When we typically experience the world from an ego viewpoint, we might encounter lessons and people and problems. And then we attempt to forgive these things. And we think we are then done with forgiveness. And then another one comes along. And then we do another forgiveness. And this gives you the impression that you are doing forgiveness.

But over time, you are really moving horizontally through the world, encountering obstacles, one at a time, and these obstacles always seem specific. The form of the obstacle is what deceives you. The problem with your mother, the problem with the plumbing, the problem with the sick brother, the problem with your boss. Each one seems specifically different and unrelated to the rest. And so you perform a string of seeming forgivenesses through time.

But as you perform each forgiveness and move towards truth, you are in fact moving UPWARDS, towards the light. And this upwards movement may seem to be more subtle and gradual, such that it isn't even specific and it may be difficult to realize whether you are making upwards progress. But over time, it will start to occur to you that each of the seemingly different "forms" that problems take, is itself an illusion.

You will start to see that each of these forgiveness opportunities have something in common. Common characteristics. There's always some problem with your belief in who is causing who. And there's always some issue of authority and power. And there's always fear and reaction involved. And there's always the same stresses. And as you progress you start to generalize the learning and start to transcend the forms and differences. And then it starts to occur to you that these are not all different situations.

What forgiveness reveals to you, is that you aren't really in fact having to deal with a multitude of totally different problems, but that in fact the whole world, ALL of the problems, are doing the same thing. And ALL of the problems have the same characteristics. And ALL of them are forgiven in the same way. And this starts to show you that it's not really a specific problem with specific people, or specific groups, or specific situations, it's a problem with THE WHOLE WORLD.

And then you start to question the nature of the whole world. Maybe the WHOLE world is a collection of attacks. Maybe all of it, regardless of the form it takes, is ONE problem. And now you are starting to not fall for the illusion of form or the shape that a problem takes. You are realizing that either you move downwards into the darkness of hell, or upwards into the light of heaven. And either you are lost in the battlefield of stress and misery, or you are above the WHOLE battlefield in light and happiness.

Forgiveness starts to now take on a different direction. Its not so much to do with having a DIFFERENT way of handling each situation, but of developing a SINGLE "way" of dealing with them all. And you start to see through the deception or form that each one presents. And you stop falling for the obvious temptations. And now forgiveness is seen as vertical, in which either you are moving into hell or out of it, as a whole. And the qualities of the whole WORLD are now being brought into question.

You are now asking yourself, whether ANY of the things that happen are real. Whether ANY problem is really happening. Whether ANY person's attack has anything to do with you. Whether there even IS anything specific or different about any of it. And as you broaden your horizons to learn very large abstract truths such as that there is no world, this is just a dream, NONE of it is happening to you, loving everyone equally is the way to holy relationship, unity is the truth, sharing with everyone is unconditional love, etc... you move away from the specific towards the abstract.

And now it boils down the real "root cause" of the WHOLE of suffering, the reason for EVERY reaction, the purpose behind EVERY sickness. And you discover there not only really is only one problem, there is also only one solution. One solution to rule them all. And only one lesson that the Holy Spirit is teaching. Either the world is real or its not. And if it is real, you will suffer. And if it's not, you are free. If it's a dream, you have no basis for reactions or fear. If it's not a dream, you cannot help but react in fear. This is a fundamental lesson in the generalization of the teaching. That every form the illusion takes is just as DECOY to distract you from realizing that it's ALL the same.

This causes you to also start realizing that the hierarchy of illusions is a lie. Some things are NOT harder or more difficult than another. The form of a problem lies about its severity. You start to question whether a giant cancer is really any more threatening than a headache. You see how the ego tries to correlate the seriousness of a cause with the appropriate level of reaction, and you stop falling for this lie. The hierarchy starts to flatten, and all of the deceptions that make it seem like a world-sized maze of confusing corridors and disjointed pieces, simply start to fuse into each other as they're all seen as ONE DREAM. One problem, one solution.

"Miracles entail a sudden shift into vertical perception".

"Yet they are all the same and must be recognized as one if the one solution which solves them all is to be accepted."

"Without the values from the past you WOULD see them all the same"

"We will try to realize that we have only one problem, which we have failed to recognize. We will ask what it is, and wait for the answer. We will be told."

"Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution."

"The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form."

Sometimes it *seems* as if something happens to us that we did not choose. Let's say, something physical in the world comes along and hurts your body. Maybe its a car crash. Maybe someone is having a bad day and spills hot coffee on your body. Whatever it is, the question arises, did *I* cause this to happen? Am I a victim?

If ever the answer is that I DID NOT choose it, what are the implications? It means that there must be something that has power over me, I must be a victim, I must have no hope for a cure, I must be vulnerable to external attack, and I must be capable of being made to suffer against my will. This whole belief is especially wrapped up in sickness and death, via perceived external or bodily causes.

There is also the fact that we are co-dreaming this world with others, and that means some other brother, not in his right mind, might elect of his own free will to attack your body. Is this also asked for? Did I CHOOSE to be attacked? Have I harmed myself or used my brother's body in some way, perhaps in agreement with him, a mutual attack? Surely if I did not participate in its choosing, HE is the sinner, and my victimhood and proof of attack in my body accuses him. "Sick bodies are accusers." "Brother at your hand I die."

Jesus says this.

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true."

So EVEN if there is a seemingly completely distinct attacker, some other person who of their own free will seems to be trying to attack your body, EVEN THAT is somehow chosen by you. And if you are pain or are suffering physically or emotionally, it is STILL true that you are causing it. In essence, there are NO EXCEPTIONS to the secret of salvation, and the instant that you believe there are, there is NO WAY TO FIND SALVATION, because now you've ruled out of the possibility of being FREE FROM "unwarranted external powers" or an "alien will."

Jesus goes on to say:

"For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes."

Here he seems to me to be saying, if you were sitting high up and were dreaming of a world down below you, which YOU populate with figures, and YOU animate, and you make "do things", like a child playing with dolls causing the dolls to pretend to interact or fight, then you'd realize that YOU are not identified with any of these figures and so these things are not happening to YOU. By being spirit-identified, you are not dream/body identified. So any activities in the world - in your dream - which you made do what it does, has no real effect on who and what YOU really are. But this does require a total clarity and atonement-level acceptance of the awareness of dreaming and the fact that you're making the world happen.

Jesus continues:

"The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."

So now he's telling us that the form of the issue does not matter. Whether it be a violent person or a car crash or a disease or unhappiness. There is ONE truth about them all, and that truth is that YOU are doing them to yourself, by identifying with the body and dreaming a dream in which you CAUSE the bodies to hurt each other. For this to be true, you as a dreamer has to be a really high-level, powerful position. Can you comprehend the power entailed in dreaming a planet? Can you accept or own that this entire environment is in your mind?

"You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts."

"Both heaven and earth are in your mind."

The issue with your body is a tiny speck of the dream that your mind is supposedly dreaming. Like in your dreams at night, where your mind invents an entire environment and then puts a little body in it, perhaps too it is true of this physical world. We dream up an entire ecosystem of events and activities and people and then make stuff happen and the only way we'd feel that we're vulnerable to any of it, is if we forget we're dreaming it and identify with some part of it, such as believing you are a body. Jesus is practically saying that what you are transcends ALL bodies. Is this too lofty of an interpretation? Too hard to relate to?

Jesus says to let them be as vicious as they may. And that seems to mean, even allowing the body to be attacked and damaged.

""In my defencelessness my safety lies." - You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the "gifts" it merely lends to take away again, attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus."

But somehow, if you were conscious enough of being the dreamer and not the dream, you would not be even slightly confused or believe that anything the body is experiencing is anything to do with what you are. That it is having NO EFFECT on you. It's not disturbing your peace of mind or happiness.

The problem with this is, "A guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body." So one moment Jesus is saying to let people be vicious, which presumably could mean your body is damagable, which is backed up by his statements about "only bodies can be attacked". And then the next he's saying that the mind should heal the body, and if it doesn't, the mind is not healed. "A damaged body is proof the mind has not been healed." Yet if another person did the damage, does that mean your mind is not healed? Is your mind not healed because YOU dreamed of the other person? Is your mind not healed because you made up another body to attack this body, in your dream, thus literally doing it to your body self?

Jesus seems in some ways to say, you can transcend all worldly happenings, all bodily situations, be fully spirit identified, recognizing you are mind not matter, and be free from every possible dream scenario no matter what happens in the world. BUT, he also seems to teach that a mind in such a position would therefore have the miracle-working power to UNDO or correct or heal, anything that arises. This seems to imply the body can be attacked and is vulnerable, BUT that the mind CAN heal it, and if the mind has not healed it the mind must not be healed simply because it's not sane to allow the damage to remain. "Forgiveness is not real unless it has brought a healing to your brother and yourself." "A miracle of healing proves separation (attack world) is without effect."

A question arises, is it possible to somehow supernaturally cause the body to be INCAPABLE of being attacked? Jesus speaks of a "protection" near the end of "sickness is a defense against the truth". He speaks of the body being unable to be sick, or to die. But if bodies can be attacked, would some other person come along in the dream and still attempt murder? And would it still produce a wound on the body? Does mind wield a power capable of essentially making the body literally immortal and undamagable?

Or would this be simply impossible, given the body is not real and only real things are free from threat? It would suggest the body can still be attacked, but that the mind could heal the attack. And that would seem to line up with Jesus's body being crucified in spite of his profound advanced mental state. If his mind has permanent projective power over the body, it would not have been crucifiable. The spear would not have been able to penetrate the hands and the nails could not be driven into his limbs.

It's true that, nevertheless, "the mind that made the body can make another". So in a sense, if the body is destroyed the mind, which is not the body, could manifest another illusory body, which also has inherent susceptibility. ie bodies fundamentally exist only as illusions, illusions can be attacked (illusions of attack) fundamentally, and so there is no way to render a body immortal or permanent. The mind CAN however heal the body, can project new bodies, and has the power to perhaps supernaturally manipulate events, utilize divine guidance and therefore find a "safe" path through the dream of attack.

One line says, "without the idea of death there is no world." Another says "to see a sinless body is impossible" and "the body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards." Which means, if the body seems to exist at all, it depends on death. It is made of death. And at best, it can symbolize eternal life but cannot BE it. Mind can maintain it and heal it. But there are limits - and short of a supernatural miracle, a body wouldn't survive a direct encounter with a supernova.

We know the body is just an image, an illusion, projected by the mind. It SHOULD, in the "movie projector analogy, mean it's possible possible for the DREAMER to NOT dream attack scenarios. In fact, "my self is ruler of the universe speaks to this."

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

How absolute does this sound? It seems to literally mean, as the ruler of the universe, nothing can happen without your consent. No events can occur, without you dreaming them. Wars cannot take place unless you make them happen. Not only does what you desire happen, what you DON'T want to happen does not occur either. ie, you have TOTAL CONTROL over the dream.

And if that is true, does it not mean you could organize that there will NOT BE an attack upon your body? Unless you CHOSE that there be one and made it happen, that perhaps Jesus orchestrated every aspect of his own crucifixion? But does not this also mean that he must've dreamed of the "rest of us" too? Why not just dream of everyone being fully awake and bring an end to the dream entirely? How are we co-dreamers? Through a shared will?

Jesus also speaks of the body disappearing upon awakening. This suggests, in a co-authored dream, when a dreamer wakes up, he stops making a body. The recognition of its NOTHINGNESS cancels its illusions, making it impossible for it to appear to exist at all. A light shines so brightly, the body vanishes. "And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar of the Son of God."

If mind has the power to make a world, it would seem mind could have the power to force the body not to age, be sick or die. That mind would take authority over any occurrences. Mind could supernaturally make it impossible for the body to be attacked. It could "sustain the body indefinitely, BUT within time, where all bodies exist. This would require an ongoing maintenance, a vigilance, in orer to maintain this projection. And this seems to be what is spoken of here:

"Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body's health is fully guaranteed because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible.

Yet this ***protection*** ***needs to be preserved*** by careful watching. If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgement 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. Give instant remedy, should this occur, by not allowing your defensiveness to hurt you longer."

So Jesus is suggesting a potential for indefinite sustainability of the body's health and state, where mind is overriding any worldly causality. This feasibly could continue for thousands of years. And there are stories of certain masters who have accomplished this longevity. St Germain, Babaji, etc. These advanced teachers of God apparently have the power to reverse, heal, and resurrect the body. At least for as long as it is useful in the atonement plan. The purpose is the plan. And once fulfilled, bodies are no longer needed.

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it.. It merely became what it always was. And that is what 'rolling the stone away means.' The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond... To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body's worthlessness to the world. This has been much misunderstood. I came to tell them that death is an illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. They did not understand."

"Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there any time you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does. And then - and then - I cannot speak of that. A body cannot stay without illusions, and the last one to be overcome is death."

"This is the message of the crucifixion: there is no order of difficulty in miracles. This is the message of the resurrection. Illusion are illusions. Truth is true. Illusions vanish. Only truth remains."

So what's the conclusion?

Mind has power over everything. Mind is co-dreaming the world with others. All illusions are attackable IF the mind CONSENTS to it. Due to free will, other minds can use their bodies to try to attack your body. This possibly cannot happen at all if you do not consent to it. If it does happen, you have agreed to a mutual attack scenario, and now your brother seems able to attack your body. But now your mind has the power to miraculously heal it, and being sane it would do so. And this the body can be "protected" by the mind indefinitely while useful, eventually to be laid aside ie vanished when no longer useful. You can choose the body cannot be sick, age or die, by protecting it actively, or through miracles of healing. But the time of bodies will come to an end.

If you sin or do something wrong, there is no way you're going to be completely free of it UNTIL you are willing to recognize the atonement principle.

You could've done something many years ago or even when you were a child, which you believed was a big mistake. Maybe you were punished for it. Maybe you felt guilty about it. Maybe you hurt someone or broke something or committed a crime.

What you will then do, as an act of TRYING to heal, is to explain to yourself in various ways "why it was ok". Maybe it was because the person did something to you in a past life. Maybe it was karma. Maybe it was just an accident. Maybe you didn't really mean it. Maybe you didn't know what you were doing because you were too young. Maybe you wouldn't do it again. Maybe you were young and naive. Whatever. These are justifications which do not HEAL you.

None of these will FREE YOU from having that event stuck in your mind, remaining not quite healed.

If you in any way believe that you ACTUALLY DID IT, then you stand accused of sin.

If you believe the events actually DID HAPPEN, then you stand accused of sin.

If you believe you did cause and produce REAL CONSEQUENCES IN REALITY, then you stand accused of sin.

That alone is enough to KEEP the sin real somewhere in your mind, leaving you always feeling guilty and always unable to truly LET IT GO no matter how hard you try.

The only thing which will SET YOU FREE is the truth. The truth is the atonement. The atonement, which is also an act of complete forgiveness, looks upon you and RECOGNIZES that what you THINK you did, was not happening in reality, it was entirely an illusion, nothing real has been threatened, and nothing unreal exists.

That means you have to undo all of your belief in fear that arose from the event (fear of being punished for it), all guilt from the event (guilty because you did it and don't deserve forgiveness), all sin from the event (that it happened at all and you did attack in reality)... AND THEN you will be WILLING and ABLE to ACCEPT that you actually DID NOT SIN. There is no real sin.

Acceptance of atonement is a state of mind where you actually can SEE and recognize illusions for what they are. You don't BELIEVE in them. You don't fall for their tricks. You know and what you thought you did, did not really occur in reality, nothing real has been hurt and your innocence therefore has not been REALLY challenged.

Until you can see that your innocence has not changed whatsoever in God's eyes, because whatever you "did" DID NOT HAPPEN in reality, but only in A DREAM, only then will you LET YOURSELF OFF THE HOOK and forgive yourself for what you THINK you did.

When you accept this, you will finally feel the RELIEF that you have been longing for all these years. You will finally be WILLING to let go, because you will be WILLING to ACCEPT that you DESERVE to be forgiven - since you did not really do anything. Being able to see this and accept it is extremely, profoundly freeing and healing. FINALLY you can let go of what you think you did wrong, because you did not really do it.

The atonement would seem to be complete nonsense to people who believe the world is real or that sins really happen or that people really get hurt or that consequences are real. It can make no sense to anyone who thinks that EVENTS are really happening in the world. Just the mere act of something occurring in this world IS SIN, if it is real. Even picking your nose inside a dream is an idea of sin. Even kissing someone on the cheek is an idea of sin. Anything you DO in a DREAM, where that dream is entirely an IDEA OF WHAT SIN IS LIKE (the body is an idea of sin made real and projected outward), is a sin.

The atonement LITERALLY means, that what you think you DID DO, whatever event you think occurred, it was only ever in a DREAM, not in reality. This entire world is a dream. This whole universe is a dream. It is not really happening in reality and it is NOT REALITY. So it is literally POSSIBLE to UNDO THE PAST ENTIRELY, which dream-believers will say is impossible, because NOTHING HAPPENED. It was not reality in which it happened, it did not happen to anything real, and nothing real came from it.

This whole physical universe hasn't happened.

To recognize this is the atonement. To finally realize, wait a minute, this is all just a huge dream we're having. It's not real. It's not happening at all. Nothing I thought happened in it was real. It was all fake. The sin was fake, the effects were fake, the deaths were fake, nothing was real. It was just a nightmare.

"Forgiveness... sees there was no sin, and in that view, are all your sins forgiven."

Finally then when you can accept atonement on an issue, it really does mean setting yourself FREE, the ONLY WAY to be free, and that is truly healing. You can be 100% free of your sin and guilt FOREVER. Thank God for that!

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

Well.... think again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What if our mind has the power to modify the world, given we are the dreamer and it is a dream - our effect? What if by mental intention you can cause events to proceed differently? What if you can steer outcomes? What if you can change physical matter? What if the world is really NOT the seemingly fixed, closed, solid, permanent-seeming thing that we think it is, and that's all an illusion?

This is the next area of exploration for me having recently focused very much on how the world is very locked into its nature. By realizing the world is stuck being the way it is, I had to then naturally ask myself, how does one go about escaping its impossible ways, forgiving it, and being free of it? How can it be overridden? And this is now leading to me to the simple progression of QUESTIONING the world, what it is, and what our minds can do to CHANGE IT DIRECTLY. And the fact that IT IS THE EFFECT OF MY DREAMING.

Jesus says in ACIM that if you change your mind about the world, ALL THE WORLD MUST CHANGE. He also says the world is an effect, and therefore, that if you change the CAUSE in your mind the world MUST change. Like LITERALLY PHYSICALLY change. He also tells us we are the dreamer of the dream. To me what he is actually getting at is that our minds are powerful, thought exerts real influence, the physical is not really physical but dream-stuff, and we have the POWER to modify it.

I've seen some evidence for this INFLUENCE of mind over the "physical world". so I'll tell you some stories.

At my job, I deal with computer stuff, as a sort of IT-department fix-it person at times. But it would turn out that very often the problems people came up with would seem to "fix themselves" when I showed up. They definitely had the problem beforehand, but then suddenly it seemed like something "in the world" just happened out of the blue to changed the course of events. The problem became seemingly "magically" (miraculously really) solved. It usually took the form of someone realizing something, a change of mind, some fact that was overlooked comes to light, or even literally physical devices which were not working suddenly work and no-one could explain why.

Over time some people called me "the computer whisperer" because it literally seemed uncanny that when I came along to help them the problem just melted into "not a problem any more". And I mean on a physical level. Something kept transpiring in terms of the FORM of how it seemed to change, something tangible or what you might call what APPEAR to be natural changes in circumstances, environmental factors, whatever, but although it LOOKED LIKE just normal "reasons why" stuff got fixed, it was actually due to something in my mind that caused a change.

There are also some times where in my mind I am not interested in playing into a problem or having to deal with an issue. So my mental attitude is one of "I do not agree with this", not like in an annoyed wanting it to go away sense, but like I don't believe in this - not buying it. I hold firm somehow to another truth, or perhaps to another intent or desire, and somehow this has a power in it. And this power seems to alter the course of events and cause problems to go away.

A boss approaches with some issue and then I mentally reject it or want nothing to do with it and suddenly he seems to realize something or changes his mind or things just suddenly resolve themselves. And I can't tell you how man times when I've needed some "time to myself" he just seems to have somewhere else to be. What I'm literally saying here is along the lines of .... when you walk through a dying forest flowers start springing up around your feet out of nowhere. That would be a very vivid example and I'm not at that level but it seems like that is possible.

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."

Mind can have such power and influence that it can actually produce real changes in what we call "physical stuff". In effect, your mind can "dream" a different dream and have power over what the dream contains. And as I read about how the physical world/earth IS A DREAM, and see Jesus's references to us dreaming of worldly events and how he calls it a dream, it seems to make so much sense that our mind ACTUALLY IS dreaming and producing the environment in realtime, AND it can change the environment to another form at will. And behind material happenings there are "mind forces" at play, including the atonement plan.

"But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

Some years ago some people were walking down a path and it was spring, so the blossom petals on a tree were falling across the path. The couple walked under it and the petals fell onto them and for some reason this was a happy thing to me. I watched this from inside a room with a closed window, from probably a couple-hundred feet away. I had a sudden feeling of joy in my mind out of nowhere, and suddenly literal blossom petals materialized in front of my face, inside the closed window in the room with me.

Another time I was looking for money in a coin box, in which there was no "pound coins". There were only 1p a 2p bronze coins left (british). I rifled through insisting that there must be higher value money there. I did this for some time maybe even a minute, and somehow in my mind I was convinced and insistent that there MUST be some higher currency in there. Suddenly in front of my eyes as if they had been there all along, yet out of nowhere, two pound coins appeared on the top of the pile. There was no magical effect of anything to them being there, they were just not there one moment and the next they were there. And they were definitely not in the coin box hidden before.

There have also been other times where if I am fairly centered in my mind and in what I believe is true, or perhaps what Jesus calls "being strong in the truth" or at least clear about when someone is bullshitting, if I mentally stand my ground and do not buy into someone projecting or scapegoating me, it actually has an influence on them. Something changes in their mind and they suddenly become self-aware of what they're doing as if they adopted my view of them, and will suddenly realize there's something about what they said which isn't true. And then they will take it back and reconsider what their position is, because somehow the truth-focus in MY mind influenced theirs.

"People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them."

"The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will."

I've had to pick up subtle clues and nuances to come to realize this and this is definitely still new territory, but it seems clear that this world we're calling a physical solid world IS NOT THAT. It is in truth actually just a bunch of dream images. And our minds are not just inert little observers, they are powerful and quite capable of CAUSING the dream to change. And by dream I am NOT talking about projected meanings and interpretations of perception, I'm talking about the PHYSICAL MATERIAL WORLD. It can be changed by the mind. Mind literally has power over matter. It can steer events, cause objects to materialize, can manipulate weather, and can do all kinds of stuff - including healing sickness and reversing death and decay.

My wife has a strong will also and she has this ability too. In the past we would joke about having power to control the weather, which has proven a number of times. If I ask her to pray for me for example, my whole inner experience lights up and becomes far more happy and light and energized. She is quite capable of having a powerful influence, even at a distance. One time that we went to visit the UK for example usually the weather is crap and very consistently cloudy, but for like 3 days solid as soon as we arrived it became very clear and sunny non-stop which was very unusual. Also I know I've had influence in calming storms a couple times that I've tried to do that.

I am also convinced from some stories other people have shared that our minds influence each other including each other's bodies. Such as that for example a person was in fear and this fear was affecting the other person they were with and causing a medical condition. And then as this was pointed out the fear lifted and the medical condition just went away quickly. How is that possible unless mind has the power to influence the minds and bodies of others? That it can actually cause a different dream to just emerge out of nowhere?

Are we to really believe that the world is literally this kind of paper-thin fragile tentative sort of "material only" existence, in which everything is just the laws of physics holding it together and there's nothing else to it besides solid form? Because that's just how it APPEARS to be. The world is not actually that, because it's a dream, and it is an illusion, and it presents an illusion of a world, and this illusion CAN BE CHANGED BY THE MIND.

"Appearances deceive BUT CAN BE CHANGED."

"Yet nothing in the world of dreams remains without the hope of change and betterment, for here is NOT where changelessness is found."

"You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed."

We are being asked to become aware that the world is an EFFECT of our mind. Jesus literally says "You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts" and "Both heaven and earth are in your mind." The whole planet, the whole dream, is a mental construct. It's a fairytale of imagination in the mind, and the mind is literally projecting an imaginary world complete with all its "physical" details. And even though it LOOKS physical and as if it has laws that govern it and reasons why it cannot BE changed, that's all illusions, because it can EASILY be changed by a mind that knows it is dreaming.

"But hold out your JOINED hands and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and the holy Self you share."

So imagine the physical world is in fact like a LUCID DREAM. A dream in which you are awake and aware that IT IS a dream. And then you are aware that even though it appears solid and fixed, it is in fact your dream, and you CAN DO ANYTHING. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do." You can literally put your hands through physical matter, you can materialize objects, you can fly if you want to. You can change one thing into another. This is all a totally malleable dream environment, NOT really a hard solid fixed physical reality.

Do not be deceived by its illusion of hardness, solidity and so on. "What He (Holy Spirit) enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."

And as MIRACLE WORKERS we are being trained and asked to adopt a position as the "dreamers of the dream", where we recognize it IS coming from us, and WE CAN CHANGE IT in any way we see fit at any time, just by the power of the mind. The Holy Spirit is capable of manipulating the atoms of the world, just as Jesus also says that space and time are under his control.

"If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind MUST BE STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this."

Jesus was masterful at this "dream manipulation". His mind was in touch with being THE CAUSE (the dreamer), and knew the world was HIS EFFECT. Therefore he was not a victim of it in any way, and had power OVER IT. He recognized he was not affected BY IT in any way because he was DREAMING it - putting it there. This is what resurrection is about, the SURMOUNTING of death - the ability to have POWER OVER DEATH. Which includes the ability to reverse "physical death" and to manipulate bodies by the mind, into any state, and any form.

He was able to give body parts that were missing, he could walk on water, calm storms, change outcomes, turn objects into other objects, multiply and materialize objects out of nowhere, appear in different body forms, could likely levitate and fly if he so willed it, and pretty much NO LIMIT to what he could do. The examples of his USE OF his power only paints a limited picture of the fact that he was able to do literally anything. And so can you, because this world is NOT a fixed solid world, it's totally at your whim and under your power!

We have barely begun to realize the sheer power of our minds, the influence our minds have on the world, the ability of our minds to change matter, the ability of our minds to heal both mind AND body, and the influence we have on ALL THE WORLD when we change our mind. Our healing literally heals the world. Our focus on truth literally awakens our brothers. And our broadcast signal of love literally transforms the dream in unlimited ways.

Miracles as expressions of love are expressions of love from a powerful mind. I think in ACIM terms perhaps miracles are actually a SUBSET of what the mind can do. When mind is aware and expresses, which must also be a loving state, it has tremendous power, and this can CHANGE THE DREAM. It can cause literal physical transformations, impossible changes, violation of laws, breaking of space and time and distance and possibility. It can heal the sick and raise the dead, produce and change objects, and even move entire mountains.

This is not even a difficult feat for such a power, but so many people are afraid and skeptical and not even suspecting that such a power of POSSIBLE, yet alone that it is in their own minds. "While expressions like "think big" give some recognition to the power of thought, they still come nowhere near the truth. You do not expect to grow when you say it, because you don't really believe it. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains."

"Why is it strange to you that faith can move mountains? This is indeed a little feat for such a power."

Recently I had a doctor telling me that death was going to be the only way forward. Dr Death, death's representative, told me that my wife had only a 1% chance of living and that I should end her life.

But what I've been finding again is that something presented by one person isn't actually specific to that person, but instead is symbolic of a larger issue. He was merely a spokesperson for the predictions of the world, based on the world's laws and its consequences.

I generalized the learning and realized that this is part of the whole system of spacetime. The whole system generally says that when things reach a certain state, there is no turning back. That certain things are irreversible, as the world sees it.

But what the world doesn't recognize or account for are forces beyond spacetime that can break the world's laws and accomplish the impossible. It's the world at large that says death is inevitable, that there is no way out, no hope, and no possibility of life.

At some point we have to confront this and decide whether to accept it. To listen to the voice for death and decide whether there is another voice more worthy of trust. A voice which speaks for life and healing and resurrection. We have to look at whether there is an a real alternative, offered from beyond the world. Only if there is an alternative of life and healing do we even have a choice of any kind at all. If death is the automatic outcome and the only possibility, then really we are not even in a position to choose.

The only real choice is between life and death. And then we have to trust the option of life and listen to it and do its work. If life is possible, then the world is a lie. If life is possible, then miracles are real and resurrection is inevitable.

I was faced with death telling me that life was impossible, and that this was the only reality. But this messenger of death was completely oblivious to a real alternative. He had no awareness of another world and gave no support in its favor. And so the choice became clear, whether to defy his very strong death-worship and turn away from death's inevitability.

Choosing to side against death and toward life has produced a great clarifying and commitment to working more closely with the Holy Spirit, increasing my faith in God, categorizing all worldly signals as false opinion and untruth, opening up to greater trust in higher powers, and being more whole-heartedly invested in resurrection as the only goal that makes sense.

Now I am much clearer that I truly support life and healing and the reversal of sickness and death. A support of setting people free from the imprisonment of death and of the world's dire outlook. And clearly this work has only just begun, and there is great need and much work to do.

Resurrection is not just an option, it's the only sane direction to take. So now I thank these mistaken people and these impossible scenarios for playing the role of providing a contrast, of speaking in support of death, so that I could more firmly commit to being a true supporter and restorer of life, for my own resurrection as well as that of others.

The Holy Spirit, symbol of life, has become profoundly clearer in my mind and functioning, siding with and trusting him more than ever before. And now as I see that the Holy Spirit's only goal is the COMPLETE RESURRECTION of everyone through healing, my mission and purpose has been clarified as well. I now share his goal and will work towards it, away from death and towards eternal life. And the miracles will now flow.

"Learn now, WITHOUT despair, there is no hope of answers in the world."

"Seek not another signpost in the world which seems to point to still another road. No longer look for hope where there is none."

"For from this lowest point will learning lead to heights of happiness, in which you see the PURPOSE of the lesson shining clear, and perfectly within your learning grasp."

"For from this lowest point will learning lead to heights of happiness, in which you see the PURPOSE of the lesson shining clear, and perfectly within your learning grasp."

"The great ***RELEASE of power*** must begin with learning where it really HAS a use."

"The learning that the world can offer but ONE choice, no matter what its form may be, is the beginning of acceptance that there is a REAL alternative instead."

"There IS a choice which you have power to make, when you have seen the real alternatives."

"All roads that lead AWAY from what you are will lead you to confusion and despair."

"For God IS merciful, and did not let HIS Son abandon Him. For what He is be thankful, for in that is YOUR escape from madness and from death. Nowhere but where He is can YOU be found. There IS no path that does not lead to Him."

"The Holy Spirit is described throughout the course as giving us the answer to the separation and bringing the plan of the Atonement to us, establishing our particular part in it and showing us exactly what it is. He has established Jesus as the leader in carrying out this plan since he was the first to complete his own part perfectly. All power in Heaven and earth is therefore given him and he will share it with you when you have completed yours."

"He offers thanks to you as well as him for you arose with him when he began to save the world."

Here's a fact. NOTHING ABOUT YOUR BODY HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU. The body is not your self. Its form, shape, color, size, activities, say NOTHING about you. Your face isn't even your face. Its gender and sexual persuasion is not yours. You have been a hundred bodies in a hundred lifetimes. Not even ONE of them defines you or is TRUE of you. If you believe otherwise, you are confused about who you are, and have a body-identification issue. To be spirit-identified you must stop confusing yourself with the body. To awaken, you MUST recognize yourself as ONLY SPIRIT. And ALL spirit is identical.

"I am not a body I am free, for I am as God created me."

You are not a man or a woman.

You are not straight or gay or bi or trans or anything else.

You are not beautiful or ugly based on the body's looks.

You are not fat or thin or chunky or rotund or lanky.

You are not oversized or overweight or underweight.

You do not have a face.

You do not have arms and legs.

You do not have genitalia of any description.

Your musculature says nothing about your strength.

Your wimpyness says nothing about your strength.

The size of your private parts says nothing about you.

The way your brain functions is unrelated to what you are.

Your amount of seeming intellectual ability is meaningless.

You are not tall or short or anything in between.

You are not hairy or bald or naked or dressed.

Your clothes do not say anything about you.

The trinkets and ornaments you wear do not define you.

Your tattoos and birthmarks are not your identity.

Your amount of sexual libido or prowess means nothing.

Your taste for certain foods is irrelevant to your soul.

You do not have any of the needs that the body has.

You have not been born or grown or aged or suffered.

You have not changed in any way due to body changes.

You never gained or lacked anything.

Your body's features have nothing to do with you.

The color of your skin says nothing about you.

Your ethnic background does not define you whatsoever.

You have not ever done anything that the body did.

You have never touched another person.

You have never seen another person with the body.

Your body joining with a body is nothing to do with you joining with your brother.

Your hair size, shape, length, color, style, is not you.

You are not that which you see in the mirror.

Your defects, disabilities, missing or damaged parts, have absolutely no bearing on your perfection.

Your differences and uniqueness has nothing to do with your perfect equality with all God's children.

The identity that is in you is the same as in everyone.

How long you've been in a body means nothing.

What generation you seem a part of it irrelevant to you.

The pride of being part of a certain family is artificial.

Your support of certain body-groups is mistaken.

Your preference for certain body types is part of your own body identification.

Your hatred of certain body types if part of your own body identification.

All the body's senses tell you nothing.

Every sensation is illusory.

You have never been born and you will never die.

Complements about your body have nothing to do with you.

Hatred towards your body has nothing to do with you.

When your body is attacked you are not attacked.

You don't really have a face or arms or legs or a butt.

Your eyes are not your eyes.

You are not from a certain part of the world.

Your cultural background is entirely made up.

Your prejudices are evidence you think people are bodies.

Your racism is a belief in being a body race.

Your homophobia is an over-identification with your body.

How your body smells does not define you.

You have no color, no shape, no size.

You do not move in a certain way.

You do not sit down or stand up or sleep.

You do not eat food or drink.

You cannot be affected or changed or grown.

You have never had any kind of appearance.

It's not great to be a [fill in body type], you are not that.

You are not what you inherited from your parents.

You are not genetic.

You are not stuck with any type of body.

You are not limited by bodies.

You are not worshipped when your body is worshipped.

You have never communicated with a body.

Your body is no more valid than anyone else's.

Your body is no better or worse than anyone else's.

Your body is not more important than anyone else's.

No-one has anything you don't have.

You are not good looking or ugly or plain or handsome.

Being naked does not expose your real self to anyone.

The makeup on your body does not change you.

You do not have an image, you are not an image

You are not fashionable or poorly dressed.

NOTHING ABOUT THE BODY IS TRUE OF YOU!

YOU ARE NOT A BODY. YOU ARE SPIRIT!

Anything that God did not give you is not true of you. "God did not create the body."

When the body is recognized as an illusion of NOTHINGNESS, it will disappear. YOU are all that remains.

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, i cannot experience loss and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today. I will worship no idols, nor raise my own self concept to replace my Self. I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like itself."

The only real choice you have, the only moment at which you are actually choosing between ego and God, is when you decide whether or not to accept the Atonement.

Here are your only choices:

A) I really did sin, and therefore every consequence of sin should happen and I deserve to die and I will make it happen.

or

B) I really did not sin in reality, nothing real has been threatened, God still finds me worthy, I am still innocent and nothing has happened.

This is your ONLY choice.

And this choice ONLY happens at the CLIMAX of a forgiveness process, a process of purification, in which you are undoing beliefs in death, punishment, fear, guilt and sin. You have to undo and PURGE all of that shit BEFORE you can even get to where you will be WILLING and able to accept some atonement.

If you imagine that being "in the ego" is like being in a dark warehouse, that warehouse contains shelf upon shelf of sin, guilt, fear, punishment, sickness, death. You have to find your way out of the dark and reach the exit. But before you can get to the exit, you have to most PAST all of these shelves of ego lies. You have to not believe any of them and clear them out of your way so that you can get to the exit.

The exit from the warehouse will take you INTO THE LIGHT, into Heaven, into the Atonement, into your INNOCENCE, but the ONLY way you can go through that door is through willingness to accept the truth is true, and choosing to admit that it is so. That nothing has happened and you are still innocent, that you are still as God created you. Then you step OUT of the warehouse of darkness INTO the light, and it is ONLY THEN that you have placed yourself back INTO the thought system of the Holy Spirit or God.

Whether or not sin is true, or whether the belief in sin is true or false, is THE PIVOTAL POINT at which you are deciding, whether you are allegiant to the ego, or allegiant to God. All of the prior steps of undoing fear and guilt and sickness and punishment etc are prerequisites but do not actually directly take you OUT of the ego thought system. They are steps TOWARDS it. They are you meandering around the warehouse in the dark trying to find the exit. All of these corrections and changes of belief and purification and releases and letting go and shifts in perception and so on are mere PREPARATION for exiting the building and becoming miraculous.

This is why when you apply forgiveness processes you MUST at some point take it ALL THE WAY to the atonement truth, OTHERWISE you are not completing the forgiveness and are falling short. You are actually STAYING IN the ego thought system UNLESS you TOTALLY EXIT through that door of accepting the atonement is true of you. And many people are doing exactly this - falling short of exiting the building, and instead lingering in various levels of denial and unconsciousness, with blocks to awareness still in place, not really undoing or looking at the unconscious belief in sin or the DEATH WISH which lurks in the darkness right in front of the doorway home.

This has to all be uprooted and dug out and undone and un-believed in PRIOR to reaching the exit, so that when you get to the exit you will no longer have any ties or objections or reasons of doubt or faith in the ego beliefs as to why you CANNOT exit, or why you don't want to, or why you cannot accept it is 100% true. It takes a lot of "work" to go through all the shit to uncover these layers of blocks to awareness, to really become literally AWARE of the truth. And only then, when you finally can SEE that it makes total sense that you MUST STILL BE INNOCENT because you DID NOT SIN in reality, only then are you actually making the choice between the ego and the Holy Spirit.

That's the only point where you're saying yes to God and no to the ego. It's also the point at which, as you exit, you become OPEN TO RECEIVE MIRACLES. This is because you now open up to accept that you CAN BE LOVED because you are worthy of it because you are still innocent. Only AFTER EXITING THE BUILDING do you step INTO THE LIGHT, and upon EXPOSURE to the light, now allow yourself to be LOVED BY GOD. And it is in this reunion, in this moment of becoming PART of the atonement itself, that you are actually willing to RECEIVE LOVE. And in your receiving of this love, THAT is how you receive a miracle and THAT is when you get healed. Because now you allow the love to love you and it heals you. If you believe sin is real then you are saying NO to love and are not receiving it.

THEN, you can take the healed part of your mind to others, to bring the atonement to others, and to SHARE and extend the miracles you've received - the love, the worthiness, to others, as part of the atonement plan. And you can do this whole process over and over again on any individual issue in order to keep accepting miracles upon miracles, until there is nothing left keeping you in the dark at all.

Again it's quite simple. God and his kingdom are absolute reality and truth. Just "what is." The entire "separation from God" is just you denying this and becoming delusional that something else is true and real. This puts you out of touch with reality, and you start to hallucinate a false world. Your mind goes insane and can't tell what is true or real anymore.

The situation you're in physically, is that you seem to be in a world. But the psychological problem is that you are not even in touch with what this world is either. You do not see it correctly because you are to filled with denial.

The ego state of mind is full of distortions, denials, deceptions, lies, wishful thinking, fantasies, unwillingness to see, false beliefs, filters, judgements, meanings, opinions, and all manner of unreality. A kind of private inner world, like someone walking around in a daze, in a constant state of daydreaming.

Our attempt to deny God's truth and reality, also puts us out of touch with the "truth and reality" of THIS world. The desire not to see God's creation, causes us to also "not see" this world clearly. Our denial of eternal life, also causes us to not see heaven's reflection in this world.

What we're then needing to is to get in touch with reality and accept that reality. To become able to see truthfully and to see what is actually true. To recognize what everything is, without all the denial and distortion and lies about it. Jesus calls this "reality contact", as well as "true perception", and seeing the "real world." We might rephrase "real world" as "the world as it actually is."

We first become able to accurately perceive this world. This requires the undoing of all the ego devices, the unwillingness, the denial and distortion, the self-deception, the lies we keep telling ourselves. This requires a whole lot of radical self-honesty.

Honesty is really the same thing as "admitting the truth", which means also to "allow access" to the truth. To let the truth in. If we cannot accept the truth then we are not accepting atonement and are not having true perception. When we are reluctant to accept a situation, we dislike a situation, we want things to be different, we wish they were the way they used to be etc, that's all various forms of not accepting reality. It's always to do with not accepting a FACT.

The main issue here is denial. If all we did was undo denial and become more honest, we'd be finished. But we don't like to ever admit to being in denial, because denial is what keeps things away from us. It's a defense, it's what we use for ego protection and to keep our lies safe. To admit that you are in denial is to admit that there is something that is true that you do NOT WANT. And that means that to stop being in denial you'll have to becoming more WILLING, and open to ACCEPTANCE, that the thing you've been denying is actually true.

We basically just keep looking away from reality. We keep hiding our sight, unwilling to see what's really here. We keep avoiding, deceiving ourselves and distracting ourselves. We keep going off into the past and into the future. We are not present with what actually exists now, even on this illusory physical level yet alone the level of God's reality. We don't want to accept what is true, and this denial of truth was the beginning of the whole separation and the making of the ego.

So it's very helpful for us to pause and reflect on how we might be in denial, what we are denying, why we are denying it, and to become willing to stop being in denial. It means though having to swallow a "hard truth", something that you perhaps have been avoiding. Or even frightened of. Or something that seems that, if you were to face it, you would be horrified.

But it is the avoidance of truth that makes you horrified, and the horror comes from resistance - the lack of acceptance, not allowing the truth to be true. It has no effect on you when it washes over you and is allowed to be what it is. We have to accept this world first, even though it's an illusion, before we can accept God's kingdom. That doesn't mean accepting that it is ultimate reality, it just means letting it be what it is without fighting it.

All suffering, all despair, all loss, all unhappiness, all stress and fear, all threat and danger, all loss of peace, comes solely from the unwillingness to accept what is true. Your only choice is between denial or acceptance, and you will find hell or heaven as a result.

"You ATTACK the real world every day and every hour and every minute, and yet you are surprised that you cannot SEE it."

"Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra- and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer sees the truth as God created it. This is what is meant by the point on "perspective adjustment."

"Make the world real unto YOURSELF, for the real world is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so it BELONGS to you. Correction is for all who cannot see. To open the eyes of the blind is the Holy Spirit's mission, for He knows that they have not LOST their vision, but merely sleep."

"The term "right-mindedness" is properly used as the correction for wrong-mindedness, and applies to the state of mind which induces accurate perception. It is miraculous because it heals misperception, and healing is indeed a miracle, in view of how man perceives himself."

"YOUR denial of reality precludes ACCEPTANCE of God's gift, BECAUSE YOU HAVE ACCEPTED SOMETHING ELSE IN ITS PLACE."

"You who have spent your lives in bringing truth to illusion, reality to fantasy, HAVE walked the way of dreams. For you have gone from waking to sleeping, and on and on to a yet deeper sleep. Each dream has led to other dreams, and every fantasy that SEEMED to bring a light into the darkness but made the darkness deeper. Your GOAL was darkness, in which no ray of light could enter. And you sought a blackness so complete that you could hide from truth forever, in complete insanity. What you forgot was simply that God can NOT destroy Himself. The light is IN you. Darkness can COVER it, but CANNOT put it out."

"The ego looks straight at the Father and does not see Him, for it has denied His Son."

"The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist."

"All special relationships have sin as their goal. For they are BARGAINS with reality, toward which the seeming union is adjusted."

"You looked upon the unreal and found despair. But by SEEKING the unreal, what else COULD you find? The UNreal world IS a thing of despair, for it can never be."

"The sense is very literal; -- denial of Life perceives its opposite, as ALL forms of denial replace what IS, with what is NOT. No-one can really DO this, but that you can THINK you can, and BELIEVE YOU HAVE, is beyond dispute."

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and your way will be made straight" - this is the ULTIMATE FORM OF FORGIVENESS.

I will explain.

There is only one problem. Not many. Not multiple layers. One problem: separation from God. We are simply too caught up in being distant from God that we keep trying to forgive stuff within a layer of mind that is still quite far from the origin of all problems, cleaning up the mess, dealing with what appear as multiple fragmented issues. But as we 'home in' on God and on the real CORE of EVERY problem, it all boils down to this one totally simple thing: You believe that you did somethig to separate yourself from God.

So now in your forgiving you attempt to address the 'fallout' of this separation in various layers. Maybe you try to let other people off the hook, maybe you attempt to withdraw your projections, maybe you try to withhold judgement and just observe, maybe you monitor your thoughts and try to have 'the right ones', maybe you go to Holy Spirit and ask Him to do something. But let's be clear now. All of these remedies attempt to address the real cause of all problems somewhat distant from that cause, hidden behind multiple layers of psychological fragmentation. Where is the ROOT CAUSE?

Behind all these worldly distractions and needing to forgive individual people and needing to deal with specific body issues and needing to correct thoughts and so on, there is ONE PROBLEM and it is that you believe you are separate from God. It is very abstract and very primary. It underlies EVERYTHING else that seems to have gone wrong.

So what you need to ultimately do, whether you do this now or soon or in future or whenever, when you are ready, at some point you are going to have to GO TO GOD. Your relationship with God appears to have suffered. You believe you attacked Him and rejected Him and now he seems distant from you. How do you suppose this is going to get HEALED by you pussyfooting around the real elephant in the living room, avoiding this one fundamental issue?

Imagine you had a big fight with someone you love or a best friend and you feel terrible about it, but it caused you to be at odds and now you're not talking. You've gone off on your separate ways and you feel alone and guilty and angry etc. How exactly do you suppose you're going to repair this relationship? It's not going to be enough for you to focus on withdrawing projections or questioning judgements or all this kind of stuff that happens `down the pipeline`. You're likely avoiding that person. You don't want to go near them. But how are you going to get to what you really WANT, which is a REUNION with them? How are you going to get to where the two of you are standing there in a moment of rapture and love, letting go of every single sense of grievance and upset, utterly overjoyed at accepting each other back into your lives and completely dismissing everything that ever came between you?

At some point your'e going to have to GO TO GOD. Ok. So, God is the Kingdom of Heaven - that's His creation which He is One with. The more you AVOID Him the more you will orbit around and make silly noises and try to explain why your relationship is getting repaired from a distance. But what you really want is to reunite with God completely. You want to go up to Him, reaaaaaly close and personal, and have a confrontation of sorts (which you are terrified of), and 'apologize', so to speak, and move PAST all of the hurt and sense of separation that has kept you apart. You want to really get in there and commune deeply with Him, letting go of aaaaal accusations and fears and worries and all the guilt that stemmed from your falling-out. And you want to get past all of that and get to where you are beaming at each other with love in your eyes and joy in your heart at the absolute beauty and RELIEF that the love you thought you'd lost IS STILL THERE. It hasn't been hurt, nothing serious has transpired, and all is forgiven. Now your'e back to being 'best friends' and the whole separation bullshit has just disappeared.

That's what it would be like to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven. If you're going to totally undo all your problems, you need to UNDO THE SEPARATION. So as you apply forgiveness, instead of focussing on the distant levels, go straight for the jugular. Recognize that whatever your problem is, it's because you believe you are separate from God. There is no other reason. You don't need to blame it on the projection or the judgement or the thoughts or wahtever. It's all because you and God had a falling out and now you want Him back. Period.

"Holy Spirit, correct my belief in separation and help me to reunite with God". How about that?

"Holy Spirit, undo the guilt I feel because I separated from God and help me reunite with His Love."

"Holy Spirit, my body is sick because I am separate from God, please remove this evidence of separation."

"Holy Spirit, heal the separation between me and God"

Or even better, sometimes addressing Holy Spirit can be a way to avoid God ;-) ..... I don't see many people including GOD in their forgiveness words....

"God, please forgive me for trying to separate from you and help me to be with you again."

"God, please heal this separation now"

"God, I rejoin with you in peace"

"God, we are One"

Try this... Try skipping all the other levels of forgiveness and go straight for the repair of your sense of separation. ALL your problems stem from it so if you fix that one thing, everything else should take care of itself and "your way will be made straight."

All you really want is to heal the separation between you and God and return to a loving relationship. It's no more complicated than that.