They are two MECHANISMS for seeing, and they REPORT in two entirely different ways, and it's to you to decide WHICH OF THEM you are going to listen to. And you cannot listen to them both, fully, at once.

"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see."

"for they can see only illusions"

"Everything the body sees is an illusion."

"Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception"

The body, has 100% permanent false perception. It is a fixed, PHYSICAL form of perception which CANNOT EVER see anything other than form, error and illusion.

"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body"

"The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all,"

"Vision adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary to desire. And if you see the body, you have chosen judgment, and not vision. For vision, like relationships, has no order. You either SEE, or not."

"Everyone sees only what he thinks he is."

"Forgiveness does not look upon bodies."

Christ vision, also, is a FIXED STATE. It is the spiritual eye. The spiritual eye CAN ONLY SEE THE LIGHT. Can only look upon the real world. It CANNOT SEE BODIES.

"the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled"

"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."

Let's be clear about this.

There are two worlds. The world of false perception which is the physical world of bodies and sin and forms and errors and illusions. "Only the body makes the world seem real."

There is also the REAL WORLD, where there are NO BUILDINGS, no streets, bodies, forms, errors, not even the sun.

These are two separate fixed STATES.

1) False perception - TOTAL ERROR.

2) True perception - TOTAL SENSE.

The body's form of perception - the *physical sight*, USES the body's physical eyeballs to see. "These eyes made not to see will never see" reality. They CANNOT in any way be adapted to SEE in any way OTHER than they were made to see. They will NEVER see the real world. They are fixated on hell, on the illusory world. Physical. This is a fixed state of false perception.

Christ vision is an entirely different KIND of perception, which DOES NOT rely on the body whatsoever, does not USE the body whatsoever, does not NEED the body's eyeballs, and can SEE WITHOUT A BODY. This vision LOOKS ONLY AT THE REAL WORLD - at the face of christ. It is FIXED, in a position of TRUE PERCEPTION.

Now, this flies in the face of common belief that you "transition your ONE perception" from false to true. False perception is an illusory hell. True perception is an illusory heaven. You however can choose WHICH FORM OF SEEING YOU USE. You can also TRADE OFF one for the other.

Using 60% christ vision causes you to use 40% body sight. Using 90% christ vision causes you to use 10% body sight. You CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS.

So what actually happens is, your MIND is electing HOW MUCH TO BELIEVE in each of these TWO WAYS OF SEEING. Will it believe the body totally? Will it believe the spiritual eye totally? And how much? And as you believe one, you do NOT believe the other.

The spiritual eye is just as much a WAY OF SEEING as the physical eye is a way of seeing. Your MIND elects WHICH to pay attention to. And if you pay attention to one, it is because you have DENIED the other. You cannot FULLY use both at once. It's one or the other. You can't BOTH have physical sight AND christ vision operating FULLY at once.

"The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."

So instead of thinking of your perception as being this SINGLE thing that you need to "shift" out of falseness into trueness, instead thinking there being TWO RADIO CHANNELS, you can TUNE INTO one, by TUNING OUT of the other. You can't listen to both. As you TUNE IN to christ vision's station, you begin to see the LIGHT that christ vision can see. As you tune out of that, into the body's sight, you begin to see the WORLD OF BODIES (which is the world of sin). And doing this BLOCKS your RECEPTION of the christ vision station. It blocks your sight.

You cannot EVER make the body see reality. You also cannot ever make christ vision see the body. YOU, as mind, have to choose WHICH of them you will see, and how much. And only when you choose to see christ vision FULLY, will you STOP SEEING THE PHYSICAL WORLD. "The world is forgotten". The VEIL of physical matter becomes transparent and disappears!

"Its thinness and transparency are not apparent, until you see the light BEHIND it. And then you see it as a fragile veil, before the light."

"For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight."

"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. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father."

"Only That can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be His only Son."

The physical world THUS VANISHES FROM YOUR MIND. You cease using the body entirely. You stop seeing physical matter. You stop interacting with the PHYSICAL world, which does NOT EXIST.

"Heaven is all that remains."

"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."

"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."

"The stars will disappear, and night and day will be no more. All things that come and go, the tides, the seasons, and the lives of men; all things that change with time and bloom and fade, will not return."

"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him.""

A slight omission from the Course...

From the urtext beginning:

"It is crucial to say first that A Course In Miracles is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. 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.

You will see miracles thru your hands thru me. You should begin each day with the prayer "Help me to perform whatever miracles you want of me today.")"

The same introduction in the FIP version:

"This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. .............. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite."

Do you notice the complete removal of the text:

"You will see miracles through your hands through me. You should begin each day with the prayer "Help me to perform whatever miracles you want of me today""

????????????!!

MIRACLES THROUGH YOUR HANDS THROUGH ME!!

Why was this removed? You think someone had an issue with the idea that we are asked to lay hands on people and perform miracles on a daily basis?

This will fly against everything the ego believes, because the ego says that people are supposed to suffer. That guilt is justified. That punishment is needed. That somehow you are breaking the law if you help someone. Surely it's not possible to actually heal another person? To affect their mind? To undo their level confusion? To reverse their mental illness? To remove their blocks to love? Surely it is completely impossible to WAKE SOMEONE UP FOR THEM?!

Well.... think again.

There is a component of free will, in that if someone truly does not want something, they cannot receive it. These barriers are erected in their minds in the form of denial, shutting out love and making them suffer. If this resistance is strong enough, not even the most advanced healer can help and has to wait patiently until they are ready and willing.

"Love does not enter where it is not welcome."

This leads to the fact that at least SOME willingness is needed in order to work around the issue of free will. The person has to in some regard want to participate in recovery, otherwise they will reject all help. And naturally it would be unkind to force them to heal against their will. This is why "a little willingness" is essential. But it does only need to be little. Some willingness is not total unwillingness.

Once willingness is in play, the person has some degree of "belief" in healing. It now becomes possible to help them. And this is where the ego's laws begin to be violated. This is where it starts to become possible to actually lift someone up FOR them.

This is why Jesus says that you should not attempt to use to FORCE someone to BELIEVE, ie to be willing. Miracles should not be used coercively. Doing that would be to use miracles as "spectacles to induce belief." The recipient of miracles has to ALREADY believe, to some degree, so that the miracle helps and isn't a form of manipulation.

"The use of miracles as a spectacle ***to INDUCE belief*** is wrong. They are really used for and by believers. "

Once someone is willing to receive help, it's a whole new ballgame. This is where it becomes possible to actually heal other people. Jesus says the light in your mind is so powerful it can shine into another mind and heal it, just as His can. The Holy Spirit has also been created to Help and to Heal. If it were not POSSIBLE to help anyone who is at least partly unwilling to love, help would be impossible, and everyone would be left to their own devices, ie stuck in hell.

Similarly it is possible for one child of God to heal another, causing that person to be lifted up, corrected, healed, forgiven. It is possible to undo their level confusion. It is possible to remove blocks to awareness. It is possible to change their beliefs. It is possible to alter their perception. And it is possible to heal their bodies as well.

In effect, the ego sees this as "cheating". It's cheating because it makes it possible to get children of God to return home SOONER than expected. It's cheating because people are supposed to suffer and go through long drawn out periods of hell which they justly deserve. It's cheating because the ego has no forgiveness and wants to keep everyone stuck and unhappy forever

It reasons, surely it's not possible to do ANYTHING to another person? Surely YOU cannot AFFECT someone else? If everyone has free will, how is it possible? It's possible when they USE their free will to be open to help. And by being open to help, from heaven or from you, it becomes possible now to BYPASS the ego's laws of required suffering and SHORTEN the suffering of others.

In fact, if you look at this, it means that we all in fact can help each other to wake up sooner. It is NOT God's will that we suffer, and God would have us come home as soon as possible. As each of us HELPS one another, we actually accelerate the "celestial speedup" and bring atonement closer sooner. Jesus says that your mind can ENLIGHTEN another mind. If that mind were willing to receive it, atonement can be shared and GIVEN by another, in accord with their free will.

What we're doing here, in time, is we're breaking all the ego's laws of required suffering, and its long drawn out dirge of death, and actually HAVING AN INFLUENCE on how long it is until the atonement plan is complete. We actually have the power to help our bothers to wake up, be happy, be healed, be whole, be free and resume their function. Not merely through some hands-off means like writing a book for them to read, although that is one method. But through DIRECT HEALING ACTION upon their mind.

You literally have the power to heal other people. "The power to work miracles belongs to you." "It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive." "Those who are healed become instruments of healing."

As an extension of that, it pertains to "events" which physical objects bring about, or "problems" that they represent.

It is seemingly a bigger illusion to stop a flood from happening, than to stop the tap from running.

It is seemingly a bigger problem when a volcano erupts than when someone's saucepan boils over.

Form ITSELF, the physical shape and properties of matter, is that way in which ILLUSIONS ARE IMPLEMENTED.

They are not objects. They are illusions. And they are in a mind. And they are blocks to awareness.

Even though these objects are "outside of you" that does NOT mean they are not inside a mind, and it does not mean they aren't part of PERCEPTION, and it does not mean you don't need to or cannot correct them.

It should be no more difficult to stop a volcano from erupting than to stop a saucepan from boiling over. The ILLUSION that one is harder or bigger than the other is just that, NOT REAL, and should NOT pose any kind of more difficult challenge to a miracle worker.

But while the illusions presented by their FORM are taken at face value and believed, and not seen through, the volcano will seem totally impossible to stop, because of YOUR misperception that it is a really big serious problem.

Such massive miracles are no harder than small easy ones, provided the mind IS miraculous because it recognizes an illusion when it sees one. That volcano is literally nothing, so why should changing it be hard?

Forgiveness only seems to be needed, as a process, because you currently believe there are things that need to be forgiven.

In other words, you currently are experiencing unforgiveness, and therefore the world seems unforgiven and unforgiving. And therefore, you think that you need to forgive.

But this process of forgiveness, is supposed to take you from a state of unforgiveness - an unforgivingattitude, to a state of forgiveness - a forgiving attitude.

It's supposed to occur to you that the purpose of forgiving is to undo the perceived need to 'do forgiveness'. Because ultimately there is not anything that needs to be forgiven.

There is a forgiven world here. A world of innocence. A world with no guilt. But you don't perceive it because you have judged it as unforgiven and unforgivable, having judged yourself as such.

So it seems like you need to do some forgiveness. And as you do this forgiveness, what you're doing is re-accessing the awareness that whatever it was that you thought was unforgivable, is forgivable, and is in fact innocent. An ancient hatred has become a present love.

Whatever it was you thought was judged and hated, is innocent. Whatever it is you thought was really happening, is not happening and you don't even see it anymore.

So as you proceed with your forgiving, your practice, you should gradually come to realize, there is less and less to forgive, precisely because you're becoming aware of the real world. You're becoming aware that everything is forgivable and forgiven.

Forgiveness ultimately is not a process, but a state of awareness in which you see forgivingly, with a forgiving attitude, and this forgiving attitude does not show you things to forgive. It does not show you errors or mistakes. It only shows you innocence.

This attitude of being forgiving doesn't mean you are having to constantly forgive and forgive and do more work and counteract more crap that shows up. When you are in a forgiving attitude, you do not see crap. You do not see problems. You don't see enemies or things to forgive.

So its a bit of a paradox, that when you have a truly forgiving attitude, when you are in the Holy Spirit's mind, you see everything as forgiven already. You pro-actively fore-give, which means you give ahead of time, which means you extend love and you extend innocence and truth and therefore that is what you will perceive because that is your reality.

In your reality there isn't any 'thing' to forgive. All is forgiven.

So really, you think you need to do lots of forgiveness still. Yes, for a time. But only because you think forgiveness is needed. Only because you're not yet able to sustain a consistently forgiving attitude. Only because it hasn't yet dawned on you that everyone including you is completely innocent and calls only for love.

So as you work you way through this forgiveness 'process', this undoing, this purifying, you're really erasing the mistakes that you're making in your forgiveness, you're polishing up your attitude, you're getting ready to see with forgiving eyes. You're preparing to look upon the world with innocence in order to see only innocence.

This process is itself not forgiveness. This process is the way that you gradually wake up to forgiveness. It's a sorting out, of what is forgiveable and what is not forgivable. Eventually you will accept that everything is forgivable, and as such, will no longer seen anything as unforgiven.

A forgiving attitude shows you a forgiven world. A forgiving attitude doesn't give you lots of work to do trying to counteract illusions of judgement. A forgiving attitude is simply clarity. It's the clarity of truth, the clarity of awareness. A forgiving attitude shows your mind, clearly, that when you can see clearly and with truth, you are able to properly discern that THERE IS ONLY INNOCENCE.

All appearances of things not being innocent, only looks that way because you have blocks in your mind. All appearances that there is nasty dirty stuff and grievous enemies to overcome, is because of blocks in your mind. These things DO NOT REALLY EXIST.

You see them, you look upon them, precisely because your mind is distorted and is projecting images that aren't real. You see enemies because you are attacking your innocence. You see attack and threat and danger and victimhood because you don't realize that you can't be a victim. You see impossible things because you are not yet aware of how these things are impossible - you actually take them seriously and think they are possible.

So ultimately, this forgiveness process that we all undertake, it's really a transition away from "I need to forgive" towards "there is nothing to forgive". There is nothing to forgive because there is no sin, there is no guilt, there is no fear, there is no attack, there is no harm. There is nothing to forgive because nothing has gone wrong. Nothing has happened. Holy Spirit sees this. You need to learn to see it too. And then you will be done with the 'effort' of forgiving, which ultimately is not a 'doing', but a 'being'.

What is a miracle? Why would anyone want to heal the sick?

Miracles arise from a state of mind which is truly forgiving, which doesn't mean a mind which "needs to forgive" but a mind which recognizes there is nothing to forgive. Such a mind recognizes that God's truth is true, that illusions are illusions, and is not deceived by appearances of form.

It is only possible to perform a miracle if you are able to get your mind out of the ego's thought system and into the Holy Spirit's thought system. The miracle itself MAY shift perception if the person needs forgiveness still, but the shifting of the perception is not the miracle itself as such. The shifting of perception to Holy Spirit's thought system is what is REQUIRED IN ORDER TO become able to perform a miracle.

If you are shifting perception, i.e. correcting errors in your perception, then you are still in a process of PURIFICATION. As Jesus says in the miracle principles, miracles are everyone's right but "purification is necessary first". What is this purification? It is the PROCESS of what you call forgiveness, which is the weeding out of what is false from what is true, otherwise known as the correction of perception, or shifts in perception. That is required FIRST before you can become miracle minded. When a person first begins the Course and does their first half-baked error-prone forgiveness process, experiencing a slight shift in perception, is that a miracle? No.

Jesus as an example, Jesus was in a very advanced state of mind when he performed miracles. He did not perform these miracles IN ORDER TO shift his perception and to wake up. He had already purified His mind and His mind was now in alignment with Holy Spirit, clear about what is true and false, and not deceived by the illusions of sickness and death. He had already shifted his perception to correct true vision BEFORE becoming able to perform miracles. Accessing the mind of Holy Spirit facilitates the miracle, because the Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles.

He was already there. He performed miracles BECAUSE he had shifted his perception and woken up. As the principles say, miracles acknowledge the Christ in you. You can't truly acknowledge Christ when you are still sleeping and in need of forgiveness, and having a "shift in perception" as a stepping stone along that journey of purification is not going to necessarily be enough to bring about a miracle. It can bring about a correction, or an adjustment of perception, and a partial awakening, but this is in PREPARATION for being miraculous. If this were not the case, new students to the Course would be raising the dead on day 1.

Jesus performed miracles to heal the sick and raise the dead, among other things (multiplying food, walking on water and so on), in spite of the fact that He knew that the world was not real. He was very clear that the body is not real, that sickness is an illusion, and that God's truth was the only truth he depended on. He was not deceived by forms and He knew the miracle principle that there is no order of difficulty in miracles - because miracles recognize that all illusions are equally unreal. He was not deceived by the ego's illusions that one thing is harder than another.

It was BECAUSE Jesus knew illusions were just illusions, that He was miraculous. Being miraculous requires that you are clear about what is true and false - that God's truth is true and the ego's truth (illusions) are not reality. It is that certainty and clarity and sanity which allows the miracle to happen at all. The miracle overlooks form completely (which is complete forgiveness). It denies the illusion any power to prevent healing, and thereby is capable of defying all rules and laws that the illusion would exhibit, such as the laws of physics, biology, chemistry etc.

Jesus's ability to overlook form and to recognize the truth clearly, allowed Him to be miraculous. When He performed a miracle, He was not necessarily in need of having a "shift of perception". If there are only so many shifts in perception that you can have before you are fully awake, you would run out of miracles! And yet miracles are natural, they are supposed to be happening ALL THE TIME, otherwise something has gone wrong. They happen all the time when there are no illusions in the way to block them, rather than the idea that they only happen as removals of those blocks.

Yes they might remove blocks to awareness, but they come from a place of love, from a place of NO BLOCKAGE, where love is unlimited and miracles are completely normal and natural all the time. Jesus would've run out of blocks to awareness a long time before being able to perform the countless miracles that He did, if miracles were only shifts in perception. His perception had already shifted TO the miracle minded right mind of the Holy Spirit, and because of that He had UNLIMITED miracles at His disposal.

You might find it odd then that Jesus performed powerful miracles regularly, in spite of the fact that in order to perform miracles you have to recognize the world is an illusion. Why would He attempt to heal sick bodies if He knew sickness was an illusion? Why would He bother raising the dead - literally bodies which were dead - if He knew that the world was just an illusion? Why bother to help illusory bodies in a dream?

Some people use this as an explanation for why healing the sick is not important or something Jesus would do. Yet Jesus did it. What they don't understand is the paradoxical nature of this. Similarly there is a paradox whereby when you are forgiving, truly forgiving, there is nothing to forgive. You fore-give in order to prevent perceptual errors, so that there is nothing to forgive. Forgiveness is a constant state of mind - a forgiving attitude - not a process of purification. It's the permanent state of Holy Spirit's mind.

So the ego would logically deduce that there is no point raising the dead or healing the sick because they are illusions, and Jesus was very very aware that they were illusions. BUT the truth defies the ego's logic. The truth bypasses it. In the truth, miracles are extensions of love which are a service to OTHERS.

Miracles adjust spacetime in order to facilitate a greater closeness to God and an experience of love, as well as being teaching devices that help others to awaken. They correct illusions, not just illusions in the mind but illusions AS the world. Bodies are illusions just as much as thoughts and perceptions, since the body is IN the mind. They are just as correctable as faulty vision. Why would you correct only illusions in the mind and not recognize the body and the world are also in the mind, thus avoiding their correction? This is because most body-identified humans do not realize that the entire body and world is also an illusion and is also IN THEIR MIND.

When you become miracle minded, it is because you recognize that illusions are just illusions. It is that recognition that ALLOWS you to perform miracles, because you can't wield God's power if you don't believe God is real. To believe God is real is to recognize that illusions/world/body/sickness/death is NOT real. That's HOW you make these things disappear, through your not fueling them and not believing in them.

So when you become miraculous, it is in the recognition that miracles are not NEEDED as such, because nothing has gone wrong, everyone is innocent, everyone is immortal and eternal, and there isn't even any real problems to fix. AND YET, the miracle is still present. Jesus still performed them in spite of His advanced awareness of the unreality of the world, and BECAUSE of that awareness. He didn't just sit on his laurels like, oh, I know there's nothing to forgive and no real problems so I'm just going to sit back and let everyone suffer. That would've been cold and intellectual.

Instead Jesus went out to the people with an open heart and mind, knowing sickness and death had no power over Him, and demonstrating left right and center - teaching - that these things were not real by example. He was helping his brothers. He was healing people because He LOVED them and because He had a HEART engaged with the truth, not just an intellectual understanding. And He knew that even though there was no "real" need for healing or miracles because bodies were not real, OTHER PEOPLE believed they were real and were in a state of suffering. He was being loving by alleviating their suffering and simultaneously teaching them through demonstration that the body was not real. He didn't just take away people's suffering, He showed also how THEY could take it away by masterfully showing how it was done.

So to the ego, miracles make no sense. It makes no sense to heal the sick if the body is not real. It makes no sense to raise the dead if people aren't really bodies and they're supposed to be making the body disappear. But all things can be used as teaching devices and miracles are a maximal service to others. It says so in the miracle principles. Jesus could've raised a million people from the dead if he wanted to, but also He recognized that people needed to learn of this capability themselves as well and so was using miracles to teach (demonstrate) what the truth is.

This is why miracles are not just shifts in perception. They are not just corrections in your own mind, which is a process of purification. They are not just forgiveness, which is a process of progressively undoing belief in illusions. And they are not ineffective or unpowerful. And they are not reserved only for the "private" waking up of individuals.

As Jesus teaches, Love must be extended in order to be REAL. It is the nature of God's Kingdom and reality that it has no PRESENCE unless there is extension happening. It has to radiate and be shared. Sharing is the key element, and miracles share love with your brother. They unify your mind with theirs and correct BOTH of you, if there is any correction needed. Jesus didn't need that correction because He was already done with it. But He still corrected others and was TRULY HELPFUL.

The Course states (in its less edited-out versions) that miracles ENTAIL a shift in perception from illusions to truth. This means that you must shift your perception INTO a state of mind which recognizes truth in order to perform a miracle. It does not mean that the miracle shifts your perception, or that the purpose of the miracle is to shift your perception. You HAVE TO shift your perception into Holy Spirit's perception so that you become miracle minded in order to become miraculous.

He asks us now to continue His mission and help the brotherhood to awaken, by sharing and extending and expressing love to everyone, to be "active workers" in His plan, and to perform miracles on a daily basis. He even says in the urtext (later edited out) that we should be asking Him every day what miracles to perform. Note also that He instructed His disciples in the ways of miracles and told them to go out and heal the sick and raise the dead, which they did. Why would he tell them to do that and why did they do that and why were they able to do that? Because it was LOVING and because that love made it possible. So why wouldn't they?!

Miracles also affirm the truth in you, since you share in them, and so by performing them for others it reinforces for you the truth of God's reality, giving you additional faith and conviction and clarity that the body is not real and can be overcome. Death can be overcome. A Course in Miracles is not "armchair spirituality" where you just contemplate it behind closed doors and discuss it on Facebook. We are to be powerful workers of miracles helping Jesus in His plan of atonement for the great awakening - the great crusade.

Jesus performed miracles. I will perform miracles.

I had a pretty intense talk with God last night.

I began to commune with God and called to Him.

He said, "My Son".

I asked first, "Am I going to have to experience death of a loved one in this lifetime and be alone?"

He said simply, "How can you? Death isn't real."

I opened up to Him and I said, "Father, please forgive me for I have sinned".

He said, "I already have."

and "I never condemned you."

I asked, "You never ever condemned me? I've never done anything wrong ever? You're not going to punish me?"

He said, "How could I? It's not in my nature. I can only love."

I responded, "You're not going to send me to hell?"

He said, "It doesn't exist. You made it up."

I asked, "Then, why is it that I don't see to be experiencing that?"

He said, "You just haven't accepted it yet."

I wondered, "why is it that I don't accept it? does that mean I don't want it?"

I looked within and saw a rather uncomfortable fact that some part of me must not WANT to accept the truth. That some part of me doesn't believe in it, rejects it, has chosen against it and seems to want something else.

It was not pleasant to see that the full responsibility for this "non-acceptance" was in myself.

I told God that "I am afraid to accept it, but it feels good to connect with you, how can I accept this more?

He said simply, "Remove blocks to awareness."

I was feeling very open and awake. I then felt a very strong sense of attraction throughout my whole person. A strong pull that felt like it was pulling me toward God, like a magnet or a vacuum as though something was so extremely appealing and attractive that my whole being wanted to rush to it.

I had tears and then I had laughter. And then I felt joy. Holy Spirit then said "sleep". And so I slept.

It's quite sobering to realize that God is not in any way a punisher or judger or condemner, does not send anyone to hell, and lovingly accepts us fully. And that it is entirely OUR belief to the contrary that we need to correct - our own unwillingness to accept His benevolent nature.

In terms of the truth, these are our only two options: either accept it as it is, or deny it. Denying it is an attempt to reject what the truth is, and to replace it with something else.

Jesus says denial is an act of 'positive creation' not just an attempt to negate the truth. By denying, we substitute the truth for something else, and invent or make some other illusion to take its place, to try to prove that something else is true. We actively erect barricades and something else to fixate on and believe in.

In the Atonement, we accept the truth as it is, as God has established it, without any desire or need to change it.

The opposite of Atonement or resurrection, is death, in which there is an attempt to reject all truth (life) and prove that something opposite is true (death).

Denial produced the physical universe. Denial implements all forms of sickness. Denial is death. Denial is also fear. "All forms of sickness even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening." Or to put it another way, when you do not want to accept the truth, you invent fear to try to explain "why" you cannot accept it. The fear is fake, just as death is fake. Death does not END real life, it DENIES IT and paints a picture which PRETENDS the immortal son of God has been killed. ("You have made a bargain you cannot keep.")

Denial was the attempt to reject the fact that you cannot sin, by trying to replace it with an attempt to prove that sin can and has been accomplished. Even in that attempt, it is a state of denial. It hasn't changed the truth. Denial has no power to actually alter what the truth is. But, being denial, denial is "in denial" of this fact, and so attempts to change the truth anyway, believing that it is possible. Such is denial.

Denial also represents unwillingness. When we attempted to deny God's will, or to deny that we are as God created us, we moved into unwillingness. This was an attempt to suppress our own will. We became unwilling rather than willing, or imprisoned rather than free. Death is a state of unwillingness, as are punishment, suffering, fear, guilt and sin. This is why it takes "a little willingness" in order to move towards acceptance of the Atonement (truth) because denial has to be undone.

Blocks to awareness are denial. Since the truth cannot be changed (it's established by God's will permanently), denial cannot actually change the truth into something else. And the only way to "believe in" something else being true, is to block out awareness of the fact that the truth is true. While you are still aware that only the truth is true, you cannot bring yourself to believe or be convinced by an alternative. So you have to "block awareness".

Denial does this by putting up an illusory psychological barrier, comprised of a "will to reject", which makes the truth go unconscious. Conscious awareness is cut off from accessing the truth, hidden behind this wall of denial, and so now all that you are consciously aware of is "whats left" that hasn't yet been denied. The stuff that has been denied now forms the unconscious mind, hidden from awareness and kept in the dark. Consciously, since you are no longer aware that it is present, or still true, or an unchangeable fact, and you cannot "find it" when you search around with your awareness, it SEEMS not to exist.

Many false conclusions are made based on this unawareness - based on incomplete information. For example if you are not aware that you yourself chose to believe in sin, you made the sin unconscious by implementing denial and inventing fake guilt to cover it up, you will now be unable/unwilling to see that you are the one who made you guilty. Instead you will now search elsewhere for a "cause" of the upset, and inevitably blame it on someone else, because that seems to make sense given that you are not aware of the hidden key fact of what you did to yourself. This is why Jesus said "Forgive them father for they know not what they do" - as soon as you go into denial, you do NOT KNOW what you are doing, because you don't have all the facts in awareness.

The secret of salvation lies in your willingness to remove the block to awareness, so that you can become able to SEE the chain of causality coming from yourself, the choices you made, and thereby realize that none of your conditions are caused by anyone else. Your mind is the sole cause of your experience. But this block to awareness, in order to remove it, MUST entail the willingness to remove denial. The layer of denial which literally blocks awareness - blocks the ability to SEE, must be undone. And that will only be undone through honesty and willingness.

Denial takes on many forms, and indeed all forms. It includes the belief that you are already innocent even if you have unconscious hidden hates, secret sins, unhealed wounds and layers of self-repression that you don't want to admit to. This can produce a state of "fake innocence" in which you don't SEE that you are the cause of something and so become justified in blaming it on someone else - scapegoating, accusing your brother of your own sin. It also then justifies anger, and this is why anger is never justified - to become angry is ALWAYS based on denial and unawareness of the facts. If you knew the facts, the truth, you would have NO reason to conclude that you should be upset.

Denial also accounts for this world - Earth - this universe. Jesus says in reference to it, "a world that denies itself cannot exist." The world denies itself, because it is made OF denial of God's Kingdom. All denial is self denial, and so this world is made of denial. That is why it is a BLOCK to awareness. "Nothing so blinding as sight of form." This is also why, when denial is lifted, and we are willing to see the whole truth, this world must disappear because, being made from denial AS a block, it is merely an illusion preventing us from seeing, and once you see PAST it and become AWARE that you are the cause/dreamer of it, you will stop USING IT to make God's Kingdom unconscious.

Another expression or use of denial is in the ego's motto of "seek and do not find". By denying that you already are perfect, you don't SEE the perfection in yourself so you think it is not there, and so are now empty, and are in need, and this need compels you to search for a solution to the emptiness somewhere ELSE, outside of yourself. This sets you on a "spiritual path" - ultimately the journey without distance. Here you will pursue FAKE SPIRITAULITY, fake peace, produce a spiritualized ego, spiritualize the world, spiritualize the body, and seem to side with one half of duality (ultra positive or ultra negative).

This also produces the PERSONA, which is a fake identity or fake mask which forms this idea of who you think you are, which is made of the denial of yourself. Even your physical body is a fake image, designed to make people believe that they are seeing YOU when they see IT, when in fact it is made to HIDE YOU. The body and persona then become filled with fakery, lies, self deception and dishonesty, resulting in a veneer of "looking spiritual" or "acting spiritual", decorated with spiritual clothing and performing fake rituals, which are all really designed to maintain the denial and block you from being AUTHENTICALLY YOURSELF.

The facade of innocence hides unconscious guilt, and makes a person seem holier than they really are. The main problem is the person themselves is unwilling to admit to why they are overcompensating for a deep belief in unholiness, by pretending to be holy and trying to convince everyone that they themselves are convinced of it. This "spiritual seeker" has to be undone just as much as any other denial, because it takes you away from yourself. You do not need to seek. You need to *acknowledge* what is already TRUE about you, and be grateful that God's creation has not changed.

Denial also plays out in the unwillingness to accept what is happening in your life. I spent many many years in denial that I was unhappy, afraid, angry, and it wasn't until my mid-20's when I started to admit that the way I was feeling was even those things. I did not recognize the mountain of upset in me AS fear or AS anger, and didn't even know that I was afraid and angry. Such was the denial. Denial obscures, making reality seem twisted and not what it is, so that you do not *recognize* it, and so remain in a state where you think it IS something ELSE. This failure to recognize the truth is what keeps us in the dark. Yet "illusions recognized must disappear". They can only be recognized by not being in denial.

Denial also produces various kinds of blindness. The unwillingness to see the truth. Even though people may be walking around in bodies talking and performing activities, they can be in various states of awareness ie various states of denial, thus various states of unconsciousness. Just because someone is working in a job and playing on the internet and chatting to their friends, does not mean they are aware or awake. Denial indeed is sleep. It is a suppression of awareness.

Since denial is unwillingness, it also produces justification for fear whenever the truth comes along to challenge the denial. If you are in denial and you are believing that the truth is not the truth, you've made it out to be evil, and have replaced it with a lie that you believe is your salvation. When the truth comes along, you see it as an attacker, a threat, and thus USE denial once again as the ego's only tool to reject, shut out, or put distance between, you and that truth. You bury your head in the sand to avoid it and to pretend it is not there. This induces all forms of sickness, because sickness is a defense against the truth. So yes, sickness is denial of life, as is death.

The funny thing about denial is that instead of being able to actually change the truth at all, you instead hide from the truth and block your awareness of it, reasoning that if you are not AWARE of it, it must not BE there. This is clearly denial because you are simply hiding your vision. Pretending that something is not there, does not make it go away. But in the ego, we become convinced by this delusion and think "out of sight, out of mind"... that if we can't SEE something, or cannot be AWARE of it, then it must not exist.

This way, we've told ourselves that we actually UNDID God, reversed creation, cancelled Heaven, and erased our true self. By believing that our denial of truth CAN change the truth (that darkness can hide the light), it's very easy to make the tiny shift from "I'm in denial of it" to "It's actually gone." Therefore we have come to believe, in ego denial, that we ACTUALLY HAVE changed the truth because our awareness does not show it to us and it seems not to exist any more. This way we came to believe that sin is real and has had real consequences. We think that we actually HAVE hurt God, produced a new truth, got away with murder, and destroyed ourself and our inheritance.

This belief then leads to the distorted perception that we stopped being innocent, CHANGED into a different state, our innocence went away, and now all that we're left with is guilt. And in that view it seems as though we have become unworthy, have transformed from sinless to sinful, or from innocent to guilty. The blocked awareness viewed from inside denial, makes it SEEM as if this is true. And so in denial, we automatically come to believe that our denying is actually WORKING, and is CAUSAL, and has power OVER the truth to change it. And so we think we have sinned, are really a sinner, deserve to be guilty, should be punished for it, and are worthy only of death. Denial produces the death wish.

From this side of denial, not seeing that our denial HAS NOT changed reality, we're quite convinced that we actually are guilty sinners who don't deserve love or forgiveness. And so we think we are working on or in or with this guilty "ego self", which has not only replaced our real self, but is the ONLY self left. In denial, we are not aware that our real self - our innocent self - still as God created it - is STILL THERE, still fully alive, still perfect, and has not changed whatsoever. That real self is right here with you now. That real self is already in heaven and never left, nor did it change anything in reality.

And so now we're in this strange position where we think we are only this evil self who can never go back to being holy, while all along our true self is perfectly undefiled and holy forever, existing in parallel to this false idea of ourselves. Your "higher self" therefore exists right NOW, even if your sense of identity is all caught up in denial and confusion and ego. This is why "enlightenment is but a recognition and no a change at all". It merely entails the willingness to be AWARE of what is ALREADY TRUE. And to reach that awareness, ALL layers of denial MUST be removed from the mind so that you CAN be aware of it.

To admit to being in denial, or even to admit to wanting to stay in denial - wanting to keep your denial - is still an admittance. It reveals a willingness to allow the truth to enter. Even if you say, "I admit I do not want to wake up", that is better than an unwillingness to even admit that. To admit, is to permit access. It means you are willing to let truth be said or expressed about whatever the situation is. And this truth then sets you free. Even if just a little bit. Even if you are just admitting to being in denial and that you don't want to do anything about it, admits more truth than to not even want to admit to that.

This therefore takes some willingness, and it takes honesty. It requires a willingness to be mistaken, without implying punishment. It requires you to get honest with yourself, to stop being in resistance or avoidance, and to LOOK AT what it is that you don't want to see. And looking at it with the truth, is looking at it with the Holy Spirit. He represents the state of mind in which there is no denial. Your willingness to dig out and offer up secret sins, hidden hates, grievances, and also ways that you don't want to admit or accept something, allows Him to shine away those lies and release you.

Now, in ACIM circles there are various forms of denial and blindspots and each person is different. I've seen the most denial circling around topics to do with the body not existing, and to do with the world not existing. These are two of the major sticking points because the ego denial has

built a fortress to protect belief in these two things, and believing you "are" a body or that there "is" a world are the two most fundamental "givens" in this world. The body is the hero of the dream, and the world is the dream itself. To question belief in either of these seriously pushes the ego buttons and seems to "threaten your establishments."

There is a lot of denial around these topics and a lot of refusal to accept them. Accepting that there is no world is one of the hardest things to do, because denial makes the world seem true, real, valuable and desirable. Denial that the world is a cruel place, for example, leads many to believe God created it. And with that kind of a conclusion, who would want to question God's reality? Yet we are still in denial until we are sure to have removed all denial. And we will be in denial that we are in denial, because we don't SEE that there is something unconscious to us that we believe does not even exist.

There are also good and bad forms of denial, or uses of denial. If denial is used to reject the real truth, that's not a good thing. If denial is used to reject lies, that IS a good thing. Or rather, if denial is used to reject the belief that denial is true, using the mind to ADMIT that the denial is there, or that it is FALSE, that is a worthy form of denial.

There are unworthy forms of denial, which usually entail either a direct 1st-hand rejection of what is real, OR a 2nd-hand rejection of the illusions that have arisen due to the first level of denial. For example it is denial to produce a body. The body was made to deny God and shut out sharing with the Sonship. This denial needs to be undone. But additionally, on a second level, while you are making a body, if you KEEP making it through denial, but then pretend in some way that it does not exist and try to "separate from" it, THAT is also an unworthy form of denial. Up to a point, "the body is merely a fact of human existence." But at some point, human existence (bodies) is also denial of Spirit. These denials are at different levels.

Jesus also tells us in ACIM that "the separation HAS happened." Many people DENY this, mainly due to confusion about "nothing happened" as the atonement principle. This is level confusion. We did have the tiny mad idea, and we did share it, and it did produce imaginary worlds of illusion. Jesus even says, that to deny this fact is an unworthy form of denial. But to "accept" that it has happened should only be done in order to quickly realize that atonement is the only meaningful "correction" for the separation, and that it should be done as soon as possible.

It is also possible to have denials on top of denials on top of denials. For example when you are in fear, you are pretending that you have good reason to be afraid of something outside you. But the fact is, the fear is a decoy to deny guilt. Fear is protecting you from guilt and deflecting attention away from it as the "reason" why you are afraid. Fear makes guilt unconscious and blocks the guilt. The only reason you are afraid is because you think you are guilty and want to punish yourself. But without awareness of that, in fear you'll look for causes of the fear externally. To undo fear you must remove the denial behind it, become MORE AWARE of what you denied, reveal the guilt, and fix the guilt. So you can see there are multiple layers of distortion surrounding the guilt, and even guilt itself is denial.

The ego only has one tool. "Deny what is." The one antidote is the atonement - "accept what is". But to accept what is, you have to first remove the denial, so that your awareness of "what is" increases. So this doesn't mean just accepting the world "as it is", because how you are perceiving it is NOT the fullness that's present. You are NOT seeing it for what's really there, and are not recognizing it as an illusion. Blocks have to be removed in your mind, so that you can SEE. By seeing accurately and fully, you have true perception, which shows you the truth about this world, that it is not real and doesn't exist. Without removal of denial you will try to accept it, but won't be able to recognize it or accept its unreality.

The ego used denial to hide God, by making sin. The ego used denial to hide and keep sin, by making fake guilt. The ego hid the guilt behind fake fear using more denial. The fear produces self punishment but by denying that you are doing so. And eventually death is denial even of punishment. At every step the ego is denying, denying, denying. Denying who you are, stripping away layers of what remains, until eventually there is nothing left to deny. In death there is TOTAL denial of the truth, and no-one who goes through death is in their right mind.

It all boils down to this simple dynamic. Either you accept the truth - God's truth as God established it, or you deny it. You have no other choice. And because denial does not change the truth, denial MUST be a lie, where you are PRETENDING that the truth is not true. So either you are pretending to be something you are not, or you are being your real authentic self - as created by God. It's your choice, whether to accept or deny. But no-one gets to define what the truth IS. Only God can do that. And being in denial DOES NOT redefine the truth, even though those in denial believe that this is precisely what they're achieving. This is the authority problem, which is nothing but denial and an unwillingness to be honest.

The freedom we have is one of accepting or rejecting, not establishing, but anyone in denial with an ego will be in the business of trying to establish what the truth IS, acting as a gatekeeper to have to "approve" or "disapprove" before anything is permitted into awareness. Only when we are willing to give up our attempt to be God, to make the truth, will we be willing to simply open up to ACCEPT and RECEIVE it. Accepting the atonement is like throwing up your hands and admitting, only the truth is true, and only God's will is possible, and only God's way will work. Nothing else works. The ego is a lie and death is failure. Nothing else is true. I might as well accept it and go with it. And this takes TOTAL SURRENDER.

Thankfully, the truth is on our side, and loves us and has created everything for us. A perfect home, the inheritance of eternity, immortality, absolute peace and total joy. Not too shabby an option to accept, when you realize you stand to gain everything and give up nothing by letting go of denial.

"No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth."

"Heaven is a choice I must make."

"A dream of death is not left by death but by truth."

"The truth shall set you free."

If it is true that we are still as God created us, and we are still immortal spirit, and nothing has happened, then if we were to fully express this truth in this world, we would show up in a "perfect" healthy form with no sign of corruption or decay or sickness.

Jesus asks that we do this, because if we are not showing up this way, we are demonstrating that we can be hurt, and so are accusing our brother and ourselves of sin.

So let's say that you have this `perfect self` which is SUPPOSED to be expressing and showing up here temporarily, to prove that Heaven is real and God's laws override the ego. So now, if that is not happening, if there is a problem showing up or a sickness or some kind of symptom, then we have attempted to ADD on top of our perfection, something artificial, and are now seeking outside of ourselves, and this is materializing as visible symptoms of decay and sickness and damage.

So now we need to reverse that, undo that, and allow our true light to shine. If our true light is not shining, then we have blocks to awareness. If form seems to demonstrate that we are not divinely healthy, then something is blocking awareness. It means we're trying to prove otherwise.

What you use the body for it becomes to you. If you use it to project attack then it is attacked and it becomes sick and shows up as physical sickness. If you use it to bring the word of God (the word being, the nature of God), to those who seem to have it not, the body is being used for extending love and so is restored to perfect health and demonstrates perfection

This "symbol of immortality" as Jesus puts it, proves that you cannot have been affected against your will, therefore your brother is innocent. And your immaculate body teaches him that he cannot have attacked you, since there are no effects.

Are you willing to bring forth a "living demonstration" that God's laws are true, and that you can be affected by nothing?

Sometimes I find it difficult to relate when people suggest that you "just" do this or that, in order to be awakened or spiritual.

Even if it's coming from a masterful person and even if it makes total sense and even if its deeply simple and pure and lovely, I can't relate to it or use it.

Expressions coming from a certain 'level 'of consciousness can only really be related to by people who are also AT that level of consciousness. Those broadcasts are NOT helpful for people at a lower level, except as perhaps an inspiration. There's a big difference between an expression of "this is what it is like here" versus "this is how you come up to this level".

The reason is because the 'level' that I'm currently at, I need ways to remove the blocks to awareness in order to become aware of a truth/love/experience that "already is".

I don't need to work on learning how to 'do' what is already done. I don't need to practice 'being'. I don't need to TRY to be still or quiet or meditative or whatever.

The Course tells us that we need to focus on simply removing the blocks to love. This is akin to severing the anchors which keep us attached to the bottom of the ocean, dragging us down. Once let go, we naturally float back to the surface.

This to me can be a problem with teachings coming from a higher level. They can be impractical and not really helpful. They sound fantastic. They're beautiful. And they're truthful expressions from a greater perspective. But they're not always relatable for people who are stuck down in the quagmire of illusions and delusions.

We don't need to construct reality, or make things heavenly, or spend heaps of time trying to produce some kind of skill or ability to be what we naturally already are underneath our disguises. We just need to learn to take our disguises off. And that process is a practical one in the application of forgiveness or other methods to undo delusions.

I could say, well, just be still, be at peace, stop thinking. But that's not going to last. You're not going to be able to do it. And then it will just be annoying and you'll feel like you're inferior for not being able to just flip spirituality on like a switch.

This can be why the spiritual quotathon can produce not only a sense of confusion and impossible expectation, but also attempts to give to students things they are not ready for and which don't really help them to get out of their confusion. If things are too abstract, the only way you can really relate to that abstraction is to be experiencing it. There needs to be more of a middle ground.

This is why often you get teachers who are perhaps awakened on like "level 3" or whatever but they don't have a practical "level 2" teaching platform that helps people to go from where they are actually at to their next steps. To move them forward. And then the things they say which are so beautiful and lofty sort of make them into a mysterious yet inaccessible idol that becomes worshipped and followed in a state of confusion and misunderstanding.

If I go visit God and I come back and I say, well, hey, all you have to do is be with God. Easy right? Can you do it? Then you'll try to do it and you'll fail, then get frustrated and disappointed and believe separation is real and you'll beat yourself up and compare yourself and judge yourself as insufficient, unworthy or inferior, which is the perfect foundation for turning me into a spiritual idol that you worship. You don't need that.

You need guidance that you can relate to that works for you at the level you're at, in the language you currently are speaking, that nudges you forward just a little bit past your current reality, and leads you on to the next steps. That's how you gradually wake up. Not by hitting yourself over the head with a giant space mallet trying to digest things which your mind really cannot comprehend yet.

Trying to get ahead of yourself doesn't work. The ego likes to suggest you should do that, but then you end up just emphasizing how "far behind" you are from the special chosen ones. Not that the masters are in any way wrong or bad or whatever, just that if truly they're a helpful teacher they need to be recognizing where YOU are at and what YOU can currently understand and speak your language, not just sit on a throne and radiate abstract experiences as though this is "all you need to do". Yes its true, yes they're correct, but.... that advice is next to useless when your mind is fucked.

Gotta walk before you can run. Gotta learn to flap wings before you can fly. Gotta take steps to get to the temple before you can go in. You need help walking, not jumping off cliffs.

Holy Spirit is an expert teacher in this regard, He recognizes our illusions (as illusions) and doesn't believe them, but knows that we do, and is able to not only speak our language but support us at whatever level we're at with whatever guidance we're willing to accept and are ready for. One step at a time. Non-threatening, non-pressuring, just loving gentle awakening.