There’s quite a lot in the course about the Holy Spirit having a function. A role which he is supposed to fill, where he does something that you do NOT do.

I think this becomes largely ignored by most people doing the course, and I KNOW that I definitely have not fully respected the importance of allowing him to play his part. I think we’re not realizing just how much we’re supposed to depend on Him to help us and do things for us.

I think most people are doing the course on their own, without him, not turning to him, not listening, not hearing his voice, not working with him. Especially not surrendering the ego position of being the one who “does it all alone.”

Instead there’s a lot of discussion about each of us doing forgiveness work and making decisions and fixing our lives and so on, but very little about surrendering to Him and having him do everything for us. Yet alone having him heal us, or heal others through us. HE is the one who performs miracles through us.

“What he enables you to do is clearly not of this world.”

It seems a lot of folks think ACIM is a self study where you just read the book and do some lessons and chat about it with others. But I think there’s a tremendous amount of unawareness of the Holy Spirit, who is supposed to be our ONLY teacher, our ONLY therapist, and is “the idea of healing”, GIVEN to us by God as HIS solution to the separation. We should heed this.

He is supposed to fill the function of healing us. We’re not supposed to be “doing it ourselves”. Healing has to be RECEIVED. There’s actually a position we’re meant to be in where we have a little willingness, and he does all the rest. Where we let him heal us, literally. We’re not supposed to be doing all the work by ourselves.

In effect, we are more or less to “channel” the Holy Spirit and allow him to be the one to do everything for us and for others, through us. The Holy Spirit has a much larger function, and a far greater power than your own. He is here to help and it’s our function to LET HIM be the one we turn to for help. To BE helped, instead of self-reliant.

We need to have more humility, open up to the Holy Spirit, allow and receive His help, and allow him to operate through us and for us. This is all part of letting yourself be loved, and allowing love to radiate to others. The Holy Spirit’s function is forgiveness, your function is to share it with him.

“No needs will long be left unmet, if you leave them ALL to Him Whose FUNCTION is to meet them. This is His function, and NOT YOURS.”

“The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE.”

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

“ANY attempt you make to correct a brother, means that you believe correction by YOU is possible, and this can ONLY be the arrogance of the ego. Correction is of God, Who does not know of arrogance. The Holy Spirit forgives everything, BECAUSE GOD CREATED EVERYTHING. Do not undertake HIS function, or you will forget YOURS.”

“He knows the need; the question and the answer. He will say exactly what to do in words that you can understand and you can also use. Do not confuse His function with your own. He is the Answer; you the one who hears.”

“Never approach the holy instant AFTER you have tried to remove all fear and hatred from your mind. That is ITS function. Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function. Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven.”

“Be very still, and hear God's Voice in him, and let It tell you what his function is.“

“The Holy Spirit never refuses an invitation to enter and abide with you. He will give you endless opportunities to open the door to your salvation, for such is His function. He will also tell you exactly what your function is in every circumstance and at all times.”

“The preparation for the holy instant belongs to Him Who gives it. RELEASE yourselves to Him Whose function IS release. Do NOT assume His function FOR Him. Give Him but what He asks, that you may learn how LITTLE is your part, and how great is HIS.”

“The curriculum is highly individualized. And all aspects are under the Holy Spirit's particular care and guidance. Ask and He will answer. The responsibility is His, and He alone is fit to assume it. To do so is His function. To refer the questions to Him is yours. Would you want to be responsible for decisions about which you understand so little? Be glad you have a Teacher Who cannot make a mistake. His answers are always right. Would you say that of yours?”

“By steadily and consistently canceling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT. Follow His teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness IS His function, and HE knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what we meant when we once said that miracles are NATURAL, and when they do NOT occur, something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow HIS plan of Salvation, in recognition of the FACT that you do NOT know what it is. His work is NOT your function, and unless you accept this, you CANNOT learn what your function IS.”

A collection of quotes from A Course in Miracles.

"Right-Mindedness neither exalts nor depreciates the mind of the miracle worker nor of the ****miracle receiver****. However, as a creative act, the miracle ****need not await the Right-Mindedness of the receiver. In fact, its purpose is to restore him TO his Right Mind.**** But it is essential that the miracle worker be in his Right Mind, or he will be unable to reestablish Right-Mindedness ****in someone else.****"

"All forms of not-Right-Mindedness are the result of refusal to accept the Atonement FOR YOURSELF. If the miracle worker DOES accept it, he places himself in the position to recognize that ****those who need to be healed are simply those who have NOT done so.****"

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

"Having offered love, only love can be received. It is in this that the teacher of God must trust. This is what is really meant by the statement that the one responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. The teacher of God is a miracle worker because ****he gives the gifts he has received****. Yet he must first accept them. He need do no more, nor is there more that he could do. By accepting healing ****he can give it.**** If he doubts this, let him remember Who gave the gift and Who received it. Thus is his doubt corrected."

"Yet love without trust is impossible, and doubt and trust cannot coexist. And hate must be the opposite of love, regardless of the form it takes. Doubt not the gift and it is impossible to doubt its result. This is the certainty that gives God's teachers the power to be miracle workers, for they have put their trust in Him."

"Prayer is the medium of miracles, not because God created perceptions, but because God created YOU. At the beginning of this course, we said that YOU are a miracle. Therefore, the miracle worker is a miracle NOT of his own creation."

"They meet IN ORDER to abolish the difference. At the beginning, since we are still in time, they come together on the basis of inequality of ability and experience. The aim of the teacher is to ****give them more of what is temporarily his.**** This process has all of the miracle conditions we referred to at the beginning. The teacher (or miracle worker) ****gives more to those who have less, bringing them closer to equality with him****, at the same time gaining for himself."

"Then let him turn within to his Eternal Guide, and let Him judge what the response should be. So is he healed, and ****in his healing is his pupil healed with him****. The sole responsibility of God's teacher is to accept the Atonement for himself. Atonement means correction, or the undoing of errors. When this has been accomplished, the teacher of God becomes a miracle worker by definition. His sins have been forgiven him, and he no longer condemns himself. How can he then condemn anyone? And ****who is there whom his forgiveness can fail to heal****?"

"Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth. If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, ****those who are sick do NOT love themselves****. Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are DENYING TO THEMSELVES. ****If they knew the truth about themselves, they could not be sick****. ****The task of the miracle-worker**** thus becomes to DENY THE DENIAL OF TRUTH. The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them. But, having OBSCURED it, ****the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs****, because that light IS theirs."

"The miracle worker is one who accepts my kind of denial and projection, unites his own inherent abilities to deny ****and project with mine, and imposes them back on himself and others****. This establishes the total lack of threat anywhere. ****Together we can then work**** for the real time of peace, which is Eternal."

"The miracle-worker begins by PERCEIVING light, and translates HIS perception into sureness by continually ****extending it****, and ACCEPTING ITS ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Its ****EFFECTS**** assure him IT IS THERE. The therapist does not heal; ****he LETS HEALING BE****. HE can point to darkness, but he CANNOT bring light OF HIMSELF, for light is NOT of him. But being FOR him, it MUST be ****for his patient****.

The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist. He makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which He is the Guide. The human therapist can only ****LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION****. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, ****to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help****, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE. Remember that you ARE choosing a guide for helping, and the wrong choice will NOT help. But remember also that THE RIGHT ONE WILL. Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God.

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

What do you mean, you're not treating me exactly the way that I expect you to? How dare you! lol

"Respect" is a term that egos love to use. It's supposed to be a sign of treating someone right. But there's more going on than meets the eye.

When someone is in ego, they have a lot of insecurities. They're carrying guilt and shame, living in fear, feeling unworthy of love, etc. They are not treating themselves and others with love.

As a result, the person becomes irresponsible, disowning themselves and their power. They project causality outside themselves and attach it to other people. They then expect other people to be the ones who act responsibly toward them.

This is the same as the ego's form of "forgiveness to destroy", in which others are expected to change while the person stays the same.

Effectively the whole world revolves around the person as the ruler of their kingdom, as though they are sitting on a throne and everyone must worship them. If the inferior external people do not measure up or treat them right, anger and murder become justified.

You'll notice that people who NEED "respect" from others, also become intimidating, aggressive, abusive, threatening and violent. Especially if the respect is not given, as they see it.

Only a victim needs respect. Only an attacker demands respect. Only an unloving and truly "disrespectful" person wants others to respect them.

This idea of respect is completely backwards. It says that everyone else is to blame for your suffering, and its all their fault, they're sinners, and they have to change their wicked ways in order for you to be happy.

If they treat you how you think you want to be treated, you'll consider them "respecting you". But what that means is they are agreeing with your evaluation of yourself as some kind of important special figure.

If they go along with your inflated ego, they are "respecting" it, effectively worshipping it like a God. This triggers the special love. If they don't go along with your control and your dominance and your threat of revenge, out comes the special hate.

An immortal innocent holy son of God does not need the respect of others. It does not matter what other people do in their attempts to "treat" you in any way at all, because you cannot BE "treated". You choose what you experience, not them.

Someone who has taken full responsibility for causing everything they experience, including all of their feelings, cannot be caused by others. Not do they have a lack of love, or a need to coerce others into giving it to them.

A self-loving person doesn't become a terrorist, or an intimidator, or a crime boss, or a ruler over people, or a dictator, or a tyrant, or any kind of threatening person who DEMANDS that others AGREE with their evaluation of themselves.

You would actually be doing a service to someone who believes something FALSE about themselves, such as that they don't deserve love, and instead giving them that love.

Giving love is the higher "form" of true respect, but isn't there as some kind of idol worship. It's an agreement as to the true higher nature of a person in spirit, rather than pandering to their ego.

Yes we all want to be "respected" or at least "not attacked", preferably. But this is only a short-term goal. In the big picture we should be working towards NOT NEEDING people to treat us a certain way. We are supposed to meet whatever happens with forgiveness, not revenge.

Yes, sure, let's all be "reasonably respectful" to each other.. as in, how about let's not be trying to murder each other. But at the same time, we have to be careful not to believe that this "treatment" of people is there in order to appease their egos. It's not TRULY respectful of a person to insinuate that they need to be treated a certain way in order to avoid them being "hurt".

We are immortal beings who ultimately cannot be hurt, cannot be upset, cannot be offended, cannot be terrorized, cannot be attacked and cannot be destroyed. This has to be central and foremost in our view of ourselves and others. Recognizing this in others is the only sign of true respect and love.

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes." UrT27I10

"We have emphasized that the miracle, or the EXPRESSION of Atonement, is always a sign of real respect from the worthy TO the worthy. This worth IS re-established by the Atonement." UrT2E3

"An Elder Brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and a reasonable amount of obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love, because he is a brother, and also to devotion, if he is devoted. It is only my own devotion that entitles me to yours. But you will notice that I have knelt at your altar as readily as I would ever have you kneel at mine." UrT1B40X

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness." UrW190L5

"You are NOT limited by the body, and thought CANNOT be made flesh. But mind can be manifested through the body if it goes beyond it and DOES NOT INTERPRET IT AS LIMITATION. Whenever you see another as limited TO or BY the body, you are imposing this limit ON YOURSELF. Are you willing to ACCEPT this, when your whole purpose for learning should be to escape FROM limitations?" UrT8G16

Bodies don't really matter in a relationship. The soul is androgynous and perfect. It isn't male or female. It has no limits and loves unconditionally.

It uses a body temporarily and then moves on. It might've had lifetimes as men and women, children and the elderly, as parents or alone. It could've had a gay body or a straight body, an overweight body or a skinny body. Whatever. Across its experience of so many different types of bodies, it cannot help but generalise the learning and detach from the specifics of each of them. It learns again to love regardless of form.

There could be a lifetime where two souls meet and they have certain types of bodies. They may or may not even be attracted to each other's bodies, or be compatible physically. Perhaps they are man and woman but one of them is gay. Perhaps they are from different cultures or races. It doesn't matter.

The body really is just a kind of tool that the soul uses. The body has its severe limitations and its limited scope of expression, which means that as the soul uses it, it has to work with what it's got. If it wants to talk, the words are likely to come out sounding the way that the body instrument allows to happen. If it wants to have intercourse, it has to work with whatever appendages or holes are available. If it wants to hug it has to deal with its length of arms and its roundness of belly.

If the soul is not heavily body identified, its view of the body is very detached and transcendental. The body doesn't really matter to it, nor does the bodies of others. When the soul is more identified with and lost in its current body, taking it to define itself and to be itself, this narrow perspective will inhibit relationship and make it more conditional. The bodies of others then matter more, relationships have more criteria, and everything has to be acceptable within limits. There is also more hell to pay when the rules are broken.

Ultimately we're meant to learn to love ourselves and everyone equally and fully, regardless of their bodies. We are to use the body as best we can to relate though and beyond, without placing so much emphasis on the body itself of what appear to be very limited categorisations of types.

Jesus suggests in the course for example that everyone should love everyone regardless of specific bodily appendages. A soul-to-soul communication is more important than cutting off a brother because their body is a certain type or style. This even applies to people having disabilities and sicknesses, learning to love them regardless of what their bodies are doing, and looking past the body to the immortal spirit within.

In my marriage for example, I was a male-gendered body person married to a female-gendered body person. She was 18 years older than me, which didn't matter. I had some attractions towards men as well, which didn't matter to her. She was from a different country thousands of miles away, which didn't matter. She grew up in a different culture, which didn't matter either.

Regardless of the sense of specialness and exclusivity in the relationship, there was also a more transcendental and unconditional element. I had some attractions to men for example, which she knew about, and she found it interesting and a curiosity instead of judging against it. She was willing even to encourage me toward it even if it meant her and I possibly not being together. Just as she at times wanted to be with other men.

We still had intimate relations which entailed a biological compatibility, even if in some way we might not have been entirely on the same page. We used what we had and made it work, because it was really more important that we were together and loving each other. A love that transcended the physical. A love between souls that spanned many lifetimes and many bodies. We could've been even more extremely different on the physical level and I think we would still have had a deep soul connection.

Ultimately what this has taught me is that the physicality of the body is not really that important. It is much more important to love a person and be open and honest and trusting. To share deeply and intimately, emotionally and psychologically. This can happen even if the bodies appear to be what the world would consider thoroughly incompatible. We turned heads with our weirdness and our age gap, for example. This can happen for gay or straight people, for people with any kind of body and any kind of persuasion. Every relationship has the potential to be holy.

What I realise now is that for any future relationship, it doesn't really matter if the person is male or female, or looks a certain way. It doesn't have to be a 'mr right' or a 'mrs right', or some kind of ideal model of perfection. The person is more important, the mind-to-mind is more important. If it comes with a certain type of body, and even if that body has certain limitations, it doesn't really matter.

Having a full whole relationship is more important than just some physical sexual hookup that's empty and cold and full of ego. If the person has certain genetalia, or types thereof, what does it matter, really, if the love transcends it? The two souls potentially relating on a higher and more whole level is what's important. This can even take place without any physical interaction or proximity or anything that the world might think of as a relationship. It can happen with strangers. It can happen anywhere, and beyond any type of body.

Looking past the body to the soul/mind is what's really important. The holy spirit's home is in our relationship to the christ in ourselves and others, which overlooks bodies and regards them as nothing but tools. If you still use them to interact then so be it, within the limits and specifics that the body allows. Sex is a limitation just as gender is but you can still use it while the mind is in a higher state. We're supposed to learn to love people as beings, as children of God, regardless of what their bodies are doing. Because ultimately no-one is really a body anyway.

In A Course in Miracles, Jesus speaks of the face of innocence. This is an aspect of the ego identity which tends to side with "positivity" and "being good" and "people pleasing" and trying to portray itself as innocent, harmless, even weak and frail. This face of innocence is "the innocent victim", and sides with victims. The illusion of innocence is there to cover up secret hidden desires to attack and victimize. And the innocent face is a way to pretend you are not the cause of anything that happens.

In psychological terms the face of innocence is what we also call "the persona". It's part of the split mind. It's a device we use to only accept that which appears to be acceptable, positive, good, desirable, etc. But it also acts like a knife, splitting the mind and rejecting parts that it finds not good enough. It is in fact a way that the mind attacks itself by identifying aspects which are unacceptable and dissociating from them. This places them into the "shadow" behind walls of denial (blocks to awareness). It is perfectionistic, because it always asserts that you are not perfect enough.

Jesus: "The concept of the self the world would teach is not the thing that it appears to be. For it is made to serve two purposes, but one of which the mind can recognize. The first presents the face of innocence, the aspect acted ON. It is this face that smiles and charms and even seems to love. It searches for companions, and it looks at times with pity on the suffering, and sometimes offers solace. It believes that it is good, within an evil world. This aspect can grow angry, for the world is wicked, and unable to provide the love and shelter innocence deserves. And so this face is often wet with tears, at the injustices the world accords to those who would be generous and good."

"This aspect NEVER makes the first attack. But every day a hundred little things make small assaults upon its innocence, provoking it to irritation, and at last to open insult and abuse."

He goes on to describe how this face of innocence covers up a terrible secret. That behind this "special love" there is "special hate". Underlying the face of innocence and the innocent victim, is an attack and judgement and condemnation. And in it, others stand accused of sinning against you. The face becomes a way to portray oneself as "at the effect of the world", such that if it appears to be the innocent party, then others must stand accused at the slightest provocation. It is a device for scapegoating.

"Beneath the face of innocence there is a lesson that the concept of the self was made to teach. It is a lesson in a terrible displacement, and a fear so devastating that the face which smiles above it must forever look away, lest it perceive the treachery it hides. The lesson teaches this; "I am the thing you made of me, and as you look on me you stand condemned, because of what I am." On this conception of the self the world smiles with approval, for it guarantees the pathways of the world are safely kept, and those who walk on them will not escape."

Behind the innocent face therefore, there is a hidden accusation that others are sinful, and the face is held up as a mask ready to "receive" their attack, like a trap. The face is easily offended and easily upset by the world and the acts of others, as it was designed to be. It is produced by the condemnation of oneself, the partitioning off of parts of self as "evil", hiding this from ones own awareness (in the shadow) and then projecting it onto others. Thus behind the face of innocence there is judgement and condemnation, unforgiveness and victimization of others.

"Here is the central lesson that ensures your brother is condemned eternally. For what YOU are has now become his sin. For this is no forgiveness possible. No longer does it matter what he does, for your accusing finger points to him, unwavering and deadly in its aim. It points to you as well, but this is kept still deeper in the mists below the face of innocence. And in these shrouded vaults are all his sins and yours preserved, and kept in darkness, where they cannot be perceived as errors, which the light would surely show. "

False innocence is not real innocence. It's a mask that people wear to pretend to be spiritual or holier than thou. It is not authentic and isn't your self. It's a disguise, designed to make you look like the innocent one so that you are not identified as the source of guilt. Always the ego takes steps to DENY what it does, to deny your soul, to deny even that you sinned, to deny that you are even guilty, resulting in the production of a facade which hides your own guilt from you. You will then "look" innocent but only in appearance, and no-one would suspect you are the one who is attacking.

The persona and the shadow - the accepted parts of self and the rejected parts of self, are the two halves of the split mind. You keep the rejected parts in darkness because, if they were brought into the light, you would see that the mind is one, not two. And this would heal and undo the split, removing both the persona and the shadow. And it is this the persona avoids at all costs.

"Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking, whereby two systems of belief, which CANNOT coexist, are BOTH MAINTAINED. It HAS BEEN recognized that, if they were BROUGHT TOGETHER, their joint acceptance WOULD become impossible. But, if one is kept in darkness FROM THE OTHER, their SEPARATION seems to keep them both alive, and equal in their reality. Their JOINING thus becomes the source of fear, for, if they meet, acceptance MUST be withdrawn from one of them."

"The light of guiltlessness shines guilt away because, when they are BROUGHT TOGETHER, the truth of one MUST make the falsity of its OPPOSITE perfectly clear. "

"WHAT DO YOU WANT? Light or darkness, knowledge or ignorance are yours, but not both. Opposites must be brought together, and not kept apart. For their separation is only in your mind, and they are reconciled by union, as YOU are. In union, everything that is not real MUST disappear, for truth IS union. As darkness disappears in light, so ignorance fades away when knowledge dawns."

Real Love, is not like anything else in this world. Love, to be experienced, must be shared by all.

Love is a presence that exists everywhere and extends everywhere. It radiates. It flows. It overcomes all separations. It does not and cannot belong to any one individual without simultaneously belonging to everyone. Nobody can put a wall around it and deny it to everyone else.

So if you want to experience love, you can't do it by locking love in a box. You can't do it by being absent of love yourself and expecting someone else to give their portion to you. Love it not limited and finite, or lacking or scarce. It's not like some kind of substance or material or object or commodity that someone exchanges for something else. It's not money used to buy a favor.

The ego believes that if you give something, you will lose it. It thinks that giving produces sacrifice. That you're going to be worse off, and have less, if you give. And especially if you share, there is no way to share with anyone without loss.

To the ego, sharing doesn't exist. It doesn't see how you can share, in any way, without diminishing what you have. And it's enacted this belief in the way that all physical 'forms' appear to behave.

If you want to share your apple, you're going to have to cut it in half and give half away - sacrificing half, and now you will only have half an apple. And you will experience that in the ego as loss, and unworthiness of having the whole. You might think you are sharing the half in kindness or generosity, but to the ego you a secretly jealous and bitter at having 'taken a hit' for the sake of someone else.

And then, to the ego, this form of sacrificing becomes equated with giving. It says, if I give half of this apple, and I do it in spite of the fact that I believe it is a sacrifice, then I am doing some kind of 'good for others'. This then leads to guilt that you are not giving ALL of what you have to others, and that even more sacrifice is called for. Ultimately it would have you give all of your apple to others, and having nothing for yourself.

That is the culmination of its belief system - that you are left with nothing, in total sacrifice and loss. Such is martyrdom. Such is what we commonly think of as 'giving selflessly' when in fact it usually is the ego sacrificing. To the ego, you should just give everything you have to others in order to be 'good' so that you'll meet God's graces, which is bullshit. It is a death wish. If you still have an ego and you are giving in this way without giving equally to yourself (receiving), that's not being a saint, it's being a martyr and an idiot. And it's also not what giving means.

Where in the ego's form of giving is there anything other than sacrifice? How in the ego's world is there anything even remotely similar to real sharing, other than loss? How can the ego give without losing what it has? It can't. Because the ego's idea of what it HAS is an illusion, a false value, and its idea of sharing it is the same thing as NOT sharing it. To the ego, sharing means posession and a transfer of ownership.

Real love is not like this. Real love does not diminish when it is shared or given. Real love doesn't call for sacrifice. Real love doesn't give give give, endlessly from your ego self, in the guise of some kind of 'atoning' or being 'selfless'. Real love cannot be owned by you exclusively, and you cannot give it away without you keeping it. Real love can't exchange hands and be in one place and not in another place at the same time. Real love doesn't leave you empty and lifeless. Real love doesn't ask you to be a martyr or to please everyone else except yourself.

Real love is like a giant vast ocean of love. Love's rule is that you can share in it by opening up to it and allowing it to be in you, but you cannot possess it or own it exclusively. You can participate in it and enjoy it and experience it, but this does NOT prevent others from doing the same. And there is an infinite supply, so there is no way you can have it all to 'yourself' and deny it to others, nor is there a need to get it FROM others because they too have their own access directly from God.

So unlike the ego, where you must 'get' love from others, because you think you lack it, you can't actually experience it even if you could get it, because you're trying to deny it to the other person. You want them to love you, sacrificially, by giving you what they have so that they don't have any left. That bleeds them dry, just as you trying to be an ego saint bleeds you dry. The only way you can experience love, is to get in line with how God has arranged things.

Simply, as ACIM says, "to have all, give all to all". Which means, to experience love fully, fully GIVE LOVE to everyone unconditionally, by EXTENDING what God has given you (unlimited love). In this you receive love from God in unlimited supply, and you extend it to others. But notice this key point:

If you do not extend the love to others, YOU cannot have it either. If you do not radiate the love to others, YOU cannot feel its radiance. If you do not SHARE love with others, YOU cannot share IN it either. Love has to be shared to be experienced, otherwise it is stationary. It needs to be extended and amplified to be what it is, like a radiant shining light. It has to shine outward. So you need to shine it outward, not from a limited supply of your own, but from God. Extend God's love. Extend God's healing miracles.

Simply...

God... help me to love [person's name]. Help me to extend your love to them and see them as lovable.

You will then feel love in your heart, for the other person, and you will feel the love and share in the love. It is the privilege of the loved to be loving.

"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists."

When you are in your true self, there is no fear.

When you deny your true self, you enter into a state of fear.

In the state of fear, it seems there are "things to be afraid of".

It would even reason that you are afraid of your true self.

But if you were to LEAVE the state of fear, and RETURN TO your true self, there would BE NO FEAR THERE. The reasons WHY you were SUPPOSED to be afraid of God, were LIES!

What does this tell you?

Everything the ego suggests is true while IN the ego state of mind, IS NOT TRUE OUTSIDE OF IT.

Similarly with the fear of God.

We have a fear of God, but the PURPOSE of having the fear, is to KEEP GOD AWAY. Because we know that, deep down, there is NO REASON TO FEAR GOD. And if you were to REMEMBER God, you would be instantly happy to approach and embrace him fully. His attraction would be unlimited and you would rush to meet Him, recognizing His perfect safety and welcome.

It's only when you go into the ego, that you develop ARTIFICIAL fears. The fears only ARISE when you are in the ego state of separation. And the things the fear SAYS or claims, can only seem to be true WHILE you are in that state. And being in that state TENDS to persuade you to STAY in that state, because of the lies it says.

But step out of that state, into the light, and you find THERE IS NO FEAR there. There is no reason to. You are only afraid when you are AWAY from God. And you are afraid BECAUSE you are away from God. And the fear exists ONLY IN the distance from God. And as soon as you are with God, the SOURCE or substance of the fear is not there, because fear is the ABSENCE of God/Love.

So everything the ego says is a lie. It's not that there IS a reason to fear being with God. It's that you need to maintain the LIE that there is a reason not to be with God, because without a LIE, you would run to Him.

It's simply not TRUE, anything the ego claims. There IS NO reason for you to be afraid, because you are immortal. There is no reason to be afraid, because God loves you. So what does the fear say? It INVENTS REASONS to be afraid. It LIES. It is not telling you about a real fear, it's telling you a made-up fear. An unfounded fear. And the fear is designed to KEEP YOU AWAY FROM THE TRUTH.

The ego knows that if you were to IGNORE IT, actually approach the light, THE EGO would be dispelled, and its LIES would be shown for what they are. Illusions would be recognized AS illusions, instead of a TRUTHS. And in this recognition they would be dispelled. Because they only SEEM real WHILE you are deceived, while you believe their stories. But all their stories are fiction and have no truth to them at all.

You are simply not really afraid. You are PRETENDING to be afraid. And you are MAKING UP reasons to be afraid. And all of your fears are unfounded lies. Because in truth, there IS no reason to be afraid, because only God exists and nothing real can be threatened.

So beware of the ego's deceptions. Fear works this way, as do all illusions. They tempt you to believe something is true which ISN'T, and spin stories to JUSTIFY THEMSELVES, and if you fall for it, it forms its own explanation for why. It tries to prove its own existence, which is what the ego is all about.

It's kind of like, you have this person who is telling you about a situation happening down the street, but not only is this person LYING about what is happening there, they are INVENTING a story about WHY you should avoid going down the street yourself to find out what's there. The lie becomes an attempt to KEEP YOU AWAY from finding out the truth. Because the truth is, nothing is happening and everything is fine. And if you GO THERE YOURSELF (accept atonement) you will find that out.

The ego has invented all fears, AND has invented ALL of the explanations for WHY you should be afraid. It has fed you fear, AND it is the one inventing the stories that the fears are based on. The making real of illusions presents a fictional story, which the ego makes real, and then uses it to JUSTIFY why you SHOULD be afraid. It's all bullshit. You are being lied to. THERE IS NO VALID REASON FOR FEAR. NOTHING HAS GONE WRONG. THERE IS NO REAL ATTACK.

There is no fear in God. There is no attack in God. There is no attack in you. There is no sin anywhere. And nothing real can be threatened. So there is no basis for ANY FEAR EVER. So when the fear says, "STAY AWAY FROM GOD, HE'S DANGEROUS!!!", the secret purpose of it is to SLANDER God, to blaspheme God, to LIE about God, to KEEP YOU AWAY FROM A GOOD THING. Because the ego knows that if you listen and believe it, it has deceived you with an unfounded excuse and kept ITSLEF going and kept YOU away from the real facts.

The ego hurls abuse at God, hates God, wants God dead, slanders God, makes libel about God, invents lies about God, and tells completely fake stories about God. It is HIGHLY BIASED, and is NOT an impartial OR objective party. It's like a totally one-sided liar that pretends to be neutral.

It wants YOU to listen to this and believe it. And by doing so, YOU USE these things to KEEP YOURSELF away from God. Because really there is NO REASON NOT TO BE WITH GOD. So you INVENT reasons, you INVENT blocks, you INVENT lies, you INVENT fear, you INVENT sins, you INVENT unworthiness, all as ways to RESIST the unlimited attractiveness of God, otherwise if you didn't you'd be instantly awakened to the truth.

You tell God he can't love you because you're not worthy of His love. That is a lie. You are worthy of His love. You think you are doing God a service by NOTIFYING Him of WHY he should not love you, to SAVE HIM from the bother of even trying. But this has nothing to do with you being worthy or you deserving God's love OR of God loving you. It' entirely an effort to PREVENT God from loving you. It's a refusal to accept or allow the love, IN ORDER TO maintain the fiction that you are unworthy. Because the unworthiness is another self-fulfilling, self-justifying, pile of bullshit.

I seem to be operating through a male body in this lifetime. It has a certain appearance. A certain shape. It functions in a given way and has certain seeming abilities and inabilities. There are appendages and shapes and features which other bodies don't seem to have. It seems to have a physical gender. It seems to have needs. When it looks upon itself in the mirror using its own eyes it sees an image of what it seems to be.

But this body is not who I am. I am not a male, or a humanoid. I do not really have arms and legs or a head. This strange creature I inhabit is not my self. It is but one of many possible iterations of bodies, all of which are distinctly different, and none of which are an accurate representation of my soul. None of them, not even this one, depicts who I really am.

"What you are cannot be seen nor pictured."

Your face is not how you look, any more than the face of another person's body is how they look. The face is a disguise designed to present a picture of what appears to be a "person", or someone looking, or someone speaking. But this face is just an instrument, a device, a facade, like the outside of a building. It actually hides the invisible self which cannot be seen with the body's eyes. This face is merely an arrangement of bones and flesh and muscles and sensory organs operating in a certain, very specific way.

What you are as a permanent, perfect creation of God, cannot possibly bend to become the shape of a particular body. In one lifetime you might show up as a woman, in another as a man, and in another as a woman again. Shapes and features of different sizes and proportions and colors and behaviors. None of these conform precisely to the true nature of what you are, and not one of them is wholly a perfect depiction of yourself.

In fact, because the core of you is so perfect and formless, every single body that you could ever utilize cannot come close to or even touch upon your true nature. Every one of them is distanced from your identity and set apart from or is external to your soul's true nature. They are all strange pictures of persons, who are not really persons, portraying physicalized images of artificial identity, as temporary substitutes for who and what you are.

When you identify with or as this body, believing it is completely yourself, there must be quite a jump of the gap between your true nature and the nature of this strange image. You must distort yourself, confine yourself, mangle yourself, in order to consider yourself to BE IT. You must be not yourself, in the most extreme way, in order to regard it as who and what you are. Are you at toe? Are you a buttock? Are you teeth? Do you chop off parts of yourself when you get a haircut? Do you shed yourself? Are you constantly changing? You are not these things. And trying to identify as these things, alone, must induce mental illness simply because these things are so unlike you.

There was a gospel of Judas which was discovered, I think it was part of the dead sea scrolls. I watched this on tv some years ago... in which, for one thing, Judas was properly recognized as being the one who was closest to Jesus and most believing him, which is why the authorities later depicted him as the worst traitor, to slander him. And in this gospel there were accounts that Jesus had already accomplished such spirit identification that he was able to transfigure in and out of different bodies. Sometimes appearing as a woman, sometimes as a child, or an old man, depending on what form was suitable to meet with particular people.

I don't find this to be improbable or impossible. Some of the great masters of the East have acquired similar abilities, dissolving the body and turning into a ball of light which then flies over the land and then rematerializes as a body later. Clearly when one has total clarity about what one is, and has power over the body and all forms, this kind of thing becomes easy and possible.

We are not bodies. We are spirit beings. And we do not need bodies in order to exist. "To be without a body is to be in your natural state." You do not need a body to be with God, or to be yourself. "God did not create the body." and so it is not a natural part of you or your inheritance. We must learn to correctly recognize that even the body we have right now, is not our identity. I am not a 6-foot caucasian male in his 40's. This is just the particular picture that my mind is projecting or that I chose to show up as or "incarnate into". In my last life, I was probably a woman.

In order to love yourself and to love everyone equally you cannot be offended by, putt of by, judging of, preferring, or being biased in any way about particular types of bodies. Fat or thin, large or small, tall or short, gay or straight, masculine or feminine, hairy or bald, ugly or beautiful, it should not matter, because these are all just clothing. Just flesh suits which our real selves are temporarily using. And no matter how a particular body appears, it is not the person.

Holding the body against them is like accusing them of sin. You must learn to look beyond your body and theirs, to recognize that deep within, there is a shining light, a perfect soul, just the same as yours, and all the children of God are perfectly identical and equal in Christ.

"The miracle-worker begins by PERCEIVING light, and translates HIS perception into sureness by continually extending it, and ACCEPTING ITS ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Its EFFECTS assure him IT IS THERE. The therapist does not heal; he LETS HEALING BE. HE can point to darkness, but he CANNOT bring light OF HIMSELF, for light is NOT of him. But being FOR him, it MUST be for his patient.

The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist. He makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which He is the Guide. The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE. Remember that you ARE choosing a guide for helping, and the wrong choice will NOT help. But remember also that THE RIGHT ONE WILL. Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God.

As you awaken other minds TO Him through HIM, and not yourself, you will understand that you are not obeying the laws of this world, but that the laws you ARE obeying WORK. "The good is what works" is a sound though insufficient statement. ONLY the good CAN work. Nothing else works at all. This course is a guide to behavior. Being a very direct and very simple learning situation, it provides the guide who tells you what to do. If you do it, you will SEE that it works. Its RESULTS are more convincing than its words. THEY will convince you that the words are true."

When you are willing to step aside and let the holy spirit work through you, making sure not to interfere, or to even think you need to be the one who makes something happen, this open conduit is a channel through which HE can express healing miracles. As soon as your ego takes over and tries to interfere by trying to "be the one" who is causing the healing, it interrupts the process. Similarly by actively stepping back and allowing and letting go, the Holy Spirit can best utilize your body to heal through.

The exciting challenge we have is to really realize that the Holy Spirit IS HERE as a HEALER AND THERAPIST, and we are supposed to seriously LET HIM fulfill that function , to let HIM do profound things through you, to get out of the way and be nothing more than a conduit through which he performs HIS miracles of healing.

That’s a very different role and function than believing that healing originates with your egoic forcefulness. And it can take a while to learn to stop trying AT ALL and allow and TRUST him to do the miracle. This doesn’t mean "not doing anything at all", you still have to participate. He needs to use your body to move THROUGH to reach others. But HE is the one with the power to cause things to happen, so our job is to be willing to LET HIM do the profound healing work THROUGH us.

This means, standing there with your hands on someone, plugged into the Holy Spirit, trusting him, allowing HIM to do stuff through your body, and recognizing you are doing NOTHING to interfere with HIS expertise. HE knows how to heal anything. YOU DO NOT. You haven’t the first clue how to repair a body. So you don’t be the healer. You just be a doorway through which a true healer moves through you. You let HIM do the work.

This is humbling because it means giving up all effort to BE the one who heals someone. Ironically, paradoxically, when you stop trying to use your ego to heal, trying to force it to happen, and failing, and you give up that entire desire and identity, you are then willing to surrender enough to ALLOW HIM to perform miracles through you.

This means dropping the spiritualized ego, the hero, the performer, the savior,the rescuer, the fixer, the resister, and getting rid of all ego attempts to be a miracle worker. To try doing it yourself and to fail at it, so that you can open up the door to a supernatural power not of this world, and not of you. In a way, you be a miracle worker by letting HIM be the miracle worker.

"BUT DO NOT INTERFERE. The power set in you, in whom the Holy Spirit's goal has been established, is so far beyond your little conception of the infinite, that you have no idea how great the strength that goes with you."

"The holy do not interfere with truth."

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

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

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

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

I need ADD nothing to His plan.

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

"We thank You, Father, for Your guarantee of only happy outcomes in the end. Help us not interfere, and so delay the happy endings You have promised us for every problem that we can perceive; for every trial we think we still must meet.""

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

"The Holy Spirit is the MECHANISM of miracles." (He does them!)

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