Since my wife "died" in January, my perspective on this world and the body, sickness and death has changed drastically.

My wife (her body) was afflicted with various disabilities and medical conditions for over 12 years. For the past 4 years she lived in a bed, and unable to walk. We're talking amputations and strokes/paralysis and heart conditions and sleep disorders and cancer and diabetes and kidney failure, brain damage and dementia, eye problems, breathing problems, digestive problems, multiple trips to the ICU, declared brain-dead one time and barely making it through a triple-heart-bypass another.

The horror show compelled me to want to perform miracles, to heal her body and undo her limitations. Like any person would, driven to alleviate suffering and to make things easier. Avoiding death became the whole focus. And obviously this revolved around my mistaken belief that she was at least in part a physical body. A body with seemingly "real" sicknesses and serious problems.

For years we had this dynamic of me trying to get her (body) back to health, to keep her (body) going, to keep her (body) alive, to resurrect her (body) and fix her (body) and undo everything that happened to her (body). But it all took a toll and over time her body's condition deteriorated. It just couldn't function enough anymore to keep her going. While I helped in some ways, I failed.

Just before she passed, I reached a point where I finally found a willingness to consider, maybe I should just stop trying to keep her (body) alive. Maybe I should just let her go and let her die. All the years of fighting against it, resisting it, avoiding both sicknesses and interventions, trying to prop her up and keep her ticking, it all just kind of came to a point of surrender. It was long and cruel and stressful and fear-inducing. She'd had enough long before, and so had I. Eventually it becomes so ridiculous you just can't keep going.

It was then within a week or two that her body was really giving out, and quickly led to a brush with death, and then a very rapid but mostly peaceful passing. All the time spent resisting death, trying to stop the body being sick, and trying to keep it going indefinitely, culminated in what seemed to be a total failure. A failure to raise the dead, a failure to be miraculous, a failure to stop death itself. But despite appearances, it turns out that wasn't a bad thing.

Actually death turned out to be liberating for both of us. It wasn't what I thought it would be like, and nothing like I feared. In fact, as she continued to live in spirit and communicate me on many occasions in many ways, it proved to me that she was far better off now. She was thrilled and excited and happy, peaceful and calm, liberated and empowered. After she went through a kind of rehabilitation period, she showed up even more, refined and purified and centered in her soul.

Meanwhile her body was on ice shoved in a cardboard box, awaiting cremation. As I looked upon it I could shift perceptions back and forth between believing it was her and that it was nothing to do with her. Clearly something had left it, regardless of how convincing it looked and seemed to have all her features intact. But it wasn't her.

I deliberately viewed the corpse a few times to make the most use of the opportunity to forgive and see it correctly. To distinguish that the body was not her, and to separate out her spirit from the form. So now I was presented with this intense contrast between - the body says she's dead, and the reality and experience of spirit/mind says she's totally alive. And they can't both be true.

It became apparent while communicating to her and thinking about the soul's journey, spanning lifetimes and many bodies, that it never really was 'the plan' in this life for her body to reach an resurrected state. We had this dream that we would ascend to heaven together, and that was a total flop - but partly because in the big picture plan of atonement she is due to wake up in another lifetime, and I'm due for some radical change.

And that was ok, because there was a bigger picture. The really big picture has souls using bodies across many lifetimes, and they are just as easily discarded when no longer functioning well as they are picked up in the first place. They are just tools, devices, vehicles, that we temporarily use for a purpose and then throw away as worthless.

The destruction of the idea of saving her body from death, the complete failure to cause her to avoid death, the surprising discovery that death was liberating and "not all bad", the experience of her continuing to live and interact, the expansive perspective of the soul and its use of bodies, and the way her passing into the light lifted me into the light also, has altered how I look at all this.

What has become super clear is that as soon as we identify with bodies, we immediately go into fear, and start feeling compelled to defend the body against its own nature - its ultimate purpose of dying. As a body we want the body to carry on forever. I wanted to be with my wife's body forever. Then the body snuffs it. Good luck with that, cus you're all gunna die, unless you stop being a body.

By believing a person is a body we develop an entire culture of body preservation, keeping people in their bodies as long as possible, freaking out when the body is attacked or sick, not allowing anyone to leave their bodies voluntarily, trying to stop the body being sick, and generally just resisting the body's death at all costs. It all adds up to a mindset of the fear of death and an attempt to protect and defend the body at all costs. Until that entire mindset goes crashing against the rocks and is smashed to smithereens.

That's what's happened for me. The whole mindset of "lets keep the body going forever" has been destroyed. All the cultural and social ways that we have concern for it, fear of dying happening, avoiding things, trying to create security and safety, freaking out when "someone dies", valuing the body, wanting it to live, even the idea of using miracles to rescue the body endlessly, all has been destroyed for me. And that's a good thing because it was all rooted in believing bodies are people, valuable objects, and something to keep.

I've shifted from a horizontal to a vertical perspective. I would even go so far now as to say "let it all die". Not just the bodies, but all the things of the world. It's dying anyway, and it's going to. All the resistance I had and the fear of it happening was pointless and worthless and ended in a total inability to stop it. It was actually good that I ended up at the end of this lesson surrendering and "letting death happen". Because funnily enough, that was a key to stopping preserving it through the wish to defend the body at all costs. I'm guided now to simply "let her be dead". Because in truth, she isn't.

Trying to prevent death induces it. And I also realized that trying to stop sickness is just making it real and fueling it. So you can imagine that being exposed to someone with many severe sicknesses for a long time has drilled this home for me. I had to get past her body, get past believing she was sick, get past trying to resist the sickness, and get past believing she could even die. And she's proven to me many times over now that she absolutely has not died.

That then becomes a strange irreconcilable contrast. On the one hand the body is sprinkled in the wind as ashes and is no more, seeming to suggest the person is totally destroyed, and yet there she is even more alive than ever, happier than ever, having a great time. When I told her it would be great to be able to see her walking again, and she showed me herself running through fields, she even said "I can fly!". So she's having a great time, and what appeared to be "death" on a physical level did nothing but leave her better off.

So now my whole perspective on bodies and the world and sickness and death is different. I've used her death against death. I see people believing they are bodies, when it's been shown to me that people are not bodies. I see people fearing the body's vulnerabilities, when it's been shown to me that this is because they think they are bodies. The whole culture of body preservation and trying to stop people being sick is a joke. And even in this world the idea of voluntarily going to heaven is illegal and taboo, forcing people to suffer horrible conditions until they "naturally" snuff it.

I know this sounds a bit potentially anti-miraculous but, the hard lesson has actually been to let someone die and to stop fighting it. It was actually less spiritual and much more psychologically unhealthy to believe someone was a body and to be constantly worried for their safety and fearing for their life. What dies is not even a real thing, its not the person, and they cannot die. What dies is a lie, and death is a lie, and the whole basis for avoiding it is a lie.

So now I am much more flippant. Not to say like, okay, go ahead and die on purpose just so you can realize that being in heaven is totally amazing. Because we are still using bodies to learn shit. But in the big picture souls don't give a shit about the body really, they just use them temporarily as learning devices. Then they throw them in the trash. In and of themselves they are worthless junk. They are nothing. They are not people and they are not life.

My view now is much more aligned with my wife's view, seeing from her perspective and from the vantage point of the bigger picture. Souls coming and going, taking on bodies and then discarding them. Not identifying with them. Not falling into the trap of believing they are people, or the nightmare of fear that comes from that. My fear of death has melted because a) dying and going to heaven is wonderful and b) I can't die. Just as my wife can't die.

I've lifted up out of the body-identified body-worshipping death-avoiding culture of the world. Avoidance of death is definitely the same thing as promoting it. Nothing real can be threatened. The whole problem of the world is people believing they are a body and not knowing they are spirit, which results in a nightmare of danger and threat and attack and vulnerability. Then everyone starts barricading themselves in trying to avoid the bad stuff happening, and the sicknesses set in and the people want it to all go away so they can stay in their bodies forever and never go home to God.

I couldn't care less about stuff dying now. It's everywhere and relentless. It's the way of the world, driven by laws of death. Stuff is dead before it's even born. Everything here is guaranteed to end, to rot and decay and turn to dust. So I say, let it. Fuck it all. Who gives a shit about it anyway. It has no effect whatsoever on our reality as spiritual beings. And trying to stop it happening is madness. But what does it matter when an illusion dies? It really means nothing at all. The death of an illusion means nothing.

No-one who believes that bodies dying means something can work miracles. No-one who believes that a person is really sick can work miracles. No-one who believes that death can actually change the sons of God can work miracles. And no-one who fights against it happening can have any power over it. I had to go through the lesson of associating my beliefs in sickness and death with my wife's body, so that as her body died so too did my beliefs in these things.

I failed to raise the dead or to stop sickness happening, and it was the best thing I could've learned. The lesson is that death doesn't matter. But the key is to let death be what it is, because in truth it is not anything. Surrender the fear of death and let it all go, let it all die, and you'll be free from it. And then maybe you'll be ready to be a miracle worker. To surmount death is to transcend it, and you can't do that while you're resisting it. But letting it be also lets it go, and then you can rise above it and have power over it.

"But time, with its illusions of change and death, wears out the world and all things in it."

"But this you do not see; that you made death, and it is but illusion of an end."

"Behold the body, and you will believe that you are there. ⁴And every body that you look upon reminds you of yourself; your sinfulness, your evil and, above all, your death."

"There is a risk of thinking death is peace, because the world equates the body with the Self which God created."

"And fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. ⁷The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain."

"The “reality” of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God’s Son is a body."

"This is what death should be; a quiet choice, made joyfully and with a sense of peace, because the body has been kindly used to help the Son of God along the way he goes to God. ²We thank the body, then, for all the service it has given us. ³But we are thankful, too, the need is done to walk the world of limits, and to reach the Christ in hidden forms and clearly seen at most in lovely flashes. ⁴Now we can behold Him without blinders, in the light that we have learned to look upon again."

"False healing rests upon the body’s cure, leaving the cause of illness still unchanged, ready to strike again until it brings a cruel death in seeming victory. ²It can be held at bay a little while, and there can be brief respite as it waits to take its vengeance on the Son of God. ³Yet it cannot be overcome until all faith in it has been laid by, and placed upon God’s substitute for evil dreams; a world in which there is no veil of sin to keep it dark and comfortless. ⁴At last the gate of Heaven opens and God’s Son is free to enter in the home that stands ready to welcome him, and was prepared before time was and still but waits for him."

"The “self” that needs protection is not real. ²The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. ³Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?"

"From here the body can be seen as what it is, and neither less nor more in worth than the extent to which it can be used to liberate God's Son unto is home."

There is a theme in the miracle principles. Many of them speak of the fact that you as a miracle worker are in a position of greater supply than others. You are DIFFERENT to them. They are lacking something you have and are in need of healing. And it is now your role to GIVE to them, or supply, that which they lack, for them, so that they will be lifted up to a healed state. This means that miracles are a way to HEAL OTHERS. To be truly helpful. To actually CAUSE effects in them whereby they CHANGE, are transformed, and BECOME healed. In mind AND body.

Miracles are not the same thing as the state of miracle mindedness. They arise FROM that state and EXPRESS outward to others.

"Miracles ARISE FROM a miraculous state of mind, or a state of miracle-readiness."

"Miracles are an EXPRESSION of love."

They are miracle impulses, sparks of life, divine broadcasts, thought creations, ("miracles are thought creations" "miracles are a spark of life") which EMIT from the mind, travel through you from the holy spirit, to your brother's mind, where they are received. This entails a GIVER and a RECEIVER. They CAUSE HEALING IN OTHERS. In your brother. Because he has placed himself in a position where he is blocking his own healing and so NEEDS the light in you to shine into his mind to heal it, for him. Just as if someone is disabled, you HELP THEM to cross the road.

Having placed himself in a state of sickness, your brother is in a position to NEED HELP. He is not willing to correct the error himself, even though he made it, and even though his mind could heal itself. So now your function is to perform a miracle of healing FOR HIM, as a SERVICE that you provide to help him.

"Miracles are a universal BLESSING from God through me to all my brothers."

A miracle is an intercession. You INTERVENE on his behalf and do FOR him what he is not currently able/willing to do. You CAN do this because your mind has a light in it which is compatible with his mind and is able to shine INTO HIS MIND to enlighten it. The light in you can shine away HIS darkness. Your mind can HEAL another mind. This is not magic, it is miraculous. The love in you can RESURRECT your brother from death!

"Miracles are healing because they ***supply a lack***; they are performed ***by those who temporarily have more FOR THOSE WHO TEMPORARILY HAVE LESS***."

"Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are always miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws. They bring ***more love both to the giver AND THE RECEIVER***."

"Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating it is as blessed to give as to receive. They simultaneously ***increase the strength of the giver and SUPPLY STRENGTH TO THE RECEIVER***."

"The miracle, on the other hand, is an ***ENERGIZER***. It always strengthens, and never depletes. It DOES ***induce peace***, and by establishing tranquillity it enables both giver ***AND RECEIVER*** to enter into a state of Grace. Here his miracle-mindedness, is restored."

"A miracle is a ***SERVICE***. It is the maximal service you can ***render to ANOTHER***. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. You recognize your own and your neighbor's worth simultaneously."

"Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God's forgiveness by ***extending it to OTHERS.***"

"Miracles enable you to ***heal the SICK and raise the DEAD*** because you made sickness and death yourself, and ***can therefore ABOLISH both***. You are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator."

"A miracle is a universal ***blessing*** from God through me ***to all my BROTHERS***. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive."

"I inspire all miracles, ***which are really INTERCESSIONS***. They ***intercede*** for your holiness"

"A miracle is a ***CORRECTION*** introduced into false thinking by me. It acts as a catalyst, breaking up erroneous perception and reorganizing it properly."

"The miracle ***DISSOLVES error*** because the Holy Spirit identifies error as false or unreal. This is the same as saying that by perceiving light, ***darkness automatically DISAPPEARS***."

"A major contribution of miracles is their ***strength in RELEASING you*** from your false sense of isolation, deprivation and lack."

"A miracle is never lost. It may touch ***MANY PEOPLE*** you have not even met, and produce undreamed of changes in situations of which you are not even aware."

"Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth. If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves. Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are DENYING TO THEMSELVES. If they knew the truth about themselves, they could not be sick. The task of the miracle-worker thus becomes to DENY THE DENIAL OF TRUTH The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them. But, having OBSCURED it, ***the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs***, because that light IS theirs."

"The miracle is the ***act*** of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and who calls on his brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith, because it is the recognition that his brother CAN do it. It is a call to the Holy Spirit in his mind, a call to Him which is strengthened by this joining. Because the miracle-worker has heard Him, he ***strengthens*** His Voice in a sick brother by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does NOT share. ***The power of one mind CAN shine into another***, because all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark. It is everywhere, and it is eternal."

"Our brothers are forgetful. ***That is why they need*** your remembrance of me and of Him Who created me. Through this remembrance, ***you can change their minds about themselves***, as I can change yours. ***Your mind is so powerful a light that you can look into theirs and enlighten them***, as I can enlighten yours."

This is not a violation of the person's free will. If they are willing to be helped, a little willingness is all that is required to invite the holy spirit to move and act and heal. It is our role as MIRACLE WORKERS, to GIVE healing to others who need it. We are in a position to do so because of our greater strength, and the Holy Spirit is EAGER to bring as much healing as possible as soon as possible.

"Your function on Earth is healing."

"You share the Holy Spirit's function on earth."

"Do his works."

"You will see miracles through your hands through me."

"If I live in you, you ARE awake. But YOU must see the works I do through you, or you will not perceive that I have done them unto YOU. Do not set limits on what you believe I can do THROUGH you, or you will not accept what I can do FOR you."

"Thank God that He is there, and works through you. And all His works are yours. He offers YOU a miracle, with every one you LET Him do through you."

"The truly helpful are God's miracle-workers, whom I direct until we are all united in the joy of the kingdom. I will direct you to wherever you can be truly helpful, and to whoever can follow my guidance through you."

Over the weekend I came down with what seems to be 'a cold'. Actually it is more likely just a strong 'release', and I find that pretty much every time I have a 'cold' it is accompanied by strong emotional releases.

So anyway.. I was semi-miserable. Suffering a bit.

I wanted to know if any kind of healing was possible, and Holy Spirit hinted that we'd talk about it at night ie before sleeping.

So that time came along and I remembered. And I was also feeling fairly willing to just 'accept' being sick for a while. I thought to myself, well, I made this sickness, so I should actually honor and respect the power that I've wielded and appreciate what I've created. I mean, after all, it's a pretty nice illusion I made, and Jesus does warn in the ACIM text about it being an error to underestimate the power of what we made with the ego. I didn't want to fight with it or attack it. I was trying to be more accepting. I did a little bit of "I love this sickness" and then I asked Holy Spirit:

"Holy Spirit, is there any way at all that there can be a healing of this, or do I have to just accept it for the next 2 weeks of snot and tissues?"

HS: "There is"

So I said, "Ok, I'm willing to admit I don't know anything about healing, I don't know how to heal this, I don't know why I made it or what its purpose is, I don't know why I have it and I don't know what to do about it. Help me to know what I need to 'do' if anything to help you to facilitate healing." And in this, I seemed to be unusually 'open minded' and receptive instead of just going on about what 'I have to do' to fix this. Holy Spirit said:

"Receive God"

I was like, WHAT?! It seemed I was here asking about how to fix this sickness and instead I get an answer that tells me I'm about to be loved?? So I was, like, ok... I let myself just 'receive God' ... like, without doing anything other than receiving and maybe repeating to myself, "receive God".

Immediately I felt a sense of love descend and come into me and it went deeper than a sense of unlove and unworthiness that was in me that I didn't realize was there. And I started to cry because it was beautiful and a relief. And the ego part of me was somewhat in shock because I couldn't figure out WHY God would love me. I had all kinds of ego reactions around it like, why would God love me, I've never been loved, surely I'm not lovable, etc.

Nevertheless, my body started to shake, my hands shook vigorously, I coughed and spewed a bit as I felt something being ejected from me and lifted out. Then I cried a bit more because I could feel how this love was given so FREELY, like, there were absolutely no strings attached, and it wasn't asking that I give anything whatsoever, and was totally unconditional. I couldn't comprehend how or why it was being given so free of any expectations or conditions or requirements, like 'a freebie'. Why would God just give give give? How was it possible that I would be just given to like that?!

Anyway... I felt this healing tremendously helped to lift away a sense of unlove and unworthiness and, in particuarly, a sense that God/Father loved me, which apparently was at the root of my sickness. I felt a lot better. It wasn't all gone, but much improved. I couldn't help but feel grateful, and somewhat in awe, and a bit shocked. I actually felt a slight sense of ... how dare you love me this much without asking for anything in return. It was shockingly unconditional. God loved me MORE than I loved me.

This is then when ego came in and tried in various subtle ways to reproduce or trigger or influence this 'receiving God' thing... like it kept trying to pretend that IT was causing the transmission of love, or IT was able to control it, or IT was going to trigger it off, or IT knew what made the healing flow. And yet it didn't. I noticed all that activity and how it was interfering. And it wasn't until I could stop all of those efforts to "be the healer" that I allowed myself to "receive God" a bit more. Genuinely. To just receive in openness and willingness without trying to force it. Because to receive without 'doing' anything disables the ego from all its activities.

So grateful. And so unexpected.... I had no idea that I was going to receive healing AND be unconditionally loved, like, without having to do or give anything in return, anything other than to just be open and willing to receive. It seemed like such a blessing that really exposed any sense of unworthiness or reasons why I shouldn't.

I asked also then, if it were possible to heal another person this way. Holy Spirit said that the other person has to be "ready to accept willingly". I could understand and accept that. You can't force healing on someone. And I only felt a healing because I was WILLING TO RECEIVE. And it was not anything that *I* did whatsoever. Other people can receive healing from God too, but they have to be willing to accept and allow it. And it has to be pure 100% receiving, not any effort to control or interfere or even to 'give'. I can see how the ego tries to pretend it is seeking healing by trying to force healing or produce it from its own efforts, but real healing is completely counter-ego, requiring the ego to be suspended and uninvolved.

"Receive God". Simple.

I am amazed mostly at how God gives love so freely, so without conditions, so totally and unrestrained. It's like a huge outpouring, a massive giving, almost like a revelation. Everything coming FROM God to you, and your only job is to RECEIVE. Receive receive receive.

It's like sunbathing - God-bathing...you don't go trying to force the sun to shine with your ego, you don't trigger the sun, you don't make it shine on you. You have to surrender and relax and let go and receive the light. The sun does the shining. God does the shining. Difficult to get the ego out of the way and be totally receptive. But it seems like the more I can 'let love in' the more I am allowing myself to be loved, to a depth and extent that I have never experienced or thought possible.

Ahhhhhhh.

Still sniffling today. The 'cold' is still there. But... I know I am healed in some way on some level. A sense of unworthiness has been replaced with worthiness. Thanks God.

One last insight. .. the lesson I needed to learn, in Holy Spirit's words:

"Let God"

At first we believe physical sight is perception. And everything the body's eyes look upon is taken as real. And thus we learn that the world appears to be an inherently bad place. Regardless of trying to be optimistic or positive, bad shit happens frequently. And people seem to die.

Assuming that everything we see is real, we might not realize that there is a flexible component to perception. Our mind gets to actually decide what to "make of" the images that the physical eyes see. It categorizes them, projects meaning onto them, and decide what they are for.

This is because only the mind really sees, and it is looking upon the images the body shows to it of the world, as pictures of reflected photons bouncing off blockages. And the mind can decide what this means and what to project onto them, choosing what to see in them, God or ego.

What this means is the world you initially see is a combination of "the physical world" and the overlaid projected junk in your mind. The dirt on your lens. The baggage and self attack and sense of sin and guilt which you see in the world as if it's outside of you.

What you have to learn, is that what the world is, and the sense of it being a negative hellish place, are two different things. It's easy to hate the world, be angry at it, mistrust it, fear it, and want to escape it.

You can easily get into a mindset that if you will get away from "that bad place" through some spiritual means, you'll be better off. You can judge and demonize the world and decide it is a hell you want nothing to do with. But this isn't escape. It really is just making it real to yourself, which keeps you trapped.

The real solution is to develop true vision, which allows you to look upon whatever the world "is", without your projections of baggage. Without your distortions of meaning. Without your judgements. Without your sin and guilt seen in it.

But to do that, you have to in a way give "the world" the benefit of the doubt, or a kind of second chance. A possibility of redemption. Because somehow you have to be able to get to where you forgive the world, where you shine a light of love towards it, and where it no longer appears to threaten or upset you.

It may have taken a long time to build up resentment towards the world, which bound what the world is to a negative, false perception of the world. And in this confusion you thought the world was inherently a bad place. But now you have to be open to the idea that the world is not inherently bad. That there is another way to see it.

This entails the recognition that if you will change the component of your mind that gives meaning to the world, you actually can redefine what it means to you. Instead of meaning hell, or indicating sin, or proving guilt, or producing fear, the world can be seen in a much different light.

What the world IS, isn't what you see in false perception. That's the unforgiven world. That's Earth with your self hate and belief in sin projected onto it. It actually makes what the world IS appear to be a hellish place.

What the world IS, is nothing more than a simple thin veil of illusions injected in-between you and yourself, or you and Christ and God. Kind of like a wall, or as Jesus calls it "the granite block of sin." It takes on various forms of error, and depicts sin and attack and guilt. But without the meaning of "sinful", "attacking", "guilty" projected onto it, what's left?

The world is really just a thin illusory world, a whisp of smoke, a faint remnant of an idea of separation, and a strange area of nothingness pretending to be something. It does not have any meaning. This is why Jesus tells you that the world you see is a meaningless world which God did not create. It is devoid of meaning, in its false-viewed form, because love is the only real meaning.

As you forgive it, as you lift away guilt from yourself, as you have no sin to project onto it, as you recognize your own innocence, the dark heavy shadow of guilt which makes the world seem SOLID, is lifted away from it. Like a heavy curtain or a thick wall, it thins out and lightens. And eventually without any judgement upon it at all, it is recognized only as a light veil of illusions swirling around.

It is not positive, or negative. It is not alive, or dead. It is not really anything. The world, the veil, being illusions, is nothing at all. It is not loving, it is not holy. It is not even really there. And eventually when Christ Vision is fully accepted it vanishes completely.

Just prior to that, however, you reach "the forgiven world." A forgiven world is always an illusory world, because forgiveness overlooks illusions, not reality. It looks beyond bodies. It looks toward the light. So as you forgive the world you are learning to look past it to the light of the real world. And this causes the world to appear thinner and lighter and less burdened with guilt and the reality of sin.

It should over time look less and less sinful, less and less serious, less and less threatening, less and less solid even. Christ Vision is practically similar to having x-ray vision. It literally bypasses matter, as the spiritual eye can see anywhere and with no regard for distance or obstacles. It is not blinded by perception of form and its sight does not stop at physical surfaces. It is not deceived or blocked by what they appear to be. It sees through them.

As the world becomes forgiven, due to you forgiving yourself, what used to be "world + negativity", becomes "world + holiness". Your holiness or the meaning of love, is projected onto it. It is seen WITH love. This does not make it love, it is still nothing. And in fact this love causes it to disappear even more. But if you do see it still, just short of going home to God, it will appear beautiful and lovely in its sparkling forgiven state.

And so what once seemed like a world of inherent hell, reflecting hell and showing signs of attack and death everywhere, your view or perspective on it changes to one of spiritual love. And from that vantage point of true perception, there is no longer a belief in real sin projected onto it. And being made of sin, it is therefore recognized as fake sin, and not sin at all. The world is simply recognized as false, not sinful. And just as it is about to be seen as a perfect reflection of heaven, it disappears, revealing Christ.

And then you go home.

We know the secret of salvation tells us that we are doing everything to ourselves, but we also need to realize how it applies to others. The only way to correctly grasp how it applies to others, is to recognize you are ONE WITH others. If you are your brother, and your brother is part of you, then anything that applies will apply to BOTH of you simultaneously.

If you are one with them, this gives you new insight into the secret of salvation. If you try to do anything to them, you will realize that you are doing this to yourself. Giving and receiving are one. But also anything THEY try to do "to you", they are also doing to themselves.

This becomes very obvious when you regard them as one with you. If you are one with them, you are a part of them. As part of them, when they do something "to you only", they are also doing it to themselves. The secret of salvation now applies to the part of you that is your brother. Your brother is doing it to themselves. In truth, the secret of salvation isn't just about you doing things to yourself (selfishly), but in fact tells us that EVERYONE DOES EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE.

When you are one, anything that is done is done to both. Everything is shared. Anything you alone give, you also receive. Anything they alone give, they also receive. The two of you are doing everything to the two of you. Anything anyone does is done to the whole sonship. When ego comes along, by which I mean separation, it always results in a sense of NOT being one. We separate off and stop sharing, because ego is about selfishness. This selfishness seems to imply that what I do to another person I DO NOT do to myself. And in turn, what they seem to do to me, they DO NOT do to themselves.

This is the default mode of arguments, fights, annoyances, upsets, reactions, special relationships, and all manner of conflict. It always appears that the other person is separate from you. Therefore, if you are angry at the person you SEEM not to be angry at yourself. If they are angry at you, they SEEM not to be angry at themselves. But this is a breakdown in the truth and is NOT the whole truth.

It is ALWAYS true that anything anyone does, they do to themselves. This is the golden rule, the law of God, and it is not negotiable. It applies to everyone everywhere at all times. Even when you think someone is doing something exclusively to you and not themselves (or others), THEY ARE. If you see yourself as separated off, you WILL NOT see this. You will fail to recognize that they're hurting themselves.

If you are separate from your brother, the TWO of you are separate from each other. You now see anything they do to you as being done ONLY to you, and not to themselves. And vice versa. You won't be able to recognize that anything is shared, and you won't realize that they are actually doing it to themselves as well.

The only way to break out of this is to join minds, share identities, recognize your brother as part of yourself, and be one with them. This means INCLUDING THEM in everything, just as you simultaneously include yourself in everything. Anything that applies, applies to BOTH of you at once.

In this oneness you can immediately see the efforts of the other person to separate off. You can see how when they attack, seeming to attack only you, they ARE also attacking themselves. You can see that YOUR attempted attacks are not only toward them, but also toward yourself. This INCLUSIVENESS is the light in which you can see the whole picture.

Having included your brother within yourself, within the scope of who and what you are, two as one, it becomes effortless, natural, and constant, to remember that everything always applies to BOTH. To you AND the other. Both/And is always the logic of the golden rule, while Either/Or is always the logic of the separation/ego.

Now when your brother appears to try to separate off and attack only you and not themselves, you will know that THEY ARE attacking themselves. They must have attacked themselves first in order to be projecting onto you. You will be open to seeing this. You will be open to recognizing they are hurting just as much as they're trying to make you hurt. You will not fall for the deception that their attack only applies to you, and you will see them as hurting themselves.

This is how you then become able to recognize a "call for love". Only in a SHARED STATE can you recognize the call for love, because you have to be open to the fact that giving and receiving are one. A person is recognized as calling for love when they are trying to DENY the shared state, trying to REJECT the golden rule, and are PRETENDING that it does not apply. When you KNOW it applies, because you ARE APPLYING IT, this will shed great light on the relationship and show you the truth about who is doing what to whom.

A person who seems to attack only you, trying to be excluded from the attack, is now clearly seen to be trying to hurt themselves. You no longer can play the role of victim, or see them as being solely a victimizer. You no longer fall for the attempts to frame you as the sole evil one, and instead you can have compassion as a result of ENCOMPASSING your brother in yourself. Wrapping them in the inclusive truth and seeing them from a perspective of WHOLENESS.

Recognizing your brother is attacking themselves, OBVIOUSLY compels you to a sense of compassion and understanding, and a response of love. The call for love, seen correctly as self-attack, and seen only IN a state of unconditional love (shared interests, joined minds, shared identity), now inspires ONLY LOVE as a response. Since you are already seeing them WITH love, in order TO recognize their call for love, love is all you are giving and receiving. The call for love is answered with love, and sharing is its only function.

Your oneness makes this possible. Your separateness hides it from you. In oneness your shared inclusiveness of your brother puts your arm around them and comforts them. In oneness you see the two of you as equal and as joined. In oneness everything applies to both of you simultaneously. Anything they do they are doing to themselves. Anything you do you are doing to both of you.

In this dynamic it becomes impossible to see yourself or the other as a victim or victimizer, and love becomes the only obvious course of action. Nor can it be TRUE that what they claim about themselves is the truth, because YOU know that in your joined state YOU love both of you. If you know you are both equally loved, and they claim they are unloved, you will recognize their claim is FALSE. And so it does NOT apply to either of you. And in this oneness you are both lifted up by a miracle.

"The only judgment involved at all is in the Holy Spirit's one division into two categories; one of love, and the other, the call for love."

"Each one must share one goal with someone else, and in so doing, lose all sense of separate interests. Only by doing this is it possible to transcend the narrow boundaries the ego would impose upon the self. Only by doing this can teacher and pupil, therapist and patient, you and I, accept Atonement and learn to give it as it was received."

"Those who would learn the same course share one interest and one goal. And thus he who was the learner becomes a teacher of God Himself, for he has made the one decision that gave his teacher to him. He has seen in another person the same interests as his own." "For fear IS a call for love, in unconscious recognition of what has been denied."

"Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your brother what he believes he cannot offer HIMSELF. Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health, is to recognize in hatred the call for love. And to give a brother what he REALLY wants, is to offer it unto yourself. For your Father wills you to know your brother AS yourself. Answer HIS call for love, and YOURS is answered. Healing is the love of Christ for His Father, and for HIMSELF."

"Mistakes are FOR correction. They call for NOTHING ELSE. What calls for punishment, must call for NOTHING. Yet every mistake MUST be a call for love. What, then, is sin? What COULD it be but a mistake you would keep hidden; a call for help that you would keep UNHEARD, and thus UNANSWERED?"

"This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as GOD created it. But YOU think that you HAVE changed it, as long as you learn through the ego. This DOES place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which SEEMS contradictory: you must learn to change your mind ABOUT your mind. Only by this can you learn that it IS changeless."

As God created you, you are actually changeless. You are permanent. You are maintained in God's mind with his thought forever. He wills that you be the same forever.

This means, you cannot change, because you are an effect of God. You are what God wants you to be always. He does not change his mind because he is not uncertain.

"The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky."

Therefore you are permanently as God wants you to be, you are absolute and fixed and unchangeable. You are the everlasting will of God. And it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for any change to ever happen to you.

This means that you cannot change yourself, God does not change you, and nothing else can change you. You literally will continue to be exactly as you were created all the time.

You are still as God created you, now, and now, and now, and now, and now, and now, and still now. You are endlessly as God created you. Every seeming moment you are unchanged.

Being unchanged and unchangeable means you are immortal. This is your fundamental nature. Nothing can threaten you, nothing can hurt you, nothing can attack you, nothing can sin against you, nothing can make you sick or dead, nothing can make you afraid or guilty. You cannot be changed.

In our lives, since we entered into the belief in separateness, we came to believe that change was possible. It was the idea that what was permanent could be made impermanent, that everlasting life could come to an end, and the extension of creation could be stopped.

With the idea of an end, or death, we introduced the idea that you are changeable, you can be changed, you have changed yourself, and therefore you can redefine what you are. This has led to an enormous journey in which you attempt to transform yourself, grow, turn into something, become something, learn and progress.

"First, the assumption is implicit that what God has Created can be changed by the mind of Man.

Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect (or wanting) is intruded.

Third, the belief that man can distort the Creations of God (including himself) has arisen, and is tolerated.

Fourth, that since man can create himself, the direction of his own creation is up to him."

Having entered into a belief in change, we now have to use change for a higher purpose, to change your mind ... toward the recognition ... that there is no change. To change your mind about believing you have changed, or that change is possible, and returning to an awareness that change is impossible and everything is still perfect in God.

This is using change against itself to undo change and reverse change and "change change" so that change is cancelled out. You are not supposed to be on an endless journey of changing yourself, trying to make yourself better, trying to turn into something more, to get more or gain more, or learn stuff. You are actually trying to un-learn all the stuff you've told yourself by mistake.

So in truth we actually are not changeable beings. We are fixed absolute beings. We are more permanent than the rocks and mountains. We are more constant than the stars. We are continual and permanent and endless. Unlimited in our perpetual existence. Nothing can ever bring an end to us.

This is why, in this world, in the world of change, we are supposed to use our minds to change our minds about our minds. To change our minds about whether or not we have been changed. When you believe something has changed you, you must be mistaken. When you believe someone has done something to affect you, you must be mistaken.

Being immortal, you cannot be attacked or hurt, offended or upset, caused to be threatened or afraid, damaged or broken. Nothing in the entire world can have any power over you to do anything at all to alter what God created. What you really are cannot be changed by anyone or anything.

"Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are."

So when it comes to forgiveness, trying to apply forgiveness, you should remember that you are immortal. If you are immortal, how can you have been changed? How can someone have done something to you? How can someone have power over you? How can anything in the world cause you? How can you be hurt or damaged by anyone or anything? How can anyone have upset you?

When you believe that something has changed you, in any way, you yourself are actually undermining your invulnerability. You are believing that you can BE changed, and are then trying to find someone to pin the blame on for causing the change. But it really boils down to whether or not you believe you are being caused by God, or caused by the world. Is God your father, or is the world your father? Who is causing you? Are you an effect of God only, or are you an effect of the world?

If you are immortal then it's not possible to find anyone guilty of doing anything to you. If you are immortal then it can't be true that a given person has upset you or hurt you. If you are immortal then the world can't be to blame for you being upset or angry or annoyed or in grief or loss or pain is misery. If you are immortal, your body cannot be doing something against your will.

When you recognize your permanent fixed nature, you are being very strong. You are asserting your invulnerability. If you are continually the same, then nothing in the world of change can throw you off balance or upset your applecart or disturb your peace, because you are rock solid. You are consistently and constantly the same. Change is the enemy. The belief in change is a mistake. And recognizing your changeless is your doorway to eternal life.

"The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within."

"In the holy instant, nothing happens that has not always been. Only the veil, that has been drawn ACROSS reality, is lifted. Nothing has changed. But the AWARENESS of changelessness comes swiftly, as the veil of time is pushed aside."

"Different realities ARE meaningless, for reality MUST be one. It CANNOT change with time, or mood, or chance. Its changelessness is WHAT MAKES IT REAL."

"But truth is humble in acknowledging its mightiness, its changelessness and its eternal wholeness, all-encompassing, God's perfect gift to His beloved Son."

"In perfect sureness of Its changelessness and of Its rest in Its eternal home, the Thought God holds of you has never left the Mind of Its Creator, Whom It knows as Its Creator knows that It is there."

"What is in him is changeless, and YOUR changelessness is recognized in its acknowledgment."

"The Christ revealed to you NOW has no past, for He is changeless. AND IN HIS CHANGELESSNESS LIES YOUR RELEASE. For if He is as He was created, there IS no guilt in Him. No cloud of guilt has risen to obscure Him, and He stands revealed in everyone you meet, because you see Him through HIMSELF."

"It is impossible that God lose His identity, for if He did, YOU WOULD LOSE YOURS. And BEING yours, He cannot change Himself, for your identity IS changeless. The miracle ACKNOWLEDGES His changelessness, by seeing His Son as he always was, and NOT as he would make himself."

If you know what the secret to the magic trick is, you know that there is not really any magic happening. But if something is hidden, if there is information missing, it becomes possible to enter into an alternative state of awareness - a state of deception and misperception.

In that state, where you don't know that information is missing, or that something is hidden, you believe that you're seeing the whole truth. You therefore make sense of it, and it seems to be what it is, based on its appearance. You think you're seeing the truth because you think you are seeing fully.

But if you are not seeing the whole of the information, and some information is hidden, you aren't seeing the real truth. So when you then believe that you are, you're inside a hallucination.

In other words, you're seeing meaning where there is none, you're convinced you're awake but you're not, you're certain you are making complete sane sense out of what's happening but you're mistaken, and you don't even realize that you're nuts.

This state of insanity is automatically a state of imagining truth where there is none - a hallucination of the truth, which is a state of believing the truth is something it is not.

Puzzles are another good example. When you first encounter a new puzzle, you do not see the answer. It seems obscure, hidden. At first you are confused, and you don't understand it, and it makes no sense, and you can't "see" how it is possible. And yet it seems to be possible that the unsolved state of the puzzle is truth, because you see no way to solve it or see additional truth beyond that. But over time, as you question your perception, you gradually might realize that by undoing your own assumptions and reversing your own conclusions, i.e. collapsing the hallucination, the answer suddenly becomes obvious.

Once you have solved the puzzle, it's because you've seen some information, really a state of greater awareness, which has burst the illusion and suddenly you are seeing outside of it. You are no longer fooled, you've found the answer, it seems clear as day and now you kick yourself for the apparent stupidity of having not seen it earlier. In other words, you realize you were mistaken the whole time and its pretty embarrassing.

Bringing this around to A Course in Miracles, it is the same with the "illusion" that this world is a reality. There is an illusion here, in front of your face, which if you were able to see ALL of it clearly, you'd see past the hallucinations and the misinterpretations and the misunderstandings, and suddenly realize, in a state of greater awareness, that what you THOUGHT was true before, was actually false. And you'll understand why. Because now you have revealed some kind of awareness of information that was hidden before, and this information is vital to being able to see the illusion correctly. Ie to overlook the deception, to overlook the delusion and insanity, which was telling you that all kinds of other stuff was true.

So right now, unless you're in full awareness, you're still inside what seems to be a puzzle. And because there's some stuff you are blocking from awareness, there's some information you are not privy to. And because of that limitation, and because you don't even know that the extra information exists yet, you believe that you're seeing the entire truth as it appears to you. That's in spite of the fact that you're only seeing part of a scene, are coming to false conclusions, are seeing "truths" which actually aren't quite true, and are therefore having hallucinations about the meaning of what you see.

You see a dark shadow behind a door, and because you lack information - awareness of "God facts" - in your belief that you are seeing correctly you believe that "its true" that there is a scary monster behind the door. However, if you turn on the light, which reveals to your awareness extra information, now it becomes obvious it was just clothing, and you once again kick yourself for falling for the silly belief that there was a real monster there. But before that, you really believed there was a real monster, and you were therefore frightened. Frightened by an hallucination - a false belief about the truth.

When there is enough awareness of "what is here", of what this illusion IS, its structure and purpose and functioning, and the ways that it deceives, it is no longer possible to believe the magic trick. You've seen through and past all of the mistaken perceptions which you thought were showing you reality.

All of the horrifying mis-truths that you believed in, such as that sin and death were real, are revealed to be completely false. All of the reasons you ever had to be afraid, suddenly have no foundation whatsoever because the truth emerges and shows you that the things you thought were frightening were not TRUE, they were delusions and hallucinated meanings, and thankfully there is a larger explanation for them. When you don't understand what is happening or why its happening, it will scare you, because the illusory truth it presents makes it seem real. When a correct explanation is given, you're like, oh... okay then. Then you drop the false belief, with relief that you no longer have a valid reason to be afraid.

So a blockage placed on awareness leads you to believing that the meaning of reality is obscured, the truth no longer quite makes sense but still seems true, you see things IN and ON TOP OF the illusion that are not even really there (thereby hallucinating), and the sense that you make of it is actually a deception. When the blockage to awareness is lifted, you can no longer be deceived. It's like hearing the punchline to the joke, and never again can you hear the joke and have quite as much of a laugh because you know the answer. Knowing the real answer, the real truth, is revealed by awareness.

So here's a question. If there is a grand illusion of a physical universe, a world, and a body, and if the only reason that you believe you're even seeing them is because you are lacking awareness, then doesn't it suggest that if you had enough awareness, you might suddenly see past that illusion and realize the world does not even really exist? It was just a kind of twisting of consciousness, a distortion, which you could only experience while insane and hallucinating? Maybe the world you thought existed was your misinterpretation of reality, and only existed as a hallucination based on a lack of awareness. Maybe there is no world.

Jesus said in relation to seeing through illusions, "What is understood as nothing must disappear."

and

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it. "!!

It's not just that there really is an illusion. It's only even an illusion because you believe there is one. Really, you are just misperceiving reality. That misperception shows you an illusion that there is a world. Once the puzzle is seen through and the truth is revealed, you will no longer be able to perceive that there really is a world. You will not believe it. You will recognize it was just an illusion, and nothing about it was ever really true. Like a dream. Not a real dream, but a dream-dream.

Form, matter, bodies, the universe, events, people, places, sins, guilts, death, sickness, it's all an illusion, a deception that APPEARS TO MAKE SENSE or appears to be real and true, ONLY because we lack awareness, and ONLY be cause there is some hidden information. When all is revealed, all of these illusions must disappear into the perfect omnipresent light of God, in which they DO NOT EXIST.

In reality, the world does not exist. We're dreaming it, hallucinating it, imagining it, reading into it, and are TRYING to make it a reality. It's just what you get when you haven't solved the puzzle yet, because the truth is obscured. When the truth is revealed, it will be obvious that there isn't really a world there. It was part of the puzzle while you fell for it. And now that the light has come, it is gone.

Lesson 75, "The light has come":

"The light has come. You are healed and you can heal. The light has come. You are saved and you can save. You are at peace, and you bring peace with you wherever you go. Darkness and turmoil and death have disappeared. The light has come. Today we celebrate the happy ending to your long dream of disaster. There are no dark dreams now. The light has come. Today the time of light begins for you and everyone. " - ACIM

To put your money where your mouth is, requires that you step up and DEMONSTRATE the truth, by showing in PHYSICAL FORM, PROOF AND EVIDENCE, that what you believe you REALLY believe, it cannot be refuted, and no-one can deny it. We have to learn to SHOW what we have learned.

I love this list of demonstration-related quotes, because it really speaks to how we are to SHOW people that the truth is true through PHYSICAL manifestations of miracles. Jesus providing there is no death by resurrecting the body, is the ultimate example.

ACIM:

"The resurrection of the world awaits your healing and your happiness, that you may DEMONSTRATE the healing of the world."

"Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It DEMONSTRATES God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad and seen as traitor to Himself."

"The world recedes as we light up our minds, and realize these holy words are true. They are the message sent to us today from our Creator. Now we DEMONSTRATE how they have changed our minds about ourselves and what our function is. For as we prove that we accept no will we do not share, our many gifts from our Creator will spring to our sight and leap into our hands, and we recognize what we received."

"This does Atonement teach, and DEMONSTRATES the oneness of God’s Son is unassailed by his belief he knows not what he is."

"Sickness would prove that lies must be the truth. But healing DEMONSTRATES that truth is true."

"So healing, never needed by the truth, must DEMONSTRATE that sickness is not real."

"Healing is freedom. For it DEMONSTRATES that dreams will not prevail against the truth. Healing is shared. And by this attribute it proves that laws unlike the ones which hold that sickness is inevitable are more potent than their sickly opposites."

"It is this fact which DEMONSTRATES that time is an illusion."

"Concepts maintain the world. But they can not be used to DEMONSTRATE the world is real. For all of them are made within the world, born in its shadow, growing in its ways, and finally "maturing" in its thought."

"The miracle is means to DEMONSTRATE that all appearances can change because they are appearances, and cannot have the changelessness reality entails. The miracle attests salvation from appearances by SHOWING they can change."

"The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form, because it can so easily be CHANGED. This DEMONSTRATES that it was never real, and could not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change."

"Like EVERY lesson that the Holy Spirit requests you learn, the miracle is clear. It DEMONSTRATES what He would have you learn, and SHOWS you its effects are what you WANT. In its forgiving dream, are the EFFECTS of yours undone, and hated enemies perceived as friends, with merciful intent."

"Pain DEMONSTRATES the body must be real. It is a loud, obscuring voice, whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness. Pain compels attention, drawing it away from Him, and focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means TO MAKE THE BODY REAL."

"Health is the witness unto health. As long as it is unattested, it remains without conviction. Only when DEMONSTRATED has it BEEN proved, and MUST compel belief. No-one is healed through double messages. If you wish ONLY to be healed, you heal. Your single PURPOSE makes this possible. But if you are AFRAID of healing, then it cannot come through you. The ONLY thing that is required for a healing is a lack of fear. The fearful are NOT healed, and cannot heal. This does NOT mean the conflict must be gone forever from your mind. For if it were, there were no NEED for healing anymore. But it DOES mean, if only for an instant, you love without attack. An instant is sufficient. Miracles wait not on time."

"The holy instant is the miracle’s abiding-place. From there, each one is born into this world, as witness to a state of mind which has TRANSCENDED conflict, and has reached to peace. It carries comfort from the place of peace into the battle-ground, and DEMONSTRATES that war has no effects. For all the hurt that war has sought to bring; the broken bodies and the shattered limbs, the screaming dying and the silent dead, are gently lifted up and comforted. There IS no sadness, where a miracle has come to heal. And nothing more than just ONE instant of your love WITHOUT attack is necessary, that all this occur."

"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to DEMONSTRATE they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt?

Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the PROOF that they were merely errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect."

"God gives no special favors, and no one has any powers that are not available to everyone. Only by tricks of magic are special powers "demonstrated."" (talking about psychic powers/magic vs miracles)

"Healing is always certain. It is impossible to let illusions be brought to truth and keep the illusions. Truth DEMONSTRATES illusions have no value."

"When this occurs, the body becomes its weapon, used AGAINST this Purpose to DEMONSTRATE the "fact" that separation HAS occurred."

"The holy instant is the shining example, the clear and unequivocal DEMONSTRATION of the meaning of EVERY relationship, and EVERY situation SEEN AS A WHOLE."

"This power INSTANTLY transforms ALL situations into one sure and continuous means for ESTABLISHING His purpose, and DEMONSTRATING its reality. What has been DEMONSTRATED has called for faith, and has been GIVEN it. Now it becomes a fact, from which faith can no longer BE withheld."

"Concern yourselves not with the EXTENSION of holiness, for the nature of miracles you do NOT understand. Nor do you DO them. It is their extension, far beyond the limits you perceive, that DEMONSTRATES you did not do them."

"Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible, and what has been learned can be recognized only by its RESULTS. Its GENERALIZATION is DEMONSTRATED as you use it in more and more situations."

"That is why the recognition of your OWN invulnerability is so important in the restoration of your sanity. For if you accept your invulnerability, you are recognizing that attack HAS no effect. Although you have attacked yourself, and very brutally, you will DEMONSTRATE that NOTHING HAPPENED. Therefore, by attacking, you have NOT DONE ANYTHING."

" Thereby you teach yourself that fear does not exist IN YOU, for you have in YOURSELF, the means for removing it, and have DEMONSTRATED this by GIVING it."

"To teach the WHOLE Sonship WITHOUT EXCEPTION DEMONSTRATES that you PERCEIVE ITS WHOLENESS and have learned that it IS One."

"If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind must be STRONGER. Every miracle DEMONSTRATES this."

"That is because the Holy Spirit IS one, and anyone who listens is inevitably led to DEMONSTRATE His way for ALL."

"The ego cannot withstand the conditioning process, because the process itself DEMONSTRATES that there is another way."

"My trust in you is greater than yours in me at the moment, but it will not always be that way. Your mission is very simple. You have been chosen to live so as to DEMONSTRATE that You are NOT an ego."

"We said before that the purpose of the Resurrection was to "DEMONSTRATE that no amount of misperception has any influence at all on a Son of God." This DEMONSTRATION EXONERATES those who misperceive, by establishing beyond doubt that they have NOT hurt anyone. "

"The Resurrection DEMONSTRATED that NOTHING can destroy truth. Good can withstand ANY form of evil, because light abolishes ALL forms of darkness. The Atonement is thus the perfect lesson. It is the final demonstration that all of the other lessons which I taught are true."

"Death is a human affirmation of a belief in hate. That is why the Bible says "There is no death," and that is why I DEMONSTRATED that death does not exist."

It's important to realize the role of the Holy Spirit. We have A Course in Miracles, a book, which has teachings and theory and lessons and so on. And you could conclude this means all you need to do is use the book. But there are two things much bigger than the book.

1. The universal curriculum, is the plan of atonement, which applies to everyone in the universe regardless of backgrounds or beliefs or life experiences or religions, even if they've never heard of ACIM. Everything that happens, all lessons, all encounters, are orchestrated for a purpose of atonement. This goes way beyond the book. It includes everything that happens every day.

2. The Holy Spirit is God's literal answer to the separation. His function is not only to maintain an unbreakable bridge between your wandering mind and the Christ mind, guaranteeing that you will come home. He also is a healer, therapist, teacher, guide, helper, comforter, and friend. His presence isn't like some person sitting at the top of a mountain waiting for you to go up there to join him. He has an active function.

He is there to help you. He has been appointed to you, given to you, added to you. He is not just some principle or concept. He doesn't just sit there shining a light and asking you to join him. He actively comes INTO your dreaming mind. He can extend through the body. He can heal the body. He can perform miracles - he is the mechanism of miracles.

He enables you to do things which are so supernatural they are clearly not of this world and break all the laws of space and time and physics. He is the way by which Moses parted the oceans, and the way by which Jesus raised the dead. He can come into your body, into your emotions, into your thinking. He can influence you, direct you, guide you, even literally speak through your mouth. He can move your limbs. He tells you very specifically what to do. He counsels you and advises you and corrects you and steers you in the right direction.

He has the power to reverse death and sickness and all forms of suffering. He is a living spirit, with a mind, a Holy Spirit, able to literally guarantee the correction of every illusion, every form of mental or physical illness, to reverse death, and ultimately to completely undo the separation. He is the initiator of the atonement, he has the power to part oceans and to move mountains. There is nothing he cannot do.

So as we go forth working with the course, doing lessons and studying and discussing and so on, we really should be trying to get in touch with and develop trust in the Holy Spirit as much as possible. We need to be having a daily relationship with him. To talk to him, to ask questions, to have conversations. We need to be listening to and following his guidance with trust. We need to be allowing him to heal us and to heal through us, even physically.

The Holy Spirit is the power by which the disciples of Jesus go out to be physicians of the lord, healing the sick, casting out "evil spirits", raising the dead and so on. He was made accessible to all people when Jesus ascended, to stand in for Jesus and to be a way by which we can all express the same miraculous powers that Jesus demonstrated. We are to be livened and infused with him. Lifted up by him.

He is the power by which our physical bodies are supposed to be healed, for all signs of sickness and death and attack to be undone and reversed, so that He can use our bodies as "living examples" of harmlessness, symbolic eternal life, aliveness and health. To use our bodies to communicate the only thing that he can communicate - healing. We are to share his function with him on earth, which is healing. We are to be healers, using him and working with him to heal through us to help others be alleviated of suffering and darkness.

So the Holy Spirit is really super important. More important than the book. The book is only a beginning and a major goal is to put you in touch with and develop trust in the Holy Spirit so that he can continue to be your Teacher going forward, to continue to develop your miracle working abilities and to strength and support you. We are supposed to be using this help that God has sent to us, which absolutely means not doing everything yourself, not thinking of it as a "self study", opening ourselves up to rely on, depend on and trust the support of this living being that has been sent to guide us home.

It is our task to listen ONLY to the Voice for God and not to the ego.

"What the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world."

"The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

"The Holy Spirit can use ALL that you give to Him for your salvation."

"The Holy Spirit is the Bringer of Revelations"

"Power is of God, GIVEN by Him, and re-awakened by the Holy Spirit"

"When you hear the Holy Spirit, you merely feel BETTER, because loving seems POSSIBLE to you."

"Christ's Second Coming gives the Son of God the gift to hear the Voice for God proclaim that what is false is false, and what is true has never changed."

"Whatever your appointed role may be it was selected by the Voice for God"

"Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God and for your Self when you retire from the world, to seek reality instead."

"Be very still, and hear the gentle Voice for God assuring you"

"If you cannot hear the voice of God, it is because you do not choose to listen. "

"He will direct you VERY specifically. "

"Ask Him very specifically: "What would You have me do?" "Where would You have me go?" "What would You have me say, and to whom?" Give Him full charge"

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS."

"The happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings"

"Healing IS the Holy Spirit's form of communication, and the ONLY one He knows."

"Healing is the change of mind that the Holy Spirit in the patient's mind is seeking for him. And it is the Holy Spirit in the mind of the giver Who gives the gift to him."

"There is a way in which the Holy Spirit asks YOUR help, if you would have HIS."

"We have said that the Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracles."

"Right-mindedness listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world"

"To you who still believe you live in time, and know not it is gone, the Holy Spirit still guides you through the infinitely small and senseless maze you still perceive in time, though it has long since gone."

"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you only through the witnesses who speak for it. For you can be AWARE of what you cannot see, and it can become compellingly real to you, as its presence becomes manifest THROUGH you. Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."

"Say to yourselves the following, as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace.

I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.

I WILL to decide otherwise, because I WANT to be at peace.

I do NOT feel guilty, because ***the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.***

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

When we are introduced to this world, it is through false perception. That means we SEEM to "see it with" the body's eyes, and we believe the body's way of seeing. And the body shows us the world of form, which is cruel and dark and a place of death.

We do not even realize our mind is in any way making, or interpreting, how the world is. We observe. We see its suffering and carnage. And we decide the world is an inherently bad place.

Jesus then tells us:

"The world is false perception".

"The world IS perception."

"There is no world apart from what you wish"

"Projection makes perception."

What this suggests is, when your mind is in a dark attitude, it projects a world which it simultaneously perceives as a dark place. And when the mind is in a light attitude, it projects a world which is simultaneously perceived as a light place.

What it also suggests is, there IS no world, beyond your mind's dreaming and projecting of one. Ie the world is in your mind. And Jesus agrees to that.

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

"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that. But, though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you, it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive."

What this tells us is there is not really an objective world. The world doesn't exist without someone dreaming of it, in their mind.

It may appear, conceptually, that there is a neutral, meaningless world, like a mirror, waiting for you to project whatever kind of images you want onto. And it might suggest this neutral world is a receiver of either your dark projections or your light projections. And that you see this darkness or light "in" "it" accordingly.

But He is also telling us that at no time does the body or world exist. That it is an hallucination.

"Perception is a result, not a cause."

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seem to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are wholly unreal?"

"Hallucinations serve to meet the goal of madness. They are the means by which the outside world, projected from within, adjusts to sin, and seems to witness to its reality. ***It still is true that nothing is without.*** Yet, upon nothing, are ALL projections made. For it is the PROJECTION which gives the "nothing" all the meaning that it holds. ***What has no meaning, cannot BE perceived.*** And meaning always looks within, to find itself. And THEN looks out. ***All meaning that you give the world outside, must thus reflect the sight you saw within.*** Or better, if you saw at all, or merely judged against."

You look within your mind first, and then you project. And what you see, is only what you have projected, because projection MAKES what you perceive, and perceiving is the RESULT of what you projected.

Therefore you see only "a world" "out there" because you are projecting it inside your mind. It is not really out there at all. It is nothing. There is nothing to project onto. Only what you project AS.

This tells you essentially that the world you see in false perception, when your mind is dark, when you look within and see darkness, and then project it outward for perceiving, is seen ONLY in the dark of mind.

And this tells you that, essentially, there is ANOTHER WORLD, another "version" of a world, unlike what you saw in false perception, which is seen in light. It is seen only by looking within, seeing the light of Christ, and then projecting outward as Christ Vision. That "real world" has no resemblance to the world of false perception.

In fact, because there is no objective world, and you maintain it entirely in your mind, and because your mental attitude "tunes you out" of one world and "into" another, the Holy Spirit's happy dream, seeing one makes you unable to see the other.

"This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."

"Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you IS unequal. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began."

It's kind of like saying, when you are in a bad mood, you project a hellish version of a planet Earth. When you are in a good mood, you project the real world, which contains no forms, no suffering, no sickness, no death. They are like tuning into different TV stations. Investment in the spiritual eye weakens investment in the physical sight.

"Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos."

The world, which we call Earth, seems to exist only so long as we dream of it. A forgiven world, is how Earth appears to be when seen through forgiving eyes. It is not the real world, because in the real world there are no forms. But it may appear close.

Earth is a veil, hanging in front of the real world, and must be seen through to the light. This is what Christ Vision does, overlooking the world. And eventually this veil lifts entirely to reveal the real world/face of Christ in its fullness. And in this Vision, the world - Earth, is completely forgotten, and disappears from sight entirely.

"This world of idols is a veil across the face of Christ, because its purpose is to separate your brother from yourself."

"Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world."

"the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ."

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."

The Earth, hell, the forgiven world, the real world even, are all dreams in your mind. The real world offers you an entirely different outlook, vision, and something to look at, beyond the world of bodies and sin.

"This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. "

"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all."

"No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him. But while he still lays value on his own, he will DENY the vision of the other world, maintaining that he loves WHAT HE LOVES NOT, and following not the road that love points out."

"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. "

"When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision?"

"Damnation is your judgment on YOURSELF. And this you WILL project upon the world. See it as damned, and all you see is what you did to hurt the Son of God. If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him. If you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free. There is no choice that lies between these two decisions. And you will see the witness to the choice you made, and learn from this to RECOGNIZE the one you made. The world you see but shows you how much joy YOU have allowed yourself to see in you, and to accept as YOURS. And, if this IS its meaning, then the power to GIVE it joy MUST lie WITHIN you."

"You HAVE been wrong about the world, because you have misjudged YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point, what COULD you see? All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would JUDGE reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does NOT depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind, and enter into the world He holds out to you in love."