"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while."

"The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are?"

"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers."

*****"They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die."*****

"Yet they are not deceived by what they see."

******"The body's eyes will continue to see differences."******

"But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them."

******"There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before."*****

"But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal."

This is a vital teaching because it is the reason why, even with a healed mind, even in true perception, you CAN STILL SEE the various bodily states of other figures in the dream. Sick, suffering, and dying. And the ability to SEE these things, has absolutely nothing to do with YOU BEING SICK. You seeing these things has absolutely NOTHING to do with you projecting sickness, judging, attacking, or believing in sickness.

YOUR mind still SEES the same FORMS, through the body's eyes, but RECOGNIZES that none of these IMAGES are REAL. It recognizes them all as UNREAL. It disregards the differences and does not BELIEVE that they are REAL SICKNESS or REAL DEATH. But the mind NEVERTHELESS, SEES THESE THINGS HAPPENING IN THE DREAM STILL.

This is why you as a miracle worker are then able to RECOGNIZE that some person has a broken leg, or just got hit by a car, and has a NEED for a miracle, which you can SUPPLY.

There HAS to be a potential for inequality between your mind and what is seen, otherwise it violates several miracle principles. For example "Miracles supply a lack" "Miracles are given by those who temporarily have more to those who temporarily have less". It would not be POSSIBLE to supply the lack of love/life to those who have less, IF every single thing you SEE is an EXACT EQUAL MATCH to the content and condition of YOUR MIND.

If you were only seeing the world as a "mirror" of yourself, and if you were the only dreamer, than it would be true that what you see is ONLY what you believe yourself. But the fact is that there are distinct differences between seeing with Christ Vision and seeing with body vision, and both of them happen at once until you reach the atonement.

Many people believe that you only have "one perception" and that this perception gradually shifts and changes and "turns into" true perception. THIS IS NOT TRUE. And when you believe this, you will believe that you simply "cannot see sickness unless you are sick". It disregards the fact that the body has one kind of perception, the spiritual eye has another, and they BOTH happen at once. All the way up to ascension to Heaven you're still going to be receiving signals from the body, into your mind, which you will perceive, ALONG WITH, perceptions you are having of what is BEYOND what the body is showing you, the face of Christ. BEING HEALED, DOES NOT MAKE YOU BLIND TO THE SICKNESS THAT THE BODY CAN STILL SEE.

The body is permanently stuck seeing with false perception. It sees with false perception even if you are 99% done with the curriculum. "These eyes made not to see, will never see". And yet the body, while you have it, WILL continue to send you images of hell, pictures of objects and bodies moving around in various states.

The fact is that you don't JUST have this one kind of perception. You develop Christ Vision AS a SECOND WAY OF PERCEIVING, which occurs initially IN PARALLEL to body eyesight. The development of Christ Vision and your gradual ascension towards true perception WITH it, awakening the spiritual eye, is the perception you TRANSFORM, and which later becomes perfectly healed. Meanwhile, the body is STILL going to send images to the mind. These images will now begin to change in their seeming meaning or "how they strike you", how they register, and will transition from "seeming to be true/real" to "seeming to be false/unreal". YET STILL SEEING THEM.

At this point you still have TWO INPUTS OF PERCEPTION coming into the mind. One is coming from the body senses, the other is coming from the Christ mind. From spirit. The spirit-to-spirit perception is happening at the same time as the false perception of the body. Only when the true/christ perception is perfected, does the body perception become SO "seen through" and disregarded as false, that it starts to disappear, and eventually you ONLY see with Christ Vision. Which means seeing the face of Christ ONLY and NOT SEEING THE WORLD OF FORM OR THE BODY OR WITH THE BODY.

Many people don't seem to understand the mechanism of perception. Jesus explains it in the course. The body's eyes send signals to the mind, which passes through a belief system which filters and changes the meaning or projects meaning onto the images, changing them and then presenting them to the mind which looks upon these filtered images and "sees". The belief system therefore acts as an interpreter of the signals that are coming in from the body.

When the belief system believes in ego and separations, it categorizes the images from the body's eyes in many different conflicting ways and the mind looks upon these categorizations. When the belief system is unified and cleared it becomes empty and transparent, seeing in a correct and truthful way. The body still sends images into the system from "outside" and the belief system now reinterprets (holy spirit) and frames them from a perspective of truth, which causes the images to be recognized as images of unreality and are all false. The mind thus categorizes them all as unreal - that everything the body sees is an illusion.

Here the mind is SEEING the reinterpreted layer of filtration, through the Holy Spirit's corrected perception, and is seeing the truth ABOUT the images coming from the body. The truth about these body signals is that they are false and unreal. The mind at this point is still able to receive these images and look upon them and interpret them as unreal illusions. This is how the mind can still "look upon dreams a while".

Simultaneously, as vision by body eyes is continuing, Christ Vision is developed which does not use the body's eyes at all. It is a "direct seeing", the seeing function of the mind. "Only the mind sees". This seeing initially takes place through true perception, shared with the Holy Spirit, whereby the body signals are OVERLOOKED (forgiveness) and all things physical are *seen through* as if they are a wall of illusions trying to deceive you. Temptation. You look through this, with the mind, literally, and see PAST the surface of objects showing up in these images. BEYOND these images, there is sight of the face of christ which is BEYOND the physical.

As the mind learns to use the spiritual eye and christ vision this strengthens and the signals from the body are labeled as "false" more and more. They are recognized as "false perception". "The world is false perception". It looks past the false perception that IS the world, and sees beyond it to another world, Heaven. The forgiven world is OVERLOOKED. The veil of "matter" becomes thin and transparent and eventually is seen through (not believed) so much that it disappears entirely. This is the state of perfect christ vision, which sees ONLY the face of Christ and does not even see with the body's eyes at all. The body is forgotten, it disappears entirely, and you return to God.

IN Heaven, you now resume mind-to-mind communication which could be considered "the vision of the son of God", where there is "no thing" to see, nothing separate to look at, only God and creation to know and be aware of.

Until you get to perfect pure christ vision you WILL still see with the body's eyes to some degree. And because of this, you WIL be able to still see the forms in this world. Doing whatever they do. Just because you are becoming more spiritually awake it does not change in ANY WAY the free-willed activities of other brothers in their bodies. If they are sick, or well, or alive, or dead, or attacking, or being friendly, all of it can be easily seen and accurately rendered to the mind. The mind has perfectly clarity about it, and can even see more in it than was seen before. It is thus perfectly possible to still SEE someone having a broken leg, without it in any way implying that YOU have a broken leg or a belief in sickness.

For a while, you have this "double vision", two types of perception, two mechanisms for looking. Which is why you are perfectly capable of being wholly truthful in Christ Vision while at the same time SEEING the body's images and recognizing them as wholly false. This is how God's teachers look upon dreams, recognize them as illusions, can recognize anyone in distress, can see sick bodies and healthy bodies, can tell the ways someone is mistaken, can recognize the errors someone is making, can discern correctly what is true and what is false about what they see, and thereby are in a POSITION TO HELP THOSE IN THE DREAM. BY OFFERING THEM MIRACLES.

Upon entering the separation, we immediately entered into states of suffering. This happened because we rejected our wholeness. By choosing to believe we could be separate from God, in the fall of man, we were choosing not to be the whole of who and what we are.

We rejected our wholeness and wanted to be partial. We started to believe in lack. We saw ourselves as special and wanted to hoard some things for ourselves selfishly, meaning that we also wanted to be deprived of what others had. We introduced this depravation and suffering into our own minds.

"If you will accept yourself as God created you, ***you will be incapable of suffering.*** But to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father IS the ***acknowledgment of yourself as you ARE***. Your Father created you ***wholly*** without sin, ***wholly*** without pain, and ***wholly without suffering of any kind***. If you deny Him, ***you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind***, because of the power He gave it. "

This meant that upon the very instant of beginning to enter into separation, in the fall, we introduced suffering into our own minds. This suffering is nothing more than the seeming lack of wholeness. Simply by rejecting wholeness, we placed our minds in every conceivable condition that you might think of as suffering.

For example, all of "the separated ones", by rejecting their whole identity, actually came to be uncertain whether they really exist. They rejected their souls and began to experience a tremendous uncertainty about whether they were even real, or even existed at all. This is because we rejected our Father, and therefore rejected the belief that we had been CREATED. So this brings with it a fear of not existing (fear of death).

"The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in your mind that it may even doubt whether you really exist at all."

Also in the separation, by trying to be partial and special and not whole, we introduced the idea of lack and scarcity. We saw ourselves as lacking, or being less than whole. This alone lays the foundation for feelings of inadequacy, shame, unworthiness, weakness, fear of not having what it takes, a desire to hide, powerlessness, deprivation, scarcity, lack of abundance, fear of loss, constant anxiety about being overcome, and perpetual stress.

"Today's idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment which all the separated ones experience.""Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones."

So by going into the separation, we immediately placed ourselves into suffering states. It's not like something in life happened to cause the suffering. It's not about some event taking place on a timeline. It's not about people doing stuff to us on a Tuesday. It all began and has its deepest roots in the separation from God itself. That's where it all started.

Your sense of suffering, lack, unworthiness, inadequacy, fear etc, can be compounded, and seem to increase or decrease, based on reactions to life events and so on. But fundamentally it isn't the world that's making you suffer, or any specific person, or any even major event. It's the separation from God. It's the lack of wholeness in your mind. It's the rejection of your soul. That's what's making you suffer, and that is the core root of ALL suffering. Which as the secret of salvation tells you, YOU are doing to yourself.

This really is also the source of all sickness and death. By believing that we are not as God created us, we reject eternal life, and believe in death. By seeing ourselves as unsufficient, a failure, lacking, unprepared, incapable, disabled, broken, etc, we form an image of ourselves as a body, representing what we think is true of us, and this now symbolizes and pictures our inner condition. So now the body is sick and frail and disabled because the mind is sick and frail and disabled."If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick."

The resistance against the truth, puts the brakes on the extension of creation, rejects your natural functioning, and places you into a state of malfunction. This is the root of ALL forms of sickness. Worded in another way, it is a fear of the state of wholeness, a fear of approaching that state of wholeness, and therefore a fear of awakening to wholeness.

"All forms of sickness even unto (physical) death are PHYSICAL expressions of the fear of awakening."

This tells you also that if you were not to be afraid of awakening, if you were to embrace wholeness, if you were to open up to your perfection, and if you would deny and reject anything not of God any power over you (including death therefore), your mind would not be in a state of fear and would not need to defend itself against the truth, sickness would vanish and the body would return to a symbol of health.

It ultimately isn't stuff in the environment, little viruses, people's attacks, weather conditions, poisons in the food and water, or anything else in the world that is making us suffer. It is solely our own seemingly broken relationship with God. It is the connection between you and your soul, which has become blocked off and rejected. It is the denial of your SELF, that is making you have an ego exprience.

All pain is therefore induced by the denial of God. "The denial of God is the ego's religion." This denial of God produces a false "God of sickness". And this God of sickness demands the rejection of health both mentally and physically.

"Allegiance to the denial of God (and thus your wholeness) is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival."By even dipping your little toe into "the separation", by even perceiving at all, by believing a single illusion, you are entering into a realm of suffering and pain and fear. You cannot feel safe until you are whole. You cannot feel free from death until you embrace your eternal life. You cannot end suffering or be happy until you know you are with God.

"A Son of God is happy only when he knows he is with God. "So we can look externally all day for illusory sources of suffering. We can attribute the cause of death to anything OTHER than ourselves. We can blame the whole world for causing us to suffer. We can use the world as a gigantic scapegoat. But it will never change the underlying fact that WE cause our own suffering through our belief in separation. And this is the ONLY cause of suffering, sickness and death.

"Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments in which it hides its nothingness."

"Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death, to their believers."

"Reason will tell you that the only way to escape from misery is to recognize it and go the other way."

"Our efforts will be directed toward recognizing that there is only one problem and one answer."

"Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution."

For those of us, us "separated ones", who see ourselves as trapped in bodies, and prone to suffer, we need to be gentle with ourselves in recognition of WHY we suffer. We see ourselves as unworthy and insufficient, lacking and unwholy/unholy, imperfect and flawed, weak and frail and afraid, guilty and shameful, not good enough, disempowered, lost, alone, withering and dying. We believe this because we believe in being separate and are deceived by illusions.

It's quite natural to then become afraid of failure at every step, because if you know/believe that you are less than whole, you know that you do not have everything you need. And you then see yourself as incapable. And in recognizing your limitations, you will not trust that you can do things. You will undermine yourself, sabotage your efforts, avoid, procrastinate, and generally "fail" to live. And in seeing yourself as inadequate you will avoid doing anything because you know that you do not have what it takes to do it.

All this undermines your sense of confidence and certainty. It places you into doubt and fear and weakness. So you have to now be gentle with yourself in trying to "recognize your disability", which is mentally imposed, and work to undo this disability. To overcome your belief in being limited and confined and broken. Because by recognizing your immortal perfection you can rejoin yourself in wholeness and undo the illusions of damage and reverse your belief in being a frail lifeless piece of garbage.

We are all here as "recovering" death-addicts. We are all trying to find the strength to carry on. The will to live. We have to develop trust in a truth bigger than ourselves that we are far more powerful than we realize, are fully capable, and "there is nothing our holiness cannot do." This is a pathway in becoming re-empowered, re-energized, and alive again. It is the path of resurrection from death. You are coming back to LIFE, because you are crawling our of your hole of self torture and torment and hell, and are rising up the stairway to heaven's gate, where God is there to welcome you Home.

In A Course in Miracles, there is a significant theme of allowing the Holy Spirit to fulfill his function, without you interrupting it, and without you attempting to take over his role as healer and therapist. But it may not be obvious how far this goes and what this implies. So let's look at what your role in this world is supposed to be.

As an ego, you stand in the way, you direct everything, you control everything, you make all decisions on your own, you tackle all challenges alone, and you believe you have the power and capabilities to succeed independently and with no reliance on spirit. It's kind of a state of "I don't need you God, leave me alone."

In this mode, we are trying to be God. We have an authority problem. We hold life by a tight grip of attempted control and brace ourselves against difficulties believing we do not want any help.

We're unwilling to acknowledge that we might not be capable, that we are too weak, that we cannot succeed, or that we need anyone. It's an attempt to be "independent" in a separated way, attempting not to depend on God at all. It is actually a form of isolation, imprisonment, desperation and failure.

As we attempt then to become more spiritual, there will at first be a transitionary phase in which we try to keep our selfish egotism while trying to turn it into something more spiritual. This is the ego's "seeking" and not finding, which results in a spiritualized ego. The spiritualized ego is quite capable of regarding itself as a hero, a savior, a fixer, a healer, a rescuer, a saint, and exalts itself to a very high level of what it thinks of as holiness.

"All unhealed healers follow the ego's plan for forgiveness, in one form or another.

In this phase, the person will attempt to be the one who heals others, to be the one who has power, to be the one who can perform miracles, to be the one who still relies on themselves but with a higher demand of achievement and perfectionism. The ego self can still adopt a mode of trying to be like Jesus, but it is the trying part where it all falls down.

You might take on various healing modalities or start to tap into forms of guidance, but these will likely be limited because there is still much ego interfering. The ego still wants to be the center of attention, the doer, the one who causes the results. And in fact the ego will even use aggression, anger, forcefulness, intensity, loudness, as "tools" that it believes will cause miracles to occur. And it's fairly guaranteed that these will not work.

But it's important to try to do this, and to fail. Because in the failing you may become more willing to give up on the effort to go it alone. You will recognize what does not work. You will give up on this false hope of being a superhero, and begin to seek a deeper surrender to something larger than yourself.

As you go beyond this phase, you begin to surrender to the holy spirit, ask for help, seek guidance, and reach out beyond yourself for love, support, comfort, healing and guidance. This means a willingness to put aside your self-driven ego efforts, your "going it alone", your "being the one who does it". It means getting out of the way, not merely sitting on the sidelines but removing the ego self that would need to sit on the sidelines. It means opening up to the spirit, to the spiritual eye.

This overall entails a deepening of trust, of allowing there to be something not of you, that is there to help you. It means putting aside the idea that you will be powerful in and of yourself, and no longer being the central figure. Instead of being self-reliant, you must become willing to rely on HIM to HELP you, knowing you cannot go it alone. In a way, it's like you turn more into a medium or channel through which something "not of you", something prior to you, operates. And you want it to, and trust it to, because you know you cannot do this alone.

So what does this really mean? What is our proper role in this world? Everything points to a state in which we ourselves become an open window, a portal, a doorway, through which THE HOLY SPIRIT functions. And in this role, WE do not get to be heroes. And as this doorway, "we need do nothing" is very literal in that it applies to our own self. We no longer need to source or cause things, to be the one who does things, we merely need not interfere with WHAT HE does through us. And he WILL act through us if we will let him, which includes allowing Him to heal minds and bodies.

We're told that he will direct us everywhere we go. We're told that we will be told very specifically what to do. We're told that he will heal through us as we allow him to heal us. We're told not to place limits on what Jesus/HS can do through us. We're told that what HE allows "us" to do, ie what he does through us, is not of this world - meaning it is capable of doing things WE have no clue how to do.

We're told that WE do not understand anything, and HE knows how to heal because that is his function. We're told HE is the only therapist, not us. We're told that OF ourselves we have no power, but there is a power in us that works THROUGH us FOR us.

We're told the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of our wrong decision (all effects, symptoms, errors, manifestations, sicknesses, problems) if we will LET HIM (allow him to ACTUALLY DO IT).

We're told not to assume his function. We're told that when he heals he never fails because he knows how to succeed and cannot fail. We're told to not interfere, to not get in the way. We're told to let him literally SPEAK through our mouths to let HIM to talk others, which means literally channeling him. We're told to let HIM use our bodies, to allow our body to be a device for HIS communication and healing.

We're told to adopt His Christ Vision and to see WITH him how HE sees, so that His vision becomes shared with us - that we tune into it, but do not originate it. We're told this vision is GIVEN to us, we did not create it, so we need to accept it. Were told the atonement is GIVEN to us, and needs only our acceptance and allowance, which means we do not MAKE IT or define it.

We're told that we had everything before the separation and we must now re-receive INHERITANCE FROM GOD. What God wills that we have and be, not what we make of ourselves. We're told that we're still as God created us and that because He created us, we do not MAKE ourselves or redefine ourselves, so must stop trying to be the gatekeeper who decides what is true and false but to instead accept HIS definition of us. We're asked to make NO decisions on our own, relying heavily on guidance. The list goes on.

This all requires a laying down and surrendering of our entire ego effort for control and definition of who and what we are, what the truth is, what we have, and what God would have us do. A willingness to ACCEPT as our own, that which GOD HAS DECIDED we should have and be and share in. And to do so willingly and joyfully, knowing and trusting it is for our highest good to take on board HIS provision, decision, mind, will, power and safety. We are to EXTEND creation, we are not to invent things which are not in alignment with what God has already created.

All of this points to a clear picture that in our natural God-given state, we are not in the business of being something "of ourselves". We're not inventing or reinventing. We're not trying to make something as substitute for what God already created. We're not trying to give ourselves a function that God did not give us, some kind of heroic role that makes us look good or that we think is better than the "chore" of doing God's will "against our will".

Our only function in heaven is creation, our only function on earth is healing. We're more or less asked to completely surrender all control and resistance and unwillingness. We're asked to do GOD'S will, rather than our own separate interests. And to settle into returning to being ONLY what God has decided is true of us.

So our proper function, our natural way of being in harmony with Creation, is basically to be what God defines you to be, to act in accord with HIS will, to create WITH him, to extend FROM him, to communicate and share what HE would have us know, to perform the miracles HE directs, and to have complete total trust and dependency on him for EVERYTHING. To be in a kind of symbiotic relationship of happy dependency. "God and his miracles (you) are inseparable."

Learning to adopt this position allows you to become "a miracle worker". But not because you are a powerful independent superhero, but because you have let go and let God, you have surrendered deeply all efforts to BE God, you have given up "trying" in favor of trusting Holy Spirit's supernatural power which never fails, and you have become a conduit through which HIS POWER can move to cure all ills, solve all problems, and correct all suffering. And that means you are now allowing God to operate THROUGH you in the world.

It is humbling. We do not get to be the center of attention. We do not get to be the false savior. Our inflated spiritualized ego needs to be dissolved and replaced with SHARING. And we simply settle into being OF SERVICE to God, trusting Him in all things, doing what He bids willingly, listening to and following his instructions, and being a representative of His Will. Nor does this mean you are some kind of slave, unwilling worker, coerced victim or person who is being forced to do what they do not want to do. You must be WILLING to recognize and trust that His will is for your good.

So the question is, do you want to be on team ego, or do you want to be on the Holy Spirit's team? Are you willing to adopt HIS function, shared with him in trust, or do you want to keep being the hero of the dream? And are you willing to allow a supernatural power to move THROUGH you, in this world, to perofrm miracles which are not OF you, and which are not of this world?

Are you willing to be a FOLLOWER? A disciple? A willing participant in the great crusade and a professor of Christ?

"The therapist does not heal; he LETS HEALING BE. HE can point to darkness, but he CANNOT bring light OF HIMSELF, for light is NOT of him. But being FOR him, it MUST be for his patient."

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

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

"Accept ONLY the function of healing in time, because that is what time is FOR."

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

"the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

"All miracles mean Life, and God is the giver of Life. He will direct you VERY specifically."

"Make no decisions about what it is, or where it lies, but ask of the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING, and leave ALL decisions to His gentle counsel. The One Who knows the plan of God, which God would have you follow, can teach you what it IS. Only His wisdom is capable of guiding you to follow it. Every decision you undertake alone, but signifies that you would define what Salvation is, and what you would be saved FROM. The Holy Spirit KNOWS that ALL Salvation is escape from guilt. You have no other "enemy" and against this strange distortion of the purity of the Son of God, the Holy Spirit is your ONLY friend."

"Today I will make NO decisions by myself."

""Take up thy cross and follow me" should be interpreted to read "Recognize your errors and choose to abandon them by following My guidance.""

"I have repeatedly asked MY pupils to follow me. This means that, to be effective teachers, they MUST interpret teaching as I do."

"Only then will your MIND will to follow me. Without your will, you cannot be rehabilitated. MOTIVATION TO BE HEALED is the crucial factor in rehabilitation."

"You once said that souls cannot rest until everyone has found salvation. This happens to be true. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive. The Disciples were officially and specifically told to heal others, as Physicians of the Lord. They were also told to heal themselves, and were promised that I would never leave them or forsake them. Atonement is the natural profession of the Children of God, because they have professed Me."

"I must found His church on you, because you, who accept me as a model, are literally my disciples. Disciples are followers, but if the model they follow has chosen to save them pain in all respects, they are probably unwise NOT to follow him."

"RELEASE yourselves to Him Whose function IS release. Do NOT assume His function FOR Him. Give Him but what He asks, that you may learn how LITTLE is your part, and how great IS HIS."

"Healing is the one ability that everyone CAN develop, and MUST develop, if he is to BE healed. Healing IS the Holy Spirit's form of communication, and the ONLY one He knows."

"Yet what makes God's teachers is their recognition of the proper purpose of the body.As they advance in their profession, they become more and more certain that the body's function is but to let God's Voice speak through it to human ears. And these ears will carry to the mind of the hearer messages that are not of this world, and the mind will understand because of their Source.From this understanding will come the recognition, in this new teacher of God, of what the body's purpose really is; the only use there really is for it."

"The Holy Spirit does NOT work by chance, and healing that is of Him ALWAYS works. And unless the healer ALWAYS heals BY Him, the results WILL vary. But healing itself IS consistence, because ONLY consistence is conflict-free, and only the conflict-free ARE whole. By accepting exceptions, and acknowledging that he can SOMETIMES heal and SOMETIMES NOT, the healer is OBVIOUSLY accepting INconsistency. He is therefore IN conflict and TEACHING conflict.

Can ANYTHING of God NOT be for all and always? Love is incapable of ANY exceptions."

"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."

I think that I recently reached a turning point. It's particularly to do with the sense of being a "separate person". This seemed to come into question, particularly in terms of relationships with others, how I see them, who I think they are etc. And it also very much involved questioning the reality of my body and the bodies of others.

I seemed to be opening up to an idea of oneness, a sense of sharing, of joining minds, and that others are a part of myself. I could see how I had been trapped inside a kind of prison of isolation for a long time, identified with my body and with being "not others". As if everything I did and how I thought about people all revolved around this sense of me being separate from them. I found myself apologizing a lot in my mind for all the ways I'd been wrongly separating myself off through various forms of conflict and scapegoating.

As I embraced more the idea that my brothers are part of myself, this began to transcend bodily boundaries. It also began to open up a sense of inclusion and shared interests. I started experimenting with the idea of "being" other people, and trying to include them in myself as I related to them. It changes the energy dynamics completely and totally deflates all sense of going to war. I realized this was a major part of the golden rule, the atonement, the idea of sharing, and deeply connected to true miracle-working.

Since that turning point, and as this sense of joining continues to expand, I've been noticing a few things that are changing. I feel as though I am stepping outside of a box that I've been in. As if there's been a little circle drawn on the floor around my feet and I've never before stepped outside the circle. Everywhere I've gone, I've still been inside the circle, cut off from people. And as I now step outside of it, it makes me realize all the more that the body is a device for separation.

In particular I feel that I've been just stuck in the idea of "I am a body" my whole life, and that the body has served as a way to remain separated off. I suddenly started seeing how every way I related to people was a special relationship, based on them being "not me", and all revolving around the body being the thing that separates me off. Seeing other people as confined to their bodies. Seeing myself as only that which is inside this body.

This boundary, which has been there, is now recognized as being the "cause of" a great deal of struggle, conflict, loss and unhappiness. Being identified and anchored to this body and "excluding" others, has formed the basis of all scapegoating, justifying all finger-pointing, all blame, all sense that something applies to others and not me. I see the body now as the core of what keeps me apart from others. And if I separate them off based on their body being separate from my body, that's the whole trap.

Suddenly I find myself stepping outside of this entire dynamic. Transcending bodies. Including people as a part of myself. Developing a sense of shared identity. I realize that peace is only possible by sharing and joining, because only in oneness is there no separation or war. And that it is ONLY through joining of mind and sharing an identity that you can actually work true miracles. It literally requires the two minds to have a shared sense of oneness and identity which transcends bodies. It is that mystical, psychological, joining of two beings as one, that literally undoes the separation, and therefore sickness and death.

I see now much more clearly the "road home", as being a movement away from being separated off, and towards being reunited with others. Of finding more ways to include others in myself. And I see that this truly is the only way to end the war, the conflict, the arguments, the projections, and all the ego activities. We came from a state of union and we have to return to it.

It is quite startling in fact to recognize that, in truth, we are supposed to be basically everywhere, united with everyone, sharing everything, one with all minds, being a part of all beings, and that in contrast, bodies are doing the absolute extreme opposite of that. They are serving as ways to keep people apart, promote conflict, imprison and trap, produce loneliness and isolation, and breed sickness.

I can see now in fact that it is my belief in being separate that fuels sickness in myself and others. It is the very sense of the rift or split in my mind - our mind - a sense of us not being one with each other, that manifests as illness. I have been producing illness between myself and others as a projected form of the idea of being at war with them.

Pictures of crucifixion have arisen as psychological images of dream-weapons held up to support the idea of "not being each other". Of being in a state of attack and special relationship. A state of separating off and being an enemy. It breeds a dream of death that I've been doing to myself. And always whenever the body is involved as a separation device, the relationship is always one of specialness and conflict and hatred.

It feels like coming out of a shell, out of hiding. It feels like realizing that you've been living in a prison cell all your life, anchored inside the body, and suddenly are realizing that this has hemmed you in and has tended to make you withdraw to your isolation as a way to solve problems. Now that I suddenly realize I don't have to be trapped in the body, I can spread my wings and encompass others, be more inclusive and share more.

It's strange but this seems also be precisely what it means to truly forgive. Because forgiveness isn't just about recognizing people's innocence. Forgiveness is atonement, atonement is sharing, and that means joining of minds. Forgiveness literally entails and requires minds to be inclusive of each other. It's not just a state of truer perceptions and more accurate judgements, it's actually a state of union and sharing. A return to shared identity and being.

As a result, and without deliberately attempting to do so, I suddenly am noticing myself giving people far more credit, benefit of the doubt, charity, etc. Just as I found myself doing in certain forgiveness meditations, such as in lesson 121 in the course - forgiveness is the key to happiness, in which you are guided to see light in an enemy and find ways to credit them with the good they've done rather than focus on their shortcomings.

I find myself seeming to put my arms around people psychologically, my mind keeps taking an automatic step away from holding things against people and has this sort of "space" between where they're at and what I credit them with. I seem to be transcending their bodies and their egos along with my own. And that means, what I feel to be, true forgiveness is happening. I'm actually taking a vantage point, generalized and widespread, in which I am literally being more forgiving all the time, more loving, more inclusive, and more sharing.

I've been finding myself suddenly opening up to people more, connecting with people, serving people, helping people more than ever. It is diminishing and removing fears about relating to strangers, and seems to be powering me, not with some kind of bravado or arrogance but with gentleness and connection. I seem to be opening up. And to me that means that, living as a separated off body-identified self means being closed down. It means being cut off from others.

The simple truth is that bodies have been lying to us this whole time. We've bought into being bodies hook line and sinker. And that means being separated from each other, because bodies are literally never joined. The more we are a body the less we share. The more we are a body the more we are at war. The more we are a body the more confined we become to one little spot in the world, which becomes the center of the ego universe, and everyone else becomes an enemy.

Getting away from being a body is the key. It's like opening a door that I never realized was shut all this time. I've been doing this same thing over and over and over forever. Everything I've said and thought and done and related has been still within the confines of this prison cell. Still from a vantage point of being a separated self, a self that is not shared with other selves. A self that isn't united or whole or one or part of a sonship. The unhealed healer that is suffering from "separation sickness" and thinks they have something that others lack - ie that they lack me.

That's been the one common denominator this whole time, and now I'm learning to open the door and step outside. To expand my sense of self, to include myself in others, and to become a part of life. To restore relationship and connection, as well as to uphold health and wholeness. And I knew, it's not going to be long, as this continues to develop and increase, the movement towards being able to truly join minds and perform miracles of union.

Sharing is the key. Joining is everything. The oneness is our true nature. Not in rejection of our individual souls, but joining them together as a collective. We are still a holographic family, many yet one, each other yet ourselves. This means still being "me", but it also means being "more than just myself" and including others in what I am. I've focused too much on the "separate me" part and not enough on the "oneness" part. And it was the "oneness" part of that that I was missing out on. Not any more.

"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."

"Be free today, and carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body. Be you free, so that the Holy Spirit can make use of your escape from bondage to set free the many who perceive themselves as bound and helpless and afraid. Let love replace their fears through you. Accept salvation now, and give your mind to Him Who calls to you to make this gift to Him. For He would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full accomplishment in God."

There are really only two modes of functioning of which you are capable. It really does boil down to a simple "this or that" decision. Either you are in love, or you are in fear. Love has only one nature, but fear masquerades as an untold number of illusions. All of them are fearful and they represent egotism. But they are all essentially a withdrawal away from love.

To love is an outward expression. It is extension. Love shines and radiates out of you towards others. This love seeks to uplift, empower, heal, nurture, strengthen, join, share, communicate, connect, give, supply, support, make whole. Love is always given/extended through you from God and goes out to your brothers and to the world. It is an outward transfer which entails you loving and joining with everything.

Love, and all expressions of love, are miraculous and healing. Love is powerful, it is happy and joyful, and it is peaceful. It is meaningful. Love is sanity. Love heals and resurrects. And love can reverse all forms of suffering. Love shines like a bright light, and as you give it, you receive it because it is shared and for all. As you give it, you shine, and in this shining you illuminate both yourself and others, and in this light you can see, and what you look upon is illuminated with love and is lovable.

The opposite of this is fear. Fear is separation, contraction, withdrawal, and inward focus. Fear is selfish, victimizing and victimized. In fear you feel afraid, angry, upset, hurt, weakened, sick, tired, stressed and damaged. In fear you pull way from others and the world, you hate and attack, you feel imposed upon and controlled, and eventually die. Fear is an attempt not to extend love, not to give life, and to be alone. In fear you will feel alone, cut off, isolated, imprisoned.

In fear you will feel like you've been taken hostage, all the happenings around you will seem like they are against you with no escape, all problems will seem insurmountable and unfair and cruel, and you will feel like you're in a dark pit of hellish despair that you can't get out of. It's as if you've been taken hostage by a tyrannical ruler who has imprisoned you and kept you in a dark hole in the ground. And everywhere you turn there will be enemies and haters and attackers and prison guards.

What it boils down to is a very, very simple difference between the two approaches to life. Each approach entails a different kind of seeing. Fear places you in false perception, where the whole world seems like a prison. Love places you in true perception, where the whole world is harmless and forgiven.

Love entails giving in order to receive. As you give love, as you shine your light, as you extend, you yourself are uplifted. "Miracles benefit both the giver and the receiver." Even if you start out in fear and lack, efforting to love more will empower you and lift you out of darkness. To love is to fulfill your natural function. You are supposed to shine. You are supposed to radiate. You are supposed to give and extend and reach out to join with others in love. AS you do this you automatically are protected and saved and it raises you up into the light where you are happy and at peace.

When you don't do this, you must recoil and withdraw into fear. You will step back and not give. And it will now seem that the world has taken from you. A gap will form in between you and others. You will develop enemies and opponents. You will hate some of them and hate yourself for hating them. You will become weak, afraid, lost, alone, and suffer in the dark. You will feel isolated and sick and like no-one is on your side. The world will loom heavily over you as if it has power to make your life hell. And all the while you will be trying to get, to take, to have, to own, to possess, to be special, and you will feel selfish. And everything offered by love will be missing.

It really is as simple as if you have only one choice. Either you give love or you lose love. It's like there's an emotional beacon in you, in your heart, where either your heart is giving outwardly and energy and light are flowing out of you in support of others, or your heart is cold and empty and you are withdrawing and escaping as an enemy of the world. Either your energies express and extend outward, or you hold yourself back. Either you feel loving and warm and bright, or you feel hateful and cold and dark.

You get to make this simple choice at all times. You can switch on love at any time. You can feel it in your heart. Even in the midst of any other illusion of suffering. And yet the ego is expert at making it seem like there is no way out of suffering and love will not help. Can it be as simple as that your heart is not switched on? Of all the many seeming problems, stresses, upsets, emotions, can it be that simply loving more will cure it?

The ego would say no, it will tell you that each of these problems is unique and needs a separate solution. And what it thinks it needs it tries to get. And yet getting it does not make you happy. Underneath all the complicated forms in which fear arises, and all the ways you can feel unloved, there IS in fact only simple solution to all of them. Simply love more. It lifts you out of all upset feelings, it brightens you, makes you feel happier, stronger, more confident. It dispels fear and erases upsets. It heals you.

Being 'human' can seem so complicated but actually what's happening in your mind is incredibly simple. You are like a piece of machinery whose function is to extend the love of God to others. That is all. "The only function of spirit is to extend God's being." You are host to God and extend God. That is all. Your only choice is to continue extending God at all times, or separate yourself off into isolation and fear, in which you will experience all forms of suffering. And at any time you can switch back into fulfilling your function as the light of the world.

The only way to be happy is to fulfill your function. To love. To express love. It's completely natural and produces miracles. It is holy relationship. It is God's will. It is God's will that you love and be happy and healthy. Love makes this possible and guarantees your health and perfection. Either you extend God's love, or you will attack yourself and make yourself sick.

This is why Jesus says "teach only love for that is what you are." It's an extremely simple choice, between love or suffering. To love is to heal and to be happy. To love your brother is to uplift and resurrect him along with you. Your focus should not be on yourself and your needs, or your body. These vanish when you love your brother. Focusing on your body makes it sick because mind is supposed to extend PAST it to others. The light has to shine, to produce health. The light shines PAST sickness and bodies, because it is forgiving.

To love or not to love, that is the question. And only love can make you happy.

"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. "

"Salvation is a lesson in giving, as the Holy Spirit interprets it. It is the re-awakening of the laws of God in minds that have established other laws, and given them power to enforce what God created not."

"We have said that you have but two emotions, love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered BY the eternal TO the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it INCREASES as it is given. The other has many forms, for the content of INDIVIDUAL delusions differs greatly. But they have one thing in common; they are all insane. They are made of sights which are NOT seen, and sounds which are NOT heard. They make up a PRIVATE world, which CANNOT be shared. For they are meaningful ONLY to their maker, and so they have no meaning at all. In this world their maker moves alone, for only HE perceives them. "

"You have but two emotions, yet in your private world you react to each of them AS THOUGH IT WERE THE OTHER. For love cannot abide in a world apart, where, when it comes, it is not recognized. If you see your own hatred AS your brother, you are not seeing HIM. Everyone draws nigh unto what he loves, and recoils from what he fears. And you react with fear to love, and draw AWAY from it. But fear ATTRACTS you, and believing it is love, you call it to yourself. Your private world is filled with the figures of fear you have invited into it. And all the love your brothers offer you, YOU DO NOT SEE. "

"You have but two emotions, and one you made and one was GIVEN you. Each is a WAY OF SEEING, and different worlds arise from their different visions. See through the vision that is GIVEN you, for through Christ's vision, He beholds Himself. And seeing what HE is, He knows His Father. Beyond your darkest dreams, He sees God's guiltless Son within you, shining in perfect radiance, which is undimmed by your dreams. And this YOU will see as you look with Him, for His vision is His gift of love to you, given Him of the Father FOR you."

Jesus writes: "See the point about miracles as a perception corrector (for himself) ***before*** he can effect (perform) miracles as CREATIVE ENERGIZERS (for others), which they are."

Becoming a miracle worker has two phases. As Jesus writes here, in the first phase there is an emphasis on the correction of YOUR perceptual flaws. This GIVES WAY, to the second phase, which is the ability to EXTEND love to others as a creative energizing power, which can heal them.

This is because miracles express FROM a loving state of mind, and in the initial phase you are NOT loving enough to express them yourself. You have to shift perception FIRST, to get INTO a loving state, before you can PERFORM a miracle.

This all hinges around a very simple mechanic. The question of, are you in a state of mind in which you are willing to EXTEND?

When you are in the first phase, you are still much too selfish, too in the dark, too afraid, too unwilling, and riddled with sin, to be able to truly extend maximal love to others. You can't PERFORM miracles very effectively. The mind is deluded with false perception and temptation. In this stage, your mind is very much IN NEED of help itself. It can't effectively get out of the way or give or supply the lack in others, because it itself is too lacking.

In this first phase, our main function is PURIFICATION. We need to RECEIVE healing for ourselves. The mind has to be trained. Fear has to be undone. Sin has to be forgiven. Blocks to awareness have to be removed. All the ways that we are HOLDING BACK THE LIGHT have to be dissolved. It's kind of like, you are a light of healing, but while your light is covered up with ego bullshit you cannot SHINE enough to effectively "shed light" onto others. You are too dark.

"Miracles are everyone's right (the right to PERFORM them), but purification is necessary first."

So you have to go through a phase, which could be quite extensive, of purification for yourself. Here you can RECEIVE miracles, ie outside help, FROM those who are already miraculously powerful. That could be another miracle worker who can SUPPLY YOUR LACK, because they "temporarily have more" than you, or it might be healing received from Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Our task here is also to practice forgiveness and learn to undo sin through atonement.

Now, you can probably imagine what's going to happen as, over time, your mind becomes LIGHTER. Or rather, the various ways that you are unwilling to EXTEND LIGHT into the minds of others, unwilling to join, and are too focused on separation, is removed. What's going to happen as you open up, develop trust in your brother, forgive yourself and him, and remove the blocks to unconditional love?

You're going to gradually SHINE more, becoming brighter and more able and willing to ALLOW love to extend through you. You're learning to line up with God's will. To let go of ego. To connect and communicate. To express love more unconditionally. Special relationships are melting into holy relationships. And your mind is becoming UNBLOCKED. So it's not getting in the way of the extension of the mind itself.

As this progresses, you are gradually approaching the second state of miracle mindedness and more consistently "being the light of the world." As you UNVEIL yourself, you are more willing and able to express love and extend LIFE. You start becoming more able to GIVE to others and to serve, to be truly helpful. And you begin to represent God and Christ more. Your mind is reconnecting with other minds and your heart is opening to love.

By becoming less blocked, less inhibited, less afraid, less selfish and less separated off, you are resuming your NATURAL FUNCTION of miraculousness. Being miraculous is actually permanent. Even God is miraculous and so are all His creations. "Miracles are a universal blessing from God" "God's miracles" "You are a miracle" "The miraculous nature of the soul" etc. Miracles are supposed to naturally be happening ALL the time.

When we talk of miracles as ONLY the shifts in perception which LEAD UP TO the state of miracle mindedness, we are missing half the story. This would imply that once your mind IS shifted into truth, you STOP being miraculous. This is not AT ALL true. In fact what happens is you are uncovering your PERMANENT and natural innate miraculous NATURE, which puts you back in touch with being ALWAYS miraculous.

As your mind becomes healed, YOU become able TO heal others. As you become more loving and unafraid, you are able to GIVE the miracles you have received. As you become more in line with the Golden Rule, you are able to recognize that giving and receiving are ONE. As you remove the blocks to awareness, you become more JOINED with other minds and SUPPORT and STRENGTHEN them.

"Those who are healed become instruments of healing."

So the first phase is all about uncovering your natural miracle working ability and nature, and the second phase is about starting to get in touch with and EXPRESSING that nature. First becoming stronger in the truth, then GIVING that truth to others. First receiving healing that you need in order to BE healed, then GIVING that healing to others effortlessly.

Some people focus only on the aspect of ACIM which discusses the "benefits to you" of reaching the atonement "for yourself". Your sole responsibility. But this misses an entire other half of the story. The rest of the story tells us of how, having been restored to our natural condition, we become empowered to WORK MIRACLES ourselves, by being able once again to EXTEND God's Power to others.

"Having been restored to your original state, you naturally ***become part of the Atonement yourself***. You now share MY inability to tolerate the lack of love in yourself and in everyone else, and MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE to correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is "Listen, Learn, and DO.""

Jesus is ALSO clear in the course that he does not intend for us to WAIT until we reach 100% atonement before working any miracles. In fact, he describes it as an ability to be PRACTICED.

"The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability."

He states that as we ATTEMPT to perform miracles, sometimes we will have successes and that DOING THEM will BRING conviction in the ability. That we need a bit of convincing and the only way to get that is to TRY to perform them. Perhaps we will fail at first. Perhaps we will be too involved in the ego to get a result. But if we don't TRY, we will not discover what we can do or learn from mistakes.

"Miracles are taken first on faith" also tells us that initially we have to TRUST and have faith in order to perform miracles, because we are OUT OF TOUCH with the miracle-minded state. And so we need Holy Spirit or Jesus to do the work for us. To help us out where we fail. But LATER, as we get more in touch with our innate miraculousness, we become more able to directly PERFORM them ourselves.

He also describes how if we were to just TEMPORARILY suspend fear, or uses words to focus the mind in prayer, that this would be sufficient to bring about a miracle. EVEN IF we then return to a state of fear afterwards. He also discusses how "some of you have healed the sick at times but have not raised the dead because your faith was not whole." A PARTIAL faith can bring about "minor miracles", while a FULLER faith (a more healed mind) can bring about what would seem to be "more difficult" miracles such as raising the dead.

Becoming ABLE to perform a miracle, is clearly a PROGRESSION, something to be experimented with, explored, discovered, learned, strengthened, so that we can GAIN confidence in the ability. We will see lesser miracles and later more significant ones as we hone the ability. As our mind becomes more purified, it becomes easier. As our ego gets more out of the way, we become more powerful. As we trust more, we gain God's Power more. And as we become more truly loving, we are able to supply a lack of love in others, healing and enlightening them.

This is also why Jesus says "an untrained mind can accomplish nothing." Meaning that a trained mind CAN accomplish something. A trained mind is more ABLE to perform miracles for others.

We are to gradually unlock our potential as miracle workers. We are to "test the waters" and dabble and TRY to perform them. We are to experiment with working with the Holy Spirit. And we are to learn from our failures and forgive our faults and fears, so that we can become more effective healers. Once we reach consistent miracle mindedness we'll be so empowered that we can effortlessly perform miracles all day every day. "Every day should be devoted to miracles."

So miracles "benefit both the giver and the receiver". As you attempt to give them, even from a non 100%-atoned state, they LIFT YOU UP, as well as lifting others up. As you flow and give the love that you DO NOT have, you tap into the flow and it starts to move, and it starts to LIFT YOU out of the darkness. You get healed as well as the other person. But once you have BEEN healed, and are sustaining a higher level of functioning, the healing you extend has less need to heal YOU, and focuses more on the healing you GIVE to others.

"Miracles are the maximal SERVICE you can render to others."

Being miraculously MINDED, as a state, is distinct from miracle DOING/WORKING, which is an EXPRESSION FROM that state.

"The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression. "

Becoming closer to the miracle-minded STATE is the first PHASE of learning to be a miracle worker. Miracle DOING/WORKING is the EXPRESSION/extension of that state, which entails the PERFORMING of miracles for others. This second state is completely natural and automatic and effortless and MANDATORY. You cannot become loving WITHOUT being willing to GIVE love. You cannot be healed without a willingness TO HEAL. And you cannot accept atonement or miracles without a recognition that it is to be SHARED with others.

I believe I have received. Thank you God.

2000 years ago Jesus said "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

Gratitude is an attitude of fully appreciating what is already present, or has been already given.

What you may not realize is, if it appears you do not have what you want, if you be pre-grateful for it ahead of time, believing that you have already received it as if receiving was "in the past", it comes to you!!

There is a law here. The law is, that where there is gratitude, the thing you are grateful for is being appreciated and therefore it must be present. Should you be grateful for the presence of something that the world seems to not contain, it will materialize. It has to, because gratitude extends and believes in what it is grateful for.

In other words, gratitude CREATES. God created through gratitude because gratitude appreciates what already is and God appreciates - is aware of and fully embraces - what He already is, which creates more of the same.

This seems like complete nonsense to the ego, how can gratitude create when the thing to be grateful for doesn’t seem to exist yet? The ego thought system is only grateful for what it "gets" in the future, not for what is HAS. It’s non existence is an illusion because all that God provided is ALREADY GIVEN, merely hidden temporarily. And so lacking it is NOT TRUE.

It operates similarly to the law of forgiveness. Forgiveness is fore-giveness, ie it gives love and truth ahead of time proactively SO THAT nothing goes wrong and therefore there is nothing to forgive. It brings about a state in which it’s own law is extended to ENSURE there is no problem.

Similarly, gratitude to God for what he HAS GIVEN, pro-actively CAUSES it to be present, acknlowdging that it must already be here, and therefore expressing and creating it so that it does not seem to be lacking. Gratitude undoes lack or the illusion of lack, just as forgiveness undoes the need to forgive by removing the illusion of unforgiveness or judgement. And remember that miracles supply a lack and that is why they heal, therefore gratitude is miraculous!

God’s power works in the opposite direction to the ego. The ego says, I presently lack and therefore need something and so I "desire"it and then tries to use its own will power to force it to happen, without God.

This morning I found myself doing this because I was "commanding" that something be healed, it was not working, the problem seemed real and not healed yet and I became quite intense and demanding about it. Then I became frustrated and angry. I had to admit that I was trying to force it myself and was using my own will. This wasn’t working. So in frustration I gave up, which was a good thing.

God works in the opposite direction. He does not focus on the lack of what you want, because absence is the idea that God is absent. He does not focus on the answer being in the future because that reinforces the idea that God is not here right now, and that He has been here already this whole time. He does not complain because complaint is the opposite of gratitude and complaint is a failure to appreciate what is present.

Complaint attacks what is here now, gratitude loves what is here now. However, this does NOT MEAN that you should love and be great full for what is currently showing up in form! Form is an illusion! Be grateful for the shit the ego gave you and you will keep it! You have to ignore form because God did not create it. You have to love and be grateful only for what God has given, what may seem invisible to you at first.

So to bring forth a miracle healing or manifestation from God, we must ACT LIKE God’s truth and in line with God’s nature. It’s no use attacking what is, or complaining, or trying to make it go away with intensity or will power, or to desire what you want as if you do not have it. Those are not forms of asking, or forms of receiving. They focus on lack and make it real.

The ego’s attempts to "get"are guaranteed to fail because they do everything other than be like God, everything other than receiving His will, and everything which actually pushes away what you are trying to bring about. As usual, the ego makes it appear like it is asking and desiring and wanting, when in fact it is doing the opposite. Seek and do not find. To desire something on the basis that God did not already supply it, and therefore it is not here now, and only exists in the separated state of the future, is a GUARANTEE that you will continue to lack and suffer!

If God’s nature is the truth and we are asking for God‘s help, then we first need to get rid of the idea of "needing help." Instead, let us acknowledge what is TRUE ALREADY. You have already received God’s healing. God already established your perfection when He created you, which you can think of as in the past. So the perfection, restoration, healing, what you want, is not in the future. It must be already present because God alreaday established it in the past, and so it’s is already here, now.

This seems somehow impossible to ego thinking. Is it even possible to get your mind to believe that it has already received what is already given by God, even if it *appears* that it isn’t showing up yet? Yes, it is possible! Is it possible to appreciate and be grateful for, what currently appears to not even exist yet? Yes!

That your perfection appears to not be showing up right now is an illusion. It is merely blocked. Any current appearance of you not being or having what God has already given, only means that your perfection IS here already but it is hididen. The notion that it is not here, showing up as illusions of "my healed self must be in the future", is an ego lie. Your healed self IS already here. Forms that are currently showing up can be blinding. They are not really there.

You must just bring about the recognition of, gratitude for, appreciation of and belief in the truth, that God has ALREADY GIVEN what you seem to lack, literally "in the past". Gratitude receives, by focusing on the acknowledgement of it being here now, of the healing having already occurred, and truly believing that this is so because it is in accord with God’s nature.

Eventually once you have let go of all of the egoic ways you are trying to bring about a result, you need to get purely into the mindset and belief that you HAVE received from God already, regardless of what is showing up, and regardless of whether it’s absence seems to continue to show up for a while. You have to ignore all ego signals, what form looks like, what conditions seem to persist, or any fearful doubting ego thoughts about it having not worked.

If you can get your mind into this seemingly "backwards" way of thinking, which boils down to "I believe I have already been given this, I have already received it, and I am grateful to God", or even more simply, "thank you", and hold onto that belief, God will answer. Believing it is important. It has to be true for you that you feel that you HAVE received it, even if it has not materialized in form yet, and you develop that conviction by thanking God.

If you are thanking God for having already supplied your lack, then it implies you HAVE, therefore it is true, and therefore you believe it. This helps you to see through any illusion that you lack or continue to be sick. It gives you a feeling of certainty and joy in spite of any illusory conditions, and you will stay true to that belief in spite of lingering forms or circumstances. And that’s means, you are now HAVING FAITH.

Faith is a state of genuine trust and knowing, not wishful thinking or hope. It is rooted firmly in the believing that God has already provided and therefore it is a DONE DEAL. It is belief that God’s way or truth is TRUE. This belief will ignore and pay no attention to what anyone says or any doubts or anything showing up in form. It bypasses illusions and all ego signals. It transcends what appears to be showing up, knowing that God’s HAS provided.

If you are completely certain that you have received, it will give you strong faith ie strong belief, which will make it impossible for you to be swayed by external illusions or claims to the contrary. It will also give you a sense that you know the days of your sickness are now limited because you believe God more than you believe the ego illusions.

This takes you beyond the ego’s nature. Now you are playing by God’s rules, according to His will for you that you be divinely happy and healthy. That you ARE that already, and merely need manifest it by focusing on it and believing in its presence. Jesus says to be vigilant only for the Kingdom of God. This is what it means. To believe only God’s nature and to align yourself with it and receive it as God already gave it. I am still as God created me says the same thing.

You are still as God created you, therefore the perfect Self that God created before time began is still here now, it has been fully given, it is true of you, it is present already, you are grateful for it, you believe in it and know it to be true, you trust it, you allow and accept it (atonement principle), and it is therefore your reality.

Believing this way, having this faith in a God, makes you supernatural.

A very common-place belief is that you choose something at one moment in time, the "change" is implemented at that time, and then you stop making any changes. It then seems that the effects that you choose are on a kind of auto-pilot, just carrying over from the past, as if you are not making any decisions NOW that are resulting in the effects remaining.

So for example 20 years ago, someone attacked you and damaged your leg, and ever since then you've been walking with a limp. You THINK that the limp is there "because of" that one moment in time which changed the "direction" of your life, as though a temporary hand steered you in a different direction, but this is NOT how it works.

When anything happens, as a "one time" thing, it is not a one-time thing. If you accept it, thus believe in it, and YOU implement the effects, and you maintain the belief that it happened, you are CONSTANTLY BELIEVING that it happened. It's like you suddenly get into a groove, you STAY in the groove, and are continually now under the influence of this belief. The belief is CONSTANTLY EXPRESSING. The belief is continually RE-MANUFACTURING the effects that you chose, moment by moment.

So if we re-frame this, 20 years ago you DECIDED that you would walk with a limp. You NEVER CHANGED YOUR MIND about this. You THINK that you only decided this one-time 20 years ago, but in fact you have been deciding to walk with a limp for 20 years straight. Every single day you make the same decision, or commit to the same intention, and without changing it you KEEP MAKING the same effects. If you would realize you need not suffer, you would change your mind and set yourself free, NOW.

This works exactly like a projector, because it is a projective process. At some point in time, you put a movie reel into your projector and switched it on. It started projecting an image of a broken leg. Each moment, the projector shines light and broadcasts this image. And then the next moment it does it again. It puts that image out there again, and again, and again, and again.

Over time, the movie screen shows a broken leg, CONSTANTLY in a state of being broken. Why? Because the movie reel has not been changed. It just keeps RE-PROJECTING the same picture, based on the same programming. Putting the movie reel into the projector is not what "caused the broken leg" 20 years ago, it's the fact that the SAME movie reel (belief) is STILL in the projector! This movement INTO this state of damage has not been chosen against, in 20 years! You have no UNDONE IT.

This is how beliefs and choices really operate. Because in every single MOMENT, you have free will to CHOOSE what you will experience. And just because you seem to keep choosing the SAME experience over a prolonged period of time does NOT MEAN that you can't change that experience in an instant. Just because you have this long story of built-up belief that you were damaged 20 years ago and have had this broken leg for SO LONG that it can't possibly be healed, that's total bullshit. It is completely irrelevant. The decision to have the broken leg is happening NOW, not in the past.

Every moment, you are choosing and projecting a version of the body that you CHOOSE it be. Every moment you are broadcasting its image. Every moment you are determining its condition. Every moment you are putting out there a FRESH COPY of a picture of a body. It's not even RELATED to the one that you projected 5 seconds ago. And the one you "had" 5 seconds ago DOES NOT EXIST. Nor is the one you have now, a "carry over" from one you just had, nor has there been any transfer or maintaining of its "state" outside of your mind. The body does NOT have its own state.

The ego has been very good at creating the ILLUSION that the past carries over to the present, or that something happening 20 years ago is still affecting you in a kind of cause-effect relationship. As if the past causes the present. This is total fiction. The leg is not still broken because of the past, it's still broken because the MIND HAS NOT CHANGED.

So you have to realize this. Beliefs, when you implement them, are DECISIONS, which will CONSTANTLY EXPRESS, for as long as you keep the belief. The EFFECTS of this belief will continue to be produced - CAUSED - so long as you keep the belief. If you have this belief lodged in your mind for 20 years saying "my leg is damaged", it will constantly ensure that the leg shows up as damaged for 20 years. It's like you develop an ATTITUDE, and you keep this attitude going, and every day you have this attitude, and therefore every day PRODUCE the same EFFECTS.

Yet you are free to change your mind at ANY TIME. And the instant that you undo that belief and accept the CURE of Atonement, all of those signs and symptoms of damage will disappear. INSTANTLY. With no bearing on how long it's been there or "why" it's "more difficult" to heal it if you've had it for decades.

It's simply not true that decisions or "influences" or "causes" occur "momentarily", at one moment in time, affecting things just briefly (e.g. an accident), causing irreparable damage which just happens to then carry on "on its own". Nothing EVER carries on on its own. The mind HAS TO BE MAKING EVERYTHING HAPPEN AT ALL TIMES. "Mind makes this decision as it makes EVERY decision responsible for the condition of the body."

So you are either CONTINUING TO BELIEVE and therefore CHOOSE that the body be in a certain condition, for however long you decide to keep believing that, OR you change your mind and the body changes NOW.

It's through realizing this mechanism which is how things ACTUALLY work, that you will go on to realize this: WHEN the mind decides the body is sick, the body becomes sick. *****WHEN THE MIND DECIDES NOT TO BE SICK, IT INSTANTLY HEALS THE BODY*****. Or better, it instantly undoes the image it projected a moment ago and projects a fresh image of a body in a healed state SYMBOLIZING the beliefs of the mind. The body is not an end in itself, it only EVER is an EFFECT of the mind causing, choosing, believing.

As soon as the mind is changed and the BELIEF and NEED for the sickness are removed, do you really think the body just "carries on" being sick on its own? As if, once again, there is a cause-effect relationship through time where the PAST determines what the body's condition is NOW? It does not. If you remove the CONSTANT DECISION from the mind, as to the body suffering or being in a certain state, you are now making a NEW DECISION about the state of the body, and the body NOW MUST be projected in this "new form". This new appearance, to correlate to what your BELIEF IS NOW.

This means, there is a direct instant correlation between your state of mind and the state of the body. There is a DIRECT MIRRORING of mental health and physical health. If the mind contains an attack belief, the BODY will show up with attack in it. If the mind is HEALED, it ABSOLUTELY MUST only project a body THAT IS ALSO HEALED. Because the body is nothing but a SYMBOL OF THE MIND. The body is not a thing in its own right, with its own mind or will or continuity. There is no such thing as bodily continuity. There is only "what am I choosing to project this instant?"

You choose to switch out that movie reel, you get rid of the "broken leg" movie, take it out, the mind is clear of it, what happens? The leg STOPS SHOWING UP AS DAMAGED. Instantly. Because now there is a new projection, one which does NOT include broken legs.

I've seen this happen over and over. Typically, let's say that someone has a so-called "accident" (a choice to suffer), and in this accident they become "traumatized", and now they KEEP the trauma, and ADJUST to it, and allow it to stay. Basically that now means, they have formed BELIEFS, which are CHOICES, to go INTO a certain state of mind relating to this incident. Which means they now are carrying around with them this CONSTANT STATE OF SUFFERING, in the mind, which they have not healed. They have not UNDONE "what happened".

They have not released the pent up emotions relating to it. They have not freed themselves from ALLOWING (permitting) that incident to AFFECT them in any way. And so now they live under a dark cloud, choosing to STAY IN THE ACCIDENT MOMENT, continually, never letting it go. And therefore the symptoms and effects that are CAUSED BY THE BELIEF, continue to be regenerated and re-caused, at all times, every day. And as such every day is now suffering because they dipped down into hell and never got themselves back out of it.

When bad shit happens like that (you hurt yourself on purpose), you have to UNDO IT, otherwise you will simply carry it around with you CONSTANTLY going forward. You will not let it go. Until it is HEALED. You have to heal all such "events" and choices and beliefs relating to it, to ERASE IT FROM YOUR MIND. Then by doing so, you are no longer CHOOSING THAT IT BE HAPPENING. And therefore it does not occur, never did occur, and YOU are now re-living it every moment. When your mind STOPS believing in it, the symptoms MUST DISAPPEAR. They cannot show up WITHOUT your belief, and believing is choosing. If "life beats you down", you HAVE TO GET UP AND ATONE.

So in summary, decision making is a PERPETUAL thing, not a momentary thing. You are ALWAYS expressing from who you think you are. You are CONSTANTLY emitting and projecting based on your beliefs. And your beliefs are choices. So you don't ever make momentary decisions, you instead decide to go into or commit to a LONG-TERM state, and then you stay there in that state for years, not changing your mind. When you change your mind, it doesn't matter how long you've been in that state, your NEW STATE of mind must now project, NOW, a fresh image of a body. NOT CONNECTED TO the past "condition". The body does not have any continuity! It is not subject to causes and effects in the world. It is caused solely by your mind.

Which means, when your mind is sick, your body will show up as sick. When your mind is healthy, your body CANNOT BE SICK, NOR CAN IT DIE, because it can ONLY represent what your MIND IS CHOOSING to symbolize itself as.

"A guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being SANE, IT HEALS THE BODY."

"A damaged body is PROOF THE MIND **HAS NOT** BEEN HEALED."

"Those who are sick do not love themselves, for if they loved themselves they would heal themselves."

"The power to work miracles belong to you."

Sometimes when I am thinking about ACIM matters, Jesus interjects and finishes my sentences. I was thinking "miracles are..." and Jesus interjected, "the power to heal."

This kicked in a sudden cascade of many insights, as I saw a wide array of ACIM material "coming together" under a single umbrella. A final missing piece of the puzzle that I've been trying to find for years.

I've struggled to be able to tie certain parts of miracle-working together. For example Jesus talks about miracles as expressions of love. He talks about changes in perception. He talks about healing the body.

He also talks about moving mountains with a power surge. And about the power of thought to produce effects. He talks of how the Holy Spirit enables you to do things not of this world. And then of course there's Jesus's demonstrations of e.g. walking on water, raising the dead, multiplying food.

How is ALL of this a miracle?

I couldn't reconcile how a form of "healing" could be said to "move a mountain". Or how Jesus walking on water was an "expression of love". I almost suspected there were two separate threads in the course - one of "mind over matter" and one of "miracle expression/healing" But there isn't, they are intimately related. Because BEHIND both of them, there is one thing.

The key... is POWER.

And by that I mean, SUPERNATURAL power. The Power of God.In ACIM, there is talk of power. There is also talk of STRENGTH. And there is also talk of ABILITY. These are all very closely related. If you have the power to do something, you have an ability to do it. To be powerful you must also be strong. And when we look to ACIM we start to see the pieces come together:

"The POWER to work miracles (what comes before miracles happen) BELONGS to you."

"To recognize that all POWER is of God is to gain all power."

"I am not weak but strong." "I am not afraid but ALL POWERFUL."

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a POWER-SURGE that can literally move mountains."

"See the point about miracles as a perception corrector before he can effect miracles as CREATIVE ENERGIZERS, which they are."

"The fact that each Soul has this POWER completely"

"Miracle-working entails a full realization of THE POWER OF THOUGHT, and real avoidance of miscreation."

"Miracles are seen in light, and light and STRENGTH are one."

"When you have FELT THE STRENGTH IN YOU, which makes all miracles within your easy reach, you will not doubt."

"This holy relationship, lovely in its innocence, mighty in STRENGTH"

"He will offer all His STRENGTH to every little effort which you make."

"Our home is safe, protection guaranteed in all we do, POWER and STRENGTH available to us in all our undertakings."

"No miracle can ever be denied to those who know that they are one with God. No thought of theirs but HAS THE POWER to heal all forms of suffering in anyone in times gone by and times as yet to come as easily as in the ones who walk beside them now."

"For you have brought your weakness unto Him, and He has given you His STRENGTH instead."

"releasing the STRENGTH of God into everything you think and will and do."

"Every GAIN IN OUR STRENGTH is offered for all, so they, too, can lay aside their weakness and add their strength to us."

"A pure mind knows the truth, and this IS its STRENGTH."

"People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot EXERT REAL CONTROL because they are literally AFRAID of them."

"The miracle is the MEANS, the Atonement the principle, and the healing is the result."

The list goes on. When you look, there are MANY many statements testifying that as our minds heal, they become STRONGER. And this strength is POWER. And this power is CAUSAL and is shared with God. And our thoughts have the power to cause things to happen.

Light and strength are one. Strength and miracle are one. "Miracles are a universal blessing from God" tells you that God uses his POWER. "What the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world" entails the fact that He has all the POWER in heaven and earth.

"All POWER in Heaven and earth is therefore given him and he will share it with you when you have completed yours."

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

It is too easy to be deceived by word associations, such as human notions of love. If we talk about "expression of love" as miracles, we might be tempted to think in terms of softness, gentleness, weakness, a LACK of power. This is an ego definition. Gentleness and innocence are actually very POWERFUL.

It is VERY clear, that BEHIND all miraculous ability, the driving force, is POWER, and it is the Power of God and it is ours to WIELD when we unite with God's Will. This power is EXTREMELY strong. This power POWERS miracles. This is how miracles are ENERGIZING. They supply a lack of power and strength.

"They will strengthen him and stabilize you."

"Healing ONLY STRENGTHENS."

"If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the MIND MUST BE STRONGER than the body. Every miracle demonstrates this."

"A miracle is a reversal of the physical order because it brings MORE LOVE to the giver AND the receiver."

Love, is not just love. Love is POWERFUL. God, who is love, is all powerful. This power, is UNLIMITED. That means it is CAPABLE of anything. It is "the power to" do anything. Love is not weak, it is strong. In sanity the mind is strong. To be miraculous is to be POWERFUL. By forgiving, you become STRONGER. Approaching light, you are approaching STRENGTH.

What this certainly means is, BEFORE a miracle takes place, a miraculous state of mind - miracle mindedness - is a STRONG MIND, a mind which has access to the POWER OF GOD - and it is the EXPRESSION OF THAT LOVING POWER which CAUSES a miracle to occur, which in turn produces effects. Power is the MEANS of miracle working. It is the ABILITY.

"The POWER ***to*** work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already ***able to***. Doing them will bring conviction in the ***ability*** (power). I repeat that you will see Miracles through your hands through MINE. Conviction (strength/power) really comes through accomplishment."

Ultimately then, the key thread which binds all the "powers of the mind" together, is the POWER OF GOD. This is why when Jesus walks on water, he uses THE POWER of the mind to do so, and this is a miraculous power. When he heals the sick and raises the dead, it is because he USES power to SUPPLY a lack of power. When perception is caused to change, it is because a "spark of life", a "power surge", an "energizer", is injected into the mind and CAUSES a change.

If we become too caught up in the EFFECTS that miracles cause, that is why it becomes confusing. If we think of miracles as "the expression that came from love" or as "the mountain that was moved" or "the body that was healed", we become confused. Because now we have some level confusion.

"Those who speak of "the miracle OF healing" are combining two orders of reality inappropriately. Healing is NOT a miracle. The Atonement, or the final miracle, is a REMEDY. ***It is purely a means***, while any type of healing is a result."

Here Jesus is clear. Miracles are a MEANS. "The Holy Spirit is the mechanism (means) of miracles." The MEANS of being able to PERFORM a miracle, is having the POWER. The POWER is HOW the miracle is performed. The expression of the LOVING POWER OF GOD, is how miracles happen.

So when we look higher, beyond the RESULTS of miracles, beyond the changes, and the moved mountains, and the healed bodies, to the source, we see that in fact it all starts out with THE POWER. And this power EXPRESSES. And this power is UNLIMITED. And this power can do all of the above. The FORM that the effects take is highly varied and potentially a distraction from recognizing that they all originate in the SAME premise.

That you HAVE THE POWER to perform.

"Very few people appreciate the REAL POWER OF THE MIND."

"The mind is a VERY POWERFUL CREATOR, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will."

So when we say, "this is a course in miracles", what we are really talking about is, this is a course in BECOMING VERY POWERFUL. It is a course in becoming STRONG mentally. It is a course in lining up with the power and will and mind of God. It is a course in EMPOWERMENT and taking your power back (having given it away to the ego and to weakness). It is a course in becoming ABLE to perform POWERFUL miracles. To USE the POWER of the mind to accomplish anything.

"Teachers of God will take over the world because of their STRENGTH."

POWERFUL SUPERNATURAL MIRACLE WORKERS. .... is a far cry from how miracle working is typically portrayed. A mere "shift in perception" hardly testifies to "what the Holy Spirit (power) enables you to do is clearly not of this world", nor to the ability to heal others, or to move mountains. A miracle CAPABLE of being "a potential spectacle" is hardly likely when miracles are not given any credit for being POWERFUL.

We are in training to develop the ABILITY, the power, to use the power of God. And that is very exciting!

I have actually experienced God's power, once so far. It happened while attempting to heal my wife. A sudden immeasureable presence arrived and felt incredibly strong. Like a super force, so intense and so powerful in its presence, it felt like it could cause anything to happen. That it could move any object. That it was SO STRONG that nothing could resist it. As if it could have literally moved the planet. It lasted only a few seconds, leaving a complete miraculous healing in its wake (all pain vanished).

To GAIN this power, ALL power must be recognized as being SHARED with God. "To recognize that all power is OF GOD (from Him, hosted by you), is to gain all power." With the Holy Spirit working THROUGH you, you become ABLE to do anything. "Do His works". And there is LITERALLY NOTHING our holiness cannot do.

"The POWER to work miracles belongs to you."

Some people don't believe in miracles. Some don't think A Course in Miracles is about the kind of miracles Jesus was known for, and some are quite convinced they have nothing to do with healing the body or being able to cure all forms of suffering.

Mainly this is because of sin. "The world of bodies is the world of sin", which the body's eyes were made to believe is permanent reality, and this sin is a sense of "irreversibilitly". It's the apparent nature of this world that all roads lead to death, all things seem to degrade and get worse, there is entropy and it all seems to be built into the laws of physics, as if there is no escape.

The whole world in its conditions and maladies seems to attest that all these things cannot be undone, cannot be changed or healed or reversed. That sin is real and permanent and there is nothing you can do to stop it's march toward death. The seeming inevitability of death is founded as the logical outcome of the belief in sin, and all the universe seems to testify that sin is real and its effects are permanent.

But in the Course we are actually being taught to believe that this is completely untrue, that sin is NOT irreversible, and that in fact all the laws of this world can be completely broken by miracles. That things are POSSIBLE that this world would suggest simply cannot happen or is highly unlikely. That in fact, miracles are completely capable of reversing, undoing and healing every single thing you can find in this world that seems to be permanent or "too difficult" to heal.

For example, even the things that medical science has no ability to cure, such as deadly cancers, heart attacks, stroke and brain damage, alzheimers and parkinsons, paralysis, kidney failure, aging, death - all these really serious seeming problems that seem to just get worse. The world in its expression suggests this is simply all too difficult, all too permanent, you just have to live with it and die. That all these things lead eventually to total destruction and that this is "natural". Yet it could not be more unnatural or unalike the nature of the Kingdom. The course says:

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

So what is this saying? It's literally saying that when you are operating from the laws of God, which are not of this world, there is nothing you cannot do, and as a miracle worker you should not believe in orders of difficulty. You should not "buy" the appearance of permanence in this world, or the suggestion of something being so far gone there is no hope of reversal. You should not have to tolerate or live with any kind of sickness or death, and there is literally no law of this universe that cannot be broken by miracles.

"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. Perceiving His results, you will understand where He must be, and finally KNOW what He is."

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

"Miracles do not obey the laws of this world."

So on the one hand we have this world of death in which the entire system is set up to testify that sin is real and cannot be undone, glaring us in the face, with our own body sensing it and making it seem real and full of difficulty. And then on the other hand we have this light, this power, the Holy Spirit in our mind, which believes the TOTAL OPPOSITE, completely denies that anything of this world is permanent or real, CAN REVERSE AND UNDO anything the world says cannot be undone, and can even reverse death itself.

This is what miracles are about and this is what miracles are capable of. They are not just merely little changes in how you see things that influence how the world looks to you. They are a power, from an entirely different level of reality, a spark of life from God, which fall like drops of healing rain from heaven, which are capable of resurrecting that which seems to be death and reversing ALL the effects of sin. There is literally not even ONE single thing in all this universe which has a power STRONGER than OR equal to the Power of God, which demonstrates that ANYTHING can be changed, BECAUSE it is an illusory world.

So we're not just talking here about having a different view of this world. We're talking about adopting a TOTALLY OPPOSITE viewpoint, which completely disregards everything the world seems to suggest is true, real, permanent, or a given. And that includes the overthrowing and cancellation and reversal of death in all its forms. Every form of sickness, every "extremely serious disease", every damage, every effect of war, all conflict, all hurt, all seeming effects of sin and attack, even to overcome gravity and walk on water, not one thing is beyond being shown to be reversible, healable or changeable to a miracle.

"The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health; his perfect freedom from all forms of lack; and safety from disaster of all kinds. The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form, because it can so easily be CHANGED. This demonstrates that it was never real, and could not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change."

And it would indeed BE miraculous to witness such a thing, because it literally would break and defy all the laws of space and time. It would show you that what you thought could never be possible, is possible. What you thought could never be healed or undone CAN be. The bodily conditions that seemed so hopeless you had resigned yourself to accept inevitable death, is NOT the only way. And in fact it is ridiculous to think that death IS the only way.

And so now you will find that you are torn between what this world seems to demonstrate as "natural and likely", versus what the Word of God is expressing as a supernatural miraculous nature completely in defiance of every law of space time, which breaks every seeming limitation, and completely ignores any "claim" the world makes about what is impossible. "It is the world you see that is impossible". And possibility is of God. When you are under no laws BUT God's, you are NOT under the laws of the ego. And then anything is possible for you as a miracle worker.

So you'll find this tug of war going on between, do I believe what the world and body are suggesting can never be solved, do I believe these inescapable problems, do I buy into this hierarchy of difficulty, do I just accept that there is no hope for a cure, OR .... do I put my faith in this quirky book which is telling me that through the Power of Love, through miracle impulses, and through the Holy Spirit, even LITERAL mountains can be moved? That the dead can be raised, and every sign or symptom or effect of damage or attack in any form can be completely obliterated and disappeared? Who do you trust? The world the ego made, or the Power and Word of God?

This is why we have to hang onto the hope of healing, recovery, miracles and possibilities, which regardless of a lack of faith, remain always accessible. This is why we have to HAVE faith and trust and develop our relationship with the very power God gave TO enable such miraculous demonstrations. We're asked to really dig deep and go beyond the world's dirge of death and put our faith in possibilities not of this world. Potentials and capabilities that defy and go against everything even your own senses suggest can be possible.

If you are willing, and if you will receive healing, you too can perform the miracles that Jesus demonstrated are possible through the Power of God in this world. This is what A Course in Miracles is about. It's about learning to be a miracle worker, to never believe orders of difficulty, to overcome the laws of space time, and to become a master over this world.

"There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is ***you who have the power to dominate all things you see*** by merely recognizing what you are."

"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. This must I accept."

"Unless the healer heals HIMSELF, he does NOT believe that there is no order in miracles. "

"I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God Created. Why do you believe that it is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in miracles: YOU do. I have called and you will answer. I KNOW that miracles are natural, because they are expressions of love. My calling you is as natural as your answer and as inevitable."