I think that for years I have been mistaken about the course. Mainly in terms of the orientation of my mind and the direction in which it was heading.

We start out in false perception, in ego, in body identification. As if we are down in hell at the bottom of a ladder. And then we think of heaven or light or truth or atonement as being higher up the ladder, and so we start the process of climbing out of hell.

Along the way we're told of particularly "high" things which become goals to strive for, like true perception, accepting atonement, the real world, christ vision. And we wonder how to achieve these things. We kind of come at it from a "I don't have it, how do I get it?" point of view.

But the thing is, this is all backwards. We're literally starting out in a backwards thought system, moving in the wrong direction, looking in the wrong direction, and trying to get our heads around what the truth is.

I think as we gradually learn more about the truth, God, soul, reality etc over time, we open up to it more. We do more forgiveness, we heal, we let go of old pain etc. Our identity starts to shift away from the body. We begin questioning the reality of the world etc.

Then at some point, perhaps a kind of tipping point, where for a while we've had our feet in both worlds - heaven and earth - we start to lean more towards reality. We start to side more with the truth than with the false. We develop more truth and find a surer footing that anchors us in reality.

The interesting thing then is that our whole orientation seems to do a 180 degree shift. We start looking from the top down instead of from the bottom up. And we feel more secure in the truth of God and more accepting of what's real as "where we are coming from".

I have found it extremely helpful and clarifying to spend time investigating the nature of God, heaven, creation, souls, sonship, mind, free will, causation, etc. Not the things of this world. This has really fleshed out some solid "facts" that I can depend upon.

I see the simple truth that God, who is truth, has extended himself to create me, and whatever is true of me ONLY comes from God. And that I in turn ONLY have what I inherited from God, and can only be and extend that which I have been given. This has now become a kind of "starting point" for me. A rock solid core of truth within my being. Not even I have any real say in what I am or what I can do.

Now I find myself basing my whole thought process on that truth. Regarding myself as not of this world. Recognizing that only the Kingdom is real. Feeling into and aligning myself with God's will and with my real function. Embedding myself in heaven and looking outward from there. This is orienting me from "the top down" to look at everything the course says from a new vantage point. And it's as if I am seeing things in a way I never saw before.

I'm finding is just an avalanche of clarification and insight about what it's getting at. I find for example that while many "bottom-uppers" believe their whole mission is to escape from hell and return home, really the whole course is aimed towards anchoring yourself in your true nature and expressing that, shining a light into the world to produce healing. As if what's at the top of the ladder reaches down to the bottom of the ladder, to either shine it away or raise it up.

There are in fact many parts of the course related to bringing heaven into the world. Shining God's light as a reflection of his being. The extension of miracles which we are literally told fall DOWN like drops of healing rain FROM heaven ONTO the earth.

The fact that christ works through our bodies, that the holy spirit uses the body for his purposes, and that we extend through the body to form holy relationships. Even forgiveness is a matter of allowing the light of heaven's truth to infuse the mind to correct it's perceptions. Where do we get any kind of truth from if not from outside of perception itself? Truth is of God!

It's not so much a "let's just get out of here" thing. It's more of a, let's remember who we really are anchored in heaven's reality and shine outward from that core truth into the world, to be the light of the world, a healing presence, a teacher/extender of God into the dream, and to help shine away the world. This isn't escape from hell, it's a DISPELLING OF DARKNESS by shining the light of heaven onto it. And this will seem "backwards" to those who believe their only goal is to get out of here asap.

I also think that all the discussions about true perception, christ vision, the face of christ, the real world, atonement etc, are all quite misleading. Mainly because it's very clear to me now that true perception is merely a SIDE EFFECT of a mind which is anchoring itself on the OTHER side of the separation. A mind which is identifying with the spirit being that is BEYOND the realm of perception entirely.

Even the perception of the real world is clearly infused with the light of heaven and is really just a stopping point just prior to entering heaven, on the way to TOTAL immersion in heaven. It just represents a state of being ALMOST entirely spirit identified. And giving yourself over entirely to the atonement merely means becoming FULLY dependent on the truth, having been previously only "mostly" dependent upon it. And truth is not of this world.

"Since perception rests on lack, those who perceive have not totally accepted the Atonement (but have partly accepted it) and given themselves over to truth. Perception is based on a separated state, so that anyone who perceives at all needs healing. Communion, not prayer, is the natural state of those who know."

This really tells us that the acceptance of atonement is at first a GRADUAL TRANSITION out of hell towards heaven, out of false perception towards truth, and it is only FULLY or FINALLY accepted at the end, where you are 100% willing to accept the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Until then, you are PARTLY atoned, just as Jesus says you are "not now wholy insane." Truth has corrected your mind to SOME extent.

Indeed the whole idea of forgiveness is riddled with confusion and misunderstanding. To forgive really means, that you recognize what is true - which IS HEAVEN, and to then "defend" that truth through the proper use of denial, to REJECT that anything not of God is real or has any power. It's a recognition that illusions are false, BECAUSE OF what is true. AND what is true is God - not of this world. Forgiveness thus is rooted in and depends on recognizing God's nature, which is itself BEYOND forgiveness.

The most obvious point is that, here we are in bodies starting out in false perception, blind to God and in denial of reality. The question then is how do we solve that. And obviously the only real way to solve that is in "leaving the desert". That means that in order to become more loving, more light, more truthful, more sane, you have to actually identify with something BEYOND the dream, with a real eternal truth that is entirely OUTSIDE of perception, so that your perception transforms to line up with it. The blueprint for right mindedness is the one mind.

You can't just work on perception in a closed box. True perception in fact has to be BASED UPON knowledge. And knowledge is the real truth. Believing that the real truth is true - a truth which is OUTSIDE of spacetime - causes perception to be transformed to line up with it. It's almost like, you have to reach outside of ALL perception first, get a hold of reality, then infuse that reality into your mind so that your perception becomes lighter. This was not at all evident in years of past study and in the common interpretations of the course.

We're also told about miracle working and the fact that miracles in fact come from God and fall down from heaven like healing rain, onto the earth. This is similar to how forgiveness works, in that the light that is higher and more true, shines into the mind and into the world, and bestows life where there was death.

Because "Miracles mean life and God is the giver of life" and "Miracles are a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers". That means they're starting out IN HEAVEN and are expressing FROM God through our minds, transforming perception and healing the world. That's a TOP DOWN mechanic, which is why they cannot be received when fear (false perception) is too strong.

I've also found that until you can get a really solid metaphysical, logical grasp of the nature of God and creation, you can't really have anything clear and true enough to compare anything to. You really need a solid idea of the light, in order for it to clearly contradict the darkness. You need to know the truth of heaven and of your being and nature, in order to compare that to other things that happen in the world, to recognize WHY those things are false and unreal. You can't just compare illusions to true perception, you have to compare them to God, then perception will follow.

"Perception (even true perception) is a RESULT, not a cause".And so it sort of comes down to not just the question of what things are, but of the question of WHY they are that way. The understanding or logical reason that they are based on. Illusions are illusions BECAUSE of what the truth is. Sickness is unreal BECAUSE of the immortal nature of God. The world is a dream BEACUSE reality is not like it. Miracles can raise the dead BEACUSE of their expression of eternal life. If you don't have your mind anchored in heaven, you really don't have any solid ground to stand on at all.

For me, my whole orientation with the course is quite strongly transitioning to a totally top-down view at the moment. This reflects the changes in myself which are transitioning to a "going within in order to be able to express outward", or seeking the higher mind in order to shine FROM it into the world. Or aligning myself with a higher light, so that I can shine darkness way. I am finding out WHO I AM, so that I can REJECT what I am not.

"Yet when they find their own Reality is even here, then they step back and let It lead the way. What other choice is really theirs to make?"

"And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made; we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven."

Ultimately what we're really doing is we are rising up from the pits of hell and ascending into heaven. But the closer you get to heaven the more you feel like you are IN heaven, looking back downward towards hell. It's most like returning to HERE, having been AWAY. Or becoming more PRESENT, having been absent. Or becoming more authentic, having been artificial.

That orientation of "peering out from the truth" or "operating under the laws of God" or "being true to yourself first" or "having innocence in you first which you project out", is what MAKES the real world and true perception be what they are. They are reflections of the light that is IN you, which you have stepped into and are radiating. The love which you give in order to see love. "Love looks upon itself."

So it's really about you deciding to change which ROOM you are located in. Are you in hell, or in heaven. When you seek for a better way than suffering, to any degree at all, you are seeking to be in the room of heaven, where you are happy. And then you start to move between the rooms. You want to get yourself as much immersed in heaven as possible, so that almost all of you is very close to being in heaven just before you leave the world. That means you are practically a REFLECTION OF DIVINITY, while in the dream, allowing you to perform miracles and heal the world. To extend God's love and light and to keep illusions from tempting you.

It's all top-down. All the correction is top-down. All the extension of love and light and power is top-down. All of the being true to yourself is top-down. All of the health of the body is caused from the top-down. All dispelling of illusions and the sanity of the mind is brought about from the top-down. Death is conquered throught the top-down expression of eternal life. True perception and the forgiven world and the real world all come about through the top-down application and expression of your true nature. And eventually the goal is to be SO completely vigilant for the Kingdom, or to seek first the Kingdom of God, so that you put God FIRST in all things, and everything else just follows naturally from there.

If you're like me, you probably regard your "self", whatever sense of self you have as "me", this self that seems to perceive and have emotions, as being NOT the ego. And you probably regard the ego as something tucked away in a dark corner that surfaces once in a while, something that you don't think of as "being" all the time. Surely your general day-to-day "self", that you refer to as "me", is not the ego?

But what if the entire sense of who you've regarded yourself as this whole time, who you call by your name, including all your emotions and egoic thoughts, all sense of a self that can suffer in any way, IS the ego? And what if that is not real, and your entire sense of being this self that suffers and feels unhappy and can be hurt is not really the real you?

Jesus hints that our personalities are superficial...

"The surface traits of God's teachers are not at all alike. They do not look alike to the body's eyes, they come from vastly different backgrounds, their experiences of the world vary greatly, and their superficial "personalities" are quite distinct."

In truth we're supposed to be experiencing a state of immortality and perfection where we are permanently happy, unaffected, invulnerable, incapable of suffering in any way. Our real self cannot suffer or die, or cannot suffer loss, cannot grieve, cannot be upset, cannot be unhappy or lacking peace in any way.

ACIM tells tells us that "Happiness must be constant" and "God's will for me is perfect happiness" and "Reality is a constant state" and "Immortality is a constant state." If your happiness is meant to be constant, how is it possible that you EVER experience unhappiness? It also tells us that we cannot really suffer, and whatever is experiencing the suffering cannot be my self. As if we have a sort of imposter self, a second self, that we've identified with as who we are, but isn't who we really are.

"The self you made is not the Son of God. Therefore this self does not exist at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing."

"The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God, and light and joy and peace abide in you."

"I am in the likeness of my creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die." Also lesson 248 says "Whatever suffers is not part of me. What grieves is not myself. What is in pain is but illusion in my mind."

Șo if "I" seem to be having upsets of any kind, unhappiness, sadness, loss, grief, guilt, shame, fear, anger, anything that isn't constant permanent joy, that "stuff" cannot really be a part of my real self. My real self cannot suffer and cannot be unhappy. My real self cannot experience any kind of loss or deprivation or guilt or anything less than perfection.

So if that's true, then what is this self that seems to suffer? And I don't mean some remote hidden ego, I mean the very self, out in the open every day, that you think of as "you" this whole time. On a daily basis, going through life reacting to things, having upset emotions, feeling horrible about stuff, being unhappy, perceiving threats, etc. It's way more out in the open and much closer to "you" than you might have realised. You're being it every single day.

This "you" that you're being, this you that suffers and is unhappy and has grief and anger and so on, that experiences any kind of suffering, THAT is ego (being identified with ego). Or more accurately, who you are has identified WITH a "suffering self", and you see yourself AS IT, as a self that suffers. A self that can feel hurt, a self that has pain, a self that grieves losses, a self that can be in fear or guilt. When "you" suffer, ego is suffering, and YOU are believing IT is who and what you are, as if it is YOUR suffering.

Somehow there has been a mixup, where you currently find yourself "constantly" experiencing various problems and reactions and upset feelings, thinking that these feelings are a part of yourself, that it's even POSSIBLE for you to have such feelings.

How can an immortal perfect loving constantly joyful being ever have even the slightest unhappiness as a part of themselves? They can't. So it then begs the question, this "self" that seems to suffer, which is the combination of your mind plus a false identification WITH ego/body/suffering, can it really be who and what you are? Is this suffering self really you? Can YOU really suffer at all?

This you that you've been all your life and think of as normal, that has emotional reactions and instability and fears and guilts. Can this possibly be a part of yourself as God created you? Jesus says that you cannot suffer and you cannot die. He says you cannot be unhappy and you cannot experience loss. How if you are experiencing loss and are unhappy, is that really YOU that is experiencing it? Or are you experiencing a false sense of self identity, bound to some kind of egoic construct, that sees "itself" (yourself) as even capable of suffering?

If I am having grief and loss for example it feels like "I" am grieving, and I have the feelings, and I feel unhappy, and I have the emotions and I have the cries and I am the one who has had a loss. But this can't be true. My mind can't bring an "end" to the loss by trying to "get over it" as an ego-identified self, but it can dis-identify from that which believes in loss, and that indeed will end it.

So if there is a feeling of loss, it has to be false, and it cannot be a part of myself. If I feel like, or experience it like, "I" am the one who IS IN the loss, HAVING the loss, then I have identified with something that can't be a part of myself in truth. My real self cannot ever lose anything, because nothing real can be threatened.

In such a suffering situation it means my so-called "ego" is not tucked away hidden from sight in the background, it's something I am actively BINDING to and see myself as IN, like I'm wearing it, and have identified WITH it, as if I am trying to be ONE WITH IT, living out from it every second of every day.

And that puts it right in front of my face and even closer than that. It's lurking in plain sight in the very sense of false "self", in the sense of "I am suffering". That it's ME that is suffering. That's my identification with something false. God-given mind, believing falsely.

That's pretty eye opening because no longer does it mean that the ego is some background figure that rears its head occasionally. Even if it is, identifying WITH AND AS it, trying to BE an ego, binds me to it and makes me experience life as though I am suffering. I am the one who is feeling, I am the one who is upset. Only ego can be upset, and if I am UNITING with ego I will be upset as though it's my own upset. And that leads to unconsciousness - spiritual sleep.

So if we ask ourselves, who or what am I, and if there is a feeling of upset, can this feeling of upset really be a PART of me? Can it be mine? Can it possibly be me that is really suffering, if it's impossible for my constant divine self to suffer, ever? If who I really am can NEVER suffer in any way, how can I BE something that suffers, and how can the suffering be truly mine?

It then frames your egoic emotion reactions, yours stresses, as not really yours. How can these upset feelings be yours? Yes you are identified and "one with" the ego self that suffers and who sees itself as capable of suffering through its false narrow perception, but this is a false association. IT's suffering cannot be YOUR suffering unless your sense of identity is confused with it. We don't just have a little ego in the back of our minds, we are actively holding onto it and trying to BE it and regard it as us!

So now it brings into question, whether we should be distancing ourselves from, detaching from, whatever seems to be suffering, and from suffering itself. If we have upset feelings in any way, perhaps we need to be telling ourselves, these feelings are NOT a part of me, I cannot suffer, and therefore I cannot be having these feelings. I'm not having these feelings. And we must have chosen to have them if we've put them there.

That seems pretty radical, to just regard all upset emotions and sickness and suffering as impossible and not a part of you.

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent."

If we are meant to be fully identified with and as immortal spirit, then we need to shift our identification away from this "suffering self". We can't BE a self that suffers if we are permanently holy. We can't be a self that is vulnerable and attackable, or frightenable, or capable of being guilty, or of experiencing loss and grief. Whoever or whatever is having that stuff, it can't be me or mine. And if it's there and I'm immersed in it so much that I feel like "its mine", I am unconscious and have identified with ego, and have forgotten who I am.

And that really brings into question, who are you really? Perhaps you are being FAR more ego than you thought. Perhaps every single day you are immersed in egotism and suffering and unhappiness. Perhaps your whole sense of identity is lost and wrapped up in living AS an egoic entity, seeing yourself as having emotions that are impossible in reality, as having forms of suffering that cannot affect your soul.

Perhaps you are much more ego-identified than you ever thought possible, and perhaps your whole sense of self, of who and what you are, is much more out of touch with your real self than you thoughts. Perhaps your real self is on some whole other level or dimension, and perhaps this self you're being every day is the self that is the "not me that lurks in the dark corner". To your real self, made of light, your everyday suffering self IS trying to be an ego. Who you have become, is not who you are.

Are we ready to identify fully with spirit, stop seeing ourselves as capable of suffering, bringing into question ALL ego emotions and reactions, and even questioning whether we are the self that we thought we were all this time? What if you are not you, and you are not being yourself right now, and you don't even know who you are?

"There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this: I do not know the thing I am, and THEREFORE do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world and on myself." Yet in this learning is salvation born. And what you are will TELL you of Itself."

A collection of A Course in Miracles quotes...

"The body can be made a home like this, BECAUSE it lacks foundation in the truth. And yet, BECAUSE it does, it can be seen as NOT your home, but merely as an aid to help you reach the home where God abides.

With THIS as purpose IS the ***body healed***. It is NOT used to witness to the dream of separation and disease. Nor is it idly blamed for what it did not do. It serves to help the HEALING of God's Son, and, for THIS purpose, it cannot BE sick. It will not join a purpose not your own, and you have chosen that it NOT be sick. All miracles are based upon this choice, and GIVEN you the instant it is made. No forms of sickness are immune, because the choice cannot be MADE in terms of form. The choice of SICKNESS seems to be a form, yet it is one, as is its opposite. And YOU are sick or well, accordingly."

----

"Healing will flash across your open mind as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings. There will be no dark corners sickness can conceal and keep defended from the light of truth. There will be no dim figures from your dreams, nor their obscure and meaningless pursuits with double purposes insanely sought, remaining in your mind. It will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey.

Now is the ***body healed*** because the source of sickness has been opened to relief."

----

"The miracle returns the CAUSE of fear to you who made it. But it ALSO shows that, HAVING no effects it is NOT cause, because the function of causation is to HAVE effects. And where effects are gone, there IS no cause. Thus is the ***body healed*** by miracles BECAUSE they show the mind MADE sickness, and employed the body to be victim, or EFFECT of what it made."

----

"I am as God created me"

"Holy indeed is he who makes these words his own; arising with them in his mind, recalling them throughout the day, at night bringing them with him as he goes to sleep. His dreams are happy and his rest secure; his safety certain and his ***body healed***, because he sleeps and wakens with the truth before him always. He will save the world because he gives the world what he receives each time he practices the words of truth."

----

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of ***a body*** still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore ***never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt***, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS."

----

"A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed."

----

"A gentler dream, in which his suffering was healed, and where his brother was his friend."

----

"Very simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death. It is a reawakening or a rebirth; a change of mind about the meaning of the world. It is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the world's purpose; the acceptance of the Atonement for oneself. It is the end of dreams of misery, and the glad awareness of the Holy Spirit's final dream. It is the recognition of the gifts of God. It is the dream ***in which the body functions perfectly***, having no function except communication."

----

"Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal the Son of God. And he is healed BECAUSE you offered faith to him, giving him to the Holy Spirit and RELEASING him from every demand your ego would make of him. Thus do you SEE HIM FREE, and in this vision does the Holy Spirit SHARE. And since He SHARES it He HAS given it, and so He healed THROUGH YOU. It is this JOINING Him in a UNITED purpose that MAKES this purpose real because YOU make it WHOLE. And this IS healing. ***The BODY is healed*** BECAUSE YOU CAME WITHOUT IT and joined the Mind in which all healing rests."

----

"If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind must be STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this."

----

"Health is the witness unto health. As long as it is unattested, it remains without conviction. Only ***when DEMONSTRATED*** has it BEEN proved, and MUST compel belief. No-one is healed through double messages. If you wish ONLY to be healed, you heal. Your single PURPOSE makes this possible."

----

"The body, then, is not the source of its own health. Its condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function."

----

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies. Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and ***the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die.*** When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body's condition."

----

"What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him. ***Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him***. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him."

----

"Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death. The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. ***Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness*** proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live.""

----

"Learning must lead beyond the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished only if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension. The arrest of the mind's extension is the ***cause of all illness***, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND'S FUNCTION. Block this, and you have ***blocked health*** because you have BLOCKED THE MIND'S JOY."

----

"Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The ***body's health is fully guaranteed*** because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for ***sickness has become impossible.***"

----

"***Your health*** is a result of your desire to see your brother with no blood upon his hands, nor guilt upon his heart made heavy with the proof of sin. And what you wish is GIVEN you to see."

----

"The body needs NO healing (directly). But the mind that thinks it IS a body is sick indeed! And it is here that Christ sets forth the remedy. His PURPOSE ***folds the body in His light, and fills it with the holiness*** that shines from HIM. And nothing that the body says or does but makes HIM manifest."

----

"No-one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No-one ***suffers pain*** except his choice elects this state for him. No-one can grieve nor fear ***nor think him sick*** unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And ***no-one dies without his own consent***. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

----

"The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to ***guarantee help and healing***. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working ***THROUGH the body*** but not in it. If the mind believes the body is its goal, it will distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it, will ***INDUCE illness*** by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot but foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else."

----

"Sickness is anger taken out upon the body."

----

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

----

"A guiltless mind cannot suffer. The mind, being sane, heals the body."

A year or so ago, someone close to me was sick. We weren’t sure what really happened. It was very strange. It seemed to come out of nowhere overnight, had no apparent cause, and seemed impossible to diagnose.

The person seemed to turn into a bit of a monster, was confused and paranoid, suddenly dropped a whole bunch of longheld beliefs, and seemed to turn into another person. This was baffling and very upsetting.

I took it upon myself to try to "figure out" what was happening. So I started to research. I went online and was googling like a madman. Sometimes I ran across something which seemed it "might" explain what’s happening. Some things seeemd to fit.

Each time I found something, I started to exclaim "this is what it is", or "this is what is causing it!" I started driving the person nuts with my explanations and ideas of what I thought the problem was. Each time that I found something, it seeemd like the true cause. But later, it turned out to be, maybe not "it". Something about it, didn’t quite fully explain all the symptoms.

Did that stop me? Nope. I thought that this meant I should seek even harder to find the truth. That I should have the "ability" to find the truth out there somewhere. I was convinced at the time that the truth IS out there somewhere. That if I just try hard enough, I will find it. That "cause" is out there somewhere. Identifying the cause would seem to suggest what is happening, to explain it, and that this would lead to a SOLUTION.

It never happened. Each time I went seeking, I felt more desperate. Each time I searched, I came up more and more empty handed. I felt exasperated and frustrated. It became obsessive. Surely the truth was there somewhere, and dealing with this person being the way there were was intolerable. I wanted to find the truth. But I was looking for it "out there", and could not find it. The more I sought and did not find, the more upset I became, the more desperate I felt, and the more I then felt COMPELLED to search even harder.

This turned out to be a good thing after a while, because I FAILED. I totally failed to find the truth out there. I "exhausted" all efforts to search externally. So my mind gradually was using up its last vestige of a sense of "possibility", that the truth was out there. I started to notice something. The truth does not seem to be out there! Anywhere! I lost faith in the world and SAW THROUGH the illusion that the world contains the truth. Any kind of truth. Anywhere.

It was a very short hop from this perception to realizing, bringing into question, that perhaps.... THE TRUTH IS NOT ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. That it literally cannot be found. That seeking is a EGO TRAP. The more you seek for truth out there, the LESS you find it. And that’s because, in truth, the truth is INSIDE YOU. Each time I basically "left my inner truth", believing I "did not have the truth", I went searching for it in the world. I really believed strongly, the world HAD the truth in it SOMEWHERE. But it did not. I inadvertently proved it to myself.

So I failed, and that was great, because this idea suddenly popped in, that there is no truth in the world at all. NOTHING in the world is true. This was quite eye opening. It meant that, for example, the sickness which I’d been trying to diagnose and fix this whole time, ALSO wasn’t the truth. It also meant, it wasn’t being caused BY anything out there. The truth was NOT out there. There must have been another cause, an inner cause.

And so began a whole new phase for me, of withdrawing my belief from the world, learning to recognize it is COMPLETELY FALSE, that it is not true in any way, and that also sickness is entirely fake. These were important steps in the direction of forgiveness, and completely shifted the way I was looking at the sick person 180 degrees. Clearly, it wasn’t a question of "what out there is causing it". It was a matter of, "It is NOT being caused".

Gradually as I’ve been practicing this and growing stronger in the recognition that this is true, that earth is 100% false, and nothing in it is true, my miracle-working has gone up. It is my job now not to figure out, "what caused that", but to learn to NOT BELIEVE that it is caused by anything other than the mind. That there is no truth IN what I’m perceiving. People showing up with sickness, are trying to assert a lie. Sickness is recognize more and more as FALSE, an illusion, with no truth to it.

Miracle working **ABSOLUTELY REQUIRES** NOT BELIEVING THIS WORLD IS THE TRUTH. If we believe it is the truth, we will keep it, lock in its form, have no will to heal it, and be convinced by illusions. The truth is not in the world or in form. "Never was love in the world." It is not out there. It’s inside. IT comes from God. God is the only cause, not this world. Mind is the only cause of what’s out there.

What appear to be causes in this world are LIES. Fiction. Fantasy. Illusions. Dreams. Make-believe cause that suggest, yes, the world has truth in it because the world has a causal power. The world causes nothing. It is nothing but effect. Cause, therefore truth, is somewhere else. Truth is always equated with REALITY. Since there is NO truth in this world, not in false perception or in true perception, THE WORLD IS NOT REAL. And therefore it is NOT THERE, and whatever is showing up as "sickness happening" IS NOT HAPPENING.

What is not a CAUSE, is nothing but an EFFECT, and therefore has no reality of its own. Because the world is an effect, and has no truth/cause in it, IT IS NOT THERE. It is not happening. Separation never happened.

Jesus:

"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 that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail."

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

"The cause of healing is the only Cause of everything. 4 It has but one Effect. 5 And in that recognition, causelessness is given no effects and none is seen."

"There is no point in trying to change the world. It is incapable of change because it is merely an effect."

"And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect, it cannot make effects."

"what you made has no cause and no effects at all."

"But it also shows that, having no effects, it is not cause because the function of causation is to have effects"

"The world is but an effect, it is not a cause at all."

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it."

"The world that you see is what you have put there to see; nothing more and nothing less"

"The world you see does not exist."

"Nothing the world believes is true."

"It is the world you see that is impossible."

"You are the dreamer of the world of dreams."

"The world you see has nothing to do with reality."

"The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness."

"The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all."

"Salvation is no more than a reminder this world is not your home."

"There is a place in you where this whole world has been forgotten."

"The world has never been at all. Eternity remains a constant state."

While your physical body is clearly anchored in THIS world, your true self is clearly anchored in ANOTHER world. Your soul, your holy self, is entirely LOCATED in God's Kingdom.

"The soul never leaves the sight of God."

The only transition you make is between being BODY (physical) identified, which is the same as believing "I am in the physical realm", or being spirit (soul) identified, which is the same as "I am in God's Kingdom now".

But you cannot think of yourself as a soul if you think of yourself as anchored at the physical level. If YOU are IN THIS WORLD, you cannot be in the Kingdom. Your body is here, but your SELF is not.

The course becomes more clear and obviously telling us this, if you notice how it asks us to BE the way that God created us.

We're not asked to merely stay entirely OUTSIDE of the Kingdom until the last second where we pass through the pearly gates. We're asked to APPROACH the Kingdom, while in a body, and to RELOCATE our mind INSIDE the Kingdom as far as possible, PRIOR to the final awakening.

"You are safe in God, dreaming of exile" tells you that you ARE IN GOD, and being in God is your safety. The course also tells you the Son of God cannot be happy anywhere in the world UNLESS he knows he is with God. To be WITH God is really to be located IN HEAVEN.

If you think of Heaven as a place beyond this world, which it is, or if you think in terms of "two levels" where Heaven is above and Earth is below, which is accurate, there is temptation to TRAP yourself in this world. You think your body is here, and therefore your self is here. This is body identification.

What we're asked to really do is to lift our mind/self up out of the body, identify with our spirit/soul which is not even in a body, shift our mind into the service of the soul, LOCATE ourselves in God, EXPERIENCE intimacy and love with God, return to ONENESS with Creation, and to do all this as far as possible WHILE we're still having a body.

It's easy to think of Heaven as on the other side of a dimensional division, or a boundary of separation, the gap, which holds heaven and earth apart. But this tempts us to believe we are not IN heaven UNTIL God takes the last step. This is inappropriate. In order to BECOME more loving, at peace, happy, joyful, powerful, under no laws but God's, returning to your true nature, etc you HAVE to start moving INTO heaven, into your spiritual identity, right from the start.

In fact, the only way to lift up OUT of false perception ("the world is false perception") is to move back towards God, re-enter the truth, position yourself IN the light, CENTER yourself in God, locate yourself IN heaven, be surrounded with divinity, and therefore be practically 100% aware of Heaven's presence, even if you are temporarily still in a body.

You are an immortal being, and you cannot die. But this does not mean you're going to be mortal UNTIL God takes you home. Instead, the course is asking you to RECLAIM YOUR IMMORTAL NATURE NOW, live out from that nature while you're here, demonstrate you are under God's laws only while you're here, BE the miraculousness of the soul HERE, and therefore heal the body and repurpose it into a symbol of eternal life.

He's asking us to return to our HEAVENLY NATURE, as fully as possible, in order to become "ready" to take that final 1% step to undo the last threads of the illusion of death and accept the atonement. The atonement is love and light, so to approach it you have to enter into the realm of love and light almost fully immersed. But you WILL NOT BE WILLING to accept the atonement without a HUGE amount of PREPARTION before hand, leading up to it. "Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first."

We cannot even be loving, in this world, unless we are willing to be closer to God while we're here. We can't be the light of the world unless our mind is plugged into spirit and we are literally radiating holiness and light into the world. We cannot perform miracles unless we're going to tap into the unlimited miraculous power of God WHILE we're here. To be miracle minded is to be aligned with and IN the mindset and thought system of heaven itself.

Perhaps we can frame it this way. The physical world is false perception, the lower battlefield of unconsciousness and death. ANY attempt to even START to awaken, to become more spiritual rather than unconscious, requires us to begin re-identifying with spirit. This is why Jesus says:

"Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight."

In pain, we are in the darkness of making the world real and experiencing it as a living hell. If we want to be happier and so on, we're going to have to APPROACH THE LIGHT. This will entail shifting your sense of WHERE you are, from hell to heaven.

The journey begins as you emerge from the painful state and START to move towards God. And this means you are slightly releasing your identification with the body and physicality, and are beginning to open up a spiritual sight which is the eyes of Christ - and Christ is IN heaven.

So even if our body is here in this world, our mind/self/identity must go through a journey BACK to heaven, even from the beginning of the awakening process, such that we should be thinking of ourselves AS WE ARE IN HEAVEN, in order to live out from that truth.

We can't BE loving people if we are not coming FROM LOVE. Love IS GOD. And in this way we are bringing the laws and the love of ANOTHER world TO THIS WORLD. And in order to have a holier relationship with others, while here, we must start relating HOW WE RELATE IN HEAVEN. Holy Relationship mirrors heaven's relationships. Or in other words, we must relate here how we would treat each other IN GOD, as if we ARE in God right now.

We then shine the light of heaven THROUGH the body. We extend love from ANOTHER world through the body. We bring the Holy Spirit's healing TO the world. We atune to our IMMORTAL NATURE while still in a body, thus forcing the body to DEPICT a symbolic representation of eternal life WHILE HERE. You cannot do that if you think of yourself as IN or OF this world.

You must BRING another world TO this world. You must BE AS YOU ARE IN HEAVEN, while visiting hell. You then operate under MIRACULOUS laws, which break the laws of this world while you're here.

This is why it's important to start now to identify yourself AS your soul, to begin operating AS IMMORTAL, to extend God's love here, to shine Heaven's light into the darkness, and to be as close as possible to how God created you BEFORE you get to heaven.

"But the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here, BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT. And what you call with love WILL come to you."

"The miracle, therefore, has a unique function, and is motivated by a unique Teacher, Who brings the laws of another world to this one."

"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."

"The test of EVERYTHING on earth is simply this: "What is it FOR?" The answer makes it what it IS for you. It has NO meaning of itself, yet you can GIVE reality to it, according to the purpose which YOU serve."

What you use the world FOR, what PURPOSE you give it, what it MEANS to you, and the GOAL that you ascribe to it, determines everything about WHY it is there and HOW you see it.

If you give the world a purpose of death, you steer towards false perception and murder and hell. If you give the world a purpose of resurrection, you steer towards true perception and heaven. And which purpose you choose determines how you interpret what you see.

The world isn't just sitting there as a WHAT. It's sitting there as a WHY. The world was made FOR A REASON. It was chosen specifically and deliberately. Its making was intentional and on purpose. It was made to serve a GOAL and to accomplish that goal. It's not just a "thing", it's a DEVICE.

"The concept is really one of space-time BELIEF. The physical world exists only because man can use it to correct his UNBELIEF, which placed him in it originally. As long as man KNEW he did not need anything, the whole device was unnecessary."

"The ego made the world as IT perceives it, but the Holy Spirit, the RE-INTERPRETER of what the ego made, sees it only as a teaching device for bringing you home."

It's not enough to ask "what the world is". Science can study the WHAT as long as it likes, but it's not asking the right question. You can't just look at the nature of the world through analysis of WHAT, to discover the REASON WHY it exists at all. For that, you have to ask WHY it's there at all, what it means, and what purpose it is serving. Then it becomes obvious WHY it is the way it is.

We're also taught in ACIM that everything is deliberate, because there is free will. Anything that happens MUST have your consent. Nothing happens WITHOUT your choosing it. You choose everything ON PURPOSE. You are completely deliberate, intentional, and responsible. Nothing happens at all unless it serves a purpose. And everything must have a purpose.

"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."

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you."

The world did not exist before the separation from God. It was made ON PURPOSE, to serve a goal. The goal was to deny God, to make separation real, to murder God's son, to make possible what is impossible, to bring about death, and to rule a kingdom in which God was absent. That is the original PURPOSE of this world. That is WHY it seems to be here. That is why the "what it is" is the way it is, and why it functions the way it does, and HOW it accomplishes this goal.

Make no mistake here. The world isn't just sitting there happily churning over all innocent and sweet. While the world is actually nothing, we give it belief and try to MAKE it serve the purpose of hell. We made it by rebelling against God, throwing away our inheritance, not WANTING to communicate with God, and by wanting to re-create ourselves in our own images. That's how spacetime came to be made as an opposite to omnipresence and eternity. That's that's why "the world was made as an attack on God."

So if we're just examining what the world is, we're not really looking at the rather extraordinary fact that it is in fact "the hell you made" for the purpose of fighting against heaven and trying to overthrow God's reality. That's WHY it's here. That's WHAT it is FOR. Or at least, that was what it WAS for, in the past, when we made it with our egos. The world functions the way it does simply because that's how its function SERVES the PURPOSE of destruction.

What ACIM is then telling us is that, since the world itself is nothing, and acts like a TOOL, to serve a certain purpose, with a certain USE, we can choose instead to RE-PURPOSE it. To give it a NEW GOAL. A new purpose which can serve a higher goal. We can take what we made, which was originally a weapon for destruction, and turn it into a way to UNDO the weapon. We can take hell, and convert it into a reflection of heaven, so that it will disappear in light. And we can USE it to bring ourselves and others back to God through holy relationship.

"For here, the GOAL of the relationship is abruptly shifted to the EXACT OPPOSITE of what it was."

"For, once the unholy relationship has ACCEPTED the goal of holiness, it can never again be what it was."

This means giving the world a different PURPOSE from the one we originally gave it. And that means it has to have a different GOAL than the one of murder and death that we originally gave it. So now, whatever state of mind you're in, whatever attitude you have, you have to ask yourself what you are USING IT FOR, or what purpose or goal you are trying to accomplish. Are you using it for attack to bring about the goal of death, or are you USING it for resurrection and healing and the goal of atonement, to restore the sonship and bring us back to God?

"Take this from me and look upon it, judging it for me. Let me not see it as a sign of sin and death, nor USE it for destruction.

Teach me how NOT to make of it an OBSTACLE (goal) to peace, but let You USE it FOR me, to FACILITATE its coming (of the higher goal)."

Let's be clear, that the power of the mind and the law of cause and effect determines that nothing can happen without your will, and anything that happens MUST be something you want. And by wanting it you WANT it to SERVE a purpose for you. To fullfill a FUNCTION. And a function is a way of operating that leads to the accomplishment of a goal. Our true function is to create life, and our false function is to destroy. Even YOU have a function that serves the creator of that function, because your function is to serve God for HIS purpose of sharing creation.

""Let me not use this to hide my function from me."

"I would use this as an opportunity to fulfill my function." "Let me not use this to justify a function God did not give to me."

Even all forms of sickness are there to SERVE a function, for a PURPOSE. This is why "sickness is a defense against the truth". It serves the PURPOSE of protecting you from the truth and hiding from it in darkness, by blocking the light/life, which implements forms of death. So long as a person has a USE FOR the sickness, serving a purpose, BENEFITING from it, wanting it, NEEDING it, choosing it, the sickness remains. And sickness is always ONLY there because of the PURPOSE it is serviing for the person. All sickness is intentional and deliberate and providing a function to achieve a GOAL.

"The patient could merely rise up without their aid and say, "I have no USE for this." There is no form of sickness that would not be cured at once."

"No one can heal unless he understands what PURPOSE sickness seems to serve. For then he understands as well its purpose has no meaning. Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all. When this is seen, healing is automatic."

"Who but yourself evaluates a threat, decides escape is necessary, and sets up a series of defenses to reduce the threat that has been judged as real? All this cannot be done unconsciously."

"Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay when, for an instant, truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are you sick, that truth may go away, and threaten your establishments no more. How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth?"

So as ACIM rightly states, we should always ask, WHAT IS IT FOR? What am I using this FOR? What is the goal I am trying to achieve? What is the purpose of this? Am I using this for an ego purpose, and if so, how can I switch to a higher purpose? What was my original purpose in CHOOSING this, for what NEED, to achieve what GOAL? Why do I still believe I need it? Maybe I'm mistaken about my REASON FOR THIS and can choose otherwise?

How can I use this to FACILITATE the coming of peace, or the fulfillment of a higher function? How can I USE the world which I made in hate, to demonstrate the truth and awaken my brothers? What renewed spiritual PURPOSE can I give TO the world, to USE it in such a way, that it brings about the undoing of the world and the restoration of holy relationship and health and happiness? How can I USE the world for the GOAL OF GOD, in which everything in the world is seen with forgiveness so that it only serves the purpose of awakening and atonement?

When the Holy Spirit's PURPOSE for the world is accomplished, when the atonement is complete, the world no longer needs to SERVE this new purpose. And WITHOUT A PURPOSE, it simply now disappears into nothing.

"The ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary"

"And, like all the things you made, it can be used to serve ANOTHER purpose, and to be means for something ELSE. It can be used to heal, and NOT to hurt, if you so wish."

"Yet we have learned that the Holy Spirit has another use for all the illusions you have made, and therefore He sees another purpose in them. To the Holy Spirit, the world is a place where you learn to forgive yourself what you think of as your sins. In this perception, the physical appearance of temptation becomes the spiritual recognition of salvation."

"What purpose could it serve? What is it for?"

"In any situation in which YOU are uncertain, the FIRST thing to consider, very simply, is, "What do I want to come of this? What is it FOR?""

"What purpose has an idol, then? What is it FOR?"

"The purpose of the world you see is to obscure your function of forgiveness, and provide you with a justification for forgetting it."

"Let us forget the purpose of the world the past has given it."

"For you must change your mind about the purpose of the world, if you would find escape."

"Since the purpose of the world is not the one I ascribed to it, there must be another way of looking at it."

"If I so choose, I can depart this world entirely. It is not death which makes this possible, but it is change of mind about the purpose of the world."

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

"The Great Transformer of perception will undertake WITH you the careful searching of the mind that MADE this world, and uncover TO YOU the SEEMING reasons for your making it. In the light of the REAL reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will SHOW you that there is NO reason here at all. Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty. And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release."

"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the Laws of God. NOT as the Law Itself upholds the universe as God created it. But in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has. Corrected error IS the error's end. And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error. There IS another purpose in the world that error made because it has another Maker, Who CAN reconcile its goal with His Creator's Purpose."

"The simple way to let this be achieved is merely this; to let the body have no purpose from the past, when you were sure you KNEW its purpose was to foster guilt. For this insists your crippled picture is a lasting sign of what it represents. This leaves no space in which a DIFFERENT view, ANOTHER purpose, can be given it. You do NOT know its purpose. You but gave ILLUSIONS of a purpose to a thing you made to hide your function from yourself. This thing WITHOUT a purpose CANNOT hide the function that the Holy Spirit gave. Let, then, ITS purpose and YOUR function both be reconciled at last, and seen as one."

"Illusions serve the purpose they were MADE to serve. And FROM their purpose, they derive whatever meaning that they seem to have. God gave to ALL illusions that were made ANOTHER purpose that would justify a miracle, WHATEVER form they took. In every miracle ALL healing lies, for God gave Answer to them all as one."

"And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

GOD's ONLY LAW: THE GOLDEN RULE - ACIM IN A NUTSHELL

In A Course in Miracles the "Golden Rule" is a fundamental LAW of God. It is true in Heaven AND on Earth.

The rule is a law of creation, a law of mind. IT APPLIES TO YOU ALWAYS! Since you share an equality of perfection with all parts of creation, with every brother, and with God, it follows that if anything applies to others, it applies to you equally. There are no special laws that apply only to some and not others. No-one including you is excluded from anything. Heaven is all-inclusive and so God's law is all-inclusive. God's INCLUSIVITY ensures that EVERY SON in the sonship SHARES EVERYTHING, what applies to one applies to all, and NOTHING IS EXCLUSIVE. This is the basis of the Golden Rule.

This is woven throughout the course and present in many many statements. The fundamental idea is that in heaven you recognize your brother as identical to and perfectly equal to yourself, sharing everything with you equally. What applies to you applies to everyone, or to no-one at all. If you deserve love, so does everyone. If you judge another as wrong, you are also wrong. This produces a law which doesn't simply say "IF you treat others a certain way, hopefully you MIGHT be treated in a similar way." Instead, it is perfectly absolute, ie:

You do to YOURSELF what you DO to others, because you share perfect equality with them at all times. So that means, literally, you CANNOT ESCAPE CONSEQUENCES of whatever it is you think applies only to others. You cannot do ANYTHING to anyone without doing it simultaneously and directly to YOURSELF.

You do not get to `opt in` or `opt out` of this law. It is ALWAYS APPLYING, even while you are dreaming, and even while you are in the ego. The ego suggests that this law *does not exist*, and so it thinks it can get away with murder. But it cannot. If you attack another you ARE attacking yourself. You cannot be hurtful toward someone without being hurt by your own hurtfulness.

This means that the Golden Rule is a permanent, inescapable law of REALITY, fundamental to existence itself, and applies to everything everywhere at all times. If you attempt to deny it or pretend it does not apply, you WILL HURT YOURSELF in your attempts to hurt others. You can think of it like direct self-inflicted karma. And this is why the secret to salvation is that "you have done this to yourself". You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequences of choosing attack.

This applies at the level of the BODY also. Whatever you use the body for it becomes to you. It is a communication device. If you use it for attack to transmit attack, YOU will become attacked, because you are BEING attack, and your body WILL show signs of attack also. What you THOUGHT was applying only to the sinner you projected onto, APPLIES TO YOU, and so your projected sin ATTACKS YOU! The body thus will become weak and sick and die. But if you recognize at all times the Golden Rule, and learn that you *MUST* love everyone equally AT ALL TIMES, otherwise you are NOT loving yourself, then you are bringing God's Word to others and this *guarantees* your body will be perfectly healthy. ALL sickness and even death arises from DENIAL OF THE GOLDEN RULE.

So really ACIM is quite simple. It is simply saying that this Golden Rule exists, it is absolute unavoidable LAW, it doesn't matter if you're awake or sleeping it still is applying, and so you CANNOT escape the result of trying to make something to apply to others that you don't want to apply to yourself. You therefore simply have to honor the law and work WITH it rather than against it, learn to love EVERYONE EQUALLY and FULLY SO THAT you yourself are included in that and are loved fully, and therefore express love to others in the same way you would express it to yourself, because giving love INCREASES the love in YOU. If you comply with the law, you will be SET FREE from the ego!

The Golden Rule is also the basis of all miracles. Miracles are founded on the principle that there is union and equality with all brothers, rather that separation. That we are all equally innocent. That we all deserve unconditional love. And that when you recognize this in your brother you WILL recognize it in yourself simultaneously, because what applies to one applies to all. What applies to one son, applies to the whole sonship. So when you express from this all-INCLUSIVE love, towards your brother, emphasizing the love IN THEM that is YOUR LOVE, you heal them and miraculously help them.

At times, when we are in ego and we think the law does not apply, and are in denial, we also are unconscious of what we are DOING TO OURSELVES. And so we do not think a) that we did this to ourselves, and b) do not even SEE ourselves doing it to ourselves. Thus we think not only a) other people do stuff to us that they don't do to themselves, b) stuff applies to others than doesn't apply to us. These are ego lies. Underneath them the Golden Rule STILL applies. We are still DOING TO OURSELVES what we are ALSO DOING TO OTHERS. At all times.

And so this is where "shared interests" come into play. You cannot have someone be guilty while you are innocent, nor can you find someone unworthy while you think you are worthy, or be justified in anger that someone is is wrong and not you. Any time something is seeming to apply to someone else that does not apply to you equally, you are in DENIAL, and WHAT you are denying is the Golden Rule - the truth about all creation. You have to UNLEARN the ego's paradigm of it being POSSIBLE to have something apply to someone else SEPARATELY from what applies to you, and LEARN that what applies to you MUST APPLY TO OTHERS AS WELL. That means either BOTH of you are guilty, or BOTH of you are innocent, and there are NO EXCEPTIONS to this. So if you want to be happy and innocent, you MUST find your brother to be innocent also. To be loved, you MUST love. To be free of ego, you MUST overlook ego everywhere. To overcome sin, you MUST forgive your brother's sin.

"Forgiveness recognizes your brother has not sinned and in this view are ALL YOUR SINS FORGIVEN." This is the GOLDEN RULE!!! Comply PERFECTLY with the Golden Rule and you will be in the Atonement!

Here are just a handful of quotes relating to this...

"Consider the Golden Rule again. You are asked to behave towards others as you would have them behave toward you. This means that the perception of both must be accurate, since the Golden Rule is the Order for appropriate behavior. You can't behave appropriately unless you perceive accurately, because appropriate behavior DEPENDS on lack of level confusion. The presence of level confusion ALWAYS results in variable reality testing, and hence variability in behavioral appropriateness."

"Projection still has this "hurling" connotation, because it involves hurling something you DO NOT want, and regard as dangerous and frightening, to someone else. This is the opposite of the Golden Rule, and having placed this rule upside down, the reverse of miracles, or projection, follows automatically."

"Denial should be directed only to error, and projection should be limited to truth. You should truly give as you have truly received. The Golden Rule can work effectively only on this basis."

"As you release, so will you BE released. FORGET THIS NOT, or love will be unable to find you, and comfort you."

"And, as he loves them, so he looks upon HIMSELF with love and gentleness. He would no more condemn himself for HIS mistakes than damn another."

"When the Bible says "Judge not that ye be not judged" it merely means that if you judge the reality of others at all, you will be unable to avoid judging your own."

"If your brothers are part of YOU, and you blame THEM for your deprivation, you ARE blaming yourself."

"Quickly and gladly is His vision given to anyone who is but willing to see his brother sinless."

"You choose between your brother and yourself, and you will gain as much as he will lose, and what you lose is what is given him."

"Do not allow your brother not to remember, for his forgetfulness is YOURS. But YOUR remembering is HIS, for God cannot be remembered alone."

"Forgive your brother, and you CANNOT separate yourself from him, nor from his Father."

"In separation from your brother was the first attack upon yourself begun. And it is THIS the world bears witness to."

"My brother is my Savior. Let me not attack the Savior You have given me."

"Would you cut a brother off from the Light that is yours? "

"As you see him you will see yourself. Whether this be through the use of psychological tests, or by making judgment in some other way, the effect is still the same. Whenever you have judged anyone, it is impossible for you not to make this judgment on yourself."

"When you have seen your brothers as yourself, you will be RELEASED to knowledge, having learned to FREE yourself, of Him Who knows of freedom."

"If you see your own hatred AS your brother, you are not seeing HIM."

"Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others, AND NOT YOURSELF, have done this TO you. You WILL receive the message you give, because it is the message you WANT. You may believe that you judge your brothers by the messages they give YOU, but you HAVE judged them by the message you give THEM. Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them, that could bring joy to YOU. It is the DENIAL of the spark that brings depression, and whenever you see your brothers WITHOUT it, you ARE denying God."

"This demonstration EXONERATES those who misperceive, by establishing beyond doubt that they have NOT hurt anyone."

"Is healing frightening? To many, yes. For accusation is a bar to love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers. They stand firmly in the way of trust and peace, proclaiming that the frail can HAVE no trust, and that the damaged HAVE no grounds for peace. Who has been injured BY his brother, and could love and trust him still? He HAS attacked, and will attack again. Protect him not, because your damaged body shows that you must be protected FROM him. To forgive may be an act of charity, but NOT his due. He may be PITIED for his guilt, but NOT exonerated. And if you forgive him his transgressions, you but ADD to all the guilt that he has really earned. "

"The ONLY way to heal is to be healed."

To the ego, it will not attempt to teach anything that it does not already know. It relies entirely on its own learning or what it already believes is true.

In this sense, everything within the ego thought system has already been there for a very long time and there is "nothing new".

The ego does not therefore really learn anything. It just reveals to itself more pieces of what was already within its thought system, but kept unconscious.

The ego pretends to learn by gradually bringing into the open more information which seemed hidden before, from its vast reserves of useless information, laws and regulations, any anything that sustains its thought system or makes it more real.

The ego does not want you to be open to guidance, it does not want you to trust a source of information outside of its thought system, and it's not really interested in learning. It's entire purpose is to unlearn the truth, to block the truth, and to keep you in the dark. And it can do that very effectively with an ILLUSION of learning, in the guise of learning something which is not really God's truth. And we've done this a lot.

There is a line in the Course for example which says "your mind is a blank". Even though the ego mind seems filled with thoughts and activities, it is really filled with nothing but illusions and so nothing is really happening. Even our ego thinking is not real activity. It is not creation. Plus we're given ourselves what Jesus describes as a "learning disability", an attempt to make our ability to learn more difficult, so that we will resist the truth.

Now, as you become willing to un-learn the ego's bullshit, and reveal the real truth to yourself, you'll begin to develop trust in a source of information outside of the ego's mind. Holy Spirit is there to help, along with many Mighty Companions.

But in order to "learn" what is outside of the ego's thought system, it requires the un-doing or un-learning of the ego, to make room for what's to come IN from outside. And also the rules for learning change as you open up to the Holy Mind.

In the ego's system, it will only attempt to teach if it ensures that you will not learn anything, or it sets you up as solely a teacher who is not a student, a dictatorship basically. The students are considered inferior and the teacher is superior. Teaching or the classroom is then more or less a prison.

It won't let you attempt to teach or even feel confident about teaching, unless you seem to already know everything there is to know, and are certain enough of being in control of that enough to be able to seem to give it to someone else. And when the teaching is occurring, the teacher is not intent on learning at all.

This works differently with Holy Spirit. In order to learn the truth, conditions have to be set up where you are willing to receive new input. But because in the One Mind giving and receiving are equal/one/balanced, there cannot be input without output. You cannot "share" and thus experience the new truth, or learn it, unless you are also willing to have it flow through you and extend out of you. In a way this means you cannot "learn the truth" without the truth flowing through you and being shared, in a "teaching and learning" role.

The Kingdom of God must be extended in order to exist, and that means the truth has to be shared. You have to be open to having that truth come through you, even if you do not seem to know what that truth is going to say. You won't necessarily get a head's up and you aren't going to be able to learn it all ahead of time. Instead, it's going to only be fed to you, shared with you, and shared through and beyond you, in the moment, in the instant that you are actually attempting to give it to another.

This requires that you drop what you think you know, open up to trust in a higher source, and that source may not even be seen or directly accessed yet. This therefore requires FAITH, ie trust that even if you yourself do not know, you're going to be supported and given what you need and told what to do and where to go, spontaneously, as and when it's the right time. In a way it's like being blind or in the dark blindfolded, but trusting someone else to guide you safely to the exact right destination without hurting yourself.

If you are unwilling to "teach" because you don't think you know the subject matter well enough, you will never learn it. Teaching means demonstrating, so it doesn't necessarily have to be through writing or traditional roles, it can just be by being a living example of love. But what is true for you, you will demonstrate/teach. If you stop yourself from TRYING, you won't gain access to support and guidance. You have to take a leap of faith. You have to be willing to be mistaken, and you need to be open to learning AS you teach. You teach, in order to learn.

Basically you just need to show up, be willing, and step into a FLOW. As the flow begins, as you start to express, IF you trust the truth you are attempting to express, MORE TRUTH WILL COME AS YOU GO. The new truth will only enter once the flow is flowing.

It's kind of like plumbing. You've got this water in the pipe, but the only way new water is going to enter the pipe, is when the water that's already in the pipe starts to flow out the other end. Otherwise there is no room, and there's no flow. A lack of flow is a lack of extension. The water can't extend out of the pipe if you won't RECEIVE and if you are not willing to just be open minded to let whatever comes in, come in, just as it's needed, spontaneously.

Heaven's support, and the flow of truth, is very spontaneous. It is ready to act NOW. You don't get the whole download on the spot and then go write about it. You just make yourself flow out the stuff you already know, albeit limited, maybe based on just one little insight, and then you get into a flow about it.

As you do, Heaven comes to support you. The reason is that you are now fulfilling your function. You are aligning yourself with the truth by being willing to have it express through you, you are letting truth sort of align your wavelength to Heaven/Holy Spirit, and the result of that is that Heaven actually rushes in to support and help you. Mighty companions show up. Jesus and Holy Spirit start to wisper in your ear. You start to be told specific words and corrections and things you weren't expecting.

You start to "channel". And as you do this, you receive stuff that you didn't even know beforehand, and you therefore learn, often just as much as anyone else reading or hearing what you expressed. And then you may find yourself going back to read what you wrote because you yourself are its student as well.

This also means you are learning to COMMUNICATE. Communication in the Course is different to the ego's communication. The ego only communicates what it thinks its already knows and nothing else, regurgitating the past. Real communication entails the EXTENSION OF TRUTH, the flow of truth, in true sharing, where receiving and giving are one, and where there is an openness to spontaneously, creatively express from a place that's totally outside the ego. Just in the moment, freely flowing a loving expression.

So it takes an act of faith. Miracles are taken first on faith, because you may come to trust something which is as yet unseen, but which is there, and which has proven it must be there by its witnesses, ie evidence or proof which manifests as a result of taking a leap and putting one foot in front of the next. You don't have to teach alone, and you can't. You can only truly teach truth if you are open to receiving it at the same time, and then it speaks through you.

Holy Spirit is the highest communication medium, in that He is so pure and devoid of ego that he can perfectly "channel God", as it were, to be the Voice for God. You also can become a Voice for God if you are willing to spontaneously flow Heaven and therefore to actually communicate. Just speaking words is not communication, because the ego is very good at just waffling on about bullshit. But when the words are coming from a higher place, extending God as a "Teacher of God", now you are learning God because you are teaching God.

In essence you should ALWAYS be in this state of "learning", not so much a state of accumulating or building up some knowledge base, but being always RECEPTIVE and CREATIVE in the flow of truth without having to know beforehand what's going to be said or what will happen.

As you learn to trust this, you will teach and it will become your own teaching of yourself as well. The best way to learn is to try to teach someone else what the truth is, to prove to yourself what the truth is. If you can communicate, truly, to another, you will learn the truth. The act of attempting to tell someone else what the truth is, causes your mind to become creative and dynamic and spontaneous in visualizing and sort of filling in the blanks as you go. The MODE of mind functioning to "express" puts it into a state of flow, and you just need to get stuff MOVING OUT even if it feels like you are totally winging it, or even "fake it till you make it". Just the act of expressing even without knowing what the next word is going to be, allows guidance to come IN immediately as it is needed.

You only need to start out with a little idea. What I usually am doing is I just had some kind of spontaneous idea or insight, or I just learned some basic thing, or something became relevant for me in the past 24 hours. So I will start to write about it based on what I already know... ego learning.... but I go about it with Holy Spirit/Jesus at hand, and then they start to inject more flow and more idea and more clarifications and as the whole thing unfolds, it ends up being an education not just for others but for me also.

When I get to the end I then have to go back and re-read it myself, to digest it and take it in more, because what came out was usually mind-expanding in some way. This very post itself for example, I was not planning to write whatsoever, until I was inspired by a post that Myron Jones wrote today, and felt this intuitive "excitement" about elaborating on. I did not know how this would come out or in what words until I just started to do it.

So just start with what you think you know and be open to extending truth and just making yourself available, just sit down and start writing something, and so long as you are expressing truth in some way, Heaven will rush in to support you and give you help and put words in your mouth. This is how you learn to "channel" or be a Voice for God.

Speaking or writing the truth gets the attention of Heaven, angels will come to you to help you, and Holy Spirit and Jesus will be right there to support you and guide you. This is also partly how miracles come about, because as you spontaneously trust and start to speak the truth about someone and diffuse illusions and authoritatively command an expression of the truth of God, things line up and you magnetize Heaven's strength to you and through you, and then the earth moves. It's a collaboration. Your willingness is all it takes to get into the flow. Just start somewhere and see what happens as you go. But if you don't start at all, you'll never see the miracles and you won't learn.

Teach like a fool. Teach even when you don't know what to say. Just start doing it. The rest will follow automatically. Seek the Kingdom of God and express it and your way will be made straight and will be held up by Heaven's helpers.

For example, on my website I started a 'questions and answers' service, because I felt that I wanted to be pushed to have to answer things that I did not know how to answer, and wanted people to come up with questions so that I wouldn't be able to premeditate or just write about what was relevant to me at the time. What I found happens is, when someone asks something, it's usually not something I even thought of as being a topic people needed help with.

And then I'll ask Holy Spirit what He wants to say about this, and to please help me with it. And then I start writing about it, and I just get into this place where the most amazing stuff gets written, especially when I didn't really know what I was going to say or what there even was to say about it. It all just comes together because I TRUST that I'm going to be helped and the help shows up. Provided I am willing to just show up and be available and let the truth be written through me.

ALL problems are ONE problem - you believe you are separate from God.

There IS no other problem.

The ego, however, has been extremely clever in making the illusion that there are many many many separate problems. It has tried to fragment the problem, ie introduce separation into the separation.

What you've ended up with is a world where the FORM of the problem appears to be different. All 'forms' (objects etc) are the 'form of error'. The error is the separation from God. The FORM that the separation is taking varies greatly. The ego also has you use the body's senses to look upon form and to regard its form AS the problem. So it tells you like...

"The kitchen sink is broken therefore there is a problem with the kitchen sink".

"The car battery has died so there is a problem with the car battery".

This completely covers over what the problem really is. These are fake problems. They are decoys. They are MEANT to distract you and fixate you on FORMS - physical matter - so that you will not look to the mind where the real problem is. Like, right now as I look out the window, it just started snowing. So now there's a problem - it's snowing out, so if I go out there it's going to be cold. So now I have a problem, and I must problem solve THIS form of a problem by fetching my jacket. That seems to then SOLVE the problem - this problem at least. But it doesn't solve world hunger. It doesn't solve drought. It doesn't solve your favorite TV show ending before you're ready to be done with it.

The ego keeps all problems completely separate by identifying problems as forms, so that unique forms of problems need unique solutions. And it appears you CAN solve unique problems with unique solutions. Except that this a) makes you think you've really solved the real problem (which is not true), and b) ensures that there is no "transfer value" between problems. You fix this problem, another one will pop up. You fix your toaster, your fridge melts. You fix your car, your window breaks. Whatever it is. Endless separate problems, all designed to DISGUISE the ONE PROBLEM.

The ONE PROBLEM is that you believe your relationship with God has gone to the shits and its broken and now you are separate from the only One you can ever fully love - God and His Creation. That's the ONLY problem that ever exists.

So then because you're so distracted by the ego's illusion of problems, when problems 'happen' you get all caught up in how you need to 'forgive this problem' and 'forgive that person' and 'forgive my body' and all this bullshit. Its' all kind of at a surface level because your attention is really distracted by all this external stuff. It's meant to distract you. Ego doesn't want you realizing there is only one problem and one solution.

When you car breaks down it is because you believe you are separate from God.

When your house catches fire it is because you are separate from God.

When your cat dies its because you are separate from God.

When it rains on your wedding day its because you are separate from God.

When the wrong politician wins an election its because you are separate from God.

When you run out of your favorite food its because you are separate from God.

NONE of these thing could even EXIST if you weren't separate from God. EVERY single problem in the entire physical universe is the direct result of you separating from God. The physical universe ITSELF is the FORM of your being separate from God - it is a depiction of your broken relationship. And your separation from God IS the problem. Not your cat, your car, your house, your job, your friends, your upsets, your fears, bla bla bla... endless list of bullshit. You only have ONE problem.

Your relationship with God. Something seemed to happen to damage your relationship with God, and the RESULT was that you ended up in hell. Hell - this world - is ONLY the symptoms of a blocked relationship with God. It has NO other basis. There aren't any other sources of problems or causes of problems anywhere in the entire universe. All other sources are fakes and decoys and cover-ups and false origins.

It all stems from you believing that you've had a lover's tiff with God and now you're not on speaking terms and you've gone off in a huff all pissed off and at the same time upset and ashamed and feeling bad about it, because you believe you've hurt God and destroyed the only meaningful relationship you ever had.

What are you going to do to solve this problem?

How are you going to REPAIR and HEAL this ONE problem?

How are you going to get yourself BACK to God? How are you going to clear the air, forgive everything that seemed to happen, let go of all 'bad blood' and get back to where you and God are IN LOVE again? How are you going to get there if you are not directly addressing and undoing your belief in separation?

Yes you can work on it by addressing how the separation shows up in tiny fragments. You can address individual little problems in your life like your toaster blew up and singed your hairdo. You can forgive that little bit of upset. Or you can forgive that political candidate that you despise and undo a bit of separation there. But that's just scratching the surface. That shows how deeply embedded you are in the APPEARANCE of problems in the world, which is just a surface coat of distraction. Why not TARGET your efforts at DIRECTLY repairing your relationship with God - which IS what this is all about?

If you want to undo separation, it means you are going to have to get back to being ONE with God. It means you're going to have to have a REUNION. It means you're going to have to COMMUNE with Him. It means you need to take all the reasons that you think you are separate from Him, all the problems that you think are coming between you, and offer them up with a willingness to let them go. Because all your grievances and all your problems are grievances against God. Period. You think it's about other people. It's about you and God. That's all there is.

So ask yourself, as you forgive, exactly how much DISTANCE is there between you in that forgiveness effort, and God? Is it scratching the surface and skirting around the real problem? Is it actually bringing you closer to God? Are you becoming aware of the way that you are trying to avoid and deny God and stay far away from Him? This is what it is all about. You need to heal your separation from God, and nothing else.

You're not going to heal it if you're not willing to GO TO GOD and make an effort to reunite. You're not going to heal it if you're not willing to admit everything is about your relationship to God and that this relationship needs to be healed. You're not going to heal if you think your job is to just `forgive illusions` or `see my brother correctly` or whatever. Those are just tools and stepping stones. The huge elephant in the living room that people don't want to touch with a barge pole is GOD. God loves you and wants to be with you again and you're having this stand-off and making up all these extraneous complicated reasons why it is 'other stuff' that you have to deal with.

There is nothing you need to do other than to heal your connection to God and release absolutely everything that comes between you. If you want to totally simplify the Course, simply work on what's happening between you and God that keeps you apart, and remove that stuff with Holy Spirit so that you can be with God again. It's that simple. Being with God is all you really want. It's the only thing that means anything to you in reality. It's your heart's desire. You would be hugely relieved and overjoyed to learn that God still loves you and you CAN be together again. All other goals are fake goals and distractions.

God... please help me to be with you.

God... I give this belief in body sickness to you because it's just coming between us and I want to be with you.

God... I've been all pissed off at my coworker and have been trying to forgive them and its not working, because I know its not really about them its about us, and the anger I feel is anger at you, and I don't want to be angry at you any more. Please forgive me and correct me so we can be One.

God... I recognize this lack of money is directly a symbol of us being separate and I have no real interest in money, all I want is to be with you. Please heal this absence of you in my life and replace it with symbols of our togetherness, until I'm able to be with you fully.

God... please heal my mind of the belief that I am separate from you, which is showing up in my body as disease and threat. I know it's because I believe our relationship is diseased and that I am threatened by you. Please help me to feel safe with you and know that I'm mistaken for believing we're at war.

God... help me undo my belief that we are not loving toward each other. I was mistaken for thinking I hurt you in any way and I recognize and accept your unconditional love and forgiveness.

Go to town on it. Include God in everything. This is the purpose of the Course.

"Perhaps there is a fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy."

Perhaps worse than guilt, shame is self destructive and a form of self imprisonment. There is not much spoken of this in ACIM. But shame is very prevalent and heavy and harmful.

I looked up psychology definitions of how shame and guilt are different. A loose summary goes like this...

GUILT - A kind of internal judgement that you feel, based on what you did outside of yourself. Like attacking another person or breaking some moral or social code. It's not too far removed from remorse or regret, and somewhat "feels sorry for" the person. It to some degree recognizes that your behavior was wrong but it doesn't condemn your entire self.

SHAME - A kind of external judgement upon your entire inner self, based on what seems to be true of you. This can be based on something you did that you're guilty of, or just on some condition that you have. It can be based on your body's state or life situation or relationship status or whatever.

It's a condemnation that you are not deserving of love, you're lacking, deficient, inadequate, not good enough, weak, decrepit, insufficient, inferior, bad, sinful, evil, unlovable. Somehow that your SELF is fundamentally judged as "of lesser or no value". That you are not equal to others, you're beneath them.

When you apply shame to yourself, it's like a form of self punishment and imprisonment. ACIM does say that when you attack in any way, it induces guilt. But what it doesn't go into is that once you've found yourself to be guilty, you now decide that BECAUSE OF your guilt, you do not deserve forgiveness. To be found guilty is to sin and NOT forgive it. Having found yourself guilty, you've decided you are UNFORGIVABLE. And that also means you should not be loved, you are unworthy, and you should be ashamed. That you should feel deeply bad about yourself as if you've "become a permanent sinner".

Feeling ashamed is feeling really bad about who you are, as if you are inherently flawed. It causes you to withdraw and separate and hide and shrivel up. It's a disempowered state. Shame can also be fairly closely tied to embarassment. E.g. if you get pulled over by the cops for speeding for you might feel guilty for breaking the law, and then feel ashamed at having to "face the judgement" and be found guilty, for it to be proven that you were deficient and flawed. And if that's taking place in public with a crowd watching, you're going to feel shameful.

Shame is very self destructive. It's one thing to feel guilty, and the course talks a lot about guilt. But once you've found yourself guilty, you start to punish yourself. You agree you do not deserve forgiveness, which relegates you to being some kind of inferior creature. Something that does not DESERVE to be treated well. Like some caged animal that has no rights.

Because surely there is something inherently WRONG with you, that you did this. And this puts a major dent in your sense of worthiness. You feel unworthy of love and forgiveness. You feel unworthy of happiness. You feel unworthy of having relationships. You feel unworthy of existing, because you're not valuable enough to "qualify".

Within that state, a person moves further towards suicide. It's like they are bringing a ton of bricks down upon their own head. It's self condemnation. A desire to hurt and destroy oneself. And it's rooted in this belief that you don't deserve to live or be happy, therefore you deserve to DIE and be unhappy. And if death were to come to punish you, you'd practically welcome it, unwilling to choose against it, because you yourself think it would be justified, based on your self loathing.

You can become ashamed even just through simple mistakes. You can mistakenly accidentally hurt someone. And then you might feel ashamed of yourself that you were so incapable of avoiding it that there must be something wrong with you. You can also take on shame through public judgement by others, peer pressure, social pressures and so on.

You can feel ashamed from not fitting in, being different, looking and moving differently, not matching up to some kind of ideal standard. Shame is always a discrepancy between what you are "meant" to be like ideally, and what you are actually like (due to ego). You can feel ashamed for having an uncommon trait or body shape or being "too this" or "not enough of that." Not measuring up. Shame evaluates that you are simply LACKING, which places you below everyone else in the pits of hell.

Feeling ashamed makes you feel like you are some kind of lesser creature. That you don't have the same rights as others. That you can be used and stepped upon and mistreated, and you have no right to stand up to it. It's welcomed as though you think you deserve it, like you're this hideous unlovable ugly wart of inhumanity that everyone hates. And because you then believe you do not deserve love or respect or freedom, your only seeming remaining option is to seek out distorted forms of affection and attention - little conditional scraps here and there, from those who typically want highly special relationships and to take from you. Which feeds right into becoming a martyr, a slave, a victim and a punching bag for others.

Perhaps the worst part about shame is that it's really an attempt to destroy your very self, and your identity. To de-value and de-humanize you. It strips you of your freedom, your rights, your validity, your sacredness. It labels you and puts you in a box. It cuts you down and diminishes you and stomps all over your dignity.

It puts you out of touch with who you really are. It's a major loss of power and a state of weakness and fear. It makes you live in a little darkened cage like an animal, with no friends and no allies. It puts you into isolation, separates you off, portrays you as worth nothing, and seeks your destruction. Shame is like being eaten alive from the inside out.

When you have shame, therefore... through "secret sins", this HAS to be healed. You have to find forgiveness. And you have to find a way to regain your "self worth" - to recognize your value. You have to get your power back and become able to stand up to those who might try to diminish your light or limit you. In particular you have to find a way to forgive YOURSELF, in order to approach a sense of being valuable to God, to regain acceptance of your innocence.

In shame, it will always seem like everyone else has power over you, that you are not good enough, strong enough, capable enough, powerful enough, smart enough, creative enough, good enough, loveable enough etc.... just not enough... for anything or anyone. And this will make you feel limited and like a constant failure.

You'll avoid doing things because you believe you'll fail at it because you're already a failure. You'll fear the judgement and rejection and punishment of what you think is others, for an inevitable insufficiency and heaps of mistakes that you are destined to make, because you believe you are fundamentally flawed. And this will turn you away from expressing and creating and playing and enjoying simply on the basis that it threatens to expose you. It threatens to put you in the spotlight in the arena where you are much more likely to be called out for being unworthy.

The only way though that this can seem to affect you is by you yourself agreeing to it. Which means its your own harsh judgement of yourself that you have to get past. It's really not other people holding you down or making you inferior, it's you. It's your decision that you are unworthy because of your guilt. That has to go, so that you're not constantly second-guessing everything you do. You cannot feel confident about anything while you're riddled with self-sacrificing martyrdom and making yourself small and playing the part of weak and helpless.

Then you'll find that what was really holding you back was YOUR shame, which you imposed upon yourself. And it wasn't really that other people were keeping you locked in a tiny corner of the world, but your own unwillingness to be seen, to be heard, to stand up, to own yourself, to be authentically you, or to stand firm in the face of un-called-for criticism. You have to grow in your strength and power and your imperviousness to judgement.

Ultimately the fact is that all mistakes are forgivable, everyone is worthy to God, no-one ever needs to feel guilty or ashamed, and everyone is loveable. Whatever you did that you feel so bad about, that you're dragging along the ground like a ball and chain around your ankle, you don't deserve that. And because you don't deserve punishment, you don't deserve to die. And that means you deserve to live and resurrect and enjoy your life. You deserve freedom and power and health and joy and relationships.

Below are some of the very brief things ACIM says about shame...

"Perhaps there is a fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy."

"The seeds of sickness and the shame of guilt He cannot bridge,..."

"For specialness is triumph, and its victory is his defeat and shame. 9 How can he live, with all your sins upon him?"

"Let not some dreams be more acceptable, reserving shame and secrecy for others."