When someone becomes afraid, they also become resistant to being helped. The fear and victimhood is really a choice to deny and resist the truth, and so they do not want the truth. This can make the situation very difficult if you're trying to help someone because they literally do not want to be helped, even if in the victimhood they are complaining and saying that they want things to not be this way.
In the Course for example Jesus talks about "requests for healing" whereby someone may seem to be asking for help, through complaint or even direct asking, but because they would be scared by a miracle, which would remove the very thing they themselves put in place, they could become afraid if this "treasure" were suddenly taken from them. In this case, it's not a real request for healing, it's just the form of a request, but really a denial and wish to not be helped.
One of the hardest things to deal with is when other people do not want to really be helped. And by that I don't mean people who actually are ready or willing to be helped, but those who say they are but are not. Those who are steeped in fear and resistance, and so are resistant also to anything that would help them. Resistant to ideas, suggestions, healing, advice, simply on the basis that their backwards perception makes it seem like "help" is actually "danger".
This happens when the thought system goes into egotism because what is true and false become reversed. Defenses are erected against the misinterpreted truth, which seems false, so understandably you'd not want it. Then the person will defend and side with the very thing that's hurting them, because they believe it's the truth. Whatever we think is true we will value and want to keep and protect. So when we're in the ego with this backwards perception, we'll actively fight against help and healing, believing it's not actually help but a form of attack. The ego thinks of the Holy Spirit as an attacker.
What can you then do but let go and let the person continue to suffer. I mean, that sounds awful but sometimes people simply want to carry on suffering, even if on the other hand some part of them is not liking it. It's really difficult to "allow" someone to make choices against themselves or against life and happiness, especially when you know that there are options and possibilities.
Perhaps at that point all that you can do is appeal to a higher power, pray for them, send them love or happy energy, try to lift them up by being a light around them, or be an example or demonstration of a better way. It's hard to let go of control and the desire to fix or save those who are destroying themselves, or at least who appear to be. Because we also have to remember that even those people are not really doing anything at all. Nothing real can be threatened, and every postulation of suffering is fake and illusion. Even if the person finds it to be terrifyingly real.
You can't force anyone because everyone has free will. Jesus even says in the Course that "your will is as strong as mine" and this is why he is not able to simply overthrow your errors or force you into awakening. You have to choose it willingly. No one comes to the atonement without being willing. It takes total willingness, not just a little willingness. "Heaven is a choice I must make". So if someone is hell bent on not choosing it, what can you do but choose it for yourself and try to extend it to them in any way they can accept? Even if all that is is you being kind or gentle or listening or whatever.
Everyone has free will. Everyone has power. Everyone is choosing everything that's happening. Everyone even those suffering are expertly manifesting whatever they want. Everyone is putting everything in place. And nothing is happening anywhere to anyone without their consent. Even in situations where it seems like they are not giving any consent, they are giving it 100%. Even when it is producing suffering or sickness, again they are literally electing for it to occur and are putting it in place. And they have that exact same freedom and power to do that, just as much as using that same freedom and power with a non-self-destructive choice.
Jesus is telling us we are free and we are choosers and we are responsible for everything. Even if we're practically dead, we are choosing to be, and no-one is going to take that away from anyone against their will. Some people want to be dead. Some people want to be sick. Some people want to scapegoat the world. Some people want to be in terrible fear all the time. And every person does not believe they have the power to do anything to change it, which is part of the deciding not to.
Keep praying for the lost souls. No-one is lost. Everyone is just finding their way. And sometimes that may mean that it takes a long time and a lot of struggle and mistakes to get there.
Perhaps one of the key features about the ego which many people do not realize, is that it is constantly attacking itself.
The ego IS the idea of self attack. It is the idea of you, attacking you. It is self destructive, which is why it leads to sabotage and suicide. It is just another word for your own will to will against your own will.
It would perhaps seem too insane to consider that the ego actually attacks itself on purpose, and this alone might deter you from even considering it. But the ego is not sane.
The ego is not like the kinds of people that you think are normal people. You think that due to separation, what one person does to another they do not do to themselves. You think that you can attack without consequences, or be attacked by another without them receiving the attack.
The ego's main plot here is the idea that, because you are separate from your brother, what applies to him does not apply to you. This allows both parties to get away with murder. Or appear to. And this creates an illusion in this world, as though it is "ego" to attack someone and get away with it.
But beware. This is a decoy!
If you fixate on this idea that one person does something to someone else, causing effects in them, without receiving the effects - which certainly APPEARS to be the case almost all the time due to separation, then you will not notice the ego's underlying insanity. You'll think that it makes total sense that something can apply to one person and not another, or that you can cause effects which you do not receive - ie giving and receiving at not one.
The ego's secret insanity is that it deliberately attacks itself, and it is NOT escaping the effects of the attacks it tries to cause, nor does it want to. It is both its own attacker and its own victim. It deliberately wants to hurt itself. It also seems to simultaneously want to get away from that hurt. It should be fairly obvious that it is completely insane, to the highest degree, for someone to want to intentionally harm themselves, consciously and deliberately, and to simultaneously enjoy and suffer doing so.
Anyone in their right mind would recognize that they are one with all brothers, and share a mind of oneness, and therefore what applies to you applies to everyone equally. In this mind of oneness it is impossible to cause or do anything without receiving the effects. It is therefore in your vested interest to share only love, that you will receive only love. But when you enter into the ego and attempt to give without receiving (which is attack), you can be sure you will experience attack.
The ego is clever at making cause and effect unconscious. It makes it SEEM as if attacking another will not attack yourself. But the ego is fundamentally insane. It IS the idea of self attack, and so attacks itself on purpose. It would sacrifice itself in the name of saving itself. It is constantly two-faced. You think that normal people have "one face" or one personality or one side to them.
The insane ego is never one-sided, it is always contradictory, hipocritical, self denying, a liar, a cheat, manipulative, and it is even capable of showing up as "good cop" and "bad cop" simultaneously.
I had a dream once where some creepy man was trying to get to me, and so I ran to escape and I did escape, and met another man on a hill who appeared at first to be helpful and welcoming. It seemed like he would help me to be safe. But what quickly became apparent, was that in fact this man was the same "person" as the other man - as if he was the same man in disguise. He was both of them. And so the ego's two-faced secret was revealed, that it is perfectly capable of playing the part of victim and victimizer, attacker and savior, enemy and hero, or any other polarities which makes it SEEM as if they are two completely unrelated separate things.
The ego's illusions are ALWAYS geared towards getting you to believe that one kind of illusion is better than another. That one way of behaving or less evil than another. That something will actually help you without hurting you. That a solution will work without any side effects. It's always bullshit. The ego is fundamentally insane and so always has in its back pocket some kind of "clause" or excuse or secret that disguises the fact that it has NO intention of making its solutions work, and it has NO interest in being truly helpful, because ALL of its sides and solutions take you away from wholeness.
We have to be careful to discern and listen and recognize, that both positive and negative are part of the ego thought system. Both good and bad, right and wrong, all opposites. The ego plays both sides of every argument and does not care who sins. It will happily fund every war and conflict on both sides just for the sake of increasing the conflict. It is fundamentally existing in a state of self conflict and being divided against itself, thwarting its own moves, willing against its own will etc.
This is why we have to learn that "this world holds nothing that I want"... because everything it offers, the "good" and the "bad", are both ego deceptions designed to get you to take a side and fall for one of two of its traps. It does not care one shit about which side you take or whether you go light or dark or right or wrong, so long as you fall for the trap of believing that one of two choices is better than the other and will save you. There is no salvation in the ego. All of its roads lead to hell.
In this world, which is 100% the effect of dreaming, there is an ILLUSION of cause and effect.
To recognize how it is an illusion, consider how children play "make-believe" with toys.
1) There is an empty scene.
2) The child grabs his toy car, imagining that it is a real car.
3) He makes car sounds appear, "broom broom" to try to add life to the car
4) He moves the car along to pretend that it is driving by itself
5) He wants to increase the fun so puts a plastic tree in the scene
6) He drives the car toward the tree and just at the point where it's supposed to hit the tree, he grabs the tree and whisks it away up in the air, to simulate being hit by the car
He moved the car, he "gave life" to the car, animated it, controlled it. He moved the tree, "gave life" to the tree, animated it, controlled it. He made the ILLUSION that the car bumped the tree up into the air.
If viewed from within the fantasy, it SEEMS as if a real car causes a real tree to be damaged.
Viewed from outside the fantasy, we see that ONE CAUSE (the child/son of God), is responsible for everything that happens. He is responsible for the car and the tree and everything that both of them show.
The car could not move on its own. The tree could not move on its own. The care DOES NOT cause the tree to move! HIS MIND caused them to seem to produce effects. HIS MIND *pretended* that the car was "a cause" and that the tree was "at the effect" of the car.
We see this stuff happen from inside the dream, inside the fantasy play of the Son of God, and we think, that car really "caused" that damage to the tree, or, that food I ate caused my upset stomach, or, that person hitting me caused a bruise, or, throwing the ball at the window caused the window to break.
ITS NOT TRUE. This is an illusion. An illusion of simultaneous effects pretending to be causes.
When we are in touch with who the dreamer is, who the CAUSE is, the ILLUSION of cause and effect inside the fantasy can be shown to be an illusion. Miracles DEMONSTRATE this.
Miracles are acts by the ONE CAUSE of the entire dream content, to rearrange or change the effects in the dream, ie the objects or people or whatever else is showing up. Because IT is responsible for everything that moves, all side-effects, all consequences, how everything SEEMS to be affected by everything else, when it decides to BREAK the illusion of cause and effect, demonstrating that IT is the only cause and all cause and effects are actually EFFECTS, that's how the miracle defies the laws of the ego.
If the Son of God decides, hey, when that car hits that tree, nothing is going to happen, and the tree shall not have any damage put into it, then SO BE IT... the car will not damage the tree.
If the Son of God decides, hey, when I put that poison into the body, I will not put an effect of sickness into the body, then SO BE IT, the body will not be sick.
If the Son of God decides, hey, when I make that one body throw that one ball towards that window, I will not allow that window to break, SO BE IT, the window will not break.
Those witnessing these things will be probably astonished to see that the "laws" of cause-effect, the EGO's illusory laws, HAVE NOT WORKED. They did not apply. Something OVERRODE THEM. Some higher power somehow managed to manipulate THE LAWS THEMSELVES, to produce a result which "shouldn't be possible".
Illusions of "causes" in this world are entirely that, illusions. The world has NO causes in it, and it does nothing. That's because it is NOT ALIVE. And that's also because it is only an EFFECT of dreaming. All "life forms" here are NOT ALIVE. They are illusions of separate causes. All bodies are fictional. All objects are make-believe. The way they all interact is PRETEND.
Miracles completely bypass the illusion of horizontal/linear cause and effect. They demonstrate that these laws are NOT TRUE, and this is profoundly educational if you witness such a miracle. It PROVES that what you thought was true of this world, IS NOT TRUE. No longer will you be able to believe that "this causes that", because it was clearly demonstrated that this is NOT THE CASE.
Therefore, anything which you think has been caused by something happening in the world, can easily be reversed, changed, undone, or kept, entirely at the will of the mind. There is nothing that cannot be undone. There is nothing that cannot be reversed or healed. There is no sickness nor death which can prevent this higher-level mind from PROVING that it can be EASILY UNDONE. And Jesus demonstrated this at the resurrection.
Death has NO POWER OVER YOU because you literally cannot and will not MAKE DEATH HAPPEN unless you choose to do so, and if you choose that, you will be doing it to yourself, and NOT BECAUSE of any causes in the world whatsoever. You will be pulling all the strings, manipulating all the circumstances, putting all the sickness into your body, adding all the effects, and faking your own death, all deliberately and intentionally. Nothing happens to you against your will!
This is why death is optional and is always a choice. No-one dies without their own consent. No-one needs to die or suffer or be sick or upset or afraid or damaged or hurt in any way.
USE THE MIRACLES!
"The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. "
"The world you see has nothing to do with reality. "
"The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. " ... This is NOT a statement about how you perceive what's out there.... it's telling you, YOU PUT THE STUFF OUT THERE with your mind. You put that car there. You put that house there. You put those effects there! It Is WHAT YOU GAVE!
"There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad. "
"On confusion has this world been based, and there is nothing else it rests upon. "
"Projection makes perception. The world that you see is what you have put there to see; nothing more and nothing less and so it is important to you." ...... !!!!! This actually means that YOU PUT THE WORLD OUT THERE PHYSICALLY! You projected it from your higher-level mind! This is a statement about the Son of God, projecting the universe, literally, it is NOT to do with "how you look at the world"!! You MADE IT, and it can be CHANGED BY YOUR WILL!
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."
If it's true that you choose everything that happens, making it possible to find salvation by choosing eternal life and denying death, then everything you choose you must WANT.
Wanting, desiring, allowing, accepting, believing in, is all an act of positively electing something, in the belief that it appeals to and attracts you. Meaning you want it.
To accept atonement you have to want it. This is a matter of willingness. If you want to suffer you will suffer because you want to. If you die, you want to die. If you are sick its because you want to be sick. If you are unloved you do not want to be loved.
Look at the world and look at in the light that everyone is a powerful creator or miscreator, creating exactly what they want in every case. See how there are no victims, only willing participants who consent to everything that happens. A world of ameteur creators who have not yet perfected the constructive use of their powers.
Everyone is in fact getting exactly what they want at all times. Each wanting or choice is a prayer, and all prayers are always answered - by you. You always receive what you give.
"No-one is healed through double messages. If you wish ONLY to be healed, you heal. Your single PURPOSE makes this possible."
If you want salvation nothing can stop you. If you want God nothing can stand in your way. If you want health it shall be yours. If you want to never die you will live forever. But you cannot be in two minds or in denial.
If you think something is happening that you do not want, you are denying it which is why you think you don't want it. You really secretly do want it, otherwise your single minded decisive power would rid you of it. Complaining about it is a decision NOT to change your mind and to stay in suffering.
Everyone is always getting what they want. The problem really is not one of receiving things you didn't ask for, but of being unmasterful of your asking such that you keep asking for things that don't bring you happiness. You still ask for them because you ask for hate, because you want to hate.
Not recognizing what you actually are choosing is half the problem. It requires a lot of honesty to admit you want to hurt yourself, want to be afraid, want to be sick or want to die, especially when on the surface this induces fear which makes you recoil from what you are choosing. Or to admit you are NOT doing what you think you're doing.
The only reason people seem to not want all the shit they keep wanting, is because they keep wanting to threaten themselves. They keep seeking ways to be punished and hurt, yet recoil at the hurt. This is just the two-faced nature of the ego. We keep choosing in a confused state of mind and end up making a poor choice.
"I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace. I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise."
When you want only health, happiness and wholeness you will have only that, and nothing else will you have. If life sucks, congratulations on getting what you wanted. Then choose again if you want something else.
We simply are immature creators with confused minds who keep causing hell to happen by mistake. On purpose. Because we think its what we want, because we don't recognize what things are, because we're insane. But all you have to do is change your mind about what you want.
"This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as GOD created it. But YOU think that you HAVE changed it, as long as you learn through the ego. This DOES place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which SEEMS contradictory: you must learn to change your mind ABOUT your mind. Only by this can you learn that it IS changeless."
"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you."
"He has asked for what will frighten him, and bring him suffering. Let us resolve today to ask for what we really want, and only this, that we may spend this day in fearlessness, without confusing pain with joy, or fear with love."
"You were at peace until you asked for special favor, and God did not give it."
"In peace he needed nothing, and asked for nothing. In war he DEMANDED everything, and FOUND nothing."
"What you have asked for cannot be denied."
"If a magic thought arouses anger in any form, God's teacher can be sure that he is strengthening his own belief in sin and has condemned himself. He can be sure as well that he has asked for depression, pain, fear and disaster to come to him."
"I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."
"For NEITHER will recognize that HE HAS ASKED FOR HELL, and so he will NOT interfere with the ego's ILLUSION of Heaven, which it offered him TO INTERFERE WITH HEAVEN."
"NOTHING can prevail against a Son of God who commends his Spirit into the hands of His Father. By doing this, the mind awakens from its sleep, and the Soul remembers its Creator. All sense of Separation disappears, and level confusion vanishes."
"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."
"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are."
"Against this sense of temporary existence, the Soul offers the knowledge of permanence and unshakeable BEING. No one who has experienced the revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again. How can its meager offering to you prevail against the glorious gift of God?"
"You look for permanence in the impermanent; for love where there is none; for safety in the midst of danger; immortality within the darkness of the dream of death."
What God created is permanent. What you create is permanent. It has eternal life and exists forever, unchanging and unwavering. Nothing real can be threatened or changed, nor does it change, because reality is a constant state. It is permanently the same. Absolutely unchangeable, unassailable, unaffected.
You cannot change what is permanent. You cannot establish the truth. You cannot decide what is real. You cannot change God's mind. You cannot define what you are. You cannot change what you are. You cannot destroy anything real. You cannot truly be sick or die. You cannot leave Heaven. You cannot modify what God has created. And you cannot make yourself mortal.
BUT...... you can be in denial. You can be delusional. You can be trying to use belief to pretend to convince yourself that this isn't the case. You can TRY to effort to make what is permanent, impermanent. This is an attempt, by immortal beings, to pretend to be mortal.
In every way that you attempt to prove to yourself and others that you and they are not permanently as God created us, those are futile attempts to convince yourself that something else is true. That you are not permanent. Every time that you attack your body and make it sick, you are trying to prove that you can be hurt, even though it is literally impossible to hurt that which is permanent.
"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."
Similarly death is an attempt to prove the permanent Son of God can be made impermanent and dead. It does not work. It has NO EFFECT on the Son of God. Death does not kill you. It does nothing. Therefore attempting to prove you can die, by committing suicide, by hurting and attacking yourself and your temporary illusory body, is clearly a demonstration of someone who is strongly trying to PROVE that they are NOT permanent.
The further someone goes towards having this amassed stockpile of "evidence" for why they are not permanent, the further they are in denial. This is why death itself is total denial. It's a total blind inability to accept the TOTAL futility of trying to die. Immortal beings, are trying to prove they can be dead. And the more they are delusional and believe in death's possibility, the more they bring about suffering and sickness and death in themselves and others.
Those who are saner, who are less in denial, and who do not believe in attack because they know that nothing real can be threatened so attack is pointless, automatically produce healing and demonstration of miraculous reversal of "sickness", the stockpile decreases and their demonstration of mortality diminishes and is reversed. Resurrection happens, which is nothing less than the demonstration and symbolic use of the body to show that you truly believe, and can prove, that you cannot die, because you have the POWER to do so.
Resurrection is a demonstration of acceptance of atonement, the sheer truth that what is permanent is STILL permanent, NOTHING has happened to change it, there IS no sin, there IS no attack, there IS no sickness or death, and therefore to PROVE beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are under NO laws but God's. That you are ARE permanent. The body then, in the hands of a sane person, is healed. "The mind, being sane, heals the body." And the body in the hands of someone accepting atonement is UNATTACKABLE. "It cannot be sick, nor can it die."
The body now TEACHES by EXAMPLE, symbolically, to those still dreaming, that the soul is permanent and the Son of God represents eternal life. The body becomes a symbol of eternal life and a breath of immortality in the dream, communicating to those grown sick of the fetid stench of death, that death is futile, pointless exercise, sickness is ridiculously unnecessary, and HEALTH is representative of living forever.
The Holy Spirit has now repurposed what you made, as something unattackable, to demonstrate you CANNOT BE attacked. That harm has never happened, and you are beyond all causes that could possibly ever make you or the body damaged. It is a supernatural demonstration of UNLIMITED POWER. It is truly miraculous. You become invulnerable (aware of your invulnerability) and you USE the body to symbolically demonstrate it to others.
To accept the atonement truly means the TOTAL unconditional acceptance of the total state of PERMANENCE of your reality. It means the complete surrendering and letting go of ALL things temporal or temporary, which includes the body and the world. It requires your transfer or rather, resumption, of Heaven, to resume recognition of your self as permanently Christ, and to remember the truth about you. This resuming or rather continuing of your uninterrupted creative extension, is an awakening, the only awakening, to the experience of eternal life, beyond the body and beyond the dream of death, beyond this world, not of this world, nor in it.
This total awareness of absolute permanence, dissolves the body and makes it IMPOSSIBLE to be in this temporal world. "Indeed, you cannot remain in this world, with this knowledge." It restores the perfect knowledge that you are STILL perfect, nothing EVER happened, there IS no dream world, and bodies do not exist. It is not merely a compromise between staying in the dream and being awake, it is total immersion in reality, in God, in Heaven, where you have never stopped being permanently eternal. It is the awakening to the soul.
In this awakening, there is no remaining memory of even the dream or the world. It is gone. It never existed or happened. There is only the total unlimited experience of total immortality and permanent life. This requires nothing less than the absolute 100% unconditional willingness to will with God, to do His will, to share His mind, and to extend His being forever. In this awareness, there is no Earth, there is no dream, and there is no separation.
Nothing has happened. Only that which is permanent is true. Only that which lasts forever exists. Nothing real can be changed or threatened and never has been. Once you return to being an immortal being, you will realize, you ALWAYS HAVE BEEN and always will be, and now anything of fantasy dream worlds where people die will be complete unbelievable nonsense to you.
You are immortal. You are pretending not to be. When you are done pretending not to be, you will accept your immortality and return to Heaven.
"There is no death, the son of god is free."
"Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly." UrW132L4
It cannot be that the physical world was merely 'made' ahead of time, and that we then entered into it as passive spectators. This would have to mean that everything about it was set up beforehand, meaning the entire thing is destined and has a fixed outcome. It would be then impossible to change it because it would be proverbially "set in stone".
The fact that it's been proven many times over that mind can influence the body, that psychokinesis exists, that the mind can change physical matter, that mind can produce and heal sickness etc, clearly shows that this so-called "world" is in an elastic state of flux and redefinement. That we are in effect projecting it NOW, that mind can influence it at any time, and that its state and conditions are not fixed.
It may be true that mind originally did dream of this universe in general and set things in motion, but the fact still remains that the same mind which dreamed it to begin with is continuing to operate in and upon it. Meaning that mind can still alter its dream, even if it's an ancient dream.
In a sense this indicates that the two opposing views - that we just perceive an existing world in different ways, or that we're literally making the world right now, are actually both true. The same mind that made bodies, is continuing to make bodies, and to alter them. The mind that made the sun and the stars is continuing to influence them. And that same mind can end the world in the blink of an eye.
Since we are the dreamer of the dream, even if we established an initial dream, we are still dreaming it, and thus changing it. As Jesus says in the course, in seemingly contradictory terms, you should change your mind ABOUT the world because your perception OF it can vary, BUT at the same time, by doing so, the whole world must change. Because the world is an effect of the mind.
Long story short, we made the world, seemingly in an ancient past, but we're still working on making it and re-making it. We can change how we perceive it, as though it is objective, but it is also still subjective, and mind can still change it.
You could say that the idea of the world being fixed and predestined arises from a sleeping mind that is seeming to dream of arriving in a pre-existing world, which it is at the effect of. You could also say that a more awakened mind comes to the awareness that it is presently dreaming it, can more lucidly change its dream, and can wake up from sleep entirely.
Thus the idea that our job is only to re-perceive an objective world is a closed-minded false-perception based view in which we see ourselves as victims and not causal. And in this view it seems (unforgivingly) that the world is "already there" and the best we can do is change what we "make of" it.
But as we awaken to the power of God in us, we also re-access the original ability which, temporarily unconsciously, was projecting the world to begin with, and then was can master that power and modify the projection, literally changing the world of matter. This then isn't merely a case of changing what we make of it, but of what we make it literally be.
A deeply sleeping mind believes the world is real and objective and that its only salvation is to change its interpretation of the world. Which leads to keeping the world and regarding it as God's creation. In this view we are merely passive powerless observers who have no influence on anything, living out a mindless "script" and having no freedom of thought or effect to change anything.
But a more awakened mind recognises the world is a dream, not God's handiwork, and instead becomes masterful over the dreaming process, to dream in ways the less awakened would consider "miraculous." Gaining access to the mind's ability to orchestrate the dream, to modify bodies, to move mountains, and to radically break with all the laws of physics and limitation. Demonstrating that "mind over matter" is the fundamental fact of what puts the world there to begin with.
"You were willing to accept even death to deny your Father. But He would not have it so, and so it is NOT so. You still could not will against Him, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. It is NOT a world of will, because it is governed by the desire to be unlike Him. And this desire IS NOT WILL. The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it." UrT11D10
"You WILL believe that you are helpless prey to forces far beyond your own control, and far more powerful than you. And you WILL think the world you made directs your destiny." UrT21F3
"For, if you think the world you made has power to make you what IT wills, you ARE confusing Son and Father; effect and Source." UrT21D11
"For time YOU made, and time you CAN command. You are no more a slave to time than to the world you made." UrT22C8
"This single lesson does it try to teach again, and still again, and yet once more; - that it is CAUSE and NOT effect. And YOU are ITS effect, and CANNOT be its cause. Thus are you NOT the dreamer, but the DREAM. And so you wander idly in and out of places and events that IT contrives." UrT27I3
"The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No-one is AFRAID of them, when he perceives HE MADE THEM UP. The fear was held in place BECAUSE he did not see that he was AUTHOR of the dream, and not a figure IN the dream. He gives HIMSELF the consequences that he dreams he gave his brother." UrT28C7
Your belief that you're guilty ... because you sinned .... is a mistaken belief .... and it is not true.
You are NOT guilty because you HAVE NOT sinned, and your belief is mistaken. Because it is mistaken it is not true and does not apply to you, so you are free of it. And in that freedom you find RELIEF and can be thankful to God that you HAVE NOT DONE what you think you've done.
YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!!!!
THAT is applying forgiveness to yourself.
"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in this view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God."
Sin, is a FALSE idea, about YOU - as God's son. Forgiveness SEES ITS FALETY. That means, a recognition, that it is NOT TRUE. It is NOT TRUE that you have sinned. That's what you need to recognize and accept.
The belief that you are guilty, is a mistaken belief. You have to recognize that YOU HAVE BEEN MISTAKEN TO BELIEVE IT. You haven't ever done anything wrong!!!
And the reason why you are mistaken is because you HAVE NOT SINNED. You did not do what you think you did.
Notice this line:
"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred."
Applying this to yourself as well, what you THINK you did, HAS NOT OCCURRED.
Now, this does in fact LITERALLY mean that even events that seemed to happen in this world, even things you think you did to other people or their bodies, crimes committed, attacks you performed, whatever. HAS NOT OCCURRED.
It really does mean this. You DID NOT do these things. If you DID really do these things, and if this world is REAL, then YOU CANNOT ever be innocent. And thankfully this is not the case.
The reason you did not do them is because this world is NOT REALITY. And because it is not real, anything that SEEMS to take place here is part of a dream, and is not happening TO anything real.
Reality cannot be changed or affected or attacked. Reality is PERMANENT. Because it is permanent you CANNOT sin against it. You cannot attack God, you cannot kill his son, you cannot murder the sonship, you cannot destroy heaven, and you cannot change yourself into an evil monster. You also cannot stop being innocent.
What you THINK you've done, whether it be in heaven or on earth, YOU HAVE NOT DONE. This is an actual TRUE FACT. You CANNOT have done anything to God (nothing real can be threatened) and anything you have done in a dream world (nothing unreal exists) IS IRRELEVANT because it doesn't really exist and has no REAL effects.
This is why there is no sin. There is nowhere REAL that it can take place, and anywhere else is UNREAL - meaning any sins taking place there are UNREAL. Sin is not possible anywhere on any level.
The entire world, everyone in the world, is believing that they've done something terribly wrong, and believe it's had a real effect on something REAL IN REALITY, and that therefore they ARE actually truly guilty. And then everyone is filled with this guilt and is proceeding to PUNISH themselves, torment themselves, threaten themselves with death, inducing suffering and sickness and all manner of horrors in themselves and their lives, because they BELIEVE they deserve it.
This is the big problem of humanity. Everyone is trying to destroy themselves over something THEY NEVER DID.
The separation from God was a very strange thing. It wasn't that anyone ACTUALLY did anything real, TO anything real. Nothing real WAS ever affected. Instead, it was more like, everyone started to spiral inward into a private world of confusion and insanity, lost in a haze of fear and uncertainty, delusion and self-deception, TELLING themselves that they were something they were not, that they had DONE something they COULD NOT have done.
And in that confusion they believed they HAD in fact committed some terrible crime that they HAD NOT committed. That something real had been hurt by it, and they had done it, and that therefore THEY were the guilty one. And because they believed that innocence had been defiled, God had been attacked, heaven had been murdered, they believed they ARE guilty for causing something horrible to happen. And because of this guilt, they deserve to die.
This produced a death wish in which people believed there was no way God was going to forgive them for this REAL SIN, and therefore they could never go back to God, never return to home to heaven, and never be forgiven. In effect, they could never return to LIFE. And that means the ONLY OPTION LEFT was go go off in a dark corner and suffer and DIE.
But this is based on a false premise. The false premise is the belief that you EVER DID ANYTHING AT ALL. What do the innocent exclaim? "I never did anything." What do the guilty exclaim "I did it!". Only by recognizing the FALSETY OF THE PREMISE, does it rip out the idea of having sinned at its root, undo the belief in "separating", and thus completely invalidate all guilt. And as the guilt goes, the ego goes as well, because the ego is just a false belief about yourself (guilt).
YOU HAVE NOT DONE WHAT YOU THINK YOU'VE DONE. YOU HAVE BEEN VERY MISTAKEN. EVERYTHING IS OKAY!!!!!!
You got the wrong end of the stick, believed a lie, deceived yourself, told yourself something that wasn't true, wanted it to be true, tried to make it happen, and believed that you'd done it. And yet AT NO TIME did you EVER actually accomplish what you thought you did. And it has had NO EFFECT ON ANYTHING. Everything real is PERFECT ALRIGHT AND UNHARMED!
You have NOT sinned. You are NOT guilty.
This recognition IS forgiveness. THERE IS NO SIN.
"Let me remember that there is no sin."
"What if you looked within, and saw NO sin?"
There is a profound RELIEF that happens, when you realize that you HAVE NOT DONE a terrible thing that you thought you'd done. It's like being able to finally breathe and let go and be happy. Finally, a correct judgement, that you DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. Ahhhhhh. Thank God for that!!!!!! After all that time that you spent stressing and fearing punishment and worrying about the suffering that you BELIEVED you deserved and WERE TRYING TO MAKE HAPPEN. Over a FICTIONAL CRIME that you never committed!
Finally to hear that "all is forgiven, you can come home, God still loves you!" What a relief!! Thank GOD you haven't done anything at all to anything ever!! You are still completely innocent. You are STILL as God created you. You are WELCOME in heaven. God STILL loves you completely and NEVER STOPPED. Ahhhhhhh.
I keep hearing various people say things like "using miracles as spectacles is wrong" and various other statements which make it sound like we should not be performing miracles.
These are all based in fear!
Jesus's statement (from an earlier version) is: "(A miracle is misunderstood when it is regarded as a spectacle.)
11. The use of miracles as a spectacle to induce belief is wrong. They are really used for and by believers."
What he is saying here, is that miracles are used BY believers - people who believe in the correct sequences of cause and effect, who believe God wants to heal all the time, and who are in touch with the willingness (not fear) to extend the miracles of love all the time rather than accept the consequences of sin.
He is also saying here, that such miracles are typically given TO those who BELIEVE. Which means, someone, as a receiver, typically needs to have some faith of their own, some belief in God, in order to be WILLING to receive a miracle.
This aligns with the unfortunate scenario, that if people do not want healing or are not ready for it, miracles cannot do anything to help them, especially if they would scare them, and quite honestly, miracles COULD produce fear in a lot of people indirectly because of the way they totally defy every expectation of the ego.
So what Jesus is saying is, since miracles are typically given BY someone who "believes", TO someone who has at least some measure of belief, this is the natural way that miracles CAN operate. So when you try to go outside of that, to "induce belief", to enforce belief, to try to MAKE someone believe, or to perform a miracle against their will, for the sole purpose of trying to create a FICTIONAL scenario where they might be shocked and awed and caused to react in some way, as a SUBSTITUTE FOR BELIEVING, that would be in appropriate and a mistake.
So you would not attempt to use a miracle to just entertain a crowd or to try to get people to follow you or to show off or to "force people" into complying or healing or obeying or anything like that. This is because miracles come from LOVE, love enters where it is WELCOME, and therefore it is LOVING not to try to coerce people with some kind of dazzling light show that is just there to be a "spectacle". When we are using miracles in this way as spectacles for that sole purpose, we are basically attempting to turn them INTO MAGIC, to put on a magic show, which has as its only purpose to delude and manipulate, rather than to ACTUALLY HEAL, or to be RECEIVABLE by someone who believes in God's love for them.
This is ALL that Jesus is telling us not to do. He is not in ANY way telling us not to perform miracles, NOR is he telling us that our miracles need to be SMALL AND WEAK AND UNNOTICED. Nor is he telling us that we should not move a physical mountain, or even something bigger than that. Nor is he telling us to keep miracles on the HUSH HUSH and make sure no-one notices. Nor is he telling us to never show or demonstrate anything which someone looking on MIGHT come to be shocked and in awe of.
The ego is SUPPOSED TO BE TAUGHT by a miracle, that the laws of the ego do not apply. Miracles are teaching devices. They WILL BRING INTO QUESTION what people believe is possible and true. If someone who was just dead, is suddenly brought back to life, this is going to radically challenge the belief system of ANYONE who sees it happen. They won't be able to "believe their eyes". Some of them will be in awe, although they should not be. Some of them would be perhaps even afraid and run away in fear that some kind of magical voodoo is happening, because they don't understand or aren't ready to receive it.
Miracles are CAPABLE OF BEING "spectacles" in that, they are capable of being very IMPRESSIVE, and extraordinary, and way out of the box, and not something that you typically see every day (which is sad, because miracles are supposed to be happening ALL the time, every day).
Perhaps my favorite demonstration of a miracle is Jesus walking on water. I mean, talk about the POTENTIAL to be considered a spectacle. Quite a demonstration! To suddenly see someone out in the ocean not sinking whatsoever as though he was lighter than air. To SEE THAT, would've been extraordinary, and you could think well, Jesus is just SHOWING OFF. No he is not. It was a teaching situation to PROVE that the ego's laws do not apply and that ANYONE can walk on water. He was giving an EXAMPLE of the truth. Some would call it a spectacle because they put it in the same category as "anything which is extraordinary or dazzling is a spectacle". No. Spectacles are ego attempts to induce belief instead of building UPON belief. It doesn't in any way mean you shouldn't walk on water or float through the air or turn yourself into a giant mushroom.
When Jesus came back from the dead and showed up, just kind of casual like, probably laughing, "and you all thought I really died, haha".... the people who saw him were probably like... is that a ghost? Am I hallucinating? Am I seeing things? Have I lost my mind? The ego will be severely challenged. And at the same time, it would've come across as awe-inspiring and really radically impressive and intense and life changing!
Jesus is not telling us to SHOVE MIRACLES UNDER THE CARPET, nor is he telling us to AVOID BEING SUPERNATURAL, nor is he telling us to "beware" just in case we scare someone, nor is he telling us to keep miracles a private secret. NOR does he mean that such miraculous healings and reversals of sin/separation/death are MAGIC. They are NOT MAGIC. Magic goes in totally the opposite direction and makes things WORSE. Miracles make things BETTER. They heal and undo and correct and reverse what the ego has tried to accomplish. They have nothing do with magic at all, UNLESS you start to twist their purpose as a way to try to FORCE someone to believe when they are not ready to. This is all that Jesus is warning us about.
That we keep using these kinds of statements as a way to POO POO miracle-working is a really sad misuse of the course and a really unfortunate way to KEEP PEOPLE POWERLESS, as well as being a massive form of DENIAL and FEAR about what miracles are and what they are capable of. When the Holy Spirit performs a miracle, your mouth is going to be hanging open! This is only because we're so used to being UNMIRACULOUS that we think that's normal, and that miracles are UNNATURAL. Miracles are natural, being sick and dying and having to suffer is UNNATURAL.
So no, miracles are not inherently spectacles to be avoided by all who are afraid of the power of the mind. It is just a CAUTION, not a turn off.
"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." - Jesus
"If the mind can heal the body but the body can't heal the mind then the mind must be stronger than the body."
"The mind must be stronger than the body. Every miracle demonstrates this."
"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail." (or a body).
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If the mind is stronger than the body then the body must be caused by the mind. And as Jesus said about his resurrection, He materialized another body with HIS MIND, in order to demonstrate that the mind that MADE a body ("the body of jesus") can make another, since form is an illusion. That means ALL BODIES are made by the mind, not by the world.
What we can controversially conclude here, is this:
God is your only Creator, not anything in the world.
Your earth parent's bodies did not create your body.
Your body was not the result of sperm and egg.
Your body as a baby did not manifest as a result of biological laws, it manifested as a result of the MIND.
The mother's womb is a symbol not a cause.
Bodies cannot make bodies. They have no causal power at all. How can effect make an effect?
The mind that made the body, also made the world, and therefore the world did not make the body.
Your body was NEVER made by the world or anything in the world, because there are NO CAUSES in the world.
"It (the world) is incapable of change because it is merely an effect."
Effects are not causes. On the level of this world, causes and effect seem horizontal/linear and this is 100% an illusion. The only true cause is vertical, as demonstrated in the vertical perception which brings about miracles, through the proper order of the LEVELS, which means the higher level of MIND causes the lower level of FORM.
"Mind over matter" is ALWAYS the case for any form that shows up. The mind is the ONLY CAUSE of stuff (bodies, world, objects etc) being made.
So even if it SEEMS like your body is a thing ("as no time does the body exist AT ALL"), or has a history, or is ruled by biological laws, or is the effect of the world, or caused by parents, or put there by SOMEONE ELSE, you're basically claiming that you are automatically at the effect of the world you see and are a victim. Being born BY or FROM the dream, as a body that the dream MAKES "for you", is victimhood. It is a lie.
This is because the ego set up the body-making ILLUSION, the illusory causes of bodies coming about, to make it SEEM as though the world creates the body. This is 100% the reversal of true cause which is that body comes from within not without, and the world has NO CAUSAL POWER at all. To suggest part of the world itself can "create life" is the most opposing illusion, opposing the fact that only God/souls create life, and there is NO LIFE OUTSIDE OF HEAVEN. The ego deliberately has made this ILLUSION of "being born to parents" in order to cover up the causality of the mind or the true source of the body, which is the dreaming mind.
YOUR MIND MAKES THE BODY AT ALL TIMES, from "inception" to death.
When you acknowledge that your mind or some kind of mind is making your body, you will also realize that the body is not something you "attach to" or "identify with" or "put on as a costume" or "incarnate into" like it's something that exists ON ITS OWN independently from you. Like it's some kind of thing in its own right, which happened to .. .just show up magically with no-one being the cause of it?
Instead, recognize that when your mind believes YOU are made of ego illusions, ego illusions will SHOW UP, i.e. materialize, as an image seeming like a solid body in the mind. When your mind has no illusions or ego in it, it will cease to materialize a body, because it does not identify itself AS being made of ego stuff. Therefore the body disappears and you become "invisible" to this world. A clear mind produces invisibility i.e. no form.
Unless we are willing to take FULL RESPONSIBILITY for making the body be what it is, for making it show up, for MAKING IT period, we will see it as a separate "thing" and that WILL keep us stuck in this ego illusion. It cannot be let go by disassociating from it or separating from it.
That means you're actually performing an unworthy form of denial, by trying to keep the body and detach yourself from it. That's an act of premature death. The mind that is making the body, if it attempts to then pretend it is not making it, is simply in denial. The only way to leave the dream is by DISAPPEARING IT, by no longer identifying AS ego. And your mind will then make it vanish.
"You are not a body" does not mean, make a body and pretend you didn't make it.