I went to God and opened myself up on the topic of unconditional love. I wanted to find out how to be unconditionally loving, and I started to inquire whether God loved me unconditionally.

Then I started to regurgitate all of the things I did during the day which could've been considered guilty or judgmental or fearful. I seemed to be confessing these things, thinking perhaps that God would only love me unconditionally IF I hadn't done these things or IF I was willing to admit them.

For some reason it seemed difficult to simply accept that God loves me unconditionally. In my mind I kept thinking there had to be 'reasons' why God would love me, like, certain conditions that I had to be meeting, certain ways I had to be behaving. So I seemed to keep offering up these things that I'd 'done', believing that at least exposing them to His light was some kind of 'offering' or that He needs to forgive me for them, or something.

But what happened was, I think Holy Spirit chimed in that none of these things were important. I felt the presence of God, which was just 'there', while off to one side it seemed Holy Spirit spoke for Him. I still struggled to understand how God could be loving me unconditionally if I'd done certain things or made certain mistakes or whatever... there was just this ... expectation, of 'only being loved IF', a love that's based on conditions and requirements, that I found hard to push past mentally.

What I couldn't 'get', but what was being very simply offered, was that... all God wants to do is love me. Not me in exclusion, but, ... He had no other agenda. No other interests. He wasn't asking me to do certain mental somersaults. He wasn't even remotely interested in all the things I'd 'done'. He didn't seem at all concerned about any of the stuff I felt guilty about. It was really like He was oblivious to all this. And all that He WAS doing... was loving.

Holy Spirit chimed in... that all God wants to do is love. The impression I got was of like a 'being' that just loves, only loves, doesn't do anything else, has no other interests or motives, isn't even remotely excited or upset about other stuff I've done, isn't even remotely concerned with punishment or judgement, and JUST WANTS TO LOVE THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF ME.

And nothing else.

Just love. Just loving. Just being in love and wanting to share that love with me. Just embracing me with love and surrounding me with love, like love was its ONLY function, love was its only capability, and it couldn't DO anything else but love. It was almost like a handicapped child with severe limitations, as an analogy, which just runs up to you and hugs you spontaneously for no reason, and doesn't really do much else. It just loves. God just loves.

It blew me away that this was all God was interested in. Just to love me. Nothing else was important to Him in that moment. There were no distractions. Just this totally single-minded perfectly pure absolutely overwhelmingly unbridled passionate, embracing love, for me, for no reason whatsoever other than its own self-evident love.

I felt that, some. But parts of me still couldn't understand how this was possible. My ego mind kept reaching to "but what about ...."... and none of that was important.

God just loves us, 100%, all the time. We are in that love with Him, 100%, all the time. Just love everywhere. That's all there is.

Perhaps what we're trying to do here, is to meet the world "as it is", rather than what we keep making of it. True perception is referred to also as "accurate perception". Which means that our perception otherwise is "inaccurate".

If we are busy filtering everything, judging, categorizing, labelling, condemning etc... we're not really seeing it "as it is now", we're projecting the past onto it and denying it etc. Various forms of attack and judgment keep "the truth" away from us. Not saying the world is the truth but "reality" is to do with mind accessing what "is" rather than what it's making up "about" what's there.

This is perhaps why the course says slightly cryptically to "make the world real unto yourself". It doesn't mean to give it reality as such, but to see it "as it is" unfiltered and raw from a perception of wholeness and non-judgment. The course also calls this "reality contact". We're coming out of a state of reality distortion, confusion, misperception and denial, into a state of truth and recognition and acceptance.

The course is basically saying, you are in an illusory world that you made, but you also are very out of touch with it and not seeing it as it is. The world you made "as it is" seen with love and forgiveness is the "real world" or "actual world" that's there, albeit not of God. But you're not even seeing what you made "accurately" because of all the distortions and judgements and hate and stuff in your mind.

So you're out of touch with its "reality", or the truth of it. Upon seeing the reality of it you'll also recognize its UNREALITY in the big picture. But until you do, you'll mistake it FOR reality and think it real. False perception interprets an illusory world as real. True perception interprets the illusory world as unreal - by seeing its "real nature" accurately.

"The term "right-mindedness" is properly used as the correction for wrong-mindedness, and applies to the state of mind which induces accurate perception. It is miraculous because it heals misperception, and healing is indeed a miracle, in view of how man perceives himself. Only the sick NEED healing. The Soul does not need healing, but the mind DOES."

"It is necessary ONLY because Misperception is a BLOCK to knowledge, while ACCURATE perception is a stepping-stone TOWARD it."

"Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra- and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer sees the truth as God created it. This is what is meant by the point on "perspective adjustment."

"Make the world real unto YOURSELF, for the real world is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so it BELONGS to you. Correction is for all who cannot see. To open the eyes of the blind is the Holy Spirit's mission, for He knows that they have not LOST their vision, but merely sleep. He would awaken them from the sleep of forgetting, to the remembering of God. Christ's eyes are open, and He will look upon whatever you see with love - if you accept His vision as yours."

"You ATTACK the real world every day and every hour and every minute, and yet you are surprised that you cannot SEE it."

"Simply do this: Be still and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself."

"You HAVE been wrong about the world, because you have misjudged YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point, what COULD you see? All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would judge reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight, because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does NOT depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind, and enter into the world He holds out to you in love."

"The world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world. God's Word has promised us that peace is possible here, and what He promises can hardly be impossible. But it is true that the world must be looked at differently, if His promises are to be accepted. What the world is, is but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose this."

A couple of days ago, I rubbed my eyes a bit too much and triggered some swelling. Maybe a small blood vessel was broken or something. My upper eyelid swelled up and was red and sore and uncomfortable all day.

I at first wasn't sure whether to try to perform some kind of miracle on it or not. I knew that if I were to "fight it" I would be making it real and making a drama about it, which wouldn't help. At first that made me feel like I had to just accept it and live with it.

But part of me also wondered, what is it that stops me from accepting a complete and total healing instantaneously right now? Why should I tolerate this? How can I accept it and have it disappear as well?

So then I went to Holy Spirit. I asked, should I do something about this?

He said no.

But I had this sense that, I hadn't asked the right question. I indeed needed to DO nothing in the truest sense that, really, this thing had not really happened. But this also keyed me in to realize that, I needed to believe that it had not happened in order to truly embody the need to do nothing.

So I set about cancelling it by collapsing every belief and sense of truth about what had caused it. I told myself plainly that it did not exist, was not there, was already healed, there was no swelling, no soreness, no discomfort, no damage.

I undid all belief in the various causes that I'd convinced myself of such as "because I rubbed it" or "too many tears" or "didn't want to see something" or that issues about certain people were responsible.

When there were no more imagined "reasons why" it should be there, I really got into the sense that it is gone already and did not exist at all. This is an important point because we need to assert the state that we choose to manifest right now, not something off in the future. It's like painting a new picture of what you believe is real now - a vision of divine health and present happiness - rather than in any way accepting that sickness still exists.

So as part of that, I started to affirm gratitude to God that He had already healed this, that it was already resolved, already undone, had already disappeared, and that there was now a completely restored and healed eyelid free from all problems.

This was when I think Holy Spirit stepped in and suddenly I started with the energetic shaking. But also something 'new' happened, right after I thanked God for having healed it already.

Thanking God for healing in effect invites the receiving of healing while simultaneously affirming that the problem is gone, which is the proper mental "direction" for allowing God to extend and flow. God works in the now and in the awareness that the problem is solved already, so we need to learn to shine "thank you that it is healed already" (acknowledgement of receipt) rather than "please heal it because it's not healed".

Note that in the bible there is a phrase about asking, and that if you believe you have received it, you shall have it. The believing it is received, through thanks to God, and therefore acknowledgement of its PRESENCE, is the key to miracles flowing.

The area in question suddenly was filled with what I can only describe as an extremely high "heat", so hot and intense that I wondered for a moment if something had burst or become worse. It was very intensely focused right in the middle spot where this issue was located. It seemed to cover an area no more than a couple of millimeters, and held there in one spot.

I just observed it for what seemed like maybe 20 seconds or more. It didn't move or change. It was just there. It seemed hotter than any physical heat you could experience. Yet it didn't burn and was not uncomfortable at all. It was not pain. It almost felt like an intense presence, hard to ignore. Like some kind of "liquid fire".

I've heard some Christian healers etc talking about Holy Fire and this idea that Holy Spirit can bring some kind of intense healing "fire" from heaven or something, which heals stuff. I am presuming this was my first encounter with it.

I then relaxed and eventually went to sleep. I could already tell even then, that it was much less sore, I couldn't barely feel it anymore, and it was much more comfortable. This morning the problem has almost disappeared. It looks and feels a lot better.

Sometimes I am grateful for little, relatively minor physical issues, because they can present good opportunities for practicing miracle-working and healing. They indeed are lessons when used appropriately.

"Healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad."

Years ago I used to hate a person. I thought this person was the cause of everyone's problems. I was secretly and passively angry at them, not communicating with them, unwilling to forgive them, feeling very hurt by them, annoyed by everything they did and wanting nothing to do with them. I had built up a considerable case against them and attempted to get others on board to agree with me. It really seemed to me that this person was the reason why I was suffering and unhappy, why I was imprisoned, why I was always at war with them and why I did not feel loved by them. It was ALL their fault.

For many years this went on. I wanted to put as much distance between myself and them as possible. I didn't want anything to do with them. I even moved to live in another place to get away from them. I was quite sure they were the enemy and I did many things to emphasize the separation between us. I wanted to be not associated with them (disassociated) and pushed them away, did not allow us to have a relationship, and despised them. That is, until one day when it all changed.

A moment happened where, in their presence and in the midst of secretly wanting not to be around them, accusing them of sin, all of a sudden this idea came into my mind. It was a shocking idea, but it was unavoidably obvious. Somehow, this person was me. Somehow, that person, in that separate body, was in some way one with me. I, myself, was "over there", behind the wall of hatred, behind their physical form, inside them. I had a kind of oneness experience for a moment. And the "target" that I always thought was "that person", suddenly was revealed to be ME.

This experience was so completely opposite to everything I had thought and felt about this person. I literally was shocked to suddenly have this experience that while I had made every effort to disassociate from "them" and build a gap between us, *I* was somehow on the other side of that gap and therefore everything I felt towards them, I was ALSO feeling towards myself. This wasn't a pleasant realization. But at the same time it was very powerful.

It was like dropping a drop of liquid detergent into greasy water. This truth had dropped in and shown me how terribly mistaken I'd been, what I'd been doing to myself, and that I couldn't continue to hate this person because doing so was hating myself. If we were one, if I was in them, if I myself was on the other side of that wall, then this whole entire thing wasn't "exclusively" about them, it was about me. Some part of my own self or mind was attacking itself with a vengeance.

This was a major turning point in the relationship. It totally turned it on its head, but gradually. Not merely in the relationship to that person but also the relationship with myself. I began to heal and to start to realize, at even an emotional level, as I catharted old pains and misperceptions and false beliefs and grievances, that I wasn't REALLY angry with that person, it was actually in fact directed towards myself. It was me that I hated and it was that which I had to heal. And everything I'd believed "they did to me" had to be forgiven.

The more I allowed myself to heal and release that, the less it appeared to be anything to really do with that person at all. It far more obviously was a split in my own mind and my own attack upon myself, which I had vehemently projected onto this person. The more I projected, using hate to increase the separation, the less it SEEMED to be anything to do with myself. It was all about them. I as I healed, so too did my view of this person. As I undid my own self attack, the impression of offense, victimhood, enemies and projective blame, I stopped being so triggered by this person or believing it was about them at all. My attention turned within to the enemy I'd made of myself.

Over time, my relationship to that person has improved profoundly. Almost all of the blame and scapegoating has stopped. The huge stockpile of pain has melted. Animosity and inequality has turned to equality and friendliness. It seems like nothing happened. The specialness has dissolved. I can talk to them more honestly, openly and deeply. There is communication. There is forgiveness. And it's given way to a more mature way of relating. This is all thanks to the undoing of the separation in my mind and the willingness to take an honest look at what I am doing to myself.

Ancient hatred. Present love.

Sometimes doing ACIM seems very difficult. It boils down to a simple fact. Everything in the world is opposite to the truth. And that means you're going to have to become opposite to everything in the world!

"This IS the "natural" condition of the separation. And those who learn that it is NOT natural at all, seem to be the UNnatural ones. For this world IS the opposite of Heaven, having been made to BE its opposite. And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true."

This is no easy feat. Everything in the world is totally backwards, inside out, and upside down. It is opposite to heaven's laws and nature in EVERY way.

"...earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

So it's calling for you to totally go against the grain in order to be sane, to deny and defy the whole nature of this entire world and not believe a single thing about it. The world is insane, and you want sanity.

"What does this prove except the world is mad? Why share its madness in the sad belief that what is universal here is true? Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are."

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

"This IS an insane world, and do not underestimate the actual extent of its insanity. There is no area of your perception that it has not touched, and your dream IS sacred to you."

Our position in "false perception" is one where we have reversed or swapped cause and effect. We've also swapped what is true and what is false. Everything is totally back to front. We now believe the world is happening to us, causing us. And yet, we are immortal beings, causers, creators, rulers of the universe, to whom nothing is supposed to be happening.

There are very strong empowerment themes in ACIM to do with you learning to re-adopt the position of having power OVER the world. Over even sickness and death. Over all problems and forms of suffering. In which you are the cause of the dream, and not its effect. Where you are invulnerable and incapable of being hurt. Where you would show and demonstrate to others that you cannot be hurt even physically.

"Show your brother you've had no hurt of him."

"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."

Whenever our mind believes for a second that cause and effect have been swapped, we see ourselves as at the effect of the world and other people. They're doing it to us. We're being affected. We are now passive victims, suffering against our will, experiencing things we seem to have not chosen or wanted. But then the course is saying, absolutely everything that happens you must have chosen and wanted, and you did it to yourself.

This is reflected in the secret of salvation "you're doing this to yourself." It doesn't even matter what form it takes or who seems to be the victimizer. If you see yourself as an effect of the very thing you made, you are playing a role of victim and are positioning yourself to be hurt by it. And yet you are an immortal being, who cannot be hurt.

"Nothing real can be threatened."

The real meaning of this is that you are an immortal being and you are CAUSAL. You caused this world. You are the dreamer of it. It is nothing but an effect and it cannot do anything to who or what you really are. You've dreamed up dream figures and set them about attacking your body.

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you REALLY understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who SEEM to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are WHOLLY unreal? "

"The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did."

"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."

And then Jesus even goes on to say that you cannot suffer or be sick or hurt or killed or anything against your will. That even death is CONSENTED to in all its forms.

"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."

So we've got the world seeming to function backwards, in which it seems capable of causing your body, making it an effect of the world. You've got random chaotic events "happening to it". You've got all manner of inescapable problems, people attacking you, stuff going wrong. And you're supposed to fly in the face of it all exclaim, THIS IS DOING NOTHING TO ME.

That's not easy. You're asked to act like an immortal being in a mortal world. And that means if you are not vigilant, you're going to be constantly drawn into the world's ways, tempted to believe what it shows you, deceived by its illusions and frightened by its images. You have to constantly be on-guard and vigilant in your willingness to take a forgiving attitude instead.

Forgiveness means little more than looking at the world from a point of view of it BEING NOTHING LIKE YOU, and therefore that you are immortal and it is not. Forgiveness symbolizes your immortality and points to your invulnerability. You can accuse no-one of sin if it is impossible for you to be sinned against. If the world can do nothing to you, you cannot be angry at it. You can only be benevolent by recognizing that you cannot be changed.

That's difficult work. Being confronted with a totally backwards world all day every day, and being asked to totally go against it and deny it in every way. That even your body lies to you. Even your planet is a false world. Even the events that sure as hell look like they're happening aren't happening. That even the suggested proof of sin that your body can be crucified is a total deception. The world is COMPLETELY UNNATURAL.

"as it seems to be the most unnatural and difficult for the untrained mind."

"Deny your own identity and you will not escape the madness which induced this weird, unnatural and ghostly thought which mocks creation and which laughs at God."

"The ego wants to teach you that you want to OPPOSE God's Will. This unnatural lesson CANNOT be learned"

"Miracles seem unnatural to the ego"

"To you the miracle CANNOT seem natural, because what you have done to hurt your minds, has made THEM so UNnatural that they do not remember what is natural to them. And when you are TOLD about it, you cannot UNDERSTAND it. The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is PERFECTLY natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to you."

"Guilt is a sure sign that your thinking is UNnatural. Perverted thinking will ALWAYS be attended with guilt, because it IS the belief in sin."

For you to become your natural self, you're going to have to stop believing anything the world says or does. That's not exactly easy if your'e used to being in false perceptions where you buy into the entire system and think it's the truth. You're quite literally stuck in hell and trying to get back to heaven. And the only way to get back there is to become heaven-like while you're in the midst of evil.

You're being PULLED in two different directions. The world is trying to pull you into hell and darkness and death. God is trying to pull you into heaven and light and happiness. The two are irreconcilable. They are totally opposite. You will have to abandon the world if you want to go home to God. You will have to turn your back on death and reject sickness and choose away from sin and guilt and fear. And most of all, you will have to learn to see yourself as the RULER of the universe, in no way a victim, and entirely equipped with the power of God.

Years ago I did a miracle kind of by accident. I didn't even really know how I did this or why, it just kind of happened.

I had this box which had coins in it. I'd used up all the larger-denomination coins and there was only like 1 and 2 pence pieces left (British currency). I knew there was basically nothing in there besides this. I'd sifted through it several times and totally extracted all the good stuff.

But for some reason that day, I needed a couple of `pounds`, and was for some reason in a different state of mind. I kept having this feeling of insisting that there MUST be more money in there somewhere. I turned through the coins with my fingers, looking for it. For probably 30 seconds there was nothing, and I knew from previous checks that I wouldn't find anything. But, something in me was becoming very insistent.

I kept saying to myself, there MUST be some money in here. I built up this kind of ... I don't know if expectation is the word, it wasn't like having a sense of anticipation and then waiting, it was more like, an insistence, or a demand. I demanded that there be money, that this was TRUE, and that it simply must be. For some reason I wasn't paying attention to what my eyes were showing me, I was defying it and insisting there must be something there.

I don't know how I managed to ignore the ego at this point, because normally I would've been like, well, I know there is no higher denominations in there, I would trust my eyes and trust my previous experiences and just stop right there. But this time for some reason I was more miracle minded, and kept on probing the pile of coins insisting that there must be decent money in there.

And then, suddenly, two gold-colored 1-pound coins suddenly appeared out of nowhere. These are in striking contrast to the other coins because the 1 and 2 pence pieces are a dark brown bronze color. The shiny gold-colored coins were suddenly there at my fingertips. They didn't show up because they were hiding, they simply did not exist before. But somehow, they suddenly appeared. They manifested out of thin air.

I think at the time my mindset didn't seem that phased by this, like it seemed kind of natural or something. It didn't shock me. I also did not repeat it, or even attempt to. It didn't seem out of the ordinary, it's just how I was functioning somehow. It seemed to make sense and I just used the money as intended. It hasn't been until looking back on the event that I realized more that this was a miraculous manifestation and that I was doing something with my mind which was not typical.

This really is the tip of the iceberg of what the mind can do. It's going to be fun opening up to more of this.

Some miracle-working basics are embedded in this story....

1) expecting/demanding/insisting/knowing/requiring that the result must happen

2) ignoring all "better judgement" or ego knowledge or even visual evidence

3) being persistent and consistent and not taking no for an answer - you have to kind of resolve to be "done with" tolerating the conditions that are present and resolve to be 100% determined that it MUST change.

Jesus has said in the Course that when the mind is used to focus thought, combined with strong/firm belief, a huge surge of power results which has the power to literally move mountains. Bring it on! This is what miracles really are all about. Ignoring the ego and bringing forth supernatural results.

The world is difficult to deal with, because it is completely opposite to reality.

"And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true."

"He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

"The world was made that problems could not be escaped.""In this world, it is NOT true that anything without order of difficulty can occur."

It would be challenging enough if this world were just a LITTLE bit unlike reality. You could maybe deal with it better if it at least resembled it in some obvious way. But physical form was designed to COMPLETELY deceive you.

"Nothing so blinding as perception of form."

So instead what you are faced with, every day that you wake up, is a picture of a world which demonstrates utter impossibilities, complete violation of God's laws, constant threats to the existence of what was previously immortal, visual proof everywhere you look that death is real and attack is possible, and just a constant barrage of problems and things going wrong.

How anyone can deal with this on any level is incredible.

Fortunately sometimes "life" seems to throw you some bones and maybe there is a temporary reprieve in the suffering, or you can hole up in your house to create a false sense of security, or maybe just avoid all the bad stuff as much as possible. But this doesn't really make it go away or stop happening.

Then ACIM is saying to us, that not only is this entire world designed to represent an impossible, blasphemous opposite to God's nature, it is also your job to somehow laugh in the face of it. To overlook all its faults and inherent murderousness. To find a way to look at it such that, outright horrendous attack and evil are actually "not that". That somehow you're supposed to even recognize that your body's senses are lying to you, that there is not even one speck of the world that is doing anything other than tempt you into hell.

To say it's not easy to rise above it, is an understatement. Threats of death are happening all the time. And if it doesn't seem to be going to hell for you, it's going to hell for someone else. And then you're temporarily thankful that you're not the one getting it this time in a world of punishment.

"For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. "

Can we just, take a moment to acknowledge, how HARD it is for all of us, to try to rise above a world which is so vehemently anti-christ and anti-life? This is no easy feat. The truth may be simple but it is by far not simple at all to fly in the face of everything an entire world tells you is true. We're all doing the best we can and sometimes it can be very difficult.

Somehow there is a light at the end of the tunnel, a hope that we have to keep holding onto, a promise of redemption and salvation. A trust that is developed in the Holy Help. And a victory over death. We keep striving forward because we are so deeply attracted to God and want to be Home. And ultimately that is what will pull us back to heaven's reality, regardless of how much the world tries to pull us down. We who MADE it to pull us down, need merely recognize we no longer want to do that, and we are free.

"And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.".

What appears to be the physical world is not actually "direct reality". It is in fact once removed. It is an effect of an entirely other layer of causality which seems hidden. Just as in the holographic model, the underlying "source" of the appearances you see, is obscured by "sight of form" and you end up believing that this physical world is "verbatim", ie this is all there is.

In understanding why miracles are supernatural, it is very important to recognize this. In order to be supernatural there has to be an order or layer of reality deeper or higher than what appears to be the physical surface of this universe. We have to recognize that bodies and objects are not "immediate reality", they are once removed, and are EFFECTS caused by some other hidden level of causality. There is a whole other layer of causality, and everything in this world is "coming from" that hidden realm, making this world entirely an secondary effect.

When observing just the appearances of the surface of this world, there is a tremendous vast illusion before your eyes, which seems to operate in terms of "horizontal cause and effect". It seems as if some parts of the world cause and effect other parts. But this IS entirely an illusion. It's not what is happening. Anything which looks like being "different" in this world, ie one thing is a cause and another thing is an effect, is an illusion.

What secretly is happening is a higher, hidden level, a more immediate level of reality, is causing this entire universe all at once. Causality moves in a "vertical" direction from above, downwards, projecting the universe below. This means that there is a realm where you are "outside of" or above the entire field of horizontal illusions, outside the dream, where you are under absolutely none of the illusory horizontal laws and free of ALL limitations.

In that realm, you essentially are like a movie editor, someone who can reach into the movie and rearrange parts of it, orchestrate what goes where, and make significant changes. While within the movie itself it seems there is this consistent "story" playing, which utterly depends on the existence of many limitations and props and illusions of things which "must" happen according to certain rules or laws, realize that all of these stories of causality are entirely a fiction, where nothing seems to betray the illusion, nothing hints at this not being all there is, and nothing "blows the illusion" of horizontal or linear causality.

An example is a movie that you go to the cinema to watch. When you watch the movie you believe it is a single seamless story, in which certain limits and rules have been put in place in order to paint a seemingly "consistent" picture. But the fact is, if you could've been in the studio when the movie was being created, you would realize it was simply a bunch of people "acting" and a bunch of computers producing CGI special effects, working "behind the scenes". You as as a miracle worker as a BEHIND THE SCENES OPERATOR who orchestrates and produces the second-hand "effects" or "results" of a creative process. We used this same process initially when FORMING the physical universe, which is an entire order of reality removed from those who pull the strings.

When expression is made from the higher level, the more immediate level of causality, that expression is able to cause changes to the expressed world below. Just as an editor would make changes to a movie sequence from outside the movie which has the potentially to "break the illusion" of linear consistency within the movie itself. And when it DOES "perform a miracle", it literally BREAKS the illusion of linear cause and effect - the horizontal consistency or predictability of one thing leading only to another specific consequence. It's like someone editing the movie, and to those observing from WITHIN the movie, it will look like reality just did something "impossible".

If you seem to be living in the movie and you think that all that can happen is what's inside the movie, then suddenly a spaceship appears out of nowhere because the movie director decided to insert one, you will "witness" what appears to be a miracle. Something happening that seems impossible based on the linear laws. If you think of The Truman Show - a great movie, the same laws and rules and limitations had to happen day after day to maintain an illusion that nothing could happen outside the law, but when the main character started to "wake up" and see through the limitations, the world around him started to "break" and he eventually stepped outside of the whole illusion, coming face to face with the "directory" of the movie. You as a miracle worker are a director of the physical movie.

Or similarly, if it appears that there is a law of gravity where, over time, objects are attracted towards the center of the earth, and therefore human bodies are almost glued to the surface (you can jump, but only so high before you are attracted back down), and if suddenly a human body were to fly up in the air or walk on water, this would BREAK the illusion of horizontal laws. That means, the laws "within" the linear dream, within appearances of horizontal causality, could not have "resulted in" this effect, and it must have required someone to reach in from OUTSIDE of the laws and make an adjustment that the laws themselves are incapable of producing.

The key point to realize is that all of the linear laws are VERY LIMITING. We are confined by them. We are trapped by them. They seem to play out as if having a force or power over us. We don't seem able to escape gravity, time seems to proceed in one direction, one object seems to collide with another, no objects share the same space, very large heavy objects like mountains seem completely immovable, even sickness seems to have a causality in the body or due to external forces. These are all very limiting illusions of things on the SAME LEVEL causing other things on the SAME LEVEL to change.

From the point of view of the miracle worker, who is under no laws but God's, there are NO LIMITS. And so when the miracle worker manipulates the limitations in ways which defy and BREAK the linear laws, this appears to those in the horizontal dream as SUPERNATURAL MIRACLES. Things which should technically be "impossible" according to the limits we have accepted, suddenly become possible. Things we have assumed to be "normal" or "natural" are shown to be ARTIFICIAL LIMITATIONS.

Since we don't generally recognize that we LIVE IN WORLD OF LIMITATIONS, we don't realize that there are additional FREEDOMS and flexibilities that we have decided are off-limits or impossible. Miracles are capable of exercising that freedom and of PROVING that you are NOT BOUND by the horizontal laws of the ego's illusory world. This is why miracles are super-natural, they have a freedom of potential way beyond what any physical law in this second-hand universe suggests is possible.

There is therefore literally NOTHING that they cannot do. We have to open our minds to see past the limitations of physical illusion and realize that even the things we think are impossible are perfectly possible. There is NO REASON why you cannot do anything you can imagine. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

So the main keys to this are:

1) This physical world is once removed from true cause, it is not immediate reality

2) This world has no real causes in it, they are all effects of a higher reality

3) Cause-and-effect in this world are totally fictional illusions designed BY a higher level causer, to create a "story" in which limited things happen according to limited rules

4) Miracles wield a freedom way beyond the limitations of this world and express and demonstrate that ANYTHING is possible because they originate in the FIRST ORDER of causal reality, and therefore can BREAK and OVERRIDE any of the limitations or laws present on the physical level, since those laws are limitations PUT IN PLACE BY someone from the more primal level of reality. This is why Jesus says "you made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both."

Here's what ACIM says:

"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."

"Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator. Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do."

"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."

T-11.VII.1."The world as you perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is not as you see it. 2 God created only the eternal, and everything you see is perishable. 3 Therefore, there must be another world that you do not see."

"C-4.1. The world you see is an illusion of a world. 2 God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. 3 Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. 4 Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. 5 But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.

C-4.2. The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. 2 And so they do. 3 For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. 4 While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

"T-8.VI.2. The world can add nothing to the power and the glory of God and His holy Sons, but it can blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. 2 You cannot behold the world and know God. 3 Only one is true. 4 I am come to tell you that the choice of which is true is not yours to make. 5 If it were, you would have destroyed yourself. 6 Yet God did not will the destruction of His creations, having created them for eternity."

M-20.5. "You see in death escape from what you made. 3 But this you do not see; that you made death, and it is but illusion of an end. 4 Death cannot be escape, because it is not life in which the problem lies. 5 Life has no opposite, for it is God. 6 Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life. 7 Forgive the world, and you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real."

W-pI.14.1. "God did not create a meaningless world. ... What God did not create does not exist. 3 And everything that does exist exists as He created it. 4 The world you see has nothing to do with reality. 5 It is of your own making, and it does not exist.

"T-25.III.2. God's laws do not obtain directly to a world perception rules, for such a world could not have been created by the Mind to which perception has no meaning. "

W-pI.132.9"You are as God created you. 3 There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to your eternal state. 4 How can a world of time and place exist, if you remain as God created you?"

T-7.XI.1."The world goes against your nature, being out of accord with God's laws. 6 The world perceives orders of difficulty in everything. 7 This is because the ego perceives nothing as wholly desirable."

"T-13.VII.1. Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself: "The real world is not like this. 2 It has no buildings and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. 3 There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. 4 It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. 5 There is no day that brightens and grows dim. 6 There is no loss. 7 Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."

T-13.VII.2. The world you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. 2 You cannot see both worlds, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. 3 The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other."

T-14.V.1."Leave the world of death behind, and return quietly to Heaven. 9 There is nothing of value here, and everything of value there."