for guilt and going into guilt is a denial of your free will and ownership of decision.
4) You are responsible for everything you choose when you exercise your will, without exception.
5) You are not responsible for anything you did NOT choose, thus no additional punishment, guilt, sense of sin, unworthiness, shame, blame, or any kind of "shouldn't have willed it."
"The power of decision is my own."
"You cannot die unless you choose to do so."
"There is no sin."
There is no sin because its not possible to will something that "you shouldn't have", its not possible to will "in error", its not possible to cause anything to happen without your full agreement and acceptance of the consequences, and nothing can happen against your will.
"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice.For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences.The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are?"
"No-one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No-one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No-one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no-one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."
"My Self is ruler of the universe." It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept. "
The idea that you are totally equal to God, is what's called the Authority Problem. Actually it's also the idea of sin. Some who think their relationship with God is to be "one" with Him, and thus completely equal with Him, are not understanding that God came FIRST. Or that oneness does not actually mean "you are Him".
He is the creator of you, you are not the creator of Him. He created the Sonship and you were created to ADD TO the Sonship. But you cannot create God or cause God or add to God Himself. That makes you "below" Him in a sense, or as Jesus says in the course, "the Father is GREATER".
It is also appropriate to have AWE of God because He IS greater and above you, and not to have awe of your brothers who ARE your equals. God is GREATER because He is all encompassing, and you are within God, as a part of God, caused BY God, as one of His thoughts, and He therefore spans more than just your own soul.
The idea that being one with him means total equality completely ignores these dynamics and suggests you are as much the creator of God as he is of you. And that unfortunately is where the tiny mad idea began, where you as an effect of God attempted to be the cause of Him, and where the entire ego thought system started. His Kingdom also cannot increase at all if you are God's exact equal because you and God would be in a deadlocked power struggle.
You have to be a son, in order to set up the dynamic that "A Son of a Father must have a Son", establishing God's fatherhood and your sonhood. And being like the father you too become a father, thus co-creator with Him. But your co-creatorship does not allow you to co-create God Himself, and yet God Himself does create you.
And so you are not equal to God in all ways and functions, but you ARE like Him in terms of mirroring the ability to create, IN ADDITION TO what already has been created BY Him. The notion that you have equal creative function with God is to suggest you are capable of creating yourself, and that is what the ego believes is true.
You can add your creations to His Kingdom, but you cannot overthrow the Kingdom itself. Nor can you attack or destroy what HE already created, that being yourself, your brothers, the Holy Spirit, and the angels. All of this "state of the union" is somewhat more elaborate than simply to say that "it's all just oneness", and it certainly is not compatible with an idea of non-duality which implies "no sons at all."
God has a family, and you are part of it. God is a creator with many creations and those creations have many creations and all of them co-create together. This is what A Course in Miracles teaches, not that we're all going to just dissolve into nothing, with no self and no creative function. God has established you as a free-willed co-creator forever.
In fact, if you weren't a SON of God and not God's equal, you would have INHERITED NOTHING, and would never be a HOST to God Himself. God GAVE you everything He had in your creation, thus extending His Self to you, sharing His will and mind and power, and establishing you as SHARER of his being. Because God is your father, you have an inheritance which is waiting for you to reclaim it.
"The world, in its original connotation, included both the proper creation of man by God, AND the proper creation by man in his Right Mind. The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given."
"Think not He wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him. He would but keep your will forever and forever limitless."
"My mind holds only what I think with God. That is a fact, and represents the truth of What you are and What your Father is. It is this thought by which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator with Himself."
"Revelation is NOT reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO man (souls). This is because God and man are NOT equal. "
"This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER."
"The creative power of both God AND His Creations is limitless, but it is NOT in reciprocal relationship. You DO communicate fully WITH God, as He does with YOU. This is an ongoing process in which you SHARE, and BECAUSE you share it, you are inspired to create LIKE God. But in Creation you are NOT in a reciprocal relation TO God, because He created YOU, but you did NOT create Him. We have already stated that only in this respect your creative power differs from His."
"I have repeatedly emphasized that awe is not appropriate in connection with me (Jesus), BECAUSE of our inherent equality."
"The word "Awe" should be reserved only for revelations, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is NOT appropriately applied to miracles, because a state of true awe is worshipful. It implies that one of a lesser order stands before the Greater One. This is the case only when a Soul stands before his Creator. Souls are perfect creations, and should be struck with awe in the presence of the Creator of Perfection."
"Equals cannot be in awe of each other, because awe ALWAYS implies inequality. Awe is not properly experienced even to me (awe of Jesus). That is why in that short introductory vision, I knelt beside you, FACING the light."
"Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for your creation. They do not leave you, any more than you have left your Creator."
"He (God) does nothing last, because He created first and for always. It must be understood that the word "first" as applied to Him is not a time concept. He is first in the sense that He is the First in the Holy Trinity Itself. He is the Prime Creator, because He created His co-creators. Because He did, time applies neither to Him nor to what He created. The "last step" that God will take was therefore true in the beginning, is true now, and will be true forever. What is timeless is always there, because its being is eternally changeless."
I was watching a little bug crawling along the edge of the floor. I noticed how its "design" was going to mean it had a certain short amount of time to live, to crawl around trying to find food, likely to eventually starve, and die. It seemed obvious that death is built into things in this world, into the forms, into the growth and death cycle. And then a spider noticed the bug and approached and killed it and ate it.
Obviously the life of the bug is not exactly rewarding. It's demise is more or less programmed into its body. It's life duration is only mildly flexible and definitely short. It is born and it grows and suffers and dies. Like a guarantee. Like a destiny or fate. The bug was going to die, right from the start. It could not escape this. And how completely closed and cruel and insane that is.
This is the "nature" of this world. This is the fundamental way of space and time. Of separation. Of a world made in false perception, as an attack on God and life, and as an attempt to reject reality. The world we made is fundamentally cruel and insane and everything in it is made to die.
It is ridiculous that such a system, which on the physical level no bodies can seemingly escape, guarantees that death will happen to everything. And if you think that your body will escape this as well, you are mistaken, unless you can become miraculous. For most, death will take its toll sooner or late. Not if, but when.
The fate of the bug is the fate of every body. How ridiculous that we should think it natural that this is what happens, or what is going to happen. And who would still be insane to deny that this too is likely to happen to them. You can pretend a while, but eventually it will bite you in the ass.
If this is true, and if this is real, there is no way out. There is then essentially no hope. Sooner or later death will strike. Sooner or later, no matter what you try, the body will end. It is inevitable, unless you are a miracle worker. The only way for there to BE hope, to BE a way out, to BE sanity and sense, is if the world is not true or real. If this isn't the ONLY way. If this perpetual prison is in fact somehow transcend-able then you have a way out of hell. But otherwise you are stuck, and denying you are is pointless.
This is why "there must be a better way". A way that is better than the world itself. A way that is light and free and outside of the confines of the laws of this world, the laws of death and the laws of suffering. Only if there is an alternative, another world, another reality, another set of laws to live by, can there be any hope at all. And fortunately there is, because the laws of God and the nature of HIS Kingdom is nothing like this hellish place.
The task then becomes to learn to rise above the prison sentence, beyond the destiny of death, and to overcome the hell you made. To find a way to exist that is nothing like the existence of the body. To rejoin a thread of hope and life and power and miraculousness. Because it literally will take a miracle to free you from death. It will literally require you to break the laws of space and time, to set yourself free from the cycle of birth.
Fortunately God has a plan and it is the atonement, the way home. There IS a way out of hell, through forgiveness. And this requires un-learning everything the world told you is true, rejecting all notions of limitation and lack and suffering and death. And accepting the FREEDOM that God has given you in your creation.
You are free from hell because you are not of this world. You are free from death because God who created you gave you eternal life. And you are free from the nightmare of inevitable suffering, because in God there is only perfect peace. There is no world, there is no suffering, and there is no death. And only through acceptance of life without opposite can you set yourself free.
"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death."
"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end?"
"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. All its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes."
"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."
"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."
In ACIM the term "solid" or "solidity" obviously refers to what we recognize it to mean..... things which seem solid to us. Physical matter, heavy objects, solid materials, walls, bodies, planets, all things which science would tell us are in a solid state of matter. Hard, tangible, measurable, biological, chemical, physical. Planet earth.
The course goes on to tell us that these things which appear to be solid will eventually be seen as transparent, like a shadow, or a smoke-screen, or a veil of illusions. And that these solid things stand in front of the face of Christ, initially blocking its view entirely but later moving aside and fading away to reveal the true light of the real world. That the "world", ie the solid earth, is nothing but a wall of illusions standing in the way of reality.
Christ vision becomes able to "see through" solid matter, kind of like x-ray vision. This is because it is forgiving, and "to forgive is to overlook." To overlook something is to not see it, which is why what you forgive must disappear. By forgiving the physical material solid world, therefore, you become able to see through and past and beyond it to the light of another world. A world which is not earth and is not the physical solid material plane.
In fact, Jesus says that it is the guilt in our minds which makes the veil of illusions - earth and spacetime - appear to have solidity. It is guilt which drags our mind down into false perceptions, blinded by perception of form, looking through and believing the body's eyesight which is completely incapable of forgiving or looking past the solidity of matter.
It is our belief in guilt and sin and fear and death which locks us in to the prison of solid matter and makes it appear opaque to our minds. It is only because we are not forgiving that the world appears to show up at all as "solid". And once we forgive completely, the whole world must disappear, and that does mean the solid physical world will fade into nothingness, leaving behind only the light of heaven, because the world IS nothing but a veil of illusions we made to cover up reality.
The physical material solid world literally was made as a kind of curtain or screen or wall to come "between" you and yourself, between you and God, to hide God and block out heaven. It is like a layer of dirt covering over what should be bright and obvious, a stain upon the creation of God, a shadow of darkness. Belief in it causes the body to be lit up and made to seem real and solid, emphasizing the rift of the gap of separation which contains the entire separation from God in the split mind.
Christ vision looks past this world to the light. It does not mistake the body for the son of God. It does not fixate on physical forms. It does not believe the world of separate objects is real. It doesn't merely look upon and regard it as unified, it looks fully beyond it entirely. It glances at the disappearing thin veil of nothingness as it leave the mind's awareness and opens up fully to perceiving only the light of reality. Then it is game over for the world, which was nothing to begin with.
This is then the end of solidity, the end of matter, the end of the physical, the end of the world of shadows, the end of darkness, the end of separation, and the end of death. The world is at first forgiven, seen past, overlooked, and ignored, and then ultimately returns to nothing at all which it is. There is no world, and only heaven remains.
"It can indeed be said the ego MADE its world on sin. Only in such a world COULD everything be upside down. This IS the strange illusion which makes the clouds of guilt seem heavy and impenetrable. The solidness this world's foundation SEEMS to have is FOUND in this. For sin HAS changed creation from an Idea of God to an IDEAL the EGO wants; a world IT rules, made up of bodies, mindless, and capable of COMPLETE corruption and decay."
"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. "
"Sin is impossible, and on this fact forgiveness rests upon a certain base more solid than the shadow world we see."
"And so you stand, here in this holy place, before the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ. LET it be lifted! Raise it together, for it is but a veil that stands between you. Either alone will see it as a solid block, nor realize how thin the drapery that separates you now."
"Standing BEFORE the veil, it still seems difficult. But hold out your JOINED hands and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and the holy Self you share."
"The mechanisms of illusion have been born instead. And now they go to find what has been given them to seek. Their aim is to fulfill the purpose which the world was made to witness and make real. They see in its illusions but a solid base where truth exists, upheld apart from lies. Yet everything which they report is but illusion which is kept apart from truth."
"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and WITHOUT a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would TRY to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to ATTEMPT to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily BECAUSE it is an error. The FORM it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from REASON's eyes."
"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it WERE a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else BUT form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see."
"Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount."
"For anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those who dream the world is real. The body seems to be more solid and more stable than the mind. And love becomes a dream, while fear remains the one reality which can be seen and justified and fully understood."
"This heavy-seeming barrier, this artificial floor that looks like rock, is like a bank of low, dark clouds that seem to be a solid wall before the sun. Its impenetrable appearance is WHOLLY an illusion."
"Yet in this cloud bank it is easy to see a whole world rising. A solid mountain range, a lake, a city, all arise in your imagination, and FROM the clouds, the messengers of your perception return to you, assuring you that it is all THERE. Figures stand out and move about, actions seem real, and forms appear and shift from loveliness to the grotesque. And back and forth they go, as long as you would play the game of children's "make believe.""
"Christ's vision is the bridge between the worlds, and in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there, transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them. Holiness has been restored to vision, and the blind can see."
"If you are not a body, what are you? You need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in your mind. You need to feel something to put your faith in, as you lift it from the body. You need a real experience of something else, something more solid and more sure; more worthy of your faith, and really there."
"The world you see is based on SACRIFICE of oneness. It is a picture of a COMPLETE disunity and total LACK of joining. Around each entity is built a wall so seeming solid that it looks as if what is inside can never reach without, and what is out can never reach and join with what is locked away within the wall."
"The final one, the hardest to believe is nothing, and a seeming obstacle with the appearance of a solid block, impenetrable, fearful and beyond surmounting, is the fear of God Himself."
"You who believe you walk in sanity, with feet on solid ground, and through a world where meaning CAN be found, consider this: These ARE the laws on which your "sanity" appears to rest. These ARE the principles which makes the ground beneath your feet seem solid. And it IS here you look for meaning. These are the laws YOU made for your salvation. They hold in place the substitute for Heaven that you prefer."
"This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real. Yet those who think it real must still believe there is another will, and one which leads to opposite effects from those He wills. Impossible indeed; but every mind which looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone. But never in One God."
"The actions of the body are perceived as coming from the "baser" part of you, and thus of him as well. By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good."
"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."
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
"Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past EVERYTHING you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes."
"Such is your resurrection, for your life is not a part of anything you see. It stands beyond the body and the world, past every witness for unholiness, within the Holy, holy as Itself."
"Desiring to look upon their brothers in holiness, the power of belief and faith goes far BEYOND the body, SUPPORTING vision, NOT obstructing it."
"Grace is not given to a BODY, but to a MIND. And the mind that RECEIVES it, looks INSTANTLY beyond the body, and sees the holy place where IT was healed."
"And now God's KNOWLEDGE, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its Kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
There is a simple law about health that you need to know about, as described here:
"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use if for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies. Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all."
If you do not regard yourself as an illusion in any way ("I am not an illusion but a reality"), you do not see YOURSELF as an illusion, and therefore you do not SHOW UP AS an illusion. Instead, you show up as INVISIBLE. As if you have no body. You do not need a body, and the body would not be an accurate identification of what you think of yourself.
The body is always coming from your mind, as an outward picture of an inward condition. Always. It is always being projected outward. It never has its own condition or its own state of being or its own mind or will or power or thoughts or anything else. It’s purely a projected mental image. It is YOUR mental image about what you think your identity is. Or, what you are made of. Or, what you think is true of you.
If you think it is true of you that you are less than as God created you, pure spirit, wholeness, having no form or need for form, you WILL materialize - ie mis-create - what appears to be a body out of nowhere. The mind makes the body. And the mind can make as many bodies as it likes. As Jesus said in the special notes to Helen, here are his exact words where he describes exactly what I’ve just said:
"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it.. It merely became what it always was. And that is what 'rolling the stone away means.' The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond... To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body's worthlessness to the world. This has been much misunderstood. I came to tell them that death is an illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. They did not understand."
His body disappeared because He had no illusions about himself, his identity. He did not identify himself as dead, or made of separation, and so He stopped showing up as that. He stopped imagining himself as that.
Note he also says, the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. The mind MAKES the body. And it constantly is projecting a body when it sees itself as limited. It is projecting the body at every moment to sustain an illusion of a constant self. But the body is always an effect, never a cause of anything. So if the mind wants to believe something else, the body MUST change. It has no will to stop the mind.
Now, a very important thing to realize is, the state of the body, being a mental picture of "self", directly corresponds ALWAYS to how a person’s mind is seeing itself. What it believes it is. So if it believes it is sinful or guilty, the mind will attack itself, thus attack its own image of itself which will show up as a body infected by or attacked by guilt and sin. This will make the body appear, ie be projected as though, it seems to be "sick". It does not "have" a sickness, it IS a sickness.
It will REMAIN showing up as sick for as long as the MIND decides to be sick. It will have no ability to heal itself. Bodies DO NOT heal themselves. The immune system is a bullshit ego concept. It is an illusion. Bodies does not heal anything. They do nothing. Only the mind orchestrates stuff happening.
When the mind says jump, the body jumps. Literally. When the mind says, I am sick and separate, a body will be projected which shows signs of sickness and separation. When the mind says, now is the time that I am well and joined with God, the body MUST show up as a picture of a body that is in perfect health.
You have to realize, the body has NO ABILITY to counter the choice of the mind as to how it wants to identify itself. It IS the mind’s attempt to identify itself as an illusion. There also IS NO OTHER CAUSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD that can do anything to the body. It cannot be made sick, or hurt, or damaged in any way, unless the mind is believing it is damaged. And then the MIND puts the damage into the body, not the world. As Jesus says here clearly:
"Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself ... 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."
That means there is NO CAUSE outside of you, at all. Ever. The body CANNOT be caused against YOUR will. Ever. However it shows up, is how you are MAKING IT show up.
There is nothing in the world that makes your body do or feel or adjust or change in any way at all. Any appearance to the contrary is some illusion the mind is putting in place to pretend it is irresponsible. Sickness IS irresponsibility. The mind however is ALWAYS in charge even if it makes an illusion of death. Death cannot happen to the body unless the mind destroys the body itself. "No-one dies without their own consent".
This also means, that if the body is showing up as sick, SOMETHING IS WRONG with the mind. Guaranteed. 100%. If the body is sick, the mind HAS NOT been healed. This is metaphysical law with zero exceptions. There can be states of mind reached which seem like awakening, but where the body remains sick. In such states, the mind HAS NOT awoken from the dream of death, as proved by the fact that the body still seems to die, because the mind STILL BELIEVES it does not deserve eternal life, and so accepts death - an illusion of giving up all will and causality. An attempt not to choose at all.
Rather than see this as some kind of condemnation or guilt-inducing statement that, if you are sick, it’s your fault, which the ego would love to indulge, instead see it as perhaps shocking or upsetting at first, to have to admit that YOU are responsible for making your sickness. This is not always welcome news, often producing ego reactions of guilt and fear and so on. But it is also revealing to you a POWER that you have. A power and a CHOICE, a FREEDOM, a HOPE, in which IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND, you NEED NOT SUFFER.
This does not EVER mean, that if you change your mind, you will transcend sickness and death and not care that it "happens to you". This is 100% missing the point and a total bastardization of the teaching. No-one can be at peace with death because peace is evidence you do not believe in Eternal Life. Sickness and death DO NOT happen to you. YOU HAPPEN. Sickness only happens in your body beacuse it’s a picture of YOUR MIND’s sickness. Death only happens in your body because YOU DESTROY YOURSELF. This has to be owned up to before you can claim the right, and power, and freedom, to EXERCISE your FREE WILL choice to NEVER SUFFER AGAIN.
It does mean, on the one hand, you HAVE to admit to being responsible for causing ALL of the suffering you have experienced, it was ALL you doing it to yourself, and no-one and nothing-else EVER caused anything you’ve experienced. That can be a big chunk of crap to swallow. BUT.... it also opens the door to the POSSIBILITY, that you still have this power, and can CHOOSE AGAIN and therefore produce a state of NO SUFFERING.
You MUST demonstrate a body that is invulnerable, cannot be hurt, cannot be damaged, has no sickness, does not show any signs of attack, and PROVES that your brother and the whole world has done NOTHING to affect the Son of God. OTHERWISE... you WILL attack yourself, and you will suffer, by your own hand. No-one else will be doing it to you but yourself. This is the SECRET TO SALVATION! YOU ARE DOING THIS ALL TO YOURSELF. And because you are - if you OWN IT - you can choose simply to NEVER AGAIN be sick or dead or suffer in any way. Claim your IMMORTALITY!
There is no power in all the world that does anything to you against your will, other than YOU. There is no cause in the world whatsoever to produce effects in you or your body that YOU do not put there yourself. Worldly causes are cover-up jobs for your mind to pretend its irresponsibility is someone else’s fault.
There is no form of sickness, even DEATH, that cannot be reversed, if the MIND decides to no longer believe in it. Whatever you believe about yourself, IT WILL SHOW UP. It must. Mind is cause. Form is the effect of believing in illusions. Your mind has power over ALL MATTER. "My self is ruler of the universe".
So realize this. While you have a body, your body ALWAYS EQUALS your state of mind. So long as you THINK you are a body, YOU WILL MAKE ONE. So long as you think you are separate from God, you will PRESENT A PICTURE of what you believe for all to see. "Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt"!! But there can also be a totally transparent depiction of what’s going on inside of you, if you fully accept atonement.
If the body is showing up as sick, your mind *IS* sick. You ARE responsible for it. No-one else is. The world is not. The body is not. Having mastery over form REQUIRES extreme, absolute ownership and responsibility for EVERYTHING you are experiencing, down to the atoms that make up the body. YOU are putting them there. If the body is not doing well, it’s because you keep attacking yourself. Period. Don’t let this induce guilt or worthlessness. Instead forgive yourself and choose again.
If you can recognize this correlation between mind and body, you will realize that *IF* you change your mind, THE BODY HAS TO FOLLOW. It is guaranteed. It is a depiction of your "Self" as you see yourself. This is why when you shift into a miracle, you temporarily move into INVISIBILITY. "Miracles are temporary shifts into invisibility, that is why they heal." Invisibility (of form) correlates to having a mind which is CLEAR and FREE OF SEPARATIONS. You can see through it because it has become transparent and UNBLOCKED. This movement into formlessness heals the mind and thus the body MUST follow.
This also means, as Jesus has said, *IF* you get your mind into a state of perfect clarity and truth, and given that you are temporarily still projecting a body, the body BECOMES INVULNERABLE because YOU ARE, it cannot BE sick for ANY reason, because you are not sick, and IT CANNOT DIE because you see yourself as immortal spirit. Or at least a glimpse of that. Jesus assures us there is a divine protection that the body will experience IF we will be purely vigilant for the truth. Your body CAN be indestructible, free of aging, weather, the need for food and water, and so on. "I am sustained by the love of God all through the day", goes to the extreme!
And He literally means this..... IT CANNOT be sick. Sickness is IMPOSSIBLE where guilt has been removed. Sickness CANNOT RETURN where guilt has been removed. A guiltless mind cannot produce a suffering body. And why would it. A suffering body is an attack on your brother and yourself, due to a belief the world is causing you. Sickness is NONSENSE. It is a portrayal of a victim who believes they are sinful. But everyone is free to choose. You can choose whatever you want, but you cannot escape the consequences of your decisions.
You are cause. This is a course in cause, not effect. Choose health by choosing to heal the mind of its misperception of itself, and it will automatically take care of projecting a healthy body in the short term. This is the same as saying to seek first the kingdom of God and your way will be made straight.
There's a bizarre contrast between the absolute unchangeability of your real self, versus this entire realm of spacetime and matter in which everything seems to change.
Given you are completely changeless, permanent, eternal, always and forever, it is starkly UNBELIEVABLE how the world of change has absolutely NO EFFECT on you at all.
It's like, there you are this completely fixed motionless immovable mountain that is absolute and permanent and infinite in its consistency. And there's this entire world of changes, transitions, alterations, adjustments, modifications, things causing other things, and NOT ONE SINGLE SPECK can even come close to touching you or affecting you.
So that means that everything in this entire world that CHANGES, which is all of it, is LYING TO YOU when it says that it IS changing something real. You are real, it is not changing you at all.
This means we are faced with a "world of change", maximum change, and yet for all that changes NOT ONE SINGLE THING about you changes. So every single "change" that the world appears to undergo, that seems like an ACTUAL change, is NOT a change at all.
So here we have a world which is entirely made up of comings and goings, beginnings and endings, changes and transformations, everything becoming something else, and all of this is a LIE, suggesting that massive change is happening to reality, when in fact NO CHANGE AT ALL is taking place.
Not one single change in the world has any power whatsoever to cause a change in ANYTHING real. The weather, the natural disasters, the armies, the tides, the seasons, the environments, the temperatures, the erosion and destruction, the murder and death, NOT ONE SINGLE PART OF IT CHANGES YOU.
Every single thing in this entire "universe" is FAKE CHANGE. Fake news. Utterly an ILLUSION of change, appearing to be a change, when in fact it is ABSOLUTELY NOT CHANGING ANYTHING.
When you contrast the sheer degree to which this world seems to suggest that change is absolutely normal and maximal and everywhere, against the fact that nothing real EVER CHANGES, it becomes clearer just how much of an illusory dream this world is. How FALSE it is, how much of a LIE and DECEPTION it is. Nothing happening here does anything whatsoever to anything in reality.
Change is in fact IMPOSSIBLE. What God creates can never change. God never changes his mind. Creations never stop being creations. There is no suffering or sickness or death. There are no beginnings or endings. There is no growth or decay or maturation or degradation. There is no destruction or dismantling or starting over. There is no sickness or malfunction or damage or hurt. There is no dying and no death.
Not one single thing in the entire seeming history of space and time has EVER DONE ANYTHING AT ALL. And YOU have never been altered even slightly by a single part of it. You stand like a beacon of infinite power and light and truth and certainty in the midst of the deceptive waters of spacetime, and nothing happens to you.
"(mind) .. it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere." UrW167L9
"The "changes" the ego seeks to make are not really changes." UrP3B2
"For this one thought would be enough to save you and the world, if you believed that it is true. Its truth would mean that you have made no changes in yourself which have reality, nor changed the universe so that what God created was replaced by fear and evil, misery and death. If you remain as God created you, fear has no meaning, evil is not real, and misery and death do not exist." UrW110L1 (I am as God created me)
"Today we practice making free our minds of all the laws you think you must obey; of all the limits under which you live, and all the changes which you think are part of human destiny." UrW127L6
"God changes not His Mind about His Son with passing circumstance which has no meaning in eternity where He abides, and you with Him." UrT24G3
"Perception changes, MADE to take the place of changeless knowledge." UrT26H2
"The shifts and change are what the dream is made of." UrS3D2
"Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur." UrT17C4
"dreams are what they are BECAUSE of their illusion of reality. Only in waking is the full release from them, for only then does it become PERFECTLY apparent that they had no effect on reality at all, AND DID NOT CHANGE IT." UrT17A1
"All the images His Son appears to make have no effect on what he is. They blow across his mind like wind-swept leaves that form a patterning an instant, break apart to group again, and scamper off. Or like mirages seen above a desert, rising from the dust." UrW189L9
"Appearances deceive BUT CAN BE CHANGED. Reality is changeless. It does not deceive at all. And if you fail to see BEYOND appearances, you ARE deceived. For everything you see will change, and yet you thought it real before, and now you think it real again. Reality is thus reduced to form, and CAPABLE of change. Reality is changeless. It is this that MAKES it real, and KEEPS it separate from all appearances. It MUST transcend all form to be itself. It CANNOT change." UrT30I1
"But time, with its illusions of change and death, wears out the world and all things in it. Yet time has an ending, and it is this that the teachers of God are appointed to bring about." UrM2A4
"Yet nothing in the world of dreams remains without the hope of change and betterment, for here is NOT where changelessness is found." UrT29F7
"Change is always fearful to the separated, because they cannot conceive of it as a change toward HEALING the separation. They ALWAYS perceive it as a change for further separation, because separation WAS their first experience of change." UrT4B6