"The mind, being sane, heals the body."

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

"Sickness is a defense agains the truth."

"If you arrest the extension of the mind, it fosters separation and induces illness."

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

When the mind is whole, it is undivided, of one will, has no conflict and its perceptual content is wholeness. Wholeness is love, and love is mental health. This wholeness brings perfect peace because there is no conflict.

When the mind starts to entertain ideas of inequality, difference, separation, specialness, attack etc, the mind itself becomes split. It forms one area which seems to house your idea of "holy and pure" and another area is sectioned off to house "sinful and evil".

While one part of the mind is believing that e.g. "I am the innocent one" and another part of the mind is believing "they are the guilty one", this literally requires YOUR mind, all within itself, to maintain BOTH states. And this means your mind is now having a war with itself. It is conflicted, its will is split against itself, and there is therefore a disturbance of peace.

This lack of equality, this disruption of peace, is dis-ease, turmoil, stress and suffering. It is a state of mental illness. A mind that believes the truth is different for you and others, is trying to maintain multiple truths at once. One truth for you, and one truth for everyone else. This inevitably is a conflicted state where the mind is just all over the place in contradiction.

The result simply is mental illness, ie lack of health and sanity, which is also a lack of wholeness. This means the mind is attacking itself, having a private war. This war may well be projected onto the world or others, but it is a war with yourself, which the secret of salvation reveals.

The thing is, this inner conflict, produces an outward picture of an inward condition. And the result is that this mental self attack attacks the body and the world. This produces distortions, which manifest as PHYSICAL sickness.

"Sickness is anger taken out upon the body."

While the mind is sick, it FORCES the body to represent that sickness, because the body is ALWAYS a symbol in a dream. It symbolizes whatever the mind believes is true. When the mind is believing in self attack, it pictures itself as an attacked illusion, a body image, which depicts the attack through the materialization or production of physical symptoms.

A mind which is heavily in conflict with itself, is attempting to destroy itself. It projects this onto or AS the body, and the body now shows up MATCHING the state of mind. It correlates. "The mind makes this decision, as it makes EVERY decision responsible for the condition of the body."

Just as "a damaged body is proof the mind has not been healed", "a sane mind heals the body." Never is the body truly healthy when the mind is sick, and never is the body capable of being sick OR dead if the mind is healthy. A healthy mind PROJECTS a healthy undefiled body image. A sick mind projects a damaged, suffering, aging, weak and sick body, and eventually a dead one. The body is the PROOF of what you're trying to communicate to yourself and others.

This boils down to a very simple mechanic.

Healthy mind, healthy body.

Sick mind, sick body.

This always applies, even if it is not apparent. Even if the attack doesn't seem to have obvious symptoms. That DEATH occurs eventually is a SYMPTOM of mental illness.

If you want to be free from death and free from sickness, your mind needs to be healed to the point where it no longer is at war with ITSELF, and thus has no inner conflict, no inequality, no belief in multiple truths, and therefore is not disturbed or distortable. A SANE mind heals the body, because "a sick body makes no sense."

Any form of physical sickness IS PROOF of a defense against the truth. ALL physical sickness is a defense agains the truth, indicating the presence of denial. This denial is an attempt NOT to awaken. ie

"All forms of sickness (physical or otherwise), even unto death, are PHYSICAL EXPRESSIONS of the fear of awakening."

That all encompassing statement is hard to refuse. EVEN death is merely a state of denial, an attempt to AVOID the truth. Which indicates just how unnatural death is and why it is not supposed to be happening, not even at the body level.

"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received (it will show up as HEALED), and by its health (HEALED!) and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live.""

"The power of witness COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him. Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him (REQUIRES PHYSICAL HEALING!). And in its healing (BODY HEALING!) can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak ****with power greater than a thousand tongues***. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing (WHICH CAUSES YOUR BODY TO HEAL AS WELL!) show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."

ie, your healed body PROVES to your brother, teaches him, demonstrates to him, with a power greater than a thousand tongues, with CONVICTION, that HE CANNOT HAVE SINNED because there ARE NO EFFECTS OF ATTACK in your body. Your body becomes a device by which to PROVE the innocence of your brother and thus HEAL HIS MIND. He cannot believe in his own sinfulness if he cannot find evidence for its effects in YOUR body image. Your HEALING IS HIS HEALING! Your demonstration of harmlessness weakness HIS belief in HIS sickness.

****"And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."****

"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?"

***"A miracle of healing (MENTAL AND PHYSICAL) proves that separation is WITHOUT effect."***

Know this. It is not possible to objectively and neutrally try to determine what the truth is, using the ego, without avoiding the truth.

There is no 'innocently seeking for the answer'. There is no mode that you can be in where you are not in some way contributing to the situation.

So either you are seeking the ego's truth, which makes the problem worse, or you are accepting God's truth, which undoes the problem. There is no other choice.

There is no time where you can just be neutrally looking at the situation and working on finding an answer, as though that 'activity' isn't actually a part of the problem, or that it is having no effect on the situation. You are choosing for or against God all the time.

This is why in quantum physics the heisenberg principle shows that if you observe something you change it. The ego mind is not capable of neutrality, it is only capable of PROJECTING and then 'perceiving' what it projected (projection makes perception).

There are no neutral thoughts. And that means, there are no neutral BELIEFS. Beliefs are thoughts or collections of thoughts. Attitudes.

Either you believe in the ego's truth, which is a lie, or you believe in God's truth.

Knowing you cannot 'deal' with the problem without making it worse, which truth do you choose? Do you keep trying to solve a problem, by adding to it, or do you step back and detach and surrender?

If someone told you that you couldn't go into the water to save a drowning animal without disturbing the water such that it would seal the animal's fate, what would you do?

Every attempt you make to solve ego problems adds to them.

There has to be a better way.

Everything in the Course makes so much more sense to me now that I see there are MANY INDIVIDUALS in God's creation.

1) Recognizing that you and your BROTHER each have your own mind and your own free will

2) Recognizing that bodies were made to ISOLATE you from your brother

3) Recognizing that healing and miracles take place when you JOIN with your brother

4) Recognizing that what you thought applied only to yourself applies to BOTH of you (golden rule)

5) Recognizing that atonement is chosen be EACH brother individually and you therefore become PART OF the atonement plan to help OTHER brothers

6) Recognizing that miracles are a maximal service you can render A BROTHER, because there are others

7) Recognizing that there is not just one dreamer of the dream and therefore you can wake up while others sleep.

8) Recognizing that you have a self - a soul, which DOES exist, and you DO have a self, and your self IS NOT the ego.

9) Recognizing Holy Relationships - you have to HAVE a brother to have a relationship WITH.

10) Recognizing that YOU have a choice for which you are 100% responsible and to whom nothing happens without your choosing.

So many of the course's teachings RELY on the recognition or multiple brothers. It's got NOTHING to do with the illusion of multiplicity of egos or the separation of bodies. Every teaching becomes FAR clearer and makes much more sense when it very naturally acknowledges that OTHER PEOPLE have their own soul, mind, will, freedom, choice, path, awakening, atonement, lessons, etc.

How we ever could have taken on board the idea of us all being just one big blob with multiple personality disorder is quite bizarre really, and we did it in the name of thinking this was more spiritual.

Here in ACIM Jesus talks about the devil. He describes it is another other than our own self denial and what we do to ourselves. He makes it clear, it is not an external power. It is nothing other than our own egotism. By this reasoning, "the devil" as a distinct entity does not exist. It is another word for your own denial of God, which you have full power to undo.

This is in direct contradiction to Christianity.

"The devil is a frightening concept ONLY because he is thought of as extremely powerful and extremely active. He is perceived as a force in combat with God, battling Him for possession of Souls. He deceives by lies, and builds kingdoms of his own, in which everything is in direct opposition to God. Yet, he ATTRACTS men rather than repels them, and they are perceived as willing to "sell" him their Souls in return for gifts they KNOW are of no real worth at all.

This makes absolutely no sense. The whole picture is one in which man acts in a way he HIMSELF realizes is self destructive, but which he does NOT WILL to correct, and therefore perceives the cause as beyond his control."

-&-

"The mind can make the belief in Separation VERY real and VERY fearful. And this belief IS the devil. It is powerful, active, destructive, and clearly in opposition to God, because it literally denies His Fatherhood. Never underestimate power of this denial. Look at your lives and see what the devil has made. But KNOW that this making will surely dissolve in the light of truth, because its foundation IS a lie."

-&-

"Attacking misidentification errors is neither MY function nor YOURS. Destroying the devil is a meaningless undertaking. "

-&-

"Lucifer" could be literally translated "Light Bearer". He literally PROJECTED himself from Heaven. Projection still has this "hurling" connotation, because it involves hurling something you DO NOT want, and regard as dangerous and frightening, to someone else. This is the opposite of the Golden Rule, and having placed this rule upside down, the reverse of miracles, or projection, follows automatically."

-&-

"After all, Lucifer fell, but he was still an angel. He is thus the symbol for man. Atonement is the knowledge that the belief that angels can fall is false. It is true that mind can create projections as well as miracles, but it's NOT true that projections are REAL."

-&-

"The "Princes of this World" are princes only because they are really angels. But they are free to establish their kingdom where they see fit."

"The only VALID use of sex is procreation. It is NOT truly pleasurable in itself. "Lead us not into Temptation" means "Do not let us deceive ourselves into believing that we can relate in peace to God or our brothers with ANYTHING external."

"For minds NEED not the body to communicate. The sight that SEES the body, has no use which serves the purpose of a holy relationship."

Look at this from the perspective of spirit. You as spirit have a mind and you can communicate, ie commune with, any other person in full. You can completely immerse yourself in someone and be one with them. This joining is so full and unconditional and meaningful that there is nothing else more satisfying or enjoyable. It is "truly pleasurable". "All true pleasure comes from doing God's will."

Then consider what the body is. "The body is a limit on love." "It was made to limit you." So now the body is regarded as this very crude device which filters out relationship, blinds you to false perceptions, and makes illusions real. "Only the body makes the world seem real."

"The body's eyes are not the means by which the real world can be seen."

So take it from the vantage point of a highly spiritual person. This person is able to FULLY relate to another person in total love and union. They share everything that can be truly shared. If one of them was to say, okay, let's not relate like this, let's instead narrow down our relating, stick ourselves inside limiting little bodies, narrow down our perception to where we can't even see each other, rub our bodies up against each other, and see if that's an improvement. ... do you think they will be able to find the same degree of oneness? Of course not.

The body does not ADD anything to the relationship capabilities of spirit. "Think not the world can add anything to the power and glory of God and his holy sons." It does not IMPROVE how you relate to others, it just gets in the way. It's almost like taking an universal unlimited infinite being and trying to shove it inside a dark closed box and expecting it to be enjoy being disabled, impaired, shut down, limited and restricted.

This is why Jesus is saying that the only proper use of the body is for procreation. The body is a biological device and it has reproductive organs, ie a method for self-replication (separation), as all organisms do. Whether it be cell division or male/female relationships, the process here is physical. The only VALID BIOLOGICAL FUNCTION of the reproductive system is to reproduce. It is to function to inseminate and impregnate and produce a baby body. That is its only valid physical purpose.

When you look from the vantage point of enlightened spirit, therefore, a mind which does not NEED a body to communicate fully with another person, and who recognizes that the body will just NARROW their relationship, such a person will have no interest in using the body for "casual sex." Who would choose to restrain themselves and limit their ability to perceive and be with another, in the name of "intimacy"? You can be MORE intimate without the the body than with it. The body just gets in the way.

Furthermore Jesus recognizes and tells us that if you focus on the body in any way, you make the separation real. If you focus on, or EVEN SEE, the body of your brother, you are moving into the ego and into separation and sin.

"Your mind and his ARE joined in brotherhood. His body and his dreams but SEEM to make a little gap, where yours have joined with his. And yet, between your MINDS there IS no gap. To join his dreams is thus to meet him NOT, because his dreams would SEPARATE from you."

"As long as you believe that, to be with a body, is companionship, you will be COMPELLED to attempt to keep your brother IN his body, HELD THERE BY GUILT."

Focusing on bodies joining in any way, makes the separation real. It makes you body identified and produces and ego. It is a state of mental illness. To fixate on your brother's BODY causes you NOT TO SEE HIM.

"Who sees a brother's body has laid a JUDGMENT on him, and sees him not. He does not REALLY see him as sinful; he does not see him at all. In the darkness of sin, he is INVISIBLE."

So Jesus is basically saying, in order for your mind to be sane, and in order for you to be in holy relationship, and in order for you to not make the separation real, and not mis-identify yourself and your brother as a body, and not SEPARATE, you cannot relate to your brother AS a body or on the level of the body. If you have any desire about it, lust for it, adoration of it, affection for its sensations, a valuing of its pleasures and pains etc, then you are in fact mis-using the body for ego purposes.

The only valid use of the body then is for the purposes of the holy spirit, which lifts AWAY from it any purposes it served before. That includes purposes of making bodies real, trying to become one with a physical object, trying to join physically and attempting to gain artificial pleasure. When the mind is sane it has no real use for the body. It does not use the body to get anything, nor does it believe anything the body's eyes see, nor anything its senses report. It steps back and regards the body as having NO FUNCTION.

"It is still true that the body has no function of itself. "

"Healing is the result of using the body SOLELY for communication."

"Your brother's body is as little use to you as it is to him. When it is used ONLY as the Holy Spirit teaches, it has no function."

"It is the dream in which the body functions perfectly, having no function except communication. "

In this state where the body is healed by the mind, the mind extends PAST the body and does not STOP at the body. This means the mind is supposed to OVERLOOK the body, which is the function of forgiveness.

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

"Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not."

So Jesus is quite literally saying that if you focus on and see and interact with bodies at all you are coming from unforgiveness and ego, making separation real, and using the body for attack which induces sickness.

If a healed mind in a healed body remains, then it is possible at that level to use the body ONLY for communication, which actually bypasses the body itself and ignores it. This means a mind extending PAST its body, PAST the body of another, and joning with their mind. As such, minds bypass the body and do not attempt to join at the physical level. They have NOTHING TO GAIN by trying to join physically. The only benefit then to a physical "act", using the puppet for its inherent functioning, is to use it to make a baby.

This is why Jesus is trying to say that sex is only for procreation. Sane people do not need bodies. Insane people only use bodies for self gratification and reinforcing separation and specialness. Healed minds are limited by using bodies to try to join, and have no need of them. If you can imagine being highly spiritual and enlightened, maybe you can catch a glimpse of the total disinterest that you will have in the body and all its activities.

"The body is nothing." "The body is hardly worth the least defense."

The level of the body is a physical level. The body is a biological machine at this level. It has no mind or thought or decision or desire for another. Using it to make bodies real requires a belief in sin. The only proper use of it is to render itself unnecessary, bypass it, ignore it, overlook it, and therefore allow it to NOT GET IN THE WAY. As such you join with another in holiness and true meaning and validity. Trying to make bodies have a function of joining is level confusion between mind and body. Sex is entirely based on the idea of trying to "make bodies have oneness." Physical joining IS SEPARATION.

"When two INDIVIDUALS seek to become ONE, they are trying to DECREASE their magnitude. Each would DENY his power, for the SEPARATE union EXCLUDES THE UNIVERSE. Far more is LEFT OUTSIDE than would be taken in."

"To be without a body is to be in your natural state."

"The world IS perception." "The world you made."

Some people believe that they are just a little mind inside a little body. And based on this premise, they think they peer out onto an outside world, and "perceive it" or interpret it. They think perception is entirely this act of looking out upon the world that's there. As if false perception is a misinterpretation of what's there and true perception regards it as "God intended", all seen from "within" a body.

But this position is entirely fictional, because in truth your mind contains the world ("heaven and earth are both in you rmind") and you are therefore "bigger than" the universe. Even the "physical planet" Earth, the solar system,and the galaxy, are inside your mind.

Therefore the self that seems to be solely "inside a body and not outside it" is an illusion of playing small. And therefore perception is not merely your peering out through the body, perception is a universe-sized mind dreaming of a PLANET, including the making of countless bodies. You are dreaming of an entire world. ALL of it is your perceiving from that unlimited vantage point. You thinking of yourself as just "little and in a body" is a decoy, a piece of a dream inside a larger dream. You are making the entire environment from the outside in.

This is why the world, Earth, the planet, is itself your mechanism of perceiving, a visualization and hallucination of a world. "The world is false perception." Earth is your misperceiving, from a universe-sized mind. It is a dream you are having, as a universe-sized dreamer. Correcting perception and shifting from false perception to true, does not entail seeing the world's truth, but recognizing the world is always false perception and that you must OVERLOOK IT in order to see the truth BEYOND it, beyond this universe, shining from God's world - Heaven - which is another universe entirely.

"Your mind has the power to create worlds."

When you dream at night, you invent not only a body, but an entire environment. You make building and streets and trees and people and various happenings. Sometimes entire landscapes. And within this dream, which you are making ALL of in fine detail, you make a body which you place a portion of your awareness into, and peer out through, upon this dream world that YOU ARE MAKING, pretending to see it AS IF it is just "there on its own" and has nothing to do with your dreaming it. That you don't believe you are putting it there AT ALL. And so you think "I am only this body, in this objective world." This is entirely an illusion, because your mind is literally MAKING THE WHOLE WORLD that you are roaming around in, and that makes you are PRETENDING not to be its maker by hiding in a body.

The same is true of this world, Earth, this universe, this realm. It is an entire landscape you are MAKING WITH YOUR MIND. It is a dream, that your mind is actually literally putting there, on a MASSIVE SCALE. Your mind is MAKING PLANETS. This is "the world you made." And in this world, like in your night dreams, you are putting yourself inside a tiny body and pretending to be so small and insignificant and powerless and mindless that you couldn't possibly be making the planet, or even making your own body. You then think someone else more powerful must make it and it's not you, ie it's God. Not true. YOUR MIND IS MAKING THE ENTIRE ENVIRONMENT. And is then hiding in a body to pretend to disown the entire making of it, so that you can pretend you did not make the world, and rather that IT MAKES YOU, and thus you suffer by its hand.

This is all self deception. The ENTIRE WORLD IS YOUR PERCEPTION. Your mind is larger than the universe. Its PERCEPTION makes PLANETS. And so the correction of illusions in your mind, and the end of false perception (the world is false perception), literally means, the end of the world. The disappearance of the universe. You have to think really, really, really big to get this.

Most people believe that death occurs when something outside of your control happens to the body. Some external cause, an act of nature, some environmental influence, a contaminated food, some attack by some external thing or person etc.

This belief is very strong because it is none other than the belief in separation, it is the authority problem, it is the belief in magic, it is level confusion, it's what happens when you believe you can go against God's will - you start to perceive there is a separate will (God's) that is working against your will.

The belief in "inevitable death" is the belief in God's wrath and the inevitability of the consequences of SIN! The innocent have no reason to die!

It's fairly simple to explain that YOUR MIND IS RESPONSIBLE for absolutely everything that happens to your body!

"The mind is responsible for every condition of the body."

"The body is the IDEA (in the mind) of sin, made flesh and projected outwards (by the mind)."

The belief that the body is CAUSED BY something ELSE other than the mind... no matter what that cause seems to be, IT IS NOT TRUE.

The body is not COMING FROM the external world. It is coming from WITHIN. The mind within is projecting the body outwards. It is the ONLY CAUSE OF THE BODY.

The entire point of the course is becoming aware that you are 100% responsible, in mind, for every single thing you choose and everything that happens, such that there is absolutely NO wiggle room for some other stray "causes" to influence you, in any way, on any level.

"I am not a victim of the world I see" proves this. "The world is but an effect" proves this. "There is nothing that can bring oppression or make you ill or weak or afraid" proves this.

THERE IS NO EXTERNAL CAUSE OF DEATH. EVER.

That means the mind is 100% responsible for whether or not the body lives or dies. "No-one dies unless he chooses to do so." "No-one dies without their own consent." This is very clear. It's a BLACK AND WHITE decision. Either you choose to MAKE the body die by killing it with YOUR EGO, or you dissolve the ego and love the body and CAUSE IT to be healthy and alive and INCAPABLE of suffering.

Many ACIM people believe that there is some kind of separation between the mind and the body. And many popular teachers have taught that you must transcend the body and that it doesn't matter because it's not who you are. And this has also led people to believe that whatever state the body is in, IT DOESN'T MATTER, and therefore you can be at peace IN SPITE OF (and should) any sickness that is showing up. THIS IS BULLSHIT! Who the fuck put the sickness there?! YOU DID. "You made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both"!

This is nothing short of the belief that there is STILL an external cause that can produce effects in you and therefore influence the body AGAINST YOUR WILL, causing the body to BECOME sick and suffer and die. It is none other than the ego belief that the body becomes sick through ANY reason OTHER THAN that YOU CHOSE IT. It is the conviction that sickness and death arise "on their own" through some "natural" bullshit cause "separate from you" ie separate from the reach of your own mind. If that's the case, your mind is STILL IMPRISONED in the body because it has not fully opened to sharing and extending and BEING EVERYWHERE.

This is what we have to own up to. The body's condition is 100% totally UNDER YOUR CONTROL. Your mind projects it, makes it, makes it suffer or well. It has no mind of its own, no will of its own, and no say in the matter. It is JUST A TOOL. It's a teaching device and a communication device. That's all. It does not live or die of its own will. Nor does it get sick by itself or as the result of anything beyond your mind. YOU ARE responsible for whether it is sick or healthy, and whether it is alive or dead. And if you do not OWN that responsibility, you ARE CHOOSING TO DISOWN YOURSELF, and that IS AN ACTIVE DECISION TO DIE. And death will result.

There are no exceptions. The body literally cannot enter into sickness in any form without the mind attacking it or using it for attack. And when you stop using it for attack it becomes healthy. THIS IS GUARANTEED. People believe all too strongly that the body has some kind of permanent existence of its own, its own "history", its own continuation, its own identity, and that therefore it exists independently. IT DOES NOT. It is nothing but a SYMBOL in your mind. It has to OBEY YOU. If it dies, you must have commanded it to die. If it lives, you must have commanded it to live.

The body is a MEDIUM through which you communicate. If you send SHIT through it, it becomes clogged up with shit which interferes with communication and makes the body sick. If you send LOVE through it, the love breaks down and heals the shit and clears it away, restoring clarity. Mind that is extending love IS A HEALER, it heals the body, it doesn't just let it sit there suffering and dying. It ACTIVELY HEALS IT.

THIS HAS TO BE SO. It is the principle of resurrection. God's love HEALS, and restores to life that which HAD BEEN DEAD. In order to do that, love has to have a MIRACULOUS QUALITY of being able to RAISE THE DEAD, ie GIVE LIFE TO that which was dead. YOU, as a son of God, in a dream, could not even get back TO God, having sinned, unless LOVE was able to in some way HEAL YOU and UNDO the symptoms of separation. Love heals. Love shines away darkness and sickness and death are darkness.

LOVE RESURRECTS THE BODY and sustains it in perfect health indefinitely so long as it is useful. "The mind, being sane, heals the body."

So it doesn't matter how much you made the body suffer and be sick and get close to death, THAT CAN BE REVERSED BY LOVE. And this is why the body's condition can therefore be restored to HEALTH (the ego opposes health in every way), and MUST and WILL automatically be restored to health when the mind is healthy.

YOU CANNOT STAY DEAD WHEN YOU APPROACH RESURRECTION!

Resurrection means ONLY LIFE IS REAL and death is an illusion and therefore you demonstrate THERE IS ONLY LIFE IN YOU and no death!

That makes the body a temporarily purified and HOLY device for communicating to your brothers and to bring God's love/word to them, which *guarantees* the body's health.

There is no other power or cause which can interfere with this mechanic. There is no such thing as an external threat or danger. The secret to salvation is that you do EVERYTHING to yourself, and if you do not CHOOSE TO HURT YOURSELF, you cannot be hurt. "You cannot be hurt unless you choose to hurt yourselves."

Therefore NOTHING ELSE besides you can cause your body to be sick or dead. And so if you do not choose sickness or death, THEY DO NOT OCCUR and become impossible.

How else, by making sickness and death impossible, could you ever reach a state of atonement and resurrection where you can NO LONGER DIE and you escape death forever? How do you think that is possible, other than for you to have TOTAL POWER OVER ALL CAUSES OF DEATH? Which means, simply recognizing YOU were the only cause of suffering EVER in your existence, and if you do not hurt yourself you WILL NEVER SUFFER AGAIN and will not hurt the body.

This is what "heaven is a choice I must make" means... you MUST CHOOSE NOT TO DIE by embracing a reality of ONLY LIFE. "Swear not to die you holy son of God!!!!"

And then there is nothing that can take that away from you. This makes the body INCAPABLE OF DYING, and therefore it will remain so long as you find it useful. You cannot make it go away by KILLING it, that is not an option. You cannot make it die in order to drop it! If you think it will just die in time "on its own" you are mistaken. YOU MUST ATTACK IT in order to make it sick or dead, and you WILL NOT attack it if you are sane. So how can it die?

You have to make it DISAPPEAR by shining it away with your mind USING LOVE. This is the loving end of the body and the dream of death is NEVER left by death, only by truth and love.

If you choose to die, that's your choice. It's not because of anyone else or anything else in the world. And it is failure. It is failure to reach resurrection and therefore is failure to reach the COMPLETION of the curriculum. Death is a mistake. It is a WRONG ANSWER to the question of what is the truth. If you come up with this answer, you MUST CARRY ON to learn what the real answer is. Death is never the answer. ONLY LIFE IS REAL.

I think I made a major mistake when starting out with the course. It was fuelled by a rather "negative" view of the world, which was part mine, and part that of certain teachers I listened to. In that view, I thought that references to a meaningless world, were references to a the world being inherently bleak and dark and depressing. I also combined various aspects of ego and false perception with the world, binding them together, and then sought to get rid of the whole thing.

This was based largely on teachings by well-meaning people that the world has no redeeming qualities, that it is inherently somewhat negative and pointless, and that the only thing to do is leave it behind. While there is some basis for this, in that the world is nothing, it kind of skipped over the forgiven world/real world and didn't put enough attention on how to reinterpret or repurpose it. And it definitely didn't make much mention of doing anything to improve or heal or save it.

This was an incorrect framing of the world, because I realize now that the world itself has NO meaning, not a negative meaning. Its meaningless is simply a lack of ANY meaning, positive OR negative, and is not inherently anything. And my egoic association of the world with my ego's negativity didn't allow me to "separate out" the world from my projections onto it.

But the course isn't asking us to condemn the world and run away from it. It's asking us to realize the world is nothing at all, but that we've projected false meanings onto it. And when these false meanings are lifted off from it, the world resumes being meaningless. Not negative, or positive. And then we are free to project positive meaning onto it, in which we now see the reflection of God.

This obviously makes far more sense, interpreting the world as a neutral mirror with no meaning of its own. It also changes my focus, from one where I just wanted to escape from "the negative world" and throw it in the trash, to where I can now look at the very same world - its guts, recognizing it as nothing, but project love onto it. That's a profoundly different relationship to it, properly regarding it as nothing but a mirror with no meaning of its own, rather than as bound to ideas of hell.

It changes quite a lot of my perspectives about the course and what it's saying. It also relieves pressure and resistance and negative connotations to things which didn't seem to fit. I can accept then that I can see this world through forgiving eyes because of itself it is nothing. And it also makes it easier to accept that it can be used differently, and can reflect heaven. Obviously keeping it around long enough to allow it to do that can't entail attacking it with misinterpretations of the course.

Eventually when seen as the nothingness it is, with the reflection of God seen upon it, its re-purposing is complete and it is no longer needed as a device to bring us home. We can now wave farewell to the forgiven world and thank it for its temporary usefulness, as we watch it disappear and give way to the gates of heaven.

The key part I think is that a lot of people have completely missed the somewhat subtle teaching in the course that the world ITSELF has no meaning. That it was a projection out, from an idea of nothingness, BEFORE we projected onto it. The whole "projection makes perception" thing came later.

And the world doesn't have to be objectively real or a creation of God for it to act like a neutral mirror and still be a world of illusions. This two-layered projection is completely missed by a lot of people. And some interpret the world as having to be God's creation in order for the "project onto" part to make sense. Which is yet another mistake. So many of us are so confused about this whole thing. But I'm glad now it's becoming ever clearer.

What if when people in this world make a mistake, there is complete and total forgiveness and unconditional love?

If as a group we are to uphold a shared condition of peace, love and harmony, then we need to have 'shared interests'. That means, it must be in everyone's best interests to treat everyone with unconditional love and forgiveness at all times, absolutely regardless of the seeming severity of anything anyone does.

Unconditional love would say to someone filled with hatred, "Even though you completely hate me, I completely love you."

Unconditional forgiveness would say to someone murderous, "Even though you have tried to destroy me, I find you to be innocent and completely forgiven."

Can you imagine our present day society treating people this way? No. Because by and large, they do not. Most people in this world are riddled with egotism and condemnation of themselves and others. Therefore we have a world where when someone makes a mistake, it is considered to be a 'sin' or 'crime', and that it calls for punishment. We don't believe it calls for forgiveness, at least not unless there has been a huge amount of suffering first.

Maybe we can throw someone in jail for 20 years and make them 'atone' by doing hard time, and then forgive them? We even have a hard time forgiving them when they get done with their allotted punishment. We just want to keep on judging and condemning and finding other people guilty left right and center. Goes to show you how much we all have bought into the 'mistakes call for punishment' system of the ego.

It does not benefit us as a whole, that when someone makes mistakes, we ask them to feel guilty or ashamed. We describe this as a guilty conscience, as though we are supposed to be guilty because it is directing us to learn from mistakes or is telling us how terrible of a person we are because we deserve it. And we believe that this guilty conscience is our 'guide' and trusted advisor, which will steer us clear of mistakes.

BULLSHIT!

It does not benefit us as a whole, to find someone guilty, to ask them to experience guilt, and to suffer and go into a state of profound negativity, following the making of a mistake. All that this does is we now add on an extra layer of even greater negativity. That person, who could've been a loving member of society, is now relegated into a 'bad box' and has to now curse the whole world with their moping around feeling guilty and ashamed, their negative self-talk, their broadcasts of angst and upset, and basically everyone has to now tolerate them failing to give love to others. As if making a mistake the first time wasn't bad, requiring people to follow it up with a health dose of suffering makes EVERYONE suffer.

Therefore we have a vested interest, and should step the fuck up as a mature society, to recognize that the ONLY course of action that is sane when someone makes a mistake is to offer them completely unconditional love and forgiveness and acceptance. ABSOLUTELY unconditional.

How do you think God thinks of people? Do you think He gets all pissed off and angry and sends down some suffering? Do you think he demands some punishment and condemns people to hell for 60 lashes of death and pain? And how long is long enough to suffer? How long is long enough for YOU to suffer when you make a mistake? 10 years? Are you going to carry around all your baggage of righteous self hate and self loathing and believing you should be ashamed and believing you don't deserve love?

Well guess what. When you believe you don't deserve love, you also stop BEING loving, and so you also believe nobody else deserves love, so now on top of the mistake you made which came from unlove the first time, you now add a healthy dose of more - perhaps worse - unlove on top of it. How is that helping anyone? It's completely ridiculous. Being guilty and ashamed and unforgivable and unacceptable is EGOTISM. It does not help anyone. It just pollutes the collective consciousness. Being guilty does NOT atone for a lack of love, it increases the lack of love for all concerned. Love does not equate to guilt and guilt does not offer a gift to those who have been wronged. It's really a slap in the face.

God loves unconditionally. You make a mistake, God keeps loving you. You make a really really really bad mistake on the far end of the 'hierarchy of illusions', and we're talking, sin and death people... you make one of THOSE mistakes.... and God doesn't even blink a fricking eye. He doesn't even waver. He doesn't even stop to think, hmmm.. maybe I should stop loving Paul, he's done a pretty bad thing right there. No. He just keeps on loving, loving, loving, loving, loving, all day every day.

That's called unconditional love folks.

Forgive your enemies. Love your worst nemesis. Otherwise you will not be able to forgive and love yourself when YOU become that enemy. What you do to others you do to yourself. You have to extend the same 'charity' to others that you would want also. You can't be loved unconditionally no matter what you do, unless you are willing to love others unconditionally no matter what they do. Otherwise your belief that 'love only happens if conditions are met' will apply to you also and you'll find YOURSELF unworthy of it. To stop this you're going to have to get out of the ego SYSTEM (thought system, social system), of attacking anyone when they make mistakes. Otherwise you'll believe that when you make a mistake, you're unworthy of love, and you deserve to suffer and die.

Unconditional love calls an end to all suffering. It calls an end to all punishment. It calls an end to all labelling as criminal. It calls for the person making the mistake to be LOVED to high heaven, FORGIVEN totally, and ACCEPTED completely without reservation. It calls for the person to receive correction and healing. And it calls for that person to be RESTORED to the fellowship of the One united brotherhood. Only then can the person actually return to being capable of offering love, which is for the benefit of all, rather than offering guilt and shame and fear and attack.

It is in all our best interests to drop the bullshit ego thought system of 'demands punishment' and 'guilty conscience is a good thing' and 'don't make mistakes or you'll get punished'. Because you know what, while you're waking up you WILL make mistakes, and you won't be able to help it.

Nobody in their right might commits a sin. Nobody in their right mind can be anything other than innocent. Innocence cannot sin. Only when you stop being in your right mind can you seem to make a mistake, and your mistake was leaving your right mind. So now you are unconscious and you are not really aware of what you are doing, so you are not really doing it entirely willingly or consciously, which means you do not know what you're up to. "Forgive them father for they know not what they do" applies to EVERYONE who makes a mistake of any kind!

All mistakes are forgivable. And sometimes you're going to have to claim this unconditionality of forgiveness for yourself, and for others, in spite of whether other people are willing to go along with you or agree with you. YOU deserve forgiveness and so does everyone else. Be one of the few (currently) who hold humanity to a higher standard of being unconditional in our love for each other, rather than buying into ego blame, suffering and punishment. This world has suffered long enough already, and it never deserved even one ounce of suffering to begin with. Let it be over with! Bring on the love!

You can't forgive the world, by focusing on it, and trying to regard it as forgiven. You can't love it by loving it directly. It's not there. This is something that I get hung up on quite often. I ask myself, how do I forgive the world?

Usually I'll take a look at the course and see it saying over and over again that awakening is recognition, there is no world, the world is unreal, it's not happening, etc. But in that I find it hard to see how love enters into it. It's just a "fact" that the world is not real, but this is rather a cold clinical truth, and doesn't integrate the love.

So then I ask myself why would I love the world, especially when the world seems so cruel? And the fact is I can't love a cruel world. If it is really there and it's really cruel then it is unlovable and cannot be overlooked. If I make it real, if I believe in it as not a dream, then there is no way I can be at peace about it, yet alone love it.

Then I'm reminded that if I strip away all sense of causation from the world, all beliefs that it's doing things to me, all notions of attack and suffering caused by it, or sinfulness on its part, then maybe this lays the groundwork for being able to see it as innocent, to a degree, or at least not accused. Is this what allows me to be loving toward it?

What occurred to me though is that forgiveness really isn't about targeting the world and forgiving it, or having a certain attitude about it. It's not even there to have a relationship with, really. In fact, Jesus says in the course "to forgive is to overlook", and that christ vision looks beyond the body/matter to the light. So really if I'm being forgiving, I more or less should practically ignore and deny the world. "The world you see must be denied" and all that.

But again this denial of the world, this ignoring of it, doesn't really clue me in as to how to be loving. So then what came to mind is, if the world were stripped of all its seeming attack and causation, what is left? Well, what is left is me having an attitude problem. It's me having hatred or anger or a projection of sin. And now we get down to the real situation.

Because in truth it's not really so much that you need to forgive the world. It's more to do with that you need to forgive YOURSELF. If you have sin in your mind, any belief in attack or guilt or fear etc, you're going to project it onto the world and use it as a scapegoat, in one way or another. Whether it be hating the weather or attacking the neighbors or judging the politicians or whatever. The world becomes a target of focus and attention and distraction through projection.

So let's be reminded again. "It can be but myself I crucify", and "I can be attacked by nothing but MY thoughts", and "I am doing this to myself" and "I but accuse my brother (and the world) of my OWN sins." So now we're getting down to it. Because if I have an attitude problem, a belief in sin, an inner guilt, which I am trying to escape through projection and blame, that not only has a whole lot to do with me being unloving toward the world, it also is what MAKES the world that false perception sees. Because "The world is false perception."

In that sense, the world really in truth is neutral and nothing, and "I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me." Meaning that any sense of "the world is cruel, wrong, bad, evil, sinful" isn't something inherent to the world itself, it's something I've given it. The world is nothing more than what I have given it to be. Through my lack of love.

It still remains impossible to love the cruel world because it is my unlove that makes it cruel. You can only love the real world, and you will only see the real world when you love. Because a loving perception only makes a loving world, because "The world IS perception". "You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts". "There is no world apart from what you wish." "The world you made" in hate can be stripped of the hateful attitude and is re-made by the Holy Spirit.

So at the end of it all, trying to love a cruel world is impossible, because the perception of cruelty is part of projected sin and anchors you into false perception. You cannot see it as neutral or forgiven or overlooked while having an unloving attitude, and the unloving attitude always starts within. Because you look first within to what you believe about YOURSELF and then you project that out and THEN perceive. "Perception is a RESULT not a cause" and "projection makes perception."

When you're all caught up in how to forgive the world, you really need to shift the focus to how can you forgive yourself, so that you don't accuse the world in the first place. When you are no longer accusing the world, you aren't believing that it is a bad thing or an evil thing or a real cruel thing. It becomes, I presume, impossible to see it at all, when love is ruling the mind, because "love looks upon love" and hate looks upon hate. And only in unlove can you see the world of death.

To forgive the world, forgive yourself. What you think of yourself will be projected and extend outward, projecting the world you see, causing you to either see the hellish world of bodies and flesh and death, or the real world of light and peace and happiness. You must come from love, to see love or to justify forgiveness. And you can't be forgiving towards the world if you can't be forgiving towards yourself first.