"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).

-------------------------

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.

"The body's eyes see ONLY form (matter, objects, bodies). They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and **not see past it**. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for ***they can see only illusions*** (matter is an illusion - ANYTHING SEEN WITH PHYSICAL SIGHT IS AN ILLUSION), unable to look beyond the granite block of sin (solid matter is sin), and stopping at the outside form of nothing (surfaces of objects). To this distorted form of vision, the outside of everything (all objects), the wall (matter) that stands between you and the truth (physical matter stands between you and reality), is wholly true."

"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness (the surface of objects), as if it were a solid wall (solid objects), see truly? It is HELD BACK by form (all objects, bodies, planets), having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form (matter) will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see." (cannot see reality or light ever - is permanently FIXED in false perception).

"What was its maker's GOAL, but not to see? For this the body's eyes are perfect means. But not for seeing (can't see reality ever). See how the body's eyes rest on externals (the surface of physical objects), and ***cannot go beyond*** (seeing a surface means photons bounced OFF the solid surface and BLOCKED YOUR VISION of what is beyond the surface!). Watch how they stop at nothingness (the physical world is an illusion and is nothing), unable to go beyond the form (shape, appearance, solidity etc) to meaning."

"(There is) nothing so blinding as perception of form (matter). For sight of form (objects, bodies) means understanding has been obscured. Only MISTAKES have different forms (objects are forms of error/sin), and so they can deceive. You can change form (matter, bodies etc), BECAUSE it is not true. It could not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is not reality, it must be an illusion, and is not THERE to see (all physical objects are illusions). And, if you see it, you must be mistaken (using body-based false perception), for you are seeing what can NOT be real, as if it were (believing the world is real is false perception because it's an illusion of a world). What cannot see beyond what is not there (cannot see past the physical universe), MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions as the truth (blinded by perception of form). Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth?"

"Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see (body cannot see it). Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of his body. (look PAST the body, past matter, past form, past error, past sin, past the solid universe)."

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen (fact, you cannot use the body's sight to see reality ever), for the illusions that they look upon (all planets are illusions) must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last (proven by decay, entropy, death), but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt (he did not create this world and the world he created cannot be seen by the body ever)."

"The world you see is an illusion of a world (seen with the body, it is illusory, and cannot be seen by the spiritual eye). God did not create it (fact! God did not create ANYTHING that the body looks upon!), for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see (with the body) that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end." (anything visible to the body has an end, including this planet - that's why it's an illusion not an eternal reality).

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face (solid matter blocks your vision of christ). But true perception (through the spiritual eye, NOT the body's eyes) looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant (the world is an illusion and can be OVERLOOKED - to forgive is to overlook - to NOT SEE). It is seen at last for only what it is (it is ONLY an illusion). And now it cannot fail to disappear ("illusions recognized must disappear"), for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived (body world) the face of Christ appears, and in that instant ***is the world forgot*** (earth, illusory universe, go bye bye), with time forever ended as the world spins ***into nothingness*** from where it came. (world of matter is NOTHING - there is no world)"

"A world forgiven cannot last (forgive Earth, it will disappear, forgiving it OVERLOOKS it - stops seeing it). It was the home of bodies (forgiven world is the illusory world). But forgiveness looks past bodies (christ vision). This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin (matter is sin - "the body is the idea of sin made flesh"), for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone ***what more remains to keep a separated world in place***? For place (space) has gone as well, along with time (spacetime ends). ***Only the body makes the world seem real*** (blinded by perception of form, world of matter/form is an illusion), for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible (no bodies in heaven). Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not (christ vision does NOT SEE the world of bodies). And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."

"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. ***And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God***. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has ***shone away time's final instant*** (and spacetime and all three-dimensionality), and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause (the "real world" is not the goal, its a stepping stone). For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls (no material universe), no bodies (no planets, no stars), and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

Wishful thinking. ... really a form of denial, wanting things to be other than how they are right now. Isn't that the same thing as attacking and judging?

Saying ... hey, I don't like how you are right now, you shouldn't be this way, you should be some other way. I can't accept you like this. How you are is wrong, so you are sinful and guilty, because you're now how I want you to be.

Wishing that things were different, is a lack of acceptance. An unwillingness to face how things actually are right now. It doesn't mean you have to put up with it or not make changes still, it just means at least being willing to look and see and accept how it is now.

Wishful thinking is also a form of resistance, which is a form of fear. It's also a form of dishonesty. It's not wanting to admit to the apparent truth of the situation or accept the facts. This again doesn't mean you have you see yourself as hemmed in by the "physical truth", but having an issue with "how it is" is an attempt to lie about it.

Wishing that things were not how they are, doesn't change anything. It's a form of complaint and victimhood. It's you having a temper tantrum believing that you can skew things towards how you would prefer them. But preferences are another form of denial.

To wish that things were different, without willing and causing them to be different, is a form of unwillingness. A desire to reject what has apparently been willed, to demand and require it be willed differently, but not actually doing anything constructive to will it yourself.

And so wishing is dreaming, and faking, and lying, and deceiving, and denying, and not accepting, and attacking, and judging, and being dishonest, and avoiding reality. It was wishing for something other than God that got us into this mess in the first place.

"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real."

"We have already said that wishful thinking is how the ego deals with what it wants, to make it so."

"We once said that to will contrary to God is wishful thinking, and not real willing."

"You CAN wish for the impossible, but you can only WILL with God. This is the ego's weakness and YOUR strength."

"Now is vengeance all there is to wish for."

"But the WISH for other experience will block this, because God's Will CANNOT be forced upon you, being an experience of total WILLINGNESS."

"The Son of God could NEVER sin, but he CAN wish for what would hurt him. And he HAS the power to think he CAN BE hurt. What could this be EXCEPT a misperception of himself?"

"It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation for this world."

"The tiniest of dreams, the smallest wish for values of the world is large enough to stand between you and the sweet release that God would offer you." "It is in the special relationship, born of the hidden wish for special love from God, that the ego's hatred triumphs."

"To wish for guilt in ANY way, in ANY form, will lose appreciation of the value of your guiltlessness, and push it from your sight."

Here is something that many people will reject as totally bullshit. But if you will consider it carefully you may see that it makes sense.

Your mind is not just inside your body. Your mind is bigger than the universe. The world is inside of it! Therefore your psychological ERRORS have taken the form of PHYSICAL OBJECTS!!!

The physical world is in your mind as a THOUGHT FORM. A physicalization or condensing of the thought of SIN BEING REAL.

"This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."

Physical objects are literally ***SIN*** contained by your mind!!!

(e.g. "The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards." "To see a sinless body is impossible.")

Your mind, bigger than the universe, is dreaming of a WORLD, inside of your mind, which is hosted by your mind, and clouds your mind with IMAGINED OBSTRUCTIONS, which manifest as PHYSICAL FORMS, which are thought images WITHIN you.

You made the little body, within your mind, as part of the world that's in your mind, to look AT that world, to look at SIN, as if it's real and not see past it. The body can only see the form of error, and all physical forms represent the idea of sin being "apparently real." You actually perceive the world from the outside in.

You perceive "physical sins" with the body's eyes!!!

When you consider that the world and the body are WITHIN your mind, both of them are ILLUSORY PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVICES your mind is using to hide from reality. You've constructed a dream of deception, within your mind, in the shape of a world, to hide reality. "The world was made as an attack on God."

Your mind - a universe-sized CONTAINER, has invented a world, inside of itself, designed to block THE CONTAINER, from **SEEING THE CONTAINER**. And now the container is seemingly UNAWARE OF ITSELF, asleep and lost in its own IMAGINED WORLD. A dream world.

Physical sight through the body, looking at FORMS (physical objects), is your mind's attempt to NOT LOOK PAST SIN, given that physical objects are SINS within your larger mind.

The eyes fixate on sin and make it real. This is what they were MADE TO DO. If the world seems real, you have MADE SIN REAL and are looking at an ILLUSION, which seems outside your body, but the world and the body are SMALLER THAN YOU. If you believe what the body sees is reality, you are blind and insane. "Nothing so blinding as perception of form."

The body's vision is a device for NOT SEEING THE TRUTH, to blind the mind and keep it from looking PAST ALL PHYSICAL FORMS - which are MIND BLOCKAGES - to reality which lies beyond them.

"The world IS false perception." "The world IS perception." This means you, who are a universe-sized container, are visualizing WITHIN yourself, an entire planet, which is the FORM that "perceiving incorrectly" takes, as a visualization of an UNREAL WORLD, so that you are lost in your own INNER planet-sized dream. The physical world IS your universe-sized mind PERCEIVING!! "Perception is a separated state". You are projecting it!

"Blocks to awareness" include PHYSICAL MATTER. Spacetime itself IS A BELIEF, smaller than your mind, within your mind!

The body has been made as a device IN YOUR MIND to block your VISION. Your mind is HOST to an imaginary world, which it is looking AT, so that it does not look PAST it, to ITSELF.

Your mind, and your correction of perception, is not just taking place within the safe confines of your body-mind, as if trapped in a body and totally confined to "whats inside my body."

Realize instead that your mind is also OUT THERE. Physical matter is a BLOCK. It is an IMAGE in your mind. Not merely an image within your mind in a body. An image in your mind BIGGER THAN THE UNIVERSE. YOU are supposed to LITERALLY see past it in order to be aware of YOURSELF and to look upon CHRIST just as the Holy Spirit does.

When your mind - your universe-sized mind, changes its mind, and starts to use reason to SEE PAST the illusory world, it will stop believing in the dream it's having, and realize it is the dreamer. This will DISAPPEAR THE DREAM, which includes the literally disappearing of ALL PHYSICAL OBJECTS, which ARE ALWAYS FORMS OF ERROR AND SIN.

In the atonement therefore, you have the recognition that THERE IS NO WORLD, because "the world you made" was merely a fictional vision you were holding inside your mind temporarily, while you dreamed, and now the dreaming has ended. THERE IS NO WORLD to block your *awareness* of your SELF, and thus you return to looking ONLY UPON your Christ Self, which is formless and timeless, OUTSIDE OF SPACETIME, which has now ended.

YOU, are the Kingdom of Heaven.

Here is how Jesus puts it:

"SIN IS A BLOCK (to awareness), set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. 3 No one who LOOKS ON IT without the help of reason would try to pass it. 4 THE BODY'S EYES BEHOLD IT AS SOLID (yes, your fricking EYES are LOOKING AT SIN) granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. 5 Yet reason SEES THROUGH IT (sees through physical matter), because IT IS AN ERROR (all physical matter is an ERROR!). 6 The FORM (physical form) it takes cannot conceal its EMPTINESS (there IS NO PHYSICAL WORLD - IT IS EMPTINESS) from reason's eyes."

"Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception" ... "The body's eyes see ONLY form." .... "These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see." .... " See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and cannot go beyond.".... "Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. "

"There is nothing SO BLINDING as PERCEPTION OF FORM (physical matter). For SIGHT OF FORM means ***understanding has been obscured***. Only MISTAKES have different forms (physical objects are mistakes), and so they can deceive (physical objects deceive). You can change form (you can change objects), BECAUSE it is not true (because physical objects are NOT TRUE).

IT COULD NOT BE REALITY (physical matter IS NOT REALITY!), BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is not reality, IT MUST BE AN ILLUSION (physical FORMS ARE ILLUSIONS), and ****IS NOT THERE TO SEE**** - the physical world DOES NOT EXIST - there is no world.). And, if you see it, you MUST BE MISTAKEN, for you are seeing what CAN NOT BE REAL, AS IF IT WERE. What cannot see beyond what is not there, MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions as the truth. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth? "

A selection of quites about the causes of physical sickness, from A Course in Miracles.

THE CAUSES OF BODILY (PHYSICAL) SICKNESS

"Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that it will suffer pain."

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. 2 Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. 3 Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies."

"The body cannot create, and the belief that it CAN, a fundamental error responsible for most of the fallacies already referred to, produces all physical symptoms."

"Sickness or "not-right-mindedness" is the result of level confusion"

"Sickness is a defense against the truth."

"Its health or sickness depends ENTIRELY on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose that the mind would use it FOR."

"Sickness is idolatry, because it is the belief that POWER CAN BE TAKEN FROM YOU."

"For sickness is a meaningless attempt to give effects to causelessness, and MAKE it be a cause."

"Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not."

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total."

"What is a sense of sickness but a sense of limitation? Of a splitting OFF and separating FROM?"

"This heals at all levels, because all sickness comes from confusing the levels."

"The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND'S FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND'S JOY."

"To believe that a Son of God can be sick is to believe that part of God can suffer."

"When a brother is sick it is because he is not asking for peace, and therefore does not know he has it."

"For sickness is an election; a decision. It is the choice of weakness, in the mistaken conviction that it is strength."

"Sickness is a method, conceived in madness, for placing God's Son on his Father's throne. God is seen as outside, fierce and powerful, eager to keep all power for Himself. Only by His death can He be conquered by His Son."

"If sickness is but a faulty problem-solving approach, it is a decision. And if it is a decision, it is the mind and not the body that makes it."

"Sickness is a retreat from others, and a shutting off of joining. It becomes a door that closes on a separate self, and keeps it isolated and alone."

"Sickness is but another name for sin."

"Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot but foster illness, because it is not true."

"Any form of mental illness can truthfully be described as an expression of viciousness."

"We said before that illness is a form of magic."

"The mind makes this decision as it makes all decisions responsible for the condition of the body."

"A damaged body is proof the mind has not been healed."

"Damaged bodies are accusers."

"Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception."

"You suffer pain because the body does, and in this pain are you made one with it."

"It will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey."

"If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick."

"Sickness is a decision. 2 It is not a thing that happens to you, quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. 3 It is a choice you make, a plan you lay, when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. 4 Now are you sick, that truth may go away and threaten your establishments no more."

"How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth? 2 Because it proves the body is not separate from you, and so you must be separate from the truth."

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt."

"Physical illness represents a belief in magic. "

"All forms of sickness even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce UNCONSCIOUSNESS out of fear of CONSCIOUSNESS. This is a pathetic way of TRYING NOT TO KNOW by rendering the faculties for knowing ineffectual."

"Pain demonstrates the body must be real. 2 It is a loud, obscuring voice whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness."

"Pain is a wrong perspective. 2 When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception."

"And idols are not wanted there, for guilt is understood as the sole cause of pain in any form."

"And you are free of dreams of pain because you let him be. 6 Unless you help him, you will suffer pain with him because that is your wish"

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. 2 No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. 3 No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. 4 And no one dies without his own consent"

"Let me not try to make another will, for it is senseless and will cause me pain."

"Yet can the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy."

"How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth?"

"When attack in ANY form enters your mind, you are EQUATING YOURSELF WITH A BODY."

"The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."

HOWEVER...

"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness." ... "It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. 6 And that is cure indeed." "Peace be to you who have been cured in God"

The message here is CLEAR. The body is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SICK. Sickness of mind OR body is unnatural and unholy. Even death of the body is not supposed to occur. It demonstrates and proves that the person does not want to be awake and would rather be unconscious. Death is utterly unnatural and against God's will at mental and physical levels. All physical sickness is a demonstration of the presence of a false belief and an attempt to DENY HEALTH by denying God.

A Course in Miracles IS attempting to help us to see that YOU NEED NOT SUFFER IN ANY WAY, not even physically, and any presence of ANY kind of sickness CAN AND MUST be healed by miracles.

A lesson for me at the moment has two parts to it. One part is realizing that underneath a person there is a completely immortal, invulnerable, innocent being that has absolutely nothing wrong with them and has done nothing wrong. The other part is, connected to this, that therefore I need to learn to 'overlook' the appearance of anything else that they are trying to demonstrate to me as the truth about them and not join with them in it (false empathy).

Being able to overlook the 'obstacle to peace' that other people put in place is a tuff one. But it also means I have to be able to not have obstacles to peace in myself, and that I need to take any kind of 'veil' or 'persona' off of my own mind so that I can see past the personas of other people.

Being able to overlook appearances is forgiveness. When your awareness fixates on looking AT an appearance, AT a body, AT a person's form, this is blinding. "Nothing so blinding as sight of form" - ACIM. This is what happens when the Holy Spirit in you is not allowed to fully extend outward, instead being stopped by the form of another person. But it's not their form that stops your 'vision', it's your belief that it's real - your buying into the illusion of it.

There's sections in the Course that I read not long ago about how the Holy Spirit projects/extends outward PAST your own body and PAST the bodies of other people, to recognize Himself WITHIN the mind of the other person. When your mind is looking past these forms in this way, there is no sickness because the mind isn't getting 'stuck' on form. Fully extending THROUGH and PAST the body is COMMUNICATION, which the Holy Spirit wants to use it for - to join with others beyond their bodies. But if we're fixating on the content of form such as guilt, fear, sin, death, bodies, appearances, etc then this puts a road-block in the way of extension, creating sickness and death. The body then becomes an 'obstacle to peace' - it's in the way we're looking at or past things.

The truth is that the body is never in the way of a truly forgiving mind. The body is not powerful and does not have the ability to prevent the extension of love. The body (mine, or someone else's) also has no ability to snag my mind or get me to pay attention to it. Instead, if my mind is truly forgiving, it will simply see THROUGH and PAST the obstacle recognizing that it is not real and has no ability to prevent extension. Then there will be a recognition of Oneness with your brother.

The issue is that when the mind itself has blocks to awareness, these blocks prevent full extension of Spirit. And that means there's some kind of belief in or attachment to guilt/sin/fear/death/spacetime/bodies etc within the mind. That means, instead of the mind just moving past and extending past everything in form, it instead 'stops' at or becomes fixated on form as though it has some power to block your awareness/sight/vision. You focus on something which is NOT THERE, and you think it is real, and this blocks your awareness. Blocks to awareness manifest as blocks to energy flow and vitality, where ultimately a 'big block' brings about "death".

It's an ongoing challenge to learn not to fixate on form or appearance, especially when you are used to seeing other people as though they ARE the way they appear. So if someone comes along with a sickness or a story about themselves or a really attention-grabbing attitude etc, if I am tempted by that and look AT it and MAKE IT REAL then my mind has become snagged by it, attached to it, and resistant of it, and that will have an affect on my own wellbeing. It will make me sick because I am seeing my brother as sick by failing to overlook sickness. We need to literally see the Christ in ourselves and others in order for our mind to fully extend and to be unhindered and unrestrained. I think in the Course Jesus used a word like "arrested". When the mind is arrested by sight of form we become sick. When the mind is freed from arrest, sickness is loosened up and flow is restored and there is no more death.

It's difficult but I have to learn to look past the ILLUSION that people have something wrong with them, the illusion that people are really sick, the illusion that people are actually able to suffer, the illusion that people really have something to be afraid of etc. And this goes back to the first point.... .underneath all of our shit there is an immortal being that is absolutely unaffected by any illusion and has no faults and is perfectly innocent, invulnerable, powerful and free. If I believe that and know that and experience that and look TO that, then I will overlook all the other illusory bullshit. But if I forget that, or lose sight of that, or fixate on any other DEMONSTRATION as though it is the truth about me or another person, then now I'm into la-la land, hallucinating, suffering, caught up in stories, reacting to appearances and struggling with my own self.

I'm looking forward to absolute certainty. Someday it will appear within and without simultaneously. We are all really free, we just don't recognize it.

(anecdotal. .... People looking down at their iPhones fixated on form, hmm... A great way to make illusions real and to shut out everything else, and they call this a 'communication' device lol it's really an isolation device :-)..depending who you're dialling with ;-)

Sorry this is a bit longish... it's hard to explain.

The physical world is a holographic dream. But the way that it is holographic isn't very obvious. And most people do not believe it is a dream!

Firstly, a hologram is not a projected 3D image. It is not the hollywoodized concept of an artificial three-dimensional object projected in space that you can view from any angle. That very loosely is tied to the idea of a hologram and they just ran with it and turned it into a marketing exercise.

Holograms have some interesting properties which describe the way that this world is put together, and the reason why it is a dream.

You will see a hologram on most credit cards. It's the little shiny symbol in the corner which, if you look at it from different angles, appears to let you see a virtual object suspended in space. You actually seem to be able to look at it from different angles, even though it's a flat image. They use this on cards because they are hard to manufacture, requiring precise laser technology, so this offers a certain level of protection against fraudulent cards.

The idea of a hologram is that information about the whole of something is present in all of the parts. On your credit card, information about the image of an object as viewed from countless different angles, is embedded into each tiny particle of the image. It's as though there were thousands of cameras recording images of the object from different angles, and then all of these images were overlaid on top of each other. Therefore each part of the image contains a ton of information, much more than just one particle of image.

One way to produce a hologram like this is to create tiny 3-dimensional bumps which you project different images onto from a specific direction. When your viewing angle changes, you see a different side of the bumps thus forming a different image. That's a very loose approximation of how a hologram works.

One of the properties of a hologram, therefore, is that if you remove a physical portion of the holographic image, it does not lose a specific portion of the information stored in it. That's because the same information is present in all of the other parts of the image. It's like storing the same piece of data a thousand times scattered across the surface. Chopping off a part of the object does not lose information stored in that part, it only reduces the overall sum total of occurrences of the information.

In the book, The Holographic Universe, it was described for example that a person had a portion of their brain removed. It was believed by science that certain memories were stored in that part of the brain, and that removing it would definitely produce a memory loss. However, afterwards, the person still could recall the memory, it was just a little fuzzy. That's because the memory was actually stored throughout the brain in a holographic manner, meaning that "all" of the memory was stored in "every part" of the brain. Removing one part of the brain did not remove a specific portion of the memory. The memory could still be recalled and reassembled because all of it was stored in all parts. Just with a little less clarity. The brain is holographic.

So in a hologram, each specific part of an object isn't JUST that part of the object, it is also connected to and shares information with all of the other parts. This is also similar to the scientific theory that matter is energy which exists as a kind of field of potentiality, which, when you look at it with consciousness, it condenses the field into a tight point and shows up as a particle. The particle then seems to be the only part visible so you think that that's all there is to it, but the particle actually is still intimately connected to and extends into the field. Thus there is an extension beyond the form of matter.

Another word that describes this extension beyond the form, and the idea that the part contains the whole, is a "symbol". Symbols are representations of something greater beyond themselves. They are not the thing, but they're sort of a condensed representation of the core qualities of the thing. They allude to something beyond themselves, and they point in the direction of the whole of the thing they represent. They don't show up as the thing in its entirety, only as a small image which "symbolizes" the thing. And what is it that we know of that are built from symbols? Dreams.

Now, the reason that we can't usually tell this physical universe is a holographic dream, is because as much evidence as possible that each part (particle) is connected to the "all" has been squeezed out. The matter that shows up, as form and objects and bodies and worlds, are symbols representing energies that are far bigger than the objects themselves, and which connect the objects together. In other words, there is a lot of SHARING going on behind the scenes, but by the time the energy field coalesces into tight concentrations - as matter - you only see the concentrations ie forms, and you don't realize that these forms are symbolic of something more beyond them. You fixate on the form of what is visible and think that this is all there is, as though the symbol is not really a symbol but is actually the whole 'thing' in completeness.

So at the most extremely spread out end of the hologram, which is the physical universe, it APPEARS that there is no sharing. Particles do not seem to share the same space. They do not seem to be connected. Everything seems to be separated out. Objects do not really touch each other, but are held at a distance by forces. And so this makes us believe that each object does not share anything with other objects, particularly if you fixate on the object's form and appearance. This is an ILLUSION. It's an illusion composed of SYMBOLS, which you have interpreted incorrectly to be NOT symbolic, and instead see only the condensed form of the hologram, which makes you think that physical matter is entirely fixed and is showing you all of what exists.

This illusion, then, that matter is all separate and that there is no sharing going on, deceives you to believe this world is not a hologram, because you don't SEE the ways that the particles are joined together, or joined to the whole. You also don't see the ways that the whole is present in every part. You don't recognize, and your body can't show you, that this so-called reality is actually just a SYMBOLIC collection of temporary images, not a final end-state in its own right but a place that points beyond itself.

Just as your dreams at night are highly symbolic, so too the physical world is completely symbolic. There are established massive symbols in this world which represent all kinds of aspects of the separation idea. For example, outer space, empty and black and cold, symbolizes the unconscious mind, whereby instead of there being light everywhere, light is denied and reduced to tiny concentrations - which you call stars, which are symbols of the ego and the conscious mind as separated selves. If you go into it, there area many many symbols in this world representing the structure of the ego and its interpretation of the truth. The body is a symbol of the idea of separation from the whole environment, for example. It is not just a form and a finite thing in its own right, it REPRESENTS the idea in the mind that you are separate from the whole. It is a symbol with a hidden background.

Most people do not think they are inside a dream. They think that there are no symbols anywhere. Yet they might loosely say from time to that that something seems symbolic. When you have synchronicities and things seem to correlate and be "connected", that's you starting to realize and tap into the hologram, into the field of energy, which is diffused beyond just physical appearances. You're sensing and noticing that, uncannily, two seemingly separate symbols are actually related. ie you start to realize that there is something CONNECTING things together in a semi-meaningful way (synchronicity is "meaningful coincidence"), and coincidence means co-incidence, ie two things correlating, because they share a holographic background.

Dreams at night occur at what you could call a higher level of the hologram. As such, in a night dream, the seemingly concrete, fixed quality of matter is not as "dense" as in the physical universe. Therefore the reality of the dreams are much more highly and obviously symbolic, not just that the objects and events in them symbolize things you experienced in the daytime or whatever, but that they actually represent things. Dream interpretation isn't just an attempt to derive meaning from something that has no meaning, it is actually based on the fact that dreams are entirely composed of SYMBOLS, and those symbols are the structure of "dream reality" because dream reality is holographic, objects and events are representations and not things in their own right, and everything is joined together beyond just the appearance of its form.

Sometimes you will notice that you have dreams which are far more symbolic than others. Sometimes you'll have a dream where it seems effortless for objects to transform bizarrely into other objects. I remember having a dream where I walked out the front door and there was like a dog barking and something changed in my mind and the dog turned into a small child and started to talk to me and then something else happened and the child turned into an adult. This is possible because in these dreams, the "form" or the fixed condensed material quality of the reality experience, the holographic reality, is not as dense and not as concrete. Abstract weird stuff happens.

It's much easier at that level, where matter has not concentrated so tightly, for forms to SHIFT and change quite naturally and normally. Forms that shift and change, by the way, is the foundation of all "life forms" that GROW and change over time, demonstrating that their reality is not actually fully fixed. And symbols can more easily transition into other symbols at the deeper level of the abstract hologram. The very form of objects can convert into other objects, as symbols shift around.

I also had a dream once which explicitly explained to me the holographic nature of dreams. In this dream I stood on a small bridge. There was nothing else in the scene. Then around me in all directions were apparently images, but each of these images was a symbol. It wasn't that I took the appearance of the image at face value, but instead, I recognized that the images were symbolic and therefore they "led" to something that they REPRESENTED. I could literally FEEL and sense that these symbolic images were not only connected to "other realities", but that the way the image was showing up wasn't "the whole" of what existed. It was just one finite expression of what it represented.

So it was possible to actually sort of "go into" the image, into the symbol, which caused it to expand as I moved closer to the environment that the symbol represented. I was able to travel through holograms this way. And it was then possible to take some other part of the environment, and go into it in similar fashion, upon which it would also expand out or elaborate into an entire scene based on that chosen focus. This showed me that the dream reality is highly holographic and fluid and symbolic and that everything is connected together behind the appearance of the symbols.

The physical world is less obviously symbolic and holographic because it is more DENSE, and that means the shared energy field - the all - has been very strongly broken out, to create the ILLUSION that each part barely has any trace of a connection to any other part. The extreme of separation is so strong between parts that you would be forgiven for being convinced not only that each object is not a symbol at all, but that there is nothing "beyond" the form of each object, nothing is shared, nothing is connected, and there is no reality beyond appearances. This is the lowest "level" of the hologram, where the unfied field, the shared symbolic nature of this dream, has become so cemented and "physicalized" that it barely seems possible to you that it is a dream at all. So extreme is the degree of concentration and contraction o the energy here, that it's almost undetectable to sense or tell that everything is joined.

That is, perhaps, unless you are an "empath", which is someone whose mind is able to sense where the symbols lead, and can expand upon what lies beyond them as though tuning into the hologram's symbolism and travelling in Spirit to its source. This is also why empaths are able to actually tune into "real people" that show up on television recordings or in movies, because even though the recording was done in the past, there is STILL a symbolic holographic connection between that IMAGE and the actually thing it represents. The mind can go into that image and sense and explore things about what the image shows, navigating through the symbolic hologram.

This highly obscuring, difficult to discern, God-blocking, reality covering, immense illusory dream, which seems to have solidified into a consistent solid world, is precisely what you wanted! This is why you used a holographic dream to create a world of separation, an illusion, where the illusion IS that the world is NOT symbolic, it is NOT a dream, and it APPEARS to be solid and real with everything separate.

We've pushed the hologram to the limits of physical density, causing particles to remain very fixed-seeming in their arrangements, which has created the ILLUSION of a place of form where consistency is very very sustained over long period of time. Objects don't apparently change into other objects, and you as a limited mind do not SEEM to have hardly a trace of power to change objects into other objects, because they're being held in a physicalized state very strongly, unlike the conditions in a nighttime dream which is much more maleable. Unless you're Jesus ;-) Events mostly do not seem to be symbolic. Bodies seem to function based on non-holographic laws. And nothing seems to be connected to a greater whole.

Then you are left only with the appearance of the physical matter, you make up laws about it based on its behavior, and then you justify that your science is correct based on its illusion of consistency, and have moved into the "linear" perspective. But the truth is lateral, vertical, because if you move out of the physicalized EFFECT and back towards the abstract CAUSE, you become able to modify the physicalization of matter to take on a different form. And this would be considered miraculous.

This therefore shuts out the idea of GOD, which is a reality where everything is shared. This is because the world was made as a defense against God and as a way to OBSCURE the truth that God is omnipresent, that ALL of Him is fully present in all parts. In physical matter, this could not be more obscured as an illusion that the all is NOT in ANY part, and therefore that the all does not exist. That was the PURPOSE of the physical world. To hide God from awareness.

So just because you think this world is an objective, verbatim kind of reality, it's not. It's a holographic dream. And sometimes this holographic dream actually does shift and change in symbolic ways that defy all logic and scientific explanation. Quite literally, sometimes, people report cases where an entire building which did not exist the day before, suddenly materializes in a known location that simply was not there. Somehow, it simply shows up in the dream hologram because of some kind of shift in the energy focus.

Also quantum physics is starting to reveal how objects at a distance can share the same reality - that a particle of light can be in two places at once, and that changes to the particle in one location AUTOMATICALLY changes the particle in the other location with NO TIME DELAY. This is "physically" impossible, in terms of a fixed dense world of form and matter, but in terms of holographic dreams, it is TOTALLY NORMAL! In fact, that this isn't happening more often is very abnormal, and shows you the extent to which we have designed this "world" (which is nothing more than an illusory dream) to APPEAR to be very fixed and separated.

In higher, more symbolic night dreams, it's possible to do things to bend reality, modify objects, transcend physical laws, transform one thing into another etc... all quite naturally, because that's what's possible when you know that everything is ONE, and everything is joined together. Form, matter, objects and appearances, including bodies and worlds, are nothing more than SYMBOLS, and those symbols can easily shift and change "form".

Having mastery over this dream illusion gives you the ability and mastery to defy all of the so-called "physical" laws, which are merely laws based on visible concentrations of the one field, and to do things like walking on water, changing objects into other objects, disappearing sickness, reversing death, etc. The miracles Jesus demonstrated merely shows us that this dream is a holographic illusion which is completely malleable, its form is nothing more than a temporary expression of an idea, and everything can be modified.

This world isn't real. It is a dream. It's an illusion of a world. It's a temporary concentration of an idea of separation, an idea that "the all" does not exist, and the idea that nothing is shared. It takes the form of a hologram which goes from a state where everything is one, to a state where nothing is one, and every level in between. The all IS in every part, because every part is not the WHOLE, it's just a portion of the whole. You are not seeing the whole picture! And if you believe solely based on "appearances" that physical matter is all that there is, you are completely falling for the holographic illusion that nothing is connected.

Everything is connected. All is One. At at the very peak of the hologram, everything is shared everywhere. God is omnipresent. All of God is in all parts fully, and this completely defies all physical laws. The physical laws do not apply to MIRACLES because miracles are expressions of the abstract source of the hologram, from the field of mind and energy which transcends particles and concentrations of matter, and which all of the symbols POINT TO.

So yes, you're dreaming. You're inside a symbolic dream right now, right where you are, as you read this, with your holographic dream body. All is not what it seems. There is reality beyond this apparent world, and appearances are not reality. Thus there is no real world here. At most, this world is a SYMBOL, and not a finite concrete objective wholeness. And yet even as a symbol it is just a symbol in a dream, and this dream is not real, because DREAMS ARE NOT REAL. That is why there is no real world here, no real death, and no real sickness or suffering.

We are meant to wake up from the entire holographic projection and return to the abstract source of truth where ALL IS ONE.

The book, is an expression FROM truth, attempting to point to truth. It contains SYMBOLS of truth, twice removed from reality.

Because truth expressed the book, the symbols in the book are not necessarily all possible expressions from truth. Truth could conceivably express a million books, all from the same source or mind. They could all appear to take on different forms and use different words, yet essentially say the same thing.

The form of the book, the words used, the sentences, the sections/chapters, is only one collection of symbols, all coming from the same source.

It is entirely possible for that source of truth to continue to express itself in many, many more forms. It is possible that the Course could in fact be 1000 times larger, or a million. There is basically no limit to how many "forms" it could take, provided those forms express or symbolize a consistent source.

This is why it is then important to recognize that, of all the FORMS in the book, all of the words, you are not necessarily getting ALL words that can ever be said about truth, and you're not necessarily hearing every possible clarification.

For example, in the main Course itself Jesus doesn't really explicitly talk about making his body disappear. Yet, in the notes given to Helen later, from the same source/truth, he clarified further by adding extra information. That information is clarifying as to the meaning of various other parts of the Course, especially surrounding resurrection and how we might leave the dream without death being involved.

There are also times when Jesus says one little phrase somewhere in the Course and doesn't really expand upon it, and yet it's a very key phrase which puts many other things into perspective.

There are also times when I really wish Jesus would've gone into much more detail about certain things, especially miracles and some of the aspects of the end of the universe. In other words, if Jesus were present, there would be a lot of questions we could ask Him which would clarify many things. This is why it is VITAL to get in touch with Jesus/Holy Spirit and develop a relationship with them, so that you can learn from them DIRECTLY.

It's important then not to get too hung up on the specific exact WORDS which Jesus expressed, thinking that the FORM of those words is the truth. The form is not the truth, it's just one of MANY possible symbols and expressions. Further additional forms might possibly change your perception of those words and what they really mean.

If for example you will only accept something as correct if it has an explicit quote in the Course that you can point your finger at, then you are getting bogged down in form and are not seeing the metaphysics.

The form of the words of the Course are twice removed from reality. Once removed from reality is the metaphysics, and/or the symbols in the dream. For example, outer space, filled with seemingly nothing but emptiness, is symbolic for the ego's attempt to make God as absent as possible. Bodies are symbols of having an identity God did not create. etc.

When you look at the words and learn from the words, you should learn, or be able to infer/imply, what the metaphysics of the truth is. Stuff like the structure of the dream, the levels, what certain things mean, where they fit, etc... is not always necessarily 100% spelled out in words. You have to look deeper. As you "generalize the teaching", you will gradually build a clearer picture for yourself about how everything fits together.

Some of those clarifications will bring you insight into how, sometimes, Jesus uses words in certain specific contexts which, if taken verbatim, might imply or infer something which is incorrect. Also sometimes He speaks at certain "levels" and confusing those levels produces a lot of confused metaphysics. Some things apply at certain levels and not others.

Also sometimes Jesus uses words which He seemed to have build up quite a specific definition of elsewhere, but uses them quite loosely in "general conversation" in such a way that people then take this and think it's some kind of metaphysical fact. Sometimes Jesus is just simply talking casually and using normal language, how most people would, and not necessarily teaching doctrine in every word.

With enough exposure and learning you should be able to transcend the Course's words and get more in touch with the "core metaphysics" which is kind of hiding somewhat behind the words. The structure of the dream, the proper location of certain levels and their meaning etc, becomes more apparent when you go deeper into it, and Jesus hasn't necessarily "spelled it all out" directly.

We have to be careful not to get hung up on "where does it say that in the course" kind of approaches. Not everything IS said in the course. And yet, some things are true/logically consistent which may never have been expressed.

We also have to beware of thinking that only what is said in the Course is coming from Jesus's authority and therefore no-one else can say anything that Jesus hasn't said. As you transcend the words and get more of the metaphysics you'll be able to extrapolate it and come to conclusions which are completely consistent with Jesus's teachings.

That makes it possible to write additional content, additional words/symbols, based on the same metaphysical foundation, in order to be consistent with Jesus and not contradict his intentions. You don't need to be in his mind of authority to do this, you only need to grasp the basic logical structure of the separation.

There is a lot of material in the Course and it can become quite blinding through its sheer volume and seeming complexity. But we need to learn, in a sense, to forgive it, by learning to overlook its appearance and look deeper to see a closer or more accurate truth. The truth is simple, not complicated, but the ego has a field day with getting caught up in the form of things.

When your body's eyes are looking at forms, which includes ALL PHYSICAL OBJECTS, you are blind. Yet the body's eyes CAN ONLY EVER see physical forms.

REASON, sees past ALL FORMS, because it recognizes that all forms are FORMS OF ERROR, and reason recognizes they are an ERROR.

Reason, takes you toward understanding, which is BEYOND PHYSICAL MATTER.

Reason overlookes, forgives, physical matter, and gives you a vision of what matter was trying to OBSCURE, through its forms of error.

Reason does not BELIEVE physical matter. It does not believe what the body's eyes show you.

Since everything the body's eyes see is ALWAYS AN ILLUSION, the idea that NOTHING is something real (there is no world), overlooking what the body's eyes see allows you to SEE SENSE and awaken to the truth.

Unless you see past form - the physical planet - to the truth, you do not understand reality. Because in reality, there is no world.

As Jesus states CLEARLY:

"You can SEE reason. 5 This is not a play on words, for here is the beginning of a vision that has meaning. 6 Vision is sense (stuff that 'makes sense'), quite LITERALLY. 7 If it is not the body's sight, it must be understood." (understanding is only found by looking past the body).

"For reason SEES THROUGH ERRORS (errors are forms, physical matter), telling you WHAT YOU THOUGHT WAS REAL IS NOT. 4 Reason can see the difference between sin and mistakes, because it wants correction. 5 Therefore, it tells you what you thought was uncorrectable can be corrected, and thus it must have been an ERROR." (physical matter is a 'correctable error).

"Reason is not salvation in itself, but it makes way for peace and brings you to a state of mind in which salvation can be given you. 2 SIN IS A BLOCK (to awareness), set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. 3 No one who LOOKS ON IT without the help of reason would try to pass it. 4 THE BODY'S EYES BEHOLD IT AS SOLID (yes, your fricking EYES are LOOKING AT SIN) granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. 5 Yet reason SEES THROUGH IT (sees through physical matter), because it is an error. 6 The FORM (physical form) it takes cannot conceal its EMPTINESS from reason's eyes."

"If what the FORM CONCEALS is a mistake, the form cannot prevent correction. 3 THE BODY'S EYES SEE ONLY FORM. 4 THEY CANNOT SEE BEYOND what they were made to see. 5 And they were MADE TO LOOK ON ERROR AND NOT SEE PAST IT." ... "THESE EYES, MADE NOT TO SEE, WILL NEVER SEE." .... "Only mistakes have different FORMS (physical forms), and so THEY (physical forms) CAN DECEIVE."

"Reason will tell you that IF FORM IS NOT REALITY IT MUST BE AN ILLUSION (physical forms are illusions), and IS NOT THERE TO SEE (there is no world). 5 And if you see IF YOU SEE IT YOU MUST BE MISTAKEN, for YOU ARE SEEING **WHAT CANNOT BE REAL** AS IF IT WERE. 6 What cannot see beyond what is not there must be distorted perception, and must PERCEIVE ILLUSIONS (physical matter) as truth. 7 Could it, then, recognize the truth?"

"Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see" (his holiness is beyond physical matter).

Jesus speaks in ACIM about translating hell into heaven, converting somehow the Earth into heaven's reflection. ie that the Earth is neutral/devoid of meaning and we project meaning onto it. Or to put it another way, we decided that certain states or forms or situations "must mean" something in partcular.

We associate meanings like they are outcomes or inherent definitions of what is happening. As if, when such and such happens it always means "this". As if the meaning is inherent in the form. Jesus speaks of this as form appearing to shut out all meaning to the extend that the form itself seems to describe what the forms means. And that this is a total illusion.

"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning."

The truth is that we give everything all the meaning it has, and the world has NO inherent meaning of its own. It is indeed a meaningless world, which is why it acts like a mirror reflecting back whatever you project onto it. We actually decide that it means whatever we think it means, and then pretend it meant this without our contribution.

But when you think about it, he's talking about a process of interpretation or translation. There's plenty of interesting quotes about both those terms. We basically interpret the world. Interpretation means, a process of judging or evaluating, what WE BELIEVE something is, which in some way TRANSLATES it into some other preferred form in our minds that we find acceptable. We decide to interpret it to mean whatever we WANT it to mean, hence "there is no world apart from what you wish."

Similarly, the idea of a translation does not simply mean that the thing itself changes. The world doesn't actually "turn into" the meaning that you give it. You can take the example of translating a language.

If the world is writen in English, and you translate the world into Spanish, and you can only speak Spanish, then you can "read" or interpret a VERSION of the world, an image of it, written in the Spanish language, that seems to represent the world. But the translation you are reading isn't the ORIGINAL form. The world is essentially still in English, but your interpretation of it is transforming its meaning.

Translation is also a kind of math term, translating means to move something from one location to another. And it's part of a broader group of operations such as rotation and scaling, which are all types of "transforms". In effect the thing goes through a transformation of some kind and ends up different to how it began.

So in ACIM terms, our minds are giving the world meaning by interpreting it, putting that meaning onto it. Sometimes we give it meaning from our egos and sometimes from the Holy Spirit. When the ego gives it meaning, we believe the world is inherently hell or reflects a hell-like nature. When the Holy Spirit gives it his meaning, the world now reflects the love of God.

But we should note here that the TRANSLATED VERSION of the world is in fact once removed from the world, just as a Spanish translation is once removed from the original English. When you have interpreted the world to mean that it reflects heaven's meaning, we're saying that we now look AT the translated version, a sort of copy of the world, which is a different way of looking at it.

So when ACIM talks of earth translating into heaven etc it's not really saying that a meaningless world, having the meaning of God projected ONTO it, reflected back, now is actually a meaningful world. But that the REFLECTION is meaningful, and the TRANSLATED alternative dream which INTERPRETS the world is heaven-like. You are then seeing what you put there to see, rather than necessarily what is there. Because really the world is not there at all.

Our task then is simply to recognize that we do not want the translations that are converting the world into a hell-like language, and we instead want to "read into" the world a heaven-like language. We want the Holy Spirit's translation of the world, his purpose for it, his use of it, instead of what the ego is trying to "make of" it or use it for. And that applies to the body too.

"Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth."

"The ability to perceive made the body possible, because you must perceive SOMETHING, and WITH something. This is why perception involves an exchange, or a translation, which knowledge does NOT need. The interpretive function of perception, (actually, a distorted form of creation), then permitted man to interpret the body as HIMSELF, which, although depressing, was a way out of the conflict he induced."

"Thus are the Holy Spirit's lesson plans arranged in easy steps, that, though there be some lack of ease at times, and some distress, there is no shattering of what was learned, but just a re-translation of what seems to be the evidence on its behalf."

"For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight. The end of the world is not its destruction, but its TRANSLATION into Heaven. The RE-INTERPRETATION of the world is the transfer of ALL perception to knowledge."

""Father, Christ's vision is Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. How glorious and gracious is this world! Yet how much more will I perceive in it than sight can give."

"For the instant of peace is eternal, BECAUSE it is wholly WITHOUT fear. It WILL come, being the lesson God gives you, through the Teacher HE has appointed, to translate time to eternity."

"Blessed is God's Teacher, Whose joy it is to teach God's holy Son his holiness. His joy is not contained in time. His teaching is for you, BECAUSE His joy is yours. Through Him, YOU stand before God's altar, where He gently translated hell into Heaven."

"Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth. For being Heaven-borne, it has no form at all. Yet God created One Who has the power to translate into form the wholly formless."

"Forgiveness is the ONLY function meaningful in time. It is the means the Holy Spirit uses to TRANSLATE specialness from sin into salvation. "

"For to RECOGNIZE fear is not enough to escape FROM it, although the recognition IS necessary to demonstrate the NEED for escape. The Holy Spirit must still TRANSLATE it into truth. If you were LEFT with the fear, having RECOGNIZED it, you would have taken a step AWAY from reality, not TOWARD it."

"Never forget that the Holy Spirit does not depend on your words. He understands the requests of your heart and answers them. Does this mean that, while attack remains attractive to you He will respond with evil? Hardly! For God has given Him the power to translate your prayers of the heart into His language. He understands that an attack is a call for help. And He responds with help accordingly."

"Miracles are natural to God, and to the One Who speaks for Him. For His task is to TRANSLATE the miracle into the knowledge which it REPRESENTS, and which IS lost to you."

"However UNholy the reason why you made them may be, He can TRANSLATE them into holiness, by removing AS MUCH FEAR AS YOU WILL LET HIM. You can place ANY relationship under His care, and be sure that it will NOT result in pain, if you offer Him your willingness TO HAVE IT SERVE NO NEED BUT HIS." "Every attack is a call for His patience, because ONLY His patience can translate attack into blessing."

"Thus does the Holy Spirit replace fear with love, and translate error into truth. And thus will YOU learn of Him how to replace your dream of separation with the fact of unity."

"When a child is helped to translate his "ghost" into a curtain, his "monster" into a shadow and his "dragon" into a dream, he is no longer afraid, and laughs happily at his own fear."

"The Holy Spirit, as always, takes what you have made and translates it into a learning device FOR you. Again, as always, it re-interprets what the ego uses as an argument FOR separation into an argument AGAINST it."

"Forgiveness is this world's equivalent of Heaven's justice. It translates the world of sin into a simple world, where justice can be reflected from BEYOND the gate behind which total lack of limits lies."

"The miracle-worker begins by PERCEIVING light, and translates HIS perception into sureness by continually extending it, and ACCEPTING ITS ACKNOWLEDGMENT."

"Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations, that show you all fearful outcomes of imagined sin, into the calm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. They are HIS substitutes for all the terrifying sights and screaming sounds the ego's purpose brought to your horrified awareness. They step AWAY from sin, reminding you that it is NOT reality that frightens you, and that the errors which you made CAN be corrected."

"By RE-INTERPRETING the ability to ATTACK, which you DID make, into the ability to SHARE, He TRANSLATES what you have made, into what God created."