In your attempt to move away from God, you are basically trying to disown yourself.

You do this by denying who you are, covering up awareness of who you are, and displacing your sense of self onto anything that you perceive as "not me".

What you do is you take part of your mind and retain it as conscious awareness (your persona), and then shield it from the rest of your mind which becomes unconscious (your shadow).

The unconscious part of the mind is disassociated from, denied and rejected. You hide it from yourself so that you can pretend to be only a limited identity.

What is then part of your own unconscious mind then seems to "project" outward, creating hallucinations of an external world. Since you've placed a barrier between your conscious awareness and "the rest of yourself", you do not experience what's out there as yourself.

So now it seems like there is an entire world that is not you, filled with identities and people who are not you.

At the same time, in order to disown yourself, you have to give ownership of yourself away. That means your sense of identity has to become the possession of some other self, namely the ego.

It is not that the ego has any power of its own to take possession of you. Your attempt to disown your own self produces the ego. You make it everything it is on purpose. And yet at the same time as disowning yourself, you appear to grant it permission to possess you.

It seems then that the ego is a separate entity, largely in your unconscious, filled with all the unwanted parts of yourself which you judge as unacceptable, wrong, bad, guilty etc. Yet at the same time, the ego is also in the conscious persona which is at war with the unconscious. It is the separation between them that is the ego.

This unconscious repository of darkness is your "pain body". At times your pain body, the emotional body of the ego, will take possession of your conscious mind/persona, becoming extremely anti-persona and believing the exact opposite of what the persona-self believes.

When this happens it quite literally is like being possessed by some kind of dark twisted being who is very strongly in denial, very deeply opposed to any kind of truth, and it can flood the mind with negative fearful thoughts.

It in a way feeds off of you, in that by throwing your own repressed stuff into your awareness (ultimately as an act of attempted healing), your mind becomes overwhelmed with fearful reactions and this generates a negative energy which it appears to feed off.

Depending on how much separation you have experienced in your existence, will somewhat determine the 'body' of pain i.e. everything you judged or rejected, which has become stored any our unconscious and which needs to be purified and released.

Going through this process is often something that is randomly triggered and seemingly unwanted and horrifying, because it is as though a person can become literally possessed by some dark being, losing significant awareness, going into an unconscious state of paranoia and fear and guilt and dwelling upon the past.

For some people the pain body is so strong that it can produce violence and suffering, while for others it may come and go more quickly. It returns to being somewhat dormant if the person is able to maintain a non-reactionary consciousness, i.e. awareness. But if it is allowed to take over awareness it can turn a person into seemingly someone possessed, who you may barely recognize, and who may suddenly become what many people would consider either depressed or mentally ill.

These periods of "release" of unconscious dark baggage are punctuated after a usually short period of time with a period of relief in which a lightness and happiness takes over. This is similar to what happens when you have a cathartic cry, which initially is painful and dark and upsetting to go through, but at the end once the energy is cleared out you may find yourself laughing.

Ultimately this is a process of healing and release and a way for a person to let go of a large body of unconscious pain which needs to be permitted, allowed, accepted and observed, without becoming too lost in the clouds along the way. Since we repress a great amount of negativity into the unconscious, or otherwise known as the "shadow", there can be a lot of self abuse to be cleansed.

Ultimately the ego itself is not an entity and nor can it truly possess you against your will, but since it is something that you yourself set in motion and gave power to, you have to go through a process of allowing the shadow and persona to cancel each other out. The conscious mind is overcome by what appears to be mind-altering and even behavior-altering unconsciousness, but it is only happening because the person has become ready to work through their baggage and release it.

If this is happening to you or to people you know, you might think they are crazy or that something terrible has happened medically. No many people understand this. But at some point sooner or later you as you progress on your steps towards returning to your true self, reclaiming your identity, waking up to reality and accepting God's truth, it's going to mean you need to purify and flush out all of the ways in which you have created separation in yourself, and so it's as though the lid is lifted off your denial, producing a profound release. And so this really is a part of the awakening process.

This may be the way that you proceed in your path, to varying degrees, or it may not be. It can be very difficult and extremely confusing to go through. But we are all heading home to God one way or another and for some people it takes a direct expression of unconscious fear, guilt and rage, in order to cleanse the mind of the darkness which has been stored there. We all have our skeletons and we all could use a closet spring-clean.

None of use are stuck in the ego. Nobody is a victim of evil. Nothing is happening in our mind that we haven't put in place. And our own ego, our alternate identity, is just a part of our own self that we've pretended to split off. It is no more a separate entity than that it is our own self pretending to not be our own self. And so it's an interesting paradox that as we attempt to disown ourselves, we become owned by ourselves, albeit around a wall of unawareness. Moral of the story being, you cannot stop being what God created.

We're all loved by God and there is no real way to be separate from Him.

Communication means sharing. Not sharing where one person hands over something to someone else, who now possesses that thing, but the first person doesn't. It means, you both have access to the same state at the same time concurrently. In other words, communication means Oneness.

When there is a breakdown in Oneness, where separations are introduced, it' like erecting walls that come between. Separate parts of mind - or individuals - now seem to be on either side of the wall, like the Berlin wall. This wall breaks communication. It makes it hard to share and join and connect.

Once communication has broken down, i.e. sharing has broken down, we get into a state where there is barely any real sharing. Separate individuals now seem cut off from each other with various forms of distance between them.

The physical world with all its illusions arises out of this breakdown in communication, resulting from separation and illusions of fragmentation and distance. "Spacetime" really means "distance from here."

When communication is diminished, it degrades and devolves into what we commonly think of as forms of communication. These forms of communication are severely strained because there is so much separation involved.

While you can write or speak to others, across a gap of separation there must be misinterpretation. Information will be lost, mis-perceived, and disagreed upon. When two people seem to be a little more eye-to-eye, communication may be elevated, or they may seem to share more.

But there is also an illusion of sharing. Prowess at using the ego's forms of communication doesn't necessarily mean there is openness to true sharing. There are excellent "communicators" in the world but they are not necessarily One with God, or experiencing the same exact identity and state of being as the One Son of God.

The body limits communication, and every way that we use it to express through its forms, are breakdowns in communication. Once in the body this way, unless you are so awakened that you are communicating from pure love, you will feel this urge to try to, or to have to, force others to see things the way you see them.

This happens because you know that there is a major difference between the way you perceive separately and the way they perceive separately. You have to make egoic efforts to force them to listen, and the ego then produces this fictional idea that ... if you could just get people to "get" what you are saying, if you could just get them to "see" your point of view, or if you could just shake the denial out of them to get them to agree with you wholeheartedly, THEN this would be communication. However, this is impossible to achieve.

This automatic compulsion to coerce others to see things your way, is simply because you are not both sharing the same direct experience and there is no Oneness. This means the other person will have to be changed in order for them to seem to share what you are experiencing, and this change can only be brought about through force, in defense of what you perceive as being the whole truth.

While there is a separation, there cannot be perfect communication. The ego will attempt to claim it is possible to KEEP the separation between you and others, to communicate only through its approved channels, and to nevertheless perfectly transfer what is in you to others, or to precisely get from others what is in them. This is impossible and will never work. The separation distorts the message and will always inhibit it.

True communication in ACIM means Oneness. When there is a revelation, God is communicating fully to you. When there is full awakening, you are then able to share in full communication. The Course speaks of how we are to use miracles to help us to "raise the level of communication". What this means is decreasing separation so that there can truly be real sharing - oneness.

"To be with a body is not communication."

"The whole aim of the miracle is to raise the level of communication."

"11. Prayer is the medium of miracles. It is a means of communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed."

"Like any communication medium, the body receives and sends the messages that it is given. It has no feeling for them. All of the feeling with which they are invested is given by the sender and the receiver."

This also means that, in fact, the ego does not facilitate communication - it blocks it. It spins illusions of communication to try to bridge the gap of separation which it itself put in place, which is "special communication" (that's not an official course term but it could be). Illusions of successful communication, or the ways that you improve the ego's forms of communication, covers up and distorts real communication.

In truth then, nothing that the ego attempts to "share" goes anywhere. It's ultimate form of communication is attempted death, whereby the body is used as the ultimate weapon to try to prove that oneself is dead and therefore so are others. And yet, this has no effect on others. The more you enter into the ego the more cut off from others you become, and the effects of what you attempt to bring about cease all the more.

This is also why nothing real can be threatened. The ego cannot attack God. The more it attempts to attack God the less effective it is. The ego's attacks are withdrawals from God. The more it tries to bring about death, the more confined and separated it becomes, and this keeps all of its effects securely at a distance from God. The Kingdom of God cannot be assailed because the ego's forms of communication - "attack" - is actually an act of failing to will anything real.

"Exclude any part of the Kingdom from yourself and you are not whole."

"The body no more dies than it can feel. It does nothing."

"Nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace."

"Nothing can destroy your peace of mind because God goes with you wherever you go."

"There is no death because the Son of God is like his Father. Nothing you can do can change Eternal Love."

The Kingdom of God has the interesting property of having to be shared and extended in order to exist. And the Course teaches that in order to truly 'have' something, you must give it away, because giving it proves that you must have had it and you can only give what you have. It also tells us that in order to experience anything you must SHARE in it because it is available to all and is not for your private possession.

"To have all, give all to all".

This is also reflected in "giving and receiving are one".

What it means is, things of God don't just sit there idle doing nothing. God isn't just "being God" without any increase or creation. If you are not sharing and extending love, love is not being love. This is why definitions of 'oneness' and 'non-duality' fall far short of the creative, extending, loving qualities of God.

We are also told that miracles which come from love will "go out because of what they are", but that "you are needed that they can begin." What that means is, love simply automatically radiates and extends by its own nature, but in order to allow it to extend through you you have to remove your blocks to it first. Then it moves through you without you having to make it do so.

Everything about God's Kingdom shares this nature. Something is not real unless it is shared, open, extending, increasing. This sharing and extending is like a RADIANCE or a radiation, or radiating outward. This produces LIGHT and PRESENCE. In a sense "God said, let there be light", speaks to God's creative ability to shine and create and extend.

Remember that in God's Kingdom everything is increased by being given, and giving something does not mean there is a loss (an ego idea). Instead, giving anything real increases it because giving does the opposite of losing.

Jesus talks about this in terms of everything being an idea. When you share an idea it is increased and it becomes stronger the more people believe in it. It does not diminish and the person having the idea does not lose anything.

The Course also says, "nothing real can be increased except by sharing". It is also the nature of love to extend and increase, because it has absolutely no reservations or limits or reasons to withhold itself from "shining" and radiating and going out everywhere.

Jesus talks about this in how the children of God contain the same "inner radiance" as the Father, and this is the source of all extension and creation.

Creation and extension and sharing are the same thing. To share to the ego means both parties have less than the whole. To share in Heaven means that both parties SHARE the WHOLE, and there is no decrease, and in fact there is an increase. The total is greater than the sum of the parts.

This is also true of the Sonship - "the combined total of the Sonship is greater than the sum of its parts". This is because each Son in the Sonship is not just a finite unit. Instead, each son SHARES and extends and increases and amplifies the rest of the Sonship. So it's not just like 500 sons lined up alongside each other, it's more like 500 sons overlapping and increasing with each other, creating a wholeness which is far larger than their individual contributions. This is also part of the holographic nature of creation.

Everything about God, His Kingdom, Creation, Extension, Sharing, Reality, Truth, Love, it all has this property of increase and sharing and going out and radiating and illuminating. And if this radiating and extending were not occurring, none of this stuff would be able to exist.

Love could not be love unless love loved to love and radiated love and extended and increased love's presence. Creation would not be possible at all (since nothing real can increase unless it shares) if it weren't for this sharing, giving, increasing.

There would be no light without the ability for it to shine, which means to "project" or extend outward beyond its source. God would have no Sons or Sonship and Heaven could not exist without it being in a constant state of radiance and increase.

Also therefore you cannot have or enjoy or share in anything real unless you also are willing for it to be given and extended. This is because, if you think about it, in order to receive something of God, you cannot just take it and possess it and diminish God's supply of it. Instead you have to be open to receive, to SHARE it, ie both you and God are experiencing the same thing, which also means this openness makes you willing to GIVE it as much as you receive it - giving and receiving are one, and therefore to experience love requires the willingness to share, receive, and give love, which automatically increases it.

God's act of CREATION, which we also possess since God shared it with us and created us capable of creating like Him, is an act of RETAINING your own light and love and yet 'projecting' it outward so that you shine, and this shining produces an increase, and manifests a "new creation" which itself possesses the ability to create and extend to exactly the same degree as yourself and God, and so now there is the whole of God + the whole of you + the whole of your own creations, and nothing is lost, and so there has only been an INCREASE. This is why Heaven rejoices as each Son of God returns Home to increase its light, and why joy increases, and everything just keeps on "growing" infinitely.

As love is received, shared, and extended, it increases because you are now acting like an amplifier or a relay which boosts the signal as it passes through. By giving it, by sharing it, you can 'have it', but you can't 'have' it by claiming it in isolation for yourself (which is ego). And so anything that is real cannot be possessed it has to be shared, and so anything real automatically has this sharing/increasing quality to its "terms and conditions". To exist (to have), it MUST extend. This is also why God creates and why every child of God is imbued with the same will to create. It is NATURAL to extend and create and to increase the presence of love. Nothing can exist without sharing and extension and equal giving and receiving.

There are a lot of ACIM students believing that they are working miracles. There's often talk of shifting perception, changing beliefs and so on.

But when you look deeply at what ACIM says, not only does it rarely mention shifts in perception etc it tells you that you aren't even the one who performs miracles.

"The holy spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

"Concern yourself not with the extension of holiness, for the nature of miracles you do not understand. ***Nor do you do them.*** It is their extension, far beyond the limits you perceive, that demonstrates you do not do them."

What the Holy Spirit can do is not of this world, and His power is unlimited.

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

"All power in Heaven and earth is therefore given him and he will share it with you when you have completed yours."

Sometimes I feel like I'm going out on a limb and saying something which most ACIM people don't believe.... in that, it is really the Holy Spirit who performs miracles. Yes he needs you and performs them with and though you, but Jesus is repeatedly telling us we don't even understand miracles, and although we inherit God's power it is really the Holy Spirit who knows what to do AND does it.

"The Holy Spirit does NOT work by chance, and healing that is of Him ALWAYS works. And unless the healer ALWAYS heals BY Him, the results WILL vary."

"The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist. He makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which He is the Guide. The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE.

... Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God."

"As you awaken other minds TO Him through HIM, and not yourself, you will understand that you are not obeying the laws of this world, but that the laws you ARE obeying WORK."

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

It is the Holy Spirit who performs miracles. And the miracles he performs are not mere shifts of perception or adjustments to your beliefs. And while His Help can benefit YOU, and heal YOU, it is also there to help OTHERS.

I think at times that a lot of ACIM people do not get this. They are not in touch with the Holy Spirit, do not work with Him, do not talk to Him, do not trust Him, do not heal with Him, maybe don't even believe He is a Spirit with POWER. The power to heal. It is the Holy Spirit who raises the dead and heals the sick.

YOU are needed in order to fulfill a functional role of being a conduit for Him, a point of prayer and request, a servant, and what ACIM refers to as a "physician of the Lord". But your function does not entail knowing what the heck a miracle IS, yet alone knowing how it WORKS, or what it DOES. Do you really honestly know how the human body functions such that you can repair it supernaturally? No you don't. But the Holy Spirit does. And it therefore requires trust in Him to do so.

"The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought was there."You can also see that YOU are not the SOURCE of miracles, though you may be a relay-station for them.

"Miracles are a universal blessing FROM GOD, through me (or you), to all my brothers."

"Miracles mean life and God is the giver of life."

God provides the miracles. Not you. But you perform them. He does them through you, with you. You are asked to be in an open minded state of trust in which there is love present, SO THAT you are a facilitator of HIS WORK, through you. So that you can "do his works."

"Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."

There is nowhere near enough openness to the Holy Spirit in the ACIM community. In fact it seems at times that hardly anyone ever mentions Him. A lot of people are doing the course "on their own" as a "self study", which strips it of all power and completely avoids the Holy Spirit. If it's some book you can tinker with on the toilet without ever having to develop trust in a supernatural entity, then.... it's more like school homework than a way to become empowered with the SPIRIT of God.

We are supposed to be developing trust in HIM, and allowing HIM to heal through us, and to USE our bodies, and to SPEAK through our mouths, and to WRITE with our fingertips, and to express love with others. He wants to use our bodies as a communication device. This does not exalt the body, it makes the body nothing OTHER than a tool through which HIS importance shines and extends. HE is the one that we are supposed to be working with.

Where is the Holy Spirit in all this? Where is the supernatural?

Where is the revival and the miracles?

Where is the Holy Spirit in the activities of those who claim to be awake already?

God is the truth. Originally there was only the truth. But then we made up an opposite. We thought there could be something false as well, a falseness which had truth to it.

"For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM." UrT10H2

And so we swapped what is true and what is false, and confused them. We took all the attributes of truth (God) and assigned the to something untrue (an illusory world). And then we took all of the attributes of illusions (non-existence, death, evil etc) and assigned it to God.

So there was this huge reversal in our minds. Not only did this put us out of touch with reality, which meant we were insane, we also were extremely confused and lost. We became lost because we could no longer tell whether something is true or not. We lost track of which way is up, what God is really like, etc.

This meant we lost the ability to properly discern the difference between what is true and what is false. It meant we developed a belief that God is cruel and evil and wants us dead. And it also means we invested all our sense of value and attraction into a false world in order to stay as far away from him as possible.

"You HAVE carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING." UrT7J9

So now when you look at death, you actually do in your mind believe it has some properties of life and truth and reality. And when you look at attack you think it is salvation. And when you look at hell you think of it as heavenly. And when you look at suffering you think it is atonement. And when you look at God you think he is an evil enemy to be avoided.

So then you have this sort of totally mixed up radar. Your whole navigation system of "what you want to go towards" is all thrown off by a kind of huge magnetic storm, which is affecting your compass. All your arrows which point in directions you think you want to go, are actually pointing in the opposite direction from where they're supposed to point.

The problem is because you're so lost in the woods you can't tell which way the arrows are supposed to point. So everyone in the world keeps making suffering for themselves because they keep choosing things which they believe are good and true which are not. And people will create sickness because they think that getting away from God (life, health, wholeness) is saving their lives. And people will even destroy and kill the body believing that it's going to set them free.

So there's not only a huge amount of confused and lost people in the world, all these people have a backwards upside-down thought system. They don't recognize what they are actually choosing in the big picture, and believe they're making excellent choices in the narrower picture. But the ego temptations are leading them down dark paths under the guise of making good progress.

This is really the problem of the world. That we're all mis-creating very faulty outcomes, poor choices, which are bringing us suffering, because in the big picture we are actually choosing suffering but we don't recognize that we are. We think we're making choices that will lead to us being better off. We are deceived, confused, insane, and lost. We don't know which way to get home, so we keep heading down a dark tunnel to death.

This also brings with it a huge amount of resistance and unwillingness to go towards God. It creates a fear of being helped. It can cause people to suspect that a miracle is going to destroy them. That the Holy Spirit is a threat. That God is not going to love them. Who would stay away from God's love unless they thought that it would make things worse for them? But that's what people believe.

So when you go to help people often they do not want the help because they see it as harm or as a threat, as if its going to take away their treasure. And they want to keep their suffering and keep trying to destroy themselves because they think that's in their best interests.

You've got a world full of very confused backwards-thinking people who don't know what they are doing or why they are doing it, but they think they do, so they keep blindly choosing very poorly and ending up suffering, having not mastered their creative power.

What we need is to get our minds straightened out and to learn to recognize again what is really true. But that's going to mean that you have to question what you believe, and be open to the possibility that you are VERY mistaken, and you have to then be willing to want something better. Not something you think is better, but something actually better in God's terms. And you will resist that and NOT want it.

It will literally be like you're being asked to go towards the very thing you want to get away from. You will advance in fear and see the destination as a threat to your existence. This is because the ego is so backwards and has framed God as the opposite of love. All of this confusion has to be sorted out and undone. And that's really all we have to do. A lack of recognition is the problem.

This is why we are to learn that "only the truth is true", ie to find out that only God's truth is true, and it's a loving truth. And to recognize also that false things ARE false and ARE unreal. Such as this world, and the body. Because while we believe we are a body in a real world we'll want to KEEP that, because letting it go or questioning it would be a threat to our entire existence.

This is why there is a lot of reluctance in some people to question whether this world even exists, and they'd rather stay asleep in a pleasant dream of a physical reality and not upset the apple cart. Some people are just not ready for the higher truth.

It also means that because people are confused, they do not recognize they are confused, and they believe they have the whole truth already when they don't. It requires great humility to be willing to be mistaken and to become open to something you were heavily resistant towards before. Everyone will get there eventually but it will take a lot of time for everyone to overcome their reluctance to go home to heaven.

"ALL are called but few choose to listen. Therefore, they do not choose RIGHT." The "chosen ones" are merely those who choose right SOONER." UrT3F23

"This is the world of time, where all things end."

This should be fairly easy to understand. Time is the idea that what seems to be here now, cannot remain. It must change. It must stop being what it is.

This leads to realizing that time does not allow anything to be permanent. Everything becomes temporary. That means everything is forced to come to an end. Which means everything dies. And both birth and "death" are now part of a whole system of death, in which everything has the mark of death upon it, even from the outset of "new life".

Time is the very thing which seems to produce growth and change. It is the seeming driving force behind the beautiful flowers that grow from seed and bloom and share their fragrance for a little while, before time just as easily forces them to stop being this way, enforcing death and decay.

Time does not allow anything to remain as it is. It is an attack upon the idea of eternal life. It is a notion that what has always existed no longer exists, being the destruction of God himself. It essentially places God into the past and kills him off and converts him into some other mangled form. And even if it reflects glimpses of God it will only offer them temporarily.

The world, by which I mean planet Earth, but also the solar system, the galaxy and all the galaxies/interstellar objects, are all governed by time. Every particle of matter is governed by time. This means that everything in this system HAS to change, which produces a constant state of movement and the impossibility of perfect stillness. Nothing is ever allowed to rest and be truly at peace. Even the rocks sitting there for many years are gradually being changed and converted against their will. Nothing in the world or this "universe" can escape this.

"At no SINGLE instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered or anticipated, but NEVER experienced just now. Only its past and future make it seem real. Time controls it entirely. For sin is never present."

Since time enforces change, it enforces ends, which means it enforces death. Don't be deceived in thinking there are exceptions to this. Absolutely everything in the world has the mark of death upon it and will die, unless perhaps there is an interventional miracle from another world beyond the laws of time and space.

Time wants you dead. The very thing which seems to allow your body to move and change is also the very thing which is seeking its destruction. Time is the very thing which permits birth but also death. It is not picky about what state anything is in. Jesus is telling me to use the word "unscrupulous" here.

In a world of time, all things end. There can at best be seeming periods in which things seem to be fairly consistent, fairly constant, or even long-lasting, but they are never endless, and a time will come when they will end. These temporary illusions of almost-permanence mask the fact that the whole system is still gradually destroying itself. And if you fall for the illusion of believing that its presentation of "life" is at its maximum, you are blind to the fact that even the living are partly dead.

"There IS no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, their life must be. In ANY state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it SEEMS like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is NOT life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning."

Since there is no real eternal life outside of heaven, and Earth is a realm technically "outside" of heaven, or at least believed to be, it is not a world where there is real life, or maximum life. It is a world of death. This is because separation from heaven means the inducing of time and space, which is delay or avoidance or denial of reality.

So this whole system is set up for death. All the time it is devouring itself. All the time it is working on destroying itself. Sometimes it presents illusions of birth and newness and growth and prosperity, only to GUARANTEE that at some point it will just as easily take it all away without blinking an eyelid. And to some that may come as a shock or surprise, or something long put-off and avoided, as if it is not going to happen. But look at how everything you ever had in the world came to an end.

Essentially change is death. Although of course in this world it seems that you must change in order to "live", because the whole system is backwards. But change does not allow the immortal to remain immortal, and the eternal are brought into question by it. Without time you would live forever, but with time you are destined to be destroyed.

Jesus suggests that there is no hope of escape from death IN the world. You cannot stay IN time, and have there be no death. Time and space are both attacks on reality's nature. They cannot be combined or coexist. You cannot keep time, along with bodies moving and growing and so on, and still expect there to be no death. "Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped."

Read it carefully because it's telling you that there is NO WAY EVER to escape from problems WITHIN the world. The only way ultimately is to transcend it, rise above it, and eventually leave it. The whole system of spacetime will always entail death and destruction. It will not ever be heaven or offer eternal life. It cannot therefore save you and cannot save you from itself.

You HAVE to find a better way - another world, not of you, which God created perfect. The ONLY HOPE that you truly have is that this world is not real and is thankfully NOT doing what it appears to be doing. Do not be deceived into thinking that this world can ever be dressed up as a living world or a permanent world or a world of hope or a world of salvation and happiness. It is nothing and will never be true. All you really want is God.

"It might be worth a little time to think once more about the value of this world. Perhaps you will concede there is no loss in letting go all thought of value here. The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end."

For a long time I have focused on "the secret of salvation". This is to do with realizing that you are the cause of everything you are experiencing. And therefore that you are responsible for all your own suffering. On the one hand it's humbling and on the other hand it's empowering, because if you can realize you're the one doing it you have the freedom to stop.

But l notice now that the secret of "how to be saved" applies in the case where you are not yet saved. It's helpful when you are in the suffering and need to get out of it. That's kind of the context of it, it's a tool you can use to recognize who is doing what to whom, so that you can stop doing it.

I have noticed also that with the secret of salvation, we are focusing a lot on taking responsibility. Which initially is seen as inciting guilt, and then moves into trying to be fully responsible for everything. But the further secret is, that if we try to take full responsibility ALONE, where "separate me" is fully responsible for everything, then we are still generating fearful outlooks, because depending on ourselves alone is a state of rejecting God.

So I've been locked into a stage for a while of trying to be fully responsible, but trying to take that responsibility in isolation, rather than GIVE that responsibility to the Holy Spirit. I feel that I personally am somewhat moving beyond this stage now and into more of the "I am saved" stage. By which I mean, I have recognized that it is my attempts to do anything "alone" that is the source of all suffering, because that's how I "be separate". And "I" can't be fully responsible without sharing that responsibility with God.

Whenever I try to be separate, I essentially am attacking myself, which makes errors, produces more ego fear, and induces suffering. This all comes about after I have judged and given meaning to things, using my own faculties for judging. Which means really, using my own past learning. This always leads to errors because it's lacking a lot of facts. And I keep being shown now just how wrong I can be when I don't know all the details.

So I'm now finding that if I admit to not knowing what anything means, and am willing to stop trying to judge anything I see, and instead seek out the Holy Spirit to join in his vision or interpretation, then this circumvents the whole process of going into error. Or rather, I guess I'm saying that if I seek the state of forgiveness sooner, then I don't go into judgement, and thus don't hurt myself. Which reminds me of this...

"Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven. "

This is what I am atuning to now. Trying to become closer to the Holy Spirit and more identified with my real self, so that I do not go INTO judgement or MAKE errors. Because as soon as you make errors, you'll start believing you've got a whole mess on your hands that you need to fix, problems to solve, fears to address and self-inflicted suffering to be undone. ALL of that can be avoided if you don't make the errors in the first place!

It's far more effective at preventing a movement INTO fear, when I try to remain OUT of the battlefield. Being willing to not be the one to judge, or decide, or plan, or figure out, or deduce meaning, I stay well out of the entire "fight" that we have with the world. If I don't do this and I go into solo-mode, ego pilot mode, then I start to "make a world" that's riddled with separations and conflicts and unresolved problems and threats and dangers.

I have been finding of late therefore that I actually feel... and this is a word Jesus just threw in my mind.... INSULATED.... against dangers. That is to say, I feel like there was an entire version of "the world" which I thought was out there, which has been scraped off the surface of my mind and isn't there anymore. An entire layer of experience and suffering and a sense of threat and engagement and littleness and fear. It's just gone. It's like I have stepped out of an entire world and it has disappeared. At least to a degree, and now I look upon what's left through much calmer and less aggravated perspectives.

I see now therefore what Jesus means about how false perception makes you see a world that looks like hell, and how as you move into more abstract states of mind you lift off of the world entire layers of vulnerability, fear, struggle and suffering. Its like a whole veil has been lifted to some degree, so much that I have been feeling like I'm in a different world. Like I literally just stepped out of one planet and am on another one where a lot of the strife doesn't exist.

And I am thankful for that, because there is a noticeable contrast between how much safer and calmer and happier I feel now without the tremendous burden of being some kind of "soldier on the battlefield" fending off the hounds of hell. I am simply not making as many errors, generating as much fear, producing as much control, making up as many problems, or developing as many meanings for things. And in fact as I look at objects now they appear to be new and fresh and interesting.

It's weird but Jesus basically says that we are to adopt a perspective in which everything is given ONE meaning, from a whole viewpoint where "wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles", where we look upon a forgiven world without trying to understand it, having given up all our past learning and become willing to be empty, to just surrender and let go of trying to know or do or control everything. I'm taking my hands off the steering wheel and the car is finding a a smoother path.

"The holy instant is the Holy Spirit's most useful learning device for teaching you love's meaning. For its purpose is to SUSPEND JUDGMENT ENTIRELY. Judgment ALWAYS rests on the past, for PAST experience is the basis on which you judge. Judgment becomes impossible without the past, for WITHOUT it you do NOT understand anything. You would make no ATTEMPT to judge, because it would be quite apparent to you that you do not know WHAT ANYTHING MEANS. You are afraid of this, because you believe that, WITHOUT THE EGO, all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that, without the ego, ALL WOULD BE LOVE."

I've been finding lately that turning to love is a problem solving solution. That being in a state of love can in fact solve anything. And this has to mean unconditional love, in terms of it solving any problem in any situation, regardless of the circumstances.

Just feeling a sense of love inside myself, actually has the corrective power to keep me out of fear. It provides a feeling of safety. But it even goes further to influence others and my relationship to them positively. It's like being in a state of prayer. Praying to send love to others, to solve problems.

It seems so simple but it also seems so difficult to consistently trust that turning to love will solve every problem. We're so used to trying to solve problems through so many varied means, so many different forms, different approaches, ways of relating, actions and reactions, that the one thing which solves them all equally becomes obscured.

The ultimate lesson seems to be learning to trust that love can and will solve everything, if we would just turn to it for everything, depend on it for everything, and trust it in all situations to be the solution. After all, God who is love gave the Holy Spirit who is love, to solve the one problem, which led to the illusion of many problems. And in His love all problems are solved equally with the same loving response.

Love simply works, and corrects every error in every way necessary. It is miraculous in its unconditionality and complete denial of the many varied forms of suffering.

A few quotes...

"Your holiness, then, can remove all pain, can end all sorrow, and can solve all problems. It can do so in connection with yourself and with anyone else. It is equal in its power to help anyone, because it is equal in its power to save anyone. If you are holy, so is everything God created. You are holy because all things He created are holy, and all things He created are holy because you are."

"This course is a beginning, not an end. Your Friend goes with you. You are not alone. No one who calls on Him can call in vain. Whatever troubles you, be certain that He has the answer, and will gladly give it to you if you simply turn to Him and ask it of Him. He will not withhold all answers that you need for anything that seems to trouble you. He knows the way to solve all problems and resolve all doubts. His certainty is yours. You need but ask it of him, and it will be given you."

"It is NOT difficult to understand the reasons why you do not ask the Holy Spirit to solve ALL problems for you. HE has not a greater difficulty in resolving some than others. Every problem is the SAME to Him, because each one is solved in just the SAME respect, and through the SAME approach. The aspects that NEED solving do not change, whatever FORM the problem seems to take. A problem can appear in MANY forms, and it will do so while the problem lasts. It serves no purpose to attempt to solve it in a SPECIAL form. It WILL recur, and then recur again and yet again, until it has been answered for ALL time, and will not rise again in ANY form. And ONLY then are you RELEASED from it."

"The Holy Spirit offers you release from EVERY problem that you think you have. They are the SAME to Him, because each one, regardless of the form it seems to take, is a demand that someone suffer loss, and make a sacrifice that you might gain. And, when the situation is worked out so NO-ONE loses, is the problem gone, because it was an error in perception, which now has been corrected. One mistake is NOT more difficult for Him to bring to truth than is another. For there IS but one mistake; the whole idea that loss is possible, and COULD result in gain for anyone. If THIS were true, then God WOULD be unfair; sin WOULD be possible, attack be justified, and vengeance fair. This ONE mistake, in ANY form, has ONE correction. There IS no loss; to think there IS, is a mistake."

"Here is the answer to every problem that confronts you today and tomorrow and throughout time. In this world, you believe you are sustained by everything but God. Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols; pills, money, "protective" clothing, "influence," "prestige," being liked, knowing the "right" people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness which you endow with magical powers."

"In quietness are all things answered, and is every problem quietly resolved. In conflict there can BE no answer and no resolution. For its PURPOSE is to make NO resolution possible, and to ensure NO answer will be plain. A problem set in conflict HAS no answer, for it is seen in different ways. And what would be an answer from one point of view is NOT an answer in another light. You ARE in conflict. Thus it must be clear you cannot answer anything at all, for conflict HAS no limited effects. Yet, if God gave an Answer, there MUST be a way in which your problems are resolved, for what He wills already has been done."

"The one remaining problem that you have is that you see an interval between the TIME when you forgive, and will receive the benefits of trust. This but reflects the little you would keep between YOURSELVES, that you might be a LITTLE separate. For time and space are ONE illusion, which takes different forms. If it has been projected BEYOND your minds, you think of it as time. The nearer it is brought to where it IS, the more you think of it in terms of space. There is a DISTANCE you would keep apart from one another. And this space you see as time, because you still believe you are EXTERNAL to each other. This makes trust impossible. And you can NOT believe that trust would settle every problem NOW."

"This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes. ... 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."

If there is a pain in my hand, and if I believe there is a pain in my hand, I will begin to experience reactions about the pain.

This is simply because I see there being some kind of causality coming from the pain. I think it has a power over me. I see it as happening to me. I seem to be experiencing it as though it has happened without me asking for it. And so it seems unfair, malicious, unwanted, unwelcome, as though these sentiments are somehow justified expressions of me being holier or more innocent than this.

And if this pain in the hand continues or increases, then I will likely increase in my perception of victim hood, and simply by the reversal of cause and effect, seeing cause as outside of myself, I am actively creating responsive conditions inside of myself which show up as reactions, having threatened my own self with my own mistaken perception of this pain.

I myself am creating my own reactions, including fear which begins to mount in response, as though the pain is causing me to be afraid - what does it mean, what is it leading to, why is it happening, but simply also the sheer apparent fact (albeit unreal) that it is even happening at all, is enough to provide an upset.

"I am upset because I see something that is not there." - ACIM

And so as my fearful reaction increases, so too does my conviction that this is a more serious problem than before, that it calls for magical curative measures which will attack it and manipulate it and try to make it go away. And the more strongly I feel passionate about the need to be rid of it, the more I will actually add empowerment to it, seeing it as being so strong and mighty as to deserve serious counter-measures.

These perceptions of the need for a counter measure, a retaliation, a reaction of any justified kind, a fear, or any sense of taking this seriously or treating it as real, simply shows the extent of my mistakedness and the fact that what I am ACTUALLY doing is CREATING THIS. I create it with my fear of it, I create it with my rejection of it, I create it with my desire to be rid of it, and I create it with my attempt to fix it.

And the more real of a problem it seems to become, the more certain I will be that I really need to get something done about this because it's very very serious indeed. And yet in perceiving it, describing it, envisioning it, interacting with it and making it be serious as such - believing in its appearance - I am merely choosing to manifest it, to give energy to it, to feed it.

The reason that we do this is because when we are using the mind incorrectly and are entering into illusions, false perceptions and errors, we start to experience the opposite of what we attempt to achieve. We think that we do not want pain in the hand, but this means that we will put it there. We think the pain in the hand should not be happening, and such intensify its happening. We think that it is making us very afraid, and as such we literally are causing it to become more monstrous.

We do not realize that as soon as we have stepped away from real truth and have entered into mistaken truth, we've lost our mind and our way, have become deceived, and are now operating our mental powers 'inversed' or back to front.

The ego is an entire thought system based on this back-to-front inversion of truth, and when we are in this mind, we quite literally ask for what we do not want, attract what we are trying to get away from, try to fix what is not even a problem, and generally compound the very issues that we suffer from, not realizing all along that we are inadvertently causing ourselves to prolong the suffering, simply because we're applying ourselves through an inverting filter, a reality flip, which gives us back the exact opposite of what we think we are asking for. And this is simply because once in the ego perception, we are in opposition to the real truth, and therefore are bringing about opposite effects.

Indeed the incorrect form of forgiveness correlates to the ego activities and behaviors of believing that you are sincerely attempting to rid the world of that which is wrong with it, by taking a purer or more innocent standpoint, all the while actually reinforcing, manifesting, increasing and generally adding to the conditions of sinfulness. Such forgiveness then becomes an attack rather than a correction of error, a judgement instead of a miracle.

True forgiveness therefore must entail the cessation of all of the above egoic behaviors, reactions, self-caused chaos, and general inversion of truth and opposition to it. All of these symptoms are expressing merely because you are using the mind backwards, expressing opposition and resistance instead of unity, order and health.

True forgiveness entails the complete UN-doing of all of these egoic thought patterns, attitudes that reinforce the reality of the monster, reactions to it founded in fear which really are created by your own self as part of your psychological reversal and belief in threat, and the cessation of "making real" this problem. To lend reality to it, to believe in it, dwell upon it, give it credit, think of it seriously, forget to laugh at it, mistake it for real danger (which does not exist), and to generally actually side with it while claiming and portraying yourself as doing the exact opposite, is simply to keep the problem and make it worse.

We need to learn to forget this world. As Jesus says, forget this world and come with wholly empty hands unto your God. To forget is to literally pay no further attention, knowing that the thing was unreal, and requires no upkeep to defend against it.

We need to learn to stop learning the wrong things. We keep teaching ourselves with the ego, we keep learning that sickness is real, that sin is irreversible, and that death is inevitable. This must all be corrected and undone and vanquished from the mind, replaced with the Holy Light of the Truth, which comes to set you free.

The truth does set you free, literally, actually, and in reality. Because the Truth is God and only Love is Real.

When you perceive that something is 'wrong' with someone else, and that this wrongness does not apply to you, you are SEVERELY MENTALLY ILL.

When you perceive that what applies to another person, due to their apparent separate free will and the idea that they are supposed to be responsible for what they do, in isolation, you are SEVERELY MENTALLY ILL.

When you think that its possible for you to do something to someone else, or to have an attitude or judgement toward them, which does not apply to you in any way, you are SEVERELY MENTALLY ILL.

When you believe that someone else clearly is the guilty party and that you did not do anything whatsoever to ask for mistreatment, and that you have been victimized, and that you are completely innocent and they are completely guilty, you are SEVERELY MENTALLY ILL.

When you hate someone or judge them or are disgusted by them or offended by them or they seem to be totally crazy or they are your worst enemy, in which you are none of these things, you are SEVERELY MENTALLY ILL.

In all the ways of perceiving reality, when you perceive that there is a SEPARATION between what applies to you, and what applies to another, that is MENTAL ILLNESS. And this is the foundation of ALL mental illness. A belief in separation, in all its forms and flavors, is mental illness.

When you perceive that something is happening to you which you did not ask for, when you are receiving something you did not choose, or that you are not receiving you what you did attempt to ask for, that is also mental illness.

When you believe that death is inevitable and that it is going to happen to you against your will and that you will be a passive victim of it, that is also mental illness.

You will notice that the above describes THE MAJORITY OF HUMAN KIND. That is because the majority of human kind IS MENTALLY ILL.

To understand WHY this is mental illness, you need to understand how the mind is supposed to function and what is NATURAL for the mind, as opposed to unnatural. All of the attitudes listed above are unnatural and are NOT normal. They are very commonplace, but they are not normal.

The mind, in every person, is not ever in any way supposed to operate in the realm of separation. Your mind is meant to be whole, which means not only that it is whole within itself, but also that it is part of a greater whole in which all minds are joined as ONE MIND.

This means that everyone shares the same mind. This One Mind is the mind of God. When your mind is One with the Mind of God, you are SANE. God is permanently whole and permanently sane and there is no separation of fragmentation in God's mind. You can share God's mind, and that is your NATURAL CONDITION. And it is in sharing God's mind fully that you MUST experience PERFECT HEALTH - perfect divine immortal health.

When your mind is separated off from the whole, and therefore sees itself as separate and limited, it will also see itself as containing limitations and separations. This is what gives birth to EGO. The ego is INSANITY. When there is ego in your mind, i.e. a lack of wholeness, a lack of oneness, a lack of unity with God, you WILL experience insanity - mental illness.

So then as you go around the world perceiving that a given person is "not you", and another person is also "not you", and that there is not something IN them that is exactly the same as what is in YOU, you are in mental illness. You have entered into a private hallucinatory world of separation and division and SELF ATTACK. As soon as you believe in separation in any way, your whole mind must attack itself in an attempt to set one part of itself against the other part. This self attack produces ALL SICKNESS, and all sickness is a form of MENTAL ILLNESS.

Once you are in mental illness, you will perceive that other people are separate from you, that there are separate rules that apply to them which don't apply to you, that what they will is different from what you will, that something can apply to them that does not apply to you, you are in mental illness. Once you start to treat them in a different way than you treat other people, or react to them differently based on their behavior, or have a different attitude of specialness based on who they are or what they exclusively do for you, you've moved away from the UNCONDITIONAL LOVE which is the condition of the WHOLE mind, and have entered into conditionality. Conditionality is insanity.

So then when you are hating the political candidate for the opposition, or when you are against that other sports team, or when you hate that person who seemed to do something to someone against their will, or when you judge someone for the form that they appear to take, or when you can only love a special person and nobody else, or when you believe that you are right and someone is wrong, or that you are good and someone else is bad, THAT IS MENTAL ILLNESS.

It is not natural. It is not normal. It is extremely common and almost everyone on this planet IS mentally ill. This IS a crazy world, but it doesn't have to be.

So when we talk about mental illness, let's be clear about what sanity really means (One shared mind of wholeness and peace and unconditional love), and that anything other than this is mental illness in one form or another. Everyday people rising up 'against' some other group of people, is mental illness. Everyday people attacking some other group righteously because of how that other group is 'less spiritual' or 'less honest' or 'less good' or whatever, that is mental illness. And its YOUR mental illness, not theirs.

All forms of separation are mental illness. All perceptions of separation are mental illness. And all other commonly recognized types of "mental illness", which people would normally call mental illness, such as paranoia or schizophrenia or psychosis or whatever, those are just the more noticeable EXTREMES of mental illness. That doesn't mean that all the other people are SANE. Almost every psychiatrist on the planet is insane. Almost every doctor or nurse on the planet is insane. Almost every pastor of churches or preacher in religions is insane.

The only sanity is in God, with God, joined with God, one with God, as God's Holy Son who is permanently sane and whole and complete, devoid of separation and lies. Only in TRUTH is there sanity. So before we judge other people for being insane or 'not right', let's remember that WE are just as insane and we need to work on our own mental health instead.