There is a sequence of cause and effect, in which a higher level causes a lower level.
God causes the Son of God. The Son of God causes his dream of separation. God is cause, the son is effect. The son shares the father's ability to cause, and causes his dream, which is an effect.
Everything in the dream is an effect of the Son's dreaming. Even the things which appear to be causes cannot be causes, they are illusions of causes. The Son of God implemented both the "things that cause" and "the effects of those causes" simultaneously, both as effects.
If he were writing a movie and filming it, it would mean setting up the car to come into the scene at just the right time, and setting up the conditions for the crash, and setting up that which it crashes into, and setting up the way that the crashed-into thing is changed by the crash. All at once. There is no cause or effect on the level of the movie, it's an illusion.
This is perhaps even more easily understood in the behind-the-scenes creation of digital movies where there isn't any cause-and-effect laws of physics to comply with, so if you want there to appear to be "an effect" of something happening, you have to actually literally manually make that effect, ie cause it, otherwise the car will pass right through the wall and everyone would be like "that's not real".
When we mistake the ORDER in which the levels are thus arranged, mistaking an effect for a cause, we're believing a lower order level has power/will/mind/control over a higher order level. This confusion of the levels, or attributing some properties to some levels which they do not have, based on what is true for another level, is level confusion. "All sickness comes from confusing the levels".
Examples:
Believing the world (an effect) is a cause and it's causing you.
Believing you are at the effect of the world or a victim.
Believing something in the world has an alien will with a power to change you against your will.
Believing in death happening to you against your will.
Believing you are sick "because of" something outside of you.
Believing the world has a "magical ability" to make things happen (magic).
Believing God's will is not your will - the authority problem.
Believing your body has power over your mind, and a mind of its own.
Believing your body is coming from the world, not from your mind.
Believing there are causes in the world which produce effects, and effects which can become causes in their own right, which can in turn transform causes into effects.
Believing that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Believing the ego's laws of physics, biology, chemistry, etc.
Believing there are life forms in the world which are actually alive and animated by nature.
Believing the world is natural and God's creation.
Believing in an alien will separate from your own which therefore terrifies you because there is nothing you can do to stop it from affecting you.
Believing you are sick or broken or hurt or upset or afraid or sad because of something that happened in the world or in other people.
Believing that salvation, truth, love, safety, peace, and innocence all exist external from yourself and that you need to seek out there to find it, and that you will find it if you try hard enough.
Believing you are unlovable because love is not in you already where God put it.
Believing God is not your father and that you are the cause of him.
Believing in real sin, with the ability to create real effects in God, to change God, to change reality, to redefine the truth and to make permanent irreversible changes which can never be healed.
Believing in judgement and unforgiveness and anger as being justified due to what happened to you from an external cause against your will.
All of these are level confusion. THE ENTIRE EGO THOUGHT SYSTEM IS LEVEL CONFUSION!
They all entail believing there is a cause within a level of effect. That the "lower" order level of illusions have "become alive" or gained a mind or will of their own. Whatever it was that, in truth, came FROM the causality of your mind, has suddenly because a cause OF your mind. That's confusion!
Miracles place the levels in their correct order. Miracles are expressions of the fact that only mind, TRUE CAUSE, can cause, and everything else is in this world is an EFFECT, including the world (earth) itself. The world does nothing at all, it is only an effect. It has NO CAUSES in it. Nothing is happening to you. No-one is victimizing you. You are not at the effect of the world you see.
Correcting level confusion is the only correction needed to reach the atonement. When everything is seen in its correct sequence, you will have mind over matter, power over all illusions, and nothing in the world will be able to withstand the causal Power of God that flows through you. Miracles are supernatural BECAUSE they come from a higher level of causality, demonstrating that the lower level IS an effect and its illusions of cause-effect do not really apply. They come from above the "nature" of the world and PROVE that no cause in the world has any power whatsoever, and therefore its "effects" are easily changed.
The only real choice you have, the only moment at which you are actually choosing between ego and God, is when you decide whether or not to accept the Atonement.
Here are your only choices:
A) I really did sin, and therefore every consequence of sin should happen and I deserve to die and I will make it happen.
or
B) I really did not sin in reality, nothing real has been threatened, God still finds me worthy, I am still innocent and nothing has happened.
This is your ONLY choice.
And this choice ONLY happens at the CLIMAX of a forgiveness process, a process of purification, in which you are undoing beliefs in death, punishment, fear, guilt and sin. You have to undo and PURGE all of that shit BEFORE you can even get to where you will be WILLING and able to accept some atonement.
If you imagine that being "in the ego" is like being in a dark warehouse, that warehouse contains shelf upon shelf of sin, guilt, fear, punishment, sickness, death. You have to find your way out of the dark and reach the exit. But before you can get to the exit, you have to most PAST all of these shelves of ego lies. You have to not believe any of them and clear them out of your way so that you can get to the exit.
The exit from the warehouse will take you INTO THE LIGHT, into Heaven, into the Atonement, into your INNOCENCE, but the ONLY way you can go through that door is through willingness to accept the truth is true, and choosing to admit that it is so. That nothing has happened and you are still innocent, that you are still as God created you. Then you step OUT of the warehouse of darkness INTO the light, and it is ONLY THEN that you have placed yourself back INTO the thought system of the Holy Spirit or God.
Whether or not sin is true, or whether the belief in sin is true or false, is THE PIVOTAL POINT at which you are deciding, whether you are allegiant to the ego, or allegiant to God. All of the prior steps of undoing fear and guilt and sickness and punishment etc are prerequisites but do not actually directly take you OUT of the ego thought system. They are steps TOWARDS it. They are you meandering around the warehouse in the dark trying to find the exit. All of these corrections and changes of belief and purification and releases and letting go and shifts in perception and so on are mere PREPARATION for exiting the building and becoming miraculous.
This is why when you apply forgiveness processes you MUST at some point take it ALL THE WAY to the atonement truth, OTHERWISE you are not completing the forgiveness and are falling short. You are actually STAYING IN the ego thought system UNLESS you TOTALLY EXIT through that door of accepting the atonement is true of you. And many people are doing exactly this - falling short of exiting the building, and instead lingering in various levels of denial and unconsciousness, with blocks to awareness still in place, not really undoing or looking at the unconscious belief in sin or the DEATH WISH which lurks in the darkness right in front of the doorway home.
This has to all be uprooted and dug out and undone and un-believed in PRIOR to reaching the exit, so that when you get to the exit you will no longer have any ties or objections or reasons of doubt or faith in the ego beliefs as to why you CANNOT exit, or why you don't want to, or why you cannot accept it is 100% true. It takes a lot of "work" to go through all the shit to uncover these layers of blocks to awareness, to really become literally AWARE of the truth. And only then, when you finally can SEE that it makes total sense that you MUST STILL BE INNOCENT because you DID NOT SIN in reality, only then are you actually making the choice between the ego and the Holy Spirit.
That's the only point where you're saying yes to God and no to the ego. It's also the point at which, as you exit, you become OPEN TO RECEIVE MIRACLES. This is because you now open up to accept that you CAN BE LOVED because you are worthy of it because you are still innocent. Only AFTER EXITING THE BUILDING do you step INTO THE LIGHT, and upon EXPOSURE to the light, now allow yourself to be LOVED BY GOD. And it is in this reunion, in this moment of becoming PART of the atonement itself, that you are actually willing to RECEIVE LOVE. And in your receiving of this love, THAT is how you receive a miracle and THAT is when you get healed. Because now you allow the love to love you and it heals you. If you believe sin is real then you are saying NO to love and are not receiving it.
THEN, you can take the healed part of your mind to others, to bring the atonement to others, and to SHARE and extend the miracles you've received - the love, the worthiness, to others, as part of the atonement plan. And you can do this whole process over and over again on any individual issue in order to keep accepting miracles upon miracles, until there is nothing left keeping you in the dark at all.
I'm kind of blown away right now, with this rapidly growing recognition that ALL suffering has ONE cause. That there is really only ONE lesson to learn.
The lesson simply is that,.... if you believe the world is REAL, YOU WILL SUFFER.
And so I look back at all the times I have suffered, all the upsets, all events, and I see that at the time I always thought they were DIFFERENT. And each form of suffering was caused by something specific. Maybe it was the situation, or the person, or the circumstances, or what happened, or the consequences, or the aftermath. Whatever it was, it always seemed specific.
But the truth is, that ALL suffering is caused by ONE problem, with one solution. If you make the world real, you take it seriously, you immediately enter into fear, and now you are suffering. And whatever then seems to happen in the unrecognized dream will be the form the suffering takes. And the ONLY thing that will stop you from suffering, is the RECOGNITION THAT IT IS NOT REAL.
And so either you are in the battlefield, lost and confused in amongst the many many FORMS of suffering, the many deceptions of suffering, OR you rise up out of the battlefield to the light in which you can see the truth, above it, the truth that IT IS JUST A DREAM.
Rising up above into the truth, it does not MATTER what the forms are, it does not matter who is doing what, it does not matter the situation or circumstance, this story, the details. They all become irrelevant. Because EVERYTHING in the world is recognized as EQUALLY UNREAL.
As soon as you change the PREMISE of the ENTIRE thing, which is the atonement, by recognizing ONLY God's truth is true, and only the false is false, it RE-FRAMES the entire world and everything in it. And now no matter what form or appearance the dream has, it does not matter. Because either you are immersed in a REAL dream, or an UNREAL dream. The question of its reality is the ONLY problem.
If the world is real, everything that "really is happening" is CAUSE for suffering. Just the mere suggestion that you see something that is not, hear something that isn't happening, or can sense something that isn't OF GOD, is enough to frighten you. And now you are suffering just by merely making the world real, ie believing that the world IS God. The ONLY solution is to make the world UNREAL, and recognize it is an illusion. There is no other way out, and this recognition of the SANITY of what is really true, IS forgiveness (overlooking illusions) and is atonement (acceptance of the one truth).
So now I look and I see.... a dream world, filled with obstacles, seeming problems, hassles, tortures, suffering, situations, dramas, threats, pain and sickness, and I remind myself... this whole world is not real, it's just a dream. And on this new premise I can base a true perception, that NONE OF IT EXISTS. And ONLY in that truth - "nothing unreal exists", can you be at peace.
And now suddenly I'm feeling not only peace and happiness and joy that there is no world, I'm feeling relieved that I don't HAVE TO be immersed and lost in suffering, in the battlefield, because the only reason I would enter into it is by FORGETTING that it is my own dream. And THIS is the secret of salvation.... the recognition that the dream IS a dream, and NOT a reality.
"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.***"
"The Holy Spirit will repeat this **ONE inclusive lesson** of deliverance, until it has been learned, ***REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain.*** Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this ***one answer TAKES AWAY the cause*** of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but **the SINGLE cause** of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.""
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. 4 ****But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal.**** 5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all illusions is truth."
The truth is, while you value something and believe there is truth in it, you will not want to let it go. You're convinced other stuff is less true and is not what you want, and that you should protect what you have faith in. That's a reasonable attitude. Although what you believe might ultimately be false, Holy Spirit is not here to tell you "you can't have that" or that "you shouldn't do that".
What is asked of us is simply to be a little bit willing to return to the Light of Truth. We don't have to have to be willing, ever, to have stuff ripped away before we are ready. Nor do we need to feel guilty when we are not ready or when we want to keep stuff. The truth is you WILL NOT let go of stuff when you are not ready because you can't let go without being genuinely willing and ready. Holy Spirit knows that and that it would be a complete waste of time to 'force' you.
At some point, if we are to wake up to truth, we need to be willing to entertain the possibility that what we think is true might not be - and that something we denied or thought wasn't true might well be the truth. We've denied God and we need to reverse that. But to reverse it we have to question where we've put our sense of value, and we've put it into many things that aren't really the truth.
So maybe we value music. Most people do. Or nice sunsets. Or videos of puppies and kittens. If you go do those things, in light of what the Course says, the ego will say "if you do this you're not doing the Course, so you are guilty". The ego positions itself as Holy Spirit's right-hand man as if bestowing the punishment that allegedly would come from Holy Spirit for your failure to comply. Holy Spirit did not appoint the ego to do this, and you're not guilty. Being mistaken doesn't mean you're guilty or deserving punishment.
At some point though you might be willing to get closer to God, and that will mean opening up to a greater truth. And once you expose yourself to the greater truth, you're not going to be ABLE to go backwards. It will also show you, in light, that what you thought was true or valuable, is really actually not AS valuable as the real truth. It's not as meaningful. ONLY when you are able to see through what you thought was important and recognize it for what it really is - an illusion, nothing of value, a decoy, or a ridiculous ego scenario, you will then be ready and willing to let go of it. Stepping into the truth IS letting go of it.
There is no force involved. There is no coercion. There is no pressure. There is no guilt for not being ready. WHEN you are truly ready, there won't be anyone standing there telling its about goddam time you sacrificed already. You will, and can, only let go of stuff, when you AGREE that the stuff you're letting go of is NOT of value to you, and that what you've chosen instead IS of value (God's truth). When you can see clearly in LIGHT, it is obvious what is true and what is false - what is valuable and what is valueless. Then there is no struggle and no fight. Nobody's ripping stuff from you, and you're not having to just go cold-turkey on stuff you still feel attached to before you're ready.
So yes you can keep all your stuff and your behaviors and your beliefs and all of it as long as you want. Guilt free. AND, even when you realize that this stuff is not truly worthy of the Son of God, that doesn't mean anyone's going to say "see told you so" or try to make you stop doing those things. You can still watch TV if you want, or walk the dog, or eat food. But the important difference then is that you do not NEED to and you don't believe it is reality.
At some point, when you are ready, you WILL look at every stone and turn it over and realize the gifts the ego was offering versus the gifts God is offering, and you will gladly choose God's gifts, and you will gladly and effortlessly let go of the ego's gifts. This includes all of the ego's laws. It includes all of the things you think you NEED and WANT, other than GOD alone, in order to survive and exist and be happy. That includes needing to eat food, drink liquid, sleep, breathe air, or be a body at all. You might still do these things for a while, but a MASTER does not need any dependence on anything besides God.
To summarize, there is no guilt or punishment coming for your 'sinful' behavior of enjoying chocolate cake or watching movies. But your dependence on these things as your source of truth might be keeping you away from something far more magnificent, and eventually you might decide to change your mind about what you want. And when you're ready to do that, Holy Spirit is right there ready to take the opportunity to gently guide you forwards to see for yourself what it is you've been denying.
Ultimately because you are denying God you are denying yourself/depriving yourself of everything God offers, which is an absolutely huge blessing that you've rejected. Why deny yourself such magnificence and joy? Jesus might at this point prod us - "ask yourself, do you want your little trinkets the ego has to offer, or do you want the love of God?" And since is it GOD that you stand to GAIN when you let go of things of lesser meaning, YOU CAN'T LOSE.
"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt."
Notice that it says THOSE, meaning the world is made by multiple individuals.
"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 which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain."
Notice that it talks about children being born INTO the "world" that is being referenced. AND that as they are born they are born IN pain THROUGH pain. And I think we all know that this is talking about planet earth, with physical bodies, women giving birth to babies, and is nothing to do with internal perceptions or interpretations.
"Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death."
Notice again that it confirms the world being referenced is the one where bodies die. That's the physical world.
"Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its power declines if their bodies are hurt."
Notice this is also true of anyone who has a BODY, a physical human organic organism, with a BRAIN, and therefore is definitely talking about the physical body of flesh and bones, living in the world that is outside of it - planet Earth. The container of the bodies.
"They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more."
Yes where do these once-children's bodies get laid in the ground, the physical soil? On planet earth, at a physical level. Also notice that he says basically that bodies withering and gasping and dying in the ground IS CRUEL. It's not something natural or something that God would want for you. And IF that happens to your body, you MUST be believing that God is cruel because if death happens THAT IS CRUELTY.
"Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel."
If this were the real world, God WOULD be cruel. For no father could subject his children to this as the price of salvation, and be loving."
Notice that therefore in this reference, where Jesus has CLEARLY set up the fact that he's talking about the physical planet where human bodies are born, suffer and die, the same bodies that have brains and which grow old.... THAT WORLD.... would have to be coming from a CRUEL God, IF God were to be the creator of it. Because only through such a cruel creatorship and intention could such cruel things come about.
It would be thoroughly unloving for God to create a world where you lose things, you wither, your brain is attacked and diminishes, the body grows old and weak and sick, or where death happens at all. God simply WOULD NOT create such an environment. Such an environment IS cruel and not even remotely divine and holy. Not even slightly the hallmark of a totally loving God.
Also notice that it states IF this was the real world, ... meaning IT IS NOT the real world, and reality is ANOTHER WORLD that is NOT planet earth. NOT physical. With NO bodies and no death.
"LOVE DOES NOT KILL TO SAVE. For if it did, attack WOULD be salvation, and this is the ego's interpretation, not God's. Only the world of guilt could demand this, for only the guilty could CONCEIVE of it."
Notice that it also refers to this physical planet as "the world of guilt", just as it also refers to it elsewhere as "the world of sin" and "the world of death". And God would NOT create a world of guilt, sin, or death.
"This world..."
(which we now know is referring to the very physical earth world of human bodies)
..."IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."
So now the physical world, is a picture of crucifixion. A PHYSICAL picture. The crucifixion is BUILT INTO MATTER. That has nothing to do with "how you are perceiving". It is purely to do with the form of the physical planet itself. It's a picture of crucifixion, not a picture of heaven.
"And until you realize that God's Son cannot be crucified, this is the world you will see."
Notice that this states if you believe God's Son can be crucified, ie believe in attack and sin at all, YOU WILL be forced to SEE this physical world THAT YOU MADE. And this confirms further that God DID NOT create this physical planet. And this also implies that if you DO NOT believe in the crucifixion of God's Son you will STOP seeing this world THAT YOU MADE. You made the physical world and everything in it.
"But you will not realize this, until you accept the eternal fact that God's Son is NOT GUILTY. He DESERVES only love, because he has GIVEN only love. He cannot be condemned, because he has never condemned."
Recognition of immortality, holiness and innocence is the key to NOT SEEING THIS WORLD and instead seeing the Son of God in its holy home.
"The Atonement is the final lesson he need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, he has no NEED of salvation."
Ahhhh.. "Dreams of death are not left by death, but by truth."
The world you made, which God did not create, which is the world of bodies, which is also the world of sin guilt and fear and death, is NOT GOD's world, because it IS a cruel world and it would be cruel to ACCUSE God of creating such a place.
The Kingdom of God is your home. It is not like this world at all. "God does not will that you suffer" or die.
Jesus tells us that our perception works like a mirror. Whatever we have inside of us, we project outside, and perceive it reflected back. We are doing this all the time, every second of every day.
We first look within, find our own attitude about ourselves there, and then we project that out and see it. This means in effect that we are really blind to seeing anything out there OTHER THAN ourselves.
If we have guilt in our mind, we will see guilt in others and in the world. If we have innocence in our mind, we will see innocence in others and in the world. This is because the world acts like a mirror and reflects back to us whatever we project onto it, including meaning. This is because it follows the Golden Rule, that what is true of you is true of the whole.
"Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego."
"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real."
If you are not seeing innocence in the world, in which you see there is nothing to forgive because everything is innocent, it is because you yourself are not being innocent. You are looking at the result of what you believe is true about yourself and others.
If you want to see and experience the world in a happier way, in a lighter way, in which the world seems beautiful and kind and lovely, then you have to be beautiful and kind and lovely in your mind.
This is the meaning of:
"God is in everything I see because God is in my mind."
When you have an awareness of God in your mind, you will project this out and see it reflected back. Then it will seem as though, in the mirror, you are looking at the reflection of God or heaven, because you are putting it there.
This is a fixed rule of how perception works. You do not ever really see something that is true of others or the world that isn't true of you. As in, "you but accuse your brother of your own sins." The guilts and offences and blames and stuff that you see in the world are yours, projected.
You are always looking at yourself!
If the world seems lacklustre, your mind is lacklustre. If the world seems dark and evil, you are being dark and evil. If the world seems sparkling and new, you are being sparkling and new. If others seem sinful and guilty and hated, you are hating yourself and regarding yourself as sinful and guilty.
As we progress with the course we're meant to be getting to a point where we see the world with so much forgivingness - ONLY because we have forgiven OURSELVES - such that we see the forgiven world. The forgiven world is beautiful and lovely and new, seen in the present FROM a state of mind that is lovely and beautiful and new.
"From my holiness does the perception of the real world come."
Similarly the eyes of christ look out upon the world and SEE christ reflected back. This is because Christ is in the mind FIRST, and then is projected and reflected. By being aware of heaven in your mind within, you see the reflection of heaven on earth. This is STRICTLY how it works - this is the functional mechanics of perception.
What you believe you perceive. It's not about "believing your eyes" or "I will have to see it to believe it." It's the other way around - what you BELIEVE you will SEE. We are meant to see this world and the bodies through beautiful forgiving eyes, which see them as beautiful and forgiven.
We are meant to see from holiness and innocence within, so that we will see holiness and innocence without. So if we're not seeing that, we're not being that and we have work to do within ourselves in our mind healing. You can't see what you're not willing to be.
"Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind reflected outward. I would bless the world by looking on it through the eyes of Christ."
"How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the truth about yourself reflected there. Now you are sinless and behold your sinlessness. Now you are holy and perceive it so."
"And the love He feels for us becomes our own as well. This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves."
"By sharing its reflection HERE, its truth becomes the only perception which the Son of God accepts."
"The blameless cannot blame, and those who have accepted their innocence see nothing to forgive. Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It is the reflection of God's Love on earth."
"It is the witness to your state of mind, the OUTSIDE picture of an INWARD condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive."
"Projection MAKES perception, and you CANNOT see beyond it."
"All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes."
"Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. How glorious and gracious is this world!"
"The teachers of God have trust in the world, because they have learned it is not governed by the laws the world made up. It is governed by a Power which is in them but not of them. It is this Power that keeps all things safe. It is through this Power that the teachers of God look on a forgiven world."
"To the extent to which you value guilt, to that extent will you perceive a world in which attack is justified. To the extent to which you recognize that guilt is meaningless, to that extent will you perceive attack cannot BE justified. This is in strict accord with vision's FUNDAMENTAL law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you WANT it there. Perception HAS no other law than this."
"Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself. Only the clear reflection OF Himself can BE perceived upon it. Reflections are seen in light. In darkness, they are obscure, and their meaning seems to lie only in shifting interpretations, rather than in themselves."
I think perhaps we under appreciate what being "ruler of the universe" really entails. It seems fanciful and lofty and like some kind of fake superhero idea.
"My self is ruler of the Universe." - "It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen."
What Jesus is saying is that we should, in our more natural state of mind, adopt a position of great responsibility. We should be powerful beings who cannot be affected by the world. We are free from fear, causing us to be decisive and certain. We no longer are tossed around by the world and its changes, but instead remain in a continual state of calm and strength, acting deliberately, fully conscious and purposeful.
"It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences."
It is not a state in which you are a victim, or affected by the world, or upset by anything, or caused in any way by any person. It is not a state in which you are constantly changing and adapting and reacting and cleaning up a mess. It's not a state in which you are being bossed around, intimidated, offended, attacked, persuaded or caused against your will.
Jesus is asking us to step into shoes of authority. Shoes of responsibility not only for everything we feel and see and experience, but even responsibility for causing things to happen. As he states clearly, you as ruler of the universe rule your destiny, even in this world. You DECIDE what you want to happen and it MUST happen. You decide what you do not want to happen, and it DOES NOT happen. This is not wishful thinking. This is the power of God to alter the world and affect events. This is being a miracle worker.
In our lives we are probably used to being pushed around, caused to changed, made to feel upset, affected and stressed, scared and attacked. At the same time, the very world that we give power to upset us, is also given power to do things "favorable" to us. We want to get from the world, but only the stuff we approve of, and the rest remains an enemy. But this is not an enlightened or empowered state.
To move out of victimhood into authority, we have to learn to exercise our power consciously and deliberately. We have to learn to stop giving our power away, and we have to learn to take it back from where we have disowned it.
"If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God."
It is only because you give your power away to the world and to people and events that you seem to allow them to DECIDE FOR YOU what you are, what you feel, what you experience and what happens. You have to learn to stop doing that. Stop enabling people, in your mind, to have possession of YOUR authority, and stop USING them to attack yourself.
The problem mainly is that by giving power to things that have no power, we keep asking them to give us what we want. We keep searching externally for salvation. We want it to do things to us. We want it to give us peace, make us happy, love us, worship us, please us, and bestow gifts upon us. And when it doesn't, or does the opposite, we instead allow it to decide for us that we will not be happy, will not be at peace, and will be upset. As Jesus says, any time that we search externally for the gifts of God, we are mentally ill.
"Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles of correcting the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others."
Being the ruler of the universe, you get to be a boss, of sorts, along with the Holy Spirit working with and through you. You use the POWER of your decision, your decisiveness, to DECIDE what will and will not happen. You make it so with the power in your mind. If you say something will be healed it will be healed. If you say something will not happen, it will not happen. You get to decide your destiny. You get to decide who will or will not do what.
"What do you think "the meek shall inherit the earth" MEANS? They will literally take it over because of their strength."
This is not the same as "control" or "manipulation", or other ego fantasies of tyranny and dictatorship. This is your true freedom and power. If you want to not be a victim, you have to step into the role of being an authority and a powerful being, of being responsible and in command, of choosing and deliberately deciding what will occur for you, and NOT assigning responsibility for it to other people or the world. You have to stop sitting on the sidelines and stand up to be counted.
You get to call the shots here, you get to direct your life, and you get to never have to tolerate or put up with any shit ever again - knowing that you only ever put up with what you did to yourself to begin with.
"I am not weak, but strong."
"I am not helpless, but all powerful."
"I am not limited, but unlimited."
"I am not doubtful, but certain."
"I am not an illusion, but a reality."
"I cannot see in darkness, but in light."
"It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events OUTSIDE him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were NOT his choice. His power of decision is the DETERMINER of every situation in which he seems to FIND himself by chance or accident. No accident or chance is POSSIBLE within the universe as God created it, OUTSIDE of which is nothing. Suffer, and YOU decided sin was your goal. Be happy, and you GAVE the power of decision to Him Who MUST decide for God for you."
"The Holy Spirit does NOT work by chance, and the healing that is of HIM ALWAYS works. And unless the healer ALWAYS heals BY Him, the results WILL vary. But healing itself IS consistence, because ONLY consistence is conflict-free, and only the conflict-free ARE whole."
Let's say that the entire contents of spacetime is sin. It is an idea of sin. Sin is a lack of love. The world was made as an attack on God, as a sin against him. Let's say that sin is the absence of truth, and so is a false world. Let's say that sin is also insanity, in which the true and the false are swapped and nothing means anything.
And let's say that all of spacetime is therefore a realm of sin, a realm in which everything is always attacked. Because sin is attack. And bodies were made to make attack seem possible. Bodies are the idea of sin, and this includes human and animal and vegetable and mineral and planetary bodies.
It is all sin, and it is sinning all the time. Every time it suggests something impossible has happened, which cannot happen in heaven, it is attempting to provide the proof of sin. Physical matter is "the granite block of sin" which the body's eyes look upon and cannot see past. Sin appears to be irreversible and unsealable, like a permanent crime, stepping ever closer to inevitable death. And death is the wages in sin, in a world where all roads lead to death.
Let's then simply say that the physical world is the idea of sin and of evil, of destruction and death. It is a dream of death and a fantasy of sin being possible. The world is false perception. Flesh and bones were made to sin with. Every atom can attack every other atom and sin against it. Destruction of any kind is sin. And if the mind takes all of this world to be true or real, it has believed in sin instead of innocence.
The function of forgiveness is to forgive the ENTIRE world of spacetime, including all of planet earth and every other planet. It has to be forgiven because it constantly sinning. Every part of it is constantly trying to murder. The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son.
Every part of it sins against the rest and holds sins up before your eyes to testify that sin is real. It is a world of sin. It must be forgiven because it has sinned, and it can be forgiven only because it has sinned. It has offended you and your function now is to recognize it as merely a mistake, an error in judgement, and to release it from your belief that sin is the truth.
The world can be seen in another light, which reframes the sin and regards it as a mistake. Which does not hold the world against itself, despite its continued efforts to induce death. You don't merely need to forgive a murderer, you need to forgive an entire planet of death. An entire solar system and galaxy of death. The world is an attempt to tempt you to believe that sin is reality. Your job is to forgive its sinful nature and let it go.
"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master. And this unholy instant SEEMS to be life. An instant of despair, a tiny island of dry sand, bereft of water, and set uncertainly upon oblivion. Here does the Son of God stop briefly by, to offer his devotion to death's idols, and then pass on."
"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see BEYOND what they were MADE to see. 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."
"To see a SINLESS body is impossible. For holiness is POSITIVE, and the body is merely neutral. It is NOT sinful, but neither is it sinless."
"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."
"Forgiveness is this world's equivalent of Heaven's justice. It translates the world of sin into a simple world"
"Forgiveness turns the world of sin into a world of glory, wonderful to see."
"Except for God's teachers there would be no hope of salvation, for the world of sin would be forever real."
"Sin is belief attack can be projected OUTSIDE the mind where the belief arose. Here is the firm conviction that ideas CAN leave their source made real and meaningful. And FROM this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise."
"Let us unite in bringing blessing to the world of sin and death."
"ITS effects are changelessly eternal, BEYOND fear, and PAST the world of sin entirely."
"You brand it sinful, and you hate its acts, judging it evil." "The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought which gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear, and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."
"Sin would maintain you MUST be separate. But REASON tells you that this must be WRONG."
"My body, Father, cannot be Your Son. And what is not created cannot be sinful or sinless; neither good nor bad."
"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."
"All that is real proclaims his sinlessness. All that is false proclaims his sins as real."
"In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine, and everything you once thought sinful now will be re-interpreted as part of Heaven."
"What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. Where is hope while sin is seen as outside?" "Who could see the world as dark and sinful when God's Son has come again at last to set it free?"
"Who but the sinful need to be forgiven?"
What did you do?! Did you hurt someone? Did you steal something? Did you break it and cover it up? Did you destroy a relationship? Did you deceive and lie? Did you commit a secret crime? What was it? Come on, own up. You really did something bad and evil didn't you? Something you want no-one to ever know about?
Ok well..... you didn't do it.
So long as you believe that IT HAPPENED, in some kind of "reality", in a real world, that you REALLY did it, you will not be able to forgive yourself. It doesn't matter how much you reframe it, cathart it, think about it, process it, heal it, work on it. There will always be this "core" thread that seems to keep it tied to you. Something that prevents you from COMPLETELY letting it go. You just can't seem to forgive yourself all the way.
This happens because the belief that YOU DID IT, is the core of sin. It is the absolute ROOT which is anchoring it in your mind. The memory of you doing it, the experience of it, the feelings surrounding it, the sense that "that happened".
It doesn't matter how much you hack at it with your amazing spiritual tools and healing devices. It WILL NOT go away so long as you believe, fundamentally, that "you did it." It doesn't matter how loving you attempt to be, or how much you try to forgive yourself "for doing it". If you believe and accept "I DID THAT" .... you MUST find yourself sinful.
Psychologically it simply is impossible to be forgiven for something that you BELIEVE IN. Your belief in it keeps it anchored in your mind. It means you WANT it, and so your mind holds onto it. The only way you can be free of it, to truly let it go, and feel RELIEVED, is to recognize IT DID NOT HAPPEN AT ALL.
"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in this view are all your sins forgiven."
The only context in which you DID NOT DO what you believe you did do, deep down, is where this world is NOT REAL. Only if this world is a DREAM, a fiction, in which fantasies play out, and in which NOTHING REAL IS THREATENED, can it be possible that you DIDN'T REALLY DO what you think you did. And only in this context can you BE forgiven.
Your innocence can only logically and psychologically remain pure IF you DID NOT do it. If you did it, you are a sinner. If you did not do it, you are innocent. This is all your mind understands. But the only way that you could NOT have done it, is if your actions were IN A DREAM, and NOT in reality. If you only did it in dreaming, then nothing real has been harmed. If what you did took place NOT IN HEAVEN, but in some kind of fictional world, then your real innocence has NOT been changed. You just IMAGINED that you sinned.
This is the crux of the matter. Do you believe it was a real sin taking place IN REALITY, or was it a FAKE SIN taking place in a FAKE WORLD? If it took place in a fake world, then you DID NOT sin, and sin is NOT POSSIBLE. "There is no sin." This is what sets you free. This is ATONEMENT. Accepting the truth that "I am still as God created me", you have not changed, "God has not changed his mind about me", and your innocence is STILL undefiled.
You are innocent because YOU DID NOT DO what you think you did. You were mistaken. You mistakenly believed you did something wrong, when all it was is a fantasy in an UNREAL world. Nothing real has been hurt. You have not done anything to God. You have NEVER hurt another soul. No one else has EVER done anything to you. No one has ever died or suffered in truth. None of "what you did" took place in the reality of God, and he knows IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO SIN in his kingdom.
God did not create you capable of really sinning, or attacking, or hurting, or damaging, or stealing, or betraying, or breaking, or doing anything at all to destroy any kind of perfection. You CANNOT SIN. You have not sinned, ever. You never will sin. This is the view of forgiveness. This is the only light in which you can recognize YOU ARE forgiven, by yourself, because it's the recognition that YOU DID NOT SIN in any real way.
This world is just a dream. You did not do what you think you did. Even your "physical actions" WERE FAKE. Even the PROOF that you caused something to happen IS FAKE. Even the "lasting effects" ARE FAKE. Even your memory of DOING it is fake. It has NOT happened in reality. Nothing real can be threatened or destroyed or hurt. You have never hurt anyone. You DID NOT DO what you think you did. You are innocent and holy and forgiven.
Only in this light can you recognize that you are FREE FROM the feeling of guilt and sin because it has NO TIES TO YOU, because you HAVE NOT DONE ANYTHING in God's reality. What happens in dreams stays in dreams, and only in dreaming did you ever seem to do anything wrong. Dreams mean nothing. They have no real consequences upon anything real. You have NEVER sinned and you never will. Stop crucifying yourself.
"God's Will for you is perfect happiness because there is no sin, and suffering is causeless."
"There is no sin. Creation is unchanged."
"Healing is done, for what is perfect needs no healing, and what remains to be forgiven where there is no sin?"
"Before a holy relationship, there IS no sin."
"What is forgiveness, but a willingness that truth be true? What can remain unhealed and broken from a Unity Which holds all things within Itself? There is NO sin."
"The Holy Spirit will NEVER teach you that you are sinful. ERRORS He will correct, but this makes no-one fearful. You are indeed afraid to look within, and see the sin you THINK is there."
"Then let me, Father, look within and find Your promise of my sinlessness is kept; Your Word remains unchanged within my mind, Your Love is still abiding in my heart." "
"Now let His true perception come to me, that I may waken from the dream of guilt and look within upon my sinlessness, which You have kept completely undefiled upon the altar to Your holy Son, the Self with Which I would identify.""
"If you would look within, you would see only the Atonement, shining in quiet and in peace, upon the altar to your Father."
"What if you looked within, and saw NO sin?"