This pretty much explains why you have the freedom to deny God.

"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. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free.

You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much God, in His love, would not have it so. Yet He would not interfere with you, because He would not know His Son if he were not free. To interfere with you would be to attack HIMSELF, and God is not insane. When you denied HIM, you WERE insane. Would you have Him SHARE your insanity? God will never cease to love His Son, and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His Son's Creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is sanity. To deny it is insanity. God gave HIMSELF to you in your Creation, and His gifts ARE eternal. Would you deny yourself to Him?"

Note also that "separation" as in the theoretical idea that you CAN BE separate (which is impossible), is totally different from "THE separation", which is another name for the fall of man, the tiny mad idea. We DID in fact have the idea, we DID believe it, and we DID "fall". This is why there appears to be a facebook. BUT, the fall is not actual real separation, it's just belief in it and a denial that actual separation is impossible.

"The Separation (not ACTUAL separation, but the state of believing it's possible) HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay."

So we did have the tiny mad idea, we did go into it through belief (which is really denial), and we did find ourselves in a "lower order reality". But this state in which we SEEM separate is not ACTUAL separation or real separation, which is impossible. It's just us MISTAKEDLY believing that it's possible and happening.

THE separation, the fall from Heaven, did occur. But it was not an actual separation.

"The separation was not a loss of perfection, but a failure in communication. "

The failure to communicate (to receive, to give equally), resulted in a state of denial, not listening, being unaware of perfection, a breakdown in the experience of oneness. It did not change anything perfect, it just closed the communication channels to a degree.

"What God DOES know is that His communication channels are not open to Him, so that He cannot impart His joy and know that His Children are wholly joyous. This is an ongoing process, not in time, but in eternity. God's extending outward, though not His completeness, is blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one. So He thinks, "My Children sleep, and must be awakened.""

"Those who communicate fear are promoting attack, and attack always BREAKS communication, and therefore makes communion impossible."

"Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them BOTH away, and understand that time can NOT intrude upon eternity. It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which MEANS there is no time."

"Adam's "sin" could have touched none of you, had you not believed that it was the FATHER Who drove him out of Paradise. For it is in that belief that knowledge of the Father was lost, for it is only those who do not understand Him that COULD believe it."

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception.

Man's spiritual eye can sleep, but as will shortly appear in the notes (reference Bob, elevator operator) a sleeping eye can still see. One translation of the Fall, a view emphasized by Mary Baker Eddy, and worthy of note, is that "a deep sleep fell upon Adam". While the Bible continues to associate this sleep as a kind of anaesthetic utilized for protection of Adam during the creation of Eve, Mrs. Eddy was correct in emphasizing that nowhere is there any reference made to his waking up. While Christian Science is clearly incomplete, this point is much in its favor."

"What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

"We have discussed the fall or Separation before, but its meaning must be clearly understood, without symbols. The Separation is NOT symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought that is PERFECTLY real in time, though not in Eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer.

The fruit of only ONE tree was "forbidden" to man in his symbolic garden. But God could not have forbidden it, or it could not have BEEN eaten. If God knows His children, and I assure you he does, would he have put them in a position where their own destruction was possible?"

"Eating of the tree of knowledge is a symbolic expression for incorporating into the self the ability for self-creation. This is the ONLY sense in which God and His souls are NOT co-creators. The belief that they ARE is implicit in the "self concept," a concept now made acceptable by its WEAKNESS, and explained by a tendency of the self to create an IMAGE of itself."

"Until the Separation, which is a better term than the Fall, nothing was lacking. This meant that man had no needs at all. If he had not deprived himself, he would never have experienced them.

After the Separation, needs became the most powerful source of motivation for human action. All behavior is essentially motivated by needs, but behavior itself is not a Divine attribute. The body is the mechanism for behavior."

"The intrusion of the ability to perceive, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after the Separation. No one has been sure of anything since then."

"You who prefer specialness to sanity could not obtain it in your right minds. You were at peace until you asked for special favor. And God did not give it. For the request was alien to Him, and you could not ask this of a Father who truly loved His Son. Therefore, you made of Him an UNloving father, demanding of Him what only such a father COULD give. And the peace of God's Son was shattered, for he no longer understood his Father. He feared what he had made, but still more did he fear his REAL father, having attacked his glorious equality WITH Him.

In peace he needed nothing, and asked for nothing. In war he DEMANDED everything, and FOUND nothing. For how could the gentleness of love respond to his demands, EXCEPT by departing in peace, and returning to the Father? If the son did not wish to REMAIN in peace, he could not remain at all. For a darkened mind cannot live in the light, and it must seek a place of darkness, where it can believe it is where it is NOT. God did not ALLOW this to happen. But you DEMANDED that it happen, and therefore believed that it was so."

"Whenever projection in its inappropriate sense is utilized, it ALWAYS implies that some emptiness (or lack of everything) must exist, and that it is within man's ability to put his own ideas there INSTEAD of the truth. If you will consider carefully what this entails, the following will become quite apparent:

First, the assumption is implicit that what God has Created can be changed by the mind of Man.

Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect (or wanting) is intruded.

Third, the belief that man can distort the Creations of God (including himself) has arisen, and is tolerated.

Fourth, that since man can create himself, the direction of his own creation is up to him.

These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the Separation. None of this existed before, nor does it actually exist now."

"The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the Bible, was not originally an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of complete need-lack. Even in the literal account, it is noteworthy that the pre-Separation state was essentially one in which man needed nothing."

"Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul. The Soul always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God.

The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished. The mind, if it votes to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul can create along the line of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, because such are the dictates of tyrants.

To "change your mind" means to place it at the disposal of True authority. The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has elected to be guided by Christ in HIS service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow him."

So you see, we are IN a state of sleep, dreaming, denying, pretending not to be as God created us, imagining things are true which are not, being unwilling, and trying to give it reality through belief. But none of it is true, or really happening, what it represents (an actual separation) is fictional, and it's just an illusion masquerading as a separation.

"You are safe in God, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of waking to reality."

I've been looking at this closely because I want to find out how this course is supposed to be applied, without a bypass and without denial.

At first I recognised that there was a whole lot of spiritual bypassing going on. That is, trying to adopt thoughts, theories, concept etc far beyond where my 'actual experience' is, such that I am out of touch with actual experience and am living in a kind of mental fantasy. This becomes the spiritualised ego, getting lost in the intellect, 'bypassing' the experience and the feelings and pretending to be more advanced etc.

So then I thought ok, I am not supposed to deny what's happening, I'm supposed to accept it. So then I went kind of the other way, went more into feeling the feelings, having the experience, and it seemed like if I would attempt to avoid or invalidate that in any way it would be a bypass. But this led to just being swamped in the ego, continued suffering, false perceptions, and essentially no room for forgiveness.

Now I am asking myself, where does forgiveness come into this? If forgiveness is going to try to offer some kind of interpretation or way of seeing something that is different to "what it is" or "what's happening", surely forgiveness is a bypass? There has to be a way to move from "I am a body" to "I am not a body" without it being some kind of faulty application or an attempt to deny the body. One thing to recognize is that there are always two parts to experience - what stuff is physically, PLUS an interpretation of it, and the interpretation can be wrong while still allowing the physical/biological/emotional part to be there.

The overall approach seems to be that we should first acknowledge what we ARE experiencing, what we feel, the situation we seem to be in, without denying that we're feeling and experiencing it. We HAVE to admit first that we're suffering, that something seems to have gone wrong - which we tend not to want to do because it induces FEAR that something is "really wrong".

This is part of the "fear of healing", because we don't want to acknowledge that something very convincingly "bad" seems to have happened - and if it is real, it would be frightening, and we DO believe it's real. Admitting it is frightening and so we deny and avoid this step. But THEN, having removed the DENIAL of the situation, seek for a better way to look at it and to reinterpret the experience, or to question the foundation or cause of it.

"The fear of healing arises in the end from an unwillingness to accept the unequivocal fact that healing is necessary. The fear arises because of the necessary willingness to look at what man has done to himself."

We need to make sure we don't shoot for "it's not happening" BEFORE we've admitted "this seems to be happening" ie "I must have made a wrong decision because I'm not at peace". That is acknowledgement, not a bypass. And it means willingness to admit that things have gone wrong, you don't feel happy, you are suffering and THEN that there must be a better way.

The course does speak to this in a few places. e.g. admitting first that the separation HAS occurred - which we don't want to admit to because it implies its real and is horrible, but we DO believe it has occurred - but looking at this WITH the Holy Spirit makes it less frightening, and then having admitted "something's gone wrong" we can be in a position to then immediately seek atonement. But if we seek atonement WITHOUT admitting to the denied dark belief or feeling or ego scenario, we are bypassing.

"The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay."

Notice how it says we 1) stop denying that we've separated and made a wrong decision and are suffering 2) accept the error, the suffering, the feeling, on a temporary basis 3) having acknowledged the suffering, now seek for atonement ie a more right-minded interpretation with the Holy Spirit, but in such a way that it broadens the perception, admits to bigger truths, allows in God's light and laws, and re-frames the ILLUSION of what you seemed to be experiencing before as "bad".

As per the secret of salvation, you can then SEE and admit that you've been doing this to yourself, and seek to choose again and let the Holy Spirit undo the consequences through healing. This is the proper "application of forgiveness". If we skip the acknowledgement of "what's gone wrong" we are in a spiritual bypass. If we skip admitting to being in denial about how awful we've made ourselves feel, we're in a bypass. If we don't want to look at the GUILT, having first asked the Holy Spirit to help us to LOOK AT IT, and we skip ahead to "I'm innocent", then we're in a bypass.

You have to not pretend that everything's okay. Admit you're suffering, admit you're not happy, admit to your feelings, feel the feelings if you need to, AND THEN work with the Holy Spirit on a reinterpretation. When you then see it from a higher place, or remember its a dream, or affirm you're not a body, or recognize you're not a victim etc, that is indeed "contradictory" to what you were seeing and experiencing before but its NOT a bypass because it's changing the interpretation OF it, not trying to dismiss it. We should end up with a higher christ-vision view of what we were seeing from an ego perspective., but having acknowledged the state we were in fully first.

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I asked ChatGPT about this a bit, here's some AI commentary:

In ACIM terms, the process looks like this: Notice the upset Acknowledge the feeling Recognize it comes from a belief Offer the belief for correction Receive a different perception Step 1 and 2 are not bypassing. They are required. The ego says: “If you don’t validate the feeling as true, you’re bypassing.” But the Course says: “You can acknowledge a feeling without agreeing with its interpretation.” That’s the pivot. There is a difference between: Allowing a feeling Agreeing with the ego’s interpretation of the feeling For example: “I feel hurt.” → acknowledgment “They betrayed me and I was wronged.” → interpretation The first is honest. The second is the ego’s narrative. The Course invites you to question the second — not suppress the first. ACIM is not about: Emotional catharsis Endless processing Validating the ego’s storyline It is about changing the teacher in the mind. Bypassing says: “This pain isn’t here.” The Course says: “This pain is here because I chose wrongly — and I can choose again.” That is not bypassing. That is reclaiming authorship of perception. When you shift perspective, the ego feels invalidated. It reacts with: “You’re suppressing.” “You’re not being authentic.” “You’re spiritually bypassing.” But what’s really happening is: You’re declining to make the ego’s interpretation real. The ego equates: Not agreeing with me = denial. But correction is not denial. It’s reinterpretation. ACIM doesn’t say: “Sit with your ego forever.” It says: “Notice it, forgive it, and choose again.” If you never shift perspective because you fear bypassing, you’re actually preserving the ego. Ironically, that becomes a different kind of bypass: bypassing the Holy Spirit’s reinterpretation. When you shift perspective, ask: Am I suppressing the feeling? Or am I gently allowing it while becoming willing to see it differently? In A Course in Miracles, there’s an important distinction that clears this up: Denial of error is not denial of experience. Statements like: “I am not a body. I am free.” “My sinlessness is guaranteed by God.” are not meant as psychological affirmations. They are metaphysical corrections aimed at the level of cause, not effect. If you use them at the level of emotion — to override fear, sadness, anger — they will feel like bypassing. Because they’re not designed to suppress feelings. They’re designed to loosen identification. When the Course says: “I am not a body,” it is not asking you to deny that a body appears to exist in perception. It’s asking you to question whether the body is what you are. That’s a completely different move. A metaphysical statement becomes bypassing when: It is used to escape emotion. It is used to spiritually inflate. It is used to deny the felt experience. It becomes healing when: It softens identification. It introduces curiosity. It reduces personal attack. It increases humility.

ACIM has many statements which really don't make any sense. For example:

"To have all, give all to all."

Let's look at this closely.

In this world, let's say you have a chocolate cake. You follow Jesus's advice. You are attempting to have ALL the cake. So you give ALL the cake to everyone else. The question then is, having done this, and now that everyone else is smiling and full of cake, do YOU have any cake?

The answer is no. If you have given ALL the cake, there is NO cake left.

This is really quite simple and hopefully makes sense to you. In terms of spacetime and all its physical contents, anything that you give you lose. You cannot really share anything. We can't both have the whole pizza. If I want you to have the whole pizza, I'm going to go hungry. If I give you the whole pizza, there will be nothing left. I cannot have ANY of the pizza, if I give ALL of the pizza.

Take another look at what Jesus said: "To have all, give all to all."

Now we have to admit something here. There are two possibilities.

1) Either Jesus is lying and is completely mistaken, because giving all of something leaves you with nothing.

2) Or, Jesus is correct, and knows what he's talking about, and SOMEHOW the LOGIC that we're using isn't working correctly. Or it breaks down and is invalid for use in reference to anything real.

Either Jesus is wrong or the logic is wrong, they can't both be true because they're making opposite claims. So, when you give ALL, do you truly GET all, or do you LOSE all? Is Jesus right or wrong?

What he's implying is that, somehow, when you give EVERYTHING away, you still have everything. How is that even POSSIBLE? Let's say that Jesus is very wise and knows what he's talking about. Let's say that his claim is true and we'll trust it. What does that mean? It means that if HE is right, the LOGIC must be wrong.

Something is wrong with the way the logic proceeds. There is something fundamentally broken about "normal logical reasoning" that is incompatible with what HE says is the truth.

What it implies is that the entire way that we think about things has something wrong with it. The reasoning that we use has something wrong with it. It's somehow fundamentally OPPOSITE to some kind of logic that is needed to properly handle Jesus's claims.

We can't continue to use the same way of thinking, if we hope to understand why or how his claim is true. It can't be true that when you give everything away you end up with nothing. But that's what the logic says. So the logic is faulty. We need some other way to "reason" things out that follows some other kinds of rules.

The truth is that our normal logic is actually based on SEPARATION. It was in the separation that we introduced the idea of "separate parts". And with that, the idea of "many separate things." We think that removing the separation is a matter of removing the many things, but in fact undoing separation really means undoing the entire SYSTEM of logic.

What people doing ACIM may not realize is that we continue to use a logic system of separation when trying to study what ACIM says. And this produces faulty conclusions. Even when you attempt to remove (disguise) the separation by getting rid of all the separations between things, to end up with a count of 1, we are still actually squarely WITHIN the thought system of separation. We've just reduced the number of boxes, instead of transcending the system of boxes.

ACIM presents another kind of thinking and reasoning, which is not compatible with the way we normally think about things. It's based on paralogical reasoning. It's worth your while looking that up and learning about it. In paralogical reasoning it's possible for one thing to be two things, and for two things to be one thing. It's possible for something to be in multiple places at once, and for all of something to be in all places at once. It is a transcendental model of logic.

It is only through transcendental logic that it becomes possible for Jesus's statement to be true. If I give ALL to everyone else, the only way I can still have all of it is if I am INCLUDED in the "everyone else". I have to BE the everyone else in some way, which means I have to transcend the box that separates me off from others. And there has to still BE others in order to "give to all."

So now my sense of who and what I am has to become transcendental. It can't just be that EITHER I am me OR not. It has to be that I am me and I am also something else. I am others and also myself, at the same time. This has to melt borders and transcend boxes. When I ... who am also everything, give all to all, I am giving all to myself, and therefore end up with all. So I do not sacrifice or lose, and OTHERS, who are also part of the all, now gain what I gave them. And now everyone is sharing everything.

"You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did."

This is another of those impossible statements. If I were to have everything, normal logic would say that YOU cannot have ANYTHING. There is nothing LEFT for you to have if I have it all. e.g.

"Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT."

So here Jesus himself is even tipping us off, that in normal logic, if we are to say that one soul/son has everything, for itself, there cannot be anything LEFT for anyone else to have. And he's saying this is NOT the case - that in fact the soul has a miraculous - transcendental quality, which makes is possible for EACH individual soul to have ALL. At the same time. And that is a matter of sharing.

I can have all of God. You can have all of God. We both can have all of God all at once, without contradiction or compromise or sacrifice or loss or taking turns. That makes NO sense in normal logic. But it makes total sense in paralogical reasoning, in which something can be true of two things at once without being a contradiction.

A logic system based on sharing is needed in order to understand Jesus's statements about the nature of reality. You CANNOT use normal logic because it will just polarize and separate and project separation onto reality. The result will be that you'll claim either God is alone or he has a separate son, and neither of those is really true.

It's mind-bending to us because we have to find a way to accept that, it's possible, for two things to be true at once. For God to have an actual real son who is real and individual, but who simultaneously is not separate from God. That you can be one with God ie the father, but that this oneness does NOT mean you are God. That you are still his creation. To be one, and yet to be also two, at the same time, that is the true quality of reality. And that is what Jesus's statements are pointing to.

What makes no sense to the ego, or to separation-based logic, makes total sense in reality. That's because the ego is really nonsense, and its whole logic system is nonsense. It has to be possible that when we give all to all, we still have all. It has to be possible that when ideas are given away and shared, they increase, and are accessed by both persons.

It has to be possible that when I have everything, you can also have everything. It has to be possible that I am myself and I also am the whole Kingdom of God, and all my brothers. It has to be possible that you have brothers permanently, but are also one. And that you can be one with God, without losing yourself. Otherwise Jesus is telling a whole bunch of lies. Like he says, the father is GREATER than you, so you ARE NOT his equal, so you cannot just disappear into him at the loss of your soul. You have to be able to be one with God AND be yourself. Two, AND one.

"This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER. Actually, the original statement was "are of one KIND.""

Reality's true nature is that it is one and many at the same time. This is not something that a lot of people are comfortable with. The EGO's way of thinking has told them that reality has to be ONLY one thing, with no parts or aspects or divisions or separations, which might hint at "bad evil separation" happening. But the presence of divisions at the SAME TIME AS the presence of oneness, is entirely natural. It is only when you remove the oneness aspect of that, that you end up with "only many", which is duality.

God is a creator with many parts and every part of God is one with all of God. And each of God's creations is a son of God, a member of the sonship and part of his Kingdom. Each of them is a co-creator and has their own creations, who in turn are co-creators with them. Heaven therefore includes a great many created things, all of which are "many in number", while simultaneously being ONE in number. BOTH one AND many. That is paralogical reasoning. That is what ACIM is based on and it's what we have to learn if we want to understand how it makes any sense at all.

"Heaven is the sum of all God's thoughts, in number infinite."

"The Kingdom of God includes all his children and their creations."

"We are the Kingdom, WE, the Sons of God."

Ok so this might be a bit controversial.

It seems to me, there MUST be "different things" in heaven, somehow. When you start to look at it, there's just too many different things happening there.

1) God created the one son or sonship, which comprises the sons of God. That's fine. If God were to have only created this we could perhaps say that everything God created is of one kind and its all like God and there are no differences. Except...

2) God also created the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not exactly identical to the sons of God and has his own function or role. Now ask yourself, how is it possible for there to be multiple roles in a reality that's supposed to be all equal and one?

3) Beyond this, God also created the angels. We're told for example that Lucifer was an angel who projected himself out of heaven in the separation. Which means he lived in heaven prior to the separation. So now we have this different 'type' of being. And we're also told that angels were created "below" the sons of God, with a function of protection, whereas the sons of God have a function both protection and creation. So doesn't this imply that angels do not have their own creations? So how is it not possible that God has created "different kinds of beings?"

4) This leads on to the fact that the sons of God were created to add to the sonship, and do so by creating their own children. And what's to say that all of these children are exactly the same like a bunch of clones? So now you've got the children of the sons of God, who presumably we can say are equal in every way to the sons of God, including the fact that the children also are co-creators. This doesn't necessarily violate the idea that God only creates one kind of thing though, as we're told there is one continuous line of creation.

"Nothing in either of these statements implies any sort of level involvement, or, in fact, anything except one continuous line of creation, in which all aspects are of the same order."

5) If you now look slightly further afield, for example in the bible and elsewhere, or through personal experience, you'll discover that there are allegedly many different KINDS of angels. For example there are the archangels, guardian angels, cherabim, seraphim, principalities, thrones, and these all have various "hierarchy" to them. It also appears that each of the archangels for example has a "special role" or function, whereby they focus on helping people in various aspects of life, be it healing or protection or guidance etc. And we're also told Lucifer was the light-bearer or one of the brightest/most beautiful angels and why would he be different to others in this way?

It seems to me that regardless of any attempt to force heaven's contents into a nice ego box, the reality is that God in fact has many thoughts ("heaven is the sum of all God's thoughts, in number infinite.") And some of these thoughts might in fact be different. Which suggests God is not just sitting there "radiating" like some fixed light bulb, but rather is a living, thinking being, that is capable of having "different thoughts".

After all, the thought that produces the sonship and sons of God, is in some manner different to the thought that produces angels. And that in turn is also different to the thought that produced the holy spirit. Just the mere fact that the holy spirit was created in response to the separation, and was added to the christ mind, as something that was not in the christ mind prior, tells you that God is CAPABLE of creating "different things with different functions."

Now don't be fooled by the idea of differences always means ego. It does not. Nor does the idea of separation always mean ego divisions. e.g. Ego separation is not well understood by many people and it does not mean that the removal of all hints of separation is "non-ego".

"God who encompasses all being nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually and want to share it to increase their joy."

So we're told God created distinct individuals, who share everything with each other, which is fine. There's nothing ego about that, because ego is a problem of ATTITUDE and a breakdown in COMMUNICATION, it's not a problem of whether there are many beings or individuals. It's only an issue that they no longer want to SHARE EVERYTHING, which enters them into thoughts of selfishness and specialness.

It's quite plausible, if you think about it, that God is quite capable of very intelligently, unlimitedly, having various kinds of thoughts or thoughts which result in various kinds of creations, all of which are still living in harmony, all of which still possess divine holy properties, all of which share everything, but that nevertheless are distinct in some ways. Particularly in terms of their roles and capabilities. Because it does not sound as though angels are co-creators as such. That said, we ARE told that the holy spirit is also a co-creator.

What I want to be able to say is that God is one nature and one being and has one extension which is like a mirror image of himself and that's all he has created. But this just does not seem to correlate to what Jesus says in the course. Not only has he created more than one son in the sonship, in fact great numbers of beings, but also it appears he has created beings that have different functions and roles IN heaven, that has nothing to do with ego or separation. Which makes you wonder what ELSE God might have created.

We are also told that God created some manner of a universe or world, and so that now throws an additional "thought creation" into the mix. God has a kingdom, and he also mentions that angels have a kingdom, and so do you. And that your mind has the power to create worlds. Which all is starting to paint more of a picture that perhaps heaven is not just some big blob of light in which nothing is really happening, but rather than perhaps it is teaming with life and various different "stuff", that spirit beings are floating around having creative thoughts and conversations of some kind, and who knows what else.

What it boils down to for me is simple that God evidently has the power, ability, flexibility of thinking, and will, to be ABLE to create more than one kind of thing. Sons, angels, holy spirit, they are not all the same. And there IS a holy trinity which is real, and has distinct parts. There are so many statements in the course talking about parts and aspects of God. It does not appear God is a one-trick pony nor that he can only "burp out a single son of God". God appears to be much more versatile, unlimited, and quite capable of a plethora of creations. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to create the holy spirit.

I was thinking about this and about the fact that "God did not create the body." And what came to mind was that perhaps in heaven, there are not bodies - which are walls of flesh and separation devices surrounding the mind - but that in fact in heaven we still have our mind/soul but WITHOUT the body SURROUNDING it, separating it off in a prison. Like, who you are within, your mind/soul/spirit, remains as a full being, and the outer-shell of the body which is made of sin is no longer there. We're like the oyster inside the shell.

Jesus tells us also that "to be without a body is to be in your natural state" and "minds need not bodies to communicate." Does this not imply that 1) we exist together as a family without bodies surrounding our selves, and 2) we interact through communication, and 3) we're having communication with other spirit beings in heaven through a telepathic mind-to-mind means? That doesn't exactly paint a picture of "nothing happening" in heaven.

While it's true there are no separation forms or spacetime-bodies or physical materials coming between us in reality, it is perhaps false to suggest that this means we don't have an individual difference. Our spirit being, let's think of it as perhaps a whisp of light, a spark of life, a shaft of being, perhaps does have some kind of unique "something" about it. What if God did in fact create all sons of God slightly differently? And what if this is not an ego thing? How is it that the angels have different abilities and functions? What if you actually have some kind of "personality" that is a little different to other personalities, in reality?

When you read stuff in other texts like the bible etc about the fall of man and so on, you hear about how there were things going on in heaven. There were arguments and conflicts, even a kind of war, and different individuals had different attitudes. In the course even, Jesus literally says that there was someone called ADAM, who started the tiny mad idea. How is it possible that people even had NAMES that are potentially different and potentially "human like"? And why does Jesus even refer to the sons of God as MAN?

Referring to people, sons of God, as 'man', or as souls that have choices and are co-creators, and different kinds of angels, etc certainly seems to hint at Heaven containing a plethora of different beings, who perhaps are distinct in some way, whereby their "spirit" has certain qualities or character. Beings of light are not just blobs. And just because we think of them abstractly doesn't mean they're non-descript and have no kind of personality. In fact, there are even statements in the course to suggest that God has feelings.

The jury is out, and more information is needed, but just based on what I've talked about, to me it sure sounds as though there's a whole lot more going on in Heaven than we might give it credit for.

There is a view of what ACIM says, based around the idea that this universe is all there is.

It's a view that God created this universe, and thus created all the galaxies and planets, all bodies and objects etc.

People with this view will adopt a model of ACIM in which perception is projected onto God's creation.

They will then believe that false perception means a misinterpretation OF God's perfect creation, and a true perception means a perfectly accurate view of God's creation.

They also will then believe that knowledge is merely a slightly different or more direct way of seeing the SAME stuff that you saw with true perception. That this same world is kept and known.

And therefore to these people, forgiveness means that you forgive the world instead of attacking it, BECAUSE it is real. Because it is God's Kingdom, it's thought to to be your job to "forgive the Kingdom" and stop attacking it. As if "forgiveness means to "be loving toward what's really there."

Another side effect of this view is the belief that, in the separation from God, we DID NOT make a second world. There was no making of space or time by us. There was no forming of galaxies or planet Earth by us. There was no making of human physical bodies by us.

Essentially that there was no result from opposing God, no other world made, no effect producing a dream world, other than that you entered into some kind of egoic state of mind where you don't see heaven correctly. And then the correction of this lets you see heaven directly.

This leads to yet another strange occurrence, whereby since there is no "second world" covering over heaven, and you didn't make THIS world, any references in the course which refer to "the world" are now grouped together with references to egoic perceptions.

So when Jesus says something about "the world", which would be referring to the second world we made without God, and since it's believe such a world was never made be us, those same quotes are now thrown into a "must be an ego interpretation" bucket.

If any such statements suggest that "the world" is not real, is not created, is cruel, is in denial, attacks itself, is contradictory, or anything else that seems un-God-like, then such believers now have to put ALL of those statements into a "false perception" bucket. They have to be interpreted as being egoic mis-perceptions of what would otherwise be recognized as a perfect creation.

As such, since in this model there is no second world to assign anything to, and there is only the first world of the Kingdom of God, anything speaking about "this world" in a less than holy way is thought to be part of the ego's use of it, and NOT a statement about the world itself. Thus false perceptions/interpretations and projected meanings are now MIXED IN with factual statements about the INHERENT nature of the world.

This of course then strips away every single statement which might suggest "this world" is not God's Kingdom, and shuffles all of those facts into an ego bucket where they are safely tucked away and brushed under the carpet. If there is no second world, there is no world to ATTACH them to or associate them with or see them referring to, except "the ego's world".

The end result of all this is that, if you believe there never was a second world made in the separation, and if you believe that Earth is therefore literally God, as God's creation/extension, then you will be completely unwilling to question this world's authenticity.

Forgiveness then becomes a love-affair with the planet, in which we think that we should love what God created, and keep what God created. And forgiveness is no longer seen as UNDOING something that's unreal, but rather as "correctly seeing" something that IS real.

The fact that forgiveness would make what is forgiven DISAPPEAR, because you can ONLY forgiven illusions, becomes swept under the carpet. The notion that the world will disappear when recognized for what it is, as NOT God's creation, now becomes completely denied. There is no place for such a notion in a mindset that cannot accept that we made this world.

So now instead of forgiving the world in order you undo it, we would see our function as forgiving it as though it's something completely perfect and real that we've been mean to and need to apologize to and come to love again. Our entire relationship to this world and what it is thus vastly different when you think of it as God's creation and will, rather than the antithesis of God's nature.

In this model, which seem simple, there is simply God's creation and our perception of it. If we perceive it as anything other than God's perfection, we're seen to be doing something wrong. And if we perceive it as holy and perfect then we're doing something right. And direct cognition or knowledge is then thought to be almost identical to true perception - that true perception shows you what you will still continue to see in a state of knowledge.

But while this model seems simpler and, in and of itself has internal consistency, it still flies in the face of a great amount of what A Course in Miracles says. ACIM actually does say many many times in many many ways that we produced a second world. It says that we made a world opposite to God's world.

It also distinguishes clearly that this second world was DISTINCT from the ego's USE of this world. That ego projected meaning onto this world AFTER it was made by us. And that the Holy Spirit's REPURPOSING of what we made, is NOT a repurposing of the ego or of false perception, but a repurposing of a second world. We can see Earth reflecting heaven or hell, due to its neutral nothingness.

If God truly had created this world, the course would actually be somewhat easier to grasp. We would simply need to realize that we should love everything we see with the body's eyes. That it is all real. Another problem arises though, that the course does not speak well of the body. It even states that it does not really exist and is not God's creation.

In a mindset that thinks that this world IS God's creation, references to "the body" HAVE to take on a different meaning. If the course says the body "is nothing, which it is", this doesn't fit with the idea that God created the physical world. So then we have to shift the body once removed from the world, ie think of the term "body" not as referring to the physical "God created" body but rather to some kind of internal EGO PERCEPTION. And now, this should mean, that all references to "the body" are NOT talking about the physical body, bur about some internal interpretative state.

This kind of shifting of levels, this displacement of meaning and the need to completely redefine basic recognizable words, is an unfortunate side effect of this warped view of the course. Changing the meaning of words becomes necessary otherwise they would indeed imply that physical things are not God's Kingdom.

Indeed, "The body is clearly destructible and therefore not of the Kingdom" tells us that all physical things are not the Kingdom of God. And yet a belief system bent on believing the opposite to this will refuse to accept this meaning. Instead, "body" will be redefined as "must be something the ego is doing", because we don't like the idea that the actual human body is being identified as inauthentic and not of God.

In fact, what we find is that in many many areas, believing that God created this world leads to a completely OPPOSITE belief to what ACIM is actually saying. It produces beliefs which are absolutely and completely diametrically OPPOSED to the teachings of A Course in Miracles. 180-degrees opposite, heading AWAY from the truth instead of towards it.

So when the course tells us that Earth and the body are not of God, such a believer will believe they ARE of God. And when the course tells us that WE made this world, such a person will believe we DID NOT. And when we're told that false perceptions look at an illusion and make it seem real, such a person will invert this to mean that a false perception happens when you're looking at something REAL in an illusory way. And now as someone develops a special-love relationship with the planet, they THINK that they're entering into a genuine and holy relationship with it.

This whole view of ACIM leads to a complete flipping upside-down of almost everything it teachers. It puts reality and creation where it does not belong. It fails to see that the Kingdom of God is not like this world. It cannot comprehend that the physical body is not of God and nothing like our true nature. It completely reverses the meaning of false and true perceptions. It suggests that keeping the world is atonement, instead of its undoing. And it finds no reason to leave this world behind.

In this estimation of the world, it also includes having to believe that things which die are a part of God. That the seasons are God's will. That murder and rape and torture are entirely within what God allows to happen. That war and conflict and destruction are completely normal and natural. And that if you're not accepting them with love then you must be perceiving them with the ego.

As such, believers of "Earth is God" will insist that all of the dark twisted things of the world, when seen with true perception, will be seen as so holy and perfect that they will be deemed on par with God's will and nature. That it is absolutely natural for leaves to fall from trees, for animals to be squashed on roads, for weapons to be manufactured and guns shot towards bodies, for explosions to destroy buildings and for wars to destroy cities. These "destructions", these physical events and objects, are considered to be absolutely divine creations. And it should be fairly obvious that such a suggestion implies that God is far from sane.

It is one thing to forgive a world in which these things occurs, on the basis that they are NOT God's creations, which leads to seeing them in a better light with more forgiveness. But only as a stepping stone toward their dissolution. It's quite another to suggest we would not only love these things but even desire to KEEP THEM FOREVER, as an inherent part of what God is like. The PURPOSE of forgiveness is no longer seen as the end of even the potential for destruction, and instead is seen as a way to recognize that from God's view, destruction IS creation.

"You have expressed surprise at hearing how VERY different is reality from what YOU see. You do not realize the magnitude of that ONE error. It was so vast and so COMPLETELY incredible, that from it, a world of total unreality HAD to emerge. What else COULD come of it? Its fragmented ASPECTS are fearful enough, as you begin to LOOK at them. But nothing you have ever seen BEGINS to show you the enormity of the ORIGINAL error, which seemed to cast you out of Heaven, to shatter knowledge into meaningless bits of disunited perceptions, and TO FORCE YOU TO FURTHER SUBSTITUTIONS."

The main thing I don't really like about ideas of non-duality and oneness, is that it really ignores the CREATIVE qualities of God.

If there is only God, and there is nowhere to go, and nothing to do, and God is just sitting there by himself, as a "oneness", in which there is no "duality" or separations of any kind, how do you get from there to a recognition that God CREATES?

For God to even have thoughts, or to create even one son, flies in the face of this idea that God is one thing. Even if you say, well, God has one son but it's part of Him... you can't even really say that either. There can't even be anything you can refer to as "one son", if there is only God.

Jesus says for example, "I am my father are one". And he goes on to clarify that this does not mean there aren't PARTS to that statement. It does not mean, there is only the father. It does not mean, that whatever we're referring to as the son is actually the father, and therefore we are really talking about "one thing". It ACTUALLY means, there *IS* a distinct Son, who is in SOME way "separate" from the Father, enough to establish that there are really TWO things.

"I" (part 1) and "the father" (part 2). Otherwise we might as well just not ever mention the Son or Christ whatsoever and just say that God is all that exists. Jesus is careful to make this distinction, that Son and Father are having some kind of mutual experience or state of being which he's labelled as "one", but that this oneness does not UNDO OR ignore the fact that there are still two things happening here.

In the truest sense of what non-duality or oneness means, it implies there isn't a two-ness of anything. And if you are being really, really, really strict about that logical reasoning, it SHOULD mean that God has NO SON AT ALL. There's either oneness - one thing, or there isn't.

There's a whole spectrum of beliefs out there which proceed from the strictest of interpretations ie "there is only God" through the slight blurring of boundaries to suggest "there is a son, but there's only one of them", through to "there are other sons but they're really the one son", through to "sons are the ego", and all manner of interpretations in between.

But here is the simple fact of it. If God has a thought which creates a son, or if his "effect" is his son, or his son is actually really "himself" pretending to be a son, then this makes himself also the dreamer of dreams and the maker of death. Does that fly with you?

Are you willing to have God be the one who is responsible for separation? And what about the Holy Spirit, did God - who must be dreaming, create the holy spirit as a perfect non-dreamer, in order to pull himself out of the dream he himself made, due to apparently not being able to wake up himself, while simultaneously having created a holy spirit who is not asleep? Does that make any sense whatsoever?

We're told conflicting messages by various teachers who have not really reasoned this out. If there is a God to return home to, a God who did not believe in the separation idea and did not dream, how is that even possible unless somehow there is something that distinguishes God from the one who is having a dream? Even if it's just ONE son, how is it that this one son is able to do ANYTHING that is COMPLETELY SEPARATE from the Father, ensuring that the Father does not entertain or enter into or be affected by this dreaming son?

If truly they are so joined and are so "one" that they literally are the same thing, or the same self, the son literally cannot dream without dragging the father into it. And that would mean the entirety of EXISTENCE would now fall from grace and we'd all be permanently dead, God included. There has to be SOMETHING about the son of God, or this aspect of God, which somehow renders its choices incapable of affecting God. How is that possible if God is supposedly so joined to and connected to this dreamer, in such a way that there is "influence" between them?

What it HAS to indicate, is that EITHER there is a separation between the Father and the Son, OR some other mechanism or dynamic of relationship which guarantees that God will not ever dream. Because if God is the dreamer, then God has made a world of death and also doughnuts and rainbows and chocolate bars. So what IS it that makes God NOT affected by the dream? What is it that sections off the dreamer from God? Even if it's just a dream, it IS still a made idea, it IS an IDEA in the mind, even if it's an idea of impossibilities. We DID have a mad idea, even if it's a nonsense idea. Why didn't GOD have the idea, and why isn't God trapped in an illusion?

The ego would conclude, it MUST mean that there is separation in heaven. It cannot conclude otherwise. But there is another possibility. FREEDOM. Is it not possible, that God gave such TOTAL FREEDOM to his creations, that by all intents and purposes, his creations actually are ABSOLUTELY free and therefore literally have a will of their own, a mind of their own, a spirit of their own, and can CHOOSE on their own, WITHOUT it having any effect on God whatsoever? If the son or sons is FREE, and God has "given" them FULLY, and has COMPLETELY set them in heaven as permanent free-willed beings, this WOULD completely explain why it's possible for God to not be part of dreaming.

"God, who encompasses all being, nevertheless created separate beings, who have everything individually, and want to share it to increase their joy."

For me, heaven absolutely IS NOT a picture of what we traditionally are told is a state of pure non-duality, or even really a state of this "oneness" where there is "only God" happening. It's NOT one thing. It contains FREE WILLED BEINGS OF LIGHT, who are SO free that they literally are free to choose whether or not to will with God.

So get this picture... that God created beings - who are not only fully created and completely SET FREE by unconditional love, but He even gave them SUCH freedom that they could in fact freely decide for themselves whether to love or not. You'd think that this would be quite insane, or suicidal, for God to create thoughts which seem capable of disagreeing with their own creator. Why would God do such a crazy thing? Because He knows that nothing REAL can be threatened, and even if they DO choose to side with dreams, these dreams don't REALLY threaten reality. And that anyone who does dream WILL awaken at some point, because it is not God's will that He be cut off from his creations.

The picture I have of God is that He is FAR more a creator of individual free-willed souls, to whom He has given TOTAL freedom, to the extent that they have to willingly COOPERATE and CO-CREATE by their own will, that they are not mere "parts of God Himself" but actually are real distinct entities with their own minds and their own being. They CAN and do naturally want to share their mind and being with God also, and with the whole sonship, but not because they are forced to or inherently made to. They freely willingly want to do so, to increase their joy, and because Heaven is filled with celebration of Creation.

God is a creator, not a blob. God has sons, many many many sons. God also created angels. This is all perfectly written about in ACIM by Jesus with hundreds if not thousands of statements supporting it. It is the EGO which has a tough time comprehending how it is possible for God, who is whole, could create "many wholes". Or how many wholes can exist simultaneously. Or how God can ADD something to existence. Or how He could create "distinct beings" who have everything "individually", including the creation of multiple minds, and how these multiple minds can coexist harmoniously without war, and without competition, and without differences.

Oneness means "of one kind". In the LIKENESS of God. It means SHARING, by multiple individuals. It does not mean "God is all that exists".

Yes there are statements which at times seem to speak to certain ASPECTS of God's nature in isolation which perhaps gives impression that Jesus is saying there is nothing but God, or that God is all that is, etc... but... it's not the complete picture. Sometimes Jesus refers to the "one son", sometimes to the sonship, sometimes to individual sons. References to the one son do NOT cancel out references to individuals. The ego has a SPAZZ about how this can make sense and be true. It sees only separations where there are none, and joins together things which are not one thing.

Oneness, as in, "there is only one thing" is actually an EGO IDEA. It is the result that EGO reasoning comes to when it boils everything in its EXCLUSIVE thought system down. And it thinks that this final conclusion is accurate and truthful. It is not. It is divisive and incorrect and a false conclusion. God's creation is not "one thing", God's sonship is not devoid of parts, and God DID create multiple beings. Objections to this are, funnily enough, THE EGO objecting to ITS belief in what Heaven must be like.

We are creations of God, children of God, God has created multiple minds, multiple souls, multiple sons, each of whom is SO FREE that they are able to decide for themselves whether or not to will with God. The only REAL choice is to will with God, but our minds DO have the ability and freedom to CHOOSE to dream of an alternative. And we have used that ability. And it has not affected God.

Many many times Jesus has said to me, "you are free". And I could never really quite accept or understand how this is possible, given the framework of how everyone is teaching the course. What wish teachings of "time is already over" and "there's only one son" and so on, I couldn't see how it's possible that I am free. How does a son of God be free, if that son is just part of God's enforced will or some kind of script? Gradually and very confusedly I've come to accept more that we actually DO have free will, because we DO have total freedom. We are to come to God WILLINGLY.

This is why we NEED to have "a little willingness" and eventually total willingness. Willingness isn't coercion. Love does not enter where it is not welcome. We actually literally MUST CHOOSE HEAVEN "heaven is a choice *I* must make". We have to WANT to WILLFULLY choose to accept it. We're not going be willing OR able to accept it if we think it's being forced on us and we don't want it. We have to have total personal willingness to will WITH GOD, to CO-CREATE, to participate and to exercise WILLINGLY the decision to carry out God's will. We are not slaves.

We are not JUST effects. We have been given the power to CAUSE as well, the power to will, and the power to create FREELY. Free will was given NECESSARILY in order to allow us to create freely like the Father. Without this freedom, we could not WILLINGLY WANT to agree with God's will for us. God, who is cause, caused us to BE causes. It is an EGO IDEA that we are "only an effect". That's a dead end. We are not a dead end. We are extenders and freely-willing CO-CREATORS with God. Because we want to be, because it's natural to want to be, and because God ONLY willed that we will FREELY.

There are many ACIM myths circulating and one of them is an improper idea of what the Holy Spirit is. Some people will say "he is just your right mind". This isn't accurate enough and can be misleading, greatly diminishing the Holy Spirit's function and power.

When you were created by God, you were created complete and lacking nothing. You are a whole being, a son of God, extended from wholeness. At this point, the Holy Spirit did not exist, and was not needed.

It was only in the separation from God, which was the "fall of man" or the attempt to BELIEVE that separation was possible, which has happened. .... that God created the Holy Spirit. God ADDED the Holy Spirit to the mind in order to protect the connection between all parts of mind, and to guarantee the healing of the belief in separation. He is "God's Voice" calling you to return to sanity.

So the Holy Spirit is actually ADDITIONAL. This means that originally there wasn't a holy trinity, there was in effect a holy duality. But when the Holy Spirit was ADDED to creation, as an eternal and permanent being, with a mind and with creative power, the holy duality became a holy trinity.

The Holy Spirit is to be thought of as in addition to you. Something extra. This is why the course tells you that he is actually your "appointed friend". He is in parallel to you, another alongside you, a helper, a supporter, a healer, a teacher, a comforter, and the answer to the question of separation.

"Your teaching has already DONE this, for the Holy Spirit is PART OF YOU. Created by God, He left neither God nor His creation. He is both God and you, as you are God and Him together. For God's answer to the separation added more to you than you tried to TAKE AWAY."

Since the dynamics of heaven are holographic, in which there is a shared oneness, you can say for example that each son of God shares everything with all the others. They are brothers to each other as individuals but they still are one with and united with each other, as though part of each other.

In the same way, the Holy Spirit was ADDED as another created being to be shared with, to be one with, and to be part of you. But when you say he is part of you, you must be careful not to be thinking in separating terms. This doesn't mean he is ONLY a part of you, or exclusive to your mind, or just another name for some pre-existing part of your mind.

The Holy Spirit is shared with all minds and is like an extra layer of mind added on top of the christ mind. Being united in oneness with you, he does share everything with you, which in the holographic sense means you share the same wholeness that he shares with God. Which makes him literally part of you - as the collective sonship/kingdom, but he is STILL a distinct created individual entity.

ACIM actually tells us that the holy spirit is a co-creator with God, is an eternal creation, will always exist even after the atonement, implies that he has his own creations, is a very firm third entity in the trinity of God-Sonship-HolySpirit, and that there ARE "three" components to that. To deny this is to deny that the TRINITY is real.

The Holy Spirit is not your higher self. He is not just some piece of your mind that remained sane while the rest of it went nuts. He is actually a third party. He is an entity, an actual spirit being. He has eternal life. He has mind and thought. He can create as well as heal. He is a living being. And he was given to creation as part of creation to keep all the seemingly separated parts of mind connected and to act as a savior and healer of the mind's insanity.

Your higher self is your soul, which is a son of God, which God created originally. Your higher self is your ONLY real self, and it's what and who you are. The Holy Spirit having been added to creation has become part of you, just as God is part of you and your brothers are part of you and your creations are part of you. That doesn't mean he's some kind of little compartment that's in your mind that was always there since the start. He is secondary and additional to your mind. Him being "part you" doesn't mean he is "just a part of you". He spans beyond you and includes others as well.

"The Holy Spirit is the Christ mind that senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception. It came into being with the separation as a protection, and inspired the beginning of the Atonement at the same time. Before that, there was no need for healing and no-one was comfortless."

Here for example there is a suggestion that the Holy Spirit is "nothing more than" the christ mind, as if to say that he is a synonym for christ. But that is not an appropriate interpretation because christ is the second part of the trinity, and the Holy Spirit is actually a distinct third part. He symbolizes God and he symbolizes christ, having a somewhat symbolic function, but that doesn't mean he isn't a fully created being in his own right.

As it says, the Holy Spirit came into being along with the separation (tiny mad idea) as God's answer to that idea, his guarantee of its undoing. He should rightly be thought of as your friend and helper because he literally is an additional being that God added to creation.

When we say the Holy Spirit is some kind of "synonym" for "my right mind", we're stripping him of all his life and his eternal nature, his power and his creative ability. We're trying to then exclude him from existing as a standalone third party, and are trying to REDUCE him to being "just" some little part of our mind that remembers God. He isn't "your memory of God", but he does remember/know God FOR you until you can remember and know God for yourself.

The attempt to think of him as "only my right mind" or "my true self" is really an attempt to limit what he is and pretend he doesn't exist. This was part of the teaching of certain individuals who did not like the idea of the Holy Spirit actually existing. It's something you should be wary of because the Holy Spirit is there for you, is there to help you and heal you and guide you, to teach you and decide for you, to give you the eyes of christ, and to resurrect you from death. To say he is just some part of your own mind is self-centered as if you can "save yourself". Which is a usurping of his function.

He must be acknowledged as something that God did in fact deliberately create and ADD as a response, as a purposeful act of creation, and one which is eternal. You tried to take something away from God and God ADDED even more than you took away by creating the Holy Spirit. He is MORE THAN just you. He is also partly God. He also has functions that you do not have. He is due proper acknowledgement and recognition as a truly fully created being in his own right.

It is once again "separatist thinking", based on exclusive either/or logic, that leads people to conclude the Holy Spirit is EITHER part of me own self or EXCLUDED from me. And since the course says he is part of you, people then think that he is EXCLUSIVELY part of you and does not exist beyond you. That is the fallacy of this kind of thinking. In truth the Holy Spirit is you AND is others AND is God. He is more than just you and more than just a part of you. He is the third entity in the trinity of God's creation and always will be.

"The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity which is symbolic. He is referred to in the Bible as the Healer, the Comforter, and the Guide. He is also described as something separate, apart from the Father and from the Son. I myself said, "and if I go I will send you ANOTHER comforter, and he will abide with you."

"He is part of the Holy Trinity, because His Mind is partly YOURS and also PARTLY GOD's."

"The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind. He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are One. He speaks for God and also for you, being joined with both."

"The voice of the Holy Spirit IS the call to Atonement, or the restoration of the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed, there will be no call to return, but what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless THEIR creations and keep them in the light of joy."

All sense of loss arises from believing that a changing world is real. If it is real, and if something goes away, a part of reality has been lost. If it is real, there has been a real separation. And if that's true, you absolutely must be in a state of deprivation. Time itself induces loss every second, and time is death.

"The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end."

Something that you thought was real and valuable has been taken away. A part of reality or God itself has been destroyed and kept apart. The mind reasons that, because it's real and because it's not there, there is an absence, and a part of yourself has been ripped away.

The feelings of grief then rise up to correspond to that belief that something real is lost. The mind invents them to make sense of the situation. Then people in the world who believe in bodies will tell you that it's completely normal and natural to grieve. It does make perfect logical sense, given the premise that this world is real and loss has happened, but it is not natural at all.

In God's immortal reality nothing real can ever be lost, suffer attack, be ripped away or destroyed, forgotten about or separated from. No-one can suffer or be sick or die. Everyone is a part of everyone forever, by God's will. Impermanence of any kind is impossible, and nothing real can be threatened.

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today."

What it then boils down to is, that if you to any degree believe this world or bodies is reality, you will be constantly in varying degrees of loss. If anything at all so much as moves an inch, it implies a separation. If something bigger and more important seems to go away, you will miss it. If a body person dies off and stops being around, you'll notice it intensely. And then there will be the logical conclusion of a loss of something real - a real loss and a real grief.

The problem we have is that we're still working on waking up to God's truth and we still believe in bodies. We still confuse people for their physical bodies and still regard this world as reality. And that sets us up for the consequences of our wrong decision. It means that we're primed to experience losses before they even happen. We've set ourselves up for a fall, by choosing to believe that something temporary can be depended upon forever.

It's our attachment to bodies, our valuing of bodies, and our confusion of bodies with souls/minds, that lays the foundation for devastation and despair and grief. If and when they do go away, which everything in the world of form does eventually, its cruelty will induce all manner of egoic reactions.

"They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel."

An important dynamic that I've experienced is the belief that the person dying is causing you to be upset. If they have gone way, they have attacked you and caused you to grieve. How dare they die. And how dare they stop being there. This will produce anger and resentment. And of course this means you will scapegoat the dead person and project guilt onto them to blame them for causing a loss, which will have nothing to do with them at all and everything to do with you trying to get rid of your own guilt.

Then even further, underneath the anger will be a sense of hurt, as though you have been hurt by the death. And of course that boils down to a belief that the death of anything can infect you and cause you to die along with it. And so now the person who has left the body has returned to life in heaven, and you are left behind in a state of death and suffering, and you are the one who is dead.

"The black-draped "sinners," the ego's mournful chorus, plodding so heavily AWAY from life, dragging their chains and marching in the slow procession that honors their grim master, lord of death."

Death isn't real and doesn't really exist. It doesn't do anything to anything real and nothing real can ever die. But if you believe in a world that dies all the time, you can be sure you'll be upset before long. This is why the world is a constant disappointment, because you expect it to last forever. You'll be torn between efforts to wake up and acknowledge God's truth, and the continued belief that death is real which constantly pulls you back into hell like an anchor.

To try to forgive death really means forgiving the entire world of space and time and everything in it. To focus on the reality that a person has not really died, still lives on, and is still a part of me in communication and sharing is of course helpful. But at the same time, the other part of me which is ego aligned and trusts death, is continually pulled into the consequences of that belief. And that means the constant nagging reminder of "yes she really is dead isn't she!"

Feelings of grief, loss, absence, deprivation, anger, etc arise. The seeming "fact" that a person has died slaps you in the face, telling you that you have "suffered" a serious loss. As if the serious loss has happened to you against your will. You might be in grief and feeling like a victim, but at the same time it's true that nothing has really happened. And how can you have been caused to grieve against you will?

But this focus on truth can cause a hurdle to the grieving, because while you try to align yourself with God's truth of immortality, the rest of you is pulled horribly into a dark place of sadness and hopelessness and loss. You can't properly deal with the loss, in a typically dysfunctional way at best, because trying to be holy and perfect all the time makes it seem like a guilty sin to give it any time and attention. And yet it calls to you constantly to deal with it.

At some point then, if you're going to persist in believing in the world, you have left yourself with little choice but to go through a grieving process. If you are not yet ready to completely eradicate all belief in death and thus spacetime ("without the idea of death there is no world"), you're probably going to have to settle at least in part for second-best, failure, impossible struggle, and forced grief that seems pointless. If the world is real and the body is real and the body is lost, your ego is going to suffer about it.

So then at some point you have to turn to the grief and just go through it and feel the horrible shit, acknowledge it and be terribly upset. And this is the part that people call natural, but it is far from it. It's like being stuck in a state that you're not supposed to be in and having to deal with it in a totally conflicted way. And even when you egoically have a total spaz about it, which seems to make it go away for a while, it still doesn't solve it completely.

You can't possibly find peace and acceptance about the situation if the situation is real. There is no atonement there, so there is no cure. Grief will keep regurgitating and producing more upset emotions. There is no freedom while the world is still a reality. So then you're in a situation where you can't find peace and are forced face-to-face with a horrible loss, and all you can do is cry and feel unhappy and be a victim.

People will tell you that you then must allow yourself to grieve - embrace the victimhood, as though this is healthy, and perhaps it is at least better than bottling it up or going into less healthy forms of handling it. You are just going to have to feel it, grieve, and go through the loss. And that does indeed totally suck because it's not really a sane solution. And that means turning away from the constant barrage of God-truths and forgiveness statements and just letting yourself feel the horror for a while. Sometimes you just have to do something even if it's bullshit.

So then you cry, and you cry again, and you do some more and you have a huge catharsis. And somehow this is what the world calls healing. And supposedly you adjust and adapt, as though that's some kind of transformation or coming to terms with it, but that really isn't an awakening either.

It's more like a putting up with and a tolerating and a gradually undoing of the special relationship dynamics, attachments and so on. It's more like learning to let the person be ripped away and trying to just tolerate the pain of that until it stops hurting so much. And until the separation is truly undone it will keep coming back and haunting you for years to come.

It then seems like you pretty much have to grieve and be miserable and mourn and all that, which is a total course failure given that it means you're now part of the "black draped mourners" who are in the funeral procession and not doing God's will, per ACIM's teaching. But since you are where you are with this whole thing, and are not ready to totally surrender into atonement, you just have to go through the bumpy road rollercoaster of despair until it eases up somehow. Hopefully you can use all this as an opportunity to forgive and let go of the belief in death and the world.

"One thing is sure; God, Who created neither sin nor death, wills not that you be bound by them. He knows of neither sin NOR its result. The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose Will it is they LIVE. They are not FOLLOWING it; they are OPPOSING it. And what is the black-draped body they would bury? A body THEY dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, OFFERED to sin to feed upon, and keep ITSELF alive. A thing condemned, damned by its maker, and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself."

I'd like to say I personally am beyond all this but I'm definitely not. Last week was horrendous, entering into states of victimhood and terrible strong emotions and crying and being bedridden for several days trying to avoid vertigo and sinus stress. The body wasn't too happy about the grieving process either - feel the feelings and it becomes stressed out - don't feel the feelings and it develops physical symptoms instead. It's a lose-lose situation until you somehow just get through it. And it keeps coming.

Moral of the story is, if you're not enlightened it's going to suck. And that's your fault because you chose it, and you're not ready to stop choosing it, so get ready to suck. And then hopefully after some severe sucking you can free yourself from death's nipple and actually find some sense of happiness again.

You'll have to just deal with an impossible situation as best you can until it sucks less. And meanwhile do your forgiveness shit and hopefully someday you'll find true salvation about it all. You can't avoid the inevitable production of grief feelings if you believe there has really been a loss, and until you can face the fact that you do believe there's been a loss and feel through it, you'll just be in denial.

At least something we have to look forward to is the day when we remember to laugh at all this and realize that none of it was ever true anyway.

Very simply the entire separation from God is a matter of becoming confused about what is true and what is false. That which is really true (God's truth) has been associated with all the properties of what is false, and that which is false (ego truth) has been associated with all the properties of what is true. This produces a state of TOTAL CONFUSION. But this all hinges around your BELIEF in what is true and what is false.

Wherever you place your sense of "what is true", you will anchor yourself to that and BELIEVE that it's completely true. You'll also believe you are 100% sane to believe it. And you'll defend it to the death because you think it is your life. Even if you're becoming identified with something very untrue and you are very mistaken, your BELIEF that it's true will blind you and distort your perception.

You will SEE or regard genuinely true things as enemies, the opposition, false, unwanted, attacking you, trying to steal away your truth. And only anything that supports, resonates with, seems to confirm or justifies your current truth will be seen as accepted, truthful, allowed, welcomed. So you could be right in the middle of being extremely confused, believing something totally false is true and real, defending it with your life, trying to keep everything else from undermining it, believing you are TOTALLY justified and sane, while simultaneously being very very mistaken.

So wherever you are AT right now, whatever your belief system is, whatever is TRUE for you, you actually believe you are FULLY in the truth right now. Doesn't matter how mistaken you actually are. Even if you believe death is life and hell is heaven and the Holy Spirit is your sworn enemy, which the extreme of ego does believe, you'll think you're totally totally "right" to believe what you do, that's it's reasonable and makes sense to you. And any insinuation that you might be mistaken will be experienced as a threat, an enemy, an attack, by some person who is obviously "wrong", and are seen as someone you have to defend against and counter-attack to keep them from infiltrating your sacred truth.

Everyone does this. Every single person with an ego is doing this. Because every such person believes something is true which isn't, is mistaken and confused, and wants to protect and defend all the lies that they think are not lies. And so what happens is, if you try to tell someone something that isn't "their truth", it will conflict with their truth instantly. And this will be experienced as conflict and there will be a war that comes from it. Particularly if a person is very strong willed or stubborn, they will resist being questioned or undermined moreso than others. Or in other words, there is an unwillingness to learn, and too much faith placed in being right/true already instead of humility or self-honesty.

Others may be in general more open minded or more willing to listen and consider alternatives which may well lead to them having to question their own beliefs. And that's a position of greater self honesty and willingness. It takes a "little willingness", therefore, to be willing to open up to the possibility that you might be mistaken. That what you really firmly think is true, might not be. And if indeed what you believe is not actually true, but you think it is, you will make no progress towards God without being a little bit willing to question just how true your beliefs are. His truth cannot become true for you, until you can accept that your fake truth is FALSE.

This is more or less why the majority of people (truth defenders) do not agree with each other, and also is why most of those who do agree with each other are either mutually sane or just happen to share the same delusions. This is how the ego forms "allegiances" with people who seem to oppose their truth the least, forming a circle of "friends" who support and uphold their mistakes without questioning them. This is all begun in the ego's FIRST law of chaos, which says that the truth is different for everyone!

Everyone believes they KNOW the truth. They HAVE the truth. This is a fundamental carry-over from BEING the truth prior to the separation. Everyone attached themselves to SOME kind of truth no matter whether it's true or not. It's only a matter of sorting out what is *actually* true in terms of God's truth, from what is a fake truth in terms of ego, in order to proceed in the direction of Atonement. While we cling to lies, we are kept in the dark and away from eternal life.

The thing is, you can present a greater truth, you can explain it, you can show it and demonstrate it as clear as day, but if someone is not WILLING to undermine what they believe is already true, and doesn't see a reason to abandon their existing false beliefs, they simply will stay right where they are. Because they think they already have all the answers. All of the truth. And that they're very right about it, having convinced themselves over and over again WHY this truth is supposedly true. And this especially becomes a problem when very abstract or fundamental "cornerstones" in the belief system are upheld, supported, and reinforced, by a whole host of beliefs that keep the person highly unwilling to question fundamental issues such as whether the body or the world are real, or whether you are supposed to die, or what miracles are capable of.

We build great defenses against admitting to being

mistaken. We resist it. We in fact experience "the real truth" as an opponent or enemy, come to war with us and destroy us, and it keeps going on and on about this and that as if trying to make something "false" true, when you obviously know better. In other words, the real truth, at first, is experienced as the very thing we DO NOT WANT. Our ego ensures we see it as our nemesis, come to destroy us. The idea of oneness alone is enough to scare the pants off the ego since it implies the end of separation and thus the undoing of ALL false beliefs and false identities. This is why the ego wants NOTHING to do with the Holy Spirit. And this is why we have profound RESISTANCE to accepting the atonement.

Anything of the true nature of God, anything to do with God's laws, anything to do with the Holy Spirit, anything to do with breaking the laws of physics of this world, anything to do with performing extraordinary supernatural miracles which would probably shock most people, anything to do with Spirit, anything to do with receiving input from outside of this dimension, anything which would prove you are not a body or that God did not create the world, or that death is fake and can be undone, anything like that... which would bring doubt into the mind about what our MISTAKEN beliefs say is true, is seen as a THREAT, and a danger, and an attack. And WE DO NOT WANT IT. And seeing it as a threat we put up defenses against it, which by the way induces sickness.

And yet, all of these things are truth based, all of them are of God, and all of them are benevolent. So it is not that the truth IS an attacker, it's that it SEEMS like an attacker when YOU are an attacker. When YOU believe in a false truth you are believing in attack while BELIEVING you are peaceful, BELIEVING you are being neutral and objective, but are seriously biased away from truth. This is why most people DO NOT WANT the truth, they do not want miracles, they do not want the Holy Spirit to do anything. The very idea of Him having a power that causes things to happen that you can witness scares the pants off people who would much prefer to be in control of life and keep A Course in Miracles nice and small and safe and tolerable. Which has resulted in the various watered down "sanitized" versions of ACIM being spread and taught.

So this is a fact.... if you are not in God's truth, you will experience God's truth as a sworn enemy that you DO NOT WANT, and which you think is WRONG. And that means in order to approach the truth and genuinely wake up and become spiritual, you may well have to encounter or at least deal with, your false perception OF the truth and therefore get past this belief that true things are false, that holy things are hateful, that life is death and that the Holy Spirit can't be trusted. It more or less means... opening up to accept what you DID NOT WANT TO accept, and that REQUIRES you having a "little willingness" (eventually total willingness) to question your beliefs about what is true already. And that's going to require some radical self honesty and impeccable reasoning.

The Holy Spirit only wants to help you and heal you and give you love and support. He is not a threat at all. But He DOES represent the opposite of the FALSE truths (lies) that you've told yourself, and that means THROUGH those truths you will defend against him. This is how we chose AGAINST Heaven in the first place, substituting truth for another truth. We tried to MAKE God out to be evil and opposite to what we want. We tried to replace life with death, and now *actually believe* that death is salvation. That means the road back home MAY SEEM to be unwanted, uncomfortable, undesirable, upsetting, frightening and something you DON'T WANT, merely because of how confused you are. It may seem to had in the WRONG direction, just as Jesus says that often our greatest advances are SEEN as our worst retreats and vice versa.

WILLINGNESS is key to going home. No-one comes to the Atonement without it. God does not coerce. And the Holy Spirit will not do ANYTHING on your behalf until you are willing to invite him to do so and trust him to do so. Your free will is respected. But you DO have to be willing to want a different truth. To reconsider that what you believe, may not be true. That maybe even though you have *A* truth right now that seems consistent and whole, maybe it's NOT. Maybe it's not actually God's truth. And maybe that means you're going to have to surrender and let go some stuff that you valued, believed, and wanted, that isn't serving you on the way home. This is the work we have to do. And it takes a lot of willingness and honesty and surrendering of what is not true or worthy of a Son of God.

Moving towards God can ONLY occur through your FREE WILL. And this is why there is a required "development of trust" and a "sorting out" of what is really true and what is really false. Trust has to be developed by gradually putting aside fear and TRUSTING the Holy Spirit to do something for you or "to you" on your behalf, for your highest good. To accept HIS truth and way of perceiving with forgiveness. What is false has to be sorted out from what is true so that you are not confused about which is which, and can have accurate true perception. True perception is a state where the truth is RECOGNIZED as true, and what is actually false is RECOGNIZED as false. It's not merely a state of only perceiving the truth, it's a state of perceiving TRUTHFULLY so that false things REGISTER as false. And only in that state of SANITY and clarity and accuracy are you ready to go Home.

A little willingness is all it takes to get started. To be a HAPPY LEARNER, willing to learn "new tricks". Willing to question what you assumed was always true. And willing to open up to a new truth that's bigger and more true than anything you dreamed of.

"The holy instant does NOT come from your little willingness alone. It is ALWAYS the result of your SMALL willingness COMBINED with the unlimited power of HIS WILL. You have been wrong in thinking that it is needful to prepare YOURSELF for Him. It is impossible to make arrogant preparations for holiness, and NOT believe that it is up to YOU to establish the conditions for peace. GOD HAS ESTABLISHED THEM. They do NOT wait upon your willingness for what they ARE. Your willingness is needed ONLY to make it possible to TEACH you what they are."

If a person - ie a body - does something wrong, and you focus on their body and what it did, you are being unforgiving. It isn't possible to keep focusing on the body and forgive the person. You can't be psychologically aiming your focus at the person's body while exclaiming that you forgive them. To focus on their body IS to imprison them AND accuse them AND not forgive them.

What is required then is to completely disregard ANYTHING that the body person seems to have done, on the basis that they are NOT that body self. That body self - the combination of the body and the ego - is NOT their soul. It is not who or what they really are. This means basically dismissing anything anyone physical ever seems to do, with a thought that completely ignores anything involving the body, recognizing NONE of its behaviors are real.

This of course takes an initial willingness to approach the idea that a person IS NOT their body. This can be very difficult and threatening at first, especially with strong special-relating tied up in it, valuing the body, associating a sense of identity of the person WITH their body, and constantly referring to their body-self whenever thinking of "them". We have to become open to the idea or the possibility that the person's identity or self IS NOT their body, or their ego. And everything the ego-body does is not real or relevant.

That means challenging your own belief and conviction that people are fundamentally bodies. This is a HUGE change. That when you look and your physical eyes see a body, you think "that's a person", and you give it a name such as Michael or Jane or whatever, referring to IT as if its the person. We do this all the time. If you watch and notice whether or not your references to a person are including the body, you'll probably find that ALL of them are. You barely can even think of anyone without your mind bringing up pictures of their body in your mind.

"For the body IS a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was MADE to limit the UNlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical; for it was made to limit YOU. Can you who see yourselves WITHIN a body, know yourself AS AN IDEA? Everything you recognize you identify by EXTERNALS, something OUTSIDE itself. You cannot even think of GOD without a body, or some form you think you recognize."

We essentially have to deprogram ourselves away from regarding the ego-body-self as the truth about the person, or that it even IS the person at all. We have to be open to the idea that their ego-body-self IS NOT who or what they are. It is entirely unreal and fictional and NOT part of their self. That's completely bizarre to contemplate and rather threatening when you are very much bound to living in a world of bodies, as a body. The bottom line is, ALL relationships with bodies are special relationships.

But we need to find a way to not hold anyone's ego-body stuff against them. If their ego-body stuff is real or happening or associated with them, it DOES ACCUSE THEM OF SIN. Just even merely looking upon it accuses them of sin, if we're identifying them with their body and its actions. To NOT accuse them of sin, to be forgiving, to overlook, actually REQUIRES that we look beyond the body. It's can't be that the person IS a body if we are to forgive them. The forgiveness has to include the recognition that people ARE NOT BODIES AT ALL.

So anything the "person's" ego body does, any actions you see with your physical eyes, any mistakes they make, anything that comes out of "their" mouth, any behaviors, any attacks "they" seem to make, any way at all that their body is regarded as "the person", HAS to be undone. We have to learn that this world is not populated directly by souls or real identities, it is populated by FAKE IMAGES of FAKE BODIES doing fake things. And if ANY thing that any such body-self does is held against anyone, you are accusing them of sin.

That effectively means that we have to be willing to let go of a person's body-self, stop referring to them as their body self, stop binding them to their body whenever we think of them, and realize the quite shocking revelation that you've been in a relationship with AN UNREAL BODY SELF all this time, which has had nothing to do with their real self.

You'll also find that you will be afraid of admitting that their body is not really the person, because this implies that the very people (bodies) that you love the most don't exist as those bodies. They are beyond them. And your ego may interpret that as a loss, or a threat to your relationship, or an attempt to kill off the people you value.

You can more or less disregard all bodies, and basically ignore what any body does, on the basis that it is nothing. It is basically part of a dream. "The body is a dream." The body is not real and it is not the person. Anything you've seen them do or heard them say basically HAS NOT HAPPENED. It has no real consequence and means nothing whatsoever. Your challenge is to basically not hold ANYTHING IN THE WORLD against anyone!

So you might as well just brush off absolutely everything you ever see "any-body" seeming to do, simply on the basis that it is NOT THEM. And thus not hold their own body against them, nor the ego behaviors that seem to emit from it. If you try this you will find that you move into a much more forgiving space and are much happier, because now you're actually BEING forgiving by recognizing that bodies are not real, sins are not happening, no-one is doing anything, and nothing REAL has been threatened.

"Your brother's body is as little use to you as it is to him. When it is used ONLY as the Holy Spirit teaches, it has no function. For minds NEED not the body to communicate. The sight that SEES the body, has no use which serves the purpose of a holy relationship. And while you look upon each other thus, the means and end have NOT been brought in line. "

"This is no gift your brother's BODY offers you. The veil that hides the gift hides him as well. He IS the gift, and yet he knows it not. No more do you."

"Your brother's BODY shows not Christ to you. He IS set forth within his holiness."

"You who believe it easier to see your brother's body than his holiness, be sure you understand what made this judgment. Here is the voice of specialness heard clearly, judging AGAINST the Christ, and setting forth, for YOU, the purpose that you CAN attain, and what you can NOT do."

"Who sees a brother's body has laid a JUDGMENT on him, and sees him not. He does not REALLY see him as sinful; he does not see him at all. In the darkness of sin, he is INVISIBLE. He can but be IMAGINED in the darkness, and it is here that the illusions you hold about him are NOT held up to his reality. Here are illusions and reality kept SEPARATED. Here are illusions NEVER brought to truth, and ALWAYS hidden from it. And here, in darkness, is your brother's reality IMAGINED as a body, in unholy relationships with other bodies, serving the cause of sin an instant, before he dies."

"Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise before your vision, and give you joy. And place NO value on your brother's body, which held him to illusions of what he is. It is HIS desire to see his sinlessness, as it is YOURS. And bless the Son of God in your relationship, nor see in him what you have MADE of him. "

"Let your awareness of your brother NOT be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of his body. What is there in him that you would attack, EXCEPT what you associate with his body, which YOU believe can sin? BEYOND his errors is his holiness, and YOUR salvation."

"When you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. His true identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is. His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take the name you give him as his own. And thus his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he accepts this separate name as his."

"He is not brother made by what he DREAMS, nor is his body, "hero" of the dream, your brother. It is his REALITY that is your brother, as is yours to him. Your mind and his ARE joined in brotherhood. His body and his dreams but SEEM to make a little gap, where yours have joined with his. And yet, between your MINDS there IS no gap. To join his dreams is thus to meet him NOT, because his dreams would SEPARATE from you."

"And as you see him shining in the space of light where God abides within the darkness, you will see that God Himself is where his body is. Before this light the body disappears, as heavy shadows MUST give way to light."

"Choose, then, his body OR his holiness as what you WANT to see, and which you choose is yours to look upon."

"The Christ in you beholds his holiness. Your specialness looks on his body, and beholds him not."

"Limit your vision of a brother to his body, which you WILL do, as long as you would not release him FROM it, and you have denied HIS gift to YOU. HIS BODY CANNOT GIVE IT. And seek it not through YOURS."

"Framed in his body you will see YOUR sinfulness, wherein YOU stand condemned. Set in his holiness, the Christ in him proclaims HIMSELF as you."

"As long as you believe that, to be with a body, is companionship, you will be COMPELLED to attempt to keep your brother IN his body, HELD THERE BY GUILT. And you will see SAFETY IN GUILT, and DANGER IN COMMUNICATION."

"Everyone can use his body best by enlarging man's perception, so he can see the real VISION. THIS VISION is invisible to the physical eye. The ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation."