Everyone should love everyone, and be a part of everyone. That is natural. What is unnatural is to be separated off and not share with each other.

The device which we use to separate ourselves off, is the body. Bodies act like little anchors that root you in a little spot of space and time and keep you apart from others. And without a body there cannot be specialness or special relationships.

Within this scenario, all bodies are separate and unrelated. There are no relationships, only separateness. Everyone is alone. The body is like a prison with legs, walking around keeping its occupants inside. The prisoners cannot reach outside of their prisons, but they can shuffle their prison cells around to try to get closer to each other. Usually the prisoners clash and disagree and hate each other for their differences.

Sometimes, when two prisoners find each other and regard each other as similar, sharing common ground, common features, common backgrounds, common interests and beliefs, they see each other as less of a threat. They are less than totally hated for a while, granted special rights and privileges.

To perceive another as being like you, in terms of physicality or form or beliefs etc, creates the illusion that you are less at war with them. There seems to be something that you agree about. When there is a lot of agreement, you might even feel trusting enough to become closer to the person.

You then enter into a special relationship. The relationship, which is really the absence of relationship, and more like two prison cells banging against each other in the darkness, brings two together so that everyone else might be excluded.

"When two INDIVIDUALS seek to become ONE, they are trying to DECREASE their magnitude. Each would DENY his power, for the SEPARATE union EXCLUDES THE UNIVERSE. Far more is LEFT OUTSIDE than would be taken in. For God is left WITHOUT, and NOTHING taken in."

They come together to share on the basis of how they are alike, and therefore how they threaten each other less than others. This mutual illusion of trust seems to open doors and lets the two become more intimate. But their intimacy depends on the rejection of all others.

These chosen ones, the special love interest, the exclusive partner, the one with whom special rules are agreed to, whom has special rights which cannot be shared with anyone else, becomes the idol. They are given special artificial value, not inherent to who they are, but in contrast to what others seem to lack.

And so they experience feelings of closeness, seeming special love, a certain degree of trust, a magicalness in which the whole world seems to disappear, and you wish you could be with this person forever and to hell with everyone else. Coming home to this person feels like a breath of fresh air, as you both lick your wounds and hate the rest together, pointing out their flaws and keeping them at a distance.

The so-called relationship is then a tentative state of mutual partial agreement, or allegiance. Certain terms are made which cannot be broken. The persons are not allowed to become too different or step away or act outside the prison walls, otherwise they are violating the contract. And the contract may even be called a marriage.

If one of the persons strays too far, goes outside the envelope of interests, violates the common ground, breaks the walls, stops being exclusive, tries to become intimate with another, changes in a way which makes then unalike, or steps on their toes, the underlying sense of loneliness, isolation, abandonment and rejection will come flying out, hurled at the other to accuse them of sin.

And so the special love quickly turns to special hate, as those who once were trusted allies turn into enemies, brothers become strangers, lovers become divorcees, and significant others become forgotten.

For as much as they allowed the other to come into their secret circle, they kept everyone else out. They had to in order to make the relationship special. This chosen one was the only one permitted to be loved. This special one was the only one who could gain permission to access secrets and hidden hates. The whole world was against them and they against it. But their conditional love always had conditions from the start.

At some point, a relationship based on bodies, and on such specialness, and illusions of joining, may be brought into question. If there is enough of a movement or willingness towards becoming more unconditional, truly open, or sharing more honestly, a relationship not based on flimsy illusions but on something deeper, then the special relationship will be brought into question.

This questioning of it will reveal that the two did not really come together in love, they came together in hate, and hated together, and thought this was love. And the whole relationship will be seen as unfounded, in which what they thought was a magical kingdom of perfection and bliss was in fact founded on a lie. A lie of loneliness and shared suffering and false empathy and codependency and enabling and justifying attack together.

This can produce a lot of pain and misery and shock, because suddenly what was an illusion of love and magical specialness and special value is suddenly recognized as false, faulty, flawed and fake. You thought you were in a relationship but you really weren't. And so now in order to convert this specialness into a true relationship, a holy relationship, it's going to take some transcendence of its exclusive limitations.

The terms of the relationship will have to change. Who you think you are relating with will have to open up. You will have to become more unconditional and accepting and tolerant. You will have to put aside grievances and unforgivenesses and hatreds. You will have to dig deep to find love even in the face of rejection and attack. And this will also mean having to heal and love yourself so that you are willing to give more than you ever gave before.

If the relationship can tolerate this transition, from a make-believe love affair of idol worship, special love, body worship, physical intimacy, safety in numbers and so on, to a more encompassing inclusiveness, then it can be converted into a holy relationship.

To do this, bodies must be transcended. The other cannot be regarded as a body. Nor can yourself. Special values and beliefs which seemed to apply only to the two of you have to be questioned, and now the interests of others have to be incorporated as well. Others have to be included in the circle which has to expand to include everyone. Exclusivity has to go out the window, and all sense of physical limits has to be uprooted. The whole sense of who and what you are, your identity, is brought into question.

This is where you are learning to truly join, to unconditionally love, to identify beyond the body, to learn to see the other for the first time beyond the body, to truly open up and expose oneself, to join in minds instead of in bodies, and to realize that you ARE each other. Interests become shared, special boundaries become blurred, the world is no longer an enemy, and an equality sets in.

In true equality, the other can no longer be seen as a parent, or a child, or a special one, or someone better or worse than self or others. They have to be seen as God's equal creation, alongside you, in which it is an honor to support and help them in their ascension into the light. To heal with them and to share with them. The two of you have to come into the light of honesty and truth and forgiveness. And then you might find that you are able to actually BE related, because you are part of each other.

The prison doors begin to swing open, true access begins to reveal itself as mind reaches out beyond the body, and now the two can become one. Thus specialness ends, and the unholy become whole again. And now the wholeness incorporates the whole, and all are regarded as included in this whole. One way of relating to every one. One love, one truth, one family of God.

Quite often while reading the ACIM text I am blown away by Jesus's crystal-clear clarity on various topics. It's like, there couldn't possibly be any way to explain MORE clearly. Last night as I read about forgiveness it was no exception. Immediately I knew I had been misunderstanding parts of it all this time.

The ego's version of forgiveness has you taking a good, clear look at an 'error' and then attempting to overlook it, but you can't overlook it because you've made it real. Looking AT the error is not looking PAST the error. It is not overlooking, it's just looking. Once the error is firmly in our sights, we are holding onto it and maintaining it, so cannot simultaneously transcend it.

What the Course then says is that once we've made errors real - which is the situation we find ourselves in almost all the time and usually this is the state that compels us to want to forgive - we will be tempted to believe that we have to "UNDO what we have MADE in order to be forgiven". We made the illusion, we invented it, we believed in it, we have faith in it, and if it is real then we have to undo what we made in order to forgive. So then we start to set about trying to UNDO the thing that seems to be upsetting us. But we can't undo it that way because our belief in it holds it firmly in place.

The Course goes onto to describe Holy Spirit's forgiveness. It says simply and clearly, that Holy Spirit is ALWAYS overlooking all errors, and DOES NOT SEE ERRORS, in a pro-active manner - fore-giving, SO THAT errors will not ARISE, and so that they therefore do not need to be later 'undone'. The Holy Spirit does not make errors real in the first place. He does not `make` illusions. And so to Him, there IS no error. This is where it becomes paradoxical. The Holy Spirit forgives constantly in order that there is nothing to forgive. He fore-gives, ahead of the need to address an error, so that no errors arise whatsoever. He therefore has a 'forgiving attitude' which is incapable of registering error whatsoever. This is why HIS forgiveness is "quiet, still, looks and does not judge, and does nothing".

So the Course is describing these two types of forgiveness. Ego forgiveness which tries to undo things it's made real and cannot, vs Holy Spirit's forgiveness which HAS NOT made things real and so is permanently overlooking all errors in the knowledge that NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. The Course also says that the ego attempts to take over control of all activities, and this is why the ego thinks IT is the one who has to do forgiveness. But the Course also says, Forgiveness is the HOLY SPIRIT's function. Holy Spirit constantly is forgiving in order not to have anything to forgive. OUR function is different.

The error I have made is in thinking that I am the one that forgives - as the ego - who has made errors real and now attempts to do something to/about them in order to make them go away. Holy Spirit is the light which actually shines so brightly that there is nothing to forgive.

So, then I found myself asking, how then does one transition from being in the ego and `needing to forgive` or `needing to undo` due to seeing something that seems real, to aligning with Holy Spirit's viewpoint which is that ALL IS FORGIVEN already in a pro-active, preventative way. How do I go from maintenance and cleanup after observing a mess, to proactive preventative measures. How do I go from 'attack it with the course' to 'nothing happened'.

Somehow I have to get my mind to ALIGN with Holy Spirit's way of looking at things, so that I can see that all is forgiven. But while I'm believing that something has gone wrong and I need to do something, THOSE beliefs are actually preventing forgiveness. The truth is that nothing has really happened and nothing has gone wrong, and its my believing in the reality of the error that IS the error. Its an error in my forgiveness. I have to get my mind to change its viewpoint away from 'I need to forgive this because it's happened', to, 'I am forgiven because this HAS NOT HAPPENED'.

This is kind of along the same lines as "I recognize we are both forgiven for what we HAVE NOT done", which is the viewpoint of Holy Spirit. The ego's version of forgiveness is very misleading and distracting. I see them now as two wavelengths, the lower wavelength of ego mired in illusions of illusions, and the higher wavelength of Holy Spirit floating above everything knowing there are no real illusions.

The process of 'transitioning' from an ego viewpoint to the Holy Spirit's viewpoint seems to what we call 'applying forgiveness'. We try to 'not do' (undo) the WAY OF SEEING that was producing a view of error, recognizing we must be mistaken if we believe there even IS a real error. Holy Spirit said to me we need to "withdraw" our conviction and belief that the error is real in every way, so that we can move towards the atonement viewpoint, which says nothing happened. Holy Spirit sees WITH the atonement.

One thing I always was mistaken about is when I heard that Holy Spirit perceives, I always thought it meant he perceives illusions, therefore he can see all of our errors etc. But the Course has clarified that Holy Spirit only sees clearly by OVERLOOKING all errors and NOT seeing them. He perceives, but he perceives with total right-mindedness, proactively forgiving and looking pass all errors to The Face of Christ. Sort of, `in` the world but not of it. This was my mistake because I thought he saw the errors as well. The EGO is the one that sees errors, and the ego is IN the world. This separation of roles and perspectives has really clarified things for me as to WHO is doing the forgiving and WHO is holding the appropriate perspective.

The only area now where I have some questions, and I'm sure continued reading of the Text will reveal more... is in.... through what seeming 'process' or 'steps' do we transition our mind away from the ego's version of forgiveness to the Holy Spirit's. When I'm in the ego I do not understand forgiveness and I apply 'something' but it isn't Holy Spirit's version. When illusions are particularly strong I believe heavily that the problem is separate and that IT needs to be changed by throwing Course at it. That's totally ego. But that's the starting point. That's not HOW I need to forgive, it's the KIND of forgiveness that I need to learn NOT to do. If I see a house on fire, my forgiveness should be - there is no house on fire, 'how can I forgive this burning house'.

I'd always thought that the process of 'undoing' and of 'correcting' and of trying to shift toward Holy Spirit WAS forgiveness... even the goodie-two-shoes student approach of APPLYING the Course ... but that apparent 'process' is not forgiveness itself. Forgiveness is the Holy Spirit's view which is always the same. Whether I JOIN Holy Spirit in His view is the question/decision. And if it takes time TO join with Him, it seems like that 'journey' toward Holy Spirit is a forgiveness process, but it's more of a ... 'realization that nothing needs to be forgiven' process. A process of correction. Holy Spirit IS the source of correction because He sees CORRECTLY. My (ego) attempt to `do` the forgiving and to become forgiven and to get to where I see that it IS forgiven, is really my struggle between allegiance to ego and allegiance to truth. That's where the 'work' seems to be needed and surrender needs to happen, SO THAT I can get to where I can SEE clearly that 'all is forgiven' already - ie that all is looked upon WITH forgiving eyes and sees only Christ.

(I'm not sure if I'm explaining clearly what exactly has become clearer for me 'overnight'. .. more to follow)

There is no world - one of the hardest things to accept. There is no error, there is no problem, there is no ego.

Thank you Jesus for your unceasingly clarity and for sharing it with us!

Now, pause a moment, and watch out for an ego reaction of guilt. My intention is not to make anyone feel guilty. Nor is it Jesus' intention. But he is trying to educate us with deep honesty about what sickness is and is not so that we can be more easily freed from using it to hurt ourselves. We need to be willing to look at this, it's part of the course. We are adults here, right? We can handle it.

Jesus's statements simply tell us that all forms of sickness are part of an attempts to make our body sick, in order that we can hold it up as proof that our brother is a sinner, accusing him of having caused the effects/symptoms. We show him sickness, evidence of attack and sin, to imply that we have been affected against our will, thus able to scapegoat him and accuse him of sin. Scapegoating isn't just psychological, it is physical.

And furthermore, Jesus is clearly teaching that the body, as a symbol, CAN symbolize innocence and forgiveness, through its physical healing. A healed body teaches and demonstrates and proves that there has not been sin, it exonerates your brother, AND it helps to heal his mind. Your physical health, stemming from your psychological health, becomes your brother's health. When the body is sick, it accuses your brother "Brother, at your hand I die". This happens are psychological, physical, and metaphysical levels.

If you want to love yourself and your brother, the body MUST depict only a symbol of heath and wholeness. Otherwise it is serving the ego's purpose of making sin real. "The mind, being sane, heals the body."

*** Physical sickness is a symptom of an unholy relationship with your brothers! ***

Jesus demonstrated this principle through the resurrection. Here's what he says in passages from "The picture of crucifixion" and "The fear of healing." These are POTENT teachings not often accepted in ACIM circles.

"A sick and suffering you but represents your brother's guilt; the witness which you send, lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you swear he never will escape."

"The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved."

"Is healing frightening? To many, yes. For accusation is a bar to love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers. They stand firmly in the way of trust and peace, proclaiming that the frail can HAVE no trust, and that the damaged HAVE no grounds for peace. Who has been injured BY his brother, and could love and trust him still? He HAS attacked, and will attack again. Protect him not, because your damaged body shows that you must be protected FROM him. To forgive may be an act of charity, but NOT his due. He may be PITIED for his guilt, but NOT exonerated. And if you forgive him his transgressions, you but ADD to all the guilt that he has really earned."

"The unhealed CANNOT pardon. For they are the witnesses that pardon is unfair. They would retain the CONSEQUENCES of the guilt they overlook. Yet no-one CAN forgive a sin which he believes is real. And what has consequences MUST be real, because what it has DONE is there to see."

"To witness sin and yet forgive it is a paradox which reason cannot see. For it maintains what has been done to you DESERVES no pardon. And, by GIVING it, you grant your brother mercy, but retain the proof he is not REALLY innocent. The sick remain accusers. They cannot forgive their brothers AND themselves as well. For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns CAN suffer. He holds not the proof of sin before his brother's eyes."

"Who forgives IS healed. And in his healing lies the PROOF that he has truly pardoned, and retains no trace of condemnation that he still would hold against himself or any living thing."

"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt? Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the proof that they were merely errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect."

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

"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt."

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

Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health. BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true."

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

What if you decide that you are not going to die?

Immediately this flies in the face of everything the world's population holds as true and inevitable. It flies in the face of an entire weight of collective thoughts and beliefs about what is normal and natural in this universe.

You wouldn't be the first to accomplish this either. St Germain for example was known to be "in a body", maintaining agelessness, for several centuries. Babaji is known to be hanging around without aging. There are others.

Jesus calls for every A Course in Miracles student to accomplish this also. He asks us to swear not to die. He tells us to choose resurrection, to not attack the body, to not make it sick, and to heal it. He asks us to make it a picture of health not a picture of crucifixion.

He asks us not to make the body age, or decay, or be sick, or die, but instead to maintain it in a state of guaranteed perfect health indefinitely, for as long as this is useful. That could mean thousands of years, or just a few.

You probably have assumed all your life that just because everyone else's bodies grow old and die and no-one can seem to cure death, that this is the only option. That death is inevitability and it's your fate. Particularly that death cannot be reversed, yet alone prevented.

You see the seasons come and go, the leaves die off, the flowers wilt, the animals turn to carcasses, and people are put in the ground. And we think this is normal and natural and unavoidable. Something to be "accepted" and adjusted to and made out to be something you can do "in peace".

But Jesus is asking a much higher calling for us. He wants us to use the body as a symbol of eternal life, a breath of immortality, to those who have grown tired of the fetid scent of death.

He wants us to allow the Holy Spirit to heal and resurrect the body through miracles, to present a picture of total health and loveliness to your brothers so as to teach them there is no sin and no attack.

He wants us to demonstrate, in person, physically, that there is no death, and that we have power over death. And that means that we make it possible for this exact body we have right now to not die. To not decay. To not grow old and withered and look like a prune. And to be incapable of corruption.

Are you willing to take up this challenge? If you're going to take this course the whole way then it is going to require of you at some time to actually commit to not dying. You cannot have a shred of belief in death or experience of death in your mind and being if you are to reach the end of the curriculum, which is resurrection - death's total opposite.

So you might as well decide right now. I am not going to die this time. I am going to move towards health, life, happiness, wholeness, healing, miracles, the power of the mind over the body, and I refuse to simply go the way of the worms along the funeral procession of death and decay.

How about you decide today, that you will not intent to die this time, you will not merely unconsciously accept notions that you will die, and you will not allow the body to die. It is your challenge to become miraculous and to heal the body's ailments and cure its diseases and undo death itself. To demonstrate your immortality using the body as a tool to prove your mind is stronger than death.

Few will rise to the challenge. It seems ridiculous. It seems impossible. It flies in the face of everything. Just stop and think for a minute. What if in this lifetime right now, with this body, you simply are not going to go through death? What if you're going to simply keep this body, heal it, resurrect it, protect it through miracles and the Holy Spirit, and maintain it in perfect functioning? For as long as you like?

Once the body is being healed by a sane mind, it cannot become sick, nor can it die. So now it is not possible to leave it through death. "A dream of death cannot be left through death but by truth". Truth means resurrection and life.

The body becomes a shining symbol of immortality and you can longer leave it through sickness or decay or suffering. The old doorway to darkness is closed. And the only way to then leave is to simply lay it aside, without decay, without attack, without sickness, in which the body does not corrupt or destroy or symbolize hell. And then it disappears.

What if you don't have to die physically? And what if you can resurrect all the way to invulnerability and immortality? And what if you can prevent the body from being attackable? And what if you do not have to keep aging? What if you can fly in the face of everything the world believes and choose not to die?

"You cannot die unless you choose to do so."

"No one dies without their own consent."

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked."

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all."

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you.Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies.Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all."

"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"

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

"Swear not to die, you holy Son of God! You make a bargain that you cannot keep. The Son of Life cannot be killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in all the universe that must be one."

Your mind has the ability to be either constructive (creative) or destructive. Using the mind for destructive purposes is what the entire ego thought system is about. The whole world was made in an attempt to destroy God and Heaven.

The mind, in its healing and accepting of atonement, has to be restored to being PURELY CONSTRUCTIVE. That means that any destructive tendencies or attitudes have to be healed and corrected.

A destructive tendency is anything that emphasizes the SEPARATION that has seemed to come in between you and others, or you and God, in any kind of relationship. An attempt to DESTROY relationship has produced a WORLD, the inner contents of a seeming "gap", like the pits of hell. And it is into this world that you seem to go when your mind becomes destructive.

If you desire to create, you desire to extend God's love and life and power. This extending goes out without limit and is shared with everyone fully. It is a full embracing of all your brothers in love and light. It is a complete joining and union with them.

This extension of creation and the shining of light are miraculous. It represents health and union and harmony and peace and perfection. To extend God is to be in support of The Kingdom and thus to fully support your brothers with love and His life-giving force.

This isn't merely a state of equality, it's a state of GIVING in which you are constantly maintaining the perfection, innocence and immortality of your brother, as your brother's keeper. It is a way of INCREASING what He has, therefore denying lack or weakness. Being constructive is to GIVE power, to GIVE life, to GIVE love, and to thus MAINTAIN eternal life through constant supply.

"Miracles supply a lack. They are given by those who temporarily have more to those who temporarily have less."

Becoming destructive, on the other hand, is an effort to do the opposite. It is a desire NOT to share, not to extend, not to create, not to love. It is a rejection of eternal life and thus entry into what seems like a world of mortality and death - a dream of death. Attempting TO DESTROY, is to insert some kind of separate illusion in between you and others, to focus on it, to give it reality and truth, and to believe in its existence.

"The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist."

This focusing on destruction is what makes the world of bodies and forms and objects. A world of sin. It is how the planet is held together. It's what makes sickness and death seem possible and real. It materializes as seeming vulnerability and attack and all forms of illness. It falls short of joining with your brother in love, and instead dwells upon what we call "his body", emphasizing its reality and its faults, to try to believe that your brother is NOT an immortal being but a mortal object of attackable flesh and bones.

While our focus is deceived by, tempted by, attacked by, joining with, focusing on, making real, giving truth to, agreeing with, the world of bodies, which comes IN BETWEEN you and your brother's real selves, we are being destructive. This destruction could be mixed in with some FORM of support or help, such as feelings of sympathy and sorrow, compassion, caring, concern, worry, trying to fix their bodies directly, grief when the bodies are harmed or lost etc. All of which are really DESTRUCTIVE attitudes aimed at emphasizing the REALITY of suffering rather than being truly helpful.

To be truly helpful, we have to look at the ways we buy into the dream, the illusion of spacetime, the world, and the bodies of ourselves and others, believing they are total reality, and instead learn to LOOK PAST them to the light of truth. The real truth about others is that THEY ARE PERMANENTLY IMMORTAL, and they cannot EVER have a fault or a weakness or a sickness or any kind of suffering. That is what must be given reality, truth and strength.

"To forgive is to OVERLOOK."

And to overlook means to NOT look at, or to not see, what is being overlooked. In effect to be blind to it, through the proper use of denial. To reject that it is EVEN THERE, putting our WHOLE focus on the extension of love and the recognition of the total truth about another.

"The world you see (the world of bodies) must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision (the ability to SEE your brother as he really is)."

Vision does not focus on the body or the world or the things seeming to happen on the canvas of spacetime, in efforts to be support and truly helpful. To HEAL requires looking PAST these things to the ACTUAL truth, and not being hung up on what the gap in between seems to claim. To look out FROM love, TOWARD love, completely skipping over everything IN the gap of the world, so that THERE IS NO GAP. There is no gap, because there is no world.

"Forgiveness does not look upon bodies and mistake them for the Son of God. It looks beyond bodies. That is its holiness. That is how it heals."

We have to examine, where is it that I am buying the bullshit lies of this world, the bodies of others, the appearance of things. And why am I thus AGREEING that these things are true and real, instead of rejecting their falsehood? We have to learn to look PAST these things to the reality of the immortality of our brothers IF we are to OFFER THEM immortality. And only by looking WITH love can you look AT love, which is BEYOND the body.

"Never was love in the world of dreams."

Love erases the dream. It heals the dream away. It shines it away. It closes wounds. It undoes tears. It repairs malfunctions and interference and terror and pain. Because unity has no separations, sins or guilts within it, and is perfectly smooth and harmonious and loving and strong.

To STRENGTHEN your brother is to constructively support him. To GIVE LIFE to your brother is to constructively support him. To offer him HIMSELF, equal with the love in you, is to remind him of who he really is. To EMPOWER him is to put him in touch with the innate power that GOD GAVE him already. And to deny HIS denial of the truth about him, weakens HIS belief in his own separateness, and thus HEALS the rift between you.

"The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept Atonement himself. This means that he knows that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors ARE healed by the Atonement. Once he accepts this, HIS mind can only heal. By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others. The message which he then gives to others is the truth that THEIR MINDS are really similarly constructive, and that their own miscreations cannot hurt them."

To be truly helpful is to resurrect. It is to literally SUPPORT the true nature of your brother. To uphold it. To sustain it. To reinforce it. To brighten it. To enliven it. And to ensure it.

"Do not allow your brother to be sick."

Your brother CANNOT BE sick because he is immortal. Believe only this and he wil be healed completely. Buy into his sickness and you merely become sick along with him, and now you both are weak because you suffer together, and there is no hope because you are not giving any. You must not buy into the sob story ego bullshit of your brother or loved one. It is NOT TRUE of them. It's entirely false. And the only story you should be believing is the story of his IMMORTAL CREATION and PERMANENCE, AUTHORED by God.

We are learning to be truly supportive and truly helpful. Putting aside our DESTRUCTIVE uses of mind, our ego, and embracing ONLY constructive, creative powers, which are miraculous.

To put it simply, the nature of the mind is completely opposite to the nature of the body. Mind is of God, bodies are illusions. Mind functions naturally in a state of sharing, union, extension and oneness, driven by God's laws. Bodies function according to unnatural ego laws of separation, as separation devices, designed to imprison mind and completely oppose the mind's natural functioning. This is also why the notion that the mind is "part of the brain" is preposterous.

"A mind and body cannot both exist. Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for ***one denies the other can be real***. If you are physical your mind is gone from your self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really part of you. If you are Spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality."

"The body IS separate, and therefore CANNOT be part of you. To be of ***one mind is meaningful***, but to be of one body is meaningless. By the laws of mind, then, the body IS meaningless."

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master."

"The ego, which always WEAKENS the will, wants to SEPARATE the body from the mind. This IS an attempt to DESTROY it."

"For sin HAS changed creation from an Idea of God to an IDEAL the EGO wants; a world IT rules, made up of bodies, mindless, and capable of COMPLETE corruption and decay."

To attempt to APPLY a body TO a mind, imprisons the mind. Confusing mind and body, to suggest the body is the mind, or that you have no mind at all, leads to the mind identifying with the body. This makes the mind run completely opposite to its nature, and induces all suffering and sickness.

To again put it simply, if the mind in any way associates itself with the body, or allows or uses the body to define itself, the mind becomes sick and attacks the body. Bodies are prisons, and minds are freedom. Bodies are exclusive, and minds are inclusive. Bodies separate, minds join. They function totally differently, so trying to make the mind function LIKE the body, arrests the mind's natural function and induces illness.

"Thus is the JOINING of mind and body an INESCAPABLE belief of those who value sin. And so is sacrifice INVARIABLY a means for limitation."

"Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished ONLY if the ***mind EXTENDS to other minds***, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension. The arrest of the mind's extension (tying it to the body's nature) is the cause of all illness, because ***ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND's FUNCTION***. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND's JOY."

"No mind is sick until another mind AGREES that they are separate."

"If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment 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."

"The body needs NO healing. But the mind that thinks it IS a body is sick indeed!"

Extension, sharing, union, oneness, equality, transcendence, miraculousness, is the mind's natural function. Mind needs to function according to mind's laws in order to be healthy. But bodies are fundamentally opposite, as separation devices.

If the mind identifies with "being a body", or functioning by physical laws, or obeying physical limitations, the mind becomes sick. It's like something that's supposed to be completely free and open, being shoved inside a completely closed box. Mind and body are not compatible.

"Spirit makes use of mind as means to find Its Self-expression. And the mind that serves the Spirit is at peace and filled with joy. Its power comes from Spirit, and it is fulfilling happily its function here. Yet mind can also see itself divorced from Spirit, and perceive itself within a body it confuses with itself. Without its function then, it has no peace, and happiness is alien to its thoughts."

"Yet mind apart from Spirit cannot think. It has denied its Source of strength, and sees itself as helpless, limited and weak. Dissociated from its function now, it thinks it is alone and separate, attacked by armies massed against itself, and hiding in the body's frail support."

"You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea."

"Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its powers decline if their bodies are hurt."

"the underlying fallacy is more likely to be the confusion of mind and brain"

The situation we find ourselves in is therefore very strange. We seem to be isolated and alone inside a body, trapped, as if separated off from other minds, physically unable to truly share or join. Even in intercourse we can't actually get inside of another person's mind, or experience them as ourselves, or really share anything with them.

Everything seems to happen to us alone, and not another. Everything seems to apply to me and not you. Even the form of our bodies suggest we are different, separate, special, and exclusive. That we are separated off by time and space. As if I can have little private thoughts inside a little private world that has no effect on anyone or anything outside of me.

This is not how mind needs to function to be healthy. This is totally opposite to its natural functioning. Mind needs to SHARE, to join, to be one-with, to unify, which is true communication and extension. Mind needs to be open and transcendental beyond limitations and walls and boundaries. Mind spreads out and can have the vision to see beyond physical limits and distances. Mind can be everywhere at once.

So somehow we have to find a way to transcend the body's anchoring, imprisoning, limiting factors, and restore the mind to functioning how it functions in heaven.

"Or would I teach that bodies cannot keep us apart?"

"What does it matter if they then appear in many forms? Their minds are one; their joining is complete. And God works through them now as One, for that is what they are."

"This is the function of your holy relationship. For what ONE thinks, the OTHER will experience WITH him. What can this mean, EXCEPT your minds are one?"

"The body is not capable of understanding. Only the mind KNOWS anything. A pure mind knows the truth, and this IS its strength. It cannot attack the body, because it knows EXACTLY what the body IS. This is what "a sane mind in a sane body" really means."

"A PERSON conceives of himself as separate, largely because he perceives OF himself as bounded by a body. ONLY if he perceives as a MIND can he overcome this."

"While you believe that YOUR reality, OR YOUR BROTHER's, is bounded by a body, you will believe in sin. While you believe that BODIES can unite, you will find guilt attractive, and believe that sin is precious. For the belief that bodies LIMIT the mind leads to a perception of the world in which the PROOF of separation seems to be everywhere."

"Sins are beliefs which you impose between your brother and yourself. They limit you to time and place, and give a little space to you; ANOTHER little space to him. This separating off is symbolized, in your perception, by a body which is clearly separate and a thing apart. Yet what this symbol REPRESENTS is but your wish to BE apart and separate."

"The belief you are a body calls for correction, being a mistake."

"Remember that all sense of weakness is associated with the belief you are a body, a belief that is mistaken and deserves no faith."

"If you are sin you ARE a body, for the mind acts not."

"It IS impossible to see your brother sinless, and yet to look upon him as a body."

"And so the illusion of a brother as a body is quite in keeping with the purpose of unholiness."

"To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body."

"For faithlessness IS the perception of a brother AS a body, and the body CANNOT be used for purposes of union. If, then, you SEE him as a body, YOU have established a condition in which UNITING with him becomes impossible. Your faithlessness to him has separated you FROM him, and kept you BOTH apart from being healed."

"And while you see your brother as a body,APART from you and separate in his cell, you are demanding sacrifice of him AND you."

"He Who was always wholly spirit now no longer sees Himself as a body, or even as in a body. Therefore He is limitless. And being limitless, His Thoughts are joined with God's forever and ever."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

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

"The Holy Spirit is the Bringer of Revelations"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He will direct you VERY specifically. "

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

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

"The happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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