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

"THE MIND MAKES THIS DECISION, AS IT MAKES *ALL* DECISIONS THAT ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BODY'S CONDITION."

Ok.

If you can FULLY accept what Jesus is saying here, it means very simply that the body has absolutely NO SAY in its own condition. It has no mind and no will. There are no outside causes that determine the body's health or sickness. The body is nothing but a SLAVE to the mind. The body OBEYS the mind at all times. It is the EFFECT of the mind and the mind is the CAUSE of it. This boils down to a simple mechanic which is always in effect:

***** The mind projects the body. *****

The mind is like a movie projector. The body is like a movie. The mind projects the body outward. Jesus confirmed this clearly in this notes about his resurrection:

"I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body’s worthlessness to the world. This has been much misunderstood. I came to tell them that death is illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. They did not understand."

So here, notice particularly Jesus says "THE MIND THAT MADE THE BODY CAN MAKE ANOTHER".

So that means, 100%, the mind is responsible for MAKING the body, PROJECTING it, maintaining it, causing it, defining it, establishing its condition, deciding whether or not it shows up as sick or healthy, and the body is NOTHING but an EFFECT.

This is also why Jesus confirms:

"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."

So once again we are taught there are NO OTHER CAUSES of the body's health - whether it is ill or not - other than YOU and YOUR MIND.

So now you have to realize something important here. The body is *ALWAYS* an outward picture of an inward condition. The body is *ALWAYS* being determined by the mind. And the mind is *ALWAYS* responsible for its condition while it persists.

If the mind, like a movie projector, SWITCHES OFF its projection, the movie disappears. The mind can switch the body on or off at any time. The IMAGE that is the body, is entirely COMING FROM the mind. The mind has POWER OVER it in every way. The movie cannot turn around and determine its own content, nor can it maintain its own stories or keep its own state. The body has no STATE of its own. It has no history. It is NOT the result of "past causes" or past decisions or "things that happens to it 10 years ago".

So you have to realize, the state of the body, and the body showing up AT ALL, is because the mind is PROJECTING A FRESH ONE RIGHT NOW. Whatever configuration the body shows up in, your mind RIGHT NOW is projecting that image. The body is NOT being maintained "through time" nor is it the RESULT of the past. That is "horizontal perception" and is a lie of the ego. "Vertical perception" recognizes that the mind is ABOVE the body and projects it downward. It has full authority over it. Just as mind is the dreamer and body is the dream.

THEREFORE. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE consider this VITAL point...

At no time does the body have ANY ABILITY to determine its own condition. It cannot "stay sick" or "keep disability" or "continue being broken" UNLESS the mind is CONSTANTLY STILL CONTINUING to attack it and MAKE IT BE WHAT IT IS.

The mind never disowns the body's condition. The mind is the ONLY CAUSE of the body's condition. And so that means this very important fact which MANY ACIM folk are in denial of and keep rejecting:

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PROJECT A SICK BODY FROM A HEALTHY MIND.

And similarly this leads to this further realization:

You cannot "transcend sickness" of the body and "not care" about the body's state, CLAIMING that your mind is pure and spiritual and filled with LOVE, WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY MAINTAINING A SICK BODY IMAGE.

A sick mind PROJECTS a sick body.

A healthy mind PROJECTS a healthy body.

This is a "central teaching" according to Jesus. If you use the body to attack, ie your mind wants to attack another, it uses the body as a weapon and the body thus becomes affected by attack thoughts and becomes a PICTURE of attack - SICK, broken, damaged. It SHOWS damage to your brother to accuse him of sin, "brother by your hand I die."

If your mind TRULY, genuinely, honestly, is in a state of love and sanity, it HEALS THE BODY. "The mind, being sane, heals the body." This is because the body doesn't keep its own condition. It CANNOT REFUSE TO BE HEALED. If the mind is flowing love and light through it, the body WILL HEAL and the mind will now project FROM a loving mind, a PICTURE of a "loved body image", which will show up as FREE FROM SICKNESS AND DAMAGE.

"Those who are sick (physically, because body health comes FROM mind health) do not love themselves. For if they loved themselves they would HEAL themselves."

And if they were to LOVE themselves, they would Heal their MIND, and this WOULD PROJECT A HEALED BODY. The sick body will VANISH and be REPLACED with a healthy one. Always, at all times, the body is being PROJECTED OUT from the movie projector mind. Change the movie in the MIND, and the PROJECTION MUST CHANGE.

This is the same principle as "projection makes perception."

There is no escaping this mechanism. WHILE you have a body, IF it is sick, YOUR MIND IS SICK. Since "sickness is a defense against the truth'" and since "a broken body is PROOF the mind has not been healed", if sickness REMAINS in the body, the mind MUST NOT be healthy, and there MUST still be a defense against the truth IN THE MIND.

Therefore it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a sick body at the same time as having a healthy mind!!!!

And because of this fact, even if bodies are not real and don't exist and your awakened mind doesn't even produce a body AT ALL because it no longer believes in illusions, *IF* you ARE producing a body still, its condition DOES REFLECT your mental health. At all times. And therefore it is a "barometer" for determining whether your mind is healthy or not. And it is an indicator of what you think of your brother. "Sick bodies are accusers". You cannot continue having a sick body "with a healthy mind" and NOT BE ACCUSING. If your body is sick, YOU ARE AN ACCUSER, and are trying to be contagious. THAT is not sanity.

If you could see that the body is only an image being projected outward by the mind, like a holographic projection, and if you could see that your mind is able to switch that image on and off at will, and if you could experiment to see that when you hate you project a hateful body with signs of distortion and when you love you project a loving body immaculate and undefiled, you would REALIZE that NEVER can you make a healed body show up WHILE you are angry or attacking, and the ONLY way to make a healthy body show up is to USE IT FOR LOVE.

"Use it to bring the word of God to those who have it not and the body BECOMES holy (is projected as healed/whole). Being holy, it CANNOT BE SICK, NOR CAN IT DIE."

The body then reaches a state where it is a SYMBOL of immortality. It is not immortal ITSELF because, remember, it is a second-hand projected effect from the mind. The MIND becomes immortal and the body image REFLECTS it. The body, ALWAYS a symbol, now shows a symbolic representation of health and wholeness and being healed and free from attack of any kind. It REPRESENTS holiness in the mind. And the holy, sane mind, CAN ONLY project this kind of body. For a "sane mind" to project an "attacked body" is a DOUBLE MESSAGE, and is a split minded teaching. Absolute bullshit, AND impossible.

You then USE this symbol of immortality and health to SHOW OTHERS PROOF that your mind is healed and that your brother is exonerated. "Brother, at your hand I live" is the message it transmits to anyone who encounters it. And in it there are NO SIGNS of attack or sicknesss, PROVING that your brother CANNOT ATTACK IT, is not the cause of it, has no effect on it, CANNOT MAKE IT SICK, and CANNOT KILL IT. It literally is invulerable because the mind simply is TOTALLY responsible for its projection and its condition.

The mind can simply KEEP PROJECTING a healed body, in realtime, live, each moment, to OVERRIDE any attempted affects or attacks that ANYTHING EXTERNAL tries to "do to it." This is a supernatural state of PROTECTION which "sickness is a defense against the truth" mentions.

Jesus even goes on to say that you can relieve the body of the laws you made it serve before, and it is no longer even subject to FOOD, or WEATHER, or TIME (aging) or any other EXTERNAL CAUSALITY. Because now if the mind is in PURE CAUSALITY, the body CAN ONLY BE what the mind wants to show itself as. Therefore the body no longer HAS ANY EXTERNAL NEEDS, which were all fake to begin with. Why would a holographically projected IMAGE need anything from the world, when it's just an IMAGE being PROJECTED like a movie?! The mind now OVERRIDES ALL OF THE EGO'S LAWS and because of ITS transcendence of death, can project a body that CANNOT BE AFFECTED.

It is only then through a sane mind which SHOWS A HEALED BODY, that you can reach atonement in the mind, OR access resurrection. The curriculum ENDS in the resurrection, which is a state of MIND that has TOTAL POWER OVER DEATH, and is PURELY CAUSAL. This is a course in cause, not effect. And for a while, it can project a "perfect body" to represent the mind's resurrected state. When you are done using it, you DISAPPEAR IT, and it literally vanishes into nothingness, because THE MIND WAS PROJECTING IT AS AN IMAGE. When you switch off the projector, the movie disappears!

That is the ONLY WAY to exit the dream of death. You exit THROUGH LIFE. Through immortality. You can NEVER EVER exit through "my body is sick and it died". EVER. Under no conditions. No exceptions. If you are CAUSING your body to be sick or to die, through a CHOICE TO DIE, (and all death is suicide and FAILURE) you are OPPOSING GOD's WILL because your MIND is opposing LIFE and is using the body to ATTACK, not only yourself but your brother. Sick and dead bodies are accusers and they COME FROM sick minds.

You cannot leave this dream through death or sickness. And since the body's condition COMES FROM the MINDS CONDITION, they are TIED TOGETHER, and that means the ONLY WAY to exit the dream is to FIRST ACHIEVE perfect physical health as an out-picturing of a SANE MIND - a "healed body", AND THEN to disappear the body purely by the power of the mind. If the body is still sick, YOU CANNOT BE AWAKE. "A broken body is PROOF the mind HAS NOT been healed."

"That the body cannot heal the mind but the mind can heal the body, proves the mind must be stronger than the body. Even miracle demonstrates this." Therefore a MIRACLE is supposed to produce BODY HEALING. To SHOW that the mind is MORE POWERFUL THAN FORM and more powerful than matter and the world and any external causes. Miracles REVEAL that the mind IS THE CAUSE OF THE BODY, and that the mind has power over sickness and death. And EXERCISES THAT POWER to reverse sickness and death and to make sickness and death IMPOSSIBLE.

You must demonstrate LIFE.

You must NOT demonstrate sickness or death.

Miracles restore life to what was sick and dead. Miracles are the means of the resurrection. Miracles can raise the dead and RETURN TO LIFE that which was less alive before. If there is still sickness in the body, THERE HAS NOT BEEN RESURRECTION.

Only when you can embrace a doctrine of "ONLY LIFE EXISTS" can you finish the curriculum and go home. Because in Heaven, in reality, only life exists. There is no death. You cannot be PROVING that there IS DEATH and BELIEVE that there is NOT death. You HAVE to demonstrate that you REALLY believe it by SHOWING IT through your body. Otherwise if your body has a DIFFERENT state to your mind (which is impossible) you are in deception, denial, and death.

Only life is real. Only life is true. Only life is the way out of death. "Only life" is the entire teaching of A Course in Miracles.

"Swear not to die, you holy son of God!!!"

Jesus left the dream through a FULLY HEALED SICK-FREE BODY. So must you.

"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."

Physical sight is blinded by perception of form. It looks only at the forms of error. It regards form as all that exists. The physical sight is blindness, because it cannot see everywhere, and is easily obscured be meaningless objects.

Form doesn't mean anything. But mind then takes the form and decides that certain forms mean certain things. We make up meanings and project them onto the forms. Now there is a hierarchy of illusions, varying degrees of difficulty, and the form of life seems to mean something different to the form of death.

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

The form of death is not really death, and the form of life is not really life. We decided that death and decay "means" death and decay, and that living forms are "more alive". Who told you this? The myths of the world told you this. People made this up.

The form of death is not really death at all. It's just one configuration of materials. A kind of state. One possible way that form can appear. And when the same form appears more animated or fresh or vital, or capable of giving rise to more forms, then we say it means life. But these forms are neither alive or dead.

"In ANY state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it SEEMS like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is NOT life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning."

We give all forms all the meaning they have. We decide that a broken object means there's something wrong. We decide that a rotten corpse means something is beyond the hope of living. We look at the form of things and use the form to substitute for meaning, as if the form something takes MEANS something.

But all forms are illusions, and death is not death, and life is not life. They are all just equal images, appearances and illusions. All easily changed into other forms by the power of the mind.

"The miracle is means to demonstrate that ALL appearances can change BECAUSE they are appearances, and CANNOT have the changelessness reality entails. The miracle attests salvation FROM appearances by SHOWING they can change."

When no artificial meaning is given to the forms of the world, and the world's inherent meaninglessness is recognized, we end up with a level playing field. And now miracles can operate, disregarding any orders of difficulty or "reasons why" you can or cannot change one thing into another.

And now the seemingly dead bodies can be resurrected to "the living", to symbolize eternal life. And forms of sickness can be undone, to testify to innocence. And now water turns into wine and bread and fish multiply and who cares about the so-called law of gravity.

It is a scene in the mind. It is an imagined scene. A dream.

It is inside of a mind. It is made of thought. It presents images but these images are only there because of imagination.

Physical matter is not fixed and is not separate from the mind that dreams it into being. Bodies, made of this matter, are similarly just images in the mind - the mind that is dreaming the world.

You could liken it, symbolically, to as if we are living inside someone's brain. Inside someone's imagination. The universe is a giant idea. A thought. Even physical matter itself is not really physical or fixed matter, it is just an imagined idea.

It is all mind. And it is all within the mind. There is no such thing as outside the mind, and ideas leave not their source.

Objects, bodies, people, cars, houses, planets, they are all just ideas in the mind. They are being held in suspension and made to seem as though they have their own personal history and a "state" of their own, but this is entirely an illusion.

All forms are being regenerated and reprojected by the mind, within the mind, every quantum of time. Each object is completely forgotten and regenerated.

The only reason that objects appears to maintain their "state" or have a "history" over time, is because the mind that is dreaming them maintains a certain belief over time, and therefore keeps re-generating an almost identical image of form.

You think objects such as your body have a history, but they do not. They are being recreated now by the mind. What they appeared to be a year ago only seems to correlate to how they appear now because the mind that is making them keeps making them in the same way, based on the same beliefs.

Your body does not have a will of its own, or a story of its own, or a history of its own, or a state of its own. It is nothing but an image coming out of a projector. The projector is running a movie and keeps projecting a similar-looking object with similar properties, to create an illusion of consistency over time. Your body now has nothing in common with your body a moment ago, at the bodily level.

This is all happening in the mind. Inside a giant mind. This entire planet and everything happening on it is just a bunch of images in a mind. Imagination. A dream of the Son of God.

When this mind changes its mind, you can bet that the dream it is imagining is going to change as well. When this mind chooses forgiveness, you can bet that the images in the mind are going to out-picture a forgiven state of being as well.

This is why miracles - as expressions of love which CURE - and as expressions of love which DEMONSTRATE that the body has not been harmed, to symbolize the fact that the mind is unharmed, MUST be expressed on the level of "form".

This world is not just some place. It is not just a physical location. It is a place in the MIND. All of the objects in it are THOUGHTS. All of the forms and all of the so-called matter is nothing but a fluidic, liquid state of mind which can change at any moment.

It is not fixed, it is not permanent, and all of its illusions of continuity are just that - an illusion, maintained by a mind which keeps on projecting the same or similar images. That does not mean the mind cannot project different images if it wants to.

Miracles then, as demonstrations that you are healed, will manifest as the so-called "body" being healed, which means that the MIND is healed. And since the body is IN the mind, the undoing of the ILLUSION of a body will make the body change. It has to.

The body is not separate from mind or outside of mind. It is made OF mind. And if the mind chooses to stop dreaming a particular part of the dream, or to dream something different, that dream - physicality - will change.

You are living in a thought-world. It is a thought-form in the mind of the Son of God. Where else could you be but in the mind that you exist in, shared with God? There is nowhere else. There is no separate place to go.

Therefore, miracles, in A Course in Miracles, must be expressed as changes to FORM - which really are changes of MIND - whereby the "personal mind" that hides in the body and the body itself as an extension of that mind, must show up in the same way.

This is why Jesus, when he ascended, saw that his body - an image of a body - was just an illusion, and that it had no real meaning, it disappeared. It disappeared WITHIN the larger mind. The mind that is dreaming the dream. He erased part of the dream, because it was nothing more than illusory images - imagination. Clearly, if a dreaming mind decides to stop dreaming, whatever it was dreaming will cease to exist. And as such the "physical body" will disappear, IN the mind, because it was always in the mind all along.

Realize this. The physical universe is made of MIND! It is made of thoughts and thinking. It is constructed by consciousness. It is entirely within the bounds of the imagination. All of the forms and objects are just images in the mind. That is why when you change your mind, when you forgive, FORM WILL CHANGE. Because mind will change.

World events, tragedies, disasters, wars, attacks, celebrations, weddings, carnivals, shows, sporting events, whatever... all of it is happening in the mind. Its all a MIND-show. Mind events. Mind choosing to create dreams. Absolutely anything is possible. The mind could even create a fantastically perfect-looking world filled with abundance and incredible creatures, if it chooses to.

And people are collectively, worldwide, constantly choosing and creating futures which comprise of all kinds of stuff happening, because they chose to believe in it. We are changing "reality" because we are changing the dream as we go along.

And this is also why certain parties attempt to manipulate global consciousness to bring about a mental manifestation of certain outcomes. (Conspiracy theory alert! lol) - they know that mind creates this world and that mind can be coerced to create preferably futures. It's all part of manipulating the dreamer.

To believe that form will not change is purely the belief that mind is limited to the body and that the body is not inside or made of the mind. And that is a very common misperception, because that's precisely what the ILLUSION shows, if you believe it.

Your car is in your mind. Your house is in your mind. Your body is in your mind. Your job is in your mind. Your family is in your mind. Your entire life is in your mind. Even the physical stuff. It's all mental. Thus, changes of MIND, changes FORM, and that is why supernatural miracles happen.

They are demonstrations of truth, that the mind that is BEHIND the form has chosen something different, defying all of the illusory laws that the IMAGES in the mind appear to follow.

And this is also why the Course's REAL definition of "miracles" is that they are SUPERNATURAL. They defy the natural laws implied by illusions and come from a mind which is dreaming the world, easily capable of changing them and producing "healed" images of bodies.

Ultimately, a completely healed mind will acknowledge that the body does not really exist at all, and that it was just a dream coming from the mind. The mind was just projecting it and making it up. And it showed up in the "world" because the world is in the mind. And then, it will cease to dream the body, and the body will disappear.

A disappeared body is the ultimate body in perfect health, because perfect divine health means freedom from illusions and forms. Thus the perfect body is disappeared into perfection and by perfection, as the ultimate HEALING of the mind that dreamed it.

The body was made to come between the mind and God, and to make it seem like the Son of God was not Himself. It must go. And its ultimate healing is its removal. Its total undoing. This is the final demonstration that you are not a body. And if you want, you could re-manifest one later to demonstrate this, just like Jesus did after the cruxifixction.

The world is just a dream in your mind. Anything goes.

Some people say the course is about changing your mind, as though changing the body is a separate thing or not what you are supposed to do.

This is the belief that mind and body are separate.

So if you then have to choose one version of MIRACLES vs another, you'll either decide miracles are supernatural and physically transformative, or that they are only changes in mind.

The important thing is, this idea that mind and body are separate, is a mistake.

Body is not separate from mind. Body is an illusion that the mind is dreaming, WITHIN ITSELF, and is made of mind-stuff. It is idea and thought. That's all. Just an image in the imagination.

So this is where the two camps JOIN, because now if the body is an aspect of what the mind is thinking, perceiving, doing, then as the mind changes that means the body MUST change.

The two camps of "separate mind" and "separate body" are now joined by this one piece of information - that the body and mind are NOT two things. There is ONLY mind, and it encompasses the body and the world and the universe.

That now means that not only is it true that the Course is about changing your mind/perception, it ALSO means that the Course is about changing the world through supernatural means. ie, mind over matter, or the power of the mind, to demonstrate and reflect the mind's state.

So we are not living in a physical world as such, we're living inside a giant MIND. And all the objects you see are IMAGES in the mind - just ideas, imagination. And nothing else. There is no such thing as physical matter or a "separate body".

And so as the mind changes, so too do the images in the mind change, thus the world changes. This is why the supernatural aspect of miracles is actually perfectly in harmony with the Course's ideas of changes in perception.

As you look at someone's body you are looking at content within their MIND.

"The world IS perception"

This also leads us to realize that when the course talks about "the world you see" in relation to perception, we most likely have grossly misunderstood its meaning, given that we interpreted it to mean the perceptual content of our inner mind, rather than recognizing that it was describing the world AS part of our perception. This has led to all manner of misunderstandings about what the course means by correction of perception.

You hear it often said that when you have peace, you will not care that the body is sick - you will be at peace so you won't mind what the body is doing. And then death will happen, because, you know, it happens all by itself without anyone choosing it, and then you will die in peace.

That's total bullshit crap!

That's not what Jesus teaches in the Course. Everything He says points to the fact that if your body is exhibiting sickness, it PROVES and demonstrates that the mind is not healed, that you do not fully believe in forgiveness, you are still trying to make the cause wrong (your brother, the world), and are still in a state of attack.

There is no way that you can have perfect peace and have a sick body.

It never made any sense to me how it could be justified or reconciled, that life would be "ok" or "correct" if all the problems in life just kept on happening, but because we're peaceful and beyond it, we just don't care. This is a half-baked state of being which is not ACTING like it really believes that God's truth is true. If you really believe that God's truth is true, you will LIVE IT!

Even if form is an illusion and even if bodies are not real and even if you are not a body, YOU STILL are supposed to be demonstrating God's truth in this world in order to teach others that nothing has happened, that they are innocent, and that you have power over form.

So there is this whole camp of people who are in this mindset, who are "content" to just gain some kind of peace and to then "allow" terrible things to continue to happen, rationalizing that e.g. the world is not real so it doesn't matter, or the peace will not make you want to change anything, or whatever. But if you are in a state of love and power and FULLY BELIEVE that sickness is illusion, YOU WILL REMOVE SICKNESS. Period.

The collective sonship will ultimately, cooperatively, completely DISAPPEAR the entire physical universe, as PROOF that it is not reality, having believed this truth fully.

In many passages Jesus has asked us to demonstrate that the truth that's in our mind is expressed through the body for all to see. And to come up with explanations and mis-quotes as to "why" you wouldn't need or want to do that, is a misunderstanding of the Course's metaphysics, not to mention a misunderstanding of cause and effect. If mind is cause and cause is pure the mind WOULD NOT project a body image of sickness, because sickness is an attack and teaches only that attack is real.

If the EFFECTS of sin remain and are not healed or undone, there remains PROOF that SIN HAPPENED. This is not good enough. Jesus states clearly that these effects continue to condemn your brother. PHYSICAL SIN has to be undone through miracles. The effects of sin MUST BE REVERSED. Miracles reverse EVERYTHING that the world says can NEVER BE UNDONE. That includes PHYSICAL EFFECTS AND PROOF.

If the proof is kept, you CANNOT CLAIM your brother is now innocent. A sin-believing mind MAINTAINS the proof in order to CONTINUE TO CONDEMN, and the effects CANNOT STAY without a sinful cause. Keeping effects while trying to change only the cause is an attempt to PARDON, not forgive. Jesus states that when you forgive, BOTH you and your brother must experience healing, which means NEITHER of you can continue to SEE the effect and consequences of sin. Otherwise IT HAS NOT BEEN UNDONE, and therefore there HAS NOT BEEN ATONEMENT.

"The unhealed CANNOT pardon. For they are the witnesses that pardon is unfair. ***They would retain the CONSEQUENCES of the guilt they overlook.*** Yet no-one CAN forgive a sin which he believes is real. And ***what has consequences MUST be real, because what it has DONE is there to see.*** Forgiveness is NOT pity, which but seeks to pardon what it knows to be the truth. Good cannot BE returned for evil, for forgiveness does not first ESTABLISH sin, and THEN forgive it. Who can say and MEAN, "My brother, you have injured me, and yet, because I am the BETTER of the two, I pardon you my hurt." ***HIS pardon and YOUR hurt can NOT exist together.*** One DENIES the other, and MUST make it false.

To witness sin and yet forgive it is a paradox which reason cannot see. For it maintains what has been done to you DESERVES no pardon. And, by GIVING it, you grant your brother mercy, ***but retain the proof he is not REALLY innocent. The sick remain accusers. They cannot forgive their brothers AND themselves as well***. For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns CAN suffer. ****!!!!He holds not the proof of sin before his brother's eyes!!!!****. And thus he MUST have overlooked it, and removed it from his own. Forgiveness CANNOT be for one, and not the other. Who forgives IS healed. And in his healing lies the PROOF that he has truly pardoned, and ***retains no trace of condemnation*** that he still would hold against himself or any living thing."

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

Jesus tells in ACIM things like:

"Only the self-accused condemn."

"You but condemn your brother of your own sins"

"You never hate your brother for his own sins but for your own"

In fact large sections of the Course really go into detail about how you put your stuff onto others, how you accuse them, how this accuses you, how you feel guiltier for this, and how you need to demonstrate your brother is innocent.

There is a very deep and simple truth in these statements.

Every time you ever believe it's someone else's fault, its your own stuff.

Every time you feel like some reaction in you is caused by someone else or something else, its really just your own stuff coming up inside you.

Every time you think someone has the power to influence you in any way whatsoever, you're mistaken because you can ONLY do stuff to yourself.

Every time you feel guilty that you have the power to do something to someone else, you are mistaken, because you cannot harm anyone.

It all boils down to this profound and life-altering fact:

Absolutely everything you are experiencing or have ever experienced is entirely contained within your SELF.

Its all from yourself, to yourself, about yourself, in yourself, as yourself. That's all.

There is no influence from others, there is no harm from others, no causes coming from others, nobody is capable of yet alone actually doing things to you against your will. Just as you are not capable of doing anything to anyone else.

Everyone is "Self-Contained". You are like a container of pure water (truth), and into that water you've spilled some oil - that you made up yourself - dark black thick oil which obscures the purity a little. So now you're walking around, still self-contained, and what you're attempting to do in an act of "ego" is to try to get rid of that oil by going outside your self containment. You're trying to give away ownership of it, trying to project it, trying to blame it, trying to shovel it onto someone else, trying to relinquish responsibility for it, and and you're trying to make out that every single time you notice the darkness in yourself it's someone else's fault for putting it there.

Nobody else has ever put darkness in you. Nobody else has ever influenced you or affected you or caused you to feel anything. Nothing.

Every single time you have a "re-action"... you're not really having a re-action to something outside your self containment. You are, instead, bringing up the dark oil inside your container and are experiencing it. And because YOU chose to bring that oil to the surface of awareness at the same time as some other person seeming to 'do something', you conveniently are thinking that they caused it. They didn't. Nobody else put that there but you and they are just reminding you that you need to clean yourself up.

Look at your life. Look at how every single time something happens you 're-act' in the belief that this something has 'caused' you to feel this way. It hasn't. You already feel this way. You just keep trying to bury the darkness out of sight so that you can escape from it. You need to learn to take responsibility for it and to transform your experience, internally, within your self containment, so that you can experience something better. You need to learn to catch yourself when you're believing and experiencing that someone or something else has put this upset into you, or caused you to feel unhappy, or pissed you off, or unloved you. Nobody has ANY power to do this. Its all you, because this is all about who you are and what you are.

There is a myth in the ACIM community relating to how perception works. It's based on the belief that we only have one perception, one outlook. There's us, in the body, perceiving. We read stuff about how perception shifts and how it changes what we see.

So we think ok, my one perception will shift and it will show me a different world. In other words, the bad stuff I was seeing will seem to disappear and I will see good stuff. We read about the spiritual eye and christ vision and we start to think that our entire perception is going to shift to ONLY seeing perfection and beauty.

This of course then implies that all the bad stuff, all the sickness, the wars, the conflict, the decay, it's all going to magically disappear from my perception and I will not see it at all. Which in turn means, all the hospitals will be empty, everyone with broken limbs will magically be fixed, it's my dream so the entire physical contents of the world will transform into a heavenly condition.

This is not what ACIM teaches.

Perception is a little more complicated because there are actually two perceptual mechanisms involved, and Jesus goes to great lengths describing them.

One perception mechanism, the spiritual eye, is direct "mind seeing", also referred to as the eyes of Christ or Christ Vision. This seeing does not rely on or depend on the body whatsoever. It is not limited by space or time or distance. The mind can be anywhere, go anywhere, see anywhere. It can see through walls.

In fact, the spiritual eye does not really acknowledge what ACIM refers to as "the veil" of physical matter, the granite block of sin. It looks right THROUGH it as if it's not even there and looks to the light of the real world beyond. This fixation on the face of Christ is one way of perceiving. But there is another.

The body has its own perceptual mechanism. It has physical eyeballs. Its form of perception depends entirely on illusions. And the body's perception is not capable of seeing anything else.

"Everything the body sees is an illusion."

"These eyes made not to see will never see"

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality."

"The body's eyes behold it as solid granite"

"Nothing the body's eyes seem to see can be anything but a form of temptation"

"This is the function you have given your body's eyes. 5 It is not seeing. 6 It is image making. 7 It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions."

The body's perception relies entirely on the laws of physics, which the spiritual eye completely transcends. They rely on photons of light, concentrated particles of finite energy. Light has to collide with surfaces of physical forms, objects, matter, and be "denied" by the form. The light is thus "reflected" rather than passing through it. This reflected light then enters the body's eyes and passes images to the mind for interpretation.

This is a fundamental difference between the two types of perception. What Jesus refers to as "physical sight" can only "see" when vision is blocked. In other words, seeing has to stop at the surface of objects, in order to see them as being there. This seeing is therefore blinded by physical objects. "Nothing so blinding as perception of form." Your eyes cannot see through matter.

Spiritual vision is the opposite, in that it does not stop at physical objects, it is not limited by matter or surfaces, it looks right through them as though they are just a very thin transparent veil. It overlooks the physical world because "to forgive is to overlook", looking beyond to the light.

Christ vision sees past the illusion of physical form to something beyond it - the face of Christ. Vision therefore doesn't really pay attention to what we would call physical stuff or the world of bodies, nor dose it function based on "seeing photons".

"This world of idols IS a veil across the Face of Christ"

"the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ"

"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body"

"The fourth obstacle to be surmounted hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ."

"Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body's eyes at all"

Essentially, body vision is blinded by perception of the form of physical objects/matter, but to the body this causes it to "see" them. ie my vision "stopped at" the surface. Spiritual vision does not use photons of light, does not depend on physical matter, and sees directly with the mind.

The thing is this. For anyone who has a body or is in a body, BOTH mechanisms for seeing are simultaneously functioning. It does not matter how asleep or awake you are, whether you have false perception or true perception. It does not matter if your mind is sick or healed. If you still have a body, the body's eyes STILL will continue to report images of the PHYSICAL ONLY world to the mind, at the same time as the mind trying to see past it. It will still see the forms of matter, bodies, wars, sickness and death.

This is also why for example you can read the ACIM workbook and STILL READ THE WORDS, even if you are making progress in opening christ vision, because you are still using the body's eyes at the same time. Those who wake up in the world are still perfectly capable of watching tv and choosing food and navigating around a building and driving a car.

This "double vision" of body sight and mind vision, will occur as a kind of parallel perception. As the spiritual eye opens, as your mind opens up to direct vision, as you overlook (forgive) the world of matter, your body is still going to function in exactly the same biologically limited manner. It is still going to relay messages to the mind as to what it senses and sees. And the mind has to sort out what these messages mean to it.

Mind, as the only seer ("only the mind sees"), is therefore receiving impressions either directly (the real world, face of Christ), or indirectly (via the body's eyes). It is experiencing TWO inputs for a while. In order to open the spiritual vision, investment in physical sight has to be diminished. But this only means that the images coming from the body are recognized as illusions not to be believed. Visions of reality are accepted as true, visions of the physical are recognized as false. There are two levels of perception:

"Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye (which is now a second way to perceive), simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the ***two types or levels of perception*** is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind ***that has let itself be healed*** (has christ vision AND is using the body) will no longer acknowledge them. 3 ****There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others (seen with the body's eyes still), and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before****. 4 But the healed mind (having true perception, accurate recognition) will put them all in one category; they are unreal (recognized as false)."

This does not mean the mind is blind to sick bodies. NOR does it mean that seeing sick bodies is proof that your mind is sick! You see them because your BODY shows them to you, but your mind decides whether to BELIEVE what the body sees.

You still see physical signs of sickness because you're still USING the body. Even when the body is used by the Holy Spirit for communication and healing, even when your spiritual eye is very open, physical sight STILL functions and the mind DOES still SEE the images of the physical world. But it categorizes these images as "these are not reality, they are illusions." It is not tempted by them, deceived by them, nor does it believe they depict the truth. This means you are AWARE that you are in a dream ie "awake in the dream."

"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. ***They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die*** (via physical eyes).Yet they are not deceived by what they see (because the mind is not tempted and doesn't believe the physical is real)."

So you see (pun intended), while having a body, your mind is going to be in a state where you keep seeing the physical world, in its continued condition of constant inescapable corruption and death, complete with sick broken bodies and suffering and time and everything going wrong. BUT, the condition of your mind will be such that the MEANING of these images will be different. How they strike your mind will be different. And what you recognize them AS will be different.

You WILL still see the same FORM of physical matter, people with missing limbs, rotting leaves, dead carcasses, the signs of decay and weathering, rot and animals eating animals etc. But your mind will not regard them as true, real, valid, wanted, heaven, or God-created. They are simply recognized as an illusory dream. You will be aware that it is a dream. This doesn't mean you are blind to them, it means you see them accurately for what they are. True perception produces ACCURATE perception, which correctly interprets body visions, and is therefore NOT an INABILITY to see bodies.

Being in this position, where your mind can see beyond the physical world to the light of reality, where all differences and forms and shapes are not given credence, but where the physical is STILL included in what is seen due to still having eyeballs, you are now above the battlefield, in the world but not of it, aware of dreaming. And now you are in a position to be truly helpful.

What that means is, you can discern accurately what others are doing in the world. You can see their physical ailments. You can recognize their emotional and mental sickness - their call for love. And you are in a position to offer them help, WITHOUT making their sickness real. It's because you DO NOT believe the sickness (that you do see) is real, that you CAN help.

"But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals."

This is what makes you a teacher of God. Being in a position of greater truth YET STILL IN THE WORLD. Able to still REACH those who are still in bodies, able to heal both the minds AND bodies of others, able to see sickness and famine and war and death, and able to offer help. Able to heal the sick, transform matter, raise the dead, move mountains, etc.

This sets you up for the situation where there is a ground for performing miracles. Because only if you can be "more healed" (have opened christ vision, mind seeing past bodies) while simultaneously being exposed to those who are "less healed" (can still see them with the body's mechanisms), do you have any way to HELP anyone. You are still "where the sickness is" but are not sick yourself.

And miracles are a service. They are given by those who temporarily have more to those who temporarily have less. They supply a lack. This is ONLY possible if you can be in the world in a healed state, NOT disappearing into a state of perfection. This is the function of a teacher of God. They help those who are less loving than themselves. They dissipate the fear in others. They raise the dead and heal the sick. This is ONLY possible because you have simultaneous Vision and body sight.

Christ needs your body to reach those who need reaching at a PHYSICAL level. Miracles are needed to demonstrate PHYSICALLY symbols of truth and to prove to those whose eyes are not open that there is a better way. The body is used to communicate to those who see only bodies, that their spiritual vision may open. And miracles are performed to liberate their minds from being blinded by perception of form. To demonstrate that the laws of the world can be broken.

ONLY when the face of Christ is FULLY seen, at the instant of atonement, is the investment in physical sight COMPLETELY undone. And investment only means dependence upon and belief in. The "veil" of physical matter, which the body alone can see ("only the body makes the world seem real"), appears as thin and transparent to the healed mind. It is seen through like x-ray vision to the light beyond.

And then eventually it vanishes from sight completely as the real world is seen but for an instant. Only as the world is not seen AT ALL do you stop seeing sick bodies. Because only as the BODY ITSELF is utterly transcended and let go does the mind awaken to a body-less reality. This means the mind goes beyond being awake in the dream (vision + body vision), and returns to a state of ONLY seeing with the mind (and only seeing the Kingdom of God). That's what it means to wake up FROM dreaming, in which for you the world ends.

This is why Jesus was able to walk the Earth in a highly healed state of mind, HELP OTHERS, perform miracles, SEE LEPERS, SEE THE DEAD, and demonstrate the laws of God. Without his BODY'S SIGHT, he would not have been able to see OR communicate with those who were limited to bodies. And because He had both christ vision and body sight, he could act as a Teacher of God in this world, before he woke up FROM the dream of death entirely.

"But the face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this ***no longer sees the world***."

"For what appears to hide the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, ***and disappears*** before His holy sight."

"Now there are no distinctions. Differences have disappeared and Love looks on Itself. ***What further sight is needed***? What remains that vision could accomplish? We have seen the face of Christ, His sinlessness, His Love ***behind all forms***, beyond all purposes. "

"Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and ***in that instant is the world forgot***, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from which it came."

"Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And ***gone are bodies*** (sick ones and healthy ones) in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, ***no walls, no bodies***, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

(and why this world is NOTHING like God’s creation)

"For what you are is what He is. There is no love but His, and what He is is everything there is. There is no limit placed upon Himself, and so are you unlimited as well."

Everything about the ego is based on the idea of not sharing anything. This results in everything being completely separate from everything else. What is in a banana, is not in an apple. What is in my house, is not in your house.

Because this ENTIRE UNIVERSE has been made by the ego thought system, every property of matter follows the same law. The ego’s entire statement is "share nothing". Bodies do not share or join. Atoms do not share or join. One mountain is not another mountain. The Earth is not Mars.

In this ego world, absolutely everything is confined to limited FORM. The form or appearance of the surface of objects, fixated on by the body’s eyes, show you a picture of "nothing being shared". Another word for a world where nothing is shared, is DEATH!! This is a world of death, a dream of death, fundamentally. That is why is it OPPOSITE TO LIFE, and OPPOSITE TO HEAVEN IN EVERY WAY. "There is no life outside of heaven" "Only the creations of light are real."

The form of your TV separates and distinguishes it from the form of your chair. Forms seem to have different properties, qualities, identities. This applies not only on the level of the PHYSICAL UNIVERSE, it also applies in all aspects of EGO THINKING.

The ego literally thinks in terms of not sharing. It fundamentally assumes that one thing is separate from another. That one thing is limited by its form and is not something else. There is no oneness. No sharing. No overlap. No unity.

To the ego, there is "only so much to go around". It evaluates the "amount" of something based on "how much form there is". Or in other words, how limited something is. It does not give ANY value to any idea of sharing. It does not count something twice. It does not measure amounts by anything present in multiple objects simultaneously.

This leads to a way of thinking which is anti-abundant, has built in SCARCITY, is fundamentally a thought system of LACK, and therefore produces competition, war and sacrifice. To the ego, there is simply NOT ENOUGH to go around. Not enough of anything. This is the ego saying, God is not enough, God is not sharing, God is nowhere, and love is limited.

It does not simply make this statement or belief on a mental level. It is DEMONSTRATED on the level of PHYSICAL OBJECTS. This entire universe is an idea of lack, deprivation, limitation, scarcity, loss, with nothing being shared, and God being nowhere.

This is because the ego is very very EXCLUSIVE in its thought processes. It *separates out*. It divides. It sees in one part what is MISSING from other parts. If I own the only 1 pound diamond in the world, you do not. If I own the best property in New York, you do not. If I bought all the apples at the store, there are none left for you. There is NO SHARING in the ego. It has absolutely NO CONCEPT of INCLUSIVITY whatsoever.

This is intentional. Because this is the TOTAL OPPOSITE of what God is like. God is not like this AT ALL. This is why "Heaven and earth are opposites IN EVERY WAY". Earth, and this "physical" universe, fundamentally demonstrate the idea of SEPARATION in ALL ITS FORMS. Every form - or object - is the form of ERROR. This world is fundamentally NOT LIKE GOD, down to the subatomic quantum particle. This is why GOD DID NOT CREATE THIS WORLD. It is NOTHING LIKE HIM!!

Here is what God IS like.

God thinks ONLY INCLUSIVELY. God thinks only in terms of SHARING. God thinks only in terms of INCREASE, abundance, availability, unity, creation, an NO form of exclusion.

God does not think, hey, all of myself is over here being shared with Paul, therefore, there’s none of myself left to share with that other person. God does not DECREASE by sharing himself. He is not a quantity. He is not limited. He is not finite. "Nothing real can be increased except by sharing".

Because of SHARING, which the ego has completely opposed, it IS POSSIBLE in God’s world (Heaven) for something to be accessed by multiple individuals simultaneously without ANY LACK. This is because there is no POSSESSION or ownership or exclusivity. Everyone SHARES everything.

This means not simply, there is a limited amount of stuff and we all compromise on how much each gets. That is ego. Rather, each time something is shared, IT INCREASES, because it is CREATED, and this ADDS TO what exists. Each time God shares himself in an act of creation, he puts all of himself into the creation, and yet STILL has all of himself left.

Remember, ideas are INCREASED by being shared or given way. Remember also that nothing real can EXIST UNLESS it is shared and extended. It must extend in order to have PRESENCE, and this makes it shine with radiance. In God’s reality, if you give something to another, you do not LACK it. You do not lose it. You are not left wanting. What you give, YOU HAVE, and you give it only because you have it, and you KEEP IT by giving it. "To have all, give all to all". Giving does not REDUCE. Giving INCREASES.

That means, unlike in the EGO WORLD, Heaven is utterly filled with abundance, everything functions based on SHARING, and sharing does not mean lack or loss. This sharing requires the ability for multiple individuals to OVERLAP, to literally SHARE the same space. Another word for this is oneness. Oneness doesn’t mean "one finite thing" - that is the ego’s version of oneness. Oneness means SHARED WITH ALL AND BY ALL. It DEFIES ego logic.

You being a creation of God, one of many, occurred because God shared the WHOLE of Himself in order to create you. And He created you AS A WHOLE. You have been FULLY created. God thus INCREASED His Kingdom by creating you. You have been ADDED to God. This means that God is IN you, fully, and yet it ALSO is fully present in all other souls. God being in you does NOT limit Him or deprive anyone else of Him. For one simple reason, the one idea and NATURE that the ego hates: SHARING.

You SHARE God with all other creations. You all have access to all of Him, at the same time, with no lack and no private hoarding. This gives new meaning to "whats mine is yours". "One mind contains all minds" "One brother is all brothers". God has One Son AND MANY SONS simultaneously - this is the Sonship. It is REAL BECAUSE it is shared. This is impossible in terms of the ego world of matter, but entirely possible in heaven. "It is the world you see that is impossible" refers to the physical universe, which is a picture of impossibility, a picture of death, a picture of NOT EXISTING because there is no sharing, and a picture of the crucifixion of God’s Son, IN MATTER.

This can be demonstrated through miracles WITHIN this impossible world. Here, it should NOT be possible to feed 5000 people with only a few loaves of bread and a few fish. This is because there is not enough FINITE AMOUNT to go around. The ego says, by its laws, you can only give 5 loaves to 5 people and you have no more to give. This is embedded into the nature of the PHYSICAL OBJECTS.

If there are only a few loaves of bread and a handful of fishes, and there are 5000 people to feed, the ego says there is not enough to go around. God says, YES THERE IS. And through SHARING, at the supernatural level, those loaves and fishes MULTIPLY. The amount INCREASES. All 5000 people get fully fed. This *demonstrates* that what appeared to be finite lack, was an ILLUSION, was not TRUE, was not God’s law, and it was PROVED to be false through a miracle of demonstration. Jesus fed all the people by demonstrating GODS LAW, God’s truth, that sharing increases abundance, there is NO LACK, giving does not diminish, and supply is unlimited.

This is what it means to perform a MIRACLE in this world. To demonstrate that the ego’s ways, the ego’s laws, the very nature of matter itself, IS FALSE, a lie, can be demonstrated to BE a lie, and that God’s power is UNLIMITED. This shows through proof, that this world is lying to you, because its laws of lack and limitation are NOT TRUE. This is why miracles are teaching devices. Jesus didn’t just feed the 5000, he TAUGHT that THERE IS NO LACK, there IS enough for everyone to have ALL of what is available without loss, and what is given to one person is GIVEN EQUALLY to all from an unlimited source.

God shares all of himself with EVERY PART of his creation. There is no competition, no war, no scarcity, no lack, no deprivation, no loss, no reduction, no inability to have everything, no isolation, no exclusion, and no posession. This is why God’s world - heaven - is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to the "physicality" or physical NATURE of this entire universe. God CANNOT have created this world of limitation. Next time you don’t have enough money, remind yourself, THE EGO DID THIS. When you run out of food, the ego did this. When you had to SACRIFICE, the ego did this. There is no sacrifice in God. EVERYONE SHARES EVERYTHING FULLY.

There is an abundance of love to go around. Being loved does not mean others are not loved. Getting God’s attention does not mean others are excluded. Receiving a LOT does not mean the supply is reducing. Having a lot does not mean others are being deprived. God has an UNLIMITED SUPPLY OF LOVE. Everytime it is given, it increases. God has FULL LOVE for you, not just scraps of attention or leftovers from what other people have ripped away as their own posession.

Ultimately your SELF is unlimited. You thought you could posess a part of God’s creation and make it your own. You thought you could STOP SHARING and place a limit on your identity. Your individuality is not a problem and is not ego. All of God’s children are permanent and real. The only problem is that you tried to reduce by seeking to be special, to have exclusive interests for yourself. To give yourself more, so that others would have less. This is the opposite of SHARED INTERESTS. Everything in heaven has shared interests.

You being a self is not ego because your self naturally SHARES. You being SELFISH and not wanting to share, is ego. You being an individual is not ego. You believing in sacrifice and lack and deprivation and possessiveness is ego. You being one of God’s Sons is not a problem. You trying to ISOLATE YOURSELF so that SHARING is prevented, and so that there is a LIMITATION on yourself, THAT is the ego. Lack of sharing is imprisonment.

Placing your mind under authority of ego places it under tyrannical rule and leads to imprisonment. It leads to the ego’s thought system of NO SHARING and lack and finite limitations. It leads to BODIES being made to represent the idea that nothin is shared AS physical, limited matter. It makes this universe. It leads to all forms of suffering, lack and sacrifice. And it leads to DEATH. What is starvation but the total lack of sharing or access to what you need? Death is DENIAL OF GOD. Death is DENIAL OF SHARING.

That is not God’s will for you. It is God’s will for you that you HAVE EVERYTHING, and that you share it with ALL OTHERS, AND that you increase it by creating MORE, which ALL SHARE IN. Abundance is your natural inheritance. You will NOT find it in the physical world, which is a world of lack, limits and sacrifice. It is a world of compromise and loss. Although you can DEMONSTRATE it here through supernatural miracles which prove just how UNLIKE God this world is, and that "you are undo no laws but God’s".

Your abundance is waiting for you in Heaven. In God’s world. By Gods laws. God wants to share ALL OF HIMSELF with you, and he already has. That is how you were created and that is what is natural for you. You ARE sharing fully with God, with His One Son, with All His Sons, and with the whole Sonship, FOREVER.

You are loved and provided for by God, UNLIMITEDLY. "There is NOTHING my holiness cannot do."

In this world, sin is an EVENT. In fact, it is anything that seems to HAPPEN. Any physical change, any transformation of materials, any movement, any action, anything bodies of any kind do, any chemical interactions of particles, it is sin.

"The world of bodies is the world of sin."

Sin is also insanity.

"Sin is insanity. It is the means by which the mind is driven mad, and seeks to let illusions take the place of truth. And being mad, it sees illusions where truth should be, and where it really is. Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold?"

The whole world, all of spacetime, anything the body can see, is a model of sin and punishment for sin. "Everything the body sees is a form of error."

"And FROM this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise. This world is an attempt to prove your innocence, while cherishing attack."

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws that seem to govern it are the laws of death."

The physical world, matter, is also referred to in the course as a granite block of sin. The illusion of physicality, rooted in the idea of PHYSICAL SIN. This is why sin requires a BODY, because only bodies can PHYSICALLY SIN.

"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would try to pass it. ****The body's eyes behold it as solid granite****, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it (x-ray christ vision) easily, BECAUSE it is an error."

"And ***they were made to look on error, and not see past it***. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. To this distorted form of vision, the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."

So basically, the entire physical universe is formed on the idea of sin. Everything that seems to transpire is sin. Breathing, eating, sleeping, working, laughing, milking a cow, sucking a milkshake, it's all sin. Even just the appearance of an illusion or a physical world AT ALL is sin.

It's sin in that sin is the idea of "something happening" or "something existing which doesn't", or "the impossible seeming possible", that "affects" something else seemingly against its will. Like a collision of two forces. And this is fundamental to the laws of physics.

When one thing "hits" another, it is the idea of sin taking place, that there can be a conflict, a war, a collision of interests, in which one thing is impacted seeming from outside of its own will.

And when sin occurs on this level, in this realm of spacetime, physical matter seems to change, reacting with effects and consequences. Materials change, properties change, objects change their locations, atoms rearrange, forces and counter-forces interact, and the whole picture shifts and changes and suffers and dies.

If anything CAN be changed, it CANNOT be real, because nothing real can be threatened. So that means that any change that occurs in anything, is artificial evidence that SIN IS HAPPENING TO IT. It is an illusion of sin, and not reality, but in THIS world it appears to "really happen".

This is why in this world, when you attack something, and it produces a "change" in any way, the change now TESTIFIES that "sin has occurred." If something happens to something else, and it is modified, and now it is different, and it seems to DEMONSTRATE that it is different, and maintains its "new state" for anyone to point a finger at and say, "look there, SOMETHING HAPPENED TO IT" .... this changed state is a PROOF OF SIN.

It then does not matter how you frame it. If the PHYSICAL EVIDENCE is still there to look at, to point out, to touch and see and evaluate, then it PROVES that SIN DID TAKE PLACE. You can't have effects without causes. This is how the ego "locks in" the consequences of sin, and uses physical evidence to PROVE that sin has occurred. If you can measure it, it's a sin.

This means that if you are playing in the realm of illusions, of physicality, you are automatically dabbling in sin. Because the WHOLE WORLD is founded on the idea of sin.

"The body is the idea of sin made flesh"

So let's say that someone seems to attack your body and this produces a CHANGE in the body. Maybe some kind of wound is inflicted, some kind of damage. The body is bleeding and there is a hole. Well, this physical appearance PROVES beyond a shadow of a doubt to anyone looking at it and thinking it real, that SIN HAPPENED. It testifies to it. You can't deny if, if you think it's reality.

You cannot claim that sin did not happen IF THE RESULTS ARE STILL THERE. If I can point a finger at it and say, well, it doesn't matter WHAT you claim, the EVIDENCE is still there, the body IS STILL WOUNDED, then it STILL SHOWS that SIN HAPPENED. There is no getting around this. Changing your perception to recognize that "there is no sin" also isn't the same thing as REVERSING THE CONSEQUENCES.

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

When attack is taking place, or more to the point, when a person REFUSES TO HEAL the effects of the sin, to reverse the physical symptoms of sickness, or to REMOVE the PROOF OF SIN from the body, then there is still ACCUSATION OF SIN HAPPENING. Because if the body is STILL damaged, the UNDENIABLE PROOF is still sitting right there staring you in the face. A damaged body is STILL testifying that NO MATTER what the state of mind is, or how forgiving you think you are, SIN STILL HAPPENED. I can look at it, I can see it, I can touch it, sin has NOT been undone. I can't claim to be holy while showing you PROOF THAT YOU SINNED!!

"For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns CAN suffer. ***He holds not the proof of sin before his brother's eyes.*** And thus he MUST have overlooked it, and removed it from his own. Forgiveness CANNOT be for one, and not the other. Who forgives IS healed. And in his (mental AND physical) healing lies the PROOF that he has truly pardoned, and retains no trace of condemnation that he still would hold against himself or any living thing."

"Only the mind AND body need atonement." ---- AND THE BODY NEEDS ATONEMENT!!

Do you see here that Jesus is literally saying that you MUST heal the body of any signs of attack, otherwise it STILL PROVES that sin happened?

If you hold a "proof of sin" before your brother's eyes - the wounds, the scars, the fallout, the consequences, the broken limbs, whatever. If you hold it in front of them you are SHOWING HIM consequential, cause-effect PROOF, that because this EFFECT is here, A CAUSE MUST HAVE BEEN HERE ALSO. And that testifies in a way that cannot be denied that you HAVE NOT forgiven him or yourself.

This is why Jesus says that forgiveness is not complete, is not real, and has not been finished, IF the PROOF OF SIN has not been removed. That means, the PHYSICAL EVIDENCE HAS TO BE UNDONE. THE BODY HAS TO BE HEALED, otherwise you HAVE NOT forgiven him.

This vital paragraph tells you exactly that.

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

To demonstrate his sins were NOT REAL, you must SHOW HIM that THE EFFECTS ARE GONE.

You can only attest his sins had NO EFFECT on you, or your body, by REMOVING THE EFFECTS. If you still have the effects to show him, you are not only still accusing him ("sick bodies remain accusers"), you also HAVE NOT finished forgiving. Because effects REQUIRE an ONGOING CAUSE, and if the effects remains, you are STILL ATTACKING HIM for it. This is what the course is saying. You must heal the body in order NOT to accuse your brother of sin.

Forgiveness HAS TO INCLUDE the UNDOING OF PHYSICAL PROOF OF SIN. If it does not bring a physical healing along with it, and if all the signs and effects of the DOING OF SIN are not COMPLETELY OBLITERATED, the mind HAS NOT been healed and it still harbors attack thoughts and a purpose for accusation.

"A damaged body shows the mind has not been healed."

So you cannot say you are DONE forgiving, if PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS still remain. You cannot say you are DONE forgiving, if the BODY is still sick. You cannot say that a healing has taken place, if the BODY and the ENVIRONMENT testify in ANY WAY, to the PRESENCE OF PROOF that "something happened."

It has to be that all of the proof vanishes. If I spill milk on the kitchen floor, and there is STILL milk on the kitchen floor, IT PROVES that I MUST have spilled the milk. I cannot deny that. So long as the milk is ON THE FLOOR, there remains proof. The EFFECTS IMPLY that there WAS A CAUSE. Because you cannot have effects WITHOUT a cause. If the effects remain, it PROVES that a CAUSE did happen. And causation is tied to sin.

"Nothing can have effects without a cause"

And in this world, cause is SIN. So if someone CAUSES your body to be wounded, they CAUSED a sin. And the effects are the wound. And until the WOUND IS GONE, the sin is still PROVEN, which ACCUSES your brother and damns him to hell. This imprisons his mind and curses him to death.

So Jesus does in fact ask that even in this world, even in bodies, even if it's an illusion, and even if it seems to be meaningless, that you HEAL THE BODY of all effects of attack, IN ORDER TO exonerate your brother and TEACH HIM of his innocence. WHILE you have a body.

If he attempted to attack your body, chopping off your arms, and then you return and your ARMS ARE RESTORED.... HE has no way in his mind to connect cause and effect, he sees that HE CANNOT HAVE SINNED, and that your HEALING PROVES HIS INNOCENCE. And thereby he now recognizes that the SYMBOLIC HEALTH of your body TESTIFIES to his innocence, and this PROOF OF INNOCENCE ... HEALS HIS MIND. Physical health EXONERATES your brother, just as sickness is an ACCUSATION OF SIN.

"For accusation is a bar to love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers." "Your body can be means to ***teach that it has never suffered pain because of him***. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak ***with power greater than a thousand tongues.***

**********For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. *********

A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing (mind and body) show your mind is healed, and has forgiven ***what he did NOT do***. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, *****and healed along with you.****"

This is using the physical body as a communication device FOR HEALING! Using it as a symbol of innocence. And using it to AFFECT YOUR BROTHER'S MIND. Your healing and your health IS your brother's healing and health. When you are healed, you are not healed alone, EVEN on the physical level.

This is what Jesus's physical resurrection was all about. "SHOW your brother you had no hurt of him."