While ACIM, as a book, is a collection fo words, these words are twice removed from reality. They are symbols of symbols.

Jesus, who wrote the material, was not operating on a level of symbols upon symbols, or even a level of symbols. He is operating from a level of total awareness and experience of truth. He is in heaven, and wrote the course material from that perspective.

What you have to realize then is that the words in the book are just expressions from a higher state. They are a sort of translation. So if there is some kind of truth or principle and it's talked about in the book, it may be presented in several different ways, using various words. Because the words aren't the starting point of the truth.

For example Jesus touches on the topic of forgiveness hundreds of times, and many of those statements say practically the same thing. There are even some sentences which are worded almost identically. Yet they appear different in form just because they use different words.

It's important to realize that the words in the book are NOT the highest level of truth, or the origin of that truth. They are expressions OF truth, turned into symbolic form.

For example if Jesus is expert on the topic of forgiveness, he could write literally 1 million books solely on that topic, all using a plethora of words and coming at the same teaching from a variety of angles.

Although he might choose certain words to try to represent the subject matter, that doesn't mean the words chosen are doctrine or some kind of perfect representation. Because you have to remember that they are not only removed from reality, they are part of a strange ego-generated language and is trying to work within their confines so that the people who speak that language will be able to get some measure of coherent meaning from it.

Many of us begin learning the course from the bottom up, starting in the darkness and trying to find our way to the light. We have some pieces of the puzzle but not all, and based on various clues and consistencies we gradually piece together a clearer picture of what it's saying or means. And that can take a long time to sort out what it means without any contradictions or confusion.

Just because the course says something in one passage that doesn't mean that's the whole truth either. Because Jesus may say something in another passage which either clarifies it or seems to contradict it. This is because each set of words are jut one form or expression, and each expression may have nuances or implications or suggestions of meaning which, if taken too out of context or in isolation, may lead to false conclusions.

You can try to think that the words are the meaning, but this isn't always true, and quite often you'll see people quoting isolated passages as if they are the whole story. Since Jesus is coming from a singular whole truth, the course should be considered a kind of holographic projection of that, and that means there is fragmentation and differences and in some cases there may appear to be things which don't seem to add up.

Jesus has gone to great lengths to try to ensure that the course words are as unambiguous and consistent as possible, but the nature of the beast is that words are limiting and sometimes this adds some confusion.

It's important to gradually realize that beyond the words, and prior to the words, there is a state of truth and an entire logical system of metaphysics. For example the idea that the world was made as an opposite to reality. That's a simple metaphysical concept and you could put that into a million words to express it.

As you "see through" the words, read between the lines, and look to the deeper meaning, you're gradually going to find yourself moving beyond the words of the course entirely. Once you SEE the underlying metaphysical basis for what he's saying and why he's saying it, and therefore what his statement MUST mean regardless of their words, then you are really starting to see the "course beyond the course". The higher form of it.

In a way, this means that you have to "forgive the course", you have to overlook its forms and not be deceived by the appearance of its words. Just as much as anything else. It's easy to get hung up on trying to preserve the perfect words or read the earliest edition or whatever but that's all surface fluff. The real meaning behind it is way deeper than any of the words and any of the editions.

This is also why it's important to foster a personal relationship with Jesus and Holy Spirit and to get truth from the horse's mouth rather than getting lost in the book. Logically it makes more sense to speak to the author who is an expert, than to get lot in confusion based solely on some words on a page.

Once you grasp the logical concepts, they transcend the words. And then you can look at the words and you can see where Jesus is expressing FROM and what he's getting at and therefore, logically, what the words must mean. And this can be quite eye opening because then you'll start to compare and contrast the clearly logical meaning of the metaphysics against the English-languge expression or discussion "about" that metaphysics. And this begins to highlight the ways that they can at time be a little different in form. But the higher metaphysics is more accurate than the language-form of it.

One of the problems people have with the course is the sheer mass of words, the holographic scattering of subject matter, the seeming visiting and revisiting of topics, and the difficulty getting through the density of all that language to try to really get a clear view of what's behind it all. And what's behind it is actually very simple and organized and clean. What began as seemingly a huge collection of cryptic statements, few of which were believed or made sense, you end up with a massively stripped down and very simple foundation.

It takes a lot of sifting through the sheer weight of the course material to come to realize just how simple and logical the underlying metaphysics is. It's kind of like a sculpture where you have to continually chisel away at the rough details and the seeming differences until gradually a clear picture forms. And what them emerges is simple and beautiful and clear and well formed.

This is why it's important to learn not to get too hung up on what is written in the book. The form of the words can become a distraction away from the meaning. Some people get really hung up on what it says, taking words and phrases in isolation and thinking that they represent the whole meaning. This is because the ego believes that form IS meaning. The form of the course is not its meaning, however. Its meaning comes from where it CAME FROM, and the form it took in it expression is just a symbolic version of that.

There is a truth beyond words. There are structures and relationships between things that underly their English-language expressions. There is a metaphysics deeper than any page of the text. And as you move closer toward the deeper meaning you also more closer toward experiencing it. This is all part of the purification process. All part of undoing the seemingly elaborate complexities of the ego and replacing them with the sheer simplicity of God's truth.

What God creates must be permanent because He is permanence and can only create like Himself.

Therefore, if something is not permanent, if it changes at all in any way, if it is born or dies, or if it comes and goes, or transforms, or isn't always the same forever, then God did not create it.

Since God is reality, being the consistency and constancy needed for there to BE a "reality", some state which never wavers and is completely reliable, then anything that wavers or changes is not REAL.

Therefore, the physical world, the physical universe, everything in it, all bodies, everything you see here, and all forms of perceiving it, cannot be real.

Since what is real actually exists, permanently, and since what is unreal cannot possibly exist because it is not permanent and always changes, what changes cannot be REAL.

Therefore, because the physical universe is constantly changing, it CANNOT be real, and it MUST be an illusion. God cannot have created it, and it cannot really exist.

It is as plain and simple as this.

God is infinite. Infinite means in-finite, not finite. Finite means limitations, and limitations allow multiple possibilities. Infinity does not mean 'all possibilities'. It means all REAL possibility, but in terms of number, there is only ONE possibility. Infinity means oneness - one possibility, one reality, one way. This is how God is infinite. Infinite does not mean that God creates all kinds of forms and many multitudes of different things. God only creates ONE state of being and nothing else.

Nothing real can be threatened, because nothing unreal exists. God cannot be threatened because the physical world and all of its weapons of separation does not exist. This world is nothing but an ILLUSION that a world exists, and if you believe it and perceive it then you have fallen for the illusion and are not awake.

"There is no world." This is the central thought the course would aim to teach. - ACIM

What the world is, is really only the tiny instant of its current state right now. Not what it was before, and not what it will be. There is a tiny thin slice of 'time' in which everything is always changing and transforming, and in which the only stuff that exists is actually there.

Whatever state the world is in right now, that's all that exists of the world. The future doesn't really exist yet, the past is already gone. There isn't really any time, no past and no future. Time is really an avoidance of the present and an avoidance of reality.

So all we have of the world is whatever is "left over" right now this single instant, the current objects, the things in their current positions, the current conditions of stuff, arranged in whatever way they are arranged right now.

As changes occur this same one moment right there now shifts and morphs before your eyes, becoming slightly different than it was just before, but only the stuff that still remains NOW is what is here.

There is no recording of past states, other than through fictional memory, and there is no predicted future. As soon as something changes, how it was before is totally irrelevant. It is only in the configuration that it is in NOW. It is not its past or it future states, just the current one.

As far as the physical world is concerned, there is no past or future at all, just a single slice of time in which everything appears to come and go, right now, here and now, in the present.

The now-moment of time, is symbolic of the foreverness of eternity. It is not the same as it but being in the present moment of time puts you very close to the eternal. By being only in the present you effectively aren't going anywhere, even if the appearance of forms keep shifting and changing.

The world is like a pool of water which is mixing and flowing around but it's still the same one pool of water. Just moving and animating within the present tiny slice of time.

To be in the present there can't be a sense of knowing what is about happen, because everything has to be met immediately as though it is completely new, otherwise you're projecting past learning onto the present.

There can be a lot of resistance to just being totally present, which is fear, and is ego, in which the mind is not really paying attention, it's projecting a wall of expectation and anticipation and the dullness of having "figured it out ahead of time", such that the mind is paying attention to what it thinks will happen rather than to what is.

This is the importance of the "I do not know", because this leaves the mind open to receiving an present-moment awareness of what is happening, rather than being lost in concepts and thoughts and beliefs about what "might be".

God can only be found in the present because God IS PRESENCE, which is an eternal property of here-and-now and always-and-forever. God's absoluteness means he is fully and totally present everywhere, as in in-person and fully attentive to it. So you can't be aware of God when you're living in the past.

Living in the past really means you're caught up in a kind of dream about things which aren't even here anymore, and which have changed into something else, such as old grievances and losses and pains and so on. And it's just as bad to live in the future, where you are imagining what might happen and trying to predict and control it. Sin locks you into the past just as guilt sucks you into the future in anticipation of punishments to come.

We really in truth only can exist in the present. Where else could you possible BE present, or really exist? You are here now with God forever. The "real world" also only exists in the present and can only be experienced by being present.

"This instant is the only time there is."

"(Edgar) Cayce's mind was imprisoned to some extent by an error against which you have been cautioned several times. He looked to the past for an EXPLANATION of the present, but he never succeeded in separating the past FROM the present. When he said "mind is the builder," he did not realize that it is only what it is building NOW that really creates the future. The past, in itself, does not have the ability to do this. Whenever we move from one instant to the next, the previous one no longer exists."

"The mind's preoccupation with the past is the cause of the total misconception about time from which your seeing suffers. Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. It therefore cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything."

"The present now remains the only time."

"The only aspect of time which is really eternal is NOW. That is what we REALLY mean when we say that now is the only time. The literal nature of this statement does not mean anything to the ego. It interprets it, at best, to mean "don't worry about the future." This is NOT what it really means at all."

"What time but now can truth be recognized? The present is the only time there is. And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight but in the eyes of Christ. He looks past time and sees eternity as represented there."

"And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now."

"It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which MEANS there is no time."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When we categorise the world, or split it up, or label it as different, or use its form to dictate what it means, we're failing to recognise that ALL ILLUSIONS ARE THE SAME.

"Nothing I see means anything."

"Make this year different by making it all the same."

If we for example see a sick body and give it a meaning of being real and worse and bad and more frightening, we've driven a wedge between things to keep them apart.

If we see a dead body and we believe it is a picture of awfulness and tragedy and horror, compared to the other bodies, we're trying to push it and separate it off and designate that it means something different to the healthy ones.

All these psychological differences, all the ways we put things in categories and groups, all the extra meanings we pile on top of stuff to distinguish them and say they're not the same, causes us to get lost in the illusion.

One thing seems to be not the same as another thing. One form seems more important or more serious or more threatening than another. The shape of something seems to mean something different to the shape of something else. These all add up to a huge complicated hierarchy of categories.

If we for example think that people are bodies and not souls/minds, and we start valuing bodies, and start wanting bodies to continue indefinitely, that bodies are people. ... and then start to become afraid that the bodies are in danger, and are falling sick, and dying, we've now fallen for the illusion. We start trying to protect the body and keep it instead of recognising the big picture.

A dead body is no more real than a living one. A sick body is no more meaning something true than a healthy one. A large body, a small body, a young body, an old body, a male or female body, a body of a certain nationality or ethnicity, none of it really means anything.

"The death of an illusion means nothing."

The shift that has to take place is a change in perspective and premise. The whole system of spacetime, physicality, matter and bodies, has to be regarded as not real. The whole thing has to be put into ONE category, not divided up or pitched against each other. One single category that says that the properties of one thing is the same as another. That none of it is real.

There then can be no PREFERENCE for one thing over another, no favoritisms, no specialness, no special favour towards certain people, no marginalising or closing off or favouring one group over another. It all has to be ironed out and equalised. No special expectations, no special need to have certain things be a certain way, no resistance to things being in a given form, etc.

The perspective of miracles is that there is no order of difficulty, because there is no perceived structure in the world. The mind becomes unconditional, with one response of love to everything. One singular category, one mind, one will, one perspective, one vantage point, one self, one recognition of everything here as false.

All of the sense of one thing being more important or valid than another has to go. And while it's true that it does not matter whatsoever whether a body is alive or dead, it is also true that in terms of usefulness a healthy body can be a symbol of eternal life. A healthy body can testify an example or image that depicts a higher truth. But even the healthy body is still part of the same equality of unreality with a dead body.

In fear, we make life a one-way street, where we want to avoid anything and everything that might destroy us as a body. But in love, love allows bodies to come and go, suffer and die, shift back and forth between states, and has no actual real preference for any of them. It recognises that the soul/mind beyond the body is untouched, unchanged, perfect in all ways, eternal and can never die. And in that view bodies don't mean anything at all.

While recognising that bodies mean nothing, and it does not matter whatsoever whether they are sick and dead or healthy and seeming to represent immortality, we can still use them as teaching devices in which they do need to be in symbolically healthier states in order to demonstrate healing and forgiveness. But we must still remember that in the larger context, in the big picture, they are all equally nothing. Then we are not attached to whether they come and go or change their form, and no longer fear death.

"The power to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference"?

If you believe there is something outside of you which has causal power that you can do nothing about, you are *GUARANTEED* to live in a state of fear and suffering.

Accepting these "causes" as "outside of your power" CANNOT bring you peace.

"Letting go" of stuff that you supposedly cannot "control", could well be you resigning yourself to powerlessness and inevitable death.

How about.... I can change anything at will?

How about... the mind is so powerful there is nothing it cannot do?

How about... there is nothing that cannot be changed, and nothing that cannot be reveresed, and therefore, no "acceptance" of the consequences of sin is required, or possible? How about, this form of "acceptance" is an attempt to live with sin and death, letting them go unchallenged?

Who can "accept" that the consequences of sin are irreversible, and call that a healthy state of mind? What exactly are these effects which we are supposed to "let be" and do nothing about? How is it possible to live with suffering?

Instead, the Course is not teaching this. The course is not telling us to accept the world "as it is", as such.

Now, to clarify here.... there IS merit in RECOGNIZING what the world really is, clearly, and accurately, with true perception, without adding to or removing anything from it perceptually, which is an act of "not resisting" it. Or, in a sense, letting it be what it is rather than trying to turn it into something it is not.

HOWEVER, THAT DOES NOT MEAN, that you have no power to change it or no reason to do so. Nor does it mean that you are supposed to therefore "accept the form" of it as though it's written in stone tablets and can never be changed. Nor does it mean that whatever sickness or suffering is occurring, you're supposed to just "accept it" and let it be there. Otherwise, we literally would be saying, that we are supposed to accept death. And that is completely the opposite of what the Course is leading us to.

The course is not asking us to accept death, or to accept sickness. It's telling us that both are not reality and can be reversed and undone and healed. It's telling us to demonstrate that there IS NO DEATH and no sickness. It's telling us to show everyone that we are not at the effect of ANY causes in this world, because we are the cause of the world.

Jesus demonstrated in his resurrection that he was able to make another body, simply to show that "the mind that made the body can make another". And therefore that you are immortal spirit. But people did not understand it.

We're not supposed to be making the world real and then, like, believing that there is real sickness and real suffering, and then feeling compelled or motivated to try to "get rid of it" because of how awful it is. That's a trap of becoming a "fixer" and trying to NOT accept what you yourself as making real.

If you've made shit real, and if you either try to "accept it" or "fix it"... BOTH OF THOSE responses are ego and false. The course is not teaching either of those.

But the course is also not saying, that you are powerless to do anything about these things. It is by recognizing that they are NOT real that you will, paradoxically, recognize that you HAVE POWER OVER IT. That "illusions can easily be changed". As you realize that this stuff is not the truth, it becomes EASIER to change it, not harder. As you recognize sickness has NO POWER over you, it becomes EASIER for you to make the sickness GO.

Not to make it go because it seems real and you are "really suffering", but to make it go TO PROVE that your mind is healed and to demonstrate not only that you BELIEVE there is no sickness, but also that you will stop using the sickness to accuse your brother of being the sinner who caused it. Every sickness proves that. And every broken body proves the mind is not healed.

We are asked to NOT ACCEPT sickness or death as real, or as inevitable, or as a "death sentence", or as something we can do nothing about ("because its real") and to then simply turn into a passive mouse sitting on the sidelines waiting to die.

DO NOT ACCEPT DEATH! ACCEPT LIFE. Accepting life is accepting the atonement. But to "accept" that this world is only what it is - an illusion of a world with no power to do anything, and in THAT form of acceptance you will have power over it and not the other way around.

Very often, Jesus would say to me, "it's fine". And I would be like, "how is this fine?" I would be upset about something, there'd be some physical medical issue to deal with, some seeming tragic loss, something going wrong. How can it be fine? Then my wife died and once again he was like "this is good", "it's fine". And again I was challenged to try to be open to accepting this, somehow.

I see now that the reason that "it's fine", no matter what happens, is because there is a bigger picture. There is a journey that the soul goes through across multiple lifetimes. The soul is immortal and cannot be truly hurt or lost or damaged. It certainly can never die or be sick. So that radically changes the perspective on what physical matters really mean or whether they're fine or not. Souls use bodies for a purpose, and that is all.

Everything is "fine" because nothing can really hurt who we really are, and we're just using this world as a temporary classroom to learn lessons. Sometimes we leave the classroom and then return at another time, in another body, with other people, in another place with another life. It's all fine. It's even fine if the person seems to die. How can it really be wrong or a fault or something bad if it's part of the soul's journey, even what they want, even chosen, and even part of a much bigger plan of salvation? Death doesn't mean anything good or bad, it is meaningless.

Recognizing the sheer reach of the soul on its journey through many lifetimes, its involvement in multiple serious relationships, having multiple bodies, experiencing many locations and families, many sets of parents, many lovers, many children, many conflicts, etc, it's a vast and deep and far-reaching story. Souls come and go many times with many relationships.

The much longer-term purpose is that the soul wants to reunite with God and awaken from the dream permanently, and to that end it will practically be willing to experience anything and everything if it helps toward that goal. No matter what it looks like. That puts a very different perspective on whether the things that happen, the disabilities we have, the limitations, the hardships, are really "wrong" or whether they are for a bigger purpose that we consent to. And we must remember the soul itself can never be hurt.

We only think that something is wrong when we have a special-relationship kind of viewpoint. Our ego becomes invested in this world, in bodies, in physical relations, and identifying as a human body. And then all manner of self-interest arises, attachment to other bodies, wanting to avoid death at all costs, an entire culture built around bodily living etc.

But death really is just an exit from the world as the soul carries on and continues its much, much longer path toward God. In fact death can be a liberating event for many because it represents escape from physical suffering. It is only the "dying" and being trapped in a body while it malfunctions that seems to bring suffering. As the body appears to degrade and suffer and die it seems the person does also, but in truth nothing changes the soul. Only the mind needs changing.

When Jesus tells me enthusiastically that it's "good" that a person has died, or "its fine" that someone has gone through a sickness, or "okay" that someone has had an amputation, I trust it to mean that in the really, really big picture it really is fine. Jesus was telling me it was fine when the doctors wanted to chop half her leg off. I couldn't grasp it whatsoever, but I see now it really was no big deal, as far as the soul is concerned. Who cares about bodies anyway?

Yes it seems like temporary setbacks, as the world judges it. It seems like a horrible suffering and an awful tragedy, as the world judges it. Sometimes it seems completely unfair and horrifying and terrifying, as the world judges it. All revolving around trying to keep people bodily identified and staying in this world for as long as possible. But there is a much higher purpose, a much longer-term goal, and a much deeper willingness at work. And being here for a long time isn't even that important when you're a multi-dimensional, multi-lifetime being.

I once had a dream where I seemed to go through a tremendously long obstacle course. It was fraught with difficulty and cuts and scrapes and bushes and barbed wire and mud and all kinds of upsetting scenarios. It seemed to go on forever. It was like a long and hard struggle, seemingly filled with suffering and difficulty, and by the time it was done I was pretty much exhausted and traumatized.

But then I came out into a clearing, and a guide or angel was there. And I asked, why did I have to go through all that? Because it seemed pointless and cruel and stupid. And the answer was in the form of a question - "what purpose might there be that you would be willing to go through all that, if it meant that you could achieve a goal?" And I thought for a moment and realized, that if the goal were the return to God, and if I needed lessons and challenges to get me there, then I would be willing to go through just about anything in order to attain that ultimate prize, the ultimate reunion with my creator. Even if it meant what the world would think of as horrendous suffering.

That's the perspective of the soul - a willingness to endure hardships and seeming limitations and even sickness and death if it means, potentially, the opportunity for learning, growth, for developing holy relationships, and for ultimately awakening from the whole dream. Nothing happens without a reason or a purpose. And it's all designed to carefully, and consensually, lead us toward the end game of reunion with God.

There is an atonement plan specifically designed by God to get us home efficiently and as gently as possible, but it does mean we're going to have to go through some challenges. There is an entire curriculum at work, many people that have to be encountered, many events which have to transpire. All designed carefully through the Holy Spirit to guide us home as quickly as we are willing. A hard life isn't a wasted life, it's a life used constructively for significant growth towards the final goal. Anything here can be used for the Holy Spirit's purposes.

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

"All things are Lessons God would have me learn."

Oneness does not mean "one thing."

In reality, all thinking follows along the lines that whatever applies to one creation, applies to all creations. What is true of one son, is true of another. What is true of you, is true of the entire sonship. Whatever applies to you, applies to everything. It either applies to BOTH of you, or NEITHER of you.

This is a LOGIC system, a way of THINKING, based on the simple idea of "BOTH-AND". What applies as true, is true of BOTH you and others. It is true of me AND you. It is a system based on INCLUSION and EQUALITY. The entirety of God's mind and all of creation runs on this form of reasoning, this kind of THINKING. It's how God thinks and how all of creation functions in harmony. And it's how you should think of ALL your brothers, as being equal to you in every way.

In the dream, the ego's thinking was devised as a way to OPPOSE God's way of thinking. To develop another thought SYSTEM and WAY of thinking that breaks away from God's system and DENIES IT. What better way to disrupt equality and everything applying equally to everyone, than to introduce the law of chaos that the truth is DIFFERENT for everyone.

In the ego's thought system and its way of thinking about anything, it does not think in terms of both/and. It thinks in terms of EXCLUSION, because the whole system is based on separation/exclusion/isolation/specialness. So to the ego, what is true of you is NOT true of your brother. What applies to you does NOT apply to them. This ISOLATES you from them and sets up a special rule that seems only to apply to some PART of the sonship, not everyone. And "me not you" is murderous.

The entire ego MIND runs on "EITHER-OR" logic. The ego never wants to confirm that anything is EQUALLY TRUE of more than one thing, because this would erase separation and differences. It emphasizes how, one thing is NOT another thing. How you are NOT the same as your brother. How what is over here, is NOT over there. How what you have, your brother does NOT have. This belief alone, this kind of mindset, gave rise to SPACETIME, in which what is true in one location is not true in another.

Now, spacetime IS THE THOUGHT SYSTEM OF THE EGO. And because everything IN spacetime is "laid out" logically on a basis of exclusion and isolation, where one object appears to be over here and not over there, and one object appears to be different to thus not equal to other objects, this maps exactly onto the way the ego THINKS. And so then it seems to be natural to THINK in terms of either/or, about everything in the world, because it happens to map exactly or "naturally" onto the physical world.

You can for example easily talk about how your car is parked in the first parking space and not the second one. How you were in Australia for a week and not the USA. How your body is not the same as your neighbor's body. How you own a particular car while your neighbor does not. How your hair is brown while your neighbor's hair is blonde. All of these ways that you pick apart the world, is inherently a direct reflection of the entire ego thought system (which is the world), and so makes it seem easy to talk ABOUT the world using either/or logical reasoning.

However, because this "way of thinking" is COMPLETELY OPPOSED to God's SYSTEM, his thought system,which is HEAVEN and how heaven functions, whenever you use this kind of either/or reasoning to think about ANYTHING to do with heaven, creation, sonship, sons, god etc, MAJOR DISTORTIONS HAPPEN, hugely FALSE conclusions are arrived at, and all kinds of confusion erupts. The ego's system was made to DENY AND DESTROY heaven's system, so if you USE the ego's system to try to understand heaven's system YOU WILL FAIL. Guaranteed.

Here's what happens. In ego thinking, you think in terms of boxes. Either something is in box A, or its in box B. Those are the only accepted possibilities. All of spacetime's "reality" seems to support the idea that this is the only possibility ie something cannot be in two boxes. However, Heaven is outside of spacetime and transcends its nature and its laws. Things having to be separated out by space, things not being equal, things not SHARING a location, things having to be in one place at a time and not everywhere at once, etc... are all DEFIED by heaven's thought system. The ego's laws are BROKEN by Heaven's laws.

The truth is, in heaven's reality, in God's system of both/and thinking, it is possible for very "strange" things to happen. For example it's possible for one thing to be in multiple locations at once, simultaneously. Not only is the thing in multiple locations, it is FULLY in EACH of those locations. This is because everything in heaven has OMNIPRESENCE. God is omnipresent and so are all his creations. Meaning LITERALLY, that a being in reality is capable of showing up in multiple locations simultaneously.

God is not only everywhere, he is FULLY PRESENT in EVERY location. Without compromise. Without only one "part" of him being over here and another "part" of him being over there. He is not partial. ALL of God is simultaneously in multiple locations at the same time. To the ego, that is regarded as ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE. But it is nevertheless possible, because God does abide by the ego's limited laws. The ego would say, anything that is in this location, must be TOTALLY ABSENT from another location. And if it thinks that is true of God, it is not TOTALLY FUCKED In its comprehension of the truth and has come to a completely INCORRECT conclusion. Ego thinking is BROKEN!

Now, that's a problem for ego reasoning, because the EGO wants to put things into nice discreet boxes. It wants to say, well, either a son of God is in this one box, or he is in another box, but he can't be in both at once. But in reality that is actually a LIMITATION which is being placed on what is possible. In reality, A son of God CAN be in both boxes at once! He transcends boxes even when there are boxes. So the ego looks at reality and sees a son of God and says, this Son of God is either:

a) totally separate from all other sons of God because he MUST be ONLY in one completely discreet box by himself, thus "multiple sons" MUST mean SEPARATE sons and this is therefore an "idea of separation", thus the sonship is an ego thing, or

b) the division between the boxes must be erased completely so that there is only ONE box, resulting in there being in truth only ONE son, which by erasing the boxes, has now destroyed the individual sons of God because the ego can't comprehend how many sons can SHARE existence or OVERLAP boxes.

Similarly, if we talk about the notion that a single son of God can be in two places at once, or that there can be multiple sons of God, the ego has no way to comprehend that correctly. It WILL come to false conclusions. All it can conclude is either:

a) if there are multiple sons of God there must be multiple SEPARATE boxes whereby the sons do not SHARE boxes at all and thus are separate - which renders the idea of multiple sons an EGO idea of separation to be discarded as untrue, or

b) there aren't really multiple sons because there can only be "one son per box" so if you take away all the "separations" by taking away all the boxes, there can only be one box left containing only one son, thus completely ignoring the fact that God created many permanent sons IN reality.

This is the kind of ego reasoning that almost everyone in this WORLD uses because it seems to match up to the LAYOUT of spacetime and thus goes unchallenged. To think about or try to understand reality, heaven, creation, and the sonship THROUGH this ego lens, is an AUTOMATIC DISTORTION of the truth. The result is FALSE CONCLUSIONS that SEEM to make SENSE, but are TOTALLY NONSENSE.

It is FALSE to say that God only has one son, by reasoning that there can only in truth be one box in order to have no separation. Separate boxes in reality does NOT mean separation, because the contents of the boxes TRANSCEND the boxes. "One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds" does in fact mean there ARE many boxes!

It is FALSE to say that multiple sons implies multiple separations and is therefore a separation idea. If you think of "any kind of separation" as being an ego thing, not realizing that it's OKAY and NATURAL for there to be NATURAL DIVISIONS in reality WITHOUT it implying EXCLUSION, ignoring that the boxes are SHARING with each other, then you are making a mistake.

SONS OF GOD SPAN BOXES. THEY TRANSCEND THE LIMITS OF EGO REASONING. THEY CANNOT BE CONTAINED BY OR ACCURATELY MAP ONTO A SYSTEM OF THOUGHT BASED ON EXCLUSION! YOUR WAY OF THINKING IS FAULTY!

So in order to actually comprehend how and why there ARE MANY sons in reality, and why AT THE SAME TIME they are "all one", YET MANY STILL, and why this is NOT an ego idea of separation or duality, you have to go BEYOND "box based thinking." And another way of saying that is "thinking outside the box". If you don't think outside the EGO box you WILL come to ALL of the ego's logical conclusions such as "god has only one son" (because it SEEMS to make sense) and "multiple sons is a separation idea" (which SEEMS to make sense) because that's all the ego CAN conclude. It's automatic as a result of either/or thinking.

To think like God, means to stop thinking in terms of either/or. For example, in this world, you have to learn to stop thinking about how your brother is DIFFERENT from you. You have to stop thinking that some truth can apply to him and NOT you. You have to move past this ego model of "its true of you, but not me" or "you're sinful, I'm innocent". You actually have to learn, in thinking like God, that what is true of you is true of THE WHOLE SONSHIP. What is true of you is true of your brother. And you and your brothers are totally EQUAL in every way. And that also means you are transcending the LAWS OF SPACETIME, and you are transcending the entire WAY that the ego thinks, which opens you up to POSSIBILITIES that the ego considers totally impossible.

It's quite a big transition to go from constantly thinking in terms of "true of me, not true of you" or vice versa, to thinking in terms of "whatever is true of me is true of everyone". Or to go from "having individuality is an ego separation idea" to "having individuality that we share but still retaining my SELF is TOTALLY NATURAL." God's system is a matter of either:

a) its true of BOTH of us, or

b) its true of NEITHER of us.

That's totally different to the ego's system of "its true of either A or B but but not both."

It's a TOTALLY different SYSTEM of thought. A totally diffeent MIND. It's a totally different WAY of thinking. It's a totally different way of REASONING and performing logical conclusions. God's system simply is not LIKE the ego's system. And so to understand heaven's dynamics you HAVE to move past either/or thought. If you don't, if you just keep thinking of ANYTHING to do with God's Kingdom USING the ego to THINK WITH, you will conclude falsely!

You have to realize WHY either/or thought is LIMITED, why it was made to produce CHAOS, why it leads to CONFUSION, and why it is totally NONSENSE. In fact, when ego thinking looks at anything to do with reality, anything true registers as nonsense, and anything false registers as making sense! That's because the ego is NUTS and totally OPPOSED to truth. IT CANNOT SEE REALITY CLEARLY. But that doesn't mean YOU can't comprehend heaven's nature, you just have to ditch the WAY you have always been thinking.

So let's say the ego looks at heaven and it sees ok, over here there seems to be a son of God, but over there there also seems to be a son of God. There seems to be two things, two brothers. What will the ego conclude? It will conclude that if there are two things, there are two separate boxes, and the two things are EITHER in one box OR another, but they do not share boxes at all. And thus that this means there are two SEPARATE beings, thus there is *separation* happening, thus its an EGO situation so the two brothers MUST BE ILLUSIONS. And thus it turns the sonship, which comprises MANY INDIVIDUALS, into an ego concept.

That's a PROBLEM, because the fact is that one brother is IN the other brother, and both brothers are SHARING their INDIVIDUAL boxes. There ARE two boxes, but the CONTENTS of the boxes SPAN the boxes. The ego can't handle that! So it sees joined unified SHARED experiences/minds, multiple INDIVIDUALS who SHARE EVERYTHING, as being "separated off" isolated units, and thus concludes that the idea of multiple children of God must be an ego idea of separation that IT has put INTO an ego framework. TOTAL FAIL!

It is PERFECTLY POSSIBLE, in reality, in heaven, for there to be MANY INDIVIDUAL THINGS, which SIMULTANEOUSLY are one. One AND many. Truth that applies to one thing AND to another. Truth that is true of BOTH OF THEM. Something in box A which is ALSO in box B, supporting oneness AND individuality. THAT is heaven's nature! It's a realm, a mind, a thought system, where there ARE many things, in number, many INDIVIDUALS, but AT THE SAME TIME, those individuals are SHARING everything of themselves with each other and God and therefore are "one". The one doesn't cancel the many!

"God who encompasses all being, NEVERTHELESS (defiant of ego logic) created *SEPARATE BEINGS*, who have EVERYTHING INDIVIDUALLY and want to share it to increase their joy."

There is nothing false in this statement and "separate beings" does NOT mean EXCLUSIVE ISOLATED BEINGS. It means MANY beings, who SHARE everything. Who have boxes, and SPAN boxes. They TRANSCEND LIMITATIONS.

Beware. Just because they are ONE, does not mean they are NOT TWO. THAT would be an ego conclusion. And just because they are TWO, does not mean they are NOT ONE! That too is an ego conclusion. Are you following? It's mind bending. The truth about God's creation TRANSCENDS EGO LAWS. Transcends ego logic. Transcends limitations. And transcends the "layout" of spacetime. Omnipresence is the total opposite of spatial relationships, just as eternity is the opposite of time. Spacetime and its structure (thought system) was made as an ATTACK on God.

Heaven is NOT LIKE THIS WORLD, because it is a SYSTEM OF THOUGHT (God's creation) totally opposite to the SYSTEM that runs spacetime. Heaven does not THINK like how the ego thinks! It's laws and rules are BEYOND the ego's laws and rules. Your entire WAY of THINKING has to be transcended and recognized for its limitation in order to go BEYOND it to SEE clearly and correctly the metaphysics and dynamics of heaven. It is not of this world. And in fact you have to unlearn "thinking with the ego" and LEARN TO THINK LIKE GOD. This is in the course! Your mind has to get out of the either/or paradigm!

Ego says, "how can something be two things and yet one thing at the same time? that makes no sense". OF COURSE! It makes no sense to the EGO's way of thinking, so it registers as nonsense, even though IT IS TOTALLY SENSIBLE. One thing CAN be two things! God HAS CHILDREN!!!!!! God has a FAMILY! The Holy Trinity is real and DOES HAVE 3 PARTS TO IT. The Holy Spirit *IS* a permanent distinct ETERNAL CREATION. The sonship DOES have its own children! God DID create legions of angels!

"We are creation, we, the sons of God."

"The Kingdom of God includes ALL HIS CHILDREN, and their creations."

"God's angels".

Until you can recognize and move beyond the limitations of either/or-based ego thinking you will not be able to SEE or ACCEPT why God has created many sons or why it makes TOTAL SENSE to say so. You have to think way outside the box and use an entirely different KIND of thinking. If you look up "paralogical reasoning" you will get an idea of how this works.

This is also why heaven is NOT DUALITY.

This is also why heaven is ****NOT NON DUALITY.***

***BOTH of those concepts are EGO CONCLUSIONS!!!!***

THEY ARE BOTH FALSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The ego can't help but think that way. "Either its one thing, or its two things". That's ALL the ego thought system can conclude, ever! And so it thinks "one thing" is "more spiritual" than two things, so let's go with that. BUT IT's WRONG! IT"S NO BETTER! "Either its duality, or its non-duality, there's no other possibility". THAT'S EGO!! THERE IS another possibility beyond the limits of that assumed way of reasoning. THERE IS A BETTER WAY!

Reality is not duality OR non-duality. It is "paraduality" or "transduality", to coin a phrase. It TRANSCENDS BOTH OF THEM. Stupid ego rules DO NOT APPLY. God is one AND MANY. Creations are one AND many. One brother is ALL brothers. One mind is ALL minds. There are MANY!!! And it's not duality!

Omipresence! Transcendence of the limits of space and time. Transcendence of finite boxes or being one box or many boxes. SHARED experiences. Transcendent experiences. Unity which does not obliterate individuality. Oneness which does not undo or cancel the multitude of God's creations who are, according to ACIM, "in number infinite"!! Equality which acknowledges REAL BROTHERHOOD. A sonship which DOES CONTAIN MANY INDIVIDUALS who are all "the one son of God" AND WHO ARE THE MANY SONS OF GOD. At the same time! Doesn't make sense? TO THE EGO!

Some of you reading this will get it. Most probably will not, and most have not, mainly because we don't realize just HOW steeped we are in ego reasoning. Thinking like God is VERY DIFFERENT to what you're used to. Any time you go towards "one box", or you go towards "many separate boxes", you are IN THE EGO and failing to comprehend the nature of reality.

"Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT." (notice how the ego's reasoning comes to false conclusions because it can't comprehend how multiple souls could have everything AT THE SAME TIME and not exclude each other).

"It goes against all the thinking of the world, but so does Heaven. The world will end when its thought system has been completely reversed." (Heaven's thought system of both/and GOES AGAINST the ego's thought system of this WORLD)

"...but it is perhaps more alien to the thinking of the world..." (the true nature of heaven is ALIEN to the ego's idea of it)

"Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely. Life is now recognized as salvation, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell." (Recognition of reality REQUIRES that you ditch either/or based thought and adopt both/and based thought, which is INCLUSIVE REASONING)

"You will need no rule but this to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body's eyes." (to reach true perception you have to transcend the body's perception, ie transcend EGO THINKING and the EGO WORLD/SYSTEM, so that you can SEE SENSE and SEE REASON and return to reality, only possibly through an acceptance of how everything applies equally to everyone everywhere always.)

"I and my father are one"

Oneness does not mean "one box"! THAT IS EGO!!!!

Oneness means SHARED UNITY AND BEING JOINED AS TWO THINGS IN HARMONY WHO ARE NOT SEPARATE YET ARE STILL TWO THINGS!

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

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

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

Jesus says this.

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

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

Jesus goes on to say:

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

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

Jesus continues:

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

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

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

"Both heaven and earth are in your mind."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet this ***protection*** ***needs to be preserved*** by careful watching. If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgement or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick. Give instant remedy, should this occur, by not allowing your defensiveness to hurt you longer."

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

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

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

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

So what's the conclusion?

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

The course speaks from a perspective of Oneness. That means quite literally that you and all other people are ONE person - one mind, one being. It means you SHARE a mind with everyone else. It should be immediately obvious how much that runs contrary to how most people perceive reality.

It doesn't mean you are a little bit joined and a little bit separate. It doesn't mean you can be sort of One but still retain a sense of separate self. It means you are 100%, totally, absolutely, unconditionally, completely the same as, completely equal with, and completely AS ONE with all other people.

In that view, there is actually a whole different ballgame being played which is vastly different to the ballgame of 'duality', which springs up in the ego and makes you perceive others as 'not you'. The only way for you to see yourself as 'separate me' is to distinguish that other people have differences that you do not have, and therefore which prove your inequality, and demonstrate you are not of One mind. It is a huge cover-up.

So in Oneness, the way that you look at a relationship between two people is very different to how you look at relationships with the ego. In Oneness, because you are One, joined, and sharing everything with the WHOLE sonship (not just one individual), everything that you seem to 'do' to other people, or how you view them or perceive them, applies to them, and to everyone else, and to yourself, all at once. There is then no escaping or being able to say, well, I can treat this part of the sonship one way, and I can treat this other part another way, and I can treat myself entirely a third way. In Oneness, everything is shared, there are no private thoughts, and we all access and express the same mind and Identity (Christ 'consciousness').

Another aspect of the Oneness of the Sonship is that, since everything always applies to everyone equally, anything you do applies to everyone and so you can only either separate from everyone simultaneously, or join with everyone simultaneously. If you could visualize that as a vertical ladder, or 'moving vertically' as some people say, to make true progress in awakening you must uncover the sonship's Oneness in 'layers'. So its like you take a blanket off of the entire sonship at once, to reveal a great degree of Oneness that applies to everyone. Or if you choose the ego and you cover things up, you cover up the entire sonship at once with that same blanket. Whatever you apply to one brother applies to all, including yourself.

Now, just because you start applying ACIM or a mindset of Onenss it doesn't mean your mind is fully committed to it right away. It is very conditioned in the ego's 'mind' and a way of perceiving that is very dualistic. Duality basically attempts to fragment the sonship by dividing it up into many parts. Then it says that different rules and values apply to different parts, and that not all parts are the same. This is an attack on Oneness. But we are very steeped in dualistic mindsets and ways of perceiving each other that are very separation-based. Most of the systems in the world are all founded on this idea of separate individuals (as per physical body boundaries). Acting in a body, as a body, leads us to develop a host of distortions and attitudes and perceptual models which are delusional and very blind to Oneness.

So as you start to 'expose' yourself to Oneness, or a thought system of non-duality like with Holy Spirit/ACIM, you gradually start to chisel away at those ways of perceiving and they gradually get 'corrected'. The mind is, effectively, 'healed', because it's belief in separation is a form of suffering. Duality is suffering. So the mind's perception has to be healed so that the way of perceiving dualisti ally can be transformed into a way of perceiving holistically - ie to perceive with Oneness and to see only Oneness.

That takes time. A lot of time. It's a big transformational process. It takes a lot of work and effort and willingness and healing to 'correct' all of the false perceptions and distorted ways of thinking that duality (ego) has assumed are totally normal for a long long time. So usually waking up to Oneness doesn't happen over night. But gradually, slowly, you start to SEE things more from a perspective of Oneness, and with that comes the ability to see things how Jesus sees them - and you realize that ACIM was written FROM a viewpoint of pure and perfect Oneness. Being able to see that makes everything just fall into place and make perfect sense, whereas seeing it through a filter of duality is ... very confusing.

Anyway... Rambling on a bit.. Oneness... as I do unto others I LITERALLY am doing unto myself. As I see others I see myself. I can't wake up and have a happy jolly experience unless I'm willing to allow that experience to include seeing everyone else WITH happiness and joy, and to recognize MYSELF in them. Or more to the point, recognizing that I don't HAVE a self of 'my own' because everyone SHARES IT.