Oneness does not mean "one thing."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a) its true of BOTH of us, or

b) its true of NEITHER of us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"God's angels".

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

This is also why heaven is NOT DUALITY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I and my father are one"

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

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

“The first thing to remember about miracles is that there is no order of difficulty among them. One is not harder or bigger than another. They are all the same.”

Jesus says all miracles are the same. There is no order among them in terms of difficulty, or size, or adjusting proportions in relation to “what the problem is”. Miracle mindedness is a state of equality and evenness. It is flat.

All expressions of love are maximal, which means EVERY miracle expression is at the same level of maximal love. Not wavering or varying in degrees of application. Almost like there is one “button” that you push and it puts out a miracle and this same miracle has the power to do anything, every time. So there is no need for varying degrees of expression.

Similarly there is a hierarchy of illusions, in which all illusions APPEAR to have a total LACK of sameness. That everything is different, all forms are different, there are different degrees and amounts and importance and severity. Different amounts of hardness. “In this world, it is NOT true that anything without order of difficulty can occur.”

So the scenario we are presented with is a world which seems to show us “there are varying levels of difficulty”. And this is based on form. The form that something takes, is taken to be what it MEANS. We look at the form, the state, the shape, the texture, the color, the composition, the seeming evidence of what’s happened, the “proof of sin”, and we use that to come up with a JUDGEMENT of what “it is”. And this gives rise to what we think it MEANS, or implies. And that results in an entire hierarchy of degrees of difficulty, not to mention varying levels of reaction.

In LESSON 1 of the workbook, Jesus introduces us to this powerful idea, hitting the ground running. That everything in the world, all things we see, all objects, all FORMS, do not MEAN anything. That the form of things is NOT its meaning. And this is based on the simple yet deep idea of “there is no world”. The world is NOTHING, and therefore the things you see are NOT anything, and therefore do NOT MEAN anything.

“Lesson 1 "Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) means anything.”

If you can realize how this is basically saying that NOTHING in the world means anything, it is telling you that the forms, physical states, conditions, amounts of stuff, it does not HAVE any meaning. One thing is not bigger than another. One thing is not harder to deal with than another. Even a certain form of body state, whether the body seems alive and healthy, or on its death bed, it is NO DIFFERENT in its meaning.

“They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful.”

We have INVENTED all the meanings we’ve given to everything in the world, including dead bodies. We have DECIDED that a body in a certain state MEANS death, and a body in another state “is better”. This is totally arbitrary, based loosely on the form of what we see, which is an illusion. A body seemingly in a state of death is NOT more dead than any other body.

So what we have to learn is that the physical state of things, regardless of its form, no matter its severity, even if a person is dead, even if they are severely sick, even if there’s a car crash, it should not MEAN that this is a very big serious terrible thing. It should not MEAN that this is more serious or more important or more severe, OR harder to recover from, OR really in any way a more DIFFICULT thing to deal with. It is all equally NOTHING.

“Yet it is when judgment ceases that healing occurs, because only then it can be understood that there is no order of difficulty in healing.”

Nothing I see means ANYTHING. A person seeming to be severely sick, is a judgement based on believing that their FORM is telling us its meaning. That certain states of the body are proof of certain degrees of death. That some things are worse than others. What we have to learn to be miracle minded is that the FORM that something takes, its appearance, no matter what that appearance is, is NOTHING AT ALL, and therefore it does not MEAN anything at all. One form is NOT different to another.

A serious ”bad situation” IS NOT a serious bad situation. It’s an illusion of one, taking the form of one, while simultaneously being absolutely nothing at all. And because it is nothing, it cannot mean anything. It cannot MEAN that it is a horrible nightmare Of awfulness. Because it is nothing, it cannot REALLY be a sickness. Because it is nothing, it is NOT really death, disaster, terror or hell. We can’t look to the form to tell us what anything means. Form is a lie. All physical states and shapes and conditions mean nothing whatsoever.

So the miracle has to overlook the appearance of the situation, completely disregard the evidence, turn away from what every physicality-believing person says, disregard the opinion of everyone who looks upon bodies and consider their states to be real, and do not GIVE any power to death. To not differentiate BETWEEN illusions. “There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal. ”

We are to not believe that a certain “state” is any kind of proof of anything. That it MEANS anything, indicates anything, implies anything, will lead to anything, or tells you a prognosis of even the potential of what might be possible. The form of the world cannot TELL YOU what is real or what anything means. You cannot look to IT to tell you what is true. You should ASK the physical to tell you what is spiritual fact.

We are to DEFY the world of illusions by bringing a power and a light from another world, a power which ignores form and completely overlooks the hierarchy of illusions. That flattens the hierarchy and renders all physical things EQUAL. Which sees all situations as THE SAME. And therefore having ONE response of love and power which deals with this ONE state of illusions, this ONE substrate of deception, and does ONE thing to bringing about a change.

Lesson 5 “Applying the same idea to each of them separately is the first step in ultimately recognizing they are all the same.”

lesson 79 “Everyone in this world seems to have his own special problems. Yet they are all the same, and must be recognized as one if the one solution which solves them all is to be accepted.”

“Accept the holy instant as this year is born, and take your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. Make this year different, by making it ALL THE SAME.”

When all things in the world are recognized as nothing, they do not MEAN what you thought they meant. You have a clean slate. You have taken away from the world all the meanings it has, which you gave to it, under the belief that IT gave them to you based on its forms.

Its form are deceptions, they do NOT mean what they appear to mean. They ARE not what they seem to be. Do not listen to people telling you that something MEANS something because of its current “state”. This is just feedback from an illusory world where nothing is true.

“Nothing that the world believes is true.” “No one has been sure of anything since.”

ALL illusory forms, all physical objects, all bodies, all states are illusions of differences and appearances of conflicts. As if that means something. As if that’s proof of what is happening. Some things seem terrible and awful while other things seem harmless and nice. But none of this is true. All the things in the world are ONE thing, one equal sameness of nothing. And it is their nothingness that guarantees their healing. Because now if it is nothing, you are not dealing with a “big bad problem”, you’re dealing with an illusion, and illusions recognized as nothing must disappear.

It is the fact that this is all NOTHING, that gives you the power to be free from it, to not fear it, to not endow it with attributes it does not have, to not use it to prove sin is real, and have no effects from it. What is nothing can do nothing and is nothing. There is no world. There is no death. The son of God is free.

“Think how this SEEMS to interfere with the first principle of miracles. For this establishes degrees of TRUTH among illusions, making it appear that some are HARDER to be overcome than others. If it were realized that they are all the same and EQUALLY untrue, it would be easy, then, to understand that miracles apply to ALL of them. Errors of ANY kind can be corrected, BECAUSE they are untrue.”

"For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."

“The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear.”

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

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

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

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

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

A few quotes...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you had NO blocks to awareness, you would be vividly, constantly aware, that anything you attempt to do to others, you do directly and immediately to yourself.

Anything you express towards others, you experience.

Anything you give to others, you receive.

"Giving and receiving are one."

You cannot move an inch in any way towards another without moving that same inch in your own direction.

Anything you do to them you do to yourself.

If you attack them, you are literally going into a state of a split mind in which your mind is under attack.

If you are angry at someone, trying to destroy them through guilt, your destructive hatred towards them is an attempt to destroy yourself.

In awareness, you and your brother have SHARED INTERESTS. It is in both your interest and the interest of another, that the way you treat them IS how you want to be treated. Because it is how YOU are treating yourself.

This is beyond traditional definitions of the Golden Rule. It is not mere wishful thinking or hope that another MIGHT treat you the same. It is in fact metaphysical law, completely inescapable, and applicable to everyone always.

What is true of another is true of you.

You cannot so much as send a tiny little zap of annoyance toward someone without YOU suffering from it.

When your mind IS blocked, and you are not aware of the fact that you ALWAYS have shared interests because you are literally ONE WITH your brother, you start to believe that how you treat others is SEPARATE from how you are treated.

This is the slippery slope of the ego, of inequality, and the breaking of the law of God. In attempted IGNORANCE of the golden rule, the ego claims that you can get away with murder because cause and effect are NOT connected (separation between father and son), allowing you to attack without being attacked.

Believing that you can have harmful attitudes towards others WITHOUT being harmed, is an absolute lie. You may not be AWARE that you are harming yourself, because you are in denial, and your mind is blocked. But you ARE DIRECTLY hurting yourself whenever you in ANY WAY attempt to hurt anyone.As the blocks to awareness become lifted and you can learn to SEE the unity and oneness with others, which is opening to the shared mindset of God and the Holy Spirit, it becomes much easier to see AND FEEL, the fact that when you try to destroy someone, you ARE destroying yourself.

Those who are hurt hurt others. Those who see themselves as abused abuse others. Those who hate feel hated. Those who cannot love do not feel loveable. Those who are sick are trying to prove they should be punished. Those who attack or blame believe they deserve to die.

"You but accuse your brother of your own sins."

"It can be but myself I crucify."

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

"You are doing this to yourself."

Because you are one with your brothers, your MIND is IN THEIR MIND."One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds. Such is the truth."If you think that another person is NOT ONE WITH YOU, then you make them a "stranger". This is because you have become estranged from yourself. A separation or gap has formed, a SPLIT, in between you and another person. And this gap houses the body which becomes a separation device, keeping you isolated and alone.

Believing you are NOT IN others, you believe you can attack them and NOT attack yourself. This is a lie. It is based entirely in denial and unawareness. Anything you attempt to do to anyone you DO DIRECTLY to the part of you that is SHARED with them.

In every way you can imagine, any measure of inequality in which you and your brother are considered to be NOT ONE, or to not share, or to have different rules apply, or different truths for each, is EGO. Ego simply means inequality.

Believing you are not equal to others, not a brother, not an equal sibling of the same father, you will conceive of the many ways that you can be SPLIT OFF from them and thus from part of yourself. And you can then attack the split off part and believe it is not you. This is nothing other than dissociation in your mind.

"The separation IS the notion of rejection."

"Exclusion and separation are synonymous. So are separation and dissociation."

"the separation was and is dissociation"

Dissociating one part of your self from another, is the split mind, and is the ego. It IS the separation! And in this split minded state you are at war with yourself, and yet you belief and experience it as if it is NOT YOU that you are at war with. As if there is a SEPARATE PERSON who is the enemy or attacker or sinner. This is simply part of you which you've split off and disowned.

This means every attack you think is coming from another is coming from this split off part of your own self, and has nothing to do with anyone else. This is why the secret of salvation tells you that EVERY form of attack is self attack. And if you would NOT split your mind through attempts to create a SEPARATION BETWEEN you and others, you would not be sick or suffer or die.

It seems very strange to say this but, shared interests means that you literally are IN your brothers as part of them, and how you treat them IS how you are directly treating yourself. Which means there is NO WIGGLE ROOM or loopholes for how you can have an attitude toward or about someone else "separate from" your self. EVERY expression and every decision you make is to either attack BOTH OF YOU, OR NEITHER.

Having something in common is not a shared interest. It is a mutual agreed-to pair of separation devices which happen to clash the least. A true shared interest requires the recognition that you SHARE ONE MIND.

"Healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad."This is VERY ALIEN to how the world thinks and acts. Because the world is riddled with divisions, separations and split minded people. Everyone with an ego is living in a state of DISSOCIATION. Every single person is against themselves and trying to kill themselves, but are doing it through such disowning of themselves that they think someone or something ELSE is doing it to them.

Imagine being so divided within yourself that you don't even recognize when you are destroying and attacking yourself, and you think it's someone totally separate from you that is your worst enemy, when all along your mind is split in half and at war with itself. That's what happening in the world.To share interests is to be of ONE interest. With an interest in oneness.

"Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life."

"you made death, and it is but illusion of an end."

"Miracles make time and tide wait for all men. They can heal the sick and raise the dead because man himself made both death and taxes, and can abolish both."

This world we seem to be in, is not really a world. It is an illusion of a world, hallucinated by an insane mind, imagining that something impossible exists. It is a meaningless world. It is not good or bad, or evil or holy, or positive or negative, it is absolutely nothing at all.

What we call "the ego" then picks out certain parts of this singular illusion, and says that some parts of it are more alive than others, and other parts more dead. We GIVE it this meaning. We say, ok, this form and shape and behavior means death, and other forms and shapes and behaviors mean life.

And so we assign death to certain states or conditions. We say ok, there's decay and decomposition and damage and seeming lack of life or motion, so we're going to call this death. And when there is motion and vitality and symbols of aliveness, we're going to call this life.

This is literally what you made up. You decided some parts of the one illusion mean death just based purely on appearances. As Jesus says, life and death then seem like opposites in the SAME illusory world, made of ONE substance, and you then decided within that scope that "death ends life". Or that some of the illusions cause other illusions to change and lean towards the "dead state" that you gave the meaning of death to.

It's all made up. There is no part of the illusory world that is more alive OR dead than another part. A dead tree is not really any more dead than a living tree. A dead body in a grave decomposing is really not any different to an exuberant newborn baby smiling at its parents. Nor is a healthy dude at a gym any more alive than a seeming sickly old woman in a hospital. It's all the same stuff.

The ILLUSION is that they are NOT the same. That's the whole trick of it. The suggestion that some FORMS MEAN SOMETHING DIFFERENT to other forms. That their FORM IS their meaning, and their meaning sets them apart as not the same.

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

"It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else BUT form will be perceived."

"The FORM it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from REASON's eyes."

"Therefore, He (Holy Spirit) OPPOSES differences in form as meaningful, and emphasizes always that THESE DIFFERENCES DO NOT MATTER."

In the big picture, ALL of the contents of the illusory world are EQUAL in the illusory nature, EQUALLY unreal, and EQUALLY nothing. There are NOT parts which are more alive, and there are NOT parts which are more dead. The body and the world are not alive, or dead. They are neither and nothing.

"The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who ARE life."

"The body cannot heal, because it cannot MAKE ITSELF SICK. It NEEDS no healing. Its health or sickness depends ENTIRELY on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose which the mind would use it FOR."

What this means is the body as a meaningless illusion in a meaningless world, cannot HAVE any properties inherent to it. The world HAS no inherent meaning. When you USE it for an ego purpose, you actually distort the body and steer it towards unnatural states which produces what appears to be physical sickness and death. But as we just said even these states are illusions equal to the rest.

When the mind uses the body to bring the word of God, or the perspective of sanity in which the world is all one illusion, to those who lack this awareness, ie when we love and extend God, we stop distorting the world into states of difference, contrasts, conflicts and opposites, and this lifts away from the "body image" the signs of sickness and attack and conflict. Thus the body "resurrects" to what SYMBOLICALLY is a state of health and life. But even this is still not really life.

There is no death because it only seems to happen in a made-up world with made-up meaning based on made-up forms. A dead body is no more dead in truth than what we call a living body. They are totally the same illusion. One illusion of strange separate things, to which we've assigned arbitrary meaning based on nothing in particular.

WHEN the mind can recognize this, it is no longer participating in the hierarchy of illusions, recognizes both "life and death" as the same one illusion, and now has power over ALL states of matter. It has become miraculous because it sees no order of difficulty. It is no longer believed to be any harder or more difficult or strange or intense or chronic or stubborn to make one thing change into another thing.

Then it becomes EASY to change one state of matter into another, just as Jesus demonstrated materializing food and converting a branch into a snake and back, raising the dead and so on.

"Appearances deceive BUT CAN BE CHANGED."

"You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed."

You become able to change material objects into any particular form, as part of your awakening to the fact that they are in fact ALL THE SAME. Overlooking their differences is forgiveness. Recognizing there is only ONE PROBLEM is forgiveness. Seeing the world as having no meaning of its own is overlooking illusions. Recognizing that a body IS NOT REALLY DEAD, and is no more dead than another living body, allows you to convert that body back to the living. Or at least to the symbolic illusion of living.

There are a number of stories in the book "The saints who raised the dead" which is a great read to hear about actual miracles. For example one saint visited a woman who was insane, and had attacked her children and killed them, and then was actually chopping them up and cooking them and eating them. And some of the parts had already been eaten. Totally greusome story yes. However, the saint arrived and, knowing none of these appearances were TRUE, performed a miracle and re-constructed the bodies of the children, putting all of the material back together into fully-formed, fully functioning, unharmed and seemingly totally alive and happy young kids again.

In another story, a man had died and was buried and had already been in the ground for several days starting to decompose. Surely this would mean that it was "too difficult" to resurrect the person to life. But a saint arrived and performed a miracle, recognizing that again the states and forms of matter meant nothing at all. And raised the body up out of the grave and recomposed it into a healthy living body, and the man walked away happily.

There are NO LIMITS on what your holiness can do because your holiness has the power of God in it, plus the awareness that this entire world is NOTHING, and so how can it be DIFFICULT to do anything? All forms CAN be changed precisely because they ARE illusions. Nothing here is permanent or fixed or beyond help. It is precisely because the world is NOT real that it CAN be changed by miracles.

"If sin were real it would forever be beyond the hope of healing."

"Yet nothing in the world of dreams remains without the hope of change and betterment, for here is NOT where changelessness is found."

You made death. You invented death. You decided it is death. You made it up, imagined it, labelled in, assigned it to certain forms, and tried to separate it out from other forms. It is not any of that. Death is no different than life in a world of singular illusion. Raising the dead should be effortless for someone who knows this deeply and uses it.

"I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God Created. Why do you believe that it is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in miracles: YOU do."

The world out there, or in which your body-self is located, is a dream. It does not exist. You are dreaming it. It is no different to dreams at night. It is entire symbolic and filled with symbols. To awaken must mean the dream comes to an end. This means the world must disappear completely.

"Your sleeping and your waking dreams have different forms, and that is all." (--the physical world is just a dream you're having. You did not wake up this morning!)

"You are the dreamer of the world of dreams." (--see, you're dreaming the entire world)

"Love was never in the world of dreams." (--there is no love inside the dream of death, even if you see it with love - love is incompatible with dreams and would end them)

"They are dreams because they are not true. Their equal lack of truth becomes the basis for the miracle, which means that you have understood that dreams are dreams." (--recognizing the world is a dream is the key to awakening from it)

"Dreams disappear when light has come and you can see." (--dreams disappear when you awaken to the light of truth. In truth dreams do not exist and do not happen. They are unreal. There is no world. You can't be perceiving the world as real and be awake.)

"To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams." (--can you have the peace of God and be inside the dream? No. This means you are still dreaming and are not at peace.)

"Dreams are chaotic because they are governed by your conflicting wishes." (--the split mind has multiple wills conflicting with each other - persona and shadow, and must be chaotic. There is no perfect dream or perfect world)

"The miracle does not select some dreams to leave untouched by its beneficence." (--miracles are applied to the dream world to undo it!)

"Let forgiveness be the substitute for fear. This is the only rule for happy dreams." (--dreams can become happIER, but when the happiest possible dream is perceived, its usefulness is done and it will disappear and dreaming will end)

"Give all your dreams to Christ and let Him be your Guide to healing, leading you in prayer beyond the sorry reaches of the world." (--the world is a sorry place, a dream of death. Beyond it is God's reality, which is not of this world and demonstrates this world does not exist)

"A miracle has come to heal God's Son, and close the door upon his dreams of weakness, opening the way to his salvation and release." (--all dreams (the world, the body) are dreams of weakness - the world is attempted suicide)

"Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. You were not meant to suffer and to die. Your Father wills these dreams gone. Let truth correct them all." (--you cannot die, it's just a dream of death.)

"There is no death because the Son of God is like his Father. Nothing you can do can change Eternal Love. Forget your dreams of sin and guilt, and come with me instead to share the resurrection of God's Son. And bring with you all those whom He has sent to you to care for as I care for you." (--enough said - we are to stop dreaming entirely and help others to do the same)

"What is seen in dreams seems to be very real. Yet the Bible says that a deep sleep fell upon Adam, and nowhere is there reference to his waking up. The world has not yet experienced any comprehensive reawakening or rebirth. Such a rebirth is impossible as long as you continue to project or miscreate." (--the world is a place of sleep, unconsciousness, and unawareness. Its condition or state cannot continue if the state of awareness increases and there is awakening. The dream must end. The world is over. ONLY heaven is real.)

If you as Christ, God's Son, are "one with God", does that mean you do not exist as an individual being/son? Does it mean there is only God and NO son? No. It also does not mean that your "brother" is an "ego idea of separation". Brothers are co-children of the same Father - God.

In not one single one of these statements does "one" mean a count of one.

"This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. ***There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER***. Actually, the original statement was "are of one KIND."

"This is because ***God and man are NOT equal***"

"The creative power of both God AND His Creations is limitless, but it ***is NOT in reciprocal relationship.*** You DO communicate fully WITH God, as He does with YOU. This is an ongoing process in which you SHARE, and BECAUSE you share it, you are inspired to create LIKE God. But in Creation ***you are NOT in a reciprocal relation TO God***, because He created YOU, but you did NOT create Him. We have already stated that only in this respect your creative power differs from His."

"I and my Father are one with you, for you are part of Us."

"Your Son is one with You in being and in will, and nothing contradicts the holy truth that I remain as You created me."

"Nothing has power over you except His Will and yours, which but extends His Will. 8 It was for this you were created, and your brother with you and at one with you." (oneness is happening at the same time as you AND your brother existing as creations of God!!!)

"You and your brother are the same as God Himself is One, and not divided in His Will. 2 And you must have one purpose, since He gave the same to both of you. 3 His Will is brought together as you join in will, that you be made complete by offering completion to your brother."

"I trust my brothers, who are one with me." (not "who are egos with me"!)

"His Oneness and ours are not separate, because His Oneness encompasses ours." (two onenesses? WTF, OMG, call the the course police)

"Your role in the redemption LEADS you to it, by re-establishing its oneness in your minds."

"And ONLY as you look upon him as guiltless, can you understand his Oneness."

"Nor do they love the Oneness which created them as One with Him."

"In unity with Him do they abide, and in their Oneness both are kept complete."

"Its truth established you as one with God."

"we stand together as one Son of God."

"every heart throughout the universe forever sings as one"

"As a man and as one of God's creations, my right thinking, which came from the Universal Inspiration which IS the Holy Spirit, taught me first and foremost..."

"In this equality is Christ restored as one Identity, in Which all Sons of God acknowledge that they all are one."

"He loves you both, equally and as one."

"When two minds join as one, and share one idea equally, the first link in the awareness of the Sonship as one has been made."

In none of these statements do the "two" cease to exist as two. This does not mean separation persists either. Nor does it mean that "two" always indicates "multiplicity of egos". Nor does multiplicities of brothers created by God in reality mean there is separation happening.

Separation does not mean "counting how many", any more than oneness means "a count of one". Separation ONLY means the attempt to be exclusive, selfish and isolated, in among a large group of individuals with whom you were previously sharing everything.

So many myths to dispel.

Love recognizes perfect equality in all children of God. The Golden Rule states that what applies to you applies to all other creations and the entire sonship without exception.

When you believe that something applies to you which does not apply to someone else, you are being murderous.

When this happens, there has been a separation idea introduced in-between cause and effect. God the Father is cause, you are His effect. To separate from God you drive a wedge between the two.

This now means that you believe you can cause something without being at the effect of what you cause. That you can GIVE, without RECEIVING, which is a principle of sacrifice. And that in turn means, you can do something to someone else, and escape the consequences.

This immediately places you in a position of seeming to be able to "get away with murder", because if you can do something to someone or have something be true of them and not of you, you can attack them and cause them harm without seeming to hurt yourself (which is delusional.)

This is why anything short of love is attempted murder. It's an attempt to say, hey brother, we are different, and you are this thing that I am not, and so it's possible for you to suffer without me suffering, and it's possible for me to attack you without me receiving the same attack.

In this view, giving a receiving are no longer equal and what is true of me is no longer true for you, and so I can make something apply to you without it applying to me, and thus get away with it.

Even the slightest hint that the Golden Rule does not apply, or that there are different rules of values for each child of God, introduces a fundamentally murderous thought system, which is murderous at its very core. This is why anything which is not eternal life, is death, and there is no life outside of Heaven.

It IS a black and white, literal teaching. The ego is fundamentally a murderous thought system. Any lack of equality is an attack. Any imbalance or specialness or special favor or chaotic lack of identicality is an attack on the entire sonship.

God creates only perfectly identical mirror-image beings who are in His own image and likeness in every way. None of them lacks anything, nothing is missing. "God who encompasses all being nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually and want to share it to increase their joy." When such beings attempt to not share, and to not increase joy, and to not be perfectly identical, they enter into lack, which produces perceived attack, which is a state of attempted murder.

Jesus is very clear about this. "What is not love is murder." If it's not perfect unconditional divine holy love, the person is being murderous. And that means even a slight grievance is murderous. Even a casual judgement. Even a single attack thought. Even an irritation or slight annoyance. It may seem to show up as "degrees" of murderousness but it's still ALL murderous.

This false non-duality idea of "you don't have a self" is not part of ACIM itself and is only something that people have projected onto it in attempting to mis-understand it.

You DO have a self, a PERMANENT soul, which God created. There is a you in Heaven. God loves YOU and always will.

Being in ego, it really means an attempt to DENY yourself, to NOT BE yourself. The ego and the body are images of what you THINK you are, which are attempts to cover up what you REALLY are. What you really are is a permanent spirit being, a soul, a Son of God, which God created with eternal life.

We are permanently brothers in creation. In reality, God created many children and we are all equal. Every one of us has an individuality.

"God who encompasses all being NEVERTHELESS created separate beings who have everything INDIVIDUALLY and want to share it to increase their joy."

Believing that "you will end" in the atonement is really the ego's fear. The EGO will end, and the ego is not you. In fact the ego is NOT the idea of a self. It is an ILLUSION of a self, APPEARING to be a self, but is EXACTLY OPPOSITE TO THAT. It is the idea of the END OF YOU. It is the anti-christ. Which is why it leads to death.

It's the idea that YOUR SELF, which God gave you, has "become separated from" other selves. That you've been ostracized from the family. Rejected. Abandoned. Alone. It is this "separation from" the rest of God's Kingdom that is being healed in the atonement, so that you can RETURN TO being in UNITY WITH all other created beings. To return home to reunite with your brothers and with God.

The ego fears its end because the Holy Spirit proves IT does not exist. Atonement is the end of the ego. But YOU are not the ego. It's ONLY because you - your real self - has tried to IDENTIFY WITH the ego self, the "not me" fake self, that you think YOU will go down with it. You will not. In fact your sense of self is going to expand to it FULLNESS.

"The ego is the idea of selfishness. The Soul is the idea of self-fullness."

When you are FULLY YOUR SELF, you will be as God created you. When you are not being fully yourself, it's because you are rejecting some parts of existence by trying to be selfish, and simply put selfishness is what the ego is. An attempt to isolate and exclude. It is ONLY the isolation and exclusivity which ends, NOT your self. You BECAME a "separated one", but you do not have to remain a separated one. You can become rejoined with the family. "God's family".

Your real self is permanent and real. "I am not an illusion but a reality." You are a son of God, and so am I, and we will live forever in God's being as brothers."

"18. A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable value simultaneously."

This touches on the essence of A Course in Miracles and the Golden Rule. Jesus is literally telling us that YOU ARE ONE WITH OTHERS. This means you are literally IN THEM. And therefore the way that you treat them is the SAME as the way you treat yourself.

There is no exception to this. You treat BOTH yourself and others the same way at the same time. To recoil for another is to recoil from yourself. To not love another is to not love yourself. To hate another is to hate yourself. There is no escaping this because fundamentally, by the Law of God, you ARE them.

"One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds. Such is the truth."

So per the Golden Rule, that means that every person you encounter, you should love them, IF you want to be loved and if you love yourself. You should SEE YOUR SELF in them. Because both you AND them are Christ. And your love of them IS your love of yourself, directly. What you give to them you receive. What you transmit to them, you transmit to the part of you that is in them.

The "part of you" that is "in them" is the target of everything you give to them, so you have a VESTED INTEREST - a shared interest, in treating them well in order for YOU to be treated well. This is not a play on words or an option. This is how minds share and relate. This is how they were created. This is the dynamics of the laws of God which are always applying.

It is always the ego that suggests, the way you treat another is NOT the way you are treating yourself. Or that you can attack without being attacked. Or you can be murderous without experiencing the consequences. Or you can judge without being judged. Or you can hate without being hated. Or you can be right and they can be wrong and there is no equality between you.

These are all LIES because they fly in the face of the inescapable LAW. It can SEEM as if you can treat someone differently to how you treat yourself, but all of that MUST be an illusion. Because the only truth is that ALL of God's children are perfect EQUALS. Making them perfect brothers in the sonship. And this is permanent fact.

Any kind of inequality is an illusion. And that not only means that you and your brother are SEPARATELY EQUAL as individuals, like two identical twins standing next to each other. It in fact means that you SHARE EVERYTHING, which means you OVERLAP with each other, are ONE with each other, JOINED with each other, IN each other. You literally are in your brother's mind with him. Even if that means part of you seems to be "over there" in another person, from a separated point of view.

This is really the only thing to be learned. How to love yourself AND others equally. How to recognize that you are ONE with all people. To realize that, you cannot GET AWAY WITH anything. You cannot hurt without being hurt. You cannot attack without being attacked. Scapegoating and blame are delusional and denial. When you attack anyone you are hurting yourself, and you have to ask yourself, do you want to keep hurting yourself?

Anger and attack towards "others" drives a RIFT into your mind between the part of your mind which seems to be isolated to "inside your body" and the part of you which seems to be "inside other people's bodies". The more you attack what you THINK is a "separate them", the more you are SPLITTING OFF part of you which is in "you" (as a body identified self) and the part of you which is ONE WITH THEM. Which means you are directly attacking yourself and splitting your mind.

The split mind is divided by bodily boundaries, and as you focus on the ways in which you are NOT ONE, by emphasizing the solidity and reality and restriction of bodily obstacles, it simply SPLITS your mind and causes you to disassociate from yourself. And now you think you are literally two selves, with one part of you trapped in your body and the other part of you trapped in another person's body. You've now made an ego for both of you. And now you want to attack another to steal back from them the part of your SELF that you believe they have kept from you. As discussed in "the laws of chaos", everyone is looking for the self they think they lost.

So this seems to be a catch. The catch is, that if you choose to attack someone, you WILL be attacked, and you will suffer consequences, directly inflicted BY YOURSELF upon yourself. This is the secret of salvation, that you are doing it to yourself. And the only way to alleviate this suffering is to LOVE the other person. If you love them you will be loved. If you hate them you will be hated. By yourself. You cannot escape this "clause". It is the law of God. It is the Golden Rule. It is both a curse if ignored, and a clue to how to be happy if embraced.

The Golden Rule doesn't just mean that if you might treat someone as you would have them treat you, they MIGHT elect to treat you in a similar fashion. If there is any possibility that cause and effect breaks down and they MIGHT NOT treat you how you are treating them, then the law is breakable, and it is not a law, and it has devolved to the level of physical behaviors. The true nature of the Golden Rule is the oneness you always have with everyone in the mind, whereby you LITERALLY are DIRECTLY treating yourself the way you are treating them, because you are IN THEM.

"Do unto others because you ARE doing unto yourself." is what it should say.

If there is a person you hate, you will drive a separation between you. In this separation you will believe that person is completely separate from you, and you want to have as much distance and dis-association between you as possible. You do not want to be associated with them. You want to destroy them and have them not exist. And in this intensity of hatred and rage and attack and anger, you believe THEY ARE NOT YOU. And as such you can hurl as much blame and condemnation upon them as you can muster, and it seems to be 100% about their faults, and 0% about yours. This is a state of insanity.

This is a great way to split your mind, leading to states of personal suffering, unlove, a total lack of peace, and literal self destruction. Those who murder are trying to kill themselves. And those who attack are undermining their own integrity. And those who hate do not love themselves. Just as those who are sick have made themselves sick in an attempt to accuse OTHERS of sin as well as themselves.

"You but accuse your brothers of your own sin."

"Damaged bodies remain accusers."

The only solution, and the only option, and the only law which you HAVE to abide by, and cannot escape, is the law of God, that how you DO treat others IS how you are treating yourself, because YOU ARE ONE WITH THEM. And being literally part of that person, anything you hurl at them you are hurling at yourself. And you WILL experience the consequences. So really, your hands are tied and you do not have any loopholes or ways to get out of it.

Either you love BOTH you and your brother, or you hate both you and your brother. Either you love both you and your brother, or you attack both you and your brother. Either you attempt to make both you and your brother sick, or you HEAL both you and your brother. When you suffer you suffer along with him. The truth that applies to you applies to them equally and to the same degree. And not simply because they are your equal, but because THEY ARE YOU.

"Healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad."When this is recognized as true, when cause and effect are reunited so that anything you cause you also experience the effects of instantly, and when there is no way to attack without attacking yourself, you now have shared interests and the only option is to love. The only sane choice is to love. If you don't love you will hurt yourself and others. If you do love you will uplift and heal yourself and others. And "when I heal I am not healed alone."

It is by recognizing that you have a vested interest in loving others, because it allows you to be loved, that you will automatically steer clear of attack upon yourself. You will realize that you CANNOT attack another person WITHOUT suffering the consequences. And there is no way to hurt them without being hurt. So your only sane choice is to love unconditionally, so that you will be loved. Otherwise a failure to recognize your oneness leads to it seeming plausible, justifiable and warranted, that you can attack without consequence. And then you are on the slippery slope to hell.