I feel more relaxed and peaceful, which I think is a result of looking at the world's system of failure, unrelenting attack and constant problems.

There was always an effort to resist the world going wrong, a constant tension of trying to stop bad things happening, an expectation that things should be going well all the time, and a desire for nothing to ever turn sour.

These were all forms of denial and wishful thinking. An ignorance about the system of the world and how it functions. It was rooted in a mixed belief that the world was even capable of sustaining anything. That it should, that the norm of life should be that the world "works well", and that problems are occasional annoying exceptions.

If you look at the fact that the world is utterly bullshit and hell-bent on inevitable destruction, that all its roads lead to death, that it disappoints at every turn, and it is literally incapable of being free of problems and difficulties, you actually get more of a sense of its "true nature". Instead of the fanciful denial that attempts to insulate us from it.

We spend a great deal of time and effort trying to make the world more tolerable. We build fancy homes and cities to try to shut out and ignore the weather. We try to farm foods more carefully to avoid contamination. We're told to do healthy things and exercise so as to avoid health concerns. We're told to make money so that we don't starve to death.

And so the drive of "civilized society" is really a REACTION to the fact that the world is raw and wild and cruel and unrelenting in its onslaught of carnage. We've become quite good at making it more "comfortable" and "safe", to a degree, in an effort to make hell more palatable, trying to tame its wicked ways. To form an oasis in the desert where we can be insulated from its "nature" and distanced from its ravages. Even though NONE of this prevents the destruction of all these things.

If we drop all that and just recognize the way the world is, and not just the planet but also the whole fundamental fabric of spacetime, then we can see that it was made to function a certain way. It cannot do what it was not designed to do. Its nature has to remain opposite to heaven otherwise it will cease to exist. It must BE different and separate otherwise it cannot appear to exist at all.

So it has to maintain this system of destruction at all times. If we let go of expecting it to be otherwise, and undo this denial that tries to constantly fight against it, or has an expectation that it's supposed to turn out well at the physical level, then when its nature just "does what it does", we won't be so upset. And we won't have to keep resisting it all the time, or fearing it.

The fear really comes from the "hope" or wishful thinking that it's not going to do what it always does. That it's not going to attack or destroy or make things difficult. And then when it does we're seemingly in shock and upset because our expectation has been destroyed. Without the blindness of believing the world can function like heaven, or that it can operate peacefully, or that it will ever be devoid of its devouring deadly nature, we can actually be more at peace about it.

In sense this a form of acceptance. Not accepting that the world is real and true, since only atonement should be accepted and only heaven should be validated. But an acceptance that the world, as it is, is just the way it is, and it cannot help its nature. A recognition that it's just always going to fuck up and destroy everything, because that's the only way it can function. And then in recognition of this we can actually laugh at it and not be so disturbed or surprised or shocked when everything goes to hell again.

This isn't the same as "expecting the worst", because you can get yourself into a belief that this world is real and it always is just negative and depressing, and therefore there is no hope or alternative. But you can expect the worst in the sense of realizing that the world can't be anything BUT the worst, due to its attacking nature, and can separate your relationship with it into a space of laughing at its hilariously flawed ways. We are, after all meant to learn to laugh at the mad idea that has produced this world.

As I sit here I'm looking out the window - not a perfect window but a dirtied stained window - upon an environment in which the leaves on the trees are all dead. The grass is browned and half-dead as a result of the snow that covered it. The weather is cold and unrelentless. The brickwork on the buildings is uneven. The light of sun is blocked and producing shadows of darkness. Roof tiles are missing. Rocks are weathered and decayed. Electrical power boxes are slightly mis-aligned and a strange ugly color. And the somewhat mutilated fir trees are struggling to stay alive.

But is this unexpected for a world where all things must die because time is change and change is death? No. This is the only way it can be. It is hilariously faulty. Ridiculously tragic, and quite a mess. The world is really kind of like a giant trashcan filled with broken pieces and old rotten shite.

Can it be otherwise? It cannot. It can never be otherwise. The dust of dead civilizations will always be blown by the winds of hate in this world. And recognizing this is its nature can actually set you free. Free from the horrible suffering that results from believing it could be any other way. And free from the constant efforts to put some extra lipstick and bandaids on the corpse, trying in vain to turn a tired old world into a new one. In a sense, let the dead bury the dead, and let death be, that there may be life in the mind.

We are to forgive the world, yes. To do this we have to want another world. We have to tune into another reality. Beyond space and time, a world of light and eternal life. A world where the laws of God do not permit suffering, difficulty, problems or death. And then we bring that wholistic perspective with us as we shine its light upon the broken world and see it from a loving perspective. We don't have to condemn the world in order to see that it is inherently broken. We can forgive it for being the way it is, only because it IS broken. And in forgiveness we can laugh it away.

"The world will end in an illusion, as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no-one, limitless in gentleness, will cover it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ends the world that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone." "The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment. The world will end with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be."

"The world will end in joy because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in peace because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will end in laughter because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. In blessing it departs, for it will not end as it began."

At the moment, I am focusing on receiving healing. Much has happened the past several months and I am still recovering from it.

One valuable tool I've found is to repeat short phrases in quick succession. These include:

I surrender

I surrender to your love

I let go completely

I receive God's healing love

I open to receive

I trust you Holy Spirit

I receive

I let go

I admit I'm mistaken

I let go of controlling

I receive God

While saying these casually to yourself in your mind, you may find that as you say them back-to-back without a pause, you don't allow the ego to sneak in between, and it begins to have a powerful effect to shift you.

e.g

"I surrender, I surrender, I surrender, I surrender, I surrender." etc

You don' have to say it quickly, but it does help to not allow pauses between statements.

These are all to do with the relinquishment of ego, letting go of control, admitting to being mistaken, being WILLING to be corrected.

They all demonstrate "a little willingness", which means in some way, you are WILLING to move away from illusions and in the direction of truth. This also means moving away from imprisonment towards freedom, and as you open up to the freedom of the will, by being willing to be free, and willing to let go of what you are doing that imprisons you, you are INVITING THE HOLY SPIRIT.

"This is the invitation to the Holy Spirit. I told you that I could reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you. But I can bring Him to you only at your own invitation."

"You find it difficult to ACCEPT the idea that you need give so LITTLE, to receive so much. And it is very hard for you to realize that it is NOT personally insulting that YOUR contribution and the Holy Spirit's are so EXTREMELY disproportionate."

"He asks but little. It is HE Who adds the greatness and the might. He JOINS with you, to make the holy instant far greater than you can understand.

It is your realization that you NEED do so little, that enables HIM to give so much. Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust IMPLICITLY your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this, and be NOT disturbed that shadows surround it."

This little willingness is a vertical movement. And furthermore, it is a way to develop trust. You are saying, I am willing to let go of being in charge, controlling, managing life, fighting with people, stressing and struggling to do this on my own, I want help and am willing to receive help by ALLOWING the Holy Spirit to heal me for me.

I've found that in particular, "I surrender" and "I receive God's healing love" have been the two most powerful statements to repeat. Especially when coupled with a willingness and intention to open to receive and to let go deeply.

If you are willing, you can open to receive God's love into you. You can feel the sensation in your heart. You can allow love to come TO you, without you having to do anything to effort to put anything out. You don't even have to "give", only to receive.

The more deeply you can receive love, the more it will touch you, heal you, and dig out your unhealed wounds. If you can stand it, sometimes you can take it very far to the point where you are so filled with love, it will likely trigger a large emotional catharsis, and you may need time to recover from that. I have only "gone there" a couple times, approaching a sense of holiness and bowing before God, and it's very powerful.

As you put aside ego control, invite the Holy Spirit into you. Even, go as far as to verbalize it, "I allow you into me Holy Spirit, do whatever you want to do to heal me". It's important to place trust in Him, which includes both suspending the fear that he will do something frightening or harmful in you, and being willing to give him very broad open permission to do ANYTHING. That takes trust to give such sweeping "access", to you, and to your body. And it's that trust that makes it possible for Him to come in and heal you on all levels.

The result for me of doing this deeply, through curious exploration and trust development and willingness (and need), is that He now comes in and heals me physically, emotionally, mentally at any time. We now have a kind of working relationship. I experience dramatic shaking and vibrations and energetic sensations, every single day, usually several times a day. It has become so commonplace and normal, it's probably happened 1000 times already. And every time it leaves me in a more healed condition. This is one of the gifts of God.

Receive healing for yourself. "Those who are healed become instruments of healing." "I will heal as I let Him teach me to heal." You must be willing to work with Him and have a trusting relationship with Him. He is there as your appointed therapist, guide, counsellor, healer, teacher, friend. Use Him. Let Him in. Receive His support, guidance and healing. He is the HELP that God has sent to you. There is nothing His power cannot do. "The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

"The holy instant does NOT come from your little willingness alone. It is ALWAYS the result of your SMALL willingness COMBINED with the unlimited power of HIS WILL. You have been wrong in thinking that it is needful to prepare YOURSELF for Him. It is impossible to make arrogant preparations for holiness, and NOT believe that it is up to YOU to establish the conditions for peace. GOD HAS ESTABLISHED THEM. They do NOT wait upon your willingness for what they ARE. Your willingness is needed ONLY to make it possible to TEACH you what they are."

"Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first."

--

"Purification is of God alone, and THEREFORE for you. Rather than seek to prepare YOURSELF for Him, try to think thus:

"I, who am host to God, AM worthy of Him.

He Who ESTABLISHED His dwelling-place in me created it as He would have it be.

It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I DO NOT INTERFERE with His plan to RESTORE to me my own AWARENESS of my readiness, which is eternal.

I need ADD nothing to His plan.

But to RECEIVE it, I MUST be willing NOT to substitute my own, IN PLACE of it.""

--

"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."

--

"Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God? You will accept only whom YOU invite. You are free to determine who shall be your guest, and how long he shall remain with you. But this is not REAL freedom, for it depends on how you see it. For the Holy Spirit is THERE, although He cannot help you without your invitation, and the ego is nothing, whether you invite it or not. Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real. Know, then, Who abides with you, merely by recognizing WHAT IS ALREADY THERE, and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you."

Let's think about projection as more like an energy thing. You are a light, and you shine outward. You broadcast and radiate energy.

It depends what's in you, at the root of the light, as to what will shine out of you. If there are clouds of darkness at the source, it blocks some of the light coming out, and darkness seems to come out instead. But if the light source is free of blockages, the light shines brightly and strongly.

Another way to think of the blockages is as filters. They filter the light. The more opaque they seem to be the less light permeates through. And different kinds of filters block different frequencies and "color" the light. Anger might produce a red light, maybe fear produces a dark green light, and perhaps guilt is orange.

This light emits out of you, out of your body, our of your face, through your eyes. It in fact influences your vision. You look out through the light that you shine, so if it's blocked your vision is blocked as well. And if the light has taken on a lesser color, your seeing is also flavored by that sentiment.

You thus look out and have a direct experience of what we call the reality of the world. This is in two layers. There is a contribution from physical sight, but there is also this overlay of colors and energies, or emotions and felt experience, of meaning and purpose, which you project onto the physical. Anything less than love distorts how you see, and therefore what you project. And what you project narrows what you see, and thus defines it.

If I am in fear, I try to shine, but the shining diminishes, and leaves a lack of light, which seems like a darkness. And now I shine out what seems like a darkness, and my vision becomes dark, and I see reflected back to me that darkness. The darkness interferes with what I'm looking at and filters it. Now everything seems frightening and dark, because I am looking with fear and darkness.

"I can obscure my holy sight, if I intrude my world upon it. Nor can I behold the holy sights Christ looks upon unless it is His vision that I use. Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind reflected outward. I would bless the world by looking on it through the eyes of Christ. And I will look upon the certain signs that all my sins have been forgiven me."

You might think that the things you see in such looking is objective and passive, that you're seeing what's really there. But you're really seeing a distorted version of what's there, filtered through your blocks to light. You can only really see what you put there to see, and whatever you're seeing you have actually projected. You see fearful things because you are looking in a fearful way.

You then might think that you see many things which seem objectively fearful, that dramas are amassing, and problems are mounting, and dangers are looming, and risk is increasing. And you will take this to be the whole of reality, because you don't see anything outside of the confines of the filter of darkness. And this further deceives and tempts you into fear.

"The world you see is but the idle witness that you were RIGHT. This witness is insane. You trained it in its testimony, and, as it gave it BACK to you, you listened and convinced yourself that what it saw was true. YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF. See only this, and you will also see how circular the reasoning on which your "seeing" rests."

Soon, you don't recognize that you are projecting fear, and instead believe you are seeing the whole of what is really there. This is because you've lost context, due to blocked light frequencies. And now the world appears frightening and dark and terrible, with no way out, like a living hellish nightmare. And everwhere you turn you are confronted with fear and threat and danger. As if it is an inherent part of everything.

But if you can step back and check yourself, check your broadcast, check what kind of energy you're emitting, what kind of light you're shining, what you're giving, then you may be able to realize that you're actually making things look frightening. It's because you're projecting fear from within you, and not because the fear is starting outside of you. You either project fear or love, and everything else is just a variation of that.

Then you have to recognize that you have fear in you before you project it, and you can only see it when you project it. And you aren't seeing fearful things unless you are making them fearful inside of you first. Wihch means really there is a fear in you, lurking behind your projection, behind the radiant glow of your energy, which is blocking your light much closer to the source.

So then we have to look deeper within, much more intimately, much closer to your self, much nearer to where the projecting begins. The issue that's interfering with the light is happening much sooner and closer to home than you thought. It's in your mind, it's even prior to your projections. Somehow there is a fear in you that you didn't realize was there, which you've just been projecting all over the place and believing it's outside of you.

This begs the question, if there is fear inside of you, and the fear is not in the world or caused by the world, what is making you afraid WITHOUT the world? And that line of questioning has to lead to realizing that you likely have made yourself guilty, are punishing yourself, are threatening yourself, and are believing you have sinned against God. Because really it all goes back to the original sin and to what you think you did that made you worthy of suffering and punishment.

Always the projection of your inner content is extremely deceptive. It's fine if you are coming truly from an inner peace and a loving heart, which projects innocence and safety and sinlessness, rendering everything appearing to you as completely harmless and beautiful. But if you have blocked this love, and thus have guilt and fear in you, then this is going to fly out of you at the earliest opportunity, from the cess-pool of your mind.

Minds area always projecting, because it is their natural function. They give or express what is in them. It expands and moves outward. All minds shine like lightbulbs, regardless of whether the light is filtered or covered up. It's not a question so much of if you will project, but whether you will interfere with the natural extension of love, trying to pollute it with egoic beliefs and dark veils and false beliefs. Or such things as hidden hates and secret sins and unhealed wounds.

If I look to what is coming out of me, which I can FEEL, if I've crossed the line into believing that the world is the problem, I am already very deceived. If I am buying into the projected version of what was inside, believing it's outside, I'm already way down the line of the chain of causation. I have to look at my energy, what does it feel like, what am I broadcasting, what's coming out of me, am I attacking and fearing and accusing and trying to find scapegoats, or am I loving, safe and happy?

A scapegoat isn't just some person you pick out, it's the target of your energetic broadcast. It's a psychological thing you attach your inner gunk to. The mind looks to scapegoat, ie to find something to associate its dissociated guilt and fear with, so that it can attach it to something outside of you. Kind of like flying a kite, anchored in your mind, on a long tether, flying in the sky in front of your eyes, dangling like a carrot of temptation.

To scapegoat is to project ego, just in the mere act of projecting it, regardless of what is being said about a person or how they're being used. If I'm projecting fear or sin or guilt, I am scapegoating. I'm actively trying to get rid of my inner content. It's being pushed out of me, hurled onto the world. It's actively RADIATING out of me like an energy broadcast. I'm putting it onto the world.

It may land and attach to certain people or bodies or objects or events but it's always going to be something physical, because fear always blocks the light and narrows vision to illusions. And once I'm seeing fear and guilt outside of me, I see it as making me afraid and guilty. And now I'm stuck with a backwards perception and am deceiving myself. I have to realize I'm the one who is making the world frightening, by putting my inner fear onto it and singling it out as a target.

"When vision is DENIED, confusion of cause and effect becomes inevitable. The PURPOSE now becomes to KEEP OBSCURE the cause of the effect, and make effect appear to BE a cause. This seeming independence of effect enables it to be regarded as STANDING BY ITSELF, and capable of serving as a CAUSE of the events and feelings its maker thinks IT causes."

I have to watch myself doing this. It doesn't happen at an intellectual or theoretical level, it happens experientially and in a felt energetic broadcast. It's a psychological state. It's not a story or a concept about someone - that's just some form it might take later. It's more to do with, whether I am blessing with love and light, or am I cursing with nasty dark harmful energies, trying to attack psychically or whether I am providing the gentle healing remedy of a miraculous expression.

It is actually especially useful and a relief to recognize that nothing in the world is causing any of your upset, any of your fear, any of your guilt, or any of your belief in sin. Nothing, not ever, has any influence on you, but yourself. Becoming lost in the world and believing it's doing stuff to you, or your happiness and peace depends on someone else changing, that's all about being lost and confused in your own projections. It's NEVER about other people or the world. It's all to do with what you are doing to yourself on the inside.

To be wiling NOT to project hate, attack, anger, guilt, shame, blame, judgement, fear, sin, etc onto others, and to not let it leave your mind (seemingly), keeps it from latching onto external targets. It renders everyone innocent and loved, because really your upset has nothing to do with anyone else or the world. Then you can go deeper and unravel the mystery of where this interior bullshit is coming from, why you've attacked yourself, finding the reason why you cannot be sinful, and finally to embrace the atonement for yourself.

ALL of your problems are INSIDE OF YOU. And NONE of it is caused by anything outside of you! And it can ONLY be corrected INSIDE of you where the problem and solution are together. You are responsible for how everything looks to you, because it entirely depends on what you chose to believe about yourself, and how that radiates through your vision. Light IS vision, and seeing IS projection. Project only love to see through the eyes of christ, by seeing yourself as christ first.

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."

"I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts."

""This is the ONLY thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the COMPLETE escape from sin, ALL to be given you. Say ONLY this, but MEAN it with NO reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:

I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."

Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done TO you. Acknowledge but that YOU have been mistaken, and ALL effects of your mistakes will disappear." "You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you."

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

"It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events OUTSIDE him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were NOT his choice. His power of decision is the DETERMINER of every situation in which he seems to FIND himself by chance or accident. No accident or chance is POSSIBLE within the universe as God created it, OUTSIDE of which is nothing."

An "appearance" is another term for something physical. It's what you see when you take the physical form at face value. You look at what it appears to be on the surface, on the face of it, without any seeming interpretation.

"There is nothing so blinding as perception of form."

When mind denies itself and denies God's reality, it tries to become one with a body. To become one with separation. It narrows itself and confines itself and aligns itself with the body. The closer it becomes to being "body like", the less difference there seems to be between them.

Eventually this lack of difference makes the body seem like an ally, as in "the ego's chosen home", a friend of sorts, and something you can "identify" with (agree with), because it seems to agree with your mind. The mind is then confused with the body and the two seem to become one. In this ***illusion of oneness***, the body's sight is believed completely to be total fact.

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

Actually, without a difference between mind and body, you will enter a state where it seems you are not even interpreting at all. Where the physical world is total fact. Where everything is physical proof. Where the form something takes is entirely what it means. And where there is no sense of questioning or a bigger picture or a different vantage point. Everything seems to be "exactly as it is".

In false perception, the mind trusts the body's senses and this produces an experience of being "convinced", that what you see happening really is happening. In fact, you move toward a state of "obviousness", where everything physical seems to "obviously" be there, doing what it's doing, irrefutable and undeniable. The more you are in false perception the more the physical world seems to be totally real to you.

The mind gets into a state of being so body-aligned that it is no longer questioning what the body senses. Everything physical becomes total reality. Everything that "happens" becomes actual life and real events. And without any difference between mind and body, other bodies and their activities are taken as absolute and irreversible, having all the qualities of God.

So our minds, by believing IN separation, actually get into a state of what SEEMS to be ***"no separation"*** between mind and body, where all sense of you interpreting anything is lost. There is a seemingly unified experience, a oneness with the world at the physical level, everything looks obvious and real, and you take everything to be exactly what it appears to be.

In this state you also form a "story", because now the story of what bodies are doing, what events transpire etc, is all taken to be actual real fact. If someone's body acts out, or someone attacks, or there's a conflict, or any kind of thing you don't agree with, it is taken as being totally real. Like they REALLY DID DO it, provable in a court of law. And then you will automatically and naturally and logically hold it against them, justified by the fact of it happening.

Holding something against someone happens as a result of the mind binding with the body and believing that physicality is true. It does not question or doubt the physical "reality", so if someone does something offensive it is now a SIN. And this sin has physical proof right in front of your eyes. And your eyesight cannot deny it sees it. And this sin is irreversible, unhealable, unfixable, and the person has definitely messed up in a way that is so actual that it has the property of permanence.

"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."

You will then find yourself accusing the person, justifiably, of having done some terrible thing, all on the basis of what things look like at the physical level only. You did this, and you didn't do that, and that's the fact of it. And you used to be like this, and now you're like that, and I don't like you like this anymore. And how dare you treat me this way, and why are you doing this to me etc. Why is your BODY doing this to me.

This of course gives rise to an experience in which you are a helpless victim. In which you seem to have no say, no influence, no interpretation or way out of anything. Because what happens physically is factual reality. So now there is real physical threat and danger, people really are physically attacking, and there are physical things wrong with "you".

This is all blindness. This is the state of perceiving falsely and being body-identified, mind seeing itself as a body, total unforgiveness, unconsciousness, special-relationship, ego identification, and self destruction. There is no "gap" between mind and body, so everything that happens seems to happen to you, hurting you and upsetting you.

"The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, firmly tied to it, and sheltered by its presence. If this were the truth, the mind were vulnerable indeed!"

So "appearances" really are form, ie physical form. They are how stuff looks when you don't question its reality. It's how the physical world appears to you, or what it seems to mean, when you are totally invested in it. All meaning seems to be taken from how the external world tells you it is, as though you are not giving anything any meaning. Whatever happens seems to be the only truth. If someone kills your cat, they sure as heck actually did do that, and the cat is in fact really dead to prove the sin.

In such a state, we have been tempted by form and have "fallen for" the temptation. We've believed that people are bodies, that we are having relationships with bodies, that the physical world is the only reality, that there is no other mind besides the body, that God doesn't exist, and your self is a physical object. In this state you are not aware of reality, but you THINK you are, and because you're so convinced the physical world is WHERE the reality is, you do not question it.

To get out of this requires the questioning of appearances. The questioning of the PHYSICAL. This is why Jesus in the course introduces ideas such as that you give everything all the meaning it has, that you are projecting something, that you are influencing what happens, that your thoughts are involved and are attacking you, that you need to dis-identify from the physical body, that the physical world is an illusion not to be believed, and that all the events are nothing. To not even believe what the body tells you.

Without this rising up above "the battlefield", you will just live a life of hell, of blame and accusation, or suffering and selfishness, of specialness and deprivation, or mis-treatment and attack, unfairness and regret and remorse and resentment.

Only by questioning the physical world can your mind begin to see that it is NOT one with the body. And that because mind and body are different, they DISAGREE. And therefore what the body shows you is not to be believed. And you are now starting to step outside the "story" of your little body life and seek for a higher life.

If you were to describe someone's life based purely on what appears to be happening at the physical level, that is false perception. Only when you begin to look for a larger purpose or meaning, an influence of mind over matter, a choice and a freedom of will, a way by which someone might be responsible for making the world be the way it is, and an identity beyond the physical, only then are you properly recognizing that there IS a separation between mind and body. And that mind does not HAVE TO believe in the separation.

The gap of separation was COVERED OVER by your attempt to be one with the body. It seemed to disappear entirely underneath your mind's identification with the physical. Trying to be one with the body and make the physical real HIDES the fact that the world is separate from God and is not heaven. Only by beginning to recognize that you are NOT a body, can you recognize that there IS a separation between mind and body, and the two are not the same. Nor is the world a part of God.

Then you will seek for a higher oneness, a oneness with something NOT physical, a oneness with God and with a true reality. And the whole transition towards that is the awakening process. Waking up from the dream of hell and death and suffering and murder. Only then are you being forgiving, and seeing a forgiven world, because the world must be seen in another light in order to overlook its illusions of form.And only through the forgiveness state can you be free from deception permanently.

"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought which gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear, and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."

To believe God created Earth or that Earth is worth keeping, is clearly in contradiction to what the course says about the earth, frequently contrasting it as being the OPPOSITE of heaven and not something worthy of the Son of God. The world seen with forgiving eyes might well be "lovely", but it’s still not heaven.

Here is how the Course speaks of the "Earth"... (with my emphasis and minor comments)...

"Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. And as it is in HEAVEN, so on EARTH (does not mean heaven=earth, it means you have the power to create here). Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your Effects into the tranquil HEAVEN of Your Love, where EARTH WILL DISAPPEAR, and separate thoughts unite in glory as the Son of God"

"His little life on EARTH was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of you. He will remain with you to lead you from the HELL YOU MADE (earth) to God."

"My mind will always be like yours, because we were created as equals. It was only my decision that gave me all power in HEAVEN AND EARTH (separate places). My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision."

"God has one Son, and He is the resurrection and the life. His will is done because all power is given him IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH (separate places)."

"You cannot understand how much your Father loves you, for there is NO PARALLEL in your experience of the world (earth) to help you understand it. There is NOTHING ON EARTH with which it can compare, and nothing you have ever felt apart from Him resembles it ever so faintly."

"It is our function to remember Him (God) ON EARTH as it is given us to be His own completion IN REALITY (not on earth). So let us not forget our goal is shared. For it is that remembrance which contains the memory of God, and points the way to Him and TO THE HEAVEN (pointed to away from the Earth) of His peace"

"Father, IN HEAVEN it is different, for there, there are no needs. But HERE ON EARTH (which is not heaven) the miracle is closer to Your gifts than any other gift which I can give."

"Who can share a dream? And what can an illusion offer me? (references to earth) Yet he whom I forgive will give me gifts BEYOND the worth of ANYTHING ON EARTH. Let my forgiven brothers fill my store with HEAVEN’S treasures, WHICH ALONE ARE REAL (earth’s treasure are dreams and illusions). Thus is the law of love fulfilled. And thus Your Son arises and returns to You (reference to ascension!)."

"Let all God’s holy Thoughts surround me, and be still with me while HEAVEN’s Son is born. Let EARTHLY sounds be quiet, and the sights to which I am accustomed DISAPPEAR."

"(speaking of true perception/real world...)EARTH is being born again in new perception. Night has gone, and we have come together in the light. From here we give salvation to the world, for it is here salvation was received. The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world (earth) that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God’s Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, ETERNITY HAS SHINED AWAY THE WORLD (illusion of earth), and only HEAVEN now exists at all."

"(talking about Holy Spirit) His Words will work. His Words will save. His Words contain all hope, all blessing and all joy that ever can be found upon this EARTH (cus otherwise it sucks). His Words are born in God, and come to you with HEAVEN’S love upon them. Those who hear His Words have heard the song of HEAVEN, for these are the words which all merge as one at last"

"Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to HEAVEN’s GATE; the quiet place of peace where you await with certainty the final step of God (to take you home to heaven). How far are we progressing now from EARTH (something you do not want!)! How close are we approaching to our goal! How short the journey still to be pursued!"

""I will forgive and this will DISAPPEAR." To every apprehension, every care, every form of suffering repeat these selfsame words. And then you hold the key that opens HEAVEN’s GATE, and brings the Love of God the Father down to EARTH at last (extending Holy Spirit temporarily), to raise it up to HEAVEN. God will take this final step Himself. Do not deny the little steps He asks you take to Him."

"Forgiveness represents your function here (on earth). It is not God’s creation, for it is the means by which untruth can be undone. And who would pardon HEAVEN (opposite to earth where forgiveness is needed)? Yet on EARTH you need the means to let illusion go. Creation merely waits for your RETURN (to heaven) to be acknowledged, not to be complete. Creation cannot even be conceived of in the WORLD (definitely talking about earth here). It has no meaning here (earth is meaningless). Forgiveness is the closest it (heaven) can come to EARTH. For being HEAVEN-BORNE, it has no form at all. (Earth, place of forms, is not heaven)"

"All power is given you in EARTH and HEAVEN (two distinct places apparently). There is nothing that you cannot do."

"Repeat the Name of God and call upon your Self, Whose Name is His. Repeat His Name and all the tiny, nameless things on EARTH slip into right perspective. Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the holy Son of God."

"There is one major difference in the role of HEAVEN’s messengers which sets them off from those the world (earth) appoints. The messages which they deliver are intended first for them. And it is only as they can accept them for themselves that they become able to bring them further, and to give them everywhere that they were meant to be. Like EARTHLY messengers (but only like, not the same as), they did not write the messages they bear, but they become their first receivers in the truest sense, receiving to prepare themselves to give."

"Now a quiet time has come in which we put away the toys of guilt, and lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of HEAVEN’s CHILDREN and the Son of God. We pause but for a moment more, to play our final happy game UPON THIS EARTH And then we GO (to heaven) to take our rightful place where truth abides and games are meaningless."

"HEAVEN remains your ONE ALTERNATIVE to THIS STRANGE WORLD YOU MADE and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with HEAVEN as the glad effect of one, and EARTH THE OTHER’S SORRY OUTCOME WHICH IS HEAVEN’s OPPOSITE IN EVERY WAY."

"You are indeed essential to God’s plan. Just as your light increases every light that shines IN HEAVEN so your joy ON EARTH calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you (in heaven) in God’s plan"

"How could there be a meeting place at all where EARTH AND HEAVEN can be reconciled within a mind where both of them exist? (Clearly they cannot both exist) The mind that sees illusions (earth) thinks them real. They have existence in that they are thoughts. And yet they are not real because the mind that thinks these thoughts is separate from God."

"Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down UPON THE EARTH after HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created Him. The Holy Spirit, being a creation of the one Creator, creating with Him and in His likeness or spirit, is ETERNAL and has never changed. He was "called down upon the EARTH" in the sense that it was now possible to accept Him and to hear His Voice. His is the Voice for God, and has therefore taken form. This form is not His reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, His real Son, Who is part of Him."

"There IS no change in immortality, and HEAVEN knows it not. Yet here on EARTH (place that changes), it has a double purpose, for it can be made to teach opposing things"

"What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into HEAVEN, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one comes HOME. The incomplete is made complete again, and HEAVEN’s joy has been increased because what is its own has been restored to it."

....

I pulled the quotes from a searchable urtext version. There are MANY MORE references to being "in heaven" versus "on earth", making it clear and obvious they are both distinct and OPPOSITE, and that only heaven is real, only heaven is what you want, and only heaven is befitting the Son of God.

God did not create the earth. This world is not our home. There is no life outside of heaven! The world - earth - holds nothing that we want. There is no world (earth). A teacher of God will gladly give up all the pleasures of the world (earth) (beacuse Heaven is FAR BETTER!) :-) Heaven is EVERYTHING, Earth is NOTHING.

In the course, we know that Jesus tells us how we project stuff out and then perceive it. Okay, makes sense. But for the most part, it makes sense at the level of you as an individual perceiving "the world out there" in a certain way, that you've got stuff "inside your mind, inside your body", which you're putting onto the world.

And then we think that the course is also telling us to "change our mind about the world", meaning, the world stays as it is, and we need to "see it differently." This is because we apply it at the level of an individual, assuming the world got there through some other means.

BUT HOW ABOUT THIS.......*roll up your sleeves*

The Son of God is dreaming the entire physical universe. He is PROJECTING IT. He is doing so using the power of his mind, which has within it the power to perform miracles.

HE projects and makes the world appear. HE then perceives what he has projected. Therefore, if HE changes HIS MIND, about what he has projected, the projected world WILL LITERALLY CHANGE FORM, PHYSICALLY!

Not your "view of the world". THE WORLD ITSELF WILL CHANGE. A direct power of the mind over matter, a power to make anything appear AT WILL. Not you shifting your little private perspective to "see it differently".... but your mind, actually CAUSING THE WORLD TO CHANGE, by projecting A DIFFERENT WORLD! AT THE PHYSICAL LEVEL!

With this viewpoint in mind, consider, that maybe when you read statements about perception, projection, what you see, the world you see, and what changes or shifts when you change your perception, MAYBE... you read it in a certain context thinking it was about your view OF the world, and didn't realize it was talking about YOU MAKING THE WORLD LITERALLY CHANGE WITH YOUR MIND. And what if we revisit those statements and consider them from this new perspective?

Here we go...

"Projection makes perception. The world that you see is what you have put there to see; nothing more and nothing less and so it is important to you."

---- How about this.... "the world you see" means the physical earth and NOT your interpretation of it.

---- "what you have put there to see" is because YOUR MIND has literally projected PHYSICAL OBJECTS, in order to see them.

"The world that you perceive is the witness to your state of mind, the outward picture of your inward condition."

--- How about this... "witness to your state of mind, and outward picture of your inward condition", literally means, THE PHYSICAL FORMS THAT ARE SHOWING UP, are being put there by your mind! They reflect what's going on inside of you. This relates to YOUR BODY, as well as to objects in the physical environment. Your body shows up as a representation of how your mind is expressing (love or attack), and SO DOES THE ENVIRONMENT. The environment is being projected this way BY THE SON OF GOD who is responsible for putting all of the content into the world, all objects, all forms. You are PROJECTING THE WORLD LITERALLY, not just as a metaphor, nor anything to do with you having a "separate" perception of what is out there.

--- How about.. projection makes perception, actually means, you FIRST PUT OBJECTS INTO THE WORLD, then you perceive them! NOT... that you project mental interpretations ONTO the objects and perceive the interpretations! What if, changing your mind, literally will show up as a DIFFERENT WORLD OF FORM? What if you will project a different earth?!

"As you think so do you perceive. So do not seek to change the world but choose to change your mind about the world's reality. What you perceive is a result, not a cause."

--- How about this... "what you perceive is a result, not a cause", tells us that what we see, in any form of seeing, is not causality, because THERE IS NO CAUSE IN THE WORLD. What we see out there, objects, cars, people, houses, trees, is the RESULT of what we WANT TO BE OUT THERE.

--- How about, our minds are so powerful and strong, and creative, they are capable of, and ARE ALWAYS, projecting images of bodies and trees and houses and other stuff, literally MATERIALIZING MATTER, based on the inner content of our mind!

--- How about, when Jesus tells us to not to seek to change the world, he is ACTUALLY telling us, that there's no point changing the RESULT of what we project, we MIGHT AS WELL JUST PROJECT SOMETHING ELSE. Since we have the ability to PUT objects out there, which we then perceive, we might as well just change our mind about what to PUT THERE, and therefore change the content of the world! Changing your mind "about the world" therefore means to shift what you WANT TO SEE, and so be it, IT WILL APPEAR!

"That is why no miracle is harder than another."

--- How about this... miracles demonstrate that nothing in this world is caused by anything but your mind, and they are only effects, projections, from YOU, and nothing would even be showing up OUT THERE if YOU weren't putting stuff there with your mind right now, as you have been all along. Your body, your world, your environment, are all coming from the miracle-minded son of God. Therefore, just as miracles can EASILY CHANGE what is out there, so too do you have the ability to CHANGE THE WORLD by USING A MIRACLE, and there is no limit to what you can do.

Perhaps then, Jesus isn't so much teaching us here, in this context, about changing "how we view" the world or what ways we're misinterpreting it and so on. How about, if he is actually telling us that what's showing up out there, is COMING FROM US AT ALL TIMES, and we are supposed to be in a position of having this kind of mastery, where we can CHOOSE, whatever it is that is going to show up, BECAUSE we are miraculous and our mind has POWER OVER ALL MATTER?!

We are supernatural. We are not bystanders in a world that someone else made.

Jesus goes onto say similar things in other quotes, which COULD also lend themselves to an entirely new interpretation of how we project the world, rather than talking about how you "interpret" what's there.

For example:

"The world you see is an illusion of a world." (literally the world itself, not HOW you see it)

"You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up." (literally you invented the physical objects themselves, not HOW you see them)

"Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see. It is with your thoughts then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is to be changed." (literally your thought MAKES THE WORLD, the PHYSICAL PLANET, and therefore you need to change your mind in order to SEE something else!)

"There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see and all the world must change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source. " (the physical planet IS NOT THERE UNLESS YOU WISH IT TO BE. Change your mind about WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE, and the world - planet earth - physical matter, WILL CHANGE ACCORDINGLY!)

"The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that." (you literally see only the world that YOU PUT THERE IN FORM, nothing to do with "how you interpret what's there" at all)

"The world you see does not exist." (the world you see means the physical EARTH, and it does not exist. This has NOTHING to do with YOUR INTERPETATIVE PERCEPTION *OF* it)

"Perception selects, and makes the world you see." (you choose what you want to see and project the forms! then you see them)

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt" (because people made mad with guilt have PROJECTED FORMS which symbolize and represent madness, making a dysfunctional planet!)

If we interpret all these kind of statements from a perspective of YOU CAUSING EVERYTHING, and not from a perspective of "the world is out there objectively on its own and I need to change how I interpret it)... it lends an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT meaning to the MIRACLE WORKING which Jesus is trying to teach us to perform!

What if all along, Jesus has been trying to get us to change our mind, SO THAT we project a different world? A happy dream? So that we "cause" a state of peace on earth temporarily? Literally, in manifestation? What if we were never supposed to think of our perceptual changes as "reinterpretations of whats out there" but simply as, undoing our self attack so that we PROJECT a different world?

Is this not what Jesus is teaching when he tells us, that how you use the body, it will become to you? That if you use it for attack, it will SHOW UP WITH SICKNESS? That if you use it for love, IT WILL SHOW UP AS INVULNERABLE? That are we supposed to be DEMONSTRATING IN THE FLESH that we cannot be hurt, because the MATTER that we project can be made incapable of being caused by the world? Because it's coming from our mind? THAT WE LITERALLY, DIRECTLY, ARE DREAMING IT ALL?!

In A Course in Miracles, in the beginning, you are safe in God, happily co-creating with Him. Then along comes the tiny mad idea. The authority problem forms, level confusion begins, you go into the separation and the idea of real sin is given belief.

Believing that sin is possible, has reality, has occurred producing real effects, and is irreversible, is an unforgiving attitude. If you were to be forgiving you'd recognize that sin is impossible and there is no sin - that you remain innocent. But without forgiveness you immediately enter into the belief that sin is real.

At this point, you are already attacking yourself. You have condemned yourself by believing that you really sinned against God. You now have an unwillingness to forgive yourself. This sets up a chain reaction whereby, since you sinned, and you did it, you must be guilty of it. And since you are guilty, you deserve punishment.

This is all a judgement that you are placing on yourself. It has nothing to do with other people. Just the simple belief that you really sinned is enough to condemn yourself to death. Actually death is a completely logical conclusion if sin is real, and until the sin is undone, you will seek to destroy yourself for what you did.

So the mere act of believing sin is real is actually an attack upon yourself, a condemnation. And this automatically is going to lead to you believing that you should be punished. It will even make sense to you that you should be punished. You will agree that punishment is called for, because of your guilty nature.

If you believe in your guilt you're going to continue the process of self attack. You will allow yourself to be hurt, because you will agree with punishment as if it should be happening. You won't resist it or defend yourself against it. You'll welcome suffering and want retribution against yourself. And when you arrange for others to seem to play the part of victimizer, punisher or abuser, you are secretly wanting to be the victim because you think you deserve it.

But the more dangerous aspect here is, it isn't really others or the world or God that are going to enact this vengeance for you and upon you. It's you. Your own belief that you sinned and are guilty will compel you to believe you should be hurt. You are starting to hate yourself and find yourself unworthy of love. And you will start trying to hurt yourself. It will make sense to you that you should suffer and you will actively try to make it happen because it seems justified.

As this develops you are becoming more and more suicidal. What is suicide other than self attack, self punishment, and an attempt to destroy yourself? We should make clear here that the entire ego thought system is an attempt to destroy your identity. It's an attack on God's Son, on His immortality. It's an attempt to deny that you exist and destroy yourself. So the whole ego thought system is suicidal and self-defeating from the beginning.

This essentially is the cause of all death. Every single death, no matter the seeming circumstances or appearances of causes, is solely the result of the belief that sin is real. And all forms of sickness are symptoms of the fear of God's wrath, the desire to suffer, and an attempt to project your sin onto others in a futile effort to deny that you believe you did it.

"The wages of sin is death."

"No one dies wihtout their own consent"

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

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

So anyone who believes they really sinned, is suicidal, and is choosing to die. They are consenting to punishment, because they believe they deserve it for what they did. Every single dead body in the history of the human race has been caused by the belief in sin. It's essentially a death wish, a wish for the death of yourself as consequence of your sinfulness.

If you consider the belief that you sinned against God, attacking Him against His will by usurping his power, playing God and having authority over Him, you will now believe that God is entirely justified in vengeance. In essence, you will believe that God wants you dead - that your death is God's will. And this will then lead to the belief that you cannot go home, you are not welcome in Heaven, sin cannot be undone, and there is no choice at all.

Based on this a death wish is formed, producing the sense of the inevitability of death. It's the belief that returning to Eternal Life is no longer an option, so the only thing you can do is suffer and die. This makes death the only path you can seemingly follow. And it's this belief that makes death seem inevitable. The driving force is your own belief that you really sinned, which is already a way to condemn yourself to death.

The good thing is, that in truth you did not really sin, God is unchanged and nothing has really happened. You have only dreamed of all this and there is no real sin at all. Nothing real can be threatened so the idea of sinning against something real is nonsense. This means that if you can recognize your sinlessness, which is accepting the Atonement truth, the belief in sin is uprooted at its core. There is no foundation for sin when innocence is recognized, and this is how the atonement cures you by proving sin doesn't exist.

"Only atonement can be said to cure."

The good thing then is, that if you are willing to forgive yourself and recognize you never sinned, you are not guilty, and you are still loved by God, this opens up to the door to option B. You can now CHOOSE whether or not to go towards death or towards eternal life. Death becomes OPTIONAL. You recognize you don't HAVE to be sick or die, and you actually can choose never to die again. To never commit suicide.

By acknowledging you are welcome to return back Home to God, because you are forgiven and have never sinned, Real Life is on the cards again and you can choose it. Which means you can choose not to die! You can choose to experience eternal life, and never have to die again. To never again torture yourself, make yourself unhappy, suffer or make yourself sick. That you deserve to live and not die, because there is no sin or death and you are free.

"There is no death, the Son of God is free."

"I am still as God created me."

"There is no sin."

The acceptance of the Atonement is the end of suicide because it is the end of death. It is the end of the sense of inevitability or "lack of another option". It's the reclaiming of the power to choose to accept the eternal life you already have. And it therefore signals the end of the need for sickness and death. Those who are innocent have not sinned, are not guilty, do not deserve to die, and thus death has no purpose.

The fact is then, that most of the people on this planet are suicidal. To varying degrees, we're all trying to die. And most believe death is inevitable because they have not forgiven the belief in sin entirely.

"This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

No-one deserves to die, and no-one needs to die. In truth no one CAN die, but we can confuse ourselves with things that seem to.

"You are immortal and you cannot die, but you can confuse yourself with things that do."

Given you cannot die and are permanently innocent, it is pointless to try to make death happen. This is why Jesus is asking you to "swear not to die, you holy Son of God." Only those who are committing suicide want death and thus choose it. Those who are awakening to truth, forgiving themselves and are preparing to go Home to God, MUST relinquish the attraction to and need for death. And this automatically melts away as the guilt and sin disappear. Without sin there is no death. And without death there is no world of sin.

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

If you have not sinned you are not guilty. If you are not guilty you do not need to be punished. If you do not need to be punished you have no basis for hurting yourself. If you stop hurting yourself you never have to suffer or die ever again. This is the secret of salvation.

This is a course in LIFE, in resurrection, and returning to your immortality. It is the end of all suicidal death and the restoration of eternal life. Death is a failure to forgive. And succeeding in forgiveness opens the gates of heaven.

"The ego, then, raised the first question that was ever asked, but it can never answer it. That question, which was "What are you?" was the beginning of doubt. The ego has never answered ANY questions since, though it has raised a great many." UrT6E3

Here Jesus tells us that the 'problem' of the separation really stems from a single question. What are you? This is a questioning of your SELF. Your identity.

It's not really a question that actually wants to FIND OUT what you are, or what you are like. It's actually a form of doubt in which it is UNSURE of what you are, and does not KNOW what you are, and is not really interested in knowing what you are.

It's actually an insinuation, an accusation, a way to say, YOU ARE NOT YOUR SELF. A way of saying, "I doubt you" or "I don't believe you." It's a sort of uncertainty, as in fearful outlook, where the ego mind is not sure at all and has a SUSPICION that you are not what you say you are.

And so at this point the ego is actually insinuating that YOU ARE NOT YOUR SELF, and that there is something true of you which is not really true, and that you're actually something ELSE. Because the ego wants to consider that IT is you, and wants you to believe that you are IT. So this is the beginning of a shift in identity.

There has not really been anything new or different that has happened since that moment. We have just gone further into the same doubt and fear, the same questioning and mistrust, the same desire NOT TO KNOW who we are.

So the entire separation could sum up as being, an attack on your identity. A state of mind that is in DENIAL of who you are, and is reading into your identity some properties or qualities that are not there. A state that does not want to ACCEPT what you are, but instead rejects it.

So the whole problem we have really is always about our SELF. The big question of, who are you? Because the true solution to the questioning is to KNOW THYSELF. To accept the atonement which means to accept fully WHAT YOU ARE. To accept the truth of you.

This all significantly hinges around your identity, because your mind has all the power and the ego needs your mind-power to support itself. If you were to withdraw power from this mis-belief about yourself it would undo the ego thought system entirely.

The big aim of the course then is the REVERSAL OF THE FIRST QUESTION, or rather, the ANSWER to the question. The true answer, which the Holy Spirit helps to remind you of, is .... I AM CHRIST. Or... I am still as God created me, I have not changed, and I am still perfectly innocent in God.

This response UNDOES the ego because it actually answers the question. And so it brings an end to the questioning, which was never an attempt to get the answer in the first place.

Above the physical universe there is another dimension, another universe, operating on an entirely different mindset, and with a clarity about what is real and what is not.

From that universe, everything that is happening on the physical Earth is recognized as completely illusory. The Earth is known to be completely unreal and just a dream. It is known that everything that seems to happen here is made up, not really happening, and not to be taken seriously at all.

It is also known from that higher universe that the physical universe is very good at deceiving you, because it shows you seemingly visible stuff that happens, stuff that goes wrong, people that get hurt, accidents that seem to happen and so on. And from that higher universe everyone knows that when you're in it, unless you've maintained perfect access to the awareness of the higher universe, you will easily be fooled by the Earth's illusions.

The folk up there also know that the physical Earth paints a picture of things happening that aren't happening, and that every single part of physical matter is designed to deceive. And just as Jesus says in ACIM "nothing so blinding as sight of form", they know that the entire physical experience was designed, on purpose, to APPEAR AS IF what happens there is real. But it's not.

So the real challenge you have, as you visit the physical Earth, is that you're going to be totally BOMBARDED with signals from outside of you, perceptions, which seem to show you pictures and forms of things happening, things going wrong, people getting damaged, people dying etc. And these are going to seem really convincing. But you need to remember this one key thing and hold it so firmly to your chest that you never waver from it:

DO NOT BELIEVE ANY OF IT.

There is nothing happening on the Earth, period. Anything that appears to be happening is not real. Anything that appears to happen can be changed and undone. And anything that seems to happen is not permanent. So while you visit Earth and you think, well, it's a lovely place, and stuff just happened, and yes its real, and I believe in it, and here are the effects, and here's the proof, etc..... know you've lost your mind! You've been fooled. You fell for the illusion. And to get out of it you're going to have to re-learn through forgiveness to SEE in an entirely different way, a way that lets you see through the illusion and not believe it at all.

None of the rules of this physical world apply. None of them are real laws. Only God's laws are real. And God's laws defy absolutely every physical law known to man. That's why the application of God's laws appear to be miracles. But really a miraculous existence is entirely natural. The folks up above know this. And we can return to this awareness too as we learn that this physical world doesn't even exist at all.

Ego is a device for separation. It is like a stained glass window made of many fragments and different types of filters. Each colored panel obscures and distorts the light behind it and changes it, filtering out what it does not want to see.

When the ego attempts to hold itself up to the light of God, to heaven, to creation, and attempts to look at it, it looks through this stained glass window. It CAN ONLY see separations. It is INCAPABLE of seeing unity. It thinks it is objective and impartial and unbiased but it is absolutely incapable of ever seeing and recognizing the nature of Oneness correctly.

All it sees are separations, partial truths, information which is left out and distortions that have been added. It is literally impossible for it see oneness, wholeness, truth, or consistency.

When the truth of Heaven is that God creates and has many sons and they each have individual free will, the ego looks at this through its stained glass window. All it sees is, oh look, there seems to be a correlation between the different pieces of glass and the idea of "many sons".

You can be sure that, if the ego ever looks at Oneness and sees something CORRELATING to its way of looking, that it is seeing separations, you know that something is UNTRUE. The ego cannot see God and understand it. If it is seeing something "in" God and saying, that it matches up to how the ego sees in fragments, IT IS NOT SEEING the truth.

All we can say for sure is, the ego can never see God correctly, cannot understand Oneness correctly, cannot comprehend how God has many sons without it being a separation, and therefore we need to TRUST and have FAITH that God's many sons is a truth the ego will never accept.

We are to accept the truth as it is presented. The course is telling us God has many Sons. Jesus is not a liar. Therefore, it's telling the truth. And somehow, all of those sons are "one", yet still distinct with individual free will. We have to simply accept this is true even if our egos don't understand how.

"To know reality is not to see the ego and its thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in it entails."

"Where there was darkness now we see the light. What is the ego? What the darkness was. Where is the ego? Where the darkness was. What is it now and where can it be found? Nothing and nowhere. Now the light has come: Its opposite has gone without a trace. Where evil was there now is holiness. What is the ego? What the evil was. Where is the ego? In an evil dream that but seemed real while you were dreaming it. Where there was crucifixion stands God’s Son. What is the ego? Who has need to ask? Where is the ego? Who has need to seek for an illusion now that dreams are gone?"